personwithatophat

[personwithatophat]

THE FOUNDER GAME - Ch 1

start v

https://www.thefoundergame.com i wanted to make a map of the founders game that could be put up on a single image since it helps organize info, if anyone can use it here you go! -Tophat

[personwithatophat]

Tophat notices a tiny insignificant detail and rants about it

im nothing if not a theorist of the people. Anyways! if i only have a week left to make TSE theories then why dont we break down something a bit less chatted for! The Posters! most of the posters have cool details to them, or theory potential that doesnt quite break the records but has more then a few times been evidence to theories so why not just do a formal breakdown of them now. this ones got a lot of pictures Ep 3 poster

couple of basic things for this. a concept thats used for alot of Gen 1 is the use of red and green. in this case its red and green light on his legs. it can also be seen on the TFC promo photos for 'Again', the Ep2 trailer, a handful of different scenes, and also on other posters! the other thing cool about the ep 3 poster is how its a direct mirror of the last and first time we see The Hero.

this was the first time we see The Hero from its similarly named youtube promo piece, and at the time there was even theory that he has blood on his hands. Ep 2 poster

The ep 2 poster, im actually here for the posing. its the beginning warehouse shot, but awake and staring off into the middle distance. I have a theory that this image is actually ranboo in idle. We see on a few occasions that actors or employees not in use get 'paused' in place where they can be managed by the production team and dont really perceive time passing. But at the start of every episode we also see ranboo coming out of idle from TV static. The VHS player in the cabin turns off and ranboo wakes up, the TV Puzzler uses turns off and he wakes up, Hetch's several screen pointing at where ep 2 ends, its a consistent case. ranboo thinks that TSE happened over the course of maybe a day and a half, not over the course of a week. The ep1 trailer shows ranboo staring blankly at the TV in the cabin and i think this poster is the same thing. Ep 1 poster

this poster is a bunch of cool tiny details wrapped together and i love it, this is the poster i own. so heres four cool things 1- hes facing the 4th wall but looking directly away from it. 2- this flashlight is on set but he never uses it, instead during the show he shines it in his eyes between audience choices in the basement several times. 3- its designed to look weathered, spirit of the cabin was based off of old horror and its designed like its been sitting in an attic for 50+ years. 4- on the website the poster is right but on physical copies charlie is credited as "Smilecicle" VHS

im deciding to count this one which is on the genloss twitter, based on how even if its not for purchase, this is a poster. its weathered like the Ep 1 poster, and incorporates green light beaming from it on the ground like other works. All of the posters are representative of their episodes but also show direct changes or discrepancies. For Ep1, there was never an involvement of the flashlight. Ep 2 started by him waking up instead of straight from idle. The Ep 3 poster has him standing idle as the final showing instead of restrained (which was actually made into finished concept art before getting scraped to avoid poster spoilers). And finally the founders glove in the poster is more visually appealing in red but the first time we see the founders collection the gloves were black. Least to say, attention to detail is cool and so is @kertoir who made all of this. Theory Time Before Founders Game!! -Tophat p.s. the list of VHS codes is still being updated daily on my page and i plan to continue that :)

[personwithatophat]

In the basement scene on a VHS, there's a cut to a screen with the letters "I N G" in placements that suggest a bunch of missing letters. Has anyone else informed you about different letters?

Each VHS has 1/3 versions of this!

beg-inn-ing

its the password for the founders game

great check in :D

-Tophat

[personwithatophat]

VHS Coordinates

generation loss VHS tapes come accompanied with a letter/number combo and over several different platforms ive compiled as many as i can. i plan to live update this as i hear about new codes till we learn how to use this information till then, i wanted to give everyone an equal opportunity to theorize!

feel free to send me any new or that ive missed! -Tophat EDIT: huge thanks to ghost for helping me buff up my list, and thanks to anyone whos been sending me codes you've seen me missing, this is how we thrive :)

[personwithatophat]

What to do with your VHS

Hi! did you just aquire the generation loss TSE VHS but dont know what exactly to do? so far, heres what we suggest you look out for. 1 - Discrepancies or cut in additions during the show are typically upside down or met with a harsh sound effect. 2 - Any official looking labeling should be read through because notes from or about showfall media has been put in character. 3 - Somewhere on the tape should be a hand scratched number/letter combo for example "A32, X1, EE10" If you dont have your dads 2^ft VHS player to rely on, or the technical knowhow to put it onto a flatscreen id suggest checking out a library! who might have one, or suggest where one can be found. posting these things on tumblr, discord, or sending them to someone who CAN circulate the information helps keeping the communication flowing! if you dont know anyone who could circulate the information? send it to me. this is an invitation, and if i didnt offer that after telling you to spread word itd be kinds dumb. we have roughly 2 weeks left on the timer and this is where pivotal theory crafting is made, when we ALL have information at the same time. Founders Game In One Day Lets Go!!! -Tophat

[personwithatophat]

The Founders Game

one of the VHS tapes gave us this website https://www.thefoundergame.com/ The password is BEGINNING it opens when 10,000 people enter

GENLOSERS UNITE

[personwithatophat]

so anyway i have alot of unwritten, unfinished, uncertain material that still makes for cool ideas and theories any time i try to think about them the dialup sound plays in my brain. but hey! if anyone thinks this would be interesting id love to know! and if anyone has a prompt like "what do you you think [thing] means" or "why did they do [X] and not [Y]" i would love to hear it :D -Tophat

[personwithatophat]

first name tophat, last name theories (ง •̀_•́)ง

holy shit tophat theories (positive)

(And yes tophat, i will fight you)

.

[personwithatophat]

Put up your dukes buddy

Tophat:best genloss theorizer

Fight me

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[personwithatophat]

Release date theory

gen 0 is releasing in the next few months based on all the prepwork being done for it and i got thinking about promo and stuff. "From the desk of the founder" we have SEEN the desk of the founder from twitter

Then i realized that comic, The Lumpits dated November 4th 1990 w e l l Chronicle 0 is a twitter spinoff story we have of Miss Roads Zero's journal. and it was connected to us on the date of its beginning's anniversary specifically July 30th 2023 from the journal title written July 30th 19XX we know that the founders 'connection' is stronger on an anniversary we know that "the connection is getting stronger"

and recently since this is from T_3 I propose that weather its the full gen 0 release or something else

that we are coming up on something fast -Tophat

[personwithatophat]

T_3 Red Theory

ok so the big thing right now is the "who is talking" and for whateers sake ive been calling them Red current condendors -Zero -Founder -Hetch -New person Let Me Explain. Zero- the use of the person saying "no need to answer i know you cant talk back" strikes me for the polls that were present on cron 0 . where they asked us things and we never got an answer. that could very well be because its only one way connection. this is because cron 0 takes place in the past somewhere around the 70s-90s by theory. but TSE took place in our present so the connection was completely stable. Founder- we are aware that the founder is experienced in memory wiping or altering technology and i wouldnt be surprised if he was also an early victim of this. Hetch- tied into the founder theory im more looking at hetch as an example. during the TSE promo era we were getting messages from this same person and it was present in the keynote most of all as The Savior character that we viewed as on our side. later context suggested that the red text was actually hetch. but remember guys view T_3 in the context of T_1 and T_2 instead of the context of tse. New person- open for all possibilities it could simply be a character that we dont know yet. this new person was around for the TSE promo actually and they commented in the description of videos, and in glitches similar to the one were seeing now. There Are No Reliable Narrators The Timeline Is Only A Concept Schrödingers Founder Strikes Again

-Tophat

[personwithatophat]

T_3 Update

This is pretty unintelligible so i wrote down everything i could see so you dont have to

RUN WHERE FOLLOW STOP RUN ERROR LEAVE TURN AROUND OPEN LEAVE TRY HOME LOOK LEAVE

hope this helps, deffinitly not the last post of the day :] -Tophat

[personwithatophat]

Gen 0 Promo Thoughts

We’re Getting Genloss Promo!!!

so i wanna chat about what we know/can tell from the images we have so far.

id say if your in rancord you already know what ill say but at this point im convinced two separate rancord members have copied keys to my house. so were not addressing it For the promo theres basically 2 or 3 angles to come from 1. Content 2. Context 3. Contrast essentially: what were seeing, why were seeing it, why its the way that it is. FOR EXAMPLE

this is last years TSE promo, a screenshot from The Hero Content: the focus of the image- chair, restraints, mask, voltmeter | Context: tiny snippets that activate the imagination, and makes questions. why is he in an electric chair? is this how they brainwash him? what do those things near him do? how did he get here? | Contrast: the VHS coating that slightly obscures context and also ties into the actual TSE VHS releasing "soon" This is a good way to look and think about it because this is insight from the past about how its trying to play out right now, and even if our theories are wrong our first thoughts are still incredibly valuable. We can answer all the questions from this past promo we may not have all the ideas in line for current stuff, its just a basic place to start looking.

onto the pictures

1- gen 0 Door

2- Twin door

3- Sinks

4- Exit

so now let me try to break it down

Content.

all the photos include some type of door with an airlock, cell(?), bathroom corner, and exit. acting possibly as a mirror to the founders

“4 keys, my door” and instead giving us no obvious key and 4 doors

Context.

everything in my brain screams A) Lab B) containment facility. or inhumane experimentation, but honestly for this theory it’s kinda the same.

one of ranboos original plans for TSE was for it to take place in a lab. inspired partially by the Hawkins lab from stranger things. they were even searching for locations before they found the mall and rewrote parts of the story to fit.

These photos plus the teasers from the new ranboo main YT vid lead me even heavier on lab. the hallway to that exit photo? call bars. Or the matching side to side doors in pic 2? as it stands all we know is that they’re uniform and lock from the outside.

the sinks and the gen 0 door lead me on lab. that door is typically used in watercraft such as submarines and battleships to block water if the craft is taking on water or being fired at.

it is also used

for labs as bio containment.

these were the closest i could find from a quick google search.

and finally

Contrast.

the hazy red covering while i’m still not perfect on i believe is either meant as an emulation of photos mid chemical process

or

as an emulation of printing generation loss where the photos have been copied into shadowed obscurity.

if people want i’ll also break down the other two teaser images but for now i’ll leave it here.

hype for gen 0 and if anyone has questions/comments/clarifications/etc

ask me :)

i love responding to a challenge

-Tophat

[personwithatophat]

Not a theory but what's your official take on the patreon? (so the people in the back can hear)

sure in short: not a fan in long: Generation loss has a beautiful and incredible effect right now where Everyone is getting information at the same time, and when we dont all have acess to information its instantly circulated. this creates a super intresting wave of exitement where since all of us have the same information every update gets an instant responce, all the circles fire off at the same time, and its a wonderful type of community reaction. the patreon excellent in theory for supporting the show in exchange for teasers, isnt how i would do it. because like it or not it creates a paywall i have hope ranboo will be mindful to relase mostly things like BTS or update posts instead of actual critical content, and part of that is because the redeptions become null in void once an account pops up to release all the patreon rewards for free. just in personal opinion as a different suggestion: i think this idea would play out better as a subathon, even just a couple days long with a predetermined set of rewards. this would - still raise money and support for the show, - keep the community aspect for information, - AND increase the hype for coming projects. will i pay for the patreon? depends this is just one chatters opinion. im a genloss fan, i have a probable budget, im the target demographic and i dont think its a great idea so thats the whole piece. Not a theory Thanks for the question tho :) -Tophat

[personwithatophat]

The Cipher Is Made From The New Logo

ive finally put 2 and 2 together for why we thought it was some kind of pigpen cipher

the new generation logo we got is the base for founders cipher = Edit: I've been seeing people using this so I updated it with all the letters and order, thanks for the support :) = -Tophat

[personwithatophat]

What do you think about the comment Sneeg made when he was watching the Founder's Cut about his hat? (I think he was talking about it being sewn into his head or stuck there by some other means and someone in chat was like "but Sneeg you take it off in the show" and he responded with "you know Showfall censors a bunch of stuff, right?". To me that was implying that they fucking... Skin his head? Or similarly gory things) (This was just a comment so it's most likely not canon but still fun to play around with ^^)

this is great its barely taken a day before I'm asked to know about that one comment made about that one moment from that one stream, and you know what? i know exactly what you're talking about. thank you

Sneeg is my favorite cast member for TSE. Sneeg I think retained the most amount of information from the most amount of lore dumping that ranboo did to the cast, and during the show did his best to interpret it. As for the hat being sewn on, I'm taking it with a grain of salt because sneeg mentioned a lot of this as how he interpreted the happenings. it was a side off comment, he clarified at a point that whatever he says on stream, its ultimately up to ranboo. but I think what it means is that this is the type of thing for us to expect, and that's the information we need. that showfall will lie to us, will censor things, and cause harm. my first inclination says that there was never really a moment where sneegs hat had to be ripped off, but there were several where it had to be moved. such as turning it backwards for evil snag. if you do want something to consider for gore, I suggest turning to charlie in the stream setup who had his headphones pulled off despite it clearly being connected to him. great ask :D

-Tophat

[personwithatophat]

Intresting concepts, I love where you're going with that idea. I needed some expansion on that ngl and you fully cooked there /pos (Also hi Tophat)

What thoughts do you have on the idea Austin can see everything/the fact he either has no filter or a broken filter? Why would he be given this ability by Showfall besides the idea of an entertainment asset?

Hello! o/ thank you and good followup because austin is my crutch so i appreciate making me take it head on. (feel free to challenge my theories it helps me build them! :] ) As for austins filter being broken, I think the theory is good but incomplete. Austin does have a filter and has involvement, but it clearly works differently. in fact most of the 'filter items' have their own rules that they go by, its not a uniform model.

and a bit of this has to do with just how the show works sneegs hat isn't wired into his skull because he takes it off a couple times during the show or moves it around charlie has some kind of base program where he can run multiple items at once since during episode 2 he was wearing the glasses and the headphones and there are theories that details like this such as placement, hardware, etc have an effect on the items' limitations. for example, sneeg doesn't have surgically implanted hardware so he can't run two items like Charlie can and when they try, it shorts out and we get the ep 2 hat scene. or that other cast members couldn't be 'The Hero' since ranboos mask is necessary and capable of more complex sequences. that being said I've seen people speculate that Austins item is his jacket, which is entirely possible but it makes it confusing when he actually takes it off in the dressing room. so I'm going to pivot to the theory that he doesn't have a formal item. "so he doesn't have a filter?" not what I said. During the beginning of ep 2 before sneeg gets soft rebooted he doesn't actually have a filter item either and is still very much in character, he doesn't even recognize ranboo, we have hard proof that this is possible. and we know Austin is filtered/playing a character just by how he's acting in general. Austin as a showfall media victim has no reason to lie about having a wife and several children. why wouldn't he have a formal item? maybe because he was originally written to get double-tapped in Nikki's place in scene 1. Its very up for interpretation still but I believe a lot of this stems from the way that Austin is compared. Specifically how he gets compared to ranboo and sneeg when Ethan dies. i would like to counterpoint this with the way that Austins character is built for the episode. desperate, afraid, ......straight. but at the same time, he stalls to catwalk in the closet, mouthes off to puzzler questioning him having children, and is also very gay. so I think there might be some difference in writing. So yes, Austin is the only one who has a normal and more aware response to Ethan's death. Austin is also the only one there that isn't 3 layers deep in meta.

during this moment Austin is the only one freaking out but consider the company. ranboo is an NPC at this point. he got factory reset and basically has a cap over free thought, right now the only thing in his brain is the objective to go through the show. Austin is still in his role of character trying to escape this actual saw trap he's stuck in, his panic is as warranted in character as it is out so he panics and when the others don't it freaks him out more. sneeg on the opposite side of the spectrum is knee-deep in lethargy. sneeg is actually the one seeing everything how it is and can't respond to any of it so he doesn't care about anything anymore. after his soft reboot sneeg can still see but he's confined to the roll, I want to make a separate sneeg post because he's actually the one I think people view Austin as. so yeah I think that Austin has something going on but I think it's a step to the left of the current theories. sneeg is where the real awareness is feel free to ask me for any clarification on this since I jumped around a lot or if you have other questions/theories because this is epic :D -Tophat