#it kinda makes you wonder just how reliable this whole novel can be...

[aurora-313]

Hello!

First I would like to say that I just got caught up with your story Black and Blue and I really love your writing. To be honest I never really gave too much thought to Kaien Shiba’s character at first (my favorite Shiba was always Kuukaku👀)but this story made me think how cool it would be if Ichigo knew earlier about his Shiba roots earlier on. I think he found out eventually in the novels but I wish we got more Shiba family moments in the manga, it would make Ichigo a less lonely character and would overall better his mental state throughout the manga.

I just wanted to point out a few aspects of the story I really appreciate:

1.) Lisa is my favorite Vizard after Shinji (I started loving her cause of her zanpakuto release against Harribel) and I really love the natural companionship between her and Kaien. It’s not a ship I ever thought of but the way you write it makes me like it. I kinda just love older Bleach ships like GinRan and UraYoru.

2.) I really like the characterization of Shinji. I have seen it in a few fics where they say Shinji is older than all of the Vizards and some go as far as saying Shinji is in Shunsui, Ukitake and Unohana’s age range. We don’t know Shinji’s canon age but I love the headcanon that Shinji is a part of the older generation of Soul Reapers. So the part where Kaien said Shinji is a few hundred years older made me happy. (I kinda just love characters that act like idiots but deep down they’re serious people)

3.) I also really like the Ichigo and Kaien bond in this fic a lot. The adults Ichigo surrounds himself with mostly see him as a tool to fix Soul Society’s issues (his father included) so I really like that we have a reliable adult that Ichigo can be vulnerable with and lean on. In canon the only adult that Ichigo has that type of bond with is Ikumi (love her!) but she’s not spiritually aware. So it’s nice to see an adult who knows the whole situation being reliable.

4.) I also like the conversation between Urahara, Isshin and Ichigo in Chapter 36. I love Bleach and truly appreciate all of the arcs BUT I firmly believe Bleach would be so much shorter if Isshin was just freaking honest from the start. I actually really like Isshin’s character but if I looked at this from Ichigo’s perspective I would feel so betrayed and IMMENSELY annoyed. So seeing Ichigo tell him off was kind of satisfying. I also really like how Urahara handled the conversation. (Though to be honest good freaking luck to him figuring out how to fight Aizen without Mugetsu cause damn… only Ichigo can match his spirit energy😭😭)

And lastly I have a question I am very curious about. Do you hate Old Man Zangetsu? I noticed the way True Zangetsu was talking about him was really harsh so I was just wondering about that. Personally I love Old Man Zangetsu but I know this early on he is probably mostly Yhwach

SORRY FOR THE LONG COMMENT!!! I just had a lot of thinky thoughts while reading this story and makes me wonder for what’s in the future cause if Ichigo is accepting himself faster how would that factor into Orihime’s kidnapping, HM arc and future confrontations with Aizen (favorite character in all of Bleach😔✊)

Anyways thank you for the amazing story!!!!

Hi friend! Sorry it took me so long to respond to your comment! Real life's been kicking my butt lately. You know how it is.

I love Kaien as a character. I'm pretty sure I've driven a few people on discord mad with how many ideas, concepts and story beats I've come up for my favourite trident wielding dumbass. Heh.

Funnily enough, the idea of shipping those two together came later in the story, around about chapter 10 or so. It was a whim that I decided to give it serious consideration. And why not? There's nothing wrong with two lonely adults, who suffered through comparable traumas, wanting someone to warm their bed at night. They just click. (But god help them if the DADs cough Ukitake and Kyoraku find out.)

Shinji is a bit of an odd ball to write for me. I tend to think he's not quite as old as Ukitake or Kyoraku (definitely not as old as Yamamoto or Unohana), he's the generation after them. I place Kensei and Love in roughly the same age bracket too.

You bet your ass Kaien wouldn't put up with any of the 'ignorance is bliss' crap Kisuke, Urahara or even Isshin peddle on a good day. And he obviously doesn't. The problem, rightly pointed out by characters and readers alike, Kaien can be stubbornly self-righteous. A trait sadly magnified in the worst possible ways after his death and resurrection (I've alluded to it, but this event horribly messed him up). Hence their current mess of Ichigo being furious with Kisuke and Isshin's crap.

That part will be rewritten, I'm thoroughly aware I gave Isshin an unfair showing but the nucleus of the confrontation will remain the same. Bleach would be much shorter, yeah, but at the same time, there can be some arguments that Isshin had his reasons for him keeping secrets. The thing is we're not privy to those because, really, they boil down to thin justifications for plot convivence: "Oh, by the way your mother died because of some obscure prophesy that's never been so much as alluded to in the previous 450+ chapters. So the 9 plus years you spent grieving, blaming and torturing yourself were basically for our (Kisuke and Isshin's) scheme to turn you into a perfect martyr. By the way, you can't actually do anything to bring us to justice because you need to fight this war and all of reality will be destroyed if you don't." "... ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!"

I don't hate the Old Man so much as I hate what he represents. The amount of backflipping, backwards writing, retconning and garbage to justify TYBW arc's existence is cheap and show 'Oh no, this story's actually been super connected all along!' is frankly premium grade crap.

More than that, the "justification" for sabotaging Ichigo makes no sense. He wants to "protect" Ichigo, yet according to the TYBW, he's spent the entire story consciously truncating and stagnating Ichigo's growth, pitting him against his own soul; relenting bits and drabs to ensure his own survival, only releasing control completely when his own annihilation is on the table.

Instead of the much more reasonable explanation of Zangetsu deciding that the best way to reach Ichigo is to give him what he subconsciously wants; a sagely parental figure who takes the time to teach, guide and support him. The things Isshin specifically isn't. Because lets face it, on every level conceivable level Isshin fails as a parent.

Instead of being a subconscious commentary on how Ichigo views his family life, its some grade-A nonsense to give Ichigo an excuse to receive yet another power-up that ultimately amounts to nothing beyond giving him some contrived connection to the villain.

Hey Kubo? Did you forget you already DID that with Aizen? And people say he doesn't recycle plot beats.

So, uh. Yeah. That's my rant for the Saturday.

I don't mind the long comments. I like the thinky-think thoughts. :D And I'm glad you look forward to what I plan in the future. I'm admittedly in a bit of a rut until I get that confrontation re-written so right now I've been focused on my reincarnation AU.

That one's delicious angst for another reason. The twins have been taught their Quincy craft when they were young, hidden away from Isshin, and now they're suffering the consequences. THE SECRETS ARE TEARING THE FAMILY APART!

[mekatrio]

rambling abt the mekatrio's domestic life w the tateyamas hehe

so curious abt the mekatrio's home life bc im obsessed with them, in the novels particularly bc thats the only media that outright states they didnt enroll into school normally.. like theres sooo much im curious abt like firstly in the current plot we see a kido whose able to converse with strangers and new people, but three years ago during the headphone actor arc she still had anxiety around people, and kano had to help her at the game booth. but at this point shes no longer shy around her foster family, being capable of comforting kano after ayaka's death and communicating with seto the reason she dislikes keigo. and kano states that she had a better grip with her powers at this point, but yet she still accidentally activated it in novel 2, and was too shy to introduce herself to haruka. so at what point did she become more confident, becoming the cool person we see who recruits momo... (and also how this kinda implies that the strong kido of the current day was formed to support mary?!? and the fucking rin and tsubomi / kido and mary parallel... ohh im gonna be sick let me put this thought to the side for now.)

the same can be said for seto as well, like its sooooo interesting to me that in novel 6, its seto out of the three of them who greets haruka. seto who was initially the most timid of the three.. like yeah he ran into him by accident, but he was the only one who actually held a conversation with him... and also how hes already met mary at this point, which was said to greatly help him have more control over his powers, but yet he still accidentally activated his powers on haruka.. but also his convo w haruka is like a glimpse to the friendly lovely seto of the current day plot, and the fact that he had a friendly exchange with haruka in spite of knowing he doesnt have full control over his powers like owhhh... like its so interesting to see a seto whose in-between the crybaby phase of his life and the reliable teenager of the present day.

and kanoooo. like kano's the only one out of the three of them who wouldnt have accidentally activated his powers around haruka and yet he never greeted him, at least not as himself. thats soooo curious to me like was it out of shyness too or just, not knowing the social norm to greet people staying over, or maybe he doesnt care for haruka, or is it so seto and kido dont feel left out? or is he as bad with strangers as seto and kido are? but yet he was to one who did most of talking when kano and kido played at the headphone actor booth.. was it just a front he put up for kido's sake? (probablyy)

its so interesting to me cuz like i really wonder whats the mekatrio's threshold with being comfortable with strangers... cuz kenjirou states that all Three of them rarely ever make themselves known to strangers in general, and thats a given for seto and kido with how they lack control over their powers, but i wonder whats the reason kano hides himself as well. especially with his pov in novel 5 showcasing that he greatly understands the importance of people hving a good perception of you.... like he was almost freakishly obsessed with how other people perceived him:

like does he just outright not want to be perceived by those who arent his family, and the tateyamas allow him to indulge in that? so so curious to me.. (and also if its bc hes as bad with strangers as setokido are, then imagine just how much more distressing masquerading as ayano at school mustve been for him.... 🥲)

and like haruka stayed over for a whole week and only met ayano and seto.. so like what were the mekatrio doing while he was around? yes haruka was at school for the most parts, but he also makes this assumption that the mekatrio were off at school too:

and so its like.. are the mekatrio homeschooled? do they go somewhere for private tutoring? how often do seto and kido leave the house... are they able to with their powers? where were they while haruka was staying with them??? (I WANNA KNOW.....)

its sooo so interesting to see how different and similar the younger mekatrio are to their current day selves... graaahhhh. like kido's cool and reliable nature is only shown to her family when shes young, and seto is slowly but surely becoming more sociable with other people, kano was possibly shy and reclusive when he was younger.. and how before the abuse from saeru, his powers were used for pranks and the like instead of like, psychologically torturing shintaro.. and how all three of them opened up more to strangers after mary comes into their life MARY..... but mary is another post. another post to go insane on. MEKATRIO I LOVE YOU 💜💚🖤

[seyaryminamoto]

I've read both ATLA novelization books from Azula's PoV. It was great how a perspective of her was considered worthy at that point in time, but while I enjoyed E.K Chronicles and find it's portrayal dimensional and spot-on I didn't like S.C's portrayal that much, there were sympathetic elements but overlapped with how angry and entitled Azula was, esp in the next page when she said Ozai is gonna regret this but there was no animated version. What's your opinion on the quality of that PoV?

Both have a few elements of inaccuracy, truth be told, though I can’t remember all the inaccuracies in the EK Chronicles right now. I think some lines are different from the show’s, and I think it implies that Azula herself is the one driving the train-tank when I believe Bryke mentioned in another source that Lo and Li did? (I think in the creators’ commentary of The Chase?). That particular kernel of mixed-up information has always kinda bugged me, since it’s a bit weird to have the creators and the novelization’s writer giving out contradictory and different explanations... and I think I was rubbed the wrong way too by Azula’s occasional “I’m going to be Fire Lord” comments that, while I won’t outright call OOC, isn’t something I’d incorporate to my interpretation of the character. Within the show itself, Azula displays no direct, overt interest in the throne until the finale. Wanting a throne, yet helping Zuko come back as an honored crown prince, is 100% contradictory and it doesn’t really suit Azula to sabotage her own interests to that extent: she could have easily screwed Zuko over one more time by dragging him home in chains, regardless of his help in the Catacombs, if the throne was her priority. It makes far more sense to me to think she doesn’t start vying for the throne consciously until after Zuko betrays the Fire Nation and is banished for the second time.

That being said, I like the EK Chronicles much better than the Sozin’s Comet novelization, and it’s for the reasons you mentioned. There’s interesting new elements in EK Chronicles that do offer new angles to Azula, such showing her disheartened after several failures to capture the Avatar and make progress with any of her missions. In Sozin’s Comet, I think the only worthwhile element of the sort is the moment where Azula is portrayed as fearing her father will even be physically violent with her, despite that’s easily connected to her “You can’t treat me like Zuko!” declaration. If he’ll treat her like Zuko, it means he can absolutely be violent to her, just as he was to Zuko when Zuko disappointed him...

Yet, beyond that, I don’t think there’s much in Sozin’s Comet’s novelization that felt worth my while. I haven’t read that one in a long time, so maybe there’s something else worth salvaging in it...? But from what I remember, yes, it seemed hung up on presenting an entitled, obnoxious Azula who outright wanted to avenge herself after being slighted by her father, even. Which, as you said, isn’t seen anywhere within canon. While I know we all want Azula to break off Ozai’s influence upon her, that’s not even close to what we got there: this was basically Azula deciding she’d avenge herself after her father discarded her and cling to power (that HE gave her, keep that in mind), above all else. Honestly, if anything, it sounds to me like this is the proto-Yang!Azula. If, hypothetically, he had prepared himself to portray her in his comics by using that novelization as his prime characterization reference, it explains EVERYTHING he ever wrote about her :’)

Soooo... yeah, I definitely wouldn’t put my hand in the fire for that particular portrayal of Azula. The EK Chronicles, with what flaws it has, was definitely far more reliable reference material than this novelization could have been.

[albakore]

Buying them flowers

Synopsis: They were overworking themself again, so reader thought it might be nice to do something thoughtful for them.

Characters: Diluc, Kaeya, Jean (gn!reader)

Warnings: none, just fluff!

⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘•⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅ ⊰ ⋅•⋅

Diluc:

we all know Diluc is the CEO of overworking himself. this man never lets himself catch a break

if you are in an established relationship, he definitely buys you flowers on the regular.

flowers are just the perfect gift in his mind: they don’t take up useless space forever, they look pretty, they smell nice, there’s variety, the list goes on

he definitely doesn’t expect to come home to you handing him a bouquet though

Diluc let his shoulders sag as he stepped in the door to the winery. The abyss had been more active than usual, and while it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle, it still left him sore and grumpy at the end of the day. His eyes scanned the dim area that was his living area. There were a few lit candles about but judging by the stillness of the space he assumed most of his staff had resigned to their homes for the night.

Just as Diluc let his guard down and began freeing himself from his excessive outerwear he hid himself in all day, you stepped out quietly from your shared bedroom and approached him. Diluc noticed your footsteps right away, he was a well-trained fighter after all, so of course he knew how to pick up even the slightest shift in his surroundings. There was an odd rustling sound that accompanied you before he felt your palm placed firmly against his back to get his attention.

“Surprise.” You spoke softly as he turned around to spot the bouquet in your hands. You had a soft, sympathetic smile on your face as you took in how tired the man before you appeared. The ever perseverant and reliable Master Diluc with bags under his eyes and tussled hair and his jaw perpetually clenched. You took his gloved hand in yours and raised it so you could place the flowers in his palm.

“What’s this for?” He asked softly, looking at all the different kinds of flowers you had incorporated.

“For you, silly!” You chuckled at his reaction. “What, I’m not allowed to get my lover flowers?” You feigned defensiveness as you settled your amused gazed on his bewildered expression. He brought the flowers up to his nose and breathed in the pleasant floral scent before he wrapped his arms around you, exhaling a small thank you before letting his head fall onto your shoulder almost defeatedly — almost because nothing in this world had bested the Ragnvindr yet. You knew he was strong enough to push through this, all he needed was a little support. He took a few deep breathes, appreciating the presence of his lover, allowing himself just one moment of vulnerability. It seems a bouquet was all it took to break down yet another part of the man’s emotional walls.

Kaeya:

when he spots the bouquet his first thought is how you are just the cutest

he’ll occasionally buy you bouquets if he happens to see something pretty while he’s out adventuring or if Flora has something interesting out for sale

he’s a fan of single flowers, something he can tuck behind your ear gently while he watches you grow flustered by his actions

definitely a single rose kinda guy, even if it’s super cliche

Oh, what’s this? He muses to himself, eyes glinted with mirth as he approaches his desk. He glances over the flowers and the note and wonders who the anonymous suitor could be. He hopes to himself as he reaches for the note that you were the one who left these flowers for him but he knows he has his fair share of people pining over him, so it wouldn’t exactly be a surprise if it were someone else. Even despite you two’s public relationship, that doesn’t always stop the odd bold soul from thinking they could steal him from you, wrongfully so of course. His eyes instantly flit to your named signed at the bottom and his smile grows from his normal cocky smirk to a genuine soft expression.

The letter reads:

How’s work, Captain? Home feels emptier without you here. I miss you telling me good morning and good night every day. I know Mondstadt’s needs are more important right now than one individuals, but that doesn’t stop me from awaiting the moment I can wrap my arms around you again. On the bright side, no one’s pinched my ass in days! That’s about the only positive part of this whole situation, though. Say, when your workload lessens again we should get dinner together! Sara from Good Hunter keeps asking me when you’ll stop by. Well, I’ll let you return to your work now. Thinking of you, always.

Kaeya sighed as he set down the note and picked up the flowers. He’d been covering for Jean for a few days while she attended to other business. He didn’t mind, really, it was the least he could do in return for all she did for Mondstadt, but he couldn’t deny he missed you too. He’d been staying in his old dorm at the Favonius HQ to make his life a little easier; he was up late into the night working on paperwork in her office and up early in the morning to go on patrol. It would only be a couple more days until she returned and he could yet again have you laid on his chest comfortably.

He’d have to remember to ask Albedo for a vase to keep these flowers in, and surely Sucrose would know of a way to up their longevity so he could keep them on his desk for as long as possible. He sat down in his chair and picked up a pen and loose piece of paper to begin writing you his response.

Jean:

jean is an absolutely sucker when her s/o buys her flowers.

everyone knows Jean’s secret favorite pass time is reading romance novels

so that kind of super corny but romantic shit is right up her alley. how to woo jean gunnhildr 101

she doesn’t get to buy her lover flowers as often as she would like. the thought that she should always crosses her mind at the least convenient of times.

she’ll be nowhere near flora/any sort of flower patch and she’ll think “i should get them some flowers to make up for not being home as often as i would like to be”

but then she’ll be whisked away by someone else in mondstadt who needs her help and well…

Jean was fresh out of the shower, hair down and damp, towel wrapped around her body as he made her way to your shared bedroom. You had gone out to fetch you two something to eat for dinner, so it was just her left in the apartment. She opened the door quietly and was taken aback by the scene in front of her. There were candles lit all along the desk and dresser, there were flower petals scattered about the floor from the door to surrounding the bed. In the middle of the bed sat a bouquet of flowers awaiting her.

She hadn’t moved an inch, her mouth was slightly ajar and her hand still firmly gripped the door handle — in a good way of course. She hadn’t registered the front door opening that signified you entering with dinner. You paused and watched her for a minute before setting the food down and making your way over to her. You brushed some of her hair away from her shoulder and pressed a kiss there causing her eyes to snap over to you. “(Y/N)! I-I don’t even know what to say-“ she stammered over her words, cheeks growing redder by the second. You giggled, bringing her knuckle to your lips.

“Go put on some comfy clothes and then we’ll eat. We’ll worry about everything else later. You’ve been working so hard lately, I just thought you might appreciate some.. relaxation.”

She sighed before leaning over and pecking your cheek. “Thank you, really.” She murmured before stepping into the bedroom. You watched as she continued to glance around the room in awe as she made her way to the closet. You turned and walked back to the boxes of food you had brought home. Of course you two had to enjoy dinner before dessert.

[madd-information]

Maladaptive Daydreaming: Tic Toc Breakdown

A recent post on Tic Tok got some attention.  I’ve transcribed the videos here to make some comments on them and provide some additional information. Here are the relevant bits, full transcription below.

“Maladaptive Daydreaming is when you daydream so intensely that you talk to yourself or you act out scenarios by yourself. It's not like psychosis, you're not seeing things, it's daydreaming out loud. Like you're letting your daydream out.  And some people have severe maladaptive daydreaming, that's when they do those things in public and kinda don't realize they're doing it.”

MD is not “daydreaming out loud”, movement is not even a requirement. It is very common among us, however, about 21% of MDers don’t have any movement associated with their daydreaming behavior. Severe MD is when more than one area of life functioning is impaired by clinically significant distress or dysfunction stemming from the daydreaming behavior. It makes no difference if it happens publicly or if the MDer realizes they are doing it. MD is not like psychosis, she’s on point there.

“Maladaptive Daydreaming, itself, is not a disorder but it is a trait of quite a few different mental disorders and could be a trait of someone on the spectrum.  But there are creative and healthy ways to deal with this… if you make characters and story lines in your head cosplay them. Even if you put it on private and it's just for you turning what you've created into something tangible. People like this are so creative, so you guys are good at writing, could do scripts, skits, like TV shows, plays, like novels, incredible things!”

A little more murky.  MD is not an officially recognized disorder, this is true. It will take many more years of study to gather enough evidence that MD is a unique disorder, if, indeed, it is.  MD researchers are pursuing MD as a possible disorder in their studies and have developed reliable measures for it, here is a link to the MD [proposed] diagnostic criteria. 

MD is a construct that stands alone, though it may be closely related to other constructs.   Excessive or vivid daydreaming is a trait found in many disorders, many of these are not MD.  This seems to be a matter of not distinguishing other forms of fantasy from MD. 

There is not, yet, any research on MDs relationship to ASD. If they experience MD at higher rates than the general population is unknown.

As for the ‘healthy ways to deal’, recent research suggests that MDers are less creative than both normal daydreamers and non-disordered immersive daydreamers. This is because we don’t make anything from our fantasies in reality.  Giving yourself a creative outlet is good advice, even, as she says, if you never share it, the act of making fantasies tangible is a good way to engage in reality in a safe and artistic way.  I do think there is an underlying misconception here though; that MDers are naturally good story tellers.  That’s just not how MD works, fantasies do not play out like readable scripts, they are often repetitive and derivative and impossible to make sense of or turn into anything readable.  

Writing is a wonderful skill, and an absolutely accessible one.  If writing interests you, or if you just want to get things out of your head, or if you think it will be therapeutic, for any reason! Do it!  Don’t be upset if you suck at first because your’e “supposed to be a naturally good story teller”, you’re not, and sucking at something is just the first step to being kinda good at something, keep at it.

“So, it's not considered a disorder but there is like the lighter form of it... just when you're by yourself sometimes when you're bored, you're not doing anything, you just start imagining things, and do it out loud.  And then there's the severe which can be unhealthy because some people create like whole fictitious worlds and characters that they form friendships with and fall in love with and they would rather spend their time by themselves, like, locked up in their room or their house than actually go out and interact with real people in the real world. And that is when it can get tied in with OCD, but it's not a disorder that's in the DSM.”

I think what the underlying problem in these videos is that OP doesn’t seem to be making a distinction between IMers and MDers.  IM is not the “light form” of MD.   Maladaptive Daydreamers are a subset of Immersive Daydreamers. Immersive daydreaming is not pathological. MD is always, in every case, unhealthy or negative for the daydreamer in some way. That is the definition of MD.  If it is not then that person is not an MDer. And, again, the ‘out loud’ part is not true for many. She does tap into some reasons for MD distress/dysfunction, preferring fantasy to real world responsibilities (being ‘locked up in their room’) is a common experience for MDers.

Research does show a link with OCD, though it’s unclear if MD is (in at least some cases) an OCD spectrum disorder.  It is likely a behavioral addiction and is almost certainly a disordered form of dissociative absorption.  She’s not wrong here, just making OCD sound a little more at the forefront than it might actually be.  

“I went about those first videos, I feel like, completely wrong because maladaptive daydreaming isn't a healthy thing to do and I went about it in a way of not wanting people who did this to call themselves weird.  Because if you are the type of person that mouths and gestures in front of people they're already going to do that for you.” 

Her final video makes it more clear that she was trying to be more reassuring than informative and perhaps didn’t present what she had to say in a way that was appropriate. She just didn’t want MDers to get down on themselves, so, thanks for that. 

Full transcriptions below:

Video 1: If you do this now you know it has a name. 

So I'm willing to bet that a lot of you never heard of this and a lot of you might do this so I wanted to talk about it so you'll know you aren't that weird. I mean, just, you're not weird.  So I've done this thing my whole life that I thought everybody did until about two or three years ago when I started asking people that I was very very comfortable with, like, do you do this and they were all like "No?"

And that thing is Maladaptive Daydreaming.  So it is going to sound really weird for the people who don't do this but Maladaptive Daydreaming is when you daydream so intensely that you like talk to yourself or you act out scenarios by yourself. It's not like psychosis, you're not seeing things, it's daydreaming out loud. Like you're letting your daydream out.  And some people have severe maladaptive daydreaming, that's when they do those things in public and kinda don't realize they're doing it.  But now, if you do that, now you know that it has a name and it's not weird, you're just creative. It's cool. 

Video 2: Maladaptive Daydreaming again

So let's talk more about Maladaptive Daydreaming because I never thought that so many people would say that they do this and it's really cool because now you guys know you aren't alone and it has a name.  

So Maladaptive Daydreaming, itself, is not a disorder but it is a trait of quite a few different mental disorders and, I found out in the comments, could be a trait of someone on the spectrum.  But there are creative and healthy ways to deal with this or like find a way to make, what I would believe would be really cool is to make it tangible, right? So, this [Tictok?] is a wonderful outlet for that, if you make characters and story lines in your head cosplay them. Even if you put it on private and it's just for you turning what you've created into something tangible. People like this are so creative, so you guys are good at writing, could do scripts, skits, like TV shows, plays, like novels, incredible things!

Video 3: Pt2 Still doesn't mean you're weird. 

I wanted to do a little more about Maladaptive Daydreaming because there's actually a bunch more to it than what I could get out in the last video and it can get to an unhealthy place. So, it's not considered a disorder but there is like the lighter form of it, which is like what I would do like when, just when you're by yourself sometimes when you're like bored, you're not doing anything, you just start imagining things, and do it out loud. 

And then there's the severe which can be unhealthy because some people create like whole fictitious worlds and characters that they form friendships with and fall in love with and they would rather spend their time by themselves, like, locked up in their room or their house than like actually go out and interact with real people in the real world. And that is when it can get tied in with OCD, but it's not a disorder that's in the DSM so, I don't know, if you want to know more let me know. 

Video 4:Pt 3 I'm sorry

So I'm doing thing backwards because I should have made the captions in my maladaptive daydreaming videos, like, not that. Like, I went about those first videos, I feel like, completely wrong because, it's, maladaptive daydreaming isn't a healthy thing to do and I just went about it in a way of not wanting people who did this to call themselves weird.  Because if you are the type of person that mouths and gestures in front of people they're already going to do that for you. And I, so I went about it wrong, it's not that you're weird but it isn't a healthy thing to do and if it's to a point, guys, where, like, you would rather live in this place that you've created it may be tied in with OCD, which is just like that need to have things a certain way that you would rather live in this place that you've created. If your parents aren't understanding this YouTube it, there's lots of stuff on there guys

[nadziejastar]

One of the Master's disciples who receives a copy of the Book of Prophecies. He is a reliable Keyblade Master and leader of the Union Unicornis. The Master often makes fun of his serious nature. His role is to become the new leader of the foretellers after the Master vanishes.

Good question. I honestly have no idea. It’s certainly possible. And Ira’s name is derived from the Latin word for “wrath,” which fits the theme of Saïx’s berserk state. But I still feel like we don’t even know that much about the Foretellers. Did they even have descendants? The only connection I can clearly see is between Terra and Aced, due to their Keyblades looking very similar. And Aced was upset that The MoM chose Ira over him, which was kinda similar to Eraqus choosing Aqua to be his successor over Terra. So, I always felt like there might have been a connection between Ira and Aqua. But not necessarily a bloodline connection. Maybe they’re like spiritual successors. Though maybe the connections are not even supposed to be that direct.

Datascapes

Artificial simulations based on real-world data. Inside a datascape, time can be made to loop infinitely, and the impossible becomes possible. The alternate Twilight Town that Roxas shared with Hayner, Pence, and Olette is one such world.

The other connection I strongly see with Ira is the Haunted Mansion in Twilight Town. It’s pretty likely that the mansion will be retconned to be associated with the Unicornis Union, since it has unicorns all over the place. It’s a pretty mysterious place. That mansion is the portal to the data Twilight Town. 

While beings born of darkness and those lacking hearts may find them convenient, it is dangerous for others to make much use of the corridors of darkness. Darkness erodes the heart. In search of a place to proceed with my research and planning away from prying eyes, I found myself in "Twilight Town." It is a quiet village, forgotten in the chasm between light and darkness. I situated myself in the basement of an abandoned mansion standing beyond the woods. My underground research resulted in one new discovery after another.

It is also where DiZ located his research after escaping the Realm of Darkness. Subject X is associated with this mansion as well. But I have no idea what extent Isa would have been if he had stayed Subject X. But ASoD acted like he already knew all about this mansion in KH3, so it would not surprise me at all if the apprentices or Isa had some connection to it as well. Twilight Town seems like an important place to Axel for more reasons than just the ones we know of. I kinda got the impression that it was important to him because of his past.

As a start, I have built a device that artificially creates Heartless. By recreating the conditions that spawn the Heartless naturally, I should be able to produce them artificially. This device is the culmination of all my research thus far. The machine's test run successfully created a Heartless. This may be a step toward creating a heart from nothing.

Then there’s Datascapes. Xehanort was trying to create a heart from nothing. And in KH3D, the apprentices were using the computer that was the gateway to Tron’s world, which is also a Datascape. 

Can you please tell us a little more about the series-first KH game for PC browser? Nomura: This is not a title with an emphasis on story, but we are working premises in. That said, for the first time in the series you can enjoy the content completely separately from the main series, so even beginners to the series might be able to be at ease playing it. The battling is different again from KH Re:CoM, and we are aiming for something with simple controls and flashy movements. I think customizing is important to this type of game, so we are filling it with new elements in that area.

KHUX is the game I am least knowledgeable about, since I just couldn’t get into the gameplay. I watched the cutscenes online, but I still feel like I am not that well-versed in its story/lore. Maybe the novel will help when it’s released. When KHUX was first announced (back when it was known as KHX) Nomura suggested that the game was not supposed to have an emphasis on story, and it was also supposed to be completely separate from the main series. So, I kinda ignored it, thinking the Back Cover movie would suffice. The way KHUX got so much emphasis in KH3 really caught me off-guard. It still feels like it was decided upon at the last minute.

KHX’s story was going to be connected to KH3 of course, but it sounds like playing it was not supposed to be crucial or anything. Skuld wasn’t even in the Back Cover movie, even though Ephemer was. You’d think she would be if she was supposed to be the mysterious girl everyone was looking for. From what I’ve seen its story is also very confusing. The Book of Prophecies is capable of transcribing and conjuring future events, as well as creating entire worlds filled with beings and powers that have yet to exist. Which...sounds like the Datascape. Maleficent was searching for a connection between the Book of Prophecies and the Datascape, and she wondered if the Book of Prophecies was also connected to Jiminy's Journal.

Maleficent: Yes, he shared everything with me--how to go about winning a heart over to the darkness, and, most gloriously, about the seven hearts of pure light--the ones that would grant me the power I need to conquer all worlds. However, the worlds were too complex, too much for even me to contain. It seemed I had miscalculated. Then it came to me--of course! I could go about conquering other worlds in my own manner. You do have the "data" for all the worlds, do you not? And now you will hand it over to me.

The whole concept of Datascapes feels like it was supposed to be massively important in KH3 (and probably KH0.5). Re:Coded revolves around this idea.

“There’s a road for the taking if you end our world’s aching.”

The message in Jiminy’s Journal implied that the world inside the Datascape was the world that was aching (I think?). And the glossary in KH3 mentions that in Datascapes, time can be made to loop infinitely. But none of this ever went anywhere. All of this might have been deemed way too complex by the higher-ups and it was changed at the last minute.

Maleficent: I now know that what I seek lies within these walls. Trust that I will eliminate you in good time.

In KH3, Maleficent just started randomly looking for a black box that she had no idea the location of. But in KH3D she was supposed to be looking for the data for all the worlds, and she said she knew what she wanted was specifically inside of Disney Castle. So...is the Book of Prophecies in Disney Castle? Sounds kinda like it might be. Is that why Disney Castle has the Cornerstone of Light? To protect a copy of the Book of Prophecies? And Jiminy did start off at Disney Castle when he became the royal chronicler. Disney Castle was where the portal to the Lingering Will is located. And it also had that door that led to the Timeless River. The whole plot in the Timeless River seems similar to a Datascape. Pete conjured the door to Timeless River when he wished to go back in time. Maybe Disney Castle, Radiant Garden, and Twilight Town were where a copy of the Book of Prophecies was kept. They all have Datascapes located next to a library.

[anythingstephenking]

Out of Order with Under The Dome

It seems like a lifetime ago that I cracked the spine on Carrie and started this silly journey to read King chronologically. King Khongraphical kinda sounds like a lost Kardashian sister.

In reality, I read Carrie exactly 5 years ago. Somehow reading 54 King books in 5 years simultaneously makes me feel like a failure and a winner all at once. Impressive? Sure (?) Still pretty lame that I have ~20 books left to read. For sure.

Things that have got in my way:

-Bachman

-Short Story collections

-Nightmares about clowns

-Global pandemics

But I did read all 50-some-odd books as intended; in exact order of publishing date. I finished each and every one of them, even when I was sick of nazis, child abuse, school shootings or cocaine aliens.

Until now. Boo!

Anywho, technically next on my list is Just After Sunset, a collection of short stories, but I just. can’t. finish. it.

Throughout the pandemic I have driven from Tennessee to Minnesota twice to see my family. There’s only so much Taylor Swift one can listen to in the car, and 28 hour round trips called for a King intervention. So I picked up the Under The Dome audiobook and went back to Maine. I promise (to myself) I will finish up JAS before I get to my next read (and one of my true favorites), 11/22/63.

Ok, Under The Dome. Let’s do it y’all!

I read this book in high school and my lingering memory from then is one of frustration over the source of the dome being aliens. Turns out high school me (who also thought Holden Caulfield was the epitome of cool) was not a reliable narrator, because this book is certified rad.

It really has everything that folks love about King - Maine, lots of fun characters, a little love story, some cool kiddos, drugs, a hero, a villain. The only thing it’s really missing is a spooky house, but I guess the dome can count.

The premise is simple, if complex town-shaped invisible domes that can’t be penetrated can be considered simple. Our hero, Dale Barbara, is leaving on “Dome Day” but doesn’t make it out in time cause some hottie blonde in a pickup truck doesn’t stop for him on the road. Thems the breaks, Barbie. He is also, per King-hero usual, haunted by demons. But this time around, our hero is a short order cook, not an author. Steve’s really stretching here. Our villain is James “Big Jim” Rennie, a sleazy used car salesman (lol) and also a drug kingpin? He’s operating the country’s largest meth cookhouse, somehow in Maine, because that definitely makes sense? Why not.

What transpires is a pretty fun and epic ride through the initial dome discovery (planes crashing, chipmunks cut in half), subsequent WTF reactions of everyone in Chester’s Mill, an immense power struggle between the goodies and the baddies, meth, explosions, and at the end of the day, a whole lot of people deadzo.

So yeah, the dome is placed by alien children playing some fucked up game of RISK in their alien bedrooms ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ At the end of the day it’s not super important, as with all stories such as this one, the real bad guys are the humans, not the alien kiddos. If you’ve ever watched The Walking Dead, you get it.

Julia Shumway serves as our female lead, and King doesn’t really give her much to work with, but she does get to be a writer, so good for her! To Julia’s credit, she is the one that uses her female powers of empathy to appeal to said alien children and get them to take down the dome. Too bad like everyone else is dead by then. A+ for effort!

All jokes aside, this was a great story start to finish, and was a wonderful jump back into the King pond after almost a year away. There’s a lot to chew on with this one, a a true quintessential King. Kuintessential King Kardashian anyone?

I’m not much for audiobooks, but I felt for the guy reading this one. How do you come up with enough inflections and voices for all these characters? God bless him. I am genuinely curious how long it took him to record the 34 hours of audio and how much he got paid.

King had the idea for a novel about how humans would handle being cut off from society back in the 70s, and revisited the idea in an unpublished work called The Cannibals in the 80s, about folks trapped in an apartment building that, I’d guess, decide to start eating each other. Eventually the idea evolved into Under The Dome. In an interview, King said he was inspired by the Bush-Cheney dynamics of a post 9/11 America, with the guy who was really in charge (Georgie Bushie, played by Andy Sanders in the novel) as an incompetent buffoon. It’s worth noting that Andy Sanders eventually ends up hooked on meth and conspires to help explode the town and kill most everyone. Then you’ve got Dick Cheney (aka Big Jim Rennie) pulling all the strings, picking all the fights, taking all the power, murdering, and generally being a bad guy. So in case you’re wondering if King was a fan of the Bush years, I’d go ahead and say, uh, no, no he was not.

9/10

First Line: From two thousand feet, where Claudette Sanders was taking a flying lesson, the town of Chester’s Mill gleamed in the morning light like something freshly made and just set down.

Last Line: Pity was not love, Barbie reflected… but if you were a child, giving clothes to someone who was naked had to be a step in the right direction.

Adaptations:

Oh CBS. Please stop buying the rights to King adaptations. I will say I was not singing the praises of how they handled The Stand. But that’s a rant for another day.

This show ran for THREE seasons. I watched the premiere when it aired (they really went for the drama with the whole cut-a-cow-in-half thing, I’ll give them that) and revisited the finale for fun after I finished the book. I may have found the time to rewatch all of LOST but I am definitely not taking the time to watch three full seasons of Under the Dome. First of all, Barbie is a murderer? And he killed Julia Shumway’s husband?? WTF is that all about? Barbie is our hero. Fuck off CBS.

But we do get Dean Norris, aka Uncle Hank, in some superb casting as Big Jim Renny.

THEY’RE MINERALS MARIE!

I guess there was some alien mind control, some magical amethysts, and a lot of liberties taken from the source material on the show. Let me tell you, there is nothing worse than an ambiguous ending on a cancelled show. Did the writers leave hopeful that someone would be so impressed by this that they’d pick the show back up for a 4th season?

Meanwhile, catty Stephen throwing shade on Twitter is always my favorite.

[newproletarians]

I feel like I am giving my own brain a noogie a lot of the time. Or, maybe, putting it in a headlock. Squeezing it from the inside. I feel like I am pinching my own brain, trying to get it to do different things, constantly. Does that make sense? 

Is that normal? Do you feel the same way, other person reading this? For the sake of your comfort, and potentially entertainment, I want to be completely candid—I feel like this a fucking LOT. I don’t usually realize it, either. And look. I have this deep-seated knowledge that the average person on Earth is having a really shitty time. I think that’s the norm. We’re all gonna die, we’re all gonna suffer. If you aren’t dying, and you aren’t life-sucking, then what you’re in is very cool, very unusual, and very temporary. Some of us end up lucky enough to be dicking around on a Tumblr blog with loads of benefactors all around them. So I don’t like to complain. Or, fuck that. I should complain. Complaining is good. But I don’t like to be disappointed when life is not perfect, because it rarely is. So there’s that. I just notice it sometimes, like having tense shoulders (which I also have). I’ll be hanging out putting up a shirt in the closet, and realize I’ve been keeping my shoulders... more up? More up than they need to be. That’s the thing. It’s a subconscious tenseness that comes back again and again. That’s what’s going on in my brain. New paragraph.

So what do I care about this? It’s just a thing that happens. Big deal. Move on. Well, that’s the thing. I don’t know if it is a thing that happens. If it is, and it’s totally fine, then I’d love to just get on with my life. If it’s bad I want to stop, because it’s uncomfy and I think there’s a better life out there for me. I’m doing it now, even.

I think i thas something to do with this words part of my brain. This hyper-analytical, mostly-useless part of my brain that sucks at doing anything. The same part of my brain that, when I used to play baseball, would absolutely micromanage the fuck out of every aspect of my form in everything I did. It’s criticism. It’s toxic. God, do people criticize their kids and siblings. What a cycle of suckage. I would be thinking to myself, in the batter’s box, “think of the ball like a thing you need to hit DOWN with the bat.” That would work for a while, and then it would stop, and I’d come up with a new thing. That shit doesn’t work. That’s when the verbal, limited part of your brain tryies to use it’s own verbage to move you forward as a being. You know what I’m saying? That’s you words-brain, which isn’t good for much, actually. Silence is gold. You know what I’m saying?

Your words-brain is the best conduit we have of information from person to person (asterisk), but that information is ridiculously low-quality. Low res. It’s like... not that many pixels? I guess I don’t need more analogies. It’s fucking weak. Language is weak. It weakly approximates things, and we need a whole lot of other shit to adequately communicate anything (like gestures, context, etc.). When I talk, a lot of the time, I’m fixated on the words. I’m thinking about the language we’re using. it’s why, why I text someone, I automatically absorb their texting style and throw it right back at them. It’s probably also why, when I listen to a song, I am often thinking about it in abstract terms, subconsciously reverse-engineering the song to the writer. Unsuccessfully and inaccurately much of the time, for sure. I don’t want to seem like some dude who thinks he is just reverse engineering songs as he goes through life. That would be pretty cringey. But that’s the spirit. It’s there. It’s the sizing up of life experiences, thinking of things in the absolute most transactional, bit-by-bit ways. It’s seeing someone throw a ball well and thinking, “I should make sure my arm goes up like his when I throw,” or seeing a happy couple and thinking, “I should hold myself like this person to optimize life enjoyment.” It’s honestly pretty weird, but also interesting. Why would I look at things that way? This fixation on the mechanics of things is what makes a great builder of things, which I certainly aspire to be. I want to build great relationships, music, videos, animations, whatever. I don’t want to be guarded anymore, how I am. I want to just put myself out there. 

And that brings us back to the beginning, somehow. I’m so used to being so hard on myself. So hard on everything around me. There’s this feeling, and it feels like pinching my brain. I am working really hard just to be good enough. For who? For what? Good questions, for sure. I don’t know. I do know that I have the urge to throw this blog away again. I just want to start fresh. I don’t want this stupid shit plaguing my memory. I don’t want to have this shitty blog where I just puked my thoughts out and made little puke piles that were shaped OK enough for me to feel smart. I want to have a cool blog. A smart person blog. Maybe I can talk a little about what I want. Maybe this is too negative. There’s some relation between this head-pinching feeling, this inward-spiraling of writing, and this hyperanalyticality. Man, seeing Phoebe Bridgers on Instagram and Twitter makes me dislike myself. I feel like I’m not cool enough to hang out with her. God. I wanna be cool.

I’m remembering writing in a journal when I was 17. I felt so similarly. I remember I was writing about feeling jealous of my brothers, and how it felt like everything came easily to them, and they always got better treatment, and yadda yadda yadda, and I was just full spiraling into a non-spiral-bound notebook. Comp book. If it were spiral bound, it’d maybe make a kinda beautiful song lyric. Maybe it’s better that it wasn’t. I got bitter. I’m just realizing I got bitter. I think I’ve known, but damn! I was really the not-bitter guy and it was awesome. I wonder why. Anyway. We’ll come back around to it. Maybe.

I was writing about my brothers, and I wrote out “I JUST WANT TO BE BEAUTIFUL.” At the time it felt so bad! I felt like it was the craziest thing I ever did. Writing that. Isn’t that funny? I felt like i was being a huge weirdo, and it’s because I had oppressed myself into semi-normalcy (which is also just regular socialization I guess?) and wasn’t thinking about my feelings at all. Now I’m 23 going on 24, and guess what? The feelings are still there. Basically all the same ones. The difference is that I have the tools to deal with them now. It’s cool to relate to yourself. Damn. That is a hilarious thing to say that I didn’t think I would find funny or novel. It feels good to relate to one’s self. It feels like my dragon to slay. 

This relates back to the main point. Brain pinch. Getting out of this stupid brain-words mode. words-brain. Whatever. Left brain. Heady stuff. The dragon to slay here is this overwhelming issue of me being weird. I think that’s the fundamental question. It’s ok. I’ll say it. I’m weird. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I think some people genuinely reach that self-aware age, look in a mirror, and go, “score. I’m normal.” Some people just think the right thoughts. I’ve definitely played on both teams in the weird vs. normal wars. I tend to side with normies, because, let’s face it, those other guys aren’t always the people you wanna get down with. The oppressive monolith of normalcy that presses ever forward, bullying that which gets in its way, is pretty reliable. A fear of being weird is healthy, I think. Being too weird is bad. Lol. I’m so far off point. I’m really distracted, worried, bored, and somehow procrastinating all at once. I thought life would be different. That’s part of it. I thought by now I’d know what I wanted to do. I thought I’d have more mature relationships with the people in my family. I thought I’d have more friends, not less. I thought that I’d finally be one of those people you see at the airport and think, “that person looks cool. Instead, I feel like I have less of an idea of what I want to do with my life than ever. I also feel like the kind of person I would avoid. I feel like my relationships with my family members have gotten to a better place, but I’m worried that it only got here because of pity they have for me. I thought I would have an army of cool friends rn, but I don’t. I thought I’d have money, but I don’t. I thought I’d have my shit together, and look at me now, I most certainly do not. 

I may not be writing something good right now. I don’t think that’s what this blog is about. I think it’s about me shitting my brain out, but with words. It’s important for me to take big brain shits! I have to take brain shits! Or else I have a bunch of shit in my brain! Is that what an artist is? I don’t think so. I think artists, like, care about art.

Well that’s a relief. So these posts don’t have to be good. They SHOULD be shitty. They are literally shit. I’m gonna have a beer.

[icecreambat]

Story time: Dating everyone in P5 turned Joker into a sociopath

The first time I ended up dating more than one girl in a Persona game, it was an honest accident. I’d already imprinted on Chie in Persona 4, and had no idea comforting Yukiko during her social link would turn me into a two-timing douche. A quick save-state reload rectified this mistake, but it taught me an important lesson: in Persona games, monogamy is not the limit of your teenage life.

As Persona 5 rolled around, I grew fond of Makoto on my first playthrough. With her on my side I experienced the Phantom Thief thrill ride, maxing my social links while gently turning other girls down. It wasn’t until the NewGame+ that I wondered: wouldn’t it be interesting to try the multi-dating thing? That way I could fast-forward all romance scenarios and not watch them on Youtube later like a loser, duh. If this game was intentionally giving me the opportunity to be Tokyo’s biggest Don Juan, then by Mona, I’d do it!

Little did I know, though, that as I embarked on a quest to bag all the single ladies* the whole atmosphere of the game changed. What had been a more or less generic adventure about truth and justice took on some… rather disturbing undertones, ones that went beyond the actual dating scenarios. In fact, the game turned out to be such an interesting social experiment that I wanted to write about it, so here I am. So, this is a recap of how dating multiple people in Persona 5 turned my Joker into a sociopath.

* except for Makoto, because a) I already romanced her before and b)…. it didn’t feel right, her being my first and all. SO SUE ME I’M A LOSER AFTER ALL

So. Here we are again, moving to Tokyo, whoop de doo. NewGame+ means not having to waste days on working out the ropes, so you can focus on the stuff that matters: getting as overpowered as you can in the least amount of time possible. For me, this meant maxing out Kawakami’s social link as fast as I could, because her bonuses are pretty swank – I really could have used the post-Mementos or post-palace massages during my first playthrough too, but kinda forgot about her right after Operation Maidwatch. Well, no more! I was bringing that teacher home left and right at every possible instance, so obviously I ended up maxing her link first. Ergo, we entered a relationship. 

I’m not gonna lie: the Kawakami romance is some weird (and arguably illegal) shit. Maybe that kinda set the tone of this adventure from the start, giving me an mc who was 100% ok with romancing his homeroom teacher slash part time maid. Uh… huh. Given that my suspension of disbelief went out of the window right about there, it was easy to pick the “omg i totally like, care about you and stuff” dialogue options that went with it; I mean, I was doing this for science and stuff, no big deal.

That’s why it surprised me that when it was time to romance the next (un)lucky girl, I felt like shit about it. Not because of Kawakami, but because Ann wasn’t some ludicrous dating option pulled out of the “lol what if we let the players date everyone!!” shitpost book. Instead, Ann and the mc had already been through Some Shit together, best friend suicide attempts and sexually abusive PE teachers included, and she was a teenage girl looking for her place in the world. So when Ann confided in me about her feelings and told the mc she loved him, “returning” her feelings –while knowing I was already dating my…. uhh, homeroom teacher slash part time maid– genuinely made me feel like the absolute scum of the earth.

“I can’t do this,” I thought at this point, “Even if these are fictional characters in a fictional game, I feel like shit lying to these girls that I care about them, because obviously that’s not true if I’m so callously dating someone else behind their back. How can people do that in real life if I can’t even do it in a video game? Oh, naïve me! Because my lesson in the callousness of man had only just begun.

Anyway, so. Here I am, dating Kawakami and Ann. I think I figured that lying to my teammates didn’t Feel Very Good so headlining for randos seemed like the better choice to make next: Ohya the reporter ended up being the third girl I romanced, and it was relieving she seemed to understand the unlikely nature of our relationship. “I get that we probably won’t stay together forever,” she was telling me, almost like she knew she was only the third wheel in my extended trailer truck, headed to nowhere fast; the same kinda goes for Tae, the punk rock doctor, whose reservedness somehow made it easier to ignore the serial cheater vibes in the dynamic.

Chihaya, on the other hand, was different. Seemingly a little younger than the other grown-ups, she was already a lot more straightforward about her interest in the mc, and harbored all sorts of weird fantasies about them staying together forever. Which is exactly what I told her would happen. Not! Funny that for a fortune teller she couldn’t see I was also spouting this same shit to four other girls, huh? Chihaya reminded me of Ann, in a way, which is why the Bad Feels actually started to resurface here – it’s one thing to lie boldly in the face of girls (women) who aren’t really that invested in you to begin with, but when it’s people who actually believe said lies… well.

Now, I know, I know. There’s no actual reason to feel guilty, because these choices don’t affect the gameplay in any way. Whether or not the mc is an asshole in some ways will still result in everyone loving the shit out of him, and being sad when he leaves. Sure, there’s the scene after Valentine’s Day where you get beat up for being a cheater and the girls kind of call him out on it, but that’s about it; this isn’t Mass Effect, you can’t go full renegade, etc. etc. But even if the game barely acknowledges the clear disparity in the mc’s words and actions, it’s really hard to overlook as the player, and as I said, it kinda changes the tone of the whole game.

You see, during the course of the story the mc ends up establishing a whole bunch of social links: Ryuji, Yusuke, Mishima and even Sojiro are but few of the guys you end up making heartfelt bonds with too. Only problem is, once you go the Lie Route with the girls, the mc hardly comes across as any more honest with the guys – and this is what really puts a spin on his reliability. Everyone’s always going on about what a great guy he is, but none of them know what a quadruple-timing, lying asshole he is at the same time. And why would they? All he does is tell people what they want to hear!

Apparently the devs of Dream Daddy wanted to challenge the notion that this kind of behaviour automatically leads to “good endings” in visual novels, because it only makes the mc seem a little sociopathic. Sure enough, that’s exactly the word I would use to describe how my mc started to come across in all his social interactions in P5. Well, not all, actually; there was one character whose exchanges with the mc came across as genuine even when virtually nothing else did. Yeah, you guessed it: Akechi.

I’m taking a brief interlude here to talk about Akechi, because my social experiment with the mc’s romances actually ended up underlining how similar he and Akechi are as people. It’s what the game hints at continuously with the whole ~two sides of the same coin stuff anyway, but the point really gets hammered home when you repeatedly watch the mc fake his way through life just like Akechi puts on his own double persona (pun not intended). In that sense, it’s only natural that the two would recognize each other as equals, and that their interactions ring more sincere than any other discussion they have in the game.

But back to serial dating, if you will. After Chihaya, I started dating Hifumi the shogi girl, but to be completely honest I sort of mentally fazed her out; with every new girl I tricked into dating me, the initial unease seemed to diminish until I couldn’t remember what had made me feel so disgusted in the first place. I mean, I was already lying to so many people, what did it matter if I lied to one more, right? It’s not like I actually hung out with anyone ever again after I “entered a relationship” with them, and it’s not like my actions carried over to pre-scripted cutscenes, so who cares, right? Nobody (well, apart from a physical game engine) was forcing these girls to believe my bullshit, so really, the fault was theirs for being so gullible, right!!11

…Well, I might have been able to go along with that type of douchebag logic if I’d only kept dating randos. Since I skipped Makoto, the next girl I got cozy with was Futaba… and this is where the skeezy-ville started to nag on my consciousness again, because like with Ann, you know that Futaba’s been through A Lot: she basically spent the past couple of years as a hikikomori, convinced that her mother committed suicide because of her. Trust is a really big thing for her, so throwing a cheating mc into that equation gets really ugly when you think about how he gains that trust just to betray it. When you add in Sojiro, you’re essentially screwing both of them over while pretending to be a happy little family. If you take these events at face value, it kinda makes you wonder: seriously dude, what on earth is your damage?!

If that wasn’t disturbing enough, we finish with Haru. She is also running from one abuser but, if dating a cheating mc, kind of ends up in the arms of another. Although she enters the story fairly late in the game, it’s no less shitty to listen to her be so grateful for your “support”, knowing you’ve sat through variations of this scene with half a dozen other girls already. I just kind of kept staring at the mc’s poker face (pun not intended, again) while wondering how much worse it seems that none of these choices affect anything tangible in the game, even when the whole theme is helping other people (and shitty authority figures, sure, but mainly helping people).

And you know, it’s really that endless poker face that gives the whole thing such a weird ass vibe: this is a 17-year-old kid who’s moved to Tokyo for a year, and ends up constructing a meticulously crafted fake personality that has everyone treating him like the greatest guy on earth. If you perceive this as the intended story (as opposed to the mismatch of a fixed script and optional gameplay choices that it actually is), Persona 5 suddenly becomes a story much darker than its original premise. Who is the real mc, and why is he doing any of this? What is his actual sense of truth and justice, if he spins it so grotesquely to suit his given situation? How troubled does he have to be for this kind of behaviour to emerge, and what caused it?

I know getting busted on Valentine’s Day is played mainly for laughs, but when you put all this together it’s obvious just getting dumped doesn’t even begin to cover the actual consequences of the mc’s actions should have. For the 100% fake personality he’s clearly constructed up until this point, how anyone can still follow him into the depths of Mementos is beyond me. But hey, I know we’re not operating on earth logic here.

Still, as I mentioned, this levels the mc with Akechi a lot – suddenly it’s very hard to condemn Akechi, even in theory, for the route he ended up taking in life, because isn’t the mc basically doing the same thing? Taking advantage of as many people he can to advance his own ends, with the only difference that he ended up on the winning side? Not only that, but it makes it harder to root for the “good guys”, knowing that you’re not a good guy – you’re just some guy with a big enough charm stat to make people follow your fake ideals, whatever those might in reality be.

Personally, I was also surprised at how easy it was to go from “this is horrible I hate this I can’t lie to these girls” to the “eh whatever, I’ve done this long enough that I’ve distanced myself from giving a shit”, then back to “oh shit oh shit this is so wrong” over the course of a single game. I know this sounds like a hyperbole, but in that sense I’m… actually not that surprised at how people find themselves ignoring those same patterns in real life. Which is why it’s so disheartening there’s only one scene dedicated to the consequences; it would be so interesting if there was something more tangible to remind the player that yeah, you’re entitled to picking these options, but it does turn the mc into someone pretty damn messed up.

I mean, damn – by December I’d maxed out all my social links, and suddenly had shit all to do, and because I couldn’t sit through a single fake date with one of my fake ass girlfriends again, I ended up making my mc train every day and night just so I had something to occupy my time between going out and murdering things in Mementos and/or a palace. Watching him do shirtless pull-ups in his room I sorta realized: Oh my god, I turned my mc into a high school version of Patrick Bateman. This game sure took a turn.

So I suppose the point of this story time is that while dating anyone in P5 (and most Persona games, I’d assume) is ultimately only a gameplay element meant for the player’s extra entertainment, sometimes those seemingly superfluous gameplay elements can turn into unintentional story elements – in this case, an experiment of how easily lying to one person turns into lying to everyone, and how sometimes it’s not that easy to tell at what point you stop being genuine at all. Wow, them video games, huh? Always a source of profound inspiration.... or something.

[12redsky34]

Confused

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

FanFiction.net - This story

Hey guys! This is my first attempt at a mini-fic, but I hope I'm not too bad at it. It's been ages since I posted my first oneshot Cotton Candy (like three years or something… totally go check it out and see how terrible my writing was back then lol. Those of you reading this on tumblr will need to go to my fanfiction profile as it hasn’t been posted here unfortunately, nor do I plan on doing so) and this is kinda meant as a sort of continuation from that. I tried to make it so you don't have to read it to understand what's going on though. I think I used enough information that you, the readers, can fill in the blanks yourself if you so desire.

I'm planning on making this a two-shot, though if this gets enough support and enough people want it, I may add a third bonus chapter that will basically be all smut. You guys gotta leave them delicious reviews though! I always love seeing them!

I also feel I should thank @loadedeel for her all-knowing, wisdomous ways and giving me a fairly good idea how to get this thing going. After you're done here, if you haven't already read her fics, I think we would both like it if you checked out her profile and read some/all (preferably all) of her stories. They are truly magic in writing.

Anyway, enough from me. On to the fic!

Lucy was confused.

And not the kind of confused where a bit of research with a pair of gale-force reading glasses would solve all her problems, nor was it the kind that was one of those meaningless little questions that no one knew a definite answer to and a nice hot bath would wash all the questions away.

No, it was the kind of confusion where apparently no amount of research could give her a straight and/or reliable answer (she totally didn't do too much of it already) and it was far too important to her that a bath would make her forget about it.

What's the dilemma, you may ask? Lucy wasn't sure she really knew herself. Ever since the Alvarez Empire fell and things had settled down, especially after her novel had been published and awarded, she had noticed some changes in her partner and best friend.

Not the kind of changes that made him a completely different person. It was subtle little things. Well, that kiss he gave her at the last fair the guild went to (and almost destroyed, of course. Wasn't a Fairy Tail outing without a little destruction) was far from small in her opinion, but it had only happened once so far, and it was part of what was making her so confused.

But everything else was almost so unnoticeable that Lucy was afraid she was reading into things way too hard. Natsu still brawled almost every day with Gray or whoever else decided to tease or insult him, he still ate twice his weight in food, he still seemed to enjoy invading her fridge and sneaking into her bed when she wasn't looking and he still rifled through her drawers even though she had told him countless times to leave her belongings alone.

The subtle changes were in the way he sometimes behaved, mostly. Even before her award ceremony, she had noticed him mellow out ever so slightly. He seemed less restless, in a way, less eager to constantly be out on a job or searching for Igneel or trying to steal an S-class mission to occupy his time with. She didn't know what had prompted this change, but being able to relax a bit after all that had happened came as a blessing to her, and she welcomed it with open arms. She still needed to go on jobs for rent and grocery money, of course, but that was about it.

They also started having very peaceful, quiet moments together when Happy was out trying to win Carla's heart (she was only fooling herself turning away from the blue Exceed nowadays, literally everyone knew she liked him too) where Lucy would either be jotting down ideas for her next novel or reading a book curled up in bed, and Natsu would be there lounging on her bed or couch or sitting on the floor playing with his scarf or a little ball of his fire (she partnered a warning glare with promises that she would make him pay for any damage he caused to help ensure he wouldn't burn down the apartment building). These moments were calm and natural, and not nearly as weird or awkward as Lucy thought they should be.

The thing she was most confused about and afraid of reading into was how Natsu seemed to be touching her more often. And in the most innocent ways, mostly from how he would throw an arm around her shoulders or how he would grab her wrist when he wanted her to see something, or how he would lean against her whenever he was in a food coma from eating too much too fast. They always made physical contact like that, and was often teased for it, but recently it seemed like there was… More, somehow. More contact, more emotion, more… Everything. That wasn't even considering the kiss. She didn't feel like touching that right now.

Lucy didn't know what to make of it.

A part of her wanted to panic over her apparent findings, that perhaps Natsu liked her as more than a friend and was interested in her romantically, but she couldn't deny that she wanted a life with him at her side. Ever since they had met, he had burrowed his way into her life and stubbornly sat in the middle of it, refusing to go anywhere. And over time, she stopped disliking the idea of that. She couldn't imagine what it would be like without being able to see his stupid grin or his fiery, onyx eyes or his adorable pout when he was denied something he wanted. He was such a child in some ways, but at the same time, he was more mature than many other people she had known. He fought dark guilds for a living and pretty much had to grow up on his own without any blood parents or even Igneel to guide him as he matured, other than his friends at the guild. Though, knowing some of the more perverted members, she doubted they were a huge help.

Still, he was unique, and not what Lucy thought she wanted in a man, but she found she didn't mind. She always knew life wasn't a fairy tale, and after joining the guild, she came to learn that almost anything was possible with them. She was sure finding an unexpected love of her life was something they could manage. Well, it was something they had managed at that point, now that she thought about it.

"-u-chan..? Lu?"

But even with all this, she didn't know what to do! Natsu hadn't asked her out, nor had he kissed her again, which was the most worrying thing for her. Had he kissed her at the fair just to steal the cotton candy from her? Was it all just an elaborate prank? If he was interested in her, then surely he would have made another move… Right?

"Lucy!" Levy shouted, and the blonde jumped in her seat.

"S-Sorry Lev, what were you saying?" She apologised, smiling sheepishly at her blue-haired friend.

"You weren't listening to me at all, were you?" The Solid Script Mage commented dryly, a thin eyebrow raised in amusement.

"Uh…"

"Didn't think so." Levy giggled. "What were you thinking so hard about? It's like you weren't even here."

Lucy chuckled nervously. Knowing how overexcited her friends got as soon as they caught wind of something even remotely romantic happening between someone in the guild, she was hesitant to say what was really on her mind.

"Oh, nothing… Just thinking about a book I read last night." She replied. Levy narrowed her eyes at the blonde and she knew she had not been convincing whatsoever.

"You know you're a terrible liar, right Lu? Come on, tell me what's going on!" She pressed, leaning closer with wide eyes.

"Okay, okay fine…" Lucy relented. Knowing how the guild was, they would figure something out anyway. To be honest, she would rather they know what the actual problem was rather than make their own wildly incorrect assumptions. That always led to disaster. "It's… It's about Natsu…" She admitted, blushing. Levy gasped.

"Did he ask you out? Did you say yes?!" She almost screamed, and Lucy hurriedly shushed her, looking around to make sure nobody in the guild heard. Thankfully everyone seemed busy drinking, laughing or brawling.

"No, nothing like that…" She began, wondering how she should explain what the matter was to her best friend. She was normally so fluent with words that she rarely had any problems articulating herself, but the whole situation was complicated enough that she didn't even know where to begin. "It's just… I guess he's been acting… Different? Or something like that? I don't really know and I'm pretty sure I'm just reading into it too much-"

"No no, tell me what you think is different." Levy cut her off, and the blonde blinked. There was a glint in her friend's eyes she couldn't identify, and she seemed a little too eager to hear about her dilemma for it to be normal… Though she just chalked it up as the kind of Fairy Tail enthusiasm she expected anyway.

"Okay… Well, he seems less energetic than usual. He still fights and eats a lot and jokes around but he hasn't been dragging me on some job every other day - and it actually seems like I have to drag him on one sometimes - and we've been having really quiet periods where we hang out and do our own thing and just spend time together without anything crazy going on risking our lives, and… It feels unusual but also natural somehow. It's weird. I'm probably just being weird. I'm being weird, aren't I?"

"No, I think it's great!" Levy squealed. "It's so cute you two are having some quiet time together. Is there anything else bothering you?" Lucy flushed, remembering what was bothering her more than anything else.

"U-Uhm, well… You remember that fair we went to after my award ceremony?" Lucy began hesitantly.

"Lu… What happened that you didn't tell me about?" Levy narrowed her eyes accusingly at her best friend. The blonde squirmed in her seat and blushed harder.

"You remember when I said he stole a bag of cotton candy from me and I had to watch him for the rest of the day to make sure he didn't become a sugar rush monster or something?" She refused to meet Levy's eyes but saw her nod from her peripherals. "Well, to get the bag from me, he um, well… He may have kissed me?" Her voice cracked at the memory of the Dragon Slayer's warm, slightly chapped lips moving against hers, effectively rendering her mind blank at just the thought of it.

Levy squealed loudly, earning some glances their way but nothing more. Lucy had to shush her again.

"Levy, not so loud…" She complained.

"Sorry, sorry it's just… I'm so excited for you! Why didn't you tell me sooner?!"

"Because I-I thought he just wanted to get the cotton candy from me and it was just one of his stupid methods of getting his way and he hasn't made any other moves to kiss me or ask me out or anything since!" Lucy rushed out, realising she was more upset about the situation than she thought as she finally found the words to voice why she was confused. "I thought maybe he might be interested in me as more than friends, but… I don't know what to think anymore." She added slowly, lower lip wobbling slightly. Was she seriously about to cry over Natsu of all people?

"Oh, Lu, I'm sorry. I didn't realise that you were upset about that…" Levy apologised, trying to think of anything to say that would prevent her friend from crying. Including herself, there were many in the guild who would be all over the place looking for the reason behind her tears and vowing relentless retribution to any potential unlucky person stupid enough for making one of their favourite members cry. "Maybe he does like you but he doesn't know what to do about it? We all know he's oblivious to that kind of stuff…"

"Yeah, but… He's never kissed anyone before as far as I know and surely he'd know better… Right?" Lucy protested weakly. She didn't know what to believe at this point. She knew better than anyone that Natsu would do anything to get whatever he set his mind to. Maybe he just thought it was a good idea at the time. Maybe he would kiss anyone if he thought it would get him what he wanted. The thought only served to make her more upset. Now Lucy really wanted to curl up at home with a big bucket of ice cream and not think about this anymore. Anything to erase the image of the rose-haired male kissing someone other than her, and as possessive and selfish as it sounded, she didn't care.

"Whatever you're thinking, stop it right now." Levy snapped suddenly, and Lucy blinked. She didn't notice that a couple tears had escaped her control, and she hurriedly wiped them away with a sleeve. Thankfully she had donned a pair of the long detached ones she liked to wear occasionally. "Look, I've more or less known Natsu since he was a kid, and he wouldn't just kiss someone randomly like that. Even if he doesn't like you the way you want him to, he definitely did it because he's only comfortable enough around you specifically to pull stunts like that. I've never seen him as close as anyone else than he has been with you."

"I guess…" Lucy agreed, albeit hesitantly.

"And anyway, maybe Natsu's in the same boat as you."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Think about it. If he kissed you, hoping to figure out if you were interested in him or not from your reaction, then if you didn't make any moves afterward, maybe he doesn't know what to do either. Maybe he's just as confused as you are."

Huh. Lucy didn't think about it like that. There was still one thing bothering her about that though.

"But he's so confident… Why would asking me out be any different?"

"Who knows." Levy shrugged, shaking her head. "Whatever he's thinking, Lucy… You mean a lot to him." The smaller Mage placed her hand over Lucy's, giving her a reassuring smile. "I'm sure that whatever his reasons are for not acting further, his main driving force is to avoid hurting you or making you upset and risk losing you."

"He's such an idiot…" Lucy sniffled, letting out a breathy giggle, though she wasn't quite sure what was funny. "As if he'd lose me that easily. We've been through too much."

"Exactly." Levy grinned approvingly. "Now how about you go home and relax for a bit? Maybe read that book I recommended for you?" She suggested.

"That sounds great, Levy." Lucy smiled gratefully. "Thank you." The bluenette nodded with her own smile and watched as Lucy waved and announced she was going home in her usual fashion.

Levy sat at the table for a while until a few minutes had passed before standing up to search for a certain Fire Dragon Slayer who she had seen walk in as they were talking.

She had some scolding to do and some advice to give.

[kyanve]

Weird Representation Nostalgia

Okay, somewhat embarrassing personal “why representation matters” from someone who has since figured things out as demi/gray-spec-pan/idefk I’m not here to argue which terms I’d use are valid or best suited.

I grew up in a Christian household that was more moderate when I was younger, but still kinda leaned conservative, and while there were a lot of things they were open minded on, there were still some problems.  My parents would outright verbally fight toy store employees trying to “correct” me buying “boy toys”, I learned D&D at like, six, I was technically encouraged to read up on/learn about things including other religions and all even though it was always couched in a “so you can learn to think/choose for yourself and see why the clear choice is Christianity”....that last one backfired but it’s a story for another time.

They did, and still do, buy into the idea that homosexuality and non-blatantly-obvious-intersex-condition transgender is some kind of weird sin against god, fall for a lot of dumb slippery slope things/”it’s perversions and people being perverted”, etc..  

(I MAY end up coming out to one of them before the summer’s out, but hahaha between them and living in rural Arizona I am definitely in the closet offline.)  

My first exposure to homosexuality outside of church rhetoric was Mercedes Lackey and the Mage Wars/Heralds/etc. series.  (I also was encouraged to learn to read young and to sit there with novels and dictionaries as soon as I was stubborn enough to try.  That also probably backfired, honestly, considering, well, this story.)  

I actually did come out of those books thinking about it, and sitting there pondering the disjoint between Vanyel and Firesong and all that and the rhetoric I was raised with, and how the rhetoric I was raised with was kinda cartoon-villain-ish and “Oh, this is a thing, these are people that happen to be attracted to/involved with other people same-gender but otherwise have relationships like anyone else” made a shit-ton more sense.

I haven’t read them in years, I have no idea how well they hold up as representation goes, but damned if those books didn’t actually pretty well help before I had any good resources on making me question and reject the Church Rhetoric “well be polite and kind to them but NEVER CONDONE THEIR SIN THEY CHOSE TO DO AND IT’S AN AWFUL AWFUL THING YOU SHOULD TRY TO CONVINCE THEM TO GIVE UP ON AND COME TO JESUS”, long before I hit high school/college and, well.

Ended up in situations where not fitting in with the local Baptist idea of “good Christians” meant that even though I was still at that point Christian, I was ostracized and attacked as “clearly a Satanist”, and my best, most reliable friends and the people who had my back were a bunch of neopagans, LGBT, atheists, and an ACTUAL Satanist.  A set of stupid fantasy books were what taught me to just not bat an eyelid and go “oh, okay, people, not creepy pervert sinner abominations” at my bi roommate and the lesbian down the hall who used to poke her head in to check how I was doing when shit wasn’t going well.   

Aaand also meant that when I realized I was, while usually disinterested, just as okay with the idea of going out with a girl as a guy etc., there was a LOT less freaking out than there probably would’ve been without the Gryphons And Talking White Horses being a thing from a fairly young age giving me a less screwed up frame of reference to start from when I DID start finding actual resources and meeting other LGBTQA people.  

I give a lot of credit to Valdemar/Mage Wars because there just.  Wasn’t much else.  Like seriously for a lot of my life that was the only thing I read and watched and could find that addressed the issue at all that wasn’t pastors talking up hellfire and damnation about it.  I honestly am glad that it was as big a part of my childhood as it was and had the impact it did because it HELPED, even if it was only one thing.

And this is why I will be deliriously happy to see things like not only “where was this fictional female character when I was 10″ (I’ve teared up watching Adventure Time b/c Princess Bubblegum alone would’ve done WONDERS for my childhood complex about ‘pink and feminine’ being the ENEMY and that’s not getting into things like ATLA and Steven Universe), but also anything in fiction that addresses LGBTQA and other ethnic groups as PEOPLE.

It makes it a hell of a lot easier for kids who ARE growing up with restrictive/prejudiced ideologies to start seeing the minorities as PEOPLE rather than weird caricatures, it makes it a hell of a lot easier for kids figuring out who and what they are to see THEMSELVES as people and not freak out about it as bad, and it makes it a whole lot easier for people who grew up in those places to finally meet a real person in the minority category and maybe see Person Like Beloved Fictional Childhood Character rather than “Weird Demonized Monster”.