Neo's Collection

I’m Neo. I put random thoughts on here. Don’t pay me any mind

[the-neoborg]

Oh no.. Jax’s group photo and Kaufmo’s bowling ball were originally Ribbit’s…..

[the-neoborg]

Now that episode 9 is releasing, I gotta rant about a few (heavily Ragatha related) things that disappointed me.

For most part the finale is fine, whatever, I’m cool with it. Pomni and Ragatha’s hug that half looked like making out was great 10/10, them building the fort and taking care of Jax was sweet (even if it wasn’t totally deserved, lol) and the fact they got rights to play ‘Isn’t She Lovely’ is crazy, BUT what ticked me off was when a flashback I’d, and I’m sure A LOT of others had, been hoping for finally happened, it was fully from Jax’s pov and hardly featured the current circus goers. (Also we didn’t get to see Zooble’s arrival which was disappointing, but I guess Jax didn’t have anything snarky to say when they appeared :/ )

Anyways..

When Jax abstracts Ragatha has that mini monologue about how much it hurt not to mention Ribbit, how her friendship with Jax ended with that agreement to keep silent. Even at the end when they’re painting a mural, Ragatha is sadly staring at Ribbit (with Jax also in frame) but we get NOTHING about Ragatha and Ribbit’s friendship, they say all of, what, 5 words to each other? We don’t even see Ragatha and Jax’s supposed friendship. Ragatha, Ribbit and Kaufmo spent who knows how long as acquaintances/friends before Jax even spawned in and we’re supposed to treat their loss as important to Ragatha and the way she acts and fears for the others, but we don’t get to see their connection. It’s all assumptions and I HATE THAT. I wish we got a little peek at the actual comradery of all the circus around the hyperfocus on Jax and Ribbit.

On top of it, Ragatha and Kinger’s moments in the flashback feel like an ‘Is my OC too noticable’ video, with them shoehorned in the background bringing back something that already annoys me and I’ve already ranted about in the series. Ragatha herself says she trust Kinger the most but knows NOTHING about him. She doesn’t know about his wife, the fact he worked in computer science and had a hand in the circus or the lucidity in the dark. Wtf were the even DOING those 9 years where apparently they hung out all the time? Brodie was just keeping secrets for the love of the game since he had no issue spilling to Pomni first chance he got. I guess she also hung with the abstragedy duo and not just Kinger, but we don’t see it, it’s hardly mentioned all show and that assuming again and DON’T TICK ME OFFF

[diddleysquin]

Surprise surprise, I have another theory. This shit is based on nothing concrete, it really is just me vibing things out and is probably wildly wrong but it's been sat in my head for a couple days.

I think Ribbit and Kinger had spoken properly at some point and that he'd revealed at least some of his history with the circus to her; I think she then relayed what they'd discussed back to Jax who didn't believe her.

She'd have said something like "You can have a proper conversation with him, so long as it's in the dark" which he took to be a joke at best, right up until he saw the change caused by Pomni putting that bucket on his head.

This isn't the face/ body language of "you're not acting how I expect you to" Jax's reaction in the whole scene reads more as "OH SHIT!"

Call me mad but Jax's flinch at this:

is so much smaller than everyone else's. Maybe it's just because he's the furthest back in the shot but it reads to me like he's almost expecting it.

His world is falling apart, not because Kinger is revealing this info, or even because his architype view is falling apart (as I've seem most people rationalise his response in this scene), but because this info is being confirmed to him.

He doesn't want to or need to hear what Kinger has to say, because he's already heard it.

This isn't a realisation that the circus is real, or that the Caine situation is actually happening, it's that the thing he'd dismissed, possibly even argued with Ribbit about, was true all along. He'd rather throw himself at an irate Caine than face that realisation.

[the-neoborg]

I like this idea!! On first watch I’d thought Jax knew about Kinger and the darkness because the moment in Ep5 where Kinger’s script, written by Jax, says:

“In case of character breaks: Use the ZONE OF CONTEMPLATION under the president’s desk”.

He could've written it as a joke, but the idea that he knew there was a possibility the darkness would work and decided to write it into Kinger's job description to help Pomni is cool!!

[the-neoborg]

I was just struck with a horrible fear that the any old circus history I’d been hoping to see in a Ragatha and Jax conversation will be completely hijacked by Ribbit and Ragatha won’t have another big moment in the series.

Dude, what if she already peaked and it’s all down hill…

[the-neoborg]

(Sorry in advance for this rant lol)

What are y’alls rationalizations or thoughts on why Kinger didn’t tell anyone about his lucidity in the dark? I feel like I’m getting too hung up on it and want to know your ideas for his actions.

My train of thought was maybe he feels too guilty lucid, or was worried nobody would trust him if they knew he worked at C&A, but that doesn’t explain him basically telling Pomni outright in episode 3.

I get that it’s a hard point to harp on since they needed to move the story along, but I just hate that it feels so forced. If Kinger wanted it to be secret why’d he slip the darkness and computer science info to Pomni willynilly three days (or three adventures) in? Saying it was to distract or comfort Pomni while she was scared doesn’t cut it when he’s been perfectly fine keeping it to himself for all of a decade through 6 other scared humans appearing. I kind of wish Pomni and Ragatha had their talk on screen and figured it out themselves end of episode 6, cuz the way it is now it just feels like such an awkward bombshell of information for Pomni to’ve held on to since episode 3 and finally decide to reveal in episode 8.

I don’t like that it feels like pure plot convenience and need an actual reason or I’m going to end up overthinking it. Am I looking at this wrong or forgetting something?? Is this stupid?? Please help me😭😭

Edit based on things people’ve commented/tagged:

I’m running on the idea the first three episodes actually are consecutive days based on episode 3 when Ragatha tells Jax "Be nice to her, she's had a rough couple of days" which, to me, implied they’re back to back.

To the people simply saying he told Pomni because there's an extended period of dark, I get that, but my problem is WHY?? Why now after all this time? If he's okay telling people surely he could've waved someone in the fort to tell them earlier. Surely there would've been a moment in the 9 years the circus had been populated that he was aware enough to tell somebody "I don't do well in the light, if you need to talk take me to the fort". Then on the opposite end if he DIDN'T want to tell people then he literally just wouldn't've mentioned it in episode 3. He would've just sat and comforted Pomni in silence.

Someone did put an idea in the tags that I’ve mentioned before and like as a reason Ragatha didn’t know/put it together. That when she arrived Kinger was all there and she saw his mental decline. So in his rare moments of lucidity she just talks to him like old times and doesn’t quiz him on WHY he’s mentally stable.

(Sorry about how clunky this is, I don’t really use Tumblr so this post in NOT optimized, lol)

[the-neoborg]

Long neck Jax 80% inspired by this giraffe lamp at Ikea

[the-neoborg]

Ragatha loves that little creature

[the-neoborg]

‘Funny’ from City of Angels makes we think of Jax’s crashout in ep7..

I also feel like Waitress has a lot of Ragatha potential with ‘She used to be mine’ and ‘What baking can do’

If y’all have any musical songs you think fit a TADC character let me know. I’m always on the look out for new soundtracks, or maybe I’ve heard it before and never associated it with them. Either way I’m super curious

(Ik I already said Funny reminded me of Miles Edgeworth, but I just really like this song🙏)

[the-neoborg]

Based on one of my favorite TADC livestream moments!! The Jaxs on that stream were too much lol (ignore the fact I’m a year late😶)

@justtheclippy @vixenvtuber

[the-neoborg]

The song ‘Funny’ from the musical City of Angels makes me think of Miles Edgeworth and DL-6 incident and I need the internet to know cuz I have no one to share it with

[the-neoborg]

I’m throwing stuff at the wall and trying to make a Digital Circus timeline to rationalize an ending I believe would be interesting/ bittersweet. I wanted to post my thoughts cuz I find it fun and if anyone stumbles across this I hope you do too :)

——

I initially didn’t like the idea that Ragatha didn’t get Jax’s Breaking Bad reference because she’d been in the circus before it aired, but thinking about it again I kinda like it.

The whole circus has a 90s/00s look going on reinforced by the short Glitch posted about old point and click computer games of the 2000s and ep7s reference to the PS2 startup screen

That together with Kinger not being aware of 9/11 (I believe it was mentioned in a stream) my thinking is that mid 00s (post Ps2 but pre 9/11) a handful of C&A programmers entered the circus as a test run and became stuck. With so many key developers missing and C&A having no explanation they couldn’t stay afloat and the company went under after a few years leaving their building for sale

That’s where I’d imagine Ragatha comes in. Around 06, a few years before the release of Breaking Bad, Ragatha has a walkthrough of the property and ends up trapped in the circus. This gives a whole 6 years for Queenie to’ve abstracted before Ragatha’s arrival and a reason for why she oddly had no reaction to Pomni mentioning her in ep5

With Ragatha as just one of many real estate agents that vanished adding to C&As history of disappearances, the office is left to rot with no one willing to enter or buy it. The mystery of it all becomes popular with reality tv and as Youtube becomes more mainstream in the 2010s it attracts urban explorers hoping to film content.

I wish we had more hints to the arrival time of the others but going full speculation I’d guess Jax in 2013. He doesn’t strike me as someone who’d enter to explore, but I could see a scenario where he, with all his cryptic flashbacks, was in the building to hide from the law and eventually got curious and trapped in the computers. Ribbit strikes me as one of two extremes, either they were there since Ragatha’s time, or they arrived after Jax in 2013 but were unable to stand the circus they abstract before Gangle and Zooble’s arrival in 2015. Then there’s Pomni in 2017 where the series supposedly takes place (I’ve personally never seen the clip that confirms this but it seems to be an accepted fact)

Something think would be very interesting though is if the circus functions like the Jumanji films, where no matter how long the person in trapped within the game when they’re released they’re returned to the moment they first disappeared as if they’d only been gone a minute. Now I’d always assumed that the canon ages are locked to when they first entered the circus and that they aren’t aware of the current year. If that’s the case then that sets up a wrinkle to all the canon ages as currently Pomni is considered the third youngest but in reality if they all escaped and found each other in 2017

Kinger would be 65, Ragatha 41, Gangle 28, Jax 26, Pomni 25 and Zooble 24

Imagine how tragic it would be for them all to escape and Pomni, having just gotten out of the headset and back home for the first time, looks for information related to C&A and the circus and is met with posts over a decade old from Kinger and Ragatha trying to find everyone and still being active and holding out hope looking for Pomni to this day not knowing how far into the future she was😭

But that’s just a theory, a film theo- but seriously.. I doubt this is actually how the series will end, but my god I would be bawling if it happened

——

Thanks to anyone who read this far into my ramblings 👋

[the-neoborg]

I like the idea that Jax and Ragatha were flirty and into each other while the Ribbit Kaufmo friendship was active, but after Ribbit’s abstraction Jax couldn’t stand Ragatha being overly soft and carful with him and now they’re like exes forced to spend eternity in close proximity

[the-neoborg]

NINTENDO PLEASE MAKE THEM REAL😭😭🙏

[the-neoborg]

Chrobin art in 2024 (I love them)

[the-neoborg]

Wedding dance🙌

I had to consult my little siblings when choosing Wade’s suit, we decided purple looks best and he needed pants for special occasions

[the-neoborg]

It tastes horrible, but Wade secretly loves being the bubble guy in fire town.

Anything for the kids

Meanwhile Ember, completely smitten

[the-neoborg]

Hear me out

Get This Right, From Frozen II

Animated to Wade trying to propose to Ember