#what being an inversion of a BB means is anyone's guess

[ashkav]

Rock a bye baby (where am i?)

I was re-watching the trailer again after getting pretty far into a new playthrough of DS1 when something clicked. we've heard the lullaby at the very end of the trailer before, in DS1:

(starts at 9:25 in the trailer, and a couple seconds in in the second video)

when we meet Mama and her BT baby the exact same section of the exact same song is playing as the trailer, but a little extended and with more melodies going. and the song is pretty significant even in DS1 without connecting it to DS2: this is the only other lullaby we hear in the game that isn't BB's theme. and it plays directly before we meet the third most important child character in the game, after Lou and Sam. and the order we hear BBs theme and rock a bye is even the same! the first trailer, Higgs sings a warped version of BB's theme, which we hear in DS1 near the very beginning after hooking up to Lou for the first time and seeing Cliff sing a section. the second trailer, a warped version of rock a bye, heard for the first time about a third of the way through the game when first meeting Mama.

the song is slower and simpler in the trailer compared to in DS1, with a very old almost broken down sound. the octopuses on the mobile seem really relevant considering just how many references to tentacles we've seen in the trailers so far: Elle Fanning's sucker arm, the tar-cat's tongue, the DHV Magellan's logo. and we know some time has passed since the end of the first game. could the song be coming from the same mobile?

thematically, it would be a fitting gift, if it was given as a gift to Sam - if the theories are right and Lou is haunting the BB pod then it'll be an object shared between two impossible BT babies. LockneMama would be the literal best person for Sam to get in contact with again, being the only person (people?) to actually have gone through something similar with a dead not dead daughter. (and it's a completely impractical gift for a living baby with squishy skin, being metal and likely to cut or injure a grabby infant.)

I don't know. i think it would be a really neat narrative parallel if Mama played a role in DS2, but since Margaret Qualley has not been mentioned in any promotional material I doubt she'll be in the game in any major way. that doesn't necessarily mean the theory is wrong; the character could still interact with Sam through emails but the reduced presence doesn't seem

ok wait had a brain wave does Shioli connect to this somehow? complete hunch based on nothing but the first song was obviously the song that connected Lou and Sam, as they're both BBs and the theme is used for both of them. we've seen absolutely nothing of who Shioli is despite knowing she must be a major character based on her poster and her name on the credit list. is rock a bye the song that connects Lou and Shioli's character?

her character poster:

rock a bye baby is about a baby being 'lost' - "when the bough breaks the cradle will fall/ down will come baby, cradle and all."

euphemistically, it can be about child death due to negligence or instability, but going 'down' in the case of death stranding also immediately brings to mind tar, the sinking and the rising. is she 'down' at the beach?

'cradle and all' seems to me to imply there's other things related to cradles that are all going down with the baby, blankets, toys, etc. lots of mobiles attach to cradles.

maybe i'm grasping at straws with the Shioli connection, but the lullaby is the only part of the trailer that doesn't seem to obviously link back to or directly relate to the known characters. and since Mama isn't going to be a major player, maybe Shioli will fill the same thematic presence in this game as Mama did in the last - Mama, too, was lost in a sense, her Ha and Ka split when her baby died and untethered when her psychic link to Lockne broke. Mama was an inversion of the stillmother - maybe Shioli is an inversion of Lou?

[zikadraws]

(Totally uncalled for) BB+ Parody

[ L o n g   p o s t   a h e a d ]

[-But the comics are worth it-]

Can you freaking believe that one of my most elaborated, and most experimental, comic posted so far on this account would be about godforsaken Baldi’s Basics ? And yet that’s what seem to be happening. I swear I didn’t WANT to be putting that much of effort on those in the first place but I guess sometimes you just get some sort of urge, to realise a GOOD-LOOKING artwork. No matter on what that is. That’s just like, something that happens I guess.

So anyway there is my take on Baldi’s Basics +, seen from the perspective of my OC (yeah ‘cause I have a Baldi’s Basics OC, don’t judge me) Pupil.EXE. For context, as the glitched-into-independance player model, while trying to make his way out from his native game (BB, so) and navigating between the original and the newest title, Pupil.EXE witnesses the strange new additions and unexplained elements of the new game. He didn’t think it was even possible, but the newest version of his hellscape seems to be even weirder, not to say unsettling, than the original... 

(Okay enough dimestore suspense. Here goes.)

Pupil.EXE_LOG #123 : “There are several unsettling posters around the map, but the one with the blonde little girl is probably the worst in that context. Who could she be ? During some of these damned ‘school announcements’, it was hinted that there are, or were actually other students in the school -and apparently in a similar situation as mine, since apparently they deadjerk installed anti-escape prevention system doors (???), so... could she be one of them ?...or...could she be... one of Baldi’s... prevents...? ...I don’t know. And I don’t know why, but each time I see this picture, I can’t help but flinch, and look behind me...”

Pupil.EXE_LOG #143 : “Hello journal, WHAT THE [-BLEEP-] !!! PLUS OF BEING RANDOMIZED, FLOODED TEN TIMES A DAY, AUTOMATIZED THIS PLACE IS NOW GRAVITY-BENDING ??? WHAT THE [-BZZT-] !!! I just touched a random floating freaking crystal and got rocketed to the ceiling !!! Is anyone gonna say anything about that ?? I mean I already got through a gravity-inversing event like two minutes before. Was about to log it when the crystal thing happened. Man, I swear to god if Baldi can now manipulate gravity, I might as well quit. What’s the [-KRRRK-]-ing point.” LOG #143 UPDATE : “I changed my mind. I don’t think anymore that Baldi is responsible for the gravity anomalies. I found another crystal nearby after another shot and after I touched it, Baldi was no longer able to get me. This can’t be his doing. The gravity anomalies have to be due to... some[-THR-][-INGRRR-] else.”

Pupil.EXE LOG #156 : “So hum, well, fat news today. I found... Well, I found myself a- a friend. Talked about him in the precedent log. But now, I can officially say that we’re friends. Name still has yet to be determined. I mean, that’s a good new. I thought I was the only one... And it’s nice to see that there’s still some kind of logic in this place, and someone who actually wants to help me. But, it feels so... wrong and sad. I mean, can we talk about the fact that this guy has been living inside the school walls for as long as he can remember, surviving on what the school has to offer, hiding from the others from all that time ? Can we talk about how he doesn’t know anything out of the school, how he doesn’t know how he even gets the items ? About how he thinks he’s seen many students in my case before, seen them struggle around, felt bad for them, but can’t seem to recall anything about them ? And that name thing ? Can we talk about that ?...”

-----

Alright, there it was. My take on Baldi’s Basics +. Hope you don’t mind the long post, or my theories. (If you’d like to know more about them, or Pupil.EXE, you can go ahead). ‘Cause I have to admit, although reluctantly, that I am more involved in that game’s ’’’lore’’’ than I’d like to admit.

Alright ! Hope you enjoyed it. I am rather proud with the result so I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did !

Have a good day ! 🎶🤗