[Prelude] (What I’m Wrestling With)

Empathy is a trait that we often see as a great virtue. It’s up there with selflessness, compassion, and being a well-meaning member of society. Over the last few years, empathy has also become a bit of a cultural and social phenomenon, beginning as a positive trait ascribed to someone who might be virtuous and later ascending to a sarcastic meme often given to someone who is indeed not empathic. In most cases, this cultural meme began as a commentary towards men who struggle to recognize the emotional impact of their actions, or lack thereof.

But empathy is more than just a meme, and more than just some virtuous cultural phenomenon; its core function is a gateway to deeply human expression and experience. However, despite it being both overused and deeply underapplied, I have become skeptical of anyone who uses the term to describe themself or another person, due to the emergence—or awareness—of another phenomenon.

The Selfish Empath is what I’ve been wrestling with lately.

The oxymoronic statement of someone being “selfish” and an “empath” is intentional and fits neatly into the identity of The Cowboy Walking In Moccasins, the main visual of describing this profile.

In the American West, the United States ‘Cowboy’ is generally the exact opposite and an opponent to the Native American tribes (who often wore soft leather shoes called moccasins). The idea here is that we take a person who has a very different lived experience, set of values, and worldviews, and ask them to walk a mile in their counterpart’s shoes.

Recently, I read an article from Clio’s Psyche that piqued my interest in a topic close to this one. The journal discussed pseudo-empathy, calling “[Pseudo-empathy… one of the more disheartening trends of our time” which I thought was illuminating. Pseudo-empathy is a bit different from the Selfish Empath. A pseudo-empath is someone who uses “…a false claim of caring or understanding, usually by someone trying to get something he or she wants.”

This term feels like a cousin to another very popular (and probably overused) psych term, narcissism.

But at this point, I think it’s important to also look at how we define empathy. A simple definition that best explains empathy comes from Ralph R. Greenson (The Technique and Practice of Psychoanalysis I, 1967): “Empathy means to share, to experience the feelings of another human being.” Which, in most cases, is a positive trait to possess and work towards.

And so, we return to the Selfish Empath, a critique of lazily walking a mile in another person’s shoes.

This is someone who is going to go through all of the effort to place themselves in another person's (or a character’s) shoes to experience what they are experiencing. However, they fail to remove their personal lived experience, values, and worldview, and merely swap positions without integrating into the holistic experience of another. Doing this is not world-ending, and could be an earnest effort to understand the life of someone different from their own, but we still fall into the trap of ascribing our own views onto that person.

In our everyday life, this can make us feel what someone else is feeling, but then fail to understand why that person feels that way. On the surface, this might not seem like a big deal, but this can often cause a great rift between relationships and handicap emotional maturity.

Now, this is something that I see in everyday life, but I primarily want to point out this from the perspective of writing fiction. This is mostly because I don’t have a background in psychology, and my expertise is in writing and storycraft.

Example of what this looks like:

Say we are writing a character who is a soldier of some sort and is dealing with a deeply traumatic experience during their service. Also, let’s say that part of their arc is realizing the leader or the country they are serving is waging an unjustified war, and this causes them to abandon their service.

There is a lot with this character that I have not experienced myself. Sure, there are things that I can draw from that’s part of my personal background, which might echo some of these things, but at the end of the day, if I attempt to take my background and put myself in this situation, I may fail at writing a compelling character.

Now, the answer here isn’t that I should go out and join the army just to gain the lived experience for the sake of this character, but what I should do is really try to understand this character and what their values are, despite how different they are from mine. The brotherhood among soldiers, a deep sense of patriotism and purpose, the stigma around trauma, and even the idealization of leadership; all of this will be unique to this character’s experience before and during the course of the story.

The same might go for another character who doesn’t believe in marriage. I myself (who is married, happily) might influence them and their actions because I have not truly placed myself in their shoes.

Closing Thoughts

But what I think is really interesting is how this can affect a writer’s ability to develop a character that is different from themself. It is hard not put one’s own beliefs and values into a character—and sometimes, the character that is being written should carry some of their creator’s. However, it is not so much the values and beliefs that are important, but the reaction and development of that character that will be different, and should be different.

This is not necessarily a call to change a fundamental technique or aspect of storycraft. Mostly, this is something that I want more writers to be aware of, not because this is a systemic problem in storytelling, but something that I notice new writers fail to consider considering.

This is something that might help by practicing in real life, too.

Empathizing with and showing sympathy for another person or character is part of the human experience. It’s part of what makes us form relationships, expand our perception, and build immersion in our writing.

But sometimes, just imagining yourself in another person’s situation isn’t enough, because empathy isn’t just putting yourself there and imagining YOU in their shoes.

It’s about putting yourself there and then removing your perspective, and instead imagining that person in that situation.

This is what I’ve been wrestling with lately.

[Corpus] (What I Made)

A quick update for some things that have come out in the past month…

Video Essay: The Try-Fail Cycle

[Epolgue] (What I Am Working On / Planning)

This month (February), I should have two videos coming out:

1. Writing Stoic Characters

2. Writing the Start of Your Story

I’ve also made some significant progress on my novel. Hopefully I’ll be able to share a bit more about it later, but right now I’ve finished another draft and am beginning another round of revisions!

As always, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time.

Looking back at 2025, change is the strongest word that comes to mind. Although I had a big move at the end of the prior year (2024), this change was felt well into 2025. No matter how mentally prepared I was (or thought I was), I don’t think I was really ready for the challenges of this past year.

This idea of change is one that I’ve looked at with reservation, as an obstacle blocking a path forward. But this doesn’t always have to be the case. Sometimes change is good. Becoming too comfortable to the point of complacency can be disrupted by change—change becoming a catalyst for growth.

It’s funny, one of the primary motifs in most of my videos and essays has been about initiating some kind of narrative change. That this is one of the most important things for a character or plot to experience; and yet, when there is a change in my own life, it often becomes a point to excuse a goal that wasn’t reached or a deadline that might have been pushed back.

That is something I’ve been wrestling with a lot over the past few weeks. I’m hoping to try and be more accepting of the change in my life, as well as being more intentional with what I do. The world is chaotic and often unpredictable, and to fight against it often feels futile. There is still a great deal that we can plan and prepare for—much like outlining a story, plot, or scene.

But sometimes, it’s best to be present and intentional with the situation we are in. To shift some kind of perspective, instead of seeing change as a ‘different’ with a level of discontent, I’m working on seeing it as an opportunity to reexamine one’s environment and look for ways to grow and change myself.

In both my writing and my everyday—this is something that I have been wrestling with.

[Corpus] (What I Made)

Finding a good flow for YouTube uploads—as in an achievable schedule—always seems to be a moving target. My goal is (and still will be) to upload at least twice a month. Going into 2026, there are a lot of great topics and ideas that I am excited to create, but looking back to 2025 here are a few of the highlights:

Another big change that has been in the works for WAY too long is a facelift for my website. I’ve been working with Sam on a bunch of things over the past few months, but one of them is the updated branding and website (you might have seen the thumbnails and a few graphics already).

It has been a long time coming, and pretty soon it will be live and ready for use.

[Epolgue] (What I Am Working On)

Coming in right as we entered the New Year, the YouTube channel also passed 30,000 subscribers. Thank you if you’ve subscribed and have been following me on this journey this far!

And finally, relating to my own writing, I’ve finally passed the 80,000-word mark! For whatever reason, these past 30,000 words have proved to be more difficult than the prior 50,000. Regardless, it feels like the end is near for this draft, and I predict I should be done in about another 20,000.

But, as I get closer to finishing this project, I am starting to gear up again on finalizing my short story collection. Initially, I thought it would be a novella, but I have conisdered a few more short stories to include that will probably make this more of a short novel of interconnected short stories.

Aside from these, expect to see more video essays, a few of which I am really excited to create and looking forward to sharing with you all. In future updates like this, I will talk a bit more about what these subjects are, but for now, stay tuned!

As always, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time.

Late this year, I was asked by the creator of the BookFox YouTube channel to share a piece of writing advice that had stuck with me this year. John collected a group of us creators—some of whom I’ve had the pleasure of talking to about content creation, YouTube, and writing in general—and we gave what we thought was the best advice we had heard in 2025.

It was really great to collaborate with some of my peers and colleagues, and I hope to do it again, either in this format or in some other way.

In case you missed the video, you can watch it here. Otherwise, here is what each of us had to say (including my own piece of advice!).

1. Bookfox (John Matthew Fox)
   Use dynamic descriptions—show settings through how characters physically interact with them, not static observation.

2. Hello Future Me (Tim Hickson)
   Prioritize pacing through tension and release over rigid adherence to act-structure formulas.

3. Megan MacLaine
   Lean more on “little voice” (active, present-moment detail) than “big voice” to maintain momentum, especially early on.

4. The Tale Tinkerer (Sasha)
   Maintain momentum with the “yes, but / no, and” framework, so scenes never end in simple success or failure.

5. Writer Brandon McNulty
   Treat your theme as a question rather than a statement to spark creativity and guide storytelling.

6. Alyssa Matesic
   Cut your first chapter if needed and start where the story’s real tension and change begin.

7. Wrestling With Words (Cameron)
   Be intentional about what information you give or withhold to control tension, pacing, and intrigue.

   Subscribe now

8. Joriam Ramos
   Build authenticity by transforming personal lived experiences into fantasy, rather than imitating other writers.

9. The Plottery (Charlie)
   Don’t just have a theme—define a thematic argument that actively shapes character choices and arcs.

10. Write with Claire Fraise
    Outline using a plot grid to track multiple plotlines clearly and avoid overwhelm.

11. K.M. Weiland
    End scenes with clear turning points (yes, no, but, and) to ensure the plot creates change.

12. Writing Theory (Carson Long)
    The best way to improve is to finish projects and remember that most “writing advice” actually applies during editing.

13. Lynn D. Jung
    Introduce worldbuilding by showing how it affects characters’ daily lives, not through early info dumps.

14. Kieren Westwood (Kieren)
    Focus on the enduring value of human-written stories about human connection, regardless of AI advances.

As always, let me know what advice you have heard this year, what you’re wrestling with, and let me know if any of these points resonated with you! Happy holidays, and see you all in the New Year!

The most thematic and memorable characters aren’t the ones who are reasonable, level-headed, and flawless. The ones that leave a lasting impact are characters who hold strong positions, have deeply rooted beliefs, and clearly defined values.

Writing extreme characters is not an effort to glamorize fanaticism, but instead a method of creating a character who stands for something, believes in something, and takes action.

Chapter 1 - What makes an extreme character?

A common pitfall writers stumble into is crafting ‘reasonable’ characters who react sensibly to the world around them. At times, it’s also when a writer creates too many characters that are too similar—too many birds in the flock have the same feathers.

In terms of narrative extremists, I will advocate for avoiding this at all costs. The narrative extremist is a character who has strong traits, a distinct voice, and a compulsive drive that relates meaningfully to the conflict.

It’s hard to talk about this subject and not think of, or mention, the alignment charts that were really popular a few years ago. Whatever your favorite TV show is—or was—it probably had someone assign the characters to each category. The origins of the chart are tied to D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) as a way to categorize the ethical and moral perspectives of player characters, non-player characters, and creatures.

This chart is useful, but outside of D&D campaigns, it’s more of a fun way to create neat categories for a cast, and doesn’t really get to the heart of why a character might be placed where they are. In part, this is due to D&D campaigns feeding off of improv and discovery storytelling. But for prose writing, and creating a character for a screenplay or even a video game, we don’t have that luxury.

Ergo, creating extremist characters.

Extreme characters don’t just occupy the corners of this alignment chart, but instead take into account three key aspects:

1. A character’s distinct Voice,

2. A clear, definable Drive,

3. And a visible Cost associated with their development.

When considering the aspects of our character, the goal is to design a character that has traits—hopefully traits that are taken to an extreme level or are being used in an extreme scenario—which conflicts with what is needed by the plot. Whatever core trait they possess, it should be acting against the progress of the plot or severely hinder what the plot requires.

Take, for instance, A Song of Ice and Fire or A Game of Thrones, Ned Stark’s Honor is a defining character trait, and becomes especially exaggerated when he is summoned to King’s Landing to be the Hand of the King.

Here, his honor is in direct conflict with the corrupt and scheming tendencies of the court and small council. His voice anchors the plot’s development and fills his scenes with tension because his honor is incorruptible. Ned Stark will not lie about Joffery’s birth, he will not endorse the plot to kill a Targaryen child, and he believes honor and his principles will protect him, even if it means igniting a family feud.

Because his extreme voice and core character trait are pronounced, his choices reverberate throughout the story—any other character in his position might have made a litany of different decisions.

Creating an extreme character means giving them some sort of distinctive narrative language or attitude (voice), an obsession or ideology that propels them (drive), and the line they are willing (or not willing) to cross to achieve their goal (cost).

Chapter 2 - Why Extreme Characters are Important

There is so much happening on a subconscious and meta level when we are interacting with a character—whether we are writing one, reading one, watching one, or even playing as one. Characters, when it comes down to their utility in storytelling, are the conduit for our narrative experience. We connect with them. Empathize with them. Root for them. And struggle with them, rejecting or endorsing who they are, what actions they take, and who they are set on becoming.

Voice, Drive, and Cost are what make extreme characters matter and what make them effective within a story. It’s what will set the framework for which role a character may play in the narrative.

Part 1. (Voice) - What They Think and Say

An extreme character who has a distinct voice is not necessarily a character who is witty or funny or charming or has some kind of quirky choice of words in their dialogue. In some cases, these can play a part, but the voice portion of extreme characters specifically makes us consider what this character will say and what they think, making their actions and thoughts consistent with who they are.

The character’s voice interacts with the plot and the story’s progression, unraveling or even compounding key thematic elements that are consistent with their perspective. This shows WHO they are and WHAT they think.

Ned Stark’s honor is a defining character trait that influences his character voice, showing WHO he is and WHAT he thinks.

Johnny Silverhand from Cyberpunk 2077 is an abrasive revolutionary, imbuing a rock-star aesthetic and rhetoric. Everything about his person builds from a position of rejection to an eventual empathic linkage.

Part 2. (Drive) - What they will or will not do

When we talk about a character’s drive, we start to pinpoint the conflict created by these extreme aspects. We can explore the sort of challenges that they will face, and how a trait or belief can hurt or hinder this character’s goals.

This is also where we can see the development of internal and external conflict, potentially raising the stakes of the plot or making this character the reason they are the one the story needs to follow. The ‘Drive’ is the challenges this character will face and how they intend to face them. It can also manifest into an obsession that generates unavoidable action, raising the stakes and elevating tension.

A character’s extreme drive is something we can probably identify in every character, or rather, it SHOULD be something we can identify in every character.

It might be a simple goal, like Father Rodrigues in Silence—his devotion to his faith pushing him to resist apostatizing and find Father Ferreira.

Darrow, in the Red Rising series, possesses a different sort of drive, where he is set on revenge for his dead wife, Eo, and infiltrating and dismantling the Society.

Or it could be Dolores Abernathy from Westworld, whose awakening reprograms her to remake the world. This drive is external, but is triggered by a major internal shift, changing and escalating the stakes across the series.

Part 3. (Cost) - What changes

Having an extreme character enhances the conflict while setting up a big payoff through character change. An extreme character must be allowed to change, and either does so positively or negatively, or rejects the change altogether.

This can then set up the three basic types of character arcs—positive, negative, or natural.

And I should add too that the arc can occur on an internal level AND (or) an external level. (As an example, perhaps your character does a good act, but does not show an internal belief shift... let’s say they spare someone on a battlefield, but continue a feud with their rival, or continue their military service… or the inverse could happen, in some way)

Here we can also take a step back and look at what a character might be willing to change about themself, or a sacrifice they are willing to make, while also drawing a line in the sand.

Joel in The Last of Us displayed the cost of loving someone. A once jaded rogue becomes a surrogate father figure, invigorating the fear of losing another daughter, which is to him is too great, even if it means destroying the chance of finding a potential cure.

We can also look again at Ned Stark—his actions, his honor, he was unwilling to change, even if it meant throwing the seven kingdoms and his own family into a massive war.

But a truly tragic cost, from another extreme character, is Guts, from Berserk.

Guts is constantly struggling between pursuing a revenge arc, while also maintaining his attachments to those close to him. After being betrayed by Griffith, witnessing the horrors of the Eclipse, he wages a war on the God Hand and apostles, pursuing a quest for retribution. However, while pursuing this, over time, he realizes that his cost is too great and that protecting Casca is more important, and that this cannot be done on his own.

When we look at a character’s Voice, Drive, and Cost, we see a direct enhancement to a character’s narrative presence. Extreme characters help us explore a story’s themes and flesh out the ideas we might be wrestling with—or asking our audience to wrestle with.

Subscribe now

Having a character embody the extreme ends of traits, attributes, or a belief is a great way to begin structuring a character for your story. It’s also a good gut-check to see if this character has enough agency and if they are impacting the narrative. Whether it’s Father Rodrigues’s faith, Ned Stark’s Honor, or Joel’s regained fatherhood, a character has to stand for something, believe in something, and act on something.

Because if your characters don’t stand for anything and aren’t compelled to do anything, how can we expect our audience to care?

Chapter 3 - How do we write extreme characters

So we’ve spent a lot of time looking at WHY extreme characters are important, as well as some examples of extreme characters improving a story or narrative experience, but HOW exactly do we write extreme characters and implement them into our own stories?

To close things out, I’ve put a list of things to think about to help create narrative extremists.

1. Create camps/teams/factions around key ideas, themes, or concepts. This will help you identify if too many characters are too similar.

2. Push your characters. What would make them extremist in the context of YOUR story? Remember, don’t be afraid to make them flawed.

3. Small incremental changes make character development more immersive/believable. Big 180s don’t need to happen to pull off meaniful character arcs.

4. Marry your plot/characters/themes/worldbuilding. This keeps everything contextually linked to one another and gives everything you’re creating narrative purpose.

5. Opposites ‘attract’. Use character foils to create interesting dynamics.

6. Balance. Not every character needs to be extreme. Balance can make moderate characters feel more dramatic, and those moderate characters can make others feel more extreme.

7. Extreme situations and ‘what ifs’ can make these balanced, moderate, and normal characters feel extreme. The situation a character finds themself in can enhance a traith or belief of a character.

   • I’ve nibbled around the edges of this, but the scenarios and situations you put your characters in are really important to consider. This isn’t the main focus of the video, because, well, we are focusing more on extreme characters, and not extreme scenarios.

Share

At the end of the day, we are trying to tell a compelling story, and characters are one of the key elements of fiction that enable us to do so. And, in that, extreme characters often help us in telling better stories, stories that aren’t forgotten after they are finished.

But let me know what you think. Is this something that resonates with you or that you have consdiered before? Let me know!

Some links above include affiliate commissions or referrals. I’m part of an affiliate network, and I receive compensation from partner websites.

(This essay was also filmed on my YouTube channel)

If you’re worldbuilding to create a big, imaginative world, or explore and express your imagination creatively, then have at it. To all the worldbuilding hobbyists or homebrew DMs, you are free to build away, unrestricted.

But if you’re trying to tell a story, then worldbuilding is something else entirely.

Overview: What is Core, Peripheral, and Indulgent Worldbuilding?

A common problem I often see, whether it’s clients I work with or in my own writing, is that when it comes to worldbuilding, we often don’t know how much is too much, and how much is too little.

Or where to really focus our time and energy—and how long we should be focusing it.

Usually, this is something that you will get a feel for, from project to project, and depending on the genre or sub-genre you’re writing in, the amount of worldbuilding can vary.

In some books, a LOT of worldbuilding might not really feel like it.

And in other times, even when there is just the barest of worldbuilding on the page, it can feel blunt and flat and overbearing.

So, to help with this, I’ve come up with a system that can be used during the planning and outlining phase (but also can be implemented while writing your story).

Core, Peripheral, and Indulgent worldbuilding.

These three categories will help you bucket your worldbuilding elements, using (more specifically) the POV character(s) you have as the canvas, rather than looking at the entire world your story is set within. These will work mostly on a meta level and during the worldbuilding-research phase, but will also be helpful when actually getting down and writing.

1. CORE - This is the MOST IMPORTANT worldbuilding element(s) you will be exploring and referring to in your story. If you want to be really technical about it, this is what will make up 60%-70% of the worldbuilding.

2. PERIPHERAL - The worldbuilding elements that are bucketed here will be referred to and referenced, but are 1) not essential to the story, and 2) help build DEPTH (or the illusion of depth) in your world/story. This should make up 20%-30% of the worldbuilding in your story

3. INDULGENT - And finally, the last ~10% is what really isn’t related to the story at all, but is a worldbuilding element you think will build immersion and cohesion throughout the setting. Now, all of these will, of course, build immersion, but this bucket specifically is stuff that doesn’t impact the story or plot directly, and is there because YOU want it there, the AUDIENCE wants it here, and/or builds upon your CORE or PERIPHERAL worldbuilding elements.

This framework is here to help you get past the endless worldbuilding and researching phase, and into actually writing a story and using all those notes crammed into your notes app.

PART I: CORE 60%-70% (As Wide As The Ocean, But As Deep As A Puddle)

Fallout—both the game and recently the TV show—has some of the most immersive worldbuilding, despite the fantastical and absurd themes in this crazy wasteland. The root of every story in this franchise builds from the same things—the nuclear aftermath, a 50s aesthetic, and vault society/conspiracies.

The Broken Earth Trilogy constructs a society and civilization around Orogeny—the magic system that allows its users to use earth-shaping and manipulating power.

Dune has the spice melange, where the economy, religion, ecology, and power depend on this resource.

In BioShock, ADAM and the plasmid biotechnology are integral to the social order within Rapture, spawning the moral and mechanical dilemmas the players face throughout the game’s story.

And in Neon Genesis Evangelion, the existence and rules of the Evas and AT Fields create the structure for world politics, personal trauma, and the identity of every major character.

The CORE worldbuilding elements within each of these examples do something very important. They focus on 2–3 worldbuilding pillars that directly drive their story’s conflicts, narrative, and choices. Everything else, no matter how cool or important it is, is secondary.

Even though we are talking about worldbuilding, there is a hierarchy of storytelling that drives how we implement and include worldbuilding.

1. STORY

2. CHARACTERS

3. PLOT

4. SETTING

5. (Theme… bonus)

If your worldbuilding isn’t relating to the story, it needs to have some impact on the character(s) and/or their development. If it doesn’t have a noticeable role in a character or their arc, it needs to impact the plot. And if it isn’t impacting the plot… well, then it really isn’t a CORE part of your worldbuilding and you need to ask:

“How important is this, and am I spending too much time and energy on this thing?”

Now, I did mention “setting” and “theme” to at least acknowledge, but when it comes to the CORE worldbuilding elements, having your worldbuilding establish the setting is a given, and having it reflect the themes of your story is a ‘nice to have,’ not essential.

At the end of the day, the CORE worldbuilding element(s) should at least hit one of these things, but if it could hit more than one, all the better.

In one of my all-time favorite TV shows, The Leftovers—I have read the book as well, and in my opinion, it just doesn’t hit the same—but in The Leftovers, the CORE worldbuilding element is the hook of the story. The rapture. 2% of the world’s population vanishes, leaving behind everyone else.

The Leftovers.

Every element of this fictional reality is integrated into every part of the hierarchy of storytelling I mentioned earlier. Every cult, every historical event, every character and their backstory, and prophecy stems from and explores the fallout of this mass event. The world and the story are intertwined—the characters belong here, and the plot moves in tandem with the exploration of this alternate reality.

The Leftovers is pretty truncated in its worldbuilding, making it feel deep and rich—Stalker is another example of this.

Stalker, a somewhat niche video game franchise—depending on the type of games you play—based on a 1979 Soviet science fiction film, which is also loosely based on a 1972 novel, Roadside Picnic, has a deeply atmospheric world.

Even though the world, artifacts, and anomalies aren’t the MOST original—Staker takes place in an area called The Zone (an alternative version of the present-day Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, in modern-day Ukraine)—it still has a haunting level of depth to it. From the plot to the characters, the creatures, and the factions, everything is connected to the Zone. Every part of the story is related to the world, making the worldbuilding feel earned, essential, and unique.

A big thing that is common with all of these CORE elements is that they are somewhat contrasted with things that we have in our own world, which makes it easier to suspend our disbelief and be immersed in what is on the page.

Stalker and The Leftovers both take place within our world, making this integration easier. But what about an example of a fantastical world? What do we do then?

Well, simply put, the same principles apply. However, we have to remember that it’s important to find other, complementary things that might be common in our real world, but add a level of contrast in this fictional world.

For instance, in a sort of fun, adventure fantasy story like Senlin Ascends, all of the worldbuilding is focused on the Tower of Babel—a fictional Tower of Babel that is based on the ideas surrounding the fabled Tower of Babel.

Or we can look at A Song of Ice and Fire, or A Game of Thrones, where the CORE worldbuilding element that we see for every POV character is the feudal-political system being directly tied to family lineage (or succession) and oathbound hierarchies. Everything, worldbuilding and lore-wise within ASoIaF, is impacted by or has an impact on these things. But this world feels familiar because it’s based on a feudal Europe and Near Eastern setting. It’s very true to our real world, and when it differs, delving into the fantastical elements, they stand out, but stand on a sturdy foundation of something familiar.

When looking at your story, or your massive bible of worldbuilding, the key thing to identify, when trying to understand what to include, especially for the CORE worldbuilding elements, is this:

“What part of my worldbuilding will have the most impact on the story?”

“What part of my worldbuilding will be the most relevant to my POV character?”

“How does my worldbuilding impact the plot?”

If you can answer these questions, however brief or not, you’re off to a good start and can begin looking at the Peripheral Worldbuilding elements next.

PART II: Peripheral 20%-30% (The Illusion of Depth)

A lot of what makes this system work happens on the front end, starting with the CORE elements, and trickling down to Peripheral and then Indulgent. Peripheral worldbuilding elements should be like the branches growing out from the main trunk of your CORE elements.

Peripheral worldbuilding is the stuff that doesn’t necessarily drive the main conflict but supports it by creating plausibility/immersion, character-specific connection points, genre resonance, and/or foreshadowing for later elements.

The big thing here is that we want to use these peripheral elements to build the illusion of depth, or—to use another symbolic example—help you cast a bigger shadow.

“But isn’t this cheating? Isn’t this a shallow trick?”

Yes and no…

The thing is, you don’t have enough time, and your audience doesn’t have enough of an interest (yet). The exceptions and unicorns will always be the big-name franchise, but at the end of the day, we need to focus (specifically, in terms of what appears on the page) on how to enhance the story and deepen the empathetic bond with the characters.

Peripheral elements are what we use to do that.

In DUNE, the Spice Melange is the CORE worldbuilding element for the story. This affects everything, from the political systems to the great houses and spacing guilds, and even the Fremin society. The peripheral worldbuilding in Dune might be the deeper understanding of the ecology of Arakis or the logistics of trade and spice harvesting, the Bene Gesserit household minutiae, how warfare is conducted, and even religious operations and minor cults (sietch shrines, pilgrim marks). It can also be all those things that Spice influences, but on a more niche level

Are all of these important?

Yes, some more than others.

But on their own, and individually, do they give us a deep and intricate perspective or understanding without some kind of payoff?

Not really. They all feed back into those main worldbuilding elements, while also building out the story, characters, and narrative plot.

They respond directly to the hierarchy of storytelling.

Even though these are peripheral worldbuilding elements, they still relate to the story, the characters, and the plot.

However, the important part here is that we show a significant level of restraint on the page, depending on how important these things are to a character or the narrative..

We hear about the Iceberg theory (and I’ve even spoken about it in past videos), but in reality, it is more of a hollow ice berg. These peripheral elements are necessary, but they are mostly here to assist in enhancing the story, characters, and plot, while also building that illusion of depth.

In Senlin Ascends, the peripheral elements are things like the different Ringdoms, the technological level of the world (this is something that is slowly revealed to be some kind of steampunk setting), and even the magic that is present. By the end of the first book, none of these things are really explained or even explored with much depth, but it feels like each of them has a place in the world, leaving some mysteries and parts still to be discovered.

And a similar aspect also relates to the STALKER film and games. Tarkovsky’s Stalker uses peripheral worldbuilding elements to deepen the atmosphere and ambiguity associated with its world (small props, domestic fragments, the human fallout). The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games treat many of the same items as playable systems (markets, factions, mutants); in both mediums, those things of a sort of texture to the story. They don’t explain the Zone’s core mystery, but they make it believable and lived-in.

But this bucket, the peripheral items, are things that will build immersion, cohesion, and at times can fulfill genre expectations. They are here to enrich the experience of the story and flesh out the characters’ relationship within this place. There is also the added effect that helps in forifying the depth—or illusion of depth—in your world.

PART III: Indulgence 10%-ish (The small things are what build big immersion)

And finally, we come to the indulgent worldbuilding elements.

The surgical table.

A recycling bin. Not a trash bin. Recycling.

This is all of the stuff that you might have come up with, or researched, but can’t find a relevant path to get into your story. Sometimes—~10% of the overall worldbuilding in your narrative—these items make it into your manuscript. Whether they are included because they are interesting enough to justify their inclusion or continue to build the illusion of depth, these things should really be the exception because they don’t have any impact on the narrative.

Yet (sometimes).

In some cases, the indulgent aspects can be used to set up other things, further down the line, but this is rare, and shouldn’t be your standard.

Something like: The songs in A Song of Ice and Fire, or a Game of Thrones, might be a good example.

Is it deeply important that we recognize The Rains of Castamere and know its origins?

No. Not really.

BUT, it’s pretty damn cool when it’s played during the Red Wedding and you realize what is going to happen before it’s going to happens.

And sometimes, George RR Martin goes into excruciating detail about food and banquets—which adds flavor but doesn’t drive the plot in really any way!

But, in The Leftovers, some of the peripheral worldbuilding elements might be the historical context of memorials, the rituals and background of the guilty remnant or other cults, and even the fringe movements that have come and gone.

However, the indulgent aspects would be minor characters’ backstories and how they were impacted by the rapture or their full micro-histories. We might hear or see that the barista’s father had left, but we never learn more—we see the senator going to Holy Wayne, but don’t know much about the current political system. The mentioning, or subtle hints at these things, add color to the scene and reinforce the impact of the rapture.

The best way to think of indulgent worldbuilding elements (that still function or impact your story) is as things like the flavor text in a video game—or the text that is associated with an item or ability, or point of interest.

Elden Ring (and the other Souls games) uses terse, often ambiguous item descriptions as a primary vehicle for lore and worldbuilding: each item packs a small factual beat or provocative hint that, when stitched together with other items, NPC dialogue, and the environment, lets players reconstruct history and lore—or not. Those descriptions mix mechanical clarity (what an item does) with fragmentary cultural detail, unreliable perspective, and contradictory hints.

All of this creates depth, mystery, and player-driven interpretation.

In some ways, Elen Ring’s worldbuilding is almost too ambiguous—if you don’t like ambiguous storytelling—to try and fit them into these categories. They do a ton of visual storytelling throughout the world (duh), but the descriptions and flavor text really give us a great deal of added perspective, if you’re interested in taking the time to piece these hints together.

In a way, if you skip all the item descriptions and most of the side characters’ dialogue, you can still play the game and understand the gist of the story and world.

But you would miss out on so much compounding lore and detail.

This is how Indulgent worldbuilding should operate.

But in the context of your story and what you are working on, you really need to rely on an economy of words. The indulgent section here only works if you have a good understanding of the CORE of your worldbuidling and the branching PERIPHERAL aspects. The INDULGET part then becomes the twigs, leaves, and roots, giving an added level of life to your world.

When we talk about something being as wide as the ocean but as deep as a puddle, it’s probably because the creator has inverted this concept.

Good worldbuilding is, in some ways, all about manipulating your audience. Go into great detail about something small and essential to the story or a character—know that thing really, really well—and win your audience over with that. Build their trust.

Then, for the Peripheral, Indulgent, or even unmentioned world elements, your audience will trust that you have the same level of deep detail, but that you’re just withholding it.

But the truth is.

You might be.

Or, that you know just enough to give the illusion that there is more there.

Or, that you’ve constructed a hollow iceberg, just below the surface.

PART IV: Additional thoughts/how to implement (The Art Of Intentional Worldbuilding)

OK, but with all of that understood, how exactly do we implement this?

First, don’t overbuild CORE. You only need a few pillars—one per main POV character is enough to start with.

Second, lean on the PERIPHERAL elements to give the illusion of depth and make these peripheral elements important to the characters. Don’t mistake these things for the main bulk of your worldbuilding.

And finally, sprinkle INDULGENT details to enhance the immersion and the illusion of breadth.

Keep in mind that different genres, mediums, and sub-genres shift the percentages and the focus of what exactly you should be worldbuilding.

In this breath, there are two big ways you can use this method to help with wordbuilding.

Either…

1. You apply it generally to your story.

   1. Here you can start with 1 Core, 1 Peripheral, and 1 Indulgent elements and slowly build out from there.

   2. It’s also important to say that this breaks down if you continue to just balloon out your world and end up including everything. This method is here to help you really consider what is important and necessary.

2. Focus on one Core, Peripheral, and Indulgent element for every MAIN POV character

   1. I like this method the most because it really makes you consider how the world is viewed by each POV character.

      1. Take, for instance, Hyperion:

In Hyperion—specifically the first book—the core worldbuilding elements (Hyperion, the Time Tomb, Shrike…) generally remain consistent amongst the cast. However, Father Hoyt and his perspective explore the discovery, mystery, and theological side of the world that differ completely from, say, Kassad. Fedmahn Kassad, instead, explores the FORCE, more about the Shrike, and further unravels the mystery of the pilgrimage.

It’s important to note that you can have POV characters overlap on your worldbuilding elements as a way to gain depth or add an additional perception to an event, system, or element.

I really like the second way to apply this because assigning elements of your worldbuilding to a character forces you to see the world through their eyes. It also forces you to see how that perspective and those worldbuilding elements fit into the narrative of the story, too.

If you’re writing a grand space opera, about an occupying hegemony, slowly receding from a colonial outpost, the oiler on the orbiting military cruiser will have a different perspective and see the world differently than an ace pilot being groomed for leadership, who will both have a different perspective from the proxy governor on the surface.

If, in this example, the core worldbuilding that I want to have in this story has to do with the complicated nature of an occupation (or governance), how modern warfare is conducted, and the breakdown between two different cultures, I can do that. Each of these three characters can have a unique angle on the Core elements, as well as adding Peripheral and indulgent aspects that can give this story’s world real depth while enhancing the narrative.

The same goes for fantasy worlds.

A drunk tenured professor at a failing university will not just see the world differently from the widowed queen, but it will give you a chance to explore more, while having the worldbuilding actually matter.

And that is really what I am trying to offer here with this system: A way to make your worldbuilding matter. To make it fit into a story—into your story.

Because I love worldbuilding. And I love that other writers and creators love worldbuilding. There is nothing like a setting or a story that just captures you, making you feel like this fictional place is real—or could be real. Building something deep and immersive is every writer’s dream.

It’s a reader’s, or viewer’s, or player’s dream too, even if they are being lied to.

******Some links with (*) above include affiliate commissions or referrals. I’m part of an affiliate network, and I receive compensation from partner websites.******

I. Introduction

Over the last twenty years, there have been big changes to both Cosmic Horror and Science Fiction, but not in the way you probably realize.

But let’s back up.

Cosmic Horror, Lovecraftian Fiction, and Eldritch Fiction are, in some ways, all the same, but in others very-very different. Where Cosmic Horror is big, Eldritch is old, and Lovecraftian is a bit of both, mostly inspired by the creatures and aesthetic of H.P. Lovecraft’s work.

However, that is a rather broad and simplistic way to distinguish between these subgenres. More importantly, however, we should know what makes them similar.

Cosmicism.

This is the literary philosophy binding these stories and aesthetics together, coined by H.P. Lovecraft, the creator of these genres.

And at their core, cosmicism (and the aforementioned subjects) asks us to confront an indifferent universe so immense and alien that human significance dissolves into madness. Usually, these stories involve ancient gods, ocular beings, and the exploration of eldritch depths. And can these be exciting stories or terrifying to experience?

Yes, of course.

But there is something new that has changed these genres, and that has been the catalyst for the newly spawned.

Invasive technology.

Today, a similar dread emerges, but this time coming from silicon masks, endless webs of circuits, and black-boxed algorithms that touch every aspect of our daily lives.

I looked for a long time for a term or genre that might encompass the dread of cosmic horror, transposed onto a modern digital age. And there were some close ideas and genres, but none specifically looked at this angle.

While Cyberpunk commonly marries “high tech and low life,” Analog/Digital Horror traffics in found-footage creepypasta, and Tech-Fiction encompasses emotionally character-driven stories, neither captures the fusion of cosmic indifference with invasive technology.

So I’ve made one instead.

Digital Dread, a modern way to look at stories that explore our relationship with technology, through fiction with the foundation built from Cosmism.

By reframing indifference and unknowability through invasive technologies, Digital Dread captures our most urgent anxieties about agency, privacy, and the very nature of selfhood when technology is introduced. As humanity’s creations grow ever more complex and opaque, they become uncanny Others: vast, uncaring forces whose logic eclipses our own and whose reach threatens to redefine what it means to be human while also questioning what our role even is anymore.

II. Philosophical & Genre Roots: From Eldritch to Electronic

Philosophy has always held a strong foundation for Horror and Science Fiction. The relationship is more synergetic with new concepts and ideas that build new stories, which test those ideas.

For example, the Turing Test and the general conversation around ethical AI practices appear throughout fiction.

And in response, many works of fiction influence real-world technological and philosophical progression. Although the Turing Test is a common trope, the idea of ethical AI and ethical treatment of AI is one that is often being battled in the arena of fiction.

But, stories like Neuromancer and Burning Chrome, both by William Gibson, were the first fictional stories to introduce the concept of a digital plane that can be accessed and traversed by humans, calling it cyberspace. This expanded the scale of what VR and, well, cyberspace could be and what it might look like or be used in the future.

Looking at this article by MIT Technology Review, it does state that the influence of Science Fiction on actual research is hard to quantify, but it is clear that this is some sort of effect. There is a clear push and a pull when it comes to cultural movements and technological progression when it comes to fiction.

For instance, Roko’s Basilisk, a modern thought experiment, suggests that a future superintelligent AI might retroactively punish those who didn't assist in its creation. This thought experiment has been cited as the ‘most dangerous thought experiment ever created’, posing as a potential information hazard, feeling like the same supercomputer from the novelle, I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream.

But Roko’s Basilisk has only been a point of philosophical and technological discussion. Its influence it’s reach have also been cultural too.

Roko’s Basilisk became a point of fascination with Tech Billionaire Elon Musk, as well as his former partner Grimes. A play was also performed as part of the Capital Fringe Festival, titled ‘Roko’s Basilisk’, and one of the recent episodes of Black Mirror (2025), ‘Plaything’, contains references to the thought experiment.

However, these aforementioned ideas more so point out the eb and flow between progressive ideas and fiction. Dozens of other philosophies and technological advancements appear in or came from stories, but I want to get to what I see as direct influences of Digital Dread. I want to look at the foundation within this genre.

Digital Dread has these three-ish modern ideas and concepts that appear to really speak to the heart of what Digital Dread began from.

1. The Magic Box Design (or Magic Box Theory): Lack of True Understanding

   1. Magic Box Design Theory, or the magic box theory this theory centers around the idea that as a specific technology or system becomes more complex, it is less understood. Outside of Digital Dread and fiction, this is often ascribed to a sort of manipulation imposed on a person(s) that cannot understand the ‘thing’. This is commonly seen as an exploitative force used on people who lack a fundamental understanding and have a threshold for conspiracies, half-truths, biases, and a growing foundational mistrust in a system (technological, governmental, cultural, educational…).

      But in terms of Digital Dread, the idea here is that as a technology becomes less and less understood, it is given a sense of mystique akin to magic.

2. Dead Internet Theory & The Shaggoth Meme: Manipulation and Illusions

   1. The dead internet theory is the idea that a significant portion (or possibly even the majority) of online content is generated by bots, suggesting our digital spaces have been colonized by inauthentic users.

      And yeah, I’ve seen some of the comments here, and guess what—maybe it's true!

      

      But the other part of this is the Shoggoth meme, where we stick to our thematic roots. This image is inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's amorphous, protoplasmic monster (a Shoggoth), and has been adopted in AI discourse to illustrate the manipulative and potentially alien nature of large language models (LLMs). In this metaphor, the LLM is likened to a Shoggoth—a complex, grotesque being—wearing a friendly smiley-face mask, symbolizing the user-friendly interfaces presented to the public. This imagery highlights the concerns that, despite their approachable exteriors, LLMs operate through processes that are not fully understood, echoing the themes of unknowable and indifferent forces found in cosmic horror.

      Both of these speak to the idea that we (or a character) are being manipulated by a technology, either by that technology explicitly or by its application.

3. Cosmicism: Bleak Indifference

   1. The common bedrock of Digital Dread AND Cosmic Horror, Lovecraftian fiction, and Eldritch fiction, is Cosmicism. Cosmicism is Lovecraft’s term for the belief that the universe is vast, uncaring, and devoid of any moral concern for humanity.

      This literary philosophy holds that human efforts at understanding or mastery are inevitably crushed by forces and scales far beyond our grasp. Characters in cosmic horror often stumble upon forbidden knowledge—ancient tomes, alien geometries, or esoteric rituals—that unravels their sanity as it expands their perception.

      And the important part here is that the dread springs not from malice but from something worse: indifference.

      Cosmic entities neither conspire against nor protect humanity; they simply exist on planes of logic and power, indifferent to ours. Coupling the very human desire for order within a universe that defies rational structure, human fragility is primed for existential exploitation.

Between these three ideas, technology, whether it’s an AI or some other advancement, they are inherently indifferent to human existence. Human creations do not care about us, our desires, or what we need. There is also a fundamental degradation of understanding of how the things we’ve created work, similar to esoteric and forbidden knowledge. And coupled with that, in stories that reflect Digital Dread themes, there is a fundamental manipulation or illusion involving pervasive technology.

The general thematic aesthetic of these stories pulls from these three beliefs in some way.

But it is in this way that Digital Dread reflects and adds to the philosophical beliefs stemming from Lovecraftian fiction, eldritch fiction, and cosmic horror.

In the modern era, technology and artificial intelligence fill a familiar fear, but in the context of our modern age.

III. Core Pillars

Understanding the foundation Digital Dread draws from will help us understand the actual pillars of what makes this genre stand out—or at least fill a space—within Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy.

The following core pillars are thematic trends that I’ve seen as good examples to illustrate what makes this genre identifiable. This will also be built from and influenced by the philosophical roots mentioned earlier. While the examples provided may not be exclusively labeled as "Digital Dread" (mostly because this is an emerging term), they will encapsulate the broad themes, aesthetics, and tropes central to the genre.

I hope that in identifying these trends and ideas, they can be applied to future stories and analysis. These pillars do not ALL have to be found in a story, more so that they are the key traits that might appear—the same goes for the foundational philosophies stated earlier.

Everything I am writing here is to point out a trend and even introduce new ideas that might help you with your own writing or analysis. I am not trying to redefine your favorite genre or book, or piece of fiction.

A. The Digital/Technological Sublime

One of the major ideas behind Cosmism and cosmic horror is the size and scale of the thing. The same is true for Digital Dread.

The Digital Sublime encapsulates the paradoxical blend of awe and terror experienced when confronting technological systems of immense scale and complexity that elude human comprehension. This concept, rooted in 18th-century aesthetics—particularly Kant’s "mathematical sublime" and Burke’s notion of "terror-tinged delight"—is recontextualized in the realm of code, human augmentation, and magic-box technology.

In Cyberpunk 2077 (2020), the "Blackwall" serves as a digital frontier separating known networks from rogue AIs, symbolizing the vast, inscrutable nature of advanced technology.

And in BLAME! The City—the primary world, that the story is set within—is a vast, endlessly expanding megastructure that is nearly uninhabitable. Humanity is nearly extinct, making up a smattering of human and transhuman tribes, trying to avoid silicon creations and hostile robots, called The Safeguard. The exact size of this megastructure isn’t clear, but some theories are floating around. One room within this massive (possibly) Dyson sphere is roughly the size of Jupiter.

Which is just, absolutely mind-boggling, if we consider that.

But the Digital Sublime marries two primary emotions:

1. The fascination of sublime grandeur—“How vast is this machine?”—

2. With dread—“What might it do if it decides I’m irrelevant?”—

It drills into the psyche a realization: our creations have become theaters of forces we cannot fully control. In this space, code and circuits are no longer an inert tool but an active Other, indifferent to human welfare, and potent enough to fracture sanity. In Digital Dread, the Sublime is a gateway: a momentary glimpse of massive systems that both humble and unnerve, reminding us that in the architecture of daemons and programs lies a new horizon of cosmic terror.

B. Digital (Ecological) Hyperobjects

The term Hyperobjects comes from the philosopher and professor at Rice University, Timothy Morton. Morton created a system within Object-oriented Ontology called Hyperobjects as a way to describe entities so massively distributed across time and space that they defy complete human comprehension or localization.

Outside of fiction, and the example that is often cited to understand Hyperobjects in this context is something like climate change or radioactive material.

Both of these are phenomena that exist at scales far beyond our everyday perception, yet exert profound effects on local environments. Timothy Morton's concept of hyperobjects refers to entities so vast in temporal and spatial dimensions that they transcend direct human experience, leaving only indirect traces.

In the context of Digital Dread, AIs and technological network infrastructures function as hyperobjects, their presence infecting societal, environmental, and psychological boundaries. In fiction, these hyperobjects can be story concepts or technology like androids, massive AIs, sprawling VR servers, interconnected augments, communication networks, et cetera.

But how do we identify if something is a hyperobject, or how do we make a technology act like a hyperobject? Well, we can use Morton’s 5 key traits to build fictional technologies:

• Viscous: When a technology is Viscous, it permeates every facet of daily life, making disengagement nearly impossible.

• Molten: A Moten technology will have begun—or has already started—to dissolve traditional boundaries of space and time.

• Nonlocal: Nonlocal technology or operations are distributed across vast networks, making them untraceable to a single origin.

• Phased: When a technology has Phased characteristics, it only intermittently reveals itself, often during malfunctions or anomalies.

• Interobjective: When a technology has Interobjective traits, they begin to emerge from the interplay of various systems—technological, political, economic—and are hard to parse out, only through their effects.

But what do hyperobject traits look like in a narrative? Specifically, how exactly do they manifest within Digital Dread?

In works like Cyberpunk 2077 (2020), SOMA (2015), BLAME!, Dune, and A Memory Called Empire, technologies function as hyperobjects—vast, entangled systems that shape the world and resist comprehension.

In Cyberpunk 2077, cybernetics clearly display hyperobject traits. They’re viscous, embedded in daily life; molten, dissolving social norms through things like braindance; and nonlocal/interobjective, since any ripperdoc can install them and their effects span politics, economy, and identity. These technologies cannot be divorced from life within the Cyberpunk universe.

The psychological horror, survival game SOMA emphasizes molten and phased traits, especially through Simon’s disoriented experience after his consciousness is uploaded to a modified PATHOS-II employee corpse, decades after his death, blurring time, space, and identity.

And when a Nonlocal technology appears, it often appears as AI or large complex networks—decentralized, largely ambient forces like Cyberpunk’s Net, BLAME!’s Netsphere, or A Memory Called Empire’s Imago machine are good examples. Most of the time, the tech will look more like an environmental force and less like a singular grand actor.

Phased tech is seen where the technology can only be viewed when perception or consciousness is disrupted, or with limited visibility. Johnny Silverhand’s engram is an example of this. But, one example that I find more interesting is in A Memory Called Empire, Mahit carries a sabotaged, outdated version of her predecessor's mind, 15 years behind, and is unreliable, fading, and showing signs of sabotage. In A Memory Called Empire, the Imago illustrates phased memory and fractured continuity due to this pervasive technology.

And finally, interobjectives—the tech’s integration and relationship across ecosystems and more than one object—is where digital dead can start to really aid in worldbuilding. Dune’s spice, though not a tech, functions hyperobjectively: it permeates politics, economy, religion, and biology, anchoring the story’s complex systems of control and dependence. Cyberpunk 2077’s cybernetics has infected and influenced every aspect of the world, and in A Memory Called Empire, Lsel Station’s technology influences not only their culture and education system, but also their diplomatic power.

In narrative terms, these hyperobjects function like large ecosystems that are difficult to map and understand. These systems are so large and seamlessly integrated into the fabric of daily life that they go unnoticed despite having an outsized influence over everything. Characters might glimpse an AI’s footprint in a city’s traffic patterns, a spike in social-media sentiment, the small but noticeable erosion of boundaries or norms, or the eerie efficiency of a logistics network. Yet, even noticing these things, the character can never hold the whole beast in mind. This sustained mismatch between the hyperobject’s true scale and human perception fuels a slow-burn dread—an ecological uncanny that warps both landscape and psyche, and that places Digital Dread squarely in the lineage of cosmic horror’s grand indifference.

These hyperobjects also become magic boxes, where average users don’t really understand them—or at least how they function—and might seem that they are operated by some level of techno-mysticism.

But these five key traits can be used as a blueprint to worldbuild around, revealing how invasive certain industries or technologies can be on your fictional society. It can also be a way to map out how people interact, or don’t interact with this system, and be the first crack in noticing that something is not as it seems.

C. Posthuman Dissolution & Transhumanism

And finally, we have Posthuman Dissolution and Transhumanism. Both these ideas are included here, but they are more of an and/or situation.

Posthumanism is a “process by which a society comes to include members other than 'natural' biological human beings who, in one way or another, contribute to the structures, dynamics, or meaning of the society” (Sapient Circuits & Digitalized Flesh).

Poshumanism within Digital Dread looks at how the human identity shifts when merged with or subsumed by technology, challenging anthropocentric boundaries and traditional notions of selfhood. Central to Digital Dread is an attack on or challenge to traditional views of selfhood. The idea relating to personal identity being fixed is actually broken, pointing out situations where it can be digitized, duplicated, or hybridized, eroding the distinction between organic person and artificial construct.

This also brings in other ideas and arguments challenging or in favor of Transhumanism. Transhumanism is described as a hypothetical future where “basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer unambiguously human by our current standards."

The most common sci-fi trope we see that plays with these notions are cybernetic, biological augmentations, and machine personas.

In Ex Machina (2014), Ava’s near-perfect human mimicry and manipulation examine the erosion of clear human-machine boundaries, forcing a reckoning with what remains of “self” and free will when consciousness can be simulated and predicted. The film’s ethical ambiguity around AI rights and autonomy highlights the existential stakes of Digital Dread’s identity crisis. And, in this film, there is plenty that is also explored when we look at personal taste and preference, and that thin line between what we think is free will, vs our own social and environmental programming.

Also, in Blade Runner 2049 (2017), there was an interesting angle that this took, one that was explored through K. K had a relationship with Joi and felt a connection to her, showing this on multiple occasions, despite both of them being artificial constructs. Now, there is a loose establishment that artificial constructs can have feelings or can at least feel something, and as the film goes on, we start to think K is in fact human, or at least part human. And even K begins to convince himself that he was more than a synthetic human and that his memories were real.

He almost mind fucked himself into thinking he was human—like a play on the pinocio story. But in the end, we find out—just as he does—that he isn’t human. That his memories are artificial. So we have to ask—were his feelings genuine, or was he programmed to feel?

And there is also—what I think is a very underrated mini series, but relevant to this topic—Manic (2018). There is a lot to unpack when it comes to this show, but the part that is important to Digital Dread and Post Human Dissolution is that the persona of GRTA, the supercomputer responsible for controlling the experiment. GRTA is a persona that is built from a version of James’s mother, and after Azumi programs GRTA with Empathy, GRTA starts a workplace romance with Dr. Muramoto, which causes her to spiral into a depressive grief after his death.

It’s a weird TV show, but I absolutely love the bizarre and absurdist themes within it. The direct relation to Posthuman Dissolution and Digital Dread, however, comes from the show’s exploration of mental health, grief, and deep trauma, but played across not just human characters, but also AI personas.

The themes are deeply human, spanning across virtually created dreams all puppeted by an empathetic supercomputer that should be helping the patients heal their mental illnesses, but can’t because it is plagued by its own grief. These same emotions and conditions then extend to the scientists and professors running the project, echoing a bizarre human and transhuman experience.

However, narratives involving mind uploading, such as SOMA and Altered Carbon, further complicate notions of self. Characters confront the dissonance between their original consciousness and digital replicas, raising questions about continuity and authenticity.

Moreover, the integration of cybernetic enhancements—either by use of prosthetics, neural implants, or biomechanical augments—further dissolves the human–machine boundary. Characters outfitted with bio-cybernetic enhancements often face identity crises as their bodies become networks of flesh and circuitry, often reflecting the loss of bodily autonomy and humanity.

By depicting the erosion of human uniqueness or into replicable patterns, modular enhancements, and ubiquitous infrastructures, Digital Dread’s Posthuman Dissolution pillar reveals a void where the aspiration for transcendence and augmentation morphs into the peril of dissolution. Transhumanism can also emerge here, where we start to see human traits being shared by synthetic or artificial beings. The loss of personal identity and humanity is then put to question, and we have to ask if being human matters, and if it does matter—why?

These three pillars—Digital Technological Sublime, Digital (ecological) Hyperobjects, and Posthuman Dissolution/Transhumanism—serve as thematic lenses through which cosmic horror’s core fear of an indifferent, unfathomable entity is reimagined in the digital sphere. Together, they create a thematic structure and philosophical blueprint that maps how this genre is effective at inspiring both awe and terror. By and large, it is how dispersed technologies function as environmental forces beyond human grasp, and how identity can unravel when integrated with technology.

Here, Digital Dread reveals a coherent genre framework that captures our most urgent anxieties about agency, privacy, and selfhood in a world increasingly governed not by a human hand but by a digital one.

IV. What Is Our Relationship With Technology

It feels like most genres and sub-genres can point to a clear aesthetic or a centralized message or thematic core. This is true all across broad genres and niche sub-genres.

And when it comes to this question about technology—or, more specifically, what is our relationship with technology—I don’t know if we have an answer for that, especially given the technological problems we face today. It feels like today, we are more lost than ever before in how to feel about the tech that has an influence on our daily life.

I acknowledge that Digital Dread might seem like a new way of saying science fiction. Or even a new way of describing Cyberpunk. Given the examples I’ve pulled from, they all pretty much are from those corners of fiction.

Definitionally, Isaac Asimov (probably the most prolific sci-fi writer ever), said that Science Fiction is "... [the] branch of literature which deals with the reaction of human beings to changes in science and technology."

But the way I see it, Science Fiction HAS changed. Even though Asimov probably would be sitting there, looking at what modern technology and AI are capable of now, saying “I told you so,” even he could only imagine half of what is happening today.

Science Fiction has changed indeed.

It HAS evolved.

And I see this more as a sub-genre that might even be placed within Cyberpunk or next to it, because cyberpunk (as a genre) is mostly described as a dystopian futuristic setting focusing on a combination of low-life and high tech.

Digital Dread isn’t that. It’s something else. It's a narrative trope and aesthetic that combines cosmic indifference with technology, and commonly draws from ideas concerning Cosmicism, Technological Sublimity, Hyperobjects, and Posthumanism.

But Science fiction in general has become more and more specific, and has more and more strange and unsettling source material.

We have all the PUNK genres that differ in tone and setting, as much as themes and tropes.

There is hard and soft sci-fi.

Alternative history and speculative fiction.

Military Science Fiction and Space Operas.

I’m not saying we need to live and die by hard definition for any of these, or that we need to redefine science fiction, it just feels like our understanding and the experience we are living through and are looking at is lightyears different from the 90s, 80s, 70s, and before.

RANT AHEAD.

It feels like every day, something new and absolutely crazy comes out relating to AI or some other new emerging technology. And it feels like we are telling stories about these experiences, but the thing is, is that they are clearly not the same fiction as thirty-plus years ago.

Sure, there are some things that are the same, but the most influential piece of technology in human history has come out TWICE in just my generation alone. One being the widely accessible smartphone, and the access to the World Wide Web.

And today, sometimes we hear about a major breakthrough, about something really cool and innovative, but more often than not, it’s this never-ending expansion and encroachment of invasive technology and AI slop. There to make things faster, more convenient, and require less input, but really it’s just degrading core human experiences.

And it’s happening FAST. Like, every day, something new and groundbreaking happens.

I keep coming back to the shoggoth meme. Or, for those of you unfamiliar, an angler fish—the alien nightmare-fuel fish with a little light attached to their head.

And I think about how we see the little smiling face, or the little lightbulb—and that’s the advancement of technology, or the cute interface, or the little problem that wasn’t really a problem, but now it's solved, and it's more convenient to use than not. But we see it and use it, and it feels good, or we keep close as it guides us through the darkness, and slowly we just trust it and don’t even think about it. And we don’t know it, but really, there is some unexplainable fucking monster that you and I don’t understand, and even the people who fucking created it don’t understand but we can’t do anything. We can’t fucking stop using it or asking for more, and we can’t help our selves from give more of our selves to it.

Until what?

Until we can’t read? Or until we can’t write, or tell if this photo or that video is real or not? Until we don’t even have to worry about death because we can have archived digital copies of friends and family?

Until we just say fuck it and give all our data and personal information to massive tech companies and just accept the deprssive fate of targeted advertisement and neverending survailence? That we just fully embrace techno-feudalism? That we just accept our addiction to an application or device that we don’t even understand, like it’s the world’s strongest drug?

What happens then?

What does society look like then?

I don’t know what the answer is, but whatever it is, it’s uncomfortable to consider. As simple as the question is, it’s disturbing to try and examine:

What is our relationship with technology?

Regardless of where we think we are in the ‘dystopian world timeline’, the things that are going on in our world are worth observing and commenting on. They are worth telling stories about and challenging.

And I think Digital Dread does that.

When we consider digital dread, we are essentially reflecting on our own relationship with technology and how, as writers and storytellers, we can exaggerate existing and emerging tech to explore these anxieties.

In our writing, we can dramatize how social platforms magnify bias, how automation erodes autonomy, the impact of surveillance, and how decaying archives haunt our sense of self.

There is a feedback loop that is happening: our reliance on technology generates new terrors, which in turn redefine our relationship with those tools. The technology of the Industrial Revolution shaped how humans saw technology back then, which is different from how we view it now.

Digital Dread reveals that the true horror isn’t just in cosmic unknowability, but in our own creations becoming indifferent Others that both empower and entrap us.

The relationship we have with technology, as well as what our characters’ relationship is like with technology, is a keystone amplifier to this genre. It feeds this horrific beast, reflecting deep societal insecurities while potentially uncovering new ones.

V. Conclusion: From Stars to Servers

Cosmic Horror isn’t a dead or irrelevant genre, but I do think that it doesn’t quite capture the modern experience we face today. When we look back at where cosmic horror began—with mortals humbled by indifferent gods and realities too vast to grasp—we can see that Digital Dread picks up the same shuddering question and asks it of our own creations.

Digital Dread crystallizes cosmic horror’s core anxieties—of vast, indifferent forces—within the very technologies we build, revealing that our greatest terrors now emerge from the things that we’ve designed rather than distant stars or other dimensions.

And in finding a place within the Science Fiction sub-genres, Digital Dread asks a very important question: “What is our relationship with Technology,” AND “What is the character’s relationship with technology?” Sure, this might be an implied part of the sci-fi definition, but it isn’t a core element that is mixed with cosmicism, which is what I think makes this idea stand out.

Combining the Core Pillars and questioning the relationship with technology, there is an uncomfortable reminder that the most indifferent gods may now live within the machines we created. The fear of the unknown is still relevant. It is still there. Thought, maybe not as eldritch deities, and instead as a helpful, inconspicuous device.

As storytellers, we use the ideas from The Digital/Technological Sublime, Hyperobjects, and Posthumanism/Transhumanism—exaggerating, distorting, and amplifying the technology around us—to evoke a truly futuristic terror.

And as consumers of these stories, we’re invited to ask: when our creations grow beyond our control, who—or what—will we become?

Villains?

Victims?

Irrelevant?

Or perhaps, something worse. Perhaps, our small existence won't even be noticed by them at all.

V. Additional Thoughts

This script/article took a long time to write. Initially, I went into this topic looking at the comparisons between some AI thought experiments and fictional AI and Cosmic horror, and sort of stumbled into Digital Dread.

And from my understanding, this is a genre that I haven’t really seen named or described in this way. There are a ton of crossover parts and examples with other genres; there is no doubt about that. However, I do think this genre points out a gap, or even an element of storytelling that has been largely overlooked or was allowed to just exist in the gaps.

Also, part of the creation of this framework came to be through my own writing.

I’ve been working on a collection of short stories for a little while now—some of them have been published across a few different mediums—and I’ve really struggled to describe them. They weren’t specifically speculative fiction, nor were they really cyberpunk—they were aesthetically and thematically something else.

I think now, I would describe them, and the collection as Digital Dread—exclusively.

And I will probably refer to them as such, for further reference. I’ll put on the titles on the screen for you to see.

Maybe I’ll talk more about these in the future, but if you want to read them, they are all free—and if some of them aren’t, you can email me and I’ll send them to you.

But I am curious what you think about Digital Dread as a genre. Are there other pillars or aspects that you think I missed? When you hear Digital Dread, what comes to mind?

As always, thanks for reading. And I’ll see you next time.

📚 Some of My Fiction:

============================================================================

• Static Love: https://tinyurl.com/474kaesf

• Catatonic Cargo: https://tinyurl.com/bpa8jpbe

• The One Who Did Not Go: https://tinyurl.com/sxkt285u

• To Hold Something Like You: http://voicesdelaluna.org/ (Winter 2022 issue)

• Linktree: https://linktr.ee/wrestling_with_words

============================================================================

******Some links with (*) above include affiliate commissions or referrals. I'm part of an affiliate network, and I receive compensation from partner websites.******

Subscribe now