[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