Web Video / Tribe Twelve

"Lately I've been hearing these strange noises coming from around my house. They're unexplainable, I don't know where they're coming from [..] and frankly, it's all just been scaring the living shit out of me. So I've decided to record myself sleeping in hopes of catching whatever these sounds are on tape."

It started off as an innocent little thing, a YouTube page for main protagonist Noah Maxwell's class project on the Twelve Tribes of Israel. However, this project was cancelled for unknown reasons. The news became worse when Noah received word that his childhood friend and closest cousin, Milo Asher, was found dead in his room. Noah wanted to change the page from a project page to a dedication page, so Milo would be remembered. However, as he watched the old videos of himself and Milo, he noticed things...things he never saw before, but Milo did.

Something that terrified him.

As Noah stumbles into the same rabbit hole that his cousin uncovered years ago, he begins to realize that his involvement with the Eldritch Abomination that now stalks him runs much deeper with both him and his family than he ever realized. While battling against the monster and his evil Hive Mind group called the Collective, Noah begins to uncover things about Milo's horrifying life.

Tribe Twelve is yet another chapter of The Slender Man Mythos, similar in vein to Marble Hornets. Noah documents himself after finding something much worse in his videos. As per Slender Man videos, it's... pretty frightening.

Can be watched here, with the wiki here. Noah's twitter can be found here. He also has a Formspring account, but when Formspring was thought to be shutting down, he also made an ask.fm account. As of 2018, Noah has been uploading sections of Milo's journal on a Blogspot account that can be found here. Interviews with creator Adam Rosner can be found here or here.

In September 2020, series creator Adam Rosner was hit with credible allegations of him grooming and financially exploiting underage girls over the internet, while also meeting them in person (and possibly assaulting two female friends). Since then, he has disappeared from all social media sources, and his friends and collaborators have all cut ties with him, leaving the series on hiatus indefinitely. Caution should be approached when discussing this, due to the seriousness of the subject.

There may be unmarked spoilers down below. You Have Been Warned.

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The story provides examples of:

#-C

• The '90s:
  • The first part of Milo’s journal takes place during this time period, starting shortly after Doctor Corenthal gives Milo said journal to document his findings.
  • When Noah is “channel surfing” on his dollhouse TV in Facade, the backmasked music that accompanies the trippy visuals includes many TV themes from 90’s shows, including Goosebumps, Crashbox, Eyewitness, and Unsolved Mysteries among other things.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: The Nazi knife that Sisyphus Noah owns hasn't dulled in the slightest, as shown when it slices Noah's hand open.
• Abusive Parents: Mary Asher is nicknamed "The Selfish" for a reason. Her attitude extended even to her treatment of her son, Milo, who she neglected, exposed to her dating several men he didn't like, and who she used for her own goals, bringing him to her Cult and forcing him to take pills that turned him into an obedient son, who didn't question her weird actions or the presence of Slender-Man.

• Aesop Amnesia: You'd think that getting a lesson about Severance and how to fight against the Collective from HABIT of all people would encourage Noah to listen to Firebrand better. The end result couldn't be more wrong: Noah promptly locks himself in his house to avoid making any moves forward, and promptly forgets everything HABIT taught him. Rendezvous!Noah lampshades this, stating that Noah has to actually think critically about the information he's given, rather than jump to conclusions and do dumb things.
• Adults Are Useless: It's shown in Milo's journal that nearly every adult that Milo was around either abused him, or didn't give two shits about him. Whether it be his mother, her various boyfriends, the southern chapter of the Order, his senile grandfather or even his school principal. The only exceptions to the rule are Sharon Maxwell (his aunt and Noah's mother, John Fletcher (his stepdad, and friend of his biological father Robert), and Doctor Corenthal (the one who treated Milo in his childhood, and gave him his journal.
• Alien Geometries: The Halloween Hotel video is full of these, and most recently, Habit's house and the surrounding neighborhood in Severance and Bridge to Nowhere.
  • Taken to extreme levels with the titular Crawlspace and with the boardwalk in Pitfall and Sisyphus.
• All Are Equal in Death: Averted. Joining the Collective after one's demise actually makes them less powerful than Collective members with living hosts.
• all lowercase letters: Firebrand uses no capitalization in his online messages to Noah. Noah himself later starts biding by this trope, combined with Gratuitous German.
• The Aloner:
  • Noah is this in spades. Right from the very beginning of the series, he's shown living alone in his parent's summer house, has only a few friends and does little to interact with them. As time goes on, this trope goes up to eleven with Noah shutting himself inside, and shooing away any guests who try to help him.
  • Karl Maxwell isn't far behind when it comes to this trope. Like Noah, he lives in a house all by himself, due to his wife having died in a freak accident, and his other close family living elsewhere. Noah reveals on Ask.fm that the only reason why he hasn't been moved to a proper senior citizen's home is because he's still able to pay his mortgage.
  • Milo was this as well, due to being the only one who sees Slender Man other than his mother, who treated him horribly since childhood. Any other friendships he made either became bullies, or in Kevin's case, suffered Laser-Guided Amnesia.
• All There in the Manual: The interviews shed some light on previously unknown info, both behind the scenes and in game.
  • Kevin's last name being Haas.
  • Kevin Haas A Camera? Though it is kind of Harsher in Hindsight when it's revealed Kevin is secretly The Observer.
  • Swain's identity as Sebastian Kraus was first revealed out-of-game by Word of God via the creator's Tumblr account. In the videos alone, there's nothing that hints at this reveal. Milo's journal does give us a hint as to who Swain was in the form of his mask being amongst the many things Karl has in his safe. but even that is very vague.
  • Milo's journal reveals a lot of information about the Asher-Maxwell family that people wouldn't get otherwise by just watching the videos. This includes the family tree (which includes the Adler and Henderson families).
• Anachronic Order
  • The night time shot in Submission 6
  • The storm from Night Recordings
  • November 11th was uploaded after Mary Asher Phone Call, despite the latter happening first chronologically.
  • DEATHTRAPEXODUS is uploaded before Crawlspace, Pitfall, Sisyphus, Rendezvous, Facade, and Labyrinth, despite DTE happening after those five videos.
• Anyone Can Die: Whether you're a fan watching the videos, and especially if you're a member of the Asher or Maxwell families, chances are you are not gonna make it out alive.
• Appropriated Appellation: Observer, as well as the other members of the Collective that have names.
• Apocalyptic Log: Noah read and transcripted Milo's journal, which documented Milo's story from childhood to his late teens, involving Slender-Man hauntings, parental abuse, and the presence of a cult.
• Arc Number: 11, specifically 11/11. November 11th is Noah's birthday, and important plot events frequently happen on November 11th and/or at 11:11, sometimes AM, sometimes 11:11 PM. While uploading pages of Milo's journal to his Blogspot account, Noah makes it a habit to always upload a portion of the journal at 11:11 PM, or at 1:11 A.M.
  • The Observer also seems to hint that 4:44 is a very important number in DEATHTRAPEXODUS.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: HABIT has been shown to be an nonredeemable monster by torturing people physically and psychologically, killing them in brutal and painful ways, and... sending Noah (who is Jewish) a letter with a Christmas-themed border.
• Artifact Title: In-Universe the channel was originally made for a school project about the twelve tribes of Israel that was canceled for unknown reasons. To avoid making a new channel to document his findings he reuses the abandoned channel.
• Ascended Meme: In Nature Trail Visit, Noah briefly looks at the boardwalk, then says "No. Nope. Nope nope nope." The reaction of "Nope nope nope" to something terrifying is a common occurrence on Image Boards.
• Author Appeal: The creator is interested in Optometry, explaining the use of eyes all over the place.
• Ax-Crazy: With the second part of the Thanksgiving Tapes, and the Nature Trail Visit, it seemed Noah was slipping into this.
  Sarah: Noah... Why do you have a knife?
  Noah: *laughing, covered in blood* Hahaha... I don't know! Hahahaha!
  • And at some point, it seems that Noah goes completely off the deep end, as demonstrated with Future Noah in Sisyphus.
• Backmasking: A very common staple of the series, mostly used in Collective videos. Examples include:
  • An unknown piano tune plays in HELLOTHERE (Word of God says it's from an old golf video game he played).
  • I'm the Slime by Frank Zappa plays in COMECLOSER.
  • A small snippet of Answers by Vigilante appears in Nature Trail Visit.
  • HAPPYBIRTHDAY contains Talking in Your Sleep by The Romantics.
  • INTERRUPTION has Mr. Sandman by The Chordettes.
  • "Eye in the Sky" by The Alan Parsons Project, and a small part of Billy Joel's You May Be Right are utilized in November 11th.
  • INTERCEPTION reverses versions of Pendulum's The Other Side, Vangelis's Chariots of Fire, Gotye's State of The Art, and Boards of Canada's The Devil is in the Details.
  • DEUS EX MACHINA uses We've Been Had by The Walkmen.
  • Bridge to Nowhere has small parts of Can't Take My Eyes Off You by Frank Valli and I Only Have Eyes For You by The Flamingos, mixed in with the music for Big Boo's Haunt from Super Mario 64. Fitting, as it was uploaded on Valentine's Day.
  • Fire by Arthur Brown, and Too Much Information by The Police appear in DEATHTRAPEXODUS.
  • Crawlspace uses parts of "From Whom The Bell Tolls" from the movie Donnie Darko, and a recording of the Icelandic hymn "Heyr Himna Smiður" being sung at a train station.
  • Pitfall manages to cram in Welcome to the Jungle by Guns N' Roses, Fountain Plaza by Disconscious, Parasite by Nick Drake, Free Fallin' by Tom Petty, Sweat by Inner Circle, the neverending stairs and "Correct Solution" jingles from Super Mario 64, Circles by Soul Coughing, Highway to Hell by AC/DC, and Welcome to the Machine by Pink Floyd all in one video.
  • SCRINARII features Money For Nothing by Dire Straits.
  • Sisyphus contains the drums from Jumanji, Blackest Eyes by Porcupine Tree, Crazy by Gnarls Barkley, Tarantula by Pendulum, and Under the Boardwalk by The Drifters.
  • Rendezvous also has a huge number of songs crammed into it, which include Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden, Revival by Deerhunter, You Don't Mess Around With Jim by Jim Croce, Follow Me Down by The Pretty Reckless, Stuck in the Middle With You by Stealers Wheel, Tiger Mountain Peasant Song by Fleet Foxes, and Olmec Guides You Through The Temple from the Legends of the Hidden Temple soundtrack.
  • Facade has a whopping 40 tracks appearing in the course of the video. The songs that appear in this episode include (but aren't limited to):
    • Two Months Off by Underworld
    • These Dreams by Heart
    • Senses Working Overtime by XTC
    • Left Bank Two by The Noveltones
    • Svefn-g-englar by Sigur Rós
    • Everyday by Buddy Holly
    • No Love and Hacker by Death Grips
    • Is There a Ghost by Band of Horses
    • Just an Illusion by Imagination
    • The theme from Unsolved Mysteries
    • The theme from Eyewitness
    • The theme from Crashbox
    • The theme from the TV adaptation of Goosebumps (1995)
    • Mad World by Gary Jules (originally by Tears for Fears)
    • The Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel
    • Summer Samba (So Nice) by Walter Wanderley
    • Frontier Psychiatrist by The Avalanches
    • Propane Nightmares by Pendulum
    • Never Meant to Know and Ruler of Everything by Tally Hall
    • Feel Good Inc. by Gorillaz
    • Heut' ist mein Tag by Blümchen
    • Children of the Sun and How Fortunate The Man With None by Dead Can Dance
    • The Less I Know the Better by Tame Impala
    • Knocking on Heaven's Door by Bob Dylan
    • They're Coming to Take Me Away by Napoleon XIV
    • The Air-Conditioned Nightmare by Mr. Bungle
    • Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads
    • Enjoy the Silence by Depeche Mode
    • The Boards of Canada remix of Colonel Abrams's Trapped
    • Let My Love Open the Door by Pete Townshend
    • Eye in the Sky by The Alan Parsons Project (again)
    • Come to Daddy by Aphex Twin
    • Fire and Rain by James Taylor
    • Lovely Bloodflow by Baths
    • Everything in it's Right Place by Radiohead
• Back from the Dead:
  • Milo, as Mr. Scars in Obituary and Milo's Tape, and as his own journal during the Fortunes Arc.
  • Implied to be the case with Deadhead, Cursor, Swain, and Robert Asher.
• Back to the Early Installment: The Collective like to show their power over Noah by putting him through time-warp events. The most notable one happened in "The Live-Stream Incident", where he was taken back in time to two earlier episodes, "Device Analysis" and "Halloween Hotel", in which he caused some of the oddities that happened in those previous episodes, events that he, in the past, had been very confused and unsettled by.
• Badass Arm-Fold: Firebrand at the end of "The Live Stream Incident".
• Bad "Bad Acting": "Facade" contains this from both Noah, who is aware that he is trapped in an illusion of his house and is trying to pretend like he hasn't caught on, and the Observer, who is trying to pretend to be normal, un-possessed Kevin.
• Big Fancy House: Noah's house, which was his parent's summer home at one point. Of course, it ends up being the main centerpiece of Noah's problems for most of the series, minus crossover episodes.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Dear god. Noah and Milo's family is probably one of the most fucked-up Dysfunctional Family in the entire Slenderverse.
  • To elaborate: Karl Maxwell is a Properly Paranoid Shell-Shocked Veteran, and cuts himself off from most of his family. It's so extreme to the point that he isn't even aware that Milo Asher is his own grandson, and is dismissed as being senile by his daughter Sharon. He also disowns his other daughter Mary, who is a whole other can of worms. She's generally dismissive at best to her family members, and is downright nasty at worst, only ever giving birth to Milo to stave off the curse of Slender Man, murders both of her ex-husbands (and almost kills her brother-in-law Alex) out of paranoia, and is ignorant to anything that doesn't involve herself.
  • To a lesser extent, this applies to the Collective as well. More than half of its members are related by blood, and even those of them who aren't are implied to have known other members before they were indoctrinated. In spite of this, it's pretty clear that most of the members utterly despise one another, and for good reason.
• Blatant Lies: Noah wisely doesn't give the Order true information about his relationship to Mary and Milo but lies close enough to the truth that it could be plausible. Unfortunately he messes up or just lost his head from the tension]] and gives them the names of the people who helped him find them.
• Blood from the Mouth: Apparently this is a side effect from drinking water in the Candleverse, as Noah finds out.
• Body Snatcher:
  • The Observer uses Kevin Haas as a host for himself.
  • Milo's Tape is an interesting example. Mr. Scars is attacked by Slender Man, and is apparently either given an entire new personality, or is just Brainwashed and Crazy. Either way, Slender Man takes control of Mr. Scars, and makes him call his mother to arrange a meeting, where he shoots her in the head.
• Boring, but Practical: In Milo's Tape, Mr. Scars receives the briefcase that he later delivers to Noah in Obituary, but doesn't have a list of codes to check provided by a loyal fanbase. So what does he do instead? Try every possible number that could potentially open each side of the case. Not exactly the most efficient way to solve that problem, but also the only feasible way given Mr. Scars's situation.
• Book Ends: Downplayed in Pitfall, where the video starts and ends with a backmasked version of a song that has the words "Welcome to the" in the title.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: SCRINIARII Firebrand makes himself blatantly clear he is not talking to Noah. He is not teaching Noah a lesson. He makes it very clear he is speaking to us.
• Breather Episode:
  • Thanksgiving Footage: Day 1 is notably devoid of any horror elements for a majority of the entry, and shows Noah relaxing and playing games at a friends house during Thanksgiving. The ending is a different matter.
  • Played with regarding Several Months of Hell. While said video is mostly your average update video from Noah, the Observer's sudden appearance and taunting of Noah during various parts of the video are likely to prevent the viewer from completely relaxing.
  • Case Findings is mostly a low-key analysis video of the items Noah received from Mr. Scars. Said video happens right before Milo's Tape, where things definitely take a turn towards Darker and Edgier.
• Briefcase Full of Money: Extraordinary Circumstances - Noah pops open the briefcase and finds an assortment of Milo's old possessions. Then he notices a layer of black paper covering up something else. We see his gobsmacked expression long enough to imagine something creepy - before he reveals several stacks of hundreds, which turns out to be "almost $100,000 dollars." It might not be movie-star level money, but it's enough to warrant his surprise. How the money got there is another matter.
• Brick Joke: The channel was started as a means for Noah to upload the videos for a Religious Studies project. The teacher cancelled the project, leaving the channel for Noah to upload the series as we know it. Five years later, during the events of Facade, Observer (mimicking Kevin) asks Noah if he got to finish the documentary after Noah tells him he will be filming. Facade was uploaded in August 2019, making it a brick joke which took NINE YEARS to land.
• Call-Back: In Rendezvous, Noah’s future self expresses annoyance at his past self for forgetting about how to use the Rune of Severance, due to a certain demon from New Jersey having already taught him about it a few years ago.
• Call-Forward: In Milo’s journal entry "tapes", we get to read about Milo’s encounter with Firebrand during the Submission videos that happened entirely off-camera. Midway through this conversation, Milo gets to witness the iconic Flipping the Bird scene the viewers saw in DEUS EX MACHINA firsthand.
• The Call Knows Where You Live:
  • Soon after posting the videos, Noah starts hearing inexplicable noises in his house. Then the Observer breaks in, knocking out the lights in the process, and leaves a package for him.
  • Another example is when Mr. Scars leaves a note for Noah. When he is about to read the back, which we see reads "DING-DONG DING-DONG" we hear the doorbell ring twice.
  • It's revealed in Crawlspace that crouching under Noah's desk that he uses to edit/upload his videos acts as a shortcut to the Boardwalk. Let that sink in.
  • In Rendezvous, we finally get an explanation for how the Collective knows where Noah lives: both the Boardwalk and his home are areas that they can manipulate and control.
• Came Back Wrong: When Milo is resurrected as Mr. Scars in Milo's Tape, he retains every single one of his wounds that he self-inflicted, including but not limited to slashed wrists, and a slit throat. Eventually, Milo decides to take possession of his own journal as a means of speaking with Noah.
• Cannot Cross Running Water: While exploring Everyman HYBRID's Candleverse, Noah discovers he's unable to to drink water without coughing up blood.
• Cat Scare: Milo goes out to poke around the outside of the house, and nearly jumps out of his skin when an AC unit turns on behind him. He runs into Slender Man immediately after.
• Character Blog: Noah maintains a Twitter and Formspring account (although he switches to Ask.fm by the start of Season 2), where he gives updates as to what is happening to him at the moment. During Season 2 however, Noah begins tweeting less and less due to his Sanity Slippage, and has almost completely ceased to use Ask.fm because of his lack of interest in the site.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The flash drive.
  • The pictures on the cell phone seen in Box Analysis. As it turns out, the cell phone was owned by Milo, and the pictures were that of him realizing the Administrator was following him.
  • The sudoku rubix cube, as part of Firebrand's suitcase of goodies.
  • Milo's Journal itself, due to containing lots of important information on Noah's Big, Screwed-Up Family. Plus y'know, the fact that it talks.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • Kevin. Also, as of "The Manifest", possibly Edward.
  • Noah himself in The Livestream Incident.
  • Scrinarii for fans and Reddit users. He was presumed to be a mere gamejacker at first, and was banned from the subreddit that he posted supposedly helpful information on. Once Firebrand stepped in, it was made clear that Scrinarii was more than just that.
  • As of Milo's journal, Henka Visæ is revealed to be this. Not only was he responsible for bringing Mary and Milo Asher into The Order, he's revealed to be Deadhead's host, and is implied to have stalked both Sebastian Kraus and Karl Maxwell.
• Christmas Episode: Averted. While the Collective certainly has no issue with terrorizing Noah during All Hallow's Eve, Thanksgiving, his birthday, and even Valentine's Day, they never seem to bother Noah during the Christmas holidays. That being said, this trope is played straight with "Severance", courtesy of Everyman HYBRID's HABIT.
  • Probably justified as Noah, and presumably the rest of his family, is Jewish, and thus the Collective would have no reason to mess with him then, as the date holds no significance.
• Cigarette of Anxiety: Karl Maxwell lights one up while going over the contents of his will in Milo's Journal. Noah himself lights up during the events of Crawlspace.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Noah, full stop. He swears so much that it's enough to warrant its own Drinking Game
• Cool House: Inverted with the "dollhouse" Noah stays in during "Facade". While it otherwise looks like Noah's house normally, the water doesn't work, the fridge, pantry, and toilet refuse to open, the doors that lead outside either loop back into the house or lead him to a dimension full of eyes, the radio plays nothing but backmasked music, and the camera's night vision shows that Noah's still at the boardwalk.
• The Cracker:
  • The Observer, a mysterious person (or possibly Humanoid Abomination) who makes a habit of hijacking Noah's account and posting hints/demands (and talks to people on Twitter). He also seems to be able to insert messages and frames into Noah's videos.
  • Also a talented engineer, as revealed by the audio recorder he built.
  • Noah is eventually told that the double eye symbol is what's hacking his accounts.
  • Scrinarii serves as this for fans on Reddit and Discord, who submits varyingly helpful information at random times, depending on what people ask him for.
• Creepy Monotone: Milo's dialogue in the first conversation on Submission 5. "I-don't-want-to-talk-about-it."
• Crossover: "Envelope" seems to imply one with Everyman HYBRID thanks to a Dr. C, a burned letter, and a very HABITesque note. That is was crossed with purple tape and signed "We're all creatures of" means it's probably from HABIT himself.
  • "Dr. C" was briefly thought to refer to Dr. Cairo instead, but was later Jossed with an entry on Twitter. (compileTruth would later cross over with TribeTwelve for real in the episode "Florida and Vermont", in which Dr. Cairo conducts a brief interview with Noah.)
  • Now with "Noah" on HYBRID and "Northern Trip Footage," it's a full-blown crossover.
  • During "Noah," the Everyman HYBRID crew ran into the guys from Dark Harvest. As of "The Manifest", they have become another part of this crossover puzzle.
  • A full crossover with Dark Harvest occurred in the summer of 2012. In release order: Several Months of Hell, EAST COAST ASSEMBLY MANIFEST, The Manifest, Log Entry #25: Meeting with Noah Maxwell, The Missing Days; Formal Apology, Our Meet-up, The Order.
  • The series crosses over once again with Everyman HYBRID in "DEUS EX MACHINA", which reveals that HABIT has freed Firebrand from the Administrator's control.
  • The two-part episode "Severance"/"Bridge to Nowhere" gives us yet another full crossover with Everyman HYBRID, as HABIT transports Noah to his "house" for a lesson on the meaning (and application of) the Collective symbol. Noah also has a bizarre encounter with Jeff after stumbling into an alternate dimension that appears to be the "Candleverse".
    • In the beginning of "Bridge to Nowhere", Noah also inquires about his location from passing motorist Lee of Whispered Faith.
  • Noah makes a sort of three way crossover with MLAnderson0 and Stan Frederick as a voice-only cameo in Unsatisfied Customers. Stan and Noah later meet face-to-face in the entry "Neighbors", where Noah is shown to have become just as much of a paranoid jerkass as his grandfather.
• Cursed with Awesome: According to Firebrand, being an unbound Collective member is this. He's the closest thing to being a Physical God without actually being under Slender Man's control unlike the Observer, whose powers are more limited. That being said, Firebrand admits in DEUS EX MACHINA that he is "something that shouldn't be", and it's implied that getting to and/or being in his position is not as pleasant of an experience one would think, if for no other reason than he had to get help from HABIT in order to get there, whom Firebrand is quite accurate in calling a "loathsome entity".

D-F

• Dark Action Girl: "cursorsvesselisnotahe"
• Darker and Edgier: Season 2 is a lot darker than Season 1 is. With much of the campy and investigative feel of the first season replaced with mind screwy visuals and concepts, plus some very graphic imagery of Mr. Scars cutting himself and shooting his own mother, you can feel just how much Noah's situation has gone From Bad to Worse.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Noah. Just look at his Formspring.
  Asker: I want you inside me.
  Noah: I didn't know my bed could talk.
  • Scarily enough, so is The Observer.
  • Even having spent several years of his life in the Collective's realm, Sisyphus!Noah's snark hasn't gone away in the slightest.
  Noah: *sniffs the air* Ugh, you reek dude!
  Future!Noah: Like you're an example of personal hygiene.
  Noah: Motherfucker.
  • Scriniarii acts like this towards the TT Discord fandom, likely due to their initial treatment of him.
  Scriniarii: This is not hard.
• Deliberately Monochrome: Any video that the Collective uploads has no color whatsoever. Word of God implies it's because because we're seeing things through the Collective's eyes, which is supposedly all black and white.
• Determinator:
  • Zig-zagged with Noah. His attitude at the beginning of the series seems to hint that he's this trope played straight, but then suffers a devastating Heroic Blue Screen of Death during "Catharsis" and "The Live Stream Incident", where he decides to accept his fate. Between "DEUS EX MACHINA" and Bridge to Nowhere", Noah seems to have returned to normal once more, only to break down again at the start of the Fortunes arc. And unlike before, it doesn't seem like he'll recover. That being said, there's future versions of Noah who appear in the Fortunes arc, who are more than determined to stop Slender Man, although some of them are more helpful than others.
  • Played straight with Karl Maxwell. He attempted to kill Slender Man during his time as WWII soldier, manages to get ahold of Sebastian Kraus's journal, a Nazi blade, and Swain's mask, and refuses to let any of it go to preserve his safety.
  • Ultimately, Firebrand plays this trope straighter than anyone. He makes it clear in DEUS EX MACHINA that he's going to fight against Slendy for as long as he can, and needs Noah's help to do so.
• Derivative Differentiation: It started off as a video series in The Slender Man Mythos that was a largely forgettable Marble Hornets clone, but eventually found its own voice after the funeral submission, especially in "Night Recordings."
• Despair Event Horizon: Catharsis. Noah is certain he's going to die and doesn't care.
  • Happens again in Fortunes. Due to the Collective haunting his dreams, his lack of motivation to move forward, and his consistent drinking, Noah's become a broken mess.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?:
  • Firebrand literally does this when the Admnistrator is trying to take Noah in his sleep. The Slender Man is so surprised that he withdraws his Combat Tentacles, stops attacking, and tilts his head in confusion.
  • In "Bridge to Nowhere", Noah spits in HABIT's face (on his home turf, no less!) and unleashes a Cluster F-Bomb after HABIT frays his last nerve by taunting him.
• Did You Just Stab Slender Man?: Well... Noah attempted at least. He also attempted to shoot him. Neither worked.
  • In Facade, he attacks The Observer no less than three seperate times before outright severing him from The Administrator’s grasp. First, The Observer, playing Kevin, takes a water bottle to the face after he offers Noah a mysterious pill to take it with. Then, not too shortly after, when he catches up with Noah and states that he forgot to take his meds, he gets a left hook to the face from Noah. Finally, after stating he can still see and... whatever that was, he eats a knee to the face. Then Noah severs him from behind a door and steals his glasses, removing him as a threat at least for now.
• Do Not Taunt Slender Man While Running Barefoot Around Your House At Night
• Dramatic Irony:
  • During the Valentines Day livestream, at one point Noah comments that he wishes he could afford to buy weed, as getting high would really help him calm down. Said livestream ends with Noah accidentally getting high as a kite, due to him not noticing the Observer had stolen his Excedrin, and replaced the pills with something that definitely wasn't asprin.
  • Anytime Noah talks about Firebrand before the ending of The Livestream Incident definitely counts as well, as Noah has no idea that he is Firebrand. Given that it's commonly knowledge in the fandom, it's hard for a newcomer not to find out that detail long before Noah does.
  • Several entries in Milo's journal become this, due to several events that he talks about having already been mentioned by Noah in passing.
• Eldritch Location:
  • The alternate dimension Noah stumbles into in "Bridge to Nowhere" certainly fits the bill: colors are harshly distorted, stairs and hallways loop in on themselves, the air is permeated by an ominous buzzing sound and distorted music; drinking water from fountains there causes nosebleeds, and staying for too long can cause Sanity Slippage. While in the realm, Noah finds himself stalked by HABIT and at one point runs into Jeff (who has been dead for over two years at this point). Fans have speculated that the dimension is actually the "Candleverse", the spirit world seen in one of the hidden videos in Everyman HYBRID.
  • A small spot under Noah's desk in the video "Crawlspace", which teleports Noah to somewhere else, presumably the Boardwalk. We see Noah unharmed afterwards.
  • The Boardwalk as a whole, at some points. Especially under the red distortion.
  • Noah's fake house in "Facade". He's unable to go outside, he's unable to hear Milo's journal screaming at him that he's in a trap, he can't access anything that could give him food (i.e: his fridge and pantry), and anything that would normally give Noah access to water doesn't work. Even his toilet can't be used, as the lid has somehow been sealed shut.
• Enemy Mine: In order to free himself from the Administrator's control, Firebrand was forced to seek assistance from none other than HABIT (whom he refers to as "a loathsome entity with mutual interests").
• Evil Costume Switch: A more subtle version: as Kevin falls under the Observer's control, he begins adopting the physical traits of his possessor, growing his hair out and trading his contact lenses for glasses.
  • Something similar happens with Sisyphus!Noah, who also grows out his hair, and sports a beard. Unlike Kevin, Sisyphus!Noah's case is somewhat justified since he's been living his life inside the Collective's realm, making it impossible for him to stay the way he usually is.
• Evil-Detecting Dog:
  • Early in the Nature Trail Visit, there is a dog following Noah and barking at him.
  • In some of Milo's later journal entries, Milo notes that his cat Oscar has been looking out the window at some guy in a hoodie who walks by Milo's house at night. It's later revealed to be the Observer, who's been taking pictures of Milo.
• Evil Laugh:
  • The Observer has one, as revealed by his Incredibly Obvious Bug. We later get to hear it in it's full during the Fortunes arc, which is bound to give you nightmares.
  • As revealed in Crawlspace, Slender Man can also do this too. It's arguably even worse.
  • After Noah starts rolling the fake dice he believes will help him escape the Boardwalk, his future self starts laughing at him.
• Evil Mentor: In Milo's childhood years, former Nazi and archvassal of the Southern Chapter of the Order Henka Visæ teaches the younger Milo about some things regarding Slender Man and the Collective, as well as Milo's role that he is to play over the course of the series. Due to being younger and more naive than at the time, Milo chooses to trust him, and takes his words to heart.
  • On the opposite side of the spectrum, Noah gets a lesson on the Rune of Severance and how to use it by none other than HABIT himself. Unlike Milo however, Noah is very aware of who he's dealing with, and refuses to let his guard down, which HABIT actually commends him on.
• Expy: The Observer, but unlike Totheark and HABIT, this guy's actual connection to the Slender Man is a lot more clear.
• Exact Words: During Mary Asher Phone Call, Mary claims the Collective told her that Noah knows the identity of Mr. Scars, who wants to end her session. Not wanting to die at the Collective’s hands, Mary demands that Noah tells her who Mr. Scars is, despite Noah having never heard the guy’s name before. As it turns out, Noah does know the identity of Mr. Scars...but only figures it out long after Mary has been murdered by him.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: The Boardwalk seen inside the Collective's realm has eyes everywhere; including inside trees and garbage cans, on leaves, and even a huge mass of them floating in Noah's hall.
  • As shown in DEUS EX MACHINA and his profile picture, Firebrand has two eyes embedded into the palms of his hands. How he got them is a mystery, but it's likely for the best that we don't find out.
  • In Facade, the Observer reveals that he has the ability to procure a single eye from his mouth after Noah knocks his glasses off his head. It apparently can also make hissing sounds.
• Fan Disservice: Noah's Shirtless Scene in November 11th thanks to Blood from the Mouth (and Nose) and the words/symbols written on his stomach/forehead. YMMV on that, of course, especially if you're a Nightmare Fetishist.
• Fighting from the Inside:
  • Looks like Kevin has been trying.
  • Firebrand's main objective is this.
• Flash Step:
  • Slender Man does this in Halloween Hotel, in retaliation for Noah trying to shoot him with a hand revolver.
  • HABIT of Everyman HYBRID does this to catch Noah, who had just met with Jeff, and attempts to run away afterwards.
  • The Observer/ Kevin does this in Crawlspace, by suddenly looking towards the camera, and then putting his face up to the camera and laughing at Noah before falling on the floor and disappearing.
  • Future Noah has this ability in Sisyphus, being able to use Severance to teleport from his house to anywhere on the Boardwalk. In fact he introduces himself to Noah by flash stepping right behind Noah as Noah is turning around.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul:
  • The Observer wears a pair of glasses with white lenses hiding his actual eyes.
  • Downplayed with Scriniarii, who wears similar glasses, but is more of an Anti-Hero than an actual villain.
• Foregone Conclusion: As seen with Noah's various future selves, it's only a matter of time until Noah eventually obtains Sebastian's journal from Karl, becomes trapped in his own home and the Boardwalk by the Collective, and ultimately joins the Collective under the guise of Firebrand.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In "Obituary", 3 Freeze Frame Bonuses show photos of HABIT from Everyman HYBRID, but in scenes that aren't from any of the video's on EMH's channel. These clips later are revealed to be parts of Severance and Bridge to Nowhere.
  • Fortunes takes this up to eleven, where over fifty hidden frames show future scenes from Crawlspace, Pitfall, Sisyphus, Rendezvous, Facade, and Labyrinth.
  • A long-running version of this trope occurs in INTERCEPTION: when Firebrand interrupts the Observer and is relaying info to Noah, the background is shown to be a still shot of a random body of water. It isn't until Milo's entry "capsize", uploaded three years later that we find out that body of water was the harbor Noah's family sailed out of moments before the Boat Incident.
  • During the 2017 Veterans Day livestream, Sisyphus Noah mentions that the Collective has cut off his water, and that his food has long since spoiled, forcing him to go hunting for food at the Boardwalk. In Facade, the current Noah ends up trapped in a fake version of his house that restricts Noah's access to food or water sources.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: This series loves doing this this. At the end of each video, a brief image with a noise playing over it will play for a single frame before it ends.
  • Some of the Slender-moments are barely there for a second before they vanish.
    • Even in the Introduction. During the "In Memory" picture, look towards the left, in the background.
    • Also in the first video, you can very briefly see an operator symbol for a split second just before the end.
  • The last frame of My Grandfather Karl contains a message: "Not safe".
  • There's also several in Unboxing, as noted below in Mind Screw.
  • The final frame of Box Analysis shows a distorted black and white image of what looks like the Observer, along with the words "FORGIVE ME" (Foreshadowing the reveal of the Observer's unwilling host).
  • The Device has the message You will soon remember hidden in the middle of the video as well as one bonus frame at the end.
    • Likewise, Device Analysis has "We will have you".
    • And "Device Findings" has AGAIN.
  • Device Analysis also has another, less traditional example. Near the 1:20 mark when Noah points the camera on himself, you can see something that looks like a person moving down the hall behind him.
  • They are all over the place in November 11th. Just one example would be near the middle when we see Kevin for the first time. ONE OF US.
  • "Obituary" contains several frames of inHABITed Evan which appear at random points in the video.
  • In Extraordinary Circumstances, when Firebrand appears in the doorway, the words "Hello Everyone" are briefly superimposed over a picture on Noah's desk. The final frame of the video shows a picture of Firebrand smiling, along with the message "Try not to spend it all."
  • Fortunes takes the cake with a total of fifty hidden frames. While most are random shots of Victor Park and the Boardwalk, there are also a few disturbing images of the Observer and Slendy (as a giant spider) — and a fortune cookie that reads, "Stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."
• "Friends" Rent Control: Noah apparently lives all alone in a large house with a swimming pool since his childhood. Justified, as on his Formspring, he explained that it is a summer home owned by his parents.
• Future Me Scares Me:
  • Despite Firebrand's Heel–Face Turn during the 11-11-12 Livestream, Noah is understandably disturbed to learn that his future self is a member of the Collective.
  • Exaggerated with Future Noah in Sisyphus, who's lost most of his sanity, and has lived most of his life inside the Collective's realm.
• Future Self Reveal: Noah learns about is "Firebrand", a scary-looking monster with pin-hole eyes and a creepy smile. Firebrand eventually appears in a video and horrifies Noah just before he gets flung into a Stable Time Loop trip. In this episode, it's revealed that Firebrand is Noah from the future, after he gets absorbed into the Collective... and after he breaks away and becomes a "rogue God".
• Futureshadowing: A very bizarre case of this happens in Milo's journal. During his communion with Milo via Oujia Board, Firebrand indicates he knows Blackest Eyes by Porcupine Tree is his favorite song, much to the former's shock. A backmasked version of the song is later heard during the events of Sisyphus, during some scenes where Noah is meeting his future self.
  • Done to a ridiculous extent during Firebrand's 11/11/17 Sensum stream. Firebrand apparently has a paper log of exactly what the chat will say in the future, with a highlight being him holding up a meme that would be posted about 20 minutes later, boasting, "This your fucking meme?"

G-J

• Gaslighting: Arguably The Observer's MO with Noah.
• Genius Loci: Implied. While Noah is trapped within the hellified version of the Boardwalk during the Fortunes arc, he starts noticing minor details that imply the place is alive. This includes various eyes appearing where they shouldn't (such as on leaves, in a garbage can, and the inside of a tree), and a blade of grass moving on it's own, independent from the mangroves beside it.
• Giant Eye of Doom: We get a scene of Noah staring at one of these after he's been taken by the Collective in November 11th.
  • When opening the front door of the dollhouse in Facade, the camera's night vision shows several massive eyes that make squicky sounds and move all over the place. Another eye appears on Noah's TV screen while he and Kevin play Resident Evil and on a funeral service tent during the news broadcast. Even the moon turns into a giant eye at one point!
• Ghostapo: While not present in the series it is suggested by Karl's story and a video put up by the Observer that they were looking into the Slender Man. And that they might have succeeded in getting its attention.
• Hated by All: Mary Asher. Dear god, Mary Asher. Practically everybody in her family hates her, and most of that hatred can be totally justified. Her selfish desire to stay alive results in her killing both of her husbands (the latter of which had nothing positive to say after they divorce), her father Karl disowns her after he realizes she can see Slender Man, her horrid treatment of Milo Asher results in him coming back to life and murdering her in cold blood (although he does regret it immediately afterwards), Noah himself calls her "a fucking asshole" and a "very bad woman to live under" after learning about what she did to Milo, and not even her sister Sharon cares enough to shed a tear after her death.
• Haunted Technology: While exploring the Collective's fake recreation of his own house in Facade, Noah discovers that many of the things he has don't work like they're supposed to. In particular, the radio plays nothing but incomprehensible backmasked music, the TV shows nightmarish visuals (at least when Kevin isn't around), and Firebrand is able to leave a message on the landline phone.
• Heel–Face Turn: Firebrand, who was once part of the Collective.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Firebrand and Sisyphus Noah.
• Hell Hotel: The place Noah spends his night during Halloween and his birthday.
• Hell Is That Noise:
  • Any vocalization that Slender Man makes, which either sounds like deep, monstrous growling in his normal form, or high-pitched chirps and screeches in his Giant Spider form. He even laughs in Crawlspace!
  • The Observer's maniacal, bloodcurdling laughter in the Fortunes Arc. Also applies to Future Noah in Sisyphus.
  • Any video that the Collective uploads, which has unnerving and distorted sounds and music playing throughout the video. It's exaggerated in Season 2, due to the music playing while Noah explores realms that belong to both HABIT and the Collective, which results in the music playing for entire videos in some cases.
    • However, this trope becomes Nightmare Retardant if one speeds up and reverses the video, which reveals that the backmasked songs make fun of Noah's situation in funny ways.
• Heroic Blue Screen of Death:
  • Noah has a total breakdown in the weeks leading up 11-11-12 (the date on which the Observer hints he will either kill Noah or make him part of the Collective).
  • It happens again after Noah visits HABIT's realm, only this time with more dramatic and damaging effects. Noah becomes a shut-in recluse, having to spend the money from Mr. Scars's briefcase on food and basic necessities, while spending most of his days (and nights) drinking and doing nothing, fearful of doing anything that looks even remotely like progress. The Collective certainly don't help his case, as they fill his sleep with terrifying nightmares, preventing him from sleeping at all.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: Typical with Slendy; however, it's worrying when Milo can clearly see him and Noah can't.
• Hive Mind: The Observer claims that the Collective is one.
• Honor Before Reason: How Noah justifies sending Chris and Alex some of the possibly ill gotten or even counterfeit money Firebrand left him.
• Hope Spot: "Interception" opens with the Observer claiming that Noah has won the game and is free to go, just for the sake of going "NOT!" When Firebrand hacks his broadcast and delivers what looks like genuine advice, he finds it rather less funny.
• Horror Comedy: Although the series as a whole is horror dominant, there's many comedic moments used to give viewers a breather and/or to break the tension of the series. Notable examples include Firebrand flipping of Slender Man in DEUS EX MACHINA (and Noah subsequently calling him "Daddy-Long Legs" in Obituary), Noah awkwardly stabbing some bushes in Night Recording, and pretty much anything Future Noah says or does.
• Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: Noah has had several supernatural experiences coincide with holidays and birthdays.
• Hostile Show Takeover: The Collective just loves this trope. In particular, both the Observer and Firebrand are fond of sending Noah messages on his Twitter, and uploading their own videos onto YouTube through Noah's account.
  • On November 11th, 2017, Sisyphus!Noah also hosts a hidden livestream where he answers some questions from viewers.
• House Fire: Mary Asher's go-to for trying to kill people apparently. She successfully kills Robert Asher this way, and later fails to off Noah and his family this way. However, it's starting to become apparent that Robert might not have died after all...
• Humanoid Abomination:
  • The Slender Man, moreso than in that other series. My Grandfather Karl and Box Analysis establish he doesn't have arms, just lots of tentacles, and Submission 6 shows off his impressive Offscreen Teleportation skills.
  • We see the tentacles up close at the very end of Unknown Caller and a few times in HELLOTHERE...
    • There are also several rather detailed shots of the tentacles in the Nature Trail Visit video.
    • INTERRUPTION shows an impressive shot of Slendy's tentacles at the end. Way too close for comfort. HAPPYBIRTHDAY reveals that said tentacles even have suction cups.
    • Fortunes further reveals that he can replace his feet with tentacles for rapid locomotion. There are also several very disturbing shots that show Slendy's body replaced with that of a Giant Spider. From Sisyphus onwards, Slender Man shows that he can become said giant spider at will.
  • COMECLOSER and Noah's hijacked Formspring imply that the Observer is one as well.
  • Mr. Scars has an undead humanoid body that retains his vicious scars from his death wounds.
    • In fact, Milo's Tape shows that Mr. Scars' body is still functioning despite having an open slit throat.
• Impossible Thief: The Severing sign is for taking the ownership of something from someone. The somethings it can take away include computer accounts and people's bodies.
• Improvised Screwdriver: While working to swipe Karl's journal, Milo had to use one of his buttons to unscrew the box it was hiding in.
• Incredibly Obvious Bug: Justified. The Observer's gadget was intended to be found.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: Actually kind of brilliant when Noah's conducting his Secret Parent Interview. As he and his mother are talking, the Slender Man rises up in the window in the background. Then at one point, while Noah's mother is dismissively talking about Karl, she waves her hand, which comes between the camera and Slendy, seemingly erasing him from sight. In other words, she literally hand waved him away. Happens again during a moment where Noah ponders his insanity in November 11th.
• Invisible to Normals: Slender Man doesn't make much of an effort to hide himself in the first few entries, but Noah only sees what Milo was worried about after watching the recordings.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Noah's reaction to the DEUS EX MACHINA video being posted to his account.
• I Shall Taunt You: The Observer is apparently quite fond of this- his messages for Noah are much less cryptic than those of other series' mysterious interlocutors, preferring straight-up mockery. For example, after Noah was first abducted for a week, Observer put his knife back in his hand after writing "USELESS" on the handle.
  • Future Noah seems prone to this as well, as he does nothing but laugh hysterically as Noah tries to roll a 5 or an 8 on the Boardwalk.
• It's All Upstairs From Here: While traversing the Collective’s dimension in Pitfall, Noah encounters the Observer at the top of the observation tower. In an attempt to get to him, Noah starts climbing the stairs, only to find out that they keep looping in on themselves.
• Jerkass Has a Point: What appears to be either a re-enslaved Firebrand, or a clone of Noah created by the Slender Man, taunts Noah by leaving behind fortune cookies. These fortunes actually complain of Noah's lack of activity such as "You aren't very confident, are you?" or "Killing time wastes opportunities." Even though Noah denies it now, they do have a point...
• Jump Scare: The Observer and Slender Man love doing this.
  • Future Noah introduces himself to Noah by doing this as well.

K-N

• Kids Are Cruel: It's revealed in Milo's journal that Milo suffered from this trope in full effect, receiving endless amounts of teasing and bullying from his classmates after he told a former friend about seeing Slender Man.
• Kidnapped While Sleeping: This happens to Noah twice, both times caught on camera and with a shot of the Observer pulling his body from the bed while he remains asleep. The first time, it led to him going crazy and murdering Kat, and the second time, he remained taken for several days while the Observer took over his Twitter account, and returned with mocking phrases written all over his body.
• Killed Off for Real:
  • Starts with Milo Asher at the series' beginning, and only gets worse from there.
  • On the Valentine's Day livestream, Noah's mom tells him that Milo's stepdad John Fletcher is dead. They both suspect Mary Asher murdered him.
  • On the same livestream, Sarah tells Noah that Kat has been killed too.
    • Later revealed that Noah did it.
  • In "Several Months from Hell", Noah reveals that following Sarah's abduction by The Collective on Twitter, he found her name in the obituaries. Caused by self-inflicted stab wounds. Supposedly.
  • As of Obituary: Mary Asher.
• The Killer in Me:
  • In "Catharsis", Noah admits that he did indeed murder Kat, under the influence of Observer and possibly Slendy. The guilt seems to be one of the major reasons he was resigning himself to his fate.
  • Also applies to Milo/Mr. Scars. Milo really didn't want to murder his own mother in cold blood via a headshot, but Slender Man and the Observer had other plans.
• Large Ham: Surprisingly, Milo's journal.
• Laughing Mad: Noah in 'Nature Trail Visit'. Also applies to his future self and the Observer as of the Fortunes arc.
• Lost Episode: The 11/11/12 Livestream, due to recording difficulties. To summarize what happened: Noah is pretty much going through a Despair Event Horizon by the time it gets to the appointed time. When it's finally 11:11, Observer doesn't show up. It looks like the Observer is messing with Noah; but then Noah gets a message from some "F" that he's trying to protect him. It turns out he has only been delayed by an hour. Once it strikes 12, something appears that we don't see and Noah disappears for a few minutes all the while backwards music is playing. Noah returns and is in a shock at what happened. He then finds the private video which is playing the same music and at the end of it is puking due to what he saw. By the end he's alive, but wishes he was dead after what he saw.
  • In The Live Stream Incident, we get a better look at what happened, including where Noah went during that time. He is sent to different points in time, first to the inside of his closet during "The Device" in order to deliver the rubber ball to his past self (the banging coming from the closet in the video was him trying to get out). Then he goes to the hotel during "November 11th" and sees himself get taken by Slender Man (from the spot where he said Firebrand was standing, making him realize that he is Firebrand). Then he gets put in front of himself doing the livestream a couple of minutes ago, right before he got sent back to the closet. Finally he gets back to his room after the music ends, where he comes back to the stream and watches "INTERCEPTION" before ending the stream and going to bed.
• Madness-Induced Omnivore: As Noah descends into madness, he starts to eat bizarre things like money, paper, and crabs (found on the ground and eaten while the exoskeleton is still there), and at some point in the future he eats bird entrails.
• Meaningful Background Event:
  • In Secret Parent Interview, Slendy appears in the darkened background while Noah talks with his parents. Fairly easy to miss, unless you read the video description before watching.
  • In 'Several Months of Hell', The Observer makes his presence known.
  • While Noah is drinking in 'Fortunes', he suddenly teleports to the Boardwalk, where Slender Man appears and attempts to take Noah. Noah is somehow completely unaware of this.
  • In one of the Observer's scenes of him taunting Noah in DEATHTRAPEXODUS, Foreshadowing the scenes of Noah falling onto the Boardwalk, and of Kevin leaving the Medical Museum can be seen in his glasses.
  • After Noah gets a drink from the fridge in Crawlspace, the Observer appears behind him, and starts following Noah with a knife in his hand before disappearing behind his usual laughter. Later, he watches Noah sleep in a timelapse.
• Meaningful Name:
  • As one person on Formspring pointed out, Asher of the Twelve Tribes of Israel( what the channel was originally going to be about) sold his brother into slavery.
  • Every single member of the Collective has a name that represents who their hosts are as individual. Cursor and Persolus mean "runner" and "quite alone" in Latin, a firebrand is defined as "a person who is passionate about a particular cause, typically inciting change and taking radical action", Deadhead is a reference to the German term "Totenkopf" which was symbolized as a skull and was used by the Nazis (also a literal translation of "death's head"), Swain means "Young Lover" or suitor, and Mr. Scars just so happens to have scars all over him mentally, emotionally, and physically.
• Me's a Crowd: As of Season 2, there are a whopping four different versions of Noah that exist in the series. This includes the current Noah that the audience follows, two alternate versions of him who live in the Collective's realm, and Firebrand.
• Mind Screw: Probably what makes the series so well known.
  • The first bit of weirdness during Night Recording: the image flickers and is briefly replaced by a swimming pool at night in a lightning storm. And to add to that, Slendy's hidden in the picture. Oh, Crap!.
  • The images from Submission 6, after Milo is apparently captured by the Slender Man.
  • The stuff Noah gets in the box left in Night Recording. In the Unboxing video, random words and images sometimes appear on screen: one is a picture of Slendy, shortly after are words saying "He Knows What I Have Done", and the last "I will wait for you", while a picture of tentacled Slendy dominates the screen. Also doubles as a Freeze-Frame Bonus, as noted above.
  • Curiously enough, not the Observer-nightmarish imagery aside, he's actually pretty straightforward (if laconic).
  • Northern Trip Footage does before the plane even takes off.
  • The Live Stream Incident is...well, just take a look for yourself.
  • Not to mention The Order as well.
  • A small bit of this happens in Extraordinary Circumstances.
  • Milo's Tape is mind-screwy from both mental, and physical points of view. Some notable examples include Slender Man's heightened teleportation skills, Firebrand's random appearance, and Mary Asher's death.
  • Bridge To Nowhere by a long shot is probably the most mindscewy episode in the entire series, consisting of an Eldritch Location that makes up HABIT"S realm, looping stairwells, meeting Jeff, and weird music in the background.
  • Fortunes has one big one near the end of the video. See it here.
  • Crawlspace reveals that it's possible to teleport to the Boardwalk by going underneath Noah's computer desk.
  • Pitfall has the looping staircase on the watchtower akin to Super Mario 64, as well as Noah taking a large fall that lasts for 25 seconds. And then, once it seems that Kevin has gotten Noah to a safe hospital for him to recover in, it's revealed that it's just a medical museum, and that Noah hadn't actually left the boardwalk.
  • Facade has Noah enter a fake version of his home (described by Firebrand as a "dollhouse"), where the sun never sets, the doors are either unable to be opened, loop back into the house, or show a huge mass of pulsating eyes, and the TV shows both a fake broadcast that depicts Noah's death at the boardwalk and what can only be described as a series of horrible acid trips.
• Misfortune Cookie: Starting with the appropriately named Fortunes, the Collective starts leaving these for Noah that taunt his lack of progress since Bridge to Nowhere.
• Mundane Utility: HABIT scoffs on using the Severing Sign aka the Observer symbol for hacking computer accounts and not the way it was intended (hacking people), but admits that it can be used that way and much more.
• Nightmare Face:
  • The Observer shows this off multiple times in COMECLOSER and INTERRUPTION. Plenty of terror to go around.
  • Subverted with Firebrand. Although his picture that the Observer tweets in Season 1's Valentine's Day livestream is nothing short of horrifying, his actual face as seen in Extraordinary Circumstances is pretty normal-looking. It even looks younger and healthier than Noah's face is.
• The Night That Never Ends: When Noah is exploring the hellified version of the Boardwalk that the Collective supposedly dwell in during the Fortunes Arc, it's shown to stay permanently nighttime.
  • Inverted with the "dollhouse" Noah traps himself in during the events of Facade. Noah reveals in his S.O.S note of sorts that despite a total of three days passing by, the sun hasn't so much as moved. Firebrand reveals that this is the Collective's doing, so that Noah doesn't realize that his camera's night vision shows him where he really is.
• No Ending: One of Noah's twitter updates teases this, but was just a false alarm...at first. Sadly, this would end up being played straight after the series' final episode Facade was uploaded, due to real-life allegations regarding the creator of the series.
• NOT!!: The Observer's idea of a joke in "Interception".
• Not So Above It All: While Noah curses like a sailor, the Observer keeps things clean. Until INTERCEPTION when Firebrand interrupts the broadcast, he regains it and yells "SHUT THE FUCK UP". He latter drops another f-strike in DEATHTRAPEXODUS, where he calls Noah a "fucking idiot" for not bringing the right journal to them.
  • The Fortunes Arc as a whole demonstrates that the Observer's insanity is slowly starting to change the way he presents himself. Facade in shows how the Observer has gone from being a stoic individual who looks down upon fans and is very professional in his presentation, to laughing maniacally every few minutes, cursing just as much, if not more than Noah does, referencing pop culture slang terms such as memes, and going out of his way to mock the fans for reversing and speeding up the audio to find secrets.
• Not the Intended Use: The Rune of Severance, the symbol that represents the Collective as a whole, can be used to take control of social media accounts on the internet, but it was made to be utilized to sever and take control of much more powerful things. Doorways from other dimensions, a journal with powerful information in it, and even other people and supernatural being's bodies are all examples of what the Collective's symbol can sever the strings of and take control over.
• Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here: It's just been really boring around here.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: The Fortunes Arc goes out of it's way to show just how much shit's hit the fan since Noah's visit with HABIT, through permanently revoking Noah's Determinator status, revealing that the future is not as far as one would think, and with the scariness factor turned up to eleven.
• Nothing Is Scarier:
  • Night Recording. With the exception of a scene where Slender Man makes an appearance at Noah's pool.

O-R

• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: As shown in Sisyphus and Rendezvous, various future versions of Noah have managed to gain Sebastian's journal somehow, in spite of how paranoid Karl is.
• Offscreen Teleportation:
  • The Slender Man, as usual. Most triumphant example: In Submission 6, he's in a closet in the living room around 20 feet away, and leans behind the doorjamb, out of view. After a moment, he leans out from behind the doorjamb of the bathroom, five feet away from the camera.
  • In Secret Parent Interview, Slender Man appears in the background as Noah and his mom are talking. When his mom gesticulates and her hand blocks the spot where Slender Man stands for a split-second, he vanishes.
  • Mary Asher Phone Call subverts and justifies it. After Noah fires off four shots, Slender Man freaking bullrushes Noah from across the hall and knocks him down in less than a second, giving us a close up of his faceless head. So he doesn't teleport, he's just fast as fuck!
  • Since it's Slender Man, it probably just moves as fast as it wants, sometimes we see the being walking in other series, sometimes it's locomotion by tentacle arms, most of the time it teleports, in this video it moved in a sort of stop motion animation thingy type way.
  • Sisyphus Noah has somehow mastered this ability by using Severance to open portals to various places. Unfortunately, said places are only limited to various areas at the Boardwalk, and Noah's own home, leaving it more as a Useless Useful Spell.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Noah's reaction listening to the message on the device.
  Noah: There's no way that just happened.
  • He later has this reaction multiple times throughout the Fortunes arc, which include the moments where he watches Slender Man take Milo's Journal right in front of him in Crawlspace, realizing he left his phone in the car during Pitfall, seeing Mongo for the first time in Sisyphus, and being cornered by both Slender Man and the Observer in Rendezvous.
• Ominous Knocking:
  • When Noah stays in a hotel for Halloween, one of the first oddities is the sudden knocking at his door, only for nobody to be there upon opening.
  • One crossover with Everyman HYBRID has Noah be contacted by sociopathic Troll, HABIT, by letter. On the back of this letter are the words "knock knock", which is followed by immediate knocking at his front door. Noah goes to check the door...and gets transported to another room, where the knocking continues behind another door. He is visibly more shaken up as he opens this door, only to end up behind another door in another new room, where the knocking is even louder. Opening this last door transports him to HABIT's house.
• Once More, with Clarity: A long-running example occurs with Box Analysis. During the titular video, Noah shows us some pictures and audio files that he finds on an old cell phone he was delivered as part of the box's contents. It isn't until a few entries into Milo's journal that we finally understand that this was Milo's doing in an attempt to document his findings regarding Slender Man. Keep in mind that Box Analysis was uploaded in 2010, while the Maxwell Archive hadn't posted the entries regarding the info collected until 2018.
  • In Milo's entry "tapes", we find out that Milo and Firebrand ended up having a short, but important conversation that went undocumented during the Submission videos due to Firebrand temporarily putting Noah to sleep, and wiping his and Milo's memories. During this time, he also performs his signature Flipping the Bird scene that would ultimately be shown to viewers in the form of DEUS EX MACHINA.
• Painting the Medium: Each member of the Collective uses their own distinctive font in the videos, indicative of their personality. Observer uses chaotic, pulsating chicken scratches written in all caps. Firebrand uses a basic, typewriter-like font. Deadhead uses a cursive font. HABIT uses Comic Sans in his letter to Noah in Severance.
• Phlebotinium Pills: Milo was forced to take black and white pills by his mother and Henka Visæ in order to suppress his thoughts and emotions for most of his life. Noah is offered these exact same pills by Kevin as a way to help with anxiety during the events of Facade, but thanks to some advice from Firebrand, Noah’s wise enough to throw a water bottle at him instead.
• Phone Call from the Dead: After coming back to life and being attacked by Slender Man, Mr. Scars makes a call from a payphone to Mary Asher, telling her to meet her at their old house, threatening that she will never see him again if she doesn't show up.
• Photoshop Filter of Evil: Any video the Collective uploads is in pure black-and-white, with trippy visuals being shown through the Collective's eyes, and recorded footage.
• Photo Montage: As seen Box Analysis, and later expanded upon in Milo's journal, Milo had been taking many pictures of things around him in an attempt to capture Slender Man on camera.
• Police Are Useless:
  • During the early parts of Season 1, Noah frequently calls the police to report disturbances that the Collective cause in his home. As expected, they find absolutely nothing, and even start getting fed up with him. It escalates to the point where Noah starts using fake names such as Adam and Melvin to get them to investigate.
  • In Milo's last entry in 1997, he realizes that one of the police officers he knows is actually a member of the Order's southern chapter. Think about that.
• Precision F-Strike:
  • INTERCEPTION has two from the Observer. "TIME'S UP BITCH", directed at Noah in a taunting manner for not being able to get the journal in time, and "SHUT THE FUCK UP", directed at Firebrand for interrupting his broadcast.
  • "Bridge to Nowhere" has a glorious one when HABIT mocks Noah's lack of nerve. Noah's reply?
    Noah: FUCK you! Fuck you, and everything you stand for, you cocksucker!
  • The Observer gets another one of these in DEATHTRAPEXODUS, calling Noah a "FUCKING IDIOT" for bringing the Collective the wrong journal to them.
  • While knocking on Noah's bedroom door in Facade, the Observer takes a short pause to do this shortly before starting up again.
• Psychic Nosebleed: Happens to Noah with increasing regularity. Was seemingly a genuine nosebleed that was photographed for the series. If his personal Facebook is anything to go by, one was a real nosebleed after a bike accident, and the other was a red pen that was heated and broken onto a tissue.
• Purple Is Powerful: When Noah is visiting HABIT's house and the Candleverse during the Everyman HYBRID crossover videos Severance and Bridge to Nowhere, the environment occasionally is enveloped in purple distortion. Notably, the distortion seen in those two videos is much stronger than in any of the EMH videos, although it certainly has similarities to it.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad:
  • The Collective. Spoken about by the Observer on Formspring — he doesn't say how many members form this group but six of them are named: Deadhead, Mr. Scars, Cursor, Persolus, Swain, and Firebrand. They, along with several others yet to be named, are shown in the video "HAPPYBIRTHDAY."
  • "Catharsis" confirmed that Noah was slated to be forced into The Collective on the 11th of November 2012. Ultimately subverted, as Noah doesn't get indoctrinated, although it seems that the inevitable has only been delayed if the existence of Firebrand is accounted for.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • Word of God says there was some bad blood between Adam/Noah and Sarah from Thanksgiving, resulting in delays and difficulties getting all of the Thanksgiving footage shot properly.
  • Word of God says the same of Milo's actor, Kyle, wanting to start his life anew, but luckily he was able to film important things before he left. More Word of God info on both these matters here Media Meltdown Interview and here.
  • A tweet from Noah made during Hurricane Irma said that the eyewall had missed him at just the last second, and that it was "too convenient", as if his tormenters didn't want him to die there.
  • The large gap between updates starting in 2014 (and to a lesser extent, Noah's change in personality) happened due to Adam Rosner's commitments to school, amongst other real life things.
• Recap Episode:
  • 'Several Months of Hell' serves mostly as this, while still hinting towards a new lead. It also helps those who only follow the main channel instead of the Formspring and Twitter.
  • 'Case Findings' has Noah going over the contents of briefcase Mr. Scars delivered in Obituary.
  • 'Fortunes' acts like this, although it's hard to really pay attention to the actual information given, thanks to Noah's Sanity Slippage.
• Red Filter of Doom: Starting in Season 2, every time Noah turns on his night vision filter while at the Boardwalk, the entire area is bathed in red light, as opposed to the camera's natural green.
• Refusal of the Call:
  • The events of "Unknown Caller" scare Noah so much that he destroys the phone and refuses to pursue the mystery any longer. Unfortunately, The Call Knows Where You Live and it's waiting for him to pick up again...
  • "Fortunes" reveal that Noah's utterly terrified of making any significant progress, due to knowing the Collective will retaliate against him.
• Retired Badass: Karl.
• Revealing Continuity Lapse:
  • As a result of Slender Man and the Observer's influence, Noah loses track of time in a similar manner as Jay from Marble Hornets. One particular instance has him continuously chase the Observer around a hotel, repeatedly ending up in the same hallway. By the time he returns to his room, it's suddenly the middle of the night.
  • The power of the Collective is displayed when Noah suddenly receives two calls about people he knows being murdered. One of them, Kat, is suspected to have been killed by Noah himself, and he begins to think this is the case, despite him never leaving his house to be able to do it, having no memory of doing it, and not having wanted to do it at all. The only explanation is that he'd killed her during a moment of possession on Thanksgiving when he really was spending time with Kat, but was taken into the future to do it.
• Right Behind Me:
  • Warnings scrawled on the handrail of the tower.
  • HELLOTHERE suggests that Slendy was right behind Milo and watching him all the time during Submission #3.
  • The Observer hides behind Noah's chair for almost the entirety of Seven Months In Hell.
  • Noah's future self in Sisyphus literally just shows up behind him when Noah encounters him on the Boardwalk in the titular episode.
• Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue...: "November 11th" gives us "Roses are red, and violets are blue. I have a gun and I don't think you do,"
• Rotoscoping: Used extensively in the Observer videos.

S-V

• Sanity Slippage:
  • This tweet seems to indicate Noah is becoming a little bit unhinged:
  I'm not crazy, but I just had the realization that everything around me is alive. It doesn't matter if I'm paranoid, they're still after me.
  • It only gets worse from there.
  • Fortunes. Noah is so screwed up by his visit with HABIT that he starts acting like him in the smallest, subtle ways, and is constantly speaking in a hateful, angry tone. Paranoia Fuel has never felt so alive.
  • And yet, it somehow gets worse for Noah. A future version of Noah is introduced in Sisyphus, who seems to have completely lost whatever sanity he might have left.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: The Observer (and to a lesser extent, Sciniarii) both wear dark glasses that hide their eyes from view. The Observer in particular has different glasses from Kevin's, which have white lenses that completely hide his eyes. Facade reveals that they hide empty pits of blackness where eyes should be.
• Seinfeldian Conversation: Noah often has these with other characters.
• Self-Parody: There's a Monster in my Closet.
• Sinking Ship Scenario: Noah goes into detail on Ask.fm about a time when his family went on a boat cruise (which is later revealed to have been to celebrate Karl Maxwell's 70th birthday in Milo's journal), which suddenly capsized. During this, Noah's grandmother Sonia drowns, Karl swam around searching for a "book" he had lost, and Noah himself was saved by an anonymous person. It also turns out that Henka Visæ (aka: Deadhead) was the captain of the boat.
• Shirtless Scene: Noah has one in November 11th. See Fan Disservice.
• Shout-Out
  • The Operator symbol shows up in a few places. Milo gets the Incurable Cough of Death around one of them.
  • Noah... ToTheArk... what could it mean?
  • Possibly one to Just Another Fool in the vandalized tower. However, Word of God says the name 'Logan' was actually already carved there, and Adam simply worked it in.
    • A similar one appears in Nature Trail Visit.
  • In Night Recordings, Noah wakes up at 3:33. This may be a reference to Eternal Darkness, especially with the greenish tint to the digital numbers.
    • Actually, across the mythos, the Slender Man is associated with the repetition of the same number. For instance, in Marble Hornets, he shows up at 4:04 on April (the fourth month) 4th.
  • A lot of the series revolves around Victor Park. This could possibly be a reference to Victor Surge, the Something Awful member who posted the first pics of Slendy.
  • "Night Recording" features time-lapsed footage of Noah sleeping, stopped at specific points to draw attention to the supernatural happenings around him.
  • The Observer's symbol looks somewhat familiar.
  • Halloween Hotel has a quick shot of someone wearing a shirt with The Silence and a Weeping Angel on it, both of which have been often compared to Slendy.
    • Halloween Hotel itself seems to be a shout out to Entry 23 of Marble Hornets, namely the part of the protagonist suddenly finding himself trapped in an Eldritch Location while pursuing an enigmatic figure somehow connected to the tall guy. The sudden transition from day to night also occurs in both videos.
  • In a possible shout-out to the Slender Man fandom, Noah says that he picked up the audio device for "[t]wenty bucks...I don't remember..." to which Edward replies that someone could sell the device for "a lot more than twenty dollars". The Slender fan community has a Running Joke about Slenderman wanting/needing $20.
  • In the November 11 video, Noah says "It's really fucking with my mind Something Awful." (Slenderman having originated from some creepypasta pics on the site's forums)
  • In Extraordinary Circumstances, Noah finds a tape and uses the words "more tapes" in response after the common instances of tape-finding in Marble Hornets.
  • When Noah is attempting to climb up (and later down) the stairs to the observation tower in "Pitfall", a backmasked version of the neverending stairs music from Super Mario 64 plays. The fact that the "Correct Solution" jingle plays when he successfully reaches the top of the tower is pretty hilarious too.
  • Speaking of Super Mario 64, HABIT's realm has a heavily backmasked version of Big Boo's Haunt playing in the background as Noah explores the area. The area itself vaguely resembles the level as well.
  • When Noah asks his future self how to get out of the Collective's realm in "Sisyphus", Future Noah alludes to Jumanji by responding with: "Have you tried rolling a 5 or an 8? You are in the jungle you know." The Jumanji references continue at the end of the video, where the drums from the film play while Noah is rolling the 100 sided die (albeit backmasked).
  • When Noah is fiddling with his camera's night vision during the events of Rendezvous, a heavily edited version of the ghostly laughter heard in Luigi's Mansion can be heard. Later on, when Noah is having his "tutoring session" with his future self, one of the backmasked songs that plays is Olmec Guides You Through The Temple.
  • In Milo's journal entries, it's revealed that the name of Noah's father is Alex. Make of that what you will.
  • When Noah turns on the TV in Facade, some of the backmasked songs heard in the background are from well-known old TV shows such as Crashbox, Goosebumps (1995), Eyewitness, and [1].
    • There's also Noah calling the crab he's about to eat "Mr. Krabs".
• Sir Swearsalot: Fucking Noah.
  • The first time he swears, he apologizes to the viewer, indicating that he normally tries to use civil language. As the events of the series start taking its toll on him, he starts sounding more and more like a David Mamet character.
• Slasher Smile: The Observer at the end of "COMECLOSER". THAT IS NOT A FRIENDLY SMILE.
  • The Observer in general.
  • Noah near the end of "Thanksgiving Footage Day 2". He also had this on his vine account.
  • Future Noah in "Sisyphus", shown appropriately after he slices Noah's hand open with a Nazi Blade.
• Snarky Inanimate Object: Milo's journal, making snarky and insulting comments that can be audibly heard in videos.
• Snowy Screen of Death: As seen in Rendezvous, whatever's in Sebastian's journal is so powerful and incomprehensible that Noah's camera can't clearly show it as anything other than a blurry mess of static.
• Split Personality: Kevin/The Observer. This was hinted at by Kevin's first on-camera appearance (which revealed that he looks a lot like the person silhouetted in the Observer's videos), and finally confirmed in the note from 11/9 (which also revealed it to be a Split-Personality Takeover).
• Stable Time Loop:
  • When Noah finds the device in "The Device", there is banging and yelling heard from behind the door. When Noah investigates, he finds a ball on the ground with the Observer symbol that says "TROUBLE SLEEPING?" on it. Later, Noah is given the exact same ball in the future, and is sent back to the time of "The Device". Unable to open the door, Noah frantically bangs on the closet door and accidentally drops the ball, leaving it for his past self to find.
  • In "November 11th", Noah encounters Firebrand after nearly being taken by the Observer. While we cannot see who Firebrand is (as the camera depicts him with pinhole eyes and a thin smile), Noah is dumbstruck by what he sees, and falls on the ground. We then see him be taken by Firebrand and has his memory wiped. In the future however, Noah is sent back through time, and finds his past self. Understandably, Noah is shocked to remember that it was himself that he saw on November 11th. It is also revealed that it was Slender Man who took Noah, not Firebrand.
  • Finally, in "The Livestream Incident", a drunken Noah sees his past self, and denies he is real. He walks toward him, and is sent to the times of "The Device" and "November 11th". He is then sent to his past self from a few minutes ago, and is so shocked from what he just witnessed, he cannot do anything but watch his past self walk towards him, and be sent back through time to witness what the current Noah already witnessed.
• Supernatural Phone:
  • In Season 1, Noah receives an old phone that used to belong to Milo that had a few audio recordings and pictures of Slender Man on it. He gets rid of it completely after the Collective unexpectedly phones him in the middle of the night.
  • In Facade, Firebrand leaves Noah a voice message on the landline phone in the dollhouse, explaining where he is and how to escape it.
• Suspiciously Apropos Music:
  • You wouldn't be able to tell just by watching the videos as they are, but as seen in the Backmasking section, the demonic sounds and music heard in the Collective/HABIT's realm are actually songs that are slowed down and reversed, mocking Noah's situation. A few stand-worthy examples include:
  • In Pitfall, where "Circles" by Soul Coughing as well as the endless staircase music from Super Mario 64 play while Noah is attempting to climb up and later down observation tower's stairs, with the "Correct Solution" and "Game Over" jingles playing once Noah reaches the top and hits the ground from falling, respectively.
  • Also in Pitfall: "Free Falling" by Tom Petty is heard while Noah is falling from the tower, and "Parasite" by Nick Drake briefly plays once Kevin discovers Noah. Specifically, the part of the song that says "Take a look, you may see me on the ground..."
• Squick: Milo's journal entry "flu" goes into very explicit detail on how Milo shits out the key to his journal after swallowing it while at school one day. Imagine how Noah must've felt when he discovered this...
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That: The audio from Device Findings, supposedly recorded months before Noah heard it.
  "Perhaps you'd like to know why Milo committed suicide? Or rather, how I helped him do so."
  "...fuck. Fuck."
  "Language, Mr. Maxwell. The walls have such sensitive ears."
• Tempting Fate:
  Noah (to the Observer): Quit hiding and SHOW YOURSELF FOR ONCE, YOU FUCKING COWARD!
  • And although the Observer doesn't show his face, Firebrand certainly does.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind:
  • Who's the identity of the Observer, you might ask? Why, none other than Noah and Milo's friend Kevin Haas, who was seldom mentioned in Season 1, and didn't even make a body appearance until November 11th.
• Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: The premise for Night Recording.
• Those Wacky Nazis:
  • When the Observer was in control of Noah's Twitter account, he sent a "prize" to people: A .jpg file depicting a Nazi diary. It's supposed to be the journal of Sebastian Kraus, which the Collective is seeking.
  • The Collective members Deadhead and Swain seem to be connected to Nazi Germany. The Observer calls Deadhead "the Nationalist" and he's named after a Nazi insignia resembling his appearance. As for Swain, he's dressed in either a low-ranking Nazi uniform, or some old theater garb, and is implied to be Sebastian Kraus, the one who owned the journal the Collective seeks. HABIT ultimately confirms in Severance that Sebastian was a Nazi, and that he worked on an important project during WWII.
  • Future Noah manages to get ahold of a knife that was apparently created or owned by a Nazi. And what's the first thing he does with it? Why, cut his own hand open of course!
• Time Travel:
  • In the Halloween Hotel video, either Noah travels a few hours into the future or there are a few unrecorded, unremembered hours. It is probably the former as Noah films a continuous shot, but one can't be too sure with things involving the Observer.
  • In The Live Stream Incident, Firebrand transports Noah back in time twice: once to his own closet on the night he discovered the Observer's device (so he could leave the rubber ball for himself), and then to the night of his 20th birthday (where he appeared to his past self in the guise of Firebrand.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: If Noah's interactions with his future selves say anything, it's that Firebrand's messing around with our current timeline is very convoluted and difficult to understand.
• Title Drop: Done occasionally throughout the videos, but the most noteworthy example of this trope occurs in Facade, where Noah dismisses the dollhouse he is as the titular episode while trying to figure out how to escape it.
• Trailers Always Spoil: The teaser trailer shows events from the Livestream Incident, amongst other things, which can be a bit of a spoiler.
• Trust Me, I'm a Doctor:
  • [2]'s Doctor Corenthal was revealed to have treated a young Milo Asher, and was the one who gave him his journal.
  • A "Dr. Cairo" said this on Twitter while talking to Noah, despite previously establishing that he's a student.
• Troll:
  • The Observer celebrates Halloween by bombarding Noah with a shit-ton of Alien Geometries and a small bit of Time Travel at a hotel, seemingly just For the Lulz.
  • Surprisingly downplayed with HABIT of all people. While he does do quite a few troll-ish things such as send Noah a Christmas themed card in Comic Sans, asking a few random and unrelated questions, and making metaphors that mock Noah's situation, HABIT's much more straightforward with Noah than he ever was with Vinny or Jeff as he explains the importance of Severance.
  • Sisyphus Noah appears to be one towards his past self and the viewers as well, giving vague non-answers to the questions he's asked, refusing to give his past self Sebastian's journal, slicing his hand open for seemingly no reason, and laughing as he tries to roll a five or an eight on the fake dice he finds on the boardwalk.
  • Milo's journal does this during most of the Fortunes Arc. It reveals in Facade that he acted like this intentionally to motivate Noah to keep moving forward.
• Unnaturally Looping Location:
  • In "Halloween Hotel", The Observer pranks Noah by constantly warping him around as he tries to pursue his stalker through the titular hotel. This includes leaving his hotel room, only to be transported back to that hotel room, and running down a hallway that only brings him back to the start of the hallway. This only ends when The Observer decides to stop trolling him.
  • In "Bridge To Nowhere", Noah was mysteriously transported to a place called the "Candelverse", where a dead character from the same-universe series Everyman HYBRID is alive, the evil spirits and monsters have immense power, and the geography is utterly incomprehensible. He tries to get into an apartment complex, only for the stairs to loop him back to the beginning every time, which happens until he gives up.
  • "Pitfall" takes place at the Boardwalk, the location where The Collective's world means the human world, and Noah is told to go up the observation tower. In trying to do so, he gets stuck in an endless loop, where no matter what he tries to do, he can no longer do anything but continuously climb the steps. The only way out of it is to jump from the tower... which does free him from the loop, but also gets him badly injured in the process. As a small nod to what's happening, the chime from Super Mario 64's endless staircase plays in the background.
  • Still stuck at the Boardwalk, Noah's next task is to figure out how to escape, since taking the usual route home only leads to the beginning of the Boardwalk. It takes advice from his future self before he can come up with a way to get out; this, in fact, was the very reason Noah was taken there in the first place, as it was a test to force him to learn what the Collective refer to as "Severance".
• Unreliable Narrator:
  • Noah, perhaps. During the funeral video, the last few seconds of footage are of Noah running from nothing while the image on the screen starts to tear apart, meaning the Slender Man is nearby. He claims he edited this footage out... then who put it back in, and why? And why did he not want us to see it?
  • Even further implied by The Envelope video, which featured a torn scrap of paper addressed to Noah, reading "Unrel Narra".
• Urban Legend: Noah's grandfather explains that Slendy is indeed an urban legend he heard about from his grandmother back in WWII Germany. Possibly a Shout-Out to the fact that some of the Something Awful forum members indeed had heard a German urban legend similar to that of Slendy.
• Villainous Breakdown: The Observer has an epic one during the 11/11/12 livestream when Firebrand prevents him from taking Noah.

W-Z

• Weirdness Magnet:
  • Milo. Heck, he can't even hold a camera for five seconds before Slender Man shows up.
  • Kevin is hit with this too, but for an entirely different reason.
• Weird Moon: As Noah wanders the Collective's realm, he notices the moon doing some sort of weird eclipse, and predicts it's going to turn into an eye. He's proven correct.
• Wham Episode:
  • The Token Letter introduces an "Ultimatum" from the sender of HELLOTHERE as well as a new symbol: an eye with four petals. The mysterious third party is now commonly referred to as "The Observer".
  • Nature Trail Visit, full stop. We get not one, but two very well done shots of The Tall One himself, but we realize Noah had been out for a whole week.
    • Being out for a whole week and not remembering anything in the lost time? What does that remind you of?
  • The Device series shows us that the Observer is very much a physical being, and has a voice.
  • November 11th: we finally get to see Kevin, Noah's friend who translates Grandpa Karl's German. He looks just like the Observer.
  • The 2/14 Livestream is also full of wham.
  • Catharsis. Noah admits to killing Kat (while under the control of the Collective), realizes he's going to die on his birthday (and has an appropriate mental breakdown, and that the Observer plans on turning him into a new member of the Collective.
  • The 11/11/12 stream. See Lost Episode.
  • And then the video itself, INTERCEPTION. Firebrand is on Noah's side, and the Observer is pissed.
  • The Livestream Incident. Firebrand is Noah himself.
  • DEUS EX MACHINA. Firebrand has severed himself from the Collective and become a "rogue god"... with help from HABIT.
  • "Obituary" reveals that Mary Asher was discovered in a lake, dead from a gunshot wound to the head. And not only that, but she's also Cursor's vessel. And while Noah is discovering this for himself, Mr. Scars shows up in the back window and leaves behind the mysterious briefcase Firebrand spoke of.
  • In "Extraordinary Circumstances, Noah discovers what's inside that briefcase: several of Milo's old belongings plus a handwritten note, a tape, and...$100,000 of real money.
  • "Milo's Tape". Just...Milo's Tape. It's revealed to us that Milo is Mr. Scars. As in, "theonewhokillsmary." His own mother. And we see it happen on tape. It's not pretty.
  • "Bridge to Nowhere" has one for Everyman HYBRID. Because although it was shown otherwise, Jeff is still alive. Trapped in HABIT's realm.
  • "Fortunes" shows how Noah's sanity has gone down the shithole in the last year, and how he's been haunted by the Collective in his dreams. And remember that journal Mr. Scars sent? It can talk.
  • "SCRINARII" reveals that the hacker that was blocked on Reddit wasn't a gamejacker, he was a friend of Firebrand's. And he isn't happy with us.
  • "Sisyphus" shows that Firebrand isn't the only future self of Noah that exists, as we get introduced to a version of Noah who has apparently spent so much time trapped in the Collective's realm that he's lost his mortal sanity. We also learn that this version of Noah somehow managed to gain Sebastian's Journal from Karl. Considering what Karl is, that's quite the feat.
  • From Milo's journal, we get one of these in the form of "henka", which reveals who the aforementioned cult member was before he became Deadhead.
  • "tapes" isn't far down the line either, as it reveals an entire conversation between Milo and Firebrand that went undocumented during the time of the Submission videos.
• Wham Line:
  • November 11th. ONE OF US.
  • Observer sent a new letter on November 2012. With a message on the back. In Kevin's handwriting.
  I'm so sorry Noah
  they're too powerful
  kill me I'm only a tool
  he can't use my body then
  • 11-11-12 Livestream ends with this slap-in-the-face line:
  "Firebrand. Me. Thank you. Thank you."
  You're fucking welcome.
  • Milo's Tape has an In-Universe one for Mary:
  Milo: I've got news for you, Mom. I'm Mr. Scars.
• Wham Shot: In Rendezvous, a Noah from a month in the future who has retained enough of his sanity to be distinct from Prebrand has Sebastian's journal. The slightly-future Noah knows that he can't tell the current Noah about what's in the journal, but he can show him.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • The Observer calls out the people on twitter when he challenges them to a riddle to see something that Noah didn't want them to see. When they guess it right, he expresses his disbelief that they were on his side, yet willing to see something he didn't want them to see for a reason.
  • Noah gives one of his own upon his return, and considering this is Noah we're talking about, his is a bit more...colorful.
  • Milo's Journal in Fortunes can be heard insulting Noah, and repeating the fortunes that Noah gets from his Evil Twin. These said fortunes make fun of the fact that Noah has done absolutely nothing in 2014.
  • Firebrand gives one to the viewers in SCRINARII, for treating Scrinarii as a lowly gamejacker, and for not helping Noah at all.
• You Are Not Alone: Firebrand gives Noah a much needed peptalk once he stops the Observer from turning him into one of the Collective.

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