#misfit rambles

[eternal-misfit]

See, this caught my interest on my latest rewatch of the show. Why would Caine, a sophisticated and highly advanced AI (Kinger’s words, not mine) gravitate towards a bead maze when talking about a “big puzzle he needs to solve”? Bead mazes aren’t exactly known for their complexity. And there IS an almost finished Rubik’s cube on his desk in the previous shot. So…why the bead maze?

But when I looked up what this kind of toy is even called, I stumbled upon this interesting information on Wikipedia.

…Shape recognition, eh? Wait, why was Caine abandoned by his creators again?

Oh, right, because he had massive issues with forming consistent shapes.

[misfitrambles]

Genderfluid individuals are often misunderstood. People think that being genderfluid is just a phase and that we will "settle" eventually either as female or male.

In some cases, this may happen. But most of the time, being genderfluid is not a phase. It's a thousand phases.

Or rather, it's an independent gender identity under the nonbinary umbrella that means that our gender is fluctuating. Sometimes only once a year, sometimes several times a day.

But we are still valid like any other individual.

[eternal-misfit]

"Look at the circus members having so much fun going on adventures, are they seriously implying that their lives got better once Jax abstracted?!" Actually, yes, that is EXACTLY what can happen. I had a "Jax" in my class. Retrospectively, I understand that he was failed by his parents and probably needed help. But honestly? He made our class' daily life hell. He'd been with the class since Kindergarten, but I only joined in 6th grade. And even then, up until 10th grade, it was still hell. He'd disrupt lessons by yelling, starting fights, even throwing stuff at the teachers.

And it all dragged us down with him. Fun activities that the teachers had planned for us? He just HAD to ruin them (either by stealing materials, breaking them or just disobeying wherever he could). Eventually, we became THAT class in school. The one that didn't get to do cool stuff. No more cool chemistry experiments, no more physics experiments, just chalk-and-talk lessons, a worksheet, and homework. That was it. All because of one "Jax" in our class.

A teacher insisting on collective punishment (which I hate btw, but that's another topic for another conversation)? Our "Jax" would stir shit up on purpose and smile in glee when the whole class got punished for his actions.

The only reason our "Jax" didn't get expelled sooner was because his mom was the vice president of the parent council. But even she could not save him when he fucked up the exams all of us had to take to pass 10th grade. He finally left the class…and we FLOURISHED. The average grades got better, the mood improved, teachers actually got along with us again.

These last 2 years at school were the best we had. All because our "Jax" was finally gone.

So, yes, sometimes, the witch dying is a good thing.

[eternal-misfit]

Yeah, watching Vash dodge bullets Matrix-Style was smooth af but nothing will ever top Vash skidaddling away from the shooting like a lizard.

[eternal-misfit]

One more comment on Caine’s crashout in episode 8 (Sorry for the zoom-in)

I hadn’t even noticed until now that Caine WAS actively working on that Rubik’s Cube at the beginning of the scene. He’s talking to Bubble while trying to solve the problem.

But once he expresses his fear of the humans actually wanting to leave him he puts it down. And THIS is where Bubble slowly starts to get REALLY nasty. Ending in…

…Caine slamming his desk in anger, shattering the Rubik’s Cube in the process. Now his crashout is REALLY shaping up.

I am bad at explaining things, but I have a feeling that the Rubik’s cube shows us Caine’s mental state/willingness to SOLVE this problem. Guess you can say it shows the moment where Caine abandons logic.

[eternal-misfit]

Hier ist 'ne kleine "Pre-Detektei Gründung" Szene, die mir schon seit Tagen im Kopf rumschwebt: Irgendwann im Winter - Miss Rogers, die Lehrerin der ersten Klasse der "Rocky Beach Elementary School" bittet um Ruhe. Heute ist ein neuer Schüler dazugekommen - sein Name ist Justus Jonas, und er wird ab jetzt Teil der Klasse sein. Ein Raunen geht durch das Klassenzimmer, besonders Peter und Bob schauen sich ernst an - Jonas? So wie Titus Jonas? Der Besitzer vom Schrottplatz, dessen Bruder vor einem Monat bei einem Flugzeugunglück ums Leben gekommen ist? Rocky Beach ist klein, so etwas spricht sich schnell rum. Nervös schauen sie ihn an - dieser Junge ist ein Waisenkind, was haben sie zu erwarten? Sie bekommen ihre Antwort fünf Minuten später in Form von einem kleinen Dreikäsehoch, der die Lehrerin eiskalt korrigiert und ihre Erdkundekenntnisse als "Anachronistische Komponenten des Curriculums" bezeichnet.

[eternal-misfit]

Spoilers for TADC episode 9 below, read at your own risk. Disclaimer: I got to see the finale in theaters on June 4th. What you find below is a list of thoughts I wrote down on my train ride home. Only proceed with reading if you have watched the finale or do not care about being spoiled. You have been warned.

-First final verdict: Well, mixed. Like with the entire show. Either it was too ambitious for 9 episodes, or it should’ve been upgraded to 10-12. Funnybunny shippers will have a blast, the rest of us go home a bit empty handed...I'd still watch it on the big screen again though. And I will miss this show ngl. For now, let's make it a 7/10, but it might go down with further rewatches come June 19th. -The sound mixing in my cinema was horrendous. Thank heavens I had earplugs.

-I appreciate the recap of the show by Caine, but would’ve appreciated if they’d just said “F you, watch the show” and plunge you into cold water lmao. -Seeing Episode 8 on the big screen was a blast. Watching it with the audience was a BLAST. Seems like I got lucky. Except for the guy who brought his Pomni Dakimakura....to cite our favorite ringmaster: "That was weird!" -Tiny nitpick, but there was no seamless transition between episode 8 and 9. It went Glitch Intro -> Episode 8 -> Cut to black after Zooble's "Holy Shit" -> Glitch intro AGAIN -> Episode 9 begins. I don't understand why the second Glitch intro had to be there, it strikes me as lazy. And also kinda killed the mood.

-Gonna be real: that brain scan reveal could’ve used more than a half sentence. It just...happened so quickly? One of the biggest reveals of the story, and the pacing made it feel like the characters were told that the sky is blue. Some audience members were confused about that.

-KINGER AND RAGATHA GOT FUCKING SHAFTED AND I AM RATHER UPSET ABOUT THIS.

-Big fucking fumble: Jax abstracting offscreen. This show is KNOWN for stretching its animation legs, and they just off-screen’d it?

-I do not care for Jax. And neither did the audience. The parts focused on him were raaaaaather tedious. Which is a big problem considering it is a huge majority of the runtime.

-Case in point: the 'Pomni enters Jax's mind to save him from abstraction' sequence runs about for what felt like 30 minutes....out of a 1 hour special. The room was either dead silent or laughing at moments that were clearly meant to be serious. Not great optics.

Once that is over, we cut to the human characters on the couch, grieving. Zoom out: and there's Caine, hiding behind a corner, not ready to face the people he hurt.

First came the gasps. Then the murmurs of 'what?'. Then one hell of an uproar.

That's where the audience lost their shit. One silent shot did more work than half the runtime. Make of that what you will. -ALEX MOTHERFUCKING ROCHON...that's it.

-Look, Caine is my son and I love him. But how on earth did he survive being deleted? And what will happen with the blue orb he released? Is it the other AI? If it is...I mean, it’s drifting out there now, it could potentially come back… -So...the blue orb AI-thingy is responsible for his crashout? And now he is a-okay and safe to return to the circus because he removed that part of himself? Kind of a cheap cop-out for a redemption arc I must say. -...Really? Not even one small interaction between Kinger and Caine where Kinger apologises for the deletion? FFS, so much was sacrificed to focus on this stupid f***ing bunny. -I am glad Caine came back, but...that was rather rushed. Probably because the focus was on this stupid rabbit.

-Caine/Moon canon? How would that even work… -Imma be real with you, if I had been in that circus, and I'd have to watch a montage of the "real" me living and thriving IRL I'd have abstracted on the spot.

-That remix/reprise of “Your new home”…my fucking god, someone hold me please. ;_;.

-The Soundtrack in general was phenomenal.

-SEX UPDATE IS CANON I REPEAT SEX UPDATE IS CANON.

-The fanbase fucking fumbled this. The credits showed us all the cute shorts we could’ve gotten based on their adventures WITH CAINE AS AN ACTIVE PARTICIPANT. But I 100% understand that Gooseworx wants nothing to do with this show after this. -I call bullshit on a 90s computer being able to load websites like instagram. I was born in 1996. I remember late 90s/ early 2000s hardware. I remember trying to watch YouTube videos on my iMac G3 from 2001, it was awful. Edit: all of this makes me sound like I hate the show and/or the ending. I don't. It just had a lot of lost/fumbled potential, which honestly hurts way more than a plain "bad" ending.

[eternal-misfit]

I know we will not get any post-finale stuff thanks to the moronic fanbase, but I would've loved some post-finale slice of life snippets. ...especially one about the human cast pushing Caine into using the F-word, and him struggling. Not because of the censorship, but because it was so engrained in his code that it has become a mental blockade.