4chan Q&A
This Q&A was held by Alex Hall on September 20, 2010 on 4chan's /x/ board. It took place shortly after the first pause of the ARG was announced, just after the Third Cycle of the Moon Children Arc.
The archive for the Q&A was located here, but is no longer available. Efforts for recovery are being made.
Due to the nature of some content linked in this interview, reader discretion is advised. Content linked may not be suitable for children. All images in this article were posted in the original thread.
The Q&A
Jadusable:Hey guys, you probably already heard the news, again I'm sorry it had to end
like this, I hate the feeling that I'm letting down a lot of people that have devoted so much time into this; I just couldn't keep up with it all.
I dont have class for an hour or so and figured there would be a lot of unanswered questions, so feel free to speak your mind/hate me/call me a troll/ask a question
Ryukaki: What was the use of the username/password I got from Rosa?
Jadusable: That would unlock The Truth section of the website when the time reset and the site came back up.
Anon 5711159: How were we supposed to save Chris?
Jadusable: There was no way to reach Chris, like the Skull Kid hitting Tael, no matter what Tatl said or did it happened every time, you would simply have to watch him Ascend every time reset.
Anon 5711159: That's horrible, yet realistic, to hear. I was really hoping we could save their lives, even though they were obviously fictional. Now, my other question. On the site there was a picture of Kelbris on the drowned page. Before that was even revealed, someone started a creepy pic thread with that same image. Did you start that thread, was that a preexisting image, etc?
Jadusable: Strangely it resembled what kind of image I wanted for Kelbris, well, what I wanted you guys to view Kelbris as. So yeah I decided to use it
Anon 5711160: Personally, I think you're awesome.
Well done. :3
Jadusable: Thank you - it means a lot man. I had a lot of fun doing this, it was very consuming, but in the end I'm glad I could provide entertainment to you guys.
Anon 5711161: Why did you fuck up /x/ to the point where the entire front page were all BEN!!11!!1?
Why did you write another damn videogame creepypasta when you obviously have the skills and devotion to make something original and cool?
Jadusable: Was never my intention to do that, I can totally understand how the "vets" of /x/ probably loathe my guts for hijacking their board for two weeks.
I was new at writing creepypasta, had no idea videogame thing was a cliche.
NickSayre: What was the main plan going to be. Let's say were were smart (ish), and actually did the right things. What would have happened?
Jadusable: Mirrored Majora's Mask, the next step was to play the Song of Healing, but for "Link/Alex", giving you the Fierce Deity mask. I tried hinting at it in the contact/alex page and implying that you could trust him because he was the lone wolf. The story was flexible enough so you could fuck up, lose main characters (like Rosa), but still manage to beat it. It was flexible, nothing was stagnant.
Anon 5711166: What is your opinion on the popularity the videos gathered?
Jadusable: Depends. A lot of them are smart people and I'm impressed with the theories they've come up with, but there's a small percentage of the fanbase that represent everything I hate about the internet.
Anon 5711169: So what caused the whole Kelbris front page freakout last night? Was it The Song of Healing or the New Wave Bossa Nova?
Jadusable: Song of Healing. Playing the Song of Healing to Jadusable/BEN always fucked shit up.
Jadusable: Oh, and about the plot and stuff - I'm going to pick it up later, I'd rather not spoil everything here.
Anon 5711173: You had more videos, didn't you? Children.wmv and MATT.wmv?
Did you plan to release those yourself eventually, or only after we triggered something in the story?
Jadusable: Yes I have children.wmv, and the first part of matt.wmv (jadusable.wmv was the second part of matt.wmv, just renamed and spliced by BEN)
Anon 5711175: I have one: How long did you think the ARG was going to last? Link obviously didn't beat all 4 dungeons in 3 days.
Jadusable: Probably until next weekend, I surmised that you'd be able to complete it in 4 resets, one for each "giant".
Ryukaki: Will you promise to return my e-mail? :D
Jadusable: Haven't checked my email yet, but yes. Probably later tonight though.
Anon 5711198: we all spent a lot of time on this, and you don't owe us anything obviously but give us a little closure on the story! also, give a link for donations? I got at least 5 bucks w/your name on it, but for the entertainment I got i'd say it's worth way more then I've got to give :P
Jadusable: Haha much appreciated, but really, if you're honestly serious toss me an email at jadusable@youshouldnthavedonethat.net but I don't want you to feel oblidgated in any way, I'm just glad people have been entertained by this - reward enough.
Anon 5711205: Jad, we got a bunch of people in here that would like to talk to you. If you could please join us when you're ready, that would be awesome tinychat link
Jadusable: Dear god, I'd get swarmed with text, haha. Can you guyss come here?
Anon 5711210: How much control of the story did we have? Like, if for example, another vid was posted beating Dark Link, would the hunt stop?
If we used certain items (like the fairy) and posted those in response, would something happen? (Like going to OOT and getting light arrows to help defend the hunt), etc.
Jadusable: You wouldnt be able to beat Dark Link just by posting a video, at least not yet in the story. Playing songs, using items (like fairy or a poe), going to certain places (like talking to navi at Link's house), would be valid actions though.
Anon 5711220: Who was Matt? It's what Ifrits email said, but the site said he was Rodney.
Ballpark figure of when you can start the game again?
Jadusable: Matt was Ifrit. Rodney was a fake name on the website to cover his own ass.
And no idea on when it might be, but I'll make sure you guys know.
Anon 5711222: Did you actually plan to incorporate the VTM Rosa and Prototype Consume kills videos or did that just kind of happen? If yes, what was the point of the Prototype one, because besides "Consume! Consume everything!" nobody managed to find any connection.
Jadusable: I sort of planned my story loosely around what Rosa said, I had those videos uploaded a year prior for some reason and decided that it would be pretty insane to use them and have her predict the future. Prototype was mainly used for keywords, with kind of a vague metaphor for how BEN operated.
Anon 5711215: Dude, you're fucking slow to answer.
Now that I mention that...
How did you choose who to answer when you gave the email adress? What did we have to ask?
Jadusable: I answered people who sounded "normal", people who were genuinely good at typing and sounding innocent enough. But with the sheer amount of emails I got it was hard to answer every single one that fit that category.
Anon 5711: What is the main goal of the story? What did we have to do?
Jadusable: Stop BEN, essentially. Kind of hard to explain
J4C3: the story was great my friend, bravo. I rather quite enjoyed it. I wouldn't mind being a member on your team when you do create the next creepypasta/ARG.
Jadusable: I may take you up on that, all I know is that I definitely need a team next time around.
Anon 5711242: Jadusable, would you mind clarifying whether or not it is true your name is Judas/Abel in scrambled letters?
Jadusable: Good eye.
Anon 5711314: I'm pretty sure they were trolling but did you really change some of the tags in the videos to Dead Brot, The grifter, who was phone etc. because somone was sure that you did, if you did though, why?
Jadusable: No, I never did that. Wouldnt even make sense.
Anon 5711245: Would you have ended this with a "happy" ending? Or one that would leave us thinking, or anything in between?
Jadusable: I had two endings in mind, I wanted to give you guys a sense of accomplishment for beating the ARG if you did, but given the nature of the content it wouldn't just be a "straight win".
the guy who fucks things up!: Do you share your address with other people trying to help you for your next projects?
Jadusable: If I start recruiting for a team to do an ARG with, I'll come to /x/, right now I'm not really concerned with it, just looking for some time off. It's taxing work haha.
Anon 5711266: really good arg, but totally though it was going to turn out to be a new real nintendo game :3 like ZeldaBlack,BEN edition or something silly.
If you ever got the chance, do you think you'd like to go into game design and make a game creation as complex but involving as this ARG? (: it'd be such an awesome game~
Jadusable: If i would, I would do it in a heartbeat. I've always wanted to create a game moreso than a movie because you have an actual connection with the game, you're interacting in it and you feel apart of it. I would do an Eternal Darkness style horror where its more psychological than just "jumpscare jumpscare jumpscare" which seems to be too common these days.
nKoshi: What were the most important things you've learned? Since you mentioned you learned a good amount of things for the future.
Jadusable: How to cover your bases with frauds, honestly this really started annoying me, because I didn't want to break character and say "durr hur I dont have a twitter", but he was leading everyone astray and it was annoying. This kind of stuff happened a lot.
Also, I realized how much work these things do take, and a lot about writing horror / filming horror in general, like pacing, setting the atmosphere, etc.
Learned a lot about what people thought was scary too, just by the reactions on the different majora's mask videos. I tried to do different things with each one (Jadusable.wmv had no jump scares, all atmosphere and creepy elegy following you around).
Anon 5711283: Is that really you in the tinychat channel?
Jadusable: No. Its not. Not in any chat.
Anon 5711303: Jadusable! An odd request, and one that's not truly relevant to the story, but I was wondering
if we could get a peek at the face of the man who revived /x/ from the depths of succubi summoning, who was phone, and ded bort.
ALSO, did you, a friend, or someone else create this picture? I love it, and if it's part of a set, or something, I'd love a link!!!!
Jadusable: Yeah I'll grab a picture, hang on. Pic related, its me. And i found [the inkblot] off google surprisingly
wariatka: Hey, just wanted to tell you that for the last week or so my thoughts were on /x/ when I was at my job, outta my flat, anywhere far from the web.
You gave me nearly sleepless nights, but most of all, you awoke emotions in me. Anticipation and excitement are something very rare for me, recently I've had lots of it.
Thank you. You're a one man army of pure, liquid internet genius.
Hats down.
Regards and best wishes from Poland.
Jadusable: God, thank you. I really love reading comments like that. Thank you to everyone, I can't individually say it to you - it's hard enough typing all these responses as it is, but yeah.
Anon 5711346: What's your real name? Also, did you shamelessly tip off sites like kotaku or was it someone else?
Jadusable: Haha, dont know how comfortable i feel about posting my real name, but no I didn't tip off any sites actually, like I said, never expected this to get so big.
Anon 5711351: What role did "The Father" have?
Jadusable: Happy Mask Salesman
A: Can you put up a donate link? I'd be more than willing to help out when i get paid next, even if it just goes towards your college instead of the story, you earned it bro and i personally would not mind one bit.
Jadusable: I'll get a donate link up on the website probably later today, I just don't want to come across as a pompous douchebag.
Anon 5711370: Why did you post that video so close to stopping the ARG, was it an impulse decision or? (Note: this is referring to huntyoudown.wmv)
Jadusable: After posting that, I kind of realized what path I had set this down on and there wasn't really any way of backing out without making it seem like a cheap cop-out. It kind of made me realize that there was no way I could reasonably spread myself far enough to finish this.
Jadusable: Everyone posting their email: Just so you know I am saving them and your details, dont think I'm ignoring you guys.
Anon 5711387: So if Song of Healing brought out Kelbris, what did New Wave Bossa Nova do?
Jadusable: Made Rosa speak to you guys
Anon 5711402: Jad can we have links to download all the music you used on your site? Or could you put them on it somewhere to download? I loved them all especially the Lost In My Thoughts one. They really got me into it and have to have been one of my favorite parts.
Also I know you have probably a million emails and a million people who would want to help with something like this, but I'd love working on a ARG as well. sormo8i3@hotmail.com, I emailed you one of the pastebins we were using to keep up with things.
Jadusable: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j911HD2OiE
I'm sure if you ask him he could give you an mp3, I dont personally know him
Anon 5711393: You sort of forgot about the old man at the start of the story, who he was and his importance. Obviously he's the happy mask salesman, but why? the story only took place on the web, was/is the story gonna come back to that?
Jadusable: He was going to come back into the story, sort of foreshadowed it with the protagonist mentioning he saw him and then the next entry he said he ran.
Anon 5711458: was f3tusrape a part of the story at all?
Jadusable: No he was not.
Anon 5711452: Did you ever post as anonymous? Giving us hints and what not?
Jadusable: Hah, only like twice and the hints were for nothing monumental. You guys figurd it out pretty quick.
Anon 5711404: Was thetruth.txt becoming thetruth.rtf a genuine fuckup due to poor preplanning with that last character or was there another reason?
Jadusable: Was originally planning to hide text in there, plus .rtfs just looked nicer.
Anon 5711414: I have one: What the fuck is that The Genies song that u posted? I REALLY not get that. and, again, you're a genious, really.
Jadusable: Just a hint about the knocking, thats all
Anon 5711426: What would have happened if a vid were posted of Link playing the Song of Healing backwards? Anything?
Jadusable: You couldn't play the song of healing backwards in the game, so no.
Anon 5711438: Theoretically, what if someone had uploaded the moon finally crashing? Would that have fucked things up?
Jadusable: You only controlled Link, with the exception of playing songs to BEN, so no, not really.
Anon 5711486: Were there any cameos in it, such as rl friends names that you used just to pay homage, or any general easter eggs in the story you care to share?
Jadusable: My real life name is Alex - sort of a play on the fact that Link was named "Alex" and was the "link" to you guys and the story. Lame, I know.
Funny though, I showed my friend, who's name is also Ben, the story I had been writing (it was right after TheTruth.rtf came out), and I totally didnt make the connection - didnt really pay it any mind - until he said "did you name the character after me?", we had a good laugh about it after.
Anon 5711491: Jad, you are confirmed for Bro tier.
Really, I'm proud of you for doing this. And was it you in that thread with the gary coleman picture before?
You're a classy motherfucker, and thank you for coming up with all this.
Jadusable: Yeah , that was me hah.
Anon 5711505: Had Elegy of Emptiness been the first and most posted video, how would you have gone with that?
Jadusable: Huh, what do you mean?
Anon 5711505: As in, had we done the stupidest thing, and posted the Elegy of Emptiness, how would you have gone with that creative/story wise?
Jadusable: Turned Link into an elegy probably. To be honest I didnt expect anyone to do that, if they did they'd be trolling and I'd ignore it.
Anon 5711303: Jadusable, guy who asked for your pic here. I have one other question. I haven't been analyzing the story as much lately, I started getting confused when YSHDT was introduced, but tell me. Is Kelbris supposed to be a boss, one of the four giants, or something else entirely?
Jadusable: One of the four giants
Anon 5711539: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm1FnpHUJCQ
have people seen this alternative account video? not a troll btw
Jadusable: wat
Anon 5711543: I've only read the first story and visited the "Moon Children" website a couple of times but I absolutely loved all the effort you put into this. Especially the videos. I'm not sure if I can think the same of my favorite game as a child the same again. So even if I wasn't involved in the story much, I can still appreciate the hard work you put into this. Did you mod the zelda game or what for the videos? it was rather impressive.
Jadusable: Everything I did was through gameshark cheats and sneaky video editing. No modding involved, unfortuantely, which is a shame, because if I could mod, I would so release the ROM to you guys in a sort of "now you have to save BEN/the protagonist" twist.
Anon 5711545: Would you mind posting all the videos you've made so far?
Jadusable: They're all on youtube, under Jadusable and TheLinkMissing. I'm going to rearrange the website later today (tomorrow) to host them there as a reference.
!DOCTORl4Wg: Just thought I'd pop in and say you have my respect. I disliked the effect this had on /x/, but it was an entertaining story and I appreciate that you've done the right thing here. Kudos!
Jadusable: I'm not a huge fan of the tripfags here on /x/, but you are among the few actual decent tripfriends here. Sorry for cluttering your board again, and sorry for the Cleverbot spam. I knew people would go to Cleverbot, but I didn't realize everyone would be spamming /x/ with their own chat logs (funfact, I emailed the creator of Cleverbot and turns out their traffic had gone up 20% since I mentioned CB).
Ryukaki: In the future: Keep player interaction like with Rosa to about the same degree as you did this time.
When I was speaking with her and got that information from her, I wasn't even thinking. I was shaking and worried and filled with fear and hope and resolve and just acting on impulse, which is why I spammed caps and made so many typos. It was so incredibly immersing, but if you do it too much, people will abuse it.
God that was the most terrifying few minutes of the last few years.
Jadusable: Oh that was YOU, huh? Haha oh wow. Well good, that's what I was going for!
Ryukaki: Yeah, I was involved in both the first and second contacts with the gmail address. The first one with "Alex" left me cussing and wishing I'd just acted a few minutes sooner, that I hadn't fucking hesitated, and that made me resolve that I wouldn't lose another one.
Losing Rosa, too, or even just the thought of it really fucking screwed with me, total suspension of disbelief. It was awesome.
Anon 5711553: Any details on how the story evolved? I'm sure there were rewrites here and there yeah? Was the original concept more or less the same, or perhaps completely different?
Jadusable: Not really any rewrites, except for a few. I didn't like the ending of the original TheTruth, so I redid it. All from scratch too =\
Anon 5711605: Why'd you pick Majoras Mask? It could have been anything right? It coulda been any of the games, hell something even completely different like a Mario of Final fantasy game.
Is it just your favourite or did something spurr you on to do it. especially keeping in mind Wii virtual console sales probably rocketed all because of you.
Jadusable: Majoras Mask was one of my favorite games, and there's something just so bittersweet creepy about it that I figured it would be perfect for this kind of setting.
Anon: When you have some time, and you're feeling down, check your facebook page: ARG FB Fanpage
Everyone is thanking you.
Some guy even made new lyrics for the clasic zelda song.
Jadusable: Haha, a facebook group? Geez... really cool.
Anon 5711649: Quick question: Was Ifrit always gone, even after the Song of Time was played? Could we have saved him?
Jadusable: He was like the giants. If you defeat them, they stay defeated when you go back in time (well, you keep their remains, which is a sort of paradox that had to be modified for this story)
Anon 5711659: Were Passadore and whatserface actually part of the story or just some faggots trying to steal your thunder?
Jadusable: No they werent involved.
The Abyssal Zone: Alex, I see. Although I have same chances of being ignored as everyone else in the thread, I want to tell you that your story was great, even greater if you worked everything by yourself, and although you can pretty call me a pussy because of it, the story really got into me, enough to have to sleep with lights on and even then, wake up in the middle on the night just to be staring aimlessly around my room. I really hope that maybe you'll make something new in the future, until then, congratulations mate, I salute you gentleman, you did a good job. If you need any help, emails always work.
Until then, see ya and take care
Jadusable: /salute
Anon 5711667: I'm actually halfway through setting up an ARG, any tips?
Jadusable: Plannn. If you have outcomes that you know will happen eventually prepare them ahead of time. Make sure to cover your tracks to prevent people from posing as you, like "dont listen to anyone who doesnt post from <XYZ>" or something.
Always have some kind of cliffhanger or a "what a tweest" ending to the updates or whatever to keep people fishhooked.
omfgitstabitha: @Jad:
I "know people" in the community, would you be interested in doing an interview? I could probably arrange that with ZeldaInformer.com.
=/
Jadusable: Haha, absolutely. That'd be pretty neat.
Anon 5711768: What do you think of people that did shit like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwMiHogUVHw
Jadusable: /shrug, I'm usually too caught up in my thing to pay attention to what other people are doing with their videos
Ryukaki: Hey Jad, don't forget to put up a "donate" button on the website, damn you. You deserve it.
Jadusable: Ahhh fine. I'll have it up either later today or tomorrow :P
Raixsarin: Jad, this thing was amazing. While I admit, I am slightly dissapointed at this ending, I understand completely and it's totally cool. All in all, you've done a splendid job and I hope you will try to pick this up again in the future.
One thing I am curious about though...
During the night the countdown was supposed to end, I received a text on my phone that read:
Warn them.
Warn them all.
The End comes with Luna tonight.
I've never posted my number to anyone online and it freaked me the fuck out for a while. It came from an ip address too.
It probably was one of my friends fucking with me, but still, it was cool noneoftheless.
Anyway, thanks for the awesome week. I had a hell of a time trying to figure this all out.
Posting my email as well, for giggles.
Jaudsable: LOL. That wasn't me, that's for sure.
Anon 5711783: Hey jad are you a full blown /x/file or did you just stumble upon the site by chance?
Jadusable: Hmm.. Depends, really. I've lurked /x/ on and off for about a year or so, never triped. I only donned this trip to post the story and the followup.
Anon 5711920: I was following this damn story religiously until we were waiting for the countdown, when I kind of got busy and then lost track of everything. I must say though, this was amazing, and I was pretty pleased and spooked the entire time. Thanks for making this, I know a ton of us enjoyed it a lot.
Also, there were a few people on your Jadusable youtube account talking about calling the police about the school shooting stuff on YSHDT.net, when the site was discovered. Did you expect that kind of thing?
Jadusable: No, I did get kind of freaked out though.
Anon 5711615: Did you ever get nervous that maybe after your first post you wouldn't be able to sustain a following, if the story had flopped what wouldve been your plan of action
Jadusable: I didnt really think about it honestly, as soon as i was done writing the first part of the creepypasta i just posted it and the reaction was pretty quick
And for those of you asking, yes, I decided to put a "Donate" tab on the website. Don't feel like you have to though, at all.
Q: I can't explain how awesome the past days were, Alex. The story was... brilliant. The cult, the riddles, everthing. Can't figure how could you think in this all.
Anyway, i have some questions, but i will understand if you don’t answer them.
(i have bad inglesh, so, sorry, i will do my best)
First of all, the video posted by F3TURAPE. What was the role of it? It's oddie, seemed be fake, but i don't know. There is something like the Majora's Mask moon in the background xP.
Second, September 18 (Saturday) was the International Observe the Moon Night, (exactly the day of the creepy countdown) like said in this link: http://www.astronomy2009.org/news/updates/1006/ Was it part of the plan?
And about Jadusable (the person in the story), which is his connection with the Moon Children? Who's the person advertising us with messages like "You need to warn them"?
Thanks again. You made my days much better. I wish all the best for you.
Kudos.
Jadusable: The Fetus thing was fake, and the lunar moon watch was a fortunate coincidence when I was planning this whole thing out :)
Also Jadusable (the protagonist) is not related to the Moon Children
Q: (This question disappeared)
Jadusable: I'd be happy to host it if you need someone,
Jadusable: And thank you for the donations guys, it means a lot. I'm so glad that this is well received.
External Links
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Interviews |
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2010 |
4chan Q&A • Zelda Informer Interview • VidyaGameZ Interview • YSHDT Q&A |
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2011 |
Resistance Chatango Q&A • Theet Chatango Q&A 1 • Kayd Hendricks Q&A |
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2012 |
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2017 |
Weekly Updates • Arcade Attack Interview 1 • Kotaku Interview |
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2020 |
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