#crack thoughts

Ok let me start by saying I’m pretty wired right now. The blog’s theme isn’t very subtle if you catch my meaning. So take any of my insane ramblings as what they are, the psychedelic fever dream of a guy tripping balls.

Guess I’ll start with my initial thoughts on Jax, and how I felt about him and the show as it went on. I had heard about TADC before but didn’t really care enough to look into it. Sometime in September 2025 my algorithm starts flooding with TADC content, long form content, like perfect to listen to while you work kind of length. I finally give in and start watching from be beginning about a month after Ep6 came out. Perfect time to join honestly, there was plenty of fan content to catch up on and enjoy while I waited for the next episodes. I got a new hyper fixation out of it so it was pretty great. But enough about me, let’s dissect this lab rabbit and see what we can find.

I liked Jax in the pilot, he was a bugs bunny type that cracked jokes, broke the 4th wall, and was the lovable jerk of the circus. He was an archetype I’d seen a hundred times, he was sure to be enjoyable. The pilot gave me the basics and I was certainly interested in watching the rest of the series, it was only 6 episodes after all, but I wasn’t exactly sold yet. I was looking forward to an episode adventure show. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Episode 2 confirmed my suspicions, he was a bugs bunny type, and Gangle didn’t really have enough of a personality yet to see her as anything but the punchline, so the abuse wasn’t really standing out, he was it was funny and they’re trapped in a digital world with no consequences. I’m going to anger a lot of people, but I don’t care for gummygoo. Not in a I hate him way, more in a this character is overrated way.

Episode 3 Jax is barely in, so my thought on him directly didn’t change, but I do start caring for the characters more as Kinger’s backstory makes me realize the characters are all going through it in their own way, it’s not the funny haha show I though it was, I’d been trying to enjoy it wrong. A change in perspective starts here, more on this during bonus thoughts.

Episode 4, Jax hates mundane reality, and has a fixation on Gangle. He bullies her because he likes her, I can get behind that dynamic, especially when Jax is getting a taste of his own medicine. This was the Gangle episode, the one where I finally started to like her, and while I still excused his actions up to this point, going forward I would start to feel bad for Jax’s actions. Also this is the episode where Ragatha was confirmed my favorite character, before this it was Caine.

Episode 5, This is my favorite episode. Jax and Pomni are friends. Intermission time is such a masterpiece of animation. Ragatha, you really are my favorite, gotta keep that smile up, thinking the bad thoughts don’t help nobody. Ooh some Jealous Ragdoll tension? Wait what’s with that mannequin?

looking back this series should have been more episodic, this is the logical conclusion of the adventures, but I would have liked to have seen more I guess “larping” of the characters trying to pretend everything is fine while also balancing adventures. This is the episode that Hooked me by the way.

Episode 6, The Jax Episode. Jax and Pomni are friends, maybe more. Everyone else is also healing emotionally. What you got there Caine? Jax fucks it up. Jax doubles down. Jax Spirals. Jax/Pomni feels like a goldmine, I think that’s my main ship now.

Intermission time! I caught up, let’s check out the theories, art, fanfiction, and all other creations of the fandom while I wait for the next episode some months later.

…

God I love this show, the fandom is so great. I read so much fanfiction and saw such great art that probably influenced my perception of the show going forward.

[Little bonus theory, I believe this is why some people didn’t like the ending. Not to say it didnt have its problems. ]

Bunnydoll is best ship by the way. Funnybunnydoll is a close second.

Episode 7, All your theories were wrong*.

First episode I watched live. Lucky I joined th fandom late before I had too much of a hype train going, lots of people were disappointed, not me though, I was just more hooked about what’s actually going on. Yep, that sure is bikini Ragatha, I sure hope this doesn’t awaken anything in me.

Also Jax is fucking dying over there. I loved this middle finger to the fandom, it’s like V3 all over again. Too many people were parasocial at this point.

Episode 8, Caine Fucking Died!

Well now they’re in actual hell. Jax didn’t really stand out, it was more of an ensemble episode, but fascinating personal torture sequence, I wonder what they mean. What do you mean there’s only 1 more episode! The story can’t wrap up in that time. Hour long movie plus theatrical release? Well maybe it’ll be fine.

Final intermission, before the finale, wow this is exciting, hey what’s going on over there?

Holy fuck why is the fandom perpetually on fire! What happened? Everything was fine last week! The fanfic writers are working overtime trying to finish before the final blow. Oh yeah never saw the leaks, but got unknowingly spoiled anyway. It was all text post so I thought it was just someone’s AU.

Movie time In 4D! Let’s take shrooms for the special event! Bad idea! 4D sucks ass and ruined the experience. Drugs left me in a heavy emotional state for a couple of days. I can’t believe that fucking twink ass rabbit had me mourning him in real fucking life.

Ok I’ve recovered what did I think of the movie/finale/ep9? Well it was a fun experience, met some cool people, episode wasn’t perfect, or even satisfying as an ending, but I liked it more than I disliked it. The fact he’s kept as a pet dog is honestly the reason I didn’t love it at the end. That and the pacing issues, 9 episodes was definitely not enough time.

Ok my background and credentials out of the way let’s get into the actual

theory/analysis/ramblings.

The Jax has Peter Pan Syndrome Theory

We know Jax is 22 when the show takes place in 2017, but what age was he when he joined?

He says he was in high school when he ran away from home. It was during this time when he was homeless that he snuck into the abandoned C&A building and put on the head set.

What if the reason Jax acts the way he does is because he is a literal teenager who was never taught any better? He was never given a chance to grow up. Also gives him closer ties to Ted from IHNMAIMS as he too had an inferiority complex about his age.

Every other character was at least in their 20’s when they joined, they were responsible, fully grown adults.

Kinger was 30 when he joined in 1999, a professional programmer with at 7 year degree and at least 4 years working at C&A.

Ragatha was 21 when she joined in 2008, the second youngest to join technically, but still an adult for several years with a budding real estate career during the 2008 financial crash. Don’t get me started on Ragatha, I’ll put my thoughts in the bonus section.

Zooble is never given an entry date, but is 22 in 2017 when the series takes place, we can assume (sorry Ming) that they haven’t been in the circus a full year, probably a couple of months at most as while they are mostly used to things, they still aren’t participating or interacting with anyone. They don’t have the eccentric insanity every other person has developed to survive. Zooble, while they still don’t have their life together and are still figuring things out, have had opportunities to figure themselves out, being in a band, working as a bartender and being a tattoo artist.

Gangle is also not given an entry date, but is 26 in 2017. Gangle joined after Jax, sometime after Ribbit’s abstraction, having come off being a manager at a McDonalds, something that requires years of experience to achieve, so firmly an adult. Gangle was definitely unhappy with their life, but they learned that first hand by trying and failing.

Pomni is 25 in 2017, when she joins at the start of the series. The first 4 episodes are the first 4 days with an ambiguous but definitely short time skip, after that less than 2 weeks, before the end of the series.

Pomni is a successful accountant with a hobby in urban exploration, she has her life together. She is also the only one sane enough to properly manage these people. A side effect of just having got there.

Next we need to consider the nature of their existence. No one is a “real” person. They are all brain scans of the people who put on the headsets. Are the circus members actually capable of aging? Of change? They are keeping track of the passing time, but they are no longer biological, they have no physical form to change. Years may have passed, but what does that actually mean for them aside from the mental anguish?

Was Jax locked in to be a perpetual teenager the moment he put on the headset? This would explain why he has fears in his masculinity, he should be a man by now, but is still a boy, unable to grow up because he has no way to. He is the memory of a boy during the worst time of his life, trapped in an unchanging yet fantastical world where there are no consequences, nothing is real.

Let’s consider ignoring the biological route and instead go into the other part of growing up, your upbringing.

As I mentioned, Jax has the memories of a kid named Leroy Mateo. Leroy’s dad walked out on his family before he started high school. Leroy’s mom took out her emotions on Leroy, giving him twisted perceptions of love and abuse. Leroy tried to confide something personal in his mother, who reacted poorly, laughing at him and berating him before ultimately accepting him anyway with a hug. Leroy, was unsure how to take this love after the humiliation of laughter and pushed her away, possibly killing her, this is when he ran away. Another seed was planted here, do not open up to anyone about anything personal, bad things happen when you do. Leroy lived life on the streets for an unknown length of time before putting on the headset that made a copy of him.

Jax now trapped in the circus finds himself in a better place than where Leroy was. No one can question him about possibly killing his mom, he no longer has to worry about food or shelter, and even has friendship in Ribbit and Kaufmo.

What would growing up trapped in the circus be like? A personality is formed based on what it is fed. Jax came in thinking he had to be a man, aside from his preconceptions of an ideal fed to him by his mother, the only male role models Jax had to look up to were Kinger, Caine, and Kaufmo.

Kinger was mentally unavailable, incompetent, and impossible to get to know, especially after he gets written off as “the crazy one”. However Jax still sees Ragatha care for and try to include Kinger at every opportunity despite Kinger’s lack of usefulness to the group.

Caine is actually even younger than Jax if we count his creation in 1995 as his birth. Either way, Caine is not human and unable to act as a father figure, especially when Caine wants to be the god figure of everyone’s lives. Jax does learn to manipulate him though, increasing his own egomania.

Kaufmo is actually the person Jax takes in the most from. Kaufmo was the cool, chill, laid back one who made jokes. Jax took these and made them part of his own persona, considering his archetype to be “the funny one”.

And of course, what is a man without the women in his life? As discussed the situation with his mom left a bit of a complex and seeds of trauma that will ruin every relationship he has.

Ragatha, going through it herself and for far longer than Jax, is coping in her own way. Ragatha’s mask is the foil to Jax’s, Ragatha is so desperate for emotional validation she showers it on others to keep them from feeling how she does and self validate herself by being useful. Jax sees this and takes away that Ragatha trying to manipulate him into loving her by faking care and compassion. Paired with the motherly persona Ragatha takes on in an effort to not be like her own mother, and Jax’s twisted love from his mother, Jax does not believe Ragatha when she says she wants to help him, it is a trap he has fallen for before and doesn’t want a repeat of what happened last time. Letting people get close emotionally leads to bad things happening.

Ribbit was Jax’s best friend, maybe more, and while not quite the reason, was the catalyst that sent him into the spiral he would never recover from. Ribbit was what made life worth living for Jax, while she was around, living in the circus was ok. Ribbit pushed Jax to open up, something he hadn’t resolved yet, but Jax was willing to open up to Ribbit, try and get past the seeded trauma, but reacts poorly. Kaufmo interrupting makes Jax question what if in letting lose his vulnerabilities, everyone has ammunition to use against him, to laugh at him, to pretend to apologize and say they loved him only for it to inevitably happen again. Jax tries to put the genie back in the bottle and threatens Ribbit to keep his secret or he will stop talking to her completely. Despite Ribbit never sharing the secret, Jax doubles down and follows through anyway, completely ignoring Ribbit as if she didn’t even exist, going out of his way to avoid her. Leading to her abstraction.

The seed has not only sprouted but is in full bloom, opening up to people only leads to bad things happening. Make sure no one can ever make him open up. Make Ragatha keep a cruel promise. Burn relationship with Kaufmo. Treat the newbie Gangle as a play thing so she doesn’t try to get to know him. Zooble self isolates? Hey that’s easier on Jax’s part.

Hey a new clown girl to mess with this should be fun. Oh Kaufmo died. Real men don’t cry, real men don’t care.

Why is the clown girl trying to get to know him so hard. Oh no, he let her in, better push her away. Oh fuck he’s having flashbacks to why he doesn’t let people in, bad things happen. And now the others who he thought he didn’t have to worry about are acting in ways he can’t predict! He’s slowly losing control and doesn’t know what to do about it.

Everyone else he is forced to interact with poking at one of his insecurities just by existing. Kinger with his sanity issues represents Jax’s present yet absentee father. Ragatha in her efforts to work through her own mommy issues ends up triggering Jax’s. Pomni is a combination of his two best friends who he had a hand in abstracting. Zooble is openly gay while Jax has issues he needs to work out. Gangle masks much like Jax, even covering up similar personalities of Evil Jax is anything to go by.

Oh, great Caine is evil and tortures them now. The others barely acknowledge him and ignore his provocations for attention. Is this what Ribbit went through?

Kinger killed Caine. Well now he really does have nothing, no more distractions from his own thoughts. Try and reach out to Pomni one last time, get cold feet. Dies.

Now we have an abstraction running around a dying circus the others have to deal with.

Zooble is angry and blames Jax for doing this on purpose. They have such little faith in Jax that they believe even his death was one last fuck you to all of them.

Gangle cannot make herself feel anything for him. She isn’t cruel enough to be glad he’s gone, but also isn’t really sad he is dead.

Ragatha is finally freed from her burden and shares the story with Pomni. Ragatha was the last one who remembers a time before Jax put on the mask, the person he was before he spiraled. She morns that person, the one she couldn’t help.

Pomni blames herself because Jax reached out one last time and she didn’t pry as hard as she had before.

Jax didn’t even get a funeral as far as we know.

We then get the mind delving scene where we get insight into the way Jax sees those around him. Second favorite part of Episode 9 by the way. Caine AI puzzle solving his way to wifi is the best, I love his running animation.

So the door scene. Fascinating really. My interpretation of it, because let’s face it, everyone took something different from this scene, is that every door is a scenario where someone in the circus abstracts and Jax looses it in a different way.

Let’s start with the stand out, the missing door, The door that is the scenario where Kinger abstracts. The door is missing because Jax has no relationship with Kinger, in Jax’s eyes Kinger is just the crazy one who isn’t even worth a second thought. If Kinger were to abstract it would have no direct impact on Jax because not only were they never close, Jax never saw him as a person, just a character.

The first door we actually go into is the Ragatha abstracts scenario. Jax is clearly devastated, but now with the last person who could remember him as a good person gone, nothing is stopping him from becoming the worst version of himself. Jax sees Pomni stepping up to take Ragatha’s place, something that makes him snap and react with violence. In his mind if Ragatha, the most patient and loving person couldn’t fix him, why would anyone else be able to. The Jax we see here is big eye Jax, the liar, the one who pushes people away.

The second door is the Zooble abstraction scenario. Jax is clearly jealous on some level of Zooble, they’re out and proud while Jax has issues he hasn’t figured out yet. Gangle has a crush on Jax, but this is all in his imagination, and Jax isn’t really Jax in this scenario, he is Zooble, so naturally if he were to be like Zooble, Gangle would grow to like him too. Jax doesn’t understand how Gangle and Zooble came to be friends, especially because Zooble went out of their way to not be involved with anyone. This Jax is also very misogynistic, traits he picked up from his mother telling him how a man should be also involves how a man shouldn’t act, aka how a woman acts. Also I love Toxic Ribbun so this scene is gold to me.

The third door is the Gangle abstracted scenario. There’s not much to see here aside from Jax understanding that Zooble and Gangle actually love each other and Zooble would absolutely try to kill him if he somehow managed to make Gangle abstract. The key take away is that Jax sees Zooble as a joke and none of their issues are worth taking seriously. Zooble is a thing to be mocked and laughed at, don’t question why, that would make him ask questions about himself, better to just laugh.

This Jax is the “funny one” persona who deflects with comedy and breaking the 4th wall. Nothing is serious if you laugh at it.

The 4th door is the one we don’t go in that is all chained up. Now again this is my interpretation, but I believe this is the scenario where Pomni abstracts. If Pomni were to abstract after trying so hard to get close to him and be his friend, it would just be reaffirming his beliefs that anytime someone gets close to him they end up hurt. Jax so badly wants this to not be the case, that he is intrinsically a bad person, that just existing in his vicinity would hurt others, that he burries it deep down and locks those thoughts away. This is the door Piano Jax comes out of presumably.

Strangely enough this is not the only door that is locked in a similar manner.

Cue the 5th door, the reality that is what if Jax abstracted. We see the 3 Jax here playing poker while a 4th plays the piano while subjected to the others. The Jax are having a psychotic break, unsure who the “real” Jax is underneath all the masks he puts up. Piano Jax is a representation of the only positive quality Jax sees in himself that isn’t an act, his musical skill. The chain represents that this is not the main Jax, piano Jax is chained to the main Jax, a Jax that can appear no matter who the real Jax is. Speaking of chains, there was a 5th Jax in the room, literally chained into the closet. The chains just as tightly bound as the door out in the hall way. The thing behind the door is just as deeply hidden as the thought of Pomni abstracting.

We then get the flashbacks of Jax’s life since he entered the circus. We see how he would rather ignore his problems and push people away rather than be vulnerable.

Jax and Pomni get to have one final conversation before his ego dies and nothing is left of him but the abstracted form. In his final moments he chooses to be vulnerable.

Jax’s remains then get kept as a pet in the main circus. This left a bad taste in my mouth, especially if the abstractions are still semi conscious in there. Abstraction was supposedly an allegory for suicide, imagine killing yourself and then being forced to see everyone live a much happier life without you, having fun right outside of the cage they built you. We know the real Jax, Leroy Mateo got to live his best life, meanwhile the copy of his mind that we know as Jax was kept in the circus not knowing his life out there was getting better.

Well that’s the entire series and my take on Jax, but there’s still more to consider.

Bonus thoughts start here I guess.

There’s something most people forget when thinking about these characters, they’re not thinking 4th dimensionally. What this means is none of these people are ok, because they have all been isolated from reality for an extended period of time.

Kinger has been here for 18 years, saw all his coworkers and even his wife die, and was left in complete isolation for who knows how long before Ragatha showed up. Kinger is insane because not thinking about his situation was the only way he was able to survive.

Ragatha has been here for 9 years. Ragatha wasn’t completely alone, but Kinger wasn’t exactly the best company considering he was mentally absent most of the time. Ragatha being the first of the new generation also means she saw everyone who came in and saw them abstract, unable to help them. Ragatha is a neurotic people pleaser who would sacrifice everything to save just one person because she feels absolutely no one would do the same for her. While not insane crazy like Kinger, Ragatha is showing her own forms of psychosis from having been trapped for so long.

Gangle got a bad hand from the start. She didn’t enter an isolated circus like those before her, but instead was left with a bunch of crazy people who take advantage of her. Kinger ignores her. Ragatha keeps trying to baby her to make herself feel useful. Jax abuses her as a toy to gain some level of control. Kaufmo is making things awkward with bad jokes. When Zooble eventually shows up she is ignored. As time goes on Gangle sees herself as more of an accessory to the people around her than as an actual person who can make decisions. Gangle’s mental illness may have been there before she entered, she may have even been suicidal, but her comedy mask is only enhancing a bipolar mania she doesn’t know how to handle.

Zooble is the only sane one left, they haven’t had time to go insane from being trapped in the circus for a long time, Zooble is still in the denial stage of being trapped in the circus. Zooble silently enables everything that happens by not stepping in, not out of maliciousness, but because they are too wrapped up in their own problems to pay attention to those around them. This is especially notable because they don’t pay the lip service to Caine like the others do to keep him happy, making him obsess over Zooble to try and get the praise from the one person in the circus he doesn’t receive it from. Zooble is the most human in my eyes because they react in one of the most human ways possible, outright refusal.

Pomni was the audience surrogate. She starts off like most over members of the circus did, panicking and unable to grasp her new reality but she’s not understandably insane yet. Pomni is able to emphasize with gummygoo then apply that same empathy to the other members of the circus. Except for Zooble, I dont think they ever had a conversation, it’s fine though they apparently solved their own problems off screen.

Ragatha

Ok now let’s dig into the absolute tragedy that is not having Ragatha be the 3rd main character. Ragatha is Jax’s foil, the other side of the same coin in how they deal with things.

Ragatha is based on the memory scan of a young woman named Suzie J. Ackerman. Suzie’s upbringing has instilled in her that she needs to be hurt to be loved. She would gladly carry one more burden on her back if it meant someone would like her for it.

Suzie comes from the high society elite background most people only ever see caricatures of on tv. She was given the best of the best in terms of resources and tutors and perfection was expected in return. Her mother constantly put her down and berated her for not living up to her pedigree, possibly even being the cause of Ragatha’s button eye being seen as a black eye.

Suzie’s life was kept to a strict schedule controlled by her mother. Etiquette, dancing lessons, tea parties, equestrian sport. The only regular activity she was able to convince her mother to let her participate in was softball. Softball is seen as girls baseball, a more ladylike activity for her who was expected to be above such things.

For Suzie softball would be the first time she was seen as an equal to others, she would be part of a team who would look out for her and would encourage her.

Suzie put on the headset when inspecting the abandoned C&A building as part of a real estate speculation crew. Ragatha remembers others being around when she put on the headset, but seemingly no one came to her rescue, adding to her self confidence issues, she thought she was abandoned on purpose, or was simply forgotten about and no one noticed.

Now trapped in the circus, Ragatha had no one but Kinger, a chess piece with wild eyes who has been driven insane from the isolation and is only sometimes cognizant enough to recognize her as a person, and Caine, an AI set of dentures that is all smile and huge eyes, that sends her on adventures “for her own good.”

The only 2 characters she can interact with at this point have giant unsettling gazes that remind her of her mother, that she is constantly under scrutiny, she has no agency, the giant set of teeth that is a reminder to always smile.

Ragatha would spend years seeing herself as a plaything so starved for human connection that the moment more people joined, she jumped at the opportunity to please them.

We don’t really know anything about the years Ragatha went through before Jax showed up, but we know she knew every single person who came into the circus after the devs and got to know them, try to comfort them, and see them abstract, thinking she failed them.

By the time Jax arrives the circus is Ragatha, Kinger, Kaufmo, and Ribbit. Jax is now the last friend she has in her eyes, even as cruel as he treats her, she would do anything to save the last genuine connection she has over being ignored.

Ragatha says that Zooble and Gangle don’t ever talk to her, Zooble from the self isolation and Gangle has started to buy into Jax’s archetype idea and has started to see Ragatha as in genuine, or even an NPC. While still polite neither open up to Ragatha as actual friends. Kinger remembers Ragatha and considers her a friend, but he is so scatter brained he cannot be there for her when she needs it. Pomni blowing her off in the first few episodes are driving Ragatha to a breaking point, the first new person in a long while and she doesn’t even react to Ragatha half the time.

Jax, even if it is for antagonistic reasons, still goes out of his way to talk with Ragatha everyday. Jax has made himself believe that she is his toy there to validate his feelings and make himself feel like the terrible person he thinks he is. Ragatha feels like she can become his savior, letting him do these things to her to help him work out his feelings, but they are toxically codependent and bring out the worse in each other. Jax becoming more cruel and believing his own feelings are all he needs to consider, Ragatha becoming the willing collateral damage to keep him in check while believing she is helping him.

I mentioned before that the brain scanner may lock in who you are when you put it on, making Jax an eternal troubled teen. Ragatha as stated was the second youngest to enter the circus. Ragatha was just barely escaping the thumb of her oppressive mother, getting her own career and trying to live her own life, only to get immediately trapped and have every insecurity assault her daily. Ragatha’s doll form represents how little agency she sees in herself, a doll has all its decisions made more by the person playing with it, and Ragatha has been a toy for her mother, for Caine, and for Jax.