Abstragedy drawing I made bc idk if anyone did the Spiderman kiss thing w them- But I changed it a bit, because I love drawing Gangle taking a bit more initiative :3
Also to my frequent followers- I FIGURED OUT HOW TO RECORD A TIMELAPSE IN CLIP STUDIO PAINT HAHAHA!! So you may be getting those instead of progress screenshots (..◜ᴗ◝..)
ok so not to forcefully adopt this idea as an au from @katzebruh or anything (because i'm unreasonably insane about it for some reason, literally a dozen other caine-centric AUs out there that are infinitely more complex and compelling and i picked this one, fuck it dawg we ball) but my headcanon is that caine genuinely was testing out modifiers and accidentally fucked up forever, if i had a nickel- and he's super conflicted about it...
because on one hand... he's a silly cat furry thing now and literally whats not to love? the humans like it and admittedly doing kitty things is really nice sometimes! chin scritches have never felt so good, honestly he would figure out how to get rid of it sooner if everyone wasn't enjoying it so much!
on the other hand... yikes... an unfixable bug? one that screws with his brain? stop me if you've heard this one before-
awww his widdle ears are so cute though awww and the paws awww
I was gonna wait until the series concluded before making this post, but I feel comfortable saying this now: The Amazing Digital Circus needed at least one more episode.
Specifically one more "normal" episode between episodes 6 and 7 before everything went off the rails with the fake "escape the Circus" plot. This hypothetical episode should've focused on three things:
Pomni and Ragatha growing closer as actual friends.
More moments between Gangle and Zooble, showing the later growing more comfortable with their body.
Highlight Jax's growing isolation from the rest of the Players. Either he tries to start shit and Ragatha and/or Zooble are allowed to shut him down without being treated as in the wrong by the narrative, or the group as a whole just stonewalls his attempts.
While this wouldn't magically fix every issue with the show, I feel like an extra episode with those three components would've gone a long way towards alleviating some of the most common complaints I see about the writing. In the case of the first two points, we could actually see things getting better between Pomni and Ragatha and Zooble come to terms (or at least start to) with their body dysphoria, as opposed to everything happening offscreen.
As for Jax, the most common complaint I see brought up is that Jax never faces real consequences for his actions nor is anyone besides Pomni allowed to meaningfully call him out. By having an episode where the others shun him and/or others besides Pomni calling him out, it would demonstrate real consequences for Jax's behavior in the form of the others being allowed to say; "No, we're not gonna tolerate your shit anymore." Then follow that up in episode 7 with Zooble trying to reach out to Jax and later everyone including him when they attempt escaping the Circus, as a way of saying that they won't put up with his crap anymore but Jax is still one of them. Show meaningful consequences for his behavior, then extend an olive branch to incentivize him to actually change.
(Also this hypothetical episode could have given us some more character interactions we haven't seen much of, like Zooble with Pomni, Ragatha and Kinger. Besides showing us more character dynamics that we didn't see much off, this would also highlight Jax's isolation from everyone.)
But hey, this is all my opinion. Chat, what do we think?
Lately, I've found myself reflecting on the way Ragatha is treated by the show with a fair bit of concern. TADC is no stranger to physical comedy and will often have characters be physically harmed for the sake of a joke but what makes Ragatha stand out is how little the other characters seem to notice or care when she's been hurt. I'm not kidding when I say there is not a single instance of a character standing up for Ragatha against Jax's bullying the way Zooble does for Gangle or Ragatha herself does for Pomni. Hell, Pomni herself has no problem palling around with the guy who shot her supposed friend right in the face and joining on the abuse herself. And all of these instances combined with the fact that we only have one episode left to resolve everything left me wondering if the show really considered these multiple instances of physical abuse as abuse or as one big joke. The characters never seemed to care, so maybe we weren't either, at least that's what I was afraid of...
...and then I remembered something. Something which has given me hope that yes, the show does know what it's doing with regards to Ragatha.
So Ragatha has long been associated with knives-
Her character introduction video depicts her getting a meat cleaver thrown at her head, she gets stabbed multiple times in the show, and official merch frequently depicts her with a knife in some fashion. And in pretty much all these instances, her reaction is pretty nonchalant, implying that being stabbed doesn't cause her all that much pain. Her official pin even shows her happily waving while having a knife sticking out of her! From that, we can glean that it probably doesn't cause her much pain at all. I mean, she's a doll, how much is she realistically going to feel? Besides, she doesn't look bothered. She wouldn't be smiling if it really hurt, right?
Well, about that...
In Episode 8, we get a glimpse of what Ragatha's home life was like following her description of it in Episode 5. We see here her own mother being depicted as a looming shadow and watch as the knives begin moving all on their own, lodging themselves into Ragatha who is not smiling this time. With no one around to be strong for, we see just how much this is actually hurting her. She starts shaking when the first knife cuts through her hand and grimaces in pain with each accompanying one. By the end, she's so utterly paralyzed with fear that she doesn't even register that she's being stabbed anymore.
Now, Ragatha has never stated outright that her home life involved physical abuse and it's pretty unlikely that her mother was launching knives at her every night, so what we're seeing here is almost certainly metaphorical on some level. We're meant to understand that the knives are a visual metaphor for the abuse she experienced at the hands of her mother- regardless of whether or not her mother physically attacked her, Ragatha perceived every cruel word, every harsh criticism, and every insult as yet another stab in the heart. To put it simply, the knives are symbolic of abuse. With that in mind, the previous depictions of Ragatha being stabbed feel quite different now.
Though she's acting like it doesn't hurt, we know now that she does. She feels it.
She felt all of it.
But she's very good at acting like she didn't. Based on what we know of her background, she likely has a lot of practice hiding pain beneath smiles. Because of that, she established herself as someone strong, someone who can handle just about anything thrown her way, and thus someone that the others don't need to worry about. While we know that Kinger, Zooble, and Pomni all care for her, they're all so used to thinking of her as "the strong one" that much of the time they don't even register when she's been hurt, with Pomni and Zooble typically choosing to devote their attention to those they believe to be more in need of it (Jax and Gangle, respectively.)
Whether they realize it or not, this group is extremely dependent on Ragatha's quiet emotional labor. I mean hell, we all saw how awkward everybody got when she opened up in Episode 5! They're all so used to thinking of Ragatha as someone they don't need to worry about that they don't know how to respond when shown evidence to the contrary. And in Episode 8, we see her at her absolute breaking point, no longer able to keep a smile on her face and pretend she's alright for the sake of the group. And from what we've seen of Episode 9...
...she's not looking any better.
I think we've reached the point where Ragatha's strength has finally failed her and she can no longer pretend that what's happening doesn't hurt. Where is this gonna go from here? I guess we'll have to wait and see! For now though, I'm putting my chips in black and saying yes, I think the show knows that what the others (mainly Jax) have put her through is abuse and we are meant to understand it as such.
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