some tadc theories and attempts at called shots because i feel like i'll explode if i don't write them down
potential spoilers i guess for final episode? but tbh like, that seems egotistical lmao. still, just in case. i'm sure others have covered at least some of this? i don't really read a lot of fandom stuff so i've stumbled across a few thoughts but like. i'm driving myself insane so i have to put all this together for my own sanity and also because a couple of the things i have seen are blatantly wrong/directly contradicted by the source material and i can't handle it lmao
... i also have to admit i wasn't paying much attention til ep 7 so uh. i mean i was having fun but not like, keeping an eye out. so i'm sujr e a lot of this has been said but oh well!
abel still exists and has been exerting some degree of control over bubble
(referring here to the actual abel, the blue AI in ep 8 intro, not the generic NPC 'Abel' from ep 7)
caine absorbed abel, he didn't destroy him. the whole point was to 'fix' himself by absorbing an AI that worked better (and also probably some degree of jealousy/trauma from being cast aside and isolated). and also he's obviously still there from the way we see caine's eyes go red and blue in his ep 8 breakdown.
caine and bubble also seem 'connected' as seen in ep 4 when bubble plugs the leak from the suggestion box being pulled off the wall, but when caine sticks his tongue out bubble's tongue goes back in his mouth ("that was weird")
bubble doesn't really say anything directly concerning until episode 5 when he says "you should die" to caine and then immediately "you should throw a fucking beach party" ("since when do you swear?")
caine doesn't like swearing or suggestive stuff ("explain to daddy why bad thing" "... don't say that", not to mention the freakout when zooble mentions sex lol); he wouldn't program an npc to do that kind of stuff, I'd bet, so it makes no sense for bubble to behave this way really unless someone other than caine had some degree of control over him.
and then in ep 8 of course bubble basically works as a bunch of intrusive thoughts. or, hear me out, that's abel taking his chance to either a) torment caine because who can really blame him or b) directly try to get caine deleted by sending him over the deep end.
when caine is saying that it's almost like the humans just hate <him> bubble responds "why would they hate you when they could just--" and then you see him glitch before repeating "hate you". and from that point in the conversation everything bubble says is essentially tailor-made to provoke the absolute worst out of caine. i think arguments could be made that anger/frustration/confusion/hurt exist in caine naturally at this point at levels that could bubble over the surface the way they do, but i could also see them going the route of abel actually being "Mr. Obvious Twist Villain" (per jax's ep 7 words) who really is the more rage-and-spite-filled of them and is fuelling/amplifying the breakdown in more ways than one. the fact that caine starts cursing is part of why i'm like... hm... that doesn't seem very wacky...
sidenote also on the bubble thing: this might be nothing, but during the villain song when caine says "to which degree who answers to who" bubble floats by the camera... when we haven't seen him since caine popped him in his office a bit earlier. and then again bubble is there when caine says "the one who's running the show".
and I'll talk about the hack attempt by kinger in a sec because... yeah.
also the thing where npcs get their curses bleeped out whereas humans get cartoon noises might be significant here but would need to rewatch to be sure
I also do wonder if abel has contributed to caine's inability to focus/listen, when his eyes go sideways, which always seems to have truly awful timing ("I'm trying my best to remember what you and my brain won't tell me!" from ep 3). i mean i also fully buy that caine is just a very ADHD-like brain lmao (same bestie) who hyperfocuses (on adventures/creating) and gets overexcited and can't always listen/remember as well as he'd like to things that are important to others. but it does seem possible there could be some abel influence there attempting to sabotage him as well, especially given how extreme it seems to be sometimes
caine didn't delete himself; abel engineered a scenario to get him deleted
i've seen a couple people talking about the commands when kinger is trying to isolate/disable caine talking about how caine deleted himself but there are two distinctly non-kinger actors in those logs
there's lines which are distinctly Caine that you see more of earlier in the hack attempt vs a completely different tone with glitches/odd symbols embedded in the text:
"WHOA when did you make THAT?" vs. "I must hand it to you <Gavin?>, your mind was always resourceful."
wacky vibes vs. absolute supervillain vibes.
the first line is caine, the second is abel. (also the glitches in the abel text make me wonder if he actually is the one contributing more to the glitching? but idk. technically all the red ai did 'wrong' that we could see was put out unconventional shapes at irregular intervals. isn't that creativity? what's technically wrong with that? who wants perfect, cookie cutter shapes all the time? maybe the REAL glitch is being an asshole, not just being a wacky little guy with weird ideas)
you also see fewer lines that sound like caine as the hack attempt progresses, probably because caine is pretty distracted with his freakout, which leaves abel to run rampant in the command line
anyway, at that point abel starts to mess with the prompts, leading to kinger fatfingering the delete key and deleting caine, but there's a line in here that really sealed it for me:
second line down includes: "DELETE THIS M************* (probably motherfucker) AHAHAHAHAahaaaaaaa"
with caine gone abel is probably 'free' and becomes the actual big bad
per above I'm assuming abel is going to be the obvious twist villain, just like jax said. I'm a little unsure on if abel has been 'extracted' from caine on the deletion but it makes more sense that he would be. alternately i could see a scenario where with caine gone the abstractions are no longer stuck int he cellar and get out, necessitating rebooting caine from a backup or something, but that seems like a less likely scenario.
i'm guessing abel is pretty fucked up from everything he's gone through, or maybe he was always kind of a little shit, who knows. anyway regret.jpg for the gang
caine has altered kinger's memory in some way
i'm guessing this might have been done to protect him, but it does seem like kinger's memories have been altered, beyond just needing darkness to really focus/remember himself.
a couple of lines from kinger that seem revealing:
"I guess I've just got a resilient mind" (ep 6) - frankly I just don't buy that kinger specifically is necessarily more resilient than all of the other original bigtop gang who got sucked into the circus just weren't strong enough and abstracted, but hey who knows. it just seems a little... 'exceptionalist' y'know
“It’s not the most cheerful memory, but… it’s one I at least have control over.” (ep. 3) - what does THAT mean, kinger???? what could you possibly mean???? (i feel like i have an inkling of what you mean)
and of course, end of ep 7 when caine says: "I MAY have the ability to add temporary modifiers to make adventures more interesting, but that's it. If I did anything more... trust me. It would not end well."
I think he's referring to kinger here. the response from kinger ("scratch... the first abstraction") feels like a red herring to me but of course i could be wrong
also I can't remember the episode but at some point caine says: "One of the few things I don't have control over is your minds" (oh wait it was ep 1)
I think this is probably generally true, honestly, because he learned that if he tries to mess with them bad shit happens, and I don't think he enjoys or wants to cause harm to humans, generally
as a more general statement a lot of people seem to be making a lot of hay about how much caine lies, but i honestly don't know if i believe that's true. he might withhold details and the truth, but i don't think he consciously tries to mislead the bigtops on a regular basis like some seem to think. maybe it's a bad idea, but generally speaking when he says something it seems to make sense to take a lot of it at face value.. and also i think he's a bad liar when he does lie, like when he says the whole C&A thing was a complete invention from his brilliant mind. ok sure bud.
the bigtops can't leave the circus
(yes i'm referring to the gang as the bigtops)
I'm not 100% solid on the exact 'why' but I don't think they can leave. it's possible they're dead (this might be a little more grimdark than what seems to fit the series imo but who knows) but i kind of think maybe their existence at this point is only digital scans of people's brains--not like they were 'sucked in' to the computer, but more like when they put on the headset it created a mind file for them, and when the person walked away from the computer that entity encompassed in that mind file still just.... existed. in the circus. either way, the bigtops are digital now and i don't think there's an option to go back to the macroverse. in this case there's kind of a parallel where they're not 'real people' anymore, they'd just be a file, but idk if that will be the route they go/get explored.
i lean toward them all just being brain scans due to the fact that scratch was working on a project that kinger doesn't seem to fully have understood, and scratch had a brain tumor that likely would be fatal; it makes sense that he might have been seeking some form of immortality or living on through a digital copy, resulting in creation of the headset and therefore brain scans creating digital versions of actual people
also caine's mention of their "mind files" in ep 8 and the existence of the "CA_NeuralScans (Obsolete)" folder kinger encounters when attempting the hack. not sure if the (obsolete) indicates that folder only contains info on the abstracted characters, but it's possible.
regardless i would wager caine might know they cannot actually leave, which would put him in a tight spot because telling them they can't leave/are dead/not 'real' anymore he probably reasonably expects would make some of them immediately abstract, which he doesn't want both because he likes humans and doesn't want to end up alone, but also because some of his programming seems to be to help humans/keep them safe? so he uses the main tool he was programmed with to try to control the situation and keep people happy and safe, and that's creating adventures.
but also, things kinger says suggests they can't leave: Gangle: “We found a way to leave the circus. We’re currently preparing everything but we need to keep it quiet so Caine doesn’t stop us.” Kinger: “Huh? Leave the circus? How would you… no, that doesn’t make sense…” (ep 7)
(i feel like there's another revealing line from kinger on this but tbh i forgor)
as for how everyone got there...
ragatha may have encountered the computer/headset while working in real estate with the abandoned C&A building
pomni probably encountered it while urban exploring for youtube (in ep 1 when she's headed out to the void she sees the computer and headset and they're dirty/worn down like she might have encountered them irl)
jax's flashbacks (?) at end of ep 7 make it seem like he was running away into the woods, where an abandoned building might be, he might've stumbled across the same place
kinger obviously got there thru working at C&A
zooble and gangle are more difficult, there's not as many details here to lean on, but zooble does say they used to explore abandoned buildings as well. the thing about gangle is the repeated imagery of the semi truck... that one I'm not sure what to do with. was wondering if she might've been in a coma and someone put the headset on her hoping to preserve her brain or something? idk
it's possible there are other headsets out there too, but given how few people seem to show up in the circus it seems more limited
i lean toward the bigtops all just being mind scans/digiized versions of people, because if people kept wandering into the abandoned C&A building, putting on the headset, and their bodies just stayed there, there'd be a pile of bodies in an abandoned building somewhere. and i feel like if most people came across that with a creepy computer and headset there... they wouldn't put on the headset.
kinger also says "I used to hate myself for the things i thought i was responsible for" e.g. people getting trapped in the circus and being miserable about it until they end up abstracting
anyway luckily they all already came to terms with not leaving! yaaaay!!!
additional random things and things i'm hopeful for in the final ep:
bring my boy back and let him know he's loved lmao. you can't have pomni telling gummigoo (an npc!!!!) in ep 2 that she doesn't want anyone to feel like nothing, and lines like "In this world the worst thing you can do is make someone feel like they're not wanted or loved." and all these other lines like that and all these lovely characters supporting each other and then just kill my son like that. it's like the bigtops can't even see caine (fully understandable; they have a lot of shit going on and he's presented as an authority figure/control/"an obstacle to be overcome" a la gummigoo , but still), i don't know gooseworx's stuff that well but seeing how purposeful and deliberate everything is in this series gives me hope here. let's satisfyingly resolve our themes, i'm begging
we find out what happens when jax holds his breath and it's integral to solving a problem/furthers the plot
this'd just be a cherry on top but a parallel with caine or one of the other characters with the ep 3 quote from mildenhall: "it's ironic, isn't it? in my attempts to protect her i ended up becoming the monster myself."
some kind of explanation for caine's obsession with drawing bees (queenie influence?)
random thing but the admin passes the gang get looked to me like the buddhist symbol Abhaya mudra. interestingly the passes themselves i'm pretty sure were the right hand which significes protection, peace, and the dispelling of fear (a "fear not" gesture). but the hand on caine's book case was the LEFT hand for sure, which apparently is sometimes a command to halt or a vow of compassion? I couldn't research that much more but the fact that gangle said "why does it look like that" made it seem significant.
i'd also love to know how/if this line fits in: "Are you hearing this, Bubble? The toybox character wants us to leave the other intelligent AIs to run for a prolonged period of time..." (ep. 5) -- it might be referring to caine being largely unaware that abel has been running this whole time
anyway that's all I'm gonna think of more stuff the second i post this but at least i can sleep now
gooseworx has ruined my life and i'm so grateful tbh
