#i found. so many. SO MANY unpainted minis while scouring through our various random art supply boxes

[varjopeura]

8, 9, 14 and 38 for *you* for the ask game! :D

8. any recurring dreams?

I think the only Actually Repeating dream of mine was when I was a very small child (about 5-6 maybe) and would have the same dream every time I got a fever. It was a very simple one - me standing in my bedroom and looking outside, where the entire scenery was now underwater. There were fish and various other sea creatures swimming in front of my window and across the yard. And then, in the distance, I'd see a gigantic apartment-building-sized purple octopus. I always immediately knew that it had caused the flooding outside, and that it had evil intentions (no matter how pretty all the fishies and the water were). Usually all I could do was stare at the octopus and worry about the flood reaching inside of my home.

It was maybe the third repetition of the dream when I finally managed to get a hold of a bunch of friends before it ended, and together we had a great battle against the evil octopus. We defeated it at that time, and the dream never came back after that.

Nowadays I only get recurring themes and motifs instead of full dreams. My faves are, while technically stress dreams, the ones where I'm late from a thing and trying to run there as fast as possible, and can't help but slip into a four-legged gallop instead of running on two feet. It's always such a struggle to try and remain upright and avoid weird stares from people, but the feeling of that animal gait is just. unparalleled in how natural and GOOD it feels, no matter how stressful the rest of the dream is. I wish I could do it in real life, too!

9. tell a story about your childhood

Let me tell you the tale of Great Pokemon Summer of 2000 (this is later than I thought it would be! I was already nine years old, but this is the earliest possible timeframe for this memory because the Pokemon anime only started airing in Finland in the late autumn of -99. Wild!)

So, my friend and I had just gotten into Pokemon, and obviously we wanted to become pokemon trainers. We did what any nine-year-olds would do in that situation, and just assigned ourselves some inaginary pokemon companions! I had a Haunter as my partner, while the friend picked Kadabra (I can't remember if they started out as already evolved or did this happen along the way, but these were their forms for the vast majority of that summer).

One thing that was clear to us from the very start was that these two weren't of the easy starter type. Our partners were Powerful and thus Challenging To Handle, and we took our responsibilities with them super seriously. We knew these guys required daily training and exercise, so we trained them, we battled wild pokemon we found in our neighbourhood, we had sparring matches with each other, we took them to fields and forests and beaches to use off some of their energy. Every. Single. Day. It was very much like taking care of high-energy dogs, these ones just had magic powers and were invisible to everyone else!

Then the summer came to an end, and suddenly we had to worry about real life stuff like homework and other hobbies and rainy weather, and we realized that we couldn't devote as much of our time to our pokemon as they needed. They might've survived the neglect for a while, but in time they'd become miserable, and they'd become bored, and no one wants to deal with the havoc a frustrated ghost or psychic type can break, especially when there's a bonded pair of two of them.

We knew we only had one option, and one autumn day took a walk to the edge of the great forest nearby, and decided to let our companions run free again. This was taken just as seriously as the summer training program, and there were tears on our faces as we released our dear pokemon friends back to the forest where we first found them. They were powerful, they could take good care of themselves even without trainers, and we would miss them horribly for a very long time. But it was the best option we had at that moment, and it was the only option that was any fair for our beloved Haunter and Kadabra.

I think we went to see them a couple of times after that, but the magic of that summer faded fast and the very real companionship turned into just regular play after the pokemon were released.

14. what’s something you’ve always wanted to do but maybe been to scared to do?

First thing that comes to mind is getting a tattoo! I've always liked to imagine what kind of tattoos I'd like to have, but for the most part it's been just pure theory and daydreaming. For the past few years I've been entertaining the thought more seriously, really dying to get some nice pictures on my skin, just haven't done anything about it yet. And now when I have a clear plan of what I'd want to get first, I find myself being nervous about it :D I'm faaaairly sure that I'd like my first tattoo to be on my inner wrist, but I fear that's a place that's going to be very painful and I'm not sure if I'm quite ready to jump straight in like that! Maybe someday!

38. fave song at the moment?

Ooh, hmm, lately I've had a lot of fun with When You Don't See Me by Sisters of Mercy, so let's go with that one for this exact moment!