Book 1: Perdition's Genesis

Easter Eggs

~The "Genesis" part of the title has a double meaning: It represents the beginning of both the series and the struggle of its protagonists, but the term also comes from a level of the same name in Slender: The Arrival, which served as a remake of Slender: The Eight Pages.

~Kate is a fan of the TV show Supernatural. This is partially due to the fact that I was binging the show at the time of writing and wanted to work it into the series somehow, but also because I wanted something more in-depth than the simple notion of "I'm going to stop this, even if I don't know how" to serve as motivation for a naive teenager to explore a creepy forest at night.

~The Preaxin medicine that Kate begins taking originates from the online ARG known as ECKVA. Due to ECKVA being a follow-up to MarbleHornets, it is widely assumed by fans that Preaxin was the medicine being used by Tim to keep The Operator at bay throughout the series.

~The sun rising over the forest in Chapter 5 is meant to reference the daytime mode of Slender: The Eight Pages.

Trivia

~RiverView Park's layout is partially inspired by Timber Ridge RV & Recreation Resort in Traverse City, Michigan.

~The doe and her two fawns that appear in Chapter 5 were inspired by a doe that lives near my house that has twin fawns every year.

~The beginning of Chapter 1 and the non-flashback portions of Chapter 6 take place in 2017 on the night that Kate is attacked in her house by Slender Man. Essentially, the majority of the story is one big flashback that Kate experiences during the events of Chapter 9 in Book 3.

~Part of the reason that the majority of the events in this story take place in Crystal Falls, Michigan, and not Oakside like they did in the games is because it's a nod to the very first version of this series that was written in 2014, which was nothing more than a low-quality self insert retelling of Slender: The Eight Pages and Slender: The Arrival. The general plot was the same, but most of the central characters were replaced with me and my friends, and since we all lived in Michigan at the time, I chose a random location in the state for the story's setting. It was pretty cringe in retrospect, but hey, you have to start somewhere right?

Book 2: Survival Instinct

Easter Eggs

~TBA

Trivia

~Area 37's layout is heavily inspired by the facility layout in SCP Unity, a project I was involved with before the lead developer canceled it and vanished from the face of the Earth in January 2021. I ran some of our social media and was a tester for the game.

Book 3: Shattered Reality

Easter Eggs

~During his introduction in Chapter 1, Aaron references the Red Dead Redemption game franchise a couple of times, even stating that Jack Marston(a character from the games) was not only a real person in Blood and Venom, but an author who wrote about the events of Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2. Geographical inconsistencies alone indicate that there was some degree of embellishment, and the entire reference of Jack being an author who wrote about his past experiences gets even more meta when you take into account the easter egg in GTA V where you can find a book called "Red Dead" with the author credited as "J. Marston." Ultimately, this all boils down to me being a big fan of Rockstar's single-player games and wanting to incorporate them into the series in a fun way.

~Mark and Russell's discussion in Chapter 1 about cult activity in New Jersey is a reference to The Order from DarkHarvest00.

~Cole's lines in Chapter 1 where he's talking about how he was "up until dawn" looking into the Blackwood Mountain case are a reference to the horror game Until Dawn.

~The Oakside trivia that Lauren keeps in her notes in Chapter 2 is taken directly from the loading screens of Slender: The Arrival.

~During a playthrough of Slender: The Arrival, one will occasionally hear the sound of leaves crunching in the woods. In the game, this is nothing more than a sound effect meant to drive up paranoia, but I decided to take this small little detail and turn it into something important. Every time Lauren hears this in my story, it's because Charlie is secretly nearby keeping a close eye on her.

~A number of phrases are written on the walls and floors of the Kullman Mine in Chapter 5, and two of them are references: "NO WAY OUT" is a callback to the penultimate chapter of Perdition's Genesis and is also meant to hint at The Chaser's identity early on(along with a few other missable details, such as the feral woman having stormy gray eyes). "NO FRIENDS" is simply a reference to a track in Slender: The Arrival of the same name, which happens to be my favorite tune from the game's soundtrack.

~The final line of dialogue in Chapter 6 is a reference to the easter egg in Slender: The Arrival where Slender Man will break the fourth wall to tell the player "Not even a bug in this game will save you from me" if they manage to clip through the game's environment. The player would then be treated to a death screen.

~When Carl is flipping through the storybook in Chapter 8, he comes across an entry about a creature known as a Walrider. This is a reference to the game Outlast and one of its main antagonists, and also to the actual creature in German mythology which is more commonly known as an Alp.

~The Oakside Radio Station was owned by ECVKA Network before the company shut down and the building was abandoned. This serves as more of an easter egg than an actual plot point, as ECKVA is the official follow-up series to MarbleHornets.

~The part in Chapter 11 where Lauren falls from the top of the radio tower is a reference to the original ending of Slender: The Arrival's hardcore game mode.

~The scene where Lauren is at the Victor Park Boardwalk in Chapter 11 is a direct crossover with the video Pitfall from TribeTwelve.

~The creature known as Jerry in Chapter 11 is my interpretation of the unseen beings that HABIT had filming things for him in EverymanHYBRID.

~The Operator from MarbleHornets is referenced by Firebrand in Chapter 11.

~Most of Chapter 13 is meant to be an interpretation of Slender: The Arrival's secret level, and Diane's actions in the first third of the chapter actually follow the steps of opening it. First, you have to find the flashlight in Kate's house, then turn on the radio, then run outside and touch the Charlie poster. You also had to do it three times, with the third attempt being the one that unlocked the level. I remixed this and subtly inserted it into the story for fans of the game to find.

~Diane's non-verbal request for Slender Man to "Please end this" after he reaps her soul is taken from one of two options that the game presents you with after completing the secret level. The other option is to start the game again, which displays a heavily distorted image of the sky before showing a death screen and sending the player back to the same menu. This is also why I wrote Diane to be locked in place and staring up at the sky as she died.

Trivia

~The first two chapters of Shattered Reality and a few of the concepts within them originate from my fellow author Dyinglight, who originally wrote early versions of them as sort of a prequel to Slender: The Arrival and had a number of plans to incorporate them into a spin-off of my story that I gave him permission to write. He soon scrapped this idea, sent me what he'd written, and gave me his permission to use them in my own story if I wanted to, which I gratefully accepted. They've undergone quite the metamorphosis since I first laid eyes on them all those years ago, and I still have the original versions laying around somewhere, but throughout the years their general plot and spirit have remained the same. As for Dyinglight, I haven't heard from him since an email correspondence in late 2018 and can only hope that he's moved on to bigger and better things. I wish you nothing but the best, my friend, and I thank you for all that you've contributed to Blood and Venom. My series wouldn't be the same without you.

~On the topic of Dyinglight's contributions, the characters of Russell, Cole, and Mark were all created by him, although they were quite different from their final versions and had different names back then, the most notable being Mark, who he'd originally named Miles as a reference to Miles Upshur from the survival horror game Outlast.

~Book 3 contains a number of parallels with TribeTwelve, most of which were unintentional, such as Lauren emptying a pistol mag into Slender Man and being attacked after it was ineffective.

~Mark O'Donnell's name is a reference to Mark Hadley, the creator and main developer of Slender: The Eight Pages and Slender: The Arrival.

~The "Cryptic Symbols Discovered on Halloween Night" article in Chapter 2 references the "Halloween in Oakside" article that Blue Isle studios posted back in 2014 to announce their latest contest, which consisted of finding painted words vandalizing the landscape of Slender: The Arrival to spell out the message "Abandon all hope, for death is only the beginning." The winners of the contest won Steam gift cards of varying value, and I actually featured the completed message in Chapter 8 of Shattered Reality; I even put it in the spot where you could find one of the cryptic words in the game while the contest was going on. Oddly enough, the words were never removed in the Steam version of the game and can still be found in it, and were never present in other versions of the game due to the contest predating Slender: The Arrival's release on consoles.

~The phrase "Find me, Lauren" that was scrawled on the wall in Chapter 3 was taken from the console edition of Slender: The Arrival, and is not present in the PC version.

~The title of Chapter 6 is a reference to HAUNT, an outstanding survival horror game revolving around its own version of the Slender Man.

~The song "O Willow Waly" has stuck with me ever since I heard the instrumental/piano version in Slender: The Arrival's 2.0 trailer, so I decided to incorporate it into the story in a couple of ways. The first was by having an ancient willow tree standing tall over the ritual site on the Matheson Farm, and the second was by having the song playing on Kate's radio in Chapter 9, the latter of which was taken from a modified version of the game that was very early in development and actually had this happen. Unfortunately, that mod was taken down, but its legacy lives on through Blood and Venom.

~The title of Chapter 11 is a reference to the song The Other Side by the band Pendulum. This is due to the song being used in one of TribeTwelve's Collective videos, as well as the community branding it as the unofficial theme of The Collective. It's easy to understand why when you listen to the lyrics, which also fit in with the nature of Lauren's predicament in that part of the chapter.

~There's a bit of exposition in Chapter 11 that compares the ashes covering the mountainside to snow. This is meant to be a reference to the original version of the finale from Slender: The Arrival, which would've taken place on a snow-capped mountain. This was changed to the burning forest we all know and love at an unspecified point in development.

~The torture Lauren goes through in the first part of Chapter 11 was inspired by the sequence in Spider-Man: Far From Home where Mysterio torments Peter with a series of illusions.

~Firebrand being covered in burn scars was inspired by how many people in the TribeTwelve fanbase thought the character had been severely burned in a fire. There's a number of places this misconception could've originated from, but ultimately it was incorrect. I, however, have always liked the idea and decided to incorporate it into Blood and Venom to accompany the more gruesome appearances of the rest of The Collective.

~Habit has an unintentionally meta line in Chapter 11 where he talks about the original Alpha Timeline and brings up the plot of TribeTwelve, ending his rant with the phrase; "It's a shame it all fell apart because it was a ton of fun." It was only after writing this that I realized how accurately this depicted the sudden and tragic cancellation of that series due to several controversies surrounding one of its creators.

~The setting in the first third of Chapter 13 was inspired by an old YouTube video that combined "Rainymood" with Slender: The Arrival's "No Friends" track. It was a perfect mix, but in typical YouTube fashion, the video was taken down some time ago.

General Notes and Fun Facts

~MarbleHornets, Clear Lakes 44, and ECKVA all exist in the Blood and Venom universe, but they are mostly unrelated to the rest of the series.

~The title "Blood and Venom" originated from a video I was watching about what snake venom does to blood. The series gained this title during the final set of Book 1 and Book 3 revisions.

~Prior to being called Blood and Venom, the series didn't have a name, was much less organized, and Book 1 and Book 3 were simply called The Eight Pages and The Arrival rather than the titles they now have.

~Blood and Venom has undergone a number of notable revisions, beginning all the way back in 2014 as the two aforementioned self-insert stories and eventually evolving into the series it is now. It was a long road with several sets of rewrites, rebranding, and an ungodly amount of note-taking, cross-referencing, and planning, but at long last, this series has become something that I can be truly proud of.

~The final round of series revisions began with the re-upload of Book 1's first chapter on May 21st, 2019, which I consider to be the day that Blood and Venom truly began.

~With the previous point in mind, the reason Book 3 has taken so long to complete is because I got most of the way through revising it before deciding to rewrite the whole thing yet again, as it needed one last touch-up before I could truly call it complete. There was also the fact that I was juggling college, a job, and two other stories all at once, not to mention things like relationships and a social life. Eventually, I learned how to prioritize these things properly, and I released the first chapter of the final version of Book 3 on July 25th, 2020.

~Speaking of rewrites, I've placed the town of Oakside in several different areas over the years, beginning with the state of Washington, then Idaho, and then finally Alberta when I realized that the Canadian province was where the game took place and not anywhere in the United States like I'd initially believed. I'm not really sure why it took me so long to realize this, but I'm inclined to chalk it up to the fact that I was only 13 years old when I first started writing this series and couldn't be bothered to do any research beyond what I saw in the games themselves. If I'm not mistaken, it was the addition of the EPWS(which was only ever used in Alberta, Ontario, and British Columbia) sign collectible in the 2.0 update of Slender: The Arrival, as well as discovering that Blue Isle Studios is located in Alberta, that finally made me realize where the town was truly meant to be located.

~The reasoning behind the locations I initially chose for Oakside to be was that I knew Slender: The Arrival took place somewhere near the Rocky Mountains, but at the time I didn't realize it was actually in Canada, so I just picked general areas around the mountains and called it good. I didn't pay anywhere near as much attention to detail back then as I do now.

~The name I originally came up with for The Earth Dimension was Valvyrne. The vaguely Nordic and otherworldly name was originally meant to be taken as a somewhat heavenly term, as if The Earth Dimension was a reality of relative peace compared to the rest of existence. I've since retired the term, but who knows, maybe I'll find a use for it again someday.