First of all, so sorry for the recent silence! What happened was the school year started and a lot of my free time is applying to colleges for next year, so I have minimal control over my schedule. Also, I joined a club; yay!
I know, I know, I should take it easy more often. I've been trying to work on accepting things as they come, but that's haaard. It clashes with my personal philosophy of trying to control the outcome of anything if possible so that it's always in my favor. Architect is a good way to describe my writing; I actually wish I was more of the 'gardener' type. Whenever I have to write an essay for class, we usually use outlines, and that does make it easier to be precise and organized, but the downside is that the writing doesn't flow that well and sounds stunted. As long as I get a good grade it doesn't matter, but with fiction it does. ...I guess the reason I enjoy writing is because you can't measure how well you did with a grade. It's just for me, nobody has to read it, and that's really comforting. I do listen to relaxing music...sometimes the Shiki soundtrack, haha. Thank you! I tend to psych myself out with my own attitude, so it's good to have friends to balance me out.
I don't think you should be hard on yourself, would it work if you were motivated by rewards? Such as, 'If I do all my work for today, I can treat myself to ______'. It can be tangible, like going out to eat, or just a positive emotional reaction. You know that great feeling you get after accomplishing a hefty task? You could think of that as a reward too! Uhm...another thing that helps is making a to-do list, just to keep your ideas organized if they're all over the place. Haha, my school hands out homework planners for us every year, and at the beginning of the year I dutifully write all my assignments down and check them off as I do each one, but after a few weeks, I decide that it's too much work. Laptops are evil. You need them to do work, but they're so distracting... ;A;
Never fear, I do want to be a doctor because it's what I want. I can't pretend money isn't a factor, but I do have inspiration and a solid interest in it. You're so lucky you're already in med school, it seems so far away for me. Do you know what you want to specialize in?
I suppose I like endings that are satisfying and make you think a lot. Leave a lasting impression. For me, those are usually the sad ones. If an ending's badly written but sad, I wouldn't like it, say if everyone died just for the sake of ending the story. I like bittersweet endings that still have some hope, but something's just fundamentally changed and the characters are different people...like in Lord of the Flies (one of my absolute favorite books, btw), at the end the boys that are stranded on an island get rescued, but they now have no innocence and a cynical view of their society and human nature. In short, I like characters that drive the story. I like watching them change and react and sympathize with them. Ironically, in Shiki I guess it's Natsuno that I sympathize most with even though I don't like him. I agree that his death was more effective if it was actually a death...I'm glad the novel killed him off for real--not because I want him to die, but because it's a more satisfying conclusion. Plus, I'm excited to see Ozaki kick butt all by himself.
Even if people don't discuss suicide so easily, it's still kind of up in the air whether Takae would discuss it. She's too proper to openly talk about it I suppose, but she's shrewish and hates the temple, so she'd probably drop discreet hints. She already doesn't approve of Ozaki's friendship with Seishin, so I think it's a given that she'd imply it more towards him. I can easily imagine that's the kind of thing she'd do, and it would piss Ozaki off even more. I wonder if, at the point in the story where Sunako mentions Seishin's scar, if it were Ozaki that mentioned it what would Seishin's reaction be?
Going back to when we discussed something earlier about sometimes being able to more easily confide in strangers than close friends, I'm guessing he'd probably wave it off as not a big deal. They're already such good friends and so used to being around each other that maybe he'd think it would ruin their easy friendship if they discussed a bomb like that out of the blue. I guess, if it's a stranger you'd reveal more because you're just getting to know each other, but if you're already friends both parties just kind of assume they already know everything, and new information would feel weird. There's also the possibility that Seishin would disregard it just because he would think Ozaki wouldn't understand (buuut, seeing as Seishin himself doesn't understand, perhaps he's afraid of Ozaki making him understand, not wanting to face the truth. Well, Sunako makes him eventually).
Aww, it brings me pain thinking about Seishin and Ozaki dying. Well, if mostly everyone already died, what would it hurt to have two more kick the bucket? Out of the two, post-Shiki, I bet Ozaki would be the one trying to find Seishin and reading all his books. I can imagine him going into bookstores looking for copies and then reading it over coffee and a cigarette. (Actually, wouldn't it be interesting if he was so traumatized he stopped smoking? And the last scene in the anime is his last cigarette?) I'm sure that out of the two, Ozaki would be the one more likely to go back and look for closure on what happened. While Seishin finally discovered his true self and achieved the freedom he wanted, Ozaki has to deal with the fact that he lost (he said he lost in that last scene too, because he didn't save the village) and everything he's known in his life is now gone. Unlike Seishin, who really didn't have any ties to the village or his profession, Ozaki certainly did.
A post-Shiki fiction would be fun to collaborate on! Like a series of one-shots about Ozaki and Seishin's lives after the events of Shiki. Maybe one of them visiting the charred remains of the small mountain village... I think it would be way harder to write about Seishin than Ozaki. I have a pretty good idea about what Ozaki would be doing, but Seishin is a different story. He's a different person too, so his character prior to his Shikification doesn't stand anymore.
Re: 8D
I know, I know, I should take it easy more often. I've been trying to work on accepting things as they come, but that's haaard. It clashes with my personal philosophy of trying to control the outcome of anything if possible so that it's always in my favor. Architect is a good way to describe my writing; I actually wish I was more of the 'gardener' type. Whenever I have to write an essay for class, we usually use outlines, and that does make it easier to be precise and organized, but the downside is that the writing doesn't flow that well and sounds stunted. As long as I get a good grade it doesn't matter, but with fiction it does. ...I guess the reason I enjoy writing is because you can't measure how well you did with a grade. It's just for me, nobody has to read it, and that's really comforting. I do listen to relaxing music...sometimes the Shiki soundtrack, haha. Thank you! I tend to psych myself out with my own attitude, so it's good to have friends to balance me out.
I don't think you should be hard on yourself, would it work if you were motivated by rewards? Such as, 'If I do all my work for today, I can treat myself to ______'. It can be tangible, like going out to eat, or just a positive emotional reaction. You know that great feeling you get after accomplishing a hefty task? You could think of that as a reward too! Uhm...another thing that helps is making a to-do list, just to keep your ideas organized if they're all over the place. Haha, my school hands out homework planners for us every year, and at the beginning of the year I dutifully write all my assignments down and check them off as I do each one, but after a few weeks, I decide that it's too much work.
Laptops are evil. You need them to do work, but they're so distracting... ;A;
Never fear, I do want to be a doctor because it's what I want. I can't pretend money isn't a factor, but I do have inspiration and a solid interest in it. You're so lucky you're already in med school, it seems so far away for me. Do you know what you want to specialize in?
I suppose I like endings that are satisfying and make you think a lot. Leave a lasting impression. For me, those are usually the sad ones. If an ending's badly written but sad, I wouldn't like it, say if everyone died just for the sake of ending the story. I like bittersweet endings that still have some hope, but something's just fundamentally changed and the characters are different people...like in Lord of the Flies (one of my absolute favorite books, btw), at the end the boys that are stranded on an island get rescued, but they now have no innocence and a cynical view of their society and human nature. In short, I like characters that drive the story. I like watching them change and react and sympathize with them. Ironically, in Shiki I guess it's Natsuno that I sympathize most with even though I don't like him. I agree that his death was more effective if it was actually a death...I'm glad the novel killed him off for real--not because I want him to die, but because it's a more satisfying conclusion. Plus, I'm excited to see Ozaki kick butt all by himself.
Even if people don't discuss suicide so easily, it's still kind of up in the air whether Takae would discuss it. She's too proper to openly talk about it I suppose, but she's shrewish and hates the temple, so she'd probably drop discreet hints. She already doesn't approve of Ozaki's friendship with Seishin, so I think it's a given that she'd imply it more towards him. I can easily imagine that's the kind of thing she'd do, and it would piss Ozaki off even more. I wonder if, at the point in the story where Sunako mentions Seishin's scar, if it were Ozaki that mentioned it what would Seishin's reaction be?
Going back to when we discussed something earlier about sometimes being able to more easily confide in strangers than close friends, I'm guessing he'd probably wave it off as not a big deal. They're already such good friends and so used to being around each other that maybe he'd think it would ruin their easy friendship if they discussed a bomb like that out of the blue. I guess, if it's a stranger you'd reveal more because you're just getting to know each other, but if you're already friends both parties just kind of assume they already know everything, and new information would feel weird. There's also the possibility that Seishin would disregard it just because he would think Ozaki wouldn't understand (buuut, seeing as Seishin himself doesn't understand, perhaps he's afraid of Ozaki making him understand, not wanting to face the truth. Well, Sunako makes him eventually).
Aww, it brings me pain thinking about Seishin and Ozaki dying. Well, if mostly everyone already died, what would it hurt to have two more kick the bucket? Out of the two, post-Shiki, I bet Ozaki would be the one trying to find Seishin and reading all his books. I can imagine him going into bookstores looking for copies and then reading it over coffee and a cigarette. (Actually, wouldn't it be interesting if he was so traumatized he stopped smoking? And the last scene in the anime is his last cigarette?) I'm sure that out of the two, Ozaki would be the one more likely to go back and look for closure on what happened. While Seishin finally discovered his true self and achieved the freedom he wanted, Ozaki has to deal with the fact that he lost (he said he lost in that last scene too, because he didn't save the village) and everything he's known in his life is now gone. Unlike Seishin, who really didn't have any ties to the village or his profession, Ozaki certainly did.
A post-Shiki fiction would be fun to collaborate on! Like a series of one-shots about Ozaki and Seishin's lives after the events of Shiki. Maybe one of them visiting the charred remains of the small mountain village... I think it would be way harder to write about Seishin than Ozaki. I have a pretty good idea about what Ozaki would be doing, but Seishin is a different story. He's a different person too, so his character prior to his Shikification doesn't stand anymore.