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[TheJoker]

Fair enough. I hadn't really considered it that way. I'd say there are still ways they could believe it was someone else IG, but that makes sense.

I think, then, the reason they were never shown considering Brian might be that they only knew him pre-descent-into-madness, and when you've known and been friends with someone that long, the idea that they could have turned into the gibberish-spewing psychotic TTA might seem a little more questionable without some concrete evidence. Basically, even though they could use process of elimination to reach the idea of it being Brian, without any clues directly pointing to it being Brian and with Hoody's behavior not lining up with the Brian they knew or thought they knew, they may have simply dismissed the idea as being too silly.

Or maybe Tim never reached that conclusion simply because some part of him didn't want to consider the possibility that his best friend was the one stalking and manipulating him, and thus he never pursued that train of thought because of denial issues.

Or something.

I guess now I'm curious as to who Jay and Tim thought it was, or whether they had even really spent some time speculating as to the identity of their stalker.

[Lithp]

[TheJoker]

I somehow find the idea of the latter much funnier.

[Ascalondion]

Yep. Pretty much that. Ever since season 2 the characters seem to be so...idle and blank.

I really hope that we are just missing something crucial, even in #84.

[Lithp]

[TheManPF]

I don't understand why Alex isn't wearing his glasses in recent entries which should have taken place in 2006, like #72 and #84, it feels weird

[Smoking_Gnu]

[Lithp]

Yeah, but does he just watch a bunch of random footage in his off-time? Does he have some kind of search strategy?

[lonsumtravlr]

[lonsumtravlr]

[Lithp]

It's just that the stuff used in ToTheArk seem so random, but somehow still works. I could understand if it was mostly pulled from a certain type of footage, like old horror movies.

[Sha Noran]

Just to jump back to what you said about the IG perspective of Hoody speculation - I disagree that Brian was ridiculously obvious. It was really much more obvious OOG due to Brian showing up at cons, and the story focusing on him a bit more than other ancillary characters. IG a conversation between Jay and Tim about Hoody's identity would have AT best been like our discussions here; analyzing what they know for sure from the found footage, proposing a possible candidate for him, then realizing they can't be sure and eventually becoming frustrated when they realize it could be ANYONE since they posted all this shit on the interenet so some crazy bastard could've hunted them down and started stalking them. I mean even here, with our heads together, with additional OOG evidence to support our theories, we can't come to agreement - even after 84 some people don't think its Brian!

Also, IG both Jay and Tim have really bad memory issues, and this would certainly strain a discussion of this sort. Imagine how many times Jay tried to ask Tim if he remembered something -ANYTHING- from his time with Hoody, some sort of clue - Tim would get sick of the query and Jay would have trouble believing him given TTA's insistence that Tim was lying. The frustration of the topic and the inevitable admittance that they had no solid proof of who it was at all probably made it a sore subject with a dead end that neither wanted to rehash after the second or third time. Tim thought it best to consider Jessica dead or "dead to him", so I feel he would think the same way about Brian and Seth due to 51 and 22 respectively.

However, finding the 84 tape ON Hoody's person and having it be what it is does indeed confirm for Tim IG that Brian is Hoody. It makes sense - Hoody definitely isn't Tim or Alex, and there's grinning ass Brian wearing the thing. Why would anyone but Brian have this tape on on their person? Also even if Tim didn't remember the events of 83, his shocked reaction to Hoody's unmasking probably fit with his reaction upon first seeing the 84 tape. Tim has no reason to wildly speculate that for some fucked up reason, Seth stole the Hoody from Brian and carried the 84 tape for misdirection of his identity. Given what Tim (and us, by extension) knows, Brian and Tim were good friends at the time. Even though it probably disturbs him to think about it, the Masky/Hoody team being Tim and Brian makes sense IG to Tim, especially given 51 (the part where Brian finds Tim at the hospital). Also 16, where he is in Brian's house as Masky to ambush Jay. Actually given Tim's history and general lack of friends, it should be painfully obvious to Tim more than anyone else that the Hooded guy he plays Masked sidekick for is logically pretty likely to be the only and best friend he ever had (prior to Jay).

[Ascalondion]

You're right, we shouldn't go too far with that thought and claim that it should have been obvious IG to Tim that Hoody is Brian.
And, although this may sound strange at first, it wasn't even my concerns about Tim IG reasoning that set me off in the first place. I may have expressed it otherwise, but what I actually was criticizing the portrayal of Tim's IG reasoning. So, an OOG critic on something happening IG.

You, Sha Noran, yourself pointed out that Tim had come good reasons to infer from that tape that Hoody is Brian. Because – given the total evidence of all entries (that are also available to Tim) – it makes the most sense. There was probably some thinking happening between those sideburns. However, the video that then is uploaded gives us an hilarious reason: Brian wore a similar hoody 8 years ago, therefore, he is Hoody.

The point is, Tim probably HAD some thoughts about the fact that especially this tape was found in Hoody pocket. And that Masky and Hoody seem to get along together. And all that stuff. But, and that's now the OOG critic, from all those reasonable thought, they add the one with the hoody to the video.
Just imagine how much cooler it would have been if they had used some other reason for Tim to enter into the video, like: "Wow, given that this tape was on Hoody, he probably was Brian." That would have left the hoody Brian wore during the audition a cool thing for us to find. Some nice little detail for us to catch. But now, this nice little details is portrayed (OOG) as the main reason the (current) main character concluded (IG) the identity of a person, that was unknown for the past 42 entries. (that is almost 3 years) And that, I feel, is either fishy or bad. Fishy, because Tim has a history of ... deciding that some informations are better not known right now, and being not as truthful as he should (to be fair, Jay is very guilty of that too). Or it is bad, because there is no great "unreliable narrator" thing going on right now and Trosephim really thought that would be the best way for the total honest IG Tim to conclude things.

[twistedpuppet]

[Ascalondion]