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Writer's Blog: The Korean Reunification
🕑 Added 2021-08-21 03:20:13 +0000 UTCI’m still working on Glitch and Kenzie’s scenes. I wanted to get them edited and up tonight, but instead went down a creative rabbit trail for Chapter 13 and wrote an entire scene involving Santa, a drone, and a pigeon. (Sometimes, creating new stuff comes easier than editing and then I look at the clock and realize whoops it’s 9pm.)
(Speaking of new stuff, if anyone knows of any interesting ways to break into a house, feel free to share in the comments! I have around eight so far, but could always use more. Said scene is designed similar to Chapter 2’s assignment, so the more options the better.)
(And no, I’m not planning an actual heist. No matter what my Google search history may indicate, or the fact that my web browser ads are now almost exclusively for online lockpicking courses.)
Anyways . .
With Rosy’s scene being posted, I wanted to talk a little bit about the Korean Reunification.
I’ve lived in both Seoul and Dublin (where Delivery for the Damned will take place!). Although my personal experience an expat was that the two cultures felt extremely different (despite the many newspaper op-eds that claim otherwise), Ireland and Korea do share the fact that they’re both geographically small countries that were historically unified but then split in the 1900s. I couldn’t help but wonder and imagine what would happen if either of the two countries ever rejoined.
Discussing the possibilities with friends who actually grew up in these countries, I realized that any rejoining wouldn’t be quite a simple as my high school history class made it seem with that two-minute clip of the Berlin Wall being torn down. (That being said, much of the Korean Reunification aftermath that I imagine comes from reading about German post-division . . . and Germany was only split for 28 years as opposed to Korea’s 70+.)
Eventually, I decided to set Unity’s founding among a theoretical Korean Unification (instead of Ireland) because:
1) The high tensions between North Korea, South Korea, and the USA when I lived in Seoul (2017-18, a period which I personally felt was super intense but that none of my Korean coworkers or friends seemed all that frazzled by),
2) The fact that the Korean Peninsula has in the past been a place where outside countries interfered, meaning that the UN’s interference had some precedent, and
3) North Korea’s government makes for a pretty straightforward “bad guy”. (I’m not a fan of dynastic dictatorships outside of fairy tales where dragons can also exist.)
Of course, Mind Blind is an alternate history given the existence of Ments and this war that never happened. In order to make the UN’s interference seem more believable, and thus lay the groundwork for founding Unity, it made sense for me to give North Korean leadership secret psychic powers. This amplified the global community’s perception of its threat (especially in a world that already viewed Ments to be bogeymen-like figures). Granted, Mind Blind’s United Nations is very different than the real-world organization. But still.
The Korean Reunification in Mind Blind wasn’t just a war over rejoining two halves of a country—it was a fight against Ment criminals who were literally brainwashing armies . . . thus making a counter-Ment task force comprised of Ments, aka Proto-UCRT, necessary to win.
There will eventually be a longer passage on the Korean Reunification in the Aeon Student guide, and it’ll also be brought up in-game (both in later scenes, and an earlier scene where I plan to loredump a little more). But the angle of North Korean Ment leadership isn’t something that I’ve directly addressed much, despite its relevance to Unity’s founding. (It’s referenced briefly in the Meatloaf Day short story, but I think that’s it?)
There’s been an uptick of questions about the Korean Reunification lately in my tumblr inbox (which I really need to get to answering again), but I hope this post clarifies at least a little of the background lore and its original inspiration.
Comments
Ema
have you watched to catch a thief? might be a fun way to get ideas without the FBI putting you on a list xD i've broken into one house before (my grandma's, she forgot her keys) and it was done through finding an open window, cutting the screen, then sticking eight-year-old me through the window. not sure how feasible that is, but maybe with a big enough window!
Skippy Hugo
The one would be dog flap, but that requires skill and a certain body type. Another would be GTA V, where they hit the bank twice from two different angles. But honestly, the most interesting way for me would be to simply swagger through the front door.
Okay, so I was going to type out an extremely long and detailed method of how exactly one could break into a house that has a pretty decent alarm system because like knowledge of break-ins and home security is Right Up My Alley but the plan requires 1. A decent amount of casing the building, 2. Some specific circumstances, 3. Whoever owns the building to have a dog (large dog is preferable), and 4. Being really damn lucky and so isn’t truly feasible. Plus that much detail feels like it skirts the line of ‘properly utilizing my alarm license’ and I don’t know if the Bureau of Security can sense that sort of thing, but I wouldn’t put it past them. However, I will say if you’re looking to avoid an alarm system in a standard home, windows are usually going to be your best bet. Specifically, a second story window not attached to a balcony because those ones often don’t have switches on them because they’re not easily accessible since it’s pretty suspicious to roll up to a house with a ladder. Also loud. But it’s possibly doable if you’re determined. Pretty sure most second floors don’t have motion detectors either, but I haven’t done work in one in forever and honestly can’t remember. From a non-security system standpoint, just try the front door. It sounds dumb, but sometimes people will be less worried about securing their front door on account of “what sort of criminal just waltzes through the front door?”. The answer is quite a few, but from experience it’s not always something one thinks about until it’s happened. Due to frequent use, forgetfulness, and in certain cases ‘being in a good neighborhood’, the front door is also prone to being left unlocked, which greatly simplifies the ‘breaking’ part of ‘breaking and entering’. Also, it’s less suspicious (and less illegal) to walk up to the front door of someone’s place and subtly try the handle than to try and get into a back door or go through a window.
Chigusa Eyes
This might sound silly, but I had to do it...several times growing up ( INTO MY OWN HOUSE, ofc ); literally in through the window? And I mean in the sense of it being quite shocking how many ppl leave their windows unlocked. Ofc this depends on where you live! I grew up in the suburbs in the Southeast USA, often on the rural side of the suburbs. But from what I have found, overall, is that when it comes to people who live in houses ( as compared to apartments, townhomes, etc ), there's a higher chance of not bothering to double check their windows??? Sometimes this means using either a finger, the Wrong House Key you grabbed for the 3rd time that month, or something to cut open a window screen...but then you just press your hand firmly against the window and push up and an unlocked window will slide up! Once it is high enough, you can just open it normally and crawl in. Obviously not the most subtle of ways, so I don't rec doing it in the front yard fnnfnfnfnf
