Collected Thoughts

After the sounds I have been hearing recently, I am still rattled. But I feel I must continue onward. Here I will collect my current thoughts as succinctly as possible.

My current belief is that Slender Men have an appreciable population. Otherwise the widespread terror they spread would not be possible. The alternatives are that they do not mate often, have a long life span, and/or reproduce asexually. Though the last is naturally absurd for a species of such physical size. These assumptions, however, are all based on the guess of humanlike travel speed, specifically on foot, which is likely incorrect.

The abilities of the species are obviously the biggest conundrum. They seem to have control over space-time to some degree. The keyword here is “seem”. It is more likely, though still rather unbelievable, that they have the ability to tap into the human mind and rearrange, put in a suspended state, and/or control thought itself. This may even extend to technology. I once called a tech savvy Slender Man ridiculous, but that may have been in error. Rudimentary skill, possibly taken from the minds of victims, could be used to stop and restart a camera, or a human may simply be commanded to do this. (For a scene in which I believe both mental and electronic control are at work, see everymanHYBRID, “Ashen Waste”, 6:00-30)

However, the biggest issue with mind control is the mechanism. Long-distance, “wireless” communication is flat out ridiculous. Emitted electromagnetic radiation could account for video equipment disruptions, or perhaps a strong electric field (a magnetic field would be obvious for hopefully equally obvious reasons, and said reasons’ absence rules it out). The human mind, however, has no method with which to accept EM radiation of any wavelength, except by proxy (the eyes, which simply do not work as “input devices” so much as passive receivers). It is more likely that a direct method is used. A fine wire covered in anesthetic could be slipped into the skin and towards the brain to affect control, unpleasant though the thought is. These, if in existence, are likely housed in the tentacles or arms. I should mention the constraint of “fine wire” was used as otherwise there would be a visible entry wound, and the appendage itself would be clearly visible. The anesthetic is to prevent the victim from noticing the attack, of course. As for potential evidence, I direct you to Marble Hornet, “Entry #22,” 6:19-21 where something is seen apparently going towards and into a person’s (Alex’s) head.

This isn’t quite everything I have compiled, but I feel it covers the important ideas that I have been able to come up with for now. If anyone can find any flaws in my reasoning here or elsewhere (and I’m sure there is at least one flaw), please alert me in the comments and I will consider the implications and rework my theories.

Strange Sounds

Last night, there were strange noises in my dorm room. It’s a somewhat old building and there are a lot of people, so normally I would have written it off as something like that. But being on the tenth floor on a Friday night, only one of those could have held (there’s rarely anyone but me here on the weekends).

None of the sounds made sense to me. I don’t even mean that they were strange or I couldn’t see the cause. They simply made no sense. Nothing in architecture, cooling, or even biology makes sounds like those. I have never heard anything like that even synthesized by man. I still can’t believe that those sounds even existed. I can’t believe I was even able to hear them.

I’m afraid. And I’m certain that I have been targeted. I had hoped it would take longer, or that the sounds wouldn’t be the first thing I had to deal with. I must admit that they unnerve me greatly and no description I have ever read prepared me for them. But I will not be cowed. My hopes and plans are dashed, for now. This just means I have to rethink the situation a bit.

Research

I just want to say that, when I began this blog, I thought I was alone, that I was the only one trying to figure out just what a Slender Man is, what it actually can do.

As I have  searched through the internet, I found that there are a great many blogs that seem to be doing the same thing as me. They want to figure out this very strange and dangerous creature. However, I have noticed two distinct things that set me apart, at least from those blogs I have found thus far (though again, these are limited by the logs I have found).

The first is that I began this work before being actually affected by a Slender Man. The reason why is obvious: most don’t truly believe in Slender Man until after first contact. I decided to begin before any contact was made because if it exists, the blog is useful to others. If it doesn’t, this is a harmless little project to keep myself occupied.

Secondly, I have yet to find any blog firmly rooted in reality. Instead, they all believe that the creature is supernatural, that it is beyond the laws of our reality. I disagree vehemently. In fact, I discourage this sort of thought, even if it does have some supernatural origin. If you believe something about it, it is true. That is the general consensus among these people. If that is the case, believe it is of our world. Then it is limited by reality. Then it becomes fallible, it can be outrun, it can bleed, it can burn.

In short, then it can die.

Science has raised man to a plateau that is unreachable by other animals. It has given us untold strength which can only increase so long as the resources necessary for it exist. We have used it to overcome every obstacle that this universe has thrown at us, save death itself. We can use it to destroy this pathetic, faceless monstrosity as we did with the beasts that threatened to take us in the night so many millennia ago.

It has only as much control as we give it.

Knowledge

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Slender Man is that it seems it only appears after knowledge of it is obtained, at least with cases where those who were not stalked as children are involved. Modern incidents have apparently skyrocketed with the recording, in video or writing, of interactions and subsequent posting on the internet. One would be hard pressed to find much mention prior to the information age. Otherwise, it was simply relegated to tall tales or stories to scare children, nothing anyone ever believed in.

However, the pattern is undeniable. A person finds out about it from someone else, or on the internet. Then they are stalked. This has happened as described in the logs Just Another Fool, Everyman HYBRID, Marble Hornets, Tribe Twelve, and countless others. One rarely sees the creature without having heard of it first.

This is something I cannot properly quantify, except as coincidence or that a Slender Man follows a target, finishes or abandons it, and then finds someone with connections to that person. Simple enough, one might think. Or it would have been some decades ago. The internet has complicated this. Some are stalked with no connection to other targets but photons from a computer screen.  This is most baffling. Again, simple coincidence could explain it neatly. Or even a larger-than-expected Slender Man population. But I simply do not think that is the most precise or reasonable explanation. I could joke that the species is tech savvy, but that is patently ludicrous.

I have to admit I am beginning to hit a road block. But I intend to overcome it.           

In fact, there is a very simple possible explanation (with more than enough precedent, I might add) that I will mention here as closing: sometimes people do not know they have had connections with a Slender Man.

Everyman HYBRID

This is perhaps the most in-depth, and sprawling, log of Slender Man activity. It covers two, by association, YouTube channels, a blog by a related party (Can You See The Words, now abandoned) and a Twitter account, at minimum. I haven’t delved much deeper, so there may be more. It covers the experiences, still ongoing, of a group of would-be personal trainers. They begin their encounters with a Slender Man by apparently angering it with parody, having had a friend dress up like it and stand in the background.

Shortly afterward, they encounter an actual Slender Man and experience the usual results. Video distortion, strange messages and apparent lapses in temporal/spatial continuity are all seen. This appears to go the usual way of paranoia, except for the member of the main trio named Vincent, who most vehemently insists it’s just someone messing with them, at least for a while.

Overall, nothing out of the ordinary for the creature occurs, though the lack of a definitive Agent is noted, but my own interpretation of the situation is that Evan could be heading in that direction. The only other notable difference is that actual violence is attempted against a Slender Man, something I cannot recall having seen or read in another log, though Strahm seems the type to try it, eventually. It does not, however, end well, whether one-on-one with a baseball bat, or trying to run over the creature. It is unfazed and the instigators are noticeably worse off for the attempt.

One thing does grab my attention, however. A second creature, commonly referred to as “the Rake,” appears in the log. It openly attacks, and with apparent intent to kill. It attacked Alex, the brother of the third of the trio, Jeff. It is pale, runs on all fours, gangly, and apparently has vicious claws at its disposal.

This second creature has never appeared before in tandem with a Slender Man, bares little similarity besides a pale complexion, and can likely be considered incidental rather than a connected entity. However, the apparent creation of a “disappearing crawlspace” which leads to more distant locations than is reasonable is strange to say the least. Therefore, a connection cannot be entirely ruled out.

Eventually, the men of Everyman HYBRID meet (i.e. break out of an instituition) and join with the author (commonly known as Damsel) of Can You See the Words. She has been stalked by the creature in years prior and managed to survive. They were originally connected through a single person, Damsel’s friend and Jeff’s girlfriend Jessa, whose disappearance inadvertently facilitated the team up.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, no new information of merit with respect specifically to Slender Men is presented. I seem to have come to an impasse at the moment in what I can derive from existing logs, or at least those I have to date reviewed in full. Next, I will be posting my thoughts on the creature at the current time.

No Tutorial

I’m sorry, but I will not be doing an analysis of The Tutorial, as a much more intriguing resource has come to my attention. It is a log written by someone hunting Slender Man, or at least a person that uses similar motifs. In this day and age, people will imitate anything, I suppose. The blog is called Seeking Truth, written by a man named Ezekiel "Zeke" Strahm. He is a detective on the case of someone with… Slender Man like tendencies, to put it rather coarsely. Or, he was as of the point I have reached in his log.

I have only just begun to review and think through this blog, and it will take time due to courses and the fact that his entries are often even longer than mine. If it turns out Strahm is after the creature, this will likely end badly. If not, we may learn the limits to which humans can replicate the creature's abilities. Either way, we gain something. Though some of you reading this may already know the outcome, as this log is rather lengthy.

That is all for now. I will cover Everyman HYBRID in the next post.

Possible Sighting

I just got back to my dorm room from my part time job (I believe I’ve neglected to mention this, but I’m a college student), and I saw something that made me look twice. A tall man in a black suit. However, there are plenty of business students and professors who wear the same sort of thing every day, here. I won’t jump immediately to the conclusion that it was a Slender Man, especially since he was waiting at the bus stop. The lighting and distance were also such that any facial features or even the existence of hair couldn’t be confirmed or ruled out. I will, however, admit that I took a long detour after spotting him. Prudence is the best course of action when dealing with the unknown.

If such sightings become the norm, I’ll have to make the assumption that I’ve been targeted. Until then, I’ll just have to assume I’m jumping at shadows.