#he uses it in Decline - 'he will pay' denoting His revenge quest on Alex | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

brittlebutch · 2 years ago

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the evolution of the operator symbol over the course of the series is so endlessly fascinating to me, because like. Alex came up with the symbol and only ever really used it on his hypergraphia papers, which we don't really see him do much (if at all) after season one

but Brian,, Brian uses that symbol constantly. It's basically a signature by the end of the series - he leaves it on Tim's medical records, and on the back of Alex's photo of Amy, and on the note he left for Jay about Benedict Hall - he even uses it in his final video to unveil his name - it's self-referential, but he doesn't ever really seem to use it to denote The Operator the way Alex did?

Like, to me it really does seem like he basically appropriated it. "This is the symbol you created for the thing that was hunting you, but now I'm the thing that's hunting you" - like, hh fuck dude, Looking At You

#N posts stuff #marble hornets #totheark #mh lb #i was thinking about this last night and just rewatched all of the totheark videos to check my own work lol #and like. even in the videos he uses it as a self-referential symbol #he uses it in Intermission - 'did you see me? i saw you'#he uses it in Reminder - 'do you remember me?' immediately followed by His footage of Jay at the antique store #he uses it in Decline - 'he will pay' denoting His revenge quest on Alex #sometimes there IS more ambiguity in its application - like in 'Inquiry' or 'memories'#where like maybe it could be denoting the effects of the operator's influence? but those are s2 and i'm Mostly talking about s3 #but i mean even in s1 the symbol shows up in the last frame of some videos like a signature/sign off #sorry brian is just so fascinating to me i want to study him like a beetle

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