Ben Drowned

Ben Drowned (originally published as Haunted Majora's Mask Cartridge[4]) is a three-part multimedia alternate reality game (ARG) web serial created by Alexander D. "Jadusable" Hall. Originating as a creepypasta based on the 2000 action-adventure game The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and published by Hall from 2010 to 2011, the series is known for subverting and playing with common tropes and themes of creepypasta and The Legend of Zelda series.

Ben Drowned
AuthorAlexander D. Hall
LanguageEnglish
GenrePsychological thriller web serial[1]
Publication date
2010–2011; 2020–present
Media typeDigital
Pages7,000[2] (3,591,600 words)[3]
TextBen Drowned at Within Hubris
Websitehttp://youshouldnthavedonethat.net

Serving as Hall's first novel, the first arc of the series, titled The Haunted Cartridge and released in 2010, follows college sophomore Jadusable, who after acquiring a haunted Nintendo 64 video game cartridge of Majora's Mask, is plagued over the course of a week by the presence of a seemingly omniscient being called BEN. The second arc, titled The Moon Children and taking place from late 2005 to mid-2014, follows the public emergence of a mysterious cult worshiping the Moon, who sacrifice their members to the goddess Luna. The third arc, titled The Awakening, began publication in March 2020, following new and returning characters after an unknown societal collapse taking place in 2018 linked to the 2012 phenomenon leads to a second Great Depression, as well as continuing storylines established in the previous arcs with the intent of tying them together.

The series is one of the most popular web serials on the internet, with a readership in the hundreds of thousands, and has been widely recognized as both an example of a modern urban legend and a major influence in helping to establish and legitimize creepypasta as a literary genre.[5][6][7]

Publication

In June 2009, Hall uploaded two videos to his YouTube channel; one featuring a conversation with the minor character Rosa from the 2004 action role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines[8] and one featuring the main character Alex Mercer from the 2009 action-adventure game Prototype.[9] These videos were retconned as the first installments in the Haunted Majora's Mask Cartridge series in the second arc, The Moon Children, in which characters named Rosa and Alex, each with themes mirroring their respective videos, are introduced.

Ben Drowned was first published as an online serial and web series with chapters released daily between September 7 and September 15, 2010. Partially inspired by the urban legend "Killswitch", it resumed online publishing on September 15, completing the first arc, The Haunted Cartridge, with the second arc, The Moon Children, beginning from September 17 that same year until July 15, 2011,[10] totaling 3,591,600 words and 382 minutes. Hall used a method of transmedia storytelling through a combination of YouTube videos, written chapters, and audience input to weave a story about a character named BEN – supposedly a malevolent spirit of a dead child – who haunts the author (referred to in the story as Jadusable) in a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. The first arc is told in the first-person, as the author comes to the audience (in this case, an online forum) for help figuring out this strange game he bought. The story went viral; viewers praised the story's mysterious and frightening nature, as well as Hall's ability to deftly weave breadcrumbs and other hidden clues to keep readers on the hook and guessing. The original story ends on a cliffhanger, with the reader themselves inadvertently helping unleash BEN onto the internet at large.[11]

However, by decoding a secret hidden cipher in Hall's YouTube account, investigative readers gained access to a website that led to the story's second arc and first sequel, The Moon Children. Despite it taking the appearance of an ordinary mid-2000s website, similar to Angelfire, readers were able to find hidden URLs and secret conversations between the website's users, depicting a narrative that the website was home to a Doomsday cult that was stuck in a time loop à la the one serving as the main mechanic of Majora's Mask, with the website resetting itself every three days. Information found on the website on the third day could then be used by readers to unlock an alternate path on the first day after the website reset.[11][1] This arc was ended on a cliffhanger, with Hall announcing a hiatus on July 15, 2011.

The story was written at a rate of up to 2,500 words per day,[12] comparable to a traditional book being published every month.[13] It followed a strict publication schedule,[12][4] with new content released over the course of two weeks, including videos posted on Hall's YouTube channel, themselves made using Project 64 and cheat codes taken from GameShark.[12] The second arc was split into two separate parts, YSHDT (short for youshouldnthavedonethat.net) and Hubris, each of which covered a specific series of events. It maintains a very high level of viewership which peaked at over 2 million unique visitors in March 2020,[12] nearly eight years after completion of the first two arcs; upon its launch, the series garnered over 100,000 views in its first two days of publication. In October 2017, Hall expressed interest in developing a third arc, also revealing he had anonymously created a second "popular" creepypasta series unrelated to Ben Drowned.[14]

The third Ben Drowned arc, titled The Awakening, began publication on March 17, 2020, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, with updates being provided every three days. This arc is split into two separate parts, Methods of Revolution (incorporating elements of Hall's unmade feature-length film of the same name), and The Final Chapter.[15]

Background

Ben Drowned is set in a fictional, alternate universe closely following that of Earth prior to the emergence of a cult worshipping the Roman goddess of the Moon, Luna, known as the Moon Children. Two years after the release of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, a twelve-year-old boy named 'Ben' is among those to willingly drown themselves in an attempted Moon Children ritual called ascension. The resulting creation, named 'BEN', with the original 'Ben' as the dominant mindset, is sealed inside a copy of Majora's Mask and merged with the programs within, before being subsequently cared for by an old man for eight years, after which they are entrusted to a random college sophomore in honour of Luna to test the power of 'BEN', while several of the cult's members begin to enter the Internet, including the Moon Children's resurrected leader, known as "Kelbris, The Father", who online takes the form of the Happy Mask Salesman. Ultimately, upon entering the Internet themselves, 'BEN' chooses instead to escape from the cult's influence, where-from "The Father" pursues them.[13]

The first and third arcs are set across the homes and universities of several college-age students in an unspecified part of St. Louis, Missouri, the United States, and within the Internet, while the second arc is solely set within the Internet.[6]

Plot summary

The Haunted Cartridge

In September of 2010, Jadusable is a college student who is gifted a suspicious Nintendo 64 cartridge labelled "Majora" (indicating it to be a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask) by a disconcerting old man at a garage sale, with the save data of former owner "Ben" still on it. As Jadusable plays the game, little inconsistencies begin to pop up, turning to outright glitches, leading to Jadusable going to 4chan to post about his playing of the game as it unfolds, his name serving as a portmanteau of Judas and Abel. Playing as Link, Jadusable finds himself alone in Clock Town with all of the inhabitants gone, unable to advance the game by turning back time, while endlessly hearing the laugh of the Happy Mask Salesman's laugh. In an attempt to achieve a "Game Over" and return to the main menu, Jadusable allows Link to drown in a pond; when he does, Link clutches his head, screaming as in a mask animation, with the screen flashing to depict the Happy Mask Salesman, smiling and laughing. The game continues, and the Ocarina melody "Elegy of Emptiness" plays; a statue of Link is summoned, its face locked in an unblinking stare. The statue follows Jadusable's character, moving just outside of the camera's perspective, throughout the town. Jadusable tries to escape it, but nothing works. Futility would become a pervasive theme of the story. In desperation, Jadusable turns the camera to face the statue directly. After a while, the screen flashes back to the Happy Mask Salesman and Link, only the latter also turns this time. The Salesman, the statue, and Link all become locked in place, staring through the screen, directly at Jadusable.

The Elegy of Emptiness, commonly seen as BEN, a in-game statue of Link.

Over the course of several sessions over a series of days, Jadusable writes in painstaking detail about each bizarre scenario he finds himself in, including spontaneously bursting into flames and lying unconscious (or dead) as the Majora-possessed Skull Kid looks on in silence. After identifying the background of the cartridge from the old man's neighbor after finding he has moved away, Jadusable comes to the conclusion that it is possessed by the spirit of its previous owner, a 12-year-old boy named Ben who had drowned eight years prior; subsequently, a figure calling themselves "BEN" seemingly begins contacting him in and beyond the game itself, including changing his computer screen wallpaper to depict the Elegy of Emptiness and speaking through the online artificial intelligence Cleverbot. Identifying the Elegy as its physical form, BEN seems to take pride in being able to manipulate Jadusable, who subsequently describes a series of dreams about the Moon Children depicted in the game's finale, including himself physically transforming into the Elegy, and how he believes he saw the old man who sold his the cartridge on his street looking into his window. Eventually, BEN is revealed to have been hijacking Jadusable's computer and providing a false account of the story's narrative and resolution to 4chan and YouTube, using it to escape the cartridge onto the Internet, declaring "Now I am everywhere.". A secret note from Jadusable after an apparent epilogue from his roommate Tyler Lawman (who accompanied Jadusable to the old man's former house after the first time he played the game) offers the "true" telling of events and references videos that were never published, seemingly because BEN had deleted them. After publishing his final account of the past week's events, called TheTruth.rtf, Jadusable is never seen again. A final message is left, seemingly from BEN in response to the note, warning "Matt" that "You shouldn't have done that."

The Moon Children

Two days after BEN's escape from the cartridge, a cult calling themselves the Moon Children reveal their existence to the world. An unnamed follower of Jadusable's story discovers a cipher on his YouTube channel that leads them to the cult's official website, youshouldnthavedonethat.net, in which three moderators discuss the upcoming "ascension" of one of their members. A post by a fourth user and the website's sole administrator, named DROWNED (Mr. D), appears to speak directly to the follower through the avatar of a man wearing a gas mask. By exploring the various links, the follower discovers various details about the cult, including that the original Ben was apparently a member who had willingly sacrificed himself alongside several other children under the pretense of achieving ascension, that another member named Alex has recently betrayed them, and that they have their own prophecy of end times revolving around the Moon destroying the Earth (à la Majora's Mask) and the 2012 phenomenon, provided to them by their deceased prophet Kelbris in 1998, who similarly died under uncertain circumstances now seen within the cult as evidence of his own, successful 'ascension'. The next day, the follower is able to contact the moderator "Rodney R" Ifrit, revealed to be "Matt Hubris", who answers several questions before disappearing, including referencing his siblings as Rosa and Ben; the original 'Ben' is confirmed as a member of the Moon Children who self-sacrificed himself on April 23, 2002 via drowning, ascending to become chief consciousness of 'BEN' in honor of their goddess, Luna in place of all other ascended children. Coinciding with the end of a countdown on a hidden page, a video of the Song of Time is uploaded as a video response to one of Jadusable's videos. Shortly afterward, their website collapses.

The following day, the website is reestablished in an unfinished glitching state, with posts from the previous incarnation were being posted again with current dates, revealing that in-game actions from Majora's Mask have effects on the website. Over the following day, the follower use in-game actions to advance the story, establishing contact with Rosa, the sister of Ifrit, whom Rosa says has disappeared, as well as the soon-to-be-ascended moderators Kevin F. "Insidiae", Christopher "Nekko" and Spencer L. "Duskworld23", the latter of whom uses the avatar of Tesseract. However, as a result of the follower's actions, Rosa and Alex are apparently killed by a resurrected Kelbris, and time is reset again; time is subsequently revealed to reset every three days, as in Majora's Mask. Alex, apparently resurrected by the reset of time, returns under the guise of "TheLinkMissing" with an additional warning before disappearing as a result of careless player actions.

On October 6, the website undergoes several drastic design changes, signaling the return of the story. Through clever URL changes, the follower discovers several hidden files ranging from used assets to cryptic documents aimed directly at them. Their biggest discovery is found to be the 59th file, mhftt.txt, a final message left by Ifrit before his disappearance. This file names a fellow reader to the follower, Kayd "Ryukaki" Hendricks, who had been in contact with Rosa prior to her death, as having been warned by him as to be in danger. Over the next two days, Ryukaki uploads a series of videos indicating that his life is indeed at stake.

On November 8, another video uploaded on Jadusable's channel by BEN signals the beginning of the arc's epilogue, with the coming months seeing small changes made to the Moon Children website. On February 17, 2011, a new forum called Within Hubris is launched as a central hub for the follower and others like them during the next portion of the story. Shortly after its discovery, a hidden section of the forum was revealed to contain the spirits of former members of the Moon Children, including Rosa. Within a week of the site's discovery, the follower begins receiving newspaper clippings in their mail that detail an apparent murder-suicide that took place "three months [ago]" in New York, and including an apparent message from BEN. On February 26, another video is uploaded to Jadusable's channel, predicting the final warning for the following day. On February 27, a video is uploaded featuring the interior of the house shown in the newspaper.

The Awakening

Two years after an unknown societal collapse in 2018, and eight years after the 2012 phenomenon, in March 2020, the YouTube channel formerly controlled by Jadusable and BEN is taken over by a resurgent "Jadus", who recounts the alternate history to have occurred in the time since the final ascension of "The Father", revealed to be Kelbris, who had killed Jadusable moments after the ending of The Haunted Cartridge arc. An as-of-yet unexplained event that occurred in 2012 linked to the Moon Children apparently had global repercussions, leading to a modern-day Great Depression resulting in a total breakdown of American society by 2018. Addressing the follower, now named as Sarah and dubbed "The Second Player" (alternatively "The Main Character", or simply "The MC"), Jadus claims a partial cause of this collapse as being a mysterious ailment known as "HEROES", of which they are a survivor, alongside their occupational partner Denton. Sarah is a prisoner in the mysterious Ethereal Hotel, through which she is guided by radio by another survivor, Abel, avoiding a gas mask-wearing entity known as "The Jailer", as they roam the halls. Now in possession of a Nintendo 64, Sarah subsequently encounters the seemingly benevolent spirit of the original Ben within the original Nintendo 64 cartridge for whom she plays the Song of Healing, which in-game is used to mend broken souls. Now healed, Ben explains that after Jadusable awakened The Father, he remained within the cartridge, tormenting Ben and the litany of souls he had been manipulated into imprisoning in BEN, including Jadusable and Rosa. Eventually, the souls were forced to flee deep within the code of the cartridge, which in-turn caused glitches to render the game unplayable. Rosa singles Sarah out and begs her to heal the souls BEN has left to The Father's mercy, before granting her Link's adult form from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and sending her back to normal Majora's Mask gameplay.

After this, an overjoyed Abel resumes communication with Sarah and muses over the interaction. He then claims that the game has been reverted to its pre-Jadusable state, and that BEN — which he explains to be the Behavioral Event Network — is a hive mind consisting of both the souls of Moon Children who have been successfully digitized and of various artificially intelligent programs from Majora's Mask which he believes gained sentience either from a lack of input or by some sort of trigger, with the entity being named after the original Ben as a tribute, due to their soul having been the first human soul to have been successfully digitized. He ends his monologue and then says Sarah's part in the experiment is over, explaining he will be "coming over" to relieve her of the cartridge, before suggesting she 'stick around' to see other things he wants to show her.

Despite Abel's request, Sarah continues playing the game. In place of the Happy Mask Salesman, she finds Ifrit in the form of a unique NPC, who tells her that Ben has been "restored" into his enslaved state, and that to defeat the Father she needs to disrupt the simulation. When she exits the area, she is suddenly confronted by two duplicates of the first boss of Majora's Mask, which she easily dispenses before continuing deeper into the game.

Sarah eventually encounters a Moon Child, who asks her to leave its "home". When she pursues it, she finds in its place a heart, which she collects. Ifrit then contacts her saying she must collect 3 hearts to free the souls trapped within the cartridge. Progressing further, she is confronted by several more Moon Children, who are seen apparently tormenting another NPC. After thwarting their attack, Sarah encounters this NPC, who now claims to be Rosa, who as thanks gives her a pendant containing her memories which she claims will be able to free the others.

Reception

Ben Drowned has received favorable reviews.[13][16] It received substantial attention following a favorable review by Kotaku writer Owen Good roughly two months into publication, who praised the story's themes and originality.[17][18] Readership quadrupled following this article, and again by its followup in 2017 while the story was in its first hiatus, in which its biblical themes and use of the five stages of grief and "ghost within the machine" trope were praised, as was Hall's initial decision to end the narrative with an April Fool's Day joke in 2012.[7]

The series has been favorably compared to the similarly-popular creepypasta series Slender Man.[4][7] Matt Freeman of Vice, comparing Ben Drowned to both Majora's Mask and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, referred to it as "a shining example of how Zelda fans have always been in lockstep with Nintendo's own experimentation with horror. [being] a well-told story", as well as praising its unique take on the found footage genre.[19] Anthony Vigna of Nintendojo praised the "videos to back up its claims and provided blog updates that pushed the tale to be more believable", calling Majora's Mask "the perfect game to create the setting of a scary story",[20] with the ARG elements of the story praised as being highly addictive.[21]

Ryan Larson of Bloody Disgusting praised how "[w]ith clever video editing skills and a deep wealth of knowledge, the online user Jadusable is able to craft one of the scariest legends of recent memory. Like storytellers before him, using paintings or ink to craft the tale, he uses the devices of our advanced time to make something that the kids of the nineties can latch onto."[13] Kara Dennison of Fanbyte, speaking of Ben Drowned in context of the 20th anniversary of Majora's Mask, praised "what Hall did during this time [as] both unique and effective. He took a concept that was already gaining steam and gave it a reality it was lacking. Creepypastas about Mickey Mouse and The Simpsons were already poking at people’s childhoods, occasionally with attempts at “haunted tapes” to back the stories up. But BEN Drowned brought a level of realism to its story that had yet to be accomplished in other attempts.", additionally citing how it was stated as the primary inspiration for later popular creepypasta such as Petscop by Tony Domenico, and concluding that of creepasta, "[it's] highly likely BEN Drowned will remain the best of its kind."[6][22]

Blogger Robbie Blair discussed Ben Drowned within the context of the increasing popularity of web serials and alternate reality games such as Worm.[2] In September 2014, concept art for the episode "Soos and the Real Girl" of Gravity Falls revealed Ben Drowned as a primary influence behind the character GIFfany; themselves an inspiration for the Doki Doki Literature Club! character Monika.[23] Clive Barker and Warner Brothers have approached Hall to discuss adapting Ben Drowned.[24] An independent film adaptation of the series titled Darkland: Ben Drowned, produced by Mind's Eye Entertainment and starring Jonny Clarke, began filming in 2015, but ultimately was not completed.[25][14] In August 2016, a press release for Syfy's Channel Zero referenced Ben Drowned as one of the urban legends that would form the basis for a future season; ultimately, the series was cancelled after its fourth season.[25]

Themes

Eric Van Allen of entertainment site Kotaku on the place of Ben Drowned in the developing creepypasta and emergence into urban legend:

Ben Drowned persists. The Elegy statue has become permanently linked to the story of Jadusable and his haunted cartridge, a copy of Majora's Mask that inspired nightmares of masks being sewn to faces and terrible, terrible fates. Ben Drowned lives by the virtual firelight, as each new whisper, tweet, or forum post sends chills down a new reader’s spine. Creepypastas are the ghost stories of the digital age, changing with each retelling and reimagining from its fandom. Though Ben Drowned owes its legacy to Hall, its future lies in the hands of anyone who might take to their keyboard to add a new page.[7]

The originally unofficial title Ben Drowned has multiple potential meanings. It has been connected to the protagonist's character development, the fate of the child Ben and the subsequently created omnipresent force BEN; drawing a parallel with the power of the Moon Children cult to control the actions of one's soul in the eyes of Luna and the tides of the ocean. The arc titles also generally have double meanings. Several reviewers have described the serial as an exercise in repeatedly escalating the stakes of the story, with a number of reviewers having noted the characters' ingenuity, and the original and creative use of Roman and The Legend of Zelda mythology in the narrative.

The series received renewed focus in 2016, when 12-year-old Katelyn Davis, who had recently committed suicide, was cited as having been catfished by a user embodying the BEN persona from Ben Drowned, after which a statement in reference to the end of their relationship was accompanied by a piece of fanart of the character in their later form of a Link with blood-red eyes beckoning a violet fairy. Addressing their death in relation to his series, Hall stated himself to

[have] wondered if I never wrote that story, would that stuff have still happened? Or those girls who [tried to] kill someone with Slender Man a few years back. If that didn’t exist, would that have ever happened? No one can ever say for sure. It's a hard moral issue and a tragedy, but I don't think that authors can necessarily be held responsible for what some fans do because of an obvious work of fiction. There are both sides to this coin — there are plenty of people who have personally thanked me for writing the story, saying that it had helped them get through a really dark time in their life. I suppose it's one of the burdens of publicly publishing your work to a wide audience; you have to take the good with the bad.[4]

References
  1. "The Moon Children". youshouldnthavedonethat.net. Retrieved 2019-10-24.
  2. Blair, Robbie (December 27, 2013). "Exploring the Digital Wilds: Expanding Our Approach to Novels". Litreactor.
  3. Hall, Alexander D. "You Shouldn't Have Done That: The Haunted Majora's Mask Cartrdige". Retrieved 2012-06-25.
  4. Luckerson, Victor (2017-03-03). "The Cult of 'Zelda: Majora's Mask'". The Ringer. Retrieved 2019-10-29.
  5. Sawyer, Logan (2019-12-03). "10 Video Games Myths & Conspiracies To Keep You Up At Night". The Gamer. Retrieved 2019-12-03.
  6. Dennison, Kara (2020-03-24). "Revisiting BEN Drowned on the 20th Anniversary of Majora's Mask". Fanbyte. Retrieved 2020-03-24.
  7. Van Allen, Eric (October 26, 2017). "The Zelda Ghost Story That Helped Define Creepypasta". Kotaku.
  8. Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines – Rosa
  9. Prototype: All Consume Kills (Warning: Extremely Graphic)
  10. Piedra, Xavier (October 30, 2018). "What the hell happened to creepypastas?". Mashable.
  11. "Ben Drowned". The Orange Groves. 2019-04-25. Retrieved 2019-10-24.
  12. "I am Jadusable, creator of the Haunted Majora's Mask Creepypasta, director/writer of Methods of Revolution, AMA". Reddit. Retrieved 2016-12-05.
  13. "Have You Heard the Chilling Creepypasta About the Haunted 'Legend of Zelda' Cartridge?". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved 2019-04-12.
  14. Wallett, Adrian (October 24, 2017). "Alex Hall (Ben Drowned) – Interview". Arcade Attack.
  15. Hall, Alex (March 20, 2020). "Starting the Game". Patreon.
  16. Page, Bart (May 1, 2016). "Hottest 6 New Fantasy Fiction Books and Authors". Best Fantasy Books HQ. Archived from the original on February 21, 2015. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
  17. Good, Owen (November 9, 2010). "The Haunting Of A Majora's Mask Cartridge". Kotaku.
  19. Conlon, Liam (June 28, 2019). "Zelda Is at Its Best When It Embraces Horror". Vice.
  20. Vigna, Anthony (October 29, 2015). "From the Archive: Nintendo Creepypasta". Nintendojo.
  21. Game Till Five Podcast: Video Game Creepypastas & Ben Drowned
  22. Moyer, Phillip (2020-03-18). "There's Something Hiding in Petscop". EGM. Archived from the original on March 28, 2020. Retrieved 2020-04-11.
  23. Bliss • Before, Lysergic (2014-09-24). ""Soos and the Real Girl" Concept Art – Gravity Falls". Tumblr. Retrieved 2014-09-24.
  24. Spangler, Todd (2015-05-04). "NewFronts 2015: Machinima Announces 'RoboCop,' Clive Barker and Other Series". Variety. Retrieved 2019-10-24.
  25. Barton, Steve (2016-08-04). "SyFy sheds light on creepypasta-based series Channel Zero: Candle Cove". Dread Central. Retrieved 2016-08-04.
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