🤔｜theories

[void wigeon]

No but since it’s the tradition gerard and Nicholas watched their older sibling die

Or am I getting that bit wrong idk

[azure bay]

If they did, why arent they enlightened already? That's how the ritual is meant to work

[errant estuary]

margaret’s a little too familiar with the day of the lake for it to me a one time thing

but i might be wrong

[void wigeon]

Also they might have only got it fully right on Jakobs turn

[azure bay]

Do you have evidence? I mean something obvious that isn't tied to personal interpretations

[errant estuary]

dysfunctional doesn’t mean malicious, it can be a loving family with a dysfunctional dynamic

[void wigeon]

Mainly the fact they willingly burned Caroline alive

[azure bay]

It's definitely not a one time thing. But still. Why are they still there?

[azure bay]

I won't go too deep into this topic but people did more horrible things for their beliefs and yet were considered good family men

[azure bay]

Can you elaborate more about their disfuncionality?

[void wigeon]

But like if I knew my dad burned my mother alive all for religion I think our family would be classed as dysfunctional at the least

[errant estuary]

one person has to to it all, they forget a family member when they literally board the island up, one of them asks the rest to get him food THRICE with no thanks at all, also david stabs nicholas for no reason

[azure bay]

The core reason for all these actions is a good afterlife they actually get in the end

For the rest of the family

[void wigeon]

Also David was trapped in ice for god knows how long with no help

[errant estuary]

oh right

that too

[azure bay]

Elisabeth seems to have stayed willingly
Gerard is just a pig
David stabbed Nicolas when he wasn't himself

[void wigeon]

But do the ends justify the means? Like really think about it.

[errant estuary]

to me it kind of feels like they fear leaving paradise, because to them, anything else would be hell

and if they can’t thrive in paradise, then where can they?

[azure bay]

It's not about me or you, it's about them.

They are immoral by our standards but internally they definitely see themselves virtuous. And some of them really are if you put the sacrifice aside.

Idk, imagine Aztecs

Human sacrifice was a part of their culture

Do you think they didn't love their families?

[void wigeon]

They kept children in pits just because the children had needs. The aztecs aren’t really the best people to bring up for this

Wait

That might have been a different time period

Actually no I think it was the Aztec’s

Also they drank piss so I’m not sure they were all there in the head

[azure bay]

It's not about sanity

It's about misjudgement and ignorance

A whole nation can't be crazy

But it can be wrong

[errant estuary]

i mostly say dysfunctional because i see a lot of the stubbornness through their adversity my family had

it is not a stable family dynamic but they probably stick together

[void wigeon]

Which made them dysfunctional. Dysfunctional families can come in many shapes and sizes and them being cut off from everything on the island is enough to say they are dysfunctional

[azure bay]

I can agree about Gerard and David, they are the idiots of the family but Margaret is the most sympathetic of the bunch, Elisabeth isn't far behind even though, she's a bit weird. They both help a lot in Jakob's endavors. And Nicolas is the most calm and respectful

Speaking of Gerard, later on he gets on with the protagonist quite well

And even though he's a jerk, everyone tries to bring him back to life

And don't forget the guitar trio

They also bond

[errant estuary]

is he really that much of a jerk or is he an annoying funnyman

[azure bay]

David would be annoying

[errant estuary]

he really said boioioioioing

😭

[azure bay]

Everyone was acting like that that night

But earlier he was the most stubborn and unhelpful

[errant estuary]

yeah but the fact that he made a goofy ass bouncy sound

jakob on the fourth plague: “david? that seems a little needlessly violent.”

[azure bay]

And Nicolas who always looked like an aristocrat was mimicking a bull using his fingers as horns

[errant estuary]

https://tenor.com/view/urban-rescue-ranch-rescue-ranch-kevin-ostrich-gif-22560229

[azure bay]

Again, David wasn't himself. He was transformed into a dangerous predator.

He was the lake plague

[errant estuary]

i know but i keep thinking of jakob talking to fly david like he is just a cranky rhea

[azure bay]

Ok

[covert wyvern]

@hollow drift please mind your spoilers.

[sweet tulip]

or they could do a proximity system, or sound based puzzles

but then you would need another form of input to accomodate deaf player

ironically enough

or something like iron lung, where you dont actually have any information about your surroundings, but you have some kind of data that lets you navigate a map

[carmine field]

Could it be that the painting Van Gogh paints during the events of Arles is "Lake in Midnight"?

Although "Lake in Midnight" could be referring to that version of Starry Night with the Lake, but who knows.

[azure bay]

This has to be Bedroom in Arles

And there's no Lake nor mountains anywhere near Arles

[carmine field]

I mean that painting with the black cube

[azure bay]

Hmmmmm

Never thought about it

[carmine field]

But there's a sun and a moon

So it's probably not "Lake in Midnight"

[azure bay]

Yeah, both the moon and the sun wouldn't probably make it midnight

[carmine field]

I just wonder why the black cube came from there

Just as the shot at the corrupted soul brought a white cube

[azure bay]

Seems either like gameplay or symbolism

[carmine field]

I think it could be symbolic smh, just like Seasons

[azure bay]

Killing a CS produced a good memory?

[carmine field]

Even the black egg had something

[carmine field]

Perhaps? Or is it possible that the suicide was a good thing, in some way?

[azure bay]

Normally it isn't. I have little to no understanding what's really happenning in Arles.

It repeats some "real" events but at the same time it's Vincent returning to his memory cubes for some reason

What does he change?

[carmine field]

The game starting in October 1888 gave me a lot of doubt

This is the time when Gauguin started living with Van Gogh in Arles

But is it just that?

[azure bay]

I think it goes beyond

I'd assume, that it spreads across the longer time span

[carmine field]

I think so too

Maybe the two cubes are like in Seasons. Technically, Van Gogh would be in them

Van Gogh puts the two cubes as keys to unlock the door, just as Laura puts the cubes behind the portrait to escape the memory

[azure bay]

Except, she doesn't really escape, she either lives on into the next memory or enters its cube

[carmine field]

I think these parallels with Seasons are very important to understand what's happening

[carmine field]

If the cubes are in the Lake, I think it fits with Van Gogh's case

[azure bay]

How so?

[carmine field]

When Van Gogh leaves, he comes across the Lake, right?

[azure bay]

Not sure

The lake isn't supposed to be there

I recall only Paradox doing something like that

[errant estuary]

isn’t he in arles though?

[azure bay]

He's in a "memory" of Arles

But since TPW I expect more reality from such memories

[carmine field]

The end of Seasons could be the Lake too, except for the absence of trees, perhaps because the devs hadn't thought about the forest properly at that time

[azure bay]

There's a difference between the surface and the bottom

The surface is more of a normal location abiding the laws of the physical world

And the bottom is a place beyond time and cubes are floating there

[carmine field]

That's true

I think it's simpler to assume that the exterior of Arles is not literal. Maybe a way to portray Van Gogh's vision or something along those lines, similar to the hallucinations Laura has during Seasons, even though they're completely different things

I sincerely highly doubt that the Lake is in Arles. The devs wouldn't give away the location so easily I guess

[azure bay]

And what they did give away doesn't feel like Arles either

What hallucinations does Laura have?

[carmine field]

The eye in the lamp, the TV, herself and the corrupted soul in the window...

Probably derived from her paranoia

[carmine field]

Also the red forest

[azure bay]

The TV doesn't feel much like a hallucination though. Especially the Burgundy part.

And the moon. There were other scenes like that across the series.

I tend to agree about the eye and the forest (unless the eye is another part of corrupted vision)

[carmine field]

The corrupted soul, the forest, the clock, eggs, blood, things referencing both her death and objects that seem to have some degree of relevance (the egg, for example, was where the black cube came from)

And yes, there were other scenes like this throughout the series, but they are most likely references or the characters were also hallucinating (Bob's case)

[errant estuary]

i think i saw one other instance, and it was in roots, when she was still william

so i think that seeing herself in the moon is a little motif

[azure bay]

Also Bob in a secret of TWD

[azure bay]

Bob doesn't hallucinate much either. Only TLS is a fever dream and he was really going crazy in a solitude cell

[carmine field]

He was also delusional as hell on day 6, probably because of corruption?

[azure bay]

I call that corrupted vision since today

But it may be not just vision

Some CS affect their surroundings

The darkness, the scary patterns

[carmine field]

Yep

It is still a little curious that Van Gogh sees the Lake outside the house

Your theory that he went to the Lake for treatment at MH&F instead of the St. Paul asylum is quite good and would explain the memories extraction

Now the painting of the black cube looks a lot like the Lake too, there must be a meaning that we don't fully understand yet

I want to revisit Van Gogh's biography someday to see if I can find anything by myself

[azure bay]

I doubt we ever will. We never revisited van Gogh since 2015. Except for some new achievements, I suppose

[carmine field]

I think it's good how it's going. We see references here and there, and now in the BKM arg the name of one of the paintings was revealed to us. I think this is a good approach and I hope it stays that way, rather than reviving Van Gogh in a game

One way or another, these secrets tell something

[carmine field]

What are the references to Magritte throughout the series?

[errant estuary]

i am wondering something

what was caroline hungry for when she was a soul?

because i know it can be most anything

even an abstract idea, like protecting jakob

[dreamy vector]

@untold stump So - going back on the topic. I think it’s a good take as I said, however it also adds some new things to the table if that’d be the case. If he added powers to these masks knowing his grandpa’s methods to do so, did the thing itself make a fully ready mask (which is a bit weird even in RL setting, lol) or did he have to buy or make them first? If it’s the latter, then it would also mean Albert is skilled at things like handcraft, which is fun to think about but still not something that’s completely out of question. I’m pretty sure the powers of the masks are literal, though, and something that actually has a personal meaning to him. The white mask seems to bring winter/sudden cold weather not only in Roots, but also in TPW. It doesn’t always react this way though so it might be something requiring knowledge on how to “activate” this power, and Rose seems to know it too since she wore one

[untold stump]

Yeah the masks have consistent powers over the games, and we know Albert has handcraft skill since he built the cubical device all by himself, which I'd assume required more effort than the masks given its power. But masks in particular seem to be Albert's personal choice to hide his scars : when he has one on, his scars dissapear which, to me, symbolises that he only feels "normal" when having a mask on.
But that ponders the question, if the scars dissapearing is a metaphor, couldnt the powers of the mask also be one ? All of what we see in game isnt cannon, it can just be a gameplay mechanic. But the mask thing is where there is a lot of confusion.

Also the most interesting mask to me is the deer one : it wasnt in the house, it seemed to have been brought by a crow-looking corrupted soul to Albert, and it allowed him to murder Sam and Ida, and William got 2 sacrifices out of that. The specifuc power of this mask isnt clear, but with the deer imagery in RL it seems linked to rituals and sacrifices. Im wondering if Aldous saw Albert's doing and decided to step in to accelerate the collect of body parts by giving this mask to Aldous, which worsened his murderous tendencies.

[dreamy vector]

Yeah, that’s true with the device. What I meant by handcraft though is not something like practical craft and getting all the gear metal parts click together without really worrying about its appearance (but just… well, practical use) but something of artistic value if it makes sense? Crafting the base for a mask isn’t something everyone would do, and it’s a bit tricky to make it look actually good and be able to comfortably wear especially for that long (and they are made skillfully that they last this much time over the years, he has started wearing the white one when he was around 18 and Rose had access to it when she were around 17, which gives literal decades of it being in the same good condition). Not every handy man type of person is good at making things actually look good or having some appear to it above the practical usage - and I doubt Albert would wear anything that didn’t fit his visual tastes considering that he didn’t like how his face looked like and it would serve no purpose to conceal it with something that he disliked as much to look at. I am not sure how literal is the thing with scar disappearing as it is not consistent (for ex. You can see the slight hair covering more than before putting one on in Roots, but it doesn’t do so in TPW. Also the little scar edges around his right eye always remain there) but if it is, it also would make sense. A mask off is also a sign of trust for him for sure, as he seems to for example, wear it when interacting with Frank all the time with exception for last game of chess and only has it off around grown up Rose, closer family members and Ida.
As for that, I believe things that are symbols don’t necessarily have to be non literal as well - and be both a symbol and something actually happening. The play of Albert and Frank was also a very symbolic event but it’s still not just a metaphor - in fact, Frank really did kill him.

[dreamy vector]

That’s also a good notice - and showed that perhaps Albert was aware of what was going on considering he preserved both of the eyeballs and focused on them during the voodoo play in general. I always liked this mask as well - and it reminds me a lot of overall European pagan beliefs around the symbol of a deer. I might look to far into that as I am very very into mythology and roots of European pagans but deer seems to have a consistent image in them - a symbol of connection between the realm of the alive and the realm of the dead as well as a link to another symbol of a tree of life. I liked to interpret it this way, just to say. And I guess it might be somehow the case that Aldous wanted to get some benefit from what would inevitably happen in a way or another and thus “encouraged” using his murders in gaining new sacrifices.

[untold stump]

The fact that the snow mask appears in different times unchanged could be simply explained by the fact that he made several. Also for the deer mask I don't know much about European pagan beliefs but it's possible given that RL took inspiration from a lot of different religions and practices around the world.
Personally I think that the mask really do change the weather and all as we see in Roots, and for TPW you could explain their different effects by the fact that they're in a cube ( so there can't be any snow like there was in Roots for example )

Yeah it was a good idea to not have this whole convo in general, look at all this text

[dreamy vector]

I don’t think he made separate ones, as a well made mask really can last tens or hundreds of years even (and it depends on materials used too) - but it’s something not confirmed either way of course. It would be interesting to find out it could be a real inspiration on that too, and it makes sense given what else was happening there in general.
And yeah, I also share this belief on that - maybe the space inside a cube could inflict how do the masks work and it’s an interesting thing to reflect on as well - I thought if it would be continued on if further games and reflected on more (as well as other things, as I cannot believe TPW would have no consequences in the future). And yeah, haha it’s quite a text wall but as you noticed already I am kinda brainrotten about RL

[errant estuary]

i just realized that the extraction of cubes doesn’t make the patient forget about any memory, and it has to be erased to cure corrupted souls

[azure bay]

no, it does. Confirmed by Best Kept Memory

[errant estuary]

oh

still, i think it is probably like ripping open a festering wound

[azure bay]

what do you mean?

[errant estuary]

painful

[azure bay]

I think that's true only for black cubes

[errant estuary]

yeah, defo

[errant estuary]

white cube might bring pleasant feelings when it’s extracted

[carmine field]

Which of Magritte's works does the series reference? I know these, but is there anything else?

[sweet tulip]

not a lot more though

I haven't seen any steel balls, floating rocks, or weird apples yet

this one is possible but it's a stretch

[errant estuary]

they’re all so cool

[sweet tulip]

oh yeah, Magritte is an amazing artist
even though finding any meaning is pretty hard most times

[thorny wedge]

definitely

but art for art's sake is wonderful too

[errant estuary]

they kind of feel like the weird art studies that i do at times, but awesome

[thorny wedge]

ngl id love to see your art studies

god i fucking. i love you art

[errant estuary]

glad to hear that

[thorny wedge]

so yeah anyways if you ever wanna share your stuff let me know

[sweet tulip]

except that's not the point
there are things to get out from them
it's just very abstract behind the surreal imagery
which fits pretty well with the RL philosophy

[thorny wedge]

no i know

[sweet tulip]

like this is a painting about the nature of knowledge and perception

like wtf

[thorny wedge]

im just saying, the lack of a concrete or easily identifiable meaning doesn't prevent the art from being enjoyed

yeah i can see that

[sweet tulip]

no for sure

[thorny wedge]

of course not for sure, but theres obviously something going on there, if i werent provided with an artist's explanation i could draw my own conclusion cause i intuitively know this wasnt just made to be looked at, it goes deeper

[sweet tulip]

ah no I'm just canadian

"yeah no no yeah" is a valid sentence

[thorny wedge]

thats how i talk oftentimes so. i know now to blame canadians for picking that one up thank you

i read not instead of no so this was just me being blind lmao

[sweet tulip]

I was agreeing with you

right

[thorny wedge]

right

[carmine field]

We never see Laura smoke on screen, but there are some hints that she smokes

[azure bay]

I'm sure it was Dale's cigar on the left hand side

and the box could be a hint to the upcoming game about Harvey

[carmine field]

Maybe, but what about the ashtray?

[azure bay]

could be just there without a second thought

but I see where u r coming from

[carmine field]

It's a possibility

[thorny wedge]

dale just coming onto a crime scene, smoking a cigar and using the victim's ash tray is a very funny image

[carmine field]

The entire first chapter of Case 23 is weird lol

Dale used the victim's home phone to call Rusty Lake

[thorny wedge]

he's just a very hands on investigator

[untold stump]

Let's not forget that in ub|| a cigarette just spawns in her coffee, truly only a high leveled smoker can harness that cigarette manifestation power||

[carmine field]

I don't remember any other reference to Laura with cigars

[errant estuary]

bro that is why the coffees 10 dollars

i think??

[sweet tulip]

that premium cigarette service

[untold stump]

Bro Bob was crazy rich if he just gave 200$ to a random bird person in a metro

[errant estuary]

did he?

[bright parrot]

You sure that's dollar?

[azure bay]

that's what's written on the price tag

[bright parrot]

Damm he's rich

[untold stump]

Honestly the money here is imo the easiest to rule out as gameplay element

And even if it weren't it wouldn't give us much insight on the world

[azure bay]

sure thing. But we have other evidence of Bob Laura and Dale living in US

[errant estuary]

hundred krona

[dapper steeple]

I used to have a headcanon that the room in Case 23 was accessed via the oven in the house in Seasons

[errant estuary]

oh

i always assumed that it was a doorway, but because of laura becoming an unreliable narrator, she forgot about the rest of her house

[thorny wedge]

ive never thought about this before but yeah barricading yourself in one room that becomes your safe space you refuse to leave because of your crushing anxiety seems to check out

she literally sees no door, there's nowhere else that's safe and as long as there's no access points she's safe

[errant estuary]

yeah

[thorny wedge]

oven theory is also kinda cool though, that would be more her literally barricading and hiding herself

[dapper steeple]

Why does the doorway disappear for Dale?

[errant estuary]

it’s part of her isolation-paranoia spiral

[errant estuary]

i am assuming that the bird men have something to do with that, to herd him to the lake

[dapper steeple]

Huh

It appears she was dragged into the other room

[thorny wedge]

i feel if it were never there, it wouldn't show up in the first place, it might be him "absorbing" some of laura's anxiety as he spirals himself

[dapper steeple]

Maybe

Why would the case cause him to spiral?

Immediately I mean

[errant estuary]

he was severely traumatized at a formative point in his life, and hand picked by some force outside of his control

[dapper steeple]

Oh yeah

Was that the first time he spiralled?

[errant estuary]

not certain, but i do not doubt that mr owl and mr crow didn’t just sit and do fuckall when he got the case

[thorny wedge]

i'd say case 23 immediately must have ticked him off since he talks about how he can't stop thinking about it

[errant estuary]

yeah

[dapper steeple]

What was special about Case 23?

It must have something to do with how connected the case is to the rest of the story

[errant estuary]

to him, it is at first the apparent homicide of an isolated woman, before her body suddenly began to do things it wasn’t supposed to be capable of doing

[dapper steeple]

That happened after the doorway disappeared

[errant estuary]

he gets fascinated by how nonsensical case 23 is, and almost feels obligated to unravel the situation

personally, i think it was mr crow and mr ow doing that behind the scene

[thorny wedge]

might also be his first brush with the lake aside from birthday, which yes traumatized him but he might not have realized anything supernatural was going on and may have just thought mr rabbit had a mask on

this is the first time he saw reality be defied

[errant estuary]

to herd him to the lake

[dapper steeple]

The phone call brought Laura to the clock in the mill, and the TV brought Dale to the chapel

[errant estuary]

because the plan hinges on laura and dale being in the lake at the same time, for some reason

[dapper steeple]

Then they did Paradox with both of them

[errant estuary]

they wouldn’t just let him be completely unguided

[dapper steeple]

What if Laura was going through UB while Dale was going through Paradox

Or after

[errant estuary]

they want him to be at a certain place, and find all the clues that would bring him to the lake

[dapper steeple]

Did they leave clues in the Chapel?

[errant estuary]

probably

we know that both parts to the plan were closely monitored and manipulated

[dapper steeple]

Hmmm

[untold stump]

Dale could have been obsessed with Case 23 since he also saw something superatural in his childhood and everyone would have kept tellng him that it was him repressing his trauma, that he was delusional to think a rabbit person killed his family, so when he saw the case of a woman also having supernatural aspect to it, he wanted to prove everyone that what happened to him on his birthday was in fact supernatural

[dapper steeple]

What about Bob's role?

[errant estuary]

bob i think was collateral

[dapper steeple]

Ah

The bartender was presumably Mr. Crow?

[errant estuary]

yeah

[dapper steeple]

Actually

Unless that was The White Door manipulating his memories

[untold stump]

Bob helped Laura in her depression. ||Laura took prozac only after he left as we saw in ub||

[errant estuary]

yeah

[dapper steeple]

Why did Laura have to stop seeing Bob?

[untold stump]

We also saw the bartender in Theater, but granted there also could have been memory manipulation involved here

[errant estuary]

again, they had to get rid of her support system, to get her to the state she was in in seasons

[dapper steeple]

Yeah, considering Mr. Owl literally showed up in person

[errant estuary]

but personally, i think laura cut him off on account of her “being a burden to him”

[dapper steeple]

And the bartender portayed Mr. Crow in the play

Ah

[errant estuary]

and that he’d be better off if she was out of the picture

which was not at all true, as we see in the white door

[untold stump]

Yeah maybe she didnt like Bob but he was never shown being anything but an absolute sweetheart until the breakup so maybe Owl was involved or maybe its Laura who pushed him away because she didnt feel worthy of love or she was afraid that the same thing that happened to her mom happened to Bob and pushed him away before it would hurt too much to lose him

[errant estuary]

that is what i mean

it’s a thought that pops up in a lot of mentally ill people (i know first hand)

[untold stump]

Yeah that can happen when u lose someone u love and feel like its your fault, u just dont want anyone to get too close to u anymore

[dapper steeple]

I think UB really justified TPW's place in the story

[carmine field]

I disagree. She was already using Prozac in 1964, according to Seasons

Bob and her broke up around 1969

[azure bay]

I tend to think the same but objectively we don't really know when they started dating and when they broke-up

[untold stump]

Oh right I didn't check the dates thanks for the precision!

[errant estuary]

probably, but i think the breakup defo took a toll at her

[untold stump]

Yeah maybe she started seeing her medication as harmful after the breakup ?

[carmine field]

Fixed it

[azure bay]

She was still taking it

I'm not at all sure but I suppose Harvey was mimicking Bob's growls in Summer

(speaking of them dating after 1964)

[carmine field]

Well, he's identical to Aldous in Roots

[errant estuary]

yeah

i love the fact that he’s such a dick (mr crow)

[azure bay]

is he?

[untold stump]

OK i did some research and in ub there was a note from Dr Clark that said ||" Here is the medecine I discussed with you during our last appointement. This medecine will not cure you, your fears are too deeply rooted in your past. It will, however, give you the insughts you are seeking ||
Dr Clark is a TWD doctor as we see in https://mentalhealthandfishing.com/about-us.html so he probably works for Owl. The medecine she took after the breakup could have been altered by him to make her spiral even more in her sorrow

Dr Clark also uses drawing as a treatment which aligns with Laura's hobby

[errant estuary]

“gimme ten dollars and kill yourself”
-mr crow to bobert

[azure bay]

We finally know the exact reason of Laura's death. She was missing Rose. The game made a huge emphasis on that. Therefore I think that Clark and by extension Owl simply tried their best to keep her alive. But unfortunately her "fears are rooted too deep in her past"

[carmine field]

Regarding medicine and prescriptions, we shouldn't take this literally, just like everything in UB

She could be using Prozac at any time

The devs just put it at that moment to emphasize that she was in a bad time

[azure bay]

I think he meant much more. Owl didn't need Bob dead, he needed him at TWD and eventually he got him there and Bob was cured in one way or another. I think that was Crow's solution

[errant estuary]

ah

[steel imp]

Hi guys

I just finished (for the first time, no easter eggs) Underground Blossom

I'm pretty happy because, apparently, I was right about some things about my past theories:

• We actually play as human Harvey, no parrot would be able to torture a pickpocketer
• Underground Blossom is not so much metaphorical
• Corrupted souls aren't mindless zombies, but are capable of smart planning and to follow a methodic course of action

[visual coral]

No, UB is for the most part metaphorical.

• There's no way there's a real train at the bottom of the Lake
• There's no way kids draw Asura Harvey, cause that would mean seeing an Asura just walking around is normal, when it's clearly not.
• Bob and Laura's break up, Laura's death, Dale's investigation didn't not happened in the subway.
  So, Harvey is most likely still a parrot, and all of the UB is just an artistic retelling of Laura's life from his perspective.

[steel imp]

• How do you know?
• Actually, the black girl tells us that "we look funny". That's refering to the fact that we have a bird face
• This is indeed a valid point. I'm just saying it's not so much metaphorical

[visual coral]

• Because there's just no way. How do you think it would work? Who could've build that and how? We didn't see no train in The Cave. It's clearly an artistic choice from the devs, because they needed a tool to show Harvey travelling from memory to memory and a new fresh location for the game.
• I don't think a girl would talk to a parrot to begin with. But if she did, what's wrong with a parrot looking funny? I'd say it's ether that or just an edgy phrase they chose for her. Just like "What do you want from me" from another girl

[steel imp]

• The Lake it's not only under the cave. What you see there is a portal to the lake. The lake is an host dimension for all the other cubes, it's not a place in our world. However it's accessible in various ways, under the cave, from the Hotel "lake" and of course, from the train
• Of course it would not talk to a parrot, but there's nothing messed up talking with a man with a parrot costume. The fact that the kids talk to Harvey means that it's indeed in an Asura state. You would be dening evidence, considering also the picture in child lane that were not removed from the beta like any other easter egg

[azure bay]

she means the game, not the location

there was no train

we can explore the lake all and through

and not a single rail

besides, who would build it there and why?

[steel imp]

There's no need to be. The lake is infinite. That train station can be wherever. Not even the Rose tree was in the cave.

[azure bay]

ok, somewhat fair. But you still need to make sense of it

because an underwater train moving through Laura's life makes none

[steel imp]

You are impling that such structure must have been built by someone. Ok, let's follow this path. It could have been built by Mr. Owl & Co. to communicate with Harvey, that as we knew before didn't have any access to the Lake

Besides the game isn't just a way to show Laura's life

[steel imp]

We are playing as Harvey, we get refered as Harvey. It's more of an Harvey game that a Laura game. The train is for Harvey, not for Laura

[visual coral]

Laura's CS does take the train tho

[steel imp]

If it would be metaphorical, there was no need for Laura to incite us to "find our future" or for Mr. Owl to send us in a quest to search cubes

[steel imp]

Indeed, the train is necessary to make Laura find enlightnement. If that was metaphorical, none of that never happened.

[azure bay]

it's still about Laura, not about Harvey and not about Owl helping him to find the lake

[azure bay]

it did heppen. It didn't happen how it was depicted

[visual coral]

What I meant is CS are able to travel through memories, through timelines. Harvey also can somehow

[steel imp]

So you must have an hypotesis on how it did really happen

[steel imp]

We never saw him do something like that

[thorny wedge]

the devs have said that they just wanted to use a subway train as a narrative device and so they made underground blossom, its obvious the game is highly metaphorical and doesn't really summarize laura's life 1 to 1

[steel imp]

He could only in this game with the help of a train

[steel imp]

Really? Sorry, I haven't been in this server for a while, could you show me the Q/A from where you extracted this?

[barren cove]

We are, but we are probably not literally riding a train. Also it being a metaphor is much more likely than mr Owl suddenly deciding to build a whole subway

[thorny wedge]

i last chatted about this with one of the mods, but ill try to find it

[errant estuary]

i think that the metro set dressing is to invoke feelings of loneliness

[covert wyvern]

Could be the QnA on the RL blog?

[steel imp]

For someone who can build dimension is not a huge effort to build a train station

[thorny wedge]

possibly! i'll check, thank you damy

[azure bay]

Owl isn't a reality bender

[errant estuary]

bro just drugs u

(mr owl)

[steel imp]

I've found your dev log

[thorny wedge]

though it would admittedly be funny if mr owl|| after murdering all his relatives|| just went harvey. harvey we've gotta build a train now harvey. you ever seen a subway

[visual coral]

UB description says "uncover one of Laura's timelines" implying that we do travel through multiple

[thorny wedge]

||"we'll make bank on the donuts harvey"||

[azure bay]

we know for sure that Laura didn't break-up with Bob, didn't die and didn't go corrupted in a subway. We know how all that happened for real. And we can guess how the other events happened too. And maybe we can see that in the future.

[steel imp]

But it says it's a good way to narrate its life, not that is necessarely metaphorical. I'll explain myself better.

A good idea to tell a story doesn't mean that it necessarly differs tonthe real story

[barren cove]

I'm not saying it would be too hard, I'm saying it would be silly

[errant estuary]

“harvey revive miss pheasant, we gotta blow this sad man’s brains to bits with her voice harvey”

[azure bay]

read the synopsis then
"Travel from station to station, each metro stop symbolising a piece of Laura's past and future."

[steel imp]

We know for sure that Bob didn't got corrupted in a bathroom, but Theatre is not usually considered a metaphor

[thorny wedge]

it does say "symbolize" which seems close enough to me, but ill keep looking

[errant estuary]

cube escape theatre is stated to be in the head of dale

[thorny wedge]

i think you're misunderstanding the meaning of metaphor and the extent of it. the train is a metaphor for moving through the chapters of your life, the entire game isn't purely metaphorical to everything that happens

[azure bay]

He could. Theatre is much more literal than UB. In fact, Bob went corrupted at least 2 times.

[thorny wedge]

like lots of the things that happened in there did happen, just not at train stations and not in that exact order and timing relative to each other

[steel imp]

Even if Harvey is a much more powerful being that Owl is surely not a most insightful one. Harvey didn't know what was going to happen. He just got on a subway by order of Owl. Did he knew he led to the Lake? Probably not

[thorny wedge]

i'm not exactly sure how that relates to the message that one was a joke

[steel imp]

Guys it's difficult to keep up with 10 messages per second

I'm trying my best

[azure bay]

it's still ridiculous building an entire subway system about Laura so Harvey gets to the lake

[steel imp]

Let me point it another way. Since Harvey lacks any ability to travel between cubes, the chapter of Laura life that we see are altered cubes made by Mr. Owl

[errant estuary]

underground blossom and roots are both very theatrical

[azure bay]

I don't think Harvey lacks that ability. And I'm not sure if the subway is a bunch of altered memory cubes

[errant estuary]

but ub is abstract in its reenactment

[steel imp]

Well it sures matches the pattern: cubical structure that doesn't go out to much out of regular physics and is sparkled with out of place elements, all to deliver a message

[azure bay]

we've been there. Cubes are just as real as the reality. Proved by TPW

[steel imp]

(Deliver the message of Laura's story)

[steel imp]

That's what I'm saying

[azure bay]

but by this logic everything is cubes. No matter if Owl is there or not. And in Laura's story specifically I see none of Owl's influence. Only Rose, Albert and Harvey

[steel imp]

If Mr. Owl had the power to make Bob regurgitate a screwdriver then it has te power to move the location of Laura's life events, because that is all that differs from the story

[errant estuary]

lake metro 😭😭😭😭😭😭
my ass is not making it out of the paradox

[azure bay]

I see the screwdriver just as gameplay and a weird thing the devs "love to add from time to time", according to them. Weird things happen not only inside cubes under Owl's control. That's the god of gaps thinking

[steel imp]

But then you csn manipulate everythinf as being a gameplay element

[errant estuary]

bob went to the food and drink bar, and accidentally ingested a screwdriver /j

[steel imp]

But we didn't put one in it

[errant estuary]

no the one in UB

it had it all, from cigs to worms

[steel imp]

So you are agreeing with me ;) ?

[azure bay]

I can but I don't. Question everything in Rusty Lake. Primarily the things you see. Especially when they don't make sense without some leaps in logic and other types of mental gymnastics

[steel imp]

I mean I find much harder to dismiss a game as storytelling that just bringinf up some regular cube manipulation

[thorny wedge]

the /j is a tone indicator that means the message is a joke

[barren cove]

Are there flying fish in Rusty Lake universe? Because the Roots has one

[steel imp]

The argument right know is if the storytelling is from the devs or from Owl

[steel imp]

Yes.

[azure bay]

This time it's very easy. We don't see anyone entering the cubes. We know for sure that some of events are straight inaccurate. The devs themselves admit using metro as a big metaphor.

Let it go

[thorny wedge]

we don't get to monopolize the chat my guy sorry

[steel imp]

No. It's not a joke

[steel imp]

Ok

[thorny wedge]

presumably. i mean we got angler fish and octopi and a lot of fucking shrimp i don't see why flying fish would be too far

[errant estuary]

don’t forget the leeches

[thorny wedge]

ah yeah the leeches

[errant estuary]

i know that was part of the plagues but holy shit the lake wants to kill them

[thorny wedge]

i mean yeah that's the plagues alright

[errant estuary]

spend ten days on paradise island challenge (gone wrong)

[thorny wedge]

oh yeah the plagues happen one each day innit. the eilanders were getting pummelled by that lake i would've ||sacrificed my firstborn|| too to make it stop

[azure bay]

@steel imp I want to make 1 thing clear. I thought I'd hate UB for its extensive symbolism and I somewhat do. It's hard to grasp a bigger picture with no reliable points of reference. It's even hard to grasp the general story at some places.

I'd prefer the metro being real too. I just see no evidence.

Fortunately, the dream sequence, the secret endings and finally the answer what made Laura die redeemed the game for me

[errant estuary]

i like it, for the fact that it captured the mundanely uncomfortable feeling of going on the metro

[steel imp]

Hey woah, I'm still finding the cubes

[thorny wedge]

the game is actually completely accurate it just captures one to one with the events the dev team experienced years and years ago in the new york subway and all of rusty lake has just been them scrambling to make peace with what they've seen as they spiral further into insanity /j

[azure bay]

The only thing you didn't see then are the endings

[covert wyvern]

Please do mind your spoilers y'all.

[azure bay]

I think we do, don't we?

[covert wyvern]

Generally, but not always.

[azure bay]

||when I 1st heard of cubes I thought of finding memories like in Paradise||

[errant estuary]

same

[carmine field]

why is preta written there? (ignore the jug with a suspicious thing)

[azure bay]

I suppose here it's just a soul

[carmine field]

hmm

it could be that Albert had tried to bring a corrupted soul to life, but that's a realm of guesswork

but thinking about it this way, there is a chance that Rose is the reincarnation of that bird corrupted soul

[azure bay]

I doubt that. The devs said it's important

I expect something more

[carmine field]

It depends on what they consider to be "important", but I think I agree with you. Rose's arc is already over, at most we need one explanation or another

[azure bay]

Thinking samsara, any person born (or created for that mater) is supposed to have a soul

All we saw Albert did was to create a nutritious environment and fuse the genetic materials within it

It feels enough to create life

but with samsara in mind it also needs a soul but the thing is, you don't need to put it inside a womb

it gets there somehow on its own

I don't see any significant difference between a womb and a test tube

So I suppose that the preta depicts said soul finding its way into a newly incepted vessel

[carmine field]

Still, it's a little strange to me

Preta is supposed to be a specific stage of the wheel, not a synonym for the soul itself. A state where souls are corrupted

[azure bay]

In buddhism, yes. In RL deviations are possible

The devs said an interesting thing

corruption is more complex

[carmine field]

that's right

[azure bay]

it's not that you are either corrupted or uncorrupted

there are different degrees of corruption

[carmine field]

I also understand that CS is the dark side of anyone, regardless of the realm. Corrupted souls are a reflection of their past lives, so I think there's something special about them

Still, every other time the devs refer to Preta as that classic form of corrupted soul, which continues to leave me in doubt

[royal notch]

The confirmation that everyone has a corrupted soul does partially contradict Samsara? If everyone once dead becomes one, reincarnating in something else in an uncertain future, doesn't place corrupted souls as a kind of transitioning state between a part of the circle and the next?

[azure bay]

corruption isn't always about death

Bob is a good example

[carmine field]

There is no proof that all the dead become corrupted souls

At least not yet

[royal notch]

But even Emma had her own. And if we want to consider depression for Frank's loss, then let's look at William. What could he be sad about, having achieved his life purpose?

[carmine field]

theoretically, he killed himself (even if he had stayed alive)

[azure bay]

Van Gogh is another example

Dale seems to be one too. He becomes corrupted not only inside Paradox but also outside

[carmine field]

Oh, that's right, although we don't know anything about his previous experience since that was a memory

[carmine field]

wdym by life purpose?

Him being reborn or him discovering the Elixir?

[royal notch]

Elixir.

[carmine field]

well he wanted to stay alive

[royal notch]

How could he know he would have died?

[carmine field]

Preta in Buddhism/Hinduism is marked by an insatiable desire

[azure bay]

Previously I retionalized his corruption in a similar way. The elixir of life and death creator failing miserably in the end because of his stupid luck

[carmine field]

None of them knew, I think it was part of an agreement between him and his brother

Whoever died could become human again

[royal notch]

Then he had no reason to be corrupted.

Yet he is.

[carmine field]

Like I said, marked by a desire

[azure bay]

Either they knew one of them would be corrupted or they just considered it as possibility

and if they knew, it's either a consistent law of a kind

or they have knowledge of the future

[errant estuary]

hungry ghosts are always hungry, by their nature

and it’s possible that the elixir actually corrupts one of them and then gives the other “enlightenment”

[stable oracle]

Y'all I need help with a theorie/question

Can you dissect a corrupted soul?

What happens if you do?

Are the insides all black like that type of indian chicken?

Human insides?

Ayam cemani is the chicken btw

[errant estuary]

probably the worst gastric acid i ever saw, frankly

[barren cove]

Could just be goo that has a solid shape most of the time, considering the ||soul station||. But not likely

[azure bay]

Corrupted souls are semi-physical. On one hand they can touch and hold things and in the other they can pass through walls

You can build a physical body around one too

[azure bay]

So I don't think you can dissect them. My predictions the knife will either pass through or drown into them

[stable oracle]

Spooky 😳

[stable oracle]

And, what if someone has a prosthetic, then they go corrupted?

[azure bay]

I'll be honest, there's no answer to all these questions. only speculations

I see 2 options

[stable oracle]

Ooooh

[azure bay]

either the prosthetic will be covered by corruption like cloth does

well, it will be covered either way

but if the corruption is reverted it will either go back to the previous state

or maybe the missing part will even be healed

it seems, Laura has no more damage in ||the secret UB ending||

[stable oracle]

|| SECRET UB ENDING! ||

[carmine field]

I think I discovered the painting that inspired this one from Arles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_with_Cypress_and_Star

It's the only one I found that has both the sun (or at least a single star) and the moon

It was the last painting Van Gogh made while he was in Saint-Rémy

[untold stump]

Saint Rémy was the mental health facility he was stuck at until Dr Gachet invited him to live in Auvers-sur-Oise so I guess it would make sense that this painting made a black cube

[carmine field]

Actually, Saint-Paul Asylum*

Saint-Rémy is the town

As the RL version has the Lake instead of a road, it corroborates with Nowhere's theory of Van Gogh going to Rusty Lake instead of the asylum

[untold stump]

Van Gogh was in the Hotel maybe ?

[carmine field]

It's possible

[carmine field]

I have a question

Are the cubes we find throughout Seasons from that specific memory or the next one?

I assume it's the second case

[untold stump]

That's a great question. If the cubes contain future seasons, why do we find them before they occur as black cubes ? It makes sense once you reach Winter, but before that not so much.

Again, with Seasons we can be pretty quick to dismiss it as "the Devs didn't think that far into the lore yet" but eh

[azure bay]

either gameplay or somehow cubes inside cubes

[silver belfry]

@atomic crystal It's between the seasons, because yes Laura saves herself from the fate of being killed. But Dale is still stuck in that timeline, where she was actually killed and didn't return. I can explain that for me by thinking, when you alter the past, you will enter a new branch of the timeline and live there but tge people in your old past aren't affected by your change, so Laura did die but resurrected in another timeline.

Now, Laura originally died in fall 1971 and several days later, Dale gets the case(case 23) and looks at the crime scene. While he goes back to his office Mr.Owl tells Mr.Crow, that he has found someone, that could stop the corrupted souls from invading the lake by him finding the white and black cube(Dale) so he does and then Mr.Owl tells Mr.Crow to bring dale to the cabin after he found the cubes. Mr.Owl sacrifices Dale and then Dale's uncorrupted soul wanders the lake (birthday and theatre) and slowly gets corrupted. At the end, dale is met in the cave by Mr.Crow which is in 1972

[untold stump]

Honestly the fact that there are so many branching timelines and several of them are developped makes me think that we could see all of them united in a final game, likely in the Lake where they can all exist at the same time. Where a Dale who killed Laura for enlightenement could meet the Laura who saved herself from Seasons

[silver belfry]

I don't think it was Dale that killed Laura

I think it was Bob but then also again, I am not sure

[grizzled bluff]

I've personally always assumed it was a suicide and every other depiction is non-literal

But I'm not sure how supported that is by the text

[untold stump]

I think so too but Paradox

[grizzled bluff]

Guilt manifested

Or something along those lines

We see the CS kill Laura multiple times, but especially with UB's context, it seems like that's just... still Laura

[covert wyvern]

its simple really she was murdered by WIlliam apparating as a corrupt soul-

[grizzled bluff]

Like, I didn't realize how much Laura was still in there until we heard it speak and ask for personal items

[grizzled bluff]

I could also unironically see it be something like this. The part of William that continued to be striking out for reasons

[untold stump]

Yeah you're right ub does make it look that way

[grizzled bluff]

Laura isn't just William after all, so you could argue that entire plan failed

And Laura needed to die for William to try again
Except then the end of UB kind of shows that didn't work either

Which is funny to me. William can never win

[grizzled bluff]

UB has definitely clarified some things for me, but I'll never claim to 100% understand all of the implications this series has

[covert wyvern]

maybe he tried playing god and this is just the Wheel saying, lol, lmao, fuck you.

Everything I say is Canon -

/j ^

[untold stump]

Ok so Dale from Paradox is shown to have killed Laura, probably an image to show his guilt of choosing to sacrifice her instead of him. But Laura already died here, he worked on her case. This is like an instant theory I had just now and gave no time to actually think about it but maybe he just erased all traces of her. Like in TWD when u erase Laura from Bob's memories

[grizzled bluff]

Killing the Laura in his head, so to speak? I could see that!

[covert wyvern]

Hey boy it's me-

[thorny wedge]

i'm the ps5 speaking to you inside your head

[covert wyvern]

Yeah I really do have a hard time believing Dale would hurt Laura but yknow what do I know

[errant estuary]

listen to me boy, LEAVE THE GIRL, WE DONT NEED HER

[grizzled bluff]

I don't even think you can really argue choosing a certain elixer even hurt her, considering UB

That's what I assumed before, but she seems fine?

[covert wyvern]

Could just be a coin flip for ascending?

[grizzled bluff]

UB is also almost entirely nonliteral, but she seems pretty at peace at the end

[covert wyvern]

Chaos theory and all that

wait did I use that right

[grizzled bluff]

I don't think you did, bestie

[covert wyvern]

it's like that one community episode

[untold stump]

UB happens in the Seasons scenario, where Laura saves herself, not in the one where she dies and dies and dies again

[covert wyvern]

finally my split timeline theory takes root

I jest of course, but im inclined to agree

it is very interesting that outside forces save her, at least as depicted in UB, I always assumed she did it herself.

[untold stump]

I think she mostly did, Harvey was pretty useless in ub

And anyway since seasons Harvey was needed for Laura to make the fuel and uncorrupts

[atomic crystal]

Yeah I had a similar theory about the split time after I played paradox

[azure bay]

Laura killed herself. It's clear in her memory in The Cave. And in UB we finally learn the reason

[azure bay]

I think timelines are stored inside cubes. I don't find it likely for them to merge together

[azure bay]

Paradox is a mind construct

[azure bay]

If not for the portrait, I'd say there's not a single sign of William in UB. William is Laura, that's how samsara works. Even if she suddenly remembers her past life (which is hypothetically possible), that would be like recalling lost childhood memories. Not very impactful.

[untold stump]

I was talking about Laura killing herself here. Do you think its possible that William back in the 19th century went to the Hotel and Laura as herself actually never went there, and when she says that the Hotel is "a place she knows" she's talking about having memories from her past life ?

I mean Aldous probably went to s the Hotel if he knew Owl before he became Crow, I dont see why his alchemist brother wouldnt have come with him

[azure bay]

That's possible but that's not what we see in UB. I'd rather guess that she spent early years of childhood at RL before moving to a city

[untold stump]

O but then why did she enter a contest to go to RL ? If Rose decided to move her away from there

Ok no i get it she wanted to connect with this place that was her place of connection with her mom

[azure bay]

either that or she had no clue why they left

honestly neither do I

[errant estuary]

she did go to the facility, even back in 64

or knew of it, at least

[azure bay]

she knew but now it's certain she was attending TWD, a local sister location

[errant estuary]

ah

[carmine field]

the bird that guides Dale through the forest in paradox chapter 1

isn't it Harvey?

just noticed it lol

[stable oracle]

Yall

What does

The elixir taste like?

[covert wyvern]

Personally I feel like it's probably one of those tastes like what you love to taste kind of magical potions

Or, yknow, alternatively, shrimp n eggs

[azure bay]

It has to be

[carmine field]

I only noticed it when I was arranging some screenshots for that text

But it makes a lot of sense to be Harvey

Originally I thought it was a crow smh

[azure bay]

not you alone

[copper bobcat]

harvey perplexes me so much

what is that thang

hes been alive for like centuries

the only animal hybrid whos main form looks like an animal and not a human too

[azure bay]

The devs called them an old character knowing other characters and acting as some kind of a guide for them. They came from a black egg and they can seemingly time travel.

[azure bay]

and here I have to disagree

The prior evidence says he was a hybrid only in Hotel. Then he was killed by the guests and resurrected as a parrot by Owl.

After that we see them exclusively as a parrot. A cardboard box is a real obstacle for them. Fighting corrupted souls while staying tall would help too. Samsara wheels in Theatre and The Cave say they're an animal too

[copper bobcat]

seems like taking a soul and putting it in a different body takes a lot of work though, took an entire game for william to get into a new body and it doesn’t even seem like that worked as intended, not sure how owl would just do that offscreen

[azure bay]

it was onscreen

[copper bobcat]

if it was in tpw or ub i haven’t played those yet
if not i guess i somehow missed it

[azure bay]

Birthday secret scene. T-posing over the corpse before the light beam strikes it

[copper bobcat]

i see
doesnt seem to explain the immortality or time travel though

[carmine field]

wdym by immortality?

Parrots can live as long as a human

[copper bobcat]

harvey’s been alive for way longer than parrots should be by now, no?

[untold stump]

We've seen Harvey in Paradise, but granted that could've been time travelling and doesn't necessarily imply immortality

[azure bay]

on this the devs said that Harvey is "an old character"

[carmine field]

60+ years

[untold stump]

We've seen them in 1791 and 1972 that's a bit longer than 60 years of life

[carmine field]

1894*

[azure bay]

For Harvey it's 87+ if we just count by dates

[untold stump]

Wait when was Paradise?

[copper bobcat]

from being an established butler in the 1890s to still being around 1980 is a bit of a stretch

[azure bay]

Paradise is in the end of 18th century but after that we see him as an asura.

[copper bobcat]

i doubt he managed to become mr. owl’s direct servant in hotel within just a few years of being alive, he has to have had some years under his belt by then

[untold stump]

Oh so Harvey became an asura between Paradise and Hotel, probably thanks to Owl

[copper bobcat]

so he wasnt just hatched in the 1890s, he’s a full on working adult by then, and is still alive in the 1980s

[carmine field]

I agree it's a bit of a stretch lol

[errant estuary]

right, yeah

[carmine field]

If we look at Winter 1981 as a cube, with Harvey from the past traveling to it, we can reduce this number

[errant estuary]

i think that i birdsat an african grey, and it had a name for my family

they’re really, really smart

[untold stump]

But anyway Harvey has unclear capacities no matter what we think of them, and I think the devs are keeping a lot about them hidden on purpose

[azure bay]

Considering bringing a spring flower after being saved by Laura from herself, I'd say it's an example of time travel. Cubes or not.

[errant estuary]

harvey’s lovely

[carmine field]

There was no way Harvey could get a flower in winter

(unless he stole from someone's house)

[copper bobcat]

..finding flowers when they’re out of season is far from the weirdest thing that’s happened in this series

[carmine field]

that's why I agree with nowhere in this case

[azure bay]

it's not only about finding a flower. Chances are, it comes straight from spring 1964 when Harvey was liberated

[untold stump]

The flower in Seasons kinda ressemble the blossom tree from Rose or Rabbit's death, or am I getting too brainrotted?

[azure bay]

I'd rather connect it to Rose and her ||sharing her blossom with Laura|| (UB spoilers)

But I didn't reflect on that connection yet. UB being a symbolism dump doesn't help either

[errant estuary]

in character

[silver belfry]

Isn't there like an achievement where you have to bribe Harvey(in his parrot form) to the little chapel in paradise?
Like, that is proof that he already existed and also it's the same flower as the one Emma lays into the mourning shrine for Frank

[azure bay]

Time travel is possible here

[untold stump]

I thought it was the original Harvey before becoming an asura in Paradise but given that it's not really the kind of birb you'd expect on an island, I can see the time travel theory being stronger

[white beacon]

I'm guessing Harvey has drunk the elixir perhaps

[azure bay]

on the other hand it didn't turn the dog into a hybrid

[errant estuary]

harvey’s just built different

he can do what he wants

[azure bay]

except cardboard boxes are his kryptonite

[errant estuary]

😭

immortal shapeshifting parrot vs a box

[royal notch]

If FRose has the blueprints of the old cubical device, could it be that she had to dismantle it before 1984 for studying it?

[azure bay]

No idea. Honestly seems unnecessary as long as she has blueprints

[errant estuary]

mr owl’s cubifier blueprint

[royal notch]

But to create them, she had to analize it in some way.

[azure bay]

normally blueprints are clear enough

[royal notch]

Wait, i'm saying that in order to create blueprints, don't you need to understand how the object is made?

[azure bay]

that's the thing, it has to be Albert's blueprits

[errant estuary]

she might’ve been given them by someone by then

[royal notch]

@azure bay Could you share what's in the Paradox comic?

[azure bay]

No, that's piracy

unless you have specific questions

[royal notch]

OK.

No, i meant generally everything!

[untold stump]

I can tell you it has really good art (probably) (i dont actually own the comic im just assuming)

[azure bay]

it's incredible

stylized to look like a pencil drawing on high quality paper

[royal notch]

I just hope it doesn't have important extra lore elements.

[azure bay]

nope, it combines the movie and the game

[royal notch]

So it's neither chapter 1 or chapter 2?

[azure bay]

it's ch1 + the movie

the movie is basically ch1, honestly

[royal notch]

Alright, thank you!

[carmine field]

How does it combine both? Is it a mixture of elements or does one happen after the other?

[azure bay]

it's a mixture

[carmine field]

I see

It must correspond to one of the countless iterations Dale has experienced in Paradox

Thanks

[silver belfry]

Wait, there's a comic???

[azure bay]

was*

[silver belfry]

I just saw it :c

I was getting excited, like it would have looked so good in my bookcase :(

[royal notch]

Even if Birthday is altered, why did Mr Rabbit's corrupted soul come back in a different form just to scare Dale?

[azure bay]

He came for the pistol

it's his only chance to escape his state

supposedly corrupted state

[royal notch]

Sorry, i was refferring to the window jumpscare.

[azure bay]

no idea then

I was alwys thinking it's an indicator of his corruption

[thorny wedge]

i always figured he was just stalking the location a bit further

[royal notch]

"By the way, kid, OOGA BOOGA!"

After such a crime, common sense would be running as far as possible.

[errant estuary]

and old habits dies hard i guess (he is being a dick /j)

[stone bramble]

when I first played birthday I interpreted mr rabbit in the window part as a vision/hallucination dale dreamt mr rabbit still being fresh in his mind

[azure bay]

do we have specific reasons to see it in that way?

@stone bramble

[silver belfry]

I support this BUT I also think, that dale was too young to remember the face, so he imagined what a traumatised child can imagine. Someone wearing a bunny mask. Why a bunny? Bunnies are often depicted as innocent and are a good guide to lead the main character to their destination(think alice in wonderland)

[azure bay]

The Past Within proved that cubes are not as subjective as the owner's memory. In The Past Albert's CS follows his own plan Roses don't know in its entirety

If Dale sees a corrupted Rabbit in a memory, that means he saw a corrupted memory indeed

we can argue about Dale's perception

[errant estuary]

my personal headcanon is that mr rabbit was being an asshole and rubbing in the loss of his family

[azure bay]

being inaccurate

but not the cubes

we know for sure his motivation and his feelings about the situation

he came so he can get the pistol and escape his state

he's not happy about the killing but it's what needs to be done

I tend to trust the dialogue and the notes as long as they make sense even in a slightest

that's the only reliable narrative tool in the dev's arsenal

how else could they convey the message for sure?

[errant estuary]

“ill check on the kid- oh shit broke a window”

[carmine field]

the thread is gone?

[covert wyvern]

it just went inactive

[carmine field]

oh true

[royal notch]

In Paradox, Mr Owl greets Dale saying that they meet again. When did they meet before, if Birthday happens later on?

[errant estuary]

either little dale went to them as a child, or mr owl always kept a close eye on the vandermeers

[azure bay]

options:

1. In RL Theatre
2. During descent into the lake
3. During one of the previous Paradox iterations

[royal notch]

I guess the 3° would be the best.

[stone bramble]

hm not really haha

just what I thought of at the time and as of now I don’t know I just think the devs added the jumpscare because spooky lol

[stone bramble]

ohhhh that’s a cool idea

[azure bay]

meh, if TPW taught us anything, the past is literally never dead. If you enter a cube you relive the events as they were unless somebody changed them

[little fox]

Does anyone know if there is any significance to the minigame on Rusty Lake's website at the top?

[little fox]

Nevermind I searched the discord enough and got my answer lol

[azure bay]

And what was it?

[royal notch]

If the 2 Mr Rabbit are shown at the same time, it confirms some kind of time travel.

[vivid bridge]

or there are two Mr. Rabbits

:)

[azure bay]

the devs said, there's 1

[vivid bridge]

yeah well

throws a smokebomb at the ground and runs away

[azure bay]

my condolences

[vivid bridge]

happy halloween trips and comedically falls into a trashcan

[carmine field]

or it could be a sub-stage of corruption, similar to what happened with Emma, ​​Laura and Bob, as they saw their own corrupted souls

Although I see some counterpoints

#📯｜rl-announcements message

So they polished Mr. Toad's design

Could this be a sign that he might appear eventually?

[vivid bridge]

nah

looks too clean

probably just for this artwork

[untold stump]

RL cooking game real ???

[vivid bridge]

I wish

I wish we could get more small scale flash games with gimmicks like cooking

[royal notch]

There was a diner in the roadmap though...

[stone bramble]

yee looks too clean I think but

||who knows he might show up to the day of the lake||

[thorny wedge]

someone has to provide the refreshments right /j

[errant estuary]

“elizabeth were making pumpkin soup”
elizabeth, who knows she is getting a haircut finally

[untold stump]

Mr Toad as the world is ending and the Lake is collapsing on itself : This is a perfect time for profit !

But fr the day of the Lake might bring back like, everyone.

[vivid bridge]

i've learned to keep my expectations reasonably small

Though we might see Toad if we return to the hotel

[stone bramble]

||a wonder if the day of the lake will be like be similar to jakob’s sacrifice ||

like vibes and stuff

idk if we still need to spoiler tag lol

it’s ineffable so idk

I think I used the wrong word but whatever

[errant estuary]

||it will probably contain arson||

[vivid bridge]

I hope the return to the hotel is less anticlimactic than the other games

[stone bramble]

we’ve been waiting for like 5+ years 😔

[vivid bridge]

we've been waiting for almost 10 years

since Hotel came out in 2015

[remote remnant]

||We getting Rusty Lake Hotel 2 before GTA6||

[pure brook]

OH. WAIT. THIS WAS ROBERT? AND THE GUY FROM THEATRE TOO? Hhhh why did I not notice this at first because Bob is just short for Robert & the guy has the same color scheme how did I not notice 😭

[vivid bridge]

to be fair, he looks a lot cooler in those games. They really made him a pathetic little meow meow in The White Door

[carmine field]

"Leave me alone. I just want a drink."

"What do you want, detective?"

I think he may have acted in this tougher way because of Laura's death, but I miss a character who is like that all the time in Rusty Lake

[pure brook]

Oh oh wait

He had a drink that made him hit his head repeatedly on the table right

And then after that he said "I don't remember what happened"

Is that why he acted differently afterwards??

[stone bramble]

bob is like a lil doggy to me

he barks at strangers and cries when missing his owner/gf

[pure brook]

Oh I'm stupid White Door was beforehand

[pure brook]

Sorry I didn't play The White Door at that time

[azure bay]

wdym?

[bright parrot]

If frank had dog's pee

And dog is immortal

And his shit contains elixir

Did frank indirectly consumed the elixir

[azure bay]

Technically, yes, if it really happened and not just weird imagery by the devs.
However it's not clear how it would work

normally you have 2 people near one another drinking it roughly at the same time

it doesn't matter who drinks 1st

but one of them dies and the other becomes enlightened

[bright parrot]

What if the elixir changes it's composition when it gets in body and their feces are working part of the elixir.

Coz if the ritual is to be repeated then it must be repeated in caves

[azure bay]

no, Crow and Owl were already enlightened, there was no need for a ritual

[bright parrot]

Yeah that would create a paradox

Like you're already immortal

But one has to die

[azure bay]

they are not immortal-immortal

[bright parrot]

Their death is delayed

[azure bay]

unless you stab or shoot them

[misty temple]

wait there are basically 2 paradoxes, right? one is the one with Frank. Technically, he should be immortal, since the last person that dies is James. but the events of cave happen after roots (because the dog is immortal from roots and we use its poop to make a new elixir). so logically shouldn't Aldous also be dead? but there's the second paradox. Aldous is already the Crow in roots. So...

what now?

[thorny wedge]

i don't think i'm clear on what point you're making

could you elaborate?

[misty temple]

Can we hop in a vc so I can explain? 😅

[thorny wedge]

i can't rn, i'm eating and i wanna head to bed soon, sorry

[misty temple]

oh okay no worries!

[vivid bridge]

wha?

[sweet tulip]

Why would Frank be immortal ? He didn't get involved with the elixir
Why would Aldous be dead ? He drank the elixir, and keeps drinking more to keep his strength

[carmine field]

Changing the subject, I think the green substance Albert used to create Rose could be a gaseous version of the birth potion that Mary consumed before giving birth to the triplets

Not that it needed an explanation

but I see a certain similarity

The birth potion actually existing would be cool for James' lore (and potentially the Vanderboom family too), since he has a clear interest in alchemy (or he wouldn't have gone after the secret laboratory or the elixir) and it may have been him who prepared the potion or at least taught Mary how to make it (assuming Mary has a common origin)

Or I'm overthinking too much

[royal notch]

It could actually be! Of all the Vanderbooms i think Albert is the most interested in alchemy, wanting to reach "his greatest achievement". I always assumed that after James' death all the others were too afraid of handing the stuff of the lab, thinking he involuntarily poisoned himself.

[azure bay]

Albert became the lab owner, no doubt, but it doesn't have to be that potion

Ask yourself 2 questions.
What did it do in The Birth chapter? Are you sure it's the same thing here?

[misty temple]

Frank drank the dog pee from when he was in the well and Rose gave it to him. And doesn't the elixir have a 50/50 chance? Like for example if you drink and live, the next person has to die so a balance can be maintained

[azure bay]

we don't really know what is the force that maintains this balance and how it works.
Can it be any person on Earth that drinks the elixir no matter how much later? Or do time and place actually matter? Maybe it has to be the same elixir?

Honestly, I doubt the devs themselves have answers.

[vivid bridge]

I don't think drinking dog pee counts as the elixir

aldous had to specifically extract the pure elixir

[copper bobcat]

to be fair we extract elixir from dog shit in cave

but that takes a whole puzzle to do

so idk if you can get it from straight dog piss

[thorny wedge]

i do not like the idea that making your dog drink the elixir can transform him into a fountain of youth via bodily fluids. and then presumably same with everyone who drinks it

[azure bay]

It's almost exactly what Owl did with the dog and it isn't as nearly effective as drinking full elixir.

It's not a fountain but a temporary solution which is better than nothing

[silver belfry]

Based on, how I think a dog body functions is, that the piss doesn't have the elixir because dogs always eat weird stuff. Their liver must be working hard to filter out the stuff since they also sometimes eat feces from other animals. I think, in order to get the elixir is to just simply eat the liver from the dog. But that would make us sick because again, they eat feces.

[misty temple]

Thanks

[carmine field]

I'm making a collection of all references to Van Gogh (besides Arles)

Anything missing?

I should use it in the future

[tall sentinel]

Ok so I was looking at the timeline on the wiki, and it says that Laura and Bob started dating sometime between 1964 and 1969, and that she broke up with him in 1969. However, in UB, Laura gets the prescription for Prozac after Bob leaves, but then she has the prescription in spring 1964 in seasons...?

[carmine field]

We're sure they broke up around 1969

because of the photo in Theatre

that letter appearing later probably wasn't literal

UB in general isn't literal

[sweet tulip]

don't forget Gerard's ear getting cut in Paradise

[carmine field]

In this case, I think I should make a list of possible references

[sweet tulip]

well, in this series, it feels very purposeful, it's even the ear on the same side

[carmine field]

But it's not Gerard who cuts, besides the context is totally different

[sweet tulip]

and afaik it's pretty much the only time where there's an unclear reference to it

[carmine field]

probably

[sweet tulip]

the thing is Paradise happens before the guy was even born, so if there is a Van Gogh reference, this is the only possible one

[errant estuary]

why did elizabeth do that

i know shes blind, but then she snips the air menacingly

[sweet tulip]

fear didn't make her blind

[errant estuary]

elizabeth really wants blood

[thorny wedge]

uncle gerard keeps waking her up with his snoring and she saw the opportunity for revenge arise

[errant estuary]

(affectionate)

gerard fell asleep first (rookie mistake)

[frank valve]

we love some slay the princess

[hollow lava]

https://www.tumblr.com/noridal/733594402121023488/i-was-just-going-to-reply-to-sunshine-herricane

This is mostly a post in which I rant about Harvey as a character, but I think it might be useful to some since I feel his role may be underestimated in the lore. Warning about (minor?) Underground Blossom Spoilers, as regards the rest, there's a couple of theories about our lovely killer parrot as well

[untold stump]

One thing that u might wanna know : Harvey has been confirmed to have some sort of time-travelling ability by the devs. I dont have the interview at hand rn but nowhere gave the info I think and hes trustworthy when it comes to RL lore

Also the Corrupted Souls breaking out of the Hotel has been theorised to make Harvey lose the ability to get back to their bird form, since in moment when theyre in danger (choked by Corrupted Laura, Harvey's Box) they stay as a bird). Ub is metaphorical so it stays on track. But again the whole time travel thing means Harvey could appear as a anthro parrot after the Hotel incident

I feel like the whole time travel thing is linked to how we see Harvey in the Lake in tpw and ||on the stained glass in Sorrow Street||, since its thanks to it that Albert could escape the cubes of tpw. The question is did Harvey gain that power at some point or were they a part of the Lake since the beginning ?

[hollow lava]

Yeah I heard of this theory but after UB Inkinda set it aside, I’ve never really believed it? I think it’s possible for Harvey not to be able to escape Corrupted Soul Laura because maybe she’s taken him by surprise, or he was being physically restrained and couldn’t shift? I dunno but Harvey being forced into his parrot form by the accident never really felt right to me

[hollow lava]

I didn’t know this! Sadly I’m a bit lacking the lore about tpw since I never managed to play it throughly, I haven’t yet found someone I know irl that matches my level of RL brain rot lol

[errant estuary]

its cool

i dont know shit about rl either frankly

[hollow lava]

Probably that is related to when he obtained the hybrid form? Personally I don’t feel like discarding a secret third option where Harvey is human, does weird stuff and gains his hybrid form, and only after that he unlocks the parrot one as well. See this as if Mr Owl could also turn into an owl.
Seeing how old he is he is probably “higher up” in the knowledge hierarchy and I wouldn’t be surprised if we discovered that he knows something more he’s capable to do

[hollow lava]

I’m also thinking about UB being metaphorical and possibly also Birthday (where we see anthro Harvey) and this leads me to ask, is it possible that Harvey did the whole Hotel thing in parrot form? Because I think Birthday could might as well be metaphorical which means there’s no canon “real” evidence of them being anthro. This feels a bit less believable since Hotel is pretty solid imo, but there are still some thing that in my head aren’t really lining up

[errant estuary]

i mean, harvey was stabbed during seasons, so that might be why he didnt transform

[untold stump]

Hotel being a metaphor is a bit much, the devs explicitly said UB was metaphorical and didn't say that for Hotel, that feels like too much of a stretch

[errant estuary]

i wonder why all of the guests got their animal forms (as in, why is david a rabbit)

[hollow lava]

Yeah I’m just rambling tbh, mostly because we see very little of human Harvey

[untold stump]

We see anthro Harvey in Hotel (+Birthday flashback), TPW in future, and UB. Hotel is certain, TPW is debatable but I feel like it's also Harvey (maybe because Rose is very close to going in the Lake?) and UB is metaphorical, so Harvey coulve had any form in these moments

[hollow lava]

Yeah makes sense

[carmine field]

I don't remember them confirming it directly, but Seasons points out that Harvey does travel through time

At least it's the best explanation

[azure bay]

@untold stump @hollow lava
What I gave was:

• "Harvey being an old character knowing other characters"
• "Harvey being something of a guide to other characters"
• "Harvey coming from a black egg"

Time travel is deduced from UB directly. Specifically Owl's letter when he congratulates us with helping Laura and asks to come back in time for more work

[azure bay]

I have several things to say about this in general:

1. There's nothing to indicate that Harvey was anyhow affiliated with Caroline or Owl before working for him at the hotel.

2. Asuras like Owl are not immortal. The guests and Harvey in the secret scene are good examples. So if Harvey died in Seasons, he died in Seasons.

3. As @untold stump said, UB is a very metaphorical game. It takes place alongside main CE games and Harvey was consistently a parrot there. Being locked in a cage or a cardboard (the latter is just ridiculous), eating bird food and especially being listed in samsara as an animal.

So it's likely that Harvey never regained his form so far. UB is a metaphor, TPW is probably just its teaser.

4. Considering this, the pickpocket arc doen't make any sense. (Honestly, it doesn't even if Harvey was a demigod since they hide from humans and we never saw Harvey having a human form)
   Either way, I think he too deserved being tortured. He not only wronged Harvey, he did it again when he didn't fulfill the ransom deal.

The thief consistently stood on his Harvey's way of saving Laura what else could Harvey do?

[untold stump]

Yea I mentionned an idea a long time ago that Harvey coulve been associated with Caroline but nowhere pointed out that if they did, we wouldve seen them in Caroline's memories, which we dont. The easter egg of Paradise meant that Harvey is an ancient being, or its just an easter egg

[hollow lava]

Yeah I don't think it's just an Easter Egg because there's foreshadowing of Mr Crow too, but he isn't physically there (because, canonically, he isn't born yet), and if they didn't mean to imply that Harvey is alive they would've done something different imo. I'm inclined to think that Easter Eggs of this kind aren't just for players, but can be considered canon too, but this is just my feeling these vibes and going off by intuition

(and tbh that's the vibe of the post too, I'm just going off like "wouldn't it be cool if" and I don't even think that's 100% canon, I'm mostly speculating)

[errant estuary]

honestly

id believe that harvey was around even then

[untold stump]

The Crow easter egg in Paradise could also be related to the crow figure in Roots, the one that gives Albert the deer mask. I also think the Harvey in Pardise is meant to show they were here in 1792, but it oculd mean a lot of things : they were a normal parrot until Owl transformed them like he did Mr Bat and Toad (unlikeky since that wouldnt explain why Harvey is more powerful), that Harvey has been a part of the Lake for a long time or that they time travelled back in some sort of time loop, like the last mission Owl gave them was to go back to Paradise to ensure he'd have help after Nicholas bbq'ed him

[carmine field]

The secret in which a crow figure appears at the fire in Paradise refers to Mr. Crow, according to the achievement. And I don't believe the bird-like corrupted soul could be linked to Mr. Crow with so little evidence.

The only thing we could have to relate these two is the beak, but they are very different in silhouette.

[untold stump]

I might be remembering wrong but I think the silhouette we see when throwing the egg in the fire is the one of the bird CS of Roots

[carmine field]

nope

it's Mr. Crow

a silhouette of him

I don't have the screenshot here, but you can find it in the wiki

[untold stump]

I stand corrected, mb

[carmine field]

I find the association of the blue cube with clocks interesting

Both in Seasons and Birthday

Clocks tell the time, but you can adjust them, therefore "manipulating" time

I know it might just be symbolic

[azure bay]

I'm sure it isn't

Cause you don't adjust the hands in Bday

And in Seasons you adjust them backwards

[carmine field]

Hmmmm

[royal notch]

Let's suppose time travel exist in this universe. Changing the past would mean altering events of another timeline, though, since each cube contains its own reality. In your opinion, what could then be such a necessity to change the past in advantage of an universe that is not yours?

[floral mauve]

If you have the perspective of the person you receive the advantage after all

[royal notch]

If after the travel i get to immediatly "impersonate" my past self, maybe. But what if i become a "clone"? Especially if i don't use one of my cubes.

[floral mauve]

Well, seems like time doesn’t exist in the lake

And we did see old Laura

[carmine field]

off-topic

I believe that the moment Bob lost his memories, in the TWD continuity, was not in the theatre but in the police station

While in the CE: Theatre continuity, Bob had his memories extracted in the theatre itself

I say this because of the police station secret in TWD, where he says he lost his memory right after the flashback

It may be that the gun did not extract the memories directly, but rather opened a hole so that they could be extracted or just jump out

In the case of CE: Theatre, it was probably Dale who extracted the memories from him because of what Bob wrote on the coaster

"Why did you take my memory?"

[floral mauve]

well I think he went out of his mind, though he did provide us a cube in case 23

[azure bay]

In theatre the shot was to crack his head open so it's somehow easier to take memories.

The following TLS dream looks like Theatre after the shot.

Memories in the police station could be the residue after Theatre. Or even newly formed memories

[dusky path]

Each cube does have a meaning, I believe the blue one had the ability to change memories or something along the lines of that so that’s like manipulating time in a sense :D

[azure bay]

it is manipulating time
all it does is rewinding and fast-forwarding it

Rose changed her memory with no blue cube

so could hypothetically Dale if he knew what was coming

[cold plover]

Apparently the level in Roots where William and Aldous take the Elixir gamble happens in Spring of 1859. Can someone explain where this specific date and time comes from?

[hollow drift]

I don't think the date holds any significant meaning, it just has to precede the first level of Roots

[carmine field]

It's a year before James arrived at Rusty Lake

[cold plover]

How do we know that it happened one year ago though?

[carmine field]

62 years after Paradise

[cold plover]

Wait, what?

[carmine field]

At the beginning of each phase the date appears

[cold plover]

It didn't show up when I entered William's portrait.

[carmine field]

Oh

One moment

[cold plover]

I think people just... assumed it was one year before Spring 1860.

[carmine field]

The date appears on the book James is reading in 1870

[cold plover]

Ahhhh, okay.

[carmine field]

Maybe the date will appear after you complete the level, but I'm not sure

I don't have time to check now

[cold plover]

It doesn't show up at all in the leve, this level didn't have a date. The book is enough though, just needed to know where that info was coming from.

[azure bay]

Who says it's spring 1859?

[honest brook]

Doesn’t it say here?

[azure bay]

Ok, thx. I remembered only the year being in that book

[carmine field]

I just realized that it was only in the release of CE Collection that the phrase "What do I remember?" at the beginning of Seasons and Arles was added

Maybe because the devs were under the idea that all CE Collection games were memories, as the trailer implies

[royal notch]

There were also before, and even more than now. "What do i remember?" was shown after changing every memory in seasons.

[carmine field]

Not in old walkthroughs

Where there was only the date

"Spring 1964"

"Arles, october 1888"

[azure bay]

What do I remember was always in the games

And it was lost for summer, fall & winter in the collection

You can still compare the games by playing the old ones on Newgrounds

[carmine field]

So it must have been updated at some point

Because it doesn't appear here
https://youtu.be/v6_3hdO-ym8?si=F7QUCRk5zVUcYLP1

And here
https://youtu.be/4E942y8RdI8?si=Po-Qd2EnMzIuPWCn

[carmine field]

Where do I find them?

[azure bay]

Newgrounds

[carmine field]

Ok found it

[carmine field]

I couldn't open it, I tried following a guide and it still gives me an error

But I found a Arles video from May 2020 without the line "What do I remember"

2:37 https://youtu.be/YqPuBf-SQPc?si=n41eSw9c31rV4uSy @azure bay

[azure bay]

I'll check that out myself but I remember always seeing it and arguing with other theorists

At least on mobile

[carmine field]

I know jt appears in the individual mobile app, but it may have been an update along with the Collection

Considering that it has an achievement system

[azure bay]

No, it was long before the collection

[carmine field]

And the symbol at the end

[azure bay]

I recall seeing it in an older font

[carmine field]

I appreciate if you can check it

[azure bay]

https://youtu.be/DdDpM6skPBY?si=CsQwAPcYBPS7czGY

https://youtu.be/P4mwmMDHexE?si=L_jVXq4EL5OsSRmx

The more you know, as they say

[carmine field]

ty

[carmine field]

||Some drawings Laura made could be real (like the drawing of the corrupted soul, Harvey in the cage and her schoolmates), but they are mixed with other arts that only work in the context of UB (Mr. Owl and the tree)||

||But do you think it's possible that Laura drew them all in reality, not just in the non-literal UB context?||

||For example, Laura somehow remembers the tree||

||And Laura drew a picture of the Hotel the first time she and Bob met||

||If she had gone to the Hotel as a child and there was a statue of Mr. Owl there, it could explain Mr. Owl's statue drawing||

||But the album falls into the same problem as Harvey's photo||

||Some of the content is part of UB puzzles and context||

||However, the album itself is real, leaving some doubt||

[azure bay]

We need to see the statue in a more real setting

Besides, Laura doesn't need to visit the island to know about the hotel

@carmine field

[carmine field]

agree

[plain flint]

I think that the vanderloom family life is flashing before their eyes but they get a chance to fix it and live

[azure bay]

Did you finish the game?

[plain flint]

Not all

[azure bay]

did you at least meet Rose?

[atomic crystal]

Yeah fair enough

[plain flint]

No

Its a therie

[atomic crystal]

Trust me it will make sense very soon

Or it won’t

But I wouldn’t blame you for that

I just hope we get a game about best kept memories

[azure bay]

the thing on Barroso's tape looks somewhat like a teaser

especially considering a UI navigation arrow on one of the frames

[untold stump]

Oo I didn't see the arrows thats rly cool !

[atomic crystal]

Is this the tape in underground blossom

Or is apart of something I’m to lazy to go find

[untold stump]

Also nowhere what do u think the ||old Laura sprite in UB means ? Is it like a possible future of Laura that we can see because we're in the Lake ?||

[azure bay]

I'd say both

it was 1st introduced into the demo

[atomic crystal]

Oh

[azure bay]

as a part of BKM ARG

[atomic crystal]

I wish I participated in that

[azure bay]

then it was ported to the full version and now grants an achievement

[atomic crystal]

I have all the achievements

So I’m assuming you mean the tape in the Sta ion connected to child lane

[azure bay]

yes

Vendome Barroso

[atomic crystal]

Ah I have seen that tape

God I hope we get a game explaining best kept memories

I will not partake in any arg

[azure bay]

It was quite an experience. Even simly lurking in the google doc while it's being filled.

and there's not much to explain

another shady memory-related business that belongs to Owl's conglomerate

only this time they work with mentally stable people

I guess because it's safer to extract their memories

no soul corruption I mean

and they also propose VHS memories

and they were hacked in 2004

[atomic crystal]

The hack is new info to me

Everything else I saw in the YouTube videos

[azure bay]

what videos?

[atomic crystal]

On the rusty lake YouTube channel

[azure bay]

they do speak about the data leak

[pearl seal]

Where does Underground Blossom happen?

[azure bay]

it starts in 1935 and ends either in 1972 or 1981

[pearl seal]

The game by far is the most confusing

[pearl seal]

Where not when

[azure bay]

ah sry

[pearl seal]

It is obvious that the location is not meant to be taken literally

Or at the very least for some parts of the story, it could still very well be possible that Rose used to ride it every now and then

I also think the presence of Harvey interacting with normal people immediately takes out the possibility that it is happening in real time, lest Harvey has a human form

[pearl seal]

No problem

[azure bay]

it's a metaphor of Laura's life. There's no evidence of the subway being something in-universe. The only real location was The Lake

also Harvey being in human form contradicts the logic and the evidence we were getting for years

[pearl seal]

Actually there could he
There are news that detail the station's opening
While I agree that the station we play in is not a "real" location
I still think it may have been shaped to look like or was inspired to be like the real station in the rusty lake world

[azure bay]

the devs say they are metaphors

and they have way too literal names

plus several events for sure did not take place in a subway

[pearl seal]

Yeah
Except the fact he has a humanoid form is also confusing
I heavily doubt we're playing as a bird
Especially when the tickets show that a human hand is handing him the tickets

[pearl seal]

Why I think it's confusing is because I thought Harvey was stuck being a bird