#Presence Theory

[wendelyngandr]

So, Novi's stubborn refusal to share Ellisvere's notes on Presence Theory is her central point of conflict - it is the paradox of her behaviour that drives everyone she knows up the wall and throws her life into chaos. So why does she hide her mother's secret research?

Firstly, doubt. Ellisvere's discovery amounts, essentially, to magic, a way to directly download the imagination into the physical world, bypassing art, technology, the entire prospect of human ingenuity and labour... properly expressed, Presence shatters the ontological integrity of the world.

So, in the face of this incredible claim, Novi searches for evidence to back up her mother's theory.

All the while, she suspects that anyone else reading Presence Theory would dismiss it as nonsense, and conclude that Ellisvere was off her rocker - an idea all too easily corroborated by her mysterious disappearance.

Was Ellisvere the greatest scientist ever, or a crank? This is the question Novi has to settle in her own mind before she is comfortable opening up to anyone else about it, and the very process of settling this question forces her to follow in Ellisvere's tracks. And when she crosses paths with Dr. Salven, she struggles to justify why her actions aren't irrational. Salven is a good accelerant because, as Ellisvere's protege and former lab partner, he is convinced (as Novi is) of her genius, but as a representative of the scientific establishment, his involvement threatens to take Presence Theory out of Novi's hands, rigorously falsify it, or if it ends up being true then cycle it into the world's already insane pace of technological development. What Novi fears is a loss of control - over her own narrative about her mother, her competency with the technologies of her time, and her own integrity as a person.

As the story progresses, Novi finds it increasingly easy to believe that she is losing her mind. Yet she clings to the hope - and terror - that the universe is in for an ontological revolution.

In the midst of all this, she looks to Mobulas for help because (as his actions at the art show suggest) he is perceptive and deeply curious, while also having a sense of discretion. She intends to leverage their friendship to help her figure things out without tipping her hand, but the very thing Novi needs from Mobulas (his trust) is put in jeopardy by her manipulative tactics.

Novi's superpower is Doubt, Mistrust, Confabulation, Illusion. She is a sneaky goblin fleeing with the Arkenstone in her hands - or is it only a polished piece of quartz? She is the gaslight gatekeep girlboss of the story, she is a wet cat doing parkour in the streets, she is constantly defying the retribution she knows the world has for her...

[monteruu]

they like to go on walks together to get some quality chatting time when madeline isn't busy <3

[image id: digital illustration of edgar, miles harding, and madeline robistat from electric dreams (1984). they are walking in tandem with each other while edgar and madeline are excitably chatting with indiscernible text above them. miles looks off to the side with a small smile and has a thought bubble that says "that damn stupid brick" and a small image of his earthquake brick.

miles has one hand hooked around one of edgar's arms and is wearing a yellow long sleeved button up with a green vest over it and brown slacks. egdar is quite a bit larger than the other two and has his red horns and devil tail curled behind him. he is wearing a light pink button up with a bright pink tie that has a smiley face pattern and an oversized brown jacket that mostly covers his hands and striped reddish pink pants. he is holding his hands nervously in front of him and is looking down at madeline while smiling. madeline has a wide smile on her face as she elbows edgar playfully and looks back at him. her hair is up in a loose side ponytail and is wearing a light blue poofy button up with a dark purple dress that ties into a bow in the back. the background is a yellow to green gradient with halftone texture over it. end image id.]

[gengwasted]

This is purely self indulgent, I just wanted to draw a feral looking goddess of flowers Kaveh. Haitham tagged along lol

[toobusybeingdelulu]

Omg guys look!! they built a circus set just for us “billy hargrove will return in s5” girlies, how generous of them <3

[lainalit]

The fact that some elucien shippers have been here since acomaf was released in 2016 is impressive, like I wish I had half their commitment and resilience for anything in my life 🫡 💖

[snowyh2o]

It’s currently a fan theory as to why Alastor keeps Husk around, the theory being that Alastor simply likes cats, and spared Husk because his demon form was a cat. So to him Husk is essentially a pet, who he likes to have around to look at, not even to like most of the time (like any cat owner), just to be there, is all a cat owner asks of the cat.

Sure, but like. That’s not what Alastor does with Husk? He literally summons him to act as the barkeep/man the front desk of the hotel. Husk’s reaction to Alastor summoning him, and Mimzy’s comment about how Alastor still has him swinging hooch implies that it isn’t something too uncommon for him to do, but also not something he does everytime Alastor needs something to be done. And even then Alastor has to bribe him with alcohol to get Husk to agree with working at the hotel.

Alastor doesn’t treat him like a cat, he treats him like a reluctant employee. Husk even calls Alastor boss. Nothing about Alastor’s actions with Husk implies he thinks about Husk that way aside from that one interaction where Alastor is deliberately trying to get under Husk’s skin.

Personally, I believe Alastor keeps Husk around because 1) he’s useful, 2) Alastor’s said to have a weird moral code, and 3) Husk went to Alastor to make that deal, Alastor didn’t target Husk. And it probably happened sometime after he stopped hunting down overlords. It makes Husk interesting, I don’t think many people (overlords) would be desperate enough (or confident enough) to go to the dude who’s known for torturing and killing overlords and then broadcasting their dying screams to the rest of Hell for so much as disrespecting him, and expect to get a good deal out of him over just being killed.

[taniushka12]

cinematic parallels

[batsplat]

Vale's long-time mechanic Alex Briggs agrees that his rider was let down by his inner circle. "My feeling is that the Yamaha team's press group let him down," said Briggs. "They never asked him what he was going to say in the press conference at Sepang. Or what are you doing with this paperwork? Because he had some time sheets as ammo. I think it all could've been stopped, because they knew to a degree something was going to happen." Briggs has vivid memories of that season. “I thought Valentino was going to win it - I thought we were good enough.” However, Briggs noticed that Vale did change during 2015. “Towards the end of the season he got very concerned with everything, he was trying to control everything. I remember the last few races he wanted War and Peace on the pit-board - he wanted to know who was behind him, how many people were behind him, the groups and so on. I don’t think you need all that - just look in front! “I think part of it was that there were a few people around him that were a bit weaker than him, like the crew chief and the Italians in the team had become a bit ‘yessy’. “I think he would’ve been better off just riding. Things got a little bit cloudy and he wasn’t quite as, I don’t know… It’s like when you’re playing golf; if you’re in the middle of your backswing and you start thinking about what you’re doing, you’re not being instinctive.”

Mat Oxley’s Valentino Rossi: All His Races

[f0restpunk]

[taranida]

The faces of the Dark Presence

I have written a theory that explains the Bright Presence, obviously, there must be a theory about the Dark one. What do we know about its history, what happened to it after the Clicker “filled its heart with light,” why Taken are so different across the games and what is going on in the second game. Again, I will address the Presences as “it” as well as “she/he” when it suits my needs, obviously, both of them are “it”, for there is no indication that the gender for them is a thing.

Let’s begin from the short introduction to the Dark Presence’s origin and nature. For those who are familiar with the Bright Presence theory, yes, the first part will be similar, since the whole argument was built on the Dark Presence’s dialog in the first place, but with a lot of changes.

Obviously, we have no knowledge about the origin of the Presences and the Dark Place itself, except for it all being in Ahti’s bucket, but we at least have some information to help us understand their nature and what actually hides beneath the waves of Cauldron Lake.

Randolph, the trailer park manager has this to say about it:

“The Indians thought the lake was a doorway to the underworld.”

Alan in the notes of his poem from Samantha’s shoebox, expands on this from his insider perspective:

"E can't see it. He's view is too narrow, limited. It's not a lake, it's an ocean, darkness before the act of creation, before the Big Bang, darkness upon the face of the deep, upon the face of the waters, before light, before the primeval atom, before the word, before THE POEM. I can be a creator, the creator. It has happened before, and it will happen again, many times."

The Dark Place and its entities are old, tremendously old. The Dark Presence spells it for us in the final confrontation in the first game:

“I’m much older than you. Older than your first work of art.”

She’s talking to Alan, of course, but it is pointless to compare this entity with him, he’s 31-33 (depends on what you ask: the guide that puts his age at 31 in 2010, or the memorial statue, that has his year of birth as 1977), and the Dark Presence was kicking long before his birth, as we know from Thomas’ story and the beliefs of the locals. She’s talking about humanity, about our first primitive work of art. Which puts her at least at around 50 thousand years old, plus this vague “much older than you”, which will put her at an even greater age, depending on what she means by that — where her definition of “you” starts. I mean, we talking hundreds of thousands of years now or even millions; what is evolution for her, really? She finishes with a promise to find someone else to dream her free, so her definition of humanity might do something with the first glimpse of imagination. And that is hardly something that we can establish properly. The Dark Presence might’ve been “born” with the Dark Place, or might’ve been “created” later.

So, what are the Presences? This House of Dreams gives the explanation about the Dark Place as well as its inhabitants:

In the end, he finally understood what he had to do, finally understood the true nature of the dark place that was hidden under the waves of the lake where they lived. The lake was an opening to dark place that was much bigger than the lake itself, in fact, much bigger than the whole universe we live in. He wrote one last poem, his masterpiece, a secret poem, a hidden poem, a poem that’s not among the poems I’ve found in the shoebox. And he took his girlfriend for one last dive. Together they sank down into the depths, far deeper than he had ever dived before. In the dream, I was there, diving with them. And from the depths, something, or some things, surged up to meet them. Things of darkness, but bright things of light as well. The diver explained that these things, or these presences, were forever fighting a war between the forces of light and darkness. A dark presence had taken over his girlfriend, and a bright presence now came to take over him. And he surrendered his body to it, but at the same time, the essence of who he was kept diving deeper, ever deeper, holding the essence of his girlfriend (their spirits? their souls?). The diver (or what was left of him, his true self) spoke the words of his secret poem. The poem described a new world, an island in this sea of darkness, a safe haven, a paradise, a “baby” universe. The nature of the dark place was such that anything dreamed up there, any dream or a work of art, would come true, just as true as anything in our world can be. And the poem came true and the essence of the diver and the essence of his girlfriend escaped from the darkness and disappeared into this new world to live there happily ever after; while their shapes, his now taken over by a bright presence, as his girlfriend’s had been taken over by a dark presence, surged up, through the opening in the lake to our world, to continue their battle there. 

From this, aside from what’s spelled there, we can also take two important things: the Dark Presence might be the “evils of the world”, but the Dark Place is not — it is a home for the bright things of light as well and can create new universes for the sole purpose of someone living there happily, it’s impartial in its nature and grants wishes good and bad; and the Dark Presence is not the only dark creature living there, not even necessarily the biggest one of them.

Let’s expand on this a bit more, so we are on the same page. The Dark Place is, indeed, impartial and not good or evil by its nature, yet it’s not suited for humans:

We are built differently from all other habitants; maybe, we are more complex? Not ideas, but the whole package of ideas we have and create, rights and wrongs, emotions and perceptions, that’s why humans can dream anything in the Dark Place and the Dark Place will deliver. Different characters, who ended up in the Dark Place, show different ways humans can exist there: some make rules and hoops for themselves; some excitedly explore and observe; some just exist there, making maps and humming songs; some ascend and manage to make the Dark Place do their bidding to mislead and help someone else in ascension.

And the creatures there are not limited to the two Presences and their minions.

It even has a fauna! I know it’s irrelevant, but curious nonetheless:

Mr. Scratch also talks about the populace of the Dark Place and their goals (from his side, of course):

“And there’s so much darkness out there. It goes deep, and the thing that live in it are vast. Big bastards! They don’t mind getting a little bit of elbow room. All that chaos and madness, it doesn’t really do that much down there. It’s like pouring a glass of water into the ocean, right? But up here… Yeah, you can really make an impact. All they need is someone to bring them all the way though.”

Alan through Zane’s notes in the cabin expands on it further:

“Anything outside of writing is a struggle. I feel ill. I managed to make my way downstairs. There’s a shoebox filled with books and papers by Thomas Zane. It’s very hard to focus but I managed to read some of it. He’s a poet and a good one. He writes of muses and creators, summoning fabulous things from a magic lake, using its power to shape the world, of a realm of gods and dreams, and demons, dark things that wait for a chance to slip through, wearing the flesh of men as disguise. Zane writes about himself, his girlfriend being taken over by a Dark Presence, about growing scared of the lake. Zane believes it’s a mirror to the gaping void of darkness above, where some Lovecraftian presence lurks. I crawled back upstairs. I’ll borrow these things for my story. They ring true. They fit.”

Alright, as I believe, the shoebox trick was added into Zane’s story by Alan, and also the whole “writing Thomas and Barbara out of reality” was him as well, but it doesn’t mean that all the contents were written by Alan; after all, in This House of Dreams we have two sets of poems — one by Thomas and another by Alan. It also fits into the Bright Presence’s story he showed Samantha, his own words in-game and what Mr. Scratch tells us about the Dark Place. So, I will count this information as the truth Alan borrowed, not as something borrowed becoming the truth. Although, it’s really exhausting — separating what Alan wrote into reality and what was the reality before Alan started to tinker with it.

Now we have a bit of an understanding of what the Presences are, where did they come from and what do they want. Let’s summarise: they are fighting an eternal war of light versus dark in the enormous, if not infinite, realm that has an opening into our world through Caldron Lake (among other places). They are insanely old and are not against taking humans faces to surge up. They are also drawn to our world, might be because of human’s ability to create something from nothing with just dreams or works of art; but most likely because the Dark Place is seen as a prison by them (the latter is also hinted at in the Dark Presence’s promise to find some who will dream her free; and in the Bright Presence’s acknowledgement, that he wasn’t able to find a way to leave the Dark Place for good; Mr. Scratch’s words about bringing “the big bastards” up here to make an impact). Although, the darkness and its minions are much more proactive when it comes to “find someone to dream them free”, as we see with the Dark Presence, Thomas’ story and Mr. Scratch. When both Presences in the bodies of Thomas and Barbara got out of the lake someone or something did put them back; the boys of OGoA (just a wild guess, there is only one thing that can tie them up to events of 1970 — the name of their first album, according to the now-dead site, was “The Memory of the Slaughter” and the release date is 1971)? The whole “we have bodies now, hell yeah” thing ended as they exhausted the freeing power of having flesh, but had no art, no story to sustain them being out of the Dark Place? Maybe this freeing power was exhausted in their clashing with no winner and they both retreated back. However it happened, back into the lake they went.

After that the story of the Dark Presence is pretty eventful:

We have her fighting with the boys of OGoA in 1976 and 1978, and them also keeping her always near. As Odin and Tor tell us:

“She’s been using you, boy. And you let her. You went and opened the door for her, didn’t you?” “Now now, it was already open a crack. And whose fault is that? We’re morally corrupt, disease-ridden, old, and stupid.” “Doesn’t mean he had to open it all the way, goddammit!” “Ahh, pfah.” “So tired...built the farm close to the lake. A place of power.” “We had parties there, man. You...you should go there and have a party.”

And, taking Cynthia’s words, we can assume, they weren’t the only ones:

“I have been preparing for these times. The dark tides. You have found my caches, haven’t you? You can see the signs? Very few people can. […] We have both been touched by the darkness, young man. He saved us both with light. But the darkness stays with you, leaves a stain.”

This is an excerpt from The Alan Wake Files, from the “Bright Falls: A History” book:

“It is unknown whether these strange lights are related to the more recent rumors of illuminated messages found in the nooks and crannies around Bright Falls. None have ever been photographed, but multiple reports from disparate sources certainly point to a trend. Local law enforcement seemed less enthusiastic about these reports. “We’ve never caught anybody at it,” said our same anonymous source, “but you can bet that if we do, we’ll give these kids a little talking to. We’ve got our eye out for any kind of mischief.” A survey of local teens produced blanket denials of vandalism, along with several shaky reports of sightings. “There were messages,” said one young woman. “I haven’t seen them myself, but my boyfriend’s cousin did and so has one of my sister’s friends. All different messages, too. Strange things, like, ‘Walk in Light’ and these odd symbols and arrows. Stuff like that.” Despite the lack of photographic evidence, a few artists’ renderings of the strange messages have been recreated with the assistance of the alleged witnesses. A common thread that gives the story some credibility is that all witnesses have described the symbol of a torch alongside the bizarre messages.”

And the illustration for this bit is this:

So, there were more people touched by darkness to have the ability to see Cynthia’s magic paint. Which is to be expected, as I noted, the Dark Presence is very proactive when it comes to interacting with humans.

Now, in the second game we have a peculiar detail: the newspapers from 2010, reporting on the “Chaos at Cauldron Lake” dated 18th July:

It might be nothing, but it strangely matches how the Dark Presence was using Taken before Thomas wrote Barbara back. And the Bright Falls mini-series, where the protagonist, Jake, is becoming Taken in the few days he spends in the town. So, the question here: how comes we have this manuscript?

Loops, of course! The way the Dark Presence is in the first game is the result of Alan writing and rewriting reality to make the story into what we see: he doesn’t arrive by car at night in the driver seat, with Alice as a passenger, as it was in the Bright Falls mini-series, and there are no Taken, because he retroactively wrote the Dark Presence being asleep before he showed up. This way he can weaken her and give himself a fighting chance.

Now let’s take a look at the event of the first game. In the “missing” week the Dark Presence is being the editor for Alan, making him write her free, using Alice as bait. But as much as Alan claims:

“But it seems I have an imaginary editor to help me. She’s an old woman in a funeral dress. I call her Barbara Jagger. She’s very strict. I’m writing faster and faster. My manuscript is being heavily revised. The edits are getting very aggressive and each day there’s less of me and more of her.”

She doesn’t notice when Alan starts to write himself into the story or summoning the Bright Presence to set him free. The Dark Presence doesn’t have the same intelligence as we do, doesn’t have much imagination, thinks differently. Her power grows in the story? Good. Writer does something else? No matter, her power grows in the story anyway. She’s tunnel-visioning her freedom or doesn’t understand where the creative process necessities end and Alan’s plotting starts. The Dark Presence even allows him to write manuscripts about her weaknesses and set-backs.

But let’s be fair, for the Dark Presence Alan might be the first to pull this off. We know only about how Thomas and the boys fought her and it’s nothing like with Alan, whom she held hostage. Her experience with humans and this kind of trickery can be very limited; and knowledge is power.

For the rest of the game she’s bound by the story and acts true to herself, but always loses. Because it was written. The Dark Presence is controlled by the power of the Dark Place that makes Alan’s writing into reality. Basically, she’s controlled by Alan.

At the end, when Alan jumps into the lake there is a brief moment, I believe, that was not necessarily written, but controlled by the dreaming and the power of the Clicker. In the New York flat and when the Bright Presence gave instruction of “fill its heart with light”, as well as the appearance of Mr. Scratch. The last one is a wild card; I can’t say for sure if he’s the Barbara’s Dark Presence’s minion or an agent of another dark being. He might as well be the Barbara’s Dark Presence’s yet another desperate attempt to stop Alan, and what we learn about him in AWAN is written by Alan himself, because, in fact, he has no idea of Mr. Scratch’s goals, but needs the grandiose one to make him the herald of darkness. And what herald of darkness he’d make if he wouldn’t be set on bringing the darkness into the world and just, you know, chill, killing right and left to his own enjoyment and harass Alan in the Dark Place?

But I digress. Returning to the ending of the game: judging by the text we need to burn with light, Alan is projecting himself to find the cabin, while he already is in the cabin, writing this journey. Ideas swirling around: phones, birds, shopping cards, but also dark ideas of Alice leaving him or them becoming like Barbara and Thomas. Alan pushes forward and there she stands: the Dark Presence, trapped in her own place of power, unable to even run or put up a fight. She says her last words:

“Now you will never get her back. I’m much older that you. Older than your first work of art. I will find a new face to wear. Someone else to dream me free.”

Then lets Alan insert the Clicker into her chest and just dies.

Well, “dies” is a very strong word for what happened; the Dark Presence as we knew her in the first game is no more, but the power and lingering goals, the essence of the entity, if you will, remain — in Alan. There are many clues. In The Signal DLC’s TV Alan says:

“The darkness wasn’t so bad. It was in him. he felt it. He knew the voice spoke the truth.”

And when we destroy his TVs with light, he screams “it burns!” and then, at the very end — “too loud. Too loud! I can’t think! It’s in my brain!” In The Writer DLC Alan-in-the-cabin keeps acting as the Dark Presence: sending Taken after his rational part, making Darknados and all those lovely things that launch themselves at you. The argument might be made that Alan just uses what he remembers, and it would be more plausible at the time of the DLCs. But, luckily, we have the second game.

But before we talk about it, we need to bring AW1 and AWAN together, because there we have two entities from the Dark Place, who have at least some agency in the constrains of the story, and their MO has similarities. The Taken are, maybe varying with Mr. Scratch’s creations being much more diverse, but have common things: they are shielded with darkness all over and, when killed, they dissipate in bright sparks. In AWAN we also have different, improved birds, the spiders are mostly not directly controlled by Mr. Scratch himself and good old poltergeists.

We have none of that in the second game. The rules are completely changed and Alan’s face is the face of the Dark Presence, that he’s calling (I’m sure in the loving memory) “Scratch”. Scratch in the second game is not Mr. Scratch from AWAN, they are not the same entity; aside from the obvious differences in their behaviour and demeanour, there is this little thing — Mr. Scratch, sadly, is utterly unalive, dead. He’s no more. So, the Dark Presence is a part of Alan; just like it was in the DLCs for the first game. Scratch is what remained of the Barbara’s Dark Presence, shaped by Alan’s mind — the result of Alan merging with the sheer force of the Dark Presence. His true dark half.

Scratch in the second game creates different Taken, who are not shielded by darkness all over; there are no birds or spiders, but there are wolfs; the poltergeists are abandoned for the walls of darkness with a suggestive “core”, where you need to burn it. And he’s kinda in love with the colour red — taking ideas from Hiss much? The difference in what we face in the first games and the second is stunning.

We also have a brilliant opportunity to look into the mind of the Taken: with Nightingale’s segment and with manuscript pages. In the first game we have a few pages that describe how people were becoming Taken; for all of them it was a horrible experience, for those, touched by darkness as well: we see that Rose is screaming inside in terror as she does what the Barbara’s Dark Presence told her to, same as Serena Valdivia in AWAN — while she flirts with Mr. Scratch, she’s screaming deep inside in horror. The last one of the Taken of, let’s say, first generation, that we see is Nightingale. First, he says that he’s lost and it’s dark, he needs someone to show him something. Then, as we walk him towards the Bookers, he says “please… can you hear me?” and then slowly the voices start to appear. After the first Scratch’s jumpscare, he sobs and starts to hear his own taken-voicelines. What do the Bookers tell about that encounter? “He was acting crazy, shouting weird shit at us”, thinking that he must have been on something. We never hear him shouting, because we are inside of his head, where he’s lost, confused and terrified, the shouts come from the outside, quiet and disturbing, he only breathes in distress. He even sees the Cult of the Tree as the Taken, when in fact, he’s the one with distorted voice and, probably, covered in shadows, not the cultists. For all we know, the Taken of the first generation were not aware of their own actions and suffering inside. What about the ones, that are taken by Scratch? We have few examples, but all of them are quite different from the first games: for Emmett Elwood it is a satisfying experience, for Gail Borrows, even if he knew he was dying, it felt good, he worshiped the darkness and even made a sacrifice to it in blood, Anna was overcame by vertigo, Thornton and Mulligan gave in to their guilt. Cynthia is the only person, whose corruption was violent, but after that?

“Cynthia Weaver smiled. Lost without her lantern? Nonsense. Cynthia felt giddy as a young girl in love. […] She sank into dark water. Into Tom.”

Some of these were edited by Alan, but some — not. Constrained by the story or not, Scratch tends to make Taken differently; even when he rails them up for the fight, they are filled with violent glee. It goes very well with what we see after he makes his story come true.

Let’s talk about what exactly happens when Scratch gets his hands on the Clicker. Bright Falls welcomes Alan with the Deerfest, sunny and happy day, revolving around the “Return” and how good it is. The Dark Presence in the first game wanted to take over the world, too, but, boy, she would probably cringe so hard she wanted twisted and evil things, as Mr. Scratch said about other dark presences, not this eternal celebration of Alan Wake! Even Alan is in awe, claiming this is not what he expected.

But, really, he is so clueless. He treats Scratch as the Barbara’s Dark Presence, but they are different to the core. The Barbara’s Dark Presence was in possession of a body with no soul, the shell of Barbara Jagger, taking from her only this much; Scratch is not only sharing the body with Alan, who is very present and aware (at times), but is entangled with his very being. The Barbara’s Dark Presence had agency and her own goals; Scratch, still being the Dark Presence, has an echo of that, but twisted by Alan, fed on his insecurities, fears and desires. And, most importantly, the Barbara’s Dark Presence needed someone to dream her free; Scratch, being so tightly connected with Alan, can dream himself free just fine: he wrote the first draft of Return after all. And the rules for changing reality are pretty clear:

Scratch is capable of performing a genuine act of creation; something, that was not available to the Barbara’s Dark Presence. “While the god is asleep, the devil rewrites reality” — one of the echoes, that describes exactly what happens with Alan and Scratch in the Dark Place. If Alan is not in the driver’s seat, Scratch takes over, benefiting from this tight connection greatly.

With all this said, Scratch is still the Dark Presence: he has all the powers of the Dark Presence, hunts Alan, can possess other people, create Taken, send Taken from the lake to retrieve the Clicker, turn into a mini Darknado, and wants to take over the world. But he’s sort of the next evolution: the essence of the entity, entirely alien to us, learnt humanity in its own twisted way. Alan notices that Scratch has an insecure need for fame and praise and questions if it was drawn from his own psyche. And it was. More so, the clinginess is from him as well: as Alan is lost without Alice, Scratch is lost without Alan. His lines during the chase in the Wellness Center are that of a puppy:

You are home! We should be one! We belong together! Welcome me back home! We can have this! Happy ending! We are the heart! We are one! Our story! Our ending! Our book! We made this! Everyone loves us! We won! Everything revolves around us! Fame! Worship! Alice!

And in the writer’s room Scratch is gladly jumping into Alan’s head at the first invitation “come home” (welcome me back home).

In the end, the Dark Presence, actually fulfilled its promise: it found a new face to “wear” and someone to dream it free. Only not someone “else”, it was freed from the Dark Place by Alan, yet the freedom came with a cost. I will not dive into the ending of the Final Draft here, but I believe the Dark Presence is still inside Alan, it’s just balanced with the light (or the Bright Presence, hmm?). It’s not a demon anymore, not an entity, Alan puts all the blame for any wrongs — his or not his — onto, it’s an essence, a power, a shadowy flicker in the corner of an eye, not real enough to properly exist, but accepted and merged with Alan too much to fade away completely. Back to the beginning, to the manuscript from 2010.

In the end, it's never just the light you need When balance slays the demon, you'll find peace In the end, it's never just the dark you seek When balance slays the demon, you'll find peace

[anna1819]

“Weird...My stomach’s in knots...”

[blueskittlesart]

no pressure at all, but i was wondering how you think Zelda would react to a mute/deaf link? i bet she originally thought he was conceited but had the gut punch realization that he couldn’t help it and that she had spent all this time judging him

struggling to figure out how to word this but i think this is.. essentially what happens in canon? canonically, link is selectively mute, which essentially just means that physically, he can technically speak. there's no physical problem with his vocal chords, hearing, etc that makes him mute, it's a mental block instead of a physical one. that doesn't mean that it's something he can control, though. I've heard it described as being like your vocal chords just "stop working" in certain situations, whether due to anxiety, trauma, overstimulation, or some other trigger. meaning you still physically can't talk, there's just no anatomical reason for the mutism. so whether he's deaf, physically mute, or selectively mute, i think zelda still has the gut-punch oh shit, he couldn't help it moment and that she DESERVES to have that gut-punch, because that realization that she'd been projecting her own insecurities onto him and refusing to take into account his situation is an important kickstarter to her personal growth and development. But i guess what i'm saying is i don't think her reactions would change very much if you change the way he's communicating with her. With selectively mute link, i do like to think that he eventually becomes comfortable enough around her that he's able to speak for short amounts of time and begins to communicate that way, as is implied in canon (but that's never actually outright stated, just that he "opened up" to her eventually, so it's possible he never actually TALKED to her at all and communicated some other way.) sign language, written language, however he decides to explain what's going on to her, he still was physically incapable of speaking to her before, and she still judged him heavily for it. so tldr yeah, i think no matter what form of mutism you want to give him, she always has to have that moment of shock and realization that she was pushing her own insecurities onto him and that she was downright CRUEL to him. it's one of the most important moments of her arc!

[marc--chilton]

(wcau) due to his patch of territory being on clan borders, house has plenty of neighboring clan enemies (plainsclan territory and his overlap but since he's an ally and codstar's close friend, he's safe to hunt there even in winter when prey is scarcer; hunting on other clan territories is not as easily overlooked)

the deputy of this other (as of yet unnamed) clan has a particular bone to pick with him. ternstorm (tritter, name may change) isn't afraid to harm a free-roaming medicine cat, nor is he worried his torment -- more than is necessary for chasing someone from clan territory -- could end in his demotion as volestar (vogler) doesn't like house either. volestar, however, doesn't sign off on house's death either, as doing so would end in war

[bobbyzombiegg]

so I was bored and pacing so I was monologuing to myself about bloodborne lore, and I started thinking of the second ending where you take Gehrman’s place and basically my thought process was “and we become a pet to the moon presence. Well... Less like a pet and more like a doll. A living doll….” and then I paused and had a realization. What if our relationship with the great ones is less human to ant and more like human to the doll? We know that the great ones do feel something close to human emotions, with Kos mourning her orphan and feeling rage at the massacre, and every great one yearning for a child. What if to them we’re like the doll? Almost on their level, but not quite to an uncanny degree. Missing fundamental emotions (in their point of view). I think it might make sense with how often we see them take pity on humanity. They see us as broken, empty. It might also explain why the doll is like that. She’s an echo of a perceived echo. Maybe she has some great one emotions mixed in there too, if she was made by the moon presence

[mirror-ralsei]

The Sound Test is hands down my favourite piece of horror in Undertale.

Yeah, sure. Photoshop Flowey is a great spiritual successor to Giygas, and Gaster to Uboa. The Chara jumpscare is disturbing, as is the entire No Mercy run. But the Sound Test is a masterfully crafted anecdote that deserves more appreciation.

So to recap, Fun event 65 begins when you walk north in the crossroads before Snowdin. The music cuts out to transition to text on a black background.

It starts off positively: “Welcome to the Sound Test! Listen to all your favorites. Press Left or Right to select. Press Z to play a song.” The friendly terms fade in calmly, offsetting any disturbance caused by this sudden interruption by easing into it. We also need to note Undertale was designed as a niche RPG for RPG fans, which intentionally played with their expectations.

With that audience in mind, the player also likely has an expectation here: contemporary sound test rooms are typically a cool bonus for players, unlocked either through the progression of a game or its completion, or sometimes only through codes or developer consoles. They provide a list to play of all the sound files in a game, or at least the OST. This is a generally beloved feature when provided, allowing players to jam out to their favourite tracks. “Listen to all your favorites” seems to confirm this, reinforcing the brain to glaze over any specifics and autofill an expected experience here.

So we dive excitedly into this bonus feature (if maybe a little bit confused). Sound tests typically are accessible from main menus, and we were just interrupted while playing the game, but whatever, this game is a bit weird anyway. What songs do we have? You can cycle through them, but more likely people will play one by one in successsion.

We start with “Happy Town.” There hasn't been a “Happy Town” location yet that we've seen, but this is probably an area from later in the game or something. We click on it, and it's... short. It's just a simple loop on two channels, too. The melody itself is rather boring. Okay. Maybe this is just an intro track, so on to the next one.

“Meat Factory.” Uhh. This is definitely from later in the game... probably? When you think on it for even a moment, you realize this grim title sounds very tonally out of place in a game that's so far been pretty fantastical and friendly, and that makes it immediately unsettling. Clicking on it immediately confirms this. Where Happy Town was pretty noncommittal, Meat Factory's 8-bit loop is even shorter and almost oppressive in its relentless, growling two notes, repeating at an alarming pace, as if approaching with deadly intent. Why is something so disturbing and almost industrial in a funny little game?

You quickly switch to the next song. “Trouble Dingle.” A “dingle” might imply something a little bit lighter, and “trouble” sounds maybe a little more whimsical than “doom,” but there is no relief here. This loop is longer, but distorted and chaotic. It sounds corrupted. There's no trackable melody, it loses the 8-bit instrument, and like Photoshop Flowey's fight or the unpredictable melody of “Amalgamate,” is generally throwing away all sense of safety in favour of absolute disorientation.

At this point, you have likely forgotten about the context and are trying to find one song that's not incredibly disturbing. Maybe you've even realized by now that there is no way to even exit this unsettling “room.”

It's an auditory chase scene. The pressure increases with every song. Something is approaching, and fast.

Enter “Gaster's Theme.”

The hunt is over. The music has caught you. Suddenly, no matter what you do, you are trapped, forced to listen to this piece, this theme of a character you do not know, which starts off curious before dipping threateningly into the minor key. You rightfully may get the impression that this character “Gaster,” whoever they are, exerts some terrifying control over you, to be able to freeze you like this, able to writhe around between song tracks but change absoutely nothing, escape utterly futile.

You are only free when this music chooses to let you go. It cuts off abruptly. “Thanks for your feedback!” it says cheerfully. Then:

“Be seeing you soon.”

It's an incredibly compelling little horror piece and potential villain introduction that I find even more unsettling than the 66 mysteryman door itself. It's short but sweet, toying perfectly with expectations and making us deliberately uncomfortable at every turn.