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Fun fact I found on my first playthrough: Checking yourself in the mirror does not violate the prophet's instructions. He will come back as if you hadn't checked anyone

In the ending with the Vigilante, I like how the Protagonist directly calls the Neighbor his friend. Past his outward refusal to interact with most people, he clearly still yearns for human connection, and just sharing beers and phone calls with the Neighbor probably helped a lot.

I love how confusing this game is. There was a time where I was genuinely thinking that there were no visitors, and it was all just paranoia.

Visitors only killing when there's 2 or more of them seems logical, if the lone visitor killed someone they would be immediately outed, throw someone else in the mix and suddenly it's a guessing game.

Important to note that bugs and mushrooms are decomposer, hence why they are maybe present in the visitors.

Idk if this is a known phrase in russia but having "wax in your ears" is a metaphor for ignoring something blatantly told to you. So implying the visitors have a lot of wax implies (in my opinion) that they're ignoring their own death tolls.

4:44 I know it's just meant to be a means to an end for the tutorial but what a great neighbor, huh? Guy went out of his way to help you out and it doesn't seem like you guys are exceptionally close or anything. What a chad.

My favorite idea in regards to this game is that everyone looks so weird because the player character has a personality disorder making them severely antisocial, like schizoid or schizotypal disorder making other people look repulsive or terrifying. Ive had some experience with delusions like that and it makes sense for a very isolationist person

The implication that the Visitors are the dead returning to life actually makes the cat lady’s appearance make sense, most visitors (aka the random people who can be visitors) look human, but if the cat lady was dead and stuffed in a closet, she probably had been dead for a while because she looks super thin and decayed, this could also explain why the pale man looks the way he does as well

The ‘they come up from under the ground’, dirty nails, memory troubles and bugs in ears made me assume that you can only become a visitor after you die. The cashier girl seems to be wearing a hospital gown, has visible damage and presumably died somewhere in her gap in memory.

That said, the perfect teeth and hairless armpits don’t make sense. They could be paranoid red herrings, but from memory I think it is true that all visitors do have perfect teeth, always.

I absolutely love the ending where everything goes back to normal and you just move on. It reminds me so much of how we all collectively moved on after the pandemic, so many people died, and as much as we feel like it’s over it for sure caused each and every one of us permanent psychological damage, but because we all went through it we just view it as the status quo. I haven’t really seen that feeling touched by any media before, usually it’s just either “yay! We made it!” Or “ugh damn we died”. I just really like it.

So, a fun fact - the "aura photography" was an actual irl scam that happened in "wild 90s". After USSR fad fallen, most ex-soviet countries had a few decades of wild lawlessness, shady schemes appearing left right and center, crime on the rise, you get the picture. Psychics, maguses and prophets of various kind were on the rise in that time too.
Also a little glimpse into russ mysticism - the dancer lady has this shiny aura because she's an angel, so she is technically still a visitor from another plane of reality (heavens) but she is a benevolent one. Also keeping her in your house doesn't count towards Pale Stranger's visitor cap, you can have her and another visitor inside and it won't cause game over. The other visitor would still kill tho.

When you meet ‘death’ at the end, it tells you that you are in an illusionary realm made of mirrors. It isn’t a comforting message, it’s almost scornful. ‘Here is what you thought you wanted.’ My theory is that you die and a visitor rises in your place. The illusionary world you exists in is what remains of you, trapped away inside your own body.

The ear canal goes basically straight to the brain. I feel like the bugs go in there and wait til the person dies and then burrows into the brain and takes control. The bugs ARE the Visitors, that's likely why the population is told nothing about the ears. The news stations are being controlled by Visitors, trying to convince people the bugs have nothing to do with it.

4:03 no, the neighbor is not talking to his cousin, he’s talking to us, the hermit. He says “aren’t you tired of staying at home?” And the character you play as is known as “the hermit.

A couple of comments about the ballerina and Naperdish:

1. In the intro, ballerina isn’t getting out of the closet but is coming home. That’s the front door of an apartment, which can be guessed based on the shoe rack on the left and the doormat. She may or may not have already turned at that point, and there is no way of saying how it happened. Yet, the cat is responding warmly and welcoming to her, stretching.

2. In the Slavic folklore, cats are linked to Veles (stress on the second e). Veles is a diety of domestic animals, wealth, trade, magic and… the underworld. Cats are also seen as protectors of the home from evil spirits (negative energy in the modernized interpretation) and as beings capable of seeing and guiding to “the other world”, which, in the context of the game, translates into the afterlife. This fits the game’s narrative very well, as Nappi plays with the carpet, enabling the main character to open the basement that could later open the passage to meet Death. Of course, Nappi also protects the home from visitor attacks if fed.

Edit: thanks for the video. I found it interesting, especially your explanation of what the visitors actually represent. I have also listened to it to sleep a couple of times, as I find your manner of speech quite soothing. Hope to see more like this in the future.

the better way to read cat's name "naperdish" is [NA-PYOR-DISH], emphasis on PYOR. Means something like "fartling" or "underfart"

This is actually what I’ve been wanting because nobody ever makes a good lore video. They don’t explain, deep dive, or anything. They just tell me how the game works and tells me what happens 😭 thank you so much

1:33:15 Code 451 (as well as the fema number 000-451) is a reference to fahrenheit 451, a world where all literature is burned by "firemen". Idk what 955 is a reference to, but Lime used to be used for body preservation to reduce odor, and more importantly, keep out insects, rendering visitor reanimation impossible.