#found this in my drafts and dont know who annotated this...

[mitsfylvr]

[goattypegirl]

So I was looking through my drafts and found this post about Project Skybox and the Interloper ARG from a few months ago. I think I wrote it after Part 9. Part C came out yesterday and some of the stuff I yapped about became slightly relevant/aged... Strangely? I have more thoughts about Part C but I'll save those for later.

I'm going to use Anomidae when referring to the series creator, and Anomi for the in universe character and Project Skybox to collectively refer to Anomi, Lucy, and anyone else involved.

So with any in-progress story with any element of mystery or intrigue, people make every single possible permutation of "X character is actually Y" theories, and I don't buy them. Like I don't think Anomi is actually Eida or whatever. There's mayyybeee one person who's involved with both Anomi and Eida's investigations, and that's JMan from the forum thread (first guy to make a demo, actually). He's also Eida's channel partner/voice actor. The only "evidence" for that is that Eida's crasher video is really crusty on the archive channel, but is a lot clearer in Anomi's video, which could mean Anomi had access to the original recording? It's also kind of weird that the annotated copy of the forum thread on the project skybox site gives JMan and only JMan the role of "Expert". There is also the mysterious JJ in the hidden text in the graffiti with the commands? Idk, I dont think this is anything.

Speaking of generic theories I don't like, I don't think Anomi is hiding information from the audience. At least, not maliciously. I think he's just omitting information that he doesn't think is currently relevant. Anomi and Eida are foils to each other. They're investigating the same thing, but they have very different approaches and theories about what's happening, and they both have their own blindspots which keeps them from seeing the bigger picture. So like, yeah, some of the Tuesday manifest demos are really weird, but Anomi had more pressing things to do, like poking SkyGhost for several months. There is literally a curated playlist on the channel of people dissecting the demos. He knows about the weird stuff in the demos, and he knows that we know he knows that. It's just not important to bring up right now.

Also, I don't think this is a petscop situation where the investigation gets coopted by other people. Lucy and project skybox's introductions seem sudden, but it's always sounded like Anomi's talking to someone off screen or in a discord call or something imo. The FourTwo/title card, Ravencheck/Gris connections, and Olive/🔴Live things are a bit weird, but I think they're just coincidences or dramatic irony. If there is a diagetic reason for them, it's not malicious. Like, what's more likely, Anomi was a member of this small CGI startup in 1991 that evolved into the server hosting/ai developer FSky during the 2000's-2010's, then in 2021 started a YouTube series about the weird things his company did and has been playing dumb this whole time... Or did Anomi pay homage to this weird computer graphics urban legend which he hosts on his site? Like if he's trying to hide this information, Anomidae could have hidden it better.

That all being said... Theres one thing I can't make sense of. Episode 5. The editing is really rough, sometimes Anomi gets cut off mid sentence, and Anomi's notes to cut things out of the video arent removed. The beginning of the video is what really baffles me though. It's the first draft of a video about the flashnuke. At the end of that segment, he lingers on the umbrella man graffiti in ravenholme. The entire first half of the video is Anomi reluctantly moving on from the interloper investigation after portal rtx broke last time.

Except. The dates are really weird. The successful fall test was on July 2nd, and the probe launch on the 10th. The flashnuke first draft was recorded on July 9th. Why would Anomi start a new project and look at the umbrella man graffiti so wistfully the day before the probe launch?

Hi hello so welcome to the post Part C part of this essay. My updated theory about Part 5 and the flashnuke was that the weird editing and tone was all intentional. Anomi did that on purpose, made it seem like he gave up, to make the probe launch even more dramatic. It was weird seeing the Xbox port and the flashnuke actually become relevant in Part C tho.

I feel vindicated that Eida made contact with Anomi, proving that they aren't the same person (probably. Hopefully.). Eida is very insistent Anomi watches his demo, but if Anomi has watched it all the way through, or has done cubemap extraction* on it or anything, he hasn't told us. Meanwhile Eida refuses to give any straight answers. Like what the fuck is a gris.mp4 dude. The two of them are immovable object vs immovable object.

*cubemap extraction is weird. I think part B established you could do cubemap extraction to *any* demo, but non interlope demos have random stuff generated by skyghost? Idk. The whole series follows a pattern of gaining access to one tool, losing access to it, but then finding another angle, another tool. The console commands, the portal rtx void, the probes, the VRAD entity photos, project skybox and the Tuesday manifest, skyghost, then cubemap extraction. Of all of them, cubemap extraction just feels out of place to me. At the very least they proved skyghost was still somehow connected to the fsky servers. Maybe they'll turn out to be like mission critical in the future, idk. But with Part C, Anomi finally entered and explored the source engine void, and project skybox crashed, maybe taking skyghost with it. It feels like we're nearing the end.

Let's talk about the elephant in the room. Spisefourx6. In Part B, random characters in Anomi's explanations are highlighted red, and put together they spell that out. At first I thought it was somehow skyghosts doing, but apparently, other messages starting with "spise" are hidden in parts 9 and A.

I have no idea what to do with those, or how to end this post.

[pub-lius]

I just wanna say, DUDE. The majority of what I know about amrev comes from your blog. Your in-depth posts literally have me FOAMING AT THE MOUTHH I don't have much time to read longer books due to school but I wanna feed my obsession so do you have any books on the shorter side or some websites/archives I can research/read a bit quicker? If not it's totally fine.

Also off topic but I'm loving "It Began About Dusk" on AO3 <3

OH MY GOD THE FLATTERY‼️‼️‼️ you’re making me blush here anon. im so glad that you find my posts helpful!!! AND IM SO GLAD YOU LIKE MY FICS i have a chapter of it began about dusk in the drafts rn so you’ll get more content soon

now this is a tricky question because im absolutely insane and ive barely ever read short books. right now im reading His Excellency by Joseph J Ellis and i recommend it!! its only around 2-300 pages which is the shortest history book ive got VSJWBW primary sources can be really good to get in book form, things like Common Sense by Thomas Paine, Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior (Washington’s rule book), and Memoir of Lieut. Col. Tench Tilghman, Secretary and aid to Washington are all primary sources i have on my shelf that are short and sweet.

i also have Hercules Mulligan by Micheal J. Obrien which i haven’t read but is VERY small. there is also James Monroe by Gary Hart which is short but i have not finished (i dont even truly remember reading it but i annotated part of it apparently), The Drillmaster of Valley Forge by Paul Lockhart is a little longer than those others, but still isn’t chernow levels of wrong, but i also haven’t read that one. Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger isn’t the most serious history book, but it is pretty good and an easy read.

as for secondary source websites, start with encyclopedias ie Britannica, which post short articles on different historical figures and events that give you the overview. from there im gonna point you to the National Park Service. this is the best thing the US government has ever made for researchers. this is all your battlefields, winter encampments, historical reproductions, and former capitals. also check out private residences turned museums, such as Mount Vernon, Monticello, and Schuyler Mansion. these institutions have an abundance of easily accessible information on more than just the people who lived there.

now the Library of Congress was a good decision on Jefferson’s part, but it can be inaccessible if you don’t know how to use it well because their website is one of my least favorite things about being alive. so instead, i recommend using Founders Online for any primary source regarding the founding fathers or amrev figures. the Washington Papers are filled to the brim with almost everything that went out of headquarters during all 8 years of the war. founders online is the shit

all of these websites i’ve mentioned are free to access, because i do not pay money on any research tools besides books out of spite for late stage capitalism. also any primary source is 100% accessible online. that includes memoirs and court transcripts, which can be very helpful

also i really do recommend watching documentaries and informational videos on the subjects you’re interested in while doing work or other things if you’re someone who does that (ik some people don’t have background noise but im just assuming you’re as neurodivergent as i am) because you can absorb just a little of that information and it being about a subject of interest can make academics seem a little less miserable!

i hope this is helpful and if you have absolutely any further questions, feel free to ask. i know im very privileged to have the time and resources to read long ass books, which is why i very freely share the information i absorb with the public bc i believe education should never be gatekept by anyone. so if you have any questions, im happy to research them for you, or at least point you in the right direction. love ya!!