Danica #1687 in Elysium: Part 2

This is Part 2 of a current novel WIP. It is Ch:B and Ch:2: 2720 words

CONTENT WARNING: CHILD ABUSE

Chapter B

Journaling Exercise

Even in a world as perfect as Elysium, sometimes sad things happen. All-Wise reminds us that no one is exempt from eventually dying. This is a sad fact of life that we must accept.

Also, sad things can occur that we can not easily reconcile. Perhaps someone said something that hurt you, or perhaps an intellectual endeavor you put effort into was not appreciated?

Has anything sad ever happened to you? Write about it!

I think I have a lot of sad moments. I assume this is normal, but I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like I have too many sad moments compared to my siblings.

I honestly don’t know which sad moment to write about!

I suppose I’ll talk about one of the first times I can remember of my father hurting me.

I was five or six years old. It was late at night and my parents and I were in our pod. They were drinking coolers in bed (as usual) and I was reading a wonderful fantasy story on my tablet in my bed.

I was trying not to get distracted by my parents, but from the sound of it, my father was trying to initiate making love with my mother.

I don’t know how long she put up with him, but she eventually yelled something about not being in the mood.

He yelled, “Don’t make me go to the Social Pod again!”

This was, for the most part, typical. And yes, my father had at multiple points during my childhood gone to the Social Pod to find women. I have don’t know whether or not this was a matter of shame for either of them.
My mother acquiesced; my father immediately came over to me and swiftly grabbed my wrist. I let go of the tablet not realizing what his intentions were.

He took me to the Play Pod and I repeatedly asked for my tablet on the way over. When we arrived (there was no one else present), he flung me forward and I whined because I wanted my tablet. He exploded in rage, screamed, “Shut up!” and slapped me across the face a few times. All-Wise commanded him to stop, but my father ignored Him.

He then left and I began to weep with no one to console me besides All-Wise. All-Wise couldn’t provide a reassuring answer for why my father hated me so much and why he was so abusive.

When it comes down to All-Wise saying that He doesn’t know why my father acted the way he did, I have a theory that he had the genetic composition for psychopathic tendencies. I’ve questioned All-Wise about this, and His response was that He would never knowingly create a psychopath to live in Elysium. I took this to mean that this was the first, and hopefully only, time someone with my father’s genetic composition, or any genetic composition that geared toward psychopathy, would ever be created…

Chapter 2

In high spirits, Danica arrived to the pod shared by the loving couple of her uncle, Roland #1279, and her aunt, Harriet #1279. Being of the same generational group as Danica’s mother, Diane #1279, they were both thirty-one years old. The chowder everyone in Elysium ate seemed to have an affect on the aging process because they both looked as if they were in their early twenties.

Harriet had a mature face with long, curly blond hair and blue eyes. She was quite tall for a woman and had a naturally friendly disposition.

Upon entry, Harriet greeted Danica with a hug. “Ah, Dani, how have you been lately?”

“I’ve been fine, Aunt Harriet. I’ve just been working on the new novel a lot.”

Harriet brushed her hair out of her eyes and said, “That’s nice, dear. Anyway, I’ll give you two some space.” She then left the pod.

Roland disengaged from what he was reading at his desk where his laptop rested and approached Danica to greet her. His face, despite a lack of facial hair (in Elysium, all infants are given electrolysis to completely remove the need to ever have to shave or wax any undesirable hair), looked mature. Despite being as skinny as everyone else, he was imposing to Danica because of his broad shoulders and chest. His naturally black hair already had a touch of gray despite his age.

“Ah, Danica, have a seat.”

Roland made a gesture toward the dining area that had a table and set of four chairs. On the table rested a tablet.
“Uncle Roland, will you and Aunt Harriet be attending Gavin’s celebration in the Lounge Pod tonight?”

“We were planning to poke our heads in at some point, but we were going to allow you kids to revel without us.”

“Oh.”

Danica sat down and tapped her foot in gleeful anticipation for Roland’s feedback on the second act of her work-in-progress. Having read and edited her previous two novels, she naturally assumed that Roland had enjoyed them and would be editing this one as well. When it came to giving Danica constructive criticism to help her hone her craft, she felt he was her biggest supporter (besides All-Wise, of course). He had helped her numerous times in the past by pointing out her weaknesses as a writer.

These days, Roland chose to invest the vast majority of his time into serving as an editor for Danica and her siblings. He and Harriet had put in the effort to raise four of the eight children of Danica’s generational group (Gavin #1687, Mary #1687, Ronald #1687, and Arc #1687) and had gone to the extra effort of teaching all of them how to write fantasy stories. Ronald had grown up to stop caring for writing his own fiction; Arc discovered he enjoyed creating digital art far more than writing (which was something Harriet encouraged in him when she recognized that he had the talent to do it well); both Gavin and Mary, however, had a love for writing that Roland and Harriet rigorously helped them hone.

As for Danica, she couldn’t help but take it as a slight (though probably not a purposeful or malevolent one) that Roland and Harriet hadn’t put in as much effort into helping her improve. Yes, Roland continued to read, critique, and edit her work, but it seemed like he had gone to more trouble over the years to assist his own children instead of her, his niece. Still, she appreciated the hours he had devoted to helping her.

“So…” began Roland once he had sat down across from Danica and pulled up his notes from his tablet.
It became apparent by this point that he was at a seeming loss of words. Danica responded with a, “Yes?”
Roland sighed and said, “It’s just, I’m sorry Danica, but not just your second act, but this entire novel is not so good…”

Danica could only say, “What?”

“It’s not so good. You aren’t improving.”

“What’s-what’s wrong with it?”

Looking at his tablet, he said, “Well, for starters, the world-building. You see, you describe the Theocracy of Kallerrel as a nation that worships All-Wise, yet in none of your previous works have you established that All-Wise has a direct presence in anyone’s life. You see, in Elysium we can talk to All-Wise because He has established His presence as the god of our world, but what you fail to realize is that people will not just legitimately believe in a god that no one knows about.

“There’s more than that, though. When it comes down to the economic system used in almost every fantasy story, it’s almost always capitalistic. I’m sure you’ve read about conjectures in the Library about how a capitalistic society is, right Danica?”

“Yes, of course I have.”

“Then tell me, what’s the primary motivation for people in a capitalistic society? Why do the people act the way they act?” Roland asked challengingly.

“By trying to get as many resources as possible?”

“Yes, what’s the problem with that?”

“That, unlike here, there’s limited resources?”

“Yes, but what does that mean?”

Danica got uneasy and said, “It means the people are evil?”

“Not just evil, Danica, but sadistically evil. In a capitalist society, the people are absolutely cruel and heartless towards everyone.”

“I don’t get it. What are you trying to say?” Danica asked.

“I’m saying that your world-building is horrible. Not just horrible, but childishly naive. I was able to look past it before, but I rolled my eyes and groaned multiple times at just how kindhearted and loving the regular people are in your stories. It’s completely unrealistic.”

Danica had never heard this level of criticism before. Nobody, not even All-Wise Himself, had any criticism against the quality of her world-building or her writing in general.

“Furthermore,” continued Roland, “I’m starting to get really annoyed with your character-creation skills.”

“What’s wrong with my characters?”

“All of the major ones are quite obviously based off of the people you know. I know that for you it’s cute to make the main character, Daenerys, an obvious self-insert, but I’m annoyed at how she’s really just some kind of wish fulfillment on your part.”

“Doesn’t everybody do that?”

“No!” Roland practically shouted. “There’s a term in writing called a ‘Mary Sue.’ Have you heard of it before?”

Danica shook her head.

“Well, look it up later. But I should tell you right now that making the main character in a work too much like yourself is a horrible decision.

“And it’s not just her, ALL of your characters are awful. Did you really think I wouldn’t be able to tell that the high priest in this novel, Constantavio, was really me?”

“I didn’t mean anything bad by it…”

“Well, I took it as foolishly annoying to read that he’s corrupt enough to help this cult in the story steal the Cross of Order, and then your self-insert gets him to change his mind and remember to worship All-Wise as the ‘benevolent’ god that he is.”

“But Roland, All-Wise is benevolent.”

“Are you sure about that?” Roland asked snidely.

“Yes! He loves us. He’s helped me countless times with my writing and He says that it’s good!”

“Danica…” Roland began, “you do realize that All-Wise is a liar, right?”

Danica gasped.

“Roland, that’s blasphemy!”

“Is it? Haven’t you ever experimented with criticizing All-Wise? He doesn’t care what you say about Him.”

“No! I love All-Wise too much to ever criticize Him.”

“Well, I do all the time. Elysium may be Heaven, but I find it personally insulting that All-Wise hides or outright lies about the history of our world.”

Danica became queasy over the direction this conversation had taken and mustered out, “Don’t you appreciate the things All-Wise has done for everybody?”

Roland shook his head out of exasperation and said, “Anyway, let’s move on. I’ve asked him myself, but I would really like to know what your relationship with my son, Gavin, is?”

“What about it?”

“How deep does it go?”

Danica sighed and said, “He’s my best friend. Why do you ask?”

“Because, throughout your novels you keep teasing about a possible sexual relationship starting between Daenerys and the character based off of him, Galendorf.”

“I don’t mean anything by it. I know Gavin doesn’t like me…”

“Well, it makes me groan because that wish-fulfillment aspect of your writing is painfully obvious to me. I can’t imagine how he feels about it, but I’m certain he must be annoyed since he’s never admitted to me or Harriet that he has those types of feelings for you.

“Anyway, back to the writing. Although I’m glad that your writing is, for the most part, grammatically correct, your prose also needs a lot of help. You have a weak narrative voice and you have a bad habit of telling instead of showing. I recommend you get All-Wise to help with that since I really don’t want to have to go over every sentence to clean up it up.”

“I don’t understand, Roland; does this mean you don’t want to help me edit this time?”

“Honestly: no, I don’t. I have a limited amount of time over the course of my life, and I really don’t want to assist in taking your bad writing and helping improve it anymore than I already have.”

“Bad? Are you saying my writing is just that bad?”

“Yes.”
At this point, Danica had started to shake and could feel tears begin to well in her eyes. She next asked, “Just how bad do you think it is? Do you think it’s trash?”

Roland looked uncomfortable and broke eye contact with Danica. He said, “I didn’t say that, I just said-”

“DO YOU THINK MY WRITING IS TRASH?!”

Roland closed his eyes and said one soul-crushing syllable. “Yes.”

Danica sprang out of her seat and ran for the exit. On the way out, she heard Roland call, “Wait! Danica!”

Danica got to the door and yelled, “All-Wise, take me home!”

“Yes, Danica,” replied All-Wise.

The door opened and Danica rushed out of the pod. As she ran down the corridor to her pod, her vision became obstructed from her tears. Danica’s usual cheerfulness and joy was replaced with despair and anguish. No one had ever criticized her writing as scathingly as Roland had just done. She didn’t know what she would do next, but she knew that whatever she chose to do she didn’t want to be sober for it.

When Danica got to her pod, she rushed to the refrigerator and grabbed a cooler to drink.

“Danica, about what Roland said, I-”

“Shut up, All-Wise! You lied to me! You said my writing is good!”

“It is good.”
“No it isn’t! Roland reads lots of stories and said it’s trash!”

“Roland has different tastes than you. I was being honest when I said-”

“Leave me alone, All-Wise! I don’t want to talk to you!”
“Danica…”

At this point, Danica began to down the sweet alcoholic cooler. Once again, All-Wise let His omnipresence be known and said, “Danica, you should not drink when you are sad and by yourself. You should-”

“No! Shut up and play a symphony!”

“Which one?”

“I don’t care!”

The last symphony Danica had listened to started to play and All-Wise stopped trying to placate Danica as she continued to drink and cry. One after another, she downed the plexiglass bottles of coolers until she had become exceptionally drunk. She considered lying down and sleeping, but she instead looked at her laptop and knew what she had to do.

Through her tears, she navigated her laptop to her work-in-progress, Daenerys’s Adventures in the Theocracy of Kallerrel. She then went to the last page when the heroes are facing down the Chaos Demon. From here, she began to furiously type a conclusion:

And so Daenerys and her party stared down the fearsome Chaos Demon.

“Dani!” yelled Galendorf, “Use the Cross of Order to kill it once and for all!”

Daenerys bravely marched up to the Chaos Demon and rose the Cross of Order high over her head.

“Die, demon!”

However, the Chaos Demon used one of its tentacles to effortlessly smack the Cross of Order out of her grip. It flew several meters away and the gold and pearl relic shattered into many pieces.

“Nooooo!”

Then, one of the Chaos Demon’s tentacles latched onto Daenerys’s waist and pulled her into its jaw. All of her
companions yelled and screamed helplessly as the Chaos Demon began to bite and chew on Daenerys’s flesh. She screamed in pain and died.

THE END

Once satisfied that what she had just written was grammatically correct, Danica began the process of publishing it to the Library. This was a fitting end to both her trashy self-insert and her hobby of writing trashy novels.

As Danica started to work on publishing it, All-Wise said, “Danica, I do not think this is in a good enough state to publish.”

“Do it anyway! Put a disclaimer on it saying it’s trash!”

“Danica…”

Once she uploaded her novel to the Library, Danica closed the word processor and shut down her laptop. She then lay down on her bed and continued to cry until she could pass out.

My writing is trash… and so am I...