Okay okay I know I've already made two separate posts about Jax and Ragatha during Episode 7 but there's one more thing I thought was worth mentioning that I haven't touched on yet!

Ragatha doesn't talk to Jax all that much in this episode and I can't help but wonder if that played a part in his breakdown later on.

What Jax says about Ragatha here provides a glimpse into their relationship: he's used to her doing the heavy lifting without reciprocation and has come to take her attention and affection for granted. From his perspective, she treats him with the same attitude no matter how horribly he acts, which both feeds into his nihilism and also causes him to see her as insincere in her kindness.

Flash forward to Episode 7 and suddenly she's not doing that anymore. She's not really talking to him all that much and when she does, it's just to pass on information. And we as the audience know why she's doing this- Kinger advised her to give Jax space in the last episode and she's acting on that advice. It's not that she doesn't care- we see her looking at him with concern when she and Pomni visit him in his room- but rather, she's trying to give him space rather than forcing her help onto him.

But Jax doesn't know that.

He is in BAD shape in Episode 7, having his entire sense of self destroyed by the events of Episode 6 and now having to face the guilt and grief he's been repressing for so long. And now Ragatha, the one person who was there for him no matter how hard he pushed her away, isn't talking to him. It's not like she's giving him the cold shoulder or anything she just...isn't trying as hard as she used to. And right now he could REALLY use some of those reassuring words.

You can see his demeanor shift over the course of Zooble and Gangle's final talk, going from sullenly glancing away from the group to looking around frantically. I wonder if he's waiting for Ragatha to say something, to look back at him and assure him that the same goes for them too and that he won't be alone when they get out. But those words never come. For the first time in years she's not there to tell him that he's loved and appreciated and he's not brave enough to reach out to her. And while that's not the only thing driving his actions here, it may have been the thing that locked him into the path he ended up taking.

OKAY WAIT WAIT WAIT I JUST REALIZED

In the last few minutes of Episode 5 we see Jax and Pomni walk off to a predominantly red environment while Kinger, Zooble, and Gangle walk off into a blue one. Knowing what we know about how blue in TADC represents a person's humanity and red represents the loss of it, eventually leading to abstraction, that makes this last moment take on a new meaning!

Ragatha isn't simply jealous of Jax and Pomni, in this moment she believes she is going to lose them both and is powerless to stop it.

(Also she's in front of a yellow background and I'm not sure what that could mean so leave your theories in the comments I guess)

Going back to watch this scene after Episode 7 and realizing that it's not just two, but four fish that gather in the foreground before all but one swim off.

Then when we cut back to them, we see that the three fish that swam off aren't really together anymore either, which each one swimming at a wide distance from the others. And seeing this, I couldn't help but think back to Jax's near-abstraction in Episode 7.

There's been a lot of debate as to whether or not Ragatha was part of Jax's friend group back when Kaufmo and Ribbit were still around, with her absence from the picture in Jax's room and his dream leading some to believe that she wasn't. To me though, I think what's being communicated in these instances is that Ragatha was part of that group but that Jax has become so consumed by grief over the friends he's lost that he's forgotten about her- the one friend he has left.

I don't think it's any coincidence that in the office scene, we cut away from Jax looking sadly at a snowglobe depicting one of their prior adventures to a shot of Ragatha standing all on her lonesome. They're the last two members of the once tight-knit friend group, now miles apart from each other with one clinging to the past and the other looking to the the future. Maybe Jax would've taken her hand if she'd offered and maybe it could've been the thing to ground him as the panic took hold...but at this point he's rejected every prior attempt she made to reach out to him and really, she has no reason to think this time would be any different.

Now he's been locked out. Not from the group as a whole as we see Pomni offer him a hand, but rather from his place at Ragatha's side, the place he thought would always be there. And as Zooble affirms that they'll still be friends with Gangle in the real world, that everything they've done here was real and it mattered, it occurs to him that without the circus, there'll be nothing holding them together anymore. After everything he's done, every horrible thing that wasn't real until now, why would she ever reach out to him again? Everything he did to her, all of the pain he caused without a second thought...it was all real and it's why (he thinks) she'll abandon him as soon as she has the option. So he's not going to let her have the option.

This way they'll be together whether they like it or not. Even if she hates him, even if she never forgives him, they'll still be together. Forever.

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Of course, this is all just my interpretation! I could be totally wrong (it would not be the first time) and maybe it's not that deep. But I just had to get these brainworms written down before they consumed me!

I love my toxic hets. 💕

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Next up in our Haunted Mansion roster is Pomni as The Caretaker! His frightened, shell-shocked vibe made him the perfect fit for our favorite mentally stable jester.

Next up is Gangle!

DW ass hair...

Was looking through my gallery and realized that I've pretty much never uploaded any art that didn't involved Jax and/or Ragatha in some fashion so uh...

Here, have a Pomni!

Hope y'all like Westerns because One And Only Chapter 2 is a go!

@ideki-mikuno98 and I are about 75% done with One and Only's second chapter and uh...it's gonna be a bit of a long one. Sorry about that. 😅

Was hoping to get One & Only's second chapter done this week buuuuuut ending up catching a nasty stomach bug :(

Hopefully this thing will pass in the next few days and I can get back to writing sooner rather than later! In the meantime though, here's a sneak peek of what @ideki-mikuno98 and I have got so far-