Jan 14, 2025
To:Lucid Levia
The ending here is a complex one. The reason Marsia takes on Arufa’s name has little to do with how alt-Skyler might perceive her, and more to do with who she sees herself as:
To her, ‘Marsia’ is the girl dead in the sand, selfish and cowardly in her final moments. Talk about dialetheia (the idea of opposites being simultaneously true)—the body is hers, but it’s also… not really hers. Having gone through such a wild storyline, she’s come out a different person, someone more hopeful and selfless than she was before. So she decides being ‘Marsia’ isn’t quite what she wants anymore, and chooses instead the name of the one who changed her perspective.
I have been considering VN-ing it. I think parallels splitting off with choices would be a great concept for something like that. (AI: The Somnium Files does something similar.) And I agree on the visuals! Art fun :)
I’m sorry for killing and not killing all the characters. I Schrödinger’d all of them >:) And don’t you worry about Ghiles. I’ve intentionally left him and Locri the only members of the cast unmentioned in the prologues. There’s a fuck ton of lore here and I promise you will EVENTUALLY get answers.
Also, if I made you cry at all, please do tell! I cried a lot reading yours and I want to see if I returned the favor.
This is partially on me for the blindly fast pacing. Most people need a lot more time to think about it, and this book is DEEEEEENSE. I think in a future rewrite I would double the word count, probably. You’re not dumb, you were able to understand most of what I laid down. I think that’s what’s important, anyways. No one needs to look in so deep they start realizing the part at the end of \ Many-Worlds Pt. 2 \ was referencing the possibility of the entire book just being another simulation inside the reader’s brain, or other crazy shit like that.
I can’t announce expansion plans just yet. But I promise you they’re well out there, to the point where the very first code in the synopsis involves it. So, I hope to deliver more hard sci-fi stuff to you and anyone else in the near future! Take care, and thanks for reading!!
— Kimbrough
