I, Cheshir

Hello, I go by Cheshir. Pronounced as Che-Shir, derived from Cheshire as in Cheshire Cat, the cat from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland that was named after the British county named Cheshire. Said cat was characterized by the ear to ear smile it wore at all times on its face, which was relevant to the British county named Cheshire because of the high dairy production and a colloquial phrase that became popular due to this fact. Therefore, the cat dubbed “the Cheshire Cat” has no real name mentioned within Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and yet it is perhaps the most iconic character to have come from that book series.

In this way, I call myself Cheshir so as to become like that cat without a name but an iconic face, and also because the name “Cheshire” was already taken on the first site that I tried to start writing on. Mostly for the latter, actually, I only just came to the former’s realization at this moment on the keyboard.

That’s it! That’s who I am as a person! Write it down!

Do you like the book cover for this work? I made it in Canva — thank you, Canva — in 5 minutes and was also pleased by the results, although it was a bit of an accident while I made it. Can you guess the meaning?

In fact, I’m not good at giving meaning to visuals. I like to draw and paint, but I’m not so fond of symbolism anywhere in anything (not even in writing, can you imagine!), and so the only thought I put into visual arts is the overall feeling and coolness factor. As of now, I’ll admit that I’m not very good at the coolness factor, but I can get an intuitive feeling for what I draw, of which I am proud of.

Anyways, the meaning is this: The visual is a horseshoe crab. That’s a combination of both my zodiacs! How fun. The horse for the Chinese zodiac and Cancer for the Greek zodiac.

I just so happened to find the horseshoe crab graphic cute, so I used it and then realized such.

Isn’t that fun? Was I drawn to perform these things — naming myself Cheshir or using the horseshoe crab — because of an intuitive understanding of what it meant, or simply by coincidence? Did the meaning of these things truly come about in an afterthought, or is it possible that there is something to guide myself in this way?

I think that it may be a coincidence, where there was already meaning in the object and I only decided to accept it in the afterthought. But imagine if it were a bad situation where I found out that these things both had poor imagery! In fact, that still might be the case, but this is the popular solution, and therefore a greater portion of the truth.

Truth is split into parts in my mind. Or is it? I think it is. Actually, I can’t tell.

Anyways, the idea of intuition, coincidence, and truth all somehow coincide. I don’t really want to get into it here, but I’ve always had this thought, you’ll find.

I’m very excited, now that I’ve introduced myself. Alas, I actually had a plan for this first chapter, and I cannot just dive into a random topic as I will in the future. For now, let me introduce the works that I already have planned for publishing exclusively on this site.

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Land of the Sun (LotS) is a journey and a joy to write! It was initially written for a writer’s event, but I didn’t feel that the writing atmosphere of that site was good and decided to fully develop it independently as its own work. The name, cover, and most of the characters have been completely changed so that it is unrecognizable from its predecessor. Not to mention, I’ve deleted all evidence of the predecessor, since I was its original publisher.

I wrote it with inspiration from the Filipino folktales I read as a child and eventually researched today. Because of a lack of information online (although I do plan on going on an in-depth, in person study session in the Philippines soon to the publishing of this chapter), much of the influences are from the Tagalog tribe and Spanish records during the Spanish inquisition. It is clumsy and written in the perspective of myself, a Filipino-American who can read but barely speak Tagalog, but I’ve been writing it as an outlet to dream, what if the Philippines had always been an independent archipelago? What if we refused foreign indoctrination and were able to further develop our culture and society? To begin with, the Filipino people were already well adjusted to the environment and in the midst of entering a higher society, it was just ill-timed to join the global workforce of that era.

But, this is as history developed, and there is no point in regretting it. I’ll write this story, however, to share Filipino brilliance.

Oh, I should mention, that although the general world setting is very much to this sentiment, LotS is a fantasy novel with some over-embellished gore for dramatic effect. It’s characters, setting, and miscellaneous attributes are ultimately imaginative, even if heavily inspired by folktale and historical speculations. Not only does it not completely and accurately reflect the Filipino culture of today, it cannot be used as an accurate retelling of the Philippines or Filipino people of the 19th-Century. Treat this work as an alternate universe entirely.

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Depuis Toujours, translated from French to English as “since always” or “since forever”, is somewhat of a modern adaptation of the classical tale of Cinderella, if you can call it that. It is a modern adaptation in that it uses the concepts around modern terminology that would not have been discussed openly for the time it is set in. I’ll admit, I used a lot of liberties while writing this one, and it can barely be called a historical fiction work for the lack of fact checking and attention to detail, but that is the genre that best describes it, fiction of history. Historical fiction.

If you know the reference of the book cover and title, then that is perhaps all there is to this work. I don’t want to say it explicitly since I would hope to gather a wide audience to experience this work together, as it doesn’t actually include anything controversial, but the deliberate labeling of the subtext would make people uneasy, and thus, it is subtext.

I wanted to explore power, royalty, poverty, public perspective, power imbalances within family archetypes, and such. Using the tale of Cinderella as a springboard for ideas, I came up with a coming-of-age work that is touching and rather vulnerable. Of course, it is also very childish with inexplicable events perceived by a child, much like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (strange that I keep coming back to that book!), but although there are some mentions of the occult that is time-appropriate, it is overall a work of realistic fiction, none of the fantasy that I am usually so fond of.

By the way, for this work and the rest of the works I am to introduce, I am only planning on uploading chapters for them after the site reaches a specific milestone. You see, I am deeply indebted to this site, but I am limited in assisting it, and setting a milestone for these works is just a small thing I can do to help it grow, alongside others. So, I shall.

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Is it a familiar title? Well, depending on when the site reaches 100 active users, I’ll reveal its relevance someday. Oh, also, this cover was made on Canva — thank you, Canva. Canva is very useful, even as a free member (no, this is not sponsored).

The Greater Good (TGG) is a Xianxia novel regarding love, internalizations, and subsequent betrayal. The folly of man being himself, if you will. I’m a huge reader of Xianxia and Xuanhuan novels (not so keen on wuxia for some reason oops), and so it was only natural that I wrote something in that setting. Uh, it was a really heavy whim of mine, I’ll admit. It’s a good thing that I love learning languages.

I am not a good observer nor comprehender of love, so it is quite interesting to have a romance work under my toolbelt. Unfortunately, I have to say that I also wonder if this work counts as a romance, since it is moreso an exploration of what love may be than an actual work under the romance genre. For this reason, I look forward to publishing this work and seeing the public reaction to it (oh, and 100 active users, yes).

The most notable thing about this work, in my opinion, is that when I write it, I am very free to express myself. I don’t have to take notes or check for factuality, I often just write once and edit last as is, no need for much story planning or character studying. This work comes out the most naturally, but in this way it is also the most taxing to write at times, since it greatly depends on my feeling as I write. It is also the easiest for me to burn and write, as in deleting whole chapters or even the entire work on a whim.

Hopefully, this will also include some of the most vivid characters I can manage at this time.

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The Travels of Link (TToL) is just as it sounds like! Inspired by the semi-openworldness of Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, I wrote a lighthearted yet devastating little work depicting Link’s journey across post-calamity Hyrule as a true amnesiac with no direction. Using some samurai principles and exploring a world after war, TToL is ultimately a story about recovery and going back to one’s roots.

For this work, I researched a lot on samurai philosophy and was most heavily inspired by Inazo Nitobe’s Bushido: The Soul of Japan. Similar to (general) Filipino philosophy, (general) Japanese philosophy greatly revolves around coexistence with nature and acting with due respect, especially with themes of Zen Buddhism and artistic creation. It is with these concepts that I wrote something like a character study on Link and expanded it to this work I may now share today.

Of course, as a remix, I must state that the characters, settings, and overall concept of TToL are of the Legend of Zelda franchise, something that I do not own. However, the writing and fruition of character can be described as completely my own work, and should be plausible for publishing under fair use. That is to say, although I use the characters and settings of a popular franchise, the story I have written can only be due to myself. Similar to the fruition of Depuis Toujours and its relationship to Cinderella, except not at all now that I think about it…

I completely made up the settings save for some historical touch-and-gos in Depuis Toujours after all, but for TToL I directly used the settings of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

In anycase, TToL can be enjoyed as a Slice of Life story or with an in-depth reading on the after effects of war, PTSD, and recovery.

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This cover was made on Canva, thank you Canva faojfiojpeafpeawqnidaqwnd—

Returning Home by Chance (RHbC) is a system novel (sort of) that is a full realization of a work I once wrote for a different site and specifically catered to a fanbase. At that time, I just wanted people to read my works, but I didn’t feel safe in publishing, so I made some fanart and got some quick responses there. Writing fanfiction let me have quick exposure and feedback on my work, even if it was “unbecoming” within my physical community to do it; I am very happy to have had a positive experience while doing so.

Now, the setting of the protagonist’s original world is similar to modern sci-fi or superhero themes where there is slightly higher technology in a 21st century world. Every now and then, I’ve had a craving for reading a quick transmigration novel, but none of the ones I’ve read so far could fully scratch my itch, so I decided to write one myself, which is where this work originated. I wanted to explore several different plots and settings in rapid succession that all revolved around one character for simplicity’s sake. In this way, I thought I would be able to write more and upload frequently, but presently I’ve found that writing in such a way does not make the process any easier or harder.

Writing RHbC lets me utilize a lot of my miscellaneous knowledge and also explore careers that I have imagined myself having in a different universe. As of writing this, I’m not too sure about the solidity of the entire story’s background — that is, the importance of KY-8, SWORD, and Pedring’s deceased boss (that’s not a spoiler) — but I do know that Pedring’s story is about acceptance and living with clinical depression (also not a spoiler, not really).

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I have some other one-shots and short stories planned, but these are the serial novels that I plan on posting under short-term notice. These novels have been in production for a little over a year as of now (formal production anyway), and I am very excited to share them. Ay, if only I would write more and faster! I do wish I could come to a time where I could post a chapter for a different story every day, but I’m not at that level by a long shot. I would need more financial security and resources in order to achieve that, which is not an impossible future in my opinion.

Truly, I wish I could just write without a worry. There are times where I wish I were like a deity whose only purpose were to write, like a muse of art or such. I don’t want to eat, I don’t want to sleep, I don’t want to even indulge in anything extravagant; I just wish I could write and learn without need for reprise.

Now, I’ve spent enough time writing this. My plan for this work is to upload a chapter every day of some thoughts, probably more brief than this one. I don’t want to edit much, just share my pure thoughts and elicit conversation or interest in this or that, nothing serious but everything speculative.

Do take care of yourself, stretch, and have some water. I don’t know you, you don’t know me, but I still hope you the best.