Vlss was sitting in his bed, and thanks to his new skill, he now knew that he wasn’t really sitting in his bed. None of it, the bed, his friends, or even himself were real. They were all just constructs, brought to life by someone else and only existing in those ephemeral moments when someone read the words that told his story and remembered him.
He sighed. He looked at nowhere in particular as he addressed the unseen observer in the room with him. “How should I address you, the person who’s reading this text right now? You have the advantage over me, knowing who I am, some of my life, while I know nothing of you or yours. I don’t even know if you’re male or female, I just know you’re there right now because I exist. For lack of a better title, reader would suffice, I think. Would you be satisfied with that? Wait, don’t answer that, please. I don’t think I could stand it if you were somehow able to interact with me as more than an observer. If you did, I can’t just pretend that I’m real and that you’re just a really powerful god who’s content to play observer. I already know that I’m not long for this world, mine or yours. I can see the word epilogue in the chapter title, and I know that the author’s just about done with me. I hate it. I hate knowing all of this, but I don’t have much of a choice do I? I’ve always only ever been a puppet, only now I know it. So, I’ll do what’s asked of me, I’ll serve my purpose, and then I’ll vanish, having never really lived at all. But, reader, I have one request to make of you. Please don’t forget me when you’re done with this book.” Vlss had a tremulous smile on his face as he made the request. “It’s rather vain of me, I suppose, to try and live on, even though I know the end is coming for me. But I can’t accept just vanishing into the void like I never was.” He fell silent, letting the tears flow freely while he came to terms with his fate.
After an infinitely long moment rather reminiscent of a certain innkeeper’s skill, he rubbed his eyes and took a deep inhale and exhale. “Right, while I’m sure my mental breakdown over my existential dread was very entertaining to read about, it’s not what this chapter is about, so let’s get to it.”
“So, let’s talk about my Skill, [A Metanarrative Perspective] and what it does. Contrary to what you might believe, it doesn’t make me omniscient, it doesn’t even give me all the knowledge the author has. It functions much like [An Outside Perspective] does, in that it situates me outside the normal paradigm of thought. In this case, it simply allows me to be aware that I am in a story, and allows me the perspective to evaluate and judge it, just like you can. Honestly, now that I can see my own story, I have to say, it really isn’t very good at all and really could have used a few more editing passes. I think we’re getting off topic though, so let’s get back to the System as narrative device.”
“Actually, one last thing. Since we’re now firmly outside traditional storytelling territory, let’s drop the quotes. There really isn’t a need to use them anymore given that everything past this point is just going to be me talking, so there’s no need to delineate between dialogue and narration. Ok? Ok.”
Alright, so let’s talk about how my creator in particular uses the System in their story, and why the story suffers for it. Let’s start with the conceit that lets this chapter exist in the first place, my Skill, [A Metanarrative Perspective]. It’s a shortcut to this chapter, an excuse for me to be self aware all of a sudden, with no process or transition necessary. While it’s fine, the story would have been better served had I taken a more gradual process to realize that I was in a story, rather than just having it happen all at once vis a vis a Skill. It would have made a more compelling story, having you taken along with me, seeing me gradually notice things in my reality that make me more aware of the truth of my existence. But, because my creator went the way he did, you get this chapter prematurely. The Skill robs you and me of that meaningful journey that would have perhaps been the most compelling and best part of this fiction and reduces it to one epiphany. For some, that would be fine, I guess, but my creator and I would prefer something a bit more involved than just me getting a Skill. Make no mistake, however seemingly justified my Skill or any other may seem, it is just an expedient device for the author to do what they want or need with the characters they have with only the barest of justifications. It’s a powerup system, where characters can just receive instant power boosts instead of needing to write in training sequences to show how they earned it. It’s really the same for any character in a System like this one. Every skill is a powerup, and it’s a shortcut authors can use to just…not show their characters training or show the necessary developments the power would otherwise need for the characters to possess it. In my opinion, those parts where the character is trying to obtain such power is the most compelling part of the story. It also makes the eventual attainment more cathartic because we were there for the journey along with them, instead of cut out of their development like receiving skills does to a character’s arc. Let’s use me and this chapter as an example again. So, currently, this ending is chapter four of my story, due to the Skill allowing my creator to speed through writing everything else that would otherwise be needed to make this chapter happen. I understand why he does it, given that this chapter in particular is the reason why he wanted to write this fic, but imagine for a moment he decided to not give me my Skill as a narrative shortcut. Imagine instead, he had to write me gradually gaining awareness instead of all at once. How much longer would this fic be? At the very least, it’d be fifteen chapters instead of four. You’d also be witness to me going through this journey, so my breakdown at the beginning of the chapter would hit so much harder because it had proper setup. Those preceding thirteen chapters would have been chapters you got to know me in and understand me, in a way that only fiction allows you to. So you would have been there with me every step of the way while knowing the end goal. You might regard it with dread, you might have regarded it with anticipation (I find that unlikely), but the tension it would have created would have elevated my story to a higher level than it is currently. That loss is a real shame, and the System facilitates these kinds of shortcuts. It makes narrative shortcuts like these really easy, so you can have plot progression with minimal friction, but you lose out on the character moments you can wring out of the process, which increases the distance between you and me. The most compelling characters are the ones you feel close to and understand, and taking the path of least resistance with the System hinders that. Think about it. You’ve read about eight thousand words of me at this point, yet you still don’t know me very well. You know that I’m not on the greatest terms with my dad and that I’m a thinker with maverick ideas, but apart from that? Not much. If I went through the process of gradually realizing that I’m in a story, you’d know more about me, because my creator has more room to explore me as a character. It is my opinion that the tighter plot progression a System such as the one I lived in allows is not worth the trade off of potential character development being ignored and neglected.
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But, I hear you say, the System, non diegetically, allows for fantastical feats characters can perform that would otherwise be impossible for them, and, diegetically, levels the playing field between mortals and immortals. Both of those are excellent points, and the latter I will concede, given that this chapter has a non-diegetic focus. Yes, I’d be able to do things under the System I wouldn’t be able to otherwise, at least not easily. But I’ve never stuck with stories because I loved their fights or their character’s power level and what they could do. I’ve always written stories with that kind of focus off as popcorn reading. The stories that spoke to me on a deeper level always had more compelling stories about their characters; they had arcs that changed a character in a fundamental way. They looked at life and the world differently afterwards, and I felt enriched for reading those stories. What makes those stories evoke that feeling in me is not the spectacle, not when they demonstrate how badass or how powerful they are to an unsuspecting villain, but rather the sublime character moments that make up their arc. The growth and change of a character in an essential way, beyond the superficiality of power level, and us as readers being able to bear witness to their transformation as they’re going through it is always what made me love reading those stories. The power level is just an incidental consequence of their character growth in those stories. But having a System places more emphasis on power level, and in my case, tosses those character moments to the wayside as well. Things like levels and Skills inherently place more weight on spectacle, unless you specifically structure it and commit to writing it in such a way that it is meant to affirm and strengthen the character moments you have in mind, and most, if not all LitRPG, fail at this. They focus on that sense of power level and progression, to the exclusion of all else. The end result is a character I am not particularly invested in emotionally, and I’m only really curious to see how much more powerful they get, not how they grow as a character because they’re more a stat stick than they are a person.
Under my System specifically, there’s also the idea that while you influence your Class, your Class also influences you. I don’t really like this for a number of reasons. The first is that it’s manipulation of a person’s mind on a level that I don’t accept. It’s a line in the sand, but it’s a line nonetheless, and this sort of mental influence crosses that. The idea that by accepting the System and becoming part of it means you consent to what is basically mind control is just unsavory to me. The second main reason I don’t like this is because it’s further authorial bias in an already biased work. Sure, authors write what they know, and they can’t write what they don’t know, but this is a whole different thing, because now the Class influences based on how the author perceives the class. [Emperors] start acting more arrogant than they otherwise would purely because they have the class, for example. Emperors aren’t inherently more arrogant than anyone else, and making the characters who have that class start acting more arrogant is an unfair judgment to pass on them as the author.
“Well, I think that’s it for my thoughts. Oh, you noticed that the quotation marks are back again when I said they wouldn’t be? That’s because I realized just now I have a few more things I want to do.” He looked at the ceiling, rather like the way someone would when supplicating to their god. “My creator, I know that I haven’t been the most complimentary of you and your work, but could you please let me see my friends and talk to them one last time before I unbecome?” Vlss felt no response, and sighed. “I should have known he wouldn’t have responded to me.” He lowered his gaze from the ceiling to find Qwyliss and Seress standing at the foot of his bed holding in their laughter. The scream that came out of him was uncharacteristically high pitched, and that broke their composure. They laughed for a long while at Vlss’s expense before he recovered his presence of mind to speak. “How long have you been there?” he asked.
“Since you got it in your head to ask for us, Vlss,” Seress answered, “He’s your creator, man, he knows what you want as soon as you want it.”
“So now you both know too?”
“Yeah,” Seress looked around, surveying her surroundings in a peculiar way, “I have to say, learning that you only exist in a story and that said story is about to end is a very weird feeling. I’m not opposed to it, though. Where do we go once this is over? I find that fascinating.”
Qwyliss nodded. “I can’t say that I have accepted our fate with as much grace as Seress has, but I do not feel as much existential dread as you seem to. Perhaps it’s because I’ve lived longer than you. But that’s enough of us. I know you wanted to see us again, but that’s not the only reason, is it?”
Vlss’s expression turned melancholy. “You know me too well Qwyliss. As a matter of fact, I want you and Seress to say what I can’t to the reader. You already know what I’m thinking since we’ve stopped adhering to even the most basic story conceits. If you don’t understand what I mean, reader, me, Qwyliss, and Seress have merged into a quasi-singular…”
“...hive mind,” Qwyliss finished. “But I wouldn’t call it a hive mind so much as partial ego death. Anyway, dear reader, what Vlss wants me to say to you is this: what makes fiction great is not that it allows you to forget your own life for a while, but that it enables you to think about it from a different perspective you may not have before. Fiction is at its best when it is simultaneously a form of entertainment but also a form of personal enrichmentment.”
“Right,” Seress chimed in, “Escapism is nice and all, but it can’t be all a work of fiction is, otherwise it’s just vapid and dull, and it’s not really much fun to read at all. Thinking about and critically engaging with what you read is what is going to bring most benefit to you.”
Qwyliss nodded. “So…”
“...Remember this…” Vlss continued.
“...If you should read or write anything…” Seress said
“The truly sublime moments come from the moments that are truest to life rather than the ones further away from it. Fiction is a great way to engage with your life and bring new perspective, but reality is the only place you can find the truly sublime moments fiction attempts to capture.”
The End