and there is beauty in the world

oh! okay so, unfortunately there’s some dissent about the origin of the name, because there was a falling out in the speni arthouse that coined the name, and not all the relevant records were digitized. I’ll explain the one I find most compelling, because it best matches the core components of the style

so, originally it was purely a weird visual art style. the first artwork was about trying to show all sides of an opaque three-dimensional object, such as a pyramid, at once, both literally and metaphorically. some of it focuses on unfolding into a net then reconstructing the object from that view behind it, some of it focuses on giving enough background detail to really thoroughly infer the existence of the back, and some focuses on superimposing all views. stories in the speni pyramidic style are usually written with the goal of thoroughly depicting a specific small situation, and showing it from all the relevant people’s perspectives, and sometimes even organizational or environmental perspectives. parts told from characters’ perspectives also often use long and precise sentences, and describe tiny aspects their surroundings in great and psychologically-revealing detail, to further evoke different literal perspectives.

anyway, for these reasons, such stories are often highly philosophical psychological grass-inspecting rambling literary slogs. I think The Office, Pale by Esathi Kiletis (?) is the most central example inflicted on art or literature history students, it’s been pretty widely translated, although the language is still kinda archaic

okayso I was concerned about this for a while too

however! in - volume 1 chapterI-don’t-remember-somewhere-near-the-middle, as shahnim is leavingthe room after the scene with I think their neighbors’ obnoxiouslandlord, we can see the weird glassy stuff the floors are made ofstarting to cover the bags, even though they’re not looking in thatdirection, and when they take the elevator later, the button forfloor iirc nine is one of the ones that is missing, I think for atleast a few days?

but more conclusively, at the beginning of v5, (also, sidenote, itis really really nice how distinct the volumes are from eachother? usually it’s super hard to remember when something camefrom, but you can totally tell from a description of a scene whatvolume it came from just by generally what category of event it was?for example, odds are pretty bad that I’d remember “oh thisthing, it definitely happened in the one with the black and purpleand blue cover with all the shiny eyes and triangles” or “oh yes,that was definitely in the fifth set of things that happened”, butit’s a lot easier to go “well, this thing, it followedShuma and Lemith and unnamed-grey-jerk as they escaped and was more than two pages long, so itmust have taken place in the one that followed everyone who wasaffected but not killed by hnim while they were trapped anddepressed, so it must have been in volume 5”. more things should dothat.), as the group is escaping, we see the floor move and start tocover the grey, and Lemith freaks outabout that and tells Shuma to run faster. Lemith is notan unreliable narrator, so we know that the floor doesactually consume and cover things, and the apparent time periods andmaterials at least indicatethat this is actuallyfor decontamination. also before they realize that the elevator won'tmove, we get the chance to see that the buttons for the floors (Idon't remember the numbers but there were like ten of them and Iscrolled back to double-check) that were recently full of garbage orcorpses or people being tortured in pollution-releasing ways aremissing, the numbersjust skip over them.

anyway it's not guaranteedbut given the recent information about the nature of the apartment itwould just not make sense for it not to actuallybe decontaminating itself as it goes?

I’m like 20 percent sure garlic doesn’t grow in calado? not going to citrus it though.

you follow the lives of a family, trying to influence and understand their actions through their environment. the controls are a little confusing, and the time jumps are hard to follow, but it seems really well done. it’s fairly clearly a work of Speni Pyramidic art, with its focus on seeing all characters' views of the story at once, but with Lentat Irregular-Mosaic aesthetics and Loviari color-pallates, leading to a contemplative-but-cheerful atmosphere and a clear sense that the world is an unreality influenced but not controlled by player decisions. this is also the first actually playable speni pyramidic game I have ever seen, and despite the genre, manages not to be a pretentious miserable slog. I have hope that in the full game, we'll be able to rearrange events such that Leaf can create something that makes them happy and helps them believe in the stars, and that it will be possible to discover and change the cause of Scale and Quilt's hidden mutual animosity. also I will probably not play the game if they don't fix the menu navigation and improve the tutorial. future soundtracks will also need to be more varied.

okso first of all, I do agree that Shahnim Blank should be stoppedimmediately, and killed if possible, just to clear that up

however. there are already like twenty reasons they can’t everhave kids, and all records and memories of their family werecorrupted or destroyed, and any civilized country wouldexecute them if it were possible, so there’s not any real advantageto met in particular over vaguely-desert-tapa or anywhere else in theworld?

but more importantly, they can’t be extradited to met andit wouldn’t matter if they could, because it is literallyimpossible. or did you somehow miss in i think one of the firstvolume 2 interludes how MHN couldn’t find their apartment even withits complete address, coordinates, and a written set of directions,and even though it was in a neighborhood full of normalapartments they could find just fine? or the one for I think v3 c4where the police and bystanders and fire-extinguishers werecompletely unable to remember that anything was going on thatthey should interfere with for more than like three panels?? or atthe end of v4 after their “friends”escape and somehow they can’tfind a single sharp knife in their entire murderpartment andnone of the high windows open anymore andtheir ancient expired meds do nothing and their lighters are out of fuel, and so on in an acceleratingcomedic montage until the giant page at the end where they’re justflopped on the floor in this giant full-page empty room witheverything that didn’t work strewn about them? nothingcan stop hnim, includinghnim, as long as their apartment stands.

a lot of the things it deals with are the value or lackthereof of polluted things and the moral effects of pollution onnormal people, in between dark-comically nonchalant murder anddestruction and mayhem. and that seems like something i’d guesswould be upsetting to people who used to be red? possibly especiallybecause hnim is always illustrated with black hair, even in thefull-color pages, since people sometimes use that as artisticshorthand for mioleens? oh avernal people might also find itupsetting for similar reasons

and, general spoilers: a lot of the third volume’sarc, and to a lesser extent the serious parts of the entire story,are sort of about “how much risk of violence and destruction andfear are we as a society and as individuals willing to put up with inexchange for not having to deal with gross things”

spoilers for end of v1 through like v2 c6: in the firstvolume it seemed like they were probably hypersensitive, because theywore gloves everywhere and their journal and soliloquies oftenmention the belief that the entire world and everyone in it isdisgusting. but then as it goes on we see that pretty much all thepeople who they meet even casually every day are way nastier thanmost people anyone might meet in like half a year? and of coursethey think their weird empty infinity-apartment is gross, it getsmysteriously cleaned and decontaminated but they havemurdered people on most floors of it?

oh! it’s short for theological fiction

(because it is the most pretentiously edgy and questionable and offputting webcomic I have ever read in my entire life but sshhhh I like it anyway)

but wow that latest Twist. the worldbuilding looks a lot less lazy now and I feel some amount more sympathetic toward Hnim and their awful life choices? although obviously they are still an awful awful person who should be stopped immediately. and I guess now the comic is probably officially theo-fi/fantasy/horror now? although maybe not, because Extremely Unreliable Narrator.

anyway if anyone else is also reading it and wants to talk about it, PM me? or I guess reblog

being praised is great as long as it doesn’t feel too unrealistic? I like people telling me they like things that are good about me, but the really effusive stuff some people talk about would feel like they’re being sarcastic and rubbing in that I’m not good at things?