ACT 2 of The Scarlet Queen Series starts today! Thinking if I should go more hardcore with Risque… and more softcore with Cheryl lawl. No, dont think funny, I mean, to make it more artistic. yup. I have YouTube guidelines to adhere to. I think I have found a new breakthrough after yesterday’s episode, there are no limits in art… only freedom.
They say, Scorpios make the best lovers because of our extreme duality to be soft and hard.
We are passionate, intense, confident and ambitious, arrogant, possessive and unkind (at times). The only other sign that matches us in our intensity for life is another Scorpio. Risque is probably the manifestation of a Scorpio woman in full force, with her magnetism and sultry voice. Cheryl, is the soft tender homely side of a Scorpio woman, that you don’t see in public.
Scorpios have only two approaches to things – it is all or nothing. We can go to the extreme in every area in our lives, the fuel of which, is the intense passion we have for life. After all, we are the masters of death and rebirth. We only grow stronger with each set back, we don’t admit defeat easily and will always rise up to challenges.
The Scarlet Queen… in her crimson dress.. is the epitome of a Scorpio Lady.
..
Back to topic, ACT 2 will focus more on Cheryl’s transformation. From the viewership response from the previous episodes, Risque gets about three times more viewership than what Cheryl does. I think this will set to change in the next ten episodes when Cheryl reveals the softcore side of her personality. (ok I am joking here, just getting you excited)
Cheryl wearing the white mask… in Risque fashion? Screenshot from ending of episode 21.
I noticed the shift in perception of Cheryl after her episode recounting her rape. Before that, the feedback I get for her character is that she is just a retard, silly and dumb. The funny part is that, most Asian girls are like Cheryl in real life? Of course, generally viewers were leaning towards Risque (although I did try to make her as repulsive as possible, realising that the more evil horns she reveals, the more likes she gets).
Risque continues to get fan mail…
Interestingly, I received positive feedback for Cheryl’s episode on World Without Money. The economics of which don’t make sense. but the principle of the message makes sense – money corrupts, and we should be free of control. However, can a world without money exists? Maybe for Cheryl’s little fairytale world it could.
Cheryl’s White Knight comes to the rescue?
Cheryl’s Transformation in Action… will she become the Black Swan?
Foreword from The Scarlet Queen:
Hi Hardwarezone members, I am the siao char bao here. To understand this video, please open up your minds and see it as a work of art. Leave your judgements behind, and imagine you are walking into the esplanade to watch a musical. This is what The Scarlet Queen is about, a musical using the medium of video blogging, written and produced by The Scarlet Queen herself as a solo recital.
The Scarlet Queen Series
Every midnight, for the next hundred days, a video is uploaded daily at 6pm… either as Cheryl (white swan) or Risque (black swan). Today’s episode is Day 21. There is 79 Days more to go before the finale.
..
Cheryl’s Transformation into The Black Swan
In the events of Cheryl’s (white swan) phantom dreams, and finding the black mask on her bed, she finally took the courage to wear it for once… to become stronger. In her internal battle with Risque (the black swan), she tries to find the courage to beat her inner demons. Only her eyes tell the truth of who won the final battle. This episode… is all about her eyes.
I would suggest to rewatch the previous episodes of Cheryl to understand the storyline behind this video. It is the lead up to the climax of the series. You know, its quite similar to Black Swan (movie) when The White Swan meets The Black Swan in a lesbian scene. However, this is just one person wearing two masks, hence the insanity.
The sequence was filmed over a few days, and out of 20 clips, I chose 4 clips to bring out the inner conflicts of the two characters.
Albert Einstein – “Dancers are the athletes of God.”
Dancing is probably the most honest expression of the human soul, in my opinion. Ever since actively dancing, I am extremely vulnerable with my feelings, in a much wider spectrum than ever previously experienced. It has helped me get in touch with who I am inside, and to express it without judgement and fear… there is no holding back in dance, there is only expression.
Previously, when I was in the business world, holding back emotions was the key to making good objective decisions. Logical linear thoughts of black and white, like ink and paper. Everything is in written form, for people to read and for us, to write.. in report concise formats.
It took me about two months to adjust my mindset from a business one, to an artist life. There is only one choice in these two vastly different worlds. There is no compromise, or inbetween. It is a serious conflict to be an artist and business person. If once can do that, he would be a renaissance man. I have to admit I am not that brilliant to juggle both worlds, hence I chose the business world for the initial five years of my life. After experiencing extreme numbing to my emotions, like a poker player, I knew I could no longer hold out. I had the weaker hand to begin with, I can not think logically like the others on the table, I am driven by pure raw instincts. That makes me prone to making wrong business decisions, when my heart takes over my mind. I gave up my old life of the corporate world. I knew, art was my calling. I intend to stick with an artist life for as long as possible.
Maybe Risque and Cheryl is my manifestation of my own personal struggle to come to terms with my own identity from the outside and internal world. From the modern mindsets and conflicting traditional values. From being a man’s fantasy, to an innocent child. The gap is huge, and hard to comprehend, even by myself. This is what I see in women on a daily basis, I am just, as an artist, painting what I observe, in the canvas of video blogging The Scarlet Queen.
I was walking out of my home one day, and I saw a girl walking in the rain. She was a young girl of eighteen, puffing her cigarettes although she was getting drenched in the pouring rain. I came up from behind her, and offered to share my umbrella. She kindly accepted. No words crossed us. As we stood at the traffic lights, waiting for the lights to turn green, I felt her heart. I felt her pain and agony inside. The closeness of us standing together in the rain, under the same umbrella, made me connect with her sadness. She continued to puff her cigarettes, flashing a smile of gratefulness before turning away, her eyes were set dead as stone. As we reached the sheltered indoor area, she offered one last word of thanks, with a temporary smile – before drifting back into her soulless life.
That experience made me connect with another human in another level, I can’t explain. When it rains, I feel that it washes away my pain, and makes me feel tranquil.. that I usually sleep peacefully on rainy nights. When I shared an umbrella with a stranger, I felt.. unsettled. I felt, there is something… more. It is not just what I feel. It is what she felt, that connected with me. This is what I use to drive my emotions – the fuel for my creative works – the emotion of interconnectedness with others.
In partner dancing, we are randomly allocated to strangers to practice our steps. In one night, we could switch partners about ten to twenty times, depending on the men to female ratio. We are connected to dance as one, from the tension we press onto each other hands. We are… feeling what the other person is feeling, as we try to lead and follow, it is scary yet exciting at the same time. Like sharing an umbrella in the rain, we have to depend on each other for signals to execute our steps. When we hold onto each other hands, the emotions run through us, propelling the speed and intensity of the dance itself, with the synergistic chemistry in our interconnectedness.
After all, dancers are the athletes of god. We are just… vessels for great ideas to flow through our bodies.. to execute our art.
Facebook Update: After dancing for four hours a day, six days in a row, I could imagine dancing when I am walking, swaying to the beat of music in the shopping mall, opening doors like doing a spin.
Mistress Risque reveals the truth about the scar on her arm, in her version of the story. Did you really think Cheryl got raped?
. . .
In Risque’s version of the story, she reveals that it was the Dark Knight who made the scar on her arm after a night of a rendezvous passionate love affair. By using her own fingers to mimic the events that happened, it is quite believable that the scar is created by our strongest finger on our hand – the middle finger.
Whose version of the story do you believe in now? Cheryl’s or Risque?
Risque: “Who do you think was the man behind the mask, that resulted in the scar?”
…
In Depth Analysis into The Scar of The Scarlet Queen
In psychological terms, when a traumatic event happens, like a murder, rape or death, witnesses are called to the police station to give a report. The same event is interpreted differently each of the witnesses. One might say, the man was black, the other, might say the man was wearing a mask, or the man is black and wearing a mask.
This is how our brain deals with trauma. We do not recall the events fully, and we will never be able to get the full picture. The Cheryl that you see in this series, suffers from trauma. Hence her recurring nightmares of a “phantom” and the events that haunt her at night – the line for her has crossed to what is imaginary or real, or is it imaginary real?
Risque licking the scar on her arm
Interestingly, Risque seems confident and does not show any signs of trauma, she, instead, interprets the event as her lover, The Dark Knight who made the mark. She starts by saying “the real story of what happened…” which is interesting, because she seems in control in the situation, unlike Cheryl.
What do you think? Do you believe in Cheryl or Risque version of the story?
A good actress is defined by the spectrum of emotions she can portray, in The Scarlet Queen Series, I aim to portray a different emotion in each episode. From hope to despair, love to tragedy, from seduction to rape…
In this myriad mess, the architect tries to create something beautiful. That is… the hallmark of a good writer.
Dancing is the only sanity ground I thread on that gives me hope. I have not wrote the ending of the series, I might cut it to 50 episodes if I go into self destruction mode. But I believe I can do 100 episodes using the will of my mind.
The Scarlet Queen is probably my most defining solo artistic work… watch it while you can. It might abruptly end any moment now.
When i wear my mask, my mind is possessed by my imagination, my body becomes the canvas and my soul is revealed in true honesty. I am… the architect
~The Scarlet Queen.
According to statistics, one fifth of women had been victims of rape or attempted rape. I found the figures discomforting. When i was in university, I read an article on women… in a school’s magazine.. that impacted the way I think about women and their bodies.
Because I am a Woman – Written by Jessica Hill in Monash University Women’s Issues, Voices, Words – Dissent 2009
This is a photo I took of the page, and the words that impacted me were:
“Because I am a woman, my body is something to CONSUME and OWN and RIP OPEN and PENETRATE and MUTILATE and OCCUPY and VIOLATE and RAPE.” Jessica Hill
…
Cheryl shows the scar on her arm
I felt… it is true.. the way the media had portrayed women to be, an object of pleasure and desire. Women are nothing but objects of pleasure. It is… sad and discomforting. Hence I did this video as a tribute to the suffering of women.
“Did you do the The Scarlet Queen Channel on your own?”
“Yes. I write the script, rehearse, act and record it from start to finish.” “I don’t believe it. You must have someone helping you.
“Heh. No. I do get ideas from everywhere but, I am doing it on my own.”
Initially, I found it very tough to act as Risque, she drains the shit out of me. When I write her lines, she morphs it into something so twisted, that when I watch her videos, I can’t believe she did that. She is quite a wild thing, with a wild laughter. I don’t really remember much when I am acting as her.
Now, I find it tougher to act as Cheryl, because she encompasses so much pain, I feel like I am drowning in that oasis she speaks about in her piano song. I composed the song many years back, at one of the lowest points of my life. I used to play the song on the piano to feel better. That is the song Cheryl plays, a song of pain, a song of betrayal, a song of… hope. Acting as Cheryl gives me the most pain, and its getting tougher, as her scenes are going to be trans formative.
As I don’t want to make it sound like I am sprouting magic, I spent two months developing the concept of the video series, hence the product of which, the daily series of The Scarlet Queen is, is my imagination. I have to enforce that it is a solo project, and my sanity is at sake. I don’t know if I can do it past episode 50 at the rate of deterioration I am facing. I want to cut it short and just battle it out and stop the filler episodes of built up and suspense and get down to direct business. However, I am trying to slow it down, but I want it to go faster. See the contradiction?
To enlighten my viewers, I have been practicing aerobatics for the past two days, for a scene for Cheryl. I am currently trying to choreograph an aerobatic dance to symbolise her personality and struggles. I hope to release her Swan Dance for episode 20, or earlier.
At this stage of the production, I am dancing about 4 hours on average for 5 days a week. I feel incredibly fit… my muscles are aching but it feels good. My heart is breaking inside, my soul is being tested, my physical limits are being pushed. I want that all… because I want to be stronger.
I had dedicated my life to the craft of artistry and there is no turning back.
Recently, I have been awoken in my sleep
from pain.
One, is from the recurring pain on my left wrist
an old injury. The pain goes into my bones and it wakes me up
in the middle of the night, especially when it is cold.
Two, is from the emotional pain in my heart
I wake up feeling extremely low and crappy
like seriously, end my misery please
I don’t know why I feel this way
but it might be because my bed is empty
and realising I am alone.
Three, is from the pain from my muscles
I have been overexerting
I tend to go into extremes when I am in my creative over drive
like doing workouts in the middle of the night
stretching
dancing
anything physically exhausting
so I will collapse back into my bed
so that my mind will blank out.
Lastly, is the imagined pain in my mind
To portray a character like Cheryl
I have to imagine her pain
and it does get into me.
Or dancing even, the pain of tango.
Anything that I imagine, act and write
I feel it too.
I am tired. I want to rest, I want to feel at peace
but my heart and mind is in perpetual discord
the unsettling conflicting of emotions is… overwhelming
I wish I could really end it, like, I don’t want to wake up
because it is too fucking painful.
I do love the people around me, and my life
but when I am breaking into pieces
within myself in forging my new identity
I can no longer see myself.
Metaphorically… I am dead… emotionally and physically.
Like a phoenix that turns into ashes, it will rise again
but when, I do not know.
Goddess Risque talks about her views on women. A woman has to be stronger than her man, like the game of chess, the queen protects her king. The true power of a woman lies in her femininity, all she has to do is to listen to her heart to release the Goddess within.
