Prototype: rose-window eye (side-by-side variant, not a replacement)

[testtest126]

Summary

A second, original eye variant on the landing page — not a replacement. The shipped eye stays exactly as it is; a new rose-window eye sits beside it so it can be compared scrolling, then kept or tossed. Draft — review prototype, not for merge as-is.

The insight from the moodboard brief: a gothic cathedral rose window is an eye — radial glowing petals standing in for an iris, a dark center for the pupil. Built entirely original: 12 hand-authored petal <path>s rotated in 30° increments around a center pupil circle, two radialGradient defs (pane glow + candle pinpoints), one feGaussianBlur for the candles. No traced or copied artwork — pure inline SVG/CSS.

How it shares the existing mechanic

Zero JavaScript changes. Both eyes read the exact same --scroll-lid custom property the existing throttled-requestAnimationFrame scroll listener already computes — only the CSS consuming that shared value differs:

.scroll-eye .eye { clip-path: inset(calc(50% - var(--lid)) 0); }          /* existing — eyelid band */
.rose-eye svg    { clip-path: circle(var(--scroll-lid) at 50% 50%); }     /* new — dilating circle */

An inset-band "eyelid" reveal suits the almond shape; a dilating circle suits a round window — a literal aperture-opening reading. Reduced-motion handling, the calm 25% default, and the fallback-if-JS-fails guarantee are all unchanged and apply to both automatically, since neither is new JS — just a second reader of one already-robust value.

Layout & palette

• The existing eye shifts from dead-center to 32% from the left; the rose window sits at 68% — side by side on desktop, stacked vertically on mobile (< 40rem).
• New, intentionally separate warm palette: --amber / --amber-deep / --amber-pale / --stone — kept apart from the existing cold cyan/sepia palette so the two read as genuinely different registers, not the same design in a different hue. Restrained: petals and candles are low-opacity, fading to near-black at the rim.
• A small on-page prototype note (in the phase-descent intro) plus two tiny labels ("current" / "rose window (prototype)") make the comparison legible in the page itself, not just in screenshots — clearly marked prototype-only.

Verification

Headless Chrome + Playwright, both desktop (1280px) and mobile (390px):

position	lid
top (closed)	2.00%
entering	8.06%
quarter	18.50%
mostway	29.46%
past (fully open)	42.00%

• Both apertures open in lockstep at every position (confirmed visually — screenshots show the rose window's petals and pupil expanding exactly as the cold eye's eyelid band does)
• Candle pinpoints confirmed rendering (subtle by design at normal settings — verified with a temporary debug boost, then reverted)
• Mobile (390px): both eyes stack vertically, no overlap, zero console errors
• Reduced-motion emulation: --scroll-lid holds fixed at 25% regardless of scroll position, for both eyes simultaneously
• Zero console errors, zero failed requests throughout

🤖 Generated with Claude Code