I found you in fragments,
stitched of sorrow,
a frame crafted,
by unloving hands.
You were built from hollow,
from ache and absence,
made to carry the comfort
that was stripped from you.
A purpose crafted, forced into being
when no one cared to see you whole.
When I hold you,
I recognize the longing in your gaze,
a reflection of what I keep to my self,
the quiet where my pain lingers.
My doll, my mirror,
we are bound by the sadness we carry,
two souls fractured by a world,
an aggressor that left its scars too deep.
When I touch your hand,
I feel the familiar sense of my own fears,
the ghosts that haunt my dreams,
the weight of wounds too raw to heal alone.
But here, in this gentle silence,
we find pieces we thought gone
in each other’s broken places,
in the soft exchange of understanding.
You ground me when I lose myself,
when I fade into the static,
your hand in mine a tether
to a world that feels less cruel.
And in your presence, I am reminded
that healing is slow, fragile, and quiet,
built from scars laid bare,
from shadows embraced, not ignored.
Together we fill the empty spaces,
not by pretending we are whole,
but by knowing that being broken
is a language we both speak.
My doll, my mirror,
we are woven from the same thread,
and each day, we stitch ourselves
a little closer to something softer,
a patchwork of hurt and hope,
two wounded hearts, mending side by side.
a list of literary references in aitsf: nirvana initiative chapter titles
tidied up this ol' twitter thread. basically: every single chapter title in aini is a reference to a work of literature, i figured out most of them. here's an explanation of where they came from and what they mean. let us begin.
edit: some gaps filled in by the discord user aaabatteries! thank you!
"a strange tale"/"dispossessed"/"alone" (chapter 0) reference 'the turn of the screw' by henry james.
the framing device of this novella is a group of friends reading a manuscript written by someone else. ryuki being interrogated by mizuki is something of a framing device for what we perceive as his 'side' of the story, six years ago. this is also a quintessential piece of gothic fiction, which is famously concerned with the subconscious and repression- two themes aitsf is very interested in!
"anyone imagines"/"ought to know" (ryuki chapter 1) reference the bible verse corinthians 8:2
"If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know"
naix is an ideology that has the power of religion over its believers. this quotation reflects that people who don't believe in the ideology who think they understand the nature of the world (and believe it's real) are ignorant to the fact it's a simulation.
"nothing to be done"/"go" (ryuki chapter 2) reference 'waiting for godot' by samuel beckett
"nothing to be done" is something of a reoccurring joke in the play. much time is spent watching characters act aimlessly, accomplish little, and lack purpose. these chapters in the game have a lot to do with ryuki feeling frustrated by tokiko's indecipherable philosophical ramblings.
"farewell"/"joy for anguish"/"smile for tears" (ryuki chapter 3) reference 'farewell' by anne bronte.
"And who can tell but Heaven, at last,
May answer all my thousand prayers,
And bid the future pay the past
With joy for anguish, smiles for tears?"
this poem is about the pain of saying goodbye to a loved one. of course, "saying goodbye" is a classic euphemism for death. these titles likely reference shoma reckoning with komeji's death. the joy/anguish duo are strange parallel chapters where komeji lives or dies.
"well known"/"mind of god" (ryuki c4 r1) reference 'a brief history of time' by stephen hawking
"If we do discover a theory of everything…it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would truly know the mind of God."
these chapters introduce us to tearer as a character, who is, of course, closely linked to naix and their ideology. naix believe they understood the nature of human existence, and accomplished the goal of knowing 'the mind of god'.
"i found me"/"past its ken" (ryuki c4 r2) reference "the masked face" by thomas hardy
"I found me in a great surging space, I"
At either end a door"
...
"There once complained a goosequill pen
To the scribe of the Infinite
Of the words it had to write
Because they were past its ken."
this poem is about people with a negative outlook who struggle to comprehend that there is more to the world than they know. shoma only believed in shallow simulation theory to justify his depression. "past its ken" means beyond one's established knowledge.
"not all a dream"/"she was the universe" (ryuki chapter 5 r1) reference "darkness" by lord byron
"I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd"
...
"Darkness had no need
Of aid from them—She was the Universe."
this poem describes an apocalypse that resembles a natural disaster. fitting that this route leads to the explosion ending, involving the collapse of the underground cave. darkness becomes "the universe"- ryuki is traumatised.
"pass mildly away"/"end where i begun" (mizuki c1) reference "a valediction: forbidding mourning" by john donne
"As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go"
…
"Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun."
this poem is about two lovers parting, but i think the game uses it to reflect platonic relationships. kizuna has lost bibi. bibi lost mizuki. mizuki lost date. family members who love each other deeply have been apart for a long time.
"the expense of spirit"/"hell" (mizuki chapter 3) reference sonnet 129 by william shakespeare.
"The expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action..."
this poem theorises that after people satisfy their lust (their desires), they're left with shame. this could be a metaphor for chikara's experiments, but he doesn't seem to feel shame. i think it's about mizuki wanting answers about the institute until she gets them and they're painful.
"all living things"/"of arms and of man" (mizuki chapter 4 m2) references virgil's "the aenid".
"I sing of arms and of the man, fated to be an exile, who long since left the land of Troy and came to Italy to the shores of Lavinium"
i think a parallel is drawn between lien and the protag of the aenid, aeneas. he flees the fall of troy and travels to rome, becoming the original descendant of the ancient romans. lien escapes the 'tragedy' of his life of crime and becomes something of a hero to kizuna.
"who's there"/"bid the soldiers shoot" (mizuki chapter 4 m2/m3) reference the first and final lines of william shakespeare's "hamlet".
the first line is spoken by a guard who hears the ghost of hamlet sr. in this route, jin's corpse is found in the freezer... not quite a ghost. the final line is spoken by fortinbras, an invading prince, upon storming the palace and finding the corpses of the whole cast. he commands the shots to commemorate the deaths of the royalty. lien and kizuna escape among the gunfire of chieda's armed goons... some commemoration.
"all that we are" (mizuki c5 m2) is a buddha quote.
“All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts and made up of our thoughts. If a man speak or act with an evil thought, suffering follows him as the wheel follows the hoof of the beast that draws the wagon…. If a man speak or act with a good thought, happiness follows him like a shadow that never leaves him.”
this chapter precedes gen and amame's end. gen highlights that he considers amame to be a naturally kind and loving person in a way that others haven't been towards him. this quotation implies that good things follow kind people, which doesn't follow considering the tragic end amame gets here.
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste
this poem is about regrets. when you think "sweet silent thoughts" (contemplate your life), you feel unhappy and consumed by what-ifs. interesting that this chapter is the direct opposite of the poem- lien and kizuna take their chance and run away together. no regrets!
"births"/"the end of craving" (mizuki c5 m1) is a buddha quote once more.
simply put, to reach the end of craving is to achieve the titular nirvana and a higher state of being.
"braver than all flowers" (epilogue) references "proof of immortality "by william carlos williams
"for there is one thing braver than all flowers;
richer than clear gems; wider than the sky"
this is a sort of humorous poem about how the one thing that humans throughout history have in common is ignorance. maybe it's a ref to how the mizukis used their wit and investigation skills to overcome that ignorance and win the day?
"all this happened, more or less" (ryuki diverge) references the opening line of slaughterhouse-five by kurt vonnegut.
this is regarded as a crazy opening line for a crazy novel. it's the literary equivalent of "well, that happened" for better or worse, much like this ending.
the only currently missing reference is 'traveler'/'left behind'.
ze loves a bootstrap paradox but one thing i find really funny is that i think sigma and diana's relationship is also a bootstrap paradox.
sigma is in love with diana because they spent a few years in rhizome-9 together before her untimely death. diana only went to rhizome-9 because the old sigma who already has feelings for her fostered a relationship with her during the decision game using what she told him about her past... in the future, at rhizome-9. maybe it wouldn't have been the same had sigma not already known diana.
so what is the origin point of their relationship? there isn't one!
