[syntacticAtrocity]

I told you so.

Quote:

From: maury.kelvinSPLATgmail.com Subject: Date: May 15, 2009 6:12:58 PM MDT (CA) To: **** Greetings, My name is Ron D. and I just can't do this anymore. I first am going to let you know what this has been, how it went wrong, and to apologize for having involved you in something that I had no business involving you in. I am a freelance web designer and tech-dude and I spent a year or so contracting for a writer named Brian Bricker to keep up his website. He did mostly emergency medical stuff (as you know) and freelanced on the side doing ghost-writing, copywriting, radio comedy, that kind of thing. About a year or so ago I was doing work on this guy's laptop - video card died on a Dell, go figure - and after fixing it I was just putzing around looking at his files. I see one on the desktop called TGATT. So out of curiosity I opened it and got caught up reading it. It was just a rough draft, the novel that you are now very familiar with. I thought it was really, really good and when I gave the laptop back to Brian I told him that it was a great novel. To say that he got angry at me was an understatement. He apparently had no intention of having anyone read that novel, at least not in its rough form. He told me that he had absolutely no interest in me working for him anymore and told me to leave. So I sent him my final bill and he refused to pay it, which at first I kind of got because he was mad and I was embarrassed over violating his trust by reading the book. So I let it die for a few months and kind of forgot about it. Then I lost my day job and things started getting tight and I remembered that he still owed me $500 so I sent another bill which he ignored. My wife then reminded me that we were still storing a couple of boxes for him in our garage - from when he moved back from Oklahoma and we were on MUCH better terms. The boxes were filled with just old momentos from his childhood and some stuff from his mom after she died, you know yearbooks, letters, pictures, that kind of thing. So I decided to tell him that if he wanted them back he'd have to pay the $500. Please don't think me an asshole, I was having a real hard time making my mortgage by this time. He didn't even respond to me. So I stewed for a few months and just got madder and madder about it. Like most tech geeks, I find myself all over the internet and had been intrigued by ARG-related stuff for a long time. I played Jamie Kane and a few others that didn't really require group participation. I found the unForums through the ARGN and lurked a lot there just out of boredom and fascination. Back in January I still didn't have a job and Brian was still not responding to me and I thought that I'd get him back by making an ARG using his novel, since I had copied it when I originally read it (!), and just kind of start fucking with him that way. I started to set the back story by adding several components of the novel into wikipedia and created a couple of blogs and e-mail accounts. I then got a contract job and was up to my ass in work until the end of March. During that time I would occasionally translate some of the book into Port's blog, usually doing several entries at a time and just changing the dates. At the beginning of April I was just really bored and came up with the idea to create Kelvinator on unForums, make a puzzling little back-story and then just put that first post on there. I honestly didn't know where I was going with it, I just wanted to amuse myself and ultimately find a way to post Bricker's book on the web to ruin it for him, you know? And with perhaps kind of an unconscious desire to get his identity out there in hopes that people would start bugging him thinking he was part of a game. I sort of figured that the post would be ignored because it was bizarre and essentially against the rules. I think that's why alot of people did ignore it. But it seemed to get a little interest just because it was unusual. So my boredom and ego got the best of me and I kept reacting to the unForum interest by moving and growing the story and list of characters. (I even have a big spreadhseet hanging on my wall of all the characters and timelines and everything because I started confusing myself.) I discovered that Brian hadn't done anything with his website since I stopped working with him and that I still had all of the passwords, so I thought that would be a great resource for the game too. And as a cherry on top I ran across that thumb drive that Brian had with his laptop, it was buried on my desk. Between those things and the stuff in my garage of his, I was really excited to put them into the game. So through April and into May I just kept reacting and building, reacting and building, trying the whole time to drop hints that would lead to Bricker. I based so much on Bricker's book, copying blogs, e-mails and chat 'monologues' from it. By the time that I realized that (a) this had totally gotten out of control, and (b) you guys not only found Bricker, but his family and history and everything, I felt like I had some sort of obligation to conclude it in a way that was satisfactory to you guys (ego) and I was starting to feel bad about what I was doing to Brian. But each step just drew me deeper and I had to try and keep things afloat and the trail just kept leading to Brian. I wasn't sure what to do about it. The address in Santa Rosa that I gave to Classical was where Brian used to live when I was working for him and I knew the current people living there so I told them to just give me whatever arrived addressed to Brian. Obviously that didn't happen, I didn't anticipate the whole forwarding order expiration thing. So I inadvertantly gave you direct contact to Brian - which you verified. On one hand I tried to use stupid reverse psychology to keep you from contacting him, but I couldn't bear to "pull open the curtain" when it looked like you were going to actually do it. I'm so stupid and I apologize. This all started as a revenge thing, but became so much more. I found that I felt I had an obligation to those "playing" it and as time went on I really started regretting what I was doing to Brian -- whether he owed me money or not. So that's the really shitty part. I just got a check from him for $600 -- along with a note that he was over being pissed at me and was sorry for delaying payment, which is why he included the extra hundred. So now here's the pickle I've gotten myself in. You guys are all fed up with my pointless story (I'm not much of a writer, obviously), I've ran it into so many walls, and now just as Brian makes good on everything that pissed me off to begin with, he's about to get that ticket in the mail and find all of this shit out. You see my problem? Imagine being the real Brian Bricker and reading all 50 pages of that unForum thread for the first time? I really fucked this all up. God, I'm sorry. -Ron

[windup angel]

Quote:

but remember that he is real

What is REAL? Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?

[3v1L Schwinn]

E-|||||||||||||-F

UH Oh! it looks like the interest meter is becoming dangerously low.

[xomunkixo]

JJDeMolay: Don't worry. When all is said and done, when the storm has passed, you'll be safe. You'll belong to us.

Aww.

[classical]

Welp, this is interesting:

Quote:

From: me Subject: Re: Oh Lord, My God, is there no help for the widow's son? I suppose I would feel more at ease if I knew what I was doing, but hey--at least someone's cheering for our side...

Quote:

From: Val Seer <wewatch> Subject: Re: Oh Lord, My God, is there no help for the widow's son? if we told you what to do Rage would simply take the writer out of circulation; promoting your ignorance is our best course of action at this point; go back to the beginning and assemble the pieces; they are all there; and the writer must trust you but remember that he is real

Pffft. Of course they can't tell me what to do.
I dunno, I think we missed something big, somewhere. Probably got lost in all the meta. I vaguely hope that the letter doesn't get there today so I can have time to 'assemble the pieces', meh... where's that flowchart?

[Wulf74]

windup angel wrote:

TINAG

touche'

[xomunkixo]

So I guess I missed out on seeing what info they have on me. I wonder who has our info now?

Quote:

We apologize.  Your personal information is currently in transit and no longer available for review

Also, maybe we've been think about game jack in the wrong sense? Perhaps the game jack wasn't an oog jack. But an IG jack. For instance if perhaps an IG character was pretending to be another in game character, like classi said. We're in essence playing a game in a game. Or at least from what the hazels said, we are. Maybe the invisible man's game got jacked by other I game characters.

Does anyone understand what I'm trying to say? Hahaha.

[classical]

Wulf74 wrote:

The package Port sent me was part of the game jack?!? Or, the Hazeltine blog is part of the gamejack. Or neither, or both? Or a combination thereof?!?!?

As I read it: Port may have written the blogs, but he might not have written the emails. In fact, the newest post at the blog seems to confirm this idea--part of Port was being played by 'the visible man', who I am still not certain if he is also Lenny/Rage or not. Who sent you the book, and then also sent me the ticket. Still convinced those handwritings are the same. I think. Maybe. Fuck. D:

also: Val Seer emailed me

Quote:

it's going to be up to you; be smart; all is not lost yet

... SO HAY NO PRESSURE AMIRITE?

[windup angel]

TINAG

[Wulf74]

Did I read that right? A response to my question on the Hazeltine blog..

Quote:

We seriously doubt if Port sent you anything. The thing that makes the visible man so dangerous in all of this is that he knows that he's fictional AND that he's not. King, who is still being held near DC, is just the guy from TGATT. Nothing less and nothing more. We would be highly suspicious of any interaction with Port outside of his blog. We have all been played. There has been enough energy and bloodshed to make him real and now he believes himself the winner. Your next move is yours to make.

The package Port sent me was part of the game jack?!? Or, the Hazeltine blog is part of the gamejack. Or neither, or both? Or a combination thereof?!?!?

Screw the analgesic, pass the Valium.

[windup angel]

OK, I'll bite - aware in advance that nobody will agree with me.

The writer is the portal.
The ticket is the key.
If Rage is there when Bricker gets the ticket, he can unlock the door and pull The One through.

Or something like that.

edit - For those playing along at home, oraclewatch.org is now locked up, DIANA MADDEN doesn't work to get entry anymore (unless I am doing something drastically wrong.) Probably doesn't matter anyway as the Hazels indicated it is compromised now.

[classical]

Posted just a little while ago:

Quote:

Dawn of Our Sorrow... It was early on a Friday. The nearly visible man appeared before us rubbing his hands together. "I know how we're going to do this, this." he howled. "I've found just the right little pig." As his fingers flew over our keyboard we looked at each other and we saw tears. We didn't know real regret until that moment. As our parents rotted in their bed, eyes of disbelief frozen in time and slowly drying and other bodies stuffed into corners and crawlspaces. And they don't come back. It no longer felt like a game to us.

How... apt.
That 'Friday' is April 3rd, i.e. the day the first Kelvin emails were sent.

If I didn't before feel like the rodent in the maze being observed from above, I do now.

[Grady Martin]

windup angel wrote:

Disagreed. Check out the latest bunch of comments. The Hazels say "we know that Lenny is no longer invisible" - so they are the same person.

except that the bulk of the premise AFAICT is that characters from a fictional work-in-progress are becoming or have become manifest IRL - so there may be multiple invisibles past or present as the characters become incarnate

seer is slightly synonymous with oracle

i like the flowchart idea - circles and arrows always help - and i'm always down for industrial strength analgesics - i like you windup angel - you have good ideas

[windup angel]

Disagreed. Check out the latest bunch of comments. The Hazels say "we know that Lenny is no longer invisible" - so they are the same person.

[DarkWings]

hazels