I like bugs

As an example of the problem:

"Ablebodied people treat visible symptoms of disability as a joke" - statement of a general cultural problem, is not trying to imply that every single ablebodied person does this.

"Ablebodied people will never know what it's like to be told you're faking by your doctor" - Understandable as a vent post, but ignores the reality of a lot of people, both neurodivergent and with physical or neurological disabilities that don't quite push them into being considered disabled as a category.

"Ablebodies will say "I can't go outside because I'm too sad :(" meanwhile I can't go outside because I can't get out of bed without passing out and they have the audacity to claim they're more oppressed" - No longer describing ablebodied people as people but rather as a noun in itself, clearly using ablebodied as a stand-in for neurodivergent, ignoring more serious ways that neurodivergent people are oppressed in favor of a strawman that's easier to attack.

"Bomb that kills all ablebodied people" (as a bitter joke) - understandable way to feel but you probably shouldn't be posting that next to your serious political opinions. Or maybe at all.

It might have even made Jax's part in the overarching themes stronger, being an actual warning for the other characters of the consequences of stagnating in their insecurities instead of a ticking time bomb that really doesn't affect anyone else's opinions on staying or leaving or playing nice. Have her haunt the narrative with Pomni being a newcomer into a group that's in a very weird headspace as they grapple with the aftermath of their abuser dying tragically.

tldr I totally agree that Jax is transfem but I think if we're gonna police her pronouns within the fandom space we need more concrete evidence than just a few trans-coded things that can be explained away, especially when the show had no reason NOT to confirm it

his irl self presents as a cis man who goes by he/him, uses the name leroy mateo, the ending narration by pomni refers to jax with he/him pronouns, and no official tadc affiliations use she/her to address jax.

The Ribbit bow scene really isn't vague. It's very weirdly done, but putting a bow on the head of a cartoon character is the single most common way to show that they're meant to be a girl. That, and again, the scene where Jax double-dies has a song called "Isn't She Lovely" playing over montage of Jax scenes, there's no other "she" the song could be referring to within the context of the scene*.

Everything after that point just kind of drops it, which is very very weird (my best guess is that Pomni was supposed to say something about how she can't share Jax's internal thoughts when Jax can't say things for herself anymore but then Gooseworx just. Forgot to actually write that. Maybe she thought it was implied.), but that doesn't negate the very unsubtle way that Jax is shown as trans. The Jax mindscape scenes genuinely just don't make sense through any other lens.

Jax is a trans woman. It is not subtle. Poorly handled? Yes. Actively misgendered in the show after the reveal? Yes. Ambigious? No. Just because it wasn't said directly doesn't mean Ribbit putting her bow on Jax in a way that is near exclusively used to indicate a character is female or having a song that explicitly genders her as a woman playing as she double-dies are subtle hints.

Personally, I think that Gooseworx's other projects work better because they're self-contained. She's very good at writing single scenes, and she can string those together into a single short story, but going off TADC it seems she doesn't have the focus or the skill to pull off the follow-through on a larger narrative. I think that's also why Jax is just so extremely awful, she had an image of Jax in her head as a repressed trans woman who takes out her emotions on other people, she thought up a bunch of scenes that individually felt really good and emotionally satisfying, but then she never went back and considered how those scenes put together create an image of a stagnant character who's screentime is largely spent abusing women with no narrative payoff.

That's not to say I disagree about the underlying biases, though. Especially looking at her apology for the nega thing, it seems like she falls under the unfortunately common philosophy that racism is when you do a hate crime and not a systemic and pervasive underlying set of biases that must be actively worked on.

Tangent, and this is a personal issue only somewhat related to TADC, but oh my god people need to be more willing to call out their shitty friends. I swear, look at literally anyone with even a tiny internet presence and they're at most 2 steps removed from some flavor of absolute shithead.

Like, just a brief list of basic criticisms:

-Why was there so much set up for exploration of the humanity of AI when this was just going to be dropped? Caine's ep 8 breakdown and inability to understand humanity isn't a deeper reflection of the fact he isn't human, he just needed to remove the evil blue orb! The moon might be sapient, but she and Caine are the only AI in the circus! For some reason!

-Every woman in the show's characterization is warped around Jax, endlessly forgiving and coddling her, only for her to turn around and abuse them while the narrative says you should feel very bad for Jax because Jax has a tragic backstory.

-Seriously, the entire show is just warped around Jax. Sure, Jax is one of the two main protagonists (something only established late into the series by sidelining other characters), but this goes beyond that. The actual main character, Pomni, completely drops her arc about halfway through the show and instead spends all her time trying to fix Jax (like all the women before her). Apparently Pomni is especially resiliant and one of the fastest people to ever adapt to the circus, according to Kinger. Why? Never explained. The only thing we know about the main protagonist is that she was an accountant and likes urbexing. Jax, on the other hand, has her backstory take up half of the finale, as well as being a driving mystery throughout the entire latter half of the show.

-Pomni never tells anyone that Jax is trans. Jax didn't ask her to do this. Does she feel it's disrespectful to reveal something so personal when Jax can't advocate for herself? Does she simply not care? Who knows. Never explained.

The entire show set up a whole bunch of hints and implications to things, only to pull back the curtain at the end to reveal that it all meant nothing. Gummigoo being sapient? Makes Pomni sad but the greater implications of sapience are relegated to the moon saying "I love you" at the very end. Heavy implication that Caine was directly responsible for the first abstraction? Literally just a plothole. Jax saying that people are "not fun to be around" when they're about to abstract? Just a lie, her friends were both pleasant with her right up until the end. Everything about Caine and Abel as a company? Irrelevant.