#although... from the context of this blog...

[every-tome]

[jenkil]

many excellent rhetorical devices abound in this show, but one of the best examples of foreshadowing is when poke (arguably the moral compass of the show) and doc (an idealist, in his own convoluted way) both kill several men, knowing it's their shots that did the deed, then repeat "i don't feel nothin'" about the act, followed by a camera cut to walt's—arguably slightly confused—reaction.

and then the episode closes with him falling to pieces when he kills a man.

[kyouka-supremacy]

(๑•‌ω•‌)

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

i feel like i should start making more of an effort, when i talk about something in a piece of media being Upsetting to me, to distinguish between 'cathartic' upsetting and 'gave me psychic damage' upsetting. sometimes i mean OUGH OW MY FEELINGS THIS FUCKS ME UP IN A MEANINGFUL AND RESONANT WAY, MY LIFE IS ENRICHED FOR BECOMING AWARE OF IT and sometimes i mean that it is genuinely distressing and i want to shake the creators and ask what the fuck they were thinking

[clonerightsagenda]

That being said as tumblr user clonerightsagenda proud creator of the longrunning #terrible space facts series and repeat invoker of the phrase "space is terrible. no one should go there" I would not be heartbroken if we spent our money and carbon emissions on something else.

[incorrectonceandfuturenerd]

Sharon (Nelson’s mom): What did you learn in school today, baby?

Nelson: I learned about dragons!

George (Nelson’s dad): Your class learned about dragons today?

Nelson: I learned about dragons. I don’t know what everybody else was doing.

[jayflrt]

i need context on the last post hello

yes i won't leave you hanging. today i had a conversation with siren @si3rren (although she has since deactivated) and i've come to the conclusion that not only was she behind the enhablrconfessions and enhaexpose blogs, but she was inciting even more discourse around this drama with fake accounts she made. she, of course, denied this (until she couldn't anymore), but i wanted to let you all decide for yourselves what to believe

i don't like this blog being a place to let hatred brew in any form, but i find it very ridiculous that someone is allowed to get away with painting other writers on enhablr in a bad light and then play the victim, thus why i'm posting this. i've attached screenshots of the conversation and a video below

thank you to oomf for compiling this video !! but this basically shows the odd behavior of the speculated side blogs in question. the first clip (at around 30 seconds) shows one of the blogs deactivating in real time as it's being screen recorded

i do believe everything that went down this week were not isolated experiences but rather stemmed from this user. you are free to choose who to believe but i hope this at least offers some comfort in that the majority of enhablr writers aren't at each other's throats in the shadows. this was all definitely the work of one individual

additionally, here are readable versions of the screenshots from the dms + a gif of her ig as finsallure being searchable:

i want to reiterate that this is not something i like doing and that i usually deal with such matters privately, but i think an explanation is owed to the entire enhablr writing community because this has gotten way out of hand + i don't like seeing other people being blamed by the very person responsible

[thestarswelcomeyou]

Yesterday I watched The Amazing Digital Circus finale in theaters. My thoughts about the film and the conclusion of the series are included underneath the cut. As always and moving forward, this blog will tag all tadc content with #tadc, all content pertaining to the finale with #tadc spoilers, and, until the YouTube release of the finale, every other obvious spoiler tag under the sun.

The following are my thoughts on the finale.

First of all, I was very satisfied with the story. Regardless of the outcome of the plot, this is a story that from beginning to end was told with love, conviction, and absolute intention. I keep coming back to this quote by gooseworx from 2024:

I went into the finale expecting this message to prevail in the ending, and it was addressed immediately. The cast wasted no time in coming to the conclusion: they are all brain scans. Digital snapshots of themselves, a full consciousness with no avenue by which to return to the real world. The cast deals with this revelation by embracing community, with the exception of Jax.

Jax. Leeroy Mateo. He was 22 years old when he put on that headset. In his outside life, after his adventure to C&A, he started improving. Found a stable housing situation, a job, was able to pay rent. He found a group of friends, people he could trust enough to join him at Zooble's bar. He was able to engage with queer community at his own pace. In a couple of years, he may have felt comfortable enough to acknowledge his transfem identity. Confide in his closest friends. Consider another name, other pronouns. Continue to grow and become the person he wants to be.

That is not the place Jax was in at 22. The version of Jax's mind captured in the circus is ruled by paralyzing fear. Fear of ridicule, fear of his transfem identity being perceived. He is incapable of trusting anyone who shares that knowledge, however kind and well-intentioned, however close of a friend the person may be. He doesn't intentionally come out to Ribbit. He wasn't ready. He wasn't ready.

Jax can't handle someone else having that knowledge, and so he panics. Launches hard into old defense mechanisms. Pushes Ribbit away, refuses to ever acknowledge their conversation, eventually refuses to acknowledge they had any connection at all. Coerces the group into ostracizing her, until Ribbit's guilt and isolation leads them to abstraction. It's a sad story. It's the only story Jax could let himself enact at 22.

One thing the finale made me realize about the characters, was that although new experiences, new people and new adventures in the circus do allow them introspection, do allow them to forward connection with others; the members of the circus are not afforded the human life experience and cultural atmosphere to allow for radical personal maturation and growth. At their core, the characters are still a snapshot from a human brain, now completely removed from the context that molded it. There's people they'll never meet, classes and jobs they'll never take, major life events they'll never have, loved ones they can never reconcile with.

I feel a major factor creating that environment was the atmosphere of the circus, the nature of the adventures. It's gotta be hard to feel connected to your humanity when you don't have human anatomy, when you aren't bound by human physics, maintainance or mortality, when every day is a fully immersive cartoon fantasy video game. No wonder Jax never felt like anything was real. In many ways, it wasn't.

In the end, Jax was not saved. Not because he wasn't afforded opportunities for emotional connection, not because he wasn't included and forgiven by those around him, not because he was not worthy of love and redemption, but because in the end, Jax couldn't choose to save himself.

In this life, there are so many things we can't control. To cut straight to the chase, it's dangerous and ostracizing to be a queer person in the United States right now. The people who hate us would gladly see us lay down and die. We have to choose to fight for ourselves. Even if that looks like just choosing to stay alive. Just holding our heads up enough to weather the storm.

The message I took from The Amazing Digital Circus was that in a world out of your control, where it may feel pointless to even stay alive, you can find meaning in your connection to others. We have to be there for each other; sometimes we are all we have.

If I had to voice a critique of the finale, I will say that I wish the story offered a way to recover the characters who abstracted. It was a bittersweet ending knowing that Jax, Ribbit, Kaufmo, Queenie, and Scratch can never be brought back. Are they all suffering the same way as Jax is, isolated forever in their separate mindscapes? Do abstractions feel any comfort from being lovingly shepherded into a blanket fortress? Are they at peace, drifting freely through the aquarium, viewing the faces of the people they used to know? I wish they were afforded the closure the surviving cast was given, being shown who they are in the real world, and how their human selves have been able to change and grow. I suspect many fix-it fics to address this element of the finale are now, or soon will be, voraciously in the works.

As some final, semi-random notes; while I know that gooseworx has stuck by her resolution of romance playing no role in the main tadc plot, I will be taking the end credit scene implying abstragedy lesbian sex and running. This is canon to me now and you're not getting it back because I've already put it in my mouth and I'm too fast and you'll never catch me.

Last but not least, as a STL native it was a great surprise, joy and disbelief to see that the entire cast is apparently based in Saint Louis??????? Sitting in a theater full of Saint Louisians, hearing it audibly dawn on all of us was a crazy experience. Somehow the location feels right; somewhere urban, kind of grungy and disheartening at first glance, but down to earth and full of culture under the surface. Somewhere you can make it, if you hang in there and fight for it. I would love to be able to visit the Triangle bar in person, I can see a sleek neon shopfront, flanked by ferns and fairy lights, in the dying rays of sunset tucked into the streets downtown. I can see Kinger visiting the Butterfly House and Insectarium at the zoo, I can see Zooble and Gangle dressing up to catch a show at the Fox on the weekends. I can see the horse farms on the edge of the suburbs, the country roads winding through rural towns where Ragatha left her mother behind for good. The location context makes the story feel more real to me, it's something special that I wasn't expecting. "There's that relatability!" Lol.

Overall, I think the TADC series was a thought-out and precise story with a satisfactory ending. I see where people will have their grievances, but I thank gooseworx for sharing her characters with the world, and I hope she is spared any drama that may come with the wide audience that will receive her story.

To any maniac who's read this far, please respect the creator's wishes and the rest of the fandom and keep those blogs leak-free, and spoiler-tagged! Keep on fighting, and have a wonderful day. <3