Paradigm Adrift

Oh no! My life and my relationship to the story got kinda stressful and weird for a bit, and I fell off posting updates here. But that's not important today, because the visual novel demo is finally out!

Thank you so much to Benedict and Zerovirus for their help with the project, and also to Xeecee, who has done some of the music! (Though only three of their tracks made it into the demo; the rest will be later.) It's been a real learning experience so far, but hopefully this is just the start! Please give it a try and let us know what you think.

And if you have no idea what this is, The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere is a slow paced mystery novel centered around a class of mages visiting an organization trying to reach immortality, originally posted on somewhat-inappropriately on Royal Road. If you like this and haven't read it... well, it's a little sloppy in comparison, but consider taking a look at it too.

I don't have a good sense of how much "over 100 major employers" covers with all the matryoshka doll shell corporations going on. Probably this didn't hit me directly very much?

Still, there might be other groups doing similar stuff. 🤷‍♀️

There's no way to win!

Comparing yourself to people who make it is depressing and comparing yourself to people who don't is depressing and thinking about yourself on your own terms is depressing and I won't even get pat on the head by a robot lady and get my shit together 10 years younger than I am right now like this fictional character does.

With people who make it, comparison can tell you what they had that you're lacking, and thereby help you fix things or at least give you more information.

With people worse off than yourself, the same comparison can tell you what assets you have that they need, and you can consciously make use of those things. It's not about gratitude or sneering. It's simple inventory. You can't possibly think of everything in the world yourself, and you can't possibly expect yourself to reinvent the wheel with every new problem. Comparison is silently asking nosy questions about what differences exist, why they exist, etc the whole who-what-when-where-why-how. It helps you learn.

Rather than thinking about yourself on your own terms in a hostilely-critical manner a la looking for weaknesses to excise, an objective assessment can help you let go of self blame for not having things you need, for not solving things earlier or faster, and help you see things you did try regardless of whether they turned out well. You wouldn't sneer at people in a worse position than yourself; there's equally no reason to sneer at your own disadvantages compared to where you want to be. Which of course does not instantaneously alter how you feel about yourself.

I think ultimately it really feels like there is a shocking lack of actual agency involved. I can swap notes with people and consider my options and work hard and all that but it doesn't actually matter. (And on top of that, as an ADHDisaster, it hardly feels like I have any influence on which interventions I do or how or how much anyway.)

Aspects of a story that are compelling are compelling because they're about something important, and everything important IRL is a least a little bit fucked up.

Wealthy entrepreneurs (He's canonically 27? Damn I'm old.) don't just fall in love with random awkward brunettes named “Anastasia”. Most people who try to throw the best talent show this town's ever seen fail to do so. When Spock says you're statistically almost certain to fail, it's hard to believe it when you don't.