unforum

[NoMoreGaems]

Want:

Don't be afraid to open up to new facets of the mythos. The whole Ark angle comes solely from Marble Hornets, as does the Operator Symbol. There's no reason you can't add something new, rather than rehash it like some other series do.

Don't be afraid to seriously experiment either. There's a plot I've been wanting to try where the Slenderman isn't a supernatural being like he is in most series, but a paranormal one. Something alien and unexpected, but still a logical and physical creature. Perhaps the suit is a camouflage or something. If you've seen Mimic, sorta like that. Would be a new take on his multi-armed nature, at least.

Another thing I'd like to see is more action from Slenderman. In the course of Marble Hornets, EverymanHYBRID, and TribeTwelve combined, what has he actually done on camera? He's walked around a few times, and possibly cut Alex Kralie's forehead. He dragged his girlfriend upstairs, which was dramatic. He did do some neat stuff early in EverymanHYBRID, with the head twitching in Healthy Eating, but after that he didn't really show up much and when he did he was mostly either in the background harmlessly or vanished and left strange evidence, in Joke's Over. As for TribeTwelve, he never really did anything. We see Milo running from him, but we don't see him chasing. We only see him move a few times (and it is quite nice).
Just once, I'd like to see Slenderman actually do something to someone. Even if it's just grab them and drag them into darkness, anything to show that he's not just creepy and possibly mind-distorting, he can actually fuck your shit up.

Let's be honest, the characters standing around saying "We should do something " is not what we subscribed to see, we subscribed so we could pick through the videos and try to spot Slenderman in the background. So, the number one rule of a Slenderman series is, unless you're a damn genius when it comes to pacing and building tension, you need to have Slenderman in your videos. Preferably early.

Do Not Want:

On the other hand, you don't want to screw things up and go the other direction. As the MH guys pointed out, at times it's hard to believe Jay doesn't comment more on the fact there's clearly a tall faceless guy in the background of his videos. And, for that matter, it seems like he'd always say "ToTheArk uploaded a new video", link it, and then not watch it. Don't make your characters needlessly blind. If Slenderman shows up, either have him in the background so they might logically not notice him or else have him be front and center and have them realistically react to this.

Don't have a ToTheArk. We've seen it five hundred times now.

Don't set your story in a universe where Marble Hornets, EverymanHYBRID, and all these other stories exist. At most, set it in a Universe where MAYBE the original SA thread exists. I don't know about others, but overly genre-savvy characters always come off as annoying to me when poorly done, and most people can't do them any other way. An entire series steeped in it gets old fast, because either the characters are too obsessed with "the rules" or "the origin", or because they're introduced as being totally knowledgeable about this thing at the start and then totally lose this knowledge once the shit hits the fan (see: EverymanHYBRID).

Don't film everything in order a day before you upload it, because it slows production down to a crawl and results in a schedule where the early days of the series are crowded with new entries, but by the end of the series entries are months apart.

And don't, don't ever, don't imagine, don't envision, don't joke or hint or even conceptualize a Ted the Caver ending to your series. It's not clever. It's not scary. It's not entertaining or provocative or subversive. It causes buzz but only the kind of buzz where your audience is saying "Wow, that really seemed like it was finally going somewhere interesting. I wish it had instead of ending." Just don't do it.

And the number one thing you have to remember never to do is

[Aperion]

[Das Omega]

[Aperion]

yeah that's what I figured would happen but still it would be kinda nice to see have slender man communicate in some way but I can't think of how that could work with it being completely stupid.

[AxMxK]

I kind of want to see a story done from a different point of view, sort of.

So far, pretty much every story has been from someone who's starting to be stalked by Slender Man. Then it get's progressively worse and more convoluted and confusing.

Maybe from someone who is friends with someone is being stalked by Slender Man, like a third person perspective but that seems silly.

I kind of like the idea of the cop investigating victims of Slender Man, i.e. Seeking Truth, it's a fresh approach.

While the idea behind Michiru vs. Chase is a fresh perspective, I think it suffers from slightly poor execution. The "l33t" speak Michiru uses and how much she's in your face about it kind of repels me.

The idea that there are/is individual(s) who embrace Slender Man rather than fear him intrigues me but it's hard to really pull it off without sounding like a "I'm Slender's friend, you're all going to die" sort of person.

totheark seemed to be an example of this. Sort of. I don't know. It was hard to really tell what his deal was, wasn't it?

Guess we'll just have to wait for Marble Hornets 2: The Buzzing.

[Unwanted4Murder]

[ravanjedi]

[Axcelissearching]

My thoughts on tentacles in videos:

Don't:

Show them every single time slenderman is seen.

Do:

Rarely include them or make them hard to see. (like in "Jokes Over").

Yeah, I know he's not supposed to look human-ish, but no face and long limbs seems pretty un-human already.

[JudyGoldman]

I would like to second what someone said previously about having more female protagonists. Marble Hornets has two women so far, but neither of them have had more than a few minutes of screen time. EMH did better with their female cast, but both of them are still just side characters compared to the three main guys. I would like to see more stories with a female lead. Girl power, ftw!

Do Not Want:
-An over abundance of audio distortion. A little here and there is good for creating a sense of something being wrong, but too much and it just become annoying. MH really pushed my patience with the distortion sometimes.

[Mira]

Do want: A Slenderman musical

[Mattwan]

[Mira]

[JudyGoldman]

[Aperion]

Gilbert and Sulivan's Slenderman?

[grieck]