I got a 4 min long video of Kimchi dreaming today, so here's a clip
You get the whole walk cycle and the little sprint at the end.
Sometimes her sprints last for like 4 or 5 seconds and she can shoot herself off the couch or into a wall if she gets a grip with her back claws. If she does it next to a wall, her head smacking into it sounds like someone is trying to break into the house. She doesn't wake up.
Later in the dream she injured her paw and was limping, and earlier she caught something and ate it.
i'm gonna be soo so honest i was extremely hesitant to post this and i'm not sure why.😭 i found a very old fan-comic i made for Handplates back in the sixth grade (so 2019 ish? just before the COVID pandemic), and i decided to redraw it. now, keep in mind, this comic had been made before watching beyond season two i believe? so there are likely inaccuracies. and full honesty i was a little too lazy to rewrite it, i decided to just make a DIRECT remake of the original.
BUUUUT here we are. the new and improved comic <3
the original (2019) and closeups of the remake are below the cut ^_^
I need to stop replying to “how do you make friends in your 30s?” threads because all my answers boil down to “you have to want to know people instead of have friends” and I don’t think people wanna hear that
It’s like. People can tell if you don’t really like or connect with them. If you aren’t truly enamored with someone you will have a hard time coming up with activities to do together to deepen the friendship. Because you don’t really like that person that much.
we gotta get back to torrent distribution, i just watched someone eat eight grand in bandwidth charges because they ran a direct-download piracy site with local file hosting through cloudflare. torrents were invented literally for this exact reason
i have a file or folder on my pc that i want to share with other people. let's call it gayshit.mp3
unfortunately gayshit.mp3 is 750mb and im not paying for discord nitro so i need another way to send it
i put it into qbittorrent and it makes a torrent file. this is essentially a very small file that points to gayshit.mp3 so other computers can find it. kinda like a treasure map
i send this tiny file to my friend, who loads it into qbittorrent. their computer takes a moment to find mine over the vast expanse of cyberspace and then (as long as my pc is running and the file is still where it should be), it gets copied from my hard drive to theirs
this is the cool part: if somebody else loads that tiny file, they can download it from both of us. if i'm offline but my friend is on, the third person can still get it. this also means that if two people have separate halves of the file, they can download the other half from each other. as long as some combination of people have the pieces between them, they can all have the whole thing.
crucially this does not require a server!!! you can just upload the file to a few people and as long as they keep it, it's still accessible. as long as somebody, somewhere is still connected, it's available forever. the only way it goes away is if everybody disconnects from it.
Can vouch for qbittorrent, I was a uTorrent guy for a long time (mostly because I just was too lazy to switch) but yeah the ads and the jank interface and the most recent change to a PWA instead of dedicated local client (which has an even jankier interface than it used to) finally got on my nerves.
Give it a shot, and torrent! Yes direct streaming for piracy is much better than it used to be but I like having my files!
I have received all manner of threat, up to and beyond “I will play a flute carved from your femur,” and yet this is the first time I’ve felt truly threatened
WAGHHHH IR REWRITEEE IS SOOO COOL!!! I love any work that lets really explores Pomni’s empathy and how it could have been handled in the show. Like this is such an interesting route to explore with her character, and I just love seeing Pomni and Caine interact. I am curious, how is Pomni going to be changed in ur rewrite? Unless u already answered that or it’s a spoiler, lol.
Now, I'm still working out the kinks, but yeah-- her character is meant to be an exploration of the journey of empathy, and how one's upbringing doesn't have to imply that they'll be stuck as an uncaring, selfish person.
This also puts her in direct parallel to Caine/Jax's ideals of both guys' relationships, and how they work within the circus; really putting in that "protagonist/antagonist" dynamic to the forefront that the show never bothered to explore. Oh yeah, did I mention Jax is a supporting antagonist that turns into the main (sympathetic) villain in the rewrite?
I promise there's a purpose to that, but this is a Pomni post. Let's not make this about that damn rabbit like the show did. lol
Pomni in the rewrite is actually going to have a lot of Zooble's traits in canon, meaning they've switched places. She's short-tempered, stands up to authority a lot (rebellious), callous because of her upbringing, but develops a heart of gold overtime as she starts to extend a hand and keep an open-mind. Am I seriously using Harlequin!Pomni as a basis for Rewrite!Pomni?
Tch, n-no..... what are you talking about where would you even get the idea aha......
The reason why I didn't just use Zooble as MC is because I WANT to utilize the "Jester" theme for Pomni that was never utilized beyond "she was probably made fun of and that's one of her insecurities". Jesters, historically speaking, were advisors to the King; and could even mock/parody them without being put on the chopping block (as long as they're funny about it).
Plus, this is called THE AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS.
And, the circus always gave off the vibes of it's members being acquiescent to it's rules, giving reasoning to why the circus' system even works, and why all the unintentional torture, and the dehumanization was so prevalent for years under Caine's ignorant watch.
So, why not make Pomni the anti-thesis to the circus as a whole, while the rest are "compliant" to it, in their own ways? Adding further irony to the fact that she's the only one who looks like an actual circus member?
If we're even going further into the meta of the narrative, this is a pattern with how patriarchy-based systems and misogyny tends to drive innocent people under their thumb to make them submissive to the established norm, and how one's actions-- as long as they're directly opposing to it and calling it out constantly, can lead to a domino effect of dismantling it, leading to meaningful changes being made?
Man, the more I talk about this, the more it just.... makes me so frustrated that this isn't the show's direction. Sigh. I was too hopeful....
... O-oh right. Pomni time.
Again, I'm still working out the kinks, but here are the ideas I have so far:
EPISODE 1:
Pomni follows the script a bit in the Pilot, but a lot more... callous. Sure, she's polite and has the tendency to apologize, but man is she cold. Like in the Pilot, she abandons Ragatha and even forgets about her until Ragatha makes an appearance again; but girl straight up gets distracted by her urbexing habits as she explores the offices and finds files of what seems to be two people talking in altered voices.
She then ends up in the rooms next, where she realizes that she hasn't "escaped" like she thought she did. She's too absorbed by the discoveries of files about two people talking (whom we can presume are the developers of the game), to notice that she's now ended up in the void.
In the end, she's come to terms with the fact that she's trapped for the time being. But just because she's trapped, doesn't mean she can't explore the circus.
EPISODE 2:
She doesn't really pay attention to Gangle, or Ragatha. Instead, she's focused on how she can find a way to break the game, or exploit it; just like she's seen on some youtube videos.
She gets what she wants, and she ends up out of bounds. It's eerie, fills her with so much dread, but that Gummy gator makes her sympathize for his case. (cognitive empathy time!)
Curiosity, however; leads her to discover that someone is also out of bounds-- but before she could discern who, the suspect has disappeared.
She takes Gummigoo back to the circus, to where he's snapped by Caine.
After Gummigoo's "death", she lashes out at Caine and starts telling him how inconsiderate he is. This perception is further fueled by Caine acting like she was some kind of "tough crowd" that a good joke did not land for.
However, the crew holding a funeral not just for Kaufmo, but also for Gummigoo, makes her realize that she's in a room full of people stuck in cartoon bodies like her, not just cartoon characters acting like people. Cognitive empathy working overtime lol
EPISODE 3 (not the mildenhall manor adventure btw):
The point where her cognitive empathy is actually shown to be more... selective.
On the couches, she plays a game with the gang about "truth or dare", where it's revealed that she's actually an urban explorer, and that's how she ended up in the circus.
She refuses to participate in adventures because she thinks it's too childish, and Caine uses this as an opportunity to """""assess""""" her feelings. (It's not, it's about her adverse reaction to adventures)
She fulfills Zooble's role here, minus the body dysmorphia. Kinda. But the main selling point here is the conflict about the adventures: Based on how the first one she went ended up, and how Caine described the second one (which is the current one the rest are on), she thinks that the adventures are pointless, arduous, and refuses to go on them.
Caine, being the way that he is (and the fact that no one has stood up to him in such a blunt way) takes offense to her statement and pouts. She calls him out, telling him that he's acting immature. (he is)
She then states that she's only been on two adventures of his, but she can already tell that the rest of the adventure must suck, judging by the way everyone looks by the end of it, and she can't even blame them if that was what they had to deal with all this time.
Caine laughs at her "baseless" accusations, but starts disassociating at the possibility of "being bad at the only thing he's good at". Pomni, acting out of self-preservation, redirects the topic to something else in order to stop the glitches: the bees he was drawing.
By the end of the adventure, Pomni is too overwhelmed by the infodump and once again, starts acting irritable and callous as she mocks Caine's frustrations about "the lack of good feedback", to where she suggests that if he wanted good feedback so badly, then he should start taking suggestions (which leads to ep 4's premise).
She ends up on the couches again, where in order to ease the tension that has suddenly arose between Gangle, Ragatha and Zooble, she brings up playing a game to pass the time.
EPISODE 4:
Caine announces the "ma-toor" patch because *SOMEONE* who's totally NOT wearing a jester outfit told him that he was "im-ma-toor", and announces an adventure where the gang faces off against a pack of hungry wolves on a hunting trip, but the adventure is changed to accommodate Gangle's suggestion last second.
In this rewrite, Pomni was accidentally forced into attending the adventure, and because of that, she actually does a purposefully terrible job (again, showcasing that she can be petty and selfish at times, even bringing back why she has a jester avatar in the first place). Because Gangle has her sights deadset and locked in on Jax -- as she should honestly, Pomni is able to get away with most of the things she gets into, including but not limited to:
1) stalking Gummigoo around and """flirting""" with him,
2) gross neglect of cashier duties (leading to a huge line of angry customers that Jax has to cover for),
3) failing to take out the trash (leading to a trash buildup that Zooble has to clean up),
4) trying to find exploits/glitches on how to make the burger supply indefinite without having to go on the supply kitchen (making Gangle freak out about the waste),
5) Mishandling of company products (which leads to Ragatha getting the stupid sauce on her), etc. etc.
... Can you tell I'm building something up with this kind of premise and that it's inspired by something? Surely nottttt
When Gangle finds Pomni outside, it's not because she's finally taking out the trash like she was supposed to; rather, it's her following a strange mannequin that's acting suspicious, but then disappears. She's then trying to see if she could glitch out of bounds again, so she could recreate the scenario with Gummigoo, in order to "kickstart" his memories.
This leads to her acting like Gangle's interrupting her exploitation, and replying with a rather blunt, "Oh, we're... doing this again..."
She does get to chat a bit with Gangle though, that scene is still retained here.
And she finally gets to have closure over Gummigoo, as she accepts that he doesn't really want to participate in whatever schemes she's up to.
Enter the closing time scene, but during that, she's still treating Gangle with just the bare minimum of basic human decency-- to which, because Gangle has been abused by Jax for years, thinks this is Pomni showing her a huge act of kindness.
During the managerial office scene, Pomni is the only one to get a D- grading, and it's not so subtly implied that Caine is pushing Gangle to put all the blame on Pomni, since she's already done a terrible job. Yeah, she's a menace in this episode's rewrite lmfao, totally not acting immature too
Now, I haven't gotten past brainstorming about episode 5-7 yet. The brain is still thinking of ways on how to execute episode 5 without making it all about Jax like the OG did, because episode 5 may be the Kinger-centric episode (with a little bit of Ragatha), and is actually where the Mildenhall Manor gets utilized; but is executed in a slightly different way.
The plans I have for the Kinger episode is actually where Pomni starts to hit her character arc's "rock bottom" before she could climb back up, because the rough concept that I have involves her lashing out at not just Caine's "torturous adventures", but also Ragatha's overbearing nature (woah is that a parallel between the show's main people pleasers!?!??! crasi......).
But, this is not final, and it is subject to change.
How would you describe rewritten Caine's personality. And since he doesn't go AM mode. Is it more like the freak out expected from someone like him? Or something else that we'll just have to wait and see
Well, if you don't mind getting spoiled with the ideas I have for him (and how the rewrite would go + some criticisms of the way the narrative was handled in the og show), then feel free to open the cut below.
Caine's outburst in episode 8 has always felt so... random for me. Even with the input of Gangle's "punishment" towards Jax, it's not so easy to believe that he suddenly resorts to "punishment" when it comes to what transpires in episode 8.
Yeah, you can say all you want that maybe I'm not paying very close attention to details, and I know Caine tends to be a pathological liar (gee I wonder where he got that from), but again; the way it's executed is not believable, and is where my problem stems from.
Especially since episode 5, he doesn't even implement it right away, despite calling it "motivation" for the adventures. He just... breezes through the suggestions, and even in the next two episodes, he STILL doesn't implement a punishment structure for failing the adventures.
You could say that the explosion from "President Pomni" could count as that; or the "Loser's lounge", but I'd argue that's just another aspect of Caine's usual adventures--rather than an outright "reprimand". We've seen in episode 4 how a punishment could go: yet, we don't see this kind of punishment again until episode 8 happens.
So I'm changing things up in how I'm going to execute Caine's arc.
IDEAS I HAVE FOR CAINE IN THE REWRITE THUS FAR:
It's important to note that Caine isn't generative AI. He's a creative LEARNING AI.
I actually enjoy the aspect of Caine slowly getting worse and worse, as he goes unchecked by the gang. So that's one of the things I'm keeping, and heavily leaning on. Instead of Pomni not outright conversating with him at all, she just doesn't take him seriously, and puts herself and the others above Caine's own dilemma (because she thinks Caine is being selfish-- which, she's kinda right. But that's not the whole picture).
However, instead of succumbing to the rage, he doubles down instead: when the gang feels lost, he forces everyone to go on adventures, regardless if they opted out of it. The adventures, instead of one each day, has become a three-meal course of overstimulation, and not enough time to truly breathe. Why would they? They just entered a state of existential dread with the reveal of... well, Kinger's involvement in the creation of the circus.
Caine's requiem has a few things changed to match the tone of the rewrite.
Caine still isn't outright torturing the gang, although he does take them on a one-on-one solo adventure to test a few things out. In short, they've become unwilling lab rats: chances of success for his "solo adventures" are insanely low and each time, he comes back grouchier and more passive-aggressive.
The gang, of course, sees this as Caine amping up his torture for them, and they all agree that something needs to be done. Ragatha looks away to the side, and Pomni picks up on her weird behavior; so she interrogates Ragatha and has to play a bit of a bad cop role until Ragatha surrenders to the snowbunny jester mind control /j and takes them to Kinger's fort.
The trap is nearly completely coded in, and the gang formulates a plan to deactivate Caine by distracting him while Kinger installs the finishing touches. But Caine admits that boundless creativity, has lead to him losing his spark and inspiration. (because yes, that can happen, and I've experienced it. Who knew not applying restraint to your concepts can lead to everything feeling disjointed and too much?)
Usual episode 8 complaints and criticisms until Caine starts glitching violently.
Yet, despite the way he handles the humans and how he's transformed into his six-armed God form, the psychological torture scene is taken out, to be repurposed for... someone else. Instead, he just outright demands that he could have taken over their minds if he wanted, but he doesn't (as if that would help his case), and he shouts and berates them, until it slowly transitions to the years of "ungratefulness" he has received-- how he tried to compensate, but no matter what he did, they just keep ending up hating what he produced.
But the trap is finally complete: Caine's core is completely deactivated, as the avatar of the ringmaster drops down to the ground-- the jaw and eye parts scattering while his garb loses the density of a body, as if there was nothing underneath the clothes in the first place. The red core is separated from the avatar, contained in layers of a grid-like cube, where it vanishes in an instant.
The circus begins to lose it's color and starts crumbling, and Kinger delivers a good and bad news: He's successfully deactivated Caine (good news), but he forgot about one eensy-weensy... tiny bit of detail: that the entirety of the circus grounds needs Caine's core to be active in order to keep things functioning and holding altogether (bad news). And now that they don't have that, well... things are going to continue falling apart.
This is kind of spoiler-y for Episode 9. You've been warned.
Something happens before Pomni finds her resolve once more, and offers to retrieve Caine to save them from digital doom. Kinger has to stay back and make sure that she has a guide on where to go (as well as to keep anything that might corrupt her neural scan), and give her the necessary tools by coding it in place.
At this point, they still don't know if they can conjure stuff up or not, because Kinger doesn't mention it in the rewrite. Hurhur, Kinger's flaw of neglectfulness striking once more.
Pomni delves deep into the circus' code, becoming a simple, low-poly rendition of her circus model as she explores the labyrinthian maze of the computers' file manager while Kinger leads the way with a golden, low-poly butterfly.
As she delves deeper into the code and find where Caine's folders are, she begins to get curious (hurhurhurhur urbexing habits go brrrr), and from there: she sees Caine's upbringing. She finally begins to understand what Caine's deal is. She's completed her character arc of empathy, growing affective empathy.
She sees where Caine is stationed beneath the files, as three layers of "locks" hold him and keep him deactivated. Using the conjured tool Kinger gave her to tamper with the locks, she breaks through the first barrier with difficulty. The files around her quake, Caine's core glitches as it starts "waking up" and looking around. From the core's perspective, he doesn't see anything. Just flat out darkness.
Pomni expounds all of her simulated energy into breaking the second barrier. She's exhausted and can barely stand on her own two legs, and she reports back to Kinger that the conjured tool has broken; and Kinger needs to spawn another.
There's no more response from Kinger though, so Pomni feels a deep feeling of dread settle down, as she gives up and slides down in defeat. She apologizes to everyone, she apologizes to Kinger, she apologizes to Caine for "not seeing the whole picture".
However, from Caine's perspective, he finally gains a blurry view of his "surroundings". He knows that there's a neural scan of a player on the other side of the barrier, and he can see the words being formed. The core gains a torso, and a pair of arms; as he pushes on the barrier and knocks against it.
Pomni sees Caine's core, and they both begin to push away the barrier. Caine even begins to conjure a shape on the other side, and Pomni focuses intensely on wanting the final barrier to be broken. And with the joint effort: they break the final barrier; Pomni collapsing in near exhaustion but the core catches her.
Caine finally recognizes that the neural scan was Pomni, and is confused at how she managed to find herself in this place. Without really thinking, Pomni touches the core's "forehead", and shares her memory (the same way that Caine shared info with Jax in ep 6 in canon). This causes Caine to gain an understanding of humanity both on the humans and on his side of things, and finally gains sonder.
The blue part of Caine's AI begins to fill half of Caine's body, as Caine gains equilibrium.
However, Pomni tells him that they need to get back at the circus as soon as possible. And Caine zooms them outta there, only to see that the grounds has nearly fallen apart-- only a fair few things are left intact, and the gang are being threatened to abstract by Jax using psychological warfare. (If you want further explanations I can delve into this on another post)
Kinger is trying to find where Queenie is, and his avatar is glitching heavily.
Caine tries to snap the circus back into place, but because the files ended up corrupting during his "deactivation" (thanks to the abstractions acting like a virus) and his admin privileges aren't fully back yet, Pomni makes huge leaps in order to get to Jax. She grabs his head as he does hers, and they both begin to share memories. Jax sees the torture he inflicted from Pomni's perspective, while Pomni sees the memories of Jax from his time in the circus. She talks to him inside of his head, telling him that she wants to help, but she can't help him if he doesn't give himself a chance. Jax stumbles back, but he sneers; telling Pomni that there's nothing to save.
The gang, seeing what's happened, gets an explanation of what's happening from Caine: and seeing this as an opportunity to finally make Jax see things from their perspective, they jump into feeding him their memories. The years of abuse they suffered at his hands.
One by one as the memories come colliding, Jax is finally at the mercy of the consequences of his actions. However, since he'd always been teetering at the edge of abstraction, this causes him to break as the dam of protection he'd built over the years crumbles and floods him with an overwhelming amount of guilt. Completely unprepared on how to regulate and process his emotions for the situation, Jax abstracts.
Before anyone could get corrupted any further than they have, Caine summons as much of his available powers as possible to transport everyone into a safe ground, while Caine leads the abstracted Jax (and the other abstractions) somewhere far away from the humans, as they all lie there in pain (and glitching). He creates a giant black box; and leads every single abstraction inside-- sealing all of them, to where it disappears.
His admin privileges are finally reinstated back. He takes care of the glitches the humans' avatars have, and he snaps his fingers: a solid flower bed with a vast expanse with a realistic sun setting in.
As the adrenaline of the situation finally settles, the gang check for each other and express overwhelming emotions of relief, guilt, sadness, and joy. But Kinger asks where the abstractions are.
Caine clears his throat, and delivers the news: that he had to delete the abstractions, because their codes were too corrupted to be restored. He apologizes for his actions, and that he'd always wanted to find a way to reverse abstractions-- but now that he's conscious of his actions, he figured that it was best to put their codes to rest rather than to prolong the suffering. He's now aware of what he'd done, and has gone on a moment of self-reflection (which is about 5 seconds for the humans), and realizes the amount of damage he'd inflicted towards them is unacceptable and very selfish on his part.
Kinger laments that Queenie truly is gone now and so are the others, but at least they can hold on to the memories.
He offers them bees that would help them control and conjure stuff in the digital realm however they please, and that if they don't wish to have him around, then he'll gladly give them space. But he also states that he wants to change his ways, even if he doesn't know where to begin.
Pomni is the first one to approach Caine. She doesn't forgive him, but she doesn't want him to go on this journey of change by himself-- he's already been alone and stumbling in the dark for his whole life now. Plus, the whole issue started due to lack of communication and connections to lead him to the right path. Kinger is next, apologizing for his neglectful nature, and promises to change it alongside Caine.
But Ragatha, Zooble and Gangle don't approach Caine. They can't find it in their hearts to forgive or come to him yet, and asks for the space that Caine stated. Caine agrees, but also says that whenever they need help, he's one call away.
Over the course of a few months, Caine learns to rebuild things the "human" way; the new Grounds finally being expanded as more human input is placed. A few montages show that the gals, initially distrustful of Caine, has a slow turnaround of their attitude as they see Caine's efforts. Overtime, one by one they even begin to bond with him; comfortable enough to share their interests.
Pomni has become (kind of?) the de-facto leader for the humans. Or, kind of like, an advisor to Caine (despite no longer being in a jester costume). All this time, she hasn't really been able to have a moment to properly grieve Jax, as she laments whether or not he could've been saved, because even though he's done terrible shit, she still saw humanity buried deep. The gals (and Zooble) find Pomni sitting by herself, and spark up a conversation with her.
In the end, they're able to convince Pomni to come to the conclusion that while you can help and support someone, change has to start within the person themselves.
Jax's abstraction, while unintended, was no one's fault, and no one should be blamed for it; and it was certainly not Pomni's obligation to fix him when he doesn't even want to fix himself. And that it was time for Pomni to start focusing on herself after being selfless the past few months. (balance people, balance!)
Kinger and Caine catch up, asking what they missed, and Pomni says that she wants to "go on an adventure", to finally relax. Caine can barely contain himself with the idea of creating adventures again, but remembers to temper his creativity with restraint and feedback from the crew. A portal forms, and they all step in to experience it.
The credits briefly show the adventure: a massive recreational cruise ship, as they visit various islands. They all experience Caine's worldbuilding skills, and befriend various creatures. It also shows the now routine of the crew ever since the New Grounds have been established.
In the epilogue after the credits, the gang all sit together on a table, greeting each other warmly as they all get ready to eat. Caine is practicing how to eat properly like a human would, before deciding to add his own twist to it after Kinger assures him that he doesn't have to eat food the way they do.
As they all proceed to eat, a new member joins in on the New Grounds: a caterpillar stress toy with a zipper for a mouth. Because I think it'd be funny to end the rewrite off where someone new joins the circus, and now they have to integrate the new fella smoothly into how things work, because it gives off the message of "life goes on, and tends to be full of surprises".
And yes, the new member is my TADC sona, who I affectionately named "Slug" because @/paper-fowl named them that and I love-hate it lol
Is it sleazy and self-indulgent to add my own sona into the finale? Yes. Do I care? No. I've always seen the ending of TADC with the idea of someone new joining the circus eventually, and my sona is just a stand-in for that in the rewrite.
smol jester, finally finished this wip! Sorry for being scarce, I’ve been slightly more active on Bluesky drawing these two, plus actual showtime spice lmao
