Disoriented Thoughts

But. I was wondering if anyone else felt that, for what it is, it's a little...sparse? IE, I have 18 Miis at the time of posting, but since it's only day 3 and they only give a small selection of clothes per day, I don't have much to give them. And there are only 16 possible goods to unlock to give your Miis? When you can have up to 70 of them? They missed so many obvious activities too, like giving them a book to read or a doll to play with or a little mixing bowl to bake with or just...lots of other obvious hobbies or objects. And a lot of the little quirk sets only have a few things in them, so I thought there would be a ton of them to unlock, but I...pretty much got all of them in 3 days. In general I feel like I've unlocked most of the interesting things aside from stuff that needs a bigger island in 3 days, and seen most of the interaction options as well.

I would have expected such a new game that was apparently in development a long time to be more robust, options-wise it feels like a much older game to me. And I was hoping for more weird drama possibilities among residents or even more weird friendship building possibilities. But there's only like...a few friend levels to achieve? Miitopia had a LOT more relationship levels, which admittedly was also because it was the combat leveling system, but still, having a wider range of relationship labels in this kind of setting could have been fun and they could have gotten weird with it.

But eventually I realized through games like Miitopia and Fashion Dreamer that I actually can really enjoy and get addicted to those kinds of games because...I can make my novel OCs in them! And see funny AU versions of them Move Around and Do Things! The general gameplay was fun too of course, that's why I played so much Animal Crossing: New Horizons for a while even though the OC I used was just one of my Pokemon player characters rather than a story OC. But seeing my story fellas move around was a Very Large part of the appeal.

Enter Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream demo. I finally knew enough about Tomodachi Life as a whole to know it was one of those games I'd get addicted to because I like making my OCs as Miis and seeing them in action. And the demo was out, I was told it was too short and locks you out once you give them clothes, so I was like 'okay, I won't give them clothes'. 

But I didn't realize. The game would bully you into doing this if you made your third Mii. :') 

SO THEY GOT PUT INTO LOCK DOWN HELL ANYWAYS. AND THEY HAVE BEEN SUFFERING. AND I HAVE BEEN SUFFERING.  MAERUNE HAS NO ENRICHMENT AT ALL. SHEVA ONLY HAS AN ELASTIC BAND THAT HE'S USUALLY SCARED OF BUT HAS BEEN HAVING INCREASING LEVELS OF MOOD SWINGS TOWARDS. Which, I do wonder if the mood swings is from the personality sliders or from the chronic isolation.  WRAITH IS THE ONLY ONE WITH ENRICHMENT. They have maracas and a pop album and they seem to love both. But they need to see the sky again, okay. So for weeks now I have been sporadically just flopping and going 'WHEN WILL MY MIIS RETURN FROM THE WAR. WHEN CAN I FREE THEM FROM THEIR PRISONS. WHY ARE WE TORTURING THEM WITH SOLITARY CONFINEMENT.' But now it's finally almost time...we will be free...and I can finally get my guys to do more things and try more foods. xD I need to know their faves. From the demo I found Sheva's top favorite (fried egg, which really TOOK ME OUT) and Maerune's least favorite (nachos, which is also like HOW DO YOU HATE NACHOS lol) but there is still much to learn. I haven't interacted with the fandom like at all though so while I know from my sibling everyone has been suffering together, I have just been suffering in isolation exactly like my Miis lmao. So I'm very excited for the official release! If I get typing energy during my fixation on it again...I may have to make more posts about my findings. We'll have to see! I'm sure I'll have a blast with it either way though. 

does your gender identity have any relation to your romantic orientation?

Same pronouns! :O

And good question...I would generally say not in a big or overt way, but I also have more recently thought that they might interact in a more subtle way that I don't always notice.

It took me a lot longer to figure out my gender identity compared to my romantic orientation - romance for me was something I could clearly point to as something I wasn't super interested in and couldn't easily relate to. But with gender, it is far more recent that I realized I could actually...put a word to the fact that sometimes being seen as a woman or as 'feminine' or hearing she/her instead of they/them just feels deeply confusing to my brain and throws me off, even if other times I'm fine with it or even find it 'correct' feeling. It was never something that bothered me a Lot, and I sorta assumed for a while if I was 'part time cis' then I couldn't really claim to be nonbinary or genderqueer.

I always struggle with picking one singular favorite for anything lol, so I'll just go with a couple of the top things I enjoy. xD

One is of course how much being aro and exploring the aro community has given me a much greater idea of the sheer variety relationships can take, and a more detailed understanding of all the many different components that can factor into a relationship. It's fascinating to see discussions around the different kinds of things people are and are not looking for and really get a feeling for how much more nuanced things can be than the cookie-cutter box versions of 'friend' and 'lover' that you'll often see assumed in real life or portrayed in media.

And as a writer, being aro is a big motivator for developing my characters! For my aro and alloro characters alike, taking all those insights on relationship variability into account makes crafting their dynamics so much more fun. There's so much more to play with!

And superficially, I like being aro because I can see stuff like the aro flag or funny aro posts or draw my aro ocs and go 'heheheh YESSS ARO WIN!'. xD

Even though there's a lot of difficulties to being aro, I do think there is a lot of fun and value to have with it too!