RockyBeginnings

Cartoony funny Jax : "The funny one" the one she's forced herself into the most. Everything is a joke, nothing is that deep, don't worry about it ! You wouldn't ask a circus clown how they're doing when they're performing, you wouldn't dig deeper than that, so why ask Jax? Simple defense mechanism, being the class clown that's obviously doing the best out of anyone and isn't affected by anything.

Violent Jax : This one I believe stems from what her family expected from her growing up more or less, a strong man. She is fulfilling her role, being manly, plus the violence keeps people away. Who would want to be friends with someone that would take any opportunity to shoot them in the face, even if they come back to life right after. We've seen this one only during adventures, when she believes she's playing a game. During the candy kingdom adventure she craved violence, she shot the rhino gangle, had a bomb explode during President Pomni, was so into shooting each other with guns... This is clearly a mask, when Pomni actually does try get her to fight back and be violent with her, Jax can't actually do it. This mask falls when the violence actually becomes real and isn't part of an adventure anymore.

This one appears to Pomni in the mindscape, knowing that it was the real Pomni as a last effort to get Pomni to leave, to stop looking. If Jax does something this unforgivable, this awful (choking Pomni) then surely she'll leave, right ? Wrong, Pomni you crazy gal, you

Misogynistic, homophobic, overtly sexual Jax : This one pushes away forcefully everything Jax both hates and wants more than anything. Queerness and femininity. And if they are forced into those roles (wearing the maid dress) it's all just a big fat joke because Jax obviously Hates those things so there's no way hes actually a girl right? This one is all a big shitstorm of internalised transphobia, repression, jealousy, defense mechanism... It makes the very people she wants to be like and who would undertand so deeply uncomfortable that there's no way these very people would ever want to get close to Jax.

That one is why they mock Zooble whenever they mention doing anything typically queer (bartending, tattooing), this is why she goes extra hard on Ragatha and Gangle (cute girls), it's because Jax wants that so badly but hates that about herself and doesn't want others to find out, so she pretends to hate all of it so others have no suspicions of anything.

Piano playing Jax : I don't believe this one is part of the masks. She's the part of Jax that I believe erases herself and does agree to play along with the masks, but wants so deeply for others to find out the real her but is terrified. I believe this one is the trauma, a sort of fawn response to everything. Would only tell someone at the end of everything. And she does, despite the trauma, she wants to be seen. She wants people to know she was here.

So, why do all of this ? As I mentioned in a previous post, Jax is deeply traumatised from her first and only coming out experience to her mother. In her mind, coming out means being ridiculed and insulted, and it means hurting the ones you love. She literally believes she killed her mother because of her coming out. That is also why, in every single scenario that plays out, Jax was responsible for making another character abstract. (If I remember well, Ragatha, Zooble, and Gangle, the two most feminine and the one queer characters again) because in these scenarios, the previously alive character must have found out Jax was a trans woman and abstracted as a result of it, these scenarios arent a fantasy, they're what Jax genuinely believe will happen, and how she plans on dealing with it if these scenarios do happen, these scenes were her planning her actions beforehand for the worst case scenario, the next time someone gets her to come out and dies as a result)

She planned to use the weaknesses of everyone against them in case their loved one were to abstract. For example, Zooble is, in Jax's mind, the serious, grumpy one, so taking nothing seriously to a cartoonish level would throw them off.

Anyways, the kind of trauma that Jax faced upon first coming out to her mom stays, it impacts all of your actions. That put her back in the closet immediately, because she believes coming out to anyone else will bear the same results. Ridicule and hurt.

But Ribbit, Ribbit guesses it so easily. The second Ribbit and Jax start getting close, Ribbit guesses, Ribbit knows. And in Jax's mind, that means the ridicule and the pain will come with it, because surely, Ribbit is going to tell everyone right? And everyone will turn on Jax.

It ended up being a self fulfilling prophecy, Ribbit abstracted because Jax made sure to keep them away from everyone in fear that Ribbit would share her secret. That only cemented Jax's theory further.

If anyone knows, they get hurt. But turns out, people are good at guessing if they get a bit close. So now Jax will never let anyone get close again. So the masks get stronger, worse, meaner, more offensive. Ragatha saw it getting worse until she couldn't bear to have a conversation with Jax anymore because of how much she'd changed. And the second Jax felt that she wanted to get close to Pomni in the gun episode, she made sure to squash that feeling down and ruin any chance they could have had at a friendship.

It's all self inflicted, it's untreated trauma turning someone into something unrecognisable and awful, it's not an excuse but my god is it deep, it puts this whole show into perspective, and it makes me love this character so much.

Her identity as a deeply closeted trans woman impacts everything so much, and I wish I could have seen her happy and recovered, but this show is a cautionary tale.