It is also fascinating to note that since the Something Awful forum posts, Slenderman went from simply being something that appeared to children and then disappeared with them to something that caused noticable symptoms, "haunted" adults, interference with electrical devices and photographs, and of course the seemingly beloved proxies.
In a moment of sarcastic wit I thought, "of course, that's just because children don't have video cameras so they're not represented properly" but really they are anecdotally and via pictures drawn or things written by them. Just different forms of media.
But here so far are the primary symptoms based on the written blogs and video blogs seen.
~loss of sleep
~nightmares
~bloody noses or coughing/vomitting blood (the vomitting sets in apparently as more exposure occurs)
~lost time/time jumps
~As an addition to lost time, also forgetting things that happened to you
~paranoia
~getting "the journals", where you begin to draw pictures or write down words. This devolves in to babble as exposure progresses.
~seeking solitude, although that's not really a symptom so much as a desire not to pass the infection to loved ones.
~filming yourself constantly to keep track of what is going on
Now, because I've been at this a while and that tends to breed sarcasm as a form of keeping it interesting for myself, I came up with a secondary list of stuff mostly based on the video blogs.
~the wearing of Chuckies or converse sneakers
~the presence of The House of Leaves somewhere in the series
~the presence of people from other series in your series -aka "the crossover"
~shaky cam
~being photobombed by Slenderman
~having a wooden artist's model in the background somewhere
~posting cryptic messages to twitter
~being forum jacked/twitter jacked/youtube jacked
~a push to return to normal followed by Everything Getting So Much Worse
~Slendy up close in your house (this is bad)
~being harassed by proxies and aides who use l33t5p34k to talk
~following on that, puzzles and codes replacing what might otherwise be straightforward discourse.
~decline of photographic skills
~Overuse of the f-bomb and swearing in general to describe a situation/loss of ability to form sentences (looking at you, Tribe Twelve)
~the overwhelming urge to walk in to a forest by yourself near sunset when you KNOW THAT THING IS OUT THERE.
~Somebody named Alex or Jessica/Jess/Jessie. (Ahem... *whistles innocently*) There is always an Alex.
I have only actually seen Slenderman touch an individual in one vlog, and that was MLAnderson0. So perhaps I should do a secondary list of behaviors that the group has decided on for
I have amused myself enough. Time to go gather some more seriously boring data.
Last Sunday my mind treated me to one of those "to real" dreams, one of those ones where, even though the details aren't right, they are close enough so you don't know you're in a nightmare. In the dream I had woken up and was living life like it was a normal day, showered and dressed, go down the hall to the living room and all the furniture was rearranged. I returned to the bedroom, fully pissed off, to get my camera and show the fiance what someone took the time to break in and do. I heard footsteps come down the hall from the living room to the bedroom while I was grabbing it. My dream-self figured downstairs neighbors were responsible for the sound with the no physical presence, not so hot rational in a conscience mind. Camera on, returning down the hall, the minimal furniture in the spare bedroom has now also rearranged, skin starting to crawl I make it to the living room, and find all the furniture another new configuration. A look at the front door, it's locked, and the realization that I am not alone was finally enough for my conscience mind to see it was a nightmare and pull me from it, violently. I woke up thrashing and shaking my head in a clear, "NO, NO, NO," motion. I am still afraid of my own living room.
ReplyDeleteThat's a fairly messed up nightmare, my friend. I know what you mean, though. Ever since some neighborhood kids got in downstairs I've been nervous to go in the basement. I'm always worried I'm going to walk in on somebody screwing around and it might get ugly.
ReplyDelete