throws up cutelyyy. this is all the Slenderverse art I've done at this point, including some unfinished drafts and scrapped pieces. Primarily blogverse but some new series and vlogverse as well :)Though my heart lies in 2009-2012 Slenderblogs. And Evan's tits tbh.
Happy 10 year anniversary to Just Another Fool! (July 29, 2009)
Ten years ago today, Just Another Fool became the first ever “Slenderblog”. It’s a cycle of madness and death that starts with shell-shocked soldier Matthew Selby and passes via Matt’s notebook to his friend, decoy protagonist Logan Renault, ending with new protagonist Joshua Allon’s demise investigating the maddened Logan’s disappearance. Most enjoy this blog, but tend not to mention it among the Slenderverse “greats”. Perhaps due to the brevity, “Ted the Caver” ending, and other writing foibles... but I say it’s because we’ve forgotten the ARG element whose dread solipsism creeps along the fourth wall.
You can’t tell from the posts alone, but players received not only Matt’s notebook with Logan’s additions but also Logan’s notebook (pictured and mentioned only briefly in text) and torn pages dubbing each one of “nine truly conscious beings”. It took discovering a phone number and solving riddles to get there. The author explained that the nine beings -AKA nine worlds, in the blog’s Norse mythology allusions- are the Slender Man, Logan, Joshua, four players, a child born to replace Matt, and you (yes, you). The Slender Man (and nothing else) will kill the other eight. Since “one of the great mysteries of life is that you actually have no way to prove that everyone else is as conscious as you”, and another is that you never know when you’ll die, Just Another Fool’s unique lore on the Slender Man’s cycle creates a thought experiment just as “brilliant and wondrous, yet ultimately short” as the beings’ lives... and the main storyline.
This blog perfectly snapshots the transition between Original Mythos and full-fledged ARGs. Its infectious images of bodies burning in a tree, the Slender Man with unusual features (hat, wings), allusions to Norse mythology (and House of Leaves), and numerology (including 11/11, presciently) raise the Original Mythos’ atmosphere and simplicity to its full ARG potential. It even integrates the good-faith creativity of specific players in ways that today’s high-scale ARGs cannot. (Contrast player Dav Flamerock’s subdued mentions of studying at Miskatonic University with the gamejacker he reminds that “Innsmouth was effectively destroyed in police action over sixty years ago”.) This blog emblematizes a time where we weren’t afraid to experiment with the Slender Man Mythos -a necessary measure if we’re to be afraid of it today.
Just Another Fool deserves to be remembered. After all... you might just be next.
Shoutout to my friends for listening to my rants about Slenderverse obscure series!! Drew fluff of them with their fave characters as thanks X3 @morgast with Tim from Marble Hornets, and @puppycrafting with Dav and Logan from Just Another Fool :} And me. Well. I'm a Damien (and the Arsonist) stan...
Nobody knows where it is you are taken to, but nobody ever comes backs, and everybody agrees it's generally a horrible place. And maybe in this place, you can't die. And maybe you also don't need organs or skin or even a body, really, and that's why yours has now been nicely wrapped up and hung in a tree.
Marble Hornets, “File”:
DEEPER AND DEEPER WE GO/WHERE THERE IS NO LIGHT
Just Another Fool, “Searching”:
Maybe I will see you in the nothingness of whatever is beyond this world(s)
Everyman HYBRID, “The property”:
This place… this is like an inner sanctum to the monsters’ sanctuary. These monsters? These things? They can get in. They’ve gotten in before. I’ve kicked them out.
Everyman HYBRID, “Tribe Twelve Envelope”:
He went on to tell me that this man had a particular plan for him, for other children, too. They were all to go on a great journey together. The way Milo described it, it seemed like a vacation, disregarding the melancholy nature in which he told it.
Tribe Twelve, Ask.fm:
it wasnt like hell. it was hell. thats where they live.
Dark Harvest, The Black Book:
The land He hails from is so unlike ours, filled with pain and suffering – His world is paradise.
My child, my Lars…He is gone. Taken, from his bed. The only thing that we found was a scrap of black clothing. It feels like cotton, but it is softer…thicker. Lars came into my bedroom yesterday, screaming at the top of his lungs that "The angel is outside!”, I asked him what he was talking about, and he told me some nonsense fairy story about Der Großmann. He said he went into the groves by our village and found one of my cows dead, hanging from a tree. I thought nothing of it at first…But now, he is gone. We must find Lars, and my family must leave before we are killed. I am sorry my son…I should have listened. May God forgive me.
From the Journal of Dr. Jeffrey Scripter:
I don’t often write of my official duties in this journal, as I feel it would be unprofessional; however, today has been all too peculiar to leave out. A new patient was admitted today. He is a young man named Douglas Reynolds. Douglas was found wandering the streets of Northbridge barefoot and apparently unresponsive to all attempts of communication. The Northbridge police decided to take Douglas to the station and attempt to discern who he was. When the police tried to take him in, he lashed out screaming. An officer sustained minor injuries before he was ultimately subdued. In his pockets was a wallet containing identification stating his name and his address. Strangely he lived in Charlton, did he walk the 15 or so miles barefoot? In any case what was he doing so far from home? All questions I’ll have to ask him in the morning, I suppose.
Optic Nerve:
Images associated with the “Slender Man” phenomenon. Filed under S.MAN. Extracted from journal of missing person ███ ███████, female, age 23.
Multiple corresponding depictions of humanoid form, multiple mutations or deformations. Several consistent identifying markers, with other traits changing or “transforming” from image to image. Total 32 pages relevant to case.
Patient of Dr. Bronn:
I’m really not sure how to begin this journal. My doctor (my psychiatrist, Dr. Bronn) suggested I start keeping one at our meeting last week. I think she thinks it’ll help me get through the “dreams”. I don’t think they ARE dreams, though, even though she and my wife keep insisting they are. I don’t know what they are, though. I just can’t explain
Miscellaneous Journal Entries:
I hear something being repeated over and over:
When you fear me, I love you; when you cower, I draw near to protect you; I will always protect you, I will always watch you. Your blindness is my omniscience; your weakness, my omnipotence. Until the day you die. Until the day you die.
I don’t hear the words, but they always stick in my head. I’m going to watch over my son. Until the day I die, until the day he dies.
Miscellaneous Journal Entries:
Why show up at all? Bad luck for photographers? Idea: drawn to the flash, not too likely given daytime spottings but possible for night. (Leads to question, why photographers period? More later.
Miscellaneous Journal Entries:
Woke up at 5:22am. Had dream about a deeply wooded ravine. I was falling down towards its bottom, but not falling at the same time. I was able to perceive and place my foot or a hand at the right place at the right time to maintain momentum but not injure myself. It’s the closest I’ve come to flying in a dream. Vivid dreams were part of the side effects of the medication, and my journal has been testament to this.
Small Findings:
I went nuts for about an hour rummaging through the boxes in my attic looking for my brother’s old stuff. Finally I found his old mountaineering journals, and sure enough my memory wasn’t just playing tricks on me.
Dorothy Birch:
I suppose this is will be one of the last voluntary entries in my journal, even though Dr. Keating told me to write down everything that happened. But I’m going to tell the entire story, which is what I should have done in the first place; damn my pride.
Remains of Missing Camper:
??/??/?? I don’t know how long I have been here for, why won’t he let me leave. My food supplies ran out weeks(???) ago, but I keep finding berries or mishapen fish lying in stagnant pools. All there is here is forest and him. I wonder if I let myself starve, would I win? Would he want me to do that? I don’t know anymore.
I think I hear him coming, I don’t feel like fighting or running or chasing anymore. I will lie down and await the peace of death, perhaps I will find repose then. Perhaps I will find home.
Abandoned Journal:
As an avid researcher of the occult and paranormal, the reports of a tall, thin man had once intrigued me. Once enthralled me. My lust, my craving for knowledge has now been my undoing. I will share with you what I know so that maybe my family will see.
They will see!
Journal of Matthew Selby:
WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY ME
My last will and testament is to see this notebook returned to my friend: Logan
████████████████████████
THE KNOWLEDGE
CAN YOU SEE HIM
Journal of Logan Renault:
The sun hasn’t risen or fallen in days.
Weeks.
I can’t help but think that me somehow losing track of time is far more likely than the sun slowing in its orbit.
But if we are all slowly spiraling towards that brilliant star, then this is all ultimately useless anyway.
Solution → Oct ←? 1, 4:42 PM
Journal of Milo Asher (from The Living Account):
October 22th 1995 - (Mr. Scars writing “You will kick, and you will scream, and tell yourself, it is only a dream. But your eyes are open, the pinch you can feel, for you are not asleep, the dream is real.”)
