Hypnospace Outlaw / Characters

This is a page for detailing the many oddballs on Hypnospace. Currently under heavy construction. Watch out for spoilers!

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Merchantsoft Employees and Volunteers

Merchantsoft is the company behind Hypnospace, filled with plenty of quirky employees and bolstered by a team of interns and volunteers. It's named after the two brothers who founded it, Dylan and Adrian Merchant, whom you'll grow quite familiar with over the course of the game.

The Enforcer/You

The protagonist of the game — a Hypnospace user with free time on their hands who gets a job as a volunteer "enforcer" of Hypnospace Law. You get paid in HypnoCoin rather than real valued money, and can't send any outgoing communication via email or ChitChat, but in exchange, you have an unprecedented level of freedom in what information is available to you in regards to every user on Hypnospace.

The Dog Bites Back: After tons of abuse is heaped on you by the incompetent and greedy Merchant brothers, you use the unchecked power they gave you as a moderator to hunt down evidence for their crimes and eventually expose them to the world.
Featureless Protagonist: You're a user of Hypnospace who decided to become an enforcer, and that's all you know. Granted, it's literally supposed to be you, so this makes sense.
Heroic Mime: HypnOS Enforcer Edition is designed to not allow any outgoing communication, and to follow orders with little resistance. ChitChat is banned on the system, and you can't even send emails, with Dispatch and Dylan having to talk to you in a one-way conversation. The only time you're heard is when Dylan pushes out version 0.99 of Outlaw and causes the Mindcrash; you can be heard breathing heavily as you wake up.
Ominous Message from the Future: The hidden hints page is framed this way, with your future self warning you offering you guidance if you really need it, but warning you about spoilers.
Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: There's nothing stopping you from downloading pirated music or illegal software, and then bringing down the banhammer. It's even subtly encouraged, since this is the only way to collect several songs and other oddities.
Spanner in the Works: As the only Enforcer who still has a working headband following the Mindcrash, and one of the few to still have a HypnOS headband at all after the leap into the present day, your mere presence on the Hypnospace Archival Project is the wrench that finally causes Merchantsoft's crimes to be exposed decades after the fact.
Unique Protagonist Asset:
- As an Enforcer, you have access to most every Hypnospace user's personal information, including their real name, location, and their unique headband ID. That last one comes in handy once you unlock FLST access.
- In the final act, you learn that the Hypnospace hardware provided to Enforcers inexplicably has enough onboard memory to cache the entire service several times over, which becomes your ultimate goal as a new member of the Hypnospace Archival Project. It’s suggested that you might be the only Enforcer who didn’t trash their headband after the Mindcrash, and you're definitely the first one to reconnect after the founding of the HAP.
What You Are in the Dark: Some enforcement cases are not manually sent to you by Merchantsoft and must instead be found or tracked down. By the second act, it becomes mandatory for you to hunt down violations on your own until Merchantsoft gets itself back in order. It's up to you to decide which violations should be struck and reported.

Dylan Merchant

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hsdylan_1.png

Username: DM_NO1ZPUSH3R
Portrayed by: Kert Gartner
"Yes, I'm THAT Dylan."

The COO of Merchantsoft and the lead programmer for Hypnospace. He's fairly quirky but well-meaning, and views Hypnospace as a passion project that will revolutionize the world.

Annoying Younger Sibling: A variant. While he seems composed and kind at first, it soon becomes clear he's very immature. Upon exposing him as one of the ringleaders of FLIST, he freaks out and bans you.
Anti-Villain: Dylan is a manchild who regularly slacks off, codes horrible games, fails to follow his own rules and freaks out when he's called out on it, hangs out with hackers who openly despise him, and indirectly kills at least four people. However, in spite of everything, he truly thought he was doing good for Hypnospace by being a part of its community, and his behavior stems from his young age and a generally stressful environment. When he's finally caught, he seems more relieved than anything that the guilt of his younger self's actions will be lifted from him.
Big Bad: Since Adrian barely has any direct influence over what's going on in Hypnospace, Dylan effectively serves as the main overarching antagonist, which comes to a head in the final act.
Brilliant, but Lazy: Or rather, "brilliant, but unfocused". Dylan programmed Hypnospace entirely by himself, which is no small feat. But rather than address the developing issues the community faces as it grows, he pawns off the "real" work on Samantha and the volunteer Enforcers. He prefers chasing his whims, working on his pet projects, and hanging out on hacker boards. It's this lackadaisical and immature behavior that results in the Mindcrash, and ultimately, the demise of Hypnospace.
Final Boss: Although he's never directly confronted, Dylan does serve as the final Hypnospace criminal the player must bring to justice before the game can be considered "over".
Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Subverted. At first glance, he's the foolish sibling to Adrian's responsible. Dylan even notes as much, calling himself the creative programming one while Adrian is a "balding stiff who knows how to make a deal or two." However, Adrian eventually proves himself to be equally immature in his own ways. His insistence on unnecessarily screwing around with zones he considers "too geeky", his ham-fisted attempts to push Coolpunk and other unpopular business ideas, and his general lack of communication all foment growing discontent amongst Hypnospace's userbase.
Giftedly Bad: Zig-zagged. Dylan's programming for HypnOS is solid; Hypnospace is significantly more fluid and efficient than the real internet of the era was. His attempts at coding a video game... really aren't. Despite being his passion project, Outlaw is so poorly programmed that it's been known to destroy the hardware it's running on. The "improved" launch release kills people.
Hypocrite: He expects everyone to follow the Enforcer C.H.I.M.E laws to the very letter, and yet that doesn't stop him from being one of FLIST's founders, nor does it deter him from hosting pirated copies of music albums on his personal FLIST page. He even goes so far as to revoke your Enforcer privileges for using his own laws against him at the end of Act 2.
It's All My Fault: He contacts the Enforcer directly in Outlaw 1.0 at the end, accepting his defeat with grace and brokenly repeating "It's all my fault" out of grief until his avatar is captured.
Lethally Stupid: His stupidity in releasing Outlaw before it is finished killed people in the Mindcrash disaster. His stupidity is literally lethal.
Manchild: While able to act mature towards employees, he can't seem to balance professional work with his personal pet project. He also has several side projects he dedicates his time to rather than applying code for better Enforcer activity, and he writes Samantha off as simply "nagging" him to do his job. His joining of m1nx to keep up with their pranks, rather than trying to address the trouble they cause, comes out of having been part of groups like theirs before and wanting to keep the charm of the underground programming scene in his view, even though he's gone corporate.
Meaningful Name: His username, DM_NO1ZPUSH3R. He composes plenty of songs, some of which are meant for his personal game project, and he intends on making a musical genre guide similar to Slushmouth's. There's also the fact that he's the one illegally hosting the downloads of copyrighted music you're asked to track down in act 2.
Mission Control Is Off Its Meds: He is the boss of the HSPD. He abuses his authority to ban you when you start striking his copyright infringements in his FLST page.
My Greatest Failure: The Mindcrash disaster was his doing, and upon being exposed, he admits that it's made him guilty for years. Outlaw version 1.0 seems to be some kind of a memorial for the victims of the event.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Dylan is absolutely convinced that CyberWorldZ is about to flatten Hypnospace, and Merchantsoft with it, due to their superior entertainment software offerings. His attempts to fix this problem result in constant PR disasters and unnecessary drama, all of which cause numerous Hypnospace users to abandon the service over the course of the game. The game he's working on, Outlaw, winds up causing the Mindcrash, destroying not just Merchantsoft, but the entire sleeptime computing industry.
Pointy-Haired Boss: He's the head of the programming side of Hypnospace, and your boss. He cares quite a lot about the service and wants to push it forward as the next step in technology. However, he is too focused upon the technological side of things, particularly his pet project Outlaw, and neglects the social and ethical responsibilities that come with his position. An early example is if you report the harassment on DarkTwilightTiff's page: Samantha correctly points out that Tiff was reposting harassment directed towards her, and therefore shouldn't accrue the penalty points (as if she was the culprit). Dylan's response is a big shrug, because Hypnospace doesn't have the functionality to report other users. He even endorses Hypnospace's piracy servers himself, and constantly undermines the player during the second half of the game with his antics. However, he did admit that he thought that CyberWorldZ was about to crush Hypnospace due to the latter's lack of games, causing Dylan to focus too much on programming Outlaw at the expense of everything else. Dylan's incompetence and lack of care for safety ultimately turns him into the Big Bad when he pushes a lethally buggy build of Outlaw for the year 2000 update, and then blames the resulting deaths on an innocent kid.
Small Name, Big Ego: As COO of Merchantsoft, he tries to lead the potential for sleeptime computing into massive success. His main idea to achieve this is to incorporate his personal project, a car game, which is so incredibly buggy he spends all his time just trying to fix it. When Samantha tries to temper his plans in the leaked chatlogs, he explodes at her about how much work he's been pulling and exclaims that he's the only one with any creative vision in Merchantsoft.
Suspiciously Specific Denial: One of his listed likes is "legally acquired rock." Funny coming from one of the major contributors to FLST, where he hosts tons of illegal downloads for music.
Teen Genius: Downplayed; Merchantsoft's home page describes him as a "barely-out-of-school whiz kid". He was either 18 or 19 when he founded Merchantsoft in 1997, and for most of the game, he's 21. This rather succinctly explains his Manchild tendencies.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Regardless of whether or not he had any concerns about it, it's highly unlikely Dylan anticipated that Outlaw could tank not just Merchantsoft, but the entire sleeptime computing industry.
Wide-Eyed Idealist: Despite all his flaws, he does genuinely believe in the power and creative potential of Hypnospace, and makes an active effort to keep in touch with its userbase. He translates this into his non-stop pursuit of Outlaw—believing it to be the key to Hypnospace's future—which ultimately results in his undoing when it becomes clear it wasn't ready for launch.
Zero-Effort Boss: His avatar in the final version of Outlaw doesn't have anything between you and it and barely puts up much of a fight. Justified; at this point, Dylan's already been cornered by you and Samantha and he's no longer willing to put up a fight, having been weighed down by the guilt of having caused the Mindcrash for years.

Adrian Merchant

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hsadrian.png

Portrayed by: Rupert Meghnot
"If you'd like to contact me, please look me up in the white pages or swing by our office. Thank you."

The CEO of Merchantsoft, and Dylan's brother. Adrian is the more business-minded of the two. As such, his influence on the development of Hypnospace is generally limited to behind-the-scenes work, like hiring new employees, and you rarely interact with him directly.

Ambiguously Gay: Dylan mentions that he's pretty sure Adrian has a crush on Zaréd, a male Earthhaze artist. While this can be seen as lighthearted teasing, Jay Tholen included him among other LGBT Hypnospace users in a Twitter post.
Brotherhood of Funny Hats: He's part of a secret group called "Horus", which consists of multiple celebrities and other influential people, but their only goal seems to be making a game out of hiding their logo in strange locations.
Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The responsible to Dylan's foolish. Funnily enough, with the way he communicates and doesn't understand technology the way Dylan does, the relationship could also be the other way around when it comes to Hypnospace.
The Ghost: Compared to the rest of Merchantsoft. His personal page is simply a picture of himself and a small blurb telling anyone who wants to contact him to "look [him] up in the white pages." He never updates it beyond his status.
Greater-Scope Villain: While he's hardly involved in the plot in a direct way, many of his actions lead to the problems you have to deal with on Hypnospace, such as not understanding that Professor Helper is malware and wanting to get rid of the "geeky" zones to improve Hypnospace's marketability. Adrian's lack of awareness and blind faith in Dylan play just as big a role in the destruction of Hypnospace as Dylan's ego and immaturity.
Hopeless with Tech: He barely understands Hypnospace and leaves Dylan to do pretty much all the technical stuff. Which leads to tragedy later on, as Adrian assumes Dylan knows what he's doing. Similar to some of the residents of Goodtime Valley, he seems to think his page's status is a chat bar, and inadvertently ends up leaking his password to Horus.
Jerk Jock: Of a sort. In the leaked chat logs, he's vocally disdainful of Hypnospace's geekier population, downplays said population's content in favor of pushing sports, and complains about the "big words" in the results of the scientific study that Merchantsoft commissioned. He also seems quick to anger, sending you an angry, insulting message if you choose to report Professor Helper.
Odd Friendship: He's apparently close friends with Artie, who acts as his spiritual counselor.
The Password Is Always "Swordfish": He broadcasts some passwords on his personal status, saying that one does not work and that he will try another.
Pointy-Haired Boss: His Hypnospace communications are rife with spelling and grammatical errors, and his desire for the service not to be overpopulated by nerds leads Dylan to merge several "geeky" Zones into one, necessitating the creation of the Freelands. Later, becomes actually dangerous when his own incompetence with tech and blind trust in Dylan's abilities leads directly to the Mindcrash.
Practically Different Generations: Adrian and Dylan are two decades apart, with Adrian at 42 and Dylan at 21. Their relationship is much more strictly professional than brotherly, which can be seen by their occasionally-clashing sensibilities.

Samantha Clausson

Username: MS_Samantha
Portrayed by: Christine Tholen
"Making pages is fun!"

A recent hire at Merchantsoft, Samantha is an up-and-coming young programmer newly assigned to the HypnOS Year 2000 Update. She designed the HypnoCure antivirus suite, which you will likely find yourself using at some point.

Big Good: Of the present-day portion of the final act, alongside re3koning_inc in the past. re3koning found the evidence that the Hypnospace headband is hazardous to the user's health, and that the Merchants knew this, but deliberately obfuscated the information. Nineteen-plus years later, Samantha tasks you with finding this long-buried evidence, and even upgrades your C.H.I.M.E. bar with a sixth rule that sends said evidence directly to her, to help build her case.
Chekhov's Gunman: At the beginning of the game, she's really only notable for being the developer of HypnoCure. While it remains a handy tool throughout the whole game (especially near the end, once HypnoCure Pro becomes more affordable and allows access to deprecated NetSettler pages), her role increases in other ways near the endgame once she becomes your primary Mission Control.
Mission Control: As if working on Hypnospace itself wasn't enough, she soon becomes the only dispatcher assigning cases to Enforcers. Even moreso in the final act, at which point she's only got you to help her find incriminating evidence against Dylan.
Noodle Incident: Her personal page mentions that an event involving the band Barnaby's Chair led to her landing her job at MS, but dismisses the rest as a "long story" and never elaborates. At most, an update around New Year's mentions that she was friends with the last member to be kicked off before it rebranded as a solo act.
Only Sane Woman: Is she ever! Samantha is by far the most level-headed employee at Merchantsoft, and her skills speak for themselves in the simple-yet-functional interface of HypnoCure. It's implied that part of the reason she co-founded the Hypnospace Archival Project was that she knew there was something fishy about the Mindcrash incident, and wanted to find a way to dig deeper.
Reassigned to Antarctica: Dylan shoved all the Enforcer work onto her because she kept "nagging" him (i.e., reminding him about doing his actual job, instead of spending all of his time on Outlaw).
Stepford Smiler: Her page is written in an excessively cheery tone, constantly talking about how great it is to work for Merchantsoft, but in her private communications to you as HSPD dispatcher she is more frank about the issues she has to deal with. She briefly lets her friendly face crack on New Year's Eve, changing her status to warn people that they shouldn't be using Hypnospace because the new updates are untested and buggy. After the Mindcrash, the player gets a clearer picture of her concern during the last weeks of Hypnospace for Dylan's lack of QA on the software updates and how frustrated she was to be shoved into HSPD for trying to raise awareness on issues.
Spanner in the Works: If not for her giving you your Enforcer privileges back after Dylan forcefully removes you from active duty, Dylan would've very well gotten away with what follows his last attempt to push Outlaw onto Hypnospace.
Two Aliases, One Character: She runs the Hypnospace Archival Project under the pseudonym "Chelsea", presumably so that people don't recognize her as a former Merchantsoft employee.
Walking Spoiler: For most of the game, she's simply the Mission Control. Her role changes significantly near the end.
Weirdly Underpowered Admins:invoked Justified by her being at the mercy of Merchantsoft's (in-universe) Idiot Programming. There are serious faults in how the Enforcer system is set up, leading to some users being wrongfully penalized and other users keeping a clean record by gaming the system, but Dylan tells her to buzz off whenever she points them out.

Artie Dispenza

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hsartie.png

Username: Artie
Portrayed by: Christos "failnaut" Reid
"Man, machine, and nature can work together to advance global consciousness beyond what was ever thought possible."

The multi-talented artist hired by Merchantsoft to create Hypnospace's unique design (most prominently, that spiffy rotating-eye logo on your desktop).

Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Artie is very good at what he does, but he's also a bit... out there.
Cloudcuckoolander: His page wouldn't look out of place from the Open Eyed zone. His bio on the HAP intranet comes in the form of bizarrely formatted poems.
The Idealist: He holds much hope in Merchantsoft and the headband technology.
New-Age Retro Hippie: His creative processes take into account nature and spirituality, and he acts as a spiritual counselor for Adrian. He even tries to get Adrian to calm down through meditation in the leaked chat messages.
Nice Guy: Doesn't seem malicious or greedy; he insists that Adrian practice breathing exercises to calm his nerves. After you find "One Legged Man" for the HAP, he pays Chowder Man some heartfelt compliments, stating that he's sure "One Legged Man" would've been a hit.
Odd Friendship: Artie, a hippie in every sense of the word, is close friends with Adrian, a business-minded Pointy-Haired Boss.
Out of Focus: He gets the least focus of the core Merchantsoft staff, aside from the ones that are The Ghost. His role increases near the end, due to being a part of the Hypnospace Archival Project.
Patrick Stewart Speech: His quote here is taken from his page, filled with paragraphs about his motivation and the future of his company's technology.
Science Is Good: His entire spiel about how far machine and man can go is this.
Token Good Teammate: He's the only Merchantsoft higher-up who isn't either incompetent or rebelling against the Merchant brothers' authority. The dude just makes art and genuinely believes in the good of Hypnospace.
Wide-Eyed Idealist: He has nothing but hope for the technology of sleeptime computing, and he seems to have no awareness for how bad things can get at Merchantsoft or on Hypnospace. Not knowing that Dylan was responsible for the Mindcrash, he happily welcomes him to the Hypnospace Archival Project.
The World Is Just Awesome: Again, that speech of his.

Erick "Chowder Man" Helman

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hschowder.png

Username: RealChowderMan
Portrayed and voiced by: Hot Dad
"Guess who's back? I know you missed me!"

A washed-up '80s rock star better known as "The Chowder Man". Erick regularly performs songs for different companies, including Merchantsoft, but is seeking to take the world by storm again with his new band, KRUNCHER.

The Alcoholic: In the past, due to his career falling through. He states being sober for 6 months but admits that he "cheats" every now and then.
An Arm and a Leg: The helicopter crash at Coolfest '99 costs him one of his legs.
Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Chowder Man does have a legitimate talent for songwriting despite his massive ego, especially when it comes to jingles. If Granny Cream doesn't get stuck in your head whenever you hear it, you might not have a soul.
Creator Thumbprint: All his songs include at least one Singer Namedrop.
Determinator: Zane's Twitter account indicates that Chowder Man continued performing into the 2000s and is still around in the 2020s, meaning that not even losing his leg and his best friend stopped him from making music.
He's Back!: KRUNCHER was going to be his big return to the rock scene as a full-time endeavor as opposed to his smaller licensed jingles. This doesn't last long thanks to the helicopter accident that claims his leg and his drummer.
Informed Flaw: Though most in-universe opinions on Chowder Man's music range from ambivalence to hatred, his songs are actually quite enjoyable beyond the cheesy lyrics. It helps that he's portrayed by an accomplished musician.
Lethally Stupid: He insists that flying a helicopter in a crowded stadium is perfectly safe. The helicopter's rotors get tangled up in dangling wires, causing a crash that kills his band's drummer, leads to one of his legs being amputated, and injures three fans who had won a contest to fly with him.
My God, What Have I Done?: The helicopter crash at Coolfest '99, which not only took his leg, but killed his drummer, causes him to retire in a depressive slump. Finding the lyrics to a song he was writing to work through his creative issues following this is one of the objectives in the Lost and Found.
"Shaggy Dog" Story: All his hopes hinge on Coolfest '99 being his big comeback to reignite his career, which results in him losing a leg and his drummer, effectively forcing him into retirement.
White-Dwarf Starlet: A male example. He went from playing packed stadiums to writing cheesy jingles for TV shows and brand advertisements. As Tim's True Tranquility page puts it, "they LOVED you—or at least you thought they did". He's hoping to properly resurrect his career with KRUNCHER, but...

Barbara Dugnutt

Merchantsoft's Public Relations manager, hired some time after Roddy leaves the company. She is responsible for managing how various hubs are presented, such as making sure that staff don't feature deliberately low-quality (or, in Counsellor Ronnie's case, inaccurate) music on pages for humor.

Gender Flip: Was originally called "Bobson Dugnutt" before the Hypnospace Plus update.
The Ghost: She is the only member of Merchantsoft's staff without her own Hypnospace page, though her picture is in the company's "About Us" page.
Shout-Out: Her original name, Bobson Dugnutt, is one of the made-up athletes from Fighting Baseball, a Japanese Super NES game infamous for featuring some strange names.

The Café

The Café is the default zone for users who don't fit into any of the other, more specific zones. Its residents include non-Coolpunk musicians, tech reviewers, and writers.

Tropes applying to the Café in general:

Hufflepuff House: As a miscellaneous zone for users that don't fit into any other category. The zone hosts the pages of your bosses at Merchantsoft, as well as general tutorials on how to use Hypnospace, but it also doesn't have any assigned cases pertaining to it throughout the game.
Master of None: This board hosts people that don't feel as though they specifically fit into any of the other zones (yet).
Secret Character: The Dumpster is officially connected to this zone, but they only put their completely empty page on public display. The actual site's content is unlisted.

Jas Wilson Lopez

Username: JasWilsonLopez2
"By day, I'm a software engineer at a boring company nobody cares about. By night, I'm JAS!"

Jas is a democratic socialist software engineer from San Francisco who runs a page reviewing the various software available for HypnOS.

Ambiguous Gender: Jas gives his full name as "Jasmine," but he is always referred to as Jas by himself and others. His page contains the LGBT "HS_Lifestyles" tag, and his portrait depicts a figure that appears to be male (or androgynous). Connie refers to Jas as "he," suggesting that he may be a trans man.
Hint System: He makes reviews of software available on Hypnospace that the player can make use of, making their existence known but not telling where one can find them.

Tamara Frost

Username: TamaraFrost2
Portrayed by: Tamara Gamble
Voiced by: Cherrie Woods (public domain audio, original release); Jazelle Foster (Hypnospace Plus)
"Welcome to the HOME page of sound artist, interpretive dancer, and poet Tamara Frost. Have a seat!"

Tamara is a recent college graduate who's trying to juggle her love of poetry with her telemarketing career.

A Degree in Useless: She has a degree in English Literature, which she admits hasn't gotten her very far, hence her attempts to promote her spoken-word poetry and claw her way out of her dead-end telemarketing job. She eventually finds success in writing children's poetry anthologies.
Chekhov's Gunman: She isn't involved with the story at all until the time skip to the present day, where she's a founding member and the main financial benefactor of the Hypnospace Archival Project.
I Just Want to Have Friends: Why she hosts so many pages across nearly every zone. She's an example of a user who doesn't know how to fit in with crowds and drifts aimlessly in wanting online friends and a role in communities.
Master of None: While the Café is generally for people who don't fit into any zone, Tamara is a very notable case in that she hosts pages in almost every zone, the only exceptions being Goodtime Valley and Teentopia since she's not an elder or teenager. It's stated that she's not very active on some of them.
Young Future Famous People: She becomes a well-known author during the 1999 to present day time skip.

Gregg Smith

Username: GearHeadGregg
"Need help using HypnOS? ChitChat me, I'd be happy to help out!"

A 49-year-old computer guy based in Lexington, Kentucky. Known for his guides to and knowledge of HypnOS, he's the guy that people across Hypnospace go to for advice on many topics.

Hidden Depths: He's listed as one of the creators of FLST, which one wouldn't expect from his otherwise unassuming guides.
Hint System: His guides, at times unintentionally, provide hints on how to approach Hypnospace and its users.
Mr. Fixit: If you need help using Hypnospace, he's your guy. You'll see many users thank and credit him for his assistance, usually related to page building.
Nice Guy: He likes to help others on Hypnospace, whether it be through his guides or directly with communication.
The Password Is Always "Swordfish": He gives out a simple guide on how to make passwords, which other people in the game follow. This includes himself, allowing you access to FLST.
The Smart Guy: One of the most helpful characters in the game thanks to his many guides and suggestions. He's also knowledgeable about HypnOS and Hypnospace and is responsible for starting several online projects.

Dimitry S. Jackson

Username: deepin2thedeep
"Help Me Explore The Ocean For Treasure And You Will Not BE Sorry"

A man with aspirations of going on an adventure who asks for donations in HypnoCoin. He claims that reaching his goal will allow him to explore the ocean to hunt for treasure, and he promises to share the spoils with whoever can realize this.

419 Scam: At least seemingly running one. Contacting users by e-mail, he claims that a rich person will grant him a submarine if he gathers enough HypnoCoin in time, which would allow him to hunt for treasure that he'd really share with the donors. He ends up being serious.
Not Quite the Right Thing: If you believe his story and donate a large sum of HypnoCoin, he thanks you graciously for making his dreams come true and actually gets the submarine he wanted to go on an adventure with. Then he sets off to retrieve the treasure he found, and is never heard from again.
Secret Character: His pages are mostly found through the Hypnomail that he sends, and while he is officially connected to the Café, he is not a publicly listed member there.
What Happened to the Mouse?: If you donate enough to him, he leaves behind coordinates in case anything happens to him, and his fate is never heard from again. Finding out what happened to him can be one of the Hypnospace Archival Projects' goals.

Other Café Users and Groups

Reggie Paulson Tucker

Username: YourBudReggie55
"No offense to you all but I am not a Communist."

A formerly Amish user in the Café notable for his horrendous page.

Hopeless with Tech: It takes help from Gregg, Jas, Arlan, and Howard to fix up his page into something readable. He then applies "Beefbrain Shield Pro" to his page.
Patriotic Fervor: Has the HS_TruePatriots badge and sends his respects to the troops.
Red Scare: He's unnerved by Howard's support for unionizing workers and calls him a communist. After Howard helps him, he formally apologizes while clarifying that he's not a communist himself.
Stylistic Suck: His personal page on November 5th takes the default form of page building for Hypnospace and abuses it heavily, getting notice from The Dumpster.

Howard Hewson

Username: Send_Me_Money1
"Come on now folks, stop it with the Hypnocoins!"

Another user of the Café. His username is a joke, but people keep sending him money anyway, so he politely asks them to "don'tnate".

Camp Cook: His page gives advice on camping and cooking.
Capitalism Is Bad: Part of his main page promotes "The Worker's Alternative", a progressive pro-labor Hypnospace page also run by him.
Chummy Commies: He's overall a friendly and helpful guy, giving advice and helping Reggie with his page despite the latter's misgivings.
Dirty Communists: In "The Worker's Alternative," he calls Tina Briggs, W.E. Briggs' descendant who is responsible for the Gumshoe Gooper takedowns, a "comrade" addressing the character's supposed "imperial crusade." He's essentially the other political side of the Gumshoe Gooper controversy and what Goodtime Valley fears.
Dysfunctional Family: Implied to have had a strained or complicated relationship with his family in the past, given that his advice regarding family matters is to "just call them."
Lethal Chef: Self-admitted. One of his "cooking tips" is to make scrambled eggs by microwaving them "before they explode"... followed by a tip to buy frozen dinners instead.
Literal-Minded: People have apparently been sending HypnoCoin to him in accordance with his name. Given that it's also apparently usually one at a time, it could just be people playing a prank.

Bill Aldrin

Username: HouseOfSoundBill

A professional music critic from Ojai, California, who publishes a periodical called Aldrin's House of Sound. He's attempting to go all-digital, but having some trouble with it.

All There in the Manual: The liner notes for Cosmic Pilgrimage shed some light on Bill's past; as an 18-year-old in 1974, he worked as a shelf stocker at a King's Foods grocery store, and would spend some of his money on records at the local record shop, Hi-Fi Fever. The manager of Hi-Fi, Henry, would set aside records for Bill to listen to, and he's the one who introduced him to Klyfta.
Ascended Fanboy: He's a huge fan of Klyfta, to the point that he chooses their track "Cosmos Eternal" to be the main one he plays on his page. He eventually scores an interview with Klyfta's frontman, Casper Sundberg, and later writes the liner notes for their album, Cosmic Pilgrimage.
Compassionate Critic: Bill generally tends to find the positives in every band he listens to, even if they perform in genres outside his comfort zone (such as Glamocaster and Seepage). While he gives a scathing review to Chowder Man, that's more due to the latter's blatant misogyny and fragile masculinity rather than his musicianship, which Bill finds mediocre at best. Even then, he has the decency to unlist his review after the accident at Coolfest '99.
Deadpan Snarker: While he's not a Caustic Critic, he can broach into this territory when writing about a band he's not fond of, as seen in his contempt for Chowder Man.
"If you've caught any television over the last 2 decades, you will no doubt recognize his yarling, mouth-full-of-cotton rock anthems. If a mediocre TV commercial needs an uninspired rock chorus, they call Erick Helman."
Hopeless with Tech: The initial version of his page is just scans of articles from his periodical, as he struggles with using the page builder. With help from GearHeadGregg, as well as graphics by Arlan and Casper, he's transitioned to fully digital by New Year's. Unfortunately, Hypnospace winds up going under due to the Mindcrash.
Pet the Dog: Despite being really not fond of Chowder Man, he removes the link to his scathing review after the Coolpunk '99 disaster, and sends his regards to "Kuff" Johnson.
This Is Going to Be Huge: He's quite impressed with Seepage's debut album, finding the idea of mixing rap with metal to be innovative and potentially genre-defining. We know in hindsight that the Nu Metal genre peaks in the early 2000s and undergoes a rapid decline shortly afterward.

Barnaby's Chair

Barnaby portrayed by: Dan Warren

A musical group that is somehow connected to how Samantha got a job at Merchantsoft. Their Hypnospace page is managed by their recording publisher, Esotonic.

Break-Up Song: Most of Barnaby's songs seem to involve a relationship that went sour.
Creative Differences: invoked In-universe, the lyrics to Barnaby's songs suggest that this is why his bandmates left him behind. Most notably, "You're Not That Cool" has Barnaby nakedly jealous at his former partner having a more popular band than him.
Dwindling Party: Starts as a three-member band. One member leaves by late November, and by New Year's, it's a solo act (with a rename to just "Barnaby").
Rearrange the Song: An in-universe example; the first album released by solo act "Barnaby" includes remixed versions of music the group had released, such as turning "Satellite Orchestra" into "Satellite Electrica".
Removed from the Picture: As members of the group leave, pictures of them are scribbled over in red.

The Worker's Alternative

An unlisted page that promotes a modern communist agenda. Supports Tina Briggs' decision to request the removal of imagery created by her anti-Communist father.

Capitalism Is Bad: What they believe and write about.
Comically Missing the Point: They're the other political side of the misunderstanding behind Gumshoe Gooper's removal. They know that Tina Briggs is calling for the character's imagery to be taken down, but misinterpret it as her trying to follow anti-imperialistic values.
Hidden Depths: The group has its own FLIST page; while appropriate, it also shows some connections to Hypnospace's more tech-savvy users.
Secret Character: Learning that they even exist requires reading Howard's page.

Goodtime Valley

Goodtime Valley was created for the kind of people who want to go back to "the good old days." It's mainly populated by elderly users, many of whom are conservative and/or Christian, as well as brands advertising to older demographics.

Tropes applying to Goodtime Valley in general:

Berserk Button: Any mention or thought of The Dumpster upsets them. Later, it's taking down Gumshoe Gooper.
Dramatic Irony: The citizens of the zone begin a protest over the deletion of Gumshoe Gooper against Merchantsoft. Only Sandy knows that the company is actually just fulfilling the request of the estate for the character's creator.
Eagle Land: Type 2. The Goodtime Valley denizens fight for Gumshoe Gooper as he were the embodiment of America itself, and any attempts to remove him are seen as a communist plot.
Fair-Weather Friend: The greater majority of them turn on Sandy when she tries to reason with them about their Internet Counterattack, practically alienating her from the entire community. This betrayal leads to Sandy leaving the platform altogether.
Granny Classic: Some of the citizens here tend to have this personality, such as Sandy and Mavis, at least when they manage to communicate properly. One of the brands that advertises here, Granny Cream's Hot Butter Ice Cream, invokes this imagery.
Hopeless with Tech: See Technologically Blind Elders below.
Internet Counterattack: After the first act, nearly all of them start protesting the banning of Gumshoe Gooper content. They succeed in getting the ban loosened up in the third act.
Nostalgia Filter: Invoked by Merchantsoft to appeal to the audience here. The zone's tagline and descriptions all talk about how the users here can relive "the way things used to be."
Patriotic Fervor: Expect to see the badge for "HS_TruePatriots" on many of their pages. Later combined with the Gumshoe Gooper movement, who see the character as an extension of its creator's own patriotism.
The Peter Principle: The community leader was simply chosen because he didn't cause much trouble and only used Hypnospace for music. Fortunately this didn't cause any trouble for them, though they still want a more proactive leader. It also backfires a bit on Merchantsoft's end, as the most he does to quell the Gumshoe Gooper movement is to put a message at the top of his page that tells people to stop using the character.
Serious Business: Taking down a cartoon character for copyright infringement is seen as an attack on freedom of speech and anti-patriotic action to them, if only because nearly none of them are aware of the reason why Gooper got taken down in the first place, instead mistaking it for action against the cartoon's anti-communist roots.
Technologically Blind Elders: Quite a bit of the users here aren't used to the headband and sleeptime computing. You'll see struggles to work with the page builder, links hosting viruses, and people not understanding how the free subscription service works.

Abigail Lorne

Username: AbbyWrites58
"...last I checked, old cartoons are NOT ILLEGAL!"

Abby is an elementary school teacher from Florida and one of the first users the player hits with C.H.I.M.E violations.

Due to the Dead: She runs "Hypnospace Heaven" to honor not only those that she personally lost, but also anybody that requests a tribute.
From Nobody to Nightmare: A more comedic example. She goes from your first target with easily-recognized C.H.I.M.E. violations to spearheading a movement to keep Gumshoe Gooper plastered all over Hypnospace.
Misplaced Retribution: She starts an online crusade to keep plastering pictures of Gumshoe Gooper all over Goodtime Valley, railing against Merchantsoft for the removal of the images and directly targeting angry rhetoric at the Enforcers. The actual culprit of the takedowns is the estate of Gumshoe Gooper's creator requesting the images be taken down, which only you as a player are aware of.
Pyrrhic Victory: She succeeds in keeping Gumshoe Gooper on Hypnospace after a lengthy amount of time annoying Merchantsoft about it. Not only does this happen shortly before the Mindcrash, which causes Hypnospace to be completely abandoned, but you can still strike her images of Gumshoe Gooper as C.H.I.M.E. violations because she never got permission to use them.
Technologically Blind Elders: The core of her entire conflict with Merchantsoft is the fact that she doesn't know how copyright works and so assumes that Merchantsoft thinks that the images are "illegal".
Warm-Up Boss: Although she's not the only one guilty of copyright infringement violations during Act 1, Abigail's page serves as an overall introduction to how the player's job as a Hypnospace Enforcer works (apart from the actual in-game tutorial), with fairly obvious violations you can easily pick out for quick and easy HypnoCoin.
What the Hell, Hero?: She's shocked and upset when Enforcers take down innocent pictures of a cartoon character because of copyright concerns. She doesn't even know the reason for it, but she emphasizes that they were just a bunch of children's drawings and that places such as The Dumpster are still allowed.

Sandy L. Mason

Username: MTNestSandy
"Get ready to BWL!"

Sandy is a retired school guidance counselor from Florida, and as her name implies is an "empty nester" who is enjoying retirement with her husband and dog. She is a good friend of Abby's so she also gets mixed up in the Gooper Gumshoe issue. At the start of the game, Sandy is being nominated by her fellow Goodtime Valley citizens as the new Community Leader for the zone.

Cassandra Truth: She tries to reason with the users in Goodtime Valley that there's no sense in continuing to fight the Enforcers over something that's most likely being protected by an estate, and even attempts to assure everyone that Beefbrain is all just a very elaborate hoax. Nobody believes her in both cases, even though she's absolutely correct on both counts.
Horrible Judge of Character: She thinks Corey is a good kid and a kindred spirit, since he has a page dedicated to jokes just like she does. She can't read between the lines and see him as no better than the outwardly annoying Zane.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Trying to be the voice of reason over the Stand With Gooper issue causes the rest of Goodtime Valley to turn against Sandy, costing her all of the support she had gathered for becoming the next community leader. By the end of December, she feels so frustrated and alienated that she decides to not renew her Hypnospace subscription.
Only Sane Man: Compared to everyone else in Goodtime Valley, Sandy seems to have the most level head on her shoulders. While initially on Abby's side when the player starts issuing copyright strikes, she seems to have wised up over the course of the first Time Skip; she reasonably concludes that getting angry at the Enforcers for simply doing their job is not worth getting in further trouble. She also (correctly) deduces that Beefbrain isn't a real condition and was made up. Both times she's soundly ignored.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After the rest of the community scorns her for not supporting the Gumshoe Gooper protests, by December, Sandy feels unwelcome on the service and states that she will not renew her subscription.
Team Mom: She is a genuinely kind person who cares about her fellow Goodtime Valley residents. One of her main hobbies is making "Sandy Cards", personalized greeting card webpages, dedicated to fellow citizens.

Reginald Roberts

Username: SouthernGentRR
"This is the home page of Reginald Roberts, small business owner, scam whistleblower, and rich business man, if I may brag."

A surly old businessman that runs the "RR Ranch" store and holds a high opinion of himself as an online vigilante. His popularity rises during the Gumshoe Gooper revolution, surpassing Sandy as the preferred community leader.

Conspiracy Theorist: Not to the point where he ends up in the Open Eyed zone, but still there. He believes that Merchantsoft's removing of Gumshoe Gooper is part of a Communist agenda, and he buys into Aurora's story about trennis. And on New Year's Eve, he adds the IRS to his "scam watch" page.
Cowboy: Appreciates them to the point where he hosts an image of one on his page. His business sells cowboy waist satchels, and you can preview the customization options on his page.
Jerkass Has a Point: He's surly about it, but he's not wrong about how Merchantsoft only really cares about money, and that they only gave in to the Stand With Gooper movement as a PR move.
Red Scare: He frames the removal of Gumshoe Gooper as a communist plot by Merchantsoft.
Romancing the Widow: He finds himself romantically involved with Abigail through their common cause of Gumshoe Gooper.
Shiptease: With Abby during their time crusading for Gumshoe Gooper.
Vigilante Man: An online example. He runs the Goodtime Scam Watch, a page which documents and warns against any scams that he finds on his own. He then starts defending Abby and the right to post Gumshoe Gooper imagery.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: A comical version. After he sees Abby's page get taken down for Gumshoe Gooper, he helps her create the zone-wide protest to keep the character on Hypnospace.

Arlan Reynolds

Username: ARLAN_FER_OBBEE
"My celtic culture was not celebrated by family, but I recently uncovered evidence that I am, indeed related to the ancient celts. Who woulda thunk it?"

A furniture salesman with a passion for graphic design that fashions himself as a wizard for his online persona.

Foreshadowing: He's one of the users that complains about his lack of quality sleep after using the headband. This is one of the hints that HypnOS is dangerous to its users' health.
Hiding the Handicap: The last line of his "About Me" page reveals that he was severely injured in a car crash at a young age and permanently lost use of his legs. Being online allows him to not be afraid of being himself, cultivating hobbies and an interesting personality. Tim accuses him of being a good salesman solely due to this handicap, as it causes people to feel sorry for him.
I'm Standing Right Here: Played with as Hypnospace is an online platform so the characters aren't physically next to each other, but The Dumpster publishes an article that ridicules Arlan and his graphic design. Despite being an unlisted page, Arlan eventually caught wind of it and took said project down. Goodtime Valley has had it with The Dumpster ever since.
In-Universe Factoid Failure: Arlan claims on his main page that his name means "noble warlock" in "Celtish." Celtic languages exist, but "Celtish" does not. Arlan also translates into "oath" or "pledge" in old Gaelic. Then again, given what happened to tennis...
Wizards and Witches: He has a fascination with them, especially since his name apparently means "Noble Warlock" in Celtish.

Terry Smith

Username: BESTDEALSTERRY
"check out terry 's general store. i have the best stickers and screen saves on hypno space!"

The owner of a page that sells stickers and backgrounds for Hypnocoin.

Achievements in Ignorance: He's one of the less tech savvy Hypnospace citizens, but he somehow figured out how to decrypt AllSeeing3y3. The story behind that remains a Riddle for the Ages.
CAPS LOCK: IT'S IN HIS STORE DESCRIPTION AND A BIT ON HIS PAGES.
Computer Virus: He (most likely unknowingly) spreads Trojanized packages that contain either the buttsdisease or thehunger malwares with almost every download on his page.
Disc-One Nuke: His Halloween sticker pack includes "Terry's Scary Eye", a program he found which "MAKES THINGS UNDER NEATH IT COME TO LIFE IN A SCARY WAY!!!" It's actually a SamWich-encrypted version of AllSeeing3y3, a tool used by savvy Hypnospace users to hide things from the general public. Downplayed in that most players, at least on their first run, will be as oblivious as Terry as to just what they've gotten their hands on, especially since it is encrypted, and therefore useless without the player knowing that the file must be decrypted by feeding it to a Virtual Pet.
Hopeless with Tech: Most of the packages that he sells have been Trojanized to include malware, and is seemingly unaware of this issue. He also slightly struggles with the page builder:
help me get these thumbs up hands off my page i only want 1
Small Role, Big Impact: He has no relevance to the plot, but his virus-infected Halloween sticker pack allows the player to obtain AllSeeing3y3 immediately if they're clever enough.

Carl Parker III

Username: BurninRubber50
"AS YOU MAY HAVE BEEN ABLE TO TELL, I LOVE TO RIDE BIKES."

A former biker with a strong sense of justice and patriotism.

Butt-Monkey: In the first act, his story as a former biker gets exposed by Tim and his page gets infected by a virus, which sends some violation points to him rather than Tim. Later, he falls for the Beefbrain rumors and butchers his page with their sidebars in the process. Then he joins the movement to defend Gumshoe Gooper, which sets the Enforcers on him and potentially gets him banned. After falling into grieving for his wife, he elects to spend his Christmas and New Year's on Hypnospace. Depending on your actions, he may be one of the victims of the Mindcrash, or banned and left to spend the holidays alone.
CAPS LOCK: ALL OVER HIS PAGE.
Character Death: One of the potential deaths of the Mindcrash. "Potential" meaning that he can be saved, if you report his actions and get him banned before it happens.
Crusading Widower: His wife, Lisa, passed away before the events of the game, and he makes sure to make a tribute to her on his personal page along with an entry on Abby's page.
Due to the Dead: He has a segment of his page in honor of his late wife, Lisa. He requested an additional one on Abby's tribute page.
Hopeless with Tech: He struggles a bit with handling the page builder, although much less than Mavis does, and most of his difficulties come after he completely reformats his page to add the Beefbrain "protection."
Irony: He takes the Beefbrain rumors rather seriously, though he later regrets doing so and claims to have never believed it. He can potentially be one of the victims of the Mindcrash, which would realize his worst fears.
Make an Example of Them: A nonlethal variant. In order to show the seniors of Goodtime Valley that they take the Gooper ban seriously, Merchantsoft may elect to ban him for his copyright violations.
invokedParody Retcon: After the Beefbrain rumors are confirmed to be false, he claims that he knew the whole time that they were fake, before immediately following this by saying "better safe than sorry."
Patriotic Fervor: Loves his country and makes that known with his tag "HS_TruePatriots." This extends to his preference for American motorbikes over foreign bikes.
Sensory Abuse: Users will probably be caught off guard by the extremely loud music that blares on his page.
Super Gullible: Believes the Beefbrain rumors and follows their recommended protection.

Mavis Ann Greene

Username: Citizen0556332
"hello i just signed on hello? is this the chat room? help"

An elderly woman getting used to Hypnospace.

Character Death: One of the casualties of the Mindcrash. Her death cannot be prevented.
Five-Second Foreshadowing: On New Year's Eve, she states that she plans to limit her usage of Hypnospace to once per week, as she's concerned about how little energy she has already. This is a major hint that Hypnospace headbands are not safe to use due to flaws in their functionality.
Hopeless with Tech: It takes the entire game for her to properly make her profile and page. She has to get help from Arlan and GearHeadGregg to make her page readable.
Hope Spot:
- She gets her page in order with help from Gregg and Arlan around the second chapter of the game. Unfortunately, her free subscription to Hypnospace has expired by the time we get to it, so we can't see it.
- By New Year's, her page is finished, she has renewed her subscription, and she has plans to limit her use of Hypnospace. Then the Mindcrash happens, and she becomes one of the unavoidable deaths.
Nice Girl: When she finally has her page in order, she thanks GearHeadGregg and Arlan for helping her out and sends her regards to Gregg's family. The only things her page hosts are links to her friends from Goodtime Valley and a couple messages.
Technologically Blind Elders: Throughout much of the game, she can be observed struggling with the page builder for Hypnospace.
We Hardly Knew Ye: Right as she gets her Hypnospace page in order and starts to develop as a character, she dies in the Mindcrash. Even Dylan's apology note to her simply consists of "I'm sorry, Mavis," and nothing else.

Connie Turner

Username: ConnieConnects
"While I appreciate the free (illegal?) HypnoCure Pro download, you should know that you were criminally (he he) easy to track down."

A computer security specialist from Los Angeles who curates a page of links to Hypnospace sites she likes. Added in the Hypnospace Plus update.

Cool Old Lady: Downplayed. Her headband says she's 41: significantly younger than most Goodtimers, but still pretty old for a hacker in the 90s, and she has a very Goodtimer writing style. She also appreciates flip-flop (hip-hop) music, and is smart enough to break into m1nx.
Grandfather Clause: She admits that her page probably would fit better in the Café, but since she's already comfortably settled into Goodtime Valley, she considers it too late to change it now.
Never Mess with Granny: Downplayed as she's not that old, but she's a Goodtime Valley citizen who can go toe to toe with m1nx. Even re3koning is polite to her.
Nice Girl: She's friendly to everyone she encounters, and has nothing but kind words for the pages she links. Even when she hacks m1nx, she affably teases them. She also says she dislikes The Dumpster for its Caustic Critic writing style, even when admitting sometimes it's Actually Pretty Funny.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: By New Year's Eve, she decides to close Connie's Connections and move back to NetSettler due to the number of issues raised with Hypnospace compatibility.
Secret Character: She's not listed on the Goodtime Valley main page. The player will probably find out about her from a link on Gregg's page, or when she breaks into m1nx.
Technologically Blind Elders: Inverted. She's one of the most tech-savvy people on Hypnospace, figuring out and going into detail on the NetSettler fiasco and pointing out that GearHeadGregg's password tips have serious flaws.
Worthy Opponent: re3koning_inc appears to have crossed keyboards with her before, and the conflict seems to have left the two with a healthy mutual respect.
Younger Than They Look: She's only 41 according to her headband data, but she's found in Goodtime Valley and has a very sweet, old-fashioned writing style (despite being one of the most net-savvy people on Hypnospace).

Other Goodtime Valley Users and Groups

Pete Gallo

Username: RenegadeLoverPete

An over-the-road trucker whose Hypnospace page contains his poetry.

Character Development: A minor case of it. He starts off abhorring the idea of going on the ChitChat platform, then is later seen regretting that he'll be parting ways with the friends that he made on there.
Hopeless with Tech: He didn't know what ChitChat really was until later, initially scorning the idea of using it without having any idea about it. He also doesn't know how the free trial policy for Hypnospace works, so he tries to get another free subscription and fails by December.
Real Men Wear Pink: His poems, open to the public, are mainly about the subject of love.
We Hardly Knew Ye: His free Hypnospace trial ends before November 26, and he doesn't renew, leading to his page being deleted by New Year's.

Scotty McMahon

Username: MrOldFashioned

The community leader for Goodtime Valley, which he suspects is mainly due to "good behavior", as he's not even a frequent Hypnospace user.

Clueless Boss: His lack of presence on Hypnospace leads to the community trying to rally support for other members to take up his role, such as Sandy (prior to the Gooper revolution) and Reginald (when the revolution takes off).
The Peter Principle: He was chosen by Merchantsoft to be a community leader even though he only visits the service for listening to music. This means that he doesn't do anything to quell the Gooper movement past a few messages at the top of his personal page simply telling the zone to stop.

Boppo's

The official page of "Boppo's Fine Meats (and Snacks)", a food brand.

Inherently Funny Words: "Boppo's" itself, which is lampshaded by HYPII having a specific comment for downloading the Boppo's Hypnospace theme.
Pointy-Haired Boss: A news article in late November states that they were bought out by a conglomerate. The CEO of Boppo's makes the comment, "You could say I'm surrounded by family now! So... so much family," before having to be escorted out of the press release.

Granny Cream

The official page of "Granny Cream's Hot Butter Ice Cream", a dessert meant to be heated and eaten.

Blatant Lies: Hot butter and ice cream is, according to their slogan and jingle, "very tasty and healthy too."
Nutritional Nightmare: Their product is ice cream dipped in or mixed with hot butter.

Terry

Username: WormyTerry2

The creator of an unlisted page that contains pictures of neat worms...or, rather, his stepson.

Cloudcuckoolander: His page is dedicated to observing worms, sometimes with identical pictures and odd tangents.
One-Steve Limit: Averted, as he is another "Terry" in Goodtime Valley, the other being BestDealsTerry.
Secret Character: The player will likely only learn of his page after his friend in Open Eyed recommends it.
Younger Than They Look: Although his Headband ID lists him as 44 years old, his August worm update has him admit that his stepdad wouldn't let him go outside that month, and he mentions his mother in the next update, implying the page was actually made by the real Terry's stepson.

Teentopia

Teentopia is everything an adult would think teens like. Home to jerks, budding artists, and a few kids who don't quite understand Hypnospace etiquette yet. In theory, it's meant for users between ages 13 and 18, but younger kids and older people occasionally end up here anyway.

Tropes applying to Teentopia in general:

Artifact Title: The zone has a few users that aren't teens, but much younger kids, despite it not being allowed per the title. It later opens up to ages 10 to 19 in response, making "Teen"topia less relevant.
Phonýmon: The zone advertises SquisherZ, and many of the users are stated to be fans of the franchise.
Teens Are Monsters: Harassment is common amongst the users here.
Virtual Pet: It provides download links to two: April the Angelic Hamster, and the Lovesquid. The Hypnospace Plus update adds a third: Mushi, the SquisherZ mascot.

"Counselor" Ronnie Porter

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hsronnie.png

Username: CounselorRonnie
Voiced by: Austin Brewer
"I had a buddy named Vinny... he could stuff an entire pizza in his mouth. All without drugs."

Counselor Ronnie is the Community Leader for Teentopia, who tries to make the space as fun and educational as possible. As a result of his work, Merchantsoft was recognized by the U.S. government for promoting the educational use of the Internet.

Becoming the Mask: He was started as a prank by m1nx, run by Jezz0, to see how far they could get with making terrible content in Teentopia before Merchantsoft would take it down. Merchantsoft's negligence in moderating the zone led Jezz0 to actually try and help out, and they run their SquisherZ contest sincerely when it was originally made to help the character blend in.
Character Focus: The Hypnospace Plus update adds in more stuff to do with Counselor Ronnie, and it's even a bullet point on the blog update.
Drugs Are Bad: He stars in a minigame dedicated to fending off drug dealers, and later he writes a rap against the fictional drug "T-Nub," both of which are added in the Hypnospace Plus update.
Everyone Has Standards: In his mailbag column, the first two messages he gets are from concerned parents, and his responses are sarcastically serious about the dangers of the made-up drug T-Nubs. In December, however, his message is from an actual lonely child, and Ronnie—or rather, the person playing him—responds with total sincerity and kindness to reassure the kid that they're not alone.
Invented Individual: He's a prank by m1nx.
Little Known Facts: His "Did You Know" page has a few of these, all quite obviously false. Did you know that helium makes balloons too slippery for gravity to hold onto?
Sensory Abuse: His "birthstone song" is cringe-inducingly bad and butchers the pronunciations (e.g., "periscope" instead of "peridot").
Speaking Like Totally Teen: Ronnie in a nutshell; he's trying so hard to be cool, but mostly comes off as a lame guidance counselor. His "Snub the Nub" rap makes him sound like an over-the-top Surfer Dude and has him say lines like "Drugs make kids pretty lame!"
Trademark Favorite Food: According to his December mailbag, mac 'n' cheese is his favorite food.

Tiffany "Tiff" Wright

Username: DarkTwilightTiff
Portrayed by: sacaitlin

"Are we asleep or awake?"

Tiff is a teenage girl who enjoys writing interactive horror stories called "Scaries". Shortly before the game begins, she starts a friendship with Tim and collaborates with him on a few Scaries.

Against My Religion: Parodied; at one point, Tiff claims she's become nonspecifically "Religious", which prevents her from "romantic entanglements with atheist boys". It's a clear attempt to get Tim off her back.
Character Death: One of the unfortunate casualties of the Mindcrash... and sadly, you can't save her.
Dude Magnet: She ends up drawing the attraction of a few of the users in Teentopia, much to her dismay.
Embarrassing Nickname: She doesn't like Tim's nickname for her, Marshmellow. Tim, having No Social Skills, can't take the hint.
Goth: A writer of "scaries", fascinated with the morbid and dark.
Hitler Ate Sugar: Being friends with infamous hacking prankster Tim ends up getting her some negative attention by other users due to them applying guilt by association.
Intergenerational Friendship: She collaborates with Linda Stevens to make some of her Scaries.
Mistaken for Romance: A lot of people assume she's in a relationship with Tim, a possibility she explicitly rejects. To Tim's disappointment, this never changes.
Morality Chain: Attempts to be one for Tim at first, by making the True Tranquility story's portrayals of HS citizens "less mean". The operative word being attempts.
Only Friend: For Tim.
The Scapegoat: Her friendship with Tim causes her to receive negative attention when people note that he was behind the True Tranquility virus and that the two of them worked on a story revolving around it. She has to clarify that he seemed to have taken her joke suggestion of a real True Tranquility virus as serious.
Shoot the Messenger: She tries reporting harassment she received on ChitChat to enforcers with a page she built. Thanks to how Merchantsoft programmed the process, when you report it to Samantha, it's Tiff's content that gets deleted and she ends up with violation points.
Tempting Fate: She says on November 5th that she has epilepsy, but hasn't had a seizure in a long time. If what even the player sees during the Mindcrash is any indication, it's no wonder she was particularly vulnerable.

Tim Randall Stevens

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hstim.png

Username: T1MAGEDDON
Portrayed by: Peter Swimm
"I AM TIM. FEAR ME."

Tim is a misanthropic and intelligent teenager with far too much time on his hands. He primarily loves to cause trouble by making annoying, but harmless, viruses to screw with other Hypnospace citizens.

Climax Boss: Twice, and both instances coming right before major developments in the plot; the final case of Act 1 has you dealing with his True Tranquility virus and those infected by it, while Act 3 in its entirety has you facing off against the Mindcrash virus he created. Ironically, despite being a major challenge the player has to overcome, he's not the cause of both crashes that happen right after.
The Cracker: Skirts the border between this and Playful Hacker; he never deliberately causes real damage, but annoyance and terror greatly amuse him, he writes (non-destructive but annoying) viruses, and he's perfectly happy to overcharge for FLST passwords and mock his customer.
Deadpan Snarker: When asked if he used Hypnospace between 1998 and 1999 on the HAP bio template:
"...yes."
Dogged Nice Guy: Tim isn't exactly a "nice" guy, at least on the surface, but he has an obvious crush on Tiff. Many of his pranks are attempts to flatter and impress her, while completely missing the obvious signs that she isn't interested. It takes her death in the Mindcrash, and his belief that it was his own fault, for him to get out of this mindset.
Earn Your Happy Ending: It takes two decades, several people dying in the Mindcrash (one of them including the girl he had a crush on), and him going to prison for six years, but by the end of the game, Tim becomes a well-adjusted, Happily Married man who is ultimately absolved of the crime he was accused of thanks to the player's efforts.
Fall Guy: While he didn't intentionally frame him, Dylan makes no effort whatsoever to clarify that Tim had nothing to do with the Mindcrash, letting him rot in jail for 6 years.
Grand Romantic Gesture: The Mindcrash virus and "attack" on Teentopia is revealed to be this for Tiff. Having No Social Skills, he felt that the only way to get her attention back was to make his elaborate plans put her in the spotlight as a sort of "hero." Unfortunately for him, Tiff was done with his antics.
Hidden Heart of Gold: He's not a terrible guy underneath the effort to imitate the swagger of m1nx.
I Just Want to Have Friends: Everything he does, he does for the approval of m1nx and/or Tiff.
Just Friends: With Tiff, to his constant disappointment. His unrequited romantic interest eventually scuttles their friendship.
Kick the Dog: In the first act, he and Tiffany collaborate on True Tranquility. While Tiffany's role amounted to mild editing, Tim did all the writing. His stories caricaturize several Hypnospace citizens, making fun of their losses and vulnerabilities. Shortly afterwards, he sends said citizens the True Tranquility virus, although said virus is merely annoying, not actually harmful.
Leitmotif: If he's not being associated with his self-made track "Leeches", then he and his viruses tend to be heralded by "Trial of the Festering Egg", also made by Tim himself.
Miscarriage of Justice: He is wrongfully convicted of manslaughter caused by the Mindcrash disaster. It turns out that he did write a Mindcrash Computer Virus, but it has nothing to do with the disaster that the buggy Outlaw game caused. The coincidental timing of his malware and the disaster caused the disaster to be named after his malware.
No Social Skills: He's a legitimately talented hacker, enough to snatch passwords from m1nx, but when it comes to people he's hopeless. Even after Tiffany repeatedly makes it extremely clear that she's not interested in him romantically and that she hates being called 'Marshmallow,' Tim doesn't give up, and even uses 'Marshmallow' as the password for the fake Mindcrash page.
Pay Evil unto Evil: On New Year's, he tampers with Zane's and his "girlfriend's" pages to mock him alongside the Mindcrash hack, likely in response to his harassment of Tiff.
Pet the Dog: While holding disdain for everyone on Hypnospace, he's very kind to his Only Friend, Tiff. He even advertises her stories on his secret page, even though it's unlikely that anyone with the means to reach his page would care.
Recurring Boss: Encountered (as in "directly involved in the plot") twice over the course of the story; once toward the end of Act 1 and essentially serving as the primary antagonist during Act 3.
Sarcasm-Blind: According to Tiff, he apparently mistook her joke about making a real True Tranquility virus as a serious suggestion for a prank.
The Scapegoat: Dylan's insistence on pushing Outlaw out onto Hypnospace before it was ready was the real culprit behind the Mindcrash incident; Tim's Mindcrash virus just accidentally provided the perfect cover.
Took a Level in Kindness: He eventually gets less abrasive, particularly the side of him that we see in his note to Tiff meant to accompany "deactivating" the Mindcrash and his adult self after the time skip.

Zane Lofton

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hszane.png

Username: Zane_Rocks_14
Voiced by: Adam DeLease, Gianni Matragrano (Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer)
"It's me Zane, the undesputed king of Teentopia!"

A real asshole all-around, but that's just how some kids turn out. When he's not harassing other users in Teentopia, he is writing self-insert fancomics about his favorite numetal band.

Book Ends: The first time you can get him flagged, you'll find the violations you need to do it in his "Got Game Or Way Lame" page. The last time you can get him flagged, you'll find the violations that put the nail in his coffin on the same page.
Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: He's heavily involved in his son's life as a father and trying his best to be supportive, as opposed to his own vanished deadbeat.
Breakout Character: Zane would become such a popular character that he got his own spinoff game, Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer.
The Bully: An online example. He targets the nerdy Corey Henderson and harasses Tiff in trying to get with her.
Character Blog: He has a Twitter account, Zane_Rocks_36, which doubles as a dev log for Slayers X.
Character Death: Potentially one of the fatalities in the Mindcrash. "Potentially" being the keyword here; if you can get him banned from Hypnospace by flagging his account in November and on New Year's Eve, he will be disconnected before the Mindcrash and will survive.
Cutting Off the Branches: The existence of Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer requires Zane to have survived the Mindcrash.
Disappeared Dad: A plot twist of his self-insert wish-fulfillment webcomic is discovering that a powerful, super-awesome supernatural being (who is also Mikey Sikey, frontman for the band Seepage) is actually his "long lost father". There's enough there for an attentive player to learn he never knew his father without discovering his FLST journal.
Establishing Character Music: The first thing that plays when you go on his page is very loud nu-metal music.
Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: His appearance in Slayers X has him eulogize his dead (in-game, at least) mother in a surprisingly emotional way, reflective of his own thoughts about his mother.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: More so a big jerk than outright evil, but Zane does seem to care about his mom and his son (even considering adding a gore-less mode to Slayers X invokedso his son can play).
Fan Dumb: In-universe, to The Dumpster. His attempt to imitate their caustic style earns him a Medal of Dishonor.
Freudian Excuse: Read between the lines in his comics and consider Tim's choice of barbs against him, and there's strong suggestions that Zane doesn't know who his father is and lives in poverty. He has a journal on his FLST, the source for and confirmation of Tim's insults.
Girlfriend in Canada: Hilariously, if one pays attention to the headband ID associated with his girlfriend's page, it's the same ID number as Zane's own page. That is, if the content of the page wasn't enough to give it away already.
Good Parents: Surprisingly, Zane turns out to be a supportive parent to his son Mikey in Slayers X, letting him make art to put in the game and even adding a gore toggle to the game so he can show his son without scaring him.
Hated by All: Nobody in Teentopia likes Zane because he's a huge bully. The only one who does like him is his girlfriend, but she's a sockpuppet account run by Zane.
Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": He runs a webcomic as advertised on his page, which features him in a fantasy of being The Chosen One that fights evil with his favorite band's members helping him. The practice would carry over to his adulthood as well, with the spinoff game Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer being presented as a deifying self-insert Game Mod that Zane made years after the events of Hypnospace Outlaw.
Hidden Depths: He's stupid, self-absorbed, and shallow, but he does have a genuinely creative mind beneath the surface. As the "lead designer" of Slayers X, he's got some decent gamedev chops that one might not expect of a 30-year-old Manchild. Though the art direction is up to the viewer to decide on its quality, the levels themselves flow well with intricate setpieces (for the engine) and an eye for the small details that one might not expect (like being able to cut the rope hanging the giant potato in the Boise Potato Festival). Aside from that, he also shows talent in voice acting; in-universe, he not only voices himself but also all of the rats, who are voiced by two different actors with a wide range of voices.
Horrible Housing: His FLST journal reveals a few issues about his real life, such as poverty and his mom's dating habits.
Jerkass: Enough of one that you can potentially get him banned. Nobody likes Zane. Even The Dumpster breaks their "don't target people under 18" rule to call him out. While time did teach him some boundaries and he's a pretty good dad, he's still a massively obnoxious Manchild.
Laughably Evil: Zane's a bully, but he's so ridiculously edgy and his antics are so absurd that you'll find yourself laughing at him.
Leitmotif: Often associated with "Nothing Left for Me" by fictional band Seepage.
Manchild: If Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer is any indicator, he hasn't matured one iota in twenty years. He still acts, types and speaks exactly like he did all the way back in 1999, complete with Bowdlerisms such as "motherflippin'" and "turd pile" instead of proper swear words.
Mirror Character: From Corey. Their treatment of each other is similarly cruel and puerile, they both try to pull the same Girlfriend in Canada trick, they both try to impress and later harass Tiff, and they both sour on SquisherZ for the same reason.
Old Shame: He mentions several times in Slayers X promotional material that he is embarrassed by his behavior on Hypnospace. Though he still has similar interests and a somewhat abrasive personality in the present day, he is much kinder and no longer the cruel bully he once was.
Reformed Bully: Played with. According to the Steam description for Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer, after he survives the Mindcrash, Zane lives on to be 37, holding down a job and even having a kid. However, you would be forgiven for thinking the game was released in 1999. He still has all the same online mannerisms as his teenaged self did, he uses the same lame not-swear-words, and his general attitude indicates he hasn't gotten any more pleasant to be around. This is further shown in a hidden message from Adam Chase, a former classmate of Zane who helped program the game, in which he claims that Zane forced him to develop Slayers X with him (holding onto a promise that the two of them made as 18-year-olds) and that he only acquiesced out of pity for Zane's status as a "deadbeat dollar store manager." However, as obnoxious as he is, he's developed standards and clearly wants to be a good father.
Running Gag: On his pages, he'll place a comment on the bottom of them making fun of the user for scrolling all the way down. A similar gag is included in Slayers X if you venture too far out in the second level.
Sarcasm-Blind: Proudly displays his Medal of Dishonor from the Dumpster. Later on in Act 2, he attempts to claim that he knew it was a trick, invoked despite all evidence proving otherwise.
Slut-Shaming: On New Year's Eve, he re-starts his "Got Game or Way Lame" series to lash out at Tiff for turning him down and reporting his harassment to Merchantsoft, accusing her of sleeping around, doing drugs and generally being angry at him for, in his mind, no reason. This ends up being what an inquisitive Enforcer needs to finally get him banned.
Small Name, Big Ego: Calls himself "The Undisputed King of Teentopia" and runs a page mocking his peers following the idea of The Dumpster. His page and comics only boost his ego further.
Too Good for This Sinful Earth: A bizarre inversion. By being Hypnospace's biggest jerk, it's possible that he may wind up getting banned — which ironically saves him from dying to the Mindcrash.
Took a Level in Kindness: Although he's still quite immature, 20 years has done a lot to curb his Jerkass attitude. This is perhaps best described by one of his official tweets: back during the events of Hypnospace Outlaw, he would have used a million bucks to buy all the games he wanted, but these days he professes that he would have used it for "something lame" like saving for his kid's college fund or giving to the homeless.
Vocal Dissonance: His narration in the Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer trailer makes him sound like he's still a teenager, or perhaps in his early twenties; he's thirty-seven.
Wake-Up Call Boss: Whereas Abigail was the warm-up act for the player, Zane's harassment violations from unlisted pages will teach you a quick but pertinent lesson if you're gonna get very far in progressing Hypnospace Outlaw. Violations aren't always going to have the same ease of access or identification as the whole Gumshoe Gooper debacle did; from here on, picking up on violations will rely pretty heavily on the player's intuition and observational skills. If the lesson doesn't stick by the end of Act 3, Zane dies.

Corey Paul Henderson

Username: ThatBrassyKid, formerly GiveMePizza2
"I used to be called GiveMePizza2 but that name is SO STUPID AND IDIOTIC AHHHHHHHHH"

A dorky, overweight kid who plays tuba in band class. He is Zane's primary bullying target.

Big Eater: Loves eating pizza, remarking appreciation for a "triple-decker pizza." Zane makes fun of him for it. He tries to impress Tiff by noting that he plans on eating healthier.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He tries to come off as friendly and polite most of the time, but he doesn't have much actual regard for people.
Endearingly Dorky: Attempts to cultivate this. He tries to present himself this way on his page, with cheesy jokes and self-deprecating humor. His actual personality is not endearing.
Girlfriend in Canada: Just like Zane, he makes a sockpuppet account claiming to be his own girlfriend. His attempt is slightly more convincing than Zane's, since he tries to give her a personality beyond "gushes about her boyfriend", but the headband IDs being identical gives them away. Seemingly as a nod to the trope, the headband data gives the location of "her" account as Alberta, Canada.
Jerkass: Corey may be the target of Zane's insulting comics, but he's not much better himself.
Karma Houdini: Corey's every bit as bad as Zane is, but unlike Zane, who can actually get banned if he racks up enough violations, Corey doesn't get hit with nearly enough violations to send him packing permanently from Hypnospace, especially after harassing Tiff.
Karma Houdini Warranty: Flagging him for investigation lands him a 3-day ban after the first act, compared to Zane's warning. Later, his parents find out about his Girlfriend in Canada act and scold him for it, causing him to promise that he'll be a better user.
Kick the Dog: He's nasty towards Zane, but at least had the excuse that Zane mocked him first. Corey has no excuse for harassing Tiff.
Leitmotif: "Night Out" by Tuba Buffet.
Trademark Favorite Food: Pizza, to the point where his old username used to be "GiveMePizza2."

Rebekah Ruth Pinson

Username: RebeRuthPin

A young girl that tries to balance her devout Christian beliefs, enforced by her parents, with a love for SquisherZ and connecting with other people online.

Minor Character, Major Song: Despite having absolutely no relevance to any of the cases, the developer's Twitter states that the end credits song is from her perspective.
Plot Parallel: Her character arc is similar to Dylan Merchant's. They both enjoy the early pioneer days of Hypnospace, even enjoying some hobbies that authoritative relatives disapprove of. But as the new millennium approaches, they are hit with setbacks and put all their focus on one major thing...and are disappointed when it doesn't live up to expectations. For Rebekah, it's the supposed Rapture, and for Dylan, it's Outlaw and Hypnospace itself.
Yank the Dog's Chain: Right before New Year's, it's announced that her SquisherZ fanart came first in a contest and she's won a brand new gaming console...but she'll never know, because her father threw away her video games and Hypnospace headband, convinced they were bad influences on her.

Other Teentopia Users

Grayson Parker

Username: GraysonArtist87
"I can draw every car or motorcycle for 1 dollar."

A budding artist with a fascination for cars.

Hidden Depths: He has a FLIST account, which requires being a bit involved in the underground scene of Hypnospace to have. The Dumpster uses him as an example of the service getting popular, however.
Mind Screw: They mostly dedicate their art to cars, and their whole FLST is full of pictures of cars with faces.

Ashley Rose Aldrinn

Username: AshleyAstronaut90

A third-grade girl who makes names and backstories for various fake planets. Her mother eventually closes the account due to fear of Beefbrain.

Moral Guardians: Her mother is one, who derides how the parents of other Teentopia users aren't paying enough attention to the safety of their children, even after Beefbrain is proven to be a hoax.
Running Gag: Each successive version of her page features more severe Beefbrain shields than the last, forcing her to squeeze the text into an even smaller area.

Coolpunk Paradise / The Venue

Coolpunk Paradise is a zone dedicated to the fictional music genre of Coolpunk. Thanks to his involvement in its creation, Chowder Man's page is also located here. The zone is later renamed "The Venue" and becomes a hub for all different kinds of music.

Tropes applying to Coolpunk Paradise and the Venue in general:

AstroTurf: It is heavily implied that Coolpunk was actually a really niche thing with "a few kids being weird online" and Merchantsoft attempted to make it seem bigger as part of a promotional campaign with Gray's Peak Cola.
invokedCondemned by History: After Coolfest '99, where Chowder Man's drummer and others are injured by a helicopter crash and Fre3zer, the leading figure of the Coolpunk movement, is found out to be lip-syncing.
invokedGenre-Killer: See above.
Nostalgia Ain't Like It Used to Be: The movement takes samples from old commercial jingles for Gray's Peak soda and Chowder Man songs, playing with the idea of nostalgia alongside its anti-capitalist message. This results in Gray's Peak and Chowder Man trying to capitalize on this to make their comebacks, some users actually wanting the products, and Slushmouth noting the "fake nostalgia" that the music has for Chowder Man.
Serious Business: The community takes its music and aesthetic very seriously, with some calling others out as not truly contributing to the movement as much as others. Fights and harassment from users are apparently frequent.
Start My Own: After Coolfest '99, many of the users across the zone all split into making their own musical genres, all swearing to keep an underground movement.
Stealth Pun: A bit mixed with Meaningful Name. "Coolpunk" is the title for a very popular movement whose followers wish for it to be recognized as a proper subculture. The upcoming "Fungus Scene" is a "real" underground scene after Coolpunk falls, derived from how real fungi are hidden away in caves or have functioning, complex systems underground.

Ray Dolan

Username: FatherFungus/Basidia, COOLPUNK_IS_DEAD, and formerly Fre3zer
"Fungus scene is."

The creator of the Fungus Scene and previously the Coolpunk genre.

Capitalism Is Bad: Ray despises how Coolpunk became co-opted and capitalized by the same corporation it originally mocked, and makes a point that Fungus Scene music is both collaborative and always free. This is also the one of the signs that COOLPUNK_IS_DEAD is really him: "Coolpunk is dead. Capitalism killed it."
Caustic Critic: He derides Coolpunk for starting as a genre with themes of anti-consumerism only for it to end up sponsored by the company whose jingles it sampled. He celebrates the failure of Coolfest '99 and distributes videos of the lip sync failure.
Digital Piracy Is Okay: He makes it a rule that Fungus Scene's music is always free. This is treated seriously with a public link to his FLST.
The Diss Track:
- The Ghost of the Grotto is a subtle one directed at someone FatherFungus worked with, and who stole his fame and glory. It's not hard, with context, to figure out he means Jan Wolf.
- Formations is sung from the perspective of a Know-Nothing Know-It-All, and unsparing in its contempt for the kind.
Executive Meddling: In-universe example. He makes references to a bad record deal on his profile, but mentions that he can't say anything specific due to contractual obligations. He signed a recording contract with Esotonic Records to push Fre3zer as a real artist, but due to his stage fright, Ray worked out a deal where he would continue to work from behind-the-scenes and write his music anonymously while a live performer, Jan Wolf, would stand in for him and act as "the public face" of Fre3zer. Unfortunately, Ray learned that Gray's Peak got involved and essentially considered Coolpunk free advertising. Betrayed, he decided to stop taking the genre seriously, churning out cheesy phoned-in love songs as Fre3zer while defaming Coolpunk on Hypnospace and quietly forming a new underground genre, Fungus Scene, to replace it.
The Faceless: We never get to see what he looks like, and he prefers it that way due to stage fright.
I Have Many Names: He currently goes by FatherFungus and alternatively Basidia, the latter mostly for sharing music. He also runs the COOLPUNK_IS_DEAD page and was the original Fre3zer.
Information Wants to Be Free: Distributes footage of Fre3zer's lip-sync failure as part of his effort into putting Coolpunk down for good. His diss-track also tries to imply his true background without breaking his NDA.
Irony: For all his complaints about capitalism killing Coolpunk, Dylan casually mentions late in the game that the only reason it even "lived" at all was thanks to Gray's Peak's endorsement. Prior to that, it was a tiny microgenre and, even at its peak, it was mostly just (in Dylan's words) "a few kids being weird online." Even then, Ray was at first genuinely excited to see Coolpunk to become a "real" genre before the Gray's Peak executives began meddling.
No True Scotsman: Claims that those who truly want to follow the underground scene should follow genres such as his own Fungus Scene, and not Coolpunk, which has been co-opted by Gray's Peak.
Performance Anxiety: He has severe stage fright, which is why he prefers to remain anonymous and post his music online.
Pretender Diss: He looks down on the genre of Coolpunk due to what it's become, especially since he created it in the first place. He interacts with the community as "COOLPUNK_IS_DEAD".
Skewed Priorities: After the disaster of Coolfest '99, they officially declare Coolpunk as dead. In doing so, they claim that focus should go to Gray's Peak Cola overseeing the Coolpunk movement and away from the helicopter crash and lip-syncing. Given their real identity and what CPColdsnap ends up doing, it's possible they were trying to avoid users gossiping about the tragic death of a real person.
Sue Donym: FatherFungus's listed name is Ray Dolan, while COOLPUNK_IS_DEAD's listed name is Shay Nolan. As re3koning_inc later points out, they both have the same headband ID.
Tagline: "Fungus scene is."
Team Dad: For the Fungus Scene. When the over-eager IcicleKid wants to be a part of the movement, Ray is polite but also firmly sets rules and boundaries when IcicleKid starts messing with others' pages in the collaborative Cavern.
There Are No Good Executives: Ray, as Fre3zer, signed a contract with Esotonic Records which came saddled with an NDA regarding his upcoming Coolpunk work and personal life, such as his work with live performers. Later, after their falling out over the direction that Coolpunk was heading in, Esotonic hijacked his profile to clamp down on his campaign to end the genre, indicated by the actual Fre3zer's lack of role later in the movement.

Jan Wolf

Username: Fre3zer
"You wanted it, now you've got it. FRE3ZER has returned!"

The creator of Coolpunk, and the biggest musical star that the zone and the genre have to offer. Or at least that's what the corporations would have you believe.

The Band Minus the Face: Some fans of Coolpunk noticed that "Fre3zer's" later work sounded much different when he came back and suddenly revealed himself. This hints that the real Fre3zer was never Wolf.
Composite Character: An in-universe example, where the real Fre3zer provided music while a live performer presented it. There's probably a hired writer helping with the page's marketing and responses to fans.
The Face: Jan's true role. Since the real Fre3zer had stage fright, he needed someone else to act as Fre3zer for the public.
Invented Individual: Amanda Spice, a fangirl that devotes herself to worshipping and later defending Fre3zer. Her page gets deleted by December.
That Syncing Feeling: Gets caught lip syncing live.
Tone Shift: Previous tracks were synth with careful sampling, but later music involved cheesy lyrics about love. A hint that the real Fre3zer is not taking the genre seriously anymore.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: His page announces a hiatus, which will most likely be permanent.

Eduardo "Slushmouth" Dassum

Username: Slushmouth
"If you find yourself scratching your head at this odd group of musical genres, you've come to the right place!"

Creator of "Slushmouth's Guide to New Digital Music" from the Coolpunk page.

Berserk Button: Don't ask him to promote your music, especially by having it added to his guide.
Caustic Critic: His page detailing different genres of music and their history tends to be pretty snarky, especially for genres he doesn't care for. Dylan wants to make a friendlier version of his project.
Deadpan Snarker: Mostly if it's the type of music he dislikes. He makes it a point to not harass him about whether he portrays a genre fairly or not.
Hidden Depths: According to Tim's password leak, he's part of m1nx, suggesting a much deeper connection to Hypnospace's hacker community than he otherwise lets on.
Pet the Dog: He adds Tina's "Inspirohaze" to his guide at her request, but makes a point of stating that he feels obligated to because she's such a good person. By contrast, he doesn't add anybody else's music.
Rage Breaking Point: After Coolpunk's death causes all of the artists to form their own genres, he adds a few more entries for his branching list before giving up entirely after people kept pestering him to add their increasingly esoteric creations.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Angrily stops updating the guide long before New Year's after too many people ask him to promote their work.
Shout-Out: His guide is based heavily on Ishkur's Guide To Electronic Music.
There Are No Good Executives: Downplayed, but he resents artists "selling out," particularly Marc Elo for forming Esotonic Records and Dylan for shutting down DigiXChange. That said, he praises Merchantsoft when they rebrand Coolpunk Paradise to the Venue.

Gray's Peak Cola Co.

Username: GraysPeak

The soda company whose jingles get sampled by Coolpunk. They have their own Hypnospace page for being official partner brands for Merchantsoft.

Comically Missing the Point: They saw the popularity of a musical genre based on their products' commercial jingles, but they ignored the anti-consumerist messages and focused on increasing the brand's marketability using the genre.
Mascot with Attitude: Their official mascot character is Joeman, a snowman with sunglasses. He can be seen in rather "cool" poses.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After Coolfest '99, their partnership with Merchantsoft falls through.
There Are No Good Executives: Sensing only the money and lacking in care for the fans of the Coolpunk genre, they mismanage Coolfest '99 terribly and immediately bail when things with Merchantsoft go south.

Chad Armstrong

Username: X_NEO_ICY_X
"Coolpunk is where it's at!"

The community leader of Coolpunk Paradise. He follows the movement closely and loyally.

Broken Pedestal: After Coolfest '99 brings the decline of Coolpunk, he moves to a new genre, but not before making a page mourning the movement and proclaiming "WHY?????????????? ??" in anguish.
Fan Boy: To Fre3zer and the rest of the Coolpunk movement in general. He bought Fre3zer's new song at least six times after it came out.
Horrible Judge of Character: Despite knowing his favorite genre's anti-consumerist themes, he genuinely trusts Gray's Peak Cola for acknowledging their movement, and claims that they get what Coolpunk is about. In reality, the company is simply using the genre to boost their own reputation and sales.
Reasonable Authority Figure: Wants to paint himself as this, encouraging people to report to him if they have any issues regarding the page.
Small Name, Big Ego: He takes his role as community leader very seriously, stating that he can call the "Merchansoft Police" on violations.
Undying Loyalty: To the Coolpunk genre. After Coolfest '99, he begs for people to stay with the genre, and even after he leaves for PizzaStyle, he continues to blame Fre3zer's lip sync on technical issues.

Harris "ColdSnap" Lawton

Username: CPColdSnap, alternatively CPColdSnap2
"Not only am I an experienced critic, I am also a Coolpunk artist myself."

A notable critic and composer who hangs out in Coolpunk Paradise.

Broken Pedestal: Comes to loathe Coolpunk, and before leaving it, he writes that he'll regret writing off Fre3zer as a "fake Coolpunk."
Caustic Critic: Mostly seen with his alternate account as "Bwl Bwlson." Not so much in the first act... but after Coolfest '99, he really cranks up the biting ridicule — as the below trope demonstrates — to unacceptable levels.
Dreadful Musician: Ironically for a music critic, The Dumpster considers his creations to be some of the worst music in Hypnospace.
Dude, Not Funny!: After the Coolfest '99 tragedy, he uses his alternate account to post a long, scathing review of the event, something that's justified right up until he starts tearing into the tragic helicopter accident that took Chowder Man's leg and the life of his drummer, laughing about it with long strings of some variant of "BWL"^* "Bursting with Laughter" and drawing mocking sketches of the horrible incident. Even if hit with a warning, emboldened by his alt account being the one targeted, he does this again during New Year's, only having his account spared from an immediate ban by the Y2K Mindcrash.
Hate Sink: Unlike most users, his actions are entirely malicious. He's there to show the toxic side of the Coolpunk movement.
Hypocrite: In the third act, he scathingly harangues Coolpunk and anybody left in the movement, calling them mindless followers and posers. When he tries to make a new musical movement, his idea is to simply reimagine Coolpunk with little distinction.
Irony:
- Believes himself to be a great example of Coolpunk and an excellent musician, and claims to be good enough to determine whether others are real Coolpunks or not. His tracks are rated by The Dumpster to be some of the worst music they've heard.
- His criteria for "real" Coolpunk are what Slushmouth, a more studied critic, dislikes about the whole genre.
Jerkass: His "fake Coolpunk watch" often belittles those that he considers to be "poseurs", and later on, he reaches Kick the Dog status when making fun of Chowder Man losing his leg and his drummer at Coolfest. This makes him the subject of a harassment case, if you choose to pursue it. Checking in on him after the penultimate time skip shows that he's learned nothing.
Karma Houdini: He never gets banned for his mocking comments, due to them coming from an alternate account.
Kick the Dog:
- Following the disastrous fallout of Coolfest '99, he begins mocking various figures related to the Coolpunk movement, which get pretty scathing up. Then he begins to shout down the Chowder Man himself. Not only does he not show concern about the fact that Erick lost a leg in the helicopter crash, but he goes as far as to mock his recently deceased drummer and gleefully celebrates the fact that Erick has been forced into retirement. The player can, in turn, sack his page with harassment violations and flag him for investigation.
- Happens again by December, in which he continues to harp on Chowder Man's helicopter incident and scathingly talks down to any person potentially following Coolpunk.
Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Claims to be a serious critic and musician, and is anything but that.
No True Scotsman: Part of his criticisms stem from him claiming to have "studied Coolpunk thoroughly," and even before Coolfest '99 he has an account dedicated to calling out "fake Coolpunks."
Small Name, Big Ego: Thinks highly of himself as a artist and true fan of the music he follows. When he later tries to make his own movement, he tries to make himself the ultimate gatekeeper, carrying over from his attempts to weed out "posers."
Sock Puppet: CPColdSnap2, which he calls his "bad boy account". He's Genre Savvy enough to know that if he does all of his rule-breaking there, the Enforcers can do nothing about it.

Jerry Gilroy

Username: IcicleKid
"new single "ice 2 meet u" is on my page now!"

Another Coolpunk musician. He's more of a follower than a leader.

Endearingly Dorky: As seen in chatlogs on IcicleKid's FLST, FatherFungus actually quite enjoys IcicleKid's goofy misinterpretation of the Fungus Scene, and welcomes him to the movement in the name of creative spirit, despite the protests of other members.
Flash In The Pan Fad: He makes a huge deal over his music being accepted into Fungus Scene, only to abandon the movement for Pizzapunk by New Year's.
Hero-Worshipper: Mostly for musicians with big names. He's excited that Chowder Man's on Hypnospace and running his own page, thanks to Chowder Man being a major sample source for Coolpunk.
High Hopes, Zero Talent: Played with. The two songs he composes aren't good fits for the musical genres he's trying to fit into, but that doesn't mean they're bad. You get the impression he could be much better at what he does if he stopped trying to force himself into arbitrary genres.
I Just Want to Be Special: Wants to be seen as a great musician, in any indie musical movement he can find.
Music Genre Dissonance: "Mushroom Hop", his attempt at Fungus Scene music, is loud and bombastic, with simplistic Dance Sensation music, in contrast with the other songs in the genre. Conversely, "Ice 2 Meet U," his attempt at Coolpunk, is a slow, emotional vocal piece with little instrumentation other than strings and piano.
Tagalong Kid: A rather young creative mind who is known for following the latest underground movements, pestering people like Slushmouth into listening to his contributions. Notable for not creating his own genres and instead remaining a follower of bigger underground movements.
The Team Wannabe: Wants to be one of the greatest musicians in underground movements, first for Coolpunk and later for the Fungus Scene and Pizzapunk.

Tina Price

Username: CP_Shaman
"We really need to stop using Coolpunk to exclude people."

A kind-hearted user that runs "The Peacelands," a digital space that handles feuds within the community.

Granola Girl: She's optimistic and welcoming in her combination of New Age spirituality and Coolpunk, and has designed her page to look like tie-dye.
New-Age Retro Hippie: She gives off this kind of vibe with her username, the dreamcatcher image on her page, and her purely altruistic dedication to mediating feuds between other Coolpunk Paradise users.
Nice Girl: She genuinely wants to make others happy and dedicates time into settling other people's differences.
Start My Own: Begins a new genre of music known as "Inspirohaze," music using synths and samples of encouraging words.

Seepage

Mikey Sikey voiced by: Justice Washington (Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer)

A rap-rock band led by singer and frontman Mikey Sikey, debuting on Hypnospace with their self-titled album released by Scrape Records. Although they're not involved with the Coolpunk movement, they eventually partner with Earmint Gum to create an official Hypnospace presence. Zane Lofton is a huge fan of their work.

Affectionate Parody: Of real Nu Metal bands. Their tracks are wonderfully edgy and help to characterize Zane, while sounding pitch-perfect within the genre. There is musical inspiration from Korn, Linkin Park, and Slipknot, and they have stage names and seem to wear makeup like Insane Clown Posse.
Nu Metal: The genre that they specialize in.
Shout-Out: The chorus for their song, "Nothing Left for Me," references Doom's first three episodes, using their titles as the lyrics.
Keep me in a graveyard (knee deep in the dead)
Kick me out of heaven (to the shores of hell)
Drop me into fire (the inferno)
Nothing left for me, the ultimate doom

Sovereign Alliance of Imagination / "The Freelands"

The Sovereign Alliance of Imagination (SAI for short), also known as "the Freelands", is an alternate listing-page for any and all fans of geekery. After Merchantsoft inexplicably merged five “nerdy” zones into a single one, an inventive couple created the Freelands on their personal page, to host the refugees of the deleted zones and give them a place where their hobbies could remain separated.

Tropes applying to the Freelands in general:

Butt-Monkey: The entire zone is one, given their constant mistreatment by Merchantsoft. Their diverse geek communities are forcibly amalgamated against their will, their pages are moved to the oldest and slowest server, and then Merchantsoft deletes half of their data during the Y2K update. Then the final insult: the company steals their idea of putting pages on a map rather than a list for their new "Realms of Mythia" zone after driving the original community away.
Clock Punk: The CyberCog fanbase, which many users in the zone are part of. It also has elements of Steampunk and Cyberpunk.
The Ghost:
- There is one member of the Freelands that ends up being banned entirely because his page is in the old Netsettler format which is not supported on Hypnospace; even with the anti-virus Safe Mode his page doesn't reveal much about him, though we do know that he was a part of the CyberCog fandom.
- Another member, "Kevvinn," ends up banned for not measuring up to Gil's standards. We don't get a chance to see his page until Hypnospace Plus added him back in. He turns out to have been a flip-flop artist.
Glad I Thought of It: By the third chapter of the game, Merchantsoft rolls out plans to make their own large zone in the fantasy map format, appropriating their idea in an attempt to win them over.
Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The Freelands are meant to house all of the "geekier" hobbies after all of their zones were combined into a single slow server called the "Starport Castle Dreamstation." They were originally five zones: "Sci-fi Starport," "CyberCog Station," "The Dream Castle," "The Comic Shop," and "Gamerz Only."
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After Merchantsoft deletes half the content from the Freelands (either maliciously or in an attempt to fix what they themselves broke), everyone packs up and leaves for the gamer-focused alternative CyberworldZ.
Secret Level: re3koning_inc is also a member of the Freelands and is hiding tools and (later) evidence of the harmful medical effects of Hypnospace in a secret island off the Freelands' main page.
Start My Own: After Merchantsoft merged all of the geeky zones into one on a slower server without explanation, the users banded together to make their own zone to express themselves.
World of Chaos: The Freelands become one in December, implied to be a mixture of Merchantsoft accidentally (or "accidentally") deleting a chunk of their stuff and re3koning wreaking promised retribution on Gill.

Roddy Wall

Username: RingLeaderRoddy
Voiced by: Jay Tholen
"I'm a comic nut & programmer at Hypnospace. inventor of SamWich. working on Virtual Pets for HypnOS! ChitChat me if you want, same name."

One of the Hypnospace developers who is a huge fan of "Taurus and Muletta", an in-universe comic book. He joins with the rest of the Freelands after Hypnospace removes their zones.

Author Appeal: An in-universe example. He loves in-universe comic book superheroes Taurus and Muletta, and accordingly styles his personal pages and projects with bullfighting themes. His secret test pet is based on Muletta, the floating eye with a matador's cape.
Character Death: One of the fatalities of the Mindcrash, and he cannot be saved.
Childhood Friends: With Dylan Merchant.
Climax Boss: The final (real) challenge of Act 2; finding and flagging his Axxelerator software requires a lot of rooting around in the Freelands, reveals quite a bit of details surrounding his involvement in Merchantsoft's dealings, and all of this comes right before the player finds out about Dylan flouting his own rules, the latter of which leads to the act's proper end.
Creator Thumbprint: Provides an in-universe example of this. As the creator of the SamWich encryption, he also places a decryption function in the virtual pets he makes.
Token Good Teammate: Openly rebels against his fellow developers to join the Freelands' revolt and creates an illegal program for them. He also snuck a secret decryption function for a particular file type into the Hypnospace virtual pets.
The Smart Guy: He's a great programmer, contributing much to Merchantsoft. He's able to create a program that speeds up the loading and processing of the Freelands (at the unintentional expense of the rest of Hypnospace), and he hid a decrypting function in every desktop pet thanks to inventing said encryption in the first place.
Vocal Dissonance: The picture on his personal page shows him to be a big guy with a viking helmet and sunglasses. He's voiced by the soft-spoken Jay Tholen, and all of his lines are recorded with a deliberately-terrible mic.

Gill Sanders

Username: GillSCreates
"This is rediculous! ChitChat me if you want to be part of a new zone run by US and are sick of Merchantsoft's Bulls***!"

One of the co-founders of the Freelands and its self-titled "SAI Steward." A CyberCog fan, roleplayer, and Chowder Man fan.

Accidental Misnaming: On the receiving end. The first thing he says on his home page is that his name is not "GillSecretes".
Author Appeal: In-universe version. He makes sure that his favorite song, Chowder Man's "Ready to Shave," plays everywhere on the Freelands overworld map, whether the users like it or not. His musical preferences also cause him to pick on Kevvinn for making his page about Flip-Flop. Many of his favorite hobbies and interests are also made known with his roleplaying character.
Bullying a Dragon: Though he doesn't really know re3koning's a hacker, Gill forces his favorite Chowder Man track to play on their corner of the Freelands. re3koning warns them that if he keeps putting it back on, they'll "regret it." When the entire zone ends up deleted thanks to Merchantsoft's incompetence, Hypnospace Plus implies that re3koning may have had something to do with the "renovations", as a crude message scribbled on the front page puts it.
Control Freak: When he's in charge, as he is in the Freelands, he's eager to throw around citations for those who don't follow his aesthetic. When he's not in charge, as in FLST, he's the first to try and rebel against the same, in this case with a blue background.
Dreadful Musician: He tries out the Hypnospace Tune Sequencer, making the track "CyberCog Cirkus" despite his inexperience. It's so bad that it gets noticed and archived by The Dumpster. Unlike Coldsnap, he's at least aware of his lack of musical skill, which The Dumpster calls "almost charming".
Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": His roleplaying character for the Sandersverse, SigNull, takes the wish-fulfillment route of character writing. This extends to how he portrays his wife's character.
Hypocrite: He and Sarah founded the SAI Freelands because they were tired of Merchantsoft's overbearing, often-incompetent handling of Hypnospace. Gill proceeds to prove himself equally as bad; he wants people to stick to his aesthetics in his zone, but doesn't understand why others would expect the same from him in their zones. His general behavior shows him to be rather ban-happy, to boot.
Impossible Hourglass Figure: Gill's depiction of his wife's Sandersverse character, Sarahnia. Exaggerated thanks to Stylistic Suck.
The Leader: He considers himself to be one for the Freelands, hosting the user-made zone on his profile and headlining the manifesto against Merchantsoft.
Meet the New Boss: Tired of Merchantsoft's tonedeaf corporate harassment? Head over to the Freelands, and deal with the same thing on a much more personal level from Gill! At least Merchantsoft's incompetence is generally impersonal — Gill is routinely rude and condescending to people, micromanaging their corners of the Freelands with infuriating notes.

Sarah Sanders

Username: QueenOfSanderverse
"Gill & I are proud to announce that the SAI Freelands are now OPEN! Let's show Merchantsoft how to REALLY run a zone!"

One of the co-founders of the Freelands and Gill's wife.

Awful Wedded Life: Her page contains hints that she has some unresolved issues with her husband.
Impossible Hourglass Figure: Averted in her depiction of her Sandersverse character, Sarahnia, in pointed contrast to her husband's depiction; though no masterpiece, she's depicted as fairly flat-chested and wearing what seems to be somewhat practical armor.
Not Like Other Girls: Holds this opinion of herself to some degree. Her review of a television show she didn't like includes her complaining that her friends like it and that she's apparently supposed to be its target audience, ending it with the proclamation, "What's wrong with you ladies?"

Linda Stevens

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hslinda.png

Username: LindaHorror
"Hello, I'm Linda! I've been crafting, chronicling, and collecting 'weird' things for as long as I can remember. Some people say I'm a little 'weird' myself but if you look deep inside, who isn't?"

A bisexual Jewish woman who reviews horror movies and creates animated "Scaries".

Informed Judaism: She mentions celebrating Hanukkah on her front page.
Intergenerational Friendship: She collaborates with Tiffany from Teentopia to write Scaries.
The Movie Buff: She has an entire page dedicated to reviewing invokedSo Bad, It's Good horror flicks, alongside other films she's watched.
Nightmare Fetishist: She loves horror movies, and they serve as inspiration for her Scaries.
Twofer Token Minority: A Jewish woman with the LGBT-indicating "HS_Lifestyles" tag. According to Jay Tholen, she is bisexual.

Gary Murphy

Username: FirstCaptainGary

A devoted CyberCog fan trying to organize a convention. It's implied by a story on his page that he has a strained relationship with the rest of his family.

Author Appeal: Anything in CyberCog. His entire interactive story mostly retells his backstory for how he decided to join the movement, and trying to avoid doing so leads to bad endings.
But Thou Must!: The other options in his interactive story, i.e. the ones that don't lead to you giving everything up to the Teknoshamanatrix, lead to (what he considers) bad endings. He'll eventually stop writing these endings and angrily ask why you'd even bother continuing the story if you're not going to follow his wishes.
Clock Punk: Hs interest is CyberCog, a genre taking the technology of Cyberpunk and aesthetics from Steampunk. Best seen with his character, the "Teknoshamanatrix," who wears a top hat with brass gears and has lines of code running through his sunglasses.
Comedic Sociopathy: He believes that leaving his job, house, wife and kids and shirking adult responsibilities for geeky interests was the best thing that he's ever done. The story describes giving them up as rather easy. He even offers advice to the reader on how he avoids calls for mortgage payments.
Dysfunctional Family: Leaving them in order to replace his responsibilities with hobbies and interests makes his relationship with his family this.
Faux Horrific: The "bad endings" that result from not giving your life up to CyberCog is this. The reader loses their chance to become part of something greater, now subject to watching their wife's boring television show or having to attend their children's terrible School Play.
Friendless Background: While seemingly chummy with convention attendees, he can't make connections with other online CyberCog communities, leaving a blank spot on his page where the "fellow fans" should be.
Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": His story taking the reader on a journey into joining the CyberCog fandom is rather autobiographical, and he makes it known by the end of it.
Manchild: He abandoned his family, job, house and other responsibilities to join a Punk Punk fandom and its conventions, and he hides from the bank to avoid mortgage payments. He finds living off of convention centers and connecting only with CyberCog fans to be an ideal lifestyle.
Purple Prose: His writing style for his interactive story. It can get obtrusive, especially if you haven't gotten the gist of the CyberCog fandom's aesthetic (he presumes that the reader knows the loud sounds of "a dying machine god" for instance).
Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Again, his writing. One example is when he makes an analogy using blepharitis.
Straw Loser: It's heavily implied that he left his family to pursue his interests in the CyberCog fandom.
Take That!: He's a fan of a Punk Punk genre who left his family in favor of eternal fandom, and is apparently hiding from the bank to avoid his mortgage. In his eyes, fellow fans and conventions are his family and home now.
Xtreme Kool Letterz: The "Tech" part of his "Teknoshamanatrix" character.

Other Freelands Users

Marjorie Paulson/"Phaedrala"

Username: WoodlandSprite2

A lover of fantasy and magic, preferring to remain in-character rather than discuss her life outside of Hypnospace. Her page contains images of dragons that others can adopt, as well as a list of magical potions.

LARP: She's a fan of a LARP group called "Sacred Garden Games", though in this universe LARP is referred to as ITE ("interactive theater experiences").
The Roleplayer: She uses Hypnospace solely as her fantasy roleplay character, never making mention of her real name or identity.

Casper Sundberg

Username: CasperAirGraphix
Portrayed by: Chris Schlarb

The former frontman for Klyfta, a "cosmic jazz-rock" band. After creative differences and a bad publishing deal led to a creative slump, he's completely left music for a career in airbrushing cars.

Defector from Decadence: Left his band after facing creative differences and bad experiences with the music industry.
Earn Your Happy Ending: By the end of the game, Sundberg says that he's experimenting with making music again, bolstered by finding lost Klyfta recordings from the seventies. The Cosmic Pilgrimage album indicates Klyfta enjoyed a renaissance in the early 2000s thanks to Aldrin's House of Sound, enough to result in a real-life album release.
Jaded Washout: He went from being the frontman of an influential band to airbrushing vans for a living. Unlike most examples, he seems pretty content with a low-key life — his page specifically asks people not to interview him about Klyfta — but he warms up to the idea of making music again by the end, even providing Aldrin's House of Sound with some rare lost recordings for an interview. invoked
Third-Person Person: His biography page is written like this, most likely due to being written by someone else describing him.

Oscar Sparrow

Username: TheObserver

A video game reviewer.

Actually a Good Idea: His current complaint with Hypnospace is that there are no games on it, while their competitor CyberworldZ is focused on them. Dylan contacts him and expresses his agreement, hyping up the HypnOS Year 2000 update with Outlaw as its primary focus.
Fictional Video Game: His blog is dedicated to reviewing in-universe video games.
Flat Character: He doesn't express much of his personal opinions or quirks in his posts and work, aside from a snarky tone of voice.

Hack Konig Knifer

Username: TheWizardEagle
Portrayed by: Jack Spinoza

A CyberCog fan and Haze musician that's upset about NetSettler no longer being supported in Hypnospace, and refuses to update his page to a new format.

Clock Punk: A fan of CyberCog who sings a song he wrote about it and decorates his page with moving gears.
Genre Mashup: He classifies his music as "CyberCog-haze."
The Ghost: He isn't seen interacting with many other users, and his page doesn't reveal much about him other than his regret that NetSettler has stopped being supported.
"I Am" Song: He sings, "I am the Wizard, the Wizard Eagle," among other things. Not that it helps to further identify him.
Leitmotif: His song, "The Visual."
Odd Name Out: He doesn't have a headband ID, as he built his page with NetSettler rather than a headband. Instead, his ID reads "H00."
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Revisiting his page on December 31st has him write that he refuses to purchase HypnoCure Pro to get his NetSettler support back.
Word Salad Lyrics: The song he wrote and sings, "The Visual."

Kevvinn R. Jackson

Username: Kevvinn-J
Voiced by: Xalavier Nelson Jr.

A flip-flop artist with an expanded role in the Hypnospace Plus update. Manages to get a record deal under the name Kevv-J.

Endearingly Dorky: Tamara requests the uncovering of his earliest music uploads as part of HAP; once they're found, she finds his goofy singing to be absolutely endearing.
Fanboy: Of RedStryke, as he hosts an entire page dedicated to his music.
The Ghost: He has no page in the vanilla version of Hypnospace Outlaw, only acapella recordings of his raps.
Stylistic Suck: He posts "ah capellas" of his raps online, and while they're not bad, it's obvious that they're incomplete, with the occasional stumble and "guest" verses performed in falsetto.
Unseen No More: In Hypnospace Plus, his page is added back in, with the explanation that it was built with NetSettler and thus appears broken at first.
Young Future Famous People: He eventually ends up as a massive flip-flop (this setting's version of hip-hop) artist in the present day, and is friends with Tamara.

Open Eyed

Open Eyed is a zone providing a non-judgmental place to host discussions of "esoteric spirituality, alternative medicine, and deep truths." Expect many of the residents here to be a bit off.

Tropes applying to Open Eyed in general:

Cloudcuckooland: A place dedicated to people who believe in "deep truths" and secrets.
Conspiracy Theorist: The zone has its fair share of people that believe in a greater angle to the world. The tagline for the board even says, "If you're not pissed off, you're not paying attention."
The Leader: The zone is notable in averting this, as they have no community leader, fittingly for a hub of self-proclaimed "freethinkers."
New-Age Retro Hippie: Many of Open Eyed's users are concerned with spirituality, alternative medicine, and other similar New Age interests.
Poe's Law: m1nx apparently made a few pages here, so it can be hard to recognize which pages are genuine and which are just pranks by m1nx. They even admit that they blend in rather easily.

Alda "Sherri Clare" Gallo

Username: SHERRIHEALS

A spiritual healer that gives readings in exchange for extralegal currencies such as CapaCash, which she claims is needed to pay her rent.

Ain't Too Proud to Beg: She begs the Enforcers to not report and take her page down, since she does her services to pay her rent.
The Password Is Always "Swordfish": When she locks her services to require a code she messages to customers, she takes Gregg's advice on passwords.
Phony Psychic: Claims to have the power to develop love potions and provide spiritual assistance. The only testimony to the latter, by Gus Parker, is later implied to be Tim pranking them with an altered picture of a potato.
Video Game Cruelty Potential: Her involvement in cases is optional. Reporting her page a second time gets her banned, after she begs to keep her living. Gus Parker is also affected, depressingly mourning why she was taken from him.

Gus Parker

Username: ParkerStudios_1

Formerly someone that sought Sherri for spiritual assistance, he now runs a page dedicated to crossing multiple spiritual planes to find oneself.

All Love Is Unrequited: For Sherri, who may or may not return his feelings and sees him as just another customer.
Banishing Ritual: He requested that Sherri visit him several times to be rid of an evil spirit known as "Smoulder Boulder," paying for every session. It was really just Tim pulling a prank on them.
Interfaith Smoothie: He believes that "all religions are beautiful in their own ways."
The Lost Lenore: If Sherri was banned (by returning to her page in late November, taking down the re-uploaded CapaCash buttons, and flagging her account), the final plane of his spiritual tower is a discordant, hellish plea wondering why she was taken away from him.
New-Age Retro Hippie: He is one, designing much of his philosophy and online pages after these values.
Stairway to Heaven: He makes an interactive text adventure depicting this.
Straw Loser: Tim sees him as such. He's a divorced man making a living selling dreamcatchers at flea markets and gatherings while his children wait around on lawn chairs, and he falls in love with a Phony Psychic that mainly sees him as just a customer.
Wacky Marriage Proposal: If Sherri wasn't banned, the final plane of his spiritual tower is a proposal to her.

Rodney Hooks

Username: RodsAntiGovernmentPage
"who has a scanner"

A conspiracy theorist who claims to hold the secrets to not just the government, but the universe as a whole. If only he could figure out how to get his files online.

Anti-Climax:
- Scrolling to the bottom of his pages reveal that it's under construction still. Even on New Year's Eve, when he's updated his page to include a second page and more scrolling to do, the links he did add lead to uncreated pages. And since he ends up dying in the Mindcrash, whatever he does know, real or not, remains lost.
- Both played straight and averted as of the Hypnospace Plus update; it adds a picture about Beefbrain, which is already disproven by the time Rodney could upload it, as well as "evidence" that President Hughes has been replaced with a slightly older and taller lookalike.
Character Death: One of the unavoidable fatalities in the Mindcrash.
Good Parents: The Hypnospace Plus version of his page's last update has him mention needing to get more sleep in order to take care of his three lovely children. The last status update he posts before dying in the Mindcrash shows that he was online at the time for an "all-day Hypnospace challenge" with a sizable jackpot, which he hoped would send his kids to college.
Multigenerational Household: It's implied he lives in one. Mainly because his sizable family flies in to Merchantsoft headquarters to personally demand answers for his death.
Overly Long Gag: Rod's pages involve a lot of scrolling down to the bottom of the page. A lot of scrolling. Presumably to ensure people have a chance to back away from the truth.
Secret Test of Character: At the bottom of his second page, you are tasked with choosing money, killing, love, lying, or sex. If you choose anything other than love, you are deemed unworthy of seeing his secrets (although you can just click "back" and try again). If you do choose love, you are told that you made the right choice, but the page with the secrets isn't ready yet until the third act.

"Mr. Mystery W"

Username: MrMysteryW
"HypnOS has many ingenious features that Merchantsoft's programmers worked hard on that not many people know about."

A user who posts video rants on HypnOS and hosts downloadable cosmetics, mainly packs for your mouse. Added in the Hypnospace Plus update.

AstroTurf: It's Roddy trying to get people to use Merchantsoft's software better, disguising his tutorials as "rants."
Foreshadowing: His status update notes that he will only leave up some video rants for November 5th as he has upcoming work, rants that are all about using HypnOS's features better. When you open his video rants, you're first greeted with his desktop background, which is a picture of Taurus and Muletta.
Paper-Thin Disguise: His voice matches with the filled-in tutorial voicelines, he has a picture of Taurus and Muletta as his desktop background, and his username begins with the first letter of his actual last name.
Secret Identity: Really mostly notable for actually being Roddy Wall.
Two Aliases, One Character: Even if you don't check his headband ID, you can pretty much surmise who he really is with a quick view of his video rants.

Other Open Eyed Users

Lookout Ministries

Username: LOOKOUTMINISTRIES

A Christian church community page, run by one Todd Hall, that's a tad miffed to be grouped with Open Eyed's mysticism instead of the Goodtime Valley community.

Demonization: They decry SquisherZ as a tool of the devil filled with Satanic imagery...despite TheObserver's review stating that its gameplay centers around peaceful conversation and preserving the environment.
Invented Individual: Jezz0's mention of "Bible Guy" as one of m1nx's Open Eyed pranks implies Todd Hall might not be a real person. Some of their page art also appears in the last visible version of M1nx's hangout, lending further credence to the theory. Despite this, others apparently bought into their claim that SquisherZ is Satanic, including Rebekah's father.
Our Angels Are Different: The bottom of their page states that they believe in "real", Biblical angels, rather than their common depiction as white-winged cherubs.
Signs of the End Times: They have a subpage preaching about the Rapture that will (not) happen at the turn of the millennium.

Marvin "Marv" McHenry

Username: TallGreenMarv

Someone that believes in an enigmatic creature known as "Tall Green".

Alliterative Name: Marvin McHenry.
Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: "Tall Green" is a nod to these and Bigfoot sightings, complete with shaky, blurry, and likely fake footage of it walking through a forest.
Conspiracy Theorist: In this case, a pastiche of Bigfoot truthers.
Little Green Men: Big green men, rather. Tall Green's description resembles an alien creature.

Aurora Stone

Username: TruthAboutTrennis

A woman who claims her ancestor is the rightful founder of the game of Tennis, which was taken and warped over time into the three-player sport Trennis.

Alternate History: Her ancestor got the short end of the stick in this, having his invented sport of "tennis" be unfairly exploited in its infancy and becoming "trennis."
Cassandra Truth: She claims to be a descendant of the inventor of tennis, and that the sport was stolen and morphed into a different modern incarnation. Unfortunately, she's relegated to the Open Eyed zone, which is full of blatantly untrue Conspiracy Theorists.
The Cuckoolander Was Right: For Open Eyed as a whole; the sport known in her universe as "trennis" was actually supposed to be what we know as tennis.
Earn Your Happy Ending: Eventually, she convinces multiple people, even outside of the Open Eyed zone, that what she says is true. This includes a wealthy investor, with whose help a tennis court is under construction in New Hampshire during New Year's, with another planned to be built in Florida.
Odd Friendship: Reginald Roberts of Goodtime Valley believes her and asks for people to visit her page.

Rudy Ringhausen

Username: FutureRecycler

A NetSettler page claiming to be from the future, asking for people to invest in odd gadgets such as a bolo tie clock and a cooling sweater that stores water. His nephew John (portrayed by John Ringhofer, a.k.a. Half-Handed Cloud) writes catchy songs to support/advertise his products.

Alliterative Name: Rudy Ringhausen.
Ambiguous Situation: Is he really from the future? Considering that global warming does become a more widely-known problem by the 2020s, and that he's aware that trennis is supposed to be tennis, he might be telling the truth.
Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: "Swatter, Swatter. It's a sweater made from water!"
The Cuckoolander Was Right: The lyrics of "Future Warmth Gamble" include the line "Trennis isn't really a tricycle," suggesting that he knows that it's really meant to be tennis.
Global Warming: His primary goal is to spread awareness of global warming as a serious threat. The "Swatter" is made from melted ice, making a point about the ice caps, while the "Bolo Tie Clock" is meant to indicate that the time to take action is limited.
Green Aesop: Parodied. He's trying to motivate people into being eco-friendly and environmentally cautious with bizarre inventions and a questionable backstory.
Inherently Funny Words: His water-filled sweater, the "Swatter."
Mission from God: Claims to have been sent by God to the past to prevent global warming and ensuing disasters with his inventions and messages.
No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: He had to make a version 2.0 of his "Swatter" after the original was wrecked during a visit to an arts and design school.

Steve Guy Whitacre

Username: SteveGuy
Portrayed and voiced by: Neil Cicierega

A graphics and sound designer whose page was made in NetSettler, which unfortunately means it's displayed as a garbled mess in Hypnospace outside of Safe Mode, which he makes a rant about on a separate page.

Cloudcuckoolander: Has an entire library of odd sounds that he's designed himself.

m1nx

Hidden from the general populace and requiring dubious software and glitch exploitation to access, m1nx is Hypnospace's small-but-close-knit community of playful hackers. Because m1nx is involved in several late-game reveals, this section contains heavy spoilers.

Tropes applying to m1nx in general:

Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Each m1nx member posts with a distinct text color and font.
Covert Group: They attempt to operate in secrecy, and their homepage has multiple layers of security to prevent anyone from accidentally breaking in. That said, the more savvy Hypnospace users are at least aware of their existence.
Crying Wolf: Their group was behind pranks such as Beefbrain, claiming that the Hypnospace headband cooks the brain. They later find out that Merchantsoft is actually covering up evidence that Hypnospace causes brain damage, and the headband even functions similarly to how they described it. When trying to warn Hypnospace at large about the sleep deprivation the Hypnospace headbands cause, they use scary music, bright colors and apocalyptic language — in short, it looks like the kind of prank their group has played before, so nobody believes it. They did provide evidence, but it was erased by Merchantsoft. However, their Beefbrain prank is what forced Merchantsoft to commission the studies that prove that their headbands caused sleep deprivation.
Early-Bird Cameo: They have a page warning about Beefbrain, with the status coming from a "Dr. m1nx", and other characters aware of them warn about what they do.
Invented Individual: "Dr. m1nx" has its own account, "ProMedicalSolutions." Counselor Ronnie was also their doing, specifically managed by Jezz0.
Just a Kid: Why they don't let Tim join them.
Right for the Wrong Reasons: The Beefbrain hoax that this group makes up turns out to be this trope. The hoax forces Merchantsoft to commission studies to try to prove that Beefbrain is nothing but a hoax, but the studies prove that sleeptime computing technology severely interferes with the sleep cycle to the point that one does not get much rest while using Hypnospace.
Sensory Abuse: A common staple of their pranks. Before the events of the game, they spread rumors that playing a really annoying song they made would prevent the users' headbands from exploding. Later, their Beefbrain hoax makes people put annoying cosmetic items on their pages to prevent that as well. Even Counselor Ronnie's song is their doing.
The Spook: They don't enter any information related to their real identities and even have custom headband ID's, so looking up information from their headbands doesn't really give you anything.
Villain Respect: For all their mocking of Hypnospace and its users, they admire the SAI Freelands and what it stands for. While poking fun at its dorkiness, they do nonetheless praise it for sticking it to Merchantsoft.

re3koning_inc

"COULD MERCHANTSHAFT BE ANY MORE OF A DISASTER? WOW"

The apparent leader, or at least the most prominent member, of m1nx on Hypnospace.

Ambiguous Gender: They never give any indication of their gender. An unused note file refers to "his page", though later official comments use they/them pronouns consistently.
Anti-Hero: They may be an abrasive lawbreaker, but their justified vitriol for Merchantsoft and moments of compassion for other users show that their heart is in the right place. They're ultimately the one who uncovers the truth behind the Mindcrash, and for their part, they attempt to warn as many people as they can before they're kicked out.
Big Good: They're the one that discovers evidence of Merchantsoft's dangerous flaws, and finding their work decades later allows you to finally expose Merchantsoft's crimes.
CAPS LOCK: IN EVERYTHING THEY WRITE, FROM THEIR M1NX POSTS TO PAGES OF EVIDENCE.
The Cracker: While re3koning doesn’t directly attack the service like Tim, they’re probably the most traditionally malicious hacker on Hypnospace, having created allseeing3y3 to hide m1nx-related information, and Dreamtoolz, a debugging suite that can be used to subvert the HypnoCoin system and illegally download a website’s embedded music, amongst other features.
Even Evil Has Standards: "Evil" may be pushing it for a member of a group that pulls mostly harmless pranks, but they hold contempt for Dylan Merchant for being a sellout and are so horrified at Merchantsoft releasing a potentially lethal update that they do everything in their power to reveal it to the public.
Good Is Not Nice: They are extremely abrasive, especially to Dylan when he shows up on m1nx's forum uninvited, but their heart is in the right place, and they try to do the right thing when they discover something that could potentially cause real harm to Hypnospace users.
Hidden Depths: re3koning is a member of the Fungus Scene group chat, and they're involved enough in the scene to know that FatherFungus is Fre3zer.
Information Wants to Be Free: Even before the Mindcrash, they kept secretly recording and leaking ChitChat logs from Merchantsoft's inner workings to be put on display on their "LeakyPiping" page. They shed extra light on certain events of the game.
Jerkass Has a Point: Most of their asshole behavior is directed at Dylan or Merchantsoft in general, both of whom completely deserve it. They also direct some ire at Gill Sanders, who provoked them.
Leitmotif: They use tracks by Slushmouth on every page of theirs, most notably "Castles in Limbo" for their LeakyPiping page. It's likely because they're both in m1nx. They also get annoyed when Gill forces "Ready to Shave" to play in their corner of the Freelands instead of their preferred track.
Only Sane Man: re3koning is the only member of m1nx who has a serious goal other than playing pranks.
Pet the Dog: In response to the NetSettler debacle, they send a number of users a free cracked copy of HypnoCure Pro, and sell it on their SAI island for a single Hypnocoin.
Present Absence: re3koning is a major presence in the endgame and a key figure in incriminating Dylan for the Mindcrash and its subsequent fatalities, but they're completely absent by the time you meet them, as their involvement occurred long in the past.
Properly Paranoid: They respond to Dylan's offer to test new software with undisguised contempt, saying that they're only interested to see how awful the code involved is. It's no coincidence that they're one of the only people trying to warn others about the Mindcrash.
Rebel Leader: They describe themselves as a "resistance leader", and attempt to spread distrust of Merchantsoft among the general public by subverting their rules and leaking private documents. Dylan mentions that they've sent "weird things in the mail", implying that they're also spying on Merchantsoft in person.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: They leave Hypnospace after attempting to post their findings on the official Merchantsoft zone.
The Stool Pigeon: They ultimately bring about Dylan Merchant's downfall when they play whistleblower by leaking evidence of the dangers of sleeptime computing.
Villain Cred: They acknowledge Tim as a capable hacker and prankster, willing to invite him to m1nx if the other members agree. They call what he did to some of Teentopia's users "justice," which is fair considering what we see of Zane and Corey.
Villain Respect:
- Praises Roddy Wall for putting a SamWich encryption function into the virtual pets, even if he is a "useless nerd."
- They've apparently run afoul of Connie Turner multiple times. Although she finds their methods unprofessional and dubiously legal, re3koning still praises her when she breaks into their board.
Worthy Opponent: They're nothing but cordial to Connie when she breaks into m1nx's hidden hangout; apparently, this isn't the first time the two of them have crossed keyboards.
What Happened to the Mouse?: Despite having uncovered the evidence about the truth of the Mindcrash, there's no indication of what became of either them or that evidence after the Y2K update. If they made any effort to exonerate Tim, we never hear about it.

dumpy 1

"Updated weekly for your displeasure"

The user that owns and runs The Dumpster, a site dedicated to criticizing Hypnospace and its users.

Caustic Critic: They run The Dumpster, which is a mockery site along the lines of Something Awful. As such, they kinda match up to SA’s creator Lowtax, but dumpy isn’t shown interacting directly with their site’s targets in the way that made Lowtax (in)famous.
Deadpan Snarker: The Dumpster's signature style.
Everyone Has Standards: Tries to avoid making fun of kids on The Dumpster; they only make an exception for Zane because he's just that bad of a person. They also avoid lingering too much on the deadly helicopter accident at Coolfest '99, and instead focus on making fun of the other underwhelming aspects of the event. That said, they are a little less sensitive about it when discussing the article on the m1nx forum.
Just a Kid: They're the first one to shoot down the idea of letting Tim into m1nx in re3koning's thread. They brush his character off due to his age and point out that he only carries out his hacks to impress Tiff.
Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Their site mocking many aspects of Hypnospace somehow hasn't gotten into trouble with Merchantsoft, especially since harassment is one of the few things explicitly against Hypnospace rules. Despite being unlisted, it's known by everyone across Hypnospace. Dylan Merchant being a fan probably has something to do with it.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: On New Year's Eve, they leave a message saying that they’re taking a break from The Dumpster, Hypnospace, and negativity in general, and suggests that others do the same. It's possible that this was a deliberate attempt to save others who wouldn't get to see or believe re3koning's heavily C.H.I.M.E'd warning.
Villain Respect:
- They praise the SAI Freelands on The Dumpster, even if they have some qualms about the concept, such as it taking forever to get to a specific page.
- They write about Jezz0's work in remaking the zones and applying PR strategies for Merchantsoft. It's mainly because they're both in m1nx.

Jezz0

"Beefbrain WORKED!!!!. You're welcome. What's next for Jezzo?"

A paid intern at Merchantsoft that can give the group the most access to info regarding the going-ons at Merchantsoft's headquarters.

Hypercompetent Sidekick: While not one of the highlighted employees of Merchantsoft, they are tasked with helping the company move past their PR disasters and, with supervision from Dugnutt, are doing much of the grunt work to overhaul the zones.
The Man Behind the Man: Created "Counselor Ronnie" as a joke.
The Mole: Everyone in m1nx is clued into Merchantsoft’s internal workings at least second-hand, being hackers and all, but Jezz0 in particular indicates that they are a salaried employee.
Worthy Opponent: Upon learning that Counselor Ronnie doesn’t exist, Dylan Merchant is legitimately impressed with Jezz0’s work and congratulates them. It probably helps that ”Ronnie” earned Merchantsoft a federal grant.

80085

"I used to run with communities like these back before NetSettler started, so I know the drill."

The latest member to join m1nx. For more information that pertains to his character, see Dylan Merchant in the Merchantsoft section.

Dislikes the New Guy: He's on the receiving end of this by the other members of m1nx. Less because he's new and more because of who he is. He's also a bit hesitant about accepting Tim into m1nx.
Kick the Dog: When Dumpy_1 asks if anybody has any suggestions and ideas for The Dumpster, Dylan suggests trying to dig up dirt on Samantha so that she'll cry and quit, all because she was "nagging" him to do his job.
Leet Lingo: His choice of alias is "Boobs". It matches with his headband ID.
The Mole: This is Dylan Merchant's account. It turns out that he knows about m1nx and allows them to continue their pranks and antics because he used to run with groups like theirs and finds them entertaining.

Other Notable People

W.E. Briggs

Portrayed by: Stephen George Briggs

William Edward Briggs was the professional cartoonist who created Gumshoe Gooper. In his youth, he served in the military (but was assigned to administrative duties due to his short stature), and was part of the Anti-Communist Cartoonist Alliance.

Posthumous Character: Passed away in 1974, at the age of 74.
Small Role, Big Impact: He doesn't play much of a role in the overall story aside from being the creator of Gumshoe Gooper, but his legacy leads to the Goodtime Valley sub-plot and cases that give Merchantsoft a headache.

Tina Briggs

The daughter of W.E. Briggs. Inheriting both his estate and the merchandising rights to Gumshoe Gooper, her request that others not illegally use her family's intellectual property instigates the first case.

The Ghost: Doesn't appear as a user and only gets described in passing.
Small Role, Big Impact: She doesn't personally appear in the story, but her request to take down copyright-infringing content is your first case and leads to the Gooper movement on Goodtime Valley.

Carrie Jacob

Co-star of the in-universe television show "Desperate in Dallas". Has an official Travel Guide on Merchantsoft's pages detailing a city they claim to have visited.

Blatant Lies: Their Travel Guide is clearly a collection of quotes taken directly from a representative, including parts that they request should be downplayed, such as a former rat infestation.

Vergil Timothy

The original creator of "Taurus and Muletta", who lost the rights to his work in a bad licensing deal.

Condemned by History: invoked The Lighter and Softer reboot of Taurus went from a huge, TMNT-esque Cash-Cow Franchise to being despised after animal rights groups accused it of promoting bullfighting.
Cyberpunk: Following the above-mentioned condemnation, his series was later rebooted again as "Taurus X: 2089", a futuristic but even more Lighter and Softer and generic depiction of his characters.
The Ghost: The only mention of him is on Roddy's page detailing the history of his favorite comic.
Screwed by the Lawyers: invoked It started when the licencers removed all subversive elements from his original works, but it was only after trying to save his creation following animal rights backlash that Vergil learned, as part of the licencing deal, he had actually lost all property rights.

President Hughes

The current President of the United States of America.

Cloudcuckoolander: Has gone on record saying that "space is good" and that the country will "continue to invest in it."
The Ghost: He's only mentioned by the Hypnospace news articles.

RedStryke

Portrayed and voiced by: RedStryke

A flip-flop artist whom Kevvinn-J admires. Added in the Hypnospace Plus update.

As Himself: Unlike most Hypnospace characters, RedStryke is a real artist.
Digital Piracy Is Okay: He lets Kevvinn host free downloads of two of his singles on his page.
Nice Guy: According to Kevvinn-J's page, RedStryke genuinely cares about his fans; he spoke with Kevvinn for half an hour, accepted his demo tape, and even listened to him freestyle. It's implied he's the reason why Kevvinn finally scored a record deal.

Programs

HYPII

The Hypnospace Intelligence Intermediary, the personal assistant for HypnOS Enforcer Edition. HYPII mainly gives the player notifications about important updates, such as new HypnoMail messages or software updates. He can also read any text in-game via right-clicking.

Continue Your Mission, Dammit!: HYPII will complain if the player idles for too long.
Fun with Acronyms: "Hypnospace Intelligence Intermediary"
I Will Only Slow You Down: During the Mindcrash, HYPII urges the Enforcer to power down and take off the headset immediately after showing signs of damage itself.
Professional Butt-Kisser: It has programmed phrases congratulating Enforcers for handling and closing cases.
Synthetic Voice Actor: HYPII's voice is entirely text-to-speech, relying on the TTS engine that built in to the player's OS. Mainly because the TTS setting is rarely touched, a number of playthroughs of the game show a discrepancy as to what he sounds like. Some have had him sound like a woman because that's what just so happened to be the default, while some (mainly Mac users) couldn't hear a voice at all.
What the Hell, Hero?: After the Mindcrash, HYPII tells the player that they've been offline for over 20 years, and asks why they've left him alone for so long.

Professor Helper

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hsprofhelp.png

A piece of malware advertised as a program to help users use Hypnospace. In reality, it only serves to create pop-up ads for sketchy-looking websites that use CapaCash. The only way to remove it is to find the uninstaller.

invokedAnnoying Video Game Helper: Professor Helper parodies this trope, only serving to give the player pop-up ads every few seconds.
Clickbait Gag: It pushes gaudy advertisements for products you won't ever need.
Computer Virus: It's not a literal virus in itself, but it is malware of the Trojan horse type since it claims to help you when all it really does is open up pop-up ads, one of which is a malvertisement that spreads the wavehello malware. It cannot be taken down by Enforcers since Adrian Merchant is trying to work out a financial deal with the entity behind Professor Helper, not realizing it's a scam.
Developer's Foresight:
- If the player tries to use HypnoCure, and he offers help, he'll close the window if the player accepts.
- If the AllSeeing3y3 program is placed near Professor Helper, it will exclaim "GET THAT THING AWAY FROM ME."
Expy: He's a pretty obvious parody of the infamous BonziBUDDY program, supposedly made to help users surf the web, but actually just annoying the user and pestering them with ads. He's also partially based on Microsoft Office's assistants, particularly Clippy.
Fan Disservice: Downplayed with Tim considering pranking people with a nude mod for him in the "virus ideas" document on his FLIST. Luckily for the audience's eyes, it never gets past just a brainstormed idea.
Hate Sink: Nobody really likes Professor Helper. Anytime a user mentions the program, it's met with disdain and the advice of never downloading it. The only exception is Adrian Merchant, but only because reporting it may affect Merchantsoft's relationship with partnered brands.
Logging On To The Fourth Wall: Players can visit Professor Helper's website at prof.help, as well as the currency system they support at capa.cash.
Loophole Abuse: The program as a whole runs on multiple layers of loophole abuse. It claims to be helper software, but really just pulls up gaudy advertisements, yet it can't be reported as malware since it's doing exactly what it promises. In turn, the ads lead to unlisted sites that use CapaCash — which are against Hypnospace law, but hiding them through Professor Helper keeps the Enforcers from easily finding them. Lastly, it's free to download, but costs 33 HypnoCoin to uninstall, meaning that even savvy users won't get out of it without paying.
Public Domain Soundtrack: His website plays Johann Sebastian Bach's 'Concerto in F "In the Italian Manner"'.
Shout-Out: His dialogue of "I see you're (X), can I help out?" is a direct reference to old versions of Microsoft Office, where the Agents would often say the infamous line "It looks like you're (X). Would you like some help?"
Unwanted Assistance: It doesn't just pester you over if you need help or not; its method of "helping" you is spamming ads onto the screen and suggesting that you buy from them. A bit Played With in that it lets you track down CapaCash.

Virtual Pets

Software by Merchantsoft that offers users further entertainment by keeping and caring for digital pets on their desktop.

11th-Hour Superpower: They've always had this function, but later in the game re3koning reveals that every virtual pet can decrypt SamWich files when they're fed to them, giving access to downloads that previously couldn't be opened.
Back from the Dead: re3koning's tools allow you to resurrect your pet if they end up dying.
Expy: They're based off of the actual real-life trend of keeping digital pets, either in toys or, just like in-game, downloadable programs.
Flawed Prototype: Roddy's test pet has the exact same functions as the official releases, but it has choppier animations and is also based off of a copyrighted character that Merchantsoft doesn't have the rights to. Not that Artie complains.
Instant Gravestone: When they die, they turn into a gravestone icon. Clicking on it displays the message "Here lies [Pet Name]."
Missing Secret: In the original release, a SquisherZ pet is mentioned, but there is no download or design of it that can be found in the game. Plus adds it back in; it's Mushi.
Ridiculously Cute Critter: They come in the form of a hamster with angelic wings, a squid with a smiley face, or a small, floating, and expressive eye. Hypnospace Plus adds the SquisherZ mascot, Mushi.
Secret Character: Roddy Wall's Test Pet, based off of one of his favorite comic book superheroes, is one of the objects that is requested for HAP's Lost and Found project. Unlike the other pets, this one is not advertised and needs to be tracked down.
Take a Third Option: You can either let your pet die, care for it constantly at the expense of HypnoCoin, or you can use re3koning's hacker tools to make them immortal and absolve you of ever needing to take care of them.
Video Game Caring Potential: It takes effort to manage them, and they're not really needed until you need to decrypt SamWich files, but you can keep the little creatures happy and comfortable with enough food and affection.
Video Game Cruelty Potential: Or you can simply let them starve, emotionally and physically, until they die. They leave a gravestone behind.
Virtual Pet: As the name suggests. You have to keep it happy by petting and cleaning up after it, and keep it fed with snacks bought using HypnoCoin. Hypnospace Plus adds a new accessory, the "Tree of Life," which can provide food for it.
Walking Spoiler: They initially seem to be a fun, optional gimmick. Then they end up being a crucial part of the solutions for a couple puzzles.

Characters / Hypnospace Outlaw

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