4.28.2012

Some creepy-ass guy is smelling a chick's hand.  ...and now they're kissing.  This is the last time I jump into an episode of Criminal Minds partway through.  Oh, look at that!  They're in a van.  Surprise!  Agent ambush!  Cue the 'gun to the chick's head' stand-off.

...sorry.  I'm easily distracted, as you may have already notic-whoa.  Assassin's Creed-style takedown, minus the hidden blade.  I gotta watch this show more often.  But not while I'm trying to make a blog post.  Especially one that I've been spending so much time thinking about.

The Fears.  So-called 'gods' that embody a specific kind of fear.  The Slender Man.  The Plague Doctor.  The Wooden Girl.  The Rake.  There are more, of course, but you get the picture:  We're fucked.  With a garden tool.  Sideways.  But I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, even before coming into contact with the Blank himself.  Bear with me as I continue to think out loud (though, not really out loud, as this is a text-based medium).

When I started the first (fake) blog, I had already decided that the Slender Man was going to get involved and fuck things up for the main character, Nobody.  As I continued to familiarize myself with the other blogs, however, in order to avoid some of the more notorious 'cliches' (keep in mind, I was thinking as a writer among other writers at the time, not as a [hopeful] survivor among other survivor) that reared their ugly heads at least once per blog, I became aware of the other Fears.  This post was my first knowing (wasn't aware the Rake was a Fear; just thought it was a creepypasta the Hybrids 'threw in' for the hell of it) exposure to something other than the Slender Man that seemed to run in his 'pantheon' (and sorry for referencing you again, Gargoyle; I'll stop after this, I swear).  Shortly thereafter, this post pointed me towards another Fear:  The Convocation (unless I was horribly misreading).

Now, from the perspective of a writer, I was pissed off.  'We' (again, thinking we were all just a big group of fiction writers (and, as an aside, being as pompous as to assume I was part of the group just by starting a blog)) already had one big Eldritch Abomination that was raping our lives.  Why the hell did we need more of them?  From a storytelling perspective, it just didn't make sense.

One apocalyptic monster is essentially perfect:  you know you're going to get your ass handed to you, but there's always that lingering hope that maybe, just maybe, someone will come along and shove the Big Bad's head straight up his ass and save the day.  That hope is what makes the story so much more tragic:  every time that hope is stomped down, it's like pouring rubbing alcohol in an open wound.  Makes for a very successful story.

A whole damn pantheon of them, however?  There is no hope.  That little space of mind reserved for hope in situation A is now occupied by your worry of how you'll kill yourself with some measure of peace and dignity before they kill you.  Face it:  you're better off dead (even if that just sticks you in the Archangel anyways) than you are trying to scrape out a meaningful life while there's a sick, twisted family of 'deities' fucking the hell out of the world for shits and giggles.

Before you get after me for saying this, that's not how I actually feel.  I don't intend to jump off a chair with a cord around my neck (more spare cords and cables around here than rope, and I have no idea what the hell half of them are for), and I don't want anyone else to do the same.  The above is from my perspective as a writer.  I'm probably showing my lack of experience or creativity here, but there's really nowhere to go with the above situation.  You basically have to give your protagonist (or protagonists) the ability to kill 'gods.'  It's been done, yes, but the way some people talk about these Fears, they're above 'god-level'.  They're not just 'over nine-thousaaaaaaaaaaaand,' they eat 'over nine-thousaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand' for breakfast.

Now, being a little bit wiser, I realize that these things just might be real.  I know exactly how foolish this makes me, but in this matter, when we're talking about uber-powerful beings of unknown origin, I'll believe in what I've encountered.  So far, that's limited to the Slender Man.  Never met the Choir, never seen the Convocation tearing shit up, never heard the Plague Doctor tapping his cane on the sidewalk.

And honestly, we could all just be bat-shit insane.  Just about everyone who begins to have Slender Man related breakdowns and sanity slippage was introduced to it by someone else.  On top of that, not everyone exposed to the Slender Man blogs or vlogs is targeted.  I know for a fact that there are at least ten people in my school who have read some blogs and watched the entire MarbleHornets (and continue to watch each new Entry), and I'm the only one who has become a target.  These guys aren't the most secretive people; if they were being hunted by him, I would know (I'm quite observant).

Is it really that dumb to suggest that maybe the Fears (the Slender Man included) could be nothing more than mass hallucinations?  Delusions and ghosts created in the minds of viewers and readers who are already somehow susceptible to that kind of thing?  Maybe there's just something about the Slender Man story, perhaps the fact that he thrives on our fear and paranoia of him, that sets off some mental trigger that causes us to believe we're truly being chased by a paranormal near-deity?

...bah.  Feel free to disregard all of the above.  I'm taking a psychology class, but I still have no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to the mind.  Most of that up there was probably nonsensical bullshit, and I'm sure there are holes in that logic large enough to fit a Reaper through.  Go ahead and point them all out; I can hardly get defend my words when they make no sense, can I?  I'm not saying those of you who have had encounters with the Fears are liars.  I'm saying that I'm not ready to believe that things get worse than Slendy.  Again, foolish, but I'm content being a fool.  Ignorance is bliss, you know.

One final point for consideration before I [finally] go to bed:  our universe is built on duality.  For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  There are heroes to fight every villain, and monsters to challenge every paragon of virtue.  So where are the Fear's counterparts, their 'opposing force'?  I don't care what anyone else thinks:  I believe they exist...somewhere.  I don't think the God I pray to every evening is one of them.  That would be stating that the Fears are gods, and I do not believe they are.  I believe they are powerful beyond human comprehension, but that doesn't make them gods.

That makes them really fucking scary.

10 comments:

  1. If we had the power to imagine them into existence, we have the power to kill them. Or, at least, tick them off a fair bit.

    - DJ

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    1. That's all fine and dandy with the Tulpa theory, but I'm not entirely sure that we did imagine these things into existence. I have my own theories as to what the Slender Man is (and, by association, the Fears), but that's another topic entirely.

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  2. Fucked sideways with a garden tool, hahaha-- wait, sorry. I shouldn't have found that funny. o.o Keep up the deep thoughts, Moral.

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    1. I'd rather not keep up on the deep thoughts; that would mean I'm not sleeping at all. I think this was posted at almost 1:30AM, not 11:30 like blogger says (I must need to edit the time zone or something).

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    2. Really? I enjoyed your insight....also, pffft, 1:30. I've posted at every hour of the day, Moral. XD The wee hours of the morning don't phaze me!

      Sleep is overrated, you can always catch up on it later. Your brain isn't always working in top form.

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    3. Oh, don't get me wrong; 1:30 is nothing to me. Or it wouldn't be, but I've been fighting off a bit of a cold. Again. -.-; I blame my boss for coming in sick for the past three weeks.

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  3. At least you're willing to consider the truth. That puts you slightly above most of the others in the sanity department, I figure.

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    1. And yet, two steps behind the rest as far as actually running goes. =P

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    2. The only way that's a bad thing is because you put Runner in your blog title for some reason.

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    3. Well, I'd intended to go on the run, but realized I couldn't. There are still some loose ends I have to tie up here before I leave.

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