Everyman HYBRID/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alternate Character Interpretation: The Slender Man, as always. Many speculate that he's trying (and failing) to communicate with cast rather than fuck with them. On the other hand, he seems to be an accomplice in many of HABIT's murders (although we only really have HABIT's word on that).
  • Angst? What Angst?: While early on the guys struggled to keep up appearances while clearly losing their grips, these days they're pretty calm whenever terrible shit isn't happening at that very moment. They even still refer to their viewers as HYBRIDS. Even Jeff is cheering up somewhat, as evidenced from tweets and in "A Day with Green Feathers". It's unclear whether this is desensitization, a coping mechanism, simple acceptance of the Slender Man's existence, or the fact that Slendy has only just gotten started with them that's prevented them from losing it.
    • According to the November 26th uStream, they credit each other and their fans for keeping them sane.
    • As of HALLOWEEN HANGOVER, it appears that the guys, particularly Jeff, may be angsting a whole lot more than they let viewers know.
  • Complete Monster: Unlike Slender Man and The Rake, HABIT is unambiguously, humanly, gleefully evil. If he isn't just bullshitting in his posts to Can You See the Words, he invaded a family's home and brutally tortured the parents while The Slender Man took their son. Then possessed Evan's friend Nick, forced him to kill his dog, and then used him to attack Evan... who killed him.
  • Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: Slender Man, The Rake and Candle Cove? OH MY!
  • Continuity Lock Out: With important information becoming spread across various Twitter, Tumblr and even other Youtube accounts, viewers unaware that the story extends to other media will slowly start noticing references to things they've never heard of as if it's already been discussed. The nature of an ARG exacerbates this, as there are no official notations of any such things existing. Fortunately, this confusion worked its way into the plot itself by way of the cast constantly interacting with viewers, so there's now an in-character hub for information that comes through places other than the main Youtube channel.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: The intro theme to "Introduction" and the very first fitness video.
    • The music that plays in Self Defense around the 30 second mark.
    • HABIT purposely invokes this every chance he gets.
  • Ear Worm: Who Could Win A Rabbit by Animal Collective, the theme song of the Hidden Videos.
  • Fan Community Nickname: Hybrid or HYBRID
  • Hell Is That Noise: Just like Marble Hornets and Dreams in Darkness, used to terrify the buh-jesus out of viewers. Often crosses over with Scare Chord.
    • The Rake's VOICE. Yes, it talks. It's terrifying.
  • High Octane Nightmare Fuel: More and more with each episode.
    • In "Joke's Over", you can hear a roar right before Slendy appears. If that's not scary enough, look at the area to the left of Slendy when he walks on camera - He has fucking tentacles!
    • Slendy's appearance in Evan's house is terrifying. A fleeting glimpse of Slendy tilting his head from side to side in a pitch-black room just before that room's door slams shut is not conducive to healthy dreaming.
    • Pretty much all of the second half of "Cops Checked, No Body."
    • This video and the one after it on Alex's youtube. The Rake had come and clawed his arms in his sleep.
      • The Rake's whisper when Evan goes over the Jeff and Alex's house to investigate.
      • The Rake attacking Jeff while he's holding the camera in "One step forward, two steps back". The fact that we never really see it that clearly makes it that much more terrifying. Not to mention what it did to Evan's arm.
      • May & June gives us our first glimpse of the Rake up close. From what we can see, it seems to avert the Special Effects Failure mentioned below in a suitably creepy way.
    • The voicemail on Damsel's phone in "December & early January."
  • Ho Yay:
    • "Evan, if there was a girl version of you, I would date you."
    • In "Episode #4: Cardio & Outdoor Activities" and some hidden footage from "A Day In The Life", Vince seems to be cool with carrying Evan around on his back.
    • Invoked when Jeff offers to let Alex stay in his room to avoid the Rake.

Alex: There's one bed.
Evan: Looks like you guys are gonna get real cozy. I say as I'm on my knees.
Alex: I'll sleep on the floor.

    • Invoked in the 11/26 Ustream. Repeatedly. Evan is all over Jeff for a while there.
    • You could make a case for (probably) one-sided Damsel/Jessa, given how important Jessa seems to have been to Damsel.
  • HSQ: There's a few moments which really do induce this. For example, the episode "I'm Okay" is rather quiet, with Jeff speaking quietly into the camera, right up until an incredibly loud burst of distortion kicks in. And you'll have to turn the sound up to hear the talking...
  • Kudzu Plot: Many accuse EMH of this, and probably might be one of the biggest reason they have a Hatedom.
    • People say that the plot is spread too thin across different websites, while others think its better this way and makes it more of a Alternate Reality Game.
  • Jerkass Woobie: It's hard not to feel bad for Alex now that he's seen the Rake. What we learn from the Ustream makes it worse: his and Jeff's parents are dead, but he frequently pretends they're not. He even has a cassette tape of his mother's voice which he uses to see if he is "allowed" to do things.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Evan seems to be this for the fandom (Evan/Damsel, Evan/Vince, Evan/Alex, Evan/Jeff, Evan/Jessie, the affection various fandom members have for him, etc.), and he knows it. The only characters he hasn't been paired up with yet seem to be Jessa, Slender Man, the Rake, and Sparky. Yet.
  • Memetic Molester: HABIT (YOUR PANTIES ARE UNLOCKED. HOW COURTEOUS.)
  • Memetic Mutation: Vince and his beard, Evan and his knives, and now Jeff's a superhero Batman.
    • Speaking of Evan's knives, "Emergency Machete" is pretty much bound to be this, especially since the real Evan in an Out of Game video referenced this with "Emergency Battleaxe", which he then proceeded to use to strike a pose of him axing Noah in the face
  • Narm: In the "May & June" video, there is one part where Alex has a sock puppet on his hand because he is pretending that it is his recently deceased dog Sparky, using an abnormal grieving process very similar to what he uses for his dead parents. Even though this is supposed to be a disturbing scene, the sock puppet just looks too silly to be taken seriously.
    • In the last scene of "Consensus", Vinnie somehow lost control of his car, wakes up in the middle of the road with the Slender Man watching him, finds blood everywhere, looks in the mirror... and somehow he's been clean-shaven. Kind of a mood-killer there.
  • Narm Charm: Some seem to see the sock puppet scene, while incredibly silly, still effective.
  • Nightmare Retardant: In a way; in "dot dash," there are clips where it seems someone is filming murders or something. It becomes hilariously narmy, though, if you interpret it as Slendy stole Jeff's camera and went to get his boogie on.
    • There's also the fact that most commenters have fun with the videos, interpreting Slendy's actions as just wanting to get ripped and so on. Looking at them all, it becomes pretty obvious why Marble Hornets disables comments.
    • Everyman FORTRESS.
  • One of Us: In a U Stream chat, someone brings up TV Tropes, and Jeff explains it as a website you will spend hours on.
    • Oh, and if Jeff is reading this, tell Evan TV Tropes doesn't hate him.
  • Paranoia Fuel: The Rake likes to come to his victims while they sleep. Probably gets a kick out of when they wake up and see the grey disfigured monstrosity sitting on their beds. Even worse, he can claw the hell out of your arms without you waking up until later.
    • HABIT.

YOU STILL BELIEVE THIS IS MERELY THEIR STORY. YOU ASSUME A GRANTED REFUGE? NO SUCH SANCTUARY EXISTS.

  • Shipping: The fandom's single favorite activity. As mentioned above Evan's a favorite (particularly Vince/Evan), but they ship most anyone to most anyone else. Of note is how they have started to ship other fans with the cast (Evan again, and a particular fan with Damsel), and even fans to each other.
  • Special Effects Failure: In "Joke's Over", the blood that pours out of the bag clearly isn't.
    • A certain WMG will point you to an early point in the Slender Man mythos that clearly states that Slender Man is capable of melting his victims into mist.
    • It is also worth noting that there are many instances of blood looking very convincing, so as the WMG says it may not even represent blood.
    • Avoiding this is probably the reason The Rake hasn't appeared onscreen up close, considering the one time we did see it it looked like nothing more than a guy crawling on his hands and knees in one of these.
    • In episode 5, the power in the basement blows, but it really doesn't much look or sound like it. Bulbs tend to pop when blown, and while they did make it look like there was a bright flash, it very obviously was done through editing, as the light just flashes on the screen and doesn't bounce off of anything in the room the way light should. The lack of any light coming in through the basement window (meaning we get a totally black screen) is probably the most obvious evidence - which is odd, as that base would have been the easiest to cover simply by filming in the dark briefly. This last one, at least, might be explained by camera limitations - many small cameras won't pick up anything if the light's too low, regardless of what the human eye can manage to see.
  • Squick: Vincent cutting open the hanging bags in the woods, during "Joke's Over".
  • Uncanny Valley: In "Joke's Over," if you watch closely enough, you can make out Slender Man's tentacles. They're clearly fake props, because they don't move at all, they remain completely static in relation to where he turns. Instead of being a Special Effects Failure, it has this effect instead, and makes the sight more unnerving than it already is.
    • The Rake, possibly even more so than Slender Man. He evidently has a pair of horrible, empty eyes that make Slender Man's facelessness seem comforting by comparison.
  • What an Idiot!: You have to admit it, charging Slenderman with a baseball bat is pretty dumb. Or possibly just insane. At any rate, it's a wonder Evan's still alive.
    • Given that the Trope Codefier for the Slender Man Mythos, Marble Hornets, primarily features Slendy standing around and doing nothing, with most other portrayals following suit, it's understandable that a person might think that the guy who hangs around watching from a distance before vanishing quickly maybe isn't such a great hand in a fight.
  • The Woobie: If Vincent from the Bag is really "our" Vinny, then this is a massive understatement.
    • Jeff in "I'm Okay" and more recently in "Ryan & THESEVENTRIALSOFHABIT"
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