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[hndraction]

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[ria-tbd]

tadc finale thoughts(with a bit of personal stuff mixed in i guess. mostly i just want to ramble about some Complicated Feelings i have about a Certain Character)

okay well. just posting this here bc i need something to talk about for my daily 750 words thing and if i'm writing it there i might as well post it here. so i thought the finale was like. i dunno. okay? not okay? like. broadly speaking, i liked most of it? but i have problems with a particularly large and important section(The Part Where A Repressed, Closeted Trans Woman Kills Herself Off-Screen and stuff relating to that. (also i'm gonna she/her jax for this post)).

i guess for the parts i liked(bc they're gonna be faster to get through lmao) it's like. i don't know why ragatha keeps staring at the screen and just stating how i directly feel keeps happening but i had to like. physically turn away from the screen and go into full dissociation mode when she was talking about her feelings about jax's abstraction or else i would have started loudly ugly crying in the theatre LMAO. between that and her monologue in episode six it's like wow this ragdoll fucks me up. stop telling everyone my trauma. gosh.

uhhh what else. uh. hm. i felt like i liked more than that. oh i'm glad zooble and gangle fucked. was not expecting that to Actually happen, even if it was just like. an ending credits gag. their real life selves thing was also nice. like very much set up to give the characters and viewers some closure about real life speculation but also the scene with the bus is probably the like biggest fanfiction bait i've ever seen in my life. hey guys what if our real life selves met up in zooble's queer bar. wait jax what are you doing here.

i guess i do like the jax like... internal brain sequence? in a vacuum, too. i guess i should just talk about it now lmao. like everything about jax felt like it was from a different version of the show with a different message that had been written entirely differently. like it was well made but imo it did not fit with a lot of stuff.

like. jax's abstraction in the first place. so she goes up to pomni and tries to reach out and fails and walks away. and pomni just doesn't react? like, the girl who has always reached out to everyone, especially jax, at every single opportunity? it feels a lot like the whole idea of jax's abstraction and mindspace exploration was written very early, but then by the time the show actually got there, it no longer fit. like we have to watch ep8 that has pomni reaching out and going "be here later" and even zooble being like "you're one of us too" and all of that. then they just kind of forget she exists because they have to. like. couldn't pomni have at least been distracted or something? handling too many things at once? something? like literally anything other than being approached alone while she wasn't doing anything at all lmao. it's so hard to justify and it feels genuinely out of character.

and then it's just like "oh jax killed herself". like it just happens between shots. it barely has any weight. jax walking away and oh rip bye girl sorry you never got to transition. and then pomni goes after her and gets into her brain and so on and like. yeah, like i said, it's a good sequence. forcing us to watch through jax's eyes as she slowly drove ribbit to suicide was uh. you know. deeply uncomfortable. but like, in a good way, if you know what i mean. like "yeah, this is how destroying yourself can destroy everyone around you too, starting with the people you care about the most" i guess

the take i keep seeing over and over is "it's a cautionary tale" or whatever but like. it's not framed that way. the show up to this point has basically been about pomni building relationships with everyone and enabling everyone to find meaning in their lives through their connections together, with jax as the self-hatred final boss so to speak. even how shots in the finale mirrored earlier shots(especially mirroring pomni's abstraction nightmare shots from ep2 with jax, very much setting up for pomni reaching out and bringing her back) were working towards this. like yeah i know there's a post from goose somewhere where she said abstraction can't be undone(though she also said there wouldn't be romance and honestly between the stuff with pomni and ragatha and pomni and jax and inarguably gangle and zooble having Literal, Actual Sex, uhhhhh you know maybe things changed) but the episode feels like it's building towards pulling jax out of abstraction

like it doesn't work as a cautionary tale when everything builds towards something else and then doesn't pay off. and like. jax remains abstracted and everyone just kind of moves on while they keep her in a tent. it's very, very, Very easy to take the message as "if you kill yourself, everyone will move on and be happier without you"(though this like. in part feels like bc all of the characters(except kinger) mourning with different energies at different times. like zooble is understandably mild. pomni and ragatha. then the extremely long jax brain sequence. then gangle. bc the jax sequence feels like it's going to a point where it's going to result in reversing jax's abstraction, to the audience, it feels like the only mourning scene is gangle's. like we're barely given time to process "oh i guess she's staying that way" before we're taken to caine's thing and then everyone is happy again.). it just. sucks? like a tragedy is fine, it just feels very much like "it didn't work out. for reasons." it very much feels like pomni is able to save jax until she just kind of doesn't and then i guess they never try again.

like everything about jax just feels incongruent with everything else. like everyone grows and connects and becomes happy except the trans woman, who instead kills herself. like if i didn't know gooseworx was a trans woman, i'd have a much, much more sour take on jax lmao. like it's just so. aggravating. like "oh look jax, she knows all of your secrets and all of your sins and she is still choosing to love you. maybe you can still love yoursoh shit is that a flashbang that's still there from ep6 for some reason? lmao nvm" like was jax unable to be saved because she still can't accept help from others? does she carry too much guilt to feel like she deserves another chance? can she still not accept that she's trans? was it just too late? the tragedy would have been infinitely better and more impactful if it was any of these things and not a contrivance.

man though. that scene. the whole "you aren't supposed to be here. you weren't supposed to care. you aren't supposed to love me." jax saying "i don't want to go" after her allegorical suicide. the darumi of it all. "ria are you really bringing that here" i can find Them anywhere.

also this is more of a personal point rather than any sort of "objective" analysis but like. as someone who spent a very, very long time being very, very deeply repressed and dissociated from what i am, i identified with jax quite a bit. like, maybe i'm just looking in the wrong places, but it feels like nearly every trans story i see is just. filled with yearning. like "oh i always knew i was [gender]" and secretly experimenting and performing or whatever. not my dumb ass, though. i guess i'm more of a "i saw the tv glow" type of trans woman. no yearning, just slowly dying from the inside out and not understanding why. so seeing a character like jax who is showing more active repression was like "oh yeah, i get that. i can see myself in here a bit." so it's sad to see that story that i identified with end in such a sad and unsatisfying way.

though i wasn't an asshole like jax was, to be clear. i wasn't really much of anything, really. sometimes, it doesn't feel like i ever existed until about a year ago.

i guess i'm digressing a bit. though for all the problems i have with the execution, i still can't say it's totally bad? it's well-made at least. and it's making me think about stuff. like i see what happened to jax in an on-paper sense(someone who is deeply suffering and struggling to reach out while everyone struggles to reach out to her in return) and like. i just think of people i know who i see going through difficult times and struggling in their own right and i want to reach out and do. something. i don't know. i just want to help.

not that i would know what to do, i guess.

anyway my point is like. if it's making me think this deeply and have Strong Feelings about my own life, then it can't be all bad, i guess? i dunno. i just wish we could have a story where the suicidal character doesn't kill themselves. idk my thoughts are becoming less coherent so maybe i should stop here. maybe in 2 weeks there'll be some post credits shit for the youtube release that changes how i feel but idk. man i really hope this post doesn't show up in people's non-tag searches or get like any kind of traction LMAO edit: okay i just remembered another point i wanted to make. "what reminded you" blatant transphobia reminded me.

i'm kind of pissed that they didn't have jax stare at the screen and make the fact that she's trans explicit. like. they go so far with it. like there's that huge transfem jax evidence post right? all that shit. like girl's room is a giant trans flag. jax being a trans woman is so implied that you can clearly read the words "JAX IS TRANSGENDER" in the negative space left behind.

like if you're going to go that far, just fucking say it. the fact that they didn't now means that the internet is going to be flooded with hate spewing bigots acting like there's nothing queer going on at all. bc people like that don't give a shit about being media literate, they only care about being able to be bigots. avoiding explicit statements just gives those people ammunition to harass others with. "let's just let the idiots show how stupid they are and laugh at them!" like no bc even giving them the room to be that stupid in the first place means that we have to see a hundred little reminders of how many people out there would rather see us dead than suffer our passive existence. like i'm already seeing slurposting in response to posts just neutrally saying "oh jax is trans" because "jax isn't trans, you dumb [slur]s blah blah blah i'm dumb and illiterate".

they do literally everything but say it directly. just fucking say it.

[hndraction]

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[jsunnyart]

how darumi felt

[tokofagkawa]

happy birthday komaru

[train-wrex]

Happy birthday Komaru!! Kinda unfinished flat color, but I got bored lmao

I don't post about them often but I love the UDG girls. Theyre my girls

[sireature]

Birthday girl!!!

[0cul135]

darurara comm for ria_hndr on twitter!

[hndraction]

🍉 DONATIONS ARE NOW OPEN! 🍉

The time we've all been waiting for is now here!! We are now accepting donations via our Tilify! Please view our carrd or this Google Document for more information on how to donate.

BRIEF INSTRUCTIONS:

>Select whether you would like to request a fan art or fan fic as a reward. Each request requires a minimum of $15 USD per request. >Once you have purchased your art/fic reward, then fill out the accompanying Google form to tell us what exactly you'd like!

Please use the same email on both your Tilify donation and on the request form.

[minticai]

Darumi laying in bed listening to bullshit music

[sabinaemiri]

morning routines from this pop up

(bonus tsukumo twins)

[suzuririho]

One cut away from death

Really wanted to draw a different version of the previous art, so now we have this

[livyrtart]

Ladies of Last Defense Academy

[flamarih]

🎃🍅

[lampochkaart]

Darumi is the best girl fr

[ria-tbd]

personal / very long / Bad Things And Trauma And A Lot Of Vulnerability / then something good at the end

i've kind of dropped off the whole internet for like. what. a week? maybe a little less than a week? maybe a little more? idk. a little while.

basically like. i unearthed some stuff. Not Good stuff. i don't know if i want to talk about it here. or if i can talk about it at all. honestly the list of people i feel okay talking about it with is very, very small and kind of weird. idk

i thought about just saying it outright anyway but idk it didn't feel right. i thought about saying it indirectly in a way that only a few people could understand and it's like. idk. i don't wanna burden anyone with myself in general but especially not something so heavy, and like. not without very explicit permission to trauma dump too. idk. i'm hoping i don't accidentally make it clear through context clues if i start rambling on. i've been doing a lot of that, like, internally. just spiralling through all sorts of thoughts and feelings until i'm not even sure which thing is making me upset anymore. i've been trying to rehearse what to even vent out into the world because i'm afraid of oversharing or burdening others with too much while trying to balance my internal need to. say something. to someone. to anyone. and every time i just lose the plot and before i know it i'm just talking about all sorts of shit(i guess take this as a warning that there might be Dark Stuff And Trauma implied later to avoid if you don't want to know my baggage, which is completely fine if you don't. i'm writing this for me and i don't want anyone to feel like they have to read these posts and find out stuff about me that they don't wanna know or something. it's completely fine to not read on, seriously)

so that's why i haven't been like. around in any capacity at all, anywhere. i dissociated from so much for so long and once the big thing broke the dam, everything came pouring out from all sorts of shit throughout my life. it's taken a lot of active processing to even get to the point that i can put a post like this together without completely falling apart. i've been crying a lot this past week. like. A Lot. all that shit i didn't let myself feel didn't go anywhere. it was just waiting

and it's like. so much stuff makes more sense now. why certain things bother me, why i get so pissed off about certain stuff. even how i struggle socially. like i'm constantly afraid to talk to people because i don't want to inflict myself on them or burden them or accidentally say something uncomfortable or hurtful or make them angry or. idk whatever. everything. i'm scared of everything all the time. and it's like. it's, at least in some probably large part, because i struggle to just know where people's boundaries are. and i struggle with that because i was never able to have any of my own. they've been constantly crossed and eroded throughout my whole life in all sorts of contexts. i've never had the context of my own boundaries available to build the foundation i need to understand the boundaries of others. and i don't want to do unto others what was done to me even in the slightest way so i just. keep distant. like i'm some kinda noxious poison and just being near me is enough to harm other people. if i can't see someone's boundaries, how am i supposed to know if they're comfortable being approached? or if taking another step is too much? or if i'm too far away?

i don't know how to start, build or maintain relationships. i just let everyone else set the pace and the distance because i'm scared of fucking it up and making someone else uncomfortable or hurt. and i've been. aware of this. but for the longest time it's just been like "???" like i knew i was like that but i didn't know WHY i was like that that and the fear was too great for me to do anything else. but now i think i can see at least some of the roots of that feeling, finally

and it's. hard. it's hard to not hate myself for it. if i had just somehow enforced my own boundaries and said no and stopped going along with things for everyone else's sake even though some deep and choked part of me was trying to scream how much it hurt and how uncomfortable i was, then i could have avoided all of this. i could have been fine. i could have just said no the whole time. so it's my fault, so i should hate myself, so i don't deserve to feel the anguish i do. it's so easy to think like that. it's easy and it's far more familiar than it should be. and as i type this i'm now wondering how much of that self-hate is even new, or if i had buried it in the trauma time capsule with everything else.

so i've been struggling with that. and other stuff. and the stuff from a few months ago still. man i've really been going through it huh. i'm so tired. i'm so, so tired and i just want. like. i don't even know. just something nice. something that makes things feel just a little more okay. but i still hate myself so much that i don't think i deserve that, and i'm still so afraid of inflicting myself on anyone in any way that even the implication of asking for something from another person is terrifying and painful. even if it's just something as simple as like. a hello. it's taking everything i have to not delete this paragraph just so i don't say that. but like. idk. i think i'm probably just hurting myself like this. no one can live their life without showing vulnerability to others eventually

oh yay it's estrogen time. idk why but i've been like actually craving it for some reason?? like i'm just lying there dead from crying and i'm just like "man i really want to take some more estrogen for some reason"

anyway like. to segway for a sec. i swear this is related to the overall post. but while i was dealing with all of this, and also i had a migraine from crying so much, and also i was pretty stoned from trying to medicate that migraine, i watched that circus show that's been popular recently just to like. fill time. it's pretty alright, i'm really invested in whether or not the bunny admits that (s)he needs estrogen and whether or not (s)he gets it. anyway like

there's a part in the sixth episode(so like spoilers for that i guess i'll try to be vague and not name anyone. or just like skip this paragraph and the next) where a character talks about like. okay wait i have to think about how i'm formatting this because there's actually two parts. i have to actually fire up the storytelling part of my brain to line this up right. okay so like. one character is upset. and she's literally curling up into herself and going nonverbal and only responding with shakes of the head and nods and i already felt this deep sense of "Oh No" because i'm literally just looking at what i do irl. and eventually she says something like "i don't even know what i want. i just want everyone to be happy. and i don't want anyone to hate me." and i'm already tearing up bc like Fucking Same girl. but then the character she's talking to asks "do you hate yourself?" and i just. cry every time. because i do. i do so much and i don't even know or understand why and i just bury it and try to be Normal so i don't bother anyone. and having some version of the feelings i struggle with so much put so condensed and clear made a few things click in my head

and then there's another scene in that episode where another character talks about self-love. "it's not natural, it's intentional". and it's like. i've heard that before in one way or another. i never really understood the idea. it just never completely clicked for me, even if i logically understood the words

but then the other day(no more spoilers it's safe now) i was talking to evies about child me and i like. i forget what i said. i also forget why i was wording it in the third person. but i said the first half of the sentence before pausing and then deliberately using the word "she". and even then it still didn't click. but i was thinking about that in bed last night and then it finally clicked. that's self-love. that's what it means. that's why it's intentional. you have to choose to do it. and when i realized that, i started crying a lot again.

but it's like. i finally get it. that awkward pause, taking the time to stop and not fall into the familiar, old habit of just he/himing my past self out of habit and justifying it after the fact with "well i didn't know at the time", and instead choosing--deliberately choosing--to give my past self the simple and basic respect she always deserved and never got. that's self-love. that's the choice. falling into the familiar mechniasm of self-hate is so easy that it's basically the default. self-love requires understanding, patience, and deliberate choice.

self-love is. choosing to accept that i couldn't have "just said no". to understand my own history of eroded boundaries and accept that i was set up to fail and that it wasn't my fault. to look at the context of everything and knowing i wouldn't blame anyone else in my position, and choosing not to take the comfortable route of blaming myself anyway.

it's forgiving myself for trusting people when maybe i shouldn't have. for letting things that shouldn't have become normal become normal. because i was a kid. and an egg. i was already going through a lot without even realizing it. i was already susceptible to crumbling under social pressures and that wasn't my fault and i shouldn't hate myself for it. and whenever i start to think otherwise, i have to choose to remind myself of that, even if i can't believe those words at the time

it's knowing that i'm going to fail over and over and fall into familiar and painful habits and choosing to accept that instead of spiraling every time it happens. it's knowing that the choice is always there and i can always try to take it and keep trying even if it doesn't feel like it's working at the time. it's knowing that healing is a long and painful process and that's okay, that it's okay to choose to take time for myself when i need it

it's choosing to let myself take up space. it's choosing to trust myself and taking the risks required to learn about others so i can let myself be social without being afraid all the time. it's choosing to take a break when i'm scared and choosing to push myself when i know i can handle it.

it's knowing that internalizing all of this isn't a magic fix, that i'm going to hurt and stumble and make mistakes and choosing to do it anyway because i deserve to be a better and happier person than i am. and even saying that i "deserve" something is so painfully alien to say but i can still choose to say it and acknowledge it. that it's okay to have wants and needs and desires and express them openly.

choosing to love yourself always feels like some big and grand thing in media. or like conceptually in general i guess. but it's not. it's a million little things, every day. and i get that now, because i finally chose to love myself for once. and it was such a little thing, just adding an s to a word. but that was enough to make me realize that it really is a choice, even if it's not always an easy one to make. if it was always easy, i would have transitioned like a decade ago

like. i still feel all the negative stuff i said above too. i'm trying to love myself more, but i still hate myself. i know what parts of myself i don't like and want to change, but it's not as easy as just choosing to say that i am changing them. changing just one small part of myself is still a million choices i have to make before i get to where i wanna be. and not all of them will be easy. i'm still scared of being properly social. i'm still so tired and so worn down

but also i just. idk. i feel like something has been different since last night. i'm starting to see choices i never realized i was making. i don't feel like i'm just randomly breaking down into tears and not knowing why or having a panic attack or constantly spiralling now. i feel like i'm. healing? i guess? that things can get better. that things can change. that i can change

discovering all the feelings i had been burying all my life felt like. idk. like something had been taken from me all that time ago and i only just now fell into the hole it left behind. and it's festering and filled with rot and trying to climb out only scraped the rot away and exposed the still fresh, unhealed wound underneath. i thought it would just hurt for a long time, and that it would just scar over. that the hole would always be there and just hurt a little less over time, like all the other holes my life left behind.

but now it's like. idk. maybe it's possible for me to choose to fill that hole with something else

anyway, uh. i say all that but now i'm like. "is this too much? am i being too vulnerable here? maybe i shouldn't post this" and like i dunno! maybe! but i can also choose to understand that i'm tagging this post as unhappy and putting it under a cut and then still going out of my way to call out that it has Baggage and no one has to read it. i can choose to accept that no one is being forced to read this and that it's perfectly okay to post my own feelings in my own tiny internet space. so i'm gonna do that. as always, thank you for reading

[bloodpaw]

darumi doodle