#sunset hell

This whole thing started because I was thinking about how many steps it takes to get the phone effect, and how suspicious everything around that effect is. First you have to give blood to the demon shopkeeper, then you have to find the sunset person by the clocktower, then you need to find the sunset version of the dog that’s in the Transmission Tower World, and THEN you can get the cell phone effect in a rainy section of the Transmission Tower World. 

The whole trip to the mobile phone effect in sunset hell feels like it’s probably representative of a memory of Irving’s. The fact you can see a transparent version of him sitting by the phone effect before you properly get it is a good indication of that. Getting to the Transmission Tower World via the dog is accompanied by a jingle-sounding noise which I’m interpreting as a phone notification sound (it’s just called slidestringB in the files though). One way you could possibly interpret this whole event is that Irving got stuck somewhere with a bad signal in the rain, and then had to text someone to get picked up and go home. 

This then begs the question -- who the hell is the person in Sunset Hell by the clocktower? Was it someone he was with before getting stranded, or someone who came to pick him up?

I looked through all the character sprites in the current version of the game, and the only one-to-one match (taking into account the border the sunset hell character has) is the character who’s right next to the tuning fork effect in the Sea Manor. 

The tuning fork effect character doesn’t react to much of anything. You can’t kill them with vampirism, but you can copy them with the wendigo effect. The only effect they properly react to is the tuning fork itself, which turns them slightly invisible. If the semi-transparent Irving sitting by the phone effect is a memory, then by extension, maybe the tuning fork character is also memory or fabrication -- someone that isn’t like this anymore. 

So that’s already weird enough on its own. Neither of those characters (or ANYTHING in Sunset Hell, for that matter) have bestiary entries, so we can’t use that for reference or clues. But then I was reminded of the fact that when you show the tuning fork effect to Lucky at her shop, she says “I used to have one of those, too” which I always thought was kinda a weird and highly specific thing to call attention to. (Maybe she doesn't have it anymore because Irv took it from her lol)

The cellphone effect “allows you to call home,” which is the Nexus in this case. The only other character in the Nexus also happens to be Lucky. You know who the only other character we’ve seen in Irving’s home is? Also Lucky during the event at Lowest Point. Additionally, the Nexus appears to be perpetually at sunset -- much like Sunset Hell. 

Another weird detail I realized as I was writing this -- in order to get to the Lowest Point and its associated event, you have to use the tuning fork with the person from bestiary entry #18 too… Yet another connection between Lucky and tuning forks.