#game theory stuff

[blueskittlesart]

just. little things. specifically right now it’s the fact that they even managed to narratively incorporate and retroactively explain the video game Instinct To Collect. like yeah you the player collect things that sparkle when you get close because you are Playing A Game but. think about it. link, fresh out of a hundred years of sleep with near-total amnesia, instantly notices and instinctively picks up edible plants and mushrooms throughout hyrule without really knowing why. and only later do we learn that he loved to cook. he knows what is and isn’t edible and what is worth collecting instinctively because he’s used those same ingredients thousands of times before. breath of the wild you are the only game that matters ever

[vulpixelates]

i know it will never happen but i so desperately desire an origins-type playable backstory thing in all games but especially veilguard. i feel like it added so much depth to origins and made you feel instantly connected to your character in a way that gets lost in games like inquisition where you fill in the blanks as you go except for the bare basics. like, i do enjoy the freedom to willy nilly decide where a character was before the events of the story from a creative perspective, but the playable origins were just so good! especially when you go back to where your warden is from and can engage differently with the arcs there

[illmoraineakoi]

So, I know I'm a little (very) late to the AvA stuff, but I was rewatching AvM Season 3 for the seven hundredth time and, well, I noticed something and I'm curious to know if it's been discussed before.

AvM Episode 29, Purple's story, specifically, Pink's death.

Her color changes as she dies, or is represented to have died.

It fades to grey.

Now, the question is, can we, or rather should we, use this to infer anything lore-related? Was this just an artistic choice to depict the act of becoming unhealthy/dying, or could this be what actually happens to stick figures that die over a period of time? Are their colors linked to their health?

Let's have a bit of fun with it, and presume that the fading of one's color can happen to a stick figure for health-related reasons, as the scene could imply.

This fading seems to involve loosing the saturation of one's color into grey. Saturation is how vibrant a color is, and the complete lack of saturation is greyscale.

The World-of-Alan reason for Pink's death is that she 'got sick', which is where the health connection of this theory comes from. If she did loose her color as she was dying as the notes depict, that loss of color was likely a result of her failing health rather than any other factors, like age or outside variables. A whole bunch of human body stuff are indicators for good vs poor health, including skin color (jaundice and cyanasis are good examples) so why not a stick's color for them?

What if, when they fully die, they lose all of their original color?

Now, let me propose this…

Who else do we know of who has had their color loose vibrancy?

What if Victim's color has lightened because he's ill?

[burningcheese-merchant]

Silent Salt's countenance is... a unique one. Not hideous, not quite, but not conventionally attractive by any means. Coupled with a cluster of scars and other ancient forms of injury further marring his face, he was never an easy one on the eyes, so to speak. He always wore the helm because it was his deeds that mattered, not his identity - or that was how he once thought, in his distant, heroic past. But, in painful, unfortunate truth, it was also partially because he simply didn't want to deal with the staring. With the shock. With the thinly veiled disgust. The forced politeness angered him the most; he knew they were lying, he knew his face perturbed them. He would've respected them so much more if they had just spoken plain.

There had always existed this shallow element of self-loathing within him; never more so than it does with regards to White Lily. She's so lovely, so captivating, and he's... he has to wear a mask all the time, just for some semblance of peace of mind. Hers is a sweet, delicate, almost ethereal beauty. He is grim and gruff and all dark, sharp edges, inside and out. If by some miracle his personality and status as Beast of Silence doesn't drive her away, then his face will. Like it had so many others.

He has never allowed anyone to remove his helm. Not even his friends and colleagues, both then and now (especially not now. Shadow Milk's petty jabs are insufferable even with Salt's face obscured; revealing it again would only escalate the jester's mockery). Even just trying to touch it sparks a terrible rage. It's his security blanket, in a way. Something that grants him a modicum of control over his supposed destiny. He cannot change how he looks, but he can at least hide it. And hide it, he will. From everyone he can, for as long as he can. From her most of all.

Perhaps he could've been more... polite in his refusal of her touch, the first few times. He saw a hand wrapped in green floating towards his face and he responded. The regret that washed over him at the sound of her yelp - startled and pained, an accessory to the tremor in her wrist born from him grasping it so tight - was overwhelming, almost suffocating, and yet... he did it again, the next attempt she made. And the one after that. And the one after that. Nevertheless, for reasons unknown, she persisted.

Must've been that morbid curiosity of hers.

The one time she asked him why he never rid himself of the helm, he answered her simply. "Because I don't want to." Five words - six, technically - conveyed to her through the curling of his fingers and the rattle of his gauntlets as he signed them to her. And she took it well, all things considered. No disappointment, no rebuttals, no further inquiries. Only a slow, thoughtful nod and nothing else. It was a mercy and a relief he didn't think he'd feel so thankful for, until he did.

Something told Silent Salt that she already knew the answer that hid behind the first one. Intuition? Their Soul Jam connection? That glint in her eye that resembled sympathy more than he would've liked? Whatever it is, it hardly matters in the end. She asked once. He answered once. She didn't ask again. That was the end of it.

With time, she grew more bold. No more reaching for his helm; it took a few tries but she learned her lesson there. Instead she let her hands rest on his cold shoulders. Trail along the dents and grooves in his chest. Take one of his gauntlets prisoner, turning it into a test subject, the apple of her curious eye as she studied the metal plates big and small encasing his fingers.

"Your hands are quite large," she remarked one day, some of it to him and some of it just to herself, her eyes still fused to the black sheet of his palm as she spoke. "My friend, Golden Cheese... She once told me that your comrade has large hands, too. Twice the size of hers, in fact. Are they bigger than yours, too?"

Yes, he told her, if his memory served. Once upon a time, Shadow Milk had tried to draft blueprints for armor that would actually suit Burning Spice's brutish proportions, and used Silent Salt's own as both a model and a controlled variable in his design experiments. Spice was as much a foolhardy thrillseeker then as he is now, charging into battle with his beads and bracelets and little else on his person. Whenever the five of them reconvened - and those meetings became fewer and fewer with time - Shadow Milk would nag him incessantly about it. Clucked at him like a mother hen would at an unruly chick. It was once his way of showing concern. Once.

The gauntlets were dirty and must have felt quite cold and unpleasant to the touch. But if White Lily minded, she made no sign of such. In fact, she showed the opposite; if he dared to believe what those slender, linen-wrapped fingers weaving through his own ironclad, mannish ones told him, she even seemed to find comfort in them. In him.

She grew bold, and he let her. A time eventually came when he could no longer help himself - but it was a hard-earned victory if there ever was one. Despite their bond, be it the one forged from their shared divinity or the one forged from their tentative friendship, his old habits and reservations still bound him in chains; memories from a time long gone, of men and women shying away from his sight. Of children rudely gawking. As darkness descended upon his soul, he came to resent them and their harsh reactions, for it was because of them that he looked like this in the first place. Every blade that carved into the flesh of his cheeks. Every creature with terrible claws that sought his eyes as trophies. Every gauntlet that looked just like his own that punched, slapped, poked; whatever the owner could do to leave behind their mark of conquest and shame. Silent Salt endured it all for their sake, and all the thanks he ever got was being gazed upon as a freak. A cautionary tale. A garish art display.

The world branded him a monster long before he ever became one. What reason did they have to be so distraught when he finally did? Is this not what they always believed him to have been anyway?

But White Lily took no part in this wholesale rejection. How could she, when deep down, she was hardly any different? And who would he be to continue mimicking his persecutors, like he has been for far too long?

One day, he found himself under a microscope again. It was cute, how her brow would furrow the slightest bit and she would start to purse her lips the stronger her single-minded focus became. A strand of snow white hair escaped its place atop her head and came dangling, teasing the tip of her nose; yet still, it went ignored in favor of the knight looming past it. Few questioned Silent Salt's bravery, himself included, but now... now he can feel his accursed face growing warm at the thought of tucking that rogue strand of hair behind her ear. Such a deceptively simple thing.

He stood still as a statue as her hands traveled up the metallic expanse of his torso. Up, up, up, along plates that had long lost their smoothness and shine, dipping into scratches and dents left by friend and foe alike, those old scars he wore on the outside. Sneaking past a familiar silhouette, just barely grazing the tips of that fabled fleur-de-lis. He never envied Burning Spice and where his own Soul Jam resided, but in hindsight, perhaps Silent Salt was never much better. With how seldomly he removed his armor, it may as well be his flesh by now. And within his flesh the Light of Silence nested, glowing brighter and emitting a faint pulse upon White Lily's brief disturbance. A broken heart, still as death, woken from its eternal slumber. Dared to beat again by she who held onto its missing half.

Her hands rose to his neck. Some ancient warrior's instinct demanded he take action against this would-be assassin, but he paid it no mind. He knew better. Not that White Lily wasn't capable of such barbarism; she has proven differently a thousand times over by now. He simply knows what an assassin looks like, and what a liar feigning innocence looks like, too - and now, in this moment, White Lily was neither.

His breath caught in his throat when those hands grasped at his head and he felt his helmet begin to rise. Slowly, carefully, betraying their master's hesitation. There was a slight tremor in her wrists - was she expecting him to suddenly reach up and grab her again? To try to stop her?

...The former came to pass, that much was true. But instead of pushing her away, this time, he found the courage to do the opposite: with his hands eclipsing her own, he guided them up and away, taking his helmet with them.

He loosened his grip just enough to let her hands go free. From there, he lowered his helmet and held it tight - so much so that that telltale rattling filled both their ears.

It felt strange for the wind and sun caress his skin again after so long. Once upon a time, he welcomed their embrace; once upon a time, they were a beloved respite, the only reward he ever wanted for himself after a long battle. They never ran away or judged him for this unfortunate face of his; in fact, once upon a time, he might've said and thought that they were the only ones in the whole world that ever believed he was handsome.

White Lily did not run away. She did not veil her disgust behind false politeness. She did not judge that unfortunate face of his.

All he could behold in her own face and eyes was that same old curiosity, adorned with that familiar glint of sympathy and shadowed by sorrow.

She gave her hands back to him. Cradled his face as he cradled his helm, albeit more gently. Ran her thumb over a faded gash in his cheek. Ghosted her fingertips over the claw marks crisscrossing over his eyes.

Silent Salt wondered if she'd already guessed his eyes are purple. He didn't ask. She probably did.

"It must have been terrible," she murmured, some of it to him and some of it to herself, as she observed the scar that threatened to split his hairline.

He nodded. She said no more, but there was no need; he understood what she meant. "It must have been terrible, how you earned each of these." "It must have been terrible, how others would shun you for what you endured." "It must have been terrible, how you felt compelled to hide behind a mask all this time, for lack of remembering any other way to exist." Only White Lily could say so much with so little. He always cherished it.

Through her quiet, endless searching, he could sense that she wanted to know more. In her eyes were questions that she wouldn't let out of her mouth. She wanted to know where the scars came from. What caused them. Who. How. Why.

Despite that morbid curiosity of hers, she did not ask. Although it likely pained her, she held her tongue and gave him peace. This was something else Silent Salt admired, something else that made him favor her above all others. For unlike others, her politeness was real.

He caught her stealing a glance at his lips, the faintest shade of pink tinting her cheeks as she did so. Gone were her sorrow and sympathy, leaving curiosity behind. In their place came... something else.

Perhaps the wind and sun weren't the only ones who believed he was handsome anymore.

She grew bold, and took a step closer - the only step left to take, with how close they already stood. Placing her feet atop his own in a small, adorable way to compensate for her height.

Only now did his supposed bravery return, and grant him the strength to tuck that strand of hair behind her ear. She seemed surprised, more so by his sudden gesture than she'd ever been by his face, the warm color in her cheeks turning more vibrant. He wondered if she could see that he felt just as bashful. She probably did.

She stood on her tiptoes, inviting him to tilt his head down with the soft nudge of her palm against the nape of his neck. He did so without resistance; now it was her turn to guide him.

She grew bold, and pressed a kiss to his scarred lips. And he let her.

[aardvaark]

the leverage team would have had a games night… once. everyone cheated so much and in such increasingly extreme ways that all mentions of monopoly are banned in their headquarters (this makes talking about marks who monopolize the market very confusing)

[marenwithanm]

Hey why can Ganon be revived via the heros blood in Adventure of Link?

It's not a plot point we see in any other games, so what makes Adventure of Link different? Here's my theory: the silver arrows. In the original Legend of Zelda (the first one), you kill Ganon by stunning him with your sword and finishing him off with an item called the silver arrows. Maybe, the silver arrows are a magic item designed to seal away powerful enemies within the blood of the user.

But the first game isn't the only time we see the silver arrows, they're also in A Link to the Past. Like the first game, you use them to finish Ganon off after stunning him with your sword. But Link doesn't have to deal with monsters trying to sacrifice him to bring back Ganon in that game, so I guess that destroys my theory, huh? Except... You know who does almost get sacrificed to bring Ganon back? Zelda. In the oracle games, twinrova kidnap her and try to sacrifice her. The in game explanation is that her death will bring people so much despair that Ganon can return, but what if it's also because Ganon is sealed away within her blood? Maybe she made/comissioned the silver arrows in the first place (edit: or maybe they're and artifact the royal family already had idk) and put her blood in them for the hero to find and use in A Link to the Past. And then, hundreds of years in the future, Link from the first Zelda game finds and uses them, not realizing the whole blood curse situation that goes with them

Tldr: silver arrows seal Ganon away in the user's blood and he can be brought back using their blood. Zelda from alttp and oracle games made and used them, and then Link from the first Zelda game used them and that's why he's got a blood curse in Adventure of Link

[abd-illustrates]

I might’ve spoiled the plot of Natlan | Genshin Impact THEORY

In which I read so much lore that I gained the power to see the future (maybe) This ended up being a real challenge to make - but it was also really fun! Please do lemme know what you reckon of these ideas, and whether y’all wanna see me pattern-recognition my way into several corkboards worth of theories about any other topics sometime down the line! (^^)/

(also: HAPPY NEW YEAR! 🥳🎉 Here's wishing y'all every good thing for 2024)

[luminous-orb]

doodle comic i made just before beating VLR. not to worry, I Know Now :)

[misplacedcolor]

Tormented by a bot

[laurrelise]

these spot the difference challenges just keep getting harder and harder

but that’s just a theory

lauren don’t say it don’t say it lauren please for the love of god do not say it

a game theory

[wackywatchdotcom]

what intrigues me abt caines dynamic w the rest of the cast is the way that none of them seem to understand why he is the way he is. like not in the comedic sense but how they dont seem to have a clear concept of his motivations or anything of that sort

we havent seen toooo much of it. but we have seen how pomni, zooble, jax, ragatha, and gangle view him and its so fascinating

pomni is like. she doesnt understand what hes doing but seems to view his actions as malicious in some way. i dont think she sees him as a 'mean' person but with how she says she thinks he wants her to suffer its very illuminating of how she sees him as someone who wants all of them to hurt. i dont think she knows why he would, but its the only conclusion shes got. it also speaks to her distrusting nature that upon being hurt by him her first thought is that its an intentional decision to harm her, and unfortunately for caine she hasnt actually been given much of a reason to think he feels otherwise. i dont know how she thinks caine feels about them but its clear to me how she views his goals and hobbies for lack of a better term

zooble doesnt trust him. they find him to be annoying but more significant is that they KNOW he likes them all. it adds an interesting tone to how they see him, that they specifically say that whats 'holding caine back' is that he 'likes [them]', which on one hand is them interpretting caines actions as being done from a place of liking the players, and that his actions are coming from a place of NOT hurting them, because he likes them (its interesting to note that they have participated in less adventures, so its unclear how much they know abt caines adventures firsthand). but on the other hand is implying that they think caines holding himself back at all. that there IS a desire or a capability to be cruel that theyre wary of. theyve also seen caine at his most vulnerable (in the show itself at least) and their comment, 'whose therapy session is this again?' implies theyre at least aware that this is caine having his own problems, though i dont think theyre comfortable safety-wise with how these problems affect them and the others. them asking caine 'why did you think i would like that?' speaks to the idea that they do think hes genuinely trying to appeal to the players, but they seem to find his lack of understanding of the players frustrating and unsafe for all of them

jax i think is pretty vague since most of his lines to caine are brief, and the most telling line he has abt caine is the only one we have. but he seems neutral on caine as a whole. caine is just a guy who makes things for them. he tries to entertain them and thats all jax really seems to be concerned with- whether his 'its not in his nature' line is reflective of him genuinely Believing that is smth i see debated often but i think no matter what, it conveys that jax Generally sees caine as someone who isnt malicious. hes not trying to hurt them, and whether or not he thinks caine is capable of hurting them is whats more vague. either way, jax doesnt seem to like or dislike caine

ragatha has very mimimal interactions with caine and not many lines about him, but i think her line in the pilot, 'thats just one of caines little adventures. theyre just something fun to do to, yknow, prevent us from going insane,' is extremely telling of how she sees caine. of all of them, she seems to have the most positive view of caine, since she interprets his actions as an active attempt to stave off abstraction in the players. whether or not she thinks caine is acting from a place of wanting to stop disruptions or if he wants to ensure the players arent doing as unwell as they could IS up for debate though. the way she talks about him in the pilot in general reads like she has some level of trust in him, but it seems like a surface level trust in him at the worst- she knows hes not malicious and knows he wants to help. she knows he can help her when shes jumbled. but its not clear if she Likes him. she seems to enjoy the adventures though (which, ill keep it brief so i dont derail this, but it honestly reads like a deliberate parallel writing-wise that the two of them both seem fond of distractions as an acceptable solution to a bad situation- if her assessment of Why he makes the adventures is anything to go by)

gangle is harder to read on this front, as she has way less lines about him, though she does have multiple notable interactions with him in ep 4, in the way of her seeming genuinely enthusiastic about his adventure (it doesnt seem completely directed at him, but she seems genuinely a bit happy about his praise of her leadership skills). when she calls him it doesnt convey TOO much i dont think but the way she talks to him and requests he make a punishment could imply she doesnt think hed normally make one, but also that hes not opposed to it, which is confusing in what it means about how she sees him but it feels important. her interaction with him at the end of the episode also doesnt convey much in this way (i feel like caine is not the main focus of most of that scene- which works for the scene and is good writing wise bc the scenes important for gangles writing of her own problems, but in terms of breaking down this idea it means im not sure this scene conveys much about how she sees him)

and then. i didnt mention kinger at the beginning specifically bc i dont think we have... almost any indicators of how he sees caine. he tells caine abt kaufmo in ep 1, suggests caine could find pomni in ep 2, doesnt address the thing pomni says abt caine in ep 3, and even his suggestion in ep 4 to sit out the adventure doesnt convey almost anything. the only throughline is that kinger sees caine as someone who can help them if they ask, but it doesnt convey any thoughts on what he thinks caines motivations are or his thoughts on caines actions. which frankly reads like a deliberate choice when kinger should be the one with the most history with caine

this post is long but i just am bery intrigued by this. i thinka ll the character dynamics are so deeply fascinating but with caine being the closest the show has to an antagonist (which of course is a loaded statement but i mean it in the writing sense and not in the 'antagonist is evil' way) it means that the way the characters see him holds a lot of weight. it conveys a lot abt them all with how they interpret the person that has (at least on the surface) the most control over the situation

[kitteninatux]

Something I really think people fail to consider for Post-Game Undertale is how the value of gold fluctuates

Since using G (gold) to make transactions is traditional for the economy of the underground. How would the humans react to the sudden influx of such an expensive and precious metal- what would happen to at the very least- the local economy? It’s already a given that Monsters would be able to adapt and improve the work on certain careers (ex: Grillby being a fire elemental monster can give him an advantage with cooking- due to his first hand knowledge of it.)

But what would that all entail for the humans in the area surrounding Mt. Ebott? There would certainly be a struggle on pricing the new value of gold after they all found out there was an entire underground supply of it. In my personal opinion, I think the most canon bet to it (assuming from the end credits) would be that Monsters are all conveniently rich and treated with confidentiality.

Kind of like

“Hey! If you give us all that gold you gathered and used in the underground, then we’ll trade ya some property and housing arrangements!”

Because Toby fox would absolutely pull some fourth wall breaking jokes with that. And Temmie would somehow make us cry over how majestic it was.

With that logic it’s also funny to imagine a scenario where either Genocide Frisk or Asgore slaying Frisk comes up to the surface ridiculously rich.

Just a random eight year old in a striped shirt waltzing down from a certain death distance and proudly displaying all the weirdly dusty pure gold trophies they got

[justag0at]

Y'all ever think about that small amount of time where the researchers in Corbeaux (the color researching house) just saw red in the sky. Imagine the immense validation from that. Related did you know the theory of color being determined by lights wavelength dates back to 1801, and spectrometers have existed since the 1800s?

[canadiancryptid]

hey so I know chapters 3 + 4 just came out but looking at the code and I may have found something I CANNOT find in-game?

There isn't one for King, but... chapter 5 might be in the flower shop? Just a hunch.

[im-smart-i-swear]

noelle........ im not like a deltarune/undertalehead buuut i do like watching theory/character analysis vids sometimes:) i like the christian deer girl. chismas

[see-arcane]

Relistening to the Re: Carmilla episode and trying to envision the scene with little Laura and Carmilla as it could be in a film. Not dreamy fairy tale gasp! shock! lightness, but like. Actual horror.

Shadows everywhere. A castle sunk in unbroken wilderness. No one around.

You are a child. You are alone in your bed.

You blink. You are not alone.

A woman is there. Pretty. Smiling. You don't know her, but at once you are comforted by her presence. She smiles for you and tucks herself into bed with you, hugging you close. She must be comforted by you too. Do you know each other? You must!

As the woman smiles, as she holds you, so small against her, she ducks her head to you, perhaps meaning to kiss.

And she bites into your chest.

There is not much chest to speak of there, of course. You are a child and so are cherub-petite. To sink her teeth in, she must bite deep.

Pain. Pain! Fear! Fear fear fear--

The woman retreats. Your blood is on her lips. As you watch, this woman does not climb out, does not walk away, but slips like a shadow over the edge of the covers and oozes under your bed. Waiting.

Is that where she came from? Has she always been down there? Where is anyone else? You are alone with her you are alone with her and if you put your foot down on the floor her hands will find you again and pull you under the bed skirt and she will bite through you again and oh O how long until she reaches your ribs, your heart..?

For all the sweet sinister sapphic goings-on and the chuckles about Laura's future (seeming) obliviousness, it's really worth exploring how to portray exactly how terrifying and traumatizing this first encounter with Carmilla was while Laura was still an actual child. A meeting so shaking it would stick with her for years afterward. It'd also help to play into the fact that Laura has always been a special case to Carmilla despite her hopping around chomping and killing through other fair maidens willy-nilly. She's been aware of Laura since she was a little girl and has been ticking off the years until she could fasten onto her once she was of age.

It makes me think of the subplot from The Hunger (1983) where one of the vampires involved was seemingly plotting to groom and turn a young girl once she grew old enough. The kid was killed off before she could try it, but still. Grim gothic shudder material right there.