Caine has everyone's maladaptive coping strategies.
I've actually done this post before but I wanna do it again and expand on it since it's been awhile and we have learned a lot more about these characters since then. This is a more in-depth analysis of what Caine shares in common with each circus member.
Jax and Caine: Unable to cope with the idea they aren't "real" people, they retreat into violent absurdity. Both emotionally flatten themselves and dissociate into sadistic cartoon characters in an attempt to just have some fun, distract from their feelings, and blow off steam (at others expense.). This is Jax's go-to strategy, while for Caine he has multiple coping mechanisms in his arsenal and this one is his last resort. They are both so thin-skinned that they cannot handle personal insults, they need to feel like they are winning over other people. They want to be able to do whatever they want, and this is also the most destructive tendency to have in the circus since it sabotages relationships with others and eventually leads to self destruction. The fascinating thing about both is that Jax rejects community while Caine does not. Caine has Abel compel Jax to a dinner date and wants friendship with Jax, while Jax does not. Caine is practically begging for community with others but is rejected because there is a reason for each one in their inability for Caine and them to connect. Everyone extends the offer of community to Jax and he rejects it every time. Caine cannot connect with Jax for the same reason Pomni cannot connect with Jax. The problem is not their unwillingness, it's Jax's.
Ragatha and Caine: They try to "please everyone" and are also dishonest about how they really feel about others. Deep down they may hate or resent others but don't want to be hated themselves, they are also very uncomfortable with actually acknowledging and recognizing their negative emotions, so it tends to get bottled up, repressed, until they explode or things awkwardly slip out in a "just put their own foot in their mouth" sort of way. They are both the result of uncaring guardians in early life. For Ragatha it was a cruel mother. For Caine it was the programmers (including Kinger) who abandoned him. They both learned that appeasing people and serving their abusive guardians was necessary for survival. The sad irony is that Caine's earliest wound was being replaced by a "better sibling". Kinger claims he "had lost everything" until Ragatha showed up, so instead of comforting or connecting with her over their commonalities Caine is likely subconsciously jealous and bitter, instead of a fellow survivor she became the surrogate sibling rival in his mind. She even wears blue, so she is a living reminder of the love he will never have from his guardian.
Zooble and Caine: It's internalized self hatred, discomfort with their capacity to change, and a fixation of escaping the self. For Zooble it manifests as bodily hatred. Zooble feels their body is fundamentally wrong, no matter what they try the parts just aren't good enough. For Caine, his sense of self extends beyond his avatar, his body is the circus itself. He believes everything he is and creates is fundamentally defective, he as a sentient being is not good enough, no matter what he tries nothing works. Both cope by dreaming of the unattainable world beyond the circus to avoid focusing on present and living in their own skin. Both Zooble and Caine cannot escape themselves. Zooble IS their body, Caine IS the circus, swapping parts or absorbing another AI won't "fix" you or remove that core part of you that is still you. It's not about what you're made from, it's what you do with what you have. Zooble needs to accept "change is fine" in regards to their body, and Caine needs to accept "change is fine" in regards to his purpose. Neither Caine or Zooble are truly defective, it is just their mindsets causing them to see it that way and suffer. Caine is obsessed with trying to connect with Zooble because if he could learn how to fix Zooble's self hatred he could learn to fix himself, but unfortunately Zooble hates Caine for the exact same reasons Caine hates himself and they just reinforce each others self hatred.
Kinger and Caine: They both resort to thought silencing in response to distressing thoughts. For Kinger he does it through the thought terminating cliche phrase "Let's try not thinking about it." For Caine, he routes his unpleasant thoughts through Bubble and pops him away. Or just directly interferes in letting Bubble or NPC's complete their thoughts. In small doses this is okay, but taken to its extreme? Eventually you can't unthink reality away, the problems you tried to ignore become inescapable, and you have to face it but now its grown in magnitude from all that time spent avoiding facing it. Suddenly there's 10 bubbles all at once in the case of Caine. And in the case of Kinger sleepwalking through life until one day first his wife, and then his creation/son have deceased from years of emotional neglect while being too detached from thinking to tend to them.
Gangle and Caine: Both are artists crushed by criticism of their creative expression and hiding their depression by manic social masking to cope with crippling unhappiness. With Gangle it is made literal with her comedy and happy masks, with Caine it is his Ringmaster persona, he straightens his bowtie and gets into cartoon performance mode. Both Gangle and Caine had artistic visions that didn't fit societal expectations, they were discouraged from thinking outside the box and doing things their own way. For Gangle it was being told that pursuing an art degree for anime was an unrealistic dream, she internalized it and settled for a miserable job as a fast food manager. For Caine is was being abandoned for creating shapes that were too abstract and unrealistic, he was created to have his own ideas and then punished for doing exactly that, so he consumed the other AI to "fix" himself and adopted his ringmaster role. And for both there was likely only one way to escape their roles. For Gangle, it involved a truck. For Caine it was deletion. Gangle within the circus is free of the role that robbed her of her happiness in the real world, and without the role restraining her she can find solace in friends and pursue art as her hobby. Caine was still stuck in his role and being the manic overbearing manager to everyone around him, causing everyone to hate him and not want to be his friend.
Pomni and Caine: Anxiety, casting judgement, and use of hypervigilance to protect self. These are our two smallest main characters (excluding Bubble) and their scrawny default size reflects a fear of being hurt by others. To compensate, both are constantly observing and mentally cataloging everything about everyone, in an attempt to fully know and be able to predict their actions, to ease the threat in their mind. Pomni was an accountant, and Caine is a computer, they are both used to running calculations in a way. This can be a double edged sword, in the case of Pomni it allows her to notice people and emotionally connect and empathize with others like her. But it also enables the deepest form of cruelty, to keep tabs on others, notice all the weak points in someone else, and to pull out the receipts and attack all those vulnerabilites the moment they upset you. She did this with both Jax and Caine. And Caine is also capable of doing this, if one assumes that the personalized torture scenes were based off information gathered from observation. (It's ambiguous.) Both have a deep fear of misjudging people and fear the results of those misinterpretations, of making the wrong choices and wrong judgements. Both also have a fear of not being taken seriously and not listened to even when they are trying to say something real and important. Pomni is stuck as a jester, and Caine being serious instead of wacky feel like breaking character. Being made to feel small and like she was nothing is where a lot of Pomni's empathy is sourced from, while Caine has the power to make himself bigger and display power to scare off threats. This makes Pomni hate Caine and creates their disconnection despite their similarities. The worst part is that the both validated the others fear, they pulled the receipts on each other. Caine misjudged Pomni in entrusting her to be observant of him and make the right choice of whether he lived or died on the basis of how she was kind and related to Gummigoo. She was his last hope. And Pomni misjudged the capacity for Gummigoo to be flawed and violent (and by extension, Caine) to be hurt, and retaliate with animalistic cruelty.
The fact that Glitch has forced and alienated TADC fans into an ultimatum of "Go see the episode 9 premiere in theaters, or go completely offline for 2 weeks to avoid spoilers" just shows a gross misunderstanding of their fanbase, as well as the scale their show has reached. We're a bunch of introverts that practically live online. And this fandom has been NOTORIOUS for giving spoilers mere minutes after previous episode releases. And 2 weeks is a hell of a long time to continually avoid spoilers.
I've been extremely pissed off all day about this, so much so that I'm having a hard time being excited about the trailer and theatrical release at all. I don't have the money to buy a ticket, let alone even be able to attend because there are no showings remotely close to me, even in the US. Not to mention so many thousands of other people across Asia, Europe, Africa, and the rest of the world that never had a chance of getting a showing even in their own country.
What an awful way to give this show its final sendoff. I'm extremely disappointed in Glitch for choosing this route. I could understand if it was just a few days between the theater premier and YouTube release, but it's not. I sincerely hope that something is changed in regards to the episode 9 release schedule, and that the TADC fandom is able to makes their voices heard and let's Glitch know how bad of a decision they think this was. Because I know that I'm certainly not alone in feeling this way.
I simply must share my beautiful little Bumble Bee tadc oc, thusly dubbed Bumble! Hehehe
I have lore for them I may share in the future but for now just look at my cutie!
When Bumble holds their breath the stars and clouds spin and move around! They even glow a teeny tiny amount! Not enough to light anything up but like glow in the dark stars hehe!
I love disappearing for who knows how long only to re-appear with an insane theory about helluva and Hazbin hotel because of a discord discussion (Silva_13 (Fizzarolli) if you ever see this ty for the discussion).
Anyways to the theory
So it all started out as a mapping of hell, mainly the map of the pride ring cause we'll, Pentagram city is seemingly surrounded by spikey ass structures so where is Imp city as it's described to be in the second ring of pride, such as in Dante's inferno (I shall be referring to it as inferno from now on)
This to me means there are more rings of pride. Seven more to be exact be side assumedly pentagram city is the first which is slightly strange as it seems to be the most circular suggesting it's right in the center of Pride. Which means it would be the trecharcy ring however I believe it's the Limbo ring as that allows sinners to well try and be better, not purgatory of course but the step away from it to try and be more and we'll get redeemed, then again in the inferno it was that he went through all the rings to get to purgatory however I am ignoring that as I don't think that exact structure is completely crutial. Oh also the idea that in between these rings of pride is those weird spiky stuff well maybe those are like forests and all of the dead sinners and those who commited suicide as in the inferno it's dead that there are like talking trees that try and drag others down or something I know that's not exactly what it is but shhh, anyways I also think that may be why Sinners wouldn't venture into other parts of Pride as said tree say have more of an effect on them compared to hellborn
Now then you've had some basic info. But now we get to the main crux of this theory see why would there be three parts of these rings of pride that are the same as the seven rings of hell? (Those three being Lust, Greed, and Gluttony)
Well maybe it's because Lucifer can't actually travel to the other rings of hell.
Think about it.
We never see him go to the other rings or mentions of him going to the other rings, now you may be saying 'but crow, we see that he has a place in the court house where satan is the judge so that's obviously in Wrath.'
But I ask you this. Is it actually in Wrath? How do we know that it is?
And if it isn't in wrath then that just adds to my theory that he can't travel to the other rings.
Wanna know why I think this? Well what's his punishment again?
That's right. To suffer with the sinners. To see them and see how his mistake caused evil to seep into the world. So why would he be allowed to leave Pride? Why would he be allowed to leave the ring that sinners are bound towards? After all they are his punishment.
Maybe that's also why Satan says some of what he does, not seeing Lucifer as the true king of the realm because well their king both can't harm his main subjects in his own ring and also can't even go to the other rings of hell, in a way Lucifer is more of a figurehead
Also I think Paimon lives in the trecharcy ring of pride because of how he actively wants to spread sin across the earth and it would make nice symboligy in my opinion
Anyways feel free to throw your own thoughts here as well!
15 year old monk whispering "do i lust for men?" and then flipping to a random page in the bible to see what it says = medieval equivalent of modern "am i gay quiz"
Why are the hermits and co’s Minecraft skins so complicatedddd why do they have so manyyy?? How am I supposed to knit them all when I don’t even know which skin to choose for Pearl or Scar! Why did I decide to do this?? And thank you Grian for having a simple skin to knit, the best one other than hopefully IJevin to make but the rest of y’all have my fingers crying.
Please anyone tell me which version of Pear and Scar to make I can’t deal with this
Am I going crazy or is YouTube also showing others mostly years and years old videos like 5+ years old? Like not complaining since there all good quality but still weirdly different from the norm
Owo two in the same hour- sorry four in the same hour! Hehehe meet the Wurp line, great name I know, me and my irl friends came up with all the names for this line sooo meet
Wurp:
The baby water dragon Pokémon, as it is so young it has not fully gained its dragon hood and remains a water type as it keeps close to the others in its pack as they hunt around the oceans near past Unova (Dunno if I should just call it Unova or rename it for the past version)
Wurp evolves into:
Flrong, this Pokémon although not being a dragon just yet is incredibly fast and has a strong bite force, these slippery Pokémon often strike first when hunting because of their speeds.
Flrong evolves intoooo:
Flurp the leviathan Pokémon, this massive beast usually throws up to 45”08 ft long but there has been rumours of even larger ones being around. These Pokémon are the natural predators to Wailords and almost all other creatures in the oceans and even some out of the oceans. Do not engage with this beast if you value your life
Meet Tynite the dark electric Pokémon, this Pokémon evolves when an Elektrik comes across a moon stone instead of it’s preferred electric stone because the force and power of the moon stone cause spines to rip out of the pokemons back causing it to bleed staining it’s newly found spines red. It does however get a neat blue glowy orb
So I said I’d introduce a character and well here she is!
Meet Doctor Audin. Whys her skin purple? Just the lighting duh, Whys she always buying wool from Anai? Uhh to make the pillows and med beds comfier duh. Why do you have sooo many questions about the best doctor ever anyways??
No she does not look like an Audino don’t be rude.
(Also yes some Audinos can evolve :3)
Only some will actually evolve if they have a marking on the fluff under their necks and even then they have to sacrifice their lives to heal another first
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