#flat world

He's grown attached, he sees a lot of Liam, his adopted brother, in Dipper. In a weird way, he's doing what he dreamt of doing with Liam, with Dipper. By giving him the freedom and power he hoped to give Liam if they were able to come to the 3rd dimension together. [reference to Flat World by PengyChan, that I use as a good reference for Bill's backstory. I highly recommend it~!]

Ah, an excellent question. The answer is a very interesting one, though perhaps a little complicated. It is not difficult to understand, but this is simply not the sort of thing that most people ponder very often unless they happen to be a philosopher, a scientist, a mathematician, or simply very eccentric. Let me explain. Most people are familiar with Plato’s allegory of the Cave. If you aren’t, that’s okay. Plato put forth an allegorical story about a group of prisoners chained in a cave from birth. In the cave behind the prisoners is a fire which they cannot turn their heads to see. All the prisoners can see is the shadows cast upon the wall. The other prisoners, the guards, and the flickering firelight. Even animals brought into the cave for slaughter and cooking are represented only by shadows. Since the prisoners can only see the shadows, they imagine that the noises they hear are coming only from those shadows, that the shadows make up the whole of the universe. Through careful observation of the shadows and the use of other senses such as hearing and touch they might gain some knowledge of the world, but it will be imperfect as they still cannot quite look at the world as it is. If such a prisoner were to be set free in the world outside the cave, to wander among the trees and the grass, he might be frightened at his inability to understand it. If he were to return to the cave and tell his fellows of what he witnessed, they are unlikely to believe him. But what has this to do with Faerie? Well lets think on what we know about the world of the Fae. Most of it comes from stories. Ancient legends and folktales passed down from father to son, mother to daughter, through countless years from centuries to millennia. Some tales describe gods or god like beings, others tell of mysterious people with immense power over the natural world or who dwell in dimensions beyond ours. Otherworlds of a kind. Let’s say that this Otherworld exists. Let’s travel through a gate from our world into theirs. If we’re operating under the information we have from stories, this world is more than just physical. It is a world of spirits and twisted time, a world of magical elements, and many things which humans do not understand. If such things exist, they would be part of the natural order of this Otherworld. Something that for some reason we humans have difficulty accessing or understanding past a certain point. This is where Plato’s allegory comes in. To the world of the Fae we are like the prisoners chained up in a cave. All we can see is a shadow of their world, and while some things can be clear to us from our limited ability to understand and interact with Faerie, much of what is there is simply beyond our ability to comprehend. Let’s put it another way. Imagine that you are a cartoon character on a television screen. A flat two dimensional person in an equally flat world. You would be able to look up and down forward or back, or any of the directions in between. But because you are flat character, you cannot look in any direction from side to side. For you, there is no world that way, you don’t have the ability to turn and look that way. Your senses fail you. Now, let’s imagine a three dimensional being were to come along and try to interact with you. It’s possible that you might be able to hear them while they speak to you from beyond your flat world. But you would be entirely unable to see them at all. If they touched your world, you would only be able to see a very small part of them at any time, and it would always be flat. Only a very thin segment of their whole three dimensional body would be visible to you because of how limited your senses are. If they were to lift you out of your flat world and into their three dimensional world you would find that you could see a very different and strange world. Perhaps your mind would expand a little bit and your understanding of things would grow. But you still wouldn’t be seeing their world as it is. Your senses just weren’t built for anything but your flat world. So you would only see a paper thin slice of the three dimensional world at any given time, and not at all in the way that they perceive it. Maybe if you spent enough time there your senses might grow a little, but you would never be able to see or understand their world in the way that they do. And if you were ever to go back to your flat two dimensional world and tell others about what you’ve experienced, nobody would understand or believe you, how could they? Their senses weren’t made for it. And you with your slightly widened senses would never be able to sit quite comfortably in your paper thin world, always being able to see just a sliver wide out to either side. So you see, my dear friend. That is rather like what is happening here with Faerie. If the realm of the Fae Folk truly exists, is is very likely that much of it lies beyond our ability to comprehend it. Even the most intrepid explorer of their forests and seas would only ever be able to see and understand a very small part of the whole of their world, making it very dangerous for us to go wandering there. Storytellers like myself, even if we have been researching the Fae Folk for a very long time, can’t easily write stories involving ideas beyond human comprehension. Mostly this is because we can’t understand them. So we have to convey the things we do understand in ways that make sense to those who read them. We can always explore the edges of originality, seeking out new ways of writing or thinking, but it’s a very very slow process. If you wish to further explore these ideas in ways that aren’t connected to Faerie, you may wish to begin with these. (The Flatland book is one of the books on my recommended list, but I won’t count this as the next official recommendation.)

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott Abbott

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave

K, so this is rlly random and stuff but I was thinking of that thing where it’s like;

Boyfriend, guy or whatever : the world it flat

Girlfriend, girl or something: what no it’s not

Boyfriend: *cue looking in her eyes* your my world

Girlfriend gets mad or something

And I was just thinking like if I was ever in that situation (not that that would ever happen) but I thought wow I would handle that completely differently;

Guy, maybe: the world is flat

Me: ummm no...?

Guy, I guess: *looks at me* your my world

Me: Oh! Thx babe you’re my world too

.....And then....

Me: 🎶 ITS A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL !! ITS A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL. [*cue twirling*] ITS A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL. [*cue marching to the beat*] ITS A SMALL SMALL SMALL SMALL WORLD🎶

I took some pretty screenshots of recent build

Full shot that I dont like that much: