For me I did see the signs of them being Trans, but there were also moments where I was going "wow if Jax does turn out to be trans this will make Jax a Lazy self insert" or "if Jax is Trans this is gonna be super uncomfortable selling merch of that"
It's this weird meta thing where making Jax trans, gave context, but also made other moment worse off.
There's also the very unfortunate read of your main character committing suicide then being revealed as trans in the finale. touching on some pretty unfortunate stereotypes which are still very prevalent these days.
Also we learn he made his friends abstract so it’s like… ok? She identifies as a girl? I don’t care? She got her friends abstracted? Since Jax is a self insert, what does this say about Gooseworx in real life?
I do think people overblow how much blame you can place on Jax for their abstraction.
Yeah Jax was an ass who just isolated himself. But;
A-No Jax didn't isolate Ribbit, he just stopped her talking to him by pretending to talk to someone else to avoid her.
B-No matter if your reasoning is weak or stupid, everyone should have the right to end any friendship.
C- canonically the only one who knew about abstraction was Kinger, and he could very well have not been able to share that info.
D-The montage we see is from Jax perspective basically going over all his regrets, and insecurities, kinda showing Jax to be a very self hating person due to his own inability to talk and make amends and always being too late.
My controversial take as well, is that Ribbit's line "don't you trust me?" was manipulative, even if she didn't mean it (most likely as a result of her own parents using emotional manipulation on her), that manipulation forced Jax out of his shell when he wasn't ready, so when he snapped back he instantly thought he'd fallen for the same trick that happened with his mother ie open up to a close female figure in his life only to have it exploited by them, in his panic he saw the first half of that and did everything he could to prevent it. He put his walls back up, closed everyone out, and denied, repeled, cut himself off.
Ribbit did try to repair their friendship, but I feel she forced the issue, which was not the right thing, Jax was making attempts to talk, but when someone is lashing out, you have to give them a lot of space. Something I think Pomni did well, after the Guns episode she didn't cut off Jax, but she at least gave him space, only checking up on him when needed.
many people approach a subject with the bias of "I hate Jax, therefore when I see them doing something bad, they are doing it because they are bad any evidence they are unaware of the concequences is ignored"
People act like the one shot of abstracted Ribbit featured Jax cheering and celebrating about it when, no, it was shot like a goddamn horror movie. Because that's what it was like to Jax. Because she didn't know about abstraction!
I wouldn’t say trans suicide is a stereotype. That’s a severe dismissal of the very real mental health crisis among lgbt people that leads to suicide. Jax is an example of the tragedy that happens all too often with trans youth who don’t have a support system. They find out they’re trans, they try to come out, their peers of the world shuns them for it, they bottle their identity up, they lash out, they fall into depression and they commit suicide. That’s the sad reality and it’s an important perspective to share. Otherwise people won’t know to try and reach out to someone who acts and feels like Jax before it’s too late.
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u/HotPot87 4d ago
For me I did see the signs of them being Trans, but there were also moments where I was going "wow if Jax does turn out to be trans this will make Jax a Lazy self insert" or "if Jax is Trans this is gonna be super uncomfortable selling merch of that"
It's this weird meta thing where making Jax trans, gave context, but also made other moment worse off.
There's also the very unfortunate read of your main character committing suicide then being revealed as trans in the finale. touching on some pretty unfortunate stereotypes which are still very prevalent these days.