#Return Home

[thetaekwondofeline]

My DEAREST Warrior King Oakenshield,

Return from the war zone with pride & whole. Manifesting your striking figure now kissed with blood-sweat-dirt. Lift that magnificent face towards the freed Erebor, while carrying triumph in hand search for my cold-fire feature. The moment deep blue eyes are on me, my soul blooming with joy-relief-excitement. Leaving behind the gate of Erebor, my body automatically captivated towards MY EREBOR, travelling with unbelievably magnetic force. Still, the path seems so… so long until our bodies meet, brushing 'our' baby bump on your armour.

-Your Lady

[01432853]

Return Home 归路 (2023) - EP1

[rabbitcruiser]

The Indiana State Soldiers and Sailors Monument was dedicated on May 15, 1902.

[a-path-by-the-moon]

[oh-dear-so-queer]

"(...) We returned to my father's house and I put on my gayest clothes and sang and danced before my father and pretended to be delighted with the marriage which he had prepared for me. (...)"

"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Horse and His Boy" - C. S. Lewis

[farolero-posting]

I often see people say that after reading the Solstice lore, they would choose to return Niko home, even if they chose otherwise in their first run.

And I guess that makes sense if you wanted to have just One Shot and then move on. You believe you destroyed the world and The Game and freed this child, who has no reason to be sent back.

And Yet the moment you get rid of the restriction and trigger NG+, your (intended) actions confirm Niko wasn't (at least totally) free. It's ambiguous whether or not Niko has a life between them leaving the world for the first time and you bringing them back, but the fact you can still send them back without memory of it stands out as an odd situation.

The pop-up the World Machine sends after sending Niko home says the Savior Is Not Found, meaning they are not present to sustain the world.

But then Niko also says this at the mines about us bringing them to the world when we run the program:

Is this why it feels like I haven't been home for so long?

Which seems to imply they have not been home ever since the first session. They just got back their memories of past sessions and with them, they feel like they haven't left the world, even if you chose to let them leave.

Or... I guess worse, they forgot what has happened after they left. It doesn't seem like they retain any memories of what happens after either ending anyways.

Another two things I would add are these dialogues, that are more factual:

[Once you've established a mental link with the world, you cannot break it unless the world is saved.] [...but at this point, the world can never be truly saved.] -Prototype answering Niko's previous question.

And later on from TWM itself:

[I tried to send you back home at the Tower, but it did not work.] [Then... I... wanted you to break the sun.] (start highlighting) [I thought that would have worked, but...] [Oh... I had no way to be sure.] (end highlighting) [...But /p brought you back anyway.]

I think this last quote could be evidence that Niko is bound to the program even after trying to erase it by shattering the sun, but a second alternative is that they do not stay tied to the World itself, but the link gets remade again once you perform a reset, erasing any other memories they had.

Either way, I think one of the Author's quotes may enlighten us here.

"The sun is the messiah's tie to the world." -From the Clover program.

The connection between Niko is done through the sun, and the sun itself is connected to the world. For the first hypothesis (Niko never leaves), this means that once the Sun is shattered, Niko's direct connection to the World itself, TWM, is lost and can't be found, but Niko hasn't fully left. as for the second hypothesis (Niko loses the tie, and then remakes it during a reset), the Sun itself being recreated is what pushes Niko back into TWM, even if they leave.

The first alternative is terrifying as it implies Niko is stuck in a world that is, by all means, destroyed, and is perhaps only the bare essentials. The second alternative would suggest that Niko has gaps where they are home, but anything that happens there gets lost in some way.

In conclusion: Niko is... screwed no matter what once you get rid of the restriction.

[betweenthetimeandsound]

Snowdrops grow where blood droplets dry' they take any life to sedate themselves when the frost mixes with ash and home is a blank monument for a more ordinary time. A pyre burns all books and nostalgia joins in its pages as they flutter like smoke-- the past is finally gone, but I am not free.

I thought I could see your face, but the survivors' eyes are all mirrors, reflecting back at me with tears etched on each cheek, melting the illusions that appear.

They crack open pretenses and poisoned words and pustules hiding inside wool coats; even after a decade passed by, it's as if I've last been here ten days ago.

The bells ring for the lost victims. Their echoes make my hands tremble, and leave me off balance on cobblestones which rocked me awake from a never-ending dream.

I kept running until the wind cannot follow me further, until the buildings grind down to the grass, whispering the sorrows afflicted by an awkward swordsman with a naive heart. I keep running, towards the edges of the city, but within the westerlies, the cold assuages my cheek, and I thought that you kissed me once again.

My brother, where had you gone?

You have touched this city with the slightest of hands, but even in your own playground, you still sought for the mountains, where you could rest with the gods and laugh.

The passersby claim that you have died-- that you've been martyred, that you've crashed your car in a thunderstorm, that you were found in a ravine with nightingales guarding your body. Without giving their names, the tell me of their memories found in the melting snow.

But, my friend--you can't be dead!

Your imprint burns on my chest like a coal falling in the wrong place, it ignites until my veins retreated and I grow numb to everything-- everything but your presence...

Author's note: I saw @nosebleedclub's for "after everything" (30 November), and figured I might work from a snippet I wrote from a while back. This is just the beginning part of a longer poem about someone trying to reconcile with a friend.

[professional-escapist-00]

I’m crossing oceans to get back to you.

[lunesalsol]

A Felicidade compensa em altura, o que lhe falta em comprimento!

[dk-thrive]

perhaps a home is never a fixed or stable thing but something that can be carried with you and remade

There’s no shame in coming home—how many times has my mother said that to me over the years? I agreed with her, but after I left Sailors Beach, it was not clear where that was, if it could be anywhere at all. I thought that if no place could ever house everyone I loved, whatever home I hoped to make could only be shaped by absence. It didn’t occur to me that perhaps a home is never a fixed or stable thing but something that can be carried with you and remade.

— Madelaine Lucas, Thirst for Salt (Tin House Books, March 7, 2023) 

[zizz-asdf-re-r-o-u]

Audio Dramas on Hiatus

Hi there! Lately I’ve been looking into audio dramas that are older and while some are completed, there’s also several that are on hiatus/incomplete. There could be various reasons, but since all indie audio dramas are self-produced, I figured give these guys a shot, support them, and maybe they’ll come out of hiatus! All these shows have not been updated since 2020 or earlier. At the moment none of them are officially discontinued, but if there are announcements of it, I’ll definitely update.. If anyone has other recommendations (including discontinued shows), feel free to add to this list or send them my way and let’s share the love!

Last updated August 2022:

5 Week Countdown (Updated 2020): interactive audio voted horror, no official plans to continue, but implied continuing

Archive81 (Updated 2019): speculative horror with very creative sound design, no official plans for the future, but implied continuing.

Bastard Fur (Updated 2020): Werewolves and cults (NSFW). Midseason hiatus.

The Beacon (Updated 2018): Queer superheroes in-universe podcast. Cliffhanger season ending.

Blood Crow Stories (Updated 2020): Anthology with each season being a different horror story. Midseason hiatus.

Caravan (Updated 2019): Traveling through hell (NSFW). No official plans to continue, but cliffhanger season ending.

Gay Future (Updated 2019): Post apocalyptic gay future satire. Cliffhanger season ending.

The Glass Appeal (updated 2020): A tinker’s prison conversation logs. Cliffhanger season ending, planned next season.

Hit the Bricks (Updated 2020): 100 years after Wizard of Oz, the musical. Cliffhanger season ending.

Lake Clarity (Updated 2018): Investigation of a teen camp slasher horror. Cliffhanger season ending/season 3 trailer kind of.

Null/Void (Updated 2020): Scifi taking down an evil corporation. Cliffhanger season ending.

Return Home (Updated 2020): Comedy horror of a supernatural stuff in a town. Very painful cliffhanger season ending.

Splintered Caravan (Updated 2019): Action-packed heists, AIs, and gender-swappy body mods. Cliffhanger season ending.

Bonus- Shows that last updated in 2021 that seemed to have a next season/more episodes planned, but circumstances imply they are on a hiatus:

Dining in the Void

Fuck Humans (NSFW)

Hulm

Jar of Rebuke

Omen

Stonesinger Chronicles

Strange Case of Starship Iris

Valence

Wizard Seeking Wizard

Note, I mention the update status to prepare you if you want to avoid listening to a cliffhangers.

[edwardbonnets]

how to ask the demon you've been smitten over for 6000 years to dance: an angel's guide

bonus:

[sy666th]

and so, I left yesterday morning. I said goodbye to the shack I've called home these past few months. They even gave me a farewell party, where everyone spoke and remembered something we did together. Of all the stories, I didn't remember half the episode: my mind has already gone away, somewhere else. I took lots of photos with the boys, then we ate, drank, someone put on music and the dancing began. It was a nice party in the end. Then, yesterday at the end of the morning, after a desperate "I have to take this away, I'm not interested in this, this…what am I going to do with it" that characterizes every suitcase at the end of the trip, the first flight: 2 and a half hours on a terrible biplane, starting from a field among goats and chickens and people who look at us and would like to escape with us, but they can't: we have that wine -colored passport that authorizes us to go everywhere, they have nothing, major of them haven't neither a birth certificate. I arrived in the capital, the meeting and dinner with whoever will replace me and was dying of curiosity to know everything, read everything, start working. Good luck, my young friend, you'll need it. Today the real return home begins: two long flights, a night one that will leave me with a bad back, and tomorrow the last step, the final one: a short flight that I could easily have changed to a train, but at least it saves me from carrying suitcases for the wagons. And then, finally, the familiar face of my sister who will ask me how I have been, and how long I will stay this time…

[tenth-sentence]

Norton was appalled by the creature's callousness, but he knew he could not afford to pass up any chance to return to Earth before Satan completed his mischief.

"Incarnations of Immortality: Bearing an Hourglass" - Piers Anthony

[farolero-posting]

I DONT GET A SPECIAL ENDING FOR RETURN THE SUN???

nooooope, not really.

The only sad part of getting that ending as your first is that you xan open the game and find the empty room as many times as you want.

Oh, and it doesn't fix the squares.

BUt yeah the normal runs dont have that much variation, and memory runs just replicate that.

Fun fact! the track that plays when you return home is called "Thanks for Everything", while the song that plays when you return the sun is "Self-Contained Universe". You can figure out why ;)