State of the Art / Golden Dawn series by Cloé Anne Sophie Veilleux (sci-fi webfiction, 2024-)

[lb_lee]

Submitted by packbat! Thank you, packbat!

As they began walking away from the market plaza, Kaelyn’s conversation flowed effortlessly. Each time the warrior spoke, she responded with perfect precision—laughing at his jokes, complimenting his bravery, weaving small bits of charm into her words. And as they walked, Ryan could feel her growing confidence, her control tightening over his thoughts.
See how easy this is? Kaelyn’s voice whispered. They all want to help you. All you have to do is ask the right way.
Ryan’s hesitation, that sliver of discomfort, was shrinking. Drowned out by the sheer thrill of success, Kaelyn felt. This was power. Not in the way of brute strength or flashy magic, but in the quiet control of social finesse, in the way people bent toward her without even realising they were being pulled in.

Blurb: In a near-future world where reality often feels like an afterthought, players escape into A Realm Reforged Again—a groundbreaking VR MMORPG offering unparalleled character customization.
Follow Jason, Ryan, Emmy, and Sophie as they navigate personal struggles both in and out of the game. Within the virtual world, they take on new forms: Jason becomes Vaelith, a reluctant but powerful dracan mage; Ryan experiments with power as Kaelyn, a felinae priestess; Emmy creates Elyssia, a sylvani tank embodying who she wishes she could be; and Sophie transforms into Leoric, a towering burrovian ranger seeking freedom from familial and societal expectations.
But when the game's AI Creator-Gods, tasked with ensuring player happiness, begin to meddle with their choices, the players must confront unexpected challenges and questions about autonomy and self-acceptance.
With themes of identity, agency, and transformation, State of the Art sets the stage for an epic journey of self-discovery in a world where fantasy and reality blur.
Why is it worth your time?: Kaelyn's introduction, her relationship with her headmate, and how the two of them navigate their other relationships as they switch are interestingly messy. Part of the setting is the game's ability to implant memories in its players of their character's backstory, and that makes it ambiguous to what extent she existed before Ryan signed up for the game to make a power fantasy RP character - especially because neither headmate was even aware of plurality as a concept before.
Plural/1+ Tags: people: RP characters (should this be classed as a type of fictioneer?); type: switching; creator speaks from experience, voices
Content Warnings: Contain spoilers, see comments. (Also, the author uses AI editing software, in case that's something you care about.)
Accessibility Notes: online (Scribble Hub edition, Royal Road edition), free, screenreadable
Misc. Notes (if any): This series is an extremely slow burn - at the time of writing, two hundred and eighty thousand words in and nearing the end of Book 2, the timeline covers two days in the lives of its four five protagonists. (The series is planned to span five volumes.) Also, the chapters do not have a regular cycle between viewpoints - for example, Ryan and Kaelyn are entirely absent from the first sixteen chapters of Book 2 because they haven't woken up yet - so you can't easily skip through to just their chapters. We like all the characters, but if we didn't, we wouldn't stick it out just to see what happens to this duo.

Comments

Comment Warnings

[lb_lee]

The author lists the following in the preface to the Scribble Hub edition:

Blood and violence,
Break-ups and divorce,
Gender confusion, dysphoria and body discomfort,
Casual, accidental and malicious misgendering,
Nonconsensual bodily transformation and body horror,
Emotional manipulation and power dynamics,
Public and internalised humiliation,
Teasing and bullying,
Transphobia and microaggressions,
Internalised transphobia and anxiety,
Mental health challenges, including alexithymia, anhedonia, dissociation, and depression,
Themes of identity crisis and self-discovery,
Physical and emotional trauma,
Experiences of heightened sensory perception, nausea, vertigo and bodily distress,
Complex family dynamics and strained parental relationships,
Depictions of isolation, emotional starvation and rejection,
Scenes involving vomiting, illness and emotional distress,
Physical discomfort and manipulation of boundaries,
Manipulation, gaslighting,
Dystopian themes, including economic disparity and societal collapse,
Escapism through VR/gaming as a coping mechanism for harsh realities,
Themes of disconnection from physical reality and the consequences of over-reliance on virtual worlds.

(In the book, this list is followed by a second one labeled "Promise of Hope".)

Re: Comment Warnings

[cloe]

Hi! This is I, Cloe Anne Sophie, the author of this webserial.

Oh my! Am I allowed to /dance /joy /panic and /gush about seeing my story on this list?

Also I wanted to clarify that I tagged my story on RoyalRoad as "AI assisted" because I use ProWritingAid instead of human editors. (I read later that the website's ruling is editing software doesn't count as "AI Assisted" in the owner's head, but when I read the different descriptions, I thought it was only fair to tag it, and I'm commited at this point to keep the tag.)

Re: Comment Warnings

[lb_lee]

Sneak: thanks so much for the clarification! I have added a link to your comment so folks will know! It’s cool to see another pluralstories creator on Dreamwidth! :D