womp womp

Regardless of whatever happens with the whole Jax gender thing in Episode 9- if it's canon, if it's not canon, if it's canon but In The Wrong Way, if it ends with Jax transitioning, if it ends with Jax abstracting, if it's the story of how not accepting yourself will kill you, if it's the story of how accepting yourself will make you happier- WHATEVER happens, I need you to promise me something.

Do not send Gooseworx harassment over transfem Jax.

Don't yell at Gooseworx if it's not canon. Don't yell at Gooseworx if it's canon But In The Wrong Way. Don't yell at her for being a "queerbaiter." Don't accuse her of getting fans's hopes up just to crush them. Don't claim she secretly hates women and she's secretly transphobic. Do not parade her around as The New Woman We Hate. I can't stress this enough.

If you're disappointed about it, that's fine. I'll also be disappointed if Jax's transness isn't canon! But you are going to handle your disappointment like an adult, and you are NOT going to harass Gooseworx about it.

1. Jax isn't real. Gooseworx is.

At the end of the day, Jax is a fictional cartoon rabbit with emotional issues, who many believe to be a trans woman. Gooseworx, however, is a real person. A real trans woman, might I add. One who has already gotten enough shit from this fandom over the years! We do not need to add to harassing her. I shouldn't have to say that aloud.

People love to take any excuse whatsoever to harass a trans woman, and I am not going to have us add to that. Yes, representation matters, especially representation of trans women, especially now. However, representation of trans women doesn't matter as much as a real living trans woman.

2. TADC is still trans art.

Zooble exists. They are right there. And I, As A Nonbinary Person, do not appreciate how Zooble gets overlooked by the fandom- it reeks of enbyphobia to me.

Zooble is genuinely one of the best explorations of genderqueerness I've ever seen. Their struggle to find something for themself that just feels good so clearly reflects how difficult it can be to discover who you are when you don't fit within the binary- both in terms of your identity, and in terms of your presentation. One day this feels good. Then it doesn't. It's fluid. It's changing. I can't find something that works, I've been trying and trying and I can't.

And then the realization that you don't have to find one solid thing that works, that you can just be fluid and everchanging, that you are allowed to change yourself however you need to to fit more comfortably in your skin. That your fluidity is part of you, part of you that exists, and because it exists, you have to choose to accept it.

I don't see explorations of genderqueerness in cartoons that are this fucking good. Usually it's just "this character uses they/them pronouns!" And that's fine! But I rarely ever see an exploration like this, of the struggle to find an identity and way of presenting that just feels good. That scene where they explained their dysphoria... it felt like a warm, glowing light in my chest.

That still matters. Zooble matters as trans representation, and I'm not gonna fucking have you pretend they don't. The Amazing Digital Circus is trans art, REGARDLESS of that fucking purple rabbit.

And like, I get why people focus more on Jax (i mean, aside from enbyphobia). Jax is a fan favorite. Zooble's transness is more obvious and needs less explanation than Jax's. People like speculation, people like how you do have to dig a bit to see Jax's transness. Transfems don't get a lot of representation, especially in cartoons. I promise that I get it. Hell, I also focus more on Jax than I do Zooble. But that does NOT mean Jax is the only piece of important trans representation in TADC. I will not have you pretend Zooble isn't important because they're not binary trans.

3. Jax's transness is still there, even if it's not explicit.

Even if Jax's transness isn't confirmed explicitly canon, the subtext is still there. And I know, I know, it'd suck to get more representation that's just subtextual. I know there's been several pieces of trans representation where it's pretty clear but it's still subtextual (I'm fairly certain that I Saw The TV Glow, Across The Spider-Verse, and Nimona all kinda fall into that, trans rep that's more subtextual and thematic). And I fully get it if you're sick of subtextual representation, if you're sick of existing in the negative space, because I am too.

But here's the thing: that doesn't mean OTHERS can't take solace in seeing themselves in it. That doesn't mean it stops being valuable representation because it doesn't become the explicit text. If even one trans person feels seen by Jax, if even one trans person figures themself out or comes out of the closet because of Jax’s subtextual transness, that is a net positive, regardless of whether or not it's explicitly canon.

Does that mean it wouldn't mean anything if it is canon? God no, it'd mean so fucking much if she's canonically trans. But she does not NEED to be canonically trans in order to be valuable trans representation. The trans reading and subtext is still there. It won't disappear if it isn't canon.

4. If it ends in tragedy, that won't mean it's bad or transphobic.

There's a chance that Jax WILL be canon trans, but will reject it, and will end up fully abstracting rather than transitioning. And I will fully understand if people get upset over that. I too am sick of trans tragedy. I too want Jax to live and realize she'd be happier as a woman.

So I need you to believe me when I say: it's not bad rep if it's a tragedy. Tragedy still has value. I've heard people talk about how interpreting the end of I Saw The TV Glow as a tragedy, as going back to repression, motivated them to transition and not die wondering. If Jax's story ends in tragedy, as "this is what happens when you don't accept who you are and you don't change, it just makes you miserable and then you die wondering," that will not be a bad story, and it will not be bad representation. It'd be a representation of a story that happens all too often. And showing that all too common story, it could- no, it WILL encourage people who've been too scared to take the next step to not die wondering.

Do I personally believe Jax will finally accept who she is and survive in the finale? Yes. Maybe it's wishful thinking on my end, but I do genuinely believe that. But if that ISN'T what happens, I'm not gonna send Gooseworx harassment for it. I'll be sad, yeah, but I'm not gonna call the show evil and transphobic because it showed what happens when you don't accept yourself.

Don't tie your entire mental health to whether or not a piece of representation will become canon.

I sometimes worry we're Byler-ing ourselves with transfem Jax. That we're getting so caught up on "this is gonna be canon, and it's gonna be GREAT!!" that we're A) getting major tunnel vision, B) overlooking actual representation, and C) going to be absolutely crushed if it doesn't happen.

I need us all to accept before the finale: transfem Jax might not be explicitly canon, and if it's not, that is okay. And I need you to accept that not just so you don't go harassing a trans creator on the internet for the crime of her art not doing what you want it to, but so you don't get sent into a spiral if it doesn't happen.

Jax is not the end-all be-all of trans representation. It'll be fuckin HUGE if she is canon trans, yes, but it won't be the end of the world if she isn't.

Because TADC is still trans art. And Jax is still valuable representation even if she's just subtextual representation. Jax is still valuable representation even if her story is a tragedy. And Jax is, ultimately, a fictional character, while Gooseworx is a real person.

And if you harass Gooseworx in the name of trans rights because she didn't make the horrible purple cartoon rabbit canonically trans, I swear to god I will fucking kill you

The flashes of the real world that seem to have been the final push for Jax to act was not an office, and All Caine has to work with is office pictures.

Is why his first attempt to 'make an exit' in episode one had Pomnie go over a million different versions of an office.

Caine is very creative, he was designed to entertain, why would he recycle the same environment again and again with Pomnie's prototype exit adventure if he had access to streets, trees, houses, street signs, and car headlights? All things that despite Caine not relating to the 'macroverse' are things that Jax sees:

It could be that he tried a more indirect type of mind manipulation. A nudge that allows Jax's own mind fill in the blanks to achieve the intended response of not wanting to leave! But that's not how Caine work.

Every single time he had tweeked people's mind it had been for the sake of adventure immersion, and when it wasn't for that, it had felt either eerily passive, or not subtle at all.

Pomnie being possessed in the haunted mansion adventure was an extremely direct and cruel way to control her mind but it fit the horror setting, it follows the rules of the high stakes adventures that theoretically anyone that picked the 'hardmode' door wanted.

Gangle's happy mask and the stupid sauce show Caine has this tremendous power outside adventure settings but they were both items that the person could chose to equip/use, not direct mind influencers, both seem to have been created to please the user as well, not put them in distress or increase the 'stakes' of their non existent non adventure related circus lives.

Caine's own distress doesn't seem to affect the player's mind, only the surroundings. Notice how everything EXCEPT the freaked out Zooble glitches here:

All the other times he freak out (like when Zooble asked for them to be able to have sex or his program crashed from jax 'being interested in his hobbies') Caine own freak out did not affect the characters minds, so influencing people's mind need to be intentional, it won't happen if he just 'wished' people reacted certain ways.

As for Caine direct and intentional modifiers, they have always been eerily passive. Jax did not feel any pain or sense of wrongness when he was turned vegan, there was no headache, no body alterations, just a sense of 'are you kidding me? why is this a possibility?' because of the idea Jax was presented with.

Which is clearly not a reaction Caine created. He just gave Jax the scenario that made Jax's mood considerably drop.

If he wasn't explicitly told 'hey buddy you're vegan now!' Jax probably wouldn't even had noticed until it directly restricted his actions. Just like Pomnie didn't realize her name was missing until Caine directly asked 'Newcomer! What's your name?' putting the issue on the spotlight.

Predictably Pomnie freaked out about it, but again, that's a natural Pomnie reaction to a fucked up situation. Caine is influencing her mind by puting her in these situations not directly comanding her to act a certain way.

So far, during this era we are witnessing at least, Caine has never directly, non consentually (you cannot convince me he scheamed very evilly for the stupid sauce to land on Ragatha's eye during the fast food episode, that was an accident) influenced someone's feelings. Hence why he is always panicked when what he gets isn't a reaction he wants to see:

And he tries to fix it by changing the surroundings and trying to prove that he is cool and good at his job!! Not explicitly changing their feelings.

Now let's go back to Jax.

why in the ever loving hell would Jax both 1 - press the red button, and 2 - freak out about mind control, if Caine didn't actually mess with his mind?

Well... cause he is Jax.

Let's rewind.

Jax intense panic in the 'exit room' parallels how he acted in the end of episode 6 after his fight with Pomnie. It is extremelly violent and human, compared to Caine's 'mind influence' powers (which I assume even at its most powerful, would still not feel like 'human panic' but closer to the trippy, inhuman, 'artificial' near abstraction trip Jax went through.)

Speculation on how Caine's mind breaking powers would feel like aside, when Jax teamed up with Pomnie he was having fun, he teased her and even opened up to her about his trypophobia and his view on the circus: He likes spending time with her. He wanted to be her friend.

A friend is something that he genuinaly craves, and therefore can genuinely hurt him, so he avoided having any. People in the circus already sees him a jerk, a bully, they don't want to be his friend, to get close to him, so is like his self destructive urges were rusty, he only realized that he started to want something when pomnie hugged him and once that realization that having a friend is possible hit, he put his walls back up full force! Shot himself in the foot to not get what he wants.

Now back to episode 7!

The idea of finding an exit must have been waaay more absurd to Jax than the idea of making a new friend, he barely reacted to the escape news, he didn't even want to leave his room.

He clearly doesn't believe leaving is possible and you can feel his skepticism through the entire episode 7, "this is just one of Caine's adventures" "sure let's follow mr. obvious twist villain" and so on, so on, but despite this reluntance, there are plenty of moments where Jax pauses.

When he sees Caine's 'office door', when he sees the globes with everyone's adventures, including the ones he went with his now lost friends, is like little doubts start to invade his mind '...What if this is really caine's room?' 'What if there really is a way out?' which all comes crashing down when they reach the 'hidden room' with the option to leave. Leaving is an actual option, a 'real' possibility, inside the room.

Jax wasn't lying when he said Caine messed with his head but it wasn't literally: This adventure planted in his head an idea he had throw away a long long time ago, something he really wanted and gave up on: An exit.

But if it's something he wants, why pick the 'lock us in the hell circus' button? Because when Jax wants something, genuinely wants something, he pushes it away.

I also don't think Jax can handle a 'real world with real people' after seeing others (including himself) through '2 dimensional cartoon characters' lenses. So he had this gigantic crisis only to learn that it was all fake. He 'betrayed' everyone for nothing. He really was right all along, he should have never cared.

So while we did get confirmation Caine used to modify people's mind far more drastically in the past, I don't think this was the case here, besides how such direct control for selfish reasons never happening before in the show, Caine also looks genuinely confused by Jax accusation.

Before killing:

1st victim:

After killing 1st victim:

2nd victim:

After killing 2nd victim:

Final victim:

Everytime Vox killed in his past he completly copied his victims behaviour, talent and even their style. And while he sabotaged some of them, he also manipulated the others to trust him. He pretended to admire them or help them out only to betray and murder them.

And we as the fandom lots of time pointed out how similar Vox behaved and dressed as Alastor:

So my guess is knowing how Vox behaved in life that Alastor might have been his perfect victim type. He already started to take on his style but unlike his other victims Alastor didnt fall for his tricks and saw right through him and he couldnt even hurt him.

Because of these he was never able to get over his obsession and switch to a new person.

I am not saying that in a first time ever Vox didnt genuinely wanted to be partners with Alastor or saw him as his equal but I also think his messed up serial killer brain might also has something to do with wanting to be with Alastor.

If you are a socially anxious person, you have to socialize. Your panic/anxiety attacks will only get worse and trigger more frequently if you constantly avoid contact with The Public. Not saying that you need to be a social butterfly- but there is a genuine problem with not being able to order your own meal at a restaurant. And it cannot be solved by always having someone else do it for you.

Also about the fandom, I have a crisis every time there's quote unquote "discourse", never in my life has a fandom given me so many inescapable headaches

There are plenty of takes I have that I firmly stand by, and other takes that I am interested in discussing or analysing, but the list is so long that I genuinely can't be bothered to make posts on it. Maybe just for asks or off-blog talks with friends