#also antigone and emilybot from meatspace ephemera ARE holding hands (they dont know that the final scene of meatspace is totally inspired

[catilinas]

Hello! I’ve been looking through your terminal storytelling tag and the content consistently rocks, but what exactly does terminal storytelling mean?

hi! the phrasing of 'terminal storytelling' is borrowing (very extremely loosely) from rene girard's idea of sacrifice as 'terminal violence' ->

girard's theory of sacrifice has A Lot Going On but a key part is that the true act of 'sacrifice' is like. spontaneous violence, which is 'sacrificial' in that it ends an ongoing Cycle of violence. this could be though like. everyone involved being dead / violence so over the top that it puts an end to all future conflict. meanwhile the sacrificial ritual that might be what someone thinks of as 'sacrifice' is 'sacrificial' in that it is a substitution for this earlier act of violence, And in that it disguises the true nature of what sacrifice Is (terminal violence). or something.

but then if you get weirder and more into girard it's like. substitution and sacrifice are now the same thing. sexy takes on greek tragedy go here. is all representative Anything now sacrificial? probably not (although girard does have some insane and almost definitely wrong takes on the origin of language + undomesticatability of bears? idk). but i would say certain types of Narrative definitely Can be sacrificial In That they represent BadViolenceDon'tLikeThat in smaller / contained / controlled form e.g. ancient conspiracy narratives ->

(Victoria Emma Pagán, Conspiracy Narratives in Roman History)

like um. greek tragedy + sallust's bellum catilinae + every episode of scooby doo (ESPECIALLY every episode of scooby doo. girl help my monstrous double is being demystified) are all doing the exact same thing. to me.

anyWAY ok now ignore girard entirely. in a poem i have not read in full in plainwater anne carson writes 'who are they the storytellers who can put an end to stories' and it's like. what does it take for a story to tell itself once and then never Need to be told again. what does it take for a story to tell the definitive version of itself in a way that discourages any and all retellings / repetitions / sequels / whatever. if telling a story is like hashtag we are trapped in meanings that circulate like blood, what telling would act as Terminal Violence and just Stop forever?

or is that even possible! e.g. sorry i am always thinking about lucan but cicero (+ hirtius!) said that caesar's commentaries (incl. on the civil war) were written in a way that Deterred future authors from the same subject. caesar's bellum civile as Terminal Storytelling in that it positions itself as The Ultimate Account Of The Civil War (Don't Look Too Closely Btw) like ok maybeeee there was a civil war but caesar is In Control And He Fixed It so don't question his narrative ok. and to an extent it actually WORKED oh my god i hate the afterlife of caesar's commentaries almost as much as lucan, who dug up the corpse of the civil war and stuck it in a timeloop forever. unterminals your storytelling

there is some overlap in my tag w my tag for fate + being stuck inside tragic/narrative repetitions + stories left forever unfinished etc because imo you Do get stories that repeat forever More often than like. stories that self destruct at the end. and they also go together! you can try and figure out what makes storytelling terminal From stories / storytellers that are unable to stop.

but also hrgh stories that self destruct. antigone singing her own funeral lament. every single day i think about my friend ada's game meatspace ephemera (2021) that's made to be played once And Then It Self Destructs (Or Does It). literally perfect execution (haha) of the concept