Part One: The History of Raethyn So Far

On the morning of April 27th, 2019, a short-film anthology known as Intellect had unfortunate news to bring to those who kept up with its updates since its birth in September of the previous year. Many had looked forward to the project, but the creator of the work, Ryden ‘Rae’ Lovejoy, had seen its filming process as one far too hectic to keep in mind. Beyond the dismay of the cancellation of the project, however, the creator stated that he would instead translate the story to a new medium: literature. Unaware of the impact to this statement, Raethyn established a hidden skill when publishing a collection of prologues to stories that have been shelved in his imagination since he began storytelling in 2017. 

While having a plethora of titles to share with others who read his stories, Rae had announced three new projects to be released online following January 2nd of 2020. The first had been the reveal of a fan-fiction story for Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, but the prologue was the first and last thing to be written for the story after Raethyn acknowledged Nintendo’s opinion on copyright issues and knew it would do more harm than good. The second came to be what everyone had looked forward to: the very first glimpse at the literature adaptation of Intellect. Many were excited to see the story in full view and even received a few new chapters since then, but Intellect has been sunk to silence since its latest announcement over nearly two years ago. The last announcement, however, had been a surprising turn to Raethyn’s kind of writing. Eight distinct pieces of poetry were released as part of an anthology series that would be titled ‘Nihilist’. 

At first, not much was spoken about the poetry. They blended in with the other prologues as an ordinary project that Raethyn had released as he experimented with literature and analyzed the response to the people who read them. It wasn’t until a few months later when Raethyn announced the first true volume to the anthology, titled Nihilist: Fracture, when interest in the anthology began to rise. The first announcement to the volume was subtle. A ten-second video of a tide of water with a black-and-white filter over it was all anyone had gotten from the first tease at the volume with its release date of May 1st, 2020. The following week, however, details expanded as Raethyn revealed the story behind the volume.

When Fracture was released, people had responded with praise to the volume. While the prologues released in January had started Raethyn's literature career neatly with a few hundred views at most, Fracture had caught just over one thousand by the end of its first 24 hours online. The reason the volume had gained such an acclaimed response was likely in the differences it was written when comparing it to normal poetry. The plot of Fracture explored an in-depth, emotional relationship between two sisters that were given special abilities (called 'celestials' in the story, and named after constellations). The main protagonist, Aries, had the ability of foresight, able to use what she calls 'the tree of time' to find 'branches' (outcomes) of every possible future. Her sister, Libra, has the ability to shapeshift and change her physical form to adapt to any threatening situation. As the two reunite after a harsh war between an enemy celestial and the human race, Aries shares her thoughts of her moments with her sister in the form of poetry and her fear for when her sister departs once again. The work included narrative pieces, but was majoritively a group of poetry that told the unfolding events story rather than sharing just an equal theme. 

The following summer for Raethyn saw the first novella to be released under the alias. The story was announced as a sci-fi action thriller known as Kyanite and released on July 4th, 2020, which had been an influence in the plot of the story as it took place during the same day. Following the countdown to fireworks in the celebrations to Independence Day, Kyanite was a suicide awareness story that explored an abusive relationship and the victim's search for their own independence. 

At first, the novella had received excellent reviews from fans of Raethyn and earned high ratings from various online websites where it was published. However, it wasn't until August when Raethyn had seen an incredible, unexpected growth in numbers after publishing his works to a new website known as Webnovel. Within the first week of publishing to this new platform, Raethyn had found that Nihilist: Fracture had gone viral, rising from one thousand to 500,000 over the following month. In September, Kyanite had gathered even more, breaking one of Raethyn's dreams into a reality at one million views. 

When speaking on the achievement, Raethyn claimed he had ideas of how it was accomplished. Webnovel is a Chinese-originated website that translates Asian stories into English and showcases them in a library to the western side of the world. The website had reached out to Raethyn on several occasions, but he had declined any offer to pay for his works as he learned that his rights from them would be withdrawn. However, he saw the rising group of readers as an opportunity to prove himself against the quality of other stories. With careful marketing through social media and recommendations from other rising authors, Raethyn had established a career with his strengths in writing. He also believes that Kyanite had spiked in exposure when the world had experienced its annual Suicide Awareness Day that took place on September 10th. It had continued to rise from the beginning of the month and had amassed one million reads the day after the holiday, on September 11th, 2020.

It hadn’t stopped there for Raethyn, however, as he had teased a completely new project earlier that summer: a sequel to the acclaimed first volume of Nihilist. The second volume followed a new story with a new character, but shared the same concepts and themes as the last. The new volume told the story of Faeri, a young anarchist who wished to eliminate the company (known as Delta) that created the celestials we knew from the last volume. Amidst the ambush to the center of this opponent, Faeri learns of the true purpose for the death of Aries’ sister and the main focus for how humanity will prevail in times of nihilism with ethereal slaves called celestials. Faeri meets Aries near the end of the second volume and the two volumes, seemingly different and in completely opposite directions, click together like puzzle pieces to a much greater story. The rise of Raethyn continued one week after the first million was reached. Nihilist: Legion came next and dominated those numbers over the rest of September, surpassing one and a half million after two short weeks. Raethyn’s month sitting in pure shock had continued.

Since then, however, Raethyn has fallen under the radar since his stories went viral in 2020. He had given out a new novella earlier this year, titled Nomad, but claimed that it was ‘just something to hold the crowd over until my next major release’. Nearly reaching the end of 2021, little has been told of what that new release could be and how soon it would be before anyone could catch a glimpse of it. However, following the teases from his website of his own alias and a few tweets from his Twitter account, Raethyn is ready to share the details of his latest work, claiming that it will be ‘one of the greatest things he has ever written’.

Unsurprisingly, the comments of the many fans demanding the next installment of the series and the popularity of his most ambitious story has brought him to shed a spotlight over his poem anthology of two volumes. Raethyn has stated that Nihilist will now have eighteen more. Read below for Part Two to learn more about the future of Raethyn.

Part Two: An Interview of the Blackleaf Series Author

Nihilist has been a story that has explored themes of sorrow, tragedy, and loss. Over the two volumes that have been released so far, Raethyn has led a narrative about a humanity that has become aware of the incoming annihilation that haunts their existence. To rival the end of time, humanity creates a dozen ethereal slaves that work for a single monarch and guide the human race to a brighter future. These celestials gain abilities beyond human nature and protect the world as they were created, but a war breaks out when one of them defies the monarch. Millions suffer the last war to ever rumble the earth and many of the celestials die in the events of the battle. By the time Nihilist: Fracture occurs, the war has just been put to rest, but only two celestials remain: Aries and her sister. 

Details of the second volume reveal that the original creators of the celestials are trying to birth another, and the main protagonist of Nihilist: Legion plans an ambush against the ritual to put an end to what could be another war. The constant wish for humanity to survive has always been at the heart of Nihilist’s gorgeous poems, but the protagonists of the stories seem to experience the opposite in their personal lives. Aries loses her sister at the end of the first volume, and Faeri speaks to her father’s grave in the second. While saving the world from another brutal nightmare, they carry the burdens of loss under their own shoulders. Raethyn claims he plans to keep both of these stories and continue their journeys, but wishes to inform readers that these volumes are only small doses to a much greater plot. In order to understand more about this plot, several questions have been asked to the author in hopes of gathering more details about this obscured, expanded tale of Nihilist. 

When you tell others that this story will be ‘expanded’, how much do you really mean?

I mean the story of Nihilist that you know is only a sliver to something that will be much bigger. The story will be told in multiple forms of literature and each form will contain its own perspective to the same issue: the end of a universe. The story will follow a variety of characters with their own issues and stories, just like Aries and Faeri, but will all eventually come together in the end to stop a greater threat that puts them all in danger. I have a total of twenty volumes planned with an intermission story in between. Of course, all of these stories will be fleshed out and detailed, so hopefully readers won’t be too confused by all of it. It worries me that the story may be too large to soak in, because when I get asked “what is Nihilist?”, I start choking over my words trying to think of an explanation. There’s just too much for me to go into little details, and frankly, I don’t know where to start. 

Can you describe Nihilist to new viewers and readers that aren’t familiar with the volumes already published online?

Going back to the “What is Nihilist?” issue, but I’ll do my best. Nihilist is an anthology that clashes poetry and prose together. The plot tells the events that lead to the end of the world through a group of protagonists that attempt to halt the demise of all that lives. The story asks philosophical questions like the meaning of life and searches for unknown answers to what lies beyond death. A very hectic, deep topic for an eighteen year old author to be talking about, however I feel that it’s important and meaningful for these things to be explored in order to better enjoy life as a whole.

You stated on Twitter that you have no plans to continue publishing works for free through online websites and wish to stay strictly on your own website to sell your works for money. Will this still be implemented for Nihilist?

Ah, unfortunately, I am still debating the answer to this question. My current focus is to sell the work in pieces until the whole story is completed. I’ve realized by this point that it’s very difficult for me to continue working on these projects without trying to earn some money from it. As for Nihilist, each volume is going to have about three times the amount of new literature in it as the previous installments did. For example, for Fracture, the original had forty-five poems and that was it. To fit Fracture in the story of Nihilist, it’s going to have a narrative chapter before it and a few smaller excerpts after that to fluently tell the bigger story before showing the smaller one. I call these versions ‘chapters’ rather than ‘volumes’, and I’d like to sell these chapters for about two dollars through my website. I’ve also realized that exposure is always welcome and some people may not have the money to spare to read these works, and I’m worried that the volumes alone may not show the story correctly as the chapters will. There is a slim chance I’ll continue giving away the volumes for free, but I’m hoping everyone will be happy to chip in a small couple of dollars each month to read the story. I’ll also be releasing the paperback version once it is complete for the price of a normal book. 

Nihilist was also said to be told as a series of books rather than just one collection. What do you have planned?

Nihilist is actually only one half to a full circle. I have two anthologies planned with ten volumes to each, as well as a story titled ‘Blackleaf’ that will be an intermission between the two. Nihilist will be a tale that will tell the end of a universe and its prequel, Fatalist, will be a tale that tells the very beginning of one. Blackleaf will be a story in between the two that calls to both, but will take place after the events of Nihilist. Both Nihilist and Fatalist will have stories that are in sync with one another, but are polar opposites when it comes to the story. In Nihilist, the main protagonist, Aries, will face an entity that symbolizes nihilism who calls himself Crysis. In Fatalist, Crysis is the protagonist, and Aries, the hero of the first anthology, will have some secrets revealed about herself as the antagonist of the second anthology. I call these two anthologies and its intermission the ‘Blackleaf Series’.

How long is Nihilist / Fatalist planned to be in production and how will the anthology be released?

The anthology has plans currently to release one chapter every two months, but that is the farthest out I could reach it. If anything, that timeline will be greatly shortened, but it all depends on how quickly I can get it written and edited. I want this story to be showcased perfectly, so there won’t be any rushing this one, but I believe the wait will be worth it. 

Nihilist / Fatalist was said to be told in multiple ‘forms’ of literature. What does that mean?

This is the part where I have trouble thinking about how to sell this to the public. However, I do believe that many readers will acknowledge that the collection is an anthology, so they’ll hopefully expect those different forms when telling different tales. In the story, you follow a protagonist who goes about her normal life but reads several books in her downtime. As she reads these books, the reader will get to see them, too. The story following the protagonist will be written as a narrative like any other book, but the stories that she reads are excerpts from a children’s storybook and a journal from her father. After this, the story will transition to forty-five new poems with a new character within them. I fear this is the hardest part of putting this story together because I’d like to capture the very essence of storytelling in all of its forms. I want to show that no matter how a story is written, it may be perfect in every form, just like a normal human being. I consider that books are weighed by the souls of humans, so I want to utilize the fact that this story is being told on ink and paper. Even the characters will battle threats with literature as a weapon. I’m hoping I can transition the different forms together in a way that doesn’t seem off-putting and breaks the flow of the narrative. 

Give your readers as much information about the plot of the Blackleaf Series as you physically can. 

The Blackleaf Series is a story that tells its events through a dozen others, but all relates to a family of royalty. The father of the family is dark, ill, and upset. He wears clothes dipped in the ink of an abyss. He tells his story in grief, blight, and hatred, but truly wishes for the opposite. Nihilist is the story of that father. The mother of the family is reserved, pure, and optimistic. She wears clothes shining in the light of stars. She tells her story in hope, grace, and resilience, but longs for the same to her husband. Fatalist is the story of that mother. The child of the family looks up to both her mother and her father, but finds that both have personal issues that soon grow into a nightmare that tears the kingdom in two. The pause between the two anthologies is spent viewing the child as she connects the two stories together and faces the aftermath of their relationship on her own. The Blackleaf Intermission is the story of that child. Together, the reader will learn of the family and its tragic loss to a kingdom it once ruled. The tale of that kingdom’s fate will be told by those who once inhabited it. 

When can readers expect the first newest volume to the series?

I anticipate the first volume of the series will be released in January of 2022, and I hope everyone can expect a normal release schedule following that first release. I do hope everyone gives this story a chance, even if it is still in the early stages of what it will be. I truly believe that this story will be the epitome of my literary voice and the very essence of what Raethyn was truly meant to be. I want this to be a story that isn’t anything like the rest -- a breath of fresh air for readers who are looking for something new. I thank everyone for all of their gracious support so far in my career. Truly, thank you for everything.