[Game Update] - Intermission - Animated Short, Twitch Drops and More.

[gaymime]

19 hours ago, Dr. Safety said:

The more I look into it, the more convinced I am that this is the same cabin. The property is owned by Winona and Charlie's family when they were both kids, but in their adult years, we know Charlie lives in San Francisco, and Winona lives in Ohio. It's also unclear where Winona and Charlie's parents are in the short, but based on the style of attire from the Winona Charlie family photo, they appear to be Asian Americans, which is confirmed in the new animated short (various paintings and house decorations are very Asian inspired). This is an important detail, because in Asian cultures, deceased loved ones are honored through offerings, usually consisting of fruit and tea/sake, as well as incense. One of these shrines to honor a dead family member is seen in the animated short, complete with everything mentioned. This could imply that one or both of the parents are not alive at the time of this short (which would explain why there are only two beds in the cottage).

 

All of this is to say that I'm confident that when Charlie mentions the family cabin up in BC, the parents are out of the picture, leaving Winona and Charlie as the only ones who own it. Once Charlie disappears, we know many years go by before Maxwell starts taking people (at least long enough to take Wagstaff from a middle aged adult into an old man). During this time, I think it is reasonable to assume that Winona being the only "family" left to use the family cabin wouldn't hold onto it, and would just be reminded of her "dead" little sister every time she went there.

Woodie also apparently lived in a Canadian city, but then moved to a cottage on an island. While at that cabin, he somehow got ahold of a Voxola radio. An easy explanation would be that Winona had it, as she worked at the company, and left it on the property when selling it, and Woodie found it.

SPECULATION OVER

This brought a pretty glaring issue with the lore to my attention though. We know that Winona got a job in Ohio (presumably at the Voxola Radio Co.) before the San Fransisco earthquake, as Charlie wrote her a letter congratulating her on finding a job. We also know that Wagstaff just so happened to be in San Francisco at the time of the earthquake, with a storage unit there. This means either one of two things:

1. Wagstaff is stealing from people in California, all while OWNING A FACTORY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTRY, and just so happens to be the one man with the key to finding out where the sister of one of his employees disappeared to.
2. Winona just so happened to get a job in the state where the man who (on the other side of the country) found the key to getting her sister back, will later open up a factory, in her line of work.

Either way Winona's luck seems VERY extreme. I hope Klei can find a way to expand on this to make it not so every-planet-in-existence-aligned-and-that's-why-Winona-is-here

gonna be honest this was pretty interesting to read! unfortunately i think the parents being dead and having a butsudan that is missing almost every feature of one(the butsudan itself, pictures of the dead, scripture, statuettes, shelving to hold ashes, something to keep the space contained, plate for offerings ect) is a bit unlikely, if this was contemporary to the last 40ish years or so you might argue for a kami shelf but even then it is lacking necessary parts to function and wouldnt be a very respectful way to honour ones parents . might just be that there is very little room in the cabin, they very clearly dont spend much of their time at that cabin and it is nice to have something to remind you of home?

 

as for the reason winona was at the voxola plant? she is smart, she is capable, she clearly understands machines. i could imagine either she was looking for good prospects and wagstaff seeing her skill snapped her up or someone we dont know could have plied her to come down to ohio with work prospects and she did. it might have just been incidental and she was a regular worker of no regard and ALL of the voxolas are just cursed because they were made with material from the constant. it is clear from the walter clip that the radios aren't discerning about who they take(at least whatever it is that triggers them isn't known to any of us) and winona is pretty solid in her convictions so her trying to help and getting dragged in makes sense even if noone had intended her specifically to go in

6 hours ago, PunkShark said:

I think it's possible Winona just decided to work in ohio with no relation to Wagstaff's shenanigans before everything, as his discovery to the Constant has not happened yet. This is wayyy before the factory was even considered since it was only up for a couple of days until the fire in 1919. It's important to remember Winona didn't just so happen to find Wagstaff out of sheer luck, she searched for over a decade to find her sister, prodded and scoured every clue and hint she could possibly get and the best and most recent clues lead to Wagstaff and his factory that was still spry so she decided to get a job there to look for clues in the end.

Wagstaff's journey started in 1906 same year as the San. Fransisco earthquake, which started the whole charade of becoming an industrialist for the next decade of time, the radios, his own portal design, experiments to get closer to the Constant to revolutionize the world with this discovery. and Since his journey hasn't been the most perfect (including Maxwell not being the greatest at removing evidence), multiple clues have been found.

aaaand this is why i need to read to the end before replying! that is a really good point about her looking for charlie(though i didnt think it was a whole decade?) you are totally right that she might have sought him out instead of coming to these conclusions while already working for him

[NPCMaxwell]

2 minutes ago, gaymime said:

gonna be honest this was pretty interesting to read! unfortunately i think the parents being dead and having a butsudan that is missing almost every feature of one(the butsudan itself, pictures of the dead, scripture, statuettes, shelving to hold ashes, something to keep the space contained, plate for offerings ect) is a bit unlikely, if this was contemporary to the last 40ish years or so you might argue for a kami shelf but even then it is lacking necessary parts to function and wouldnt be a very respectful way to honour ones parents . might just be that there is very little room in the cabin, they very clearly dont spend much of their time at that cabin and it is nice to have something to remind you of home?

 

as for the reason winona was at the voxola plant? she is smart, she is capable, she clearly understands machines. i could imagine either she was looking for good prospects and wagstaff seeing her skill snapped her up or someone we dont know could have plied her to come down to ohio with work prospects and she did. it might have just been incidental and she was a regular worker of no regard and ALL of the voxolas are just cursed because they were made with material from the constant. it is clear from the walter clip that the radios aren't discerning about who they take(at least whatever it is that triggers them isn't known to any of us) and winona is pretty solid in her convictions so her trying to help and getting dragged in makes sense even if noone had intended her specifically to go in

Aww sad, I liked the idea of the decoration being of this background. Is there any other explanation for it then, besides it just being "normal" decoration that happens to resemble this loosely?

[BalkanCockroach]

20 hours ago, Dr. Safety said:

Ohio

Im not gonna say it Im not gonna say it Im not gonna say it Im not gonna say it Im not gonna say it Im not gonna say it Im not gonna say it Im not gonna say it Im not gonna say it...

[Dr. Safety]

14 hours ago, gamehun20 said:

Isn't Woodie's cottage a lot shorter why would he go through all the trouble of making the house smaller ?

I think it's just an art discrepancy, which is fine. Things like dimensions shouldn't really be examined under a microscope. However, if you count the logs on both the Walter and the Hide and Seek cinematics, they are the same (logs above the door, logs on the sides, how many "logs" tall is the cabin, etc.). The dimensions are weird though. For example, the door seems to shrink (compared to the wall) in the same short:

 

Just a minor art discrepancy

7 hours ago, PunkShark said:

I think it's possible Winona just decided to work in ohio with no relation to Wagstaff's shenanigans before everything, as his discovery to the Constant has not happened yet. This is wayyy before the factory was even considered since it was only up for a couple of days until the fire in 1919. It's important to remember Winona didn't just so happen to find Wagstaff out of sheer luck, she searched for over a decade to find her sister, prodded and scoured every clue and hint she could possibly get and the best and most recent clues lead to Wagstaff and his factory that was still spry so she decided to get a job there to look for clues in the end.

Wagstaff's journey started in 1906 same year as the San. Fransisco earthquake, which started the whole charade of becoming an industrialist for the next decade of time, the radios, his own portal design, experiments to get closer to the Constant to revolutionize the world with this discovery. and Since his journey hasn't been the most perfect (including Maxwell not being the greatest at removing evidence), multiple clues have been found.

While it is true that she essentially hunted the old man down to get more details about her sister, it's still an odd coincidence that Winona keeps ending up in Ohio. We know Wagstaff ends up making the factory there when he does open it. Maybe not as big of a coincidence as I made it out to be previously. Just odd that Winona is cursed to continuously end up in Ohio of all places... poor girl.

More speculation, but this does open up the possibility of Wagstaff being the first victim of Maxwell's forbidden knowledge deals, only Wagstaff, being a con man himself, cons Maxwell and never "throws the switch" as Wilson did. This would explain why Wagstaff went from a nobody thief to a brilliant inventor, with the ability to design and build machines that can communicate with the constant.

1 hour ago, gaymime said:

gonna be honest this was pretty interesting to read! unfortunately i think the parents being dead and having a butsudan that is missing almost every feature of one(the butsudan itself, pictures of the dead, scripture, statuettes, shelving to hold ashes, something to keep the space contained, plate for offerings ect) is a bit unlikely, if this was contemporary to the last 40ish years or so you might argue for a kami shelf but even then it is lacking necessary parts to function and wouldnt be a very respectful way to honour ones parents . might just be that there is very little room in the cabin, they very clearly dont spend much of their time at that cabin and it is nice to have something to remind you of home?

 

as for the reason winona was at the voxola plant? she is smart, she is capable, she clearly understands machines. i could imagine either she was looking for good prospects and wagstaff seeing her skill snapped her up or someone we dont know could have plied her to come down to ohio with work prospects and she did. it might have just been incidental and she was a regular worker of no regard and ALL of the voxolas are just cursed because they were made with material from the constant. it is clear from the walter clip that the radios aren't discerning about who they take(at least whatever it is that triggers them isn't known to any of us) and winona is pretty solid in her convictions so her trying to help and getting dragged in makes sense even if noone had intended her specifically to go in

Yeah I definitely got too excited and made some logical jumps lol. My response to PunkShark is a bit more reasonable. 

[NPCMaxwell]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Safety said:

I think it's just an art discrepancy, which is fine. Things like dimensions shouldn't really be examined under a microscope. However, if you count the logs on both the Walter and the Hide and Seek cinematics, they are the same (logs above the door, logs on the sides, how many "logs" tall is the cabin, etc.). The dimensions are weird though. For example, the door seems to shrink (compared to the wall) in the same short:

 

Just a minor art discrepancy

While it is true that she essentially hunted the old man down to get more details about her sister, it's still an odd coincidence that Winona keeps ending up in Ohio. We know Wagstaff ends up making the factory there when he does open it. Maybe not as big of a coincidence as I made it out to be previously. Just odd that Winona is cursed to continuously end up in Ohio of all places... poor girl.

More speculation, but this does open up the possibility of Wagstaff being the first victim of Maxwell's forbidden knowledge deals, only Wagstaff, being a con man himself, cons Maxwell and never "throws the switch" as Wilson did. This would explain why Wagstaff went from a nobody thief to a brilliant inventor, with the ability to design and build machines that can communicate with the constant.

Yeah I definitely got too excited and made some logical jumps lol. My response to PunkShark is a bit more reasonable. 

Wagstaff being the first forbidden knowledge "receiver" is my favourite thing I have read here so far. That would also kind of make it even more hillarious how Maxwell yelled at Wilson through the radio when he hesitated to pull the machine's trigger x)

[gamehun20]

5 minutes ago, Dr. Safety said:

I think it's just an art discrepancy, which is fine. Things like dimensions shouldn't really be examined under a microscope.

Yet you are making it out to be that there can't be multiple buildings that have the same way of construction and HAS to be the same house. I'm pretty sure if they wanted the houses to be the same they would have made them the same

[Dr. Safety]

9 minutes ago, gamehun20 said:

Yet you are making it out to be that there can't be multiple buildings that have the same way of construction and HAS to be the same house. I'm pretty sure if they wanted the houses to be the same they would have made them the same

I'm saying that the design and architecture (for lack of a better term) is nearly identical, besides an awning that could have been added later. The difference is the dimensions, but as we see in the Hide and Seek short, the dimensions change from shot to shot, so it's unreliable to use that as hard evidence against the theory.

Obviously everything I am saying is speculation, and it probably is a completely different cabin. It's fun to explore these potential character ties, and I don't want to shut down the possibility due to evidence that is unreliable

15 minutes ago, NPCMaxwell said:

Wagstaff being the first forbidden knowledge "receiver" is my favourite thing I have read here so far. That would also kind of make it even more hillarious how Maxwell yelled at Wilson through the radio when he hesitated to pull the machine's trigger x)

If they went this route, I'd like Wagstaff even more than I do already. It is funny to imagine Maxwell getting angry when Wilson stops to think about it for a second lol

[gaymime]

3 hours ago, Dr. Safety said:

Yeah I definitely got too excited and made some logical jumps lol. My response to PunkShark is a bit more reasonable. 

man, i assure you i have been there myself, when someone asked about when walter would have come to the constant i went on a wild chase looking at every aspect of his clothes down to the indecipherable blobs of colour that are his sash merits because only a few weeks prior i had been looking up 1920's scout sashes for a fanart i did for shadows over loathing(an amazing game if you love stuff where the writers went elbows deep on actual factual lore but also love stupid puns and contemporary references out the side of the mouth)

 

personally i think loving something enough that you'd let yourself follow leads that might never go anywhere just to try and untangle and make sense of things is meritorious! i mean heck, i didnt even notice that there were only women's and children's clothing in the closet until the second time i watched(to see the table with the decor on it) and now i am wondering if their mum took them on summer holidays while leaving their father behind to work which wasn't unheard of at the time, would certainly leave an impact on a child, would explain why the cellar is entirely bare and could also give us an idea of where she got some of her hard-working spirit from if she grew up with a parent that was so dedicated that he'd pick work over the family while still providing for them or maybe i am over-thinking it

Edited August 3, 2024 by gaymime

[WenericMember]

On 8/2/2024 at 5:00 AM, Bughead said:

Flashbacks lets gooo.

It's very charming to see the characters in this way. The usual bickering, the joy. Yes, the cat died but, they got the flower. It's not good, it's not bad, but it's human. Charlie just tried to help. I don't know, it's quite alive for me to describe.

I'm very much on copium for that ending though - is there salvation? A hope for someone to shed light into this cold and dark place?

One day I'll stop puting so much symbolism into this

Actually I don't think you are on copium. It's very much becoming a recurring pattern that those corrupted by Shadows are still capable of humanity. No one talks about swine and Dine anymore, but the big takeaway I had from that short was that this happened:

The shadow watcher, presumably ancients thoroughly corrupted by nightmare fuel, was still friendly to Woby and gave it attention and pats.

And in this short, both Charlie and Abigail thoroughly prove that they still have humanity. (Abigail isn't in the same circumstances as the other two, but is very much still someone lost being found again). The resting horror does too, albeit in a different manner.

Also, think about the tagline of this short:

"Some things, once lost, are gone forever... but how will you know for sure unless you keep searching? "

Obviously, it's referring to Abigail in a literal sense, from Wendy's perspective, but I think it's also referring to Charlie's humanity from Charlie & Winona's POV. 

The way the line is phrased obviously implies a double meaning, but it isn't applicable to the game of hide and seek Winona & Charlie were remembering. Also, Winona wasn't searching for Charlie, nor was Charlie trying to be found in the present. The only lost thing left then, is what Charlie lost when she got trapped in the constant so long ago - her humanity.

She protected Abigail from the catcoon and led Wendy & Winona there, without trapping them and without seeking anything in return. Whether it was a sign of actual empathy for Wendy, or indulging her sister (doubtful), her humanity was certainly highlighted in a way we haven't seen in a long while.

It might be possible to save Charlie, it might not, but to call it copium? how will you know for sure unless you keep searching?

Edited August 4, 2024 by WenericMember

[Mike23Ua]

If Klei are looking for suggestions on how to improve caves content without having to add too much that is “new” I think that after the player turned on the ancient library archives and activated the Shadow/Gashalt War, that we should now start seeing that spread throughout more areas of the games biomes.

Yes you see the Greater Gashalts fighting Shadows in that One Biome, but.. I’d like to see the Gashalts now spawning from from cracks in the ground near nightmare fissures or something, to truly indicate to the players that what they did when activating the archives, now has long-term ramifications and consequences in the world around them.

[gamehun20]

20 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Yes you see the Greater Gashalts fighting Shadows in that One Biome, but.. I’d like to see the Gashalts now spawning from from cracks in the ground near nightmare fissures or something, to truly indicate to the players that what they did when activating the archives, now has long-term ramifications and consequences in the world around them.

I hope you are aware that greater gestalts aren't just in the mutated mushroom forest just because, they are trying to protect the archive. And nightmare fissures don't have lunar influence and they can't just wander around. Maybe the ceiling loosening and dripping a bit more of the crystal water and mutating more land could be a better way to show it because when you activate the archive power the caves quake.

[mr. brj]

Could someone please pin this update in the updates list? https://forums.kleientertainment.com/game-updates/dst/