#Parable Eclipse

[notokbutthriving]

Parable Eclipse

[aroaceeverything]

Rant that nobody asked for or wanted about Stanley parable and the dca parallels

I really love Stanley parable and how it views choices and lack of. The narrator’s perspective is so different from our own. He doesn’t even understand we’re alive. Now this is where I draw it back into my bois. They are also told from such a different perspective. We know nothing about him except for his job, what routine he’s stuck in. We don’t even really know how sentient he is. This is an obvious parallel to Stanley, but told from opposite perspective. Both are seemingly endlessly monitored with cameras no one is checking. Both have room to be confused with their autonomy. Not sure if they enjoy something because people want them too or if they even have emotions.

Also the endings are very similar feeling. Specifically the ending the narrator wants Stanley to have and eclipse in ruin. Both have nothing left of the life they’ve lived so far. ( what are they even able to do?) Both are in a state of bliss manufactured by the more aware characters. Both are vague and have room for many possibilities. Both are supposed to be about letting go of something.

[tadssstrange]

Another art dumb!

The Narrator being onto something

The Eclipse (a fusion between Heart and Mind [my headcanon]) also I used that one Garnet scene when Rubie and Sapphire (Satan forgive me my bad grammar) fused

King Dice and The Devil

I am actually pretty proud out of this one, as you can see, I have pretty big problems with legs, I could tell with one especially, but my main problem are full legs (especially if they are thicc)

So there are me trying to learn how to draw legs, it didn't went well (also you can see a little Doodle of King Dice)

HEART MY BELOWED

Heart again with Haiku refference

This is my OC! Sunny! (I might have little thing to suns since that is my second OC that have the sun refference [first was Władzik if you remember]) he is without colours because I am afraid that I might break this (also there is a little Chonny Jash refference if you notice) this one OC is the funny nice personality, and the heartbreaking backstory [if anyone want to hear it, then Ask freely]

jim

I am officially apologizing every Sherlock Holmes fan. (This was my imaginating of Sherlock after reading the firsts chapters when he was introducet [I am surelly wrong, but at least he looks funny])

Me slowly going back to my old hyperfixations after 3 years

[shinymoonforest]

"Do you like the flowers, my dear? I picked them out especially for you~!"

did lil thingyyy with silas teehee, burnttoast content good for the soul <333

Oh? Flowers? For Me? [OPEN COLLAB!]

But who could they be from..? YOU decide!

Or it could be something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT! They don't have to be giving him flowers, they could of simply spotted him out and about!

It's up to you!! GO WILD!!

[raleighrador]

I get why many “Vader displaced in time” fics (especially ones where ESB or similar Vader gets deposited in TCW or ROTS Anakin’s body) focus on angst and guilt and drama and what not.

I enjoy many of them.

But I feel like we’re missing a trick.

Peak Vader (as in spent 20 years trying to drown himself in the Force, has latched on to weaponising Luke as his apprentice, finally killing Sidious, has studied 1,000s of years of Sith mysticism etc) being deposited into peak Anakin’s body is literally a doomsday event which eclipses canon Order 66 and its fallout.

Peak Vader is literally a nightmare myth that Jedi of the late republic (except maybe Yoda) would dismiss as ludicrous exaggerations designed as parables for younglings.

Peak Vader is the most accomplished Jedi killer ever - this is a guy who in the course of his life has killed literally dozens of combat veteran Jedi in personal combat. He’s studied just about every Sith and Jedi holocron he can get his hands on. He’s a genius level intellect who is also just about the single most obsessive compulsive personality imaginable.

As a padawan he built, trained, and then destroyed a combat droid designed to perfectly emulate Maul. You expect me to believe he hasn’t done the same - over and over again - to every council member he could find records of? Every high republic Jedi he could find records of? Every sith he could get hold of?

Vader’s weakness is emotional and personal decision making ie he CHOOSES to remain in thrall to Sidious because self hating nihilism is his comfort zone.

Vader made exactly one serious attempt on Sidious’ life - on DS2 - and immediately killed him. He got fried, yes, but he wasn’t even trying to protect himself, and his death always felt at least somewhat like a choice to me.

My point is this - if Vaderkin suddenly appeared on the bridge of The Invisible Hand none of Sidious, Dooku, or Obi-Wan walk out that room alive.

What happens from there? Who knows but I imagine it would be VERY messy.

[did-someone-say-aliens]

(new!) pinned post bbgs!! 2023-2024

i am unable to donate to any Gaza/genocide campaigns but i’m more than willing to reblog and platform campaigns!!

CURRENTLY WORKING ON A VISUAL NOVEL CALLED COIN SLOT PASSION!! :D

Dni List: Homophobes, Racists, 18+ content, Sexists, Fujoshis, MAPs, ableists, proshippers, nsfw agere, Transphobes, TERFS AND RADFEMS >:/

Accounts: @kinnie-central (i only post on there once in a blue moon) I post kinnie bingos on there. and @costasella is an rp blog for my pressure oc :) @cr-polls is where I do. well. cookie run polls :D

Other socials: Itch.io (I mostly post emulator skins) , Bluesky (Barely ever post)

Pronouns: my main pronouns are they/it/xe :]

Extended pronoun list: Bug/clown/alien/cat/paw/kit/aer/elau/delau/cupcake/glitter/snail/rain/plant/dino/worm/dragon/draer/draerself/rocks/xe/xyr/scene/:3/gloo/kandi/honk/xir/ze/ne/ nym/nis/nim/ner/phey/phem/ve/vem/ver/vim/ce/cir /moth/mothself/ghostself

emoji pronoun list: 👽/👾/🐝/🪱/🐛/🐌/🦕/🪼/🐟/🐳/🍄/🥀/🍮/🎲/♟️/🎥/📼/🎞️/📺/📻🕰️/🗝️/♠️/🍓/🐋/🦈/🍄‍🟫

Roleplay info under the cut! :D

Fandoms I rp: I love roleplaying!, Absolutely NO nsfw. NONE. I may not always answer super fast. I get demotivated really easily too just fair warning :(

ROLEPLAYS: closed for now!

Roleplay Information! Just to skip past the whole HUSTLE BUSTLE OOH what character do you want to be oh but i wanted to be that character, I'll list the ones I usually play as for the fandoms I roleplay :) If there is more than one listed it's not because I rp all of them in the same one, it's if you wanna be that character then I can be a different one and I'll be ok with it :)

Aggretsuko: Shikabane

Ace Attorney: Apollo, Edgeworth, Alita Tiala

Amphibia: Marcy, Dr. Jan

Adventure Time: Fern, Magic Betty

BSD: Dazai, Edgar

Battle Kitty: Orc, Aeon

Cookie Run: Pure Vanilla, Affogato Cookie

Dsaf: Dee

Danganronpa: Mikan, Chiaki, Kokichi

Undertale/Deltarune/UT AUs: Dream/Shattered, Muffet, Napstablook, Kris, Seam

DDLC: Yuri, Sayori

Dogman: Any

Dandy's World: Astro, Razzle & Dazzle, Twisted Glisten

Death Note: L, Near, Teru (sometimes???)

Dialtown: Phonegingi, Karen

DHMIS: Yellow Guy, Sketchbook, Lesley

ENA: Any

FNAF: Charlie/Puppet, Sundrop, Moondrop, Eclipse, Withered Bonnie, Lefty, Lolbit, Ballora

Ghost and Pals: Christopher, Arc, Cakey, Creative Piko, Kennith, Epta, Evelyn J.

Hello Puppets: Riley

INMIMB: Embry

Invader Zim: GIR, Zim

Lalaloopsy: Rosy Bumps N Bruises, Pillow Featherbed

MLP: Fluttershy, Sci-Twi, Starlight Glimmer

Monster High (any gen): Twyla (g3), Robecca Steam

MCSM: Lukas, Ivor

Night in the Woods: Mae

Omori: Sunny, Basil

Over the Garden Wall: Any

Ouran Highschool Host Club: Haruhi

Project Sekai: Mafuyu Asahina

Pressure: Sebastian, Painter, Eyefestation, Squiddles

PPG: Bubbles, HIM

Popee the Performer: Eepop

Pokemon: N, Kieran, Allister

Portal: Glados, Caroline, Curiosity Core, Space Core

Raggedy Ann: Ann, Topsy

Regretevator: Bive

Splatoon: Marina

Stardew Valley: Maru, Krobus, Shane

Star Vs. The Forces of Evil: Eclipsa, Celena

She-Ra: Entrapta

Sonic: Shadow

Skullgirls: Marie, Squigly

Steven Universe: Spinel, Peridot, Blue Diamond, Rainbow Quartz 2.0

Smile For Me: Kamal, Dr Habit

Steve Saga: Green Steve

TTS/Vat7k: Varian, Nuru

TTATC: Tack

TWF: Banny, Susan

TMC: Gabriel (any ver.)

TMA: Michael (Pre-spiral and spiral) Nikola Orsinov

The Lego Movie: Benny

Trolls: Branch, Val, Barb

The Stanley Parable: Any

TOH: Hunter, The Collector, Amity

TMNT (mostly rottmnt): Donnie

TAWOG: Any

Vocaloid: Fukase, Yowane Haku, YohioLOID

Welcome Home: Wally, Sally

Wordgirl: Dr Two Brains, Toby

Yuppie Psycho: Tiki-Taka

Yandere Sim: Oka Ruto, Amai Odayaka

Yo Gabba Gabba: Plex

FANDOMS: (oh boy here we go. I have no life can you tell?)

Purple- Fandoms I love to roleplay!

Orange- Fandoms I roleplay sometimes.

White- Fandoms I don't roleplay (but am still in)

Animal Jam, Aggretsuko, Animal Crossing, Ace Attorney, Avatar the Last Airbender, Angel Hare, Alice in Wonderland, Amphibia, Adventure Time, Angel Beats, A Short Hike, Animaniacs, A Mall Near You, Ann, Attack on Titan, Bungo Stray Dogs, Bigtop Burger, Bandori, BURNER, BFDI, Bendy and the Ink Machine, Bluey, Blue’s Clues, Battle Kitty, Bonnie’s Bakery, Baldi’s Basics, Blackout Hospital, Cookie Run, Crowscare, Cemetery Mary, Camp Here and There, Critterspace, Captain Underpants, Corpse Factory, Cuphead, Creepy Tale, Dayshift at Freddy’s, Danganronpa, Deltarune, Doors, Doki Doki Literature Club, Dungeons & Dragons, Dogman, Dandy’s World, Death Note, Dialtown, Demon Slayer, Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, Death and Taxes, Death Mark, Ensemble Stars, ENA, Ever After High, Five Nights at Freddy’s, Fundamental Paper Education, Fatum Betula, FNF, Ghost and Pals, Gorillaz, Good Omens, Genshin Impact, Ghost Eyes, Gravity Falls, GRIS, Gavril, Hello Charlotte, HFJONE, Happy Tree Friends, Honkai Star Rail, Hooky, Homestuck, Hello Puppets, Hero Hours Contract, House, Hypnospace Outlaw, Harmony and Horror, It’s Not Me It’s My Basement, Inside Job, Inanimate Insanity, Invader Zim, Indigo Park, John Doe, Kirby, K-On!, Littlest Pet Shop, Lego Monkie Kid, Lego Batman, Lord of the Rings, Lalaloopsy, Lucky Star, Lain, League of Enthusiastic Losers, Little Nightmares, Looking Up I See Only A Ceiling, Lost in Random, Leftovers, My Little Pony, Max and Ruby, Minecraft, Marionetta, My Hero Academia, Monster High, Moon Phase, Minecraft Story Mode, Mad Father, Milk Inside a Bag of Milk, Milky Way Prince, Mario, Night in the Woods, Ninjago, Nimona, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Needy Streamer Overload, Nana, Ni no Kuni Wrath of the White Witch, Omori, Over the Garden Wall, OK K.O, Octonauts, Ouran Highschool Host Club, One-Eyed Lee and the Dinner Party, Project Sekai, Pressure, Parappa the Rapper, Powerpuff Girls, Pepper’s Playhouse, Popee the Performer, Pretty Cure, Pokemon, Portal, Regretevator, Raggedy Ann, Rumbling Hearts, Resident Evil, Rythm Heaven, Splatoon, Secret Alliance, Star Trek, Sesame Street, Stardew Valley, Strawberry Shortcake, Star Vs The Forces of Evil, Sailor Moon,  She-Ra, Spooky Month, Sanrio, Spiderverse, Studio Ghibli, Saiki K, Sonic the Hedgehog, Skullgirls, Steven Universe, Sally Face, Smile for Me, Shopkins, Steve Saga, Tangled the Series, The Sun and Moon Show, The Future Diary, Twelve Forever, The Thief and The Cobbler, The Walten Files, The Mandela Catalog, The Magnus Archives, The Lego Movie, Tattletail, The Muppets, Toilet Bound Hanako Kun, Trolls, The Stanley Parable, The Case Study of Vanitas, The Legend of Zelda, Twisted Wonderland, The Hobbit, The Owl House, TMNT, The Amazing World of Gumball, Transformers, The Prototype, Undertale, Undertale AUs, Underverse, Unikitty, Vocaloid, Varian and the Seven Kingdoms, Welcome to the Night Vale, Watamote, Wander over Yonder, Welcome Home, Wordgirl, Yuppie Psycho, Yandere Simulator, Your Turn to Die, Yo Gabba Gabba, Yu Gi Oh, Yume Nikki

KIND OF fandoms that I'm in kind of/have been in/am no longer in/know of: TADC, Musicals, Encanto, SCP, Naruto, Amanda the Adventurer, Connection Haunted

[tellurian-in-aristasia]

A am a bit of a messy archiver, and have some copy & pasted Aristasian writings that I have simply forgot to include the source of! This particular piece, on the History of Aristasia, is labeled in my file as being from January 2005, so it is most likely a Heartbook conversation. I don't believe it has any particularly new information, and what information it does has, is quite obviously twisted around a bit, but it is interesting nonetheless. This is a forum response from Miss Annalinde herself, to a pette curious about the history of Aristasia and where Filianism (although it is not named as such) fits within it. When I find the archived source, I will edit with the link. Edit: I quickly found the link, it is from the archive of the Aristasian Spirituality Yahoo Group.

Dear Carola,

Forgive the delay in replying. Our ordinator network has been experiencing problems for the last few days.

So many questions are raised by all this!

First let us consider Aristasian religion. To do this we have to understand something of how Aristasia-in-Telluria has developed.

It began in the 1970s and it is often said that the impetus came from the realisation that the cultural collapse of the 1960s (which came to be called the Eclipse) was not a temporary social aberration but was at least semi-permanent. A society was being created based on utterly false principles - moral, aesthetic and spiritual. The Western world had long been guided by false philosophies, and moral (that is to say, not ordinary immorality which exists at all times, but a denial or inversion of morality) and aesthetic corruption had affected sections of the intelligentsia since early in the 20th century, but in the 1960s it began to affect the lives of the entire population, creating a radically false, inverted or Tamasic society.

This necessitated secession: the creation of a society - or societies - that separated themselves from the all-pervasive corruption of the society created by the Eclipse (which came to be called the Pit). The society of earlier decades of the 20th century was used as a model, not from a desire to “live in the past”, but from a belief that - to use a small parable - when one becomes lost in a forest one should retrace one’s steps to the point at which one became lost and continue on from there.

This could have been done in various ways. There could have been a mixed group of men and women. A few such groups have been attempted, but never with much success. Aristasia has always been favourable to such attempts while not wishing to abandon the integrity of Aristasia itself.

Aristasia was all-female for two reasons. First that men (governed by the planet Mars) tend toward discord and find it very hard to organise when there is no forcible centre of authority. Male groupings tend to be dogged by arguments, splits and schisms.

The second reason was simply that the founders wanted an all-female group. Having been deprived by the Eclipse of a legitimate social order, they felt free to create their own order in the form they preferred. And they preferred an all-feminine world. As do we.

Some would also put forward a third reason. They would suggest that as patriarchy reaches its apogee, attempting to suppress femininity even in women themselves, a counter-movement, a feminine collegia is a necessary corrective. Many early Aristasians went even further and argued that they were helping to embody a re-entry of the feminine spiritual principle into the hyper-patriarchal and spiritually moribund Western world.

There have been various approaches to religion and spirituality in Aristasia, from those who really took little interest in the subject to those who, particularly in the 70s and 80s of the last century, developed a very comprehensive religious practice and thealogy. You have mentioned the Collyridians, who are named from their practice of offering cakes or bread to Our Lady - a practice clearly similar to that of the Hebrew women at the time of Jeremiah who offered honey-cakes to the Queen of Heaven, and of course of the practice of offering prasada to Sri Lakshmi or other Hindu forms of Our Lady.

For many Aristasians, the offering of honey cakes became a central act of worship and even developed a liturgical form. Some even developed a Mythos of the Mother and Daughter with a highly developed thealogy. At the time there were a number of Aristasians and quasi-Aristasians about the Aristasian District and University of Milchford, and a few other centres, and this culta gained considerable impetus. After a time, it was called into question on the grounds that, in Telluria, it was not founded on any legitimate tradition. Its followers held that it was inspired and was a legitimate re-emergence of a matriarchal faith for our times.

This is the point, in masculine organisations, where splits and schisms tend to take place. Aristasia dealt with it rather differently, and in its own whimsical way. Those who adhered to the full religion of the Mother and Daughter continued to do so. Those who did not regarded it as something from Aristasia Pura that was not appropriate for Aristasia-in-Telluria. The two “factions” lived in peace. The thirteen-month Calendar of the Mother and Daughter religion is regarded as the Old Aristasian Calendar.

This is all a bit of a rationalistic way of putting it, and understates the extent to which Aristasia Pura is a reality to us. But that is a matter for another occasion.

Over the following decades things have settled. The full religion seems no longer to be practiced. Everyone is agreed that God is our Mother, whether she is a “spiritual person” or not. The seven Planetary Principles or Janyati are universally accepted by Aristasians as something very close to the original feminine statement of that part of the Western tradition as well as something fully Aristasian.

The continuing development of Aristasian devotion is a vital matter. Most would agree that Aristasian Religion in its fullest form went a little too far in creating a “tradition”. Most would also agree that it did a lot of very good philosophical and theological work to which we are indebted. What precisely will be the next steps in development we are not yet sure. That is why this group takes as its premise a very simple bhakti devotion to the Mother upon which everyone can wholeheartedly agree.

But it does not have to stop there. Aristasia has always been open to different approaches and perspectives. For such a young movement, we have a rich history of spiritual, philosophical and devotional development.

The great danger of “new religious movements” in the West is that they will base themselves upon, or at least be influenced by the philosophical errors of the Rajasic era, and now of the Tamasic. The various modernistic cults of the New Age Movement are perfect examples what happens under such influences. With such a book as The Feminine Universe in our hands we should certainly be able to avoid these errors.

Claims of a continuing tradition are, in our view rather dubious. What sort of a tradition in any case? An initiatic one with a chain of initiation going back to - to what? So many questions are raised without satisfactory answers.

What has happened, we feel, is that the Archetypes of the Worship of the Mother are abiding realities and so manifest themselves whenever the “ground” is ready for them. The Collyridians may have had a direct chain of tradition going back to the Hebrew women of Jeremiah’s time, or there may be a form of worship that, like a living thing, is always there, ready to break through when the “concrete” of patriarchy cracks a little.

I should be very interested to hear your views on this matter, as also those of Miss Marianne Trent. And, of course, the rest of the group!

May Our Lady bless you,

Annalinde

[speaker-of-the-void-cats]

"You must learn to tease apart the hues of your own heart." —Parables of the Allspring.

Hey all! I'm a Warlock main named Matt and I've been posting my scattershot Destiny musings, ramblings, and theories since Lightfall's release. In that time, I've really enjoyed exploring the mysteries of the lore and honing my thoughts on Destiny's story through various posting styles. Particularly, I've loved exploring topics like the nature of the Darkness and the Veil, and their place in the story, as well as the generally rhyming, looping, spiraling structure of the game's narrative. I also love Eris, Drifter, Savathûn, and Osiris!

Sometimes I get a little all over, especially in those early posts, with big leaps and a lot of my own writing connecting the dots in an attempt to see a bit into the future. You'll have to pardon some of them, as I'm sure a few have aged pretty poorly or are just straight up bad. But as we've gone through the seasons and learned more, I've tried a sort of variation on web-weaving and assemblage by using lore entries, images, video, and sometimes song lyrics and poetry in a particular order and context to evoke specific moods or convey big, hard to articulate ideas and speculation. Sometimes, I just explore a theme or specific lore nook that fascinates me. It's a weird little practice in meaning-making I really like and the process has helped me unearth possible connections between things I've never considered in my many years following the lore.

As we move through The Final Shape, I wanted to finally compile a list of links to all my posts. Pardon the amount of repetition and, probably, off-the-wall speculation, but I hope you find something interesting if you decide to check them out! Also, keep an eye out for links. Sometimes it's simply the source text on Ishtar, other times.... something more. Please keep in mind that all these are products of the moment in time they were posted in, so topics I explored in early ones may have questions answered in the seasons since, or theories may have been proven unequivocally wrong. The list will largely go from earliest to most recent, and I'll put a * next to my favorites!

The Veil, Nezarec, and Jakob Bohme

Seeing the murals above the Veil enclosure

EMBRACE THE DARKNESS

Thank You, Verse 154i:4 - Call the Thrall

MCXLLII-I, forthcoming.

The EDZ saw paracausal conflict long before the Collapse

Pattern is system and system is sequence, but what is sequence?

Forsaken Lightfall

Deterministic Chaos

Eight

SALVAGE THE TRUTH

Aren't they beautiful?

"What is this feeling? I do not want it."

"They desired meaning. A Winnower to shape the garden."*

"How many legends of katabasis do we have, Ikora?"*

The Sundial

The Dreaming Cities

Not Light, not Dark: Power.*

Chiasmus*

Conspiracy Theory-D

The Truth in the Darkness...

Have you ever been afraid of your own Shadow?*

[I could be wrong. Is it possible the Black Heart will beat again?]*

©0RrUptIôN.*

Prismatic Hearts*

"We are unique emanations of the same shared Light."

Kugelblitz

Final attempts to understand before the Shape is unveiled*

[The following posts contain entries, imagery, and spoilers for the Final Shape and Echoes]

Paradrome

Speaker's Sight — Study the voice. Gaze into the heart.

"Focus. The Pyramid distracts. Nothing more."

It all means one thing

DECRYPTION KEY: 3136664202-777

Ruinous Effigy

There is only SUFFERING

SPOILER ALERT

Hope for the Future

It's not over

Echoing

Echoes of Deep Hidden Truth

Solipsism

Anima Mundi

Caught up in a web

II. Theory**

Gardener|ɿɘwonniW**

Cipher**

Eclipse**

"What is 'OXA,' and who was 'MSund12'?"

I know you're not afraid of a little dark...

How do I live?

Half-Truths**

!lettinggo*

Abyssus abyssum invocat***

THE POINT***

Eyes up, Guardian

"The road ahead is unknown, but time tells us many things. The moments that become past in turn become blueprints for the future. In this space, there is no right or wrong. "We find a contemporaneous merging of what is known and what is unknown here. Somewhere between the knowns and unknowns lies the real. The tangible. "There is a weight to it; a feeling that tells you what you hold is true. "But what if the truth hasn't been told? What if the truth is a lie? "New paths present themselves. Blueprints change. We walk the line of truth every day. "But now, the line that holds the gentle balance has been crossed. "The truth is, this won't be the last time."

—Excerpt from the Symmetry pamphlet, "A Place Between"

Reading for world-building is a skill. I have seen brilliant people, laureates, inventors, Ph.D.s, try to read fiction with deep world-building and fail completely, looping back, rereading, never following events, trapped in a sense of muddled wandering. Reading for world-building requires retaining information without context: a term, a place, a coin, a category comes up once and we know what that is—a puzzle piece—and that our task is to gather up these pieces as the author drops them, and to slowly assemble the whole. This is not easy. Human memory needs hooks for facts: a mnemonic, a story, context, something; grueling textbook rote-learning fades quickly, but a story of the statesman or the king, that's what makes knowledge stay. To retain puzzle pieces that don't connect, dropped without context, is a skill that not all have. All had it once: it is how children read, every book, poster, and headline a stream of unknown terms, far too many to ask about them all, but the child retains them, trusting that they will connect to something someday. Kids collect Earth's puzzle pieces every time they read, but as we move to grown-up books they all use the same picture, and define immediately those terms they fear a reader may not know. Thus the skill of keeping puzzle pieces fades, unless we read books set in other worlds, new puzzle pictures which make us retain the skill, as frogs sometimes retain their tadpole tails into adulthood. This—many have observed—is why most F&SF readers come to the genre young, it's hard to start in adulthood when one's puzzle memory skill has sat atrophied. We find dozens of other puzzle pieces—creatures, buried engines, monstrous plants—but they don't connect either, no explanations, no recurrences. We trust. We ponder. We wade through the clutter of clashing technologies, tales of degeneration, glories lost, but there's no fall-of-space-Rome story to connect it up. We can guess at one, as we can guess the missing end of the story of the strange plants, as we can guess at several ways rats could gain language if time passed and—click—we see it. These puzzle pieces do not fit together—rather this puzzle-maker trusts that we are puzzle-masters and know the archetypes that must fill in between (a rise, an age, a destined king.) So we spread our disconnected puzzle pieces out, not assuming that the strange creatures come from one origin, the ruins from one era, and as we spread out, looking not for direct connections but for fragments of arcs and colors, our 100 puzzle pieces let us glimpse an image so vast it would take 100,000—an image large enough to capture true Deep Future, years numbered in millions, where contours that do connect do so at scales which make the layers of Freud's Rome appear shallow as coats of paint.

—Excerpts from The Path of the New Sun by Ada Palmer, introduction to The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

[alias-milamber]

Parables of the Lost Voyage: Awake, Again

Three, Two, One, Dead.

My morph shut down, and my ego downloaded to VR before I had a chance to lose the feeling in my fingers. I've always hated the feeling of having the body shut down around me, so I've mastered the timing of hitting the metaphorical eject switch just in time to avoid it.

An hour in transit passed in VR like a week of holiday, and I woke up on Plato station, on a free trade orbital somewhere close to Saturn. A brief feeling like your essence being sucked through an hourglass, a synesthesic splash of the taste of yellow and the sound cinnamon makes, and I was back incarnate again.

Waking up on Plato was - as going from any orbital to another is - something like waking up in a parallel universe. I entered the same facility I entered a hundred million miles away - identical to the millimetre - but from a dozen centimetres further up, as my new morph was a little taller than the previous one. Not exactly a dizzying change in perspective, but my bones moved differently, my senses caught new things, and slightly differently calibrated eyeware popped reds and blacks strangely. The doors from the facility led out to a mix of the familiar and the strange, brands that stretched over the system next to local options I'd never see again, mixed with francises selling the same food under new names, and old names licensed for new purposes. I picked a coffee shop and attempted to double-caff my way to understanding.

The second sunrise of waking juice was just hitting my brand new bloodstream when I noticed the large screen mounted above the concourse of the commercial way I'd woken up on. It switched from a local new broadcast to the episode currently in progress, and a series of virtual actors and sets appeared midway though what appeared to be an argument that had been in progress for a year or more. It took me longer than I care to admit to realise that not only was this an episode of Twilight's Eden, but one I'd been watching in VR the subjective day before. It was ruinously expensive to send video across the Feed, and so almost all media but the biggest of blockbuster movies were sent as scripts to be interpreted by the local media UAI. Every sector therefore had their own local constellation of stars and background actors, their own version of locations and sets. The words remained the same, the stories could be followed, and it was even interesting to see different interpretations of the same character by MediaAI across the solar system.

I stopped watching. Twilight Eden was comforting, but it was going to take a while to get used to the new cast. I wondered if I could get a copy of the Ultima Station cast and sets, and play the scripts in that locally, but my data budget didn't stretch that far, and I didn't know if they'd keep backups.

My coffee finished, I merged back into the walking crowd towards the dead-drop where my contact's information was supposed to be. Alas, promises to keep, and lightyears before sleep.

--

(The Parables of the Lost Voyage are a short series of fiction pieces exploring the world around an Eclipse Phase campaign I’m planning)

[the-haunted-office]

Selective - Mun is 30+ - 25+ preferred but may make exceptions - Open to all crossovers, canons, OCs, and self-inserts - Although this blog is centered around The Stanley Parable, it is multifandom and multimuse!

PINNED POST - MUSES - RULES - PICTURE OF CAT

Promo created by Me in MS Paint! Template provided by @lumera-eclipse​!

[six]

Flow

Directed by Gints Zilbalodis, it's a Latvian animated feature which, more or less, builds upon one of the concepts in his prior short films, Aqua. In this case, an eco-parable about a cat who wakes up to discover that human civilisation is subsumed under water. Whereas Aqua kept the scale of the disaster smaller of a cat on a drowned island, Flow widens the scope significantly, this time, with the entirety of human society being extinct, and all that's left are a group of marooned animal herds. Whilst ecological fairy tales are a common theme in animation, ranging from Hayao Miyazaki to the Cartoon Saloon adventures of Tom Moore and classic Pixar films, Flow opts to solely focus on naturalism for it's story.

None of the animal characters, in this case, a cat, capybara, a crane, a dog, and a lemur, among other additional animals, which are interspersed throughout, have been characterised by anthropomorphism. Here, all the animals communicate entirely through sounds and express themselves purely through ethological animation. E.g, cats playfully whip at loose tassels, dogs use their chest to energetically bound into objects, and so on. This innovative approach of visual storytelling, in the sense of observing how animals use their primal instincts to adapt, is what makes Flow uniquely transcendent. No dialogue, human characters, or overt caricature is needed here, for the full effect of the story.

Visually, Flow is at once, ethereal and eerie. Its painterly style, rendered through the Blender animation software, has the lightness of touch that evokes a fairytale but also has the dystopian, derelict minimalism of an Edward Hopper painting. It's beguiling and completely absorbing; using specific colour hues in certain scenes to indicate subtle but clear shifts in mood. At times, the budgetary constraints can come through with certain sequences (some of the more elaborate backgrounds and animals have a slight lack of fidelity). Nevertheless, Flow's style eclipses the odd visual discrepancy, as it provides a genuinely transportive experience.

Underneath the visual sophistication, Flow manages to be simultaneously accessible and enigmatic. It's adventure at the centre; a group of misfit animals being forced to band together in an unforeseen set of circumstances has the effervescent and blithe spirit of say, Shelia Burnford's The Incredible Journey, making it light footed enough for a child. However, it has the symbolic and philosophical undercurrents of an allegory. Solitude and loneliness are key themes, as the solitary cat awakens to find that his domesticity has vanished overnight and has to revert to being feral. Yet, through community and compassion, it learns that these things can be overcome. If not, without considerable hardship. Death is also accepted as a part of the natural order and that even with loss comes with communal compassion. Whether something like Flow, which is, in my opinion, one of the finest animated films to come out in recent years, and looks well-set to take all time classic status, can coexist in the mainstream animation landscape alongside the Minions or Toy Story is a difficult one. Flow is refreshingly free from convention and pursues the rarest of things - a new, authentic creative voice in favour of wide audience embrace. It also sits in the nebulous space between 'kids' and 'adults'. Much like Watership Down or the work of Shaun Tan, it's neither implicitly for a demographic or age range. Rather, it's for everyone.

Nevertheless, I hope there's an audience willing to take the plunge, as Flow is mesmerising, beautiful, haunting, and genuinely special :). It won't be for everyone, but it will be unlike anything you'll see this year. Go watch it!

[notokbutthriving]

Parable Eclipse & Narra

[aroaceeverything]

[narrating-narrator]

jack you do NOT wanna be dissecting narrator. he is LITTERALLY as bright as the sun

I'll be fine, Stanley gave me eclipse glasses. But to be honest, I wouldn't mind going blind if it meant I didn't have to face this god damn parable anymore.

-Jack

[neverthelesservescence]

Seven Stanzas at Easter Make no mistake if he rose at all it was as his body; if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle, the church will fall. It was not as the flowers, each soft Spring recurrent; it was not as his Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the eleven apostles; it was as his flesh; ours The same hinged thumbs and toes, the same valved heart that - pierced - died, withered, decayed, and then regathered out of his Father's might new strength to enclose. Let us not mock God with metaphor, analogy, sidestepping transcendence; making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded credulity of earlier ages: let us walk through the door The stone is rolled back, not papier-maché, not a stone in a story, but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of time will eclipse for each of us the wide light of day. And if we will have an angel at the tomb, make it a real angel, weighty with Max Plank's quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen spun on a definite loom. Let us not seek to make it less monstrous, for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty, lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed by the miracle, and crushed by remonstrance.

-John Updike

[susandeath]

What are 5 things that make you happy? After you answer, pass the question to the last 10 people who reblogged your post. Let's spread positivity 🌻

Thank you! 😊 Right now:

1. Goth/industrial music especially Twin Tribes who I just saw live 😍🎸🧛🏽‍♂️🎤🧛🏽

2. Octavia Butler!!! Finally decided to actually finish ALL her books (on Parable of the Talents) and the more twisted and horrifying her plot lines are the more I like it 👀🌎🌱👩‍👧

3. Wilhelm Reich's crazy life and Orgonon theory / outdated psychiatry 🔭 🔬 ⚗️ 🏰

4. Fashion/cosplay and learning new sewing skills 🎀🧵🪡

5. After going to the awesome MFA Boston Hallyu gallery exhibit, KPop actually 😁🇰🇷🎤👩🏻‍🎤

Have a nice day Ewa 🧝 Hope you get to see the solar eclipse. 🌘😎