Throughout the last two editions, we have covered the surface-level story, as well as the hidden parts of the story that lie within transcriptions of the videos themselves, and in this edition, we will recap and retell the story in a comprehensive timeline of events in the order they happened. We will also finally cover the different layers of symbolism throughout the entire story, and look at the two most popular interpretations of what they mean.
The Timeline
The timeline consists of 4 major parts, or sub-stories. These parts are differentiated by the person they focus on, and will be labeled as such, but one thing keeps these parts connected: they have to deal with Daisy or Alan. The first part of importance takes place mostly in the hidden transcriptions and tells the story of Rose. The second part also takes place in hidden transcripts but focuses primarily on Curtis and his work. The third part takes place in transcripts as well as in the videos, and focuses on Daisy taking care of Alan. The last part takes place almost exclusively in the videos and deals with Daisy being faced with the darkness of her past.
The Story of Rose
The first part of the story focuses primarily on Rose and Curtis and acts as the background for the rest of the story. It takes place mainly in the transcriptions of Alan’s Drawing!, Full Face Alan Makeup Look!, and I made dinner!!. The first transcript depicts a date between Rose and Curtis, Daisy’s parents. It shows Rose’s thoughts and a conversation between the two over a painting called Las Meninas, or “The lady in waiting”. Through the transcripts, Rose tells us the importance of this piece, saying, “The composition of the piece, to me at least, divides the piece into three parts; past, present, and future.” This immediately shows Rose to be an artistic individual. It also shows a connection between Rose and art, as well as a connection between Rose and Curtis.
The next transcription takes place after a large amount of time has passed and Curtis and Rose have lived together for a while, and near the end of Rose’s pregnancy. The transcript is from Rose’s perspective and shows her thoughts right before going into labor. She questions if they will make good parents, and points out her thoughts on their dynamic, stating: “There will be hardships. But I just know that they’re meant for greatness. All he can think about is nature, while I’m ensnared in nurture” before questioning if the child she’s bearing will grow to be successful. The topic shifts to her questioning her wellbeing, before the transcript stops abruptly, “I can’t wait to meet you. I feel sick. Disgusting. Is it normal to feel this ill? My legs are wet.” The connotation of the last sentence means that her water broke and she went into labor.
The final transcript of this part of the story is from an outer perspective and shows the aftermath of the birth. There were complications during the birth that left Rose bleeding profusely, and Rose talks to Curtis as she bleeds out. Curtis tells Rose that the baby survived the birth procedure, and Rose is elated; “Yes! It lived! I did it! It survived and it’s just beautiful. Oh Dear God and Jesus please don’t let me die now Ha ha… It’s alive. It’s beautiful.” Her joy is short-lived, however, as she dies before she can receive medical attention. Her last words were “I can’t believe it. I finally give birth and I’ll never get to see this child grow. I’ll never teach it anything, I’ll never be able to tell it I love it. But… But life will go on without me. ‘Tis sweet to know that stocks will stand When we with daisies lie That commerce will continue, And trades as briskly fly. Who wrote that again? I guess it doesn’t matter much now. Goodbye darling. Goodbye World.”
The Story of Curtis and Lithop
The death of Rose left Curtis devastated and left him to raise Daisy alone. His grief turned into obsession, and his obsession became intense paranoia. As Curtis is rarely a part of Daisy’s life, and, despite loving her, he abuses and manipulates her whenever he can, such as telling Daisy that she should stay away from all people in case they turn out to be dangerous, as well as almost never letting her out of the house. During this time, Curtis diverts his newfound obsession with life and nature to his work as a scientist, neglecting Daisy to work in his lab, before moving his supplies and starting a more secretive project in his basement.
As Curtis continues to fall into a deeper insanity, he becomes more and more abusive towards Daisy. One of the most notable examples of this happens in Plant Update!!, when Curtis threatens her for interrupting his work; “I can’t keep screwing up can’t you do anything right?” “No, go to your room, can’t you see Dad’s working?” “I was sure this one would work, why do they keep turning out to be disasters? I can figure something out. It’s heart is beating, that’s a small victory. I’m sure I can fix this, I have to.” “Daisy, if you interrupt me one more time I’ll pull your goddamn hair out.” Through this particular transcript, we can see the extent of Curtis’s madness and his devotion to his work. We also see that, while not optimal, his experiments have resulted in minor success, as he’s successfully created life, despite it being horrific.
Curtis did not go unnoticed, however, as late one night, one of his coworkers, Lithop, came to check in on him. “Everyone at the lab is worried about you,” and “What you’re doing is wrong, and the fact that you don’t realize it is disturbing to me, don’t you realize you’re sick?” Lithop’s confrontation, found in the transcripts of we’re back would prove to be the turning point for Curtis, however, as when she threatens to call Child Protective Services, he kidnaps her and starts running experiments on her. Later, in The Basement, Lithop wakes up to find herself missing her legs; “Jesus Christ Curtis! What is this? What did you do to my legs?” “Getting Child Protective Services is going to be a bit difficult now eh?” “Cur-Curtis. Why are you doing this to me?” “From now on, you’ll have several names. You’re going to be split between several new experiments.” It’s implied that Curtis kept his word and used her body in several experiments in his obsessive quest to create life.
The Story of Alan and Daisy
After an unknown amount of time, Curtis is successful in his task and manages to create a sentient being. The creature is ugly and misshapen; however, repeatedly called “Bean-shaped” and has purple skin and green blood. Alan is complete, and all that is left is for him to grow. Sometime after Alan’s creation, Curtis realizes the heinous acts he’s committed, and decides to leave Daisy and Alan to grow up together, telling her that he’ll be back, even though he knows he won’t. This leads to the beginning of the series, where Daisy explains that she found Alan on the kitchen floor, small, fragile, and “Bean-shaped.” She then finds an old laptop and connects to Twitter to ask for help with raising a monster. After finding a camera in her attic, she then starts recording her experiences, which leads to the creation of the Daisy Brown YouTube channel.
Throughout the beginning videos, Daisy explains that Alan is unable to see and that she has to feed him sugar water. She then starts revealing more about her childhood, before searching her attic for any information her father might have left her on how to raise Alan. In the attic, she finds carbon paper and reminisces about her old typewriter before concluding that she couldn’t find any information in the attic. In the comments of the video, several people ask if she has a basement and if she’s looked for information there, which is met by Daisy hastily sharing that “I can’t go into the basement, my dad said it’s dangerous- black mold and stuff-” afterward she simply ignores all questions regarding the basement.
Around the middle of the series, Daisy notices Alan is growing and shares how excited she is for Alan to get bigger, though the transcriptions show her unease, saying things like “I don’t know what to do” and “What if he’s dangerous.” Over the course of many other videos, Daisy documents Alan’s growth, one video stands out, however. The video titled My Garden! what should i use to fill the empty space? stands out as it’s one of the few videos during this period that doesn’t contain Alan. This video consists of Daisy talking about her flower pot, and that there’s a single space that needs to be filled. This video turns out to be one of the most symbolic videos in the entire series, and thus one of the most important.
This period is also notable because it’s the first signs of Alan becoming violent, as through a series of tweets and a video, it’s revealed that Alan ripped several clumps of Daisy’s hair out for seemingly no reason. After this, Alan uses his mouth to draw a picture for Daisy, revealing he can see, and seemingly acting as a gift to show that he’s sorry for hurting her. After which Alan develops a root-like hand that he uses to crawl around and eventually bite Daisy’s ankle, causing her to lock herself into her room to stay away from him. The final major development of Alan was the ability to speak; in the video quiet video Alan speaks for the first time, expressing that he is in pain.
The Story of Daisy Brown
After learning that Alan can speak, Daisy finds a cat and names it Strawberry. Throughout the next couple of videos, she’s seen in the background and seems to cheer Daisy up a lot, as she’s far more lively and happy when Strawberry is around. During a trip outside, however, Daisy talks to the camera about how stressed she’s been with Alan’s rapid growth, eventually expressing that he’s big enough to eat meat before going silent. After several seconds of silence, Daisy runs back home, sensing something bad has happened. The very next video, titled “strawberry is gone,” consists of nine seconds of Daisy silently looking at Strawberry’s grave.
After a break in uploads, Daisy posts a Q&A with Alan, where it’s revealed that Alan has grown quite substantially and now has pseudo-legs that he can walk around on. In this Q&A, Alan confesses that he killed Strawberry and shows no remorse for doing so, calling the cat “stupid” and “mean.” After Daisy tells Alan to stop being so mean, Alan says, “Dad was right, you’re useless,” causing Daisy and Alan to get into a fight in which Alan starts repeating “Where’s dad, Daisy?” to Daisy’s significant distress. Daisy screams at Alan before the video suddenly ends.
The second-to-last video of the series starts with Alan pushing Daisy down the stairs of the basement. Daisy rises slowly and wanders around the basement. Finding the basement dimly lit by red candles, she continues to look around, finding what looks to be bloody seeds and dog bowls filled with water, and a spray bottle labeled “Punish.” She stumbles upon a plant creature, wearing a paper plate as a mask, that startles her. The creature, a monster made from Lithop’s DNA fused with plants, is disfigured and delusional, asking Daisy if she’s “The Doctor” before several other voices are heard. Lithop explains that it was the Doctor’s job to fix them, and he entrusted that job to Daisy. Lithop also explains that all of the monsters are the same person: Lithop.
Being overwhelmed, Daisy drops the camera and crawls upstairs, and Lithop picks the camera up and follows her. By the time Lithop gets to the top of the stairs, Daisy is crying on the floor, and Alan is perched on the counter, laughing at her. Lithop refers to Alan as “The little one” and doesn’t seem to understand the situation. The video suddenly ends, only to be continued in the last video of the series, Final Video, where Daisy packs a bag full of clothes and books, then adds Lithop’s mask before zipping the bag up. She walks through the house, showing how messy and chaotic the house has gotten since Alan started moving, to a bag next to the door that contains Lithop. As Daisy grabs a tape her father left, Alan stops her and demands to know where she’s going. When Daisy tells Alan to get out of the way, he picks her up and starts to choke her, causing Daisy to push Alan back and brutally beat him to death. After which, Daisy breaks down and runs away from the house with Lithop while crying.
The video, and thus the story of Daisy Brown, ends with Daisy and Lithop looking over a lake, admiring the scenery. Free from Curtis. Free from Alan. And finally seeing the outside world.
