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[morscata12]

Torture site? Interesting..I wonder who was in what role? Was Alex torturing people - it seems like he was the one living there. Weird stuff around the house regardless - ripped up newspaper ads (2:26), all the furniture is flipped upside down (2:12-2:25).

+1 for the feeling that J seems comfortable doing criminal acts to save estranged friends. Plus he's only doing it on an anonymous tip - the tip must've been incredibly convincing to push him in this direction. Or, like others have pointed out, SM may be affecting his judgment.

Reversed + sped up quite a bit, the sound after he picks up the water bottle sounds a lot like the other "Alex" sounds we've heard. Sounds a lot more smoothed out than I'd expect (the L and X sounds are not pronounced) so I wonder if the other sounds we've heard aren't saying Alex either. If someone could reverse and speed it up without affecting the pitch and post it here, that'd be awesome.

The paper tearing sounds at the end was J taking evidence - two of Alex's "drawings". I think he was snatching them off the wall.

[Clueless]

I was suggesting all that shredded newspaper might have been something someone in his state of mind does. Don't know what anything really means, obviously, just trying to think.

Edit: and I lean toward torture because since this is 'slender man' myth I thought the original SA thread where people were creating documents related to an event indicated that what happened to those he took was worse than death... idk.

[TheAtroxious]

Interesting that whenever there's a water reference, there's distortion. We should keep looking out for that, methinks. I knew there was a water theme; I think that was established a while ago. But this revelation actually seems important.

Madebz, can you get screenshots of this "flesh tone"? I'm curious as to what we can make of it.

Wow, I'm surprised so many people are that creeped out by this. 'Course it has a great strange atmosphere, but I'm still a bit surprised. I just started looking up the slender man stories to get ideas as to how to create my own creepy pseudo-urban legend like this, and wound up here. Maybe I'm jaded or desensitised is all.

[stopped_clock]

The pills and the blood in the sink suggested to me that whoever was living there, be it Alex or Brian, has an advanced version of the sickness that J seems to be suffering from.

And about the drawings, we're assuming that they were Alex's, but it's possible that Brian may have started down the same path and begun to make his own sketches.

In defense of J acting like a creeper, when he shines the torch through the slighlty open window you can see inside that the house is a total mess, it looked like it had been completely turned over, so it's possible that he went in out of concern for his friends rather than any sort of overtly suspicious reasons.

[Clueless]

But the distortion/tearing is not mutually exclusive to water, although I will now watch to see if there is water without distortion in any of the vids.

[GrimBloodyFable]

Alright, I'm just gonna stop beating around the bush. This HAS to be related to the Trilby series of games. Think about it. A very tall man who pops up everywhere and the horrific mental effects this man has on people. There's been speculation that the building in Entry 16 is a torture site; the Tall Man from Trilby's Notes has only one purpose. To inflict pain onto people, either physical, mental or emotional. And a VERY long shot, but J breaking into a dark, creepy house is similar to Trilby breaking into a manor in 5 Days a Stranger.

If there's anything useful I can do, let me know. So far, my only role is the idiotic conspiracy theorist.

[madebz]

[TheAtroxious]

[TheAtroxious]

Checked that out, and to me it just looks like the beige coloured carpeting all over that house.

Mmm, I'd say that a more likely conspiracy theory is that the dude making these is just fucking with our heads and is going to give us the most anti-climactic, or perhaps non-existent ending ever.

*SCREEECH*

Hang on there, Grim. I just did a Google search for "trilby tall man". Guess what I found.

http://el-gostro.deviantart.com/art/Tall-Man-63819872

[BaronVonCakeman]

[Jake]

Add me to the "not a game" chorus. This entry seems to be the proof that the guys behind this are making a movie and aren't looking for interaction. We were limited in what we saw for the first 14 entries because we only had what Alex shot and J chose to show us. Entry 15 was also limited because J was having to pretend the camera was off when talking to Tim. There is no explanation for why Entry 16 isn't more explanatory.

Consider that (in character) J is going to shoot this as part of an investigation and is planning to post the video to YouTube later, where he knows thousands of people are going to watch and dissect it. Wouldn't he offer some narration? Why not justify his reason for B&E? Why not tell us the reason for his coughing fit (whether it was part of his recent illness or if something smelled terrible inside the house)? Wouldn't you expect him to tell us what he saw ("These look like the newspapers I saw Alex tearing up... Someone spray painted "bone" on this wall. What's that foil in the corner for? Oh, my god! Is that blood on the floor?")? Also, why wouldn't he get more establishing shots of things like Alex's drawings on the wall?

Out of game/character, it makes sense to continue the "quick glimpse hints" that make everyone breakdown videos frame by frame for the sake of drama, but if this was a game where we were supposed to interact with J, I would expect that he would try to give us more information. As it is, J's investigation appears to be a one-man affair where we're nothing more than an audience.

[Clueless]

Yeah, I've never done an ARG before, but I know I have no interaction with the actual story or outcome here. However I do think it is more interesting than any movie I've seen lately.

Anecdote time: When I was an undergrad I had quite a few fiction workshops. Sometimes I'd submit a story that took great effort and I really cared about. Other times, when I wasn't feeling it or was busy, I'd turn in some POS that I wrote hastily one or two nights before class. Whenever I'd go into the class expecting the readers to pan the story, I was always amazed at how much they had read into it. Symbols and themes had appeared that I did not place there, characters and lines of no real import other to advance the story took on meanings I did not intend. I know I had done that for other students writing, and I know everyone does that for just about every single piece of literature. I've felt like we might be doing that here, but it is hard to stop.

Anyway, that said. What are your thoughts on the bullet casing? Red herring? Criminal evidence? Everything to this point has indicated a relatively 'supernatural' level of violence and fear, but this makes it much more 'human.' Did Brian, Sarah, Alex and Tim have some sort of relationship drama? The girl in the backseat has been referenced by J, but is she the one who appears in the scene being filmed with Tim? We know the plot of the movie is about someone trying to get a girl back. As a writer, I know just about everything I write is somehow connected to personal experience or emotion...

[fezzik]

I will say that this entry has increased even more my general opinion of the production value and work that has gone into, and continues to go into, this project. I mean, if it's just a student project or a bunch of dudes doing this for fun, color me impressed. Making a mess out of that house and filming it late at night is not an easy thing to accomplish. That said, I have to agree that this is seeming less like a puzzle and more like a piece of mildly interactive fiction; not that I'm complaining, I'm actually kinda glued to my seat. Of course that may change when we hear back from TTA; his videos seem more along the lines of a puzzle to solve.

[TNC]

I'm entertaining the idea that this is a little too realistic for my own tastes. I've done my fair share of squatting, but like, that is... That's a little weird. When you squat, you sleep upstairs and go out at night. Simple as that. In a place surrounded by woods, you sleep wherever.

You don't make maniacal drawings and paste them on the walls. You don't sleep in the closest under the stairs.

Think about this [don't take it as fact, just picture it]: ToTheArk is Brian. Brian leaves incredible clues and mysteries all at once via YouTube.

He sees Tim in an interview. Tim gives up the fact that Brian lives close by. J wants to find Brian.

Brian doesn't want to be found, so he quickly abandons his "home," but not before coughing up a lot of blood himself. He tears the place apart, trying to obtain whatever he may have had hidden around, grabs his computer and equipment [maybe surveillance equipment? Cameras, wires, evidence of him being totheark] and skedaddles.

Hmm? HMM?

[TheNightmareComplex]

Also, I'd like to address the Chzo Mythos: I'm not incredibly familiar with it, but through a vast network of criminal internet deviants, I've obtained the link to download a special edition 4-game super pack, complete with the Book of Chzo in word format. I'm going to study the Book of Chzo in depth, to see just where this "tall man" may fit into this. It'd be incredibly interesting if the creator of the Trilby games [you people may know him as the guy who does Zero Punctuation for The Escapist magazine] has anything interesting for us.

[morscata12]