Okay, so when I left off, Joseph Steward may have actually been sympathetic for once. This time, on ZacksQuest reviews...
Right after that little journey into Joseph's motivations and mind, we finally meet our antagonist, The Archangel... sort of. Joseph Steward notices a strange man in a hoodie and gas mask staring out at him from the sidewalk, who Joseph assumes may be the killer. Honestly, this had the potential to be really creepy and really jar me. Maybe if the Archangel started creeping closer, or maybe if the Archangel pulled out an axe, or started bleeding out of the breathing holes, or... anything but standing there and then walking on. It feels like a wasted opportunity and... I'm really disappointed in that moment. But it still shows that the plot is thickening, and in any case, this did show that Joseph Steward can be seriously affected by shit like this. He's starting to lose sleep, and it makes sense, because he thinks he saw a killer of two, potentially more people, and it not only was coming down his street, but it stared right the fuck at him. It makes sense. It works. Then, in the next post, someone sends him a legitimate creepy proxy video. First of all, the proxy channel is pretty much the common Slender trope, right behind Slendersickness and squiggly arms. But this isn't a Slender proxy. That's right. It's from the Archangel and his cult followers, saying that they can protect him from the Slender Man. Honestly, this is really good, and Joey Steward reacts the way any former-cynic would- he gets pissed and demand the perpetrator shuts the fuck up and stops harassing him.
Okay, the next post takes place on Ash Wednesday and Joey Steward's just got his fool ass Slenderstalked. The thing is... the Slender Man doesn't do anything. After Joey went to mass, he drives by a children's playground, then notices the long, tall, and faceless gaping at him. The thing is... the Slender Man, just like Archie, doesn't really do, anything. Hell, he doesn't even eat one of the passing children for sustenance. He's just standing there... MENACINGLY... GET OUT OF THERE STEWARD-! Again, I don't dislike Eccentrically Bored, but these two initial appearances seem to be quite the wasted opportunity, and I feel like Slendy could have done something. Anything. He could have waved his tentacles around like a goofball for all I care, just not... that. Actually, I'm being too hard on it. The fact that it was meant to be a vlog initially shows. The strange locations, the operator symbols, the proxy videos... I do think that both the Archangel and Slender Man scares were meant for the low-resolution screen of YouTube, not blog format, and I honestly believe that, if both the Archie and Slender Man scares were in vlogs, they would have been legitimately creepy, or at least a little unnerving. Then, being a regular joe, he does something logical. He calls the fucking cops. However, instead of saying, "Psst... there's a guy that should be on amber alert and I may have info on the Virginia Valley Girl Bludgeoner," he was... a little less smooth about it. He told everything. Granted, the SMSC come along after the police wonder whether or not to put him in a mental ward, but they're kind of... useless this blog. His parents are finally worried about his mental health and requests he see a psychologist for his "paranoid delusions".
Actually, that's basically exactly what happened to him. He goes to a psychologist who then gives him some obviously-not-Slenderpills and then he starts becoming more and more... emotional, and the pills are suppressing his true emotions. You can see that the paranoia, the possible delusions, the loneliness, it's all getting to him, and the family now thinking of him as a freak is also pushing on him immensely. But it doens't matter. Nothing matters to him anymore. Not even Slender Man getting all Peeping Tom on Steward.
"I don't care that an empty face is in the window. I don't care about the video.
I don't care that Hes watching me. I don't care. I feel fine." ("Feeling Fine". Eccentrically Bored.)
Honestly, this moment is legitimately creepy. You know that Joey Steward's about to go off the deep end, and if he doesn't Slendy's about to do it for him. This is when you really see the magic of the Steward blogs, no matter how iffy the exposition was. Then, like any normal person, he does some research and finds out about the Slender Man, and its connection to Der Grobbman of the proxy video. What happens next? He goes stereotypically loony, that's what. For good reason. Archie's right outside his door. He's been watching Steward for fifteen minutes. Steward is teetering even further over the brink of the abyss, with only his happy pills as a life-saver for him. And the way he just casually, if not gleefully, describes the way that he thinks "Gas Mask" killed his victims. Then, finally, The World in Flames post comes around. Slender Man comes to Steward and finally does shit. Namely, it points its finger at Steward, and it booped him right in the face, Azoth dripping from his suit-flesh-thing. Then suddenly Steward's in a crumbling city under a black sky, filled with ashes and fire. Then Gas Mask comes down from the heavens like Samael himself to say, "You will rue the day, Stewardman! We will meet again, my nemesis!" Actually, he said it in a legitimitely disturbing and mostly-original way. And then he remembers passing out on his lawn. So, in the next post, Steward pretends not to even remember yesterday, probably to maintain his sanity. However, he notices being followed, but chooses to ignore it. So, then the girl shadowing him bum rushes him and tries killing him by beating him to death, but he fights her off. Then he remembers that she was one of the three victims of the Archangel. The Archangel could have either brought her corpse from the dead or used her face to disguise himself, both of which he can do fairly simply.
"I was attacked by a fucking dead girl." ("Attacked". Eccentrically Bored.)
So, in the comments section a mysterious individual named "C" says he/she is coming to help Joey. And next post shows that after a long time, Steward finally snapped... well, it's assumed he did snap, but he's mostly "calm" now. He's still a little jittery about the zombie chick who attacked him, and he tells "C" that he doesn't want "C's" help. And then he realizes for himself the fact that he realizes that the pills may not be healthy for him. Turns out, they were given to him while the psychiatrist was... Slender-hypnotized? It's not really clarified. Also, C's comments him that in a few days, he/she will be in Virginia. Honestly, I don't like it when people openly interfere in peoples' business. Joey Steward can solve his own damn problems and doesn't need anyone's help and he doesn't need a "you and me versus the Fears together" team-up. In fact, honestly kind of want him to die. With that, I finish part two. As you can see, the blog shot way uphill, and I really feel empathy for Joey Steward and what he's going through. There are a couple legit creepy moments, and while I feel that the vlog medium would have done loads more than what the blog format is doing for this, I do believe that the story is really good and worth a read. Now on to the piece de resistance, the final part of this review trilogy.
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