I've just gotten caught up on the web fic The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, and it's really good!
To a first-order approximation, it's a locked-room murder mystery, set in a far-future science-fantasy world, where the "locked room" is an undersea facility where a creepy secret society of techno-wizards are conducting research on radical life extension.
More accurately, it's . . . a mystery story, in every possible sense.
Genre mysteries invite a certain kind of attentive reading, a certain skeptical-verging-on-paranoid scrutiny. And in this book, everything -- the setting, the backstory, the narrative voice -- invites, demands, and rewards the same scrutiny.
It's pretty slow-paced, but in an effective way. It creeps up on you, insidiously. It shows you unfamiliar things, waits until you've started to take those things for granted, and only then does it pounce on you, asking -- "wait, so what the hell was that all about, anyway?"
(I've bounced off into several of the most popular web fics because they're so damn wordy, so take it from me -- this one has a lot of words, but I never felt like it was wasting my time.
I did have to push myself a bit to get through the first few arcs, though. IIRC, the story really starts to get interesting somewhere around the "Profane Ambition" chapters, and by "The Chosen Children" I was hooked.)
honestly missionaries are evil. the idea of traveling the world to tell people Who Didnt Fucking Ask that their beliefs are wrong in the hopes that theyll adopt your beliefs seems sinister
I get where you’re coing from, and for the most part I agree, but not all missionaries are like that.
My parents were missionaries in wartorn Zaire, or Congo, as it’s known today.
They never spread the gospel or forced their beliefs on anyone. Instead they ran a school, allowing their students an education and their teachers a paying job. They learned swahili to fit into the the culture better. They helped out at the local hospital and my dad eventually went there a second time to help build a new hospital.
As an atheist, I’m not a big fan of missionaries, but I’m proud of what my parents did. I don’t share their beliefs or convictions, and there’s plenty of smaller details about their lives I could criticize and cast doubt on, but overall I’m proud of them.
They were young newlyweds who travelled to a foreign country and actually helped in a real tangible way, expecting nothing in return. If religion is what made them do that, then so be it.
And my parents don’t hold a candle to this other lady we knew, who did this kind of work until she was in her ninties! We would send her money and she’d send letters back documenting how every single penny was distributed to someone in need. The locals had to go make sure she ate because she’d literally give her food to the poor if they didn’t keep an eye on her.
Some people are assholes. Other people are heroes. I’m not sure if religion makes you one way or the other, because I’ve seen both sides.
Dad had to change jobs after losing his last one, so we won’t be getting support money until maybe three weeks. Until then, we have 30¥(including emergency funds) at best which is basically less than 30 cents. We had to have an acquaintance go out of his way to lend me enough money to buy lunch and believe me when I say it’s really humiliating.
Please please please consider donating to our Paypal or even supporting our Patreon so we can at least eat!
lord most of the stuff on there is old and, well… embarrassing. I opted not to delete the old stuff cause I already lost a lot of progress to various depressive episodes over the years. Need to keep it all to show how far we’ve come along. Oh, and there’s some stuff there from before Zet and many other oc-sourced alters became who they are today
https://www.deviantart.com/akatsuki-zombie
go check it out and mind the secondhand embarrassment from the weird ocs(who never became alters)
My experiences meeting a system for the first time
So I recently had the pleasure of hanging with @the-chroma-system in real life for the first time since getting to know them. In fact it was my first time meeting a dissociative system since learning about them. To summarize; it was a wonderful experience and I’m looking forward to next time we get to hang out ^^
While I didn’t get to meet every alter or give everyone hugs like I’d planned I still got to meet a lot, so here are my notes:
First alter I met was Weiss, the host, and she was just as nice and friendly as she appears online. Although the initial meeting was a bit awkward, as I assume internet friends meeting irl for the first time are :P
Later that evening me and Weiss were walking down a street when she suddenly went very silent. I assumed it was more awkwardness, but it turned out to be Freya wanting to say hello. I felt really bad for not noticing u_u
Freya wanted to show me a crepe place but couldn’t remember where it was, so Kai took over, which was immediately obvious. He walked twice as fast and communicated wordlessly with flat stares and head nods. Like a silent homing missile. We ate some crepes and bubble tea, but I never got to give him his hug... Oh well.
Zetsumei was really obvious every time she poked her head up, mostly due to her vice and distinct sense of humor. She threw a cheesecake at me. Several times. Other than that, not as bad as I feared :P
Mina wasn’t really that obvious when she was fronting, but very obvious in her sense of style. Looking at Chroma in the morning it was really obvious if Mina had dressed them or not. Met her a few times but she always bailed before breakfast.
Tyfia came out to eat ramen at one point and was one of the harder ones to catch onto, but very nice. A good snake lady :)
Lithrium was very obvious, even if Weiss hadn’t announced her well ahead of time. She was very nice to talk to, though the topic wasn’t the most pleasant. At first she seemed very quiet and stoic, like Kai, but once she started talking it was clear she had a lot on her mind.
Koishi was a pleasure to be around, a noticable airhead :P She was extremely easy to distract and had no sense of direction, or in the very least didn’t seem to care where we were going. Her tactic for playing breath of the wild was whimsical and spontaneous and she was one of the more huggy alters ^^
Salem, surprisingly, did show up one day and she was in a bad mood, but honestly she seemed chill. Obviously no hugs were exchanged. She apparently joined Kai at one point to influence Weiss into entering a bakery :P
Zero was just a real pleasure to be around. She showed up every time we drank alcohol and was just the nicest most down to earth alter in the system. Drinking with Zero was as fun as seeing Weiss take back over afterwards XP
Vague came out to eat ramen and we shared a cofront hug which technically counts. He’d probably be more talkative if he wasn’t focusing on eating his ramen, a feat made doubly difficult when cofronting with Paka :P
Speaking of Paka, no alter was more obvious in influencing Weiss XD. I still remember the flat look on Weiss face after piling her plate with food and then being asked if, just maybe, Paka was nearby XP. Paka was really nice, though I could tell she was in a teenager phase. I liked hanging with her even if she did stomp on my foot when I teased her. She could also really scream during karaoke, like WOW o_o
Speaking of karaoke, Me and Damon are the new backstreet boys. I don’t know why or how but we’re just really good at singing backstreet boys :I Other than that Damon came out to talk about his music and he poked me a lot for no reason, though Weiss did so too.
Gwenevere, Ikana and Satori all showed up during karaoke as well and sund some beautiful songs :) It’s a shame I didn’t get to talk with them more, but I understand that they couldn’t all get time at the front. At least I heard them all sing and got to give out hugs.
The big star of karaoke, though. The one who had the technique to sing Lady Gaga like a boss. That was Ghirahim. It was so fucking good and he was having a fucking blast XD. Between him and Paka it’s a miracle Chroma’s voice wasn’t wrecked the day after.
Azura was not too obvious to me other than that I expected her to show up when she did. She’s probably the one alter I met who I’ve spoken to the least before, but we ended up spending quite some time together. Most of that time was very emotional as we were visiting her home, the fushimi inari shrine, and though she was welcomed by the gods there her siblings had since passed on u_u. After we got back she brightened somewhat and was a very elegant and warm person.
The littles of the system (Chara/Frisk, Glitch, Shrii, Levi, Polaris, Umbra and Sasha) didn’t front much, but they joined me and Koishi at the front on a trip to Nara to see the deer there. According to Koishi and Zero they had a great time and Levi even woke up for it :) Shrii was the only one who came out to front towards the end though. We ate ice cream and took the train home listening to music together. Surprisingly, Shrii also joined in on karaoke and sung a Disney song ^^. I was surprised since she’s such a shy and soft spoken kid.
Mauli was the absolute cuddliest alter I met. I knew it was going to be strange, seeing Chroma starting to act like a cat, but she was just absolutely precious~ I was surprised by her accent and tone of voice though. Weiss said she can’t place the accent, but I feel like it sounded eastern European :0 In any case, mauli loves back rubs but she also gives great ones in return, 10/10 would pet again~
Yulie didn’t show up much outside of karaoke, which I honestly thought was a bit sad u_u. I consider her one of my best friends in the system so I would have loved the opportunity to hang out a bit more. She did come out for a short while at my request though, and we sorted out some things that had been bothering me about her shipping tendencies regarding me. She was nice :)
The last alter I met was Phobia, a surprise appearance. She showed up, revealed the secrets of her tendrils to me (totally grossing Weiss out in the process) and attempted to... seduce me? I’m not sure what her plans were but I have never seen Weiss shut another alter down that fast before :P Phobia had a really distinct body language, especially her posture and the way she fluidly moved her fingers, as if she was weaving a spell or caressing the air.
Honorable mention goes to Naraku, who was probably there almost the entire time but never said hello. I’m not really sure if he has anything against me or not but an acknowledgment would’ve been nice :0
Another honorable mention is Lavender Pearl, who I never met but she had been fronting one morning before I came over. Apparently she was too shy to stay around for me. It’s a shame I didn’t get to say hi, but I wouldn’t want to force her, of course :)
So for those counting that’s a total of 31 alters either met or cofronting around me, leaving me at roughly 37% of the alters met and one fourth hugged ^^.
I was nervous at first, but systems really are like getting several friends at the price of one ^^. Looking forward to seeing @the-chroma-system again and my other system friends too :)
