Daystar Falls

Only when the stars fall in daylight does no one witness it.

Why?

Because you can't see stars during the day.

P.S. The outline is just taking shape, but the blurb and point of view aren't set, and I haven't even decided on the CP yet. I just suddenly felt I had to write this book, so I'm posting it to keep myself accountable.

Written on 2020.7.6.

Countless people believe that theater has declined in this era.

Along with theater's child, film, it is barely surviving under the impact of society's sweeping digitization.

In truth, the opposite is happening.

The dramatic arts, built around fictional stories, are flourishing in every bright corner, more prosperous than ever.

No era has ever thrown open the gates of life like this one, letting theater seep into every crack of our lives.

The line between reality and fiction is being broken down.

And we have joined forces to rebel against the virtual world.

We tear apart love's illusion of nothingness. We mock the dream of a digital utopia. We hate the eternal daylight manufactured by industry. We seek to fight the colossal cities that never stop running...

We betray dreams! We trample dreams! We destroy dreams!

We strip away the era's outer shell, exposing reality at its emptiest, palest, gauntest, and most broken.

In this world, where the line between truth and illusion grows ever blurrier...

We are the disproof of love and light.

X Theater Association Membership Manifesto

About Shen Zhouxing:

"You can't see stars during the day. In this illusory world of seemingly eternal light, no one can see me."

When the court verdict came down,

cameras swarmed him.

His father died in daylight beneath the cover of night.

When the theater's red curtain fell,

his mother stared with crazed eyes,

her breathing stopped

as she gazed at the sun beyond the dome.

Years later,

he died after calling for help seventeen times, unseen.

The vast, empty city buried him.

When new life began,

he opened his eyes

and saw again the last shaft of daylight before his death.

Raising his bloodied hand, he said:

"I have come here

to take my revenge on you."

About Sheng Yu:

That year, he stood tall onstage, stars shining in his eyes and a confident, radiant smile on his face, making a vow to the audience below:

"Light exists if you believe in it, and doesn't if you don't!"

"And we are the light!"

"You can always believe in me!"

That year, there were still tears in his eyes.

Beside him were friends who trusted him completely.

Ahead of him lay grand dreams and a brilliant future.

At his feet, glow sticks formed an ocean of stars.

In his heart, love still burned, hot and fierce.

About their first meeting:

When Shen Zhouxing first met him, he said:

"I'm so glad to finally meet you, Mr. Sheng Yu. You are the first character I've ever played, and one of my favorites. I'll always be grateful to you. You brought about the most important turning point in my life. You were the one who brought me back to the stage."

At the time, Sheng Yu wanted to remind him: I'm a living, real person, not some character.

But for some reason, perhaps because of a strange, gentle fondness that had welled up in his heart for no apparent reason, when he looked down and saw his slightly excited, curious expression, and the undisguised affection and even attachment in his eyes... he couldn't bring himself to shatter his fantasy. He only said:

"I'm glad to meet you too."

It was a long time before Sheng Yu understood that, to him, theater and acting were not so much the only ways he could understand and connect with the world as the very things that made up his world.

Only someone as stubborn as Shen Zhouxing would make such a proud, unyielding declaration to him: "Sheng Yu, I never lie. But among all the actors in this world, so far, I alone can portray you."

Revised on 2021.12.19. The CP is Sheng Yu (gong) x Shen Zhouxing (shou), but I haven't decided whose point of view to write from yet. Their individual scenes will actually take up about the same amount of space, ovo.

Theme: Anti-utopian, and against anti-utopianism