lucabicono

[lucabicono]

they’re in my head and i’m the one paying rent

[lucabicono]

I wanna keep this short because I do not have the patience, time, or mental fortitude to dive real deep into this whole scene right now, but can this fandom for once in its wretched existence NOT blame the woman for being hurt by the male lead?

Jax had already opened up. They spend the entire episode being this dynamic duo, talking, laughing, having fun. THEY FUCKING SING A DUET TOGETHER.

And then, because of his own insecurites and fears, Jax tries to shut it all down, gaslighting Pomni and putting her down.

Pomni chooses to trust Jax despite the fact that he has been nothing but a bully to everyone in the circus, because as much as he wants to deny it, he is just as much a human as the rest of them.

And for that, she gets her fucking heart ripped out and stomped on.

Even though Pomni doesn't believe him, even though she knows what he is doing, the fact that he's even willing to say something this horrible still fucking hurts. He effectively says to her, with a straight face "I would not care if you died", which is one of the most FUCKED UP things you can say to somebody, especially for the crime of wanting to be your friend.

Yet despite that, Pomni still cares about Jax, still wants to be his friend, and spends the entire rest of the episode being worried about him, despite the fact that she would have every right to completely write him off.

Side note, are really gonna fret over Jax's boundaries so much, even though this is the guy who never respects anybody's boundaries EVER?!

It fucking pisses me off how some of Jax's fans are so allergic to holding him to account for any of the things he says and does. He is an extremely well written and nuanced character, and while I am still completely ambivalent to him, I get why people adore him so much. But he is still a fucking piece of shit, and any negative consequences he faces are entirely his own doing.

[lucabicono]

mucho texto i know but i wanted to write a lil thing about how u can treat yourself nice!!

[lucabicono]

"I'd move on. And probably forget about you."

[lucabicono]

I literally didn't put it together until just now but... Does anyone else think it's a bit weird how closely Ragatha, Caine, and Jax's arcs are to one another?

Let's look at what we've been shown so far:

We know Ragatha has insecurities around other people hating her — likely due to growing up in an abusive household. So, she puts on an act of trying to come across as positive and friendly and reliable, someone who other people can come to when they need help, even to her own detriment, because she believes that otherwise, she's useless to them. And, if she's outlived her usefulness, they might not like her anymore.

Jax is more or less her opposite in execution: outwardly cruel, dismissive, and abusive. He says it himself, "I'm the one who causes pain for fun" — which, in my opinion, is just him projecting what he believes his "true" archetype to be. To others, he tries to project that he's "the funny one", when deep down, he sees himself as "the cruel one", and so does what he does to live up to that expectation he has of himself. Why he does this is unclear, whether it's because of a past experience with Ribbit, or growing up in an abusive environment as well (as hinted by his upset look following Ragatha's accidental trauma dump in episode 5), or maybe a combination, I can't really say.

But that's where they both have something in common: they both think so little of themselves that they believe that they can't truly be "good". And, I believe, that they both do want others to like them. With Ragatha it's obvious,she directly verbalizes it, but with Jax I feel it's a bit more complicated, where he wants to be liked, but he's internalized his own self-assigned archetype to the point he no longer believes he deserves to be liked, no matter how much he insists to others that he's "the funny one".

And, if it's not obvious, I think Caine's arc may wind up being a reflection of this same internal conflict.

In the original parable, Cain killed Abel in a fit of jealousy over Abel having earned God's favor. While I'm not sure if Caine has already killed his counterpart at this point of the show (though, it's looking more and more likely as time goes on), it's very obvious that themes of jealousy and wanting to be favored by others is a key part of Caine as a character.

He gets upset and denies it when people imply they don't like his adventures. He becomes paranoid when the troupe wind up enjoying the suggestion box adventures over his. He repeatedly has these instances of blowing up whenever Zooble dismisses his efforts and ideas. He begins glitching whenever he's confronted with even the slightest possibility that people just don't like him.

I always thought that Pomni seeing the shadows of Ragatha, Jax, and Caine in her nightmare at the start of episode 2 was simply due to them being the only three she'd interacted with at length on her first day, but I'm beginning to think that it was actually a subtle bit of foreshadowing, hinting at how closely the individual arcs of these three in particular are to one another. And the conclusions I'm drawing are grim, if I'm being honest.

Ragatha has already at least partially worked through her issues thanks to help from Kinger, and I assume Pomni is going to play an integral part in Jax's redemption, assuming he goes through any. But so far, the closest thing Caine has is the Moon, and considering she's already had her two lines of dialogue, and just how dismissive he's been of her since the start, I doubt she'll be much of a comfort for him going forward. Even if he can't abstract the same way humans can, the potential fallout of him crashing out the way Jax did in episode 6 could be... Well, in a word, apocalyptic.

Anyway, just my two cents. What do y'all think?

[lucabicono]

This is how episode six ended, right?

Bonus under the cut:

[lucabicono]

I... Can't be the only one who is Extremely Concerned about what Pomni went through pre-Circus, right? Like...

Episode 2:

"I don't even remember her name, honestly."

"Feeling like you're nothing is... kinda normal."

"I guess I just don't want you to feel like you're nothing... I don't want anyone to feel like that."

Episode 6:

"What would you do if I abstracted tomorrow?"

"... I'd move on. And probably forget about you."

"... Okay. ...Okay. ...I understand."

These do not strike me as the words, fears, or responses of someone who Had A Good Life. These feel like things founded upon experience and that Worries Me Greatly.

[lucabicono]

anyway in the hopes that i can save just one person from living the horror of my 20s: if you have a friend that seems a little too invested in callouts i hope you can get out of there safely

[lucabicono]

Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes)

Observed by irkuem, CC BY-NC

[lucabicono]

so how are we all feelin

[lucabicono]

the sillies <3 in an even sillier comic

as always, i wanted the rendering to be really simple cos its such a dumb comic but here we are lol i do really like the rendering tho, especially in the first page

⬇️⬇️ reference and stuff that got covered by the text/effects

[lucabicono]

everyone asking who the Knight is and forget to ask how the knight is

[lucabicono]

Something that Pomni doesn't seem to realize is that spite is a big factor in his decision to "befriend" her in this episode.

Throughout the episode he's actively trying to drive a wedge between them, nudging Pomni to admit that she finds Ragatha annoying and rubbing his budding "friendship" with her in her face. Don't get me wrong, the two of them did have genuine bonding moments in this episode, but I don't think he'd be doing this unless it was to try and hurt Ragatha. Why?

Because she hurt him and he's desperate to hurt her back to try and regain a sense of power. And what better way to do that then essentially stealing away the one person she's been trying to befriend for all this time? Really, this is no different from him tossing Pomni out of a moving truck when Ragatha was giving her too much attention for his liking, it's all about how he can use her to either hurt Ragatha's feelings or keep her attention on him at all times.

POMNI, GIRL, YOU ARE IN DANGER.

[lucabicono]

You there! Federal museum professional educator or FEMA climatologist or NOAA metereologist or CISA cybersecurity specialist or Army civilian logistics employee. How would you like to work for ICE? No? Not interesting? You’re working for ICE now. You’re working for ICE or you’re quitting. You don’t get a choice. You’re an ICE brown shirt or you’re out of a job.

This is not hyperbole. This is happening across the entire United States government.

[lucabicono]

[lucabicono]