"Life needs your full attention; there's no reason to give it any less. But sometimes, things happen that are out of our control."
— Preaxin commercial
ECKVA
is a Web Original Analog Horror series. It is the second Spin-Off of the Marble Hornets psychological horror web series, created by Troy Wagner following the abandonment of previous series Clear Lakes 44. ECKVA was first hinted towards on September 25th, 2016, and fully revealed on the 28th of that same year. The YouTube channel for ECKVA was created on October 13th, 2016.
Much like Clear Lakes 44, this series slowly began as a series of continuous cryptic updates before the creation of the ECKVA YouTube channel:
- The series first 'began' on the 25th September 2016, with emails sent from the D.Scott account, a holdover from Clear Lakes 44's Alternate Reality Game, which caused people from the THAC forums to try and piece together possible theories about a continuation of the spinoff. Eventually, "eckva.net" would be discovered, with various emails from D.Scott and internet theories concluding that the site is meant to be a database of fears.
- One day later, the Marble Hornets Twitter account renamed itself "+++++///11v%*, and sent out many tweets and images that helped contribute theories to eckva.net. Eventually, eckva.net would soon go online, with various sublinks being found for the website through hidden numbers or phrases in the images that were sent by D.Scott, or tweeted by the Twitter account, revealing further cryptic details about the site's existence, with the eventual discovery that ECKVA was a broadcasting network that bought out its rival, Clear Lakes Communications, liquidating all CLC affiliate stations, including Clear Lakes 44.
- On October 13th, the ECKVA YouTube channel was created, uploading its first video, ECKVA1, at the same time. Of note was the end of the video, displaying "ɴᴏᴛᴇs: -ɴᴏɴᴇ-", giving viewers ideas that the video was being documented in ways relating to Jay's video editing in Marble Hornets.
As confirmed by Troy Wagner on Twitter, ECKVA18 will be the end of "part 1" of the series, implying that ECKVA will have a multi-season format similar to Marble Hornets. The series properly returned with the long-awaited ECKVA19 in late May 2022.
Various details about ECKVA's current story, including a detailed timeline of the above events, can be found on the official Discord channel for Grampo Co.
Warning: As this is a sequel series, spoilers for both Marble Hornets and Clear Lakes 44 will be unmarked. If you have not watched either series, read at your own risk.
A TVTROPES Network Production
- Abandoned Area: The house that Hawkins has inherited, and where the broadcast are being picked up from.
- Aborted Arc: Clear Lakes 44; ECKVA is the follow-up, but how exactly it's connected is unknown yet. An email reveals that Clear Lakes 44's parent company was absorbed by ECKVA at some point.
- Ambiguous Situation: How the whole thing begins. There's a video that tells us nothing but the most vague of promises for a new TV network. There's a section for notes that's empty. That's all we know.
- Arc Number: 452
- Arc Words:
- "See what's important" and variations such as "Do what's important."
- "Stay inside."
- "Why not start your new life today?"
- "The Ark" is still important, as whoever runs the ECKVA email claims to know "much more" about it, and then in ECKVA 9, "arklistener v0.0.9" goes online.
- A variation, whenever "-running "brightest_light"" is displayed in the console it usually means something eerie is about to happen.
- Body Horror: ECKVA15 has an animated segment with a man going through this. On his face.
- In ECKVA16, Hawkins discovers their left arm has a patch of static that shows them a vision of a static entity when they touch it. Even worse, their Notes reveal that it's slowly spreading.
- Deranged Animation: Alis Pastry. Which was apparently supposed to be a cartoon called Alice's Bakery before ECKVA shut down, according to an email.
- Eldritch Location: The "layout data" in ECKVA13 implies that the back room of Hawkins' house is this, due to the fact that the digital layout denotes that room as full of percentage signs, as if what is truly inside there is being hidden by the data. There are also implications that the static being possibly lives in that room.
- Genre Savvy: S. Hawkins shows strong signs of this. At the very least, they're avoiding the Idiot Ball by ditching what seems to be Preaxin, remaining almost entirely anonymous, and - as of ECKVA 11 - adding a security system to the house.
- Subverted in ECKVA12, which leads to them getting attacked by a Humanoid Abomination when they try going in the back room.
- Humanoid Abomination: As stated above, Hawkins encounters one in 12, which appears to be a creature made out of static.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: At first, the series consists of weird videos being broadcasted in a local area and someone going through an awful lot of trouble to pick them up. The only hint that there IS something supernatural occurring is the link to Marble Hornets. ECKVA12 is the first video to feature explicitly supernatural events, then things start ramping up after.
- Nightmare Face: Frequently shows up in the broadcasts. ECKVA13 features a rather ominous one at the end.
- Properly Paranoid: Hawkins. We don't know anything about them other than their last name and first initial, and a little about their backstory. Their face is never seen, they wear blue nitrile surgical gloves and long sleeves constantly so we haven't even seen any exposed skin, and they are VERY cautious about what information they put out. Given the situation, this seems entirely rational In addition, they chuck the pill after ECKVA10, clearly not wanting the Preaxin within any meaningful distance as them.
- Serial Escalation: The creepiness ramps up much faster than in Marble Hornets, although there's nothing obviously supernatural until ECKVA12.
- Subverted Kids' Show: Alis Pastry... maybe. Our narrator suggests (rightly) that the animation is much too primitive and low quality to qualify, though the network was working on an animated series at one point.
- Side Effects Include...: The Preaxin commercial.
- Stylistic Suck: All ECKVA broadcasts seem antiquated, low-rez, and either intensely dull or aggressively eerie, with heavy distortion.
- New Media Are Evil: Subverted. The evil is there, but while ECKVA is tied to a computerized database, implied to use a nonstandard form of broadcast, and can evidently tell how many receivers are active, it uses a format and graphical structure that seems distinctly antiquated.
- Wham Episode: In ECKVA12, Hawkins enters the house but finds that their equipment is destroyed, and they suddenly hear knocking in the next room. Upon finding nothing and investigating the back room they turn around and a Humanoid Abomination being made of static lunges toward them. In addition, the video is implied to have not been uploaded by Hawkins, but by ECKVA itself.
- ECKVA13 reveals that ECKVA has been monitoring the house for quite some time, and we see a strange and unknown figure still in the house that ECKVA seems to be tracking the movement of.
- ECKVA14: ECKVA is shown to have surveyed a road of as yet unknown significance, and Hawkins is revealed to be alive.
- ECKVA15: contains footage of Hawkins going through the woods in an intoxicated or addled state, likely because of their run-in with the abomination from ECKVA12. Two characters are introduced in a later chat with Hawkins, A. Raymond and Danielle, as they try to get info about the arklistener program.
- ECKVA16: Hawkins wakes up in the house, only to find out that they have been physically afflicted with a static-like illness that's slowly spreading on their body, Raymond has either gone insane or taken over by ECKVA, and he is the last one left who knows of ECKVA itself.
- ECKVA17: The map program from ECKVA13 is updated to display a second location, one that Hawkins reveals at the end of the video to be their own house.
- Wham Line: ECKVA9, features "DATABASE 452 ACTIVE" and "arklistener v 0.0.9 STATUS: ONLINE"
- Wham Shot: In ECKVA2, an announcement that the company is accepting job applications, states that it promises "better pay", "challenging work", and... "health benefits", the last of which is prominently visualized with a no-mark orange bottle of white pills. Now, where have we seen that before?
ɴᴏᴛᴇs: ɪ ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴠɪᴇᴡᴇᴅ ꜰᴏʀ ᴀ ᴊᴏʙ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴇᴄᴋᴠᴀ ᴀ ʟᴏɴɢ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴀɢᴏ, ʙᴀᴄᴋ ᴡʜᴇɴ ɪᴛ ᴡᴀs sᴛɪʟʟ ᴏᴘᴇʀᴀᴛɪɴɢ. ɪ ᴡᴀs ʀᴇᴀᴅɪɴɢ ᴛᴠᴛʀᴏᴘᴇs ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴛᴏᴏ.
