Maxwell warped us to his island

id: two digital drawings of woby and walter from don’t starve together. the first one shows just woby, fully visible from the side. she’s standing up and looks happy. there’s text with an arrow pointing to her that says “did you know…this dog is polish” with poland’s flag next to it. the background is light blue.

Wickerwanda are so cute and tender I wish they were more popular

And also hope I'll manage to draw more of them any time soon

a close-up version under the cut

And woah on your colors and shading! I love how you did both of their skin tones, pale-white and brown respectively. Using different shades to create shadows, different tones, and shapes like the lips, the curves if their noses, wrinkles.

Her up-do - oh, how her hair falls like a waterfall -, her pink frames of the glasses, her ear-rings, her colorful jacket with the squickly lines running around, the just as colorful armbands, her nails painted lilac, her patched jeans skirt, her ripped pantyhose, her yellow boots! And the watches in unexpected places, but not so unexpected for her, like on her hairband! Her brown skin glows surrounded by those many vibrant colors, and she knows it, with her big smile. I'm so happy that you gave her a big nose and full lips. So pretty and beautiful.

Also, I love that the Voxola radio appears in each title card for the islands.

The Game is Afoot has a weary Wilson, carrying a spear. Which makes sense, with the periodical Hound waves and the different mobs blockading the path to the other parts of the world.

Two Worlds isn't as strong in my memory anymore. I think the split through the picture alludes to the shift in daylight when Wilson leaves the mainland to travel to the other islands and get the things?

A split that becomes more pronounced in Archipelago! Like he's broken himself. He has to travel to several other islands via wormhole, because they're entirely disconnected from each other. Oh, that reminds me, a similar motif appears in The Game if Afoot! Because the islands are brigded together often, but tend to be guarded by mobs?

King of Winter and Darkness have even more that feeling of continuity and mirroring each other. With Eternal Winter and Eternal Darkness, no crops grow, no berry bushes or carrots replenish. You need light, always. Whether that be the flames of fire - which also provides warmth - or a torch, you'll need them. And it goes from the night of Eternal Winter to Eternal Night. It goes from the shape of a thermal stone to the sweep of flames of the torch.

the parallel between the game is afoot and archipelago was 100% on purpose, since the two chapters have a similar schtick, just oriented differently (in one you march through the sprawled out zones, in the other you wormhole between them). also fun that they're in the first half and the second half of the adventure. think of it as a sort of reprise

for two worlds i wanted to tap into the theme of splitting from the world of Normalcy, Comfort, Science into the constant's world of arcane magic and horror (hence the life-giving amulet). but yes, also the dichotomy of the Niceys Island and the Fucked Up Evil Island. the order of chapters is Mostly randomised, but i put two worlds as the halfway point to further drive home the point of No Turning Back to a normal life anymore. wilson is unfortunately fucked for life i also used the growing distance between the camera and wilson to reinforce this. in the first chapter, he's dead close to the camera, while in the last one he's small and distant. foreign to his old identity

a fun detail about the king of winter portrait specifically is that i deliberately used the iconography of kings holdding a scepter and a globus cruciger, for obvious reasons. on further consideration, it'd be cool to make the fire in the last two portraits more symmetrical... that's a good idea, yes

If I may ask for more details! How did she notice that? How would she acquire the role of protagonist? What would she do and which lengths would she go for and how would she justify it? What would that be like? What would that do to her emotionally, mentally, physically??

Would it be worth it???

i think in regards to wigfrid finding out about it, it boils down to learning about wilson and maxwell's relationship with each other during the cyclum project. the fact that wilson was the one to free maxwell from the throne. that wilson was the one to get rescued from it. that wilson was the one who built the florid postern (at least in its original state) to allow the worlds to combine and the survivors to meet.

i mean. you look at all that and there's only one conclusion you can come to. wilson has done it. wilson's won. wilson placed first in a race wigfrid didn't even know she was in. that infuriates her a lot. to be humiliated like that. to be second place to someone who looks.... *gestures at wilson's. everything.* like THAT!!!

i think it made wigfrid and wilson's first few years of knowing each other incredibly strained. and honestly, i still don't think they're great friends even to this day. wigfrid's incredibly wary about whatever role wilson is playing in the constant's second act, and would constantly try to interject any important seeming thing he's doing. so that she can be the one to do it instead.

its another one of the reasons that feeds into why wigfrid is so hostile to charlie. a lot of her sense of self worth is riding on being charlie's rival, and not only is the queen of the constant not really bothering to hang out with her or treat her like a protagonist like. at all. but also wilson's getting arms deep in like. lunar bullshit. and now the moon's haunted. and this old asshole just showed up one day like. what the FUCK is going on?!? what happened to TRADITIONAL NARRATIVES?!? what happened to TRADITIONAL NARRATIVES where everyone DIES at the end???

👀👀👀👀 This is so fascinating, I love this!!! Wigfrid interpreting her kidnapping in the light of a performance and narrative where she is, no, she needs to be the hero, to find the antagonist and kill him? Because that's the character she embodies? She's the sole hero meant to vanquish the evil!

Only that she never was the only one. Alone, and lonely, but there were other people trying to do the same. To escape. And somebody else, an average man, achieved what she tried before she ever noticed it.

Thank you for your time explaining your thoughts. I'll be thinking about Wigfrid and this for a long while.

(Like an AU where Wigfrid finishes on Adventure Mode. It'd would at first validate her perception She's getting closer and closer to Maxwell, cornering him, all the while she's besting beasts and surviving this new challenge.

Until Endgame / Checkmate. I can't imagine what it'd do to her mental and emotional state to realize that the very man she was trying to kill, the powerful man she called her nemesis who grew increasingly enraged as she continued to survive, the man who she made that supernatural deal with and got kidnapped for into strange lands, was an exhausted prisoner. Act stripped away*, wishing to die.

And she couldn't do it. Not in the sense that it was something held her back emotionally. This is how the narrative is supposed to go. The antagonist dies, directly by the protagonist's hands.

In the sense that she was physically incapable of hurting him. Even her most powerful attacks had no effect while he was trapped on that strange throne.

She eventually put the Voxola radio in the socket to release him. Maxwell stood up, happy to be free and she was happy to fight with him finally. Before either of them could do anything else, he. Crumbled to dust. The Shadows grabbed her and forced her onto the Throne. Putting her into the role of the antagonist Maxwell occupied just a few seconds ago. The entire narrative, the perfomance she imagined in her mind, was brutally subverted by powers that she can't understand.

Even worse. "They" are also an audience she was unaware of. And they forced her into an ending she neither wanted nor anticipated.

An additional angle: Widfrid gets angry and disappointed that Maxwell dropped his act and persona. It's not like he had any control over that when she reached the Throne Room, taking away her fulfillment. It doesn't change that she deeply resents him for it.

And on another side of this mess. Realizing that Maxwell put up his own performance could make her fear, before she realizes what being trapped on the Throne's doing to her. Her own act could wither, that the incomprehensible power / audience that trapped her could strip her mask, her performance away.

Only in the Throne Room, of course. Only here. But even just the idea of it, that somebody else could perceive her that way? Powerless and pitiful?

Wigfrid would make for a terrifying Triumphant for many reasons. This fear fueling her is part of it.

hate it when my chair does this