Should TADC have been horror?
Minor Spoilers for ep 9, not that I saw it haha
First, let me clarify that I'm a fan of tadc more as a case study than as an actual show.
When I first saw the pilot, I thought the focus was the horror as someone who didn't look at Gooseworx socials (and I was hearing about the I Have No Mouth inspiration). Pomni has to realize she is indeed trapped in a virtual world and we are introduced to the abstraction mechanic. I assumed the show would follow a general format of:
Caine gives people an adventure that will be psychologically challenging/revealing for one or more characters
On the adventure they may also discover leads that can help them escape (maybe not every episode)
An abstraction may happen (maybe not every episode)
Post trauma reactions from relevant characters.
Here is a fanfic as an example (SCROLL TO THE NEXT BIG TEXT IF YOU WANT TO SKIP):
(This is ep 4 instead of the canon one)
Caine presents the suggestion box. After people submit their suggestions, when Gangle blinks she is in the anime school. The characters have their reactions to now being in an anime school. It's awesome for Gangle because everyone likes her and she gets to have doki doki moments with Zooble. Gangle recalls all the times Zooble helped her feel brave in a montage (good time for some gags), Gangle decides it's time to be brave on her own and confess to Zooble. They meet under the cliche anime confession tree and right before Gangle confesses Zooble does a glitchy thing and looks around confused but Gangle doesn't notice. Gangle confesses, Zooble just stares. Gangle interprets this as a rejection and accepts it with grace and some tears, before Zooble can say anything they glitch out again. They are in pieces by a tree in a campsite in a dark forest (think that discontinued Friday the 13th game). They see Ragatha running and screaming, Jax catches up to her and cuts her into pieces with an axe. Jax looks in Zooble's direction, they try to hide behind the tree, they hear him approaching so they disassemble again.
When he leaves, Zooble reassembles and explores the woods. They find Pomni hiding in a cabin. Zooble asks if she's the real Pomni and she says she is. They share info and discover that everyone seemingly got the adventure they wanted but they each were by themselves, everyone else in each adventure is an npc. Pomni didn't pick one, figuring it's probably a monkey's paw situation and her adventure would be corrupted some how. Zooble figures they are jumping around too because they didn't pick an "actual adventure". Pomni asks for clarification and Zooble divulges their dysphoria and how they requested a new body figuring it wouldn't hurt to try. They quiet down when they hear Jax walking by whistling outside the window. They discuss how to escape. Pomni says she jumps when she thinks about how she doesn't belong somewhere, she thinks she's been to everyone's adventure at least once. An axe comes through the door and Jax says the cliche reference line. Zooble and Pomni escape out the window. Zooble tries chanting that they don't belong there over and over but Jax catches them before they can escape. Pomni tries to help but she gets axed in the face. As Zooble is torn apart they question to themselves why Jax gets to torture them but they can't have something as small as a different body. Cut to black. It's the school again but the atmosphere is completely different. Gangle is ostracized and bullied here. Zooble and others corner Gangle and take her stuff. They mock her sketchbook drawings and tell her she only has a future at Spudsy's or as a starving artist. Zooble and the others beat her up, they mock her audacity to have feelings for them; Gangle agrees saying they don't deserve someone like Zooble, or anything for that matter. The camera zooms out to reveal this is on a tv on a table in a dark room, panning over a note can also be seen as well as a new body. The paper says to choose one and lose the other. The camera pans back to reveal Zooble. In the end Zooble abandons the body to go into the tv to save Gangle, but she's already begun abstraction. Zooble recipricates her feelings and gets to see Gangle smile before she abstracts. Zooble abstracts after as well. Then everyone is back in the circus. Caine tells everyone they had an abstraction so the adventure is over. He reveals they went with Jax's idea of giving everyone what they want and then having him torture them. Gangle asks what happened to Zooble, she didn't see them after their... talk, and everyone getting sent to the woods. Caine replays everything on a comical tv (this part of the episode would be in fast forward). Jax treats the abstraction like someone overreacting to a joke which pisses everyone off and he loves it. Caine goes to wrangle Zooble into the basement, Gangle refuses to let Caine take them but he just removes her ribbon or something until he's done. She sleeps restlessly that night. In her dream, Zooble is telling Gangle that if she abstracts too, they can be together. She almost gives in but she wakes up before she abstracts with the abstraction eyes for a sec. She gets a determined look. She finds the basement and goes in. She isn't sure which abstraction monster is Zooble, she tries the one that's more nonchalant. She touches the abstraction and is able to talk to Zooble like Pomni can with Jax in ep 9. Gangle says she can't be brave without them and asks if there is anything she can do to save them. Zooble says they don't know if they can be saved, but Gangle can be brave without them, she came into the basement by herself after all. They tell her to escape and pursue her dream, to not lose hope. The abstraction carries her out and Caine pops into fix her glitchiness. He scolds her for doing something so stupid but she isn't listening. She resolves to be brave for Zooble and maybe find a way for both of them to escape.
(I think a cool adventure after this aimed at Gangle would be a Five Night's at Spudsy's adventure, except every time 5 days goes by it goes back to night 1. Would be reflective of Gangle's fear that even if she escaped she'd just be working at Spudsy's for the rest of her life)
So, expecting a comedy horror kind of deal, I interpreted most of this show as horribly paced and jam packed with "filler". So when I was looking online and saw people saying that they wanted more "character moments" I was baffled until I learned that the "character moments" were actually the main point, not the horror nor the adventures. I heard that the show had Popee the Performer as an inspiration, I think Gooseworx should have leaned exclusive or almost exculsively into that. It would be easier as a first show, people wouldn't expect anything grand or deep, WAY less to follow through on or keep track of, and Gooseworx gets to maximize the thing the show was actually supposed to be about. All the horror angle did I think was make 1 generally cool horror episode (ep 8), have half the fanbase frustrated that they had to wait so long for the horror stuff, and have people build up expectations for ep 9 just to not be able to follow through on a lot of shit that was teased.
Have other people thought this? Should I kill my fucking self? Let me know in the comments/dms/ a box with a pipe bomb mailed directly to my house! :D
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