#so in conclusion fuck pastra fuck chezzkids fuck minaxa ESPECIALLY urban stays winning and so does this fanbase kthxbye

[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.