100% Correct Theories

Nevermore sideblog! Silly theories, au and writing ramblings, and more

[neverpollo]

Mod Intro

mod pollo

they/them | he/him

adult

I need that blond man

I'm a uni student who enjoys analysis, insane research, and procrastinating on my essays by writing sillier essays.

CORRECT THEORY SUBMISSION GUIDELINES!

include evidence for your claims

yeah that's it. just include evidence <3

[neverpollo]

What au is the video game style stuff that that one person sent you from

SHORT VERSIOB!! It is my willtresor No, I'm Not A Human AU based on the game No, I'm Not A Human! It's set during a solar apocalypse, where it's dangerous to go out during the day, and at night, creatures that Look Human But Aren't (called Visitors) crawl up from the ground and attempt to take shelter in peoples' homes. I wrote a fic for it, which you can find here!

The game is very good and I'd highly recommend checking it out if you are an enjoyer of human horror or apocalypse media à la the walking dead! Though I don't think too much knowledge of it is required to understand the fic (anyone can feel free to correct me on this tho)

[neverpollo]

ive returned with more of the game style stuff :3

definitely decided to lean more into the ninah artstyle w this one ,, think it turned out well :D

WAUGHGHHHHH HI SORRY FOR TAKING THREE WEEKS TO ANSWER NEVER GO INTO RESEARCH BUT HEL;LOOOOOOO THESE ARE SO INCREDIBLE?? THESE ARE EXACTLY WHAT VE BEEN IMAGINGING AUGHHHH

[neverpollo]

made these two doodle pages!! not the best on things like teeth and hands but hey can you blame me

also,,,,,, yes im thinking about what you said on post-fic

it was really fun to make a fake little shot of the game,,, might do another i have an idea for and then if i feel like it make some comic ish pages to just.draw scenes :3 again if im like. doing too much lmk gah

THESE ARE SOOOOO GOOD HELLO!!!! UAGHGH GOD ALL THE DETAILS ARE SO PERFECT DUDE IM OBSESSED. I SAW THIS BEFORE BED YESTERDAY AND NEEDED TO PHYSICALLY FORCE MYSELF TO STOP LOOKING AT THEM SO I COULD SLEEP ABWHBH

[neverpollo]

IM SUCH A FREAK ABOUT THAT FIC FGHHGHJNNNNJGJMH

HEEHEHEHEH THANKU... ibuprofen meme voice let's think about doomed yaoi.....together

[neverpollo]

Happy Valentine's Day

[neverpollo]

I loved the fic so much I cant stop re reading it

WAAA THANKU!!! It'll be receiving some (very minor) edits once I have the time to look it over and tweak wording but I'm glad people like it so far!! 🥺🥺

[neverpollo]

i am completely and totally normal about your NINAH au ,,, as ive stated

anyways.

(i might,, , if my motivationholdsup make more art,, if that is aye okay in the future,,,,)

UAWHGGH THIS IS SO INSANELY GOOD HELLO!!!! I HAVE SENT THIS TO LIKE FIVE FRIENDS IM SO HONORED U LIKE IT SO MUCH AWAUHG I am 10000% okay with you drawing more omg don't feel any pressure at all I am so!!!! I keep staring at this hello!!! going insane!!!!

[brain-maggot1]

SDBSDVB IM GLAD U LIKE THE ARTT GAH :D sadly been at work BUT right before I left I was doodling the post-fic reply you sent lolll :3 genuinely the only thing thats been on my mind today is the fic u made ITS CONSUMING ME 😭

[neverpollo]

HERHEHEHEHE no that's so real this au was like 90% of my brain the past few months. sitting doing my work boom gay people in my brain

[neverpollo]

i am completely and totally normal about your NINAH au ,,, as ive stated

anyways.

(i might,, , if my motivationholdsup make more art,, if that is aye okay in the future,,,,)

UAWHGGH THIS IS SO INSANELY GOOD HELLO!!!! I HAVE SENT THIS TO LIKE FIVE FRIENDS IM SO HONORED U LIKE IT SO MUCH AWAUHG I am 10000% okay with you drawing more omg don't feel any pressure at all I am so!!!! I keep staring at this hello!!! going insane!!!!

[neverpollo]

Happy Valentine's Day

[neverpollo]

If I posted apocalypse au for Valentine's Day would that be funny or would it be funny

[neverpollo]

Last post for today because I'm very eepy and only 1/4 through my tests for this week but I finished scaffolding my willtresor fic finally wooo

[neverpollo]

Getting off topic from my posting. I think I should be given three billion dolar forever. and no more assignments please

[neverpollo]

@montresor-appreciator sent me over here cause you have evidence about montresor’s time period and I wanna hear people nerd out about history and nevermore 😄

HIII SORRY THIS TOOK ME A FEW DAYS TO GET TO BECAUSE IVE BEEN IN EXAM HELL!! Omg okay so I have SO much evidence about Montresor's time period and now that I'm on my pc and have a bit of time I can compile it!

POST-YAPPING NOTE. This got really long. It's going under a cut, read my rambling at your own risk LOL

Pre-emptive note: we have to keep in mind, when analyzing Montresor specifically (and Will, to some degree, but somewhat less so)- he lived in the American Southwest, during a time without the fast communication speeds that we know, and during a time in which most clothes were still, at least primarily, made and mended by hand. That means that overall outfits are going to be tricky to analyze for specific time period, so accessories and hairstyles are going to be somewhat more reliable (though they may still be somewhat out of date- we have to keep in mind that, again, trends can only travel as fast as communication at that time, and they take time to adopt- it's likely we'll see a few years offset between the actual time period and the specific elements of fashion that we see, especially in one-off background characters).

My first step whenever I'm trying to establish a character's timeline is to try and go from the ground up of what I think stands out. For me, primarily referencing Episode 118, that's a handful of things:

Monty asking if it matters if a pair is low or high. High-low poker is a specific kind of poker, so you'd want to look into when it was created, and how it spread over time.

The presence of his toothpick. We see in Nevermore that he has a little mass-produced tin of them, which means that factory mass-production (at least of toothpicks) has to have been around. (sidebar here- the playing cards are another example of this. Playing cards with uniform backs are another thing made possible by factory mass-production.)

Not 118, but still relevant: the train. We have to remember how Monty died, and keep that in the back of our minds as a bare minimum year of death- can't die by train if there are no rails around yet.

Monty's gold tooth. It's a prominent design detail, which we see explicit attention called to in 118 as being solid gold, and not just gold-capped. History of dentistry would be an interesting reference to find a time period for this. This is also where I'd like to mention his bolo tie- another specific element of his design, though it's not present here.

Less important, but still up there: the amount of money exchanged, and the fact that they're using paper money, and not just valuables or coins.

Another minor thing: the term "saddlebag preacher". It stands out to me as regional and period-specific slang, and would be something I'd want to research

The presence of alcohol-wick lamps on each table. There's no electricity, at least in this building, and that's important to note in my opinion!

This isn't a full list of everything I'd want to research, of course, but it's where my mind goes when I'm trying to pinpoint a specific era! I'd take all of this, in conjunction with the designs of one-off background characters, and try to go from the ground up figuring out what period each belongs in separately. Typically, I give more weight to the time periods of details that have attention called to them- in Monty's case, that would be design elements specific to him (the tooth and tie), the train, and general trends of background character design.

With that as our baseline, we have a pretty easy list of things to research- while that takes some time, it's probably the least time-consuming part of the process imo (combing through the entire comic with a fine-toothed comb is the most time-consuming XD). Having researched, we find that:

The short version is that the history of poker is very complicated, and as best as I can tell, official "high/lo" poker didn't come about until the 1960s. Since it's a minor throwaway line just meant to setup that Monty is bad at cheating because he runs his mouth, I'm pretty prone to dismissing it. There is, of course, always the chance that it was a regional thing- but if there's any documentation for that, I couldn't find it. I've mentioned before that the high/low pair split he references came about in the 1890s but the source I had for that has been lost to time and without a source I don't feel confident staking that claim!

Mass production of playing cards in America pretty much started in 1871 (source) and we don't know whether or not the cards came in a cardboard box or wrapped in cellophane so we can't get more specific than that. Mass production of toothpicks is a pretty similar story- just replace 1871 with 1872 (source).

The transcontinental railroad completed construction in the American Southwest sometime in the 1860s (source) (source 2).

Gold teeth became decently common in the early 1900s as a common dental procedure (source). While it's not impossible for him to have had a gold tooth before 1900, it's more likely that he was born sometime during or just after this period. For the bolo tie: there's a lot of interesting history connected to this, but for the sake of brevity, I'll summarize. Bolo ties came about in the 1930s initially as a way for people from the Zuni, Navajo, and Hopi tribes to emulate the ties that white Americans wore, but in a more relaxed manner that was also more practical for the environment of the southwest. You can read more about it in these sources here though keep in mind that the last source doesn't go into its roots among first nations tribes of the area.

Interestingly enough, it looks like Goldeyes isn't trying to pay Monty with $10 bills, but with silver certificates. They came around in the 1870s (source) and stopped being used in the 1960s (source). This gives us a maximum year, too! In specific, it looks (to me at least) to be most similar to the 1908 design (can be seen here).

Saddlebag preachers were pretty much active from the 1790s onwards- though they waned in popularity in the 1830s, they remained as figures within pop culture through the 19th and 20th centuries (source). Imo given this context it seems like Goldeyes was insulting Monty by calling him a saddlebag preacher.

WOW was this a deep dive that I did not expect to go down. The short version is that most homes (and small businesses) didn't get electricity until the 1930s on average, and I'd assume slightly later than that if you were from, say, a small town out in the middle of the desert where it's challenging to run cables out all the way. Source here!

Wow, that's a lot!

From all of that, I'd then go through and find the maximum and minimum years- personally, I'd set my maximum right around 1940, because I think we've probably got two-ish characters per decade (until Ada(?), Eula, and Morella break that trend). For the minimum, I personally take it as somewhere in the early/mid-1930s, but if you wanted to go a little earlier, I wouldn't necessarily disagree. I personally take the bolo tie evidence as the strongest, but with the silver note we can at least be sure that Monty is somewhere in the 1900s!

Incidentally, I also happened to notice the weapons while re-reading 118.. I'm not as big of a gun nerd as I am a.. blade.. nerd? I like swords and knives. Anyways: Goldeyes's knife looks like a winchester 49er (or something adjacent) to me, it's got the wooden grip and that almost curved-triangle blade. Image can be seen here! I would give a shot at identifying the guns but I fear I don't know enough about gun nuances to really have a shot. Anyone else can feel free, though!

If Goldeyes's knife really is a winchester 49er, that moves Monty up to 1919, minimum!

[neverpollo]

Back to writing :hellmo:

[neverpollo]

Finally getting back to my annotated reread now that I'm back to my unemployment arc and I love taking normal notes

[neverpollo]

Sighs. design testing