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[Kilo]

So, adding on to my own little personal mythology here...

I'm not sure if my whole sight/sound thing is true or not (Though, if it ever is revealed to be true, I will not shut up about it), but it's something I believe to be true of the bigger picture, and that's the fact that TTA and the Operator are two conflicting forces, two entities locked in some kind of battle against each other. They're bigger than us, and the people you see in the entries are merely pawns for them.

To make a long story short, what I'm angling for here is the Greek classical elements of earth/fire/wind/water.

There seems to be a close association with the Operator and trees. This can be seen in some of Alex's scribblings where he mentions trees, as well as most of the Operator's earlier appearances occurring within the nearby forest (I know he didn't know show up exclusively there), and his appearance as well, being tall and thin. Long arms, you know.

And TTA seems to be obsessed with water. Starting with just the name (totheark) conjures images of Noah's flood (For most people who grew up in the States, at any rate), as well as certain video titles and even video content centering around water.

So, basically, what I'm getting at here, the Operator is an entity of "earth" to some extent, and TTA is an entity of "water".

Still working within the Greek system, each of the elements were associated with a certain "humor"- a bodily fluid- as well as certain qualities and dispositions.

Earth: Associated with black bile, qualities of being cold and dry, and associated with despondence, sleeplessness, irritability.

I think the "humorism" part can be pretty interesting, but I'll leave that be for the time being. What I would like to call attention to is the properties of being cold and dry. While it's a pretty exclusive event, in Entry 17 a lot of the actors complain about it being cold with the Operator hanging out right outside the window. And I maintain that Mask is working for the Operator, and if Mask is Tim.... every time we see Tim (With the exception of entry 9), he's drinking water/asking for water. Not a peculiar thing by any means (People drink water, who knew?), but it seems like something that calls for attention.

Water: Associated with phlegm, qualities of being cold and wet, and associated with being calm and unemotional.

I, sadly, don't really have anything to call attention to for this one. Maybe that TTA seems able to articulate himself and has a clear goal. That's all I got.

Whew. About halfway through, I started watching Starcraft 2 videos, so sorry if it seems like the post took a sudden drop in quality.

As for the Operator being a malevolent force, I'll address that later.

[Kilo]

I hate double posting, especially since there's an edit button right there, but I feel like two separate points warrant two separate posts.

The Operator is a force that's bad for people, let's get that out of the way right now. Even if you don't think he's malevolent, he very obviously doesn't do good things for people. He's a totally alien force that freaks people out, and quite possibly, brings harm to them.

I think the biggest indication of the Operator being a malevolent force is entry 26. It's not Amy freaking out or Alex running away, it's the "HELP" at the very end. I think what had happened was that TTA had been using/guiding Jay towards for awhile, but Jay eventually went "No, I'm done." TTA basically sent "Warning" as a final "Screw it, you're on your own buddy." But, hell broke loose at Alex's house. Something new came up, or something didn't go according to plan. Somehow TTA was able to retrieve the tape (Jay received the text message about 2 and a half hours after the timestamp on the camera) and put "HELP" at the end of it (I say TTA because the style seems to be the same, and he's shown an affinity to camera-type stuff, obviously), enlisting Jay's help again. Obviously he have no clue as to what happened afterwards, but that's a work in progress.

TTA seems to be a protector of sorts. I'd like to point out that Jay has had, on camera, 5 encounters with the Operator (4 explicit and one implied). Entry 13, 16, 23 and 31, and Returns (Correct me if I'm wrong). In Entry 13, the Operator is around, but so is TTA, so Alex gets harassed but Jay seems to be safe (Though, it seems that Jay was in no danger at this point in the timeline). In 16, you see the visual tear occur in the closet, which is a pretty consistent indicator of the Operator being around, but TTA is around and we never see the Operator. In Returns, we see Jay in a pretty bad way, but TTA is there and the Operator walks right on by him, seeming to take no notice of him.

In 23, however, Jay quite clearly has a brush with the Operator, and while it's unclear what exactly happened, it probably wasn't good for Jay. His camera breaks, he has no recollection of what happened, and more importantly, it seems to be the first time the Operator has really noticed Jay- and TTA was nowhere around (Allegedly). I wouldn't go so far as to say he was attacked, but it seemed like a pretty malevolent action.

[Kilo]

Well, with Fragments...

My interpretation is that there are two separate messages in Fragments. One is the pictures of Alex, the other is the text.

The text is pretty self-explanatory. "You are broken, you can not be fixed". He seems to be talking towards Jay, as he always does. The obvious interpretation seems to be is that Jay is marked, in some way, and try as he might he can't run from this. Either that, or maybe there's some kind of recursion here, where he's trapped in some kind of cycle. It'd be interesting to see where Jay ends up with the tapes.

With the pictures of Alex, I find it interesting that Alex's eyes are cut out towards the end. To me, the bits and pieces of Alex being broken up seem to symbolize that Alex is "broken" in a similar way Jay was, and that the Operator either accomplished whatever it was he wanted with Alex, or is very close to it. I feel like the eyes being cut out hint towards something symbolic as well- perhaps Alex has finally lost his ability to "see", or maybe he's just on the Operator's side of the field in some way. Not saying he's a Mask or anything like that, but Alex lost the struggle.

I do find it curious, though, that the tags say "See you always". This, along with Addition, seem to throw a wrench into the whole "audio" thing TTA has going on.

EDIT: As I just realized, the "blurry" text seems to be used whenever TTA's references eyes- Addition has //eyes\\ in the video information, and Fragments has the tags "See you always" as well as cutting out Alex's eyes. Maybe that's the tie-in.

[Kilo]

With 35, I do think it's odd that that's the first time we've seen Mask/Tim go after anyone with that much... enthusiasm, but I wonder if that can be attributed more to the fact that this was akin to Mask being backed into a corner- every other encounter he's had with Jay has been on his own terms, but this is the first time (On camera) that anyone has tracked him down, come into his territory. He was desperate, I suppose. Or maybe he really has it in for Alex. It's hard to deny that Tim went straight for Alex, and Alex knew exactly where he was. They were both out for blood, clearly. Which seems a bit more serious than Jay's plan of running every time.

I do find Alex's appearance odd, though. We really need more backstory on that one.

Speaking of Alex, while I was at work I was thinking about entry 22 a lot at work tonight (Slow night). Two things I find immensely interesting about it is the fact that Alex took Seth in with him, of all people, and the list of names Alex gives at the end as "gone".

I guess I'll touch upon the second thing first, because it's relatively minor: I'd wager that the Operator has a capability to "touch" people, so to speak, and the effects seem to be random. He lists Jay, Sarah, Brian, and Tim as "gone" prior to his trip. We know that Jay was suffering intermittent blackouts during the filming of MH, and that Tim was obviously suffering from some kind of sickness. Those are things that are known, at least through the narrative presented to us. Brian seemed to become more reclusive as shooting went on, due to the constant questions of "Where's Brian?" "Oh, off doing stuff" in a couple of entries- though no one treats it as weird, it does seem odd that he'd be so isolated when they were using his house- the house that would later be a tip to Jay to go visit, and Mask's first appearance. Brian became more isolated and his house became important, for whatever reason.

Moving on to the first point- Alex taking Seth with him into the dragon's lair. Now, obviously, we don't know much about Alex's relationship with many of the castmembers, except he was friends with Brian. It seems as if Seth wasn't "gone", at least in Alex's mind. So he took him with him, right?

Basically, I'm leading up to the idea that Seth is TTA. The footage could be explained that way- I mean, if Alex dragged Seth into the boiler room (Which I'm sure Alex knew was sketchy before going), he'd probably have to do some convincing, or at least explaining. He could've handed over tapes like the one from Advocate to Seth and never gotten them back, or never had a chance to get them back. At least to explain things to him, especially if he felt that he was the last person in the group he could actually trust. And Seth was a camera operator, like Alex, which is a connection that can't be denied.

So, tying in the two points, Seth was "touched" in a similar manner as Alex- but his came later, when they were exploring the basement. And they both start with.... creative? outlets. Alex was drawing an absolute ton, as evidenced by some of the earlier tapes. So it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch that TTA could be experiencing something similar, but with the videos, if he is Seth.

[Fromthegenizah]

the slenderman mythos is, at best, unclear. We know he has some connection to children, but what exactly he is supposed to do to them is something I don't know much about. Does he kidnap them, kill them, torture them, suck their lives out?

This brings me to my main point, what if SM isn't an intentionally malevolent force here. As the series continues we see more people (Jessica, Tim, Alex, and Jay) getting affected by him in more than biological ways, which seem to be lessening btw. They are affecting the cameras, becoming more aggressive and cutting themselves off from the rest of humanity. Excuse the tinfoil hat theory here, but MAYBE is this some form of propagation?

Are these people Slenderman Candidates? And if so, are they competing for this goal, or are they a unit that will evolve together? This leads me to serious questions about the intentions of Masky (whether or not he is meant to be independent of Tim) and ToTheArk. I'm gonna be thinking about this for a while, wonder what you all think about this.

[Kilo]

See, the problem with that is that the MH crew are not borrowing from any kind of SM mythos. The link is there in the physical form, and it was inspired by that paranormal SA topic, but that's pretty much it. So, besides the physical appearance, nothing in "canon" SM mythos really applies to MH and their Operator. The only thing that is truly applicable to their Operator is what's observed and stated. Which, to be honest, isn't a whole lot. Granted, there is that thing that Jessica was talking about where she's having a dream where she's being followed as a kid, so maybe they're going to start applying that link, but I wouldn't take anything from outside sources and apply it to what's happening in MH, without MH making some kind of reference to it. Because, let's be honest, Slender Man is sort of the paranormal bicycle right now, in the sense that everyone's getting a ride.

I don't think you can broadly classify the effect that the Operator has on people, though. What we've observed so far is Alex losing his patience, being irritable, maybe a bit paranoid, and scribbling weird pictures all the damn time. We've seen Tim become very sick, and then aggressive and don the mask (Maybe not necessarily that order). Jay reports blackouts in his memory, plus difficulty sleeping. Jessica claimed she was having bad dreams as well as blackouts in her memory, but she seemed aware of them, whilst Jay didn't become conscious of his until he started recording everything.

Granted, we don't know if everyone was experiencing similar symptoms, but based on what we've seen, it seems safe to argue that the Operator influence isn't universal. But, who knows- maybe the pictures Jay found in Brian's house were pictures that Tim had drawn, or Brian, or really anyone who wasn't Alex.

I don't know about the propagation thing, but it'd be pretty funny if the Operator was really just a paranormal parasite. From space, no less.

[Zarggg]

Paranormal parasite from space?

[Kilo]

So, something someone said in the entry 39 topic sparked something that made me think.

At the end of entry 22, Alex talks about how he thought running away would make everything better, but it only made it worse, and how he was going back. This was immediately before Jay inherited the tapes.

Granted, we have a 3 year gap here, but it seems like Alex was intent on "going back", where ever back may have been. I'd say it's safe to assume that everything we're seeing now- everything from the hotel to the 7 month blackout, all of it has occurred in the same general area that was "back" for Alex. I draw this mostly from entry 38, due to Alex talking about when he first moved there he heard all those stories about the trees and criminals, though that seems to be something someone would say about moving to a new place as an adult.

Alex also expresses unfamiliarity with the Operator in season one in what seems to be the beginning of shooting Marble Hornets.

Basically what I'm getting at here is what if the Operator is only an extension of the underlying problem? A sort of, I dunno, paranormal enforcer, intent on bringing Alex back (Or destroying him) for whatever reason.

I understand the implication of being stalked as children is there, but Alex seems to indicate that he was aware of something that was happening in this area, but whatever it was didn't seem to involve the Operator. This could potentially be handwaved away by saying that Alex had forgotten about the Operator, and he remembered sometime between his first encounter and making entry 22, but that seems... unlikely.

Also, TTA has been disappointing this whole round so far. The style of his videos have changed- and unlike before, where it seemed like he was trying to move Jay along towards a purpose, he doesn't anything of the sort so far. Ah well.

[Mariolee]

I'm figuring logically that TTA is one of the original cast and crew or Jessica, but I have this awesome IMO idea in my head I can't shake off. How wonderfully creepy would it be if TTA...was the Operator?

Now, I don't mean the Operator goes flying about with his magical SONY MAKE.BELIEVE camcorder and spends hours on Adobe After Effects and waits patiently for his youtube vids to load.

But I mean, what if Slenderman just enters it in with his mind and being. He just thinks it, and it's there. To me, that'd be way more creepy and somewhat satisfying than any of the human characters.

Now, then some people might say, "What about the 'found you' thing directed to Slendy on Return?" Maybe it means Slendy has found Jay?

Or how did Slendy get the footage of Jay coughing or Jay getting stuff from the car? Maybe he wasn't recording with a camera, but recording with his mind, because maybe he was there and this is simply how he sees the world.

But then how can he see himself? IDK, this is a realy flawed theory, but a very exciting one I want to develop, even though I'm almost 90% positive I'm wrong.

[Zarggg]

The Operator is not TTA. This would require all sorts of convoluted theories and hand-waving of what we have seen so far to make it fit.

[Kilo]

I'm with Zarg on this one. It's a novel theory, to be sure, but there are just way too many holes with it.

I'm banking on Seth, in all honesty.

[Timur]

"The Operator belongs to others"
-TTA interview (I added the appropriate spaces, but you get the picture)

[Kilo]

[Kilo]

VINDICATION!

I never predicted that it was TTA (Though I was hoping), but I thought it was idiotic of people to think it was the Operator. And I was right.

Again, I'm disappointed in TTA in season 2. He seems more content making ominous, could-vaguely-be-interpreted-as-threats entries than entries in season one. However, this shift in mood has seen a shift in style. That, along with the age being taken down, makes me wonder if the TTA account has somehow changed hands. I mean, I guess it's possible. TTA entries have talked in the plural before. What if there was some sort of power struggle, and now someone else "leads" the TTA group, if there is such a thing. I'd have to go through and double check, but in season one, does TTA ever refer to himself with a singular pronoun? Forecast obviously says "Here's something I wanted to show you", as opposed to season one entries, where it's "Return to us" and the like. Maybe there was a pair, but in the intervening 7 months, one of them died/was incapacitated in some manner, so it's a one man show, and they're far more aggressive.

I also find it extremely interesting that TTA seems to have followed Jay to wherever. But that's the only thought I have on that.

[Kilo]

So I'm pretty positive at this point TTA is not in the hands of the original owner.

The style has changed too much for me to feel comfortable attributing this to a personality change. Starting with Fragments, everything has felt too different. TTA has lost the... cunning edge, and become more crazy, if that makes sense.

Season one TTA never communicated directly. It was always coded in some way, purposely vague. The only audio he provided was recycled from what was recorded. There were very few indicators that he even had a physical presence or a sense of self. Yea, the first idea of a physical presence came from Exit, and then Addition. But those seemed harmless. Like he was watching over Jay. And honestly, I think that's what it amounted too. TTA was watching over Jay, but for a purpose. He needed Jay to do something, and was driving him towards it and wanted to be there to protect him so he could accomplish it, not out of any sense of altruism. But Jay failed and gave up, and I always took Warning to be TTA saying "Fuck it, you're on your own buddy. Good luck!"

I do find it interesting that, chronologically speaking, Jay went from TTA guiding his actions to Alex guiding his actions. I don't think that Alex is TTA, but that transition seems impossible to deny and probably not entirely coincidental. One thing I do have trouble believing is that Alex sent the tape to Jay, but that's another topic entirely.

Anyway, the Blackout happens, and then Jay finds himself in the Hotel. He's paired, unwittingly, with Jessica. She disappears, he finds the tapes, Masky finds him, he beats it out of there, and TTA shows up again. But this time TTA is just... I don't know. Season two TTA doesn't seem to be guiding Jay towards anything. Basically just taunting him, making fun of him. Openly aggressive. "Hey, buddy, I'm always around. Don't worry about looking behind you, you won't see me. But I'm there." Not to mention the direct statements that he's become so fond of as of late.

TL;DR: Season one TTA was cunning in a way, communicated in a very indirect fashion but was careful to never give too much away and was trying to guide Jay towards an ultimate goal. Season two TTA just seems crazy and aggressive, still watching Jay but without any sort of purpose. If I had to put money on it, I'd guess it's due to the location shift.