I need you guys to understand something.
A slenderverse essay-rant on possession, entities, and the mechanics of Slenderman's game.
I don't say "proxy" in a serious context at all when I am talking about my slenderverse characters or even canon characters.
Proxies don't exist. Proxies are a Creepypasta-esc generalization of what the characters are. It's watered-down. It's a term I use simply because people can understand it and are familiar with it.
Here's the Villains Wiki definition of a proxy:
A Proxy (or Proxies for plural) are a given term for people who are possessed or under the influence of Slender Man [...] destroying their sanity or killing them in the process.
I've completely discarded this concept. Slenderman does not possess people, it creates networks. It enslaves entities to do its bidding, who then impose their unknowably complex and mind-shattering presence upon their victims. It's an invisible war not native to mortal beings in the slightest. It's outside of time and space completely.
Think about it; the inexplicably inhuman nature of HABIT. The Collective entities emit so much radiation that cameras/electronics physically break down the longer they're pointed at one; same with Slenderman itself. A literal Geiger counter was used as a Slenderman detector; anything it touches emits a terrible mind-bending cosmic sickness capable of destroying physical objects, not just people. It's like touching acid. It melts your brain out of your ears and disrupts electromagnetic, electrostatic and electrical waves. It can bend reality itself. It can teleport.
"Masky" and "Hoodie" don't seem to know how to communicate at all in a human-like manner and they completely disregard the identities of Tim and Brian. It's because they never were Tim and Brian. They weren't even people at all. They were things from a place outside of reality. Hoodie's crude mimicry of human communication is a huge red herring and they are both mute entirely in person.
Slenderman's victims are always nutjobs. They're already crazy, the pressure that Slenderman brings down on these select people makes them crack easily. Alex. Evan. Noah. It chooses emotionally and mentally unstable people for a reason; they're easy to terrorize and manipulate. The possession isn't done by Slenderman itself, but by these creatures it controls. No one is under the influence of Slenderman, it just keeps these entities under its thumb through intimidation and fear.
You heard me. These creatures are terrified of Slenderman. Even HABIT, despite its taunts. HABIT hates Slenderman and even acts to avoid it on several occasions. It refers to Slenderman as a "god," even. What devoted proxy hates its master? An angry one that is forced into servitude and acts out in retaliation, completely destroying Slenderman's plans for the EMH crew by doing incredibly outrageous things in an attempt to break out of the loop.
If I had to guess, Slenderman created EMH's iteration loop to imprison HABIT, and its spent hundreds of thousands of loops attempting to get out, which is why it has absolutely no qualms killing and maiming people. Why it seems to be completely calm and casual when reality begins to degrade. Excited, even. It went insane after being in groundhog day for an infinite amount of lifetimes. Though, this is just a theory based off of minimal context.
Hoodie speaks in code and hides in desolate places to avoid being caught aiding the Marble Hornets crew. Masky isn't "friends" with Hoodie at all, they're just both caught up in the same bullshit and Masky feeds on Tim's anger, turning violent at the drop of a dime. Hoodie uses him as a weapon and for protection.
Firebrand broke away from the cult and was met with the wrath of its superiors. The Collective is made of those who are either too scared to leave or genuinely subservient/obedient to Slenderman. Noah felt the influence of the Collective's presence, bringing out his worst in the extreme. The radiation made his psyche crack.
You think Slenderman has a little mansion out in the woods for these guys? They're forced into poverty. They can't keep homes, jobs, or basic necessities. Hoodie had an oil lantern and was camping out in a drainage tunnel. Abandoned buildings in the woods with what food and water they can lift off victims or steal. They aren't allowed to have relationships, kin, or a home.
Chances are, there are many, many more of these entities just swimming around off camera. Keeping all the tiny little pieces running in Slenderman's affairs. Human cults are regarded as insignificant and almost an affront to these creatures. Humans are food for the machine. They can never truly comprehend the end goal of Slenderman or those at its command. They're disposable pawns. HABIT killed many of them in EverymanHYBRID without much ensuing retaliation.
Linking these series together, there is a coherent and rather blatant war happening between these entities and Slenderman. They seem oppressed, sick, batshit, impoverished and angry. Those who attempt to leave are killed or basically sent to Super Hell.
It's not that they're good people. They're all absolutely horrid and malevolent entities, but they want to be able to do what they want. They don't really enjoy being enslaved.
It's not looking great out there for them.
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okay so I promised myself I would actually start using this account again after kinda forgetting about it for a couple years so I figured I would do an official introduction so here :3
and I forgot to add my name to the pic but it's gabriel!!
I like to draw as well but I haven't been able to recently because of my focus on school rn, I do plan to post some are on here eventually though!!
feel free in interact if we share any interests, esspecially if it's fnaf the musical!! also keep in mind I tend to struggle with responding to messages bc of how busy I can be and also just a lack of any real object permanence so apologies in advance for taking a long time to respond to messages/asks
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Desperately trying to make sense of Alex's motivations in Season Two and you know, I do eventually have to wonder if maybe Alex wasn't actually lying in the majority of those tapes.
Like, we tend to assume that Alex's motivations have been a consistent throughline since the college years, but do we actually know that that's the case? Do we know for sure that Alex was acting in deliberate, calculated ways in 2006; or could it be that he's telling the Truth on those olds tapes when he says he's blacking out and can't remember what's happening to anyone? After all, if we're assuming that Season 2 Alex's motivations are the exact same as his motives in Season 3, then it doesn't make any sense at all that he spend months working with Jay to try to find Amy; Season 3 Alex would have attempted to kill Jay like, on sight just to get things over with as quickly as possible and contain the spread of contamination as best as he could.
But, maybe, if Alex really had been separated from Amy after the events of the 04-04-10 tape, and if he really doesn't know where she is, then maybe that could make things start to make more sense. Maybe he really had been watching Jay's channel, and seeing Jay start going through the same things he went through in college without things devolving into violence and disappearances, and wondered if things maybe could play out differently this time. Maybe he really did send that tape to Jay to ask him for help, maybe he really was just trying to find Amy.
But then, instead of actually being helpful, Jay makes it extremely clear that he's a lot more interested in stalking Alex than he is in finding Amy. Alex asked for help, and instead there's a bunch of masked dudes on Jay's heels that keep attacking him, Jay is breaking into his house, stealing his things, leading the Operator right to him all over again, keeps trying to get other people (namely: Jessica -- if Alex is being honest when he says that his call reassuring her that Amy had been found was an effort to make Sure she stayed away from everything that was happening) involved; and instead of anything getting better, instead of anyone finding Amy, things are just getting worse all over again.
It's not until after the incident at the tunnel that things seem to start rapidly devolving. Rather than a calculated attempt to finally follow through with his need to curb the spread of contamination, this is very clearly an outburst of rage and terror. Alex's "I told you not to follow me" line in conjunction with Jay speculating that Alex didn't know who that guy was, to me, pretty firmly seems to speak to Alex having mistaken that stranger for Jay. From his point of view, Alex knows that Jay and totheark know where he live, have broken in before, he suspects that Jay stole a key to make it easier to get into his house, and he's been followed on the daily for months -- Alex is sitting at the tunnel because he doesn't know where else he can go without being constantly surveilled, hunted, and assaulted. And instead of getting a moment by himself to breathe, Jay followed him out there all over again (it feels like Alex looks directly at the camera in Jay's footage of him from this day; he knew for a fact that Jay was there), and then to make matters worse now 'Jay' won't even keep his distance anymore.
So Alex lashes out. And it's not until afterwards that he looks down and finally recognizes that this wasn't Jay -- it was someone completely innocent. Things have finally reached the low point he was at in college all over again; maybe even worse this time. If Alex doesn't remember attacking anyone in college, but he was at least partially conscious of it this time, then things have reached an entirely new rock bottom, they've reached an absolute point of no return.
He has no idea what happened to Amy, and he's spent months trying to find her with no hint of where she could be; he doesn't know where Jay actually is or what additional trouble he could be causing at this point; he does know that now innocent people are getting caught in the crossfire (in regards to the stranger in the tunnel, and also Jessica now that Jay has her phone number, and the untold number of people Jay got involved when he started posting videos to the Marble Hornets channel); things are spiraling out of control and there's no one left to ask for help. The situation isn't getting better, it's getting worse; things aren't getting easier to handle, they're just getting more out of hand; the negative impact is spreading and who knows how much further it can still go?
So, Alex decides to go scorched earth. He disfigures the body with the rock either to hide evidence or to make sure the guy would actually stay dead and not just get back up to start his own cycle of contamination in a few years. He tries to give Jay one last chance to back off, and Jay instead admits he's been talking to Jessica, acts obstinate and lies about not having Alex's spare key, and then breaks into Alex's house a second time (minimum). If Alex doesn't stop him now, who will? Alex met with Jay planning to kill the others, and then himself, so he could put a stop to this once and for all and keep things from getting any worse than they already were.
Maybe it makes a lot more sense if, rather than being a strangely incomprehensible detour on what should have been a straight path, the events of Season Two were the breaking point that put Alex on that path to begin with.
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