#content creators can stay

[notbadforafailedvessel]

[teeth-cable]

Have you seen The Amazing Digital Circus yet?

If so, what's your opinion on it?

I LOVE TADC! It’s my favorite indie show at the moment! There’s just so much I like about it but my main ones are

1. The setting and execution being unique. A horror-like project taking place in an late 90s/early 2000s digital game is not a new idea and same goes with characters being stuck in a purgatory however it’s how the artists reinvent those idea that makes it new. The digital Circus made its own aesthetic that makes it stand out from other projects with similar concepts and designs. When I first watched the pilot, one of many things that stuck out to me was how new the story ideas felt. I couldn’t think of any other pieces of media similar to TADC beside for surface-level comparisons. The TADC created its own aesthetic and knows what it wants to be and I like it!

2. Soundtrack. Speaks for itself, the soundtrack for the pilot is so good especially Your New Home. That song is very catchy and emotional too. It has such a unique melody, everytime you hear the first few notes you instantly recognize it. It does a great job highlighting the dread and existentialism crisis of Pomni’s situation. I recommend to give it a listen if you haven’t.

3. The characters dynamics. I just love how the characters interact with each other. The majority of the jokes comes from characters’ interactions and dynamics and how well everyone plays off of each other. The best example is Jax with everyone, Jax is a funny jerk who likes bullying his peers. It’s funny to see what creative ways Jax will bully the other people whether it’s being sarcastic and making quips at them, or though goofy pranks and how the characters react because of their contrast in personality. Every character beside Jax is openly stressed or worried in someway while Jax, at first seem like a chill layback dude.

4. The characters differences. I adored the differences between each character from how they talk to their poses. After watching HH and HB, I learned to have an appreciation for character differences. It’s just refreshing to see characters allowed to be different instead of the same tired reused tropes and repeating the same type of dialogue again for every character.

5. Mystery and lore. There is so much to explore in the pilot, it’s make you wanting more. When going in to watch the pilot, I made the mistake of thinking the series will be predictable. I didn’t see how they could make this premise work because by the end of it, Pomni will go insane but then I watched the pilot and was speechless. The pilot does a good job setting up questions for the audience to ask. If Caine lied about the exit, what are other things did he lied about? How long has the cast been stuck in the circus? Who are these people? Are they previous game developers? Who were they in their previous lives? What is the company’s motivation to create the headset? What are the abstractions in game? Are they viruses to the game program? Who were the former cast? What horrors has Kinger seen to be as paranoid and easily frighten as he is now? Do the abstractions still have a consciousness? You just want to find out more about the lore to solve the many mysteries in the show. I find it impressive Gooseworx was able to stir up the theorists because they have admitted in an ask, there are already theories floating around that are almost right about the show.

One problem I did have for the pilot were the scenes containing the Gloink Queen. The pacing of the pilot was fine until we got to her then it was slow. I feel it dragged longer than it needed too but beside that, my issues for the pilot ends.

I can’t speak for the fandom on other platforms but the tumblr one is great! Most of the time everyone is being respectful towards each other and I love seeing what creative theories, AU, fanfics, and art the fans created. The only people causing drama are the anti-shippers, and it’s just dumb. All of the cast are adults, if age gaps ships makes people uncomfortable, that’s valid but they shouldn’t make it into other people’s problems. Gooseworx themselves admitted they don’t care for romance and they don’t want fans in the fandom getting harassed over shipping.

Overall despite what issues I had for the pilot and fandom, they’re overshadowed by the positives and I can’t wait to see the full show and the fandom’s growth.

[ghostbergara]

I dont know if anyone has talked about this already but in the puppet history recap…BRAIN DAVID GILBERT?!?!????? SCREAMING

[adreamthatsworthkeeping]

[moltenhair]

WOOF.

RIP Watcher i guess.

[scarycranegame]

a bit of a more serious post than usual so if you don't really wanna see that, i won't be upset at all if you keep scrolling.. the only reason why this is under a cut is because i myself don't really wanna look at it every time i scroll through my blog (is that a thing people do?? or am i just very self absorbed??? LMAO)

i'm a little concerned about urban himself and the direction he's taking his series.

like.. i'm all for creative expression, and i'm all for the idea of nobody policing anyone else's creative work for what can and can't be done in a certain narrative (let alone fiction in general), but i feel like the more interaction urban has had with his fanbase and the analog horror community in general, the more it's been affecting both him and his series.

i think that i should address his twitter presence and """controversy""" first, because that's the thing that's on everyone's mind when they hear "urbanspook" at this point.

i wanna preface this by saying that i fucking hate how people have been responding to all of this. what chezzkids and pastra are doing & have done is, indeed, harassment; they aren't criticizing urban's series, they're saying it shouldn't exist. both pastra and chezzkids can be quoted saying effectively the same thing: "urban should not have a platform, and by supporting him and his art, we're encouraging other people to make things similar to it, and that's bad." if you don't see the problem with that, let me spell it out for you: these are fascist, pro-censorship views that align with those of harmful far-right ideologies which call for the suppression of content made by and in support of marginalized people. if you're willing to overlook that because "icky shock horror bad!!!!", then i think you should log off of the internet and spend some time re-evaluating your perception of the world and those around you, especially those who are different than you. this man has been the victim of a targeted harassment campaign for, at most, a full year, and mocking him for lashing out as a result of said harassment is far more ableist than the phrase "autistic furry horror" will ever be.

with that being said, i greatly dislike the way urban conducts himself on twitter. yes, i know it's supposed to be ironic; yes, i know he's "trolling" and that everything he says on there is disingenuous..

...but this is the internet.

no one is going to genuinely believe it's all a big joke, no matter how many times urban says it and no matter how true it may be. they already don't see him from a very positive perspective, even if they don't have much of a justifiable reason to do so (although their reasoning is understandable to an extent), so playing up a purposefully "edgy, immature, rage-bait" persona might drive people away who may have otherwise been interested in the series. i've seen several testimonials from people who enjoy the series and have even created fan work, but are put off by urban's behavior on twitter, and some people have even gone so far as to claim that the series in of itself is objectively bad and devoid of any value solely because of the twitter situation despite not having watched a single video in the series. yeah, the whole point of the joke may be self-parody, the punchline might be that urban is playing up the analog horror community's wildly inaccurate perception of how he is as a person, but i feel like the joke's gone on a little bit too long to still be anything but harmful to urban and his presence on the internet. he's stated that after finishing his current series, he wants to step away from analog horror altogether and work on other things, but i fear that if the twitter antics continue the way they're going, that might not end up happening; either due to a lack of willingness on his part (after all, being around so much negativity for such a long time typically affects people very adversely), or due to a lack of remaining audience.

despite my concerns, however, it must be said that i don't know what any other communities he's active in are like, and if i had to guess, i would assume that his future work under the "urbanspook" name would be more in tune with his actual interests pertaining to the horror genre as opposed to anything in the orbit of the analog horror community. i could be completely wrong about the twitter business, and urban's effectiveness at creating things completely divorced from analog horror may not be compromised in the slightest. however, as a fan of his analog horror series, i still feel that it's important to suggest this possibility: even after it's finished, The Painter will still exist, and its association with this particular time in urban's online endeavors may make some people wary of giving it a chance when they otherwise may have enjoyed it.

speaking of urban's work, i think i should elaborate more on how urban's interactions with his fanbase are affecting the series itself as opposed to him and his online presence.

to put my view of where things are going in terms of urban's handling of the series, i remember reading a magazine interview with him at some point (i think it was either right before or right after PIGS was released) where he mentions that he got the idea of there being two killers from fan theories, which!! on paper it seems like a cool thing to do!! but recently with all of these new lore additions (ex., mask guy missing his face and acting like a dog, painter being female, revealing the killers' names at all, the episodes not being in chronological order, etc.), i'm starting to notice a sort of "matpat effect" (to coin a phrase) going on, where he's writing the story in such a way that canonizes fan theories just for the sake of canonizing those fan theories.. i don't find it very difficult to believe that all the people in his instagram/youtube comments asking the same exact questions over and over may have influenced his writing decisions a bit, and even though he himself has admitted he isn't the best writer, i think that the earlier episodes are the strongest of the series (sans PIGS and FAMILY, i love those two with all my heart and soul) and that urban's writing is best when it isn't influenced by the fanbase. (if anyone wants me to elaborate on this, let me know!! i might make a post at some point about what i think is different between the first few episodes and the newer episodes if anyone wants me to; i think legitimately analyzing this series is super fun and i have a lot of things to say about it!!)

all in all, i'm just really worried about urban. in the beginning, he seemed so adamant about being individual and unique with his series and his online presence; he defied so many expectations that people had regarding analog horror and those who create it and seemed so much happier to work on this series... but now it seems like he just wants to get it all over with so he can work on things he actually wants to work on, and all anyone sees him as is a caricature of someone who never even really existed in the first place outside of a moment of completely justified rage. his heart isn't in it anymore; at least, it doesn't seem like it to me, and i really hope that eventually all of this superficial, reactionary """controversy""" bullshit blows over and that maybe urban's remaining time in the analog horror community can be made at least a little bit more pleasant.

[majorbaby]

i've decided to post my a softer world x MASH edits to a sideblog. i may periodically rb them here too.

[sunshineduo]

o_O

[gingerbreadmonsters]

[eyes narrow]

[princesspeach5]

twitter adding a massive amount of completely random (and often negative or upsetting) tweets to the for you page and removing the context for why relevant tweets are there and instagram actually removing posts from your feed after you've seen them so it can say "you're all caught up" and show you posts from people you don't follow have rendered both almost unusable

[belanova]

Ok Idk how to check but i've grown a little suspicious so i want people to unfollow me if they still like dream, still make content about dream or activately think dream Is innocent i do not want you here

[dimestoretajic]

when you just want to give everyone a hug because shit’s fucked

[sharkylad]

ILL MISS YOU MATPAT

Please, enjoy spending time with your family and spreading your wings. You've more then earned it