...
(Haha, Something Awful...get it?)
Moving on.
Point is. There are many theories, theories that I tend to subscribe to that say that slenderman is summoned by though thought. In fact, on of the original comments on the Something Awful Forums:
"The Slender Man.Did anyone ever consider the implication of starting these blogs? Anyone at all? Have I totally screwed myself here?
He exists because you thought of him.
Now try and not think of him." - I
HERE THERE BE SPOILERS
So none of that "you ruined the ending!!!" whining, ok douchecanoes?
Hello: EverymanHybrid
EverymanHybrid kicked up in March 2010 (a little less than a year after MarbleHornets, for those of you keeping track)
(for those of you keeping track: Why so anal anyway?)
The basic premise kicked off as it being a couple college guys who are putting together an info-blog of diet and exercise tips. Granted, the level of helpfullness as an actual excercise and diet blog is minimal. While they have a couple of good suggestions, it's more like watching college guys trying to remember what they learned in high-school gym class.
"Uh...Eat healthy and...exercise!"
Granted, they seem to be having fun and nobody really minds. It's also a good establishing point for that characters (or so it seems...)
That is until someone comes along looking for tips on how to be a truely "slender man". *yuk yuk*
Although, most fans may grimace at the overt slenderhaunting at the beginning of this blog FEAR NOT! Not everything is as it seems to be. Slenderman may lurk overtly around and get his giggles turning off fuse boxes in the middle of a shoot, it's all part of the show. Until things start getting bizarre.
The boys fess up. That Slenderman that they've been so careful not to notice before? He was a plant. They wanted to make an exercise show with a little bit of flavour. Too bad not all those Slendermen in the background were part of the show! Whoopsidaisy!
You know. Maybe Slenderman was just lonely, saw that other Slenderman costume and was looking for friend. Ever consider that?
Things go steeply and swiftly downhill. To a, frankly, totally confusing level. First Slenderman starts showing up, then someone starts posting creepy videos that none of the crew can see to the account, people start going missing, Evan (one of the main cast) starts going just a liittttlle bit south of normal and a whole plethora of monsters start to join in on the fun.
To date, (Again, massive spoilers), it would seem that the principal characters were all children with some unclarified mental or emotional problems that were adopted by a one, Dr. Corenthal who, through some, again, unclarified method was able to correct the children's problem for the most part. Until they day that they all vanished, appearing hundreds of miles away in the middle of a blizzard. They cite a strange man who took them somewhere in an instant. Hmm, who could that be?
It would seem that the four man protagonists, Evan, Vinnie, Steph and and Jeff as the four Corenthal children, though with apparently no recollection, or at least never any mention of this fact. In the most recent video, they were actually dragged into a memory of corenthal apologizing to them for everything he had failed to protect them from. Oh yeah, Slendy was there.
Sidenote: Compound to this whole plot is another plot involving Jeff and his younger brother Alex fighting off another infamous creepy-pasta monster known as the Rake, a feral, half-man, half-beast creature that hides in closets and attacks children as they sleep. For a while this seems to overtake the whole plot, but it seems to be getting back to Slenderman, and he doesn't like to be ignored.
There is also an enigmatic side-plot called SevenTrialsofHabit, also plaguing the boys. The Seven Trails are set up as some kind of tournament although their purpose and true intent are yet to be revealed. It's a very interesting interactive game, with the sinister "HABIT" order those within the tourniment to complete such tasks as "Bury the thing you most love" or "Lose a friend". Whether or not there is a connection to Slenderman, or it's importance within the series is, to date, entirely unclear.
Characters: (because, frankly, as the fans have often complained, there are a LOT of them, and they get confusing)
Vince: Creator and Co-host of EverymanHybrid, he's the peacemaker within the group. He drives the cast when they very clearly are spooked and wish to stop with his firm belief that everything can be explained. Exceedingly calming, mellow and skeptical; he's the last to admit that something bizarre is going on. However this also makes him the most reasonable when everyone around him seems to be suffering the worst of Slenderman (or Rake) based paranoia. Vinnie himself seems to be unaffiliated with the Rake, for the most part, but is often around when Slenderman shows up and has, therefore, had several encounters with the guy.
The Vincent described by Dr. Corenthal (whether this is the same Vincent or some re-encarnation/possession thereof) is a happy boy who loves puzzles and games, but was adopted after suffering at the hands of a child molestor. The child molestor was mysteriously killed by a figure that Vincent described as 'the man'.
Evan: Co-host and 'Nutritional Expert' Evan is the most...off kilter of the cast. Which is probably the reason that he seems to drive the plot the most. Evan is notable for his bizarre and outgoing personality, sense of humour, and his apparent obsession with knives. He's also the most clearly involved and affected by Slenderman. From the very start he was clearly disturbed by the idea of something bizarre happening. He frequently, and increasingly, goes into distant states of daydreaming (or so we assume). He dreams of horrifying and bloody Slenderman episodes, (which are later referanced and even encountered in real life). As the haunting continues he takes to talking to himself, making bizarre ranting videos and increasingly bizarre behavior.
On the other hand, while he might be the most affected by Slendy, he's also the least scared of the guy. Or so it would seem. Rather than running from our favorite businessman, like any normal human, he tends to charge dead on. Once dissapearing into the woods in pursuit; later attacking Slendy with a bat (it didn't end well) and frequently making very intense threats on the lives of certian faceless denizens of the creepy-pasta world; resulting in one his most famous lines:
"I wanna kill it."The Evan from Dr. Corenthal's letters was an orphan known as Habit (by his late mother). He was distant, moody and violent. At the Fairmont Children's Home, he was involved with the murder of a nurse and bunches of pet rabbits kept at the home. He was then allowed only a camera to document his feelings, so that he would have no sharp writing impliments; (ironic, as our Evan is frequently cited as having little/no ability with technology of any kind).
Jeff: The camera man and sad panda of the cast. He's a somewhat stiff, and yet somewhat emotionally overwrought guy with a complicated role within the series. His parents died several years ago and he and his brother now live together where they are constantly and frequently attacked by monsters and internet villians galore. Jeff is dating a girl named Jessa who goes missing; after which he mysteriously leaves to go 'searching for something'. He returns a few episodes later without having found her and seems to give up the search. However he does uncover the Dr. Corenthal connection that seems to be leading them to the origin of the cast's Slenderhistory. He also is forced to realize that his brother is being haunted as well, although by a different monster known as "The Rake".
In his search for Jessa, he brings in her friend Damsel as a possible suspect in the dissapearance and eventually gets her committed. After a period of time, he changes his mind and helps rescue her.
Jeff is constantly haunted by something, although it never seems to attack him too directly. It seems to focus on those around him.
The Jeffery of the Corenthal letters was witnessed to his father killing his mother and sister and then himself. Before he died, his father told him that "The man made me do it."
Jessa: Sad Panda Jeff's girlfriend. Also the best friend of Damsel. She's somewhat unremarkable as of yet, only appearing in a couple of videos. However much of Jeff's plot revolves around finding her after she disappears. She and Jeff were very close and most of his motivation throughout the series involves finding out what happened, rather than searching for SM, dividing him from the rest of the cast. Jessa was a simple, sweethearted girl. It's assumed that she is now dead, following a haunting message on Damsel's cellphone implying that she was killed by Slenderman.
Damsel/Steph/Stephanie: Damsel was first introduced to the series through a seperate blog in which she discussed the plot of EMH. It's not clear how she became involved with the series, if she was in it from the beginning or not, but it was quickly alluded to in the series itself and she became a regular character. It's implied that she's been haunted since she was just a child and that her house was burned down by Slendy, with her parents still inside. She was engaged in a twitter fight with Jeff regarding Jessa's disappearance, which ended in her getting committed (not for the first time). Eventually Jeff, Vince, and Evan help rescue her although several 'hidden videos' (which are invisible to the cast) have implied that she might be more involved than we realize in Jessa's apparent death. Stephanie also has a counterpart with the children discussed in the Corenthal letters but there is little known about her. It also seems interesting that the three boys have remained friends but Steph was seemingly unaware of the boys (and visa versa) until Jessa put them in contact.
Dr. Corenthal: A psychiatrist at the Fairmont Children's Home, Corenthal was put in contact with four children named Vincent, Stephanie, Jeffery, and Evan; who all suffered from various childhood traumas. After working with the four of them, and recognizing their obvious closeness, he and his wife adopt them. However they all begin suffering from what would seem to be Slenderman hauntings and they are all seemingly hallowed by Slenderman and taken away from the Doctor (speculation). Jeff tries to find the Doctor but is told by his wife that he is dead. Although it is insinuated that he might actually be alive somewhere.
In the newest video, Dr. Corenthal was seen muttering apologies to the four children after they were dragged into a communal flashback.
Jessie: The neice of Dr. Corenthal and friend of Jessa and Damsel. (Ok, seriously guys, Jessa AND Jessie? This got me so lost the first time I watched). She was also once the girlfriend of Evan. She's taken away from the series before she really gets a chance to latch on, and most fans forgot about her, like they did with the many other minor characters of the series. Jessie has some connection with the Rake as well, when her grandmother is killed by it partway through the series. She recently returned and led the boys to a storage compartment that resulted in both a Slendy encounter and memories of the doctor.
Alex: Jeff's little brother who sets up a youtube account that has both an outsider perspective on the events of EMH but also his own encounters with the Rake. (which I'm not really going to discuss here because, very frankly, I don't care. The rake not only fails to scare me but is also very out of place in this series). It should be noted that he seems to know little to nothing about his brother's encounters with Slenderman.
Slenderman: Intially added as a prank by the guys, the real slendermen gets curious and starts poking around the set of EMH. Can you blame him? Perhaps he was lonely. The crew are convinced at first that someone else is pranking them, but one by one they are all convinced that he is indeed real after several harrowing encounters. Slenderman seems capable of teleportation of both himself and others, which is unhindered by the presence of cameras. Being in his presence seems to result in a sort of Slendy-ebola virus, with bleeding from the nose, ears and throat with bruised or sunken in eyes following. Slenderman seems to have a connection to each of his victim's childhoods. He's also got some degree of invisibility as many times he has been very clearly present in the videos but (like the hidden videos) the crew fail to see him.
My Rating: B-
Well. I'm actually being somewhat generous, but I'm also trying to average the quality of the series. Thing is, EverymanHybrid is actually pretty compelling, and they have some incredably interesting ideas. On the otherhand, they're desire to be interesting and twisty, and different from MarbleHornets results in a bit of a failure to launch in many cases. They spend so much time setting up Slenderman as a viable monster, only to replace him (almost entirely) for a time with The Rake. They have a tendancy to assume that we know what or who they are talking about when they create tragic situations for characters that we have only seen onscreen briefly once or twice. This is compounded by the sheer NUMBER of side characters (most of whom I didn't even mention) that they throw at us.
They also encounter slendy in very bizarre ways. Slenderman in this series is far less terrifying to me than he is in MarbleHornets because they always either fail to see him, or they go charging at him full blast (which is admittedly entertaining). Either way the never seem to react fearfully to him, or at least not in ways that affect the viewers. In MarbleHornets, we only get glimpses of SM and then the protagonist is out of there. In EMH, we are allowed far too much time to just stare at Slenderman, without ever seeing the characters react.
Beyond that, there sheer use of media, crossing over a variety of sites and plots makes the series incredably complex and difficult to follow.
On the other hand, they also seem to respond to what the viewers say. They have been recently more focused on our favorite faceless friend and they seem to be getting their act together. It's a series worth watching, and it brings in many different facets of the story, and interesting things to try and work out within the series, but, man oh man, if your going to watch it, do it off of the Wiki rather than trying to piece it all together by yourself.
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