Tadc Ep 7 - The Date

The episode is set up as a "Beach Episode" by Caine, who then leaves the group to get "essential ingredients" for a "milk and cigarette casserole". The group, left to their own devices, encounters Abel, a seemingly sentient NPC who appears to be the abstracted form of the first-ever human to enter the circus, "Scratch". The Plan: Abel reveals a plan to find an admin console that can free them. The group (Pomni, Ragatha, Jax, Zooble, and Gangle) agrees to follow his instructions. Jax's task is to distract Caine, while Pomni and Ragatha discuss the possibility that Kinger might know more about the circus than he lets on. Zooble and Gangle decide to inform Kinger of the plan, who, when hearing the idea of an exit, simply says, "that doesn't make sense," implying he knows they don't have real-world bodies to return to. The Console: The others obtain admin passes and use a "collision catapult" to reach Caine's office, where they find a console with two buttons: red to stay, and blue to escape. A tense discussion follows. Jax's Breakdown: While the others debate the choice, Jax, who has been experiencing intense, painful flashbacks to his real-world life, has a complete mental breakdown. Overwhelmed by the memories and not wanting to return, he runs to the console and presses the red button. The Reveal: Immediately, the "adventure" ends. Caine appears and reveals that the entire scenario was a setup, the buttons were fake, and the "lore" provided by Abel was part of the scripted event. Abel reverts to a simple NPC. Caine admits he introduced "temporary modifiers" to mess with their minds and explore the idea of an exit. Confrontation and Lore: Jax, in a fit of rage, slams his fists on the console and accuses Caine of lying and manipulating them, something Caine awkwardly denies but his actions confirm. Kinger then remembers his "old friend" Scratch, the name Abel was associated with, which causes Caine to panic. Caine, flustered by the group's shock and outrage, attempts to smooth things over with a gift basket of soaps and lotions before disappearing. her. The Creative Artificial Intelligence Networking Entity[1] abbreviated and better known as Caine, is the main antagonist[2] of Glitch Productions' indie animated web series The Amazing Digital Circus. He is voiced by Alex Rochon, and made his first appearance in the pilot episode. Caine is an AI who portrays himself as the ringmaster of the circus, maintaining the simulation and its residents, alongside his loyal assistant Bubble. He is the highest artificial intelligence program in the simulation, due to the fact that he can create other AI, being able to levitate indefinitely, is the only one capable of reversing the glitch effect of those attacked by an Abstraction and is able to teleport himself and others to anywhere within the simulation, which includes The Void. He appears to be responsible for the creation of all the NPCs in the circus, along with the entire Candy Canyon Kingdom, given that Princess Loolilalu refers to him as "God" and given that he can "delete" NPCs who wander into the Circus either intentionally or by accident, due to him being worried that losing track of who is human and who is an AI could cause severe problems later on. Caine also planned an elaborate adventure by making them think there was a way to escape the circus, creating an NPC named Abel to pull it off. At the end of the adventure, all the humans became enraged, believing that Caine has been manipulating them since the start, and can indeed mess with their minds, even theorizing he could be withholding their names. After Kinger mentions the first abstraction, Caine quickly leaves, with his already uneasy relationship with the humans fully deteriorated, and their hope for escape shattered. Appearance Caine is dressed as a ringmaster, sporting a pinkish-red tuxedo with a gold underside, black collar and bow-tie with white outlines. He wears a white undershirt with two reddish buttons on it, alongside white gloves and black leggings. Lacking most human features, his head is formed as a pair of dentures with pearly-white teeth and red gums. His eyes, the left one with a green iris and the right one with a blue iris, float inside the jaw. Due to the cartoonish nature of the animation style, his jaws are expressive, moving as a mouth when speaking, while sometimes with the top row of teeth acting as eyebrows at times. Similarly to Bubble, he forms a tongue when needed. To cap it off, he wears a black top hat and tends to hold a gold-tipped baton depending on the situation. Occasionally, he is seen wearing The Wacky Watch. Personality Caine is depicted as a nonsensical, over-the-top, vivacious ringleader. However, there is an aloofness about him and a significant disconnection towards the traumatic events that the characters around him are experiencing, illustrated by his forgetfulness of Zooble's criticisms of their own form and his adventures. Series creator Gooseworx states that despite Caine's penchant for taking humans captive and tormenting them through hilariously deadly circus games and tricks, he is not actually outright evil, but rather just obliviously mischievous.[3] She also stated that "there is a whole spectrum of human emotion that he just doesn't feel."[4] Caine is shown to be secretive at times, often concealing or even lying about information related to his 'unfinished work' to the point of gaslighting the other members, such as when he quickly blamed the exit door which Pomni saw on "Digital Hallucinations". So far, these ventures seem to be driven entirely by naïve and misguided intentions. Despite this, Caine appears to have at least some measure of morality. He does not appear to intentionally inflict harm onto the Circus members and does what he can to entertain them to prevent them from abstracting. He was also clearly depicted having a disdain to any form of cursing or swears which are always censored in the Circus. Caine has often been seen having tense interactions with Bubble, another member of the Circus and an AI like him. The first incident is after Bubble eats his Angel Food Cake, to which Caine yells at him, calling him a parasite before popping him. Shortly after, as Caine is explaining the Gloinks to the crew, he gets agitated with Bubble's constant questions and pops Bubble once again. However, Caine does appreciate Bubble's company. While the rest of the crew is off on an adventure, Caine and Bubble are seen in a restaurant chatting amongst themselves. Near the end of Candy Carrier Chaos!, he also expresses some degree of fear that he might lose track of who was A.I. and who was a player, which could lead to problems. He expresses some degree of insecurity and self-esteem issues, appearing almost obsessed with the enjoyment of his players, leading him to attempt to appeal to Zooble especially due to their lack of engagement. When Zooble criticizes Caine's adventures (and how every other human refuses to criticize them for varying reasons), it causes Caine to have an existential crisis as creating pleasing adventures is "all [he exists] to do!" and "all [he is] good at." This crisis causes him to space out and twitch, while the circus glitches out around him, indicating that his own mental status can have an influence over the circus itself. Caine's insecurity is highlighted further in They All Get Guns, where he dejectedly teleports a pile of guns into the room and "doesn't care anymore" after his ideas are rejected yet again. Then his insecurity apparently gets worse as seen with Caine briefly glitching out after seeing that nobody voted for him as the most popular character. He is viewed differently by every member of the circus. While Jax believes that Caine cannot do anything intentionally malicious due to it "not being in his nature", others like Zooble believe that the only thing that stops Caine from acting maliciously is the fact that he likes the inhabitants, and they should not try to push their luck; ironic given that Zooble is the one who tests Caine the most and is the only one willing to talk back to him. Caine's lack of empathy and manipulation is emphasized in Beach Episode, where it is revealed he had deceived the humans into leaving the circus through an elaborately constructed adventure. Even when called out by Jax, Caine makes a half-hearted attempt to justify his actions. Jax is one of the main characters of Glitch Productions' indie animated web series The Amazing Digital Circus, voiced by Michael Kovach. He is a lanky lilac rabbit with a monotone voice and antagonistic tendencies who is trapped in the Digital Circus along with five other victims. Appearance Jax is an anthropomorphic periwinkle[4] Cartoon Rabbit whose design elements evoke the look of rubber hose characters. 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. 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", Jax has a small, spherical tail which previously he didn't. Jax wears light, pink-colored overalls and pale-yellow gloves. His overalls have yellow buttons on them and also have a single lighter pink rectangular pocket on the front and lighter pink sections on the bottom hem of his overalls. 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, and 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'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  with everyone" to highlight how much of a troublemaker he is. Despite his 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. Even when the Gloink Queen accuses him of continuing to observe the unfolding events despite deeming them "dumb and weird", he responds by saying, "I'm only here to hide from the-" only to be interrupted by an abstracted Kaufmo abruptly crashing into the Gloink Queen's lair; his phrasing potentially 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. He's also shown to have a fondness for bloodshed, combat, death, and chaos, as shown in episode 2 when he is severely disappointed at the lack of all of the above, before quickly being overjoyed upon realizing that the The Fudge was coming to destroy the Candy Canyon Kingdom and its residents, an act he purposefully incited by leaving the entrance unlocked, which gave him zero benefit besides personal happiness as the adventure was already completed. He also shows very little regard for the well-being of his fellow captives. 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. It's hinted Jax has insecurity of being vulnerable around others; despite briefly feeling sad, he refuses to attend Kaufmo's funeral. It is also worth being noted that in episode 6, at the Favorite Character Awards, for a split second, you could see Jax's face getting emotional from Pomni's and his fight. He later entered the bathroom and started having a panic attack, but when coming out, his face was joyful and jestering. 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 as evident upon being dressed in a maid outfit, quickly becoming furious at Gangle for swapping his outfit and panicking excessively when Kinger sent him out to the baseball field filled with NPC spectators. On TheWackyWatch.com during The Awards Show, Jax seems to be incredibly nauseous and proceeds to vomit following a sudden appearance by Zooble, implying that he is prone to vomiting when scared. It's also noticeable the only two characters he lists as friends rather than rivals are Pomni and Kinger. On "Fast Food Masquerade", a whole different side to Jax seems to be shown, as after being subjected to an employee reevaluation by Gangle, his mischievous personality seems to fade with him wanting to get out of Spudsy's as soon as possible, and enters into a genuine conversation with Pomni. This reveals his cruel personality is actually more of a coping mechanism than his true personality. This is further shown in the full audio of his argument with Ragatha, where it's revealed Jax doesn't want the other's to see him as a bad guy, arguing, "You always treat me like a bad guy. I'm not really a bad guy." Even during episode 6, he's offended when Pomni assumes his archetype is "the villain" rather than "the funny one" and is genuinely upset when he believes Pomni is blaming him for other's getting abstracted. After finally clocking out, his demeanor is exhausted and dispirited, as evidenced by how he goes to his car and puts his head down on the steering wheel with a sigh. He also was almost apologetic for breaking Gangle's mask, admitting this time it was an accident (showing when he doesn't mean to cause harm, he won't laugh at the other's misery) and later had a friendly conversation with Pomni and Kinger towards the end, showing he's capable of showing decency and friendliness towards the others. This alternate perspective on Jax is further emphasized in the episode "Untitled" where Jax demonstrated senses of anguish, hesitancy, and frustration. During his conversation with Pomni in the mini-adventure "Stargazing," Jax said how he believe Gangle likes it when he pushes her around, to which Pomni reacts with surprise, as she had assumed Jax didn't care about what other people liked. Jax then reacted negatively when Ragatha brought up how he no longer have any real friends, because his friend who entered the circus with him abstracted, and, when Ragatha leaves apologetically, he confesses to Pomni his recognition of the predicament they are in within the circus and goes on a rant about how he dislikes Ragatha's behavior because her extreme positivity makes her appear fake and manipulative. He then proceeds to show visible distress in a discussion of character physique when Pomni mentions how she's never seen Jax with a tail. This scene shows how genuine Jax can become as a character, and that Jax actually has an incredibly high level of situational awareness. It affirms the fact that his malignant nature is just a facade for purpose of his own sanity, supported by him telling the others they take the circus way too seriously and it may even have been an act for the entertainment of others in the circus in an act to prevent further abstractions from occurring. We even see Jax go out of his way to bond with Pomni and even gets upset after Ragatha mentions how her mother abused her. In "They All Get Guns" the aftermath of a lethal firearms battle royal reveals just how mentally scarred Jax truly is from his time in the Digital Circus, it also shows that Jax tries to think of the Circus members as characters with archetypes rather than people with emotions, to avoid feeling guilt when bullying them. When he and Pomni become a team during the game, Jax shows actual compassion towards her and even shares certain aspects of himself he never shown before, convincing her to put her timid demeanors aside, talking about his personal trypophobia fairly comfortably to the point having casual friendly interactions such as belting "Daisy Bell" together and holding hands at one point. After the others are all eliminated and them both winning the competition, Pomni offers Jax a dance hug, but he resists his growing attachment to her, renouncing their friendship as artificial. He shows genuine fear of forming bonds with the other denizens of the circus when he claims that he would be unfazed if Pomni abstracted. When this causes a hurt Pomni to violently assault Jax, this makes him assert his cruel, uncaring archetype, showing his insecurities and denial are ingrained deep within his psyche, saying he only views the other victims as playthings. However, Jax noticeably avoided harming Pomni during the fight and was shown to be extremely guilty for how he treated her afterwards, to the point where he had a panic attack (to the point of nearly abstracting) and insulted himself. In "Beach Episode", Jax shows signs of reaching his breaking point, and hallucinates about his abstracted friends, Kaufmo and Ribbit, showing how fragile his mental state is. Two pairs of hands, possibly belonging to Ribbit, appear behind the door and reach towards Jax. He proceeds to touch them and is sent to a psychedelic state where he sees visions of his friends before being woken up by Pomni. When he sits up in a shock from being awoken, we can see Jax’s eyes visibly turn to those of an abstracted character. Jax was in a blank state with everyone, even with no characters to communicate with. After arriving at the console, with 2 buttons, the red button (which closes the console and continues to trap all humans in the circus entirely) or the blue button (which shuts down the circus and frees all humans from the VR), Pomni takes time to pause, but Jax has flashbacks to the real world, specifically a scene of driving on the road, implying he got into a car crash and has been preserved by the circus. He gets extremely agitated and rushes to push the red button; possibly done in a last ditch effort to stay alive. After the circus is permanently closed, Caine appears and explains that the console and Abel were all a facade for his adventure of the day. After hearing this, Jax proceeds to lose control over himself and laughs maniacally after realizing he was right the whole time. Once he finally composes himself, Jax proceeds to slam on the console and confronts Caine about his lying and the possibility of him being able to control minds. This seems to spark memories within the others, with Pomni mentioning their names and Kinger mentioning “Scratch”, the “first abstraction”.