castle,
dwelling, workspace, streampoint of a non-family human group — from tight goal-driven projects to (however defined) cultures. A modern castle — a floating island of arf — may or may not resemble the ancient classics; whether a busy science lab or an echo-filled shrine, it’s never too practical nor too traditional: a castle is a statement of newity, a scale and vitality claim of a collective (it takes disproportionally more work to grow a castle than even a large family home). This is perfectly compatible with castle reuse: many make a point of shopping in abandoned castle parks for something to unfreeze, resculpt, and gradually rearf to the new owners. Like any human dwelling, a castle is a hierarchy of rooms — a large hall, smaller social chambers, private cells, clusters of storage and seclusion cavities; a castle’s idiosyncratic topology and the ratio of livable to ritual spaces reflect on the collective’s structure, history, lore. Not as organic as a long-lived home, a castle may be grown all at once per a design, with relatively minor copyedits and guided dissolving after the first blossoming; sculpted of its founders' arfs — fused but never fully blended — it retains each slice’s link to its owner, so a consensus is needed for a sweeping change: someone’s sudden departure leaves a slowly evaporating wound for others to fill. Perhaps the best known — certainly the largest — flying castle is the City, a livable monument seeded by a small dedicated collective but endlessly rethinged since inception — and now open to all: City’s founders and their descendants are a tiny share of its largely transient population.