Hope you find what you're looking for

The short answer is, sometimes you do nothing.

It's why I keep repeating that Punishment is not the same as Accountability. Sometimes you do something you can never take back, and you keep living anyway.

Things happen. Sometimes you become a monster in an attempt to protect yourself the only way you know how.

Most harm is never an actual accident, the accident is that we forgot to factor others into our decisions. And the point is, that's exhausting. You can't care about every stranger, every possible hypothetical other on the planet all at once and then be asked to weigh the utilitarian ethics of your choice to have a Hamburger for dinner or if your job that you need to make money is in any way responsible for the collapse of human civilization.

You can't be human trying to be a machine. And the only way to do no harm is to be a machine, and even then a machine is only making calculated decisions on the least amount of harm.

Because life itself is physical harm overlayed with joy, sadness, and interpretation all in the effort of the survival of that singular life. One is not alive when they are not struggling against something (even as abstract as fear, hunger and loneliness). One is not living when they are dreaming of being free from struggle.

And sometimes that struggle is ourselves and carrying the memory of the actions you did and what it did to someone else. Or even worse, what it did to your own idea of who you are.

In regards to Jax specifically, my essay focused on the scene when he pressed the button to keep everyone in the Circus and the discourse taking place about what that said of Jax and the subsequent displeasure when the next episode felt emotionally jarring for audiences who have been trained by society to see Punishment the same as Accountability.

So taking all those questions, we can explore them through that scene of the button. It is also a great exercise to open the door to existential thought and how to metabolize and cope with things outside your control in real life.

The reality of Episode 7 is that if they had pressed the other button, they all would still be exactly where they are. In the canon, nothing would have changed from the outcome, the pain and even Caine would still have had his own breakdown because it would have been definitive "proof" that they hate him.

Not a single material thing is changed by Jax's actions; both buttons were going to end with everyone feeling betrayed, used, and still trapped. And through it all, Jax would still be sitting there saying "I told you so."

Zooble being hung up on what-ifs is simply a maladaptive coping mechanism: Skapegoating. Zooble is mad at the state of reality, not Jax. Because we can objectively look at the story and accept that there never really was a choice to begin with, we can and should admit Jax didn't actually do anything but break the illusion.

An illusion, might I add, that was destined to collapse no matter who pressed either button. Even if Jax hadn't pressed any button, nothing changes. So what does he need to be punished for?

Zooble, and much of the audience, want a punching bag. They want to let off the frustration of the reality that they are powerless to circumstances objectively beyond their control. It is punching a wall so you don't punch the other person.

You could beat down Jax all day long. You can even rationalize it that "well if he hadn't pressed that button and allowed us all to find out it was a lie by doing what I wanted, then I wouldn't be beating on him."

But the wall is a person. So actually it is punching the person closest to you (Jax) because you can't punch the person you are actually mad at (Reality).

And then we have to ask if anything would have changed if Zooble had been the person to press a button only for them all to be sent to Shrimp Land? Maybe one could argue Zooble wouldn't have lashed out at Jax, but we know that isn't true. We all know that Jax still would have been there saying, "I told you so", which would have had Zooble lashing out anyway because Jax isn't centering THEIR feelings in a moment where he feels justifiably apathetic.

He warned everyone not to get too invested because it was another adventure. From his perspective, their hurt feelings are their own fault. He tried to spare them the heartbreak, but no one listened to him.

And that isn't to justify Jax, but that is simply who he is and that is how people actually behave. We choose when we care for others and we justify when we choose not to. He never cared about their feelings, but it isn't about him caring. It's about recognizing that even if he is being a jerk, he's not objectively doing anything wrong.

And this is where I get to the point that people do not require anyone else's permission to live. You are not obligated to live for anyone but yourself. You are not mandated to care about anyone but yourself. That doesn't mean there are no consequences. The consequence of pushing a cup off the counter is that you now have a broken cup. But if what you want is a broken cup, the consequences are not causing you pain. And if the consequence does not cause you pain, and life itself is the singular act of survival in one's preferred state, what do you need to change?

Jax doesn't want to care, so he doesn't, his motivation fits his behavior, as such he has no reason to change his behavior. The comfort of others doesn't concern him because their discomfort is an inconvenience to him. He is in an agitated state because everyone is sitting in their feelings when his whole character is all about running away from vulnerability.

But let's make this more difficult:

What if it was true and Jax trapped everyone in the Circus forever?

They are still in the circus.

And so this is where we go back to Anon's questions. When you do something so horrible, so terrible, so hurtful that you can't ever take it back?

Because the logic changes. Now we are no longer addressing a closed loop of futility. It should change things, because now it was not inevitable. Now Jax actually took something from everyone.

And in this scenario, Jax has taken the "ultimate" something: Their lives. He unilaterally trapped them forever in the Digital Circus where he has taken their whole futures away from them.

So what now?

Jax did something arguably unforgivable. I would point out how people are rejecting Caine's genuine and heart-felt apology that I doubt anyone would accept if Jax came back and apologized after realizing the gravity of the situation. Not only do I think that the audience wouldn't have forgiven him no matter what he did, I think it would have been too much to ask the characters to forgive Jax.

So then, what do you do now? What is the appropriate reaction?

Torture him?

Isolate him?

He can't die, all that would happen is what happens in the finale: He abstracts.

And with the reviews coming from audiences on how they felt about the ending, many people are deeply upset with Jax Abstracting. Some claim it was the coward's way out, treating it like a suicide to avoid responsibility. Others claim it robbed Jax of a "proper ending" and becoming a better person. And then there are some, as Anon points out, who see it as narrative punishment.

While I give those feelings space because I understand how one could form those conclusions, feelings of an audience are not indicative of the function of a narrative choice.

In my post on Existential Authenticity in TADC, I broke down the narrative functioning of Abstracting in-universe. The psychological deterioration that leads to a character Abstracting is structurally consistent: it's when the pain of a broken heart can no longer be coped with.

Characters abstract when they can no longer bring themselves to keep struggling, for any reason.

For Ribbit, it's because she loved Jax so much that she felt she failed him when he started treating her differently. She couldn't cope with the fact that she had hurt Jax so much, somehow, and couldn't make it right, that she Abstracted.

Kaufmo Abstracted because he felt that he lost both his friends. He never recovered from Ribbit because Jax refused to be there for him, and he watched Jax, one of his closest friends, become someone he didn't know at all.

And Jax abstracted because he finally stopped running away from the responsibility. He finally allowed his heart to break. Jax Abstracting was the consequence of him finally taking accountability.

You can never take back anything you do, all you can do is paper over it with apologies and promises not to do it again. But that hole is still there. Even if you spend the rest of your life trying to reinforce it and hide it, you know it happened. You can't make it un-happen.

So to answer you, Anon:

one of the strangest truths I learned in my life is, sometimes, the greatest kindness you can give is never trying to make up at all. It is possible to do something so awful that the only way the other person can survive you is by you being the villain unworthy of redemption.

So you redeem yourself anyway. But not to make it up to them. Not to try and prove you are better than that. But because you're still alive and are worthy of living, and also have already done enough.

Performing accountability is to say "Look how much I changed. I did the work so I deserve to move on from my past."

Taking accountability is realizing that changing in the future doesn't change the past. You may never be allowed to move on from it, and you accept that and keep living with yourself anyway.

But the way you are arguing why you dislike it feels more than a little disingenuous and feels very bad faith from you. Instead of actually saying you just weren't the target audience, you present "evidence" for your personal claim that leaves me standing in the gap of your cognitive dissonance.

The points suggests a willful choice to not engage with any part of the show. I'm not even sure if I can confidently say you even watched the show based on your argument. So allow me to break it down.

Gooseworx Made the Show She Wanted.

And I know some people are going to scream about me using Gooseworx social media while blatantly throwing out Medrano's posts. Someone somewhere will call it a double standard but then I must ask what the mission is, again.

Vivienne Medrano is telling a very plot-focused, character-driven drama comedy. Plot means there are structural conventions of narrative that must be hit to reach genre compliance. The genre is a dark romantic comedy. But nowhere in the show is the romance actually developed. We are told things happen in background details and tweets.

And half the time the tweets directly contradict or other make a worse interpretation of the events of the show.

If Medrano was only clarifying that her show was not meant to focus on serialization, that would be an entirely different situation. Instead she is telling me- as the audience -how I should interpret the characters so I- as the audience -feel the way she wanted me to feel about her blorbos and not how I- as the audience -have experienced her show.

Gooseworx said the show was not a lore mystery. The show finale was not a lore mystery. This is not a contradiction and the show successfully pulled it off. The series never hints that the lore is important either. Instead the episodes are all very Character-focused. All the way to posting this about the ending:

And here's a fair call out as I would do to Medrano:

I do think Gooseworx changed the ending. However, I personally think the change was the addition of the human characters. If that entire aspect was cut from the ending and replaced with character scenes of them bonding more, the finale would be exactly the same.

If you ever think the ending was changed, you should always consider the parts that were never necessary in the first place. The human characters and their relationships are meaningless. The only reason Human!Jax and Human!Zooble are even forced in each other's orbit is because that was the hint that Human!Jax is indeed a transwoman who has only barely started that journey.

The whole point is that we immediately understood Zooble was queer and nonbinary. Meaning they opened a queer bar. For the queer community. And Human!Jax is at the bar.

Because he's QUEER.

So I don't believe the claim that this is the EXACT ending Gooseworx was going for, but I don't think she was bullied into making the show she said she was trying to make.

Not a Horror ARG

This is what I consider an acceptable use of social media to correct the fanbase.

No one can claim Medrano wasn't trying to tell a story about abuse when she has repeatedly stated it on Twitter/Bluesky.

No one can claim Medrano is not trying to criticize Christianity when she has said she is trying to criticize (remove) the "weaponization" of Christian doctrine through her shows in interviews.

No one can claim that the shows are not meant to challenge morality when Medrano herself has explicitly stated that her stories are intended to be about grey morality in interviews.

No one can claim that she wasn't striving for a serious story with absurd comedy when she and her staff have repeatedly compared her work to Bojack Horseman.

And so when it comes to the show itself, I grade Medrano on her own criteria. This is what she wanted to be graded on. No one forced this for her, she did it herself. And when cross referencing with her shows, they don't match.

Gooseworx said the show was not intended to be horror themed. And your grimdark torture fantasy you wished for falls under that. You are upset a fish can't fly.

And to note, I am not on social media outside of Tumblr unless it's for research purposes. And even then, rarely. I am retroactively finding tweets to support what I have been arguing since I saw the finale: this was always the plan.

Going back to the music, Gooseworx makes music. She did background instrumentals for Hazbin Hotel and is very smart about her choice of music. So it wasn't disjointed, you just aren't allowing the music to matter because it isn't the story you wanted. The music does, however, matter.

The use of Isn't She Lovely is all about the birth of a new life. That is literally what the characters are experiencing at the end of the series. The rules of the cosmos have changed, the characters are no longer waiting for salvation, and they have chosen each other.

On the flip side, it also directly is a reference to Jax and his transgender identity. Though apparently that was still too subtle for half the audience. Because, and I wrote about this already, there is a fair argument that does align with themes to say that Abstraction isn't death/suicide.

You can read in my essay on Existential Authenticity in TADC that I deconstructed Abstraction purely through the show using first principles media analysis.

But I am nobody, so here is Alex Rochon tweeting about it from yesterday:

So if Abstraction is not suicide but the "corruption of self" as a visualization of mental crisis/collapse, Jax isn't dead, Jax is reborn. Which makes the reading that his abstraction come from finally accepting the reality of the harm he has caused narratively acceptable.

I'm not saying that's the facts, but I would be shocked if Gooseworx said that it was not a valid interpretation. Feel free to ask her yourself POLITELY, maybe she'll respond. I am confident enough in my reading of the show to not see a purpose to verify.

But the song is NOT disjointed. It is thematically coherent as well as being the emotional climax of the entire show. And if the song is supposed to be the emotional climax of the story, that means:

The therapy speak was the entire point of the show.

I can't believe I have to remind "fans" what happens in the show, but I'm trying to do this in good faith.

Episode 2: Pomni gives Gummygoo a therapy session just off screen after he realizes he isn't real.

Episode 3: Literal therapy sessions take up the A and B plots between Zooble & Caine AND Kinger & Pomni

Episode 4: Pomni and Gangle literally have a mini-therapy session behind the restaurant.

Episode 5: Group Therapy at the bar. Psychological warfare against Jax. Pomni and Ragatha therapy

Episode 6: Kinger has therapy with Ragatha after they lose. Pomni tries to bond with Jax through therapy with guns. Zooble literally gives a therapy monologue.

Episode 7: The one episode with not much therapy. But the whole thing is psychological warfare on the audience and cast.

Episode 8: They all sit on couches and have therapy over the last episode.

My brother in Baphomet, how did you make it to episode 9 and then complain about therapy talk? Have you been watching in a coma?

Here is Gooseworx herself, saying exactly what the point of the show was, since you seemed to have missed the entire thing.

And I would argue the show is still a horror.

This is for the adults. This is for the people who recognize that life is objectively pointless. Nothing you do matters all that much. Even the people we swear to teach about and learn with an explicit "Never Again" have left no objective mark on humanity.

No one is so evil or important that their life stops time. Nothing we do can stop reality from continuing. We are so unimportant that the world doesn't think about us.

So the horror is living in a digital circus where even your own self has moved on without you. Your sense of loss isn't even yours. You aren't trapped, you're unnecessary.

There is a cosmic kind of relationship between the humans and the avatars. A divine, unseen progenitor who gives them life and then abandons them to live it on their own terms. This is the point. The fact that the humans are NOT attached to the machine is what actually makes it disturbing.

And this links right back to everything I have ever written about religion. This is existentialism. This is existential horror. The fact there is no exit is the entire point.

The point is that everything is pointless, everyone dies, nobody matters.

Just like life you don't get to opt out until you die.

So Now What?

And before someone takes this out of context: no one is endorsing suicide. This is the same shit I've been writing about since day 1. This is existential humanism. The answer is radical empathy and existential humanism.

And like I said from the start, anon. You are absolutely free to write that alternate universe fanfiction that is entirely your own story made to fulfill the narrative you want using the TADC cast. No one will stop you. In fact, it may be exactly what your part of the fandom needs to find satisfaction.

You should write your story.

Just remember, it was never Gooseworx's story.

And just to be clear, I personally identify as a moron and an idiot.