As I bodaciously rode the bus through sespiquidian fields of black nightfall, I turned my thoughts towards thy stars, O Fear Mythos! I got to thinking about the history and the weird nature of the whole enchilada.
In the beginning, of course, was the Slenderman Mythos, which started after Just Another Fool rocked the internet sensation. A simple tale, one of a perhaps intellectual love and loss, ruminating best in its later posts when it set up and broke all conventions for blog fiction. From there spawned such epic feasts as Marble Hornets, Tribe Twelfth, and Everyman HYBRID, and sprawling dizzying epics like The Tutorial, White Elephants, and et cetera. But there was too much talk of proxies and too little focus on good horror, so some people got together after a few years and started this gargonzolian nightmarefest we now know as the Fear Mythos.
In the beginning, there was simple blogs. Hidden in the Trees and Ontological and junk. They focused on a couple of monsters, showing proxies in whole new ways, and plus they were the scariest. And over time, more people joined and the place got a whole lot less cool because there were too many people spoiling the broth. Like really, did we really need Built For Two and its many sequels? That blog wasn't even scary. Between you and me, I never saw what the big deal was. But then my tastes have always been more thought-provoking and interesting. Eventually, sometime after yet another millionth new Fear was invented, long after the Woodenslendergrapher or whatever the fuck its name was, the scariness of the Fear Mythos stopped being so prominent in its focus.
Any sane reader will agree with me that that point, the point where the mythos stopped being about the horror and started seriously navel-gazing, was sometime before OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING ended. Even that story's later parts were really unhorror, it was like reading a Coen brothers movie, it was kinda cool at parts but mostly there was like no real.. chutzpah to its Fears, y'know? Where once that story could rock me to my core, Act 6 turned into this neverending boat ride of boredom with too many new characters that seriously nobody cared about and too much teen drama. Then the author started retconning shit? Hey man! All the best internet writers utilize the internet's "FIRST DRAFTS ONLY" policy!
But I digress. Like a cancer, this new trend of "no horror, we're too scared for that" spread throughout everything else. Suddenly nobody wanted to dare writing anything scary. And the mythos withered like a rose in autumn, perishing in periwinkle, as they say. Now it is the comedy writers (SHUDDERS) who dance upon its grave, twiddling their flutes and making fun of everything we used to be.
Well, I won't stand for it! That's why I have finally made my public return and started this blog. Not only do I want to keep my fans updated on who I'm killing, but more importantly I recognize that someone needs to set an example for these greenmasks who dare insult our mythos's horror pedigree by calling themselves "Fearbloggers." Someone needs to reincite the fear in our bones. And I am willing, since no one else will, to take up that mantel.
Let these Ten Commandments of Fear be my calling card of hate:
1) Thou Shalt Always Kill. None of this "characters get away scot-free to be moody and shit" business. This is a horror community. We need blood!
2) Thou Shalt Respect The Hierarchy Of Content. It's quite simple: Vlogs > ARGs >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Blogs >>>>> Creepypasta. Vlogs are the creme de la creme of creep. They're mimetic and junk (that's an intellectual way of saying they're performance arts rather than crummy campfire stories like blogs are). Vlogs are what we aspire for.
3) Thou Shalt Not Worship False Idols. We're the F E A R mythos. Not the "James Joyce" mythos. Not the "Comedic" mythos. Not the "Drag Slenderman Into The Dirt And Make Him A Lawyer" mythos. Not even the "Fears But Bullshit And Wordy And Pretentious" mythos. The FEAR mythos.
4) Thou Shalt Not Commit Blog Adultery. Come up with your own ideas. If you feel like you have to steal the good ideas of another blog, and I don't care how much better that blog is than yours, then you're obviously not cut out to blog at all! I'm sorry, I'm just saying.
5) Thou Shalt Not Be Pretentious. Get your stupid grandpa plays out of your brain. Stop what you're doing, don't give The Archangel a pipe and a beret. The only wandering your blogs should do is wandering headfirst into the bloodbath, or the grave, or both.
6) Thou Shalt Finish Using The Twenty Billion Fears We Already Have Before Thy Start Grasping For New Ones. I don't think I need to explain this one.
7) Thou Shalt Honour Thy Blogging Forefathers. Brush up on your mythos history, even if you just read this post-- that's why I made it. If blogging conventions were good enough for the Slender Man Greats, they're good enough for you.
8) Thou Shalt Not Maketh Unto Thee Any Graven Manifesto. Get that manifesto out of your brains. There is only one Ten Commandments post in this mythos, and this is it.
9) Thou Shalt Not Covet Alliterator's Blogging Proficiency. He's insanely good and insanely fast. But if you keep aspiring to be like him, you miss the sight of the bigger picture: There's more than enough horror to go around!
Finally, the most important: 10) Thou Shalt Fear Without Meta. This one is twofold. Firstly, it reinforces the essence of what I've been saying: Focus on the bonecurdling chills that we were made for. And secondly, it stresses not to be so pretentious. The meta is a cheap gimmick, only to be used by the utter experts. But remember your place in the hierarchy of content. Don't overstep your bounds, otherwise you too will be contributing to the cancer that kills off everything we hold dear.
Be smart. Be safe. Be aware. Our future depends on it.
