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[awakeasaurusrex]

[Hellothereangel]

EMH also is a bit guilty with showing Slendy and then explaining after what happened, like in his most recent appearance. The big three vblogs for the most part avoid this and have a good reason. It's kinda hard to show Slendy attacking people without big budget effects. The blogs don't have this excuse though, what with them just being words, but a lot of them have the characters freaking out over nothing and then going rambo on the minions. It's like being scared of a mouse and then taking out a tank, it makes the character look unstable or slightly psychotic, and not in the way that the writer probably intended.

It's like they're relying on Slendy's reputation from other works to make him scary and don't give a reason themselves for why he's scary. If I'm going to be scared of your Slender Man give me a reason, otherwise he's just a guy outside the window on his way to Vince's house.

I haven't seen that vlog/blog story yet. Would you say it's worth the time to look at it or is it just so-so?

[ZorakRamone]

[Feltorn]

Don't want: Old cliché's and story works rehashed. Old mysteries that still remain unsolved despite being over two years old now. Long absences of anything interesting happening, and Slendy doing nothing but chilling in the background like "oh hay guys, I'm a tall faceless dude with a snappy dress sense, aint that spooky?". Mysteries that offer absolutely no hints of clues to play with.

Do want: New ideas, new angles of telling the story. Old mysteries being solved and opening the door for new ones. a regular supply of action without going overboard. Slenderman being more than just a faceless guy in a suit. Mysteries which give out hints and clues but still remain mysterious (EG: ToTheArk.) And, as many have pointed out - referenced back to the very roots of the Slenderman mythos.

Elaborating a bit. Anyone remember the very first pictures of Slendy? I.E: these things:






These images are still pretty frightening! Why? Because they're surreal, they're uncanny – they show Slenderman not just as a tall dude in a suit, but as something inhuman, something otherworldly – something else.

Fear of the unknown is the most terrifying kind of fear, it's why ghosts and aliens and monsters are scary in the first place. If Slenderman always gets portrayed as a faceless, tall dude in a suit, watching from the background and nothing else, he loses his terror factor. I want to see less of Slenderman the tall guy watching everything on his way to a conference meeting and more of Slenderman the inhuman, multi-limbed child thief with an inclination towards distorted imagery. The more mysterious and surreal Slenderman appears – the more terrifying he is.

Low budget is no excuse – remember these videos?




Or this video clip?



No tentacles, no multi-arms, but Slendy is still surreal and uncanny, inhuman looking, not just some tall guy in a suit.

Now, let me show you all the only Slenderman video that has actually sent chills down my spine in the past few months.



Angel.avi from the Twisted Anangu blog & vlog. (This one if you were wondering, still very new)

Why did that unsettle me? Well if you didn't actually watch the video, allow me to demonstrate:



That is not just a tall guy in a suit, that is something inhuman, a distorted, surreal entity – something unknown to reality.

In addition, hear the sounds in that video? Sound is important – distortion and white noise is overused now, but this video brings something else to the table: Vague, strange noises, they remind you of other noises, like birds, but at the same time, they don't sound quite right.

This is the first Slenderman video in ages that has actually been close to frightening, and for a horror based entity? That is a pretty poor outlook.

Additionally, everyone remembers the old ToTheArk videos: They gave us hints and clues towards the other videos, they showed us things we hadn't seen before, they let us speculate, let us, the audience, use our imagination to generate our own fear! That's one of the things that makes Marblehornets such a good series, it makes us scare ourselves.

What most people these days try to do is generate mysteries, but forget to give out clues towards the answer, we need something to go on in order to speculate, so if the series gives us a mystery, but gives no hints at all towards it, we have no leads to go on, nothing to speculate with, no fuel to start up our own homemade nightmares.

If you're going to have a cryptic message, give the audience the inclination that it actually means something!

This said, approaching the idea of a Slenderman story from other directions is another thing I want to see. So far, pretty much every Slenderman story has the same layout – guy somehow hears about Slenderman, guy starts recording videos/making posts about "close encounters", cryptic stuff happens, guy goes nuts.

Some people have tried different angles, and there are good examples and bad examples. A good example of a new direction is this: Walking the Hallowed Halls. This takes the Slenderman story a totally new direction but still manages to be captivating (I will however admit that it's not very scary.)

A bad example is this: Breaker. This guy attempted to change the story, but did it in a bad way. He gets points for effort, but loses them for concept.

All in all, what I most want to see is Slenderman being scary again. It is possible, as that "angel.avi" video pointed out (or at least, it sent chills down my spine, dunno about you guys.) I'm sick of all the "The Blair Slenderman Project" type vids out there. It works with Marblehornets, but even EverymanHYBRID and TribTwelve have their flaws (Too bloody confusing and a bad start, respectively.)

It's time for something new, or, at least, something with a bit more effort put into its fear factor and mystery. It's time someone took "good ol' Slendy" back to "Distorted, inhuman nightmare fuel".

[/walloftext]

[awakeasaurusrex]

Agreed that there need to be more mysteries with actual clues and stuff - sure, Slendy as an inexplicable cosmic horror is cool, but if NONE of the mysteries in your series have answers and clues pointing to those answers it just becomes pointless.

However, a caveat:

NO MORE FUCKING CODES.

Seriously, there are ways to do clues that don't rely on eldritch cosmic horrors and their mind-controlled puppets breaking out My First Code Book.

[aestheticlost]

All I really have right now is a female protagonist, and moving it back to focus on children like the original Slenderman Mythos. And a definite lack of codes, or slowly going insane.

Still in the planning stagings, but I'll use this topic and do my best to make something that doesn't hit everything that all the other ones try and copy.

Thanks for starting the topic, OP!

[Hellothereangel]

This thread gets all my love for being such a good place to discuss Slender Man stories without it turning into a flame war. Both of you, Feltorn and awakeasaurusrex, have hit on what I do and don't like about the mythos and said it better than I have.

Codes annoy me personally because I'm not very good at them. I like references to other stories personally, it both explains and leaves open to interpretation what's going on and can act as red herring and foreshadowing all in one.

I am planning on writing a blog or online novel type thing so this thread is gold for me. I'm still creating characters and trying to decide on whether the kid or the older girl should be the main character. Right now I'm leaning toward the little girl so it'll be different.

That video looked good, like not Hollywood good but it did give me some shivers. Looks like I have a new series to follow.

[An Iron Front]

I actually started my own slenderblog (PM me for the URL, if you want) and the advice in this thread is pretty helpful so far. I don't have access to a camera so it's basically going to be text with a video log daily sort of thing, but right now I'm not even at the 'slender' part of the blog.

That was always something I noticed: the blogs always start up apparently at the same time our slender friend showed up, and it always irked me. To the point where I was going to use my own personal tumblr as a slenderblog, but I ended up deleting it. Also, I didn't feel like exactly letting everyone in the slendersphere in on the intimate details of my life, or explaining to my friends why there was supposedly a really skinny guy stalking me.

So, yeah, keep up the advice, it's all really helpful.

[PenguinFactory]

I've been following Slenderblogs for awhile now, and one of the recurring elements that's starting to annoy me is the inclusion of meaningless "puzzles". You've undoubtedly seen them yourself- the author comes on with an anonymous sock puppet and dumps a cipher or a string of binary code into the comments section, which translates to "He's watching" or "Found you".

This goes all the way back to Marble Hornets, with ToTheArk's riddles. It was pretty neat the first few times noticing that those random numbers actually meant "LISTEN", but what does it actually mean?

I'd like to see projects with fewer puzzles and riddles that actually move the plot forward in some way. EMH seems to be good about this.

[Shiawase]

The one thing I can't stand is really loud distortions. They don't scare me anymore they just annoy me while I try to adjust my compy's volume to adhere to them. Then the characters in the vlog start talking really quietly so I have to turn the volume up again and then HURHUEUHHRHHRRRR DISTORTION RAWR.

Please stop.

[Feltorn]

[TheDoc]

I think Slendy needs variation. So many blogs are getting bogged down with interconnectedness that the ever-changing cosmic horror aspect gets shoved to the wayside in the interest of canon. There need to be explorations of him acting outside what has become his "normal" shtick, but not total abandonment. Slenderman as an entity should only be confined by his basest elements: A tall, surreal individual that causes weird shit to happen. Everything else should vary.

[Edit] Had a though. I want to see less of long shots where shit all happens. Another don't is having human actors as Slenderman moving. If it looks like human motion it just kind of kills it for me. If they can manage to look inhuman and move in an inhuman manner then go ahead.

[HollyVen]

Hey, everyone. I've been thinking of starting a Slenderblog myself, one with a more unique premise. I was wondering- How much alteration can be made to Slender's appearance? In my opinion, Slenderman is created from what people believe, so if you believe he has a red tie, he'll have one. But how much changing him up is too much?

Also. How much build-up is too much build-up? It's important to establish the character and setting before Slendy comes and ruins their day, but how long do you want to read what looks like a normal blog, searching for signs of Slendinfluence, and how obvious should the Slendersigns be?

Thanks a ton for this thread, by the way! It's giving me a ton of good ideas

[TheDoc]

Sick of: Straight totheark copies
What I'd like to see: Slenderproxies that are more interesting then just a guy in a mask. Maybe someone being influenced without even knowing it.

[PenguinFactory]

Does it seem like a lot of Slenderblog protagonists are nihilistic misanthropes? Among smaller blogs especially, the go-to narrator personality seems to be "snarky asshole".