User:Anaxis/The Lainchu Manifesto
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PROTIP:
Over the course of writing this page and gathering evidence, I've come to realize that there is so much evidence that I need to gather and upload to the CWCki that attempting to add all of it at once to this single page is nigh impossible. As a result, I've decided to prioritize uploading only the most crucial information first, depending on how updated this page is, and upload the rest later as time goes on. If you notice sections missing citations where they should perhaps have them, or citations that lead nowhere, just know that I'm aware of this and will update the page accordingly in due time.
Please stay tuned for updates. Editors can direct questions onto the talk page. Thank you for your patience.
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 | This essay reflects the opinion of its author and/or a minority viewpoint and does not meet CWCki quality standards of encyclopedic value. Reader discretion is advised. |
| “ | Never trust crazy people on the Internet. | ” |
| The moral of this story, ironically said to me by the least trustworthy crazy person I encountered on this journey of mine. | ||
The following is my personal story about how I got involved with the CWC community, became a member of the Watchmen, was exiled from the group, closely observed Chris for about a year (mid-2020 to mid-2021), and ultimately ended my involvement due to events surrounding the Incest reveal. Much of my tale will be framed around the events of 30 July 2021, and I will go into extensive details about my experiences. Not all of it will necessarily directly involve Chris, with focus also being given to Chris's orbiters and members of interest in the community.
This is not meant to be an objective article summarizing events by any means. It is all very subjective, and while I aim to keep as many facts as possible intact, I acknowledge that some of it may be colored by my own personal biases. That is just unavoidable when writing something from this personal of a perspective.
I will be providing as many screenshots as I can, to help contextualize and prove my claims. I will be as truthful as possible regarding myself and my actions, as I don't have anything to hide. However, I will occasionally keep certain names out of these events, as many people who were adjacent to myself at this time have little or nothing to do with the events that transpired around Chris.
Lastly, if you want full context, then please read the whole page and follow it as it's updated. I know it's a lot, but this isn't something I feel can get an accurate "tl;dr" while still maintaining the full truth. It is far too complicated a subject for that.
Thank you for reading, and for your patience.
Foreword
30 July 2021. A day that would forever live on in infamy and scar the minds of Christorians the world over. Referred to sometimes as the "9/11 of the Internet," this was the day that a recording was released which revealed Chris's incestuous relationship with his mother. Soon after, Chris was arrested and jailed, his fate left in the hands of the Virginia judicial system. And Kiwi Farms was left to investigate the actors that were involved in the creation and release of this recording, resulting in the discovery of the troll Isabella Loretta Janke, otherwise known as Bella.
Along with her came the revelation of a cabal of sadistic trolls that surrounded her, as well as horrific details about her life and seemingly cruel and sadistic personality. Certain individuals who got involved with her were also placed under scrutiny, including The Suitress and Sean Walker. And because my username was found as part of a group chat in which Bella was interrogated, I suddenly found myself caught in the crossfire of angry Kiwis who were searching for someone to blame.
I have since been subject to many rumors and incomplete or outright false statements, so in an effort to tell my story, and clarify what transpired from my perspective, I have decided to write about it here.
I was the third individual to play the role of “Lainchu the Chronicler.” I was tasked with recording information provided by Chris, and then distributing said information to the CWCki, and by extension, the Kiwi Farms.
Bear in mind, I do not have all of the answers regarding the various mysteries surrounding Bella and her schemes. But there are things that I do know, and a few things that I suspect. And this is what I will share.
I am Anaxis, a.k.a. Lainchu the Chronicler. This is my story, and nothing less.
The Beginning (July 2020 - September 2020)
I have been casually observing Chris since around 2016, about at the point when the Doopie Saga was just beginning. I was fascinated and disgusted by Chris, intrigued and revolted. It was a lot to take in, and I remember there being a point where I would be procrastinating on responsibilities by reading the CWCki. It was a fun time sink for a while, but eventually I read all of the major articles and grew bored. From then on, I would visit the wiki every so often, usually just to check Da Update and see what the latest news was regarding Chris. I never got involved in the community directly, I would always be incredibly passive about my observation. I never aspired to make a CWCki account or visit the Kiwi Farms. I would just check the website's front page, and later stay caught up with Geno Samuel’s series.
That all changed once the CWCki Discord Server came into existence.
On 1 July 2020, the Official CWCki Server was created by Klop, and I joined it the very next day. I found myself in a community unlike any other that I had known. It had many different people of varying backgrounds and a wide span of opinions, but we all had one common attribute: our fascination with observing Chris. For the first time, I was surrounded by people who were willing to engage in discourse about him, and that was something that I found to be often very entertaining, even intellectually stimulating at times. Although I can’t say that I was the biggest fan of the culture that often propagated around the server, I genuinely enjoyed discussing Christory, and so it was worth it to me.
I would like to believe that I had some influence in shaping the server at the time, such as suggesting that we add separate channels for the discussion of Christory-related topics. I also firmly believed in the #1 rule that was established on the server, which followed a similar attitude to the wiki: Do not contact Chris, or attempt to troll him. Sadly, throughout my time on the server, I had come across many people who had broken that rule, and come to the server to brag about their “accomplishment,” only to find that their audience would not be receptive. Many users have been banned from the server for that very reason. One of the server moderators noticed my interest in analysis of Chris and Christory, and offered to make me an editor account, which I accepted.
Arrival of the Watchmen
I had been on the server for about a month when the members of the group that would come to be known as the Watchmen began arriving. First, and most prominently, was Bismuth, going by the name Heart (❣) at the time, and who I will be referring to as Naught for the remainder of this writing. He began releasing a large amount of assorted leaks regarding Chris, which would come to be known as the 2020 Discord leaks. Funny enough, one of my first interactions with Naught was a rather hostile one: he was posting these leaks in a discussion channel, and I would occasionally comment on them. He got fed up with the “interruptions” and stopped posting leaks, resulting in an argument between us, until he was given his own dedicated channel for leaks. Interestingly, this interaction didn’t seem to end up characterizing the relationship we would later have, at least not at the start.
Having been so heavily involved in the server from its inception, coupled with the fact that life had become exceedingly dull due to the then-raging COVID-19 pandemic, I eventually approached the modstaff and asked if I could join them, and they said yes. Curiously, I was added to the modstaff by Klop at the exact same time as Naught, as Klop had ties with the Watchmen at the time and had been adding a few of their members to the modstaff as well, such as MKR. I was glad to be a part of the team, but my first real challenge as a moderator came from an event which had begun on the previous day.
Chris, who was in the midst of roleplaying as Sonichu at the time, arrived in the server on 10 August 2020, after Naught had invited him in.[1] At the time, the server had a contingency plan in place in the event that Chris showed up: he would be isolated into a single channel, only able to type in there, while individuals who were seen as sane and reasonable would be given a role called “True and Honest,” and only they would be allowed to speak to Chris, to ask questions and the like. However, news of Chris’s arrival in the server spread quickly, resulting in an influx of new users desperate to approach him and interact with him in some way, whether that be trolling, asking questions, or just having a chat. Ultimately, Chris only sent two messages during his time in the server, both of which had to do with the Dimensional Merge.
By 14 August, it was decided that the trouble of having Chris on the server was simply not worth it, and ultimately conflicted with the server’s philosophy of not interacting with him. During this time, Klop was the one who played Lainchu, a role that was created for the purpose of documenting Chris and relaying relevant information back to the CWCki, and was a member of the Watchmen. Since Chris’s arrival in the CWCki Server, Klop had been working on creating another server for the purposes of filtered interaction with Chris’s fans (via the Watchmen), in order to separate the CWCki Server from Chris. On the day of Chris’s banning, Klop posted an announcement about it as well as a link to the new server, called cwc frens.
| “ | In the last few days lots have happend [sic] in this server. Chris has joined this place for starters. This was met with mixed reception. The CWCki's goal is only to document Chris and not provide him a platform to push his agendas. It was never imagined that Chris will use this server to ramble about his fantasies. And due to this it has been decided to give Chris his own server where he may do as he pleases. | ” |
| Klop's statement on Chris's banning.[2] | ||
However, setup was not finished and the server was quickly infested by weens, forcing the moderators to take control of the situation. Chris himself wasn’t even there yet, although he would arrive eventually. Klop gave ownership to Naught, who would run the cwc frens server until its eventual closure less than a month later. At the same time, he handed ownership of the CWCki Server to another moderator. I don’t know exactly what happened, but he seemed to have had a change of heart in regards to dealing with Chris (although this would be brief). But this was the event that jumpstarted my involvement: Klop decided that he no longer wanted to play the part of Lainchu, and, having confided in me beforehand about playing the role, offered it to me.
I considered the pros and cons: there was an inherent risk when being so close to Chris, of course, and I wasn't interested in drawing attention to myself. On the other hand, this was an interesting opportunity to observe Chris a bit closer, and even relay new information back to the CWCki using my then newly-created editor account. And so, I decided to accept Klop's offer.
If only I knew the consequences of this decision that would arise a little less than a year later.
Joining the Watchmen
A member of the Watchmen would reach out to me soon after, giving me an invite to their server, "The Place". Within it were two layers of channels: one which was visible to Chris and everybody else, and a second which was visible to everybody excluding Chris.[footnote 1] It was here that I formally met several members of the Watchmen for the first time, such as MKRNightVee, NovaKyle, and Neko Onyx/The WCT. I was pretty quiet upon arrival, not quite knowing how I fit in, not having been given any instructions for my role. As it turned out, it didn't end up mattering at first: Klop had returned to the Watchmen, and since I had not done anything as Lainchu yet, decided to take the role back temporarily. This was fine by me; I was mostly interested in more distanced documentation anyway.
I got into the habit of screenshotting conversations whenever Chris was involved, and some of these conversations made up the substance of the early Discord Q&A, such as Q&As 2 and 3. I would upload these screenshots as references in the articles, with the names of the Watchmen (besides Lainchu) censored.
The Q&A itself was very impromptu and generally disorganized, and there was a rather large plethora of questions to be picked from. This was not to mention sourcing from cwc frens, which involved Naught acting as a gobetween for Chris, answering questions in his stead, although the volatile nature of the poorly-managed server coupled with Naught's general impatience towards less-informed Chris observers made it difficult to organize that effectively.
By the end of August, Klop decided to give up the role of Lainchu, this time for good, choosing to dissociate himself with the Watchmen and the CWC community entirely. Once again, he asked me if I wanted it, and I accepted. He left for a fair amount of time, but would eventually return to the CWCki Server every so often to check in on things.[3]
Becoming Lainchu
The migratory nature of the Lainchu role put me in an interesting position: I was more-or-less able to pick up where Klop left off, having already formed a relationship of sorts with Chris. To him, Lainchu the Chronicler was meant to be not only a historian who would document what Chris wanted, but a kind of sage who would give advice on how Chris could get closer to the Dimensional Merge.
I initially carried on like nothing was different, waiting and watching for Chris to say something noteworthy in the Place. So it came to my complete surprise when he messaged me privately one day, early in September, entirely out of the blue.
He came asking me questions about bringing the Dimensional Merge closer to fruition, and initially, I didn't quite know how to respond.[4] Up to that point, I purposefully avoided speaking to Chris, specifically because I didn't want to have to enable him. But here, I was stuck: either I play the game with him and keep him talking, or I refuse and he clams up. At this point, I went to Naught for help deciphering the nonsense that I was being sent as well as advice on how to respond, and he gave me a general idea of how to speak to Chris from then on.[5]
Chris's desperation and desire to bring about the Merge was evident, and the last thing I wanted to do was promise him something that would never come. So I developed a strategy: whenever I would be asked a question about accelerating the event into existence, I would go full Zen Master, preaching about the virtues of patience and allowing fate to take its natural course. I would always be just vague enough that I could be giving wisdom on anything. On occasion, early on, I would go back to Naught for specific advice when Chris was being particularly difficult,[6] but soon I got the hang of things and stopped asking for his advice altogether.
It was around this point that I began rising through the ranks of the modstaff on the CWCki Server, eventually joining the small group of "Manajerks" at the top of the command structure. Having seen the general inefficiency through which questions were delivered to Chris for the Q&A, and having ready access to a fairly sizable group of individuals interested in having their queries answered by Chris, I set to work on creating a new, separate server that would avoid the issues brought about by the mailbags attempted in cwc frens and elsewhere: by taking Chris out of the equation completely.
This new server would be a repository for questions directed towards Chris, moderated by myself and a select few from the CWCki Server, where we would separate the wheat from the chaff and ensure that only non-trolling questions of quality (in our opinions) would reach Chris. Officially, we would "forward them to the Watchmen" after review, which was technically correct, as "Lainchu" would be the one asking these questions to Chris on the users' behalf.
The server was dubbed CWC Questions, and would serve as the primary source of questions for the rest of the Q&A, from Discord Q&A 5 until its conclusion with Discord Q&A 11. The cwc frens server came to an unceremonious end on 6 September, with Naught, fed up with having to wrangle weens, deciding to wipe the slate clean and create a different server from scratch that would serve a similar purpose (although this ultimately never saw the light of day). Two days later, CWC Questions launched, and we began gathering inquiries. I would send them to Chris a few hours later (as he had messaged me asking for more Merge wisdom the day previous), and he answered them, allowing me to post the screenshots directly onto the CWCki, on their own page.[7] Systems for both vetting questions server-side and delivering them to Chris in DMs were established, with me sending relevant questions to Chris in a set of ten at a time, and reminding him once a week about the questions if he neglected to answer them (which was frequent). This system would last until the Q&A's end in December 2020.
On Enabling Chris and My Intentions
I am fully aware of the morally questionable implications of my choice to enable Chris, as well as the negative perception that comes with doing so. Enablers are frowned upon in the CWC community, and with good reason: they perpetuate, and oftentimes, add to Chris's unhealthy delusions, furthering him down a destructive path. I'm not here to tell you that I was some exception to the rule, or that I deserve any less amount of flak for "playing along" with Chris's craziness. I only wish to explain why I did the things that I did, and give some context to my actions.
The sad reality about modern Chris, as any Christorian worth their salt would tell you, is that he will not willingly engage with anyone who does not play along with his delusions, including people who try to help him. Null found this out the hard way, when Chris grew upset with him initially refusing to entertain Chris's Merge nonsense in the aftermath of the Idea Guys. Thus, if you were going to speak to Chris, you either had to acknowledge his delusions quietly or discuss them in great depth. The latter option was not appealing to me, so I chose to do the former.
I dubbed this technique light enabling.
As mentioned earlier, I would usually send him vague wisdoms whenever he would ask about the Merge, having to do with patience and allowing fate to take its natural course. My number one rule when dealing with Chris (which I also enforced when evaluating Q&A questions) was: don't give Chris any new ideas. I would always strive to maintain the status quo of Chris's beliefs for as long as possible since they could not be removed, as opposed to enablers who attempted to insert their own lore into Christory. To me, this was the ideal modus operandi of the Watchmen when regarding Chris (although whether it was followed by the others is an entirely different story).
My first priority when speaking to Chris was the gathering of more information, by way of the Q&A. If light enabling was required on some level to get there, then so be it. All that I wanted was information that I could upload to the CWCki. Nothing more, nothing less. Only once did I break my self-imposed rule of not adding new lore in an act of desperation, which I will cover later.
I've seen a few people here and there theorize that I was a troll or a ween. Unless the mere act of speaking to and enabling Chris qualifies me as such, I disagree with this assessment. I never tried to troll or otherwise antagonize Chris, and I had no desire for glory, clout, or a place in Christory. I never took credit for any of the actions I did as Lainchu, and the only reason I'm doing so now is because the cat is already out of the bag. Unlike some people, I don't view being in Christory as a badge of honor. If anything, it's the opposite. I just wanted to make a few small contributions by way of information releases.
Some might also call me hypocritical for preaching the "observe, but don't interact" philosophy when it comes to Chris while interacting with Chris myself, which I suppose is a fair criticism. I did try to maintain this philosophy for as long as possible, even as a member of the Watchmen, until Chris spoke to me first. In my mind, I justified it as him having reached out to me, rather than the other way around (which was far more typical of those wanting Chris's attention), and thus it was not the same case. I also believed myself to be making contributions to Christory by way, once again, of information releases, making speaking to Chris a necessary evil. While I do feel like the ends justified the means in terms of what I got out of Chris during the time we spoke, I am still uneasy with having spoken directly to him in order to do so. If I've let anyone down, especially from the CWCki Server, I apologize.
I do not expect to be taken solely at my word on this matter, so I encourage you to look at my DMs with Chris, which I am currently updating and will eventually be posted in their entirety, and draw your own conclusions about my intentions. I hope that you find them illuminating.
The Days of Prosper (September 2020 - December 2020)
From September to December 2020, things were fairly good over on Discord. During this period, I became the owner of the CWCki Server, and began committing time to improving it in different aspects. Chris would answer the Q&A every so often, each time prompting me to make a new page. Relations with most of the Watchmen were fairly good, at least on the surface. In retrospect, it was the calm before the storm.
This section covers an approximate four-month period on different fronts, so I will be splitting it into sections based off of each subject of interest.
The CWCki Server
I acquired the CWCki Server from the previous owner in October 2020, and I continued the process that I had begun previously of shaping the server to my ideal vision of it while maintaining the spirit of the community. Beforehand, the server was something of a Wild West, playing fast and loose with the rules and what could be gotten away with. Potentially troublesome users ran rampant, and what was and was not enforced varied wildly. After Chris's visit and subsequent banning, the server's population grew dramatically, and with Klop's departure as owner came a bit more of a controlled and somewhat strict method of moderation. No longer could the server risk incurring the wrath of Discord, given its size and the nature of its subject matter. Klop's successor (and my predecessor) began this process, and once the server came under my ownership, I began doubling our efforts.
Slowly, the less controlled aspects of the server were tightened, and a relative order came over it. While there was still a plethora of edgy jokes and writing throughout the server, nothing within it put us at odds with the Discord administration, and anything that could potentially cause that to happen was quickly handled by the team of moderators. It was a fairly well-run operation, all things considered, allowing the server to avoid any community guideline issues for a little over a year.
Of course, it was not all sunshine and blossoming zapbuds: there were the occasional unusual or troublesome people who came and went through the server, such as trolling groups and those who incessantly wished to contact Chris. These cases often provided interesting challenges for myself and the modstaff to handle, trying to ensure that everyone within the server was relatively safe and happy, while also keeping the Discord higher-ups from looking at us too closely. Our numbers steadily grew, and with that, came new ideas.
We would start hosting monthly competitions, such as themed contests that determined the server's icon, usually for the upcoming month or two. During Christmas, leading into the New Year, I hosted a five-day marathon of all of Geno Samuel's Comprehensive History series that was available at the time, drawing in a sizable group of watchers, and beginning the "Watch Parties" that we would host every time a new episode was released.
Things weren't perfect, and we had to deal with some bullshit sometimes, but overall, they were good. The server was prospering.
The Suitress and Associates
The individual who is now known on this wiki as the Suitress was once a member of the Official CWCki Server, under the username Snoo. She was perhaps one of the most unique and unusual people there, being almost entirely and singularly defined by her open sexual and romantic attraction to Chris. During her time in the server, she became well-known by its denizens for her behavior, obsessing over Chris in a disturbingly committed way, sometimes openly expressing her own sexual fantasies. Her behavior was so over-the-top and bizarre that she wasn't taken very seriously most of the time, with most users dismissing her as another (self-admitted) autistic oddball, and nothing more. I didn't pay much mind to her in general; to me, she was just another strange user who had decided to make the server their digital roost.
But others did take note of her, and unbeknownst to myself at the time, she began to attract a small following of trolls who wanted to turn her into a lolcow as well. To make matters worse, I was tipped off to the fact that she had been trying to contact Chris, and because I thought she was harmless at the time and didn't want her falling prey to the Watchmen, I gave her a verbal warning, which she seemed to take seriously. This was unfortunately later undermined when one of the Watchmen attempted to face-dox her on the server, which was the first (but not last) time that my role as a moderator came into conflict with my position as a Watchman.
- My Warning to the Suitress
The group attempting to troll her was eventually found out and banned from the server, and Snoo herself was banned soon after for unrelated rule violations. It should be noted that all of these actions took place directly before I took ownership of the CWCki Server.
Snoo would attempt to return again several months later, under a new account and seemingly unaware that she had been banned in the first place (even going so far as to declare that she knew the community had missed her).[8] After a short debate among the modstaff, her second account was banned, and she has not been seen in the server since. However, as we would later find out, this would not be the last time that the Suitress would become involved in affairs regarding Chris.
An individual known as Gunggan was also a part of the server, and had a friendship of sorts with Snoo, although to what extent is still unknown to me. In the early days of the server, he was quite infamous for being an info sniffer, constantly trying to get the inside scoop on affairs surrounding Chris. Once he found out that Klop was involved with the Watchmen, Gunggan would bug Klop incessantly and, later deducing that I had taken over the Lainchu role from Klop, would DM me questions (which I would either ignore or give vague answers to). It would get to a point where Klop started giving Gunggan fake information out of frustration, and even Naught seemed aware of him. Again, the extent of his activities remain mostly unknown to me, even to this day, but I thought it fair to bring him up as he would later wind up involving himself in the aftermath of the incest scandal, and would share information about the Suitress on Kiwi Farms.
A Note on the CWCki Server Modstaff
There are some who believe that the modstaff of the CWCki Server are guilty of some form of wrongdoing because of their association with me, as I was involved with the Watchmen. I want to make this absolutely clear: the only members of the modstaff who were involved with the Watchmen and spoke to Chris were myself and Klop. CWCki Jerkop Hurtful Truth Level and site owner Marvin were also present in the group's two servers during this time, but primarily as observers. I wouldn't share information from The Place to the modstaff aside from a few short anecdotes, and for the most part, I kept them in the dark about my activities outside of the server. I didn't want them to get caught up in any of it.
For those who believe that they shouldn't have complied with my secret-keeping, bear in mind that they were technically my subordinates in the server's command structure. While I never outright expressed what, if any, consequences would fall on them if they leaked information, given that I trusted all of them fairly implicitly, I can imagine that they might have desired to keep quiet out of fear of possible retaliation.
None of them had direct contact with any of the Watchmen aside from a few one-off DMs or interactions on the CWCki Server here and there, and they certainly weren't privy to any information that was not already known to the public.
All of this is to say that the modstaff of the server is not involved in any of this drama. They are good people, and the scrutiny that has fallen on them because of my actions is not their fault, nor should it be their responsibility. It is obviously much harder to prove that something didn't happen as opposed to something that did, but I implore anyone seeking information about the activities surrounding Chris on Discord to continue reading this page, and to leave the modstaff alone. They cannot tell you anything that you would not already know.
The Documentation of Chris
When it came to Chris, I developed a pattern of sorts regarding what I would send him, and when. Per his request, I would send 10 questions at a time to him, sourced from CWC Questions, and once he answered, I would send another 10 for him to tackle next.[7] Aside from considering the aforementioned rule about not allowing new ideas to reach Chris that may affect his delusional state further, I would try to make a point of packing together a healthy variety of questions that covered multiple subjects, given how few I could give Chris at a time and how slowly he tended to answer them. Generally, these questions would cover such things as expanding on or clarifying existing Sonichu or Merge lore, acquiring further details about lesser-known aspects of Chris's life, Chris's (or Sonichu's) opinions and advice on various subjects, and random trivia about Chris's life or tastes. I made a habit of treating every Q&A as potentially being the final one, given Chris's infamous laziness and his propensity to be extremely unreliable. Ultimately, this proved to be a very good mindset in the long run, since the Q&As only lasted until December 2020.
I would like to think that I managed to get a good handful of answers to certain burning questions the community had for Chris during this time, such as uncovering the origins behind the name of the Sonichu character Merried Seinor Comic and gaining insight on how Chris viewed the few real friends he's ever had, alongside some more trivial answers. Oftentimes, Chris's rapidly loosening grip on reality was put on full display without even directly referencing the Merge, such as when, in response to a question which asked where he saw himself in a decade, he stated that he would be immortal because of his Goddess powers.
My process for evaluating questions grew as the Q&As continued, soon setting up a depository for CWCki editors to ask questions, which is now archived. I had a template for all of the text-based Q&As which I would use to set up the next page of answers. Doing so was always easy, given that Chris answered through text and all I had to do was copy and paste. Aside from taking screenshots of our conversations, with myself wearing the Lainchu nickname and profile picture, I didn't have to do much editing, and the pages were always fairly short.
Discord Q&A 9 is an outlier among the ones I've done, being answered over audio at Naught's insistence. This was because Chris needed to do an audio test for the then-upcoming interview with The Create Unknown, over Audacity and likely on his iPad. I initially relied on Naught to record Chris and deliver the audio file to me, but he somehow failed to record anything when he tried, leaving me with nothing to work with.[9] I had to ask Chris to re-record everything he had answered himself, and I was convinced that Chris would refuse out of frustration. But surprisingly, Chris was a good sport about the whole ordeal, re-recording everything and providing me a copy with fairly clean audio.[10] On a personal note, I find it funny that Chris Chan, whose name is practically synonymous with incompetence, managed to successfully create the audio file himself while Naught utterly failed to do so. I gave the file to The WCT to upload to his YouTube channel for embedding on the wiki,[11] and once I was finished transcribing it (a much longer ordeal than simply copy-pasting text that Chris had written), the page was live.
I began to see the slow but predictable degradation to Chris's "work ethic" when it came to answering the Q&A as the weeks ticked by (despite the simplicity of the task at hand). Q&As 5 - 8 were all answered in September 2020, each a few days apart from one another, with the longest gap being between Q&A 7 and 8 in a span of a little over a week. Contrast this with Q&As 9, 10, and 11, which were each answered in the months of October, November, and December, respectively, leaving two month-long gaps in which no questions were answered at all. I can only assume that Chris had a relative enthusiasm for the first few Q&As, seeing as the format and question content was somewhat new, and this interest began to peter out as he found new things to occupy his time with (such as Praetor, who had recently entered the picture in October).
To be entirely fair to Chris, he was under no obligation to answer my questions, and I was always more than happy to take what I could get. I didn't want to push him and risk him shutting down completely, so I would send him weekly reminders whenever large gaps began appearing between his messages. I would always try to frame things politely, never being demanding, only asking if he could do this task for me if he had the time. He would usually ignore me whenever I did this, but I persisted on the off-chance that he would take notice and change course, and this was something that I continued to do well after Discord Q&A 11 (hoping in vain that the Q&A would resume). Upon further reflection, perhaps my business-like attitude towards getting what I wanted from Chris led to his waning commitment to doing as I asked.
Chris's final answer to my queries came on 4 December 2020, when he asked that I not send him any more questions for at least two more months (this was after he had just taken a month to answer the most recent batch). I complied, not wanting to push too hard, but I think this may have totally broken what little momentum was left in him. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Discord Q&A 11 would unfortunately be the last one.
The Create Unknown
I found out about The Create Unknown interview through the Watchmen, and I volunteered to assist with it as a liaison. After he had prepared by way of the audio test that would become Discord Q&A 9, Chris came onto TCU as a guest on 28 October 2020, with myself and NovaKyle watching it from within the chat room (thanks to the generosity of the hosts). Knowing that this interview would likely be interesting subject matter, I took it upon myself to record it in its entirety (with video), ending up capturing a few interesting tidbits here and there, such as Chris's demonstration of his "telekinesis powers" on a fidget cube, as well as the beginning and end of the show that were each cut out of the main interview.
After editing irrelevant aspects out of the capture, I asked the hosts if the video could be made public after their edited audio-only version went live. I initially asked The WCT if he wanted to host the video, but TCU preferred to do it themselves, which I had no issue with (and was more than justified, given that they own the content). I gave the video to them, and they eventually uploaded it to their channel, unlisted, on 16 December 2020, just in time for me to upload it to the CWCki.
So yes, the "anonymous Discord user" who recorded and created the uncut video was me.
| Create Unknown Chris Chan UNCUT | |
| Stardate | 16 December 2020 |
| Made By | The Create Unknown |
| TRUE and HONEST Sonichu Fan Videos | |
Interactions Within the Place
Chris would come into the "general" chat in the Place every so often, usually to have conversations with the Watchmen about his day, discuss whatever media he was in the midst of consuming, or talk about the Merge. Sometimes he'd write massive textwalls to get across a point, and usually he would @ everyone in order to do so, so I never ended up missing it due to this. Amusingly, he had a tendency to redundantly @ specific people even when he decided to @ everyone in the same message.
When talking about his days, he would usually insert fictional OCs into them (especially during the "spirit possession" phase), such as saying that he (as Sonichu) tried to cuddle with Rosechu through the "Iron Curtain" that divided the dimensions,[12] or that the OCs of Naught and MKR were beside him while watching a show. It was all rather depressing to witness, but nothing out of the ordinary when considering the content of Chris's tweets at the time.
More concerning, however, were the occasions when Chris would report potential health issues and construe them as proof that his goddess powers were activating and that the Merge was getting closer to happening. These weren't frequent, but did cause minor alarm whenever they were brought up. Chris would feel "vibrations" in his body, which he interpreted as his psychic powers activating. The Watchmen involved in the conversations would always try to tell him to go to a doctor to get things checked out, but Chris of course insisted that he was fine, being immortal. Thankfully, no major health crises arose from these reports, but it was still very concerning to see Chris disregard the notion of visiting a doctor even under the insistence of the people expressing concern over his well-being.
It was rare, but there were times when conversations with Chris would border on normal. Usually, this would come about when he spoke about the shows he had been recently watching, and the Watchmen responded to this. I will never forget, the one and only normal conversation I ever had with Chris was at 3 in the morning one day: he was awake and having a chat, and the conversation pivoted to movies, animation, and then the YouTuber Saberspark, and we both commented on our shared enjoyment of his content.[13] It was weird: for the briefest of moments, I had a normal conversation with Chris Chan. But it didn't last long, of course. Soon enough, he was back to talking about the Merge, and things returned to usual again.
Chris and Praetor
It became apparent pretty quickly that Chris had a certain level of business ambition when it came to Sonichu merchandising, albeit not enough that he'd lift a finger on his own behalf to turn those ambitions into reality. On 8 September, during a discussion about putting the Sonichu comics onto Amazon, Chris mentioned, for the first time, his desire to have a "skilled crafter or two" create Sonichu medallions and Amiibo for him. A few ideas were bounced around between him and the other Watchmen, but nothing conclusive came from this other than determining that Amazon would not be the best manufacturer for physical merchandise.[14]
The first time that Praetor was indirectly mentioned in the Place server was on 22 September, when Chris informed us that he would be meeting with his "new associates" regarding the production and distribution of custom medallions and Amiibo figures on his behalf. When I asked who they were, Chris didn't answer, only posting a picture of a gold medallion that he claimed was "Lovingly crafted by the young lady of the group, with paint that had a mixture of 24K gold in it."
It's likely that the "young lady" he was referencing was Annie Renee, one of the core members of the group. He didn't illuminate very much beyond that, only that they were based in Goochland and that Chris could tell that their intentions were "legit, honest and true." The Watchmen were naturally suspicious, but didn't inquire further beyond the initial questions.[15]
On 25 September, after Naught asked about the medallion makers, Chris affirmed them to be "good and genuine" once again, stating that they were setting up an Etsy shop and were making the first batch of medallions. He also gave us their "company name" for the first time: Praetor LLC.[16] Predictably, any results that came up by googling that name only brought up legitimate registered businesses that had nothing to do with the Praetor that the community came to know.
They were mentioned again on 3 October, when Chris spoke about the possibility of writing a lore bible, and affirmed that Praetor was in support of such an idea. Nova, suspicious that Praetor was ordering him to do this, suggested making a Twitter poll to gauge support for the idea,[17] which Chris followed through on.
Praetor was formally introduced to the Watchmen on 15 October, when Chris requested that Naught invite their Discord account (which belonged to the leader, Caden Peck) into the Place (they received access to the first layer only). Chris also revealed the first names of fellow members Owen Sundstrom and Annie Renee, who supposedly were encouraging an idea of Chris's that there was a connection between the Mayan calendar and the Dimensional Merge. We all said our hellos, and soon after, the Watchmen began asking numerous questions about Praetor's business plans. Praetor answered some of them, but notably refused to disclose the split in income between themselves and Chris, claiming that Chris had signed a confidentiality agreement. In an effort to solidify their legitimacy as a company, they claimed to have once lent their services to the micronation of Molossia, and spoke about their motivations for working with a client like Chris.
At one point, I asked for a website or social media of theirs. They claimed not to have a website anymore, but did have a Twitter and Instagram.[18] Praetor wasn't exactly very careful about keeping their members private, and as a result, links to the personal social media accounts of Caden, Owen, and Annie were all found with ease, alongside pictures of all of them. The Watchmen swiftly archived all of this information.
Praetor would participate in some irrelevant small talk early the next morning,[19] but from there on out, they were mostly silent in the Place. Though outwardly polite at that point, the Watchmen were incredibly suspicious and distrustful of Praetor behind the scenes, believing that they would proceed to extort or manipulate Chris, considering their support of the lore bible and the theories about the Mayan calendar. I'll refrain from sharing my opinions on them for now, and just say that their actions in the following weeks did little to endear them further.
Later that day (16 October), Chris provided us a preview of the handwritten script he intended to follow for his then-upcoming sermon video, which I would later upload to this website as part of the same article. Said video would eventually go live on 8 November, featuring seemingly mocking edits of Chris on behalf of the Praetor team. This was Praetor's first public introduction to the CWC Community, and it showcased, above anything else, their seeming lack of care towards hiding their identities even when doing questionable things, as their Instagram account even tagged those who appeared in pictures with Chris (which were later removed, but not before they were recorded). This fact was detrimental towards the Watchmen's primary method of driving away perceived bad actors, as it seemed there was nothing about Praetor's members that could be exposed to the public, which they had not already exposed themselves.
They would later launch their Etsy store[20] and begin selling medallions, with Chris's approval and promotion on 11 December. The group seemed to get a kick out of provoking Christorians, such as when they posted a screenshot of the taser they apparently were intending to buy and later use.
Praetor's legitimacy would continually be challenged by the Watchmen both behind the scenes and out loud, with members often openly deriding Praetor's behaviors and business practices in the general chat of the Place. Naught would also occasionally ping them to try and involve them in a conversation or get an update on their activities. Praetor would generally not respond to these provocations.
The two groups would not come to blows until February 2021, a few months later.
Bella's Introduction
Bella would be first mentioned to us on 28 December, when Chris credited her as the one who either introduced or encouraged the idea of Chris having an "Avatar State." I asked who she was, and Chris responded:
| “ | One of our Praetor group friends; she’s the one who made up the lovely animation: | ” |
| Chris Chan Sonichu Intro animation | |
| Direct link | YouTube, archive |
| Stardate | 13 November 2020 |
| Subject Matter |  Music
|
| OFFICIAL and HONEST CWC Videos | |
| previous Sonichu's Update on the Dimension Merge and Sermon - October, 2020 |
next Sonichu reads and critiques a Fanfic by The Crimson Libertarian |
Nova, who was part of this conversation, derided the animation as "the gratuitous porny one," to which Chris said:
| “ | We are not judging, plus she’s actually cool to talk with. | ” |
The conversation then steered towards Chris's "Avatar State" theory, and nothing more was discussed regarding Bella, who she was, or her role within Praetor.[21] Little did we know at the time, the major role that she would play later on.
Relationship With the Watchmen
As a part of the Place server, I obviously interacted with the other members of the Watchmen quite frequently. As far as my memory serves me, there were around a dozen or so members in the server while I was in it, including the currently named members of the Watchmen, "invisible" members who are not documented on the CWCki, and bots. I will be focusing primarily on the interactions I had with the major members of the group, and what I observed about them during the time I was in the server.
The "Toxic Trio"
The main members of the group were the ones that Chris would later come to describe as the "toxic trio," that being Naught, NovaKyle, and MKR. Naught was the de-facto leader, with Nova as a second-in-command of sorts, and MKR provided art used for influencing Chris (she was the one who drew the Lainchu art that I would use as a profile picture when taking screenshots of my conversations with Chris). Conversations with Chris were mostly mundane, but Nova was typically the one who would speak the most to Chris, acting as a sort of mathematician or scientist to help Chris sort out the technical aspects of the Merge. He had an odd way of speaking, a very indirect style that wouldn't really address a lot of the things that the recipient said.
I think I may have started off on the wrong foot with the Watchmen, being so distant upon my arrival. But to be honest, I wasn't really ever interested in their friendship. I knew that we had to get along to a certain degree, but it became clear to me pretty quickly that they were not the type of people I would've liked to be around in any other setting. I found a lot of their discussions to be rather distasteful, making near-constant derogatory remarks towards different kinds of people, and generally just being pretty unpleasant. To a degree, I was used to this kind of discussion in the CWCki Server, but it was always managed and reduced due to the need to adhere to Discord's Community Guidelines, and I could disconnect from these people because they were just random users. But I always felt compelled to check in on the Place whenever I saw activity, on the off-chance that Chris did or said something of note.
Most of the discussion in the second layer was either about Chris, other lolcows (the trio had a particular affinity for discussing the activities of Jacob Sockness and Dana Marie Cain), random hobbies or interests, or politics. Political discussion was particularly aggravating to read when I was just skimming the messages, looking to see if there were any updates on Chris, and eventually I got sick enough of seeing it that I asked for it to be migrated to another channel and leave one solely for discussing Chris (which they obliged). Despite this, I held my tongue and put up with the other Watchmen, and began to view them as the irritating coworkers that I had to deal with in order to continue doing my "job" (documenting Chris, in this case).
Conflict of Interests
Soon enough, conflicts between myself and the other Watchmen began to arise on occasion. As the owner of the CWCki Server, I had a certain amount of discretion when it came to dealing punishment to rule offenders, with some acts meriting harsher punishments than others. However, there were multiple occasions when I gave a greater amount of leeway to members of the Watchmen who violated the rules, often just giving them a slap on the wrist and a warning not to break the rules again. This happened early on, when MKR posted a link to a Google Hangouts call in a public channel of the server, in order to lure potential weens in and then dox them. I obviously didn't want anyone's personal information to get compromised due to MKR's weird game, so I deleted the link and requested she not post one again. She protested slightly, but ultimately didn't post another Hangouts link while I was owner.
Later on came a bigger problem: as is known at this point, the Watchmen's primary method for deterring would-be weens, trolls, and enablers was to dox them. Many people who attempted to contact Chris were neither the sharpest knives in the drawer, nor the most careful, so this was often an easy task for them. The problem arose when it came to delivering the message that they had someone's information to said person. Because the CWCki Server was the largest congregation of people interested in Chris Chan on Discord, it often wasn't out of the ordinary that a person who attempted to contact Chris would end up there. And because the CWCki Server had a strict rule against doxing, this posed a problem for the Watchmen if they attempted to go there and publicly humiliate anybody who did so much as send Chris a "hello" message.
I never fully agreed with the ethics around the Watchmen's overzealous aggression towards anybody who was outside of their little clique, but at the time, I viewed it as a necessary evil to ward off the next potential Idea Guys. Still, that didn't mean that I was going to allow it to happen on the server I was charged with managing.
As I mentioned previously, the Suitress wound up catching the attention of the Watchmen when she first texted Chris, and then left a message on one of his livestreams asking if he saw her text. I didn't wish for harm to befall her, as I mostly regarded her as quirky but harmless, so I extended a verbal warning to her, requesting she not contact Chris again. Once she agreed with my request, I informed Naught, telling him that she would likely no longer be an issue, which he accepted. However, I didn't tell the other Watchmen, which led to one of the members, named Val, posting a link to a video on her YouTube channel which featured her face, onto the CWCki Server. I removed it and spoke to Val, requesting that he simply tell me next time that someone on the server was causing a problem, and I would deal with it. He responded by telling me, in no uncertain terms, to fuck off, so I kicked him from the server[22] (he would later rejoin once he realized that he hadn't been banned).[23]
While this first incident was fairly minor, it was the next one that would kickstart a plethora of further internal conflicts for the rest of the time that I was a member of the Watchmen.
MKR and the Moderators
In an earlier section, I mentioned that when members of the Watchmen arrived in the CWCki Server, Klop granted a few of them moderator roles, including Naught and MKR. Naught was hardly ever active in the server, and often left it due to his distaste towards many of its members, meaning that he ended up losing his moderator status fairly early on and never did anything with it. MKR, however, remained in the server, rarely speaking or doing anything but idling with the role on her account. As the modstaff expanded, eventually a meeting was held, during which it was decided that inactive users with the moderator roles would be removed, and this obviously included MKR, who was an infamous figure and known Watchman who never moderated the server in the first place. It should be noted that this action also occurred prior to me becoming the owner of the server. MKR was quietly removed from the modstaff, with nobody informing her of this fact under the assumption that she would neither notice nor care.
The Watchmen in general had a rather negative opinion of the CWCki Server, viewing the large userbase as being mostly irritating and ill-informed about Christory (which I thought was a rather unfair qualification, given the sheer number of people who were in the server at that point). I don't know whether or not spending so much time around Chris gave them a superiority complex over other Christorians and a desire to gatekeep the community (which would be laughable if true), but either way, they aired their complaints quite openly in the Place, which I always ignored, as I don't tend to go out of my way to incite conflict on Discord. But one thing that MKR would always bring up, without fail, was that mods had paid "tardbucks" for their role. This is in reference to an event in the early days of the server, when Klop promoted a user to moderator shortly after they boosted the server. Klop claimed that his decision was unrelated to the boosting, and the person turned out to be an excellent moderator anyway, so I'm inclined to believe him, and nothing like this happened again, coincidentally or otherwise. However, this was the one thing that MKR latched onto without letting up, and would bring it up constantly.[23]
Eventually, she made it very clear why: she was upset that the moderator position was robbed from her without warning. Bear in mind, this complaint was made an entire three months after the role removal, so it wasn't exactly like she realized immediately. I apologized about this, informing her that it was a decision made under my predecessor, but told her that she couldn't have the role back if she wasn't going to actually moderate the server. She continued protesting, accusing me of lying, and doubting my claim that my predecessor removed the role from her. All of this arguing eventually led me to question why she wanted it despite her very obvious disdain for the server. Her response was "because you took it away," like a petulant child throwing a temper tantrum about her toys getting taken from her. I stood my ground, refusing to return the role to her (even more convinced that she wasn't right for it after that argument).[24]
This was a grudge that MKR never seemed to get over. I would often be at the receiving end of her hostility and bizarre conspiracy theories, suggesting that I was a mole (for some unknown group, apparently) or that I was working for Praetor (who the Watchmen were intensely at war with at the time). The latter occurred because I sometimes advocated for diplomacy with Praetor, seeing as the Watchmen's stubborn hostility was getting them nowhere. At one point, she asked me if we had met before, to which I truthfully told her that we met in the CWCki Server for the first time. I wouldn't find out the reason she asked me this until much later.[25]
All of this is to say that MKR absolutely cannot be trusted when speaking about me. She is motivated by a grudge that she never got over, and this is the reason she has accused me of various things that I never did.
Sean Walker
| “ | And as long as I don't [do] anything stupid in the future, I'll be fine. | ” |
| Sean Walker, 3 November 2020. | ||
I haven't mentioned TheWCT/Neko Onyx, also known as Sean Walker, very much so far other than in passing, and that's because he's deserving of his own section. During my time with the Watchmen, I didn't interact personally with many of their members in DMs, because I just didn't like very many of them. As I had mentioned earlier, I never enjoyed interacting with the "toxic trio" (as well as some invisible members) due to their topics of discussion being either disinteresting or downright repulsive to me. I didn't tend to participate in their political discussions, as squabbling over politics on Discord is generally unproductive and something I sought to avoid, but I often saw that Sean did argue with them, taking up similar positions to what I would have. He was also generally less volatile than the others, so I ended up feeling like he was something of a kindred spirit, or at the very least, someone I could speak to within the Watchmen who didn't make me want to gouge my eyes out in frustration.
The first time I spoke to him in DMs was 27 October, when I asked him to upload the audio recording that Chris had made for Discord Q&A 9. From then on, we would occasionally have friendly conversations, sometimes discussing Christory, sharing our mutual distaste for the opinions expressed by the other Watchmen, or just having casual chats. While I wouldn't call him a friend (especially now), I suppose that I could say that we were acquaintances of sorts.
The general vibe I got from him was that he was, for the most part, an outwardly polite and fairly kind person who was clearly quite autistic and passionate about his interest in Chris and other lolcows. There were other major aspects of his character that should be appreciated, but I will refrain from talking too much about him right now, as there's plenty of space to go over his actions in great detail throughout this page.
Ultimately, of all the things I had done in the community during this year, being friendly towards Sean has come to be my greatest regret.
Sean and His Ego
One thing that I noticed about Sean straight away, which should have been an immediate red flag, was that he has a massive fucking ego. It seriously rivals that of Chris.
The very first time that we spoke one-on-one, a mere few messages after I had asked him to upload Discord Q&A 9 to his channel so it could be embedded into the CWCki, he asked me this unprompted:
| “ | Would you say I've reached "Christorical Figure" status? | ” |
I told him I didn't know, and said he should speak to Null if he wanted the role on Kiwi Farms, although he also wanted to know in general. Bear in mind, this was the first time I had spoken to the guy directly, and it wasn't even like he was the leader of the Watchmen (although I'm sure that was his ambition, given what would eventually happen). This would be the first time - but nowhere near the last - that Sean would casually say something aggravatingly self-aggrandizing and I would either placate him or bite my tongue (to avoid an argument).
The way that he phrased certain things had this air of entitlement to them that would have otherwise been normal had he simply not been thinking of himself as a person of importance. Shortly after our initial interaction, we spoke briefly about the possibility of him hosting the uncut Create Unknown interview on his channel. This is how that went:
| Since I had a good talk with those folks, I'll give them the benefit of a doubt and release it right after their Edited Interview gets uploaded to YouTube. |
| Yeah I was gonna say, we shouldn't steal their thunder
Especially since we didn't pay to sit in on the interview |
| They've gained my respect.
So I'll let them have the clout. |
Notice the language that he uses, about how he'd "let" the Create Unknown have the clout because they've gained his respect, as though he had any say in whether or not TCU deserved to benefit from their own interview with Chris (which they paid for, mind you).
Later, when I informed him (as a courtesy) that TCU would be hosting the uncut interview themselves since they own the content, this was his response:
| “ | Get back to him letting him know that I agree with his conditions. | ” |
I did not, in fact, tell the Create Unknown hosts that Sean "agreed" with their conditions, because they didn't know him and he had nothing to do with the "agreement."
This would only continue as time went on, where he would insist on using particular terminology when describing things. When Naught temporarily kicked him out of the Place (which will be discussed later), he kept referring to it as a "coup," as though he had been the deposed leader.[footnote 2]
There are plenty of other examples, so I'm just going to leave a small collection of quotes from him below that demonstrate Sean's monstrous ego:
| Examples of Sean's Ego from Within Our DMs | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Sean confidently demonstrates that he doesn't know his Christory:
Continuing to talk about the server ownership transfer:
While talking about how long Naught has (apparently) been involved in Christory, Sean demonstrates his weird boner for Naught and Null:
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
If you're wondering why I'm putting Sean on blast like this despite him being the only member of the Watchmen I marginally liked at the time, keep reading. The answer will come soon.
Sean and Randy Stair
|
|
PROTIP:
The following is my opinion, a conclusion I have drawn based off of the facts that have been presented to me. I am not saying that this is necessarily the absolute provable truth; only that this is what I believe it to be from my own perspective. If new evidence arises that contradicts the beliefs I express here, I will happily eat my words.
|
It is widely known at this point by followers of the Incest saga that Sean had a fascination with lolcow and mass shooter Randy Stair. A common narrative I have seen about this is that he introduced Chris to the story of Randy Stair in a concerted effort to feed him violent delusions and transform Chris into a mass shooter himself, and that this desire was what may have inspired Bella's own supposed goal to have Chris commit suicide. I'll discuss Sean's relationship with Bella later, but for now, I will focus solely on the Randy Stair aspect, and why I believe that this narrative regarding Sean's intentions on this matter is wrong.
I first became marginally aware of Sean's interest obsession with Stair on 6 November 2020, when he wrote me the following message:
| “ | bruh, I accidentally got CWC into Randy Stair. | ” |
I had no idea who Randy Stair was at the time, nor the extent of Sean's obsession, so I thought little of it, merely commenting on whether Chris followed the antics of fellow lolcows. Sean also mentioned that Chris was getting into the story of Thaddeus McMichael, implying that he learned about McMichael through WCT's YouTube videos, similarly to how he seemed to learn about Stair.[37]
The next time Chris and his growing interest in Stair was mentioned by Sean in our messages was 14 December 2020, when Sean linked me a video created by YouTuber Dillin Thomas, commenting on the "crossover," writing:
| ຮṎṈḭᏨ ḭṈຮᾀṈḭtẙ Chris Chan and Randy Stair The Greatest Crossover In History | |
| Stardate | 10 December 2020 |
| Made By | Dillin Thomas |
| TRUE and HONEST Sonichu Fan Videos | |
| “ | oh god...what have I done. lol | ” |
This video was made in response to a lengthy Twitter thread that Chris had written recently, talking about Stair and his delusions in relation to the Dimensional Merge. Within this conversation, Sean said many things that, upon retrospect, provide context to some of the events that surrounded Chris and his newfound interest in Stair's story.
The first detail of note is that Sean admitted that Chris discovered Stair on his own by browsing Sean's documentaries on his YouTube channel (Chris had become a fan of Sean's work), and then asked Sean questions about Stair, presumably focusing on his delusional beliefs.
| “ | Remember when Chris had that lengthy Twitter thread?
even though he discovered Randy Stair first (via my documentaries), he asked me some things about him. So in a way, yes. This was my doing. |
” |
This contradicts the common belief that Sean intentionally introduced Stair to Chris in a conscious effort to make Chris imitate Stair. While he clearly takes credit for this, and responds to Chris's questions after the fact, the way that he explained what happened leads me to believe that even he is cognizant of the fact that this essentially began as an accident. In this manner, I think he's hardly any more responsible for introducing Chris to Stair than Geno Samuel is for inadvertently introducing the average ween to Chris's story.
Following this, Sean expressed his annoyance at the anger of those who believed that there did not exist any parallels between Chris and Stair, and that the key difference between them was Stair's propensity for violence.
| “ | It makes me a little angry that people are getting mad at Chris over having something in Common with Randy, but people shouldn't be surprised at this point.
Randy and Chris actually have stuff in common with each other, it's just that Randy is more excessively violent than Chris. Chris can be violent in his own way (as Christory has shown), but he will never be as violent as Randy was. |
” |
He stated afterward that Chris was overall a happier and more peaceful individual than Stair.[38] These statements, to me, indicate that Sean's intent in teaching Chris about Stair was not to inspire violence, as he admitted that Chris's capabilities for such things are comparatively limited. I think that Sean just wanted to share his obsession over an obscure subject of interest and the lore that surrounded it with Chris, who he considered a friend.
Now, I don't believe that this excuses or justifies Sean's actions after the initial introduction of Stair. Sean could have very easily given short answers to Chris and not encouraged his delusions, but instead he chose to do the exact opposite, eventually playing along once Chris decided to integrate Stair's lore into his own.
Months later, in February 2021, Sean informed me that Naught was unhappy with him for introducing Chris to Stair in the first place, and shared with me his own DMs with Chris, in which Chris first described his thoughts on Sean's docs and made it a part of his delusions, back in November. Naught later criticized Sean in the Place for causing this, and demanded that he tell the truth about the origins of Chris's interest in Stair if the subject were brought up again. Notably, Sean reaffirmed to Naught that the introduction to Stair was accidental.[39] Ultimately, Sean never did get the chance to explain himself.
None of this is meant to defend Sean. His actions following Chris's discovery of Stair were inexcusable, and he should have known better. Even the other Watchmen recognized his failure to take responsibility for influencing Chris (although they notably did very little to stop it). I am simply sharing what I know and believe because I don't think that Sean is the monster that Kiwi Farms investigators make him out to be. Yes, he is selfish and short-sighted, with extremely poor judgment, but I think that it's a stretch to consider him a violent sociopath because of a few bad decisions.
Sean and the Other Watchmen
Sean's relationship with the other members of the Watchmen could be described as...tenuous, at best. I would say that if not for the burning hatred that MKR developed towards me, Sean could easily be considered the least popular member of the group. Besides his vocal opposition to many of the political beliefs expressed by the "toxic trio" and his influence over Chris with regards to the Randy Stair lore, he was generally looked down upon by the others, and was constantly the butt of their jokes and insults. Sean generally took these in stride, either firing insults back or letting them roll off his shoulders. Either way, it seemed like Sean was fine with putting up with their disrespect towards him if it meant he could continue being a member of the Watchmen.
However, something eventually happened which led him to be suddenly, temporarily kicked out of the Place on 3 December. When I inquired about this, Sean quoted Naught as having told him that he was too open about his interactions with Chris and that he needed a break.[26] Given the back-and-forth spats that happened and would continue to happen between Sean and Naught, I don't know how much of this claim to believe, as Naught's motives could have been entirely different, and I was suspicious of such, given the absolute contempt the group showed toward Sean. Then again, perhaps Sean was downplaying how much he shared, a fact which would certainly not surprise me now. I don't particularly feel inclined to take either of them entirely at their word, anyway.
Later, on 11 December, Sean would message me again about this matter, claiming that he had a talk with Naught, and that his kick was a result of "politisperging" as well as some gay jokes he made while in there. More tellingly, he said that this was a decision made between Naught, Nova, and MKR, solidifying their positions as "leaders" of the operation. At the time, I was sympathetic towards his position, because I actively disliked the three of them and strongly believed that their reasoning was based on lies, although not to the extent that I would go out of my way to defend Sean to them.[40]
On 20 December, Sean asked me if I thought it was a good idea for him to convince Chris to pressure Naught into allowing Sean back into the Place. I told him that I thought this was a terrible idea, and would only make things worse. So naturally, he decided to do it.[29]
What I didn't expect, however, was that this actually worked. Chris followed through on declaring that Sean had been wrongfully expelled from the group,[41] and with no shortage of arguments and behind-the-scenes grumbling from the trio,[42] Sean was allowed back into the first layer of the Place on 24 December (it was a Christmas miracle, I guess). This was also the first time he began using the word "coup" to describe his short ban.[30]
By the end of the month, Sean was brought back into the second layer of the Place, albeit in a limited capacity,[43] and MKR still openly expressed animosity towards him (just as she did towards me).[44] From what I could tell, his relationship with the others would remain rocky until the Watchmen's breakup later in 2021.
The Approaching Storm (January 2021 - February 2021)
It was 2021, the start of a new year, and I was beginning to see the writing on the wall that things were about to change for me. Chris had stopped regularly answering questions, and so I sought out other ways to document his writings. The Watchmen's war with Praetor was beginning to escalate into a public spectacle, and on the inside, hostility towards me would reach an all-time high. I knew that I was getting into an increasingly unstable situation with the Watchmen, and that I needed to formulate some sort of backup plan in case things went south. This would end up being a critical time for me, right before things collapsed.
The Chroniclings of Chris Chan
With the halting of the Discord Q&As, I suddenly found myself with a drought of semi-consistent content from Chris. In spite of this, I kept collecting and sorting questions from CWC Questions for a while, hoping that Chris would eventually get back to it. Starting from mid-January, I would send him the usual weekly check-ins, asking if he felt ready to answer the questions, which unfortunately went entirely ignored.[45] Seeing as the task merely required sending approximately a single message per week, I kept doing it consistently even when it bore no fruit.
However, something else came about that, while not as interesting as the Q&As in my opinion, was far more dense and filled with informative content. Those wound up being the information releases that I came to call The Chroniclings of Chris Chan.
The Journey to the Merge
On 1 January, a day after Chris declared in the Place that "the Merge is on," he vaguely requested that I "go public with everything that [he has] been sharing with [the Watchmen for] the past few weeks," pertaining to Chris's various musings about the Dimensional Merge. Unsure of what to make of this, I asked him if he meant something specific or if I was just supposed to determine what to release myself. Naturally, Chris wanted me to make all the judgment calls rather than sorting through his own bullshit, so my work was cut out for me as usual. After asking how far exactly Chris wanted me to go back, he left that to my judgment as well.[46]
Since this was now all down to my decision-making, I decided to go as far back as September 2020, when I first joined the Watchmen. While I didn't want to go too far into the past, as the server's logs extended all the way back to September 2019, I wanted to include just enough relevant information that I could release a healthy amount while not spending forever finding, taking screenshots of, and editing messages that I wasn't there for and didn't have the context for. From there, I began collecting what I needed.
It was a lengthy process that took more time than it really should have, although one must bear in mind the inherently mind-numbing effect of combing through months-worth of delusional rambling by Chris to find a few nuggets worth releasing to the public. Eventually, I managed to compile together a large group of conversations from 16 September 2020 to 9 January 2021, and after editing out the usernames of those involved in the conversations (aside from Sean Walker as Neko Onyx, and Peachy, who were both indifferent to their inclusions), I would format and publish this collection to the CWCki as The Journey to the Merge.
Since this had been a rather unconventional information release that was themed around something specific and spanned several months, it didn't feel right to call it something like "January 2021 Discord leaks." That's where I came up with the Chronicling idea, as it would play into the way that Chris saw Lainchu's role, and would be especially useful as a categorizing device if Chris requested more of these types of releases. I started making a habit of creating "forewords" as Lainchu to give context to what was being shared,[47] speaking in character mostly for the fun of it, but also on the off-chance that Chris saw the pages that consisted of Lainchu speaking (which he never did, to my knowledge).
And thus, on 23 January 2021, the very first Chronicling was created.
Lost Content
There's actually a "lost chapter" of this first Chronicling. In the process of putting everything together, I was constantly running all my edits past the other Watchmen, as I wanted their input and involvement. They were mostly indifferent to my work, but one part of my intended release did bother Naught, Nova, and MKR: a pair of screenshots from 22 November 2020, in which Chris spoke about having a vision of the near future, in which one of his "doppelgängers" would be working as faculty at Manchester High School, and would pass away in some fashion in front of a group of students. This event would allow this person's "energy" to be absorbed by Chris, further assisting him with breaking the "Iron Curtain." The other Watchmen in the chat at the time commented on the rather morbid nature of this particular delusion.[48]
When reviewing this, concerns were raised about weens potentially using the knowledge of Chris believing in doppelgängers as a way in. I argued against this point, stating that weens have already done this sort of thing regardless (roleplaying as one of the Sonichu characters, for instance), that this delusion was something Chris could have easily spoken about or would later speak about on Twitter anyway, and that weens were generally not smart enough to look for a clue so specific. In spite of this, the three of them persisted, and I knew the two images were not going to be worth the fight.[25] So I cut them from the collection.
This particular chat was later leaked onto the CWCki, long after the Watchmen's dissolution.
| Exchange between Chris-as-Sonichu, Naught, and Nova | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
There was a lot I could have included in this first Chronicling that I simply didn't, because of a desire to keep things focused, as well as to not provoke any unnecessary drama. Many of Chris's then-recent messages had to do with people who he got into (usually one-sided) conflicts with in some way or another, whether that be Ben Saint, Opuscon, or Cirrusfire (Opuscon actually was briefly mentioned in passing here). However, one of the dramas cut out actually had to do with the Watchmen's internal conflicts as well. In the segment I entitled New Developments, there are two redacted messages: a large paragraph, and a small sentence. Both of these had to with Sean Walker's banning from the Place, with Chris advocating for him to be allowed back in. Since this was in the middle of a Merge-related textwall, I opted to censor the two messages rather than cut them out entirely, since I thought airing the Watchmen's dirty laundry out in the open would probably not be a very good look for the group.
Just like with the previous lost content, this one was eventually leaked onto the CWCki as well.
| Side-note and firstly, Neko, I understand, was kicked out of the group due to some political jokes that didn’t go over well with everyone. It should go without saying that such type of comedy, if it goes over one’s head or is offensive, you can simply not read it, listen to it, or just tolerate it for the support of our friend. Neko is still a very vital and importan [sic] component and individual in our group. Such differences are petty in comparison to the greater good and ultimate outcomes to come.
With that said, I would appreciate having Neko readmitted into the server, and not to be banned from it again, please. |
The argument would continue below where I cut the image off, eventually ending in the Watchmen reluctantly readmitting Sean to the server's first layer.[41]
The Vaughn Interlude
The second Chronicling came about as a result of the sudden appearance of the troll Larry Vaughn. On 3 January, Chris came into the Place with an announcement, as he had just received a goodie bag and a letter from a group calling themselves "LAnon," a rather unsubtle parody of a certain popular conspiracy theory. Impressively, Chris went to the effort to transcribe the entire thing into the Place's general chat rather than just send pictures of the letter itself. He also shared with us the texts he received from a supposed representative of the group, going by the pseudonym "Miss L," and a picture of the goodies he received. The Watchmen dismissed this as the obvious bait that it was, but Chris wanted to "confirm their intentions."[49] The next day, he posted another text from Miss L, leading to more derision of the troll's tactics.[50]
- Texts from Miss L
Miss L and LAnon were discussed briefly behind the scenes, but Chris didn't say anything more about them for a while, leaving the Watchmen with little to work with. However, on 14 January, Twitter users began publicly posting about the "ciphered messages" that Chris was sending to them, leading the Watchmen to confront him about it two days later. The initial assumption was that Chris's Twitter got hacked, but Chris would reveal that this was actually the result of coercion on the part of Miss L, who now went by the pseudonym Larry Vaughn, after a character in Jaws.[51]
While Chris was too proud to admit his mistake, the Watchmen continued telling Chris to ignore Vaughn, and this was thankfully his only meaningful trolling effort.[52] Chris would later share small details that Vaughn had sent on occasion, including his likely fake name: Daniel Arias.[53]
A lot of people were confused about the events that had recently transpired around what Larry Vaughn had done, so I figured making another information release would help clear the air on what was happening behind the scenes. After getting permission from Naught[54] (I didn't extensively run my work by the other Watchmen this time as I had previously, due to an increase in hostility that I will discuss later), I compiled another collection, albeit much shorter and less extensive than the last, revealing the effects of Vaughn's efforts before they were revealed to the public. I censored quite a bit in this one, including names and Twitter accounts included in the LAnon letter, as I didn't want unrelated people who didn't respond to Chris to be potentially dragged into his nonsense. I also censored Vaughn's supposed real last name, as that was not public information at the time. Of course, much of this effort would end up being moot later on, as nearly all of this information was revealed by Vaughn himself at some point or another.
I entitled this collection The Vaughn Interlude, posting about it on the CWCki on 4 February, and it seemed to be a rather useful resource for the Larry Vaughn page. Unfortunately, this release was undercut by Naught the next day, when he announced (to the Kiwi Farms) Praetor's involvement in Chris using a taser on a crystal as a way to open a portal.[55] This annoyed me at the time, given how much effort I'd put into compiling the Chronicling, while Naught simply quoted Chris (didn't even include a screenshot as proof) and had the whole CWC subforum panicking for a few days. In retrospect, I suppose that Vaughn was old news by the time the Chronicling released anyway. And given the size of what I am currently writing on this page for no tangible personal gain, I guess I should be used to wasting my own time at this point. Oh, well.
Bella's (Public) Introduction
I didn't know of its importance at the time, but The Vaughn Interlude included Chris's very first mention of Bella (that was made public, anyway), in which Chris stated that she was helpful to him for "trolling [Vaughn] for intel." It had been months since anyone named "Bella" was mentioned, so I asked if she was the animator that worked for Praetor, who was talked about previously, and Chris confirmed that this was correct.[56] Because it was part of the conversation on Vaughn, it wound up being a part of the Chronicling. If I could ask it again, I probably would have clarified what exactly she had been responsible for animating, but given how things would go for Bella later on, I guess that difference wouldn't have mattered too much anyway.
This was the first indication of Bella's self-imposed role as Chris's advisor and trusted confidant, something which would eventually lead to both of their downfalls.
Thinking with Portals
The third and final Chronicling that consisted of messages from within the Place came about as a result of Praetor, and their involvement in Chris's plan to use a taser on a crystal as a way to open a portal and begin the Dimensional Merge. After this fact was revealed by Naught on Kiwi Farms, Praetor wound up being heavily scrutinized by both the Watchmen and the greater CWC community as a whole, even moreso than they had been before when they were just selling medallions and making sermon videos. Now, they were considered to be potential risks to Chris's safety, and the Watchmen were spiraling in regards to what should be done about them.
On 8 February, Caden, the apparent owner of the Praetor Discord account, came into the Place's general chat and began discussing the matter. I don't know exactly what prompted this after months of silence - perhaps Chris or one of the Watchmen DMed him about the latter's concerns beforehand, or he simply noticed the Watchmen's openly-aired grievances in the general chat and chose to respond. Regardless, Caden defended himself by stating that this was Chris's idea, that Chris would not come into permanent ownership of the taser, that the voltage on the taser itself was low, and that they would take responsibility should anything go wrong. Predictably, this was not enough assurance for the Watchmen, with Nova choosing to antagonize Caden while the latter remained fairly calm.
Chris entered the discussion and began arguing logistics with Nova, throughout which Caden would occasionally interject to tease the latter. Nova would attack him in return, while Chris would try to break up the fighting by inserting bouts of random-access humor. Predictably, none of this wound up accomplishing very much other than to serve as the setup for the call that would take place later that night. At the end of the text discussion, I asked if I could Chronicle the exchange, as I believed it might be valuable information for the community to know, and Chris requested I do so.[57]
Conveniently, I had a couple of information pieces that Chris requested the release of on the backburner already: one from 31 January, in which Chris discussed his "past" as a goddess,[58] and another from 1 February, in which Chris talked about the wizard Merlin, and how he fit into Chris's lore.[59] I decided to wait on releasing these pieces until something more substantial could be grouped alongside them, and this fight between the Watchmen and Praetor was the perfect opportunity. So, after receiving permission from Naught,[60] I set to work on creating the third Chronicling.
It would release on 13 February, under the name Thinking with Portals, as a loose theme for this release. This was a fairly low-key event, all things considered, but I'm glad that this small amount of light could be shed on the situation.
I wish that I could have made more of these Chroniclings from within the Place, but sadly, such a thing was not meant to be.
Ethics and My Process
I wanted to talk briefly about the way that I released information, both the Chroniclings and the Discord Q&As. Nowadays, most people who have information to share about Chris that do not already exist in a public forum (such as Twitter), or simply wish to get the attention of an interested crowd, will make an account on Kiwi Farms to share their stories or content. However, this was something I very much did not want to do from the beginning. I desired neither attention nor direct engagement from the community over these releases, so instead, I used the other resource that was available to me - my editor account - and created pages directly on the CWCki itself. For a long time, this seemed to be perfectly acceptable, but in the aftermath of incest reveal, questions have begun to be raised about the role of the Watchmen in influencing the CWCki and its content from this period.
In order to discuss this, I'll outline my process: first, I would ask either Chris or Naught if something was okay to be released, and for Journey to the Merge at least, I asked who wanted their usernames or other information censored. I was always very thorough, and I bring this up because members of the Watchmen would later accuse me of leaking things without permission while I was part of the Place, which is simply untrue.
After taking screenshots and suitably censoring them, I would create a page on the CWCki that described the overall content of the release as well as transcripts of the content, and these were usually fairly clinical in their writing. I would include a "foreword" as Lainchu in order to set the tone, but the rest of it was mostly unaltered writing taken verbatim from the messages that were exchanged between the Watchmen and Chris. On occasion, a few things would be censored, such as personal information and the aforementioned paragraph in which Chris defended Sean after the latter was banned from the Place. But none of these fundamentally changed the context or content of the exchanges themselves.
My point here is that none of the releases were created with the intent to trick or misinform anyone. There isn't some grand conspiracy by the Watchmen to downplay their actions on the CWCki by having an editor (me, in this case) make them look better, or not as bad as they actually are. None of the pages I wrote convey that, and some of them even make the Watchmen look bad. This was just the vehicle through which I delivered my information.
Ethically, I suppose I can understand the uneasiness that might come with an editor uploading their own content, even if it is relevant because it includes Chris. That being said, I openly invite anyone to edit the pages I made if they believe that more can be added or improved upon. I may have created the pages, but I'm not the sole editor.
As for worries that the Watchmen were controlling aspects of the narrative through me, I'd like to acknowledge that doing this was never something they asked of me, and was also something I never did either way. I generally avoided editing the Watchmen's CWCki page, and the one time I did it was not only after I was no longer part of the group, but was also in service to documenting MKR making a fool of herself. I had and still have absolutely zero interest in defending the Watchmen on this wiki, especially after my relationship with them deteriorated significantly.
Escalating Hostilities
As I have been alluding to throughout the previous section, these two months wound up being a time of rapidly increasing hostilities between not only the Watchmen and their perceived enemies, but between myself and the other Watchmen as well. This was not something that went unnoticed by Chris, and would serve as the start of an ever-widening rift between himself and his self-imposed group of protectors.
The Watchmen vs. Larry Vaughn
Most of the story regarding Larry Vaughn's major activities was covered in an earlier section, so I won't waste time rehashing those events. The critical points to remember are that Chris showed the Watchmen Vaughn's attempts to get his foot in the door, and despite the Watchmen's warnings, Chris proceeded to walk directly into the trap anyway. After this, Chris pretended he knew what he was doing the whole time, and Vaughn's activities became insignificant despite his intended trolling plans and numerous attempts to provoke Chris further.
After this, on 11 February, Larry Vaughn made a Kiwi Farms account and started posting in the then-recently created thread about the taser debacle with Praetor, in which Naught was busy leaking information, the most recent of which being a snippet of the call that happened between Caden and the Watchmen on the evening of 8 February, as well as Caden's dox.[61] Vaughn apparently had more to say on the matter, so he started posting about how he allegedly was brought into contact with Caden via Chris, and that the former agreed with some of his trolling plans.[62] All of this was unsubstantiated and based off of his word alone, so I am not entirely inclined to treat these claims as fact.
Vaughn then further doxed Caden by posting his phone number,[63] along with text conversations he had with Chris.[64] In response, Naught posted Vaughn's supposed real name (Daniel Arias) as well as his phone number,[65] both of which Vaughn dismissed as fake.[66] Naught pressed him about his motives, and Vaughn claimed he wanted to end Chris's belief in the Dimensional Merge or get help (despite his actions contradicting this stated intention), which then morphed into a desire to paint Praetor as incompetent, since he believed the group to be "fucking nuts."[67]
This was the last of Vaughn's significant actions, and he didn't have much of an impact overall, with his part in Chris's story ending before it ever really started. However, the fact that he was successful in his first trolling attempt confirmed something to me that I had slowly begun to realize throughout my months with the Watchmen: that they were incapable of guarding Chris from outside influences if their usual tactics didn't work. Praetor was the first of these such instances, with them being easily doxed, but not backing away from Chris despite this, perhaps because they didn't care. As for Vaughn, his momentary grip on Chris would not be discovered until it was already too late.
My point is that the Watchmen have always been more reactive than proactive, only responding to perceived threats after they have made their presence obvious. And by then, the damage will already have been done.
The Watchmen vs. Praetor
The Watchmen had truly found an ever-persistent enemy in Praetor, which refused to go down no matter how hard the white knight group tried. The Watchmen had already tried doxing, and that didn't work, so they resorted to a two-pronged approach of simultaneously demonizing the group and trying to pull Chris out of their sphere of influence. Then again, perhaps putting it this way is giving them too much credit; I have never seen the Watchmen lay out a coordinated plan of attack.
Anyway, Praetor had presented themselves as benevolent and beneficial towards Chris, both financially and spiritually. The former was obviously represented in their sales of the custom-made Sonichu medallions, which Chris got a cut of. The latter was represented in numerous different ways, with the members playing into Chris's beliefs, as well as providing him a platform for the sermon video. To this day, I can only guess at their motivation for doing this. Perhaps it was the way they ensured that Chris would remain interested in their operations, or maybe they were just bored and wanted to have some fun while making some money. The members of Praetor were supposedly high school students (or just leaving) at the time, after all.
Naturally, all of this posed a significant threat to the Watchmen's power. Unlike figures such as Jacob Sockness or random weens and a-logs who demonstrably intended some form of harm to befall Chris, Praetor always presented themselves as being in Chris's corner and acting out of his best interests (from his perspective). This coupled with the fact that they clearly didn't care about their doxes being on the Internet (at least not enough to stop their operations), and the Watchmen found that they could neither convince Chris that Praetor was indeed a threat, nor scare the group away themselves.
This was the subject of much discussion behind the scenes, with various ideas being exchanged about how to handle Praetor, some of them rather ludicrous. Sean believed that they would one day just go away on their own, either out of boredom or fear of retaliation,[68] given the way that groups surrounding Chris have gone in the past (although this ignores the unique circumstances that allowed Praetor to remain in power in the first place). Nova and MKR seemed convinced, without evidence to support this theory, that Praetor were responsible for some kind of fraud, such as buying their own medallions from the storefront to artificially inflate their sales numbers (despite what a terrible and nonsensical business tactic that would be for something this niche).[69] They also - rather unreasonably - wanted Chris to get all of the money that was made from the medallions rather than just a percentage.[70][71] They believed that Chris needed to be convinced that Praetor were actually the bad guys.
I had a different approach in mind, but...let's just say that my suggestions did not go over well with the rest of the Watchmen. I'll discuss them at greater length later on.
As can be seen, the Watchmen had very little to work with, and so no conflict arose with Praetor publicly. But then the taser plans were announced, and suddenly, things turned around. The Watchmen now had the perfect ammunition and opportunity to not only further turn public perception against Praetor, but pull Chris away from them as well.
However, I believe that what the Watchmen did next would wind up unintentionally causing them to architect their own demise.
The Taser Incident
To be clear, according to both Chris and Caden, the stated intention with the taser was for Chris to zap a crystal of some kind in order to open a portal to another dimension. While I believe this to have been a rather reckless and irresponsible idea, given Chris's past history of misusing self-defense weapons, this didn't necessarily translate to harmful intent on the part of Praetor. Unless it was their plan all along to zap Chris for fun (which I don't believe, as such a move would be horribly detrimental to their business, not to mention the legal issues that would arise), I think this paints Praetor more as careless than it does malicious. Of course, this was not the narrative that the Watchmen would fuel on Kiwi Farms.
After Naught created that Kiwi Farms thread about Praetor's plans and all hell broke loose, Praetor re-emerged to discuss things with the Watchmen, and later that night, Caden came onto a voice chat with them. I believe that the members involved at the time were Naught, Nova, Val, MKR, and Sean (who was recording the whole thing), as well as Chris. I actually did sit in for this discussion, although I didn't turn my mic on and only made the occasional contribution through text. Predictably, it was a rather unproductive back-and-forth spat in which no inroads were made. Although his intentions were undoubtedly suspicious, I don't think that Caden was impolite or uncooperative during the discussion; quite the opposite, actually. He seemed quite affable and willing to work through a discussion with the Watchmen, a path that I thought might have been worth exploring. But I was not the one leading this particular charge, so instead, the Watchmen continued to lambast Caden for various perceived slights. Not helping was the fact that Chris pretty firmly trusted Caden (bolstered by his belief that he, as Sonichu, could withstand electric shocks), and continually expressed an obvious desire for everyone to get along.
Eventually, Caden began making light fun of the Watchmen, answering sarcastically to many of their insults and threats. Near the end of this discussion, Sean demonstrated an inability to contain his growing superiority complex by making vague threats towards Praetor.[72] I advised him to reel things back in DMs[73] and in the Place's second layer, as I believed nothing good could come from this tactic. Naturally, MKR told me off for this simple suggestion, so I shut my mouth and allowed things to wrap up.[74] Caden left the call, followed by Chris, and Sean ended his recording.
After having been thoroughly humiliated by Caden in their own server, each of the Watchmen with a public presence began condemning him in some way. Naught posted Caden's dox onto Kiwi Farms,[61] followed by a one-minute-long clip out of context (which I assume Sean edited) of Val laughing at Chris stating his willingness to be purposefully electrocuted.[75] In the post, Naught had written "Caden and cwc as Sonichu prime discuss the tazer and who will be tazed," leaving out the fact that Val was the one who jokingly floated the idea and had been laughing. This was very obviously a way to spin things in order to make Caden appear more malicious than he actually was, and further turn the tide of public opinion against Praetor. I thought this was a rather disingenuous move on the part of the Watchmen, but at this point, I was used to the underhanded methods they used to achieve their goals, so it didn't really faze me. Meanwhile, MKR posted a portion of a snarky text conversation that Praetor had with the Watchmen during that night, further spinning the narrative.[76]
I think that it's safe to say at this point that this whole ordeal wound up accomplishing nothing in the long run. As time ticked by and no evidence of the taser being used came to light, either from video or testimony from Chris himself, interest in this topic slowly faded away, and Praetor would never again make another splash this large. Months later, the full call audio would be released by Sean.
In my eyes, this was the Watchmen's opportunity to change course with Praetor, for better or for worse, and they squandered it. But in retrospect, I think this was much worse than a simple missed opportunity.
By fighting with Praetor out in the open, the Watchmen had a rare moment of showing their true colors to Chris, unfiltered by feigned politeness or roleplaying. This would be the start of Chris's disillusionment with the group, when they would begin to lose him.
Effect on Chris
History shows that Chris abhors conflict between those that he considers friends. Attempting to speak negatively about those he has decided he already likes will have a good chance of causing him to shut down, as he will have a difficult choice ahead of him. This happened when Anna McLerran tried to convince him that Catherine was a troll, and again years later when the Guard Dogs came into conflict with the Teen Troon Squad. And I was watching it happen once more with the Watchmen and Praetor.
Attempts to ward Chris away from bad actors has worked in the past sometimes, as it did with Jacob Sockness and the Idea Guys, but only when it's already obvious to Chris that such people are active threats to him and his well-being, and he wants an out. If Chris believes the person/group is benevolent and is already attached to them, whoever tries to pull Chris away is more-or-less already fighting a losing battle. If the passive group (Praetor) doesn't manage to win him over completely, then the active group (the Watchmen) will at the very least lose some of its credibility in Chris's eyes.
And this was exactly what happened to the Watchmen. For them, this would be strike one.
The Watchmen vs. The Watchmen
It was during this time that the Watchmen became plagued with infighting, with the "Toxic Trio" leading a charge against myself and Sean Walker. There were other members who they didn't like either, but most of their vitriol that I witnessed was directed at the two of us.
While I am no fan of Sean's, I do admit that I felt a little bad about the way that MKR treated him with absolute contempt and clearly didn't respect him at all. I mean, he didn't do much to stand up for himself; he'd always just take the abuse, but still, I was sympathetic to his position because I often found myself in the same boat.
Usually, this would only go so far as MKR insulting me behind my back to Nova (but in channels where I could clearly read what she wrote). I would never respond to those provocations, as I didn't want to incite open conflict. Unfortunately, one day, open conflict simply fell right into my lap without warning.
Handling Praetor
A favorite tactic of MKR's was to make up a conspiracy theory about me and, I assume, use that as a way to justify her treatment of me (maybe I'm rationalizing it too much; she's never needed much of a reason in the first place). I already touched on her suspecting that we had met before (we hadn't) and that I was a mole for some other group (I wasn't), but now I want to focus mainly on our differing perspectives on Praetor.
You see, the Watchmen only had a single mode of attack, and despite their best efforts, such methods were entirely ineffective against Praetor. So I suggested an alternative solution: try diplomacy with Praetor. Have the Watchmen present themselves not as enemies, but as allies. I didn't suggest this because I thought the Watchmen needed to comply with whatever plans Praetor had, business or otherwise, but because it was clear that we were getting no insight into whatever was going on behind the scenes with them, the most valuable information to have if we couldn't just get rid of them. As it stood, like it or not, Praetor held all the cards: they had Chris's ear, had at least two female members who were holding his attention (Annie Renee and ILJ), they were paying and enabling him, and they didn't care about getting doxed. The Watchmen were outmatched, and the only way to improve the situation was to switch tactics. But this was not something that the others were very interested in doing.
Every time that I merely suggested trying something different, Nova and MKR would shut me down, with MKR openly suspecting that I was secretly a member of Praetor all along (for the record, I joined the Watchmen three months before Praetor even came into the picture). She even suggested that I was cutting some sort of deal with them to financially benefit the CWCki Server[77] (exactly how is anyone's guess; I never made a penny off running the server, it was purely a hobby). These were the moments that really revealed to me her unhinged nature, and propensity to leap onto the first convenient narrative she came upon that confirmed her existing biases.
Eventually, I gave up completely trying to get the Watchmen to patch things up with Praetor, having grown apathetic towards both groups and this ridiculous conflict over control of Chris. It was clear they didn't value my opinion, so why bother expressing it? This coupled with a recent incident caused me stop caring about the Watchmen's objectives altogether, an incident which I believe catalyzed my eventual exile from the group.
The Catalyst
On 23 January, the night that Journey to the Merge was published, Val brought up (in the second layer) how he hated all Christubers and wanted their doxes, specifically for "making money off of reading other peoples' work." I expressed the opinion that doing so is not a crime, hardly worthy of a dox. Very reasonably, he responded by calling me retarded. We had a brief argument in which he said that the Christubers were "stealing" open source work (which is not how open source work operates by nature), and I argued that it was transformative, and therefore fair use. This is when things started going off the rails a bit.
In a tantrum unlike one I have ever seen on Discord, Val started deleting my messages every time I would post something, which was frustrating, to say the least. He also temporarily changed his server nickname to "Lainchu," declaring that he was the new Lainchu. I responded perhaps by being a little too snarky, but in my defense, I was pretty fed up at this point by his immaturity. Eventually, I just said "We can agree to disagree" in order to defuse the conflict, but then MKR inserted herself into the conversation and it took an even sharper nosedive. Val declared that he wanted me out of the server, and MKR agreed, making another reference to the "tardbucks" conspiracy theory she had been peddling since getting kicked off the CWCki modstaff.
The argument continued for a little bit, ending with MKR suddenly switching gears and claiming that she was "testing" me, and that this was just a "discussion."[78] Perhaps Sean was okay with putting up with this kind of behavior, but I didn't share that mindset. While this argument was happening, I was DMing Naught, asking for him to do something, as I believed this kind of internal fighting was detrimental to what I thought was supposed to be a team effort, but he just referred to Val's behavior as "banter" and dismissed what I was asking.[79] I soon dropped the topic with him altogether when I realized that he wasn't going to listen, and based off of Val and MKR's messages immediately following the argument, it seemed that Naught was sharing our messages with them behind my back.[footnote 3] In retrospect, perhaps it's on me to have been expecting any sort of professionalism from any member of this group.
MKR's passive-aggressive attitude towards me had officially graduated into outright hostility, and with Val holding the same attitude, Nova clearly being on their side, and Naught unwilling to do anything about it, I realized that this environment was no longer stable for me to remain in. I knew that my days in the Place - and as a member of the Watchmen - were limited.
From that point on, I would only sparsely post in the server, instead choosing to primarily observe, sometimes speaking whenever Chris would come around.
Interactions With Sean Walker
I wound up speaking much more with Sean than I had before due to this increased hostility. Since he and I shared a mutual dislike of MKR (and Nova, to an extent), and were often treated similarly, we sometimes vented about our frustrations with the group to each other. I'm not going to detail every single conversation we had in which we talked about MKR - you can read our DMs if you want to see those - but I will highlight a few conversations that I find important.
On 17 January, when Sean tried to express his opinion on something in the second layer of the Place, MKR responded by insulting him repeatedly. They got into an argument about why Sean was previously kicked, resulting in MKR writing a textwalled screed against him. I do agree with some of her opinions on Sean now, although I wouldn't have expressed them in such a vitriolic way. To his credit, Sean remained fairly cool and collected while MKR continued hurling insults at him,[80] but I was pretty angry to see this happen. We chatted about it in DMs, about how she was a toxic personality, with me encouraging Sean to stand up for himself. This discussion eventually led to Sean saying that MKR would have a thread on Kiwi Farms one day, to which I pointed out that she already had one, although it hadn't been updated in a while. Sean found it, stated that he might consider updating it himself, and we then pivoted away from talking about the thread.[33]
Put a pin in this conversation: it will be important later.
On 12 February, after Chris had tweeted a happy birthday message to voice actress Tara Strong, along with several pictures of characters she had played in the past, Sean messaged me to say that Naught was upset with him. This was because one of the characters included was Ember McLain from the show Danny Phantom, who had apparently been a significant part of Randy Stair lore. This may have well been a simple coincidence, as Chris is not particularly discriminating when it comes to cartoon consumption (unless it's MLP G5), but Naught seemed to be strongly under the impression that this was due to the lingering influence of Sean's Randy Stair docs.
Again, at the time, I was not well-versed on anything having to do with Stair, so Sean recapped everything that happened with Chris watching the docs, and very handily gave me a few screenshots depicting Chris's reaction to Sean's work in his DMs. Given that Sean's Neko Onyx account would eventually be banned and deleted by Discord and there is no evidence of him having archived his chats with Chris (which he certainly would have released by now), these may well be the few surviving fragments of his direct messages with Chris from this period.
This was the point at which Naught told Sean to "tell the truth" to the public about how Chris discovered Stair and his lore if Chris were to mention it again. Sean defended himself by reiterating the point that Chris discovered Stair on his own while browsing Sean's channel, but Naught still insisted that he fix things, perhaps by speaking to the community directly about why Chris was now so interested in Ember's Ghost Squad. As far as I can tell, this never came to be. Sean asked me if this information was "CWCki worthy" and I just told him that it might be if Chris continued to mention it.[39] Of course, there now exists an article on this wiki dedicated to Randy Stair, so in a roundabout sort of way, I guess Sean got what he wanted.
The next day, on 13 February, Sean brought up to me a message that Chris had sent in the Place, expressing his disdain for the Watchmen's recent behavior towards Caden in the Taser Discussion, as well as thinking that they were no longer on the same page as him and were acting as a detriment to the completion of the Merge. Afterward, he edited his message to add on his disappointment towards members of the group that leaked information without permission, and towards conversations that he found distasteful, or a "distract-a-thon." Insightful and intelligent as ever, Nova and MKR responded by saying perhaps the worst possible things, with Nova insulting Praetor directly, followed by MKR claiming that Caden "bullied" her and that Praetor was insincere. They then compared Praetor to Jacob Sockness or Joshua Wise.[81]
I expressed to Sean my still-unchanged opinion, that the best thing to do in regards to Praetor was to lay off them for a little while so that Chris could come out of whatever funk he was in, as well as my apathy towards trying to improve the situation, given the fact that the Watchmen were obviously not going to listen to me. Sean still was convinced that Praetor was somehow in the losing position, a point which I argued against for all the reasons I've mentioned already.[82] By the end of it, I really didn't care who won or lost this autistic battle. I was just there for the show.
Coming Soon: Breaking Point (February 2021)
It was time. All the pieces were in place for the Watchmen to totally break down and do something utterly irrational, impulsive, and stupid. Praetor was maintaining their stranglehold on Chris, and the Watchmen's paranoia and desperation was reaching an all-time high. At first, I believed that I could remain where I was by maintaining my low profile, and not drawing attention to myself. But then there was a turning point, one I knew I would not be able to come back from.
Stay tuned for updates.
Notes
- ↑ This would later expand to exclude "untrusted guests" such as Praetor.
- ↑ Sean had a particular obsession with international politics and government bodies, which he would constantly use to make comparisons to the Watchmen's current situations or jokingly insist existed in Chris's fantasy worlds (i.e. a CWCville Supreme Court). He would also frequently use military terminology to describe conflicts over Discord having to do with Chris.
- ↑ In my DMs with Naught, after he dismissed my concerns, I mentioned that I could sweep the incident under the rug this time, but that everyone has their limits. Meanwhile, in the Place, after ten minutes of silence following the end of the argument, MKR and Val both wrote "sweep sweep" unprompted, followed by Val telling me to "cry some more," despite the fact that I had stopped engaging with them at that point.
Sources Cited
- ↑ File:Offical CWCki Server-Christory - 10Aug20 - Naught invites Chris1.png
- ↑ File:Chris CWCki Ban.PNG
- ↑ File:klopgivesuplainchu.png
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Chris#Introduction/Bismuth Messages
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Naught#Help With Chris's First Messages
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Naught#Ultra Director Textwall
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 User:Anaxis/DMs With Chris#Discord Q&A 5
- ↑ The Suitress returns to the CWCki Server after being banned and announces that she knows the community missed her. (archive)
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Naught#Chris's Audio Test Recording
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Chris#Discord Q&A 9, Barb's Questions, Test Audio
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#Test Recording for Discord Q&A 9
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Chris#Comics on Amazon
- ↑ User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#Saberspark, Animation, The Golden Girls & Betty White, Sleep Schedules
- ↑ User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#Discussing Merch Distribution, The Loud House, and a Chris-Chan Dating Sim
- ↑ User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#The "New Associates" (and Helena Hate)
- ↑ User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#Patreon Troubles, Chris's Online Social Life, "The Boys," Praetor LLC Revealed
- ↑ User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#Lore Bible Discussion
- ↑ User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#Praetor Arrives, Chris Writes his Sermon, More Bible Discussion
- ↑ User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#More Food Discussion With Praetor
- ↑ Current iteration of Praetor's Etsy store. (archive c. November 2022)
- ↑ User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#Chris's "Avatar State" and Bella, New Age Discussion, Nova and MKR Distrust Praetor
- ↑ User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#Val Tries to Face-Dox Snoo on the CWCki Server & Gets Kicked
- ↑ 23.0 23.1 User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#MKR Complains About Moderator Removal
- ↑ User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#MKR Continues Complaining About Moderator Removal
- ↑ 25.0 25.1 User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#Reviewing the Journey to the Merge, Opposition to Doppelganger Content, MKR Asks if We Have Met Before
- ↑ 26.0 26.1 User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#Sean Gets Kicked From the Place
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#Relationship With Chris, ProjectSNT, BABScon
- ↑ 28.0 28.1 User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#Discussing MKR's Behavior
- ↑ 29.0 29.1 User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#Getting Chris to Pressure Naught
- ↑ 30.0 30.1 30.2 30.3 User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#Chris Helps Out Sean
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#Christmas Discussion
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#The Wallflower's Identity
- ↑ 33.0 33.1 User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#MKR's Toxicity
- ↑ 34.0 34.1 User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#Naught Leaves the Place
- ↑ 35.0 35.1 User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#Naught's Return (and His Past)
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#Exile From the Place
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#First Randy Stair Discussion
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#Second Randy Stair Discussion
- ↑ 39.0 39.1 User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#Third Randy Stair Discussion
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#Sean's Ban Theories
- ↑ 41.0 41.1 The Place chats - Infighting, Anime, and the Merge
- ↑ User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#Chris Argues in The WCT's Favor and The WCT is Unbanned
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#Back in the Second Layer
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#Animosity from MKR
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Chris#January and February 2021 Reminders
- ↑ The Journey to the Merge#Go Public
- ↑ The Journey to the Merge#Lainchu's Foreword
- ↑ The Place chats (November 2020)#Premonitions and trances
- ↑ The Vaughn Interlude#Letter and Gift Bag from LAnon
- ↑ The Vaughn Interlude#"The Anonymous Society of the Transreality"
- ↑ The Vaughn Interlude#Twitter DMs
- ↑ The Vaughn Interlude#Vaughn's Twitter
- ↑ The Vaughn Interlude#Danny Boy
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Naught#Birthday Cards Idea and Larry Vaughn Question
- ↑ Feb 5 2021 - Chris wants to play with taser to activate the Merge. Kiwi Farms. (archive)
- ↑ File:VaughnInterlude 24January2021 4.jpg
- ↑ Thinking with Portals#Praetor and the Taser
- ↑ Thinking with Portals#Chris's Goddess Past
- ↑ Thinking with Portals#Merlin's Deal with Chris
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Naught#Thinking with Portals and Larry Vaughn's Comments
- ↑ 61.0 61.1 Naught. Thread #84502 (Message #8300206). Kiwi Farms. (archive)
- ↑ Larry Vaughn. Thread #84502 (Message #8320971). Kiwi Farms. (archive)
- ↑ Larry Vaughn. Thread #84502 (Message #8321457). Kiwi Farms. (archive)
- ↑ Larry Vaughn. Thread #84502 (Message #8321436). Kiwi Farms. (Archive)
- ↑ Naught. Thread #84502 (Message #8326322). Kiwi Farms. (archive)
- ↑ Larry Vaughn. Thread #84502 (Message #8328389). Kiwi Farms. (archive)
- ↑ Larry Vaughn. Thread #84502 (Message #8331746). Kiwi Farms. (archive)
- ↑ User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#The Watchmen Freak Out Over the Taser Situation The WCT: Praetor will be gone soon. Just wait and watch.
- ↑ User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#The Watchmen's Skepticism Over Praetor Medallion Sales
- ↑ User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#The Watchmen Think Chris Should Get All of Praetor's Sales Money
- ↑ User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#The Watchmen Complain About Chris's Payout
- ↑ Taser Discussion
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#The Praetor Call
- ↑ User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#The Watchmen Try to Antagonize Praetor #findings (Second Layer)
- ↑ Naught. Thread #84502 (Message #8301396). Kiwi Farms. (archive)
- ↑ Part of Praetor's conversation in the Place, posted by MKR out of context. (archive)
- ↑ User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#MKR's Conspiracy Theory About Praetor & The CWCki Server
- ↑ User:Anaxis/The Place Chats#The Argument With Val (a.k.a. the Catalyst)
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Naught#Val and MKR's Antagonism (and Naught's Inaction)
- ↑ The Place chats - MKR-WCT Infighting
- ↑ The Place chats - Watchmen-Praetor confrontations#13 February 2021
- ↑ User:Anaxis/DMs With Sean Walker#Praetor and the Watchmen's Tug-of-War
