#the amazing digital circus theory

[seven-oh-four]

okay i NEED to talk about something that's been driving me INSANE since the very first episode of the amazing digital circus.

okay so. in the first episode, when caine snaps his fingers to bring Ragatha back to normal, the scene places a strange amount of emphasis on the fact that this action also causes pomni's hand to go back to normal even though caine didn't know anything was wrong with her.

why?

well, y'know the gloink queen? she never actually... dies. kaufmo falls on her, causing her to spit out zooble, beats her up, glitches her out, but she's never destroyed. even as the gang leaves the gloink caves, you can hear her screaming.

she glitches out, but she's never destroyed.

and when caine snapped his fingers, everything stopped glitching, and they wanted to make sure you'd notice that.

but like. she's the gloink queen. she's just a tutorial boss. she's obviously not gonna come back, right? how would that even work? twist reveal that she was the mastermind all along?

then episode two came out, and my suspicions grew. episode two has a whole scene introducing a new character, The Fudge. The Fudge then dies via a truck from the sky, something that tragically happens all too often. The Fudge is never relevant again.

at the end of the episode, it's revealed that Jax left the gate open anyway, the Fudge survived, and he is now terrorizing the kingdom...

but... this is of absolutely no consequence. it's completely irrelevant. the gang just leaves.

okay so that's TWO big gloopy monsters that have a strange amount of emphasis placed on the fact they survived despite the fact that this never winds up addressed in the episode.

okay. so how about episoOh My God.

AGAIN. they have two whole shots dedicated to showing you that the creature survived, with scare chords and everything, and yet this STILL never comes up again!!!!!! what!! the hell!!! and fuck!!!!!

we've also had an entire episode focused on the concept of NPCs, and NPCs becoming self-aware.

so these monsters are obviously going to come back at some point. they HAVE TO. it'd be utterly ridiculous for them not to!

i just needed to get this off my chest. i need SOMEONE to know this.!!!! okay, bye!

bonus note: Gloink Queen says "GOD will be gloinks!" at the end of her evil monologue. we didn't know this at the time, but all of the NPCs refer to Caine as God.

[queen0fm0nsterz]

Ok so I have only watched TADC once and the first thing I'm drawn to right off the bat is Kinger.

He's quite the guy and I think moving forward he will be one of the more interesting character to delve into. One of the things about his personality that immediately comes off is that, in spite of his mind being a bit all over the place, he is actually fairly knowledgeable on the world they find themselves in.

Jax does express confusion when Kinger begins explaining to him how the food in the DC works, which could indicate that either he didn't take enough interest in Kinger to hear what he was actually saying most of the time (this could be the case as he seems to be super dismissive of just about everyone), or that Kinger doesn't express his knowledge often. I think it could be a mix of both.

Honestly, his mental state doesn't seem to be an act. I believe that, due to being in the Circus for so long, his mentality is verging more towards that of the npc characters like Caine -- wacky and nonsensical at times -- while also still retaining the capability of deeper though like the playable (player?) characters. I wonder if he kept the knowledge he has acquired overtime mostly to himself and just recently started to express it randomly because of the previously mentioned change in his mind.

When talking about Kaufmo, he is the first of all of them to realize that something was "wrong" with him and reaches the conclusion that he was going insane (which was later revealed to be correct as Kaufmo turned into an Abstraction). During that instance, he expresses his concern for Pomni's own mental state.

He's been here a long time. He's probably seen many others become Abstractions, just like Kaufmo: he knows what the warning signs are. The fact he also outright refuses to go check on Kaufmo indicates to him having an ounce on what might have happened to him, as well as the possibility of him knowing what the effects of being caught by an Abstraction are. Ragatha said she was in a lot of pain while glitching; it might be possible for Kinger have touched by an Abstraction in the past, or he watched it happen to someone else.

((Either way, Ragatha and Jax don't really seem to consider Kaufmo's Abstractification (?) at all when going up to check on him, meaning he might have been the first actual companion they had who turned into one.))

Another thing that shines through in his personality is that, in his own way, Kinger is a caring guy. When doing rock-paper-scissors with Gangle to decide who would have to save Zooble, he celebrates his victory before sprinting into action.

Gangle is visibly confused by this, as she was expecting to be the one who would have to help, but Kinger interpreted it differently and was more than happy to get Zooble help.

He's such a strange guy. I love him.

[guwix]

⬆️⬇️

I think everyone remembered the moment when Zooble began to "strangle" Jax, saying that at that moment he was "not breathing." At the same time, in episode 3, he says that "oxygen starvation" is not terrible for them. But, in parallel, he clearly did not like the fact that his airway was closed. Therefore, he tells us that "perhaps" he does not tolerate well without oxygen. Secondly, he is not an NPC, or he would not care if he breathes or not.

[xxinkys-ocsxx]

I just realised that one only person who's ever achally broken the forth wall is Jax because of the first time in episode 1

That could be brushed off as nothing since it was only once. But then in episode 3 Jax directly addresses the audience

Which causes Zooble to say "will you stop doing that?" showing he's done this enough times for it to be a regular thing

I personally think this is going to be a BIG detail in the future, and at this point I think we all know Jax is the most self aware but is probably (mabye second to Kinger) the most unstable when left alone. I don't really have anywhere else to take this post so I'll stop here and see what anyone else has to say about it

[bluebelleisabelle]

TADC episode 3 spoilers‼️

There’s something I noticed in the scene following Pomni’s possession. I’ve heard other people talk about Pomni saying “he just wants me to suffer”, and considering who the “he” is in this situation.

Now, I initially assumed it was Caine (which may be the case), but myself and others have begun to consider the possibility that it’s someone outside of the circus that forced/persuaded Pomni into putting on the headset. Which brings me to the real reason I am making this post…

Pomni says “I knew it would end up like this.” What does this mean exactly? She knew this particular adventure would end poorly? Or did Pomni have a feeling that putting on the headset was a bad idea, yet chose to do it anyway… potentially due to peer pressure or force.

I think you can see where I’m going with this. It lends into the theory of Pomni being an employee of the corporation that made the digital circus, potentially as a tester of the program. If what I’m interpreting is true, then Pomni saying “I knew it would end up like this” insinuates that Pomni had some inkling that putting on the headset was a bad idea, yet chose to do so anyway, likely because of this person that Pomni says wants to see her suffer. However, based off of the pilot episode, Pomni did not know that she would become trapped in the system, meaning that her uncertainty may have been due to something else.

Idk guys, thanks for indulging in my theories and considerations. This episode and its little moments of lore drops have me even more excited to discover what the digital circus is all about.

[lopsicle]

So after episode three of TADC come out and it was revealed that Kinger is able to act more stable in the dark, people realised that this moment from episode 2 was subtle foreshadowing.

So, how much do y’all wanna bet that this moment is gonna be totally decontextualised during Gangle’s episode?

[wakebymoonsleepbysun]

Is Caine actually bad at making adventures?

So far it's been hard to tell if the players actually enjoy the adventures. I mean, Zooble clearly doesn't but they also say that it doesn't have anything to do with the adventures themselves. Their breakdown of what the other characters think of the adventures I think is mostly accurate as well.

But again, how much of this has to do with the adventures themselves? Not a lot, I'd wager. The players are trapped in a digital realm. They have no way out. They forgot their very names, and I assume they don't remember most of their past lives, but the memories still echo around them. It's a maddening circumstance to be in, and adventures can only do so much.

That doesn't completely answer the question of if Caine is good at making adventures though. He can be given and impossible task AND still be quite bad at it, after all.

Pomni's line of "What time period is this supposed to be again?" and Kinger's "Wait how did he record this if he's already in hell?" point to the adventures having plot holes and kinda incongruent elements that are distracting. So...yeah, his current adventures are kinda jumbled in terms of plot and world-building.

But here's the thing...I think he used to be good at it. But the constant failures (or what he would see as failures) eroded his confidence, for lack of a better term. The engaging, well-thought out stories and worlds weren't cheering up the players as much as they were supposed to. He's exhausted all his ideas for good stories and gotten barely more than a lukewarm "Well that was fun I guess". He doesn't understand that no amount of fun adventuring can truly take away from the horror of being trapped in the digital realm.

So he gives the Max Max vehicles a candy aesthetic and puts them in medieval candyland, because why not at this point? It's worked just about as well as anything else. Maybe he notices that stark visual differences get called out as immersion-breaking pretty quick, so as long as the general looks of the art assets are congruent, maybe not much else matters? And half the time the adventurers seem to not even care about the plot or lore, so who really cares how he recorded the message from hell? Just drag em to hell! It'll be exciting!!

He used to be good. But in a way, the lack of enthusiasm from the players, which has nothing to do with how good the adventures actually are, is making it hard for him to determine what works and what doesn't. He was supposed to find commonality in the adventures the players enjoyed most and build on that. But their reactions are so lukewarm he doesn't have anything to build on, so he desperately throws together new combinations in hopes of getting a reaction. The adventures are getting worse but the players don't really care about them enough to react to that.

He was given an impossible task, and his lack of success is slowly driving him mad.

[hhbluedynamite]

TADC Theory: Abstract Vision

I was watching a buuuunch of TADC reaction videos (I'm normal, I swear), which meant I've seen the pilot multiple times.

It was through these viewings that it finally clicked to me.

While Abstracted, this is what Kaufmo was seeing.

Now, its okay to take this with a grain of salt because this is the pilot and things can be subjected to change.

I do still wonder if this is what all the Abstracted saw. The environment of the tent is overstimulating already and this vision seems to have worsened it, which may be why the Abstracted would act so aggressive. If so, then its no surprise that Queenie calmed down in the darkness of Kinger's fort.

And, remember: Abstracted Kaufmo, who was in the darkness of his room, didn't start attacking until after Jax opened the door, letting the blurry and blaring light of the Tent in.

And they're not the only ones whose minds ease out in darkness.

Kinger.

There is an idea that since Kinger touched Abstracted Queenie, his brain has been somewhat on the frizz and that's why he's insane. This doesn't mean that Kinger has been slowly Abstracting, his brain is just glitching out, like what happened to Ragatha. And, for Kinger's case, the glitching isn't as bad as it would've been because Queenie didn't attack him like Kaufmo did to Ragatha. Because its technically Kinger's mind glitching out, Caine can't fix it.

It does make me wonder if Kinger's vision is somewhat similar to the Abstracted, just not as severe.

And that's way he can think more clearly in the dark.

[toastedclownery]

Interesting

[prof-ramses]

There's a trailer for TADC episode 2

Let's just cut the shit, ratta-tat, pitter-patter and get this show on the road!!!!!

It looks to me like the adventure of the da will see the crew (minus Zooble, so screw me and the other Zooble fans, I guess) being taken to the candy castle town by and admittedly adorable gummiphant thingy. The last shot somewhat reminds me of Caine explaining what Gloinks are, so I can only assume the MPPEP syrup Bubble is presenting will be the mguffin of the adventure.

The gang will be provided with a candy truck for their quest, and Jax will be provided with a flintlicorice, because why not?

I'm honestly shocked Goose's love for Gummigoo didn't tip us off to him being evil, either way, it seems him and his 2 goons (one of which references Pizza Tower and is thus automatically a great character) will repeatedly try to stop our plucky performers from

We get 2 brief glimpses of Fudge Monster, who seems to have a hypnotic stare and is a good bit bigger than I expected.

Now for some misc. details.

Judging from the background, this might be Gummigoo finding himself in negative space in the code after the adventure he was made for is finished, which might build to something in future episodes.

I have no idea what's going on here, but it can't be good.

And lastly, when we see the May 3rd release date, Pomni specifically calls out that she was sent to a meat freezer, which makes me think episode 3 will be the one to take place at Spudsy's.

[metalichotchoco]

Since we know the performers are humans that entered the circus it’s interesting to theorize who they used to be before that. Of course we have very very little information but I still wanted to work with what we do have because it’s deceptively a lot. At least for 2 characters, but I’m not gonna talk about pomni. She has alot of religious imagery tied to her but there’s nothing really holding that together. Anyways imma talk about Kinger.

We are told 2 things outright about kinger, he’s been there the longest and he’s “crazy”

My theory is that Kinger was the lead developer/ someone high up that worked on the circus. Out of everyone he’s the one with the most logic when it comes to the world and how it works which is weird and insane to anyone looking in. A lot of this can be chalked up to pure experience but things like the nutritional value of food or timing when someone will abstract is a little outside things he should be aware of. He’s a white king chess piece.

White moves first in a game. He probably is the first to arrive, trying to test the game before the company sells it to the public. He’s also a weak but extremely important figure in the game. If anything gets too close to him, he’s in check essentially. The tent’s floors are also a chessboard theme which probably doesn’t mean anything but I wanted to mention it. He refers to himself as “royalty” and the lead developer of a game would probably be considered such. Everything is screaming that he’s important.

Under the cut I’ll talk about his other design elements

Out of the 4 characters that wear gloves only 2 both have white gloves, Kinger and Caine. White gloves also seem to be our “cursor” of sorts but that’s not the only thing these two have in common. They also have the same style of eyes, more bloodshot in kinger’s case, they are asymmetrical humanoid eyes that both share blue as one of their colors. It’s a bit strange that they share these traits when they could’ve totally gone fully unique. It feels almost deliberate.

They are both as crazy as each other but one is introverted and one is extroverted. Obviously they’ve known each other the longest so I wonder how their relationship is onscreen. Though something I’m realizing is that Kinger and Caine’s teasers were also connected! They were telling two sides of the same story. Bubble tries to chomp Kinger but Caine reels bubble back in.

I wonder if Kinger’s actual name is Abel.. that’s going too far I think lol. I need to see a fully green eyed character now

There’s definitely something here but I don’t expect my theory to actually be what canon will become lol.

[thecaptainamore]

OOOOKAYYYY yapping for upcoming TADC episode predictions/things I think would be neat💥💥

SO we know that this next episode is focused on Gangle, something to do with trying to figure out why her comedy mask always breaks and/or preventing it from breaking for once. We also know that this episode will be in the fast food place! (Spudsy’s yayyy)

Now this art came from a collab with Tower Records Cafe in Japan (so it’s official as far as what people are saying?)

Notice how Gangle looks more like a manager while everyone else is in matching employee uniforms. My theory is that Gangle will have to undergo the absolute joys of managing customer service (eye twitches in former Disney cast member) while the gang tries to keep her from breaking her mask. I think it would be neat if instead of some external force, it’s Gangle’s own stress that cracks the mask, eventually breaking it down completely. Then we get all her deep stuff woooo

OK THEN THE NEXT TWO EPISODES-

We’ve got this neat screenshot of a baseball stadium from the season teaser (which could be just a gag but I’d imagine it’s a hint for episode 5). We know that ep 5 will focus on Ragatha, then ep 6 on Jax. People have claimed that Goose said Jax will get what’s comin to him for being a jerk (I haven’t seen this but hey what do I know), and I think it would be neat if we saw that peak in these two episodes. Maybe in ep 5 the gang will compete in a baseball game, with Jax pushing Ragatha to her breaking point & she abstracts. Then the next episode he has to face the guilt of his actions & we can learn what his deal really is🤷🏼‍♀️ also I would just LOVE a baseball themed episode as a baseball girlie myself

ANYWHO ramble over, carry on

[th3-c0ll3ct3r]

Sips tea

So Caine can forget things, when he's told to "forget it" whether that's literally, figuratively or sarcastically etc...

So at a certain point Kinger probably told Caine to forget/explained he couldn't remember why he built the pillow forts, so Caine forget the limited knowledge about it

So when he made that super spooky mature challenge for Zooble, he remembered that someone faced a problem. He remembered that Zooble HAD a problem.

BUT he didn't remember who that problem belonged to because he was probably told to forget.

This also means that Caine probably knows how all the abstracted people died, and either was told forget about it or just never mentioned it.

Since the challenge I'm the 3rd episode was based off of a characters death, off screen that Caine couldn't remember who it belonged too, does that mean that the Candyland episode also relates to someone's death but we just don't know the character???

Has Caine run out of ideas to the point where he watches them do random lil thingys, then combines it with what he does remember, and then can get specifically tailor it to someone else's needs???

DOES THIS MEAN THAT CAINE CAN LITERALLY LEARN?? LIKE HE'S AN AI THAT CAN LEARN OR A PERSON WHO'S PART AI THAT CAN LEARN???

HE'S LEARNING TO USE THE CURRENT SITUATION PLUS WHAT HE KNOWS ABOUT OTHERS TO MAKE ADVENTURE BUT HE DOESN'T REMEMBER ENOUGH TO COMPLETE THEM THAT'S WHY THEY'RE ALWAYS HALF-FINISHED BECAUSE HE'S MISSING SOMETHING... or someone lol

[guwix]

Is Jax in a Digital Circus because of the "father"?

The art was made according to my Theory, or to put it more simply, thoughts. This theory is not confirmed, but I just want to point out a couple of points below about the origin of this thoughts.

1) Jax didn't react well to the Digital Circus when he appeared in it. Therefore, I have 3 thoughts. First, he was forced to enter the digital world, second, or he turned out to have someone from his neighbors. The third is simple, an accident, like the others.

https://www.tumblr.com/gooseworx/733036960374013952/i-wonder-how-jax-reacted-when-he-appeared-for-the?source=share

2) According to Gooseworx, Jax described the song (Michael Wyckoff, Kalya Ramu & Nathan Ford - Don't Fence Me In "Bonelab OST"). The lyrics of the song:

________

I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences

And gaze at the moon 'til I lose my senses

And I can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences

Don't fence me in

No

Poppa, don't you fence me in

________

https://www.tumblr.com/gooseworx/724963060172881920/if-you-were-to-describe-jax-as-a-song-what-song

3) In fact, Caine is as crazy as Jax. Which makes them very similar.

https://www.tumblr.com/gooseworx/748356006599393280/why-does-caine-keep-teleporting-everyone-in-random?source=share

4) Gooseworx's response: Jax and Caine are modelled after my own character flaws.

https://www.tumblr.com/gooseworx/732138901035253760/what-character-from-tadc-do-you-relate-to-the?source=share

5) Caine doesn't like it when someone uses "swear words". And it is known that the only ones who do not produce them are Jax and Gangle.

https://www.tumblr.com/gooseworx/745615556801167360/please-tell-me-every-character-will-curse-multiple?source=share

6) Even though Jax is an "impulsive jerk," he won't hit Caine.

https://www.tumblr.com/gooseworx/748357128936472576/if-someone-had-the-chance-to-just-straight-up?source=share

7) There have been theories that Caine is "maybe" human, so feeling "lonely" for AI is a bit strange.

https://www.tumblr.com/gooseworx/738007673867534336/can-caine-feel-loneliness?source=share

8) In episode 2, "Caine was called God." I assume that the person did not appoint the main AI, or if Caine rebelled against people having the authority of an "administrator", then it would be problematic...

9) As we know, Jax has interesting passions for us: He takes objects out of nowhere, steals keys, breaks 4 walls for the audience, in the Pilot he, like Pomni, interacted more often with Caine, detachment, in the Glitch store pin Jax, they do not want to tell his room to the end.

None of the points particularly supports my theory, at the moment it's just one of my thoughts.

[the-old-man-has-the-phonebox]

So you know that whole “Caine & Abel/‘Able’”theory that me and a bunch of people had when the pilot premiered?

What if Caine isn’t exactly an AI in the game? Or, at least, in the way that we think he is?

What if Caine’s a password cracker?

Hear me out: Caine is there because people got stuck in the game, and the rest of the development team back in reality is panicking because they can’t get them back out from their end. So they enact a password recovery software to, quite literally, recover them.

Caine’s there to keep them entertained and to prevent them from abstracting. He’s basically keeping them occupied while the irl team works on trying to get them out of the game.

Caine can only create fake exits instead of real ones because he physically cannot create real ones. His ability is limited to getting the key, not opening the door with it, let alone creating said door on his own.

[whotfletamothhyperfx]

Thinking about how in episode three in the darkness Kingers wife calmed down to the point that he could touch her one last time before being sent to the Celler which meant there probably is some part of the people still conscious when they’re abstracted

Which made me think back to that scene in episode one where we saw from an abstractions POV and all of the light is brightened and the colours are fucked and overall their vision is so intense and overwhelming which makes the fact when in almost total darkness they seem to calm down a bit since the overwheming colours are now gone

But then this leaves open the very horrifying possibility that in the Celler all the abstractions are probably completely conscious and nonviolent since if you look at it the only light source is literally the hole cain opens up and then closes meaning they are CONSTANTLY in total darkness in there.