#i designed her with the express purpose of being a fictional character within another story

[lime-bloods]

had a really interesting conversation with a friend this week about the Ultimate Self versus character growth, particularly in relation to Vriska and the hell tiers. in the past I've advocated pretty strongly for the Ultimate Self as core to Homestuck's themes, and as part of that I've been pretty defensive against its detractors because I think the idea is largely misunderstood and unappreciated. and while I still believe an appreciation for what the Ultimate Self represents is a really important tool for understanding Homestuck proper, now that we've moved out of Homestuck and into a new fictional framework I've come around on the importance of being able to critique the concept as well.

there's been a lot of talk lately about whether classes and aspects are really reflective of "reality"; whether Homestuck really says that someone might be defined by arbitrary labels applied to them by a video game - even if that video game literally is responsible for the propagation of reality - or if these are merely roles that we are expected to play but are free to break away from. I've always been in the latter camp; I've made quite a few posts now about how the class-based roles assigned to heroes of Sburb are reflective of the class-based roles assigned to trolls on Alternia, which are themselves biologically-essentialist assumptions that play a similar role to sex and gender among humans. and the Epilogues attest to the queer reinterpretation of such biologically-essentialist social structures; gender is an arbitrary label perpetrated only by cruel, self-serving cycles, and can be cast off if one's self-liberation calls for it. so the conclusion one might draw from this is that the Ultimate Self and the classpect are in a way opposed to each other; that the Ultimate Self is androgynous, without blood, and without class.

however.

it must be recognised that while Homestuck is one story, the Epilogues detail the exploits of characters who have stepped outside of that story and - depending on which Volume you're reading, and the outlook of each individual character - either into another story or outside of "narrative" altogether. and within a narrative, the roles assigned to each character do have special significance. just as one labelled "Thief" is expected to play the role of self-interested antagonist, and one labelled "jadeblood" is expected to live out her life looking after larvae underground, the "narrative" places certain expectations on characters designated as "boys" and "girls". as far as the narrative is concerned, characters are not "people", but rather ideas to be played with, and that's exactly what the Ultimate Self is - the "idea" at the core of a character's being. so it could equally be argued that a character's class, aspect, blood colour or gender are part and parcel with their Ultimate Self, and therefore that, stepping outside of the rules that govern Homestuck, shrugging off the Ultimate Self could be just as important as - or interconnected with - shrugging off gender.

crucially, Homestuck is a story about teenagers, and there is baggage that comes with this conceit. the coming-of-age story is one of self-discovery; the disrobing of the cocoon of childhood and the uncovering of the "true self" underneath is core to the genre. but importantly, at least in Homestuck's case, this never actually means becoming an "adult". coming-of-age stories are about teenagers because teenage makes for great stories, and as such it's only natural that a Lord of Time interested in creating a neverending story would try to engineer neverending teenagerdom. allusions to this abound, particularly surrounding Alternia, a planet populated entirely by teenagers who awaken from literal cocoons every evening only to return to their cocoons of a morning when it comes time to sleep. their quadrants seem hand-designed for the express purpose of making not "healthy" relationships but compelling ones, driven by the confusion of teenagers learning about themselves for the first time. by pretending to be a story "about" reproduction, Homestuck uses the fact that its heroes "enter right around the cusp of sexual maturity" as a smokescreen for the truth that Homestuck characters are expected to "come into" their genders in just the same way they "come into" their class and aspect roles.

in this sense, while the attainment of the Ultimate Self may superficially represent the dispersing of narrative contrivances like "timelines" and "alternate selves", it also follows Homestuck's "children coming into themselves" script to the letter. and to uphold our "full potential" as the Ultimate version of Self, as Hussie describes it, is to fetishise the prenatal kernel from which our entire life grows, untouched by any worldly corruption; to insinuate that we grow forward by stripping away our outer layers like insects, rather than by embracing each new layer as it comes, is a romanticism of childhood that borders on the reactionary. when viewed through this lens, what is "true" is also what is "innocent" - just as the world Before-Us, before Lord English's "corrupting influence", is innocent, Edenesque before the fall brought on by a serpent's bargain.

the Epilogues and more pertinently Beyond Canon, meanwhile, are very essentially not about teenagers at all! breaking free of the old cycle of storytelling also means breaking free of that expectation to stay a child forever, and in a world no longer inhabited primarily by children, how much need is there, really, for a "true self" that determines everything about your being? within the bounds of Homestuck, we can accept that characters like Meenah and Vriska must by their very natures be selfish because selfish teenage girls fill a vital narrative niche, and because when you grow up in a situation like Vriska's, being selfish isn't necessarily the same as being a villain. but becoming an adult means growing up, and among grown ups, on a planet where selfishness is no longer a survival mechanism, being selfish often does make you a villain, and there is an expectation that in order to continue being a hero one must learn and change. and in a world where a Thief no longer has to be selfish, how then can it still be said that every character has an immutable platonic Truth at the essence of their being?

the presence of the sprites in Vriska's purgatory illustrate this idea perfectly. because a sprite is an "idea", they represent a step toward the Ultimate Self, just as the sprite^2 is another step closer. but a sprite is also a ghost image; a photograph captured of a person in a particular moment in time, forever unchanging. this is why the sprites seem to simply disappear at the conclusion of a game of Sburb: while they are immensely powerful and vastly knowledgeable, their significance is tied to a specific purpose within a specific context. whether they simply cease to exist or commit deliberate suicide-by-meteor on the dying battlefield of skaia, they demonstrate an understanding that as great as it is to be an immortal and omniscient sprite, they lose their purpose for existing once the game of Sburb ends: just as the Ultimate Self loses all significance and purpose once the game called Homestuck ends. Davepeta demonstrates this exact superfluousness within the Plot Point; while they may have been a fountain of knowledge about all things arcane within Homestuck, when it comes to actually "growing up", there's not a single piece of advice they can give!

finally, and probably most crucially of all, Beyond Canon has not merely stepped outside the bounds of the rules of the original Homestuck, but outside of its authorial purview altogether. if escaping into Universe C means escape from Lord English's expectations for what it means to be a "man" or a "woman" or a "Page" or a "lowblood", then escaping into Beyond Canon also means leaving behind any of Andrew Hussie's expectations for what it means to "be your Ultimate Self". this is exactly why the story is CALLED Beyond Canon, and is central to exactly the kind of questions it is asking about canon; if Hussie is no longer in charge, why should "the Ultimate Self in Hussie's Own Words" (as linked above) remain the "canon" answer? and these characters' new home, in the custody of a diverse team of new creatives, is reflected by the multiple competing narrative forces within the story; it's probably significant that the character who shows the most reverence and concern for his Ultimate Self is Dirk, the very same character who wishes to bring Homestuck back to its heyday with throwbacks to nostalgic and outdated plot artifices like Sburb! no doubt the story's other key schemers, like its various Calliopes, have their own points of view on the meaning of the Ultimate Self and Homestuck's other mysteries, and the writers responsible for this story in our own world should be allowed to have their own views as well. in order to live up to its very premise, Beyond Canon can and must be allowed to offer up different opinions and interpretations to those of the original text.

ultimately this is key to understanding why Beyond Canon is not a traditional "sequel" and should not be thought of as such; why it was never Homestuck 2, only Homestuck^2, and then dropped the 2 altogether. in much the same way Homestuck was a story not "controlled" by its fans but rather written in continuous conversation with them, Beyond Canon, now finally under the control of fans, is a story in conversation with the text that came before it. in the end this is what any narrative-about-narrative boils down to; there can be no "reality" in fiction, only a version of reality as told by a given narrator. and while we are forced to take a narrator at their word when offered no other options, that doesn't mean every subsequent narrator is going to narrate the same story from the same point of view! it's important to have an understanding of the Ultimate Self as portrayed by Andrew Hussie because it deepens your appreciation of the original Homestuck, and a well-formed appreciation for Homestuck will in turn increase your understanding of Beyond Canon: not because HS and BC are the "same story" by any means, but because better knowing HS will make us better prepared to engage in the conversation being made when BC deconstructs, subverts, and even critiques the story we already know.

[memecucker]

discoursedrome

replied to your post

“the reason anime characters have disproportionately large eyes is the...”

there's something to this but it seems like it doesn't account for the stylistic variation in eye size within different cartoon styles and often within a single series, which is not just arbitrary but signifies something!

Well, this is an interesting topic, it depends on the work in question as to what is being signified. Differing eyeshapes within the same series can also be used not just for emoting but also accompany the narrative roles various characters express. And not just in obvious ways like “babies have cute eyes” either but they can denote for example what role a given character plays in comedic dynamics.  As an example lets focus our attention to The Flintstones and specifically the facial designs of the four main adult characters.  

So something thats present in basically all designs of The Flintstones that keep to the original style is that Fred’s eyes are always drawn in what can be considered a classic cartoons style having large pupils surrounded by the sclera (white of the eye) while Wilma has the “old newspaper strip” style of Peanuts or Popeye where she simply has plain black ovals or circles. Barney and Betty are similar but in reverse, with Barny having just a black circle (though more round than Wilma since he has a rounder design) and Betty having pupils inlaid within a sclera (though there’s some inconsistency with her as she sometimes has an ‘implied’ flesh-colored sclera). There are moments of inconsistency with Barney sometimes having a flesh-colored pupil and Betty sometimes having flesh-colored sclera but generally speaking thats how their eyes work if animators were staying on-model. 

Now whats interesting about this is if you look at Flintstones episodes the members of the main adult cast will most frequently be interacting with the other members who have different eye shapes. So Fred and Wilma are married of course as are Barney and Betty and also Fred and Barnie are best friends as are Wilma and Betty. This means that there is a feeling of visual variety when the plot splits characters off into pairs whatever they may be. It also helps make it clear that none of them are blood relatives which could be a source of confusion especially in the case of Fred and Barney who really would sorta look like brothers if they had similar eyes since they share many similarities in the rest of their designs especially the perpetual five-oclock-shadow (not something thats really a sign of genetic relation but aesthetic logic doesnt have to mirror the real world).

In addition to that, Fred has the largest eyes of all the characters. This makes sense because he is the overall main character of the show and him having the largest eyes means he will be the first face the audience will naturally focus on in a scene. Its also relevant for Fred’s comic role because he tends to be the active agent in the comedy either peforming actions which frustrate Wilma or which are commented on by Barney and when you have a comedic reversal where Fred ends a scene feeling very different from when he started

As an example we can look at this particular clip from the original series

 So in what ends up being a very common premise for episodes or sequences in the series, an upset Fred wishes to end his friendship with Barney. Fred has a thick furrowed brows meeting downward facing eyes showing clear aggression. Barney (who as I said earlier is being drawn off model in that his eyes are not colored in during this scene) simply stares at Fred, his eyes being just ovals but with his eyebrows being raised in a way to show that he is meeting Fred’s anger in a light-hearted way. You’ll notice that Barney has much thinner eyebrows located much further away from his eyes than Fred, this is because since he doesnt actually have pupils, the way his eyes express emotion is by showing their relationship to other parts of his face specifically eyebrows. Having thin eyebrows allows for more flexibility for their placement, in thise case they even touch his hairline.

Fred accuses Barney of mooching or stealing his stuff including his favorite drink Cactus Coolah (funfact the actual soda Cactus Cooler was created to ride off the popularity of the Flintstones and its fictional soda brand). His eyes are basically in the same position as they were in the previous still with the shift from plain aggression to a smug aggression (setting up the comedic reversal) being conveyed by the rest of his face. 

Barney tries to warn Fred the bottle he’s holding isnt Cactus Coolah. Unlike Fred Barney is expressing a strong shift in emotion from bemusedly teasing Fred to being actively concerned for him. Barney’s actual eyes havent moved at all other than being proportionately larger than earlier but whats being used to convey Barney’s emotions in this still are his eyebrows. They go high-up and far from his eyes and curved to being much closer to his eyes and straight. 

Fred realizes he just drank car polish. His eyes are not incredibly different, conveying both stress and sickness. Not only does he have lines surrounding his eye conveying stress and anxiety but they even go inside his eyes nearly touching his pupil. His eyelids have descended partially.  His eyebrows also show the change of his emotional state no longer being a furrowed unibrow though their importance is secondary to the visual changes pertaining his actual eyes.

After throwing the heavy stone bottle into the air and bonking his own head combined with the implied effects of drinking car polish, Fred’s eyes become asymmetric showing disharmony and showing he is about to pass out. Interestingly he suddenly now has (white colored) irises, the purpose of this being to show widened dilating pupils that relate to a state of excitedness or stress while at the same time not contradicting that he is on the verge of losing cosciousness which is conveyed by his eyelids being pulled down asymmetrically. 

Throughout that short scene Fred having the largest most expressive (for a Hanna-Barbara TV production anyway) eyes of the cast are used to show how he is both the active agent in the story driving the narrative forward as his emotion carry him but he is also the object of things being done to him and with his eyes showing his emotional state in those cases. Barney, being an observer of Fred’s antics emotes not so much with his eyes but the raising and lowering of his eyebrows. Essentially, Fred’s narrative role in the series requires him to be drawn with a much wider emotional range when compared to Barney. This is on top of the other role the eyes of the characters play in this particular show being another way to physically distinguish between the four main adult members of the cast.

[phoenixtakaramono]

SUMMARY: Let it not be said that Shen Yuan didn’t know how to be an accomplished—arguably better—writer than Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky! A middle-aged author in his hubris, he’d unknowingly triggered his fate and had his consciousness whisked away into an unfathomable mystical world that he would later learn to be based on Proud Immortal Demon Way and his very own work-in-progress. When given the opportunity to customize his character’s stats and to design his one remaining Customizable Skill Slot, as a veteran reader of transmigration stories and their tropes, Shen Yuan demanded, “Grant me the protagonist’s halo of course!”The SYSTEM was silent all but for a minute. 

【Understood. Unique Skill "PROTAGONIST'S HALO" activated. Esteemed Host, you share the Unique Skill "PROTAGONIST'S HALO" with one other.】

“Who?”

【This world’s Luo Binghe. From the original novel series.】

“...Hold on, I need some time to process this.”

(Little did Shen Yuan know that this world’s Luo Binghe is the same sadistic “Bing gē” from the released Extra short story. It was also too bad that Shen Yuan, in his mortal form, resembled Shen Qingqiu by a good thirty-to-forty percent.)

There was an important takeaway to be had from tonight’s interaction: Shen Yuan had asserted his place as the lord of this residence and as Luo Binghe’s future ally.

Several thoughts had, however, been plaguing him ever since Shen Yuan gifted Luo Binghe the handscrolls, leaving like the composed gentleman he was while the half-demon pondered over the newfound revelations for the night. Those thoughts filled Shen Yuan’s brain with a renewed vigor that his exhausted body did not feel, roiling through him as he changed into his night clothes. Even now, lying down with his hands folded over his stomach, they consumed his mind as he stared up at the azure, gauzy canopy that looked eerily similar to the one in the guest bedchamber that Luo Binghe now slept in.

Wisps of hazy white rose from the lotus-shaped censer he’d brought to his bed. The coals within were still fresh in the copper, keeping him warm in the night, with the fragrance of sandalwood circulating within the room.

His unyielding companion, the blue text box, hovered above. Shen Yuan kept his gaze averted from it; he had read and reread the Chinese characters countless times that if he closed his eyes, he could still see the most recent notification engraved in his mind’s eye.

【Prediction! Future Event <<A NIGHT OF PASSION>> has been changed into <<LOADING CHEKHOV'S GUN>>. You have reached the conditions to clear the scenario. Countdown commencing. Reward: B-Points +50.】

The planes of his face were bathed in a soft blue glow as he ruminated. Shen Yuan couldn’t find it within him to feel any guilt or to throw blame at anyone other than himself. He’d unlocked the <<TRUE END>> main scenario and, judging by how the <<SYSTEM>> was not giving him a choice, he had to build that rapport between themselves and see that friendship through.

These are the seeds you’ve sown, he reminded himself. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. He could only dig his hands into the soil and watch the seeds slowly bear fruit.

Bing gē—or, rather, Luo Binghe—was not a 2D character on paper; he was now a real person who breathed and talked and had a will of his own. Even so, Shen Yuan didn’t know the extent of the ramifications if an extraordinary “prodigy” gained self-awareness that he was the male protagonist of a fictional erotica series.

It’d be interesting. If someone found out one day that they were a precious existence in a world which catered to them because of “narrative convenience,” they’d naturally become audacious. All the attractive people belonged to them, hearts were won over for no real reason, and enemies would be seen as less of a threat and more as an annoyance in the eyes of a protagonist with infinite power levels. Shen Yuan could envision it; Luo Binghe would probably behave more recklessly, bolstered by the certainty that he was protected by plot armor. He’d be a spoilt menace in a male power fantasy world—riding the power trip until the novelty wore off inevitably.

The corners of Shen Yuan’s mouth curved. He didn’t know how likeminded Luo Binghe was, but if he thought like he did, he’d exploit his advantages. A protagonist’s existence was akin to a cockroach, dragged from door’s death each time without fail.

This was not merely a case of schadenfreude—another difficult foreign term he’d learned during his pursuit as a novelist—where he reveled in another person’s misfortunes. It was a well-established trope in all forms of literature that when a person was casually dropped into a life-or-death situation, they would resurface as calamities. Since Luo Binghe was an important main character, he would naturally benefit.

...Sorry, youngster. Shen Yuan raised a white flag in commiseration for him in his heart. I didn’t mean to conscript you, but you must continue to work hard. Nationalistic pride exists among many Chinese writers.

Even pre-enlightened Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky had not been exempt from that.

In most narratives, a protagonist’s role was to rise above the rest and “smash the system.” They were akin to power kegs just waiting to be ignited.

Shen Yuan squinted up at the UI, his eyes beginning to water from its bright glow. He blinked rapidly, but the strain in his eyes refused to ease. This better not be the sort of tale where he and Luo Binghe had to compete to establish who was the one true protagonist, having to assert narrative dominance. Shen Yuan had no intention of pulling aggro to himself.

Raising a forearm up to shadow his vision, he groaned. He declared to no one, “Airplane brother, you’ve done your first son a great disservice.”

(He couldn’t help thinking the author had done a disservice to the original Shen Qingqiu and Yue Qingyuan among many others.)

The events that had played out tonight strengthened Shen Yuan’s conviction. He could now see how people easily fell for Luo Binghe’s act; the charisma of a stallion protagonist was potent. Even so, he had capitalized on his goodwill—and Luo Binghe’s strange fixation—hoping continuous acts of kindness being demonstrated toward him would soften him toward Shen Yuan and prove his intentions were sincere. His goal to leave a favorable impression was already well underway, with the endgame of establishing how it would be in Luo Binghe’s best interests to remember Shen Yuan’s acts of compassion and to return them tenfold in the future.

Should Shen Yuan prove himself to be of use, surely even a cutthroat person like Bing gē would not discard a loyal comrade—no, a valuable asset—during his rise to power?

Under no circumstances must Luo Binghe see the strange celestial fortuneteller as a threat or as a jealous rat. In the stories where the main character was an antihero, the few ways to survive their malice was by entering their harem, becoming the sole lover, being exiled—like Luo Binghe’s rival, the “second male lead” Gongyi Xiao—or becoming an indispensable friend or ally. Even though Shen Yuan was protected by plot armor, he should not assume its protection was absolute. His own transmigration here was proof that life was full of unknown variables.

But with Luo Binghe’s appearance here, his days of treating the other protagonist’s existence like colorless air were over.

To avoid future headaches, the only method Shen Yuan could foresee showing his fellow protagonist that his services were indispensable was by lending him his intelligence—and his predictions of the future. As the ancient proverb went, a friend who brings coal in the snow is most precious. If he availed to continue fostering goodwill and his undying support, those efforts would be rewarded handsomely. As a protagonist of the xianxia genre, Luo Binge followed a code of honor—even more so as a cultivator taught in the martial and mystical arts.

He recalled the last question Luo Binghe had asked of him before Shen Yuan left, regarding the compatibility of his fated person.

What he’d told Luo Binghe during the palm-reading was admittedly due to Shen Yuan’s own internal bias. It’d made Shen Yuan want to laugh at his own past naivety. He had to reevaluate everything he’d erroneously taken to be true and canon.

As a novelist, Peerless Cucumber wasn’t as generous as Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky who’d spoiled his stallion protagonist with far-too-easy conquests as a result of pandering to his audience with fanservice. While Shen Yuan’s unique stamp was focusing less on romance and more on worldbuilding, he developed his romances gradually; like reality, his characters had to learn to work with each other’s strengths and flaws, overcome challenges, mutually pine for each other, and to be able to see a future together.

Only then did the payoff seem all the more impactful in his storylines.

A conflicted expression descended upon Shen Yuan’s face.

While there was entertainment to be had following the adventures of a “blackened” antihero crushing his opponents under his foot, Shen Yuan couldn’t help but count his blessings again that he wasn’t a young woman who had been reincarnated in the body of the villainess or a side character. That archetype always seemed to hope to enjoy her new lavish life in the sidelines watching the romance unfold between the male and female leads, but was swept into the mechanisms of palace intrigue—secret schemes and political power struggles—when the male lead inevitably turned his attention towards her.

Shen Yuan also took solace in his good fortune of not having been transmigrated into the body of an antagonist or a cannon fodder—which meant it wasn’t necessary for him to embrace the plot device of hugging the protagonist’s golden thighs and painstakingly preserving the pretense of being another person.

There were two less flags to be concerned over.

His purpose here was to surpass his rival in the danmei genre. That meant there must be two male leads. But Luo Binghe didn’t come from his own intellectual properties; his creation had been birthed from Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky’s imagination.

In this case, since it was a crossover, didn’t that mean Shen Yuan had essentially adopted Luo Binghe as his male lead? So as his responsibility, wouldn’t that mean he’d have to find the xiǎo láng gǒu—little wolfdog—a love interest? Give him an OTP? Help him tie the knot?

...Would it truly be okay if this tired uncle wrote a predestined romance for once? As much as Shen Yuan favored defying expectations, there was a formulaic structure that made their literature different from those in the Western market whose shocking narratives could not only arouse pity in their audience, but also a sense of awe, excitement, fear, and suffering.

Chinese protagonists were not always someone of high society; they often hailed from humble origins as a device for the writer to underscore the merits of working hard and to criticize the system—a fictional one though, to avoid absolute censorship by the Chinese government. Their heroes began as nothing more than a windblown leaf in the social structure and years of ethical traditions set in place. They started on the bottom rungs of society to draw people’s attention to their lives, to the injustice and unfairness, which made their struggles and triumphs all the more impactful to the reader.

The fates of the leading characters were tied to the juxtaposition of the harmonious ideal of society and the reality of a flawed system. Chinese tales were inherently romantic oftentimes, with tragic conflicts written to emphasize the beauty of a bond and rousing sympathy and pity for their plight. The archetype of a tragic hero was meant to be presented so profoundly that great reverence would well up spontaneously in one’s heart.

In his opinion, Luo Binghe had suffered plenty in his role as the avenging, wronged hero.

Under normal circumstances, as Peerless Cucumber, Shen Yuan was the sort of novelist known for deconstructing unoriginal, formulaic conventions. He’d satirized enough classic and tired tropes in whichever genre he was writing for, it almost became expected of him to subvert expectations in all of his publications. It was just his contrarian nature to write something out of spite. It would therefore not be considered strange for him to challenge the established romantic convention of soulmates by emphasizing different degrees of compatibility, by making his leading characters come together as platonic comrades or as destined adversaries instead of the cliché as predestined lovers.

But this Luo Binghe is now a real person, Shen Yuan had to remind himself yet again, and is no longer an imaginary concept on paper.  

Peh, I never knew you were such a romantic, Protagonist A. To think I have to break the discipline I’ve kept for these past few decades of my life…. Who knew a little wolfdog like you would still yearn for a tacky “match made in heaven” even though you’ve been “dual cultivating” with so many beauties….

For the first time in a long while, guilt weighed heavily on Shen Yuan’s mind. He swallowed hard. While he understood the implicit reality of his situation, he still felt like he was, in some way, disappointing his audience by not living up to his reputation. The shame he felt was bizarre.

He cast his plea into the void, my cherished readers, please understand. Forgive this writer if I don’t subvert your expectations in this aspect just this once.

The harem was the closest Luo Binghe had to a family. After the parental kindness of the washerwoman was torn away from him early in his life, after having endured the unhealthy environment that followed, the only love and tenderness he received in his life came in the arms of beautiful women. Tokens of affection were given in the form of intimate acts. It was no wonder Bing gē ’s character had ended up twisted. With his inferiority complex, he collected beauties with a greed not unlike a hedonistic minister who expected tributes and bribes.

The shortcomings of a younger, less experienced Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky made Shen Yuan’s heart ache for all of the original cast of characters. Airplane brother couldn’t have known his own writing would give birth to fully-actualized, breathing persons. As a webnovel writer, there was pressure to meet the self-imposed deadlines set on the online platform of choice to earn virtual coins per chapter, oftentimes leading one to forsake their own creative integrity.

The appeal of an underdog overcoming the odds had been a timeless theme for many reasons. The young, pre-enlightened Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky must have felt obligated to make his protagonist suffer through every cliché in the book for angst points just so that when the love interests took care of him, the juxtaposition seemed “fluffier” and served their function as “healing element” in the story. But the setup was written clumsily, formulaically, like he’d written the angst first and rushed the payoffs.

There were so many women in the harem whose narrative potential stayed underdeveloped. Like cardboard cutouts, most didn’t have much of a personality other than looking beautiful. The heroines were trophies meant to stroke the male protagonist’s ego—who made him feel masculine, manly, and powerful—and to enable him to act in an unrestrained capacity. They were the author’s story device to show his cruel and brutal antihero still had a heart. In the presence of Luo Binghe, each one was gentle, kind, respectful, and submissive. To the other harem members, the once innocent maidens had to learn how to be shameless, who only knew to fight for a man’s favor.

But on a fundamental level, it was because his lovers were blinded by Luo Binghe’s bright, limitless future that nobody truly understood him beyond being a “main capture target.” They saw his worth as a strong, undefeatable husband material. And, in return, beneath the author’s veneer of romance, they were essentially relegated into the role not unlike that of “human cauldrons,” living furnaces that were drained of their vital energies to boost the protagonist’s longevity or cultivation powers through dual cultivation.

When Shen Yuan had read the original series, he came to recognize that the novelist must have wanted to create a dark, tragic antihero who obliterated obstacles to show how far he had come. Writing was supposed to be therapeutic, and Airplane brother must have wanted his story to stand out. The original Luo Binghe was a person motivated by his own grudges, by envy, and by pride—a hungry, ravenous young man fueled by the rage he’d been carrying for far too long. With his “origin story,” as somebody who had undergone the traumas that he had, after all the injustices he had suffered, after all the people and the society he’d been let down by, it was only natural that he carried a lot of emotional baggage.

What this Luo Binghe needed was somebody who was a foil to his temperament, patient, charismatic, and well-educated. Since he would be uniting the Three Realms, they also needed to be proactive keeping him in check from becoming a self-indulgent, fatuous ruler. A sensible head was needed on their shoulders to guide their merciless husband in understanding right from wrong, from succumbing to madness, and from any sycophants looking to lead him astray. It was integral to help Protagonist A maintain a harmonious empire so that, together, they could lead a golden age of reform.

When Cao Zijian first saw the Luò River Goddess, Shen Yuan abruptly recalled, he wrote a verse about her unrivaled beauty and charm.

Whether or not it was Liu Mingyan, a man, or somebody else, it would be poetic if Luo Binghe found his own Luo Shen in the form of somebody who understood him, a person who was well-versed in the language of his cues and subtleties. If Bing gē was truly interested in a man, then Shen Yuan will make sure to find him someone compatible. To draw a protagonist’s eye and maintain it, the candidate must be witty and gutsy, empathetic to a degree and with appropriate ambitions. To stand out from the beauties in the harem, one must not be passive or pretentious.

Their existence would be like a fairytale dream come true. A breath of fresh air. Were Luo Binghe to have intentions on somebody whose standards were significantly much more difficult to meet, he might realize he’d actually have to put in the extra effort to increase his favorability rating with them.

It was a common saying that a man’s personality will undergo change once he falls in love, arousing his desire to protect and provide.

If it was a level of deep love that was truly matchless in this age, a romance that transcended heaven and earth, ordained by fate, even an old man like himself would shed tears of emotion and wish the young newlyweds happy nuptials and an everlasting love in every lifetime.

Shen Yuan wondered if there even existed such an extraordinary person in this setting.

A fated match was bound by string even though a thousand miles. If such a person did not hail from Airplane brother’s imagination, then they must originate from Shen Yuan’s.

And if such a “child” did hail from himself, then Luo Binghe had more to prove to him, demonstrating that an emotionally-stunted half-demon as himself was capable of being sensitive and having a healthy relationship—lest Shen Yuan be forced to skewer him with Yue Ying if this “black-bellied” junior turned out to be overbearing, pursuing and pressuring this novelist’s precious “child” despite being refused. There must exist a chemistry between them, or a mutual romantic interest.

Luo Binghe’s reputation was already in tatters in the Mortal Realm on the account of having a demonic heritage and having razed down the great righteous sects. The current settings of the world defined anyone of demon blood as abominations to be exorcised or slayed without impunity. Whatever goodwill he’d originally cultivated with his deceptive “nice guy” act had to be regained. The elites of the upper class, staunch proponents of maintaining the status quo, would curse anyone of lowly background to be despicable persons who sought connections far above their status. Winning the war against the son of heaven and finding a match of great affinity would be integral in swaying public opinion to his favor.

In public, the lovers must persevere to present a united front, ruthless and fearless against their opposition but dependable and benevolent towards their subjects. They must accumulate enough reverence. It was only over time that the Sacred Rulers would prove themselves worthy of being beloved, idolized by the common people and giving the traditionalists found in high society—who held standards above the ceiling—no choice but to accept their reign lest they risk annihilation from their new rulers.

Until such a person was found, he supposed he could step into the role as his counsel if Luo Binghe ever sought him out.

There’s no medicine for regret, he thought with resolve. Although the <<SYSTEM>> made unsubtle prompts for him to make peace with Luo Binghe, as a direct result of his own decision-making, it had set Shen Yuan down the path of cooperation. He would try his hand at the impossible task of becoming Bing gē’s friend.

It would be an uphill battle, but he must broaden his view early on and engrave these words into his head: the once two-dimensional novel characters were now three-dimensional, multifaceted people.

Their upbringings were nothing alike, but destiny had come as a spring rain and brought them under the same roof.

Luo Binghe came from a destitute background. He’d witnessed firsthand, for himself, the injustices in life being born in abject poverty and with no background. After his stepmother, no one watered the mind of the tender sprout that was a young Luo Binghe, forcing the child to learn how to fend for himself. With his upbringing, it made sense why he had misanthropic tendencies. He’d seen for himself the wretchedness of people’s hearts, that those in high positions—whether it be the sons of noblemen, a Peak lord, or the emperor—had the power to push people around. Now in a similar position, he wouldn’t forget the harsh lessons. Grown up, he was a fearsome existence that very few—if any—could topple. He swore to make his enemies pay in blood.

On the other side of the spectrum, Shen Yuan was a son of entrepreneurs, born with a golden spoon in his mouth. He had the basic business acumen, brought up on Chinese pragmatism and the merit of achieving prosperity. Life might have led him down a different path as a profession, but he was educated in the principles of economics and had graduated from a reputable university focused on self-discipline and social commitment. A writer’s pastime was observing human behavior and implementing real world examples into the imaginary worlds they’ve constructed. From all the books he’d read and the programs he’d watched, he’d accumulated a wealth of random knowledge here and there, with a personal interest in reading up on tactical wartime strategies of the past.

As the older party, he could set the bare minimum standard Luo Binghe could emulate as the type of leader he could be, and to help him grow from his insecurities. The innovations and potential comforts of a technologically-advanced civilization were ingrained into a transmigrator’s brain. His handsome junior could be inspired by some of Shen Yuan’s “wisdom” and put them into practice for any of his policymaking.

Like the spring breeze that thawed the frozen soil, he would be someone who reached into the abyss and grabbed that bloodstained hand. Under his guise as a higher order of being, Shen Yuan would ensure the arrogant, domineering playboy matured into his full potential as a capable and virtuous ruler of the future.

In this world, his modern knowledge and his knowledge of both novel series were his cheats.

He’ll give him pointers so that he wouldn’t continue on the path of self-destruction. He’ll scathingly denounce and safeguard him from conniving shrews and from scheming aristocrats of unscrupulous greed, and from trope pitfalls and foolish mistakes, and to happily hand that duty off when Luo Binghe’s star-crossed lover—a nuanced person of honesty and integrity—inevitably turned up. And maybe, just maybe, even if Bing gē still curated a reputation as a fair but ruthless viper, the new reign might be salvageable and worthy of pride for generations to come.

Let us work together for the unification of the world, okay, Luo Binghe? I know you can do it. This old man will try to advise you during your prime.

It would be like tossing a peach and getting a plum back. It was a smart investment, in hopes of a great return.

“I’d redeemed you once,” Shen Yuan murmured, white lashes fanning against his cheeks. He closed his eyes in reminiscence of his own fanfiction, inhaling the light, woody scent of the censer nearby. “I can do it again.”

In the meantime, preparedness was quintessential. He reflected, I must collect more merits. I cannot be lazy and lag behind in accomplishments.

While Luo Binghe fought his battles, Shen Yuan should avail himself to avoid the fate of the Second Lead Syndrome. A bland comparison metric to be used against the protagonist, that archetype of the second male lead had everything stolen from him—from his time in the spotlight, even to his favorite woman—all to be handed over to the main character. It was a tragic fate. Shen Yuan did not wish to see his own successes being overshadowed by the radiant presence of a hardworking young man.

If his efforts bore fruit, he and Luo Binghe might even be comrades who respected each other, who trusted each other and would never dare to raise a blade at each other’s throat. They would unlock the epilogue together and find their star-crossed lovers. And once everything was set in stone, once the adults ground themselves to dust and were ready to step down to make way for the new generation, they could all live the rest of their lives in peaceful retirement.

And should fate permit them each to father their own child, should harmony blossom between the lovers they doted on and should such a good supportive relationship be maintained, as “uncles” they might even consider arranging an engagement for their descendants—a symbol of uniting the celestial, mortal, and demon bloodlines through marriage.

He could just weep from that beautiful imagery. May their lives be full of warmth and sweetness.

“...System?” he inquired drowsily, his voice barely above a whisper. Turning on his side, he stared at a faraway wall. The glazed white surface of the porcelain pillow felt cold against his cheek, its smoothness reminiscent of jade. “Can you hear me?”

Ping.

【This <<SYSTEM>> provides the Esteemed Host a 24-hour service.】

“I don’t remember Airplane brother going into detail about what the education system is like in this setting. Is it supposed to be historically accurate to the ancient feudal model or…?”

Ping.

As he listened to the long encyclopedic explanation, what he’d heard seemed to reconfirm his worst fears. Education was the privilege of the elites. With a cultivator’s narrow-minded focus on self-enlightenment, it made sense that the basic education curriculum of the twenty-first century could be seen as innovative in the pre-established setting of this strange world.

Wait a moment, wouldn’t this mean even a secondary school student would be seen as a prodigy in this world? ...Then what would a middle-aged uncle of university-level education be considered as?

...A wise sage?

Shen Yuan formed a complicated expression. Immortal cultivators prioritized studying matters of the “spiritual heart” and Qi refinement, in the martial and mystical arts, breaking through the bottleneck of each cultivation stage until their dedication allowed them to reach the pinnacle that was the Ninth Stage.

In the early webnovels, Bing gē had stagnated as a late-stage Core Formation expert. The constant sabotage in his early life had ensured that his education in the esoteric art of cultivation remained incomplete, ensuring that Luo Binghe’s cultivation remained rough around the edges and unpolished, with the end result being the gaps in his knowledge that had to be overcompensated by creativity and sheer determination.

Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, in his laziness to research the many intricate nuances of the Cultivation World, had waved the illogicalness of the protagonist’s OPness away by attributing it to his ancient, heaven-fallen demonic heritage and to the deus ex machina that was his legendary sword. (Yet, even then, Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky still occasionally confused the Foundation Establishment with the Nascent Soul stages.)

It wouldn’t be until the end of the series—after the outcry of the netizens—that the unsatisfied Luo Binghe made the breakthrough into the proper Nascent Soul stage with the help of his wives and their many gratuitous papapa scenes.

Then in the epilogue, the author had infuriatingly time-skipped all the way to the penultimate Ninth Stage, describing how Luo Binghe somehow became a legend among legends who had finally attained eternal youth and aged back into his late twenties in his new immortal body after having miraculously passed the Heavenly Tribulations—disasters from heaven which were akin to nuclear radiation for those of demon blood. After an unspecified many years of rule, he’d left his legacy behind—with the uncountable size of his harem and a boundless number of his descendants “mourning the loss of a great and oftentimes misunderstood man.”

Just remembering it made Shen Yuan’s blood pressure spike dangerously. Taking deep, calming breaths, he rolled onto his back again as he forced himself to attain catharsis from listening to the mind-numbing exposition the <<SYSTEM>> was extolling to him like a history program. His fingers clenched the bed sheet.

Eventually he found himself feeling adrift, the words beginning to lose their coherency to him as he phased in and out of consciousness, his mind becoming wrapped in a haze of scented smoke. Tense muscles soon relaxed.

The countdown had reached 00:00:00 when sleep finally claimed him.

XXXXXXXXXX

He’d read and heard several accounts of people who have claimed to have had lucid dreams before, but this was the first time Shen Yuan was aware that he was having an “out-of-body” experience.

It’d felt like his “soul” was being lifted into the air. His head was spinning, a ringing in his ears. When he finally “opened his eyes,” he was floating upright in a world devoid of color. Iridescent grids pulsed in and out of existence in the fog below, running like gossamer lines of circuits which resembled the pre-rendered level of a video game.

In the desolate void of white mist, a single incomplete, dark brushstroke circled overhead in an endless rotation of a wheel. He stared up at it. “...Is...it buffering?” Clouds escaped his mouth as he spoke, tasting pure, winter frost with each breath.

Color was beginning to spread, like somebody had dipped a daub of green watercolor beneath his feet.

Ping.

【Answer! Welcome, lăoshī! This <<System>> begs the Esteemed Host’s patience. We have encountered a bug and are thusly limiting the open world configurations. Please be patient while we load the rest of the map assets.】

Alarm bells were blaring inside his head, and he swore he could hear the clanging manifested—but muffled. He began to think that there must have been something suppressive in the air, something that muted all normal sounds. Covering his ears to deafen the noise still, he demanded, “What bug?”

In his muffled hearing, the answering ping pierced through the quiet .

The <<SYSTEM>> spoke clearly and unobstructedly.【This is the world within a dream realm. To adhere to lăoshī’s traditional xianxia expectations, please be aware that celestials are considered the antithesis to every demon in the world. We have thusly isolated your divine presence in a barrier separate from the dream realm influence of Protagonist <<LUO BINGHE>> and Supporting Character <<MENG MO>>, sealing away the demonic Qi bordering lăoshī’s dream realm. You are expected to clear the important plot scenario before you are allowed to return to your waking state.】

That was as official of a “reality check” as he could perform.

Shen Yuan had to sit down.

From faraway, his countenance was of a man with legs dangling over the leafy green rim of a giant water lily. The paleness to his complexion lent him a deceptive image of fragility. His long white hair was down, and the loose white sleeves of his night garment billowed even though there was no wind. A garden pavilion was forming behind him, similar in design to the thirteen bordering the lotus pond he’d rescued Luo Binghe from.

Time stretched on. And on. In the accustomization period, it was as if the fog had stolen his senses, leaving him in a vacuum—with him staring at emptiness. Finally, after an interminable wait, the buffering wheel vanished.

Things were slowly beginning to take shape before his very eyes. He felt like he was watching a time lapse video of a painting master having finally taken their brush to paper.

Dark brushstrokes were painting the rest of the world unknown. He saw something resembling the jagged peaks of a mountainous landscape. The strong black lines, ink wash, and the dotted clusters eventually faded into softer, rubbed brushwork suggesting rolling hills and a river. Thin, delicate flicks took the shape of bamboo leaves. The once-empty world before him bled into a scenic vista not unlike that of the Wuyi Mountains he’d toured once in the Fujian province. Mist passed through the scenery like silkscreen, secreting whatever was beneath from his eyes.

The frigid air bit at his exposed neck. He glanced down and balked immediately at the eyeful of his chest. With a curse, he gripped the thin fabric and wrapped them tightly around himself. He breathed in deeply to reorient himself.

This setting was indeed a place that hid tigers and dragons, each one better than the other. Shen Yuan’s mind was still a half-awake jumbled mess as he tried to process that, whether unconsciously or on purpose, an attempt had been made to drag him into a dream world.

Him, Protagonist B—an uninvolved third-party. An innocent outsider. A stranger.

Ah, but dreams are a narrative convenience, is it not?

Memory was stirred of his halcyon days of youth. His time spent as an undergraduate was a fargone blip in his life, a bubble of time separate from everything that had happened before and after. Long ago, a younger Shen Yuan had the privilege of enrolling in throwaway lectures—one of them memorably being a class where he remembered writing detailed study guides about the phenomenology of dreams and imagination. (He faintly recalled his thought process, at the time, must have been: if he’d needed to fulfill his GE credits anyway, he might as well sign up for a few interesting courses pertaining to his hobbies.)

While he never once experienced a lucid dream, he was surprised by the amount of free thinking he seemed to be able to exercise at this present moment. While the lucid-dreamer could deliberately affect the nature of their hallucinatory experience, Shen Yuan dimly recalled the supposed restrictions on the hyperkinetic dream state—the loss of the capability to doubt, for one. Going with the nonsensical flow and the loss of impulse control, as another.

This was entirely uncharted territory.

He wanted to be angry but reaching for it, he found it slipping through the cracks of his fingers like water. The longer he stared down at the clouds of mist, the more that a sense of serenity seeped into him.

The chaos in his mind calming into a tranquil lake, Shen Yuan gazed up at the pair of moons sharing the same sky. A thin sliver of space existed between the two as though an invisible force was prying the two gravitational forces apart, preventing their collision.

In his daze, he could faintly hear the familiar traditional notes of the two-stringed fiddle of the erhu and the gentle plucking of the seven-stringed guqin ; it was as if there were an invisible troupe of musicians playing the essence of Chinese aestheticism and philosophy in the background for him, setting the mood.

In the context of the imaginary, he wasn’t necessarily at a disadvantage.

It was fortunate that the <<SYSTEM>> had preserved control of his consciousness for him, instead of him having to wrest it back.

Allowing his mind to wander, he studied the composition of the painterly world. While Shen Yuan wasn’t an artist himself, he could discern that the expressionistic brushwork and precise details were what art collectors might consider authentic. Enraptured by the flow of the brushwork, he asked, “System, please correct me if I’m wrong, but is the aesthetic of the Heavenly Realm meant to resemble traditional landscape paintings?”

Ping.

【Answer! Much of the open world has been configured to match the existing prerequisites of being ethereal and otherworldly. Would the Esteemed Host like to expend 1,000 B-Points to change the map skin?】

“No!” A dulled pain dug into his palms. The miser in him thought viciously, 1,000 B-Points! Just to change a skin? What a waste!

This abstract setting of celestials and the Heavenly Realm—and whatever else that followed—must have somehow originated from his own imagination. They couldn't have come from his competitor's unpublished drafts; none of this was Airplane brother's style.

Taking another deep breath, he spoke, “System, you said the scenario was called ‘Loading Chekhov’s Gun.’”

Setting aside his omniscient reader viewpoint and writer’s perspective, he supposed it made sense. Being a fortuneteller, his class skill was to divine the future. He didn’t have the whole picture quite just yet, but the <<SYSTEM>> seemed to have faith that he could begin to collect the threads.

“I’m guessing the criteria is discovering most—if not all—the big foreshadowing elements of my unwritten danmei for me to clear it.” Recalling the contents of both webnovels, he spoke carefully, “I was dragged here without my volition by demonic interference. So if I wish to escape, I will need to destroy the core of the illusion—but in a pacifist way?”

Ping.

【Both are correct. Completing the mission objective with an S-Rank will reward the Esteemed Host with 500 B-Points. Lăoshī, jiāyóu!】

There was no mercy in its vocabulary.

“...Yes. Jiāyóu." He repeated the encouragement wryly, dropping his gaze back at his surroundings. He could only thank lǎo tiān yé—god in heaven—that he’d maxed out his charisma.

Shen Yuan definitely needed all the good luck he could get.

Through the mist, the long, snaking river was a black serpent threading through the ashy grayscale of the valleys as far as the eye could see. And then he remembered. Seeing it, he felt a pang of emotion so strong, it exerted a physical pressure on his chest.

“What about Luo Binghe?” His knuckles were as white as his robe. “What has that little demon been up to now, System?”

...Ping!

【Begging the Esteemed Host’s pardon! This <<SYSTEM>> is keyed to Protagonist <<SHEN YUAN>>. If the Esteemed Host is willing to cross the boundary, there is an option to uncover the story with Protagonist <<LUO BINGHE>>. Providing him assistance will ensure Protagonist A’s Satisfaction points.】

The time has finally come.  

The water lily trembled under him as he straightened to his feet. From his high altitude, Shen Yuan can see where the mist hugged along the so-called boundary line that separated his dreamworld from Luo Binghe’s.

Since Luo Binghe evidently desired his company, Shen Yuan might as well take initiative and go to him on his own terms. If the mountain cannot come to him, then he will go to the mountain. Overall unity was important to maintain harmony between the protagonists.  

“I will store the past and compile a beautiful dream for you,” he promised. He was going to craft a story that was romantic and tangled, replete with heroes, villains, and a well-deserved conquest.

With one foot off the plant, the world spun and he suddenly found himself enclosed in thick walls. He glanced around. Everything had a rough, unfinished painterly quality resembling dried ink wash on paper. Bathed in the shadows, he marched forward in the fog, looking for the nearest exit. His head passed by a circular window, the ricepaper resembling the glow of the moon.

His gaze traveled past the miniature bonsai tree underneath the window’s wooden lattice. Frown lines formed on his face at how thin and small it was.

The visual of it abruptly reminded him of how Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky had described Bing gē to be as small and skinny as a carrot at fourteen years of age. In the earlier chapters that took place in his dreamscape, his diantian was a gnarled, black tree overlooking a meadow, with the scantest of flower buds blooming in a barren wasteland—very much indicative of the protagonist’s mindset at the time.

Shen Yuan’s hand drifted absently to his abdomen as he gracefully passed by the pedestal. The source of one’s ability to cultivate was located in the lower stomach, a natural center of the body’s spiritual energy. He could only wonder how his own diantian would appear. Would it reflect his inexperience as a sapling—frail and waning? Or would it have the appearance and bearing of an old, ancient tree—befitting an immortal celestial being?

Funny how it means “elixir field,” he mused to himself, but us authors somehow always depict it as a tree… .

Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.

As he peered up at the origin of the noise, words suddenly materialized around him. They’d peeled off the building like black strips of paper, suspended midair around him as though they were a sea of constellations surrounding the moon. The small, densely-packed lines of Chinese characters blurred in his vision but he instantly understood.

They were a manifestation of all the predictions he was capable of.

A gust of wind blew. As bountiful as the leaves of a forest canopy, the bamboo scrolls strung overhead swayed with the wind, knocking into each other with crisp clunks.  

The long, narrow strips reminded him of the scrolls he had shelved in the Archives room. His servants had shown him how they’d cut and roasted the white bamboo stalks until they became dark, later binding the dried strips with durable thread. All were prepared for their master, to transcribe his manuscripts if not his oracles.

He heard the sloshing of water. Ripples formed beneath his stride as a pale hand reached up. The wide sleeve slipped down his forearm as his fingertips grazed the bottom of a random brown scroll that somehow called to him.

An opulent array of gold flooded his vision.  

The imperial palace was a splendor of the Mortal Realm that could not be described, a piece of history that inspired great awe and reverence. In the starry skies, Shen Yuan saw a resplendent celestial being, wearing a monocle of a pearlescent sheen, descend from the full moon. Upon their feet touching the secular world, white faded to black. His hair was tied back and as black as sable, his original facial features—although pale—presented to the world as he approached the solitary figure seated at his rightful place atop the dragon throne.

Like the sun in the skies, Luo Binghe shined with a bright light in one’s eyes. With eyes filled with a thousand words, he was a young emperor in formal black, his austere and distinguished presence instilling a sense of respect into others. An armored cloak decorated his shoulders; the thick white fur sewn into the collar of the embroidered brocade appeared familiar to Shen Yuan for an inexplicable reason.

There was a strange intensity to his expression. With a half-formed smile of indulgence, the newly crowned sovereign was watching how the visiting fortuneteller gazed upon him with immense pride. He genuflected to Luo Binghe in a proper bow.

Time had not left any residue on their faces; they were arguably as handsome as they had been when they’d first met at the beginning. Both held the innate ability to hold one’s eyes on their presence.

Earnest congratulations swelled in the air, stirring the hearts of those in the coronation ceremony when the wise-looking, austere guest gifted the Heavenly Demon official amnesty from the Heavens.

Suddenly Shen Yuan found himself outside.

A fragrance of flowers filled the imperial gardens during the eighth lunar month, a fresh scent that was quiet and distant but able to inspire heartfelt emotions. The courtyard bloomed with lush red and purple chrysanthemums.

He saw himself stopping in place below an osmanthus tree, with the oil-paper umbrella he’d carried shading him. Dancers ahead were moving with dainty steps to a stunning choreography, performing the tale of yearly weather from spring to summer, fall and winter.

Behind his reading monocle, his celestial gaze did not carry evil intent; it was pure and admiring of the beauties capable of overthrowing cities and kingdoms. Respectfully keeping his distance, he maintained a thick atmosphere of an educated appearance, dignified and decently conducted. Next to him were the pots of white blossoms—the sight of them naturally not being a joyous thing for one to gaze at without being reminded of funerals.

From the crowd of spectators appreciating the flowers, the dance, and poems being composed, four sets of eyes flitted over to him—one scarlet and one an overcast sky, and two that were pitch-black.

A Demon Saint, dressed in her infamous gauzy red silks and tiny bells, as coquettish as a temptress. Her complexion was naturally fair, with a type of rare grandeur and dignity in her brows.

A human cultivator who wore a veil over the lower half of her face, hiding the dazzling beauty that was like lilies blooming out of fresh water; a calm and composed beauty that snatched people’s souls.

A young mistress of wealthy bearing, willful and adorable with her childlike-face, wearing her long hair up in a flying fairy style, decorated with pink pearls to match her long, extravagant palace dress. A whip had been strapped to her willow waist.

And another young lady, as fair as a magnolia—and whose lovely mature face had turned ghastly. Became ashen. “It can’t be....” As though she were seeing a ghost from her past, she took an involuntary, compulsive step to him. “Shen Jiu…?”

Various emotions flashed over their fair countenances. Shock. Fear. Disbelief. Confusion. Then a reignited deep hostility formed between their brows, their unsettled eyes as dead as stagnant water—unable to tear like a dry well but filled with bottomless loathing.

A flurry of fabrics blurred in his sight. An arc of red sprayed widely over the flowers of the courtyard, the droplets scattering like crimson petals against the walls. The umbrella clattered to the ground.

A headless body collapsed heavily to its knees. Fell sideways like a log.

A round object soon tumbled over the hot, sticky blood seeping into the cracks of the paved limestone. Red began to stain the long, black roots that were fading back into the color of moonlight.

Through the music and shrill cries, one deep shout shook the Heavens. A howl of rage, there existed the unexpected raw sound of anguish that could chill the blood. There had been too many complicated emotions condensed into that single vocalization, it made everyone who heard this sound feel a stone in their throat.

The swift winds of calamity approached.

A faltering scream, or something like a scream was heard with the sound of numerous lives being extinguished. It was a demented, gut-wrenching retribution that didn’t end, a subjugation forever to be carved into the annals of history.

Shen Yuan broke free from the premonition, gasping like a dying man. His hand scrambled to his neck. Fear tasted like iron in his mouth, the muscles at the base of his throat working convulsively.

Cold sweat beaded down his face as he staggered forward. He felt as though he’d resurfaced from the deep depths of the sea he’d been drowning from. The water sloshed beneath his movements, his inner robe loosening from his abrupt movements.

Ping!

【Prediction! A Death Flag has been discovered. +44 Points. Future Events unlocked. Objectives <<INVITATION TO THE CHRYSANTHEMUM BANQUET>> and <<DEFEATING THE MECHANISMS OF THE PALACE COURT!>> will be available.】

System, why are you giving me so many inauspicious fours! He wanted to tear his hair out! He screamed in his head, The future me was helping your husband for the sake of securing your peace and prosperity! How did you not realize cutting the neck of a celestial immortal from the exalted Heavens would be considered an evil action? Did you think your actions were just and thus exempted from karmic, divine retribution?

Have they lost their minds? How can anyone mistake him for Shen Qingqiu? He was not Shen Jiu!

What a messy affair!

What a disaster!

To say he felt vexed was an understatement. Just now, everything had happened too suddenly. The tangled, chaotic mess of information was too shocking, too absurd. Just what happened to his invincible golden halo? Did inhabiting the mortal coil temporarily dispel it? Was this the stupid【Hidden Penalty】applied to his character creation?

Don’t tell him it was because he was the sort of cutthroat writer who’d kill off his own protagonists for shock value!

He smiled with a trace of bitterness. It was precisely in line with what he’d write. This was just the sort of first-draft content a writer like him might throw in just to be evil but would later put on the chopping block upon revision, when he was no longer fueled by spite.

If he had his laptop, in true keyboard warrior fashion, he’d finger-smash his frustrations in an unintelligible burst of Chinese characters. He’d signed up for a heartwarming, “feel good” pseudo-historical fantasy redemption story with blood-pumping battles and sworn brotherhoods. He did not sign up for angst and heavy subject matters like genocide.

Regaining his equilibrium, he shuddered. Abruptly he recalled a novel passage describing how those who die from a beheading were never to reincarnate. His hand clenched into a fist, his fighting spirit ignited. Shen Yuan resolved himself to trample that death flag. As a transmigrator, he would improve their attitudes toward him and rewrite fate!

He will survive in this world without fail and use whatever means necessary!

However much he didn’t wish to dwell on the vision, he knew he’d seen that monocle somewhere before. The Store inventory?

His heart racing, he threw his memory a little further back until he saw it—vivid and picture-clear in his mind’s eye. It was as if a scene from the distant past had superposed with the present.

<<MONOCLE OF DIVINE CLARITY>>

Wondrous item, legendary

A rare artifact once belonging to Xīwángmǔ, the enchanted crystal lens is rimmed with silver and has a fine chain attached to a jade earclip. Magical properties include Resist Mental Compulsion, True Sight, and enhancement of the wearer’s divination. Effects shall remain active as long as the owner wears it.

Cost: 500,000 B-Points

He’d remembered thinking, Just whose imagination did this goddess’ treasure originate from? So expensive! Monocles were a fashion statement used to highlight certain shrewd men in Chinese novels, but the eyewear was ultimately a Western 18th-century invention overseas and not of ancient China. Such historical inaccuracy! He’d wished to file a complaint! Shen Yuan remembered the grievances he’d lamented to the <<SYSTEM>>, only to be coolly rebuffed with the encouragement to continue to work hard.

But despite its exorbitant price-tag, he’d now received visual confirmation that he would eventually acquire ownership—whether the relic would be purchased by his own merit or it would enter his hands as a byproduct of the halo’s extraordinary luck. Although there was a sense of accomplishment in knowing, it paled in comparison against his newfound conviction.

Only the shallow groove between his brows betrayed his profound distress. There was no point dwelling on an omen that hadn’t happened yet. His counterattack would have to wait.

With a hand still shielding his throat, his breathing slowly, eventually, returning to a semblance of normalcy, Shen Yuan warily glanced around the painterly surroundings.

Somehow he’d found his way to the border. No words could capture the feeling he felt standing in the midst of a bamboo grove painted into existence from ground charcoal and ink wash. A retinue of monumental statues flanked him, weathered with time—and unrecognizable with their faceless features.

Walking by, he craned his neck to stare momentarily up at the features of two of them. A man and a woman. The man was of taller stature, with the suggestion of a goatee. The woman wore a headdress; an ominous hairline crack bisected her torso. Their placement indicated they were husband and wife, the intricate details carved on the white jade making them appear regal and imposing.

A sense of dejavú filled his thoughts. He couldn’t tell who they were meant to represent, but they felt familiar. Like he should know who they all were, but recognition of gods and the divine slipped through his fingers.

The misty ground had given way back to a transient void of white. He could see clearly where his dream realm ended and Luo Binghe’s dream realm started. It was as though a curtain had been drawn, an aurora of northern lights protecting a blank white canvas from being blotted. Across the boundary, he could see something up ahead in the eternal darkness. In the desolation that engulfed the night, an ominous shroud of miasma roiled overhead.

Like a soldier preparing for the battlefield, he steeled his resolve. With one firm slap to his cheeks, he bridged the gap.

The moment he crossed the threshold, a fierce demonic Qi surged toward him like a violent gale of desert wind which threatened to strip the skin from his bones. His knees nearly buckled under him as irony, sorrow, and bitterness besieged him. He had to resist all compulsion to turn back as the darkness caged him at once. He floated aimlessly in the darkened landscape, inexplicable feelings of loneliness arising within.

Shen Yuan narrowed his eyes, calming his inner turmoil.

He had to tell himself dreams did not reflect reality; they were merely a projection of someone’s subconscious. Even so, it painted a bleak picture of his xiōng dì's mental state.

Descending from the night skies, Shen Yuan was an ethereal figure dressed in white, the thin garment fluttering behind him as he took the invisible steps down into the foreign dream realm. In the infinite cosmos, he saw nothing but stars. He cast a cursory look over the bioluminescent glow rippling under him with each tread, like an otherworldly procession, until his feet finally touched the earth.

The sound of wings flapping caught his attention. Shen Yuan twisted his head, seeing a majestic fènghuáng burst free from his own heavenly realm. The immortal phoenix soared high overhead, the five sacred colors—red, blue, yellow, white, and black—of its serrated tail feathers trailing behind it. A beautiful cry escaped its throat like a song.

A mighty roar shattered the night. The air pressure shifted. As though answering the phoenix’s call, a fierce and powerful lóng ascended from the dark depths of the realm, brackish water trembling off its black scales as it shot up to give chase after the fènghuáng ’s vibrant plumage.

He watched their aerial dance in flight. Like yin and yang coming together, seeing their bodies twist and weave with one another in a harmonious sight made an intensity arise from the bottom of his heart.

The relief he felt was all-consuming. Every Chineseman knew of the dragon-and-phoenix metaphor of olden times. And if the mythical phoenix dared to take flight in this dream realm, in a demon’s home turf, surely it was an auspicious sign that Bing gē was not too far gone in darkness and corruption.

Feeling a renewed lightness on his feet, Shen Yuan went to follow.

The moment that the dragon surfaced, he had registered a faraway presence. It was a feeling of awareness, a slight prickling sensation of the scalp, making him feel self-conscious. He was hyper-aware that he was not alone. Even if Luo Binghe had been preoccupied, there was no way Protagonist A would not have sensed Protagonist B’s presence—and vice versa.

If Shen Yuan’s world had been representative of the heavenly air and water, much like the man himself Luo Binghe’s spirit root was aligned with the earth. His hand drifted back to his throat. The air was as arid as a desert. If memory served Shen Yuan correctly, Luo Binghe also had an innate affinity with the fire attribute. It’d been discovered during his time in the Endless Abyss arc once the demon seal had been broken, indicative of his high sensibility to the fire type of Qi.

Hearing noises behind him, he glanced over his shoulder. Leaves had sprung from the blackened branches, rustling in the wind. Moonlight dripped through the gaps in the canopy, reflecting mottled shadows. He had been following along a ravine which’d shimmered gold, curious where the running water led to. Presumably it would take him to wherever Luo Binghe—and Meng Mo?—wanted him to see.

Tucking the long strands of his hair behind an ear, he halted midstride when he heard, “...a...re...f...ul….”

He’d heard that quiet murmur before—that time at the pond, didn’t he? A woman’s cadence. Like the babbling of a brook, as faint as the wind, with accents of a beauty hitherto unknown. He glanced at the waters, keeping his expression impassive.

Ping.

【Do exercise caution, Esteemed Host! One should not turn their back on an opponent.】

Shen Yuan was silent. He cast his gaze sidelong to the trees for a fleeting moment. As though addressing someone in the prevailing shadows, he purposely stated aloud, “I don’t make mistakes in recognizing talent. I have no intention of making Luo Binghe my opponent.”  

Without another word, he resumed his stroll. His sight was fixed on the miasma ahead.

On the account of the premonition, it was at no fault of Luo Binghe’s that Shen Yuan would lose his head to the man’s wives. If anything, it’d sounded as though Protagonist A would seek to avenge him—even if the way he reacted was extreme and heartless.

Don’t you know, he wanted to tell his junior, if you do too many bad things, you will get retribution?

Truly, the future Shen Yuan must have maxed out his affection meter. Luo Binghe must have deeply treasured their friendship—or his counsel—to the point where he was capable of callously dismissing his former lovey-dovey attachments to help the dead deliver justice. However much pity Shen Yuan felt for the young women for how easily their husband detestably threw them aside, it was still an immensely heartfelt gesture he showed for the deceased. Even a rock would feel moved.

It made him remember the con-crit he’d left on the online forum, where he detailed how cool he felt the portrayal of a hateful and sinister Bing gē was—a refreshingly blackened hero who repaid debts of kindness and grudges. As expected of the “black-bellied” male lead, once the favorability meter was full, his inner protectiveness to the ones he held in high esteem would appear.

...Shen Yuan, you are putting the cart before the horse, he scolded himself. Stop thinking about something useless. Don’t meddle in his personal affairs too much.

Petals scattered, rolling along with no control whatsoever over their destiny, adrift and aimless. Strands of moonlit hair billowed with the breeze, leading his attention from his feet to across the distance. He focused on the sparse meadow that had wrapped itself in the embrace of the autumn equinox.

In the inky darkness, he saw a field of red spider lilies blooming in the hellish wasteland along a golden stream, leading to the gnarled tree—dark and twisted and silhouetted with demonic Qi.  

So this was Luo Binghe’s diantian.... It was as depressing of a sight as Shen Yuan had envisioned. The scent of death lingered in the air, an earthy perfume of graveyard soil and decay intermingling into the overwhelmingly floral fragrance, suffusing into the senses.

Under the swathe of demonic miasma drifting down from the sky like ash, the drooping red petals seemed ready to fall, swaying dreamily, but holding fast to their slim, strong stalks. The movement added something alive to the manjusaka’s fragility, to their ethereal quality, almost human in the way a flower could demonstrate both frailty and endurance at the same time.

He felt a faint sense of dread as he began to wander deeper into the crimson field, feeling a pressure over his head that was overbearing and suffocating. The flowers parted before him, the petals brushing his sleeves and hair like covetous fingers. He’d half-expected to see the heavenly flowers descending from the realm of the Gods, according to Buddhist scriptures. There was an old Chinese legend of two fairies who had been punished by the gods to be seperated for all eternity. As gods’ design, the petals could only blossom when the leaves were all withered away.

A flower of separation, and with its poisonous bulb, the red spider lily held a dark connotation that appealed to writers. They were well-known metaphors in eastern literature.

Memories poured in like the tide. Grown in Diyu—the realm of the dead or “hell” where souls were sent to repent and be purified—they were symbolic of guiding the dead into their next reincarnation. If anyone had asked him about what it meant in the language of flowers, Shen Yuan would say he associated the red spider lily with feelings of abandonment, longing, lost memories, and final parting. He’d referenced the symbolism before in a past work, underscoring its morbid resemblance to splashes of blood.

Shen Yuan stared with narrowed eyes. There was a certainty in him that he could not describe. But with how the dream realm had been described in the webnovels, there was absolutely no way Luo Binghe, or the elder Meng Mo, had a hand in this.

For any onlookers looking in from the outskirts, this scene must have presented a baffling sight. He remembered the pride displayed by both versions of the elder dream demon when it came to showing off their control over illusions to a young and impressionable disciple of mixed-blood. Shen Yuan wouldn’t be surprised if Meng Mo was presently frothing at the mouth, seeing a celestial being mess with his precious host’s control.

There was an indescribable eeriness permeating everywhere ever since he’d walked into the flower field.

System, he accused, this must be your doing. Just what are you trying to prove to this old man?  

There was no story without coincidences. When countless coincidences crashed altogether, the truth came to light.

Ping.

【Answering the Esteemed Host, the thousand year white resurrection lily is a gateway to the world of the deceased. It receives the memories of a departing soul before one crosses the Nai Ha bridge to pass into their next life, and can therefore be harvested to bring back the souls of the dead. Should Protagonist <<SHEN YUAN>> accept the quest, there is a resurrection subplot to bring back wronged supporting characters from the Earth Realm.】

Hearing the explanation, Shen Yuan’s mind leapt to the original Shen Qingqiu.

Even Shen Yuan, who’d originally called for the “scumbag’s” castration like many other fans, after having read the rebooted series, felt that the original Shen Qingqiu was deserving of sympathy points. At the mercy of his own duplicitous personality, the emotionally stunted character had adhered to the mensao archetype through and through—flopping between the two states of “hot and cold.” It had been revealed that many of the crimes Shen Qingqiu had been accused of had been the result of various egregious misunderstandings and miscommunications.

An ache wormed its way into his heart. There had been so many casualties, so many people who had their lives cut short. The Qing Jing Peak Lord, Shen Qingqiu; the Sect Master of the Qiong Ding Peak, Yue Qingyuan; the Bai Zhan Peak Lord and Liu Mingyan’s elder brother, Liu Qingge; Luo Binghe’s blood-related parents Su Xiyan and Tianlang jun….

They were good people. They weren’t his creations, but their roles as the small “mobs”—side characters—led to their potential being shorn woefully short.

It was perhaps pretentious and presumptuous of him to decide those to be allowed to come back from the dead—defying the natural order of things—but for someone to be essentially granted a second chance at life, to right regrets and live their rebirth to the fullest, who would refuse? Celestial beings were meant to have magnanimous hearts, moving the sky and earth for once-in-a-lifetime noble souls.

So wasn’t it just and righteous if such extreme action was taken?

Ping.

【Optional objective <<JOURNEY TO THE NETHERWORLD>> is available. Does the Esteemed Host wish to accept? Y/N?】

He glanced at the UI. Within that brief moment, Shen Yuan had already made many deliberations and judgements. Just as he was about to cement his decision, he heard the faintest trickle of music—and with it, murmurs.

“...P...le...ase….”  

His body instinctively tensed. A thick stench of blood pervaded the air, suffocating the floral fragrance with a metallic odor of iron.

...Why do I hear <<BOSS>> music?

Shen Yuan swatted the interface away from him, hissing beneath his breath, “Some other time.”

Whispers, male and female, crept through the silence. They drifted into his hearing, mournful and piteous, like wounded animals in close pursuit of their prey. Growing louder and louder.

“May...the Heavens...have mercy....”

“Save us.”

“Anyone….”

Under the night sky, he appeared calm, but his mind was already as turbulent as the storming seas.

At the sound of rustling, an archaic flight instinct had him spinning on his feet. A crack had formed in his expression. Skeletal arms were outstretched toward him from the crimson field.

Infinitely long, they dripped with blood, the droplets scattering onto the lilies like rain.

His hand instinctively reached for his sword as he watched the illusion crawl toward his ankles and the hem of his robe. His brows tightly-knitted, there was a chill to his face that was very different than during the daytime—as if he were a different person.

Some battles had to be fought another day. To avoid damaging his or Luo Binghe’s psyche, he’d have to beat a tactical retreat.

Just as he was about to soar away like a sparrow, he heard a distinct, metallic shnnk. He jerked in surprise when an arm abruptly materialized around his waist, embracing Shen Yuan from behind like an iron snare.

A black demonic blade swung in a wide arc.

The skeletal arms were obliterated in a torrent of midnight wildfire, limbs bursting open in wet splatters of blood.

The heat pressed against his back was as solid and grounding as a tree trunk, the strong and rapid heartbeat incomparably clear in his ears as the roaring flames extinguished themselves. All petals had been scattered from the mighty gust, strands of black and white hair flowing together in the wind.

In the blanket of darkness came the hysterical thought of a wild Bing gē having appeared. The culprit has, at last, deigned to show his guilty face.

“Shizun….”

The mere sound of him strummed the bowstring in his own heart with a loud tremor.

In a tone as soft as peach blossoms, silky and gentle, Luo Binghe whispered to Shen Yuan, “I’ve finally found you.”

The hoarseness of the man’s voice was albeit strange. Thrown off-kilter, Shen Yuan thought that there might have been something wrong, but he didn’t trust himself to say anything yet without it being misconstrued.

Hot puffs of air brushed against his cheek. That, with the scent of rice water and rose petals and something else masculine and unfamiliar, was distracting. Luo Binghe was quietly repeating the phrase, "I found you."

Mustering his courage, Shen Yuan peered over his shoulder. Both brows soared to his hairline when he saw a hallucination of a hundred flowers blooming at once.

A circle of red peeked out from the charcoal of Luo Binghe’s eyes. His attractive features were akin to the warmth of the early spring sunshine on flower petals that, for a moment, Shen Yuan could not differentiate between north and south.

Shen Yuan blinked once—twice, to clear the hallucination. It was only when he realized what he was seeing that Shen Yuan felt dumbstruck. He could feel his own facial muscles beginning to contort.

Unbelievable. The corners of his mouth launched upwards out of his control, but the ludicrous smile was suppressed by him before it could take flight completely. How utterly audacious.

Luo Binghe’s long, dark hair was let loose like a waterfall. And he was shamelessly wearing nothing but a thick, white pelt over his bare torso.

Having been the one to strike down the mythical beast, Shen Yuan instantly recognized the fur draped over broad shoulders. It was the divine báihǔ pelt the servants had laid out over the bed to help their guest conserve heat for the winter. Draped over bare skin, it’d lent the younger man a distinctly wild impression.

Luo Binghe’s breathing was a little unstable. Wrapping his other arm around Shen Yuan, he closed his eyes. Nosing the soft white hair, he remarked, "Shizun has a pleasant scent...."

Shen Yuan’s expression remained a frozen lake. What was with this ambience?

Faced with an unprecedented scenario, Shen Yuan didn’t know how to make it less awkward and help them both save face. The extent of his adult experience with hugging strangers had been starting conversations or meetings with a handshake, and ending it with a brisk hug whenever the whim hit. Even his own father, himself and his two brothers had communicated mostly with manly pats to the shoulder or the back. Perhaps such discomfort could be attributed to a cultural custom which persisted long after the death of Chairman Mao back in 1976. Initiating physical contact still remained somewhat of a learning curve among friends and family members, with some notable exceptions like the comforting touches given to a cute child or the hugs given by an overbearing grandparent.

Despite his current appearance, Shen Yuan was still a man; even though it was not the soft figure of a woman being pressed up against him, it was embarrassing being held by another man so fiercely.

Even knowing everything there was to know about Luo Binghe, he was essentially a stranger to Shen Yuan. The whole experience was surreal, like being hugged by a movie star who could just as easily change his mind and decide to crush his windpipe.

Shen Yuan didn’t dare to look down to confirm the extent of Luo Binghe’s undressed state. What if he accidentally bore witness to a wardrobe mishap and caught a glimpse of that legendary, heavenly sky pillar—or see a blinding tower of light? He wouldn’t be able to recover from such humiliation! To avoid that blow to his ego, he would be better off pretending everything was normal. I am a morally upright citizen with the heart of an angel, he chanted to himself like a sutra. I must remain patient and benevolent with today’s hot-blooded youth.  

With the two of them locked in a stalemate, Shen Yuan slowly felt his sanity returning to him. Standing as still as a statue, he ruminated on the best method to address this situation with an appropriateness that wouldn’t trigger a landmine.

He patted Luo Binghe’s forearm in a consoling manner, but it was also an unsubtle cue for him to release him.

The arms only tightened in persistence.

Shen Yuan frowned at his “stickiness.” He felt as though they were unintentionally stealing this particular romantic encounter from a youth’s passionate spring dreams. Since this was ancient China, it was truly lucky that he wasn’t being hugged by a young woman, or else he’d be worried about impacting her reputation—even if nothing had happened.

Traces of resignation formed between unpigmented brows. “...Xiōng dì, I am appreciative to you for having found your way to me.” Now that the arrow had been drawn, it had to be released. As exasperated as he felt, he asked with no small amount of concern, “Are you suffering from any mental backlash? I am aware of what happens when one retaliates at an illusion.”

A shaky exhalation of breath was heard. Instead of answering his question, Luo Binghe replied with much sorrow, “This lord deserves to die. However much this lord hastened to reunite with you the moment I saw your resplendent presence descending from the sky, it is unfortunate we met just as harm was about to befall upon Shizun.”

His voice had been mellow, with a hint of the liveliness to it that only young people had. It made it all the more easy for people to develop goodwill towards a valiant, dazzlingly handsome lord.

...I know of your tricks, little demon. Are you testing the sincerity of my well intentions? Furthermore, how do you manage to sound like a pitiful puppy...while your body...looks so erotic...? Bing gē, you truly have a duplicitous, villainous heart.

Shen Yuan refused to fall into the scheme of this little wolfdog. To avoid a perilous situation, he must go on the counterattack.

Instead, he turned in his arms. Luo Binghe’s eyes snapped open when Shen Yuan framed his face in his gloveless palms.

Shen Yuan inspected his features closely, putting on a stern look. He wiped away the big drops of sweat that flowed down the Heavenly Demon’s forehead, chastising, “You move me to tears, Luo Binghe. Did I not warn you to work on your bad habit of bearing everything silently?” Every word and sentence was leaden with camaraderie. His fingers drifted down to clasp him by the elbows. “You’ve forgotten this one is clairvoyant. Instead of concealing your intentions from me, this master shall willingly lend you his ear if you come bearing any troubling thoughts or concerns.”

What was the use of having a glib tongue if it couldn’t be put to good use? Time to wield his +20 CHARISMA to its full devastating potential!

“Although we are strangers, I hope, with time, you can be the truest version of yourself with me. I will not think any less of you at a sign of weakness.” The nature of heroic warriors emphasised on cultivating relationships and respect. Shen Yuan knew to repay a kind act with gratitude. Concentrating on his channels, he sent a pulse of his spirit energy to his yin -depleted companion through their point of contact.

Luo Binghe’s eyelids fluttered half-mast as gentle and clean spiritual power circulated throughout his meridians. The sensation was reminiscent of a cold spring drizzle watering the arid soil, the strain in his body receding for the time being.

Under a more impertinent tone, Shen Yuan told him, “Even if you willfully choose to disregard my reading, I cannot help but be concerned seeing how gallantly and recklessly you continue down this path of self-destruction. Just look at the state of your own diantian. Even the peerless ‘Luo Demon’ of the battlefield who is said to be able ‘to withstand the skies and earth’ should not be uncompromising regarding one’s own health.”

Shen Yuan knew from personal experience. However much the spirit was willing, the flesh was weak.

A hand slowly left his waist, moving to close over the back of Shen Yuan’s palm. Carefully sizing him up, his scarlet gaze, as he looked at Shen Yuan, held a few degrees more affection.

Ping.

【Protagonist A Satisfaction points +25.】

Twenty-five points instead of five or ten? You must have felt so good, you’d reached the heavens. Shen Yuan granted a lukewarm smile towards the future tyrant, patting the white fur over his shoulder in a friendly manner. “Are you feeling better now?”

“Yes. Many thanks to Shizun.” His line of sight drifted downward, and suddenly his attention was the ravenous gaze of a tiger.

Heat rushed in Shen Yuan’s body like the torrential flood. You’re a married husband who’s bedded countless beauties throughout the years , he’d nearly rebuked. What was so interesting about seeing an old man’s chest anyway? He averted his face. Forcing a calm and unwavering tone, he invited, “Since we’re here, walk with me, Luo Binghe.”

Perhaps it was due to the strange air of two men bonding that grinded down Luo Binghe’s stubborn temperament, but his iron hold had loosened, giving Shen Yuan ample opportunity to break free. Righting the night garment back into its proper place, he turned his feet in the direction toward his own dream realm.

“Luo Binghe…. My son….”

Shen Yuan glanced over his shoulder, his stride slowing. Somehow,  even as a figment of his imagination, he instantly knew whom this voice was supposed to belong to—maternal and lonely and sorrowful, full of regrets.

“I beg of you…. Help him….”

“Shizun?”

He gazed at the field of spider lilies with a considering look. With each step they’d taken, the blood-red color had faded into white. “...You do not hear anything?” he asked slowly.

Luo Binghe granted him an unfathomable look, before shaking his head. The fur of the báihǔ rustled with the small movements.

“So it’s like that.... May the elder dream demon who has taken this younger demon under his wing forgive my divine interference.” Sensing he’d captured Luo Binghe’s rapt attention from that frivolous declaration, Shen Yuan scrutinized the person who had been walking shoulder to shoulder with him.

To anyone looking in, they perhaps presented an incompatible image. Visually, as protagonists, they were as different as day and night—indicative of the two different writing styles of the two novelists.

As the celestial representative, there was a kind of romantic, quiet and unrestrained air of a distinguished literary person. Even with such mature looks, like the dark side of the moon, they paled in comparison to the blinding brilliance that was Luo Binghe whose presence was as bright as the sun in the sky. He personified those who walked with a dragon’s gait and firm tiger’s steps, with a vigour and prestige that unknowingly overflowed out; and with a cultivator’s valor, such presentation could make his opponent easily frightened. Shen Yuan could still recall his rough touch and that vise-like strength. Although Luo Binghe appeared innocent, he was actually enigmatic and difficult-to-predict. It made Shen Yuan want to test him.

Affecting an air of indifference, Shen Yuan mentioned as casually as he could, “That aside, I have a question for you. I was hoping you could satisfy my curiosity.”

Luo Binghe’s gaze was a dozen stones piled on the side of his face. He bade, “May Shizun speak candidly.”

“You must have given thought to my predictions. Knowing what xiōng dì knows now, what else does Luo Binghe intend to ask this one?” Seeing Luo Binghe was about to respond, Shen Yuan shook his head. “Don’t give me the answer you think I will want to hear. Be frank. For you to chase me in my dreams, you must be burdened with a thirst for knowledge.”

“...This lord wishes to learn more,” Luo Binghe confessed, looking unapologetic. “The strong prey on the weak; that is how the world works. As one who can get a glimpse of fate, Shizun is an indispensable source of guidance. Before this lord arrived here, I had been in a daze and felt helpless. Then elder Shen Yuan helped clear the fog in my head. The future has never been clearer.”

Shen Yuan hid the cynical smile in his heart.

Now we get to the crux of the matter…. Very well; he will fulfill the desperate wish of the imaginary Su Xiyan. He would help her son.

First, he had to establish a common enemy or obstacle.

“You are fortunate. Although it’s unorthodox, seeing as we are in a dream realm, seeing once is preferable to hearing a hundred times. You can do with the knowledge of your future later however you want.” He glanced forward, seeing the boundary line just across the barren wasteland. “Should you see intervening forces or hindrances to your survival or success, even if both parties once harbored goodwill, what will Luo Binghe do?”

There were countless variables on the chessboard. How he chose to answer him would decide where Shen Yuan will point the spear to.

Sensing the weight of his tone, Luo Binghe mulled over his words for a moment. A dark storm swirled in his eyes. Gazing at him as though he intended to test him, he spoke with severity, unfalteringly, “If one were to offend me, this lord will definitely exterminate the entire family.”

Shen Yuan somehow managed a serene expression despite hearing such a bloodthirsty declaration. A ferocious answer that has exceeded expectations, of course. Bing gē, your inferiority complex is showing.  

He knew just the perfect scapegoats.

One was the son of heaven—the current emperor of the Mortal Realm himself. His fate was sealed the moment he’d declared the exceptional demon lord to be a threat and that the middle kingdom would not be content with nothing short of his destruction.

Second was the Old Palace Master—the sect leader of the still-surviving Huan Hua Palace. That pervert was the poisonous snake that was entrenched in the grass, waiting for an opportunity to strike and bite his son-in-law to death.

And lastly, the most crucial, would be the symbol of everything that had gone wrong in Luo Binghe’s life. He was the ideal sacrificial pawn, for that person was an existence Luo Binghe would definitely not be able to touch even if he harbored resentment.

Ping!

【Warning! Allowing Protagonist <<LUO BINGHE>> knowledge of the powers that be is prohibited. A penalty will be imposed on the Esteemed Host should you continue!】

System, Shen Yuan roared in his head, must you undermine everything I do? Even as his fingers curled into fists, he resolutely maintained his mild forbearance as they approached the boundary. He thought viciously, If you’re so worried, then why don’t you activate a filter to edit what I’m saying into something that suits this world?

Ping.

【The Esteemed Host voluntarily wishes for censorship?】

Not censorship! Just filter any forbidden words into something of similar equivalence. I give you permission! Just don’t meddle! This is a critical stage toward jumpstarting Bing gē’s character development!

Now that he thought about it, naturally the main reason why many of the modern characters never admitted to being a transmigrator was out of fear of being seen as crazy. Shen Yuan could count on one hand the number of stories where the protagonist admitted to actually being one.

Wasn’t he in an optimal position where he could be believed? The intimate act of exchanging secrets brought people even closer. Shen Yuan was not above using the same emotional tricks to lure Luo Binghe to his side.

A sudden warmth jostled him out of his thoughts. Just as he heard the notification that the filter had been activated, he noticed Luo Binghe had stepped closer to him. Body heat transferred to Shen Yuan from their proximity. He could smell the scent of fur.

His smile was ferocious, as if he were a vicious wolf. “The ways of the heavens are merciless.” A hand lifted to play with the loose white strands. Luo Binghe seemed to have found his albinism curious. “While this lord is appreciative to elder Shen Yuan, I am aware that immense hatred and bad blood has existed between the moral sects and demonkind for generations. Yet you’ve magnanimously harbored me at your residence and shared with me my bright future. Aren’t you worried your celestial brethren will accuse you of collusion with this lord for your own benefit?”

Brows that were as pale as the snow rose at the provocative words. Although I haven’t met such “celestial brethren,” to think you would see the bigger picture of classism and discrimination.... Sighing in his heart, Shen Yuan realized he must have misjudged him. He hadn’t thought a formidable, blackhearted stallion protagonist like himself could be broad-sighted. Luo Binghe, I never thought you’d grow up overnight.

“...I don’t think you’re rotten.”

“Hm?”

“On account of you being half-demon,” he clarified. “Judging a person by their birth and social status is proof that a person is narrow-minded. I have seen with my own eyes how hard you work and I sincerely admire your potential.”

As the old saying went, one should never look down on youngsters. If they worked hard, the future of young people was boundless, and they will inevitably turn the situation around.

On the surface level, Luo Binghe spoke with a refreshing candor and treated others warmly and sincerely. He was not unreasonable, and he was as filial as they come—showing favoritism and loyalty toward those he held in high esteem. It was only when he faced adversity or found himself on the battlefield that he would be merciless—so no matter how much goodwill others showed him, it was useless if he held secret grievances toward them in his heart.

“Moreover, you’ve surely heard for all your life that an alliance between a human and a demon would truly be a laughingstock of this world.” He held Luo Binghe’s riveted stare. “...But I’m looking at that impossible unity right now.”

A brittle expression melted into existence. “...And what of the celestial gods and fairies of the Heavenly Realm?”

“What of them?”

“Do they hold the same broadmindedness as Shizun?”

Shen Yuan eyed him. When he remained silent, Luo Binghe understood he had gotten his answer.

“...Shizun is a precious existence,” Luo Binghe remarked. “The world has its own rules. And everything within it follows them.”

While it was true that good wordbuilding was kept within its sandbox, Shen Yuan didn’t think upholding such a limitation applied to individuals equipped with the protagonist’s halo. Protagonists were meant to break convention.

Shen Yuan corrected, “Just because a celestial is an immortal body of divinity does not mean I am beholden to share the same outdated values.【My way of thinking is modern and doesn’t suit the current times.】Knowing what I know, naturally there would be some deviation.”

He paused, realizing what had emerged from his mouth.

What he’d meant to say was that he was a transmigrator and that was why his way of thinking deviated from canon NPCs! This was supposed to be the moment he revealed to him his shocking identity!

Shen Yuan tried again, “It would be the height of folly to dismiss your capabilities just because of your birthright.【You are meant to stand at the peak of the dynasty overlooking all living beings.】Regardless, I will support you whether you choose to be the Sacred Ruler or if you decide to live a simpler life.”

His expression immediately sunk. It happened again! He’d meant to say, because Luo Binghe was the stallion protagonist, his meteoric rise was inevitable.

Luo Binghe had been keenly watching the byplay of emotions on Shen Yuan’s face as he spoke. As he saw the neutrality melt into heated frustration, Luo Binghe naturally formed his own assumptions from it. Under a softened tone, he repeated, “A simpler life?”

A stone had lodged itself in his throat. Shen Yuan had wanted to express to the young man that he didn’t want to pressure him into taking on the burden and responsibilities of a duty he wasn’t ready for, but he hadn’t expected to be hit with a burst of memories.

It made him remember his own family life. Before this madness.

“Being alive is actually a wonderful thing.” Nostalgia swept across his features. “...You are a grown man, Luo Binghe. Just because you have the potential to be great doesn’t mean you should be forced into something if it isn’t what you want to do.”

Wracking his brain for how to address the concept of Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky without having Shen Yuan’s original intention changed drastically, he confided, “I’m not like your creator. I don’t want to erase your agency; I wish to see if you can transcend your original settings.”

The mood changed in a flash. “My creator?” Luo Binghe’s tone was sharp. The white hair was released as he impulsively reached for Shen Yuan’s arms. “What does Shizun mean?”

He could see the vibrancy of the demon crest on Luo Binghe’s forehead, being this close to him. As though commenting on the weather, Shen Yuan remarked cavalierly, “Have you not found it strange that, despite not committing any wrongdoings, you’d perhaps suffered more misfortunes than anyone else—as though they’d been preordained? A storm tests the strength of a blade of grass. You were orphaned, twice, as a child. People picked on you when you were defenseless. A reputably famous immortal selected you as a disciple, but upon seeing your potential, swiftly went to undercut it. At just a young age, you’ve seen the duplicity of human hearts, fought countless tough opponents, and endured numerous betrayals and hardships.”

Luo Binghe’s expression had hardened.

“Your destiny has been【manipulated by a higher power】to hasten your growth.” Undergoing tribulations was not a foreign concept. In the Cultivation World, cultivators were expected to undergo tests from the Heavens to determine if they were worthy of ascension. “Most would be crushed under such trials, but your will to live is strong. Thus your rate of progress has been accelerated because of such painstaking efforts.”

You are indeed a far mightier man than I could ever be. With your head-start, even if I challenge you countless times, I will never be able to claim victory currently with how unfairly OP you are.

“You are claiming there has been a higher power who has caused this lord much grief and misery, all in accordance to a predestined plan he has prophesied for me?” Luo Binghe’s voice was deceptively gentle.

Shen Yuan hesitated.

“Shen Yuan.”

Seeing that all pretenses were already thrown to the wind, Shen Yuan had no inhibitions anymore. He could only apologize to Airplane brother in his heart, for turning his creation against him and making him an unfilial son.

Shen Yuan opened his mouth. “You aren’t【my creation.】It is frowned upon for【gods and immortals】to poach【extraordinary heroes】from their【patronage】without permission.”

Maintaining a genial facade, Luo Binghe expressed with a sincerity that rang a little false, “This lord simply wishes to know which deity to pay humble respects to for their gracious sponsorship.”

An enigmatic smile stole across Shen Yuan’s face. “One could say every living thing such as yourself and everything beautiful and evil in this world sprung from his imagination. His【name has been lost with time.】But I know him as elder Xiàng Tiān Dà Fēijī."

Those dark brows drew downward. “Xiàng Tiān Dà...Fēijī?”

Ah, of course you wouldn’t know what an airplane is. Shen Yuan ruminated for a moment before reaching up for Luo Binghe’s wrists. As though he were an older brother admonishing one’s insensible younger brother, he said graciously, “Fēijī gēis a controversial but well-respected figure within our circles. His writings are not without merit.”

His words were mostly self-serving, but had Airplane brother been in his shoes, Shen Yuan would have wanted him to elevate his standing in front of his “children.” Even if it was just by a little.

Under the same earnest tone, Shen Yuan insisted, “He might have lost his integrity in the past but he has always held well intentions and wants to see his【creations】flourish. You, especially, were his original written masterpiece.”

Luo Binghe’s gaze fell on the pale fingers encircled around his wrists. “And where does Shen Yuan fall into all this?”

In life, it was not possible to bloom bright flowers from lies. Try as he might to hide it, his smile became strained from the memories of his painful past—of how much time he’d wasted, how much rénmínbì he’d spent out of his own wallet. Shen Yuan confessed, “I was once an admirer of his before I grew disillusioned. Your life is full of tragic misunderstandings. That’s why I want to see if I can rewrite the travesty of the future you’ve been shoehorned into. Your journey has been of interest to me the moment he【birthed】you and this world.”

Luo Binghe’s hands refused to budge from him no matter how much force was exerted. Shen Yuan frowned.

“Is your remark real?” Seeing Shen Yuan’s confusion, he clarified, “That you would be willing to overstep boundaries and break from celestial tradition to offer your support to this lord?”

“I’m not being facetious.” Shen Yuan scrutinized his handsome features. “We know what you are meant to do. Fēijī gē had set you up for greatness. With your power, you will surely achieve justice and bring the evils of the Three Realms to judgement, and unify the realms as the Sacred Ruler. And once you’ve served your purpose, your story is at its end. I’ve seen your ending. Your great legacy will ultimately be remembered as nothing more than a tragic, bitter wastrel who, even with your accomplishments, had wasted away and perished under suspicious circumstances.”

Dark storm clouds gathered in Luo Binghe’s expression.

“But knowing all that, what does Luo Binghe want to do?” Shen Yuan spoke brusquely. “Don’t care what I think. You have free will, do you not? It’s one thing for me to advise you against the misfortunes you’ll encounter. But do you even want to be a Sacred Ruler? I would like to hear the input of his own creation.”

“...In the eyes of the virtuous, this lord will always be a wicked and unspeakable evil that must be slayed. In the eyes of aristocrats, I will never get ahead. To them, I will always be the son of a penniless washerwoman.” His voice had been calm and waveless, but there was a trace of heavy tension—and a fatalism that’d felt suffocating. With the air of a galvanized, hot-blooded warlord in battle, Luo Binghe declared, “This lord will not find peace until none would dare oppose me, and I attain everything that has been denied to me.”

How selfish, Shen Yuan couldn’t help but think. But he supposed it made sense. In the past, Luo Binghe had always been the one trampled underfoot, but now that the shoe was on the other foot, it was to be expected he’d want to take everything he thought to belong to him.

He asked Luo Binghe again, “Do you still want to honor Fēijī’s wishes for you and become his Sacred Ruler? Or do you want to travel a different path? The present is different from the past or future. I will respect whichever decision you make.”

Luo Binghe repeated the words “the present is different from the past or future” softly. Those charcoal eyes scrutinized him back.

Shen Yuan had a sudden realisation in his heart when Luo Binghe raised his palm reverently to the back of Shen Yuan’s hand. He kept his expression wooden when a beatific smile bloomed across Luo Binghe’s features, chasing away the prior shadows.

“This lord,” Luo Binghe announced with the finality of a man making a solemn vow, “will never accept Fēijī ’s patronage. Such a thoughtless, presumptuous, good-for-nothing creator is unfit to lick my boots.”

...I express my deepest apologies, Airplane brother. Please do not transmigrate into this world like your Self-Insert in the rebooted novels—or you will be made into mincemeat.

Ping.

【Protagonist A Satisfaction points +99.】

Shen Yuan nearly swallowed his tongue upon hearing it. It took everything in he not to reveal his astonishment. Although he had expected to have made a dent in Luo Binghe’s heart, it was staggering by how much impact his words had! In his incredulity, he’d almost missed what was declared next.

“Instead, this lord shall only truly accept Shen Yuan.” His dark lashes fluttered shut as he lifted their entwined fingers just below his jaw, his breath fanning across Shen Yuan’s knuckles. “My Shizun is honorable, honest, and foreseeing. None can compare. In return for guiding this lord with his oracles, I will ensure they come to pass, and swear to protect him from his back. You will achieve the results desired.”

Oh, my mother. A feeling arose in him that he had somehow enmeshed himself in a trap of his own devising.

“This lord understands. Your heart had suffered so long enduring the injustices this one had to suffer while I was weak and oppressed. Shen Yuan must have felt helpless being unable to directly interfere with matters of the secular world, retained at the residence of the Heavenly Realm and not being allowed to see me. It is because this lord has only now managed to find a way to Shizun that you have seized the opportunity.”

He’d just dealt him a fatal blow. You understand nothing , Shen Yuan wanted to bellow! If this were a tabletop game, then he had just rolled a Nat20 with his Charisma check. It was too good of a roll! Aren’t you just projecting your ideal Shizun onto me?

“Thanking Shizun for the lesson. Your insightfulness continues to impress this lord.”

Shen Yuan’s eyes shook when Luo Binghe lifted his head. And then he realized how close they’d gotten again. Close, too close! He could practically see the jut of his collarbones peeking above the soft fur.

His heart wavered for a moment. Pulling his hand away, he feigned a cough into his fist. Taking the time to regain his composure, he said, “You know, we might not be kinsmen, but helping each other should be just enough to be good friends.”

“An offer of friendship?” His tone was deceptively intimate and unpredictable. To Shen Yuan’s wide eyes, Luo Binghe went to cup his hand over a fist in a formal gesture. Bending the steel sword that was his spine, he proclaimed to him, “Then this lord shall avail to raise his reputation and prowess. To be regarded as worthy in Shen Yuan’s eyes and in the eyes of the Heavens, this one will surpass expectations.”

The soft waves of his dark hair fell over the white fur as Shen Yuan exasperatedly tugged at Luo Binghe’s arms, encouraging the demon lord to stand back up from his unnecessary display of supplication. He had the feeling they’d cleared some sort of checkpoint or hurdle.

How dangerous. The allure of Luo Binghe’s every word and smile were like spring waters trickling gently past Shen Yuan’s ironclad defenses. His own charisma made Shen Yuan, who had resolved to remain highly vigilant, want to believe his words just like that.

He noticed that Luo Binghe had stopped directly at the boundary. The demon lord was looking at the fog as though it had wronged him in some way.

Ping.

【Notifying the Esteemed Host! Skinship is required for Protagonist A to gain entry. Would Protagonist <<SHEN YUAN>> like to add Protagonist <<LUO BINGHE>> to his party? Y/N?】

Since it was like that, he could only comply. Secreting the weary sigh in his heart, Shen Yuan took the initiative. With one step into the swirling white mist, he twisted his body sideways and extended his palm. He gazed at him expectantly.

Without hesitation, Luo Binghe took his hand. And Shen Yuan pulled him into his world.

Ping.

【Congratulations! Protagonist <<LUO BINGHE>> has been successfully added to the party!】

Ping.

【Reloading the map! Loading...loading...success! The simulation has been reconfigured! Jiāyóu, lăoshī!】

[issyrobertson1]

Social psychology of dress. Pt1.0

To view this topic within other aspects I decided to look at how dress (or in other words costumes) were used in films. 

ART AND DESIGN CONTEXTS + RESEARCH FINE ART, FILM + CINEMA

Costumes in film are commonly seen as a “symbolic language” that is used to express an actor or actress’ role in the movie. As such, the costumes worn have a psychological effect on the viewing audience as the characters’ dress not only helps the flow of the story, but also influence the audience’s cognitive behaviors including informing perceptions, interpretations, and attitudes towards the characters portrayed on screen. Costumes also serves a deeper purpose: to reinforce the film’s themes without the audience even realising.

Film where costumes are made to reflect a character:

Devil Wears Prada evaluation: 

psychological perspective of fashion presented in this film is for Miranda, she is viewed as bitter and intimidating. Due to her materialistic style; fame and luxury, with no heart, it only leads her to a miserable life. That is why in the end, Andy quit because she doesn’t want to live that type of lifestyle. 

Andrea (Andy) in the beginning she did not care for her appearance. But as she progresses through runway she realises the importance of fashion as clothes affect how one sees another. In the end of the movie, Andrea’s costume is compromised of her old self and her found ends of style from runway. To represent how she matured but also keeping her old identity. 

Sociological and psychological perspective on the film: lower class appearance to high end fashion. Fashion increased her confidence, leading to bigger opportunities in her career. Outfits Andrea wore gave others either good/bad impression of her.  

Film where their costumes symbolising the culture in the time its set: 

Black Pantha: Wakanda may not have been real, but the black panther costum designer Ruth Carter and Hannah Beachler, the film production designer, both drew on very real tribe and cultures to represent the various people that form part of the nation of Wakanda. In black pantha, wakanda is a kingdom made up of several different tribes, each with their own distinctive style. Carter and Beachler researched traditional culture and clothing which they drew from across different parts of the continent. Carter particularly drew on the work of contemporary fashion designers who use African traditions in current trends and textiles. She was inspired by the wool collection of South Africa. Designer Laduma Ngxokolos maxhosa range, the tailoring of Ghanaian-British designer Ozwald Boateng and the silhouettes and prints of US-based Nigerian couturier Duro Olowu. There were also nods to the dapper street style of Congolese sapeurs and the Afrofuturist originality of Afropunk festival-goers. By drawing on existing cultures, the film costumes aesthetically situated the fictional Wakanda as part of the African real continent. These are some of the tribes whose influence and styles can be spotted in Black panthers Wakanda.

A tribe of warriors disguised as simple farmers protect Wakandas borders. Their most distinctive costume features are the blanket cloaks they wear, the traditional gear of the Basotho people. In Lesotho, a mountainous country surrounded by South Africa which gets snow in the winter, the Basetho blanket holds deep significance. 

Flash dance (1983): Flashdance resembles an extended music video. Dance wear became the must have craze of 80s the trademark sloppy sweatshirts were alledgedly born of an accident with the laundry - Jennifer beals shrank a top and cut out the neck so she could still wear it. With aerobics in its infancy and spandex being the go to fabric for the fashionable exercise fiend, flashdance made dance attire a comfortable yet attractive form of casual wear which it remains to this day. 

[juhlcho15-blog]

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A Review Of Marvel Future Fight

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[slaaneshfic]

Smeared into The Environment: Queer Horror games and The Ahuman

Smeared into The Environment: Queer Horror games and The Ahuman

Ralph Dorey

Presented as a work in progress paper at

“Don’t Look: Representations of Horror in the 21st Century”

University of Edinburgh, 28th April 2018 http://www.dontlook.llc.ed.ac.uk/

This paper is about a contemporary aspect of horror read through contemporary philosophy. This isn’t to say that either the horror or the philosophy did not exist before the contemporary moment, but that something about current trends in the use of “horror” in contemporary art practice will hopefully be made clear in this paper.

The work being examined is by Porpentine Charity Heartscape, who’s biography lists her as;

“a writer, game designer, and dead swamp milf in Oakland. Her work includes xenofemme scifi/fantasy, cursed videogames, and globe-spanning sentient slime molds” (Heartscape, n.d.).

The particular work which I am going to talk about today is one of her collaborations with the artist, game designer and musician Rook. This collaboration takes the form of the first of a series of self produced, episodic video games called “No World Dreamers: Sticky Zeitgeist Episode 1, HYPERSLIME” (Heartscape & Rook, 2017). My analysis of this artwork will be done through the philosophical tools of post-human feminism, and in particular those of philosopher Patricia MacCormack as presented in her book chapter “Lovecraft’s Cosmic Ethics” (MacCormack, 2016). It is in this chapter that MacCormack proposes the “use” of Lovecraft within the post-human feminist project. Lovecraft’s supposed “aversion to the carnal” combined with his stories frequent encounters with overwhelming, fleshy, or cosmic imanense allows them to be brought into the unlikely company of philosopher Luce Irigaray (MacCormack,2016). MacCormack ask’s not for a revision, but a “use” of Lovecraft, queering his writing into an “ethical erotics of alterity” (MacCormack, 2016). I speculate that under this, Lovecraft’s writing remains within the sphere of “horror”, though this sphere becomes more heterogeneous. This reading of Lovecraft has precedent in the work of philosopher Gille Deleuze and psychoanalyst Felix Guattari who see within his work a “becoming animal”, which is to say breaking open the law of what is a human into a “becomings-elementary, -cellular, -molecular, and even Becomings-imperceptible” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). What Deleuze and Guattari celebrate here is the replacing of a singular, molar self with a “pack”, or in the words of Lovecraft’s Carter “to be aware of existence and yet to know that one is no longer a definite being distinguished from other beings” (Lovecraft, 2014). If becoming animal, merging and re-configuring other forms of being, kinship and sensation are not pushed back in phobic disgust, the question must be asked “horror for who?” (MacCormack, 2016).  

The word “horror” itself becomes slippery under these conditions. I use it to refer to the genre, the signifiers, and indeed some of the sensations felt by actors within such narratives as well as our own observing them. However the thing that I bracket out from horror is the assumed ethical position which might privilege order, the majoritarian and the phallogocentric above difference, speculation, affect.

It is my proposal that Sticky Zeitgeist represents a similar horror which denies the human, and displays the same difference-celebrating, erotic possibilities which MacCormack pulls from Lovecraft. I argue that Sticky Zeitgeist is horror but that the majoritarian subject,the one who should be horrified, is absent. It is not a fan-fiction reversal which pulls a monsters into the foreground, making them sympathetic by conforming to Majoritarian structures of power, value and morality, anthropomorphising them. Rather, Sticky Zeitgeist just doesn’t care about about those structures, and forges its own.   

Firstly we are going to establish some of the key concepts used by MacCormack and then trace them through the world of Sticky Zeitgeist. The first of these is the “Ahuman”, and while this term has many applications I start with a extract from MacCormack’s own recent definition, in Rosi Braidotti and Maria Hlavajova’s 2018 “Posthuman Glossary” (Braidotti & Hlavajova, 2018);

“Ahuman theory promotes catalysing becoming- other from the majoritarian or all human privilege and renouncing the benefits of the Anthropocene. [Methods for which include] the use of all manifestations of art to form new terrains of apprehension of the world and encourage new ethical relations between entities” (MacCormack, 2018).

In this definition, the Ahuman is positioned within a radical animal rights discourse of abolitionism, which seeks to avoid what is sees as the anthropocentric raising of animal to human equivalence. Rather than bringing the nonhuman into the human ethical sphere, which MacCormack considers both impossible and nessecerally nonconsensual, the abolitionist position bases nonhuman rights upon the fact “that it is” rather than “what it is” (MacCormack, 2018). More importantly for the subject of this paper, “Abolitionists are activists against all use of animals, acknowledging communication is fatally human, so we can never know modes of nonhuman communication and to do so is both hubris and materially detrimental to nonhumans” (MacCormack, 2018). This is perhaps the most crucial aspect of the Ahuman for our purposes, difference is to exist on its own terms, and the capturing action of communication is not required to acknowledge this difference.

Now it is time to approach “No World Dreamers: Sticky Zeitgeist. Episode 1  HYPERSLIME”, which importantly begins with a flurry of difference, including characters which might point to are never captured by the myths of either “animal” or “human”. After the opening theme song, the episode is epigraphed with a quote;

“Make a 150-lb self-contained, 3-D person into a square-mile thin pancake and you’ve got a slimey veneer of organic matter of no use to you or the observer puzzled by the thin, gooey-drip man. Suburbias and exurbias are promoters of slime.”

This quote is attributed to italian architect Paolo Soleri who’s concept of arcology, low-waste, high population density, self sufficient vertical urban structures runs, though mainly as a mutant form, throughout this narrative. Our story’s first protagonist “Ever”, considers the quote and posits that they themselves are are even further dispersed, trapped in a room and glued to a screen they are “Hyperslime”. Ever’s response to this realisation is to get high, masturbate and surf the internet, something which is itself one action as under the glow of her network terminal, Ever pokes the drug “girl chunks” into their arsehole. Ever comments on the impossibility of describing this drug-data-sex experience, “if i wasn’t experiencing this, i couldn’t describe it and i can’t remember when i’m not experiencing it what i’m not experiencing hypersucrose on my frontal lobe like-” before be interrupted by a call from work (Heartscape & Rook, 2017).

The impossibility of language, which has already been brought up in the Ahuman’s relation to the nonhuman as posited by abolitionist animal rights activists, surfaces repeatedly in MacCormacks discussion of Ahumanity and Lovecraft’s horror where we are shown “what is possible, while managing to show that it is also unnameable” (MacCormack, 2016). For MacCormack human language is the “great annihilator of the the potentialization of expressivity and affect of entities that are not counted by the majoritarian human” (MacCormack, 2016), but in the world of Lovecraft such language is demonstrably powerless. Encounters are beyond description, are left as such. The ethical turn which is executed upon Lovecraft demonstrates the inadequacy of the word “horror” to account for such experience. “Horror for some, the very opening of the world to others” (MacCormack, 2016). Or as articulated by Lovecraft himself, “Fright became pure awe, and what had seemed blasphemously abnormal now only ineffably majestic” (Lovecraft, 2014).  

Returning to Sticky Zeitgeist the collapsing of self, sex and connection is ecstatic. The message demanding she travels to work is the cue for Ever’s horror. The world outside her room, which she describes as the “Goblin’s pit” is loaded with signs, both literally in the form of adverts for jobs, bands and lost fast food establishments but in the fixed overlay of time, behaviour, social relations etc. Ever’s chance to pass invisibly into order relies on her getting her bus to work while in constant fear of the drugs and saliva leaking from her underwear. The bus is late, she is going to be late, and she falls into a panic attack. The panic attack itself is represented as the game descends into a gross, nonsense parody of the call and response rhythm game “PaRappa the Rapper”. “You snooze, you oooze! Then you lose! Control of your holes!” (Heartscape & Rook, 2017).

The abject, what Julia Kristeva describes as “the place where meaning collapses” is not simply the girl chunks leaking from Ever, but also Ever herself (Kristeva, 1984). When she first sets out on this trip to work she narrates “i exit from the back of the house like shit” (Heartscape & Rook, 2017). Ever is the remainder and excess who themselves cannot either hold the outside in or keep it out but is in a constant asignified flow which because impossible and traumatic only within the unaccommodating and regimented parts of the world.

As we continue to play the game focused initially on the narrative of Ever, more signs of horror perpetuate. The first of these is the User Interface that frames the game space, cables and visera weave into one another frame a screen and text/hyperlink area bringing to mind the mid 90s point and click horror adventure Dark Seed with graphics by H.R. Geiger. At the top, a ribbon cable is plugged in through a smashed secondary screen or logo area, leaving only a few letters of the game’s title readable. In Sticky Zeitgeist, as in much of Heartscape’s other work, trash pervades. Everything is a remainder, including characters. Everything is an improvised hack, survival mixed with abandonment and most importantly not fully namable. This extends to the characters themselves, Ever is only described as a girl, her ears and nose suggest a dog or maybe a goat. It’s implied that she is trans, but none of this is cause of elaboration to the audience. Other characters display equal fluidity, maybe becoming robots, maybe becoming moths. Gender is explicit though, all are referred to with female pronouns. They are “she”, “her” and “sisters”.

The remainder, to be in excess of or less than names and categories runs through Lovecraftian horror. The folks of Innsmouth, the mercurial Old Ones themselves or various landscapes and objects and experiences. MacCormack quotes Luce Irigaray, “Already constructed theoretical language does not speak of the mucous. The mucous remains a remainder, producer of delirium, of dereliction, of wounds, sometimes of exhaustion” (Irigaray, 2017). This connectivity, abjection, transgression is the stuff of horror, but it is also the stuff of erotics and kinship. The two robot sisters in Sticky Zeitgeist sit together on a train, one, Agate leaning against the other who narrates,

“She’s in sleep mode. She spends most of her time there. Our brains make a lot of connections at super fast high frequency. Hard to shut out the bad connections. Everything reminds you of something else. Contaminated with information”  (Heartscape & Rook, 2017).

The default state is porosity, leaky bodies. The sister blocks out the connection of thought and meaning but retains that of touch. Later the sleeping sister will visit a 7-11 and watch the rotating “honk dogs”, remarking “how nice to be rotated”, an empathetic encounter with convenience food (Heartscape & Rook, 2017). The characters in Sticky Zeitgeist are nonhuman, but they are not fixed as one kind of nonhuman. Any encounter is a “becoming animal” as everything holds an affective charge, or is a biological contaminant (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). As the player of the game we are often unsure who “we” are. The first person narrative flickers between characters often without indication of who is speaking. We have to assume that we are all of the pack, while acknowledging that this pack is constantly in flux. What stands out is that the four characters are not presented as an isolationist group as with the majority of narratives on survival. Their job is to travel out into a lushus swamp and salvage broken parts of downed satellites and one character comments “I like to rub my face on the debris to make sure the radiation is getting the most direct access to my brain” (Heartscape & Rook, 2017). The group is open and loving with one another in their fluidity while also being open to difference in the world around them, to be changed by it through drugs, radioactivity, hormone replacement therapy or the beautiful leaky swamp they eventually head out into.

In 2012’s “Posthuman Ethics: Embodiment and Cultural Theory” MacCormack states that “The art encounter elucidates the new horror and wonder of being in the asignifed world as a new state of constant ecstasy” (MacCormack, 2012). Engaging with art including, or perhaps especially, with horror, is not simply about representing alterity but an affective encounter which breaks open the category of human. This is the argument MacCormack makes for the ecstatic experiences of the characters in Lovecraft’s works, as well as the readers experience of these work of art. As we find ourselves adrift in asignification we are becoming Ahuman. I conclude that Sticky Zeitgeist presents the ethical plurality that arguably the works of Lovecraft must be made to extract. Sticky Zeitgeist represents a kind of horror which is not. Bodily, cognitive and social difference, are not presented as needing hygienic eradication but simply are. Character’s might experience violent trauma and live in a world of unpredictable trash but there is neither a call for order, nor dialectic refusal of order. What is valuable about this kind of horror, is it neither exoticises difference nor pulls it to the ethics of the human. MacCormack states that “The ethics of the art-encounter shows becoming ahuman is viable and necessary for new ways of thinking alterity in the realities of life for oppressed (sub) human subjects” (MacCormack, 2012). Sticky Zeitgeist does exactly this, a queering of horror to remove the human entirely.

MacCormack, P. (2018). Ahuman, The. In Posthuman Glossary (1st ed., pp. 20–21). London Oxford New York New Delhi Sydney: Bloomsbury.

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Heartscape, P. C. (n.d.). CV - Porpentine Charity Heartscape. Retrieved 24 April 2018, from http://slimedaughter.com/cv.html

Heartscape, P. C., & Rook. (2017). No World Dreamers: Sticky Zeitgeist. english.

Irigaray, L. (1993). An ethics of sexual difference. Cornell University Press.

Irigaray, L. (2017). To Speak is Never Neutral. Retrieved from https://nls.ldls.org.uk/welcome.html?ark:/81055/vdc_100049157992.0x000001

Lovecraft, H. P. (2014). The new annotated H. P. Lovecraft. (L. S. Klinger, Ed.) (First edition). New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation.

MacCormack, P. (2012). Posthuman ethics: embodiment and cultural theory. Farnham, Surrey, England ; Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

MacCormack, P. (2016). Lovecaft’s Cosmic Ethics. In R. Campbell (Ed.), The Age of Lovecraft (pp. 199–214). University of Minnesota Press. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt1b9x1f3.15

[dawnfelagund]

Most and Least Popular Stories

I was tagged by @maedhrosrussandol​ to look at my stats and identify my most and least popular stories according to those stats. But I’m changing the rules a bit! The original post asked for stories to be ranked by number of kudos on AO3; since only a small fraction of my work is on AO3, then I’m going to go by number of comments and favorites on the Silmarillion Writers’ Guild instead. (All but a handful of my stories are there.)

I am not counting collections of ficlets posted as a single story.

Most Popular Stories (starting with most comments on the SWG)

1. Another Man’s Cage (63 comments) 2. The Work of Small Hands (31 comments) 3. The Sovereign and the Priest (17 comments) 4. The Election Farce of Nargothrond: Of Dumbness, Treachery, and Brotherly Love (14 comments) 5. The Bearer of Light (12 comments)

The picture looks a little different if I go by the number of people who have marked a particular story as a favorite.

1. Another Man’s Cage (12 favorites) 2. By the Light of Roses (8 favorites) 3. The Work of Small Hands (6 favorites) 4. Hastaina (6 favorites) 5. There are a bunch of stories with 4 favorites: When the Stars Smile, Return to Me, Salt, The Dance,  Essecarmë

Least Popular Stories

There is one lonely story of mine with no comments and no favorites on the SWG:  To Dream of Fire

All of these are stories with just one comment and no favorites on the SWG: Teler, A Woman in Few Words: The Character of Nerdanel and Her Treatment in Canon and Fandom, Statues, The Choices of Spirits, Forgotten Lore, The Puppet,  Mercy

Are your surprised?

Not terribly, no.

For one thing, any metric of popularity is complicated enough to keep a clear picture from forming using that single metric alone. In my case, it’s extra complicated because I do crosspost most of my work--so those stories have comments, likes/kudos, and favorites on sites outside the SWG--and I’ve also been writing for a long time, longer than the SWG archive has been around (and certainly longer than AO3 has been around much less popularly used by Tolkienfic writers). I also have a sneaky habit on the SWG of archiving my own work by posting it late at night, then using my moderator powers to go into the archive and backdate it so that no one knows it exists. Some of the “least popular” stories were stealth-posted like that; back in the day, they probably would have gotten their fair share of attention on LiveJournal, where they were initially posted.

There are also stories that are written for events that necessarily get more attention as part of those events.

Some observations: My older work is overwhelmingly the more popular. None of the “most popular” stories were written within the last three years.

Part of me always wants to despair at this: I’m not as good of a writer as I once was! I’m washed up! No one wants to read me anymore! Then the common-sense realization that some of those stories have had a decade to receive the comments and favorites they have catches up to me. Two of the stories (”The Bearer of Light” and The Sovereign and the Priest) were stories done within the past five years, so newer things can catch up, it just takes time.

I’m also in the odd position of having been part of not what I term the first wave of Silmarillion fanfic--that which was written before the LotR films and at the outset of online fandom/Web 2.0--but coming on-board at the beginning of the second wave: Tolkien fanfic written around the time of the LotR films (and their immediate aftermath) and at the rise of Tolkien-specific archives and LiveJournal as the primary means of sharing fanfic. (Versus multifandom sites like fanfiction.net or early social media platforms like Yahoo! Groups.)

As a bit of a historical tangent, there was a strange exodus of first-wave writers in 2005. If you look at the posting history on Silmfics, activity dwindled in 2004, then plummeted in 2005. I’ve never fully figured out why this was. A first-wave author who didn’t leave the fandom around this time once told me that the feeling was that everything there was to be discussed had been discussed. Of course, we second-wavers--some of us, like me, brought in by the LotR films--were eager to start all over again, and I wonder if that didn’t have something to do with it too. (I know that there were similar feelings around the time of the Hobbit films among more veteran Tolkien fans: that new fans had exploded on the scene, ready to reinvent wheels that we’d been happily rolling along with for the better part of a decade, and that these veteran fans were not only unappreciated for their contributions but didn’t want to get involved again at square one.)

Anyway, as someone who came on at the start of the second wave, I was in the unique position to put my stories before a very large and enthusiastic audience of Tolkien fans (even if most of them were not Silmarillion fans) and also to use my writing to address issues concerning canon that were huge at the time. Another Man’s Cage, which was not surprisingly my most popular work (and is also one of my oldest, having been posted in 2005, at the time of the first-wave exodus), was in many ways as much a work of meta as fiction, at least in my mind. I wrote it, never intending to share it, with the express purpose of correcting what I saw as wrongheaded interpretations of the characters and approaches to canon. It’s no surprise, now that AMC was posted more than 12 years ago, to hear people sometimes say that they felt it gave them permission to write Silmfic differently than it’d been done to that point. I don’t think this is because its ideas were that original--I was pretty new to the fandom and most of the ideas in it were being discussed in circles of fans who discussed The Silmarillion, and it was my fictional contribution to that discussion--but because it happened to appear at the right place at the right time: in a vacuum left by the first-wavers and with a strong canatical sentiment acting to censor (sometimes explicitly so, through archive/group policies) content that was deemed “noncanonical”--and that was a pretty broad designation in those days.

There was a whole constellation of shorter works associated with AMC and written around the same time, many of them among the “4 favorites” in position #5 on the most popular list. Anyway, I will never recreate the historical circumstances within the fandom--circumstances that, looking back, were both tumultuous and often partisan--that made those stories as important as they became. I am grateful that my voice was heard at that time and that my work did its part to shape the fandom as it is now (which is far from perfect but also not as openly homophobic and intolerant as it was at the outset of the second wave either).

Longer works are also among my most popular, occupying the top four and top three positions on the two most popular lists. This isn’t terribly surprising either, since longer works tend to allow characterization and worldbuilding that, in my opinion, allow a good writer to create an exceptional story. Unlike the above observations about older works (and how I feel my Silmarillion writing will never be as important as my earliest--and worst-written!--work was), this is encouraging because I prefer longer works, and there has always been angst among writers of novellas and novels that longer works don’t get the attention and aren’t, therefore, worth the significant time spent crafting them. (This is also not the first time I’ve made this observation, using different data.)

On the least popular list, not surprisingly, two works aren’t even fiction: There is a poem and an essay on there, both of which tend not to receive the attention that fiction does. In addition to stealth-posted stories, quite a few stories on there (including the least of the least popular) were written to the specific requests of friends, some of them rather niche requests less likely to appeal broadly to readers (and possibly not something I would have ever written either, if not asked to do so, which begs the question of whether I even put in the full effort to make those pieces my best work). Of the stories there, only “The Choices of Spirits” really surprises me, as I do like that story--but it is also older and was stealth-posted, so people either had likely commented on it years prior or don’t even know it’s there. I don’t feel like “Statues” is a bad story either but, likewise, it was stealth-posted.

Today’s Date: August 12, 2017 (in case you do this again in a year’s time)

My SWG Author Page: http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewuser.php?uid=1

Tagging: Anyone who wants to do this. :)

[kunalkarankapoor]

The character study of Mohan Bhatnagar.

This is part one of the character study of Mohan Bhatnagar from the Indian TV show known as Na Bole Tum Na Maine Kuch Kaha (aired on Colors). I decided to blog it, because I did not have the heart to delete 40+ pages about a character that I absolutely adore, and because I was asked to share those pages by a few friends.

1) Introduction

I remember the first time that a fictional character from a TV show touched my heart. It was in year 2003. The name of the character was Angel and he was portrayed by actor David Boreanaz. Angel was not a lead in the original series (Buffy), but his character became so popular that a spin-off was created solely based on him.

I obsessed over Angel for five seasons because I needed to see him redeemed as the writers had promised. I needed to see this always-dressed-in-black, brooding, tormented soul rewarded for his sacrifices when his journey came to an end. But the writers failed their own character (the main reason being that the original writers had been replaced by a team of new writers who did not understand the character or his purpose).

Indeed, I cried tears of blood for Angel (pun intended). And then I swore never to fall in love with a fictional character again; not with a fictional character from a TV show, at least. When you have spent most of your childhood holed up in a closet for hours with a book, flashlight, and your lunchbox (while your parents believe that you are at school), then you do not make friends with people. You make friends with characters.

Fast forward to year 2010 and I stumbled upon another TV show; an Indian TV show. It was a retelling of a fairy tale known as The Beauty and the Beast, but untraditionally the female lead represented the Beast on the outside and the male lead represented the Beast on the inside). The name of the (male) character was Dutta and he was portrayed by actor Mishal Raheja. Like with Boreanaz, Raheja started out with no space for his character, no importance, until his performance captured the attention of the viewers. They wanted more of him and thus the channel/writers were compelled to provide his character with an actual story.

Dutta did not only become an original character through Raheja’s performance, but he also became one of the most beloved male characters on Indian TV. I face-planted at his feet in his first emotional (read: temperamental) scene. I followed him zealously from episode to episode – crying when he cried and laughing when he laughed and damning the world when he damned it. No, it did not escape my attention that Dutta was quite similar to Angel, e.g. the always-dressed-in-black part, all his brooding and self-hating nature, his demonic past, and so on. I followed him as I had once followed Angel, needing to see him rewarded for his sacrifices.

But this time the channel failed the character. They butchered him. They destroyed the show. And I never fought so hard for the justice of a fictional character in my life. In the end, I was left feeling betrayed.

Thus I swore it again. That I would not become emotionally attached to a fictional character from a TV show – and in the wake of Dutta, I did not believe that I would be able to love another character as much as I had loved him. But it so happens that I have fallen hard once again. And it so happens that that I have fallen for a character from a show aired by the very channel that character assassinated Dutta and treated his loyal fan-base like shit.

Oh, the frigging irony.

2) The Embodiment of Mohan Bhatnagar: Kunal Karan Kapoor

Looking at his career before NBT, it almost seemed as if Kunal was used. It seemed as if he was given a part, but never the lead part, even when he possessed the very ability to overshadow co-actors with his mere performances. The important people seemed to understand that he contained incredible talent; that he had something which pulled at something within the viewers. They retained him. They provided him with a bit more space and a bit more character depth, but they never allowed him to run a show, because despite his awe-inspiring talent, despite his inexplicable ability to draw viewers into the very skin of even a villainous character (such as Angad from Mann Ki Awaaz Pratigya), they did not believe in him enough to hand him a lead part.

I found it upsetting that someone with so much talent had been held back for years because people refused to look past his exterior. In a TV industry imbued with models, you have to look like an Abercrombie & Fitch commercial rather than carry actual talent. Indeed, people will ignore your lack of skill, but not your supposed lack in appearance – an appearance measured by some grand scale in the inhuman world also known as the model industry.

However, Kunal redefined beauty, in my opinion.

Kunal as an actor is flabbergasting. Watching him perform is like watching a painter paint on a blank canvas – colours blend, shapes emerge, lines connect, but the painter continues to paint and the painting continues to change. Kunal manages to wring out his character and expose every shade of it. Even as Angad, he twisted the black shades. There was more to the character. One could see the potential. The writers would not make him a stronger part of the story. They would not allow his character to grow out of the darkness and leave a mark.

Something that I found admirable was how Kunal never feared that people would hate his character. Perhaps hating is the same as caring. I do not know. But I do know that Kunal is gifted. It is as if he perceives more than the overall design. It is as if he sees the nuances and details and manages to draw them out. Comparing Angad with Vasu, they had only one thing in common; they were both criminals. Kunal made certain that the similarities ended there. The characters did not share the same dialect, attitude or body language, tone of voice or facial expressions.

My sister said something interesting about Kunal bagging NBT. She said that she wondered exactly when the channel/creative heads realised that they were in possession of an actor who was capable of a whole lot more than they had actually anticipated. She wondered when it occurred to them that he was not just any actor, but the embodiment of Mohan Bhatnagar; that he could take the character beyond the script.

Having watched both seasons twice, I doubt that they ever fully realised it. Or if they did, they continued to use his talent as everyone else had without providing him with anything more than his limited space. I believe that Kunal, even on NBT, was not given much screen-space or story; that even though he proved what he was capable of in season one, they still went on to restrain his character in season two, making it all about the love stories rather than Mohan’s very journey – especially the emotional one. I find it disheartening that an actor worked 12-14 hours a day, gave his all for a character, and yet in some episodes he had one scene that lasted no more than three minutes while others had half episodes dedicated to them. Perhaps if it had not been for the director understanding Kunal’s talent and meticulously capturing his every shot, then even the few minutes of him might have failed to show the depth of Kunal’s performances.

Despite his limited screen-space, it was Kunal who overshadowed entire episodes with his one/two-minute frames. And at the end of every episode, it was his performance that I recalled. It was his expressions that burned into my memory. It was his face that left an impact.

For instance, on February 20th 2013 and February 21st 2013, his character had a sequence in the office with Nanhi and Anupama. In the sequence, he raged on about how Nanhi had put herself in danger for a story (even though he used to do the exact same back in the day). During his rant, he paused to ask Anupama for Nanhi’s name. When Nanhi answered with Navika, his eyes went from narrowed-in-hell-fury to completely vulnerable, hopeful, and tormented. It would be an understatement to say that I was in shock. I had never, ever, seen any actor’s (or human being, for that matter) eyes become so emotionally exposed, so naked. It was astonishing. It was beautiful in the most painful sense of the word.

The episodes were about Nanhi and her hunt. All I remember is Kunal in that single shot. I remember that I kept telling my sister: He is not human. That is not humanly possible.

I could list numerous examples of how Mohan as a character was quite oppressed in both seasons, how his journey was never given much space, and how Kunal’s scenes would be shown mid-conversation and cut before they were even completed (while others would have long stretches of time for their characters). However, not much can be done about that now. Personally, I am relieved that I was not a part of India-Forums when NBT was still on-air. I would have driven people insane with my posts, including myself.

Before moving on to the character study, I would like to point out that I do not consider myself a fan of any actor. I become a fan of characters, yes. And I admire some actors such as Kunal. I support them in their work. I enjoy their performances. Thus this character study will focus on Mohan Bhatnagar as in the character, but through Kunal’s flawless portrayal of him, of course. It will not focus on Kunal as an actor alone.

Furthermore, the links added in the study are, in fact, short videos that show a glimpse of Mohan Bhatnagar as well as the relationships in his life.

Without further procrastination…

The Character Study of Mohan Bhatnagar

If you are expecting a pink depiction of Mohan, a romantic painting of a man whose love was so potent that it touched your very soul, then my study will only disappoint you. Because I see Mohan as a man who loved people with such potent purity, such honesty, that it ruined him.

The final episode with the happy ending was an illusion to me. It satisfied my heart in the sense that a huge part of me needed to see Mohan happy, rewarded for his sacrifices. However, 1) his reward was supposed to be more than Megha and 2) Mohan would have never been able to return to the way that he used to be, because he had lost too much of himself in the process of proving his worth to everyone else.

The song choice was on purpose because I see Mohan Bhatnagar as a broken man who clung to a love that destroyed him; a man who clung to relationships that ruined him; relationships that throttled his soul. That smile and positivity he wore like clothes was nothing but a charade behind which you would find someone carrying immeasurable pain, disappointment, and hurt. To others, his smile and confidence and consistent positive behaviour provided life, inspiration, and power. But no one – perhaps with the exception of Guru – saw the man behind the mask.

Despite what the writers wanted to show (true love conquers all), studying Mohan and following him from scene to scene, I took away something else; only invest as much into a relationship that you can afford to lose; do not seek happiness in someone else – find it in yourself first; finally, do not define yourself based on how people see you. People can be wrong. I took away that even if they reject you, it does not mean that something is wrong with you. It does not mean that you are not worthy of their love. Sometimes it is the other way around.

Basically, I focused on what could be learned from Mohan’s journey rather than the love story. Perhaps this will seem provocative to fans of the on-screen couple, but the relationship between Mohan and Megha was destructive. It was not an epic romance. It was an addiction. It was Mohan’s bane.

I am certain that a lot of people will disagree with me. But that is the beauty of perception, is it not? No one sees the world in the exact same way.

3) Who is Mohan Bhatnagar?

I didn’t mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank. But that is not the same thing.

Conrad in The Secret Sharer and Other Stories

Son

Brother

Journalist

Social worker

Friend

Hero

Husband

Father

Son-in-Law

Mohan had many names. He played many roles in people’s lives – family, friends, and strangers alike. But none of the abovementioned titles represent him as what he essentially was.

Human

Perhaps it was the reason why everything went wrong in his life. People saw him as something other than human. When he touched their lives, his beauty and charm and life-force sunk into their hearts, pumping into their veins and empowering them. Perhaps if they had seen him as a human, as someone capable of feeling the same amount of pain and despair as any other person, they would not have punished him for his flaws or demanded painful promises. They would not have expected him to deliver beyond the limit.

Perhaps.

But then it was not people that punished him. It was not people that wounded him. It was family – or at least those that he considered family.

Mohan Bhatnagar, stripped down to the very bone, was a young man from a troubled home. He lacked the acceptance of his father, the presence/support of his mother, and the warmth of a close-knit family. In his eyes, he was abandoned by his parents and girlfriend. He was rejected. He focused his life on his work, not only because it gave him some kind of soul purpose, but also because he had something to prove. Mohan pushed people away, constantly, because he needed to see them fight for him; to prove that, yes, he was worth fighting for, worth loving.

Mohan was the kind of character that held so much flawed beauty and so much perfect imperfection, so much pure intent and mad mistakes that one could not help but fall for him. I could relate to him in more ways than one. I connected with him through his internal struggles; his abandonment issues and cynical/sarcastic attitude (which at times appeared to be a shield against the world as much as a personality trait), his resentment toward his parents, his insecurities and self-doubt, his need to be loved and accepted, his fear of being rejected again, his fear of being unworthy of love/family, and his mistakes.

To me, it grounded him. It made him real. It made him tangible. I could connect with it all through Kunal’s performances of every facet of Mohan and that made me emotionally attached to him. Kunal is one actor who seems to mentally crawl inside the skin of his character. He speaks with such conviction, every detail completely fine-tuned, performed with finesse. There is a thought and a purpose behind every motion as well as emotion, but it does not feel unnatural. For instance when Mohan cried on the show, Kunal would draw air into his lungs and hold it there, shoulders lifted, as if a sob was stuck in his throat, as if the pain inside of him was too great to unleash. And often, he would bear an expression that did not contort into anything dramatic. Instead a twitch of a facial muscle or the sorrow in his eyes would speak of more than just hurt – it would speak of a pain so intense that it made me feel sick for him.

I also fell for the idealist in Mohan; even as I could not relate to that part of him on the same level. Though at times, it frustrated me – to the point that I wanted to shake him. For instance the absolute honesty with which he cared/acted (regardless of what it cost him), his empathy (which made him feel others pain and made him want to ease it; sometimes it would make him put on a positive act for others – even if he was incinerating from the inside), his pure intentions/heart (often leading to people misunderstanding him or misjudging him, and him losing more than he could afford to on an emotional level).

The more others rejected him, the more he fought to be in their lives, to become worthy of their love and adoration; even if that meant changing himself entirely for them.

There were times when I wanted to hold him because he was coming apart and no one was there to see it. There were times when I wanted to yell at him and tell him to stop fighting for the people who could never and would never understand him, his worth, his sacrifices, or his pure heart. There were times when I just wanted to throttle Megha and – plainly speaking – did not feel that she deserved him or his love. The latter being something that remained constant to me throughout both seasons. Apart from Guru, no one came anywhere even close to comprehending what Mohan was made of.

In the end, I always found that Mohan was alone. Even when standing in a crowded room, surrounded by his so-called family, Mohan looked alone – like an outsider; in the same room, but not a part of the same world. Looking through a window, staring at the ones he loved; Megha, Nanhi, Addu, Jijibua, and so on. I specifically recall one scene in which he had returned with Munna (whom everyone believed to be Addu) and the family rejoiced in the living room. Mohan shrunk into the background, as if he was an awkward extra limb that did not fit anywhere.

I never felt, at any point on the show, that his worth was acknowledged or that he was valued by anyone, except for Guru and Rimjhim (and Bala after the second leap). I never felt that he was ever fully accepted. That he was ever really seen for who he was and what he had done for people. In one scene, Megha told Vasu about Mohan, about what a good man he was, but it sounded empty to my ears. Hollow. Simply because her words did not even begin to describe what Mohan had gone through for her, or what he had sacrificed.

Mohan did not become an iconic character because of the idealistic dimension to him. No, I believe that he became an iconic character because of how human he was underneath it and because of Kunal’s portrayal of that humanity. When people rejected him, it hurt him deeply. He would not always put on a brave front to mask the pain. He would break down in tears. He would yell. He would throw things, act out. He would resent God and the world. He would fight with everyone. And then he would feel horrible for it and make amends.

4) The Becoming of Spiderman

Mohan started out a one-dimensional character. I did not find his characterisation manifold in the initial episodes. For instance in the first month he had very few scenes in which he was shown chasing Koyal or bickering with Megha. His characterisation was underwhelming. I did not understand his purpose — other than that he was supposed to fall in love with our female lead at some point.

But I had seen it before; boy hates girl, girl hates boy, and yet they fall in love with each other against all odds. Lovers bound by fate and et cetera, et cetera.  What I needed was character depth. Mohan had to have a story to tell beyond his relationship with Megha.

Yes, I found him unique in ways; his profession was crime reporting (refreshing), his shoelaces were never tied, he was all over the place, he was a mess (yet Kunal somehow made him seem classy), and whenever he opened his mouth, it was to toss a remark, which (unlike other male characters on TV) made him seem cocky rather than arrogant. There was no arrogance in Mohan. That was a relief. I was entirely fed up with the arrogant bad boys of Indian TV (as an editor in chief, Kunal never overdid the light air of superiority – even as Vasu, he kept his character grounded).

I could not see what was so special about Mohan Bhatnagar. Not in the start. Not until I noticed Kunal. The moment I realised what he was capable of, what he was doing, Mohan became intriguing. He slowly began to reveal subtle nuances in his character – not because they had always been there, but because he started to supply them. For instance when he fired a sarcastic response at Guru, his words would be harsh, but the sentiment behind it, the way that he voiced it changed the entire meaning of it. With his performance, his body language and expressions and underlying sentiments in his voice, he provided me with a clear picture of the relationship between him and Guru – a much clearer picture than the actual story had given. There was more to their relationship than that of a master and a servant. I realised this through Kunal and the actor who portrayed Guru.

There were so many similar examples in the first season in which Kunal provided the layers to his character rather than the other way around. For instance he gave Mohan distinctive habits; hands on his hips, his ‘are yaar’ and ‘sun na’, his speedy walk, his constant hair-shoves, how he sucked in his cheeks when emotional, and so on. Looking at Mohan at his other characters, they all had distinctive habits that made them more real, e.g. Vasu tended to stalk around with hooded eyes, a swag, and he planted his hands on his hips and swayed slightly (a trait that connected beautifully with Mohan in season one, minus the swaying part, whereas Mohan in season two took on new habits such as arms folded over his chest).

Thus fleeting glances of Mohan told me nothing about him, his relationships. But Kunal’s portrayal of him showed me everything and more.

Honestly, if it had been any other actor in Mohan’s shoes, I doubt that I would have experienced the many dimensions to his character. I doubt that I would have observed and interpreted the things that I have, nor read between the lines whenever he expressed one emotion that connected to another and another, etc. (One noteworthy scene among many being when Mohan sees Megha at Meethi’s sangeet and imagines that he approaches her – in that scene, Kunal portrayed all stages of Mohan’s emotional journey in nothing but two minutes; shock, joy, sadness, pain, hope, caution, love, and even bravery).

For me, Kunal made Mohan multidimensional through his portrayal of him. Indeed, it was him who took the character beyond the written word, beyond the shallow frame.

That is not to discredit the writers behind the creation of the character. When you create a character in a story, you pen him down in as many details as you can. But you can never know the wholecharacter – not until you have journeyed with him. It must be an incredibly rewarding experience as a writer to see your work translated on-screen by an actor of Kunal’s calibre who “co-wrote” Mohan merely through his layered performances.

(Needless to say, when you write for TV, you are limited as well. You might not have the same freedom to develop a character in the way that you want. External forces might decide how and when your character should bend – they might even decide his fate. Truman Capote once said that finishing a book is like you took a child out into the backyard and shot it. I wonder what he would say about channels hijacking writers’ stories.)

Mohan in season one was vastly different from Mohan in season two. In season one, you saw a young man who started out confident and content, but fell into a relationship with people that were like a drug to him. And they gnawed away at his confidence, his self-belief, his sense of self-worth, and sent him down a dark path. In the second season, you saw a matured man burdened by guilt and all but obsessed with proving his love for the same people who destroyed him. You saw a man who could have been happy with what he had achieved in the past 12 years, but who continued to seek acceptance and love from them, who continued to believe that he had something to prove, and who could not see what he had, at times, because the addiction occupied every fibre of his being.

[oppyyyy]

Write-Up

Work Statement

Splitting The Sky is a narrative VR experience based in a world in which the boundaries between the virtual and the actual have been dissolved. The experience was created using Unreal Engine, a video games engine capable of running VR in real time. The vulgar, warped views of extreme sexuality has seeped out of online pornography and coalesced with the surface internet. As the player wanders further and further this ‘digital’ world mirrors the way sexuality, power, dominion and abuse have become normalised through this spread. A desolate, ruined city stands alone in an uncanny valley-esque world amalgamated from the digital and the corporeal. As the player comes to, their only tangible company is a giantess who takes an almost sadistic glee in leaving chaos and destruction beneath her, and the cult-like followers that make no effort to proselytise the player, as the world operates through their fetishes. The player experiences manifestations of both trauma and healing; their means of guidance coming through refuge across the world, away from the female gaze of the giantess. This world exists as a postulation of how a digitally pervasive world will cope with therapy in a world where abnormal sexual desires and deviance are normalised; in a world where one brazenly champions another’s desire to be consumed, what measures will we take to seek help? When we live connected to a ubiquitous global system containing more damaging sexual material than any other media- one where its users are consciously using the computer as a means to detach from what they consume- where will the line be drawn before it is considered too far? In spite of this ominous future, Splitting the Sky is designed to encourage players to feel safe in themselves and their own capacity to heal. The concept of ‘healing’ itself is speculative and nebulous- it is something vague, undefined, but also something that one chooses knowingly to seek.  The VR headset is imperative as a subversion of the imprisonment caused by traumatic events; during flashbacks to significant, negative memories the brain feels like a cage one cannot escape from. Using VR, Splitting the Sky is designed to remind players they can heal in these same spaces, with the internal mantra being one of escape- leaving one’s prison and emancipating the mind.

Conceptual Overview

Themes

Initially, I wrote short poetry and notes inspired by the idiosyncrasy and personality of diary writing, and felt there were a lot of continuing themes that I felt worked really well to create visual metaphors and could build the concept of the work. These were elements such as the sword, divine beings, and warping the perception of space and time through traumatic experiences. To sufficiently explore these themes, I decided to combine my research: analysing the progenitive factor in my own interest on the subjects as well as academic studies done more broadly around them. My confessional words reused in a story transformed them (and their meanings) into motifs of my fictional world.

I created moodboards for the narrative (x), visual (x) and sound design (x), that helped me to identify the themes better.

VR

Viewing Jordan Wolfson’s 2017 work ‘Real Violence’ was the catalyst that pushed me to pursue working with VR. Beyond my interest in the concept of alternative perceptions of reality augmented by technology as shown by my previous work, studying VR theory brought those ideas to the surface to build my own method of storytelling, where the protagonist, the user’s perspective, can be a material to directly manipulate. VR holds an interesting dichotomy; although the screen engulfs the senses of the viewer so thoroughly as to make it almost seem real, there is always a disconnect between the body and the brain when using it that reminds us it cannot be real. This idea resonates strongly with the themes presented in Wolfson’s work because it is tense and unsettling while remaining comedic and ironic- a self-awareness that everything does ultimately take place in virtual reality.

I was drawn first to the unsettling, discomforting aspect of Wolfson’s ideas, and that was something I aimed to replicate in my own work early on in the design process. 

I had previously been interested in narrative theory and feminist storytelling, so these interests formed my intention to use VR very early on. The way a story is experienced in VR can be very different to other media, and the theory of VR backed up a lot of ideas I already had.

Giantess

Giantess pornography, and its audience, helped to create a visual language for the work, in order for me to approach trauma on the internet, and its effects on people in real life. To me, the giant sexy woman represented the dichotomy between exploitation and empowerment, seeing as the giantess is used for only sexual purposes in order to satisfy a male. The giantess appears God-like to me, in her power and her alienation, no one can relate to her. (x) I took this and created a Giantess character who was complex and wanted to express that in her words and actions within the story.

I also took words from Giantess porn videos (x) and the comments on those videos (x). I thought the language people used in the comments was very poetic, and felt the heaviness of the statements was diluted by that. This meant there were statements that were extremely derogatory towards women, but represented my point extremely well.

Sound Design

I performed quite a bit of research into the sound design, because in the beginning I was inspired by video game soundtracks (x)(x), and wanted to create a simple soundtrack of my own. I had collected sound effects I liked from synthesisers and FreeSound.org, and even planned what kind of music and sounds would be in each scene. However I felt I didn’t have enough music skills to really push it in the time that I had, and felt the work was still great without sound.

Video Games and Fantasy

Video games, such as Morrowind (x), experimental indie games (x), Metal Gear Solid (x), and more (x), were the basis for a lot of inspiration and research for this project. I felt that a fantasy narrative could be carried really well if I could understand elements of games and ludic game theory (x). As well as this, some lines from my script were lifted from games and recontextualised. This was intended to reference the type of language used in games and fantasy, and create a veil of irony that was both serious and comedic. While the concepts remained quite serious, in order to express this virtual-actual crossover world correctly, I felt it necessary to reference other media.

Healing

Nearing the works completion, I wanted to imagine an ending that could be satisfying and coherent with the rest of the ideas. I thought that in order for this work to be beneficial, rather than cynical and negative, I had to communicate a desire to heal from the personal and collective trauma the work was based on (x). To get to this point I wrote extensively about the theory and concepts of the work (x). The world in which the story takes place exists as a mental and physical space that the ‘user’ becomes involved with whenever they have flashbacks. Therefore the Giantess, the one who suffers and wishes to heal (and escape the world in which she is exploited), should talk directly to the player and pass on a message of healing. In the writing, this worked very well to conclude the work, and works in conjunction with the beginning.

Scenes

Each scene was designed to reflect the landscape of the psyche. The order of the scenes was integral to the story, as the visual and audio aspects needed to work in harmony to tell the story. The player is sent on a journey that is both inside their mind and outside in a fantasy world, meaning that time and place are non-linear. 

Technical Overview

I knew I wanted my work to be displayed in VR for my purpose. I had created a project in Unity for another module project, but I was more interested in using Unreal Engine based on the improved quality of the VR applications I’ve seen using it. I struggled with writing C# scripts in Unity, whereas Unreal Engine used C++. I also noticed that Unreal Engine is used a lot within the professional video games industry, and showing my ability to learn its usage would be a great skill for me to demonstrate. Learning about Unreal Engine was a steep learning curve, as well as learning about functions of Blender beyond what I previously knew.

Getting Started

My starting point with Unreal was learning how the use the interface and the workflow, because I hadn’t used it before. Once I had understood some basics, my next point was to start building the levels I would be using, and planning the storyboard around them. I had sourced models from Unreal Marketplace and elsewhere on the internet for me to create the world with. Before this point I had been working on my own models in Blender, some of which were used in the final product. These models were characters within the work, and some floating island models to place in a level to show more fantasy. I knew how to place assets within a world and transform them already, due to working with Unity before. A lot of models already had materials, but for some objects I created my own materials using Unreal Material Blueprints. Some of these materials were dynamic and complex. I used textures downloaded from [the internet] and imported into the engine.

World Building

When creating the levels, I had a lot to take into consideration. For most levels, terrain had to be built, sculpted, and textured using Unreal’s materials. For one of the levels, I had to create a custom skybox. I had researched into creating my own environment (in Blender or Unreal) that I would take a 360º render of to make a skybox texture with, but it would’ve taken a lot of time that I didn’t want to invest in something like that. Lighting was important to consider when building levels because I wanted the best performance while every level could still feel polished and complete. Early in the project, I was unsure what was necessary for the best VR performance, so I stripped a lot of things back in order to understand what was necessary and what wasn’t, and to understand what I could learn.

Lighting

Unreal allows for a lot of great visual effects through different types of volumes and lighting scenarios. I found that I mostly wanted very well-lit levels without too many harsh shadows, so a Sky Light and a Directional Light was necessary. A directional light acts as a kind of sun-light, that isn’t dependant on position, only the angle of the light source. There can be more than one directional light in a level to create more light, and it was necessary for some scenes such as the Giantess scene in the beginning. There can only be one sky light in a level, as this acts as an ambient light, that captures distant parts of the level and uses those colours as a light. It allows for softer, lighter shadows.

VR Pawn

Once the levels had been reached a state I was happy to move on with and I had planned where the player would stand and the path they would walk while editing, I wanted to create a VR camera class and pawn in C++, because I had noticed a lot in Unreal was created using Blueprints, and I wanted to show some programming in the work. I followed a tutorial I found online, and created a very simple VR Game Mode and VR Pawn (x). I only really wanted the HMD movement and to be able to move the Pawn around the scene, so I didn’t invest any time in interaction at this point. I had created all the levels in one project, and at this point, I migrated those levels into a new blank C++ project. This allowed me to get rid of any clutter of assets and write my own simple code.The VR Pawn had a camera component attached to its root component, so later on in the project, I used attached the pawn to an empty object that could be moved around in Sequencer, which I learned to do from a tutorial about using Sequencer with VR (x).

Reflection

I think the skills I learned helped me to fully realise the work. There were times that were extremely difficult, but I was able to continue and do my best to find out any method I could to complete a task.

Exhibition

Audience Engagement

I expected some people to engage much with a narrative VR experience in a group exhibition, so I was cautious about the kinds of visuals that people would see when first putting on the headset, and I was mindful of the length of the whole piece, as well as the lengths of each scene. I wanted to communicate an intended method of experience for the audience in my installation with comfortable beanbags and a relaxed VR setup, with no controllers or headset stand. I wanted this to invite people to put on the headset and sit down and just watch. With regards to the piece itself, I am satisfied with the overall experience. The installation itself was not excessively busy, allowing everyone who participated time to immerse themselves physically with the beanbags as well as through the headset. Each time I returned, I saw people exclaiming how much they were enjoying it, and I received numerous instances of very positive feedback.

Throughout the project I made sure I told people about my ideas and got feedback. This really helped me to make clear and effective choices with concepts. During and after the exhibition, I had many people approaching me to talk about my work. From these discussions I felt I learned more about my own intentions and how my work could be interpreted by others. These discussions also helped me to know where the work could go in the future, because I will definitely continue to work on this.

I was particularly proud to have been congratulated on my work by such a spectrum of artistic backgrounds. People with no knowledge of computing were extremely complimentary about the visuals and overall immersive quality of the experience; my fellow students praised me for the scale of it and I was approached by established artists offering me opportunities to work with them based on my aptitude with Unreal Engine and the unique concepts I used; some saw a connection within the themes of my work with work they have produced.

Contribution

Towards the exhibition itself, I was in a separate room with another student. I repainted the walls of the room and cleaned it out to ensure it was fit to hold two exhibits without clashing for space; I helped many other students with cleaning and repairing walls, as well as tidying the space to keep it as clean as possible visually. I helped run the bar for an hour during the middle of the night so that other people had a chance to speak to the audiences for their work, but I feel my most significant contribution was organising Curator’s Day for our exhibition. I arranged for a curator and two artists to come and visit the exhibition two days after it opened, when it was less busy, so that everyone involved would have an opportunity to have a professional appraisal and receive feedback that I felt would be beneficial for everybody. The evening was received well and saw another high attendance, so I felt thoroughly involved in what was a successful attempt to invite more people into the exhibition space and have the students want to talk, and want to feel more engaged with the whole exhibition.

Conclusion

Planning

I kept a sketchbook with me at almost all times that I made a lot of notes and sketches in. I kept my blog as up-to-date as possible most of the time, and I felt that really helped me during production and planning. I could look back at ideas I had or images I had reblogged to refresh my mind.

I feel I was quite successful with planning my time spent on the work, it seemed as though lots of things changed along the way which sometimes made planning very difficult. Some small issues took a long time to fix, and a lot of work was sometimes produced very quickly. The project presented a massive learning curve for me, but I felt I stayed on top of everything quite well. I also managed well with scaling back the project when I knew I couldn’t complete things before the deadline. I didn’t miss out on the quality of the work that way, and made sure it never felt incomplete.

How I Feel

Ultimately, I feel strong senses of pride and catharsis having completed my work. Everything I produce is innately tied to my own life and emotions; this more than any other was connected to me emotionally. On a purely personal level, it has filled me with incredible confidence and joy to see a major piece of work that is so intrinsically linked to me- not only on public display, but received so unanimously well. I am extremely proud with the techniques I have learned on Unreal Engine; having taught myself for the entire duration of the task, I am now a considerably more talented digital artist- but knowing I attained the ability through my own work ethic is something I am equally elated over.

If I had more time then I would have worked more on aspects of the sound design. I originally envisaged creating my own soundtrack, embellished with a host of ambient sounds across the world to truly foster a sense of immersion and characterising the world a little more. I would also liked to have added more major and unique voices across the cast; it proved too difficult to source people who were able to fit the voices I wanted within the timeframe. I am very pleased to be able to say that I do not feel the lack of these detracts from the overall experience whatsoever; it is more a sense of knowing what could have been that lingers. I would also like to explore more player interaction to allow for deeper storytelling. I wanted the work to be more like a video game, and I don’t think I’m far from achieving that in the future.

This leads into my plans for the future, however. Splitting the Sky has shown that it I am capable of producing the work that initially feels too daunting; I know now that I have the ability to visualise the projects I have thought of for years. Furthermore, displaying my own personal vulnerabilities in my work was necessary for me but not something I felt comfortable with; for the first time now I have a successful reference piece that I can use to remind myself that my work can be valid and powerful. I will feel more at ease conveying work that deals with trauma; to be offered opportunities in the immediate future because of it is something I am truly grateful for.

Being so personally involved with every level of running the event has given me a hunger to be engaged with more exhibitions. I was content previously to simply dream up work, whereas I feel a voracious desire to display what I do for people to see in a way I previously have never felt. Finally, in terms of my personal development as a consequence of the project, there were an absurd number of times where it felt Sisyphean and that I was simply making no progress. I have never showed more determination in my life than in completing this project; I feel that my perseverance alone has helped me grow significantly. The task has been a deeply poignant one for me; there were many times I believed it was insurmountable. Having completed it and had time to assess it, I feel it was a successful venture for both myself and my growth as an artist.

[alltimebestbooks]

Top 10 Books

1. Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

A National Book Award Finalist:

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Family values will never be the same.

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'If Flannery O'Connor had consumed vast quantities of LSD, she might have written like this' Literary Review

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ONE OF THE GREATEST AMERICAN SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS In 1955, with this short story collection, Flannery O'Connor firmly laid claim to her place as one of the most original and provocative writers of her generation. Steeped in a Southern Gothic tradition that would become synonymous with her name, these stories show O'Connor's unique, grotesque view of life-- infused with religious symbolism, haunted by apocalyptic possibility, sustained by the tragic comedy of human behavior, confronted by the necessity of salvation. With these classic stories-- including "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," "Good Country People," "The Displaced Person," and seven other acclaimed tales-- O'Connor earned a permanent place in the hearts of American readers. "Much savagery, compassion, farce, art, and truth have gone into these stories. O'Connor's characters are wholeheartedly horrible, and almost better than life. I find it hard to think of a funnier or more frightening writer." -- Robert Lowell "In these stories the rural South is, for the first time, viewed by a writer who orthodoxy matches her talent. The results are revolutionary." -- The New York Times Book Review Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) was born in Savannah, Georgia. She earned her M.F.A. at the University of Iowa, but lived most of her life in the South, where she became an anomaly among post-World War II authors-- a Roman Catholic woman whose stated purpose was to reveal the mystery of God's grace in everyday life. Her work-- novels, short stories, letters, and criticism-- received a number of awards, including the National Book Award.

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'How to win friends and influence people’ is a self-help book which is the pioneer of this genre. Written by Dale Carnegie and published in 1936, it has sold over 30 million copies. It has been edited and re-printed several times. This is the 2004 edition of this book. It was on the Time magazine’s 100 most influential books list in 2011. This book is a guide in improving a person's aura in the world. It is about changing how the world views and treats you by changing your own behaviour. That means that if you change the kind of energy that you emit, what comes back to you is also different. This is one of the most influential business and communication skills guide. This book teaches you how to market yourself and generate more clients. This book has been acclaimed by many known figures around the world. This book tries to get you out of a mental hell and provides you with ambition and goals. It enables you to be friendlier and seem a positive person to others, it helps you become a popular person who is liked by the majority and in business terms, it enables you to win new clients. it increases your earning power by helping you use your potential to the fullest and it helps you to become a better public speaker and to be liked by mass audience. If you read the book carefully and follow majority of the tips, you can learn to be friendlier and more presentable as a person. You can become a person who emits the positivity that is inside the heart. You can become a person people trust and want to be associated with. As long as you have good friends and good business associations, you will probably stay strong in personal as well as professional life.

7. The Far Field

Winner of the JCB Prize for Literature 2019. Shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2019. Shortlisted for the Tata Literature Live! First Book Award (Fiction) 2019. In the wake of her mother's death, Shalini, a privileged, naive and restless young woman from Bangalore, sets out for a remote village in Kashmir. Certain that the loss of her mother is somehow connected to the decade-old disappearance of Bashir Ahmed, a charming Kashmiri salesman who frequented her childhood home, she is determined to track him down. But as soon as Shalini arrives, she is confronted with the region's politics, as well as the tangled history of the local family that takes her in. As life in the village turns volatile and old hatreds threaten to erupt into violence, Shalini finds herself forced to make a series of choices that could have dangerous repercussions for the people she has come to love. With rare acumen and evocative prose, in The Far Field Madhuri Vijay gives a potent critique of Indian politics and class prejudice through the lens of a guileless outsider, while also offering up a profound meditation on grief, guilt and the limits of compassion.

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How does memory work? Who is the "distractor" in your family? What was the "car crash" experiment?

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16 MILLION COPIES SOLD

'A book to read, to cherish, to debate, and one that will ultimately keep the memories of the victims alive' John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

A prominent Viennese psychiatrist before the war, Viktor Frankl was uniquely able to observe the way that both he and others in Auschwitz coped (or didn't) with the experience. He noticed that it was the men who comforted others and who gave away their last piece of bread who survived the longest - and who offered proof that everything can be taken away from us except the ability to choose our attitude in any given set of circumstances. The sort of person the concentration camp prisoner became was the result of an inner decision and not of camp influences alone. Frankl came to believe man's deepest desire is to search for meaning and purpose. This outstanding work offers us all a way to transcend suffering and find significance in the art of living.

10. The Power of Subconsious Mind

The book was first published in 1963, but till date it has not gone out of print. The author, with a lifetime of experience as a church preacher, had done extensive research on how the mind can be healed, which has been dealt with in detail in the first few chapters. The techniques are simple and results come quickly. You can improve your relationships, your finances, your physical well-being. Structured in twenty chapters, each one spells out instructions that one needs to follow in order to be content and successful in life. For people who are interested in finding out about the basics of the human mind and want to explore the subconscious, this book is a must read. Inspiring examples throughout this book attest to the effectiveness of his methods.

[richardlowejr]

How Has Writing Changed Your Life? [Roundup]

Writing has changed my life dramatically. It’s given me a purpose for living and let me fulfill my passion while making an income.

I wondered how writing has affected other people, so I asked a few of them:

How has writing changed your life?

Here are their unedited responses.

Click on a photo to go directly to the author’s Facebook page.

Kyle Waller

Writing changed my life because it saved it from a knife dancing too close to my throat in my own hand. Yes, you read that correctly. Yes, I mean every word. No, I won’t redact it because it’s the truth. I should not be alive to write this, my Depression should’ve been the end of the story back in 2009 when I was thirteen. Writing is one of the things, one of my core passions, that kept me going. The days were dark, but the nights of solace by a candle and a dimly lit computer, creating my universes, my characters and fashioning a world from nothing- it was serenity in a sea of entropy- my one saving grace. I shouldn’t be here to tell you about my novels coming out that bring Mental Illness into the spotlight, but here I am. I share this all freely because we lose people every, single, day, that we don’t need to. Everyone knows someone who battles with Mental Illness… I will tell my story, the world will hear it, and if it saves but one life, then all the effort is worth it. In short: I write because I do not have a choice.

Facebook: Kyle Waller

Clare Flynn

Unexpectedly it has provided me with the income I’d been hoping my pension would bring. So I’ve not needed to draw my pension. I realise this is unusual and I’m very grateful. I wake up each morning happy and raring to go. I love writing and telling stories. I particularly love getting emails from readers telling me how my books have affected them. Sometimes I wish I’d started this long ago – but I have no regrets and I loved my previous professional life. But I don’t have time to do all the painting I planned!

Website: Clare Flynn

Chris N Jerri Schlenker

I started writing in retirement. It has grounded me and given me purpose in that I hope my writing is touching lives in a positive way. I strive for my writing to be inspirational. One of the best compliments I ever received was from a lady telling me they were reading my book Sally to a bedridden relative and it was giving her such pleasure. She was recounting her own past to them. Writing about Sally was one of my main reasons for beginning my writing journey. Sally lived from 1858 to 1969, born into slavery. I met her when I was 8 in 1961.

  Bonnie Dillabough

This is an interesting question, since from my standpoint I can hardly remember a time when I wasn’t writing. So has writing changed my life? I do know this. That I can’t imagine a life without it and my imagination is pretty active.

When I was 8 years old I wrote a 28 line rhyming poem entitled, The Christmas Alphabet, which I then performed for the church Christmas party. I was particularly fascinated by poetry and music, so it seemed a natural thing to write songs. I was never the one to count the number of words in my assigned stories in school, since my stories always exceeded the minimum number of words.

In high school I was named the Poet Laureate of the school in my freshman year. My winning poem was featued in a yearly publication called “The Albatross”. In my senior year I wrote a musical play based on the stories of Dr. Seuss.

Over the years I have written newspaper articles, stories, plays, songs, blogs as well as many reports and whitepapers.

How has writing changed my life? From a young child it enabled me to indulge my creative flights of fancy. It allows me to express things that I can do in no other way. It allows me to organize my thoughts and draw the pictures that my lack of artistic talent wouldn’t allow otherwise.

It gives me great satisfaction to see my words on paper and makes me happy when my words have a positive impact on someone. It allows me to keep a record for my children and grandchildren.

And, now that I am finally writing a novel, it allows me to hopefully give others the joy I feel when reading books by the authors I love.

Website

Jo-Anne Blanco

Writing has always been a part of my life, one way or another. As a young child, teenager, student, then as an English language teacher and university tutor travelling and working around the world, I had always written stories, essays, and diaries of my travels, although I never published anything until last year. Writing is part of my being, part of myself; the epic historical fantasy series I am currently writing has been over a decade in the making. My father’s illness and having to give up my teaching career to become a full-time carer led to me taking a correspondence course in creative writing, which in turn gave me the courage to embark upon the novel writing I always wanted to do. The greatest way in which writing has changed my life is that it has helped me develop this new courage to put my work and myself out into the world like never before.

Before I published my first novel, I had no internet presence, no social media accounts. I never posted on internet forums or the like. I was never afraid to travel the world, to go backpacking in the remotest areas, or to live and work in countries where I knew no one and didn’t speak the language. Yet I was still chronically shy, deeply insecure, and lacked confidence in myself and my abilities. Writing and publishing, networking and making contacts, and gradually reaching readers and reviewers who like my work is helping me overcome my insecurities to become a more confident and complete person. I am now acquiring new computer and tech skills of which I was previously unaware or which I believed I would be unable to master. I love my work, I love my book series, I love my protagonist and her supporting characters, and I love that the new-found confidence writing and publishing has given me is finally allowing me to share them with the world.

Website: jo-anneblanco.com

Bjørn Larssen

Writing saved my life. I used to work as a blacksmith until spine injuries ended my career. The pain was so excruciating that despite maximum doses of painkillers I could still only sit in one position…which luckily allowed me to use the laptop. I started working on my first novel on January 1st, 2017. Since then the pain has largely disappeared, but I will never be able to forge again. If it weren’t for the writing, I don’t know whether I would be around. It allowed me to escape my body and immerse myself in stories.

It doesn’t end there. When the pain allowed me to get on a plane, I visited Iceland for research for a few days. I did not expect to fall in love with the country to the point where I spent all of April 2018 there, made friends, saw as much as I could, and became determined to move there one day. Because there is so much left to be seen. Writing gave me a reason to live, and then showed me how fantastic life still can be despite the fact I can’t work at the forge anymore. What was my plan B became a huge part of my life. I am finishing the first novel, drafting the second, outlining the third. Two years ago I thought this was it for me. Now? I have to go on living, I am busy, there are so many more stories I’ve got to write!

Blog: www.bjornlarssen.com

Stephen Schneider

So far, writing hasn’t changed it much other than keeping me busy and a lot of free time being taken up with writing, I haven’t published yet but am close

Website: sa-schneider.com

Christopher Kaufman

That’s a difficult question to answer. I have been writing and composing music all of my life. It is what my life is. The question might be, how would ‘not’ having been a creative artist changed my life? However, I would then have no answer because it would not have been my life at all!

Website: soundartus.com

  Robin Leemann Donovan

I’ve always been a control freak, working hard to maintain a tight reign on as many aspects of my life as possible. When I started writing my first novel, I designed a process and built a timeline, allowing myself little leeway. As the writing progressed it became evident that I was not controlling the process, rather the process was controlling me. I would often find myself at points in the plot where I didn’t know what would happen next, yet I kept writing. I would often look back and be surprised at what had been written, sometimes an event that didn’t exist a few minutes earlier, and sometimes a memory from deep within my brain that found its way out and onto the page. That is probably why writing novels is one of the most relaxing things I do. I let myself go and let my subconscious take over – and I love the freedom it gives me.

Website

Donna Leigh Mysteries

Facebook

Paty Jager

I don’t worry as much anymore. I know that sounds strange, but early in my marriage my husband was a truck driver. Every time he’d be gone for several days, I’d have accident scenarios running through my head all day long. If family were coming to visit, I’d have visions of bad things happening to them. When I started writing, all of that went away because I had an outlet for my imagination.

Website Blog Facebook Page Amazon Pinterest Twitter Goodreads

Lionel Snell

I was quite good at writing stories at school – until I went for maths and higher maths at A level. My writing went to pot, because I had been drilled in a system of communication where every statement can only be a logical deduction from the previous one. Different from science – where the initial statement has to be one that is objectively ‘true’ and the final story also has to ‘prove’ itself by producing results under laboratory conditions.

In writing there is much less logical constraint and, in fiction writing, the initial statements do not even have to be objectively true. In that sense, maths is more like fiction, because you often begin with a statement that is pure fantasy, such as ‘consider a perfect circle’ – where the atomic structure of matter says that there can never be such a thing as a perfect circle. But writing, like science, does need to ‘prove’ itself – not under laboratory conditions but in the reader’s mind or life.

So if I write: “Let us create a garden as they did in Findhorn, by consulting the local devas” then I am starting like a mathematician, not like a scientist (who would require proof that devas ‘exist’). But, unlike a mathematician, the final test would be whether the reader liked what I wrote and, above all, whether following my idea and acting ‘as if’ devas existed resulted in a really super garden.

That is the way I learned to write, and how it changed my life.

Website

Wendy Jones

For me writing was a lifesaver, or at least saved me from dying of boredom. Terminal boredom. I took early retirement on health grounds. For someone who worked every hour God sent, this was a bit of a shock. I started writing a book and my life changed completely. The first book was a step on my future journey. Little did I know just where that journey would take me.

In the past four years I have published nine books, edited two and have another coming out in the next two weeks. I have written books for adults, young adults and children, spoken at national and international conferences, started my own crime conference, Crime at the Castle, and present a radio show. I am also the President of the Scottish Association of Writers, secretary of the Society of Authors in Scotland, webmaster for the Association of Christian Writers and Scottish convenor of the Crime Writers Association. I have made friends too numerous to mention and I can honestly say I am no longer bored.

Website

Amazon Author Page

Twitter 

Facebook

Roz Morris

To be honest, I don’t know. I’ve always written, so you might as well ask what I did before I breathed. When I was at school, I wrote, but nobody else did so I thought I was peculiar for enjoying it. Later there was a phase when I wrote but thought I wasn’t doing it ‘properly’ because I did not have the means to become an author. And then, reader, I married an author. Suddenly every new person I met had a book they were writing. That was what I needed.

So I don’t think writing changed my life. I think my life gradually caught up with the writing.

Where to find me – Twitter @Roz_Morris

Website Book

Sydney Segen

As I drove to work one morning in Southern California, time suddenly stood still. An ultra-bright image of dazzling skies flashed in front of my eyes, and a compelling idea popped into my brain: I would start writing children’s novels. Weird? Yes. But it did happen, and I did quit my day job, and I did become a writer.

My career careened among fascinating clients: Zondervan Publishing House, San Diego Zoo, American History Museum, Scholastic, Aneuser-Busch, Inc., The White House, and more. I’m still having so much fun that it’s hard to believe people actually pay me to have a good time. Of course, there were times with no work; I took a ten-year hiatus to work at the University of California; life happened, and I wrote my way through it. Writing not only changed my life, it became my life. And now that I’m old, I just won’t quit.

Facebook: Hope After Trauma and PTSD; Truth Be Told Website: SydneySegen.com

Blog: http://sydneysegen.com/blog/

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1984917153/

Helen Prochazka

There are so many ways that writing has changed my life. I love that being an indie author has:

Enabled me to start a new career that can be a global one… in a job that has no retiring age.

Taught me patience and persistence… especially when dealing with software and technology.

Given me the intense pleasure of achieving a long term goal… then realising the work doesn’t stop when the book is published.

Shown me that the days of being an introverted quiet achiever are over… I need to put myself out there to succeed.

Allowed me to discover that I could write poetry… The Mathematics Book contains 14 mathematical poems.

Taught me to be humble in the true sense of the word… and learn to accept compliments graciously.

Given me the opportunity to fulfil my childhood dream of working as a graphic designer… albeit an unpaid one.

Let me interact with indie booksellers… and finding that they are passionate big dreamers just like indie authors.

Exposed me to new people and ideas, even when home alone… it’s akin to travelling.

Provided me with a chance to make a difference… particularly to maths phobic adults!

Facebook Website

Brenda Haire

Writing has changed me and my life in so many ways. My book, Save the Butter Tubs!: Discover Your Worth in a Disposable World is a very personal journey of discovering my worth through writing my grandmother’s story. I absolutely feel I am doing what I was called to do. My goal is to help others discover their worth and transform their lives and legacy.

There was a significant time in my life where I felt absolutely worthless. I still have days, moments where I have to remind myself of whose I am and that He has called me to something bigger than myself. My worth isn’t determined by what I do, it is determined by my Creator. Just like the value of a Van Gogh painting isn’t determined by whose house it hangs in, but by the creator.

I believe that our gifts are the way our soul expresses itself and I am thankful to be able to fully express myself through my writing, speaking, and coaching. For the first time, I feel fully alive! I am doing things I once only dreamed about!

Brenda Speaker, Coach, Author of Save the Butter Tubs: Discover Your Worth in a Disposable World

http://www.BrendaHaire.com http://www.facebook.com/brendaahaire http://www.instagram.com/brendaahaire http://www.twitter.com/brendahaire http://www.pinterest.com/brendaahaire

Walter Boomsma

Writing has changed my life by making me a clearer thinker and a better communicator. But I also think it works both ways. Good thinkers and communicators are destined to write. Good writers are destined to become better thinkers and communicators.

http://wboomsma.com

      James Lawless

It has made me more sedentary and sometimes gives the feeling that while you are analyzing life, you are not always living it.

Website

        Erin McIntyre

Writing has added a new dimension to my life and reinvigorated my childhood imagination. It may take away most (okay, all) free time when not at the day job, but it’s certainly worth every moment. Knowing I’ve built a world for others to lose themselves in is the greatest reward and fills me with a true sense of accomplishment.

Facebook

  Bronwen Griffiths

Writing has given me a purpose in life and even though I often write about difficult social issues such as war and refugees, writing has made me a happier person. Perhaps it’s because writing enables me to immerse myself in the subject and find resolution – which sometimes cannot be found in ‘real’ life.

My website is at: www.bronwengriff.co.uk

Here you can find my blog posts, flash fiction and poems.

  Dixie Maria Carlton

How has writing changed my life? This is a question I ponder from time to time. Usually when I’m talking with others about the difference between being a professional speaker or thought leader, and a professional writer. As a writer, I’m able to locate what’s really in the deeper recesses of my mind and bring those thoughts and ideas to the front, and either share them or refine them.

Writing affords me the opportunity to explore topics of non-fiction and to develop my story telling skills in fiction. I get to get things out of my head and into something tangible what ever it is that I’m writing at any time and for any reason. When you consider the popular idea of doing that which you love and would do without reward because it is an integral part of who you are, for me, I realise that quite simply, I am a writer.

Now, I’m blessed to work in a way that helps other writers to bring their words to life, for the benefit of others. To explore their stories and how best to share them. What a privilige, what a joy that is!

www.authorityauthors.com.au

  Carol Cooper

For a start, I have a notebook to hand at all times, even by my bed, in case an idea pops into my head. However, the most significant changes have been in my working routine.

As a writer, I’m able to work for myself and pick my hours, deadlines permitting. I can choose my workplace too. All I need is a bit of quiet and comfort. Writing is the ultimate portable occupation, especially if, like me, you use pencil and paper for the first draft.

But it’s not all lounging about on a comfy sofa waiting for inspiration to strike. Writing is, as the saying goes, ten per cent inspiration and ninety per cent perspiration, and I believe in working at it just as in any other job.

There’s also been an effect on those around me. As a doctor, I’m used to complete strangers describing their symptoms. Now that I’m also a writer, people seem compelled to share their life story, begging me to include at least some of it in my next book. I haven’t yet, but maybe one day I will…

facebook author page (fiction) Carol Cooper’s London novels https://www.facebook.com/onenightatthejacaranda/ instagram https://www.instagram.com/drcarolcooper/ website www.drcarolcooper.com blog Pills and Pillow-Talk twitter @DrCarolCooper

Author information

Richard Lowe Jr

Owner and Senior Writing at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 20+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.

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