Can You See the Words

Thursday. Nothing new to say.

Some officer, or agent, or whatever you want to call the uniform, came by and tried to question me today.
 I was "on my way to work" - he said they'll gladly be back soon.
 I'm starting to feel sick again. I probably shouldn't have gotten rid of all my medicine.
 I shouldn't have made friends.

Can You See the Words is a Tumblr blog. It's initially a weird collection of literature quotes, photographs, and links to songs--all dealing with water, rain, and floods. The writer begins alluding to some kind of problem bothering her and linking to songs about, say, monsters, or being stalked. After this it segues into a somewhat more orthodox personal blog, and the writer is revealed to be a female art student who has suddenly transferred from the Alabama School of Fine Arts to Princeton. Whatever that problem is, it persists, however, and she's been seeing a doctor and taking drugs to deal with "trauma". She refuses to elaborate on her ordeal, insisting it would only make things worse and that she doesn't want any newcomers getting sucked in on her conscience. All the while, readers continue to pry about the paintings visible on her webcam videos--one of a foggy wood, another of a pale-faced man in a tie and shirt...

It eventually comes to light that the writer is connected to another group of people with the same problem--she's friends with the girlfriend of one of the three creators of a YouTube fitness series. And to make matters worse, she's gone missing...

Start reading at the bottom-most and right-most entry of the archive page (titled "From the Book of Genesis"), and read your way back from that oldest post by going right-to-left, top-to-bottom; trying to read by navigation from post to post will skip a few embedded Tumblr videos and slide shows (stupid, stupid Tumblr). Once you're past the second Tumblr video and the slide show (June 23rd and 24th) you can resume using normal navigation without missing any plot-important stuff. And by "normal navigation" we mean "press the 'previous-post' link to look at the next-newest post", because this is Tumblr.

See more words at her Twitter account and ask if you can help her/yourself/them/us.

Tropes used in Can You See the Words include:
  • Alternate Reality Game
  • Bilingual Bonus: One of the posters ("blackandyellowandred") asks [in Russian]: "How does he see without eyes? How does he breathe with no mouth? He is. He waits. We're all dead." Her response? [also in Russian]: "Ashes, ashes. We all fall down."
  • The Blank: Small references are made to His lack of a face. She really appreciates readers who register as opposed to staying anonymous--people have faces for a reason, after all.
  • Blood-Splattered Innocents: In her backstory: she ripped open all the bags that He stuffed her family members into and ended up covered in their blood.
  • Foreshadowing: "Rabbit or habit?"
  • Genre Savvy: She knows outright talking about Him isn't going to change anything and she's not budging on it, damn it.
  • Gratuitous Russian: One readers asks a question in Russian and gets a response in Russian.
  • The Great Flood: The first few posts are simply flood myths.
  • Hazardous Water: Holds this trope dearer than any other story involving Him thus-far. The words "water" (and occasionally other words relevant to water) and "flood" are always struck-out and "ark" is always bolded.
    • Conversely, words that denote moving water are always left unstruck e.g. "river" and "rain".
  • Hostile Show Takeover: HABIT has hacked in and posted videos and images of violent killers while showing sympathy for them. Evan revealed they're leaving the blog to him. The implication seems to be that it's saying it actually is these people.
  • Jerkasses: The police officers pestering her about Jessa's disappearance.

They told me to expect a big change of scenery sometime soon. I think I heard him laugh as we hung up.
I’m ignoring any calls with 'P.D.' in the ID from this point on. Let them visit. I'll tell them the truth. I'm as worried as any friend would be.

  • Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: And the pieces fit with Everyman HYBRID's.
  • Meganekko: The writer.
  • My Parents Are Dead
  • No Fourth Wall: Being a Tumblr account where others can post questions for her to answer this is to be expected. Most of the plot that she delivers is via answering said questions.
    • As well, at one point she went and posted a thank you to the ask box of one of her more notable fans:

canyouseethewords asked: I was just looking through the two-hundred-some posts submitted to my account. Thank you for your concern from the beginning. I just wanted to put that out there and show my appreciation, heh.

When people make a mistake, they generally try to cover it up.
I'm no different.

  • The Reveal: Her last post explains that she'd been lying about what happened to her family. Turns out He killed them and left them in garbage bags hanging in a tree out back. When Little Damsel found them, she slashed all the bags open and set fire to the house to hide what happened. No wonder she's got issues.
  • Shout-Out: The mythos-standard House of Leaves references aside, there are also all the links to songs and to other books and poetry.
  • Slice of Life
  • Speak of the Devil: "Evil does evil deeds but giving it a name only empowers it."
  • Strange Minds Think Alike

Anonymous asks: he is there. waiting. i don't leave. i wait. no movement. just waiting.
 help.
 I wrote just this, almost verbatim, in my journal last year, before I knew.

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