The Day After

5/7/21 7:03 PM

I couldn't understand this frustrating feeling of being disgusted by my art.

Surely, I was improving but it just didn't feel right.

I half-assed the rest and gave up on it completely. I wanted to do something else. But what was it exactly?

I had an extreme urge to start writing this and not my more structured and cast driven novel.

I see all these hip new "eBooks" climbing up the internet and I mentally scoff whilst being painfully intrigued.

I see all these hip new web novels written in first person and—blech! I spit on thee.

My Asian ass growing up from physical and "real" books professionally written (often in third-person) and edited in English is my cup of tea. I'm adapting to this "new technology" like an old man, though. (I don't want your help~)

I was the best in English every year at my class, spoke it so frequently with prowess that classmates and teachers were amusingly put off by yet another attribute I've nonchalantly acquired.

So when I wanted to soar through this web writing business and impress myself I thought, "Ha! I could do better than that."

And I never did.

I thought this was way too low a level for me.

What great way to start than from the bottom, though, to teach my inflated ego here a fucking lesson?

It doesnt really matter if a book is written in first person. It's the characters, the prose, the story—!

Screw off, what even am I doing anymore?

I wanted to say this: what defines a "Male Lead"?

Stories here are divided into "Male" and "Female".

They're not necessarily genres, more like a target audience where the typical genres they read are grouped by.

The clichés regarded to those sexes are just obnoxious to me. What if the female lead was made to be in certain genres mostly dominated by stereotypical self-insert male-lead harem/Power fantasies? And isn't sexualized? (And isn't based from Narut—?) I'm half-assing so hard to be funny for you but at this point I don't even care anymore.

This is a "male-lead story" because the fairly serious genres I would like to explore reside here.

Target audience shmarget taudience.

I'm mostly also here as a female to poke fun at the books targeted towards you doods. How are you gonna self insert yourself to me n—nevermind, this actually makes erotic sense. (Y'all need Jesus.)

Why are you still reading?

Expecting a story?

Want me to go outside and not look out for truck-kun?

You wanna go isekai ja?

What? You think my monologue has been too long?

All these web novels and their first-person points of view, they're all basically monologues.

So much telling.

I sound like a boomer.

It makes me groan from disinterest missing my sweet old pal: third-person.

I sound like an arse.

Did you know the word "arse" was featured in a dialogue from a famous Children's Fiction series, the Chronicles of Narniya?

On the first book? From a conversation between two kids?

If society deems any kind of stick as a profane allegory for penises should the existence of sticks be prohibited?

"He who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool."

I swear I read that in the Bible somewhere.

And Gulugulu isn't helping me, saying it's by "Bigsham Young".

—Let's journey to a different reality. Where you're not inside my head and another voice is telling you what's happening.

Akira stared blankly on the floor.

Near a bed where its sheets rustled about, rising up and down as they vibrated from snores. A pair of dark rims that held square glasses were folded beside the pillows.

Thinking to herself, Akira said, "What are my pronouns? Am I supposed to be described as a "she"? Or a "they", or a "he"? Or a—Ahh, fuck it. It's not that big a deal. I don't mind not having a dick. But I'm also content with my female reproductive system, although it drags me into its monthly bitch fits."

"Transitioning is too expensive. And it might degrade female representation if I trade my vagina for some male genitals. "

"I'm begining to think I've been sounding too explicit . . . They're scientific terms, jeez. Get your head out of the gutter."

"Conventional curses when they're not targeted for your filtered insults are merely words with a dark past."

Akira looked up at you, still thinking to herself. "Oh, you're not actually here, bruv—"

"Could you stop it with the fourth wall breaks? This isn't even funny." said another voice in her head. There were incoherent mumblings rattling inside Akira's thoughts, she made them out to be, "Who should I present myself as?"

Akira stood up and looked out the window. "What character should I portray, to "fit in" to this world?" She heard nothing in reply, the wind passed by to caress her layers of black hair that weakly returned to her shoulders.

"Wanna die today?" she asked herself. "I'm not even that suicidal. Should I visit a rampaging truck outside? What if it flies off the ground and frickin' crashes through this window—!" "

Akira heard nothing.

There was too much silence, she sighed. Her eyes darkened. Her demeanor numbed to indifference. Akira turned to the person sleeping on the bed. She couldn't see their face nor even their body but the boxers scattered on the floor beside one of the light novels made her think this was a man. Could he wake up so she could listen to his doubts and thoughts, his life and stories? What made him to be the kind of person he is today? Why does she not hear him? Akira's eyes seemed to have gone to the back of her head, and yet her vision still clearly saw ahead. Her hands, and everything else became smaller, or bigger—like a doll's. Like a toy, like a puppet. She tried folding her fingers. Her vision became foggy. Her senses levitated, her hands were swimming through watery air. "There's a guarantee I'll get isekai'd here anyway,"

She shook her head, banishing her thoughts. "because I'm the writer. That's essentially God status."

This isn't working. I feel uncomfortable "inserting myself" when you're supposed to see through the "protagonist's eyes" and whatever.

Wanna date me because "I'm a girl?" Is that what you're here for? Or you weren't really planning to but now you're reconsidering the idea because I presented you the offer? If so, you were never mostly there for a female's character were you? Well, we barely know each other, and I doubt you'd actually like me from this weird mesh of personalities I have shown you. I doubt you were even in the mood from the depersonalization state I've just described. I doubt you even thought about that at all, you don't know what it is that I look like.

Let's . . . leave it at that.

. . . I used to make author inserts, though.

Because I thought the storytellers would be forgotten if their stories were too big for them to be remembered with.

I placed "myself" in the story, so the readers could recall me.

But it's more similar to the dynamic of George Lukas and Luke Starwalker.

A few years ago, I thought being forgotten here would mean: I wouldn't exist anymore. I didn't want that to happen. But once in Science period, I glowered at the name of an inventor on our text books who's been remembered for centuries. And I was in begrudging academic need to apply his very specific existence into my brain's reluctant memory storage, for potential examination.

I dreaded remembering information against my will especially when I thought I'd just forget about it later. Then I realized, "I wouldn't want other people to feel that way about me (in the future)." So later I concluded: I shouldn't care less if people remember me or not, positively or negatively; what matters most is if I left a significant effect that will improve humanity for generations to come, one way or another, even after my death.

Hopefully I will . . .

If you're so kind enough to think, "I'll remember you, Akira." That's not even my real name. I haven't done so much for you, either.

And my time is up.

You're going to meet the real Akira soon.