#tacc-dumps-thoughts

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To people who say Jax's sexually coercing Gangle was only in his fantasies and he hasn't done anything yet are failing to realize how that manifest in his treatment of Gangle.

Whether it was intentional from the start or not: Jax only seeking Gangle out when Zooble is gone and she entered an hypnomanic episode (Probably caused, or at least,, exacerbated by Zooble's death) reveals that he's been trying to break her down this entire time to eventually take advantage of her sexually.

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"I'm in support of Black and POC fans and it's awful what happened, but does anyone find the timing with the movie release weird-"

Shut up. No you aren't, if your main concern is still the freaking movie release and not how the Creator and it's cast effectively bred a space for racism to thrive in the fandom, by not effectively telling themselves or others accountable now and before then.

It's always "suspicious" or "a ploy feuded by a form of bigotry towards the creators" until you realize many of these racist "exposes" were very public moments from years ago and people who are "exposing" these creators also share the same marginalization as them, if not, oftentimes are more so.

No shit, people are choosing now to educate the greater fandom and new people on the past cast's racism, when they originally tried during the show's initial air: it didn't receive much traction due to the core fan base. Now at the pinnacle of popularity for both the show and the cast's careers, it can get the proper recognition it deserves from people who actually do care and can make informed decisions as paying customers.

This is the exact same shit that happened when Hazbin Hotel aired as a TV show. People could no longer ignore the mounting piles of evidence towards Vivziepop of her anti-Blackness, racism, queerphobia of all kinds, misogyny, poor work environments/mistreatment, and in general immaturity and toxicity. Despite these things being very prominent in her works and well documented for years publicly. It wasn't until they reach people outside of her "niche" fan base: she finally received public scrutiny.

But, of course, since this is the white indie spear, it's always about how a group of opposing fans expose your "indie darling creator", and not: this extremely privileged figure made money off of their prejudice's/bigoted actions and works.

Call it "finding a fork in the kitchen" moment that many of these white and privileged fans who engaged with these indie projects uncritically and hate any form of criticisms: Also happens to gravitate towards them because they do hold the same internalized prejudices presented in these works.

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A critical look at the Jax & Gangle sexual coercion aftermath scene

CW: TADC 9 leaks, mentions of victim blaming, and discussions of sexual coercion.

So thankfully people are talking about Jax's fantasy of sexually coercing Gangle when she's vulnerable, but I haven't seen people talk about the framing of the situation after he leaves.

[Start ID: A cropped screenshot from TADC episode 9 leaks of Gangle in her manic mask. She is holding a key to Jax's room and looks unnerved and unsure. / . End ID.]

Already the circumstance were dubious enough, even without the emotional vulnerability of Zooble's death, due to Gangle's hypnomanic episode.

People who suffer from them, oftentimes regret their actions committed afterwards because of the impulsivity and irrational thinking of the mental episode. However, this isn't a case where Gangle's impulsivity got the better of her. She is noticeably uncomfortable and non-recipical to Jax's flirting. After he gave his room key without her explicit consent, she looks unnerved and unsure. This isn't the face of someone who's consenting or excited from the rush of impulsivity.

[Start ID: A screenshot from TADC episode 9 leaks of a zoomed out scene where Kinger, Ragatha, Pomni, and the NPC mannequins stand looking at Gangle blankly. / . End ID.]

Then there's this frame afterwards which solidified Jax's true intentions for hooking up with Gangle: it's to degenerate her. Outside of the obvious actions Jax would have commit if he actually respected her and the possibility he didn't know any better out the window since he recognized instantly in Ep4 the mask wasn't Gangle's true self. It's how everyone else reacts afterwards.

They're blank. They don't respond in character, particularly in any negative or worrying ways in witness to this horrifying situation. They just stopped and stare blankly at Gangle as if it was her idea (which even if it was, it's still not her fault that Jax then chose to abuse her). Also why are the NPCs reacting too? They have no proper understanding of consent or the social constructs of Jax's and Gangle's interaction as a whole. It shifts all focus and responsibility onto Gangle, instead of Jax, and projects a societal conscious echoing a sentiment everyone knows better yet will blame her for "giving in".

Although the sequence ends shortly afterwards and it's a fantasy: the implication that Jax fully expect Gangle to agree says enough of what would have happened and will do when a similar situation occurs.

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So no one is going to talk about the terrifying implication that the abstracted are actually just people with UWS now put in cages with no way to interact properly with the other characters left? Oh, by the way, they're clearly aware of their surrounding. They just can't verbalize that-

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Discussion of Jax's sexual abuse/harassment towards Gangle

So remember how a few days ago people started realizing Jax qualifies/is a sexual abuser? I'm not going to post the leaks directly here for spoilers and context warning reasons, but they're linked below.

That scene of Hypomanic Gangle with Maid!Jax with the English dub makes things somehow worse Jax is under the impression that Gangle has a crush on him, even calls her "kitty". So on top of Jax's emotionally and physically abusing Gangle, along with sexually too, by the material of the blackmail: Jax did that with the impression she has a crush on him.

This isn't even touching the implications of this being the first explicit sapphic coding from Gangle with a trans-fem coded character who now is explicitly predatory: from the fact Jax is flirting with her during a hypomanic episode. You know, a mental state notoriously known for making impulsive decisions and irrational thinking due to the elevation of the mood.

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Edit: Gangle is supposed to be Indian but many of the same critiques still applies.

You cannot piss me off this badly because what do you mean Gangle's race got confirmed off screen.

What do you mean she's Black when she has no Black voice actor or ANY RACIAL CODING for that matter in the show? And you mean to tell me by reconceptualization her character in this information means one of the few Black character spent most of her screentime getting abused by this white cracker bunny?

How have we devolve into even worse racial coding than the Hellverse, BECAUSE IN THE BARE FUCKING MINIMUM, THEY HAD PROPER POC VAs. OH, SAVE ME FROM THIS NIGHTMARE.

[Start ID: A Tumblr comment from the user tadc-crit. The comment reads, Yeah, one of the leaks shows the characters' counterparts' social media (no this isn't a joke lmao) and someone found out that Gangle's has an actual Twitter post irl, in which you can tell by her hand that she's black (+ she has a black girl as a PFP but I think that's just supposed to be a character of hers)". / . End ID.]

For anyone wondering this is how it was revealed.

The twitter handle is moezoe26.

When did this show become a serious ARG. Everyone from this company is trying to piss me off.

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So apparently this needs to be said.

It's Jax's fantasy, not intrusive thoughts

There is no point in the series that's hints or show him struggling with intrusive thoughts or the downsides of them.

If this was really an intrusive thought, there would have been some juxtaposition from how he portrayed himself there to who he actually is, or the stress of having them. At least some kind of acknowledgment of the scene later on. Considering intrusive thoughts are involuntary thoughts that are non-reflective of the person's beliefs.

There are literal mental disorders where people are so heavily debilitated from trying to prevent the action or personality presented in their intrusive thoughts with compulsive behaviors: they're always stressed, scared, and exhausted which often times burdens their life.

And I'm not a big fan how people are conflating that with this dogshit, instead of acknowledging Gooseworx wrote an accidental sexual abuser terribly. It's plain and simple as that.

And if it was supposed to be a representative of intrusive thoughts: Gooseworx handled it terribly. Like with every marginalized and taboo topic depicted.

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The racist implication of Ragatha's and show's writing.

Edit: The original name of this post was "The Whitewashing of Ragatha". It's been pointed out to me that since IHNMAIMS is an inspiration source and not an direct adaptation, it's not exactly whitewashing. Which is a very fair point.

The reason why I said whitewashing is because it makes me unsettled as misogynistic the show is, there is a white centeredness to it that isn't addressed as often and how it removes integral themes from the story as a result.

Typically, I wouldn't mind if a character is a different race from their inspiration or a white dominant cast. It makes me very uncomfortable how Gooseworx removed the controversial themes to make it more palatable for indie audiences, as well as clearly not understanding the critiques of the short story. The exclusion and mistreatment of the few POCs, particularly Black characters, we do have is: a forgettable fridged character who's pain gets ignored for her husband's angst.

Regarding how Black women are already treated in media: demonization and dehumanization from their white counterparts due to their emotions. It eerks me how Ragatha's inspiration from Ellen can still retain the character's original emotions and softness while Queenie gets no voice. Also Harlan Ellison would hate TADC, but he is a misogynistic sexual abuser in his own right.

Mentions of rape & slutshaming and spoilers for the short story IHNMAIMS.

So with the recent waves of critique analyst posts comparing TADC to IHNMAIMS, and how overall tone-deaf and water down it is: something I don't see mention enough is how Gooseworx essentially whitewashed Ragatha.

Context: Ragatha is clearly inspired off of Ellen, a character who is a Black woman. She is the only woman and person of color in the cast from the short story. Ellen is also the only morally good character, symbolizing resilient through kindness in adverse times. Despite the fact, she suffers greatly from misogynoir from her white men counterparts, facing sexualization (even from A.M. himself), being dehumanized, and gets rape repeatedly for the "mental sake" of the men. Ted even slut-shames her to cope with the evilness he committed.

Clearly, Helen's identity as the only Black woman in the cast is very integral and important to the critique of the short story. Yet Gooseworx stripped Ragatha from her IHNMAIMS counterpart commentary, despite technically keeping the race coding by her loc hair.

This show is misogynistic, and frankly, racist too. It erases IHNMAIMS's racial commentary and Gooseworx didn't care to maintain it which reflects how she sees emotional fragility in relation to race. It shines in the fandom's human designs where Ragatha and Gangle are often made white or light skinned. While the physically and snarky prone characters, like Jax and Zooble, are either Black or an ambiguously dark shade of brown.

Speaking of racism, it is utterly disgusting how Jax, who is inspired off of Ted, a-white-racist-and rapist-abusive-piece-of-shit, gets coddled narratively and socially. At this point I can't even be sure if that wasn't intentional, with seeing Gooseworx's 2021-2024 tweets most likely is. It is very disappointing to see the very ideologies Harlan Ellison criticized in IHNMAIMS being reinforced through this butchered fanonized version of his short story. He would hate TADC.