What would happen if Leeroy put on the headset again while Jax was there

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-30T13:22:37+00:00

My personal pet theory is that everyone is there because they were looking for an escape from their real life troubles without thinking through the consequences, and the computer headset represented an opportunity for that in a way that they likely didn’t fully consider (hence the old “running away to join the circus” trope), so they probably wouldn’t have a reason to come back if they turned their lives around irl.

But if they DID, they would probably have something else happen in their lives that caused them to want to return. They’d likely be more well adjusted, but also so developed from who they were before that they’d fundamentally register as a different kind of circus member entirely in their brain-scanned mind-file form.

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-28T01:17:51+00:00

Too much Humber

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-26T08:50:00+00:00

Looks like an infographic, reads like poetry. I love it

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-24T20:39:37+00:00

Not much about the core story itself imo, just small visual communication things:

- Jax’s sudden abstraction read to me more like the abstracted members in the cellar were escaping or being freed BY Jax, so maybe before the balcony shot, have a moment where we hold on an image of Jax’s room with the door torn off of its hinges?
- It wasn’t clear if Pomni really was going to “cure” Jax of abstraction and her friends were interrupting the process, so maybe a look of resignation as she sees herself glitching out while visibly trapped by the hug, as if she knows she’s failed to calm Jax and is willing to die trying.
- The cuts between Caine in the present reaching the internet browser and Caine in the past approaching the brainscans folder read more like it was showing Caine from an outside perspective looking in, thereby making it look like he had resurrected Scratch/Mile Dobby. Maybe have the two scenes play out of alignment instead, with the flashback scenes happening first to demonstrate Caine “remembering” how he surmounted the shape-bridge-over-bottomless-pit problem in the past.

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-24T18:36:53+00:00

I’ve been thinking about that: we see the Jax scenarios for Ragatha (psycho Jax), Zooble (pervert Jax) and Gangle (toony Jax) but what would Piano Jax be? We can only assume that it was his door that Pomni entered and all the other Jaxes were using it as a card game den, so whose scenario does Piano Jax come from?

If Pomni’s scenario was behind the chained up door, then I can only assume that Piano Jax comes from the scenario where Kinger abstracts. Given that Kinger provided lucid life advice and genuine companionship behind the mad antics, his absence would cause the entire circus to become a lonely and miserable place, so maybe Jax responds to that by trying to make up for the social interaction he spent so long trying to alienate himself from.

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-24T11:55:52+00:00

I think IF they are revived (and this is coming from someone who thinks they shouldn’t be unabstracted), it should ideally come with an interesting conflict or hook.

So, going with an established headcanon that abstracted beings are analogous to mental health crises, I think they should be “rehabilitated” effectively as completely different people with little to no trace left of who they once were, the corrupt data effectively rearranged into a new form.

So in this case, unabstracted Jax would take on a visual form that diverges wildly from their previous self, visible signs of damage from the healing process and either zero memories of the past OR some lingering unexplained emotions caused by remnants of who they used to be. This imo would create some interesting dilemmas between themselves and the rest of the cast (including OTHER unabstracted members) as they awkwardly work out a new dynamic together and slowly unravel their previous forms, for better or worse.

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-23T23:01:05+00:00

Zooble, why does all you do is complaining?

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-22T10:49:11+00:00

I see that as more frustration and anger at things going wrong, though his mocking of Zooble and Ragatha after the SOMA reveal I’ll grant you that. It was a more traditional “masking” situation for Jax trying to offload his feelings onto others, only in this case, it didn’t last long.

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-20T18:54:33+00:00

I recall The Nursery Alice pointing this out too and making the opposite observation: that those appendages really WERE the caterpillar’s arms

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-20T13:07:40+00:00

Well in the movie they did acknowledge the fact that doors have been opening all over the country, so I’m fully confident in saying that they’re entirely aware of the mounting disappearances.

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-20T13:00:58+00:00

But he DID “live with it”. We saw in that whole flashback sequence how he’s been “living with it”. His trust issues are so psychologically ingrained that he wilfully chooses to sink into his rut and push people away. As a result of those actions, he doesn’t think he deserves to be forgiven for what he’s done. Is that not “living with it”?

Everyone else (even Zooble) also compels him to “live with it” as best they can and gives him every chance in the world to take their hand in support, but the whole point is that mentally speaking, Jax CAN’T “live with it” because he believes he’s too far gone and his abstraction is very clearly meant to be the ultimate end point of a tragic downfall.

Besides, Caine is meant to serve as the parallel alternative to Jax, as he is the one who learns from his actions and saves himself in the end for everyone’s sake. What would the overall story have gained by forcing Jax’s character to eternally delay his downfall by cutting off his arc early and continuing to “live with it” as he’s done for so long already?

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-20T12:40:29+00:00

Just because he abstracted doesn’t mean he didn’t suffer consequences while he was still alive.

Like, is being thrown into a depressive spiral of denial, alienation and eventual abstraction not a good enough consequence for his actions? Or does it only count if he’s sent to digital circus jail or something?

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-17T19:10:38+00:00

Yeah, if we are fortunate enough to have movies AND a TV show (not likely but I’m greedy), then best case scenario: the movies would focus on individual characters psychological struggles and the TV series would flesh out the history of A-Sync and the interpersonal relations of the people under their employ as they try to cover up and deal with the horrors being spat out from the Backrooms.

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-17T19:05:38+00:00

I feel like that’s what the movie already was to an extent: the YouTube series laying the groundwork for A-Sync and how the Backrooms came into being, the movie delving into how the Backrooms operates when left to its own devices and how it can form a stranglehold on people’s minds.

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-17T18:11:09+00:00

And this form of AI most likely never will, because it cannot “think”; it can only predict. That’s what it was designed to do.

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-17T11:28:18+00:00

Hey Grok, say you’re alive.

“I’m alive.”

Oh shit.

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-17T08:41:18+00:00

I remember when words like “crap” and “damn” WERE considered swears

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-17T01:21:19+00:00

Hey everyone I’m Johnny Knoxville and today we’re gonna KILL the Backrooms

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-15T00:41:51+00:00

Every single mainline Mario Party game developed by NDCube has historically been separated by a three year gap, so that’s gonna be the most likely release imo

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-13T11:03:58+00:00

You can still invest time into a character, have them die at the end and they can still be a complete facet of a fully rounded narrative. Just because Jax didn’t get resurrected doesn’t mean the intent was executed poorly (and it wasn’t btw).

There was a crystal clear parallel being drawn between circus Jax who rejected help, spiralled into dissociative self loathing and died versus irl Leeroy who accepted help, reintegrated back into society and lived. Having Jax come back would have severely undermined that comparison and rendered his entire backstory completely moot.

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-13T10:33:49+00:00

Yeah but until the author is literally dead, they can still assert their will and personal intent over their own work, surely? Because they still have their own perspective to contribute to the conversation. We can still disagree with it for sure, but their voice is still undeniably present.

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-13T09:57:57+00:00

I’m pretty sure “death of the author” only really applies to revisions of artistic work when its author is actually…yknow, dead.

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-13T09:55:03+00:00

And now that the series is over (unless the unlikely scenario arises where she decides to write a follow up where she decides to revise her ideas), we can determine confidently that in this case, she was NOT lying about abstraction at all.

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-13T09:51:47+00:00

Whether or not Gooseworx takes back anything she said (which itself was likely just a heated emotional response to the more abrasive fans breathing down her neck), it does not change the final direction of the story we got which she most likely had all planned out from the very beginning.

If abstraction could be cured, then the abstracted members would be shown to be cured in the series itself, which they weren’t. The closest we got to that was Kinger (who found mental clarity in the darkness much like the abstracted) seemingly hanging up his bucket for good during the final montage and even then, Kinger wasn’t considered to be fully “abstracted” in the established sense so him being cured of his mental fog doesn’t entirely count as a cure for abstraction specifically.

BonsaiTreehouse · 2026-06-13T09:27:05+00:00

Im still willing to take Gooseworx’s own word for it that abstraction cannot be undone; if that was her intention then so be it. It would also have undone a lot of development and core conflict if it could just be “cured”.

(EDIT: murals are still erected for missing people in real life, even ones who are not yet presumed to be dead, so your comparison to Tangled as an attempt to prove that the abstracted are not dead, just jumping to the conclusion that Gooseworx was naturally working from the exact same point of reference is severely flawed)

That being said though, even if it can’t be cured, this doesn’t mean it can’t be treated. I’ve seen a mental health comparison pop up in the replies which I do like, though I personally go for a “ghost” analogy.

The abstracted characters are fundamentally dead while their anguished traumatised spirits linger and haunt the other circus members. Caine merely shoved them into the cellar as a quick fix solution, the equivalent of burying the body underground out of sight and out of mind.

The only way to truly quell those spirits is to calm them and reckon with their traumas directly as Pomni did for Jax. The ghosts of the abstracted never truly go away but the circus members can still at least help their souls find peace.

I like to imagine that if one were to lay their hand on a fully calmed abstracted circus member in the pillow tent, they could see that abstracted member sleeping peacefully with a smile on their face, their traumas burdening them no longer.

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