unforum

[amrith777]

[Dray]

[redherring]

[Graved]

tl;dr
Puppetmasters, pay more attention to timeline and twitter.

[awakeasaurusrex]

The twitter thing is a good point. Jay did at least used to interact with people, if only slightly, by doing things like the livetweet of the red tower trip. But even then, he never actually uses twitter to talk to people - just to make general announcements.

You have to wonder why he's bothering. If he's not accepting any help from outsiders in the first place, why advertise his movements to Masky and the Slend*? Why not go dark completely and hope that the obscurity will at least help him to hide?

I don't think the series has ever provided good answers to that. The only reason I can think of for Jay to continue posting to Twitter and YT at this point is so that we, the audience, can see what happens to him - and again, if the only motivation you can scratch together for a character's actions is "because the audience needs to see them do it", that's a pretty clear failure of characterisation.

* Sudden mad thought:
"What are we going to do tonight, Slend?"
"The same thing we do every night, Masky - stand around and stare at Jay!"
They're Masky, they're Masky and the Slend, Slend, Slend, Slend, Slend...

[Dray]

It'd be interesting, if Jessica was revealed to be more thoroughly implicated, if he were using them to keep in contact with her (or with Alex, for example) and that we are by proxy getting that info, too.

Who knows, maybe they have some reason for posting everything that we're just not seeing yet, beyond the creators "WE ARE TELLING YOU GUYS A STORY, SETTLE DOWN!"

The red tower tweetfest was pretty cool. I have always figured that Jay doesn't communicate directly with the audience with the audience much anymore due to the ramped up levels of paranoia and his fear for his life, and his inability to trust himself, let alone place his trust in others. Still, it would be interesting if something along the same vein were put into use some time this season

[redherring]

[awakeasaurusrex]

[Dray]

These are all really good points; the only thing that I have to add is that, if you're watching MH all the way through from the beginning, you lose that problem. So in a sense, if they're able to finish the series the way they want to, they'll have a good final product that newbies can watch and become excited about.

It's only that, along the way, we are having issues with their in-game time management, and their reasons for posting.

It could just be that these considerations were made, and that the guys creating the work have decided that keeping the audience abreast with things as they happen is secondary to having a finished piece that looks good. Extra content to keep us satisfied about the time between posts could wind up looking cluttered after all is said and done. Leaving it out hurts the audience's immersion while we are going through updates as they happen, but doesn't hurt the immersion of newbies who are watching and reading things that have already happened.

That said, there is a median that I think could be reached. It doesn't involve extra content so much as incorporating quick nods here and there (and they have done this from time to time; in fact, they seem to be going about it more regularly this season! The waiting had been less of an agony for the most part!) -- quick nods to note that time has really passed in game the same way that it has here. Quick nods, like Jay muttering to himself, or getting sassy on twitter... he's showing more characterization, but if those could be hinting towards his motivation, like you were saying, Awakeasaurus, yeah, I think they could appease everyone.

Maybe that's going to come out as a reveal later on all at once... or maybe the guys writing it have decided beforehand that they are more interested in making the final product more cohesive and coherent than in acknowledging the gaps of time between entries at all!

Jay did mention, in #26 I think, that he appreciated the support that he got from everyone, which was a very gratifying moment. We may be simply waiting for something like that to occur again.

For the hell of it, what kinds of things would you like to see if Jay were to show some more interactive tendencies, or motives? Personally, I don't think that it would need to be much. The tone of the series would probably be altered a lot if he suddenly became personable... but I think that characterizing him a little has helped a lot (especially because most of what he says are such quiet asides that people have to be listening for them!)

I think that it would be interesting to see some indication of how he's come to terms with the fact that his accounts seem to have been hackable; what prompts him to think that a simple password change will be enough? Why has he continued to use the same ones (IG, obviously; switching accounts would be very confusing OOG, probably too difficult to keep up!) and what prompts him to continue using them despite considerable danger to himself? I can imagine he's tried going quiet before (after... 23, I think? He lurked for a long freakin' time!) Is he posting to show that he is doing something, to keep Masky or even the Operator away? I'm highly skeptical that he'd simply be posting these videos for our benefit, IG... while it seems like he acknowledges our existence and was grateful for support, is he really relying that heavily on us to want to compromise his safety? (Posting that he and Jessica were leaving, on hindsight, seems like a silly thing to do; 'I'm uploading this just in case something happens to me'... okay... in that case, what? So that you have an online memorial? We as watchers obviously are incapable of actually doing anything...)

Anyways, tl;dr: Yeah, what Awakeasaurusrex said, but with considerations for the final product as a whole, and my own questions and confusions about Jay's MO and weird anti-social-but-broadcasting-to-everyone dichotomy. O_o I mean, seriously.

[BranRainey]

Yeah, I really like the little asides from J and the small jokes he's made on Twitter this season. If there's one thing I think Tribe Twelve has done monumentally better than everyone else, it's the Twitter updates. J always seems to disappear for such long stretches of time that it gets a bit odd that he even has a Twitter.

[onetruepurple]

Looks like Troy's been reading the last few posts!

[amrith777]

[Dray]

Ba ha haha, nice. Didn't think that would happen so quickly.

Not thinking that we're going to get anything today; he'd probably have had a caveat with that last non-reply tweet if he had anything worth sharing!

[theonewhoquestions]

[Dray]

Has there been any evidence of attacks on anyone while in their cars in MH, yet? O_o I'm wondering why Jay films himself while on the road so much, given we don't see him ever really being attacked!