In my AU world, he’s actually a very rare sight. He mostly only communicates with his proxies (Masky, Hoodie, Toby) and no one else. He commands them and they delegate his business in the world while he watches. Closely.
Also, as you guys might have noticed in previous posts; monsters, non-humans and humans live openly together in my AU, though humans are overwhelmingly oppressed and often cannot survive on their own in this world. They are treated like livestock, slaves, commodities and food by more powerful beings. Therefore, they are forced to seek protection by working for monsters and their organizations, to be kept safe(mostly). Humans can also live in closed communities in poorer and lifeless areas of the world to protect themselves, but these communities are rare and small, and often terrorized by monsters.
Let me know if you guys wanna know more about my world building! Gonna post some more of that stuff in the future :)
I've been wanting to redesign and remade the SlenderMan for a while now...
My train of though about it (I say IT because it's not a person, it's not really a being in any way we could understand) would be to make it more akin to a sort of ThoughForm or a memetic virus.
The SlenderMan Isn't Real
What is it then? Like I said, it's a Memetic virus, something which can only "exist" within our mind and collective consciousness.
The SlenderMan isn't real
But something is real... when people go in the forest sometime they feel something...
watching them...
Even when they come back it's still there...
Always watching...
sometime they film or take pictures while in the forest, and when they look at the footage it's all scrambled, distorted. But they could swear that they can see it... There's something there, a colossal shape within the trees... They talk to it to others, show the tapes but they can't see it... They're definitely something wrong with the tape, but they can't put their finger on it...
Was bored and wanted to draw some Slenderman, but got carried away and wanted to make a headcanon on how his tentacles work.
The sketch idea: I wanted to know have an idea on how he's able to bring his tentacles out while wearing his suit, but I doubt he's have holes cut out. Solution? His tentacles are a mix between a liquid and a solid.
A difference between the two in the sketch.
Right side (poorly drawn tbh): a liquid, tar like substance that's able to cleanly seep through his suit. This can eventually harden and solidify into a more malleable substance closer to silicone. But this isn't as hard as he can make them.
Normally, the "liquidy formation" bit is more of a first phase before becoming the solidified, flexible texture. Like I said, his tentacles don't just burst and tear through his suit. To grow his tentacles, they have to seep through the fabric before forming and coming together to finally solidify. Once these tentacles do become the rubbery/silicone texture, they're usually used for restraining, defense, or grabbing in general. But they are good for intimidation as well.
Left side: a far tougher, rock or hardened clay like material. This, Slender rarely uses. But he has learned over his several centuries of existence where he can make his tentacles just the right amount of "slime" to where he can create branches from the thicker protrusion.
I imagine this is something he rarely uses. This, he can immediately harden and create an instantly hardened texture that even resembles branches of a tree. Other than to blend in with the surroundings of his forest while stalking any victims, making them go crazy and lose their minds from a distance before eventually killing said victim.
Time to speak about what being a proxy does to you, because inhuman entities are incompatible with anatomy and nature's design.
Slenderman “Sickness”
Becoming a proxy is not merely a matter of making a “contract” with Slenderman (or another entity which uses this type of system), it's an actual instance of parasitism, specifically vector-parasitism in the case of The Tall Man. The entity spreads his influence through memes, any kind of video recording, drawing, picture and even tales about him make it able to creep into someone's life.
Now, to be more precise, Slenderman directly affects the brain once its information is processed by the consciousness, it mutates new structures into the general system of neural tissue. A proxy becomes completely dependent on the presence/influence of Slenderman to function without distress and further damage to their brains. In a way, the monster's tendrils are not the only thing constantly holding down these people. And this is what many refer to as the “Slenderman Sickness”, a paranatural acquired neurological disorder that causes someone to develop an array of patterns that are at odds with their previous lives and make them embrace antisocial behaviors.
Now, thankfully, one could technically be able to develop a treatment for it, as it is not an innate condition of the person. However, we all know how much Slenderman can infect someone's life with its presence.
Presence by proxy
Now we're gonna go into some more explicit body horror aspects that recently came to mind when thinking about Slenderman.
The entity's teleportation is mostly possible due to the fact that it is not entirely physical, it can appear around anyone (and anything) infected with its sickness. It manifests into someone's sight and conscience, so walls can't stop it.
But there's another way that Slenderman can appear and teleport around, and that is by “growing” out of a proxy's body. In a quite literal sense, Slenderman can “bloom” from one of his proxies, and he does so by taking flesh from one of his humans to grow a carcass to temporarily use. It's gruesome, it's a body too large to be natural that begins to grow inside that proxy's internal cavity, until it inevitably bursts through whatever part of them breaks first. This ability is mostly to intimidate, it has no practical use aside from giving him a temporary physical body and it absolutely carves its presence into a mind by traumatizing someone. It is also done as punishment, to show other proxies what could happen to them if they were to disobey him.
"My body it's not mine"
In a more literal sense, a proxy's body is not their own anymore, Slenderman has the potential to take over and completely rearrange it into his own visage. Bodies distorting by growing dark tendrils and breaking into tree-like shapes. A virus, an ever-growing plague that continues to expand from person to person.
Others who have taken bodies
And this is the reason why some people completely refuse to join the proxy system, such as Jeff and Clockwork. They're not immune to it. Technically, they're afflicted with the Slenderman Sickness, but there's no real way for the entity to integrate them properly. And if there's something that Slenderman dislikes, that's being wasteful.
Other creatures such as Jack and The Rake are immune/too durable to get meaningfully affected by Slenderman's influence, so he doesn't bother to pester them.
