"The Amazing Digital Circus, or TADC, is an animated psychological horror show made by indie creator Gooseworx and studio Glitch Productions. This summer, the finale came out– and with it, a LOT of controversy." --ALice Stewart, 8th Grade
MILD SPOILER WARNING!
This summer, the finale of The Amazing Digital Circus came out– and with it, a LOT of controversy. Let’s take a look at what happened in chronological order, starting with what TADC actually is.
The Amazing Digital Circus, or TADC, is an animated psychological horror show made by indie creator Gooseworx and studio Glitch Productions. The plot follows a woman named Pomni who puts on a mysterious headset and ends up in a, well, digital circus! Her fellow circus-dwellers are Kinger, a chess piece with a fragile grip on his sanity, Ragatha, a ragdoll, Gangle, a tragedy mask with ribbons for a body, Zooble, a mix-and-match toy, and Jax, a Bugs-Bunny-wannabe purple rabbit.
(Jax will be referred to with they/them pronouns for this article).
Additionally, the circus is run by an AI ringmaster named Caine, whose avatar is a floating pair of dentures. He’s a creative AI, and so he makes “adventures” for the main cast. The “adventures” are to make sure the main characters don’t go insane, or “abstract”, and turn into monsters. Unfortunately, he’s not very good at it, and usually harms more than he helps (with some adventures eventually turning into psychological and even physical torture). Chaos and existential crises ensue.
From left to right: Gangle, Kinger, Jax, Pomni, Ragatha, Zooble
This summer, the finale of The Amazing Digital Circus came out– and with it, a LOT of controversy. Let’s take a look at what happened in chronological order, starting with what TADC actually is.
The Amazing Digital Circus, or TADC, is an animated psychological horror show made by indie creator Gooseworx and studio Glitch Productions. The plot follows a woman named Pomni who puts on a mysterious headset and ends up in a, well, digital circus! Her fellow circus-dwellers are Kinger, a chess piece with a fragile grip on his sanity, Ragatha, a ragdoll, Gangle, a tragedy mask with ribbons for a body, Zooble, a mix-and-match toy, and Jax, a Bugs-Bunny-wannabe purple rabbit.
(Jax will be referred to with they/them pronouns for this article).
Additionally, the circus is run by an AI ringmaster named Caine, whose avatar is a floating pair of dentures. He’s a creative AI, and so he makes “adventures” for the main cast. The “adventures” are to make sure the main characters don’t go insane, or “abstract”, and turn into monsters. Unfortunately, he’s not very good at it, and usually harms more than he helps (with some adventures eventually turning into psychological and even physical torture). Chaos and existential crises ensue.
From left to right: Gangle, Kinger, Jax, Pomni, Ragatha, Zooble
 |  |
Caine (left), and an abstraction (right).
The pilot of the show was released on Youtube on October 13th, 2023, and quickly became a HUGE hit– it currently has around 441 MILLION views. The show was then picked up by Netflix and was available to watch starting on October 4, 2024. (However, Netflix didn’t affect any creative decisions, and the studio creating it, Glitch, still fully funded the show.) And now, three years later, the finale has just been released.
WHAT IS “THE LAST ACT”?
On June 19th, the TADC finale (titled Remember) was released on Youtube. However, when that happened, many fans had already viewed the end of the series. Episodes 8 and 9 were made into a full-length film, entitled The Last Act, and put in cinemas starting on June 4th. Many fans had a great time viewing it, with Violet Hirsch, a 7th grade Literary Arts student, saying that “I saw The Last Act in the New Parkway Theater…and it was amazing because the whole theater gasped and sang along with Caine's song in Episode 8. It was AMAZING being with everybody who wanted to watch it with me and had the same excitement at the prospect of doing so.” This also isn’t the first time a movie or show from Youtube has been put in theaters, with Backrooms and Iron Lung both being quite popular.
THE LEAKS
However, in late May, before the finale came out in theaters, the entirety of the Portuguese dub of Episode 9 was leaked. The leaks spread like wildfire across social media. Many fans watched them for different reasons. Percy Iverson (a 8th grade Production Design student) “watched the entire episode a week earlier on a pirated website in Portuguese…cuz [sic] I’m an impatient dummy”, and Kasper Stallworth (8th grade Literary Arts) said he “was not waiting [two] months…[a]nd also…suspected it was going to be terrible from all the ‘Jax is the main character’ posts I've come across.”
The show’s creator, Gooseworx, also responded to the leaks on Bluesky stating, “ehhhh, who cares?,” later saying after a lot of backlash that "I know people are upset with my response, which is fine, but I kind of just wanted to make a cartoon, & it's ended up being way more trouble than it's worth. I really just can't keep my heart in this thing anymore. It's gotten too much bigger than me, & I probably shouldn't be the figurehead of it."
About this response, Hirsch says that “I feel like her response was justified because she was just trying to create a show and when it gained so much popularity people started doing bad things to it and she can't keep up with that anymore.” Iverson agrees, saying that “I know about [Gooseworx’s] response and I think it’s pretty valid,” while Stallworth says “I think Gooseworx's response was pretty immature. Her dismissing it kind of made it seem like she didn't care for the hard work put into the episode.” Part of why Gooseworx had this reaction may have been due to lots of things that have happened in the fandom, with fans being incredibly toxic towards her about how she ended the series (many even saying they could’ve written it better themselves). Despite the leaks, lots of people still did watch the finale in theaters, with it reaching a worldwide gross box office amount of $36,405,571.
WHAT WAS THE FINALE ACTUALLY ABOUT?
With as few spoilers as possible, a fan-favorite character was killed off, and the ending was (as Gooseworx put it in a Tumblr post) “bittersweet.” Additionally, one of the main characters, Jax, was revealed to be transfemme. As is probably expected, that created EVEN MORE CONTROVERSY. Many fans, especially those who aren’t part of the LGBTQIA+ community themself, didn’t realize Jax was intended to be transfemme, with some even disagreeing with Gooseworx and some of the voice actors on the topic. (Several of TADC’s VAs, Amanda Hufford and Marissa Lenti, made posts about Jax being trans, as did Gooseworx).
Stallworth said that “I don't really care that Jax is trans…. [h]owever, I don't think [them] being trans is a surprise as Gooseworx herself is trans and she did mention making Jax a slight self insert character.”
Gooseworx mentioned Jax being a self-insert (when the creator writes themself into the story) in an X (formerly Twitter) post on July 6th, a while before the show was released. People still have lots of different opinions, though, with Iverson saying that “[Jax] is legit just a trans person with some internal problems why are they like flaming [them] and [Gooseworx]”.
Fans also had lots of different opinions on the ending. Again, with as few spoilers as possible, Vanessa Schulte, a 7th grader in Literary Arts, said that “it was too predictable,” Stallworth said “I was very disappointed… I think it could've been written much better if it didn't revolve around Jax…”, and Hirsch saying she “loved the ending.”
All in all, The Last Act sparked a LOT of controversy, but this incredible indie show has still made a lot of fans (even if some of them didn’t like the ending).
You can watch the full season of TADC on Youtube here!
WHAT IS “THE LAST ACT”?
On June 19th, the TADC finale (titled Remember) was released on Youtube. However, when that happened, many fans had already viewed the end of the series. Episodes 8 and 9 were made into a full-length film, entitled The Last Act, and put in cinemas starting on June 4th. Many fans had a great time viewing it, with Violet Hirsch, a 7th grade Literary Arts student, saying that “I saw The Last Act in the New Parkway Theater…and it was amazing because the whole theater gasped and sang along with Caine's song in Episode 8. It was AMAZING being with everybody who wanted to watch it with me and had the same excitement at the prospect of doing so.” This also isn’t the first time a movie or show from Youtube has been put in theaters, with Backrooms and Iron Lung both being quite popular.
THE LEAKS
However, in late May, before the finale came out in theaters, the entirety of the Portuguese dub of Episode 9 was leaked. The leaks spread like wildfire across social media. Many fans watched them for different reasons. Percy Iverson (a 8th grade Production Design student) “watched the entire episode a week earlier on a pirated website in Portuguese…cuz [sic] I’m an impatient dummy”, and Kasper Stallworth (8th grade Literary Arts) said he “was not waiting [two] months…[a]nd also…suspected it was going to be terrible from all the ‘Jax is the main character’ posts I've come across.”
The show’s creator, Gooseworx, also responded to the leaks on Bluesky stating, “ehhhh, who cares?,” later saying after a lot of backlash that "I know people are upset with my response, which is fine, but I kind of just wanted to make a cartoon, & it's ended up being way more trouble than it's worth. I really just can't keep my heart in this thing anymore. It's gotten too much bigger than me, & I probably shouldn't be the figurehead of it."
About this response, Hirsch says that “I feel like her response was justified because she was just trying to create a show and when it gained so much popularity people started doing bad things to it and she can't keep up with that anymore.” Iverson agrees, saying that “I know about [Gooseworx’s] response and I think it’s pretty valid,” while Stallworth says “I think Gooseworx's response was pretty immature. Her dismissing it kind of made it seem like she didn't care for the hard work put into the episode.” Part of why Gooseworx had this reaction may have been due to lots of things that have happened in the fandom, with fans being incredibly toxic towards her about how she ended the series (many even saying they could’ve written it better themselves). Despite the leaks, lots of people still did watch the finale in theaters, with it reaching a worldwide gross box office amount of $36,405,571.
WHAT WAS THE FINALE ACTUALLY ABOUT?
With as few spoilers as possible, a fan-favorite character was killed off, and the ending was (as Gooseworx put it in a Tumblr post) “bittersweet.” Additionally, one of the main characters, Jax, was revealed to be transfemme. As is probably expected, that created EVEN MORE CONTROVERSY. Many fans, especially those who aren’t part of the LGBTQIA+ community themself, didn’t realize Jax was intended to be transfemme, with some even disagreeing with Gooseworx and some of the voice actors on the topic. (Several of TADC’s VAs, Amanda Hufford and Marissa Lenti, made posts about Jax being trans, as did Gooseworx).
Stallworth said that “I don't really care that Jax is trans…. [h]owever, I don't think [them] being trans is a surprise as Gooseworx herself is trans and she did mention making Jax a slight self insert character.”
Gooseworx mentioned Jax being a self-insert (when the creator writes themself into the story) in an X (formerly Twitter) post on July 6th, a while before the show was released. People still have lots of different opinions, though, with Iverson saying that “[Jax] is legit just a trans person with some internal problems why are they like flaming [them] and [Gooseworx]”.
Fans also had lots of different opinions on the ending. Again, with as few spoilers as possible, Vanessa Schulte, a 7th grader in Literary Arts, said that “it was too predictable,” Stallworth said “I was very disappointed… I think it could've been written much better if it didn't revolve around Jax…”, and Hirsch saying she “loved the ending.”
All in all, The Last Act sparked a LOT of controversy, but this incredible indie show has still made a lot of fans (even if some of them didn’t like the ending).
You can watch the full season of TADC on Youtube here!
