The Evolution of Proxies

Remember back when I was delaying posts because I was too busy playing Minecraft? I miss those days. That was a fun reason to not write posts. Now I’m not writing posts because I just don’t have the time to, and that’s not nearly as much fun.

So one of the questions I’ve most been asked is, “How do I let people know about my series?” Well it looks like I’ll never need to answer that again, because Slenderbloggins has an entire article on the subject now. http://slenderbloggins.net/?p=494

Now onto proxies. Anyone remember this post I made way back when? Wow that’s horrendously written. Can’t believe I ever wrote like that. And over half of it is just me quoting Reach. Terrible. (I’ll give myself about 2 months before I look back at this post and say the same thing about it). But enough about me. Things are definitely different now than they were then. A lot of that info has become completely obsolete in the months that have passed since then. But we’re not going to go back and change the post; first off, it offers a snapshot into what the Mythos was like at the time. And second, changing thing takes effort. Horrible, horrible effort. What we’ll do in place of that is look at proxies, not from an in-universe “what their traits and abilities are” perspective, but at their changing story role within the Mythos.

The Evolution of Proxies

Early Days-Cultists, totheark, and Hallowed

Think back. Way, way back. Slender Man is still a brand new idea, just starting to spread beyond the SomethingAwful thread. Proxies? What on earth is a proxy? Closest we had to them was the occasional cultist, but those still weren’t quite what we’d call proxies nowadays.

Then Marble Hornets came along and changed everything in the Mythos. For many, it was their first taste of Slender Man. Even for those who had already been involved with Slendy, it would have a huge effect on the Mythos to come.

Marble Hornets introduced two characters important to the establishment of proxies: Masky and totheark. Masky was a mysterious dude wearing a mask (revealed in season 2 to be Tim) who had popped up occasionally to attack/stalk Jay, for some reason. And totheark was the owner of a YouTube channel who posted SPOOKY and mysterious videos in response to Jay’s entries, even hacking into the main Marble Hornets channel once. During season 1, details about the character were very slim, leading to a lot of fan speculation about them (though that isn’t to say that season 2 hasn’t been equally stingy in what they reveal). There wasn’t (and at this time, still isn’t) a consensus on many of the details about these characters, such as whether or not they’re actually separate people, or what “side” they’re supposed to be on. Because of this, it still is unknown what their relation to Slender Man is; some believe them to be serving him, others disagree. Thus it’s hard to say if they qualify as proxies. That, however, isn’t important. What matters is that these two/one character[s] made a template from which future proxies would be based on.

Jumping from MH to the blogosphere now. It was still a budding part of the Mythos, containing only a handful of stories. Most were still using Classic Slendy, with either no proxies, or followers who resembled Lovecraftian cultists more than servants (a good example of this being the cult from Dreams in Darkness.) Then we got The Tutorial. M introduced the concept of Hallowed (frequently misspelled as Hollowed) which was heavily inspired by MH’s Masky/totheark, as well as some of the behavior shown by characters in Just Another Fool. Hallowed were individuals who, as a result of exposure to Slendy, had their minds destroyed and were placed under his control. According to M, the purpose of Hallowed was to allow Slendy to get around the rules which M had placed on him. Their connection to MH and JAF is shown in the symptoms of being Hallowed: memory loss, black outs, Slendersickness, all of which were symptoms experienced by characters in MH season 1.Another sign of someone being Hallowed was speaking in codes, which would account for totheark’s videos, as well as some of Logan’s later posts on JAF.

What all this did for the Mythos was create the first template for proxies. Slender Man’s minions weren’t a vague, ill defined collection of individuals, but a cohesive group with a defined place underneath Slendy and set guidelines. Also important was how Hallowed were portrayed as directly under Slender Man’s control, instead of free willed individuals who believed they were serving Slendy. While examples of other character who would later be labeled as proxies were present at the time (such as Albert Conaghan, who would serve as an inspiration for Agents), M’s Hallowed would be the source from which later interpretations of proxies would come.

Expanding Role, Agents, ZERG RUSH KEKEKE

As the Mythos expanded, so did the role of proxies. The mind controlled Hallowed tended to be the norm at this point, and would remain so until writers began moving away from M’s original rules. Now that they were an established character type, proxies started to appear more often than they had before.

Two of the original Sage blogs were the first to use larger groups of proxies: Anomalous Data and White Elephants. The proxies in these blogs were faceless mooks who had a nasty habit of running around and trying to foil the Sages’ plans. They remained a lesser threat when compared to Slendy, but still were present in numbers (especially in Anomalous Data, where Jay’s organization clashed with groups of them on occasion.)

One thing to note is that White Elephants used the term “Agents” to describe proxies. At that time, it was just the blog’s term for Hallowed; but later it would gain its own meaning. Another addition to proxies from these blogs, one which didn’t quite catch on, was the concept that Hallowed were connected via a hive mind. It was mentioned at the end of Anomalous Data, but hasn’t had any major appearances since then.

It was during the second trio of Sage’s heyday when proxies really grew into their role. Unfortunately, that was also a time which will be remembered for going completely insane with some of the ways proxies were used.

Use of proxies in stories increased rapidly during this time, to the point where it almost eclipsed Slender Man. Proxies shifted from a peripheral danger to a very real and physical threat, with several instances of proxies attacking individual bloggers in large groups. The number of proxies also drastically increased, to the point where some bloggers told accounts of fighting off massive waves of proxy attacks (although in some cases, such as Para Not-So-Normal, these proxy hordes would be retconned away later on). A common criticism for these large numbers of proxies was comparing them to a zombie apocalypse story: a small group of runners barricaded in a safehouse, fighting off hordes of mindless minions who are killed en masse.

During this time, the language used to describe proxies began to develop. To account for the difference between proxies shown to have free will (such as Conaghan) from the mind controlled Hallowed M described, the word “Agent” was borrowed from White Elephants and became the name for a proxy who retained their individuality and personality, yet still served Slender Man. Other classifications of proxies were invented (such as berserkers or sleepers, which you can see on my earlier post on Slenderproxies), but agent and hallowed were the only ones which had long term usage. It was also then that the word “proxy” began to be used as a term for all minions of Slender Man.

Breaking from the trend of faceless proxy hordes, the blog What Now? created the character Rika. Unlike the majority of proxies running around at the time, Rika was a reoccurring antagonist, rather than a minor obstacle for the protagonists to overcome. She was a major part of the story, and actually interacted with the other characters, instead of being a totheark expy who remained out of sight. She also fit the “crazy/sadistic agent” template which would become more common later on. However, What Now? was never one of the hugely popular blogs. What brought Rika into mainstream attention was her appearance in A hint of serendipity, in the post which brought us the eternally famous “Das ass” line. The confrontation between Zero and Rika lasted only a single post, but it left such an impact that the way it's often treated, you’d easily be forgiven for thinking she was the blog’s main antagonist.

This was also the time when Reach first started to comment on blogs, and later began his blog What You Are in the Dark. He introduced Revenants, proxies who were granted superhuman abilities by the Slender Man. At the start, Reach was really the only revenant out there, but this would lead into the next big phase in proxy evolution….

Supah Powahs pew pew pew

Reach’s creation of revenants did not immediately cause a surge in their use. It took time to build up, until finally exploding in a frenzy of revenant activity. The months of January to March of 2011 were the high point of revenant appearances in blogs; I’d list out the blogs which participated in this trend, but I’m still finding more. It’s as if everyone decided they wanted to introduce their own revenant to the Mythos; even Redlight was turned into one during this time!

Looking back, it is a bit understandable why people would do this. Revenants were just “cooler” than regular proxies: all their super human strengths, plus their healing factor, yet countered by their hypersensitivity Achilles heel. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for a few people to have cool revenants in their story. Everybody had to have revenants. Eventually it reached the point where Slendy’s super powered minions were stealing the spotlight from the Man himself. Adding to the issue was the tendency for people to write revenants as either changing sides, like Reach had originally done, or being far more helpful to the protagonists than their job description would imply. When a few revenants go through heel face turns, it can be interesting; when half the revenants do it, one wonders why Slender Man even bothers with making them.

After a few months of this, dislike of revenants was building up. Many didn’t want what to them looked like comic book superpowers appearing in their cosmic horror Mythos. Even Reach, the one who created revenants, had shifted his support away from them. When the blog Vivere Disce made a post claiming that all instances of “super powers” were actually hallucinations caused by Slender Man, Reach jumped on the opportunity, and made a post on WYAITD retconning revenants into a hallucination. That one post brought a pretty sudden end to revenants’ popularity; some blogs continued to use them in their stories, but in fewer numbers than before.

A more positive effect of the revenants was the shift towards proxies as characters rather than unimportant minions. Most of the time (with some exceptions) when a story brought in a revenant, that revenant was going to have a big role to play in their plot, and thus would get much more development than most proxies would previously have gotten. This trend was not limited solely to revenants, though that was where it was most visible early on: as more time passed, more people started to treat proxies in a similar manner. For example, this is the time when the blog The Morning Hunter started up, which has become the defining example of a sadistic agent character blog. The use of proxies as faceless mooks instead of characters still persisted (as did the trend of protagonists HEROICALLY slaughtering these unimportant mooks by the dozens), but it was slowly dying out, as the idea of proxies as characters took root.

The Deconstruction of Proxies

Now we’re moving onto the current phase in proxy use. As with other phases, the events which started this movement occurred before the previous had ended, and took a few months to catch on.

The main purpose of this movement was to deconstruct how proxies were used in the Slender Man Mythos; instead of unimportant minions, they were treated as actual humans, who often were as victimized by Slender Man as the Runners.

The post which really kicked this off was from the blog Walking the Hallowed Halls. WTHH was a new take on a proxy blog: it wasn’t attached to any other story, and its protagonist wasn’t some insane psychopath, but a very human, and very sympathetic, character. On February 25, 2011, a post titled, “McDonald’s Coffee is the Nectar of the Gods” was put up. The post consists of the entire Mythos being called out for its callous treatment of proxies; after all, these proxies are not cackling, card carrying villains who kick puppies for fun (well, not all of them are). Instead, most of them are regular human beings who were broken down by Slender Man. The post was completely contrary to the “proxies are evil and should die” mindset which seemed to be prevalent at the time, and for the next few months would be linked to whenever someone wanted to make a point about the humanness of proxies.

At the same time as WTHH was active, other blogs were beginning to look at the black/white morality of the mainstream Mythos in a more critical light. The Last Refuge of a Dangerous Man took Zero, a character who had previously been almost as heroic as you could have gotten in the Mythos, and turned him into a villain protagonist who caused quite the slaughter during the blog’s run. Then Smiting the Gods (am I allowed to mention my own stuff here? Screw it, I’m doing it anyways) subverted the traditional “Runners good, proxies evil” morality by having its chief proxy antagonist be, in many ways, morally superior to the sociopathic protagonist. And the ending of Now I Shall Know You Again gave us a sympathetic view of a runner slowly breaking down and becoming a proxy, as well as showing us his attempts to maintain some humanity even after falling.

In the spring/early summer of 2011, the deconstruction movement really begin, as blogs focusing on sympathetic proxy characters began to appear. Biggest of these was Don’t Shoot the Messenger, which continued WTHH’s trend of having a sane, sympathetic character provide a viewpoint into the lives of proxies, both hallowed and agents. Even the psychopathic killer proxies in DSTM weren’t treated as one dimensional characters, but were people with real reasons behind their mental disorders.

Of course, it can’t be called a movement if only one blog’s doing it, and there are several other examples of proxy blogs which portray their “villain” protagonists as being as victimized by Slendy as the runners; examples being blogs such as Strike the Set and My Half of Life. Even Morningstar, everyone’s favorite completely psychotic mass murderer, was given some sympathetic traits. At least, until…


*SPOILERS*




He died. Like, today. The post just went up a few hours ago. TIMING, BRO.


This trend hasn’t meant the end for complete monster proxies. There are still quite a number of those out there, some even with their own blogs (Nightscream, Ferus, Gallows-Tree, etc.) But these sadist proxies tend to have a lot more characterization than they did in the past, or at least personality beyond “I KILL STUFF.”

Which seems to leave us in an odd situation where the proxies under Slender Man’s control appear to be divided between poor tortured souls who are really decent people living with circumstances beyond their control, and cartoonishly evil sadists who take far more pleasure in massacre than most psychologists would consider healthy. There’s a few who blur that line, but that’s still a bit of a sharp distinction there.


It’s a bit difficult to predict where things are going to lead from our current perspective. With the Slenderverse having grown as large as it currently is, there’s so many ideas being thrown around out there that it’s hard to figure out which ones will be the ones to stick. Some blogs are exploring the idea of proxies having a bureaucratic hierarchy, others are returning to the idea of giving them superhuman abilities, some are even rejecting the concept of proxies entirely. Once we’ve been granted the magical gift of hindsight, it’ll all become clear, but for now, we can only wait and find out which direction this type of character’s going to be going in next.

Redlight, Part 2

Part 1 found here.

As before, MAJOR spoilers ahead. You have been warned.



Intermission 2, the Bleeding Tree

Following the Fakelight debacle, we experienced a period where Redlight had minimal appearances. He did start putting Scott through a series of sadistic “games”, but there were none of the action packed, fighting off three bloggers at once, encounters of the past. But while Mr. Light seemed to be laying low, elements were being added to the Mythos which would be important upon his return. The biggest of these: The Bleeding Tree.

Now, the Tree is something which deserves its own post (or will deserve its own post, once I get more info on it), so for here I intend to only give a summary, enough so that the next Redlight arc makes sense.

To put it simply, the Bleeding Tree was a giant, evil tree (that bleeds!) which had been haunting zero ever since the failure of the Solstice Gambit. At the time, details on the Tree were scarce, and some were claiming that it was just a hallucination zero was experiencing. Then, Robert confronted zero, and learned from him how to find the Tree. With that knowledge, Robert took a clipping from the Tree. This would be extremely important for the following arc.

Death of Redlight

For several months, we heard next to nothing about Redlight. No huge battles, no insane Xanatos Roulettes, nothing. Perhaps he decided that, after so much excitement and drama, he was going to spend some time enjoying life’s simpler pleasures (such as brainwashing an eleven year old girl, or spending large amounts of energy to drive a single Runner to the edge of sanity just for teh evulz). With his activity lowered, Morningstar took over the role of pan-Mythos villain, though with violent massacres instead of sadistic choices. Then, on July 12, we get a post on White Elephants telling us how Robert, wielding a piece of the Bleeding Tree, has killed Redlight. Shock! So it seems that the tale of Redlight has ended, with surprising suddenness. But then, six days later, we see a post on the eleventh hour:
“if big brother is dead, then who was i talking to just a day ago?”

A few weeks later, Morningstar posted that he had met with Redlight, confirming the man’s survival. Though survival may be a bit too strong a word; Redlight’s body seemed to be falling apart, with an eye hanging out of the socket and everything. He gave Morningstar 12 syringes, and told him to wait for ten days. If Morningstar heard no word from Redlight by then, then he was to use the syringes on random people.

After one of Morningstar’s minions rather foolishly used one of the syringes on himself, we learn their effect: a tree grew out of the minion, tearing him to pieces in a horribly bloody and painful way. That was with a light dosage; according to Redlight, the syringes contained enough for over a hundred victims.

Then Redlight decided to pay a visit to the new generation of Sages (Hakurei Ryuu, Kay, and AmalgamationSage). Well, two of them, at least. His first stop was Ryuu, though in what may be a first, he came not offering her some kind of choice, but asking for help. While he had survived his fight with Robert, the Bleeding Tree had infected him, and was growing in his body. This was a problem which body-surfing wouldn’t be able to solve, as his backups were also becoming infected by the tree. Redlight was looking for some kind of cure, and was desperate enough to ask those who were his enemies for it.

Ryuu attempted to do what she could for Redlight, but the results were…. Not quite as planned. Instead of fixing the Tree, Redlight’s body was ripped apart as the Tree’s growth within him accelerated. Redlight survived by jumping to another body, but he was starting to burn through hosts.

Next stop was AmalgamationSage. From the conversation between the two, we learn a fun fact: Whenever someone uses one of Redlight’s syringes, it punches a hole in the Viel (which is a very, very bad thing). The dozen Redlight gave to Morningstar contains enough to bring about the end of the world. If Redlight was killed by the Tree, he intended to take the rest of the world down with him.

Their conversation at points delved into the philosophical, but the main point of discussion was that Redlight wanted AmalSage’s help getting rid of the Tree. The Tree was a threat to everyone, after all; it was AmalSage’s duty to stop it, even if Redlight was cured as a side effect. Then there was the threat of Redlight’s Apocalypse Juice hanging over everyone’s heads if they didn’t comply.

And Redlight was right: The Tree was a problem, which creates a threat to many. But that didn’t mean AmalSage had to play along with what Redlight told him to do. When they had last met, AmalSage could sense the links Redlight had with his backup bodies. Using his Super Awesome Wizard Powers (TM), AmalSage severed those links, making it so that Redlight would have nowhere to run to when his current body was used up. It seemed like a victory for the forces of JUSTICE…. Only for Redlight to reveal that, in fact, this had all been Just As Planned. The Bleeding Tree was able to track Redlight through the network he had created, and AmalSage had just cut him off from that network. Now, once his current body was used up, all Redlight had to do was take control of Cynthia’s body (a body which wasn’t infected by the Tree), and he would be free from it. Suddenly not so much a victory for justice.

It seemed like Redlight had won this round. As if to cement his victory, Redlight took Cynthia to a confrontation with Tony and Cathy, her parents, as well as Simon (just some bloke who had recently joined with her parents). Unbeknownst to Redlight, Cynthia had managed to break free of his control recently. When he told Cynthia to kill her parents, she instead attacked him. In the ensuing fight, Cathy shot Redlight. Without the network allowing him to possess another body, Redlight wasn’t able to escape death. And thus, finally, Redlight was dead.

Probably.

Identity

Perhaps the greatest mystery surrounding Redlight has always been his identity. We are never given a post explaining his backstory, and even Redlight himself claims to not remember who he was prior to working for Slender Man. All we know for sure is what we saw after his appearance in the blogosphere.

So who could he be? For all we know, he’s just some random guy who was hallowed by Slender Man, and somehow gained mind wipe/body surfing skillz along the way. It’s a nice, simple theory, which provides a very basic explanation without having any holes in it. Even so, there is another hypothesis on Redlight’s identity which has some popularity.

The Fallen Sage

Back before Redlight ever appeared, there was a blog called “Anomalous Data”, run by a Sage named Jay (no relation to Jay from Marble Hornets). Jay had presumably died performing a heroic sacrifice before the Sage titles were passed on to the next group, putting him out of the action by the time Redlight appeared. End of story, yes?

Not so much, according to some. While there has never been any confirmation within the setting, there has been a persistent rumor that Redlight is actually Jay, having been turned into Redlight after being captured by Slender Man.

There are a few things which could be seen as supporting this claim. One of Redlight’s main tricks has been memory wiping people of all knowledge related to Slender Man, removing them from the hunt. Prior to his end, Jay had been doing extensive research into that very subject, and had even discovered occasional success. In addition, Jay had been looking into the idea that hallowed proxies were connected to each other through a hivemind, which could be related to the early claims about a Redlight hivemind (before it was changed to Redlight bodysurfing). There’s also his fixation on the Sages; most of Redlight’s early actions revolved around dealing with Robert or putting down zero’s Core Theory resistance. When the third generation of Sages was named, they were the ones Redlight contacted in order to find help.

There are still problems with this. Lots of problems. Mainly, character. Redlight acts absolutely nothing like Jay did. Jay is often treated as “The Morally Ambiguous Sage”, which could lead in to the villainous Redlight, but that characterization of Jay simply isn’t true. Yes, he wasn’t the nicest of people out there, but Jay was never portrayed as lacking in morals; if anything, he had an extremely strong sense of utilitarian morality. That is, the greatest good for the greatest number of people. While Jay’s research may have involved intentionally revealing Slender Man to civilians, the intent was to create a cure to save victims. Redlight never shows any leanings towards utilitarian ethics. The only philosophy which could possibly be applied to him would be ethical egoism (the belief that individuals should act in their own self interests), though with Redlight this seems to be a case not of philosophical beliefs, but just him being a selfish prick.
Another marked difference between Jay and Redlight is how they emotionally react. Jay tended to be very cool and analytical; he admitted that one of his great strengths against Slender Man was his subdued emotions prevented much of the fear associated with the being. Redlight, on the other hand, is distinctively less subtle. He taunts his enemies, gloats over victories, and is as often motivated to harm runners by spite as he is by any pragmatic goal. Jay would need go through quite a lot of mental trauma and personality changing before he could turn into Redlight.

Then there’s the whole deal with Jay never showing any sign of being capable of body surfing. It’s the sort of thing you’d have thought he might mention maybe once or twice.

So why is this such a popular hypothesis? Well, because it’s kinda cool. One of the original Sages being turned into one of our greatest enemies? Very dramatic. Makes the struggles against him a bit more personal, and adds a hint of tragedy to the whole thing. Even I admit to liking the idea a bit, even if I do find it implausible.


Sadly, with Redlight dead, it’s likely that we’ll never know the truth…. Okay, who am I kidding. He’ll be back any day now. We only killed his human form. He probably has a cyborg backup somewhere, and shall return as REDLIGHT GOD OF MACHINES!

Useful Links

First Redlight Arc
Cached White Elephants (What’s left of it….): http://slendernation.forumotion.com/t4-cached-white-elephants-robert-sagel
A hint of serendipity: http://despairpalesbeforeme.blogspot.com/

Second Redlight Arc
The Mystic: http://helpingthosehelpthemselves.blogspot.com/
The London Librarian: http://thelondonlibrarian.blogspot.com/
What You Are in the Dark: http://whatyouareinthedark.blogspot.com/
White Elephants: http://fighthimuntiltheend.blogspot.com/
Observe and Terminate (Operation Firestarter): http://nightcrawler-observeandterminate.blogspot.com/2011/02/operation-firestarter-after-action.html
the eleventh hour: http://thee1eventhhour.blogspot.com/
Time to Talk: http://cathydelmont.blogspot.com/
Get your game face on: http://tellthemnothing.blogspot.com/

Third Redlight Arc
Copper and Chrome: http://dowhatthebigkidsdo.blogspot.com/
Copper and Chrome: Dark Nest: http://darknestallalone.blogspot.com/
The Network: http://redlightexplodes.blogspot.com/
The Last Refuge of a Dangerous Man: http://fateworsethandeath.blogspot.com/
Si vis pacem, para bellum: http://slendermanmustdie.blogspot.com/
I am Stardust: http://youandthestarsareone.blogspot.com/
Records of an Impossibility: http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/
The Morning Hunter: http://themorninghunter.blogspot.com/

Redlight, Part 1

Divided into two posts due to length.
Also, because of the large numbers of blogs included, there will be no links in the main article. All relevant blogs will be included at the end.

Super ultra major spoilers ahead.



By now, I’m thinking that Redlight’s been dead long enough us to start believing that he might maybe possibly actually stay dead this time. Hopefully.

So, this Redlight fellow (or redlight, if we’re sacrificing grammar for the sake of dramatic parallels). Perhaps the most popular open source character in the Mythos, outside of Slender Man. For a while, he was the Big Bad proxy. And now he’s dead, which means two straight months of songs dedicated to his memory, TV specials, and shrines everywhere. Since I have never been one to avoid jumping on the bandwagon in order to boost my blog’s views in order to boost my ego in order to help my fans, we’re going to spend this post discussing this mysterious gentleman in red, Redlight.

History

Origin

Redlight originated from the blog “White Elephants”. Unfortunately, his introductory posts have since been deleted (which means I could just start making up stuff about him and none of you could prove me wrong! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!..... But of course I would never do that. Trust me, I’m a doctor.)

It was an interesting time in the Mythos. Robert Sagel, going by the alias “greenlight”, had passed on the titles of Sage to a new group, and Core Theory was at the heights of its popularity. Bloggers were having epic battles against proxies, titles were candy, and superpowers for everyone. Good times. Robert (Sage/Guardian) had found a weapon which could defeat the Slender Man, was in Slenderland protecting it, and all we needed to do was wait for the Hero to come and claim the weapon, thus gaining the power to vanquish evil.

Course that wasn’t how thing were to be. Hope? In my Mythos? Don’t be silly. Timed to almost perfectly coincide with the climax of the rising Hype Backlash against Core Theory, White Elephants got hijacked. An unnamed proxy took control, and crushed everyone’s hopes and dreams with the revelation that Robert had not been waiting in Slenderworld for the Hero to come and claim his weapon. Rather, he had been chilling in regular, boring old real world, acting like a madman and gibbering to himself while posting nonsense about weapons and heroes. Then he proceeded to spend quite a lot of energy taunting bloggers and letting them know how worthless and pathetic they, as well as Core Theory, all were.

Now, the bloggers didn’t seem to take well to being insulted. There was a bit of back and forth between Redlight and the bloggers, Redlight giving his speeches on Doomy Doom Doom, while the bloggers often responded with Hope, Love, Justice, and Light! It’s here that Redlight got his name; specifically, it was from a comment made by zero. Robert (greenlight) was acting as a beacon of hope and defiance, while this new proxy was the opposite, crushing hope and defiance. Therefore, the name Redlight.

Being the wonderfully helpful man he is, Redlight proceeded to wipe Robert’s memories of Slender Man, robbing Core Theory of its figurehead. Redlight then gave the option for other bloggers to abandon Core Theory and their titles. Some did, others didn’t. Redlight’s memory wiping abilities eventually appeared again, when zero gave Nessa to him, hoping that she could be free of the hell which she had been going experiencing. Beyond that, most of Redlight’s actions at the time revolved around dealing with Robert, with mostly indirect interactions with the rest of the blogosphere.


Following the end of the Core Theory arc, Redlight temporarily moved from a pan-Mythos character back to focusing only on White Elephants. The memory wipe which had been given to Robert turned out to be not be entirely effective, as an encounter Robert had with Slendy in a park soon showed. Redlight couldn’t be having with none of that, so he captured Robert, and began to drive the man insane. Redlight then gave the audience a choice: they would vote on whether Redlight should kill Robert and end his suffering, or if Redlight should let Robert live, only to extend his torture. The general reaction to this was defiant, and only a few voted for Robert to die.

The faith of those who had defied Redlight was soon rewarded, as Robert launched a daring escape which involved copious amounts of fire, hitting Redlight with boiling Chef Boyardee, and sticking one of Redlight’s hands down the garbage disposal. Fun stuff.

Expansion into the Mythos

Redlight’s first appearance outside of a Core Theory blog was in The Mystic, where he paid a visit to Zeke Strahm. Continuing his trend of offering Runners choices, Redlight gave Zeke the choice between accepting a folder containing leads on his investigation, or to walk away and not be a part of the Mythos anymore. As this is Zeke we are talking about, he took the folder.

From then on, Redlight’s role in the larger Mythos began to grow, as the number of his appearances in other stories increased. The entire month of February could almost be called Redlight Month, as he almost overshadowed Slender Man himself as the Big Bad of the Mythos for a time. This is also the time where Redlight was temporarily changed from a human antagonist into a Revenant (by the time Redlight made his next big appearance in the Mythos, Revenants would have been retconned out of existence, reducing Redlight back to normal).

Redlight was a major part of the eleventh hour Trilogy, where he took the hallowed Cynthia under his wing as part of his Evil Plans (TM). Redlight also had several interactions with the blogs “The London Librarian” and “What You Are in the Dark”. While in Ireland, Ava and Reach went on the hunt for something called The Heel, which could possibly harm Slender Man. There was quite the epic confrontation as the two heroes tried to get the Heel, involving Revenants and Labyrinths and such, but all was in vain, as Redlight appeared and destroyed the Heel before it could be claimed (taunting Ava the entire time, as he loves to do). Ava escaped, but Reach was captured. When Redlight appeared again, he had taken over WYAITD, and was offering a new choice: Redlight would either kill Reach, or an innocent pedestrian (who was later revealed to be Catherine Shaugnessy, Reach’s daughter, who was actually Reach’s mother. Trust me, it makes sense in the context) depending on how the readers voted. The votes were going in favor of saving the innocent (urged on by Robert, who claimed he had a plan), and Reach was pushed into a lake to die. Suddenly, Robert swung into the picture, and took a third option, saving Reach at the last minute. While this allowed for both Reach and Catherine to survive, Reach lost his status as a Revenant (or just had the illusion of being a Revenant removed…. Curse you, retcons! You make everything so confusing!) and Catherine was told about Slendy, marking her as a potential target.

Redlight responded by capturing Robert (again). Then the PTC gets involved, launching a full attack, gunships and all, against Redlight in Ireland. The attack was a failure, and Redlight escaped. It seems that after this, Redlight wanted to take a short break from the fast paced action, as the next time we see him, he was meeting Ava for what was supposed to be a nice, calm, Valentine’s Day discussion. Redlight brought Cynthia along, and offered Ava three choices: She could kill him right there (given later revelations about Redlight, that choice in itself was a trap), she could take Cynthia, or she could free Robert. Instead of choosing, Ava stabbed Redlight’s hand, grabbed Cynthia, and ran for it. That later turned out ineffectual, as a few dead civilians and a Slendernapping later, Cynthia was back under Redlight’s control.

The next big Redlight event came when Ava, Reach, and Tony (Cynthia’s father, from “Get your game face on”) launched an attack to free Robert. This turned out to be a trap set by Redlight, and as a result, Ava was captured and Reach badly wounded. However, Robert was rescued, and Reach survived his injuries. Ava was found over a week later, after being put through a large amount of mind screw by Redlight.

During this month, Robert had occasionally been posting information about Redlight on White Elephants. Here we learned that while Redlight was a servant of the Slender Man, he was far from happy in his servitude. Redlight had his own agenda, which was to break free of Slendy’s control. However, this did not put him on the side of the Runners; he was still willing to harm anyone in the way of his goals.

Another claim which Robert made about Redlight was that he was not an individual, but several people connected by a hivemind. This could be used to explain the discrepancies between some of Redlight’s appearances (such as how he was human in some, but a Revenant in others, or how writers occasionally seemed to forget that he was supposed to have an injured hand). Unlike previous posts about Redlight, this one proved less popular amongst Mythos writers. Redlight as a singular force seemed to carry more weight than Hivemind Redlight. This would later be retconned into Redlight not being a hivemind, but an individual who could body surf, possessing other bodies when necessary. By the time that retcon was made, the damage had been long done, and the hivemind post seems to be the point where this phase of Redlight’s popularity began to drop. For several months afterwards, we wouldn’t see any major Mythos events with Redlight’s involvement.

Intermission 1, Fakelight

Just because Redlight wasn’t a rockstar anymore didn’t mean he was no longer a part of the Mythos. Stories which were using him as part of their main plot (WE and EE trilogy) continued to make reference to him, and the side effects of his actions in February were still referenced to.

Then, there was the blog “Copper and Chrome”, and its companion blog, “Copper and Chrome: Dark Nest”. For some time, it looked as though it had been building up toward a Redlight-centered story arc. C&C had been following a plot about the protagonist taking a suitcase from Redlight and investigating the journal he found within, culminating in Redlight temporarily taking over the blog. Meanwhile, on Dark Nest, we got cryptic messages saying, “Savior thy name is Redlight”. This came to a head with the creation of the blog “The Network”, which was supposedly run by Redlight himself.

Audience reaction to Redlight having his own blog was not favorable. Redlight had thus far been treated as an open source character, free for any writer to use. Which meant that preexisting blogs had plans for his future actions, which they did not want to be controlled by another author. In addition, many felt that the whole idea of Redlight, someone who had been shown as aloof and condescending towards the blogosphere, making his own blog was extremely out of character.

In response to the backlash, the blog was changed so that its writer was a proxy only pretending to be Redlight. This came too late to contain the negativity, and as a result, the blog and story arc were dropped.

Part 2 found here.

Slenderproxies

Well. I thought my life had gotten interesting recently, and yet it seems that I have been outdone by practically every single Slenderblog out there. There has been a pretty large scale coordinated attack on many of the bloggers who are going to participate in the Solstice. Robert (Guardian) was captured, but so far it seems that all other bloggers were able to survive/escape their attacks. Which would be something to be thankful for today, though I believe most would be more thankful had it not happened at all. On the bright side, you’ve all done a wonderful job of putting my problems in perspective, and I no longer feel I have the right to complain about coughing up blood (nothing supernatural, I just cut the inside of my mouth open when I fell during a run) or any of the other insane things going on with me. Compared to what you’re all going through right now, it’s all just minor inconveniences. For the full story of what happened, you need to check out….. A lot of blogs. A Hint of Serendipity, Enter Light, Road to the Heavens, and White Elephants seem to have been focal points of attacks, with other stuff going on at Vivere Disce, Para-Not-So-Normal, Paranormal Log, etc. Stay safe, guys.

Two things before we begin. First off, Marble Hornets has started season 2. Here’s a link to the new video, though by now I expect most of you have already seen it. Secondly, check out the Slenderblog. With it, Golem Tulpa Anima, and Slenderia, that brings us up to three informative blogs. Three seems to be becoming a reoccurring number here.

Onto business.

Slenderproxies

(Sorry about the short post; not really able to make something as long as I usually do right now. Things getting a bit hectic on my end of things.)

Aka Hallowed, aka Agents, aka Husks, aka Indoctrinated, aka Maskies, aka deadheads, aka etc. Slenderproxy is the overarching term I use to describe all the various kinds of humans who follow Slender Man, willingly or unwillingly. Within the category of proxy are a variety of other subcategories, with the two most common being Hallowed (people whose minds are completely controlled by Slender Man) and Agents (people who make a conscious choice to willingly follow Slender Man). Originally, I had a pretty long post planned out here, explaining what the different types of proxies that have appeared are, their behavior, etc. But then Reach posted a comment on White Elephants which did that all for me, so I’ll be stealing his work and claiming it as my own (Just like Thomas Edison!)

“1 - The Hallowed, those who have been totally dominated by him and act only upon his will. Brainless, emotionless drones. Useful for attacking but otherwise useless. From my limited interactions, they just sit around in a catatonic state when he's not leading them like puppets. Standard mooks.

2 - The Berserkers, those who are under his control but can act on their own when he can't be arsed commanding them. These are far more dangerous than the Hallowed, because they can work their way into positions of trust to further his agenda. They often think they're Agents, but they're not really….

3 - The Sleepers, who are under his control but not aware…. Often Runners, they come under his control when they're mind is at its weakest, during blackouts or sleep. He then uses them to attack other Runners. They are, for this reason, considerably more dangerous than Berserkers; Berserkers act like they're not under his control, but Sleepers don't know.

4 - The Agents, who act for him despite not being under his control. Whatever their motivations, if they act on his behalf, then they are Agents…. One of their biggest assets is that they're totally sane and retain all of their mental faculties which means they can target Runner in ways far more creative than anything that the Tall One himself can think up. Albert Conaghan is the reference.

5 - The Revenants, who I am too wary to speak of right now. Suffice to say... we (Revenants) are far and away the most dangerous. And that's not a boast, it is a statement of fact. It's a good thing for you that we're few in number and an even better thing that none of us are currently in the field.” EDIT: On March 20, 2011, Reach removed Revenants from the Mythos, retconning them into a hallucination caused by Slender Man. Because Slendy likes to screw with us like that.

On his own blog, Reach made the claim that “Sometimes, in order to empower his minions, the Tall One turns them into a vessel of "Slenderpower", allowing them to channel the energy from the Other Side.”, though I haven’t seen any in-story examples of that.

So that I can feel like I have contributed at least somewhat, I’ll talk a bit about the codification of proxies. Followers of Slender Man did appear in the original stories, but it was, of course, Marble Hornets which made the proxy that most people remember (Masky/totheark). Masky was the inspiration for the Hallowed type of proxy, and it’s a mark of the Hallowed to often wear masks. The Agent type of proxy was codified by Seeking Truth, with Albert Conaghan (as Reach mentioned). Hallowed and Agents are the only two “confirmed” types of proxies; they have appeared in multiple stories, whereas the remaining three on Reach’s list have only been confirmed by Reach.

On Anomalous Data, Jay was able to rescue a Hallowed through use of drugs which induced amnesia. After interviewing her, he discovered that Hallowed are linked in a hive mind to Slender Man.

Again, sorry for the shortness of the post, but Reach had already gone over most of my main points (and in a much more concise way than is my usual style).

Useful Links
What You Are In the Dark: http://whatyouareinthedark.blogspot.com/

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.)

Marble Hornets

It would almost be a sin to not start with Marble Hornets, the series which really got the ball rolling on Slender Man’s popularity. So it’ll be the first item I explore on this blog.
I’ve caught up with Defining?, While Elephants, and EverymanHYBRID since my last post. I’ve also read all of Where the Rivers Join and Curious Little Girl, but those blogs appears to be inactive now. Obviously they were taken by Slender Man.
On another note, I’m starting to see why it’s generally a bad idea to just throw yourself into the Mythos. Walking home last night, saw three signs on the side of the road. Two black ones, with a white one on top. In the shadows, the black signs looked like a suit, and the white sign looked like a face. I totally freaked out there; scared the hell out of a couple walking next to me. Awesome stuff. Thankfully, when I got back home I found that I’d gotten Gurren Lagann: TV Series Complete Collection in the mail. Watching it is the best way to cure yourself of being afraid of Slender Man that I know of.

But, we’re not here to discuss me being scared of speed limit signs. No, we’re here to talk about hornets which are marble.
(Warning: There be spoilers below)

What is it?

Marble Hornets is a series of videos posted on YouTube taking place in the Slender Man Mythos. In the setting, a student by name of Alex Kralie was working on a student film, titled “Marble Hornets”. After two months of filming, he dropped the project completely, claiming “unworkable conditions”. A friend of his, named J (either that is a very strange nickname, or his parents just didn’t love him) asked Alex what he was planning to do with the tapes.
“Burn them.”
Not wanting to let so much work go to waste, J convinces Alex to let him have the tapes, on the condition that they never speak of it again. J filed the tapes away, but at the time was too unnerved by Alex’s reaction to look through them. About two to three years later, he decided to go back through the tapes.
Judging by the contents, our favorite abomination was trying to get into the film business.


To put the plot in the simplest way possible, while making “Marble Hornets”, Slender Man began to follow Alex. Like most victims, Alex started to fall deeper into paranoia and fear as a result. Things became increasingly worse, and Alex claims in one of the tapes that some people have even disappeared.
While watching these videos, J begins to record his own research into what was going on. As often results from people investigating these things, weird shit starts to go down pretty quickly. Standard Slender Man fare: black outs, waking up in different places, loss of memory, electronic distortions, etc.
In addition to Slender Man, J often encounters an individual who the viewers have nicknamed “Masky”, a mysterious person wearing a mask who is likely a Slenderproxy. There’s a good chance that Masky is also totheark, a YouTube user who posted cryptic, and sometimes downright creepy, video responses to J.

The series ended on a slightly ambiguous note. After the downward spiral really started to hit J, he called quits on the whole thing, and leaves. After staying on the move for a while, his mental health began to return, and he no longer had any involvement with Slender Man. When you’re starting to think that the whole series may just on a bittersweet tone, J receives a tape, with the instructions “WATCH THIS”. The tape shows that Alex has also found a normal life via the cunning strategy of running away from Slender Man like a girl. This ends when his girlfriend finds his old video recorder. Alex gets uncomfortable with her filming around the house, and then BAM, Slendy appears, and the video ends with the words “HELP”. J decides to be a hero, and goes to the rescue. That’s it.

There is a season 2 being planned out, which will provide an actual ending to the series, though work has not yet started on it.

Marble Hornets is what brings many people into the Mythos. As it is a visual medium, it’s easier to be drawn into it, instead of having to read through text (a feat which our society seems sadly averse to). MH makes no assumptions about the viewers’ awareness of the Mythos, unlike many other stories, and is accessible to people who have never even heard of Slender Man. The series also has a tendency of being spread around, especially on forums or in emails. Through this, it acts as a gateway series into the Mythos. Those that enjoy it often will search for more information, and in the process, discover the other blogs/videos related to Slender Man.

It’s also quite good; Marble Hornets scared me more than any big budget Hollywood horror film I’ve seen in my life. No, it’s not a top of the line masterpiece, but the fact that they were able to put together something so good on such a limited budget is pretty impressive. Even if you don’t find the horror in it scary, you do have to admit that the quality is very good, even when compared to professional works.

Relation to the Mythos

As MH is one of the main factors behind the popularization of Slender Man, it’s the thing which everyone else imitates. MH may not have created the Mythos, but it codified it. Many things which are now standard Slender Man fare were created by, or inspired by, them. The idea of Slender Man slowly hunting victims over an extended period of time, the operator symbol, Slendersickness, blackouts, electronic distortions, and Slenderproxies were all started or inspired by MH.

Which makes it hilarious how many ARGs don’t consider MH real, or part of the factual Slender Man canon. This is especially true amongst the ones which support the theory that Slender Man came into existence through collective belief/fear of him. According to them, Marble Hornets was not an effect of Slender Man, it was a cause. The reason everything else relating to Slender Man resembles Marble Hornets isn’t because MH was accurate, it is because everyone believes that Slender Man will act as he does in MH. This belief is not universal; in most of the ARGs which claim Slender Man has origins before his appearance on SomethingAwful, Marble Hornets is at least given the benefit of the doubt. Still, it is very common for the author of an ARG to claim that their first taste of Slender Man was through Marble Hornets. And it’s well established in the Mythos that interest in Slender Man often leads to the interested party becoming a victim. You can see where this is going.

The Operator Symbol

I’m just going to briefly touch on this here, as this is where (X) originated. MH gives very little information on what the symbol is. All we learn from it is that it is associated with Slender Man. Alex is seen drawing it at some points, and it makes the occasional appearance in the videos. What is means remains a mystery, however. The three main camps on what (X) means are 1) It’s Slendy Repellant, 2) It either draws Slendy towards you, or somehow is used by him for his gain, and 3) it neither helps nor interferes with Slendy, it’s just something that his victims feel compelled to draw. Option 1 seems to make sense with Alex drawing so many of the symbols; after all, he is being hunted by Slender Man, and likely wants some kind of protection. However, totheark also uses the symbol occasionally, and if he is a Slenderproxy (which seems like the most likely possibility), it would be strange for him to use them. For 1 to be correct in the context of MH, either totheark isn’t actually a Slenderproxy, or he is horrible at being a Slenderproxy. Then there’s the question of just how exactly Alex learned about the symbol and its protective properties. Option 2 resolves totheark’s use of the symbol, but then we have to deal with Alex constantly drawing them. It seems a bit illogical to be constantly drawing something that would either strengthen Slender Man, or draw him towards you. It could be possible that he was either hypnotized at the time, or so crazy that he wasn’t aware of what he was doing, but that seems unlikely. While drawing the symbols, we don’t see enough video tearing or distortions to symbol that Slender Man is very near, which is usually needed for hypnotism. And the idea of him being crazy doesn’t match with how he acts in the videos. He’s extremely paranoid, and not entirely there in the head, but he’s never shown as so far gone that he’ll draw something that puts his life at risk. Option 3 doesn’t have any of these problems, because it ignores all the problems. He’s drawing the symbol because it’s related to Slender Man, and that’s what you do when you’re hunted by him. You draw lots of (X)s. This isn’t that popular a theory amongst the more proactive or scientifically focused ARGs, because in those they’re trying to find explanations. In ARGs not worried about discovery or science, it can still make appearances, since the author doesn’t need to explain anything. Just show the symbol appearing somewhere, and you know that Slendy’s involved. Don’t need to know whether it’s pro or con, just that he’s involved.

totheark/Masky

The two of them get one section, as it’s heavily implied that they are the same person. There are theories that totheark is Alex, however, that would require Alex to travel back to the town (from a different state), and then film footage of J and Slender Man while J was hypnotized. Not exactly in character for someone who should be trying to help J, and certainly not likely for Alex. It’s far more likely that totheark is Masky than anyone else.

The vast majority of the fans believe that Masky is Tim. And I really can see where they’re coming from; Tim displayed Slendersickness in some footage, was shown taking pills which J found in the house/which Masky stole back, wore the same jacket as Masky, and has the same hair as him. Unless season 2 decides to throw some kind of curveball at us, it’s pretty much canon that Masky is Tim.

Now this gives Tim the wonderful honor of being the first Slenderproxy. There are some theories that Masky was actually trying to help J, but these never sat well with me. Masky acts in too threatening a manner for me to be willing to say, “Oh yeah, he’s just trying to help.” It’s never stated outright that Masky is helping Slender Man, but at this time, claiming otherwise is just speculation.

What’s interesting is how many ARGs have taken from both the concept of Slenderproxies, and the idea that Masky was somehow anti-Slendy. The Tutorial talks about Slenderproxies, but also makes the claim that wearing a mask can help protect you from Slender Man. Also, a number of ARGs take the cryptic writings that totheark did, but attribute them to the protagonist, not a Slenderproxy. Proxy or not, whenever the protagonist of a story does start writing like totheark, it’s never a very good sign.


Slendersickness

A brief one here. When J investigates the House (I feel like I’m writing about House of Leaves, what with me capitalizing the word House so often), he breaks into a coughing fit. Tim is also shown coughing at one point, with the implication that he’s been affected by Slender Man. One theory is that the pills Tim and Masky have are to lessen the side effects of the Slendersickness, although I’m not sure what type of medicine you’d need to do that.
In MH, being around Slender Man also causes the target to experience feelings of coldness, but this is less focused on by other ARGs.

Marble Hornets left many questions unanswered, which is one of the reasons it was so creepy. You knew things were happening to these people, but you couldn’t figure out why, and that was terrifying. How much of it gets answered in season 2 is unknown; as MH is the most well known part of the Mythos, practically whatever it says will become canon. Which will be hilarious if it contradicts the ARGs being made in the meantime. It’ll almost be like the Star Wars EU; all the authors go through all this trouble detailing every last aspect of something, writing several books worth of description…. And then George Lucas makes an offhand comment that completely invalidates everything they’ve done. It’ll be great to watch that if it happens to the Slender Man Mythos; hopefully I’ll still be blogging to do some sort of damage control if it does.

Useful Links
Marble Hornets Channel: http://www.youtube.com/marblehornets
totheark's Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/totheark?blend=2&ob=4
Marble Hornets Wiki: http://marblehornets.wikidot.com/
TVTropes Entry: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarbleHornets


If there’s anything you think I didn’t discuss in depth enough about Marble Hornets, or anything you think I missed, go ahead and tell me. I’ll either cover it in the comments section, or if I feel the need to write a long post about it, I’ll make another entry.

Next time, I plan to discuss Just Another Fool.