Obligatory "What the hell IS it?" Musings

"There are shadows in the sky, dancing in the air,
Calling to my heart, saying, 'If you dare,
Running fast, we're running far,
Trying to catch the Morning Star...'"


Hoo boy. Nearly every self-respecting Slenderblogger has one of these - in which I explain oh-so-boringly exactly what I think the Slender Man actually is.

Or maybe not so boringly, as the case may be. See, Omega put together a new post recently, explaining various non-Tulpa-related theories regarding our tall friend's existance - everything from ghosts to radioactive trees. However... one thing that was not brought up, one thing that I've never seen brought up... is the possibliity that Slendy is nothing more or less than a predator. One whose natural prey is humans.

I know. Odd thought, isn't it? And it brings up a whole host of questions, which I'll do my best to (anticipate and) answer. The biggest one, to my mind, would have to be:

If It's something that evolved naturally, why is there (supposedly) only one of it?

Yeah... questioning the actual number of Slendys aside, it is possible for there to be only one of a species. And let's assume for the sake of argument that that is indeed the case here. God knows one of It gives us enough trouble...

So yeah. It's a bit of a stretch, but it could be possible for there to be only one of something. Mom tells me all the time, anything's possible in an infinite universe. As ridiculously improbable as the scenario may seem, it could have happened, for any number of reasons. Perhaps some freak genetic mutation happened back at the dawn of life on Earth. Perhaps the product of this mutation somehow lacked the ability to reproduce. Perhaps reproduction was not even necessary in this mutation, considering it doesn't seem able to be harmed or killed, or even age.

Incidentally, research on what causes humans and animals to age is yielding some startling information (and I honestly wish I could give you a more credible link than that, but journals found on Ebsco won't be viewable outside of universities), making the genetic mutation idea seem more likely. Also, Revenants also do not age, supposedly because of something Slendy does to them, something It puts inside of them. This process involves damaging every bone and organ in the body. In other words, having access to every or nearly every type of cell in the body.

Altering every type of cell in the body.

Supposedly, the changes would spread to all other cells within a maximum timeframe of seven years, though probably sooner than that. Again, this is a stretch of logic, and I am by no means a biology major, but it strikes me as logical that the changed cells would be more resiliant to the old cells.

In addition, Slender Man's appearances throughout history also strike me as significant. Appearances in Egypt and Germany have gained the most notoriety, but there could easily have been others. And there are also vast stretches of time when It simply drops off radar, seemingly sated for another few centuries. Anacondas can go for months between feedings, so why not this?

Finally, it's the events of now that have me more or less convinced that It is real and It has always been around. Slendy has shown a degree of adaptability that other cornerstones of mythology don't seem to posess. No matter how many times it happens, faeries will always be caught off-guard when you catch them in a jar. Dragons will always be vulnerable to a sword-strike to the throat, and never seem to adapt their defenses to make up for this weakness. This could be because their are multiple faeries and multiple dragons, and were therefore incapable of learning from the errors of others of their kind (especially considering that said errors usually meant death), but even ancient gods seem to make the same mistakes over and over again. Individually.

Slendy is different. In the ancient times of gods and demons, It roamed freely and was accorded the same fear and respect as any diety, with sacrifices to match. Fast-forward a couple thousand years to feudal Germany, and It played the part of a malevolent forest spirit that hunted children in the night. From fear and respect to fear and mystery, altering Its hunting strategies to suit the times, the thought processes of Its prey.

Now, we're living in the computer age, where communication is nigh-instantaneous. Slenderman hunted more or less individually, just as It did in Germany, but the blogsphere was something It didn't forsee.

You see, part of the reason so many fall before It is because we each think we're alone. And, for a little while, so many people did think they were alone as they were haunted, hunted, eventually killed or worse. Wanting to protect our loved ones, we actually perpetuated this isolation, something that has no doubt worked for our mutual friend many times before. But then a handful of completely isolated cases got more or less the same idea: to keep their stories on blogs, on the internet, either as a cry for help or a warning to others, but they served the same purpose. People knew.

A simple search is all it takes, and people started discovering other victims halfway across the world, a few hundred miles away, or even just down the street. They realized that they were not going crazy, that they were not being singled out or punished. They were simply being harassed and hunted. Mass archive binging commenced. Intercommunication between runners ensued. Patterns emerged in Slendy's behavior, and people realized that fighting back is possible.

So now the Beast has this entirely new breed of prey to deal with, one that is both informed and well-armed. It had to adapt Its hunting style. Rather than personally haunt a few victims at a time, It instead opted to leave much of the leg-work to a rapidly-increasing number of proxies - hundreds worldwide, and still counting. Rather than psychological warfare, It has begun depending more and more on physical confrontations with which to deal the final blow to any given victim. Perhaps It simply chose not to engage Its victims directly before now, but it's pretty clear that the Black King has reserves we don't know about yet.

...It's this fact that makes me thing it's probably a good idea that the general populace doesn't yet know about all this. The fact that, up until now, It's been lazy about hunting us. If we really brought out the big guns to kill this thing, it's really a toss-up as to who would come out on top, and there's no telling what kind of collateral damage would result...


...Yeah, my thoughts meandered there towards the end, sorry 'bout that. Once again, it is obcenely late, although I started this post yesterday afternoon. I've had kind of a busy weekend, and I'm exhausted in more ways than one.

Presentation and midterms are all through next week, in case anybody was wondering. The subject matter has the potential to be fascinating, but I've just decided that I hate this class. In fact, the fact that I'm procrastinating on its work in favor of some potentially life-threatening blogging is an indication of just how much I loathe it.

It's an Urban Studies class that posed as a Psychology class. I hate Urban Studies, but I'm stuck with it now. Ah well...




One last thing...

I never had the chance to get to know Jeff. In fact, I had literally just finished catching up with his blog when Run... was posted. From what I gather, he's a stubborn son of a bitch with more good intentions than any twelve people, and enough optomism and good sense to actually turn those good intentions into actions. A hell of a guy all around, one who supports everyone and whom everyone supports.

After the initial shock/anger on my part, my common sense kicked in. We have no confirmation as to what actually happened, whether or not he actually escaped, or what happened to Cheska, or anything. Until we do... well, there's no sense in anything until we do. Simple as that. Jeff's been back from the brink before, and I hope to god he's not run out of miracles just yet.


And, in other news, Tensor and Morningstar are trolling the forums as usual. However, given some of Tensor's actions, s/he may eventually prove to be more of a wild card than previously suspected. Watch yourselves, guys. Don't let them get to you, but don't dismiss them either. We learned our lesson with Redlight.

I almost called one of them out today, but I had to remember that there's no such thing as anonymity anymore, not with these people. I wanted to say something; I very nearly did say something - there was just one thing that I desperately wanted to shove in Tensor's face. But I didn't. I kept my cool and walked away. Jury's still out on whether that was the smart decision or the cowardly one, but for the sake of my own conscience, I'll go with smart for now.

Will, Tom... I don't know either of you all that well either, but I hope you're alright. Just... you guys aren't alone, okay? Trust me when I say that much.


Be safe, guys. Stay hidden. Stay alive.