subwayfloorlicker1978

[subwayfloorlicker1978]

been thinking about tadc jax crossdresser theory again and imagine if his “super secret room” is actually just a backstage vanity full of ala trixie mattel drag gowns and kaufmo is his ex boyfriend or something. sorry i just think our preconceived notions of “JAX IS AN NPC!!!!!” and “JAX’S SECRET IS ABOUT HIS HORRIBLE AND PROBABLY ILLEGAL PAST!!!!” having transitioned to “JAX IS FRUITY!!!!!!” is very comical. can’t wait for the next episode where pomni and the gang gets to meet rupaul.

[subwayfloorlicker1978]

every single time i try to speculate on what jax’s “big bad secret” is going to be revealed as later in the story i get stuck. repeatedly.

like okay. if you haven’t noticed, goose has been foreshadowing this like a lot. the little detail of jax having keys that can open any door that seems a LITTLE too specific for it to just be a one-off thing. the clear implication that jax’s room is supposed to hold a secret of some kind (cough the pins). on her list of content warnings for tadc she literally put “jax” as one of the warnings. (presumably as a half joke but she’s very monotone so im not really sure.) apparently he “likes a lot of things he’s not willing to admit”, which is ominous as hell?? his dynamic with pomni is MESSY now apparently.

so my guess is that he’s going to do something absolutely, completely unforgivable in the future. or something really bad happens related to him or something idk. SOMETHING related to him contains dark themes, but the more i think about how the environment of the digital circus works, the more confusing it gets.

like. okay well he can’t exactly kill any of his castmates so that’s sort of out of the question. can he make someone abstract? possibly. maybe that’s what happened to queenie… but i think the rest of the cast would be WAY more unforgiving/cold to him if that actually happened. so probably not. i think with what we know now, maybe he could realistically set caine off so badly that it results in like… super dire consequences. like maybe the world starts glitching out and makes someone abstract bc of it or something. eyedeekay!

it’s also difficult too bc there’s so much we still don’t really know about the circus. like before episode 3 we had absolutely no idea that caine’s emotional state affected the “structural integrity” of the circus i guess.

also… and i know people are gonna disagree with me on this… i do not think we know enough about jax to have an “in character” image of him in our heads. like yeah his surface level traits are there but we really don’t know a lot about him. like at all. i think the closest we’ve ever been shown to “the real jax” (excluding the crumbs that goose has given us) are those scenes in episode 1 where he breaks character a little bit and looks super tired as if he’s putting up a facade. which i DO think he is, it’s just that his motivations are super important too and we’re completely unaware of what he’s actually planning on doing later on….

also extra note before i finish my silly rant. goose said on twitter that she saw a piece of fanart for tadc that mirrors something that happens later on in the story and ive seen quite a few pieces on the tumblr front page for the #tadc hashtag that depict jax abstracting …so. idk if its gonna happen though teehee. okay bye guys.

[subwayfloorlicker1978]

gonna be completely honest and say that i'm not a fan of the ragapom interactions in episode 3. i think it's good that pomni is appreciative of ragatha and learns that from her experience with kinger, and even though i don't think the ending scene w those two COMPLETELY IGNORES ragatha's ongoing problem of treating pomni like a child, it certainly doesn't acknowledge it enough. which is. erm. worrying!

i think zooble's gender dysphoria b plot shouldn't have been in this episode either- that time would've been PERFECT for ragatha to talk about her problems with pomni to the other castmates and come to the conclusion that she's doing a few things wrong. zooble's problem is clearly too deep to have this little coverage in one episode and this format would also acknowledge both sides with ragapom's weird tension for the past few episodes. and it would definitely be a lot more effective too if ragatha was LITTLE more overbearing in episode 2 as well.

however that's if you want to resolve their dynamic within 3 episodes. which honestly i don't like the idea of, bc ragatha's treatment of pomni is connected to her desire to be the mom friend/depended on (and continuous failure to do so), and said desire ALSO causes multiple other problems for her too (cough toxic positivity and also her interactions with jax but thats a conversation for later).

which is why i don't like the "every character gets a dedicated episode" format, and it doesn't work for the majority of the cast. it DOES work for kinger because his spotlight in episode 3 was mostly supposed to be a deepdive into his past, he's clearly not meant to be a character with an arc... and also he's literally just going to forget everything anyway. ragatha is clearly a lot more complex and her complexity/progression of character literally depends on how she interacts with others. like sorry but it would be infinitely more interesting for the show to convey it in a more longterm way and unfortunately i think it might go in the opposite direction.

[subwayfloorlicker1978]

cant comment bc this is a sideblog but it’s good to see that there’s people who are realizing this too. this fandom has such a problem with collective misinterpretation (either reasonable or not…) and im defintiely scared it will manifest into something much worse in the long run. sigh. when ragapom started getting big i was like “oh it’s actually really great to not see gay men get infantilized by a fandom for once!” until i realized that it would just reflect on the most popular ship regardless. but i guess this is the price to pay for doomed yuri.

anyway if you do end up delivering in ur writing i will most definitely check that out. i really like the concept of ragapom and i am soooo ready for mutual girlfailure content.

something i find really interesting (and something I personally think is the result of people shipping ragapom) is that a lot of people in this fandom portray ragatha is this really mature (not sure how to describe this) “MOTHERRRR!!!!!” type of woman.

i personally see her as the opposite. i don’t really view her as a wise older sister figure, (again literally the opposite of that) and yes, she does TRY to be mother, but she absolutely does not succeed in that endeavor whatsoever. she comes off as me in 7th grade when i tried cosplaying as the “mom friend” of my friend group bc i kinned kanaya maryam. that’s the best way to describe her vibe here.

and i think this connects to ragapom too bc pomni is CONSISTENTLY mischaracterized as this frail little “uwu cinnamon roll” who can’t fend for herself and is thus deemed the “bottom” in the dynamic bc tumblr. which pisses me off bc this is not 2017 anymore. but obviously since pomni has been given that role by a lot of ragapom shippers, that kind of just leaves ragatha to be deemed the more protective one (top? god i hate these terms sooo much) by comparison.

and even though ragatha isn’t good at what she’s trying to be, she’s still technically the closest thing we get to a mom friend in the series (i mean. look at everyone else in the cast.) so it just gives people more of an incentive to mischaracterize her this way. anyway tldr ragatha is not as wise or mature as you think she is.

[subwayfloorlicker1978]

also i noticed that clearly every episode is dedicated to one character (except for the latter few but we’ll see 😜) and pomni definitely emotionally guides gumigoo a little bit in chapter 2… i definitely don’t think gooseworx would write this in, but if pomni were to consistently take on this role w EVERY character the episode is about, it would be interesting to see how ragatha would react to some random person (who JUST got here btw) completely taking over her role within days.

oh and something extra. again… pomni is not an anxious frail uwu cinnamon roll (cough fandom characterization), but oh my GOD ragatha absolutely views her that way. and it’s definitely evident based on a lot of her dialogue from episode 2. this would be interesting to see ….. but again i don’t think it’ll show up in tadc.

all im saying is. ragatha could not do what pomni did when she was with gumigoo.

something i find really interesting (and something I personally think is the result of people shipping ragapom) is that a lot of people in this fandom portray ragatha is this really mature (not sure how to describe this) “MOTHERRRR!!!!!” type of woman.

i personally see her as the opposite. i don’t really view her as a wise older sister figure, (again literally the opposite of that) and yes, she does TRY to be mother, but she absolutely does not succeed in that endeavor whatsoever. she comes off as me in 7th grade when i tried cosplaying as the “mom friend” of my friend group bc i kinned kanaya maryam. that’s the best way to describe her vibe here.

and i think this connects to ragapom too bc pomni is CONSISTENTLY mischaracterized as this frail little “uwu cinnamon roll” who can’t fend for herself and is thus deemed the “bottom” in the dynamic bc tumblr. which pisses me off bc this is not 2017 anymore. but obviously since pomni has been given that role by a lot of ragapom shippers, that kind of just leaves ragatha to be deemed the more protective one (top? god i hate these terms sooo much) by comparison.

and even though ragatha isn’t good at what she’s trying to be, she’s still technically the closest thing we get to a mom friend in the series (i mean. look at everyone else in the cast.) so it just gives people more of an incentive to mischaracterize her this way. anyway tldr ragatha is not as wise or mature as you think she is.

[subwayfloorlicker1978]

something i find really interesting (and something I personally think is the result of people shipping ragapom) is that a lot of people in this fandom portray ragatha is this really mature (not sure how to describe this) “MOTHERRRR!!!!!” type of woman.

i personally see her as the opposite. i don’t really view her as a wise older sister figure, (again literally the opposite of that) and yes, she does TRY to be mother, but she absolutely does not succeed in that endeavor whatsoever. she comes off as me in 7th grade when i tried cosplaying as the “mom friend” of my friend group bc i kinned kanaya maryam. that’s the best way to describe her vibe here.

and i think this connects to ragapom too bc pomni is CONSISTENTLY mischaracterized as this frail little “uwu cinnamon roll” who can’t fend for herself and is thus deemed the “bottom” in the dynamic bc tumblr. which pisses me off bc this is not 2017 anymore. but obviously since pomni has been given that role by a lot of ragapom shippers, that kind of just leaves ragatha to be deemed the more protective one (top? god i hate these terms sooo much) by comparison.

and even though ragatha isn’t good at what she’s trying to be, she’s still technically the closest thing we get to a mom friend in the series (i mean. look at everyone else in the cast.) so it just gives people more of an incentive to mischaracterize her this way. anyway tldr ragatha is not as wise or mature as you think she is.

[subwayfloorlicker1978]

is it just me or is there an extremely alarming lack of ragatha in the new tadc teaser. like she isn’t shown or mentioned AT ALL. i would be less suspicious if this wasn’t a super main character (like gangle) but…. hmm

[subwayfloorlicker1978]

tadc works better in the medium that it unintentionally conveyed itself as

okay. you’re probably reading this title thinking “but subwayfloorlicker1978… what IS the medium in question????” okay the medium in question is being a lore filled mysterious series with twists and turns and having an emphasis on twists and turns just as much as its characters.

now. this baffles me a little bit bc even though one could get that exact idea of tadc just by watching the first episode (and the fandom ITSELF literally got that impression. i mean its even evident in the fanmade aus.) gooseworx made a twitter post a few months ago that apparently tadc is made up of. and i quote. 95% character depth/stuff/etc and like 5% of lore. which is… hm.

which also baffled me! because my GOD was there a lot of lore foreshadowing and spooky (if you want to call it that.) stuff throughout episode 1. like WAY too much of it, especially if your main goal of tadc is to have it be a series centered heavily on the characters. not saying you can’t have background plot things going on, but like… 95%? seriously? i’m definitely praying she hadn’t entirely thought out that ratio before pressing the post button.

and that’s why tadc unintentionally comes across as a series with super deep lore, literally to the point where i’ve seen certain people unironically call it a horror series (which is wrong btw. even if you’re taking the c&a scenes + caine’s suspicious moments into account). it quite literally spends like 1/3 of its main scenes in episode 1 putting SO much emphasis on the c&a lore and the abstraction and everything else.

and the thing is. i dont entirely blame gooseworx for this. obviously it would be very important to flesh out the environment/world that the characters are in during the first episode (LITERALLY your first impression), which obviously includes locations like the lore office area pomni was in or the cellar where caine banishes all of the crazy people to go to. (oh and also even the topic of abstraction itself via kaufmo) but like..... there’s a reason why tadc has a game theory episode.

i’ve said this before and ill say it again. tadc and the entire “digital circus” thing and the implementation of vr headsets + lore into the story is ONLY an excuse for gooseworx to tell a compelling story about compelling characters in a cartoony wacky environment. its basically a guaranteed way for the viewers to actually see these goofy characters in a humanoid manner. however… you can’t just implement characters with these vr headset backstories and existential themes without it sounding entirely ominous. AND you can’t just drop a huge bombshell regarding the lore of the show and WHY the vr stuff happened and then go on twitter and say that its 95% about the characters.

and with the direction of the cellar and office scenes.. im not sure if it’s even possible for someone to make a clean cut resolution to the lore tidbits while still fulfilling the “5%” lore thing and not having it come off as giving off the wrong expectations. the direction of these scenes is SO intense like. some of these camera shots clearly put emphasis on small little details and the tone of these scenes pale so much in comparison to previous scenes that it catches you so off guard.

which is what makes them very well written! however they pack so much content and foreshadowing into themselves that its such a far fetched thing to say that only 5% of lore will make up tadc. that combined with the prospect of past lives. and also with the clear foreshadowing of jax being a morally corrupt person. what about the extremely heavy motifs of exit doors? there’s no way THATS going to just be gone after episode 1. goose, what do you MEAN there’s going to be corpse imagery? all of this ties into each other. lore and tone tie into each other too. come on.

but these aspects can definitely be used to craft a great story. WITH character arcs and character deep dives throughout episodes. gravity falls literally nailed this. and theoretically tadc could too. emphasis on theoretically.

also if the “memory loss” thing was actually canon and not something the fandom thought was canon (again reasonable misinterpretation because obviously if you hear pomni say “HOLY FLIP I FORGOT MY OWN NAME!!!” you’re going to assume she forgot everything else.) that would also work well along with the theoretical lore stuff if it was more emphasized. literally think of the vast opportunities for foreshadowing. maybe pomni finds out something about the other characters via revisiting the office that THEY can’t remember. maybe do something with like… reflexes and muscle memory or something related to “the mind forgets but the body remembers”. maybe use it as a plot point in relation to jax’s keys or his weirdly implied secret or something. IDK! i just think a lore and plot driven story in this environment combined with character things (50/50…) would be marginally more interesting than what we will be given.

okay one more pet peeve in relation to this before i go. deep breath……. i really hate the cartoonish body language of the main human cast. GO AHEAD BOO ME. THROW TOMATOES AT ME. LET ME EXPLAIN OKAY.

one piece of media that i think does a GREAT job when it comes to utilizing body language in storytelling is duck season. it clearly humanizes the guy in the suit by giving him certain habits that seem undoubtedly human and make him feel very… alive. like whenever he smokes a cigarette but then quickly puts it out when the player gets near him bc he’s startled and needs to keep up a facade. like THAT. that’s what strikes me as a human behavior.

so if goose’s goal would be to humanize these “cartoon” characters… realistic body language that clashes with their digital circus designs would be a perfect way to make them stick out in comparison to the npcs or caine and bring out the fact that they’re humans in an environment curated by nonhumans. it would also help a little more with tadc’s target demographic problem i think? the characters having little humanoid habits would make it seem a little more mature i think and would also go well with my idea of theoretical lore-focused tadc. not saying 20 year olds CANT be into pieces of media that have bright colors and are very cartoony. im just saying. there’s a reason why there’s so much content slop of tadc.