₲ꝋđłēꞩꞩ ₲īɍł (Godless Girl)
(music for story feelings)
This is concept design work for part of a larger story for my version of The Amazing Digital Circus/TADC. I wanted to meet the idea of how the characters might actually learn, live in, and behave in their environment since the series really doesn't even talk about it at all and even screws up bad enough to not let them look like they want to make sense of what the world even can be to them if they have to remain in it (bizarre dissonance on trialing even a few more escape attempts to make the story actually have something happen aside from until the plot forces it).
I always think about how Pomni would have needed to start talking to and touching and playing with or even bullying the world around her to make sense of what this digital environment can and can't do for her if she has to make a life in it.
What kind of objects (or artifacts) would she collect? What would she do with her actual body and clothing if she looked at herself in the mirror and was tired of her ugly jester outfit? What does she even think of it? Why can't she even say she does or doesn't like how she looks? How does she FEEL in her circus body? Etc. Also, why doesn't she want to talk about who she is or even try to express who she is trying to become now? It's really the best coping mechanism through dissociation and a traumatic situation when you can't even meet your own story to try to learn your identity: who are you going to be?
The characters felt like blank slates to me at their starting point and I kept waiting for them to start dressing up their characters for one reason or another (whether it be playful like "leveling up" or even just being more THEMselves) and I am so destroyed the series never even talked to these ideas for claiming to be character driven.
So I think about how Pomni might actually acquire and collect different items that make her happy and try on different things to see what makes her feel more real in a world where nothing makes sense. I also see her keeping items that help her learn her friends (like a large shard of Gangle's broken comedy mask).
IN FACT!! I actually have a whole storyline in my head for her and Jax running around between Caine's adventures (and behind his back, a fun world-building I have for Caine preventing them for easily keeping any items they get so they don't master their skills and explode in their abilities) stealing items just to fuck with them and see if they can break things in the game, fuck up the adventures they're sick of, or help them navigate their problems by helping them characterize themselves better to each other.. this needs a lot of elaboration., so
P.S. I'd love to ramble about these ideas further, so be sure to hang around if you want them or even pick my brain.
Also, the sake of an easy explanation of what is happening with the mouths around Pomni: in my vision, she is essentially "conjuring" ideas and physically pulling them into the game to learn how to wield any kind of powers to feel in control (something Caine disallows so it's always behind his back), but unfortuantely can't fully control what she brings forward will do, look like, or become later on, but she's stationing herself to learn how to be more powerful to create a world she can believe in.
So as for the mouths, my version of the story pulls into the idea that the circus avatars aren't allowed to scream outright ("I have a mouth, yet I cannot scream" kinda play on "I have no mouth, and I must scream") to do the vocalizing for her because the characters aren't allowed to express raw emotions that are too scary or traumatic-seeming for the same reasons they can't swear or have s*x as Zooble puts it. Along with that, Pomni is learning how to actually make sense of the world and use the actual designed abilities in it to start seeing what she CAN and can't do in the world... maybe she can create a world better than Caine.... who knows, the possibilities are all on the table.
Be sure to check out my other art, I have some design concepts for Ragatha as well.
And some ragapom art ideaing how the characters might express affection or devotion under my own parameters that actually give a reason why they are designed to be so distant and struggle with connecting, and thus have to make more of an effort than they do in the actual series to learn how to be there for each other because connection is the ONLY sanity you can have in a reality like this and if they are refusing to barely look at each other in canon, I needed more heartfelt reasons for why they'd be pushed apart and how they might force themselves to stick closer.
Lastly, I will find a way to make this horrible joke a story piece in my version I hate it.
(btw that bowtie is a lore object in my version that breaks game physics, its an important object for inputting terminal commands)
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