we're going to talk about jax's final scene, 31:30 up through 36ish, conveniently timestamped. for those of you that don't want to watch the whole six minutes again, i'm going to lay out the major beats. in pink, i'm going to point at the musical cues, visuals, and dialogue that i want you to pay attention to.

pomni confronts jax in the center of his psyche after reaching into his abstracted mind to find him. he pleads for her to leave, claiming nobody is supposed to care about him, or love him, and that she's making it harder by being there. gentle, insistent string music sweeps to a crescendo as pomni approaches.

pomni embraces him. jax claims it's too late, that there's no coming back from abstraction. pomni entreats him to talk to her, and he turns and kneels to hug her. the music remains soft, gentle, and sweet.

jax says he doesn't want to go, and starts breathing heavily. pomni tells him to stay with her. he begins glowing bright white.

we cut to a montage of jax scenes, set to a cover of stevie wonder's Isn't She Lovely, a song about the birth of his beautiful baby girl.

pomni keeps holding on to the glowing white body of jax as the music continues, ending on the lyrics isn't she lovely, made of love. the screen goes entirely white.

zooble and the others pull pomni out of the glowing white body of jax. they lean over her and say "you weren't going to try and take care of him all by yourself, were you?" and "i'm glad we weren't too late" and "like you guys keep saying, we're all in this together."

the song continues without the lyrics as they put jax in a pillow fort tent.

those are the basic facts of the scene and the musical cues. yes, there are more details, but these are still The Basic Beats between pomni finding jax, and the end of the scene. two characters emotionally embrace, the music swells with hope, one of them starts glowing white, the most joyful, loving song of all time starts playing, and the whole cast shows up, eager to help, happy they weren't too late, reminding us that they're all in this together.

how is the scene setting your expectation for what comes next? what sort of feelings do the music choices lead you to? where have you seen similar scenes play out, and how did they end? the music is hopeful and positive. the characters smile tearfully, and speak words of encouragement. the character in crisis glows white when embraced by a friend who refuses to give up. obviously the answers to my questions are subjective, maybe you hear isn't she lovely kick in and you come to the immediate conclusion jax is dead forever and get sad. but the answer i'm trying to lead you to, and that i would argue all of these elements combined are leading you to, is a positive resolution. you're led to believe something good will happen to jax. that the power of love will overcome the abstraction, and jax will come back from the brink knowing that he--or she, as the case may be--is loved. isn't she lovely, made of love?

but that's not what happens. we leave this scene and move to a montage of building a pillow fort tent, into which the abstracted jax is dragged like an animal and left. nobody joins pomni in her attempt to pull jax out of abstraction, seemingly all they're glad to have done is not lost pomni in an explosion: "i'm glad we weren't too late." but they were too late--for jax. the character we've spent the past two episodes and thirty minutes examining under a microscope, the character who was in crisis, the character who needed help, and never ultimately got it until it was, factually, too late. the world state of "jax is abstracted" did not change. we, and pomni, understand him better for having insight into his mind. but no change occurred. if you're standing outside of all this, pomni went into a room, turned off the lights, and then was pulled away from an abstraction that glowed white and then...never stopped being an abstraction. nothing has changed. there is no positive resolution beyond "nobody else got hurt worse".

this is tragic. it is a tragedy! and i do sincerely believe it's meant to be tragic. but everything outside of the literal facts of the scene, the music, the tone, the way the characters talk, directly contradicts that. it is not presented as a tragedy. an instrumental of isn't she lovely continues playing as they build the tent and put jax away, but it's an entirely straightforward cover, still upbeat, still positively coded. there's no contrast between the use of the song and the way the scene is presented that would make it "bittersweet", nothing in the way it's shot tells me this is sad. the situation is only logically sad--if i feel sad, it's because i know i'm supposed to. i'm not being made sad.

and that's where the issue is. if the scene is supposed to be sad, if it's not supposed to make you think 'the power of love and friendship can save you', then it's not using the tools at its disposal effectively. it can still make you sad, but is it doing it the best way that it could? everyone's familiar with the old sarah machlachlan ASPCA commercials. images of sad cats and dogs in shelters, while she mournfully sings in the arms of the angels, to make you think about the fact that many of these animals will be put down without finding a home. the imagery and the music cues are working together to make you feel sad. now go mute that commercial and play grover washington jr's just the two of us overtop it. how does that combination make you feel? maybe it evokes hope, maybe it makes you want to adopt a pet. just the two of us, we can make it if we try. adopt a dog, you can make it if you try! it's a far cry from sarah's plea.

obviously this is a commercial, it's trying to sell you on an idea (however noble an idea it is), but that's not really any different from a story. the story is trying to sell you on the idea it wants to convey, and how it wants you to feel, and it's using music, visuals, and dialogue to achieve that. by the way, if you intend to respond to this essay in a reblog to argue with me, turn one word blue, otherwise i'll know you didn't read it closely all the way through and just wanted to fight. anyway if the scene is meant to make us go "oh my god i thought it was going to work out but it didn't" then it needs to convince us it believes it didn't work out. because as it is, it presents putting jax in the pillow fort forever as the positive resolution, because that's what the music is telling us.

so what do we do about this, if we want to ensure the audience comes to the "correct" conclusion? number one is, of course, the music. isn't she lovely is a great pick if you want to lead us to a trans girl jax ending, but if it's supposed to be tragic... you have to change the tone. you have to make it sad. jax doesn't get to live as a girl, make me sad about it! bring down the tempo, change the key. if it's meant to be mournful, it has to sound like it. and the music surrounding it, the music in the void as pomni and jax embrace--that too should not be so hopeful. bring in the cello, bring in the piano, take out the steven universe plinky synths. we know what sad music sounds like. make it sound sad! or at least contrast it with the visuals. if you want to use an upbeat song for dramatic irony, that's fine, but irony requires going against expectations. i expect an upbeat song to be accompanied by happy hopeful visuals. make pomni scream and reach for jax and be held back while the song plays, make her suffer. make it contrast.

then there's the visuals. the glowing white light. embracing somebody who's glowing white can be considered neutral, but, in tandem with the music, it leads to a reading of a coming transformation, a rebirth. something new is going to come out of that white light. rewatching the scene, i guess it's supposed to be a literal explosion triggered by the abstraction creature stepping on the grenade, but like... c'mon? c'mon. it's not ABOUT the grenade. it's about jax falling apart and losing himself fully and pomni trying to hold on.

and if that's what it's supposed to be, make his model start going abstract when he enters his panic attack. make it absolutely clear that we're losing this last piece of jax and can't get it back. turn the model black, make it warble, make it grow the eyes. the fact that we don't see jax abstract on screen originally, that it's just something that happened elsewhere, is another problem i have with the finale, but is not the point of this post. if the story doesn't want to show it the first time, that's fine! but if it wants this to be the moment when jax goes to the point of no return, it should make sure we know that's what's happening. a glowing white light is hopeful. a growing black shape is not.

and finally, the dialogue/the way the characters behave. i am not convinced by jax saying "there's no coming back from this" because i'm not convinced he knows that. of course he would say that! of course he would believe it! but that line is a band-aid over the problem of WE don't actually know that. we've never seen it tried. we don't KNOW that all of your friends coming together and genuinely caring about you isn't enough to bring you back. much like we don't KNOW exactly what causes it or makes it so irreversible, because we don't see it happen. i'm absolutely on board for abstraction being a metaphor for this or that, but because it is still a literal event in a world that isn't built exclusively on metaphor, we still need literal information about it and its rules. this is a problem with science fiction. you can do plenty with metaphor and analogy in the genre, but you can't metaphor the hard facts that make up the world. those of you who've been here long enough know how much chobits makes me insane because it acts like the reset button being in her pussy is happenstance in service of a metaphor for sex changing you and not a choice her freak roboticist father had to make in the lab when he built her. some things you do have to address.

anyway. i'm getting off track. if the story wants me to think jax really can't come back, i need to know that's impossible in order to be sad about it. and if i don't get to know that until this exact moment in the story (which is fine!) then i need to know it through failure. if everyone is going to walk up like thank god we're all here! we're not gonna let you try alone! i... need the group to actually try, and i need them to fail. otherwise, everything else being exactly as it is, hopeful music and all, i'm led to believe friendship could've save the day--if they'd just tried. but for some reason, they don't try. they just put jax in the tent and i'm left questioning why nobody else tried to hug him better. the expectation that something could be done was set up, and then not followed through on, nor subverted. if they failed, that would have been a subversion, the narrative playing on my expectation that love conquers all in order to make it more impactful when it says 'no, it doesn't.'

that's what i think it wants to say, anyway. that is the logical conclusion, based entirely on the events, and ignoring all the narrative devices surrounding them. but i'm unsatisfied by the logical conclusion. i don't want to have to examine cold facts when trying to deduce a story's conclusion. i want the catharsis of having my expectations raised, and then either met--which is still good storytelling--or subverted. a story doing exactly what you think it's doing is not inherently bad, it means you heard what it was saying. i don't think tadc would be worse if pomni and the gang loved jax back from the brink and she was reborn into an avatar with a cute bow on her head and started making an effort to be better. and i don't think i'd be unsatisfied by a narrative that said no, you can't save everyone no matter how hard you love them, if it said it clearly and confidently.

it just doesn't successfully do that.

phew. did you make it all the way down here? do you understand what i'm trying to get at, even if you don't necessarily agree with it? i hope so. if you read all that and want to yell at me for saying the cartoon clown show could have been better, please consider: nobody would spend their sunday writing an essay about a cartoon clown show if they completely hated it. i must have liked it well enough. i just want it to be better. you should always want better from the work you take in, and for the work you make. tadc already exists and can't be changed, so this essay is ultimately for YOU 🫵 to think about your own work and how you can use the tools you have to elicit the feeling you want in your audience.

that's one of the reasons for critical analysis. if you can identify what doesn't work in somebody else's story, and can identify how it would improve, you will be better at identifying these things in your own work, and your work will be better.

i want you to make good work.

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie*

Once, Breq was Justice of Toren, a starship whose artificial intelligence linked through the minds of a multitude of human ancillary bodies. Now, there is only Breq, a lone soldier seeking vengeance after a horrific act of betrayal cost her everything. As Breq gets closer to her goal, the conquering empire she once served begins to destabilize from the inside, and Breq herself has to question her priorities as new loyalties arise. Features female-as-neutral worldbuilding, as well as singular characters existing throughout many bodies.

Note: my favorite from this series is Translation State, which gets really weird about gender and sexuality and stands fairly well on its own, go read it!

The Black Tides of Heaven by Neon Yang

Novella series. In a world where children choose their gender when they're ready, twins Mokoya and Akeha once swore never to pick. But as they grow older, the two find themselves drawn in different directions, both in terms of gender and in what they want from their lives. Rebellion is brewing, and the twins' mother is looking to use them to her whims to retain power. Akeha, unwilling to be her pawn, resorts to leaving home and falling in with the rebels.

The Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum*

On a distant planet in a distant future, everyone has multiple bodies that can be customized however they want, cybernetics have abolished nearly all privacy, and the gender binary is no longer about man or woman. Instead, there's vail and staid, for which biological sex is irrelevant. Fift should be focusing on the obligations of a staid, but is distracted by budding feelings for Shria, forbidden due to Shria being a vail. When their complicated relationship unexpectedly becomes the center of a growing revolution, they will both have to decide where their priorities lie.

Dawn by Octavia E. Butler*

After a devastating war leaves humanity on the brink of extinction, survivor Lilith finds herself waking up naked and alone in a strange room. She’s been rescued by the Oankali, who have arrived just in time to save the human race. But there’s a price to survival, and it might be humanity itself. Absolutely fucked up I love it I once had to drop the book mid read to stare at the ceiling and exclaim in horror at what was going on. Includes darker examinations of agency and consent, so enter with caution.

The Javelin Program by Derin Edala

Dr Aspen Greaves expected to be woken from decades of cryo sleep on humanity’s first deep space colony, but instead finds themself alone on a spaceship still years away from its goal. Surrounded by mysteries on a barely functioning ship, Aspen must make sure the still sleeping crew reach their new home, while also dealing with the many secrets hidden behind the Javelin Program. Nonbinary and aromantic lead, based on a society and norms very far removed from ours.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir*

Gideon, raised as a swordswoman by unfriendly nuns, would rather run away and make her own life, but her services are needed. The Reverend Daughter, Gideon’s childhood nemesis, has been invited to a trial to win a place as an immortal by the Emperor’s side, and she’s in need of a bodyguard. Listen, if you’re on tumblr I probably don’t need to explain this book to you. Trust me when I say it’s exactly as good as people claim. Humorous and spooky but also absolutely gut wrenching and clever with a lot of political commentary. There are also, indeed, lesbian necromancers in space.

Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer

Centuries in the future, humanity has deliberately engineered society to be as utopian as possible, politically, socially, sexually, religiously. But things begin to crumble as the shadow of impending war looms. Written in an enlightenment style and featuring questions of human nature and whether it’s possible to change it, and what price we’re prepared to pay for peace, this book is simultaneously very heavy and very funny, and written in a very unique style. While still human, the society presented often feels starkly alien.

Walking Practice by Dolki Min

Having crashed their space ship, a shapeshifting alien finds themself trapped on Earth. Suffering from isolation and loneliness, they have settled into a routine to survive. Using online dating services, they take on the shape of human men and women to hunt humans for food. Strange, gross, and gender weird, Walking Practice is a unique take on gender from a wholly alien perspective.

The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley

Zan wakes without memory, a passenger aboard one of the living world-ships of Legion, a fleet of decaying generations ships. Told she’s the salvation meant to free them from the fleet, Zan is flung head first into a brutal and bloody conflict. This book fucked me up when I read it. It’s weird, it’s gross, there’s So Much Viscera, there are literally no men, it has living spaceships and biotech but in the most horrific way imaginable, where humans are nothing but part of an ecosystem that cares little for their well-being. It’s an experience but not necessarily a pleasant one.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells*

After having hacked its own governor module, SecUnit uses its small amount of new freedom to secretly download and watch as much media it can between doing its job guarding humans. But when the scientists it’s been charged with keeping safe come under attack, it must make a choice about whether to continue keeping its freedom secret or risk it all to save them. The series features both novellas and full length novels, and balances humor with scathing social critique. There's also an excellent tv adaptation!

Drinking Sapphire Wine by Tanith Lee

Four-BEE is a utopian city, in which humans have no responsibilities, are cared for by machines, and few acts cause true consequences as even death has been conquered. Able to change bodies and gender nearly at will, living lives of luxury and hedonism, everything should be perfect; yet the narrator finds him/herself dissatisfied with his/her life. After an impulsive decision leads him/her to break one of the only remaining taboos, he/she is exiled from Four-BEE into the wholly uninhabited desert wilderness outside.

The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells

Moon doesn't know what he is. Having lost his family young he lives on the move, shifting shape to hide his true form. The only ones similar to him he's ever encountered are the vicious, bloodthirsty Fell, but he knows he cannot be one of them. When chance leads to a meeting with someone like him, he hopes his days of loneliness are over. But his new people stand against a dangerous enemy, and not all of them welcome Moon's help. Featuring a world with not a single human in sight, The Cloud Roads makes for a unique perspective.

When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb*

The angel Uriel and the demon Little Ash have been friends for centuries, living and studying together in a small Jewish community in Europe. But times are changing, and many of the community have left for a new life across the sea. When one of these emigrants go missing, Uriel and Little Ash decide to leave their peaceful life to go find and, if needed, save her. While set in our own past rather than a fictional world/time like other titles on this list, the relationships and identities of the two main characters often break our ideas of gender as well as platonic/romantic.

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson*

Young adult. Young artist June Costa lives in Palmares Tres, a beautiful, matriarchal city relying heavily on tradition, one of which is the Summer King. The most recent Summer King is Enki, a bold boy and fellow artist. With him at her side, June seeks to finally find fame and recognition through her art, breaking through the generational divide of her home. But growing close to Enki is dangerous, because he, like all Summer Kings, is destined to die. Set in a world in which bisexuality and polyamory are largely the norm.

Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre*

In a future ravaged by disaster, Snake is a traveling healer who uses the venom of her snakes to concoct medicines for all imaginable ills. The most valuable of them all is her dreamsnake, an alien creature whose bite can grant a painless death. When circumstances cause her to lose her dreamsnake, she must embark on a dangerous journey to obtain a new one so she can continue her work. Set in a world where polyamory and bisexuality are largely the norm.

Shadow Man by Melissa Scott

As an effect of an FTL drug, intersex births increased, resulting in five separate genders among humans: men, women, mems, fems, and herms. But on the planet Hara, people cling to the old two gender system, forcing intersex individuals to pick one of the two and generally refusing to recognize their existence and needs. As conflict on the planet broils, Warreven, a Haran advocate and herm, and Tatian, an off-worlder, find themselves dragged into a struggle for equality.

Leech by Hiron Ennes*

Unbeknownst to humanity, a sentient hive mind has taken over the entire medical profession to ensure the health of their host species. One of their doctors is sent to an isolated location where they’re cut off from the rest of the hive mind, only to realize they’re faced with a rivaling parasitic entity. Leech hands you only just enough information to get by, and whether its historical fantasy, an alternate timeline, or futuristic post apocalypse is hard to determine. It’s spooky and weird and wildly creative, and does some neat things with gender, because what does gender even mean when you're a hive mind bacteria inhabiting countless bodies?

Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis

It’s 2007, and a leak has just confirmed that the US has reached alien contact. Cora wants nothing to do with it, but as her absent father is the whistleblower who dropped the news the media won’t leave her alone. Even worse, she soon finds herself meeting and being stalked by the alien presence itself as it tries to remain in hiding - and discovering that there is a much larger threat on the horizon. Features aliens with very different ideas of gender and relationships than humans, and a central focus is how a relationship between one of them and a human would look like.

Ammonite by Nicola Griffith

Centuries ago, the first settlement on the planet Jeep was hit by tragedy: a virus killed off all men, leaving behind a society of only women. Now, the planet has been rediscovered, its inhabitants having long forgotten about the rest of humanity. Anthropologist Marghe Taishan is sent to test out a potential vaccine. If the vaccine succeeds, Jeep and its people would no longer be in forced quarantine, but it would also open them up to exploitation.

Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold

For Dr. Ethan Urquhart living on Athos, delivering babies looks a little different: they are "born" from uterine replicators, as Athos is a planet populated entirely by men. But now they're running out of the ovarian cultures that allow them to reproduce. To replace them, Ethan is one of the first of his people to be sent off planet into the wider universe - where there are women, rumored to be an evil and corruptive force.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Genly Ai is an emissary sent to the planet of Winter, meant to help facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But he’s unprepared for Winter’s citizens, who spend much of their time genderless or switching between genders, making for a culture wildly different from what Genly is used to.

Meet Me in Another Life by Catriona Silvey*

Thora and Santi are strangers, brought together by a coincidence and torn apart just as abruptly when tragedy strikes. But this is neither the first nor the last time they meet - again and again they encounter each other, as friends, lovers, enemies, family, every time recognizing in each other a familiarity no one else carries. But with every new life, a mysterious danger grows ever closer, forcing them to find out the truth of their connection. This is a puzzle-box of a story that goes some entirely unexpected places in a very wild ride, featuring a bisexual co-lead and a very hard to define main relationship.

A Door Into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski

On the moon Shora live the Sharers, a nation of women who reproduce via parthenogenesis and have developed highly advanced biological sciences. Leading wholly pacifist lives, the Sharers are threatened when humans from another planet come across their world and decide to develop it, no matter what the Sharers themselves think. The Sharer society is openly sapphic, though the main romance is m/f.

Dust by Elizabeth Bear

In a dying spaceship, orbiting an equally dying sun, noblewoman Perceval awaits her own gruesome death. Having been captured by an opposing house, her wings severed and life forfeit, Perceval’s execution is imminent - until a young servant charged with her care proves to be Perceval’s long lost sister. To stop a war between houses likely to doom them all, the two flee together across a crumbling, dangerous spaceship. At its core waits Jacob Dust, god and angel, all that remains of what the ship once was. And he wants Perceval. Sapphic and asexual characters, however be prepared for kinda fucked up relationships.

Halfway Human by Carolyn Ives Gilman*

When Val, expert in alien cultures, gets called in to help handle the young Tedla after a suicide attempt, she is let in on a secret decades in the making. Tedla is neither male nor female, an asexual person from an isolated planet where a genderless class of 'blands' are exploited as a work force. As knowledge of Tedla's presence begins to spread, so does the attention of various parties wanting to use it for their own ends, including its old masters. As Val works to unravel the history of how Tedla came to leave its world, the pressure builds - what is to become of Tedla? Content warning for themes such as suicidal ideation, slavery, and child sexual abuse.

Moonstar Odyssey by David Gerrold

On the planet of Satlik, humanity have been changed: children are born genderless, and have the ability to choose between male and female during puberty. As a child coming of age, young Jobe finds herself having a hard time choosing what she wants to be, a decision coming into shadow as global disaster looms near. Novella length, focused as much on building up the history and lore of Satlik as it is on the coming of age story. Also an early example of female pronouns being used as default and neutral!

Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon*

Charlie Johns is just your average guy, so when he suddenly finds himself pulled into the strange, utopian future of Ledom, he's shocked. In Ledom, gender is a thing of the past, as is hunger and war. Confused and wanting to return home, Charlie Johns is promised that he will be returned, but first the people of Ledom want him to tour their society. Charlie Johns agrees, but the more he learns and the better things seem, the more suspicion grows: why is he really here? Published in 1960, Venus Plus X is frankly astoundingly progressive about the topic of gender.

Trouble on Triton by Samuel R. Delany

On the moon Triton hundreds of years in the future, life looks a little different from our world. The only place yet to be drawn into a war spanning the entire rest of the solar system, society on Titan is in many ways a utopia, where everyone can live however they want, no matter how strange their ideals. Yet despite this, martian immigrant Bron Helstron isn't happy. Unable to build meaningful relationships or figure out what he actually wants out of life, Bron is prepared to all but turn himself inside out to figure things out. Strange, surreal, and a bit out there, I'd recommend this if you want a story with a fairly loose plot and prose that will scramble your brain. Not a personal favorite, but an impressive work.

Every Day by David Levithan

Young adult. A is neither boy nor girl - in fact, A doesn't have a body of their own. Every day they wake up inhabiting a stranger's body, and spend a single day living their life before waking up as someone else the next day. They try to be respectful of their hosts' lives, not making decisions they wouldn't themselves make, but after meeting and falling for Rhiannon, the girlfriend of one of their hosts, things begin to change as A begins pursuing their own wants.

Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy