All Things Scary & Weird

Jax lived in a suburban neighborhood. His parents didn't get along well and regularly fought. As such, Jax hardly ever saw his dad nor could he get along with him, giving him issues regarding his own masculinity. When he started high school, Jax's parents divorced, resulting in his dad leaving. His mom would either accuse him of being less of a man than his father anytime he ever showed emotion or he was as bad as he was if he were to ever lash out. Jax found this confusing, thinking his mom missed his dad, but hated him at the same time, resulting in him becoming the target to her.

One day, an argument broke out. The exact details of this are unknown, but Jax initiated it in response to his mom's verbal abuse, hoping to cease the hostility. He told something personal to her, likely revealing he's transgender female. In response, his mom laughed at Jax before beginning a new round of insults. After that, he shoved her onto the floor when she hugged him, showing fake acceptance and support to her child. His mom didn't immediately recover, causing Jax to abandon his home in fear he may have killed her. Thus, he became homeless.

Eventually, Jax came across the former C&A offices and end up in the Digital Circus. Since then, Jax hated appearing like a female or being associated with anything feminine, out of fear others would judge and ridicule him as his mother did. He also refused to reveal his past, especially about being transgender, not wanting to be hurt by those he thought he could trust. As a result, Jax would keep people at a distance and hurt them if they grew too close with him.

With Ribbit, Jax threatened her. He said if she ever told anyone what he said about his past, he would never speak to her again. Ever since that day, Jax kept his distance from Ribbit. He even gaslighted her about his past, claiming it was a joke. During an adventure to the Snowy Summit, Ribbit finally confronted Jax, wanting to be friends again and tried apologizing. After much prying on her end and a lot of deflection on Jax's, he eventually accused her of wanting to be friends to learn more about his personal life and use it against him. This escalated into an argument of heated words, and ended with Ribbit being the one to apologize. Later, Jax outright told others, like Kaufmo, to not trust anything Ribbit says, causing her to feel alienated. Unfortunately, he had abstracted because of Jax.

Once Ribbit was gone, Kaufmo tried to comfort Jax, saying he could talk to him if needed. However, he ignored his advice, and began verbally abusing Kaufmo like he did to the frog. Ragatha also tried to comfort him, but Jax told her to never speak about Ribbit again.

As if on cue, a new human arrived in the circus. When the comedy mask broke, Jax cruelly told everyone they should call her "Gangle", as the name sounds "pathetic as she looks". From that day forward, he would abuse the members around him for his own amusement. Jax targeted Ragatha, finding her outbursts towards his antics amusing. Additionally, he targeted Gangle as a punching bag, because her submissive nature prevented her from standing up for herself. He also had a tense relationship with Zooble.

Unlike most of the people, this old man doesn't have a name. Instead, he simply goes by “Janitor” as this is his job at an elementary school. Unfortunately, his personality and mental state is quite complicated. Despite the Janitor's line of work, he doesn't hesitate to attack, cripple, and possibly kill the children he works with. He'll do this for as little as having his spelling corrected by them. Although he's antagonistic at times, the Janitor isn't outwardly cruel towards anyone on the first impression. He'll restrain himself from killing someone until there's no proper proof or a reason to do so.

The Janitor claims to be a war veteran, though he won't clarify which war it was. There's also no proof of this past. Regardless, Janitor frequently mentions being in a war, as many things remind him of this. At one point, he acted as if he wasn't involved in a war, and denied it. But this could have been a one-off statement influenced by other factors.

In the first game, Janitor had his own closet, which he called the “weapons closet”. There, he kept incriminating evidence and whatever he confiscated from the kids that day. Janitor even kept bloody bags in the bathroom. Because of this, he's quite territorial of his space and property. Beyond this, Jerome said the Janitor peed in the water fountain more than once, getting into trouble with the Principal.

Regarding the adults' schemes, the Janitor helped the Principal with his plan, but wasn't very involved. He kept the creature’s bodies in his closet as well. Billy stumbled upon this when he cased Cindy's dog, Biscuit, in there. When the Janitor discovered them, he kidnaps the boy and hands him over to the Principal. That same day, Biscuit bit the old man. As a result, he later killed the dog and used her for “biscuit balls”. Janitor didn't know or care about the actual experimenting part, thus he had no information on Billy's whereabouts after the Biscuit incident. Yet, he was quite reserved about everything.

On the second game, the Janitor becomes territorial over the entire school. He then mostly sets his murderous sights on the other janitor, Bob, seeing him as competition. Additionally, Janitor does this due to a “janitor’s code of honor,” but clarifies it’s his own personal code. Besides that, he doesn't cause any big problems. Janitor even does his job by cleaning the floors because he enjoys his position.

Before arriving in the Digital Circus, Gangle was a human with a passion for anime. At one point, she pursued a degree in graphic design at a community college, though later dropped out for reasons unknown and didn't do much with art after that. Instead, Gangle worked in the fast-food industry as a shift manager. At some point, she was injured in an accident involving a truck and was hospitalized. After joining the circus, Gangle became a punching bag for Jax from that day forward, being too submissive to even confront him.

Despite this, there are plenty of context clues in Episode 4 as to what Gangle's life was directly like before the circus. In the fourth installment, she's fixated on being and feeling normal as Zooble gifts her a new mask. Gangle also suggests they do a more normal adventure, allowing her to be in "manager mode" at a restaurant chain. It's second nature for her and is something she's good at. Once Gangle is in a position of power, she becomes confident in a familiar element. Additionally, she expects this adventure to go differently, where she's not abused by Jax and hopes the others are compliant to her for once. This is seen when Gangle demands everyone take her seriously and do their jobs, otherwise there will be consequences.

While working, Gangle presents a direct window into her human life of how she used to interact with people. She's not only passive-aggressive towards employees, but customers as well. Gangle doesn't want anyone to say they hate a customer while they're still here, as "we wait until after hours for that." She even implies she hates her job by casually saying, "Huffing paint and not waiting until a designated break?" Yet, Gangle puts on a facade. She tries to be positive and crack jokes by saying, the bathroom is a "biohazard". But Gangle is going through the motions in hopes her current demeanor is how others want her to act, even if she's internally conflicted.

When people aren't mirroring her positive behavior or listening to her authority, her emotional state starts to break. Gangle then has no problem taking advantage of the situation to give Jax a taste of his own medicine. She does this by forcing the rabbit to smile as a mind-control/hypnosis-type video plays. This heavily implies Gangle suffers from manic bipolar episodes which caused her to emotionally torture those under her. Prior to this, at the start of the tape, Gangle projects onto Jax. She says the viewer is thinking they want be a comic artist and then launch a web comic. Gangle then adds it's cool to have dreams, but the viewer's dreams are completely unrealistic and they need to stop trying. This also implies she could've been an aspiring webcomic author and artist, but was discouraged by others.

As things don't go her way, Gangle becomes depressed. She then starts to lose sense of reality and stops keeping track of time. Later, Gangle tries to have a meltdown in private, frustrated at herself for not knowing how to act or behave. When asked if she's okay, she replies, "My comedy mask is usually broken by now". It implies Gangle isn't used to keeping her "happy mask" or state of being on high for a long period of time. Regardless, she refuses to open up and reverts to her facade. This is because Gangle wants to make her current situation positive as a means to avoid regretting her decision to not achieve her life goals.

Ms. Applegate is a kindergarten teacher. Ironically, she makes it clear she doesn't like children. Due to this, Applegate will do everything in her power to avoid interacting with kids, even at the cost of being lazy at her job. She only expects them to go play by themselves during morning class. In the afternoon, Applegate has the kids do Show-and-Tell instead of teaching her students. The only time she does anything involving her career is occassionally stopping them from leaving the room, snooping in other people's cubbies, or being an authority figure during casualties. Yet, Applegate enjoys it when the children betray each other or if they're engaging in a "kiddie fight." This is because she loves seeing kids act like "rats" and be violent towards each other.

Aside from sweets and food in general, Applegate loves drugs. She has a substance abuse problem, excessively needing smoke breaks and being highly dependent on pills. The thought of missing a smoke break causes Applegate to threaten the children. If she's forced to quit cold turkey on a drug, she'll become unkept and develop a short temper. Applegate will then hit the kids for causing problems and even kill them over insults made her way. If pushed, she'll scream and break down crying. This is the result of being an "opiate aficionado" and viewing pills as "sanity savers," which keep her high.

Kinger has been in the digital circus the longest out of all the performers, managing to outlast not only his contemporaries but everyone else who has since joined and abstracted. He has been there for eighteen years.

Before Queenie's abstracted self was sent to the cellar, Kinger stayed in his pillow fort with her. The darkness calmed her down, smoothing her edges, and made her less aggressive. It's one of the memories Kinger has control over. Due to this memory, it allows him to become more sane in dark areas, as it reminds him of his last moments with Queenie.

Following his wife's abstraction, Kinger was the only human in the circus for an unknown amount of time. He was left in isolation for so long it began to affect his sanity and ability to remember things beyond his name. Outside of Caine's adventures, Kinger would usually walk around the tent until October 15th, 2008 when Ragatha manifested inside the circus as he walked past the stage, surprising him.