“I feel like being able to keep doing what you love is the best kind of happiness.” | he/him & quack/quacks | bi | proship dni | eng + spa | mexico | new hyperfixations every now and then
I think it’s especially brilliant that the “big puzzle” that Caine hovers over as he thinks about how to make things right with everyone is a bead maze
A children’s toy with a very uncomplicated task
All you need to do to solve a bead maze is to run the bead on an already set track to get them to the other side. There’s not much room for creative solutions, it’s just, follow the direction the bead needs to go. And for a creature made with the express purpose of being creative, this would feel very frustrating.
Caine is desperate to fix a problem he cannot understand, despite the numerous bits of feedback he gets from the people he wants to understand
He claims to step out of his comfort zone by letting the others come up with adventure ideas instead, but not enough to just let go of his own ego for a bit and let them enjoy it when it is enjoyable. It’s not his adventure, his ideas, so they shouldn’t like them.
Caine makes, and makes, and makes, and makes, because that’s what he was made for, but he never listens
Thinking about the fact that Caine put the cast into their worst nightmares only very briefly, before pulling them out, and asking them why do they torment him
I don't think that was irony. I think he put them in those nightmarish scenarios in an attempt to convey how he was feeling. Creating ideas was his entire life. Seeing every single one of them right in front of him, telling him how bad he is at the one thing he's built for--that was his greatest nightmare.
He just wanted them to understand how terrifying it was. How much he was hurting. And the easiest, most rational way to do that--for a program that has no way to take into account the moral implications--was to show them their own equivalents to his scenario.
It doesn't make what he did any less terrible, but I think it just goes to support what Gooseworx had told us before: Caine isn't inherently evil. He just. Isn't human. Doesn't think like one. He can't help that.
the fear of ridicule… the fear of being at the mercy of other people's judgement… the fear that people will take apart your protective shell against your will and see the true self you've been trying so hard to hide from them… oh transfem jax we're really in it now
I'm an emotional abuse survivor, and Ragatha's story in Digital Circus hits me like a train and genuinely, I have no idea how no one else is talking about it
I knew FROM THIS MOMENT exactly why Ragatha is the way she is. The way she pulls herself short because you DO NOT TALK about what you go through, you do not tell anyone what your parent does to you or says to you. No one gets it. It's embarrassing. It's too much.
But her torture scene in the new episode just cemented it for me.
It's always at the dinner table. You can't get away at dinner. You have to sit with your abuser, who has probably already hit their limit for the day and is looking for someone to unleash their stress at. And you have to take it, because it gets SO much worse if you get up from the table before you're finished.
All the mannequins make me wonder if Ragatha has a big family. That's an awful lot of people who have already been beaten down and aren't speaking up to defend her.
Ragatha is a rag doll because Caine can see in her mind files that she's been used that way all her life. Thats how she sees herself. She's a soft thing to be thrown about. She can stand up to rough treatment. You can fling as many knives at her as you like and it doesn't matter, because she's made of stuffing, it doesn't hurt. You can just patch her up and keep going.
But if course it hurts. Look at her.
(and obviously her mother didn't *actually stab her in the eye*, come on guys.)
But I have to go back to how Ragatha's mother is shown here, because it speaks volumes to Ragatha's entire character. It's so screamingly obvious to me, probably because I mould my own life exactly how Ragatha does, for better or for worse.
The mother looks like Ragatha. She has the same hair, the same body type.
And the whole time she's abusing Ragatha, she's *smiling.* She's enjoying it. She's exactly the type of vile bully that comes up with her most hurtful thing to say, and smiles in your face while she says it, because it makes her feel good.
THAT is why Ragatha is so accommodating. THAT'S why she doesn't tell Jax to fuck off until she's given "permission" by Pomni at the softball game (who immediately gets freaked out by her big feelings and tells her she's being irrational).
THAT is why she tries to keep the peace and not upset people. THAT is why, almost to the very last, she tries to placate Caine.
Because she thinks that if she hurts someone's feelings, *SHE IS EXACTLY LIKE HER MOTHER.* And in Ragatha's mind, there is nothing worse in the whole world than finding out you're just like your abuser. Cosmically, you might even think that's why they hurt you in the first place. Because you're bad. You deserve it.
So you make nice. You stay quiet. You give compliments. You make sure everyone is happy.
You pick yourself up and keep going, despite constantly being knocked down, dismissed, laughed at. You try your best not to set them off, not set *anyone* off, because if they freak out, you end up being the villain. And there's always that tiny part of your brain that is terrified, deep down, that you are going to hurt people in the same way you were hurt.
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