Just To Be Clear, I'm As Excited As Y'all Are, I Just Wanted To Make A Meme Lol

had a vision

No shade but when I read that Siffrin is wearing jeans in fanfics this is what i envision

30 isabeau attack GO

its isabeaus

3 years (/dra) late, but heres part 1 of my @isat-secretsanta-2024 for @crows-sorrows !!!!!!! i absolutely adore post-canon sif exploration <3 (also bonnie is there too bc they Can)

WATCHER SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT!!! WATCH OUT!!!!!

so

this moment huh

im so normal about Unfortunate Evolution you dont even know. what even fucking is it. how in the balls did a void worm get rotted. absolutely insane region /pos

woagh isat au,,,,,, no way,,,,,,,,,,,

This is what im calling the "In Tears And Blood" au, which swaps the roles of Siffrin and Loop!! instead of ISAT siffrin getting a guide through Loop, SAAP Siffrin gets a guide through Bigfrin, renamed to The Stars!!!

character profiles below:

ill throw more of this au around once i have art for it bc i have. many thoughts and ideas :3

i am nooooot locked the fuck in. im locked the fuck out. call the locksmith

hi chat im back on my bullshit

back at it again with more In Tears And Blood!!! fun fact The Traveler refers to themself as that because they genuinely Cannoy Remember Their Name half the time. but The Stars helps them remember <3

also bonus doodle. i hate The Stars sm theyre SO lame and pathetic and lame /aff

been thinking about In Tears And Blood again,,, ough,,,,,, i have ideas and all of them are Evil

after doing nothing but play rain world: the watcher for 4 days (bar monday i had to go to college sadge) and i have now completed the whole dlc as it currently stands. i have many thoughts

EVERYTHING BELOW HERE WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!!! FOR EVERYTHING!!!!! THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING

alright. starting with the generic spoilers

first up, the beginning. HOLY FUCK I ADORED THE BEGINNING OF THE CAMPAIGN. i wish my clipping software wasnt broken so that i couldve clipped my reaction to That One Chimney Canopy Room. literally as i was climbing i was speculating on when in the timeline Watcher was (my thought was around hunter/gourm) and then Boom. rot jumpscare. i am The Rot Enjoyer so i was genuinely ecstatic. also the jumpscare of Hydroponics being in Industrial was rather funny

(also idk where else to mention it but all the drawn art for watcher is so gorgeous. the colour theory used is geneuinely breathtaking. the last frame of the intro cutscene is beautiful)

secondly, the world (or, what of one there is). being able to get lost in the world is something i havent been able to truly experience up until now (i didnt play any of base game or downpour blind) so it was delightful getting lost in these gorgeous and unique regions.

and aether ridge i suppose

i really dont think aether ridge was a good choice for a modded inclusion. i mean just off the top of my head i can think of several Better regions with better maps that they couldve used. but like. thats also a handful of regions amongst TWENTY THREE. THAT IS MORE THAN THE REST OF THE FUCKING GAME. INSANE. so many regions that i straight up didnt see two of them in my first playthrough

i do wish the world has at least some interconnectivity like in base and downpour. i miss the cohesive and grounded world but also that is just Not what watcher is about so its alright. its still cool regardless. also the implications of some regions being timeline variants of others??? hell yeah

thirdly, the new creatures. fuck barnacles all my homies hate barnacles

in all seriousness though, most of the creatures are cool additions (sea slugs my beloveds <3) i just wish there was some more interspecies interactions besides the moths throwing lizards around. itd make the world feel more alive. the barnacles also need a massive tweak they are just actually bullshit sometimes.

i ADORE the rotzards though. ough the pained noises they make,,,, i love them sm theyre so cool. i wish more creatures got rotted. i wouldve KILLED to see a rotted whale or loach. that one rotted void worm took me OUT

fourthly, the gameplay loop. the weakest part of the game. the total lack of any direction or assistance is upsetting. in base rain world you have the overseers to guide you, and in downpour you have your anchor points in FP and LttM. but here?? nothing. i didnt even know i needed to be finding the echoes until 8ish hours into my first run. i needed my friend to read me a guide for my second. the game needs to at least give the player hints or clues. i found a workshop mod that implements saint's echo ping and both me and my friend had such a better time playing after that. that should be a default setting

its even worse for the second ending. as i mentioned, my friend had a guide pulled up and walked me through it as spoiler-free as she could. and i would have NEVER gotten it blind. this combined with the sheer number of regions (as mentioned previously, twenty three!!!) honestly ruins the game. my friend almost gave up on the whole DLC because of it. i know they plan to start patching things in, and their first action should be implementing better guidance

also i didnt even know you could go through ripples at top karma?? or that you could warp without a karma flower (with consequences)??? the game just. didnt tell me. which i feel like it should because those are both Pretty Big Things

i do think that the gameplay loop could be genuinely fun with actual assistance. because i actually had fun finding the echoes after i got that mod.

and now, onto the ending specific spoilers, starting with the echo ending

WE GET TO ACTUALLY FUCKING SEE ANCIENTS????? LIKE WALKNG AROUND AND SHIT????? IM SO INSANE ABOUT THAT

the storyline of helping an echo detach themself from their wordly desires and move on is so sweet. but i did NOT know that was the story until the last region. it almost made the ending feel unearned. it felt a little shoehorned in tbh. but also like. i dont care WE SAW ANCIENTS WAHHHHH

also hey we watch an echo ascend. neat. i do have a theory that an echo can ascend (or at least move on) if their attachment to whatever desire binds them is destroyed (Four Needles disappearing after their body no longer exists at all) and can move around space and time in accordance to their desires (Rhinestones choosing to come to Undergrowth to appreciate the life thriving there) so. hell yeah more echo lore i LOVE echo lore

but you know what i love more than echoes. the rot

the second ending. is peak i fear. not only is the campaign progression significantly better and more impactful than the echo story, but the ENDING. OH LORD THE ENDING. again, i am The Rot Enjoyer so i was going INSANE at the whole world getting fucky. and dont even get me STARTED on the rotted base game regions. i could go on for hours about how genuinely fucking cool the rotted regions are.

and everything surrounding The Throne and the roterator (The Prince??) (me and my friends nicknamed them "Yapper") is insane. the rot gaining sentience???? and having a pure and genuine trust in their beliefs???????? holy moly. fun fact if you hit them with a spear they get happy that youre playing with them <3

i cant even put my thoughts of this ending into words because its just So Insane (also i experienced it like. an hour before writing this so my brain is still reeling) but my theory currently is that every single strand of the cycle will eventually fall to rot (as the echo says that "it all ends up like this" if you wrongwarp to a rotted region) and that we simply witnessed and assisted in the end of one of these strands. theres. more to that theory but i just Cannot words it yet. ill probably make a seperate post about it soon

overall, The Watcher is an inherintly flawed product that i hope gets fixed up and improved soon, because i did genuinely enjoy it and want more people to. outside of the region bloat and lack of any direction, the game is genuinely peak, but those two things really do just kill it unfortunately. it is deserving of its mixed reviews on steam, but i do hope to see that shift more positively as the rest of the planned content is added and QOL changes are made.

also fix those damn barnacles PLEASE