[Luna POV]
When we reentered the guild branch, the receptionist from earlier came up to us.
“Welcome back.”
“Thank you. Would you like the full map of the first floor?” (Luna)
“It would be helpful.”
I walked over to an empty table and laid the map out on top of it. Aside from the receptionist, a few other curious employees and a few of the other adventurers that were here came to get a look as well.
“This is such a detailed map.”
“It’s the product of high-level cartography.” (Luna)
“This is going to be very helpful.”
“Is there a place to rest here or do we need to set up camp outside. We need to get some rest.” (Luna)
“We have a barracks, please follow me.”
We all followed the receptionist while she led us to a wooden door. That door led to a hallway with several rooms on each side.
“Each room can house a party of six, so choose any free one.”
“Thank you.” (Luna)
The receptionist left us when we chose a room to stay in. We all chose a bed to sleep on and sat down on them.
“Nyaaa. I had fun today.” (Mio)
“That’s good.” (Luna)
“I agree.” (Ophidia)
I looked over to Soleil and saw she looked a little down.
“What’s up Soleil?” (Luna)
“I’m sorry again for what I did earlier.” (Soleil)
“You’re still worried about that? It’s fine just as long as you remember not to do something like that again.” (Luna)
“Alright.” (Soleil)
Velvet then patted Soleil’s head and Soleil nestled into it. I then heard the sounds of light snoring coming from behind me and found Ophidia already asleep.
“Oh right, Lunya, can I ask about a few things?” (Mio)
“Sure.” (Luna)
“I’ve been wondering since it happened, but why did you use the Goddess of Fate’s name earlier? Also, why do you not want people to touch your tail? And why is your skillset so weird? I mean what are you, a scout or a mage? And how can you use so much magic without feeling tired at all nya?” (Mio)
“Ok first of all, slow down, I can only answer one thing at a time, and second, before I answer any of those, promise me you will keep what you hear a secret.” (Luna)
“Of course, as my eternal friend, your secrets are my secrets. No one will ever learn them, even if I’m tortured nya.” (Mio)
{Such a dark way of thinking.}
“Well, I doubt it will ever come to that, but ok. *snap*” (Luna)
I set up a domain just in case someone tried to eavesdrop on us.
“First of all, I used Atmos’s name because I know her personally.” (Luna)
“Seriously!?” (Mio)
“Yep, she’s going to be my sister-in-law, so of course I would call her by her name.” (Luna)
“You have a divine protection nya?” (Mio)
“Yep. My wife will be Tamamo, the Goddess of the Moon, Night, and Gravity.” (Luna)
I then pulled out my mirror and Tamamo’s face appeared.
{Nice to meet you Mio.}
“Goddess nya! It’s very nice to meet you nya!” (Mio)
“To answer your second question, I don’t want people to touch my tail since it’s really bad for their mental health. That is due to my title as the Abyssal Fluff.” (Luna)
“Nyever heard of it nya.” (Mio)
{We wouldn’t expect you to. Just know that since you and Luna are considered family now, you will one day have to get used to it.}
“If it’s as bad for mental health as you say it is, can it wait for when we are done with the dungeon nya?” (Mio)
“Yes. Though the same doesn’t apply to Velvet since she will finally be completely submerged before tomorrow.” (Luna)
“I thought we were going to wait for when we finish the dungeon for me as well?” (Velvet)
“Nah, you’re almost done, so why put it off any longer?” (Luna)
“*Sigh* Fine. Hand me the brush.” (Velvet)
I pulled out my brush from my inventory and tossed it to Velvet. She caught it and moved to sit next to me.
“The reason my skillset is so strange and mixed up is because I’m a reincarnator and have the skill from my past life. That time I was a scout, this time I’m a mage, though I guess I can be considered an allrounder technically. Also, due to my divine protection, I can learn and level up skills faster then normal people. That’s why most of my skills are max level.” (Luna)
“I don’t even know how to respond to that nya.” (Mio)
“And for the question of why I can use so much magic without feeling tired is because I have infinite mana.” (Luna)
“Isn’t that impossible nya?” (Mio)
{For mortals, yes, but Luna is a demigod, so that doesn’t apply to her.}
“If you have a hard time believing that; I can show you proof. Be ready Velvet.” (Luna)
“Just do it.” (Velvet)
I took off my necklace my other four tails appeared. When I looked at Mio again, I saw her eyes sparkling.
“This is amazing nya! So many tails nya! They look so fluffy and huggable nya!” (Mio)
She was about to jump at them when I told her to stop.
“Remember what I said earlier Mio, no touching, at least not yet.” (Luna)
“Right nya. Sorry nya.” (Mio)
“It’s fine. Now, I have a question for you.” (Luna)
“I’m listening nya.” (Mio)
“Though I planned on asking you this once we finished here, I’ll ask you now. Would you like to continue to travel with us once we’re done with this quest?” (Luna)
“Hmmmm. Can you let me consider it for a while nya?” (Mio)
“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting an immediate answer. Take as long as you want to figure out what you want to do. Just let us know before we finish up in the Empire, whenever that will be.” (Luna)
“Thanks nya. Now, I’m gonna try and get some sleep nya. See you all in the morning.” (Mio)
The second she put her head on the pillow, she fell asleep.
“Ugh.” (Velvet)
“What’s wrong Velvet?” (Soleil)
“Nothing is wrong, it’s just that almost oppressive feeling I get when I touch Luna’s tails is gone. Hang on, Luna, did your tails get even fluffier?” (Velvet)
“No? They’re as fluffy as always.” (Luna)
{I see. Now that Velvet has been fully submerged, she can feel the full effects of the Abyss unhindered.}
“You mean all this time; I’ve never felt the full fluffiness of Luna’s tails?” (Velvet)
{Ufufufufu. Welcome to the club Velvet. You have finally learned the full force of just how amazing Luna’s tails are, though I guess it was only a matter of time since you are her Apostle.}
“I wonder if I can use Abyssal Blessing now?” (Luna)
{Want to try it out?}
“I’m down, what about you, Velvet?” (Luna)
“Sure.” (Velvet)
I turned to face Velvet and put my hand on her head. I then closed my eyes and tried using the skill. I felt it taking effect and opened my eyes again.
“Anything different?” (Luna)
“My Res stat raised to SS, my dark magic became level 10, and I got the title: One Who Dwells in the Abyss.” (Velvet)
“Do you know what the title does?” (Soleil)
“It gives a passive buff to stats when I’m near the Abyss, so basically whenever I’m close to Luna, I’ll be stronger.” (Velvet)
“Interesting.” (Luna)
{Luna, can you turn that effect on and off?}
“I think so, let me see.” (Luna)
I closed my eyes again and focused on the connection I share with Velvet since I felt it grow even stronger when I gave the blessing. I tried restricting it a little and it returned to how it felt before.
“I think I did it.” (Luna)
“You did.” (Velvet)
“Guess we all need to work on submerging ourselves then.” (Soleil)
“True, but that can wait for another time. For now, try to get some sleep.” (Luna)
““Alright.””
Like that Soleil laid down and Velvet moved over to the bed she would sleep on. I let the blessing take full effect again and then laid down as well. I put my mirror away and started talking to Tamamo in my head.
‘And with this, another day is over.’
{Indeed. Are you going to leave that domain up?}
‘Yeah, I don’t feel like sleeping with my necklace on tonight, so I’ll just leave it up till morning.’
{Fair enough. Are you actually going to try and sleep?}
‘I think so. I’m a bit tired mentally speaking.’
{Good night then, my precious Luna.}
‘Good night, my lovely Tamamo.’
Chaos Realm:
Atmos: So Velvet has finally felt the full force of the Abyss.
Tamamo: Indeed. It's been a long time coming.
Yep. I wonder who will be next?
Atmos: My money is on Soleil.
Tamamo: I think Ophidia.
I'm going to bet on Amagi.
Atmos and Tamamo: Really?
Tamamo: Why do you think that?
Neither of you noticed? Last time Luna let her brush her tails, she managed to resist a little more than normal. Not at the level Velvet did in the beginning, but she still resisted the pull.
Atmos: Really? When was the last time Luna let her do that?
Tamamo: Before they left the shrine again.
Atmos: How come we didn't see it?
I've said this before, it's not like I'm watchin every aspect of Luna's life. We don't need to see every small detail.
Tamamo: And I'm thankful for that. Especially when me and Luna are in a domain alone.
Atmos: Back on subject, do you know how far Deacon has been submerged?
Barely any. I don't know the reason for that though.
Tamamo: Luna said she feels awkward when she lets Deacon brush her tails. That's also why Rex and Blake haven't done it either.
I know this is probably just me, but I find that weird that she feels awkward about that considering she used to be a man and all.
Atmos: You know, I forgot that was the case. She really doesn't act like it.
Tamamo: That's because she full embraced who she is now a long time ago.
I see.
Or because she was an egg in her previous life~
She really does come across very eggy
@FoxSpren How so?
@Paytoechip just that her very quick and complete acceptance of being a girl definitely makes her feel like a trans character that just never stopped to think about the fact that she might be trans. I mean, she even gets upset when she gets called by her old name. You've obviously introduced supernatural elements but normally cisgender people are not going to be ok with their body being genderswapped. You can't really just "accept" dysphoria. So the fact that she is completely accepting and comfortable in her new self to the point of being comfortable being in a relationship with Tamamoe as a girl points to her being comfortable in who she is. Which means either there is supernatural stuff happening here in regards to her gender, or she was an egg (person who is trans and doesn't know it yet in this case).
@FoxSpren I never knew that was a thing. My thought process was that Luna's mind just adapted to being in a female body from birth instead of being reincarnated in a grown body like some other stories. Sure, the memories of being in a male body were still there, but they didn't cause a problem since she basically started over with just a sense of self and a personality. Body effects the mind and all that, you know.
@Paytoechip You really would think its just body effects the mind. But we somehow have a sense of gender beyond how our body develops. I'm trans myself and I can't even tell you how I know I'm a girl, just that I am, and that I spent a long time wanting to be a girl before I learned more about being trans and realized I was one and just needed to get my body to match who I was. Being reincarnated with a cis-girl's body would be a dream come true for me.
@FoxSpren I see. I have learned something new today.
@Paytoechip This is often true, but there are exceptions. The quick acceptance could also be attributed to having no real attachment to gender. I myself am that way. Im Me, Thats all. i have a stromg sense of self, and i am certain that if my body changed gender somehow, i wouldn't mind much. in fact, id see it as an adventure. Most of this is because Im not really your typical guy. I hate the things most guys like, and have a deep love for cute things(foxes especially). grew up in a Single parent household, my mom raised me and my two sisters... never had any male role models... Which is part of my views on the gender change subject. Im A man. Ive done that. if i got swapped I'd be perfectly fine. New experiences, And if my gaming history is anything to go by my luck would improve(i usually play female characters... because ive done scientific comparisons, And out of 10 games, my luck in finding rare loot(plus win ratio in fighting games)was better with female characters). My point is, for me, Gender doesn't matter... You are who you are.
@Darkakuahebi Exactly. If it happened to me I would be like, "eh, guess this is my life now" and move on.
I know myself and am comfortable with myself. I am me. Because this is how I think, I made the main character of my story think the same way. I had no hidden agenda or political view to support, I just wrote a story I wanted to write.
@FoxSpren it's the sapience requirement that you have self-identity awareness. It's complicated but let me try to remember... Fully sapient beings need a concept of "who" they are and such, the body influences that somewhat but gender forms very early on and is a core part of how you define yourself. Dysphoria arises from the conflict between internal and external self-identification.
A possible theory is that reincarnation resets part of your identity, being a baby again makes the plasticity that allows reforming basic things like species identity. It's less unusual when you consider the absence of "I'm not human anymore" angst that should also be present. I think it would be pretty much required for the soul to reassemble how it sees and connects to the environment it iy in.
@Darkakuahebi holy heck... Am I just a carbon copy of this guy? Am I like your clone or something? This is literally my exact life experience and mindset... Some weird matrix sh*t must be going on her I swear.
@Acedia just means you arent a Binary thinker. Mental Binarism is present in those who see things in binary, Male/Female, Good/Evil, Black/White, etc... Non-Binary Thinkers recognize all those gray areas. It's why most of us have no problem Accepting Trans, Gay(and lesbian), Bi, And Non-Binary Individuals... because we see the world different. Unfortunately, most of us Also have some slight colorblindness. Like a couch that's Sage, That Everyone insist is green, but to you it looks Gray. Also, Probably Have ADD/ADHD or other Learning/Attention problems. Its Brain Chemistry. We just work differently. I would say we work better, but there is the Propensity for short attention spans when doing something we dont find engaging. I can read a good book or play a Videogame for hours, but get me to try and help my nephew with math homework and I start zoning out after a few minutes. And that stupid Yanny Vs Laurel audio thing dosen't work on me, I just hear Static, so I never really got what folks were arguing about.
And don't believe the lies online. Non-Binary thinking Does NOT mean Bipolar, though they have some things in common.
Bipolar is when both Sides of your brain fire at once, with too much information.
Binary thinking uses one side, then the other, Alternating.
Non-Binary Thinking is similar to Both of those. Your active part of your brain Alternates, but you can also have two separate Faculties working at the same time... usually the part controlling Active thought and the part controlling your imagination... We are the Folks most prone to daydreaming, Crazy Ideas, And Interesting Fantasies. The best part is, Others can actually train themselves to become like this, change their way of thinking. Once you stop thinking in Binary, all ones and zeroes, you see all the colors and numbers of the world. And then petty things like Race, gender, and sexuality just Stop mattering.
So yeah. If a NB minded person were genderswapped, It wouldn't matter. Because as I said before, all that changes is physical, the mind/Soul are the same. And think of all the fun new experiences, good and bad. (Its shocking, btw, how few folks whose Gender ID is Non-Binary are Non-Binary thinkers... they see themselves as separate, but still see the world in Binary terms. It's a bit sad.)
@Darkakuahebi didn't expect a response to my comment, but thanks for the insight all the same.
While Im not too sure about the color blindness part, since basically my entire family seems to be colorblind to some extent, I can definitely relate to the hyperfixation on enjoyable subjects and affixation on those that aren't.
In regards to one of your latter points explaining active thought and imagination, I'm guessing that's probably related to why I'm capable of entertaining multiple different trains of thought at the same time.
As for some of your earlier points regarding sexuality and gender, I guess that could in part explain my own feelings towards attraction, as well as my occasional thought that, while I am perfectly comfortable in my own skin, I still think it would be nice to be a female that people found cute.
@Acedia most probably. It seems Non-Binary Thinking, and by extension Bi-Lateral Thinking(two or more ideas at once) are most common in those Who identify as Bi(or pan)Sexual (few folks are aware of this, but Pansexuality is a Form of Bisexuality. It was first used by someone in the Early 2000s, who misunderstood Bisexual as a Binary Prospect, when its actually Being able to be attracted to others Regardless of their gender... though some will argue they are different, it's really just a technicality. Unless they're the Monk Type of Pansexual. They love EVERYTHING, and assign the same value to a tree or rock as they would a human.)
But yeah... I'm a weirdo, and I always wondered why my thought processes were different from others, even my few Friends... Take Mathematics as an example. I cannot Multiply or Divide the way The schools want. My mind has to Disassemble the problem into its basic parts. This takes me a bit longer to get there, but It ensures Accuracy in my answers. Basically, I break them into a string of Addition or Subtraction. Back when I was in school, I would sleep in class... but in the last half hour I'd do all the work it took others all day to do... because I can run multiple things at once.
Unfortunately, NONE of the scientific Information I can find Explains the Luck thing I mentioned... almost Every game with a gender option, I have better luck with female characters. Its inexplicable. Weirdly, my little Sister has it the other way round.
@FoxSpren
This is not a place where the dysphoria would show though.
In our world gender dysphoria is mainly the result of the wrong receptor for the male hormones in the brain (There are a few others but all tend to be based around brain/body interaction with male hormones). So drop a person in a body with the right receptors and the body should feel not not right (sorry for that double negation there). Seeing the type of story body/soul interaction should also be taken into account and at the start is was stated that a male body with the same amount of affinity would require waiting 45 000 years.
The main hindrance would be memories of being a man and growing up environment. Keep in mind that quite a lot of places in the world people literally cannot comprehend why you'd take a step down from the social power ladder from man to woman (and that is why you get delusions like they must do it so they can take a peek at women in public bathrooms). It doesn't seem that Jason grew up in a place like that or shrugged of social expectations. Add in that Jason seemed curious about switching from tab A to slot A. And then back to more normal biology, young brain plasticity (after being reborn as Luna) helps with adaptation and that is where the no strong previous life cultural and social hangs up come into play because that is about the only thing that can block environmental and body adaptation associated with a young brain.
Oh before I forget this is pure own body image and sexuality. It has nothing to do with the type of person you fall in love with. Granted that the strength of the bond being displayed here would have mooted that non problem.
@Darkakuahebi I'm gonna have to quibble over some stuff...
I think what you'd describing is more Absolutism than Binarism, since it seems like the objection isn't the number of options but rather the idea that you can only be totally of one option.
The colour blindness bit is just wrong though, you're describing something very different. Colour blindness means you perceive two or more different colours as the same, usually due to issues with biological aspects of perception, where as you are describing seems to be more a subjective perception thing where the disagreement is one of interpretation of what a distinct colour should be described as... like, not being able to tell the difference blue and green is colour blindness but disagreeing over whether teal is green or blue is subjective perception. Part of the reason the distinction matters is that colour blindness is not specifically brain related, it can be due to retinal variations, where as subjective perception is about how your brain decodes and interprets the signals received. Neurodivergence is really interesting as a topic of research but as someone who is neuro atyp it's becoming an annoyingly memed subject too thanks to so much self-diagnosis.
Biploar is nothing to do with what you're talking about. Bipolar, aka manic depression, is a condition typically involving clinical depression mixed with periods of almost self-destructed mania and rapid unpredictable transitions between the two. Nothing to do with "both sides firing at once"... most of your brain is firing most of the time, all the memes about only part being used are stupid mischaracterisation. Almost nothing in your brain or cognition functions in isolation, it's all cross connected and interdependent such that a problem with one area can affect multiple areas. It's normal to have some level of mental parallelism, though some forms of it can be symptoms of a mental health concern like DIDS.
And just to kill a stupid bit of faulty thinking, things being in binary isn't the real problem, lack of resolution is the problem. Reducing things to ones and zeros or true/false certainly means you have just the two levels to work with but nobody says you only get 1-bit data to work with. Just 8-bits gives me 256 values to work with, every extra true/false doubles that number of values, and unlike analog we can easily assign all kinds of interpretations to a set of bits... such as RGB where we turn a single value (0xB2AC88) into a location in three dimensional colour space (0xB2,0xAC,0x88 ... sage green), or floating point where we can handle inhuman precisions and sizes at dozens of significant figures, or PWM approximation where a sequence of bits can produce approximations of arbitrary resolution by varying how many bits per sample, averaging period, rate of transition, etc.
Spectrums are continuous, an analogue variation across a range, but it's meaningless if you are still in thinking in terms of single data points and low resolution. It ultimately doesn't actually matter if you think there are 2 genders or 20 genders when the problem is thinking you can be usefully described by a single term. Thinking that facets of a person don't matter is ultimately just as bad as thinking they don't exist, things like race, gender and sexuality do matter but shouldn't be treated as any value being better than another.
The real issue though is that you have critically misunderstood non-binary vs spectrum and how dysphoria works. Non-absolutist mentality says that gender is a continuous spectrum where people are a combination of male and female facets, but most people have more on one side or the other and identify as being overall male or female, where as non-binary people specifically don't identify as being biased towards a particular side. Even that is reductionist though, because a person's identity is matters and should be respected, however it's sufficient to convey that most people have a specific gender identity even when it is complex. Dysphoria generally presents when a person's body substantially conflicts with how they see themselves, and that's not going to be different for people who identify as non-binary.
More generally having your hormones, appearance and body parts suddenly change will mess you up no matter how you relate to those things. Think of how it feels to drastically change your hair style, like cutting long hair short, but scaled up to a more disruptive level. An NB person absolutely will experience some kind of backlash if you change their facial features or change their lower plumbing simply because it's no longer their body that they're used to. In truth, even transfolk would get messed up by being genderswapped in an affirmative direction but in their case it's more like how suddenly not being in pain can throw your mentality towards a euphoric bias.
Frankly, the fact that you're incorrectly claiming that pansexuality is a form of bisexuality (it isn't and your description is seriously insulting both groups) makes me think you've been sipping some weird kool-aid. I appreciate the habit we neuro atyps have of thinking we understand how minds work and how we handle things differently from normal, but shockingly we're usually not as comprehensive in our knowledge as we think nor as unusual as we think we are.
Oh, while I'm at it, and it's relate... @ThatGuyOverThere...
In our world gender dysphoria is mainly the result of the wrong receptor for the male hormones in the brain
Yes and no... yes that's a form of gender dysphoria, but no it's not the primary cause. It's too common that people early in handling their dysphoria fixate on hormones being the most important thing only to find they don't fix as much as they expect. They're definitely powerful but every egg cracks differently and some get far less from hormones just like some get far less from surgeries.
@Kaithar
Androgen and how it is taken up by the brain is the primary cause. From the moment that the brain starts to form androgen and how it is taken up interferes. Sexual dimorphism isn't limited to a slighty (to a massive) different body plan it also includes instincts and mentality/behavior. While humans might not have as distinct behavior differences between genders as for example lions there are still instinctual & behavioral differences. One of those instinctual differences is the body plan that fits with the brain. For some it is enough to get hormone suppressors and/or injections, others need an oophorectomy or castration to get rid of the body the excessive production of hormones the brain considers wrong (usually in combination with hormone injections) and for some the only thing the brain considers right is the body conforming to the body plan the brain considers correct.
But it all starts in the womb courtesy of androgen and the right/wrong receptors in (what is going to be) the brain.
@ThatGuyOverThere *sigh* no... I mean, you're not wrong that that has an effect, but you're extremely over simplifying how androgens works and completely ignoring all the other factors. It is not that simple... for one thing, hormones are chained chemicals, so it's not just the level of testosterone and precursors, there's the estrogen levels it converts to. You're ignoring the other things these hormones do, just look at the list of what what they interact with and what the various possible HRT options are. The endocrine system is crazy complicated.
And my main point still stands: There's more than one expression of dysphoria. Some don't get as much of a benefit from hormones.