The Holders

 

Archivist’s Note: The following is partially derived from an essay written in 2013 by Cooldude971, who was a lurker in the Holders community. Wherever possible, statements are supported with citations to archived sources. However, at many points, personal memory of events and forum posts are invoked which never made it into the Wayback Machine.

“It is my hope that this essay will allow everyone to better understand and appreciate the history of one of, if not the, oldest containment fiction series.” — Cooldude971


The “logo” of The Holders, featured on Wikichan and beyond.

The Holders was a collaborative creepypasta series predating modern containment fiction. It described mysterious Objects that were in the possession of entities called Holders, which could be sought out by Seekers. Each followed a general format that introduced a scenario in which an Object could be sought after, its Seeker met, and at times the Objects obtained. Seekers commonly experienced great peril or the potential for death in their pursuit of Objects.

Holders entries were collected and saw relatively wide exposure on the Internet between the years 2007-2009.

Origins

4chan

The origin of The Holders is poorly documented. The oldest known post of the series was made on August 31, 2006 at 8:25 PM in the middle of a “creepy thread” on the /b/ board of 4chan.[1]/b/ – Random » Thread #12344620 (sage.moe) (archive), post # 12351846 Whether this was the original post of the Holder of the End is unknown and essentially impossible to verify. This may have been a repost from a website or message board other than 4chan. Further, the archive this post was saved to is missing millions of /b/ posts,[2]Oldfriend Archive » Stats (sage.moe) (archive) so it is unclear whether this was even the first Holders posted to 4chan.

Over the next several months, the Holder of the End would be routinely reposted on /b/. On October 3, 2006, the first known posting of a Holder’s Object other than the End (specifically, the Holder of the Beginning) occurred on /b/.[3]https://old.sage.moe/b/thread/13737884/ (archive), post # 13746526 Following this point, the Holder of the End would be heavily reposted, but no evidence survives of either the Holder of the Beginning or any other Holders being posted or re-posted in 2006.

On December 19, 2006, a creepypasta entitled the “Holder of the Dark” was posted to /b/.[4]https://old.sage.moe/b/thread/17529846/, post # 17530500 (archive) While this creepypasta was plainly modeled off of the Holder of the End, it was not a true Holder’s Object as the prize for completing the ritual was forbidden knowledge rather than an Object.

On January 2, 2007, the Holder of the Beginning was re-posted in the middle of a creepy thread.[5]https://old.sage.moe/b/thread/18293951/#18298279 (archive) On January 5, 2007, the Holder of the End, the Holder of the Beginning, and six new Holders were posted in a creepy thread.[6]https://old.sage.moe/b/thread/18525751/ (archive) There were a few positive comments regarding the Holders Objects and someone suggested compiling the Holders into a single source. From thereon out, reposts and new Holders Objects were posted with increasingly frequency on /b/.

According to Wikichan

Archivist’s note: Wikichan, the first ever Holders community, provided a short explanation on the history of the Holders. While the explanation does get specific details wrong, the parts that can be compared to archived 4chan posts do appear to be broadly accurate. The explanation reads as follows:

One day, seemingly a normal day on /b/, an anonymous user came and posted nine creepy directions to certain objects. After the original thread died a much-mourned death, Anonymous swore to take up the banner and continue the work in the original style until all the objects were found.[7]Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)

Wikichan claimed that a user named Sonic-Blade created the first Holder “for the lulz.”[8]Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org) Wikichan also linked to what it purported was the original Holders post. The post was hosted on Tokyopop  (an American distributor of manga and anime that hosted a large fan community on its website). Based on the post’s URL, it was written by someone named Dire2.[9]Holders series – WikiChan (archive.org) The post was deleted without being archived, so nothing more can be said about it.

Wikichan

Archivist’s note: The following section is based almost entirely on archives of the Wikichan Holders talk page in the Wayback Machine. The Wayback Machine only sporadically scanned the talk page while editors there would often “clean it up”, meaning that a lot of historical content has been lost. As a result, the historical record is fragmentary.

Description

The first Holders “website” was actually a single article and talk page on Wikichan, a wiki of *chan culture created in late 2006.[10]Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)[11]Wikichan – Wikichan (archive.org) Members of Wikichan would copy over Holders tales from 4chan or submit their own, all of which were listed all on the single article page. The Holders article also had a parody section and some analysis of the various objects. On or immediately before August 26, 2007,[12]http://web.archive.org/web/20071117061530/http://wikichan.org/index.php/Talk:Holders_Series#Can.27t_we_just the series list was moved to sub-pages of 50 Objects due to the large number of Objects that had been posted; the parodies and analysis were also moved to their own page. The original page was retained as a hub for these sub-articles. Members of Wikichan used the talk page to reserve Holder numbers, submit new Holders for review, improve the main article, or even just talk about the Holders Series. Wikichanners would also use the talk page for quality review, and would discuss removing or editing Holders that fell beneath their writing standards. Large numbers of editors posted to the talk page, although activity ebbed and flowed throughout its history. The Holders were apparently quite popular on Wikichan as a link to the Holders article was prominently displayed to the side of the website under the “must reads” section of the toolbar.

Creation and earliest history (January 7, 2007-Late February 2007)

On January 7, 2007 at 3:58 PM, an anon started a creepypasta thread on /b/ which was quickly overrun with Holders posts which were being posted in numerical order from one to nine.[13]/b/ – Random » Thread #18632177 (sage.moe) (archive) Two anons asked where the additional Holders were, with another anon claiming they had not been written. Several anons expressed interest in writing additional Holders Objects.

At 5:21 PM, an anon posted the following:[14]/b/ – Random » Thread #18632177 (sage.moe) (archive)

I’m writing the holders series into wikichan, it’ll be wikichan.org/wiki/Holders_series

At 5:30 PM, the anon stated that the article was finally up.[15]/b/ – Random » Thread #18632177 (sage.moe) (archive)

On the 7th and for the next several days, the new WIkichan page was announced in both an announcement threads and within discussions about the Holders.[16]See, for example, /b/ – Random » Thread #18640800 (sage.moe) (archive)

There are only two extant archives of the original Wikichan page which were collected on February 10 and 23, 2007.[17]Holders series – WikiChan (archive.org); Holders series – WikiChan (archive.org) There were 57 Objects plus six parody Objects on February 10 and 64 Objects and seven parody Objects on February 23. A decision was also apparently made to change the number of Objects from 2538 to 538.

Deletion and Recreation (Late February/Early March 2007- Early June 2007)

At either the very end of February or the very beginning of March, Wikichan’s server crashed. As a result, everything posted to Wikichan from January 2-February 29, 2007 was deleted.[18]Wikichan:Downtime – Wikichan (archive.org) Fortunately, members of Wikichan were able to recover the vast majority of Holder’s tales after someone posted a Yahoo cache of the old article from February 26.[19]Talk:Holders series – Wikichan (archive.org) Following the restoration of the Wikichan article, the Holders series rapidly grew as Wikichanners continued to make new contributions. However, activity on the talk page greatly diminished after the restoration of the Holders article. The only event really worth noting during this time occurred in early March when Lynneth (one of the most active Holders contributors) added a chart to the talk page listing the Object and question associated with each Holder.[20]Talk:Holders series – Wikichan (archive.org) After this, the talk page was largely stagnant until the summer.

Summer and Fall on Wikichan (Mid-June – November 2007)

On June 26, 2007 Wikichan user Lynneth  uploaded readings of the Holder of the End and the Holder of the Beginning onto Rapidshare. Lynneth would later do a reading of the Holder of Legion while Andromai would contribute readings of the Holders of the Lens, Youth, and Honor.[21]Talk:Holders series – Wikichan (archive.org) These were almost certainly the first readings ever recorded of the Holders mythos, and would serve as a precursor to innumerable YouTube readings. Unfortunately, Rapidshare is now defunct, and all of these recordings have been lost.

In early July, several vandals raided the Holders article and attempted to delete its contents. As a result, editing on the article was locked to people with registered accounts.[22]Talk:Holders series – Wikichan (archive.org)

A bit before August 3, Wikichan crashed again and editors of the Holders page were forced to restore it using a Google cache and copies of the Holders storied on users’ personal computers.[23]Talk:Holders series – Wikichan (archive.org) (see text at very top) [24]Talk:Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)

On August 20, a contributor named Mr. Belpit took issue with another contributor stealing a Holder’s number he had previously claimed. In a back and forth with Lynneth, the two users agreed that the Holder that had taken Belpit’s spot would get a new number and that they would alert WIkichan editors to the existence of the claim list by leaving messages on their talk pages. During the thread, DScarface (the author who had taken Mr. Belpit’s spot) apologized.[25]Talk:Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)

From August through October, there was some discussion about changing the preamble that introduced the Holders article hub.[26]Talk:Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)[27]http://web.archive.org/web/20071117061530/http://wikichan.org/index.php/Talk:Holders_Series#The_Keepers[28]In a bit more detail, the preamble consisted of an introduction to the series, purportedly found next to the corpse “a blind man, his body chewed on by numerous cats” whose body showed no … Continue reading

Later in October, Mr. Belpit wrote an edited version of the first 100 Holders to bring the Holders in line with “the format and traditions of the original few.” However, its unclear if he actually posted all of these rewrites; by the end of October, Belpit was only up to 41 Holders. DScarface, the only person responding to Belpit, was supportive and starting making their own edits.[29]Talk:Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)

In mid-November, FBI-san, a contributor on fanfiction.net, started “spreading word” about the Holders.[30]Talk:Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org) While details of  the ensuing events are sparse,[31]The Wikichan talk page would not be archived again until early February. During this time, the discussion on FBI-san was apparently deleted. FBI-san’s fanfiction profile was deleted without … Continue reading FBI-san apparently attempted to claim ownership over the Holders.[32]Talk:Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)

The Co-existance of Wikichan and Theholders.org (Dec. 2007-May 2008)

The Creation of Theholders.org

In late 2007,  TheHolders.org, the first freestanding Holder’s website, was created by an individual known as Sysop to act as a stable alternative to the Wikichan website.[33]The oldest edit on the wiki I was able to find came from November 27, 2007. A now-deleted forum post claimed that Theholders.org went live on December 27. It is possible that Sysop kept … Continue reading Sysops spent the next few days and weeks improving the website (such as by adding next/previous links to the Holders pages, creating a backup of the wiki, and adding categories to the wiki)[34]The Holders Series – theholders.org (archive.org) and collecting Holders tales from around the internet. In terms of moderation, Sysop took a hands-off approach and was generally reclusive. Arca, who served as a moderator on Theholders.org for over a decade, claimed to “know literally nothing about them.”[35]Arca Gunnay on The Holders: Part I

The early community on Theholders.org was far more disjointed than Wikichan. The website did not initially have a forum and it existed at a time before platforms like Discord. The only way website members could communicate with each other was to post messages on the discussion pages of articles.[36]Arca Gunnay on The Holders: Part I Every Object on Theholders.org was assigned its own page, meaning there was no one core talk page like there had been on Wikichan.

Wikichan’s Response

Wikichan did not discover Theholders.org until January 12, 2008, when a member stumbled upon the website and asked about it on the Wikichan talk page. [37]Talk:Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org) The initial reaction to Theholders.org was overwhelmingly negative. Many people feared Sysop was trying to steal the Holders series like FBI-san had done previously; this was not helped by the fact that Sysop copied over Holders tales from Wikichan under his own name. There was also anger over the fact that Theholders.org members were writing their own Holders, partially because Wikichan disliked the idea of contradicting Holders lists and partially because this challenged Wikichan’s status as the “official” Holders source.[38]Talk:Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)

Around January 17, a Wikichan user named Whatever posted a message onto Theholders.org.[39]This message, posted to the Holder of the End’s talk page, may have been Whatever’s initial communication with  Theholders.org. I can’t be certain however, as the page’s edit … Continue reading Back on Wikichan, Whatever stated that “[t]hey don’t really seem malicious to me, just ignorant of the fact that there’s an official place to write Holder stories.” Sysop also appears to have made some token acts of submission to Wikichan such as keeping Holder 146 open because a member of Wikichan had claimed it. After this, the discussion largely cooled down and WIkichan seems to have begrudgingly accepted the existence of Theholders.org. Wikichan did however ban their users from copying over Holders from the newer website and placed a hidden notice (that would be visible when editing) at the top of their article proclaiming themselves to be the official Holders source. There was also some lingering uneasiness about the existence of two listings; one member stated they wished Theholders.org would direct their writers to Wikichan to “learn the ropes.”[40]Talk:Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)

The Last Months of Wikichan

By February 2008, both Theholders.org and Wikichan had received a surge of new contributors. With these new contributors came a decline in quality. After an off-site discussion with Mr. Belpit, DScarface made a post to the talk page expressing their concern that newer writers were favoring quantity over quality and documenting many alarming trends in newer Holder’s Objects. These trends included:[41]Talk:Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)

  •  Objects that focused on mythology over the more traditional magic and  mysticism.
  • Overly long stories that read like role-playing game guides.
  • Objects that gave Seekers “insane powers” that made obtaining additional Objects trivial.
  • Failure to proofread

The ensuing conversation quickly jumped to Theholders.org. Judging by the comments, views on the newer website had reached the point of lukewarmness: posters noted that there were some high-quality Holders on the new website, that they did have some quality control, and that they were absorbing poorly written drafts that would have otherwise gone to Wikichan. Wikichan still saw itself as the superior Holders source, but the animus from early in the year appeared to be gone.

The following months on Wikichan were uneventful. On the talk pages, there was discussion about recreating Lynneth’s Holders chart and of the similarities between the Holders and The Lost Room (a 2006 miniseries about objects from an old motel room with weird powers). By mid-to-late April, Wikichan had written or catalogued approximately 217 Holder’s Objects (based on a rough count from the available archives).

In mid-May, Wikichan permanently crashed.[42]A bit more specifically, Wikichan crashed on or between May 11, 2008; (the last actual archive of Wikichan on the Wayback Machine) to May 16 (the next attempted archive of Wikichan which shows only a … Continue reading Theholders.org thus became the sole source for the Holders.

The Era of Theholders.org

Gilded Age (2008-2009)

Following the collapse of Wikichan, Theholders.org saw a surge of brand new users two of whom, Arca and Torodugoru, would be promoted to moderators by Sysop. Original characters such as Jack Empty and Edo were added to the series in 2008 and 2009, respectively. [43]Jack Empty is an entity who is utterly soulless and empty on the inside; he is somewhere between Seeker and Holder. Edo is described as non-existence incarnate and as a devourer of life and reality. New Holder’s Objects were also posted at a rapid pace. Data from the Internet Archive shows that in 2008, Theholders.org went from missing the vast majority of the purported Holder’s Objects in January to having less than three dozen unclaimed slots in December.

In the above chart, columns represent actual data from the Internet archive while the dotted line is a trend line.

While the growth looks impressive, it was fueled by poor writing. The website allowed users to immediately post Holders Tales to the Object list without any sort of review. In theory, users were supposed to work with other members once the story had been posted to improve it. In actuality, many members posted Holders Tales and then ceased responding to the Holders community. Theholders.org lacked any standardized form of quality review beyond moderators deleting the worst of the worst and placing the rest in the Needs Revising category. Even when an Object was deleted, it would be quickly replaced by another poorly written Object. Poorly written Objects quickly filled the main list. As there were only a limited number of slots open, every poorly written Object represented a well-written Object that could not be posted.

On December 3, 2008,[44]The Holders Series – theholders.org (archive.org), the Legion’s Objects category was created. These Objects consisted of 2000 additional Objects that had been collected by Legion (a Seeker of mythological status) and that were now considered lost.[45]The Holders Series – theholders.org (archive.org)[46]Legion and the 2000 lost Objects were both present on Wikichan since at least April 2007. While Theholders.org did not create this lore, December 2008 was the first time in which the lore would be … Continue reading Many of Legion’s Objects were just standard Objects with numbers exceeding 538. Others depicted Holders’ realms that had been utterly wrecked by Legion. After the main Object slot was filled in early 2009, Legion’s Objects would be the only place to post additional Objects.

In February 2009, a forum was added to the original website.[47]The Holders Series – theholders.org (archive.org) An active community quickly formed on it, which existed to a greater or lesser extent until the summer of 2013.

In October 2009, Arca made a forum post requesting forum members go through the main website, identify any Objects that were poorly written, and offer solutions as to how they could be improved. Arca also requested that anyone writing new Objects message him so that it could be added to the main list if there was a deletion; Arca hoped this would allow well-written Objects to beat out poorly-written Objects whenever a slot opened up. While Arca’s post resulted in many pages of discussion, it did not result in a noticeable improvement to the writing quality of the website.[48]TheHolders.org • View topic – We’ve got work to do. (READ ME) (archive.org)

Stagnation (2009-2012)

As time went on, community activity dropped to moderation and a few core members. The year 2012 nearly marked the end of the Holders series. Torodugoru and Sysop made their last visits to the website in January and February (respectively). Spammers became a major problem during this time period due to the loss of staff. Spambots quickly filled the forums with posts consisting of random text plucked from various websites.[49]An example of a spambot post can be seen here.The sole active moderator, Arca, and the last of the core members continued to post on the forums throughout the year 2012.

The Holders II

Efforts to revitalize (2012-July 2013)

Discussion about revitalizing the Holders started around the summer of 2012.[50]TheHolders.org • View topic – We’ve got work to do. (READ ME) (archive.org) These discussions became far more frequent by the end of the year. KingFisher and Taneli quickly established themselves as leaders in this recovery effort. Eventually, the remaining users held a vote and agreed that a second generation of Holder’s Objects was needed to preserve the Holders. Many forums posts revolved around how this would be accomplished, what stories would be kept and what the new quality requirements would be. However, it became apparent that theholders.org website would not be a suitable place for the new generation. With Sysop missing and Arca only occasionally active, no one had the technical controls over the website needed to make a new generation successful. After several Skype conferences, the decision was made to migrate to a new website.

During the efforts to move the community to a new website, Arca and KingFisher started to disagree over the role of the community in the Holders. Arca believed that the primary purpose of the Holders website was writing and that any community forming was a secondary concern. Kingfisher emphasized building a community so more people would want to post writings.[51]Arca made this post as a direct result of the disagreement.

A temporary forum and the fate of Theholders.org (July 2013)

On July 7, 2013, Taneli created a new temporary forum at http://theholders.jfbs.net/ to serve as a central planning hub for the new website.[52]The Holders Forum (archive.org)  The forum was abandoned after only a few weeks upon the creation of the permanent website.

During its short existence, the forum maintained a section for posting and reviewing new Holders stories.[53]The Holders Forum -> New Stories (archive.org) There was also discussion about what Objects from the first generation to include in the second; there was general agreement that some Objects should be kept but no consensus on which.[54]The Holders Forum -> Keeping old work (archive.org)

Back on Theholders.org, Arca was the sole active community member who had stayed behind. He eventually went dormant and the spambots started to take down all of the stories from the original website and clog up the forums. The first-generation website was dead from thereon out.

A new website (July-November 2013)

Taneli created the new Holders II website by July 23, 2013.[55]Holders Series (archive.org)  She immediately locked the website to editing and told anyone with Generation II Holders stories to post them to the forum.[56]http://web.archive.org/web/20131015234743/http://holdersseries.com/rules.html

The website itself is barely archived, but I was personally there for the events. People were initially incredibly excited. By this point members of the Holders community had generated a huge backlog of new stories and were eager for them to be published. There was also a ton of discussion about what the new Holders series would look like and about archiving the original Holders Objects from Theholders.org (which by this point was completely overrun by spambots).

During this time, there was apparently a lot of drama amongst leadership and in the Holders Skype chat. I did not have access to any of these discussions, but the fact they were occurring managed to slip out.

As time went on, activity on the website started to die down. Taneli successfully archived the Holders I stories, but no one was able to actually publish the stories that had been written specifically for the new website. Conversation on the forums died down almost completely as members just waited for something to happen. Nothing ever did.

Return to Theholders.org

On November 26, 2013, Sysop finally returned from his long absence. He reverted the main website to its July 1st version (which restored the series list) and deleted most of the forum to eliminate spambot posts. He also claimed that “theholders.org@gmail.com now forwards to my personal e-mail address and flags incoming messages bright and bold”. The next day, Sysop stated in the forums that he would start improving the website’s software to prevent future spam attacks.[57]http://web.archive.org/web/20160804044408/http://theholders.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3773&start=0[58]https://web.archive.org/web/20200430031722/http://theholders.org/?Special:News

By November 28th, the Second Generation website was shut down by Taneli and the community migrated back to TheHolders.org forum. By this point, the community had lost interest in the second generation of Holders and were largely discussing ways to improve the original series. Contributors refocused their efforts on improving the original series while the second generation was effectively abandoned.[59]http://web.archive.org/web/20160804044408/http://theholders.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3773&start=0

Unfortunately, Sysop’s changes had the unintended side effect of completely locking Theholders.org to editing. He made a forum post on December 18 claiming he was looking into the issue;[60]http://web.archive.org/web/20160804035224/http://theholders.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3808 this was the last time Sysop would ever be seen. Many contributors attempted contact Sysop in the following years, but none were successful.

The main website would not be edited again until December 2019, when Arca made a test edit to a Holders article.[61]https://web.archive.org/web/20200430031734/http://theholders.org/?Special:Recent_Changes Presumably, his moderator permissions allowed him to bypass whatever was locking out the general membership. This would be the last edit ever made to Theholders.org.

As for the forum, activity heavily died down after Sysop’s temporary return. Over the following years, a few older users would occasionally pop in and newer members would sometimes question what happened to the website. There would also be occasional discussion about reviving the Holders, but these discussions never went anywhere.

While Sysop presumably kept paying to keep the website and forums up, Theholders.org suffered from many crashes during this time period.[62]Arca Gunnay on The Holders: Part I In one instance, the website and forum “404ed” for nearly a month before coming back online.[63]TheHolders.org • View topic – Site went down for nearly a month (archive.org)

Theholders.org would eventually crash for good, most likely in late 2020 or early 2021.[64]The last archive the Holders website I was able to find came from October 1, 2020. Theholders.org was unquestionably deleted by February 27, 2021. I published The SCP Foundation on 4chan and EditThis … Continue reading

Discord

In 2017, several members of the forum started discussing creation a Discord server. At least two users created Holders themed Discord servers, but they would all end up deleted or abandoned.[65]http://web.archive.org/web/20200926091022/http://theholders.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3859&p=10714[66]http://web.archive.org/web/20200926083825/http://theholders.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3878[67]http://web.archive.org/web/20200926072350/http://theholders.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3858

Another Holders Discord, appropriately titled “The Holders”, was created in July of 2018[68]the date of the first post of the “General” category; the link to the website made its way to Theholders.org forum before its deletion. Unlike the forum and other attempts at servers, the “The Holders” Discord server has remained incredibly active and often receives multiple posts a day. A few of the members were members of the older website, but many are new to the community.

The Discord server maintains a story compendium. Created in 2019, it has received a trickle of Holders tales and other stories from the Holders mythos. There has also been some discussion of another revival; a few members even created their own Holders websites. However, none of these efforts have really taken off.

What the future holds for the Discord is a mystery. Perhaps it will die a slow death as its members lose interest and the last bastion of the Holders crumbles into obscurity. Or perhaps the members may rally around a new website, and the Holders series can begin again. Only the future will tell.

 

Trivia

While The Holders predated SCP, both were being developed at the same time.[69]http://scparchives.bluesoul.net/x/scp/474429.html

By mid 2008, both The Holders and the SCP Series were considered passe on 4chan’s /x/, with some individuals begrudging The Holders especially, and with one referring to it as “the series-that-shouldn’t-be-named”.[70]http://scparchives.bluesoul.net/x/scp/599028.html On the contrary, one anonymous user wrote in April 2008: “Ever since SCP has taken hold as the new AIDS filled HEY EVERYBODY LOOK I CAN WRITE ONE TOO, I can’t help but feel the Holders has been refreshed ever so slightly.”[71]http://scparchives.bluesoul.net/x/scp/599028.html

A book compilation of The Holders was suggested on /x/ in May 2008.[72]https://archive.ph/7fuOh


The SCF and Confic Wiki would like to recognize and thank Cooldude971 for his amazing work.

References

References
1 /b/ – Random » Thread #12344620 (sage.moe) (archive), post # 12351846
2 Oldfriend Archive » Stats (sage.moe) (archive)
3 https://old.sage.moe/b/thread/13737884/ (archive), post # 13746526
4 https://old.sage.moe/b/thread/17529846/, post # 17530500 (archive)
5 https://old.sage.moe/b/thread/18293951/#18298279 (archive)
6 https://old.sage.moe/b/thread/18525751/ (archive)
7, 8, 10 Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)
9 Holders series – WikiChan (archive.org)
11 Wikichan – Wikichan (archive.org)
12 http://web.archive.org/web/20071117061530/http://wikichan.org/index.php/Talk:Holders_Series#Can.27t_we_just
13, 14 /b/ – Random » Thread #18632177 (sage.moe) (archive)
15 /b/ – Random » Thread #18632177 (sage.moe) (archive)
16 See, for example, /b/ – Random » Thread #18640800 (sage.moe) (archive)
17 Holders series – WikiChan (archive.org); Holders series – WikiChan (archive.org)
18 Wikichan:Downtime – Wikichan (archive.org)
19 Talk:Holders series – Wikichan (archive.org)
20 Talk:Holders series – Wikichan (archive.org)
21 Talk:Holders series – Wikichan (archive.org)
22 Talk:Holders series – Wikichan (archive.org)
23 Talk:Holders series – Wikichan (archive.org) (see text at very top)
24 Talk:Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)
25 Talk:Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)
26 Talk:Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)
27 http://web.archive.org/web/20071117061530/http://wikichan.org/index.php/Talk:Holders_Series#The_Keepers
28 In a bit more detail, the preamble consisted of an introduction to the series, purportedly found next to the corpse “a blind man, his body chewed on by numerous cats” whose body showed no evidence of cause or even signs of death. This scenario took heavy inspiration from the book House of Leaves. The actual description of the Holders contained several oddities: it occasionally referred to the Holders as “Keepers” and it stated that those who carelessly handled an Object risked becoming a Holder (a concept absent from the actual series).
29 Talk:Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)
30 Talk:Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)
31 The Wikichan talk page would not be archived again until early February. During this time, the discussion on FBI-san was apparently deleted. FBI-san’s fanfiction profile was deleted without being saved in the Wayback Machine
32 Talk:Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)
33 The oldest edit on the wiki I was able to find came from November 27, 2007. A now-deleted forum post claimed that Theholders.org went live on December 27. It is possible that Sysop kept Theholders.org secret for some time.
34 The Holders Series – theholders.org (archive.org)
35, 36, 62 Arca Gunnay on The Holders: Part I
37 Talk:Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)
38, 40 Talk:Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)
39 This message, posted to the Holder of the End’s talk page, may have been Whatever’s initial communication with  Theholders.org. I can’t be certain however, as the page’s edit history was not archived and the poster failed to sign or date their comment.
41 Talk:Holders Series – Wikichan (archive.org)
42 A bit more specifically, Wikichan crashed on or between May 11, 2008; (the last actual archive of Wikichan on the Wayback Machine) to May 16 (the next attempted archive of Wikichan which shows only a 404 error message).
43 Jack Empty is an entity who is utterly soulless and empty on the inside; he is somewhere between Seeker and Holder. Edo is described as non-existence incarnate and as a devourer of life and reality.
44 The Holders Series – theholders.org (archive.org)
45 The Holders Series – theholders.org (archive.org)
46 Legion and the 2000 lost Objects were both present on Wikichan since at least April 2007. While Theholders.org did not create this lore, December 2008 was the first time in which the lore would be expanded upon by additional writers.
47 The Holders Series – theholders.org (archive.org)
48 TheHolders.org • View topic – We’ve got work to do. (READ ME) (archive.org)
49 An example of a spambot post can be seen here.
50 TheHolders.org • View topic – We’ve got work to do. (READ ME) (archive.org)
51 Arca made this post as a direct result of the disagreement.
52 The Holders Forum (archive.org)
53 The Holders Forum -> New Stories (archive.org)
54 The Holders Forum -> Keeping old work (archive.org)
55 Holders Series (archive.org)
56 http://web.archive.org/web/20131015234743/http://holdersseries.com/rules.html
57, 59 http://web.archive.org/web/20160804044408/http://theholders.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3773&start=0
58 https://web.archive.org/web/20200430031722/http://theholders.org/?Special:News
60 http://web.archive.org/web/20160804035224/http://theholders.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3808
61 https://web.archive.org/web/20200430031734/http://theholders.org/?Special:Recent_Changes
63 TheHolders.org • View topic – Site went down for nearly a month (archive.org)
64 The last archive the Holders website I was able to find came from October 1, 2020. Theholders.org was unquestionably deleted by February 27, 2021. I published The SCP Foundation on 4chan and EditThis on the SCP Foundation website a day earlier and was informed that the Holders website (which is linked to in the essay) had been deleted. I edited the article on February 27, 2021 with the edit comment “Holders website was deleted; linking to Wayback Machine archive.”
65 http://web.archive.org/web/20200926091022/http://theholders.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3859&p=10714
66 http://web.archive.org/web/20200926083825/http://theholders.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3878
67 http://web.archive.org/web/20200926072350/http://theholders.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3858
68 the date of the first post of the “General” category
69 http://scparchives.bluesoul.net/x/scp/474429.html
70, 71 http://scparchives.bluesoul.net/x/scp/599028.html
72 https://archive.ph/7fuOh