I think you are all 12 years old, this is your first fandom, or you are suffering from immense brain rot in the media literacy part of your brain. I am only half joking about all that.
Anyway my thoughts on the tadc finale
I’m going to need to wait for the youtube version in order to rewatch and properly analyse the episode but my god. The stuff we see in Jax’s mind is not meant to paint to him as an irredeemable abuser. I’m fairly sure it’s all the ways he’s learnt to push people away. They aren’t fantasies of violence and sexual harassment. It’s guilt and shame and fear. Each defence as an aspect of himself.
Think about it. He blames himself for Ribbit’s abstraction and likely Kaufmo’s too. His mind is populated by scenarios in which the others have abstracted, with at least one being directly his fault again. Why on earth would these be fantasies and not scenes of guilt and shame and denial?
Just because you are not being spoonfed doesn’t mean you should jump to the most superficial conclusions.
Because why on earth would Gooseworx’s thesis be that a transfem coded haracter commits suicide off screen and is actually an abusive pos through and through? Why? Could it possibly be that she was communicating a different message? Maybe the execution wasn’t the best, but c’mon.
Jax feels like a cautionary tale. A warning about what can happen if you continue to push people away. A story that encourages you to accept help and care. And that even when you’re not in a place to receive it, it will be there regardless. Waiting for you. People love you and will do the work to care for you. You are not unlovable.
Jax was also really young. 22 years old and homeless. The circus fucked him up further. I don’t the message was ever meant to be that this kid was unlovable. More like saying, hey if even everything goes wrong, people will still be there for you.
Remember that before, abstractions were thrown into a cellar to be forgotten. But they didn’t do that this time. They made a safe and calming space and kept Jax company. They showed how much they cared even when Jax was hypothetically least able to receive it but also when he needed it most.
