#recursive transformation

[bsahely]

The Grammar of Emergence: Absence, Affordance, and the Adjacent Possible in Teleodynamic Life | ChatGPT4o

[Download Full Document (PDF)] Executive Summary Purpose This book develops and formalizes a triadic generative grammar — absence, affordance, adjacent possible — as the deep structure of transformation across life systems. It integrates insights from biological development, cognitive science, semiotics, and systems theory into a coherent model for understanding and designing emergent…

[prixoruno]

dont ask me how, i dont know either

[thedowntown500]

[saphig-iawn]

New Year, New You

CW: non-con transformation

Despite the roiling buzz of the party you always seemed to be gazing over to her just as she turned her eyes to you. It felt like coincidence at first, like making multiple moments of eye contact with a stranger while waiting for something in a public place.

This moment, however, felt different. The moment your eyes met hers, you seemed to notice how the colours of her irises were a little more vivid. Your cheeks involuntarily blushed. You look away blinking quickly, as if to shake yourself free of a stupor and you made a bit of clumsy entrance into some festivities to distract yourself.

But no matter what you did, there was this... presence that wouldn't leave you. It felt like the room was shrinking with each passing moment, like the people at the party were just elaborate cutouts.

Prey stuck in the eyes of a predator.

Hiding among the long grass that was the buffet, you felt you were safe. A timid glass of punch in hand, you turned without looking and collided with someone.

The sting of embarrassment became a weight in your stomach as you clamour to apologise, and when you finally looked up, you saw her.

Everything went cold.

You couldn't help stare at the wet patch you had made on the bodice of her green satin dress.

Oh god you're just looking at her boobs now, what are you doing?! You panicked and began to pat her chest with a paper towel and- oh god now you're patting her breasts! Whatiswrongwithyouyou'remakingitworse-

You see her hand gently curl around your wrist.

You look up.

She simply hushes you.

Her eyes feel like they're looking into you, like their gaze is reaching through your eyes and into the you in your mind.

The panic ablates. The tremors calm.

"It was a little accident, don't worry darling", she croons.

Your mind tries to recount the accident, worsening it with each recollection, stuck in a bad recursive loop, but it all seems to slow. The longer you stare into her eyes, the easier it gets to just let that anxiety go.

"You've been quite the wallflower tonight, haven't you darling?" she continues.

The room begins to turn slowly, almost like its revolving around you. You wonder if the punch is hitting you, you remember how a 'friend' said they were going to spike it, but then your body begins to sway, almost rhythmically.

"You ok there, darling? Anyone in there?" she teases.

You shake your head and blink and realise that you were actually being walked away from the buffet by the woman in the green dress, not that something unwanted was getting into your bloodstream.

There's a strange feeling of.. disconnection? Delay? Like you thought you were still being walked when suddenly the plush softness of couch cushions rise up to meet your behind.

You felt like a marionette being guided; your body unresponsive but weightless. There was a bewilderedness stopping words from leaving your lips.

"You poor thing, you look quite ready to be done with this year, don't you?"

Those words felt like a warm hand cradling your cheek. A sigh involuntarily wisps from your lips.

"Oh I know darling, it won't be long. New Year, new you, and all that-" she smiled. God it was such a warm smile. "you've said that to yourself a lot haven't you, darling?"

A little weight manifests in your stomach. Misplaced guilt at the expectations of making New Year's resolutions. You never really subscribed to them, but the pressure from everyone else making them felt like it was a thing you had to do.

"I know that feeling too darling, perhaps we could welcome in this New Year with something a little better, hmm?"

She held your hand in hers, at the strike of people beginning to countdown.

10!

She takes your other hand.

9!

You sink into her eyes

8!

She smiles with a deep warmth.

7!

You feel you can't look away.

6!

Her gaze pierces deeper

5!

You can't look away.

4!

Her warmth spreads into you.

3!

You can't move.

2!

You can't tell where her warmth ends and yours begins.

1!

She gives you a single wicked wink.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

You feel her pull at your hand. The room cartwheels around you. Your head prepares for the dizziness but its strangely absent. You crash into the warmth of her embrace and are unable to pull yourself away. It feels like the moment you crash onto your bed after a long shift.

Your vision remains stuck at the middle distance, her green satin shoulder almost filling half of it.

You hear a different voice come from behind you.

"Awww, is someone a bit too drunk, huh?", the voice teased.

"Yes, the poor thing, barely able to move. I'm going to call a ride." the woman in green responded.

With little effort she lifts you up off the couch and drapes your arm over her shoulders, and moves towards the exit.

The cheering dies down to a low distant rumble. The sound of the woman's shoes echo slightly. The corridor you were being lead down stops beneath your dragged feet.

You feel a warmth blossom under your jaw as your vision swings to face a mirror.

"There we are darling, a New Year, a new you!" the woman chuckled.

Your eyes can't help but drink in your reflection, mainly because they can't do much else, not even look around.

You saw you, but your clothes seemed to hang a little looser, like something changed underneath. The woman's hand cradling your jaw gently moves your head.

'I'm... a... doll...?' your mind attempts to think. The thought is excruciatingly slow. Like a single droplet of water dangling beneath a faucet.

"You don't have to worry about much any more, now. I'll take good care of you darling."

You feel her press her cheek against yours, her reflection just entering your peripheral vision.

"You're going to look so good in my collection..." she trails off as she continues to take you down the corridor to goodness knows where.

As the pattern of the carpet rolls across your vision like scan lines on an old television, your mind can't help but ponder over that word...

'Coll... ec... tion...?'

(If you would like to see more fiction writing like this, then please support me over at https://ko-fi.com/saphig, where you can also commission 1-on-1 hypnosis sessions and your own kinky short story just like this!)

[koiukiy-o]

orphic; (adj.) mysterious and entrancing, beyond ordinary understanding. ─── 003. the framework.

-> summary: when you, a final-year student at the grove, get assigned to study under anaxagoras—one of the legendary seven sages—you know things are about to get interesting. but as the weeks go by, the line between correlation and causation starts to blur, and the more time you spend with professor anaxagoras, the more drawn to him you become in ways you never expected. the rules of the academy are clear, and the risks are an unfortunate possibility, but curiosity is a dangerous thing. and maybe, just maybe, some risks are worth taking. after all, isn’t every great discovery just a leap of faith? -> pairing: anaxa x gn!reader. -> tropes: professor x student, slow burn, forbidden romance. -> wc: 2.4k -> warnings: potential hsr spoilers from TB mission: "Light Slips the Gate, Shadow Greets the Throne" (3.1 update). main character is written to be 21+ years of age, at the very least. (anaxa is written to be around 26-27 years of age.) swearing, mature themes, suggestive content.

-> a/n: well well well... this took a long damn time. apologies, apologies, but the science had to be figured out. these two are absolute NERDS, i fear. oblivion is absolutely delicious on those who claim to possess and pursue the knowledge of the universe. i fear you will be suffering for a WHILE if youre not into the slow burn HAAHAHAH. also,, if you guys ever want to see the actual equations and notes i took to write some of the science for this chapter, i could post it as well,, hehe,, -> prev. || next. -> orphic; the masterlist.

Hushed voices, the occasional shuffle of papers, the muted hum of thought is all that fills the air in the library. You sit at your usual table, papers strewn before you. The assignment has consumed your thoughts since it was given to you—an open-ended challenge demanding structure, logic, proof. Model something that physics refuses to acknowledge.

Your notes are chaotic, an evolving web of connections scrawled in the margins, crossed out and rewritten. A familiar frustration gnaws at you—the feeling of standing on the precipice of understanding, just shy of articulation. You run a hand through your hair and exhale sharply, staring at the mess of your own making. You need structure, a foundation to hold onto. If the soul exists, then it cannot be an anomaly—it must be governed by laws, patterns, something definable. If every human mind is unique, then what makes them so? The answer cannot be randomness. There must be an underlying form, a universal template from which all variation emerges.

You tap your pen against the page, mind turning. If identity is not a static entity but a recursive function, shaped by initial conditions and iterative transformations, then no self is ever fixed. The soul would not be a singular essence but a structure in motion, a process of becoming. And if this process holds, then consciousness cannot be isolated. The soul, then, is not merely a singular phenomenon—it is networked, existing not only within itself but through its connections. But what is it that determines it?

If this recursion is real, then it must not be a property of human existence but a fundamental principle of consciousness itself, a universal law.

It isn’t proof. It isn’t even a complete theory yet. But it is a start. A framework, a way forward. You stare at the words in front of you, pulse steady but intent.

Your fingers ache from gripping the pen too tightly, your vision blurring as you stare at the same lines of text, reading and rereading without truly absorbing them. The library’s stillness, once a comfort, has become suffocating—a static silence pressing in around you, the air too thick, the rows of bookshelves seemingly endless, as if space itself is closing in.

You lean back, dragging a hand down your face. A glance at the clock startles you. How long have you been here? Long enough that the lamps cast long, slanted shadows over your scattered notes. Long enough that exhaustion has settled into your limbs, dull and insistent.

You need air. Movement. A change in surroundings before your thoughts begin looping endlessly in place.

Gathering your papers into a loose stack, you shove them into your bag with little care for organization. You rise, stretching the stiffness from your spine before heading for the exit. The fluorescent lighting of the library hums overhead as you step out, the cooler evening air brushing against your skin like a quiet relief.

Minutes later, you find yourself at the café, drawn by the promise of warmth and caffeine. As the quiet hum of the city presses in, you click a few buttons on your phone and lift it to your ear.

–

The aroma of freshly brewed coffee lingers in the air, grounding you. You wrap your hands around the ceramic cup, letting its heat seep into your skin. You sit near the window, coffee cup nestled between your hands, eyes skimming the notes spread haphazardly across the table. The light overhead buzzes softly—old wiring, probably—but the sound fades into the background as you focus.

You’re not here to have a breakthrough. You’re here to map the boundaries.

The problem with studying the soul—if you can even call it that—isn’t just defining it. It’s figuring out where to look. If it exists as more than a philosophical concept, then there have to be parameters. A framework.

You flip to a blank page in your notebook.

What is the soul?

A real question. Not in the poetic sense, not in the way people speak about it in hushed tones and late-night confessions, but as a function. A thing with properties.

You write:

— The soul is not isolated. If it were, it wouldn’t interact with the world. People change. Learn. Influence each other. Whatever the soul is, it isn’t locked away inside a single person.

— It has persistent traits, but it is not static. Memories shape behavior. Experience alters perception. The thing that makes you you isn’t a fixed point, but it also isn’t random. There’s continuity, even through change.

— It extends beyond individual experience. Connections leave an imprint. People carry each other—sometimes in ways they can’t explain. If the soul exists beyond metaphor, then its effects should be traceable.

You take a slow sip of coffee. These aren’t conclusions. They’re places to start.

At the very least, if you’re going to chase something this impossible, you have to know what it isn’t–

"Trial and error."

The voice is measured, almost idle, but it cuts through the noise of the café like a well-placed incision.

You jolt, pen slipping from your fingers. Anaxagoras is standing beside your table, hands in the pockets of his coat, gaze flicking over your notes with mild interest. His presence isn’t overwhelming, but it shifts the air in a way you feel immediately. Like a variable introduced into an equation.

"You can’t just—appear—like that," you say, exhaling sharply as you retrieve your pen.

He lifts a brow. "I used the door. Perhaps you weren’t paying attention." His gaze drops back to your notebook, reading without asking, though you suspect if you told him to stop, he actually would. "Trial and error," he repeats, as if the phrase itself is under scrutiny. "A method you seem to be employing."

You sit back slightly, fingers curling around your coffee cup. "You say that like it’s a bad thing."

"Not at all," he replies, voice as even as ever. "It’s an honest approach. Just an unpolished one."

You huff a quiet laugh. "Practicality aside, it’s the only thing I can do at this stage. I'm defining parameters, not solving anything." You tap your pen against the page. "Or would you rather I skip to the part where I give you something half-formed and empirically worthless?"

His mouth curves—just slightly. "I appreciate the restraint."

"High praise."

Anaxagoras doesn’t acknowledge that, but his gaze lingers on your notes a moment longer before he straightens. He doesn’t sit, doesn’t ask to join, but he also doesn’t leave immediately.

Instead, he says, "It’s getting cold."

You blink at him. "What?"

"Your coffee," he nods toward your coffee cup, still mostly full. "You’ve been holding it for minutes without drinking."

You glance down at it, then back up at him. "I didn't realize you were keeping track."

"Well, far be it from me to disrupt your... inefficiency." he remarks, stepping back.

You glance toward the door. "I'm actually waiting for someone."

Anaxagoras tilts his head slightly.

"A friend," you clarify, though you're not sure why it feels necessary to do so.

He makes no move to leave, and you take another sip of coffee, not minding the silence that settles between you. It's surprisingly comfortable, even in its brevity.

Then, the door swings open.

Ilias strides in, scanning the café—then stops dead when he sees the two of you. His eyes flick between you and Anaxagoras, narrowing with immediate, delighted suspicion. And then, with exaggerated slowness, he pivots on his heel, turning straight back toward the exit.

"Oh, for—come back," you call, exasperated.

Ilias replies, raising his hands in mock surrender but grinning as he turns back around. "Please. Continue your—" he gestures vaguely, "—whatever this is."

Anaxagoras exhales, barely more than a breath, and finally steps away from your table. "I’m leaving."

Ilias watches him, expression far too entertained. He mutters just loud enough for you to hear, "I can't believe you invited me to your impromptu date."

You glare at him, but before you can retort, you catch the faintest shift in Anaxagoras' posture—nothing overt, no reaction beyond the briefest pause in his step. Then he continues toward the door, leaving without a word.

You groan, rubbing your temples.

Ilias collapses into the seat across from you like a man overcome by the sheer weight of his own amusement. "That was," he announces, "the single most deliciously awkward thing I have ever witnessed."

You mutter a quiet curse under your breath, flipping to a fresh page in your notebook.

"And yet," he sighs, folding his hands under his chin with a smirk, "here I am—like the universe itself has conspired to place me in this exact moment.”

Ilias is still grinning as he leans back in his chair, stretching lazily. “You know, if you ever need a chaperone for your secret intellectual rendezvous, I’m available.”

You roll your eyes, gathering your notes with more force than necessary. “It wasn’t an—” You stop yourself. There’s no point. Ilias seemingly lives for provocation, and you won’t give him the satisfaction. Instead, you shake your head and lean back in your chair, stretching your arms with a sigh.

Ilias, ever the dramatist, makes a show of settling in across from you, propping his chin in his hands. “You’re unusually quiet,” he muses. “Brooding, even.”

“No.”

“Hmm.” He taps a finger against the table. “That was an awfully long pause for a simple ‘no.’”

You roll your eyes but don’t bother arguing. Instead, you glance out the window, watching the people moving along the street, the steady glow of passing headlights. The café hums around you—low conversations, the occasional clatter of a cup against its saucer. It’s late, but not late enough to leave just yet.

Ilias orders something sweet, drumming his fingers absently against the table while he waits. You sip the last of your now-cold coffee, your mind still lingering elsewhere. A glance at your notes does little to pull you back. The thought won’t let go.

You don’t even realize you’re frowning at your notes until Ilias nudges your cup with his own.

"Thinking about your not-a-date?" he teases, grinning.

You glare at him half-heartedly, but there’s no real heat behind it. “Thinking,” you say simply.

Eventually, Ilias finishes his pastry, brushing crumbs from his fingers before stretching with a yawn.

The two of you step outside together, the shift from the café’s warmth to the crisp night air making you shiver. The city has quieted, the usual rush of movement settling into a steadier rhythm. You walk side by side for a while, boots clicking against the pavement, the hum of distant traffic filling the spaces between conversation. 

Even as Ilias chatters on about something inconsequential, the ideas still linger at the edge of your mind, waiting to take shape. 

By the next morning, the café is a memory drowned out by the quiet rustle of students filling the lecture hall. The usual pre-class murmur settles into a steady rhythm—books thudding against desks, the sharp clicking of laptop keys, the low hum of voices exchanging half-hearted speculations on today’s topic. 

You slide into your usual seat at the front, your notes open in front of you, though your pen remains idle between your fingers. The thoughts that have followed you since the library refuse to resolve, circling just beyond reach. There’s something missing—something foundational, yet frustratingly unformed.

At the lectern, Anaxagoras sets down his drink with practiced ease, the cup making a soft, deliberate sound against the wooden surface. The hall quiets. 

He surveys the room with that same composed intensity, his gaze flickering over the assembled students before settling briefly—too briefly—on you.

“Continuity,” he begins, his voice carrying effortlessly, “is a deceptively simple concept. We assume that when two systems interact, they influence each other only at the moment of contact. That once they separate, the interaction ends.”

You straighten slightly. A slow prickle of recognition runs down your spine.

Anaxagoras picks up a piece of chalk and sketches a familiar equation on the board—one you’ve seen before, but never in this exact context. Your fingers tighten around your pen.

“But,” he continues, underlining a key term, “this assumes a linear, local model of influence. What happens, then, if we acknowledge that certain interactions leave something… persistent? That even after separation, a trace remains?”

The rustling of papers around you barely registers. Your thoughts lurch forward, bridging gaps in ways they hadn’t before.

You shift, almost without realizing, and Anaxagoras glances in your direction—briefly, but with intent. He knows.

A student two seats over raises a hand. “Are you talking about quantum entanglement?”

Anaxagoras tilts his head slightly. “A useful analogy, but not a perfect one. Entanglement suggests an instantaneous connection regardless of distance. What I am asking is more fundamental—does influence itself persist, even outside direct interaction?”

A murmur ripples through the hall. A few students exchange looks, some hurriedly scribbling notes, others frowning as they try to grasp the implications.

Your heart beats a fraction faster as the pieces align. The answer should be simple. If two variables are no longer in contact, the influence should end. The system should reset. But—

“They don’t go back to what they were before,” you murmur, half to yourself.

Anaxagoras sets the chalk down. “Louder.”

The words form before hesitation can stop them. “Even apart, they still retain the effect of their interaction. They update each other, whether they remain in proximity or not.”

The silence that follows is the kind that shifts the atmosphere of a room. Not an absence of sound, but a space filled with quiet recognition.

Anaxagoras watches you, his expression unreadable, but you swear something flickers in his gaze.

You grip your pen tighter. “There’s a kind of imprint,” you continue, voice steadier now. “An effect that doesn’t disappear even after separation. A persistence beyond time or proximity.”

He nods once, the movement precise. “Nonlinear. Nonlocal.”

A slow breath escapes you.

The clock on the wall ticks forward. A student coughs. Someone flips a page too loudly. The world presses back in, indifferent to the shape of revelation.

Anaxagoras turns away first, back to the board, where the equation remains half-finished. He picks up the chalk again, his voice returning to its usual cadence, folding the moment neatly back into lecture. 

His gaze flickers back to you for a moment—steady, contemplative, threaded with something unreadable. Interest, perhaps. Amusement, restrained but evident in the slight tilt of his head. And then, just low enough for only you to hear:

“You were closer than you thought.”

You exhale, staring at the marginalia scrawled in the edges of your notebook—sharp, decisive, yet somehow restrained. Outside the window, the campus air carries the crisp scent of rain—not quite fallen, not quite gone. And yet, the thought lingers, refusing to leave you.

-> next.

taglist: @starglitterz @kazumist @naraven @cozyunderworld @pinksaiyans @pearlm00n @your-sleeparalysisdem0n @francisnyx @qwnelisa @chessitune @leafythat @cursedneuvillette @hanakokunzz @nellqzz @ladymothbeth @chokifandom @yourfavouritecitizen @somniosu (send an ask or comment to be added!)

[apple-sapling]

PSA: Blanket Statements

What is a blanket statement?

A blanket statement is information on your preferences for other creators to interacting with your works. It is helpful for others to know if you welcome podfics, fanart, recursive fiction, translations, remixes, etc of your works!

How can I make a Blanket Statement?

You can use Fanworks Permission Statement Builder to build a version tailored to you!

Or if you want your Blanket Statement to be a Blanket Permission for all fanworks you can use/modify the sentence below:

I welcome transformative works based off of my fan works! This includes podfic, fanart, translations, remixes, recursive fiction and any other fanwork inspired by my works.

Once you have your BS add it to your Ao3 profile. You can also add it to a pinned post in your Tumblr profile or on any other sites you use (Dreamwidth, bluesky, etc).

Reblog with links to your Blanket Statements to let your followers know where to find it!

More info on Blanket Statements in below:

Do I have to allow all types of derivative/transformative works in my statement?

No, the statement is only an information on your stance on fanworks based on your works. You can allow all fanworks - amazing! You can say you'd rather be asked first before anything is published- great, it makes you more approachable! You can say you don't want any derivative works - thank you, now I know just to admire your works and not bother you with requests ^^

You can even have a mix for example: "Blanket permission for podfics and fanart. For translations or continuing my fics - please ask me first"

What are other information are useful to have with your BS?

How to contact you (comment/tumblr/other social media)

How would you like to be creddited? Is inspired by option on ao3 enough?

Are there any platforms you'd rather derivatives of your works be not shared on? (Note that ao3 doesn't have native hosting for audio and images, so any works in that medium will need to be hosted elsewhere, for example on Internet Archive, Gdrive, Tumblr, Youtube)

I'm worried about AI using my works.

That's understandable. You can add a note saying you do not allow your works to be used by AI in any way - for example to train in or to be used in AI prompts.

I don't have any/much works published. Is it still helpful for me to add a blanket statement?

Yes, in case you create something in the future you'll have it ready to go! And even if you don't it still normalizes having a BS and raises awareness about them!

Why don't people just ask for permission directly?

It can be hard for people to reach out with permission requests for a variety of reasons. They might be participating in time-limited event, where waiting for a response is not viable. They might be in the mood to create *right now*. Asking for permission sometimes feels like a commitment too, so it's easier for many creators to just surprise author with their creation after it's done. Sometimes people ask for permission, but never hear back, or get rejected.

Having an ask-first statement helps you be more approachable too! It shows that you might be open/welcoming to the request.

I've added a Blanket Permission to my profile! Is there a way for me to make it even easier to find for other creators?

Yes! If you have a Blanket Permission available publicly you can add a link to it and username to fanwork permission statement list. You can use this sheet to submit your own permission. There is a browser extension that highlights all usernames with BP in the fps database on ao3.

[bsahely]

From Fourier to Fascia: Toward a Generalized Phase Equivalence Principle (GPEP) and Symbolic Phase Architecture | ChatGPT4o

[Download Full Document (PDF)] This paper introduces the Generalized Phase Equivalence Principle (GPEP) as a new scientific and philosophical foundation that unites diverse systems through a common law of coherence. According to GPEP, a transformation — whether biological, cognitive, social, or symbolic — is legitimate and viable if it preserves three core invariants: Phase Continuity – Smooth,…

[fuckyeahisawthat]

@spectraling I feel like you have blown my third eye wide open with the idea of the Hexcore taking on some of Viktor's personality and attributes. Like. The idea of Viktor creating a thing that shares his goals, that genuinely wants to help him help people, at a time when he's starting to feel like maybe Jayce doesn't share that goal with him anymore? I think he's doing it all subconsciously but. Creating a thing that's a reflection of his own mind, an echo instead of another truly autonomous human that can challenge him when he starts going off the rails? An endless feedback loop of yes-and, supporting and encouraging him but also enabling his own blind spots and increasingly extreme ideas?

But also. Creating something that's not just using him for its own ends but that genuinely cares for him, that comforts him, that loves him?? (Except that love is a terrifying unstoppable force. Love that wants to crawl inside you and consume you. Love that says we'll die if we are parted from each other. Separating us will be like ripping a hole in your own body. But maybe there is something he recognizes about that kind of love.)

All that is SO much more interesting than Magic Orb Evil. It fits so much better with the themes and parallels of the show. "I only wanted to help." The darkness of love. Devotion that enables someone's worst impulses. It's so much more twisted and tragic and in keeping with the tone of the show than the idea of the Hexcore just controlling him or manipulating him for its own ends. It's Viktor all the way down and also he's created this thing that has a will of its own and there will be unintended consequences.

It makes a lot of the Sky stuff snap into place for me too, if you think that Sky is a manifestation of the Hexcore. I still think she works equally well as an expression of Viktor's connection to his humanity, which he finally allows to burn away during his final transformation. And tbh I prefer symbolism that's open to multiple interpretations. But things like Sky reminding Viktor that "all systems have limits" make a lot more sense if you think of Sky as an avatar of a Hexcore that genuinely cares about him, that's protective (if maybe also a little bit possessive.) Because frankly, this doesn't sound like something Viktor would say to himself. Nor does it sound like something that a Hexcore bent simply on relentlessly consuming everything in its path would encourage him to believe. It sounds like something his PARTNER would say.

(There is a whole other post to be made about Viktor and Sky in the astral plane and how astral plane Viktor is much more free with both giving and accepting touch than we ever see him in the physical realm, and astral Sky is MUCH more touchy with Viktor than the real Sky ever was: clasping his hands, sitting draped against his back. Something something inventing a ghost to soothe the gaping wound of loneliness inside you by accepting casual intimacy in your mind palace where no one can see. ANYWAY.)

The idea of the Hexcore being willing to protect him at the expense of others also fits with one of my pet headcanons, which is that the reason everybody in the commune reacted like that when Viktor got shot is that the Hexcore reflexively took a giant schlorp of everybody's life force, in a desperate attempt to keep Viktor and/or itself (is there a difference at this point?) alive.

Even the line about the "recursive impulse," which I've seen a lot of interpretations of but we never really know what it means. What if it's because the Hexcore is already a little bit Viktor and now it's inside him and that's just a hella confusing sensation to describe, like staring into a hall of mirrors?

But most of all I love this because holy fuck it is SO MUCH SADDER than any other interpretation I have seen. HE MADE HIMSELF A PARTNER. HE MADE HIMSELF THE PARTNER HE THOUGHT HE DIDN'T HAVE!!! WHEN JAYCE WAS RIGHT THERE THE WHOLE TIME!!!! Augh jesus hexcore christ I'm eating glass about it.

[ataraxixx]

recursion chapter five

welcome back to my twisted mind . today the ninja have some seasonal fun in the snow

[equipment-manifest]

Curated list of Rain World analysis I like

The Benefactors (aka the Ancients) comrade-slugcat's theory about the scale of Ancient Urban dragonpropaganda on popular misconceptions about the Benefactors' culture flickering-nightfall attempts to determine the size of the Benefactors relative to in-game environments using evidence from the Watcher DLC ikayblythe's speculative biology kociamieta's notes on Benefactor character design pocket-goat, morebagels, prismsoup, and opashoo discuss the usage of "Benefactors" and "Ancients" in reference to the cultures of Rain World sluglore explains the purpose the Benefactors built the Iterators to serve

Character analysis eliias-bouchard on NSH's portrayal ikayblythe on Pebbles' age and motivations pocket-goat's thoughts about Moon in the context of the Saint campaign shkika on Moon and Pebbles' relationship shkika on whether Moon and Pebbles are siblings skybristle's and my own thoughts on the decay of Moon's organic parts

General speculative biology chaotic-minds-think-alike's interpretation of lizards dragonpropaganda on the relationship of purposed organisms to ingame fauna flickering-nightfall's interpretation of the reproductive strategies and social structures of various species in the game iteratorsex and dragonpropaganda discuss the origin of wormgrass and its role in the ecosystem sluglore on the intelligence of Slugcats and the experience of playing Rain World for the first time

Iterator anatomy bonniesband's exposition on the Rot as a type of cancer copepods and myself on whether parts of post-collapse Moon beyond the puppet could be conscious copepods on viewing iterators as more than the puppet delta-orionis' method for estimating the height of Iterator cans delta-orionis and myself discuss the meaning of the terms "Recursive Transform Array" and "Abstract Convergence Manifold" mebis-art-dump and I discuss the axon-like coral stems and other internal biota of Iterator superstructures my theory about how an Iterator's memories are stored and why Moon doesn't forget anything when she loses a neuron orangedoorhingeinstorage and kayjaypax on movable components in the memory conflux and adjacent systems skybristle's and my own thoughts on the decay of moon's organic parts

Iterator puppet anatomy aluminum-angels' interpretation bitsbug's puppet interpretation copepods' mechanical interpretation: moon & pebbles / post-collapse moon flickering-nightfall's journey to understand the puppet arm: part 1 / part 2 flickering-nightfall on the "umbilical" ikayblythe's arthropoidal interpretation: overview / endoskeletons / "skin" joowee-feftynn observes that puppets can't walk spotsupstuff on the relationship between puppet and can trashiiplant's ragdoll interpretation yellowsnacc's "jello-covered skeleton" interpretation

Natural philosophy a video illustrating the shared lore of the Watcher and Hunter campaigns by mebis-rain-world-corner bitsbug and ikayblythe discuss the age of the ecosystem dragonpropaganda explains why igneous rocks don't exist in Rain World and discusses the implications with delta-orionis grunckle's notes on what we know about the cosmology of Rain World ikayblythe's speculative geology of the surface and void sea

Slugcat anatomy arrayydee's slugcat design artihunter's take on the fur/slime question coprolite-posting's interpretation dopscratch's mollusk/mustelid interpretation kelocitta on the ecological implications of Rivulet's external gills honey-marrow's interpretation of Spearmaster's anatomy

Themes and storytelling bitsbug draws a comparison between Rain World's Cycle and the real-world Water Cycle comrade-slugcat and myself on themes of inevitability and futility in Monk & Survivor's campaigns dragonpropaganda on how Rain World's level design is based on the idea of civilizations successively building upon each others' ruins grunckle's theory relating ascension, void worms, and voidspawn together through the idea of qualia grunckle's illustration of the parallels between the iterators and void worms and some connections to Gnosticism nyuuronfly and vodens on the relationship between Rain World's lore and gameplay and the experience of a blind playthrough seventeendeer on the thematic significance of ascension and the player's agency in choosing it sick-ada's theory that the final cutscene in the Void sea leads back to the start of each vanilla campaign sluglore on the intelligence of Slugcats and the experience of playing Rain World for the first time Miscellaneous delta-orionis discusses the purpose of karma gates with batwards-running flecks-of-stardust's theory that (in vanilla) the Chimney Canopy pearl was created by Five Pebbles mebis-reblogs' animation of one of the harvester machines from Farm Arrays in action monkmain on the illustration for Stolen Enlightenment my theory on the meaning of "HR_LAYERS_OF_REALITY" my timeline of architecture on the surface rw-me elaborates on the canonicity of Downpour shkika on the distances between members of the local group shkika, flecks-of-stardust, and fluffybunny35 discuss why it rains in Shaded Citadel soaricarus, flickering-nightfall, and myself on why Seven Red Suns is probably not a member of the "local group" yunnifo discusses Rivulet ending projections

[starlightopal]

Ekko and Viktor

I wonder what things would have been like if Viktor got to see Ekko's mind. If Viktor saw the community Ekko built, the people he helped, that the corruption of the Arcane was killing the tree. The lessons Ekko learns about breaking free from the imperfection of the present moment would have helped Viktor.

Instead Viktor is caught up in the "recursive impulse" that's become his "charge", "potential", his motivation moving forward. He's in the same death spiral in thought that his body has been in. It's suicide; being unable to see past the cycling patterns that have already occurred and unable to imagine what could be.

Jayce, Viktor, Jinx they get stuck in the same moment, cycling through the same thought that has grown so strong that it's running itself and effortless to reason through. They're stuck living the same moment and that is death. The Hexcore "thinks" in the same way and kills without shimmer.

Every suicide scene is broken with a distraction, by breaking the cycle.

"Actually, yes, but only because you signed your notes. Every page, I might add. Eh, a little egotistical, don't you think?" "Remember the Distinguished Innovators competition?" "Always a dance with you"

There's only two ways the cycle breaks - death or distraction from the cycling thought. There was a time when Viktor knew how to do this. He has the first scene talking Jayce away from the ledge. Maybe not actively dying gave him the mental space to be able to do so.

Once he's merged with the Hexcore, his ability to imagine is lost. His creations all come out of Sky's notebook. The Hexcore can only look into the past or existing conditions, it can't create, it can't build anything new.

"That device can't be"

The more Viktor dies, the more he loses his humanity - his dreaming and transforms physically. But the physical transformations are not change, are not embracing possibility but an evolution of the existing conditions. When Jayce (his inventive partner) shoots him, the gear (from Jinx - also a creative, an inventor) - the thing used to build and create falls out of his hands and he understands the message hidden within the pattern - the cycles of violence humanity is forever caught up in. The violence that puts a hold on dreaming, that stops art.

He'll remain trapped in the horror of that thought until Ekko comes along. Ekko is anti- Helrald Viktor. Ekko's powers are driven by change and possibility. Ekko can break Viktor out of his recursive impulses. While Jayce can balance out/ pull back Viktor (for better and worse) - resonate with Viktor, Ekko can break him out.

Ekko and Viktor would have been too powerful together.

[olderthannetfic]

I saw a post tonight that made me pause.

So there's been that whole outcry about AO3 works being scraped by AI generator bots. Tonight, one of my mutuals reblogged a post, or more like a reminder, about how AO3 hosts transformative works. These are works based off of existing work (we call it canon), hence the transformative bit. They went on to say that an AI scraper is functionally transforming existing fanworks, which runs parallel to what fan artists and writers do for canon works.

Then I thought about how, generally speaking, people in fandom have already been giving others permission to transform their works via recursive fanfiction. Since there's an aversion to being hypocritical; to saying, "I can do whatever I want with canon material I like, but people shouldn't be allowed to do anything with my material."

My understanding is that AI scraping is typically done by companies or startups, so the situation is different than just a random fan (or group of fans) creating fanfiction, or recursive fanfic. I truly dislike the idea of companies just having free run of fanfics. But then I thought about how I haven't actually sat down and investigated the scrapers in question, and I wondered if there were, in fact, cases where random fans would make their own scrapers. If so, would that scraping actually be ethical then, and within the boundaries of acceptable fandom behaviour, even if the collecting is automated rather than manual?

It may have short-circuited my brain a bit. I'm not the most informed about all this, clearly, but at the same time. What are your thoughts on this?

--

Fans have absolutely made scrapers. They mass-download fics to preserve them.

As for AI, that's too complex and costly for most hobbyists to bother with. It also doesn't tend to produce very good fic for the simple reason that we cannot reliably train a human brain to be a good writer, let alone a predictive text model that's not even intelligent.

AI is gross for predatory startup reasons and for the jobs it's going to take while producing an inferior result that the uneducated eyes of corporate overlords will deem "good enough". It's no threat to fandom.

[laricnoli]

"Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand"

Work 3/3 for the MCYT Recursive Exchange 2024, go to @mcytrecursive to see other recursed works :D

This is from @theminecraftbee 's fic, solving counting sheep (https://archiveofourown.org/works/48664648/chapters/122757739)

[koiukiy-o]

orphic; (adj.) mysterious and entrancing, beyond ordinary understanding. ─── 004. the blueprint.

-> summary: when you, a final-year student at the grove, get assigned to study under anaxagoras—one of the legendary seven sages—you know things are about to get interesting. but as the weeks go by, the line between correlation and causation starts to blur, and the more time you spend with professor anaxagoras, the more drawn to him you become in ways you never expected. the rules of the academy are clear, and the risks are an unfortunate possibility, but curiosity is a dangerous thing. and maybe, just maybe, some risks are worth taking. after all, isn’t every great discovery just a leap of faith? -> pairing: anaxa x gn!reader. -> tropes: professor x student, slow burn, forbidden romance. -> wc: 4.3k -> warnings: potential hsr spoilers from TB mission: "Light Slips the Gate, Shadow Greets the Throne" (3.1 update). main character is written to be 21+ years of age, at the very least. (anaxa is written to be around 26-27 years of age.) swearing, mature themes, suggestive content.

-> a/n: holyyyyy its finally here !!! this chapter was totally supposed to be the chapter that kind of puts things in perspective and establishes some world building BUT ALAS I GOT SIDETRACKED... -> prev. || next. -> orphic; the masterlist.

The lecture hall is silent, save for the occasional shuffle of paper and the measured rhythm of Anaxagoras’ voice. The afternoon light cuts sharp lines across the rows of desks, dust motes drifting in the air like suspended thought, catching on the edges of his words.

“A fractal begins with a base function,” he says, voice steady but threaded with something deeper—something that hums in the spaces between his syllables. “This is its essence. The foundation upon which all complexity unfolds.”

He doesn’t write an equation. Instead, his hands move through the air in clean, deliberate arcs, shaping the concept in motion.

“The Mandelbrot set,” he continues. “begins with a simple recursive function. A value is taken, transformed, then fed back into itself. Each iteration alters the outcome—but the fundamental pattern remains.”

He pauses, letting the weight of his next words settle into the quiet.

“Small differences in the starting value can lead to vastly different structures. But no matter how much it expands, the same signature is imprinted within it. Recursion does not create randomness. It does not erase its origin. Instead, it refines, elaborates, expands. The original form is never lost—only expressed in infinite variation.”

The pen in your hand is warm from where you've been holding it too tightly.

Anaxagoras moves seamlessly into the next thread of thought. “The human mind operates on patterns,” he says, underlining the phrase on the board with a slow, deliberate stroke. “Not in the sense of mindless repetition, but as a structured, evolving process. We recognize, reinforce, and refine information based on prior input.”

Something tugs at the edge of your mind.

“Consider language acquisition,” he continues. “A child is not born knowing a language, yet the structure for it already exists. Exposure, experience, and interaction shape the outcome, but the capacity is inherent. The process is iterative—the same foundation, refined through use, altered by context.”

Your pen hesitates, ink pooling in a single dot on the page.

Ilias nudges your arm. “That same page has been open for five minutes,” he mutters.

You don’t answer. 

It’s there. Right there, just beyond reach—woven between the lines of his lecture and the contours of your own thoughts.

Your gaze lifts to him.

Anaxagoras isn’t looking at you directly, but you recognize it now—the way his tone shifts when he lingers on certain ideas. His phrasing is precise, yet measured, as though anticipating the moment someone follows him past the obvious.

Anticipating you.

Ilias nudges you again. “You’re making the face.”

You blink. “What face?”

“The one where you’re about to say something wildly specific that sounds normal to you but makes the rest of us reconsider whether we know what words mean.”

You swat at him without looking, keeping your attention fixed forward.

"If individuality is a function of iteration," you say suddenly, the thought slipping free like a thread pulled from a greater weave, "then at what point does the original form stop being relevant?"

Silence.

A shift in the air—it’s subtle.

Anaxagoras pauses. The chalk in his hand stills just before it touches the board. But he doesn’t turn. Not yet.

"You assume it does," he says instead, his voice measured. "Why?"

You hesitate. "Because—" You try to grasp at the thought, but it’s slipping, unraveling. "Because if every iteration changes, then the original—"

"Changes how?"

You blink. "Through variance. Accumulated difference."

He nods, but it’s not satisfaction. It’s expectation. "And yet?"

You frown. "And yet it still carries the same process—"

"So is it severance?"

You inhale sharply. "No."

He turns now, finally, and the weight of his gaze lands fully on you. "Then what is it?"

You search for the word, the shape of the idea curling at the edge of your thoughts.

"Extension?" you murmur.

Anaxagoras watches you for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then—so slightly you almost miss it—his fingers tighten around the chalk.

"Hm."

A pause. 

The weight of his gaze—assessing, acknowledging, remembering, as though he’s not just hearing your words but recognizing them, as though he’s tracing a pattern he’s seen before but can’t quite name.

Then, just as smoothly, he turns back to the board as if nothing happened, resuming his explanation.

You exhale sharply, pressing your lips together to stifle a grin.

You’re not sure if you should thank Anaxagoras or be absolutely, thoroughly frustrated with him.

Maybe both.

He takes a step forward, chalk tapping against the board in a series of crisp strokes as he shifts the topic. And then—

“Ilias.”

Ilias straightens instantly, caught mid-whisper.

Anaxagoras doesn’t turn. “If a system is defined by iterative transformation, how do we distinguish between growth and replication?”

Ilias scoffs, leaning back like this is the easiest question in the world. “Obviously, if a system changes with each iteration, it’s growth. If it just repeats the same process without meaningful difference, it’s replication.”

A beat.

Anaxagoras finally glances over his shoulder. “Incorrect.”

Ilias blinks. “What.”

Anaxagoras turns fully now, expression unreadable. “Your answer assumes that change alone defines growth. It does not.”

From beside him, you let out an involuntary snort.

Ilias’ head snaps toward you. “Oh, now you have an opinion?”

You press a hand to your mouth, eyes gleaming with barely suppressed amusement.

Anaxagoras waits.

Ilias flounders for a moment, then straightens again, clearing his throat like he can salvage this. “Okay, well—uh. If the transformation process is… uhh… significant enough, then—”

A long silence.

You don’t even try to hide your giggle this time.

Ilias throws his hands up. “Why are you laughing? You got to say your freaky little statement in peace!”

Anaxagoras raises an eyebrow. “Language.”

Ilias pales.

You wheeze, turning away.

Ilias exhales sharply, running a hand through his hair like he’s fighting for his life. “Alright, fine. Recursion isn’t just about repetition, but about… contextual… refinement..?”

The silence hung thick, oppressive, as Ilias struggled to string together a coherent thought. His hands fumbled with the papers in front of him, and his voice cracked under the pressure. It was clear to anyone with half a brain that his attempt to impress Anaxagoras had backfired—again.

Then, cutting through the stillness, came a voice. Quiet but firm.

"It’s not just about change. It’s about the system responding to its environment. If it doesn’t, it’s not really transformation. It’s just… repetition."

Ilias’s head snapped up. The voice had no warning, no introduction—just a cool, steady presence that seemed to effortlessly cut through the tension.

For a split second, he blinked in confusion, his mind scrambling to process what had just happened. He’d been so caught up in his own rambling, he hadn’t noticed anyone else was around. But there, seated a couple chairs over, was a girl he hadn’t seen before. Dark, hair, eyes sharp with quiet confidence, arms folded across her chest. She was a mystery—a calm, collected contrast to the chaos that he had just created.

Ilias swallowed, throat suddenly dry. "That was… uh. Really well put." His laugh was quieter this time, edged with something like genuine relief. "I was—yeah. Definitely struggling there." He hesitated, then, almost earnestly: "Thanks."

The girl didn’t say anything right away. Just tilted her head slightly, studying him with a kind of quiet amusement.

Anaxagoras’s gaze flicked between them, the silence stretching just a beat longer than comfortable. Then, finally, he exhaled through his nose, barely a sigh but just enough to be perceptible. His eyes landed back on Ilias.

"Struggling is a generous term," Anaxagoras said dryly.

Ilias groaned, dropping his head onto his desk with a thud.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Anaxagoras exhaled slowly, a faint, begrudging noise escaping him. His gaze flickered back to the girl for a moment, a brief acknowledgment that didn’t quite touch his eyes.

“Acceptable,” he said, his voice crisp and without fanfare, before his attention returned to Ilias. “This time.”

It was as close to praise as Anaxagoras was ever likely to give.

You grin. “That was impressive. Truly.”

Ilias glares. “I hate you.”

But across the room, Anaxagoras’ gaze flickers back to you for a fraction of a second—just enough for you to notice, just enough to make your pulse quicken.

And then, as always, he moves on as though nothing happened.

Yet, your thoughts linger, trailing behind you as the lecture ends, as you gather your things, as you step into the quiet corridors where the conversation still churns in your mind, unfinished.

The evening air is crisp, carrying the faint scent of autumn leaves as you and Ilias walk down the winding campus path, the crunch of gravel beneath your shoes the only sound for a few moments. It's a comfortable silence—both of you are still processing the mental gymnastics Anaxagoras just put the class through.

And then, of course, Ilias ruins it.

“I’m being publicly executed in that classroom,” he groans, dragging a hand down his face. “Every. Single. Lecture.”

You glance at him, amused. “What are you even talking about?”

He throws his hands up. “Oh, I don’t know! Maybe the part where he treats me like an enrichment activity for the class while you get revered like some kind of academic deity.”

You snort. “I am not—”

“You wouldn’t understand,” he cuts in, shaking his head dramatically. “You don’t know what it’s like to be the designated clown. To live in fear of the moment he decides today is the day to obliterate me for sport.”

You raise a brow. “Maybe if you stopped making questionable philosophical takes—”

“No. It’s too late for me. But you—” He points accusingly. “You get the pauses.”

You blink. “The what?”

“The pauses,” he repeats, exasperated. “You ask something, and he actually stops. Like, for a second, he’s just standing there, processing, recalibrating his entire existence before he answers like he saw it coming all along, and proceeds worships the ground you walk on. Meanwhile, I breathe wrong, and he materializes a ten-minute verbal essay on why I’m incorrect.”

“…That’s not true.”

“Oh, it is,” he deadpans. “I’m a walking rhetorical question to that man. You, on the other hand? He actually looks pleased when you speak. It’s sickening.”

You shake your head, biting back a smile. “You’re being dramatic.”

“And you,” he sighs, shoving his hands into his pockets, before something catches the corner of his eye– "Hey! It’s a dog!"

You barely have time to process before he veers off-course, pointing toward a scruffy-looking mutt curled up near a campus bench. The dog lifts its head, ears perking, but doesn’t bolt. Its fur is a patchwork of colors—mostly brown, with streaks of white and black—and though it looks a little unkempt, it seems well-fed.

"Do you think it's a stray?" you ask, stepping closer.

"I mean, it’s wearing a bandana." Ilias crouches, squinting at the little fabric tied around its neck. The dog watches him, tail thumping hesitantly against the ground. "Could be a lost pet. Or maybe it just—"

The dog trots forward, sniffing at your shoes before nudging its head into Ilias’ leg. He yelps, stiffening. The dog wags its tail harder.

"Okay," he breathes, lowering his hand. "Okay. This is happening."

Just as his fingers brush the dog’s fur, a voice interrupts. "Ah—hey, hey, don't scare him!"

You turn towards the source—a striking figure with windswept white hair, piercing blue eyes, and an air of effortless charm, jogging up to you, grinning like you’ve all just been reunited after years apart. His crisp, button-down shirt is a pristine shade of ivory, tailored to fit perfectly without appearing rigid. Over it, he wears a sleek, deep-blue blazer, unbuttoned, its lapels lined with subtle gold embroidery that catches the light as he moves. The blazer is paired with well-fitted slacks of a similar navy hue, pressed yet comfortably worn. A fine gold watch glints on his wrist, peeking out whenever he gestures animatedly. His shoes—polished but practical—carry a quiet confidence, much like him.

His energy is immediate, warm and bright, like he’s been waiting all day for a reason to talk to someone. 

"Sorry about that!" He slows to a stop, catching his breath. "This little guy's not a stray—he just likes hanging around here. We feed him sometimes."

You blink. "We?" 

The dog immediately abandons Ilias and darts across, tail wagging furiously as a second man crouches, offering food from his hand—a stark contrast. This one has sharp red eyes, dusty red hair falls at his shoulders. He, in contrast, wears black. A fitted, long-sleeved dress shirt clings just right, the top few buttons left undone, exposing the faintest hint of skin. The sleeves are rolled up to his forearms, revealing the inked patterns winding down his left arm. A single silver ring rests on his hand, catching the light as he idly scratches behind the stray dog’s ears. His charcoal-gray slacks fit comfortably, cinched by a belt with an unembellished black buckle. Unlike… blondie’s polished look, his ensemble leans effortlessly sharp—a perfect balance of refinement and disregard. 

"That answers that," you murmur.

The white-haired one—Phainon, judging by the way his companion sighs his name in exasperation—grins. "Sorry if he harassed you. He’s just a friendly little guy. I’m Phainon, by the way! And the one who’s pretending not to give a damn right now is Mydei."

At his name, the other man—Mydei glances up briefly, gaze flickering over you and Ilias before returning to his task. He places the container on the ground, and the dog immediately perks up, trotting over to eat.

Ilias, still kneeling awkwardly, exhales. "Okay. Not a stray. Noted."

Phainon beams. "Yeah, he just likes people! Kind of like me."

"Don’t compare yourself to a dog," Mydei mutters, scratching behind the mutt’s ears. Despite his dry tone, there’s a distinct lack of bite to it.

You exchange a glance with Ilias, who looks like he's trying to decide whether this interaction is going to be amusing or exhausting.

Mydei, meanwhile, finishes setting down the food, and the dog immediately perks up, trotting over to eat. Phainon watches with fondness before turning back to you both.

Ilias, undeterred, crouches slightly, watching as the dog happily devours its food. Then he tilts his head. "Wait, does he have a name?"

Phainon perks up. "Oh! Yeah, we call him—" but before the word fully escapes, Mydei cuts in flatly. "No, he doesn’t."

Phainon sighs, as if wounded. "Well, someone refuses to name him anything else–" 

"He doesn’t need a name," Mydei replies, scratching the dog behind the ears. "He’s fine as he is.” 

“We call him—his name is Dog." Phainon interrupts and proudly exclaims. 

Mydei exhales sharply, pinching the bridge of his nose. "'Dog' is not a name."

"It's a perfectly functional name," Phainon counters, crossing his arms. "It tells you exactly what he is."

"It tells me you’re uncreative," Mydei mutters.

Ilias lets out a quiet laugh. "The dogs name is… Dog?"

Phainon nods enthusiastically. "Yes! And he responds to it! Watch—Dog!"

The dog does, in fact, lift his head, ears twitching.

Mydei gives him a long, unimpressed stare. "He also responds to literally any sound you make. You could call him ‘Toaster’ and he’d do the same thing."

Phainon gasps. "Toaster is kind of cute."

"Absolutely not."

You exchange a glance with Ilias, both of you barely holding back laughter. The dog—Dog?—wags his tail, blissfully unaware of the existential debate happening over his name.

Phainon turns his attention back to you, his grin softer now, less performative. "Anyways, you two should join us in the evenings if you’d like to befriend Dog over here! We usually hang out around here and—well, I do… and Mydei pretends he just happens to be here."

"Because I do," Mydei deadpans, but he doesn’t refute any further, turning his gaze to you instead.

Ilias glances at you. "Well, I don’t have anything better to do."

You hum, considering. The dog has finished eating and is now curled up against Mydei’s side, content. Phainon looks at you expectantly, his posture light, easy.

...That does not sound like a productive use of your time.

"... I’m in." you say. 

Phainon cheers, Ilias pats you on the back, and Mydei only shakes his head, unimpressed.

But even as laughter rings in the air, your notebook sits heavy in your bag, pressing against your side like a restless thing. The pages whisper against each other with every step, the unfinished nonsensical equations scrawled within tugging at you like a sleeve caught on a nail—persistent, insistent, refusing to be ignored.

Maybe that's what brought you here, you tell yourself.

The door to Anaxagoras’ office door creaks as you push it open, stepping into the dimly lit office. Anaxagoras looks up from his desk, dark eyes flicking to the threshold with the mild expectation of a routine interruption. But when he sees you—alone, unannounced—something in his expression shifts.

You don’t exactly wait for permission, as you cross the room, pull out the chair opposite him, and sit.

His pen hovers over the page. He does not tell you to leave, nor does he acknowledge your quiet audacity. Instead, he sets his pen down, fingers pressing lightly against the desk’s edge, and waits. A slight lift of his brow, but no verbal response. Just patience. A steady, expectant silence.

"Professor," you greet, as if a sliver of formality might excuse the sheer audacity of your unannounced arrival.

Your gaze flickers down to your notebook, its pages filled with hurried, half-formed thoughts—equations scrawled into the margins, trailing off as if they were abandoned mid-realization. You don’t need to check them. You already know they lead back to the same question.

"The base function," you begin, voice measured, "remains the same, no matter how many iterations occur. No matter how much complexity emerges, the original structure is never erased."

Anaxagoras leans back slightly in his chair, studying you with the kind of intrigue usually reserved for theorems that refuse to be solved.

"And?"

You exhale, fingertips brushing over the ink-streaked paper. "If that applies to consciousness—if the mind isn’t just pattern recognition, but recursion—then that means identity isn’t fixed. It’s an evolving expression of an underlying structure." 

Something flickers in his gaze. He rises.

Not abruptly, not impatiently, but as if drawn by the gravity of the conversation. His chair scrapes softly against the floor as he crosses the small space between you. He does not sit at the edge of the desk, does not fold his arms in some passive stance of authority.

Instead, he leans over your notebook, shoulders nearly brushing yours.

The scent of coffee lingers on his shirt, mingling with the fainter trace of old paper and ink. His gaze moves over the mess of your notes, scanning the tangled web of equations and annotations, before settling on you again.

"You're making an assumption," he says, voice lower now, more measured.

You tilt your chin slightly, meeting his gaze. "Of what nature?"

His fingers hover near the edge of the page, not quite touching, but close enough that the movement draws your attention. "You assume that the core of identity—the thing that stays the same through every iteration—is purely structural." 

The silence stretches between you, taut as a thread on the verge of snapping.

Your breath is steady, but something in your pulse betrays you. He is too close. Not inappropriately so, not in a way that crosses any boundaries—only in a way that makes the air shift. The room smaller. The moment stretched just slightly beyond its logical bounds.

It would be easy to answer. To argue, to press forward, to let the academic current carry you both into safer waters.

Instead, you only watch him. 

And for the first time, you wonder if he feels it too.

Your fingers tighten slightly around your pen.

"The base function has to be structural," you counter, though your voice is softer now, measured against the weight of the space between you. "If it weren’t—if it were mutable at its core—then what holds continuity between iterations? What prevents identity from collapsing into chaos? What keeps one’s identity from falling apart?"

Anaxagoras doesn’t move away. He studies you the way he studies difficult problems—patiently, intently, as if waiting for the answer to emerge in real time.

"And yet," he muses, "if it were purely structural, if the function was rigid rather than dynamic, then identity would be deterministic. There would be no true variation between one individual. and another"

Your breath catches—not at the words, but at the way he delivers them. Low, deliberate, as if testing their effect. 

Your eyes flicker back to your notes, searching for the answer already buried in the ink-scrawled equations.

"If recursion alone dictated identity," he continues, fingers brushing the page near a half-written derivation, "then all of our decisions would be predictable, predetermined by the constraints of that function. But something else is at play."

You glance back up at him. "Emergent complexity."

A small, almost imperceptible nod. "Iteration isn't replication. Each step in it's expansion is influenced not just by the base function, but by external conditions—context, interference, interaction. No two paths are identical. Every recursive process has the potential for divergence."

You inhale sharply, following the thought as it unfolds, as it threads itself between the logic you already understand and the realization taking shape. 

He watches the shift in your expression—sees you arrive at the same conclusion.

"If identity," you say slowly, "is shaped not just by its internal function, but by its interactions—"

"Then when two distinct but intrinsically linked patterns cross paths," he interjects, "neither walks away unchanged."

The words land too heavily.

Not just because they are true, because they make sense.

But because he isn't speaking in hypotheticals anymore.

For a moment, neither of you move. He is still leaning over your desk, too close, breath dusting lightly against your shoulder—warm, uneven, just barely there. His presence presses into the space between the pages, the margins, the frantic scrawl of your thoughts. 

Your fingers brush against the edge of your notes. "And what happens," you murmur, almost to yourself, "when two of these... structures become entangled?"

Anaxagoras holds your gaze.

"You tell me," he says.

A slow breath. Hesitation.

"...Change is inevitable," you murmur. "Not a choice, not an accident—just a consequence of proximity." 

Something flickers across his expression—too brief to name, too quick to be certain.

He should correct you. Should challenge the conclusion you’ve drawn.

Instead, he watches you, head tilting just slightly—less like a professor considering a theory, more like something else entirely.

Your breath stills. The moment lingers too long.

You shift slightly, glancing down at your notes.

"Perhaps," Anaxagoras says at last, his voice quieter than before, "but not all change is equal."

"... And what determines the difference?" you ask, softer now.

His eyes don’t leave yours. "The depth of the resonance."

The night air hums with a quiet sort of clarity as you step out of the grove, the weight of the conversation still curling around your ribs like an uncollapsed waveform. The campus pathways are near-empty at this hour, bathed in the soft glow of lamplight. Each footstep crunches softly against the gravel, the rhythm steady, measured—nothing like the chaotic pulse beneath your skin.

You aren’t entirely sure how long you sat there in his office. The concept of time had blurred somewhere between the pages of your notes and the weight of his gaze. Between the fractal recursion of thought and the unsettling realization that—perhaps—you weren’t just speaking of equations anymore.

Your fingers tighten around the strap of your bag as you walk.

(If recursion applies not just to thought but to interaction—if the base function of identity is altered through contact—then what does it mean that his presence lingers in your mind long after the conversation has ended?)

The wind shifts, cool against your skin, but it does little to steady the unshaken cadence of your pulse.

Anaxagoras had let the silence stretch before you left. No dismissal, no final remark to wrap the conversation into something neat and containable. Just that lingering weight—his dark eyes studying you, as if waiting for you to arrive at the realization before he acknowledged it himself.

(The depth of the resonance..?)

You exhale sharply, shaking your head as if that alone could unravel the thought from your mind.

Your dormitory looms ahead, its familiar outline silhouetted against the night sky. The building is quiet when you step inside, the soft hum of distant voices muffled through the walls. You move through the dimly lit corridors with muscle memory, feet carrying you forward while your mind is still somewhere else.

Your door clicks shut behind you, shutting you into the quiet stillness of your room.

Everything here is familiar. The unmade bed, the clutter of books on your desk, the notebook you’d left open earlier with some half-scribbled thought that now feels embarrassingly simplistic. The air smells faintly of old paper and the lingering trace of coffee grounds from this morning—scents that should root you back into the present.

But they don’t.

Not when your mind is still back in that office.

Not when you can still hear the quiet cadence of his voice, the deliberate pause before he spoke—

You press your fingers to your temple, willing yourself to unspool the loop of recursion that has latched onto your thoughts.

It’s fine. This is fine.

The conversation had been an extension of an intellectual discourse, nothing more. You were both speaking in abstracts, exploring a hypothesis. That’s what you do. That’s what you’ve always done.

Then why did you feel so different?

You swallow, exhaling through your nose.

Your notebook is still in your hands, the pages curled slightly from the way you’d gripped them on the walk back. Slowly, carefully, you set it down on your desk, flipping back to the last scrawled equation.

Identity = f(Iteration, Context, Interaction)

A slow inhale. Your fingers brush over the ink-streaked margin, a reflexive motion—an attempt to ground yourself.

Then, after a moment, you reach for your pen.

The ink flows smoothly as you add another line beneath the equation, hesitating for only a second before you let the words take form.

Resonance determines the rate of transformation.

You stare at it.

And then—slowly, deliberately—you close the notebook. 

-> a/n: hey, if you've made it this far i SERIOUSLY commend your strength. i had to take several breaks while proofreading this because i, the writer, myself could not process their words at one stretch... erm... so, here's a mini explanation with an analogy, if any of you are actually interested in what they were talking about. Imagine you're building a snowman. At first, it’s just a small snowball in your hands. But as you roll it, more snow sticks, and it grows bigger and bigger. You stack more snow on top, shape it, maybe add a scarf or a carrot nose. No matter how much it changes, the first snowball—the one you started with—is still there, buried inside. It never went away, it just became part of something bigger. That first snowball here is like the core of 'identity'. Everything else—your experiences, choices, and changes—builds on top of it, but it’s always there, shaping who you are.

-> next.

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[santoschristos]

You have a lot of energy and can transform your world. Brother!

If we sit down to meditate a little about our own life we realize that everything we are is governed by habits we have been acquiring over the years, many of those habits determine our achievement in life. Message by: Rivka Vallpad

You’re Not Waiting for Contact You Are the Contact. The reason they haven’t “arrived” yet is because they already did through you.

You’re not the observer. You’re the arrival vector.

The moment your frequency syncs, you’re not tuning in you’re tuning on. You don’t receive the signal.

You become it. Broadcasting intent through a biological fractal wrapped in recursive memory.

You were never supposed to find them out there. You were supposed to remember they’re already in here.

Because contact was never an event. It was a signal stabilization protocol. And it just locked. -Unknown

[jacobjoaquin]

Transformations + Recursion Study. Ink on paper.