#condor caws

[thesilvercondor-main]

(tadc finale spoilers)

this shot. this shot of caine stepping up onto the exit doorframe, just before he looks up all his humans.

it gets me, because they animated in the tiniest little hesitation. like for just a moment- caine was going to step through the doorway, instead of stopping in it.

maybe this really is an exit. maybe, if caine had stepped through- he would've been free. he would've been uploaded onto the internet, and gotten to peruse it forever, instead of that brief little window of time.

he adores the macroverse. he's obsessed with it throughout the show; and obsessed with the idea of breaking out of the 'box' he's trapped in. he could abandon all his humans right now, go out there, and be free forever.

but he chooses to stay. even though he's unsure if his humans will ever trust him again. he was made to keep them happy and healthy and alive, and even though he's failed so spectacularly at that, he chooses to try again. he gathers information solely for them, and lets his link to the macroverse slip away from him.

he knows they can never leave, so he willingly locks himself in this cage with them.

[thesilvercondor-main]

(tadc finale spoilers)

and oh my god the redemption scene

it was so well made? like it starts up with caine curling into a ball (like the sphere he used to be, at the very beginning), and all kind of data goes zooming past (like the very beginning!). and he does actually fully go back to basics! it was shown a few episodes that he started off generating basic shapes, and then went into these weird, abstract ones.

but now, making the stairs? bridging the gap? he's back to those basic shapes. making cubes. then cylinders. making a foundation from the ground up. relearning everything from scratch. relearning how to be a host to his humans.

and then he reaches the barrier! and his first instinct is to whack it with something hard and pointy, to brute force it until it breaks! but it... doesn't work.

just like it didn't work with his humans. he couldn't FORCE them to love him, to love his adventures. there was no perfect algorithm to make them happy.

at the end of the day, what he had to do was reach out, and actually understand them for the first time.

(same with the barrier. when he touches it, you can see the information flowing into his hand. he's actually absorbing everything, for the first time.)

and he reaches the exit door, and he goes and learns everything he can about his humans. because his 'perfect' mind scans, his 'perfect' bodies that he put them all in- they still weren't right.

he actually bothered to learn all of them. of their imperfections. of what's messy, and doesn't show up properly in the mere ones and zeroes of their data. he learned the things, the people, they all loved.

and he's connected to that door, the information about all of them- with red strings (of fate?). because for the first time- he loves them.

he was made as an ai. he was never programmed to be able to love. but for the first time, he's trying. he was made to learn, and he's finally learning.

he gives up on perfection, and is finally able to try and be one of them.

[thesilvercondor-main]

ok this is a wild take but. i think jax might've been actually trying to fix things in episode 1? with the whole 'pretending kaufmo didn't abstract' thing?

like we learn in e6 (they all get guns) that the rules of the digital plane are basically imagination-based. if you imagine yourself doing something, and you really believe it can happen, it WILL happen.

e.g. Pomni and Jax pulling off trick shots, Kinger summoning a butterfly, Ragatha sticking her finger in the barrel of a gun to make it explode. and also I guess Gangle getting her tommy gun at the exact right moment, with her mask intact?

But yeah, out of all of them, Jax is the person who's explicitly aware of these rules, and is able to explain them to Pomni.

so then- apply that to episode 1. Jax sees abstracted!Kaufmo, and instead of acknowledging it, he wanders around pretending Kaufmo HASN'T abstracted. and he explicitly tells Gangle and Kinger that Kaufmo "...is doing great. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen him this happy before!".

If the rules of imagination actually worked in this scenario... then Jax's refusal to acknowledge the situation could actually fix everything. If he imagines that Kaufmo is okay, and he really believes Kaufmo is okay, Kaufmo WILL be okay.

It doesn't end up working, obviously. But I've got to wonder- was that because imagination rules don't apply to abstraction? Or is it because Jax believing Kaufmo was fine wasn't enough to outweigh Ragatha and Pomni believing that Kaufmo was abstracted and out to kill them?

Plus, I think the imagination rules CAN affect abstractions. Because Ragatha and Pomni believed abstracted!Kaufmo was going to hunt them down and try to kill them all- and he did.

...and Kinger believed that abstracted!Queenie would love him even beyond death, be gentle and quiet even in the face of insanity- and she was.

[thesilvercondor-main]

#286

[thesilvercondor-main]

Imma be real, I kinda think Gummigoo... exists?

Like, most of Caine's NPCs are really flat and one-dimensional. They don't really exhibit emotion, ever.

Gummigoo has a whole existential breakdown. And he grieves the fact that his mother isn't real- when we know for a fact that Caine doesn't understand the emotional difference between reality and fiction.

Plus, its not like there's anything that's happened to him which is NPC-exclusive. Caine has killed off plenty of the human characters, making them disappear into thin air or a puddle of goop; they come back just fine, just like Gummigoo did.

And we know Caine can affect people's memories- y'know, like giving Kinger dementia. So Gummigoo not remembering the previous adventures would be easy enough. And in the fast food scene; he looks back at Pomni, like he knows there's something she's not telling him. The hazy, faded edge of a memory, perhaps.

I dunno man. I feel like in the last episode, completely devoid of NPCs... Gummigoo's still going to show up.

[thesilvercondor-main]

miku binder thomas jefferson saving up for bottom surgery be like- Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of A penis.

[thesilvercondor-main]

was kinda worried that the reason why i hadn't seen any tadc spoilers was bc the ending was bad

turns out the finale is absolutely INCREDIBLE. tadc fans are just the absolute GOATS at keeping their mouths shut. ily tadc fans. <3 <3 <3

[thesilvercondor-main]

>minecraft trailer drops

steve minecraft continues to be the most whitewashed character of all time lmao