So I’ve seen a non-zero amount of posts being upset about Caine’s finale redemption and while everyone is entitled to their opinion, this one kind of rubs me the wrong way and while I don’t want to call anyone out about it, I do want to counter it a bit.
“They don’t tell Caine he was deleted by mistake” Not on screen, no, and I certainly would have loved to see this get resolved, but I don’t think it’s a stretch infer that he doesn’t spend the rest of his life thinking his friends murdered him on purpose, because I simply don’t think the final montage & credit sequence of ep 9 would play out that way if that was the case.
They clearly all become close, Caine clearly looks happy and is very much included. I just don’t think you get to “matching Xmas sweaters” level of found family without working through that. We, the audience, already know definitively that it was an accident, so I personally don’t think it’s a huge omission to not reiterate it on screen.
“So Caine’s just gotta mask forever now to avoid upsetting the humans, huh?” The problem I have with this is that the over-the-top wacky persona WAS ITSELF A MASK!
There’s a solid parallel with Jax here, I think. Jax had trauma from her awful coming out experience and hid her real self away, hiding behind a cartoonish persona when people got too close. (I have a whole meta on Jax: click here if you’re interested in going deeper on that.) (Click the keep reading below if you’re interested in going deeper on this.)
In the abstraction flashbacks, you can hear the wall go up. When Jax first arrives in the circus, her voice sounds, well, human. But after that night with Ribbit, the Raggedy Andy impression gets stronger & stronger, symbolising Jax hiding behind a false persona.
With Caine, it goes the other way. I think it’s important to note that we mostly see Caine drop his “cartoon” voice when he’s NOT with the humans. It’s much less pronounced when he’s talking to Bubble in his office in ep 8. It’s barely there when he’s first alone in the void in ep 9, and it’s basically cast aside when he’s talking things through with himself/his brother after he learns more about the wider world.
I’m not saying that Caine isn’t naturally wacky — of course he is! But it’s not like people usually make their masks out of whole cloth. Rather, we hide behind parts of ourselves. We take a small part of our personality and use it to shield the rest. But that’s not really all that we are.
Caine made his world a circus. He put on a show. Now he can finally unmask and be his full self.
Now yes, when he first appears he is clearly walking on eggshells. The last time he saw them, if you’ll recall, he physically and psychologically tortured everyone. But Zooble (and it’s important that it’s them in particular) says that they’re glad to have him back. They follow him to the stage to accept his olive branch.
Pomni choosing to keep her circus name feels like a bit of an olive branch as well: accepting the circus for what it is and, by extension, accepting Caine and the place he has had and will have in their lives.
After that, the final montage is progressing through stages of the group healing and coming together:
• Caine taking notes, listening, nodding along, feeling overwhelmed and nervous to stand up for himself. If this remained static, I would understand the issue, but it’s step one. He needs to catch up on his listening skills. He needs to learn how to put the needs of others before his own sometimes. It makes sense to go too far the other way at first as you’re building trust and making up for past mistakes (sorry to my own url I guess haha but it’s possible that mayyyybe he did one or two things wrong, actually)
• Playing D&D, clearly invited to take part. Gangle reaching out and making Caine feel welcome. She has some experience with masking herself and I’m sure she knows from experience that roleplaying games are a great way to open up and let loose in a safe setting when you’re having trouble doing that irl. When Caine rolls that 12, you can see that Ragatha & Pomni are tense at first. They’re worried about what might happen if Caine gets upset and, truly, that’s fair! But he has the cutest little crashout ever and they can laugh about it together, with Ragatha clearly comforting him and Gangle sticking to her guns as DM, which tbh seems like an act of trust — not treating him different from the others and giving him a safe space to practice negative emotions in. And Caine doesn’t hold that disappointment back — the way his model stretches here feels like that cartoon side of him coming out organically. He’s clearly expressing himself honestly here, I see no mask.
• Gangle bonding with him over art, inviting him to draw with her. They are in her room here, she’s letting Caine into her private space. Again, that’s a sign of trust. From the sketches around the room, it looks like they were drawing together — Caine’s bees are here. But Gangle has a more developed understanding of drawing, I would anrgue, and the way Caine is leaning in with his whole chest, he’s curious about it and wants to learn from her. The first page she shows him is a full comic — we know Caine loves telling stories, so I could see him being interesting in putting his bees into situations, but not being sure how panel layout etc. works. The fact that he probably asked her for help is huge, honestly. He was so afraid to show weakness, to admit that there were things he couldn’t do, so afraid to be bad at anything because he had so much trauma around being cast out for Getting It Wrong. Admitting that there’s something he wants help with shows that this trust flows both ways — he’s not worried that Gangle will think less of him for not being perfect at art. Gangle’s mask is fully down in this scene too: she’s getting visibly excited, going “oh wait, I need to show you this too!” they’re both sitting on the floor together. Come ON this is adorable! Their body language is screaming “friends who are comfortable around each other”
• Softball scene is just funnyyyy, i was crying so hard i needed a laugh okay? But also yea softball is clearly significant to Ragatha and we saw earlier how she reached out to Gangle by teaching it to her. Now Caine is a part of that, down on the diamond and not just watching from above.
• Building up trust with Zooble was almost certainly a major endeavour. With most of the circus cast, Caine simply never built any trust at all. With Zooble, he broke their trust. See: the therapy session. He *was* probably masking around them for a while after he came back, really trying to not make them mad. I think it might have even taken Zooble a minute to not get upset at Caine over little things that reminded them of the past, even when it wasn’t really fair in the moment. But this scene at the bar shows that this arc has a happy ending! Zooble remembered his drink from They All Get Guns, they’re leaning into their avatar gimmick using extra arms to bartend like a champ, they slide that drink over and it was made just for him and from Caine’s face that’s clearly a significant step for them! The beginning of a proper friendship.
• I’m sorry but there’s no way to square that final shot at the dinner table with the “Caine’s a nervous wreck masking and walking on eggshells forever” take. He and Ragatha are both leaning in toward each other, Caine is the one doing most of the talking, highly animated, smiling, taking up space, getting a genuine laugh. He’s finally become a part of the group. He has friends. It’s real.
And that’s all before the end credits my GOODNESS! Matching Xmas sweaters, gloink ornaments on the tree, jumping into Gangle’s arms when he gets scared of a monster on an adventure, EVERYONE EXPLORING THE DIFFRRENT WORLDS TOGETHER, and the final image we get of the digital world being Caine proudly putting an orb on display. It warms my heart, okay? I love it so much! 🥹
I was incredibly nervous for episode 9, on a Caine level. I was so ready to accept crumbs and be content to bolster them with fix-it fics. And then Goose went ahead and made all of my brightest hopes and dreams for this boy CANON BAYBEEEE!
At the end of the day, I think that my fellow Caine stans deserve to be happy. We were all correct about him being a sweet, little guy who was always coming from a good place, even if he was maybe, arguably, SOMEWHAT misguided once or twice… (sorry, old habits ;-) )
So yeah, that’s my personal take on it. Feel free to continue to disagree, and thank you for reading all the way to the end no matter how you feel.
The tdac finale reminds me of the Rick and Morty episode where Rick is revealed to have had unrequited feelings for Bird Person. Yeah, the episode didn't explicitly have Rick say "I am romantically in love with BP." But it was so heavily implied that it might as well have.
Yet I saw all these (presumably straight) fans twits themselves into knots to justify how it was actually totally platonic guys and you're all reading so much into it. Because even though Rick is stated to be pan, a large portion of the fan base can't accept, no matter how blatant, that their Cool Sarcastic Male Anti-hero archetype could be attracted to a male.
The pushback against transfem Jax feels EXACTLY the same.
Cuz, like, the signs are there. I saw it as soon as Ribbit puts on the bow. I'm sorry, but despite the 200 reddit comments trying to claim otherwise, putting an opposite sex gender marker on a friend after he shares how his mom mocked him for sharing a deeply personal secret, and saying "your secret is safe with me" isn't normal cis male friend behavior. Occum's razor and all that. Isn't She Lovely plays over a montage primarily of Jax, with only some Pomni. And there's plenty more than that. People called it as soon as episode 5. Point is, it was there in the text without Goose's confirmation.
But people can't accept it. Because Jax is the same mold as Rick: cool snarky asshole Anti Hero. And that is a male straight archetype, thanks. People really don't want to reflect on what it could mean if that beloved cultural icon is anything other than a cis man.
Because idk, maybe then they'd have to learn to respect or God forbid relate to someone who isn't straight or cis. Or that the "cool snarky guy" might not be who he seems on the surface.
The way adult fandom people hold indie online creators and cartoons to a much higher standard than their actual local politicians. You could be putting that energy into terrorizing and protesting conservatives at your town hall and actually make a good material impact on the world but instead you're background checking everything the trans woman who made the amazing digital circus has ever said
I've read a lot of takes about Caine being autistic coded (and as an autistic person I fully agree), but as someone who has a lot of experience working with children, he also strongly reminds me of a child. Specifically a very young child.
Little kids get very caught up in their own games and imaginations. If you've ever interacted with a preschooler, you know that they are not receptive to anyone else's contribution. It's a lot of play exactly the way I say.
Little kids are very egotistical and self centered. It's not their fault. They can't fully grasp that people think and feel differently from them, and it takes being directly taught and a lot of practice for them to start to see it.
Little kids want to be loved so badly. They crave approval and being told they are special. But they aren't very good at showing selfless love yet. They do love and care for others, and even as young as 1 or 2 they can show the beginnings of rudimentary empathy, but it's very limited to their own experiences. So a toddler might give their mom their blankie if they see their mom crying, because the blankie comforts them so of course it will also comfort their adult caretaker, why wouldn't it?
Little kids also lash out, sometimes violently, when they are scared or hurt or confused. Caine's VA described his meltdown as a "neglected child throwing a temper tantrum" for a reason.
The way children learn to be less selfish and more empathetic is through a combination of being directly taught and having others show them love and empathy.
But no one ever does this for Caine. He's neglected by his original creators, and the new players see him as more of an object than as a person. So he's never shown empathy and as a result never develops it either. Kinger most likely could help him, but ironically, Kinger has been too trapped in his own mind to ever be there for Caine. That's why Caine is such a tragedy.
Going off of my other post, this moment in TBoB also takes on a new meaning if you interpret Bill and Ford's relationship as unambiguously romantic. Again, it's definitely funny in a twisted way that Bill decides to make fun of his ex-boyfriend's conflicted feelings about his sexuality. I'm sure Ford has plenty of dreams he could mock, not to mention all the nightmares he must have (ahem, all of the things Bill put him through), but he decides on this one specifically. He even has a pun ready!
But it's also very dark and sad from Ford's perspective. I know many people view this through an ace interpterion, which is a valid take on it, but I'd like to look at it through a romantic billford lens. Because in that case, it means that Ford is so conflicted about his relationship with and attraction to Bill that he has recurring dreams interrogating himself about it. Ford likely struggles with what it says about him if he was attracted to Bill. And I don't just mean in a "haha he fucked that triangle" way--I mean that Bill's objectively evil (silly guy aside). He abused Ford. Not just once, but repeatedly, mentally and physically. He told Ford he was his property, worth nothing without him. He tried to kill Ford's loved ones. He tried to kill every living thing in Ford's dimension. And Ford was attracted to that? I don't blame him for feeling so confused and miserable.
I find this picture hilarious if you interpret Billford as definitely canon--like, not a situationship, not just implied, but that they were in an actual romantic relationship. Because then Bill is a salty ex clowning on Ford for not having a girlfriend as his former boyfriend. That's never not going to be hilarious.
People in the tags who read Clan of the Cave Bear or Flowers in the Attic, but did you fucking die? You are fine like every other kid exposed to Jondalar’s turgid, upright member was fine. These are clearly ideal books for nine year olds because so many very alive and unharmed former nine year olds read the shit out of them and many adults find them boring.
Would you really be such a John Hughes adult kind of hypocrite as to rip the inspiring tale of Ayla, who invented aspirin, knitting and cunnilingus during the last ice age out of an elementary schooler’s hand?
If you don’t want kids to read a book, don’t allow it to portray a child’s actual, relateable anxieties around puberty, sex, adulthood and their parents in the most high gothic way possible. This is like preventing incest by locking your adolescent grandchildren in a small room with no access to non-family members.
I think we need to start being more nuanced with this take because yeah kids could probably read anything at 16-17 years old, but it's if they should.
Like not in a "I don't want my kids to read XYZ book" but in a "Are they actually capable of understanding and processing the material in the book properly."
Teenagers are not mentally adults. They will not be able to comprehend certain things because those are things that come with age, and life experience.
If you are willing to help guide a teenager through adult materials up to and including when to recognize when you should stop reading a book, then feel free to show whatever feel is going to help the child.
If you aren't willing to do this and just chuck a bunch of books at a teenager, then you're just setting them up for failure.
And if anyone has problems I'm an adult fiction writer who's a mom. My books read at 6th-8th grade reading level, because I write in casual, easy to digest language, much like how this post is written.
No. Did I fucking stutter? This is not a nuanced issue and especially in this dangerous political context, people who care about children should absolutely not yield to the opinions of shitty parents such as yourself.
I wasn’t even talking about teens! I was talking about elementary age kids reading sexual content not adolescents encountering new or difficult concepts! Jesus Christ! I think it’s genuinely worse than the moms for liberty style censorship to censor materials simple because an adult has made the call about what they might find easy enough to understand! How is a teenager supposed to gain wisdom and experiences if a bunch adult busy-bodies prevent them from exercising their own judgement about what they want to learn? At what point is someone who’s old enough to drive, have sex and be sentenced to life in prison also allowed to pick their own reading material? How is a person going to be able to understand or absorb ideas if they never get challenging practice?
I am an extremist on this because this is an issue of children’s basic human rights. It’s what American Library Association President Emily Drabinski calls a child’s “right to a private reading life” and“right to their own imagination and the sovereignty of their own minds.” Even your children have that right, despite having been born to a small-minded little tyrant who treats exposure to new ideas like a traumatic event. Yes, just throw books at teenagers! Let them be aware of a world outside their intellectually suffocating home life!
This post is circulating again and putting so many terrible takes in front of me that I must celebrate the funny tags expressing relateable experiences like understanding Stephen King better when you understand cocaine better.
My parents had a policy that I could read anything on their personal bookshelves that I wanted to, from the time I could read. (Before I could read, btw, when they were reading in bed, I'd grab a picture book and crawl in bed with them and "read" it. We were a reading family.) They assumed that if it didn't make sense, I'd put it down or I'd ask a question, and the first would solve the problem and the second would be something they could handle.
This means that I was reading adult sci fi at age 9 or 10. I was reading Spider Robinson's Lady Sally's House (Lady Sally McGee is a madame and her House is a brothel) books at age 11, which prepared me for when I was 13 and read them again and had a Reaction. It meant that I knew what bisexuality was, and that it was ok and fine (despite my extremely conservative surroundings), and that I could look at that description and have a Reaction and then think about a cute boy and go, Oh, I'm bisexual, that's cool then. Which means that I didn't have a fucking breakdown when I was 16 and fell in love with my best friend. All I did was get scared about if my best friend loved me back and if my dad was going to kick me out. (Best friend did love me back, dad did not kick me out. Senior year of high school, when I was out in the 90s in Central Florida, was a whole new kind of hell, but thanks to my friends I came through it without getting gay bashed even once. Just, you know, got sexually harassed by a dean and got a death threat from a Klansman kid at school. It was fine.)
If my parents had stopped me from reading those books when I was "too young", my life would have been much poorer, and not just in that way. I learned sex positivity, sex worker positivity, fat positivity, kink positivity, trans positivity, and more from those books, all two of them. From its sibling series, the Callahan's Place books (Callahan is Lady Sally's husband and owns a bar, and I read these even earlier), I learned about how loving and being honest and kind with your friends can save the world, and until that day comes, you can make terrible puns and tell tall tales and play music and drink, and that doing those things with your friends is practice for saving the world. Is what lets you save the world with them. It was MLP:FIM for horny barflies in the 1970s. And let me tell you, it was amazing to a 9 or 10 year old me.
There are, of course, many things wrong with these books and their followups (the Mary's Place books and The Place books). Because Spider wrote them in the 1970s and 1980s. And he wrote that first story in the first book, "The Guy With the Eyes", to get out of the sewer. Literally. He was, at the time, more socially conscious than your average cis white guy. But he's not perfect, and his books aren't perfect, and also the language and the landscape changed a lot in those decades. Some of the words he used then are Bad now, but were Correct then. He did a pretty good job, though.
Those books taught me things I needed to know when I was "too young" to read them, and they kept me from killing myself when I was severely depressed and read them over and over, and they are goddamn good books. Maybe some kids would've been upset or even traumatized by them. Certainly most kids would not have bothered reading them. I did, and they saved me so many times over.
Let your kids read what they want. You don't know what might save them.
Like @madgastronomer, I was reading scifi with sex in it when I was 8-9 (I started with Heinlein, and found Robinson when I was ... eleven?). The first time I read it, the sex scenes went over my head. (So did the weird libertarianism, mostly.) When I was old enough for the sex and the jokes to land, they did.
When I was 10-ish, I brought Stephen King's Firefly home from the library. My mom had a brief AUGH moment, asked to look the book over before I read it (literally the first and last time), and I got it back in my pile a few days later. I don't think I made it past page three, because I really don't like King.
tl;dr: if they're not old enough, they'll either miss the stuff they're not old enough for, or get bored and put it down. No long-term damage done.
My parents had a hands off policy in regards to what I read and I'm so thankful for it. Yeah, it lead to reading some highly questionable things like American Psycho when I was 15, but then again, I also looked up American Psycho, learned about the satire against 80s material greed, and felt a lot smarter for having read it. It also lead to reading a lot of queer fiction that helped me as a closeted bi kid in the still very homophobic early 00s.
The idea of someone trying to control what I read would've horrified me.
I once considered him the center of my life, the sun in my galaxy
crazy? i was crazy once. this is a revamped hd remake of this beast from last year! had to split it up to save the quality, i'll link the full connected image in the rbs. happy anniversary, tbob!
