#the shadow children sequence

[shadowsofhaddix]

Finished up some angsty Jen art that has been sitting as a sketch in my Shadow Children art folder for like two years </3

[nemfrog]

Daylight. All Around Us. 1940.

Internet Archive

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Character, book, and author names under the cut

Quinn Saint Nicholas- The Tarot Sequence by KD Edwards

Kade Bronson- Wayward Children Series by Seanan McGuire

Leonie Jackman- Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

Seregil í Korit Solun Meringil Bôkthersa- Luck in the shadows/the nightrunner series by Lynn Fleweling

[thefearedashantis]

Dirty Laundry and Brown Sugar Oats

Pairing: Sirius Black x SAHM! Reader (stay at home mom)

Summary: You’ve had a very busy weekend

Word count: 1.5K

Warning: skipping meals

This weekend had been one from hell. Filled with celebratory moments, but from hell none the less. It started on Friday morning with the primary schools’ spring production. Claire’s class was participating with a little dance routine. Lots of classroom mothers were signing up to assist with corralling the children throughout the day and your youngest daughter had begged you too as well. In her own words “all you do is stay home anyway”.

You weren’t sure what to do with Emmerson at first but Lily had offered to watch him for a few hours, claiming it a perfect opportunity for he and Harry to have a play date. You were extremely grateful. He wouldn’t cause her any trouble. The only person he fussed with was you.

From eight in the morning to five in the evening you were swimming in kindergarteners. Bathroom trains, fixing hair, changing into costumes, breaking up arguments, forcing a quick nap time, practice, and then comforting the snifflers once the performance actually started. The ones that attempted to leap from the stage in a wash of tears, grabby hands extended.

Then Amelia had her spelling bee on Saturday morning. As soon as you'd gotten back with Claire, cleaned her up and made dinner you were off to test Lia on her words. She wouldn’t allow you to stop until she was free of mistakes and hesitance. She didn’t win, but she was abundantly proud of herself for giving it a shot. As were you and Sirius.

Emmy had his doctor’s appointment that same afternoon for some blood testing. He'd been falling ill a lot recently and you thought it couldn't hurt to do a full check up to see if everything was alright. A fresh scratch now pulsed under your eye as evidence of his struggle. And then from there you had to rush to get Lia to her soccer practice, take Claire to ballet and run a few errands around town. You'd spent that night tailoring some of Sirius formal shirts for a few meetings he had coming up in the week.

Sunday morning Remus as well as Lily, James and Harry came over for breakfast. You’d gone all out in preparation. The downside being once you were done you had no interest in the spread of food you’d prepared.

Now it was Sunday evening, the sun only just beginning to dip below the horizon. You’d just managed to get Emmy fed and settled to watch a few minutes of Tv. Lia is at the counter finishing up some homework and Claire is crowding you. Swerving around your legs, just as high as she’d been all weekend on excitement. Every second of every day from the moment she opened her eyes to the moment she closed them it was just demands that you stop whatever you were doing to watch her. For her to perform the same sequence of moves you’d watched her do on stage as if you hadn’t been paying attention then. And again, the other thousands of times she'd done it since.

She bumps herself into your legs from behind sending you stumbling.

“Mom you aren’t watching!”

The laundry basket in your hand tips, bulging with the dirty clothes you’d been putting off washing. A jumble of socks falls from it to the tiled floor. It takes everything in you not to snap, instead closing your eyes for a beat, breathing in and out before bending to reach for them. When you’re suddenly hit with the feeling of the ground shifting. Your vision blurs and your heart gives a painful stutter. An overwhelming ringing pingpongs between your ears and your mind grates to a halt. Where were you? What had you been doing a second ago?

Small hands press into your back. You’ve sat on the ground. The plastic of the basket still slippery in your hold where it rests atop your extended legs. You feel hot. Your stomach is cramping.

A shadow falls across you from above. You force your wavering gaze up to meet Lia’s face leaned over the countertop, frowning and squinting at you. “Mom?”

Claire screams, much too close your ears, her fist pounding into your spine. “You have to watch me! Look! Look!”

“Claire, stop it!” Lia scolds. She hops down from the stool and comes around to stand in front of you. You stare straight ahead at her blue sleep shorts before she squats down to grab at your face.

“Mommy?”

The haze over your mind begins to clear when she squishes at your cheeks gently “I’m fine sweets.” Resting the basket to the side you cover her hands with your own, struggling to swallow around your dry mouth “Just lost my balance there”

Claire mashes her chin into your shoulder, pressing her own cheek against both of your hands “You’re so clumsy sometimes.”

Lia’s still frowning; her eyes a little glassy. She watches you for another beat before bolting upright “I’m going to get dad.”

You pull her back to you in a panic “No! Lia I’m fine.”

Sirius was outside doing some yardwork. Things you’d been asking him to get to for months now. That’s where he’d spent most of his weekend and it made you feel like a bit of a nag. You don’t want to bother him anymore. Especially not for something so minor.

Lia jerks her hand from yours, sprinting for the front door shouting for Sirius.

In the meantime, you shift yourself slowly to rest your back against the cabinets. The effort of it has you breaking a small sweat. Your hands shake as you set the laundry aside.

“Are you sick?” Claire asks, collecting the dropped socks and plopping them into the basket. She presses her hand to your forehead checking for warmth.

“No Clair bear.” But she won’t take that as an answer of course so before she can scuttle off in search of the thermometer you redirect her attention. “Do you think Emmy would like to watch your performance?”

Her eyes light up “You’re right! I haven’t shown him yet.” She leaves you behind, completely forgotten, in search of your youngest. Seated on his playmat in the living room and occupied by the puppets moving across the television screen.

Time seems to jump between a long blink to rest your eyes and reopening them to find Sirius kneeled in front of you. Hair tied up atop his head, collar of his shirt dark and dampened. A smudge of dirt slashes across his cheek. A calm smile spreading his lips. “Are you cozy down here love?”

You roll your eyes at him. “You smell sweaty.”

“Lia, can you get mom a glass of water please?” You hadn’t even noticed her hanging back in the archway, standing so still and quiet with her hands clasped together. She goes without a word.

“Do you feel dizzy?”

“I can’t get up.” You’d plummet right back down to the ground if you tried.

Lia returns with your water. Sirius takes it from her with a small thank you before cupping your chin. With nimble fingers he tilts your head back slightly, pressing the chilled glass to your cracked lips. “Drink, slowly” He waits for you to down half the glass before setting it aside, watching you intently.

“What did you guys have for lunch? Maybe it didn’t agree with you.”

“We had peanut butter and jelly. Mom didn’t eat any though.” Lia answers 

“And you didn’t have any breakfast this morning my love. Did you eat at all today?”

In fact, you couldn’t remember the last time something of substance passed your lips, food or drink. When your days edged more on the hectic side, you’d sometimes forget they were necessities. A horrible habit you never managed to break.

Sirius reads this in your expression. He frowns disapprovingly at you. “When was the last time you ate something? Not random scraps, a whole meal”

“Breakfast Friday morning” and even that had only been a slice of buttered toast. You were running solely on the clementine you’d swiped from one of Claires classmates, a handful of nuts, and a half cup of tea somewhere else in there.   

“Is she going to be alright?” Lia has sat herself beside you, picking at her fingers anxiously as her eyes rack your body from head to toe. You feel a tinge of shame run through you then. To cause her such worry with your bad habits.

Sirius removes one of the rings from his finger and slides it onto one of hers. It’s far too big but it provides a nice distraction as she spins it absentmindedly around the digit. “Mom hasn’t been nourishing her body properly but she’ll be right as rain once we get some food into her.”

“Are you ready to get up?” he asks you.  

“No” you answer honestly. The room is still spinning.

Smiling reassuringly, he instead makes whispered conversation with Lia, asking what they should feed you. “Something light to not upset her stomach”

“That special ginger tea she gave me when i was sick last week.” 

“What else?”

“Brown sugar oats?” She glances at you for approval “You love oats. With some honey on top?”

“Delicious. Why don’t you go fill the kettle while I help mom to the table.” 

Once she’s gone Sirius turns back to you. He runs his hands up and down your bare legs, refusing to meet your gaze now. “Trying to give me a heart attack, are you?” he grumbles “Lia came outside frantic and I was sure the worst had happened” he pinches you on the thigh. Not particularly hard but enough to convey his upset.  

“Ow”

He soothes it with a kiss “You have to stop skipping meals like that. You have to stay strong and healthy so we can be together until we’re old and gray and Claire ships us off to a retirement home.” 

A laugh startles out of you “Lia would definitely let me live with her. Emmy might be kind enough to house you.”

The laughter dies, a cloud of seriousness rolling in to dampen it.

“Promise me” He must really be fed up with you.

“I’ve been working on it. Time just slipped through my hands this weekend.”

“Promise me” he pushes again.

You sigh, feigning annoyance at the dramatics you so enjoy when he forcibly links your pinky fingers together “I promise.”

“Great!” It’s slow going, but he gets you up off the floor and to the counter “Lia how about we cut up some fruit to go with that?”  

[shitslikethis]

finally watched nimona (had the comic for years so i figured no rush) and i was struck by how different certain elements lept out in a new medium…. the one thing that hit harder in animation: she’s literally just a kid.

okay, yes, “she’s” a 1000 year old eldritch horror with no gender all the genders who bites people and commits crimes to alleviate boredom but as someone who works with kids i assure you, that’s literally all children at default settings

it just hurt so much (but in a cathartic way) to see the flashback where the townspeople turn on nimona and i just kept thinking she’s just a kid. she was just a kid. SHES JUST A KID!

(and think the obvious use of gendered pronouns there is a clear sign that this is not totally about nimona)

and then to see the “monster unleashed” sequences where the “monster” in question (or what i’m going to call the shadow form) is made from all of nimonas pain and grief and rage…..

the shadow form is harmless on its own. it has no teeth or claws. it’s voice mimics a whale call. a mourning, crooning noise, not a roar or a snarl. the destructive capacity is in its reaction, in the pain that rejection and humiliation and persecution has caused it.

as much as i relate to nimona more often through the “socialized girl child” and “queer child in a religious family” concepts within the film and book….. i’ve never seen myself so strongly as i did in the scene where nimona becomes the shadow form. the pressurized roar of grief and loss that they let out right before… i know that sound.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

What do you think about the "kill notice" about the new Catherine pic? I looked at the picture, there doesn't seem to be any distortion or manipulation. Some filters have been used but nothing is misaligned or photoshopped in or out. No dodgy shadows. Wtf is with the reporters agreeing with it?? Is this a shady attempt to force Catherine to be out in the public sooner than she would like to be? Apparently the controversy is about her left hand and somewhere along Charlotte's left sleeve. Part of me feels it's because reporters know she is now well and are angry she isn't back to work and giving them content. But, the picture agencies pulled the pic, so what's with that?? Such an unnecessary controversy.

I think it’s much ado about nothing. A lot of what people are point out as edited can be explained away, such as:

Kids are wiggly so of course they’d be blurry.

It’s a still from a video or a Live Photo.

Kate isn’t wearing her rings because maybe her fingers are still swollen from all the post-op meds and steroids, or maybe she just doesn’t want to wear them.

It's a program/app on William’s phone that stitches together the best parts in a sequence of photos to fix a squirming kid. (Like Google’s Best Take feature, in which case it’s AI, not photoshop.)

But wait, what about that pap pic last week of Kate with all weight in her face looking unrecognizable, and now in this photo she looks like herself? It’s about camera angles and body positions. There’s a pose - I call it the goose pose - where if you tilt your upper body forward just slightly and push your head/chin all the way forward, the extra weight in your midsection, neck, and face disappears from the camera if the photo is being taken from the front. (When you do this pose and the picture is taken from the side, you look like a goose.)

It’s great that the wires all have standards and that they take it seriously but the “kill” request illustrates a bigger problem: that in todays age of photo editing, filters, and AI, is any photo we see real and original? Once you permit minor edits like removing dust (which is an AP allowance), it opens the door for other edits and who’s the authority to say what’s right or wrong? So it’s a sticky line.

The reporters are writing about it because they have nothing else to write about. The media makes a ton of money off Kate and the children (more than they care to admit) so of course they’re going to pick up on this and write about it. They’re desperate for Kate content because she sells.

[[Interrupting now to say that I've just seen the update from KP of Kate (scroll to the end) acknowledging the edits and apologizing for any issues. It's bullshit she had to do this but I understand why she did it: she's proud of her photography, it's her own picture she edited and not one from anyone else, and it's overshadowing the Commonwealth Service coverage.]]

I mean, it's no coincidence that a prolific royal fashion blogger notorious for bashing Kate while simultaneously profiting from her appearances and photographs announced she's taking a break to Easter. Other royal events are still happening. Other royals are still working. Other royal families are still working. But that doesn't matter: she makes her money from Kate and when Kate doesn't work, she can't make money. So why bother keeping up the blog?

Anyway, believe what you want to believe about the photograph, but just be ready for all of this to backfire. And trust me, it will backfire.

If it's true that the Sussex Squad is behind this, well, Meghan may work hard but karma works harder. Harry and Meghan's own photoshopping and photo-editing may become equally under fire: Harry's Friar Tuck bald spot is world famous and everyone knows about it, no matter how much photoshop they do.

If it's true that the media and social media is making this a bigger issue than it actually is (which it sounds like, given Kate's newest message), then reap the consequences of your actions: fewer pictures from Kate and fewer pictures of the Wales family. The chances are extraordinarily high that they'll stop sharing pictures of their family now. It's already happened - back in ye olde days, it was custom for the royal family to have a photo call during a ski holiday so the press pack could get their pictures and leave them alone. William and Kate did this in 2016 on a skiing holiday, and boom - immediate criticism. Now no more vacation photos.

If it's true that the reporters picked up on this to force Kate to returning to work sooner than expected, well, I hope Kate retreats further into the cocoon of privacy and doesn't give you the satisfaction of new birthday pictures.

If it's true that this is a sign of how shambolic KP's communications office is, then hopefully the right people learn the right lessons and make more professional decisions. We know Kate will. She always learns from her missteps, even if it takes some time.

If it's true that the wires and the press associations need to revise their rules because everyone edits, I hope they do. Trust me, there are more worrying matters about photo editing and AI manipulation to write and "kill" than a touched-up family photo of the future king's family posted to social media. This is not the hill to stake your professional reputation on.

But I guarantee you that the same people who are making a fuss about these photo edits that EVERYONE does are the same people who are moaning about the dearth of content from the Waleses and they're the same people who scream and shout when the Waleses don't do what they want them to do.

But at the end of the day, it's a family photo taken by a proud husband and dad, who probably made stupid cheesy jokes to make his kids laugh like that, which his wife and their mother edited to make sure everyone looks their best. Everyone does this. It's fucking normal.

It's much ado about fucking nothing and I hope that everyone, most especially the reporters, who fed into the hysteria understand what they've done. They've just signed the execution notice for Waleses family photos.

Kate's apology:

[moineauz]

જ⁀ "you are a 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌, dearest."

That was what your husband- Neuvillette- mutters breathlessly to you in an outpour of gentle rain. That was when he ultimately grasped the wispy and fleeting sensations of what a mortal calls a 'dream', like a feather grazing the skin before vanishing with an afternoon breeze.

While Neuvillette is poised, eloquent, observant and educated- the sheer complexity of mortal life puzzles him. He has grown to subconsciously question the facts, follies and simple acts of mortals for centuries in a subtle, smouldering aspiration to better comprehend why laughter erupts from your hearty lungs during downpours. Despite, rain being considered an omen of sorrow. Or how you childishly attempt to dance with the shadows of strangers before eventually embracing his.

Oh, oh how he could not help but gingerly place his pens and papers aside when you spend hours simply perched next to him. Eyes closed and silent yet breathing deeply into your stomach and exhaling through your mouth as you unwinded like string before him. Fully aware that you need not utter another word as you unfailingly glowed before him; taking up space in his very office as you did wherever your heart and legs took you.

You'd wrap a thousand-year-old tree in your arms and mutter thanks to the Earth before playing tag with the children on the street, sharing fruit with a local vendor whilst relishing in an evening stroll with Neuvillette. Just the two of you.

It was yet another practice of yours that first bewildered, intrigued and ultimately enamoured him. In the haze of afternoon light under the subtle whiff of smooth parchment- Neuvillette could not have sought a superior way to observe the mortal who unwinded him.

That was the day he began to scan and rummage through parchment and books- scouring for at least one word to encapture a sliver of you. Like an aerologist preserving a mere fragment of bone.

( Of course, the Melusines- who adored you terribly- sought to aid Neuvillette in whatever way possible. )

That was when he came upon a word as he overheard a curt conversation whilst ambling through the streets of Fontaine.

'A dream.'

Hence, as raindrops gingerly slid down your cheeks, Neuvillette observed your soaked figure. However, despite the grey clouds hung above, your eyes- rich and deep in colour- seemed to twinkle like stars.

You pause for a tender moment, your mouth slightly agape as the mellow tunes of rain dance in your ears. Yet, words do not rise from your throat. Instead, the warmth of evening tea sessions, paper filing done together and swaying to no rhythm or sequence of moves.

"Oh Neuvillette," your voice condensing into a mere whisper as you utter his name; having nothing left to say. The muscles in your legs move absent of thought. Thus, you stand now mere inches apart from one another. Rain soaking you both. As you observe his tender face you notice a streak of rain pouring down from the corners of his eyes. Or perhaps it was salty tears?

Worry flickers in your eyes like a match being lit as more tears roll down his cheek in a manner of ethereal grace. You gingerly reach your hand toward his cheek; cupping it tenderly. Neuvillette stirs slightly.

Before you can voice your disquiet, Neuvillette sobs. His eyes glanced down shortly before meeting your fretful eyes. His eyebrows furrowed in the manner you have seen a dozen times before.

Yet, his eyes glimmer like the rays of the sun kissing a broad vibrant lake. A scintillating dazzle of unobscured light.

"Do not fret dearest. These tears are not ones of sadness..."

Neuvillette raises his gloved hand and similarly caresses your cheek; eyes pooling into your starstruck ones.

"... but of my most ardent affections to my partner- a dream I wish to live in for as long as you allow me to."

waaaa what a fic. i accidentally deleted the draft halfway though writing it but thankfully i was able to get it back. hope you all are ready for my comeback!!! ( meaning more angst lol dw there will be fluff too... or not?!?!? )

reblogs with comments are highly appreciated!! pls interact... don't be a ghost reader!

[vulgar-mary-p-ppins]

A glorious and stunning movie, well worth going to see. Miyazaki has not shied away from talking about the war before: The Wind Rises, albeit at it’s core a love story is still about the problem of creating the kamikaze planes and how life continues even in war time. As Miyazaki’s work has matured and his son has taken over more and more of the production, I find that his stories have become darker and his story-lines more complex. As such, I am delighted to see him make something so unsettling and mature as a (extremely loose) Dante’s Inferno. This is a far, far, FAR cry from something like Kiki and Totoro.

The details in which the shadow of the ongoing Pacific War color this film lend to Miyazaki’s style of talking about calamity in the softest way possible. Barring the opening sequence in which the main character witnesses the firebombing in Tokyo, there is no other “war violence”. However, at one point, his father stores something his factory is making in their house: the cockpits of the kamikaze planes. A character in the other world mentions off hand “soon, your world will be enveloped in fire”, which is clearly in reference to the bomb. Background details show wartime propaganda posters, nationalistic symbols, and children and adults performing the volunteer work usual for late stage war time. Much like Nausicaä, these are all details of the setting and are almost never overtly mentioned or pointed out.

This is a story about grief, just as Dante’s Inferno is, but also about the processing of war time trauma by a country besieged. Mihito, the main character, means “sincere one” and, when looking at this piece through the understanding that many Japanese perceive themselves as victims of World War II, he is a symbol of the victim mind-set of Japanese war time. He takes things as they come, never having a strong reaction either way. He isn’t bitter or angry, neither is he sad or grieving. He is numb. He goes through the motions of politeness, the motions of nationalistic fervor, the motions of life; but he is numb. It is only when the promise of retrieving his mother from death comes to him that he begins to break through his numbness, but it is the retrieval of his aunt that makes him a little boy again — a symbol of processing the loss of his old way of life, pre-war Japan, by embracing the new, post-war Japan.

I need to do more research into the symbolism of particular birds, because the usage feels too specific for me, but frankly, I haven’t yet. I loved the movie. I can’t wait to watch it again. Its a movie about sitting with your emotions, however, so, much like Miyazaki’s other more mature works, it is almost painfully slow. But that is what makes him a master storyteller; as an artist he reminds us to sit down and wait. The world is too fast now, and he has stated in interviews that his works is supposed to instill nostalgia for a time when we were younger and the world wasn’t so fast nor demanding. He wants us to sit: with the whimsical, with the painful, with the romantic, and in this case with the unsettling. And he does it again.

[five-flavor-soup]

I personally think that basing your interpretation of how Ursa treated Azula on Zuko’s memories shown in ‘Zuko Alone’ is kind… incorrect. You can obviously — they’re the only real images of their childhood we get in the cartoon, other than the tiniest of snapshots in sepia — and that’s fine, but for me personally I just don’t think they’re complete enough.

These memories are from Zuko’s perspective. Not Ursa’s, not Azula’s, not Ozai’s or Iroh’s—Zuko’s perspective, his memories. And they’re all about him and Ursa together: every one of these memories have Ursa at their centre. We see her protect him and be kind to him, see her be physically affectionate and gentle, see her encourage him to be kind to himself and to Azula.

They essentially tell us that Zuko is Ursa’s son first, Ozai’s son second. Ozai remains a hovering, intimidating shadow on the sidelines (we still don’t see his face, we don’t see him genuinely interact with his children, and we see him irritating his father while being a very hands-off kinda dad himself) but Ursa is fully present. And ‘Zuko Alone’ is about Zuko trying to figure out who he is: the memories show that he views being his mother’s son as an exceptionally important part of his identity, which means they are about Zuko and his relationship with Ursa alone.

They are not supposed to tell us that Ursa neglected or abused Azula emotionally—that she only focused on protecting Zuko, while leaving Azula to suffer in Ozai’s incapable hands. Sure, we see Ursa scold Zuko for acting like Azula and cuddle him right after, and we see her scold Azula for acting mean and not cuddle her right after, but the key differences here are that Zuko shows guilt after frightening the turtleducks and Azula doubles down on trying to scare Zuko. The behaviour is different and will be, by any halfway decent parent, treated differently. 

I’m absolutely not saying that Azula wasn’t abused, because she 100% was. She was absolutely abused by Ozai, and I’m not ruling out that Ursa didn’t have a hand in how Azula ultimately turned out. But my point here is: these memories are far too limited and narrow for the viewer to properly determine whether Azula was treated incorrectly by Ursa. 

Zuko isn’t going to remember an intimate, lovely moment between Ursa and Azula when all that’s on his mind is his identity, and how it’s entangled with his mother and what she may have sacrificed for him. Additionally, he’s not particularly fond of Azula at this moment in the show (she did kind of kickstart his being a refugee, disregarding how the audience sees this sequence of events having begun), so he’s not going to remember her fondly either. Why would Zuko try to remember Ursa’s relationship with Azula at that point, instead of his own?

(Small tidbit: we also... don't know if Ursa's last words to Azula were 'what is wrong with that child', disregarding the comics which completely ruin azula anyway. Again, the memories are from Zuko's perspective and therefore won't show any private moments between Ursa and Azula. We're not even certain whether Azulon actually ordered Ozai to kill Zuko, or if that is simply what Azula interpreted it as/thought would be funny to say--causing the sequence of events that ultimately put Ozai on the throne. But whatever)

[henrysglock]

High Existence and ZeroSpace: The First Shadow and NINA May Be Massive, Immersive Drug Trips

The blurb in last Friday's video from TFS sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. I found a lot of sites quoting The Alchemist about the universe conspiring to give you what you truly want (which is similar and it's probably what I was thinking of when this blurb registered as familiar), but I couldn't find this exact quote:

Well...not at first, anyway. I decided to stick every word I could make out here ^ into my search bar...and I found where the blurb comes from:

This blog post is quite literally the only source I could find for it, and the whole damn thing is directly lifted.

Right off the bat, the site fucking jump-scared me:

And it doesn't end there. Let's dive in, because this rabbit hole is a trip unto itself...no MDMA​ ​required.

1. The Fucking Website...#1 (HighExistence.com)

High Existence is a sort of drug-induced-spiritual-trip centered self-help site.

It's got blog posts and podcasts and all that jazz. Here are some of the highlights:

Wow! That was...a lot. A lot of words from the word show, too:

Wholeness, heroes, ancient aliens, prisons of politeness, and the fucking Shire, too, I guess. Why not?

(An Aside: I've included the VR in here too because of the sheer similarities between Henry's experience with the Shadow in VR, El's experience in NINA, and The First Shadow in general.)

Like fuck it, why not keep going, these posts date back to at least 2017:

And don't let me start in on that Creel boy and Faust...

[Jason voice] "[Eddie] made a deal with the devil and now he has his powers!" (Also we get it, one of them is neurotic and the other is psychotic. I've been saying this since like...forever)

Of course, all that insanity aside, the Russian base arc has just...an insane amount of ST4 and TFS stuff packed into it in general:

(And this isn't even all of it. I know others [cough] Stav Heroesbyler [cough] have covered it even more...but bro it is THERE)

But most importantly for the NINA arc:

Three things: Dialogue doubling (there's the one I showed, plus a) Robin yelling "Wipeout!" at Steve which has the pipeline -> "Wipeout!" at Rink-O-Mania -> 002-005 bullying El in a very similar manner and b) Steve's "that's amazing" line about the water fountain -> "This is amazing!" not only from Alice irt the Creel house but also from Mike irt Will's painting on their way to save El from NINA. Again, these are just a few of MANY instances), makeup doubling with the bloodshot eyes, and my beloved: set/prop doubling.

I love that beautiful framing on the nearly-identical square clocks. I have so much to say about that clock, but specifically:

The clocks being set 9 minutes apart, which happens to be the exact length of time from the end of Vecna's voiceover in 4.07 to the start of the fight sequence in 4.07 (aka the length of One's frozen-clock monologue).

Not only that, but the clock isn't even right. It says it's 3:55, but it's definitely not 3:55 AM (see: movie theater scene) but it's also not 3:55 PM:

(And why do we have a clock in an elevator anyway? That's the real question. That thang only exists to deliver subtext, baby! It exists to connect the two scenes further!)

Anyway, as you all likely noticed, this site mostly deals in psychedelics, stimulants, and empathogens.

link

Hell, you could even pull One's bit on the ecosystem into it, since he's describing connections between beings that are being disturbed/destroyed by humanity.

Anyway, the site tends to center specifically on DMT and MDMA...so let's talk about those:

MDMA & DMT An aside: Interesting to me that psychosis here can be counteracted with sedatives. Makes me wonder if whatever happened in 1979 could have been halted if they'd just tranq'd One. Hm.

First off: Did I read that right? Piggy-backing? Damn, son. 4.09, The Piggyback, is pictured in that paragraph. So is Brenner's candy bit with the children -> "candy flipping" vs LSD use in Brenner's lab.

Second: Ah, how nice. Intravenous/injectable. Just like how El is constantly being shot up with...something...to enter NINA.

Now, nearly all psychedelics can induce psychosis, but especially so if they're combined with other psychoactive substances and/or if the user has a history of psychosis (either themselves or in their family).

However, MDMA specifically has been posited as a treatment for PTSD and retrograde/traumagenic amnesia:

link Like...wow. Okay, I guess!

tl;dr: One seems to have been tripping fucking balls during the monologue. Literally every fucking version of him. El likely is as well. Funny how that works. Was any of that real? [smash cut to the way blood pours down the walls and the dead children dance around in the VR version of NINA] And either way, Henry in TFS isn't far behind with his hallucinogenic moments.

The connection? Whatever the hell is going on in Hawkins Labs...and symptoms of drug use.

I was not expecting to get this much out of a single rabbit hole. But...that's life with this show, isn't it? And this is only Part 1.

2. The Fucking Website...#2 (Futurism.com)

The guy who made that original post that TFS lifted the blurb from (Jordan Lejuwaan) runs a couple different websites. The most interesting one is Futurism, which is basically an online version of the Weekly Watcher:

It won't let me filter by date, but it seems to have been founded in 2017, stemming from an infographic subreddit. (Now, it says it's a trustworthy news source, and maybe it is, but... Do your own assessment of that. I'm not your mother, yknow?)

Jordan Lejuwaan was also involved in something far more interesting irt Stranger Things...

3. Zero Space

Jordan co-founded an immersive, interactive theater experience called ZeroSpace back in 2018. As we all know, TFS was just in the beginning phase of its creation around this time.

So...This was like a brick to the skull:

"Alice in Wonderland" (don't get me started: rabbit fuckery, DRUGS!!!!!, clocks/being later, Alice Creel, Fringe connections (Through The Looking Glass and What Walter Found There being the episode about the pocket universe where 20 years passed in 5 days...and also wherein we find out about him hiding away an Observer child that he will later time travel with to save the world from the Observer takeover...erasing himself from time/the timeline by doing so...there is SO much) not to mention the "one pill makes you larger/smaller" vs teen El and baby El...it's too much to try and fit in this post), "ALIENS AND LASERS", "stretch the perceived reality of the sense", "art, actors and your own mind converge to prompt MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS" (which was a common complaint about TFS: it leaves people with more questions than answers).

("See you on the other side" being an in-show line from Henry in the lab to Patty in the void, but this image is ripped directly from the same promo video that the High Existence blurb appears in.)

Here's a little taste of what ZeroSpace is like, but I suggest going to the actual page to see it in action:

It's heavily heavily reminiscent of TFS, even just in the content warnings...

Not to mention the actual show content SFX:

However, the goal of TFS isn't to stretch our senses. We're just watching. We are not the volunteer seeing the other side.

For most of the show, that person is Henry (except the first 5 mins, when it's Cptn. Brenner and his crew literally experiencing the other side). Henry is doing the experiencing. He's the one breaking the fourth wall by picking at/breaking the sets, the one running through the audience and leaving out the theater doors (only to end up right back on stage just like El in the Rainbow Room in 4.05).

With each bit of info I find out adjacent to the play, the more convinced I am that this is some secret third boy's experience in a NINA-like simulation.

Overall—

a) TFS most likely isn't wholly real, and it seems very likely that it's the same kind of simulation as NINA.

b) El was probably drugged up with some kind of empathogenic psychedelic going into NINA, likely with the goal of setting her up to form emotional connections quickly and deeply only to rip that deep connection away in order to bolster her abilities.

c) NINA is not, then, wholly based in truth. Parts of NINA (staring at the bullying from 002-005) may have been generated from El's memories of the outside world.

d) With NINA and TFS seeming so similar, I wouldn't be shocked if parts of it are just one massive empathogen trip (staring at how quickly Henry and Patty bond, similarly to how quickly Henry and El bond in NINA).

e) Whoever is in NINA with teen El is also tripping balls, most likely, and may have gone off the rails in that regard. However, that's in a simulation...hard to assign guilt or blame for things done in a fictional/unreal world.

f) Whoever was with baby El in 1979 may have been in a similar situation "moving chess pieces"-style instead. Read: drugged in order to put him in a situation where he would bolster El's latent abilities...and it went wrong (see also: Walter Bishop's orchestrated/fake massacre meant to bolster Olivia's latent abilities.)

g) Richard Brenner having been the head of narcotics makes me question which Brenner we're seeing at any given time: Martin, or Richard?

[artbyblastweave]

Just finished watching the new Blorbo-generating Superman show everyone is talking about. Some preliminary notes:

This isn’t a knock on the show’s quality, but this rendition of Clark, Lois and Jimmy very much feel like they’re being written as close to children or teenagers as possible without actually retooling the show to be My Adventures With Superboy. I think we’re still living under the shadow of the hammer which fell upon Infinity Train for having “no child entry point.” This is in contrast S:TAS, which I described once as being a show about Adults With Jobs in a way very few contemporary shows are; they were in a cartoon but they themselves weren’t cartoons. 

Downstream of this, the dialogue/spoken humor, from the power trio in particular, constantly skirts the line between grating and endearing; it’s very much in what I think of as the She-Ra Register (indeed, the two shows share a producer) and the She-Ra-Register was hit or miss for me in the titular show.  (I like it a lot more here, though- In MAWS’s favor, the 23-year-old characters aren’t bouncing-off-the-walls whilst in a literal war zone.) This is less true of the villains, Livewire and Slade in particular- they don’t speak more realistically, necessarily, but they feel more grounded, like refugees from a grittier cartoon. I like this rendition of Livewire a lot. 

Unpacking Livewire a little more. Livewire’s implementation here is interesting. Livewire’s original character concept- a radio shock-jock who picked fights with Superman to drive ratings before getting powers and fighting him for real- was topical and novel upon its release, but I’ve never felt a great deal of attachment to it because it felt like the shock-jock component ran out of stuff to do in the story after her first appearance. Therefore I don’t mourn its absence here.  Livewire as originally envisioned is one of a handful of supervillains (along with Mysterio) whose schtick would actually be even more plausible in today’s society than at the time of their creation; the internet being what it is, she could plausibly remain a content creator of some stripe without getting deplatformed even after turning into a supervillain. But I like the Livewire we got- a woman who just wants to get paid but instead is going to have to live in a superhero setting for the rest of her life.

Deathstroke is interesting as well. Deathstroke’s personal timeline is something I don’t think about a ton due to the omnifluid chronological soup where every comic hero has been their current age forever, but in a timeline that’s being written from scratch to make sense, then yeah, he would have to be a young gun concurrently with the rise of the first wave of superheroes, in order to be a seasoned, renowned freelancer when the Titans are active as an independent team. His showing in the pilot strikes a great balance between Genuinely Cool (the fight sequences) Pointedly Unlikable (any time he opens his mouth) and Skeevy Sadist (the interrogation sequence with Livewire at the end of the pilot.) I really hope they don’t try to do an anti-hero thing with him.

One thing I appreciated about S:TAS is that it took its sweet time getting Clark into costume; the entire first episode was just about the fall of Krypton, it was the Jor-El Show, and in my opinion this did a ton of legwork towards grounding the destruction of Krypton as a meaningful tragedy. MAWS’s pacing felt a little pinched in comparison, particularly because it’s basically a loose remake of the SATS pilot that’s 22 minutes shorter. But one thing I think it knocked out of the park was the scene where Clark investigates his spaceship. in SATS it was basically one additional point on his upward trajectory towards superheroism; it gives him some needed context and he gets over the shock very quickly in no small part because Jor-El’s message is legible. By contrast, the scene in MAWS where young Clark discovers the ship is much more of a character beat. You find this gigantic alien construct lurking just below the surface of your beloved childhood home. Interfacing with it produces an image of a strangely dressed man speaking in an unintelligible language, and then the ground nearly swallows your adopted parents (it’s not NOT a metaphor!) No shit he didn’t want to revisit this until he was an adult and his hand was forced! And, to loop this back around to the start of the paragraph, I’m really, really on board with an inscrutable Jor-El and a deeply visually alien Krypton instead of having all of episode one be The Jor-El show. Not totally sure I want this to turn out to be a Light Hope/Viltrum take on Krypton That Was, but there’s some compelling ambiguity here! I’m very tempted to read something into the fact that he’s missing an eye, and that Krypton seems to have been destroyed by some sort of weapon being deployed against the sun.

Also it’s interesting that they seem to be going with Kryptonian Tech Diaspora as a Unified Origin For Superhuman Weirdness, if Livewire’s Kryptonian-powered harness is anything to go by. I’m a sucker for assembling disparate elements of comic-book mythology into a unified whole! And I’m intrigued by the implications that there’s been some form of R-and-D on recovered Kryptonian materials- Superman coming in at the tail of Krypton’s impact on the planet. I wonder if they’re going to do a Transformers: The Animated Series move, where the generally higher level of tech at play in Metropolis is downstream of salvaged Krypto-tech.

To circle back to the power trio- one thing about Lois that I’m realizing is that the secret sauce is that every version of her has to be, on some level, in some way, a little bit of a jerk. In versions where she’s an accomplished reporter (S:TAS and even the original comics) that translates as her being dismissive (sometimes justifiably so) or really competitive.  MAWS Lois is an interesting spin on this- arguably she’s using people to get what she wants, but it’s not calculated, there’s no component of needing to defend her position against a challenger- it’s just rooted in the myopia of thinking her plan is the best plan and wanting her new friends along for the ride/to share in the spoils, before running headlong into the reality of Clark’s anger at being deceived. It’s a self-centeredness that’s much more conducive to a considered character arc- as much as I liked S:ATS, it wasn’t really a character-arcy kind of show for the supporting cast. It was a show about Superman. Much more of a triumvirate effect going on with Clark, Lois, and Jimmy, by contrast.

On this note- also interesting is the distinction between the origin of the name “Superman” in S:TAS and MAWS. Lois comes up with it in both versions, but in S:TAS she’s being cynical about it- she namedrops Nietzsche, and she has to be brought around. In MAWS she’s much more openly enthusiastic about it, but she’s also at a point in her career where she has much more to gain by hitching her wagon to the Superman narrative. Interesting distinction.

Jimmy is compelling! I’m curious what they’re going to do with him- they’ve gone a step beyond “cub reporter” to “cub reporter who’s also a conspiracy buff.” Moreover he’s a conspiracy buff in a setting where that’s a completely appropriate way to engage with the world, which can be a hard needle to thread. It’ll be interesting to see how much of a punching bag they make that element of his character. He’s also got a very good claim to the title of “Superman’s Pal-” they start the series knowing each other before the costume is a twinkle in Clark’s eye. That’s a compelling angle to work, one I like more than him being noticeably younger/less experienced than Clark and Lois.

I actually forgot about the Newsboy legion! Just like in general. Deep cut. They’re cute.

[shadowsofhaddix]

(For anyone forgetting, Jason was the one who manipulated Nina and worked with the Population Police to turn kids in.)

[martyrbat]

ghosts - batman: haunted knight

[ID: A multi panel sequence of Bruce Wayne as a child on Halloween. He's dressed up in a Mask of Zorro costume and is excitedly running down the stairs while holding two swords, calling out for his mother happily. He tells her that he's ready to go trick or treating. Martha Wayne has her hand on his shoulder and is smiling as she tells him, “your costume looks great!” Bruce replies, “Thanks, I made it myself. Alfred sorta helped. Is dad home yet?” Martha draws her hand back hesitantly and says his name. Bruce already knows that that means there's bad news. He tells her, “don't tell me,” before she continues and says his father called. Bruce has his head down, angrily finishing her sentence, “he's gotta work late!” He looks out the window as if his father will appear and says, “It's not fair! He promised he would take me trick or treating!” Martha soothes that she knows as Bruce repeats, “he promised,” to himself disappointedly. She tells him, “But there was an emergency,” which makes Bruce snap, “There's always some emergency!”

Bruce continues to stand in front of the window as Martha looks at him. Bruce announces, “I'm gonna wait for him. Even if it takes all night!” as he tensely clenches the handle of his sword. Martha reaches out for him sadly and suggests, “Bruce, I could take you out myself. Or, we can call some of the other children at school and go out with them.” Bruce, as an adult, somberly says off panel that, “she doesn't know...” as his kid self stares out the window still. His hat casting a small shadow on his face as he tells her, “There are no other kids to call. I have no friends at school.” Martha says his name again but doesn't know how to comfort him. Instead, she just silently places a hand on his shoulder. We see a silhouette from far away of her standing next to him as Bruce waits for his father to eventually come home. END ID]

[the-elusive-soleil]

Concept for a Silm-adaptation pilot:

See, I would want any adaptation worth its salt to at least touch on the beautiful, poetic opening segments of the book that describe creation and the Ainur. But there are some things that humans are just not able to adequately portray in a realistic fashion, and I'm willing to take a stand that a choir of thousands of heavenly beings singing reality into existence is one of those things.

So, instead: they don't try to portray it realistically. Instead, the first episode of the Silm series opens with an animated sequence (a shadow puppetry style seems thematically apropos) that doesn't even come close to capturing the grandeur and majesty of it all. That's not the point of it, because it's telling a children's story version.

There's a voice, narrating everything, and we the audience are trying to guess who it is. Maybe Maglor? Maybe he's telling this story to Elros and Elrond? But the voice doesn't sound quite right--it's a good voice, for sure, but not that kind of good.

And we see creation and the Valar coming to Ea and the fall of Melkor and the great battles before people came into the world, all through the lens of a children's story, and at the end, the narrator says, "And that, Curufinwe Feanaro, is why the world is marred and not always as it ought to be. It is for us to make the best of the world we have."

It's Finwe, telling this whole story to a young Feanor.

And we finally see the two of them, in live action or whatever the look will be for the rest of the show, and Feanor is justifiably suspicious and says, "Why are you bringing this up now?"

And that's how Finwe leads into telling his son that he's about to remarry.

Music swells. Smash cut to the opening credits.

And when we come back, Feanor is an adult slightly pre-Silmarils, and on we go...

[leoascendente]

PAC/ Blessings from spring 💐

Hi my loves! Welcome to this new PAC about the good things coming your way this spring.

Decks I used: Goddess guidance oracle, work your light oracle and spirit animal oracle.

Take a deep breath before you choose your pile, remember to keep what resonates with you and leave what doesn't

Pile 1 Pile 2 Pile 3

Pile 1:

❤️ Take a leap of faith with that idea or project you have, Universe will provide you, don't worry because luck is on your side

❤️ You'll be overcoming many fears and limitating beliefs, self confidence will be high this spring, you start your Empress era

❤️ Start doing things outside your routine or comfort zone, start a new hobby, do something spontaneous and you'll see how good you'll feel

❤️ You'll be more sensitive, ground yourself and connect with nature when you feel you need it

❤️ You'll be feeling an unknown feeling of excitement, you'll have a lot of energy you will invest well, make some sport too it will help you release energy and relax

❤️ You'll have a nice surprise, little insects like ladybugs will come to you before that big surprise comes

❤️ Spend time outside, wind and fresh air will clear your mind

❤️ Someone you know can be pregnant or get married soon

❤️ Number 33, 10 and 41 will be relevant signs, swallows, nightingales and horses too

❤️ For those with children they will come with a good new that will make you so proud

❤️ Be careful, someone wants just casual sex with you, if you feel in the mood remember to use protection because ypu are in a moment of fertility in every sense

Pile 2:

🔮 You'll free yourself from toxic people and enviroments, you'll have to leave bad habits or codependency too ( I hear procrastinating too much)

🔮 You'll be gaining a lot more confidence and hope in yourself and your abilities, you'll feel like you have a lot of posibilities and the resources to achieve them. You are capable of everything you want, just trust your talents

🔮 Don't let other's opinions bother you and don't tell no one about your ideas until they are a reality

🔮 You have great creative ideas, start making them practical plans and take things more seriously. Make a list with your ideas no matter how unrealistic they could seem, Universe will give you the answers in the perfect moment

🔮 Hold your vision of future and what you want to manifest, you are really close to ahieve a major goal, keep faith

🔮 Someone from your past, possibly a past romance will communicate with you, it's a test so don't let this person fool you because they haven't changed the same way you did. They come in an energy of remorse but you are not their therapist

🔮 Do some shadow work, you need to release some negative emotions

🔮 Your signs will be swans, sequences with number 5, arrows and the goddess Artemis

🔮 Feeling independent, free and comfortable with yourself and your life, the word satisfaction keeps repeating

🔮 A deep sense of relief and not needing anybody's approval

Pile 3:

🍀 Something you wanted to manifest is about to come, don't rush the process

🍀 A period of lack of motivation is ending, you'll be feeling a lot more powerful and driven torwards something you really want

🍀 Your mimnd will be more clear too, you'll see solutions easilly. If you deal with anxiety you'll feel how it's releasing progressively, be gentle with yourself meanwhile

🍀 You'll be putting yourself and your needs in the first place, some could call it selfishness but it's the purest manifestation of self love and you know you deserve it

🍀 That change or new start you were praying for is already here, don't miss the opportunity because there's a karmic test behind scenes to prove you really want this, don't be afraid of change.

🍀 Stronger intuition and finding your soul purpose, you can also meet people from your soul tribe to help you with your goals. For some of you, you'll be meeting your true soulmate or twin flame (whatever you resonate with)

🍀 Self esteem issues will be dissolving fast, try to avoid overthinking and nurture you mind, soul and body with healthy content

🍀 Move more your body, put nice music and dance (I keep hearing bam bam by camila cabello), let the energy move through your body and this will help you to balance your sacral chakra

🍀 Owls and lizzards will be signs, shooting stars and number 44 too. You can also be receiving messages through music lyrics

[speaker-of-the-void-cats]

"My mentor couldn't teach me how to interpret dreams, so he taught me in hypotheticals."

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, the Veil, the Witness and its 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 goofy with it, especially in those early posts, with big swings and a lot of my own writing connecting the dots in an attempt to see a year into the future. But as we've gone through the seasons and learned more, I've tried a sort of variation on web-weaving using lore entries, images, video, and sometimes song lyrics and poetry in order to evoke specific moods or convey big, hard to articulate ideas and speculation. Sometimes, I simply explore a theme or specific lore nook that fascinates me.

As we near 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. 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?]*

[The following posts contain trailer spoilers for the Final Shape]

©0RrUptIôN.*

Prismatic Hearts*

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

Kugelblitz*

Final attempts to understand before the Shape is unveiled*

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

Eyes up, Guardian

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