Slendermen
| The Slendermen | |
|---|---|
 Portrayed by n/a | |
| Known Aliases: | n/a |
| Affiliations: | Individual |
| Socked By: | Frito and Sam |
| Introduction: | Something Slender (and Awful) |
Believed to be simply an internet meme, the Slendermen are, in fact, very real emotional predators who hunt the young and vulnerable.
Contents
First Appearance
Roster
| Didong | A cowardly and irritating Slenderman who rang Clint's doorbell repeatedly.
|
| Fingers | Has normal arms, but very long, multiple fingers. Terrorized Hope, Topaz and Tandy in the teahouse.
|
| Curly | Has long tentacle limbs and wears a hat. Spotted by Matt and Sue in a diner.
|
| Grabby | Has extra long double elbowed arms. Chased Molly and Renee.
|
| Lickyimps | Can split into multiple smaller forms with long tongues. Attacked Tandy in the Askew World.
|
Details
Everyone knows that the Slender Men are an internet meme created by Something Awful. This is popular cultural knowledge. They’re just the latest incarnation of the boogeyman, the fictional monster that lives under the bed.
Except the Slender Men ARE real. And the reason they have power and are free to move around is precisely because anyone and everyone knows they’re a made-up internet thing. Other than people who have had repeated exposure to magic and have left this dimension, people who have not been exposed to the Slender Men do not believe in them. They know of the meme, and automatically assume that any reports of them are pranks, and any photographs or video are fabricated. The ‘do not believe’ influence can be affected and neutralized by telepathy, but it requires a skilled telepath with a very subtle touch.
Whatever entities the Slender Men really are is unknown - they do not register as either demonic/magical or astral, but a strange mix of both. It is likely that they existed in another form (boogeyman, etc.) before the Slender Man mythos became popular, but given their nature it is almost impossible to confirm.
The Slender Men feed on strong belief and emotion, draining the target until he or she becomes a Slender Man (the Slender Men are genderless and sexless, despite the name). They are not picky about who they attack, just so long as they have emotions that can be fed on - the more intense the better. They hunt by pulling their targets into an ‘Askew World’ which is like Silent Hill - everything seems vaguely off, oddly colored, with weird sounds and flickering images that you can almost see something in before they disappear. The laws of physics are mutable, and there is a pervasive underlying sense of hopelessness and despair to everything. Basically the Askew World is a nightmarish version of the real world - a dark ‘bubble’ on the astral plane rather than a separate dimension.
Their numbers are unknown but likely to be small. Reports of confirmed attacks number less than 50 in the past few years. This may be artificially low, however, since survivors are typically not believed, and non-survivors become Slender Men themselves (and wind up on missing persons lists but are never found). All survivors are people who somehow got away before being trapped in the Askew World and universally have strong emotional disturbances afterward - (pick any assortment of mental health issues).
They typically travel solo or in pairs - the pack that attacked the New Mutants was unusually large, attracted by the combination of strong emotions and two magically active teenagers, one of whom is also an empath. They look like very tall, thin, featureless humans in black suits with white shirts. They are always not quite human in some way - but there is some variance - some simply appear to be very tall (7+ feet), some appear to have black smooth tentacles in place of arms, some have tentacle arms with multiple ‘fingers’.
The Slender Men do not speak, do not seem to react to sound or writing, and do not react to bright flashes of light. They do make noise when they move, but are quiet enough that they can only be perceived by enhanced senses. They do have a faint smell - old stale flowers and wet laundry, and do not register telepathically as a person, as they are essentially large humanoid predators. Empathically they register on a very primal level - hunger, fear, pain, etc.
They cannot cross magical wards, and can be warded off, but because of their nature, personal warding is temporary - tattoos or scarification will provide temporary relief, but will only last a short amount of time.
Slender Men are difficult to damage, but they can be destroyed by a combination of astral/psionic energy and physical/magical damage. Both components are required to succeed - simply attacking with one or the other has a negligible effect. When killed, they turn into wet runny black/white/grey goo with bloody chunks.
In February 2016, when Generation X attempted to rescue a number of kidnapped children, they discovered the Slenderchildren, creepy black eyed kids who appeared to be followers of the Slendermen, transformed by the influence of the Askew World into miniature versions of them.
Plots
Something Slender This Way Comes
Meta
The Slender Men are, of course, based on this internet meme.
