May 07, 2025
Hey guys. Thanks for reading!
So, this story, "Nature of Humans" that you just read, is what I put together for the contest. I poured a lot of ideas into it, and I think it’s got a really strong heart. But if I have to be totally honest, this feels more like a "one shot" story, even though it has 50 ish episodes. I was genuinely thinking of fleshing the story out even more and getting it to a better structure, like more depth of the main character, the pacing of it, the initial intelligence he would use on certain areas.
It was going to be more "earned", but unfortunately I couldn't do certain things in time and rushed it (Since I started writing my story a month or so ago and could barely publish it here with changing a lot of things)
You know how in those shows you love, you know the ones where everything feels interconnected, and little details early on pay off in huge ways later? That's what I was aiming for, but reduced it A LOT. Every location, every character, every weird thing Zen encounters, it's all connected to the same root problem, the same messed-up history. And you'd see exactly how as Zen figures it out. But in this "introduction" version of my story, which I am going to be honest it can be better, is like a "glimpse". It is more like a "presentation", and wanted to make that clear.
In a longer story, you'd really get inside his head. You'd see the effort it takes for him to be that calm, how he uses that "emotional digestion" thing we talked about – not just something he does, but a skill he learned, maybe from Icor, that helps him deal with the really messed-up parts of the forest without shutting down. About complex and morally grey things about the forest's "captured soul" seeking "revenge" or some type of "justice" while Zen going through these and not justifying it but trying to understand. You'd see his struggles, his quiet moments, the cost of that memory sacrifice making him colder (His sacrifice to the soul of the children actually served a purpose in the story for Zen to be colder and much more calculated later on, on the more morally ambigious parts of the forest. But it served only to understand in this version), but also much more clear, ready to face the really tough stuff like the "Abused" Woman's story with that cold compassion (The hill of the "Weeping Woman" is actually really complex and a really mature theme. I was going to include her agony of, you know what kind of act someone can do to a woman, and would go through with that idea in a mature way to showcase how can humans forget such important traumas). And those little habits of Zen, like his notebook or maybe a plant he keeps? They'd be sprinkled throughout, showing those glimpses of the human guy underneath the analytical surface.
And the forest itself – the Warden's Grove, the Sunken Fields, the Hill of Lingering Screams, the Labyrinth of Broken Logic, the Archive, the Zone of Questioning, and the Heart – they're all reflections of human pain and messed-up ideas made real (Reflections of the human subconcious that would actually be revealed with much more depth and much more mystery, making the story feel more of a "earned process" and more fun. (But my timing made the story short and I rushed it a little :/). The Warden wouldn't just be a boss fight; she'd be a tragic figure (Which her body made of papers serve as a duality of being a guard first, then being a prisoner to the forest but more messed up with the fact that the people that gave her duty, left her to be rot in this forest after the "soul merge" accident and now she had found her own sense of "protecting", so she was in the illusion of thinking she was protecting souls, but she was actually more chained to the forest, than the people that did this to her), her form made of paper propaganda showing her warped duty. You'd see her history, her specific pain, why she protects her area so fiercely. The Fields with the spikes and the children? That's the visual of innocent hope twisted by fear and the idea of taking (Like the outsiders trying to harvest with greed would be pushed out with the "reactive" mechanism of the forest, giving even more hint to what is going on). The Hill with the bones? That's raw trauma literally embedded in the landscape, screaming. The Labyrinth? Pure, beautiful, terrifying illogical thought made real, like a broken mirror reflecting crazy ideas.
And the history. The original "Soul Merge" – how those first people tried to do something good, but it all went wrong because of their own hang-ups, their "dissonance," getting amplified? You'd see more about that. And the "missing age" after the disaster (Icor's efforts, how the "soul merge" had been keep as a secret, smaller hints of the nature responding to young children and their kind acts, more hints about how "reactive" it is like a "one big nerve", where people like the "Whisperers" (liers and deceivers of public) actively hid the truth because they thought it was too dangerous, creating all those environmental lies Zen has to navigate? You'd see exactly how they did it, their twisted reasons, and the fight that people like Icor and that group of truth-seekers put up to save history. You'd see Icor's struggle with the Labyrinth, his specific failure point, and understand exactly why Zen's different approach worked. Like how his "emotional digestion" works. Not because that Icor was a bad person, a weak person or a unintelligent person, but more of an "incomplete" one. The story, which I had planned to write but couldn't properly, included slowly revealing the fact that Icor had more "heart" to what he was reacting to, and with what he had known in his own era (with little to no information about what truly happened to the forest), he would have been someone that showed "humanity" and give the biggest hint to Zen about the nature's "human side". If I could write, the revelation of Icor reacting more sentimental to the forest, wouldn't have been a weakness, but a true corner stone of an information for Zen, that like many other events in the forest, he has to understand the truth behind Icor's actions, and how they are needed, but how much he has to be "above" it. Like you know how your mom or dad is right about something, or your brother/sister is right about something, but you have to do something better that is away from sentimentality? It is like that. It is knowing the importance, and still acting on it, but while knowing its importance and being more "above emotion".
Every character Zen meets, even the ones who are just echoes or manifestations – they have a story, a piece of the puzzle. The "Abused" Woman's story (Which I wrote in the story, but was going to be more "morally digestive" situation), where the audience would have to question if you could forgive a world where a woman was abused to death and was left in silence to die, but now her wrath wants the very world burnt to the ground, with many innocent souls that live just like her and didn't yet found their justice? The story was going to touch on really mature themes like that. Or the Children in the fields, the Whisperers, the truth-seekers, the leader with the smooth river stone – they're all part of this huge, sad, complicated history that Zen is piecing together. And the challenge for Zen isn't just surviving; it's understanding, processing all that pain and confusion, and figuring out what to do with the truth.
That is why I named the story "Nature of humans", because the antagonist isn't the nature, but "nature" of "humans".
This contest entry is the foundation. But as you can see, many can see, I have fumbled on my repetition and couldn't flesh out many things about my story ideas.
I just hope that, at least, many of you give a chance to my story, and tell me what you think.
Have an amazing day and take care.
