there are stories older than the world you know

I think sometimes your house burns down and you burn with it. I think the wind and the rain and the scavengers have their way with whatever’s left.  I think that sometimes enough bad things can happen to you that you don’t get to be a person anymore for a while– even if you want to, even if you try your hardest. 

But at the same time, I think you can be a thing that comes back from the dead. I think those bones can learn to walk and talk and move around again, even if your flesh is awfully spare for a while, even if food and drink more or less falls right through you. 

I think that you get to come back, and that everything comes back, eventually, even homes, and dogs, and horses, and the coltsfoot patch out under the hemlocks. 

HAHAHAH fantastic question! So it gets a little bit complicated because the lore is sliiiightly different depending on what medium I'm writing this story in - which sounds weird, but it's mainly because some things work better in at a conceptual level, and some things work better on stage, and those circles don't necessarily overlap hahaha. But in general terms - i.e. when I imagine this as just a narrative concept that only exists in my brain, or perhaps as a intense animated movie that I visualise in my head - the Forces have two main forms. First, their 'giant' human form, which they use in the Hall of the Celestial Forces, and then their 'animal' form, which they use to interact with the mortal plane. And in order that they're not mistaken for normal animals that mortals might try and hunt/kill, the animal forms of the mortals have a double set of eyes. So, Culture's 'animal' form - which, as you rightly said, is just a regular sized human - would actually have four eyes. Creepy.

(I actually quite like the idea of them being a human-form shapeshifter, though - like, maybe they can make themself look like anyone? That would be neat, I like that a lot. Maybe that's canon now)

However, in the musical version, neither the Forces or Ruin and Forest can turn into animals. They just have animal related imagery. I mean, in my head they can all shapeshift in the musical version, but like......ok so when writing the script, it was kind of difficult to work in the fact that they could shapeshift, especially when it didn't actually relate to the plot at any point? Like, the key thing is that Ruin and Forest are both birds of prey because Time was a bird of prey - but that's shown through the imagery and the masks. And then the other plot point was Ruin being able to get back to the Hall and rescue Forest/get him back to the mortal world because they could both turn into birds and the Forces didn't realise that they could do that. But like, I haven't written that bit yet, but I have written them escaping the Hall at an earlier point and literally they just...run off stage HAHA, like it doesn't have to be visualised in the same way, and it doesn't have to make logistical sense in the same way, you know? I can just have the storyteller say 'they must return to the mortal world below', and then have Ruin and Forest say 'take my hand and run!' and then they run off, and the audience is like 'oh neat they left the Hall and got back to the mortal world' and it's fine hahahah. So I sacrificed the lore exposition for the sake of smoothness of narrative. I feel like, if I didn't cut it out at this stage, it's probably going to inevitably be cut out later by someone else. So I might as well just be efficient about it haha

But also oh my days why would you hide you tags

#you said that chaos has multiple/increasing set of eyes#so that's them becoming more and more grotesque and chaotic to human eyes#or that's them ~becoming~ more human??#as in 'getting more of what links you to the human world' ?#is chaos getting corrupted more and more human#or are they being corrupted more and more in chaos#in themselves#because I'd say to every other force that this is distancing themselves from their real selves#but chaos's self is chaos#that's their truth#are they getting more and more of themself inside of a chaotic situation#but also like#they want to eat ruin and forest#want to eat time#to get their powers#two whole forces in one would be pretty chaotic#and then if they succeeded would they try and '''eat''' the other forces too?#would they all become one?#is chaos aiming to turn the most raw chaoticity in the whole reality#and become their raw self#or to become one powerful being#like a god#or are they becoming human

It’s late and my brain is soup so I don’t have many specific thoughts, but one of the things I find really fascinating in this story that’s tangentially relevant to this is like.....the power dynamic between the mortals, the Forces, and then Ruin and Forest who are both sort of halfway between the two. Because the Forces ‘represent’ reality in that they are responsible for it and control it, make it work - and without them, it collapses. And yet, throughout the script, the mortal chorus is used to depict reality in an abstract sense. The mortals themselves ARE the reality, and the stories they tell have great importance. It’s a mortal (The Storyteller) who holds the power over the entire story, to the extent that two of the Forces go and beg them for help, to ask for direction, to plead for guidance - because this mortal knows how this is supposed to end, and the Forces, as the major players, do not, and cannot know.