Marble Hornets

Marble Honest is the story of Jay Merrick, a film student who finds himself in possession of dozens of tapes from the production of his friend Alex Kralie's unfinished student film, Marble Hornets. Jay hasn't seen Alex in years, but when he finds the tapes in the back of his closet, he decides to search through them and promises to upload anything interesting.

He quickly finds evidence that Alex was being stalked by a tall pale man in a dark suit with no face. This figure is visible, eerily lurking, in the background of several tapes, including in broad daylight and when other members of the film crew are present. Whether anyone besides Alex can see this figure is unclear.

Jay also realizes that many, many tapes capture Alex and his surroundings in contexts completely unrelated to the film. It seems like Alex was filming himself almost constantly. On set, he berates and argues with his actors and crew, while on his personal tapes, he engages in increasingly paranoid and strange behavior. Jay also finds footage of himself at some of Marble Hornets shoots, but he can't remember actually being there.

Around this time, another YouTube channel, totheark, begins to post videos in reply to entries on the Marble Hornets channel. Totheark's videos are usually short, cryptic, abstract, and unnerving, often containing coded messages directed at the characters, which the fandom would solve to uncover secrets about the story. The identity and motivations of totheark are left somewhat unclear over the course of the series. Totheark would also give us a name for the person that was stalking Alex: the Operator.

Back on the Marble Hornets channel, the Operator is eventually seen entering Alex's bedroom and leaving Alex with a bloody headwound. After seeing this footage, Jay becomes determined to get in contact with Alex. He arranges a meeting with Tim Wright, one of the actors from Marble Hornets. Jay tells Tim that he is trying to finish the film, while really fishing for information about Alex. Tim corroborates many of the things that Jay has observed from the tapes about Alex's behavior. However, Tim does not seem to be aware of the cause, nor does he remember ever seeing a man in a suit on set.

Next Jay tries to locate the lead actor from Marble Hornets: Brian. Jay goes to Brian's house, but the place is trashed. It looks like squatters have lived there. Jay finds bottles of pills, scattered papers full of mad scribblings, and a bullet casing. Jay also suffers from a sudden coughing fit while he explores the house.

Jay goes back to the house for a second look later and is attacked by a human man in a frightening white and black mask. This mysterious character was nicknamed "Masky" by the fandom. The camera stops recording, and Jay wakes up in his car the next day, parked near the woods, with no memory of anything else that happened.

At this point, Jay admits to his audience that he's been recording himself constantly, much like Alex. He uploads disturbing security footage showing that the masked man snuck into his bedroom at night and watched him sleep. Discovering this footage causes Jay to barricade himself inside his house.

During this time, Jay finishes watching the last of Alex's old tapes from Marble Hornets. He finds footage from early on in production where Tim had a nasty coughing fit and took some pills similar to the ones Jay found back at Brian's house. Jay takes this time to examine the items he took from the house. The pill bottle is now empty, the bullet casing is missing, and one of the scribbled papers has a message on the back, "At the tower," referring to an old structure near the set of Marble Hornets.

Following his only remaining lead, Jay hikes out to the tower and finds another tape hidden inside. The tape contains footage of Alex and Seth (the cameraman from the crew of Marble Hornets) exploring some kind of abandoned industrial building at night, where they are presumably attacked by the Operator. The rest of the footage is Alex speaking directly into the camera, alone, upset, lamenting what has happened to the rest of the cast and crew, and fearing what's to come for him next.

Jay is now desperate for answers. He goes back to Brian's house again, but something is wrong with the house. None of the doors open onto the rooms they're supposed to. Eventually Jay is teleported to a completely different location: the abandoned building from the final tape. There Jay encounters the Operator. The camera stops working, and he doesn't remember what happened next.

Jay decides to stay at a hotel for a while. At the hotel, he catches a news report and finds out that his apartment complex burned down. He begins to change locations frequently. His mental health improves with distance. He decides to stop uploading videos to the channel — until a package shows up on the doorstep of his hotel room.

The package contains a tape with footage timestamped two weeks prior. The footage shows Alex alive. He seems to be living a normal life. His girlfriend Amy is filming him. "When did we get a camera?" "We don't have a camera," says Alex. Moments later, the Operator appears inside their house, terrifying Amy and causing several seconds of chaos before the footage freezes. The final frame of the tape displays a message: HELP

Jay wakes up in a hotel room seven months later with no memory of how he got there, and with a bodycam strapped to his chest. He has no memory of the past seven months at all. He has a connecting room with a woman who introduces herself as Jessica, but as far as they know they are strangers. Jessica is acting suspicious, and she seems suspicious of Jay.

Looking for clues, Jay finds a video clip on his laptop labelled "noentry" that shows someone (presumably himself) exploring a forest trail, entering a tunnel, and encountering the Operator. In the present day, Jay searches the area around the hotel, trying to find this forest. The most promising location is the nearby Rosswood Park.

After a few uncomfortable days in each other's orbit, Jessica finally confronts Jay. She reveals that she has also experienced memory loss. She's confused and frightened and demands answers from Jay. Jay decides to tell her what he knows. They go to their separate rooms to pack, but when Jay goes to get her a few minutes later, Jessica has disappeared without a trace. Jay finds a four-digit code on a piece of paper in her room. He uses it to open the safe in his own room and finds a hard drive and a bunch of tapes inside.

At a new location, Jay begins to look through the tapes. The rest of the season will take place through these tapes and the footage on the hard drive. The first tape show Jay going to the return address on the package he received at the end of Season 1. It's just an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere. On his second visit to the building, the masked man from Season 1 is waiting inside, but Alex shows up as well. Together, Alex and Jay subdue and unmask their assailant: It's Tim Wright, the actor from Marble Hornets. Against Jay's protests, Alex breaks Tim's leg with a rock.

Things between Jay and Alex feel strained on the tapes, not the happy reunion the audience may have expected. Alex tells Jay to meet him at Rosswood Park, but then never shows up. Jay decides to go into the woods by himself. He encounters the Operator, drops the camera, and flees. Someone else then returns the camera to his unlocked car: a mysterious figure wearing a tan hoodie and a frowning black mask. The fandom dubbed this character "Hoodie."

Back in the present day, Jay begins to look through the hard drive next, and finds bodycam footage of the previous event from Alex's perspective. Alex arrives at Rosswood Park after Jay already went into the woods. When they finally find each other, Alex begs Jay to help him find Amy. The two go back to the house where Amy was last seen to look for clues. When they find nothing, Alex tries to call Amy's roommate: Jessica.

Alex and Jay's relationship continues to feel strained as the two grapple with growing mistrust of each other. We see bodycam footage of Alex going into the woods at Rosswood Park alone and approaching the Operator. He then lies to Jessica about finding Amy, and the Operator appears in his bedroom while he's sleeping. His behavior becomes strange and erratic, reminiscent of what we saw him go through in the previous season.

Alex catches the guy in the hoodie creeping around outside his house and chases him into the woods. There, Alex is attacked by both the hooded figure and the masked man (Tim), apparently working together. They threaten to kill Alex, but something scares them off, presumably the Operator.

On another day, Jay sneaks into Alex's house and attempts to steal a tape from him. Alex catches him in the act, and while they argue, the Operator appears. Jay flees, but Alex remains inside the house, unafraid. The two of them meet up again an hour later and get into their worst argument yet. At this point they are both very angry and mistrustful of each other. They part ways with no plans to meet again.

Jay is now determined to investigate Amy's disappearance on his own. He proceeds to stalk Alex for months. He films Alex going into Rosswood Park by himself with a chest mounted camera multiple times. After many weeks of watching, Jay finally follows him into the woods. He follows Alex to the mouth of the tunnel from "noentry" but leaves when Alex almost spots him, so that Jay never saw what Alex does next. On the bodycam footage, Alex sits at the mouth of the tunnel for 15 minutes, then kills a random hiker by bashing his head in with a rock. The Operator appears and then disappears, taking the body with it. On his drive home, Alex calmly calls Jay and tells him to meet him at Rosswood Park again.

Before this final confrontation, Jay sneaks back into Alex's house and successfully steals the tape he tried to take last time. It contains raw footage of Alex and Brian from the set of Marble Hornets. They're exploring an abandoned hospital together, shooting B-roll, when the Operator appears. The tape ends with Brian's legs being dragged away, presumably by Alex. Jay concludes that Alex was intentionally leading cast and crewmembers to the Operator while Marble Hornets was being filmed. He no longer knows what Alex has lied about or how much Alex actually remembers.

Jay, Alex, and Jessica all meet up at Rosswood Park. Alex wants to show them something in the middle of the woods. He leads them into an abandoned building, then pulls a gun on them — it was a trap. Their unlikely savior is Tim, still wearing the mask, who sneaks up on Alex and grapples with him, allowing Jay and Jessica to flee. Jay steals Alex's camera and a hard drive from out of Alex's car, then he and Jessica go to a hotel together. In the middle of the night, Jay hears Jessica screaming. The Operator then appears in his room, and Jay is seemingly drawn into its outstretched arms. He wakes up the next morning with no memory of the past seven months, looping us back to the beginning of the season.

Now we return to Jay in the present. He is determined to find Jessica and Alex and to stop Alex from hurting anyone else. He returns to the town around Rosswood Park, and to his surprise, he sees Tim coming out of an antique store, looking and acting extremely normal. For now, Jay keeps his distance.

Favorite entry: #26 or #63

Favorite season: Season 3

Favorite totheark: observation (or Forecast)

Favorite Operator appearance: Entry #14

Favorite character: Alex

Favorite relationship (gen or slash): Jay and Tim

Favorite fanfic trope: Tim gets a dog

How and when did you get into Marble Hornets? 2011, I had a boyfriend at the time who was on 4chan a lot. He showed Marble Hornets to me and we watched it together, up to maybe Entry #32.

Was Marble Hornets your first exposure to Slender Man? Yes