astrania

Please remember these are just my interpretations and not at all fact! I'm so sorry I'm bad at explaining my thoughts or not sounding disjointed. Yes, English is my first language, I'm just bad at it.

Zooble:

The most obvious person with the most disdain for their body within the circus is zooble. He openly complains about how no matter what parts he puts or in what order nothing ever feels "good" to them. And yet when giving these complaints to Caine, he simply brushes them off saying that zooble simply hasn't found the right parts yet in their never ending box. I mean, you could argue that Caine just does not care and is intentionally trying to brush aside their concerns. But at least to me, it didn't exactly seem that way. To him, Caine was actually trying to let them explore their own personal self-expression. Their intention was to let zooble liberate themselves from any set identity and instead choose to let themselves be fluid in their body, and yet that just ends up hurting Zooble more because they just cannot find a look that suits them. There will never be a Zooble part that Zooble likes, because Zooble doesn't even like Zooble. No amount of pieces will change that and all it will do is give her a false sense of hope without pushing them to make any actual meaningful change. Caine genuinely had the best of intentions but didn't understand that the problem went beyond just feeling unsatisfied with how they looked and wanting a change.

Gangle:

Gangle is the only other one with avatar gimmicks. Her one is seemingly quite cruel, having a fragile "happy mask" that improves her mood however breaks on almost every single adventure. I don't think Caine was intending this as punishment for gangle being a sensitive character, this can be seen when Caine after an adventure fixes her happy mask without being asked to. I think the happy mask was meant to give Gangle some sense of control over their emotions and how they felt. By letting them have an endlessly resetting happy mask, it gives GANGLE the control on when they want to feel happy. However that is just a temporary solution to a more permanent issue. Gangle is completely reliant on their happy mask but it's constantly breaking, yet she isn't pushed to try and find her own joy because to her it's a futile task. There is something fundamentally broken about Gangle that she believes she cannot change. She will never be happy because she is literally built that way. Obviously that's disproven in episode 6 but before then she was stuck in this mindset. Caine did not intend for this to happen, he thought giving her the illusion of control over her emotions for once would help but Gangle will never be able to control her emotions unless she finds her own purpose instead of giving up and accepting defeat.

Ragatha:

Finally, ragatha. Her avatar is a literal ragdoll. Being used, thrown around and discarded. This is paralleling her mother's treatment towards her in real life. Ragatha, unlike zooble and gangle, doesn't show much outward dislike towards how she looks. However, while the others are also always facing weird circus related hijinks, hers always seem to be a bit more violent. She is constantly associated with knives, being impaled, getting her ass handed to her and glitching out, getting deep fried, l could go on. I don't think this was Caine's way of cementing her role as the series punching bag, instead his best attempt at reflecting Ragatha's constant need for outward appearances and affection. Dolls are pretty, perfect, feminine and Ragatha model reflects that. And yet, Ragatha always ends up in pain because of her lack of self agency despite looking completely fine from the outside. This was Caine's genuine attempt at fulfilling Ragatha's goal of getting people to like her or the "concept" of her. Maybe even a deep seated desire to, despite being 30 years old, get her mother's approval. Obviously, putting a bandaid solution onto a problem like this will never work. An abuser will never stop being abusive even if you reach their outrageously high expectations. That's the cat and mouse chase they want you to believe, and Ragatha is still stuck in it. Though, she has gotten better.

I'm so sorry if this is disjointed. I am notoriously bad at expressing my own thoughts and feelings but im trying to practice through tadc

This is also very much a theory. There have almost definitely been someone else noticing these things but I just haven't seen it. If anyone else has a different interpretation I'd love to hear it!

im never gonna finish this btw so this is all you get.