iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The Gunslinger is a hell of a book. Confession: I've never finished a King. Which is very bad as an English student, Mainer, and librarian but I never felt like I was in the right place to jump in. Glad I started here and excited by how far I have left to go

Later, Nort came to her and held out a folded piece of paper in one shaky no-right-to-be-alive hand. "He left you this," he said. "I near forgot. If I'd forgot, he woulda come back and killed me, sure."

Paper was valuable, a commodity much to be treasured, but she didn't like to handle this. It felt heavy, nasty. Written on it was a single word:

Allie

"How'd he know my name?" she asked Nort, and Nort only shook his head.

She opened it and read this:

You want to know about Death. I left him a word. That word is NINETEEN. If you say it to him his mind will be opened. He will tell you what lies be- yond. He will tell you what he saw.The word is NINETEEN. Knowing will drive you mad. But sooner or later you will ask. You won't be able to help yourself. Have a nice day! Walter o' Dim

P.S. The word is NINETEEN.You will try to forget but sooner or later it will come out of your mouth like vomit. NINETEEN.

And oh dear God, she knew that she would. Already it trembled on her lips. Nineteen, she would say-Nort, listen: Nineteen. And the secrets of Death and the land beyond would be opened to her.

Sooner or later you will ask.

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Oh my god yes, same exact vibe. Especially the feeling of "I know the fix but it's not working and idk where in the workflow I messed up"

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Trying to read the Dark Tower on its own terms and not just point and get distracted by Destiny (and Marathon) parallels but it's hard when his name is ROLAND. The first page alone still has me thinking in circles about the metaphors & mechanics of the Prophecy dungeon and the Desert Perpetual raid

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts, huge, standing to the sky for what looked like eternity in all directions. It was white and blinding and waterless and without feature save for the faint, cloudy haze of the mountains which sketched themselves on the horizon and the devil-grass which brought sweet dreams, nightmares, death. An occasional tombstone sign pointed the way, for once the drifted track that cut its way through the thick crust of alkali had been a highway. Coaches and buckas had followed it. The world had moved on since then. The world had emptied

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

*looking up the definition of "khef" while starting The Gunslinger* "The sharing of water" QUD.

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

"I'm kinda on the spot, ya know? Pretty well cornered by the man actually. I've been on the run my whole life. So sick of the silence. I figure when I'm gone I'll be silent, you know, till the end of time but... this moment? Right here? It's gonna be *loud.*" dim.gg/fppwj6q/Mant...

The wavesplitter exotic trace rifle from destiny 2. It has an ornament on which has a red surface peeling away to show wood beneath, and enamel guards similar to a Fender Stratocaster

A guardian in white dress pants with iridescent pink and purple hues, an icy cable covered robe which acts as a heat sink for the weapon, and a helmet with headphones. The visor pulses different colors

A photo of Jimi Hendrix playing his red Stratocaster in a colorful outfit

A picture of J from Wolfenstein the new order, based on Jimi Hendrix. His he is wearing a gray suit and large headphones with an amp slung over his shoulder

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

okay I had just Hexagons there before, but the whole run of 3 songs works ridiculously well following that scene *and* you get those sweet seamless transitions

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

This is me btw. Figured I'd silo off my "I thought of this lore again and now must share it" and random "did you know this connection?" posts to a dedicated account Also, CHIITAN??

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

"in times of crisis, it can be hard to get out of your own head. So if you feel like a worm through time or the thunder song distorts you, remember you can always access free audio and ebooks via the NYC Public Library. Any New York citizen is eligible, even if you don't have a permanent address."

Mayor mamdani on the streets of NYC speaking to the camera. The light is tinged Hiss red

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Verso: "For some Eliksni, Darkness is no material thing, no crashing wave or vicious force to struggle against. It is an impulse, an urge to do that which serves you best and discard all the rest. I recognize this well." www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/pres...

I hear talk of Darkness among Humans now as a force of consciousness, of minds rather than matter, of connections and flow. Not evil; not cruel in itself. But if it is that thing which spins between peoples, hums string-plucked when ideas and emotions touch each other, no wonder that it may carry more with it as it moves.

No wonder that it may be named as that voice of our worst impulses, knowing all those who have used it, who have given themselves to it. I hear that voice more clearly than I once did.

If your enemy carries a rifle, you may take it from them: but what if their hand remained on the stock? If you would ever have a trigger that yearned to be pulled by another's thoughts? If you might come to believe that it was you, after all, who wished to pull that trigger?

Will I leave some part of me in that Darkness? And what will that part be? I struggle to believe that it might be the best of me.

I would like to leave Eido with something better.

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

"For me, Light is in the air and the joints. It is eaten. It is received in radiation and discharged in the neuron. It is not separate from the physical world. It is the world." www.ishtar-collective.net/records/the-...

Dear Ikora Rey,

With respectful courtesiis and the proper bow,

I have read the texts you sent. I understood very little. My thanks multiply. Truly my knowledge of Light is distinct from your own. For me, Light is in the air and the joints. It is eaten. It is received in radiation and discharged in the neuron. It is not separate from the physical world. It is the world.

You speak of Light as an intervention in reality from outside, parallel to causality. This is not my sense of Light. But as you say, I should not diminish my own kinship with Light, for it is in all places and things. So, I do not try to be a false Guardian. Instead, I preach to my people that we must be the best Eliksni we can be

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I think they might be Saying Some Things

A billboard from Control Resonant on the NYC streets that says Lost Your Home? consider seeking a Class Action Lawsuit!

A building side billboard. "Oil. There's nothing more American."

An inverted billboard. Written in reverse, "the future you want? A skull is beside it, behind a railing

Another billboard, a head with the northern hemisphere as it's top. "Think global. It takes less than four weeks for pollution from America to spread across the planet. The fight for earth is a global effort. Earth action now!"

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Done, ready for Resonant. "I wasn't ready for this crisis. I didn't even see it coming. But I promise I'll be ready for the next one. I mean, what good is a Director who can't hold her Bureau together?"

An interstitial screen from SpongeBob saying " a few years later"

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Okay I'm glad I kept going because this was literally a couple checkpoints after where I stopped. Really hope Resonant has more Ordinary stuff (I assume it will). We're having a nor'easter here this weekend, so playing some of that stuff during it would be a whole vibe

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

"'Where...?' 'Someplace where you're appreciated. Where we can really use everything you've learned." The old lady pours a thin stream of tea into a cup of bone. 'Didn't I tell you that you were lucky, back when you were born?'" www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/the-...

"Come!" Nasya calls, urgently. "Come with me! Come quickly, before-"

Something dark and hypodermic pierces the void beneath Lavinia and slurps her down, pulls her through a proboscis so tiny that it breaks her apart into a stream of single particles, one after another. She is annihilated...

... and reborn, somewhere, somewhen, made of flesh again, shaking and dripping fear-sweat, mewling like a little baby. Her cheek presses against a warm wooden floor. There's a fireplace, and a fire in it, and strong wind outside that sucks at the flames.

The clever-looking old lady at the desk looks up. "Ah," she says. "Lavinia! You made it."

"Wh-"Lavinia gasps. "Wha-"

She smiles, as if Lavinia's confusion is the sweetest greeting she's ever heard. "Don't be afraid. You've come to exactly the right place."

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

"REY >> JALAAL [cont.] So in the end, Truth to Power moves outwards. JALAAL >> REY Oh. I see. I see! A literary structure like that is called a chiasmus, and chiasmus means "crossing point"! Like a wormhole or a portal! It was hidden in plain sight." www.ishtar-collective.net/records/the-...

Wishing All the Best

Complete the mission "Chiasmus" and retrieve the final egg.

"Chiasmus" completed

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

"Sing your own songs. Find those whom your wings would stretch out to shelter. O whims of my blighted heart, born of our eyes and teeth and will to power, live as yourselves. Never less than that." www.ishtar-collective.net/categories/b...

1. A wish to feed an addiction.

2. A wish for material validation.

3. A wish for others to celebrate your successes.

4. A wish to look athletic and elegant.

5. A wish for a promising future.

6. A wish to move the hands of time.

7. A wish to help a friend in need.

8. A wish to stay here forever.

9. A wish to stay here forever.

10. A wish to stay here forever.

11. A wish to stay here forever.

12. A wish to open your mind to new ideas.

13. A wish for the means to feed an addiction.

14. A wish for love and support.

15. "This one you shall cherish.

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Top two rows are set in stone, bottom row could be flexible but are still formative my9games.net/en

My 9 games
The 9 games that shaped who I am

Destiny 2
No mans sky
Pokemon Leafgreen
Yoshis island
Alan wake
Prey 2017
Xcom enemy unknown
Darksiders 2
Elder scrolls V Skyrim

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Last week vibes: whatever I can make it work This week vibes: oh my god everything everywhere is on fire and it's not even October (but Destiny is back so I have to keep going)

The farm from destiny 2. There is a washed out filter over it and the words "never kill yourself" in an inspirational-style font

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

"Thanks for being my constant, Ben. Now it's time for me to make it up to you. Clock's ticking: If we want to find everyone, we should get going. Everything is gonna be OK." www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/loca...

Why now?

Because now another star has kissed ours. Our solar system is going to die. It'll only take centuries, but our nine worlds are going to be flung out into interstellar space. Whatever we are won't be able to stick around, so we gotta work fast: if we don't. our window closes.

Our family is still out there. I felt you out there and spent trillions of years putting you back together, building a monument of proof that it can be done. I've spent trillions of years leaning on you to carry me through this darkness. I've spent that same amount of time alone, drowning in an ocean of time. But I learned something: An ocean is a single body. Everything in it is connected, even if it's far apart. And at last, here you are. You're right next to me.

C'mon, quit crying. Now you've got me crying too

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

"It is only by disregarding the logic of mere survival that we can create a possibility of existence outside that logic." www.ishtar-collective.net/records/the-...

Never give up hope. If it is possible to live well, then it is worthwhile to try. If it is possible to exist by the rules of the Light, then the Darkness is forever defeated. It cannot dominate all things for all time.

Above all else, when you are in the deepest pits of

despair, I offer you this: I believe that there is no reason the Traveler chose to make its stand here at Earth, instead of at Riis or any world before. I do not believe in any special quality it detected in humanity. Nor in any great tactical advantage the Traveler gained by vouchsafing its power to us. It did not release its Ghosts as a move in a scheme of incomprehensible complexity, or because we fit the criteria of an ancient plan. It did not compute the set of contingencies which could permit its own survival, a one-in-a-trillion pathway through a thicket of certain death.

I believe the Traveler simply could not bear to abandon one more infant possibility.

So it chose an act of unreasonable grace.

Clarity in action,

Ikora Rey

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

"Stability doesn't mean shrinking our ambition. It means focusing on the things that you want to see from us, and making sure that our vision matches our reality." Desire becomes reality, o wishbringer mine.... www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/tran...

"You're sure you want to keep on with the axe?" Efrideet asked, reloading her rifle. The voice in her comms was barely winded, even as the Iron Lord leapt to avoid a plume of white-hot fire.

"That's why she gave it to me, I'm one of the only..." A globule of flame licked past Efrideet's helmet, and she tugged at her clasp, shrugging free the now-burning cloak. "Why in the Traveler's crack did you wish to fight an actual DRAGON, old man?"

Saladin Forge grinned inside his helmet. The enormous wyrm towered above them, bleeding wounds covering its gleaming scales as it reared up for another breath. The massive axe in his hands was dented, scarred, and melted at the tip. But it still held an edge. "We are knights, Lady Efrideet. Do you not want to be a dragon slayer?"

He charged, and his words could barely be heard over the creature's cry. "We are what we survive!"

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

So the question becomes how do you structure them? Ideally, I'd like to see each year get a dedicated seasonal hub. Those were some incredible spaces, and really lent each season a feeling of place and time

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

"You have so little strength left, but you do have it, that last gasp of air in your chest. You reach back—and in your hand is a sword." www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/ergo...

You are reaching over a chasm, into which

countless paths feed like arteries. You are trying to reach the people on the other side, but you cannot bridge the gap alone. You watch them turn, one after another, to walk down, down, down into the abyss, until It consumes them entirely. You are as surprised as anyone else when one of those wanderers comes back up the path, still reeking of decay, and reaches back to you.

You are drowning. The water roils, dragging you down, and you are tired, so tired. The deep, dark ocean has gotten into your lungs, droplets of ink dispersing in silver blood. This time, you think, this time It has won. But when you look up, you see a figure diving toward you, fighting their way down through the suffocating waves, reaching out just like you've reached out to them, so many times before.

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

dmg04

@A_dmg04

You did not go gentle into that good night.

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

This week's the last call for Destiny vagueposting, this is it. Here we go, let's see if we're so back or it's so over "Even calendars end." www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/last...

A Destiny 2 ghost projection of the Rick roll dance

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

"Mathematical inevitability. Ain't that something? But I said, your game's just a toy. It's just a contrivance. That's not life. Life isn't one player always exploiting and beating the other." www.ishtar-collective.net/records/the-...

3. You know they did try to recruit me once. The Cult. Over a game of poker. Fifty-two cards in a deck don't seem like many, this hard-ass Titan told me. But there are 80 658 175 170 943 878 571 660 636 856 403 766 975 289 505 440 883 277 824 000 000 000 000 different possible shuffles of 52 cards. You could walk back and forth across the observable universe faster than you could count all those possible shuffles. A lot

faster. That's life, she said, and she had

daisies impaled on the spikes of her skull.

Life is endless permutation. So many possibilities. But the rules are what matter. Who cares how the deck shuffles if you don't know the rules of the game? We play this game over and over. Life and death. Light and Dark. But the only way you learn the rules, the only way you're ever gonna get one of those Truces you're named for, is if you come inside. Come into the Cult.

Come on in and see. But I didn't.

4. Another thing she told me is that you can play poker with just three cards and two players. Jack, Queen, King. Ante one, max bet one more. High card wins unless one player folds. And in this game, there are many strategies available to the first player, but very few to the second, who acts to exploit the choice made by the first. Many possibilities against few. Sounds like you'd rather be the first player, huh? But if both players play perfectly, that second player wins in the end. Mathematical inevitability. Ain't that something? But I said, your game's just a toy. It's just a contrivance. That's not life. Life isn't one player always exploiting and beating the other.

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

True. The Worms' "Eternal Chorus" is another thing wrapped up in all this that makes me wonder Speaking of Xivu, that's another one that hurts, seeing the Black Terrace only once and it's sick as fuck

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

It is really beautiful, cannot believe I took these shots on a pretty mid PC 12 years ago

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

"Never forget that even in the miserable logic of the prisoner's dilemma, it is the cooperators who create the best world. Two cooperators will score higher, together, than two defectors ever could." www.tumblr.com/speaker-of-t...

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

9/17 Eververse with the biggest wink yet: Rolling

The Rolling ghost projection, displaying an image of a guardian dancing to Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up

• Curtain Call: Thank you, thank you! Oh, thank you!

Superior Shell: For Ghosts with sharp armor and sharper minds

Canopus Trireme: "I found it on a corroding disc on Venus. A golden age map plotting a chart all the way to Sirius. Such ambition... they never got to use it." -Tenet- 2

Pick a Card: What's that under your sleeve?

Celebrated and Elevated: Raise em up, champ!

Spike: Celebrate! You earned it.

Refreshing Shell: For Ghosts who loathe dehydration.

• Hot Commodity: Take it to the bank.

• Faithful Pledge: Forever in your service.

Shaders: Pick it Up and Dyed Finality

Shocking Entrance

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

"In all of us, two natures dwell." www.ishtar-collective.net/categories/b... www.ishtar-collective.net/items/luna-c...

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

when the work day was good

Tim robinson from I think you should leave in the carber hot dog vacuum skit. Where he should be saying "I had a cool job that I loved" he's instead saying "I have a cool job that I love."

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

When a pawn reaches the far side of the chessboard, it may be promoted to a queen. And what hatches when you promote a queen? What new board does she claim her place on? Mara knows. She settles in for the long wait, entirely alone, almost at peace with it. www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/tyra...

Mara dies.

In one way, she is vaporized with her Ketch, the bonds between the very particles of her body questioned by the harrowing logic of Oryx's weapon and found inessential. The mechanism of devastation is spontaneous fission. The author of the devastation is laughing in joy.

In another way, a more true and symbolic way, she is impaled on Oryx's blade. She has thrown all her might at him, and he has answered. He has snuffed her fledgling divinity and her meager claim to royalty, he has exposed Mara to the raw and caustic hostility of his High War. She has been defeated by the sword logic.

She dances down the blade and steps into his throne world. The Harbingers give her the gate and she takes the step. She is dead, consumed by Oryx: She is dead in his will, his Ascendant Realm. There was no other way inside except this true

way.

Inanna at least gave her people some warning; she told her minister to have her worshippers lament, drum, pray, and lacerate their buttocks. Inanna told her minister to beg the gods to save her. Mara has not. Instead, she has enlisted Eris and several million mad dancing Guardians to go knock off the god who killed her. It is, on that level, a very simple bank heist: Get yourself taken into the treasury as treasure, and when the owner dies, break back out with his stuff.

But even Inanna had to send everyone away before she passed through the last door.

Mara thinks of everyone she has ever known, all the people she has lost, back even to Yang Liwei and that ray of Light in deepest Darkness. She is there again, on the tether, falling into the mystery. Her brother is crying out after her, trying to follow, and she cannot look back.

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

That pattern is a "tub", a static pattern that never moves. Perpetual stalemate, permanent stagnation... but it has the potential to transform with the addition of just one square

STILL LIFES

Tub

A four-cell still life shaped like a hollow diamond.

The tub is one of the smallest common still lifes. Its empty center is a clean example of why a dead cell needs exactly three neighbors before it is born.

Run on this page

Back to library

Category

Still lifes

Period

1

Movement

bounded

Population

4 cells

Bounding box

3x3

Known since

1970

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

This is why I became so obsessed with Conway's Game of Life as referenced in Unveiling when I realized they were using it in Marathon too. It's so simple, but everywhere. Even this screen you see once has a pattern at the tail of an arrow piercing a three headed dragon

The guardian oath

An array of patterns overlays a flag showing an arrow piercing a three headed dragon

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QuestLog @questlog.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Nobody shoulda ever told me about Obsidian canvases

A flow chart showing the first two phases of the Destiny universe

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