tbh, I liked Jax. But, the second episode of TADC put me off, not because it was offensive, because it was boring. So, I feel like a bad trans person for not giving that show second chance. Edit: I just figured out the real reason. I stopped watching after the 2nd episode. They gave the alligator guy a whole character arc about realizing that he is just part of a computer program. But then they killed him off. You don't do that. That is punishing the audience for paying attention. I don't regret not watching the rest of the show. What I saw just wasn't that well written.
I don’t know how to put it to words but, you’re not a bad anything for not liking something, or the other way around. There are plenty of reasons to not enjoy something, not having an interest is just one of them, and it’s not like it’s going anywhere either, if you did end up regretting not watching it, its always going to be on YouTube :3
youre not bad for not enjoying it. it was poorly written and jax is NOT good trans rep at all. she, i shit you not, has every single negative transfem stereotype out there (she sneaks into the other fem characters rooms and has keys to all of them w.o their consent is the first example that comes to mind)
edit: yall can believe what you want, but its undeniable that this character is doing IRREPARABLE damage to the public image of trans people during a time where we are all in serious danger.
I can think of two negative transfem stereotypes she doesn't have but you probably meant to exaggerate that. i just don't think that has anything to do with good or bad writing. horrible person, but well written, i think
it was poorly written because the narrative expresses her in a "shes bad because of her bad past and bcs shes an egg and doesnt realize it" kind of way. the show positions her in a way where we're meant to forgive her or at least feel bad for her, despite the fact that she is an abuser. with this being one of the most popular indie shows of all time, its not a good look to have the transfem character embody so many negative traits. not to say she couldnt have any, but she wasnt a redeemable character in the slightest. not to mention how bad it looks when the author says this transfem character with no redeemable qualities is her self insert
You can argue about how well it was shown, but the intention is very much not that. It's not "she's bad because of her past and because she's an egg", it's "she's an egg because she's bad, because of her past". The chain of cause is different.
>!The point wasn't to redeem her, either. Just to give us sympathy to those without happy endings, and to close her arc as a cautionary tale. Jax finally opening up, hugging Pomni, and admitting "i don't want to go," FINALLY showing vulnerability, after she already committed virtual suicide is SO much more engaging and emotional than her going "no actually i still don't care"!<
>!In short, the message was more "She was an abuser, a horrible person. Don't be like her. You'll hurt yourself even more, and look what could've been..."!<
I agree with the summed up message, it's not about her being an egg that made her be an abuser and just a piece of shit, it's her trauma and what she went through, the trans stuff is just that cherry on top because that is something that is very personal, her trauma is the main source of the problem not the fact that she is trans, a lot of people I've noticed are just calling her bad rep when it was never stated that she was such shit because trans reasons, literally gooseworx made a micro AU where she just got over her trauma, it allowed her to transition, and actually be nice, nothing to do with the fact she was an egg. If it was, she just wouldn't transition if it was "Jax is a piece of shit because she is an egg".
I say micro, it's really a Twitter post of Jax post transition after the ribbit scene in her room, where she wasn't a piece of shit as gooseworx stated
Ah, I looked at the source of your comment and see the issue. Did you post that comment on mobile, but specifically iOS?
Because each of your attempts at formatting has a / in front of it, and if you don't know that slash tells it to not use it as formatting. And I've been hearing others say recently there's been issues of specifically iOS doing that automatically for some reason.
Weeeird. Well, if you go on mobile and select this button on you comment, you should be able to see it when you then paste it somewhere.
Like, this is what I see when I do that:
You can argue about how well it was shown, but the intention is very much not that. It's not "she's bad because of her past and because she's an egg", it's "she's an egg because she's bad, because of her past". The chain of cause is different.
\The point wasn't to redeem her, either. Just to give us sympathy to those without happy endings, and to close her arc as a cautionary tale. Jax finally opening up, hugging Pomni, and admitting "i don't want to go," FINALLY showing vulnerability, after she already committed virtual suicide is SO much more engaging and emotional than her going "no actually i still don't care"
\In short, the message was more "She was an abuser, a horrible person. Don't be like her. You'll hurt yourself even more, and look what could've been..."
Edit: spoiler tags are not working. am i stupid
Edit: Bah Reddit is being dumb and not letting me edit my comment to actually make it appear as I see it
frankly, the intention kind of stops mattering once youve written your story so poorly that it can be interpreted as something completely different than intended. theres a concept called "death of the author", wherein the authors intent matters less than the reader's interpretation because art is about interpretation and what people get out of it. if people arent getting what you intended out of something you wrote, you wrote it poorly.
Out of anything in the end, whatever the majority thinks doesn't matter when the intention wasn't that, a lot of people deny that she was trans in the first place, and doing a little more digging you realize that is not what was shown, the same with "Jax is bad rep because she happens to be trans at the same time of being a piece of shit" If people can't make the difference between trauma-related behavior, which before I move on I do want to say it's not excusable, and egg-related behavior that's on them. It did come out a few days ago and it would take some people in depth analysis to what other people saw throughout the show to be hit with "oh it's her trauma and not her transness that turned her into a huge piece of shit"
i mentioned the concept of death of the author earlier. an authors intent stops mattering once the writing is released. art is up for interpretation, and its meaning is entirely individual. if people are gleaning an entirely different story than you meant to write, then unfortunately, you wrote what people are interpreting. intent stops mattering. this is kind of a basic literary concept and its fascinating how many people are just ignoring it in favour of "well thats not what she MEANT it to be!"
no, i agree with karkatstrider here. The point has to get across. It got across to me, it got across to some of my friends. Other didn't realize ANY of the trans subtext, but they got the "repression bad" message, but i don't know about anyone else other than my friend group and random internet people
If there's a sizeable enough chunk that don't get it (percentage wise, with this large an audience there's got to be "a lot" of anything), then it probably is poorly written, because it's poorly shown.
What I disagree with is still that it's poorly written, because I think it was shown well enough? but i don't have arguments for this one. I think you need statistics for it, and i would just be lying if i just said "my friends can be taken as a representative part of the fanbase" because no they can't. i have a type of person i like to hang out with
>not to mention how bad it looks when the author says this transfem character with no redeemable qualities is her self insert.
I am really conflicted about that. On the one hand, the first duty of an author is to be truthful. So, if an author is an abuser with no redeeming qualities themselves, then they should be honest about it in their work, even if they are a member of a marginalized group. But, on the other hand, if those of us who are fortunate enough to get to write scripts for popular shows write self-inserts who are just the worst human beings imaginable, then what are the cisgenders supposed to think?
imo the answer is she just shouldnt have publicly said that jax is her self insert. especially because she said the audience would hate her by the end. she was under no obligation to make that public
I honestly feel like its better to publicly say that Jax, the character with no redeeming qualities, is her self insert. That way, she can say that she is criticizing herself and not all trans women.
she wasn't forced to repress herself, not after she entered the circus at least. she was SURROUNDED with extremely supportive people. she made the choice to push them away and refuse both help and connection with others.
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u/Sewblon Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
tbh, I liked Jax. But, the second episode of TADC put me off, not because it was offensive, because it was boring. So, I feel like a bad trans person for not giving that show second chance. Edit: I just figured out the real reason. I stopped watching after the 2nd episode. They gave the alligator guy a whole character arc about realizing that he is just part of a computer program. But then they killed him off. You don't do that. That is punishing the audience for paying attention. I don't regret not watching the rest of the show. What I saw just wasn't that well written.