This is an author's note for Frida's Songs, a short story I posted yesterday. Will contain spoilers. Read the story first!
Is Frida's Songs a good story? Oh, I don't know. I enjoyed writing it. I love the characters I've written, I love the world I've built. The whole thing was meant to just be a one-off short story but that didn't stop me from making a whole wiki document full of worldbuilding, most of which never ended up being part of the story. They say you should write what you want to write, and if you like it yourself, then people will like it as well.
But even liking what I write doesn't mean it wasn't difficult. A friend said the ending feels rushed. Perhaps because of the deadline for the Writing Challenge? She was right, it was a bit rushed, but not because of the deadline. I've always had an endurance problem with writing, and about halfway through this one I was genuinely exhausted. I pushed on, though. I wanted to see it finished. I wanted to see what happens next. I had vague ideas of an epilogue, but I didn't know until the last moment if everyone will make it out of the story alive.
I was glad, relieved, once I reached the ending, and then I made rudimentary edits, closed my eyes, and submitted it, because I couldn't bear to look at it again. It seems I'm cursed with hating everything I've written once I'm finished with it. It took everything in my power to give the story another look, give it another round of editing, before I published it on this blog. So I can't say I like the story now, but I remember liking it, as I write, so I hope you can like it as well.
This story took massive inspirations from two things: the surreal horror of Blaseball and the neonwave horror of Paradise Killer. I stole a lot of ideas from both, but the most obvious one is probably the cosmic Gods and the naming scheme I use for them, taken straight out of Paradise Killer. My version of the Gods end up being very different though, but I can't get Paradise Killer's pantheon out of my mind as I wrote it. Damned Harmony, Kiss Me to the Moon, Moonlight Petal, Dying from Sadness. Evocative English phrases describing beings beyond our perception. I dig that, and if you dig that kind of nonsense too, please give Paradise Killer a look. It's a fantastic detective game.
Blaseball's influence is more subtle, I suppose. Friendship made despite horrors, horrors that don't crawl under the surface, but is smiling at you from the skies, and also the belief that we can take them down. Something like that. But in all honesty though, Blaseball's influence is mainly through this art made by @starfauna, of a new Blaseball player called "Freemium Seraph". Yep, another evocative English phrase. You know exactly which character I made out of this.
https://twitter.com/starfauna/status/1318790249787629569
Another big, but subtle, influence on this story is just how much I'm interested in stories about killing gods. Fight-able gods in stories are often metaphors for powerful, seemingly unstoppable forces, like the government or shitty people in positions of power. But fictional gods can also be our attempts at imagining a being that is more powerful than us. In reality, humanity seems capable of understanding everything and thus have a place at the top of the food chain, but what if we aren't? What if there are things we can't understand? I feel this idea humbles us. We don't always get to understand everything.
I deliberately try to write the Gods in this story as unknowable forces. They're not evil, just different, but regardless of any of that, they still desire our extinction. Against such forces, we are still obligated to fight back. It's a humbling idea, but also hopeful.
But of course by this point of the story, the ideals of fighting gods have also morphed into an almost religious fervor. Gods must be killed because that's how it is in the founding tenets of our society. I could talk more about how each part of the five tenets support and contradict each other and eventually shapes the society in the story, but I guess that's a discussion for another time.
My friend mentioned how she was surprised by Tiana's decision. She didn't think her relationship with Free was strong enough for Tiana to drop her faith in the fifth tenet and save her. Well, readers are free to interpret my characters any way they want, but I did write with some intent in mind. I just might not be good enough to put those intent down yet.
Tiana is a gay disaster and she's in love with Free, but was too dense to notice it herself. In her narration she's always kind of circling around the edge because she can't make the connection between what she's feeling with "love" yet. Free, who likes her too, absolutely noticed this and wanted to tease her more, but was more worried with how things will play out with her god. Free had a romantic relationship before, with a man named Roion, so this isn't her first tango. Just the first one where the significant other would, she thought, shoot her without hesitation if her identity was revealed.
I'm not entirely sure if all that subtext are visible. This is the first gay relationship I've ever written and also I usually don't even read romantic stories, so I'm not well-versed in how things go down there. One of my friends didn't really catch on to the subtext, but another friend did ("they're so cute!"), so I dunno. Your mileage may vary.
I wasn't planning on continuing this story or even to use the same setting again, but I admit there's still a lot I can still explore. This story ends up being more about personal relationships, but I actually really like the world I've built here. I don't like bogging stories down with worldbuilding details, especially if it's just a short story, so I only put in as much as the characters allow them. We barely scratch the surface of what the five tenets mean or how it came to be and there's a lot more that can be said about the Age of the Gods or the War of Defiance or how humans built a communist society over the ruins of civilization. Maybe I'll revisit this setting again later to explore them. Who knows.
I might still write more about Tiana and Free and Resa too. I grew a bit attached to them too.
