Chesed

Chesed was a piece of fiction that stemmed from multiple ideas I had. When I first heard the prompt “Out of Control” the first thing that came to my mind was the loss of identity, autonomy, and independence. I thought to myself “I’m horrified of being forced to be someone or something that I’m not, perhaps I can create a surreal horror experience that will help convey that.” I used Twine to create an HTML-based interactive experience as I have previous knowledge of the program and felt confident in getting work done quickly in it.

The player takes the role of someone suddenly forced from a hivemind, gradually learning what happened to the world. In truth, an angel behind the parasitic infection, Chesed, was subtly influencing the player’s actions to eventually incorporate you back into the hivemind. Chesed was my idea of a guardian that was overly controlling of those they cared about, they are an angel who has gone mad due to a disease and through this has warped their desire to create community while keeping those they care about safe. This is why Chesed is so obsessed with making sure the player re-joins the hivemind, they are terrified of change as change is unfamiliar and can cause loss. They strip control from the player, forcing them to follow a path laid out for them that will eventually lead them back to Chesed. This is also why the story is rather linear, I created an illusion of choice through some optional choices but in truth the player will pretty much always have to confront Chesed at the end of the story, the final choice to reject or accept them being the only choice that has not been controlled by them in the entire story.

Chesed also believes that to change is to lose one’s true self, warning the player that they will lose people they care about by changing, which fits into a neat allegory I wanted to create that fits my own vision of not having control over yourself, which is gender & sexual identity. As a trans girl, I spent a large portion of my life feeling like I was not quite myself, that I needed to put up an act or try to hide that part of me to fit in. This appears in the story through Chesed claiming that to change who you are is an offence to those who loved you and that you will never be able to be happy with others in the collective dream if you continue being independent. They speak multiple times about how “perfect” people are as they are, and change is a dangerous and harmful thing. I wanted this to reflect an unsupportive and overly controlling parent of a child who is LGBTQ, they reject the idea of their child “changing” when in truth they were always this way and just feared showing it. From personal experience, when I came out, I was terrified of my parents not supporting me anymore. The story ends with the player choosing to accept re-joining the hivemind, losing their identity out of concern of being isolated. Or the player rejects the hivemind, understanding that even if they do end up alone from people who liked their false self, they will be much happier being able to be their true independent self.

Overall I’m extremely happy with Chesed, I think I used the prompt in the best way I know how and I hope others enjoy it! 

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