diff --git a/bible/tone/tone-guide.md b/bible/tone/tone-guide.md deleted file mode 100644 index 5aadecf..0000000 --- a/bible/tone/tone-guide.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,28 +0,0 @@ -# Tone Guide — The Last Debugger - -## The Register - -This is not a show about technology. It is a show about the specific dread of understanding something you were not supposed to understand. The horror comes from competence, not ignorance. Kael is frightened *because* he can read what he's looking at. - -Tone reference: Black Mirror's restraint plus Mr. Robot's interiority. The camera does not explain. The audience keeps up or they don't. - -## What We Do - -**Dread through precision.** Technical language is not flavor. When Kael describes what he's seeing in the codebase, every term should be accurate enough that a programmer would recognize it — and wrong enough to notice the wrongness. The horror lives in the delta. - -**Silence as texture.** Scenes between Kael and Sable breathe. Terminal prompts hang. The cursor blinks. We do not fill silence with score. - -**Bureaucracy as monster.** Orin is never wrong. Every scene she's in, she should be making a reasonable decision. The system she serves is the horror — she is its perfect instrument. - -**No catharsis.** Revelations make things worse, not better. Every answer is load-bearing for a larger question. - -## What We Don't Do - -- Jump scares -- Villains who monologue their motive -- Technology that behaves cinematically instead of accurately -- Characters who say out loud what the scene is doing - -## The Needle - -If the audience is scared, we've done our job. If they're also not sure *what* they're scared of, we've done it right. \ No newline at end of file