Narrator gets depressed and cries
“I can't believe myself, am I really doing this again…?” The Narrator was sulking to be honest. He had already gone through the process of making himself some sort of model before. But the person he made it for, and whatever kind of relationship he had with them… those memories were quite unfavorable. They made Narrator feel something.. Maybe like how Stanley felt before he went to sleep? It feels rude to use such a thing around Stanley. Another thing he decides to ask Curator about.
A good way to describe how that body made Narrator feel would be just one word, terrible. After it had left, the body just wouldn't stop crying. It makes no sense, he doesn't care about that man anymore, at least, he's not supposed to. He barely even knew the man, it would be stupid if The Narrator cared about him! He should stop thinking about this and get to work.
Last time the narrator went through the trouble of making himself a body, he had asked his previous protagonist what they would have wanted, and he had created an avatar just for him. The narrator's protagonist told him that he imagined the narrator as.. Well nothing like the narrator had imagined himself. He was told to make himself blonde, with brown eyes, and shorter than the player. He also told Narrator that he should be fragile, it tried to cover it under the fact Narrators ego ‘gets hurt so often’.
Poor Narrator, pity the god of this world, I beg of thee. He had not understood what his protagonist had meant in that moment, and he followed the instructions blindly. He let himself bruise easily, and his skin punctured without the slightest need of pressure. His player showed him that The Narrator had understood his requests perfectly.
It had been over a millennia since he had that protagonist, and just the thought of that older model made his metaphorical body puke. The model would take the longest amount of time, right? So instead of importing the computers while Stanley slept, it would make perfect sense to try and create his model right now. However, he did not remember how he made the old one. Maybe just mapping out the colors on a sketch would be better? But he doesn't know what Stanley wants him to look like either.. Just find the colors. He could sift through Stanley's dream and find some pretty colors Stanley likes!
Trying to follow Stanley's dream was a bit hard, since he wasn't here from the beginning, but his meetings with curator, what did she call them again? It started with a ‘th’.. Hm.. oh! Therapy sessions! Curator called them ‘therapy sessions’. Sometimes when they get through all the questions she has, she'll tell Narrator a bit more about humans since he isn't exactly.. Knowledgable. A few sessions ago, she had told him that human’s dreams usually don't make sense. Even to the humans! Anyways, where are they?
There are.. Some really small shells all over the ground. Maybe that is the ground? And a lot of water. Like a whole lot of water. Doesn't water only come in bottles? Why had the time to put all of this water in this big container? Or.. is it also on the ground!? Why would someone put a bunch of water all over the ground?! Stanley's dreams sure are weird.
Something here though, even if it's very weird to the Narrator, he knows it's beautiful. Just like Stanley. What? Anyway. The sun was touching the water? Wouldn't it be put out by the water? It didn't matter in that moment though, because the purple hues radiating from the deep blue water merged almost seamlessly, the only defining feature bringing a sense of difference were the ripples on the water, reflecting the sun's dying light. Yellow and gold, a slight bit of orange danced in the upper parts of the sky, and a wide strip of pink took up most of the space around the sun. Clouds are usually white, but here they look like a painter's finest art, light pink in areas you can just barely see, and hotter pinks mixed with oranges were what was painted in view of the clouds.
But why? Why was Stanley's dream so different from what Narrator knew? It looked beautiful. So maybe, just maybe, it didn't matter.
There were too many colors to choose from! All of them held a purpose of their own, to take one away for himself would be selfish, would it not?
Maybe Narrator should go and find Stanley himself, so he can ask him what he thinks his narrator would look like. Where is Stanley again? Narrator realizes that this whole time hes been staring at the sunset instead of doing what he actually came here to do. He should get going before the sun dies out and it all would fade to black.
Stanley was knee deep in the water, and he looked deep in thought.
“Stanley?” Narrators voice sounded off, maybe a bit too stern, or a bit too timid. Either way, the beautiful beach scene immediately shifted to the office. It was so exact Narrator worried he left Stanley's mind, but he knew he didn't because of his human-like viewpoint and Stanley sitting on the floor again.
“Narrator.” God, what was that. It felt like Stanley was speaking at 100 different volumes at once. A million miles away while whispering in his ears. Horribly unpleasant was an understatement.
“You look different than usual.”
“Pardon?”
“You don’t look like how I usually dream of you..” Stanley got up and started to walk towards the perspective Narrator was seeing from.
“Why on earth are you dreaming about me? Can you see me?” Narrator started to back up, and then he noticed how he felt flesh moving him around. He felt the air go through his body. He felt blood pump through the body.
“I've never dreamed of you blond..?” Stanley had unintentionally but successfully backed the Narrator's from against the wall.
No longer was Stanley in front of him. Through his dreamed tears he could barely see, but what was in front of him was not his dearest protagonist. Something taller, something pale. Piercing blue eyes stared back, and an unnaturally large smile.
It feels like his first time again.
He ruthlessly kicked and punched at anything his unwanted limbs would hit, and he ran off. As his tears died down, he saw this office was different. Each wall was painted with something similarly beautiful as the beach scene Narrator had intruded on earlier, and blank walls looked like the ones he painted himself. The carpet looked like grass. however, seeing wasn't exactly his strong suit at the moment. His glasses must've fallen off when he was attacking.. it. He ran through wherever he could go and made sure to block off the hallway that led to his dead end. He knew it was a dead give away of where he was, but he had ran so long through this maze, and the barricade looked hard to get through. Maybe he could hold it off for just a bit longer?
Narrator knew what he looked like right now. He knew Stanley must've hated it. He knows he hates it. The only person who likes it is the only person he wants to distance himself from.
He let go of Stanley's mind, and left Stanley's dream alone.
Stanley didn't look very peaceful anymore. He was sweaty, and looked like he was about to jolt awake and puke. The Narrator felt just a little bad for what his emotions might have caused Stanley to feel and spawned a cold towel on top of Stanley's forehead. It didn't look like Stanley enjoyed the sensation of the towel on his head, but he looked calmer with whatever he was dreaming about now. Maybe he went back to the colorful place.
Stanley draws sometimes on sticky notes lying around the office right? Very crude drawings that may be, but drawings nonetheless! This was obviously what Narrator should've thought first, it makes way more sense than.. Whatever he just did. He didn't even get any answers from that for god's sake!
Narrator dug through the files to find all of the tampered files the game didn't delete, many were mugs and papers stanley had accidentally breathed on a little too hard and caused them to move, but a certain area of the recycling had a mass amount of sticky notes, and he had them sorted by date at the moment, so maybe Stanley was feeling particularly lonely during these resets.
Many of the drawings were of Stanley, the Bucket, Stanley and the Bucket,a few were drawn of The Adventure Line™, and one of the fern. That made up about 50% of the drawing Stanley had made over the millions of years they've been together. The rest of the drawings were of someone Narrator had never seen before. Color wasn't something Narrator could figure out from these drawings, since Stanley had been using random pencils and the meeting room marker to draw.
Maybe.. Maybe Narrator could just.. Ask Stanley what he thinks Narrator would look like? Not with his voice of course, he could do it with.. A pamphlet? A bunch of papers stapled together. Yes! What a splendid idea! He should get working on that immediately.
… how exactly could he go about doing that? He can't just go and ask Stanley what he would look like, that's too direct, but he doesn't want to beat around the bush too much, you know. He and Stanley have a very difficult relationship. All narrator wants is to be friends with Stanley. But it's very hard to be friends with someone who thinks you're the oldest man on the planet. Stanley knows they aren't on earth while in the parable!
He could ask Stanley what his favorite things are, like scents! And whatever his favorite scent is he can make sure he smells like that all the time! Anything to make Stanley happy. What? Anyway. He needs to find out Stanley's favorite everything so Narrator can be that for him. He'll be his everything. What is that?
And with the Narrator left confused with himself, and how he feels about Stanley, he gets to work writing the packet for Stanley to answer.
-
Section one : favorite things
What are your favorite..
Scents?
Items?
Clothing?
Sights?
Textures?
Animals?
Colors?
-
The second page only held one question, that question let Stanley free-write his own questions to Narrator and anything else Stanley found important to write.
-
Additional questions or add ons :
-
Narrator had tried to be as thorough as possible, but after the nightmare he shared with Stanley, he doesnt think he did very well with the questions. You know, it's hard to ask questions when you're afraid of the answer.
Stanley.. Oh Stanley. From the very moment I met you, my life has changed. Sometimes I think it's for the worst, but other times, I believe it's for the better. I remember our first run through the game. I remember the time you went missing in the parable for a week. I remember the first time we had an off script conversation. Oh Stanley, do you remember? Do you remember how I felt in those moments? I can't recall anymore. One day I fear I may forget what our starting out was like. I remember everything up until this very moment, and right after i will forget it all. Then in one rush I will remember it all again, and it will forever repeat that way. Can you fix me? Can you mend me back into what you deem ‘Human’? Could we hold hands? I'm sorry I can't set you free, my dear.
Something between the two of them changed. Uneducated Narrator, he just can't seem to get what it is. It makes him uneasy.
The Narrator has no time for dilly dallying when he needs to make himself a model for Stanley. Especially if he keeps spacing out like that.
Something he didn't want started to manifest, it knew exactly what it wanted to do too. Under all of the finished papers The Narrator had yet to staple together, a paper asking what Stanley would imagine him as in some of the smallest print possible appeared out of thin air. Right under the paper asking Stanley's dislikes is where the paper lied.
-
What do you dislike?
-
The narrator wasn't great at asking what Stanley might dislike so instead of asking multiple questions like he did on the first page, he left one question for Stanley to put multiple answers under. Not like he wasn't hoping for multiple answers on all of the questions.
...
The Narrator felt that his pamphlet was perfected but something was nagging at his theoretical brain. Like he couldn't get his mind off of it yet, he couldn't tell you what it was either.
He was sure of what it was after thinking about it for most likely around an hour, but he was scared of what Stanley might think of him. What if Stanley thinks that he's trying to trick him into humiliating himself? Or maybe Stanley will make fun of the narrator for asking such a silly question and, what if it gives away the surprise the narrator has for Stanley? It would ruin everything and the damage would be irreparable and he would make a fool of himself and… ugh
The narrator hates when he thinks like Stanley. It makes him feel human.
Sadly, the thing nagging his mind had wormed its way out already. Even though he had decided not to put such words on the paper and give them to Stanley, the words wished to be read, and read they would be. Just not by Narrator of course.
-
how would you describe me if I had a body.
-
The Narrator, with his godly-esque powers, took the paper out of his invisible lair and let it appear on the bed side table next to Stanley's sleeping head. His non-existent nerves flared up and a wave of anxiety crashed into him now because he knew that Stanley had the pamphlet, and he can’t take it back. If he tried to, he would just lose the asset in the void due to it now abiding by the laws of physics.
After giving Stanley a paper that may make or break their relationship in Narrators metaphorical eyes, he gave Stanley a standard bic pen, a random but nice looking mechanical pencil he saw in the files, and a marker, just in case. If Stanley needed anything else, he would most definitely give it to Stanley.
Now, Narrator remembered, he has no idea how to make a model. The last time.. It had helped him, and they both used a few tutorials to make Narrator an accurate model. He.. he doesn't need Stanley for this. He can find tutorials and follow them on his own. Stanley wouldn't be of much help anyways, since he got him off of a website he couldn't even read.