#with no actual connections to the ARG

[sunshinestardrop]

A NEW Daydream about welcome home because Im insane:

New (Neurodivergent) character comes to home, unexpectedly and without a house of their own. OC knows there something wrong because they were from the real world and know about the ARG but because its new they had no effen idea whats going on. So they start to sneak around, they stay suspicious about their neighbors but especially about Wally.

Wally and them don’t really butt heads, but there’s this weird tension when theyre together. OC thinks it’s mostly them because they’re hyper aware of everything around them and no one else is (except said puppet) Where Wally does know there’s something wrong with this new comer and is told by house/ He really isnt trying to intimidate them but OCs paranoid just makes it seem like he is.

So OC goes about their day, stays ‘kid friendly’ cause everyone else does but still has mindset of someone from our world. They eventually really start to like this world because they dont really... need anything. They can keep doing their hobbies without worry, they eat when they want to but dont seem to need to, and the neighbors are sincere with their kindness! if they were a simpler person they could really just live like that.

But they cant. So they keep digging further (It’s at this point that Wallys appearance seems to deteriorate and while he says he’s ok he just seems all... fuzzy and out of it) They go out at night more. They stir up some trouble, and one or two times accidentally drop their little kid friendly act and set the Neighbors on edge. it would have been shrugged off if Wally didn’t catch onto it... and by extension Home.

So eventually OC get’s into Home for some reason and pretty much goes through a horror-esk situation until they reach the basement and kill Home. They get out as Home is set ablaze and watch as it burns down- screaming all the while.

And then the rest of the neighbors come out, along with Wally who OC thought they accidentally killed in their struggle, just to watch the house burn. It’s revealed that the town- all individually without each other knowing- were aware that there was something deeply wrong with Home, and it was affecting Wally but no one knew how to stop it. As all of them were on the more ‘cautious and scared’ spectrum of personalities everyone was too scared to take the next step to get rid of Home for good. Because of OCs impulsive personality they were able to go in and take care of the threat- of course not without incident. The conclusion would be that if they had all spoken to each other instead of trying to protect the outward appearance of this perfect little neighborhood things would have turned out better. But since whats done is done they now have to move forward.

 And move forward it does! OC gets a place of their own and the Neighbors welcome they with opened arms (Again!) Wally takes up residence with Barnaby while also trying to get closer with OC. He dosnt feel like he ‘owes’ them anything but he is very thankful that they nosed their way into the chaos and honestly really likes them! The world starts to settle into something still kind of kid friendly but without the pressure to keep up the ruse they had going before. OC, who wasnt very friendly or willing to open up before, starts to become more extroverted around everyone. They share hobbies and communicate their feelings more. The townspeople also start to communicate their concerns more instead of hiding behind an ‘always happy’ charade. Its very cute.

And sure, there’s the possibility that whatever that thing was will come back, but theyre ready for it, Because this time they will face it head on- together! 

[siunytoons]

AHHHHHHH OH MY GOSH OHMIGOSH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHH THIS I FIRE I LOVE THIS

giggs but make it wild kratts

[lackadaisycats]

I hope you know that literally nobody is going to be able to live up to the standard you, V*v, and Glitch have set and your arrogance and exploitation of your fanbase and connections has screwed millions of creatives out of their dreams because Hollywood is a joke that isn't worth telling and wealthy e-celebs like yourself have claimed the indie scene all to yourselves and moved the goalposts into the stratosphere.

Nope. This isn't a zero sum game. There is not some limited, prescribed number of indie trophy slots that a few studios greedily filled up, blocking everyone else out. That is not how it works. Nothing any other creator is doing - short of personally sending hired goons to your doorstep or stealing your credit cards - is taking anything away from you or preventing your success. In fact if an indie creator can manage to demonstrate that they've got something viable going, it may help to map out a pathway for others.

I think I'm not going to bother trying to address whether or not cartoons in return for support from fans - an entirely voluntary exchange - constitutes exploitation. And I'm living in the Midwest driving a 2007 economy car with 200k+ miles on it, but let's just skip past the assumptions that I'm wealthy and connected too.

Instead, let's get to the weirdly myopic notion that the indie scene is held captive by three studios. Maybe YouTube algorithms or Twitter bubbles are somewhat to blame, but in actuality there are so, so many individual people, friend groups, and small production houses out there making independent animation, I cannot possibly name them all.

Here are some anyway:

Far-Fetched Worthikids Satina | Scumhouse Noodle and Bun Punch Punch Forever Ramshackle Noodle Papajoolia | Pipi Angel Hare | The East Patch Jonni Peppers Salad Fingers Monkey Wrench Studio Heartbreak Felix Colgrave JelloApocalypse Odd1sout (started indie, got picked up by Netflix) Allie Mehner JaidenAnimations Lumi and the Great Big Galaxy Cloudrise | The Worlds Divide Telepurte RubberRoss James Lee ENA Godspeed | Olan Rogers Ollie and Scoops Meat Canyon Port by the Sea Kekeflipnote Boxtown Kevin Temmer Weebl Joel Haver CircleToons Long Gone Gulch Atlas and the Stars Animist Skibidi Toilet A Fox in Space Alex Henderson Talon Toniko Pantoja Sr. Pelo Hullabaloo Kane Pixels (started indie, picked up by A24) Homestar Runner Fennah Gods' School Alan Becker Dungeon Flippers JazLyte Psychicpebbles (started indie, Smiling Friends picked up by AS) Piemations vewn Metal Family Dead Sound chluaid Jacknjellify Betsy Lee | No Evil My Pride Cranbersher GeoExe | Gwain Saga Horatio the Vampire Mech West Playground | Rodrigo Sousa The Brave Locomotive Finchwing (+ many other Warrior Cats animators) Quazies SamBakZa Kamikaze: Trial by Fire

By no means a full list. That's just YouTube, and mostly just English language stuff, and I didn't even get to the multitudes of Warrior Cats animation collabs.

The point is, the indie landscape is vast and populated by creators new and old, making all kinds of animated media from skits, to shows, to ARGs, to films. Audience sizes vary as much as the content, stylistic approaches, subject matter, and budgets do. There are no compliance standards, no gateways to entry, no goalposts. There's not even any preset definition of success except what you decide for yourself.

Anyway, instead of nurturing your resentments, consider making something. I assure you, it's a far more rewarding use of your time and energy, and pretty much no one can stop you. ------------- EDIT- Made some additions to the list based on comments. Thanks!

[annabelle--cane]

"the magnus protocol had a whole ARG beforehand? what?"

yes! it did!

"oh so I need to have participated in this whole big thing to actually understand the podcast?"

not at all! from the official post-mortem put out by RQ, "while the ARG was not something that was necessary to participate in to understand the magnus protocol, it was designed to contain a wealth of background story and context that would enrich any player's listening experience."

"a wealth of background context that would enrich my listening experience 👀👀👀 how can I learn about this?"

SO glad you asked. sadly, many of the materials made for the arg have been taken down since the game ended 😔 (ex., the official OIAR, magnus institute, and bonzoland websites. (edit ii: I found partial wayback machine captures! see below) though @strangehauntsuk is still up!), so we're a bit low on primary sources, but in terms of learning about what happened:

for a starting point, I would really recommend this video by @pinkelotjeart

it's super accessible, it was made in real time as the game progressed and follows the solving and revelation of clues as they happened, it hits all the major points of the mystery and moments of community insanity while eliding some of the nitty gritty puzzle grinding, 10/10 would recommend.

here's the official summary put out by RQ, and I'd recommend reading through this once you've already gotten a basic handle on the flow of the story and the basic connections between major clues and events. it's got some fun behind-the-scenes info and lays out the thought process behind the puzzles in simple terms

here's the full masterdoc of all puzzles and resolutions put together in the statement remains discord server. masterdoc my absolute BELOVED, masterdoc my bethrothed, masterdoc my soul mate. I'd recommend this as a second port of call after the above video as it either contains all details about the puzzles or links to other expanded docs that do.

here's the narrative summary doc that lays out all the plot and lore discovered in three pages of plain prose. if you just want to get to the good bits as fast as you can and get blasted directly in the face by contextless lore bombs, this is the doc for you. if you don't want to start with the video, I'd say this is another good entry point.

once you've got the lay of the land, some of the game materials that I found particularly interesting include:

the in-universe east germany expat usenet forum, with all content translated into english. most of it is irrelevant space filler with occasional extremely sus lore, but I still found it fun to read through. love to soak in some fictional forum drama.

chdb.xlsx, the spreadsheet of the names of all the children the protocol 'verse magnus institute was studying/experimenting on. EDIT: here is a version of the sheet without any annotations and with all of the names in their original order, kudos to @theboombutton for catching that the commonly shared copy had the order swapped around.

klaus.xls, a (very corrupted) spreadsheet with what looks like the classifications of a bunch of old OIAR cases.

EDIT: have a few more saved materials from the game that I forgot to include.

an in-universe audio ad to apply to the OIAR that ran before archives episodes and kicked off the whole game.

an in-universe video ad to apply to the OIAR, this one is an official upload that's still up from the game itself. you can subscribe to the OIAR's official youtube channel today, if you so chose.

the robo-voicemail greeting from the OIAR's phone line.

EDIT II:

here is a wayback machine capture of the OIAR's official website.

here is a wayback machine capture of the bonzoland website.

(pretty sure both of the above captures just archived the home pages, though I haven't tried clicking all of the links. I'd say they're still worth looking at, the home pages give a good window into the vibes.)

once you start poking around in these documents, you'll find a bunch of links to others with further information, the materials I've included here just contain what I feel to be the most relevant details to getting a broad feel for the whole game. once again, huge shout out to the statement remains server, I was barely in there as the ARG was in progress and only ducked my head in every so often to find links like these. true mvps of the fandom.

[vln-vibes]

Amity Park; Clone City ?

It started with a video.

Tim had been scrolling through social media, as one did when procrastinating doing boring paperwork for Wayne Enterprises. He found himself going down the rabbit hole and somehow ended up going down the Unreality/ARG path.

He had to appreciate the dedication to bringing these stories together, some of the stories could actually happen given all the shit he'd seen in his hero career. Anyway this ended in him getting fed back to back Not Real videos. At least that was until he found The Video.

The caption on the screen was the first thing that popped up in front of the face of a latina teen who was trying not to laugh; Imagine getting wrecked by a twink

The camera flipped two buff guys wearing red and white Leatherman jackets, one was on the grass with his head tilted to the side and a basketball next to him, the blonde guy was looking at his friend with tears in his eyes before turning red and turning to the side and yelling out.

"You're dead Weston!"

"I said sorry!"

The camera then did a sharp turn to zoom in on a lanky ginger teen. It looked as though the blonde was about to go beat the shit out of the guy before the ground shook and the sky turned momentarily green.

"Ah shit, must be Skullker"

The audio began to glitch before the cameragirl began to run, the blonde could be seen carrying his companion, the ginger guy running besides them. A sudden cry came from behind as they could hear what seemed to be a girl trip.

"Star!"

The video started to glitch again and the camera fell from the girl's hand. As the girl picked up her phone the video showed that the ground where the blonde fell was now charred. When the girl panned to the side he could see that the ginger guy had tackled her.

"Are you guys okay?" her slightly accented voice could be heard with a weird echo, the ginger guy had his head back to the camera as he helped the girl up.

"Ugh Skullker's the worst, I still can't believe Ember dates him" the girl groaned. She looked up;

Kara?

"At least Phantom's already on it" the ginger guy turned around.

Wally?

The video ended and Tim found himself rewatching it over and over again--- There was no doubt that those two were Kara and Wally. Sure they looked younger but it was them.

There had to be more to this, was this really some sort of ARG? The explosions and the weird glitches, was that just all some part of a gimmick? Also why were there two younger versions of prominent heroes? Were they clones? Was Cadmus involved?

If it was clones then Cadmus was definitely involved.

He clicked on the girl's profile--- PaulinaxPhantom<3

Most of it was blank, not in a 'She doesn't really post much' sort of way, like her photos and video were whited off. He could see a sporadic picture and video here and there but they were divided by blank pictures that never loaded or video that crashed without ever showing anything.

He knew it had nothing to do with his connection so what the hell was going on. Could it be something with the site?

On a recent picture it was a selfie of herself with 'Star'/Kara with a link to 'Star's' profile.

Same thing as Paulina; pictures and videos surrounded by never loading and permanently whited out.

He checked the blonde jock's, Dash, and had the same result. Apparently the guy he’d been carrying was named Kwan—

Was that Garth? Sure he was a lot bulkier but he had an uncanny resemblance to the Atlantean.

Then he found 'Wally' again, or Wes apparently; Wally West and Wes Weston? It wasn't giving him much hope.

Wes was apparently part of Casper High's journalism club given his video about trying to meet the deadline and ranting about how annoying 'Boxie' had been, having trashed their clubroom and making them pick up after him.

"Stop complaining and actually pick up the slack Weston" a female voice spoke up from behind him.

"Yes, yes Chief Editor Manson"

Raven!?

Another video had him in a local food joint where the waitress was taking an order from a black haired customer, scowling as she noted the camera on her and flipped him off as the camera zoomed in on her, which was a dick move on the guy's part (as if service industry workers didn't have to deal with shit customers in the first place). The customer she was helping didn't even look back and also flipped him off.

"Get a life Weston"

Karen?

Oh holy hell bats! Was that Dick!?

Oh crap. Oh motherhecking heck!

This was bad.

Fumbling off of his bed and out of his room with a single drive to get to the Batcave, where he knew Bruce would be at the time and be able to assemble an Emergency Meeting with the League, he only had one thing in mind.

Why the hell would they hide clones in the middle of bumfuck Nowhere Illinois?

[babyspacebatclone]

Second Infinity Nikki headcanon drop.

I swear this isn’t a Special Interest or even a hyperfixation (I can sleep, for one thing…) but I’m between those right now and the lore of Miraland is being pushed by my brain as a substitute.

I was going to suggest that, while Momo denies being a “Wishborn” “Whimborn” (can’t remember what quest he reacts to that specific term, arg), we technically have no evidence he isn’t and was transported very young to Nikki’s home dimension.

And several pieces of evidence he does resonate with Whim on a surprisingly strong level.

A) He can sense Whimstars.

B) This:

Momo reacting so strongly to Nikki wearing the Threads of Reunion his cloak changes to match it.

This does not occur with any other Ability Outfit, so it’s not a stylistic game choice or just an implication of a connection to Nikki; it’s a reaction to this specific Miracle Outfit, which is actually more telling in my opinion.

But I don’t believe Momo was transported to Nikki’s home dimension anymore.

I think he was born in that dimension, but the Momo Clan is Whimborn that were transported to Nikki’s dimension a generation or two back.

[iguessthisisanewobsession]

Danny is missing Project

Final senior semester Mr. Lancer has his class make a story that is told through any other medium but writing.

Danny, Tucker, Sam and Dash create an unreality/arg YouTube account under Dash’s name.

They start off with Dash recording blog like post of his life as a senior in a small town called amity park (minus all the ghost fights) for a final project.

Then the real project starts with a video titled “going through my freshmen yearbook”

Where he shares fond memories he has with everyone in his class. Until he stops and pauses at the photo of Danny before chuckling awkwardly and mentioning that he doesn’t actually remember this guy and stating that he’ll see if there’s a story he’s not remembering before moving on.

The video’s start taking a turn as he starts updating his confusion on Danny Fenton as he’s been asking around and everyone has adamantly responded that there has never been a kid in that town by that name.

The thing is that Dash has physical proof that Danny grew up with him and the others.

Dash keeps delving deeper and deeper bringing out old keepsakes like old recitals and photographs and places that showed proof of this mysterious Danny.

Eventually he makes a playlist simply titled ‘Danny is missing’.

The longer he post the more he realizes that Danny wasn’t just a person in town but seemingly very important in Dash’s life.

He starts sneakily recording conversations he has with other people when he brings up Danny.

Dash gets more paranoid and starts shutting himself in and focusing all of his energy into finding out who is Danny.

Starts theorizing when Danny went missing.

And of course in the background or darkness of the videos Danny’s doing his thing and fucking with the recording or just being creepy in general.

Eventually the story plays out as so:

Dash and Danny were childhood friends who used to play in forest that connected to the back of their properties.

Eventually they had a falling out due to Danny becoming friends with Tucker, who unlike Dash had both of his parent’s approval to hang out with the local ghost hunter’s kid.

Dash became Danny’s bully through their younger years before they reconciled and became friends again and eventually they fell in love.

Dash’s dad, who Dash thought was just a deadbeat, is a bigot, who eventually found out about the boys and proceeded to brutally beat both of them Bloody.

Danny succumbed to his injuries and Dash’s father was arrested.

It is revealed that Dash has retrograde amnesia due to the incident, all his memories that he has were post incident and everyone in town decided it was best for Dash not to know the real reason he was in the hospital and focus on recovering.

Afterwards, no one knew how to break the news to him so they just kept up the charade, there was never a Danny Fenton, so there was no need for Dash to go through any misplaced guilt or grief for someone he couldn’t even remember.

Everyone got so caught up in the lie that no one really took the time to actually grieve themselves. Going as far as Burring Danny in an unmarked grave under one of the trees in the forest.

The series ends on the implications that closure is important and that sometimes the things you do to protect someone can do more harm than good.

Dash’s character ends the series with his last update where he talks about going to a city near by and checking himself into medical facility for his own well being.

To say that Mr. Lancer was impressed is an understatement.

[audliminal]

It's Just a Game, Right? Pt 11

Masterpost

Patrol that night is relatively boring; Tim stops a handful of petty criminals and makes some progress on a couple of his cases, but none of the work is particularly hard and despite his earlier exhaustion, Tim finds himself wide awake the second his head hits the pillow.

It's annoying, but also unsurprising, and after a few minutes of laying in the dark, he sits back up with a grumble. He turns the light on and walks the few steps over to his desk, and the notes that he'd left there before patrol, and he stares at the names of the... people? They're not exactly victims, so to speak. Unless this arg is trying to imply that their causes of death are a cover-up.

If that were true, it'd be something well worth looking into, but the whole point of this game is that it's supposed to be fictional. Of course, there's always the possibility that this whole thing is some fucked up rogue plot. It doesn't necessarily fit with any of the known players' usual MOs, but if the Riddler were working with someone...

Of course, the two deaths in Gotham were before any of the current rogues really started operating, so the probability of them being killed for the sake of this fucked up game is low. The possibility of a serial killer is also still there; someone who might have orchestrated these deaths and was never caught, now taunting the world and wanting credit for their crimes.

Probably, he should seek someone else's opinion. But Bernard doesn't have the training of a vigilante, and frankly, which of the Bats could he take this to? He has no concrete evidence, just a weird collection of facts and a horrible gut feeling. Nobody had been interested in humoring him after Bruce disappeared, so why would they think any different now?

He knows it's not their fault, really. Tim knows he's prone to making logical jumps that other people can't follow. But it sucks, seeing details and patterns, things that are definitely concerning, and not knowing how to explain it to anyone. And he'll, he could be wrong. One doesn't become a vigilante without gaining serious trauma, and everyone knows that the Bats are some of the worst off in those regards. Gotham rogues are known for their fucked up mind games above all else.

And yet, whoever is creating these videos clearly isn't limiting themselves to just Gotham. That, above all else, makes it unlikely that this is the work of a Gotham rogue. People of Gotham are typically loathe to leave for long, and even when the rogues are sourcing details outside of the city, they still tend to stay close by, and their actual operations almost always remain within the city. It's an odd fact, and it tends to baffle the other heroes, but that makes it no less true.

So, really, the most likely possibility is serial killer, and the wild variance between the two modes of death he already knows, makes that also questionable. And as far as he knows, there's nothing connecting these people, other than the fact they're dead.

Tim catches himself yawning, and glances back towards his bed. Realistically, there's not much he can do about this now, and he does have work in the morning, so he really ought to make a good effort to get good sleep. Besides, he's pretty sure he's read that even just closing your eyes can help, so he forces himself away from the puzzling mess, and drops back into bed, and waits for sleep to finally come.

[fridayyy-13th]

gonna be honest, feeling very conflicted about this episode, lads. i've been really hoping Protocol won't explain away the (NARRATIVELY IMPORTANT) mystery left at the end of Archives, i.e. Jon and Martin's fate, so seeing as they're the next thing Sam and Celia are gonna be investigating, this is kinda gonna be the thing that makes or breaks Protocol, for me.

i do think there's a solid chance Chester and Norris are the Jon and Martin from Protocol's universe, and that is something i absolutely would not mind. but i haven't actually made a post explaining why i think that, and i should probably do that before it's explained, just so i can mayyyybe say i called it.

(for the record, i'm pretty sure i came up with most of this before the series even officially dropped, when all we had was the ARG and the trailer. i haven't done much to connect this theory to the further information we've learned, so it's probably not fully accurate (if accurate at all). and quite a bit of it is kinda baseless conjecture; i'm just throwing my thoughts out there. just a little disclaimer.)

so!

in Archives, Jonah's primary motivation is fear of death. turning to the Eye is what allows him to body-hop as he does for 200 years, trying to create a world where his Patron reigns supreme, where he is seated upon its throne and cannot die. assuming his motivation is the same in Protocol, this new universe is (likely until recently) untouched by the Entities. if Jonah wanted to evade death, how could he do that without the help of an eldritch fear god?

easy—alchemy.

i'm not particularly knowledgeable about the subject as a whole, but i'm certainly familiar with the Philosopher's Stone (the symbol of which is also present in the OIAR's/podcast's logo, though it seems the OIAR is more focused on balance than on experimentation).

i also know that the seven metals used in alchemy (gold, silver, mercury, copper, lead, iron, and tin) are all components of computer chips. i've been thinking Jonah, or maybe his successors, saw that and began turning their research to how it could be utilized to extend—or preserve—life.

to cut to the chase, bc frankly it's hard trying to sound like i know what i'm talking about and this post would take forever to write otherwise, i think Jonah tried to Sergei Ushanka himself into a computer, because metal and plastic are a hell of a lot longer-lasting than a human being.

but he wouldn't shove his consciousness into some random motherboard without making sure it was safe, what do you take him for?? he is a man of academia. obviously he had to test it on others first, and then he'd do it himself.

cue the thought experiments the Institute ran on kids. the things the experiments quantify are empathy and obedience to authority, which to me screams that they were trying to find kids who were easy to manipulate into more dangerous experiments.

and who are two characters who were kids in the 90s, with circumstances that left them lonely, isolated, and who, even as adults, are desperate to please (whether a parent or a bad boss)? Jon and Martin.

i posit that Jon and Martin were both victims of these experiments, perhaps the first (and only) successful subjects, and Jonah uploaded his consciousness to the computer soon after. their records could have been stricken from the spreadsheet to hide that they'd even been part of the program, and given the Institute burned down soon after, and there were no survivors—it could have been assumed that they'd died in the fire. it isn't like they had the most doting guardians to worry over them.

...but Chester and Norris's voices are those of adult Jon and Martin.

best i can figure, Jonah's plan might have worked in the short term, but computers have had date/time hardware in them since the 80s, so they—and Augustus—are still aging. so they've been trapped in computer software since 1999, and now that Sam and Celia are digging into what happened, they're desperate to catch their attention and find a way out.

(and lastly, a fun little thought—given Jon and Martin were both born circa 1987, they would have been twelve in 1999. they didn't even get to be teenagers.)

[inkydiamonds]

Hey I've realized that there's a lot of really cool Whitepine/Ivorycello theorists here on Tumblr who might not be active in the lore channel in her discord! So hello! This is a call to pool resources/ideas, perhaps we can reach out to each other and chat!!

From the discord I bring this insane doc, which you absolutely do not have to read through, but it contains a LOT which could be very relevant: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pMcjA1FQqsyaQDJsdH0b9QmGPOC_EUVh4giFsZ1CJTQ/edit?usp=drivesdk

Included, we have:

- ARG answers, including links to unlisted videos!

- Transcripts of videos and other resources!

- Potential evidence that WP is connected to other Ivorycello videos!

- Mildly deranged timeline rants!

- Remarkably little about the actual murder mystery!

- Thoughts about Mysti, Pyroscythe, and Ivory!

- T R E E S

And more to come! If you're a WP/Ivorycello theorist who has just been vibing here on Tumblr, *please* tell me about your ideas, we need hot takes :D

I'm also probably going to make some posts where I just start talking about some theory (either rehashing stuff that's on the doc or proposing stuff that's not on the doc) so feel free to add your ideas there too

[ultimate-marysue]

Magnus Protocol ARG

Im not sure if someone else has already done this (most likely) but I've been re-readin the magnus institute excell with all the kids names. Since the tests where psychological in nature I thought maybe I could figure out if the "Connor" Dyer profile worked for Alice. But I think I've found out something about Sam. This might be the most tin foil hat theory I've had in a while but it makes sense! I've connected the dots!!!!!

There's a couple of things I need to stablish first:

The names seem to be ranked from lowest to highest score on the empathy test.

Sam scored the highest, Gerry the second highest (Dyer is closer to the middle of the list).

The tests seem to relate to cognitive development, especially related to morality and empathy.

The Asch test measures your "conformity" aka, how susceptible you are to peer pressure. Basically, they ask you a question, everyone before you gives the wrong answer, and the test is whether you would give the correct answer or go with what the others said.

The Milgram test measures your obedience when in conflict with your morality. The (very) abridged version is: they tell you tu punish someone by shocking them with increasing voltages and if you refuse they ask you to continue. The experiment goes on until reaching 450 volts or if the participant completely refuses even when ordered to continue.

We know the Institute was trying to find Subjects, Agents and Catalysts (there's an amazing post about this from @alice-apparently )

Okay so I made a little excell with the relevant info:

Both Gerry and Dyer show low conformity and obedience levels. Which, knowing Gerry (and maybe Alice??) makes complete sense. We can assume that they both chose to give the correct answer even if everyone else answered differently, and they also refused to administer the punishment even when directly ordered.

Sam on the other hand, mr "would rather die than complain about being forcefed cake" did in fact go with what most people said instead of the correct answer. He also finished the Milgram experiment, going against his moral compass to obey the instructions.

I think they were trying to find viable subjects to groom into avatars for the eye. Hear me out. The kids with the lowest empathy score show high scores in the Milgram test (makes sense, they don't care as much about hurting people) but from 80% empathy forward no one scores high. No one except Sam, the one with the highest empathy score.

Why not just pick the one's with the least empathy? the least empathetic kids were also the youngest and the ones with lowest cognitive developement (I do not go in deph about the other test but you can see the scores for yourself here). This kids aren't useful yet, because maybe they'll become more empathetic (And as such, more resistent to the Milgram test) as they grow up/develop.

Not Sam. He has perfect scores in every single development test, he has the highest empathy and yet he's the most likely to be influenced to harm other people.

In episode 10 Sam confirms his obsession with finding out why they didn't chose him despite having the highest scores. Gerry was the second highest and he didn't get picked either. My theory is that Sam was indeed chosen, and the fact that he shows no survival instincts when it comes to figuring this mystery out is prove.

His test results show someone whiling to file useless papeworks with extremely personal information because "well, you're supposed to even if no one reads it". Also Teddy leaving for a job that somehow didn't actually exist smells like somebody trying to free a spot in the very Eye-coded OIAR. A spot that Sam is more than happy to accept.

I don't know if this is an incredibly long con to condition Sam into the perfect vessel for the eye or if the Magnus Institute had to change plans after burning down. If it's the latter I can see them being very happy when their specialest little boy signed up for the OIAR and fell right into their laps again. Either way, Sam's fucked.

[xonaisu]

r/ARG 4 days ago [deleted]

weird posters in seoul… arg possibly?

was visiting my sister who’s studying aboard for a semester and we decided to take a girl’s day and shop around the city. we found three of these posters on walls and my sister thought it was promotion for a game? kind of creepy if you ask me. does anyone know of a game with a missing girl?

thehonoredone 4 days ago i saw them too?? super weird. hope it’s an arg and not actual missing posters. ⤷ [deleted] OP 4 days ago i don’t think they’re missing posters. the police would have been notified?

prettypearl2003 4 days ago squid game dupe ⤷ wishuhell 4 days ago here we go ⤷ prettypearl2003 4 days ago just asking 🤷‍♀️ looks sick tho ⤷ [deleted] OP 4 days ago squid game just came out i don’t think so :/

cityblues_ 3 days ago maybe it has some connection to this? the theme is very similar to a short film that kind of popped off a while back ⤷ pandalover34 3 days ago it’s that naisu girl again wtf ⤷ cityblues_ 3 days ago you know her? ⤷ pandalover34 2 days ago yea she kind of blew up on twitter a few weeks ago? with the film you linked it was even on letterboxd ⤷ idkttylxox 2 days ago so what even is it?? ⤷ pandalover34 2 days ago i think its promo for a new movie or something idk ⤷ [deleted] OP 2 days ago do you trust the narrators of the stories sung to you? ⤷ cityblues_ 2 days ago ??? wtf ⤷ [deleted] OP 2 days ago do you trust the narrators of the stories sung to you? do you trust the narrators of the stories can sung to you? do you trust the narrators of the stories sung to you? do you trust the narrators of you the stories sung to you? do you the narrators of the stories sung to you? do you trust the narrators of the find stories sung to you? me do you trust the narrators of the stories sung to you? do you trust the narrators of the stories sung to you?

[deleted] OP 2 days ago the fruit is rotten.

[mindsetecho]

I’ve started to watch marble hornets (the arg) and I was wondering if I have to watch all of them and then read the comic books? Or does it not matter? Sorry, just a lil confused lol👁️

It does matter to me but tbh doesn’t really matter if you ask objectively. you can read the comics without having any knowledge about the yt series itself but- I do find it nicer reading the new stuff while having some context. The dots connect faster that way and it all just makes more sense especially if you have been in the fandom and talked w people about the lore etc. (even if you partially only understood the lore through memes… *cough cough* the crowd looks at me.)

But since marble hornets is harder to understand than other slenderverse stuff because of the lack of context and dialogues (which doesn’t make it worse than others it just makes it come off more real and awesomely awesome) I’d say the comics may actually help you understand the yt series better than the series would help you understand the comics. Depends on how you see it tho.

Now! Sorry not sorry for this little rant, hope you enjoyed it!

Happy rotting!!

[ultrakill-confessions]

To the person who gave the list of suggestions of how to build a robot:

In your post, you say that it is possible V1 was built with the style system, or possible that it was added later.

In reality though, the game makes it clear that the style system is neither, and is instead a result of the terminals

From the terminal text at the end of P2:

"The terminals, unable to move, have grown bored. While they are connected to each other and able to communicate amongst themselves, once the connection to the surface was cut, they were getting no new input, therefore stalling all communication to repetitions of already known information.

It is unknown how similar this "boredom" is to actual emotion or what has caused it, but it has lead to a symbiotic relationship with other machines. Essentially, the terminals scavenge whatever they can via their teleportation systems and trade those supplies and resources with the machines that were left behind in Hell, in exchange for entertainment.

That is, the machines record their battles for survival in Hell and the footage is graded based on its entertainment value and used as "points" in exchange for goods and services such as new weaponry."

Beyond that, from the P2 ARG we know hell itself has similar motives:

"Hell is alive. it breathes. it thinks. The entire area is a massive intelligent superorganism, and it is harsh and it is cruel. Just by watching us it has learned how our systems and machines work. it has not only begun to deconstruct our technology but also assemble it in perverse ways, attaching parts to the creatures it tortures, making them into an aimless army of death and destruction. it warps them across itself to get them past our security. it locks our doors to trap us with them.

This is not an attack. This is not a defense. This is entertainment. This is an exhibition of death and cruelty and suffering for its own sake. It had grown tired of what it has and we unwillingly just offered ourselves up as new playthings."

We don't know how or if hell and the terminals are related. It could be a case of similar but I related motives, or they could be related.

But, regardless, style is a result of the terminals, not the machines itself.

The transcripts of the full P2 terminal and P2 ARG ending text can be found here:

https://ultrakill.fandom.com/wiki/Hell_(organism)?so=search

https://ultrakill.fandom.com/wiki/P-2:_WAIT_OF_THE_WORLD#Terminal_Data_02

I am aware that the wiki is something of a questionable source given that it is unmoderated, but at the time of writing the P2 terminal text on the wiki matches the text in game, and the ARG text matches all other sources I could find

-

[tds-rb]

��

uhhh what is happening in the gravity falls fandom?

[macabresymphonies]

Are we dealing with alchemists looking for The Philosopher's Stone?

(I will be referencing partially to the ARG, most importantly to the so called Klaus sheet that has german version on categories the OIAR team is using, and some light spoiler to The Magnus Archives, so beware).

We're four episodes in and cross-referencing each episode so far, there seems to be few things that connect most of them:

an orchestrator

a medium

an obsession

a transformation

Each episode so far mentions some type of third party being involved in the incident: Harriet Winstead mentions a "consultant" that was supposed to help her see Arthur, RedCanary mentions getting harrased by an anonymous stalker, Daria commissions Ink5oul for a tattoo, Dr Samuel Webber mentions seeing his dead wife "Maddie" who stops him from tampering with the transformation (could be a hallucination, but could also be somebody using his delirioum to impersonate her) and today we've got a mention of a "giftgiver" who gave The Violinist the Violin.

Additionally each incident mentions some type of specific medium the characters came into contact with: The Box, The Violin, The Ink (cross referenced in Klaus sheet from the ARG), The Garden (as in plants in the garden). The exception being the Harriet, but we don't know yet what "caused" ressurection of Arthur. This is important, because in TMA items and "mediums" weren't actually all that common, it was very often stressed that relics were medium for the fears to use directly (with people only doing their bidding), not to be handled by others as a medium.

Lastly each episode talks obsession and/or transformation and oh boy, let me tell you about bunch of guys historically obsessed with tranforming stuff through different mediums:

"It's not very suprising, alchemical symbols are everywhere throughout the podcast!" you might say. True, but let's take into consideration, what excactly is a goal of an alchemist? Well the answer is quite simple and there is actually three of them. The Three Goals of Alchemy are:

To turn base metals into noble ones

To discover the recipe for a Philosopher's Stone

To find the Elixir of Life that gives eternal youth and defies death

All of them refer to some type of recipie of method, so where are the recipies? Under our own noses. The recipies are the DPHW catalogue and the database Freddie is sending the incident reports to is an alchemical cookbook! Each entry is categorized something like that:

CAT$$$R&&#### - theme (specification) -/- subtheme [medium]

Some specifications:

$ - are a conbination of numbers 1, 2 and 3. They do not always appear in threes, sometimes it's just 3, sometimes 12 (as in 1 and 2) so forth. These has been widely theorized to be related to the The Tria Prima, a group of three materials which occupy a position of prominence in alchemy: Sulphur(🜍), Mercury(☿) and Salt(🜔) or as they are also characterized Soul, Mind and Body. If we assign each of them a number with 1 being Soul, 2 being Mind and 3 being body, they so far align with the main "components" of each incident or realms they deal in.

R - either appears or not, it was theorized this is a RANK and that previous files were simply misfiled by Sam, but to me it also could be REGIA as in Aqua Regia (🜆) where we are to assume the R was added to the previous element (Aqua (🜄) + Regia (R)). The meaning behind assigning some some incidents the rank of regia has yet to be explained though.

& - these are letters C, BC, B, AB, A and S signifying a rank (or rang in the Klaus sheet) . Lets ignore that S for a second, but they seem to be stages and half stages, well there can't possibly a concept of four stages in alchemy? Let me introduce you to the Magnum Opus (Great Work). Basically each alchemical project went through four stages: nigredo (black), albedo (white), citrinitas (yellow) and rubedo (red) with rubedo specifically signifying a great discovery was made and Magnum Opus was a success, but it does not necessairly mean an alchemical goal was reached.

To summarize, numbers one C-A signify stage of the project, with S, that appears once on mostly redacted cell in the Klaus sheet, signifying that not only the final stage was reached, but the project has been a success.

This could mean a finished Magnum Opus is out there, developed in the field of the Soul and related to the mysterous Mr. B.

# - these numbers are still a mystery, I do have some theories myself, but to summaries I think they are grades and some type of combination (I think it's either 9999, 0000 (as in all 10s) or perhaps 7777 (7 being the most important alchemical number)). Basically a specific combination could imply the specific discovery could be categorized as a Philosopher's Stone. What that could mean for the narrative? We will see, but I suspect it's an alchemical equivalent to an eldritch nuke in this universe.

Last thing to support my theory, the OIAR logo. The lion and the unicorn are obviously symbols for the United Kingdom, as this is a government office, and the words undearneath are "we will not falter" (probably reference to the paranormal incidents they deal with) the rest though?

Alchemical symbols for Salt, Mercucry and Sulphur are right there, all encompassed by an upside-down version of The Philosopher's Stone symbol; The Greatest Magnum Opus:

As to what the Magnum Opus are in TMAGP, each incident has an item associated with it, I noticed that the characters do not get corrupted by people directly this season, but through the use of items like ink, instruments, plants.