Since the beginning of this event all the way back in August of 2019 (a whole seven months ago), Simulacrum has been my pet project where I collect a bunch of talented, dedicated writers on this site and let them all create a story together. The process behind this was simple: only the first writer would be given a prompt, after which subsequent writers would have nothing to base their story on except the story chapters that came before them. Now, looking back at the whole process, I can say that it's been an amazing journey and well worth the time and effort, a sentiment that I'm sure all of the writers involved also share. Before I share the completed product with everyone, I'd like to begin with a recap of the event:

The original prompt for this story was simple: write a story about simulacrum. The difficult part of this prompt was its interpretation. To me, simulacrum is rooted in Platonic thought, namely the idea that there is some imagined perfect reality that is invisible to people. From this reality, we construct two different types of images, or "fake" realities: a faithful representation, which mimics the perfect reality exactly, and what would come to be the simulacrum, which distorts the truth in order to appear correct to viewers. Fast forward a couple thousand years to Jean Baudrillard, who refined the definition of simulacrum to refer not to a representation of something real, but rather being self-referential, hyperreal. Instead of being a copy of an original, the simulacrum is a copy which has no original, and thus stands in the place of its own original.

With this in mind, ziggy like stardust began with a rousing submission that set the ball rolling for everything to come. I applaud the creativity and skill of all the writers in this event, especially considering that these individuals knew they were bound by a prompt but had no idea what that prompt was. Without further ado, I'd like to congratulate every involved in this:


ziggy like stardust
Kwanatla
Lemilas
lyliaa
ArcaneKnight
Bleyd
morningblues
-Rae- deactivated
Chiaroscuro
DinowCookie


You can find the full story at this link, and you can find the individual parts in this collection. Please support all of the talented participants in this event, and if you would like to participate in an event like this in the future, please contact me. For now, happy writing and see you in the next one!