508 Days Later:

508 days ago, I wrote a script for a fangame called *The Sorrows of Young Madotsuki*. My intent was to take the imagery from Kikiyama's masterpiece *Yume Nikki*, to interpret the silent protagonist's Dreams in Jungian fashion, and to dramatize the entire backstory in the form of an interactive fiction.

There were several reasons I had for abandoning this project, all of them fairly weak in retrospect:

I. Members of the *Yume Nikki* fan game server seemed to value the original game more so for its aesthetics and memes than for its meanings, and as a result they were hesitant to engage in the interpretation of their own Dreams, preferring to share them as aesthetic curiosities.

II. Fans on YouTube who were critical of the vast body of *Yume Nikki doujin* works, including the Manga and the 3-D indie game by Kadokawa Corporation, maintained that this work was best enjoyed when left ambiguous. The criticisms attacked the manga for its attempts to superimpose a narrative upon the game's imagery, while the charges against Kadokawa's release were that it was a "cash grab", most probably owing to the fact that the derivative game employed more conventional gameplay than the original did while appropriating its iconic characters. (I should note, in retrospect, that this more conventional game supplies very little in terms of new lore, and, if anything, the criticism may be that the derivative game lacks the original's story and themes, yet this implies that ANY derivative work would HAVE TO presume upon an interpretation of the original, as the Manga does. As such, these critics seem to bite their own critique.)

III. I was still very green to Game Design, and I underestimated both the patience of the modern Gamer and my own capacity for holding one's attention with a Story. My first stabs at Interactive Fiction were met with general boredom from the Public, yet I lacked the technical know-how and Network necessary to enhance the Gameplay and Presentation in my works at the time.

IV. As a precautionary measure, I visited the *Yume Nikki* wiki, (the "Yume Wikki", as I call it) in codependent search for confirmation. I found the section on "Theories" to be barren. Only a few paragraphs greeted me, and none of them enlightened me, for they were all fairly explicit accounts of overt details and common-sense themes, (e.g. loneliness, violence, and body horror) rather than insightful speculation. I suspected three things to be the case as a result:

• A. Much like the members of the fan game server, fans in charge of managing the wiki tend to avoid making vague, unsubstantiated, and unofficial interpretations of Madotsuki's Dreams, remaining consistent with current paradigms in medical practice and ideology, preserving at once the privacy of the Creator as an Author as well as the autonomy of each fan's personal experience.
• B. Of what few theories are out there, mine was not among them, and any attempt I made to propagate my own interpretation would not be met with kindness from the Community that treats this game as though it were a village raising an abandoned child.
• C. That, even if my interpretation was more than a mere conceit, the political conformism of the fan community would ensure that this interpretation would remain my dream and my dream alone, favouring common sense and ideological orthodoxy over the long shot. Why bother, then?

Here we are, nearly a year and a half later. A lot has changed. It's safe to conclude that, after having spent so long indoors, the human population as a whole has turned more introspective and imaginative. One result has been an apparent upsurge in fan interest with regards to this peculiar game about a reclusive, shut-in Gamer Girl. I can say with certainty that the "Theories" section of the Yume Wikki has expanded exponentially. The evidence lies in that there is now an entire subsection of the page which addresses the themes I initially suspected.

Furthermore, Fate appears to be on our side. A friend of mine was initially very hostile to the thought that David Lynch's *Twin Peaks* had finally been deciphered by a fan. This attitude is not only reminiscent of my concerns about the *Yume Nikki* fandom, but it also reflects the general attitude of David Lynch fans in the Visual Novel community. Yet only a few days ago this same friend contacted me, serendipitously, in order to inform me that he had seen an episode of *BoJack Horseman* which upset him even more. As it turns out, this proved to be MY least favourite episode in an otherwise brilliant series, as well, and I too had been moved to rage by it on multiple occasions, for precisely the same reasons. We speculated about what a more sensitive handling of the themes would have looked like. I am pleased to announce that, given some of these recent theories that have been conceived by the *Yume Nikki* fandom, a story of that calibre may very well exist within the game itself, and, as such, I shall be using my initial script within my upcoming fangame, adding my own chapter to the story, with the help of all the skills and friends I have acquired over this past year.

Works of the Unconscious Mind are deeply personal. Yet that does not mean that they ought to be the kind of lonely hell that Madotsuki lives in. The Collective Unconscious was always Jung's main focus. This game has taken on new levels of Reality through the fan community alone. Yes: each of us has one's own interpretation. Yet we are not "equally inferior", to use a quote from Alan Watts. Each interpretation deserves some measure of recognition, for the genius of Kikiyama was not in telling a story but in inspiring us to tell it for her.

[({R.G.)}]