Back on my isekai bullshit. I talked earlier about how most isekais are about the power fantasy of starting over. Which is good and all, but personally, I don't give a shit. What appeals to me in isekais isn't the power fantasy at all. It's the allienation.
You are in a world you know nothing of. You don't know the rules of this place, be they social (how do people interact with each other? Is there a king? Is there money?) or physical (good fucking luck if magic exists, because even something as basic as "gravity exists" might be wrong here.) You are completely lost and you have to figure everything out on your own. Even something as basic as asking for help has to be a calculated risk; what would happen if people learned you're from another world? Maybe they'll see you as a hero, then great! Maybe they'll try to use you as a politcal pawn though. Maybe they'll label you as too dangerous to live. Maybe they'll straight-up write you as insane. You don't know who you can trust here. What is safe in your world might be your death warrant here. What do you do? Who do you side with? You have to think fast and act fast because the second you slip up you're dead.
That's the appeal of isekais to me. Being thrust in a world where you are fundamentally different from everyone else, and forced to pretend to adhere to a normality you know nothing of and can barely understand. It's not about the wonders of discovering something new yet familiar. It's about the terror of being somewhere familiar yet just different enough that you might mistep and blow yourself up on the way.
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