Art, Ideas, Updates, and randomness

Interesting fact,

That last diary entry in the "The Dreams of a Demon" one shot was heavily inspired off of a ton of things, namely, a manga series called If I Could Reach You, it's about a girl named Uta falling in love with Kaoru, her sister-in-law. Throughout the story she's trying to get over Kaoru, but she keeps falling deeper until, in volume 5, she has to leave. At first it made her a little upset, but after a while came to accept and want it, because then she could get over her love.

It's more complicated than that, but that's the basic summary of all of the volumes so far.

Back to the topic at hand, I just wanna talk about the lines that were heavily inspired by this manga series,

"A taste that I can never have, I would've preferred to not have tasted it at all."

This was a big motif in the first volume, Kaoru began to take Uta out and show her an abnormal amount of affection because her husband (aka Uta's brother) is always "working" and doesn't show her the affection she needs. For example, on their wedding anniversary, her husband couldn't make it, so Kaoru took Uta out to the carnival, where they had fun, and Kaoru gave Uta a necklace she made herself, causing to Uta get the taste of what it would be like if she could reach Kaoru.

She describes that it made it hurt all the worse and she would've rather never had the taste at all.

"If I voiced my desires, would you laugh it off as if I hadn't said anything? Would you be so far out of my reach that I can't even grasp a rejection?"

In volume 3 Uta talks about her feelings about Kaoru to Kaoru, never saying it was her specifically, but dropping enough details for Kaoru to figure it out. Kaoru just smiled and shook it off as if she was oblivious (we know she wasn't because later, when she's alone, to paraphrase, she basically thinks to herself "I'm living with a girl that's in love with me")

Then in volume 4, Uta KNOWS Kaoru just laughed it off, and on a train, she thinks to herself, "The feelings I let slip when I wasn't ready, she evaded them with a smile. It's become painfully clear to me that I exist in a category where I can't even get a rejection." (not paraphrased, cause I had it on me)

I'd go on about how this is also brought up in volume 5, but you get the point (however volume 5 has the best rejection scene I think I've ever seen)

"Would you hate me all the more if I also told you I don't regret any of this?"

In volume 5 after Kaoru completely rejects Uta, and after Uta stopped crying, Kaoru feels horrible for all the fun little moments they had, but Uta tells her it wasn't all bad. She describes that it made her experience happiness she wouldn't have felt otherwise. Then said she didn't regret falling in love with her.

That's basically what I was going for there in that tidbit. Kaoru never hates Uta, just to make that clear. I added my own little spin with the hate part.

"Can you see me?"

Not referenced from If I Could Reach You, however it IS referenced off of one of my favorite songs, Unknown Mother Goose. It repeats "Can you see me?" a couple times in that song, and it always breaks my freaking heart because the creator of the song, Wowaka, died a year later. Still freaking miss him.

"Would you think back to all the times we were together and shudder in disgust?"

Once again referencing the scene where Kaoru rejected Uta and felt horrible for the affection and going out. Again, to clarify, she doesn't shudder in disgust, just feels bad.

"Or do you already know? Are you just being nice to me so as to not hurt me?"

Referring to the entirety of volume 4 when Kaoru's acting like everything's fine as to not hurt Uta.

"I could never forgive myself if you learned the truth my darling."

Not If I Could Reach You, but I was listening to MARETU's "Darling" while writing this bit and it got to the chorus where Miku sings, "Matte, konna no kiitenai tte, darling?" around the end of that sentence so I just added it.

"If you found out after [my death], I won't be here to face the aftermath."

Again, not a reference to If I Could Reach You, but to one of Homucifer's character arcs on RP twitter. Long story short, Homucifer tried to become a vessel for the universe and intended to die doing so (similarly to how she felt in Rebellion, where she tried to die in her labyrinth as to protect Madoka)

She knew it'd hurt the people around her, so she wanted to keep her plan a secret until it was time. I was referencing PowaPowa-P's Astronauts to explain it, with the lyrics, "I can't hear your voice, and I can't see your smile, but somehow I get the feeling that in the end I'll be alright." to explain Homucifer wanted to die without seeing the disappointment in her friend's faces.

So it's kinda inspired by both? Idk, a reference paradox if you will.

That's basically all the references in this I think.

Other than the selfish thing, which was a recurring motif in the entirety of If I Could Reach You as well. There's no specific volume that it's in, cause it's in all of them.

So uh, read If I Could Reach You if you're interested enough (there's 5 volumes, a 6th coming out in december, and they all cost about 12 dollars each on Amazon)

Just wanted to share. I like putting references in my work that nobody will get, so that I'll have more fun talking about them.

There's parts of my story that I write that make me think back to other things I've read, but it isn't clear enough or close enough to really call a reference or inspiration. But that's another ramble for another day-