Slash Fiction (solution)
by Seth Schoen and Vera Yin; video editing by Phoebe Kuo; additional footage by j Baumgart
Each of the twenty video clues represents a MIME type being acted out by Parisian mimes. Each clue consists of a content type, a slash, and a content subtype.
In each case, Pierre acts out the content type in a nondescript indoor location / then Aurélie acts out the content subtype in front of a Paris landmark. Except as described below, each of the MIME types indicated can be found in the official IANA list at https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/index.html.
The types in question and the landmarks where Aurélie is acting them out are, in the order presented in the puzzle,
| Type | Place | Clue |
| multipart/alternative | Palais du Luxembourg (Sénat / Jardin du Luxembourg) | Aurélie is wearing an ankh, spiky bracelets, and scarier makeup |
| multipart/form-data | Place de la Concorde | Aurélie is displaying a French income tax form and Lt. Cmdr. Data |
| application/x-ghostview | Cimetière de la Villette | Aurélie notices a ghost in the cemetery |
| image/x-icon | Square des Épinettes | Aurélie is displaying an icon of Saints Sophia, Vera, Nadezhda, and Lyubov |
| application/index | Église de la Sainte-Trinité | Aurélie is consulting the index of her book of maps |
| application/x-latex | Écluses des Récollets | Aurélie is acting out a LaTeX document |
| audio/midi | Panthéon | midi is French for ‘noon’ |
| multipart/mixed | Cirque d’Hiver | Aurélie is mixing invisible items in a mixing bowl |
| text/n3 | Basilique du Sacré-Cœur | Aurélie is holding up the letter N three times |
| message/news | Tour Eiffel | Aurélie is reading a newspaper |
| video/nv | Les Enfants du Monde (Parc de Bercy) | Aurélie is lying down in the U.S. state of Nevada |
| application/octet-stream | Opéra-Comique | eight Aurélies sing together on the steps of the Opéra-Comique; then a stream is shown |
| application/oxps | Bibliothèque Nationale de France | Aurélie is adding an ox – un bœuf – as a postscript to the letter |
| text/plain | Musée du Louvre | Aurélie is acting as an airplane |
| text/RED | Palais de Chaillot (Trocadéro) | Aurélie is enthusiastic about the red traffic light |
| text/richtext | Musée National Picasso | the text of Aurélie’s book is surprisingly rich! |
| application/sieve | Maison de l’Air (Parc de Belleville) | Aurélie is playing with a sieve |
| multipart/signed | Cimetière du Montparnasse | Aurélie is signing a letter |
| audio/tone | Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris | Aurélie is developing her muscle tone |
| text/turtle | Tour Montparnasse | Aurélie is acting as a LOGO turtle |
The content subtypes are arranged alphabetically. Three of them, application/x-latex, application/x-icon, and application/x-ghostview, are (widely used) unofficial types. Unofficial types begin with “x-” to show that they’re unofficial, in conformance with RFCs 2045 and 2046. The “x-” appears in the video clue but is not used in the answer extraction.
Since 1860, Paris has been divided into twenty administrative districts called arrondissements. Aurélie was eager to make a comprehensive tour of Paris, so each of the twenty subtypes is being performed in front of a recognizable landmark in a different arrondissement. The locations are
| 1er arrondissement: Musée du Louvre |
| 2e arrondissement: Opéra-Comique |
| 3e arrondissement: Musée National Picasso |
| 4e arrondissement: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris |
| 5e arrondissement: Panthéon |
| 6e arrondissement: Palais du Luxembourg (Sénat / Jardin du Luxembourg) |
| 7e arrondissement: Tour Eiffel |
| 8e arrondissement: Place de la Concorde |
| 9e arrondissement: Église de la Sainte-Trinité |
| 10e arrondissement: Écluses des Récollets |
| 11e arrondissement: Cirque d’Hiver |
| 12e arrondissement: «Les Enfants du Monde» (Parc de Bercy) |
| 13e arrondissement: Bibliothèque Nationale de France |
| 14e arrondissement: Cimetière du Montparnasse |
| 15e arrondissement: Tour Montparnasse |
| 16e arrondissement: Palais de Chaillot (Trocadéro) |
| 17e arrondissement: Square des Épinettes |
| 18e arrondissement: Basilique du Sacré-Cœur |
| 19e arrondissement: Cimetière de la Villette |
| 20e arrondissement: Maison de l’Air (Parc de Belleville) |
If we put the types in order by the arrondissement in which each one was performed, we get
| 1er | text/plain |
| 2e | application/octet-stream |
| 3e | text/richtext |
| 4e | audio/tone |
| 5e | audio/midi |
| 6e | multipart/alternative |
| 7e | message/news |
| 8e | multipart/form-data |
| 9e | application/index |
| 10e | application/x-latex |
| 11e | multipart/mixed |
| 12e | video/nv |
| 13e | application/oxps |
| 14e | multipart/signed |
| 15e | text/turtle |
| 16e | text/RED |
| 17e | image/x-icon |
| 18e | text/n3 |
| 19e | application/x-ghostview |
| 20e | application/sieve |
The first letters of the content subtypes spell portmanfilmnostRings, i.e., PORTMAN/FILM/NO/STRINGS. This is completed by the answer, ATTACHED.
Aurélie … Vera Yin
Pierre … Seth Schoen
Le Fantôme … Seth Schoen
Réalisation … Seth Schoen et Vera Yin
Cinématographie (Paris) … Seth Schoen
Cinématographie (San Francisco) … Phoebe Kuo
Cinématographie supplémentaire … j Baumgart
Montage … Phoebe Kuo
Musique de la trame sonore Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain par Yann Tiersen
Hommage à Nathaniel S. Borenstein et Ned Freed