Why Bunnydoll was like KyouMami to me (and hypothetically still is)
Remember when I said "every ship between the Holy Quintet (in Madoka Magica) can make sense under certain circumstances and especially in those universes where certain characters are 'out of the way'" and how that also applies to TADC? This goes especially for the relationship between Ragatha and Jax - and Pomni, thus dooming those three to infinity and beyond. All combinations between these three are endlessly interesting to me. And when I look at Madoka Magica's "The Different Story", I remember exactly why Bunnydoll's potential was (and still is) so intriguing to me - because their dynamics HEAVILY remind me of Mami and Kyouko. Or would if they had been explored further... So I'm gonna take this as a little headcanon experiment: Where do they align, what could have been?
SPOILERS AHEAD. HEADCANONS AHEAD.
First of all, it's insane how close their set-ups are to me at least:
On one hand, there are Ragatha and Mami - the responsible ones, crumbling behind the mask of kindness, suffering from loneliness and familial trauma. Ragatha, just like Mami, is (one of) the oldest in the cast and takes on a bit of a caretaker role. While their stance towards their family lives couldn't be more different (with Ragatha suffering from an abusive mother, whereas Mami mourns feelings responsible for her parents' death), they both have issues trying to be positive and cheerful for the sake of the others, which causes a barrier between them and everyone else. They feel like their attitude, their passive perfectionism, pushes everyone away, leaving them on their own...
Especially (but not solely) regarding one other character:
Jax and Kyouko - the, presumably, cruel ones, pushing everyone away in order not to get hurt (and hurting again) after suffering from familial guilt. Up to the point of them blaming themselves for the (presumed) death of someone dear to them*, either of them used to be a lot kinder and a lot less "hardened" towards other people. (*In the former's cases, this may apply to both Jax's mother and Ribbit.) Suffering from immense guilt and being unable to deal with/accept kindness from others, they start to become hurtful, only acting selfishly and creating a life ("reality") on their own terms.
In Kyouko's case, her mask of cruelty also gets established in response to feeling belittled by Mami - unable to accept "handouts" from her, she decides to only work on her own. Subconsciously, pushing Mami away on purpose may hurt less than accidentally causing her to die later down the line...
... Which may also apply to Jax, who is implied to go completely unhinged once Ragatha has abstracted, showing no mercy or regard towards Pomni anymore. (Who may or may not be a stand-in for Sayaka.)
In general, where Mami and Ragatha choose the path of righteousness despite having suffered so much, Kyouko and Jax choose the path of selfishness - all of them having different approaches of dealing with familial trauma. Jax' behaviour isn't directly triggered by Ragatha - but just how Kyouko accuses Mami of looking down on her, Jax accuses Ragatha of "taking advantage", mirroring the fears and concerns he formerly had after opening up to Ribbit. Both Kyouko and Jax display the idea that, once they're making themselves vulnerable, once someone views beyond their facades, it may lead to their downfall in one way or another. In Kyouko's case, seeing how she used to be Mami's kouhai, the fear is based on their interpersonal relationship - as she refuses to accept that Mami could relate to her, considering how she claims that Mami, unlike herself, hadn't been responsible for her parents' death in the first place.
As for Ragatha and Jax, their shared trauma towards their mothers (and their abusive behaviours) isn't explored directly; it is merely implied that Jax tries hard to NOT relate and compare, even overdoing it by ridiculing Ragatha for it ("Looks like you spent time with mommy after all").
The Different Story may end with neither Kyouko nor Mami surviving - but it did give their relationship a bittersweet note: Facing each other one last time allowed them both to have a little "regret party" over everything they would have wanted to share with one another; how they really felt, what they actually meant to one another. How Mami would have liked to have the courage to get closer to Kyouko and have private conversations as well. How Kyouko regretted the tough mask, how much she would have liked for them to be a real family; how close she was to fall into despair due to her own loneliness - if it hadn't been for Mami...
Jax's stance on Ragatha was obviously never framed to be this familiar with one another. At no point in the story was it revealed that they had been particularly close - since Jax had been shown to form a little friend group with Ribbit and Kaufmo almost immediately, with Ragatha merely tagging along, but mostly being with Kinger instead.
With Ribbit's abstraction, Ragatha did offer Jax an ear to listen to - but was immediately shut down and told never to mention Ribbit or anything about what had happened ever again. It does mirror Kyouko's behaviour after her parents died to a degree - since she chose to then cut ties with Mami and to not be a team anymore. So in both cases, both Jax and Kyouko rejected the possibility of getting comforted by someone who may or may not have understood them, feeling both undeserving and angry (at themselves and probably the world as well).
As someone who spotted all these parallels between these characters, I would have liked there to be more of a backstory between Jax and Ragatha. I would have enjoyed them having some kind of mutual "regret party" as well. Ragatha did get it in both episode 6 and 9... But Jax was never able to hear it - and was also never able to reciprocate it, even if the Ragatha door implied a lot of regret (and her being an impulse control to keep Jax sane in a similar way Mami kept Kyouko from complete loneliness).
In the end, Kyouko eventually confessing that she was saved by Mami is more reminiscent of Jax realizing that he didn't want to go - thanks to Pomni not giving up on him. It's bittersweet and in the context of how the story progressed, it makes PERFECT SENSE for it to be Pomni and not Ragatha.
So in a timeline in which Pomni didn't enter the circus, maybe Ragatha would have had the courage to take an active step towards Jax. Or, tragically, just like Mami never had managed to do it towards Kyouko, all that was left - was regret.
... But either way, it is nice to have potential scenarios to explore.
I tried to return to Tumblr properly, but the app didn't allow me to log in, instead it wanted me to create a new account 🙄
So, posting from the desktop version instead. Still, I won't be coming here to often due to work, so my presence will be very sporadic with some random fan art to share.
A silly Digital Circus fan art. I thought Evil Jax and Ragatha would get along ☺️❤️
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