#memory/narration

[classasurreptitiouslurker]

There will come a tempest, and darkness, and great storms. And the dead will leave their graves and walk the earth once more. And there will be great lamentations... Every day it's getting closer.

Gabriel's amnesia is probably one of the things that has most consistently bugged me since the season came out, very nearly on par with the continuity/time oddities. I'll likely have more to say about it still in the future - because hardly anything about it sits right with me - but for now I'd like to just point out one of the first things that stood out to me: namely, the moment just after the one above. Jim snaps out of his strange, unexplained, ominous prophetic (?) trance and the first thing he does is ask, "Who am I? What happened to me?"

The latter question is at least a somewhat reasonable thing to ask in the confusion of the moment: he is, after all, either missing time, if the trance suppressed his consciousness, or he's just been present when a foreign force took over his body and forced statements from him that made very little sense. The former always struck me as a little... odd. It's like, for a moment, his memory is completely gone again, like it was when he first turned up at the bookshop. He doesn't seem so badly confused that I'd expect him to have forgotten who he is.

So did the trance reset his memory somehow? Was there some weird bleedthrough with his old memories as Gabriel? Neither of those things, nor any other option I've been able to come up with, tracks with how his memory loss supposedly works. Because - storytime! - when I first watched S2, I did not, at all, understand how Gabriel's amnesia worked. So I went digging on Tumblr, found that there was a generally accepted explanation, went huh, ok, and went back to rewatching, only to realise that yeah, no, it still doesn't make sense to me. So at some point, once I had adequately recovered from first the Final Fifteen and then from Aziraphale and Crowley in general, I figured maybe I ought to pay Jimbriel some proper attention. Miiiight help with the whole making sense bit, you know? Nope! I just ended up with even more question marks floating over my head. Did Gabriel's memory loss really work the way it appears to have done, and if not, then what actually happened?

#good omens #s2 meta/speculation #Jim/Gabriel #memory/narration #arrrrgh. I feel like I'm overthinking it but also it will. not. leave me alone.

[gloriousmonsters]

love when you can ask the Narrator why the Princess is a Princess and he's like 'well i uhhhh YOU did that. maybe it's because uh... something something about her being above you... but still approachable... look i don't want to analyze or anthropomorphize your--' my guy. i am a primal being of Order and Eternity and Shaping. You're the one who convinced me I was some dude and were quite willing to take credit for shaping my view on the world through narration five seconds ago. Are you gonna look me in the eye and tell me the desire to interpret something worthy of adoration and more powerful than me as a dommy princess is written in the very nature of the universe or are you going to show me your browser history like a man

#this is a joke but the 'so where did i get the Idea of a princess from??' still stands #since we remember nothing and don't seem to have many ideas about like. what the world looks like #but when given the conception of 'we're a hero' from the narrator's Quest #we immediately go to 'so the thing you're telling us to kill is a Princess' -> i.e something I'm not SUPPOSED to kill #and in fact am supposed to respect and cherish #and/or pledge eternal loyalty to #(and then on a deeper level we KNOW that we're the dragon #we're the biggest threat to her we're what has the power to trap her and keep her here #we're a monster just like her) #but my point remains. as a god-entity stripped of memory where did we get the idea of a (human/like) Princess. do we still have like... #the threads of common narratives sort of built into our structure b/c we're the god-half concerned with Shaping and Naming and Order? #that would kind of slap #anyway uh. dragging myself offstage now #slay the princess #slay the princess spoilers #stp spoilers

[janirah]

Somewhere after the events of AU, Birds is still an overconfident AI and an insecure cinnamon roll at the same time.

Under the cut, the full version without words.

#the stanley parable #tsp narrator #tsp stanley #tsp #the f.e.r.n #watching clouds #memory zone #stanarrator

[narraticn]

My phone just made a soapshipping collage

#lmfao??? #memories together❤️ and its just the gay dudes from fight club #soapshipping #tyler/narrator

[chronicsheepdrawing]

You're right here, but haven't you always been?

#The Stanley Parable #tsp #The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe #tspud #Stanley tsp #The Narrator tsp #The Memory Zone #Drinky Bird Narrator #I feel like this didn't turn out that great but I tried to redraw one bit like 3 times and it's nearly 5 AM #Stanley is so overwhelmed with emotion he's not sure what to do

[i-am-a-fan]

new headcanon

if Mk was in fact an old demon in jttw and was nerfed into normal Mk from a previous monkey demon

… then it was not Wukong that took out Macaque’s eye, but Mk.

#idk it makes sense to me #like. #wukong doesn’t seem like the type to just go for the eye #Mk? mk has fought like that before. it was muscle memory #Like Macaque? not a reliable narrator #i dunno #silly things in my silly tired head #lego monkie kid #lmk #lmk mk #lmk wukong #lmk macaque #lmk headcanon #this is just speculation until they actually tell #us what happened

[questionablealibi]

Posting this silly doodle separately 👀

Heres the link to the post i made that it's related to ^^

#Old man coming at you again /silly #Ive seen #Multiple people who go insane /pos over my old man #And im so incredibly flattered #But tone it down or else youll inflate their ego /silly /lh /j #Kailangan ko na bang magpatugtog ng pasilyo /silly /pos #You know who you are 👁️ /silly #M being silly i love you lot muwah muwah /p you guys make me feel confident about posting my old man all over my account #/Silly /gen #Im glad you lot like them <3 #the stanley parable #tspud #tsp #tsp narrator #tspud narrator #Alibi! #He's holding a chicory flower :D #He has mixed feelings about the flowers in the memory zone #To the point where they almost never visit it with stanley physically #More context in the link 👀

[familyofpaladins]

I know everyone (including myself) is like really excited about the special and the idea of the Monkey Crew going back into the scroll to help Monkey King escape and getting to see more of the JttW story...

but I don't think that's going to happen (at least not right away)

Because before they can go about freeing Monkey King, they're gonna have to repair the slate first

And do you y'all remember what Azure said about the scroll?

"- a fragment of the Scroll of Memory-"

"-stolen from the Underworld"

....

In the season 2 special we got a Demon (Red Son) getting the crew into the Celestial Realm

And so I think in the season 4 special, a Celestial Being...

is going to get them into the Underworld

to repair the slate

#just THE PARALLELS #i also think maybe that's why they showed the whole scroll thing at the very beginning? #to foreshadow them ACTUALLY going there! #like. yes i love the idea of them going back into the scroll and like. Wukong being stuck in the memories like how tang pigsy and sandy had #but i think they got to repair it first #and idk if there will be time for more scroll story #(i mean it also just depends on what the speical is going to be about... #if its ONLY about getting SWK out of the scroll. totally time to jump back in too #but if the special is about getting Monkey King out AND going and stopping Azure? no time for old stories #except it WOULD be a good opportunity to learn Monkey King's side of the story #and gosh we need more reliable narrators for the past lol #ANYWAY #YEAH i fully believe we're going to the underworld in the special #lmk #lego monkie kid #monkie kid #lmk season 4 #lmk season 4 spoilers #monkie kid spoilers #lmk season 4 special theory #monkie kid theories #theories #the scroll #lmk the scroll #lmk mk #lmk monkey king #lmk nezha #the underworld

[swimmingcreatortyrant]

#disturbed - hold on to memories #the stanley parable #the stanley parable ultra deluxe #tsp #tsp ud #tsp narrator #tsp ud memory zone #tsp ud stanley figurine #stanlurine #figleys #mini-stan #stanley-fig #figlureanlurine #actually this is a serious art #I'd like to think that the narrator has a human form #but not a physical body #someting metaphysics idk #my art #digital art #fan art #illustration #artist on tumblr #spotify

[starsphaeart]

haha epilogue angst go brrr

#Stanley having to carry the Narrator across the desert to find the memory zone knowing that he probably won’t ever wake up again owo #Narry is just a bit eepy that’s all #history will say they were best friends #tsp narrator #tsp stanley #tspud #the stanley parable fanart #the stanley parable #tsp fanart

[stood-onthecliffside]

THE ALLCOT SERIES

#i don't like the 2nd gif enjoy #the idea was that the narrator in both the songs viewed the situation very differently the first one almost perceived it as a happy one #while the affected one was just stuck in time #for one a memory and for the other a reality #the alcott #taylor swift edits #tsuserkatie #tsusermels #usersar #taylor swift parallels

[classasurreptitiouslurker]

Gabriel's Memory, Again

So, a while back I mentioned that I found that, with a nitpick-y approach, you could arguably say that all of the times (I make it five, but let me know if I've forgotten anything) when Jim remembers - using the term loosely here, because I'm also including his trances - something of Gabriel all operate differently. This, now, is the nitpick in question. Fair warning: there's no conclusion to be had here, since there's not enough similarities to draw one, and just the fact of the differences also isn't exactly sufficient for that, and as I mainly wrote this to lay it and my thoughts out - for clarity, recall and organisation, but also as a starting point and, so to speak, to-do list for things I want to look at still - it may be a little (or little more) rough.

First up, going by episode chronology, we've got whatever it was that drove Jim to seek out Aziraphale to begin with. From what he says, it seems to have been a combination of perceptions that led him to Aziraphale: a vague sense of doom - the "something terrible" - and an equally vague sense that this was a being who could help and shelter him - "as long as I came here [it] might not happen to me". Whether he's feeling love, or ethereal energy, or still subconsciously retaining a memory of Aziraphale's personality, or of a plan he formed while he was still Gabriel, and what exactly the "something terrible" actually was, since he can't actually remember, just that it's coming (and how did he find the bookshop anyways?), is, while interesting and a topic for the future, not making much of a difference here. Either way, whatever precisely's behind this, it's manifesting in a way that seems like a sort of sixth sense, a vague, generalised impression, strong enough to move him but not so strong as to give him any urgency, apparently emotion-based and possibly, at least partially, not actually a memory at all.

Next is when starts singing Everyday to himself in E2. He has no idea why he starts doing it - he doesn't even realise he is at first - or where it came from and it seems to have come to him later, rather than being something he knew from the start, with no particular trigger beyond a possible tenuous after K comes L -> L = love -> love = Beelzebub -> Beelzebub = Everyday connection, in which case it's still not jarring or abrupt in the way he suddenly gets snapped into his trance later in the episode. Everyday featured prominently in two of the three key Beelzebub meetings we were shown, and is a symbol of their relationship, not to mention played a fairly major role in the memory of him receiving the fly, the critical component of his escape plan, making it a personally significant piece of information. Like the instinct that made him seek out Aziraphale, it revolves around emotion; however, beyond that, it's practically entirely opposite. Whereas the former's broad, seemingly slightly random, and without the details to make sense of it, Everyday's essentially one single important detail, completely isolated and context-free, something we later learn is special to Gabriel, but which is without that additional background far too narrow in scope to explain even its presence, let alone its meaning.

In the same episode, we also get his first trance-like altered state. He 'snaps' into this state after Crowley directly questions him about "the first thing [he] remember[s]" - possibly what he meant in the last episode by "ask him properly" (and another post - really this whole paragraph is) - although snaps isn't really the right word for the way he struggles into the trance, wrestling either with his own memory or a possessing force. The process seems exhausting and painful, and he says he can't keep going, adding "not anymore" with a surprising sudden flash of insight into his former capabilities, and he appears disorientated - but aware of the situation - afterwards. His eyes go back to Supreme Archangel Gabriel purple and God's voice echoes alongside his when he speaks. The words are also God's, spoken when Gabriel was not actually present. It seems unlikely that the Bildad masquerade would have gone the way it did if he'd been spying on that scene, but there's no way to truly eliminate the possibility that he somehow overheard God, though that seems an utterly random memory to procure. It's possible God is somehow speaking through him, or perhaps Gabriel simply has access to Her words, in form of some kind of God's Messenger function, however, I've also wondered whether they both use the same words because they are both referring to the same, third, thing. Regardless of what exactly's going on here - as I said, I'd like to make a separate post for that sometime - it doesn't fit into a pattern with either of the previous occurrences, which, okay, this is a separate matter, but it doesn't seem the same as his next trance either.

Coming to said next trance: at the end of E3, Jim gets (apparently) triggered by Crowley's use of the word "tempest", which features in his own words, and accordingly, seems to have acted as a sort of key or index. Once again, there's a clear verbal cue, though of slightly different format, that snaps him into his trance, delivered, again, by Crowley. It looks smoother this time however, less of a struggle and more a fluid transition from one moment to the next. His eyes revert to Angel-Gabriel-BluePurple and while I personally don't hear anyone speaking, I'm taking other people's word that it sounds like there's a woman voice overlaid; it's certainly not God speaking again though. The words themselves, bizarrely enough considering that this is all about memory, sound very much like a prophecy. Of course it's possible that the memory element comes back in if he's either repeating a prophecy he's heard or read before (greetings to Agnes) or if it's referring to an event that's already happened (or that it's not a prophecy at all) but at first glance, we seem to be dealing with the future instead of the past, which, besides being strange, is distinctly the opposite of last time's distant biblical past. After the trance ends, with a moment's delay that almost gave the impression he was going to say more, Jim's memory appears inexplicably reverted to its E1 state, something I'd say doesn't seem to happen after the first trance. Having presumably plot relevant for as-yet-unknown reasons, clearly otherworldly moments of recollection, they would naturally be distinct from the 'regular' workings of Jim's amnesia, but the issue is that they're also different from each other.

Finally, there's his conversation with Crowley in E5, in which he describes where his memory is: "In a matchbox. No, I took it out first... and I put it in the box and I brought it here...". There's only really one piece missing here, the fly, which is the most important bit, sure, but at the same time a fairly small one. Beyond that, this is a fairly focused, specific, relevant memory of direct personal importance, decently detailed and even showing signs of putting a chronology back together, with which he is able to give a direct, on-topic answer to a question. He then follows this up with the "institutional problem" comment, which is unfortunately, unlike the matchbox-memory segment, back to being totally abstracted from context. It does relate to the topic, since it was connected to his trial, but of course, for the characters it's once again an entirely random statement. Still, this whole sequence (triggered once again by Crowley's probing) is the most precision Jim ever shows regarding Gabriel's memories, offering specific details and relevant, targeted, albeit not actually useful, answers, an on-point factualness that doesn't really align with the emotionally-driven, intuition-like flashes of his previous memories. He also says that it hurts to remember, which seems to be more the case in his first trance - he's even repeating the 'head not big enough' here - than in the two previous - and despite their differences, still more similar to this than said trance - cases of 'normal' remembering.

#good omens #s2 meta/speculation #Jim/Gabriel #memory/narration

[janirah]

Maybe, a kiss for good luck, angry bird?

Only because of the official launch of the "Parable" and at the personal request of the Narrator, Stanley agreed to a dress shirt and tie.

#the stanley parable #tsp narrator #tsp stanley #tsp #the f.e.r.n #memory zone #stanarrator

[whumpcloud]

Things End | People Change - Not Dangerous

content: vampire whumpee, whumper turned whumpee, dehumanisation, muzzled whumpee, disassociation, burning, whumpee believing they deserve it, begging

"So you're still going to hurt him?" Cai signs.

Clary nods. "It's just not… worth it, right now. He already thinks I'm going to hurt him every time I move. I want to make him scared of me, it's- it's the least I deserve."

"I understand." Cai bites his lip. "I'm worried about you being here alone with him."

"You can stay over if you want," Clary shrugs.

"Are you okay?" Cai asks.

"I don't know."

It's only been a few hours, but Clary's already having second thoughts. She thinks she's hiding it well, but her twin knows her better than that, and he briefly squeezes her hand.

"He deserves it," Cai signs.

Does he? He's been hurt so badly already. But Clary can fucking feel him, hands around her throat to hold her still, and she wants to hear his dusty bones crack underneath her fingers.

"You don't have to go near him." Cai grabs the blood bag that Clary asked him to bring. "I'll feed him."

"Thanks," she mumbles. "Don't… don't be a dick to him."

"I'll try, but no promises."

—

Vincent wraps the blankets around himself. Blankets. He hasn't touched a single soft thing since being captured. And Clary, Clary was kind enough to give him blankets.

He doesn't care what she does to him. He'd deserve it, every bit of it, even if she took a knife and cut his mangled body to shreds. He'd take it gratefully, another reminder of what he is. He's had so many, but if they stop, he might hurt someone again. He'll always hurt people. That's what monsters like him do.

He's still not quite… present. He never is, not with the muzzle strapped to his face. Part of him seems to leave his body, floating in his sea of consciousness. Perhaps that's why the hunters liked to keep the muzzle on him. It made him so much less able to resist. At least at first. Now even the idea of resisting makes him shiver.

Vincent jumps as the deadbolt grinds against the door. He scrambles off the bed and onto his knees. All he needs to do is be at her mercy.

It isn't Clary. It's someone else, someone who looks so similar Vincent has to assume it's her twin. The twin eyes him warily. I'm not dangerous, Vincent pleads silently, I'll never hurt her again.

Vincent flinches away as the twin - Cai, his name was Cai - crouches down in front of him. Cai has something in his hand.

Vincent didn't smell it. It must be sealed. But it's a bag of blood, and Vincent is suddenly ravenous.

Cai smirks, and lifts the bag up, seeming to delight in how Vincent's eyes have locked on, following it desperately. Vincent whines. He wants it, needs it, has to force himself to stay still. This is just torment, isn't it? He can't imagine this is worse than whatever Cai would do to him if he tried to take it.

He whines again. Please. He doesn't care if he has to pay for it later.

Cai snaps his fingers at Vincent to force the vampire to pay attention to him, then waves his hands. Vincent stares blankly. Clary once said her twin was mostly mute, didn't she? But Vincent doesn't know hand languages.

Cai suddenly grabs Vincent by his filthy shirt and pulls him close.

"If I take this muzzle off and you bite," Cai says, in a weak, breathy voice, "I'll rip out your fangs myself, bloodsucker. Got that?"

Vincent whimpers and nods.

He sort of wishes it was Clary taking off the muzzle. Selfish creature. But he missed her. As much as he hurt her, in the brightest days where he was nothing but an object of suffering, he tried to imagine her voice. She was all he had.

His skin peels. Layers come off with the muzzle. He can't remember how long it's been on. Everything blurs together, but the deep grooves in his face suggest it must have been a while. He didn't feel the pain. Silver burns were the first thing he got used to.

Cai doesn't react. In fact, he does nothing more than fling it to the side and shove the bag at Vincent's mouth before he has a chance to speak.

The hunger is more powerful than Vincent's desire to beg while he's still allowed his voice, and he nearly melts. Nothing has ever tasted so good, even though it's animal blood that would've made him sick before he understood that he was just a worthless thing.

Cai laughs at him, how desperately and quickly he swallows the blood and drops the bag in front of him. He's still starving, but it's the first time he's fed in… in…

Cai doesn't take his eyes off Vincent to grab the muzzle.

"W-Wait," Vincent whispers. "Please don't put the muzzle back on yet. Please."

"Why not?" Cai asks.

"I need to speak with Clary," Vincent begs. "Please. Sh- She can stand at the door. I just need to see her."

"I don't care." Cai wheezes for a moment, then swallows. "You're fucking delusional if you think I'll let you near her."

"Please, it'll-"

Cai grabs Vincent by the throat. "Clary might be afraid of you, but I'm not. Keep begging and I'll give you a reason to."

Vincent nods quickly. However weak Cai's voice is, Vincent can't afford to not believe the threat. He won't ruin this already. They could take any of this away from him. They could take the bed, lock him in a room with windows, restrain him in the silver cuffs that Vincent knows Cai has hidden in his pocket because Vincent's skin prickles when Cai turns.

"Thank you for feeding me," Vincent murmurs.

Cai pauses. "I've stayed up with her all night, too many times to count. You know why?"

"Because of me," Vincent whispers.

"Because of you." Cai wraps the muzzle around Vincent's face. He doesn't tie it, just presses the silver into the vampire's skin. "She thought you would rip her throat out. I can't imagine you know what that's like."

No, he doesn't. Vincent has begged for death, over and over again, but nobody ever granted him that mercy. Clary has lived in fear of him for however long it's been and the fact that he can't remember is both an ache and a reminder of how truly inhuman he's always been. If he cared about her, like he convinced himself he did back then, he would know.

"Whatever happened to make you this pathetic," Cai spits, "you deserved every bit of it."

"I know," Vincent whispers.

Cai ties the muzzle as tightly as he can, and leaves Vincent on the floor. The awareness Vincent had dives back down, and all he wants is to wrap back up in the blankets and heal.

#polly's prose #clary nikitin #cai nikitin #vincent maddox #vampire whumpee #whumper turned whumpee #vincent and clary are both unreliable in terms of memory and narration and i love that for them. #things end | people change

[chronicsheepdrawing]

Having an Off Day

#the stanley parable #tsp #the stanley parable ultra deluxe #tspud #the narrator tsp #drinky bird narrator #stanley tsp #false memories #self destruction

[thespookiestprincessofthemall]

REST IN PEACE SOLAR FLARE

#now excuse me I'm putting solar flare & isekai narrator in a chatroom #sun and moon show solar flare #tsams solar flare #sams solar flare #fnaf solar flare #the sun and moon show #sun and moon show #tsams #sams #memorial #Kayleen Posts