Tribe Twelve

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Lately I've been hearing these strange noises coming from around my house. They're unexplainable, I don't know where they're coming from [..] and frankly, it's all just been scaring the living shit out of me. So I've decided to record myself sleeping in hopes of catching whatever these sounds are on tape.

It started off as an innocent little thing, a YouTube page for Noah Maxwell's project on the Twelve Tribes of Israel. However, soon afterward, the project was cancelled for unknown reasons. The news became worse when Noah received word that his childhood friend and closest cousin, Milo Asher, was found dead in his room. Noah wanted to change the page from a project page to a dedication page, so Milo would be remembered. However, as he watched the videos, he noticed things...things he never saw before, but Milo did.

Something that terrified him.

Tribe Twelve is yet another chapter of The Slender Man Mythos, similar in vein to Marble Hornets. Noah documents himself after finding something much worse in his videos. As per Slender Man videos, it's...pretty frightening.

Can be watched here, with the wiki here. Formspring and Noah's twitter. Interviews with creator Adam Rosner can be found here Media Meltdown Interview or here Radio Interview .


Tropes used in Tribe Twelve include:

Sarah: Noah... Why do you have a knife?
Noah: *laughing, covered in blood* Hahaha... I don't know! Hahahaha!

  • Backmasking: INTERRUPTION has Mr. Sandman playing backwards over it.
  • Badass Grandpa: Grandfather Karl, who performed secret missions inside Germany during World War 2, some of which remain classified to this day. Perhaps with good reason.
  • Black Best Friend: Kevin, who translates Karl's German for Noah. Possibly subverted because he is undoubtedly the Observer, but he might not know it.
  • Breather Episode: Thanksgiving Footage: Day 1 is notably devoid of any horror elements for a majority of the entry, and shows Noah relaxing and playing games at a friends house during Thanksgiving. The ending is a different matter.
  • The Call Knows Where You Live: Soon after posting the videos, Noah starts hearing inexplicable noises in his house. Then the Observer breaks in, knocking out the lights in the process, and leaves a package for him.
  • Cat Scare: Milo goes out to poke around the outside of the house, and nearly jumps out of his skin when an AC unit turns on behind him. He runs into Slender Man immediately after.
  • Chekhov's Gun: The flash drive.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Kevin.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Enough to warrant its own Drinking Game
  • The Cracker: The Observer, a mysterious person (or possibly Humanoid Abomination) who makes a habit of hijacking Noah's account and posting hints/demands (and talks to people on Twitter). He also seems to be able to insert messages and frames into Noah's videos.
    • Also a talented engineer, as revealed by the audio recorder he built.
  • Creepy Monotone: Milo's dialogue in the first conversation on Submission 5. "I-don't-want-to-talk-about-it."
  • Crossover: "Envelope" seems to imply one with Everyman HYBRID thanks to a Dr. C, a burned letter, and a very HABITesque note. That is was crossed with purple tape and signed "We're all creatures of" means it's probably from HABIT himself.
  • Dangerously Genre Savvy: After the previous online files he got from the Observer self-destructed, Noah deliberately took steps to avoid it happening again.
  • Dark Action Girl: "cursorsvesselisnotahe"
  • Deadpan Snarker: Noah. Just look at his Formspring.

Asker: I want you inside me.
Noah: I didn't know my bed could talk.

    • Scarily enough, so is The Observer
  • Determinator: Noah, as evidenced by this excerpt from Formspring.

Asker: Be honest, through all this crap you've been going through, did you ever think of suicide?
Noah: Suicide is me quitting. I'm not a quitter. I won't stop until I either win or lose.

  • Derivative Differentiation: It started off as a video series in The Slender Man Mythos that was a largely forgettable Marble Hornets clone, but eventually found its own voice after the funeral submission, especially in "Night Recordings."
  • Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Literally.
  • Did You Just Stab Slender Man?: Well...Noah attempted at least.
    • How about 4 rounds from a .45? Didn't work.
  • Do Not Taunt Slender Man While Running Bare Foot Around Your House At Night
  • Evil-Detecting Dog: Early in the Nature Trail Visit, there is a dog following Noah and barking at him.
  • Evil Laugh: The Observer has one, as revealed by his Incredibly Obvious Bug.
  • Fan Disservice: Noah's Shirtless Scene in November 11th thanks to Blood From the Mouth (and Nose) and the words/symbols written on his stomach/forehead.
  • Four Eyes, Zero Soul: The Observer... assuming he's evil, anyway.
  • Follow the Leader: Mostly Marble Hornets, but has been going its own way since My Grandfather Karl
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus
    • Some of the Slender-moments are barely there for a second before they vanish.
      • Even in the Introduction. During the "In Memory" picture, look towards the left, in the background.
        • Also in the first video, you can very briefly see an operator symbol for a split second just before the end.
    • There's also several in Unboxing, as noted below in Mind Screw.
    • The Device has the message You will soon remember hidden in the middle of the video as well as one bonus frame at the end.
      • Likewise, Device Analysis has We will have you.
      • And "Device Findings" has AGAIN.
    • In almost every episode, there is a one of these right before the video ends.
    • Device Analysis also has another, less traditional example. Near the 1:20 mark when Noah points the camera on himself, you can see something that looks like a person moving down the hall behind him.
    • They are all over the place in November 11th. Just one example would be near the middle when we see Kevin for the first time. ONE OF US.
  • Friends Rent Control: Noah apparently lives all alone in a large house with a swimming pool since 2008.
    • On his Formspring he explained that it is a summer home owned by his parents.
  • Halloween Episode
  • Hell Hotel
  • Hidden in Plain Sight: Typical with Slendy, worrying when Milo can clearly see him and Noah can't.
  • Hive Mind: The Observer claims to be one.
  • Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: Noah has had several supernatural experiences coincide with holidays and birthdays. Most recently was a Twitter conversation with the Observer on Valentine's Day 2012.
  • Hostile Show Takeover: On 11-11-11, The Observer kidnapped Noah and took over his Formspring again.
  • Humanoid Abomination: The Slender Man, moreso than in that other series. My Grandfather Karl and Box Analysis establish he doesn't have arms, just lots of tentacles, and Submission 6 shows off his impressive Offscreen Teleportation skills.
    • We see the tentacles up close at the very end of Unknown Caller and a few times in HELLOTHERE...
      • There are also several rather detailed shots of the tentacles in the Nature Trail Visit video.
    • COMECLOSER and Noah's hijacked Formspring imply that the Observer is one as well.
    • INTERRUPTION shows an impressive shot of Slendy's tentacles at the end. Way too close for comfort.
    • HAPPYBIRTHDAY reveals that his tentacles even have suction cups.
  • Incredibly Obvious Bug: Justified. The Observer's gadget was intended to be found.
  • Incredibly Lame Pun: Actually kind of brilliant when Noah's conducting his Secret Parent Interview. As he and his mother are talking, the Slender Man rises up in the window in the background. Then at one point, while Noah's mother is dismissively talking about Karl, she waves her hand, which comes between the camera and Slendy, seemingly erasing him from sight. In other words, she literally hand waved him away. Happens again during a moment where Noah ponders his insanity in November 11th.
  • In Memoriam: It started off as this for Noah's cousin, Milo. Until he began to notice something in the tapes...
  • Invisible to Normals: Slender Man doesn't make much of an effort to hide himself in the first few entries, but Noah only sees what Milo was worried about after watching the recordings.
  • Jump Scare: The Observer loves doing this.
  • Laughing Mad: Noah in 'Nature Trail Visit'.
  • Meaningful Background Event: In Secret Parent Interview, Slendy appears in the darkened background while Noah talks with his parents. Fairly easy to miss, unless you read the video description before watching.
  • Meaningful Name: As one person on Formspring pointed out, Asher of the Twelve Tribes sold his brother into slavery.
  • Mind Screw
    • The first bit of weirdness during Night Recording: the image flickers and is briefly replaced by a swimming pool at night in a lightning storm. And to add to that, Slendy's hidden in the picture. Oh Crap.
    • The images from Submission 6, after Milo is apparently captured by the Slender Man.
    • The stuff Noah gets in the box left in Night Recording. In the Unboxing video, random words and images sometimes appear on screen: one is a picture of Slendy, shortly after are words saying "He Knows What I Have Done", and the last "I will wait for you", while a picture of tentacled Slendy dominates the screen. Also doubles as a Freeze-Frame Bonus, as noted above.
    • Curiously enough, not the Observer-nightmarish imagery aside, he's actually pretty straightforward (if laconic).
    • Northern Trip Footage does before the plane even takes off.
  • Nice Hat: The hat Noah is wearing in Nature Trail Visit.
  • Nightmare Face: Multiple times in COMECLOSER
    • Also in INTERRUPTION. Plenty of terror to go around.
  • No Ending: One of Noah's twitter updates teases this, but was just a false alarm.
  • Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here: It's just been really boring around here.
  • Nothing Is Scarier: Night Recording
    • INTERRUPTION
  • Offscreen Teleportation: The Slender Man, as usual. Most triumphant example: In Submission 6, he's in a closet in the living room around 20 feet away, and leans behind the doorjamb, out of view. After a moment, he leans out from behind the doorjamb of the bathroom, five feet away from the camera.
    • In Secret Parent Interview, Slender Man appears in the background as Noah and his mom are talking. When his mom gesticulates and her hand blocks the spot where Slender Man stands for a split-second, he vanishes.
    • Mary Asher Phone Call subverts and justifies it. After Noah fires off four shots, Slender Man freaking bullrushes Noah from accross the hall and knocks him down in less than a second, giving us a close of of his faceless head. So he doesn't teleport, he's just fast as fuck!
  • Oh Crap: Noah's reaction listening to the message on the device.

Noah: There's no way that just happened.

  • Psychic Nosebleed: Happens to Noah with increasing regularity. Was seemingly a genuine nosebleed that was photographed for the series.
    • If his personal Facebook is anything to go by, one was a real nosebleed after a bike accident, and the other was a red pen that was heated and broken onto a tissue.
  • Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Collective. Spoken about by the Observer on Formspring -- he doesn't say how many members form this group but five of them are named: Deadhead, Mr. Scars, Cursor, Persolus, Swain, and Firebrand. They, along with several others yet to be named, are shown in the video "HAPPYBIRTHDAY."
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: Word of God says there was some bad blood between Adam/Noah and Sarah from Thanksgiving, resulting in delays and difficulties getting all of the Thanksgiving footage shot properly.
  • Refusal of the Call: The events of "Unknown Caller" scare Noah so much that he destroys the phone and refuses to pursue the mystery any longer. Unfortunately, The Call Knows Where You Live and it's waiting for him to pick up again...
  • Retired Badass: Karl
  • Right Behind Me: Warnings scrawled on the handrail of the tower.
    • HELLOTHERE suggests that Slendy was right behind Milo and watching him all the time during Submission #3.
  • Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue: "November 11th" gives us "Roses are red, and violets are blue. I have a gun and I don't think you do,"
  • Rotoscoping: Used extensively in the Observer videos.
  • Sanity Slippage: This tweet seems to indicate Noah is becoming a little bit unhinged:

I'm not crazy, but I just had the realization that everything around me is alive. It doesn't matter if I'm paranoid, they're still after me.

Noah (to The Observer): Quit hiding and SHOW YOURSELF FOR ONCE, YOU FUCKING COWARD!

    • He does .
  • That Makes Me Feel Scared
  • Things That Go Bump in the Night: The premise for Night Recording.
  • Those Wacky Nazis: When the Observer was in control of Noah's Twitter account, he sent a "prize" to people: A .jpg file depicting a Nazi diary.
  • Throw It In: During Noah's interrupted Livestream, he calls himself Adam (the creator's real name, Adam Rosner), and since this is live and people noticed, he has to make up, on the fly, a reason: he's been calling the cops about disturbances so much he's had to use fake names to get them to respond. Also, according to Word of God in the Media Meltdown video, the knocking was unscripted.
    • He does it again in the next livestream on Valentine's Day, and says that he's been using the alias so much that it's starting to become ingrained. He says he's going to start using "Melvin" next.
  • Time Travel: In the Halloween Hotel video, either Noah travels a few hours into the future or there are a few unrecorded, unremembered hours. It is probably the former as Noah films a continuous shot, but one can't be too sure with things involving the Observer.
  • Trust Me I'm a Doctor: A "Dr. Cairo" said this on Twitter while talking to Noah, despite previously establishing that he's a student.
  • Troll: The Observer celebrates Halloween by bombarding Noah with a shit-ton of Alien Geometries and a small bit of Time Travel at a hotel, seemingly just For the Lulz.
  • Unreliable Narrator: Noah, perhaps. During the funeral video, the last few seconds of footage are of Noah running from nothing while the image on the screen starts to tear apart, meaning the Slender Man is nearby. He claims he edited this footage out... then who put it back in, and why? And why did he not want us to see it?
    • Even further implied by The Envelope video, which featured a torn scrap of paper addressed to Noah, reading "Unrel Narra".
  • Urban Legend: Noah's grandfather Karl explains that Slendy is indeed an urban legend he heard back in WWII Germany. Possibly a Shout-Out to the fact that some of the Something Awful forum members indeed had heard a German urban legend similar to that of Slendy.
  • Weirdness Magnet: Milo. Heck, he can't even hold a camera for five seconds before Slender Man shows up.
  • Wham! Episode:
    • The Token Letter introduces an "Ultimatum" from the sender of HELLOTHERE as well as a new symbol: an eye with four petals. The mysterious third party is now commonly referred to as "The Observer".
    • Nature Trail Visit, full stop. We get not one, but two very well done shots of The Tall One himself, but we realize Noah had been out for a whole week.
    • The Device series shows us that the Observer is very much a physical being, and has a voice.
    • November 11th: we finally get to see Kevin, Noah's friend who translates Grandpa Karl's German. He looks just like the Observer.
    • The 2/14 Livestream is also full of wham.
  • What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: "Tribe Twelve"? "Noah"?
    • Justified: He's Jewish.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: The Observer calls out The people on twitter when he challenges them to a riddle to see something that Noah didn't want them to see. When they guess it right, he expresses his disbelief that they were on his side, yet willing to see something he didn't want them to see for a REASON.
    • Noah gives one of his own upon his return, and considering this is Noah we're talking about, his is a bit more... colorful.
  • Word of God: Lots of this in these interviews Media Meltdown Interview and Radio Interview