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movemnt · 1 year

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so, this is me rambling through a rundown of most of what they cut from the final version of r.esident evil r.evelations 2. This is all summary of what was gathered from the horrid mess in the data files that a friend datamined and we sorted through about a year after the game released. It's a goddamn nightmare in there.

To make a very lengthy story short, they had the full game set to go until about 2 weeks to the first episode being released, and then basically halved it after delaying it for about another week with no explanation??? Nobody knows why they decided to go this route and we probably won't ever know. they left the game data in a bit of a cobbled mess with those data files still in it (and when I say it's a mess i mean it's a M E S S. it took three weeks to get just some of the dialogue that was missing and then much more to make some semblance of sense of the whole thing and piece it all together. like why not just delete all of it???? unless it was a case of 'if i remove this tomato the entire game will cease to function so it stays in this spot outside of the stage'-) and some dialogue tags and actions have zero context to them in the game in its current state.

i'm also not putting in the dialogue tags and am instead summarizing them because this post will be 10x longer than it is.

I also want to note that as much shit as I'm about to give it I fucking adore this goddamn game, it got me through some very dark times in my life, I even have Moira as my alias for most websites- it's amazing, but the fact that they left this much is kinda bizarre and makes me wonder what could have been. also it's v weird to do this summary again. i've done it once before but some details are missing from what i had in a draft of the deleted post i wrote and the post that a friend wrote so some of this is from memory.

alas.

The first episode is basically the same in terms of story. Claire and Moira get kidnapped, they wake up and Moira is freed after Claire does the first puzzle in the cells. It's much more hyper in pace and intense then smoothed into the more liminal space horror that we get in the prison currently. It was lengthy on both sides with a bit more of a reflection on things from barry's side in reference to Moira and LOTS. OF. PUZZLES. ON CLAIRE'S SIDE. kind of a blessing i'm not going to lie. alex went fucking hard (she literally set all these traps herself with a bit of help from neil) and her dialogue tags are ruthless. the xbox 360 demo they sent to cons and press reflect this.

The second episode... jesus fucking christ my guys.

For Claire's side: So instead of the ending being based solely on the choice you make in the third episode, there were a couple of different choices you can make in the second alluding to different endings where some characters die, some don't, ALL CHARACTERS DIE, all but one live, etc (I'll explain this in the fourth episode). Basically, you can help guide Moira's conquered fear a bit more instead of making it based around this one pivotal moment. It's a nice, slow blend into the root cause of her fear. She even talks more about what happened and Claire encourages her to try to protect herself more, even knowing what happened. Moira seems a bit more sympathetic, though is still angry at Barry for being over"bear"ing (ba dum tiss). It's not a constant slew of 'I HATE BARRY'' 'DOES HE ALWAYS TELL THAT AWFUL JOKE' and teenage-ish angst, there's actually much more of a blended mix of her trying to process what's going on and what happened between her and polly years ago. ( also there's a lot of what I like to call "Burton Joke Moments" lmao )

Also. I must state that the N.eil x C.laire dialogue was not present and actually isn't present in the original script of the game still, either in the old version and in the script in the japanese version. C-usa is notorious for implying things in their translation of R.esident E.vil stories (they got some fucking fire up their ass from Capcom and the development team after this one though, it was BAD.). The basis in the japanese script is that they were coworkers, he's the boss, without him terra save might crumble, and the script went more in the route of Claire being concerned about Neil as the leader of Terra Save as a whole.

Also, CLAIRE ACTUALLY ACTS LIKE CLAIRE. While the moment of Moira and Natalia bonding over the bracelets is still present and connected with the other pieces of dialogue, in the pieces of dialogue we found she is much more presently concerned with the actual fucking child they have tagging along with them. "Natalia, are you okay?" "You can come down" "Can you jump that high?" "Do the monsters scare you?" "You've got this, we'll get you out of here, don't worry." "Wow you're strong!" "do you need to catch your breath?" etc. While some of what was found can also be implied to be towards Moira, all of it sounds much more uplifting towards the kid than what we get in the present version.

Pedro's death is marginally the same, though the dialogue is that much more heartbreaking. That man was so fucking scared and Alex taunting him seemingly pushed him even more and made him an example of what those bracelets can do. Claire is also much more reassuring to him and trying to take charge of the situation before it eventually goes to the hell it turns into.

that's what i remember of claire's side, barry's side-

It was so much more creepy because Alex actually follows and watches you throughout the chapter (tbh a bit of an inside joke between me and a friend is that Alex walked so MR. X could run). There's animations and coding that imply she was supposed to be loaded into each scene in the city. Once you load it with the monster Alex model that's covered, she is permanently Watching you it's really fucking weird and was honestly funny to watch my friend test out (after it took hours to get it to Function). This also goes along with the present implications of her watching through cameras and through the revenants. She is literally Always watching you.

Speaking of! Fun Fact that I love just bc of its creepy factor- Alex is literally watching you through the revenants, but even this mechanic seems a bit faulty, or it's faulty on purpose? They don't seem to see Natalia, but heaven forbid they touch Barry if he's hiding it's an immediate grab (npc controlled or not). Oddly enough this is kinda the same for Moira in Moira's dlc chapter. They see her but also kinda dont? i'll explore that in my own hc for her later. Makes me wonder if they have this whole system of snuffing out who's infected and who's not it's really fucking cool. Or if it's glitchy. I'm gonna go for the former option bc it's cool.

anyway- that is most of what i recall from his side of ep 2, i think there was more with the pedro fight but it was mostly repeats of his scared rant in claire's side, if i remember more i'll add on to this.

episode 3-

i dont remember much about anything before the big neil fight, so im not sure if much of it changed aside from the aforementioned script stuff with claire and neil. there was a bit more talk about barry from moira following the encounter with evgeny and it's much more defeated than the high strung nature we get from her in the first chapter. "i didnt have to be told i did something bad" or smth turned into something like "i just wished we could have talked more without being stubborn". like honestly it seems less that they always fought, but were more complacent and silently tense until one of them poked the bear. kinda like a "not causing a fight for the family" sorta deal???

the fight though- i think it would have been so much stronger with the dialogue that was taken out. like i am not saying i dont like 'WE WERE SUPPOSED TO SAVE PEOPLE IT'S IN THE GODDAMN NAME!' but, claire is really going in on what neil has been doing, she's much more reactive after she has gotten some more clarity on what neil has been doing.

there's also like this document found in the chamber where you can find the dead butler, and it talks about albert and his visits and how ppl would just look really weirdly at this dude dressed all in black leather and telling them not to mind him lmao

barry's side didn't change much. barry's discovery of evgeny and then of moira's phone hit me like a goddamn brick wall and i dont think it changed much aside from the little different bits of dialogue you can hear from moira in episode four (i'll explain this in episode 4's piece)

now. episode 4.

holy shit on a shitstick-

some of this will be a mish mash of what i remember, what is missing, what is in concept art pieces, and what we had to gather from all of the above.

Starting with Claire's episode. So, there's a massive reason why claire episode 4 is only 10 minutes long as opposed to the other chapters, in short, there was a LOT cut out of it and connected to other pieces that were cut out, etc. I'll start with smaller bits of info and go up into the rather massive thing that we could only piece together and theorize about because, quite frankly and as much as this might make no sense, what we found makes no goddamn sense unless we connect it to scene stuff.

so, little weird things first- moira was supposed to get a katana from the tower at one point. for some reason alex kept one around, highly suspected to be albert's but i don't know. there's also a silenced pistol that implies that claire was supposed to silently shoot at the glasps that are released once the tower starts to go into self destruct mode. There's supposed to be more puzzles strewn about the lab, and more sight seeing around it too. Like you were supposed to see around it a lot more and not just from the confines of a glass box.

and then you get to moira's death.

you were supposed to hear her voice recording to barry as claire is walking away. that's fucking heart wrenching. like there's a reason why she has her phone in hand but not doing anything with it- she was about to record her final words to her dad, thinking she was about to die.

Now the big thing.

When you take the camera away from the insulated box they have you in with claire and moira and go beyond alex, you can find some bits and trinkets: two hospital beds (of which you can already see) some tricell equipment and purple tubes with rocks. Close inspection shows that they look a hell of a lot like lava rocks. Now hold on you may say, would that imply alex was trying to clone a certain brother of hers- i don't believe so. However, it implies that she had his dna. It's also implied that she was testing out what she was doing with natalia to see if she could do the same with albert's dna. which. makes a lot of other things make sense. Honest to god the one thing i hate about the way they did this is all the disconnected plot lines, like the one that "you were right albert it's not enough to live i want to transcend" alludes to. Like they left that in there and just didn't bother to explain why and let you assume he just rambled on about it to her one time and he continued that ramble into 5- yeah just. ugh.

another thing to ramble about before going into the brief discussion about barry's episode 4- the ending of barry's episode 3 (among other things) is just so. so unclear without the piece that is missing from claire's episode 4. alex grabs natalia and there's a brief moment where alex shows genuine fear, that's because her experiment worked, but only half way. See, half of her escaped and transferred into natalia and now lays dormant, the other half, however, is cursed to stay into the mutated form she is in. The only problem is this half in natalia is the worst half. this is where the "true or false, you, natalia, are false, i alone am true" thing and her raging hatred for natalia comes into play. only thing is they didnt show this or explain it.

and then barry's episode 4.

so, the multi-endings bit kinda comes into play here. Right now we have only two endings, a good ending and a bad ending. However, there's parts that make it look like the ending was supposed to be split up. Barry and Moira were supposed to work together for a bit (like when they escaped the area the first boss fight with alex happened in, it just cuts to them somehow running outside even though this cave was DEEP into the ground), there's some lines for evgeny (even though he dies which is honestly really curious).

that's honestly all i can recall at the current moment and as i dive into old files i might find more. hope yall enjoyed my ramblings.

#ooc ;; stilled #idk what to tag this as tbqh with yall #but yeah have my 2k+ word explanation of whatever the hell they left in those files.#we could've had it allllllll rolling in the deeeeeeeeeep

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oh-cool-a-burning-sword · 2 years

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tbh if you ask me I think that the odds of 3 Hopes getting some kind of DLC in the future's fairly high.

Koei Temco tends to put DLC in their games but Instys, ever since Awakening, have added some form of DLC into the FE games, even spin offs like the first Warriors and TMS.

Not just that but honestly 3 Hopes, as it is now, kinda gives me no-DLC/base game Fates vibes. Aka even if you beat all the routes there's still a shit ton of stuff that we don't know. Most of the protagonist's background is a mystery, there's plot points that looked like they should have been bigger but aren't (aka the whole Byleth/Sothis VS Shez/Arval/Epimenides plot or how even TWSITD seem to have barely an idea about what's going on with Shez).

Could be just my own wishful thinking. But the lack of info almost feels kind of intentional, like their waiting to do some massive lore drop. Would I be happy if that's actually happens? Probably not, I didn't like the idea of having to pay in Fates just to find out what was going on, but it that does happen then I'll still buy it.

#fire emblem #fire emblem three hopes #Until it gets to like... September I'm going to be cautiously optimistic for the idea of 3 Hopes DLC #I really want to know more about this version of Fodlan #and know more about Shez and Arval/Epimenides #+ the datamines seem to imply that we could get some more characters in the future #so chances are that we might get something #though I could also be horribly wrong #idk

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battlecrazed-axe-mage · 2 years

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Idk if I fully “get” the billboard stuff. (I don’t play the game or any mmo, so that could be the missing context, but even the angry person who said they didn’t care but would explain to people like me didn’t clear anything up.)

So, if I understand, mods aren’t technically allowed, but not really enforced. And a group of people? took out a billboard to advertise the game? with their own money? And the billboard showed them with modded things? somehow? And people are angry at the group for making billboards showing off mods because that may make the no mod enforcement ramp up? So they camped outside their house area? For a reason? Is that what happened? It all seems a big hullabaloo to me, I guess.

You got the gist of it! Specifically what they were advertising was an rp event at their free company house. (A free company is like a guild in WoW, an organization of players.) Some people are saying it was to be an erp event as well, where people roleplay their characters getting laid, which has added to the controversy since that's another TOS grey area. (The producer, as I understand it, has basically said look we don't like it but we won't ban you unless you're blatant about it.) So this group decided the thing to do to was buy out a billboard with modded game screenshots including an unreleased outfit, so now we've brought datamining into it and that's a HUGE no-no in most games, put the game's official logo on it implying that it's an officially sanctioned event, and try to get streamers to come to it saying it's a family-friendly party. Biiiiiiig yikes! This also comes in the wake of mods being in the spotlight as functionality mods (as opposed to the visual ones shown here) were used recently to beat a difficult batch of new content, and streamed doing so, and Square Enix was extremely unhappy about that and warned people about using mods already, it was a whole thing. There's more to it, like people wondering if the money was taken from a charity stream the group did a while back and saying the group owner's an unpleasant person outside of this, but honestly I don't know much about that either way so I'm not going to go into it

I only have secondhand knowledge about the camping outside their house situation, but for a while people were standing outside their FC house doing angry emotes at them and playing clown music--not sure if they're still at it

Last I heard they were still planning on holding the party tonight? So boy howdy that's gonna be a shitshow

#ffxiv #ff14

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melohax · 4 years

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Why Basil isn’t “evil” or knowingly manipulative:

Warning: Major MAJOR Omori Spoilers Ahead

When people aren’t saying Sunny is a psychopath who deserves to be in jail, they’re saying Basil is an evil obsessive mastermind who tricked poor dissociating Sunny into defacing his sister’s corpse.

I’ve already explained before why I disagree with either interpretation but I haven’t gone in depth with Basil’s character. I’ll write about why I don’t think Basil is this dark yandere intentionally manipulating Sunny into dependance on him.

Basil is a tragic character with bad abandonment issues who legitimately wants to help the people he loves most. Unfortunately he also happens to have a broken “normalcy compass” (common in abused and/or neglected children). This means his well intentioned actions are often more harmful than helpful.

Aubrey says during a part of the real world segment that outside our main friend group, she’s always been an outcast. I think it’s no accident that we see in Sunny’s memories that she was the one who introduced Basil to the friend group, implying he’s also always been an outcast like her.

With Aubrey though, we can attribute her outcast status to things like living in the poorest neighborhood in Faraway town while also living in the visibly most worn-down house of said poor neighborhood.

Aubrey has a hoarding alcoholic mother that neglects her and a strict father (Aubrey casually mentions as a kid that her father is weirdly strict about her appearance) who ends up abandoning her anyway. Aubrey’s hot temper doesn’t help either and so even though she manages to be popular and well-loved among her hooligan friends, the rest of the town judges her harshly as if she’s at fault for her horrible life circumstances.

Then we have Basil. Basil’s economic circumstances are visibly better than Aubrey’s and he lives in a nice house surrounded by pretty flowers. Yet even with everything around him (even his appearance) looking so prim and cute, he’s still treated as an outcast.

We know that mentally ill children are way too often shunned by their peers and the adults surrounding them for being “weird” even though it’s not their fault that they have different brain chemistry. Without counting the bullying Aubrey carried out with her friends, Basil was already being ostracized by people outside the main friend group. In one of Sunny’s memories, Basil tells them that he’d always been alone before meeting them.

This lets us know that there’s always been “something” that’s made Basil unpopular with almost everyone. We see hints of why in the contrast between Dreamworld Basil and Real Basil. Whereas Dreamworld Basil is well-spoken, charismatic and cheerful, Real Basil is a nervous wreck that is prone to panic attacks and bouts of screaming. We could say he’s this way cus of what he did to Mari but from knowing Basil’s always been an unliked outcast, I get the feeling he’s not like this only from the Mari situation.

Then we have the probable root of his very obvious abandonment issues: Basil’s parents’ are completely absent save for some pictures in his home. Sunny himself has never seen Basil’s parents in person. Datamining apparently suggests his parents abandoned him when he was a toddler. To top it off, having a constantly ill and mostly unresponsive grandma as his only remaining family doesn’t help with his mental health issues at all, either. No wonder the kid’s clingy.

There’s also the caretaker at his house, who is introduced as Basil’s caretaker, not his sick grandmothers. Basil is at the age where he can legally emancipate himself yet we’re shown he still needs a caretaker to look after him. That Basil needs looking after kinda says to me that he has issues he can’t be left alone with.

So all these paragraphs were to explain the evidence that point to Basil likely being mentally ill since before Mari’s death. Now we get to the parts that make me think he’s been suffering from psychosis even as a kid.

12 year old Basil doesn’t seem capable of understanding the concept of Sunny being angry and accidentally shoving Mari down the stairs. He seems unable to consider the possibility that it was an argument between siblings just at the wrong place at the wrong time, as if that just can’t happen. To Basil, it HAS to be “Something” maliciously causing the incident and/or forcing Sunny to do it.

About the Mari incident and Basil’s fucked up idea: I think a lot of fans forget that first, not only was Basil a 12 year old kid back then (not even a teen yet) but also a lot of the reasoning behind many of Basil’s most important actions seems to be rooted in delusions he genuinely believes.

The same thing happens when the photo album was scribbled over: in his mind, there was no way any of his friends (*cough* Sunny) could have done this. It had to be the same “Something” attached both to him and Sunny that decided to ruin the photos. Basil doesn’t seem to remember doing anything to the album at all.

We could say all of this isn’t psychosis but metaphors for extreme denial instead, like the way Sunny decides things that remind him of The Truth don’t exist (like the closet door).

I don’t think this is all there is to it, tho.

Basil throughout the game tries to guide Sunny to the truth both in Headspace and that the time in his bathroom where he tries to talk to Sunny about the Something following them. Too afraid to hear him out, Sunny runs away instead while Basil screams for Sunny not to leave him again.

This shows imo that Basil’s brand of denial isn’t the same as Sunny’s. Sunny escapes into his own head and pretends everything involving the incident is either perpetually frozen in a time before anything bad happened or that it simply does not exist. He’s all about repression and suppression.

Basil on the other hand, acknowledges that the incident happened but he saw a Something committing the act instead of Sunny himself.

Then, the final battle against Basil confirms to me that Basil’s delusions and hallucinations go beyond denial of Sunny’s guilt.

Even when the truth is finally out in the open for the both of them, Basil still insists it’s “Something” that did everything. He attacks Sunny because he genuinely believes he is attacking Something evil and that this will protect Sunny from it. The most important detail to me: Basil slashes or gouges Sunny’s eye out specifically on the side where Somethings eye peeks out from Mari’s hair.

Saddest of all, we’re never shown if Basil ever managed to realize that there was never a monster doing everything. Although we are shown the burden of the secret is gone in that last scene between Sunny and Basil, we don’t know if Basil ever understood that Sunny wasn’t forced by any monster to kill Mari.

There’s more that can be said but this post already got long af lol. My conclusion is that Basil isn’t some evil yandere mastermind. He’s a sad wreck of a teenager who’s always struggled with mental illness, trying to do the best he can for those he loves while being plagued by nearly constant delusions and hallucinations.

Tricking his best friend/love interest isn’t part of Basil’s modus operandi when a lot of times he can barely tell what’s real and what isn’t.

#omori spoilers #omori #omori game #basil omori #omori basil #mari omori #omori mari #aubrey omori #omori aubrey #mental illness #cw mental illness

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inke-ri · 3 years

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[[This post contains spoilers for both OG TWEWY AND N:TWEWY. I would put this under a read more but I dunno how to do that on mobile. You have been warned✌]]

I don't talk a lot in the twewy fandom on tumblr but I saw everyone giving their two cents about angel hierarchy and where the Composer fits in it and wanted to join in!

So full disclaimer: from an out-of-character perspective, I think the OG never confirms or denies if Joshua is an angel or not. The secret reports more or less imply he isn't, but with the light pillars' designs and the angel feather (which I do believe belongs to Joshua, but even if you don't its not confirmed or denied anyway), it's canonically unclear.

HOWEVER, I think even if he wasn't an angel, he has been retconned into being one as far back as Dream Drop Distance, where he was shown with full blown angel wings. Not trying to claim DDD is canon to twewy because it's not, just using it as an example of Square considering him to be one. Even if you don't count DDD, we got a glimpse of angel wings in the last episode of The Animation (and regardless of your feelings towards the anime, the devs consider it and the OG game interchangeable, so both are in the same level of "canon" to them), and Joshua's social network file in NEO calls him a "being from a Higher Plane".

[That's not even considering the text files for NEO calling him a "superior/advanced angel" alongside Hazuki (Joshua: 男、天使上級 ※前作 - Hazuki: 男、天使上級 - Kubo: 男、天使下級), but according to the dataminer that shared these with me, they are an internal text thing and can't be screenshotted :/ ]

Lookit his itty bitty wings

So yea. If Joshua wasn't angel then, he sure is an angel now, and the story is treating him as if he's always been one.

But, half of being a fan is trying to make sense of both games so they arent contradictory, so!

Here's my theory on why Joshua can only pick up the vibes from the Producer and not the Higher Plane, despite also being an Angel:

Simply put, I think Joshua has to forcefully downtune his vibes to the UG in order to exist there and rule it as Shibuya's Composer. Its like he's forcing his base frequency to be lower than it should be.

It's known that when the Composer downtunes enough (say, to the RG) he looses some of his powers, such as clairvoyance, and even looks younger (source: OG Secret Report #6). So, I think when he downtunes to UG levels, even on the higher end of the UG frequency, it's still not enough for him to pick up the Higher Plane on his own because their frequency is THAT high. He can only pick up the vibes of angels closest to him-- which in a normal situation would be just the Producer.

The Producer seems to be the angel rank that goes between the Composer and the Higher Plane (perhaps literally, OG Secret Report #2 says they only sometimes lower their vibes to the UG for observation purposes, so Hanekoma probably usually stays in the HP), so it's likely Joshua doesn't really need to uptune to HP levels that often, if at all, Hanekoma just deals with them for him. Y'know, before he got confined to Angel Coffee Basement by Joshua because... idk. I'm still saying it's so the HP/Kubo/Hazuki doesn't find out he's a Fallen Angel because I really doubt he'd get off that easily (and it would be super frustrating if he did when it was the biggest thing set up by OG twewy), but who knows.

In the exception that is NEO, he would also be able to sense Hazuki and Kubo since they were downtuned angels close by or in Shibuya, but the OG secret reports were talking about what it should have been like in a normal Reaper's Game, in which the only angels in the UG are the Composer and, sometimes, the Producer.

TL;DR: Joshua has to continously downtune his base vibe to the much lower frequency plane that is the UG, and because of that some of his senses get curbed, including being able to pick up fully uptuned beings/planes like other Angels and the Higher Plane. He could if he wanted to uptune his vibe, but his job is in Shibuya so there's really no need to do it since Hanekoma's whole job is about being a medium between the HP and the Composer.

Anyway, these are my thoughts on it! If you made it this far thanks for sticking around. This game is so much fun <3

#ntwewy #ntwewy spoilers #twewy spoilers #neo the world ends with you #neo twewy spoilers #neo twewy #joshua kiryu #sanae hanekoma #hazuki mikagi #tanzo kubo #The Great Angel Debate of 2021 #anyway I kinda dig the Composer not being an angel #I just dont think he is lmao #I've grown used to the idea of angel Joshua since #its just how Square wants to do it lmao

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peppermintbee · 4 years

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OMORI has poor writing (Part 1)

OMORI stans, just block the #omori hate tag now because I’m going to use it to vent my frustrations with this game. If you love this game, I am not going to try to convince you otherwise. I am glad you enjoyed it so much. I am glad it means a lot to you. I’m not here to take that away from you. I honestly wish I felt the same way!

However, if you are like me and finished the game feeling disappointed, underwhelmed, and maybe a little frustrated, then I am here to say you are not alone. OMORI--while having the right set pieces for an interesting game--is a narrative mess.

I’m splitting this into two posts. This first post is about problems with the plot. The second is about problems with the message/moral.

(Note: I use “OMORI” in all-caps for the game title, and “Omori” in title case for the character name.)

Spoilers and criticism below.

Part 1: Plot Writing Lies

There’s a book by Brian McDonald called Invisible Ink which is about how to write a compelling story (you can read this great book online for free here). There’s an explanation of the writing “lie” that I find myself frequently thinking of. A “lie” in this context does not mean something is literally untrue, it means something FEELS untrue, unrealistic, improbable, or unlikely. For example, if a character gets shot in the leg but manages to do parkour, this is a “lie” since it seems unrealistic for that to happen. If a character witnesses their beloved parent’s death and shrugs it off, it’s a “lie” because that reaction seems highly unlikely.

In OMORI, the plot is held together by multiple little lies that--try as I might--I just couldn’t bring myself to believe.

1. Sunny’s friends care about him, and vice versa

A major theme of the game is how friendship can overcome any obstacle. Friendship gets Sunny over his fear of heights, spiders, and water. Friendship is what Sunny remembers before the final boss fight, and allows him to face his guilt and defeat it (and prevent him from committing suicide). With the photobook and dialogue you are reminded over and over and over and over and over again that Sunny’s friends love him unconditionally.

However, I just couldn’t bring myself to believe it. The childhood memories are cute but shallow, boiling down to simply hanging out and eating treats. Plus, Kel and Aubrey fight constantly, with Aubrey even physically hitting Kel when he steps out of line. Hero and Mari behave more like babysitters than true friends to the younger kids.

But at least the other kids interact with each other. Sunny, on the other hand, showed nearly no affection or consideration towards his friends. He floats through the memories like a ghost--he could have been completely absent from all the photos and it would have made little difference. I was ready to accept this as Sunny being an unreliable narrator and not thinking he was a good enough for his friends, but this never contradicted. Instead we are given even more memories where Sunny just silently exists there being “cute.”

[Sunny enriching the lives of his friends by LARPING as a cat.]

Because of the lack of meaningful interactions between them, there was nothing in the game that made me think that these 12-15 year olds would have a strong enough bond that would survive 3-4 years of no contact after finding their friend hanged. In fact, that discovery only drove them farther apart. The only person who I could believe actually had a close bond was Basil, who almost literally filled that trope of being the friend who would help you bury a body (or in this case, help Sunny cover up the accidental manslaughter).

The writing fix for this would be simple: instead of showing us the same boring birthday and beach scenes over again, give the kids memories of overcoming some age-appropriate adversity together: heartbreak over an unrequited crush, anxiety over homework, sports injury, lost dogs, divorced parents, running away from home, bullying, etc. Set a precedent of the friends supporting each other through good times AND bad times. Without such backstory, Sunny’s friendships allegedly giving him the courage to overcome his guilt feels like a lie.

2. Sunny abandoning Basil in the bathroom scene

One of the most confusing moments in the game was Sunny’s negligence when Basil has his first breakdown in his bathroom. This part of the game is player-controlled, which is a strange writing decision because all you can do is click on Basil and various bathroom amenities over and over which completely saps the urgency out of the scene. When you try to leave, Basil begs Sunny to stay, but (due to a lack of player options) Sunny walks out without a word. With no option to talk to him OR get help for him, it makes Sunny seem exceptionally cruel to Basil. In fact, I was starting to wonder if the game was setting up for some sort of twist that Sunny DIDN’T care about his friends, which would fix some of the confusion in point #1. However, as we know, that is not the case. Therefore, Sunny’s negligence/apathy towards Basil’s pain feels like a lie.

The writing fix would be to make it MORE clear that Sunny is intentionally running away from Basil. Make it a cutscene, or, give a false choice such as “Leave Basil? Yes / Yes”. After Sunny leaves, Kel should make some remark about Sunny looking odd, “You look sort of shaken up, is there something you want to tell me?” then hit it home with Sunny shaking his head. This would make it more clear that Sunny is intentionally hiding Basil’s state, as opposed to just being a bad friend. As it stands, it just felt like a writing mistake.

3. Basil and Sunny working together to stage Mari’s death as a suicide

This is the plot hole that I see the most complaints over, but it’s so big I have to address it. Accidentally pushing Mari down the stairs I understand, but the rest is too absurd. Below are some of the “lies” that the writing tries to get away with:

That Sunny and Basil wouldn’t just claim she slipped and fell.

That either boy would even come up with this sick plan.

That they wouldn’t back out of this idea during the multi-step process (carrying her downstairs, outside, getting the jump rope, tying a noose, putting it around her neck, stringing her up, hiding the evidence... This is a series of multiple decisions, not one quick accident like the initial push.)

That it’s not the image of Mari’s death that traumatized Sunny, but the image of what they chose to do to her body that traumatized them. I understand the image of Mari hanging is more dramatic, but they literally did it themselves so why is that more haunting than Sunny killing her?

That Mari’s true cause of death wouldn’t be immediately obvious to the parents, the police, the friends, EVERYONE. (I’ve seen fans try to get rid of this plot hole by hypothesizing that the parents knew and covered it up, but the evidence of this is circumstantial at best. The father saying, “You’re not my son,” is unreliable since it happens in Sunny’s headspace. Divorce is common after the death of a child, and, at the very least, Sunny’s mom doesn’t show any evidence of knowing what happened. The way it is written, only Sunny and Basil know the truth.)

The ridiculousness of this twist is so extreme that it completely broke any immersion I had left. Frankly, the reveal that the happy, loveable Mari committed suicide is a far heavier and more realistic twist than a crazy murder-cover-up story is.

Additionally, it seems like Basil was only written into this scene in order to make Sunny the true victim of what happened. After all, Sunny may have pushed her, but it was Basil who came up with the demented cover up. (This is apparent from just the photos but the datamined Truth Album confirms it.) By having Basil come up with the plan, the game splits the guilt between the two of them to make the kids easier to sympathize with. It’s problematic because if Basil was not in the scene, there would be no way to justify what Sunny did to Mari. So why is what they did easier to accept when they worked together?

Fixing the writing lie: Sunny lies and says that Mari slipped. Remove Basil from the scene, and instead have Sunny confide in Basil which forces Basil to become a co-conspirator and burdens him with the terrible truth.

4. Sunny’s friends forgiving him and Basil for what they did to Mari

Last but not least, the story heavily implies that Hero, Kel, and Aubrey will forgive Basil and Sunny for what they did to Mari. I found this to be almost as unbelievable as the staged-suicide stunt.

It feels like a lie since the group’s friendship is never established as anything beyond shallow hang outs from 3+ years ago (see point #1).

It feels like a lie because this is hot off the heels of Aubrey being so distraught over Mari and the following fall out that in the last three days she 1.) attacked Sunny and Kel with a nail bat TWICE, 2.) Stole Basil’s photobook, and 3.) Shoved Basil in the lake. This trauma is still very fresh for her.

It feels like a lie because the complexity of the staged-suicide is so extreme, one would be hard pressed to forgive ANYONE for doing that, be it friend, foe, parent, sibling, lover, etc.

I’ve seen fans argue that the ending is not about forgiveness, it’s about telling the truth, and I want to believe that. Really. If the ending was about Sunny starting his redemption arc by telling the truth no matter what the consequences are, that would be a meaningful lesson. But the writing does not support that. The ending headspace segments are focused on assuring Sunny that his friends will support/forgive him no matter what. To do this, the game shows us the shallow photobook memories (again) to show how much they allegedly care about each other. Then, when fighting Omori, Sunny remembers these quotes from his friends, which directly correlate to their unconditional support:

KEL: Friends... Friends are supposed to be there for each other.

AUBREY: I hope you can find some peace... or you know... some happiness.

HERO: We made the mistake of leaving each other when we needed each other the most. This time... we’ll stay together.

BASIL: Maybe one day... things can go back to the way they were before.

The really direct evidence that this ending is about getting forgiveness is this quote from Basil in Sunny’s headspace:

[BASIL: “AUBREY, KEL and HERO are good friends. You have to trust that they’ll forgive us.”]

This is one of the last scenes before Sunny tells his friends the truth, proving that obtaining forgiveness from his FRIENDS is in fact the leading motivation for Sunny’s actions.

Fixing this writing lie is easy. Instead, adjust the writing to be about telling the truth, not about how much the friends will still love Sunny. Have headspace Basil say, “Even if they don’t forgive us, Aubrey, Kel, and Hero deserve to know the truth. It’s the only way to make things right... or close to it.”

Conclusion

OMORI is undeniably a cute game with a strong visual identity, and has a premise that could make for a very compelling experience. However, the sloppy plot and weak character writing cause the potential of this game to be squandered. There are other issues as well that I chose not to cover for the sake of time, such as the poor pacing of the dragged out dungeons and the bizarre, unrealistic behavior of characters in the “real” world.

However, there are a few more glaring problems with OMORI that I have to address: In part 2 of my critique, I break down what may be the biggest problem with OMORI’s writing: the message.

[ Link to Part 2: OMORI’s Message is Mishandled and Distasteful ]

#omori #omori hate #omori spoilers #review #words #fun fact i named sunny 'moony' so I had to consciously change all the moons to suns in this essay #suicide cw

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ct-multifandom · 2 years

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AINI predictions 2

Because I keep making editing and making additions to the first one

Mizuki’s gonna accidentally call Date dad and then try to deny it and act all tsundere

Please?

The Masked Woman is either Amame or Kizuna

Looking back on the box art, I think those designs at the bottom might be the Mizuki-time ones. Amame and Kizuna, who are teens in Ryuki-time, look different, like Kizuna is missing her hat for example and Amame seems to have her hair down instead of pigtails. Interesting that that Masked Woman isn’t on the box art as her own character. Implying that she’s one of the people already there, perhaps?

the purpose of the Hidden Bats experiment is probably to test bugs in the “simulation”.

Tokiko and Naix believe in the simulation theory and want to escape the matrix. We already know they’re associated with Sunaiku and the Bats videos. One of the secret messages in the ARG talks about how superhuman abilities are considered glitches in The Simulation, so they could be testing the subjects’ SHIFT abilities to locate and break that “seam” Tokiko wants to find.

About the timeline thing from the last post

Okay so I saw on another post and in an official game preview video that there is a no-spoiler mode in the game for people getting into the games through the sequel (which is a silly thing to do but,,,) it seems like AINI is a direct sequel from the true ending of AITSF, but all the promotional material is on no-spoiler mode, which makes Date look different and removes references to the last game, for obvious reasons. This would mean that Iris got her tumor removed, Date is actually in his own Yagyuu body, and Saito and his victims are dead.

Hidden Bats, like AI and ZE, has branching paths, but as normal people in real life, not SHIFTers, we can only experience one route

This one is kinda crack and stretchy, but I can’t get over the Phia Hanadate asset. Maybe it means literally nothing and I sound like the person who thinks actual trash in an escape room is a clue, but someone got paid to sit down and draw that portrait. If she was replaced by Iris at the last minute, she must’ve had a story prepared. Maybe she was the one who hit Kairo while driving recklessly or under the influence or something, and then later coincidentally became a victim of whatever criminal activity he was involved in? Some people think Uchi was trolling dataminers, but would he really make a whole character just to surprise the few people who have the skills to find her?

Maybe each experiment of HB changed based on the decision we made in the previous round. This is just me spitballing ideas, but maybe if we saved Aine and Binato or just Binato then the second experiment would have been different somehow, or if we saved either Lumina or Mariha the third would be affected. For example, maybe if Binato wasn’t removed, Phia would’ve been in Iris’s place, or if Lumina and Mariha didn’t tie, Kairo would’ve been replaced with an AI character as well. Who knows.

Date is in a polycule with all his coworkers

This is obviously already canon so idk why I’m even adding it to the post

The game will end with a group dance sequence set to Duality by Slipknot

Nah but I do predict that there will be a new dance to a new song. Iris, Amame, and Kizuna do dance together so that might lead in to a new number. I was thinking of making a post analyzing the lyrics to Invincible Rainbow Arrow because I noticed that some of the ominous words from that song seem more relevant now than they were in the first game, especially with the involvement of Naix and new lore about Iris’s tumor.

Komeji and Shoma are gonna have a wholesome yet unrelated-to-the-case subplot like the Matsushitas did. I’m actually putting a minor spoiler warning on this one because I’m so sure of it.

I think I accidentally figured out their arc from everything that’s available to us rn. Also, someone, don’t remember who, said in an interview that Komeji is one of their faves, which is interesting. Komeji is divorced and Shoma is his son. Following the game’s theme of having two halves, Komeji has two metaphorical halves, his comedian self who wears the block head, which I imagine is fake (?), and his self outside of work. If it is fake, he literally has two faces. He can’t balance these two sides at first and is always playing the comedian role, causing his wife to leave him and his son to resent him, but later on, he learns to pay more attention to his home life as well. He mends his relationship with Shoma, allowing his two halves to exist in equilibrium.

#nirvanai #ai nirvana initiative #nirvana initiative #aini #hidden bats #aitsf nirvana initiative #ai the somnium files nirvana initiative #ai the somnium files #aitsf #why are there so many tags for this game omg we need to just choose one #very excited to see the end of the bats arg #and the game ofc #the preview video looks so good #probably gonna block all ai tags for a few weeks tho *sob*

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mybg3notebook · 3 years

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Gale Summarised Analysis

Disclaimer Game Version: All these analyses were written up to the game version v4.1.104.3536 (Early access). As long as new content is added, and as long as I have free time for that, I will try to keep updating this information. Written in May 2021.

The majority of sources used for this article are in the game itself (this includes my Gale-solo playthroughs as well as a combination of the videos by munmomuu and selphie1999), and the few dev’s notes provided by pjenn. Gale as origin is not taken into account since it’s not finished and has little to none Gale-related content. There will be little datamining content as well since pjenn said the game contained almost no gale-related notes (only in the Weave and in the Revelation scene).

Additional disclaimers about meta-knowledge and interpretations in (post)

The number between brackets [] represents the topic-block related to (this post), which gathers as much evidence as I could get.

We can infer about Gale by analysing what he approves and disapproves of. Sometimes, we can even lightly infer some information from his neutral reactions, but let’s be honest: this way of analysing a char is pretty poor since it leaves everything to speculation. Neutral reactions can only be analysed, in very rare instances, by contrasting the same situation in other contexts, and seeing what other options Gale approves or disapproves of. With these considerations in mind, we can proceed to describe this character.

Disclaimer: this is a meta with my personal interpretation of the character, sticking as much as possible to the facts and leaving little to “desires” or “projections” of what I want him to be. If I do so, I will state it explicitly in the text for the sake of analysis honesty. I want to be clear about what is canon (facts shown in bg3 EA), from what’s personal interpretation with little proof.

Understanding Gale (integrated text)

We are none of us monsters. We are merely hatcheries for monstrous things. So we fight them

---Gale

Collecting most of the information provided in-game, we know he has a cat, a Library, and writes poetry sometimes. One of the first things that Gale will reveal is that he is a private person. He easily and clearly sets boundaries from the first moment, showing Tav where they stand. The second aspect he makes us aware of is his pragmatic thinking and his preference for diplomatic approaches. A third aspect that stands out on its own: he is a very verbose person, maybe as a result of his academia background in combination with his poetry hobby. He also has a bad posture when talking, but I’m not sure if this is intentional or a bug.

We can assure that Gale certainly is a man of the city [13], and may have a decent social status. It's impossible to say for sure if it's noble or rich or both, or it is just a natural consequence of being a wizard scholar: he is frustrated by the harshness of the camping life, he misses the civilisation of the city which offers well cooked meals, soft beds, and scented baths. Not by chance he is the only companion in the group who would approve of giving Oskar 200 gold to fight “the discomforts of the road” [13]. However, he adapts. Despite the lack of luxuries, he managed to survive in the wilderness.

Gale and his link with magic is unquestionable. Magic is life for Gale, metaphorically and literally speaking since it's magic what allows him to stay alive despite the "orb" in his chest. If we talk about Magic, we have to talk about Mystra and the Weave. The Weave is not only the embodiment of Mystra, it's an extension of Mystra herself. It extends across many planes of existence and is in almost all parts of Faerûn. By dragging power from it, Magic can be performed.

Mystra, for lore reasons and conjectures that I will discuss in the post "Mystra and her Chosen ones", turned teenager/young adult Gale into one of her Chosen, making their relationship more intimate and granting Gale a deeper access to the Weave. This put Gale into the category of an archwizard. It's clear that Gale was and still is a devotee of Mystra, which could give us a hint of his alignment since she is a neutral good goddess and she expects for her Chosen to align around it.

Gale likes confidence, in others and in himself. He is confident in his looks (he has described himself as a “handsome devil” and answered during the romance/Revelation scene that he knew he was beautiful under the light as well as Tav). But beyond these two lines, qualifying him as a narcissist seems extreme. He is surely very confident about his knowledge, and we see he is not just mere words: his Mind Flayer knowledge is at the the same level of what githyankis know. If we compare how Astarion/Tav struggled with the book of Thay, and then we see how Gale manages it (sadly the scene is not complete yet in EA, and there is almost no datamining info of Gale), we can conclude once more that his knowledge and power of the mind are real (he is, so far, the main companion who allows us to explore the lore of the game in a deeper way during his conversations). We also know it's a bit more complicated to intrude into his mind using the tadpole because he has knowledge and mental tools to protect himself (check the post about the Tadpole inside Gale). He is certainly a very verbose and confident scholar, who knows his limits, and in occasions he seems to dabble into an ego-teasing play as an attempt of levity, displaying his “insufferable side”, as he has described himself (his self-awareness of these traits is remarkable, and it is the reason why I avoid qualifying him as arrogant. Arrogant chars are hardly self-aware of their own bad manners or insufferable traits). But we can see it's usually done as a joke or, with an evil Tav, as an aggressive reaction. For a deep analysis of this aspect, check the post about "Gale Hypotheses- Part 2", section: "Narcissism".

Based on his approvals and disapprovals, we can see that Gale has a strong preference in avoiding fights, violence, and bloodshed [1]. He will always prefer diplomatic and persuasive approaches [2]. Reasoning is his best weapon, but if the individual we are dealing with can hardly be persuaded, he would approve of a deception or an intimidation as long blood is not spilt. Here is where we see his pragmatism in action, all the time. His primary goal at every moment is to avoid bloodshed. His philosophy could be summed up in the line “the means [as long as they don’t kill gratuitously] hardly matter if the end is worthy”. And for Gale, nothing is more worthy than life [3]. This doesn't cover only the life of innocents he cares about, it includes the life of the most dubious characters as well, such as Rugan or Crusher. Gratuitous death is meaningless for him. During the scene of Nettie we can have a glimpse of his philosophy towards life: he viscerally hates treating life as if it were nothing:

Gale: How dare she snuff out life with as much thought as snuffing out a bloody candle? […] It's not right to feel the cold breath of death in your neck, then move on as if it was nothing but a soothing breeze. One respects life by fighting for it, and one respects death by fearing it.

Gale: One should never be afraid to live life to the fullest.

Probably the limited amount of life he has due to the "orb" increased his sense of respect for life and its celebration. I personally understand Gale as a character who embodies the perspectives of a seriously ill person, knowing that their life may be short, but they will try to make the best out of it.

He doesn't only respect life per se, he also cares about its dignity. This can be seen in his explicit rejection to undead existences such as Connor (he explains that it would be merciful to put an end to his undead nightmare), or in his disapprovals of humiliation and torture [9]

We could suspect that this emphasis in protecting any life comes from the fact that only people who are alive can (sometimes) be forgiven or/and change. This is not explicit, but since he is a character who talks about being better and wiser than his previous self, about acknowledging mistakes, about forgiveness, this interpretation seems reasonable.

These concepts of kindness and compassion combined with “the mistakes of the youth” are repetitive in his interactions and approvals [5,12]. Of course, they echo in his soul since they are reflections and desires of his own experience. This pattern covers forgiving children in particular [5], and disapproving hard judgements [16], especially on matters whose story is not fully understood by Tav. This means he doesn't like quick judgements when he doesn't know the whole story first. This scenario can be easily seen during Karlach's quest, he reserves his judgment until knowing Karlach's side: There are always two sides to each story.

Gale: I have to say I don't know if agreeing to this hunt was such a wise idea. Who's to say who's the real villain in this tale of devils and masquerades? [...]When we track Karlach down, let's chat before we chop.

Similar concept appears during his Revelation scene, when he encourages and keeps asking Tav to listen to him first before judging. This is also the reason why in his Loss scene he would disapprove if Tav quickly assumes that his loss of Mystra was due to arrogance. Tav judged him without knowing the whole story. However, once Tav knows the whole story, Gale will accept any judgement from them without approval penalties during the Revelation scene.

He approves all actions that imply helping others in hard times and disapproves of them if they were done out of greed [4]. He is an animal lover [6,7]. Being kind to animals and treating them good will increase his approval, while animal cruelty will earn his disapproval. Same goes for humanoids: any display of gratuitous violence that could have been prevented with a trick or a diplomatic approach, any humiliation forced upon others, any torture or situation of slavery, is disapproved [8, 9, 11].

In particular, Gale seems to advocate the philosophy of “give others their own medicine”[18] or in other words: poetic justice. We can see this during the Myconid colony; he approves of helping the Myconid to avenge the young killed by the Duergar, adding the comment: “Wicked killers deserve wicked ends”. He is implying to give them a similar, wicked medicine to the Duergars. Another less deadly situation of this kind is shown during the foot situation with Crusher: Gale is the one suggesting “pungent poetic justice” and telling Tav that they should force Crusher to kiss their feet.

The most iconic scene, however, is during Nettie's, if Tav lies during her interrogation. As a hot-headed reaction, Gale states that he would have poisoned Nettie if this situation would have happened to him. Although, after calming down, he approves of and confirms Tav's actions [if Tav managed to persuade Nettie to give them the antidote]

Gale: A taste of her own medicine is what she deserves! […] But you handled it, and you handled it well.

In this scene we also see a pattern: Gale is shown as a fallible human; his most visceral reaction during the first moment is anger and indignation, giving us a hint that he is not so rational when it comes to emotional states. An extremely obvious, human concept.

The scene of Nettie trying to kill a potential menace (the victim of a MF) reverberated in his consciousness, projecting immediately a fact in his mind: if he ever dares to reveal his "orb" problem, and anyone knows what a danger he represents—no matter how stable it looks—people will want to remove the menace by killing him.

This is the reason behind his words “It's just that, had it been me... had it been...” Gale knows that this simplistic and common thinking in removing what's dangerous would end up turning into a more destructive tragedy in his case than in any infected victim of the tadpoles. So this combination makes us see, for the first time, an emotional Gale. After some seconds, he cools down and returns to his more rational, diplomatic, and moderate self. What we can read here is that Gale would be very prone to rush decisions or to make mistakes under emotional circumstances. We will learn later that the other mistake he made under emotional stress ended up with the "orb" stuck in his chest. A third mistake was done during the party, once more under the emotional stress of a potential abandonment by Tav due to the true nature of the orb.

Everything related to the “orb”—which is his most traumatic experience—naturally makes him more emotional and prone to mistakes. To see how truly traumatic the "orb" is in his life we can notice the following patterns during the meeting scene: he speaks about the tadpole in a relaxed, rational way, despite the traumatising experience. He first asks for an archwizard instead of for a cleric, because his priority is the orb. Gale's main fear is not the tadpole, but the orb. If we remember his words after the consumption of the artefacts, we realise he lives in a permanent state of anxiety and raw fear, and probably pain too, given his facial gesticulation when anything interacts with the "orb" (whether artefacts or Tav's hand). His banter with Shadowheart reinforces the concept that he always has a knot in the stomach. When he accepts the deal with Raphael, it seems to be related to the orb, not to the tadpole. The effect of the "orb" has ceased, but the tadpole is still in Gale's head since we still need to roll against a high DC and not only against a 1DC during this scene, so we can assume he still has the tadpole despite Raphael's deal. See the post about "The Tadpole" in Gale for more details.

Gale is a character that represents human experiences deeply related to growing up: mistakes done in the past, and the acceptance of not being forgiven despite the desire of wanting to. This can be easily seen during the conversation of the second tadpole dream, where Gale's mood is foul and we learn that his deepest desire is for Mystra to forgive him, but he also knows it's impossible for that to happen. He detects the lie in this dream because he has accepted that Mystra will never forgive him. Gale is the story of mistakes done during youth with grave consequences, of acknowledging them and trying to make them right, of surviving those mistakes, and depending on the interpretation, he is also the story of an ill dying man, with a gentle vision and deep care for life.

The great majority of his approvals are based on actions that show kindness and compassion, both reiterative concepts that are so important in his character that they come from his lips when we see the goblin party:

Gale: The shadow within is spreading like poison, corrupting kindness and compassion. [Only after a tough DC of 15]

In combination with: Gale: I don't know myself anymore. All this... It's not who I am. Around you, I'm not who I want to be. I should leave.

These lines show how, in a sudden change to an evil path, Gale would start doubting his own morality, explaining that the cause of it is the "orb" itself, corrupting the most core aspects of his personality. This corruption may or may not be lore-related. It's not completely clear what Gale's "orb" truly is. For more details, check the post of the "Orb".

His constant critical thinking comes from his advocacy to non-conventionality [15]: a true scholar will always explore all the options and hypotheses before reaching a conclusion. Therefore, Gale would approve of any non-conventional way to fix a problem [15] as long as it doesn't potentially cause harm or bloodshed [1,2,3,8,9]. Due to his own background, Gale will always advise to be very careful of the consequences of one’s actions. This can be easily seen when, after encountering the caged goblin Sazza, Gale would advocate to explore the possibility of reaching Gut Priestess to cure the tadpole. However, when Tav helps Sazza to escape, Gale will comment briefly against this action.

Gale: I know I said it's not inconceivable a goblin priestess could help us. And yet... was it really wise to set another goblin free so she can arrange introductions? […] consider the consequences. What if she leads her entire tribe to the grove? Tav: I don't care, I owe this grove no allegiance. Gale: No allegiance, no. Though we don't need to sign its death warrant

Once more we see that Gale is up to using any (unharming) means to get a goal, but not at any cost. He has a clear line he doesn't like to cross: life [3]. Avoiding putting other people's lives in danger is very important for him. We see this concept over and over in most scenes.

He doesn't likerushed decisions, and in that same train of thoughts, he will disapprove any use of unknown magic or tricks when nobody in the group can truly understand how they work [17], for example the tadpoles or Raphael's deal (he is against accepting it quickly, but he will approve of having a more cautious attitude and carefully thinking about it).

Since the moment we meet him, we can infer he is obsessed with the artefacts. It's obviously understandable: he doesn't want to die, but also, he doesn't want to kill all those that will be caught in the eruption of the orb. For this reason he will insist on the loot in the Temple Ruins despite knowing that grave robbery is not correct.

Gale: Bad form, isn't it? Grave robbing? […] Let's have a look at the loot. It isn't for your pockets only.

He keeps pondering life over death: although he respects the dead, he will always value more the living creatures in the present. This is also what pushes Gale to suggest Tav to open Rugan's chest. Stealing from the evil Zhentarins is not something that will weigh on his consciousness too much. Besides, he knows it belongs to a wizard: meaning that the chance for it to contain a powerful artefact is really high. Similar suggestions will be said about the Idol of Silvanus, but talking with him in the camp will show us that he won't approve of taking it, only as a last resort. He keeps pondering the living over a sacred piece of stone, since he knows the druids won't take the stealing very peacefully. Once more we see Gale's respect and care for life, trying to minimise damage as much as the circumstances allow him.

Gale is also a survivalist. He doesn't want to die, he loves celebrating life in its more mundane and small details. He is an emotional character for a wizard, a bit strange since they are usually portrayed as more rational and cold, losing their lives among dusty books. However, Gale has shown in many scenes that he prefers to survive without killing, but if he has to, he will do it, dealing with the weight of it in his consciousness because killing unprovoked affects him (scene in the camp after killing the druids, or the goblin party scene).

His moral in preventing gratuitous death sometimes will conflict with his own survival, especially if he is by an evil Tav's side. He couldn't accept bloodshed when other peaceful options were available and possible to reach. This is clearly shown during the goblin party, where Gale's consciousness suffers and feels the corruption of the "orb" killing the kindness and the compassion inside him. He accepts that wanting to live is a powerful drive, but he doesn't support this massacre, questioning if all that blood was necessary. A Tav killing the tieflings seems to lose the possibility of pursuing Gale romantically, at least in EA so far. For Gale, survival is important, but the means to do it (when they can cause death) matter too. Life is worth preserving.

The usual archetype of survivalist tends to be an individualist one who would survive at any cost without remorse because that's the “law of the jungle”, the strongest must survive. However, Gale seems to embody a different concept of survivalist that it's hard to put in words: a sort of communal survivalist, trying to survive in coexistence with his community: he wants his survival to imprint the least harm possible (even though sometimes it would not be possible), trying to help those around him as long as his condition allows it; for example, despite wanting Gut's potential cure for the tadpole, he would disagree in helping Sazza escape because she will lead the goblins to the Grove, no matter the fact that doing this will grant them their introduction to the priestess.

His list of approval shows that his sense of survival is always pondered with the consequences that it can cause on others (check the post with the "Extensive list of Gale's approvals"). The whole concept of the "orb" has this motivation as well: he wants to live and survive, but he also can't give up because his body would kill many, so he needs to do as much as his moral allows him to keep it in check. If he cannot do it any longer, he promises to minimise the disaster as much as possible by erupting in the deep Underdark or in a desolated corner of Faerûn (and considering his ridiculous list of approvals and disapprovals, we know he is honest in not wanting to kill gratuitously). Gale acknowledges his own mistakes, trying—to the best of his ability—to deal with them without catching others in them. Although all his speeches keep emphasising that he is a mere human, and plans may fail.

At some point, if he wants to survive “not at any cost”, he will be forced to ask Tav for help during the scene of the stew (available only for medium approval or higher). As a gesture of honesty, Gale will set a boundary before making this request, acknowledging its unfairness but giving Tav the decision to proceed or not. He is not denying to explain the details later, but at the moment he can't speak the “why” of his condition no matter how curious Tav is. Tav will decide whether they can keep their curiosity on the matter.

We will understand later that this impediment comes as a precaution as well as consequence of his personal trauma with Mystra and the "orb" (See post about "Gale: Manipulation, Lies, and Trust"). So, he is very clear about setting the conditions in which this conversation will happen from the beginning. The easiest way for Gale to avoid this whole situation would have been by simply lying, but he opted for an honest approach with clear out-loud reservations, knowing he was asking for more trust than he was allowed to, but the intention behind is more than important. There is a clear, huge contextual detail that we can't miss: this scene doesn't happen because of Gale's whims, he is forced to ask for help since his condition “is not a patient one” and will endanger everyone if not kept at bay.

This detail where Gale explicitly asks for an exchange of trust is not present if Gale's approval is neutral or lower. In this case, Gale would not care about giving a context to his strange request: he doesn't trust Tav and he doesn't expect to be trusted either, he only wants the artefacts to keep his condition in check for his sake and the sake of others. We can understand this change of attitude depending on the approval as he doesn't want to give any extra explanation to someone he is not interested in building a relationship with. For more details, check the post about "Gale: Manipulation, Lies, and Trust".

I personally support the idea that nobody in canon Faerûn is free of racial prejudices since Forgotten Realms lore has been created based strongly on fantasy racism. I've read that WotC wants to move forward and improve this aspect in 5e, but so far what they allowed Larian to do with the Tieflings in BG3 seems to show the contrary. So, since apparently we are going to face fantasy racism anyways, I will try to analyse racial prejudices from all chars. When it comes to Gale, it's a bit far-stretched to point out unjustified racial biases. He has a vague comment about Rashemi that some people may consider a faerunian saying. Personally, I think that line is a bias forced into him to have a particular dynamic with Minsc (the Rashemi “silly” companion -we all can see where Larian seems to go with this). Gale clearly sees tieflings, gnomes, and even goblins as people, and has a cautious attitude towards some githyanki (at least that's what we can infer with Lae'zel when we find her in the cage), but given the githyanki lore it's pretty reasonable to see them as dangerous creature that could kill people on the spot. So far, he seems to have no racial preference either [10].

As it was said before, he prefers to avoid killing people, but that doesn't mean he won't do it if his life depends on it. He will prefer persuasive and defusing approaches, but if he needs to kill to defend innocents or his own life, he won't hesitate. So therefore, stories about characters making mistakes or having violent excess in an effort to protect themselves or what they hold dear will be understood by him but hardly approved [19]. He tends more to approve a call out of that excess than approving an excuse for it.

Gale has deep abandonment issues that can be easily seen when he defends Astarion from being handed over to Gandrel. We need to put this in context before going on: for Gale, Astarion represents a danger as a vampire who attacked one of them during their sleep. By the display of meta-knowledge, we know with certainty that their approvals and disapprovals are mostly opposite: What one approves, the other will disapprove and vice versa. Getting rid of Astarion should be something that Gale would approve, however, he doesn't. If we explore his comments we will realise that what Gale disapproves from this situation is Tav's abandonment. After Mystra's abandonment, he knows very well that “Loyalty is such a very rare commodity”, and the few situations in EA in which Tav can display abandonment, resound strongly in Gale.

Gale is a scholar with a strong balanced rational side. But unlike the trope, he also embraces an emotional side that, so far the info we received in EA, it's the side that makes him prone to mistakes.

As an amateur poet, Gale loves words. We can obviously notice this in his verbose attitude, but also in the way he carefully uses words. One of his characteristic words is “spectacle”. He has also shown a reiterative—although not always—uneasy use of the word “fun”. Using “fun” as a way to describe the night spent with Gale gives him a slight uneasiness. “That’s a word for it.” He disapproves of using the word “Fun” after the Mayrina/Connor situation, in which scene Gale alludes that “your new company may be a proof of how depraved and twisted you are to see that tragedy as “fun”. Personally I think this is a direct allusion to Astarion, who considers Mayrina's situation as “entertainment”, in the same way he considered as “fun” the show of Arabella's death (two of several instances where he used that word). Gale also doesn’t use the word sex during EA, instead he uses romantic ones such as love-making, intimacy, art of the night/body. In the most technical case: coitus (used only when he is talking about “goblinoid intimacy” in the expression “post-coital snack”). These details are showing not only his poet/romantic side, but also his interpretation of sex from his perspective: sex can only be possible through a connection. We know he doesn’t engage in casual sex with Lae’zel if he is not romanced, and his romance can only potentially start if Tav shares that deep connection with him through the Weave.

Another detail related to words is that Gale has always used an infection/disease-related vocabulary to explain the “orb” stuck in his chest: infested, taint, shadow spreading

[…] I failed to control [this chaotic magic]. Instead it infested me. […] This Netherese taint... this orb, for lack of a better word [..] […] the shadow within is spreading like poison, corrupting kindness and compassion. [...]

Gale apparently has a particular way to sense magic. I have no way to check this in-game, but it seems very strange how he immediately identifies magical artifacts without casting Detect Magic. There are some extra scenes as well where he says to taste or smell the magic in some objects. Even his encounter with Shadowheart, besides being considered a flirt, could be also interpreted as him detecting the magic that we saw later in her hand or maybe the dark magic that blocks her memories, since Gale pointed out about a curtain covering her soul: “if the eyes are the mirror to the soul, yours have dark curtains across the mirror” (a very ominous flirting if it’s only a flirt)

This makes me suspect that, if the "orb" is not giving him this skill, it may be a consequence of having been Chosen of Mystra (for more details read the post about "Mystra and her Chosen ones"). If this is the case, he may have hindered remains of theirs powers when it comes to detect magic at will.

Gale has a perception of magic with all the senses: he sniffs and tastes magic. During the mirror scene you have an option related to [Arcana] tag where he “Sniff the mirror, trying to understand the nature of its magic”. A wizard Tav will just “Inspect the mirror”. He also said that he could “taste” the magic in the necromancy book and in the runes of teleportation.

What we know of his family is little: when he was a kid there was a housekeeper in his life (mentioned only once during the scene of the harpies) and his mother that seemed to have personally raised and cared for him (mentioned twice: in the ruin temple scene, and in his banter with Wyll)

Tav: Why care about decorum in a long-abandoned tomb? Gale: Because my mother raised a gentleman. Then again, to be alive is to be curious.

Wyll: Between the orb and the bug you've got more than your fair share of unwelcome passengers. Gale: What can I say. Mother always taught me to be a gracious host.

This post was written in May 2021. → For more Gale: Analysis Series Index

#bg3 meta #gale #gale of waterdeep #bg3 gale #bg3 early access #bg3

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tinyrogue · 3 years

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Not much to see here, just some thoughts I had while playing Baldur’s Gate 3 about the roster and the possible future companions.

No matter, if you don’t want to see anything potentially spoiler-y, be sure to stay away from the Read More ;-)

After watching some of Minthara’s dialogues (because I haven’t managed to bring myself to go down the evil route with any of my chars yet) - and especially the ones after you decided to share your bedroll with her - I’m pretty convinced that Minthara would be an option for a Cleric in your party. The evil party, to be precise.

When we get to the Goblin Camp and examine Minthara, everything about her tells us she’s a Cleric - she’s wielding a mace + shield, her wisdom stat sits at 18, she can cast Cleric-related early level spells such as Bless and Guiding Bolt.

So what I get from Minthara’s romance is that she’s genuinely upset at having to kill you. She implies that in a multitude of dialogue branches and is even willing to go against the Absolute’s wishes and let you live, hoping to prove herself worthy in the Absolute’s eyes so she may be granted the chance to be with you again.

Talk about ask for forgiveness, not for permission. This alone is curious, considering how devoted she seems to be to the Absolute.

Then she mentions that she has business to attend to in Moonrise Towers, the seat of the Absolute’s power. Which is also conveniently the exact place we must go ourselves.

So what I believe is that we get to Moonrise Towers before we actually get to Baldur’s Gate. However, it will only be a brief visit. Because, as mentioned before, Moonrise Towers is the seat of the Absolute’s power.

And what are we? That’s right; a bunch of weak level 4 adventurers with no real power just yet :o)

I think that something will happen at Moonrise that forces us to flee from there to Baldur’s Gate and lick our wounds, gathering strength for an assault much, much later in the game when we’re actually powerful enough to march on the Absolute.

So this first detour to Moonrise Towers might be where we meet Minthara again, eventually getting an opportunity to recruit her.

And this line of thought brings me to the alignment system. Many fans already suspect that Shadowheart isn’t half as evil-aligned as Larian tries to sell us. And I’m full on-board with that as well.

She approves of kind and merciful actions, of you petting Scratch in camp (best doggo ♥) and of aiding the tieflings in the Grove. None of that points towards a Neutral Evil alignment.

There are a ton of hypotheses about her actually being a good-aligned character, but having been effed over by Shar worshippers yadda yadda. Also we have datamined spoilers that I’ll not mention here because duh. But if anyone who reads this has their curiosity peaked: Redditors have got you covered, folks.

Really, Shadowheart is kind of difficult to pin down. Her reactions lean towards a good alignment, but I could also see her as a Neutral character, possibly True Neutral - like, a blank slate. You know, malleable :)

Anyways. Assuming Shadowheart turns out to be a good-aligned Cleric, surely we deserve an evil-aligned Cleric as well, don’t we?

Enter: Minthara!

I think that first visit to Moonrise might be an opportunity to recruit Minthara. Provided of course that she doesn’t die during your shenanigans in the Goblin Camp.

If she doesn’t show up at Moonrise? This is where I think Shadowheart could be molded into a true evil-aligned character and fit nicely into your party of evil-doers. Might suck for you if you dislike her and end up being stuck with her though because Minthara’s dead off the table.

But if you let Minthara live through the first part of the game and meet her in Moonrise Towers (not even necessarily after sleeping with her), you might be able to convince her to break with the Absolute. I say this seeing as her conviction can be swayed if you’ve slept with her and persuade her to defy the Absolute’s will to kill you.

Seems to me like her loyalty’s not unbreakable (I mean, she already did turn her back on Lolth, right? And you can call her out on that, no less!).

It would be very cool if Larian actually have something like that planned. Knowing them, they probably wouldn’t shy away from some elaborate setup for a possible companion, seeing how much care and thought they put into the games they’re working on :>

So there you go. Just some thoughts I had on BG3 and all the NPCs we meet that could be potential party members.

Mind you, this is all based on what we currently get to experience during Early Access, so it all may be subject to change. But it would make sense in my eyes.

#baldur's gate #baldur's gate 3 #my two cents #spoilers #read at your own discretion #some thoughts i had while playing the early access #what do you guys think about it?#would you like to have minthara as a companion?#i know i sure do lol

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shazos · 5 years

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Undertale/Deltarune Theory: The Two Angels of The Prophecy

Since I’ve been playing Deltarune as of late, I thought I would share some very compelling details I’ve noticed in game that have been rolling around in my mind lately...

This is a theory pertaining both Undertale AND Deltarune, because I found connections between both of them interestingly enough. To start my theory off: I will begin with the very prominent theme in Deltarune of religion. There appears to be a strange emphasis on how religious the home town of Deltarune is, with everyone worshipping some deity called “The Angel.”

It seems to be done in such a manner, that it is building up that the town is worshipping some false God of sorts. The town itself feels very…off. A very ominous vibe to it, especially with the very creepy bunker to the south of town as well.

The question is.. who is this Angel..? To answer this question, we will have to dig deeper. Another notable theme in Deltarune, is that many items found in the Light World—represent places and people in the Dark World. It mirrors it, essentially.

In the light world school closet, the cards on the floor represent the card suite inhabitants/card castle. The plush doll represents Seam, etc. Additionally, the red horns in Kris’s house could symbolically represent Ralsei’s presence, with his little red horns.

However... even more interesting enough, is that in the town hospital can be found two angel dolls. One— that was made by Kris and Asriel, where they “wasted the whole time making big wings for it.”

And the other, which was made by Noelle and her friend—looked like a typical angel doll, only “it’s lack of facial features was unsettling.”

This appears to be clear symbolism for two different characters/angels... but whom? The first one, I believe matches the description of Asriel’s final form in Undertale perfectly: it has a rather disproportionate body, with huge over-sized, magnificent wings.

Additionally, Asriel’s final form matches up with the Deltarune of Gerson’s prophecy, with each part of his angel body aligning with the runes. Gerson also mentions an Angel in his prophecy, saying that it will free everyone from the underground—which Asriel does at the end of Undertale, with the power of the seven souls.

Then... who is the second angel, who is symbolically represented in the hospital? An angel we haven’t seen yet, but likely will at the end of Deltarune. Based off the evidence/implications given, I believe it is Gaster.

To begin, the second angel doll is described with a lack of features that makes it unsettling—which is very reminiscent of Gaster.

To build upon this, the angel of Undertale—Asriel— plays a focal point in Undertale’s story. He is not shown until the very end of the game, with the true ending, and is very mysterious at first. On top of this, many.. many songs in Undertale have the leitmotifs of Asriel’s theme: HIS theme.

Meanwhile, Deltarunes soundtrack is heavily focused around Lietmotifs of Gasters theme, with the intro song being called ANOTHER HIM... Another angel, if you will. This implies that he is going to play a heavy role in the story, which is very much seen on the surface level of Deltarune—with the involvement of the “strange knight” as well as the subtext with Jevils backstory, having met a man that made his vision of the world grow “Darker, yet darker” and made him go insane, as told by the tale Seam the shopkeeper tells the protagonist.

Additionally, the very first castle we see in the game--(not card castle, mind you) has wings on it... much akin to an angel’s, and is spewing a dark fountain forth from it.

At the end of the chapter of Deltarune, Susie shows clear concern that they did not get rid of the right fountain. One fountain—the original, brought the dark world its life. The other, an unnatural source of darkness to upset the balance. And Ralsei, strangely enough, eagerly directed Kris to get rid of the Card Castle fountain—not the one coming from the Angel’s castle. The Angel’s Castle is also an empty kingdom, with no subjects.. except Ralsei.

But who is the king? Nobody knows… And a very foreboding music plays in the castle town, adding to the mystery of it. Ralsei, who is quite suspicious enough as it is, (might go into this further in another theory later) will not let Kris inside the castle, stating that Kris must save the world/complete the prophecy first... and then they can come back. Ralsei acts very nervous and distraught when Kris keeps trying to enter the castle, and blocks him from going in. He then shuts Kris out of the kingdom gates, barring him off from going back inside--sinisterly enough.

Additionally, the plot of Deltarune is based off the prophecy, to “banish the Angels heaven”. This makes the Angel seem like a very malicious figure...but why? What are the Angels motives, and what is the “Angels heaven..?” Well, if you talk to Gerson in Undertale, he says an interesting bit of dialogue that could be interpreted a bit differently with my context/point of view. One could argue that he is talking about “the angel of hyper death”, Asriel, when he says the Angel of death, but I believe it not to be the case.

Gerson states the following:

“Lately, the people have been taking a bleaker outlook…callin that winged circle the “Angel of Death”.

A harbringer of destruction, and waitin to “free” us from this mortal realm…”

This seems like a much more sinister view of the Angel, and not like Asriel. Even though Asriel is very threatening, he is still pure of heart, and ends up saving all of Monsterkind in the end. The second angel however? Wants to “free” every one, and brings destruction in his wake. In Deltarune, we see much destruction and chaos being brought about by a strange “knight”, who appeared one day to take over the card kingdom and beyond, using the Chaos King to help him assert control.

Seam also mentions that he hasn’t seen this much chaos, since the incident that occurred with Jevil—which implies that the stranger and the strange mysterious knight are one and the same. So, what then is the meaning of “free us from this mortal realm…?”, from Gerson’s prophecy of the second angel? Well, interestingly enough: in Deltarune Jevil mentions this line of dialogue in his boss fight, which lines up perfectly with Gerson’s dark prophecy:

“I AM INNOCENT, INNOCENT. I JUST WANTED TO PLAY A GAME, GAME. BUT THE BORING KINGS FOUND SUCH FUN TO BE A TROUBLE. AS PUNISHMENT, THEY CRAVED TO IMPRISION MY BODY. THEY LOST THE CHASE, AND LOCKED UP THEIR ENTIRE RACE, BUILDING A PRISON AROUND THE WHOLE WORLD. NOW I’M THE ONLY FREE ONE”.

This is extremely significant, because Jevil was made aware by the Knight that the world is only a game, and that he can become “free” by ignoring the rules of the game, if you will—to become sentient of the game itself. This matches up perfectly with Gaster: who after being shattered across time and space by falling into his creation, became aware that the world was all just a game.

So why usurp the Dark World? Presumably, to make everyone aware that it is all just a game: to save them, from being stuck forever without choice. To make them free…done in a very twisted way of course, taking over the kingdom, locking up the rulers and all.

So why do this? After all he was a former scientist of Asgore’s in Undertale. This is where the symbolism comes in, that I noticed. Gaster seems to be a “fallen angel” of sorts. He was driven into madness after “falling” into his creation— after messing with the balance of things. What that is exactly, is unknown at this time. But it is implied that he discovered the presence of timelines, and tried to figure out how to manipulate them.

This in a sense, was an act against nature/trying to defy god by trying to figure out the interworking’s of the world’s universe.

Additionally, in Deltarune there is a repeated theme of a “shining light” that guides you—where you save your Soul at. In the bible, the fallen angel Lucifer, who defied God, is likewise represented with a “shining light”. In the files, Gaster is also associated with the number 666—which aligns with the prophecy of him being a dark, fallen angel.

One could even argue his font/name Wingdings is symbolic, from the wing in the name. It isn’t a stretch to say that Toby got some inspiration from the Bible--he has gotten many inspirations from Undertale from various sources, including Asriel’s symbolism from a Hebrew god/demon named Azrael.

To add unto this theory that links both Asriel and Gaster together as being both angels, is that both were striken by tragedy. Asriel was killed at a very young age, and is forever stuck in an endless purgatory in the body of a flower. Meanwhile, Gaster was forgotten by everyone, including the ones he held closest, and was shattered across time and space. Both characters are implied to have been driven to madness because of this, but with Asriel having a bit more heart/sympathy to him in the very end, (due to having the power of the human Souls to feel compassion again) and freeing all of monsterkind out of a deep care for Frisk.

Gaster on the other hand…? Seems to be a lot more unforgiving, and much more threatening, seen by his heavily implied actions in Deltarune, taking over kingdoms without mercy, and establishing his power in the Dark World.

Another notable feature between the two characters, is that they both have black markings on their faces, stretching down from their eyes—(Asriel’s markings are seen during his final boss fight.) What are these? Well…one datamined detail (sourced from the Deltarune reddit) from Deltarune might be the answer to this question.

Both Asriel and Gaster have gone through incredible suffering, so this “pain” could have essentially manifested into the black markings, similar to tears. In the beginning of Deltarune, with the player’s encounter with the narrator/ Gaster, (or at the very least heavily implied...he speaks in the exact same manner) he asks the player what their favorite food is. Two answers, that immediately stand out as strange and bizarre—are pain, and cold—which at first glance is just an off the wall comment/dialogue option, but upon second glance gives us a window into what he has gone through—painful suffering, much like Asriel did, on a plane of existence where they could do nothing. Both characters also have committed horrible actions, due to their fall into madness, (Asriel as Flowey, being stuck in a soulless vessel for ages,) and Gaster, due to existential madness from realizing the entire world is just a game, presumably overthrew an entire kingdom to “free” everyone.

(Almost forgot--) Additionally, another piece of dialogue which links together the Knight and the Angel being one and the same—is a dialogue seen from the Chaos King/Spade King himself. During the battle with him—he mentions multiple times how he obeys the word of the Knight, and with him he shall make a “new world out of Holy Shadows”, which backs up my theory even more, that the folks of the Light world are worshiping a false idol, a dark angel to destroy them all.

Sound familiar...?

I believe this is made all the more likely with Undertale being a mirror to Deltarune and vice versa—it would make all the more sense that each game would have an Angel character, considering each deals with a prophecy containing the Deltarune. One Angel of Light, and one of Dark.

EDIT: Here are some additional findings that make this come all together even more.

*In Undertale, every zone’s monsters reflect the boss monster of the area. (The monsters in Alphys zone are all anime related. The ones in Undyne’s zone are all muscular/into piano like her, etc...) the only area in the game that doesn’t make sense is Mettaton’s zone in the Core. The mobs don’t suit him at all: except when you realize that he wasn’t meant to be the true boss of the Core in the first place, since Alphys made him. If Gaster hadn’t died/become shattered across time and space, he would have been the likely boss monster of that area. What is notable, is that all of the enemies of the Core are primarily knights, mad, some of them use crosses as attacks, have wings, one of them uses a “Morningstar” as a weapon, (possible reference to Lucifer Morningstar) and you have to defeat some of the monsters by “praying”. Not symbolizing Mettaton at all—but rather Gaster, showing that the foreshadowing seen in Deltarune is indeed likely correct.

*The egg in Deltarune is a possible reference to the tale of Adam and Eve, as it aligns very well. A mysterious figure tempts someone behind a tree with a “fruit of knowledge”. Kris is offered the egg by “him”, presumably Gaster. Taking the egg to the Light-World doesn’t change it like all the other items in the game—it still exists in the Light-World—showing the forbidden knowledge that the world is all just a game. Even though it is a secret/not accessed by usual means, the egg is additionally a key item—that might prove more important by the end of the game.

#deltarune #undertale #undertale theory #deltarune theory #asriel #asriel dreemurr #gaster #theories #theory #game theory #heree we go again #my incoherent rambles #but at least with more evidence this time!#warning long post

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aesthetic-survivor-of-twd · 5 years

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I keep on hearing that Aasim used to have a crush on Louis, but they cut it from the game. Do you have proof of that by any chance? You seem to have everything twdg related lol

Lol I was actually the person who told people about it. Basically there was an implication of Aasim liking Louis within the game files back when we were datamining the demo of the game (the demo actually had the entirety of episode 1 and a little bit of episode 2 in it’s data before the full episode itself had even dropped! - whether or not it’s still there I have no idea, but I encourage people to check and see if they want to find it).

Not sure if I actually posted screenshots of it on the blog or not, but if I have then it should be around the 1st - 2nd month of my Archive from when I created my blog :) I do know I had it on Twitter in my group chat, but the person helping me with the files got banned so I don’t know if it’s still there or not - I will post it here if it is. We also found parts of episode 2 as well in it (my header for my blog is actually the datamined image of the Louis scene lol)

It’s nothing really amazing or “wow” worthy though tbh.

Basically it was just part of the ending choices/character screens from episode 1 that often tell you the choices you made in the game as well as the character’s reactions to certain things.

Aasim’s character screen mentioned him feeling jealous at Louis’ flirtation with Clem during the hunting scene (it kinda seems like you got it regardless if you chose to go hunting and not fishing - so it’s not dialogue based or anything).

When we first saw this in the files, the natural reaction was: “Oh, Aasim must have a crush on Clem”. Because that’s kind of the conclusion you naturally come to when you’re playing as a character of the opposite sex (since it’s usually the typical trope).

But then there was a part during the title screen for the “letting AJ read Aasim’s diary” choice which actually mentioned him feeling embarrassed by it.

To add onto that, during the actual scene itself (so not the end title screen) it mentions the part where AJ (seemingly) starts reading his journal and Louis’ name gets mentioned a few times in it (implying that the journal entry AJ is reading is actually about Louis).

That’s basically it though. It’s more heavy implication than anything else, but i’m convinced that’s what they were going for with his character originally.

It’s worth noting though that the game files/data isn’t written like a normal coherent script though (hard to explain but if you look at game files you’ll know what I mean), so if you’re expecting something that reads like actual dialogue from the game throughout the entire thing then you’re going to be kinda disappointed. It’s more of a combination of coding terms for the most part with some pieces of dialogue script that you kinda need to piece together with the context.

As a bonus, another discovery made at the same time was “Violet” and then the word “Smoking” close to it. We theorised that Violet was originally going to be a smoker, but tbh looking back on it - that part could have just been linked to the scene of finding Abel’s bible cigarette (which is kind of a bummer but heyo lol).

#twdg aasim #twdg louis #lousim

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inktank-thinktank · 5 years

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Splatocalypse Now

My friends, the final Splatfest is upon us. And you know what that means. Plot implications for Splatoon 3.

We have been looking over the material released for Splatocalypse, and have prepared some analysis and interpretation, to not only help you make what you deem is the correct choice for the Splatfest, but also to prepare you for what is to come.

I’m warning you now, if you click into the Read More, there will be major spoilers for nearly every aspect of the Final Fest: Splatocalypse event, INCLUDING datamined material. Enter at your own risk.

First, we should note the theming. 'Splatocalypse'. This theme of a Splatoon apocalypse pops up in many places in the material we are to observe, and seems an almost overbearing theme. Nintendo is being direct this time - what happens is going to deeply impact the world of Splatoon.

Indeed, the music that plays during the trailer, according to the Live in Makuhari album coming out three days after the Splatfest ends, is called 'Haikara (Inkopolis) Memorial Mixtape', by DJ Octavio.

EDIT: OatmealDome has informed me that Haikara Memorial Mixtape is likely a NEW song that we have not heard yet! The song in the trailer is most likely ‘SPLATOCALYPSE （ファイナルフェス告知映像BGM）’ (SPLATOCALYPSE - Final Splatfest Announcement Video BGM), the immediately previous track on the album.

After a brief summary of Splatfests to-date, we open to Pearl and Marina. When Pearl is on-screen, we get a sound effect of rushing flames, while Marina is accompanied by sounds reminiscent of computers and technology. This is notable, especially when viewed in combination with other material, giving us an... 'inkling', of what is to come. The first thing that I think needs considering in combination with this is the Splatfest gear.

What we see is quite telling.

In English, the gear names are ‘Jetflame Crest’ (the motorbike helmet), ‘Fierce Fishskull’ (the fish skull, obviously), ‘Eye of Justice’ (the helmet with the screen on it), and ‘Hivemind Antenna’ (the shades).

As per this Reddit post, which we will be referencing a lot going forward, the names are ‘Burning Broiler’, ‘Giga Fishbone’, ‘Justice Brain’, and ‘Cosmic Antenna’.

Team Chaos’ gear puts off an air of being very ‘Mad Max’-inspired, very befitting of both ‘chaos’ and the apocalyptic themes. It is also worth noting that the helmet containing the word ‘broiler’ in the name is a connection to the Salmonids, who we know from the Splatoon 2 Ikasu Art Book use cooking implements as weaponry because they see life and death and consumption of other living things as all part of a cycle.

Similarly, we know that sunglasses of the shape the Hivemind Antenna / Cosmic Antenna take have historically been linked to Octarian mind control technology, such as the hypnoshades worn by Callie and the Octolings you fight in Hero Mode 2.

It is not difficult then to surmise that Team Chaos ties in to the concept of a Mad Max style apocalyptic wasteland, somehow related to the Salmonids, while Team Order ties in to the concept of a false utopian society controlled by mechanisms of technological oppression.

Now, moving back to the trailer...

Over the course of the trailer, we are shown who is on each side, out of the major characters. I will summarize our beliefs as to why each character is on each side, as this will influence later covered topics.

TEAM CHAOS

Starting with Team Chaos, we have the Salmonids. This is quite obvious. The Salmonids have always been agents of chaos, chiefly known for overrunning early Inkling settlements and even going as far as consuming the Inklings within.

There is also Iso Padre, which may come as a surprise to some. However, as a former test subject of TARTAR’s, it is clear he would want as little to do with ‘order’ as possible when presented the option. He seems okay with Kamabo Co. in Octo Expansion, but in a way that seems...detached, wistful, almost like he’s given up on a life free of oppression.

Spyke is another obvious one, being a gangster and someone who, y’know, steals stuff and runs an actual pyramid scheme.

Agent 4 is also fairly obvious; official art depicting Agent 4 has always shown her to be a trickster of sorts, and less serious than her predecessor, Agent 3.

Callie is also an obvious one, being the spontaneous, excitable, freedom-and-fun-loving one out of the Squid Sisters.

Flow, being a ‘hippie’ of sorts, likely is on chaos in terms of ‘personal freedom’. And, y’know. Being able to be high all the time most likely.

For Annie, the first game implies that out of her and Moe, Moe is the one really ‘in charge’ of things, and, well... Moe is hard chaos. Play Splatoon Wii U, guys.

Li’l Judd is Team Chaos because as we know, he has an inferiority complex and resentment for Judd, being his clone, and generally is more of a tricksterish character. Also, being a kitten, Li’l Judd would likely be more playful, again ‘chaos’ as in ‘freedom’.

Pearl lays out her motivation for being Team Chaos rather starkly in the Splatfest announcement (which we will get to later).

And, I saved this one for last, because it’s somewhat surprising... Despite the Octarians being Team Order, Octavio is Team Chaos. This could be due to a thinking that he must win at any cost, and a willingness to use manipulation tactics to move his people towards supporting his war on Inkopolis. It could also be due to a mental slippage from so many repeated losses.

“But wait!” I hear you say. “If Octavio is Team Chaos, why are the shades, ostensibly tied to hypnosis, a Team Order gear piece?”

I would argue there that the hypnoshades, while used by Octavio, fit more into the Octarians’ wheelhouse of order through technology and regimentation.

TEAM NEUTRAL

Judd being Team Neutral is obvious. He judges the Splatfests, and unlike Li’l Judd, is generally more ‘neutral’ in tone.

Sheldon is probably Team Neutral because, well, he sells you weapons no matter what side you’re on in Splatfest, so...

And Mr. Grizz is Team Neutral because he’s out for his own interests, which exist apart from all other teams (note he’s apart from the rest of Team Neutral, and upside-down).

TEAM ORDER

Cap’n Cuttlefish is Team Order for having been part of the military, as well as actively fighting for the safety and security of Inklings.

Marie is Team Order being the more relaxed yet traditional one of the Squid Sisters.

Agent 8 is Team Order being an Octarian, and thus a part of their regimented society.

This brings us to the Octarians in general, who are Team Order being a regimented technocracy where large focus is put on people serving a specific function (see Marina’s Chat Room), as well as again the technological oppression aspects. They may also be simply following Marina, as we know that Agent 8 idolizes her, and that the Octolings who escaped to Inkopolis did so because they were inspired by her.

C.Q. Cumber is Team Order because, as Nintendo has stated, he really wasn’t concerned with what TARTAR was up to, he was just doing his job. Order at its finest.

TARTAR is Team Order for obvious reasons. It desires ‘order’ in the sense of purging the capricious, impulsive Inklings and petty, warlike Octarians, instead replacing them with a new ‘superior’ race of beings, created from its successful test subjects.

Agent 3 is Order because, well, she made the idea of ‘being the hero’ a central part of her identity, see adopting the ‘3′ cape into her outfit (something she had no reason to do).

Jelfonzo being Team Order makes sense, given that Nogami has stated that the Jellyfishes are all actually a large hivemind organism, who may have a significant hand in sponsoring Turf War, suggesting since Turf War is according to the Splatoon Ikasu Art Book largely subsidized by the government, the Jellyfish hivemind has a significant hand in Inkopolis’ government as well.

As with Pearl, we will discuss Marina’s choice more in-depth later, as it is looked at rather deeply in the Splatfest dialogue.

The only ones who we cannot seem to figure out are Murch, Bisk, and Crusty Sean, however we know that Sean has some...strangeness to him, only accepting tickets and getting defensive when you point this out, and the ‘Crustwear XXL’ shirt, a shirt advertising his food truck, being Grizzco gear. Perhaps he supports Team Order because of an involvement with corporate bureaucracy?

Similarly, my best guess with Murch is that, since he only engaged in the gear scrubbing and ordering scheme because he idolized Spyke, he realized at some point that Spyke was a criminal, and wanted to distance himself.

Now on to the leading ladies themselves. Pearl’s reasons for being Team Chaos run VERY deep, and a larger overall analysis is necessary.

Pearl’s motivation for Team Chaos seems to be primarily rooted in wanting a world that is ever-changing and not static, finding a world that stays the same boring and uneappealing. She also seems to act somewhat as an agent of chaos, declaring in the Splatfest dialogue both in English and Japanese that whichever side wins the Splatfest will be the form the world takes going forward.

In the English dialogue, she invokes ‘Splatfest law’, which is something created wholesale by Nintendo of America, however the implication either way is that whoever wins will remake the world in their own team’s image.

Additionally, in the Japanese dialogue, Pearl states “all I know is I don't want a world that's always like this!“, spoken in the same sort of way as when someone says things like ‘I wish things would be like this forever’.

Marina’s reasons for being Team Order as well are somewhat complex. She is primarily worried about stability and control over her life and her situation.

In fact, Pearl’s statements about Team Chaos, in the Japanese dialogue, are replied to in ways that show that she’s worried that Pearl would eventually even grow bored with Off the Hook, and flippantly want that to be over and ‘change’ as well.

It’s worth noting that Marina’s theming shows an erring towards technology, and technological order as we’ve seen before usually is something dangerous in the Splatoon universe. This may hint at what direction ‘her world’ would go in if she wins the final Splatfest.

Marina does, however, express trepidation in the Japanese dialogue about reshaping the world in the winner’s image, only doing so because Pearl is pushing things in that direction.

Moving forward, we will be addressing the assets and imagery the game has been preparing for the Splatocalypse event, and how that ties into the theming of a Splatoon apocalypse.

First, and the elephant in the room... ‘Dear Senpai’, or as it’s being called by Nintendo of America, ‘MC.Princess Diaries’, the new Shifty Station stage.

The stage is quite obviously based on another brush Inkopolis has had with the apocalypse, that being the NILS Statue fight from the Octo Expansion, where Pearl and Marina, with the help of Agent 8, narrowly stopped TARTAR from destroying Inkopolis. The fight, and indeed all Turf Wars in the Final Fest event, come complete with the discordant Turf War intro sound from Octo Expansion, and Dear Senpai comes with Hyperbombs and the ‘Princess Cannon’ (the Killer Wail from the first game). Information from OatmealDome states that three sets of Hyperbombs each appear throughout the match, each time consisting of two per team, while the Princess Cannon is spawned once per match for one player to use in the form of Pearl coming down from the helicopter outside the stage.

We know that Team Chaos is strongly coded to involve Salmonids, and we know Team Order is strongly coded to involve technological oppression, but again per OatmealDome we have our first look at how this would play out.

The stage chronologically takes place after the NILS Statue fight, with the wreckage of the NILS Statue seen in the background, being tended to and examined by Jellyfish, who again are part of the Inkopolis government. And, if you recall during the final fight, the NILS Statue is utterly swimming in TARTAR’s corruptive ooze, as well as the remains of TARTAR itself. Could we perhaps see the return of TARTAR via the Jellyfish hivemind? This would explain also how it would be Team Order despite being ostensibly dead.

You may wonder why I haven’t discussed the actual terrain of Dear Senpai, or the post-Splatfest dialogue. In fact, Nintendo pushed invalid dummy data in its place to prevent data mining. In the case of Dear Senpai, they pushed the Shifty Station from Frostyfest, and in the case of the post-Splatfest dialogue, barebones dialogue with nothing beyond a winning team announcement.

As most should already know, the Final Splatfest will have all 23 previous Shifty Stations on a rotation, two every two hours like the other maps, before running Dear Senpai for the final 24 hours. Interestingly, while we know that Dear Senpai is to take up the full final 24 hours , the two hours immediately preceding it also have only a single Shifty Station stage: Tentacle Warning / Sweet Valley Tentacles, the Shifty Station from the Squid vs. Octopus Splatfest. As a brief aside, all of the Shifty Station names in Japanese are puns on manga titles, and all the ones in English are puns on novels.

This is what the Inkopolis Square skybox will look like during the Final Fest. A video showing the Square with this skybox and Splatfest mode on can be found here. We don’t know what the Square‘s event decorations will be, if any, but this immediately brings something to mind: Blade Runner 2049.

Screenshot from the relevant point in the movie for reference.

Furthermore, at this screen when you press ZL+ZR, this sound plays. Sound familiar? It sounds to me like the clock tower bell in Majora’s Mask. In fact, both are the same note, a C4.

Additionally, we know that the music for the Final Fest is a combination of Off the Hook and Squid Sisters music. Per OatmealDome:

New battle music for Final Fest!

Ink Me Up by Squid Sisters (Splatoon 1)

Shark Bytes

Calamari Inkantation

Fly Octo Fly

New 1 minute left music!

Now or Never! by Off the Hook, feat Squid Sisters

Now or Never! by Squid Sisters

This suggests that the Squid Sisters are to play a major role; however they do not appear in any of the Final Fest assets, meaning this likely is hinting at them playing some role in the Final Fest’s impact on Splatoon 3. This is corroborated by their appearance in the Splatocalypse trailer, wearing Pearl and Marina’s signature crown and headphones, respectively.

In closing, I think it can be easily surmised just what is going on. Team Chaos has strong ties to Salmonids and a theme of Inkopolis being overrun or falling to ruin. Team Order has strong ties to TARTAR and themes of technological oppression and control. The Splatfest announcement dialogue implicates Pearl or Marina respectively as bringing on a possibly related, possibly simply additional, chaotic or orderly world for each bad outcome to exist in. And the strong focus on the Squid Sisters implicates that, yet again, Callie and Marie will be pitted against each other.

It is truly a matter of ‘pick your villain’. Except unlike Splatoon 1, where the loser was the one who was turned against us, and instead of being against her will... This time the winner, or at least the winning side, is the one who will turn wicked.

Who and what form will this take? Only time will tell.

#Splatoon #Splatoon 2 #splatocalypse #splatfest #final fest #theory #video games #author math #author shinygirafarig #author slimeade

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animusbell · 6 years

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UNDERTALE vs. DELTARUNE

A speculative post about what the relation between the two worlds might be.

If you read this post, you accept any spoilers that will happen!

[press J to skip.]

1. The Difference

At first glance, this game looks almost like a post-pacifist sequel to Undertale, and I’ve seen many people mistake it for such! However, even without Toby’s word saying that a “sequel” to Undertale wouldn’t be interesting, there’s plenty of ingame evidence to suggest that it isn’t--that many of the events of and before UNDERTALE never happened. It’s as though the monsters were never in the Underground at all!

To name a few discrepancies:

Asriel is alive (and... going to college?)

Mettaton still seems to be in ghost form (that makes sense: Alphys isn’t a scientist trying to impress a king, so she hasn’t made a robot...)

Undyne and Alphys don’t even know each other.

Sans doesn’t know Alphys or Toriel beyond their brief stops in his store.

Bratty & Catty appear to be enemies...?

Kris is... not Frisk. Though their names are almost-anagrams.

And some odd parallels:

Those seven flowers Asgore is preserving from his wedding... colored like the six human souls in UNDERTALE, and one “golden” flower.

(What was it that caused Toriel and Asgore to divorce, if not the events before UNDERTALE, I wonder?)

There’s an NPC who looks like that one Gaster follower who doesn’t have an ingame sprite from UNDERTALE:

Gaster’s theme in Undertale is called “mus_st_him” and is mostly hidden in game files. The Gaster-motif theme that plays during “character creation” is called “ANOTHER HIM.”

The weird audio that plays during Gaster’s ENTRY NUMBER 17 is the same audio as what plays when you try to use your Cell Phone in the dark world.

So... it’s weird! It’s almost like some kind of parallel universe. Or, perhaps you’ve discarded an old world and moved on to the next with your stolen soul...?

2. “You accept everything that will happen”: the antithesis of DETERMINATION

Now, I’m sure I’ve missed some hidden details that the datamining & mystery-solving crowds will find soon enough. HOWEVER, here’s what I have done in this game: spared everyone with [ACT]s and fought everyone.

But this game isn’t like UNDERTALE, exactly! Sparing everyone with ACTs does make them like you, and in fact I got an ending where all the NPCs helped me with the ending. However, even without this, the ending is basically the same with just a few tiny detail changes.

Also, see, “fight”ing doesn’t work like it does in UNDERTALE. As far as I can tell, gaining EXP is impossible. Enemies run off when you beat them up. And, weirdly enough, Ralsei and Susie barely even address the fact that you’re beating everyone up. Ralsei still reprimands Susie for being the one obsessed with FIGHTING, and Susie still agrees to follow your ACT directions at the end.

In DELTARUNE, everyone has the same arc, regardless of your actions. This is very different from UNDERTALE, where your run can make the difference between Undyne and Alphys getting together, and the Amalgamates reuniting with their families...

Also, unlike Frisk, Kris already HAS a place in this world! They have an established personality, and many actions & relations with people that predate our influence on the game. We aren’t some new person who just moved to town--most folks recognize our avatar as a kid they’ve met before, who covered their arms in ketchup to pretend to be bleeding, who went through their parents having a divorce & their brother leaving for college, who dislikes the way Asgore gives hugs.

So between the discarding of the “vessel” you made, the lack of “determination” addressed at save points, and the general idea that you can’t truly affect the events of this world... hmm. It seems like your influence on this world isn’t quite the same as it was in UNDERTALE.

3. The Dark World

Along with the main world of DELTARUNE seeming like an odd alternate universe that’s a haunted reflection of UNDERTALE, the Dark World seems almost like a second, even more distorted reflection from the former.

The place has an almost-imaginary-seeming quality to it, as though it was spawned from the items in the supply closet (like the checkers board on the ground), but I think we know better than to call the “imaginary”/”it was all a dream” trope.

There are several weird parallels:

“Ralsei” is an anagram of “Asriel,” and they seem to be the same/similar species

Lancer has a similar color scheme & body type to Sans, and his toothy grin looks very similar....

Kris and Susie look different when they enter the Dark World... Kris turns blue and they both get very RPG-adventure type gear out of nowhere! Also, did Susie always have an ax...?

4. “don’t forget”

So! Before DELTARUNE’s release, we had a recent update to the “Suzy” situation. Namely, the Clamgirl in Waterfall (who only appears at certain FUN values, which are implied to be Gaster-related) suddenly gained a few extra pieces of dialogue where she says “The time when you will meet [Suzy]... is fast approaching.” And she turns grey and vanishes like the other Gaster followers.

However, long before that (in the 2016 mass bug-fix patch of Undertale), a really weird detail was added to the Clamgirl phenomenon. Alongside the FUN values getting changed so that the followers appeared without datamining...

When you enter sans’ laboratory-back-room, ONLY if you’ve spoken with Clamgirl and gotten the “Suzy” dialogue, you get this:

As observed in this reddit post, those three smiling faces COULD be Kris, Lancer, and Susie (or perhaps some alternate version of the three, as suggested by the Suzy/Susie spelling discrepancy)...

Now, Lancer and Susie both smile ingame, but Kris doesn��t. HOWEVER! There’s an argument to be made that Kris’ facial expressions work like Frisk’s--we never see them as the player, but Sans himself observes that Frisk spared monsters “with a smile” in a pacifist run, and people are spooked by your expression in a merciless run. And in DELTARUNE, Kris is observed to have an “annoyed” look postgame when Susie is brought up by Monster Kid.

So maybe they did smile, at some point!

Sans is also the only character in UNDERTALE directly referenced to be aware of the timelines changing. Not necessarily remembering them directly, but he can tell when you’ve reset a save to listen to his speech twice (in a pacifist run) and knows how many times you’ve died in a merciless run (NOT perfectly--he says “eight” when it’s “nine” and addresses that he messed up, and he can’t tell how many it’s been past 11 deaths).

So is it much of a stretch to say that maybe, whatever happened to make Sans aware of these timelines might have also made him aware of some universe where he was in Lancer’s place, or perhaps just have strange memories directly from Lancer? Who knows!

Anyway... none of this is fully confirmed, but it is all very interesting! Hopefully the next chapter will give us some more insight into what the actual connection is between the two worlds.

#undertale #deltarune #deltarune spoilers #i talk with words

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andorknuckles · 5 years

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An analysis of the 3 Smash Brothers Leaks and their credibility.

First, I wanna share this image

This is a simplified version of my initial analysis of the leaks, with the claims broken down, and ordered from when they were first posted. Of these three leaks, only the first came from before Joker’s reveal, with the second one coming mere days after the fact, while the third one came a little over a week later. I do want to stress that even if I make a perfect case for destroying a rumor’s credibility, that doesn’t mean I 100% believe it will be false. Credibility doesn’t equal probability.

4Chan Leak

This one won’t take long. I don’t think this one has any real credibility, and it’s really only getting attention because they happened to get a lucky guess. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily wrong, but there’s almost nothing one can use to gauge its veracity. On top of that, all of the choices are rooted heavily in pre-existing speculation.

Joker is the most out-there of the five listed here, but Sakurai did state an enjoyment of Persona 5. Realistically, though, if enough people make fake leaks, then at least one person is going to get one thing right, so I’m chalking this up to coincidence.

Infamous leaker Vergeben frequently discussed how Square was getting a character in the Fighter Pass. I’ll be discussing this more down the line.

Microsoft had some suspect things to say, describing themselves as ‘third parties’ at E3 2018, leading to considerable discussion regarding a number of their characters.

Edelgard has been speculated as an obvious choice for a cross-promotion.

Sylux has been built up as an upcoming villain/chaotic-neutral in the Metroid series for some time, and so cross-promotion with a theoretical appearance in Metroid Prime 4 would seem logical.

As such, these five characters really just seem like safe picks, with Joker as the possible exception. Other than listing the names of the characters, they do say one other interesting thing, that incomplete character models exist, which I think segues into an important bit of speculation I have regarding the Fighter Pass and how it’s being developed.

Intermission: Important Speculation

Smash 4′s DLC development cycle seemed a little improvised and unstructured, with each phase of development seemingly existing as a self-contained run through 3 or 4 characters, with one of those characters receiving a bit of a head start. In Smash Ultimate’s case, however, I have little doubt that the entire run of characters has at least entered the planning stages, and that the development model is something far more graceful than Smash 4′s.

The (presumed) process model used for Smash 4 was to create characters in batches, spreading the team out across a small number of characters, making sure that there’s enough for everyone to be working on something. In many ways this model seemed to work, but there are certain problems it must have created. Namely, balance testers can’t adjust attack properties until designers are done working on hitboxes. Designers can’t work on hitbox and hurtbox placement until the animators are done animating. Animators can’t animate until the Modelers are done modelling and rigging, etc.

This is why, for the Fighters Pass, a pipeline style of development is ideal. A pipeline model would consist of something like Team A, Team B, Team C, etc.

Team A finishes the first parts of Character 1′s development, then passes them on to Team B as they start on Character 2. Now Team B can finish that part of Character 1, and pass that on to Team C. This continues, until you eventually have Team A working on Character 3, Team B working on Character 2, Team C on Character 1, etc. This way no one’s time is ever wasted, and character releases can happen on a near constant basis.

I may go into further detail on why I think this is the case at a later date, but for now the evidence largely comes from how the two characters have been released so close together, and yet always one at a time.

5Channel Leak 1

So, here it is, the big one. The leak that seems to have gained the most traction. It’s a common misconception that it and the second 5Channel leak are one-and-the-same, but the two contain very different levels of information, with very different levels of credibility. Erdrick, Hayabusa, Steve?, and Doomslayer. A mix of a character from a series hugely popular in Japan, an NES character who had a brief resurgence in the 00s, a rep from arguably the most popular game of all time, and a character from the most influential and most ported FPS of all time.

This one also gets some points for predicting P5R would be coming in 2019, but then loses them again for getting the specifics wrong, neither mentioning its full title, nor getting the general time frame of its release right. Normally just getting the official abbreviation of an announced game right gives a lot of credibility, but that information had already leaked from an official website registration.

So, the character this and the next leak both include, as well as the one the former leak has a Square Enix-shaped opening for... Erdrick.

This is the character that tends to grant a lot of credibility to these leaks, as the character was rumored here well before a certain datamining incident occurred. In the code of Smash Ultimate, there previously existed data for three then-unreleased characters. However, the data for two of those characters did not reference those characters by name, but instead gave them codenames. Specifically, Joker was referenced as ‘Jack’, while the other character was given the name ‘Brave’.

While speculation is open as to what the name ‘Brave’ could mean, such as an equivalent to NATO code, where a word sharing the first letter of the character’s name is used, or perhaps a reference to the game Bravely Default, the most common interpretation is that this refers to the Japanese name of the Dragon Quest main character’s title, which literally translates to brave.

The fact that all three leaks match the datamine in implying the character after Joker is Erdrick is part of what makes them so credible. However, in the case of this leak, it all comes crumbling down thanks to what it says about E3.

“Doom Guy and Steve? will be announced at E3 2019.”

Hoo nelly, I smell a contradiction, or at the very least, a bit of an unlikely scenario.

So, a part of me thinks this person expected Erdrick to be out before E3. That Joker and Erdrick (and maybe Piranha Plant) would be released at roughly the same time, just because of how Smash 4′s DLC went down.

But that rides on the assumption that this leaker actually meant the characters would be coming in the order they posted, and that Erdrick isn’t coming in May or something. But let’s go with that, let’s run with those premises.

Premise 1) Erdrick isn’t next

This Premise is a bit dead-on-arrival, since it means that ‘Brave’ has to either refer to a different character, or that data from the fourth or fifth character slipped in next to the first one. But for the sake of argument, we’ll say that ‘Brave’ actually means ‘Steve?’ due to the similar lettering.

In this scenario, we get both classic and relatively modern reps for Smash, both of which are very well known globally and, while a bit too ‘obvious’ for some, are definitely worthy of inclusion. If there’s ever going to be a time when the Fighters Pass reveals more than one character at a time, it’s going to be E3. If that does happen, I’d assume one would be released on the day, while the other would be for release down the line. Either way, we’re left with one big problem:

The only two characters left to reveal are incredibly Japan-centric. Japanese fans are pretty fond of these characters, but the global appeal of Dragon Quest, while not terrible has never been particularly high, while Ninja Gaiden’s declining sales in the US are part of why the franchise’s brief resurgence in the 00s eventually died off.

All-in-all, these are just two characters that wouldn’t really bring much fanfare if they were all that July 2019-February 2020 had to offer. While Erdrick might work as the final curtain call, it would ultimately mean ending Smash Ultimate off on a spark, rather than a bang. 8 months is a long time to announce nothing but a pair of niche characters.

Premise 2) Erdrick is next

After that last breakdown, having THREE at E3 would really just push the problem even further. Unless Nintendo is secretly publishing a Ninja Gaiden game that’s intended to be the next Breath of the Wild in terms of its magnitude, Ryu Hayabusa simply cannot work as the only character to be announced in all of the second half of 2019.

Unless you want to believe that there’s a second Fighters Pass coming (and that it will be filling out the rest of the space before February 2020), this is a scenario of different factors pushing at each other until something has to give, and that something is the announcement of Doomslayer and Steve? at E3, and if that’s breaking, then this leak breaks down even further.

Oh, and the idea that Steve? was moved from base game to DLC? I find that idea rather suspect. You can’t really change something like that so late in development without making a footprint on your game. Perhaps they scrubbed the files very effectively, with the only remnants being the Microsoft/Rare Spirit data people found, and the extra development time the removal of Steve? created going to Echo Fighter development. Maybe that’s why Isabelle is half-derivative, half-original? Probably not, though.

5Channel Leak 2

When you actually leak something that couldn’t have been reasonably guessed beforehand, you immediately start off on the right foot. Of course, some people have leaked things like this before, and had the other parts of their leak turn out false. In those scenarios, it can be because a person had inside information, and added their own made up information to it for one reason or another (trolling, not wanting to be caught, etc.), and in other scenarios, it’s because they get their information from multiple sources, and one or more of them turn out to be wrong.

However, most of the rest of their Smash leaks have proven to be correct, or are thus-far indeterminate. Joker’s stage was Mementos, and Nintendo has been making a suspiciously big push for the new Dragon Quest games. The only mistake in the leak was that of Jack Frost’s appearance ‘as a skill’ on the Mementos stage.

The details regarding Joker are things I would consider a safe assumption. Mementos just makes sense as a Persona 5 stage, while Jack Frost is a mascot for the superseries, as well as Atlus in general. That he would appear as a stage Easter Egg or in Joker’s moveset is a reasonable expectation. It’s possible that the Leaker (or their source) saw Morgana and thought he was Jack Frost due to a lack of familiarity, or that a Jack Frost cameo was planned but eventually removed.

Another possibility is that this person knew of the datamine information ahead of the general public, learning of the Mementos stage, and used the codename Jack to further spurn on their expectations regarding a Jack Frost appearance.

But that’s a narrative that really can’t be proven, and requires further narrative to explain why they know what they know about the Dragon Quest promotion, or the Granblue game.

So... this leak passes the test. The Erdrick stuff lines up with Vergeben’s generally accurate Smash leak portfolio, Mementos was accurate, and Brave definitely lines up with Erdrick. Personally, I’d rather almost any other character to Erdrick, but I’ll at least take having the remaining three characters still being a mystery.

#Smash Leaks #smash brothers

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clementineviolet · 6 years

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My TWDG: TFS Predictions

THIS IS IT, LADS. The final season starts next week and I wanted to put all my predictions into one post so I can look back once this whole crazy ride is over and see how much I guessed correctly. This post will heavily reference the leaked achievements for season 4, which are potentially huge spoilers, and the leaked episode names. This post does not reference other leaked information obtained from datamining the PC demo.

I’m gonna go episode by episode, and then do general predictions! PSA - I’m not sure whether the achievement descriptions are real, or even whether the achievements for the later episodes will remain the same. I think in TWDG S2 the achievements were released before an episode was released, so Telltale likely created achievements after finishing episodes rather than the other way around as is the case here. Just a warning that the achievements for future episodes might change!

Episode 1: Done Running

Right off the bat, I enjoy how Telltale decided to split achievements into acts (which everyone earns by playing an entire episode) and into episode achievements (which are earned by finding unique stuff/doing certain actions within the episode). It really encourages players to replay the game in order to get achievements and I really like it! I also love how the achievement for placing all of the collectibles goes with the theme of “Home” that Telltale said would be the main theme of this season.

Episode 1 seems pretty standard at the beginning - Clem and AJ crash the car, the boarding school kids save Clem and AJ, Clem and AJ begin to learn about and make friends with the boarding school kids. I hope that dinner provides the opportunity for a hub area where Clem has the chance to speak with everyone and ask them questions about their life; I also think this is where the card game will happen? Or after dinner. In general, based on the fact that a lot of the trailer features Clem listening and responding to Marlon/Violet/Louis speak, I hope that these are hub areas! Kind of confused where a piñata comes in but it’s all gucci. It also seems they go hunting? And CLEM CAN TICKLE AJ??????!!!!! This episode seems to bring in a lot of character-building content which I LOVE. Also Clem will have the option of overcoming her fear of dogs (or there will be no option...I’m fine either way) by interacting with Rosie, that good girl, who might save her/AJ from a walker.

As for the second part of the episode, where shit seems to hit the fan, I think that the main conflict in this season will be between the boarding school kids and an opposing group of adults (including that man who is smoking in the trailer). The opposing group sabotaged the traps Violet is talking about; I assume that Violet and Clem go on to gather supplies/scout/steal supplies from the group (probably without Clem knowing the full truth about the adult group) and Violet finds that several of the traps have been messed with. I think that Marlon is having a breakdown at the end of the trailer because, perhaps like Ben in s1e4, he made a deal with the opposing group maybe to protect the kids but in reality more kids are dying? Or some other horrible side effect occurs. At the end of the episode, they might learn of an incoming attack or walker horde or something.

I don’t think this episode will have a returning character. In true TWDG tradition (...based off of one season), they might save that for episode 2.

Episode 2: Broken Toys

CLEM AND HER FRIENDS DO SHROOMS. This is my only prediction

JK LOL based off of “Old Ghost,” I’m 10000% certain a returning character will pop up here. I’m 99.9% sure it’s Lilly, which will be GREAT. If Lilly returns, Clem can reveal that Ben indeed was a traitor (if Carley died, Clem also says she was innocent and Lilly SHOULD FEEL FUCKING GUILTY; if Doug died, Lilly’s like “shouldn’t have missed dammit’ or something similar). I also hope Clem can reveal what happened to Ben, Kenny, and Lee. If Lee left her behind, she won’t have particularly nice feelings towards him which will piss me off because YOU KILLED HIS ALMOST-GIRLFRIEND GOD DAMMIT. But Imma assume that Lilly if she returns is the leader or at least a powerful member of the adult group

NOW HERE’S WHERE IT GETS JUICY. ROMANTIC INTEREST TIME.

I’m gonna guess that Violet, Louis, and Marlon are potential romantic interests. The actions you take might lead you to form a stronger relationship with one character over the others. For example, actions that support Marlon’s leadership could make you closer to Marlon, actions that are more lone-wolf-ish or survivalist could make you closer to Violet, actions that are loyal/creative/funny could make you closer to Louis. Clem then has the choice of either keeping the relationship platonic or pursuing the relationship romantically.

I already know who I’m going for obviously, unless something horrible fucking happens

SHE LITERALLY LOOKS LIKE THE LOVE INTEREST IN AN ANIME. SHE LITERALLY LOOKS LIKE CHLOE PRICE IN LIS BEFORE THE STORM. FUCK YEAH I’M GONNA ROMANCE HER IF I HAVE THE CHANCE

My second choice is Louis obviously. LIKE LOOK AT HIM, CLEM, AND AJ AT THE TABLE THAT’S SO CUTE

Louis might try and teach AJ or Clem how to play the piano, maybe only if he’s a romantic interest. There will be a dancing scene to Louis playing the piano where Clem can choose to dance with her romantic interest.

Some drama will go down at the end of the episode. The boarding school is threatened probably by an attack GASP

Episode 3: Suffer the Children

Penultimate episodes are where shit gets real. Let’s do this shit.

I’m scared that Rosie will die because of the first achievement ;___;

Flashback time!!! Possible flashback to s1e2, the horrifying St. John’s farm of cannibal bitches! Very important episode for both Clementine and Lilly, obviously. I hope that if Lilly returns, the player is able to choose whether Lee helped Kenny kill Larry or helped Lilly try and revive Larry because I can’t believe that choice was left off of the story generator.

I think that Clem and possibly/probably other members of the boarding school group will be taken prisoner or held somewhere for a number of days. At the end of the episode, based on the “Leader” achievement for Act Three, Clem will emerge the leader of the boarding school kids. Or this could be referring to Marlon, but I think Marlon will be a determinant character personally.

Episode 4: Take Us Back

If shit was real last episode, shit is the realest this episode with its many throwbacks to season 1. The amount of achievements scares me but I think it has to do with the fact that this episode is likely far from done, let alone fully conceptualized. I think that something will happen to Clem. I am NOT SURE WHAT. It would be cruel irony to have Clem get bitten like Lee, but to successfully cut off whatever limb was bitten. I really really REALLY don’t want her to die, obviously.

The “came full circle” and “Final Lesson” thing feels like it’s implying that AJ will be the teacher/protector and Clem will be the student/protected. Which terrifies me. And I heard someone theorize that we might play this episode (or at least part of this episode) as AJ, based off of the “Found Clem’s hat” achievement. Which would be interesting but also kind of disappointing and mostly terrifying? NOT SURE.

Here are some possible endings -

1) Boarding school is saved, Clem and AJ have a home. The romantic interest/best pal is still alive. Pigs are able to fly

2) Boarding school is destroyed, Clem and AJ will never have a home but at least they have each other?

3) Clem dies, AJ is taken in by someone else (the remaining boarding school kids? perhaps Lilly? perhaps Christa if she ever returns?) or goes on his own.

4) AJ dies, Clem is fucking depressed

5) Clem lives but decides to leave AJ with others who are able to protect him more? Doesn’t really make sense to me

The fact that this shit is ending just.....god

General (mostly Character) Predictions

Christa’s fate is resolved... please

Tenn will become more of a major character than Marlon

Marlon, Louis, and Violet are all determinant. Or fuck it, their all (including Tenn, AJ) determinant, THIS IS THE FINAL SEASON

Violet is a hard shell on the outside but a marshmallow on the inside

Tenn got his burn from something involving the opposing adult group.

Tenn and AJ become close friends. Or AJ and Louis. WHY NOT BOTH

Marlon will have a dark side. Go evil. Or die so Clem can be the leader haha (I LIKE HIM I JUST THINK THIS MIGHT HAPPEN)

Will we finally learn Clem’s last name? Who knows

#twdg #twdg spoilers #the walking dead game spoilers #twdg s4 #my predictions

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