top five Situations to put stanley parable in

1. that damned parable

heyy so remember the Skip Button Ending

allow me to just tell u a bit of smthn that constantly resides in my brain

The Skip Button Ending happened in The Narrator's memory zone

When Stanley disappeared for so long, not only did The Skip Button turn into The Narrator's past, it slowly became the only memory he knew. That was why the door disappeared; there were no other places in the memory zone. The Narrator locked himself in his past, present.. ..and future.

And guess what happened when The Narrator died and Stanley was able to get out? There were no other memories; just the broken reminiscence of the skip button.

anywho so that's why I'm sad today

—🅰️non

Oh wow. Okay. That's heartbreaking and absolutely awesome. I love this idea so much.

(I'm about to go on a super long tangent so I'm putting a readmore here)

Consider the following: since it's all but stated outright that the Epilogue takes place right after the Skip Button Ending, and you find the remains of the Memory Zone and parts of the office, Narry isn't dead yet, but he's dying. Barely holding on, mostly dead, like Westley from Princess Bride. The only reason the Parable hasn't collapsed in on itself and the only reason the Timekeeper can reset anything at all is because Narry is still just barely there.

But oh my gosh this is still so freaking cool, and it makes sense how Stanley can be both in the past and the future at the same time, since after the Skip Button he both is reset and not reset at the same time so he can still effect the Parable and in turn the Epilogue since he's in both times at once. Like how you can get the bucket in the Epilogue if you put it in the Escape Pod.

I imagine that Timekeeper us really just trying to keep the Parable going to keep Narry alive, keep him in his loop just before death so their entire world doesn't collapse around them. And the only way for any of this to change is if Stanley does something about it. No one else can affect the Parable in quite the way Stanley can, and so the only way to free them all from this loop would be for Stanley to take Narry with him to the Escape Pod, take him there and trigger the ending to free them all from the game.

Ohhhhh oh ho ho ho!!! This would be so cool!!!! Anon I love you for this idea!!! My brain is full of ideas now and I wanna scream/pos

So to summarize here

By making the Skip Button in the Memory Zone the Narrator inadvertently causes the Skip Button to be all his memories are and as the percieved years and decades and centuries pass the Narrator loses his grip on the Parable to the point where he's so weak and close to death that everything starts to crumble around them. As Stanley steps out into the desert the Timekeeper jumps in to reset the game as they realize what's happening to it as the Narrator dies. The Timekeeper only has enough control over the resets to put them in a continuous never-ending loop that resets just before the Narrator dies in a futile effort to keep the Parable collapsing, which would kill everyone inside. Eventually Stanley discovers that he's still able to change things about their future. After countless loops in the Parable Stanley finds out (probably from the Timekeeper themself) that the only way to free them all from the loop would be for Stanley to take the Narrator through the Escape Pod Ending. It takes a lot of convincing but eventually they manage it and as the door to the Escape Pod closes and their vision fades to black.... they wake up outside the Parable and in the real world, they're free. Everyone who was stuck there was released and the Parable itself, without the Narrator, Curator, and Timekeeper there to keep the game running it collapses and is left a shell of what it used to be. But what does that matter when everyone made it out safely.

And they all go on to figure out the world together. Stanley, Mariella, and 432 likely taking the lead as they were humans trapped inside the game and still remember some of how the outside world works.

And they all live happily ever after!

Yaaayyy happy ending :D