The Amazing Digital Circus Spoilers
I thought this on even my first watch of The Amazing Digital Circus, but even moreso on rewatches, that there feels like a pretty deliberate parallel of "abstraction" with suicide. Part of that comes from what abstraction equates to in the story, but another part comes from how the characters experience and talk about it.
Ragatha talks about abstraction without naming it, later explaining that what she was talking about was referring to it. Her exact wording immediately makes the clear tie in of abstraction and sanity, playing back to the jokes earlier around "going insane."
There's obviously the mentioning of a breaking point and losing sight of why you're even alive, but there's also a very clear distinction of losing sight of who you are. Identity plays a piece into how it works, and that shows up again later.
In the intro, it says "Disclaimer: Kaufmo did not show up today." When they go to find him in his room, they have to break in to enter, and they find him in the form of a (seemingly) mindless monster. The walls are scrawled with the word "EXIT," over and over and over, with a few exceptions.
Besides the exit scrawlings and the drawing of Caine, there's two other lines: one being a message saying "WHAT DID THE EXIT SAY TO THE CLOWN?", and the other being a couple separate scrawlings of a response- potentially the punchline- saying "NO WAY OUT."
All we really know so far about Kaufmo is that he was a clown that was obsessed with making the others laugh at his jokes, and getting upset when someone would fake it. We don't really know much else about how he thought or acted besides it, and yet even here it shows that his obsession with the exit bled into everything he thought about- even his jokes began to revolve around the exit. We only know about one thing he actually valued, and that thing was overtaken by the obsession to leave. There's an implication there that Kaufmo might've already found the fake exit- or one like it- and what it "told" him was that there was "no way out." It's possible that that was the straw that broke the camel's back, but we don't really know yet.
The last thing of note- and the thing that prompted the thought in the first place upon my first watch- was what Zooble said after Kaufmo's abstraction was dealt with (...by throwing his body into a pit of various other abstracted bodies),
The choice of the phrase, "give up." It's a very deliberate turn of phrase to not only imply a choice, but is also often used interchangeably with "quitting" or "lost" when discussing suicide. Obviously, not a healthy way to view the concept in the first place, but it's sadly a relatively common practice.
The X's on the doors in the living quarters and the other abstracted bodies imply he is not the first, nor will be the last, and it's something the cast is already well acquainted with- which, makes sense, seeing as they have a name for it. But the specific implication of showing it as a loss of both body and self is something I definitely want to keep an eye on. Due to the genre being a psychological horror, I'm already VERY invested in how they'll use this for storytelling in the future.
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various fairfaxes and a drawing from my english civil wars hiking au which i never posted :-) [id under cut]
[image description:
the first image is a digital drawing of a group of men on a light brown background. they are all wearing hiking-appropriate clothing. from left to right: a young man swinging from a tree; arrows pointing at him read ‘weirdly passionate about hiking’ and ‘like 15′. a man leaning against a tree; arrows read ‘grumpy’ and ‘only here for family bonding with father-in-law’. a man with a cane and one arm in a sling, leaning over to read a map; arrows read ‘has injured himself on every hike so far’ and ‘designated driver’. a man reading a map with a serious expression; arrows read ‘annoyed about everything except hiking and sometimes also hiking’ and ‘only one who can read a map’. a man with his hands on his hips looking at the viewer; arrows read ‘arranges hikes and then doesn’t go on them’ and ‘good at arguing’.
the second image is a collection of four digital drawings of thomas fairfax, a man with long dark hair, a moustache, and a beard. he is wearing seventeenth-century clothing. one is a full-body coloured drawing of him sitting in a chair facing away from the viewer with his legs folded and his hat on his knee. the other three are uncoloured: two are headshots of him as a young man and an older man, and the third shows him sitting at a table reading a piece of paper with an expression of concentration.
the third image is a coloured digital portrait of thomas fairfax as an older man. he is clean-shaven and has long dark hair and a scar across his cheek. he is wearing a dark doublet and a large white falling band, and is looking to the left of the image with a serious expression.
end image description.]
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👀 (any dndads au you feel like sharing, lovebird! hope you're having a wonderful day btw 💜💜💜)
Hehehehe HIII HAPPI <3 I am having a wonderful day tysm!! :D I hope you are too <3
I'm trying to think abt if I have any aus that you don't already know about BWCEUAHAHAAH and im not sure how much you know abt the most recent one I've made
OOOH I have got this one fantasy AU I haven't touched in a while but I think would be really fun to revisit sometime! <3
The idea is that there's this ancient curse that's been unleashed on the land creating this magic rot that's slowly been devouring forests, towns, and eventually maybe even whole kingdoms! The rot can overtake animals and people, warping them into dangerous mirrors of their past self, this AU's take on doodlerization. the sauce if you will <3
Taylor is a member of the royal court of the Kingdom of Hell (son of the first prince Nick) and Link is his loyal guard and bestie who keeps him from dying in their shenanigans and escapades. They have a silly goofy, I've known you my whole life and I will die to protect you bc you're the person dearest to me also ur a dumbass who's stupid as fuck, energy going on <3 friends to dumbasses to lovers <3
Normal is a regular villager who recently happened to score an apprenticeship with the castle healer! Apparently his dad knew someone in the court and managed to pull some strings, wonder what that's all about. (spoiler alert: its pretty important and he's also secretly royalty but doesn't know it)
Scary is an amateur witch <3 She saw her mom start dating the castle wizard and was like FUCK THAT GUY AND HIS STUFFY BOOKS. BET I COULD DO THAT BUT BETTER AND COOLER AND LESS NERDY. So she's been sneaking off to practice magic with rudimentary materials and a few nicked things Terry left around their cottage.
Turns out Scary has a natural talent for certain parts of magic because she accidentally stumbles upon a prophecy outlining the world's possible end unless a certain group of people go to the ruins of a lost kingdom to stop the rot. And when she finds out who those people are she's like FUUUUUCK. bc now she's gotta find a way to sneak into the castle to somehow find these losers, one of which is apparently a PRINCE !! and then they've all gotta go out and not die on an adventure or else EVERYONE'S gonna die. and like she can't be bothered but also ig it would be kind of cool to shove it in her stepdad's face that she's more awesome than him and saved the world so. off she goes!
Hermie's the second prince who is often overshadowed by his older half brother. He happens to overhear the group talk about the prophecy around the time they're preparing to leave and tags along to prove his worth to his dads and also have people pay attention for him for once goddamn !!!!! also the healer boy is kinda cute <3
Cue super fun goofy and exciting magical fantasy quest !!! Secrets are revealed! Bonds are formed! Possible corruption? MAYHAPS! Also where even ARE the ruins of the kingdom of Oakvale no one seems to have heard of it at all! All while the rot continues to spread....
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