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
sometimes people experiencing psychosis and/or mania will come up to you on the street and talk in confusing or upsetting ways. your job is to either have a regular human-to-human conversation with that person or politely leave. your job is not to call 911. do not call 911. you might kill that person if you call 911.
I don't even have the energy to screenshot and respond to your tags- what the actual fuck is wrong with you? "the cops are scared and rightfully so" "mental health calls are the scariest for cops" OH so this isn't about the safety of psychotic & manic people this is about piggy feelings?
and no, actually, this is not USA specific and no, actually, people from other countries should not ignore this post. police violence and sanism weren't invented in the US and they are certainly not unique to here. if you (or anyone) thinks that this bullshit doesn't happen elsewhere then you are not listening.
This is legitimately useful reframing. A while ago I started replacing the word "cop" in my vocabulary with "a man with a gun." It really puts things into perspective.
This homeless person is making me uncomfortable. Should I call [a man with a gun]?
My neighbor is having a loud party. Should I get [a man with a gun] involved?
There are some teenagers skateboarding. Do you think [a man with a gun] would get rid of them for me?
It makes it very clear what you're saying. I can call a man with a gun to threaten or hurt someone mildly inconveniencing me. You're not calling the cops, you're calling A MAN WITH A GUN into a situation that does not warrant a firearm handled by a volatile lunatic who will not be held accountable for his actions.
dorian electra - experimental pop, some rock and electronic
boy bowser - rap
left at london - indie pop
rain mcmey - folk punk, indie
murder person for hire - folk punk (idk if they would consider themself trans bc i am not as familiar but i am including them bc of their song "chaotic gender neutral")
i never see enough tips for trans women/transfem people so. here’s a video that came up about tucking :] (don’t worry she doesn’t use tape at all despite the thumbnail)
“How to tuck for trans Male to Female, or if you’re just really curious.
First, take that fancy-dancy duct tape, that electrical tape, that athletic tape and...
*throws it into a bin with an audible thud*
throw that shit in the trash!
It kinda works, but for the most part it frickin’ hurts, you gotta shave all the time and it’s really bad for your skin.
Instead, go to Walmart, get yourself a pair of high-waisted tights, and a pair of dr scholl's travel compression socks.
*tears packet for high-waisted tights*
Cut the waistband out of your tights, like so.
*tears sock pack with teeth*
You’re gonna take your socks, and cut to right about... here. Then you get this cool little cuff.
Feed waistband into said cuff.
Step into each loop of the cuff. Your thingy should lay nicely in the cuff. Pull up, put on a pair of cute panties and some shorts, and it’s like you never even had a penis!
can grief stop hiding in the half smoked cigarettes my impoverished father would've farmed from the cracks in the sidewalk outside of a convenience store? the same half smoked cigarettes that eventually killed him of lung cancer? that he insisted on taking secret puffs of until he literally couldn't breathe anymore? it's an ironically cruel place for a fond memory to be
can grief stop hiding in the half smoked cigarettes my impoverished father would've farmed from the cracks in the sidewalk outside of a convenience store? the same half smoked cigarettes that eventually killed him of lung cancer? that he insisted on taking secret puffs of until he literally couldn't breathe anymore? it's an ironically cruel place for a fond memory to be
If you're writing anything involving cons, scams, heists, or morally questionable characters who are very good at lying, here are some free resources I've been using for research. Saving you the "why is this in my search history" anxiety.
1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.
2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.
3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.
4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.
5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.
Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.
Reblog to save for later. Your WIP will thank you.
[Image description: the three images in the original post are marked as deleted for violating Tumblr's User guidelines. The image in the reblog is a screenshot of what the images in the post originally read, and are as follows:
First is a screenshot of a different tumblr post and a reblog of it. This transcript is minorly adapted for screenreaders. The original post reads: "being on this site is fucking crazy because u will see a post go around that's a little "too loud" about transfeminism for tumblrs insanely bigoted ass moderation team, and then by the evening u can go look at the same post and everyone on it will have been banned, and the next day a second post will go around pointing out the malicious and completely unreasonable bans that were executed by staff on the previous post and then by THAT evening those users will also have been banned and we're all expected to just sit there and pretend it isnt happening". The reblog reads: "i SERIOUSLY feel like tumblrs built in transfem eating machine has been getting way hungrier recently... like ive literally been on this account for a week and had at least 15 different mutuals get termed in that time. i refresh my dash and see peoples accounts go down in front of my eyes. i keep being like oh jeez i forgot to follow [mutual] on this blog? and it turns out that, no, she just got banned the second i turned my back. im literally seeing blogs get taken down that havent physically been up long enough to have possibly posted anything objectionable. im seeing "reblog to help me find my mutuals" posts going around where the op has already been nuked again. like come on".
Second is a screenshot of an email header. The subject line reads: "Tumblr Account Terminated".
Third is a screenshot of the beginning of a Wikipedia article. It reads: "The Streisand effect describes a situation where an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information results in the unintended consequence of the effort instead increasing public awareness of the information".
that poll going around of the guy who thought "people only eat tofu as a bit because they're deranged vegans" or whatever really crystalizes something that i have never been able to precisely say - which is "a nonzero fraction of people who start picky-eater discourse just happen to precisely hate those foods which are not from north america and refuse to introspect on this whatsoever"
In contrast some people say "there aren't any picky eaters in Asia 🙄" but this is laughably untrue. I have a cousin in India who refused until his 20s to eat anything in a sauce. as you can imagine in India this was difficult. he basically had to pick things out of curry and wipe them dry
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