Caine / TADC

Caine is a nonsensical, over-the-top, vivacious ringleader. However, there is a distance about him and a significant disconnection towards the traumatic events the humans experience, illustrated by his forgetfulness of Zooble's criticisms of their own form and his adventures, as well as his apparent lack of concern towards the abstracted. Despite his penchant for taking humans captive and tormenting them through hilariously and potentially deadly circus games and tricks, Caine is not outright evil, but rather obliviously mischievous.There is also often a whole spectrum of human emotion that he is not able to feel. However, when put under duress, emotions that he does not normally feel can come out and lead to risky behavior.Caine is not particularly honest, often concealing or even lying about certain and even important information, even to himself, all to protect his world and identity. This is taken to the point of gaslighting the other members, such as when he quickly blamed the exit door which Pomni saw on "Digital Hallucinations" and so far, these ventures seem to be driven entirely by naïve and misguided intentions. Caine struggles with deep insecurities and low self-esteem, even if he tries to hide it behind his extravagant and goofy sense of showmanship. In fact, he is driven by a deep-seated fear that he will be left alone in the circus as well as have no one to appease with his creations. In fact, at the same time, Caine is completely fixated on pleasing the humans through his adventures and antics, since that is the only purpose he believes he was created for. Even though he wants to make them happy, he does not handle criticism well, as it makes him feel like he is failing at the one thing he is supposed to be good at. He also wishes for them to enjoy his adventures and secretly does not like following suggestions they give him, although they show content with this.

Caine is dressed as a ringmaster, sporting a cerise tailcoat with a metallic gold undertone, a black collar with white lining, and a black bowtie. He wears a white undershirt with two red buttons, cartoonish white gloves, and slightly reflective, black latex leggings with matching black tap shoes that appear fused into one continous form as if they were rendered as a single piece. Lacking most human features, his head is a pair of dentures with pearly-white teeth and red gums. His eyes, which feature a green left iris and a blue right one, float inside the jaw. Due to the cartoonish nature of the animation style, his jaws are expressive, moving as a mouth when speaking, with the top row of teeth acting as eyebrows at times. Similarly to Bubble, he forms a tongue when needed. He wears a black top hat with a cerise band and tends to hold a gold-tipped black staff. Occasionally, he is seen wearing The Wacky Watch. Following his mental breakdown, his irises become notably darker, almost black even in direct light. They sometimes flash red and blue. In extreme cases, Caine's whole body will distort, such as polygons being stretched or using a wireframe texture.

Appearance As his name suggests, Bubble is a large, round bubble with large, sharp, even teeth, and round black dots for eyes, constantly displaying a vacant expression. Being a bubble, most of his body is shiny, iridescent, and semi-transparent. When it is necessary, Bubble can form a long, reddish-silver tongue that he seems to share with Caine. When his mouth is closed, his teeth are still faintly outlined. His pupils are capable of enlarging. Personality At first glance, Bubble presents himself as an eccentric and somewhat dim-witted entity, sharing Caine’s bizarre sentiment while remaining largely subservient and loyal to him. He is notably mischievous and impatient, often interrupting others with questions before they can finish speaking, and occasionally being a nuisance. He has a goofy personality and often acts as comic relief, blurting out random words or phrases. Despite frequently being popped by Caine, he appears largely unbothered by it and ironically enjoys it. Bubble's nature however transitions throughout the narratives, onward as his behavior and overall allegiance towards Caine begins to shift. The first notable instance is telling Caine to 'die' before glitching out and rephrasing his worlds, telling Caine to 'throw ****ing beach party' (despite Caine's rule against profanity). While Bubble does revert to his loyalty in the next episode, this does not last long. Bubble's growing defiance towards Caine is greatly emphasized, revealing his awareness of Caine’s origins and those of his mysterious counterpart (the unidentified AI), even going so far as to directly call Caine inferior. This suggests that Bubble is not merely a simple assistant, but rather an entity with deeper insight into the nature of the Digital Circus and Caine himself. Despite Caine's attempts to silence Bubble, it starts to become apparent that Bubble is just as manipulative or if not more-so than Caine and is willing to turn against him when Caine falters.

Appearance Kinger is an alder wood king chess piece. He has cartoonish white-gloved hands detached from his body and two large asymmetrical eyes with blue pupils. Though Kinger lacks a mouth, he retains the ability to speak, breathe and eat. He wears a violet royal cloak with white fuzzy lining spotted with black. Personality Kinger is erratic and paranoid, most likely derived from his time in the circus. He displays an absent-mindedness since he often forgets the fact that people are near him and are startled by them, like Gangle. Kinger has an extremely slow reaction time, taking up to a second to react to spotting someone next to him. Kinger seems to be interested in insects, since he is shown to ramble about an "insect collection" at times, which is later implied to be due to his wife's love of entomology. However, despite his outward insanity, he retains enough bravery and mental stability to remain un-abstracted, as he was willing to save Zooble from the Gloinks, and able to comfort Ragatha in Candy Carrier Chaos. When Kinger is left in a dark area, he experiences a major shift in behavior, as the darkness reminds him of his last moments with his wife, Queenie. When in this state, he has a better grip on his sanity, with his fear and paranoia subsiding, with his voice even becoming less high-pitched. Consequently, Kinger reveals a wiser and compassionate side to him. He is more thoughtful in this stage. However, this stability will virtually vanish upon Kinger entering lit areas again, with Kinger barely remembering all, what was before. Kinger associates tall, bright things with beauty and by extension, Queenie. Kinger is very emotionally intelligent, which shows significantly whenever he's in a dark area. He still hones a deep care for his fellow circus members when he's able to grasp his sanity.

Ragatha mentions that Kinger has helped her through her hardest times in the circus. Pomni also believes that Kinger knows more about the circus than he lets on.

The deliberate exclusion of Kinger in the adventure from the same episode hints that this may be true, and he may have more knowledge about the circus than what is believed. This is further proven by him mentioning Scratch, who was the first human to ever abstract due to Caine tampering with his mind files too much.

Personality Zooble is very grouchy, irritable and quite annoyed, especially when a piece of them happens to be in the wrong place. Like Pomni, they suffer an identity crisis as they don't exactly know what they are, and as a result of this they suffer from body/gender dysphoria, and despite Caine's attempts to provide Zooble new parts, they have yet to find anything they like. Zooble lacks any enthusiasm when it comes to Caine's adventures, more often choosing to opt out of them and do their own thing for the day. Zooble doesn't know what their gender is, because they're questioning their identity, as mentioned before. In future, Zooble has actually gotten more comfortable with their body and decided they didn't need to commit to one set of parts all the time. Zooble can be a bit rude, such as when they curse at the others, telling them to **** off, and how when they got captured by the Gloinks and called Kinger and Jax idiots for not helping them. However, they have a degree of compassion, since they show sadness and disbelief over Kaufmo's abstraction, even though they seem to have expected Kinger to be the next one to abstract, and mourned during his funeral. Another example, when they give Gangle a mask from their Zooble Box to replace her comedy mask after Jax broke it. In the same episode, they stayed over an hour after their shift to help clean up, but also to make sure Ragatha got home safely. Zooble begins to open up more, confessing that they had goals and dreams they wanted to achieve outside the circus and begins to cry when told that the group might have to consider abandoning their plans to escape, even giving Gangle a massive hug when she tries to reassure them. Zooble goes a step further by reaching out to Jax, not wanting him to abstract and saying that he's still one of them despite being a "pain in the ***".

Zooble also begins to feel remorseful when Caine starts tormenting the circus members, apologizing to everyone after he forces them all to go on torturous adventures out of spite, saying that they never should have antagonised him so much.

Appearance Zooble is made of random colorful shapes and parts that make them resemble a Mix-and-Match toy.Despite this,some features are consistent throughout:Zooble's head has been a hot pink isosceles triangle tilted onto its side.Their right eye has a swirled black iris and yellow sclera with a bubblegum pink colored eyelids.Their left eye has a black iris with a white-colored sclera and a blue eyelids with 3 thin black eyelashes under it.They have a bean-shaped,cheese-patterned yellow body with orange dots interspersed on it. And,just for science,they're a non-binary person.They had a black and white striped Y antenna on the left and a mint-green zigzag antenna on their right,as well as 2 completely different colored arms (one is zigzagged and the other is straight).Additionally the top of their body had various sockets for appendages to be attached to with their head being attached to the top socket with a magenta neck.Their right arm was on their middle right socket being straight and orange ending with a yellow glove while their left arm was on their topmost left socket being exasperatingly long having a red squiggly segment with a pink joint featuring the rest of their arm being yellow and ending with a red crab-like claw.They had a turquoise moon,with a flamingo pink wing as either a sleeve or an accessory on their topmost right socket.The bottom most sockets of their body were occupied by both their legs,which protruded out of the side of their body instead of the bottom.Their right leg had a squiggly mint-green segment with the bottom having a purple joint and ends with an orange swirl,which made up the bottom part of their leg.Their left leg was completely straight dark blue and bends with a matching shoe.Zooble's antennae twitch whenever they are upset.

Appearance Pomni is a short humanoid character with a large head, slim limbs, and white skin. Her face has a cartoon mime look, with small light red oval markings under and slightly behind her eyes that resemble blush, though how visible they are change depending on her expression. She has black eyelids and thick outlines around her eyes. Her pupils usually appear as a red and blue pinwheel pattern, but when she becomes anxious or afraid, they shift into black rings or turn into messy, animated scribbles. She also has asymmetrical eyelashes, her left eye having them on the top lid and her right on the bottom.Her hair is short and straight, usually appearing black. Two small pieces stick out from under her hat, while two longer strands frame the sides of her body. Most of her hair is hidden under her headwear, which is almost always her jester hat.She is the shortest out of the main cast. Her outfit is in line with a jester. She wears a jumpsuit with a leotard-styled torso, short sleeves, and short, puffy leggings that extend from it. The torso has an inverted color pattern, with blue on the right and red on the left, which swaps on the back. Her sleeves and shorts follow that same pattern. Yellow accents are spread throughout, including two spheres on the front of her torso, rings on her sleeves, around her waist, and above and at the ends of her shorts. She also has small yellow circles on her shoulders, though they are often hidden by her hair, along with a collar. On her head, she wears a two-armed jester hat with an inverted striped pattern, a yellow brim, and small yellow bells at the tips. She also wears gloves and shoes, with the left glove blue and the right red, while the shoes follow the opposite color pattern. Both pairs have yellow rings near their edges.

Personality Initially, Pomni was high-strung, shy, and tense. she is extremely anxious and troubled regarding her predicament, even succumbing to denial and signs of delusion. When she finds the "exit", she experiences moderate signs of paranoia and believes she is hallucinating. She's quite clumsy as she tends to accidentally bump into things and people. Pomni has a degree of both empathy and selfishness. After having somewhat acclimated to her predicament, Pomni adopts a more apathetic and cynical view, pointing out discrepancies in the Circus's scenarios and being detached from the adventures, not seeing the point in following along. She is more hot-tempered as she yells at the gang (specifically Jax) for their plans leaving her in mortal peril. Despite this, Pomni is rather compassionate. Overtime, Pomni grows closer to the others after seeing how much they cared for each other during Kaufmo's funeral.

Personality Ragatha is described as "the sweetest little optimist." At first glance, that optimism seems simple and genuine. She often feels like she is forcing herself to stay upbeat, almost like it is the only way she can keep it together. Even when she goes through serious injuries or intense situations, she brushes them off like they are nothing. Over time, this starts to come across as unnatural. Gangle points out that the constant positivity Ragatha expresses can feel disingenuous after a while. Jax adds that she tries a little too hard, to the point where it can seem like she is using that attitude to get something out of people. Even with all of that, Ragatha is very forgiving. Even so, she is not endlessly patient and does have her limits, but tends to keep those feelings buried so she does not start conflict or make things worse. Ragatha ends up getting hurt pretty often, but since she is a doll, she can ignore most of the pain and sometimes laugh it off. That does not mean she enjoys it. She still wants to avoid getting hurt and clearly gets annoyed when others, especially Jax, put her in those situations. Ragatha is also very sensitive to how others see her, and cares a lot about their opinions. At one point, she admits to Kinger that she feels like Pomni does not really like her. Ragatha doesn't seem to hold any form of grudge. In fact, she is concerned for Pomni for what she has been through since entering the circus and thinks she doesn't like her due to the entire ordeal. Her habit of trying to please everyone and quickly forgiving others can be seen as a reflection of her fear of being disliked or rejected, along with a general fear of emotional pain. She was not always this composed. When she first arrived, she was just as scared and nervous as Pomni. Over time, she had to find ways to cope so she could accept her situation. Ragatha deals with stressful situations by internalizing. She deeper insecurities.

These are tied to past trauma from her overbearing mother and a strong fear of being hated or failing to build real friendships. After Kinger shares some advice with her, Ragatha starts easing up on herself.

Appearance Ragatha is a humanoid ragdoll with messy, shoulder-length yarn-like red hair in a long bob cut, thin black eyebrows, a flat scarlet triangular nose, and a dark blue button as her right eye. She has light beige skin and a black pupil in her actual eye with pink eyelids and thin dark red lips. When she holds her breath, her hair goes up in the air. She has long stump-like legs. Ragatha wears a mid-sleeve cornflower-blue dress with puffed sleeves and darker patches sewn on over a collared white underdress with ruffled sleeves and a large bow in her hair that matches her gown. She sports black shoes.

Appearance Gangle appears to be made up of four candy-red ribbons that form a humanoid shape. Her face is a white porcelain mask with black eyes and mouth. Her body consists of the main mass of the ribbons that curl, making a spring shape that spirals four times, two ribbons that form her legs, and a single ribbon for her arms (one end is the right arm, while the other end is her left arm). Whenever her Comedy Mask gets broken or removed, her next mask appears, switching to a sad version of the former, clarified as her Tragedy Mask. The Comedy Mask is just used to make her look happy, not actually change her emotion. It is shown she can smile even with the Tragedy Mask. Personality Gangle's emotions and behavior are influenced by which mask she is currently wearing. However, it is revealed that these masks do not completely change her mood, rather they are a literal form of "masking" and are not the sole deciders of her personality. The masks merely change the way Gangle's feelings are presented. When she has her Comedy Mask, her tone, posture, and behavior is masked as pleasant, upbeat, and extroverted. Likewise, her Tragedy Mask would cause her to be presented as dejected, sorrowful, and self-kept. Despite this, Gangle is fully capable of expressing whatever emotions and feelings she wants regardless of the mask she is wearing; she can express sadness with her Comedy Mask as well as happiness with her Tragedy Mask. Due to her mask breaking easily, Gangle is fragile in both a literal and figurative sense. Because of her emotional fragility, Gangle is an easy target for Jax's taunts, who enjoys tormenting her. Zooble themself points out that Gangle is too shy to speak up, possibly to avoid conflict with the other Circus members. Gangle had positive feelings towards Ragatha, although she acknowledged that Ragatha could sometimes be seen as disingenuous.

Through, her friendship with Zooble grows, and she stands up to Jax more, starting a vote to give him a maid outfit after the idea is planted into her head by Zooble, and even goes to Zooble asking them to hold her Comedy Mask as she talks about wanting to fire a Tommy gun while wearing said mask and doesn't want to risk breaking it. She then expresses to Zooble that she doesn't know how she should like the side she thinks makes her worse than everyone, to which, once Zooble teaches her about self-love, it revitalizes Gangle's confidence. This seems to have helped Gangle finally accept herself for who she is, as when she gets eliminated by Pomni, her Comedy Mask breaks again, but behind it, her Tragedy Mask instead dawns a happy expression that the Comedy Mask would typically make her have. In future, Gangle has grown significantly both psychologically and socially. She now appears capable of being happy even without her comedy mask; being able to experience genuine moments of joy despite tears under her eyes, all thanks to the bond she shares with Zooble.

Appearance Jax is a tall, anthropomorphic rabbit whose design elements evoke the look of rubberhose characters, despite having actual joints. He has long bunny ears on the top of his oval-shaped head, and his overall build is tall and slender, with a rather long neck. Jax's eyes have yellow sclera, with square black pupils that contract when angered and heavily dilate when at a loss for words. His eyes change into animated scribbles when he is stressed or anxious. Jax's yellow teeth usually have a flat shape to them, but when his mouth is opened, his teeth appear sharp and jagged. Almost whenever talking, his teeth stay closed while only his lips move. Jax has thin black eyebrows that appear in the majority of scenes. Jax has a small spherical tail. Jax wears light pink overalls and pale yellow gloves. His overalls feature yellow buttons, a single lighter pink pocket on the front, and lighter pink roll-up cuffs at the hem. He is usually barefoot. Personality Jax is a mischievous, occasionally flat-out bloodthirsty, laid-back, calm, sassy, impulsive, egotistical, arrogant, sarcastic, and brazenly condescending individual, who rarely shows any empathy or remorse for those. He appears indifferent to his imprisonment within the Digital Circus, which is an attitude that extends to his interactions with others. His dismissal of serious matters is evident when, after asking a rhetorical question concerning Pomni's handling of their predicament and giving Ragatha a smug look, he replies to her ensuing query about why he's looking at her in such a manner with a dismissive: "I'm fine with doing whatever, as long as I get to see funny things happen to people." Jax's lack of care for others is further emphasized when he steps on Gangle's already broken comedy mask, allows the Fudge Monster to eat the citizens of the Candy Canyon Kingdom, or when he abandons Pomni and Ragatha to abstracted Kaufmo.

He pays little to no mind to the opinions of others and the group's consensus does not concern him. Rather than engaging authentically with the others, he seems to participate in the general activities of the Digital Circus only for his amusement, thus making him a bit of a trickster. Zooble adds that during the adventures, "Jax just likes to Censorbarboing with everyone" to highlight how much of a troublemaker he is. Despite these occasional bouts of rash, impetuous behavior, like breaking a "Spare" sign for no reason, he normally maintains a calm and composed demeanor, yet his flattery is generally insecure and often borders on outright insult. Arguably, Jax is inherently selfish, only spurred into action against the Gloinks when they begin to pester him. he insinuating a singular concern for his well-being. He also was the only one of the captives to not show up for Kaufmo's funeral, however he is shown to be briefly saddened by it before quickly snapping back to his normal attitude, showing that he does to some extent care for his friends and that his total lack of care for them is merely a front to avoid bonding. Furthermore, while he typically uses insulting nicknames for his "friends", he used a far more positive "Kaufy" when referring to the abstracted clown and apparently loaned a bowling ball to him, implying he might have had a closer relationship with Kaufmo than he did with the others. Jax is fond of bloodshed, combat, death, and chaos. He shows very little regard for the well-being of his fellow captives. However, he did save Gangle and Kinger from Kaufmo's abstracted form, hiding them both with the bowling ball before jumping down with them in the Gloink Hole, showing he does care for the others, but hides it with his cruelty. Jax fears being vulnerable around others; despite briefly feeling sad, he refuses to attend Kaufmo's funeral. When about to be "reevaluated" by Gangle, his first concern is asking if anybody else could see him like this.

Likewise, despite being utterly exhausted from his day at Spudsy's, he refused to stop smiling in front of the others and only let his exhaustion show when he was outside and alone. Jax does not like being the subject of ridicule. Also, Jax is afraid of corn, no matter how strange it may sound. He generally shaves a large cluster of small holes. and, this means that he has Trypophobia.

Appearance The Abstracted appear as black monsters consisting of a semi-amorphous mass of jagged, polygonal spikes that rapidly shift and roil about, appearing somewhat iridescent like oil. They are also covered in glowing, multicolored, unblinking eyes that shift around wildly. Personality Abstractions are mindless, feral, hyper-aggressive beasts that chase down and ruthlessly attack anyone and anything in their way, regardless of if they are a human character or an NPC. It is currently unknown if there remains any memories or consciousness of the victim after transformation. Negative emotions or memories might still remain, as implied by Kaufmo being particularly violent against Ragatha when she mentioned not liking his jokes in her attempts to calm him. Although those abstracted become vicious and cannot be returned to lucidity, the darkness seems to bring some stability to them and can even cause them to be aware and less mindless.

Abstraction occurs for various reasons. but, most often, because of strong negative emotions. depression, mental and physical condition, inability to forget someone dear who is no longer there, and even a simple quarrel – all these can become provocateurs of abstraction. although, perhaps, abstraction can be interrupted if it has not completely occurred.