#Something broke inside of me and now Pomni is all I can think about

[a-muffin]

Mindlessly drew these while(finally) watching Wander Over Yonder

Closeups below cut :3

[thejournaluser]

i ended up talking out of my own ass here but i didn't want to delete all of this so please note that all facts here are all stock knowledge and personal experience. do your own research, folks. do not use this for self-diagnosing purposes.

If ya ask me, episode 4 of The Amazing Digital Circus makes quite an accurate (but not perfect) demonstration of what Bipolar Disorder looks like. It's not the matter of "can't choose" or "too moody all the time". It's more than that. Just watch the episode and see for yourself.

The character's name who suffered this unfortunate disorder is Gangle, who is portrayed as a female humanoid ribbon who wears a fragile comedy mask in the beginning of the show that breaks before or during their usual adventures, and the gag is that she always ends up being sad because her mask keeps breaking.

But episode 4 was different. Her comedy mask broke too early, and Zooble instead gave her a substitute happy mask that won't break and might help giving her some form of happiness. Once she puts it on though, she says she feels "normal." Which usually signals the start of a manic episode.

Cue the adventure where they work a minimum wage, and a dead end job. Gangle is the shift manager and she is having a big manic episode. She moves left and right- a bright smile on her face that she can't seem to remove. I mean, why would she remove it right? She's happy. And everyone should be happy.

But then... pressure. Jax told her that he liked her better when sad. Ragatha, in an inebriated state, even told her that she liked Gangle better without the happy mask. It hurts her to know that people don't like her when she is feeling great. So she shuts down immediately, feeling discouraged with her manager work and hiding her face from everyone when she gets the chance.

That was, until, she faces Pomni, the main character of the show. Pomni tries to talk it out with someone, or maybe her herself. But Gangle takes none of it. She believes that no one in the circus likes her and even if they do try to act nice... their smile don't always feel genuine.

And thus, ending her manic episode completely. Try re-reading my previous paragraphs and identify which part of the story she starts having a depressive episode. Because at this point, Gangle locks herself in her office. A frown glued to her happy mask despite the name it has. And right when she walks down that kitchen, her world starts to blur as if one single conclusion starts to form inside her mind- and then Pomni intervenes.

She offers to take the closing shift and advises Gangle to go home early. Hesitant, Gangle still takes it. And with the extra time she has... Gangle takes off her mask... and throws it away.

I advise you to watch the episode and go to timestamp 19:35 - 20:30. It's a wonderful sequence.

So... post-adventure. Gangle isolates herself and blames everything that went wrong all on herself. Zooble tries to comfort her, of which she succeeds- But let's take a sec to hear what Gangle tells her first: "I messed everything up. The mask didn't work. And now, I don't think anybody wants to talk to me anymore."

Bipolar Disorder is a mood disorder where an individual enters a "manic state" and they undergo erratic behavior partaking in impulsive thought or risky activities. And when an individual leaves this state... well, kind of imagine it as feeling an entire ocean dropped on you. Or feeling like you're in front of a live audience with no script.

You cringe at yourself, further delving more into a sea of self-loathing and regret. Realizing all of your wrongs and mistakes and how much it hurts the people around you. Take a moment to think about it. You hurt people that you're close with. How dare you.

Those are what you would think of if you have Bipolar Disorder. But, please take note that it is indeed a disorder which means it can be interpreted as something else and you also could be misdiagnosing yourself if you're using this essay as means to self-diagnose so please talk to a professional for that. This essay only uses one example of a manic episode and to see it holistically, make your own research.

And... uh... yeah. This is the end of the essay. I'm not really great in conclusions but... just remember that Bipolar Disorder is a mood disorder than causes manic episodes. What happens after that is a series of guilt that causes self-loathing and anguish that results in a person needing to self-isolate and become the scapegoat of their own making.

[hyperfixatinator]

Thank goodness I'm not the only one who came to this conclusion! Jax may be a real jerk sometimes, but there's some signs he's not JUST a jerk. He comes across as a guy with a method to his madness, and so far I think this is that method.

(brace yourself for screenshots galore)

For instance, despite his laid-back attitude, Jax seems to take charge of situations more often than the other humans. He's far from an ideal leader figure, but he has his own subtle ways of leaning into a role like that.

Have you noticed how casually Jax talks to Caine about what to do? His first line is him addressing Pomni's arrival to the ringmaster and whether or not they'll need to rework the theme song. And then he suggests to Caine that he should give Pomni an adventure to start her first day. Out of everyone there, Jax appears to be the most comfortable consulting with Caine directly.

Jax' odd role is even more apparent after Caine leaves. At first, Jax says he's fine with doing whatever. But a gloink to the head later and he immediately starts assigning people into groups with different jobs.

Something caught my attention about the two groups he picked out. I've heard a couple people say he chose Pomni and Ragatha to join him because they're the most mentally stable. However, I think it's the opposite.

Pomni had only just gotten trapped there minutes ago. She's obviously panicking about her new fate and hadn't grown desensitized to this world's chaos yet. Her mental state is especially vulnerable right now.

Ragatha's not fairing much better, either. She acts calm and collected on the surface, but it's easy to see her coping skills are also slipping.

Compared to Kinger and Gangle, who are more or less adapted to this world, Pomni and Ragatha are closer to full blown existential crises.

The fact Jax joined the two most likely to abstract might hint he wanted to keep an eye on them. That way, he can distract both of them from spiraling toward their breaking points as they check on their missing friend.

And he does! He snaps Pomni out of her zoned out, distant stare and scares Ragatha with a centipede to distract her.

I also think you're onto something with Jax' keys. It's not just that he has them, but that Ragatha had no idea he had them at all. You'd think an immature trickster would abuse that power to prank people all the time, but that would lead to people finding out about the keys sooner. The way Jax phrased "you've all been fine" suggests he's had them for a while. It has me wondering how often he actually uses those keys, and if it's enough to get people questioning how he got inside their rooms.

Then Jax comes face to face with abstracted Kaufmo, picks up a bowling ball, and ditches Pomni and Ragatha to flee. No one ever said he was a saint. Maybe he assumed the two would also run away after he did?

Anyway, it's still interesting that he stopped running to meet up with Kinger and Gangle, even when he could've kept looking for a secluded hiding spot. Whether or not he was looking for them intentionally is still up to interpretation.

There's also the way he lied to Kinger and Gangle about Kaufmo. This seems a little inconsistent since it was established earlier that he has no problem delivering harsh truths. So why would he lie now when he knows they'll eventually find out? Personally, I think he was waiting for a comedic opportunity to prevent as much psychological damage as possible. If the atmosphere's silly enough, the harsh news won't hit as hard.

Actually, this same logic could be applied to how he broke the news to Pomni earlier about being trapped. He interrupts Ragatha to explain the situation in a nonchalant manner to downplay the seriousness of it.

And then he indulges Pomni when she denies it all and insists it's a dream. He even reminds Pomni of her own "it's a dream" theory after Ragatha's hopeless words got to her head. This could all be him poking fun at Pomni, but what if he really was trying to help her cope?

Back to later, when Jax, Kinger, and Gangle heard Kaufmo coming closer. Jax is the only one who knows what that sound is at that moment, and he's not willing to tell the others what happened yet. So he uses his bowling ball to quickly push them into the hole and away from Kaufmo.

Again, Jax could've easily left Kinger and Gangle to figure things out on their own while he hid in the hole, but he doesn't. He pushes them into the hole first before he himself enters last.

All in all, Jax has a way of managing the people around him without them noticing. There's no arguing he's one of the morally gray ones of the bunch, but not as morally dark as he acts. I think Ragatha would've had more problems trusting Jax' judgement if he'd been entirely malicious up to that point. Although he's cheeky and rude to his friends as an unhealthy coping mechanism, I think they're still his friends at the end of the day.

This is just the pilot, though. So take all this with several grains of salt.

HAUAUG UAYWG190U-0J2E 1I3HE-91U3E-0J JAHAHHIHA

i hope NOBOYD disporves this theory,, i love it so much

OKAY OKAY so so so WHAT IF Jax's goal was to prevent abstractions, absolutely terrified when learning of them for the first time, SO SO WHAT IF SEE, JAX'S PURPOSE WAS TO PREVENT ABSTRACTIONS BY BEING AN ASSHOLE BECAUSE

WHAT time would you have to think about blehh exits and glitches when your MIDN is focused on JAX being an absolute jerkwad/?!?!!? HUHH!! LIKE WHAT IF Jax had keys to everyone's room to find more things to annoy them about but to also check up on them by being an asshole but also seeing if they're thinking about exits and going insane , LOOK JAX IS the HUMANITY that the characters are missing, Seeing eveyrthing as being too jolly and perfect can drive someone INSANE!! to balance this out, Jax basically is the imperfection and or the chaos to even out the perfection and ease of everything. Caine's games were not ENOUGh as we can see . Jax keeps a cool and calmheaded appearance to potentially mask something he's hiding?? NOW I do NOT know goose in any way nor glitch productions, but I can assume that making Jax the main villain all along would be TOO cheesy and a big cliche, Sure goose said we will not like some things Jax will do in the episodes but i can assure you he will NOT be the main villain, he may even be a twist like,,.. LIKE THE THEORY I STATED ABOVE!! (refer to tl;dr) idk just that Jax being the big bad is not something viewers would enjoy, right? Viewers might enjoy it more if zooble was the big bad or Pomni even!! (probably not but you get my point) And what is C&A HMM?!?!??! JAX is the chaos everyone needed in this unbalanced digital hell, Though even his distractions were not enough for the previous characters before him unfortunately, but they may have abstracted for reasons not even jax could distract them from!! Like , Kaufmo as they stated abstracted recently and when Pomni arrived maybe THAT distracted jax from distracting kaufmo into not abstracting?? oh mt gODD!! Jax is HIDING many things i can sense it, we can ALL sense it and nandndn,,,, ANYWYS ANYWAYS THANK YOU FOR READING!! HAVE A GREAT DAY!!

tl;dr: Jax prevents abstractions by distracting the gang from a potential exit and glitches in the circus by annoying them.