Since I've been asked by multiple people about it and I wanted to keep stuff organised, here is a masterpost for my TADC Au "The Phantom of the Circus! It answers to the main questions of the Au and has links to all the comics related.
Main questions
What does the AU talk about?
For those who are not familiar with it, this AU mainly focuses on Jax and Pomni becoming parents, suddenly and not really willingly, of DenDen.
DenDen is their own fankid, but wasn't conceived traditionally, as Bubble just vomited him out of nowhere. Despite that, the kid has both his parents' code and cannot be deleted by Caine, putting mystery on his what he really is.
This AU shows the struggles of raising a kid in the circus, how it can make things worse, or better in their digital lives. It also address the doubts and fears Pomni and Jax have about escaping the circus with the knowledge of possibly losing their child.
When is the AU set, in terms of show continuity?
Everything up until ep 7 of the show is canon into this AU. It's set several months after the "Escape the circus" adventure fiasco.
In this AU, Jax almost abstracted after the whole ordeal and was saved by Pomni. After that, he started trying to improve himself, slowly, even if the main change happens after he becomes DenDen's mother.
Is DenDen related to Harley (Billinguini's FunnyBunny fankid)?
DenDen and Harley's AUs are not the same one. The events and character's lore are different and the AUs do not influence on one another.
However, to me and Lin, DenDen and Harley are like honorary sibs, so the two can meet through a mysterious room, locked by Caine, that connects the two world, serving as some sort of lobby in between their dimensions.
How old is DenDen?
DenDen is mentally 7 years old by the time of his first adventure, even if he's chronologically only 3 weeks old. From then, his aging slows down.
Why Papa Pomni and Mama Jax?
You can find it in a dedicated comic, but to summarize... DenDen mixes them up and since he's dead set on it, they just let him call them that. Since they don't have specific role differences in the circus, it doesn't change much.
What is DenDen?
As mentioned, DenDen is the result of Pomni and Jax's mixed codes, with its unique spin of sentience. DenDen has his own room, can participate to adventures and basically has the same rights and restrictions of all the humans in the circus. However, he's also born in the circus and was impossible to conceive outside of it.
Is he an AI, an NPC, a human? Is he all of them or none of them?
That's one of the mysteries of this AU
How old are the characters? Are they digital copies?
Pomni is 25 and Jax is 22 like their canonical ages, almost 26 and 23 respectively.
In my AU, characters are the age they currently think they are, by their own calculations, so Jax is 22 as of now, but was 16 when he entered the circus.
They are not digital copies, and their bodies keep aging outside the circus. However time passes much faster in the circus compared to the real world.
ART
The art linked is shown in chronological order. Some parts might be added in between even in the future, to contribute to more lore.
DESIGNS
DenDen
Human Pomni (Pre Circus) - 25 yoHuman Jax (Pre circus) - 16 yo
STORY
DenDen's birth
Pomni and Jax's reaction to parenthood
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5
Estimated Guest
Papa Pomni and Mama Jax
Fast growth
Graduation (DenDen's first adventure/Zombie apocalypse)
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14 - Part 15 - Part 16 - Part 17 - Part 18 - Part 19 - Part 20 - Part 21 - Part 22 - Part 23 - Part 24 - Part 25 - Part 26 - Part 27 - Part 28 - Part 29 - Part 30 - Part 31 - Part 32 - Part 33 - Part 34 - Part 35 - Part 36 - Part 37 - Part 38 - Part 39 - Part 40 -
TBC
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TADC THE LAST ACT Reaction and thoughts (Spoilers ahead)
Hello to everyone! I watched the movie and I wanted to let out my opinion after just experiencing it. Might change over time when it comes out on Youtube, but I have a few considerations.
Without spoiling anything, at this moment, I can confirm leaks both saved and ruined my experience. This movie has a lot going on and I couldn't fully get the shock and the strength of those feelings due to knowing already how'd it go, there are so many scenes that I wish I could have experience for the first time. Also, leaks were often badly described, wrong or had assumptions that watching the whole movie in English made no sense.
At the same time, even if I didn't get spoiled on purpose, leaks kinda saved me in a way. There's some stuff that I heavily disliked and had I not had two weeks to prepare mentally, I probably would have disliked the movie even more.
I can say it didn't drive me away from the series as a whole or the fandom. I'll keep drawing for it, especially my DenDen comic, but it did condition my enthusiasm a bit.
Now, to talk about it all, I'll go into spoilers so if you haven't watched the movie yet, avoid clicking and expanding the spoiler button.
Starting with what I liked...
The start with the goldfish was hilarious, I appreciate it a lot and I hope they upload it on youtube even if it's not needed. Having the creepy fish explaining cinema rules etc was super fun. The humor has been good.
I also generally liked the whole central part of Ep 9.
The internal exploration of Jax; how we find out he liked playing piano, and how they addressed the trans implications, leaving open him being transfem, transmasc or just a toxic masculinity thing... His backstory was very daunting and heartbreaking. And I love how it affected him.
I also liked a lot Ribbit's characters. She was lovely, and I felt pretty sad about how things went down until she abstracted.
And of course Funnybunny. There was a lot of it.
From Jax implying Pomni scares him the most cause she got the closest out of anyone since Ribbit, to him going down the spiral after their argument due to the shame of thinking of hurting her like he did his mother.
Jax playing Daisy Bell on the piano and Pomni learning to play it in the credits.
Pomni crying when seeing IRL Jax is alright.
Pomni hugging him harder as she's having a montage of their moment together and being willing to die to stick with him, her asking him to stay with her.
Her realizing right away who's the real Jax.
Reaching out and looking over him even after he abstracted....
The parallels of Jax and Pomni with Kinger and his wife...
The HUG.
Him reaching out to her as last action before abstracting.
The gang letting her go try to deal with Jax by herself without even needing to talk about it cause they knew she would...
Initially as I went out of the movie theater I was feeling much more positive, but the more I got to think, the more I started seeing stuff that left me very iffy.
One of the first things is how at the start and end, it felt like a lot of characters were ooc. Especially Pomni.
Pomni like... walking off when Jax tried to reach others after all the other times she was just so ready to get him to open up, after watching him like a hawk....
I get that she was feeling down but she had her pep talk with Kinger already and time passed since the digital copies news and with how attentive she was to Jax even in ep 8, it felt weirdly out of character from her to not even try to reach out back (and at most him taking it back and brushing her off). Or to just cut that out and make Jax abstract right after the digital copies news, with a fight maybe, making it impossible for her to reach out.
Because to me Jax felt like someone who was already breaking down and trying to reach out. The moment he can't even fake a smile and tries to talk after putting distance... she just... ignores it? It felt like forcing her to act like that to justify his abstraction, which otherwise would be prevented.
We have a Pomni that basically acts nonchalant or lobotomized at most to then being ready to die for him while hugging him... Then again at the end she acts so confidently with the abstracted Jax as if she just knows how to deal with him (bring him back perhaps) but none of it is explained.
I felt like I was watching two different Pomnis, where the writer switched after she ran off to get abstracted Jax and again after Pomni was taken away by Jax's mind.
I also felt the Ragatha and Pomni talk was... A bit odd? Sweet, but as if they skipped 20 episodes build up.
But now, the real elephant in the room and the biggest reason I disliked the movie is how it handled Jax's abstraction and post abstraction.
Don't get me wrong, i like angst, I like bittersweet endings, and while I probably would have despised an ending where Jax fully just abstracts, dies and is sent to the cellar, at the same time I could take it at the same time.
It's not easy to explain, but I'm going to do my best to try.
Going back to the topic of Jax being "dead", I think people with leaks were exaggerating saying he died, because from watching the movie, it seems heavily implied that he is probably getting reversed to normal eventually. Or at the very least, it leaves his fate as open as possible for fans to decide.
This is what I think as he seems to want to be saved from the start of ep 9. He reaches out to Pomni, he opens up to her and hugs her, something even Ribbit couldn't do fully. He does admit being scared, showing remorse and hinting at wanting to apologize to Gangle. We never get his atonement and healing because it's suddenly halted. And from then, we know nothing. We have a few pointers, but nothing strong enough to point at either him fully being an abstraction or being on a path to recovery.
He is in limbo, kept with the other active players in the circus in a tort, as they say they will all take care of him, and as they refuse Caine's proposal to "deal with" Abstracted Jax, refusing to send him to the cellar. We see him sleeping peacefully, with no spikes and Pomni smiling at him and even after the aquarium scene, the pillow fort for Jax is still there.
We also see Caine access to his brain scans and IRL data AFTER Jax abstracted and they're still okay, show the gang his IRL situation...
I don't see why leaving this all SO open if it wasn't a concrete possibility for him to come back, especially with the character arc he had with Pomni. I don't get keeping him in a fort like a zoo animal, if he really was just the dead corpse of Pomni's friend. Especially because we see they have an aquarium-like for abstractions but the very last frame of the circus shows that he's still got his tent. He's kept aside from the others, we get he's a special case, but we don't get an explanation on why he is different. Not in terms of design and not in terms of dialogues. No "We think there might be a chance for him, if he's willing to take it.". No eventual scene with Pomni in the pillow fort with him trying to enter his mind again even if she can, or even just playing piano, observing him... Anything to hint at a progression.
I think I get Goose's intentions, and I get not all suicide victims get their happy ending, but with the arc he had and him regretting his actions, trying to reach out and going through abstraction, I think it would be quite... Terrible for me for him to just fully abstract. But it's equally as uncomfortable to me seeing Jax being trapped in a kind of coma and treated like a pet with no explanations on why he gets no funeral and doesn't join the other abstractions...
It feels like giving hope but at the same time not knowinf why there's hooe.
I feel like the writers were unsure whether to fully commit with him offing himself and go for the angst and cruel realism or making him better and risk an overly happy ending. Settling for a "we just leave it like that.".
But that's not exactly an open ending. I like open endings enough, but this feels like things being let go, not things being written to be open.
With his almost total absence from the credit scenes aside being painted with the abstractions and Pomni learning to play piano, I feel like they just wanted to avoid as much as possible pointing to specific directions.
Why is he treated like he's gone at times and others as he's still reversible to normal? Why is he a different case? If only Pomni really was close to him like that, why even after abstracting he's still considered part of the gang?
Why Pomni can still go in his mind and we don't see a hint of her trying again? Why can she in the first place and the other abstractions are far too gone?
I think even a thing as simple as his abstracted design being different, or seeing a little sign of him healing or Pomni offering her hand once again would have fixed the whole thing a lot.
I have other gripes like Bubble my baby not coming back, even if it makes sense, or what happened with Caine and why the circus was so colorful suddenly.
Another thing is why, personally, I felt the message of "living a stagnant life" arrived after they've seen their IRL lives. Wouldn't it be more impactful if it came BEFORE?
Now, how will this influence my Phantom of the circus AU?
It barely will. My Jax backstory was implied already in previous parts and I don't feel like changing it much, even if It would fit with the AU.
Generally Ep 8 and 9 would make it impossible to keep my plans the same, which is why I have to mostly ignore those for my Au and only keep stuff until Ep 7. The Digital Copies theory being confirmed is VERY divergent already, considering in my AU they're not.
I will probably take a few elements still and details, like Jax playing piano and liking it, but aside from stuff like this, DenDen's story will go on its own way.
If I feel better with the stuff, I might make a lil spin-off or what-if, showing how DenDen's story would go if placed after ep 9, but I can't give any confirmation of this.
And again, if I feel better with it, I'll draw some what-ifs and coping pieces for Ep 9, in the future.
Hi so Iβve been kinda confused from the AU with Den Den. Like are Jax and Pomni dating, since they are REALLY close. Or is it like confusing between them? thatβs it, btw this comic is my FAVOURITE.
Jax and Pomni are not officially dating yet, but they're in a weird in between. Since Jax was slowly trying to find some stability, they didn't talk about labels. They didn't confess and perhaps they both don't know if the other "loves" them, but they know they're beyond platonic.
They know they're not just friends, everyone knows they have "something" going on, but they have a lot going on in their heads so they're just winging it for now, especially after becoming parents. Considering Jax was struggling with adapting to being more open, they were taking it very slow and avoiding talking directly about it.
Denden's presence and becoming parents might help though! ;)
It helped Jax open up a lot and become more genuine, so it might help developing his relationship with Pomni as well.
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hi love your story. here's my question. what do you think Jax & Pomni's wedding would be like
That's a very hard question.
I imagine it would be kinda natural for them, something not big, between them and close friends only. I could see them going "ok let's marry" on a whim and running to get someone to officiate it and just writing a message to the gang "we're marrying, come fast". (If in human world)
If digitally, similarly but Caine makes it a bigger deal than they wish and things escalate gskfkskf
I think it would be fun if either Jax or Pomni propose with Daisy Bell.
Hi! I love your comics about DenDen, and I have 2 questions, the first is, in YOUR opinion, Jax is a good father with DenDen? And the second is, I want to do a fanart of DenDen, Jax and Pomni and upload it, but if you don't want donΒ΄t worry :3 !!! And sorry if I'm being too insistent, but I really love your comics. :D
Hello!
Yes, I'd say Jax is a good parent. With A LOT of imperfections as many parents do, but he's a good parent.
Also of course! I super welcome fanarts of my characters as long as they're appropriate and non-AI made! You're not insistent, I appreciate the support a lot! And I am very excited to see your fanart!
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What do you think of the group dynamic in OSβ dub?
Kinda the same of the Sub. They toned down a bit the toxicity but in turn the characters are not anymore their true version of themselves.
Ash himself ends up being different and nowadays people still refer to his OS self as snarky or with more personality due to the teasing and stuff, which in the original he rarely did. The dub created in people's memories a version of characters and dynamics that is not there, so I generally dislike that too. Especially cause while they could change the dialogues, the actions are still there π
I think that they could still make it work for the Sub, that dynamic, if it lasted much shorter and if they had the characters reflecting on it.
Twilight and Flash met again in the future, both still single, one a ruler of an entire kingdom, the other in a world famous rock band. They had a lot to catch up on, and a failed past romance seemed to blossom once more.Β
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Some strawpage questions will be kept for another moment as I want to answer with sketches!
As for the suggestions, I will keep them for future occasions when I'm going to sketch!
Omg you're gonna make me cry??? Thank you!!! I always want to channel emotions through my art so I'm glad you like it! Also I really like supporting other artists as well! Art is one of the greatest things ever!
I was rewatching the Original Series in Subs and reacting it to my friends Alpha and Meza. I was struggling continuing it because in the jap version the group dynamic of the original trio is... very toxic. Misty and Brock were constantly mistreating Ash beyond teasing, Oak blatantly would tell him he had zero faith in him.
There were various situations that occurred for the whole series where I thought "What would have happened if Ash had a supportive enviroment? People who genuinely would help him grow and be friends with?"
Ironically, I think XY gang is the one Ash got along most with, and it's my fav group, so I thought that it would be fun to see their dynamic with OS Ash and see how it would influence XY gang's development. OS Ash was more romance aware, he had huge confidence issues and could be a bit stubborn and lazy but also mostly very kind and rarely argued back or started anything. I liked the idea of him and Bonnie being gremlins together, with him inspiring her in the best and worst ways. I liked the idea of exploring a less experienced Ash getting along with Clemont while he's even more unsure of his role as a gym leader (I wanted Ash to have not specifically a teacher or mentor, but like the top student and nerd of his class helping him out. I wanted them to have a balanced relationship where they learn from each other. So close to canon, but even more highlightened.)
And I liked the idea of a less dense Ash, dealing with his very cute childhood friend and exploring their relationship made of "lifting each other up" but in a timeframe where they're much less mature and experienced.
I don't really know about other AUs. I chitchatted with Meza about an AU where Dawn and Serena travel in Kanto in OS with Ash but I'm not actively making anything with it.
I started an AU where Ash stayed dead after the first movie and Serena, alongside Pikachu, continues his adventures for him. This one I plan to continue eventually. I liked the idea of Serena falling in love with Ash and the person he was and would become, while also grieving him because he will never get to be that. And Serena chasing a dream that's not hers, to fullfill multiple promises that ultimately don't really make her truly happy.
