Amongst the sea of videos on YouTube, you
might have missed a series of letsplay-style videos uploaded by a man identified only as
Paul, showing us this strange game he's discovered. Petscop is an unfinished and unreleased game
focused around collecting pets and solving puzzles – but it seems to hide deeper and
incredibly mysterious secrets. But you'll never play Petscop, because this
game never really existed. Today on the Panopticon Theatre, we will explore
this creepypasta-esque mystery, and
try and get to the bottom of the secrets baked in
to this subtle and intriguing unfiction series. This will be a multi-part comprehensive video
series where we try and look through as many aspects as possible to get a clear and unified
picture of the series and story – today, we'll go over the series itself and pick through
the videos looking for information and clues. The first thing we're going to do is go over
each episode of the series and break down as concisely as possible what happened. I
, as always, highly encourage you to watch
the series yourself first. I'm going to be pointing out a lot of things
that you likely will have missed on your own watch, that are important to our later analysis. In March 2017, the channel 'Petscop' uploaded
it's first video, equally titled 'Petscop'. The narrator seems to speak specifically to
one person, whom he has presumably spoken to regarding the game before, rather than
in a usual lets play style. We can identify him as Paul by his save file
name. The first video introduces us to the idea
of the bare-bones game of Petscop. Made in 1997, it's sort of a pokemon-slash-puzzle
style game, where you have to solve puzzles to gather a series of creatures called pets. The puzzles we see are a bit strange and the
game is clearly not at all near being finished. It's evidently clear from the first few minutes
that this is intended to symbolise the foster care system. The building Paul walks around, Even Care,
is scattered with signs giving advi
ce for choosing and caring for pets, and without
much thought you can easily picture only slightly reworded versions of these signs in adoption
and fostering centres. The sign also refers to a pet as 'somebody'
– not really language you'd use in respect to an animal, but something you'd say to refer
to a human. A picture near the front has the text, “Are
they not cute? Give them a chance!” regarding two pets in the image, furthering
this symbolism. The pause menu also contains a function that
re
ads 'book of baby names'. Note the way Paul catches the pets. To get Amber, he has to trick her to come
over to what she thinks is an empty cell. To get the rain cloud, Wavey, and the flower, he traps
the rain cloud, and the flower shrivels up. This isn't exactly setting a great scene if
we look at this as a foster system. The game that Paul shows us is very short,
but he tells us the interesting part is this – a note that came with
the game: [Reading Note] Paul enters this code, and as he lea
ves the
room, the game changes atmosphere very suddenly. He is now in a shadowed, grassy space, with
the building behind him a simple grey door on a brick square. Paul finds a wooden hatch, which he can't
open. In the next video, after simply waiting for
a couple of minutes, the hatch swings itself open. This allows him to explore further. He finds a room that looks somewhat medical
in nature, and picks up a ringing phone that tells him: “Care left the room.”, with
'Care' being in yellow. There'
s also a diagram of three of what appear
to be the same faces, one neutral labelled 'A', one ruffled looking labelled 'B', and
one crying or perhaps shocked or hiding, labelled 'NLM'. A little further on, Paul finds a gravestone
with eyes on it labelled “Micheal Hammond”, with dates of birth and death, so we can see
clearly that Mike died very young – aged only 7. Note that Mike's name is in pink. Text also reads 'Mike was a gift'. The shape of the headstone is a present box
on a pole, following
the 'gift' wording – we also saw these presents on poles in the early
areas of the game. Above this, Paul finds a flower, from which
he can pluck petals. Going downstairs from here, he finds a crying
figure kneeling on a podium, resembling the crying face on the chart, the NLM. I'll directly say here, as it's clear later
and it makes it easier to talk about her, that this is a character called Care. The tone of the discordant sound that plays
as Paul removes petals from the daisy shifts up and
down every other petal. This seems to reflect the idea of the 'Loves
Me, Loves Me Not' game. The petal pulling sequence of this flower
ends on 'Loves Me Not'. It can also be connected to the Dr. Seuss
book 'Daisy-Head Mayzie', which notably features the repeated line – 'Nobody Loves Me'. Could this be what 'NLM' stands for? When Paul returns to Care, she's glitching
out like crazy, and appears distorted and deeply disturbing to look at. Paul tries to catch her like the other pets,
but he just ph
ases through her. Continuing on, Paul finds a red object called
'Tool', which he is prompted to ask a question to. After his initial vague 'what?' is answered
with 'I don't know' in a floating, scribbly handwriting, Paul looks to a screen behind
Tool, and sees a windmill, one we saw slightly earlier in a picture. Tool tells Paul to keep watching the windmill,
which he does, though nothing seems to come of it beyond some ominous booming sounds. Paul takes a moment to speak regarding the
recording
s, mentioning that he's hoping the person he's specifically talking to is ready
to come home in the next month and that they can investigate it together. It's very clear he's not talking to the YouTube
audience as a whole at this point, but his single target viewer. Moving on, Paul finds the 'Quitter's Room',
which has a mirrored room on the other side, the only difference being that the player
character's head is replaced with a crude, blankly smiling girl's face. Initially it syncs perfectly,
but Paul briefly
moves away, then when he returns, the mirror is out of sync with him. A note on the wall reads 'Do you remember
being born?'. The next episode, uploaded a day later, starts
with text on the wall reading “GOOD GRIEF AND ALAS”, which is also present in the
'Daisy-Head Mayzie' book. Paul then comes across the canvas. This allows him to put various features together
to access corresponding bedrooms. After trying a few random ones that led to
random basic rooms, he tries the features
seen in previous areas of the game. Mike's features being input has the canvas
state that Mike is not in, as he is dead. His room contains a smaller version of Tool,
the red object from earlier. He then tries Care's features, which yields
the text, 'Care is missing'. Care's room also has a Tool, and a note is
present on the back wall: [Reading Text] Note the various text colours, denoting different
people. We have the new green text, the purple, which
seems to denote this new Tiara character, a
nd once again yellow for Care, also confirming
that NLM means 'nobody loves me'. Petscop 4 doesn't have a lot of major points
to discuss, and it is very short. Mainly, he's discovered the camera that feeds
the image of the windmill to the room with Tool, but where the windmill itself would
be is an empty space. In Petscop 5, Paul returns to Tool and walks
us through the few questions he managed to get proper answers to. Firstly, 'Who is Tiara?' yielded the response 'Petscop kid, very smart.'. As
king 'who am I?', returns 'Newmaker'. 'Where am I?' returns 'under the Newmaker
plane'. We should of course here take a detour to
discuss the story of Candace Newmaker, a real life incident of horrific child abuse that
ties in somewhat to Petscop. To be clear, Petscop is not about Candace
Newmaker. Due to the wordings used in the series, there
is a very obvious connection to be made to it. However as stated by the creator himself,
the reference to this incident was to associate the themes within
the series, and it's actually
something he regrets including. It's something we need to mention when we
talk about the series, as it's obviously in there, but again, Petscop is not about Candace
Newmaker. But there are many references present, such
as the name Tiara, the Quitter's room, rebirthing, and some others. Back to the series. After this, Tool suddenly turns bright pink. It doesn't respond to Paul's initial question,
then in bright pink and a different handwriting, it says, 'TURN OFF PL
AYSTATION.' Clearly this is not the same entity that we
were speaking to before. The only pink name we've seen is Micheal Hammond,
but that was a lighter shade. It continues: 'MARVIN PICKS UP TOOL HURTS
ME WHEN PLAYSTATION ON.'. Tool then returns to red, and Paul asks who
it is. It responds, 'Tool'. Notably, in the description of this video,
the use of 'we' indicates that it's not just Paul working solo right now. In the next video, we see Paul has been watching
the windmill for coming up on 3 h
ours. A shadowy figure approaches the windmill and
enters, and the blades change direction. It then approaches the camera and turns it
to a grassy area. It then uses letter blocks to ask the questions,
'Where is my house?' 'Where is the school?', and then the statement,
'I will follow.' It then returns the camera to it's original
position. After an hour and 24 minutes, the windmill
vanishes. Paul is able to go up and catch the Toneth
pet, and it's description is long and rambling and weird, talk
ing about a dog not dying after
being hit by a car and the speaker thinking he should've died. There are also some new pet slots, showing
the three Care variations. Paul returns to Tool and asks the questions
the shadow had asked, receiving the answers, 'You can never go home', and 'you can't go
back in time.' Paul suggests that he doesn't think the game
is haunted. [Paul:] This game is trying very hard to make
it seem like... Like there's an entity in it. Like uh, a ghost. Or an AI trying to co
mmunicate with me. But you know, the way you know that there's
a ghost in a game trying to communicate with you, is if it comes out, if it stops being... distant, and it comes out and you can have
a, you know, a real time back and forth with it. So uh, not entirely convincing yet. [Shrine:] Petscop 7 gives us the information
that the shadow is Marvin, as heard from the Pink Tool. It asks Paul to show Marvin where his house
is. It also tells Paul 'go there, and he'll follow
you. His daughter is t
here.' So, we know Marvin has a daughter. Paul attempts to use an elevator hatch by
placing pets in it, but it states it only accepts people. He returns to the canvas and discovers a room
when he inputs Care's face with Mike's eyebrows. There's something on the table in the room
that has been censored out in editing, and Paul is clearly uncomfortable and distressed
seeing it. [Paul:] It's... this... I don't know, maybe that's just something
that it puts... in any room. [Shrine:] Some text pops u
p noting the censor,
and saying they can't explain why it's been censored yet. Again, note the use of 'we' here – this
is not just Paul. Or is Paul even uploading these videos himself
at all? In the next video, Paul is standing by the
road watching the cars go by, and eventually a figure that resembles the shadow man emerges. We assume this is Marvin. He leads us to some photos we've seen before
– the house, the school, then he runs at a wall for a bit. After Marvin disappears, we get a cut and
we hear Paul talking to someone else, perhaps on the phone. Whoever he's talking to seems to indicate
there was a passage in the wall where Marvin was running, sometime back in 2004, when Paul's
mother apparently had the game. In Petscop 9, we see a demo version of the
game, like would often run if you left the start screen running too long. Interestingly, the character running on the
treadmill and changing the numbers lines up exactly with Paul plucking the petals from
the flower in an earlier
video. Then, Paul turns himself into a silhouette
by going downstairs at the area with the grave and turning right, like the note he got with
the game said – he becomes a 'shadow monster man'. Now, he can see the windmill. Inside the windmill, he sees a new face, a
white Tool, and a spinning gear contraption. The gear thing seems to be made up of the
small collectables Paul has been gathering over time, and indeed, when he interacts with
the white Tool, he gains more of these collectables and th
e gear thing is dismantled. Paul inputs the new face on the canvas, which
gives the message: 'You found her. You may visit her room.' Within this room, there's an identical player
character, which moves out of the room as Paul enters. Later, Paul himself follows the exact same
movements as this character, like the other version had predicted his exact path. There's a red Tool and miniature windmill
on the table. The note on the wall reads: [Reading text]. Well, this is a massive piece of informa
tion,
albeit a confusing one. The name Rainer is familiar – it's in the
description of the channel. When Paul leaves, he comes across a room set
up like a party, with a cake in the middle having either the letter P or a backwards
9 on it. In the present Paul opens, the object that
emerges is quickly censored, but we can see a red, spinning, pyramid like shape. It clearly distresses Paul to see it. This was one of the things the text previously
had said would be censored – a big present with a st
icker on it. It's notable that the text here knew what
was coming up to be censored – as if these videos aren't being recorded one by one and
uploaded, and instead, they already have all the footage. Anyway, Paul is able to return to Even Care. He looks around a little. Interestingly, the wording on the sign we
saw before has changed from 'somebody' to 'one'. He runs on the treadmill in the now empty
room, and when he sets it to -1, it freezes the game. Now back in the dark area, (which is calle
d the Newmaker plane) Paul returns to
Care NLM and is able to catch her. As from earlier we understand that the number
on the treadmill represents the petals on the flower, we can understand that setting
the number to -1 would have the flower saying 'Loves Me', instead of ending on 'Loves Me
Not.' This is likely what resets Care to her normal
form rather than the glitchy mess from earlier. When he catches Care, her description reads,
'To catch her, you had to lie, but it may not be a lie forever
'. Remember the signs at the beginning of Even
Care? 'When you're choosing a pet, find somebody
that you like. You don't have to love them right away.' Basically, he broke the flower – you can't
have -1 petals on a flower, of course – which is therefore lying to Care to be able to catch
her. Looking at the reflection to fostering and
adopting, it's pretty clear what it's saying here. Also, notably, her description reads: 'You're
the Newmaker. You can turn Care NLM into Care A, and close
the loop
.' Paul returns to the Child Library and puts
Care NLM into the hatch. It reads 'You've decided to leave Care NLM. If you change your mind within 6 months, you
can take Care NLM back. What month is it, anyway? What year is it?'. Here is another very clear reference to fostering
a child but treating them as an object – the wording almost sounding like a product warranty. Paul immediately tries to find Care NLM again
in the hatch, then uses the canvas to go to her room and catch her again. In Pets
cop 10, Paul has returned to Even Care. He opens both of Amber's cages, then tries
to leave, but the game wont let him and freezes. On the title screen, we can see that he has
filled all 3 save slots now – there's Paul, test, and backup. Paul and backup are both labelled 'PANICSV',
or panic save, and 'possible corruption'. Paul has somehow gained access to the mirror
reflection side of the Quitter's Room, although now the girl figure is on the opposite side. He's likely able to access here due t
o opening
Amber's cages – the symbol in the room is the same as the one in Amber's location, and
these symbols can be seen in areas on the Newmaker plane and in Even Care to distinguish
linked areas, such as the treadmill and flower areas. Paul returns to Tool, and asks 'where was
the windmill?'. The answer he receives is censored. Petscop 11 is a big one. The first thing to note is that in the description,
it's confirmed that Paul is no longer the one running the channel. The group running it a
re called the Proprietors,
and it's likely this is actually Paul's family. Paul also confirms in the video that the game
is somehow tied to himself and his family. [Paul:] There were signs along the way that
I ignored, 'cause it would've been a completely ridiculous idea to me. But when I found my room, it made... Well I was shocked at first, but it made sense. Especially considering where I found the game
in the first place... that it would be tied in some way to me through you. And I'm trying
to think, when was the last
time I saw any of you at all? It had to have been, like, 1999. I was a kid. I was a small kid, tiny kid. [Shrine:] The 'my room' he references is likely
the one reached by inputting Care's face with Mike's eyebrows, the one with the censored
item. Paul finds a tire by doing some spinning motions
that give him a text input, which he uses to ask 'where is house?'. He finds a sign that reads, 'This is a frozen
house, captured three times, exactly as it was.' He then goes
to the house, seeing it decorated
with Christmassy décor. Some calendars have some quite specific dates
marked out, notably June through November. Paul seems to be speaking to someone outside
the audible range of the mic, and comments that he doesn't ever remember meeting 'that
girl' – Care – at all. He confirms the dates - 5th of June to 10th
November, are when she went missing. The other calendar in the room (I misspoke
– the same calendar) can be seen to be a custody arrangement, with the ma
rked days
decreasing, showing someone steadily losing custody of their child. Paul also says that he and Care are the exact
same age, and share a birthday, and that there is a strong resemblance between them. This is important to keep in mind for later. We then see another DEMO sequence, which introduces
the ability to talk in game using a very complicated phonetic input method. The figure – Marvin - we see speaking to
the player character seems on some level sentient – it speaks clearly and get
s Paul's name
approximately right, so it seems it knows who it's talking to – although notably,
Paul himself doesn't speak throughout the entire DEMO, meaning either he wasn't recording,
or that wasn't Paul himself playing. Marvin also seems to be able to actually respond
to the player without the use of preprogrammed text, unlike Tool. It even expresses emotion, laughing when the
player spells 'hello' wrong. We see a very weird, glitchy and unsettling
sequence inside a school building, in which
a green Tool seems to be used almost like
a cursor. The DEMO suddenly cuts off as the player messes
with a dial lock on a locker. Back in the main game, it seems to be a different
time of year – the Christmas décor is gone. Paul finds a note on the wall in the house
– 'My husband may come here after 6:00pm. Please stay overnight if you can. Thank you so so so much.' signed with a black flower. Checking the calendar reveals it's June 5th
– the day Care went missing. Paul finds a bedroom with Car
e sitting on
a bed, but there's some sort of barrier protecting her. There's an AC unit in the window, and Care
is occasionally blue-toned and shivering. Paul walks in to a cupboard behind her, and
gets stuck inside when the door closes on him. After he waits for a moment, the AC unit suddenly
smashes into the ground, startling Paul, and Marvin appears to have come in through the
window, capturing Care. He then runs out through the house, and the
'Care left the room' message appears. It suddenly
resets, with Care back, and Paul
is released. Marvin is in the house, but disappears somewhere
into the wall. Paul finds a ladder outside leading to Care's
window, and repeats Marvin's actions, catching Care. He reads her description: [Reading Text]. This message from Rainer is the final tie
we need to understand the basic story of what's gone on here. Care is the daughter of Marvin and the sister
of Marvin's friend, the one who vanished at the windmill. Care may be adopted, but it's unclear. M
arvin and his wife, who is the one who signed
off with the black flower, split, and Marvin slowly began losing custody of Care. Eventually he broke into the house and kidnapped
her, seemingly keeping her in a school basement. Care was traumatised by this incident, by
Rainer's comments that there is no longer a Care A – the neutral, normal care – only
Care B and NLM. 'When Care A goes missing, she goes missing
forever'. Rainer says he started the game for Marvin,
but has now given it as a gift to
the whole family – we know Paul's mother had the game,
so this again indicates to us that Paul is somehow directly related to the people involved
in this incident. There's a lot more to dig into here – what
happened to Care while she was missing to turn her into NLM, for example, so lets keep
going. Paul comments that he met him once. [Paul:] I saw him at a birthday party once. All the older kids were down in the basement
playing video games, hiding from everyone. He was down there too. He was,
uh... He was older than the rest of them, though. [Shrine:] Presumably this is regarding Rainer,
so clearly, Paul knows who this is. There's another DEMO sequence in the school. The player finds Marvin, who asks him to play
music on the Needles Piano for 'baby'. Marvin is happy until the player messes the
song up, at which point he says 'she tripped and fell and is lost'. He tells the player to stop. Perscop 12 is entirely a DEMO. The gameplay is slightly different to Paul's
– usually he'll gat
her all the collectables, but whoever is playing now tends to ignore
them. It begins in the Quitter's room, and a sequence
of messages pops up speaking to someone named Belle. Notice that the name Belle is in purple – much
like Tiara. The messages say she's been freed, and that
she's been playing the game non-stop for around 17 and a half years. Messages later read 'Are you still sitting
on a chair? Can you still look around the room? Is there still a room?'. Text outside the Child Library indic
ates that
Belle is not family, meaning she's not related to any of the characters like Care, Marvin
or Paul. More text appears reading 'Happy Birthday
Belle!'. Then, we get this very interesting text block:
[Reading text]. Remember earlier, when Marvin mentioned that
Tiara plays bad music too? This music is somehow related to the process
of 'rebirthing' that we've seen hinted at throughout the series. Seemingly, the speaker attempted to rebirth
Belle into Tiara, but Belle (*the speaker) played t
he song badly and wasn't reborn. What exactly this all means... Well, let's keep going. Petscop 13 is another DEMO, but Paul is speaking
over it. He pushes the bucket out of the house, and
is able to repeat this in Even Care and catch the pet he couldn't before, Roneth. There's some more allusions to car accidents
in Roneth's description. He is able to catch all the pets, and recieves
a congratulations message. [Reading Text]. Keep the last few lines in mind. The closed captions for this section
describe
the noises in the background as Paul knocking on glass, and a car door opening. In Petscop 14, we see Paul working with a
windmill puzzle, which is directed at Marvin, where he essentially has to act as if a door
in the game is open and act out the button presses as if he had gone through the door,
even though it's closed. He narrates over the DEMO footage, in which
the door is open, and in the replay, he can see what is actually beyond it. Mainly, there are disks in frames on the dres
ser. Paul also confirms that the YouTube channel
is being run by his family. Notably, a section of the wall in the room
is censored – another item that was indicated would be censored in the text from before. Some other interesting points are that Paul
has been playing this game for over a year, and the game is playing his own footage back
at him as DEMOs, but slightly different from what he saw. After many attempts, he is able to unlock
the other room in the house by painting over whatever was
on the wall. The screen goes black, then the game restarts,
with the logo and splash screen coming in at a tilt. There's only one save now, which is named
strange situation, which is another reference to child psychology – Strange Situation
is an attachment study procedure. Paul opens the save to find a room decorated
for a birthday party. There are drawings of what seems to be a blue
Tool on the table. I'll read you the text boxes directly: [Reading
text]. Obviously, Care running into a closed
door
is a reference to the puzzle we just saw – or rather, the puzzle was a reference to this
incident. Care covering her face is also likely related
to Care NLM. There are multiple instances of it seeming
like Care has changed, or looks different – keep that in mind. Paul seems distressed by this conversation,
and says the dialogue was based on a conversation he had the previous year on his birthday. Clearly the game has changed from it's initial
state. The game crashes, and Paul says he has to
call Jill. Upon getting back in, he finds a computer
in the garage, on which he sees a website which he calls 'the site', meaning it's likely
the one that was written on the note right at the start. The text is unreadable aside from the title,
which seems to read 'Petscop Discovery Pages.' He notes that it's open to a page called 'Your
Child.' This is not a website we can access in the
real world. Note the blue Tools seen on the screen. It changes to an image of the player character
standing in
the Newmaker plane, before the footage cuts back to the main house. When Paul enters the big bedroom again, a
black bar appears on the screen and the video ends as Paul curses. There's a debate if this is a censor bar or
just the game freezing with no text loading in. Petscop 15, and more DEMO footage from inside
the school. As he's walking, the player gets yoinked backwards
to a weird picture on the wall with the text 'girl' floating in front of it. It takes him 2 more attempts to get past wit
hout
getting pulled to this place. He reaches a classroom with Marvin and a chalkboard. Belle emerges and tells him to 'press Nifty',
which opens up a menu on which he is able to directly edit game textures live. Notably Marvin refers to her as Belle, but
she says she is Tiara. The ability to edit game textures was likely
how pink Tool was communicating before. Petscop 16 is probably the creepiest so far. We get a warning message that says this: [Reading
text]. With a censored number, accompanie
d by loud
buzzing. Occasionally it swaps to what seems to be
a map of a room with someone being tracked inside it. It's labelled 'ghost room/testing room”. In Petscop 17, we see a sound test screen. The player inputs what can be assumed to be
a code, opening up a menu with all recordings, room impulse, and extra stuff buttons. All recordings (*room impulse) opens a menu
containing a bunch of recordings, not Paul's recordings, as these are saved to the disk. In them we see what appears to be a se
ries
of early tests or AI run tests of the game, using what may be an early version of the
main character sprite. Then we follow one outside, which appears
to be walking backwards, or the footage is reversed. We get a massive bit of info in the text on screen, and I'm just going to read it
out to you, for simplicities sake: [Reading text]. So, we've learned Care's real name, Carrie
Mark, and the direct familial connections between some of the mentioned characters,
plus their real names – Care's
mother who signed with the black flower is Anna, and
we also hear the name Daniel. Note that Paul is not mentioned – something
we'll come back to later. We also get the full confirmation of the story
we've slowly been piecing together regarding what happened to Care. We then get another section of important text. In this, we learn that Marvin's friend and
Anna's sister, who went missing at the windmill, was named Lina Leskowitz. The gravestone reads 'they didn't see her'. Taking a side step for
a moment, let's put
a piece together – If Lina was Anna's sister, that means Anna's maiden name is Anna Leskowitz. The account that first posted anything regarding
Petscop, in April 2017, was a throwaway Reddit account named 'paleskowitz'. 'Pa' implies this is Paul's account, meaning
Paul's name may be Paul Leskowitz. Keep this in mind – another specific point
of familial connection here. There's not a whole lot to say regarding Petscop
18. It shows some game assets in the 'extra stuff'
menu. T
here's some unused and older sprites. The only interesting one is that Toneth's
leg was not originally broken, which we can tie back to the many references to car accidents
associated with this character. In 19, we see a bunch of recordings of what
seem to be earlier versions of the game being tested. We can see a lot of familiar names in these
recordings – Care, Marvin, Mike, Belle, even Amber, like the one pet. The Gen number likely indicates how early
in development the game was at the time o
f recording. Interestingly, we get the name Daniel pop
up again, not as a tester, but in the recordings – it's referred to as 'Daniel's Game'. We heard in an earlier quote that Rainer started
the game, and it's likely 'Rainer' is a pseudonym, as it's written in quotes, so could Rainer
be Daniel? Anyway, Belle seems to be the only one able
to solve the puzzles, probably why the Tool earlier called her 'Petscop Kid, very smart'. Though, it seems that everyone we see testing
would be quite young –
Mike would have to be at least under 7, so it wouldn't be shock
for them not to figure it out. This test also couldn't take place after 1995
due to Mike being dead then, so Care could only be, at a max, 3 years old at the time. Petscop 20 is a recording of Marvin playing. Notice how the splash screen logos are tilted
in a different way than we've seen before – closer to horizontal. In Marvin's controls screen, we can see that
the left and right controls are flipped – possibly reflecting the recu
rrences of mirroring we've
seen in the series, and also maybe explaining why earlier, Paul mentioned he had issues
remembering his left and right. There's also no 'quit' option in this version. Messages from Rainer to Marvin pop up on screen
as he travels around, apparently written on July 10th 1997, while Care is missing – she'd
still be in the school at this point. Rainer tells him he needs to find an unmarked
grave out here – he's the only one that can, apparently. He discovers a room with a
series of objects
labelled 'caskets'. Rainer says that anyone who sees them is sure
to become part of the family. Looking at these objects, they may be a little
familiar in shape – these seem to be the objects that have previously been censored
in videos. Words on a chalkboard: [reading text] a stencil on a wall: [reading text] a red triangle, which appears to have some sort of face on
it: [reading text] and finally, a red vase: [reading text]. The vase is probably the most interesting to
me – i
t seems to be Rainer describing why Care came to believe that nobody loves her,
from the insults and mental abuse Marvin enacted on her whilst she was kidnapped. It explains why she was hiding her face, too. This makes Paul's initial reaction to seeing
the vase in game quite interesting – something we'll again, come back to later. The flower in the vase seems to directly connect
to the flower above Care's area in Petscop 2. Marvin moves on, sees a few images of places,
and finds Mike's grave, th
e text of which sticks on screen for a while. He asks Tool a few questions, but doesn't
really get any answers. Petscop 21 is actually pretty cute – it's
Care playing the game, and if you sync it up, she's dancing to the song 'The Sign' by
Ace Of Base. I'd love to show you that, but you know, this
is YouTube, so... you'll just have to imagine it, I guess. Although this episode doesn't give us any
information, it's a really nice, characterful moment that really reminds us that Care was
just a kid
probably having fun playing this game, before everything happened, which is
a really nice little inset that I think a lot of this type of media are remiss not to
include. Petscop 22 is a bit of a time jump, as it
seems to be directly after Petscop 10. It hops right into the middle of a phone call
between Paul and Belle – we know it's her due to her being referred to as good at puzzles
and not part of the family, both of which apply to Belle, and later in the video it's
confirmed when Paul says
her name. Paul asks Tool where the windmill was, and
seems to have received some sort of coordinates. Paul mentions that he stopped the recording,
and that he doesn't want the family to know, though clearly this was still recorded. Paul also confirms Belle is the person he
was talking to in the earlier videos. He mentions that if Jill were to call her,
she wouldn't be able to escape, whatever that means. He also sounds like he's in a car again, and
for some reason seems to lie to Belle about it.
Then, as Paul is walking and talking, he all
of a sudden gets hit by an orange car in the game, where cars had never hit him before. Belle seems to stop responding to him, as
the Tiara character walks on screen. She just stands and stares at the camera,
before clearly indicating towards the right. Paul is clearly frustrated and losing his
patience – then the footage cuts to what appears to be another Room Impulse sequence
in the school. Text begins, seemingly from a school councillor,
apologisi
ng to whoever they're speaking to about pulling them out of class. It's unclear who exactly they're speaking
to and who Paul is taking the role of here, but it's most likely Care. The councillor asks if they would like to
play a game, and offer them 4 choices – Graverobber, Checkers, Rotation, and Accident. Notably, the logo on Accident reflects an
animation from outside Tool's room. The player selects Graverobber, which is apparently
similar to Battleships, and they play it out. It features fam
iliar pieces – the windmill,
and graves. The councillor asks the player to confirm
their name, and Paul is entered – it's important to notice that the colour of the name is red. They ask if the player is right or left handed,
and it's unclear if any input from the player affects their answer, but they turn out to
be left handed. This may have some association with how Paul
struggled with his left and right earlier. They mention them having a 'big boo-boo' on
their face, and that everyone is goin
g to help them, with some confusing incidental
dialogue: [Reading Text]. Petscop 23 is the final actual episode. It starts with another DEMO, though we assume
Paul is playing. He wanders about a little, finding a weird
spinning collectable thing, and a small TV with 'petscop kids' written on it. Paul enters a room in the school with Marvin,
who asks him what room he's in. Paul is given a selection of rooms to choose
from, all which slightly resemble the 'ghost room' we saw earlier. Notably, in r
oom 1, a hidden message appears
for a single frame – Push bed against hidden door – this may have been written by Belle,
to stop Marvin entering Paul's room. Interestingly, room 4 has a bed placed there. Paul chooses room 1, which is the one we saw
in the ghost room section, by wiggling in front of it, then Marvin responds: “Thanks. Here I come.”. Paul's response - “What. No. No.” and is then suddenly cut off. The phonetic he manages to enter before being
cut off is 'da'. There's a long, tense p
ause, then a cut, and
Marvin walks away. Tiara walks in, and says: “I'm sorry.” Paul asks for help. Tiara presumably uses draw mode to edit the
texture of the chalkboard to give him a code, which finally allows him to open the dial
lock on the locker that we've seen him fiddle with a few times before. The locker contains a pink and purple egg,
and a note – Your New Life Letter, addressed to Tiara Leskowitz. I've transcribed the whole letter on screen
for you here. Paul heads to the school baseme
nt – the
place where Care was kept. There's a sign: You'll find the machine up
ahead. This is the only entry or exit. You will pass through this room again as you
leave. Keep in mind: everything here, your baby will
see. Paul pushes a few items into a hole, then
a door opens. Inside, Paul catches Care B. Here's her description:
[Reading Text]. This text implies somebody freed Care from
the school, likely Rainer, due to him being the one usually leaving these messages. However, prior text indicat
es that she escaped
alone, so it's not clear. The last part may show that Rainer dug up
graves, though who's and how many is unknown. He reaches a room with Marvin and Tiara, with
some sort of machine inside. He seems to put all 500 of his collected pieces
into it, and there seems to be an equal number on the other side, indicating Tiara may have
also inserted her collected pieces. This is probably the machine that the pink
Tool mentioned earlier - “ALSO WANTS 1000 PIECES FOR “MACHINE BEYOND SCH
OOL BASEMENT
STAIRWAY””. Marvin tells Paul to put 'baby' in the machine,
and Paul puts Care B in. Marvin then tells him to play the Needles
Piano, but plays the wrong melody, causing Marvin to demand he stops. Paul is playing a specific melody, perhaps
playing the wrong one on purpose. The closed captions indicate this is 'Paul's
Melody'. Clearly this is somehow the 'rebirthing' process
we've heard of, and we know from Belle's failed rebirthing that the music played is very important. Marvin sto
rms out when he can't stop Paul. Paul retrieves a *red and yellow striped egg
from the machine, the description of which is a seemingly corrupted part of Amber's description
– 'you should start thinking about that'. He goes back up and places the new egg next
to the other one in the locker, then leaves. Look at the colours of the eggs – The new
egg is yellow and red, the indicative colours of both Care and Paul, and the older one contains
purple, Tiara's colour, and pink. Paul leaves the school,
and the dark sky is
now blue. The video ends with a still of the computer
in the garage, with the back wall removed (or possibly the garage door open), then the
game goes back to the menu and video ends. Petscop 24 has the book of baby names finally
opened, and we see a long credits-style list of all the 'petscop kids', the testers of
the game, each given a particular description – Belle being 'smart', Carrie being 'dizzy',
etc. It ends with a message to Micheal from 'Mrs.
Mark' – Anna, Care's
mother. Notably, this is on Mike's 7th birthday – when
Mike would be dead. Notice also the text in this section: “Also,
thank your other Auntie for making this all possible. If you see her, I mean... Not everyone can...”. This may be referring to Lina – remember
how her gravestone said “they didn't see her?”. Anna says she left him a gift in a black box,
that Carrie helped pick out, and warns him not to shake it. And, very finally, there's the Soundtrack
video, which finishes the series with an
epilogue at the very end. I'll just play it for you. Note that although the word that appears is
'Boss', the actual phonetic that was typed in was 'Lina'. And that's the end of the series. That was a lot to take in, wasn't it? Hopefully we all have a clear general understanding
of at least what happened in the videos themselves, if not the actual story. Next time on the Panopticon Theatre, we will
begin to piece together all this information, so we can understand just what happened and
what it a
ll means. Stay tuned til then, and make sure to ask
any questions in the comments that you'd particularly like me to answer, or any elements you're
particularly curious about. I'll see you back here shortly – feel free
to leave your bags on your seats. [Humming 'The Sign'] [Laughter] Thanks for watching today’s Panopticon Theatre
performance. What do you think? Did I miss anything? What do you want me to talk about next? Make sure to sub and join the audience if
you want to see more.
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