Everyone Has Standards / The Amazing Digital Circus

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Everyone Has Standards in The Amazing Digital Circus.

Players

• Pomni:
  • Even though she was all for finding the exit to the Circus at any cost, even abandoning a glitched-out Ragatha when she thought she found it, the end seems to imply that Pomni still regretted it as she avoids eye contact with Ragatha and looks away in shame.
  • In "Untitled", she's notably the only one who votes against putting Jax in a maid outfit. For however many problems she has with the latter, Pomni wouldn't want to force him into a situation that would make him uncomfortable. Sadly, she gets outvoted.
• Word of God is that "there are a few lines Jax wouldn’t cross", and it shows, despite his personality:
  • Abstraction appears to be the main thing Jax draws the line at. He's horrified at the sight of Kaufmo's abstraction and wasted no time hiding Kinger and Gangle when hearing Kaufmo coming rather than abandoning them. He has an absolutely furious expression watching Kaufmo be put in the cellar, and briefly shows some sadness for Kaufmo's funeral.
    • In a Japanese promotional video, when he notices an abstracted monster, he suggests that he and Pomni (who were fighting) should go somewhere else, despite being fully capable of shoving her right into the monster.
    • During the fight between the two in Episode 6, Pomni asserts that the "screw everyone" attitude he adopts contributes to why people abstract in the first place. Jax takes immediate offense to this, thinking that she meant his attitude towards others makes said others abstract, and points out that people who are about to abstract are unpleasant to be around and that pushing Kaufmo's abstraction on him isn't fair considering the rest of the group were also insincere and cold to Kaufmo.
    • This gets turned absolutely on its head in the finale, when we see Jax's relationship with Ribbit. After sharing a deep dark secret with her, he starts to push her away, despite the fact that she never even considered revealing it. He started avoiding her, then became angry with her, finally culminating in the argument at the Snowy Summit; though we don't get to hear all of it, what we do hear is bad enough for Ribbit to enter her downward spiral to abstraction. So in a way, Pomni was right: his attitude did get at least one other human abstracted (and with the way he treated Kaufmo after Ribbit's abstraction, probably two).
  • Played for Laughs and Subverted in Episode 2, when the Fudge claims even Jax would be sickened by what he does in his free time, though he doesn't seem too terrified (given that we never learn what these atrocities were).
  • In The Amazing Digital Circus But smol, he's annoyed at seeing the others in the void, dismissing it as "Hell", but he's absolutely horrified at the sight of each of them being frozen.
  • While he'll happily cause NPCs to be slaughtered, his action to hide Kinger and Gangle from Kaufmo suggests he'll at least protect the actual humans from abstracted players.
  • Though he doesn't outright apologize, Episode 5 shows that he'll fully admit to when he didn't actually mean to cause harm to others. When he breaks Gangle's mask again during a game of baseball, his tone in response indicates that he genuinely didn't mean to hit her. That said, the full audio of Jax and Ragatha's argument also shows that if he meant it, he'd do it and be proud of it. This carries into episode 6, where he shoots Pomni, who is on his own team, because they were attacking Kinger in the dark. He gives a hasty apology for the accidental hit and nothing about his behavior in the episode (not even his Rage Breaking Point) indicates that he meant to do that.
  • When Caine proposes a list of new adventures in “Untitled”, which include the players being killed off in a chocolate factory, even he looks absolutely repulsed at the sound of them after Caine is finished.
  • He gives a look of genuine discomfort when Ragatha goes a little too in-depth over her mother's cruel treatment of her in Episode 5. He doesn't even try to crack a joke about it.
  • In Episode 6:
    • He gives an absolutely scathing rant to Pomni when she keeps prying over his apathetic and cruel nature. Not only does he start cursing as he lashes out afterwards, later at the award show, Jax is visibly trembling over what he said to her and has to recompose himself in the bathroom; To be precise, what he said was so awful that not even he could stomach it. Noticeably, he also refuses to fight back and hurt her.
    • Right before their fight breaks out, Jax coldly remarks to Pomni he'd simply move on and forget her if she ever abstracted. However, he quickly realizes how badly this hurt Pomni (to the extent that seemed like she was about to shoot herself to test how much he really cares) and immediately tries to play it off as a joke, suggesting he doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings to that serious of a degree.
  • His biggest moment yet comes at the end of “Beach Episode” where he’s absolutely livid at Caine for lying about the escape to the circus and being able to control their minds, calling him a “dirty liar” and “scumbag”. He calls him out again for always lying in episode 8 alongside the other players.
  • While hypocritical and largely due to projection considering his earlier moment of pressing the red button, he is genuinely curious at the realization that the players may now be doomed to eternity with nothing without Caine thanks to Kinger accidentally causing the former’s deletion.
  • Judging from the guilt and trauma he shows at the memory of pushing over his mom and accidentally harming her in “Remember”, despite her abusive nature, it seems actually murder in the real world is something he wouldn’t do, even if he can’t actually ever be in the real world since he’s just a digital copy.
• Kinger: Despite all the torment he's put them through, Kinger never wanted Caine dead- just subdued enough to reason with. Unfortunately, Caine's freakout affecting the console ended up causing Kinger to completely delete him, and he is horrified at what he's unwittingly done.
• Ragatha:
  • Despite her animosity towards Jax, the ending of episode 6 implies she does still care for him, as she and Pomni worry for him during the Favorite Character awards show. The previous episode shows how she knows bringing about the abstraction of his friends Ribbit and Kaufmo is too much as well.
    • In “Beach Episode”, Ragatha goes with Pomni and Abel to check on Jax when he’s in his room, noticeably having a face of concern when he opens his door, unknowingly saving him from Abstraction.
  • Although she likes interacting with the NPCs, she has no interest in talking to the Sun on account of her being a lunatic who constantly threatens people over minor inconveniences, even telling Pomni to just ignore her.
• Gangle: Implied. Although Gangle is a constant victim of Jax's bullying, she seems to share the sentiment of not wanting him to abstract with the other players. She agrees with him in Episode 8 that they shouldn't fight over what happened in "Beach Episode" and instead look out for each other. When Zooble stops Jax from leaving and tells him they still consider him one of them, Gangle is shown with a sympathetic expression, further cementing this.
• Zooble:
  • In Episode 4, Zooble wonders how the adventure in the previous episode was like since Caine had stated it was specifically made for them as "mature". Hearing Pomni's summary of its events turns their curiosity to shock and disgust at Caine.
    Zooble: [incredulous] Why did you think I would like that?
  • While Zooble might be the most vocally critical of Jax and often getting into fights with him, they never actually retaliate against him physically unless he starts it. This is most evident in "Beach Episode", as even though they list many reasons to get some payback due to being at the butt of his antics, they settle for harmlessly splashing him with a bucket of water. They also do genuinely advise him to open up about his problems with the people he trusts. Similar to Ragatha, Zooble may hate Jax but they do still care about him. Taken further in the following episode when while Zooble is rightfully pissed off with Jax for pressing the red button, they stop him from walking off and isolating himself, admitting that even if he's a gigantic pain in the ass, they don't want Jax to potentially abstract all alone. Naturally, they're devastated when that ends up happening anyway come the last episode.

NPCs

• Caine
  • As proud as he is of his creativity- to the point that he starts to break down when he feels unappreciated- he very quickly agrees that his first pick for a name for Pomni- the near unpronouncable XDDCC- is terrible.
  • As weird as Caine is, he reacts with disgust and shame in the pilot when Bubble cleans up Pomni's vomit with their tongue, dropping his Ringmaster tone for the first time to do so.
  • In "Beach Epsiode" when Jax is caught trying to reach into Caine's mouth to steal the key to Caine's office, Jax covers his tracks by claiming it’s his dream to be eaten by Caine. Caine responds by saying, "That's a weird thing to say and want." Though possibly subverted given Caine was well-aware of what Jax was trying to do and only playing along for the sake of the Adventure.
  • Played for laughs in the teaser "3 DAYS LEFT until we're in THEATRES!", where Caine, who freely does all kinds of wacky things, refuses to be pregnant for the bit, dropping his Ringmaster tone and muttering that he knew "they" would make it weird.
• Bubble: It says something when Bubble, after Caine snaps in episode 8, seemingly resists being nice to him when Caine becomes a petty tormentor. He tells Caine he's funny in the flattest tone he can, makes a noise instead of repeating himself more enthusiastically, sneaks an insult in when Caine makes the Players into a tree, and babbles a nonsequitur instead of saying they're having fun when Caine begins questioning who's even having fun at that point.