This was just posted on J's twitter:
http://twitpic.com/31g2ab
There are few words available to me to accurately show the depth of my reaction to this, so let's settle with "[Expletive of the reader's choice] YEAH!!!"
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Oh Noes The Creepy!!!11
Not much to see here. I just wanted to say that I, for some suicidally idiotic reason, have decided to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, which on top of my already overwhelming school work, means the chances of me finding free time to sit down and write a full post are slim. If the opportunity does present itself, I will write something in full detail, but it’s much more likely that any posts from me will be short, or nonexistent. Once November is over, I intend to return to writing as much as I was previously, but don’t expect much during the course of the month.
But enough of that. How’s about some unrelated Slender Man creepiness.
That Slender Man short story I said I wrote? We discussed it today in my Creative Writing class. But when I uploaded it onto a school computer so I could print out copies, the entire last line of the story, right before it’s implied the narrator is killed/taken by Slendy, had been completely messed up. Letters were replaced with white boxes or random symbols, and instead of just being a single line, it was a page and a half of nonsensical gibberish. When the other students printed out their copies, the degree to which the text had been messed with varied. Half had extreme changes similar to mine, the other half only had minor changes (making the text still legible, if weird looking), and only one guy got a clean copy. Coincidentally, that one guy was the only other person who had heard of Slender Man before.
I would be a bit terrified right now were it not for the likelihood that the changes were probably caused by incompatibility between the font I used in that last line, and the school computers’ older version of Word. Probably.
And for some silliness, here's a parody of the latest EverymanHYBRID entry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_jW5WApYGQ
But enough of that. How’s about some unrelated Slender Man creepiness.
That Slender Man short story I said I wrote? We discussed it today in my Creative Writing class. But when I uploaded it onto a school computer so I could print out copies, the entire last line of the story, right before it’s implied the narrator is killed/taken by Slendy, had been completely messed up. Letters were replaced with white boxes or random symbols, and instead of just being a single line, it was a page and a half of nonsensical gibberish. When the other students printed out their copies, the degree to which the text had been messed with varied. Half had extreme changes similar to mine, the other half only had minor changes (making the text still legible, if weird looking), and only one guy got a clean copy. Coincidentally, that one guy was the only other person who had heard of Slender Man before.
I would be a bit terrified right now were it not for the likelihood that the changes were probably caused by incompatibility between the font I used in that last line, and the school computers’ older version of Word. Probably.
And for some silliness, here's a parody of the latest EverymanHYBRID entry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_jW5WApYGQ
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Inconsistent Behavior: Scared and H(a)unting
Bleh, I’d wanted to get this posted earlier, but I got punched in the face by schoolwork (on the plus side, I somehow ended up writing a Slender Man-ish story for my creative writing class, despite starting the paper with no intention of doing so. I might post is here after I’ve polished it up a bit.)
Currently, both the blogs Scared and H(a)unting have been seeing Slendy acting far more inconsistent than usual. If things keep going on as they are, we may end up seeing Slender Man fighting an epic battle against…. Slender Man. Which would look cool, but also be very messy.
Here’s what you need to know:
On the blog Scared, Drew, the cousin of the main author (Jack), was turned into a Slenderproxy. Also, Sandra, of the blog H(a)unting, has been in frequent contact with Jack of Scared. Now, Sandra is in an interesting situation; technically, she is being followed by Slender Man. However, Slender Man has made no attempts on her life, and actually has acted to protect her in the past. Now, at some point, Drew got it into his head to act in a vaguely threatening manner towards Sandra. Slender Man didn’t take too kindly to that idea.
This is where things start getting interesting. According to Slender Man on H(a)unting, he never physically harmed Drew. According to Drew himself, Slender Man did physically assault him as punishment.
Drew would continue to act in a manner not fitting with H(a)unting’s Slender Man, leading to more confusion. Then, Jack saw Drew with, and being attacked by, a Slender Man he claimed to be different than the Slender Man they had encountered before. Upon learning of the possibility of another Slender Man, H(a)unting’s got a bit aggressive, and seems to have declared a turf war with the other Slendy.
This here is me trying to make sense of what exactly is going on, using what I know of the Mythos. I am not making the claim that one of these hypotheses is THE TRUTH on the matter; in fact, I am open to the possibility that they may all be false (I’m also open to the possibility of one being true, only for the truth to change to a completely different one sometime later. Because that’s the sort of thing Slender Man loves doing). I’m not the one with the direct experience of what’s going on; I’m just the guy reading the blogs and trying to get all the pieces to fit together. Nor am I forcing my ideas on the writers of Scared or H(a)unting. They can choose whether or not they will accept any of these hypotheses; this is merely to be a collection of my thoughts on the matter. The purpose is to hopefully set up a foundation for Scared or H(a)unting to try and learn more on the matter, not to act as a conclusion for it.
Multiple Monster Hypothesis
This seems to be the direction which Scared is assuming; that they are dealing with a completely different Slender Man. After all, who’s to say that there aren’t multiple Slender Men? It would explain a lot about the changes in abilities and method Slendy’s shown across various stories. At least two Slender Men would explain all the inconsistencies between the two blogs, and also why the Slender Man Scared is dealing with now is so different than before.
Based entirely on Scared and H(a)unting, this is the theory I’d go with. It fixes all the problems, with minimum fuss, and no need for any in depth analysis or queries. However, it doesn’t seem to stand up to the evidence of other blogs. Not that it’s false; it would be very difficult to prove or disprove that in my current situation (Step 1, find Slender Man. Step 2, ask Slender Man if there are more than one of him. Step 3, go crazy and die). But the only recent blog to claim that multiple Slender Men exist was Breaker, and that’s already admitted to being fake. This hypothesis also goes against Robert (Sage)’s theory on White Elephants, and at the moment, he probably has the best understanding of just what Slender Man is. According to him, each nation has their own monster; Slender Man just happens to be ours. There is only one monster per nation, and the monsters do not overlap; they hunt only the victims from the culture which created them. Unless we learn that one of the writers on Scared or H(a)unting is actually an immigrant, or that America somehow has gained multiple monsters, this creates problems with there being multiple Slender Men.
Connection to Curious Little Girl?
However, I feel that there is something else which very much needs to be addressed before we completely disregard the idea of multiple Slender Men. There is a little known (and no longer active) Slenderblog called Curious Little Girl, which featured a situation that bears some resemblance to that of H(a)unting. While Gretel (the author) was followed by a Slender Man like creature, she also reportedly had another, different entity which acted as a protective force. She named this protective being Visokiy, while only referring to the malevolent one as HIM. Strangely enough, as far as appearances went, Visokiy bore a much greater resemblance to our current vision of Slender Man than her other stalker. When I began reading H(a)unting, I immediately noticed a similarity between Slender Man’s attitude towards Sandra and Visokiy’s towards Gretel (although H(a)unting’s Slender Man has shown violence towards people other than Sandra, something Visokiy never did), but initially just treated it as another quirk in Slendy’s behavior. However, the possible appearance of another, more violent Slender Man like creature has made the connection stronger, as we now have something to fill in HIM’s role as well as Visokiy’s.
There is little conclusion which I can draw from this, as Curious Little Girl ended in what I can only assume to be a tragic manner before Gretel could tell us much about Visokiy or HIM. All I can say is that some parallels exist, and they are a bit creepy.
And Sandra, if you are reading this, keep this one thing in mind. Don’t let the fact that Slender Man bears no ill will towards you at the moment put you too much at ease. Gretel too had a Slender Man like protector, but in the end, it didn’t help her. Don’t become too complacent, and above all, stay safe.
Time Travel Hypothesis
In my Slenderwalking post, I discussed Slender Man’s ability to move through spacetime. Right now, we’re going to focus on that time part. As it has been demonstrated that time has little hold over Slender Man, we need to drop the concept of linear time while discussing him. For Slendy, going to last Tuesday is no different than going across the block. Just because he seems to act in a sequential manner to us doesn’t mean that he is from his perspective.
To illustrate, imagine this hypothetical scenario. First, Slendy goes over to the EverymanHYBRID folks and stalks them for a day. Then, he goes forward to October 2, and chills at Alice’s (Bright Asylum) library. Then he goes into December of 2011 to ruin some kid’s Christmas. Then he goes back to October 7, and kills Jay (Anomalous Data). Then he goes to September 25, where he attacks Jay.
For us, the order of events would have gone EverymanHYBRID, attack Jay, show up at the library, kill Jay, ruin Christmas, because we view time in a linear fashion. But since Slender Man can move freely through time, such things don’t apply. From Slendy’s perspective, in this scenario he attacked Jay after he had killed him.
In this way, it’s perfectly possible for Slender Man to hit Drew in Scared, and then go on H(a)unting to claim he hasn’t done such a thing while being truthful. He’s telling the truth, because from his perspective, he hasn’t done it yet. From his perspective, it could be years between being with Sandra and going after Drew.
However, this creates some oddities in that H(a)unting’s Slender Man seems to be treating the Slendy which attacked Drew as a separate creature. Which leads us to….
Hive Mind?
Before his death, Jay was able to successfully rescue a Slenderproxy, from which he gained a great deal of information concerning Slender Man. From what I’ve learned, there are two (possibly three) types of Slenderproxies: those that retain their consciousness, and are serving Slender Man semi-willingly (Drew would fall into this category), and those that are completely, and totally insane (such as most Masky expies, and possibly totheark). The second type of Slenderproxy is the type which Jay rescued, and after helping her regain memories of her time as a Slenderproxy, Jay discovered an interesting fact about them: they are connected in a hive mind to Slender Man.
Something which made me think more about was a comment Sandra made while trying to interview Slender Man, “I swear if I ever meet the proxy, or agent, or WHOEVER THE FUCK TAUGHT HIM TO HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR...”
Key word is taught. Ever since Jay’s discovery that the second type of Slenderproxy has a direct mental connection to Slender Man, I’ve wondered if it’s possible that the connection goes both ways. Slender Man does seem capable of learning and adapting from humans; perhaps after making so many mental links, he started to learn more than just how to kill us effectively. It may also explain the strangeness behind Slendy’s behavior towards Sandra; the Slender Man she’s dealing with would be an older one, who has been connected with so many human minds, that he’s now starting to develop more humanlike traits, such as curiosity. Where before he would have used Slenderproxies to eliminate someone mentally immune to his powers (Jay), now he wants to observe such a person. It also explains Slendy’s technical skills and knowledge he’s shown in H(a)unting; I can think of no other instance where Slender Man has shown knowledge of how to type, or read. Such skills may have been gained later for Slender Man, as he continued to adapt to humans.
If this is the case, than what we are seeing is a conflict between the younger, more monstrous Slender Man, and the older, more human Slender Man. I can barely comprehend the time paradoxes which may come about were the older Slender Man to somehow kill the younger one, but perhaps he already knows what the outcome of such an encounter would be. Or maybe he’s willing to risk it. It seems to fit the narrative structure which Slender Man owes his existence to nicely; the hunter gradually grows more connected and respectful of his prey, until finally he almost becomes protective of them against other threats. Time for an obligatory TVTropes link: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou
Schizophrenia Hypothesis
It’s been shown time and time again that Slender Man can switch between the rules which govern how he acts, his abilities, and even how he looks.
“Our /Construct/ has options.
Hundreds of them. Eventually thousands at the rate this is going. You(Hunted) play against Him using M's(Hermit) Rules and then suddenly the /Construct/ starts using the Rules from Marble Hornets or Twelve Tribes, and M's advice becomes crap. So you swap over to following those new rules, but then someone else writes up a new blog with new rules for Him or the /Agents/ and voila! You're back to square one, with no time to recover and you never know when He will change. It's fighting water...or smoke. It's impossible to get a hand on it.” (Robert Sage-White Elephants, October 12, 2010)
Most seem to think that Slender Man keeps his thought processes and mindset whenever he shifts rules; the shifting is done consciously to gain an advantage while hunting prey. But when you actually look at how he acts under each rule set, you realize this isn’t entirely true. His behavior can change radically depending on what rules he’s following at the moment. By changing rules, he may not only be changing abilities and weaknesses, but also how he thinks.
It’s very possible that our thin fellow has some odd multiple personality disorder going on.
While dealing with the writers at H(a)unting, Slender Man would use a ruleset which gives him a much more human, and less aggressive behavior. Then at Scared, he uses a completely different ruleset, one which was originally closer to the standard Slender Man formula. Jack’s (Scared) claim that the Slender Man he saw attacking Drew, and who they are now facing, is different may be due to Slender Man shifting rules once more, thus changing his appearance slightly, but most importantly how he acts towards them. Then when he goes back to the H(a)unting home, he shifts rules again.
If this were true in the context of Slendy’s actions on those blogs, then the implications are staggering: It means that Slender Man doesn’t realize he shifts rules. Thus far, Slender Man’s attitude on H(a)unting towards the Slendy now appearing on Scared has been aggressive, treating it as a different entity. If they are in fact the same entity, just following different rules, such actions make no sense unless Slender Man isn’t aware of himself being the other Slendy. This makes a confrontation between the two impossible (unless we start dealing with a Battle in the Center of the Mind sorta thing); but most importantly, it changes how we’ve been looking at Slender Man in the Mythos. Slender Man may be shifting between hundreds of personalities every time he hunts someone, with more personalities being added as the stories about him grow. Kinda weird to think about, really.
Incomprehensible Hypothesis
We’re going to be dealing with some serious Lovecraft shit in this theory.
It’s a short theory, with little need for explanation. Essentially, Slender Man is such an alien being, that our human minds are not capable of understanding his actions. For him, the seemingly contradictory actions between Scared and H(a)unting could be perfectly rational, even if to us, they seem to make no sense at all. We can’t even hope to understand his actions, or the reasons behind them, so to us, they appear completely random and without any basis in logic.
Slender Man is a Lying Bastard Hypothesis
Name of the theory says it all. The only support for the fact that H(a)unting’s Slender Man never touched Drew is Slender Man’s word. Sandra trusts him on this matter, and she is the expert in dealing with that incarnation of Slendy. However, I think we still should consider it as a possibility. He has been known to do things for no reason other than to just screw with peoples’ heads before.
That’s all I’ve got now. If I really wanted to confirm any of these, I’d probably either have to ask Slender Man himself through H(a)unting, or ask Michiru. Except I’m not sure I entirely trust Slendy’s word (3 of the 5 theories make him out to be an unreliable narrator), and Michiru doesn’t seem to be going through the best of times right now.
On the topic of Michiru…. Slendy, I expected better of you. Treating your own servants in such a way? For someone as well dressed as you are, I had been hoping you would act in a more civil manner. I am sorry, but if such behavior is to continue, then I shall be forced to challenge you to a duel in defense of her honor.
Because fighting an immortal abomination with sabers in defense of an insane servant of said abomination is close to the top on my list of “Ways I Want to Die After I Grow Bored With This Earth”.
Useful Links
Scared: http://ihavetorun.blogspot.com/
H(a)unting: http://wwwrunningwonthelp-lya.blogspot.com/
Curious Little Girl: http://clgretel.wordpress.com/
Anomalous Data-Progress: http://anomalousdata.blogspot.com/2010/10/progress.html
White Elephants-Airport Again: http://fighthimuntiltheend.blogspot.com/2010/10/airport-again.html
(One final note: I never noticed until now, but when you put the html for Scared next to H(a)unting’s, it goes “I have to run”, “Running won’t help.” Irony.)
Currently, both the blogs Scared and H(a)unting have been seeing Slendy acting far more inconsistent than usual. If things keep going on as they are, we may end up seeing Slender Man fighting an epic battle against…. Slender Man. Which would look cool, but also be very messy.
Here’s what you need to know:
On the blog Scared, Drew, the cousin of the main author (Jack), was turned into a Slenderproxy. Also, Sandra, of the blog H(a)unting, has been in frequent contact with Jack of Scared. Now, Sandra is in an interesting situation; technically, she is being followed by Slender Man. However, Slender Man has made no attempts on her life, and actually has acted to protect her in the past. Now, at some point, Drew got it into his head to act in a vaguely threatening manner towards Sandra. Slender Man didn’t take too kindly to that idea.
This is where things start getting interesting. According to Slender Man on H(a)unting, he never physically harmed Drew. According to Drew himself, Slender Man did physically assault him as punishment.
Drew would continue to act in a manner not fitting with H(a)unting’s Slender Man, leading to more confusion. Then, Jack saw Drew with, and being attacked by, a Slender Man he claimed to be different than the Slender Man they had encountered before. Upon learning of the possibility of another Slender Man, H(a)unting’s got a bit aggressive, and seems to have declared a turf war with the other Slendy.
This here is me trying to make sense of what exactly is going on, using what I know of the Mythos. I am not making the claim that one of these hypotheses is THE TRUTH on the matter; in fact, I am open to the possibility that they may all be false (I’m also open to the possibility of one being true, only for the truth to change to a completely different one sometime later. Because that’s the sort of thing Slender Man loves doing). I’m not the one with the direct experience of what’s going on; I’m just the guy reading the blogs and trying to get all the pieces to fit together. Nor am I forcing my ideas on the writers of Scared or H(a)unting. They can choose whether or not they will accept any of these hypotheses; this is merely to be a collection of my thoughts on the matter. The purpose is to hopefully set up a foundation for Scared or H(a)unting to try and learn more on the matter, not to act as a conclusion for it.
Multiple Monster Hypothesis
This seems to be the direction which Scared is assuming; that they are dealing with a completely different Slender Man. After all, who’s to say that there aren’t multiple Slender Men? It would explain a lot about the changes in abilities and method Slendy’s shown across various stories. At least two Slender Men would explain all the inconsistencies between the two blogs, and also why the Slender Man Scared is dealing with now is so different than before.
Based entirely on Scared and H(a)unting, this is the theory I’d go with. It fixes all the problems, with minimum fuss, and no need for any in depth analysis or queries. However, it doesn’t seem to stand up to the evidence of other blogs. Not that it’s false; it would be very difficult to prove or disprove that in my current situation (Step 1, find Slender Man. Step 2, ask Slender Man if there are more than one of him. Step 3, go crazy and die). But the only recent blog to claim that multiple Slender Men exist was Breaker, and that’s already admitted to being fake. This hypothesis also goes against Robert (Sage)’s theory on White Elephants, and at the moment, he probably has the best understanding of just what Slender Man is. According to him, each nation has their own monster; Slender Man just happens to be ours. There is only one monster per nation, and the monsters do not overlap; they hunt only the victims from the culture which created them. Unless we learn that one of the writers on Scared or H(a)unting is actually an immigrant, or that America somehow has gained multiple monsters, this creates problems with there being multiple Slender Men.
Connection to Curious Little Girl?
However, I feel that there is something else which very much needs to be addressed before we completely disregard the idea of multiple Slender Men. There is a little known (and no longer active) Slenderblog called Curious Little Girl, which featured a situation that bears some resemblance to that of H(a)unting. While Gretel (the author) was followed by a Slender Man like creature, she also reportedly had another, different entity which acted as a protective force. She named this protective being Visokiy, while only referring to the malevolent one as HIM. Strangely enough, as far as appearances went, Visokiy bore a much greater resemblance to our current vision of Slender Man than her other stalker. When I began reading H(a)unting, I immediately noticed a similarity between Slender Man’s attitude towards Sandra and Visokiy’s towards Gretel (although H(a)unting’s Slender Man has shown violence towards people other than Sandra, something Visokiy never did), but initially just treated it as another quirk in Slendy’s behavior. However, the possible appearance of another, more violent Slender Man like creature has made the connection stronger, as we now have something to fill in HIM’s role as well as Visokiy’s.
There is little conclusion which I can draw from this, as Curious Little Girl ended in what I can only assume to be a tragic manner before Gretel could tell us much about Visokiy or HIM. All I can say is that some parallels exist, and they are a bit creepy.
And Sandra, if you are reading this, keep this one thing in mind. Don’t let the fact that Slender Man bears no ill will towards you at the moment put you too much at ease. Gretel too had a Slender Man like protector, but in the end, it didn’t help her. Don’t become too complacent, and above all, stay safe.
Time Travel Hypothesis
In my Slenderwalking post, I discussed Slender Man’s ability to move through spacetime. Right now, we’re going to focus on that time part. As it has been demonstrated that time has little hold over Slender Man, we need to drop the concept of linear time while discussing him. For Slendy, going to last Tuesday is no different than going across the block. Just because he seems to act in a sequential manner to us doesn’t mean that he is from his perspective.
To illustrate, imagine this hypothetical scenario. First, Slendy goes over to the EverymanHYBRID folks and stalks them for a day. Then, he goes forward to October 2, and chills at Alice’s (Bright Asylum) library. Then he goes into December of 2011 to ruin some kid’s Christmas. Then he goes back to October 7, and kills Jay (Anomalous Data). Then he goes to September 25, where he attacks Jay.
For us, the order of events would have gone EverymanHYBRID, attack Jay, show up at the library, kill Jay, ruin Christmas, because we view time in a linear fashion. But since Slender Man can move freely through time, such things don’t apply. From Slendy’s perspective, in this scenario he attacked Jay after he had killed him.
In this way, it’s perfectly possible for Slender Man to hit Drew in Scared, and then go on H(a)unting to claim he hasn’t done such a thing while being truthful. He’s telling the truth, because from his perspective, he hasn’t done it yet. From his perspective, it could be years between being with Sandra and going after Drew.
However, this creates some oddities in that H(a)unting’s Slender Man seems to be treating the Slendy which attacked Drew as a separate creature. Which leads us to….
Hive Mind?
Before his death, Jay was able to successfully rescue a Slenderproxy, from which he gained a great deal of information concerning Slender Man. From what I’ve learned, there are two (possibly three) types of Slenderproxies: those that retain their consciousness, and are serving Slender Man semi-willingly (Drew would fall into this category), and those that are completely, and totally insane (such as most Masky expies, and possibly totheark). The second type of Slenderproxy is the type which Jay rescued, and after helping her regain memories of her time as a Slenderproxy, Jay discovered an interesting fact about them: they are connected in a hive mind to Slender Man.
Something which made me think more about was a comment Sandra made while trying to interview Slender Man, “I swear if I ever meet the proxy, or agent, or WHOEVER THE FUCK TAUGHT HIM TO HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR...”
Key word is taught. Ever since Jay’s discovery that the second type of Slenderproxy has a direct mental connection to Slender Man, I’ve wondered if it’s possible that the connection goes both ways. Slender Man does seem capable of learning and adapting from humans; perhaps after making so many mental links, he started to learn more than just how to kill us effectively. It may also explain the strangeness behind Slendy’s behavior towards Sandra; the Slender Man she’s dealing with would be an older one, who has been connected with so many human minds, that he’s now starting to develop more humanlike traits, such as curiosity. Where before he would have used Slenderproxies to eliminate someone mentally immune to his powers (Jay), now he wants to observe such a person. It also explains Slendy’s technical skills and knowledge he’s shown in H(a)unting; I can think of no other instance where Slender Man has shown knowledge of how to type, or read. Such skills may have been gained later for Slender Man, as he continued to adapt to humans.
If this is the case, than what we are seeing is a conflict between the younger, more monstrous Slender Man, and the older, more human Slender Man. I can barely comprehend the time paradoxes which may come about were the older Slender Man to somehow kill the younger one, but perhaps he already knows what the outcome of such an encounter would be. Or maybe he’s willing to risk it. It seems to fit the narrative structure which Slender Man owes his existence to nicely; the hunter gradually grows more connected and respectful of his prey, until finally he almost becomes protective of them against other threats. Time for an obligatory TVTropes link: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou
Schizophrenia Hypothesis
It’s been shown time and time again that Slender Man can switch between the rules which govern how he acts, his abilities, and even how he looks.
“Our /Construct/ has options.
Hundreds of them. Eventually thousands at the rate this is going. You(Hunted) play against Him using M's(Hermit) Rules and then suddenly the /Construct/ starts using the Rules from Marble Hornets or Twelve Tribes, and M's advice becomes crap. So you swap over to following those new rules, but then someone else writes up a new blog with new rules for Him or the /Agents/ and voila! You're back to square one, with no time to recover and you never know when He will change. It's fighting water...or smoke. It's impossible to get a hand on it.” (Robert Sage-White Elephants, October 12, 2010)
Most seem to think that Slender Man keeps his thought processes and mindset whenever he shifts rules; the shifting is done consciously to gain an advantage while hunting prey. But when you actually look at how he acts under each rule set, you realize this isn’t entirely true. His behavior can change radically depending on what rules he’s following at the moment. By changing rules, he may not only be changing abilities and weaknesses, but also how he thinks.
It’s very possible that our thin fellow has some odd multiple personality disorder going on.
While dealing with the writers at H(a)unting, Slender Man would use a ruleset which gives him a much more human, and less aggressive behavior. Then at Scared, he uses a completely different ruleset, one which was originally closer to the standard Slender Man formula. Jack’s (Scared) claim that the Slender Man he saw attacking Drew, and who they are now facing, is different may be due to Slender Man shifting rules once more, thus changing his appearance slightly, but most importantly how he acts towards them. Then when he goes back to the H(a)unting home, he shifts rules again.
If this were true in the context of Slendy’s actions on those blogs, then the implications are staggering: It means that Slender Man doesn’t realize he shifts rules. Thus far, Slender Man’s attitude on H(a)unting towards the Slendy now appearing on Scared has been aggressive, treating it as a different entity. If they are in fact the same entity, just following different rules, such actions make no sense unless Slender Man isn’t aware of himself being the other Slendy. This makes a confrontation between the two impossible (unless we start dealing with a Battle in the Center of the Mind sorta thing); but most importantly, it changes how we’ve been looking at Slender Man in the Mythos. Slender Man may be shifting between hundreds of personalities every time he hunts someone, with more personalities being added as the stories about him grow. Kinda weird to think about, really.
Incomprehensible Hypothesis
We’re going to be dealing with some serious Lovecraft shit in this theory.
It’s a short theory, with little need for explanation. Essentially, Slender Man is such an alien being, that our human minds are not capable of understanding his actions. For him, the seemingly contradictory actions between Scared and H(a)unting could be perfectly rational, even if to us, they seem to make no sense at all. We can’t even hope to understand his actions, or the reasons behind them, so to us, they appear completely random and without any basis in logic.
Slender Man is a Lying Bastard Hypothesis
Name of the theory says it all. The only support for the fact that H(a)unting’s Slender Man never touched Drew is Slender Man’s word. Sandra trusts him on this matter, and she is the expert in dealing with that incarnation of Slendy. However, I think we still should consider it as a possibility. He has been known to do things for no reason other than to just screw with peoples’ heads before.
That’s all I’ve got now. If I really wanted to confirm any of these, I’d probably either have to ask Slender Man himself through H(a)unting, or ask Michiru. Except I’m not sure I entirely trust Slendy’s word (3 of the 5 theories make him out to be an unreliable narrator), and Michiru doesn’t seem to be going through the best of times right now.
On the topic of Michiru…. Slendy, I expected better of you. Treating your own servants in such a way? For someone as well dressed as you are, I had been hoping you would act in a more civil manner. I am sorry, but if such behavior is to continue, then I shall be forced to challenge you to a duel in defense of her honor.
Because fighting an immortal abomination with sabers in defense of an insane servant of said abomination is close to the top on my list of “Ways I Want to Die After I Grow Bored With This Earth”.
Useful Links
Scared: http://ihavetorun.blogspot.com/
H(a)unting: http://wwwrunningwonthelp-lya.blogspot.com/
Curious Little Girl: http://clgretel.wordpress.com/
Anomalous Data-Progress: http://anomalousdata.blogspot.com/2010/10/progress.html
White Elephants-Airport Again: http://fighthimuntiltheend.blogspot.com/2010/10/airport-again.html
(One final note: I never noticed until now, but when you put the html for Scared next to H(a)unting’s, it goes “I have to run”, “Running won’t help.” Irony.)
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Slenderwalking All 'Round the World
I seem to be growing into the habit of starting these posts by mentioning some weird Slender Man related occurrence which happened to me at some previously. This post will be no different.
Some of you may recall me mentioning in my Marble Hornets post how at night, I confused two black signs and a white sign for Slender Man, causing a minor freak out. I walked by the place where I saw that on Thursday, during the daytime, and noticed something. There were two black signs, but there was no white sign.
If I may be allowed to express my feelings through the use of understatement, I was somewhat unnerved by this revelation. However, my initial freak out about seeing Slender Man in the signs was at a time when the Mythos was screwing with my head the most, and I was seeing Slendy in everything.
I also want to mention that this blog has been linked to on TVTropes. Which means that one of my life goals has been accomplished. I will have no regrets when Slender Man inevitably comes and kills me.
I was also linked to on 4chan, which is simultaneously both a badge of the highest honor, and an irredeemable shame.
I’ve finished Da Watcha, and caught up with All Eyes on Me!, The Master Comes, Bright Asylum, A Study in Purple, Jonclub113, Not Alone, Adventures of Eric, Believe What You See, and Make It Count. This is all the ARGs/stories I know of; if anyone has any others which I’ve missed, feel free to share them.
Slenderwalking
Slender Man’s favored mode of transportation, when he isn’t walking around with that slow gait of his, is something akin to teleportation, which I call Slenderwalking (because making a new word by combining two other words makes my inner German happy). This is the ability Slender Man displays to appear seemingly anywhere, and then vanish from that place at will. I can scarcely imagine how much he must save on airfare when traveling cross country.
M’s Rules
As with many of Slender Man’s features, M was the one who first established a set of guidelines defining Slenderwalking. This is how the ability is portrayed in the majority of ARGs and stories, with the occasional minor deviation.
Following M’s rules, Slender Man is capable of appearing or disappearing to/from any point in space, so long as he is not being observed. He’s like a horrifically frightening Schrodinger’s Cat; he potentially exists at every point in spacetime, until he is observed, giving him a fixed position. You could probably throw around a lot of phrases including the word “quantum” if you wanted to, but I’m trying as hard as I can to avoid turning this into an advanced physics paper.
According to M, the reason Slender Man can seemingly teleport is because he is capable of moving freely across spacetime. “He's in a different sort of mathematical reality, so His perception and way of interacting with space and time are different. Basically Slenderman isn't teleporting from room to room, it's all the same to him. Going from 1 town to another is like walking into another room for Him.”
There are some problems with M’s rules, especially how he deals with the possibility of Slender Man time traveling. According to him, it isn’t possible; the people who claim to have been transported to another time are mistaken, likely due to being shook up from Slender Man touching them. However, his theory has Slender Man moving freely through space, which implies capability to move freely through time. In relativistic physics, space and time are not separate. They are a unified concept, called spacetime. Moving through space also means moving through time. I could write even more in depth on this, taking about all sorts of science fun relativity causes (for example, did you know that by moving faster, you are slowing down time? Unless you’re getting close to light speed, it won’t be a noticeable amount. But if you ever want to feel empowered, think about this: whenever you accelerate in your car, YOU ARE MANIPULATING TIME.) but that isn’t the point here. The point is that, whenever Slender Man is following M’s rules (which, unfortunately for us, is most of the time) he can exist at any location or time he wants to. So based on our current understanding of relativistic physics and the workings of spacetime, Slender Man should be fully capable, under M’s rules, to travel freely through time, as well as space.
The inability to Slenderwalk while being observed remains interesting, though. When I mentioned Schrodinger’s Cat earlier, it wasn’t entirely in jest; the idea of something gaining a fixed position due to being observed screams quantum physics. But there’s also a good chance that this weakness is a mental one, not a physical one. By M’s rules, Slender Man can be tricked into not Slenderwalking via using the Operator Symbol, masks, etc. to make him think that he’s being observed. To understand what’s going on there, we’d need to get inside Slendy’s head, which probably isn’t possible for us human brains to do.
So here we’ve got a Slender Man who can appear anywhere and anytime he wants to, only limited by his inability to Slenderwalk while being observed. I suppose if we really wanted to, we could trap him by getting a large enough group of people put him under constant surveillance. Although given how things tend to go down in this Mythos, I doubt that would be as successful as we’d hope.
Jay’s Rules
Jay (R.I.P.) from Anomalous Data had his own theory on how Slenderwalking worked, based on Slender Man’s connection with human belief and emotions. Instead of being able to Slenderwalk anywhere he pleases, Slender Man manifests near people who have belief/fear in him. Following these rules, Slender Man can only appear near people, not anywhere he pleases, and he lacks the ability to travel through time. However, here he has been shown with the ability to appear in multiple places simultaneously, something which hasn’t appeared under M’s rules.
Through experimentation, Jay was able to prove a link between Slender Man’s appearances and human brain activity. Unfortunately, Jay never posted a finalized, all-encompassing theory on the mechanics behind this method of Slender Walking. As Jay has likely been killed by Slender Man, we will probably never see such a post.
This is the most limited method of Slenderwalking which Slender Man has displayed. People who lack strong emotional feelings have a greater immunity against Slender Man manifesting near them, and manifestations can be prevented entirely by erasing a person’s memories of Slender Man.
No Rules
And, of course, sometimes Slendy just does whatever he pleases. This features most commonly in the ARGs whose focus is on the mystery of Slender Man, and as such offer very few explanations for what occurs. Usually, Slender Man’s Slenderwalking abilities will be limitless in such cases. Think M’s Rules, but able to Slenderwalk even while being watched. The first place I encountered this was in Dreams In Darkness, which I initially dismissed it as more of Damien’s insanity. But it would appear again in Scared, which as far as I can tell at the moment, isn’t the hallucinations of a madman, and is a legitimate encounter with Slender Man. There isn’t much more to say on this Slenderwalking method, except that it almost makes Slender Man omnipresent.
However, it may be somewhat of an exaggeration to claim that in these ARGs, there are absolutely no rules governing Slenderwalking at all. There may be no rules which have been revealed in the story. Since the focus in the ARGs using this isn’t on explaining Slender Man, they aren’t going to create a list clearly defining how Slenderwalking works. Instead, he acts in whatever way the plot demands he do so.
Useful Links
M’s Tutorial-It’s not a Tardis: http://getuphigh.blogspot.com/2010/08/its-not-tardis.html
Anomalous Data-First Contact, plus complications: http://anomalousdata.blogspot.com/2010/09/first-contact-plus-complications.html
Some of you may recall me mentioning in my Marble Hornets post how at night, I confused two black signs and a white sign for Slender Man, causing a minor freak out. I walked by the place where I saw that on Thursday, during the daytime, and noticed something. There were two black signs, but there was no white sign.
If I may be allowed to express my feelings through the use of understatement, I was somewhat unnerved by this revelation. However, my initial freak out about seeing Slender Man in the signs was at a time when the Mythos was screwing with my head the most, and I was seeing Slendy in everything.
I also want to mention that this blog has been linked to on TVTropes. Which means that one of my life goals has been accomplished. I will have no regrets when Slender Man inevitably comes and kills me.
I was also linked to on 4chan, which is simultaneously both a badge of the highest honor, and an irredeemable shame.
I’ve finished Da Watcha, and caught up with All Eyes on Me!, The Master Comes, Bright Asylum, A Study in Purple, Jonclub113, Not Alone, Adventures of Eric, Believe What You See, and Make It Count. This is all the ARGs/stories I know of; if anyone has any others which I’ve missed, feel free to share them.
Slenderwalking
Slender Man’s favored mode of transportation, when he isn’t walking around with that slow gait of his, is something akin to teleportation, which I call Slenderwalking (because making a new word by combining two other words makes my inner German happy). This is the ability Slender Man displays to appear seemingly anywhere, and then vanish from that place at will. I can scarcely imagine how much he must save on airfare when traveling cross country.
M’s Rules
As with many of Slender Man’s features, M was the one who first established a set of guidelines defining Slenderwalking. This is how the ability is portrayed in the majority of ARGs and stories, with the occasional minor deviation.
Following M’s rules, Slender Man is capable of appearing or disappearing to/from any point in space, so long as he is not being observed. He’s like a horrifically frightening Schrodinger’s Cat; he potentially exists at every point in spacetime, until he is observed, giving him a fixed position. You could probably throw around a lot of phrases including the word “quantum” if you wanted to, but I’m trying as hard as I can to avoid turning this into an advanced physics paper.
According to M, the reason Slender Man can seemingly teleport is because he is capable of moving freely across spacetime. “He's in a different sort of mathematical reality, so His perception and way of interacting with space and time are different. Basically Slenderman isn't teleporting from room to room, it's all the same to him. Going from 1 town to another is like walking into another room for Him.”
There are some problems with M’s rules, especially how he deals with the possibility of Slender Man time traveling. According to him, it isn’t possible; the people who claim to have been transported to another time are mistaken, likely due to being shook up from Slender Man touching them. However, his theory has Slender Man moving freely through space, which implies capability to move freely through time. In relativistic physics, space and time are not separate. They are a unified concept, called spacetime. Moving through space also means moving through time. I could write even more in depth on this, taking about all sorts of science fun relativity causes (for example, did you know that by moving faster, you are slowing down time? Unless you’re getting close to light speed, it won’t be a noticeable amount. But if you ever want to feel empowered, think about this: whenever you accelerate in your car, YOU ARE MANIPULATING TIME.) but that isn’t the point here. The point is that, whenever Slender Man is following M’s rules (which, unfortunately for us, is most of the time) he can exist at any location or time he wants to. So based on our current understanding of relativistic physics and the workings of spacetime, Slender Man should be fully capable, under M’s rules, to travel freely through time, as well as space.
The inability to Slenderwalk while being observed remains interesting, though. When I mentioned Schrodinger’s Cat earlier, it wasn’t entirely in jest; the idea of something gaining a fixed position due to being observed screams quantum physics. But there’s also a good chance that this weakness is a mental one, not a physical one. By M’s rules, Slender Man can be tricked into not Slenderwalking via using the Operator Symbol, masks, etc. to make him think that he’s being observed. To understand what’s going on there, we’d need to get inside Slendy’s head, which probably isn’t possible for us human brains to do.
So here we’ve got a Slender Man who can appear anywhere and anytime he wants to, only limited by his inability to Slenderwalk while being observed. I suppose if we really wanted to, we could trap him by getting a large enough group of people put him under constant surveillance. Although given how things tend to go down in this Mythos, I doubt that would be as successful as we’d hope.
Jay’s Rules
Jay (R.I.P.) from Anomalous Data had his own theory on how Slenderwalking worked, based on Slender Man’s connection with human belief and emotions. Instead of being able to Slenderwalk anywhere he pleases, Slender Man manifests near people who have belief/fear in him. Following these rules, Slender Man can only appear near people, not anywhere he pleases, and he lacks the ability to travel through time. However, here he has been shown with the ability to appear in multiple places simultaneously, something which hasn’t appeared under M’s rules.
Through experimentation, Jay was able to prove a link between Slender Man’s appearances and human brain activity. Unfortunately, Jay never posted a finalized, all-encompassing theory on the mechanics behind this method of Slender Walking. As Jay has likely been killed by Slender Man, we will probably never see such a post.
This is the most limited method of Slenderwalking which Slender Man has displayed. People who lack strong emotional feelings have a greater immunity against Slender Man manifesting near them, and manifestations can be prevented entirely by erasing a person’s memories of Slender Man.
No Rules
And, of course, sometimes Slendy just does whatever he pleases. This features most commonly in the ARGs whose focus is on the mystery of Slender Man, and as such offer very few explanations for what occurs. Usually, Slender Man’s Slenderwalking abilities will be limitless in such cases. Think M’s Rules, but able to Slenderwalk even while being watched. The first place I encountered this was in Dreams In Darkness, which I initially dismissed it as more of Damien’s insanity. But it would appear again in Scared, which as far as I can tell at the moment, isn’t the hallucinations of a madman, and is a legitimate encounter with Slender Man. There isn’t much more to say on this Slenderwalking method, except that it almost makes Slender Man omnipresent.
However, it may be somewhat of an exaggeration to claim that in these ARGs, there are absolutely no rules governing Slenderwalking at all. There may be no rules which have been revealed in the story. Since the focus in the ARGs using this isn’t on explaining Slender Man, they aren’t going to create a list clearly defining how Slenderwalking works. Instead, he acts in whatever way the plot demands he do so.
Useful Links
M’s Tutorial-It’s not a Tardis: http://getuphigh.blogspot.com/2010/08/its-not-tardis.html
Anomalous Data-First Contact, plus complications: http://anomalousdata.blogspot.com/2010/09/first-contact-plus-complications.html
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Dreams In Darkness
On Sunday, as I was driving along the interstate, I came up behind a car with an operator symbol on its back bumper. As any other rational person would do in such a situation, I calmly flicked on my turning signal, slowly moved into the left lane, and then slammed on the accelerator until I couldn’t see the car in my rearview mirror anymore. I was hoping to at least get a few more posts in before weirdness started to happen around me.
Think that excuse would work on Slender Man?
“Hey, Slendy, it’s great you finally decided to show up and all, but my blog isn’t ready for your introduction yet. See, I need to get some more regular posting in, establish everything first, set up sympathy with the audience, you know. The usual stuff. We can’t just rush into this like some overeager blogger who starts posting about weird dreams or being stalked by tall people three posts in!”
Little would Slendy realize, as this is an informative blog instead of a personal one, there would never be a time when I had built up enough audience sympathy for his appearance to have a major impact! My plan is foolproof!
On a slightly more on topic note, I’ve finished reading Dare 2 Die, and caught up with H(a)unting, Something Awful, Watched, A Lost One, NoWheretoHyde, The Stopping Lights, Road to Heavens, As the Clock Turns, Consuming Insanity, Strange Occurrences, Finding the Darkness, and Breaker. That’s the majority of the ARGs; just a handful more, and I’ll have read/watched every single one I could find.
Dreams In Darkness
With Marble Hornets and Just Another Fool finished, I’ve covered the two most basic ARGs, which are both essential viewing/reading for the Mythos. Now we’re traveling into what is essentially the expanded universe of those two stories; these are the stories which built up from, and occasionally improve upon, the foundation which had been established.
In terms of best reading order, it would probably be better to read Seeking Truth after finishing JAF and MH, as it serves as an excellent gateway into multiple other ARGs. However, in my previous post, I had to make multiple references to Dreams In Darkness, each time needing to qualify the reference with a statement about how it doesn’t really count. This post is so I can get that out of the way, and mention it without needing any explanation.
Dreams In Darkness is an ARG which ran from May 4, 2010, until September 3, 2010. It also had a companion blog, Watch This City Burn, which ran in parallel to it for a while.
Plot
If you intend on actually reading Dreams In Darkness, right now I recommend that you stop reading this post, scroll down to the links at the bottom (without reading any text), read through the both Dreams in Darkness and Watch This City Burn, and then come back. Because there be major, major spoiler alerts here. The ending is of the “What a TWEEEST!” variety, so if you want to actually be surprised by it, best not read this post.
This is a pretty detailed plot description; Dreams In Darkness goes for more intricacy than the usual formula of someone just being followed by Slender Man.
The main character of Dreams in Darkness is Damien, who describes himself as “an arrogant bastard of a nerd, and I have a bad habit of thinking I'm always right. I obsess over stupid things. Greatly appreciate intelligent thought. Overimaginitive... Self-loathing.”
Damien starts out his blog for mundane reasons. He talks about his retail job, his roommate/friend Ted, his crush/love interest Amelia, etc. Ted discovered the Slender Man Mythos via Marble Hornets, and recruited Damien into the fandom. Damien decided to start his own Slenderblog under the alias TheArsonist, which became “Watch This City Burn”. Apart from his (sub-par) Slenderblog, and a new psychological medicine Damien started taking, things remained grounded in normalcy.
But as it always does, insanity starts happening around Damien. First he received a package containing a totheark mask, along with an anagram which, when decoded, read “"For when you face the faceless". This was followed by vaguely threatening message on the answering machine, Damien’s home being broken into, and Slendy style creepy fun.
When things look like they’re coming to some form of confrontation, Ted disappeared. It’s at this point where Damien admitted that the entire stalker thing was fake; it started out as an elaborate prank Ted was pulling on Damien. After seeing Damien freak out over it, Ted told him the truth, and the two decided to keep the story going on the blog, as a way to advertise Watch This City Burn. However, Ted’s disappearance wasn’t part of the plan.
Ted’s body was found by the police, having been very brutally murdered. Damien decided to drop his blog. This decision was reversed when he learns that Watch This City Burn had been hacked, leaving many odd edits and cryptic messages. It’s apparent from the messages that someone else was in danger, but both Damien and the audience were unable to figure out whom. The next victim ended up being an old friend of Damien’s, Emily, and her husband, Vincent.
It’s at this point that Damien realized that the person who has been posting on Watch This City Burn (who was named TheArsonist, after the username Damien had on that blog) was actually a split personality of his. Damien’s first reaction was that the reason TheArsonist knew about Emily and Vincent’s deaths ahead of time was because he was the one who murdered them. This conclusion led to Damien deciding to commit suicide, but before he could do so, he received a text message from Amelia about a weird tall guy watching her. For Damien, this confirmed the existence of Slender Man, and he immediately told Amelia everything he could. But before Amelia could make it back to him, she died in a car accident, with her last words to him being “He's here. I love you. Oh god."
Having lost all those close to him, Damien began to investigate his own past, following Zeke Strahm’s (of Seeking Truth) theory that Slender Man targets adults who escaped him as children. Partially assisted by TheArsonist, he discovered that his parents were part of a Slender Man cult, which sacrificed children to Slendy. The deeper Damien dug into his past, the more control TheArsonist gained, growing from an insane, unintelligible chaos into an intelligent and manipulative personality, capable of controlling Damien’s body for extended periods of time, and with the singular goal of destroying Slender Man. TheArsonist killed Matthew Wilcox, the leader of the Slender Man cult, and discovered the existence of an item which could repel Slender Man.
Damien then went inside an old building in the forest, which had been the center of the Slender Man cult. Inside, he/TheArsonist encountered Slender Man. They escaped, successfully stealing the item which would protect them from Slendy (a bone with some sort of engravings on it). Afterwards, Slender Man began following Damien. The bone successfully warded Slendy off when initially used, but later Slender Man would appear inside Damien’s room, and not only examine the bone, but pick it up. Realizing how impossible it is to try and understand Slender Man’s constantly changing behavior and abilities, Damien fell into despair. In his last post he is barely holding onto sanity, claiming that Slender Man is coming, and that death would be preferably to the fait which awaits him.
Scroll down a bit to the comments section. In it, Rick O’Connor (Damien’s brother), informed the audience that Damien had killed himself, and that the majority of the blog’s contents are fictional. Not fictional as in, “It’s an ARG, of course it’s fiction”, but fictional in-universe. Amelia had left Damien, and was getting groceries, not returning to him, when she died. Much of Damien’s past which he had told the readers was completely fictional, and the childhood drawings he had posted on the blog were recently made. The red building which Damien claimed to be the cult’s center was in a park, not in the woods. Among Damien’s possessions which Rick found were many notes, planning out how the blog’s story would have gone.
Rick decides to hand over all of Damien’s notebook, as well as computer files, over to the police, to assist their investigation of Matthew Wilcox’s murder.
Relation to the Mythos
It’s nearly impossible to determine what exactly DiD contributes to the Mythos, as we can’t tell what parts of it where fact or fiction. Was it all Damien’s insanity, or was Slender Man actually involved? If Slendy was involved, to what a degree was his involvement? The story changes radically depending on how you answer those questions.
No Slender Man Involvement
Damien admitted early on that he had psychological issues, and had experienced hallucinations before starting the blog. His dive into the Slender Man Mythos may have screwed with his already fragile psyche, resulting in him trying to turn his life into an ARG. If this interpretation is accepted, than the blog and Rick’s comments imply that Ted, Emily, and Vincent may have all been killed by Damien. Whether or not that is true depends on exactly when Damien began trying to create this real-life ARG; if it was before Ted’s death, then Damien is likely the killer. If Ted’s death was what caused the slippage of sanity, then we have the unanswered question of who killed Ted. Either way, this interpretation turns the blog almost into a “Take That!” against ARG players. Everyone who participated in this game supported and egged on Damien in his fantasy, thinking it was all a game, when in reality Damien was a mentally unstable person who had killed at least one innocent man solely for the purpose of making his blog more realistic.
Slight Slender Man Involvement
According to Rick, it was the gruesome death of Ted which probably caused Damien to take the dive off the deep end. But then, who was it that killed Ted? At the time of his death, Ted was dressed in a Slender Man costume. He was then killed, and his organs removed, in similar style to how Slender Man likes to murder many of his victims. There is a strong possibility here that the one who killed Ted was Slender Man himself. This in itself doesn’t mean that the rest of Damien’s story is true; Slendy may have just killed Ted, and then left. That TheArsonist knew about Emily and Vincent’s deaths ahead of time still means that he can’t be completely exonerated of suspicion, but Slendy’s involvement does weaken the possible case for Damien being the killer.
Even if Slender Man killed all three, it is still not necessary for him to be involved at all later on in the story. Damien had already snapped enough from Ted’s death, that it is very possible that he would create the entire fantasy without any outside assistance. The existence of notes planning out how the blog would go is the most damning evidence to ruling out Slender Man’s involvement; it’s not as though you can plan out how Slender Man will treat you.
The implication of this is that the common trend of Slender Man going after everyone close to his victims doesn’t always hold true. He killed Ted, and possibly Emily and Vincent, without harming anyone else. Not that he needed to; Damien took care of that for him. It may be that Slender Man intentionally killed Ted, for the purpose of driving Damien insane enough to commit suicide. If that is true, this is the most manipulative and intelligent version of Slender Man to appear in an ARG thus far.
Major Slender Man Involvement
This is the idea that Slender Man actively was hunting Damien, and was the cause of the majority of the things which happened to Damien. This isn’t a belief that Damien’s claims on what happened in his past were true, or that the blog was unplanned; Rick’s testimony puts those ideas to rest. Instead, it’s the interpretation that Slender Man was really screwing with Damien’s head, as he oft does to his victims. Instead of Ted’s death being the cause of Damien’s fragile mental state, Slender Man’s negative effect on his victim’s sanity was the cause. This interpretation is a very passive Slender Man, who sits in the background while his victim goes insane. Due to Damien’s planning of the blog’s future events, we still have to accept that much of the blog was his fictitious story. The difficulty is trying to figure out which parts were his story, which were his hallucinations, and which were actual Slender Man involvement.
This interpretation also has the possibility that Damien’s last post was in response to Slender Man actually coming for him, instead of being a result of insanity.
Total Slender Man Involvement
Everything that Damien said in his blog was true. His parents were part of a Slender Man cult, he had a split personality named TheArsonist, there is a bone/artifact/thing which may be able to help one against Slendy, Slender Man was hunting Damien, and Damien even saved that kid in the store from Slendy. After all, we have no more reason to believe Rick’s comment than any of Damien’s posts. This Rick could be a Slenderproxy posting under the name of Damien’s brother, or if it really is Rick, he could be under the mental affects of Slender Man. While it is rare for Slendy to cover his tracks to such a degree, it isn’t unheard of for him to cause people to not see things which are there/see things which aren’t there (EverymanHYRBID being one example), and messing up computer files is status quo for him. Considering Damien’s discovery of the bone which supposedly offered protection, Slender Man may have used this overly elaborate cover up as a way of preventing people from finding too much information which could harm him.
If this interpretation is true, than it opens up all sorts of questions. What was the bone which repelled Slendy? Are there still Slender Man cults out there? What was that bone?! What knowledge did Damien/TheArsonist take to the grave with them? What was the bloody bone?!?!?!
Whatever interpretation is accepted, Dreams In Darkness still had what is, in my opinion, one of the best lines to describe the Slender Man:
“Nothing about this thing is consistent. One minute he's passive, the next aggressive. Last night, he flung himself at my house trying to get in. Today, he simply appears inside. The bone warded him off previously. This time, he just casually inspected it. Watching him previously stopped him from pulling his disappearing act. I just saw him vanish before my eyes.
He's constantly changing. It's as though, with every encounter, he's never quite the same being twice. It's like there aren't any rules with him - he simply is.
How the hell do you fight that? How do you resist chaos?” (August 30, 2010)
DiD was also one of the best examples of an ARG which put in the effort of appearing real. The first signs of things not being all they appear to be weren’t until a full month after the blog started. That’s 18 posts of non-ARG material. This is really something many other ARGs could learn from; while it’s fun to just go straight into the Slender Man stuff, by giving a period of real life-esque postings, it builds a greater connection between the audience and the characters. In addition, it makes the entire story seem more realistic. Someone start up a blog, and then three days later talk about being stalked by Slender Man? That makes it too obvious that the blog was started for the sole purpose of being an ARG about Slendy. The mundane events at the beginning add legitimacy to the blog, which does a better job of drawing the audience in when the Slender Man events start to happen.
Useful Links
Dreams In Darkness Blog: http://dreamsindarkness91.blogspot.com/
Watch This City Burn Blog: http://tonightitallburns.blogspot.com/
TVTropes Entry: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DreamsInDarkness
Think that excuse would work on Slender Man?
“Hey, Slendy, it’s great you finally decided to show up and all, but my blog isn’t ready for your introduction yet. See, I need to get some more regular posting in, establish everything first, set up sympathy with the audience, you know. The usual stuff. We can’t just rush into this like some overeager blogger who starts posting about weird dreams or being stalked by tall people three posts in!”
Little would Slendy realize, as this is an informative blog instead of a personal one, there would never be a time when I had built up enough audience sympathy for his appearance to have a major impact! My plan is foolproof!
On a slightly more on topic note, I’ve finished reading Dare 2 Die, and caught up with H(a)unting, Something Awful, Watched, A Lost One, NoWheretoHyde, The Stopping Lights, Road to Heavens, As the Clock Turns, Consuming Insanity, Strange Occurrences, Finding the Darkness, and Breaker. That’s the majority of the ARGs; just a handful more, and I’ll have read/watched every single one I could find.
Dreams In Darkness
With Marble Hornets and Just Another Fool finished, I’ve covered the two most basic ARGs, which are both essential viewing/reading for the Mythos. Now we’re traveling into what is essentially the expanded universe of those two stories; these are the stories which built up from, and occasionally improve upon, the foundation which had been established.
In terms of best reading order, it would probably be better to read Seeking Truth after finishing JAF and MH, as it serves as an excellent gateway into multiple other ARGs. However, in my previous post, I had to make multiple references to Dreams In Darkness, each time needing to qualify the reference with a statement about how it doesn’t really count. This post is so I can get that out of the way, and mention it without needing any explanation.
Dreams In Darkness is an ARG which ran from May 4, 2010, until September 3, 2010. It also had a companion blog, Watch This City Burn, which ran in parallel to it for a while.
Plot
If you intend on actually reading Dreams In Darkness, right now I recommend that you stop reading this post, scroll down to the links at the bottom (without reading any text), read through the both Dreams in Darkness and Watch This City Burn, and then come back. Because there be major, major spoiler alerts here. The ending is of the “What a TWEEEST!” variety, so if you want to actually be surprised by it, best not read this post.
This is a pretty detailed plot description; Dreams In Darkness goes for more intricacy than the usual formula of someone just being followed by Slender Man.
The main character of Dreams in Darkness is Damien, who describes himself as “an arrogant bastard of a nerd, and I have a bad habit of thinking I'm always right. I obsess over stupid things. Greatly appreciate intelligent thought. Overimaginitive... Self-loathing.”
Damien starts out his blog for mundane reasons. He talks about his retail job, his roommate/friend Ted, his crush/love interest Amelia, etc. Ted discovered the Slender Man Mythos via Marble Hornets, and recruited Damien into the fandom. Damien decided to start his own Slenderblog under the alias TheArsonist, which became “Watch This City Burn”. Apart from his (sub-par) Slenderblog, and a new psychological medicine Damien started taking, things remained grounded in normalcy.
But as it always does, insanity starts happening around Damien. First he received a package containing a totheark mask, along with an anagram which, when decoded, read “"For when you face the faceless". This was followed by vaguely threatening message on the answering machine, Damien’s home being broken into, and Slendy style creepy fun.
When things look like they’re coming to some form of confrontation, Ted disappeared. It’s at this point where Damien admitted that the entire stalker thing was fake; it started out as an elaborate prank Ted was pulling on Damien. After seeing Damien freak out over it, Ted told him the truth, and the two decided to keep the story going on the blog, as a way to advertise Watch This City Burn. However, Ted’s disappearance wasn’t part of the plan.
Ted’s body was found by the police, having been very brutally murdered. Damien decided to drop his blog. This decision was reversed when he learns that Watch This City Burn had been hacked, leaving many odd edits and cryptic messages. It’s apparent from the messages that someone else was in danger, but both Damien and the audience were unable to figure out whom. The next victim ended up being an old friend of Damien’s, Emily, and her husband, Vincent.
It’s at this point that Damien realized that the person who has been posting on Watch This City Burn (who was named TheArsonist, after the username Damien had on that blog) was actually a split personality of his. Damien’s first reaction was that the reason TheArsonist knew about Emily and Vincent’s deaths ahead of time was because he was the one who murdered them. This conclusion led to Damien deciding to commit suicide, but before he could do so, he received a text message from Amelia about a weird tall guy watching her. For Damien, this confirmed the existence of Slender Man, and he immediately told Amelia everything he could. But before Amelia could make it back to him, she died in a car accident, with her last words to him being “He's here. I love you. Oh god."
Having lost all those close to him, Damien began to investigate his own past, following Zeke Strahm’s (of Seeking Truth) theory that Slender Man targets adults who escaped him as children. Partially assisted by TheArsonist, he discovered that his parents were part of a Slender Man cult, which sacrificed children to Slendy. The deeper Damien dug into his past, the more control TheArsonist gained, growing from an insane, unintelligible chaos into an intelligent and manipulative personality, capable of controlling Damien’s body for extended periods of time, and with the singular goal of destroying Slender Man. TheArsonist killed Matthew Wilcox, the leader of the Slender Man cult, and discovered the existence of an item which could repel Slender Man.
Damien then went inside an old building in the forest, which had been the center of the Slender Man cult. Inside, he/TheArsonist encountered Slender Man. They escaped, successfully stealing the item which would protect them from Slendy (a bone with some sort of engravings on it). Afterwards, Slender Man began following Damien. The bone successfully warded Slendy off when initially used, but later Slender Man would appear inside Damien’s room, and not only examine the bone, but pick it up. Realizing how impossible it is to try and understand Slender Man’s constantly changing behavior and abilities, Damien fell into despair. In his last post he is barely holding onto sanity, claiming that Slender Man is coming, and that death would be preferably to the fait which awaits him.
Scroll down a bit to the comments section. In it, Rick O’Connor (Damien’s brother), informed the audience that Damien had killed himself, and that the majority of the blog’s contents are fictional. Not fictional as in, “It’s an ARG, of course it’s fiction”, but fictional in-universe. Amelia had left Damien, and was getting groceries, not returning to him, when she died. Much of Damien’s past which he had told the readers was completely fictional, and the childhood drawings he had posted on the blog were recently made. The red building which Damien claimed to be the cult’s center was in a park, not in the woods. Among Damien’s possessions which Rick found were many notes, planning out how the blog’s story would have gone.
Rick decides to hand over all of Damien’s notebook, as well as computer files, over to the police, to assist their investigation of Matthew Wilcox’s murder.
Relation to the Mythos
It’s nearly impossible to determine what exactly DiD contributes to the Mythos, as we can’t tell what parts of it where fact or fiction. Was it all Damien’s insanity, or was Slender Man actually involved? If Slendy was involved, to what a degree was his involvement? The story changes radically depending on how you answer those questions.
No Slender Man Involvement
Damien admitted early on that he had psychological issues, and had experienced hallucinations before starting the blog. His dive into the Slender Man Mythos may have screwed with his already fragile psyche, resulting in him trying to turn his life into an ARG. If this interpretation is accepted, than the blog and Rick’s comments imply that Ted, Emily, and Vincent may have all been killed by Damien. Whether or not that is true depends on exactly when Damien began trying to create this real-life ARG; if it was before Ted’s death, then Damien is likely the killer. If Ted’s death was what caused the slippage of sanity, then we have the unanswered question of who killed Ted. Either way, this interpretation turns the blog almost into a “Take That!” against ARG players. Everyone who participated in this game supported and egged on Damien in his fantasy, thinking it was all a game, when in reality Damien was a mentally unstable person who had killed at least one innocent man solely for the purpose of making his blog more realistic.
Slight Slender Man Involvement
According to Rick, it was the gruesome death of Ted which probably caused Damien to take the dive off the deep end. But then, who was it that killed Ted? At the time of his death, Ted was dressed in a Slender Man costume. He was then killed, and his organs removed, in similar style to how Slender Man likes to murder many of his victims. There is a strong possibility here that the one who killed Ted was Slender Man himself. This in itself doesn’t mean that the rest of Damien’s story is true; Slendy may have just killed Ted, and then left. That TheArsonist knew about Emily and Vincent’s deaths ahead of time still means that he can’t be completely exonerated of suspicion, but Slendy’s involvement does weaken the possible case for Damien being the killer.
Even if Slender Man killed all three, it is still not necessary for him to be involved at all later on in the story. Damien had already snapped enough from Ted’s death, that it is very possible that he would create the entire fantasy without any outside assistance. The existence of notes planning out how the blog would go is the most damning evidence to ruling out Slender Man’s involvement; it’s not as though you can plan out how Slender Man will treat you.
The implication of this is that the common trend of Slender Man going after everyone close to his victims doesn’t always hold true. He killed Ted, and possibly Emily and Vincent, without harming anyone else. Not that he needed to; Damien took care of that for him. It may be that Slender Man intentionally killed Ted, for the purpose of driving Damien insane enough to commit suicide. If that is true, this is the most manipulative and intelligent version of Slender Man to appear in an ARG thus far.
Major Slender Man Involvement
This is the idea that Slender Man actively was hunting Damien, and was the cause of the majority of the things which happened to Damien. This isn’t a belief that Damien’s claims on what happened in his past were true, or that the blog was unplanned; Rick’s testimony puts those ideas to rest. Instead, it’s the interpretation that Slender Man was really screwing with Damien’s head, as he oft does to his victims. Instead of Ted’s death being the cause of Damien’s fragile mental state, Slender Man’s negative effect on his victim’s sanity was the cause. This interpretation is a very passive Slender Man, who sits in the background while his victim goes insane. Due to Damien’s planning of the blog’s future events, we still have to accept that much of the blog was his fictitious story. The difficulty is trying to figure out which parts were his story, which were his hallucinations, and which were actual Slender Man involvement.
This interpretation also has the possibility that Damien’s last post was in response to Slender Man actually coming for him, instead of being a result of insanity.
Total Slender Man Involvement
Everything that Damien said in his blog was true. His parents were part of a Slender Man cult, he had a split personality named TheArsonist, there is a bone/artifact/thing which may be able to help one against Slendy, Slender Man was hunting Damien, and Damien even saved that kid in the store from Slendy. After all, we have no more reason to believe Rick’s comment than any of Damien’s posts. This Rick could be a Slenderproxy posting under the name of Damien’s brother, or if it really is Rick, he could be under the mental affects of Slender Man. While it is rare for Slendy to cover his tracks to such a degree, it isn’t unheard of for him to cause people to not see things which are there/see things which aren’t there (EverymanHYRBID being one example), and messing up computer files is status quo for him. Considering Damien’s discovery of the bone which supposedly offered protection, Slender Man may have used this overly elaborate cover up as a way of preventing people from finding too much information which could harm him.
If this interpretation is true, than it opens up all sorts of questions. What was the bone which repelled Slendy? Are there still Slender Man cults out there? What was that bone?! What knowledge did Damien/TheArsonist take to the grave with them? What was the bloody bone?!?!?!
Whatever interpretation is accepted, Dreams In Darkness still had what is, in my opinion, one of the best lines to describe the Slender Man:
“Nothing about this thing is consistent. One minute he's passive, the next aggressive. Last night, he flung himself at my house trying to get in. Today, he simply appears inside. The bone warded him off previously. This time, he just casually inspected it. Watching him previously stopped him from pulling his disappearing act. I just saw him vanish before my eyes.
He's constantly changing. It's as though, with every encounter, he's never quite the same being twice. It's like there aren't any rules with him - he simply is.
How the hell do you fight that? How do you resist chaos?” (August 30, 2010)
DiD was also one of the best examples of an ARG which put in the effort of appearing real. The first signs of things not being all they appear to be weren’t until a full month after the blog started. That’s 18 posts of non-ARG material. This is really something many other ARGs could learn from; while it’s fun to just go straight into the Slender Man stuff, by giving a period of real life-esque postings, it builds a greater connection between the audience and the characters. In addition, it makes the entire story seem more realistic. Someone start up a blog, and then three days later talk about being stalked by Slender Man? That makes it too obvious that the blog was started for the sole purpose of being an ARG about Slendy. The mundane events at the beginning add legitimacy to the blog, which does a better job of drawing the audience in when the Slender Man events start to happen.
Useful Links
Dreams In Darkness Blog: http://dreamsindarkness91.blogspot.com/
Watch This City Burn Blog: http://tonightitallburns.blogspot.com/
TVTropes Entry: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DreamsInDarkness
Friday, October 1, 2010
Victims
Well, probably you, now that you’ve read this blog.
Just a small little tangent at the start. I’m writing this post from my parents’ house in Austin; to most, that won’t mean anything. To those who know me personally, you may see where I’m going with this.
THERE ARE FRIGGIN TREES EVERYWHERE.
The neighborhood’s in the middle of a forest. It’s slightly disconcerting after having read through so many blogs screaming at me to stay away from trees. I’ll be sure to let you know if any of the trees I see are in formal wear.
On topic now:
One of Slendy’s defining characteristics is how he frequently targets children. In the first Slender Man picture, he is shown in the background of a playground, with the tagline that all the children in the photograph disappeared afterwards. Yet as I said in my “What is a Slender Man?” post, within the ARGs, children only make up a small portion of the victims. It’s incredibly rare for a story to make any reference to Slender Man actively hunting a child during the time frame in which the story takes place (the exception would be Dreams in Darkness, but sadly that doesn’t count, for reasons I’ll explain when I post about that ARG. Another exception is Vengeance, which was written by an 11 year old. Its quality is exactly what you’d expect from an 11 year old writer who doesn’t know where the shift key is.) But it would be statistically irresponsible to claim that since the majority of ARGs are written by people between 16 to their mid-twenties, the majority of Slender Man victims fall in that range. All it proves is that the majority of victims who actively blog/upload YouTube videos are between 16 to mid-twenties. To get a clear idea of the demographics of Slendy’s victims, we’d need to do a large scale survey, which is sadly not within my abilities. Perhaps we can convince the United States government to put on their census forms, “Are you being followed by a very tall and faceless man in a business suit?”
While we can’t make a cool looking diagram which details the exact demographics of the victims of Slender Man, we can attempt to narrow it down by categorizing the groups of people he does target.
Categories of Victims
Children
For simplicities sake, we’ll define a child here by its biological definition, someone between the stages of birth and puberty, rather than a societal one. According to most stories, these are Slender Man’s favorite victims. This is possibly related to the theory that Slender Man exists through our minds and belief; children have a very strong imagination, and are known for their fear of monsters hiding in the dark. A being such as Slender Man could easily manipulate and feed on such attributes. Why children are his favorite prey, I have no idea. Possibly Slender Man is really one of PedoBear’s many disguises.
Some interesting things to note are, A) Slendy often will take multiple children at once, and B) Slendy tends to not go after children as much while focusing on an older victim.
The first isn’t always the case; sometimes Slender Man will spend long periods of time breaking down a single child, as he would an older human. But whereas this singular attention is the norm for us old folks, in children, Slendy’s basic modus operandi seems to be, “Show up, grab a bunch of kids, maybe light something on fire, leave.” This might be because children are a much easier mental target than older targets, again possibly due to the more active imaginations.
The second point is just a reiteration of the seeming lack of child disappearances that occur within ARGs, as the attention is focused on the main characters (who are all too old to be considered children). Honestly, this is more likely due to the plot’s focus point not being on kids than anything else, but it’s always seemed weird to me how rarely we see Slendy actually grabbing kids.
Escaped Child Victims
This is another of Slendy’s favorite types of victims. If a child he wanted to catch escapes him, he has a nasty habit of going after that child again, after he/she has grown older. It’s a popular idea amongst many ARGs, such as Seeking Truth, In My Head, possibly Discuss The Findings, and Dreams in Darkness (although again, that one doesn’t really count). It gives Slender Man a motivation to be hunting the main character which isn’t totally arbitrary, as well as giving them a preexisting link to him, which can be expanded on within the story. In-universe, it really just makes Slender Man a poor loser, but it also means that there’s no way to escape. Even if you get away from him, years down the line, he’ll still come for you. You’ll never know when. You probably won’t even remember your original encounters with him; those memories tend to be suppressed deep down, so you won’t have any preparations for when you face him. One day, he’ll just appear in your life once more, to finally claim you.
Just in case, ya know, you didn’t want to sleep tonight.
People Who Know Too Much
This is the reason I’m going to mysteriously vanish at some point in time within the near future. I still cannot pinpoint the exact ARG which created this idea, but it’s been a very strong one ever since. Essentially, anyone who gets too involved in the Mythos is likely to be hunted by Slender Man. There is no definitive, final reason which explains the reason for this, but there are some theories. One is that Slender Man is trying to protect himself. The more people learn about him, the more likely they are to find a way to harm, or kill him. By driving them mad and killing them before they can do so, he removes potential threats.
The alternative is related to the concept of Slender Man being a creature of belief. If his existence is related to belief, than the people he would be strongest around are those who believe in him the most. Which would be all of us who follow the Mythos. Even if we know he doesn’t really exist, there’s still a small part of our mind that watches out for him. It’s the part that makes me really want to turn on all the lights while I’m reading Slenderblogs at night, or causes me to do a double take when I see someone in a suit.
People Who Trespass On His Territory
This category is only a hypothesis, with much less information backing it up than the others. One of the theories for the reason Slender Man begins following Alex and J in Marble Hornets is because they go too close to the red tower which is somehow related to Slendy. Another possible example is in Scared, where Drew’s first encounter of Slender Man is when he goes into the woods (Slendy’s territory) for the purpose of making Slender Man videos.
Now, two shaky examples doesn’t make for very good science. Both pieces of evidence are just unsupported interpretations; there’s little in them to back themselves up. And there are no clear guidelines to define what exactly Slender Man’s territory would be. In all likelihood, Robert Sage’s swamp would be better suited to be called Slendy’s territory than anything of this world. But I included this, because it is one of the many hypotheses about Slender Man’s victims, albeit a weak one.
Everyone Else
Well…. Um…. That defeats the entire point of me trying to narrow down what type of people Slender Man targets. While very rare, it isn’t unheard of for Slender Man to just start hunting down someone who has absolutely no connection with him at all. These are adults, who never encountered him as a child, haven’t heard of him online, and haven’t gone anywhere that might be one of Slendy’s hanging places. These people are arbitrarily chosen by Slender Man, without any motive behind it that I can understand. Such occurrences are rare; the only cases I’ve seen have been in the Slender Man Chronicles, My Name is Zytherys, Curious Little Girl, and Marble Hornets (if you don’t believe the trespass hypothesis). The problem with claiming that Slender Man arbitrarily chose his targets in those ARGs is that most of them are either ongoing or incomplete, so an explanation for Slendy’s interest may simply have yet to come/was intended to come later.
Symptoms of the Victims
Most of those being hunted by Slender Man display common symptoms which identify them as victims. The symptoms vary in severeness, depending on how much Slender Man has affected them. Those who are mentally strong are usually able to minimize the symptoms, whereas those who are unable to defend themselves from Slender Man’s mental attacks succumb quickly.
Slendersickness
Essentially, Slendersickness if some form of illness that results from close proximity to Slender Man. It can vary from a simple cough, to a debilitating fever. Medicine can help with the symptoms of the illness, but won’t cure it. According to M’s Tutorial, the sickness is caused by the body not responding well to contact with a being not of this reality.
Writing in a Notebook or Blogging
It’s very common for victims to use a notebook of some sort to express what they’re going through, or to blog about their experiences. It’s now theorized that this isn’t just something people are doing for emotional relief, but is in fact another way that Slender Man affects the mind. Why he makes people write, again, no definite answer. Possibly as a means to spread himself further: people read about him, bringing themselves into the Mythos, giving him strength, as well as a new set of victims. This may even apply to the blogs whose purpose is spreading knowledge on how to survive Slender Man; Slendy’s already shown on multiple occasions that, just because one survivor has been able to repel/harm him with some method, doesn’t mean anyone else will be able to get the same results using that method. In a way, it’s like giving one person hope, so that they get online to spread the word, unknowingly infecting many more while simultaneously giving ineffectual advice.
Another possibility is that Slender Man uses the notebooks/blogs to try and create emotional weakness in his victims. These people are opening their hearts out in these words, and while they do that, they’re emotionally vulnerable. If this is the case, than blogs may be more helpful for the victims than a notebook would; with a blog, readers and commenters can provide support during a victim’s moment of weakness, minimizing the danger. A notebook has no such support, which would allow Slender Man to take greater advantage of the moment of weakness.
So essentially, either blogs are horrible plague carriers or life savers. Great dilemma that.
Blackouts, or Changes of Location
Blacking out for periods of time, and often waking up in a different location some time after blacking out (or in a few rare cases, some time before when they blacked out.)
According to M, blackouts are caused by being touched by Slender Man, as the body shuts down from contact with something so foreign. The change in location or time would result from him Slenderwalking you to a different point in spacetime during the period of unconsciousness. In most people, this is a more advanced stage. Unless Slender Man is being particularly aggressive in hunting a victim, he usually waits before the victim’s mentality has broken down somewhat before moving in for physical contact.
Codes
Those whose minds are very close to breaking completely will often begin communicating only in cryptic codes. Some of this has to do with their sanity falling apart; normal communication is no longer fully possible for them. It also is often a part of their mind rebelling against Slendy’s influence. Codes are a way to communicate with others, while at the same time preventing Slender Man from learning of the message’s contents. But because of their decreasing sanity, and Slender Man’s mental influence, the codes are often as confusing as the messages they are encoded in. Cryptic phrases and codes will often continue after a victim has become a Slenderproxy, although these tend to be much more nonsensical in their content, or sometimes outright threatening.
Useful Links
Innocuousenough’s Blog - Toward a socioeconomic theory of the Slender Man: http://innocuousenough.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/toward-a-socioeconomic-theory-of-the-slender-man/
M’s Tutorial – Signs of Being Hallowed Out: http://getuphigh.blogspot.com/2010/07/signs-of-being-hallowed-out.html
So, in conclusion: It doesn’t matter who you are, we’re all screwed. Yeah, I was hoping for something more cheerful than that.
Final notes: I’ve caught up with Devil’s Hiding Place, It’s Your Very Own…!, Slender Man Chronicles, and White Rabbit Asylum. I’ve also finished reading Ichthyological.
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