 Good evening. On July 27th, I released my video What's Up with Badwater Videos 2009 to an electric response. The video seems to have really helped the Badwater channel as it's now passed both its predecessor Gunslinger Pro and my channel and subscribers. And with this growth and popularity has come 5 new uploads on the Badwater Videos channel, so I'd like to take a look at each of these, correct any mistakes I might have made in my original coverage, and reassess my summary of the story so far. Let's begin. The first upload, which came out just two days after my video, is called Melon Man Update and Q&A Announcement. Let's have a look. This video is pretty simple. Badwater announces a questions and answers segment, presumably because of increased interest in the channel. He also thanks the audience for the milestone of 10,000 subscribers. Just about the only thing that sticks out, apart from some odd distortion, is Badwater cancelling the upcoming Melon Man episode. In my last video, I predicted that episode was going to start Melon Man and the soldier cyborg we saw in Dr. Metalhead Rises fighting each other, so it being cancelled throws a bit of a wrench into my predictions. We get more info in the Q&A itself, so let's check that out. Badwater answers some questions from fans, with a couple responses sticking out. He writes that his favorite class is the Spy, which is interesting considering we haven't seen a Spy in the series so far. It's also funny knowing that, by contrast, Gunslinger Pro doesn't like Spies much at all. However, Badwater also denies a connection between him and Gunslinger, so this is probably just a coincidence. Somewhat interesting is that Badwater seems to be responding to comments as if he were truly stuck in 2009, describing Left 4 Dead 2 as an upcoming game and the TF2 map Nucleus is new. The screenshot of his subscriber count and channel info in the last video was even reflective of the design of 2009 YouTube, so we can assume these videos are really meant to be re-uploads. And now for the elephant in the room, we learn that the soldier that Melon Man was supposed to fight, as teased in the video Dr. Metalhead Rises, was deleted for being deemed a failure by Badwater, which was presumably what led to the cancellation of the episode. We catch a quick glimpse of a grisly scene with the cyborg soldier crawling on the floor trailing blood behind him, before he's deleted by the player off-screen. Is he a failure because Badwater is unhappy with his design, or is he a failure because he was uncooperative with Badwater? It's unclear, but we'll most likely never see him again since he was deleted. The last thing worth noting is Badwater contemplating the idea of doing a tutorial video, which sets us up for the next upload titled How I Make My Gmod Machinima's Tutorial. Here's that. Badwater walks us through the process of how he makes his machinimas, which is a little more unorthodox than we may have first expected. Everything seems pretty normal up until he decides he wants to add characters to the scene, at which point, instead of opening the queue menu and spawning a ragdoll like everyone else, Badwater goes through a door into a white void and passes through to the map off-blast, where he apparently last left the characters after filming Melon Man vs. the Tee the Near. This remark about welding down the ragdolls to stop them from wandering around once again confirms that the player is aware of these characters' sentience and is actively abusing them. It may also imply that the red scout isn't the only ragdoll to attempt escape. We get a cut to GM Construct, making its first appearance in this aerogy. Badwater tells us that he's going to teach us how to animate, and he gives us some tips on disabling the hide and fizz gun beams. Note this red scout. It's the same guy from the Broken TV and Passage videos, so we can assume the player must have recaptured him at some point between the passage and now. The player begins setting up a ragdoll walker machine with the intention of rigging that scout up to it. But the scout says- Uh, no! And gets the hell out of there while the player is distracted. The player looks over and starts running toward the ominous dark room, presumably where the scout has made his dash to. But before we get to see what happens, there's a cut and we see the player rigging up the engineer instead. To once again address the elephant in the room, it looks like I was very wrong about the passage video. I previously theorized that the white void was a pocket dimension created by an entity to protect the scout. It instead appears to be a passageway between levels that the scout happened to stumble into before being recaptured and used in this video. This system of navigation between maps opens a lot of questions regarding how Badwater's game works in contrast to a typical build of Gary's mod, which adds another layer of intrigue to the fact that the scout's perspective prior to his capture showed a heads-up display in weapons. Is it possible these characters were all simply plucked from a TF2 match by Badwater? Perhaps they're irreplaceable, which is why Badwater goes to such great lengths to capture them and stop them from wandering off. But the most important question this video leaves us with is what happened to the red scout? Did he escape the grasps of the player and leave the player with no choice but to replace him with an engineer? Or did the player find him and punish him in a way that left him no longer presentable for the camera? We'll return to that question in just a minute. For now, let's see the next upload, titled The Teethaneer Interrupts Tea Time. Here we get to see the machinima that Badwater was setting up in the tutorial video we just watched. Melon Man and the Red Engineer are relaxing and enjoying tea time. When the Teethaneer tries to sabotage it with a pipe grenade, Melon Man kicks it back and the Teethaneer gets blown up by his own bomb. Observing his failures through a helicopter machine, Dr. Metalhead teleports the Teethaneer back to the lab and scolds him. The Teethaneer is then ordered to try and stop them again, seemingly setting up the next episode. There's not much to note here other than some strange effects on the voice lines. The real treat comes in the next upload titled Sanctuary. This video seems to be a direct sequel to the passage. We resume the Red Scout's perspective in the white transitional void and catch a glimpse of the player transporting Melon Man during the filming of the tutorial video. The Scout walks his way out to off-blast and tries to get the attention of the Red Engineer, who's unresponsive, before getting dragged and captured by the player once again. We get a cut forward in time to the Scout as he's hung up during the tutorial video, before making his dash for the dark room. Just as we expect the player to charge in and grab the Scout, he suddenly turns around in retreats. The Scout wanders deeper into the dark room before spotting a mattress and laying down on it. A little bit of an odd ending. So, what's going on here? Well, the video's title, Sanctuary, implies that the dark room is a safe place for the Scout, as supported by the fact that the player seems scared to go in it. The significance of the mattress is unknown, but it may simply be representative of the fact that the Scout is finally free to rest. I'd like to note that the passage video listed August 27th as its date, which is the exact day that Sanctuary was released this year. Sanctuary's description in turn lists September 22nd, so we can likely expect another video following the Scout on September 22nd, later this month. And now that we're caught up on the new material, how has my summary of the events of this ARG changed? Well, we've got a little bit more of a development in the Scout story and we have a better idea of what the white void is, so here's how I see it. As we already know, Badwater Videos 2009 is a YouTuber who holds sentient TF2 characters captive and forces them to participate in his machinimas. On August 15th 2009, a red Scout stumbled into one of the productions, so Badwater grabbed him and forced him to participate in his video called The Broken TV. This Scout somehow managed to either escape Badwater or was simply spared by him. In the Scout's absence, Badwater begins laying the foundation for his GMOT TF2 series starring Mellon Man and the Engineer. In the second episode, Badwater forces one of the living characters, Mellon Man, to beat the other, the Tetherneer, on camera. Badwater begins preparing an episode where Mellon Man would fight the cyborg soldier, but ends up cancelling it because of some kind of failure. He deletes this soldier execution style. Sometime later, the red Scout reawakens on Lumberyard to a radio voice warning him to run and hide. Hey guys, Pictures and PandaVision here. In the first video on Badwater Videos 2009, I referred to the code in the passage video as Hexa Decimal, when in fact it is 16-bit Decimal Code. Same general concept, but I called it by the wrong name. Sorry about that. After getting up off the bench, the Scout then passes through to Offblast where he's recaptured by Badwater for the purpose of being turned into a ragdoll walker. However, the Scout manages to escape Badwater's grasp once again while he's distracted, making a dash for the dark room where he finally gets a chance to rest. The biggest mysteries we're left with are, A, the nature of the character's Badwater abuses. Are they plucked from CF2 itself somehow? I still can't think of much other explanation for the HUD and weapons the Scout has shown within the first upload. And B, the nature of Badwater's game itself. Using a white void to travel between maps is obviously very strange and actually impossible given source engine limitations. So it opens a good amount of questions about the supernatural element of this ARG. To discuss what I like in these new developments, I like that the stereotype of the dark room has been flipped on its head, with it invoking comfort instead of horror. There's a parallel to be drawn between this shot from Badwater videos 2009 and this shot from Gunslinger Pro. While this shot represents punishment and torture for the blue spy, it represents salvation and safety for the Red Scout. It's ironic. I also like the cuts and editing in the tutorial video with the white void passageway. It's a creative idea executed very well, and as I said earlier, it opens the door for a lot of speculation. Ultimately, the developments in this ARG have gone a long way in establishing a cohesive and easily-followable narrative, which is something Gunslinger Pro didn't try much at, as it came across more as simply a series of unnerving videos. I'm excited to see what happens in the future regarding this ARG, particularly what will happen to the Red Scout on September 22nd. I'll see you all then. In the meantime, however, you should consider joining my Discord server. There's a good 5,000 or so people in there, and most of them are interested in these ARGs as well. In fact, you might even have a chance to interact with BadwaterVideos2009 himself and see exclusive media relating to the ARG. You can tell it's the real deal by checking their linked accounts. That's all for now, though. Make sure to follow me on Twitter and subscribe to my second channel as I'll be posting content there soon. Livestreams are on the table as well. Thanks for watching. Have a good day.