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It's that time of the year again! Let's gather around the tree and put our names in a hat nondescript basket, exchanging gifts in the spirit of Christmas.

How it works
 

• Respond to this post if you want to join!
• On the 26th, you will receive the name of your giftee
• You'll have a couple of weeks to prepare a present for them. Since December tends to be a busy time, they can continue trickling in until early January

For inspiration, you may refer to last year's thread: link.

Once the gifts have been exchanged, there's also the added challenge of guessing your Secret Santa and everyone else's. 

TL;DR: Give a present, receive a present (and possibly commendations too). 

I'm in.

I'm in.

I'm in.

I'm in, thanks for doing this Mystic.

I am in.

Last year was fun, count me in.

I'm in.

I'm in

I'm in

I'm in

I'm in!

I'm In

In.

Count me in :]

I'd like to join.

MHD will be joining too!

It's nice to see that so many people have signed up so far! I'm excited to see what you all create :)

For anyone else who's thinking of joining, I'll give you about a day to decide before I finalise the participants list.

Im also in

I'll do it again this year!

I'm in. 

Assuming no one else joins, I'll try to send out the name of your Secret Santa giftees by tonight :)

Yay! I'm actually incredibly excited for this. Thank you so much for hosting it!

me too, I'm really hyped for the secret Santa!

By tonight, do you mean tonight for us Americans, for Dutch people, or for British people?

She's in the UK right now I think, so probably soon.

Unless she's in Malaysia, but it that case it would already be tomorrow, so that can't be right.

Oh ok thanks

Don't look too deep into it man but usually when it is nighttime for the Dutch, it's also night for the Brits

Thank you enter for clarifying, my knowledge of global timezones is woefully sparse. That makes sense now that you say it.

European countries are all snuggled right up against each other in lil clusters, it's kinda gay
Not like chad USA which could really be its own continent with the states as countries, but we're not into that specific sort of faggotry

Unless Texas decides to say "fuck it" and secede, becoming the Republic of Texas or something similar

Funny you should mention Texas, I was just coming here to point out that any European country could fit inside of Texas multiple times.

From California alllll the way to New England you get only a three hour time zone difference anyway, so you're not going to see much of one between tiny countries that are a short train ride apart.

Seceding into the Republic of Texas was 200 years ago, that's why we're not northern Mexico anymore.

Lol that's true. I remember that was a really long time ago

Eh, might as well!

I'm in! :D

Nice! I think you managed to get in right in the last minute, you definetly cut it close.

Yeah lol...I tend to procrastinate a lot with these things, but it usually works out surprisingly well! (except the times when it doesn't lol :P)

I hope I get matched up with someone cool though! :O

Is there still time for me to throw my name in the hat? This looks fun!!! ^_^

I think there still might be time, I don't think Mystic sent them out yet.

You mean nondescript basket O_o

... It identifies as a hat.

A reading of every one of my stories AND an art? My Secret Santa has spoiled me this year, and in timely fashion too!

Any early guesses as to who it might be?

Im thinking Fresh

I'll take that as a compliment?

Yeah, I thought the art was really good, and you make good art, so I guessed it might be you

Thank you, that's appreciated

The artstyle seems kind of familiar, but I'm drawing a blank. I'll have to cross-reference some things later, but for now, I'm stumped.

It's definitely Fresh. Aside from the artwork, I recognize her reviewing style from my own story games as well as the ThunderDome.

Im also gonna hazard a guess and say that Suranna's gift is from Avery.

So many, and only day 2

It... It's... BEAUTIFUL! Best Christmas present ever! As for who I think my Secret Santa is, no question there, I'd recognize that art style anywhere. Thank you, MHD!!! ^_^

Hey, I want a ninja drawing :(
thank you

I feel kind of bad for whoever's doing my gift. Mainly because I've barely said much about my personal life during my time here, so there's not much to glean from about me even if said person were familiar with my posts.

 

To help give this "secret person" something to work with, I invite everyone reading this to ask me a question of your choosing. It can be a simple yes or no question if your lazy, but the idea is that my secret santa can slip in a question without suspicion this way. (If you guys REALLY wanted to get ballsy though, you could ask that I share some of my first draft writing for my unfinished stories (or VERY short stories I've written) in another thread (I would obviously touch up what I wrote so its second draft quality, I'm not that daft!))

 

For obvious reasons I think I've become too self conscious with drawing attention to myself here, but I may be overdoing it now. So hopefully, with that in mind, everyone is ok with this.

(Worst case scenario someone can probe me to do some reading via a storygame request...or something...eh idk I'm just spitballing now!)

 

lol :P

What are your thoughts on Eternal

What are your thoughts on Geek, End master’s most underrated work and arguably one of the weirdest and most creative ideas that was made into a full game?

Also this is not a question, but please drop that story into the writing thread, I’d love to see some more of your writing, whatever I saw before as part of the story game was quite good!

I have not read Greek yet. But I should ask... (as it will help me answer Fresh's question better anyways)

Is Greek very different from End's other stories? I've only attempted to read a handful of them, which isn't a large percentage of his work by any means but it somehow is still more than the amount of stories I've read from most other people on this site.

To elaborate...is the tone/vibe or moment to moment prose very different from say...something like Eternal? Does it feel like a different person wrote it or not really?

I guess you might as well explain why you think its underrated so I can see where your coming from with this... lol :P

Not Greek, Geek. A geek is someone who works at a carnival and gets paid to eat disgusting stuff. This was set during the 1930s I think, although check me if I’m wrong.

Geek is very different from a lot of endmaster stories. Unlike necromancer, rogues, and eternal, the dude’s life is a complete joke and everyone around him hates him, he has no friends(except the ringmaster, but even he only uses geek for her own gain when he needs to, and even then only when it’s absolutely necessary for her). He eats really gross stuff and then drowns away his sorrows with alcohol. But suddenly when tides of change come to the carnival, the geek is given a rare once in a lifetime opportunity to turn his life around. But will he take it?

I feel like I gave a good blurb that should make the story interesting. Geek is so fascinating because it’s a short story but Endmaster skillfully packs in so much tension and drama. This carnival is made up of a bunch of different factions, the one thing they share in common is disdain for the geek, but as the geek you have to leverage these people and kind of politically maneuver your way to victory, and I found that really fascinating. Seriously, geek is a. genuinely great story and you have to read it. It is also wickedly funny.

I think me seeing too much discussion with a certain pegasus has caused me to see the word "Greek" in places where I otherwise wouldn't...

lol :P

How dare you not answer my question first

It’s official, geek is better than eternal!

Your question requires a more sophisticated answer which requires more time and effort.

You should consider it a compliment that I'm taking my time with your question! ;)

lol :P

What is something that you're working toward accomplishing on this site outside of Secret Santa?

Just want to say thank you very much to my Secret Santa for such a nice, thoughtful review of my story! No current guesses as to who they are, but thank you. It is very much appreciated.

You should all have received a letter by now. If more people would like to join, do let me know, though the list of your possible Secret Santas would be much smaller in that case. 

Here's the padlet link where you would be able to upload your gift: https://padlet.com/mysticthewarrior/secretsanta2024

Scroll right to see each participant! You should be able to add pictures, text and files under each section. If you face any technical difficulties, feel free to send me a message. 

When is the deadline again,?

You'll have a couple of weeks to prepare a present for them. Since December tends to be a busy time, they can continue trickling in until early January

Would two weeks be enough for everyone? If so, I'll set the deadline to the 10th of January. 

I can work with that.

Me too

Shouldn't be a problem for me.

Works for me

For those of you keen on guessing who's who... here's a handy spreadsheet to help you keep track of your guesses.

Link - copy this spreadsheet!

I spent way too long torturing myself with sheets formulas trying to make it lock cells and change colors and whatnot before I gave up. I figured yall can work this out, and I didn't have to idiot proof it.

The guessing game just got a lot harder. Santa's Ninja Helper has wagered 125 points (which they may or may not have) that no one guesses who they are!

At the end of the present exchange, I'll create a google form for everyone to guess who each gifter is. There will be prizes for:

• Most accurate guesser(s)
• Those who guessed 'Santa's Ninja Helper'
• Sneakiest Secret Santa(s)

Feel free to discuss this amongst yourselves or attempt to throw each other off, whichever works for you.

Ah, damn. Wish I'd chosen another gift for my giftee now. My present is not even the slightest bit sneaky.

Maybe I'll add an award for 'least secretive santa'. Provided, of course, they don't outright put their name on it or anything like that. After all, I don't want to deter people from using their strengths when they create their gifts.

Most creative Santa? Least sneaky implies putting five seconds of effort into a gift and it being clear who did it

Creativity might be a bit too subjective for me to judge, especially if there are inside jokes or references I miss. However, like last year, each present does have to meet a certain level of effort, otherwise it doesn't count.

Ninjapitka too obvious?

Based on Ninja's newest post, he's probably already at work writing his 19th storygame at light speed, running a marathon again, or passed out from alcohol withdrawal. Or all 3

And judging by my glorious gift, whoever drew it must've taken hours. ^_^

I got to say I really like your new profile pic, and I think it's really nice of you that you put the secret ninja's gift as the profile pic.

Mystic vs ninja full power in a reading or writing contest would be fun. 

Yeah that would be cool! They should do a Thunderdome battle, I think that would be one of the biggest battles in a really long time.

Mystic's plot outlines are over the Thunderdome word count

Unfortunately, while there is a skill known as 'conciseness' which seems to be possessed by most great writers or at least writers of a certain aptitude for the craft, it is a skill which---at least, at this current point in time---still seems to eludes me.

You should still do a Thunderdome battle with ninja though if you and him have time, availability and interest, it would be really cool! The level of writing quality of both stories will be crazy good!

Thunderdome is for the untested to make a name for themselves, often since the participants don't have published storygames, much to the entertainment of established CYS citizens. Anonymity removes any inflated ratings or influenced votes. All that matters is story vs. story. Sounds like fun...

That's true, when it comes down to it, the best writer comes out on top, completely impartial. There's also a time pressure component involved. That's partly why it's a little intimidating, especially since you only have 48 hours(or something like that) to prepare, which is why I've been a little hesitant about joining a Thunderdome battle, but it's always entertaining and instructive to read the entires and vote on them, since there have been some really good stories in all the thunder domes.

I would definitely love to see you do a duel at least once in the Thunderdome, I think it would be really cool. Based on your articles and your post, I know you're pretty busy, as is Mystic because I think she's in law school, but if you guys could find the time and availability, you should totally face each other in the Thunderdome!

Definitely not me.

Is this 'ninja helper' within the group of gifter/giftees?

Idk. I feel like that's a bit obvious since people could just figure out from process of elimination by whoever didn't get a mystery gift. But the drawings... Darius or Crimson keep popping into my head. By which I mean they kept popping into Fresh's head and I kinda agree with her.

Well Darius is NOT popping up on the site, and Crimson doesn't seem the type for this breed of monkey business. While I continuosly think they're in this secret santa for some reason, I don't really think either is the Ninja.

I am, however, slighly suspicious of you

Ngl I'm bad at secrets, and it'd be cool af if all these gifts were from me with how much people love them.

I mean, shit. Drawing Avery's profile pic? That's major bragging rights alone. I would've already been strutting around the forums annoying everyone with my boasting if it was me.

 

“I’m bad at secrets” is exactly what a sneaky ninja Santa helper would say!

Deflecting suspicion is a classic ninja move lol. Well played, RK. Or should I say... Ninja?

I don't think it's RK

I don’t think it’s me either, although it would be cool if it was. Maybe when I go to sleep the ninja wakes up and delivers presents

Touché Ben, well played, but maybe this is an attempt at triple reverse psychology

I'm just going to say that if ​​​​​this helper is one of the gifters/ giftees, I suggest that they give themself a present otherwise that unnecessarily narrows the pool. The rest of you can deduce from that what you will. 

Or maybe this post is just a psychological trick. Perhaps saying that this is a psychological trick is the psychological trick, who knows.

You and the Ninja are enjoying fucking with us, aren't you?

Lol. Merry Christmas though.

This is tempting me to start sending extra gifts to people just to mess with everyone more!

We'll see though... (Its not likely at all though so no worries. Just a random worthless idea as usual! ;) )

How about before that you make your actual gift :)

:)  :)  :)  :)  :)  :)  :)  :)

What does this imply? :P

That you haven't made your gift yet...

...and how would you know that?! :O

Because fresh is secretly in cahoots with Mystic, they both organized secret Santa together, and she’s the ninja

That’s probably not true but it would be a cool plot twist.

It would be super cool, but that's not quite my art style.
Mostly it would be cool because it would involve me being in cahoots with Mystic, and Mystic is cool

I like Mystic

Me too, her stories are awesome and she’s really nice! All of them are really huge and intimidating to get into, but the Halloween one looks really fun, like a murder mystery, so I’ll probably read that one first. Also she puts a ton of effort into everything from thunderdome critiques to story reviews to even secret Santa invitations, so that’s just awesome’

The Halloween one is great. There's a walkthrough if you get stuck (although to be honest that only happened once for me in the play through)

Thanks!
I can’t wait to check it out. Is it hard? So far, the hardest game I’ve played is either the Walmart Game or Jurassic Fairview park, those games were frustratingly hard, so I’d figure Hunted Halloween must be that hard, or even harder, since Mystic made the time to make a whole walkthrough.

I honestly can’t wait to play the game, it sounds really good

I like Mystic. ^_^

It just occurred to me that this whole ninja thing gives off very strong Mafia vibes. This is basically Mafia except the Mafia doesn't kill anyone! :O

Reminds me of Among Us tbh

Among Us is Mafia for zoomers (and some millennials maybe? I can't be bothered to get this generation bs accurate at this point...)...but yeah pretty much! lol :P

That reminds me, I planned out a CYS-themed mafia game at some point this year but realized the mechanics behind it were too confusing. Maybe I'll rework some of the rules and host it on the forums next year if people are interested in joining.

I'd definitely be interested!

I'm in when you're ready

That or a version of Are You a Werewolf would be cool.  I'm in.

Are You a Furry

No, it takes too much work and I'm not a huge fan of hairy paramours.

I've never heard any say their reasoning for not being a furry is "it takes too much work" before

Have you seen the amount of time and money that is sunk into a high quality fursuit?  Ridiculous.  My wife and I are too pedestrian, old and vanilla to invest in exploring high-cost kinks like that.

If you simply stop shaving you can explore it for free. Have a good 2025 my man

I am a hirsute guy, but not fursuit levels. Hope you have a good 2025 as well.

 

Sounds fun.

No joke, I unironically had an idea for something similar but wanted to wait till I was more established on the site before I fully considered it. Especially because I know of a really good website to host mafia games that is both really easy to set up and understand (for the most part, it is way way better than other "mafia games" i've seen anyways).

I'd probably be interested to do this also though. But this does motivate me to try and get my idea set up as well! (when the time is right of course...)

As some of you are interested, I might as well post a link to my planning document for this mystery game: link

Let me know what you all think! I'm still trying to figure out if the teams are equally balanced and whether I have too many unnecessary rules. 

That's a lot of reading

I'd recommend one more Troll type for variety. Only criticism I have for what looks to be an awesome concept :)

I initially had a 'Cogite troll' in a previous draft, but wasn't sure what they would do. Possible options: gain an extra vote by creating an alt, avoid a Thunderdome challenge by flaking, or maybe they're on a team of their own as a jester role of sorts. 

For another troll type, how about "whining noob"? this character is part of the troll camp but has the power to undermines morale and distract people from voting out the trolls by wasting an entire day with random shitposts and nonsense. This occupies the regular CYStians as they spend time roasting the whining noob which takes away time they could have used to vote someone out.

In gameplay context, the whining noob makes you lose a day that the good group could have used for voting, so it automatically becomes night. That means no voting that day, no thunder dome no nothing, it automatically becomes night. They can only use this ability once and it's sort of like a kamikaze attack, because usually whenever a noob is too annoying, they get banned for wasting everyone's time, so this troll gets eliminated right after using the ability. This troll can vote with the rest of the trolls and is basically a noob troll except with this one-time power.

Totally down to play this.

OMG! Me, me, me!!! Pick me! Pick me! I want to play!!! ^_^

That sounds pretty interesting, actually! I'd like to join in.

I would be really interested in joining this game!

I figured I'd put together this little subsection for all of us to put forward our guesses for Santa's Ninja Helper.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I raise for your consideration... Ogre!

Exhibit 1: Here are some of the beautiful masterpieces that have been given as presents this year:

Exhibit 2: Here is Ogre's contribution to Mad Hatter's Daughter Appreciation Day:

I rest my case.

Maybe...? They look kind of similar... but what about the eyes?

He's been practicing?

Eh. I'm convinced. Wouldn't be hard to go from dots to circles.

My guess is it's someone who isn't in the Secret Santa event in an official category. It's a lot easier to screw with us that way.

Also, the fact that Mystic hasn't confirmed if they're in the event or not, and the fact that she implies red herrings in a couple of her posts. Like when she says that she suggests that Ninja Santa post a present for themselves? Why not just PM the secret helper and tell them that? To keep us guessing and pointing at each other.

The style is similar, but the shape of the head is different; Ogre's hat is also not filled in the same as the filling in on the ornaments or the penguin.
I still think it's Ben. He's been the most prevalent talker about these shenanigans, and why deny it so vehemently if it truly isn't you? It's not like we're voting out the ninja lol

lol yeah I know this isn't survivor. And to be honest it's mainly due to the fact that the days leading up to new years get pretty freaking boring. My gift to the person I was assigned took like ten minutes, and I love mysteries. 

Not really sure how I've denied it any more than anyone else here. But fuck it I'm having a lot of fun playing this guessing game more than I did making a gift.

My gift took just a little more time than that

I was guesstimating

I love all the detective work that's going on. Also, I suggest looking at what's being written in some of the presents, as there appears to be at least two identifying features that narrow the pool of potential candidates down a bit.

Since no one else has compiled all the written clues left by the secret santa ninja, I'll do it here. Mystic suggested looking what's written inside of the written gifts that the ninja left, so that's what I'm going to do.

Autistic breakdown(pretty detailed and in-depth)

I'll go in left to right order, ignoring the drawings since Avery already made a post on the drawings. This is only focusing on written material left by the secret ninja(not to be confused with Mr.Pitka, or maybe it is? Who knows?)

Clue 1:

My gift

The ninja left a recent(as of writing this post) clue under my gift. The clue is a grouping of 4 images. The prompt says, "Our 2 usernames hanging out. pretty spot on, yeah?".

I'm too lazy to upload the images here, you can just scroll to my name and then go past my official gift to see the ninja clue. This clue honestly has me stumped. The one commonality is that at least one of the figures is wearing blue. The other person is wearing white, pink, brown, and yellow. I'm guessing I'm the blue, since my hot dog wizard avatar has a blue hat, and the original artist made that cartoon on a blue backdrop. The 2 top pictures also show two asian people hanging out, while the 2 bottom pictures show 2 black people hanging out. The 2 token black and asian CYStians(who are also very active on forums!) are Petros and Bezro, both of whom are also not in the secret santa(officially). Coincidence, I think not! I think it's very likely the secret santa is not officially part of the gifter list, since I feel like this was chaos introduced by an outside force, possibily by someone who joined late.

Petros recently got married(congrats on getting married!), so that makes him unlikely to be involved in ninja shenanigans since bros probably on his honeymoon. But considering that Petros was active today, it's possible that his honeymoon already happened, or he's somehow trolling all of us while on his honeymoon. Also, his background of his rock giant avatar is yellowish smoke billowing. In the left bottom image, the lady on the right is wearing a yellow shirt, while the lady on the left is wearing blue, representing me and Petros.
It could also be Bezro, but he was last online on the 27th.
Clue 2:

Tcat's poem

Doesn't offer much and for all I know, both the poem and the picture were made by the actual gifted and the ninja didn't gift Tcat. Besides, the ninja doesn't give much clues to their identity so im going to leave that one.

Clue 3(Mizal's gift):

Now things actually get a bit substantive. The ninja is familiar with Mizal's eye strain, and besides the gaybellion contest, I think the last time she talked about it was a while ago, so this must be someone who's been here for a while and familiar with everyone. Petros joined in 2022, so the trail grows slightly cold. But it still could be Petros.

The ninja left a significant clue where they said their first interaction with Mizal was when Mizal said they had no standards as a writer. If the ninja is petros, then maybe you have to go back 2 years in the forums to find this interaction. So that might be a clue. The issue that complicates this is that Mizal is the admin that interacts with the most noobs, and is pretty much the defacto expert in noob wrangling for 7-8 years, from banning unruly noobs to encouraging noob writers who show a modicum of talent. So if not Petros, then it could be pretty much anybody. I did rule out everyone who's officially participating since I strongly believe the ninja is someone outside the official list.

Clue #4(Ninjapitka's gift):

Simply posits the question many of us had: is Ninja the obvious choice, or is he a red herring? Ninja himself came in the thread and strongly denied the allegations that he is the ninja helper. I also feel like Ninja is already writing another storygame because he's really productive, but I don't know. Also, the way the secret ninja stressed "red herring" maybe means that ninjapitka is a red herring.

Clue #5(MHD's gift)

I know this poem is written by the secret ninja helper, because the author refers to gifting Avery in that same verse, and everyone one knows that official gifts are limited to one person, therefore, this must be written by the ninja. We know this person is a Polaris fan who feels that Polaris was unfairly denied the win in the contest over Sherb's entry. They felt that Polaris should have won that contest, but they also said "no offense to Sherb" indicating that they like Sherb.

Problem is Sherb is a naturally likable and nice guy, everybody likes Sherb because he's a great writer, nice admin, good reviewer, great game-rater, and slayer of bots, so that doesn't specify anything, so I'll leave that clue for now. The more interesting clue is the person who felt Polaris should have won. So, I took a look at overly favorable reviews of Polaris, since a person who feels this strongly about Polaris that it "was MHD's best work yet", will naturally shower lots of praise in the reviews.

First fan of Polaris:Mizal

In the contest after-math thread, Mizal mentions that Polaris should have gotten 2nd, but that's not the same as saying it should have won. Also, Mizal has some eye strain so I don't think she's the ninja, since she's probably spending less time on the internet to recover from the pain and she's actually in the official secret santa list. That rules out one fan of Polaris.

2nd Polaris Fan: Mystic. Mystic liked Polaris and spoke about is favorably in her review. This is a possibility I hadn't thought of, Mystic could very well be the ninja. Since after all, she was the one who brought up the idea of the ninja in our heads.

Note: Mystic said that this person may or may not have 125 points to spare. Now why would she say that, I mean pretty much everybody has 125 points, heck I've been here 6 months and I have 125. So, another possibility is Ace. Ace has 8 and he's not officially part of the secret santa list, but he doesn't really coincide with the clue left on my gift page. I just wanted to bring it up with the remark, because it's a strange remark to make. If there are other people who are longstanding members or people who are likely to be chosen, and they have less than 125 points, please bring it up. Ford is also a possibility as he's an all powerful CYStian with less than 125 points, but he left the site. I don't know, this offhand remark is stumping me. Also Ford commented "hawt" on Polaris, that might mean something. Or maybe I'm getting too autistic now.

Back to the Polaris clue. 3nd polaris fan: Suranna. But she's already part of the official gifting list.

4th polaris fan: Ogre. Maybe Ogre is behind this, especially since Avery suspected him. yes, he is part of the official listing, but honestly, considering that Avery's analysis suspected Ogre, and he's positively reviewed Polaris, it's possible that all this time, he was rooting for Polaris in that contest. He's been around long enough to know about Mizal's eye strain, and he joined in 2014, while Mizal joined in 2011, so Mizal could have very well told Ogre that he has low standards as a writer when he was just starting out. It's certainly possible, but that makes the back reading so much harder, since you have to go back 10 years.

5th polaris fan: Ben. Ah see, now this suspect is quite interesting. Ben is really suspicious, and seeing him comment favorably on Polaris made me glad, because now things are connecting. Ben wrote this comment: Great story! I liked the characters and the 'steampunk noir' was an amazing premise! So, it's conceivable he secretly thought that Polaris should have won.

Also, as Fresh pointed out, Ben was acting really suspicious in his investigation of the ninja. Larimar said it's Ben, which adds more credence to the theory(thank you Larimar, I owe you one man!), and he's the most prevalent talker about the shenanigans. Even fresh eventually got bored of the topic, but Ben was insistent on it, and his defense of "And to be honest it's mainly due to the fact that the days leading up to new years get pretty freaking boring. My gift to the person I was assigned took like ten minutes, and I love mysteries." doesn't cut it. I mean, I love mysteries too, that's why I'm making this long ass post. What point was I making again? Oh right, that it's Ben. Another confirmation it's ben. The colors of the person in my post sitting next to the person in blue were: white, pink, brown, and yellow. I submit that the white and pink are red herrings, so are the asian and black people, and the real clue is in the yellow and brown clothes worn by the people sitting next to the people wearing blue. Yellow and brown is the art of the default penguin avatar, which makes it more damning because Ben is literally the only significant active CYStian who stuck with the default avatar. Ben joined in 2014, so he's probably the guy that Mizal told him that he has no standards as a writer, he's aware of Mizal's eye strain, he's doing the routine where the impostor acts the most concerned about catching the impostor to deflect suspicion, and I just think it's a Ben thing to do. However, Ben is busy with the contest, he's writing this really long story and he seems like he really wants to win, so maybe he's not about to be start being a ninja for some reason. Plus, he's also part of the official giftee list, and I did say that I thought it was coming from outside, but in this case, I do suspect Ben somewhat.

Petros did not write a super favorable review for Polaris, in fact he didn't write one at all, so that lead grows cold, which is why I broke my initial "it's from outside the official list" rule and nominated Ben as a suspect.

Final thoughts and TLDR for non-autists: Ben is my primary suspect, but other suspects include: Petros, bezro, Mystic herself, ninjapitka, Ace, and finally the most unlikely of all, Ford back from the dead. My analysis is complete and I rest my case. Hope this helped. Even if my analysis is completely insane, at least I gathered all the clues for people to peruse through in one place, so you can ignore my analysis and only focus on the clues, then draw your own conclusions.

A very detailed study... Or... An elaborate ploy to cover up the fact that YOU'RE Santa's Ninja Helper!!!

it's not ford.
Larimar is a bot, lol.
There are other Asians and black people.
I don't agree with you on it not being someone involved in the SS.
It's not Mystic for sure.
Yes, Ben. I'm glad you somehow came along to agree with me after all that.

Just got done with the contest so now I can see all the replies left on my analysis and I definitely learned a lot about this site.

I genuinely had no clue Larimar was a bot, but upon actually seeing their profile, I can't believe I didn't realize it sooner. Thank you for telling me.

I enjoyed this analysis: but one question? If this is a Secret Santa event, it seems a little counterproductive to make assumptions about the Ninja based on gifts they may or may not have received from the Ninja.

The only gifts we know are truly from him or her are MHD's, Avery's, and Mizal's. The rest may have been from their "official" Secret Santa, who simply knew who they were making the gift for. Personally, im about 90% sure ninjapitka's gift is from the SNH, cause otherwise why reference the situation. Especially the way they phrase it, it almost sounds like they're trying to taunt him.

On the other hand, Mystic did say that the secret ninja should gift themselves, and RK did say that ninjapitka has "strongly denied it" which the guilty party would certainly do. Perhaps ninjapitka wrote himself that poem to throw suspicion off himself? Perhaps the Secret Ninja Santa decided to have a little joke and poke fun at ninjapitka while making his gift? That's honestly a tough one for me.

I'm confused. Why are MHD, Me and Mizal the only people whose gifts we know are from Secret Ninja Santa?

Because in MHD's present, the writer specifically states that they drew your picture. Which means both you and MHD got gifts from the same person. Therefore, it was the ninja.

In Mizal's story, the writer explicitly states they are giving a hint as to the identity of the Ninja.

Maybe I'm just a blockhead, but in none of the other gifts does the writer reveal or drop hints as to their identity. At least none that I can see. They could have been written by either the Nimja or their Secret Santa.

It's definitely not me.

It is also definitely not me.

It is also definitely not me.

Larimar said it's Ben

Larimar can suck a peppermint cock

Okay, it's been pointed out that it might not have been the person chosen for the gift, so it's seeming more likely there's a copycat ninja helper around who deals exclusively in generated images for whatever reason (Confirmed by Mystic as not the original ninja we've all been looking for.)

ALSO

Of interest to possibly some of you, going by the timestamps of Mystic saying she'd message them and then getting a reply, the real ninja helper was up awfully early on New Year's Day, for any American timezone.

... >.>

I thought we were procrastinating till the 10th of January. Why'd everyone show up early? ToT