I'm confused about The Amazing Digital Circus. Help
I'm probably a big dumb idiot moron, so be kind to me please. I came out of the TADC Finale in theaters feeling like I'd missed some shit, because the movie didn't quite "click" in the way I was hoping it would. So, I'm throwing questions here (rather than posting them directly to Bluesky and either getting passed over because of how long the thread would be, or just spamming spoilers into peoples' eyeballs when they're trying to watch it on their own time). Here goes, i guess!
Jax is transfem. That's guaranteed. I felt so seen when Jax described her father as somebody who was 'there, but wasn't.' Checked out, in a way. My dad had explosive anger problems (and continues to have them) and is a narcissist. In that way, perhaps, Jax's father and my own are different. The result is still somewhat the same, however; he was never proud of me, and it has continued to feel like I'm never going to please him no matter what I do. My mother, on the other hand, is a sweetheart. Still doesn't really show pride in my achievements as I'd like, but she at least genders me correctly and uses my name. So I connected in that sense.
So is Jax just... permanently abstracted now? If that's the case, what is abstraction symbolizing? Does it represent egodeath? Suicide? Checking out and giving up? It doesn't seem clear to me; it's referred to as 'losing your mind' in the show, but like... I lose my mind all the time. I have DID, so like... is it a mental breakdown, or is it a permanent state of loss of the self?
The characters in the show are shown to be brain copies of people in the show's meatspace. Is that symbolizing an alternate timeline, like a 'good ending?' If that's the case, then how are the characters who didn't abstract different from their meatspace characters? Am I being too obtuse in assuming that ALL the characters should be different from their meatspace counterparts if it symbolizes an alternate timeline? idk, maybe I'm being dumb but I kind of expected the meatspace characters to be polar opposites; I guess that was a stupid assumption to make.
How did the Digital Circus get those brain scans of real people? Pomni's meatspace character is into urban exploring, so like... does she use the equipment that scans her brain? what about the others, how did they get there? Is it a literal brain scan, or are they facsimiles based off of social media profiles, like how most AI these days have just scraped the entire fucking internet? If THAT'S the case, then...
Am I being made to sympathize with an AI model? Fucking why?!
Is "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" required reading to get what Gooseworx was going for, or am I being fucking stupid?
idk. maybe some of these questions have answers, and maybe some of these questions are fucking pointless to even ask because i missed the point entirely.
EDIT (literally like, an hour after publishing):
I have now realized I 'missed the point' of the series because I have been in deep denial that I used to be the exact kind of terrible person Jax was/is. I used to lash out at people because I was afraid they secretly hated me, or got too close to me. If people recognized I was in a state of needing help, I lashed out then, too. I disguised my true feelings with humour and sarcasm, sometimes at others' expense.
I hated - and thus, did not pay attention to - Jax because, deep down, she reminded me of an old version of myself that I am ashamed of, and until now have refused to accept as a part of my life. I have, until now, treated that past version of me as if it were an entirely different program, made of an entirely different source code. What I know now is that my closeted, angry, insecure self is made of the same stuff I'm made of today. What's changed is all the bad, buggy code that I and my friends and loved ones have helped fix over the years.
Upon this realization, I now understand the true reason I felt so confused leaving the theater screening for the finale. It's because I was preventing myself from being kind to my younger self. I hated and did not pay attention to Jax because I hate and do not pay attention to Little Me. I guess I have some really deep thinking to do now.
Gooseworx is a fucking genius, and I am eternally grateful for her incredible piece of art.