He's not a physical monster, oh no, that's too simple. He's much more subtle.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! COME ONE, COME ALL AND SEE THE AMAZING SLENDER MAN PERFORM HIS MOST AMAZING TRICK, "THE DISILLUSIONED MAN"!
Like all great tricks, it is composed of three parts; the pledge, the turn and the prestige!
The Pledge; the Slender Man presents, for your consideration, a perfectly ordinary human being! Feel free to inspect our lovely volunteer, ladies and gentlemen, I can assure you, he is quite human!
The Turn; the Slender Man, will perform an amazing transformative trick, using techniques familiar to certain citizens of the Orient and various holy men of the Himalayas. Indeed, many of you may be familiar with this technique, but for those of you who are not, do not be alarmed. What you're about to see is considered safe.
SMASH
CRACK
SPLIT
FREAKY MUMBO JUMBO
Ladies and gentlemen, the Slender Man has transformed this ordinary human into a Revenant! *pause for applause*
But it's not over yet, ladies and gentlemen!
The Prestige; the Slender Man turns his erstwhile servant back into a human! Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen, oh yes, he is that good! Take a bow, Slender Man, take a bow!
(Meanwhile, backstage, the true secret is revealed. There are no Revenants and there never were. Slender Man is a monster of the mind, not of the flesh. We were never transformed. He just made everyone think we were. I can see the scars now. I can see them all over. There was no superhumanity, no transformation. Another day, another lie, another day, another lie, another day, another goddamn motherfucking lielielielielielielielielielielielielielielielielielielelielielielielie
He got inside our heads he got inside all our heads and he told our heads to tell each other's heads that we were magic and powerful and gods and heroes and fuck fuck fuck there are no Revenants there are no Conduits it was all a lielielielielielielielielielielielielielielielielielielelielielielielie just another way to distract us to keep us in line we spend so much time fighting shadows we don't spend any time fighting the shadow of our entire reality that lies in our own hearts and the heart of every man and woman and child.
Pawns, pawns, we are all pawns, pawns, we are all pawns, pawns, we are all pawns, pawns, we are all pawns, pawns, we are all pawns, pawns, we are all pawns.)
Uh-huh. The Black King finally got to you, huh? The Revenants are real. Many of us have seen them. Now snap out of it, Ava needs you.
ReplyDeleteWhat on earth? Snap out of it, Reach!
ReplyDeleteSnap out of it.
ReplyDeleteWhat about the past 40 years of your life? Did you imagine them? Or when you look in the mirror, do you see an old man?
Read, you fuckers, read. There are no superpowers, I don't know how we were ever so fucking stupid. Occam's Razor, bitches, Occam's Razor. Which is more likely? That there are people with MAGIC AND SUPERPOWERS or that a being who tampers with memories, perception and sanity tampered with our memories, perception and sanity?
ReplyDeleteShit... Reach...
ReplyDeleteThis is all my fault. I'm so sorry, Reach. Please. Don't you leave me too...
Don't apologise. You have nothing to be sorry for. You showed me the truth. I'm not going anywhere.
ReplyDeleteIt's coming back to me. The truth is coming back.
Dammit Reach, WAKE THE FUCK UP!
ReplyDeleteYou are BETTER THAN THIS, do you understand me? You're better than HIM!
I know it seems easier right now, but you CANNOT slip into this lie that you mind has created. You are feeling guilt and blame, and your mind is trying to move it around. But you can't give in. Dammit Reach, you're the tower of strength at the center of us all. If you start crumbling, the white side will be even more disorganized and decentralized than it already is.
Forty years, Reach. FORTY. FUCKING. YEARS.
Arianna. Catherine. Thage.
Amelia. Robert. Zero. Zeke. Will. Tony. Jean. Scott.
Ava.
Everything you've fought for, everything you've fallen for, and everything you've gotten back up for. Don't you DARE tell me you imagined all of that.
You can beat this, Reach.
Try telling that to Moriarty, Reach. Try telling that to me; there's no way he's strong enough on his own to do the things that he has done to me. Occam's Razor? You mean that Occam's Razor?
ReplyDeleteExplain Eulogy. Explain Jeff. Explain Aria. Two-Face Explain all of the other Revenants you've encountered. I'm sorry, but you can't just dismiss all of that evidence, just because some quack from the 40's (who, incidentally, like all other psychologists from the 40's, thought, "This woman is depressed so we will shoot her full of drugs!") said so?
@Hakurei: Oh, calm down, I'm not going crazy. Ariana, Catherine and Thage are all real. So are Amelia, Robert, Zero, Zeke, Will, Tony, Jean and Scott. And Ava is obviously real since I'm stroking her hair right now.
ReplyDeleteI'm not trying to escape guilt or blame. I've still done terrible things. I've still cost people their lives. The only difference between the lie and the truth is that some roles got rewritten and the main character isn't fucking crazy anymore.
Don't tell me to beat the delusion, Hakurei, I already have.
It's back. My memory, my real life, is back. And it makes sense.
@Scott: Well. This is interesting, isn't it... it would all make sense, at least for me."
Well, isn't someone changing their tune?
It is really, truly amazing that you guys took me at my word when I said that there such things as hypersensitive superhumanoids but call me crazy when I say there's no such thing. It is truly a testament to just how bad Slender Man got us.
You were willing to take me at my word when I saids the Revenants existed, now take my noticeably less insane word when I say this; the truth makes sense. If you guys could take a chill pill and stop freaking out, I'd like to answer a question that I asked myself a long time ago but never got a satisfactory answer to.
Or else, Reach is right.
ReplyDeleteIt would make sense.
What better way to keep us busy?
He creates a set of rules we are more comfortable with. He exists outside of those rules.
The powers? He makes us think that is what's happening. Maybe it even is what is happening in reality. But it isnt us.
However, this begs the question: Why WERE you hunting Conduits, if they weren't real?
Perhaps Revenants aren't real, but Conduits are. Or at least a version of Conduit.
Read Jean's post. That textbook had people on both "sides" deluded into thinking they had superpowers. Conduits and Revenants are all people that Slender Man went after by infecting them with the idea that they had superpowers. Half of the infected "sided" against Slender Man and half for, so he decided to use the half on his side to kill the other half.
ReplyDeleteNet benefit; a lot of dead humans who were inclined to oppose him and a lot of insane humans inclined to aid him.
But, then...
ReplyDeleteHow are you alive?
The truth is coming, Slice. Just be patient with me a little longer.
ReplyDeleteBefore I swallow that I killed..that my love...
ReplyDeletebefore I swallow some recent events, I need to understand how you, a more objective example, exist.
This is a lot to grasp, I'm sure you know.
@ Reach And then I remembered the bastard broke my wrist. Moriarty/Greene was never particularly strong to begin with, at least when I first encountered him. There is simply no way that Moriarty could have gotten strong enough to do the things that he could have done. Trust me, I've seen him do inhuman things...
ReplyDeleteAlso, you talk a lot about the "memories coming back," Did it ever occur to you that Slender Man could be screwing with your mind, so that your resolve would break down, causing Him to get Ava easier? Because trust me, you are the only one standing in His way. Now, snap the fuck out of it, because if you don't, He'll come to get her.
One last thing. You've just recently become human again; you're still dealing with human emotions. Don't you think that could hold some sway over what you're thinking right now? Trust me, the fight you had with Specter in Observe and Terminate is proof of that.
Like Scott said, I'm not exactly inclined to believe the word of a textbook from forty fucking years ago. Science has come such a long way since then, and so has our ability to understand the supposedly impossible. "Mass hallucination" was a catch-call term for something no one could put a concrete answer to. It doesn't mean it didn't exist, it just meant that no one could explain it, and therefore everyone refused to acknowledge it. Humans are rather stupid that way.
ReplyDeleteYou wanna know why we all believed you when you explained about Conduits and Revenants?
Because, after being stalked and chased and hunted down by some humanoid abomination from another universe with no face, tentacles, and fucking mind powers, the idea of superpowered humans wasn't really much of a stretch. In fact, it was kind of a step back in terms of incredulity. We believed you because it made sense.
More sense than some quack from the sixties calling himself a doctor, anyway.
you are right reach
ReplyDeletethere was much
that was not real
that we have both seen
that said
there are still
great mysteries around us
reach
reach
i know this sounds
strange but
i am so happy for you
Scott, I told you to stop freaking out. My resolving is not breaking down, I am now even more determined to fight Slender Man. Why wouldn't I want to fight back against a monster that fucked up my head and fucked up my life? Seriously, calm the flying fuck down and let me tell you who I am. Because I know who I am, you don't.
ReplyDeleteI didn't recently become human again, I was recently lead to believe that I became human again but it is a thousand million times more likely that I was always human and crazy for a while than I was ever a Revenant.
And you think you saw him do inhuman things, but that's the nature of the delusion, Scott. Now, calm your fucking jets and give me time to explain. I have a fucking life story to type up.
Hakurei, you're not listening. The old psychologist book isn't the proof, it was the trigger that helped me remember the truth. The truth makes sense and even now as I look back over my posts, I can see the truth bleeding through.
March 13th, the day I supposedly proposed to Ariana? No, the day I met Ariana.
Okay, okay, fine. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you HAVEN'T cracked. What about Thage, then? You went after her, like 20 years ago? 25? And she confirmed your story. How do you explain that? I already said I don't buy the idea of a mass hallucination, I never have.
ReplyDeleteAlso, on an incredibly unimportant note, what the heck are we supposed to call you now? Are you Raymond again? Was Reach ever real? Is your birthday back to June instead of September?
I wanna have faith in your sanity, man, and you seem okay now, but... this is a hell of a lot to take in.
Also, your refutation of Scott's "you're only recently human again so you might be confused" argument is a bit circular. Just sayin'.
ReplyDeleteHe has many tricks. Oh so many tricks up his sleeves. He is a creature of the mind. He gets in there, like a bug, or worm, and he whispers...oh dear good he whispers. I know what you say is true Reach. I have survived it. I know it to be true...
ReplyDeleteThough perhaps, we're all just madmen in the end...
Look at you all, like cattle in a slaughter house. Screaming at what's in front of you. What happened to working together? Perhaps the end will come before you know it, as you all die scared and alone.
ReplyDelete@John Connors
I would hardly trust your words, child. You are broken, and a lost cause.
-The Liesmith
Reach might actually be right. I want to hear his explanation before I make any judgement calls.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Will. We can't make any decisions before we hear all the facts.
ReplyDeleteSo... You're an old man, Reach?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHakurei: That's simple. I lied. I went along with it because I had no idea what the truth would have done to him.
ReplyDeleteReach, there is one thing that still needs to be explained. You still look the same age you were when you became a "revenant." How is that possible?
ReplyDeleteLucien
Holy fucking shit.
ReplyDelete