Anomalous Media - A Gaming Podcast
May. 29th, 2021 07:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aprilmarchVilma, I hope that this message finds you well, even if I know that doesn't happen often in 2021, most of all to people like us. I wish I could help you more, but I'm an information broker - I don't give out info for free, not even to you, and not even if the very fabric of reality is at stake (isn't it always, anyways?) I don't have the Clube do Livro collection, but I do have a very comprehensive directory of it. I skimmed it, and I don't think there's anything about this Anthill that you mentioned. I'm enclosing one of the files I found was closer to what you said it was; if it's not useful to you, you can skip it. If it is useful, then, we can meet to discuss rates. I'll be in Campos do Jordão next month, and I'd love to have a replay of our last meeting. Or, if you're not into it, at least bring those bluberry pies. I just want to sink my teeth in something hot... and bitter.
File name: "Manos Gamers"
File type: Longform audio (podcast)
Storage manner: An afflicted cell phone is kept in storage and used to access the files, which are then sent to two remote servers as MP3 files. No higher definition available. Download of files to club members' personal devices is allowed. Direct access to the podcast is not; the link will not be distributed for non-administrative reasons.
Description: "Manos Gamers" was a podcast recorded between 2016 and 2018 by brothers Caio and Guilherme, aged 13 and 15 at the beginning of its run. Its main subject is video games, and its quality is as expected for an amateur podcast recorded by teenagers. It purpoits to be monthly, but only twelve episodes were recorded between February 2016 and May 2018.
The anomalous podcast in the Club's possession can be accessed through unknown means (perhaps pure chance) when adding the podcast's RSS feed to the app Castbox. When this is done, there is a small chance that additional episodes will appear. These episodes start staggered between July and November 2018, after which a new episode released on the 1st of each month. Except for variances stated, episodes last between 70 and 110 minutes in lenght.
The anomalous episodes have audio quality consistent with the regular ones, and extensive examination reveals that the brothers are not aware of these recordings, but the opinions conveyed in them match their actual beliefs. They also speak about events in their lives that have happened. The only variance is somewhat infrequent mentions of 'the method', which neither brother was able to identify, although in the podcast it is referred to as something widely known.
Sample transcript follows from March 2018 episode. C referes to Caio, G to Guilherme.
C: I don't mind game delays very much, but at some point it becomes ridiculous.
G: Better to release a good game, though! Remember that Miyamoto.
C: Eh, yeah, but also, no? You can release a good game on time. I've seen it happen! They should just use the method.
G: [laughter] Are they sponsoring us?
C: [laughter] No, they're not! But if you guys want, we're available.
G: [laughter]
C: Seriously, though. I know the method seems weird or bizarre... or 'culty', I've seen it described as that... but really, without it my life would be completely different.
G: That's true. I don't follow the method myself-
C: That's 'cause you've got your life together!
G: Like hell I do.
C: Better than me. Better than I was.
G: Yeah. Your life's gotten really better since you started this method, so I'm in favour.
C: We wouldn't have this podcast without it.
G: I had already given up on it.
On September 2019, Guilherme starts a relationship with a woman named Sara. On October's episode, she appears as a host on the podcast, and remains so for most of the subsequent episodes. She was not aware that it existed before being contacted by the Club, and also confirmed that the beliefs she expresses in the podcast match her own.
The podcast remains in this manner until the April 2020 episode, when the COVID-19 quarantine started to affect Brazil. The podcast seems to start to mention events that resemble means to control the pandemic, the hosts appear hesitant to describe the exact nature of these events, leaving them unsaid. Furthermore, even though quarantine efforts were relaxed in Brazil after a few months, the events described in the podcast seems instead to become more and more restrictive, and include effects unrelated to a health crisis, including internet and power blackouts.
Sample transcript follows from July 2020 episode. Sara was not present on this episode.
C: So apparently Guilherme is very excited for the Jumpstart event in Magic Arena.
G: Yeah! I was gonna go to a game store to play it. I'd never even thought about doing that before. But then, yeah.
C: Yeah, I know.
G: Things happened. But I get to play it on a computer!
C: The best way to play!
G: Not at all! Have you ever played Magic Arena?
C: By the grace of God, I haven't. So to speak.
G: Yeah, it's a piece of shit. But better than nothing. Let's just hope I get to play.
C: Yeah. They said there won't be any more outages, at least for this month.
G: I hope so. You know that Sara couldn't be here today, because of...
C: Yeah, this kinda stuff.
G: Yeah. She couldn't log on.
C: It's terrible. I mean, we understand why it's happening, but...
G: Yeah.
C: Enough of this subject. Does Sara play Magic Arena?
G: I've inflicted it on her.
C: You are terribe.
Guilherme passed away from COVID-19 in 23 November 2020.
The December episode of the podcast is the only one since November 2018 to be released late, on December 3rd. All three hosts are present, but their behaviour is markedly different. Guilherme speaks much more rarely, and when he does he is terse, direct and speaks slowly. The other two hosts appear to be under great emotional duress, despite not mentioning its reason; in fact, they do not speak of their personal lives at all. Audio analysis indicate frequent cuts in the podcasts' audio, which are not present in other episodes, but despite that there are long moments of silence. The hosts run out of things to say at around the twenty minute mark, at which point Sara opens the Kotaku website and starts reading off videogame news, after which the hosts offer perfunctory comments. The episode ends at precisely 61 minutes.
Later episodes follow this formula more or less. Caio and Sara seems distant and do not offer personal or pointed opinions. They alternate reading headlines from Kotaku, sometimes offering comments afterwards. On two occasions, they started reading news they'd already read the previous episode; on one occasion, they read news on anime instead of videogames. In neither case they appeared to notice. With every episode, Guilherme speaks less often, uses less words, and his voice becomes hoarser. The other hosts do not comment on this either.
The only change so far in this pattern has been in the May 2021 episode, after reading news regarding a delay on the game Humankind. After some initial comments, Caio and Sara seem to fall back in their regular personalities, discussing the merits of the game (the beta build of which was played by Sara previously) and comparing it to its competitor, the Civilization series. The conversation seems to be progressing normally until Guilherme speaks the word 'better'. This is followed by ten seconds of silence, after which Guilherme explains, very slowly, that he believes this game (Humankind) will be better than 'the other game' (the Civilization series). This takes nearly three minutes.
The two other hosts stay silent for twenty seconds, them resume with the dialogue in the transcription below. C stands for Caio, S for Sara.
C: Yeah. Anyway, the game is... it will be delayed.
S: It happens.
C: I hope it's good. I don't play as much these days, though.
S: Me neither.
C: They should - well, once I said that companies should use the method to stay on track.
S: Do you still like that? The method?
C: I don't know. I liked it. I think I needed it, at the time.
S: But not anymore.
C: I don't know. Maybe. But you can't get out of the method.
S: It's like crossfit. Evil crossfit.
C: I don't know that it's evil. It just does what it does. And getting out of it is always worse.
S: Would you still recommend it to people?
C: I don't know. I'd say - if someone asked me about it, I'd say to think long and hard about their life, because it's there for good.
S: You did seem to be the perfect kind of person to use it, though. When you started using it.
C: Yeah.
S: But now things changed, and you can't get off.
C: Yeah.
S: This seems evil to me.
C: [short pause] Amoral, maybe. The method... they don't get what we do. They don't get what is... you know. That's part of the method.
S: Yeah. That's tough.
The podcast ends shortly after that. There is no more dialogue and no send-off. This is the shortest episode, lasting only 43 minutes.
The episodes continue to be broadcast in the same format as the last ones. Guilherme's voice is progressively harder to hear, and his words drawl out for longer.
Caio and Sara have refused to collaborate further with the Club's cataloguing efforts.
File name: "Manos Gamers"
File type: Longform audio (podcast)
Storage manner: An afflicted cell phone is kept in storage and used to access the files, which are then sent to two remote servers as MP3 files. No higher definition available. Download of files to club members' personal devices is allowed. Direct access to the podcast is not; the link will not be distributed for non-administrative reasons.
Description: "Manos Gamers" was a podcast recorded between 2016 and 2018 by brothers Caio and Guilherme, aged 13 and 15 at the beginning of its run. Its main subject is video games, and its quality is as expected for an amateur podcast recorded by teenagers. It purpoits to be monthly, but only twelve episodes were recorded between February 2016 and May 2018.
The anomalous podcast in the Club's possession can be accessed through unknown means (perhaps pure chance) when adding the podcast's RSS feed to the app Castbox. When this is done, there is a small chance that additional episodes will appear. These episodes start staggered between July and November 2018, after which a new episode released on the 1st of each month. Except for variances stated, episodes last between 70 and 110 minutes in lenght.
The anomalous episodes have audio quality consistent with the regular ones, and extensive examination reveals that the brothers are not aware of these recordings, but the opinions conveyed in them match their actual beliefs. They also speak about events in their lives that have happened. The only variance is somewhat infrequent mentions of 'the method', which neither brother was able to identify, although in the podcast it is referred to as something widely known.
Sample transcript follows from March 2018 episode. C referes to Caio, G to Guilherme.
C: I don't mind game delays very much, but at some point it becomes ridiculous.
G: Better to release a good game, though! Remember that Miyamoto.
C: Eh, yeah, but also, no? You can release a good game on time. I've seen it happen! They should just use the method.
G: [laughter] Are they sponsoring us?
C: [laughter] No, they're not! But if you guys want, we're available.
G: [laughter]
C: Seriously, though. I know the method seems weird or bizarre... or 'culty', I've seen it described as that... but really, without it my life would be completely different.
G: That's true. I don't follow the method myself-
C: That's 'cause you've got your life together!
G: Like hell I do.
C: Better than me. Better than I was.
G: Yeah. Your life's gotten really better since you started this method, so I'm in favour.
C: We wouldn't have this podcast without it.
G: I had already given up on it.
On September 2019, Guilherme starts a relationship with a woman named Sara. On October's episode, she appears as a host on the podcast, and remains so for most of the subsequent episodes. She was not aware that it existed before being contacted by the Club, and also confirmed that the beliefs she expresses in the podcast match her own.
The podcast remains in this manner until the April 2020 episode, when the COVID-19 quarantine started to affect Brazil. The podcast seems to start to mention events that resemble means to control the pandemic, the hosts appear hesitant to describe the exact nature of these events, leaving them unsaid. Furthermore, even though quarantine efforts were relaxed in Brazil after a few months, the events described in the podcast seems instead to become more and more restrictive, and include effects unrelated to a health crisis, including internet and power blackouts.
Sample transcript follows from July 2020 episode. Sara was not present on this episode.
C: So apparently Guilherme is very excited for the Jumpstart event in Magic Arena.
G: Yeah! I was gonna go to a game store to play it. I'd never even thought about doing that before. But then, yeah.
C: Yeah, I know.
G: Things happened. But I get to play it on a computer!
C: The best way to play!
G: Not at all! Have you ever played Magic Arena?
C: By the grace of God, I haven't. So to speak.
G: Yeah, it's a piece of shit. But better than nothing. Let's just hope I get to play.
C: Yeah. They said there won't be any more outages, at least for this month.
G: I hope so. You know that Sara couldn't be here today, because of...
C: Yeah, this kinda stuff.
G: Yeah. She couldn't log on.
C: It's terrible. I mean, we understand why it's happening, but...
G: Yeah.
C: Enough of this subject. Does Sara play Magic Arena?
G: I've inflicted it on her.
C: You are terribe.
Guilherme passed away from COVID-19 in 23 November 2020.
The December episode of the podcast is the only one since November 2018 to be released late, on December 3rd. All three hosts are present, but their behaviour is markedly different. Guilherme speaks much more rarely, and when he does he is terse, direct and speaks slowly. The other two hosts appear to be under great emotional duress, despite not mentioning its reason; in fact, they do not speak of their personal lives at all. Audio analysis indicate frequent cuts in the podcasts' audio, which are not present in other episodes, but despite that there are long moments of silence. The hosts run out of things to say at around the twenty minute mark, at which point Sara opens the Kotaku website and starts reading off videogame news, after which the hosts offer perfunctory comments. The episode ends at precisely 61 minutes.
Later episodes follow this formula more or less. Caio and Sara seems distant and do not offer personal or pointed opinions. They alternate reading headlines from Kotaku, sometimes offering comments afterwards. On two occasions, they started reading news they'd already read the previous episode; on one occasion, they read news on anime instead of videogames. In neither case they appeared to notice. With every episode, Guilherme speaks less often, uses less words, and his voice becomes hoarser. The other hosts do not comment on this either.
The only change so far in this pattern has been in the May 2021 episode, after reading news regarding a delay on the game Humankind. After some initial comments, Caio and Sara seem to fall back in their regular personalities, discussing the merits of the game (the beta build of which was played by Sara previously) and comparing it to its competitor, the Civilization series. The conversation seems to be progressing normally until Guilherme speaks the word 'better'. This is followed by ten seconds of silence, after which Guilherme explains, very slowly, that he believes this game (Humankind) will be better than 'the other game' (the Civilization series). This takes nearly three minutes.
The two other hosts stay silent for twenty seconds, them resume with the dialogue in the transcription below. C stands for Caio, S for Sara.
C: Yeah. Anyway, the game is... it will be delayed.
S: It happens.
C: I hope it's good. I don't play as much these days, though.
S: Me neither.
C: They should - well, once I said that companies should use the method to stay on track.
S: Do you still like that? The method?
C: I don't know. I liked it. I think I needed it, at the time.
S: But not anymore.
C: I don't know. Maybe. But you can't get out of the method.
S: It's like crossfit. Evil crossfit.
C: I don't know that it's evil. It just does what it does. And getting out of it is always worse.
S: Would you still recommend it to people?
C: I don't know. I'd say - if someone asked me about it, I'd say to think long and hard about their life, because it's there for good.
S: You did seem to be the perfect kind of person to use it, though. When you started using it.
C: Yeah.
S: But now things changed, and you can't get off.
C: Yeah.
S: This seems evil to me.
C: [short pause] Amoral, maybe. The method... they don't get what we do. They don't get what is... you know. That's part of the method.
S: Yeah. That's tough.
The podcast ends shortly after that. There is no more dialogue and no send-off. This is the shortest episode, lasting only 43 minutes.
The episodes continue to be broadcast in the same format as the last ones. Guilherme's voice is progressively harder to hear, and his words drawl out for longer.
Caio and Sara have refused to collaborate further with the Club's cataloguing efforts.
