lovelessArchitect, Catalyst of Stairs

"...So then I said, that's not my wife! That's- my wife! Wife! WiiW! So then I said, thIS IS SPARTA" (techno bassline)

[lovelessarchitect-archive]

Disclaimer.

This page is an incomplete recreation of Dolores "Dollie" Connor's Tumblr page, compiled from recovered screenshots taken between 2009 and 2013. Not all information on this page is guaranteed to be accurate, and this page is subject to be updated as more information comes to light.

Posted by Kaye F, Archive Curator, 04/22/2026

Edit 4/23/2026: Archive Curator's annotations and comments will henceforth be marked "Curator's Note" and denoted by the use of this typewriter font. Archived content will use the default Tumblr post font.

[sleepyjump]

Check out the Zampanio community on Discord - hang out with 24 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

a friendly online community where everyone's obsessed with your writing. yes, you, specifically. we're all waiting to see you flourish. have you spread your wings yet?

just remember to stay hydrated, that obsession is a dangerous thing, and that a reckoning cannot be postponed indefinitely... and then hop in and do some quests. let's make magic, together. :-)

if you've been wondering what zampanio is but you're too intimidated to join, or you have no idea what i'm talking about but you think making art is neat and house of leaves is a masterpiece, we'd love to see you. we'd really love to. we'd love to! it's me, sleepy jump. you love me.

[sleepyjump]

[lovelessarchitect-archive]

Fine. You've convinced me.

M's on a trip with a friend, and I know she doesn't check this account. I'm going to be playing the game again tonight. I'm about as ready as I could be, and I'm going to be posting updates on Tumblr and the forum. A good old-fashioned Let's Play The Game, featuring my fans and stalkers.

The first suggestion I'm implementing has been a pretty widely-requested one on the forum. Some of you have taken to calling me "the Catalyst", so that's what I'll be inputting on the TitlePart selection screen. According to some forum posts that I ostensibly wrote last month, the title you pick massively changes your playthrough.

I know this is stupid, and I know it's probably just a regular game, but I need answers. Even if my memory loss was just some nervous breakdown, the fact that this game could make me act the way I did over the course of those missing weeks means I have to find out why. Best-case scenario, I'm a complete lunatic who should check herself into the psych ward for the safety of others.

But whether I'm crazy or this game is really that special, I'm going to find out on my own terms. Tune into my forum posts starting at 8pm PST tonight.

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Curator's Note: Archived 7/18/2026.

"That's the worst part about knowing you're going crazy. You'll only ever be 99% sure that you're not in your right mind. That one percent, that nagging little uncertainty..."

[lovelessarchitect-archive]

Time to discuss the drawings, I guess.

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Curator's Note: Archived 7/18/2026.

This was the first post in a series of posts that have since disappeared from the blog. No archive has these posts. They were deleted before the blog even got taken down in the first place.

As far as we know, these lost posts are the first time Zampanio (the webcomic by Dollie) is ever directly mentioned anywhere on the Internet. I remember that the sketches showed a few pretty critical panels to Chapter One's plot, but at the time, no one had the context. If the idea that Dollie had played Zampanio was what caught the interest of the forum, even just a taste of the comic sent them after her like wolves to the scent of a fresh carcass

You know what? Fuck this note. Fuck all of this. Adding my own stupid goddamn commentary like that's what people are here for. I haven't grown up since college, have I? Still just that insecure little freak who's only good at careening headfirst into things she's not ready for. She wouldn't be proud of me for this. I'm rehashing the same shit I was doing when I was on the forums. Fucking. I need a coffee.

[lovelessarchitect-archive]

For everyone here and on the forum asking if I'm alright, the short answer is "yes".

The long answer is that settling back in after whatever psychological fugue I was apparently in has been difficult, but it's going well. M's been nothing but kind throughout the whole ordeal, which certainly makes things smoother. I've been looking for any details that could corroborate the idea that I ran away from M's house, but all I've found are my own posts.

On that note, I'm still really disturbed by the sorts of conversations I seemed to be engaging with on the forum. I'm not a conspiratorial person, yet there I was, propagating and encouraging theories that would be right at home in the Weekly World News. If that's disappointing to anyone on the forum reading this, I'm sorry, but you haven't exactly been treating me with much grace either.

And, if I might go on another quick tangent, let's put the corkboards down. I wasn't cloned. I didn't have my memories wiped by Eyedol Games. I'm just me, and if you want a good explanation for what happened to make me act like that, look up what happened to Agatha Christie.

More posts soon. Thank you for being patient with me. I'll talk about the panel sketches I posted on the forum when I get more info.

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Curator's Note: Archived 7/18/2026.

I had to take a long break from this archive after that last post. I've tried and failed to draft this note at least seven times by now, mainly because I couldn't stop myself from scrolling through the screenshots of the vile things people sent to her. This community was a very different place back in Dollie's era.

On some level, I'm guilty of that same behavior myself. I discovered Zampanio at a very vulnerable time in my life, and I got hooked. Eventually, without my roommate, the one who got me into it in the first place, I was directionless. Well and truly obsessed, without any path to follow. Pretty easy to let yourself get hooked into conspiratorial thinking when you're a stupid, angry, grieving kid living in your dad's attic.

Also, I'm pretty sure Agatha Christie didn't actually have amnesia.

[lovelessarchitect-archive]

Got up this morning in my bedroom at M's house to some really weird notifications.

Don't remember posting the last two or three things on this account. M suggested that some time off of Tumblr would be good for me, so I've got no idea why there are posts from April when I haven't touched the site since early March. However, I did a deep dive into some of the things mentioned in the posts, and that forum is real. So is my account on it.

Already tried posting this exact thing once, but it got censored for my use of the game's title, so it'll be referred to as just the game going forward. Point is, the weirdest part is the complete absence of any memories I SHOULD have of the game. I definitely played it, and there's a space in my head where those memories should be, but that's about it. And these posts on my forum thread are genuine conspiracy shit. What's going on here?

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Curator's Note: Archived 5/13/2026.

So. This is the part that drew most people to this blog in the first place. This is why so many archives exist for me to cross-reference. Everyone thought that from this point onward, there was a mystery to solve. Facts blatantly contradicting one another is an easy way to get people to start approaching something with a fine-toothed comb and slapping "unreliable narrator" on everything.

As for me, that always felt dehumanizing. Just another way of invalidating the struggle of someone who people wouldn't give two shits about if it wasn't for what they saw as an ARG. Let's say Dollie was losing her grip on what's real and what's not. Would your first instinct be to offer empathy, or to turn everything she was saying into another clue? Will people ever stop to consider the idea that maybe what they see as fiction doesn't preclude the idea of empathy?

[lovelessarchitect-archive]

SO. I finally got approved to join the forum. Apparently, when I came in claiming to have played the game, that set off some alarm bells for them. No one on the forum has ever played it, or even seen it.

There are fan-made recreations, and some of them are admittedly quite accurate (probably made by people who actually HAVE played the game before), but for as much knowledge about the game as they display, there consistently seems to be at least twice as much disturbing, cryptic, and weirdly personal content. I played one written in Flash that would constantly display transcribed chat-logs between people or characters that I had never heard of. Is there an in-joke that I'm missing here?

On a more personally relevant note, once people realized I wasn't bullshitting about playing the game for myself, they started treating me like a god among men. The thread I made has already attracted the attention of the forum moderators. Apparently, the mods can't decide whether I should be banned from the forum or invited to their personal Skype chat. The community is already constantly arguing over whether I'm a troll or their personal messiah, and I don't want to be seen as either. I just want to find out if there's anyone else here who can tell me about their own play-through of the game.

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Curator's Note: Archived 4/29/2026. I remember scrolling through that thread on the forum after having just joined. Dollie wasn't exaggerating when she said the community was at odds over her presence since the day she joined. People tried to debunk her claims so many times, but the counter-debunks were always just as convincing. I didn't know whether or not to believe her claims about the game at first.

After having read her webcomic adaptation of Zampanio, though, I have no choice but to believe her. My memory consistently fails me whenever I try to recall the more specific details of the comic, but I know what I felt after reading it. I knew I was staring into the creation of someone who had seen the unexplainable with her own eyes. Someone who needed to get the truth out there before it slipped from her mind.

Maybe I am starting to believe Zampanio is, or was, a real game. I feel like that belief should disturb me more than it actually does. I'm not disturbed at the idea that Zampanio is real, I'm fascinated. Maybe that fascination is a siren's call, but who would I be if I didn't sail the waves anyhow? Certainly no Curator. And I like to think I'm a pretty decent Curator.

[lovelessarchitect-archive]

So I can't even post about the game now. Every time I even mention it, the post gets absolutely flooded with bots. From now on, when you hear me mention the game, I should hope you know exactly what I'm referring to.

Can't focus on what happened. Found a house to crash at for a little while. I really wish I could divert my attention towards figuring out what to do going forward, how to get my life back in order, but I can't. I need to find out what the hell is up with the game.

I've been looking online. There's a small fanbase surrounding this thing, but the strangest part is that there are no other mentions of its existence anywhere. No Wikipedia article, no resellers, not even a solitary name-drop on any forum outside of the dedicated community. For a game supposedly made in 1972, which is a doubtful claim on its own considering the complexity, one would imagine there would be more information anywhere.

This is really starting to seem like a Polybius situation. Except it's not an urban legend, which is the scariest part. Why is the game I've been playing for the last month being talked about like it's some lost fabled artifact? Why have none of the forum posters even mentioned playing the damn thing? Fuck it, I'm making an account and posting there tonight. I need answers, and clearly, they all do too. Maybe I can help.

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Curator's Note: Archived 4/29/2026. This post and the series of posts that followed it were the reason I wanted to archive this blog in the first place. The idea that Dollie actually played a real copy of Zampanio has always kind of sent a chill down my spine. I always assumed she was posting in character, but in hindsight, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Years ago, when that forum still existed, I had a sort of manic episode one night. In that state of mania, I decided to cross-reference the date that Dollie's account was made with this post, and it lines up. Now, she could have just been a lurker who got inspired, but I had also decided to talk to some of her friends. People who actually knew her before she disappeared off the Internet. They confirmed that all the stuff about "M" kicking her out and her struggles with housing actually happened to her. That wasn't roleplay.

With that in mind, the idea that this post was in any way a fabricated event just doesn't line up. Putting a random bit of worldbuilding into what would otherwise be a vent post just does not make sense. And that leaves us with the conclusion that Dollie actually did play Zampanio. That Zampanio is a real game that really exists. And I don't know what to do with that idea.

One of Dollie's friends told me I reminded her of Dollie. That we had a similar passion for the truth. The idea that I'm like her is more terrifying now than ever.

[lovelessarchitect-archive]

I think I fucked up.

M woke up this morning and didn't recognize me. She forgot who I am entirely. She said she'd never seen me before in her life. Asked me why I had a key to her house.

I don't know what to tell her. Tried just telling the truth, that didn't convince her. Might have to get a motel room for the foreseeable future. Things were going so well, the last month playing the game with her was the most fun I've ever had, so why now?

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Curator's Note: Archived 4/28/2026. I honestly forgot this part of the blog even existed in the first place. Maybe I blocked it out. I never knew Dollie personally, but the events here hit close to home. I guess it just presses on old scars when I watch trans women suffer.

Really trying not to draw any sort of presumptuous Zampanio-related conclusion from this.

[lovelessarchitect-archive]

M wants to show me a game tonight. Something special that she was saving for my official move-in with her. Apparently it's like OLD old, which makes me think it can't be all that much, but M has a serious eye for oddities. Anyone heard of a game called

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Curator's Note: Archived 4/28/2026. That cutoff wasn't edited in. After this point, the archives and backups all go dark for about a month, until nearly midnight on 4/1/2009. The old URLs for the posts during the blackout all redirect to a Cloudflare gateway timeout error, which is especially weird because Tumblr has never supported Cloudflare.

My relationship with Zampanio concepts like the rot has always been agnostic out of necessity. After my college years, survival meant keeping up an internal pretense of detachment from the things I had learned. (Mainly from my roommate, the one who got me into all of this in the first place.) But now, after coming back into the fandom and seeing things like this, it's a lot harder to keep up that disconnect.

Obsession is most certainly a dangerous thing, let's make that clear. But I suppose it's also a part of my role as the Archive Curator. Preserving history. Making sure the story can never be erased again, no matter how much the facts seem to encourage the viewer to draw an inevitably supernatural conclusion.

[lovelessarchitect-archive]

Had some time to think. I'm not going back to NY. I despise that house and my job and if I've got one chance to spend my life getting drunk with M and playing weird old games and never going anywhere near a kernel again then I'm taking it. Adios, Big Fuckoff Apple

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Curator's Note: Archived 4/27/2026. Couldn't access my old drive for a few days, had to do some server maintenance at home. Good thing the stooges at 8cS can't find me to ask for their equipment back.

Honestly, I wonder if Dollie's shitty experience in NYC inspired the surreal setting in her Zampanio adaptation. Certainly feels like a lot of it was inspired by trauma. Then again, I have been known to jump to make connections that aren't there.

[lovelessarchitect-archive]

My paid leave ends soon. Not excited to go back to NYC. Been having so much fun in Cali, really not looking forward to the old routine of fixing entirely avoidable systems emergencies at 3am and getting harassed by dudes in Primus tees

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Curator's Note: Archived 4/23/2026. Not much of any particular use to say here. Personally, I also fucking hate having to fix system issues caused by middle managers who try to rush patches themselves even though they wouldn't know how to do so much as install Ubuntu by themselves. "You're the sysadmin, it's your job to figure it out!"

On another note, this archive has existed for a day and the spambots have already found me.

[lovelessarchitect-archive]

On a hike with M, found a bench in the middle of literally nowhere. LOL

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Curator's Note: Archived 4/23/2026. AI-upscaled photo used, only available original copy was an extremely low-quality screenshot. Identity of "M" is unknown.

[lovelessarchitect-archive]

Staying at a friend's house out west. Wow the sunsets are pretty here

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Curator's Note: Archived 4/23/2026. High-quality photo recovered from a now-deleted Eyedlr mirror of lovelessarchitect.tumblr.com, discovered in early 2017.