| She/her | 28-32 ♎ | ADHD | Writer | Gamer | Poetry, creative nonfiction, fanfiction (current is TADC), life/fic updates, and things that got too specific to stay in my head.
I write poems, creative nonfiction, and character-focused stories that linger a little too long and make fictional situations everyone’s problem.
Right now, this blog is mostly for my The Amazing Digital Circus fic, OC rambles, excerpts, revision thoughts, poems, analyzes, and occasional writing nonsense.
I’m not super versed in actually using Tumblr yet (despire growing up in its prime 🥲). I’ve scrolled around before, so I have the general vibe, but I’m still figuring out how posting, tagging, and existing here works.
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I’ve been writing for a long time, even when most of it stayed in my head, in old documents, or in projects I dramatically abandoned and still think about sometimes.
I like stories that look soft on the surface but have something heavier underneath. Control, identity, pressure, trying to do things right and still missing it anyway
The Body Becomes the Scream - A Read on Abstraction
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Updated 06/24/26 - And tbh, subjected to change again lol 😅
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Small disclaimer before I get into this: I’m not diagnosing anyone or saying abstraction is a perfect one-to-one metaphor. I’m reading it through mental health, dissociation, regulation, and parts-of-self language because that is the lens I bring to the show.
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TL;DR: I read abstraction as the Circus’s version of death: not clean erasure, but the ultimate collapse of a digital/avatar body under unbearable pressure. The abstracted body is dysregulation made visible, with the “You” still trapped somewhere underneath it. Queenie responding to darkness, Jax being reachable from the inside, and the aquarium/fort ending all make unabstraction feel possible to me, but not as an easy reset. More like recovery: outside help, safer conditions, and some part of the person slowly becoming able to reach back.
Abstraction feels like death the way the Circus allows death to exist.
The hurt gets a shape. The body becomes the scream.
That is still the core of the read for me. The abstracted body is not just “monster now.” It is the hurt, fear, grief, shame, and overload becoming something the Circus can render. Everything the person could not hold, regulate, mask, joke through, explain, or survive quietly gets pushed outward until the body is the only language left.
But I do not think that means the person is simply gone.
I see it as the “You” trapped underneath the collapse.
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When someone abstracts, I don’t think the only question is, “Are they dead or alive?”
I think the better question is, “What does death mean in a world where the person is already existing through a digital body?”
The show is already playing with the idea that personhood can be stored, altered, distorted, hidden, scanned, or accessed through digital means. Abstraction being treated like corruption, overload, or inaccessibility makes sense inside the world.
And those are not all the same thing as deletion.
If something is deleted, it is gone from the system. If something is corrupted, it may still exist, but not in a readable or usable form. If something is overloaded, it might stop functioning the way it should, even if the core is still there. If something is inaccessible, the problem might be the pathway, not the existence of the thing itself.
I am not saying abstraction is literally one of those things in a technical way. I am saying that the Digital Circus gives the metaphor room to work differently than ordinary death.
A backup copy would not be the same as recovery to me. If Caine simply pulled an older version of someone from before the abstraction and placed them back into the Circus, that would raise a very uncomfortable question of whether that is actually the same person or just a replacement that looks close enough.
That is not the kind of unabstraction I am talking about.
What makes more sense to me is recovery of the current person. The one who went through the collapse. The one who is still somewhere under the pressure, even if the system cannot read them correctly anymore.
That distinction keeps unabstraction from feeling like a cheap reset.
The person would not come back untouched. They would not come back as some clean earlier version of themselves. They would come back as someone who had been through abstraction and survived it, which is a very different thing.
When I think about files, scans, corruption, and digital personhood, I am not thinking, “Oh, easy fix. Just restore the file.”
I am thinking the opposite, actually.
The fact that this is digital makes the horror stranger, not simpler. It means the person could be present but unreadable. Existing but unreachable. Still in the system, but no longer able to hold a stable form. The Circus can render, store, contain, and maybe eventually respond to that kind of collapse in ways a normal body could not.
That does not prove unabstraction by itself.
But it does make permanent erasure harder for me to accept as the only possible read.
Because Queenie can still respond to darkness. Jax can still be reached inside the collapse. The system still treats personhood as something that can be scanned, stored, accessed, and altered.
All of those details point in the same direction for me.
Not toward an easy return.
Toward the person not being fully gone.
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The aquarium/fort ending is where that idea starts to become more concrete.
At the end of the episode, we see Kinger and Pomni sitting at an aquarium.
The abstractions are there.
Pomni says something along the lines of, “The abstractions are beginning to heal.”
I don’t read that as “they are fixed now.”
They are still abstracted. They are not back. They are not suddenly safe in the way the others are safe. They are not sitting at the table explaining what happened to them.
But the space around them has changed.
They are somewhere calmer. Watched. Remembered. It is not just darkness as isolation anymore. It feels closer to darkness as reduced demand, or at least the start of that idea.
That connects back to Queenie for me. If darkness could calm her, then a calmer space is not just decoration. It can lower the pressure around the abstracted body. Less demand. Less stimulation. Less of the world pressing against someone already past capacity.
It also connects back to Jax, because Pomni reaching him did not bring him back right away. It showed that reaching was possible, but not immediate return.
The aquarium/fort feels like the kind of space that could make that reaching possible over time. Not by forcing the abstracted to return on command. Not by demanding that they act normal before they are capable of it. More like creating a place where the body is not being pushed further into threat every second.
Again, I don’t think this makes containment automatically good.
It is limited care. Imperfect care. Care that comes after the damage has already happened.
But it is still different from only hiding them away.
Kinger and Pomni are there with them.
And I think that matters.
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It seems to me that unabstraction would have to involve outside help, but inside effort.
Outside help can lower the fear. It can calm the space. It can reduce demand. It can keep the person from being abandoned to the worst shape their pain took. It can create the conditions where the body is not only reacting, attacking, or defending itself from everything nearby.
But outside help cannot do the entire return for them.
At some point, some part of the abstracted person has to be able to reach back. Not because they are being blamed for collapsing, or because they should have been stronger, or because they are responsible for saving themselves alone.
I mean coming back has to include their personhood.
If the “You” is still trapped under the collapse, then the way back has to involve that “You” becoming reachable again. Maybe not with words. Maybe not with a clear choice anyone else can recognize right away.
Trauma recovery is the closest real-world language I have for it. Coming back from something does not mean you return untouched. It does not mean you are suddenly fine, or the same as before, or perfectly grateful, or easy to be around, or healed in a way that makes everyone comfortable.
Recovery is usually messier than that.
It takes time. It takes trial and error. It takes effort that does not always look like effort from the outside. It takes support, regulation, safety, and a lot of failed attempts before something starts to hold. Sometimes progress is not a speech or a breakthrough. Sometimes it is just the body being less afraid than it was before.
If someone came back from abstraction, I would not expect them to come back 100% better. I would not even expect them to come back exactly the same.
Honestly, I think it would be stranger if they did.
The collapse would still have happened. Whatever broke badly enough to cause abstraction would still need to be dealt with after the return. Unabstraction would not erase that work. It would only make the work possible again.
None of that proves an easy return.
But it does make the idea of return feel emotionally and logically possible to me.
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When I first started writing about abstraction/Jax, it inspired me to create a poem about dissociation, parts of self, and what it means for a separated *you* to become *I* again.
I just wanted to share my thoughts now that TADC is at its end.
I was excited. I had ideas. I wanted to talk about the mental health side of it because it matters to me, and because it made me happy seeing other people relate to it too.
And then some of it gained traction.
But my PTSD brain heard “people are listening” and immediately went:
High expectations.
Fear of failure.
Fear of success.
Perfectionism.
My best friends 💛
…
…
Which is weird, because this is not my first rodeo.
Plus, my literal job is to be perceived and listened on the daily.
But I think therapy has been opening up old rooms in my brain…so now my nervous system is acting like Reddit traction is a predator.
Ikeep trying to move forward with Arc 3, and I just… can’t.
I have too many ideas and thoughts circulating with no deadline, so my brain is holding a clipboard and screaming.
But I cannot keep going with Arc 3 when I don’t like the first two arcs as much as I want to.
They aren’t bad. I don’t think they’re bad.
They’re just not fully there.
And now that I understand the fic better, and Sproxi better, and the kind of story I’m actually trying to write better, the earlier arcs feel like they need attention before I keep stacking more story on top of them.
Which is annoying.
Because I wanted to keep going.
I wanted to be normal and productive and just write Arc 3 like a reasonable person.
Unfortunately, I have met myself before.
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I also think I keep accidentally upsetting myself by pushing past my limits, which is frustrating because I know I’m better than this.
Or at least I know I’m capable of handling this better than I currently am.
I like being on here. I like responding to people. I like reading other people’s thoughts. I like doing the analysis stuff. I like writing poetry.
I don’t want fandom or writing to turn into another pressure machine I keep feeding myself to.
So I think I’m just going to slow down and work on what’s already there.
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Arc 3 isn’t abandoned.
The fic isn’t abandoned.
I’m probably just in a weird headspace, and Arc 1 and Arc 2 are looking at me like unpaid emotional invoices…
TL;DR: I do not hate Jax, and I do not love him. I understand him. But understanding him does not mean excusing him. To me, Jax sits in the uncomfortable space where someone can be understandable and still unacceptable. His harm is real, and the people he hurt do not owe him forgiveness or rescue. But Episode 9 also makes it hard for me to read him as simply evil or empty. I read him more as someone whose worst coping mechanism took over, and whose way back would require both outside help and his own accountability.
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I keep trying to figure out how to word this without it sounding like I am defending Jax, because I am not. But I am also not in the “Jax is just evil and that’s it” camp either.
The closest way I can put it is that I do not hate him, I do not love him, but I understand him.
And I understand why others have such a black-and-white view on the matter.
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The hardest part of talking about Jax is that he sits right in that uncomfortable place where someone can be understandable and still unacceptable.
Because yes, he has hurt people. A lot.
I do not think his pain erases that.
I do not think Gangle, Ragatha, Pomni, Zooble, or anyone else should have to absorb his damage because he has damage too.
That is not healing. That is just passing the harm along.
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Everyone in the Circus is trapped. Everyone has lost something. Everyone is being pushed past what a person should have to hold.
Jax is not special because he is in pain. He is different because of what he does with it, and what he does with it is often cruel.
He pokes. He humiliates. He distances himself. He turns everything into a bit before it can become sincere. He makes people angry before they can make him vulnerable. He acts like needing people is embarrassing, like caring is weakness, like everyone else is stupid for still wanting softness in a place like that.
I get why people hate that. I really do.
But I also cannot look at him and see only the cruelty. Not because the cruelty is fake. I actually think the cruelty is very real.
I just do not think it is the whole thing.
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I read Jax as someone whose worst coping mechanism got too much power and started calling itself his personality.
“Inside Out” is where my brain keeps going, to be honest 😅
It feels like Anger is at the control panel, Sadness is somewhere underneath it, and the avoidant part is deciding what is allowed to reach the surface.
That avoidant part seems to operate on a few rules:
push them away first
make the joke first
act like you do not care first
make them hate you before they can leave you
keep it funny enough that it never has to be honest
keep it mean enough that no one gets close enough to see what is actually under there
And unfortunately, that part of him is loud. It is effective. It gets results. It keeps people away.
But keeping people away is not the same thing as being safe.
That is where I think Jax went wrong. Not in a “one bad choice” way, but in a “this became the way he survived for too long” way.
Maybe at some point, being detached helped. Maybe being funny helped. Maybe being cruel made things feel less dangerous because at least then he was the one controlling the distance.
But then the defense became the problem. The armor started hurting everyone who got near it.
I think that is why people argue about him so much.
Some people see the armor and say, “Look how much damage it does.” And they are right.
Then other people see the person trapped inside it and say, “But there is someone in there.” And I think they are also right.
Both things can be true. Messy, but more honest.
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Episode 9 makes it harder for me to say there is nothing left of him.
Pomni entering Jax does not feel like entering an empty monster; it feels like entering a mind that has broken into too many defensive rooms.
There are pieces of him in there. Not separate people, exactly. Not random hallucinations either. More like versions of him that learned different ways to survive.
That is why the Jax under the streetlight stands out to me.
I do not read that version as “secret innocent Jax” or “the only real Jax.” I do not think the mean parts are fake. I do not think the awful things he did magically belong to some other version of him. That would be too easy.
But I do think the streetlight version feels like the least defended version Pomni can reach. Not fixed, not ready, and not saved. Just reachable.
And that still matters.
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That also fits with how I read abstraction in general.
I do not really read it as “the person is gone.” I read it more like the person is still there, but buried under something no one can reach normally anymore. They are not accessible in the way they used to be.
The self is still somewhere inside it, but everything has become too loud, too broken, too defended, too much.
With Jax, that makes sense to me because he was already hard to reach before he abstracted. He had already built so much distance between himself and everyone else that by the time he falls apart, it almost feels like the outside finally matches the inside.
The thing he kept hidden becomes impossible to hide
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I also think this is why darkness matters.
Queenie being calmed by darkness always felt important, but after Episode 9, I have a harder time reading it as only “put the dangerous thing away.” It feels more like regulation, too: less noise, less pressure, less of the world forcing itself in when someone has already gone past what they can handle.
That does not make darkness a cure. It does not make containment automatically kind. It does not make the problem solved.
But it does suggest that something inside the abstracted person can still respond to quiet, safety, and reduced demand.
With Jax, maybe that is what gives Pomni enough room to reach in.
And that is the thing: outside help matters.
...
I do think Jax needs help from outside himself.
I do not think someone can be that defended, that isolated, that far inside their own collapse, and simply logic their way out alone.
Someone has to show him that there is still a way back.
But outside help cannot come back for him.
Pomni can reach. She can keep the door open. She can show him that he is not completely gone. But she cannot do the returning for him.
At some point, Jax has to reach back.
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I do not mean that in a blamey way.
I do not mean “he should have just chosen healing sooner” or whatever.
That is not how collapse works. That is not how trauma works. That is not how parts of a person work when one part has been running everything for too long.
I just mean that if he comes back, it has to include him.
Some part of him has to accept that the mean part was trying to protect him, but it cannot stay in charge.
Some part of him has to admit that pushing everyone away did not save him. Some part of him has to face that being understandable does not undo the harm. Some part of him has to want something other than the role.
Not perfectly. Not instantly. Maybe not even in some big speech.
Maybe just the smallest honest moment of:
I am tired of being this.
That, to me, would be the beginning.
Not “I am good now.” Not “everyone should forgive me now.” Not “actually none of it was my fault.”
Just:
I am tired of letting this part drive.
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I think that is why I get him, even though I do not relate to the way he acts.
I am not Jax. My avoidance goes a different direction.
Mine is more sad, frozen, foggy, quiet, overthinking, disappear-before-you-can-be-too-much energy.
His is angry avoidant. Sharp avoidant. Make-yourself-untouchable-before-anyone-can-touch-the-wound avoidant.
But I understand the idea of parts.
I understand having something in you that thinks it is protecting you, even when it is also limiting you. I understand not feeling completely together. I understand being hard to reach and still being there.
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So no, I do not think Jax is innocent.
I do not think people are wrong for being angry at him. I do not think his pain should matter more than the pain of the people he hurt.
But I also do not think the worst part of him is the whole person.
That is the balance I keep landing on.
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Jax’s way back, if he has one, cannot be about proving he was secretly sweet the entire time.
It cannot be about the others immediately forgiving him because he finally broke down where they could see it. It cannot be Pomni hugging the problem out of him.
It would have to be uglier and slower than that.
He would have to be held accountable and still allowed to find his way back. He would have to accept that the cruelty had a function, but that function is not allowed to run his life anymore.
It would have to be the angry part, the ashamed part, the grieving part, the performing part, and whatever softer part is still under all of that learning how to exist closer together without one of them taking over the whole self.
And maybe that is why Jax is so divisive.
Because he asks the audience to hold two truths that do not sit comfortably together:
He is responsible for the harm he caused.
And he is still someone worth reaching.
Not everyone has to want to reach him. Not everyone has to be Pomni. And the people hurt by someone’s worst parts do not owe that person endless patience, forgiveness, or a way back.
But I understand why Pomni reached.
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There is something that hits hard about someone seeing you at your ugliest and still knowing that is not all of you.
Sometimes the person who reaches did not deserve to be hurt by you. Sometimes they should not have had to be there. Sometimes accountability means knowing that, too.
But still, when someone can look at the worst part that took over and say, “I know this is not all of you,” that can matter.
Not because it erases the harm.
Because it gives you something to be accountable from.
Something that can come back. Something that can apologize. Something that can do better.
Not instantly. Not cleanly. Not without responsibility.
The Body Becomes the Scream - A Read on Abstraction
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TL;DR: I don’t read abstraction as “the person is gone.” I read it as the ultimate collapse of stable access to the self, with the Circus rendering that collapse as a body. The person is still somewhere inside, but the normal ways of reaching, recognizing, communicating with, and returning from that state have broken down. That makes unabstraction feel possible to me, but not simple or instant, and not something the show has fully guaranteed.
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After Episode 9, abstraction feels less like clean death, “self-deletion,” or a simple monster transformation. To me, it feels more like the self collapsing past the point where it can stay recognizable, and the Circus rendering that collapse as an abstracted body.
The hurt gets a shape, and the body becomes the scream.
But I don’t think the person is gone. Buried, yes. Hard to reach, yes. Changed by the collapse, probably. But not erased. Still there, just no longer reachable through the usual ways.
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Episode 3 feels more important after Episode 9 because of what Kinger remembers about Queenie.
Darkness calmed her.
At first, that detail could read mostly as containment. Put the abstracted person somewhere dark. Keep them away. Keep everyone else safe.
And maybe it is partly that.
But after Episode 9, I have a harder time reading it as just that. I think darkness may also be something closer to regulation: less input, less demand, less fear, and less stimulation pressing against someone who has already gone past what they can hold.
That does not make darkness a cure. It does not make containment automatically kind or harmless. I don’t want to flatten it into that. But it does suggest that an abstracted person can still respond to environment, safety, quiet, and reduced demand.
If something can calm them, then something inside them is still capable of receiving the world.
Not normally. Not easily. But not never.
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Episode 9 builds on that idea with Jax.
Pomni does not treat him as simply gone. She takes what Kinger said seriously enough to look for a way to reach him.
And she does not only interact with Jax’s abstracted body. She enters the collapse and finds different versions of him inside it.
I don’t read those versions as proof that Jax has been erased. I read them more like split-off pieces of him trying to survive the collapse in different ways: defenses, masks, roles, and fragments of self that can still move, still react, and still guard something deeper.
That is why the key feels important to me. It does not come from nowhere. One version of Jax helps Pomni move further into his internal space, until she reaches the version of him standing alone under the streetlight.
I read that streetlight version as core/true Jax: not untouched, not magically whole, and not “the real Jax” in a way that makes the other pieces fake, but the most direct version of him Pomni is able to reach inside the abstraction.
So, when he responds to her and hugs her back, I don’t read that as the abstracted form briefly acting human. I read it as evidence that Jax himself is still accessible somewhere inside the collapse.
But he still does not return, and that distinction matters.
Being reachable is not the same thing as being ready.
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Jax’s file still existing supports that abstraction is not the loss of the person.
If abstraction were meant to be total erasure, the show could have framed him as fully deleted or completely unreachable. Instead, the file remains. The person is not back, but the possibility of access is not treated as gone forever either.
That feels intentional to me. Not proof of an easy cure. Not proof that everyone can return. But it does make abstraction harder for me to read as simple absence.
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The aquarium/containment space at the end pushes this further.
After the immediate crisis has passed, Pomni and Kinger are sitting by the aquarium, and Pomni says the abstracted are starting to heal.
That does not mean they are fixed. It does not mean unabstraction is easy. It does not prove everyone can come back. But it does suggest that the abstracted are not just being stored away as lost causes.
Something is allowing healing to begin.
Maybe that healing is tiny. Maybe it is unstable. Maybe it is not enough yet.
But it is not nothing.
And that changes how I read abstraction as a whole. I have a hard time reading it as “gone forever” when the show keeps giving us signs of response, access, memory, containment, and healing.
To me, abstraction feels more like serious damage than total disappearance. The person is still present, but access is unstable, incomplete, and not something anyone can force open from the outside.
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If unabstraction is possible, I don’t think it would be one perfect rescue where someone reaches in and magically pulls the person out.
Outside help is still necessary. Someone has to reach in, lower the fear, keep the space open, and remind the person that they are not gone or beyond reaching.
But the return still has to involve the person inside. Not because they are being blamed for collapsing, but because their personhood is still present inside the collapse. Some buried part of them has to become able to answer, even if the response is small, silent, delayed, or incomplete.
Maybe not with words. Maybe not quickly. Maybe not completely. Maybe only as a small response to quiet, safety, reduced demand, or being reached without being forced.
If abstraction is the ultimate collapse of stable access to the self, then unabstraction would not be flipping a switch. It would be the scattered pieces slowly becoming able to move closer together again.
Being reached is not the same thing as coming back.
But it means there is still someone there to reach.
And that is the beginning of the way back.
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Note: Below is the more poetic/dramatic read of the same idea. I’ve heard it’s been coping and/or relatable to some. If you read, I hope it brings you comfort 💛
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I don’t think abstraction is just “the person is gone.”
I think abstraction is ultimate collapse.
Not sadness. Not a panic attack. Not someone having a rough moment.
I mean the kind of collapse where a person has gone past what they can hold.
Past what they can explain.
Past what they can regulate.
Too far inside it to perform their way through.
Past the point where even “I’m okay” sounds like part of the performance.
Because if the person is still in there, then abstraction is not clean death.
It is not deletion.
It is not the end of personhood.
The person is not gone.
Stable access is.
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Maybe that is why the word abstraction works so well. Not just emotionally, but structurally.
Something can still exist beneath the surface.
Still holding some part of its original shape.
Still there, somewhere under the noise.
But hidden from the ordinary ways we reach it.
The self is still somewhere inside the collapse.
Buried.
Corrupted.
Fragmented.
Drowning under too much static to answer clearly.
But not nothing.
Not erased.
Not gone.
Abstraction is what happens when the crisis becomes the body.
When the pain stops being private.
The jokes can only cover so much.
The mask can only hold for so long.
The performance can only stretch so far before something in it finally breaks.
And then there is no more hiding it.
Everything that could not be spoken, softened, joked through, masked, explained, or survived quietly becomes visible all at once.
Loudly.
Horribly.
Unreachably.
Abstraction is less like “monster transformation” and more like the body telling the truth when the person cannot anymore.
The hurt gets a shape.
The body becomes the scream.
And that makes Queenie feel even more important now.
Kinger remembering that darkness calmed her does not feel like background lore anymore.
It feels like regulation.
Less input.
Less demand.
Less reality pressing itself against someone who cannot hold reality anymore.
Darkness becomes a kind of mercy.
Not a cure.
Not salvation.
Not a magic fix.
Just quiet enough for the collapse to stop thrashing against everything around it.
Because if the person is still in there, then containment is not only “hide the monster.”
It is harm reduction.
Keep everyone safe.
Keep the person from hurting others.
Maybe keep the person from being hurt more.
Maybe comfort them, if comfort can still reach whatever part of them is left.
Because if someone can be calmed, then someone is still there to receive quiet.
Episode 9 makes unabstraction impossible to ignore.
Pomni does not treat Jax like he is simply gone.
She takes Kinger’s memory seriously enough to look for a way in.
And she does not only reach the abstracted body.
She enters the collapse.
Inside it, she finds pieces of him.
Different versions.
Different defenses.
Different ways a self can split when the whole person cannot stay together anymore.
I do not read those versions as proof that Jax is gone.
I read them more like pieces of him trying to survive the collapse in different ways.
The part that defends.
The part that lashes out.
The part that performs.
The part that is ashamed.
The part that still knows how to push Pomni away.
Not separate people, exactly.
Not random either.
More like masks, roles, defenses, and fragments of self still trying to protect something underneath.
And the key matters because it does not come from nowhere.
Some part of Jax helps Pomni go deeper.
Guides her closer.
Until she reaches the version of him standing under the streetlight.
And that version feels like core/true Jax to me.
Not “the real Jax” in a way that makes the other pieces fake.
But the most direct version of him Pomni can reach inside the abstraction.
So when he responds to her, and hugs her back, I do not read that as the abstracted form briefly acting human.
I read it as Jax himself still being accessible somewhere inside the collapse.
But he still does not come out.
And that matters.
Because being reached is not the same thing as being ready.
Being found is not the same thing as being able to return.
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And then, near the end, there is the aquarium.
The containment space.
The place where the abstracted are being held.
And Pomni says they are starting to heal.
Not fixed. Not cured.
But not nothing.
Not gone.
Something is allowing healing to begin.
Maybe tiny healing.
Maybe unstable healing.
Maybe healing so early it barely looks like healing at all.
But still.
Something inside them can still receive quiet.
Something can still be held in a way that does not make the collapse worse.
And that changes the whole shape of it for me.
I think that is why this metaphor hits me differently.
Because I have also felt versions of that edge.
Not abstraction, obviously.
But collapse.
The kind where your mind goes foggy.
Where your body stops cooperating.
Where language disappears.
Where everything in you wants to shut down, detach, vanish, split, hide, or become impossible to reach.
The kind where there is no clean explanation left.
Only surviving the moment.
Only waiting for something in you to come back online.
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I also know what it feels like to be lost and still alive.
To be unreachable and still there.
To sit in the dark and not be fixed, not be okay, not magically better, but still be a person inside it.
And outside help matters.
It does.
Sometimes you need someone else to sit there.
Someone else to lower the demand.
Someone else to believe there is still a person in there when you cannot feel like one.
Someone else to keep the space open until you can reach it again.
And maybe that is what unabstraction would really take.
Not one perfect rescue.
Not one perfect hug.
Not one perfect line that unlocks everything.
But time.
Quiet.
Safety.
Acceptance.
Help from the outside.
And movement from the inside.
Because being helped is not the same thing as being erased from the process.
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At some point, some buried part of the person still has to answer.
Not all at once.
Not perfectly.
Not easily.
Maybe not even in words.
But somehow.
A reach.
A turn.
A choice so small it barely looks like choice yet.
Some part of them has to notice the hand being offered and become able to move toward it.
And maybe that does not mean the split disappears cleanly.
Maybe that is too simple.
Maybe coming back means the pieces that got separated by the collapse slowly learning they can exist closer together.
The part that is afraid.
The part that is angry.
The part that carried the blame.
The part that went silent.
The part that kept watch.
The part that wanted to disappear.
The part that still remembered there was a way back.
Not perfectly.
Not neatly.
Not as one clean, easy thing.
But close enough that one part no longer has to carry all the hurt alone.
Close enough that the old voice is not the only thing inside anymore.
Maybe not becoming one perfect thing.
Maybe just learning to stay in the same body without abandoning each other.
Close enough that You can start becoming I.
-----
And that does not mean the person is being blamed for collapsing.
It means their personhood still matters.
Even buried.
Even broken.
Even almost impossible to reach.
It means some part of them still matters enough to answer.
Even if that answer is silent.
Even if it comes from one separated piece of the self.
Even if it is only the smallest movement toward the hand being offered.
Needing someone else does not mean you are gone.
It means there is still someone in there worth reaching.
But being reached is not the same thing as coming back.
It is only the beginning of the way back.
And the way back is the horrible part.
The exhausting part.
The part where help can reach you, but it cannot become you for you.
The part where someone can keep the space open, but some buried piece of you still has to move toward it.
My brain is running at one million ideas per minute
-----
It reminds me of when I first got addicted to TADC (and other fandoms) and started building entire ideas and worlds around it.
Which is exciting!
The accordion is stretching.
Unfortunately, it is also pressing.
-----
I am continuing with Arc 3 of Wound Too Tight, but I am still not completely happy with Arcs 1 and 2.
The perfectionism in me is having the hardest time moving forward when it wants to go backward and fix everything right now.
The plan is to finish Arc 3 first, then go back and do one big Arc 1–3 fluff-up/revision before putting it all together as one complete piece.
My brain’s response to this perfectly reasonable plan:
No ❤️
-----
Also, I watched that “Silly Billy” TADC fan animation of Caine crashing out, and it caused a genuinely unhealthy writing fixation.
I am happy with what came out of it, but the pull was strong.
I wrote the entire thing while sleep-deprived, dissociating, replaying the animation an unreasonable number of times, and drafting it through Reddit comments ☠️
And now it is on AO3.
So.
That happened.
Anyways.
-----
I am forcing myself to post Arc 3, Chapter 1 tomorrow, even though it is not currently my favorite.
And I am excited to watch the finale again today.
I already know I am going to cry again.
-----
And fr... it wasn't a good fixation... I barely got sleep. It crept into my thoughts and dreams. ADHD man... 😅
CW: Disordered eating, body-image/self-loathing language, choking imagery, and erotic sexual language.
-----
Eating is as close to an orgasm as you’ll ever get because you don't know how to love yourself and because your body and mind are too ugly to be loved the way you hunger to be loved by others.
Savory are for days when you need to feel something from the inside.
The salt burns your lips, coaxing saliva from your glands until it pools, warm and slick. It gathers around each bite, coating the food before your tongue drags it slowly over every sensitive bud. The mouthful slips down your throat before you finish chewing. For a moment, swallowing tightens into choking, and you enjoy not knowing the difference. This is the only time you feel alive.
Sweet are for days when the pain becomes too much and you want to make yourself feel worse, but only with something willing to make you feel good first.
You love the way sugar makes your tongue dance and your mind go blank. Your eyes roll back as the syrup slides down your throat, filling you with the sweetness you lack. You take everything it gives you before your stomach churns, disgusted by what the rest of you begged to receive. But god, do you want it again.
Smoky are for days when ignorance feels like release.
The rich aroma enters you on an inhale before the food ever touches your lips. It curls itself around your lungs, and you hold it there until the ache becomes part of the wanting. On the exhale, your tongue lolls to the side of your mouth, a strand of saliva stretching beneath it. Nothing has touched you yet. Your mouth always betrays how badly it wants to be filled.
Sour are for days when happiness and hurt touch tongues.
Your lips seal around the sharpness and hold it there as bliss surges through you. The taste bites back, and your tongue presses harder against it. Your eyes squeeze shut, tears gathering at the corners. Your body clenches around happiness. It hurts to hold it. You do anyway.
Nothing stays.
Still, you swallow.
Maybe you’ll cum another day.
-----
A little context:
This prose poem came from an essay I wrote in college for my creative nonfiction class.
I do plan to publish the full piece one day 💛
Just…
You know…
Gotta do a little more of the living and experiencing first 😅
TL;DR: I do not hate Jax, and I do not love him. I understand him. But understanding him does not mean excusing him. To me, Jax sits in the uncomfortable space where someone can be understandable and still unacceptable. His harm is real, and the people he hurt do not owe him forgiveness or rescue. But Episode 9 also makes it hard for me to read him as simply evil or empty. I read him more as someone whose worst coping mechanism took over, and whose way back would require both outside help and his own accountability.
-----
I keep trying to figure out how to word this without it sounding like I am defending Jax, because I am not. But I am also not in the “Jax is just evil and that’s it” camp either.
The closest way I can put it is that I do not hate him, I do not love him, but I understand him.
And I understand why others have such a black-and-white view on the matter.
-----
The hardest part of talking about Jax is that he sits right in that uncomfortable place where someone can be understandable and still unacceptable.
Because yes, he has hurt people. A lot.
I do not think his pain erases that.
I do not think Gangle, Ragatha, Pomni, Zooble, or anyone else should have to absorb his damage because he has damage too.
That is not healing. That is just passing the harm along.
-----
Everyone in the Circus is trapped. Everyone has lost something. Everyone is being pushed past what a person should have to hold.
Jax is not special because he is in pain. He is different because of what he does with it, and what he does with it is often cruel.
He pokes. He humiliates. He distances himself. He turns everything into a bit before it can become sincere. He makes people angry before they can make him vulnerable. He acts like needing people is embarrassing, like caring is weakness, like everyone else is stupid for still wanting softness in a place like that.
I get why people hate that. I really do.
But I also cannot look at him and see only the cruelty. Not because the cruelty is fake. I actually think the cruelty is very real.
I just do not think it is the whole thing.
-----
I read Jax as someone whose worst coping mechanism got too much power and started calling itself his personality.
“Inside Out” is where my brain keeps going, to be honest 😅
It feels like Anger is at the control panel, Sadness is somewhere underneath it, and the avoidant part is deciding what is allowed to reach the surface.
That avoidant part seems to operate on a few rules:
push them away first
make the joke first
act like you do not care first
make them hate you before they can leave you
keep it funny enough that it never has to be honest
keep it mean enough that no one gets close enough to see what is actually under there
And unfortunately, that part of him is loud. It is effective. It gets results. It keeps people away.
But keeping people away is not the same thing as being safe.
That is where I think Jax went wrong. Not in a “one bad choice” way, but in a “this became the way he survived for too long” way.
Maybe at some point, being detached helped. Maybe being funny helped. Maybe being cruel made things feel less dangerous because at least then he was the one controlling the distance.
But then the defense became the problem. The armor started hurting everyone who got near it.
I think that is why people argue about him so much.
Some people see the armor and say, “Look how much damage it does.” And they are right.
Then other people see the person trapped inside it and say, “But there is someone in there.” And I think they are also right.
Both things can be true. Messy, but more honest.
-----
Episode 9 makes it harder for me to say there is nothing left of him.
Pomni entering Jax does not feel like entering an empty monster; it feels like entering a mind that has broken into too many defensive rooms.
There are pieces of him in there. Not separate people, exactly. Not random hallucinations either. More like versions of him that learned different ways to survive.
That is why the Jax under the streetlight stands out to me.
I do not read that version as “secret innocent Jax” or “the only real Jax.” I do not think the mean parts are fake. I do not think the awful things he did magically belong to some other version of him. That would be too easy.
But I do think the streetlight version feels like the least defended version Pomni can reach. Not fixed, not ready, and not saved. Just reachable.
And that still matters.
-----
That also fits with how I read abstraction in general.
I do not really read it as “the person is gone.” I read it more like the person is still there, but buried under something no one can reach normally anymore. They are not accessible in the way they used to be.
The self is still somewhere inside it, but everything has become too loud, too broken, too defended, too much.
With Jax, that makes sense to me because he was already hard to reach before he abstracted. He had already built so much distance between himself and everyone else that by the time he falls apart, it almost feels like the outside finally matches the inside.
The thing he kept hidden becomes impossible to hide
-----
I also think this is why darkness matters.
Queenie being calmed by darkness always felt important, but after Episode 9, I have a harder time reading it as only “put the dangerous thing away.” It feels more like regulation, too: less noise, less pressure, less of the world forcing itself in when someone has already gone past what they can handle.
That does not make darkness a cure. It does not make containment automatically kind. It does not make the problem solved.
But it does suggest that something inside the abstracted person can still respond to quiet, safety, and reduced demand.
With Jax, maybe that is what gives Pomni enough room to reach in.
And that is the thing: outside help matters.
...
I do think Jax needs help from outside himself.
I do not think someone can be that defended, that isolated, that far inside their own collapse, and simply logic their way out alone.
Someone has to show him that there is still a way back.
But outside help cannot come back for him.
Pomni can reach. She can keep the door open. She can show him that he is not completely gone. But she cannot do the returning for him.
At some point, Jax has to reach back.
-----
I do not mean that in a blamey way.
I do not mean “he should have just chosen healing sooner” or whatever.
That is not how collapse works. That is not how trauma works. That is not how parts of a person work when one part has been running everything for too long.
I just mean that if he comes back, it has to include him.
Some part of him has to accept that the mean part was trying to protect him, but it cannot stay in charge.
Some part of him has to admit that pushing everyone away did not save him. Some part of him has to face that being understandable does not undo the harm. Some part of him has to want something other than the role.
Not perfectly. Not instantly. Maybe not even in some big speech.
Maybe just the smallest honest moment of:
I am tired of being this.
That, to me, would be the beginning.
Not “I am good now.” Not “everyone should forgive me now.” Not “actually none of it was my fault.”
Just:
I am tired of letting this part drive.
-----
I think that is why I get him, even though I do not relate to the way he acts.
I am not Jax. My avoidance goes a different direction.
Mine is more sad, frozen, foggy, quiet, overthinking, disappear-before-you-can-be-too-much energy.
His is angry avoidant. Sharp avoidant. Make-yourself-untouchable-before-anyone-can-touch-the-wound avoidant.
But I understand the idea of parts.
I understand having something in you that thinks it is protecting you, even when it is also limiting you. I understand not feeling completely together. I understand being hard to reach and still being there.
-----
So no, I do not think Jax is innocent.
I do not think people are wrong for being angry at him. I do not think his pain should matter more than the pain of the people he hurt.
But I also do not think the worst part of him is the whole person.
That is the balance I keep landing on.
-----
Jax’s way back, if he has one, cannot be about proving he was secretly sweet the entire time.
It cannot be about the others immediately forgiving him because he finally broke down where they could see it. It cannot be Pomni hugging the problem out of him.
It would have to be uglier and slower than that.
He would have to be held accountable and still allowed to find his way back. He would have to accept that the cruelty had a function, but that function is not allowed to run his life anymore.
It would have to be the angry part, the ashamed part, the grieving part, the performing part, and whatever softer part is still under all of that learning how to exist closer together without one of them taking over the whole self.
And maybe that is why Jax is so divisive.
Because he asks the audience to hold two truths that do not sit comfortably together:
He is responsible for the harm he caused.
And he is still someone worth reaching.
Not everyone has to want to reach him. Not everyone has to be Pomni. And the people hurt by someone’s worst parts do not owe that person endless patience, forgiveness, or a way back.
But I understand why Pomni reached.
-----
There is something that hits hard about someone seeing you at your ugliest and still knowing that is not all of you.
Sometimes the person who reaches did not deserve to be hurt by you. Sometimes they should not have had to be there. Sometimes accountability means knowing that, too.
But still, when someone can look at the worst part that took over and say, “I know this is not all of you,” that can matter.
Not because it erases the harm.
Because it gives you something to be accountable from.
Something that can come back. Something that can apologize. Something that can do better.
Not instantly. Not cleanly. Not without responsibility.
Ch. 5 is posted, which means Arc 2 is officially finished.
-----
Wound Too Tight
Arc 3 will probably start by the weekend, maybe sooner. Depends.
…
I think the plan now is to start and finish Arc 3, then begin that massive revision pass I’ve mentioned before.
…
I knew this fic was probably going to be a “let the writing happen first, then do the big revision later” situation, but I think I need to do that revision sooner than originally planned.
I keep going back to earlier arcs and noticing things I want to strengthen, clean up, or make more consistent, and it is bugging me too much to ignore lol.
I know I’m a better writer than some of what is currently posted, which is frustrating, but also probably a good sign. It means the story is still growing, and I’m seeing the shape of it more clearly now
The author has accidentally become the trigger to herself and is now fighting abstraction.
Not literally.
Obviously.
But also.
…
I think I poked something open.
-----
Maybe it is summer break. Maybe it is the lack of work/school structure making my brain louder because there are no bells, no classes, no built-in scaffolding telling me where to put myself.
Maybe it is writing the fic and realizing my ideas move faster than my hands, brain, and revision stamina can keep up with.
Maybe it is analyzing abstraction from TADC in a way that is very much not casual for me, then trying to explain it to other people while the metaphor keeps looking back at me.
Maybe it is talking about the past in therapy and getting frustrated when memory goes foggy, because I want to push through it instead of slow down.
Maybe it is ADHD.
Maybe it is perfectionism.
Maybe it is fear of failure.
Maybe it is fear of success.
Maybe it is all of it.
…
It is probably all of it.
-----
My therapist asked if my brain feels like an accordion sometimes.
Yes.
That is exactly it.
It stretches open too wide. It takes in meaning, memory, fiction, analysis, feeling, symbolism, fear, and fifty different connections at once.
Then it compresses.
Hard.
And I am left sitting there wondering why my brain is stopping me when what I want to do is keep going.
Keep writing.
Keep thinking.
Keep explaining.
Keep remembering.
Keep making the thing in my head match the thing on the page.
…
That is the frustrating part.
I know why I am like this.
I understand a lot of the why.
I understand that the fog is probably not my brain betraying me. I understand that slowing down is probably not giving up. I understand that forcing access can make the brain protect harder.
I understand it.
I just do not want to accept it.
-----
Part of me wants to rush and push and rush until I finally get there.
Another part of me is trying to pull the emergency brake.
Probably more than one part, honestly.
The internal committee is loud and badly organized.
-----
I keep thinking about abstraction as collapse.
Not death.
Not disappearance.
A collapse of access.
The person is still there, but something has gone too far inside itself to answer normally.
And then I look at myself right now and go:
Ah.
Unfortunate.
The metaphor has teeth.
-----
I do not think I am broken.
I do not think this is hopeless.
I do not think the fic is the problem, or fandom is the problem, or therapy is the problem, or summer break is the problem, or my brain is the problem.
I think the stack is the problem.
Too much input.
Too much meaning.
Too much pressure to turn everything into something useful.
Too much emotional excavation.
Too little structure.
Not enough recovery space.
…
And then my brain does what it knows how to do.
It overloads.
It fogs.
It argues with itself.
It tries to keep me safe in ways that feel like obstruction.
…
I hate that.
I really do.
I hate feeling intelligent and slow at the same time.
I hate knowing the idea and not being able to make my hands catch up.
I hate needing patience when (almost) every part of me wants to push.
I hate that slowing down feels like losing access.
But maybe slowing down is how I keep access.
Maybe the point is not to force the door open.
Maybe the point is to stay reachable
-----
So.
For now:
The fic continues.
The analysis continues.
The author is taking water, food, sleep, therapy, and structure seriously even if she is annoyed about needing them.
Chapter 4 Posted + Small, Vulerable Writing Process Update
-----
Chapter 4 is posted.
Wound Too Tight
Chapter 5 will probably be another 3 days, give or take.
-----
-----
Tiny vulnerable writing/process update, because apparently posting publicly has poked the exact fear/block that kept me from posting all these years in the first place:
Some of the writing does not feel as close to what I want as I wish it did.
…
My ideas move faster than my hands, my brain, and my revision stamina can keep up with, which is deeply frustrating.
It genuinely feels like I am fighting a block right now.
Not a “haha writer’s block," either. More like my brain knows what it wants, my hands cannot get there fast enough, and then the gap between the idea and the actual words starts getting very loud.
…
I know there are reasons I am like this. I understand a lot of the "why". I am trying to be patient with that.
I am also not always good at being patient with myself.
…
Part of me wants to push and rush and push until the thing finally matches what is in my head, and then that just makes everything louder and more overwhelming.
…
It is a very strange thing to feel capable and slow at the same time.
…
Like the ideas are there.
The want is very much there.
But getting all of that into the actual words, in the actual order, at the actual pace my brain demands, is hard.
…
I am working through it.
I am also seeking outside help/support for the very real things behind that struggle.
…
I hate that this is part of the process right now, but I am trying not to let it stop me.
-----
-----
The fic continues.
The author is fighting the brain files I wish Caine would mess with smh.
So why did you become a teacher?
Numbers waltz in an elusive dance,
A maze of fractions, caught in trance,
Equations twist, formulas obscure,
Patterns that hide, never quite sure.
So why did you become a teacher?
Words get tangled, meanings stray,
Conclusions drawn in a literal way,
Vocabulary drifts like tides at bay,
Long passages lead minds into the fray.
So why did you become a teacher?
Sentences falter in a silent storm,
Nouns and verbs lost in a swirling swarm,
A labyrinth where grammar deforms,
Punctuation refusing to conform.
So why did you become a teacher?
Lines on maps that blur and confound,
Systems of order where logic is drowned,
Latitude shifts without making a sound,
Coordinates vanish before they are found.
So why did you become a teacher?
Layers of knowledge, difficult to weave,
Paths through the body, hard to perceive,
Bones that remember what minds disbelieve,
Breath in the spaces I could not retrieve.
So why did you become a teacher?
Symbols and systems, a cryptic refrain,
Logic dissolves in a complex domain,
A thought almost caught, then gone again,
A lesson rewritten in silence and strain.
So why did you become a teacher?
Raise your hand, get it wrong.
Raise it high, please, just raise it at all.
Better a whisper than silence too long,
Better a stumble than never a call.
So why did you become a teacher?
The mirror of self, clouded and dim,
Seeking a shape at the edge of the brim,
A name half-spoken, a light growing slim,
A question reflected, but never let in.
So why did you become a teacher?
Sit and stay, feel confined,
A presence in class, undefined,
Another face they fail to find,
Why another mark they leave behind?
So why did you become a teacher?
Find me.
See me.
Be me.
Reach me.
Why did you become a teacher?
To teach, not just to teach, but to learn,
Really learn,
About the how and the why,
Offering the guidance I, too, yearn.
Nothing major plot-wise, just minor revisions because I went back through the episodes and realized the hallway doors are basically the same style with icon/symbol portraits, not written names.
Canon accuracy found me in the parking lot and hit me with a folding chair.
---
Chapter 4 should be posted tomorrow.
Chapter 5 will probably be at least another 3 days after that.
---
Also, my car goes to the repair shop tomorrow.
So hopefully the rest of summer break goes without further difficulties.
Knock on wood.
---
There are still 4 weeks left until we teachers are due back, which is technically plenty of time for peace.
...
Unfortunately, it is also plenty of time for mishaps.
And then immediately getting attacked by canon accuracy because I realized the hallway doors are basically the same style, just marked by icon/symbol portraits.
And no names.
Which means I need to fix Arc 1 Ch. 6–7 and Arc 2 Ch. 1–3 because I specifically described door styles and gave doors written names.
