Commentary, Part 2: Finding my Footing

This commentary covers the following posts:

Death Threats?
Back to the Daily Grind

Only two posts this time because there's a lot of ground to cover.

"Death Threats?" requires a little bit of context.  It was sparked by this comment:

Marnax May 25, 2011 12:33 AM

Okay, you can either join us, or I'll have to kill you when I see you, and I WILL see you. Count on it.

Basically, he had entirely missed the point of what the character was saying, so I had the Messenger unload on him (and anyone else who might think that way).  The Messenger was very much intended, even from that point, to be a sympathetic proxy.  So I hammered the sympathetic proxy nature of the blog over everyone's head.

I like the post for several reasons.  For one, it allowed me to flesh out Hyde post-blog a little more, as well as reveal the name of "Girl" as Erin.  It also allowed me to present my view of the "hallowed" form of proxies.  It was also the birth of "William," an identity passed around from proxy to proxy.  Who (or what) exactly is William?  I'm not entirely sure.  I like to think of it as a sort of an infectious identity.  It gets passed on from one person to another, and then the original host dies.  There's probably still a William around somewhere.

In terms of plot, the post didn't have much purpose.  However, it set up the themes of identity I used throughout DSTM, and introduced the concept of Messi searching for answers about his place in the organization.  In reality, this post is where the blog really starts.

Once I had an idea of what I wanted to do with the blog, I started asking around for ideas.  I wanted to examine more proxies, and two blogging friends ended up helping me: Alex M (Dreams in Darkness, Watch this City Burn, Maleorderman, Deja vu Dreamer, and others), and AJ (It's All David's Fault, Throwing Voices, and others).

I asked a Skype chat of creators for a name, and AJ offered Poe.  From there, we started chatting about how we could work the character into the story, and after a bit, AJ, Alex, and I split off to a separate chat to talk about it.  I had an idea of a possible romance between a proxy and a runner, and Alex offered to involve an upcoming character he had planned to write.  As a result, Poe quickly switched to being female (she had originally been male), the romance developed into a love triangle, and her character started developing.

"Back to the Daily Grind" was the post where I introduced Poe and Caper.  Caper was originally named Eternity (or possibly Epitaph; though Eternity was how I remembered it), but I switched it when I realized that it was a terrible name for his character.  His nature was cemented with the name change, and Caper became a larger-than-life character designed to steal the whole show.  In fact, I purposely built Caper up more to hide Poe's importance.  In fact, I edited the original post, which had subtly revealed Poe's gender, to make it even more ambiguous.

There's also still some "Early Installment Weirdness" going on here.  Messi's talking about the Slender Man visiting regularly (or as he calls him, "The Boss"), when later on it was implied that Slendy doesn't really care much about what the organization is up to.  I'm also a bit embarrassed now by the small-texted "safer for everyone" line.  Really, all that did was draw attention to the line when it should have deflected it away.  It's really not Messi's style.

Anyway, like the post says, this is really where I started finding my footing and realizing where I was going to go with the blog.  I had some advice from AJ and Alex, and I was really excited to start putting it into action.

Commentary, Part 1: The Beginning

This commentary covers the following posts:
Messenger's Report (Now I Shall Know You Again)
The Man Who Brings Tidings of Sorrow
Reach is Out
List of the Deceased
M...stay safe....

These were the first five posts I made as the Messenger, and they're probably the most out-of-character.  This is largely because Messi's character hadn't much developed yet.

I started with a report on NISKYA, since that was my old blog, and it's the post that's probably the most out of character.  He was still in his conceptual phase at that point and hadn't been fleshed out much.  In that first post, his snarking was a bit more pointed, and for some reason, he signed off with "Don't Kill The Messenger" instead of "Don't Shoot The Messenger."

The next two post (and the first two on my blog) were pretty much just a basic introduction and a few reports of the people who had recently died.  The only thing they really established was that the Messenger was working with other proxies, which led to the structured organization later on.  The List of the Deceased was created mostly because I realized that there were a lot of people who weren't going to use the Messenger to end their blog, as well as a lot who had already died.  I wanted to keep a comprehensive list.  Unfortunately, it never got particularly fleshed out.  But I'm still working on it.  Or at least have it on my to-do list.

Oops, wait, I lied about the first post being most OOC.  Though maybe the post about M was because he was still new to the job and more compassionate than apathetic.  After seeing people die over and over again, he distanced himself from the runners.  This post was probably decent with his early characterization, but it's almost embarrassing now.  However, there was one comment made on this post that arguably set the tone for the entire blog.  A blogger called Marnax (whose blog I personally found to be terrible) threatened to kill my character, just because he was a proxy.  The Messenger responded with a Starfox meme, but responded in more depth in the next post (which I'll get into in the next bit of commentary).

Basically, at this point, I was still stumbling my way through things.  I had yet to find a direction to take the blog and was still learning the best way to do things.  I was still really green with this blog at this point in time, but shortly after, I started catching my stride.

Characters, Part 6: Screwtape

Handle: Screwtape
Name: Unknown
Birthday: Unknown, probably in his early to mid 40s.
Hair: ???
Eyes: ???
Height: ???

Screwtape served as one of the primary antagonists during DSTM, but unfortunately didn't get as much screentime as we had hoped.  He was difficult for both AJ and me to figure out how to write, and since Poe's blog (in which he would be the main antagonist) never really developed into the arc we hoped it would, Screwtape didn't get showcased particularly frequently.

Screwtape sort of seems like a brute, but he's really not.  Despite his use of physical abuse (breaking Messi's finger, everything he did to Poe), he does more on a psychological level.  The physical abuse is done to break down mental defenses as well. 

The best way to describe Screwtape is "intense."  He's the sort of person who it's nearly impossible to look in the eye, just because there's something in his gaze that makes it impossible to hold for more than a few seconds.  He maintains a calm demeanor, but it's easy to sense that there's a lot of fury in him.  In fact, he's probably the most sociopathic character of DSTM.

I don't go into Screwtape's philosophy too much in the blog, though he's of the "religious" proxy sort.  He believes that the Slender Man is a savior who's come to cleanse the scourge from the earth.  Those he chooses as his followers are the "strong," and the husks are receiving special punishment, being brainwashed into serving him.  This is why he has such a strong hatred for Poe: as a husk turned agent, he finds it hard to fit her into his beliefs.