#cloudcuckoocountry

[lauferisms]

Ergodic Literature: The Weirdest Book Genre

#Ergodic Literature #Ergodism #house of leaves #scorched atlas #cloudcuckoocountry #video essay #S novel #S #jj abrams #the unfourtunates #bats of the republic #choose your own adventure #scorch atlas #tree of codes #choice of games #ai dungeon #the unfortunates

[antonarcana]

Commission for @cloudcuckoocountry ! ✨

[Image ID: A digital illustration of a brown anthropomorphic bird character with a red, hooked beak. He is wearing a dark brown button up with a moon, sun and star print pattern and its sleeves rolled up, as well as brown high waisted trousers. He is holding a mug of coffee from which is emitting steam and golden sparkles which are swirling around him. In the background are Sturt’s Desert Pea flowers and leaves. End ID]

#furry art #illustration #fantasy illustration #furry #anthro art #digital illustration #art

[dragonfoxgirl]

Every time I get a chance to draw this boi I get so happy.

#artists on tumblr #commission #furry

[skarnaes]

Non-euclidean geometry in media is one of the most fascinating things to me. I remember playing games like Antichamber and The Stanley Parable when I was younger and I only now realize how much of an impact they had on my younger, sponge-like brain. There's a feeling akin to a fourth wall break when reality itself breaks before you, you cannot rely on the comfort of knowing not only what will happen, but can happen next. It oddly resembles the feeling of listening to music outside of 12-tone equal temperament, especially if you're like me, and has spent years listening and studying to music inside this one system. Using a medium to its full potential, to the point where you feasibly cannot recreate said art in any other way. Books like House of Leaves are a perfect example of 'media that cannot be recreated in any other form'. It is a popular form of ergodic literature; a book whereas effort is required to traverse through pages to get the full picture of the story. There are pages where the text will suddenly be backwards, form shapes, etc. The format of the text will physically bend to act as a metaphor for what the characters in the book are feeling/what is happening to them. Without explaining the whole plot of the book to ya; there is a part in the book where someone is stuck in an endless labyrinth, and just for curiosities sake decides to punch through a wall. As a direct result of this, the next few pages in the book quite literally have a hole in them, showing the text that was there a few pages earlier. It's even mirrored on the other side of the page.

(Pictured: House of Leaves, the page I just explained to you. The blue square in the middle is the "hole" in the text. Image from CloudCuckooCountry's video about ergodic literature, where he talks about this exact thing).

Of course, I cant talk about meta media without mentioning liminal spaces and The Backrooms... There isn't much to say other than that this sense of unease seem to be a universal feeling. Many of us growing up in the 2000s can faintly remember being, or atleast seeing a place like a park, a long hallway, a mall etc. Viewing these pictures—which to some degree remind us of our childhood—in a distorted manner not only tugs at our nostalgia but also feeds into our subconscious fear of the uncanny valley. Our new generation is obsessed with nostalgia, so it's no wonder this "meta-genre" of horror is so popular, with things like Gemini Home Entertainment, Mandela Catalogue and so on. Gen Z is widely considered an experimentational generation, with the global normalization of the internet and social media becoming much more prevalent in our daily lives. At a time where we are spoonfed all sorts of both real and fake news from all over the world at all times, it's no wonder most would rather go back to a time where you weren't always pressured to stay connected. Anyways.. dunno how my small ramble about non-euclidean geometry in media turned into me writing about gen z and nostalgia. I'm gonna go back to being inactive now.. (_ _ ") .. Zzzz

#honestly this topic aint that bad for like a essay i think .. might rewrite this in the future #i suck at tags #fourth wall #nostalgia #meta #ergodic literature #house of leaves #liminal spaces #FUCK i had to finish an assignment why do i always do this

[crowneprince]

Age of Empires thumbnail art for CloudCuckooCountry's new video essay (RTS is easy and fun).

#age of empires #video games #rtsgames

[banavalope]

Calling it an ARG isn’t just ‘technically’ incorrect its 100% incorrect. It wasn’t even a fandom thing the creator made it as an art project and it blew up overwhelmingly and now they don’t even want to do it anymore

Look bud, you’ve kind of got me between a rock and a hard place here. The artist has asked people not use his words as artillery against each other, and quoting him directly is the only way I can accurately respond to you, so we've come to an impasse.

Anyway I wanna talk about ARG semantics instead, which is an interesting conversation we can both have together.

It involves analyzing analog horror as a whole to understand how we've arrived at having both a modern, and a traditional, definition of ARG.

To make a long story short, just in the event you're not here in good faith or perhaps don't like reading long essays - also to like. Do everyone a favor rq - the word people are looking for to properly define Welcome Home is ergodic analog horror. This is the umbrella term you're all looking for. Ergodic. We're moving on now.

Might I also recommend two video essays I love if you find this topic interesting: Ergodic Literature: The Weirdest Book Genre by CloudCuckooCountry and History of Analog Horror by Alex Hera

So lets ask: What makes something (not Welcome Home, we're not talking about that anymore, I do literally mean Something in General) "technically" an ARG?

Our modern day definition of an ARG has quite honestly become interchangeable with the term ergodic literature, most likely due to "ergodic literature" being an obscure term; however, the evolution of the analog horror genre subverting what it means to be "a game" is a much more likely cause that I think is important to appreciate.

By traditional definition - perhaps having been lost to time, this was the early 00s after all - an ARG is only a proper ARG when there is a game master orchestrating a game, and the story does not, will not, and can not progress without player participation. There are quite a few famous ARGs our there that went on for years before being finished because the participants got stuck. It's entirely on you to finish the narrative. Think of them like global LARP sessions, a lot of visiting physical locations to get your next clue is involved.

There are lots of traditional ARGs, some famous ones include projects like I Love Bees, Blair Witch Project, and the very infamous "Hey Peabrain, you teleport?" that happened right here on tumblr dot com. These games are my experience with defining what is or isn't an ARG.

Of course, time moves on with or without us, and I've come to accept that ARG is a broader term than it was before.

It's important to note that ARGs are the direct birth parent of modern analog horror. In fact, while analog horror has always existed as a sort of artistic backdrop, it wasn't a named genre until Local58 offhandedly defined itself with the term "analog horror". Many well known analog horror projects such as Mandela Catelogue, Gemini Home Entertainment, or Mystery Flesh Pit National Park, take much of their inspiration from the groundwork Local58 laid, and took to calling themselves analog horror as well, as one might expect.

Now, these influential supergiants are in, what you might call, "read only" format. Audience participation is not needed for the story to progress, which is a necessary component of an ARG.

Until it isn't!

Looking at art projects like This House Has People In It, Liminal Land, Doki Doki Liturature Club, or House of Leaves - just to name a few - they are all alternate reality "games" (one of them is literally a game). AR"G"'s, if you will.

The narrative presents itself as being contained, but very much is asking you to engage with it, if you so choose. They lay out clues to be found that take you to the next Easter Egg, and a deeper story can be ascertained, but only if you want. This is, technically, an ARG.

You can also just choose to play Doki Doki without digging into the sound files and extracting the meta data to get the secret art, or just watch This House Has People In It without finding the related secret website explaining Links Disease, either option is a "correct" way to read the media. You only stand to gain a different perspective by looking into more.

Which again, that's ergodic literature.

But these projects are famously considered ARGs.

These projects were huge, some of them mainstream, and were a lot of people's first time introduction to analog horror and ergodic literature. Some of these self define as an ARG when that's technically incorrect.

Altruistically, what these projects are accomplishing, is creating accessibility to the game space of the ARG genre. Cherrypicking all the self contained, gamelike elements, without committing to orchestrating a game. Traditional ARGs are typically extremely time sensitive, and one might "miss out" for arriving late to an event, or having limited access to necessary tools. Perhaps some people feel unsafe at the prospect of going to an unknown physical location, on the hope it's part of the game. Traditional ARGs were once incredibly niche for that reason. Modern AR"G"s keep this to a minimum, if not outright omit it in favor of telling a good story.

I'm not sure if there's a recent example out there of a traditional ARG, other than Hey Peabrain? Certainly there are some, to be honest with you I've moved on from traditional ARGs in favor of modern ones and other analog horror media subgenres, but my point being that they're becoming less common as they're increasingly replaced by Hunt-A-Killer style story ""games"". Shortly, we'll see some of the same evolutions begin to happen as digital horror outpaces analog horror as the shiny new popular horror genre. With digital horror's inclusion of formats like tiktok, I would expect to see us circle around again to traditional games being explored within the alternate reality space, as it lends itself well to that kind of thing.

In general, people are going to be familiar with this form of ARG, where "game" means "a story asking you to engage with it", and will default to using ARG in that way. In the broader experience of others, ergodic literature is an ARG, even though ARGs are not ergodic literature, technically. Most ARGs calling themself an ARG are not ARGs, mntechnically.

With any luck, this essay was compelling. It's just a thinker, really, I'd be interested to hear what you - or anyone - might think.

I'll reiterate, here, in closing, that by no means is this analysis meant to be seen as being in defence of, or opposition against, how anyone chooses to use the term ARG. I'm making no statements about Welcome Home or the people who took to it as if it were a traditional ARG. Neither am I expressing my opinion on the way fans engage with art projects, or even actual ARGs. That's a whole other conversation we aren't having here.

[arkfeather]

who is your. furry video essayist of choice. smile.

i just finished watching cardinal west’s video on naturalist xenofiction which is a good watch if ur looking for book recs abt animals, though they are primarily focused on literary critique rather than video essays. ive also enjoyed CloudCuckooCountry’s videos on house of leaves/ergodic literature and this is how you lose the time war though they are ALSO a book reviewer. and also patricia taxxon but shes kind of a given :p

#answered

[pinktatertots99]

what are your favorite youtube channels?

god lately it’s been commentary channels cause i’m shit at remembering everyone but ones off my head:

doodletones ponder sprocket 8363mtr luckster keyblademaster aeron tempest sl4yer artemy musha lunaticthegame dall smick just stop the right opinion mastertp10 boonslayer bowserdude x darkness stone spoctor mangakamen reitanna seishin ashley nichols art  biichann MASA works design cloudcuckoocountry joey turner blameitonjorge that creepy reading themysteriousmrenter jackcepticeye

and that’s all i can think of so far i know alot more but i’d be here all day.

#the pink one speaks

[rachellevareilles]

salithemage replied to your post: Just as an outsider looking in, I can’t understand...

That sounds right but I’ve seen anime youtubers who started this year see massive growth. On the other hand one of my favourite gaming channels that’s been around for years is on its last legs

You can just say Pedantic Romantic.  The other side of that is that anime Youtube is pretty small compared to stuff like film -- I think the biggest anime channel only has 1mil subs. Even the big anime YTers who shill constantly like Mother’s Basement have said that they only make about 40k a year in profits. (Worth noting that other big anime guy Digibro thinks Youtube is a dying platform for creators and doesn’t expect to have this job past 30.)  

But this is all more a critique of YTers who try to make patreons when they don’t even have an audience. For example, I came across a manga YTer today who shilled his patreon first thing, when he has only ~1k subs and the video’s bar is almost half dislikes. Or a small game channel who said YT was their day job despite having not even getting $10/month in patrons. 

(Although my fav. example is an amv creator I check up on from time to time who shills in their video descriptions despite making average-at-best short cartoon amvs. Even though there are months-long gaps between my check-ups, their patreon has always been $0.) 

If someone gains an audience and then tries to profit off them, I completely understand. (Although I still think CloudCuckooCountry is the best model of this, since he has a job and only puts his patreon money back into his channel.)

#salithemage #a

[dragonfoxgirl]

I gotta say, I'm digging the idea of lineless fully composed images. They look sleek. This big baby was commissioned by @cloudcuckoocountry and I had a lot of fun making it.

#lineless art #dragonfoxgirl commissions #dragonfoxgirl #furry #furry art #anthro #anthro art #anthropomorphic #cloudcuckoocountry

[bigbosscrypto]

The Sly Trilogy Retrospective : Part 3 | Beyond Pictures We are free My Patreon: https://ift.tt/2M0hmt0 My Twitter: @B_Mask_ My Discord: https://ift.tt/2yvYTCH Music- Jake Weller- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC-cWi1y7k-GDV-L5IBIxFQ Comic dub actors- Davis Kimball (Sly)- @CorgiSword Zach Fuller- (Mcsweeny/Murray) https://www.youtube.com/user/ZACHxFULLER Abigail Turner- (Carmelita) @abigailturnervo https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCapHCLGoldBDG2_pNH9rbvA Sly dev team alumni- Dev Madan: https://ift.tt/32SSWuJ Travis kotzebue: @HominidsComic / https://ift.tt/1IH82Bk Gamerland Podcast: https://ift.tt/32UamHl Cloudcuckoocountry's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/CloudCuckooCountry The Sly Cooper Wiki: https://ift.tt/2K4Fuva Thanks so much to all of you. via YouTube https://youtu.be/UC2W8AYRAHw If you want to learn more about cryptocurrencies, check out this awesome opportunity from the cryptocurrency institute. http://bit.ly/2sUPBxj

#IFTTT #Blogger

[aeon-of-dreams]

Authorial intent or reader response?

Hmmm…let me think about this…

One way I might look at it is like currency, the author’s intent may be likened to gold and the reader response may be more like silver. The reason I say this is because there are circumstances behind the Intent which I personally don’t feel can be entirely written off.

The author writes a lot of their story based on these intentions and a good deal, if not the entire story, is based on this which would lead me to believe that said intentions are the reason the story exists as it does at all. On another level it can also be argued that the idea of “this story was made with intention X” is an objective factor.

You could argue if “The story could be viewed with Response/Idea A” as a response that it could fit into the story very well when you apply your response to it. Personally it is still valid to me (I even would encourage one to make their own Reader’s Responses), but it lacks the above, it may accommodate your response but that does not mean it was written for it or with it in mind like the Intent, but again that does not mean your Response means nothing, just that I believe the circumstances behind the Intent have some weight to them.

Essentially I am more down the middle believing both to be valid but as you may have guessed I do lean at least a little in favor of the author.

#cloudcuckoocountry

[rookiewompus]

cloudcuckoocountry replied to your post:being out as poly is such an issue. I wanna take...

I’m not familiar with how polyamory works on a social level. Why is it hard to post pictures? Would it lead to a backlash of some kind?

"backlash" is a crazy understatement.

let's nix the people in my life who are kinda homophobic (there aren't too manny of those anyway)

let's go with my mom: progressive, Buddhist mom, who is crazy supportive of me liking ladies and dudes and people who don't fit into either of those categories, who let our house be a safe spot for trans friends and asexuals and a gay lifestyle furry whose parents disowned him

mom could not be more anti-poly. it's better when I'm dating another guy, because then I'm "not being used" or whatever, but god forbid I date a guy and a girl - because suddenly, the relationship is unbalanced, it's "more beneficial" for him (somehow? as though I'm not enjoying the hell out of having a girlfriend too?) and, of course, I'm cheating myself by not having a monogamous relationship.

idk, I could probably post pictures without it being any big thing - most people would probably ignore it? but what I want to be brave enough to do is list myself as in a relationship with both of my partners (which I don't think fb even allows anymore anyway so whatever)

#personal #replies #CloudCuckooCountry