The Tutorial

Hello once again, and welcome to another review from AmateurEnthusiast. This time, I'll be reviewing The Tutorial, my first blog review and one of the best blogs I've seen.

The Tutorial chronicles a man known as M, the first of the Runners, as they late came to be known. M decided to teach people how to run from Slenderman, and how to get away from him. He made the three basic rules:

1. Get up high. Apparently, Slenderman is confused by humans being taller than him, and getting onto a rooftop or somewhere high (above two stories) will make him read you as not human.

2. Keep moving. It's easier for Slenderman to get you if you stay in one place, so you need to stay on the move so he doesn't track you down as easily.

3. Keep your eyes open. He can't get you if you're looking right at him, or he thinks you're looking at him. Masks work, because he's tricked by the eye holes on them, even if they're on the back of your head. Cameras do not, because all he does is ruin the film.

The blog does a great job of making it seem real. This is a man who's deep in shit, who has been on the run for a long time, who is actively running away from Slenderman. The imagery conjured up when someone dies is incredibly intense, and contributes to the realism of the blog. He's not actively investigating Slenderman, like in some blogs, but he's running from him. It makes you feel incredibly sympathetic to his ordeal.

The blog runs off the SomethingAwful origin story, that he was created by the internet and conjured into existence by our imaginations. The more you read into Slenderman, in this universe at least, the more likely you are to be infected. How M got into it, and his years of running experience that he shares via the blog, is intricately laid out, for the reader to form M's background through his posts. Again, this makes him seem more human, like an actual person blogging and not a man telling a story through the medium of blogging.

Unlike other blogs, however, he doesn't believe that every single Slenderseries is real. He will leave small comments on which blogs he thinks are real and which ones he thinks aren't, showing how someone dealing with Slenderman would react to other Slenderb/vlogs. This is another interesting little twist to make M like a real human being, and not a fictional character. All of this adds together to make one of the best characters seen in the Slendermythos.

All of the characters are very well done, each one made realistic. There's Warner, who only gets infected after meeting M, and teaches M why the woods aren't safe (by getting killed in them). There's Sam, who had his own theories on how to beat Slenderman, and was already pretty insane when M met him (and he also met a gruesome end). Every character serves to tell a story, almost to prove how long M has been on the run, and exactly what Slenderman can do to you, physically and mentally.

Slenderman himself is one of the best Slendermen I've seen. He's like a monstrous predator, tearing people apart in violent and gory ways. However, he also has the intelligence of a predator, a lion or a tiger. He's easily tricked, due to not being accustomed to humans, and not being nearly as intelligent. Wearing a mask and getting up high is one of the easiest ways to get away. He can, however, get into rooms and just move you from place to place, or get you when you least expect it. He has his own ways of beating humans, just like they have their own ways of getting away.

Confrontations with Slenderman are used sparingly enough to make them all incredibly effective, but frequently enough so that we know that M is in mortal danger. There's none of the badass cocky attacking Slenderman, as some Slenderb/vlogs include, but he runs. He runs, he follows the rules, and he manages to get away. Those unaware of the rules are not so lucky, which highlights how effective M's methods are. He can't beat Slenderman, no-one can, but he can run and he can hide from him. That, in itself, is very badass.

All in all, it's one of the best blogs out there today. I would totally recommend reading it, as it is absolutely fantastic. The characters are believable, M is one of the best characters in any Slender Mythos series, and Slenderman is superbly done. It's incredible. There is a follow up, as it ends with a kid called Bondie finding him, and I will track it down (I had it, but I lost it), because I suspect it is just as good.

Thank you all for reading. Next up, the beginning of Tribe Twelve and Seeking Truth. Happy reading, and follow the three rules!