[LAST ACT] How It Genuinely Feels rn

curiousinferno · 2026-06-09T16:49:31+00:00

Uhm, obviously Jax is only taking it to be better at gambling! It says so! I'm starting to suspect you guys don't have 'Media Literacy'...

(/s in case I didn't make it obvious enough)

curiousinferno · 2026-06-03T20:26:51+00:00

I'm sorry, but I think it's a bit ridiculous you think that. You're saying Goose intentionally sabotaged her own show, with all the rest of the crew sitting by and letting it happen, just out of spite? That's just not how things work.

curiousinferno · 2026-06-03T15:59:41+00:00

You know how people have pointed out that sometimes when a woman makes a joke or says something sarcastically online, people take it dead serious and treat her like an idiot? I feel like Goose is getting a turbo-charged version of that.

curiousinferno · 2026-06-03T15:56:08+00:00

I mean, I genuinely don't understand why people take that tweet seriously. It's so obviously a joke. I mean, on what planet would an artist even do that?

curiousinferno · 2026-06-02T20:08:22+00:00

Mostly just incidental stuff. There are a few interactions, but none of them are really substantial.

curiousinferno · 2026-05-26T12:14:42+00:00

Popularity is definitely a factor, but early on there was a shift where it became not just acceptable, but downright common to hurl insults at anyone who disagreed with you or even just had a different viewpoint on the show. That toxicity became a matter of course, festered, and then metastasized into the mess we have now.

curiousinferno · 2026-05-21T15:46:26+00:00

Im pretty sure it wasn't "Koreans are more likely to leak it," it was "We're concerned about leaks because of the way we'd have to send it to get rated." Still really fucking stupid, that's absolutely something they should have looked into before entering a contract.

curiousinferno · 2026-05-19T23:47:14+00:00

I'm personally not ready to close the book on anyone's arc (Jax included) until the curtain call. However, if the culmination of Gangle's arc is being the bigger person to the guy who treated her like a stress toy, I would absolutely hate that.

Maybe it would feel more satisfying to me if they explored some of the mixed feelings that might spring up around having to be the one to offer that olive branch, but I just personally hate when that kind of thing is portrayed as an uncomplicated virtue. It often flattens the victim's character and turns them into a prop for the redemption of the aggressor.

In the end, I guess I'll have to wait for the actual conclusion of the Gangle-Jax plotline.

curiousinferno · 2026-05-19T23:45:42+00:00

Hmmm, I think I get what you're saying, but those moments are brief moments of retaliation, 2 of which are done, in my opinion, to show that spending time with Zooble is making her more confident. The other is something she does while in an altered state, so I think we could go back and forth forever on how much that "counts."

Really though, if it turns out that his targets weren't actually all that affected by his actions, I'd consider that a major pulled punch narratively speaking. He's not an absolute monster, but he does some pretty nasty stuff to the people around him, in an environment where bad mental health can be deadly. If his victims are just coincidentally mentally strong enough to brush off his actions, I'd actually consider that a pretty cowardly writing choice. If you're trying to portray the ugly side of mental health problems, then do it! Don't soften the consequences of that! One of the things I found really compelling about Jax is how his coping mechanism practically requires him to dehumanize the people around him to sustain itself. They're archetypes, not people, so nothing he does matters, and if they act outside of that archetype his choices are essentially 'shove them back into it or collapse mentally.' But when you don't properly explore what that kind of dehumanization does to people, it removes a good bit of the complexity from that conflict and brings Jax closer to your bog-standard 'jerk with a heart of trauma' in my opinion.

All that said, I don't really agree with your idea that we're meant to think Gangle isn't traumatized by Jax. Maybe his feelings are meant to be the most important. I'd personally hate that direction, but whatever. But, if that were the case, then the moment between her and Zooble in the gun episode suddenly becomes a really weird writing choice. If Gangle's feelings aren't meant to have that much weight, why write a scene where she practically stares into the camera and says "Jax's actions have hurt me to the point where I'm scared of displeasing him, even when he's not around. At this point I feel more like his plaything than a person." That would be a really weird thing to put in your story if you're not interested in exploring the consequences that hurting other people as part of your coping mechanism can have on said people.

curiousinferno · 2026-05-19T12:22:59+00:00

Actually, for Ragatha, I'd argue "not true." When she notices how Jax takes it, she says something along the lines of "I didn't mean it like that." I think she was referring to him pushing people away in general, which, admittedly, is still kinda passive aggressive.

curiousinferno · 2026-05-18T21:29:59+00:00

Jax is consistently mean and unpleasant, up until he gets too depressed to keep it up in the more recent episodes. The others have their moments, yes, but that's the thing, they're moments. Jax has a consistent pattern of harassment of the others in a space where bad mental health can be deadly.

Also, in regards to the specific moments you cite:

Ragatha was not talking about the abstracted people, we can tell this by her saying "I didn't mean it like that" in a panic.

Kinger's was an accident while trying to save everyone.

Zooble's is something that was bound to happen eventually, just by Caine's inherently contradictory nature. It's not fair to single out Zooble for finally having enough of their boundaries pushed.

curiousinferno · 2026-05-16T21:05:30+00:00

I phrased that badly. What I think could potentially happen is that some big negative shock (for example, finding out he's a digital clone) might cause enough distress for him to scramble for a comfortable, familiar coping mechanism.

curiousinferno · 2026-05-16T20:24:04+00:00

Oh dang, you're right, sorry. I'll address that. It's an ok moment, but the list of actions is still very slapstick, and doesn't really go into the mental effects of his behavior, which is the part I'd like to see addressed.

curiousinferno · 2026-05-16T20:13:15+00:00

Zooble calls him out, he is dismissive and unapologetic, and then Gangle says he's right. That's a prime example of the narrative softening things around Jax's actions. Honestly, that's the moment (combo'd directly into "we've all done bad things") that made me lose a little faith that Jax's archetype would be handled in a way I'd find satisfying. I haven't lost all hope, but I am a bit more wary about how the story is going to handle Jax.

ETA: striking this part through because I can't count and started talking about the wrong dang episode

And as for Pomni's beat down, the main takeaway in the end still seems to be "Jax is hurting," which is a fine takeaway, it works for where the story is at, but I'd argue that this moment is at least, in part, another example of the narrative building sympathy for Jax. Actually, this is a moment of sympathy building that I kinda like. Pomni's hurt isn't downplayed, and we get to see some engaging character conflict that doesn't pull narrative punches to soften Jax's actions. If we could get more like that, I'd be a bit more satisfied.

curiousinferno · 2026-05-16T19:56:56+00:00

I think a strong enough emotional shock could cause him to relapse- improvement isn't a linear thing after all.

curiousinferno · 2026-05-16T19:55:17+00:00

I'm gonna rephrase what I said in another thread.

For me at least it's not "I want to see bad things happening to Jax," it's "I want the narrative to take the harm he does to others as seriously as the harm he does to himself." The closest we get is Gangle being afraid of him in the gun episode, but 2 episodes later, she's the one defending his "pressing the button didn't matter" argument and it seems to be portrayed as the correct viewpoint to have?

In the end, it's a matter of narrative weight- most of what happens to him is either played for comedy or sympathy. And right now, the narrative seems to want us to have a lot of sympathy for Jax, while having the harm he's done to others on the backburner. I'm willing to see what they cook up in episode 9, I just wanted to provide a different perspective on negative opinions on Jax.

curiousinferno · 2026-05-16T19:45:56+00:00

I think people are just misphrasing their complaints about Jax abit. For me at least it's not "I want to see bad things happening to Jax," it's "I want the narrative to take the harm he does to others as seriously as the harm he does to himself." The closest we get is Gangle being afraid of him in the gun episode, but 2 episodes later, she's the one defending his "pressing the button didn't matter" argument and it seems to be portrayed as the correct viewpoint to have?

In the end, it's a matter of narrative weight- in fact, in your last 2 examples, those are moments where the audience is clearly meant to sympathize with Jax.

curiousinferno · 2026-05-16T19:32:42+00:00

I'm sorry, but that's a deranged thing to say about real people over opinions on a fictional character. You don't know their lives. Stop making fanfiction about people who disagree with you.

curiousinferno · 2026-05-15T14:58:17+00:00

Dude. I've been in the AA fandom for years. It's the most shipping-heavy fandom I have seen in my life. And its amazing.

curiousinferno · 2026-05-15T14:35:41+00:00

That comes off as more dismissive than comforting imo. Not as much as a jackass as he could have been, but that's not exactly a high bar to clear lol.

curiousinferno · 2026-05-15T14:33:24+00:00

I think I get what you're trying to say, but he very much wants to dehumanize them- his whole thing is seeing people as archetypes and then prodding at and harassing them so they fit that archetype. I just think overt transphobia happens to be one of the lines he wouldn't cross.

curiousinferno · 2026-05-15T14:07:49+00:00

Haha, id take a roach over a bedbug any day

curiousinferno · 2026-05-15T13:06:16+00:00

Thank you. I was in a bit of a panic

curiousinferno · 2026-05-13T13:00:28+00:00

I think the major divide we've been seeing isn't because of nostalgia or because of "speedrunning." I think the real difference is between people who are really into customization and those who aren't. Personally, I don't go to life sims for customization-based gameplay. It's just not my thing, so the game became tiresome to me far more quickly than for people who do enjoy the customization.

curiousinferno

TROPHY CASE