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[Dray]

I'm sure that they'll start off with a bang, or at least something that will make us go, "oh... OH SHIT! IT'S BACK IT'S BACK IT'S BACK!" With the exception of Fiasco, who will crawl out of the woodworks to declare that it stinks.

[Daniel Kay]

Hey I have a small question out of interest, do "the tapes" still exist or where they destroyed in the fire, did J take them with himself?

I don't know if that was mentioned at some point because I'd kinda like to see more from events that where in the past and if there may be any clues. After all it's possibly J simply didn't notice some things back then when first viewing them.

[Guest]

[Guest]

[spaekle]

Hahahahahaha, so early on "Alex" was pretending to speculate with everyone else? That's amazing.

[Dray]

T'would have been awesome if KYIH were actually playing the part of Alex the same way that ce gars was posting as Jay. In that case, it would be less of moderator guidance (which is smooth, by the way -- glad they could do that away from UF's rules!) and more of Alex getting drawn back into the mess in character.

Making a character into one of the players/participants/watchers who are pretty helpless seems kind of like a neat tidbit!

Anyways, as for the tapes, I'm guessing that they were destroyed. As said before, we don't see any evidence one way or the other. For all we know, TTA or SM took the tapes before the complex was burnt down. "If you don't see the body, it's not dead!"

[DavFlamerock]

[Daniel Kay]

Here is a theory, this one actually came thanks to "Tribe twelve" but it could apply to all SlenderMan story.

SlenderMan actually has a memetic ability to trigger peoples "weirdness censor" (TV Tropes article on that http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WeirdnessCensor). That is the reason why he can stand right in the middle of a room and people won't notice him, or they just can't notice him as something strange, just a tall man in a suit, they don't even notice the missing face.

However some people have the ability to NOT trigger this and can actually notice he's there or not just a person, they either have a different mental configuration or take medication (This was inspired by Tribe Twelve), for example against depressions. Those are the people SlenderMan initially stalks because they are a threat to him in some way.

And this is also where the cameras come in, different than the human mind SlenderMan can't trick the cameras, he can disturb them in some way but not enough to disappear from the recordings.
However there still is the weirdness censor effect, it also works on the tapes BUT only on people that encountered SlenderMan before. Again from "Tribe Twelve", when reviewing the tapes SlenderMan was clearly visible a few times, yet Noah seems to overlook him every single time. This is because his weirdness censor is still in effect, other people who watch the recordings clearly see him because they where not affected before.
A problem for slendy is though that the weirdness censor effect starts to fade over time, people notice that something is not right until it finally breaks down. Look at J for example, when first looking through the tapes he said "someone" was stalking Alex, but he didn't notice that they guy in the very first entry he posted HAD NO FACE. Though he may have assumed it was a mask but I blame it on the still present weirdness censor effect.

This is also why people seem to forget some things, something happens that just so weird their mind can't comprehend what happened.
I also had the theory that electronics are disturbed by this as well, like in entry #23 of MH, J doesn't teleport but something happens that's so strange it cancels out his memories and also disturbs the camera. After it happened so often in a row his camera broke and wouldn't work anymore. This is also what happens in entry #24, the camera observing him AND his mind somehow ticked out.


SlenderMan CAN make himself willingly visible though as evident in Entry #26 where he appears in front of Alex and his girlfriend.


Now other points that lead me to this:
-The pills in MH are psycho-pharmacy, they alter brain chemistry in a way that cancels out the weirdness censor effect, both the willing one (SlenderMan messing with peoples minds so the can't notice him) and the unwilling one (exposure to strange effects he causes). Tim/Masky takes those pills in order not to get manipulated, however it's possible he doesn't do it for protection from Slendy, he does it so he can WORK for him and not get affected by weirdness, he retains all memories of what happened. At least as long as the pills work, afterwards it's very possible the memories get buried and he becomes Tim again.
If he does so knowing or unknowing is still out to question, he might do so knowingly and just stops taking them now and then in order to give his brain some rest (constant exposure to the weirdness causes health problems, the coughing, Maskys seizure, the blood in the sink possibly...) or unwillingly, he just has the pills and a strange urge to take them, maybe he found a medical plan where it's noted he has to take them from time to time.
-In entry #12 the whole crew sees SlenderMan, it's from a distance but they can see him quite clearly for a good minute, and yet they all react like he's just a guy standing there, nobody notices the pale face, the unusual hight or the lack of face (this may be due to the distance though). They again could have thought he's a guy with a mask, but personally I'd be too weirded out about a tall guy wearing a mask just standing around in a forest.
The simple reason is they can't see that something was wrong there, in their minds it's just a guy standing there.
-In entry #17 SlenderMan stands right at a window and yet nobody seems to notice him, the only one who maybe could was the person looking through the camera since, as mentioned, the censor effect doesn't happen to electronic recording devices, but he was under the already present censor effect too so he didn't notice as well.


One more part to this theory, some of the audio and video distortions aren't due to faulty equipment, they really happened and the camera recorded what was going on. This is probably among the very strange scale of this but it could explain how J's camera that was hooked up to a HDD recorded disturbances that usually only happen on tape, it was because those where actual disturbances that happened in the room.
And the distorted sound again is due to the weirdness censor effect, the sound really is distorted and strange but the people simply don't notice it happening.



OK this got long enough, and very strange
But I hope this is a theory that could possibly shed some light on things, it does make a lot of things seem more plausible in my eyes.

[GnomonRose]

Daniel's theory

[Daniel Kay]

Actually I just remembered something, just a small side note.

In the interview with Tim he said that someone left dead animals on Alex's lawn. Usually it's assumed that this is some kind of threat, however it's quite possible Slendy ticks different than humans.
The theory there is that the dead animals where not a threat but a "peace offering" or a trade.

What lead me to that ideas, Slendy lives in the woods as it seems so he'd also observe what humans do in the woods, one thing is "hunting". He just sees them kill animals and take them with them so he'd probably think this is what humans want. Seeing the film crew in the woods it's likely he thought they wanted dead animals too but each day left without them and came back the next day and Slendy simply wanted to get rid of those nasty humans. So he killed a few animals and left them on Alex's lawn, kinda to say "here you go, now get lost".
Only they came back even after that, at that point he started to stalk them since, in his view, they could be after him. Why he hasn't simply killed them is that maybe he's not able to do it that easily OR he simply got curious now of whats up with those strange little humans.

[Dray]

What about all of the other people who go to the park for the day or weekend? Would it be the weirdness censor that causes SM to go for the MH crew to begin with, then?

I do like that theory, as it does make a certain amount of sense. The actual disturbance of audio distortion in the room and not on the camera is very odd, though. It could just be the version that we see on camera is just what the camera was able to catch for something far stranger that happened in the room, itself.

[Daniel Kay]

[Dray]

I'm not sure about the dead animal thing. I wouldn't trust anything that Tim said during the interview as being innocent or true, given that it's pretty damned likely that we know he's TTA or at least just Masky. Because we saw that skull-mask in #26, I'd wager that TTA/Masky/Tim had been up to his shenanigans all the way back when Alex was filming... he just kept a lower profile. So if Tim said that animals were showing up in Alex's yard, if he wasn't outright lying about that to scare Jay away, he was probably behind it.

Besides, I think it's less likely that SM figured out how a camera worked simply by being in the area, and more that he detected it somehow. That the electronics brought something to his domain that pissed him off in reaction. Have to wonder if SM hates cell phones, too. From what we've seen of Jay's getting distorted, it could be true!

[Daniel Kay]

[Dray]

If he's not outright aware, there has to be glimmers of awareness involved, at least. Or at least a sense that something's not right. You're pretty much right about all of that, though. It's part of what left everyone confused by the end of Part I. Apparently successfully hooked, but still very confused and unresolved!