the end of Evolution is still a hard thing to talk about for me I think. I wrestled with the choice for at least a couple days. I'd thought, early on, with the little knowledge I'd had, that I would choose the Wheel of Fortune, but in the end, knowing that no matter what I did, I was not coming out of the Loom with the Naturalist- I was not going back to London with him, I was never going to see him again- I couldn't reconcile that with the futures I saw where we were destined to progress together after Irem.
I don't know that I see Irem in the same way that others do- or at least, I don't see the part of Evolution that takes place in Irem in the same way from some of the takes I've seen. I don't know. It's hard to be sure. I'm not in a lot of fandom circles and I prefer it that way.
For my playthrough, what was seen in the Loom was happening. It was a path forward, being walked "now". We walked the deserts of the Elder Continent together. We saw the destruction of London to the Sacristan. They were a future we saw ourselves walking, and because we were in Irem, we were in that future. We saw every feasible route.
We stitched seven keys into him, 7 weeks before entering the Loom.
We kept finding the places where the story went wrong.
He changed himself and he changed himself and when he saw the future go wrong he changed himself again, he turned another key, because he was seeing the futures too, and the future changed when he did.
How could we be the one deciding his Destiny, you know? The game implies we're on separate lines at this point and we just keep crossing each other on the way to wherever it is we're going. How could we ever have been the one to make the choice? It felt wrong.
He kept turning the Keys under his skin that we'd put there, diving through the futures, and then-
-he slipped out entirely.
The Naturalist isn't in the Loom. He isn't seeing the Future where the Sacristan destroys London and he tries to change himself to escape, because he changes in the NOW, the now that destroys the future altogether. He's not going to become a Shame, avoiding Death- he became one in that moment where he slipped out the Tailor's grip, out of the will-be that is Irem.
This wasn't the Tailor's choice. It may have been mine and I spent ages doubting it. For the Tailor, this was entirely the Naturalist's choice. They tried to argue for something different, but in the end: they're a Teratomancer, and he asked them to help him find a better form for the function he needed. And they loved him, and they didn't say no. They didn't stop him when he pulled them along and it wasn't up to them what happened in the end.
This reddit post and the final commenter in the thread was a big impact in me finally choosing which ending to pursue. Even so, I was an outright mess for a couple weeks after the fact, even after I'd gotten the Tailor's Destiny and sent them back to London, and figured out their narrative beat (that they'd lost him, they they dove back in to find him, that they sent 7 weeks mastering the Loom, and that their Destiny is them succeeding in finding him).
But. Yeah, I dunno. For a lot of people, the futures seen are things that will happen. For the Tailor, the futures DID happen, and then they were unwound altogether. Destinies and places that they walked to their conclusion, before picking the thread back out of the tapestry- or in the Naturalist's case, snapping his thread altogether.
augh. I'm sad again. Hes gone and he's not. Other people imagine seeing their Naturalist again to pursue his ending that they saw, but I can't and don't for the Tailor. He's just out of reach now. He's something to strive towards. Ultimately, the man they knew is gone.
And still, they go to Hunter's Keep in the hopes that whatever is left likes jellied eels.
