Took a late night walk around 2:30 AM to try and keep my oddball shift's sleep schedule intact. I work 9 PM to 5:30 AM, assuming no OT, and I actually prefer the shift much to the surprise of all of my coworkers who hate seeing the sun rise before getting home.

Went to explore the memorial of a supposed landing site for the Vikings where basically a rich guy in the 1850s/60s trying to add historical significance to Boston decided he found the remnants of an ancient/legendary Viking city. He built a monument to it, and then they dismissed him as a loon. Today, there's more evidence that it may have been possible, but nothing definitive and much of the evidence for it appears to be inconclusive or outright forged. Wikipedia actually doesn't go into as much detail as this podcast I listened to about a month ago here.

Anyway, this place is both walkable for me now and very close to where I was living my depression was probably at it's worst, fun! I got a little lost on purpose and found a nice little spot, probably used for fishing, along the Charles that was so incredibly serene, and so incredibly close to my dorm at Brandeis where I was going through it. Having this place to sit at and decompress would have been helpful, it was maybe a 5 minute walk from my old dorm. Cue self-criticism because I could have done better by myself, cue flashback to my ex telling me I should spend more time exploring Waltham rather than immediately skipping town to be with them at every opportunity. Yknow, downward spiraling just like the good ol' times. Thankfully much less severe than before because there was no deadlines looming.

And then I had the realization that, in the state I was in, I couldn't have appreciated finding this spot then like I was appreciating it right now. I wasn't going to make the most of my time doing anything then and I probably would have rushed back home anyway to procrastinate. I was too stressed tf out about potentially losing my scolarship n shit. Maybe it would have helped, but also, and perhaps more importantly, I owe nothing to my past self. Fuck that loser.

And then, having successfully thwarted my inner demons, I went to the tower to do some lighthearted trespassing for good measure. I realized that it being open dusk till dawn wasn't just to avoid vandalism and shit. The view is not good at 4 AM. This story is worse now that I haven't ended it with comedic self-flagellation.

Lying in bed, the meds not knocking me out only making me a little sleepy and thinking.

What do i want out of my writing?
I enjoy the process, always have. But for my latest things I'm intentionally not doing to much editing or fixes once it's done. Some of them could be longer, some shorter. Some could use better word choices or clean up. But why?
In the end I'm writing for myself and don't know how much anyone else actually reads. Is it just to flesh out a character? As something to do? There isn't an end purpose and I don't have to have one.
Writing for muse to share her story i guess. It helps to just put thoughts and ideas to page.
I'm just rambling i guess.

I went to see it tonight. I'd never seen it or even heard all of the music before, so I wasn't fully sure what to expect, other than a general familiarity with the original myth and various retellings.

Turns out it's absolutely gorgeous and a work of art in every way (as retellings of Orpheus and Eurydice should be) and I cried, and I hoped so badly that it might somehow end differently, which is of course so very appropriate given the musical itself and its final note.

Another thing that struck me about it, which strikes me again and again and again as I experience other people's art and think about it (because I naturally overthink everything, it's what I do) - the setting isn't quite literal, and it isn't quite an allegory, and it isn't quite consistent, and I feel like if I wrote something with the setting like this, I would get critiqued and told that the setting needs to be one or the other. I have internalized critique so fully that I am absolutely paralyzed with insecurity about my own writing, because I know it has flaws or inconsistencies, that my settings are not airtight and my plots and characters are imperfect, and also that my style is off-putting for some people and Generally Understood Wisdom tells us that "purple prose" is an insult and we had better try to avoid it in our own work or we'll render ourselves unsellable.

Yet again and again and again, I find that other people's stories break the rules, sometimes in quite dramatic ways. There may be plot holes you could drive a star destroyer through, or character motivations that defy belief, or settings that look pretty and are all about the vibes but don't actually hold up to scrutiny. And you know what? These other stories still manage to succeed at what they do. People enjoy them, sometimes love them, despite their flaws.

I wish I could turn off the voice in my head that points out what's wrong with my own work and tells me that it needs to be fixed or the whole thing is too fundamentally broken to bother with. I've always gotten the best responses from readers when I write unabashedly in my own voice, and yet even when I throw posts like this together, I'm so insecure about my own voice that I struggle to cut all the personality and character out, instead of just letting it flow naturally and sound like me. I'm writing this after bedtime so maybe it will be more successful at sounding like me than usual.

Everything I love has flaws, but I love it despite the flaws. And these so-called flaws aren't even actually problems at all in many cases - they're simply not priorities for the creator, or necessary for this particular piece of art. I think there's value in recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of the things you love, and taking away from that ways you can grow and do better as a creator yourself, but I think I'm far too preoccupied with what's wrong with my own work. I have received so much criticism over the years that it's all I hear and all I think when I look at my own works, and as a result I am paralyzed with all of my projects.

I've recently pulled some of my writing projects out of the deep freeze, because I'm getting a little more of my brain back as my health improves, but I am so scared of working on them and so very full of doubt.

Hadestown is a gorgeous work of art. It doesn't need to have answers to every question. It doesn't need to be able to withstand the kind of critique you get in workshop groups. It holds up incredibly well as what it is, and it does everything it needs to do, and that's good enough. More than good enough. It's amazing.

I need to internalize this. I hope someday I will.

Been thinking about Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon since yesterday, and my goodness, I love this game already.

Edit: Woops, this post turned long, better title the subsections

The Music is so good

For starters, the musical score is epic. The main theme feels like a rollercoaster, such orchestration. It gives me the same vibes as the music I hear in theme parks like the Efteling, which is something I'd consider a praise of the highest standards. I felt blown back in my seat by it. There partner's leitmotif is also incredibly cute.

The writers are clearly having a TON of fun

I also adore how silly the direction of the game is. The character dynamics are fun, even if it's not up to the fabled standards of PMD:EoS. But I do think that's a tough one to live up to. I haven't played a single game, in the pokémon franchise, or even outside of it, that made me feel that emotionally attached to characters and was actually this lifechanging for me.

However, Super Mystery Dungeon is already off to a good start. The writers were clearly having fun with it and going crazy with it. And I appreciate that so much in a game. It's not a pinnacle of artistry, or the deepest, most complex, most skillfully crafted story, but whatever they were doing, they were doing it with love. I love seeing artists having fun more than anything.

The character dynamics are promising

The partner and protagonist have a fun dynamic so far. The partner has their whole dream of becoming an explorer and wanting to become an adventurer and they lean heavily on the protagonist for support. All part of the standard formula. I would have to keep playing to see how it goes. I think what I am interested in most is if Super Mystery Dungeon manages to hit the same kinds of emotional notes as EoS managed to do for me.

Gameplay is good, let's see how the balancing feels

The gameplay definitely feels like a major step up from EoS. But again, I haven't played it a whole lot yet, so I don't know how the balance will hold up in the late game, which was where EoS really dropped the ball. I think the new mechanics sprinkled on top of the classic PMD formula work well, they don't distract me, and they keep my brain occupied with every floor, where the old PMD felt like a slog of "just trying to find the dang stairs"

Also this game is gonna punch my gut emotionally I just feel it

All in all though, I am just excited about playing a game where I can be a Riolu. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon has been a very important game for me throughout my life, having helped me analyse my feelings of otherkin-ness, planting the seed in me that blossomed into my identity today. I'm only recently finally nurturing my identity as a Riolu that had been latent since I was a teenager. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, with its promise of sweeping you away from the human world to live in the world of pokémon hits all the right notes for my otherkin self.

Have I mentioned PMD was pivotal in the birth of my identity?

And here comes the big otherkin tangent of why PMD has been the eye opener for so many otherkin people including myself. How it gets every beat right of what it's like to discover your identity, parting ways with your old notions of self, and feeling happy that you're finally reaching a new state of authenticity.

As a newly transformed pokémon, you feel at first confused, preoccupied with the notion of "Wow, how do I go back? I gotta figure out what happened." and then those feelings begin to fade because you realise just how much being a pokémon feels right. Truth be told, you don't WANT to ever go back to being a human. The euphoria has finally broken free and you are your authentic self. You want to be there with your partner always, and being a Pokémon is more fitting for you than being a human ever was.

You don't just get used to it, you don't WANT to return. It's like the universe had given you a second chance to be in the body you were meant to be, and while you're going through the story, you behold all those repressed feelings head on and accept them for what they are, and you can finally find peace within yourself.

It's a whole process to do that, and it's by no means easy. It's a grieving process for both your old self, and for the new self. You have to come to terms with how much you've hurt not having been what you wanted to be for so long. It can be scary, because coming out can feel like it may hurt more, because suddenly you're standing there, acknowledging just how MUCH it scarred you, ripping up old wounds and experiencing all the emotions you've held back, but the alternative is to smother yourself, to put out the flame within your soul, to kill that which makes you undeniably a happier and more whole person. Repressing it is easy, but it's not worth it.

In summary, pokemon mystery dungeon is the most important game for me in terms of my young self discovering their otherkin feelings. I've cried many nights from the catharsis that this series provided me. Laying my feelings bare in front of me, and giving me the comfort I needed when I was in a wild and scary process of forming my identity. And I am sure I will enjoy playing the rest of Super Mystery Dungeon too, with those feelings in mind of what this series has done for me.