The thing that fucks me up most about Jax is how self imposed his own suffering is.
The other people in the circus are an ideal group to come out to. Zooble uses any pronouns and everyone is chill about that even the 48 year old man who has trouble holding onto information and the computer ai from the 90s have zero confusion or trouble with their identity and pronouns. Gangle is a lesbian or something, Pomni leans towards masculine or androgynous clothing, her and Ragatha are also probably lesbians or something.
Everyone is comfortable with queerness, no one ever says anything queerphobic, EXCEPT Jax! He’s so deep in his own head about what happens to trans people outside the circus, what happened when he told his mom, who had thought might be okay with it, that he doesn’t realize that he is surrounded by the ideal kinds of people to come out to.
But then that’s the thing! It’s not just cause he’s trans! It used to be his only issues were being trans and being a victim of emotional incest, not that those are easy things to deal with on their own, but then he fucked everything up with Ribbit, the person who cared about him with all her heart and wanted to help him even when he was a dick a to her. He was so afraid he’d killed his mom on accident but then his fear of people finding out about his transness, maybe mixed with his fear of hurting those close to him, led him to push Ribbit away which led to her abstraction.
He probably didn’t kill his mom but he was the reason Ribbit abstracted.
And now he has to live with that. He could hardly handle the possibility of killing his abusive mother after she verbally berated him for being vulnerable with her, how the hell would he ever be able to live with the near 100% certainty that he is the sole reason that the person who only showed him love is now dead?
And then of course that causes him to spiral and close himself off and ruin his reputation with the people around him by being an asshole to all of them. At that point there’s a lot more on his conscience than a bad mom and being trans, both things that he can’t be blamed for, now there’s way too much heavy shit that is his fault on top of that that he just has to deal with.
Then Kaufmo dies and even though I don’t think it was his fault there’s a damn good chance he still blames himself. And he just keeps spiraling and getting worse.
How could he ever dig himself out of the grave he’s dug at that point? He made his own nightmare his reality several times over, the toxicity that eats him alive comes from HIMSELF.
All he knows how to do is run but when he’s the worst the thing that ever happened to himself there’s no where to run to. Everywhere he goes he will always be there.
Of course he abstracted that’s the only place he won’t have to deal with himself. GOD. FUCK ohhh my goddddd bro. AAAAAA. HOLY FUCK. Jesus. Anyways. Group abstraction in 5?
