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Three Goblin Art
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Aqua Utopiaļ½ęµ·ć®åŗć§čØę¶ćē“”ć
Claire Keane

tannertan36

JVL
Today's Document
styofa doing anything
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
dirt enthusiast

PR's Tumblrdome
Sweet Seals For You, Always
YOU ARE THE REASON
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Monterey Bay Aquarium

⣠Chile in a Photography ā£
Cosmic Funnies
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
RMH

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@tadc-observatory
Submissions/Asks Open šŖš
If you would like to use the observatory for your TADC thoughts, you now can!
Please keep it 13+, but feel free to yap about your favorite, given it's observation-based.
+ NEW POST: TADC FINALE THEATRICAL RELEASE ONE WEEK AWAY, THE END OF A THREE-YEAR JOURNEY
We know it's been a lot online recently, but weāre still SO excited to show all of you this finale the way it was intended. Digital Circus has been an incredible 3-year journey, and the theatrical release is a celebration and a chance for everyone to watch, laugh, cry, and experience the ending together. To our artists and staff who made the finale possible, you all created something TRULY beautiful, and weāre all so incredibly proud of you. Digital Circus: The Last Act comes to theatres in 1 WEEK!! Hereās the gang snowboarding to celebrate
ā May 28th 2026
I dont knowwwwwwwwwwww I just think its interesting
one fun little detail in caine's villain song i've yet to see be pointed out is that at the very end when everyone explodes there is one (1) frame where it says BOOM! and also there's a top hat on the O
Watching Ep 8 and Zoobleās scenes, Iām starting to think their fear isnāt mainly planted in body/gender dysmorphia. Yes that can be a huge part of it, but consider this.
Zooble has been many things in their past life. A bartender, a tattoo artist, and probably a lot more careers; but none of them had fit.
Theyāre a dreamer who wants to leave a lasting impact on the world, and I think no matter how many times they tried at a skill (and I bet surpassed #stanZooble), it never felt like what Zooble was meant to be.
The toy parts. The mirrors. While it may be a jab at their bodily insecurities, I think it very well may be their existential ones also - The fear of not knowing who you are.
How can you leave a legacy, when you canāt even tell who you are?
I finally got the footage of The Wacky Watch from before episode 8 to work (thanks Tumblr).
Currently, it's still just static...
out of all of the new tadc characters, which one was your favorite one to design?
Probably Princess Loolilalu. I just went full Gooseworx on her even though I didn't need to.
Just gonna say, I don't think Caine was meticulously studying exactly what would cause each member of the circus the most despair. I think he was able to gauge what upset them most by how they'd react to things. He knew what upset him because they'd have more reaction to being upset then being pleased with something, he knew what they didn't like because they'd TELL HIM to stop doing it. He was better at torturing them than making them happy because he received more negative feedback than positive.
THIS. EXACTLY THIS.
He's been given negative feedback more often (and with more specification) than he has positive feedback.
Pomni says specifically NOT to do horror (a particular genre) in episode 4; she says that she and Zooble WANT more "chill" adventures (not specific at all). Pomni and Zooble didn't mind the Spudsy's adventure (Zooble saying it was more "grounded in reality", as though Caine knows what that's like), but the other three participants were more obviously upset about it.
Not to mention all of his proposed adventure ideas were met with this,
along with Ragatha saying they're a "little dark" to her.
Plus, most people seem to have a bad reaction to first entering the circus, immediately trying to leave/getting upset with him.
Proooobably doesn't help that his first CLEAR signal (we don't see any response from the creators other than to feed him more data) of whether he was doing things right or wrong is getting locked/thrown away. (Argueably, he did take the new data as a positive response, considering he made his world a circus like the original data given to him; I just think being put in confinement is a stronger signal of "Wrong! Bad!" than new data signalling "Right! Good!")
(This also ties into his rejection sensitivity/strong fearful reactions towards critiques of his work; it may feel to him like he's being put away again.)
The humans give the most positive feedback on adventures that aren't his (aka adventures he doesn't know/understand the thought process behind); his adventures NEVER get that kind of response.
AND! Remember how Bubble talks to him in episode 8, calling him "defective", "faulty", "broken", "unworthy". Bubble is, in some way, part of Caine (to what degree depends on personal interpretation), so it would make sense if he bounced back some of the resulting thoughts from feedback/maybe even direct feedback. Three of the above adjectives have to do with functionality; this lines up with why he was put in the box + circus members complaining that the game doesn't work right because they can't leave + literally every time there is some kind of technical issue that needs to be resolved.
Other feedback Bubble brings up:
"I fixed that." Fixed being BAD.
All he knows is how to try and fix things, because he's never RIGHT in the first place, according to what he's been told.
The Tragedy of Caine : A Psychoanalysis & Character Study š¤š
Warning, this is a very long post because the teeth gentleman's beeswax-polished coconut is deeply fascinating to me. There are so many more things I wanted to address but this is the crux of it.
Disclaimer: Nothing in this post is meant to excuse Caine's actions. I simply find the way his mind works, and the way the show goes from his perspective, to be very interesting and complex.
Happy reading!
Uhhh hey guys
Can we take a look at this
She wasnāt alone
It's more likely than you think.
Yes, Your Favorite Character Still Deserves Consequences (And Thatās Okay)
How that scene from episode 8 avoids consequences.
Disclaimer: This is not intended as anything more than a criticism. I adore TADC, and I adore everyone involved in the series. Most importantly, even if Jax is your favorite character, thatās cool! This is not me hating on you for liking him because hell yeah, heās an interesting character!
That's my biggest gripe with Episode 8 and the entire show so far. Jax faces basically no consequences for his actions.
Gangle never stood up to him after all the trauma and abuse he put her through (and like you said, she basically stood up FOR him in Episode 8). Pomni basically moved on like the ending of Episode 6 never happened and held no ill will towards him in the episodes after. And the only person to call him out for what he did at the end of Episode 7 is Zooble, and even then it's dropped immediately and Zooble welcomes him back into the group instantly. It's like Jax pushing the red button to trap everyone in the circus didn't even happen.
Why are we constantly forgiving and giving second chances to this literal abuser who openly admitted to intentionally hurting people for fun?? I know they're all like "we're all in this together" but there has to be SOME sort of line to draw.
And don't give me that "he's coping with trauma-" LITERALLY EVERYONE IN THE CIRCUS IS COPING WITH TRAUMA. JAX IS NOT SPECIAL.
If the whole "in this world the worst thing you can do is make someone think they're not wanted or loved" message really is about Jax (the one who has had people reach out to him multiple times and is given many second chances) and not Caine (you know, the character who has never once felt wanted or loved and is deeply insecure about it) then that's just...bad writing. I'm sorry. That would be genuinely bad writing.
I'm hearing Goose out on Episode 9, but I don't like where all of this has been going.
It just tickles me that a thirty year old woman is letting herself be held like this by a complete stranger
Girly has not been treated well in so long that she age regresses back to a little girl when given even a modicum of care
Thinking about the new TADC episode, and I want to note a detail I find interesting, specifically the Caine Callout Scene. More specifically than that, Ragatha and Gangle's contributions.
Ragatha mentions that Caine never comforts anyone when they're upset or bothers to understand their points of view...both being complaints that could be easily levied towards her abusive and demanding mother, who never bothered to understand how Ragatha felt and constantly put her down and yelled at her, actively making her upset and refusing to comfort her.
Meanwhile, Gangle's complaint is that Caine discourages everyone from thinking outside the box and "doing things our own way", with her biggest gripe from outside the Circus being her artistic dreams being crushed and her being stuck working a fast food job just to get by...keeping her from thinking outside the box and doing what she truly wants to do.
I find it fun how Pomni, Zooble, and Jax's complaints are all about Caine specifically doing things wrong that bug them, but Ragatha and Gangle seemed to genuinely get a bit personal there and bring up how Caine is actively reminding them of what they had to go through outside the Circus, and giving them a chance to finally stand up for themselves when they weren't able to do so in their past Macroversal lives.
I love thematic cohesion.
Jax and Gangle's insecurities mirrored each other
quick tadc post as someone who has worked with command prompt windows/shells a decent amount against my will
^C is the universal command for āstop whatever youāre running immediatelyā, and iām pretty sure the line before it basically means āundo the last line before this one.ā
so with all that out there, it looks like the sequence of events went:
-caine (subconsciously?) covered the screen with visual noise in an attempt to block kinger
-kinger is under so much pressure that heās typing as fast as he can possibly go
-system prompt asks him if he wants to delete caine. kinger couldnāt read the prompt correctly and inputs Y on autopilot
-he immediately tries to rollback what he did
-when that doesnāt work he panic ^C-s to try to kill the entire āstop caine processā (actually what it was called),,, aka botch the entire operation to save caine.
-Purge AI Program executes anyway
so it was genuinely an accident that he immediately tried to undo. bet kinger is gonna feel great about that.
(if anyone is better at computers than me please feel free to correct this)
Something about episode three has been tickling the back of my brain for a hot minute now.
Once Pomni and Kinger are dragged down into hell, Kinger says:
Most depictions of hell will have fire and red stone (people don't seem to realize brimstone is sulfer), along with various kinds of torture. Some can be especially gruesome, which would lend itself well to the horror aspect of this adventure.
Out of universe, this visual for hell works well with the story; it's almost completely dark (Kinger's shining moment) and a cooler color to contrast the manor. (Ik there's more; I'm tired, spare me.)
But why would Caine make hell look this way?
Potentially, he also wanted that contrast to show progression or to signal the end.
Here's what I find most odd: the souls themselves. Presumably they are human (Martha's ghost is human, as is Baron's decaying corpse), and yet they are in this form:
These damned souls are no longer in a human shape; they are the only visible source of light in this hell. There are so many of them, yet they're all confined to the Hall of the Damned.
When Pomni enters the Hall, not knowing the solution to the puzzle, she is overtaken. Her body contorts, her eyes change color. The souls from within her declare this "freedom".
Kinger shrinks away from her for a moment, then pulls her back. He explains that the souls
...
Did Caine do this on purpose? We know that he views the circus as a prison, much like the humans... much like how hell is a prison. The people in this prison don't have a body to leave with, and in an effort to do so, a person is changed into something horrific.
The souls are the only visible source of light in this hell.
Kinger blames himself for their circumstances, but he also figures out the solution (to love/to try not to think about it? take your pick)