I'm dumb

The amazing dream circus🎪👁️👁️

Ra, God of the Sun

(also your art is really scrumptious and microwavable I love it!!!)

Okay so second-hand embarrassment is a BIG mf for me and drawing Jax in a situation where I know he's having a glorious nightmare of a moment shakes my brain like a roach in a jar so I'll have to leave the maid dress for all other talented artists out there. However! I'm a fan of compromises! And I love the idea of Jax relating a little too much to Gangle, and not coping with the a situation where he might see himself reflected as something anything else other than the cool, mysterious bastard he's micro-calculated himself to be.

1.) The prequel

Before Jax even started his self-destructive behavior, he was really off.

He summoned Caine to piss of Zooble and forgot the reason he did it to begin with.

He totally zoned out when Caine gave directions.

And when accused of some grand plan with Pomni...

...he had no idea what she was talking about.

I believe all of these above are examples of Jax's mask slipping. Jax let his guard down, and now we're starting to see that he's just some dopey guy that's barely reached adulthood.

Jax wants to look like a profound mastermind but he simply is not.

2.) He becomes self-aware

When Ragatha accuses him of getting close to Pomni to corrupt her, he loses it. Ragatha probably meant "I know that you're trying to get Pomni to partake in your antisocial and abusive bullying behavior," but Jax heard it as "You're choosing to get close to someone again to drag them to abstraction." This is where he becomes extra aware of his relationship with Pomni.

3.) He tries to play it cool but realizes he's getting Pomni hurt.

Jax really does try to keep opening up to Pomni. He revealed that his fear of corn is rooted in trypophobia, and when Pomni points out that she's getting to know him, he probably thinks back to what Ragatha said. I'm guessing his thoughts are along the lines of "Ragatha said I'm getting closer to Pomni to make her abstract like my past friends."

I'm going to come back to why it had to be Ragatha specifically to start his spiral.

With that on his mind, we get the shootout with Kinger in the dark room.

Although it was accidental, he hurt Pomni, and he apologized right away. He certainly felt bad.

They're both almost back to normal during the scene when they pursue Zooble to their room. After their duet, Jax gets the idea to break into Zooble's room with one of his many keys.

That caused Zooble to absolutely demolish them both and caused them to lose a life.

Zooble ran away and Pomni immediately went to pursue them.

Jax got afraid of Pomni taking on Zooble alone but he stayed behind to contemplate in the hallway.

He's super distressed over seeing Kaufmo's and Ribbit's doors. He just watched Pomni get hurt in this very hallway mere moments ago, so he connects it to the friends he failed to save. Jax made the connection that HE is the problem. His companionship is what causes people to get hurt, to abstract.

I believe this is the moment where Jax realizes he NEEDS to distance himself from Pomni.

And, in my opinion, that's why Jax reacted so strangely to Pomni's hug. He likes her and he enjoyed the hug but he's in too deep. He has to physically and metaphorically push her away.

I'm not entirely sure about his reaction here, but he keeps staring at the hand that pushed Pomni while Pomni has already moved on. He's touched her before, so what is it? Grief? Guilt? Regret? Love? You could make an argument for all of the above.

Either way, the last thing on Jax's mind is to hurt Pomni physically. He's wayyy too traumatized for that. Instead, he's hoping that Pomni will make it easy for him distance himself by shooting him. Physically, Jax would go to another room. Emotionally, Jax would have an excuse to push Pomni away. Instead, Pomni sussed him out and called him out on it.

Jax tried everything to get her to shoot him. He heckled her, claimed they weren't a team, and was an all around jerk to her uncharacteristically after what she thought was a wonderful day together. Again, he references Ragatha. I promise I'll get back to her.

Pomni picks up on exactly what Jax is doing. He wants to end their friendship. But why? That's why she tries to reason with him. She finally hit a nerve when she brought up abstraction.

He thinks she's blaming him for the abstraction of Ribbit, the friend that Pomni didn't even know. Once she sees his mask drop, she hones in on the abstraction conversation.

Jax claims that he'd move on and forget about her. For a moment, I actually think she believed him and considered turning the gun on herself before Jax backtracked and claimed it was a joke.

Pomni, being the incredibly emotionally mature and intelligent person she is, cracked the code. She knows that Jax is so afraid of her abstracting and that's why he won't hurt her physically. THAT is why Pomni fought him. She wanted to confirm her theory.

Jax pretty much admitted it himself. He tries HARD to mask again by going full villain and claiming that he's a some sort of sociopath that derives pleasure from the pain of others.

This is where I finally talk about Ragatha. Jax acts extremely mean to Ragatha. He's disproportionately cruel to her even though she's so kind. I think what Jax is doing here is exactly what he did to Ragatha, and she didn't pick up on the core of his insecurities like Pomni. Ragatha would never get physical like that. Ragatha DOES believe his villain persona is real.

To me, Ragatha admitting that she failed Jax is implying something deeper: she didn't always hate him; she once loved him. She probably still does in a way. And Jax? Ragatha knew Ribbit and Kaufmo. He's probably terrified of losing someone like Ragatha, so he pushed her away before she could abstract. To him, it's probably working since she's still around.

Back to Pomni- Jax finally fully cracks and shows that part of himself to Pomni.

Pomni did what nobody else would do and saw what nobody else could see. For whatever reason, Jax doesn't swear, but he did in front of Pomni. I think he was finally too tired to hide his real feelings, and honestly, I don't think he wanted to since he was aching over the very real pain he caused Pomni. Not to mention, he knew that Pomni saw through his behavior.

Jax's plea at the end was that of desperation. He knew he lost the battle but there's nothing more to say. He's begging Pomni to just pretend that his mask is the real and to not pursue him; to give up just like everyone else had.

But Pomni won't just give up on anyone like that. She watches him through the award show. She knows he's unwell because he's avoiding her and left mid show. Even better, she now has Ragatha by her side through it all.

What-if ep 6 Jax got 'killed' before realizing he was in too deep and instead continued to be in that limbo where he keeps casually hanging out with Pomni, as his fear response hasn't fully realized pinpointed the issue yet? You cant run away of the New Terrifying Feeling if youre not aware of it to begin with :))

(sorry I noticed a translation error and have re-uploaded the post)

Hey so what if there had been a Live Stream in the Losers Corner? :)) Gangle and Pomni would've watched Jax bullshitting around his lies and his grade A++ masking skills like I see you motherfucker while Kinger and Zooble would have sensed a deep vibe between the losers on the screen. Meanwhile Ragatha doesn't know what the hell is going on.

The episode goes out of its way to show Jax is wrong about every character, no one is playing archetypes and have many complex emotions, but it is easy to see where each archetype comes from. Kinger is usually in a crazy state and his actions feel random, Zooble hates his guts and let him know it, Gamgle is constantly sad in his presence.

So even if Jax does subconciously see there is more to the crew, I can understand why he choose these specific traits to dehumanize them.

But Ragatha being the 'cheerful' one is less of an obvious pick for me.

He always seems to focus on Ragatha being 'Nice' not 'Cheerful'. Hell, a second before this cartoon talk even started he was dragging Ragatha down for being too nice and friendly.

And it occurred to me that maybe he doesn't use nice because he doesn't personally see it as Ragatha being nice, he sees it as her being manipulative and ingenuine.

This whole talk is filled with projection but I don't think Jax is self aware enough to untangle all of that, so why not call her the fake one and be done with it?

Because this 'friendly and try hard and fake' Ragatha is too complex. Is too real. This is an issue that he has with Ragatha the human, he can't make Ragatha the silly circus doll that complex. Thinking of human Ragatha makes him unconfortable.

So he simply doesn't think about her 'niceness' and all the frustrations that comes with it. He even uses the same 'you look stupid so i can't take you seriously' excuse that he used with Pomnie to distance himself from it.

Ok, so she can't be the 'nice' one.

She is constantly annoyed by Jax and his cruelty but unfortunetely she can't be the angry or the grumpy one either, that's Zooble's role in this cartoon charade.

Most cartoons have a cheerful character, right? That's a classic! So by process of elimination, Ragatha get it!

That's one possibility. When we do get a cheerful Ragatha it bounces off Jax's personality well. Is simple humor. Classic cartoon energy.

Second possibility is more especulative but bear with me.

What if Ragatha used to be more cheerful and closer to Jax? Not nescesarily friends, but friendly enough to make her deeply worried for his well being, believing she 'failed him' till this day + she was close enough to make Jax ocasionally slip from his 'none of this is real' mentality and think about her as a person that genuinely frustrates him.

The way Kinger talked about how much Ragatha arrival helped him implies she started out as an optimistic noobie.

She didn't 'bring Kinger comfort' or 'made him feel real after years of being alone'. She changed his outlook on the circus. It is a very specific thing to change.

She has a care for others that Kinger appreciate. He was likely thinking of her when he told Pomnie this:

This wonderful care persist, but she is so incredibly anxious and stressed that it falls flat. She is always trying way too hard, hurting herself and pushing the hurt aside to please others. Is never nice when others hurt themselves so it can make people unconfortable or question her autenticity.

From episode one Raghata was on the ropes, I wonder how her care for others manifested in her early days, cause we are introduced to Ragatha when she is in this mental state:

Ragatha is deeply scarred by this circus.

Jax said "People close to abstration are NOT pleasant to be around" and Ragatha has been in the circus for even longer than Jax, so she would also known how 'unpleasant' people close to abstraction are.

Abstraction is what made Jax start using this terrible 'you're my playthings' approach to copes. So Ragatha is also trying her best to cope.

Jax changed, so why wouldn't Ragatha, who chose to keep caring for other people and their forever changing personalities, not change too?

Maybe, just maaaaybe, Ragatha didn't used to be a nervous wreck, maybe her optimism was more genuine. Still with her mommy issues and a few flaws, but more cheerful.