I am genuinely so apologetic for this but it would be a betrayal to myself not to say that I’ve had the biggest crush on you forever. Anyway . Carry my love with you, Puki
I could be a 3-inch tall sewer elf for all you know.
yk those icebreakers where they ask what famous person you would have dinner with? well i’m 100% picking Bergen (from ao3). i simply NEED to know who the hell is writing these masterpieces. it agonizes my thoughts way to much. WHO R U BERGEN
Yeah the moment a second person reblogs my post from someone else, I am no longer able to see their comments nor is it tallied to my original post, thus making it completely separate from mine. Fucking bullshit. Legitimately terrible for everyone.
And of course this reblog under my own post now has its own SEPERATE notes, reblogs and replies.
For those saying Rocky's character was infantilised in the film, don't forget that he may be a 291 year old genius alien, but his speech is being translated by a middle school science teacher with more important things on his mind than specific and accurate translation.
Grace optimised his software for speed and ease of understanding.
Rocky may be saying, "these lodgings doth be squalid", and Grace's translation software spits out, "dirty, dirty, dirty"!
"Jax intentionally doomed the cast!" "Jax was being mind controlled by Caine!" — Both of you are wrong. Here's what I think.
No editing no peer review we die like Gummigoo
Episode 7 was certainly one of the most wild episodes we've seen so far. Lots of twists, lots of ups and downs and a huge lore drop that was thrown right out of the window in the last 5 minutes of the episode.
One of the things that's been capturing the fandom's attention is Jax's "betrayal" that happens when he pushes the red button that presumably would doom the cast to stay in the circus forever.
Honestly, that scene was extremely well done, simply because of how ambiguous everything seems to be, and how it left many people confused on who to be mad at. Jax, or Caine?
The truth is, there's more nuance to this sequence of events than meets the eye. More than some of the fandom is willing to give the show credit for.
We should keep in mind that TADC is not a show about good guys and bad guys.
There's no hero that's chasing the villain, there's no protagonist that's going to come out victorious and there's no antagonist that's going to be blasted into oblivion and defeated for good.
TADC is a show about 6 deeply mentally ill, traumatized people who cope with being trapped in a horrible situation in vastly different ways. Jax copes by choosing to continue the cycle of abuse, despite being a victim himself, he chooses to also be an abuser in order to regain control of his surroundings, after losing everything when he first woke up here.
But, I want to start this off by reviewing what exactly happened in the scene where he presses the button, because that is what we're talking about after all.
The cast enter the room, silently, and are met with a giant blue screen and 2 big buttons; Red and blue. The screen describes to them exactly what each button does. The red button will keep you trapped forever. The blue button will set you free.
Pomni approaches first, then hesitates. Abel's words weren't sitting right with her. She pushes Kinger to choose instead, hoping it's dark enough for him to be able to come to his senses and make a wiser decision.
Jax sits in the background, observing, at first wanting no part in what's going on.
However, as Pomni and the others begin to cast their disagreements, Jax's anxiety suddenly starts to get worse. He starts hyperventilating, his eyes go blurry, he can't seem to calm down no matter how much he breathes.
Pictures flash in his mind, memories of the real world. Are they his memories? Who knows. But they are undoubtedly images of the real world outside the circus. The world Caine seems to have a strange obsession for.
His breathing gets louder, the flashes get worse, the pressure is on. Jax is having trouble grounding himself to reality, and in a moment of disoriented madness, he shoves Zooble out of the way, dashing for the two large buttons before him.
Pomni stands in front of the red button.
And he doesn't shove her out of the way.
Why?
Nevertheless, Jax slams an arm on a button. We don't even know if he knows it was the red one.
Silence.
Ragatha asks Jax what he just did, shellshocked by the absurdity of it all.
Jax looks down at the button, confused, coming to his senses. His panic attack only slows down after he finally chooses a button. And he doesn't say anything, not a single confirmation that he was confident about his choice.
When Ragatha prompts him, Jax doesn't know how to answer. Why? Why doesn't know how to answer? He made that decision, didn't he? Shouldn't he be able to justify it?
Should he?
This is where the lines get blurry. Many people are certain that it's one or the other.
Either Jax was mind controlled.
Or Jax did this out of his own free will.
I disagree with both. I don't think it's that simple.
There's nothing in Jax's general philosophy hinting that he wants to stay in the circus. In fact, we're usually lead to believe the opposite.
In episode 6, Jax tells Pomni that he knows she hates it here, everyone does. In episode 5, Jax also tells Pomni that he doesn't understand how Ragatha can pretend everything is okay in a situation like this.
He also tells Pomni, in episode 6, that the silver lining is that "you can pretty much do whatever you want." But does it make sense that this one philosophy is enough for Jax to justify wanting to stay in Hell? Especially when he doesn't even fully take advantage of this most of the time?
Jax wasn't mind controlled by Caine. But he was influenced.
The decision to press the red button wasn't one he made while fully himself, and given the fact that Jax never believed any of this was real anyway, it's unlikely he was even aware of the gravity of the situation. Or believed in it like the rest of the cast did.
When Pomni starts to doubt her decision, and Zooble pressures her to push the blue button, THAT'S when Jax's panic attack starts happening.
We already know that Caine is impatient and needs validation to function, that he starts glitching out and getting upset at the slightest hint of criticism.
It's very possible that Caine started getting impatient and decided to pressure Jax into pushing the button by provoking him into a panic attack, flashing strange pictures of the "macroverse" in his mind and possibly even amplifying his emotions way higher than they were supposed to be.
And so Jax, in an effort to stop the pain, lunges forward and slams his arm down on the red button.
In "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream", Ted describes how he believes that he is AM's favorite because he's messed with him the least, and enjoys toying with his mind the most.
Caine chose Jax out of all the characters to organize this weird date with him, and to give him the validation he's been looking for.
There's also other hints dropped in the show that Jax is Caine's favorite.
Caine decides to give Jax the gun first. Caine chooses 2 of Jax's suggestions over the others. Caine never punishes Jax for any of the stuff he puts the cast through. Jax is also the only character Caine addresses directly in episode 1 as he's introducing Pomni to the circus; "Gadzooks you're right, Jax! We should have a brand new adventure for our new member Pomni!"
And have we forgotten that we already have proof Caine can beam images into the humans minds when he literally did this in episode 6 with Jax?
After being prompted by Ragatha, Jax doesn't look confident, or angry, or calm. He looks confused. Almost traumatized.
Jax's agency wasn't fully removed when he was pushing that button. But it's not like he had an active choice either as he was being coerced into doing it by Caine. Similarly to how in episode 2, Jax coerces Gangle into slamming the truck against the other by threatening to leak her weird secret.
"This is your life, this is the real world, you have no one to go back to, you have no one waiting for you. I am the only one that loves you. I love you. Stay with me. I love you. Do it. Press the red button. Stay with me forever. There's nothing left for you out there."
Ted never loses his agency to AM. His personality is never directly altered, his body was never changed like the others. He isn't made crazy like Kinger, his emotions never dependant on his masks like Gangle, his body isn't fragile like Zooble's, and he's not made into a peacekeeper like Ragatha.
He is authentically a cynical, paranoid, and broken young man. And yet, AM still has a fair amount of control over the choices he's allowed to make.
I couldn't sleep last night, but I was up thinking about the Bible and how it is written.
It is so richly complex and intertwined that you can derive so much meaning from simple verses. And the fact that everything is so flawlessly consistent!
My poetry teacher in HS (Rest in Peace) was an atheist and even she would tell us that the Bible was the best piece of literature she had ever read. I can only hope she came to believe later on in her life.
I dislike when people argue over very black and white, one dimensional and literal understandings of the Bible, because while yes, the literal message may be true, it is also far more nuanced than that. If people took the time to really digest what they read and apply it to experience, they'd see the dots start to connect. You realize that Biblical times are not just some time long ago, it's present day and the future.
The Bible is the most intentional and consistent source out there, and it's a true representation of God and how much he loves us. That he chose to experience torture in human form for a rebellion we chose to make against him. He offered us eternal peace and we continue to rebel and sin against him. Yet in spite of that, we can STILL be vessels of his love and bring people to Him. Our imperfections allow us to reach those who are broken. Because we have all fallen, and we all need a savior.
I wish that the lies that this world, namely society, have painted to appear normal and accepting in the guise of false freedom would turn to truth. Because then people would understand that what they think is true freedom is an empty and depressing existence. I was never worse mentally and even physically than when I believed that there was no God. I would rather die than experience that life ever again. How awful it is to feel that we are born in vain.
If a sinner like myself can still be loved and chosen by God, so can you. 💖
fandom etiquette as a whole died when people who didn’t grow up on fandoms became stans during lockdown, yes, but why am i seeing people openly mocking fics on twitter. why am i seeing screenshots of fics with captions like “bro what is this 😭.” why am i seeing people mock fic writers for not knowing how sports or theater or college or any other organization operates in the real world.
“college is absolutely nothing like this” “why are we writing four people on the team scoring a hat trick in one game” “so tech work is nothing like this, hope that helps!”
if you don’t like a fic, and if you can’t suspend your belief enough to enjoy a fic that exaggerates or ignores real-world orgs, you don’t have to read it. you don’t have to screenshot it and put it on blast for twitter. you don’t have to post a link to it in the replies. the back button is literally there on your phone. it’s not giving baby’s first fandom anymore, it’s giving entitled asshole and it isn’t as cute as you think it is.
romaincrisis
germansingergirl
pixelskylines
ellievsbear
izzy806
kianamaiart
baratheonpilled
