have you watched the amazing digital circus, and if yes have you thought about doing a review for it?
I have watched it and mostly enjoyed it. The middle episodes dragged a bit as it settled into being more of a hang out show (though it was still funny and well-animated throughout), but the last couple have really picked up and leaned back into the psychological torment that hooked me early on. I didn't see the finale in theaters, so I'm waiting for the YouTube release.
For a while I really thought I was going to do a review to both express praise for it and also get into some of my quibbles with the show. The over-reliance on scenes where two characters sit down and tell each other their feelings are valid, which feels odd for a series about a bunch of strangers trapped in a VR torture labyrinth that was initially pitched as a psychological horror series inspired by I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. The stuff I talked about in my original Hazbin review where these big viral indie cartoons feel like they have to be fandom-ready and have lots of marketable characters they can make a mountain of merch out of because aggressive merchandising is basically the only way to fund a production like this—which isn't really a problem with the show itself, more the system it exists within. These things don't ruin my enjoyment of the show, but they are on my mind.
The problem is that TADC (and, honestly, Glitch shows as a whole) have become miserable to talk about online. A large portion of that young, obsessive fanbase that the show had to attract in order to fund itself has turned on the show and its creators, unable to handle any real conflict or tension in the narrative or their ships not being canon or whatever, and now they just wanna turn Gooseworx into a lolcow and threaten her with violence.
And meanwhile the people who already hated the show are taking those same mild criticisms I had about the merch-driven production model and the "therapyspeak" writing (I hate how the term "therapyspeak" gets applied to basically any example of characters talking about their feelings now, especially if it's a thing women like, but it's at least somewhat applicable here) and expressing them in the most obnoxious, belligerent ways possible. I think that's the real kicker for me. The Hellaverse shows have always been surrounded by fandom discourse and controversy, but I felt like setting the Vivziepop callouts aside and focusing more on Hazbin's pacing and structural issues gave me my own angle to talk about it in a worthwhile way. But the nitpicks I have of TADC (again, along with many things I like about the show!) are already being widely discussed in a million hyperbolic posts debating whether or not the show is Tumblrcore Theorybait Therapyspeak Validcore Merchslop or whatever buzzwords 20-year-olds like to throw around this week to completely discredit it. In the face of that, I just don't know if I have the energy to join into that shitshow.
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