Murder Drones: A LONG rant about why I hate fanon J, the “justice for J” trend, the infantilization of J, & her canon character’s writing (Murder Drones):
PLEASE HEAR ME OUT ON THIS BEFORE YOU SEND HATE! PLEASE DON’T SEND HATE (I KEEP GETTING HATE EVERYWHERE FOR THIS TAKE “for not admitting that the canon writing of the show is bad” & for “glazing the show” SO I HAD TO POST IT HERE. (I spent alot of time adding more of my thoughts to it than before!! It was originally just 1 paragraph)
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I do think that J is somewhat portrayed as a comedic relief character at times in Murder Drones (like when she gets caught in Uzi’s tail & seemingly never fights back before getting hit by Cyn’s sword), but does anyone else find it weird that the fandom bashes on her character for “being poorly written since she’s only a comedic relief / bootlicker which is a female stereotype” when most fanfics infantilize her, downplay N & V’s trauma while making hers out to be the worst, or constantly make her out to be a damsel in distress?
I really liked Jessa (J x Tessa) & fanon J at first, but now I’m really starting to hate it because every fanfic, every AU, & now every fanart is the same premise with the exact same comments by authors or commentors or even from people on tiktok about how fanon J is “better written”:
J feels guilt for Tessa’s death 20 years ago, is depressed, was either “forced” by Cyn to mistreat N or did it out of jealousy over him being Tessa’s favorite, has PTSD & depression & OCD & she has a alcohol addiction & smokes &… etc, J gets into a very convenient damsel in distress situation that N & V have to find & save her from, they immediately forgive her & more or less force her to live at the bunker but shes sooo depressed & its just hurt no comfort for 20 more chapters of her grieving before 2 fluff chapters finally happen.
People complaing about canon J’s characterization being only connected to her just being a comedic to relief / a bootlicker / a foil to V & thus started the whole “justice for J” trend, but then say fanon J is “objectively better written” when her entire fanon characterization is tied to Tessa. Fanon J has almost nothing about her that’s interesting besides toxic doom yuri with 0 chemistry (as in, their relationship is never really explored or is very one sided. It’s even weirder too when fans still use the “Tessa is their mother figure or a minor” interpretation while shipping Jessa too) besides their boss X employee or caretaker X victim dynamic that just starts to come off as icky.
I despise how most of the fandom views fanon J as “more complex”, but then remove all the qualities that maker her complex & boil her down to a purely innocent depressed victim the most.
Her mistreating N for more than 20 years being a genuine bad thing? She’s just jealous because Tessa used to favor him (she hugs N for 1 second in the show) & Cyn totallyyy forced her to harm N (completely fanon btw). Her refusing to let Tessa out of her chains while saying “corporate’s (her parent’s) spoken” despite being able to possibly make a compromise, likely knowing about the company or (atleast the justice system) & knowing to use a sword? Completely excused because Tessa’s parents could’ve killed J despite them having 0 way of knowing what J would’ve done.
Her working for Cyn because she’s a victim but also from her ego & crave to be above everyone else? No, she’s just an innocent depressed victim that never wanted to hurt anyone! J gloating about being Cyn’s senior informant & telling V to grow up from her torment by Cyn? Nope, she was “mind controlled” by Cyn the whole time. The headcanon justification that J can be mind controlled by Cyn despite Cyn not being able to mind control manor V & her still being able to break out of Cyn’s influence alongside Uzi (later on) twice (& was only able to control J after she “died” & was more or less passed out?) Cyn must greater system file access over J compared to N & V (no evidence of this).
Even Liam Vickers (the creator of the show) pointed out (after a private art contest winner in the QnA asked him too) that even though J did all her actions with the belief that Cyn couldn’t be stopped, what she did was “an obvious bad person move, especially when V swaps from a similar position to face unknowable odds while J doubles down”. Yet, the fandom calls Liam a bad writer (& even villainies him by saying that this intentionally makes J into a stereotype) for this response when this is made clear in the show??
It’s also so soo icky to me that content creators (as apart of the “justice for J” trend) & a majority of fans at the time insisted that we needed more screentime of her being tormented by Cyn to show that she’s a victim, when her dialogue & scenes in the show (3.5 - 4 episodes out of 8) combined with V & N’s scenes & implications by Cyn (5 - 6 episodes out of 8) makes this clear & how this affected her psychology. As for the “we needed more screentime so we can see J make the deal with Cyn & understand it” claim, it comes off as nitpicky when we already know the terms of the deal. We don’t necessarily need to see (fanon) J crying in a room full of dead humans & begging on her knees to Cyn to clarify what the deal was or how much J really suffered. It doesn’t serve anything good to the story besides further & further angst.
She didn’t get much screentime, but she doesn’t need anymore either. She represents the dangers of repeating the cycle (even if you are a victim) & I think the way Liam handled her character is very a realistic portrayal of that. She is evil in an incredibly humanlike way. We see that she does care somewhat about her friends, but her character also makes it clear why she decides to shove this away in favor of self profit.
People complain that she didn’t get a pure happy ending, but the ambiguous ending where she has the choice to make her own decisions &/or deconstruct her toxic ego mindset now that she’s finally free I think is beautiful. It’s up to fans (atleast until Liam makes a season 2) to interpret on how J could proceed & there’s equal evidence to many different directions that you can take her character.
You can make J go off to find any alive humans to bow down to or even make amends for, make her try & save Cyn to bow down to her again since having a boss figure is all she’s ever known, have a potential dynamic with Uzi where they find common ground, J making amends with N & V that isn’t angst on top of angst, her slowly getting along with the “useless toasters” (worker drones) in the bunker, slowly deconstruct her toxic & egoistic mindset with Uzi, V & N helping her, J reminisce earth before it was destroyed or Tessa before she died in a positive or natural tone, etc But instead, the fans make fanon J into this weird caricature of her to be constantly bashed on.
There’s a common counterargument that J’s ending is bad because it’s worse than Cyn’s / the solver’s because Cyn is trapped in (Uzi’s tail) the bunker & able to “live” happily with N while J is left alone. And while that’s a somewhat valid interpretation of the show’s ending- it really downplays the fact that J could still choose to go back & make amends (even if she feels like she can’t) while Cyn / the solver is seemingly trapped in Uzi’s tail for eternity watching as all her control & efforts to devour the universe was ripped from her by a teenager (that can now use her powers) & her own flaw.
She’s able to implant viruses into other worker drones (based off of the music video which is ambiguous if its canon or not), but for the most part, she lost her autonomy just like how she did to all the disassembly drones. You can argue that Cyn’s line “as I grow stronger within her” confirms that Cyn’s ending is actually a happy one & not a bad ending for her (assuming this is even canon since this would mean that Cyn will eventually take control over Uzi), but this could easily just be Cyn bluffing to make N’s doubts about himself worse (which is what the music video is about). If Cyn’s line was true, then both Uzi & Nori can find a way to stop Cyn from regaining control by either developing a patch of their own, or by looking for another one in the labs (if the labs aren’t entirely destroyed).
The fandom really needs to get out of their echo chamber to acknowledge that canon J is in-fact well written, acknowledge & taking accountability of the harm that fanon J is bringing, alongside these content creators who pushes it onto the fandom (especially new fans).
