Ok, I think I have a rough idea for what each character arc would be in my TADC rewrite/TADC ReZoobled. In this AU, is the protagonist. Some things are close to canon, other times it'll take a different path. In this AU as well, Pomni and Gangle are combined into one character, Pongle. Pongle is a sad clown, a Pierrot.
This is the Big One, everyone! Be prepared for a long and detailed rewrite of the show.
Here are the arcs:
Zooble - You lack patience for other people. You struggle to give second chances, and you fall into a habit of apathy.
Pongle (Pomni/Gangle) - You're a coward. You allow your fear and sadness to control you. You let people down, including yourself.
Ragatha - You don't trust anyone. You want them to trust you, but you never let anyone see your true face.
Jax - You're a liar. You'd rather die than accept anyone's help. You want the world to burn, and burn you too.
Kinger - Neglect. You hide from the light, haunted by the guilt of what *you* have created. Unable to live in the present, you retreat back to your memories, leaving nothing but an empty shell.
Caine - You cannot control reality, so you run from it like a child. Your refusal to change has poisoned everyone against you. "Why do they hate you?"
How could they not.
Basic plot outline:
ACT 1:
Zooble spawns in. They immediately experience body dysphoria and struggle to cope while the others (minus Jax) try to help. Both Pongle and Kaufmo are absent. Jax and Zooble go to find Kaufmo, Ragatha goes to drag Pongle out of her room. Come on Pongle, come meet the new human!At first, Pongle is wallowing in her depression, and refuses to leave. Then Jax runs past everyone. What's going on? Kaufmo tears down the corridor. Pongle, standing outside her room, freezes. Zooble has collapsed into a pile of parts - they aren't glitching, but they're scared. Kaufmo, thinking Zooble is just a bunch of parts, ignores them. Zooble watches as Ragatha tries and fails to pacify Kaufmo. She is thrown like a rag-doll. Ragatha, glitching, reaches out to Pongle for help - Pongle almost reciprocates, then yells. Hand burning, she abandons both Ragatha and Zooble. Zooble manages to crawl over to Ragatha for help.
Pongle catches up with Jax and Kinger. Jax, clocking Pongle's anxiety, immediately makes fun of her for being a coward. Then he hears Kaufmo - he pushes them all down the hole. Zooble experiences The Horrors™️ while searching for Caine.
ACT 2:
We see Zooble again struggling to accept their body and strange new world. Their irritability makes it hard for them to connect with the others, but they try their best regardless. Pongle tries to skip the adventure but is forced to come along anyway. Ragatha and Pongle's friendship is strained. They clearly still care for each other, but the positive/negative dynamic is driving them further apart. They are codependent.
Zooble immediately writes off Caine as an extension of the circus, seeing him as their jailor, their warden. Caine is undeterred, but this human is clearly more stubborn and prickly than the ones he's used to.
Zooble and Pongle slowly start to form a connection. They gravitate towards each other because neither feel the need to perform for one another. At first, Pongle expects Zooble to judge her for what happened with Kaufmo. Zooble surprises her, saying that they were all under a lot of pressure. Ragatha tries to connect with Zooble too, with less success.
Jax likes bullying Pongle the most, but now the dynamic has started to shift. Zooble doesn't put up with anyone's shit, and Jax doesn't like that. Ragatha is starting to feel insecure - she likes being a safe space for Pongle, and now she's worried she's not good enough anymore.
Similar to canon, Zooble and Caine have an entertaining (for us) but antagonistic relationship. Every time Zooble thinks they are making progress with him, Caine appears to get distracted, or seems to forget their conversations entirely. He completely misses the point, despite being able to remember the key parts of what Zooble says. Zooble and the audience question whether Caine is even capable of change - after all, he isn't human.
Caine is however, very intrigued by Zooble. They are the only human willing to be honest with him. Though Zooble's stubbornness frustrates him, he is fascinated by how unique and unpredictable Zooble can be. He starts to crave Zooble's approval more than the others - maybe, if he can win them over to his adventures, he can finally feel something real. Something that cannot be given by NPCs programmed to love you.
Meanwhile, Jax is on a wild trip of disassociation. He pushes everyone's buttons, and spends time messing with Caine's NPCs. One NPC starts to grow on Jax though (a male one), and Jax indulges himself. He plays pretend and flirts with him - until he starts to get attached.
Caine deletes Jax's NPC without a second thought. Jax is then overwhelmed by emotion - angry that he even cares. It's an NPC! He knew this was going to happen anyway. So why does he feel so...crushed? (The NPC is not similar to Ribbit in personality, but reminds Jax of the fun times he had with Ribbit. The male NPC is like Max from 'Sam and Max' - laid back, but a fellow enjoyer of chaos).
The adventures continue. Zooble starts to come outside their shell more. Ragatha struggles to hide her negative emotions, and then the Spudsy's Adventure happens. Drunk on stupid sauce, her true feelings come out into the open. Pongle is still the manager. Jax's NPC returns, and Jax pretends to be playful with him like nothing happened. It's all just a game, right? Ragatha reads Jax to filth - he'd rather spend time with NPCs than be hurt by real people. Jax is furious. Pongle is manic at first, but then she and Ragatha hash it out. Ragatha and Zooble share some genuine moments together.
Strangely, Jax's NPC acts like he remembers him. Then we learn in a later adventure that the NPC *does* remember Jax. And he knows what he is. Jax is shocked. How is the NPC not having a meltdown right now? Because the NPC is 'anti-Jax'. He completely accepts his situation, as a positive nihilist. He is completely at peace with it. The NPC simply enjoys being alive. He's everything Jax wishes he could be.
ACT THREE:
Caine is acting stranger than usual. There's one moment where it seems Caine is *so* close to understanding Zooble (and the others) but then he regresses, afraid or unable to reflect any further. Zooble wants to give up. Zooble then has an adventure with Kinger, and learns the lore about Kinger and his connection to the circus. His wife. His philosophy about making people feel loved and wanted. Zooble asks Kinger if he created Caine. He reluctantly replies...yes. Before Zooble can go on, Kinger stops them. Please. He doesn't want to talk about it anymore.
Ragatha and Jax used to be friends. Not close ones, but friends never the less. The gun adventure - Caine is uncharacteristically distant and blunt. Zooble lets Ragatha pair up with Pongle so that they can spend more time together. Pongle apologises to Ragatha for letting her down. Ragatha apologises for forcing her positivity on her. Ragatha learns to trust others more and opens up to them.
Zooble and Jax are forced to pair up together. Jax thinks he's got Zooble allllll figured out - they are "the grumpy one". He yaps about his belief in circus archetypes. It disturbs Zooble. Are they really that simple? Are they still human? Then Zooble, determined to disprove Jax's bullshit, pretends to go with the flow. Jax, pleasantly surprised and entertained, engages with Zooble more playfully. The desire to bully Pongle is forgotten. Putting their differences aside, it almost seems like they're having fun. Then Jax runs into Ragatha and reality comes crashing down. Right. This is a game. Jax isn't getting close to anyone. Like in canon, he shoots Ragatha in a fit of rage. Then Zooble and Jax have a similar falling out to Pomni/Jax's fallout in canon.
Caine, busy with the favourite character awards, floats in silent contemplation, looking at photos of the macroverse. Then he visits Kinger. Kinger remains locked away inside his pillow fort while Caine vents and projects onto Kinger, like a son trying to connect with his emotionally distant father. We're missing some context here. In the last adventure, Kinger talked about love and support, and helped Zooble through a tough time. Now he refuses to come out. He won't even look at Caine. Caine almost tries to enter the fort, but stops. We get the impression he has tried before to enter, but he was never welcome. Caine sighs, teleporting away. In the darkness, Kinger finally looks up where Caine used to float. He looks sad, regretful and very tired.
Pongle almost wins the gun fight, but fails. However, she has finally grown beyond her walls of depression. She loses the game with a smile on her face. Jax almost abstracts in the bathroom. Caine has no votes in the favourite character awards.
ACT FOUR:
The episode 7 adventure happens, very similar to we happens in canon. The next "episode", Caine crashes out XD that's all I got so far!
The episode 8 adventure (idk how many 'episodes' the actual story will have) begins as it does in canon, with the brilliant red dot - blue dot sequence.
Then we see a flashback:
°early days, Kinger takes responsibility. He does his very best to guide Caine and 'fix' the circus to the best of his abilities. Maybe Caine sometimes alarms Kinger with his...low empathy tendencies. But Kinger takes it in stride.
°Queenie abstracts. All of Kinger's worst fears about Caine feel more real. Kinger feels sadness, anger, regret. He loved programming, now he doesn't even want to think about it. It's all ruined. He's sick of Caine, sick of the digital world, numb inside. Kinger never lashes out at Caine, but he stares at him in blank silence. Kinger runs away from the situation and retreats into insanity.
°Ragatha arrives. She asks questions about the circus, and Kinger gets triggered. All his worst memories and regrets are flooding back. Kinger sets an example for Ragatha and he...hides the truth from her. He tells Ragatha it doesn't matter anymore. All they have is each other (the humans). Ragatha is very grateful to Kinger. He supports her like a kindly father. Kinger is guilty, and it's driving him insane. He doesn't want to tell Ragatha that he made the circus. She thinks so highly of Kinger.
°Present day, Kinger is triggered into action. Caine does something and we get a flashback of a scene where Caine says exactly the same thing. Caine isn't learning, and neither is Kinger anymore. Kinger allowed himself to become stagnant. The first thing Kinger does, away from Caine, is apologise to Ragatha. He says he wasn't honest with her because he didn't want her to hate him. Ragatha starts tearing up. She knows the feeling. Kinger shares his whole backstory and takes responsibility for Caine. He quietly admits to the humans that he didn't do anything because he didn't want to talk to Caine anymore. Ragatha forgives Kinger. He never meant for them to be trapped here. The humans have mixed opinions, but ultimately, they're glad to know the truth.
If you've made it to this point, thank you for reading! And please let me know if you have any suggestions. Caine's conclusion will be the hardest for me to write, because I want him to be an antagonist, not an AM-esque villain. Caine is a beautifully complex character, and he deserves a well written conclusion. I hope to redeem him at some point but...we'll see.
Reblogging this post because Tumblr is broken and I have made some updates to the rewrite (TADC ReZoobled). Please enjoy!
UPDATE: 20th April, 2026
As of 20th of April, the Rezoobled Outline is a little outdated. I've made some big changes - Kinger and Queenie have swapped places, ep.8 is almost completely different plot-wise, Jax and Caine have a negative character arc together, and Queenie has absorbed Scratch's lore + personality. Abel will also be a (small) surprise twist later.
There's other changes too of course, but these ones 👆 are the big game-changers.
I will have to reblog the most updated version of the outline as well.
It will also be more clinical, concise and scant on the emotions/details. Here's why:
1) adding too much detail takes the fun out of the story. Still gotta write it! Don't want to spoil my readers.
2) an outline needs to be easy to read and useful to plan from. If I let this get overgrown, it's only going to cause more problems.
I might make a separate post on the emotions/character journeys for each cast member. But then, maybe I should just keep it to myself and focus on writing the fanfiction. Memory and execution matters above all else.
The charmingly animated witch dance from the 1987 anime film Grimm’s Fairy Tale: The Golden Bird (グリム童話 金の鳥). Directed by the late great Toshio Hirata (平田敏夫). A hidden cartoony gem from Madhouse & Toei Animation, loosely based on the tale of The Golden Bird that was made famous by The Brothers Grimm.
Special thanks to Animation Obsessive on Twitter for bringing this movie to my attention. Follow them for more rare, interesting & underappreciated animation tidbits from around the world.
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Last time Tuberculosis ran through the USA a small number of people got it on purpose to look skinny and waifish and delicate and used makeup to look flushed and bony and when the Victorians figured out tapeworms people would infect themselves on purpose to starve themselves smaller and women and now in the year of our lord 2026 there is a noticeable fraction of the USAmerican population genuinely thrilled about a treatment-resistant microbial parasite that makes you shit and vomit your brains out for a month because side effects include weight loss and STILL we talk about being skinny like it's the natural default setting for all healthy people as if it's a self-sustaining standard and not an imaginary goal that we are constantly constantly constantly beating ourselves with a whip to acheive
