Lailah

“Jax is a bad person” “Jax is an abuser”

“Jax had too much screen time”

“I’m happy Jax abstracted”

“Jax is a misogynist”

“Jax sexually harassed Gangle”

“Gooseworx hates women and Jax reflects that”

“Jax is a murderer”

“Jax doesn’t deserve forgiveness”

“Jax fans are all misogynists”

“Jax’s backstory wasn’t even that bad”

“Jax being trans is just to excuse her actions”

It’s so obnoxious guys, seriously. You come in and ruin the whole vibe, it makes things less fun for some of the other fans. You have the right to your opinion, but so does everyone else. I make a habit of staying AWAY from content that clearly doesn’t view my favorite TADC character in a positive light, you don’t see me ignoring the very obvious difference of attitude and engaging anyway. Why don’t you do the same so you aren’t constantly arguing with someone? And please for the love of decency stop telling people that by liking Jax they ignore/downplay abuse. People aren’t suddenly abuse apologists for defending their viewpoint on a fictional character.

Jax setting the fudge monster onto the kingdom of npcs? Comedic. Darkly comedic, but still comedy. Jax throwing Ragatha in the deep fryer? Cartoony slapstick. Jax telling Gangle ‘he’ likes it better when she’s sad? Shown to be damaging and meaningful.

Jax mentioning whatever “the figurine thing” is to Gangle is meant to be comedic due to Gangles characterization as a bit of a “weirdo” who likes anime. Jax trying to drag Gangle off onto his/her team during the gun ep and snatching away her mask? Not comedic, meant to emphasize that he/she hard to handle and to indirectly tell the audience that the targeting of Gangle has been a long term thing.

One of the Persona Jax’s “flirting” with Dream Gangle (as non-genuine as it is) is meant to be seen as a purposefully awkward yet somewhat comedic scene (even if I found it a little too awkward and weird to find funny.) Jax throwing her mask wayyy back in the Mildenhall Manor episode? Shown to be an unnecessary display of bullying and the catalyst of him/her being tied up for the rest of the B plot.

Overall I think some of what is held against Jax makes her seem to a lot of people as completely irredeemable (for some reason, even though many of us have liked characters who have done significantly worse things lol) I just feel like it takes away from the very real care that the rest of the human cast has for Jax (understandably more complex for Gangle obv) by making them seem worse than they already are? If that makes sense? This is not to say someone can’t dislike Jax as a character, I just think people make Jax out to be like, a true scum of the earth type of person when they truly did have the capacity for change, they just kept making bad choices until it was too late.

PART 2

On Jax’s role as “the funny one”, we can see through one of the quick flashed scenes between Jax, Ribbit and Kaufmo, that for a long time Jax didn’t laugh or behave as ‘the funny one’. To the point that when Ribbit managed to make Jax laugh with a joke, she and Kaufmo were ecstatic. We can infer that he took upon himself the role of ‘the funny one’ after Ribbit’s abstraction, something that quickly alienates Kaufmo from him. Jax’s whole twisted form of coping and self preservation is also his way of ensuring his own suffering. He is trying to protect himself from being hurt, and also from abstraction. He doesn’t want to abstract, but he also subconsciously wants to make himself hurt. It’s emotional self-harm through self-isolation, chased with delusions to preserve his mind. He pushes others away and through cruelty and false facades in order to relieve his own misery; and to make certain that they stay away. He deludes himself by living in a fantasy that he (deep down) knows is false, purposely stuffing himself and others into little boxes, convinced that he should play everything as if characters putting on a show.

We see some of the exaggerated characters of the other behind the doors of his mindscape. The most extreme versions of how he sees them and himself. I think tying in how he thinks they see him as well. It’s essentially what he views as the “worst possible scenarios,” the type of thinking that occurs when you catastrophise. Pomni’s genuine attempts at friendship must instead be because she sees herself as a savior-type, the only one who can “fix him.” Whereas he is the dangerous monster who cannot be fixed. He thinks Gangle must hate him, because he knows how he treats her is wrong, but covers that up by assuming that because she’s a bit of a weirdo, she isn’t that bothered by it. She might even be into it! Zooble must loathe him, must want him gone, probably blames him for everything wrong in their current life, and featured in this segment is the cartoonishly mischievous persona Jax is always attempting to stick to. The inspiration behind his mask. He’s playing scenarios out in extremes, leaning into exaggerated versions of himself and slipping into certain personas and behaviors rather than being true to himself. As Pomni exasperatedly tells the various versions of Jax, none of that is reality. Jax practically lives in a back and forth state of disassociation, desperately trying to make a fake world where he doesn’t have to face reality, where he doesn’t have to face his pain or his true self. Jax was ultimately someone who could never accept anything. Acceptance was something he felt like he was never able to have before, and violently rejects doing so for himself now. He constantly keeps up various masks, trying to ensure not a sliver of anything pitiable or sympathetic of him escapes.

His own masking is why he torments Gangle. She masks as too, yet she has the “liberty”of removing that mask, of constantly showing vulnerability. Her comedy mask is something fragile, and to her the tragedy mask isn’t always liberating. But Jax does not see it that way. She’s ‘weak’ and easy to pick on, just like he presumably once was. So he targets her, takes pleasure in pushing her around. Because in some ways he sees a part of himself in her. And he hates that. On top of that, she came right after Ribbit abstracted, like a “replacement” character. So Jax immediately honed in on her as a target of his pain.

He’s in a constant cycle of self loathing, constant masking, disassociation, and lashing out, taking his pain out onto those that are easiest to get a reaction out of. His dissociative tendencies both build into and contradict this false version of himself and his worldview. Nothing is real so nothing matters, an absurdist kind of nihilism that only further damages himself and the people around him. Jax is an example of someone who is ‘danger to oneself and others’. A cruel situation where you can tell that someone is hurting deeply, but you don’t know how much you are willing to let yourself get hurt trying to help them. Having connection is something Jax craves, but believes he can’t afford. He sees the vulnerability that comes with them as dangerous. He sees every potential relationship as something dangerous, it’s not worth getting close to someone, because they’ll manipulate him or leave him. Jax sees himself not as who he truly is, but who he believes he needs to be. Jax sees himself as someone who rots and hurts everything he touches, needs to do so to preserve himself and as such, acts accordingly. He ends up creating a self fulfilling prophecy.

PART 1

Jax is, as we know, a self destructive character. We the audience were misdirected to believe that the direction of his arc would conclude where Jax would ultimately gain redemption and get a good outcome alongside the rest of the cast, but this wasn’t the case. While we were given the information for the reason why he is the way that he is, and a way to sympathize with him, he isn’t redeemed and ultimately ends up dying within the first 7 minutes of the finale. Jax is meant to be the antithesis of the show’s message, which is not only “finding happiness in a stagnant life” as Gooseworx has said, but also building friendships and community that you can rely/fall back on. Due to Jax’s attachment issues, he never maintained solid relationships. Jax ultimately had the possibility to be better, but could not and would not take the final leap in asking for help from others, resulting in the Digital Circus equivalent of suicide.

This isn’t that uncommon in suicidal individuals, many maintain an act of pleasantry as to not cause their loved ones pain before their death, but alternatively they sometimes will deliberately make themselves hard to be around as a way to make it easier to go through with ending their lives. If they have nobody, and no one will miss them, then they have nothing worth staying for. This is amplified by Jax telling Pomni in his mindscape, “you make this so much harder” and “you weren’t supposed to love me.” He doesn’t understand why she cares about a bad person. And Jax is aware of this, he’s aware that he isn’t a good person, but as Pomni, Zooble and even Gangle to some extent have said: they only have each other. Stuck in this digital world with no other human inhabitants, they don’t have the luxury of seperate lives. They are literally all that they’ve got. The most important thing is to “be there for one another” despite their differences and despite if they are friends or not. Jax was a shitty person to the majority of the cast, but they didn’t want him to die for it. Because ultimately, he’s a human stuck in the same shitty situation that they are. I see it somewhat like his worst moments in this impossible scenario aren’t indicative of who he could be or who he used to be, he could have had the chance to be better, but it’s too late now. His brain turned on him, and he’s essentially dead now, or at least in a somewhat comatose state.

The reason Jax seems to have issues regarding emotional intimacy, and subsequently his own masculinity seems to have started, as it most often does, from his father. He confides in Ribbit that his father always seemed disappointed in him, that he was never good enough for his dad. Eventually his father leaves (we don’t know why) and Jax never sees him again. Jax is now alone with his mom, who expanded upon his issues. He shares that before his father left he thought he got along better with his mother, but that she had suddenly changed after the divorce. After his dad left, his mother became manipulative and emotionally volatile. She would criticize him often and put him down for not being enough like his father, not being enough of a man like his father was while then also criticizing him for being “as bad” as his father when he would get reactive and lash out. Jax says that he had found it confusing, that “it was like she missed him, but also hated him, and I became the target of all that.” There is a possibility floating around in some people’s minds on whether this is an indication of potential covert incest, aka emotional incest. Think of those ‘boy moms’ you see posting strange content online, or the possessive mother in laws that act as if the partner is stealing away their son. These mothers often feel unfulfilled by their husbands, feel a need for validation and affection, and begin to form an unhealthy attachment to their sons, becoming almost dependent and relying on them emotionally. The thought is that Jax’s mother was subconsciously using him as a placeholder for his father. Outside of that possibility, it is clear that she was using Jax as an emotional and verbal punching bag for her own faults in her failed relationship and projecting her anger at his father onto him as well. Something Jax seems to have picked up from her. Jax takes his pain out on others, just like his mother did.

TADC side of TikTok is a cesspit and it’s really stressing me out. Anyway I actually liked the finale, I know not everyone did but I think it wrapped things up nicely. Despite this, met me just share my reaction here: