assorted thoughts (very unstructured) on the tadc finale
also hi sorry I haven't been on here in ages
obviously this post contains spoilers - don't read it if you care about that lol
also I am putting in the main tags because I don't want people to get spoiled if they only blocked the main tags but this is really a personal diary post type of thing and not intended to spark debate or anything - if we don't know each other and you think my views are ridiculous, I totally get that, please just ignore this and move on
I gather others feel more favourably about the episode which I am genuinely happy about because honestly I was kind of disappointed?
it felt to me like a neutral ending to a videogame where there is postgame content to get the true/good ending that has actual context and character stuff and lore and whatnot (I'm thinking neutral/pacifist vs true pacifist in undertale vibes), especially with jax getting no real ending? and there not being really any answers with the two AIs (ie caine and the blue one) and there kind of being *some* lore about C&A but not reeeeally?
it felt like it was a penultimate episode or the ending to the first series (ie a second one was intended) and then the show was cancelled by the network
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a not-so-little tangent about jax because I feel strongly about him (going to use he/him since canonically that is still what he uses):
the following is a thread I made on bluesky (same user as here) after watching the show for the first time after episode 8 came out (ie in april):
as A Transmasc™ I see a lot of stealth transmasculinity in jax #tadc thread in no particular order because I wanna yap about it: ⚠️ spoilers obviously ⚠️
number 1 obvious low-hanging fruit but it makes sense why he was so uncomfortable in the maid outfit and why the 'I thought you'd be more into this' (or wtte) annoyed him he is proud of his masculine ears and tail, and he panicked upon discovering that his tail hadn't been there the whole time
there was a thing about circus bodies matching the humans well (or at least caine tried to do that*) so it makes sense that his form in the circus is masculine *assuming he was acting in good faith, but it doesn't seem like he was acting in bad faith wrt the circus forms?
this would also support why he REALLY doesn't want to leave the circus because he now has a fully male form and possibly he didn't have the chance to transition in the outside world hiding his bedroom also makes sense as it might reveal interests that are seen societally as feminine*, which-
-he would conceivably not like people seeing if it would lead to questioning if he is 'really' a guy *no, I'm not saying all trans guys have 'feminine interests' or whatever, just that some do and if you're stealth you don't really want people prying/transvestigating you at all
obligatory disclaimer at the end: people also read jax as transfeminine, and that's great too! it is notable that characters can so often be read as trans in different directions simultaneously (see: link loz), because it shows that we all have far more experiences in common than we realise! 🏳️⚧️🤝🏳️⚧️🤝🏳️⚧️
I still honestly think jax makes more sense as a transmasc character than a transfem character and especially relating to that third post about the circus bodies and how we now know that they are based on literal brain scans of the characters - if jax is canonically transfem (and he's not an egg because he came out to his mother) why is his brain scan persona masculine? not just masculine (obvs women can be masculine) but like a guy full stop
like I kind of genuinely think that gooseworx kind of fucked that up and instead of making jax transfem as intended she made him transmasc textually
also speaking more generally: jax was a pivotal character to the worldbuilding/lore and then got... no particular ending? imo either he should have un-abstracted (caine literally offered) or fully 'died' as a tragic ending, not being kept as a pet to be figured out later
also also: I am saying this with the acknowledgement that zooble isn't cis either BUT this kiiind of feels a bit 'bury your gays' trans edition? I have complex feelings about that trope, and think queer authors should be held to different standards than straight+cis authors (ie if queer people want to write queer tragedies they should be able to do so without as much criticism about it) but the fact that jax doesn't have much of an ending at all feels worse to me than if he was given an outright tragic ending - like his character was canonically so important to the story but also wasn't respected enough to be given an ending really at all
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re caine and unspecified blue ai: this was pretty clearly set up to be a big reveal and we already knew from episode 8 that caine absorbed the other ai and that the other ai was the second version that was better than caine so... what new information did we get in the finale? it feels like the reveal of the brain scans (which tbh felt quite obvious since the circus bodies are based on the humans' traits, another fact which we knew) got muddled in with where the lore about the two AIs was meant to go
re brain scans: what was C&A doing with them? presumably they were related to trying to develop a creative AI but if so why were the file sizes so small as kinger mentioned? presumably that is why the circus bodies were only bodies and didn't come with many memories but... ok??? the point is... what exactly?
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visually: gawjus, loved it, going to use it for desktop backgrounds once it fully releases
seeing the colours of jax's abstraction on dark black on a proper cinema screen (ours was in the super fancy cinema so top quality screen + projector + sound) was AWESOME - no way are any of my shitty device screens/monitors going to be able to replicate that
the autistic bit: it was honestly really nice to see that it was in 16:9 too because I can definitely imagine a large studio that only cares about $$$ going 'its releasing in cinemas so it has to be in super skinny widescreen' and then cropping it for the youtube/netflix release and compromising the composition
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merch: if anybody can't go and see it in cinemas, here is the link to the exclusive stuff, don't say I never did anything for ya
I am a blindbox hater at the best of times but I was waiting on jax keychains and now they are blindboxes and I'm like ughhhhh just let me pay a bit more for a specific one PLS ARGH
same deal with the abstraction figurines they look SO cool but I want a jax one specifically
also I would love the poster but it is specifically branded to this final episode rather than the whole series so I would be putting a giant reminder that I didn't love the final episode on my wall rather than commemorating the series overall
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tldr: meh? I feel rather narratively unsatisfied and almost feel like we got shown a bad ending version and we are going to get Pranked and the one that goes on youtube & netflix will be the Real ending (this won't happen for many obvious reasons)
I would honestly have bought tickets to see it again in cinemas if I had enjoyed it more but I will instead wait until I can watch it for free in a couple of weeks - if I have any further thoughts in the meantime or afterwards I guess I will reblog this post with them
