Twenty One Pilots started out in 2009 with Tyler Joseph, Nick Thomas and Chris Salih. The name twenty-one pilots comes from a play titled All my Sons by Aurther Miller. In this play, a man in the military sends out faulty parts that were to be used in aircraft, which ends up killing twenty-one pilots. Nick and Chris ended up leaving after their first album due to lack of popularity. Josh Dun ended up taking their places as they began the second album. Tyler and Josh have been the only band members since. The fanbase for the group are called the Skeleton Clique, or the Clique for short. Both Tyler and Josh are Christians and put a lot of religious imagery and meaning into their music.

Tyler Joseph

Josh Dun

They currently have 6 albums, 2 of which were not a part of their record label FuledByRamen. The albums include the Self Titled album and Regional at Best which were their albums that were put out before they joined their record label, and Vessel, Blurryface, Trench, and Scaled and Icy which are the 4 albums with their record label. Self Titled is available on music sites but not on a physical copy, Regional at Best isn't available in a physical copy or on music sites and was almost wiped from the internet in 2019, and the other 4 albums are available in physical copy as well as on every streaming site.

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Vessel was their third album and first studio album. Vessel does not fit too tightly into the story except for a few references here and there, Spooky Jim, and Nigel, who is becoming a more prominent character as the story progresses.
During the Vessel tour, Twenty One Pilots had a narrator named Nigel during their shows who would introduce songs and talk to the boys and audience throughout the show. Nigel has continued to follow us during tours as a companion and narrator. A key point to remember is that Nigel has been married for over 475 years, meaning he is a very old character. Nigel has gained fans' trust throughout the years and was seen as a friend. We also got the classic poem/quote from this era about bones, “time stands still, time stands still, there’s a metaphor at hand, a metaphoric blast, which only few will understand. under clothes, under skin, underneath we’re all the same, for when you remove the tricky tricks, only skeleton bones remain.”, which comes into play in many areas of the lore and band.

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Blurryface is the name of their second studio album as well as the character Tyler Joseph created for this era. The album came out on May 17th 2015.

Who is Blurryface?

Blurryface is the name of Tyler's insecurities, worst fears and the voice who tells him he is not good enough personified. He was created so Tyler could “give him a seat at the table” making it easier for Tyler to defeat him. He got his name because when you give into your fears and insecurities, you start to lose sight of who you are as a person.
Blurryface has many different forms, the most common being a copy of Tyler. He sometimes takes the form of a dog, a skeleton or other human-like forms. His main appearance is Tyler with red eyes and a deep voice. This is used to show how much Blurryface is a part of Tyler.
He also has a black neck and hands, which is something he shares with Tyler. The black represents Tyler's insecurities. The black neck is representative of Tyler’s insecurity of what he says, more specifically what he sings, and the black hands represent the fear of what he creates.
The whole album is about Tyler trying to defeat Blurryface. Tyler sees the Clique (the name given to the fanbase, ‘The Skeleton Clique’) as a cure to Blurryface. In certain songs, you can hear Blurryface speaking through a deep voice and in the song Fairly Local, there is a lyric that he says which is “this song will never be on the radio” showing how Tyler is scared of whether or not his songs will be popular and what people will think of it. He wants to be good enough for everyone. This corresponds with the black paint and how Blurryface is feeding into his fears. But the fact that so many people attend the concerts shows Tyler that this isn’t exactly true. During the shows, as Tyler sweats, the black paint slowly starts to fade away, showing that Blurryface is losing control over Tyler as the night progresses. The paint fading out is a symbol of Tyler overcoming Blurryfaces control through the help of the fanbase and his music.

The Blurryface Twitter Account

The Blurryface twitter carrd made by twitter user @_bIurryface is a wonderful resource for familiarising yourself with this timeline.

• blurryface timeline carrd

WORK IN PROGRESS
i will put my own section on the twt acc on here soon, but for now use kars' carrd as she is super knowlegdable on this era :)

Other Things to Note

The concerts are also a very important thing when it comes to the lore. Like I said earlier, Tyler’s paint would fade during the show which would represent how Tyler was becoming free of Blurry’s control until the show ends. The track list was another important aspect of the show. Heavy Dirty Soul was the opening song because of the music video and because it is the first song on the album. The music video shows Tyler in a car that is being driven by a hooded figure. This figure is said to be Blurryface who is trying to kill Tyler as well as Josh who is playing the drums on the road Blurry is driving on. Josh is what saves Tyler, and if he wasn't there Blurry would have succeeded in killing Tyler.

The videos and visuals played at concerts are also to note. At some point during the concert, there was a dark video that was played that showed Josh moving around a house either before or after a concert. He would grab water from a fridge, walk up stairs and perform other normal tasks such as those while a deep voice spoke over the video. The voice was accompanied by a group of people who were standing around the house as Josh moved around. The people would either watch him move or would do things like open the fridge door. The voice said very unencouraging things and we figured out that this voice and these people are Josh’s fears and insecurities. The people being in every room and every shot and the voice following him showed us how he cannot escape them. This was Josh’s 'Blurryface'.

• Josh dun emotional roadshow

During the concerts, Tyler would obviously be sweating from all the performing and running around. This plays an integral role in his symbolic freedom from Blurryface, as the sweat from performing to the clique, to the people that make him know that his music and him as a person as worth it, makes the black paint on his neck and hands slowly drip off and away. This is him slowly becoming free from Blurryfaces clutches and finding his freedom once more. As it goes, the cycle starts up and continues at every new concert, repeating over and over just like every cycle in their music and the lore.

The album is meant to be seen as a constant loop. The album loops because battling mental illness is a cycle too. You start off strong, fight and fight, but things get tiring at some point and you reach a low. But the low will leave and you will continue the cycle once again by starting your fight. The album is a reminder that no matter how bad the end of the cycle may seem when you feel your worst, it is worth it to stay alive and to start fighting once again. The album was created for Tyler to fight his demons but also to be used as a support system from others. They always say “stay alive” to their fans and to everyone else who comes across their work, and they put out their albums as a reminder of this moto.

Lyric Alalysis and Hints to Lore

WORK IN PROGRESS

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I am only going to touch on Heathens very briefly as an introduction to Trench.
In the Heathens music video, Tyler mainly wears an orange jumpsuit, except for during the performance. We see Tyler walk around the jail, watching Josh play the drums and following the yellow stage Josh is on. Throughout the jail, there are also random yellow streaks, which are very similar to the yellow duct tape that became popularised during Trench. When Tyler gets on the stage to perform with Josh, he changes into a yellow suit. They start to play and prisoners gather around the stage to watch. Tyler sees them gathering and self consciously touches his neck, which has black paint on it. They start to really get into the performance and the prisoners are seen jumping up and down. This is seen as a riot and the prisoners along with Josh escape the prison. The camera goes close to Tyler's face, and as it zooms out, Tyler’s clothes fade from yellow to orange. The final shot is of Tyler sitting alone on the floor as guards come up to him. Keep this in mind during the Trench era.

• heathens mv

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You're soon going to learn this is my fave era :,)
After the tour they did in Columbus, Twenty One Pilots went on a year-long hiatus. For the most part, we did not get any interaction on social media until the APMAs where the band was nominated and won the award for most dedicated fanbase. Josh was the only one to go up to accept the award and he said Tyler couldn’t be there because he was “off severing ties with Dema.”. Fans did some digging and found out that Dema was actually connected to something called a tower of silence. A fan tweeted this and Blurryface liked the tweet which gave us the first major clue to the narrative of Trench.

On the Twenty One Pilots merch store, there are videos for each era that includes snippets of the music videos put together with a song playing over it. On the Vessel album clip, the last snippet was of Car Radio and at the end there was static before the video stops. On the 20th of April 2018, fans saw that the static was changed to include letters which when put together created a link, dmaorg.info, that would send you to an error page.

This error page included a violation code at the bottom and a secret message. The message was East Is Up and this was found by putting the capital letters in the message on the website together. If you took the violation code and added it to the url, you would be taken to another website which came to be known as the Dema Website. This website included many letters from someone named Clancy as well as a map and other strange images. There were 9 images to start off with.

• dema webstie

The Images on the Dema Website

There were many images that didn’t directly affect the storyline, like a gif of a cheetah running. This is obviously referencing the song Pet Cheetah. There was a photo that ended up being a shot of Trench from the Jumpsuit mv.

018 07MOON 18

There was also a photo of a child that, once put through a reverse google image search, came up with a photo of the child and Andre Weil. Andre was the founder of the Bourbaki group, who were a group of mathematicians who created the null sign/empty set (ø) which is something twenty one pilots use in their name a lot. They also had a lot of religious beliefs that tie into the story line later on. They proved through mathematics that God exists, and as Christians, this ties in with a lot of Tyler and Josh’s beliefs. The moon on this photo was 011 07MOON 08, which relates to the release of Regional at Best.

(Image found from reverse google image.)There are many interesting images, but the the images that are of the most importance are the letters from Clancy and the map of Dema.Other Website Updates
An audio clip was uploaded, which when reversed was revealed to be Tyler saying “we are banditos” backwards. Additionally, the filename for this audio clip was 201851438.m4a. When these numbers are assigned letters, they spell out TRENCH.

The Tower of Silence

013 01MOON 08, relating to the release of Vessel. One of the first images that showed up was a map of a circular structure. Because of our prior knowledge of what a tower of silence is, we were able to see that the structure matches the layout of a tower of silence almost exactly.
A tower of silence is a structure that Zoroastrains (Zoroastrain - one of the world's oldest religions that had influence on other religions such as Christianity. It contains a dualistic approach to life and humanity.) would build in order to get rid of dead bodies. Birds in the area, specifically vultures, would eat the bodies. This wasn’t just seen as a good way to get rid of bodies but also a way to cure the souls of the dead before they enter heaven. They believed the vultures would help this curing process. One of the bigger reasons for the failure of this religion was because there weren’t enough vultures around to eat the dead, which is interesting given the lore.

Dema is a tower of silence in the world of Trench. It contains 9 circles in the middle with buildings surrounding them and rectangles surrounding those. The nine circles had words around them such as Sacaver and Vetomo. Fans followed the hint given earlier, East Is Up, and rotated the map so east was up. The Blurryface album cover contains 9 circles, so fans tried to match up the names on the circles on the map with the songs that correspond with the circles. For example, once the map was rotated, Keons was the circle in the top left corner on the map and the circle in the top left corner on the album is Heavy Dirty Soul. Fans searched through the lyrics of the songs to see if anything would add up and saw that each name was a song lyric. These names belong to 9 different bishops who rule over the tower (the circle) that their name is over. Each tower is a different height, showcasing how has the most power depending on how tall their tower is. Nico’s is the tallest.

The names and the songs are as follows:Andre - And repeat yesterday's dance (Fairly Local)
Lisden - All I feel is denial (Polarize)
Keons - choke on smoke (Heavy Dirty Soul)
Nico - none (Stressed Out)
Reisdro - temperature is dropping (Doubt)
Sacaver - she's a carver (Tear in my Heart)
Nills - beaten down i'll slip away (Goner)
Vetomo - will they be alive tomorrow (Lane Boy)
Listo - list of people (Ride)Next to each tower is an area that is also ruled by a specific bishop. This is where the citizens of Dema live. Each person has a bishop who rules over them, so they live in the area that the bishop who rules over them rules over. The outer layer of Dema consists of neon gravestones.
Dema is a very well protected and difficult to escape structure. In one of Clancys journal entries, he notes that the west side is blocked off. The only way to get out of Dema is by going underneath. You can’t take the high road and just leave, you have to go low.
On the website, under the map was another file that had the following caption: “gEt out. the compAss lies. they don't control you. get out. the compaSs lies. They don't control you. get out. the compass lIeS. they don't control yoU.get out. the comPass lies. they don't control you.” Note that the capital letters spell out east is up.

The Bishops

The Bishops are the 9 rulers of Dema and of its citizens. We only have solid insight on Nico and Keons, but we have started to get more information on Sacaver and Lisden. They all wear red cloaks with mesh in front of their faces. The mesh makes it hard to make out their features, making their faces almost blurry (get it?).
The 9 bishops all have their own song that describes who they are. Each bishop represents a fear/insecurity that controls people. For example, Polarise is a song about not being able to differentiate between good and evil, so you don’t know who you are as a person. This is something that could control people, not knowing who you are and not knowing if what you're doing is good or bad. Nico is the only exception to this.
Nico’s song is Stressed Out which is the band’s most popular song, the first song to mention Blurryface by name, and the song that contains Blurryface the most. There are no lyrics in the song that contain ‘Nico’. Because of this, we have come to the conclusion that Blurryface is Nico, meaning Nico is Tyler’s Bishop.
Nico’s true name is Nicolas Bourbaki. Nicolas Bourbaki or The Bourbaki group was a group of mathematicians who came up with the O with the slash in it that Twenty One Pilots used in the Blurryface era. The Bourbaki Group was founded by Andre Weil, who was the leader of this group. In Dema, Nico is the main Bishop and the other 8 Bishops are a product of him. He is the root of everything. The other Bishops are smaller parts of what Nico is. The other Bishops represent specific fears/insecurities while Nico is a collective of them all. He is the most powerful and also the most dangerous.
The Bishops control the people in Dema without them knowing. They brainwash them and make them believe that everything in Dema is good and you should listen to them when in reality, Dema is evil and something you should reject. They tell people that they have a home in Dema and are protected, but people start to realise that that is not the case. The bishops have a motive, and that is for you to take your own life and become one with the neon gravestones.
The Bishops feed off the life of the citizens of Dema (like the vultures feed on the bodies found in a tower of silence) and grow stronger every time one of the citizens takes their life.

The Banditos

The other major group in Trench are the Banditos. The Banditos are a group of people who were able to see that Dema is evil and escape, and who help other people escape. They identify each other by wearing the colour yellow because the bishops cannot see yellow. Yellow is a colour that represents happiness and hope, and the bishops cannot see it because they are the opposite of those things. The Banditos represent those who want to help you overcome your mental illness, such as your friends and family. Josh is one of the main Banditos and helped Tyler escape Dema.

Trench

Trench is the place outside of Dema that you end up in once you escape the city. It is a very tough terrain that challenges you. The Banditos have their camp outside of Trench where they can see you at the bottom of the Trench. They do not go into the Trench when they help you. Instead, they stay on the cliffs and watch over you to make sure you are safe. If a Bishop comes looking for you and smears you (smearing - the act of making you forget Trench, the Banditos and everything bad about Dema. They do this to make you believe that Dema is good once you have figured out it is actually bad and this helps them bring you back to Dema. This is the start of their brainwashing process), they will throw yellow flower petals to break you out of the smearing spell in hopes that you can escape. If you are able to get through Trench, you will reach the Bandito camp where they will welcome you. If not, you may be dragged back to Dema. Even if you do make it to the camp, there is no guarantee you will stay. The Bishops find ways to get to the camp to capture you and take you back to Dema where they will brainwash you to forget all the good of Trench and all the bad of Dema until you either escape again or commit to vialism.
It is a constant cycle, just like struggling with mental health is a constant struggle. However, once you have gone through trench once, the next time you go through you will find it easier as you now know ways to fight against the bishops and the tough landscape, meaning you will make it to the bandito camp easier.

Vialism and the Neon Gravestones

While the Bishops are evil, vialism is the true enemy of Trench and everyone in the world.
Vialism is a religion in Dema that the bishops force onto the citizens. Vialism is the worship of neon/false lighting and the glorification of suicide.
In Dema, natural lighting such as fire is not allowed. Instead, you use false lights such as glowing neon objects. The Banditos are the only people who use natural lighting. The Bishops tell you that their light is the only true light and that it is a form of hope and safety. This is false, as hope and safety comes from natural lighting and their lighting is fake. Their light is false hope and false safety. The Bishops use false light to trick you into thinking its true light so you will follow them and their religion.
Because of this, the citizens see neon gravestones as good. They think the graves are what is going to free them and make them happy, but once you understand that the fake light is actually bad, you realise that this isn't the case and that the gravestones are something you want to avoid. This realisation is what makes people want to escape, because if you don’t, the religion will consume you and you will commit to vialism, which means you take your life.
This is the Bishops’ goal, to make you commit to vialism. The neon gravestones on the outer areas of Dema are there to honour and glorify those who committed to vialism. They glorify suicide and are the exact opposite of what Twenty One Pilots are. The band is about staying alive and getting through the tough parts, so the gravestones look like the band's symbol but upside down. This is similar to how Satanists use the upside down version of the Christian cross. Realising that vialism is evil is the first step to escaping Dema.

Clancy

The main aspect of the Dema Website were the journal entries from a character named Clancy.
Clancy was a citizen of Dema ruled by Keons who tried to escape Dema. Clancy spoke about how he realised he needed to leave during his ninth year in Dema and managed to reach Trench. During his time in Trench, he saw Tyler walking around and spoke about how he watched Nico smeer Tyler before the Banditos dropped the flower petals. Tyler then broke free from Nico and ran, only to be knocked out and captured again. Clancy described Nico as being the most ruthless Bishop he had ever encountered. This is because Nico is the leader of the bishops.
Clancy describes Keons as being a father figure to him. Keons was kind as well as cruel and Clancy looked up to him for his demeanour. He didn't realise until his ninth year (Twenty One Pilots had existed for 9 years when this information came out) that Keons wasn’t there to look after him and Clancy wanted to see what was on the other side of Dema’s walls. Clancy was able to get out of Dema but soon returned when Keons came to retrieve him. Once he returned, Clancy spoke about he wasn't sure whether Dema was good and Trench was bad or if it was the other way around. He started to doubt if Dema was his home and detailed how he was confused and distressed about it all.
He continued to go back and forth between trusting Dema and questioning it before coming to the conclusion that it is evil and he was able to escape to the Banditos. They tried to get more people out, and things were going good for a while, but by the end of Trench, Clancy is taken hostage for good this time.

Clancy's Letters

988 06MOON 18
This moon is Josh’s birthday. On the sides of this typed up letter, you can read “WEST WALL IS BLOCKED EAST IS UP”. The letter mentions it being Clancy’s ninth year, and this was posted in 2018, the bands 9th year of being active.“The perplexities of the Dema horizon didn't occur to me until my ninth year. It was then that I began to contemplate the existential, and decide what type of impression I wanted my life to make. Naturally, to fuel my hope, I looked out upon the distance of the land that had cultivated me, only this time with a new awareness of the obstruction that my youthful ignorance had allowed me to overlook. Was it there the whole time? How had I not seen something so obvious? I am reminded of the moment daily, as the idealization directly collides with a unique hope for my own future. As a child, I looked upon Dema with wonder, today, I am wrought with frustration, as I spend each day squinting for a glimpse of the top of the looming wall that has kept us here. It was upon my ninth year that I learned that Dema wasn’t my home. This village, after all of this time, was my trap.
Before I became realized, I had deep affection for Dema. There was a wonderful structure to the city that put my cares to rest. Streets and locations were dependable, and the responsibilities of the day seemed to be accomplished with minimal effort. Once a task was taught and understood, we delighted in our ability to complete our obligations timely, and felt secure in knowing tomorrow’s duties would be accomplished with the same efficiency. We all worked to represent our bishop with honor, and knew that each inhabitant of our region had a like-minded dedication to consistency.
Keons embodied the spirit of this dedication. Of Dema’s nine bishops, Keons was revered as unwavering and forthright, possessing the ability to achieve focus that was rare for most on our region. We all admired him, and felt honored to be inhabitants his region. While we had heard legion of the ruthlessness of other bishops, Keons possessed a stoic demeanor unlike anyone I had ever met, and we were all proud to serve.
- Clancy”009 12MOON 29
This moon is for the release of their Self Titled album. These are vultures on a tower of silence. The caption on the photo was deatheaterz.

017 07MOON 07
This moon was the date the hiatus began. In the letter, there are several missing letters, which, when found and put together, spell out “you are still sleeping”.“To refer to Dema as m[y] home has never felt accurate. Dema, t[o] me, has simply been the place that I’ve existed, or, the ‘slot’ they’ve put me in. I’ve heard stories abo[u]t the ide[a] of “home,” and its depiction has always seemed warm f[r]om the storyt[e]llers’s de[s]cription. [T]here was a romant[i]c ownership of the p[l]ace they inhabited that I admired, but cou[l]d never relate to. Thi[s] place, my p[l]ace, however, s[e]ems devoid of the romance and wond[e]r that the old stories tell. But somewhere between the iron order and infallible [p]recis[i]on of Dema, a hum of wo[n]der exists. It’s this quiet wonder that my mind tends to [g]ets lost in. This hope of discovery alone has birthed a new version of myself; A better version, I hope, that will find a way to experience what’s beyond these colossal walls.
- Clancy”017 07MOON 16
Cheetah running gif with letters flashing on screen. The letter type out UNSTILLIDONTCKNOWOHISNREALINAMECDOOU? Take out the words “NICO NICO” and it types out “U STILL DON’T KNOW HIS REAL NAME DO U?” obviously referring to the fact we called Nico Blurryface for 3 years, even though his true name is Nico.017 07MOON 17
Date of the APMA show where josh accepted the award by himself and mentioned Dema. The photo is of the Banditos at the top of the Trench, watching whoever is at the bottom trying to escape Dema.

018 07MOON 01
A gif of a vulture turning its head towards us, followed by a letter.“A lifeless light surrounds us each night. Never could I imagine that something so luminous could feel so dark. It’s this glow that reminds us of the dreamless existence we’ve been sentenced to. But what I call a sentence, others accept as normalcy. How did they so efficiently eradicate the dreams within us? When the bishops instituted Vialism as mandate, they effectively reversed the hope that many arrived with.
Am I the only one who realizes that we’ve been lied to? Am I the only one not afraid of the notion that the nine have hijacked our trust, and extinguished the hope that once motivated our existence? We used to close our eyes and picture a better life, now this city is full of dry eyes caught in a trance of obedience, devoid of any trace of an identity. The only significant light I’ve seen has been in the eyes of those smeared - such a curious sight, to see bright eyes strangled by the darkness of bishop hands. As their penance fades, so dims their memory of something more. My hope of something more is all I have in this rigid tomb, and I will not let it die.
- Clancy”There was also an update with yellow strips earlier on. When you put those yellow strips as an overlay on this letter, the yellow-ed letters spell out “we are banditios”.018 07MOON 05
“They’re asleep. The night took forever to arrive, and now we’re almost ready. We’ve studied the watchers and know that there’s no chance that we can step through unnoticed. So, instead of trying to hide ourselves, we’ll make sure that all of us are noticed. It’s been one
year since the last convocation, and tomorrow’s Annual Assemblage of Glorified will be the biggest spectacle this concrete coffin of a city has seen all year. If we time it right, we’ll divert the attention of the watchers and finally take the step though. We’ve had no contact, but we’re hoping the other side will be able to find a way in. We’re not sure of the breach location, but we are willing to risk being smeared in order to find it. We know that we must go lower, and wait for the torches. They’ve never seen anything quite like this, and by morning, everything will be different. I’m terrified and excited, all at the same time. They don’t control us.
- Clancy”Clancy names the following day as "one year since the last convocation." The next day, July 6th, also marked one year since the beginning of the hiatus.018 07MOON 06
Gif of torches.018 07MOON 08
“I’ve made it out. I feel weightless. I know that place had always held me down, but for the first time, I can feel the levity that I had hoped for. It’s been three nights now, and my breathing has changed. It’s slower, and more full. It’s like the air out here is worth taking in.
I can see it back in the distance, and I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t constantly on my mind. I wish I could turn that fear off, but maybe the further I go, the less that fear will affect me. I feel betrayed by what I assumed was home - if I ever end up back there, I won’t be able to look at it the same way.
They are asleep. They’re so sure that the know the truth, and carry on throughout their day with the same meaningless tasks. They’ve forgotten to look up, and to look outward, to understand that this isn’t about ‘in there.'
This is about ‘out here.’
This new world surrounds me. I used to think the walls back home were massive – these green cliffs engulf me, and place me right in the middle – Trench is quite precarious at times, and it’s easy to grow weary. But it’s real, and it’s true, and I’d much rather endure reality than to mindlessly be obedient to a life that someone else created for me. I’ve obsessed about this world for so long, that it feels more like home than anything I’ve experienced. Somehow, in this vast openness, I feel more protected than ever.
The landscape feels endless, and I’ve found myself walking for hours without any true evidence of getting further down. But I’ve seen plants and colors out here that I’m not sure I’ve witnessed before. There’s a beauty in the strangest places, and the curiosity of what’s next continues to motivate me.
I wonder who else is out here. If what I assumed inside is true, there’s got to be more like me. Sometimes I’ll feel a presence, or think I see something in my periphery, only to look up and see nothing. It’s just another thing that I’m afraid of that also excites me. It all just confirms all of the things that I hoped to be true for all of this time.
I am out here and I am very alive. I’m sometimes scared, but always discovering something new, and I will not stop. Cover me!
- Clancy”
018 07MOON 18
“I can’t believe what I just saw. I'm still trying to understand. This whole time I was sure I was all alone - a single soul in this vast unknown world. But a few days into this trek, I looked down to see a figure headed the same way I was. I’ve tucked myself in these caves and crevices, trying my best to keep hidden, but he was out in the open, making his exhausted journey right down the middle of Trench. I was curious enough to follow alongside the path with him. He seemed unaffected by the fear of the unknown - the fear that tends to cripple me. To him, the terrain seemed familiar, as if he had been out here before.
While lost in my curiosity, they appeared. I had heard about them back in Dema, but to my knowledge, the stories were merely myth. Ten, twenty, and then what seemed to be a hundred Banditos appeared upon the cliff, all looking down at him. He only stopped for a moment to look back up at them, and then continued on his way. His energy changed, and I wasn’t sure if he was frightened or encouraged by their ominous presence.
They warned him of what was about to come.
It was a blur. First seeing the figure, then the Banditos, only to now have my eyes opened to the oncoming Bishop upon a white horse drawing closer in the distance.
The figure halted, and waited. When the Bishop stopped, I was sure he looked up, directly at me, so I hid deeper back in a cave. The presence of the robed rider seemed to paralyze the man. He stood still as he was approached, powerless as the outstretched hands smeared his neck. I had never seen a Bishop possess power like this. Keons had always seemed gentle and warm - this Bishop, at least out here, seemed like something else.
So I ran, and I’ve been running for as long as my legs and lungs can handle. Maybe this note will be my proof that what I witnessed was not a dream. A million questions race through my brain. Am I not the only one traveling through Trench?
I’ll travel a little further, and maybe I’ll get a moment of rest tonight. I may have made a mistake, leaving. This spot, between two places, is beginning to feel like an endless and hopeless abyss. At least Dema is a place that I know, and at times like this, I miss a lot about what I know. This will all be much tougher than I imagined. Nothing out here is familiar. I’ve witnessed the presence of others for the first time today, and I feel more alone than ever. Cover me.
- Clancy”019 01MOON 22
Date the Chlorine music video came out. Some of the letter in the original letter double up on top of each other, and when you put them together, it spells ‘we are banditios’. The file name is 17-35.4527.jpg, which references chlorines atomic number (17) and atomic mass (35.4527g/mol).
“I can’t face this page for long enough to write what I’m truly feeling. I am only wrought with more questions about what I assumed to be true, questions about what my own path is, and the question that has plagued me every night that I lie here, back in city: Did I give up?
The force I saw between him and his bishop seemed tense to me, and frightening. But the memory of that exchange has had time to fester and replay in my mind long enough that I’m questioning if I even remembered it correctly. I assumed the bishop was forcefully retrieving his subject, but now I wonder if the bishop was actually trying to save him, and he refused.
I stayed out there for five days after I watched it happen. I haven’t seen him since. Maybe he got away, and was still out in Trench with me. Maybe the bishop chased him down, and brought him home.
Home?
Did I just call this place home?
After all of the endless beauty that I saw out there, am I now convincing myself that I’m actually better off within these confines?
I admit, it was more difficult than I expected. Nothing could have prepared me for how much the ‘unknown’ can consume me. Vast landscapes and endless possibilities, yet coupled with endless danger. I became anxious. I became tired. I became hungry. Every step I took became harder than the last, jumping from jagged rocky step to step, or pulling myself through thick forest - it all became debilitating, and I was sure that I couldn’t go on.
Keons approached as the sun rose one morning. I wasn’t scared. I was relieved. After all that he had taught me, his presence was the most comforting moment that I had in days, and I couldn’t help but be happy to see him. In true Keons fashion, he wrapped his arms around me, then put his hands under my face, looked me in the eyes, and said, “Clancy, child, let’s go home.”
I’ve been here for a few weeks now, and while the routines of this world are comforting, and certainly easier than life out there, my mind keeps bouncing between the two places.
Which one is home? Are the bishops protecting us, and the torches upon the hilltops dangerous? Or is it the other way around? My dreams pull me from world to world, and I feel lost in between all of it.
There is still so much I do not understand.
-Clancy"These letters are yet to be put in chronological order in this carrd, sorry sorry, but i will get to that soon. you can tell what fits where though by the music videos and whats written in here. ill work on that soon i promise :)

FPE

FPE is a big part of the Twenty One Pilots universe. In Blurryface, it meant the Few, the Proud and the Emotional. In Trench, it means Failed Perimeter Escape. If you fail to escape Dema, the Bishops will give you a badge with FPE on it to show that you failed. They want you to be ashamed and to make you an outcast from the others, but the Baditos tell you to wear it with pride because it showed how you tried to help yourself and escape. To the Banditos, it means the Few, the Proud and the Emotional and it something to be proud of. This was 988 12MOON 01 on the website, which is Tyler’s birthday.

The Timeline

The timeline for the videos goes Heavy Dirty Soul, Jumpsuit, Nico and the Niners/Heathens, and Levitate. It starts with Heavy Dirty Soul. We spoke about this a little earlier. The video shows Tyler in a car that's driven by a hooded figure (Nico) and Nico tries to harm both Tyler in the car and Josh who is on the road playing his drums. Josh has yellow hair and drumsticks in this video, even though it came out in the Bluryface era which was red. This was our first taste of Trench. Nico constantly misses Josh because he cannot see him clearly due to the yellow on him, and so he keeps going around in circles trying to harm Josh while Josh plays his drums, but it doesn't work. The music from the drums is the equivalent of Josh fighting back, making the car slowly fall apart, leading to Nico being defeated. Tyler and Josh survive and the car gets set on fire.
In the Jumpsuit video, we see Tyler directly after Heavy Dirty Soul. The car is still burning, and he says “we’ve been here the whole time. You were asleep. Time to wake up.” which is talking about the hiatus and how they are coming back, as well as how the people in Dema are almost ‘asleep’ when they are brainwashed. He is calling out to us and telling us to follow the Banditos instead of the Bishops, to stay awake. He gets a jacket with yellow tape on it from the trunk of the car before heading off into the distance, probably to make the trek through Trench.
Jumpsuit is his journey through Trench. The Banditos watch over him and try to help him when Nico appears, but unfortunately they fail and Tyler is taken back to Dema where he is brainwashed/smeared and made to forget everything good about Trench and everything bad about Dema. As this is happening, outside of the MV Clancy is also trying to make his way through Trench. We hear about his journey through one of his letters where he sees Tyler and writes about it. He says that Trench seemed familiar to Tyler, meaning that Tyler has undergone this journey many many times before.
Nico and the Niners shows Tyler trying to get out of Dema once again. He forgot all about the Banditos because of the brain washing (smearing) the Bishops did, but thanks to the little yellow flower he kept in his room for this very situation, he is able to break free of the spell and tries to escape Dema once again. He goes underneath Dema because you can’t escape through the top of the city. He runs into Josh and the Banditos but does not recognise them because of what the Bishops did to him. Fortunately, Josh is able to make him remember using their handshake. This brings back Tyler’s and he returns to the camp with them.
During this, Heathens is happening. We saw earlier it contains people breaking out from a prison after a concert with one person being left behind. In Nico and the Niners, there is a lyric that says “start a concert, a complete diversion. Start a mob and you can be quite certain we’ll win but not everyone will get out.” Tyler and Josh started a concert which helped Josh and everyone else get out, but Tyler was left behind. This is also important for Dema because in one of Clany’s letters, he talks about how he and the Banditos were going to start a huge diversion in order to distract the bishops while they get a bunch of people out of Dema. We don’t know exactly what happened, but with these lyrics and the information we got from Scaled and Icy, we can safely say that this was when Clancy and the banditos went into Dema to free the others, so Josh and the Banditos went under Dema to start the concert while Clancy got people out, but unfortunately the Bishops caught Clancy and imprisoned him. So basically, heathens happens at the same time as NATN but from Clancy’s perspective, with a couple tweakings too, obviously. Think of Tyler in the heathens mv as Clancy.
Finally, in Levitate we see him and Josh in the camp with the others. Unfortunately, by the end of the video, Nico finds Tyler again and takes him back to Dema.
This results in Tyler being stuck in a vicious cycle. He escapes Dema and makes it to the camp before being captured again. He has to struggle through the trek through Trench to the camp so many times and probably thought about giving up so many times. This is like how Clancy told us that he found comfort in Dema despite its evil because Trench was so unfamiliar to him, and we find safety in the things we know best even if those things are what is hurting us.
This is like mental illness. We may want to get better, but the journey (Trench) from being sick (Dema) to being better (The Bandito camp) is so hard that you may go back to your old ways just because it's familiar to you (the Bishops finding you, smearing you and taking you back). Better the devil you know than the one you don’t. However, you have family and friends (The Banditos, the Clique) who are there to help you in whatever way they can. They will help you and you must trust that you will reach the end. Do not commit to vialism, it does get better and you will escape Dema.(A side note to be added is that there is a song on their Self Titled album called A Car, a Torch, a Death, and in the Jumpsuit MV there is a car, there is a torch in the NATN MV, and there is a ‘death’ in the Levitate MV. We saw this pattern before the Levitate MV came out, so the fans guessed that Tyler would die and were correct.)

• heavydirtysoul

• jumpsuit

• nico and the niners

• levitate

Smearing

Once you find your way out of Dema and a Bishop catches up to you, they will put you in a trance-like state while they come up to you and touch your neck, creating black streaks and spots to appear, as seen in the Jumpsuit music video. This is reference to the black tyler had on his hands and neck in Blurryface. This causes you to be hypnotised as they take you back to Dema. This is when the banditos throw down yellow petals to get you out of that state. The smearing allows them to calmly take you back to dema before they subject you to their worship of vialism and the neon gravestones. This brainwashing is continued through indoctrinating you into their religion through the use of screens and images flashing on the screen, as we will see in the Level of Concern era. Once they have completed all these steps, you are once again a citizen of dema, at least until you see whatever yellow you brought back (such as a flower that is favoured by tyler and the bandtios) in order to bring yourself back to normal.

The Statue

At the concerts during Trench, there was a bridge that connects the main stage to the smaller stage on the other side of the pit. Tyler walks over this during the NATN rap verse. As he walks over it, fans are of course taking videos, and the way they stand with their arms up and their phones between their hands looks like this statue (If you are confused, hold your phone in landscape and point it above your head while looking at the screen. This pose is exactly what people at the concert did and what the statue is doing). This is another God-like being the Bishops worship. It symbolises people worshipping celebrities and how we should not put people on pedistoles because of the pressure it causes, leading to mental health issues, as well as how it can harm us as the individuals consuming media. It can also be interpreted as someone hanging themselves, obviously linking back to vialism and the neon gravestones. This one has a lot of interpretations and we are not certain of its meaning, but it is definitely not a good thing as it is found in Dema and seems to be a subject of worship.

Sahlo Folina

Sometimes when you are in Trench, you feel helpless. The Banditos created a way for you to call out to them in order to receive this help.
The word sahlo in Somali means to enable, and Folina means this: "Your name of Folina has made you happiest when you are expressing in some creative, artistic way, and not conforming to strict routine". Sahlo Folina is a call out for creativity and creative help, which is obviously Tyler’s way of fighting his mental illness by creating songs. So, from that we can take that yelling Sahlo Folina is a way to ask for help when you need it in Trench.

Songs (WORK IN PROGRESS)

Jumpsuit, Morph, Neon Gravestones, Nico and the Niners, Bandito, Leave the CityAll of the songs connect to the lore in at least one way, but the main songs listed above have bigger connections than others which will be explained briefly here. There is not a single song from the entire album that does not have a connection to the story in one way or another, though.Jumpsuit: Tyler’s ‘jumpsuit’ has 2 meanings; one is that is it his bandito jacket that has the yellow tape which keeps him safe from the Bishops, and the other is a metaphorical blanket of safety that he feels secure under. The bridge talks about being there for someone, which is from a bandito’s point of view while they are helping Tyler out of trench.Morph: The start of the song mentions above and under a lot, which connects to how you cannot get out of Dema by walking through the streets, you have to go under the city to get out. The song mentions Nicolas Bourbaki which is Nico’s full name. Tyler says that Nico calls him a copy, which is something incredibly important for the Scaled and Icy era, so keep that lyric in mind. The bridge mentions ones and zeros flickering, which is a basic form of code that twenty one pilots have used in the past to give us messages.Neon Gravestones: This song is obviously about the neon gravestones surrounding Dema and talks about how the bishops (and the media in a real life analysis) glorify suicide and how we should not glorify this but instead glorify the life that people have paved, such as our grandparents and the life they gave our parents who gave us life. It is about celebrating the fact we are alive and that we get to experience this world.Nico and the Niners: NATN is a song about rebelling against the Bishops with lines such as “When the Bishops come together they will know that Dema dont control us” showing us that Tyler is escaping Dema and its brain washing once again. The entire bridge/rap part is detailing the events that are happening as the music video plays, with the Banditos invading Dema to save the citizens, the mob and diversion/concert happening, and Clancy getting left behind as not everyone makes it out.Bandito: Bandito covers the hardships of being a Bandito and constantly getting dragged back to Dema no matter how hard you try to stay. It is about helping others through their tough times, helping yourself, having others help you, and figuring out what is right and what is wrong. The bridge has plenty to do with the lore (as well as being a beautiful piece of writing):
In City, I feel my spirit is contained
Like neon inside the glass, they form my brain
But I recently discovered it's a heatless fire
Like nicknames they give themselves to uninspire
Began with bullet, now add fire to the proof
But I'm still not sure if fear's a rival or close relative to truth
Either way it helps to hear these words bounce off of you
The softest echo could be enough for me to make it throughThis song is also where we get Sahlo Folina from.I created this world
To feel some control
Destroy it if I want
So I sing Sahlo FolinaLeave the City: This song is about the constant struggle of mental health and how tiring it is to leave the city, but Tyler knows that even if he is tired, he needs to leave the city if he wants to survive. He talks about being tired of tending to his fire, of being tired of fighting against the fake lights the bishops force onto people. The fire is burning low, concerning him because when the fire goes out, you become a glorious gone (something that is talked about much more in Scaled and Icy, but it is basically the body of those that commit to vialsm). He is scared to become one of these glorious gone bodies, and so he needs to keep the fire burning, but its too much for one person. He goes out in search of those that will help him, and he finds this help, love, and support in the banditos.Just like Blurryface, Trench is an album whose story loops. Leave the City is the final song when you feel the weakest, but Jumpsuit starts up again and you realise that you can continue fighting it.

• home

Ned Bayou is a character that was made for the Chlorine mv. He is a little gremlin looking character who befriended Tyler. Once he was swimming in the chlorine, his antlers grew to be very long. During the Trench era, the band had a pop up shop where Ned merch was sold. The Clique all loved Ned. We saw him as something outside of Trench that was a break from the storyline for us. However, as time progressed, we learnt he actually is a part of the storyline, mainly in Scaled and Icy. Ned stands for neuro expansion device and during the level of concern hunt, one of the photos we got was a picture of Ned that said “Ned is watching you”, so we have had a difficult time deciding whether or not to trust him. A lot of happened in terms of his involvment since, though. More on that later.
The Ned era also included a new meaning for FPE which was Fine Pool Equipment. Doesn't mean anything, but it's cool anyways.

• home

LOC - level of concern
061-220-20 = 06-12-2020 - June 12th 2020
12p - 12:00PM ETLevel of Concern was the quarantine song the band released in April 2020 after being trapped at home for a year. The song at first was just a fun thing to give to fans, but it soon turned into a huge online treasure hunt/arg that also gave us insight into two of the most beloved characters as well as a bucket load of trauma.
On the bands youtube channel on the 13th of June 2020, there was a livestream that showed a tv, speakers and a camera that was recording us. The tv flicked through a set of photos and sounds and fans watching this were able to figure out that there was a code in the photos. Once the code was decoded, it created a url for a website that had the same tv in the background and a list of 20 drives. In order to gain access to the drives, you needed to put in a code.

We went through 12 hours worth of hunting (even though they planned it to take us a week but the clique is just full of insomniacs) in order to get all the codes. We got to code twenty before we received a message that said we would only be able to access the last code 3 days later. Once the last code was found, the first 500 people to access file 20 were sent usb’s in the mail which contained something that kick started the SAI era.
Some things to note are:
- During the livestream, we heard Nigel speaking to us saying things like “welcome to level of concern” and once we received a phone number, he was the voice we heard on the other line. This is important because this livestream was Dema propaganda, and if we were hearing Nigel, that must mean he is a part of Dema. He gained out trust during Vessel, so he used that trust to manipulate us into thinking this was a safe game. Whether or not he has always worked for Dema or was forced to manipulate us is unknown.
- The drives contained images that formed a language. This has been used to decode codes that the band sends us.
- Ned would sometimes pop up throughout the adventure in the files, on the tv or even when you called Nigels number. We thought we could not trust Ned either.
The stream ended on the 24 hours mark and before it stopped, Nigel said “that concludes level of concern. Good luck” and straight after he said that, Blurryface said the exact same thing, making a lot of us think he is Blurryface, or at least connected to him.So, taking this information we know that this livestream was Dema trying to control us. The livestream had a camera that was recording us and behind the tv you could make out a door. There were sometimes footsteps, voices speaking, and knocking throughout the stream. This was the bishops watching us and making sure we were cooperating and doing what they wanted.
Nigel is also probably working for Dema, or is being forced to. Nigel has been with us for years and has gained our trust as a companion and friend. However, he is using our trust to Demas advantage. He was the person who asked us to play the game, and because it was him we automatically said yes. If it was Blurryface who asked us, we would say no because we would know it is evil. But because it was Nigel, we were ok with it. So, we sat and we stared at the screen and searched for hours for the codes. We weren’t meant to participate because participating is giving into Dema’s control, but we did and they won. They brainwashed us. The brainwashing/indoctrination was furthered when the Level of Concern never ending music video came out. We were asked to put our own videos in to contribute to the ‘bands’ video, but little did we know that by cooperating with what was actually Dema’s video, we were helping them with the brain washing process for all Banditios.
Another major point is that Nigel might be Nico. For starters, the names are similar. We also know that Nigel is very old so the ages would match up well. And the fact that Blurryface repeated Nigels words straight after him at the end of the stream shows that they could be closely linked. He could have been pretending to be our friend so he could gain our trust while in reality he’s on the opposite side. This is just a theory and is not confirmed.If you are interested in seeing all the puzzles and answers to them, here is a really good document to check out that has photos and recording of all the main pieces.

• level of concern doc

• home

Start of the Era

During the Level of Concern era, Josh’s name was removed from the Morph lyrics and Tyler’s name was gone from the list of band members, both on google. This happened because both of them were captured by Dema after the events of Nico and the Niners, just like Clancy was taken.
The 500 fans that got to code 20 first received a usb that had videos from Tyler and Josh. In Tyler’s video, there was a tv in the background that flashed through different symbols. These symbols are from their language that we gathered from the live stream and once decoded it spelt “Clancy is dead.”
Twenty One Pilots released a Christmas song that had a message on the cover of the single. The cover was of Tyler and Josh as toddlers on Christmas opening up presents, but one present was addressed to Clancy. On the present, there was another little message to find in bright pink writing. This message was“SAI is propaganda”. People searched and found out that SAI is similar to psi which is a letter in the Greek alphabet that looks like Ψ. It looks similar to the east is up symbol which makes people think that Dema is taking over our symbol and freedom. This is also the new band logo. This is the first time we haven’t had a variation of l-/. Dema is trying to take everything from us. They are trying to erase everything we know of the Banditos and all the knowledge of how Dema is evil.

During all of this, the Clique was confused. Is Clancy really dead? Or is Dema telling us he is because thats what they want us to believe? People started speculating that Clancy unfortunately committed to vialism after events we were yet to know of. Blurryface liked a tweet stating this, but this didn’t clear anything up. Do we trust Blurryface? I mean, it is blurryface after all; he is the worst of the worst.There was then a video on the bands twitter of Josh accidentally pulling out the plug that stopped the LOC music video. While he did say it was an accident, it was probably him pulling the plug to stop Dema from watching us and to try and stop whatever was left of the brainwashing process. They were watching us in the LOC ARG, the never ending music video, they were watching Tyler and Josh in the LOC MV, everywhere. It was time to put a stop to them.At this time, their twitter header on the band's account slowly faded out. This happened for 83 days with the header fading by 21%. We called this 'desaturation wednesdays', and when the header was fully faded, everything started to happen.

On April 2nd 2021, the Dema website became active again. There was a bar at the top of the page that said terminating files and it completed it’s progress on the 5th. Someone was trying to delete everything off of Clancy’s sacred site where he communicated with us, the clique, and the Banditos. Something else that happened on the second of April was that Blurryface ended his almost 4 year long silence by tweeting “the name of the album is scaled and icy” which is an anagram for ‘Clancy is dead’. Scaled and Icy is shortened to SAI, which relates to the ‘SAI is propaganda’ message we got earlier. We now know that SAI is written for the Bishops to be able to spread their propaganda. They forced Tyler and Josh to write it because they knew that the Banditos would trust the album seeing as it was written by Tyler and Josh, meaning the Bishops could safely brainwash them and capture them without them fighting back. They would have terminated all the files after capturing Clancy, possibly killing him, and finding his source of information for the Banditos, finally making everyone feel defeated and broken.