[OT] Slenderblog Bingo!

For those of you playing at home.

LINK:http://i.imgur.com/EV103.png

All credits go to Compulsory Basket, of Unfiction Forums, for this work of art.

And now, the Slenderblog Drinking game!

FOR EVERY BOX YOU CROSS: 1 shot.
FOR EVERY ROW/COLUMN YOU GET: Shout BINGO, and down another two shots, along with the shot from the last box you get. This must occur with Ron Browz "Gimme 20 Dollas" playing in the background.

I suggest playing with friends while staging a vlog marathon.

FOR PEOPLE WHO REALLY WANT TO PASS OUT: New update = new round. You drink again for every example, even if it's been crossed out.

~ Sol

[A] Testing 1,2,3

Testing 1,2,3 

http://beinghunted.blogspot.com/

Content:
Testing is one of the "Runner blogs" as I shall call them for now. Our protagonist (Shaun) "met" Slendy when he was 17. He knew about him from before, and when he finally couldn't deny Slender Man being real, he decided to run away. First, to not let Slender Man ruin and eventually end his life, and second, to protect his girlfriend and family.

At the beginning, he mostly describes "experiments" he made. Like, testing if Slendy prefers night or day, lit or dark rooms and the like. Of course many of these experiments require exposition to Slendy, which makes this story pretty exciting. Shaun keeps interacting with the protagonists of other blogs (for example, he regularily talks to M from "The Tutorial" http://getuphigh.blogspot.com/), so reading the comments is very important on this one.

Around September, Shaun gets in contact with Robert Sage (http://fighthimuntiltheend.blogspot.com/) and Jay (http://anomalousdata.blogspot.com/). I had a look at both blogs; Jay seems to start with a quite scientific perspective on Slendy, while Robert is more on the 'mythical' side. Shaun starts to interact with both of them, soon adapting Roberts idea of there being different "roles" in the Slenderverse for the people who have to deal with Slendy.

This blog is definitely well-written, and Shaun as the main character is very believable and fleshed out. The only thing that bugs me (but thats only my personal taste), is the constant 'cross-blogging'. I don't want to be forced to read 4 different blogs, to be able to follow the storyline of one of them. And I tried reading Testing without looking at Roberts and Jays blog. I was absolutely confused. If you're the type for connected blogs, this one will surely entertain you, even if Shaun recently pulls back from the other blogs, and is more focused on his own thing.

Conclusion:
Very interesting sidestory, believable character, neat descriptions of Slender Man's influence on a person and an intriguing writing style.

Jm2c

~ Snippet 

[A] Observe and Terminate

A short one today. This is one of those blogs that just needs to be read to be believed. I won't spoil too much of its beauty. A warning before you get into it, though: This blog is not for the serious horror fan. Anything but.

Observe and Terminate

This is currently, what I would call the biggest leap from the hallmarks of the genre. It has completely done away with the whole Lovecraftian cosmic horror that most blogs go with, in favor of an expanded premise, unbelievable technology, and unfitting dialogue. All in all, it feels like it should be a videogame rather than a blog, but I, personally, forgive it these 'flaws', just because it manages to pull them off so goddamn WELL. I guess if I was to define it, this would unmistakably be an action blog; combining its solid core concept with a certain amount of wit and charm that you really wouldn't expect from a bunch of army dudes who sit around playing Fallout: New Vegas all day.

PLOT: The core concept of this was what drew me to it in the first place: It originally revolved around the character Nightcrawler, who was the commanding officer of an elite cadre of...I believe freelance soldiers, who are trying to eliminate the Slender Man threat once and for all. While this premise seems a little far-fetched, it has some decent grounding in many of the original SomethingAwful short-stories on Slender Man; Victor Surge wrote about an "Anti-S Walker" unit in some of his early posts, way before Slendy had his...considerable mythos fleshed out.

The method by which Nightcrawler's unit eliminates Slender Man (at the start of the story, that is) was very clever; due to him being created entirely by thought processes (through the Tulpa effect), the way to 'stop him feeding', so to speak, would be to kill off all the people who believe in him (who they call Runners). In addition to the Runners, there are also the Indoctrinated, who are an analogy for the Slenderpuppets of the other blogs/vlogs.

There have been multiple new characters introduced, and Nightcrawler has taken a bit of a backseat; however, I won't spoil much more of this fantastic series for you. I suggest you all do take a look at it; particularly if you're the videogaming, 16-28 year old male demographic which these guys seem to be catering to. Even if you're not, however, I suggest you check it out; it's a fresh new take on the series. Don't expect to be scared, but damn, it is VERY entertaining.

http://nightcrawler-observeandterminate.blogspot.com/

~ Sol

[A] SEESME

Well; I'm finally actually submitting a review, despite making this like a week ago. Today, I'll draw your attention to a particularly interesting story I've been following, that's just starting out. Before I start with the good, I'll just quickly rant about a trend I think we've all been noticing.

As a prospective Slenderblogger/Slendervlogger...There is pretty much NOTHING as annoying as seeing a guest account on Unfiction coming up and saying "HEY LOOK I JUST HEARD A RUMOR ABOUT THIS NEW STORY AND IT DOESN'T HAVE SLENDERMAN IN IT YET BUT I THINK IT WILL SOON." It's not a subtle way to get your story viewers. It's not a way to generate goodwill for your story from the getgo. All you're doing, is throwing your story into the masses, without any way to distinguish them. And really, it's getting to the stage where people just aren't checking these blogs anymore. I know I haven't been checking them all. Please, think of a more creative way to do it. There are ways.

Anyhow, onto our feature presentation.

SEESME

This particular story introduced itself into the mainstream by the method described above, and to be perfectly honest; if the title wasn't in all caps, I would've ignored it. Yeah, I fell prey to one of the most obvious advertising techniques; having your products name in BIGGER LETTERS COMPARED TO EVERYONE ELSE.

That said? I was pleasantly surprised when I read this blog, even though it's only starting out. The biggest reason, is its FORMAT. Instead of presenting itself as a blog, it is a series of MSN chatlogs, and responses to e-mails. I found this a new and refreshing take on the whole 'watching' thing a lot of Slenderstories have in common; one of the key creepy things about our antagonist seems to be the stalking. Having the format of the story be in such a voyeuristic manner just really suits it.

The ARG ASPECT of the story is minimal at the moment, though still, apparently, present; messages sent into the blog appear to be responded to by the main character.

SUMMARY: A college student, Sam, is suffering from altered sleeping patterns and sickness. The story comes from the various people in his life checking in on him over MSN, but something is strange; Sam doesn't appear to be the one who is posting these chat excerpts to the blog. Messages sent to the blog only generate a response along the lines of "Who are you, and why do you keep e-mailing me? ~Sam" So, in the words of one Unfiction poster..."THEN WHO WAS TUMBLR?"

CHARACTERS:
Sam is our main character, and is the target of this apparent e-stalking. We don't get much character information apart from what we're told in the chats; he's apparently being haunted by...something. Spends long periods of time just staring out his window at night, doesn't feel like seeing his friends, so on and so forth. He's a very believable character (as are most of the characters in this story, which I feel is a great strength), and you really get a sense of something big and bad happening to him, even if you don't know the details yet.

Alex is his girlfriend, who is described by most of Sam's friends as (how can I describe this while still maintaining the integrity of my review? Aaah!) of a particularly sexual nature (Yeah, that'll work.) She is the witness to a lot of Sam's...problems, firsthand.

Along with these two main characters, are two other people Sam talks to: BennyWise and DOCKTA. They both question Sam's strange personality changes. (I particularly like Benny's character; they sound EXACTLY like some of my friends over MSN, which ups the believability for me.)

There have also been several people sending in e-mails, but it's generally thought that they are just followers, not actually part of the story.

SLENDERMAN:
Not yet present in a visible sense. All we're getting is like, after-effects of a haunting. Symptoms, so to speak. It has an interesting effect, by focusing less on the monster, and more on the human interaction beneath it. It is widely assumed that Slenderman is somehow updating this Tumblr, however; though probably not by sneaking onto Sam's computer and blogging.

All in all, it looks like a very promising new story, that I highly suggest you all check out. Read from the bottom post to the top.

http://seesme.tumblr.com/

~ Sol

[A] Make It Count

Welcome to the Slendy Review! I, your current host (I am not sure is "Boss" wants us to say who we are...... what? Maybe he likes privacy. D: ), am here to bring us our first Review. This little gem is possibly overlooked, as it does not seem to be getting a lot of attention on the UnForums. Now whether that is because no one really has anything to say or whether people just don't give it a chance because of other lesser blogs, I don't really know. However, I am here to give my completely unbiased review of....

Make It Count


Blog(s): http://countingitup.blogspot.com/

Twitter(s):
-Main Character: http://twitter.com/CelieMcL
-Main Character's Friend: http://twitter.com/ViggityViolet

Summary:

Make It Count is a Slenderblog that I believe is very well-written (it better be, the main character is a journalist!). It follows the life of Celeste McLachlan, a young up-and-coming journalist, with appearances by her two friends, Rose and Violet. That's right, dear readers, our protagonists are -GASP- female!!!! Actually, many of you have been complaining that there aren't enough female main characters, and so, months before people complained, this blog drove into Slender territory.

Characters:

Our main character is Celeste McLachlan, or Celie (SEELY) for short. A journalist from Baltimore, Maryland, she notices that her friend has been acting... odd, lately...

That friend is Rose, her "hetero soulmate" she has known for six years. Lately, she seems distracted..

And there is Violet, "artistic" one who is always there to help!

Okay, I'm no good at character descriptions.. However, each character does seem very believable and you actually want to care about them!


Slendy:

Their SlenderMan isn't seen much, except for a couple of times. However, you definitely see the effects that he has on Celie and everyone around her, even culminating in..... well, I don't want to reveal the story. However, I do think that Make It Count is definitely worth a read with, as I said, believable characters and well-written posts. Start with the first post, here: http://countingitup.blogspot.com/2010/09/me-introduction.html

[OT] The Premise + TAGS

Okay, I had a huge post typed up, but then I realized: I really don't have the authority to toot my own horn so much when it comes to writing. So I'm going to summarize a little.

There's a whole load of Slendy Stories going around.

We're going to try and objectively rate them. Why? Because it's getting bloody ridiculous sifting through them all.

I can't do this alone, because, as a firm believer in democracy, or at the very least, a dictatorship of peers, I don't think my words should be so heavily weighted, so I'm calling on anyone who reckons they'd make a decent enough reviewer to come give me a hand. Preferably fun people, who can criticize without being absolutely heartless. Well, maybe a bit heartless if it's REALLY bad.

Anyhow, hello, and stay tuned!

~ Sol

EDIT: 9.12.10

We have now decided to not only review the good blogs, but also, the less good. I don't want to make this just a bitch-fest, because that's not enjoyable, so we will still be looking at what is done right as much as possible.

However, to make it easier for you to read reviews about what you want, I will be implementing a title tagging system. So if you want more reccomendations, just go for that. If you want to read about the godawful blogs...well, they're here.

Anyhow, the system:

[OT] = Off Topic. Not a review at all.
[A] = Reccomended. Read these blogs.
[S] = Classic. You probably HAVE read these blogs.
[C] = Not reccomended. Possibly some good points, but needs improvement.
[F] = Awful. Really bad. No redeeming factors. Read if you lost a bet, or have a sick fascination with failure.