Dreamt an odd little creepy story last night. In my dream, the story was by wanttobeatree; she was physically enacting it for me to watch.



Tree was meant to be starting violin lessons, so she knocked at the door of a house on my road in Brighton. An unsmiling man with greying hair came out, closing the door behind him: her teacher. She explained that she was there for her first lesson, and he listened and nodded, his expression not changing.

"First, let's take a walk," he said, and then he explained that they were going to be walking with a bull. "If you look into its eyes, it will kill you. Don't look at it. Don't stop walking."

He opened the door, and a large black shape came out. Tree averted her eyes, and so did I, standing on the pavement behind her, although I knew this was only her story.

They set off in silence, and I did as well, walking a little way behind them. We were walking anticlockwise around the block; as my road was on a hill, this meant walking along a road down the hill when we reached the end, walking back along the road parallel to mine, and then walking up the hill on the other side. The sky was overcast. Sometimes a black shape would come into our field of vision and we'd try not to look directly at it.

And then, on the second circuit of the block, coming up the hill, the teacher said, "Let's run for a bit," and broke into a run, as did Tree and I.

In the midst of the running, now back on my road, Tree turned around and stopped, an expression of absolute horror on her face.

I was desperately curious, but I didn't turn. I kept running, past her, to the end of the fairly-long road, and then I stopped.

I wanted to go back. I needed to get back to my house. But I was afraid; what if the bull was still there? Which was ridiculous; it was only a story, wasn't it?

Why hadn't I turned around? Now I would never know how the story ended.

Maybe that was the point.

I stood there for a long time, indecisive. I was still there when I woke up.



Unrelatedly: you know what I'd like? A family-relationships commentfic request meme. They can be happy, functional relationships, like Sokka and Katara, or dysfunctional to the point of literally trying to kill each other, like Zuko and Azula. The characters don't necessarily have to be related by blood; Phineas and Ferb (stepbrothers), Tom and Chlo (guardianship), Gaius and Merlin (fatherly relationship) and even requests like 'Sora, Riku and Kairi being siblingish' and 'Captain Jack Harkness of Doctor Who adopts Toph of Avatar and they have adventures' would be welcome as well. Zuko and Iroh, Sam and Dean, Ellen and Jo, Ed and Al, Donna and Wilf, Tom and Josh, Matt and Sambuca, Balthier and Cid, Tidus and Jecht, Michael and Lincoln, Sherlock and Mycroft, Ryan and Sharpay, Kurt and Burt, Sue and Jean, Morgana and Uther: so many possibilities! The only rule would be 'no incest', because, although there's nothing wrong with incest fic, it's often easier to find than sexless fanfiction about family relationships. (Possibly 'no incest unless incest is canonical', because the 'no incest' rule might cause trouble for people who wanted to request Revolutionary Girl Utena fic.)

Yes, all right, this idea has arisen in good part out of a desire to fix the Tom-Chlo relationship I broke.

So, what do you think? I've never hosted a fic meme before, and I'm a little afraid that it would just fizzle out, but if I were to host this would you be interested?

(Apologies to anyone who saw my desperate failed efforts to create a poll. Don't forget to create a poll before you actually post a poll-requiring entry, guys, because trying to edit a poll into an entry once it's been posted is a nightmare. You're going to have to express any interest you might have in a comment, I'm afraid.)