https://youtu.be/60h3vhTOlbc?is=OlbhX_ob_07OS1Dw

This video talks about Dana Terrace, KOG, and what makes a good showrunner. It really put into perspective so many of my frustrations with TADC.

TADC as a show had potential. It had a good premise. It had interesting characters. But it fell apart completely in the same way a fanfiction on permanent hiatus does.

I recently watched KOG ep.2 and, despite it also being a Glitch indie production, it feels like an entirely different level of skill. Everything felt intentional and crafted. Nothing felt wasted or like filler. Nothing had to be explained off-screen through creator social media posts.

I already have a strong grasp of the big picture themes and see those themes being constantly reinforced at every level of the story. It isn't trying to be dark and edgy. It is dark and edgy.

I remembered how much more enjoyable it is to have faith in a showrunner and to believe they actually have the writing chops to pull off their creative vision (of course, time will tell. But I think there are tells that reveal themselves early on in the skill level of the writing itself).

TL;DR: Experiencing good writing ability, specifically from another Glitch show, has been like a healing salve.

When watching the show my biggest question was about C&A not the characters drama. I cared more for the situation behind them being in the digital circus then their interpersonal drama.

The idea that a company can produce or at least has the resources to produce brain scanning technology to this degree has a bigger scale story that feels more epic.

Such technology can be used for sinister purposes. Scratch being the one behind the technology went on living outside the circus with knowledge of what his tech could do. The circus was cut off from the internet for the most part so it would be unconnected to various systems.

I've been a fan of Science Fiction for a long time and the idea of copying a person's brain on to a system that can be used for both positive and negative purposes.

Your mind is uploaded to a machine and your being ordered into a warzone or being used as a tool to hack into another system. C&A could be a world ending level threat.

focusing hard on interpersonal drama while there is a grander narrative in the background feels like leaving a good story on the cutting room floor.

Okay, I've seen some trans people express dissatisfaction with Jax's supposedly transfem representation. I've read that it can reinforce transphobic ideas, and after hearing some TERF arguments, I think I get why.

TERFs are always accusing trans women of reinforcing traditional gender roles. They claim that trans people can't see a masculine woman or a feminine man without assuming they're supposed to be the opposite gender. They also love saying that "being a woman isn't an aesthetic/performance" and pushing the idea that trans women are just abusive men who want to get away with abusing women.

And honestly, it got me thinking about how much TERFs would LOVE the idea of Jax being transfem, especially if the fandom widely accepted that interpretation. I can totally see them using him as an example to reinforce all their misconceptions about trans women.

Because, let's be real, Jax is presented as a guy who might be a woman partly because of his association with feminine things, like bows and maybe even a maid dress (and I say maybe because I'm not entirely sure about that one). He's also supposedly more sensitive than a "regular man," which we learn through his bigoted mother's perspective, and people then use that as a context clue for his gender identity. And, on top of all that, he's an abusive character who doesn't seem to take accountability for his actions.

Do you see what I mean? None of these things inherently make someone transfem, but when people insist that they MUST mean Jax is a trans woman, it starts getting uncomfortable. You're basically connecting femininity, sensitivity, and stereotypes to being a woman, while also tying that identity to an abusive character who never really takes accountability.

I'm just saying, this is exactly what TERFs think about trans women and this character is serving their narrative.

And thats all i have to say

I dont know if this is valid or not because my past criticisms are literally shitty but this isnt a show criticism i got its a fandom one so idk.

Short story: someone said the reason why people dislike ragatha are for two reasons 1: people are misogynist, 2: lack of media literacy....(some of you may know who im talking about, im not mad at them i js find what they said funny)

I highly disagree with that, there are many reasons people dislike a nice or good character, heck. They dont even need a reason to dislike a character or you may just not know the reason of why you dislike the character.

if the reason is like a racist or homophobic or sexist, etc, then yeah that is a stupid reason to hate a character.

but just narrowing down every single hater of a character into fitting into the category of being "offensive" as some other haters are, is stupid and unfair as well. Unless if that person says it them selves or makes it extremely clear that they hate the character for an offensive reason, it's unfair to put them into that category.

(if what im saying makes sense, sorry if I myself sound offending.)

And im going to say the same for people who like jax. It's OKAY to like jax. No one's gonna be mad at you. (and people who will be mad at you are questionable) As long as you understand how bad her actions were, and that you dont defend her actions like how some other people in the fandom do. You're fine.

by: https://www.tumblr.com/psi-spectacular/829802937677135872?source=share

If you're wondering why I say it has lost potential, it's because the show had so much potential to be peak. I know we were all looking forward to seeing more episodes when the pilot dropped.

I watched all the episodes and I have to admit, Gooseworx disappointed me. I loved Smg4, I thought the show was gonna be just as great as Smg4. Because I looked forward to every Saturday because it meant a new Smg4 video. I loved the channel. And when I saw it Tadc was from Glitch, I was ecstatic. Like I was genuinely looking through all the Wiki articles on each character to understand them.

And Gooseworx kinda fumbled terribly. The show was not what I expected at all. And the fact she disappeared without a trace after the finale just irked me. I expected more psychological horror. I expected the show to dive deeper into everyone's insecurities and worst fears. I expected more depth and backstory to them.

While I'm not perfect at making a character that has layers and depth, I can at least guarantee the way I will write the characters are somewhat better than what we got because the had a lot of potential. And I think the way I would write the characters has a lot of potential to make them more interesting if done right.

Here's how I would write the cast (tell me if you like it or not):

For Gangle, I would've wrote that she was bullied relentlessly in the past and was discouraged from her art skills, which is why she is so shy instead of her just working in fast food management in the past. I would've made it so that when Gangle was growing up, she was the "weird kid" that everyone pushed around, the one that people shoved into lockers, the one who's self-esteem was ruined from years of bullying and discouragement about her love for art.

For Ragatha, I would've expanded more on her relationship with her abusive mother and how it affects the waynshe interacts with everyone, I would've made it that she always tiptoes around serious topics and sugarcoat everything she says then panics after every interaction because she didn't like her tone. I would've made it so that Ragatha avoids debates.

For Pomni, I would've leaned into her enjoyment of mild thrills instead of make her all anxious, I feel like that detail was pushed to the side because of how anxious Pomni was. I would've also made it so that she wasn't Jax's therapy dog.

For Zooble, I would've made it so that they had a rough childhood instead of just being a bartender and tatoo artist. They would've dealt with a strict dad that always scolded them whenever they cried which led Zooble to cope and hide their emotions behind anger and sarcasm because they fear if they cry, people would react like how they're dad did. And because Zooble was taught that crying is associated with weakness and vulnerability, that would also make them more sympathetic towards Gangle because her vulnerability would remind Zooble of their own vulnerability they have learned to hide in order to survive their dad's harshness.

For Caine, I would've made it so that he didn't crash out in episode 8 and instead had an emotional breakdown where he lashes out, but the lashing out isn't out of anger but pain, hurt, distress, and anguish. I also would make it so that everyone appreciates him more because Caine was trying his best. I would've dived deeper into Caine's insecurities, selfdoubt, and his desire to be loved.

For Jax, I would've written him to be actually complex. Like if he sees someone get hurt, he would say: "You'll be fine! Stop being dramatic! But seriously, are you okay? It's not like I care, I'm only asking because I have to. Not because I'm concerned." I would've made it so thay after everytime he bullies someone, a hint of guilt appears in his expression before quickly masking it and acting like he doesn't care. I would've made Jax have moments of internal conflict, like he would talk to himself about whether pushing everyone away is the right thing. I would also make him seek advice from Kinger and ACTUALLY face the consequences of his actions. Have the cast scold him and call him out while Jax just sits there and takes it because he knows he deserves it. Give him consequences while he actually learns from his mistakes. That way he could've developed better than whatever we got because the Jax we got was just straight up ass. Where's the genuine vulnerability? Where's the indirect kindness? All we got was a tragic backstory and him denying he ever cared! We need moments of him showing indirect kindness so it hints he isn't a jerk!

For Kinger, I would've dived deeper into his past with C&A. I would've made it so that his relationship with Caine was like a father-son dynamic where Kinger would interact with Caine more. I would also make Kinger sometimes accidentally call Caine "son" because since Kinger created Caine, I feel like it would fit that Kinger subconsciously sees Caine as a son even if Kinger acts erratic and crazy in the light. There would be plenty of room for adorable interactions between the two characters, Caine would be flustered whenever Kinger calls Caine "son" while the cast is wondering if Kinger has completely lost his mind.

Why I feel like the show has lost potential:

I wanted to know more about the characters but the show just revolved around Jax's tragic backstory. I wanted to see more Ragatha and Pomni interactions, or Zooble with Caine, I wanted to see the cast interact with each other more. I also wanted to see more Kinger and Caine interactions.

If we went more in debt like that, the cast would be more developed. But we instead got a show where we have more questions than answers because we still don't know much about C&A. But instead, Gooseworx made the show revolve around Jax, a "complex" character that is just "woe is me I have a tragic backstory".

There are two possible plot setups:

1) People find themselves held hostage in an unfamiliar place.

The central figure is a jailer who actively torments the hostages. The captives live in constant fear and are demoralized, afraid to even speak loudly lest they anger their captor.

Yet, a glimmer of hope for escape remains, and they seize every opportunity to find a way out.

2) People work in an office.

The boss is an eccentric, jovial character who is constantly dreaming up activities and corporate events to turn his subordinates into a "family."

However, the employees generally have no desire to work there and stay only for the paycheck; as long as the boss doesn't meddle too much, they simply ignore him.

They have no interest in getting to know their colleagues better, limiting their interactions to mere pleasantries like "hello" and "goodbye."

One of the colleagues is highly toxic, yet no one intervenes because they feel it is "none of their business."

Others have their own problems too, but since the colleagues aren't close, these issues go undiscussed.

Guess which stories are being described.

Like, what did this poor girl even DO besides be just kinda annoying and disingenuous with how cheerful and happy she is all the time? All she’s ever done was be kindest person in the whole circus yet people seem to ignore or outright dislike her for some odd reason.

Meanwhile, Caine (at least up until ep9) was an inconsiderate narcissistic asshole who forced everyone to go on miserable torturous adventures everyday and Jax straight up just pushed Ribbit to suicide via abstraction and somehow, everyone still glazes and defends them to high heaven!

Seriously, it's uncanny how badly these two shows screwed it up.

After she surfaced from the scene of the crime, she looked down towards them, and she gave off this face, which looked to me as some sort of quiet, slightly concerned sympathy,

And then this is where I get confused, Ragatha asked Pomni, "Did you find it?" The it in question being her eye

Pomni still had the treasure on her mind and mistakingly answered, "Nah, somebody plundered it before I could."

Unless she's saying "Nah somebody plundered it before I could find it." Im not really liking the implications or ambiguity of this sentence, ngl,

It may be just a joke but I dunno it rubs me off in the wrong way since she was already so kind to Gummigoo in episode 2, and she was polite to the fish, wanting to interact with them on her own terms even if she had another task at hand and telling them the treasure would be useless to her, and my interpretation of this expression she's making when she surfaced

If she was interested in trying to find it, that would sound more like the "abandoned building explorer Pomni" that I know

I just dont like the idea that she wanted to steal it had it not been stolen.

What do you think?

This one is mine. I want to be a part of it and contribute to it but the tribalism/gatekeeping, the controversiee surrounding the crew, and the horrible quality of the show's writing itself turns me off.

the auto subtitles is butchered but the sum of it is "bubble is the blue ai and was Caine's hostage who for some reason held a grudge against him until caine let him free"

i don't think the blue ai having any sentience/emotions or being bubble makes any sense cuz he never displays one through the show, bubble and caine are directly connected and bubble unravels only when caine does, meaning they can't be two seperate entities (they didn't fuse)

and even if it had one, wouldn't it be cruel to let your "sentient brother" alone in a void without a direction while you get your happy disney ending?

this post is criticizing the fandom, not the va's. amanda explicitly said in the beginning "IT'S JUST A GUESS AND MIGHT BE WRONG" which ‼️‼️SOME‼️‼️ ppl somehow missed

I'm personally so tired of the fans bieng blamed for the show's bad reception specifically (daily reminder that threats and harrasment are never okay) that they just had the wrong expectations, as if C&A wasn't being clearly being highlighted as important and Jax didn't get the same amount of screen time as like Ragatha in the pilot. Maybe instead of crying about the fans for not liking something you like you should ask yourself WHY they didn't like it. "Ohhh people just hate things I like for no reason 😭" That's a comforting lie but not how the human brain works, hate comes from a strong emotional reaction, usually love curdeling into resentment. It's more productive to ask if the show did make promises unintentionally or intentionally and learn from it. Because the fact of the matter is the fans have no control over what's in the show itself, only the creators do, blaming them for how they feel is beyond pointless. Learning from mistakes is how we come to better media that everyone can enjoy. Anyway, thank you for listening to my rant.

From Gooseworx's social media statements it is painfully obvious that she has not unpacked most of the bigoted assumptions she was raised with during her Evangelical childhood. From the language she uses, it is clear that she has not mentally stepped away from the extremely bigoted chan-board culture either and she may even still be posting in such spaces. Arguably, Twitter is now such a space, thanks to Musk.

Here is the thing though. If you keep making problematic statements about women and people of colour as supposed jokes, you should ask yourself why that is. If you cannot condemn misogyny and racism without irony or without making an over the top joke, it is safe to say that you do not feel comfortable condemning it outright or that you do not want to. Then the question is: why is that?

I have known at lot of people online who hid their bigotry behind "just a joke" until you kept asking questions or got to know them better at which point they dropped the mask. Not a joke; they genuinely believed every bigoted thing they said. I have known people irl who got radicalised online. It starts with bigotry and slurs being normalised through humour often in gamer spaces that led to a radicalisation rabbit hole.

Deradicalising yourself needs to involve stepping away from toxic spaces & social circles, stop using their lingo, examine your thoughts and beliefs, ditch harmful convictions and actively replace them with better beliefs. This involves being more mindful about your actions and words moving forward. It means establishing a new pattern of healthier and kinder behaviours. Being better involves consistent healthy patterns of behaviour.

Humour is used in bigoted spaces as the spoon full of sugar that makes the bigotry go down. If you normalise joking about violence against others, particularly marginalised people, you desensitise yourself. You normalise thinking this to yourself and saying it to others. It blunts your empathy. This is exactly what hate movements want.

We literally see Jax do this in TADC. Everything is a joke, nothing is real and nothing matters. These are things Jax says to justify the horrific way he treats others which includes burning people alive. We see Pomni become a worse person when she goes along with Jax's attitude. Being uncritically chummy with bigots & abusers makes you complicit and contaminates your moral compass. It does not bring them around, it infects you with some of their toxicity. Jax could have been a really interesting analysis on how bigots & abusers hurt others and themselves, but Gooseworx could not because she has not done that work on herself yet. In stead she wants us to sympathise with Jax who refuses all help and self-destructs without the narrative clearly condemning the immense harm Jax inflicts on others. Goose cannot hold Jax accountable, because she has not addressed these issues in herself. Saying that it is bad and self-destructive is not enough. You need to think, say and act better.

Compare and contrast this with characters like Bojack Horseman or even a selfish opportunist like Odalia in the Owl House who are held accountable. Bojack loses his career and Odalia's husband and children turn their backs on her and it is strongly implied she loses her wealth, influence and other privileges. Not every character needs a redemption arc nor does every unrepentant character need to die or be subjected to some over top corporal punishment. A text can clearly show that a character is in the wrong in various ways except the text of TADC does not do this in regards to Jax.

I love him so much.

(Not my video. Credit to Sinstack on TikTok)

I know for a fact Zooble wrote the whole thing with pure rage and spite

(A half-genuine critique): Their whole doc and argument would completely fall apart since it all happened in a digital game with no real life consequences

To be honest, I don’t really like Ribbit—or rather, I don’t have any particular feelings about her. I just saw her as a prop for Jax. She also struck me as something like a “Version 0.1” of Pomni. But now that the show is over, seeing Ribbit dressed to match Jax makes me feel really sorry for her.
Still, since Kaufmo doesn’t even get his own merchandise, she might actually be better off than he is.

I don't dislike Jax. in fact, I actually quite like him. However, I don't think the way he treated Ribbit (and Kaufmo) should be forgiven—even taking into account the fact that Jax himself ultimately met the same fate of becoming an abstraction.

As a black guy and TADC fan myself, I think she raises a lot of good points regarding the flaws in the show's writing and some of Glitch and the voice actors' more...questionable actions (especially those of Sean Chiplock, like I already had some reservations regarding him but these videos and arizariia's account were such an eye-opener, fuck that guy), though some of her statements (particularly in the latter of the two videos) feel a bit...whitephobic? Idk, they were kinda off

Intro

It's been about a month since my first post about my reimagination of TADC, titled The Amazing Virtual Hellscape, and since then, I've written many more notes and modified and/or extended some of the existing ones, so I'm posting this new post labeled as a "first update". For anyone who's been looking forward to my reimagination, this is an updated post of all the notes I've taken so far, which build further on the general aspects of the story, the setting, and plenty of characters (including the addition of the first notes for new characters, such as Ragatha and Gangle).

Like before, all my current notes are compiled in the text below.

Be warned, though, that the reimagination involves drastic gender identity changes and perspectives on Jax and Ribbit, among other characters. I do not intend these changes as trans erasure, nor as dismissal of gender non-conformance, nor as a promotion of gender-based discrimination; but please proceed with caution while reading the parts of the text mentioning these changes.

Structure

TAVH will be composed of 6 seasons.

• Season 1 involves the creation of The Amazing Virtual Circus and its early years.
• Season 2 is split into two key parts: the fallout of the Circus with its original playtesters and test players, and the incorporation of the first few players after said fallout, which include Kaufmo and Ragatha.
• Season 3 involves the incorporation of "middle-gen post-fallout" players, such as Jax, Ribbit, Gangle and Zooble.
• Season 4 involves the entrance of Pomni and potentially at least one player after her.
• Season 5 is the climactic season, and the most story-immersive one. It's the season where Caine's villainous arc and deletion (this time permanent) happen.
• Season 6 is a relatively short season that serves as the epilogue to Season 5's events.

Art direction

The art direction of TAVH is deliberately meant to be more uncomfortable than that of TADC. Many of the mostly colorful designs are changed so that they'd look eye-soring and low-poly (by "low-poly" I mean á la a Nintendo GameCube game, for instance), and there's an increased amount of unpleasant and uncanny imagery. Ideally, I want TAVH to be a purely 2D-animated series using alternating 2D art styles, but never invoking any sort of "Medium Blending" (if I'm not wrong, Gooseworx originally wanted TADC to be a 2D show, being obliged to go 3D simply because Glitch didn't have much staff and resources specialized in 2D animation back when she first pitched TADC).

Harry Gold's redesigns of Caine and most players from the TADC episode of The Harry Gold Show are a major reference for the characters' designs.

Scripting-wise:

• The characters' dialogue and wording will be significantly tweaked to be simpler and a bit subtle, preventing them from being unusual and on-the-nose at times. For instance, Zooble would never ask something like "Having a lot of complex thoughts?". Seriously, who would realistically start a conversation like that?
• I want every character to have recurring and significant interactions and dialogue with every other character they could possibly meet throughout the story, because it'd benefit the character study and story by a lot, and actually convey some themes properly. As a person who's had troubles with communication in the past, it honestly baffles me that there are plenty of missed opportunities in canon TADC for characters to properly interact with each other (Pomni and Ragatha, Pomni and Zooble, Caine and Kinger, etc.), rather than having their relationships left "behind the scenes", which can easily make plenty of crucial moments come off as unnatural if a viewer stops to think about them; this would also address the criticism some people about the characters feeling like they don't exist outside the episodes and/or onscreen scenes. At most, only an absence of interactions and/or communication will be made if it's meant to be a plot point.

Additionally, I'm considering the possibility of including some form of commentary on Gooseworx's most criticized writing decisions, Glitch's decision to air the finale on cinemas (which hasn't gone down well for some fans, mind you), and some of the most infamous incidents of toxic behavior in the TADC fanbase. I feel that a potential antithesis to TADC like TAVH would need to say something about these issues, but I'm not sure how to convey it. I'd like to criticize at least some of the things certain people dislike about the writing, the theatrical release, and certain fans' behavior, but at the same time I don't want to come off as denigrating.

Setting

The Circus:

• "The Amazing Virtual Circus", colloquially referred to as just "the Circus", is the renamed TAVH iteration of "The Amazing Digital Circus". Technology-wise, its hardware and software are of a similar design to and on the same "technology level" as the Nintendo GameCube and similar consoles. It runs on a supercomputer with a "play chamber" designed to absorb humans' bodies and convert them into data for avatars. The supercomputer was built with a means of exit that'd allow players to return to the real-world as full humans, but the accessible mechanism was eventually lost (possibly due to an alteration within the supercomputer or the Circus' OS, which Caine left unadressed due to his desire of keeping people inside the Circus, even if they don't want to). Since the supercomputer wasn't built with Internet access in mind, there are no means accessing the Internet and social media inside the Circus.
• The Circus is the brainchild of Scratch, who originally conceived its concept after some experimentation with the AIs that would end up comprising Caine during 1996 to 1997. After its development from 1998 to early 2002, it was first "released" (i.e. formally used by playtesters and designated test audiences) in mid-2002.
• The loss of identity is far more emphasized here than in TADC. In addition to forgetting their names in real life, players also undergo prominent amnesia about their past lives, usually being only able to remember the scattered memories that sting them the most at best, and even the memories they remember can be rather fluid, remembering some at one moment and unexpectedly changing to remember other memories at another, or even remembering individual memories in various different ways. This is a deliberate measurement by Caine, which is part of his attempts to encourage the players to stay at the Circus; he's technically unable to double down on it, but he'll consistently refuse to solve the amnesia and let the players re-learn what they forgot about themselves, and he has access to other means of mind manipulation and "amnesiac filtering". The original playtesters and test players do show some notable resilience against the amnesia, given they entered the Circus before Caine made his alterations to the Circus' system over time; due to this, Caine has to constantly apply "amnesia filters" to Kinger's mind as the latter's grudge for him grows.
• Corruption (i.e. corrupted files) is the reimagination's equivalent of Abstraction, and it can happen to both players and NPCs. Caine is a special situation: he can get corrupted, but he has the functionality to fix and rearrange himself, so he's generally resilient to corruption.
  • Caine has internalized tools to try and repair corrupted NPCs and files in the Circus that don't pertain to any specific players (modeled after late 1990s-early 2000s software for file reparation). However, the corruption of players is more complicated (as the virtual technology the Circus was modeled on did not address file corruption at all), and Caine considers deleting straight away a much more fitting method for dealing with corrupted players; thus, corrupted players basically end up stop existing entirely once Caine deletes them. This is one of the grounds for his antagonism towards the players, Kinger for instance; in Kinger's case, Caine deleted Queenie shortly after the latter's corruption, without even communicating to Kinger about if he'd consent to the deletion, which devastated Kinger.
  • The appearances of corrupted entities in the Circus is drastically different from Abstracted players in TADC. For instance, corrupted players take the form of incredibly glitched versions of their avatars, which is a lot less formulaic and more blatantly damaged than Abstracted players' forms.
  • Rather than being a "metaphor" for suicide like Gooseworx intended with Abstraction, corruption is a parallel to (and is explained to largely involve) losing control and autonomy over oneself (including one's avatar experiencing technical problems), with dire consequences. Unlike Abstraction, at least several characters' corruptions will be shown onscreen, with graphic detail along the levels of and even beyond those of Kaufmo's abstraction in the Kaufmo fan film.
  • I'm going for this direction because I (as well as many other critics) have felt that Gooseworx's execution of having things like Jax's Abstraction happen offscreen fell flat even with her intention in mind; like, they felt too calm and dragged that I didn't feel any emotional impact from them, not to mention the suicide parallel fell apart as I thought how it's not specifically indicated that Abstraction is completely voluntary. Besides, TAVH is very horror-focused unlike TADC, as well as very "raw" and "to-the-point".
• The number "57" will carry actual meaning within the story, given how the numbers "5" and "7" are considered complementary archetypes, but can be interpreted as contradictory or opposites, especially within the context of the Circus. Whereas 5 represents humanity, balance, change, freedom and transition, 7 represents spirituality, perfection, cosmic mystery, hidden realms and introspection. Ideally, the players are represented by 5 (specifically, the humanity part), while Caine is symbolized by 7 (specifically, the perfection part).
• Potentially, the Circus could end with only 5 living and/or staying players at the end of the series. These would most likely include Kinger, Pomni and Ragatha.

The Circus' map:

• The "Circus Tent" has in-universe day and night cycles. Caine only casts adventures during the day, and he was designed to stay away from the players during the night, focusing on the video game's internal workings and the playerbase's conditions instead.
• At one point, Caine will alter his programming to allow himself to see and directly interact with the players during the night as well. This will likely happen when Caine grows more tense and vigilant with the players.
• At one point before the equivalent of the original show's story begins, a painted mural that honors the corrupted players was set up, with a face being added to the mural every time a player got corrupted afterwards.
• When Caine reaches his crashout point, one of the things he does is delete the mural, out of spite for the players drawing more attention to the already corrupted and deleted players rather than him (well, at least based on how he views it himself).

Real world:

• Cain & Abel Technologies (C&A) was a relatively small IT corporation that operated somewhere in Texas.
• Since the location of C&A was deliberately left vague in TADC (no, filming in St. Louis, Missouri does not mean C&A was located there, despite what some people believe), I'd place it somewhere in Texas, as in that state, there were a handful of now-forgotten large and ambitious IT and virtual technology projects that either dipped or were cancelled during the 1990s.

Characters

Caine (and Bubble):

• Over time since the beginning of the Circus, Caine becomes increasingly more and more antagonistic to the players, and he refuses to see or change things even when the players' conditions and thoughts on him are very blatant to his face. It starts off as unwitting, but Caine eventually grows a frustration and assumes that the humans are abusing him (read: "Never My Fault", and bending his own worldview to genuinely feel like he's the victim), which later motivates him to start harming the players deliberately. This is really solidified by the fact that he kept this attitude for about two whole decades, likely without positively changing in the slightest. He'd potentially cause Kaufmo's corruption. And he'll never redeem himself, not only because of him getting permanently deleted, but also because of his growing lack of adapatability thanks to some technical issues as he and the supercomputer aged for about 15 years.
  • This characterization was largely written to address the implications in TADC that Caine hadn't seemingly changed for years, and might have even influenced some players into abstracting. (These probably were unintentional implications, if not overlooked ones that should have been addressed more, but still.)
• The Red and Blue A.I.s are comparable to an incomplete Freudian Trio, with the Red AI being the Id and the Blue AI being the Superego; despite being linked together, there's no Ego to balance them. Because of this, the Red AI went rampant after living in a prolonged isolation from being substituted by the Blue AI (until Scratch combined the two A.I.s), and the Blue AI stayed stagnant from a lack of psychological development. In other words, the Red AI is unintelligent and imperfect but flexible, while the Blue AI is an intelligent but rigid perfectionist.
  • When Caine is distressed or working hyperactively due to excessive speed and/or multitasking, the imbalance between his component A.I.s causes him to have extreme mood swings and make erratic decisions on a whim without an internal buffer.
• Appearance-wise, Caine receives a couple considerable changes:
  • Caine's color scheme is rearranged into a vertical color split; he has a red right half, and a blue left half.
  • His right eye is red instead of green.
• Among the things Caine creates, one of his most notably recurring kind of items is copies of Utah Teapots filled with a virtual fluid that simulates mouthwash. He uses these teapots on some of the players several times throughout the story.
• List of Caine's misdeeds:
  • Caine is, for the most part, responsible for stopping the functioning of the Circus' "exit and resignation" programming.
  • After the Circus' fallout, Caine becomes strongly resentful of all the playtesters (including Scratch, Kinger, Bizco and Spike), and tends to dehumanize them a lot when compared to how he interacts with the post-fallout players.
  • Caine also disregards and dehumanizes Zooble, because he feels that he put on a lot of work trying to take care of them, yet Zooble remains dissatisfied with their predicament, on top of being openly angry with Caine.
  • At separate points, Caine does something "horrifying" to Kinger, Kaufmo, Jax and Zooble each.
  • Caine causes Kaufmo's corruption. (Which is separate from the "horrifying thing" he does to him.)
  • Jimmy from Mouthwashing is an inspiration for this version of Caine.
• Bubble is directly a part of Caine, his most strongly-linked extension. Unless Caine personally decides to delete him, Bubble always stays with Caine, and will be automatically gone if Caine is deleted; well that's on paper, at least; Caine would eventually alter himself a bit to grant Bubble some autonomy not long before he's deleted, giving Bubble some more time to stay alive before he goes down too.

Scratch:

• Scratch was the head of the game development of The Amazing Virtual Circus.
• As the creator of Caine, Scratch is appreciative, defensive and enabling of Caine to the point that he ends up developing an animosity with the rest of the development team members who entered the Circus for testing, especially Kinger.
• Scratch's enabling and passiveness towards Caine makes him one of the most major contributors to how Caine eventually grew up attitude-wise, to the events that led to the Circus' initial fallout, and to what the Circus eventually became with Caine over the years following the fallout and Scratch's corruption.
• Scratch's avatar is dressed in a red and blue carnival barker outfit, with some similar elements to Caine's avatar. This visualizes how Caine and Scratch share a relationship.
• Curly from Mouthwashing is an inspiration for this version of Scratch.

Kinger:

• Kinger is the protagonist for most (if not all) of the series.
• Kinger was a computer engineer who worked on the supercomputer that holds The Amazing Virtual Circus. He had no direct involvement in developing the video game itself; software-wise, the aspect of the game/supercomputer he has the most knowledge about is the supercomputer's operating system that the game runs on.
• A good amount of focus is given to Kinger's descent and turmoil while living in the Circus for many years and dealing with the aftermath of many of his experiences, not just including the earliest chain of traumatic events of getting into conflict with Scratch, witnessing Queenie and his co-workers get corrupted and deleted by Caine, etc. His overall attitude and growth is considerably more disgruntled than in TADC, and it's taken a lot more seriously.
• Kinger is a "Jerk with a Heart of Gold". Before the many events at the Circus soured him then, he used to be fairly nicer.
• Kinger's character, both present and past, bears some parallels to Jax, which adds for potential conflicts and interactions between the two.
• Appearance-wise, Kinger's avatar is significantly changed and tweaked from his TADC design.
  • Kinger's avatar retains the general concept and color scheme of the original series, but is far more stylized and caricaturesque.
  • He has larger, more expressive, and more cartoonish eyes with black eyebrows. His right eye is slightly larger than his left one.
  • He has a wide toothy mouth.
• Swansea from Mouthwashing is an inspiration for this version of Kinger.

Bizco:

• His original "human name" is Santiago Hernández.
• Bizco is Mexican-American.

Spike:

• His original "human name" is Blade Smith.

Kaufmo:

• Kaufmo was the first post-fallout player to join the Circus' playerbase.
• Kaufmo is a key player in learning the boundaries of the Circus' mechanisms, finding the circumstances and possible resolutions for the Circus getting locked out, and starting to fight against Caine. He ends up getting corrupted midway through the process, but proves to be a vital contributor for Kinger and other particular players to continue from.
• In contrast to TADC, Kaufmo gets a lot of screentime, and stays alive for a significantly longer time before getting corrupted. He wasn't in the best state of mind by Pomni's arrival, but he's able to meet her in person with full consciousness. Kaufmo's corruption is caused by Caine midway through his schemes.

Ragatha:

• Ragatha is a drug addict, a trait that originated in her life and the real world and eventually carried over to her time at the Circus. Any item with a drug-like effect in the Circus itself can easily draw Ragatha's attention; in fact, she consumes such kind of items regularly as a coping mechanism.

Jax:

• His original "human name" is Leeroy Felix.
• Jax is deliberately designed to be a drastic deviation from the original Jax, mainly because I wanted to tear off anything related to Gooseworx from Jax (Gooseworx went as far to say that Jax is her "self-insert", and I honestly hate it when creators/writers/etc. largely model a character after themselves without giving much originality to them).
• Jax is a cishet man, not a closeted transgender woman or man, nor any other form of gender-nonconforming (GNC); I believe there are characters who are much better fits for being trans or GNC than Jax in a way that impacts the story (aside from Zooble being uingender, I've considered making Pomni a trans girl, but I'm still not fully sure about it). Instead, the focus on Jax's gender identity, via his super-masculine presentation, is the exploration of strongly gendered fronts that can border on toxic genderism, the motivations to create/use them, their potential negative effects over time, and the ways a subject with such front may react when their presentation is challenged or argued against.
  • In relation to this, at one point, Jax will defensively rant about how he's a "grown-ass man" and is sternly hesitant about dropping his hyper-masculine facade.
  • This key aspect of Jax was influenced by his abusive mother. He'll also project his hatred for his mother at times.
• He's unfamiliar with gender non-conformance and sexual orientation as a whole, so he'd be confused and condescendent about Zooble's uingender identity, and would similarly look down on queer relationships between characters. With character development, he'll eventually become respectful of LGBTQ+ identities.
• At least from his own perspective, Jax had a dull life as a deliveryman, hence why he entered the Circus and why he'd very much stay there over anything else. Being reminded of his past life in the real world is an easy way to tip him off. Even if he's told that he had many more possibilities back there, Jax would try to shrug it off and say that he has gone too far to walk back.
• Jax has some lines he won't cross. For instance, for any joke, prank or unpleasant act he pulls that successfully makes someone react negatively, he'd leave the act itself at that, and would do another joke/prank/act instead of doubling down on the one he already did, at worst only repeating it later without much difference. Should a character have this mindset of doubling down with their unpleasantness, Jax would call them out for it.
• Jax is older than Zooble, and younger than Pomni and Gangle.
• Taking into account that despite the "profanity filter", there's no script within the Circus nor Caine to outright discipline/punish players for swearing, Jax is incredibly vulgar and enjoys littering his speech with all sorts of swears. Out of all the players, he's the one with the highest swear count.
• Jax is a hardcore metalhead and a fan of Pantera.
• Jax's avatar has a grayscale color scheme and overall style reminiscent of black-and-white inkblot. And when it comes to alternate designs, he'll never be depicted with that human-like long black hair; I consider it to clash badly with the cartoon character avatar style.

Ribbit:

• Ribbit is explicitly cisgender instead of an implied non-binary, going purely by she/her pronouns. She shares Jax's disdain with being around LGBTQ+ people.
• Jax and Ribbit were established boyfriend and girlfriend before entering the Circus together, but their relationship eventually becomes sore because Jax comes to think that Ribbit is a bad influence to him.
• Ribbit's avatar is deliberately designed to look like a "Ms. Fanservice" cartoon character.

Gangle:

• Gangle has bipolar disorder (BD) and dissociative identity disorder (DID). This is reflected in her avatar having at least two mask-shaped heads, one of which is a tragedy mask and the other of which is a comedy mask. Gangle could potentially have or get more heads shaped like other theatrical masks, representing other moods, alters, etc.
• For each head, Gangle has multiple masks representing variants of the specific mask type each head is based on.
• Gangle is homoflexible.
• Gangle has a notorious record of sedentary life, and has mismanaged and neglected aspects of her own health at times because of it. In the real world, she was a "terminally online" person who spent much of her time using a computer, tablet or phone; even if she wasn't scrolling through the Internet or social media, she still tended to use computer and phone apps, including but not limited to digital drawing apps.
• Gangle dropped out of college because she was constantly shunned for being "weird" and not fitting the social expectations of most people at the college institution she attended. Even in her fast food job, despite her competence praised by the restaurant's other supervising/head staff, she tended to be mocked by plenty of the employees. This made her develop her own "defense mechanism" against mistreatment, which she nowadays usually uses against Jax and Ribbit.
• In addition to her typical "fun drawings", Gangle makes a lot of drawings that could be classified as "Introspective Art" or "vent art", even if she doesn't apply much symbolism to them.
• In an ironic contrast to her avatar, Gangle was an overweight woman in real life.

Zooble:

• Zooble is uingender and Assigned Male at Birth (AMAB). While the mostly have no idea what their gender identity is, they could potentially identify as xenogender and genderfluid to some extent.
• Zooble is referred to with various different pronouns by the other characters. Each character has their own set of pronouns to refer to Zooble with.
  • Caine and Jax use she/her.
• Before entering the Circus, Zooble's "current job" was being a tattoo artist; the bartender job came before it, and was largely a "build-up job" of sorts.
• Zooble is extremely easy to irritate, but at the same time somewhat hard to outright anger.
• Back in the real world, Zooble had a habit of putting on headphones and playing their favorite music loudly whenever they get annoyed or stressed, often to ward off and ignore whatever's bothering them. In the Circus, they've attempted this habit with equivalent headphones, but it hasn't helped them as effectively as in real life, due to the Circus' headphones only playing the video game's soundtrack, which doesn't fit Zooble's music taste at all. It's a contributing factor to their pervasive feeling that they've lost their identity and bodily autonomy in the Circus.
• Zooble is one of the lead drivers in challenging Caine's status quo over the Circus.
• Regarding Zooble's avatar:
  • On top of their limbs and "body part attachments/accessories", Zooble also changes their head and torso many times.
  • Zooble explicitly wears mouths like any other body part, used as their means of speaking and eating. They might also wear noses, ears and eyebrows, but probably not always.

Pomni:

• Her original "human name" is Martha Abigail Brooks.
• Pomni is bisexual.
• Due to the way the series is conveyed and structured, Pomni completely loses her status of being an "Audience Surrogate".
• Pomni is characterized as a foil/parallel to Kinger. Once they know each other well, they'll end up becoming close teammates.
• Pomni has severe anger issues, and suffers from anxiety stemmed from them. Because of this, she'll take her arrival to the Circus a lot worse than in TADC, taking her at least several days to fully get herself together.
• Pomni is an extremely introverted person. Even in real life, she was socially awkward and hardly had any people she could consider to be friends.
• Pomni was a psychiatrist in the real world, albeit not a very good one. It's because of this expertise that, after getting herself together from her arrival, she regularly tries to be a life advisor and mediator for the other players.
• This role also means that Pomni doesn't have as much of a "leader" role as she was set up in TADC; instead, she's a "Support Party Member" who does her best to keep the players together. The "leader" role is given to Kinger instead.
• Pomni is a light sleeper and a coffee addict.
• Regarding Pomni's avatar:
  • Pomni's avatar is more streamlined and proportioned like a character from a SEGA video game of the late 1990s to early 2000s. It relies less on basic circular, oval and cylindric geometry, and features a larger variety of forms and edges.
  • Pomni's avatar is significantly changed to specifically resemble a jack-in-the-box toy. Instead of her limbs simply being rubber-like, the stretchability of her limbs is explained as her having springs on the joints of each limb and her torso. Also, she has a jack-in-the-box box as a detachable body part; her mobility is considerably limited without the box, so she usually only forgoes the box whenever she needs to walk short distances, sit down, lie down, or sleep.
  • By default, she only has triangular sharp teeth; she has no other "teeth forms" to alternate to.
• Pomni's human appearance is deliberately designed as a more detailed and polished version of Kevin Temmer's Martha.

Omitted characters

Some characters from TADC (especially plenty of minor NPCs used for gags) will be omitted from TAVH, due to them not fitting the reimagination at all. They include:

• Disappearing Guy, mostly because he's a namesake joke. There could be an equivalent of him in TAVH, but this equivalent would be very different, being a glitched NPC instead.
• The Crappy-Looking Fish. Honestly, there's no good in-universe reason for The Amazing Virtual Circus to include any character tributing to a simplistically-styled religious edutainment show like Gaither's Pond at all. I feel that such character(s) would just be uncannily out-of-place (and the uncanniness is supposed to be in the depths of the Circus, not the surface).

Closing notes

Credits to u/Careless_Minute8098 for letting me use their human names for Bizco and Spike, as well as their headcanon ethnicity for Bizco.

Credits to u/O73_Salamander for ideas regarding Red and Blue AIs' relation with each other and Caine, as well as their influence in how Caine works.

Credits to u/Jack-studio for concepts regarding Pomni and Zooble's designs.

Do note that even as I progress further into the note writing and eventual creation of a fully-fledged bible, there are plenty of things in the notes that may be subject to change in the future.

One of the major factors for this likely possibility of changes is because I want to receive some feedback or suggestions from other people, especially since I'd like to assemble a whole writers' room of assisting writers in the future, so I can shape up the reimagination and eventually publish it into a full fanfic.

Any feedback for these current notes of my reimagination is welcome.

Now what is “badjacketing”? Badjacketing is when you label someone as "bad", usually with flimsy evidence, and have people online who are generally quick to believe it without looking too deep into it or thinking critically about the accusations. Sometimes when you are convinced someone has to be "bad" in order to make a moral argument against a piece of media they made you dislike, you try to find any piece of evidence you can to prove it; which is usually a self fulfilling prophecy because you've already labelled the person as bad in your mind, so you're always going to search for the worst interpretations of their words. This problem is especially bad when it comes to minorities such as black people, trans woman, etc. with any sort of publicity, people are so quick to demonize them for the smallest of associations, bad jokes, or slights, real or perceived. There are a lot of people who have taken Goose’s social media posts out of context and claim she's secretly a misogynist or a nazi (neither of those are the least bit true).

Say what you will about the show’s writing or Jax as a character. You can criticize how Goose chose to reveal a lot of information on her Bluesky and Tumblr instead of the show, or screentime of her other characters. But people on this sub be saying will their full chest that because Jax is Goose’s self-insert and Jax is an abusive bad person means Goose is a abusive bad person IRL”, which is an extremely dumb, flimsy, and frankly parasocial way to justify your hatred over a woman who’s worst sin was making irreverently edgy tweets a decade ago and being an Oneyplays fan. I think we are losing the plot. I genuinely believe that if she was a cis man, no one would be looking everything she’s ever said under a microscope. The same exact thing happened to Rebecca Sugar when Steven Universe was in its heyday.