Throwback to when I painstakingly painted a very realistic Patrick Gill for the @polygonzinezone header collab we did. I ended up finishing this so close to the deadline that I had to forego detailing in his arm hair sdkjshf. Also realistic plaid is a nightmare to draw
Alright, so a lot of people have been joining Brian David Gilbert’s exercise streams lately and most of them are a bit confused about Ghostbotvoice and the lore surrounding them, so I’ve decided to release the knowledge out into the public.
It’s a pretty long read. Here we go.
-On the 15th of August, BDG starts doing an exercise stream. The number of viewers is initially pretty small and manageable by his one mod, Karen, but after his weekend stream special that he advertised on Twitter, each stream starts to get about 500 viewers. Brian does not have nightbot, but says he will add it to the stream soon.
-On the 28th of September, viewers of BDG's stream discover that he has added in nightbot...without adjusting any of the very strict automod settings. This results in nightbot censoring people who use more than two emojis, many of which are the trans heart emoji used in the daily trans rights chat parade. Nightbot is deemed transphobic, and Brian norts it before the stream is even halfway done
-Chat adapts to there being no bot, but newcomers still occasionally attempt to use nightbot commands such as !rules or !uptime
-On the 11th of November, a user types '!uptime' into chat, and gets four immediate responses (one of which was by me, cinnamon_shakes) going 'no nightbot, but it's been about 21 minutes'. This garners responses such as 'be the nightbot you want to see in the world' and 'assigned nightbot by chat'. People begin impersonating what a real BDG nightbot would be like, preceding their messages with the words 'nightbot voice', such as "nightbot voice: honk if you like getting buff and working out" or "nightbot voice: don't forget to stretch and hydrate" etc etc. Eventually we have a chat with about 80% of people pretending to be nightbot.
-At this point, I decide to go against the crowd and send a message along the lines of "Human voice: I am definitely a human being with a real human heart, you can check it out in my cellar". User ProjectMarley decides to take a look in my cellar, and for a good ten minutes, chat watches as we roleplay me luring them into my cellar and them being oblivious and trusting. Once they get there, they mysteriously die and are ‘no longer in chat’. Everyone agrees that I definitely did not kill them and am entirely innocent of any and all blame. We all wonder for a few moments why Marley disconnected and mourn their presence. We can hear the wind in the chat, but no Marley.
-For the rest of the stream, Marley starts beginning their sentences with 'ghostbot voice' and says things along the lines of "Ghostbot voice: I can't exercise because I don't have a corporeal body, but it's time for High Intensity Biking".
-On the 12th of November (the day after the mysterious death of Marley), a new user joins the stream by the name of 'Ghostbotvoice'. They do not respond to commands like a bot, but do send a lot of nightbot-like messages. Many of these are built on a foundation of stream-lore-knowledge, such as knowing specific users' actual names and knowing what kind of messages regulars tend to send. No one knows who is behind ghostbotvoice, but it seems like a momentary funny gag
-On the 13th of November, ghostbotvoice is back, with more new messages. Chat speculates, and it seems clear that it is run by a human being who is copy pasting a set of preconceived messages with the occasional off the cuff ones. Ghostbot assures us that they are definitely a real human being with an actual human body who does human being things. Chat accepts ghostbotvoice as One Of Us. Someone gifts them a sub.
-On the 18th of November, Ghostbot lets chat know that they are now programmed to respond to commands. Chat goes wild and everyone thoroughly tests out the commands. Halfway through the stream, ghostbot stops responding or posting messages. We all mourn their second death. They do return the next day though, and all days after with more and more commands and secret unlisted commands. Chat enjoys discovering the secret commands a lot. We still have no idea who is running the account, but there are several suspects from amongst the regular stream-goers
-On the 10th of December, user Well_Spoken_Rambler shoots Ghostbotvoice a message in twitch chat, and user ProjectMarley responds to it as though they are Ghostbot. However, we as a chat (including Karen) suddenly find ourselves incapable of reading, and agree that we still have no idea who on earth could possibly be running ghostbotvoice. Anyone who suggests it is Marley is misinforming the public.
-Direct statement released by user ProjectMarley on the incident:
“That message was completely incidental and any perceived similarity to a ghostbot reply was not intended by twitch user projectmarley”
-Statement from Karen Han, on the day of the incident:
-Thus far, Ghostbot has agreed with chat regarding the stance on Nightbot—negative. However, from the 11th-13th of December, Polygon runs a three-day charity stream. Nightbot is on the polygon channel but has limited messages and commands. Fortunately, Ghostbot decides to join in and does a frankly excellent job helping the chat community and keeping it chill! Additionally, people in chat start shipping Nightbot and Ghostbot (in a very jokey kinda way), and ghostbot’s !nightbot and !botbot commands change over the three days to reflect their growing feelings towards Nightbot, who is a stoic romantic lead who sometimes whispers poggers, revealing their softer side. OTP. The following shows most if not all of that progression:
- By the 16th of December, we have a lot of different secret commands for Ghostbot, including some that reference the polygonathon events. In chat, we are talking about how peat bogs are very important and make for good compost and someone jokes about wanting a !peat or !bog command. I ask why not a swamp command? I tell chat that I will make a shrek bot that only responds to swamp commands, an idea everyone hates immediately and which brings me great joy.
-The next day, on the 17th of December, user ProjectMarley cannot make it to stream and says, completely unrelatedly, that Ghostbot may not be there for the whole stream and might disconnect halfway through. Stream continues as usual, until I type !swamp in chat and reveal that user shrekbotvoice has joined chat. Chaos ensues. Shrekbot only responds to 3 commands (!swamp, !donkey and !union) so that their presence does not risk ghostbot’s continued existence as a community bot.
-Over the ensuing weeks, Shrekbot becomes a rarely needed back-up bot for times Ghostbot isn’t available and he gets a few more community based commands but is still a very cursed experience. We won’t talk about botbotbot coz you’re very young and new.
-Present day: Brian has gotten a lot more viewers now for his streams (nearly 1k usually) and a lot of new users are confused about ghostbotvoice and whether or not I am actually innocent. Let this statement prove once and for all that I have never in my life done anything wrong, ever.
And that’s all the lore! Also, ghostbot’s pronouns are thex/theb/theyr (which has nothing to do with marley’s propensity for typos, not at all) but they are also fine with they/them (which is what I used for this statement to not make it more confusing for people reading).
Additionally, Brian has mentioned thinking about bringing back nightbot with adjusted settings, so botbot may yet become canon.
I don’t think I ever posted this cursed scooby doo polygon art. I don’t even remember the reason why I drew this, aside from some kind of discord server shenanigans
