Discussion on the possible Abigail's death, on the true nature of the Constant, of "Them" and more. (With sketches)

[Pop Guy]

"..."

@Mattyington

9 hours ago, FreyaMaluk said:

so there could a line of lore there pointing out that maybe Abi died while playing with her sister in a lake. Imagine if you cannot save your sister cuz you cannot carry her weight and you have to swim away and leave her to save yourself instead. That would be devastating as well. 

It's actually devastating as a scene! If so, I wouldn't be surprised if the water became a phobia for Wendy in the rework! It would be an interesting defect, certainly consistent with Return Of Them!

(Beautiful the picture you took as an example, I remember having studied it in art history in high school!)

9 hours ago, FreyaMaluk said:

There are multiple scenarios that could fit so we will have to wait for the cinematic. 

Do you really think that Klei will have the courage to show us Abigail's death? I believe it little, we hope!!

9 hours ago, seyfitoplar said:

I am only here to say your art is really nice

Thanks a lot!! 

6 hours ago, Remps said:

did klei confirm next rework for wendy ? 

I don't think they have already confirmed it, but it is widely believed that Wendy is next!

5 hours ago, Swanky Psammead said:

I've always favored the Abigail-died-in-San-Francisco-earthquake theory. It makes for very elegant conservation of detail story-ways, and adds more depth to the relationship between Wendy/Abigail/Maxwell.

Maxwell's quote for a failed Abigail revive implies some feeling of guilt to me, if that means anything. The only other people he ever shows remorse for harming are Charlie and the Ancient Guardian.

Maxwell could be sorry for many things, even only trivially that he had led his last niece into that land of horror and madness that the Constant! The point is that Klei, on purpose, has never told a coherent or meticulous story, and from the last short-films it seems that he is not willing to do it :'D
The hypothesis of the earthquake does not satisfy me for a simple reason: it happens chronologically too soon: how old can Abigail and Wendy have been in 1906? 4 years? 6 at the most. Now, I'm not saying that Wendy can't have vague memories of Abigail's death... but if she was as too small as she could have realized it? A whole other matter if she was already over ten years old! (fourteen to fifteen if we keep the Spanish flu theory good!)

[NormalPinkerton]

6 hours ago, Remps said:

did klei confirm next rework for wendy ? 

If anyone is getting reworked this year it's either her or Wes and everyone is begging for her to be next, so...

[fimmatek]

13 minutes ago, NormalPinkerton said:

If anyone is getting reworked this year it's either her or Wes and everyone is begging for her to be next, so...

I guess I'm Mr Nobody then.

Not like I were against her rework, but I think some other characters are more in need of changes (like Wilson, Maxwell, Wes... or maybe even the trio too).

[Zeklo]

1 hour ago, Pop Guy said:

The hypothesis of the earthquake does not satisfy me for a simple reason: it happens chronologically too soon: how old can Abigail and Wendy have been in 1906? 4 years? 6 at the most. Now, I'm not saying that Wendy can't have vague memories of Abigail's death... but if she was as too small as she could have realized it? A whole other matter if she was already over ten years old! (fourteen to fifteen if we keep the Spanish flu theory good!)

What are you anchoring her age to? The letter? Just because the mother hasn't seen the twins doesn't mean they were iust born.

[Thomas Die]

everyone hoping for her too die in an earthquake but wouldn't it make equil sense that, abigail died via mis carriage and wendy could see her through her connection to the super natural

plus this would make wendy wierd like webber , hyuyuyuy shipping is so fun am i right or am i  rigth gals  

[TipherethB]

3 hours ago, Pop Guy said:

"..."

@Mattyington

 

muffled screams of joy

2 hours ago, thomas4845 said:

everyone hoping for her too die in an earthquake but wouldn't it make equil sense that, abigail died via mis carriage and wendy could see her through her connection to the super natural

plus this would make wendy wierd like webber , hyuyuyuy shipping is so fun am i right or am i  rigth gals  

I find that unlikely, Wendy seemed to already have friendship with Abigail, which heavily implies they were old enough to have interacted with eachother more than just sharing 9 months of waiting. 

Also quotes like "I'll only go to the party if Abigail comes, too." and "Abigail? Come back! I'm not done playing with you." support the fact that it likely wasn't a miscarriage.

[TipherethB]

14 hours ago, FreyaMaluk said:

I actually like the idea. We got no evidence so far for itbut the emotional state of recovering from a serious illness and loosing your sister in the process can explain her emotional state to the t, but any other similar incident as well could achieve that like if Abi died while they were playing together... Actually there is a quote referring to Abi as the Ophelia

, so there could a line of lore there pointing out that maybe Abi died while playing with her sister in a lake. Imagine if you cannot save your sister cuz you cannot carry her weight and you have to swim away and leave her to save yourself instead. That would be devastating as well. 

There are multiple scenarios that could fit so we will have to wait for the cinematic. 

I'm pretty sure that's just another book reference, similar to "Kill the pig! Spill its blood!" or "Take thy beak out of my heart!"

[Pop Guy]

2 hours ago, Mattyington said:

muffled screams of joy

I was thinking about what else to draw: maybe an old photo with all of Wendy's whole family. The two twins by the hand, the parents behind them with their hands on their shoulders, in front of a pond of water lilies, the place where I always imagined Wendy and Abigail played as children. What do you say?

2 hours ago, Mattyington said:

I find that unlikely, Wendy seemed to already have friendship with Abigail, which heavily implies they were old enough to have interacted with eachother more than just sharing 9 months of waiting. 

Also quotes like "I'll only go to the party if Abigail comes, too." and "Abigail? Come back! I'm not done playing with you." support the fact that it likely wasn't a miscarriage.

I share. From the quotations it is clear that Wendy and Abigail have been playmates and have spent their childhood together. This is in favor of the hypothesis that Abigail's death occurred well after 1906 (in 1918-1919!) 

[FreyaMaluk]

3 hours ago, Mattyington said:

I'm pretty sure that's just another book reference, similar to "Kill the pig! Spill its blood!" or "Take thy beak out of my heart!"

Yeap... That's possible .. She is obsessed with death and Ophelia is not the only literary reference alluding death either, but it would a cool and plausible scenario nonetheless.

My point was that we don't really know for sure cuz there is no hard evidence for any theory so far. The earthquake goes by presuppositions tying up all knots but Klei is historically not very fond of that. on the contrary, they like to introduce more variables than rounding up lore storylines.

 

8 hours ago, Pop Guy said:

Do you really think that Klei will have the courage to show us Abigail's death? I believe it little, we hope!!

They showed us Warly's grandma sinking in a gray mist of forgetfulness und dissonance and you ask me if they are capable of showing Abi's death? After Warly's cinematic any dark storyline is possible. (pun not intended. Don't go there) 

[CaptainChaotica]

Oh.  Oh god.  Oh god.  OH GOD.  THAT _PICTURE_!  Rip our hearts out, why don't you?

(but seriously that's really good. BUT SO BLEAK AND DEVASTATING.  And I notice Abigail's flower is already floating...)

So, Pop Guy...

1. Unfortunately I've mentioned my Spanish Flu hypothesis in several random threads, usually having something to do with trying to figure out Wendy's age and/or how Abigail got the way she is--but not EVERY time there's one of those threads.  Since the board's been entirely revamped more than once and many many threads have been not only archived, but DELETED, there's no way I can show you the earliest ones. They're just not around anymore.  The latest one where I said it...MIGHT still exist, but I have no idea what thread it would be and it'd be many pages back by now.

2. Aha, we agree on how old she'd really be!  When you add up the dates, Wendy just can't be only 10.  She's gotta be a teen.  How/why the Cohstant actually _reverted_ her to a younger age (probably the age Abigail was when she died) we don't know.  Maybe it was something like the Prophets/Wormhole aliens from Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine, in the pilot episode.  "No.  You exist HERE."  (shows the Saratoga blowing up and Jennifer's death yet again)  "It is _not_ linear."  And Wendy got put PHYSICALLY back to how she was when the memory she's kind of...mentally/emotionally _stuck_ on, happened, by the Constant's...time-weirdness?  I dunno.

3.  Abigail was definitely alive, you can see that by the quotes.  I've always thought she must've died fairly recently, judging from Wendy's reactions.  Also if we're doing the Spanish Flu thing (and I am), and the earliest Abi could've died from that is 1918 and it's now "around 1920"...yeah, they definitely grew up together and knew each other.

4.  They were ABSOLUTELY identical twins.  Some of Wendy's quotes seem to bear this up ("Two halves that were once whole.  Where are you now, Abigail?"--at a chopped coconut)

Spoiler

Pictured above:  The emo-est breakfast ever.

but the kicker for me is her Guest of Honour portrait, where she's looking into a broken mirror.

A.  _BROKEN_.  _MIRROR_.

Dude, how can you GET any more directly symbolic than that?  Her _reflection_ is shattered and gone forever.

At any rate, I already made them as identical teen twins in the Sims 3, (with a LOT of searching done first to find a suitable flower accessory that could go on _either_ side of the head) and since I have Supernatural and can make a character AS A GHOST from the get-go, I did that, and I chose the "died of disease" colour ghost for Abi.

Spoiler

 

(I think this is actually the "died in a fire" ghost type here...(WILLLOWWWW!!! (shakes fist to the heavens)  I took the picture early, then looked it up and changed her later.)   Sorry they're not doing any interesting "sassy twin pose!" (peace sign) here, it's just two generic Create-A-Sim photos.  Still.  Look how damn CLOSE their outfits are!  Down to exactly the right stripes on the socks!  That's Sims 3 for ya.  Sims 4 doesn't have Create-a-Style, and it's a real loss.

...also Sim-Willow lives right down the street, so her setting something on fire IS a real possibility.  XD

So...all those variables are definitely locked down in Moonlight Falls, at least.  : P

...Notorious

[Pop Guy]

7 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

Oh.  Oh god.  Oh god.  OH GOD.  THAT _PICTURE_!  Rip our hearts out, why don't you?

If it provokes such a reaction, then I managed to convey what I wanted :'D

7 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

(but seriously that's really good. BUT SO BLEAK AND DEVASTATING.  And I notice Abigail's flower is already floating...)

Rarely i colorized are my drawings, also because they are often grotesque or desolate compositions. In this picture the color was really superfluous.
Anyway, Abigail's flower has just started to float for the first time...

7 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

1. [...]

I got it! But I think it's just right that you know that you were the first to have the intuition of Spanish influence! I will write it anyway in the first post of this topic!

7 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

2. [...]

Personally, I have never seen a particularly marked "childishness" in Wendy's artwork. I mean, even Wigfrid and Willow might look like little girls, yet everyone takes it for granted that they aren't.
Wendy has always been a teenager for me =)
However, in the Constant, mutations and repugnant transformations constantly taking place, due to the moon and to "Them", nothing excludes that also Wendy was  transfigured! (although I find it unlikely)

8 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

3. [...]

Absolutely. It is logically untenable that Abigail died at birth or too prematurely.

8 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

4. [...]

It is very likely, yes! However, Klei never showed us the true aspect of Abigail, and I don't know if I'll ever dare to show her face :'D

8 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

but the kicker for me is her Guest of Honour portrait, where she's looking into a broken mirror.

A.  _BROKEN_.  _MIRROR_.

Dude, how can you GET any more directly symbolic than that?  Her _reflection_ is shattered and gone forever.

I had never played that portrait like that before... you're right! It is clearly a reference to the death of Abigail, the broken reflection in the mirror! Great intuition! 

8 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

At any rate, I already made them as identical teen twins in the Sims 3, (with a LOT of searching done first to find a suitable flower accessory that could go on _either_ side of the head) and since I have Supernatural and can make a character AS A GHOST from the get-go, I did that, and I chose the "died of disease" colour ghost for Abi.

Hahaha, what a nice thing!
I remember trying The Sims 4 half an hour, then gave it up, I found it a bit boring :'D
However, the sims you created are very similar!

8 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

(I think this is actually the "died in a fire" ghost type here...(WILLLOWWWW!!! (shakes fist to the heavens)  I took the picture early, then looked it up and changed her later.) 

 

8 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

...Notorious

Forgive my curiosity, why do you always sign "Notorius" instead of "CaptainChaotica, great emperor of Starvania"?

[Pop Guy]

10 hours ago, FreyaMaluk said:

They showed us Warly's grandma sinking in a gray mist of forgetfulness und dissonance and you ask me if they are capable of showing Abi's death? After Warly's cinematic any dark storyline is possible. (pun not intended. Don't go there) 

:'D
In fact, Warly's short film was strangely dark for Klei's current standar... good Warly, good.

[CaptainChaotica]

First off, I'm glad you liked my Sims.   The hair isn't perfect, but it's got bangs and two pieces hanging down as long pigtails...and do you know how many people make their accessories only for one side of the head?  ALMOST EVERYONE!  Geez, I had an easier time finding Sim-Wigfrid's Valkyrie helmet...

A lot of characters' ages are ambiguous in the Don't Starve art style, considering that, for one thing, their sprites are all the same height.  If you don't outright have grey hair, wrinkles, or some kind of facial hair it's hard to tell.  And, some characters have sanity issues that make them ACT younger than they physically are.  (Not that I can say anything, I'm (redacted) and about to turn (also redacted) next month, and I'M immature as hell.)  

  Since we've GOT insane people and those who hang out with ghosts and such, you can't go by 19teens/'20s fashion rules to figure out how old they are, either, since Willow and Wigfrid would ABSOLUTELY not have those pigtails (it'd be Up, or if you're feeling really fashion-forward that early into the '20s, bobbed*) but Willow is a pyro nutcase with a teddy bear and Wigfrid method-acted herself into an eventual terminal case of scurvy.  Wendy's hair being down and long suggests youth, buuuuuttt...teens could have their hair that way too, up to a certain age.

BUT, her Winter's Feast outfit is called the "SnowCHILD frock", and people generally think about her as around the same age (or at least age _category_) as Webber, and like to put them together as "the cute kids running around together".  Or show them listening raptly like it's Storytime as another character reads from a book (you're NEVER too old to enjoy listening to a story, though--I mean, audiobooks!) in, say, the special holiday title screens.

So basically, TL;DR:  it's ambiguous.  : P

The "Notorious" thing...it's silly, and I shouldn't still be doing it nowadays, but I do, because tradition?  Basically it goes back to the very first forum I ever posted on, "The '80s Server" ('cos I loves me some '80s music) and I named myself after a Duran Duran song that I liked, nobody else was using, and sounded good as a screen-name.  "Notorious", from their album of the same name.  But then later on, I came up with the "Captain Chaotica" name and liked it better, 'cos it could work with _several_ nerdy things I like--superheroes, mad scientists, b-movies, etc.  And I wanted people to know it was still me, so I started having Captain Chaotica as the actual username the post was...posted under, but then SIGNING it as "Notorious".

...and, I just kinda kept doing that.  Heh.  I should probably put this story somewhere on the Off-Topic forum for anybody who wonders.  That and the origin of "Captain Chaotica" too.

...Notorious

*There's an F. Scott Fitzgerald story called "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" from exactly 1920, so yes, the flapper fashions DID start that early. Technically.

[TipherethB]

18 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

2. Aha, we agree on how old she'd really be!  When you add up the dates, Wendy just can't be only 10.  She's gotta be a teen.  How/why the Cohstant actually _reverted_ her to a younger age (probably the age Abigail was when she died) we don't know.  Maybe it was something like the Prophets/Wormhole aliens from Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine, in the pilot episode.  "No.  You exist HERE."  (shows the Saratoga blowing up and Jennifer's death yet again)  "It is _not_ linear."  And Wendy got put PHYSICALLY back to how she was when the memory she's kind of...mentally/emotionally _stuck_ on, happened, by the Constant's...time-weirdness?  I dunno.

 

I don't know, seems weird that it would only happen to Wendy. Maybe she just looks younger than she actually is, there are plenty of people like that IRL, that's for sure.

[CaptainChaotica]

Hmmm...well first of all my theory is the Constant did SOMEthing weird to most characters, just not an age thing on the others.  Like, it turned their potentialities into actual (strange new) powers. Like the day your powers wake up as an X-Man, or being born in Mundania but conceived in Xanth to Xanthian parents and you have no idea you have magic powers until you GO to Xanth and good god I'm such a geek.  Also this happened to an actual character from the series.  (Xanth has this overall magical...field, all over the place.  To the point where it starts mutating species after a while.  In the short term, it might spark off a latent power on one person, for example.)  I guessed the Constant might have a similar thing...back before we knew it was even called "The Constant", really.  In this case I thought The Source of Magic might be The Source of Nightmare Fuel.

But ANYway, you might have a good point about the age thing, and I feel really stupid for not thinking of this earlier.  Because I personally know someone who was once guessed at being 11 when she was 15.  And got freaking QUIZZED on it once.  Like, "Oh, you could only possibly know about THIS band if you're THIS old!" kinda questions*. And this happened MULTIPLE TIMES throughout her teens.  So...yeah.  Guessed to be a pre-pubescent kid when actually a teenager, exactly like what we're confused about on Wendy.

...also said person was me.

Which is why I feel EXTRA dumb for not thinking about it until now!

XD

(Why?  Probably because I'm so freaking short (5'1", rounding up).  Nowadays people guess me consistently as at least ten years younger than my real age, because of my weirdly young face.  No idea what's up with that.  It's not like I have a painting in the attic somewhere aging _for_ me.  I don't even HAVE an attic!  ;))

...Notorious

*Gee, I dunno, it's not as if younger people ever hear their parents' oldies stations or run into songs from before they were born in TV shows, commercials, movies or video games...

[Pop Guy]

1 hour ago, CaptainChaotica said:

Hmmm...well first of all my theory is the Constant did SOMEthing weird to most characters, just not an age thing on the others.  Like, it turned their potentialities into actual (strange new) powers. Like the day your powers wake up as an X-Man, or being born in Mundania but conceived in Xanth to Xanthian parents and you have no idea you have magic powers until you GO to Xanth and good god I'm such a geek.  Also this happened to an actual character from the series.  (Xanth has this overall magical...field, all over the place.  To the point where it starts mutating species after a while.  In the short term, it might spark off a latent power on one person, for example.)  I guessed the Constant might have a similar thing...back before we knew it was even called "The Constant", really.  In this case I thought The Source of Magic might be The Source of Nightmare Fuel.

But from Willow's short film it seems that, before entering in the Constant, she had pyrokinetic powers ... otherwise how did she make explode the orphanage and she remain virtually unharmed?
Not only that, Wilson also built the Maxwell machine before entering Constant, like as Maxwell conjures up shadows long before he becomes a prisoner of the throne. In short, from what little we know it seems that the Constant does not have the function of "awakening of powers"; concept that I personally find really too superheroic and perhaps not very suited to the gothic and grotesque atmospheres of the game. (at least at the beginning) :'D

[TipherethB]

10 minutes ago, Pop Guy said:

But from Willow's short film it seems that, before entering in the Constant, she had pyrokinetic powers ... otherwise how did he make the orphanage explode and remain virtually unharmed?

I meaaaaan, Willow is immune to fire damage! 

[Pop Guy]

6 hours ago, Mattyington said:

I meaaaaan, Willow is immune to fire damage!

Exactly! She clearly has pyrokinetic powers! Maybe I wrote badly :'D

 

"Prostrate yourself in my presence, or I will carbonized you with a single gesture!"

 

[CaptainChaotica]

Oh I didn't mean necessarily GOOD powers.

I meant...just like, amplifying something you already had into something that might resemble a power, _whether good or bad_. LIke...well, Woodie being my favourite example (and the original reason FOR the "Strange New Powers" update).  Especially his singleplayer form--the werebeaver is more powerful than it is in Together, but afterwards it's like you DIED.  You come back the next morning with exactly the same stats as you do _when you resurrect at a touchstone_.  

Power?  Ish.  Supernatural?  Definitely.  Superheroic....EEEEHHHHH....notsomuch.  It also depends on what kind of superheroes you're talking about, of course.  Some have much more difficulties or darker ways they use their powers.  Anyway it's definitely still more kinda Lovecraftian and dark and whatnot, and _that's_ what I had in mind.  I mean, again, bear in mind, original Willow sets things on fire _when insane_...so THAT'S a darker power, obviously.  Uncontrolled and only shows up in her darkest hours (or her best hours; we don't know. Willow strikes me as the kind of person who doesn't _suffer_ from insanity, she enjoys every minute of it!  Unfortunately...those around her DON'T.)

I was, like everyone else, hoping that Woodie's animation would tell us SOMEthing about his backstory, Lucy, etc. but no, it's this lighthearted cartoony thing of a battle against a treeguard showing off his new forms, he's ALREADY in the constant, and Lucy's weirdness isn't even mentioned.  If you didn't already know, it just seems to be a really sharp, cool axe.

The Xanth comparison isn't really superheroic either...at least, not  in the long term.  (The next part is a long thing about an unrelated series of books, but I put it here to explain what I mean.)

Spoiler

 

The first humans landed there way long ago and were like "YAY LOOK AT ALL THIS WEIRD STUFF" and those who didn't die from the already existing magical flora and fauna, prospered and it was good.

Then their kids were born with minor magical talents.  "Cool!" said the parents who didn't murder their kids for being "witches".

...then a few generations later, stronger talents.  Like, useful but not universal/categorical stuff, like being able to change yourself into one form regularly, or understand the language of trees.

...then a few generations after THAT, the first Magicians/Sorcoresses appeared.  By this time the humans had started organising themselves into a heirarchy based off of who has the most power, so shortly after this the first Magician/Sorcoress King was crowned.  (A Queen may not rule...but Xanth HAS had female Kings.)  These new types strode the land, able to change themselves or others into anything, speak with anything, sense, reverse or enhance magic in general, grow any kind of plant at will, etc.  

...and THEN...things started getting...weird...

Kids started being born as were-somethings, that is, they turned into another form UNcontrollably, and showed animalistic traits while in their human form too.

Love Springs started taking their toll, as well as horny idiot teenagers, and more and more people started making new hybrids or breeding with hot already-existing half-human creatures, such as mermaids and centaurs.  (Both of whom never wear clothes and are known for having HUGE.....tracts of land...)

And eventually the regular humans left started MUTATING, so you started getting like elves, gobilns, gnomes, etc.  There's a major character in modern-day Xanth who is hundreds of years old, due to occasional sips of Youth Water, and in only THAT amount of time he already seems to be turning into a gnome, himself.  (Magical evolution works like that.)

...and so, within only a couple thousand years at the most, THERE WERE NO MORE PURE HUMANS!  The first colony died, mutated and bred completely out!  There's a scene in a much later book that takes place from the point of view of some royals in a palace who are literally _the last four left_, and we see their surprisingly high technology and stuff, but...all of that got lost to the jungles.

(By the way Xanth is TOTALLY a magical/medieval (?) version of Florida, so no wonder it's all full of weird naked creatures.  : P)

So...superheroes in the short term?  Sure.  But that doesn't mean the force making you that way is necessarily BENEVOLENT...or cares or even _knows_ anything about you, for that matter...in fact, when one of our main characters found The Source of Magic, first the area right above it was DANGEROUS to even live in, because the tiniest bit of spell would be wildly enhanced and go way out of control.  Like "Oh, I know, I'll just do a little spark off my fingers to light this cigar" WHOOOOSH! no more village. 

Then when they got to the chamber of the actual Source itself...which turned out to be a _living being_...it was SO freaking alien, and powerful, that just walking around its chamber the main characters kept wandering into Thought Vortices that  were so powerful and so WEIRD, it freaked them out hardcore.  They were getting the memories of a truly alien, unbelievably powerful being.  If that's not a hair Ancient Thing Slumbers in the Deep That Would Make All Men Mad to Be In Its Prescence, I dunno what is.

...and NOW you know where I got my old theory about what turned out to be the Fuelweaver. : P  "Hmmm, all this nightmare fuel, and nightmare creatures _are_ real but they need a weakened mind to manifest...but down in the caves, specifically the ruins" (which in singleplayer are a level even LOWER than the normal caves) we've got areas where they just exist REGARDLESS OF YOUR SANITY LEVEL, which means they must be stronger, and there's these _rifts_ that's causing it from further below THAT..."

(GASP!) "IS THERE SOME INSANELY POWERFUL EVIL CREATURE THAT'S THE SOURCE OF NIGHTMARE FUEL??"

was how my thoughts went.  Heh.  

So anyway back on the Xanthian surface, as it turns out, the violent barbarian invasions of "Mundanes" (who are people from the real world, as you might have guessed) are actually _necessary_, because without that the human race in Xanth dies right out, and if you ARE a human or part-human living there, you might not want that.  And as we've seen, the thing causing all the superpowers, yay! but eventually no more your species, no! doesn't give a beep.  It's just this huge alien thing, and to give you more of an idea of how little it cares, when the main character, Bink, finds out that the Demon X(A/N)th is there unwillingly, as a penalty point for some cosmic eternal game, and can only be set free ever by a mortal creature choosing to do so...he does, and the Demon just instantly WHOOSH! straight out of there without a backwards glance.

...not caring that since most things in the land are at least partly magical and quite a few of them only EXIST because of magic (like, their bodies defy physics or how they eat wouldn't actually happen, etc.), almost EVERYTHING is gonna freaking die...

So yeah, uncaring huge vast alien intelligence in the deep.  So...while individual talents CAN be beneficial and superheroic, what was MAKING them, was very Lovecraftian.  And THAT'S what I had in mind for how the Constant worked.  Only a bit more _directly_ sinister, because after all it's the source of _nightmare fuel_ not just the source of magic in general...hence you get Woodie's painful, dazing werethingie powers, Willow's destroying things when upset and Wendy being morbidly so tied to her dead sister that she can literally bring her back.  Maxwell summoning shadows...etc.

But that WAS, originally, what I had in mind. Then the reworks started happening and making the DST versions even _more_ different from their originals, and we saw some of their original lives back in The Real World (tm) (but is it REALLY?  Magic already works _here_, in the DS universe, after all...) etc. and that started throwing my ideas into the trash.

But I stll kinda like 'em.  : P

 

And now I'll end this with a random picture of Wendy, to get back on track a bit.

There.  Meditating upon the dark ocean, with Abigail kinda hangin' out as well.  : P

...Notorious

[Pop Guy]

5 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

I meant...just like, amplifying something you already had into something that might resemble a power, _whether good or bad_. LIke...well, Woodie being my favourite example (and the original reason FOR the "Strange New Powers" update).  Especially his singleplayer form--the werebeaver is more powerful than it is in Together, but afterwards it's like you DIED.  You come back the next morning with exactly the same stats as you do _when you resurrect at a touchstone_.  

Power?  Ish.  Supernatural?  Definitely.  Superheroic....EEEEHHHHH....notsomuch.  It also depends on what kind of superheroes you're talking about, of course.  Some have much more difficulties or darker ways they use their powers.  Anyway it's definitely still more kinda Lovecraftian and dark and whatnot, and _that's_ what I had in mind.  I mean, again, bear in mind, original Willow sets things on fire _when insane_...so THAT'S a darker power, obviously.  Uncontrolled and only shows up in her darkest hours (or her best hours; we don't know. Willow strikes me as the kind of person who doesn't _suffer_ from insanity, she enjoys every minute of it!  Unfortunately...those around her DON'T.)

Surely in the constant the boundary between reality and madness becomes extremely unstable: I don't believe that any of the characters knows well where the first ends and the second begins ...
Whatever "supernatural" ability they had before entering, it is very likely to have been "exasperated", yes.
Also because perhaps everything depends on how far one is "distant" from the Constant: our world is relatively "far away", so the cosmic influences of the constant are modest. But the closer the dimensions are to the constant, the more the nuclear chaos constantly creeps.
Perhaps "Them" are a manifestation of the quantum fluctuations of the early void of the universe, ethereal consciousnesses made of "nothing" halfway between existence and non-being.
Perhaps the throne is what is found at the center of the universe, created eons in the past from a much more advanced civilization of the human race (the ancient ones in the shape of arthropods, perhaps?).
What is the reality behind the throne and the constant is not known.
But we do know one thing: in cosmic eternity, everything that has happened has already happened and everything that happens will happen again.
I like to think that Wendy has caught the perpetual repetition, and that the idea of being reunited with Abigail in the distant future, ignoring everything that will happen, brings her comfort.
And quoting the mad Arabic: "That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons, even death may die."

 

 

[CaptainChaotica]

It's funny how you said about how there might be a group of dimensions or realities, and the closer two are to each other, the more _like_ each other they can be...because that's ALSO like something in Xanth.  Well, kinda. There's the whole thing with Ida's Moons, each of which is another alternate reality, and the farther and farther away you get from your starting point the more and more different things get, until the laws of physics themselves start to work differently. The first time this concept is introduced, we only go a bit of the way in.  Later on, however, we have someone determined to find out where the chain leads, and they eventually find out that--spoiler alert!--it's actually all cyclical and if you go far enough down the chain, _you end up back in regular Xanth_.

(Yes, I know you were talking about ancient religious ideas and much more serious folklore, but I thought it was a fun comparison anyway.  I mean, it IS literally a cycle of different realities.)

Also the Long Earth from the series of _that_ name, but that was legit written later.  Alternate Earths 1-100 or so on either "side" are almost exactly like ours still in terms of flora, fauna, climate, continent shapes, etc. but if you go far enough you start running into Earths that are like, all ice-age, or all jungle, or still have one supercontinent, or are more like Mars/Venus, or...even NOT THERE.  Something destroyed it during the early days of the solar system and there's a blank there, in that universe.  

...I read a lot of weird stuff, is the end conclusion of all this.  : P

(Would I _recommend_ either of these?  Long Earth definitely, except the ending gets silly and disappointing.  The _journey_ part is cool enough to not mind the destination, though.  Xanth?  (sucks air in through teeth)  Hooo...that's a tough one.  You see, all the cool worldbuilding stuff I've said here IS absolutely in the series.  But to _get_ to it, you have to wade through a lot of puns (I'm okay with them, but some people think puns are The Devil Himself) and constantly hearing about the main female character's marvellous bazongas every time she...exists.  I'm not sure how I GOT to the cool parts, myself, but probably because the main adventure part tends to be fast-moving with a sense of fun, or at least mystery.  I would only freely recommend it to people with the right sense of humour and cheesiness tolerance.)

This Necronomicon type stuff kinda makes me wanna go play Darkest Dungeon again (even though I kinda suck at it, even by the standards of a game you're SUPPOSED to suck at).  Huh.

...I wish I had something more directly relevant to Don't Starve to say here, but I kinda said everything that I think that makes sense to this thread, already, so...I'm sorry this post is so off-topic.  I'm talking about how the mechanics of different fantasy/sci-fi worlds' work and how they might compare to some _theories_ about how the Don't Starve universe works, but that might not be enough...

...Notorious

[Butt Pillow]

On 9/16/2019 at 11:14 AM, Pop Guy said:

"..."

 

Just wanted to say that this is a delightfully heartbreaking image. Your art style is quite nice on the eyes, sketchy and messy in a way that reminds me of a children's book. (...The scary ones, that is. Which is not a bad thing!)

[FeagleSnorf]

I like to think the short might have some sort of scene where Wendy is mourning and suddenly something starts to speak (maybe a crow?) and maybe it says,”hey I heard your sister just passed eh? Well I could bring her back just for you!...” or something.

[Pop Guy]

14 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

[...]

Of course you know a lot of interesting stuff! Unfortunately they are works that I do not know (I read mainly comics by authors such as Carl Barks or Don Rosa, where the explorative / archaeological side prevails over the exquisitely science-fiction one; but I also love science fiction properly so, I am also an amateur writer of the genre  )
The idea that voyage around all possible and unlikely worlds back to the starting point is cool. I remember reading a story with Uncle Scrooge aboard a celestial ship: after traveling the universe at super-bright speed and having visited every possible and unimaginable Earth (with lilliputians or giant peoples, troglodytes or colossal insects, with sentient crystals and ectoplasms, etc. etc.) eventually returned to their Earth ... but in the year 3.000; discovering that humanity has left the Earth to live in celestial colonies orbiting the Sun, built by consuming the Moon (which no longer exists). In this surreal imaginative scenery, Duckburg still exists, as does the Deposit. Scrooge would like to go and see who lives there after so many centuries, but finds himself forced to leave just before crossing the threshold of his ancient home.
Who would he find on the other side? This is the question that plagues the old plutocrat during the journey home =)

However, Darkest Dungeon is a game with a fantastic concept: I have rarely been so captivated by the atmosphere of a game, which I consider perfect!
Citing the ancestor, in his manifestation of avatars of the beating heart of the world: "You still foolishly consider yourself something separate from the whole"
The meaning of such a sentence is deeper than it may seem

On how the imaginary universe of DS really works, we can only hypothesize, but we could also hypothesize that the Constant is another world instead of another dimension: perhaps Wilson and Co. have been teleported to a solar system so far away that the light of his star has not yet reached our telescopes. Who knows ... the perspective of the Constant as an alien planet and not as a parallel dimension inspires me a lot!

 

14 hours ago, Butt Pillow said:

Just wanted to say that this is a delightfully heartbreaking image. Your art style is quite nice on the eyes, sketchy and messy in a way that reminds me of a children's book. (...The scary ones, that is. Which is not a bad thing!)

I am really happy that my drawing has managed to communicate torment and sadness (it seems like a word pun, ahahah )
Having compared it to an illustration for a children's book is a great compliment to me, I still remember beautiful illustrations of many books I read as a child!

You know: "A Series Of Unfortunate Events"? Those books have illustrations that I find wonderful: dark, gothic, grotesque but at the same time exquisitely elegant. I do not deny that they too have contributed to forming my perception of "beauty" also understood as the world in its grotesque and deformed essence, depicted in a decisive, powerful, sublime way!

 

By the way: I thought of depicting an illustration with a photo of Wendy and her family: the two twins by the hand and the parents behind, with their hands on their shoulders. In the background, a lake with water lilies, where I imagine little twins played. What do you think about it?

[Pop Guy]

10 hours ago, FeagleSnorf said:

I like to think the short might have some sort of scene where Wendy is mourning and suddenly something starts to speak (maybe a crow?) and maybe it says,”hey I heard your sister just passed eh? Well I could bring her back just for you!...” or something.

I like the scene! I imagine it very lugubrious, with the crow above the branch of a ghostly tree, perhaps behind a fence of an uncultivated meadow!
I think I will try to draw the thing, it inspires me a lot, it has something of Edgar Allan Poe!