Ben Drowned

"You Shouldn't Have Done That" redirects here. For the Depeche Mode song, see Shouldn't Have Done That.

Ben Drowned

File:Ben drowned.jpg
Author	Alexander D. Hall
Language	English
Genre	Psychological thriller web serial
Publication date	2010–2011; 2020–present
Media type	Digital
Pages	7,000 (3,591,600 words)
Text	Ben Drowned at Within Hubris
Website	http://youshouldnthavedonethat.net

Haunted Majora's Mask Cartridge, later known as Ben Drowned (stylized as BEN Drowned and BEN DROWNED), is a self-published three-part multimedia alternate reality game (ARG) web serial and web series created by Alexander D. "Jadusable" Hall. Originating as a creepypasta based on the Japanese action-adventure video game The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and published by Hall on 4chan forums and his YouTube channel in 2010, the series is known for subverting and playing with common tropes and themes of creepypasta and The Legend of Zelda series. Serving as Hall's first novel, the first arc of the series, titled The Haunted Cartridge and released in 2010, follows college sophomore Jadusable, who after acquiring a haunted Nintendo 64 video game cartridge of Majora's Mask, is plagued over the course of a week by the presence of a seemingly omniscient being called BEN. The second arc, titled The Moon Children and taking place from late 2005 to mid-2014, follows the public emergence of a mysterious cult worshipping the Moon, who sacrifice their members to the goddess Luna. The third arc, titled The Awakening, began publication in March 2020, following new and returning characters after an unknown societal collapse taking place in 2018, as well as continuing storylines established in the previous arcs with the intent of tying them together. The series is one of the most popular web serials on the internet, with a readership in the hundreds of thousands, and has been widely recognized as both an example of a modern urban legend and a major influence in helping to establish and legitimize creepypasta as a literary genre.

In May 2015, Variety reported that Clive Barker was developing a television series adaptation of Ben Drowned in partnership with Warner Bros., but Hall later confirmed that the project was no longer in development. In August 2016, the press release for Syfy's Channel Zero referenced Ben Drowned as one of the urban legends that would form the basis for a future season; ultimately, the series was cancelled after its fourth season.

Publication

On June 14 and 16, 2009, Hall uploaded two videos to his YouTube channel; one featuring a conversation with the minor character Rosa from the 2004 action role-playing video game Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines and one featuring the main character Alex Mercer from the 2009 open world action-adventure video game Prototype. These videos were retroactively established as the first installments in the Haunted Majora's Mask Cartridge series in the second arc, The Moon Children, in which characters named Rosa and Alex, each with themes mirroring their respective videos, are introduced.

Ben Drowned was first published as an online serial and web series with chapters released daily between September 7 and September 15, 2010. Partially inspired by the urban legend "Killswitch", it resumed online publishing on September 15, completing the first arc, The Haunted Cartridge, with the second arc, The Moon Children, beginning from September 17 that same year until July 15, 2011, totaling 3,591,600 words and 382 minutes. Hall used a method of transmedia storytelling through a combination of YouTube videos, written chapters, and audience input to weave a story about a character named BEN – supposedly a malevolent spirit of a dead child – who haunts the author (referred to in the story as Jadusable) in a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. The first arc is told in the first-person, as the author comes to the audience (in this case, an online forum) for help figuring out this strange game he bought. The story went viral; viewers praised the story's mysterious and frightening nature, as well as Hall's ability to deftly weave breadcrumbs and other hidden clues to keep readers on the hook and guessing. The original story ends on a cliffhanger, with the reader themselves inadvertently helping unleash BEN onto the internet at large.

However, by decoding a secret hidden cipher in Hall's YouTube account, investigative readers gained access to a website that led to the story's second arc and first sequel, The Moon Children. Despite it taking the appearance of an ordinary mid-2000s website, similar to Angelfire, readers were able to find hidden URLs and secret conversations between the website's users, depicting a narrative that the website was home to a Doomsday cult that was stuck in a time loop à la the one serving as the main mechanic of Majora's Mask, with the website resetting itself every three days. Information found on the website on the third day could then be used by readers to unlock an alternate path on the first day after the website reset. This arc was ended on a cliffhanger, with Hall announcing a hiatus on July 15, 2011.

The story was written at a rate of up to 2,500 words per day, comparable to a traditional book being published every month. It followed a strict publication schedule, with new content released over the course of two weeks, including videos posted on Hall's YouTube channel, themselves made using Project 64 and cheat codes taken from GameShark. The second arc was split into two separate parts, YSHDT (short for youshouldnthavedonethat.net) and Hubris, each of which covered a specific series of events. It maintains a very high level of viewership which peaked at over 2 million unique visitors in March 2020, nearly eight years after completion of the first two arcs; upon its launch, the series garnered over 100,000 views in its first two days of publication.

The third Ben Drowned arc, titled The Awakening, began publication on March 17, 2020, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, with updates being provided every three days. This arc is split into two separate parts, Methods of Revolution (incorporating elements of Hall's unmade short film of the same name), and The Final Chapter.

Background

Setting

Ben Drowned is set in a fictional, alternate universe closely following that of Earth prior to the emergence of a cult worshipping the Roman goddess of the Moon, Luna, known as the Moon Children. Two years after the release of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, a twelve-year-old boy named 'Ben' is among those to willingly drown themselves in an attempted Moon Children ritual called ascension. The resulting creation, named 'BEN', with the original 'Ben' as the dominant mindset, is sealed inside a copy of Majora's Mask and merged with the programs within, before being subsequently cared for by an old man for eight years, after which they are entrusted to a random college sophomore in honour of Luna to test the power of 'BEN', while several of the cult's members begin to enter the Internet, including the Moon Children's resurrected leader, known as "Kelbris, The Father", who online takes the form of the Happy Mask Salesman. Ultimately, upon entering the Internet themselves, 'BEN' chooses instead to escape from the cult's influence, where-from "The Father" pursues them.

The first and third arcs are set across the homes and universities of several college-age students in an unspecified part of St. Louis, Missouri, the United States, and within the Internet, while the second arc is solely set within the Internet.

Plot summary

The Haunted Cartridge

In September of 2010, Jadusable is a college student who is gifted a suspicious Nintendo 64 cartridge labelled "Majora" (indicating it to be a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask) by a disconcerting old man at a garage sale, with the save data of former owner "Ben" still on it. As Jadusable plays the game, little inconsistencies begin to pop up, turning to outright glitches, leading to Jadusable going to 4chan to post about his playing of the game as it unfolds, his name serving as a portmanteau of Judas and Abel. Playing as Link, Jadusable finds himself alone in Clock Town with all of the inhabitants gone, unable to advance the game by turning back time, while endlessly hearing the laugh of the Happy Mask Salesman's laugh. In an attempt to achieve a "Game Over" and return to the main menu, Jadusable allows Link to drown in a pond; when he does, Link clutches his head, screaming as in a mask animation, with the screen flashing to depict the Happy Mask Salesman, smiling and laughing. The game continues, and the Elegy of Emptiness appears, a statue of Link locked in a state of strange horror. It follows Jadusable's character, moving just outside of the camera's perspective, throughout the town. Jadusable tries to escape it, but nothing works. Futility would become a pervasive theme of the story. In desperation, Jadusable turns the camera to face the statue directly. After a while, the screen flashes back to the Happy Mask Salesman and Link, only the latter also turns this time. The Salesman, the statue, and Link all become locked in place, staring through the screen, directly at Jadusable.

Over the course of several sessions over a series of days, Jadusable writes in painstaking detail about each bizarre scenario he finds himself in, including spontaneously bursting into flames and lying unconscious (or dead) as the Majora-possessed Skull Kid looks on in silence. After identifying the background of the cartridge, Jadusable comes to the conclusion that it is possessed by the spirit of its previous owner, a 12-year-old boy named Ben who had drowned eight years prior; subsequently, a figure calling themselves "BEN" seemingly begins contacting him in and beyond the game itself, including changing his computer screen wallpaper to depict the Elegy of Emptiness and speaking through the online artifical intelligence Cleverbot. Identifying the Elegy as its physical form, BEN seems to take pride in being able to manipulate Jadusable, who subsequently describes a series of dreams about the Moon Children depicted in the game's finale, of himself physically transforming into the Elegy. Eventually, BEN is revealed to have been hijacking Jadusable's computer and providing a false account of the story's narrative and resolution. A secret note from Jadusable after an apparent epilogue from his roommate offers the "true" telling of events and references videos that were never published, seemingly because BEN had deleted them. After publishing his final account of the past week's events, called TheTruth.rtf, Jadusable is never seen again. A final message is left, seemingly from BEN in response to the note, warning "Matt" that "You shouldn't have done that."

The Moon Children

Two days after BEN's escape from the cartridge, a cult calling themselves the Moon Children reveal their existence to the world. An unnamed follower of Jadusable's story discovers a cipher on his YouTube channel that leads them to the cult's official website, in which three moderators discuss the upcoming "ascension" of one of their members. A post by a fourth user, named DROWNED, appears to speak directly to the follower. By exploring the various links, the follower discovers various details about the cult, including that the original Ben was apparently a member who had willingly sacrificed himself alongside several other children under the pretense of achieving ascension, that another member named Alex has recently betrayed them, and that they have their own prophecy of end times revolving around the Moon destroying the Earth (à la Majora's Mask) and the 2012 phenomenon, provided to them by their deceased prophet Kelbris in 1998, who similarly died under uncertain circumstances now seen within the cult as evidence of his own, successful 'ascension'. The next day, the follower is able to contact the moderator Ifrit, revealed to be "Matt Hubris", who answers several questions before disappearing. Coinciding with the end of a countdown on a hidden page, a video of the Song of Time is uploaded as a video response to one of Jadusable's videos. Shortly afterward, their website collapses.

The following day, the website is reestablished in an unfinished glitching state, with posts from the previous incarnation were being posted again with current dates, revealing that in-game actions from Majora's Mask have effects on the website. Over the following day, the follower use in-game actions to advance the story, establishing contact with Rosa, the sister of Ifrit, whom she says has disappeared. However, as a result of the follower's actions, Rosa is apparently killed by a resurrected Kelbris, and time is reset again; time is subsequently revealed to reset every three days, as in Majora's Mask.

On October 6, the website undergoes several drastic design changes, signaling the return of the story. Through clever URL changes, the follower discovers several hidden files ranging from used assets to cryptic documents aimed directly at them. Their biggest discovery is found to be the 59th file, mhftt.txt, a final message left by Ifrit before his disappearance. This file names a fellow reader to the follower, Kayd Hendricks, who had been in contact with Rosa prior to her death, as having been warned by him as to be in danger. Over the next two days, Kayd uploads a series of videos indicating that his life is indeed at stake.

On November 8, another video uploaded on Jadusable's channel by BEN signals the beginning of the arc's epilogue, with the coming months seeing small changes made to the Moon Children website. On February 17, 2011, a new forum called Within Hubris is launched as a central hub for the follower and others like them during the next portion of the story. Shortly after its discovery, a hidden section of the forum was revealed to contain the spirits of former members of the Moon Children, including Rosa. Within a week of the site's discovery, the follower begins receiving newspaper clippings in their mail that detail an apparent murder-suicide that took place "three months [ago]" in New York, and including an apparent message from BEN. On February 26, another video is uploaded to Jadusable's channel, predicting the final warning for the following day. On February 27, a video is uploaded featuring the interior of the house shown in the newspaper.

The Awakening

Two years after an unknown societal collapse in 2018, and eight years after the 2012 phenomenon, in March 2020, the YouTube channel formerly controlled by Jadusable and BEN is taken over by a resurgent "Jadus", who recounts the alternate history to have occurred in the time since the final ascension of "The Father", revealed to be Kelbris, who had killed Jadusable moments after the ending of The Haunted Cartridge arc, before escaping in pursuit of BEN. An as-of-yet unexplained event which occurred in 2012 linked to the Moon Children apparently had global repercussions, leading to a modern-day Great Depression resulting in a total breakdown of American society by 2018. Addressing the follower, now named as Sarah and dubbed "The Second Player", Jadus claims a partial cause of this collapse as being a mysterious ailment known as "HEROES", of which they are a survivor, alongside their occupational partner Denton, Sarah subsequently encounters the seemingly benevolent spirit of Ben within the original cartridge.

Themes

Eric Van Allen of entertainment site Kotaku on the place of Ben Drowned in the developing creepypasta and emergence into urban legend:

Ben Drowned persists. The Elegy statue has become permanently linked to the story of Jadusable and his haunted cartridge, a copy of Majora's Mask that inspired nightmares of masks being sewn to faces and terrible, terrible fates. Ben Drowned lives by the virtual firelight, as each new whisper, tweet, or forum post sends chills down a new reader’s spine. Creepypastas are the ghost stories of the digital age, changing with each retelling and reimagining from its fandom. Though Ben Drowned owes its legacy to Hall, its future lies in the hands of anyone who might take to their keyboard to add a new page.

The originally unofficial title Ben Drowned has multiple potential meanings. It has been connected to the protagonist's character development, the fate of the child Ben and the subsequently created omnipresent force BEN; drawing a parallel with the power of the Moon Children cult to control the actions of one's soul in the eyes of Luna and the tides of the ocean. The arc titles also generally have double meanings. Several reviewers have described the serial as an exercise in repeatedly escalating the stakes of the story, with a number of reviewers having noted the characters' ingenuity, and the original and creative use of Roman and The Legend of Zelda mythology in the narrative.

The series received renewed focus in 2016, when 12-year-old Katelyn Davis, who had recently committed suicide, was cited as having been catfished by a user embodying the BEN persona from Ben Drowned, after which a statement in reference to the end of their relationship was accompanied by a piece of fanart of the character in their later form of a Link with blood-red eyes beckoning a violet fairy. Addressing their death in relation to his series, Hall stated himself to

[have] wondered if I never wrote that story, would that stuff have still happened? Or those girls who [tried to] kill someone with Slender Man a few years back. If that didn’t exist, would that have ever happened? No one can ever say for sure. It's a hard moral issue and a tragedy, but I don't think that authors can necessarily be held responsible for what some fans do because of an obvious work of fiction. There are both sides to this coin — there are plenty of people who have personally thanked me for writing the story, saying that it had helped them get through a really dark time in their life. I suppose it's one of the burdens of publicly publishing your work to a wide audience; you have to take the good with the bad.

Characters

Overview

List indicator(s)

• A dark grey cell indicates that the character was not in the property or that the character's presence in the property has yet to be announced.
• A Main indicates a character had a starring role in the property.
• A Recurring indicates the character appeared in two or more times within the property.
• A Guest indicates the character appeared once in the property.

Character
	Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines Prototype	The Haunted Cartridge	The Moon Children		The Awakening – The Final Chapter
			You Shouldn't Have Done That	Hubris
	2009	2010		2011	2020
Main characters
Rosa	Main		Main		Guest
Alex	Main		Main	Mentioned	Referenced
BEN	Referenced	Main
Jadusable		Main	Mentioned		Guest
Kelbris / The Father		Recurring	Main	Mentioned	Main
Old Man / Guide		Main		Main	TBA
Tyler Lawman		Main			Guest
The Neighbor		Main
Matt "Ifrit" Hubris / Rodney R.	Mentioned		Main	Mentioned	TBA
Sarah, the Second Player The Follower / The Reader		Referenced	Main
"Mr. D" DROWNED			Main
Nekko / Christopher			Main
Duskworld23 / Spencer L.			Main
Insidiae / Kevin F.			Main	Mentioned
Jadus					Main
Denton					Main
Abel					Main

The Haunted Cartridge

• Jadusable: The main protagonist of The Haunted Cartridge and a college sophomore. After coming into possession of the Majora's Mask cartridge containing 'BEN', he played the game while documenting his findings in written form and in videos, uploaded to 4chan and YouTube. He was killed shortly after his final video was uploaded after being confronted by The Father.
• BEN: An entity formerly contained within the Majora's Mask cartridge. They are a malevolent series of spirits ruled by the dominant consciousness of a child, also named Ben, who died eight years prior. They proved capable of manipulating electronic devices beyond the cartridge after having been transferred to Jadusable's computer, before escaping onto the Internet. Within and without the cartridge, 'BEN' takes the physical form of a statue of Link created by the Ocarina melody "Elegy of Emptiness" in Majora's Mask.
  • Ben: The chief consciousness of 'BEN' and a young, long-deceased former member of the Moon Children, self-sacrificed on April 23, 2002 via drowning.
• Old Man: An unnamed elderly gentleman and member of the Moon Children who gave Jadusable the Majora's Mask cartridge. Immediately afterward, he moved away and was unable to be tracked by Jadusable due to having no known relatives. Shortly before his death, Jadusable saw the old man looking into his window.
• Tyler Lawman: Jadusable's friend and Ben's relative, who accompanied Jadusable to the old man's former house after the first time he played the game. He committed suicide after the 2018 societal collapse in The Awakening.
• The Father: The leader of the Moon Children, also known as represented in the Majora's Mask cartridge by the Happy Mask Salesman. In The Awakening, he is revealed to be a prophetic Moon Child known as Kelbris, who, like BEN, escapes to the Internet.
• The Neighbor: The neighbor of the absent old man, who informs Jadusable about the night Ben's "accident" happened, on which he refuses to elaborate.

The Moon Children

The Elegy of Emptiness, commonly seen as BEN

• DROWNED: (possibly the same individual as Mr. D), serving as the sole administrator of the Moon Children's website, youshouldnthavedonethat.net. DROWNED's profile picture on the forum was a man wearing a gas mask, leading some to connect him with the Jailer character in the Awakening arc, who also wear a gas mask and has a similar role overseeing the player-character and others apparently imprisoned alongside them.
• Ifrit: A member of the Moon Children and moderator of their website. His true identity was initially kept secret from the Moon Children, being listed on the website as Rodney R., but he disappears after his real name is revealed to the follower as Matt Hubris when they began emailing him.
• Alex: A former member of the Moon Children and physical embodiment of the "link" between The Follower's actions and BEN during The Moon Children, also known as TheLinkMissing, after resetting time he is initially killed; however, upon being revived, he disappears.
• Rosa: Ifrit's sister, who gains access to his email account after his disappearance. She was killed shortly afterward, though her spirit was later found inside the Within Hubris forum.
• Ryukaki: Kayd Hendricks, a secondary protagonist called to action by Jadusable. As odd events start happening around him, he realizes that he is being hunted.
• Nekko: Christopher, a young member of the Moon Children and moderator of the website who undergoes a ritual called "ascension" and whose spirit was later found inside the Within Hubris forum.
• Duskworld23: Spencer L., a member of the Moon Children and moderator of the website who undergoes a ritual called "ascension" and whose spirit was later found inside the Within Hubris forum. His avatar is that of Tesseract from the Skulduggery Pleasant series.
• Insidiae: Kevin F., a mysterious member of the Moon Children and moderator of the website.

The Awakening

• Jadus: A survivor of an unnamed societal collapse that took place in 2018 and Denton's occupational partner.
• Denton: A survivor of an unnamed societal collapse that took place in 2018 and Jadus' occupational partner.
• Abel: A survivor of an unnamed societal collapse that took place in 2018 and radio presence who admonishes the MC.
• The Follower: A title referring to the player-character, being any given follower of Jadusable's story who finds their way to the website. In The Awakening, there are two 'Followers', the first one being a man who was killed shortly after attempting to escape his imprisonment. The second and current Follower is a girl, her name is revealed to be Sarah, though more often she is simply known as The Second Player and The Main Character (or MC).

Reception

Ben Drowned has received favorable reviews. It received substantial attention following a favorable review by Kotaku writer Owen Good roughly two months into publication, who praised the story's themes and originality. Readership quadrupled following this article, and again by its followup in 2017 while the story was in its first hiatus.

The series has been favorably compared to the similarly-popular creepypasta series Slender Man. Matt Freeman of Vice, comparing Ben Drowned to both Majora's Mask and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, referred to it as "a shining example of how Zelda fans have always been in lockstep with Nintendo's own experimentation with horror. [being] a well-told story", as well as praising its unique take on the found footage genre. Anthony Vigna of Nintendojo praised the "videos to back up its claims and provided blog updates that pushed the tale to be more believable", calling Majora's Mask "the perfect game to create the setting of a scary story", with the ARG elements of the story praised as being highly addictive.

Ryan Larson of Bloody Disgusting praised how "[w]ith clever video editing skills and a deep wealth of knowledge, the online user Jadusable is able to craft one of the scariest legends of recent memory. Like storytellers before him, using paintings or ink to craft the tale, he uses the devices of our advanced time to make something that the kids of the nineties can latch onto."

Fans of the story have collaborated to create a complete audio book, as well as other projects, such as the Ben Drowned soundtrack. Fan art relating to the series has been published on DeviantArt, as well as a large amount of fan fiction. There are Wikia, Twitter and Discord chatrooms established for readers to comment and discuss the story, as well as communities of fans on a number of online forums. Ben Drowned, along with Hall's other completed work The Digital Fireside, as well as the in-progress short film Methods of Revolution (later incorporated into the events of The Awakening), are widely recognized as a major influence in helping to establish and legitimize creepypasta as a literary genre.

Several publications have discussed Ben Drowned within the context of the increasing popularity of web serials and alternate reality games such as Worm and the Cloverfield franchise, with a number of companies having approached Hall to discuss adapting Ben Drowned, including Clive Barker and Warner Brothers.

External links

• Jadusable's YouTube Channel
• You Shouldn't Have Done That
• MFGreth's YouTube Channel
• Methods of Revolution
• Within Hubris, for the writings of Jadusable