willothewispwisteriadawn

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

The totems in the Until Dawn remake are the worst.

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

Btw, these were the rankings when I asked those same 208 people to give every character a ranking from 1 to 10 stars.

Btw. Here’s the chart from the poll I ran a bit ago. I asked 208 voters to rank the characters. The far left is first place and the far right is last place.

So for example: Voters most commonly ranked Ashley 6th or 8th. Chris was most commonly 2nd or 3rd. Emily was commonly 1st or 8th. Jessica was commonly 5th or 7th. Josh is pretty equal with 1st place being his highest. Matt is pretty close for votes in the middle-end. Mike is 2nd and 8th. Sam is 1st and 2nd.

But here’s how people tended to rank them.

And here are the totals. Because 1 point is good (first place), the winners are arranged by lowest score, like golf.

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

Who would forgive Josh for his "prank"?

I surprisingly have not seen many people discussing this in the fanbase. Maybe I'm just blind, but I decided to make my own list regardless.

Sam - I think she would. She didn't approve of Chris hitting Josh, she knew the whole prank was a cry for help, and she very obviously grieved his death and felt bad/guilty about the whole situation. I think she would be standoffish, at least at first, but she would understand and forgive him.

Chris - Obviously Chris forgave him, and almost immediately, too. He was clearly very pissed at him, but immediately went to rescue him and also defended him against Mike criticizing him. Of course, I don't think they would ever go back to being best friends/bros, but he still cares about him and forgave him.

Ashley - On her own, no, but I think she would learn to tolerate him or the mention of him for Chris' sake. She obviously didn't care about Josh getting hit or anything and is clearly very traumatized by everything Josh put her through, and we know she holds a grudge, even against someone she cared about more than Josh, so I don't think she would ever truly forgive him.

Mike - I honestly think he would. I think this might be a controversial opinion, but he shows remorse toward Josh, specifically with the "I thought you were the one who attacked Jess, I was wrong" line. I don't think he and Josh were ever particularly close, but I think Mike understands Josh is just really sick. Mike is intelligent, after all.

Jess - I'm not 100% sure, but I think so. Josh didn't actually do anything to her, and although I can see her being mad that he technically got her into that situation, she obviously felt very bad about the prank on Hannah and what happened to her and Beth. And also, she just seems so broken. I don't think she has it in her anymore to continue being a grudge-holding mean girl.

Matt - I honestly have no idea. We know Josh's relationship with Matt is the lowest, for some reason that's never explained. Matt generally seems like a nice guy, but he can also be a total asshole at times. I just don't think we know enough about Matt or his relationship with Josh to know for sure.

Emily - Honestly, pretty similar to Matt. I don't think we know enough about her relationship with Josh to say for sure. Again, Josh didn't actually do anything to her, so she might not care, but she is bitchy, so she might just put the blame on Josh for getting them all in that situation to begin with, whether it's fair or not. But again, I don't know enough to say for sure.

But anyway, yeah. That's my opinion on that one.

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

Analysis on the Dialogue of the Safe Room Scene

Here’s another analysis piece a did for Reddit, using a quote from a documentary I got. Will Byles’s interviews are endlessly fascinating to me.

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

Until Dawn's underrated/overhated duo

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

wooooaaaw nice shootin tex (sharp shooter is “i love ur nose x i love ur freckles” ok? ok!)

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

Btw. Here’s the chart from the poll I ran a bit ago. I asked 208 voters to rank the characters. The far left is first place and the far right is last place.

So for example: Voters most commonly ranked Ashley 6th or 8th. Chris was most commonly 2nd or 3rd. Emily was commonly 1st or 8th. Jessica was commonly 5th or 7th. Josh is pretty equal with 1st place being his highest. Matt is pretty close for votes in the middle-end. Mike is 2nd and 8th. Sam is 1st and 2nd.

But here’s how people tended to rank them.

And here are the totals. Because 1 point is good (first place), the winners are arranged by lowest score, like golf.

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

“What if Sam snoops in Chris’s bag and sees a message about him having a crush on her on his phone 😱😱” - hc by bestie @saintpixie

And what if I told you I’ve been thinking of them …..

And how there isn’t a lick of ship art for them …..

Made me feel diabolical ……..

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

Until Dawn remake reawakened my longtime love for them...

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

sweet promethazine

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

To clarify something about this that, in retrospect, looks confusing:

I do think Ashley locked up around the point where Chris was decapitated, like when Mike has to snap her out of it! She definitely froze there. That’s not what I’m saying I disagree with. “She froze” is in regards to the theory that her leaving him out was wholly unintentional because she was frozen from the start. I disagree there. She left him because she had a grudge about the saw trap.

Tom Heaton, Jez Harris, and Will Byles have all indicated this, and they like Ashley (She’s even Jez’s favorite)!! It’s just about what happened in the game.

Because I’ve been getting approached about this:

You may try to debate me about with your “Ashley froze at the door” and “there was no grudge” theories. But those theories are largely a fandom creation and not super defendable outside an echo chamber. They are significantly less supported by the game and dev content. And you will have a tricky time defending the position, most likely. (The remake has more room for interpretation; that’s a separate deal).

Ashley locked out Chris largely because she was mad.

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

Characters Grade Levels

So we have these ages (first number is for the prologue)

Ages

• Ashley: 17, 18

• Chris: 18, 19

• Emily: 18, 19

• Jessica: 17, 18

• Josh: 19, 20

• Matt: 17, 18

• Mike: 18, 19

• Sam: 18, 19

• Hannah and Beth: 16, 17

The twins’ ages come from using clues. The newspaper fragments show that Melinda Washington was heavily pregnant 5 June 1997. The Psycho threatens her with the death of her kids. This combines with the threatening letter stating the psycho waited 16 years to kill Hannah and Beth. It all maths-out.

Other info

• Josh was in college before the twins’ disappearance caused him to drop out. (Companion Bio)

• Chris is in the same grade as Josh.

• Matt is in high school. (Companion Bio)

• Mike, Emily, and Sam were at senior prom in 2013.

How I’d personally arrange the info

Sophomores in College: Josh, Chris, Sam, Mike, and Emily—During the events of the main game, Sam, Chris, Mike, and Emily are all sophomores (second year college) with Josh there too as a dropout. Lots of things work about this claim. If Chris and Josh were college freshmen in the prologue, then their senior prom would have been the same year as Sam, Mike, and Emily’s. And vice versa: the prom photo shows Sam, Mike, and Emily would be second year in college in the main game like the bio indicates for Josh.

Seniors in HS: Hannah, Beth, and Matt—Using the above paragraph, Matt then, is implied to be two grade levels lower than this first group, which is odd at first glance. However, this would potentially put him in a grade with the twins. The age spread for seniors in high school is 17/18, so it fits. The twins could be on the young half of the class while Matt is at the old half. I feel like having them in a grade with Matt more explains Matt in the group and, if they’re too much younger, it gets odder for Hannah to be Sam’s best friend.

Seniors in HS or Freshmen in College: Jessica and Ashley— These two can fit two places. They can be freshmen in college (a year behind the eldest group) or seniors in high school (in a grade with the twins and Matt). In a way, it almost makes sense to have a group centered on the twins’ grade and one on Josh’s grade, in terms of how these characters met. Also, Jess is so high on Beth’s stats. However, I think there’s a strong argument to be made that they (Ashley at least), very well could be in that middle year between Josh's group and he twins' group. Ashley is Chris’s study partner and that becomes a little bit weirder if they go to two separate schools.

Final thoughts

I know this post has potential gaps. People are going to come for me with like “Okay, but what if Ashley skipped two grades!!!” 😂 Yes, we don’t know she didn’t. Like we don’t KNOW Emily isn’t the grade below and was invited to prom like Hannah either.

However, I wanted to try it out while being directly logical—so ignoring rare circumstances and going with what makes Occam’s Razor sense with the lore and general ages people are at these stages of their life. The ages you’re generally supposed to be though are this: Senior HS: 17/18, Freshmen college 18/19, sophomore college: 19/20. This seems to check out with much of our other info.

Frankly, I think there might have been a lot of cooks in the kitchen here when adding age markers. So, who knows what’s exactly canon. But this is MY ultimate list that makes most sense to me. (Jess is the one I most waffle on between college and HS.)

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

I’ve been stalking the page of the person I got for the Until Dawn fic exchange so I can know what treats to drop into my gift, and it’s making me want to leave my own bread crumbs.

Maybe I should post some Sam and Chris and Josh mood boards or something lol.

Pic by Arthit5

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

I posted this on Reddit a LONG time ago. But here are my Until Dawn headcanons!

Josh's medical file saying he had incidents at school: I think they were based on emotional outbursts, but I also headcanon that he got in violent altercations with kids if he caught them picking on Hannah (for being shy and a little odd) or Chris (for being nerdy). He just went into angry big brother mode.

I think, in the past, that Mike and Matt tended to hang out a lot since they're guys, and Chris and Josh more hung out with each other. But, during the year between lodge visits, Chris and Mike began hanging out more. Chris was starting to need breaks from the everything going on with Josh, and Mike and Matt started to get a little awkward due to girl drama.

Josh wants Chris and Ashley to get together for these reasons: A) because he wants to see Chris win B) he finds the relationship kind of cool and cinematic C) while he's impressed by Mike's rizz, he's also annoyed at him for cycling through the girls in their group, particularly because of what happened to Hannah, and wants to prevent Mike from getting with anyone else D) I'm stealing this from someone, but Josh became aware of Sam's mom trying to set Sam up with Chris and is unhappy with that since he subconsciously likes Sam.

Chris's parents are doctors/nurses who work long shifts, and that's partially how he started spending a lot of time with tech and getting interested in it.

Chris's parents are well-off and will get him nice electronics for his birthday and Christmas, but are really against spoiling him so--the rest of the year--they make him buy pretty much all his own stuff with money he earned.

Emily and Jessica became close because of their interest in the fashion industry. They had really big dreams involving Jess being a famous model, and Emily being a well-known fashion editor. They used to have a spa night once a year where they watched *The Devil Wears Prada* (They are both very adamant that the Emily in that film is the best character, and they quote her all the time).

Ashley and Chris started studying together because Ashley is a whiz at English/literature and Chris is a whiz at math, and they joke about how they're now unstoppable because they tutor each other in their weaker areas.

Matt is not much of a reader, but Ashley got him hooked on faerie romances with girlboss characters, and they started meeting (subtly because neither of them want it to be public that they love this type of literature) to rave about the books. Matt listens to the audiobooks while he's working out. Chris started to catch onto the fact Matt/Ashley talk a lot, and he is internally a bit worried about it.

Bob and Melinda Washington adore Sam and Chris, because they were honestly a little concerned about Hannah and Josh developing good friendships. They don't like Mike much and, after the prank, they tried to cut him out of their lives and were not happy Josh wanted to invite him back up to the lodge but eventually relented. They are also a bit wary about Emily and Jess, but not as much as Mike.

Beth always picks the movie when the Washington siblings have little movie nights in their home theater. This is because Hannah and Josh have polar opposite tastes in films.

Emily keeps saying she's going to give Chris a make-over because he has no style, and she views this “as a challenge befitting of her skills and superior taste.” She's kind of insulting about it, and Chris gets very annoyed/defensive while also kind of getting that Emily doesn't actually dislike him and says some of this in fondness.

Sam is a bit of a big-sister figure to Ashley. She likes doting on her, because she views Ashley as sweet and sensitive.

Sam has another group of friends that she rock-climbs with.

Chris really loves sleeping and is always the first person to fall asleep on voice chat or at parties. He's a deep sleeper and sets like five different alarms. However, he also periodically games late at night (with the help of many energy drinks) so he specifically avoided signing up for any college classes before 11am so that he can sleep for most of the morning.

Chris got the group together for a D&D campaign (Btw, he references D&D at the seance). The following happened: Josh ended up moving it over to his house because he built a really cool setup for it, Sam was always the one to defuse fights, Emily complained about how stupid it was but was also really good at it (and opinionated about it), Josh kept trying to seduce monsters, Mike/Jess got obsessed with using "vicious mockery," Chris used NPCs to very subtly flirt with Ashley's character, and it all ended when Mike insisted they could take an enemy well above their levels--Emily's character died.

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

Because I’ve been getting approached about this:

You may try to debate me about with your “Ashley froze at the door” and “there was no grudge” theories. But those theories are largely a fandom creation and not super defendable outside an echo chamber. They are significantly less supported by the game and dev content. And you will have a tricky time defending the position, most likely. (The remake has more room for interpretation; that’s a separate deal).

Ashley locked out Chris largely because she was mad.

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

prank gone wrong ⏳

kinda want to draw something in chibi style and this cast is just perfect

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

Hi I am the anon Chris asker from before, I am here to ask more questions about Chris because I believe you are the expert :)

At what point in development did they decide to make Chris not apart of the prank?

I think I saw a random post saying Chris’s roll in the prank was that he was supposed to get Josh drunk on purpose to make him be passed out for the prank and that he was drinking energy drinks while getting drunk with Josh to keep himself from passing out too but it didn’t work? Him going to these lengths to prank Hannah when he presumably grew up with her (with being Josh’s best friend and being around a lot) seems so cruel and out of character for Chris. I wanna know what is fact and also what you think!!

Thanks again!!

-fellow Chris enthusiast ❤️

Thank you. That’s nice of you to say. It’s fun to hear that people like all my ranting and raving about him. Chris is awesome. Sorry, it took a bit to collect my answer again.

I’ve looked into this question too.

Developer Statements:

It seemed like Chris was removed from the prank only a few months before release (though nobody can say for sure). There’s early demo footage of him in the prank video and dollhouse, then two devs who worked on the game said during a Twitch stream that they didn’t know why Chris was removed. However, the director has since spoken on it and implied it was quite a bit before release.

In a Crimson-Head podcast interview with the executive director Will Byles, one of the interviewers asked about Chris’s involvement in the prank. Byles said a few things:

“If you had everyone being a part of this group, it makes them a really unpleasant group, whereas if you have a few of them going along with it, it becomes slightly more believable, we thought.”

"So we wanted a little bit of nuance, I think, in that. There was the whole scene in the kitchen, and we wanted to have the fact that Josh wasn’t drunk on his own (Laughs). It made more sense to have them to be friends. And we carried that through into the actual thing. There was even kind of the shipping between Chris and Josh—that became a thing that we hadn’t written in, but we did want to have them to have quite a close relationship. If you had everyone being a part of this group, it makes them a really unpleasant group, whereas if you have a few of them going along with it, it becomes slightly more believable, we thought. So that was the thing about Chris not being a part of it. It wasn’t ‘a tiny bit before’ it. It was a while before we did it."

So the answer as to why Chris was removed is actually three answers:

Having this entire group gang up on one person at her own home was a little too nasty. The dev team decided that if a few people weren’t involved and this was done by only part of the group, it doesn’t seem like one unit of unlikable people.

They enjoyed the friendship between Josh and Chris and decided to carry that more into the main game.

It helped the party seem like a party. At least Chris and Josh are there, proving fun was had during this night lol.

My Thoughts on the "Chris got Josh Drunk" Theory

Now that carries into your next question. The “Chris got Josh drunk” theory was popular, I think, around at the time people realized he was once going to be part of the prank. That knowledge then emphasized the fact that Chris has lines apologizing for the prank or seemingly including himself within it. So the theory became that he was still part of it, but basically keeping Josh busy.

I really hate this theory for a few reasons.

There’s so little in the game proper to support it. We have arguments based on development knowledge and a few lines of apologetic Chris. But, if he had betrayed Josh, it would have come up more strongly. From a writing perspective, you wouldn't have this be a thing without commenting on it at all.

It directly contradicts two of Chris’s core traits: loyalty and protectiveness. “Protectiveness” is on his trait card in both games. “Loyal” is in the remake but also was always stated in his Companion App bio. If Chris directly played with Josh’s trust to intentionally get him to drink enough to be helpless and unable to protect Hannah… This is just SO contrary to what we know about Chris. Why even give him these traits if you violate them more than you show them?

Thirdly, this goes beyond Chris and changes the tone and nature of the prank. The prank was terrible, yeah. But the characters are still redeemable because the prank was depicted as an impulsive (perhaps even a little drunken) joke at a party. Now, what if the group went to Chris ahead of time and said, “Josh is going to try to stop us. We need him out. Just hang out with him and slowly get him inebriated”? This changes the tone dramatically. Now it’s not a group of teens making a mean mistake. It’s teens actively scheming to do something they’ve acknowledged would enrage their host, so they decide to have his best friend betray him by using alcohol to take away his agency. And, for some reason, Chris completely agrees to do this?

The Byles interview about why Chris was removed basically shoots down this theory as at all intended by the devs, at least. They wanted to SOFTEN the prank. And they wanted to better show that Chris and Josh have a close bond.