u/cherubwings_

I feel like MXTX’s massive popularity might have made her more insecure about writing her fourth novel. When she wrote her first three, she probably never expected her danmei novels to become this huge worldwide phenomenon. Now anything she writes will have millions of eyes on it and inevitably be compared to MDZS and TGCF.

It makes me wonder if that pressure is partly why she scrapped the original plot and characters of Grim Reapers Have No Days Off and now wants to finish everything before publishing.

I kind of miss the spontaneity of her earlier writing. Ironically, that freedom is part of what made her so popular in the first place.

I’ve been developing a dark fantasy story and I genuinely can’t tell if the concept has potential.

The story is inspired by Arabic/Egyptian/South Asian folklore and centers around two characters trapped in a cycle of love, betrayal, death, and reincarnation.

One of them, is an immortal ruler who slowly becomes something between a god, a tyrant, and a myth. He’s charismatic, manipulative, deeply lonely, and worshipped by people who don’t actually know who he really is.

The other is a mortal who keeps reincarnating throughout history and keeps being drawn back to mc no matter how many times their relationship ends in tragedy.

The core of the story is basically:
a romance where both people destroy each other in different ways
political manipulation and war
false gods and manufactured religion
memory loss / fragmented reincarnation
desert kingdoms, hanging gardens, oceans, temples, night markets
symbolism involving serpents, white lotuses, sand castles, mirrors, and clocks
the idea that immortality can turn love into obsession