honestly I feel bad (read: stupid) that jax being a trans woman was made canon
nothing against trans women i genuinely couldnt care less about your identity, it says nothing about whether you're a good or bad person in my eyes.
my only. negative (?) feeling on it is that i did not naturally catch a single hint on it. people in the fandom say it was SO obvious with how he treats women that it's rooted in envy, but i genuinely thought he was just abrasive as a defence mechanism and didn't look into it.
the reasons I didnt pick up on it are as follows
1. i have autism. subtle "hints", implications and cultural references often glide right past me without me noticing.
2. above all, despite being nonbinary, I am transmasc. I never lived a transfem experience and never will. it seems to (though i cant be sure) play upon common tropes experienced by closeted transfems or transfems who havent "cracked the egg" (realised and accepted they're trans) yet. again, i never experienced that so I genuinely wouldn't know. i only ever experienced wanting to present and be treated as more masculine than I am currently, so i couldn't imagine living the other way around, you know?
okay the end 👍 I just felt stupid and needed to vent my frustration a lil and explain my misconceptions. I am not like. mad. per say. at anything other than myself rn
my personal headcanon is that subspace loves his biografts dearly. as in they're like the only beings in this world he actually likes in a way that's close enough to unconditional. hates everyone else because everyone else hates him, but he loves his creations and they love him. they give him life, a reason to go on.
Abstraction could actually be reversible. Abstracted individuals can at least calm down and stop being destructive and dangerous. It has never, on screen, been canonically confirmed that once you abstract you're Doomed Forever.
another thing I dislike about tadc's writing (as a fan of the show btw) is how pomni is just. there
she seems to be a character intended to be a blank slate in order for the audience to project on and imagine themselves as pomni trapped in the circus, so maybe that was the reasoning in making her, well, bland.
> and even then, they seemed to switch up around the ⅔ mark of the series into making jax the "#relatable" one??? leaving pomni even more forgotten than before
she doesnt have a personality. she isn't a memorable character and yet her along with jax are the two characters who are the face of the show to people who haven't even watched it. she's so unimportant to the plot I genuinely forget she exists if she isn't actively on screen speaking.
I wish they did something more for her but honestly she seems like a white sheet "love interest" for jax (i dont ship them). she's just. annoying to me
edit: I mean, she HAD a personality in the pilot. she was anxious but rightfully so. curious. that anxiety went away with time (which i have mixed feelings about- it makes sense that she'd be less nervous with time and adjustment to her situation, but I feel she could've been a good anxious character as long as thst trait wasn't exaggerated like jax is.)
and while we're on the topic of the michael kovach controversies arising recently:
why wasnt this exposed sooner? they could've looked into his history way back when the TADC pilot released, and had this controversy start then. you know, early enough that they could recast Jax for the rest of the series to avoid working with and giving money to someone problematic?
I feel this was almost purposeful. I'm not defending the VA in any way here, but I feel like "haters" of the show INTENTIONALLY did this so close to the show's grand finale that the full intention was to make everyone who was excited disappointed and sad. I feel this information surfacing so late was intentional and malicious.
ok okay ive been thinking of making a good long post with all the points on why I dislike jax. I'll try to be concise here and go over everything, not neccesarily in order.
disclaimer: this is about the character, NOT [pt: not /end pt] the recent racism allegations and discourse around jax's voice actor [pt: voice actor /end pt] Michael Kovach.
please note this is subjective. jax enjoyers, jax fictionkins, and heavily source connected jax fictives- please don't interact with this post. please note that I dont actually mind if you do, I have NOTHING against you guys, I'm just worried for YOUR sake mentally and emotionally.
okay, with that out of the way, I'll go over the reasons under the cut.
his panic attacks/frequent mental breakdowns: when I first saw him in that one episode where he runs to the bathroom, white knuckles the sink, and looks at his reflection panting and dishevelled, I thought "cool! this could very easily be a quite interesting character arc. I didnt like jax before this because he was just a bully with no personality, but as long as this isn't overused in future episodes, this could be an interesting show of vulnerability." and you won't fucking believe me guys, but they proceeded to overuse it. as i said, cool the first time. not so much the twenty third (< hyperbole).
like yes, we get it, he's anxious or depressed or traumatised or what have you. he has mental illness. We Get It Now. but I feel those issues have overshadowed the other parts of his character in favour of making him excessively both "complex/morally gray" ["he only hurts and bullies people because he's a scared traumatised small bean!!1!"] and "relatable" to a wider, mentally disordered/mentally ill audience [and I'm saying this as someone who IS traumatised and has CPTSD.]
and ALSO, the part the vast, vast majority of jax haters hate about him the most; his bullying behaviour towards the female cast members.
this was never fucking funny to me I'm sorry guys. It was probably supposed to be a gag joke at the beginning of "haha stupid crybaby weaboo gangle who likes anime and manga getting kicked and bullied" but that was never entertaining to me. it rubbed me the wrong way, especially as part of my trauma comes from being bullied due to being "weird" [having autism and adhd and, despite being diagnosed young, no adult did anything about my mistreatment.]
he genuinely just reads as a bully to me. a bully who, when the audience started getting tired of his same old cruel and sadistic behaviours and ""pranks"" to others, did a complete 180 to regain new and returning adoring fans who love seeing a mentally ill character even if he realistically has 0 personality.
I swear to god I had so so many points in my head but I'm so. cant think..
