#tadc episode three the mystery of mildenhall manor

[ervikirvi]

TADC Rambles and Rants: Kinger (TW for Disturbing Images)

Remember when Baron Mildenhall said that he was no longer the protector of his wife and theoretical children?

[ignore the misuse of the word pair, I couldn't find another word for it]

And how we all agreed that the Baron is a pretty obvious parallel to Kinger in the past? Considering that this would've been during the time both Queenie and Kinger were already stuck in The Amazing Digital Circus, and it would've been some time after they arrived, who do you think "theoretical children" were referring to? Because not only that, but it's "children", plural. And again, since this is taking place back in Kinger's past, and I don't believe this is referring to Pomni like a theory channel suggested. No, this is definitely referring to someone way before her time, but who?

If we take a look back at the environmental storytelling of Episode Three, our first clue is a gravestone with the name "Peggy Mildenhall"

Problem is, she died in 2029-2030, WAYYYYYY after the early 2000's, where the timeline supposedly takes place. Unless the game is being restored or something at a later date, this makes no sense. And yet it's there, unless of course we just blame it on the fact that Caine is an AI messing up minor details like AI's do, there might be some importance to this. Another thing to note, Peggy died as a one-year-old, a baby. Which makes it even more strange that she'd be included here at all unless it was Queenie and Kinger's before they entered the circus. OR, the one-year difference is supposed to represent how long the person survived in the circus before abstracting. At this point, I'm grasping at straws, so I'm going to ignore the date but keep it in the back of your mind that there are three Mildenhalls. (Peggy is also a girl's name, keep that in mind later)

Now, pay attention to the pictures on the walls before the adventure starts.

This one piqued my interest the most. A woman (we can assume to be Martha), and two others. The one in the white shirt seems to be younger than the other one, with a chubbier face, and appears to be placed on Martha's lap (notice the arm beside them). I believe this is Peggy. The other one looks to be a bit older, standing up perhaps or just leaning on Martha. With their short hair and pointier chin, I believe they are a boy. With no other reason as to why they have a picture of Martha with two children hanging up in their home, I believe there are now FOUR Mildenhalls.

And now notice the picture on the left whenever Ghostly introduces himself.

One eye and buck teeth? The Pink Cyclops

They even have the same shape of eye; however, the eye color is a little lighter than that of the Cyclops. Whose eye is the same color as the rest of his body. There is a less strong contender on who this could be, but just keep in mind that we'll see a one-eyed creature again.

And now I want to introduce to you someone who I have no clue the identity of.

Since I'm going off of every-picture-has-meaning, I believe they are important too. The figure I assume to be a woman from the long, black hair and small, pointy chin. It's obviously not Martha, so who could it be? Possibly another older child? I wouldn't say that Caine couldn't make a parallel to Kinger's past appear as a dead figure, he did that with Kinger himself. Whatever it is, it appears to be... demonic

Let me show you a few other things that caught my attention, some of which I have no explanation for or are pretty obvious for what they represent.

Originally, I was going to say that this was something related to Queenie because at the beginning where it was first shown the room was dark, and you could only see the left side with the scaly eyeball, and the shape of it made it look like a moth wing. But at the end when everyone is reunited you can clearly see that this is the hide of something. Possibly of the deer skull above it? If so, the Baron did a terrible job. But the fact that is the shape of a strange, squiggly line(?), with a scaly eyeball, and contour lines makes me think it might have to do with The-Worm-On-A-String

A stretch, but still. Could it be Peggy? Or the demon woman from before? How many children did Kinger have???

Looks like to be the Angel, but why did the Baron have them painted and hung up on his wall? In one of the main halls might I add??

Obviously an Abstraction, but of who? Or is it to represent Abstraction in the first place? Another thing to note is that this painting is in the same room with the Cyclops and Demon Woman, could this be telling us that the pictures of the other two are IN-FACT Abstracted characters?

Another one to add after the adventure ended. I believe that they are two Abstractions, on their knees, connected by a branch or a tendril. Strangely, they only have one eye. And they ARE two different Abstractions since the farther one is slimmer with a bigger white dot on its stomach. Keep in mind that there will be a repeating theme of twos and threes.

And now for the adventure:

A skull I could not identify, in a way it reminds me of a bear and canine skull, but incredibly bloated. The eye sockets are also wrong, the right one seems to be higher up to the top of the skull, while the other is more forward. One socket prey, one socket predator, in the same diagonal direction as that of the Angel. Speaking of the Angel, look where it's located.

Right under the Angel's head. Who, coincidentally, has the same eye-diagonal-direction to that of Queenie. Although there are different takes as to what the Angel itself represents, I believe it represents an Abstracted Queenie, or at least, Abstraction in some way or another.

Skulls in The Bible represent mortality and the nature of Life and the inevitability of Death, something that the Abstracted know all too well. Minor rant over, just know that Queenie will be a part of this. And the skull-skeleton-bone whatever WILL make a minor comeback! 

//Minor appearance of two people, one being built like Bigfoot and the other, possibly a woman, carrying a dark object in her arms, or having her arms wrapped around something, a dog, perhaps.

The Boiled One The painting beside the stairs resembles the Demon Woman, but de-faced, bloody, and crying blood. You can tell it's her from the eyes, nose, pointy chin, and smile. Interesting that she got more demonic since the adventure started, and that she's looking directly at the staircase that is walled off with brick. Preventing Pomni and Kinger from going back upstairs to the rest of the group, while she was also the one right beside the Scary Door. Almost like the painting is sentient somehow.

Enough about the Demon Woman, this is where things start to connect: [Heads up from the future, I went crazy after describing things that you can just see with your own eyes, just skip to the third photo. Still keeping it in here for those who are curious]

A missing pair of three, two ghostly women looking out hauntingly. And a singular entity that looks to be on its own page, less human than the others. One woman stands out with a crooked neck, and we can vaguely tell that she has a dark set of hair. The other, with a more neutral expression, has a light set of hair. The three men, two dark beards one light, interestingly have X's over their eyes. This is the point where I want to mention that these figures could just represent friends that have Abstracted. After all, these do seem to be the victims of God's Angel. A reason for the Baron to go after it, a reason for Kinger to protect his family from it, whatever it is. Another Side Rant: If God's Angel represents someone who Abstracted or Abstraction in general, the early players may not have known that they were Players. And that they were viruses or demonic creatures that Caine put in to torture them. And when Queenie Abstracted, that's when Kinger realized, or after attacking the beast who "killed" his wife he realized it WAS his wife, and thus that heartfelt reunion in the Pillow Fort. That's why Queenie held no grudges, she knew Kinger was just trying to protect everyone else.

"And I ended up shooting the love of my life, mistaking her for the creature. It's ironic, isn't it? In my attempts to protect her, I ended up becoming the monster myself." -Baron Theodore Mildenhall

BUT I'M NOT DONE [Just a heads up, I went nowhere with this]

BECAUSE I BELIEVE THE CROOKED NECK LADY IS QUEENIE. OR MARTHA WHO KNOWS, IT ALL LEADS BACK TO QUEENIE IN THE END SO WHO CARES? A REPRESENTATION OF A REPRESENTATION IS STILL A REPRESENTATION BUT ^2. This entire thing is me grasping at straws, so why not more? She's wearing a robe, and her hands look to be detached. Also, messed up neck? Queens have quite a history of neck and head trauma (ever heard of King Henry VII? /j) Why is Martha revealed to be dead already? I don't know, the figure behind her also has a chubby face, could it be Peggy? Are we circling back to Peggy now? Is this the baby but as a teenager because they're shorter than Martha? Is the one-year difference just how long they survived in the circus? Why do they have light hair? Can't be the Demon Woman because they also have dark hair. But guess what, according to Google baby hair can in fact get lighter as they grow older. Ghost-white hair though? I don't know. If it isn't Peggy, then how many HYPOTHETICAL children did Kinger and Queenie have????? Am I going to get anywhere with this?

The only photo I want to note here is the last one with the creature. A black, gangly creature with two heads although the left arm looks to have an eye on it. Abstraction representation anyone? (Also why was the Baron taking photos of his own Manor???)

This is where the connecting starts happening

The one-eyed figure returns. Another hint that the Cyclops might be one of Kinger's children (if you completely forgot that was the point of this post, I don't blame you) HOWEVER, he does look like another character. One that is purple with spikes.

It is almost an exact match, even down to the highlight in his eye and the pink spike on his head. Only thing different is the black lines, suggesting tension, on the pink spike, which looks more like a flower petal. And having a full set of teeth. Strangely, it's a picture of only their side, which the Cyclops picture also does:

The Cyclops picture, actually being the Whatever-It-Is makes a little bit of sense since they have a lighter iris, a prominent bucktooth, and matches more with the body color. The only problem is, Whatever-It-Is has a snout, this guy does not. They look like a cyclops with Whatever-It-Is's coloring.

The other elephant in the room is the high-looking dog thing that also reminds me of a muppet. A sock puppet. A dog sock puppet that looks like none of the two characters who would fit that bill.

It has piercing, blood-shot eyes while being as pale as a ghost, it has to be one of them. Unless Caine has forgotten what they look like, or Kinger? At this point, I'm ready to throw my towel in and just say that the Whatever-It-Is and the Cyclops are the children, if I didn't know that it continued.

Slithers A snake-like creature can be spotted on the shelf, a GREEN snake. A green, worm?

guess who's part green

And to top it all off?

Queenie's there too. A spider on a green web. If this entire episode is on Kinger's past, and everything so far represents someone, then Queenie is a bug. If she's not the Angel, then she's a bug. Unbeknownst to Kinger, the entire family was reunited in some messed up way. Not only that, but Martha's portrait is on the bottom left-hand screen. And you want to know what's even better?

DO I NEED TO SAY MORE? Not ONLY that, but the ANGEL is RIGHT THERE TOO, with the caption "IT'S IN ME". And TO CONTINUE, there is a hole on the abstraction page, with black blood splattered over the Angel and gibberish note. ALMOST LIKE A GUNSHOT???

The Angel being some sort of parallel-representation-whatever of Queenie, would make sense as to WHY it ONLY started to attack Pomni and Kinger AFTER Kinger killed the fly. Could it be a parallel (I'm getting sick of this word) to a struggling fly caught in a spider's web only alerting the spider after thrashing around in its web? (Pomni and Kinger, Kinger specifically, struggling to kill the fly, and making a whole lot of noise when he does?) Or could it just be that she was pissed that he killed a fly in the first place? MAYBE THAT'S WHY SHE WENT DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE OF ABSTRACTING, KINGER KILLED SOMETHING FROM HER INSECT COLLECTION!

Anyways, REMEMBER THE SKULLS?

THREE FLOWERS, TWO SKULLS, THREE PAIR TWO PAIR. And who has the third skull? QUEENIE, because EVERYTHING COMES BACK TO QUEENIE. 

//Queenie died and took the children with her istg

But two children and one parent don't fit the pattern we've been seeing. Where's the Demon Woman? Where's the Worm? Who is Peggy? Who are their children??

I think the answer lies in that first photo:

A woman, Martha. Queenie. And two children, a boy and a baby girl. Originally I went into this wanting to prove that Dobby was their son, but it looks like there's more evidence for Whatever-It-Is being their son than him. So that's who the little boy in the picture represents. The girl, however, I have two answers:

The girl is Pomni, hypocritical of me since at the start I said. "And again, since this is taking place back in Kinger's past, and I don't believe this is referring to Pomni like a theory channel suggested."

And I also said that I believed the baby to be Peggy, who also only lived for one year. However, the time difference doesn't necessarily mean she was one year old, she could've been born (joined) a week before New Year's or a few months before New Year's. And escaped the circus (died) at the beginning of the new year. The baby could represent a new child in their life, some more recent, Pomni.

OR

The baby is the Worm-On-A-String, which would be a more satisfying answer since this IS supposed to take place in Kinger's past. Also, very multi-colored children, seem fitting. (she also looks like a Peggy)

But if the Worm-On-A-String isn't the baby, then she's the Demon Woman. I mean, worm--snake? Close enough. The funny thing is her getting more demonic as time goes on. First, she appears beside the Scary Door, as if she's hiding or has something to do with its contents. The next time we see her she's looking at the stairwell, smiling, almost like she's curious to see their reaction to the stairs being bricked off. Like she knew it was, maybe even was the one who did it. This also forces them into doing the adventure and forces the events of the entire episode to take fold.  Although she does not appear demonic, rather, she appears curious about the situation. Funny how an entire plot point of this episode was the demon being revealed as one of God's Angels. Two skulls, three flowers. Maybe the skull underneath the Angel's head wasn't to say that Queenie had the third skull, the Worm's skull, but rather that she and Kinger are the skulls, and their children are the flowers. A set of two, and a set of three. Two parents, and three children. It would make a lot of sense for the Worm to be one of their children since there are two girls and one boy.

But if we say that the Worm-On-A-String is Peggy, then who is the Demon Woman? Could it be perhaps Pomni because she gets possessed? But this takes place before Hell, and we're trying to stay timeline-consistent here. Who is the Demon Woman? They may be another Abstraction that we haven't looked at yet, one with too much of a blurry door to tell what it is. Or maybe the Demon Woman isn't a woman at all, but rather a lingering presence in Kinger's past that started all of this. Perhaps they are the first Abstraction, when they realize they can, in fact, die. They may not be an actual person, they may just be Abstraction itself, but it would explain why they get a humanoid figure. A representation of Death.

Perhaps the Worm-On-The-String is both Peggy and the Demon, first to go, first to die. We only see Martha with two children, not three. Maybe the skulls, Queenie having one, represent them all being dead. And the flowers? I'm not quite sure, could be the memories of them, that would explain why Queenie's the biggest. But it's not confirmed if Kinger has any memories of his children. He did say that the memory of his wife once he "has control over", maybe the memories of them are like a candlelight flickering in and out. I genuinely do not have an explanation for them, all of this is speculation and me grasping at straws trying to make a scarecrow out of them.

I believe that Whatever-It-Is and Worm-On-A-String are Queenie and Kinger's children. I don't know about Pomni and I don't know about the Cyclops. Perhaps they were in the "just getting there" stage. Gooseworx did say we will get to learn more about Kinger, and I can't wait to see what I got wrong and what I got right.

//I was going to do another rant on Kinger's realization with Queenie, but if you couldn't tell I hit the maximum number of pictures I'm allowed to use, so that will be for another time.

[purplerabbitkisser]

he hates yuri

[toonsforkicks22]

Oh

Ch 3 of “The King and the Jester” is up!

Special thanks to @theboywithburninghands for tremendous assistance getting it done! 💕

[cavernclaw]

Guessing the ghost lady is Mrs. Mildenhall

edit: Her name is Martha!!

[dontcallthedoctor]

Here's something non-music but still TADC related to tide ya'll over until the poll results come in (THANKS FOR 76 VOTES SO FAR OMG YA'LL ARE AMAZING))! This is a snippet of a soundscape I'm working on called The Baron's Study, a completely audio-driven journey through the walls of the Mildenhall's. Thunder, howling wind, and ghostly ambience galore. I also provide the voice of Baron Mildenhall in this <3 I enjoy making soundscapes as much as I enjoy making music, so if you guys like this, there's plenty more I could do! I've done one for the infamous hypothetical "Beach Day" episode, and another EP3 one that I made when the teaser came out. Lemme know if you guys would like to see 'em! M'kay i'm done here, have a good one everybody :3 (Music is from Bendy and the Ink Machine, Bendy and the Dark Revival and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and are used as temp tracks.)

[beepborpdoodledorp]

alright, I'm in need of a palate cleanser, TADC Episodes ranking because why not

Now that Episode 4's marked the (almost) halfway point of the show it's as good a time as any to do a personal ranking and also I want to procrastinate working on more angsty fanart as much as possible for my own sanity

Mystery of Mildenhall Manor

What is there that I can even add to this conversation, the episode is fucking stellar. Pomni and Kinger's dynamic is impeccable start to end and I'm a sucker for anything remotely resembling the found family trope so that just further elevates my opinion, and as both an avid Zooble enjoyer and a very un-cis person their subplot hit me hard. And oh my God, the hallway scene, it's still my single favorite moment in the entire show. The soundtrack, the atmosphere, the gorgeous visuals, the emotional build-up from the conversation beforehand, I want to just absorb the essence of this scene into my bone structure. I've watched this episode twice so far and both times the hallway scene almost made me cry. I'd recommend this in a heartbeat to someone who isn't even interested in TADC or the wider genres it belongs to, it's just that fucking good. 

2. Fast Food Masquerade

It is. Probably not that hard to figure out where I stand on this episode considering how much I've been annoying every TADC tag under the sun the past 72 hours. I absolutely adored this episode, was literally everything I wanted and more based on the promo material. I love Gangle, her storyline about hiding her depression hit way too hard, I love Zooble, I love Gangle and Zooble being gay as fuck, I love Ragatha being absolutely fried the entire episode, I love Jax showing three whole seconds of human decency. Gummigoo. Oh my God. With how much praise I just threw Episode 3's way it's probably weird to learn I actually think Episode 4 is an overall better episode (by a very thin margin, but still), it just gave us a lot more interactions and development with the group as a whole which is something we were mostly lacking in up until this point usually due to the group being separated at some point or another during an adventure. In all honesty if Episode 3 didn't have the hallway scene I'd probably put it in this spot, but it does and the hallway scene fucks so Episode 4 is down here. 

3. Candy Carrier Chaos

Again, what can I even add to this conversation. A great expansion after our first taste of TADC, Gummigoo solos, I love sentient AIs undergoing existential crises as they come to terms with the implications of their existence. My one major complaint (which I had back when the episode first released and it's just been amplified with the last two episodes' releases) is just that we don't get much content of any of the main cast besides Pomni, their interactions are surface-level and don't offer us basically anything new from what we saw of them in the pilot. But that also wasn't what the episode was about so I can mostly give it a pass.

4. PILOT

The pilot was a very good jumping off point for the series and is decent as a standalone, but after rewatching it about a month or two back I don't think it's aged all that well. Again, it's still a perfectly fine watch and does its job of setting up all the stepping stones for the series, but the best way I can describe the pilot is…cluttered. It's just a lot of information and events you need to fit into one twenty-minute episode, so most of the episode goes at a breakneck pace in between a lot of back-to-back jokes that sometimes miss the mark (mostly the fault of Caine, I love him but he is definitely a character who is most effective in short bursts of screentime). You can definitely tell they were still trying to get a feel of things while making this episode and that's completely fine! It's a pilot, that's the whole point. Just doesn't really hold up when compared to its successors.

[spiketheguy]

THE AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS OC: 🎪 🔮 🎱 CUE 🎱 🔮 🎪

EPISODE CONCEPT Part 1: 'What If....?'

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(NOTE: This portion features self insertion of Cue into Canon Episodes of TADC; plot points subject to change)

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What if Cue was in TADC......

Ep. 1 - PILOT:

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Cue attempts to make an impression on new member Pomni upon her arrival.

Whilst Caine gives Pomni a tour of the circus, Cue is shown looking through his deck of tarot cards

Cue expresses his excitement for the in-house adventure of ‘Gathering the Gloinks’, and wishes to bring Kaufmo with him to join in.

After being convinced by Ragatha to go, he accompanies Kinger and Gangle in rescuing Zooble from the Gloinks. Cue does ask her to let him know that he is waiting for him to join.

After finding the hole, Cue insists on jumping in first. Gangle expresses concern over him losing his head, after previous examples.

Throwing caution to the wind, Cue jumps down into the hole before Jax's arrival, only to lose his head on the way down the hole and have his head eaten by the Gloink Queen. He has a brief chat with Zooble inside the Queen's stomach after her head gets eaten.

His body roams around the cave as the other three interact with the Queen. At one point, Jax trips the body over.

Cue’s body retrieves his head after the Abstracted Kaufmo attacks the Gloink Queen. After putting two together, he express great concern over Ragatha, only to be hushed by Jax over ‘the sound of the escalator’

When seeing Ragatha’s glitching body dragging herself on the floor, Cue helps her up, unfazed by the glitchy effects passing over into his body. Caine quickly fixes the two up, to which Cue litts Ragatha up on her feet.

He shows hesitancy towards being friends with Pomni afterwards, sitting far away from her at the dinner table.

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Ep. 2 - CANDY CANYON CHAOS:

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As Ragatha checks on Pomni, Cue checks up on Ragatha, in order to make sure she was really okay with Pomni after the previous day. When Ragatha ‘clarified’ she was, Cue shrugs and walks off to the stage area.

He enthusiastically asks Caine what today's adventure was, completely ignoring Pomni's lack of enthusiasm throughout the adventure up until the tanker chase. When approaching the royal castle, the crew are offered samples of candy; Cue takes a piece and exclaims “Mmm, the slight vague sensation of peppermint!”

Despite not having the best first impression, Cue tries to save Pomni during the chase regardless, but winds up on the other tanker with her.

After the tanker clips into the terrain, Cue's head and body wind up separated again; his body ends up under the map with Pomni and Gummigoo, while his head remains on the tanker, eventually in the possession of Chad and Max.

While he can feel he's with Pomni from 'her floppy ears', he obviously can't tell where the two have wound up.

On the way to the kingdom, as a way to cheer her up over Pomni’s plight, Cue reminisces to Ragatha about their first time bonding, ensuring her that ‘she’ll get to Pomni soon enough…’

Eventually, he gets his body back after Pomni and Gummigoo re-enter the map. He thanks Pomni for 'keeping him safe', which simmered his hesitancy towards her, though something kept nagging at him to not fully drop it……

After Gummigoo gets deleted by Caine, Cue loudly exclaims “OH F[%$!#]K, I FORGOT ABOUT THAT! THAT HAPPENED TO TIC-TAC ALSO!!”, implying he had previously brought an NPC over before who suffered the same fate.

Later, he shares his words (albeit reading from cards) on Kaufmo during his funeral.

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Ep. 3 - THE MYSTERY OF MILDENHALL MANOR:

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As the gang are occupied in the same lounge area, Cue is shuffling through his tarot cards, mumbling about today's fortune.

Jax reveals to Pomni (amongst the others) that when holding his breath, Cue's eyes change into morphing geometric shapes (comparable to old PC screensavers).

Cue overhears the discussion and, wanting to beat his previous record, decided to hold his breath. Unbeknownst to him, he holds on long enough to miss out on participating in the new adventure Caine had set. As a result, Cue is left at the tent with Zooble and Caine, and takes part in the therapy session.

He shares Caine's curiosity of why Zooble doesn't take part in the adventures, which are, in his words, “pretty fun when you don't think about it too hard”.

This results in the two arguing; Zooble makes a comment about Cue's body and how he doesn't have to worry about it falling apart, to which he responds 'if you had my spherical think-cap, you'd want to stay here at the circus too'. Zooble responds with a befuddled ‘What?’, to which Cue replies the same.

When Zooble eventually opens up about hating their body and ‘finding the right pieces’, Cue's eyes were open towards their dilemma and went quiet for the rest of the session (Zooble takes note of this)

Cue approaches Zooble afterwards, wanting to apologize for any and all remarks he made about their body. He presents a gift to them as a further apology, hoping it would ‘help them in feeling more comfy in their body’

Though touched by the gesture, Zooble takes the opportunity to ask Cue something that bugged them for a while; why he insists on staying when nobody else does.

His response to Zooble was that ‘the others treat the place like a prison’, whilst he ‘treats it like he's home….’, before heading off to his room. Zooble stood there looking on, perturbed by Cue's answer…

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