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| The French Inventive; [Presence: Intensification] Training #3 | |
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| Topic Started: Friday, 24. July 2015, 15:51 (203 Views) | |
| Tsar Ilya the First | Friday, 24. July 2015, 15:51 Post #1 |
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Claiming Tsar
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His ways of translated honesty had failed him miserably. He had tried to make every detail count, while imposing a complex structure to justify all the things that were hard to believe... and it was a huge mistake. It didn't work. It was too complex to be interesting. After a few days, he could see it for himself. It was weird, long winded, and not interesting at all. Pedantic. Over indulgent. He approached both Rostik and Olga, and kissed each of them as tenderly as his icy heart allowed him. They were surprised, and terrified. Then he went back to his basement, to google all sorts of random concepts to come up with an idea. Something started showing up in his mind. The logic was there... if his story was too strange to just translate to a conventional setting... maybe the problem was not the story, but the setting. Maybe he couldn't just remove the elements that would make his narration a breach of the Masquerade and of his own safety measures, but he needed to go a bigger distance. He resolved he needed to niche his story in a deeper universe, one conceived to host it comfortably. He needed his life story to become a science fiction novel. He started reading. First Asimov. It was good, but a bit shallow. He moved on to others... Heinlein, Bradbury, Shaw, Brunner, Strugatski, Rucker, Bester, Dick, Silverman, LeGuin... Even Jules Verne passed through his hands. He read it all, as fast as he could, trying to swamp his mind with all the stylistic rules of the genre, only to discard them all together. He was ready. At first it was a bit complicated, translating the complex elements of his old novel into a futuristic set, but it slowly made more and more sense. It was not meant to be a single novel telling it all... this needed to be a saga. He needed to focus more on details, and to let stories breathe, so the audience could enjoy it properly... This way, "The Souteneurs of Ganimede" was born. An epic saga about a family of space pimps escaping the growing "Red Empire", and hiding in the shadows, using their forbidden technology to manipulate the minds of their enemies, remaining hidden in plain sight most of the times. The leading character -Kristos Shintz- had to fight the oppression of the "Freedom Warriors", who wanted to eradicate his family from the galaxy, while getting deeply involved in power struggles with the Tetrarch of his clan... The first novel was ready in less than a week. Three hundred pages, and it only covered a little bit of his story, just until the first apparition of the Tetrarch... the day of his Embrace... |
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Languages: Russian, Japanese, English, French, Finnish, German Oleg's Voice You may know me as Yuri Mikhailov or as Khoza. | |
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| Tsar Ilya the First | Friday, 24. July 2015, 21:20 Post #2 |
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Claiming Tsar
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Ilya didn't remember being so excited in decades. This was even better than the feeling he had when his business started paying off. This was exhilarating. The adventures of the fair and just Kristos Shintz, and his escape along the solar system, was taking over his whole life. The rest of his necessities and responsibilities seemed to slip into a place where they could easily get ignored, while he described in luxurious detail the Greenhouse Station in Neptune, or the Mining Colonies of Io. The novel turned into two books, and then into a trilogy; the first saga of the epic "The Souteneurs of Ganimede". Rostik and Olga started receiving reading material shortly after. They were swallowing the books whole, as if they were popcorn. This time, they demonstrated that they could read at a decent speed, if the material provided was not as tiresome as his old novel. At book five, after three weeks focusing on writing and writing alone, he felt he was getting somewhere. He was two books away from getting to the present, to make Kristos Shintz Emperor of the Outer Planets, and to start his secretive war against the Red Republic of Free People. Every character was there, everybody he had ever met was alive in those pages, under different names, in different circumstances... His sire Roman was translated into the Tetrarch Farrn of the Shintz family. His brother Maxim was the daring pirate Turben, who refused his own heritage, but who helped the family in their adventures. Further on, the appearance of the Red Devil, the Secretary of the Syndicate, Gorn Faulchner, the fictitious persona of Alarik Blucher, added a new layer of complexity to the story. Then, the alliance with the forces of Myhrran -the two faced mysterious space creature who supported all of his claims of racial superiority-, Likkah -the cat like spirit who had the ability of infiltrating the enemy's minds and hearts-, and Lehman -the rude engineer who had the secret to build unique FTL drives-, gave a new dimension to the whole conflict. Suddenly, it was not the story of a single family escaping destiny, but the story of a man claiming back an empire, and the story of a group of outcasts taking what was theirs from the masses of uncultured space mutants who claimed to be owners of the word "Freedom". It was majestic... it was epic. He printed the five novels, and started reading. Three days later, he finished them with a smile on his face. Rostik and Olga were there, smiling as well. They were good. |
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Languages: Russian, Japanese, English, French, Finnish, German Oleg's Voice You may know me as Yuri Mikhailov or as Khoza. | |
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| Tsar Ilya the First | Friday, 24. July 2015, 21:31 Post #3 |
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Claiming Tsar
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Seven books. One month and a half, and he had his seven books. In the past, his feeble attempts at sculpture, conceptual art, installation, or convoluted Russian literature. His science fiction saga, light and easy to digest, was all he needed. They were written in Russian, but he was already working on a translation. His words, edited and processed, written in record time... maybe a little bit rough around the edges; some chapters could benefit from being just cut off the whole project... but he didn't care for perfection, in that sense. He cared for immortality. He opened the first page of the printed copy. He just needed to add the signature, the words that would seal the saga, and turn it into a reality. And so he did: The Souteneurs of Ganimede by Kristos Shintz [PRESENCE: INTENSIFICATION - MAJESTY] It was beautiful. Spectacular. It was immortal. It worked. Rostik tried to talk him into sending it to an editor, to publish it, to make it into a commercial success... maybe even selling the rights for a movie in Hollywood. But Ilya had different plans for his first masterpiece. He didn't want the money, or the commercial glory. He just wanted to share it with the world. And so he did. He made the books public on the Internet, using fake profiles in different social networks and literature sharing boards. He published his works in episodes, as if he was an amateur writer -which was not a lie, after all-, asking for advice. Everywhere, the reaction to his work was good. Not as good as the reaction would have been to the Presence infused printed copy... That copy was unique, and impossible to repeat... but he earned a bit of a reputation, under fake name, as a science fiction writer. It had been a long road, and it was coming to an end. He had learned a lot in the process... His respect for the flesh machines was changed, something was different. He still despised them as the inferior beings they were, but now he was able to openly acknowledge their artistic ability, and even to enjoy their creations. It was not a great leap, but it was enough for him.[/color] |
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Languages: Russian, Japanese, English, French, Finnish, German Oleg's Voice You may know me as Yuri Mikhailov or as Khoza. | |
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| Tsar Ilya the First | Friday, 24. July 2015, 21:40 Post #4 |
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Claiming Tsar
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THE MEANING OF ART PART III The new approach demonstrated to be more efficient and healthy. It worked, mainly because it was more honest. I kept in mind that I had an audience, while being truthful to the story I wanted to tell... and the results were good. So, this gives me an insight on what it means to be creative, what art means... Art cannot exist without truth, as art mirrors what happens in reality. Art doesn't work without translation, as it elevates and recreates reality. Art means nothing without an audience, as the act of perceiving it changes it and gives it meaning. Art is useless without independence, as it is a goal in itself. Art is defined by negatives; it is the empty space that is left when you put all the barriers around the concept you want to illustrate. Otherwise, it is not art, but indoctrination. Art is a referential frame for an audience to play. It is a game where the artists gives rules, and the audience agrees to those rules. Art is boundless, but it demands limits. Art is not the privilege of the smart, or the pure; art is by anybody for everybody. Art is creative. Art is explosive. Art is obsessive. Art is meticulous. Art cannot be made out of a higher purpose, or it becomes propaganda. Art needs to be free, and to be tightly controlled. Art is powerful, as it melts ice, and moves mountains. Art is immortal, as ideas have the potential to live longer than identities. I can create art now. It is complicated, and it is difficult... but I am able to do it. Immortality is truly at my reach. And I feel more at peace than I've ever felt. Strange, huh? So much frustration, and so much peace. I am sure there is something here, some story to be told... maybe I should write a book about it... Kristos Shintz. |
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Languages: Russian, Japanese, English, French, Finnish, German Oleg's Voice You may know me as Yuri Mikhailov or as Khoza. | |
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1:15 AM Jul 11