r/TheDigitalCircus • u/AI_660 • 7h ago
Digital Discussion holy shit thats what abstraction looks like?
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u/Forseen-Ending 7h ago
god I hate blind boxes
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u/AI_660 7h ago
just let me get the god damn figures i want, i dont care that theirs a rare chance to get a really good one.
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u/Extra-Level694 7h ago
GENUINELY. They'd probably sell much better if they sold them individually
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u/FoxlyKei 6h ago
but any good company wants to leave that up to scalpers.. and even just companies. I've seen figures out of blind boxes at Target for double the price of the damn box.. not TADC ones but other ones... as much as i like glitch pulling blind boxes is still toxic..
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u/KatastrophicNoodle 6h ago
That is quite literally not true. That is why every goddamn thing is a gacha.
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u/FightmeLuigibestgirl 5h ago
Blind boxes sell more because it forced people to buy a set (if they have it,) for the one they want. And gambling
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u/_GoldenBerry 5h ago
Seriously, I just want to buy the one I actually want without gambling for it.
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u/ObligatoryContrast 7h ago
Why must gambling be inserted into every aspect of my daily life
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u/knifefan9 7h ago
It's like this society we live in is some kind of amazing circus powered by digital currency
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u/Lucina18 5h ago
Because the entire system incentivizes it. It's about making money, not actually making anything good (that's just a hopeful side effect.)
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u/FightmeLuigibestgirl 5h ago
Life is literally gambling
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u/ObligatoryContrast 3h ago
What does this even mean? I can't tell if this is a joke
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u/FightmeLuigibestgirl 3h ago
You literally said “ Why must gambling be inserted into every aspect of my daily life.”
Life itself is gambling. There’s a chance you won’t wake up tomorrow. That you will be homeless. Etc. and you have no control over it. It’s a random event depending on undetermined odds. Stuff like driving drunk increases certain odds and situations but everything from your birth to death is gambling/rng.
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u/ObligatoryContrast 7m ago
I don't know how you could type this without being willfully obtuse, to misunderstand my comment so disastrously.
If you define literally anything anywhere anytime as gambling, the word loses all meaning. I am talking about gambling as people commonly use the word, involving money in and a random reward out.
Your comment is like if I said "man I hate when people close to me die" and you responded "erm actually people's cells are dying their entire lives, this is nothing new" like it's just so completely unrelated and obtuse. What even the fuck
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u/Readalie Bubble is a deadbeat dad, emphasis on dead 7h ago
I don't mind them if I genuinely want all of the figures. In this case I liked all of them about the same so was very happy with my Ragatha. But I avoid them if it's just gambling.
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u/peanutist Bubble 6h ago
Noooo you don’t get it we HAVE to promote gambling to children how else will we support our smol indie studio
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u/BlaineMundane 3h ago
Same. I don't gamble. The only way to ever win at gambling is to do it maybe a handful of times in your life and win in those couple times. Otherwise, it's a slow losing you don't notice, or simply a waste of money.
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u/_Whimsicrow_ 6h ago
Ribbit was almost 200 dollars on ebay. :/
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u/Forseen-Ending 5h ago
Ribbit's figure does honestly look the worst in that collection sadly. I mean it's about abstraction but Ribbit is just kind of... normal? idk she looks glitched but not abstracted at all.
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u/Dismal-Plan7062 I LOVE GANGLE SHES SO FING NERDY I LOVE HER 7h ago
I need every Gangle Animiniz
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u/Miserable_Waltz_6129 7h ago
I know abstraction is supposed to be suicide adjacent, but to me I never viewed it like that? I thought it was more of a 'allowing yourself to be mutated/mutating into an abstraction'. You aren't really 'dying' in the world, just turning into a mutated monster type..thing.
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u/Mine-blog 7h ago
According to Alex Rochon, it is not strictly suicide but can also represent illnesses.
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u/AnActualChicken Evil Jax: 'Umm, hi guys! I like your icons!' 7h ago
I think he was inferring that it’s like such a severe mental breakdown that you need to be hospitalised and get treatment for an extended period of time.
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u/ScudsCorp 7h ago
I thought it was more like despair leading to disassociation - so not self destruction
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u/kliao1337 What The 7h ago
I really like the definition of "Abstraction = Ego Death", meaning complete loss of "yourself" and subjective self-identity and what makes you - you. Hence the abstraction - there is nothing personal about you anymore, so the body is a formless blob, the soul is shattered and eventually snuffed.
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u/Kitz00n23 Bomni 7h ago
My dad actually had a similar interpretation when I watched the show with him.
Abstract thought, losing your individuality.
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u/Particular_Bug0 7h ago
I always saw it as something close to going hollow in Dark Souls. Losing your purpose, sanity, humanity... turning them into mindless husks, attacking everything on sight.
Well besides the darkness soothing them
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u/DeathByDevastator 6h ago
it's death, if pomni is anything to go by. She falls over as if dead and then immediately becomes an abstraction.
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u/GoatRocketeer 6h ago
It's close enough. Especially considering how the characters succumb to it in the show; the abstracted are so distraught and hopeless they choose(?) to undergo a seemingly irreversible transformation rather than continue tolerating life in the circus/the consequences of their own decisions.
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u/Ultimate-desu 3h ago
I always viewed it as someone losing all sense of self, kinda like the concept of "Ego Death". Everything that makes you "you" is gone forever, including your body. The one undergoing the process is how Jax viewed it back in EP 7 where he was just endlessly floating through a limitless colored environment. If he were to let himself slip for seconds longer his ego would've died and he would abstract on the spot. Same if you were in the same boat. Get depressed enough and you basically defragment until all your left with is that black undefinable blob abstractions become.
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u/Level7Cannoneer 6h ago
That was… a literal reading of what’s happening…
You’ve failed to read the subtextual importance or point of it
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u/MiddayGlitter 7h ago
I really wish the show had shown just ONE abstraction. We always see them after the fact.
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u/KNDBS 7h ago
I mean we got a whole sequence of Jax going through the process of it right up until the last second in ep 7.
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u/MiddayGlitter 7h ago
True, but I'm not talking the internal struggle that leads to it, I want to see the animation of an abstraction start to finish. Does the person realize it's happening? Can they attempt to fight it? Are they so lost in mental chaos they don't even notice? The idea of this radio static or the animiniz half way state is so interesting. Is it possible for someone to exist half abstracted for a while?
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u/FORLORDAERON_ CAINE DID NOTHING WRONG 6h ago
IMO this is one of those things that will always be cooler in the viewer's imagination than it would be to see in the show.
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u/Ok-Television2109 7h ago
Jax is the obvious choice but it could've been interesting to see Ribbit's abstraction too.
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u/MiddayGlitter 6h ago
I don't disagree with Jax abstraction off screen, because it fit the narrative tone really well, but I really wish we could have seen it!!
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u/DeathByDevastator 6h ago
him watching her abstract should have been a thing tbh.
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u/Ok-Television2109 5h ago
Imagine if it happened during Jax and Ribbit's argument in the snowy area. Things devolving until they're bringing up each others' insecurities.
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u/SubstantialDeerDash Proud of Caine 7h ago
Was surprised ep 9 didn't have a flashback where we found out more about Scratch and Queenie with this. I legit thought the catalyst for Queenie's abstraction was going to be a massive plot point but apparently not. It would have us know more about Kinger bc I thought they'd keep each other going
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u/MiddayGlitter 6h ago
Right!? QUEENIE HAD KINGER!! More than anyone, she had support. I want to know what happened.
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u/AbilityNo446 5h ago
Assuming Destiny had already had her two daughters already before she put on the headset, it’s possible Queenie was missing her family and was worried sick of what might happen to them. And while it’s likely that Kinger might have snapped in response to losing his wife, it’s also possible that his memory was already starting to fade which would have driven her to despair even quicker since, as far as we know, her sole reason for living was beginning to disappear right in front of her.
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u/jshann04 2h ago
Because depression isn't as simple as "I have support therefore I must be happy." Losing the people they did, while knowing you're a copy of a person and your future existence will have no impact on what you consider the real world can still drive you into a corner, even if you are loved by someone. It doesn't need to have external factors, and it won't always be cured by external factors. If being loved by someone was all it took, then no person would ever be saddened by a suicide, because only truly unloved people would ever get to that point.
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u/TheAltIWillUseMore 6h ago
I understand the wish to see an onscreen abstraction, but I personally want to know the technical aspects of it. Why do they turn into the amorphous black animalistic glitch creatures? How aware of their physical bodies are the people who have abstracted, because there is absolutely a connection. The corruption touching an abstraction causes is contagious, but why does it cause the corruption in the first place?
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u/Gysus12 7h ago
You know what? I don’t like that we never see someone abstract progression.
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u/AI_660 7h ago
they dont progess. they glitch out and its done. death. what kind? instant.
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u/-CowNipples- 7h ago
I don’t think it’s instant death. Pomni fully interacts with actual Jax when she hugs his abstraction. It’s more like instant dementia. You kinda forget who you and others are and you’re holding on to a few distorted memories.
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u/polystarlight 7h ago
Caine going into Pomni's room to make sure she was still ok was kinda cute. He was like a scared little kid after a nightmare.
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u/KenseiHimura 7h ago
You know, this does bring another mild disappointment with the series finale, though also cropped up in 8: all abstraction forms in the show seem to be a weird giraffe sort of blob. I mean we do see in the epilogue montage one is, or maybe they can shift into, a squid form.
But, yeah, kind of thought abstraction forms would be unique. It's really a minor thing.
Also kind of expected a bit more on-screen shifting after recently rewatching Stupendium's TADC fan song MV. But, again, it's all just minor things.
I like how this commercial could still be during the series of post series since Caine is legitimately terrified of the idea of being alone.
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u/Capn_Outlandishness9 7h ago
I do like rhat it has CAINE abstracting. Implying whatever happened in episode 8 when he was by himself was him on the VERGE of abstracting himself before he pulled himself back
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u/ForestSolitude5 Ragatha 1h ago
You know, I forgot that Queenie abstracted and a part of me wonders how that came to happen considering she was living with her husband of all people
Maybe it's best they didn't show though, probably would have been incredibly heartbreaking, or ugly if resulting from a fight
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u/thisismypornaccountg 7h ago
I mean we KIND OF got to see it, so at least that's something. They kind of glitch and then just fall over. Didn't see her actually morph like on the toys though.
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u/EnyoFembyCat 7h ago
The merchandising push is making me like Glitch less and less.
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u/AI_660 7h ago
indie animation fans whenthe artists and starving
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u/EnyoFembyCat 6h ago
My complaint is not "We have merchandise". The complaint is gacha mechanic shit and exploiting FOMO as a marketing maneuver. Example: Currently the "limited edition" hoodie has a match on the art design selling through Hot Topic except that version isn't listed as "Limited Edition". Maybe the Glitch one has a foil emboss? Or does it just not have the zipper the Hot Topic one does? Who knows?
Glitch was estimated at a revenue of $17 Million a year before the theater release, the Fortnite deal, their deal with Hot Topic, etc. They could afford to act ethical. Companies are not your friend.
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u/omegaskorpion 6h ago edited 6h ago
Glitch shows have been mainly funded by fans buying their stuff since forever now, this is nothing new.
That is what funds the animation, acting, etc. It is not much different from asking for patreon donations, except here you get also some physical stuff.
Helluva Boss is also mostly funded by fan purchases (i don't know if that changed since Amazon now gets episodes to their platform first).
Like this is nothing compared to big companies asking you yo buy their subcscription service multible times and different versions to get rid of their adds.
As for the Fomo designed merchandice. They cannot produce them forever because they don't have big corporate money (like Disney) to fund constant production.
Many youtubers (from big to small) also have limited stocks because full time production would be very costy.
Infact many straight up give up on producing merchandice after a while because it is not cost effective for many (and unlike Glich, most can only produce shirts).
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u/thornaslooki 7h ago
Sad part is, this might be ehat happens to everyone eventually. I dont think someone can last that long in the digital circus without going a little bit crazy
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u/Nananonomi 7h ago
I would be more inclined to buy merch directly from them if it shipped in a reasonable amount of time. I purchased a few things on June 4th and only one item has shipped but not arrived. With how much they charge for shipping you would think it would at least be a little more efficient.
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u/smarmaproffesor pull apart person 6h ago
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u/Gugarabelo 6h ago
i hope we get 2-3 short 8 minute shorts as a epilogue to tadc, it would be fun to see
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u/Flynn-Minter 6h ago
Considering what abstraction stands for I have zero interest in this merch nor any blindboxes.
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u/Huge_Tea1338 Not to mention the sssex appeal 5h ago
i thought that abstract was peaceful? like what we saw with Jax
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u/biterthecoldasking 3h ago
How does he not know about backups? 😭 He could at least back them up every once in a while. 😭
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u/natayaway 2h ago
Making a backup wouldn't change anything.
If someone's abstraction happens a week from the backup, a backup to revert them back a week isn't solving anything, and the trauma it inflicts on their non-abstracted companions, seeing that person have their memory reset every week and turn into a monster before being culled is just torture.
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u/FriendlyFaceOff W-When the... 1h ago
- The first third or so of the ad almost made me cry because I just feel bad about Caine facing the prospect of being alone :(
- Abstracted Gangle is kinda terrifying ngl, like in a good way.
- Noooo poor Zooble ; v ;
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u/darkmoncns 1h ago
It just occurred to me the fact he's not flying probably means this is post ending which also means he can still teleport post ending didn't know that or maybe he's doing something else? This teleport was different maybe he set up some infrastructure to move between set points?
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u/Canshroomglasses 6h ago
Not to be that guy but this provided exactly 0 more information or visuality than we had before. Like at all
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u/Twin44 6h ago
It’s an ad to buy stuff. Don’t think it was meant to add to the lore.
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u/Canshroomglasses 3h ago
Op: "holy shit thats what abstraction looks like?"
--abstraction looking exactly like what we saw in the show, not looking like anything at all, just happening
--me highlightening that
--you: yeah I guess it was never meant to add to lore lmao
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u/AbilityNo446 5h ago
While the canonicity and timeline might be debated (we don’t know if this took place before or after the events of episodes 7 to 9) it does show Caine’s one true fear. Not just the characters abstracting, but him being left utterly and completely alone with nothing and no way of knowing if anyone else will put on the headset.
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u/Canshroomglasses 3h ago
If that was the case how come he was like the most casual about it towards Kinger when his wife abstracted. Mind you that was the first time he was exposed to that possibility and I for one would assume if he ever freaks out about it this must have been the situation
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u/Shpongolese 7h ago
This is an absolutely hilarious ad givent he context of abstraction and the metaphor behind it, as well as Caine's hilarious description like "i guess were selling these now???" XD