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You may wish to consider options (such as t<https://github.com/nebula-plugins/gradle-jakartaee-migration-plugin|his plugin>) to aid in bridging/migrating between Java EE and Jakarta EE libs.

You can't use 2 versions of the same coordinates, but you can use both javax.annotation and jakarta.annotation!
Shameless plug: <https://blog.ltgt.net/javax-jakarta-mess-and-gradle-solution/>

hopefully I don't *actually* have to do anything other than force the downgrade... I reported the issue upstream

indeed.  whatever pulled in that older transitive dep should hopefully stop using legacy deps.