Question Dreams of Nightmares

A new Gen 2 tale from E.E. Nalley and elrodw. So read, enjoy, and please comment.

Yes, it's a two-fer of vignettes this week! Enjoy!

Alternate Timeline Knowledge is TOUGH. "could'a, should'a, would'a" is the name of the game!

----

Also, this is the furthest we've seen in the Three Amigos Plot, it seems, since Dorms 4.6 ended Oct. 2nd, and this is Oct 9th.

Jennifer's going to Whateley...

Lol if Kayda does the search-y thing and triggers something, while Jennifer's at Whateley.

...

I'm willing to call this Kayda's obsession now... A bit too energetic... A bit mad.

Did Coyote see all this back when that Choice was made? Or not even he could see past Nimbus's block, and that future was just making good guesses??

Can he not help, right now, and wants to??

Wakan Tanka isn't guiding Kayda through this, when a second opinion seems mighty good right about now...

SPOILER ALERT
Below is a stream of conscious commentary I type up as I read the story. There will be details from the story included in it. If you have not read the story yet and don't wish to have details of it spoiled, read no further.

Dreams of Nightmares comments

Malady wrote: Did Coyote see all this back when that Choice was made? Or not even he could see past Nimbus's block, and that future was just making good guesses??

The ward had a beginning and ending time, covered a limited area, and doesn't prevent the exercise of reason or planning.

No seer or precognitive would be able to foresee into that time and place, nor would they see the consequences. During that time, no attempt to scry into the area would succeed. It was sealed from all, what happened there would be a mystery to all, save those who were directly there.

Given that the Handmaid's Loom and Garden allow for visiting What Could Be, Coyote's likely old enough to have stolen a few tricks for peeking around corners.

Third scene obviously is dated to the wrong year, should be 2016 and not 2007. Reason being, even if we were allowing for weird flashback/flashforward thingies, the Codys didn't have a home in the Village back in 2007.

Yes, year typo, now fixed. Thanks, Sir Lee!

Okay, I didn't say all the truth in Pillars of Foundation. Other than a busy week, the reason it took me so long is... that story. And the burning rage it inspired me. Let's see how it is going... Also, i need a suitable song to dull the pain:

There 'Screw Fate' and 'Continue Despite Everything' just the sort of themes I need in my ears:




Welp, rage is still there. Guess a rant it will be.

First, Kayda. It really saddens me to see ow things went for her with this new G2 vignette... but it also angers me at some degree, and makes it so I cannot help but going more and more for 'wangst' instead of 'angst' for her situation because she didn't move an inch between G1 and G2, or likely moved for the worst after what G1 story she could have in the future for her emotional mindstate.
You'll tell me it is because of all the crap she went through, and at some level, I've got to agree. Nonetheless, it kills my interest in her character arc, because i know whatever victory, wish or dream in G1 she have will be all for nothing, because it will all be back to square 1 for that story and G2.
And for all the sorta masochistic preference I have for characters struggling deeply to get the happy ending, the fact this struggle is all for nothing, that she is still there, full of self-loathing and grief and nothing and cannot enjoy whatever perk she has or has left in life because she just has to be the cause of everything wrong, even after all these years, unable to accept that other people's decisions are their own, stupid one included... What good is it to continue exactly? Just put an end to her character arc, since it is clear she is not allowed to achieve anything despite her struggles.
Child(ren) wth Debra idea? Puff in the smoke. Building any sort of future? Gone. I want to soldier on and hope G2 will finally give her, heck not even a good ending by now, but just something, but my hopes aren't that high. And that hurts writing that, because Kayda's story was the first Whateley one I read in its entirety, and now... Now it looks like she'll only gets regrets about the past, and absolutely nothing else. Just why?
And it angers me also because that choice's crap is still her well-rooted inside her mind, and it angers me for one reason. Personal interpretation, but I'd et my left arm on that.

That choice she seems to have been obsessing at least low-key for all these years was always a lie.

Not a direct falsehood of course, Wile E Coyote would have been shred apart by the Tricksters' Union if it had done that, and such a nice thing is clearly not allowed. But we audience and Kayda are supposed to believe its valley of roses and dreams was real? Seriously? One choice, and everything would have been perfect, some unimportant losers nonewithstanding, no real drawbacks for involved people?
Pure. Connerie.
Of fucking course there would have struggles and problems here, probably some quite nasty ones, the aetheric wanker just didn't tell about them. Everything directly hanging on Kayda doing stuff would have been undone, and I'm sure I cannot be the only one seeing the tab for that choice.
And of course, that one future could be shown at the perfection, and totally didn't look like Daily Life of Cody Wyatt and Elaine Nalley, with makeover for Wyatt to better seal the lie. Heck, the degenerate bag of flies itself is all about how you cannot choose while nowing your future... Guess your so vaunted dream path was pretty much just a dream, eh? Or else you know the future perfectly, and free will is a lie... except there is that unintended Avatart trait Kayda manifested, so I guess your blabbering about the perfect future was just that in the end, a lie, Wile E Coyote.

And that's a big reason for that mix of sadness and anger for me here. That whole drivel was just a test of leadership to see if Kayda was the cheap bastard sort, willing to take the 'All Happiness For Me Alone' path, and if she was enough of a rat to sacrifice her own child to get that. A lie, and one whic would trgger sneers of contempt from used car salemen for its amateurism, having only the power it is allowed to get... And Kayda has been letting that shit control her life for about a decade, cheating both her current life and that so-called alternate path, and the frustration just won't go when I see that, and don't tell me it's that story only people. I remember Kayda's obsessing about that shit too after the big serpent attacked that assembly she was presiding just a few years ago. All these years, and she's still letting herself be controled and ruined by wanker unable to nail even one Road Runner and coming to make her suffer for jerking off material.

Leading me to Wile E Coyote... I cannot be nice here, I fucking hate the idea that, once again, Kayda's plotline has been put in a fridge and is only moving forward because the author finally pushed the button allowing it, and that the finger doing so was that fucking enculé, once again being the Alpha and the Omega of the plot.
And I deeply hate the implication that Kayda was too dumb to never, ever, not even once, think about using that banshee to pist Elaine in all these years of frantic obsession on the problem. And I say it because I genuinely think her character deserves more credit than that, I do believe she is smart and able enough to get that idea without that obvious, egregious Plot Device making what is supposed to be her plot because everybody else is too stupid, incompetent, and useless to do anything without it passing by its Purfection Wile E Coyote.
Plot Device in the worst sense of the word too: That black hole/tumor which swallowed all of Elaine, Tansy and Kayda's major plotlines, and is only allowing them out once it has taken the center place, making everybody else in the story irrelevant at best, harmful or useless at worst, because only Wile E Coyote is allowed to push theplot ofrward, and only in the way making Wile E Coyote the awesomest, the perfectest, and flawlessest sadistic pain in the ass, unable to do wrong or suffer in any remotely significiant way, while other charcters stay thee staring at the void while drooling, or doing something, but alas too late, because Wile E Coyote the awesomest, the perfectest, and flawlessest sadistic pain in the ass already solved it all for them, making them look like worst than useless morons (Kigabidule Round 2, people), before 'regally' granting them a scrap of the next plot point to get them flaying around like useless boring props until it goes back to its role of black hole at the center of the stage.
And I fully expect Murhpy's Law of Spirit to follow that very same path too later, with the plot only allowed to its final step by the Grace of Wile E Coyote (I half expect/dread it will all end with Murphy as its Avatar as the only way out, ecause nothing but the best ofor Wile E coyote), just like it will here in G2 (I mean it shaped that whole vignette without even appearing bordel de merde), because starting from the moment it has crept in the plot in Kayda's story, this thing has been only on the center stage, shaping the plot all by itself, in the most cruel and sadistic way, and everyone is supposed to adore it and agree with it at every step. Where the fuck is Sun Wuking, aka a trickster actually bearable?
And the worst part of it? Even If elrod and Nalley told me it was all in my head, that Wile E Coyote wasn't the too-perfct-to-fail Alpha and Omega, that it has pains and failures burdening it like Bedside Rug, WT or Grizzly, that something can be achieved without it, that it won't pollute the scenes and stories in the future, or that Kayda had just een psychoting too much here, up to the point where she thanks the abusive fuck which turned her into its chew toy and favorite misery fap material... At some deep level, I couldn't believe them. Because Kayda, Elaine, Cody and Tansy's Stores look less and less like Whateley Academy to me, but to the Wile E Coyote Show, Or Why All Human Losers Should Just Stop And Only Do Everything Wile E Coyote Tells Them TO Do, Because WIle E Coyote Is The Only Source Of Good And Right In The Multiverse. And I want to read about Wateley, not the props of an ACME Junkie only allowing them enough freedom to stress its own 'awesomeness'...
And frankly, by that point, if I saw it suffer, it would only a cause to break out the kir, because there is no more buying any sort of good grace for it than there was for Kai Leng (another overhyped loser plot propped far far more longer than what his so-called skills should have allowed him to pull out of his ass).

(Hell, I'm not even trying to ask where are Tatanka and WT in G2, ding a fat lot big deal of nothing. The way Kayda's story go, I guess they're deader than dead and that the abusive wanker is her spirit guide now. Huzzah...)

Fuck, it hurts having that much anger. I wanted even a shred of joy for that retun in Kayda's PoV after all that time. Sorry, but I had nothing else...

If this missed the mark that badly, Hardric, blame me, not El. I came up with this and El only tweaked things a bit. This was supposed to be a study in obsession, and how it blinds you to things. It really wasn't about Coyote at all, in the strictest of senses.

Kayda is obsessed with Elaine, and it blinded her to other avenues.

I have to say I never cease to be amazed at how readers will run right by what you as a writer think are incredibly too obvious hints and points of the direction of the story and latch on with the strength of a drowning man to a life preserver things that you thought were just window dressing and not important at all.

Anyway, if there's fault, it's mine.

I really want to apologize for how... hostile that whole thing looks like (cannot really pretty up with 'might' and the likes), and deeply apologize for looking like I was talking trash about you or elrod at any point.

Guess that whole mess also makes of me a case of obsession too, because Wile E Coyote's presence in the background was enough to push most of my buttons get me in that direction, and blame it for putting Kayda in her own obsessive loop. That fucktard is really far too much on my mind... Irony is supposed to be funnier.

I appreciate that apology, Hardric, and sometimes a writer needs to hear it unvarnished. I'd rather have true and sincere than flattery.

Polite is also nice...

I don't for a second think you were trying to be ugly or malicious and I appreciate you JUST AS MUCH as Dreamer's stream of consciousness replies. So, no worries, mate! I am grateful for the details.

Is it really that Kayda never thought of seeking out Laneth? She and Deb and Tansy all thought Lanie was Delta-Echo-Alpha-Delta dead. Wyatt thinks she's dead, because he knows Mrs. Cody is really Tansy.

Grief makes you dumb. Trust me. Things that should be straight forward and simple just elude you. I don't know why. I don't know if I ever will.

It also makes you obsess about regrets, until you learn the hard way to move past them, not let them continue to eat at you. It's worse because Kayda was given the knowledge of what was supposed to happen, in every detail apparently, and updated as time goes forward. Not because of anything she did. No, because of Coyote's anger at the Ptesanwi. Tansy suffers no less. But neither Tansy or Wyatt are plagued with the direct knowledge of what could have been.

I feel like it is also okay to know where Kayda is 9 years later when reading Gen 1 stories. It's no different than a story being In Medias Res. It tints the earlier stories, but not in a way that's good or bad, just something else. It's going to make the hopes and dreams she has ache, and the dips maybe hurt a little less in comparison.

The downside is that maybe that we already know the two big reasons why, rather than a continual level of dread building up to an unknown trigger event or two.

Katssun wrote: Is it really that Kayda never thought of seeking out Laneth? She and Deb and Tansy all thought Lanie was Delta-Echo-Alpha-Delta dead. Wyatt thinks she's dead, because he knows Mrs. Cody is really Tansy.

Actually, IIRC, Kayda thinks Lanie is alive somewhere. She never accepted that Lanie was actually dead.

The Sorrows of Red October wrote:
Kayda blinked and looked, trying to focus. “You have an alert,” she said as she saw the screen change. Tansy turned it over, squealed in surprise and dropped the phone. “What?” Franks asked, astounded as she had never in all her life seen Tansy act this way.

“It...it can't be,” Tansy whispered. “I don't believe it, I won't!”

“What?” Deb and Kayda demanded at the same time. Tansy looked at them, wild-eyed, then pointed at the phone on the floor. Deb walked over and picked it up. “Wicked (Villain) ID used 3OCT16 15:27 Manhattan, New York,” she read. “I don't understand. Wicked was Lanie's hero ID, not that she ever used it...”

“When,” managed Tansy with some difficulty. “When Mrs Carson took Lanie and Jadis to New York to arrest Freya, she had Ms Hartford create a fake ID called Wicked. And while Elaine took that as her permanent codename, Ms Hartford created a complete second identity for it, birth certificates, college transcripts, everything.”

“So what?” asked Deb.

Kayda turned from Tansy to her lover, a look of astonishment on her face. “She never turned those credentials in, baby. She kept them.”

“I...” stammered Tansy. “I told her you never knew when you'd need a good fake ID. And when Kayda was going through one of her 'I know she's still alive' phases, to humor her I put an alarm on all of her IDs, to ping me if they were used.”

Debbie jumped to her feet and got between the two girls. “Whoa, hold your horses, you two! Just because there was a hit on that MID does NOT mean Lanie...”

“Who else would have it?” demanded Kayda. “I knew she was alive!”

Hardric wrote: I really want to apologize for how... hostile that whole thing looks like (cannot really pretty up with 'might' and the likes), and deeply apologize for looking like I was talking trash about you or elrod at any point.

Guess that whole mess also makes of me a case of obsession too, because Wile E Coyote's presence in the background was enough to push most of my buttons get me in that direction, and blame it for putting Kayda in her own obsessive loop. That fucktard is really far too much on my mind... Irony is supposed to be funnier.

This sort of reaction is normal when interacting with trickster spirits.

Yes, they may be friendly, but they will still screw with your head.

It's in their nature.

You choose to undergo this experience, by the very fact of you choosing to work with them.

When they mess with you for their own reasons, it's another story though...

---

There's a very good example of this in the season finale of Season 2 of American Gods.