#i have a recurring dream where there's a huge tree or a huge creature standing on the south horizon at nighttime

[redbootsindoriath]

You guys were oddly supportive of my creepy-Morgoth drawing.  I’m concerned.

...

Anyway, here’s a mountain-sized Oromë who may or may not be fused to Nahar’s back.

That blurry thing above his right antler is a discarded drawing that didn’t erase properly, but we’re going to pretend it was intentional because if you look at it right you can pretend it’s Vala magic or something.  Maybe aurora borealis is the trail of his antlers as he rides across the sky and whenever he stops moving you can see it forming into ghostly outlines of animals and monsters.  Does Middle Earth already have lore for the northern lights or not?

#oromë #the man the myth the legends #three shinies #my trash #/end classification tags #i don't often draw valar as you all know but when i do you can usually divide them into three basic types #goofy simplified ones for comics #human-/elf-looking ones for when they're interacting with people #and ''sweet eru what in the name of elbereth is THAT???'' #also okay but i have this poetic weakness for creatures/things that are way too big framed against the sky #i have a recurring dream where there's a huge tree or a huge creature standing on the south horizon at nighttime #and of course this means i want oromë to show up in middle earth like that sometimes when he's in the mood #scares the bejabbers out of anybody who sees him but like it's cool and he's a vala so literally who's going to stop him? #i played around with a lot of different sizes for both oromë and the elf in this drawing #at one point i had the elf like half the size i ended up with and i went ''nah man that's just too ridiculous'' #but lowkey i wish i'd stayed with that version because why the heck not #the trees looked bigger in that one too #just kind of eerie and cool

[dreamboytranscripts-blog]

Ep. 1- Goodbye, Esmerelda Part 1

DANE: The milky way galaxy. Planet Earth. Cleveland, Ohio. Twelve-year-old Esmerelda looks out the window of her father single-engine airplane.

All of Cleveland is rolling underneath her. The trees look just like broccoli, she thinks. And the lake looks like one of her mom’s silver plates and it’s getting bigger in her eyes. And she smiles.

Now, little Esmerelda doesn’t know this probably, but a hundred years ago or so her great great grandfather John Stonefall, the oil tycoon, bought all the land currently rolling under her for a suspiciously small sum. But rather than build on the land like everyone expected, he instead had it all dug up. Leaving mounds of dirt everywhere, much to the chagrin of the locals. Petitions were signed, ladies groups had lunches. Finally, as a compromise, Stonefall filled most of the holes, built a summer home on a small piece of the land, and donated the rest of the city of Cleveland for parks.

The Stonefalls ended up liking it in Cleveland. Despite the controversy, they were happy there and they breed like rabbits becoming more and more cousins with cleaner and cleaner money. And that money eventually thinned and settled, becoming locked up in foundations, orchestras, zoos. Many of these cousins left Cleveland, but a few stayed. Their lives buoyed by the steady pumping of old trusts.

And it was one of these cousins, a guy named Roger Parring. A man made foggy from a life of never having had to know that he had never really had, who took his little daughter, Esmerelda Parring, for a ride in their single-engine airplane. Now, later on that night they will show their flight path on the news. A single red line that ends abruptly in the solid blue section at the top of the map graphic. Apparently, their engine began to malfunction as they were right over Pepper Heights and people on the news later will say they could hear it.

A sound like a saw in the sky.

But while that plane was still in the air above Pepper Heights, I didn’t hear it. I was far below, sleeping late in an old bed in my friend’s guest room. Huge white clouds were racing through the sky, making the light in my bedroom change from bright to dim to bright to dim. But I didn’t notice that either. I was deep in a dark dream.

Now, my dreams are pretty fucked up usually. Like me and my mom are astronauts and she’s floating away and I can’t do anything about it. Or like the train car I’m on is full of a thousand big, fat slow black flies landing on everybody's face and lips and they don’t notice because everyone is reading their Kindles that sort of thing. And I don’t dream about sex that often but, when I do it’s always something really awful. Like I’m at the deli and the guy behind the counter is making me fuck my cousin, Bryan, in front of a line of old ladies waiting for their hams and I can’t get hard and everybody is waiting.

Anyway, ever since I got to Cleveland I’ve been having this strange recurring dream. It always starts the same. I’m in the water. Hanging suspended and it’s deep water. And it’s dark, I can’t see anything. The water is the same temperature as my body. It feels pleasant. My hair’s just gently swaying. And then I feel a little bit of cold on my legs. And at first, I think it feels sort of nice. And then a little bit more cold and then slowly I realize, that’s something huge is moving underneath me.

I start to freak out and I start to try to get away but I can’t get anywhere. The water isn’t moving and I feel the coldness coming up more and more cold like the thing is getting closer. So I start to crash and I open my mouth to scream but the icy water rushes in. It hits the back of my throat and zooms down into my stomach. I feel it fill me up. And then it zigzags it’s way through my intestines like a cold knife and just before it gets to the back of my asshole, I wake up.

And I throw off the covers and I look down. And my dick is rock hard. Like so hard that it’s actually like bobbing up and- oh fuck I am late for work. I jump out of bed, I throw on my faded red Zenarc Corporations t-shirt and I tuck my boner into my shorts as best I can. I run downstairs and grab a pop tart and I dump a glass of water on the counter somewhere near the plants and then boom I’m out the door.

I usually walk through the neighborhood, Woodshire to York to Willowbrook to Cedar Ridge and then I cut through the woods. But not I have to run right down the main street area of Pepper Heights, Rivington Road, because I’m running late.

I get to the four-way stop and people in Ohio are way too polite for four-way stops so everyone just of sort sits there going:

“No, you go first” “Nah you go first” “No please I insist” “No please”

So I just run diagonally right across screaming. [sounds of screaming and honking cars] Now the thing about Rivington Road is that it’s a busy little street. There’s all these different kinds of food: Indian, Ethiopian, a Ramen place, a Sushi place, a Chinese food place, a toy shop, an independent bookshop, records, second-hand clothes, Peruvian imports, A head shop, a couple of bars, and even a gay bar. All in like a few blocks and it’s always crowded.  And there are so many different types of people and outside of New York, I’ve never ever seen anything like Pepper Heights. It was such a mix of people. People from every country, every income bracket. All living in the same neighborhood. It felt like some sort of lefty public tv fantasy. All these different kinds of lovely humans right here on Rivington but not a single fucking one of them knows how to walk at the right speed. “MOVE!”

I turn the corner right by the mirror store and boom. I see a truck, I almost run into it. Some sort of utility truck. It’s like parked half on the grass and half in the street. And I hear cussing coming from somewhere close.

“Cock sucker motherfucker son of a bitch”

And it sounds like it coming from above me so I look up. And there is a sort of crane coming up from the utility truck to bucket and there is a man in the bucket fiddling with the light pole but I can’t really see him because he is silhouetted by the sun but he’s just cussing up a storm. I have never heard some cuss so blatantly and out in the open and I mean this is a neighborhood. There’s like old ladies and like little kids-

[child's voice] “Move fucker!"

DANE: “Hey!”

A little girl comes out of no where she almost runs me over on her bike. Jesus. Okay, just a few more blocks. And I don’t have to run anymore I think I can just walk briskly, I don’t want to be a complete sweaty mess when I get there. And I’m only…..13 minutes late that’s not so bad. That’s close to ten minutes, it's almost ten minutes late. Okay.

I get to the side entrance, this big metal building and above the door, there is a sign that says “Zenarc Corporation: Shuttle Bay Five.” I stop for a minute. I take a breath. And then I open the big metal door. The cold air instantly hits me. The security guard gets up from his chair and blocks the hallway. He crosses his arms and stands in front of me. His eyes narrow as he demands to see my id badge.

“Really I’ve worked here for three weeks and I’m late.”

After a ridiculous amount of looking at me up and down, looking at my badge then looking back at me looking at my badge again, he lets me pass. Four more heavy metal doors and finally, I’m in the shuttle bay.

VOICE FROM OVERHEAD: “Mission Log 10182135 - Project Objective: To survey the 69 known moons of Jupiter for possible helium2 deposits. You are to report any signs of helium2 directly to your superiors at Zenarc Corporations upon debriefing. All 69 target moons are classified as lifeless but nonetheless, you are advised to keep your scanners on. Be safe and happy hunting miners.”

DANE: Okay, hold on for a second. I know what you are thinking.

Cleveland? Why Cleveland? Why did I go to Cleveland?

Well, I went to Cleveland… because I was tired. Tired in- tired in like a cosmic sense. Like a big sense. Not like a day to day tired. Not like ‘I need a nap tired’ but like ‘I need a 6-month soul nap’ tired. And my friend Emily was going to be gone for 6 weeks so she said ‘Come stay in my house, water my plants, and you can be alone’ and I thought ‘Alone. Alone time. That sounds great. What a gift to somebody who's been living in New York, especially a musician.’ So I thought ‘I’ll write an album.’ And so I went. I took my keyboard, I set it up in her living room, I turned it on, I sat on the bench and Grindr-ed. And ate my way through an Amazon shipping error of Doritos but every once in a while my free hand would reach out blindly and finger a random cord.

Grindr for some people, I think, is fun. Like they can just pop into it and then pop right back out of it whenever they’re done. But for me, I’ve never been able to stop having fun. But not in like a- not in like a ‘I’m always having fun’ kind of way. But in like a- like ‘There’s so much fun that it hurts’ kind of way. Uh, it just eats all of my time, obsessively. But after three days, I still hadn’t gotten laid and all of my white keys were orange. So I deleted Grindr again, and started looking for a job. But after literally walking into a mirror while dropping off my application at the American Apparel and being given what I thought was a rather gosh but nonetheless classic runaround by the assistant manager at the Chipotle, I was running out of options within walking distance. But I finally scored a late season job working at this tiny little neighborhood amusement park. It’s called the Pepper Heights Zoo. This place has been a risk free tax haven since before plastic was invented. It was like a nursing home for the old oil money and the zoo part was a motley collection of creatures gotten cheap for various reasons. But the most popular attraction by far, the animal on all the lunch boxes, the star, was an elderly zebra named Zoe.

Now, I don’t have any experience with animals myself so they gave me a job as a ride attendant on one of the few rides. This large indoor roller coaster called ‘Jupiter’s Lifeless Moons.’ It was right next to Zoe’s exhibit. Everyone just referred to it as ‘The Moons.’ It was a pretty tame ride actually, with a rider minimum height of only 48 inches. 44 if you had an adult. The whole idea was that it was a space shuttle that took space prospectors out to the moons of Jupiter to look for helium2 deposits. My job as an employee of the fake space prospecting company, the Zenarc Corporation, was to unload the kids, instruct them them to report any helium2 deposits during their debriefing in the next room and I had to use my most official sounding voice. And the park did a pretty good job making it all seem spacey and fun, there were flashing lights and space props. And in line, you heard a robot voice saying the mission objective on loop.

[Overhead voice plays again]

There was even, like, space adventure music playing from hidden speakers during the ride itself. That was the cool thing about the Pepper Heights Zoo. They piped in music all over the park like specifically made for the park. A lot of it was recorded years ago by these three ladies. They were sisters. The sherggeburg- the something sisters. I- I don’t know but you can buy their CD in the gift shop.

[Music fades in]

Dreamboy

Dreamboy

You’re my only dream boy

Dreamboy

Dreamboy

You’re my only dream boy

Dream fade into the night

But rather than die away

Why don’t you stay

Dreamboy

Dreamboy

You’re my only dream

Dream

[Music end]

But they also recorded a theme song for Zoe

[Upbeat(Kind of crazy) music starts]

[Sisters laughing]

Zoe, Zoe

The most amazing zebra

Zoe, Zoe

She’s our favorite friend!

La la la la..

[Music fades to background]

And since the ride shares it’s huge metal building with part of Zoe’s exhibit I did have to listen to that on loop for my entire shift. Other than that it was a pretty easy gig though, I just had to stand behind my podium and say my one line into this rank microphone that jesus smelled like a hundred summer’s worth of spit.

“Attention all miners aboard Shuttle Five. Please report your helium2 findings in the debriefing room.”

The lap bars clank open and the kids scramble out. They all run into the next room, the debriefing room but one girl lags behind. She stands there beside the track. I realise slowly that I recognize her. She has ridden the ride several times this week and she’s dressed like a Catholic school or-or I don’t know what I think they dress like. The lap bars slam down automatically on the coaster behind her but she doesn’t jump. The empty car disappears into the dark tunnel to pick up another batch of kids in the next room, leaving us alone.

“Are you okay?”

GIRL: “I’m perfectly fine.”

DANE: “O-Okay. Um, you need to report to debriefing.”

GIRL: “Please. I’m nearly 60 inches tall.

DANE: “O-oh um…”

GIRL: “I know it’s all pretend.”

DANE: “Okay, well you still have to leave before the shuttle comes back though okay?”

GIRL: “I know. I just thought I’d wait till they clear out a little. The other kids.”

DANE: She nodded towards the debriefing room but she wasn’t really looking at it. She wasn't looking at me either and she spoke like a small adult.from the 1960’s in that creepy way that kids who are raised by their grandparents sound. Her eyes settle on a far door. I instinctively step out from behind podium. Then another door opens and a man enters. He walks quickly towards me. His nice suit makes him look completely out of place but he stops when he notices the little girl.

MAN: “Oh! Hello there!”

DANE: He winks at me as he walks over to her and bends down to her eye level.

MAN: “So, tell me. Do you have any helium deposits to report?”

DANE: She says nothing. She just glares at him. It’s the kind of glare that stays anchored on his face as she walks around him and disappears into the debriefing room behind him.

MAN: “Awww. That’s a great age.”

DANE: This man is Eli Critch, the director of the Pepper Heights Zoo.

ELI: “Hello Dwayne.”

DANE: “It’s um..it’s Dane, actually.”

ELI: “Oh yes of course. I’m sorry, Dane. Dane. Dane. Dane. Dane.Dane. Dane. Dane. Dane. Dane. Dane. Dane. Dane. Dane. I knew that! Dane. Dane. How are you liking it over here at the moons?”

DANE: “Um, it’s fine.”

Somewhere else in the building the old roller coaster car makes a turn and the whole building responds with a soft metallic groan.

[Kind of a aggressive groan from the building]

ELI: “Okay. Well, I just wanted to give you an updated set of keys. Changed the locks last night. Can’t be too careful. What with the current...rigamarole situation.”

DANE: He sets a key ring on the podium. Two shiny new keys on it.

ELI: “That’s the broom closet, that’s the front of the ride and that should do ya’”

DANE: Then he smiles and there is an awkward moment where he is just smiling at me. And then the smile turns off like a neon sign and he walks away. But he stops short in the middle of the Shuttle Bay and turns back around. That green shuttle approaching light flashing on his nice suit.

ELI: “Oh, indeed. You do know that door leads to Zoe’s night time enclosure, yes?”

DANE: He points at the far door. I nod slowly.

[music change to softs casual music]

Now I’ve always loved the grocery store at night. Like a 24-hour grocery store is like my church. And it’s mostly because there are no people, yeah sure but, also because everything has been restocked and straightened and it’s perfectly neat. There’s just row upon row of brightly colored boxes with little cartoon faces all peeking out the same way. And I think it’s because everything is so neat and there are no people moving around and there’s this bouncy music playing, that if you look for it you can really glimpse the shape of a terrible screaming skull behind the gorgeous face that the grocery store. And it hits you. You are standing in a warehouse of death. A plant and animal morgue.

Tonight I want a pie. But the bakery section of the store is dark. Like the lights were out in just that corner and also the pie case, I know exactly where it’s at, I can see it from here, but it has a shorted light tonight. And it’s blinking randomly. Giving the whole bakery section sorta bad part of town feel. Now… I’m maybe a bad boy, maybe not a bad boy, depends on who you ask, but I’m certainly not afraid of the dark and I mean… sort of a rebel. I even have the cart with a squeaky wheel. So, I like squeak right over to that bakery section.

CART: “Squeaky. Squeaky. Squeaky. Squeaky. Squeaky. Squeaky. Squeak.”

Dane: And as soon as I cross the threshold, I see them. Sitting in shadow. Three little girls. Girl Scouts maybe, behind a table. About 12 years old, give or take. They had doll eyes. Over thin smiles.

GIRL: “Good morning.”

DANE: “Oh! Go-But it’s just after midnight.”

GIRL: “Technically morning.”

DANE: “Oh. That’s uh… That’s pretty by the book.”

GIRL 2: “There are enough lies.”

DANE: They’re all wearing matching uniforms? And they all have different patches and I recognize the one girl from the ride easier. It’s the girl that lagged behind and she recognizes me. And the other two are twins but with, different hair.

“Uh… Are you selling something?”

GIRL:“No. But if you would like to donate we would be most appreciative.”

#dreamboytranscript #dreamboyboypodcast #dreamboy #podcasttranscript #podcast