TADC - Cooking

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 (such as eating an angel-food cake that Caine had offered to Pomni in the pilot). Despite frequently being popped by Caine, he appears largely unbothered by it and ironically enjoys it.

Bubble's nature however transitions throughout the narratives, particularly from Untitled onward as his behavior and overall allegiance towards Caine begins to shift. The first notable instance is telling Caine to

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. When his mouth is closed, his teeth are still faintly outlined. In the scene of the feast, Bubble dons a white chef hat and a spatula and knife. His pupils are capable of enlarging.

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.[3] There is also often a whole spectrum of human emotion that he is not able to feel.[4] 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. Near the end of Candy Carrier Chaos!, Caine shows a real fear that he might lose track of who is an AI and who is a human, which he claims could lead to problems later on.

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, as seen in the end of They All Get Guns. In extreme cases, Caine's whole body will distort, such as polygons being stretched or using a wireframe texture.

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.

Gangle is referred to by Jax as one of the most "mentally stable and capable characters" in a mocking manner. 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. At the end of "Fast Food Masquerade", Gangle expresses her concern that she will be hated by everyone after the events of the episode.

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 by Gooseworx 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.

Zooble is very grouchy, irritable and quite annoyed 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, leading to them having body/gender dysphoria, and despite Caine's attempts to provide Zooble new parts, they have yet to find anything they like. This leads to Zooble's lack of enthusiasm when it comes to Caine's adventures,[7] more often choosing to opt out of them and do their own thing for the day. Zooble doesn't know what their gender is.[3] This is most likely because they're questioning their identity. In Beach Episode, 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 Censorbarboing 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 is during Episode 4, 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. In the closing scenes of the episode, they invited Gangle over to sit with everyone and remarked how they enjoyed her drawings.

Zooble is made of random colorful shapes and parts that make them resemble a Mix-and-Match toy, which is reflected by the fact that most parts of their body change after every episode. Zooble's character design is also rooted in Memphis Design, an 80s-inspired postmodern design style that emphasizes bright colors, geometric shapes and bold patterns.

Despite this, some features are consistent throughout the series:

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.

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, having defended Pomni from the Angel and giving her a pep talk afterward. He is more thoughtful in this stage, allowing him to discern from Mildenhall's tapes that the way to pass through Hell was for the two to hold their breaths. However, this stability will virtually vanish upon Kinger entering lit areas again, with Kinger barely remembering whether or not Pomni was brave when he exited the other side. Kinger associates tall, bright things with beauty and by extension, Queenie, especially when seeing the Angel for the first time.

Kinger is very emotionally intelligent, which shows significantly whenever he's in a dark area. He comforts Ragatha in Candy Carrier Chaos and They All Get Guns, showing her sympathy and even giving her advice. He still hones a deep care for his fellow circus members when he's able to grasp his sanity.

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.

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 around him. 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 is a tall, anthropomorphic periwinkle[5] cartoon rabbit whose design elements evoke the look of rubber hose 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. Additionally, 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 together while only his lips move. Jax has thin black eyebrows that appear in the majority of scenes. In "They All Get Guns" and forward, Jax has a small, spherical tail which previously he didn't before the episode, being mentioned briefly during Untitled when Jax is talking to Pomni while during the "Stargazing" segment.

Jax wears light, pink-colored overalls and pale-yellow gloves. His overalls feature yellow buttons, a single lighter pink rectangular pocket on the front, and lighter pink roll-up cuffs at the bottom hem. He is usually barefoot.

Ragatha is described as "the sweetest little optimist." At first glance, that optimism seems simple and genuine.[5] However, it is soon revealed that there is more going on underneath. 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 a bit 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 shows that she is very forgiving. When Pomni leaves her behind while running from the abstracted Kaufmo, Ragatha does not hold it against her and instead understands why she reacted that way. 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 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 that sometimes appears purple 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.

Initially, Pomni was high-strung, shy, and tense. In the pilot episode, 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, as she goes back to check on Ragatha after the latter was attacked by an abstracted Kaufmo and promises Ragatha that she'd find Caine to fix her. However, Pomni's desire to escape the digital circus overrode this, as she entered the exit door upon finding it and left Ragatha behind. She later felt remorse for this once Ragatha was fixed by Caine.

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 as she comforts and bonds with Gummigoo during his existential crisis. She encourages him by telling him he still has purpose and inviting him to follow her back to the Circus. Overtime, Pomni grows closer to the others after seeing how much they cared for each other during Kaufmo's funeral. This is especially after she receives advice from Kinger (who temporarily regained his sanity). She thanked Ragatha for always being considerate to her and apologized for not showing appreciation until that moment.

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 but sometimes brown depending on the lighting.[8] This is additionally seen in promotional material and merchandise. 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. During the softball game, she wears a baseball cap instead, showing more of her hair, which looks closer to a bob cut. 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. In some early official art, her gloves matched her shoes instead, but this was changed in the final version. This design change was made because lead animator Kevin Temmer suggested swapping the color of Pomni's gloves so that they would contrast with the colors of her shoes and her outfit on the same sides as them.