Chatango:
mysica.webs.com/portal.htm
whatsyourmask.chatango.com/
Twitter:
twitter.com/#!/whatsyourmask -- follow this to be automatically notified if there's an ARG update
Youtube:
www.youtube.com/whatsyourmask -- video notes are posted here
Forums and the Community:
whatsyourmask.weebly.com/ --- website for archives; includes the Moon Cult recreation
day-four.forumotion.net/forum
z7.invisionfree.com/Drowned/index.php
jadusable.wikia.com/wiki/Jadusable_Wiki
whatsyourmask
- Links
-
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1)
whatsyourmask- February 7th, 0:07
- And End
-
- whatsyourmask
- June 24th, 2011
There has been a lot of talk in the past few days -- either here or on the Chatangos and perhaps in some folks’ Skype rooms -- of this “community.” The plural would probably be more appropriate for the daily grind; different people have different places they hang out: WYM Chatango, the IBB forums, the off-topic of WH. The little social pockets that have developed in this nARG have varying opinions on all kinds of things, and there have occasionally been clashes or arguments.
Regardless, these communities have always shown themselves capable to pull together and become one community. The best example (or the most recent) is the way everyone cooperates to facilitate Q&A sessions on the Chatango. Mods moderate, and other folks do their best to keep newcomers informed and the line moving. It’s awesome to see 180 (or 60) people work as one organism.
The Resistance has been supremely grateful to have a place among this community for so long. Three and MC formed this group out of a love for the nARG, but saying “for the nARG” is simply shorthand for “all of the players, veteran and new, all of the sound engineers and video experts and theorycrafters and the people who just are totally supremely silly when everyone needs a laugh and even the users who wander in and out sporadically.” Despite the stresses and tension which can come with being a well-known group (and attempting to moderate a Chatango consistently @__@), we have all loved the experience, the bonds formed, the time debating ideas and the time exchanging MLP spam.
Thank you to the fans, the ones who spend too much time on the computer and the ones who come back regale us with tales of the outside. We have learned so much from everyone, and we have had huge amounts of fun.
As has happened with a lot of smaller communities in this nARG, The Resistance has formed into an utterly dysfunctional loving family. There are internal fights, there is internal drama, there is internal disagreement, there is even some incest (looking at you, Shou and Ast), but there are people who also care a great deal about people they’ve never met in real life and support them. We’ve had therapy sessions, love orgies, cry-fests, and we consider one another friends, no qualifications required.
Friends stick up for friends.
The past few days have been somewhat surreal, in terms of this nARG. Alexander D. Hall returned from a long silence, taking over the Facebook group. He opened a new Twitter. He hosted a Q&A, at least in part due to some serious questions that were launched at him via tweets (and it is hard for mc to respond in 140 characters).
An open letter written by PERSONAshou / WhatIf on the Facebook group was promptly removed by Alex; he said, before it was taken down, that the Facebook group wasn’t a place for weighty concerns, that he would try to address these problems and that the forum would be a better place for such issues.
The Q&A happened quickly after the Twitter exchanges entered the realm of “sharp.” The tone of the Q&A was incredibly strange, as some players who have been around long enough to interact with Alex before noticed. Canonical questions he begged off in case of spoilers, but questions dealing with his role as game moderator, forum administrator and author were answered with PR slights of hand. He invalidated the askers’ concerns by constantly labeling those misgivings as “petty” and openly lied in several cases (he says he doesn’t update us frequently because he doesn’t want to disappoint us with nothing, but this community has asked for consistent updates, even about nothing, for a long time; similarly, and most disappointingly, he accused Sheik of lying about his inability to respond to moderator emails). Afterward, Alex made cracks at the expense of his first (and potentially last) fanbase and expressed some weird, condescending fantasies (like his dream to open a school for those who want to be successful -- it might be worth saying most schools are opened in the attempt to help people become successful).
After the Q&A, some PERSONAE (and some players not in The Resistance) felt a deep disappointment, hurt and confusion. There was a general sense of unease in WYM Chatango (which is not to say everyone felt it, but there was an aura). Some people who have put in more than their share of work for this nARG and this author were reduced to tears.
In the Q&A thread on WH, mc posted a criticism of Alex’s management skills. Stef later backed up these points in a post sharing her perspective and experience working under Alex. The argument it actually contained, not the argument people wanted it to contain because it was much simpler to rebut, was
1. Alexander D. Hall is not fulfilling his responsibilities as a game moderator.
a. He does not communicate with the fanbase in a way that shows respect for the fanbase’s time.
i. He does not note delays or progress in a timely manner.
b. He does not communicate with the fanbase in a way that shows respect for the fanbase, full stop.
i. He has consolidated all all-community spaces and has censored or shut down content which expresses civil discontent or criticism. His actions have not always been in accordance with the rules of these spaces.
ii. He has responded to civil criticism with personal attacks, particularly on the people who have done the greatest amount of work for him. His insinuation regarding Stef in his response to the Q&A thread is actually hurtful, unprofessional and petulant. It was met with disbelief, both on the part of The Resistance and other players.
iii. He has recently begun to imply he has little respect for this fanbase. He seems to think we sit around, hanging on his every word or click of the mouse. He has used the word “losers” and appropriated some non-descript mental illness as a way of describing the people who have cheered on, supported and helped his nARG become a success -- and so helped HIM become a success. The Resistance finds it strange that he would treat the folks who have launched his dreams as so discardable. The Resistance also finds it strange Mr. Hall wishes to work in the field of entertainment, an industry which banks on the consumers’ obsession and, in fact, encourages it. Perhaps Alex should consider alternate means of employment if players’ devotion and love leave a bad taste in his mouth.
2. Alexander D. Hall is not fulfilling his responsibilities as a global administrator of WH.
a. He does not communicate with at least four out of five moderators at all or in a timely manner.
i. Because of this issue, he rarely performs actions such as IP banning or account deletion when they need to be taken care of.
b. He does not have a demonstrated interest in improving the forum for the users.
i. Moderators cannot reach him (see 2a.) to make changes for the players.
ii. As mentioned in 1bi., Mr. Hall has transformed what should be a community space into a more complicated space, one which does not benefit the player needs if the player needs do not align with his self-promotion.
Alex’s conclusion (and Oedipal refusal to dialogue) is still available for players to read, condone or condemn.
On the basis of the past nine months but particularly the past two days;
on the basis of our friends, some of the community moderators, being neglected, unsupported, attacked and belittled by the person who placed quite a lot of unpaid labor on their shoulders;
on the basis of the deep ingratitude, unkindness and increasing vitriol of Alex Hall himself;
and because friends stick up for friends, which means calling out a bully,
The Resistance will no longer be a part of the Haunted Cartridge nARG.
The Resistance plans to renovate "Drowned" (a name change is forthcoming) and use it as their home base. There will be a section for those interested discussing the Haunted Cartridge nARG, any ARGs which interest folks and an off-topic sub-forum. Additionally, the forums will be modded with the support of its administrator, Comrade Iota. We hope that “Drowned” can become an actual open space for the community to use as they see fit.
The WYM Chatango will stand as it always has; likewise, the regulars and players of the Haunted Cartridge nARG will still be warmly welcomed. The only alteration in business as usual will be the removal of the fifth rule from the WYM Chatango Rules. There is currently no such thing as an “on topic” discussion. However, should members wish to discuss the Haunted Cartridge nARG, they are totally free to do so.
All resources related to this nARG that The Resistance has created, such as the reproduction of the Moon Cult website and any stickied help posts on WH, will remain up and running, although they will not be updated after 24.6.2011.
Lastly, some Resistance members may play this nARG to the end. We contain folks who have been here since the beginning or invested such a huge amount of time and energy into this project that, for their own sense of closure, they desire to see the way the narrative falls out. These members are acting as individuals and will not post or interact with the rest of the community under their Resistance handles. No Resistance group time will go toward cracking this nARG.
We very much hope to continue building friendships with the players we have worked for months with and for new faces and constructing spaces that remain friendly and open for all who want to use them.
Thank you, again.
The Revolution is in another castle. What’s your mask?
Signed,
PERSONAthree: I’d love to see the ending of this game with all my TR buddies by my side, but after what has happened lately, there’s no way I can continue supporting this nARG. You’ll still see me around the community though, because you guys are awesome and are what kept me here for so long. <3 Three/Kafeite
PERSONAmc: I won’t be supporting Alex at all (which means I’m out for the count), but you’ll see me around WYM. My wrists kill.
PERSONAshou/ what if: It’s been a fun ride, but it fell too deep into the lake and drowned. I won’t be playing any more, but hope you guys will keep in touch. This is the Shoubox- out. -3-
PERSONALoiathal: I’m not angry, just disappointed. And yet I couldn’t be more proud of my comrades and friends-- we’ve stuck together no matter what. Peace. -Zachary
Astartus/Kalamaleia: This is no more the game I once wanted to play. Critics have become “attention seekers”, fans have become “creeps”, Q&As have become condescending audiences. I’m out. If you want to stay in touch, meet me at the place where the old willow kisses the morning sun and the coyote never wails twice. (Or Drowned - your pick.) Kris - over and out.
Sheik: I’ve said my piece. Recent events have meant that the game I loved is something I can longer participate in as I once did, but I will always treasure the friendships and connections made through this. It’s time to put down the masks and move on, but I’ll always be around should people need me. May the future bring bright things for all of us. Peace out - Elizabeth xxx
PERSONAzero/Merri:
Well, this creepy story's gotten way out of line
And we've lost our sleep
'Cause you've devoured our time
So I'm sorry BEN drowned
It's been fun, see you around
All the people who are still alive. ♥
(P.S. LOVE AND PEACE TO ALL, and to all a good night.)
Superstarrstef: I feel like I've been belittled to the group through the eyes of the man behind this facade. I feel almost, like I’ve been betrayed in trusting someone who can easily turn around and put up defences where defences are not needed, where a simple answer to a simple question would have sufficed. I no longer support this, whatever this has or will turn out to be, but I’m always going to be around for players and friends who do not insult my intelligence. This time, sadly, everything has gone too far.
PERSONAcrash/0clockwork0: I can totally understand where Mr. Hall is coming from with his comments regarding his situation and his PR-friendly responses to players’ comments. He’s trying to make it in the entertainment industry, and when you have no idea how to do that, you can sell out without a second thought if it means getting a leg up. That said, the condescending treatment of his game’s users, and my close friends, is a far cry from the humble updates of last year, and this is not the same game I signed up for.
ComradeIota: Yeah, okay guy. Good luck with that and stuff, I'll be over here NOT alienating everyone. -Nick "Iota" Dominguez
Lunchbox*: Jad, I first have to thank you. When you started the Haunted Cartridge creepypasta/(n)ARG, I was midway through my first semester of college. You have given me a fantastic, unforgettable experience in one of the weirdest and scariest transitory periods of my life. It is because of you that my most vivid and warm memories of 2010 are of me sitting in my dorm room at 4 in the morning scared shitless of Kelbris' retribution... but then it never came. For months and months, it never came. What came instead was empty promises and alienated fans, but even worse, hurt friends. It's a shame something so amazing ended up being something so shitty, but you have hurt and humiliated me and my friends and that is something that no amount of fond memories can forgive. I will not be supporting you when the nARG recommences, if ever it does.
PERSONAdeacon: It’s really shitty it had to be like this. Honestly, it could have been as simple as one man taking some criticism, improving his shit and becoming a better manager as a result. Instead, not only did he totally deny any wrong doing - but made a sweeping generalisation that implied numerous of us had mental illness. I want to put out here that I attend a top university, am currently in a paid job and run a pretty solid social life. The nARG IS NOT the centre of my life, nor is it for any other member of this group (who I feel that mental illness comment was directed at). I’m still going to be around to see the end of this, but you’ll be lucky to see any more canon work from me. Mr. Hall, I sincerely hope you finally take some criticisms to heart and try to improve. This team has done nothing BUT support you prior to the last few days. This is only happening because we want to help you.
PERSONAnazus
Winchester: You know, the game was cool at first – really awesome, interesting, and all that jazz. But it wasn’t awesome or interesting enough to keep my interest when it kept going on four month hiatuses – especially not when the author is going to turn from a down-to-earth, cool guy into an arrogant, condescending jerk. The game brought us together, but we don’t stay together for the sake of the game – we played the game for the sake of each other. And while I’ll keep an eye on it to see how it ends (if it ever does), I can say that the time for any strong interest on my part has long since passed. Sorry, dude, it was a fun ride, but I think it’s time to come off the Clock Tower now and remember the fans that helped you reach that point, okay?
RomaniTheRanchGirl/Spirit: I used to respect you, Alex, but not anymore. To everyone else--I hope that he will pull this out to be a good game and you will get what you are hoping for in the end. I won’t be here to see it, though. Have fun! See you around~ Katy
MFGreth - I remember when this was about having some good old creepy fun. Back then I was a regular /x/ browser, and have always been an avid Zelda fan. When the creepypastas first started coming around, needless to say Alex, you piqued my interest. Enough to take a decent amount of leadership on myself when things became interactive. Some of the other /x/philes and I were, you could say, the prototype of the community that this eventually became. We played the songs (I played the New Wave Bossa Nova, if you recall), solved the ciphers, cracked the Moon Children site, played your game (reviving IC Alex was a moment of pride for me, as I never was entirely sure using a fairy would do the trick).. We followed you for a bit even after the initial end. Then things became murky. The community became crowded, and your attention became little. So I left. It was upon request that I returned, and was pleasantly surprised to see the new website, and the wonderful community of people that had flourished in the meantime. A little zealous? Perhaps. But well meant and extremely spirited. Then came a lack of updates, and then a condescending tone. I’m sorry it’s come to this Jad. I wish you the best of luck with your future endeavours, but as it stands, I can no longer participate, due to the complete loss of what made Within Hubris so great to me. - Tony.
----------------
Hey, guys,
my last post on this board, fortunately on a little more upbeat tone: we'd like to use this opportunity to present our newest 423 Ohm creation.
Want You Gone(Lambs to the Slaughter Mix)
Want you gone (Lambs to the Slaughter Mix) Instrumental Version
As usual, you will find a download link in the description of the video.
That being said: 423 Ohm always was and is a musical project of The Resistance. As we cease to support this nARG, so will 423 Ohm. The upside of this is that we will not stop producing songs, parodies and remixes, if our schedules allow so. We will keep on uploading them on our whatsyourmask youtube account and advertize them over on Drowned.
The most important change will be that we will cover a broader range of topics - other ARGs, pop culture nudges, whatever comes to mind. Personally, seeing how many days of work are needed to complete one of our works, I'd rather not cater to someone who in the latest Q&A openly told me that he'd rather not see more of our songs because "one was more than enough".
I hope that you will continue to support us, give us valuable input, spread word about the project - and keep on sending us your parodies, song ideas and voice samples, we're not an exclusive cult and anyone who thinks they have something to give can join in!
In this spirit - thanks for your continued support, it really means a lot to us. It's been a wild ride, and I think it's about to get even wilder.
"Guys, that was ridiculous!" And don't forget the bike.
Signing for 423 Ohm, Astartus - over and out.
- Tampering of the Chapters by Deaconayc
-
- whatsyourmask
- March 15th, 2011
This was pulled from the Jadusable wikipedia for archiving purposes and to preserve the content. It was written by Deaconayc and assisted by KaToast where specified.DeaconAYC here. Basically, Ryu told us that the answers were spelt out in The Truth. The capitalization of 'The Truth' led Osiris and I to believe it had to do with the page that Jadusable had up on YSHDT when he first paused the game. Looking through it, I found quite a few strange spelling errors, mostly involving i's and other vowels. This seemed strange, as Jadus is a well known grammar nazi (both personally, and the fact that he writes TV shows and other formal things for a living). I decided to check the other documents on the site and long behold, with the exception of DROWNED, there were similar errors. I was assisted by the user KaToast in this. I cannot thank her enough, she cut the time this would have taken significantly.
People were really skeptical about it, and I don't blame it, so myself and another chat member started matching up the pastas on YSHDT to the original posts on 4chan. And we found something, big we think. There was not one spelling error in Jadusable's original posts, and not only that, but in the YSHDT copies lines had been cut and some new ones added. It could mean absolutely nothing, but they might have been changed for a reason. Posting now:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DayfourParagraph 1:
-"Guys" instead of "Okay, /x/"
- "I'm sorry for that" inbetween "This is a long read" and "but I feel like..."
- "This is not a copypasta" is cutParagraph 2:
- "Having said that" is cut
- "The computer" instead of "LVL 9 CPUs"Paragraph 3 and 4 are combined:
- NothingParagraph 5:
-Peculiar is spelt pecuiliar
- Psychiatrist is spelt psychatrist
- aesthetically is spelt astheticallyParagraph 6:
- permanent spelt permenent
- guarantee is spelt gurentee
- version spelt verison twice in a row
- nagging spelt ninglingParagraph 7:
-definitely spelt definatelyParagraph 8:
-existing spelt exisitingParagraph 9:
-version spelt verison, againParagraph 10:
-"and thats not just some macho guy front I'm putting on" in between "I hardly ever cry" amd "something had gripped me"
- foreign spelt foriegn
- "took hold of me through a TV screen and I didn't know how to cope with it" after "foriegn and crippling"Paragraph 11:
- "(I had the Goron Mask, and if I lost enough hearts by falling in water I'd die)" after "I don't know why, but I came up with the idea that maybe if I drowned myself in the Laundry Pool"
- "I let out and audible yelp" instead of "I screamed" (perhaps the yelp heard at 4:26 in DROWNED.wmv?)
- "of the Laundry Pool" inbetween "ran out" and "and back to South Clock Town"
- "like I was summoning it with my Ocarina" after "statue appearing behind me"Final Paragraph (skipped quite a few, nothing found):
-Final line "I'll update you guys tomorrow when I play again" not in original 4chan document.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BEN (assisted by KaToast)Paragraph 1:
- First and second paragraphs were combined
- Went from 'English type' (dreamt, thrust etc) to 'American type' (dreamed, thrusted etc.)
- "But the important thing is I did get some sleep, I suppose." Cut out of first paragraphParagraph 2:
- No change.Paragraph 3:
- "whoosh" changed to "woosh"
- "fluctuate" changed to "fluxuate"Paragraph 4:
- "thrust" to "thrusted" (American Type)
- "permanently" to "permenently"
- "environment" to "enviornment"Paragraph 5:
- No change.Paragraph 6:
- "eerily" to "eeirely"Paragraph 7:
- "Salesman's" to "Salesmans'"Paragraph 8:
- "immediately" to "immediatley"
- "I can't describe to you how sudden and terrifying the transition from eerie to terror it is, you're going to have to watch the video if you want to see first-hand." Cut out.Paragraph 9:
- "(the species of creatures that live under water in Zelda)" added.
- "Hesitant" to "Hestitant"
- "Epona" to "Link's horse Epona"
- ninth paragraph was combined to tenth paragraph.Paragraph 10:
- "re-spawn" to "respawn"Paragraph 11:
- "explanations" to "explainations"
- "Some of you guys may give me shit for this, but you can't imagine how taxing this is for me emotionally - its one thing to see this footage and read what I have to say, its another entirely when you're playing this by yourself and its like the game is actually trying to reach out to you personally. I... I don't know anymore.." added.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DROWNED
This file was exactly the same.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jadusable (assisted by KaToast)- First off, EVERYTHING was lowercased. No capitalization whatsoever except for "TheTruth.txt" "Link" and "BEN".
- Also, this one is a little more confusing since BEN summarized, and moved things a bit. It was difficult to follow and harder to explain.
- "and he gave me instructions on how to post with his Name code on specifically this board, apparently he said you guys had been helping him along the way and you deserved to see the end of it." was cut out and instead the first paragraph was combined to the second paragraph with: "gave me the account info to his youtube account, and told me that he's getting away from here,"Paragraph 2:
- "I was hoping I'd at least get a chance to meet his parents when they picked him up, but they were in and out so quick I never saw them." was changed to "i never even got to meet his parents."Paragraph 3:
-combined to the fourth paragraph.Paragraph 4:
- starts with "and i'm going to honor that" where the fourth paragraph should begin.
- "I don't know why he wants to wait for his notes to be published but after what that he's been through, I'll honor that request." Cut out.Paragraph 5:
- "He really wanted you guys to see this, and the video starts then, after that I just think the game got too personal for him." changed to "then, after that i just think the game got too personal for him."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Truth (by Deaconayc)
Typos: delierium, dont, definately, belleve, verison, hes, sporratically, pleases, reccomend, astromer, ensares
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thoughts:- There might be a link to the missing or added 'i's that are present, someone stole eyes, therefore someone else now has them.
- Why the missing sentences? Why the added sentences?
- Reference to 4chan was obviously omitted when present.
- Why explain what a Zora is, or state that Epona belongs to Link when Epona had already been mention previously (but not called Link's)
It's pretty hard to get anything out of these, which is why we need everyone's help in finding WHY they are the case. A couple of re-occuring themes in these:
- The same words are frequently misspelt
- 'I' is the most common letter replaced. I's = eyes. Perhaps these are the missing eyes Kelbris and others have been talking about
- In the edited versions, Jadus goes into great length to explain parts of MM (e.g. the Goron mask, Zoras, Link's horse). Could these be tools that we need to use in the upcoming game?
I'm not saying my theory is right, for all I know it could be fucking garbage, but it just seems like too much of a coincidence when we are told the answers are SPELT OUT in THE TRUTH.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recent Changes on Within Hubris Forum:
With the crashing of YSHDT.net, there was a post made by Guide informing the players that the stories would be shifted from the website onto the forum. Guide is a figure on the website whos role has been debated heavily - he initially appeared as an OOC figure, but since his corrupted post in the Wayward Horizon subforum his posts have been suspect at best (e.g. the random periods, revealing the trailer was fake). When Guide announced that the stories would be shifted across to the forum, it was mentioned AFTER the WH corruption. It should be noticed that all of the spelling errors in the YSHDT files have been rectified. This can mean a number of things:- The errors are now irrelevant. I find this really hard to grasp, however, as The Author refused to elaborate on the errors when I questioned him about them in the Chatango QnA. If they were not important to the game, and simply errors, that would have been clarified.
- The Author could not get access to the edited documents after YSHDT was taken down by BlueHost, and as a result posted the original story as seen in the 4chan archives.
- This is IC tampering and corruption, and could be an indication that Guide has a degree of IC relevence or something of the sort.
- Jad's Involvement in the ARG
-
- whatsyourmask
- February 7th, 2011
Frankly, this happening isn’t something radically new. Both The Author and BEN {cheeky demon-entity-hellspawn that he is} have told us consistently that anything outside of the Youtube account or the YSHDT site is non-canonical and out of game. Some of us {me included} are slow on the uptake, so PERSONAE laplace, three, zero and I thought we’d clarify.
The four of us came into information, in confidence, on the {ostensible} role of The Author in the game: the way He interacts with players, the way He guides events. It was a really frustrating situation; we had a serious argument over our public information policy vs. confidentiality. I asked for clearance to write The Author {not Jadusable but THE AUTHOR} a letter asking whether what-we-thought-was-happening was being suppressed on purpose, so as to keep it out of the canon, or whether it was only being suppressed by certain parties. I realize I’m being incredibly vague, but we’ve still decided to protect confidentiality. The good stuff’s coming.
I wrote The Author the note via a Facebook personal message, and three sent it to His email. Here are all parts we can release:
"That you and Jadusable are this involved with players have cleared up a couple of lingering doubts/questions in our minds, "our" being former BGK who are now PERSONAE. We had always thought Dot/1/DotxHacker was behind the curtain; he had dropped crytpic sentences to us that he was, that he knew things, and then there were massive trust issues that arose on multiple levels with him, concerning the night he contacted you on WOW. Sorry about that, by the way, if it wasn't scripted. We also had many, many questions around a "player" who went either by Delex2002 or 0Clockwork0. It makes us view both of those issues as "behind the curtain" or perhaps not canonical but in-game."
"Whatever your intentions were with WAAL, you managed to do the exact opposite of uniting the community, which has seemed to be a point Jadusable insists we adhere to. The community is deeply fractured because WAAL and UA and the Org. We're essentially asking for a little help in picking up your mess, to gear up for the coming new canon and game."
Honestly, we didn’t expect a direct answer nor a prompt one.
Late that night, three let me know someone was looking for me on the Observatory chatango. Assuming someone wanted to talk theory, I skipped over.
Here are screencaps of that conversation:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14012747/Chatango/Jadconv2.png
The moment the anon confirmed receiving the email, we realized we were most likely talking to The Author, since not even the other PERSONAE knew about this information {confidentiality, again}. When He quoted it, well. We can also verify that His IP address matches what we know of Him. We realize some folks may stamp their feet and say since we won’t release it {privacy issues} that we’re hiding something or this whole thing was a scam, but the IP did match. Further, that IP matched a “player” {a 4chan} who came on the What’s Your Mask chatango directly after the conversation and asked what was going on and an Anon6007, who emphasized some more of the Author’s points after 4chan left. I’d say The Author was around for an hour after the official conversation.
What we can take from the conversation:
The Author does not hand out exclusive information, ever, not to anyone. Obviously, Clockwork has now been confirmed as another player {and we’re not mad at you, Clocks, come back! But not at 1:04EST, please?}.
It’s about the YT and site, stupid. {“It’s about the economy, stupid,” is a quote from Bill Clinton’s US presidential campaign; I’m not calling you, the reader, stupid.}
In regards to BEN’s YT comments about WAAL’s hacked LJ, The Author said that He made a post because of the same reason He was with us in that chatango. The implication is he was told of the hacking and reacted in a public way, just as he was told of our concerns and reacted publicly. Since most of this community believed that the hacking was canonical, this remark clears up a lot of controversy and confusion. Our sympathy sincerely goes out to past WAAL members because that is a SHIT situation. We’re glad the community can finally move on and come together on the same terms, with trust.
We don’t feel like we are in some way superior for prompting this communication, although it was pretty surreal, to be truthful. We’re posting everything not to squee further but in the interest of full disclosure {of what’s ours to disclose}.
Get your game faces on, folks.
Yours,
MC {the scribe, apparently}
- Lastwords.wmv notes by MC
-
- whatsyourmask
- January 30th, 2011
Originally posted January 7, 2011.
NOTE: This is taken from a post on the Drowned forums]
So, all of this Ryukaki-arc-talk has brought up the value of "lastwords.wmv" {and most of his videos}. Also, hello, everyone, my obnoxious presence has roamed from the Bombers, shyly popped up at DayFour and has now infested your wonderful forum. At any rate, I scrounged up some unpublished notes/analysis of the video I did back in November. I'm throwing it up here in the hopes we get some discussion going in conjunction with Ark's work!
“lastwords.wmv”
TAGS: “goodbye”
The description that Kayd wrote is out of character, based on a VERY thumbnail sketch of Kayd’s writing style. It almost seems as if he was speaking to someone -- it’s addressed to an unspecified “you.” He asks a rhetorical question {“I was.. a sacrifice?”} in the middle of a line -- it seems as if the question gets injected into what might have been a sentence. He misuses ellipses. He assures us he had to die/get trapped, but he warns us that we may be able to save others. The terse, incorrect “goodbye” exists outside of grammar, perhaps fully relating the breakdown of his voice.
0:00 - :04 -- Has anyone checked if there is sound in this silence? MHFTT is in the upper left corner, at the left edge of the pillar. We see the elegy statue here where “Link” encountered it in jadusable.wmv. In other words, we are in Ikana, land of the dead.
:04 -- The Reverse Song of Healing picks up. The screen flickers constantly -- not sure what this effect is.
~:12 - :20 -- We shoot to the reversed audio. This voice DOES NOT resemble Kayd’s. That's obviously my personal opinion, but I don't hear the similarity whether this clip is reversed or unreversed. Also, we have the fish-eye affect. In MM/OOT, the lens of truth fish-eyes the game screen. However, this fish-eye flips the house upside down and distorts it, which is surely not what the real world looks like. Additionally, the bulge cuts into the black frame. Is that the truth about this house? Or does the person wielding the lens of truth determine what's seen? Is this shot a memory or actual footage? The song stops.
~:20 - :33 -- Back to the statue.
~:33 - :44 -- The music does not stop. The fish-eye is gone. Everything is as it should be. We have a rancher house with two windows against the sidewalk and some desert-ish plants in rocks. More reversed audio.
~:44 - :55 -- Music fades by :46. Screen cuts to black.
A sound starts at :55 or so. It is a wavering kind of noise; Ark has confirmed it is one of our creepster MP3s asking for help. Another player said that the "please" of "please help me" is just a wheeze. There are 11 repeats of 423. Gone by :57
It’s playing the fucked-up Ikana Canyon music at :57 and on.
At 1:00, we get the color bars of a television with cable out and the warning: There isn’t much time.
It remains on the screen.
Kelbris flashes at 1:07. Colors seem to be flashing very quietly within the stripes. There are very thin bars of variation.
We’re back to blackness at 1:15.
At 1:18, we’re inside Kayd’s house. The music continues. We walk through his kitchen, toward a window with afternoon light streaming in. Cameraman avoids the mirror, although Kayd made sure to catch himself in it. In fact, 5 long ago put forth that Kayd works HARD to show us his face in every video that he is clearly not under compulsion. We have to ask again if our cameraman/memory-maker is Kayd.
At 1:40, we get a glimpse of the clock. The camera has been very slow within the house, but it jerkily jumps to zoom in. There is a red and blue stripe running vertically on the left side of the clock. It reads 4:23.
The DROWNED/Kelbris gasmask appears now at 1:46. There is a faded frame around the picture. There may have been some editing done to the top right corner. The Ikana music still plays.
At 1:55, “m. h. f. t. t.” appears in the lower left corner, an enlarged version of what appeared earlier.
2:00 -- Music cuts out and blackness.
2:00 - 2:20 -- Super soft audio; I know this has been picked apart.
2:20 -- Skull Kid laugh. Until 2:26.
The blackness must represent absence of sight, particularly given someone is trying to get their message to us.
At 2:26, the color bars are back, with the phrase “423” smack dab in the middle of them. Static is playing.
Here begins the flashes of typing we see. He clearly tries to get mhftt into the login box. As RED on the guestbook has pointed out, is that our log-in name or our password? They stop well before the end of the video, as if they’ve been silenced. It’s possible he was unable to get to the password.
So, obviously, Kayd’s usual tricks -- making sure we see him, making sure to introduce himself -- they’re all gone. He narrates for us furiously everything we’re doing, to the point of absurdity, but we don’t get that.
In fact, what we get is someone/s BLATANTLY telling us it/they're running the show. The mhftt in the upper corner is interesting. Did Someone/s place it there? Or, if it’s “on” the pilar, is it out of the elegy statue’s site, somehow slipped in by a friendly force? It is completely out of the statue’s eyesight. Considering the videos of someone typing a password/log-in, we might read it as a cry for help/gesture of help.
Again, it’s not Kayd’s voice. Whose voice is it? Whose PERSPECTIVE is it? Is it supposed to be a friend? The voice very clearly talks about buying this house, which we’ve already seen is Kayd’s. Maybe we’re supposed to simply match it to him, but c’mon now. Whoever this person is, he moves in on the anniversary of BEN’s death -- WHOOPS. In this part, it would seem BEN’s mark is in the distorted film.
However, in the next part, when the world goes back to normal, BEN is still there. His music continues. In the same way many of our narrators have struggled with “hearing the song” in their real life, we hear the song. In the previous clip, as many of our narrators have not seen things or seen things that haven’t been there, the world is distorted.
The first message on the color bars {“There isn’t much time”} would seem friendly. The television has no more cable -- it’s not getting a reception. The shell is empty, in essence. However, within the “screen,” we have what seems a warning from an ally. It is very possible that Someone/s is gloating, as well. I will continue this point in a moment.
I think I pretty much nailed the bit with the clock above. We are also facing a problem of chronology. We have no way of knowing WHO this person is. It could have been whoever had just “moved into the new place,” although it is perfectly furnished and neat -- the sort of “moving in” video we might expect would have us yet unpacked. Unfortunately, the times of day are indistinguishable -- but we could be dealing with a later memory. I think, at this point, we have to consider this video one of two things: an actual video Kayd made us that Someone/s simply tampered with or some sort of “capture” of Kayd’s perspective, more in vein with the playthrough of jadusable.wmv. It is hard to know whether we should assume this is literally a video or more of a bizarre compilation of flashbacks and imprints. Either way, the result is the same; the latter is just a sort of nice touch. [I know questioning whether Kayd is narrating the parts in the house may seem silly -- it is undoubtedly the house Kayd lives in. However, the transcription of those words indicates that this cameraman/memory-maker moved in on April 23 "some time" after BEN's death. It is not impossible this person is not Kayd but someone who moved into the house before him. Unfortunately, because the chronology is given very ambiguously, we can't be sure. Keep your possibilities open. ;D]
It’s also a serious problem as to how Someone/s tampered with it if Kayd uploaded it. We might need to really open the door to the possibility that Someones/s uploaded this video and mangled the description. Before connection.wmv, we never had any indication that Someone/s could tamper with the finished video {whether or not it’s BEN/Someone/s playing jadusable.wmv, he tampered with it no more than the others -- ie, messing with the game}. However, the strength of the enemy has grown since the first arc. Questions, questions. I think, considering the “?” in last.txt, we must assume Someone/s has assumed control over Kayd’s uploads. Does this mean Thomas is another body? Does it mean BEN/the enemy doesn’t need to infest a particular computer? The opposition is growing much, much stronger.
When “m.h.f.t.t.” appears again, it is essentially similar to the first instance. It appears with an item that has been coded as “bad”: first the ES, now the gas mask of DROWNED {who is also associated with Kelbris}. This time, it is not potentially out of the mask’s eyeshot -- it’s not perfectly in the line of vision but would be visible in periphery. Seeing as how the typing of that phrase gets mangled, it’s no surprise that our enemies have caught on.
Both times m.h.f.t.t appear with bad items. The Skull Kid’s laugh sounds immediately after that slide. 423 appears on the “shell” screen of color bars...
That's where my notes end. The last three sentences could potentially take this video to much darker territory -- we all thought it was a collection of hints, that Kayd got his last work through the opposition's surveillance, but did he?
- (no subject)
-
- whatsyourmask
- January 30th, 2011
Originally posted January 1, 2011
Well, since we’re doing a little BGK round-up, I thought I’d throw up my thoughts -- did you expect anything else out of me?
On the guestbook, I posted this comment {I snipped out non-relevant bits, for the record} in response to a great deal of gratitude and hosannas:
“Not to be the downer -- and I am appreciative we've finally had some communication -- but the ass-kissing is a little bit much. It's in his interest, and his responsibility as the "mod," to make updates, folks.
What would be nice, Author Halycon, would be if you could lay out some kind of timetable, particularly for players who might need to dredge up money {if the game costs anything? It seems leaning toward 'no' in your post} or people who have schedules that are as busy as yours. It doesn't have to be exact; I think everyone here is adult enough to understand there are bumps and hiccups and Real Life, but it would be helpful to have some kind of checkpoints so we're not just twiddling our thumbs in the dark...”
A player who was completely anonymous posted back almost immediately, stating that I was too demanding and insensitive to the Author’s time. I replied {again, edited for relevancy}:
“...I wrote a post on this subject a couple of days ago. I am not an advocate of a sloppily made game. I have never demanded the game come out immediately, even when people were seriously griping about waiting until Christmas. I have always said that the story/art has to come first, and I am more than content to wait until the Author has "the final copy" of the game he's ready to send out into the world.
We're all busy. I have no doubt YOU'RE busy. I'm also a college student, who goes to a demanding institution, volunteers, participates in various clubs and works two jobs. I understand the demands on people's time. I am not asking for every minute of every hour of every day to be the amount of time the Author puts into this project. Not only would it be unrealistic, it'd be unhealthy.
I'm asking for a timetable NOT so we know the exact minute and hour the game is coming out but because it's clear we are forced to go LONG times without perfunctory updates {just a few sentences about the development and how it's going, etc}. A timeline would make all of us a little less anxious and let people plan, whether they need to think about their money or time, for the release. I see no reason why the Author couldn't provide a rough sketch of how it's going ... in lieu of the timeline, it'd be nice if he just kept communication with us a little more regularly.
The whole knee-jerk defense of the Author is wearing thin. His project is open to critique, as is any piece of art. Because of the genre, the Author also doubles as a "DM" or "mod" -- we're dealing with interactive storylines here, and he guides the plot and the players. Whereas with literature or film, you don't necessarily critique the actual person of the Author {why did the Aeneid take a lifetime, for example, is not a gripe you raise about Vergil}, you certainly can critique a mod. There is such a thing as running a game poorly.
I think, considering the enormous demands on the Author's time, he does a fairly good job of balancing things, but there are chinks in the armor, both in the plot and the moderation of the plot. There's nothing wrong with pointing that out in a civil fashion; in fact, the game can only benefit from it.”
In my previous analyses, I have treated this ARG like literature, like a series of connected texts that must be read against one another. In doing so, I ignored the “real world” constraints of the game -- I did not reference that it was only a game. I very rarely talked about The Author, as in the actual person who is running this entire puppet show; when I did, I ciphered my comments.
However, my above post represents a better interpretive stance: this is a game, not a book. I can and will analyze our canon as if they are texts -- it’s proved super profitable in the past, and I have no doubt that viewing the upcoming and much anticipated game through a film & media studies lens will be incredibly helpful in deducing what’s going on. Nevertheless, there are more factors to consider in this game than simply the texts {which are, as I said, always open to critique, whether that means simply to evaluate their meaning/s/lack thereof or to actually point out problems}. The mod/DM/Author plays a much different role for our ARG than Vergil played for the Aeneid. To understand the work, we the readers/players are actually guided through, often in real time, by the Author’s careful hand, as opposed to a static piece of art where we are simply left to figure out what it means/what it means to us/does it mean anything?. The mod is open to critique re: his/her/hir moderation techniques. There’s nothing wrong with sending feedback. You look like a dick if you word it harshly, of course.
I hope what our Author learns from this new dawn is that he has a very solid fanbase. There are folks on that guestbook who are ready to piddle themselves just on seeing the words typed by his own little fingers. There are players who are cognizant of problems with his project but are still enjoying it and definitely buckled in for the ride. He also needs to learn how to mod better -- talk to us. It doesn’t need to be frequent communication, but don’t string us along blindly. [Please insert all the jokes you want here about eyes.]
Again, best luck to everyone in 2011! I’m psyched up for the lead-in stuff the Author has promised us, and I’ll be glad to be working intensely with all the players again.-PERSONAmc
- Review of our puppetmaster by MC
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- whatsyourmask
- January 30th, 2011
Originally posted December 29, 2010.
I see 0 and 3 beat me to ramblings, although theirs were both more eloquently worded than mine will be. I would wish the forces opposing BEN/the Puppet-Master/the HMS a retrospective happy holidays here, but I’m rather a militant and bitter {see: ex-Catholic} atheist, so we’ll just move right along to the meat and potatoes.
The observatory has been relatively quiet of late -- I think most places have lost some of the crazed bustle that we saw during the Moon Children’s bit and Ryukaki’s last days. Considering I slept not at all during those arcs, I’d say that’s not a bad thing. We have been doing a little work sporadically, particularly with a theorist who prefers to remain on the down low {although I will happily credit you with anything you like if you get in touch!}, and “2” sort of reignited the fires under our collective ass.
I suppose I just wanted to get out a couple of things, the last of which is the main purpose of this post.
1. Re: “2” -- I’m sure many, many people made the same conclusions I did pretty much instantaneously, but I’d like to really punch them in the public spotlight. “2” let us know that numbers in this game have meaning. I had already put forth in my loo-hoong notes that “4” was something of Jadusable’s number, what with the constant references to “4”s in his post, the tags of his various videos and, of course, that his video was moved ahead in line to be posted “4th.” It’s not impossible that “4” also stands in or is tied to our final boss -- whoever the hell that is; BEN? The Skull Kid? Who is the Skull Kid exactly? Is Drowned BEN or simply affiliated with him? When do we get to see the Happy Mask Salesman in action? -- but we only have the “4th Day Glitch” to go on for that speculation. At any rate, “2” is now tied to drowning, so possibly Ben, the little boy, and/or BEN. “2” could also be tied to the folk/s doing the drowning. With “BEN.wmv” as the second video -- and with that video’s pretty thorough examination of the events which probably happened to Ben/BEN -- I personally tie “2” more closely to BEN/Ben as opposed to the cult/HMS/??.
2. Re: “2,” con’t -- If “2” has meaning for us, so does “4” and “3.” In fact, so does everything, Meter help us all. I re-examined the numbered files on the site after “2” came out. There are actually some reoccurring motifs. The moon from Majora’s mask/the moon and thus possibly Luna seem to pop up around “9”s. “6” is the HMS’ number. Take all of the “30”s. We see a lot of Kelbris, some of the Skull Kid and many of the death motifs -- the music reversed from Ikana Valley, “Matt’s Final Hour”’s tune. The laugh is something often associated with the Skull Kid. I’d humbly suggest that “DROWNED.wmv,” the third video, may link Drowned to “3” and so Drowned to the Skull Kid. If we’re going to start playing the numbers game {which, for the record, I fucking detest}, we need to start peeling through these carefully. Also, we might need to consider adding numbers. “30,” for example, is actually “3.” “31,” notable for being empty, could be “4” or “2.” I’d consider it “4,” which might explain its total absence in the Skull Kid/Puppet Master’s domain. The “50”s seem another particularly loaded batch, although I couldn’t make good progress in finding a coherent pattern. We haven’t anything better to occupy our time, do we?
3. On Plotholes -- I’m really awfully glad The Author, whom I will not name because he is a real person with a real life, but I would love if some of you brilliant folks could get this to turn up if perspective employers were, in fact, to search for him -- ahem! I am awfully glad The Author has decided to make us a game. Do you know why? The amount of details, and the subtlety of them, that you can include in a game is pretty much infinite. Beyond the main story line, imagery, music, sounds -- everything can go toward creating a fuller picture of the universe we’re inhabiting. I’m so pleased because we desperately need this. Ladies and gentlemen and wonderful queers, all those who detest BEN/the Skull Kid/HMS, I will be possibly the first person to say what’s about to be typed without using any kind of slurs or insults: The Author has failed us.
4. WHAT?! -- Oh, come off it. The Ryukaki arc was designed to point us toward something big we were missing. “It’s right in front of you” could have been the tagline of the entire arc. “2” was another kick: the numbers have meaning, something we “should” have picked up on from the beginning, but it took us a throwaway video to go, “Oooh!” I’ll say it again: The Author has failed us. I’m a literature major. I play with canons all day. I make arguments out of thin air for kicks. I have no idea what The Author is sometimes trying to convey. And let’s set aside my grudge. Wounded ego, you say -- MC’s little power trip didn’t work out for her. The dedicated players of this game have all scoured our canon countless times. I can speak for the Bombers better than the rest: we know the videos and the texts inside-out, and I’ve worked with many, many folks who also have that level of knowledge of our canon. So probably over twenty to thirty people, perhaps even a hundred or two hundred people, still don’t know what the fuck The Author is up to. That’s not insignificant. There are many literary texts which get twenty to thirty good scholars, tops. Rosa is a huge player: we know next to nothing about her. HMS is clearly a big deal: we’ve got nothing on him. Drowned seems to be increasingly important: literally nada. The Author seems to be hopping up and down at various points {see: Ryukaki} as if we’re missing obvious details, but I don’t think that’s true. I think we’re missing details we haven’t been given, and I think some of the texts we have been given just aren’t as decipherable as The Author intended. Furthermore, I will lodge the easy criticism: the Moon Children arc clearly and completely slipped out of his control, and I think we’re still suffering for it. We’ve got plot-knots, a lot of which revolve around that arc and its “non-canon-oops-lol-canon” aftermath.
5. Okay, but -- “But!” You hold up your hands, “Okay, fine, fair points, but maybe The Author intended us to be missing these details. He gave us a lot of time to work out as much as possible, and then he was going to give us this game, and it’s going to be epic and wonderful!”
6. The rebuttal -- Where’s the game? In fact, where is the communication about the game? Let’s ignore, even, that a certain Someone broke character to talk about the game {which could have been done BRILLIANTLY in character, as I’ve been long an advocate of what perfect and sophisticated ring composition that might have been}. Where is our Author? It’s hard to create an ARG. I sometimes write tabletop roleplays. You might be surprised at how consistently players can foil every good intention you have. So, all right, there are going to be plot snags and sloppiness in that way, and it’s okay because sometimes the mistakes create beautiful things. But what is inexcusable is the messiness over updates. A lot of us are just asking for a simple sentence. Players will be going back to school soon, and many of us wanted to get this in over our breaks. That’s unfortunately already impossible for me. Some of us might need to know if we should pay, as -- yeah -- four bucks might take a little time to wrestle up for some people, given the state of the economy. So, Author Hallowed, where the fuck are you? We’re asking for a little thoughtfulness and responsibility. I’m sure you’re making great pitches right now and writing really non-offensive ableist scripts, but five minutes for one of your first fanbases might not be such a bad idea, since fanbase determines everything in the line of work you’re interested in.
That’s all I got, folks. I’m hopeful I will have the time to work with all of you when our long-awaited game finally comes out. I’m still excited, still a fan of this project, but you can read a beautiful and moving book and still be cognizant of its flaws. I thought it was time this ARG got a fair and civil critique, as opposed to flames and offensive language used to point out problems. Have a wonderful 2011.Yours,
MC
- Analysis Corrections by MC
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- whatsyourmask
- January 30th, 2011
Originally posted November 17, 2010
Hey everyone, 3 here.
Sorry, no new freakishly long notes today (maybe later) but this is still important. MC, who wrote the in-depth research below, has looked into her theories posted below more. Both of these were posted as comments on the last entry but who knows if everyone reads the comments? So here are her updates:
-
Hello, all,
I don't have a lot of time to go in-depth here, but I'd like to make a few modifications.
1. I recant Matt = Jadusable. Despite some sketchy posts on the YSHDT site {mentioning only Ifrit and Kayd, which almost seems to hint that Jadusable's experience needs to be combined with one of them}, on watching the videos for the 9458202 time, it became clear there's no kind of logical cohesion unless Jadusable is his own fellow. Also, it renders mhftt.txt impossible to read if Jadusable = Matt.
2. Skull Kid is not Matt. I firmly believe Skull Kid to be Drowned, who is capable of very bad things when Majora's Mask is on. I DO NOT believe Kelbris = Drowned, merely that he is associated with him. Since he is most often associated with him when complaining about his eyes and because Drowned was the forum admin, I'd suggest Drowned aided in taking Kelbris' eyes. This point is further backed that the HMS has to "sign off" on most of Drowned's actions, which clearly portrays the HMS/Father as the top dog and dispensing orders. BGKLink has a theory that the Entity and the Skull Kid are the same -- Drowned may very well be the Entity he characterizes.
3. We can still take away the stylistic points I've made. With Link's work, we now can start to pick apart why BEN/Ben are capitalized differently and the beginning of what's going on with the pronouns in thetruth.rtf. I'd note the pronouns are NOT STABLE, which is a problematic addition.
-------------------------------------
A couple of corrections:
1. JADUSABLE.wmv is actually jadusable.wmv, in line with the rest of BEN's mimicry. The point stands, however, that BEN posted and edited this video and description.
2. Matt / Ifrit DID die in the first cycle; rather, someone controlling the ifritmoon@gmail.com account died {they heard knocking at the door}. Any screenshots would be deeply appreciated, as I'm culling this from the Wiki.
However, and we head right back to problems, when MFGreth played the New Wave Bossa Nova, explicitly stating in the description to "LET IFRIT SPEAK," we received the email account once more ... but with Rosa in control. This maneuver certainly backs up my point that BEN values the sign over the signifier. It does complicate my claim that Jadusable is Matt, since my theory would place Matt as trapped/dead on the 11th, when he truly died around the 19th/20th. G.H.'s theory that Rosa is Matt sparks some new interest.
Jadusable is SURELY lying to us -- we still have the original points about the Bloodlines video and the lack of surprise over Matt.wmv. However, what if Jadusable is not Matt but Rosa? The tags "I" "couldnt" "save" "him" still make sense, in this case.
Or, more tightly, what if Rosa had taken control of the Ifrit persona while her brother took over the Jadusable persona? She stayed in-character, during the first cycle, but when "Matt" was erased in the second cycle, she was free to identify herself.
It is also strange that the New Wave Bossa Nova would bring us Rosa {although, again, not strange re: BEN's disjuncture of name and individual}. The song "invigorates singing voices," in MM. Rosa is prophetic in Bloodlines, which may touch on the point about song {often considered prophetic or divine in western culture}. However, it serves to recover Lulu's voice ... but Rosa was not introduced to us directly before this point.
In other words, we have a bit of a tangle-up, here.
- File 59 Analysis by Link
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- whatsyourmask
- January 30th, 2011
THE FILE
If you're[1] reading this then you've found the secret message. This is the last one i[2] can send out. I[3] am not dead. its sitting right in front of you.[4] You are meant to survive this, you can't give him what he wants.[5] I don't know how to tell you this, but there is no more link[6] now, he[7] was the last thing that stood between you and IT[8] as some kind of conduit. that conduit is severed now. [9]there is notConsider this the REALhing that is separating [10]you from him, he will try to get to you, It[11] will try to break you, but you have to remain strong, you cannot it[12]. It is sadistic.[30] It will try and give you guys a fighting chance like it's given everyone else.[13] it wants you to try and resist to try and be fooled into thinking that you have any semblence of free will. do not buy it. do not believe it.[14] It[15] is always watching, and it will lead you iTruth.txtnto[16] oblivion if you let it. do not be fooled, if something is too good to be true - be wary. you must use this overconfidence and systematic prediction against it. how? I do not know.[17] that is something that i could not figure out before the end. even now, its allowing me to reach you, through this message.[18]
Your first instinct may be to assume that this message has been tampered with, but then you may not really understand who It really is.[19] It wants to play, it wants a challenge.[20] It has led you thWhat are you talking about?is far for a reason, but now you will be given the means to fight back.[21] I say let Its arrogance be its undoing.[22]
There are strength in numbers.[23] you no doubt have others who will help collaborate with you. there are those who have left behind clues subtle enough for It to not realize their significance.[24] they may help you if you can find them. combine your brains together, starting with the recent "glitch", compile every bit of evidence you have and share it amongst yourselves, and you may gain the upperhand yet.[25]
Do not ever let It use you. It thinks It is in control, yet despite all the omnipotence in the world, there is nothing more dangerous than the illusion of compliance.[26]
- Ifrit,[27]
EBOAKBBYCKWWXQGMEQNOK,RKZVOKCIVOWYJJMBKA[28]
AQOT XUDTHYSAI OEK QHU YD TQDWUH.[29]
[1] 'you' Possibly the player, possibly someone else.
[2] First 'i', appearing in an Uppercase sentence.
[3] First 'I', appearing in an Uppercase sentence.
[4] First lowercase sentence. New voice, doesn't use apostrophes, possibly doesn't use commas.
[5] First mention of 'him'/'he'
[6] Only mention of 'link'. This could be A link or The link.
[7] 'he' again, this time possibly referring to 'link'
[8] 'you' is mentioned again, followed by only mention of 'IT'
[9] lower comes in again. Is interrupted by Upper/Interrupter, "Consider the the REAL" in the middle of "nothing"
[10] 'you' is mentioned by lower, as well as 'him'. This is the first time 'he' is referred to as a threat. Upper mentions a threat, but calls it 'IT'
[11] First Uppercase 'It', mentioned by *lower* Possibly a new character.
[12] First grammatical mistake; word missing, spoken by lower. First time lower refers to 'it'
[13] Upper is speaking, he is able to use "it's". This is the ONLY SENTENCE that begins with "It" that is distinguishable from lower. Refers to 'it' for the first time.
[14] lower again, mentions 'it' again. Missing words or punctuation, probably a comma: "to try and resist to try and be fooled into thinking" Misspells "semblance". Terse.
[15] Unclear who is talking. Could be lower, referring to both 'It' and 'it' in the same sentence for the first time. Most likely Upper, referring only to 'it' for the second time (capitalization)
[16] Second interruption by Upper. "Truth.txt" in the middle of "into." Full sentence could read as "It is always watching, and it will lead you into Truth.txt." If [15] is Upper, then the Interrupter is a new voice.
[17] Upper seems to answer lower. "how?" "I do not know." "that is something that i could not figure out before the end.
[18] The rest of this paragraph is lower, using rhetoric associated with Jadusable, except for capitalization and some punctuation. Refers to 'its' again, instead of "it's".
[19] Possibly the most important line in the file. Upper speaks to 'you'. Says 'It' may not be who he appears to be, and implies the message HAS NOT been tampered with.
[20] This is the third time that Upper refers to 'it', if capitalization is taken into account.
[21] The Interrupter interrupts Upper again; "What are you talking about?" in between "this". Could read as "'It'/'it' has led you this far for a reason." "What are you talking about?" ONLY question in the entire file, other than "how?"
[22]Another important line; 'Its' arrogance will be 'its' undoing.
[23] Upper's first grammatical mistake, should be "There IS strength in numbers."
[24] Second mention of 'It' by lower. First mention of another group of people 'those'/'they'
[25] lower still, using Jad's rhetoric again. "Upper hand" is one word. "glitch" is mentioned for the only time.
[26] Interesting sentence, Upper refers to "It" as a threat for the first time. Second sentence is unclear, the first "It" could be 'it' or 'It'. Most likely 'It'.
[27] This appears to be a signature, but the comma indicates it could be the beginning of another message; i.e. "Ifrit, be sure you remember to buy milk."
[28] You know what this is.
[29] "KAYD HENDRICKS YOU ARE IN DANGER." The cipher that started the Kayd Arc.
[30] Just noticed this. This line is unclear, unless taken with the next sentence. Most likely 'it'
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Well, let's start off easy. You is probably the player, although it may be possible this is a dialog between Upper and lower, with the Interruptor, um, interrupting. I don't like this theory, and I'll explain why.
Most of Upper is Ifrit, or someone trying to help. Ifrit is also the Interrupter. Look back at the text. The first Interrupter comes in on the first big part of lower's speech. What did Kayd tell us?
"Don't you all see!? Can't you see it!? BEN has poisoned them. He has gotten into them and is leading them astray. That text-- it was his last communication, he said so, he confided in all of us. It was his last REAL communication. Everything under his name? It's all the cartridge. It's all BEN. It's all to toy with us. To screw with our perceptions. To play games with us.
Stop letting him win."
I emphasized REAL. So lower is Matt/Jadusable.
The second Interrupter comes in when Upper uses 'It' to begin a sentence for the first time. Whenever Upper begins a sentence this way, it is vague and unclear. Unclear like BEN. Interrupter/Ifrit posts Truth.txt in the middle of BEN's sentence, because we should know by now that TheTruth.txt is ironically false.
The third and final Interrupter comes in after the second time BEN speaks. "It wants to play, it wants a challenge. It has led you this far for a reason, and now you will be given a chance to fight back." "What are you talking about?"
So, lower is Matt. Listen to him. Most of Upper and all of Interrupter is Ifrit, probably Rosa by the way they talk. Upper's lines that get Interrupted are BEN.
Here is the file with BEN and Interrupter's lines removed, color coded for each voice:
If you're reading this then you've found the secret message. This is the last one i can send out. I am not dead. its sitting right in front of you. You are meant to survive this, you can't give him what he wants. I don't know how to tell you this, but there is no more link now, he was the last thing that stood between you and IT as some kind of conduit. that conduit is severed now. there is nothing that is separating you from him, he will try to get to you, It will try to break you, but you have to remain strong, you cannot it. It is sadistic. It will try and give you guys a fighting chance like it's given everyone else. it wants you to try and resist to try and be fooled into thinking that you have any semblence of free will. do not buy it. do not believe it. do not be fooled, if something is too good to be true - be wary. you must use this overconfidence and systematic prediction against it. how? I do not know. that is something that i could not figure out before the end. even now, its allowing me to reach you, through this message.
Your first instinct may be to assume that this message has been tampered with, but then you may not really understand who It really is. I say let Its arrogance be its undoing.
There are strength in numbers. you no doubt have others who will help collaborate with you. there are those who have left behind clues subtle enough for It to not realize their significance. they may help you if you can find them. combine your brains together, starting with the recent "glitch", compile every bit of evidence you have and share it amongst yourselves, and you may gain the upperhand yet.
Do not ever let It use you. It thinks It is in control, yet despite all the omnipotence in the world, there is nothing more dangerous than the illusion of compliance.
- Ifrit,
EBOAKBBYCKWWXQGMEQNOK,RKZVOKCIVOWYJJMBKA
AQOT XUDTHYSAI OEK QHU YD TQDWUH.
So now we get to play Pronouns: The ARG.
Upper refers to an 'i' in the second sentence. This is Matt/Jadusable, it's a clue to us. lower = Matt/Jadusable. He is long gone, whether he's a puppet or dead. lower's 'its' is a contraction; lower cannot use apostrophes.
'I' is Upper, but I don't know who that is. I would like to say Ifrit/ Rosa, but I'm not, for reason's I'll explain:
I think it's important at this point to remember that this file was written when the videos were being made, it's Matt's last message. Consider this the REAL Truth.txt, indeed. Going by that logic, I'm going to try to avoid any mention of Chris, Kelbris, etc.
However, I also think it's important to remember when we found it. I don't think it was coincidence it was the last file we have received. So I will attempt two interpretations, and I'll probably need help with the second one, as I was not here for the Moon Children Arc.
PRE-MOON CHILD
These are the characters:
You = players, obviously
lowercase speaker = Matt/Jadusable.
Uppercase speaker = Unclear.
Interrupter = Unclear, probably the same as Upper.
Fake Upper = BEN
'him' = Unclear.
'he' as refers to 'link' = Unclear, probably the same as 'him.' Possibly Matt.
'IT' = BEN, which I believe is backed up somewhere else.
And here's where we run into trouble for the first time. Matt starts using two pronouns, 'him' and 'It'. It's possible that Matt is using multiple pronouns to refer to BEN, because he also uses 'it'. He could be using any pronoun BEN will let him. That would explain the variety and the errors in Matt's rhetoric, BEN is fighting him.
Now, Upper, who we'll just call Upper for now, refers to 'it' and 'It' as if they are two different people. I believe 'it' is BEN, and It is Matt.
"you may not realize who It is." The natural conclusion is that BEN is it. Upper begs us to reconsider.
"Let Its arrogance be its undoing." Matt believed that he was safe, he believed he had gotten rid of BEN. Somehow we have to use that to our advantage.
"It thinks It is in control, yet despite etc." Matt believes he is still in control of his body.
Now, there are two problems with this theory. "Do not ever let It use you." is one. That line makes no sense if It is Matt. The other is the "glitch" line. The "glitch" didn't happen until after the videos. So that must mean that 59 was written later, somehow.
MOON CHILD/POST MOON CHILD.
Another option would be that all these people are characters we've met after Arc 1, which makes much more sense, because Ifrit is included in this file.
THE ENTITY IS NOT BEN, BEN IS A PUPPET
(As of this point forward, I no longer believe the either two interpretations)
This one is interesting, and explains everything perfectly, in my opinion. This is not all my work, it was originally by someone on one of the chatangos whose name escapes me. If anyone has heard this theory, please let me know, so I can give credit where credit is due. Maldeus also helped out a bit (The cleverbot chats, specifically)
This interpretation calls for a complete reevaluation of everything we thought we knew, but after that everything falls into place. It starts with the problem of the Skull Kid. Who IS he? The other characters have identities, i.e. Link is Jadusable, the Statue is BEN, HMS is The Father, etc. But Skull Kid would be… Kelbris, or something.
However, if Skull Kid is "The Entity," then the Elegy is a puppet, controlled by him. The Entity has multiple puppets at this point, but the one we saw first was BEN. In TheTruth.rtf there are 2 Cleverbot chats we never see:
(Copy and paste them here)
[1] In the first, BEN specifically is trying to talk, and we see a side of him not seen at any other time. He is asking to be free. He shows weakness.
[2] 2 minutes later, "It" is our subject, and he's saying he was just kidding, he was just messing with Jad.
[3] Jad seems to write this off as "being played again." There is more evidence for BEN = puppet, but that should go elsewhere.
In lastwords.wmv, Kelbris is featured several times, the most blatant of which being the Gas Mask and the letters m. h. f. t. t. Which leads me to think Kelbris is involved in this file. If Kelbris is supposed to be Kayd's puppet, mirroring BEN for Jadusable, then this makes sense.
Now, our biggest problem in this text is "it" and "It". We just recently discovered that The Entity likes to obscure the subject, so you can't tell who is speaking. Jad complains about not having a voice for a reason. The only proper noun we have in this file is Ifrit, down at the very bottom.
However, look at what happens if you replace 'you' with the players, 'i' with Jadusable, 'it' with the Kelbris/the puppets, and 'It' with The Entity:
If the players are reading this then the players have found the secret message. This is the last one Jadusable[1] can send out. I am not dead.[2] Kelbris is sitting right in front of the players.[3] The players are meant to survive this, the players can't give him what he wants. I don't know how to tell you this, but there is no more link now, he[4] was the last thing that stood between the players and The Entity[5] as some kind of conduit. that conduit is severed now. there is nothing that is separating the players from him, he will try to get to the players, The Entity will try to break the players,[6] but the players have to remain strong, the players cannot Kelbris.[7] The Entity/Kelbris is sadistic.[8] Kelbris will try and give the players a fighting chance like Kelbris has given everyone else.[9] Kelbris wants the players to try and resist to try and be fooled into thinking that the players have any semblence of free will. do not buy Kelbris. do not believe Kelbris.[10] do not be fooled, if something is too good to be true - be wary. you must use this overconfidence and systematic prediction against Kelbris.[11] how? I do not know. that is something that Jadusable could not figure out before the end. even now, Kelbris is allowing Jadusable to reach the players, through this message.[12]
The players' first instinct may be to assume that this message has been tampered with, but then the players may not really understand who The Entity really is. I say let The Entity's arrogance be Kelbris' undoing.[13]
There are strength in numbers.[14] The players no doubt have others who will help collaborate with the players. there are those[15] who have left behind clues subtle enough for The Entity to not realize their significance. they may help the players if you can find them.[16] combine your brains together, starting with the recent "glitch", compile every bit of evidence the players have and share it amongst yourselves, and the players may gain the upperhand yet.[17]
Do not ever let The Entity use you. The Entity thinks The Entity is in control, yet despite all the omnipotence in the world, there is nothing more dangerous than the illusion of compliance. [18]
[1] This is supported by Kayd in the Youtube comments. He says this file is the last message from Jad.
[2] We don't know who this is still, but it can be assumed that it is someone we think is dead. This could be Rosa, Ifrit, or possibly LinkMissing/Alex.
[3] How interesting. During the "glitch," Kelbris' mask was literally sitting right in front of us.
[4] 'He' is still problematic in this file. However, it seems to refer to a 'link' which could possibly mean LinkMissing? But in the sentence before 'him' is a negative: We don't want 'him' to get what he wants.
[5] We get our first mention of the Entity. it seems 'he' was standing between The Entity and us, but is somehow still not good. Confusing.
[6] These lines are strange. HE will try to get to us, but THE ENTITY will try and break us.
[7] This line never made sense, however it's possible for us to get a sense of what it means if "Kelbris" or "the puppet" is "it". It's telling us that we have to be strong, we cannot become The Entity's puppet.
[8] This sentence is the only one that's blatantly unclear. The It there could refer to either Kelbris/the puppets or The Entity. If it's Kelbris, then it changes the tone of the next few lines, and clarifies them some more. I am assuming it is, and Kelbris is more sinister than the other puppets. More on that below.
[9] Another interesting line. If it was BEN on the weird cleverbot, then we can assume the puppets do not like their lot in life, and will try to help us to the best of their ability.
[10] These lines are odd, but they could be seen as a warning. "Kelbris will try and tell you that you can fight it. Don't believe him. The Entity is stronger than you think." It's also worth noting that the first sentence is missing what appears to be a comma. If the lowercase voice is unable to use punctuation, this makes sense (he says its rather than it's, etc.) If not, something may have been changed/omitted. If we are able to find out more about Kelbris, these lines may become clearer. If Kelbris is sadistic, this would imply something darker.
[11] This line seems to be implying we must defeat Kelbris/the puppets, rather than saving them.
[12] Again, Kelbris/the puppets are trying to help us. If Jadusable is a puppet now, the puppets may see themselves as a group, which would explain why Kelbris can be bad for us but good for Jadusable.
[13] Interesting. The Entity's arrogance will help us defeat its puppets.
[14] This is a grammatically incorrect sentence, but Upper seems to use a weird mix of formal (I say let…) and informal grammar (you guys) This could support the fact that Upper is multiple people.
[15] "those," plural. Multiple people have given us clues. This was before Kayd's arc, so could be referring to the puppets, or possibly members of the moon cult, although they seem to have been written out of the story. Of course, that's exactly what The Entity likes to do: silence people.
[16] The clues MAY help us.
[17] "Evidence" is a strange choice of words. Again, MAY gain the upper hand. Also, "upperhand" and "semblance," mentioned earlier, are spelled wrong. Contrary to popular belief, Jadusable actually spells things wrong fairly often.
[18] These two sentences are packed with meaning:
a) The puppets, while following along because they have to, are trying to help us.
b) We, the players, have to play The Entity's game in order to defeat it. This was WAAL's mistake; they refused to play Its game, they tried to steal the game from The Entity.
You have hopefully noticed that I left Interrupter and Fake Upper's lines out. Fake Upper is The Entity, all of Its sentences are so obscured that you cannot tell what any of the pronouns are referring to. Interrupter is simply pointing out to us what is REAL and what is fake. TheTruth.txt's placement may require more analyzing. It's also important to note that Interrupter is able to edit the file AFTER The Entity, but in a seemingly limited capacity. This may be important when analyzing lastwords.wmv, which appears to be this sort of puzzle applied to a video.
The two pronouns we are unsure of are 'I' and 'he'.
We must also consider who is speaking to us, and what that says about who they are talking about. I am not very good at this, but AM or Griff might be able to help.
SO WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?
The puppets are bound against their will, or they wouldn't be called puppets. The Entity is their puppet master.
So far, we have 3 confirmed puppets, perhaps 4:
1) BEN/Ben. Probably the first. It seems he is dead, but his spirit still serves The Entity. It is important that he is the Elegy statue, as we are told that Elegys are vessels for souls. NOTE: This means that The Entity has an obsession with the number 423, not Ben. This may mean that the number is significant in different ways.
2) Kelbris. We don't know much about him, other than he was sent to hunt Kayd. He is also probably dead. He is probably the most powerful, and may not be exactly human, if the picture is accurate. NOTE: Kelbris' motif seems to be periods, as seen in the "glitch," and Kayd's tags. lastwords.wmv also shows Kelbris' mask with m. h. f. t. t. (Speculation:) If "THEY TOOK MY EYES" is taken into consideration, The Entity may have removed them, much like It removes Jad's voice. This could be a metaphor for Kelbris being unable to tell what is real/true and what isn't.
3) Jadusable. I believe he is still alive, but has absolutely no control of himself. The Entity is using him to run the site, etc. He became trapped after the dream he has, where his body is sewn inside of a shell. Immediately after this he claims he "has no voice," something The Entity regularly removes.
4) Possibly Kayd, or Rosa. The site tells us that we probably won't be seeing Kayd again. Rosa is a huge stretch, as supposedly Kelbris got her, not The Entity, but I include her here for reasons below.
(Speculation, this may ramble:) If Rosa IS a puppet, then we have the 4 people mentioned on sounds.wmv's tags, and they are all marked with periods. This could be Kelbris trying to tell us something, namely, who our "Giants" are. It may be that Kelbris has managed to communicate to us through Kayd's tags, or Kayd could be trying to give us a clue about Kelbris. NOTE: This DOES warrant further investigation, speculation or not.
In any case, it would make sense that the puppets are also the Giants, as in MM the giants are sealed within the bosses remains, or something. I never exactly understood how it worked. The bosses could be seen as the "shell" that the puppets are contained in, they may help us defeat The Entity after they have been freed. (Looking back, how did we not see that The Entity was Skull Kid? He's the fucking final boss.) This may also be how the game was supposed to go originally, it may have changed since then.
It's also worth noting that, while Kelbris doesn't appear in Arc 1 (He was apparently asleep, or something) The Entity, BEN, Jadusable, and possibly Rosa do appear. BEN's file has defeated all of the bosses except one, Twinmold, the one representing duality/siblings. Rosa is Matt's brother, is part of Ifrit, etc. so it's possible Rosa is a Giant without being a puppet.
The HMS salesman also appears in Arc 1, representing the Old Man. It's possible the Old Man isn't evil, as HMS is a good guy in MM. He could have given Jad the game, effectively making him Link, in hopes of "finishing the game." This mirrors HMS helping Link in MM, although is slightly more sinister. The Old Man seems to be outside of the rest of the Arc, just like HMS is in MM, where he hides out of sight in the Clocktower, which is sort of disconnected from Termina proper. If the day that the Old Man appears outside Jad's dorm is the 3rd day, that would be lulzy, as that's when HMS gets the hell out. NOTE: It may be worth it to reexamine his relationship with the other characters in the videos. Also, isn't he still there at the end of jadusable.wmv, when everyone is grouped together?
If so, it's possible, though I doubt it, that HMS is Kelbris. Epona's exclusion is troubling here, as Link replaces her. HMS never really interacts with Link in any way, except for the looking at him. Kelbris lost his eyes, HMS is squinty etc. etc. I don't know what I'm talking about.
----
Rosa as Ifrit/part of Ifrit could possibly fit this file. The mix of grammatical styles/errors seems to indicate that it is a mix of people talking. From the limited text we have from Rosa (which, given, she was about to be killed), she seems to be lax about grammar and spelling. I don't know much about Ifrit's rhetoric, but he seems very formal to me. Alex/LinkMissing was also under Ifrit's profile, which could imply he is also part of Ifrit, and we know he logged in after he was supposedly dead. When Upper says "I am not dead," this could apply to any/all of this group (Rosa, Matt, Alex, "Ifrit")
I am no longer convinced that Matt HAS to be Jadusable, although it still fits. It explains Matt HUBRIS (Matt is infected with The Entity). How Matt would manage to wrest control from The Entity to be Ifrit is unclear, unless Ifrit was Rosa then. We have proof that control is possible for short periods of time (BEN and Kelbris, providing I'm right about the periods.)
This could also explain why Link replaces Epona, if they are brother/sister. What the implications of this are, I don't know.
Who Alex is is unclear, except that he is "link" and that seems to be a negative thing in this file.
(/Speculation)
POSSIBLE NEXT STEPS
Now that we know how File 59 has been compromised and who the voices are, we can apply the same techniques to lastwords.wmv, which has clearly also lost it's integrity. This should give us a lot of new information. I plan on doing this tonight, but if someone else wants to do so as well that would be helpful. Katie's analysis of lastwords will be extremely helpful.
Speaking of Kayd, analyzing the tags as Kelbris could prove useful. We also need to see if periods come up anywhere else, as they appear to be Kelbris' motif.
We can also rewatch Jad's videos again because New Shit Has Come To Light. We may notice things that we didn't earlier. I vote Dot does this, as he's already working on analyzing the videos.
A rereading of TheTruth.rtf may also help. AM is the most familiar with this file, but she's busy and it's understandable if she can't. This seems fairly low-priority to me. If anyone disagrees, go ahead.
Finally, and this is lowest-priority, I am not sure that enough attention has been paid to the downloadable files as a whole. Someone should go back and look for connections/relationships between the filename and it's contents, and relationships between files (TOOKMY and EYES, etc.)
I would like more information on the Moon Children Arc, specifically the different characters (Mr. D, Duskworld423, Nekko, etc.) While I don't think they're relevant anymore, it could be useful to see if we can draw any similarities out. We may learn more about Kelbris as well. That arc seems very different from the rest, to me, but again, I wasn't here. As near as I can tell, Jad = Alex = Kayd in terms of "hero" or narrator, and presumably Kelbris is again the puppet, but the narrative structure seems different.
Also, if these characters have been "silenced" by The Entity, that means they are still in the story. It's a stretch.
---------
RANDOM TIDBITS
"This is TheTruth.rtf, and TheTruth.rtf will set you free.wmv" made me laugh.
It might be worth questioning how The Entity was trapped in Majora's Mask to begin with, and it's eerie that It's trapped in a game about a demon trapped inside something. It would explain why it sees the world in hues of that game.
I don't think that the writer on the homepage is The Entity. Let me break it down:
He is usually very straightforward, if a little blunt. His sentences, while sometimes vague, aren't obscured. It seems as though he's trying to tell us something through omission a lot of the time.
He uses proper nouns often, just not his own. The homepage does this too: It refers to BEN, Jadusable, Kayd, etc. Pronouns except for "I" are rarely used. He also refers to characters by different names, i.e. Kayd and Ryukaki. This is something The Entity is incapable of doing, to our knowledge.
- Indepth Anaylsis by MC
-
- whatsyourmask
- January 30th, 2011
Originally posted October 30, 2010
As a quick forward {as if you guys will need more to read}, I'd like to just mention that this paper/these notes total around nine pages. It's a long read, and it's a rich read, which makes sense considering the canon I'm working with. Feel free to skip the introduction and the methodology and acknowledgments, but my project isn't really complete without them.
Right here, I want to emphasize that I have done a CLOSE-TEXT READING. I am strict about my canon {currently, I accept the Jadusable YT channel, the YSHDT site and nothing else}, and I am incredibly conservative about when I look at, for example, something "Jadusable" wrote against something Ryukaki wrote. However, the best judgment sometimes culls these comparisons, so I accept any sensible comparable reading -- and this entire canon, essentially, is a comparative-text-reading. For the most part, I try to read the texts on their own and look only internally {the dogs are not fairies}.
By all means, please rebut, discuss and inquire. If you comment here, I will make sure a response gets to you. Enjoy.
-PERSONAmc
I. Introduction
The handle under which I’m going to publish this analysis -- I use the word “publish” very lightly, here -- is PERSONAmc. I have many, many other handles when it comes to BEN, but I’m posting this reading as a PERSONA because I have done most of my serious work with them and gladly. I became involved with Jadusable and, as we all came to find out, with BEN from the very beginning; I was anxiously awaiting thetruth.txt on September 15th, at 11:04PM. I have since been an active player, I think, although I lean more toward theory-crafting.
Since the exposure of the Moon Children’s cult, I have perceived the same questions to occur and repeatedly frustrate unlocking key information. I think the most recent, and important, example of this point is the first File 59 / mhftt.txt.[1] The changes of style within the text, in addition to the obvious insertions of words or phrases, have led our anti-BEN community to ask who is speaking and how much information we can trust from this voice or these voices. I have seen no consensus reached and, likewise, no theory, put forth on solid evidence, that lets us truly interpret this document. With the first line of the cipher still encrypted and Jadusable’s nudge that we are missing something vital,[2] I believe that a new approach against the recurring questions is necessary.
These “recurring questions,” for me, are 1) who is narrating a given text, 2) how can we identify the voices of different persons / entities and 3) what are the relations of these persons and entities with one another? This project is a beginning of the answers to these inquiries. In no way do I believe or hope this paper will end the discussion conclusively -- this undertaking is massive, and I’m already aware how difficult it is to remember and / or dredge up all of the relevant texts. My ultimate aim to make some uncertain connections clearer and kickstart the conversation and elucidation of these problems.
II. Methodology
An equally pressing goal of this analysis is to offer a more academic methodology to our community as a way of combatting BEN. BEN thrives on disorder, false information and bad communication. To combat him, I believe we must engage with our “texts” more closely:[3] I will borrow the approaches of close- and comparative-text readings from my disciplines, Greek literature. In more familiar terms, I will examine on the language (or images) given to us by the narrator within a specific text and then draw out the similarities or differences and links between texts. A thorough close-reading of the whole of Jadusable’s corpus has not been accomplished yet, to my knowledge, and so I hope my findings can be of some use.
I will be citing both the evidence and the work of others to the best of my ability. Often, a citation for video descriptions will have to be a paragraph number; within the videos, I will use the time. I will cite all theories that were not developed by me to the best of my ability: if I did not cite you, please contact me with the correction and know I am not consciously plagiarizing -- I often developed many of the same ideas earlier than any given interpretation’s publishing date and so grunted in agreement and left it at that. A note on citations, for people who have a life outside of school: if we have reached the same conclusion through different means, I would cite you if I wanted to use your arguments to bolster my point. I might also cite you if you made an obscure point first. I do not need to provide a citation for using my own arguments to get to an interpretation held by other folks. Again, I will add your credit happily! I would press the point that citations are key[4] in formulating an argument on evidence, and I am using them not to be an asshole but to provide order.
The current outline of this interpretation, which will be posted in chunks as time allows, is to tackle the two earliest videos on the Jadusable account, followed by thetruth.rtf, and then read the remaining videos with thetruth.rtf in mind. At this point, having established some sense of the various voices narrating and their relations to one another, I hope to tackle the two File 59s / mhftt.txts and the last two Ryukaki videos, as well as the Truth on YSHDT. Along the way, I will discuss, as much as necessary, any other theories I’ve assumed as the foundation of my interpretation.
III. Acknowledgements
Before I begin delving into the meat of this project, I’d like to thank a couple of folks. G.H. has provided an enormous amount of support and feedback on the unpolished section of this paper, and I am glad to have such a capable partner in crime. Thank you to all the boiz: your endless, homoromantic bro-orgies can lighten the mood when we’re all in a little too deep. Thank you to our resident artist -- particularly, I thank the random genetic chance that resulted in your creepy-child voice. In an entirely different vein, I’d like to praise and applaud the Facebook community with whom I first worked; I won’t name names (because, well, they’re real names), but you’re all amazing, sharp people and a pleasure to be on edge with.
