beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth journal

I dreamed that I took my accumulated money and gave it to Bruce Campbell of B movie fame so he could use it to run a business in this gorgeous glass and iron building in the middle of Dereham. Which unfortunately doesn't exist in 3D. But it was the kind of twirly white painted ironwork I think of as railways, only with glass between, and natural fibre flooring, and blinds on all the windows, and being a lovely temperature. And there was a second floor up the top only they had to take it out because the insurance wouldn't cover it, so the ceiling got all complicated like it had a hat or something, and there was a big spiral staircase in pieces. I liked it better when it was in spirals and wanted the second floor put back in with safety bars or something, but that would have been a long term plan requiring more money. My £2000 wasn't really much money in terms of setting up a working business. Because they had the building, and a little horseshoe of offices out the back that included a kitchen, but there was not at that point any money making activity going on inside. My plan for the building was to use it to run RPGs and maybe invite a bunch of fandom people to hang out. Not so much a business as a really cool room. But in the dream my cousins from the next county over had also put in a bid, for £7500, to run a restaurant there. They'd sent a really cool message that looked like one of those chopping boards with a handle but had a menu painted on and if you pressed a line of the menu there was a voice that explained what exactly was in it, in an African accent. (I'm pretty sure there's lots of African accents, but I can never remember more specific people-geography.) And it was like it was exotic cuisine, because they'd travelled far enough that any old recipe was new and exotic.
And quite a lot of it was meat, which I was having ethical issues with, but the other two were meat eaters (BC and a random wife I think I recognise from a play I saw once) and there was the whole lack of business thing. So we were going to have to have a discussion about that.
There were no tables, but in the tradition of "it's not a bug it's a feature" we arranged tablecloths on the floor in interesting patterns and invited people to leave their shoes at the door and buy house shoes or bring their own inside shoes and just sort of shuffle around and eat where they felt like sitting down. Or there was a wheelchair corner, where we put extra railings in, because backing through the glass was unlikely but very unhelpful if it ever happened. And the main entrance was round the back in the horseshoe area, because that one was big enough and on the flat because the back was higher than the front and there was a nice smooth tarmac leading around. We could have called it the wheelchair entrance but then there's sending people round the back to get in and that's just not sociable. The door on the high street became the Quick Exit, because it was skinny and had steps and therefore only for people in that much of a hurry.
I liked all the neutral tones and swapping the cloths around to make different color themes
but then I got bored and decided what it really needed was rainbows
like those big round rainbow thingies with ribbons that you hang up.
Only that would cost money, and someone had a Pride flag going free, so we hung that on the door instead.
And a couple of printed out IDICs, on either side of the door.
And after that I'd have probably got a bit carried away with the printer.
And the place of course had broadband access, because I can't go all day without that, and trays for laptops, because I had one so I might as well share, and then people could bring their computers and use them to talk and stuff. Like an internet cafe that can't be having with that charging people thing.
We had posters up saying if someone was famous for something they could showcase it there.
So there were celebrity signings, mostly when BC could persuade someone to turn up and try the food
but there were also poetry slams and karaoke and costuming and other, weirder, things.

Like a rolling convention with food.
Yes 'with food' needs specifying because conventions aren't known for the greatness in that department.

So now I'm all awake and looking at that dream. Last time I dreamed of a business it was a bookshop with internet cafe. This time there's no physical books because internet books will always have them beat, but I'm sure we had a book club in among all that stuff, and were amazon associates or something. Get stuff delivered to the glass place, never have to worry about being home to collect it.

The geek party aspect remains a constant.

Yet even in my dream I suspected I couldn't actually run the place, hence the hiring of family and people with a plan.



The other constant is the architecture. Nothing at all similar in the two dreams - the other was gorgeous wood frame art nouveau with sort of curvy breadloaf windows - but I apparently crave distinctive architecture in quality materials to dwell within.



... well, listed building, walls feet thick, could be considered to match.



I quite like the "glass houses" association with this dream, with the tolerance theme. Like, glass everywhere, stones thrown none. Plus it wasn't like we were mainstream people sitting there being condescending to minorities, we were just inviting in people who were roughly the same minorities as the owners, and that happened to cover queer, disabled, minority ethnic groups and special interests.


I have a sort of sinking feeling that the likelihood of such a business succeeding in such a market town as I live in is somewhat small. Course I haven't actually left the house in ten years to have a clue, so what do I know?

I know I've said before, but, on the nose? Not particularly useful in stories.

Saying exactly what you mean when you mean it, doing exactly what you want them to do, these are things that are good in 3D but utterly, utterly boring in stories. Because we're fanfic readers, most of us are 'shippers of some kind, and we've read the header. So we know Jack loves (Ianto, the Doctor, Rose, Passing alien 355 from a new ship full of Sycorax, etc etc). If the story starts with him saying "I love (them)" and ends with him saying "I love you" to (them) then... where exactly was the story? It just spent a whole bunch of words telling us exactly what we already know.

Also there's no tension. Even if it's a can't travel with the Doctor because he loves Ianto thing it doesn't add up to tension if everyone is all 'go be with Ianto!' and pushing Jack and Jack wants to be pushed and Ianto catches him when he is pushed.

Also also, it doesn't actually make sense to have the Doctor send Jack back to be with Ianto because - and this is important - the Doctor is a time traveller. They could travel together for hundreds of years and, excluding universe shattering accidents, Jack could come back a few minutes after he left. This is pretty much what the Doctor has done with assorted 20th century Earth persons, most notably the Brigadier, who has met almost all of the Doctors. And yet not lived any longer than is plausible. It's possible the Doctor is rationing him or something, except for that thing where 2 broke the laws of time a teensy so he could visit him after the others of him had. So a more plausible bit of advice from the Doctor would involve "back in five minutes, promise" and "but if you stay with him he'll be old before you know it".

But in a more *general* sense, making a story? Does not mean telling us X+Y=4eva, because we *know* that.



... I need to stop speechifying and start writing.
*sigh*