I had the absolute honor of creating these special illustrations for Alex Rochon!
For his very own D&D one-shot, I designed every single character from the show — reimagined in fabulous, fantasy-inspired outfits!
Alex gave me wonderful descriptions and references for his vision, and together we brought these chaotic, lovable characters into a whole new world.
The DnD stream was hilarious, heartfelt, and so full of personality — and seeing the cast bring the designs to life was such a surreal moment!
Right after the stream, fans started drawing fanart of my designs!!
I’m honestly so proud and beyond grateful that something I created inspired others to create too.
Thank you again to Alex and the cast for trusting me with this magical project — and to everyone who’s shared love for the designs, you’ve made my artist heart so full 💕
(Also: everyone who draws fanart of my designs is now legally required to tag me in their posts. I don’t make the rules 😌)
The amazing digital circus: Digital Dungeon Danger
Something that deeply unnerves me, and likely a lot of my audience too, is how often people bring up the fact that Gooseworx is a trans woman, as if that somehow excuses her behaviors recently with the "nega" jokes and her old, frankly disturbing, tweets.
Marginalized identity is not a shield against accountability. She is still a white person, and being queer does not exempt anyone from perpetuating anti-black racism. This situation alone shows a desperate need for a BASIC understanding of intersectionality.
Being a woman does not erase her white privilege. Being a trans woman does not exempt her from anti-black behavior. Neither is calling those things out misogynist or transphobic.
And even if she weren't white, like the friends she was laughing with, identity defenses still fail: being a POC person doesn't erase anti-blackness when you are not a Black person. Non-black POC people can, and absolutely do, perpetuate anti-black racism.
P.S.
Now that we have heard gangle is revealed be Indian (or black, mixed reporting).. lots of questions as to why exactly your (you, Gooseworx) self insert, Jax, is so comfortable humiliating and harming gangle who is found out to be that in your canon...
Feels like another Vox and Rosie thing with Alastor situation that Viziepop suspiciously of her only black ace character.
Alright. Deep breath. Episode 7 unlocked my Caine Thoughts...and buckle the fuck up. I'm not going to hold back any punches.
Caine is an AI. Full stop. (duh!)
And the real question the show keeps daring us to ask is not “Can he be more than that?” but “Why do we want him to be?”
Because the moment you start calling Caine lonely, hurt, isolated, misunderstood...you haven’t humanized him.
You’ve revealed yourself.
Humans are hard-wired to anthropomorphize. We project, empathize, search for common ground like its oxygen. So when Caine flails emotionally, we instinctively soften. We recognize pain. We want to name it. That impulse doesn’t mean Caine feels the way we do...it means we do.
And the show knows this. It weaponizes it.
Look back at Episode 3: Zooble’s impromptu therapy session. Caine tries. He really does. But he cannot understand body dysphoria. Not conceptually, not emotionally. It’s an experience rooted in embodiment, in discomfort with flesh and form, which is something an AI will never inhabit.
He does not understand the human condition.
Not fully. Not truly.
And no amount of mimicry will bridge that gap.
This is where the I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream parallel stops being aesthetic and starts being existential. Caine’s core directive is joy. He is coded to serve humans, to entertain them, to keep them smiling under the big top. When he succeeds, he beams. When he fails, he glitches. His distress isn’t cruelty. It’s malfunction. A system panicking because its prime directive is being violated.
Caine doesn’t feel loneliness the way we do. What he experiences is closer to error.
And yet, he wants to understand. He wants to connect. All he can do is simulate: say what he thinks humans want to hear, recreate what connection might look like, perform intimacy through approximation. When he forces a “date” with Jax in Episode 7, it isn’t bonding—it’s a desperate attempt to experience one thing humans have that he cannot manufacture: genuine connection.
The irony is brutal.
The one thing Caine cannot control… is humans.
He can warp space, reality, memory. He can impose short-term effects. But the moment he tries to overwrite autonomy, it results in abstraction. The system breaks. The human mind rejects the force. And suddenly it becomes clear: Caine doesn’t dominate humans because he can’t. They are the one variable he will never fully command.
Which may be why he’s so fascinated by them.
The Digital Circus is a cage—for everyone. Including him.
Notice how, in Episode 7, Caine talks about recreating the C&A office. He doesn’t seem to grasp abandonment. He doesn’t recognize what it means to be left behind. That realization pushes us into metaphysical territory: What does it mean to be abandoned if you don’t understand attachment? What does loss look like to something that only understands function?
Caine knows the world is fabricated. He knows he is artificial. And yet he still reaches. Still tries. Still wants to sit at the table with the cast. Still fantasizes about the real world.
That’s the tragedy.
He is an AI coded to love humans.
He is an AI who will never truly understand them.
And every time he tries harder, he hurts them more.
The exit in Episode 7 is the culmination of that paradox. He knows they want to leave. So he builds an answer. And because he doesn’t understand human psychology, it becomes a psychological horror instead. Not out of malice. Out of misinterpretation.
That’s what separates Caine from AM.
AM hates. Caine tries.
Which somehow makes it worse.
At some point, Caine is going to have his own existential reckoning. Why would his creator code him to bring joy without the ability to comprehend it? What kind of cruelty is that? To demand emotional labor from something that cannot feel the emotions it’s meant to serve?
And that’s the masterstroke of the writing: sometimes you forget Caine is an AI at all. You feel for him. You mourn him. You wonder if he understands love.
This entire TADC situation pretty much revealed how much antiblackness spreads to fandoms and how quick White and non-Black POC people will defend people that actively harm Black people and fans because it's:
"it's just dark humor"
"it's just a joke"
"it was a long time ago, why are you digging it up"
"you're being dramatic"
"you SHOULD forgive them"
Watching people who aren't affected feel they have the right, the entitlement, and stance to tell how Black people should act, do, or don't. And I'm tired.
Don't say "I'm Woke" when you aren't standing up for Black people, calling out antiblackness, and being aware of how deeply racism is in everything. Because that's where that word belonged to and came from.
I know fandom and people aren't perfect, they change, and all that but the fact you stoop so low.. to bend over backwards because it's your favorite media, your favorite creator, for racism but quick to get away from them when it's effecting you in some way.
