Welcome to The Orientation
Myth, symbolism, and the deep mechanics of story.
Welcome to The Orientation.
This publication is about how stories and myths encode psychological and metaphysical truth.
Most discussion of fiction stays on the surface: plot, themes, politics, tropes, discourse. Useful sometimes. But incomplete. What I’m interested in is what sits beneath all of that:
what a story assumes about reality
what it treats as sacred or profane
what it thinks can be repaired (and what can’t)
what kinds of transformation it permits
what kind of cost it requires
In other words: the symbolic order of a story, and the metaphysics it quietly builds into the world.
Why I’m starting with metaphysics
If you’re arriving early, you’ll notice that the initial pieces are more foundational — more explicitly metaphysical and philosophical.
That’s deliberate.
Before you can talk cleanly about symbolism, archetypes, narrative functions, or why certain stories last, you need a few load-bearing premises in place. Otherwise “analysis” becomes opinion, and “depth” becomes aesthetic mood.
Ground first. Then architecture.
What will appear here over time
As the foundation settles, the work will move increasingly toward applied pieces — writing that uses specific fictional universes as material to extract structure.
You can expect essays that explore:
narrative functions (terror is one, but there are many)
symbolic mechanics: how motifs do real work inside a world
the metaphysical shape of different genres
why some narratives accumulate meaning across time — and why others decay
Occasionally I’ll publish visual frameworks (diagrams, cards, maps).
How to read this publication
You can start anywhere. Each piece should stand on its own.
But the work is also cumulative: over time, you’ll begin to see recurring patterns because stories themselves reuse a limited set of deep structures.
About me
I’m Chris — British and Austrian, raised in Bavaria.
I’ve spent years between technical systems and narrative analysis. Living between frames forced a certain discipline: compress the idea until it either holds — or breaks.
This publication is where that compression happens in public.
If you want a single sentence for what this is:
Fiction is compressed metaphysics. I’m here to make that compression visible.
—Chris