It's been a while since I did one of those and it's also been nearly a month since the finale came out on youtube, so I think it's about time I shared my
AMAZING DIGITAL HOT TAKE!
But first some disclaimers!
1- there will be spoilers. I feel like that was obvious but yeah SPOILERS FOR EP9 AHEAD
2- "but goose said" "but Jax's va said". The author is dead. I greatly appreciate Gooseworx's work as a creative, but at the end of the day what an author intended is only ever one possible interpretation of what the story could mean
3- I will be using she/her pronouns for Jax in this. You can use others if you want, but don't fucking start pronouns discourse in my comments for the love of god
4- my opinions are somewhat shaped by both @ohnoitstbskyen 's reaction videos and Alex Rochon's post finale tweets (look the VA is as dead as the author, but I just happen to agree with his take)
5- this will get really heavy
SO WITH THAT OUT OF THE WAY LET'S GET TO TALKING ABOUT
(wouldn't be a fucking internet essay if it didn't start somewhere completely fucking random)
If you're familiar with the history of psychology and mental health care beyond just tiktok therapy speak, you probably know about how horrific things were for the patients for fucking centuries
honestly the stigma around that stuff persists to this day and leads to those who need help the most being isolated from society
we're seen as derranged and dangerous to those around us. And tho yes some people may have violent episodes, we're in general more a danger to ourselves than to anyone else
so what did society do to us? Well it tried to "fix" us so we could fit their standards better, through a myriad of methods that... honestly I don't wanna talk about here. Put simply it was never about helping the person, but about making sure they worked within society and kept their symptoms in check. There is no voice in your head, what you're thinking isn't true, there is no exit door
oh hey, Kaufmo. What you doing here buddy?
and say that didn't work. Say suppressing things only made them worse somehow. What did we do then? We isolated them. Sent them off to be locked away where they won't bother anyone else.
Insane Asylums. The loonie bin. You probably know the type of place just from how popular it is in media. Put the crazy freaks in a box and call it a day. Their suffering might not be explicitly the point, but neither is healing.
Just stay in the cellar with the other freaks
so Brazil 18th of may 1987
350 mental health workers gather to discuss the future of mental health care in Brazil, beginning what would be known as Luta Antimanicomial or for the gringos "The Anti Asylum Movement"
This would lead to the ongoing reform of the brazilian mental health care system and the birth of the CAPS (Centro de Atendimento Psicosocial/Center for Psychosocial Care)
These CAPSs would open across the country with the express mission of aiding in care not through isolation, but through community. It came from the realization that we can't separate the psychological from the social and that human beings NEED each other in order to survive. Its goal was to aid in healing while keeping contact with our family and friends and the world outside
But alright I couldn't get more ham fisted if I tried. This is obviously me tying the history of mental health care to the treatment of abstractions in TADC. Now am I gonna actually talk about the show or is this just an excuse to talk about a rare Brazil W?
I think the reading that The Amazing Digital Circus is a story about community is... well as on the nose as it gets. It emphasizes the bonds characters form and how they help each other be better and get through The Horrors™
But we also see those who lose that community be driven into Abstraction. Ribbit who was pushed away by Jax, Kaufmo who felt no one believed him... and Jax who refused to be vulnerable around anyone
Abstraction always happens when you're alone. When there's no one there to offer a helping hand.
Jax refused community, refused the lesson of the show again and again, and so in the end she became a cautionary tale. Self isolation is self harm. Empathy, both towards others and towards yourself, is the only way to heal
So in the end when they all get together to offer her comfort and care, that is when color finally returns to the Circus
Empathy has healed them and this place
And well perhaps this is wishful thinking, maybe this is just a little fantasy or me huffing copium like nobody's business, maybe it's just projection
But I am transfemme too and I was an unrelenting asshole for most of the time I spent in the closet. I hurt peoplea round me and I hurt myself. I tried to do to myself what Jax did... but I survived and I healed. I got to be better and be myself
I do not wish a story like mine to be a cautionary tale, so I say there's room for Jax to heal still
She's in a place of care, where she can rest and recover, while still being surrounded by the community that loves her. Maybe that means she can still be like me
Of course I know things aren't that perfect. I am still healing and probably will still be healing for the rest of my life. It's a process and not one that is ever complete. Even if Jax were to return she would still carry scars of what happened, much like we all do
And in the end real life is not like the circus. I may have made it sound like Brazil has become some enlightened society where asylums are banned forever, but that fight is still ongoing and still held back by stigma and ostracization (god I hope I spelled that one right)
The place where I life has both a CAPS and an Asylum and which one you end up in is very much up to your own fucking luck. And I still consider myself lucky to even have the option in the first place. So many people out there do not have even the chance to find the help they need
In the end, after watching the show (and spending a day crying while listening to Isn't She Lovely) I just felt that I didn't want more Jaxs out there trapped in any more cellars
