michelin tire guy

Caine making it so she was named Gangle just cus he listened to Jax was a dick thing to do, but if Gangle's healing came with choosing her own name, that would've been nice.

Pomni devotes herself to Jax, focusing so much on her that she neglects her relationships with everyone else. Even after she witnessed his fantasies about strangling her and sexually harassing Gangle and learned he caused the abstractions of Ribbit and Kaufmo, she still tried to save Jax. Why was she so drawn to Jax? Did she remind Pomni of someone from her real life? Was Pomni in a similar situation in the past? We never see why she fixates on befriending and helping Jax while essentially writing everyone else off despite their share of problems.

Out of everyone Pomni could’ve chosen, she chose an abuser who pushed two people toward suicide and tormented two others for years. Only after Jax’s abstraction did she stop fixating on her and remember Ragatha, suddenly claiming they’re “best friends” despite having neglected their relationship and befriending her abuser.

there was no indication that this was even possible, it felt like such a deus ex machina. the only possible canonical explanation is that since Caine was gone now, going into an abstracted person's mind was suddenly possible. but if that were the explanation, it wasn't very clear.

and if that wasn't the explanation and really they could have always gone into the minds of abstracted members and talk to them, that's just a gut punch to all the other abstracted characters. no one other than Pomni thought to do this??

TADC constantly feels like Gooseworx pulling new rules out of her ass, like an elementary school girl playing with dolls. anything goes in TADC as long as it all revolves around Jax.

Kaufmo goes crazy trying to find the exit. and then he abstracts. it felt like a huge conspiracy, like there was something off about his situation. like there was someone trying to silence him.

to me, this seemed like maybe Caine was directly inflicting the abstractions upon members. maybe there was an exit and Caine was causing these people to abstract whenever they got dangerously close to finding out the exit.

but then it turns out, no. Kaufmo was just actually crazy. there's no exit and the abstraction is just indicative of an unstable mind, period.

idk it just feels like such a cop out. i wasn't entirely against a story where they couldn't escape and had to stay in the circus. but this was the laziest way to do it.

Yet Pomni immediately jumps in and hugs Jax’s abstracted form without a second thought.

I assume she was acting on instinct rather than thinking things through and it was meant to show her reckless side. I wish we had seen more of that side of her in the show because being a thrill seeker and a little reckless is how she ended up here in the first place.

So Pomni was willing to condemn herself to suffering for the rest of her digital life with no way to manage the symptoms.

I could understand that kind of sacrifice if it were for a family member, a close friend or a partner. But she did it for someone who had treated her terribly the entire time she’d been there, repeatedly made it clear he didn’t want her help and pushed her away until the very end. Because she felt guilty, maybe? What more could have she done?

If I were to rewrite one major thing about the circus’ lore, I would scrap Scratch and just have the co-creator be Queenie. Now, this isn’t because I dislike Scratch, but because I think his introduction was abrupt and contributes to TADC’s issue of too many random characters being introduced way too late in the story, as well as their utilization for major plot points instead of just expanding on our already established main characters instead (ex: Ribbit is another prime example of this).

Before the introduction of Scratch, I always assumed Kinger played a key role in developing Caine. This goes back since episode 1. However, another key aspect of my theory included Queenie as the co-developer of Caine. Now, how did I exactly jump to this conclusion?

When we first hear about Queenie in the 3rd episode of TADC, Kinger describes her personality to Pomni. We hear that she was funny, creative, but what really caught my eye was her interest in entomology.

Now, in the same episode, we see Caine draw a bee onto his sketch pad during Zooble’s “therapy session”.

This interest in bees doesn’t just stop here, as in future episodes, we see more of Caine’s obsession with these little insects.

Now, how does this exactly come to play with my former theory/rewrite idea? Well, in the 1990s, bee patterns/biology would be used to develop AI and its cognitive processes. Since entomology is the study of insects, Queenie applying her knowledge of bee behaviors when developing Caine would not only explain her and her husband’s AI’s liking of bees but explore her own contributions to this new technology as a scientist! This would have been a great way to develop her and her role in the story outside of being just Kinger’s dead wife and I believe it would have felt more natural than introducing a new character to take on that role she could have easily fit better.

As they would both be the head honchos of C&A’s new AI developments (with Kinger as a computer scientist and Queenie as an entomologist), it gives Queenie a deeper role that she deserves while also fleshing out both her and C&A’s lore a lot better. It could also explain why Kinger can’t figure out a way to escape. They were the two peas in the pod that created this place and with that half of a mind gone, it’s difficult to try to resolve it alone.