imeeji_frontstage | (no subject)

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Who: future is now and maybe visitors?
Where: future is now
When: Day 138, morning

[ A young man wakes up in his bedroom. It just so happens that today, Day 138, is the date he will make his idol debut in Imeeji Idol Productions! Although it was ten years, three months, and two days since he was given a name, it is only today that he will be given an idol name!

What will that new name be? ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mm.

You know how I said I liked five members of ZRAEL...? Well, that was all the remaining members of ZRAEL, until this morning.

What a coincidence.

[Said as someone who thinks that maybe it isn't a coincidence]

A lot of people have been taken out lately.

[Which might be an argument for it being a coincidence, but—]

...X is gone too. After we had... a final fight.

Final? Isn't that generally the word you'd use to describe your last encounter with someone?

It wasn't actually the last time I spoke to him, but it was... an end of things.

Things had been tense between us, especially since we fought at my live... but, we talked and agreed to start over, get to know each other from the beginning and try to be friends. Then like twenty minutes later, after I'd told him what was going on in my memory and we argued about a lot of things, he just told me it clearly wasn't going to work out and left. So...

Argued about what?

...A bunch of things. We fought almost every time we talked, really, and a lot of it kept coming up again.

This last time... Well, I told him I'd probably killed him, before, and that I was trying to get everyone to vote wrong and get everyone else killed, and he didn't seem to think that was strange...? He told me it made sense. That my live showed that I was clearly the kind of person who'd break down under pressure and kill everyone.

Were you expecting his sympathy?

Of course not. But he wasn't upset or angry either. More like... he'd accepted that was who I am and that it wasn't going to change, and was going to deal with it.

But that's not who I am. I'd spent like a week being confused and upset about that memory because I wouldn't give up that easily. And being the kind of person who gets my friends killed rather than being able to help or protect them is exactly the thing I am trying to change.

But he doesn't get to decide that. Just as your unitmate doesn't get to decide whether or not you belong on ZRAEL.

Of course he doesn't. I know who I am and what I'm doing.

But I'm not going to be friends with someone who thinks of me that way. Which is what I told him.

So it was an agreed upon irreconcilable difference of opinions. Wrapped up in an argument.

...

[shakes her head]

It wasn't that simple or clean. He insisted that wasn't actually what he meant, and I explained a lot of my thoughts, and asked him how he approached things, and it seemed like maybe we were making progress. But he still kept saying other things that sounded like he didn't understand me at all, and didn't really care to learn...

Eventually, he asked me what I was doing to change, and I told him some things, and he thought they all sounded good. But then I asked him what he was doing to show me he did care, and that he didn't think of me that way... and that's when he just told me it wasn't going to work.

You realize he's an idiot, right? He thought it was hot I lost my arm.

[An over-exaggeration, but also not]

And now look what you're expecting him to be able to parse.

[A bit of a sigh]

Are you not seeing the common thread between all of the things that are upsetting you?

[An unreadable expression crosses her face at the arm comment.]

I wasn't "expecting him to parse" anything. I know he's an idiot, and we've had ten different arguments before where he didn't understand what my problem was and thought I was just picking a fight for no reason or because I didn't like anything he did. So this time I told him exactly what my problem was and what I needed from him. But he either didn't believe me or didn't want to give it to me.

Obviously I see the common threads. I just don't think it's an unreasonable expectation for people who supposedly care about me to listen to what I tell them, want to know what's important to me, and be concerned when I'm upset instead of annoyed.

So he didn't met your expectations. Neither did Doodleman. Fine. Whatever. But this seems to happen frequently to you.

You can't change other people. People who failed to meet your expectations before aren't going to magically do so the second time. So what can you change to have it stop affecting you so much.

Unless you constantly like feeling like this, which I sincerely doubt you do.

I don't. I hate it.

I'm not trying to change them, though. And I'm not just coming up with random expectations. With Doodleman, he told me what the unit was like. With X, he said he wanted to try again, to put in the effort to do things differently and get to know me for real.

When someone tells me something like that, I want to believe them. Because that's... what I want.

I didn't say you were trying to change anyone. Nor did I say your expectations were random. They've been consistent. And you're not shy about spelling them out.

And regardless of whether you want to believe in those things, you're also setting yourself up for disappointment if you keep approaching it this way.

...Maybe. Maybe I'm just too desperate. So, people will say things like that casually, without any particular commitment... but I'll cling onto it, and then be hurt when they disappoint me without even realizing I was hoping for something.

I don't know how to stop that, though.

Make them prove their words to you specifically, not to anyone else, before you believe them.

That's a place to start.

That's exactly what I did with X. I asked him how he was going to prove what he was saying, and he just got offended and left.

I said "hoping," not "believing." I didn't believe everything about ZRAEL. I wasn't going to believe X so easily after everything.

...And I know it ends up better when things aren't... confused with words and promises. When someone proves that they're there for me by what they do, naturally, not because they're trying to live up to some kind of expectation.

But I don't know how to not get my hopes up.

[Not even sarcastic.

Okay, maybe a little sarcastic]

...

Hope sounds utterly exhausting.

...

[She sighs and leans back a little.]

It kind of is.

[There is an awkward pause while Intensity thinks and discards at least half a dozen responses.

Yeah, he's got nothing.

Picks up a card up and moves three spaces]

[Sets her hand on top of the deck and pauses again.]

At least... I also have people who have done way more than I ever could have hoped.

[When she draws the card she stares at it a moment before she moves. It's a character card that jumps her halfway across the board.]