I have spent much of my personal and professional life thinking about anime and games as potentially healing media. I engage with art partially through a clinician’s lens, and I think bibliotherapy (or any kind of media) can be profoundly healing.

That is why I have been thinking about the difference between depicting suffering and aestheticizing suffering.

(A brief disclaimer: I have not engaged deeply with Needy Streamer Overload or The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. I have mainly watched videos and followed discourse around them. Part of the reason is that my initial encounters with both works were disturbing enough that I did not want to spend significant personal time inside them.)

There’s lot of art out there. Some good, some bad, some venturing into…questionable territory. And when I learnt about them, I went to do what any good researcher does – learn more. My response to these works is therefore not simply “this is too dark for me.” Rather, I found myself disturbed by questions about what the works might be doing with suffering, dysfunction, and taboo.

Before we paint everything with the same brush, let’s look at a few varied pieces, shall we?

For me, one of my gold standards is Life Is Strange. It contains suicide, abuse, trauma, and other extremely difficult material. It also iis one of the few video games with a trigger warning in the title screen, and I believe that real psychologists were hired to help with the writing and setting.

Despite its occasionally darkness, I experience it as fundamentally oriented toward human vulnerability and care. It deals with the aftermath of death, bullying, ostracizing – serious stuff. And sometimes, as Chloe says “If this is what coping is like, I don’t want to cope.” The suffering is serious because it happens to people – and the game pulls no punches.

That does not make the work perfect. But its basic orientation matters.

Revolutionary Girl Utena is even more complicated. The relationship between Miki Kaoru and Kozue Kaoru contains clear incestuous subtext, along with obsession, jealousy, sexuality, and psychological entanglement.

Yet the direction of the work is, to me, ultimately toward liberation. The characters are not simply invited to luxuriate in their entrapment. The question is how they became trapped—and whether they can become free. Even when entangled, they seek to cut their tangled bonds – sometimes less elegantly than they would like, perhaps.

A relationship can be psychologically compelling without being good. Mutual dependency between two damaged people is not automatically profound. “They are the only people who understand each other” can describe intimacy, but it can also describe a closed system that prevents either person from healing. Pia Melody’s work on codependent relationships is an excellent resource for those who might want to go deeper.

A relationship can be emotionally profound – and sometimes positive in ways - and still need to change. Because what is growth without change?

This is where I become uneasy about Needy Streamer Overload.

Its an apparent critique (and I use the word loosely) of online attention, parasocial relationships, and the conversion of psychological distress into content is interesting. But my concern is that the game also makes a vulnerable person’s instability something the player manages, observes, and potentially optimizes.

Perhaps that complicity is intentional. You are invited into her world to play with her. But self-awareness does not automatically resolve the ethical problem. A work can criticize exploitation while still making exploitation entertaining.

The question is not only what the work says about exploitation. It is also what the player is actually invited to enjoy. I’m concerned that by gamifying some metrics, they become less real than they really are.

Of course, perhaps the reverse is true. Maybe by playing, we understand more deeply? From online discourse on the game, it appears that there are proponents of both views.

I have a similar, though different, concern about The Coffin of Andy and Leyley.

Incest is a hard boundary for me. Yes, I understand it’s all fictional J But…no. One bus to Nopeland, I’m going to Nope City, no. But my broader concern is what the work asks the audience to find compelling.

Is the destructive relationship being examined so that we can understand its costs? Or does the dysfunction itself become the primary aesthetic object? That’s where my concern lies.

I don’t think the answer is that fiction should only depict healthy relationships. That would be artistically absurd and narrow-minded in the extreme. We need stories about abuse, trauma, addiction, obsession, and destructive attachment. (like some of the ones I’ve listed here)

But I do think there is a difference (a big one!) between:

“This person is trapped. Let us understand how they became trapped, what the trap costs them, and whether freedom is possible.”

and:

“This person is trapped. Look how fascinating, intense, shocking, or aesthetically compelling the trap is.”

The first can be dark and still feel humanistic. There’s still a light somewhere. The second can be self-aware and still feel exploitative.

This matters to me because I am interested in anime and games as healing media. As I’ve said before, I don’t mean that every work must be therapeutic or have a happy ending. I mean that I am interested in whether a work leaves room for a person to become more than their damage.

Does it expand agency? Because to choose is freedom (as Victor Frankl and others have noted)

Does it distinguish intensity from health? (because powerful emotions are not always good)

Does it allow the character a future beyond the pathology? (because we should always seek to heal)

Does it invite compassion without romanticizing harm? (for compassion is perhaps the only eternal watchword)

Perhaps the distinction I am looking for is simply this:

A work can look directly at the wound frankly, steadily and perhaps more importantly – without any hint of voyeurism.

There is a difference between saying:

“This is what happened to you.”

and:

“This is what you are.” (and stay to see more!)

The works I find most valuable—whether Life Is Strange, Revolutionary Girl Utena, or other stories—can depict profound damage without making damage the final truth about a person.

That, to me, is where art can become genuinely healing.

Nintendo is the central house. Around it are a collection of powerful, semi-distinct creative houses: HAL Laboratory, Intelligent Systems, Game Freak, Monolith Soft, Retro Studios, and others. Each has its own history, leadership, specialties, institutional memory, and distinctive creative identity. Remind you of anything?

It’s company structure is based on the samurai of yore – a main house, and then the “hatamoto” (retainers) around it. Nintendo doesn’t do much 3rd party – just like the samurai didn’t hire many mercenaries. Loyalty was paramount.

And Nintendo’s genius has not merely been making great games - it has been building a structure capable of producing great games.

The Nintendo model is not “a company with departments”

The normal modern corporation tends to treat its employees as interchangeable units inside an organizational chart.

A studio is created. A studio is acquired. Reorganized and maybe closed.

The people are moved around, the IP is transferred. The corporate structure is optimized. This all makes sense. Many an MBA learns this, not without good reason.

Nintendo has historically operated differently.

It has cultivated houses.

HAL Laboratory is not simply “a developer Nintendo sometimes works with.” It has its own history and identity. Intelligent Systems is not merely a department. Game Freak is not merely a contractor. Monolith Soft is not simply a team that Nintendo purchased and absorbed into a generic Nintendo structure.

These organizations retain their own lineages. They accumulate knowledge, develop distinctive capabilities and become recognizable institutions. Maybe not as recognizable as the Big N – but HAL has Kirby, Rare has Metroid, and Game Freak has Pokemon.

The analogy to feudal Japan is not that Nintendo literally operates according to a historical Japanese feudal system. The point is structural:

A central power maintains a network of specialized, powerful, semi-distinct houses.

The central authority does not need to personally perform every function.

It needs to know which house is capable of what. Then it gives orders.

Yamauchi was the warlord

This is where Hiroshi Yamauchi becomes so interesting.

Yamauchi was not Miyamoto. He was not Yokoi. He was not the person designing the games.

His genius was recognizing exceptional people and building the conditions in which their abilities could compound.

He found the retainers and installed them into his court. The people who would build the next generation of Nintendo.

Famously, he looked at Shigeru Miyamoto’s actual wooden toys, thought a bit, nodded and then created a department for him within the week.

Yamauchi’s skill was not merely identifying talent. It was understanding that the central leader does not need to personally possess every capability in the organization. Which is basically how warlords functioned.

He needed to know:

Who is the genius? What does this person see that I don’t?

What resources do they need? How do I make sure the company captures the value of their genius without destroying it?

That is a very different skill from being a great designer. The troops fight the war – he provides the gold.

The Fire Emblem version – to take the analogy further

If Nintendo were a Fire Emblem campaign, its creative organizations would be legendary units. J

HAL Laboratory:

Ancient trusted retainer.

Intelligent Systems:

Elite specialist house with enormous accumulated institutional knowledge.

Monolith Soft:

Late-game legendary recruit with extraordinary technical capabilities.

Retro Studios:

Foreign specialist house recruited into the kingdom.

Game Freak:

An allied power whose strategic importance became almost absurdly greater than anyone could have predicted.

(late game powerup!)

And Nintendo EPD is the central royal house itself.

The important thing is that these units are not interchangeable.

They have different classes. Different skill trees, histories. Some are axe, some are sword and some are spear. (and magic etc – but I don’t want to down too deep the FE rabbit hole…no marriage here!)

Nintendo does not need every studio to make the same kind of game. In fact, it benefits from the opposite.

The power of the system is that different houses can preserve different kinds of expertise.

One studio might understand platformers. Another might understand strategy games.

Another might understand massive RPGs. Another might understand Western action-adventure design.

Another might understand Pokémon. (that’s all it needs!)

The central organization can then deploy these capabilities across the wider Nintendo ecosystem.

The genius of preserving the houses

One of the great advantages of this structure is institutional memory.

A talented individual can leave. A talented individual can die or retire. This happens all the time. (sadly, Gunpei Yoko died in a car accident)

But a strong institution can preserve knowledge across generations.

The house remembers.

The new designer does not start from zero. They inherit traditions, techniques, relationships, and accumulated understanding. More than just IP – myth.

This is one of the reasons Nintendo’s creative output can feel so strangely continuous.

The people change. The technology changes. The hardware changes. Everything changes.

But the institutional lineages persist. The house remains.

A new generation can inherit the accumulated experience of the old one.

This is something modern corporations often destroy through constant restructuring.

Nintendo’s strength is partly that it has historically been unusually good at allowing creative institutions to remain recognizable over long periods of time. In samurai terms, it does not forget its retainers.

Contrast this with Sega

Sega is the fascinating counterexample.

Early Sega also had an extraordinary collection of creative houses: AM2, Sonic Team, United Game Artists, Smilebit, Overworks, and others.

Sega had brilliant generals everywhere.

Yu Suzuki. Yuji Naka. Tetsuya Mizuguchi.

The people behind Jet Set Radio, Panzer Dragoon, Crazy Taxi, Virtua Fighter, Shenmue.

The problem was that Sega sometimes seemed to have too many brilliant generals and not enough central discipline.

Does anyone here remember Shenmue.? Raise your hand…

Shenmue was absolutely visionary. It was also the most Sega project imaginable.

What if we spend an absurd amount of money building a hyper-detailed open-world Japanese revenge story where you can investigate your father’s murder, feed kittens, play arcade games, and inspect drawers? And don’t forget the GACHA MACHINES. BTW, find the black car if you can.

And the answer from Sega was apparently:

Yes.

This is where the warlord needs to say:

“Yu, I love you. You have $20 million – and not a penny more. Produce something that sells.”

Of course today with the magic of Kickstarter, we actually have Shenmue. But back then, it humbled Sega something fierce.

Sega had the houses, generals and talent.

What it lacked was a sufficiently powerful central authority capable of saying:

“This campaign is brilliant. We are not funding it at this scale.”

Nintendo’s historical advantage was not necessarily having more talent than Sega.

It may have been having a stronger central strategic structure capable of deciding where the talent should be deployed.

Nintendo’s real competitive advantage

People often say Nintendo’s advantage is its IP.

That is true. Mario, Zelda, Pokémon, Kirby, Metroid, Animal Crossing, and the rest are extraordinarily valuable.

But IP alone does not explain Nintendo’s survival. Other companies have had valuable IP. Square has FF. Marvel has well…Marvel.

The deeper advantage may be the relationship between:

IP + hardware + talent + institutional continuity.

Nintendo does not simply own characters.

It maintains a network of creative institutions capable of giving those characters new forms across generations.

And this is where Nintendo’s IP becomes almost mythological. An entire generation (yours truly included) grew up with these characters.

Mario is no longer merely a plumber. Zelda is no longer merely a green-hatted boy with a sword (ok, I know, that’s Link)

These things have become cultural mythologies.

They can contain heroes, villains, comic relief, weird side characters, obscure corners, contradictions, and characters that half the audience hates.

We all know Americans hate Tingle…but Nintendo doesn’t need to redesign him into a cool American character.

You don’t need every character to be universally appealing. A mythology is stronger when it has strange corners. In ancient Greek myths we had jesters, gods of wine, and well…Zeus was kind of an ass half the time.

Nintendo understood something that many companies fail to understand: You do not need every part of the mythology to be optimized.

You need it to be alive.

The East-West synthesis

This is also why Nintendo is such a fascinating example of East-West cultural synthesis.

The creative core was deeply Japanese.

But Nintendo of America developed its own expertise in marketing, retail, distribution, and cultural translation.

The genius was often knowing what to change and what not to change. Change the packaging.

Change the marketing. Change the positioning. But don’t change the heart of its identity.

But don’t necessarily destroy the thing itself because you assume the foreign audience will not understand it.

I work in localization – I encounter this all the time. It’s a fine line to walk.

Nintendo did not need to turn every strange Japanese idea into an American one. And then something remarkable happens as time passes.

The wheel turns. Western culture influences Japanese creator – and Japanese creators transform those influences. It goes global.

I once asked a Japanese friend “do your kids watch anime?” He’s like no, they watch Pixar. (I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry honestly!)

The resulting games return to the West. The West absorbs them.

Then the next generation of creators grows up influenced by Nintendo.

The cycle continues. Nintendo becomes part of the mythology of the culture that originally influenced it.

Talk about postmodern J

The larger point

The most successful creative companies may not be the ones that produce the most content.

They may be the ones that create the strongest institutions of cultural memory.

Nintendo has spent decades building something that looks less like a normal corporation and more like a political-cultural organism.

A central house. Powerful retainers.

Distinct creative lineages. (with archmages!)

Strategic alliances. Inherited knowledge.

Mythic characters.

And a leader whose most important talent was recognizing the people who could create the future.

That is why Nintendo is so fascinating.

It is not simply a company that makes games. They are a fusion of past and future, East and West - that keeps producing new legends.

4

When people talk about manga history, the same names come up again and again.

Dragon Ball.
One Piece.
Naruto.

And sure, they deserve it. (most of the time!) But sometimes I think the really interesting stuff is hiding somewhere else.

There are manga that sound completely ridiculous when you describe them.

“A perverted gunman who protects women.”

“A horny heavy metal wizard fighting gods.”

“A baseball manga.”

Anime is full of weird premises, but a lot of people stop at the premise. They see the surface. But some of these creators were doing much, much more.

The Weirdness Was the Point

One thing I love about older manga is that creators were not afraid to be strange.

They could be excessive.

They could be silly.

They could put boobs, explosions, comedy, tragedy, philosophy, and heartbreak all in the same work. It was unrestrained and...ferocious.

Today, some series feel like they are designed around a clean concept. Things have been maximized for mass appeal. Older manga often felt like a creator throwing their entire personality onto the page. Evangelion is the best known, but older works could absolutely be personal.

Sometimes that created masterpieces. Sometimes it created beautiful disasters. But you remembered them!

Tsukasa Hojo: The Guy Who Made You Laugh Before Breaking Your Heart

6

A lot of people know City Hunter as “that perverted guy with a gun.”

And yes...it’s not untrue. Ryo Saeba is absolutely ridiculous. He chases girls like the sun will never rise again - much to Kaori’s ire. (and much hammer time ensued)

But then a serious story starts. And suddenly you remember:

This man is not a joke.

He is someone carrying a lot of pain, who actually does care - and is not afraid to show it.

Hojo was amazing at characters who wear masks.

Ryo’s mask is comedy.

Underneath is someone who understands violence, loss, and responsibility.

Then you get Angel Heart, and Hojo basically says:

“What happens to these people after the adventure is over?”

It becomes a story about grief, family, and healing.

The guy who drew cheesecake action comedy was also capable of making you cry over a quiet conversation.

Family Compo, though not very well known, is actually a pretty serious (and yet comedic) take on gender identity and orientation. It had a trans family and genderfluid love interest in the 90s! Talk about progressive.

Banana Fish: The Gang Manga That Never Forgot It Was About People

5

Banana Fish is one of those manga where the genre description does not explain the experience. At all.

Yes, it is about gangs. Yes, it has crime, conspiracies, and violence.

But the gang war is important - not just a cool background.

Ash Lynx - brilliant, cold, attractive and wounded - is a product of that world.

His intelligence, his fighting ability, his leadership — all of it comes from surviving something brutal.

Guns, pizza, drugs and international conspiracies all share center stage in this work.

The story also goes places that many works avoid, especially around male vulnerability and sexual trauma. Ash is a survivor - but it also asks the cost of survival. About how to
trust once your sexuality needs to be used and weaponized.

Ash is not interesting because he is an unbeatable badass.

He is interesting because the story keeps asking:

“What happens when someone becomes incredibly strong because they had no choice?”

Bastard!!: More Than Just Boobs and Explosions

4

Let’s be honest. A lot of people look at Bastard!! and think:

“Yeah, that horny wizard manga.”

And they are not wrong - people all seem to wear less clothes in it for some reason. :) (male and female!)

But they are also missing something. The magic fights are actually fascinating!

Decades before Frieren, Bastard was asking interesting questions. A lot of them are basically magical science battles.

“Your spell works through this principle.”

“Then I will counter it through another principle.”

Absolute zero?

Counter with plasma.

Ancient magic?

Counter with knowledge.

How about I bury your particle beams with...lots of rock? Or I invert casuality to defeat your magic?

Dark Schneider is not just strong because he is the protagonist.

There is a reason. (no spoilers!)

His power comes from history, forgotten knowledge, and things that existed before the current world.

He is not just a guy with a bigger number. He is a walking piece of lost history. (and no shirt)

Mitsuru Adachi: The Master of Quiet

5

Then we have the complete opposite.

No giant spells, gang wars. or superpowered battles.

Just people.

Mitsuru Adachi’s Touch sounds like the kind of manga that should be simple:

Baseball. Romance. School.

But Adachi understood something many writers don’t:

People are complicated because they don’t say what they feel.

His characters live in pauses. A look.

A silence. A conversation that almost happens - sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.

The lunch bell rings and words hang in the air. Sunlight comes in through the window.

He can make a baseball game feel like a story about life itself.

Why Read These Now?

The reason I still like these manga is not because they are old.

Old does not automatically mean good.

The reason is that they feel personal.

You can feel the creator behind them - a real sense of authorship that never fades with time.

Hojo wanted to explore loneliness.

Yoshida wanted to explore survival and connection.

Hagiwara wanted to build a fantasy universe where magic had rules. (and explosions)

Adachi wanted to capture the strange sadness of ordinary life.

They were not just making content.

They were making worlds.

And sometimes the weirdest worlds are the ones that stay with you.

When people talk about anime, they often talk about characters, battles, animation, or nostalgia. Who’s best girl? What’s the coolest scene?

But some works stay with us because they are not merely stories—they become symbols and myth.

This is one reason Mobile Suit Gundam 00 has always fascinated me, especially the character of Setsuna F. Seiei.

At first glance, Setsuna seems almost simple. He is a child soldier who pilots a Gundam and declares:

“I am Gundam.”

Taken literally, the statement sounds absurd. A human being claiming to be a machine.

But symbolically, it makes perfect sense.

Gundam is not merely a weapon to Setsuna. It is the thing that appeared at the moment of his deepest suffering. It represents salvation, justice, and the possibility that the cycle of violence can be broken.

For Setsuna, Gundam becomes God, mission, and destiny all at once.

Not because a machine is literally divine, but because human beings have always used symbols to relate to things larger than themselves.

A cross is not merely wood.

A flag is not merely fabric.

A mythological hero is not merely a character.

Symbols carry meanings that exceed their physical form. They shape not only thought, but emotion, identity, and action.

The interesting part of Setsuna’s story is that he eventually has to move beyond the symbol itself.

At first:

“Gundam will save the world.”

But his faith is sorely tested in that arena (no spoilers, so I can’t say more!).

Later, the question becomes:

“What does it mean for humanity to change?”

The symbol was never the final answer.

It was a doorway.

Setsuna himself must change.

5

This pattern appears throughout human spirituality.

A person may first encounter the sacred through a form: a ritual, an image, a name, a teacher, or a story.

Over time, the relationship with that symbol deepens.

One does not necessarily abandon the symbol; one learns to see through it.

First, you need the wand.

Then words alone are enough.

This is why fiction can have such unexpected power.

Anime and games are often dismissed as entertainment, yet they can function as modern mythology.

They explore the same questions that ancient myths explored:

• Who are we?

• What is worth living for?

• Can humans change?

• How do we overcome suffering?

Gundam is not fundamentally about robots.

The robots are simply the language it uses to discuss humanity.

6

This is also why the most interesting characters are often not the smartest or strongest.

Setsuna is not a philosopher. He does not have elegant explanations for his feelings.

He speaks in simple, almost childlike sentences:

“The distortion of the world, A-Laws! I will destroy them!”

Yet those words carry enormous weight because they come from someone trying to understand a world that wounded him.

The same is true of other Gundam protagonists.

• Amuro Ray: someone who wants peace but becomes a weapon.

• Kamille Bidan: someone who values life yet is forced to kill.

• The Cyber Newtypes: people seeking connection while trapped by trauma.

Their complexity comes not from having the right answers, but from confronting impossible questions.

Perhaps this is why stories matter.

They allow us to encounter truths before we have the language to explain them.

A fictional character can sometimes express something we have always felt but never articulated.

The symbol is fictional.

The experience is real.

A Gundam can be a machine.

A story can be entertainment.

A character can be imaginary.

And yet, through them, we can encounter something larger than ourselves.

Therapy, therapy and more therapy. Sometimes I wondered when it would all end, when I would be ok and get to do other things then psychoanalysis and thinking. The early years were tougher, when I still didn’t trust Florence that much and when I still had to fight against my mother’s injunction that going to therapy was something “wrong” and that it showed that I was weak and useless.

As the years passed I began to realize just how much of my “illness” started not just before I was born, but before my parents themselves were born. As Florence has said more often than once, fear and abuse can be multi-generational, and in my case they most definitely were.
A lot is revealed in therapy. I know this may well be what they call a “duh” statement but it’s very true. I began to remember things – things that I never really forgot but that made a lot more sense now. For instance, I remember trying to commit suicide at the age of six or seven. Not so normal right? I wanted a toy (I think it was Bumblebee, from Transformers) and my Mum wouldn’t buy it for me. I stewed and steamed all the way home and when I got there, I ran to the drawers, pulled out a knife and threatened to kill myself. I’m not sure how serious I was about this, but all my Mum did was laugh and take the knife away.

Now, kids don’t always do the most sane or “normal” of things, but I personally think that’s a more than a little nuts.

During another sessions I also suddenly remembered something that had happened while I was younger. My mother had gotten angry about something – once again, I can’t remember what – and she made as if to throw her pair of glasses across the room. I immediately rushed to her and pinned her arms to her side…gotta help Mum, glasses are expensive! She struggled and I gripped tightly and eventually, to my relief, her struggles subsided. Nine-year olds aren’t the strongest of people around.

When I told Florence this she smiled her knowing smile and said simply “you see, even young Kain had to be responsible for others’ emotions.” She was right, as always. It’s funny that I had never thought of it this way before.

The phrase I used often when I spoke of these things was that I hadn’t consciously repressed them. And I hadn’t. These things were always in my memory and had been for years before. I just hadn’t connected the dots. Even in my despair and pain I actually felt a lot of sadness for those whose trauma and illness were such that they couldn’t remember at all.

I’ll give you another important incident. When I was four years old (or so) at Ma Ma’s house, I was crying fit to wake the dead. Totally normal four-year old behavior, especially when you consider that I missed my Mum and Dad and that I was really lonely there. But for some reason Ma Ma couldn’t take it and tries to get me to stop crying.

She doesn’t hug me, she doesn’t comfort me, she doesn’t talk to me (actually she can’t do the last one because she doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Hokkien) So what does she do? She puts chilli in my mouth.

No I’m not making this up. I wish every time I said I was not making this up or I’m not kidding in the book I was but I’m not. I can’t think of a more ineffectual way to make a child stop crying than to put something hot and unpleasant in his mouth and make him…cry more. Which is of course exactly what I did. I cried EVEN LOUDER. I can recall even at four (or so) feeling an extremely strong desire for revenge and thinking something along the lines of “well, that’s what you get for putting chilli in my mouth!”

When I told Florence about it years later she was quite direct and told me simply “that’s trauma.” Why, so it was. How come I had never known about this before? I do recall mentioning it to my mother at one point but she simply said that her parents didn’t know better because they were uneducated people – her answer to everything her parents ever did.

And now let’s think about OCD. Lots of reasons and causes for it, too many to go into here. But let’s apply Occam’s Razor for a second. My parents have always been anxious, worried people. My mother had suffered from panic attacks since she was seventeen (I only learned this MUCH later in my life) and my Dad well…he worried about everything. See any connections?

It began to shed light on everything that I’ve recounted in the previous chapters. Think about it – a little kid, aged maybe six or so, following his Mum everywhere? Shopping centres, dress stores, going to the park…oh let’s not forget the holding hands. Hold hands to cross the road, hold hands to go over the overhead bridges (she had vertigo, in addition to agoraphobia and panic attacks) hold hands to go everywhere.

That same little kid spending little to no time with his father. Yes, he did take me out to watch video games and did play with me on occasion, but there was very little physical contact – let alone emotional contact. Does that sound healthy to you?

I reflected on how my mother never spoke ill about her own father. To her he was a brown-skinned, taxi driving angel and he must have “worked so hard.” Every ill he did was excused by how hard he worked, how he could not help it because he was uneducated. Everything. He scolded them mercilessly but it was ok, he must have been so tired after Working So Hard everyday. He beat them but it was ok – he didn’t know any better, he was Uneducated and Working So Hard.

I always wondered as a child why we took so many taxis (the bus system in Singapore is actually very good and I only took a bus when I was…thirteen?) and why she would tip each one so extravagantly. Now I know. She probably saw her father in each and every one of them.
Working So Hard extended to others as well. We couldn’t be lazy, we had to work hard all the time. All this time I was at home, suicidal and depressed, I was actually lazy and a good-for-nothing and should either start studying and/or get a job. She and my father both had these HUGE complexes with the class system – I think they were convinced that commerce and industry would be the ruin of society.

Certain issues were just completely and utterly taboo with her. First off, my father. He was a Creep and a Scoundrel and that was that. He had betrayed us (especially her!) I think that when I was nineteen or so I ventured to ask once if maybe Dad could come to stay with us once more. She went into full defensive mode and told me that if he did he would just betray us again.

I came to know differently what I’ve spent all the other chapters writing about. It has occurred to me that I am pulling an Evangelion of my own in writing this book…putting all the good parts first, making it seem like a normal life story, and then slipping the rug out from under you later on. Except in this case it’s Book 2 rather than Episode 16. I don’t know – I didn’t start out writing it that way. I’ve tried to show it the way I felt and experienced it…but art mimics life, and vice versa.

I was caught up the family story of how I was Ill, and how the world ended at fifteen for me, and we had Lost Everything when it All Went Wrong. The problems had actually probably begun a century or so before. My mother’s father was an orphan, and my father’s mother lost her own mother at twelve and became her siblings’ mother figure at that age. I began to see the threads that connected all the harshness, all the pain, the fear and criticism and the scolding (the constant scolding!) A larger picture emerged, one that encompassed not only my 15th year but everything before and everything else.

Full clarity would come later, only when I was thirty or older, but here was when I saw the cracks in the delusion appear for the first time, and I think I finally began to see.

The body has a way of shielding you that only makes sense later on. Like Jack Nicholson so famously says “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!” which in therapy is most definitely true. I wasn’t ready to feel certain things, face certain things, acknowledge or accept them, and so I didn’t. The defense mechanisms clicked into place – thinking (always thinking!) rationalization, minimalization. The addictions – certainty and safety. It wasn’t yet time.

Meimei was a huge help. Where my rational thinking faltered and was unable (or unwilling!) to draw the necessary conclusions, her intuition and insight bridged the gaps that mere logic could not leap past. “I always knew the relationship between you and Mum was unhealthy.” she told me once. From the mouth of babes, they say – and she said that when she was barely 16 or so. I can’t recall. Then a few years later she said that she had known this at 12, but had waited until I was older, because I would have rejected it then. Like myself she was uncommonly wise and mature – we had to be, in order to survive.

They came, as insights are wont to do, in their own time and pace, in dribs and drabs and fountains and wellsprings of understanding and clarity. There was no one moment in which I leaped out from bed crying “MY LIFE IS FUCKED UP AND I KNOW WHY!” I mean, the first I already knew, but the second would take some time. But nonetheless a larger picture was beginning to emerge, a view of things in which I continued to be the lead actor, but seeing a much bigger ensemble cast that I could have ever imagined.

I realized that perhaps the greatest tragedy of my life was not my life was not mine at all – it was my mother’s. In transpersonal psychology this is known as “selfing” or “being selfed” – when a child has to be someone else so that the parent can retain his/her identity. It slowly dawned upon me that my entire life had been “selfed” – from following her around in shopping centre with a book when I was a kid, to do the housework and take care of Meimei so she could go to work, to be Ill so that she could be a Martyr and show the world just how difficult it was to be a single mother with an unhelpful husband and sick children.

And it was exactly at that moment when a child begins to be one no longer – teenage – that her grip tightened into a hangman’s noose. I couldn’t go out. I couldn’t do anything. The abuse she hurled at the things I loved! All anime (no matter what kind – shoujo, mecha, fantasy, action) was automatically “kiddie porn.” She was so derisive of the largeness of the character’s eyes that I wondered what they had ever done to her. Video games were a waste of time and she couldn’t wait until I stopped playing them and went back to reading “proper” books.
Florence was quite emphatic about it. She told me directly once what I had already learned from my sister and I knew deep down – that at certain moments there was no Kain. He was nothing but a puppet, a marionette on strings so that Clarice Tan could maintain her facades, be the Big Bad MA graduate who made it all on her own and came back from Australia. No small feat, to be sure, but at what cost? My life, among others.

Day and day out, like a puppet on a string. That was me, a doll swinging on a noose, waiting for Mum to come untie me and not realizing that she put me there. For years later I would wonder why the scene in Evangelion where the child Asuka runs into the room calling “Mama, Mama!” – only to see a puppet dangling from the ceiling – affected me so. Now I know why.

We are all our parents, make no mistake about that. Even in the healthiest of families, the ego has to go through its normal process of detachment and reformation. That’s what teenage is all about! The dyed hair, the piercings, the mohawks and screaming fits – it’s all a gateway into adulthood. It was when I was about twenty-six or so I began to be fascinated with rites of passage, with the Amish Rumspringer (in which Amish kids actually get to decide whether they want to be Amish) and with the Malaysian equivalent, merangtau. My Dad did actually do a good job of explaining the last one – finally, that godforsaken sociology degree was actually useful to me in some way!

They held an almost mystical fascination for me, the Teenage That Never Was, from someone who became an adult at twelve – not-so-coincidentally a year before “normal” teenage. (whatever the fuck that was) You could rebel? Go out? Do things in your own way? Get angry and scream and shout and never be worried that you’d be thrown out? Date girls? Throw parties? Oh My Fucking God. It sounded like Paradise.

Except that of course I never had that experience. I grew up nonetheless, but it was an adulthood gained by tooth and claw, in spite of parents and not because of them.

Don’t get me wrong – teenage is never the most pleasant of experiences. (well maybe it is but I certainly wouldn’t know!) I know plenty of people whose teenage was crap. But I never even got to have one.

All these insights and understand did do their part in quelling the (justifiable, I mean add) rage and the pain that I felt against my parents. I was understandably angry at my mother’s treatment of me and my father’s overly conflict averse nature. But I grew to know why they did the things they did – most probably because of their own family backgrounds and because they didn’t know better. All the games I played, the people I met, and my own explorations into the different cultures of the world opened things up more and more, and that wider perception also extended into my family problems.

The search for truth would continue over the years, and more and more would come to light. After twenty-five or so things had calmed down enough at home so that there were no immediate issues to be dealt with in every session, and Florence and I were able to buckle down and get to the deeper material. Slowly but surely truths were coming to the surface. I had become strong enough to weather most of the emotional storms and I was shedding my complexes one by one – fixer, savior, denial, blame. I no longer believed everything I was told and I had a better hold on that infernal critic. I sharpened the blade and the path continued to open.

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Next Chapter

Before you stop reading, let me explain.

First, I want to make something clear: I respect creators. Writers, artists, translators, musicians, programmers, and everyone else who creates things that enrich our lives deserve recognition and compensation for their work. I believe that strongly.

In fact, I am a creator myself.

This is why my support for piracy does not come from a belief that creators should work for free. Quite the opposite. I want creators to be rewarded fairly for what they make.

My disagreement is with the current structure of the industry. In short, it’s messed up. Badly. People think this is “just the way it is” or “support creators!” I think the truth like most things - a little more complex than that when we look beneath the surface.

Historically, publishers, distributors, and other intermediaries performed important functions. They handled printing, logistics, marketing, storage, and distribution. Without them, many creators would never have reached an audience.

But the internet has changed much of that equation.

Today, a creator can publish directly to a global audience. They can build a following, communicate with fans, and receive financial support without many of the barriers that once existed. Services such as Patreon, SubscribeStar, and other direct-support platforms are imperfect (since they are still gatekept by large financial institutions) but they point toward a future in which creators have more control over their own work.

To me, this is a much, MUCH healthier direction.

When I buy a book, a game, or a piece of art, what I really want is the work itself. I am not especially interested in paying for layers of marketing, distribution, bureaucracy, and institutional power that often stand between creators and audiences. I don’t want your DLC. I don’t want outfits or extra content I will never use - I wouldn’t mind so much if I was given the choice to opt out of it, but I am not.

I want to directly contact the creators, thank them for their work and tell them how it’s changed my life. That to me is one of the richest rewards I myself experience as a content creator.

And this is where my support for piracy comes from.

I do not view piracy primarily as an attack on creators. I view it as a rejection of a system that I believe concentrates too much power in the hands of intermediaries. In many cases, piracy emerges because people want access to a work but reject the terms under which that access is being offered.

Of course, piracy is not a perfect solution. It creates real problems and raises legitimate ethical concerns. The tragedy of the commons rears its ugly head.

Still, I believe the long-term solution is not stronger control, harsher enforcement, or ever-expanding copyright regimes. The solution is creating systems in which supporting creators directly is easier, more transparent, and more attractive than piracy. Where you can pay for what you want to, in ways that you want to - and sometimes not always in money (because that’s not the entire metric)

Until that day comes, I will continue to view piracy as a symptom of a broken system rather than the root problem itself.

You may disagree.

But that is why I support piracy.

(I originally wrote the beginnings of this piece in Japanese as a test of my linguistic ability before expanding it into an essay. As such, I’ve also written it in JP below)

私は海賊版を支持しています。

読むのをやめる前に、まず説明させてください。

まず、一つはっきりさせておきたいことがあります。私はクリエイターを尊敬しています。作家、アーティスト、翻訳者、ミュージシャン、プログラマー、そして私たちの人生を豊かにしてくれるものを生み出すすべての人たちです。彼らは評価と報酬に値します。

実は、私自身もクリエイターの一人です。

だからこそ、私が海賊版を支持するのは「クリエイターはタダで働けばいい」と思っているからではありません。むしろ逆です。私はクリエイターが正当に報われるべきだと思っています。

私が問題だと思っているのは、現在の業界の仕組みそのものです。

簡単に言えば、この仕組みはかなり歪んでいます。

多くの人は「世の中とはそういうものだ」とか「クリエイターを支援しよう」と言います。もちろん、その気持ちは理解できます。しかし、多くの問題と同じように、少し掘り下げてみると現実はそれほど単純ではありません。

歴史的に見れば、出版社や流通業者、その他の仲介者には重要な役割がありました。印刷、物流、宣伝、保管、流通。そうした仕組みがなければ、多くのクリエイターは読者やファンに届くことすらできなかったでしょう。

しかし、インターネットはその前提を大きく変えました。

今ではクリエイターは世界中の読者やファンに直接作品を届けることができます。コミュニティを作り、交流し、支援を受けることもできます。かつて存在した多くの障壁は、もはや以前ほど大きなものではありません。

Patreon や SubscribeStar のようなサービスは完璧ではありません。結局のところ、決済会社や銀行などの巨大な金融システムに依存しています。

それでも、こうした仕組みはクリエイターが自分の作品に対してより大きな主導権を持つ未来への第一歩だと思います。

私にとって、こちらの方がずっと、ずっと健全な方向です。

私が本やゲームやアート作品を買うとき、本当に欲しいのは作品そのものです。

マーケティングや流通や官僚的な仕組み、あるいはクリエイターと観客の間に存在する様々な中間層のためにお金を払いたいわけではありません。

DLCはいりません。

使う予定もない衣装や追加コンテンツもいりません。

選択肢として提示されるならまだ理解できます。しかし、多くの場合、その選択肢すらありません。

私はただ作品そのものを買いたいのです。

そして可能であれば、その作品を作った人に直接感謝を伝えたい。

あなたの作品が私の人生に影響を与えたこと。

あなたの作品が私を励ましてくれたこと。

あなたの作品が私の考え方を変えたこと。

そうしたことを直接伝えたいのです。

コンテンツ制作者として活動してきた私自身、そのような言葉こそが最も大きな報酬の一つだと感じています。

そして、ここに私が海賊版を支持する理由があります。

私は海賊版を、クリエイターへの攻撃だとは考えていません。

むしろ、過剰な権力が仲介者に集中している現在のシステムへの拒絶だと考えています。

多くの場合、人々は作品そのものを求めています。しかし、その作品へアクセスするために提示された条件を受け入れたくないのです。

もちろん、海賊版は完璧な解決策ではありません。

そこには現実的な問題がありますし、倫理的な問題もあります。

いわゆる「共有地の悲劇」が顔を出すこともあるでしょう。

それでも私は、長期的な解決策は監視の強化や取り締まりの強化、あるいは際限なく拡大する著作権制度ではないと思っています。

必要なのは、クリエイターを支援することが海賊版よりも簡単で、透明で、魅力的になる仕組みです。

人々が本当に支援したいものに対して、自分が望む形で支援できる世界です。

そして、その価値は必ずしもお金だけで測られるものではありません。

そんな日が来るまでは、私は海賊版を問題の根本原因ではなく、歪んだ秩序が生み出した症状の一つとして見続けるでしょう。

あなたは反対するかもしれません。

しかし、それが私が海賊版を支持する理由です。

The theatre was pretty noisy and the first time I watched I distinctly remember some guy on my left telling his seatmate that he knew exactly what was going to happen and him eating nachos loudly. Guys, could you stop talking in church! Of course to them it was probably just a movie.

The movie was…well it was Evangelion. It was probably not as powerful as watching the first series (I’m not anything will ever compare to that but) but it sure rocked my world. The same scenes played out in front of me but I was a far different person now. It was like nostalgia on steroids. I remembered the EVA ML, the fanfiction, the scenes that had affected me so powerfully before. It was all there again, but somewhat different this time.

Did I mention that my sister has never watched Evangelion? Probably for the best, all things considered. I think we would have gotten even MORE enmeshed than we ever were had she done so. She knew the entire story (because I talked about it so damn much) and all the analysis and details but has never watched the series or movies themselves.

I watched it, went home to talk about it, thought about it some more, and went back to watch it again – seven times to be exact. The theatre was kind of empty (the movie was nearing the end of its run) and I was seated off to the side so I could be by myself and experience Rapture in relative peace.

Something else happened instead.

It was the scene where Shinji arms the positron rifle to fire it at Ramiel. I experienced again what I had felt when I first watched EVA – as if what was happening on screen was happening to me. In the series, whatever the Units felt the pilot felt, and it was as though the movie itself was an EVA Unit and I was inside.

Ramiel energy beam had struck Unit-01 and began to melt its outer armor away. Shinji was on fire and he was curled up in almost a fetal position. Still his hands reached for the controls. Inch by torturous inch he leaned forwards, doubled up in agony, until finally his hands reached the trigger.

I began to cry, deep racking sobs which shook my body and soul. It was just like twelve years ago. I was there in the entry plug, untrained and untested, pushing my mind and body soul to their limits – protecting everyone while no one was there for me. And yet I couldn’t run away. I mustn’t run away. I mustn’t run away. I mustn’t run away.

Shinji didn’t. I didn’t. We both did the best we could under the circumstances. I remembered how lost and alone I felt all those years. The poor misunderstood youth who tried to save the world but not out of heroism but pathology. The times in teenage when people said that he was a wimp and coward when I (and he) were anything but – when I internalized my mother’s criticism so deeply that I couldn’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality and felt that when people were saying things about him they were saying things about me.

From the age of fifteen onwards I had sealed away my tears. Only relapses could make them come, and when that happened they were ripped from me by wails and screams. This was different. This felt natural and healing, coming from a place deeper in me than even therapy could not have reached. I felt like a child again. Rivers in my heart came to life to wash away the pain. Walls that I did not even know I had erected came down as I cried.

Eventually the movie ended and the credits rolled but I remained in my sea, lost in my own world. The usher came to tell me that I had to leave and somehow I made it home. On the outside my tears had dried but in my heart they had started again.

I could cry again. Somehow I didn’t realize how important that was. An essential part of my humanity which I had lost so many years before had been restored.

Life continued in the same way afterwards and yet how could anything ever be the same? It was still like someone had put a new moon in the sky. After a long time spent away, I was coming home to myself.

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What is a TCK? TCK is an acronym for Third Culture Kid. That is to say, children who do not grow up specifically in one culture or another, but somewhere in-between. Hence the “third culture” aspect.

There is a book which is considered more or less the definitive text on TCKsThird Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds by Ruth E. Van Reken. Somehow (destiny, chance, luck?) I found myself with a copy of the book. I read it avidly. It explained things – so many things! What I was feeling, what I felt, why people did what they did and for what reasons. It shed light on so many things that I never thought even existed before.

I’m going to just say at this point that if you have ever lived in a foreign country for at least six months before the age of sixteen, go and get a copy of it. NOW. It’s not perfect (it was written a while ago and I believe some of the research is dated) but then, what is? It will help, trust me.

I myself could not believe that two years and nine months in America could have produced such profound, life-changing results. What I didn’t know until reading the book was that it takes as little as six months. Everyone comes out of the experience differently. There are army brats, diplomats’ children, and kids like me.

I talked to Meimei about this (much like I talked to her about everything!) but for some reason it did not resonate as deeply with her. She certainly fit the criteria. But there was also the fact that she came back to a school that was far more international than mine. They had kids from Sweden, from Egypt, Japan, Brazil – you name it.

I tried to make my Mum understand that I was still connected to America, even as I was “stuck in Singapore”. That failed, as most endeavors with my mother did. She used to repeat the length of time we were in the US – “two years, only two years!” – as a kind of mantra that would keep George Washington and the hordes of white men away. But it did clear things up a lot for me. You don’t need to live in a country to have a relationship with it.

How I hoped and dreamed that I could go back! I never admitted it to myself, but it was as clear as day. I used to dream about the California sunshine, the places and people. The hotdogs near the beach, the crash and bang of that open-air video arcade in Santa Monica beach. The girls in bikinis which I could never have appreciated back then but that I longed for now. I even once dreamt that I graduated from high school there. (in Japanese, no less)

Looking back from where I am now, my hatred of Singapore was totally understandable. In one place, scorn, censure, and disapproval from society. In the other place, people offered help and encouragement and understanding, both on and offline. Do the math.

There was also Japan, to make it more confusing. I often refer to Japan as my “adopted country.” In terms of actual time, I have only spent three weeks there. But in other ways it has been a lifetime. Especially online, where it’s hard to tell where people are from (or even what gender they are) I have been mistaken for a Japanese person more than once. Sure, there are tons of anime and game fans around the world, but not that many who go to the extent of learning the language (which was FAR harder then than now) and being so immersed in the culture that they actually start dreaming in it.

I was confused. Really confused. I couldn’t speak Chinese that well so I didn’t really feel at home here, but most anime fans in Singapore were Chinese-educated. I liked the US but I didn’t really like media from the US. I liked Japan but I couldn’t stand its insularity and xenophobia (far worse than Singapore in many MANY regards) Over there I was too yellow, and back “home” I was too white. Who was I? I was firm in my belief that all human beings were of equal value and importance in the eyes of Man and the Universe…but what culture did that leave me in?

There I was, stuck between three worlds. My 20+ self would have denied up and down that he was in any part, shape or form a Singaporean…and he would have been right! But I was still living there, and the outside environment does have an effect on you. People speak a different language, both literally and figuratively. No one “gets you” – and although that is definitely just a part of teenage and young adulthood, it does become a lot more complicated when you add abuse, trauma, family dysfunction and transculturalism to the mix.
It was not an issue that could be “resolved” as such. Part of the problem, of course, was that these issues of place, nation, identity and belonging were displaced by the PhD and mental illnesses (as was much of the rest of my life) They were a Scylla and Charbydis that every life event had to be navigated through, most unsuccessfully.

I think that I was given the chance to grieve the coming back from the USA fully and cleanly that I would not have been in such confusion. It would still have been an issue, of course. The injustices I saw and that were visited upon me were not to be so easily dismissed. But then, that goes for everything else, TCK or not. Just that life is generally more complex for the latter.

I found the TCK forums online and joined then, but when I came to the forums I was kind of disappointed. There was definitely some helpful material there, but none with really dealt with mental illness and abuse, which were far more prominent in my life at that time. I felt rejected once again, even by those who in turn felt rejected! There were barely five lines or so in the book that dealt with cases like mine. Usually (but not always) TCKs tend to have money to cushion the blows. They also generally have functioning parents. Being sidelined by the sidelined is not a pleasant experience.

Still, it was good to know I was not alone. Looking at it on a global level, TCKs are actually just ahead of the curve. Globalization is here to stay, and in a way this just makes us global citizens before everyone else is one too. It doesn’t make my experience any less painful, though.
It was the little things that stung and rankled, not so much the big ones. I didn’t really like Chinese food and still don’t. You couldn’t find any decent burgers in Singapore without paying through your nose, because they were generally expat fare. A lot of cultural references just sped past me and people would laugh while I just stood there standing blankly.

No one got my jokes. They were, as I often lamented, either too far West or too far East. I love puns (still do! one of the nice things about Japanese is that it puns easily, much more so than English) but my efforts to make them in either language fell on deaf ears. I tried to be witty but all I got were empty stares. God I used to be so upset about this!

Thinking back on it I think what would have helped was to make friends and contacts with the American and Japanese expatriate community in Singapore, but how would I do that? Besides which I was still not in the best of places mentally and emotionally.

I had no home at home, and I had no home outside the home either. I felt like I didn’t really fit in. This is probably why I studied what I did in the previous chapter – I felt a sense of kinship with them, the oppressed and disenfranchised.

I gave the book to my Dad to read, but the response was not encouraging. All he said was something along the lines of “I didn’t know there were so many mistakes we made.” As usual, he saw nothing but his own guilt, and nothing that he could possibly do to atone or assist. Oh well, I tried.

Another book that is definitely related to my transculturalism is Liza Dalby’s Geisha. Man, I must have read that book at least 6 times. It was very, very healing and helpful to me. I think she was kind of a “proto-TCK” (Geisha was written before the TCK book) and her experiences were quite unique.

Her story is very different than mine, but nonetheless it bridged the gap between those 2 countries that I loved so much, America and Japan. I learned many things but perhaps the most important one was that of communication. I was particularly struck by the opening to a particular chapter – why does the West value an honest response more than a coded one?

It blew the lid off everything. I’ve always been more expressive and touch-based (due to my time in the West no doubt) and suddenly I realized that maybe people weren’t being stand-offish and stuck up. Maybe they were trying to show me respect and courtesy. Over the years as I matured and learnt more I would look back on different things and try to see what was where and who was why from differing perspectives. It helped a lot. As Shakespeare said “there are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

There are just so many differences between the East and the West. They think of everything differently – money, time, people, relationships. Once again it’s the little things. I remember walking around the arcades one day and noticing that while in the US all the highscore names were BOB and TOM and RAR and AAA (the most common name in the world!) the ones here in Asia were all dudes from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms like Lu Bu and Guan Yu. The past is relevant to Asia far longer than it is to the West, where the Next Big Thing is given much more attention.

So yeah, I was a TCK. Still am – it doesn’t go away with age! It did indeed help to know that. Being one is both a blessing and a curse (the book makes that quite clear) and if you ask me…in the final equation it IS indeed more of a blessing. Although the curse parts have to be dealt with too.

If you were to ask me today what kind of cultural composition I have I would say something like 45% American, 40% Japanese, 5% Chinese and the rest Other. (though that is probably changing even as I speak) I do still find it easier to talk to Westerners, though that may be more due to my forthright and open nature than anything else. But due to my experiences on both sides of the Pacific I find it easy to “switch modes” which is definitely a great asset in any almost any social situation.

Cultures change even as the world is changing. Half the world is bilingual and people are learning languages really fast. One day everyone will be a TCK and we won’t even need the term anymore. Maybe TCKs are the terrestrial equivalent of the Newtypes that they keep on yammering about in Gundam – people who can understand each other on a level deeper than just personal interaction. (except that maybe we don’t have psychic powers or extrasensory perception…yet) All of us TCKs just caught the wave early – so we should go out there and be a good example.

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About when I was twenty-five or so, I began to seek answers from other places. Other places meaning things that weren’t anime and video games, that is. I had always read widely and my readings took me into many places.

I remember being very into the black struggle for emancipation at one point. I had read Maya Angelou’s ‘ “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” as a young child in the US and it affected ways that I didn’t fully realize until later. I recalled Mrs Raleigh and her quiet, stateusque beauty, her ready wit and fair-mindedness. The black waiter in Chicago, so gentle and kind and…strong. There was a poise and a resilience to them that I respected, even when I was so young I didn’t know that I did.

I’m sure you can see the relevance. Living as a slave, searching for freedom? Music-wise I do remember being very taken with Tracy Chapman’s singing at one point, and listening to a lot of her. Her voice strong, defiant, and free – a voice that took no prisoners and demanded none. Looking back on it, she was probably one of the first English singers that I really liked and loved as I was coming out of my “I only listen to Japanese music” phase. Oh yeah, I used to sing Stand By Me really loudly in the bath too.

I read a lot about WW2. It had always been a topic of some interest to me, what with all the troop movements and military maneuvers (fascinating stuff to the strategist that I was) but now it took on deeper significance on another level. I’ve always believed (and I still continue to believe) that even now our world has been shaped by that war of wars in ways that are still only showing themselves. On a personal level there was of course the fact that both my grandparents had suffered the effects of WW2 in the form of the Japanese Occupation and that experience may have been why I suffered the way that I did.

I can’t mention WW2 without mentioning Maus, the comic by Art Spiegelman. I won’t go into details here but it is essentially about his life growing up as the son of a Holocaust survivor. I learned so much from it! How his father’s experiences during the war shaped his own, his relationship with his mother (who was very badly affected by the war) and how in many ways we are all survivors. I was deeply moved and I read it so many times that the spine of the book fell out. It probably helped me deal with my hatred and anger at my family and the world a lot more than I thought at that time.

I also read about Asian Americans and their experiences and difficulties but they never really resonated with me as much. I wasn’t so much as an Asian American as I was an American Asian. The environment around me was Asian and I was semi-American (and more than a bit Japanese), whereas for Asian Americans the environment was American and they were…well, a whole bunch of things. Two similar but different worlds.

I began to be more interested in LBGT (Lesbianm, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender) issues. I don’t think I ever really stopped – my early reading of fanfiction, love of anime and games or so and having an “older brother” (Anthony-kun) who wanted to be a gay rights activist will do that to you. I lurked for years on transgender message boards (maybe because I watched way too much Ranma 1/2 when I was younger? though real life sex changes are a lot harder than just splashing water around…) reading stories and learning about how other people lived their lives.

I remember being very impressed by a book that I picked up called People Like Us, about homosexuals in Singapore. I found one of the contributor comments “we have to stop just being gay but doing gay.” to be very inspirational indeed.

As someone who had always felt like an outsider in his supposed home country, I grew a lot from those three areas of study. They taught me, amongst other things, not to build walls around yourself and adopt a siege mentality – a lesson that I had already learnt earlier in my life but one that perhaps I needed a refresher course in very badly. A warrior must sometimes take refuge on the field of battle, but it doesn’t make sense to build castles where no foes are to be found.

My explorations took me back into the world of transculturalism. (which I’ll also explore more in the next chapter) I endlessly dissected the differences and similarities between cultures as a way to understand them better. There were a lot of similarities between Japan and Singapore, more than you would expect.

Both were to a large degree hidebound and insular. (Japan probably even more so!) They were both obsessed with face (actually ALL Asian countries are) Depression wasn’t really acknowledged there any more than it was here. And let’s not forget that both countries are full of workaholics. I would go on but this is an autobiography and not some kind of full-scale cultural analysis – I think I already have enough of that in other sections.

I asked myself why it was possible for me to like Japan and hate Singapore when they were so similar. There were lots of reasons, but it boiled down to safety (more on that below) and understanding. I didn’t understood my “homeland” because I couldn’t speak its languages and I had alienated from it due to my past experiences. I did however understand Japan better because of the copious amount of Japanese media I consumed as well as my constant research – and I understood the language. I talked about these things with my Dad and my sister until I’m sure they were heartily bored of the subject.

I think it is somewhere between all this cultural exploration that began to lose some of my hatred for Chinese. Firstly, as it is so often the case in psychology and life, you need to be safe. My Japanese had become good enough so that I was able to figure out a lot of the Chinese words by using their Japanese equivalents. There are a lot of false cognates between both languages and so it’s not a surefire means of comprehension, but it was a start. I had least had a base to begin with, instead of being thrown into the deep end like I was in school.

So, mission accomplished, safety! What next? Understanding. I felt like I was in Bionic Commando – unable to jump (yes I know you can jump in BC2) unless I used my Japanese Bionic Arm to lift myself over the chasm of Chinese. I could speak SOME Chinese at this point. It was uncomfortable and unfamiliar and I didn’t like it, but it wasn’t the nightmare monster of my youth anymore.

Looking back on it now, I think even at that age, I wanted to forgive, but I needed good reasons to do so. Which I can’t say is a bad way to start! I had not the means to jump into the deep end and just start forgiving left right and center. I’m not sure anyone does that, or can do that.

I wanted to know, I wanted to understand, I wanted to comprehend. That was, after all, how I had always made sense of things, all the way back when I was a little nerdy Asian kid. I read books, I researched, I sought a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of whatever it was that so pained me. I used the same approach that had always held me in good stead even in the worst of times – finding more information.

I think that even though a lot of me was still stuck in old patterns and ways of thinking (and being) I had begun to change far more than I would ever have acknowledged to myself or anyone. Though it wasn’t at all evident on the surface, not at that point. I was learning that the world was far bigger than I had ever imagined. The me of twenty-five years was a different person than the callow youth of eighteen or nineteen. Older, wiser, and yes, sadder – but that sadness had also opened the door to compassion.

Though at home, not much (if at all) had changed. I was still compulsive and desperate in certain ways. I had to have six pillows on my bed all the time and change the sheets every week or else…there was no or else. My mother was still arbitrary in the extreme, buying cakes one home day and screaming bloody murder at us the next. Then it changed into something else. There was a time I bought home some roasted meat and how she glared daggers at us throughout dinner. I was wondering what the matter was when she said “I know how you put the meat so far away from me that I can’t get to it.” When you’re waging a war against the world, everyone is an enemy.

I continued to talk to Meimei all this time. This would have been about in my mid-twenties or so, when things were bad but not that bad. We bitched about our parents (and tried to psychonanalyze them when we weren’t bitching) I was still too afraid to reach out, for fear of others not understanding or worse yet, going all Asian on me. That old fear of being “disloyal and disrespectful” (remember, you owe EVERYTHING to your parents) and I mean EVERYTHING!) still could not be ironed out entirely.

But I was moving forwards. I was stuck at home (and Singapore), but my view of the world was widening and deepening. I began to understand Singapore through Japan, and the reasons for why people did what they did through mediums and ways other than the Holy Trinity – video games, Evangelion and psychology. Things were changing inside and out.

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It was one of the “relapses” that I experienced during that time. My Mum was dumping on me, my sister was panicking and in pain and started I screaming and shouting again. Although this time it was a little different…I think it was at night and I was terribly depressed, trying to keep calm and failing while sitting with a couple of pillows. My mother was in the opposite sofa and doing her best to make things worse.

I can’t remember what triggered it but I got angry enough to tell her to fuck off, after which she continued repeating it in a kind of broken, singsong voice.

I got mad. I got REALLY mad. I got so mad that I took a pillow and hit her with it. Kinda low-key, I know, no knives or tables or anything. Just a pillow.

She went nuts. Nuts enough to call the police and get them to try and evict me. When they didn’t (I can distinctly recall the junior officer looked slightly disappointed – his expression seemed to be saying – they call me out for this? No open wounds? No bleeding or broken bones?) she demanded I leave and locked the door behind me so I couldn’t get back in – the door had a top lock which only she had the key for. The reason she gave for this was that the pillow’s zipper could have caught her eye and potentially blinded her. She also called the domestic abuse hotline and poured out her woes about her violent and uncontrollable son who apparently was a roving menace with pillows. According to her “the mother is always the first one to be attacked” and that she had to “protect herself by any means necessary.”
So I made my way to my Dad’s house, which I’m sure as you’ll recall was not the most welcoming of places. I didn’t have any alternative at that time.

It was there in the first night, huddled on the of my Dad’s house in what was supposedly “my room” (like I ever had any roomsI) that I had the worst OCD of my life, one which would never really go away in the years that followed.

(Warning : the following could be a bit distressing. Stay away if you are afraid of bugs, insects or cockroaches, or if you have trigger issues.)
Since I was a kid I have been mortally afraid of cockroaches. It would take me two hours to go to sleep after seeing one sometimes. I’m not sure where I got this fear – I can remember when I was young a cockroach flying into my face (which would of course cause this) but some youthful memories are unreliable. It could also have been from living in my parental Grandma’s house when I was younger, because there were tons of them there.

I conjured image after image to help me go to sleep, to keep the nightmares at bay and it was no use. It was worse than no use. Because everything that I had imagined to help myself was covered with cockroaches instead. It was like cockroaches were running over everything I ever loved and I Couldn’t. Make. It. Stop.

Somehow I made it through the night. The next day wasn’t much better. I can remember being led around in a half-dead haze around half of Ikea, trying to buy a bed and chair. Once again my Dad’s inner child was as active as ever. “We’re gonna get you a chair, and a bed, and then maybe a desk, and it’s gonna be ok! You’ll see! You’ll love it!” I didn’t tell him about the OCD, about what I was feeling, about anything. How could I? It wouldn’t have helped.

I went back to Dr Tan for medication and Dewi…I think? It’s all a blur. In the months to come his house was not any more welcoming than it had been at any time. If anything, it was worse. Yes, I played some games (I always played games, they were fun and kept me sane, two great reasons to keep on doing it.) I surfed the Net. I masturbated furiously. Anything to keep the pain away.

I actually played World of Warcraft during that time, for lack of anything better to do. I can’t say I enjoyed it very much. It was “vanilla WoW” – which is to say something so far removed of the WoW of today that is bears no resemblance other than the name. I don’t remember much of it. I can only remember being so angry and upset that I bitched about my family situation in guild chat (despite the fact that everyone knows you’re not supposed to talk about your family!) and everything else be damned.

I remember having futile late-night conversations with my father and his wife about “sorting things out” and “clearing the air.” Futile because first off, you can’t have much of a conversation when only two of the three people involved speak the same language. Judy was not any more accommodating or – if anything, she was less. It was evident to everyone except my father than she didn’t want anyone except her and her husband in the same house.

So it was more of the endless dance of trying to please my Dad and his wife, while no one gave a rat’s ass about how I felt.
I don’t remember much of this time at all. It was similar in nature to the tail end of my suicidal period, after I had left the EVA ML and just before The End of an Era. I know I did some freelance work for my uncle, which was interesting and frustrating at the same time. I played games, I surfed the Net, I…wait I just wrote that above.

I began to see just how much my father cherished his illusions. He was still stuck in a fantasy world in which one day, his wife and son and daughter would all kiss and make up and Live Happily Ever After. He refused (or was unable) to see just how far gone his ex-wife was. Though about a year later (or two, I can’t quite recall) I do remember him making a very grave face and remarking that he simply could not understand her actions. I guess some truths were powerful enough to punch through even my father’s tried and true delusional habits.

I was also seriously getting fed up of Aunty Judy at this time. My patience was worn thin from nearly a decade of putting up with assorted nonsense from supposed “adults”. I think that for a while I refused to even see her or attend any family gathering where she was present.

Of course, deeper down I was very very hurt. Firstly, the flare-up of OCD was quite painful in the extreme. Anyone who has experienced it knows that it takes time and space to heal, and I was given neither. You throw me out of one house and practically do the same at another and expect me to feel good about it? More anger and hatred flared, though I was more adept at dealing with it this time.

What happened to the OCD? I handled it the same way as I did the other outbreaks…just ignore it and hope it will go away. I think it did eventually. Once again I was so relieved I didn’t ask questions and just tried to go on with life as normal.

I eventually returned home (such as it was) after a while, with firm instructions from my Mum to “not be violent.” Pillows, such weapons of mass destruction and overwhelming terror that the world has never seen the like ever since.

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If the problem with my Mum’s side of the family was not talking at all, then the problem with the Lings was that they talked too much. About everything. There was no subject that could not be subjected to relentless scrutiny. I can see why my father could never make up his mind about anything, because none of his family could. Mails, family matters, where to eat, whose house to go to for what affair – rounds and rounds and rounds of endless dialogue that never went anywhere.

Divorce was rampant there. About five (or so) of my uncles and aunts are divorced. About the same number are unmarried on my Mum’s side. Now I would definitely never be the one to say that people have to get married and stay that way, but to be honest I think those numbers tell their own story.

I was taught by my Mum early on that my Dad’s side of the family were horrible and terrible and that I should have as little as possible to do with them. She never said this out loud, of course. To do so would have been Shameful and Embarrassing. But as a kid I got the message loud and clear and apart from my cousins, I sort of semi-avoided my aunts and uncles.

I should also mention here that my father’s family was a lot richer than my Mum’s. My mother’s father was a taxi driver (a fact that I have literally heard THOUSANDS OF TIMES) but my paternal grandfather (whom we called Ah Gong) had a rather successful biscuit business. It was a Big Fucking Deal while I was younger and it still remains one to their family, even after the Old Man himself passed away.
To be honest, the amount of drama, scandal and intrigue among the Lings could very well be enough material for another book. When I was in my 20s I was just terribly sick and tired of the entire affair and wanted to leave for America and design video games and write fantasy novels, but as I couldn’t leave and got to know them better I realized that hey…they were people after all, unlike what my mother had taught me.

In growing closer to them over the years I discovered 2 things 1) unlike what my mother had always told me, they had good sides too and 2) they had a LOT of issues. As of this writing, almost none of my fraternal aunts can sleep without some form of medication, alcohol, companionship or other aide. My uncles have issues ranging from depression, possible brain damage, to rage disorder. Only one of them has ever sought therapy, though about 3-4 are on some form of medication (and in some cases have been on it for more than 2 decades)

I remember mentioning once to my Dad something that occurred to me. Between all of them (7 brothers and sisters or so) they had literally millions of dollars at their disposal, and resources ranging from medical, financial, legal, psychological (courtesy of me) and in fields from philosophy to literature. So why did they have to talk so much about everything and never solve it? Because they didn’t WANT to solve it.
They wanted to parade the wrongs that had been done to them in front of others, to make a whole song and dance about the smallest thing. This is actually one of the few things my mother said about my Dad’s family that I agree with, but she left out the most important part – that it’s not their fault.

Essentially all of them were abused children as well. I don’t think any of them got it as bad as my Dad, but their mother could be pretty extreme. She did some pretty crazy shit, like throw one of my aunts into a dumpster when she was younger, as well as feed them rotten food. (I kid you not) He most definitely got his skinflint tendencies from his mother, who must have gotten them as a single parent bringing up three kids (her brothers and sisters) during the Japanese Occupation.

I’ll admit it – when I was younger and studying psychology there was a great tendency on my part to “play therapist” and tell my family members what to do. Oh, you have such and such a problem, you should seek treatment! Part of it was my fixer persona. But part of it was also that it had helped me so much, I couldn’t understand why no one else would do it. That old hatred against Chinese culture and their hidebound ways erupted again. Oh my God why can’t this be a modern country like the US (or somewhere else) where people actually admit to their problems and seek help?

I asked myself “why the fuck are they behaving in this way?” which as I neared my 30s became “oh, so that’s why they are behaving in this way.”

Despite their own problems and disabilities (who doesn’t have them?) I’ll say that they at least tried to stick together. Perhaps all that talking about nothing did serve a purpose after all. They met regularly and did all the usual Southeast Asian Family things – that is to say, talk about money, talk about property, air dirty laundry in public and play mahjong. My mother’s family on the other hand only met for Chinese New Year and that was that. The sisters did visit each other once in a blue moon but I can’t say they were very close.

I’m painting a rather dismal picture here and I apologize. The truth is that it wasn’t really at all bad all of the time. Yes, everything I’ve said earlier is true. But there were dinners in which an uncle would recount a story and everyone would collapse laughing. There were some good moments with singing and karaoke and more than few good times with my cousins (on both sides) They tried their best to stick together and help each other with their issues as best as they could.

I should take the moment here to talk about Aunty Sunny. Out of everyone in my father’s family (himself included) I think that she alone has managed to make it past the abuse and neglect she must have suffered in her childhood. I quite admire her, to be honest. She recovered from bankruptcy (twice) and a terrible divorce (though one not as bad as my parents) built a successful business and had two wonderful children. On top of that she used to be a national level folk dancer.

How did she do it? God. Like I’ve been saying through most of this document, you gotta have something, and she took the Jesus road. Though she is also a testament to how you can’t rely on God for everything. As she herself said “God is great but we all need our human wisdom as well.” She did a LOT of soul-searching (and I mean a lot) after her divorce and it really showed.

I never thought I would grow so close to her. When I was small, my impression of Aunty Sunny was “very Christian, very Chinese” (which hasn’t changed!) and my favorite memory of her was when she gave my cousins and I about ten bucks to play Captain Commando about two weeks before I was about to leave for America. (I played Ginsu, or Sho in the Japanese version)

She really came through for me one night when things were really bad at home and my mother was defunct (as usual) and my Dad was in Thailand (working in the family business at that time) She came around and said that I could come and stay with her for a while, so I did. Afterwards she offered me a part time job and so I worked for her about 2 months after that, doing general about-the-house chores (arranging her schedule, sorting receipts, that kind of thing) and it was comparatively restful.

Aunty Sunny was quite specific in her choice of literature (or lack thereof) – there were only two kinds of books in her house – skincare and health related (her business), and Christian texts. On that first night, restless and in pain, I tried to find something to pass the time. I found a book that was neither.

It was a simple enough book called Love Is a Choice. It introduced me to the concept of co-dependency. If I skimmed over the really Christian parts of the book I could get through it, and I did indeed learn a lot from that small thing with the pale yellow cover. I gave it to Meimei to read and I feel that she benefitted greatly from it.

So now I’ll talk about my Mum’s side a bit.

As time passed I was able to with my more mature perspective see the ravages of abuse on their side of the family as well. My uncle’s constant borrowing of money and gambling. Another one with an endless string of dead-end jobs, culminating with him leaving the family at the age of about 50 because their “questions were driving him insane.” My eldest aunt’s workaholism (if you think my Mum drowned her sorrows in work you should see her) Another aunt, the fastest and most efficient worker you could ever imagine (and I have met plenty) trying to save money by eating only Cadbury’s chocolate for a few weeks during her first job and getting severe diabetes as a result
I imagine that it’s kind of obvious to the observer at this point it wasn’t just me who was abused, it was everyone else as well. As Terrence once said in disbelief when I told him some of my story “Both parents? Both families?” That simple fact bled away a lot of the anger and hatred that I felt during my mid-twenties.

As you might imagine, over the years I have cross-referenced every detail of my life and personal history with my many cousins (not to mention my friends), trying to find similarities and differences, congruences and divergences. A few things spring immediately to mind – first off, all of them have at least one functional parent. Generally, it is the one that is NOT related to me (since, as we all know by now, both my parents come from abusive families) and generally, that parent was at least around for most of the time. Alternatively, the parent that was from the abusive family was at least semi-functional and did not sacrifice their children to the Great PhD God.

Secondly, most times they at least had money. In the case of my father’s family, except him, all his brothers and sisters are multi-millionaires. I’m sure times were hard for some of my cousins (in fact, I am 100% absolutely sure of it) but I’m not sure if they were 500 bucks a month to buy everything you can hard.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, they did not have dependents. Obviously, some were older siblings, and some were younger, but even in the case of the former, the elder sibling was not expected to ensure the complete safety, health and education of the younger.
I know you can’t measure human suffering, and that comparison of any kind in these matters (especially in these matters!) is futile at best and self-flagellating at worse but I did plenty of it in my younger days, comparing and contrasting and weighing what could not be weighed against what should not be. But I could compare constructively as well, and I did realize that my situation was far worse than anyone I knew at that time. It’s tempting to fall into the traps of complaining and envy and I think I tried my hardest to avoid them as best as I could.

So that’s that for my parents’ families. They helped here and there in various ways – not as much as I would have liked, but maybe that’s because my parents never asked for it, blinded as they were by pride and fear. I used to get angry at them for that (we could have used the help!) but the list of things that I used to get angry at them for was at least ten miles long, so well…yeah.
To all my aunts and uncles and cousins, I wish them only the very best. They’ve all suffered in their own way. They’re still my family and I love them all – perhaps a lot more now than when I was a little kid and I didn’t understand them or myself very well. The Chinese say that blood is thicker than water but I say screw that. I’d love them all even if it wasn’t so.

In addition to the Addendum that I have on this website, here I will share some of the resources that I’ve found in decades of searching the web. While nowadays you can just Google almost anything, these are links that will hopefully yield more quality information.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/science-and-sensibility/201307/three-steps-combat-anxiety

In general, Psychology Today has reasonably high-quality articles that are peer-reviewed.

https://zenhabits.net/uncertainty

https://books.google.com.sg/books/about/Hope_and_Help_for_Your_Nerves.html?id=IJH4hyORo8IC&redir_esc=y

Claire Weekes is largely unknown, but writes about anxiety in very clear language.

https://www.psychforums.com/living-with-mental-illness

There are MANY communities online about this, so I can’t recommend them all. Reddit also has decent resources.

https://www.cureocd.com/eft

Tara Brach writes about trauma and boundaries and is a good resource.

While my OCD was not cured as the person above states, nevertheless, EFT remains an interesting healing modality to explore.

https://www.everand.com/book/163638560/Brain-Lock-Free-Yourself-from-Obsessive-Compulsive-Behavior

This book was helpful to me in my recovery from OCD, explaining it as a defensive mechanism gone haywire.

Neither of us were keen on the idea not because we hated it or anything but we had better things to do at that time. Games, school, our own activities – nope. Mum wants to go and so we have to go. If I recall correctly the way she got Meimei to go was to browbeat her every day, and the way she got be to go was to book the tickets and threaten to remove the money from my account if I didn’t go. I can remember being very upset about this and complaining to my Dad, who sat and listened and didn’t do anything as usual.

So we ended up going. You can already tell by the chapter title that this didn’t end well.

We were going with a bunch of my Mum’s students as well, who were actually quite a decent bunch. Boring, but decent. I made friends with one of them – a sporty girl who reminded me of a friend of my sister’s. She was fun to talk to, but most of my trip was spent taking care of Meimei.

In short, Meimei was terrified. Every single day. My mother had put the fear of God that she would have to Go On The Trip and Enjoy Herself and Be Very Cultured – which is of course the worst possible way to take a holiday. She began frightened and got worse and worse with each passing day. The plane ride was scary, the hotel was scary, the buses were scary. I can still see her small frightened face peering out of the windows and feel her hand in my memory clinging to my arm for support. Poor girl.

I think this may have been when my sister started to develop panic attacks. She was practically forced onto the plane and had previous bad experiences with travel (from some of the other disastrous family trips) The trip would just make things worse.

The constant drain of having to spend time with Mum (and her criticism and scolding) and taking care of Meimei wore me down. Badly. Meimei was failing fast and I think the only time we really had a good time on the trip and she smiled and laughed was when I was singing Totsugeki Love Heart to her in one of the motels on the way. There was a night in a particularly cheap hostel where I lay awake, unable to sleep and asked – how much more of this can I possibly take?

I wasn’t exactly having the best time of it either. Some of the sights were nice, of course – the cathedrals, the Lake District, the fields of green that dotted the English countryside. I finally understood what all the poets that I had read in my youth were talking about. Our tour guide (”Brownie”) did his level best to make things interesting and entertaining for us and I really appreciated it even though I was too stressed out to say anything. He really loved Tom Jones (and Gwyneth Paltrow) and would play “Sex Bomb” for hours on end. Graham, if we ever meet again I’ll give you that Connect 4 game and beat the pants off you too.

My favorite time during the whole trip was going to London. I left a short note with the hotel and took off via my favorite mode of transportation – walking. I walked all over the city and it was great! I can’t remember what streets I may have gone down or up, but my most distinct memory was wandering into the red-light district early in the morning and strolling into a sex shop. Everyone looked at me. I looked back and then I left. It’s not like I could buy anything back to take to Singapore, it would be seized at customs! (though I had my eyes on the Illustrated Guide to Japanese Bondage…sigh…)

The next destination of the trip was Turkey (yes it was supposed to be a two week thing) and by the time our flight arrived even my Mum’s students noted that I was wild-eyed and stressed out. If only they knew.

I broke that night in the hotel in Turkey. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I collapsed onto the floor and was about to yell the house down but Meimei knelt on the floor in front of me and asked me to please please please would I not relapse. Somehow through sheer willpower I kept it in. Because if I let it go I would wake up the entire hotel and that would not be good and people would be angry and it would be all my fault…but mainly because my sister asked me to.

The next day I was so frayed at the edges that all I can remember being was thirsty. And sleepy. So I drank water…probably too much water. For the next leg of the trip we were stuck in a bus for a while. I had to go to the bathroom very badly indeed but we had to wait for the next stop. I tried to pee into a plastic bag at the back of the bus (shame and decency be damned, I was desperate) but that wasn’t working either.

That was the last straw. Think about it – stressed to the gills, lacking sleep and now unable to void the contents of your bladder – all basic animal needs which went unfulfilled. I went completely nuts. I screamed and shouted wildly and quite literally tore my shirt in half. I saw a grown man, six foot six inches, collapse and cower on the floor of the bus in front of me, gibbering in fear. Like the Hulk, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry. Though as explosions went I must say this was one of the worst in my life, probably due to the sheer amount of stress I was under.

I rushed out of the bus and ran to the nearby bushes and somehow was able to relieve myself. Everyone was shocked but I think my Mum went into Full Martyr Mode and was all like I’ll take care of my sick son you guys just continue with the trip because it’s so shameful.
Somehow we made it back to the hotel. My Mum was totally black-faced for the rest of the trip and the journey home. I don’t think she even looked at us once in that time. My sister tried her best to deal with things and I can’t really remember what I did. My only clear memory of that time was going up to the hotel balcony and attempting to masturbate to at least cut out some of the pain. Hey, if it beat a suicide attempt it might work for stress relief too.

As you might expect I needed a LOT of therapy and rest to deal with the aftermath of the trip. It must have stolen six months to a year of my life at least. It’s all a blur and yes, I am quite sad to remember it.

You know what the best part was? Later when I attempted to talk to my Mum about it she said that her motivation for the trip was to show us off to her students because we were so accomplished and successful. What. The. Fuck? That was a whole new level of delusional, even for my Mum.

Meimei and I bore scars from that ordeal that would take years to heal. Every time we even so much as mentioned “The England Trip” we would both sigh and shake our heads. As much as she said that she wanted me to get better, it seemed that Mum would do practically anything to prevent me from doing so.

It was a painful and traumatic experience (which is not exactly fun to recall now) but if I learnt anything at all from it it was that my mother really did think of herself as the Empress Dowager. We existed to wait hand and foot on her and do whatever she wanted. If she had ever gone for a official assessment (not bloody likely considering how she spat and hissed at any mention of psychology) it would probably be along the lines of Narcissistic or Borderline Personality Disorder.

Writing this I am amazed, as always, that we managed to make it. But we did, much as we managed to make it all the way to this point. We weren’t going to be out in the clear for a long time more though. At that point in time it was still a matter of day to day existence, as much I hated to admit it.

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I’ve brought various series to my therapist many times in our work together, and I’ve seen her struggle to understand the art and values of a culture quite alien to her. But the use of media as a healing modality is not new – in fact, it dates back many years.

Bibliotherapy is essentially using books to heal. People are encouraged to draw upon the experiences of fictional characters to better understand themselves and their problems. When is the last time that you read a book – or watched a movie, or anime – and you really felt a kinship with one of the characters? It went beyond a feeling of “oh, I understand” Perhaps it was more like “that’s me! that’s it! That’s what I am feeling!”

Those feelings and identifications can be fertile ground for healing and understanding. A related field is graphic medicine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphic_medicine) All of these tap into the healer’s maxim – you need to feel to heal.

I would respectfully submit that anime can be used in this vein as well. So, Exhibit A – Neon Genesis Evangelion.

NGE’s impact on the landscape of anime cannot be understated, and at this point in time – almost 3 decades after it’s initial air date – doesn’t really need explanation. The psychological depth of the work and how it deals with mental illness is a landmark in the development of the artform.

Early on in its lifespan in the West, many an anime magazine has asked why Shinji was such a wimp. Why are the characters so messed up? In the many years since it’s inception, there have been some that have tried to answer that question.

https://comicbook.com/anime/news/neon-genesis-evangelion-therapist-weighs-in-treatment-for-shinji-ikari-anime/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/science-and-philosophy/202003/neon-genesis-evangelion-and-the-meaning-of-life

For a more thorough and robust look, this article goes deeper.

Mental health is still unfortunately a taboo subject in some of the world, especially Asia, and works like NGE could help in broaching issues that are not often discussed. Hideaki Anno’s own struggle with depression that culminated in his creation of the series is quite well-known.

Perhaps what helped me the most in the series was seeing my own life writ large on the screen. I was a young Asian teenager with depression, a dysfunctional family as well as my own latent and unacknowledged bisexuality. Watching NGE was a watershed moment for me…wait. Cartoon characters can be depressed? Can have dysfunctional families? Can be bisexual?

This wasn’t Disney (Either then or now!) that was for sure. While Disney and Pixar are touching on some of these topics in their later work, I do believe that in this respect, anime did get there first.

While NGE is probably (and rightfully) the animated work most associated and known for its depiction of mental illness, there are other ones that generally fly a little under the radar – and so I hope to bring them to your attention.

Kodomo no Omocha (Child’s Toy) is a more understated look at another taboo subject – parental abuse and neglect. Hayama “acts out” (to use psychological language) in school because he’s neglected at home, and is part of an extremely unhelpful family dynamic (no spoilers!)

The main character’s later attempts to befriend him and get him out of his shell do eventually shed light on exactly why he might behave the way that he does – and remind us that abuse and neglect of any kind rarely exist in a vacuum. The abusers are in a sense also victims – these actions, while still inexcusable, are seen in a different light as the series progresses, and reconciliation is also shown to be possible.

What does a series about a rough-riding biker chick have to do with this touchy subject? While it’s not the main focus on the narrative by far, Michiko to Hatchin does actually have a very graphic and realistic portrayal of child abuse right in its first episode. It’s heavy going to watch, but the way Hana deals with her situation is a reminder of the grim reality of an abused child.

And sometimes it’s the series that you don’t think that will help that do. One scene from Read or Die the TV stands out for me – when Anita goes into shock from seeing something that triggers a traumatic memory. Michelle simply stands in front of her and tells her that she’s here right now – not in the past, and she’s safe. Sometimes the simplest of interventions are the best, and the older sister’s words serve to snap her out of the dark memory and into the present. Trauma is healed right here, in the now – informing the psyche and the nerves that the danger is past and life is ready to be lived once more.

In short, I’ve found that what works is seeing the characters you know struggle to understand and overcome many of the things we face in our lives. When we can see it outside of ourselves, we gain perspective. We can keep the work as far or as close as we desire – diving deep into it to experience troubling emotions in safety, or zooming out to understand it from a different angle. The characters and shows that we know and all will always be there for us – to inspire, educate and help us understand worlds both real and fictional.

What shows and series have spoken to you? How has anime touched your heart?

(Technically manga are also comics, which are technically sequential art – but I’m not going to have that technical discussion here. Maybe another time in another article.)

But you didn’t come here to hear me ramble on, you came to learn about LGBT comics that are worth reading. Well, the good news is that there are plenty. LGBTness (is that a word?) is becoming more and more widespread and mainstream, and there have been a lot of great comics that are definitely worth checking out.

It’s beyond the scope of the article to list all of them, so I’ll just talk about some which have happened to have captured my fancy.

Cheer Up! Love and Pompoms

This is a fairly light-hearted romp set in contemporary times about a transgender teen who is trying out for the cheer squad during her transition. Themes like gender dysphoria, parental approval and that classic of adolescence – fitting in – are treated with a combination of humor and drama that I found quite refreshing.

While this work isn’t a heavy hitter by any means, the bright, bold colors and the antics of its characters had me coming back for more. Not all LGBT stories need to go for hard-hitting social commentary, and sometimes less is more. There are some cute moments as both of the main characters go through explorations of their still-changing sexuality, but I won’t talk about them in detail as I don’t want to spoil the fun for anyone.

Sunstone

This comic is kind of a classic in the kink world…mainly because there aren’t very many comics that deal with BDSM in the first place. While I do recommend it for people who are interested in that kind of thing (the author himself is kinky and does a fairly good job of explaining kink to newcomers through his art and writing) it’s the LGBT angle I will be talking about today.

Sunstone is very matter-of-fact about its portrayal of the romance between its two leads, neither of whom full on identify as queer at the beginning of the story. It’s a story that could very much happen in real life, as it’s set on New York in contemporary times. Queerness is treated without angst, without drama – just as a fact of life. Some are, some aren’t.

It’s a refreshing take on queer identity that isn’t that often found in media. When the subject does come up, there’s some soul-searching, yes, but a minimum of hand-wringing and wailing. Each of the characters are shown dealing with the discovery of the orientation in different ways – and yes, I could see of all it happening in real life.

So you might want to come for the kinky lesbian sex (it says right in the first page!) but you might stay for the varied and detailed portrayal of life, love and queerness in NYC – while the BDSM content might be just the cherry on top. Or maybe it’s the main draw – Sunstone is a strong enough work that it can be read in many ways and still be engaging.

Harleen and Harley

I’ll admit to having a bit of a soft spot for Harley Quinn. While technically a villain (I mean, she is the Joker’s on and off partner) she has stepped into the antihero role quite a few times as the years have gone by. There is something about her unique blend of mayhem, unpredictably and openly bisexual nature that has me checking on her antics every few years or so, despite my manga-leaning stance.

DC tends to play it safe with the character in general – I would appreciate more attention paid to her codependent relationship with the Joker, the dynamics of having two lovers (is Harley polyamorous?) and the complexities inherent within herself (a psychologist who herself is not mentally stable is interesting territory which few writers have plumbed)

But I digress (and also try not to ramble overmuch!) This particular comic is intended for young adults, and as such certain aspects that we’ve come to associate with Harley Quinn (violence, for instance) are toned down. The Joker is also not present, and she’s definitely presented in a sympathetic and more compassionate life, having to deal with parental pressures and the long arm of the law – albeit in a different way. There’s no Batman here, just Big Pharma and probation for our spunky heroine to overcome.

It’s a softer take on Harley that I found intriguing. Her psychotic tendencies are explained in a different way here (which I won’t spoil) and it’s interesting to see Harley shine as the star of her own show without many of the familiar aspects of the Batman mythos. Here she’s just a young teenaged bisexual girl navigating the challenges of adolescence…albeit in unexpected ways.

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would – and maybe you will too.

Alice in Leatherland

A different kind of queer coming of age, this comic follows the exploits of the titular Alice who travels to San Francisco in the wake of being dumped by her girlfriend. What follows is her reinventing herself professionally, romantically and personally – and the trials and tribulations which she encounters along the way.

Having actually lived in San Francisco for a year, I can attest to the fact that while the comics is of course fictional, a lot of the depictions of the queer dating scene there actually hit quite close to home. Alice is a likable protagonist in general – a small town girl thrust into the world of the big city, in which she has to adapt and change in ways that she had neve considered before. Through it all, she never really loses her innate qualities and charm, though her naivete is quickly lost and her mettle tested by having to figure out how to make her dreams into reality – or even change or cast some aside.

Alice’s romance with Robin is also quite engaging. Two very different women from different worlds, expressing their love in ways that themselves sometimes don’t understand…sounds like a lot like real life? Comics that can express the poignancy of real life relationships – queer or otherwise – with humor and panache are rare, but this one does with heart and style.

Fence

As a transcultural person myself (bilingual, who loves both Japan and America, comics AND manga) few things make me happier than seeing work that has the distinct qualities of the East and West, but which blends them into a whole that are greater than the sum of its parts.

This comic succeeds in bringing the high-octane action and intense relationships of sports manga into a different playing field – namely, fencing. The author has done their homework for the series (real-life instructors were consulted) but seriously – how much do you really need to know about a sport to read a comic about it? I found myself researching what a fleche was and various scoring conventions as I kept being drawn into the world of Fence – the cute boys and the solid linework had cast their spell over me, and I was definitely quite hooked for a while.

The authors have cited Haikyuu! and other sports manga as inspirations for this series, which shows both in its art and placing. It is also unabashedly very queer (it even won a GLAAD award) with more than half of the cast not straight. The romantic and sexual tension between the leads is palpable, and in time-honored sports manga tradition, you can feel it on and off the field.

There’s a lot to like about Fence – the excellent characterization, the action of the fencing scenes, the way the plot slowly develops…it’s one of the those works which its inherent queerness is evident, but it doesn’t beat you over the head with it, which I definitely appreciate. I was interested enough to read the spinoff novels, but unfortunately they lacked the charm of the series.

Queer manga is a thing. In fact, it’s not just a thing – the genre has exploded in popularity in recent years, and you can see several popular titles (including some I cover below) adorn the shelves of Barnes and Noble and/or your favorite local bookstore. Gone are the days of having to huddle around VHS tapes of Fake or find rare copies of Earthian – the rainbow agenda is out in full force.

I read a lot of LGBT manga – far many more titles than I can cover in one article. Maybe one day I’ll do more in-depth reviews of studies of some of them, but for now, these are just some titles that caught my attention during convalescence from a recent illness. Turns out that being sick in bed is a good thing to read queer manga, so my loss is your gain.

My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness

We’ll start out with some of the heavyweights. I will admit that I only picked this up because it’s original title is “Sabishisugite Rezu Fūzoku ni Ikimashita Repo, lit., “A Report on Being So Lonely That I Went to a Lesbian Brothel”” I admire any manga that has the balls (wrong turn of phrase, probably) to openly use the term “lesbian” in its title, especially since Japan has still not legalized same-sex marriage.

The manga is raw, stylized and does not pull any punches – at one point, the author talks about how she borrowed money from her mother to go to the titular lesbian brothel, and she also depicts her struggles with social media addiction and various illnesses with humor, panache and verve. Her highly stylized art style brings to mind Art Spielgelman’s Maus, and is a testament to how serious social issues can be depicted without having to be photorealistic in detail. The work can swing wildly from droll in one panel to slapstick in the next, which to my mind is part of its appeal.

Content-wise, despite the somewhat clickbaity title, it’s essentially an autobiographical manga about the artist’s life as a single lesbian in modern day Tokyo. It does go for the jugular at various parts, with pretty detailed examinations of female bodies and their attendant genitalia…but that’s exactly why I feel manga like this should exist. Manga is an artform, and what purpose does art serve if not to illuminate society and the human condition in general?

A work this unapologetic in its nature may not be for everyone, but I encourage mature readers to at least give it a once-over.

My Brother’s Husband

This is an Eisner-nominated work from Gengoro Tagume, who is better known for drawing bears (the gay human kind) in various forms of extreme sadomachocism. Nothing wrong with that, but even though the men in this manga definitely look the part, the subject matter is not like the author’s previous fare, instead being a heartwarming, gentle story of family relations and being openly gay in two very different countries.

The story is told in a plain, unvarnished way which showcases the power of manga to depict stories of all kinds – whether highly stylized works or in this instance, something simpler but no less poignant. While the world has made great strides in being accepting of LGBT+ individuals, the author asks questions of society through his characters which may not have easy answers, but need to be asked nonetheless.

I think what I like best about this manga is how well…normal it is. No giant warriors or spacefaring vessels to be found anywhere – just an ordinary Japanese man and his daughter who discoveres that his deceased brother’s husband is coming to visit. Through mundane affairs like grocery shopping and doing the laundry, we discover a very simple – and completely human – magic.

This work made me cry at the end, quite unexpectedly. With my own bent towards loquacity, I’m constantly reminded by quality works of art that sometimes, less is more and that
simple statements can be the most powerful.

For those who are interested, a live action movie was made of this manga.

Love Me For Who I Am (Fukakai na Boku no Subete wo)

While the title is not something to quibble too much over, I think it’s worth pointing out that it literally translates to “All of me who is not understood” This manga is somewhat of a rarity in having a non-binary AMAB person as the lead character, which I feel is definitely a step in the right direction. And it’s fun to read too

(Did I also mention everyone inside is really cute?)

Why this makes the list is that the manga doesn’t shy away from showing the very real and definitive problems one can have as a non-cis person…as well as the joy and comfort one can experience by being accepted and loved by those close to you. A wide variety of genders, orientations and sexualities can be found here – transwomen, lesbians, cross-dressers and gay men – all in some combination! All are depicted with charm and heart, without any hint of forced representation.

It’s the little things that sometimes matter, and nowhere is that more true than in this manga, whether it’s the lead’s boyfriend wondering if liking an AMAB person makes him gay, to the other gay youths taking an instant dislike to the lead’s lesbian friend…people are people, and queer folk do not automatically get along, whether in manga or real life.

Small touches like these, against the backdrop of more pressing issues like coming out and parental disapproval, make the work nuanced and varied enough to have commanded my attention.

The author also has a doujinshi featuring one of the minor characters (Suzu) for interested readers.

Asami-chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels!

Okay, admit it – you read this because of the title, right? I sure did. I’m a sucker for any fictional work which proclaims its LGBTness right in the kisser…making it not one but TWO manga with lesbian brothels this article covers.

Unlike the above entry, this manga is more of a lighthearted romp which utilizes one of the oldest tropes in the book for its lead…meeting a former childhood friend. You may cue your groans now. Also unlike the above manga, this chooses to focus more on the dynamics between the characters and how they play out over the course of the lead’s romantic and sexual entanglements at – you guessed it – lesbian brothels.

It’s actually kind of silly if you stop to think about it (how many college students do you know who blow their paychecks on gacha and brothels?) so some suspension of disbelief is required ot enjoy it. I think I put it on this list because of how unabashedly YURI it is, even more so than genre classics like Maria Sama ga Miteiru.

Unfinished at the time of this writing. It’s also NSFW, but the sex scenes are draw well and tastefully IMHO.

What Did You Eat Yesterday?

Not a manga I would normally read, this is a very slow-paced slice of life manga about a gay lawyer and his hairdresser boyfriend. It deals with such mundanities such as doing the laundry, getting skim milk at a discount and watching your cholesterol at middle age. Not very exciting stuff now, is it?

The devil, as they would say, is in the details. This is not a manga you want to read if you’re looking for grip the edges of your chair in excitement. Nor is it a manga to read if you want to deal with hard-hitting societal issues or laugh out loud every minute. This is a manga to read if you’re looking for something relaxing, slow-paced and…obsessed with food.

Well, maybe obsessed is putting it a little too strongly. The manga delights in the minute details that go into preparation of food – from cutting, slicing, chopping vegetables and simple tasks like boiling water. It’s in these details of everyday life that you see how close the lovers truly are, and how there is a certain je ne sais quoi in the humdrum nature of daily existence. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say there is tons of wabi-sabi (the Japanese awareness centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection) it does have a somewhat unique aesthetic of its own.

It’s a simple enough story that just shows normal people going about their lives – whether grocery shopping, having a hard day at work or kicking back with a few beers and a good TV show. Matters like still being closeted at work, parental acceptance and legal entanglements relating to being gay are treated matter-of-factly and without any fanfare, pomp or circumstance.

I typically like my romances and manga more dramatic, but it takes all types to make the world, and one thing I love about manga is the diversity of the artform. So if you’re looking for something a little more slow-paced, you may want to check this one out.

The author has doujinshi of this work for those of you who actually want to see the lovers consummate their relationship (the manga is SFW)

Our Dreams at Dusk (Shinanami ni Tasogare)

If the beautiful, highly stylized and detailed line art doesn’t draw you in, then the treatment of ostracizsm and suicide risk should. The story follows a gay teenager who is forcibly outed and meets other queer folx at a house which becomes sort of a home away from home to him. Like Love Me For Who I Am above, it deals with the entire spectrum of queerness – from homosexuality to crossdressing. Unlike the above though, it also has a prominent asexual character, which is something that I haven’t seen much of in media (that and demisexuality)

While the main character’s struggle to accept himself and others is poignant, I found the romance between one of the gay gentlemen in the story to be especially heartwarming. We don’t often see depictions of older queer folk, and this manga brings to light something I’ve experienced in my life often as well – that being born queer in a different time and era makes for a very different tale.

It’s easy to forget and take for granted that some of the civil liberties that some populations enjoy today (gay marriage being legal in most G1 nations, for instance) were born from much sacrifice and tragedy. While I enjoy the flush of first love, there is much to say about the slow burn of a lifetime relationship, and the older lovers in this work captured my attention in a way that few others have.

I feel that this is a good read in general – soft in some places, sparing no expense at drama in others. It’s realistic with a slight touch of magic in its dreamy air and evocative artwork.

The moon shone above Selen brightly, a white ball of luminescence set against the starry backdrop of the stars. The youth looked up, scrutinizing the night sky, then nodded softly to himself. It was time.

He slung his rifle carelessly over one shoulder, made sure his leggings were tight against his body - a single slip could be fatal in this terrain - and then set off at a slow pace. No sense in tiring himself out now. It would be a long journey to his destination, and he had to husband his stamina against any and all hazards in his way. Sandworms, for one - in this season the ground was full of them. Even one could get into his suit and from there eat away at...no. It didn’t even bear thinking about. Just keep looking forwards and walking, like Old Man Lyssom told him. “The moment yer head is full is when yer gonna fall right to tha ground, my boy. Pay attention.” Wise words.

Dunes gave way to hills and those to valleys as Selen trudged on. He estimated it would be two, maybe three nights before he got to where he was going. The mountain stood before him, a craggy edifice that got closer and closer with each step he took. He remembered the last time he had been here, in summer. The winds had been higher then, and hotter, of course, almost searing his skin - but the path was the same. Just got to keep walking.

As day turned into night and night back into day, the canister in his belt seemed to press into him, reminding him of the urgency of his task. The village needed the moonlit water. On the eighteenth day of the solstice, the moon was full and high enough to bestow its blessing onto the water taken from the deepest well that they had. Only then could the ancient machines work, and the wheat be ground and fires set alight. The water had to be poured into the hole at the center of the village in the dark of night. Then the ritual would be complete.

Why was it this way? No one knew. When he asked the village elder the old man simply sighed and shook his head. It had been this way for as long as anyone could remember. He might as well have asked why the rain fell, or why the wind blew. They only knew that it must be done, and that it fell to him - as the youngest male member of the tribe - to do it.

That was enough for him. He thought back to his younger sister, her pigtails flying in the wind and cherubic smile, and his ailing mother, face wan and pale with pain. Old Man Lyssom and Anika the weaver. Nialis the blacksmith and Cregwyth who tended the hearth. He couldn’t let them all down.

And so he was out here once again, braving the elements. The wind and rain were not the least of his worries, though. There were other things this far out, dangers that even the texts in the village library had no knowledge of. You could not prepare for everything.

It was on the third night that he saw them.

They came swiftly and silently as the day began to end. It was only a routine check with his scanner that allowed him to spot them - dark shapes hovering at the corners of his vision. Without thinking his training kicked in, the long nights at the range under the tutelage of his instructors coming to him unbidden. He unslung his rifle from its holster and took careful aim.

Wolves, the books had called them. They were not native to this region, and he had certainly never seen them anywhere near the village. Their flanks gleamed silver as they loped over the dunes to him, eyes flaring a baleful red. He counted one...no, two, three - too many. All he needed to know was that they were a threat.

He got the first in its throat as it leapt for him, his pulse rifle spitting an incandescent beam of cyan energy. Then he tore a hole through another as it attempted to flank him. Another lance of light flared once, twice, piercing hide and steel alike. Five down...many more to go.

He had weathered the first wave, but the second was on him almost immediately. Despite his valiant efforts, the wolves eventually got through his defenses. He took shot after shot, burning each lupine assailant as best as he could until - wait. Senses honed in the long hours by the river came to him in a rush, and he turned sharply on his heel, just in time to avoid the slavering jaws of another wolf. Raising the butt of his rifle, he slammed it down onto its head and it collapsed in an insensate heap at his feet.

Almost...almost! He had two, maybe three shots left in his chamber. He had to make them count. His side was bleeding from where one of the wolves had torn through his side, but it was just a flesh wound - nothing that would prevent him from making the rest of the journey. He hoped. But he had more pressing concerns. Four wolves and not enough ammunition for all of them.

He would have to have to bait them. Selen crouched down, feigning weakness. He recalled that the books said that the wolves would be more aggressive with wounded prey, and he prayed they were right. Two of them took the bait almost immediately, leaping towards him in tandem. He did a quick roll to the side and got them both with a single well-placed shot. Selen allowed himself a small grin. Maybe he’d get out of this alive after all.

But he hadn’t reckoned on the other two. Before he could react one of them went for his head, and it took all his reflexes to bring up the rifle in time to hole it through its forehead. He scrambled to his feet as quickly as he could before the last wolf could attack.

It was just the two of them now. They circled each other warily, blue eyes against red. Selen had only one shot left and he knew it. His fingers flexed near the trigger, itching to take the shot but unsure of when he should. Now? Or wait? Or maybe...no, too much thinking. Focus on the moment. The last wolf took the decision out of his hands with a sudden leap for his head. Before he knew it he was on the ground, razor sharp teeth inches from his neck. In a blind panic he pressed the trigger and had the satisfaction of seeing his attacker stiffen and roll off his body slowly. Blind luck had placed the rifle at just the right angle for the shot to pass through the wolf’s spine and out its head.

He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding and dropped the rifle by his side, the barrel still hissing with superheated steam. It was over. He had done it. But it would be some time before the shivers running through his body would stop. The memory of the wolf’s fangs near his neck still made him light-headed and the youth thought it best to stop for the night. This far out in the desert, the winds made making camp far harder than he thought, and it was nearly midnight before his head hit the makeshift pillow he had created what meagre supplies he brought.

As he slept, he dreamt.

It was the moon again, shining brilliantly in the night sky. But this time it was different. Tinged faintly with green, it shone with an eldritch light that burned his eyes even as he looked at it. But he wasn’t even there. Instead all he could see were people, sick and frail and infirm, an endless mass of humanity that spread as far as you could see. And even as the moon shone they twisted and writhed in its baleful light, shrinking in upon themselves and turning silver and grey. They had become something else, similar to the machines that lay scattered around his village.

And them some of them changed even further, turning into the wolves that had attacked him earlier. Others still became pulled into other forms, becoming twisted aberrations that he had only seen in some of the books in the village. Still others grew long and gaunt, becoming statues standing tall and silent. And above all that the moon cast its lambent light everything below.

He woke with the memory of lunar phosphorescence still fresh in his mind. He checked his hands and feet...the dream had been so vivid that he half-expected them to have turned to the same metal he had dreamt of moments before. But no...he was still flesh and blood, and he heaved a sigh of relief.

What did it all mean? He wished he had Old Man Lyssom nearby, or the elder. They would know what to do. But no, he was just left with the sighing of the wind and the early morning sun for company. Shaking his head to clear away the last cobwebs from his mind, the youth rolled up his bedclothes, holstered his rifle and set out on his way once more.

One day left. With each step the mountain hove more clearly into view. Checking his supplies, Selen was relieved to find that they were sufficient to last on the way back. Almost there now. It was now simply a matter of putting one foot in front of the other.

Before long he found himself in front of the mountain. He had been here before - many times, in fact - but each time the wind and sand and rain had changed its appearance, and it looked new in his eyes. The climb was long and arduous, and Selen found himself out of breath even before he had gone up halfway. A quick stop and a drink from his canister though, and he was ready once more.

As he made his way up, he looked out over the desert that he had walked through to get here. It never failed to amaze him how small everything looked from where he stood...the village just a tiny dot in the distance, and the dunes like little piles of sand. He took a moment to incline his ears to the wind. Each time he reached the summit he thought it was speaking to him, and he craned his ears to make out words that seemed to twist and slip away even as he heard them.

“The moon...long ago...once...humans were...” and then it was gone. And he was left as always to wonder if it was simply a figment of his imagination.

The last flight of stairs was always the longest, and Selen had to pause multiple times as he made his way up. How long ago had these been made, he asked himself. Stairs in a mountain meant that humans had been here...but since when? Before the moon? Before the wolves came? A hundred - no, maybe even a thousand years ago. He would have to ask the elder and Old Man Lyssom again when he got back, but he doubted they would know the answers. For now he simply had to put one foot in front of the other until he got to where he was going.

Finally he stood atop the mountain summit. Here the winds were so cold that he had to huddle into his jacket to preserve what warmth was left to after the frigid air had taken its share. The moon looked even fuller from where he stood, and he took a moment to admire it in all its majesty. So white and so cold, like a pearl in the black ocean of the night sky.

But he had a task to complete. Selen cast his eyes across the peak and there it was - a recession in the hard stone of the mountain where water had gathered. That was his goal. He walked over slowly, unslinging the second canister from where it rested on his hip.

The water gleamed in the moonlight, almost blinding him. As he knelt down to fill the canister, he thought he had never seen something quite so beautiful in his life. The play of lunar luminescence on the shifting flow of the clear water held him almost spellbound for a while - as it always did. With long slow motions he filled it to the brim with the moonlit fluid, taking the utmost care not to spill even a single drop.

There. Done. Selen screwed the cap of the flask on tight and placed it back into the holster at his hip. Another year that the crops would have water, the machines would run and the village would be safe. He turned to make his way down the mountain, but not before taking one last long look at the moon.

There was something about it that was different from where he was now. This high up and this close to that brilliant white orb, he couldn’t help but feel that he could almost reach out and touch it. The youth raised a hand to the open sky, seeing the pale white rays shine through his outstretched fingers. Its wan light was mysterious, lonely and beautiful all at the same time.

The wind sighed again, and Selen remembered his dream. The words that whispered ever so briefly to him and then faded away mingled with the remnants of his dream-fraught sleep, and the youth struggled to put them all together. He could not help but feel that it was all connected...the wolves, the moonlit water, the mountain he stood on and even the legends of his village. A story lost to time, its fragments split between gust and reverie. A faraway memory whose truth even Old Man Lyssom and the village elder would be hard-pressed to know the meaning of.

Selen stood there for what seemed like an eternity. Eyes caught by the moon, ears ensnared by the wind, and mind captured by reminiscence. And then as quickly as the moment came upon him, it was gone, and he was left shaking his head at its passing.

Time to go home. The village needed him. He cast one last glance at the pale orb ahead and then turned to walk back down the mountain.

I’ve loved video game music since…well, forever. All the way back from my childhood and then later back in the US and when I first came to Singapore and I wanted to learn how to compose. There’s nothing quite like it. The genre has tunes and styles from all over the world, and when it’s playing in-game with the action and the gameplay and everything else coming together at one point it’s pretty fucking fantastic. Of course you can listen to it out of the game as well and it will be equally good.

The concert? I loved it. As did I think everyone else who attended. There were standing ovations and applause and Arnie Roth did a fantastic job of conducting.

At around this time I think Dissidia : Final Fantasy was released, and that was a gem of a game. I never got into the PvP aspect of it (I am and still continue to be more of a solo gamer) but it was like Final Fantasy meets Super Robot Wars, which was awesome.

In the playing of it I felt my old hatred of FF7 begin to wither and die. It seems silly to think about now but it was something that I had carried around with me for a long time and it was good to let it go. Cloud’s voice actor did a fantastic job, as did Sephiroth’s. I felt that I could finally see the Cloud that everyone else saw on message boards and forums and Internet videos, who was So Cool with the huge-ass sword and his lost memory and all that, and not the loser who wasn’t even a SOLDIER and ended up wearing another guy’s purple clothes.
I think it was realizing that FF7 was to a whole generation of gamers what FF4 was to me back in Chicago…Timmy’s First Real JRPG. I couldn’t fault people for not playing FF4 or FF6 because they were on systems they didn’t even have! We always remember our firsts, be they lovers or games. I still don’t really like FF7 and think it’s overrated, but I don’t hate it anymore.

Looking back perhaps it was me healing from the wounds of my teenage, through the medium by which I did everything – video games. It was great to play Dissidia, to see so many aspects of everything FF come together. It showed me just how far video games had come, how far Final Fantasy had come. How far I had come.

I ended up playing FF11 because Dissidia and to a lesser extent, (more about that in the next chapter) my cousins. Curse you, Desmond, Shawn and Shantotto!

There were other video game music concerts as well before Distant Worlds. Play! and Passion before that. I think I was in the seventh heaven of rapture when I heard Yasunori Mitsuda play Scars Left By Time LIVE ON STAGE in front of me. It’s an experience I will never forget.

Passion was good but perhaps not as good as Play. I was so touched by it though that I wrote a long-forgotten blog post about it (back when I still sort of had a blog) Did I mention the lead female violinist was one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen? If not I’m mentioning it here.

I think that is what is special about games, that they can bring us out of ourselves, into someplace greater and stronger and deeper, and then bring us back with whatever we have gained from that place. At least that was part of the reason why I played them. The same is true for any kind of art, really, but I’ve always thought that the participatory nature of games makes them an entirely different beast than let’s say, books or movies.

You get to decide. How cool is that? The figures on-screen don’t move unless you direct them to, by mouse or gamepad or nowadays, voice. You need to bring them where they have to go. You choose how they grow, what weapons they may use (or not use) how they advance and what they do.

It’s about choice – which I’ve had precious little of in my life. And it’s strange that instead of gravitating to games with more choices (Western RPGs, for instance) I instead cleaved to the East and their more linear forms of gameplay.

And the stories. As you’ve no doubt learnt, I love game stories. I think that later in my teenage when I made the jump from books to games that was one of my primary motivations. Stories that were so strong, so powerful, so touching that I feel I could write an entire series of books on them and not just one.

And not just Japanese games either! The Would You Kindly scene in Bioshock left me trembling…I think I needed to leave the room to drink water. Planescape Torment left me reeling (as I think it did many others) The Last of Us was powerful enough to make me think deeply about it as well.

Perhaps strange for someone whose chosen medium is words but (I don’t think I could produce an autobiographical game at this point…maybe next time?) I think the true power of the medium lies when you can combine choice and the cinematographic nature of movies in one. I’m no big Hideo Kojima fan (there I said it, you can kill me now) but the warship battle in the Zone of the Enders 2, with the sunlight glittering off the black shapes hanging in the sky as missiles fly and explosions resound and YOU ARE RIGHT THERE CONTROLLING JEHUTY was fucking amazing. It’s literally like being in a movie!

Sometimes I think I wrote this entire book just to tell people how powerful games can be. I doubt that many people use them as a parental substitute and pathway to the spirit and soul like I did (then again, the world is vast, so how do I know?) but trust me, they can be all that and more.

People underestimate the power of video games. Really they do! Even in the world of today. There’s so much potential waiting to be tapped – in education, in design, maybe even in seemingly unrelated fields like psychotherapy. Hey, it worked for me.

It’s not all sunshine and roses (wild or otherwise) There are really bad games out there. (Call of Duty, I’m looking at you!) The games industry can be one of the most cutthroat and unforgiving ones in the world. Just look at the recent debacle between Konami and Hideo Kojima, or the sudden close of Irrational Games. But we have to take the good with the bad.

Look around you. We’ve come so far from the days of Pong and Space Invaders. Nowadays people mix tracks from old Sega Genesis games into bar and trance music. There are kids named Cloud, Epona and Ash. Where do we go from here? Virtual reality? Touch-based RPGs? It’s pretty exciting!

So distant worlds together, miracles from realms beyond. And indeed they were. Amidst the still-unresolved problems, hope grew. Steadily, slowly, I was growing stronger and stronger.

Previous Chapter

Next Chapter

A short summary for those who may not know what it is – in short, the Persona series is a spinoff from the mainline Shin Megami Tensei franchise of JRPGs that grew to be much more popular than its originating series. It generally deals with themes of growing up, explorations of the human psyche (exactly my jam!) and identity and meaning.

What I like about it is that it takes the well-worn “highschoolers with supernatural powers” trope and introduces it, no-holds barred, to real life situations – having access to a shadow dimension or being able to summon figures from myth and legend doesn’t mean that you might not have to deal with parental estrangement, social isolation, depression and/or trauma…all things that the series’ characters do at one point face.

While only the later entries really deal with mental illness, the series has a tradition of psychological exploration, as befits a franchise which in Latin means “mask” and takes many of its key themes and ideas from Jungian psychology. As my therapist used to say “we contain multitudes” – the human psyche is complex and often fragmented, and Persona is notable in its exploration of its facets in many shapes and forms.

(For a deeper dive – https://www.cbr.com/persona-franchise-real-life-psychology/)

As I will be discussing events from all the games here, unmarked spoilers will follow.

The series was still finding its identity and footing with Persona 1, and so the first installment in the series didn’t go too far in terms of in-depth exploration. There were some interesting moments, like meeting yourself in the last dungeon of the game, and of course the overarching plot having been created by one girl’s desire to live a normal life instead of being confined to a hospital bed.

Still, I can’t very well say that Persona 1 really did more than a cursory examination of wish-fulfillment, the maturation of identity and the search for meaning, though there is a memorable line for that one part – the final boss can ask you point blank “What do you live?” and you can reply “To find the answer” – which is pretty deep for a PlayStation era game.

(Or you could be a total putz and reply with “I don’t know.”)

I feel Persona 2 is really where the series starts to come into its own. It begins to touch on themes that a typical coming of age narrative might have, like Ginko’s cultural estrangement (she’s a foreigner in Japan and copes by adopting a third culture) and Eikichi’s issues about his appearance and relationship with his father. It’s also dark – probably the darkest of the mainline games, but for all the severity of its tone, never falls into despair.

It also doesn’t deal with mental illness specifically, but P2’s focus is more about other themes such as interpersonal relationships, regrets and the blurring between fantasy and reality. The series’ trademark strong characterization is out in full force, though, and so there are some pretty deep dives into the individual psyches of the characters’, examining their hopes, dreams and motivations.

Moments that stand out for me include Tatsuya’s confession scene (in which he can out himself as bisexual if you so choose) and Eikichi’s conception of his father as a huge boss monster – showing how our mind does indeed create the world in many ways. If we imagine someone as something, does it become that? That’s something that the series goes on to explore in other ways throughout its many installments.

Now for P3…except that I didn’t play it 🙂

Full disclosure here once again – I have not actually completed P3. For some reason I really couldn’t get into the game, and so I won’t be writing about it here because I don’t feel I should cover games I don’t know that well (and if I do, I do admit to not playing them!) I’ve learned a fair bit from the Megaten wiki, but I will be skipping the game in general.

So let’s move on to one of my favorite entries in the series – Persona 4.

This is where Persona goes full on into the Jungian archetypes of the shadow and ego repression. Each of the characters encounters issues while growing up that they seek resolution with, all very real – Yukiko feels caged by her place in her family’s house, while Naoto and Kanji struggle with gender expression and identity.

All these repressed emotions and unwanted parts of the self become the shadow – in P4’s case, it’s something both literal and figurative. Kanji is in denial because his self-image and ego can’t handle the fact that he both likes traditionally “feminine” pursuits such as needlework, but at the same time he’s a Badass Biker Dude. The other characters encounter similar “splits” in their psyche which must be met and healed.

One of the core themes of P4 is that when you completely and totally accept your shadow self, it then becomes a source of your power. Even visually, it’s shown that the monstrous Shadows of the characters transform into the strong and powerful archetype of myth and legend once the characters accept their repressed selves and integrate them into the entirety of their psyche. In fact, the game goes one step further – to unlock the final transformation of their Personas, another aspect of their psyche must be embraced and also integrated.

I find that this is one of the depictions of the psyche that the Persona series hits a home run with. Even in real life, people struggle with facets and aspects of their personality that they find are “bad” – shutting them away and avoiding facing them. Whether their real life shadows are cast by society, our parents or our disenfranchised selves, all of them must led into the light and accepted to effect real healing. Often in therapy I’ve experienced epiphanies that mirror the ones that the characters’ go through – when you are ready to accept the shadow as part of you, what is real comes through to be embraced, and what is false falls away.

Once again I feel this is where video games have great healing potential in being able to depict this is a narrative form, letting the audience relive their own difficulties and struggles differently. Art is powerful, and nowhere it is moreso than when something can show you how our dark sides (and we all have one) can indeed become a bridge to the light – if we would but let them.

While none of the P4 cast have full-blown mental disorders, the importance of actual shadow work in therapy and real life cannot be understated. True strength lies within fully accepting and understanding ourselves, warts and all – even the parts that we would like to disown or pretend that are not true.

If our psyche is split in this way, it can end up poorly for us, with repressed urges coming up in all sorts of ways, ranging from maladaptive coping mechanisms to acting out. It’s beyond the scope of this piece to address them all, but let me just say that this is where P4 really does hit the nail on the head regarding recovery and growth – the shadow must be addressed.

And if even in real life the results may not be as flashy as in a video game, there are nevertheless very true and tangible.

(https://videoda.me/confronting-shadows-finding-strength-in-persona-a8d2d41a85d8)

Persona 5 is the game that really put the series on the map in terms of popularity, and it’s easy to see why – it’s a carefully crafted piece that many (including myself) have called a masterpiece. And it does indeed deal with mental health issues in a way that few other games do.

P5 deals with many of the themes that the series has become known for, but this time the Personas are unleashed by quite literally ripping off the figurative “mask” from the characters’ faces. But for this piece I’d like to spotlight two characters who most definitely suffer from, face down and overcome mental health challenges.

Futaba’s story is as grim as they come – she is a lonely child who is dealing with agoraphobia, isolation and social anxiety, being unable to leave her room and coping by using the Internet. Essentially, she’s a preteen hikkokomori.

But the story shows how the main characters attempting to solve the mystery of her mother’s murder ends up with her having to confront her worst demons – and triumph over them. Persona doesn’t pull punches – her scenario deals with you entering her internal world, where she has created a narrative of herself that seems to enable her to deal with her struggles…emphasis on seems. By uncovering the truth of what happened, Futaba has to learn to face herself and the world once more.

This situation parallels many real life ones that I’ve seen. When reality is too cruel, it’s very tempting to resort to escapism (including video games!) and to alternate narratives and frames of reference that can disguise or obscure the truth…which is ultimately what will set us free, if we but let it. It was empowering to see Futaba and her friends uncover a mystery that ultimately resolved itself with her coming out into the world once more, albeit slowly and with some hesitation (which was in itself quite a realistic depiction of healing from social anxiety – it’s rarely an overnight affair)

What I appreciated about Futaba’s arc is that her recovery comes about by challenging the stories that she and other people have told themselves about her and her role in her mother’s death. How true are they, really? Who is she when is not defined by the singular tragedy of her life? Those are questions I myself asked myself in my road to healing, and though they might not be easy, they needed to be asked and answered.

Futaba’s eventual recovery does echo one of the series’ themes about dealing with oneself and life in general – that of acceptance as being key to moving on. Her mother is dead – no one can change that. But by accepting that head on, as well as the fact that there are friends and family who are there and care for her, she is able to take the first steps into the wide world – a world that is so much more than just the walls and corners of her small little room.

Besides Futaba, the story arcs of Kasumi and Maruki bear mention. The latter has all the symptoms of grief and PTSD (and is in fact treated for such in game) and the latter is an actual school counselor (with issues of his own)

In the case of Kasumi, it was refreshing seeing mental health issues being treated front and center with the candor that they deserve – self-esteem and the search for identity are things that most adolescents grapple with without having to add grief and bereavement into the mix. As part of her personal development and growth, these issues are confronted, faced and eventually overcome.

I’d like to take a moment to talk about how seeing healing being gamified is an interesting phenomena in and of itself. Readers of my other work will often know how I find the presence of agency and choice in games a unique hallmark of the medium – you get to decide! How cool is that!

Seeing healing and recovery translate into actual game elements (in Kasumi’s case, her social links levelling up) also impacts your gameplay experience, making your party stronger – much as healing has that effect in the real world. There’s a lot to be said for the “Hey, maybe I can do that too!” element for video games and healing. It bears mentioning that just like in Persona as in real life, social links are important for “levelling up” in more ways than one!

With Maruki, I think what the game highlighted was the saying “doctor, heal thyself” As the narrative progresses, it becomes clear that the doctor himself is the walking wounded – and although the Jungian archetype of the “wounded healer” is powerful and very much alive today, that necessitates that the therapist in question do their own shadow work first. My own therapists have their own therapists (for at least part of their careers) and I would consider it a pre-requisite for any self-respecting psychologist to be aware of this aspect of the craft.

I know I was not the only one that was so touched by this gem of a game, as these articles will confirm

I’m heartened to find that in my travels throughout the Net that there is more attention being paid to this field. Part of the reason I started writing was to shed more light on the intersection of gaming and mental health, and I believe the artform has many insights and ways that we can use to nurture and develop ourselves, in addition to more conventional psychotherapeutic methods.

Some say that the franchise was milked pretty hard after 5 due to its overwhelming popularity, and I must sadly agree – I mean, Joker is cool and all, but how many times do we want to see him and his crew? But I digress, and I don’t want to get too off topic here.

So I’d like to point out that whatever your opinion on its many spinoffs, I find two that are worth mentioning.

Persona Q2 also focuses on many of the same issues. However, because I have not actually played the game, I’ve only been able to glean certain facts about it from the wiki and Google searches. As far as I can see though, it also deals with self-identity and trauma, as well as the related factors that impact it – such as accepting reality (as harsh as it can be) as being a key factor in recovering and moving on.

P5’s direct sequel, Strikers, also deals with how social media can sometimes cause disconnection and isolation in today’s digital age. Akane prefers the safety and anonymity of her channel devoted to the Phantom Thieves where she can escape instead of having to confront the reality of her strained relationship with her father.

Another major plot element is how AI applications such as EMMA can make people overly dependent on them, another interesting parallel to real world issues. Research shows that that the use of social media to promote and foster long-term caring connections leads to healthier outcomes than using it to constantly post status updates or show off. Art imitates life once again!

I hope you’ve enjoyed another alternative perspective into a much-beloved JRPG series. Wherever the franchise goes from here, I have no doubt it will not shirk from the exploration of the human spirit and soul that it has become noted for. I for one hope for more productive and healing collaborations between the worlds of gaming and therapy.

You know, I feel a little self-conscious even writing this. I mean, who writes diaries anymore? Everyone has a blog, or a vlog, or some kind of social media post…and here I am writing things down with ole’ plain pen and paper.

It makes me feel a little old…which I guess really isn’t a bad thing. After all, I am getting older. My sixteenth birthday was just two weeks ago, and I feel…well, I’m actually not really sure what I feel exactly.

Things are changing around here a little too fast for my comfort. Dad always tells me that change is part of life, and I know that’s true, but…Lisa’s moving away next month, and then Mom has a new job, and then she just told me that she might not be able to spend that much time with me because of all her new responsibilities. Just when she had promised to help me with my cheer routines too.

It’s not a big deal – I know it’s not, but it sometimes feels like it is. I mean, it’s all so minor compared to getting my powers.

It feels weird to write that down…getting my powers. Like now it’s really real. Official, now that I can see it right in front of me and not pretend any longer. I mean, I’ve already been Starflame for about six months now…it should have become normal, don’t you think?

Except that it hasn’t. I wake up everyday expecting to be plain old Jennifer Benning again, and then when I levitate out of bed by accident, or I charge my phone just by touching it…I realize that I’m not. And also that I really have to be more careful, because not many people know.

I haven’t told my parents yet. I know I really should, because it’s too big a secret to keep from them, but I’m not sure how I might do it. Is it like coming out? I’ve heard from my queer friends that it’s hard, but you just have to grit your teeth and do it…?

But it isn’t really the same, is it? “Hi, Dad, mom. I have something to tell you. I’m actually a superheroine! And I fight crime and…” I…can’t see that happening.

I guess the real reason that I haven’t done it is that it all seems a little surreal to me as well. Like to me, for starters. That I’m actually Starflame, the latest superheroine to hit Eureka Springs, and that I got my powers in a completely random sequence of events.

Alex has explained to me how it all happened. I don’t know what I’d do without him, to be honest – he’s the one who knows about all this superhero stuff, and he was there for me when I started freaking out when I found out I could fly and shoot lightning. He’s given me lots of sites to visit, and things to read, and…I guess all that nerdiness is really paying off me for now. I couldn’t have asked for a better best friend.

So apparently when the class took a visit to Cygnus Labs and we had to do a routine decontamination before entering the building…that left some kind of residue in my system. And then when we did some science experiments later in the day, a beaker spilled on me and caused a chemical reaction that landed me in the nurse’s office and then two days later…I find I can fly.

Alex gets all technical about it with the proper chemical names and all (he’s still trying to find out exactly what happened) but his explanation made sense to me. There were a few days in which I figured out what powers I actually have, and what I could do, and then…well, a fire broke out downtown and I had to do something, didn’t I?

Writing all this down is kind of helpful, actually. Helps me put my thoughts in order. Mrs. Phelps in English is all about self-reflection and journalling and how “externalizing our thoughts will illuminate the inner world of the psyche” but I think I’m just going to continue doing this because it’s fun.

Ok, I’ve got to go now. Mom is telling me to take out the trash for the third time today, and if she has to get to a fourth it’s not going to be pretty.

Dear Diary,

I did it! I stopped a bank robbery today! I know it’s probably a small thing to the major league superheroes, but it’s important to me.

It sort of just…happened. I wasn’t even planning on it. Just like the first time when I helped out with the fire. I was going home from school, and someone on the bus was flashing his phone and talking about a robbery downtown. I looked, and it was legit, and my bus was on the way there, so I stopped and ducked into a nearby restroom.

Alex insisted that I keep a spare costume in my backpack at all times, and he was right (like he usually is about superhero stuff) It does come in handy. After all, my “costume” is just some cosplay scraps that Alex had lying around – a domino mask, some leggings, and gloves. That’s it, nothing fancy. I don’t even wear any spandex…I think my cheerleading outfit has more.

But it keeps my identity under wraps, and that’s what’s important. I don’t want anyone to find out until I’m ready.

(Though I’ve been thinking recently that it might not that THAT big of a deal if someone does…I mean, this is Eureka Springs, after all. For a small town, we have the highest number of superheroes per capita in the continental USA. Or so Alex says…he’s full of the facts and figures.)

But anyway, I changed into my costume and then I took off downtown. It was an old-fashioned bank robbery, with no superheroes in the area to stop them. Or they were busy with other things…I think that Perdition had just gotten out of prison, and the Silver Guard had their hands full with him. Laserator was on vacation, I think. And Crimson Sunset, she was…umm…I forget. I bet’ll Alex knows, though.

So it was just up to little ole’ me. I thought I would feel frightened, but I didn’t. (Weeeeell, maybe a little) The tests that I had run with Alex in the garage showed that I had some form of superhuman endurance, but I didn’t really want to test it out in the field by getting shot.

It turns out that I didn’t need to. All it took was me flying in and taking out the getaway vehicle with a well-placed blast of energy, and they all put up their hands and dropped their weapons. I can’t take all the credit – the police were there (though they only had a few cars) I guess the robbers didn’t want to deal with BOTH Starflame and the cops at one time.

I didn’t want too much attention, so I just spouted off a few one-liners about crime not paying and then I flew away before anyone could take my picture with a phone, or any reporters got onto the scene. Ever since I helped out with the fire, there have been some articles about me…but I’d like to keep a low profile for now.

In any case, that didn’t take long at all. I flew back to a petrol station near my house,, changed out and was at the dinner table in time with no one the wiser.

It was…fun, actually. Maybe this superhero stuff isn’t so bad. I could get used to it. And the flying…well, it’s just magical.

Dear Diary,

I flunked math today. It was pretty horrible – the test had all the questions I didn’t study for (of course…) When I gave Dad my report card he frowned, but he also told me that I would do better next time, and then he gave me one of his pep talks. I felt better after it. He always knows what to say.

Maybe I should be cutting back on my superheroing time. But I don’t know if I can…I mean, if there are people in danger, isn’t it my responsibility to do something about it? If I can, that is. I’ve talked to Alex about this and we’ve both agreed that I should stay away from any real supervillains, at least for now. Better safe than sorry and all that.

I don’t know how the other superheroes do it. Alex says that the big ones have their own trainers and facilities and well…they’ve also probably not in high school and flunking math. I know a lot of them have civilian identities – we can’t all be right smack dab in the public eye like the Silver Guard, with their big HQ.

My mom always says you make time for what’s important, and this is. But when you factor in my expanded training routine, there’s not enough hours in the day for all of it. And I do need to train – while I’m getting better at directing my energy blasts, I still miss one once in a while, and I can’t move as freely in the air as I want to sometimes. If I’m going to be a superhero, I want to be a good one.

Urgh. I guess being Starflame isn’t all fun and games, huh? Still gotta worry about math.

Dear Diary

You know, I realize I haven’t really tested my powers that much. Alex is always telling me we should run more tests, but I’m busy with training and school and actual hero work. Even just responding to the alerts on the news takes up a lot of my time, even when I can fly. And I know I’m a sucker but I can’t just ignore cats stuck in trees.

So I know I can fly, and shoot energy (Alex says it’s a bioelectrical impulse generated by stuff that they don’t cover in highschool biology) and that I’m tough. That’s about it – at least as far as we know. And actually that’s enough for me right now.

I’m getting into a sort of groove – do schoolwork, hang out with Alex, do superhero stuff…I’ve sort of given up on going to the movies, which I don’t miss as much as I thought I would. Also not so much cheerleading stuff anymore, even though I’ve only missed one practice.

Being able to fly and save innocent people really does change your outlook on the world, huh? I’m not a big a nerd as Alex is about all this stuff – he tells me stories and gets this kind of starry look in his eyes when talking about superheroes – but it’s a good feeling. And I know he’s totally getting a kick out of being a sidekick to a real life superheroine…sometimes I think he’s enjoying this more than I do.

It’s challenging balancing all this out, but I think I’ve come far in these few months. I managed to talk Mrs. Anderson into letting me retake math – if I pass a makeup test, that is. That should be doable. After all, I saved a kid from drowning today…as Jennifer no less! Just swam in and didn’t tell anyone about the enhanced endurance thing. Turns out that it worked.

I guess I’m just content with being your average friendly neighborhood superheroine. Protecting the good people of Eureka Springs from crime and other mishaps where there aren’t any supers around. That’s enough for me.

I have to go now. There’s a brushfire going out of a control, and I think that the firefighters have it under control, but they might be able to use some assistance with firebreaks and stuff. So I want to be on site just in case.

This is Starflame, signing off.