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[Marble Hornets]

[operated9]

Hoody is Future Jay.
Totheark is Future Future Jay.
Regular Jay is Bruce in another dimension.

[JAL13]

[DHawk314]

[Osttle]

I forgot about the TTA exit, that means TTA is not Brian, or Seth, or Sarah ( like she was even a candidate) it rules out pretty much everyone. That gives some reinforcement to the whole "future anyone" theory.

[Sha Noran]

Wall of text incoming; these were my ideas that I initially posted in the Entry 80 thread:

Well, some of you stating there is nothing to support the future Jay theory are forgetting the tall, faceless white elephant in the room. Just because its time travel doesn't necessarily make it sci-fi... Time travel could be caused by.magic spells in fantasy or by supernatural beings or effects in horror. I think TO's job could be to close the time loop.

Alex must shoot Jay to create Hoody and close the loop.

Masky saves Jay in 52, but this was the wrong move, as this was originally where the time loop would have closed. TO prevents Jessica and Jay from properly escaping because then the loop would have never closed. In 67, Hoody and Tim want to kill Alex, TO intervenes because once again, if Alex dies he never shoots Jay which creates a paradox, and TO prevents it. In 71, future Jay tries to get the tapes before his past self does in an attempt to prevent the whole disaster, hence past Jay not remembering the events the way they went on the tape - once again this causes a paradox where the time loop never closes, so TO intervenes and forces Alex to change his mind and prevent future Jay from escaping with the tapes.

There are literally dozens of examples that make perfect sense if you look at the series this way. The blackouts of memory people experience are due to future Jay trying to change something to save himself, which creates a paradox; TO steps in and erases the memories that would prevent the time loop from ever closing, avoiding the paradox. Ever wonder why he's called The Operator? The Operator of the time stream perhaps.

It seems to me that the disaster that occurred in 06 with the student film Marble Hornets was in fact future Jay's initial sloppy and derpy attempts at preventing the whole thing from ever happening... Causing the initial Operator appearances because he had to step in and preserve the timeline to prevent a paradox. The initial Operator appearances cause Alex to go insane, eventually and ultimately leading to his shooting Jay -explaining also why he A) says that this is all Jay's fault and B) Alex's motivations for his killing spree. A perfectly constructed time loop and actually INCREDIBLE writing if this is the case. This would not explain The Operator's origin story but would shed minimal light on his motives.

I'm sorry to say it, because I didn't believe it at all before Entry 80, but Hoody as future Jay would make perfect sense.

Also explains why TTA can't help more directly - TO would simply intervene and prevent it. Also explains why Hoody lives in the woods (to avoid contact with people who might be confused by/realize double Jay). Also explains why TO appeared to save Alex in the Entry where Hoody and Masky lure him into the woods. Also explains the desperate wrench swinging defense of Hoody in 79, and why he never speaks. Also might POSSIBLY finally explain the very confusing mention of "twins" in that one TTA... Twins, as in the two Jays.

Another couple intriguing pieces of evidence for the future Jay as Hoody theory:

First: it explains why TO causes audio and visual distortion but allows film of himself to exist. He isn't worried about HIMSELF being caught on film, he is worried about paradox-inducing evidence of the situation being caught on film. He is basically redacting the evidence from the tapes. Very specific bits of conversation are routinely distorted/removed from the tapes, and I think this is because they are bits of conversation that would reveal to the characters, should they see the tape, that there's some time-wimey bullshit going on. Hence why we the audience and Jay in particular remain so confused as to what is really going on despite hours and hours and hours of footage and years of investigating. This leads directly into my second point...

Some of the events from the 06 footage that Jay doesn't remember ever happening actually feature future Jay interfering with the timeline. For a specific example, Entry 5 I think it, that has really intense audio distortion while zoomed in on the creek; I think this is future Jay saying things he shouldn't be, perhaps discouraging Alex's plans to use such wooded areas for filming or some such. If Alex was interacting with two entirely seperate Jays, it isn't hard to imagine that damaging his psyche. After location scouting with future Jay, past Jay acts like Alex is confused because past Jay never went location scouting with him at that location. Alex would start to lose his grip on reality and question his own sanity - he'd think wait did that really happen? Eventually he would grow paranoid and wonder if someone (or perhaps the whole cast and crew of MH) were fucking with him, like an elaborate prank. Except it isn't a prank, and everyone acts like Alex is being weird. Hence his growing irritation with his cast and crew - he thinks they are messing with his head when really no one but future Jay is. TO starts to fuck with him because the time loop is in danger if Alex decides to stop filming his movie or just quit associating with the crew/cast. He perhaps confides in Seth, who has seen all the footage and thus can confirm when Alex really did or did not meet with who and when. Seth becomes caught up in the mystery and agrees to help Alex uncover what's really going on. Seth begins to Know Too Much and so TO removes him from the equation. Alex fully loses his grip on reality, letting paranoia take over, and starts to eliminate the cast and crew. TO disposes of the evidence of his crimes to prevent a paradox, because if Alex is arrested and locked up he can never shoot Jay and close the time loop.

After the debacle of 06, as a last ditch effort future Jay tries to just intervene and get the tapes before his past self does. TO doesn't allow this either and finally future Jay learns his lesson - if he's going to try to change the timeline it will have to be much more subtle and cryptic, and he will have to make sure to hide his identity no matter what. He becomes TTA/Hoody.

This makes WAY too much sense to simply ignore or dismiss.

This theory also explains why Hoody knows that Tim's pills have a special defensive effect vs. TO -future Jay has already lived Entry 72 and would certainly be aware of this.

[Sha Noran]

Also the line from the student film about being stuck in a loop of unhappiness. Epic foreshadowing?

[DHawk314]

[JAL13]

[Sha Noran]

@DHawk (not quoting to avoid unnecessary quote pyramid):

Well actually that is how a time loop works. Alex shooting Jay is what creates Hoody in this past, according to my theory. The Operator wants this to happen because if it doesn't, future Jay's existence in the timeline is a paradox, because he is only taken back in time by TO after he is shot by Alex. I theorize that TO's purpose is to prevent paradoxes in the timeline, hence the wiping of memories and redacting of footage that would cause the characters to make decisions leading them away from their fate, i.e. anything that would prevent Alex from ultimately shooting Jay.

Granted, I understand why you say that isn't how time loops work, because if he was gonna get shot in 52 there's no avoiding it. But I think Hoody, with Masky's help, prevented Jay's getting shot the first time in 52. TO had to wipe months of memories to prevent Jay's complete escape and the subsequent paradox of two Jays. I think this leads Hoody as future Jay to start to improvise, because TO is not defeated and only angered (to personify a bit); less than a week later he takes Jessica away, who "should" have died in 52. Perhaps he realizes it is his past self's destiny to take a bullet from Alex and that that might be the only way to banish TO - close the time loop. So he orchestrates the scenario at the college and draws himself into a perfect situation for Alex to shoot his past self and HOPEFULLY end the chance of a paradox and thus banish TO. Obviously he is very twisted by all of this and loses sanity over it, hence some S3 TTA vids being very almost like.... guilt ridden.

Also remember the whole enttry 37 thing and Alex's supposed death being imminent? I think that things are going differently this time around, as in future Jay IS changing the timeline and HAS changed what happened to him and others originally. I postulate that this is why TO has been so busy deleting memories and footage that perpetuates this paradox. I also theorized that things have perhaps been changed too much, and that Hoody, Alex and Tim perhaps know too much and are doomed to be deleted from reality themselves to end the ongoing paradox.

Also, I didn't mean meeting two Jays made Alex crazy, I think it made him paranoid and convinced people were lying to him. The appearance of TO drove him insane... And TO only appeared because Jay was mucking with the timeline and TO had to redact/fix things. So you see Alex is right, this is all Jay's fault. Future Jay - explaining why the Jay we've been following for years now has no idea why Alex thinks this.

And if Jay remembers 5, then my bad. There are some he doesn't, I'm sure.


Also, since its been said and will surely be brought up again, about the Entry 68 counterpoint: Alex had already met both Jays and knew that future Jay was Hoody. His goal, however, is to confront and stop past Jay, for one of two reasons. 1, he is aware of TO's purpose to end the time loop and prevent a paradox, so he seeks past Jay to shoot him because he believes this will rid him of TO, or 2, he believes that shooting and killing past Jay will prevent future Jay from existing - two birds with one stone. Also he most likely wants to eliminate Tim at the same time, and since they are together this is efficient and easier. Also, Hoody escapes Alex in 68, he is not let go, so there's nothing to say he wasn't going to hurt or interrogate him further.

[DHawk314]

Jay remembers 5, 13, and 54, but doesn't remember 17 or 20.

Okay but it's still not how time loops work. What you're saying is, in the original timeline Jay got shot in 52, but then went back in time to be Hoody. Then Hoody got Tim to stop 52 from happening, and then realizing that was bad he led Jay to Benedict to get shot and become him.

This has a few problems. First of all, who, ontological, is Hoody then? He's "Originally" was Jay post-52, but then 52 didn't happen. So he would have ceased to exist but post-80 Jay replaced him, and post-80 Jay was "Close enough". Except, then why did this new version of Hoody who'd experienced 80 try to subvert 52? In his memories he survived that time, so what's to subvert. Was he closing a timeloop sending Tim up there the "Second time" but changing time the "First time". This is why I say time loops don't work like this, there's too much "Time changed but it was close enough and then it became a time loop because time didn't notice it was totally different."

There are more systematic problems in addition to that more conceptual one. Jay got shot the original time in 52 because his future self had yet to go back in time, become Hoody, and change it correct? So in the original, Jay dies in 52 timeline Hoody didn't exist right? Otherwise he would have lived. So why, in that version of the timeline did the Operator show up to "Fix" the time loop, and why did Alex even go crazy and shoot Jay in the first place?

Your theory suggests that in the original timeline Future Jay was there as part of a time loop which caused the Operator of time to show up and make Alex go crazy, but that in the original Future Jay didn't have Tim stop Alex from shooting Jay. In other words, Jay went back in time to do some stuff that was always gonna happen such as entries 17 and 20 and such, causing the Operator to appear, and then did some other stuff that wasn't supposed to like Entry #52, despite this all being one trip back in time?

So there's three timelines in your theory.

1. Future Jay from 52 causes TO to appear and Alex goes crazy as part of a stable time loop. Season 2 happens and Past Jay is shot in 52, and is then sent back in time to become Future Jay, completing the time loop.

2. Future Jay from 52 causes TO to appear and Alex goes crazy as part of a stable time loop. Season 2 happens and Jay is not shot in 52. Future Jay, now Hoody, realizes he done goofed so he has Jay killed in 80 to go back and become him. (It's is completely unclear how this timeline appeared as a different one from the first one, considering they both started out with the same stable time loop.)

3. Future Jay from 80 causes TO to appear and Alex goes crazy, which is close enough for the time loop to "work", whatever that actually means (Timeloops don't work that way!). Season 2 happens and Jay is still not shot in 52, but this time that was supposed to happen as part of the timeloop (?) Then, to complete the timeloop Hoody has Jay shot at Benedict Hall again to go back and become him. Even though Hoody's motives are completely different this time everything else is ontological similar enough to the previous time for the time loop to be "Stable". Although it's not clear why this new version of Hoody realized he needed to complete time loops not end them considering that he never experienced the failed aversion of 52, but whatever.

Now that I've spelled it all out I hope you see why your theory is like, really weird and doesn't make very much sense. We're incline to believe the Operator appeared cause of Future Jay, meaning some of his actions were always there in the timeloop, but he also makes alterations so some of them weren't, which is a huge contradiction. Things like this are basically why these "Time was changed but we completed the time loop close enough" things are silly.

[cliswp]

I'm not at all in favor of this theory, but has anyone thought that the missing bullet bullet from Brian's house might be the one that's in Jay right now?

[The Slender Man]

This is becoming the new "Sarah is totheark."

[operated9]

[Ristar]