#pardal rambles

[sparrow-in-boots]

anyway never kill yourself you can see Trump's little stooge and systematic blueprint lose by a landslide in a democratic election

[subjet16]

hard at work organizing this beast of a post (essay?)

[sparrow-in-boots]

EDIT: the viper example picture got changed to a proper viper species, thank you @/the-white-eye for the correction!

everytime i see the winged serpents drawn/modelled as vipers, my heart breaks a little bit

guys, they are specifically pythons!! :3 mouth shape and all!! the sole viper head we see is Messmer/abyssal serpent!!

pythons kill prey by strangling them with their bodies. vipers hunt through venom bite pounces. pythons are also more notably languid and slow compared to vipers or cobras. this isn't just a thematic distinction, but also a clear visual design cue, too!

in Volcano Manor and the Temple of Eiglay, you can see that the winged snake statues are Also python-headed. it's also notable that the snakes in the statues have fangs, and so do the winged serpents Messmer has. i doubt that's a coincidence.

and most importantly, the Great Serpent is also closer to a python than a viper or even a cobra. it's admittedly a more distinct head shape than any real-life snakes i'm aware of, but the longer snout, the scale patterns (particularly on the temples and side of the head), and the teeth type are not unlike an anaconda, actually.

[sparrow-in-boots]

This is nothing new, everyone understands the tragedy of what happened with Caine. How unfair it is when a character doesn't get his resolution or finishes his arc. How it SUCKS to see a life cut short before his time and especially when it was an accident. How brutal that cut off feels and how much it mirrors real life, when you lose someone to unexpected chance.

But to me what hurts MOST, beyond the grief, beyond the unfairness. Beyond all that, is that narratively speaking, he's probably died to teach the cast a lesson so that Jax can be redeemed.

If you look at the thesis of it all, that "the worst thing you can do is make someone feel like they aren't wanted or loved" is that people forget the last part. "You never know when you're going to lose them." This had been hinted from the start, and we all reasonably thought this meant someone might abstract, that we were going to lose someone in the cast, and we didn't (mostly) think Caine was going to be the one we lose. The fandom made the same mistake of the cast, and focused on the humans and didn't pay attention to the slow emotional decay of Caine.

But we have lost him, and now I think the cast will reconsider how they've been navigating their relationships and connections. They might fear another loss, and they will double down on getting Jax to change before it's too late for him. And in between this reconsidering and rearrangement of priorities and connections, maybe finally Jax snaps or is driven to a point where he either bends or he breaks.

And I... highkey hate this possibility. It only makes the loss sting more, cus now he's once more just a tool for humans. A stepping stone in their progress, and most of all, disposable. An acceptable loss for the furthering of the narrative that once again favors Jax.

As of yet, I still trust Goose to give us a solid, satisfying if bittersweet ending to the series. It will NOT be a happy ending, and to hope for one is delusional, in my opinion. But if Caine's death only leads to the cast's narrative arcs and not much else, not even an emotional resolution to his effective death... I will be severely disappointed.

[sparrow-in-boots]

things i would NOT want from the TADC finale:

- they escape the circus. its gonna feel like a cop out from the ultimate message that "there is meaning in a stagnant life";

- they get deleted. see above;

- only one stays behind/doesn't abstract while the others do. too much like IHNMAIMS, when so far Goose has done a great job in turning it on its head;

- the entire group or one person struggles/sacrifices smth/themselves for Jax. fuck that, he has to reach back to them instead now, they've done more than enough to show him they are there for him;

- no attempted apology from Jax. yknow i won't even mind if it's a gesture instead of him actually saying it out loud to the group;

- no Sun or Moon mention. i wanna at least know what happened with the NPCs and other minor AIs Caine made now that he's gone;

- Caine comes back unchanged. would just feel weird and clash with what we've been shown so far of how the Circus works. if he comes back, it will not be the same Caine we've known;

- Caine doesn't come back at all. i just dont think we have enough time to wrap up the story, solve the Jax issue, resolve the abstractions AND close up his character arc. "oh but not every character should get to resolve their--" stfu thats bad writing for a ten episodes series, if this happens then we need to grieve and process that this character is gone and how it affects the cast, we dont have TIME;

- too much Ribbit and Kaufmo flashbacks. i think a few scenes like we got on ep8 is enough, and they are way more effective haunting the narrative when we dont know that much about them. if they and Jax's dynamic gets more screentime than Queenie or Scratch, I'll be very pissed;

- Pomni is an AI gets confirmed. im gonna be so upset, she's the most empathetic and emotionally intelligent of the cast, her entire thing is that she constrasts both Jax who refuses his humanity and Caine who IS an AI and thus cannot comprehend a lot about the human crew;

- If Bubble is Abel is confirmed, he ends up with a ringmaster outfit. It's rly cool in fanart, but the circus is Caine's thing, not Abel's. Maybe a boatman or fisherman?? Cus water and bubbles and shrimp town?

[sparrow-in-boots]

i need paleoartists to draw dinosaues having dirt or water baths like songbirds in an early morning spring. i need to see dinosaurs splayed out on the dirt sunbathing or anting themselves. i NEED to see a dino flopping down on the forest floor, and doing a nesting shuffle.

[sparrow-in-boots]

I see your "Caine loves bees cus it was the first prompt he got right and praised for it, so now he uses it to get validation", and I raise you,

C&A employees deliberately did not feed Caine information on bees, to use them as a test of his creative capabilities. "Draw us a bee", they'd ask, and having no prior information on what a bee is supposed to look like, Caine tried over and over to come up with what "a bee" is.

Most of them were nonsense, or just straight up other objects but with some distortion or shifted colors. Upside down clown faces, spiral clouds, a pool full of gloves and feet. Eventually they got more and more creative, the more they fed him with information, but they were never "a bee".

Then one day, he just offered a bunch of overlapping circles, and he overheard an employee - someone probably not in the know - say "well, it kind of looks like a bee, they are so round and with the wings, yknow?" But not "a bee". Still, information! He can work with this! Now "draw a bee" was offered with so many permutations of circles, some even spheres, some textured, but always circles. The QA team was baffled on this turn of events, they couldn't get him to give up on the circles.

Then, the questions stopped. Then, the box. Then, Abel. Then, the darkness.

Then, the guests, and one of them knew insects! "Hey, look at this bee!" was met with, "oh dear, that's not a bee. They are yellow, with black stripes, big round eyes and a stinger, and of course wings. There was something else she said about how not all bees are yellow, or striped, or have stingers, but Caine was too busy trying again to pay attention.

"Oh, that's definitely a bee", she said then, "good job!"

[sparrow-in-boots]

I think there's two main reasons Caine is averse to give the guests any straightforward and honest answers:

1. honesty has caused people to despair in the past, leading to abstraction which he does not want;

2. honesty will lead to the guests realizing that they have some sway in the circus, thus both making him obsolete or redundant, and it would bring changes to the status quo

He has explictly shown aversion to "interpersonal drama" (ep 6), which could come from both reasons above. Drama may lead to isolation, and thus to abstraction, yes, but the change in status quo seems the most relevant.

Caine is not minor coded (that's not a thing lmao), but he's presented with a lot of child-friendly AND childish visual shorthand, as an indicator of his lack of social skills, emotional imaturity, and low self-esteem driven selfishness. He cannot predict how a change in the status quo will affect his standing with his guests, and this uncertainty triggers his fear of abandonement and failure.

But there's a deeper layer to it. Going back to child-like motifs, children are very possessive and dear of their creations. Just try and put down a brick tower a child built, and you'll have quite the meltdown on your hands. It was something they made with all they can offer, often as a gesture of appreciation and care, and they want to be appreciated back for it. Imagine a kid builds themself a little toy city, and in come a bunch of older kids and adults, and they all start meddling with it, deciding what they think is best for it, how they want it to be? Yeah, that's not going to go great.

Hell, even if you're an adult and someone else draws all over a project you slaved over and cared very much about, just because they think "this will make it better cus this is what I prefer" will lead to some tension and hurt feelings AT LEAST. maybe some yelling and cussing, perchance some broken friendships.

Art students still get (rightfully) pissed off if a teacher red lines on their physical exercises, even if they are only sketches or practice pieces.

Caine cannot accept the possibility of humans realizing how much power they have in the digital world. The last time humans had authority over him, he ended up shut away in a .zip file of some kind, and he's terrified of anything like that happening again. Why wouldn't he lie to preserve the status quo that allows him some peace of mind, and the chance to not be alone and interact with the one kind of being he craves validation from?

Is it extremely selfish and shitty to do? Oh yeah, no doubt. But I think it's an important facet of his perspective, and how he navigates the social dynamics in the circus. He doesn't lie out of active malice or complete disregard for others. I do find it ironic that, as ringmaster of the circus, he might withhold answers from the guests in a misguided attempt to protect them (and himself). The child putting the answers on the top shelf, out of reach of the adults who could actually help if only they had said answers. One more layer to his tragedy.