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In what way am I defending transneutral people…? I am defending intersex people first. Also no I’m not trans and you’re so fucking stupid it’s hilarious

“TrAnS mEn StAy StRoNg!!1!11!” DHSKSHDKB CHRIST IM DYING

The cinematography was very well-done and unlike anything I have ever seen before, whether live action or animated, and that was very cool and stimulating to see

We finally got an explanation about Ribbit

Jax was actually honest for once

Kinger had more knowledge and influence over the circus than everyone else, either due to age, skill or the amount of time he’s spent there

We got an explanation into how and why Jax was friends with Kaufmo

Wasn’t perfect, but I did like the representation of Jax’s different parts of himself within abstracted Jax

We were given more background on each character (not related to the end scene)

The fact that Jax actually abstracted. I wasn’t sure if it really would happen, but I find it incredibly intriguing that it did

Things I did not like about episode 9:

You start to realize that Jax is not the protagonist and instead is the antagonist, compared to Caine, who is a deuteragonist

Jax got treated with only love and support even after Pomni got shown everything with Ribbit. Jax abstracting was his choice, hurting Ribbit was his choice, driving her to abstraction was his choice, replacing her with Kaufmo was his choice, deciding he didn’t like Kaufmo after was also his choice. Yet he got to live it up in a pillow fort in the dark, with everybody else focusing all their emotional attention onto him, again, instead of Jax just growing the fuck up and being respectful.

The climax was indeterminable, because each character had their own emotional climax, while the story itself took a backseat. We got to see a lot of how these characters feel internally about their situation, see them mentally break when they can’t take it anymore, but we still don’t get an explanation at all about how everyone got into the circus.

The way they showed the instagram and facebook accounts of everyone in the circus, saying their real names in Pomni’s voice, all while Caine sheepishly stands in the corner all seemed like fan service. It was weirdly out of place and was not something I thought was ever going to be revealed

In the scene where Pomni is watching Jax see the overexaggerated scenes of everyone, she says “I can fix you” about Jax. I do not like the message it sends to the teenagers watching this because they might not understand that it’s another form of Jax’s self hatred instead of Pomni actually saying she can fix Jax

Jax’s maid outfit self was explained to be the version of him that makes himself into a joke so that the real inner parts of him are left alone and kept safe. He does things “ironically” but never explains where the irony is. The maid outfit self was strangely effeminate compared to the rest of Jax’s selves, and there was no explanation for that at all, considering everyone thought Jax was going to come out as a trans woman.

We did not get nearly as many live action scenes as I expected. They showed Jax driving again, and then him continuing to drive, then it shows the hand of someone who appears to be sleeping in a cot in a tent. Then at the very end, we see everyone from the circus get onto a bus at a bus stop. They don’t speak to each other

Everyone suddenly seems completely and totally fine with living in the circus when they find out about their real selves and how well they’re doing in the outside world. The SOMA theory was proven correct, but it’s a little confusing when it’s tied up in a nice little bow like “Oh! Me out there is doing good! I’ll just make the most of my situation with the power of friendship!” and it was, throughout the entirety of the show besides this, the main issue at hand

We got zero explanation for the headsets and how and why they worked, we also got zero explanation for why anyone even had access to them

We got no explanation for Scratch’s part in making Caine or the circus

We got no explanation for C&A and what it is they actually do

The cryochamber scene went COMPLETELY unexplained

Caine just. Came back from the dead. With zero explanation. That one I could understand is by the logic of “Nothing is ever truly deleted” but that wasn’t implied here as much as it was implied that he was just banished again

Not only did Caine appear, he also immediately started introspecting and solving his own issues in a way that seemed wayyyy too human. I just kept thinking “Is someone in the circus gonna make Caine their AI boyfriend” like I really couldn’t tell where that was going

Not only did he introspect but he did it in a very spoonfeeding way. He said all the self-growth lines you’d expect a villain turning good to say, and he had moments where he would say in a super obvious way what the selfish and disrespectful option would be for his behavior, almost like a Jekyll and Hyde thing

I do not like how placid and seemingly harmless Caine got after he returned

I do not like how they were glad to have him back

Everything got tied up into a neat little bow. This show started out being a psychological horror. The last episode honestly made it seem more like the messaging was similar to the movie Heathers. “Don’t kill yourself, be friends with people even when they’re struggling.” They didn’t do it as well as Heathers did

Jax was never spoken to about Ribbit and his behavior towards her. I’m genuinely upset that Jax did not get told off for that. He strung along three different people and then acted like it was so wrong and terrible that he was insecure to begin with. He basically drove her to suicide and then got off scott-free because he also basically committed suicide. It makes you wonder what the hell Jax did to Kaufmo

We got zero explanation into anybody’s tragic backstory or trauma besides Jax, making it seem like he was always the antagonist the entire time. Which feels manipulative because we were blatantly lead to believe that Caine was.

We actually got zero explanation for everything shown in the prior 8 episodes. It genuinely felt like this wasn’t a horror anymore, it was a fictional group therapy session. The biggest issue I have with that is the fact that the actual issue at hand everyone has been talking about for the past 8 episodes is how to get out of the circus, why they are there, and whether or not their bodies and lives are still intact, and they blew right past all of that and suddenly every character is fine with being in the circus and has completely given up finding answers to those questions. There was zero amount of character depth involved — in the beginning and throughout the show these characters seemed more like realistic people, but in this last episode, they genuinely feel like children’s show characters who are there to teach everyone how to care about your friends. There was almost zero horror aspect to it at all as soon as episode 9 started.

i drew this while listening to Niamos Chandrila and wailing like a wet beast

I do not have completely “correct” morals in accordance with society. I don’t claim to be the best person ever or to hold any moral ground in terms of my inner character. I need anyone and everyone who sees my posts to be aware of that.

I have been a bad person. I have done bad things. I’ve hurt people I love and hurt people I don’t know. This blog isn’t telling you to do what I do.

When I make my posts, I’m trying to show you a few things.

1. To think for yourself and to develop your own values and opinions with thought and meaning behind them.

2. To care about the people and things that are forgotten about and abandoned more than anyone or anything else.

3. To understand that being kind and telling someone what they’ve done wrong is not always effective, and you need to break eggs to make omelettes.

4. To learn that society generally villifies and penalizes those who do not act within the limits it sets, and how to break out of those limits, no matter how deeply ingrained they are within you.

I’m not doing the work for you. You need to do that yourself. All I’m doing is talking about what’s truly meaningful and important underneath all the fake spoonfed slop that society constantly forcefeeds you, and the biggest issue has actually now become that you think you like that shit fed to you like you’re a big fucking baby.

Are there people who I hope go to prison? Yes. Am I thinking rationally about that? No. “What does that mean?” you ask.

I’m a prison abolitionist. That is to say, I’m anti-slavery. I’m also against capital punishment (the death penalty). It is absolutely wrong to just kill whoever you want. As someone who would definitely like to kill whoever I want, I will not be doing that because it is wrong, and it hurts people, and it creates more issues than it solves, but the same goes for when someone is put to death in prison. I don’t care what they did. They shouldn’t be killed. They also shouldn’t even have to go to prison. There are infinitely better ways to enact punishment onto someone that don’t involve literal slavery, torture and initiating a Stockholm syndrome-esque cycle of repeated offenders to keep the slave house stocked (specifically targeting black and brown people, for obvious reasons).

See, this is where you guys get values and opinions mixed up. My opinion is that certain people should be in prison. That’s not rational thought from me. It’s a vengeful and fearful thought. It’s a self-preserving thought. My value is that prisons should not exist, and that even the people who have hurt me the most should not face such mistreatment and suffering. My opinion comes from experience and personal feelings. My value comes from education and cognitive empathy.

I try to make sure both things align, but they often don’t, and that is called being alive and existing. Nuance is unavoidable. The important thing is that I don’t let my opinions override my values. People will often preach that they meant no harm or that they hold values that reflect the opposite of what they project in opinions. Racist Karens are a great example, often acting EXTREMELY overtly racist, yet clutch their pearls and gasp when someone actually calls them one. They will frequently deny it, perhaps saying “I’m not racist!” along with some variation of “I love [insert race]!” or “I have [insert race] friends!”

The truth is, I don’t think they do realize they are being racist as all hell. I think they are just focusing on themselves and their instinctual feelings of fear that society has so deeply instilled in them. I mean, half of everyone in general is constantly sensory overloaded because of the way society is built to begin with. A lot of people can’t catch a break. People become bitter and angry and jaded over it. And they might still internally hold the value that they care for others more than they care for themselves, which is very often not true in practice and behavior. That shit takes a lot of work and effort to both even start and to keep up with consistently.

My point is, try to make sure your opinions and values align to a majority. And if your opinions are irrational and go against your values, maybe don’t fucking express them outside of your own home to the people close to you who truly know your values, and won’t judge you for your opinions, but will correct you when you are doing something wrong.

Here’s my basic outline for my plans.

Finish the linguistics portion of the book (this is going to take months, if not an entire year longer)

Have my wife edit and proofread

Do the epilogue and the about the author

Do a special thanks page

Contact some local news stations and whatever news station(s) every Slavic person above the age of 40 watches in Brooklyn

Contact some universities

Contact some libraries

Hopefully do a book tour of some kind? Not a huge one, I’d just like to go to some different bookstores and talk a little about the research that went into this