luanna’s Reviews > Yumi and the Nightmare Painter > Status Update

"Painter," Design continued, "I'll try to think of something I can do, but this world of yours? It's strange. The strangest I've visited--and I've been to Threnody. You have nightmares that come alive?
Creeping out of a miasma of raw Investiture?
That's the kind of stuff you get on a planet when a god has been killed.

Honorspren mentioned

"I ignore social boundaries," Design said, bust ling out of the kitchen with a bowl of soup for Yumi. "It's endearing.

Design KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

The very first rock he placed fell. Somehow he managed to fail at balancing a large flat piece of stone on the ground. It toppled to the side and rolled away.

He glanced away, looking ashamed. As he should have been. This was the way she'd been trained-with relentless conditioning toward solemnity.
With unyielding strictness. Until the desire for levity and individuality had been drained from her like pus from a boil.
It had worked for her. She'd turned out fine. Rather, she'd turned out to be what she had to be.
It would work for him. She merely had to remain stern.

A contest of pride, then. He leaned in a titch. She responded. Then he got just a hair's distance from her, smiling, as there was no space remaining.
So she inched forward and stubbornly touched her nose to his.
Enveloping warmth.
Understanding.
A sharing of frustration, anger, confusion.
Connection.
Passion.

Perhaps nightmares are Cultivation's method of giving us a way of surviving trauma in a strangely safe environment. (At least safe physically.) A way to put it behind us, forget the details, but retain the growth. Nightmares are vicarious living done in our own minds.
In that way, nightmares serve much the same function as storytellers.Evolution doing a favor for those who,unlucky and unfortunate,never encountered me

Perhaps nightmares are Cultivation's method of giving us a way of surviving trauma in a strangely safe environment. (At least safe physically.) A way to put it behind us, forget the details, but retain the growth. Nightmares are vicarious living done in our own minds.
In that way, nightmares serve much the same function as storytellers.Evolution doing a favor for those who,unlucky and unfortunate,never encountered me

She was so tired. Overwhelmed. There was something incredibly therapeutic about sitting, pulling a blanket around herself, and watching someone else's problems for a while.