You know, after fucking with the new EverymanHYBRID content I begin to realize what this series strong point and weak point is.

The strong point is when it does happen it is ambitious and earnest.

Like, fucking hell, weird multiple ARG arcs? A ton of weird shit involving multiple internet urban legends? Timeline fuckery that makes Homestuck's horseshit look straightforward?

All of it, and more, 100% into it, including their own OC badguy that in retrospect is basically the logical endgame conclusion of the Masky/Observer/Slender Proxy antagonist in HABIT, who is kind of the whole series in microcosm in terms of hit/miss ratio.

So when it works? I feel like EMH honestly kind of works better than the others. It's got good acting for an ARG series, even!

tbh i'm checked out on emh until it's done and nightmind finishes covering it, i dont have the like....time/patience/inclination/fourth thing to dive into the thing itself

But the downside is that it feels like all of these elements are going fucking nowhere. The most recent release is 2 hours of audio log that was a reward for finding an in-universe website, writing an email to it, and waiting for a reply.

hard agree tho

clockworkbrain To be honest that would be the sane choice to make and unless the finale really wows me I'm kind of okay with assuming HABIT killed 90% of the cast and left Vinnie to die of starvation in that apartment.

So yeah. 2+ hours of audio logs. And at first, it gives some interesting establishing things! It confirms that there was a version of the cast between the Mining Town Four versions and the ones from the videos, in the 1980s. It establishes that the Rake made a deal with someone, probably Slenderman, and that's presumably why it's been hanging around.

It makes notes that Vinnie is depressed, heavily medicated, and probably slowly turning into a Slenderproxy, which seem to also all be true for his current version.

But after some time to digest, approximately none of this shit matters.

The Princeton student version of the boys are all dead by 1991 or so because that's when the current versions are born so they're not going to become relevant.

Knowing that past versions of Vinnie were fucked up doesn't make the current version any less fucked up or offer a ton of new insight on him unless we're meant to take that Slenderman causes depression or something?

And, okay, I guess the bit with the Rake is there to explain the plothole of why The Rake only killed side characters when it could have fucked up major characters as well. It's filling a plot hole.

2+ hours of audio, including like 20 minutes of 1980s Vinnie eating cereal and watching The Price Is Right, for a plothole fill and some pointless details.

I totally missed there was any new content at all

I guess the "Vinnie is still depressed" could be "see how much nothing has changed despite the steps we took", because they haven't found the right steps to take, but I've been out of the loop for a while...