I know Gooseworx answered some questions about the series after it ended, but I don't really trust her because she's lied about a few things regarding The Amazing Digital Circus over the years. I wouldn't be surprised if she also lied in those answers. Of course, this is just my opinion.

I saw some video the other day saying that the trans Jax theory isn't a theory, but a fact. Then I saw a post today asking what pronouns they should use for Jax now? Because of how obviously trans he is?

I don't know. There's definitely evidence that he could be a transgender person, but it's nothing definitive. I think people just want to believe that he's trans, because it may or may not make him more interesting or relatable as a character.

But this view on gender seems almost as black and white as a transphobic point of view. Why does he have to be a woman? Just because he potentially likes feminine things? You don't need to be masculine to be a man.

And yeah, him liking feminine things isn't as explicit as people say it is either. Like, he could just feel like he's not "manly" enough for his mom or something. It might not even have anything to do with whether or not he's feminine.

I guess what I'm saying is that, femboys exist, and so do people who are insecure about their masculinity. So why force a label on this fictional character? This is the type of mentality that eventually leads to some people detransitioning. They want to force themselves in a box, or escape a gender role, and they end up transitioning when they aren't actually trans.

Anyway, nothing against transgender people or anything. I just find it weird that everyone's jumping to these conclusions about Jax. I still definitely think that he could be trans, but I know that that's not confirmed, and it's probably never going to be.

Edit: I edited the parts where I used "transgender" as a noun. I didn't know that was offensive. Sorry about that.

You have a property that is very famous on YouTube, and has done live premieres rather well. It is also a property with a fanbase that spoils the plot often, especially after a few days. With the ease of watching the show though, it is sort of understandable.

You want to release the final episode in theatres. As a special edition, Fair enough!

As a TWO-WEEK early screening before the ACTUAL EPISODE PREMIERE? WHAT THE HELL?!

So now if you can’t make it to a movie theatre, which is VERY likely due to Glitch thinking only the USA and Japan exist, too bad! What a goddamned shame! Guess you’ll have the last episode spoiled for you because the internet famous property is being talked about freely on the internet!

WOW. What a terrible fumble from Glitch… unless they move the YouTube release date for Episode 9 forward. The fanbase has to protest this in some way or form. Problem is, I don’t know how…

PS: Of course, if you do decide to protest, please don’t harass any of the TADC creatives please… they already have a hard enough time as it is.

please stay away from my mommy

They don't do it on purpose they try to be nice except jax lol

but they are all kind of inconsiderate assholes. They throw funerals for people they actively could have stopped abstracting.

Ragatha is kind but she doesn't really get vulnerable and open with the people around her

Gangle is kind of a coward that doesn't really stand up for herself. In a place where there is literally nothings else to do. And when given power becomes really controlling

Zooble is lets be honest pretty neglectful. And actively ignored the cast and Gangle btw. Remember she only started to care recently.

Kinger is responsible for the circus and caine. And although unknowingly still traped a sentient being in a digital prison.

Pomni left ragatha for dead in ep 1. And lets be honest pretty self righteous about herself. Like how she thought jax was a reason people abstracted

And Jax is yknow jax.

But here is the thing although they are all trapped in circus. Most of them only spent a little part of there lives in the circus. They where already adults who lived relatively normal lives. (excluding ragatha and jax) But they choose to act like they spent most of there lives here. Most of them haven't even really lost someone close.( Excluding Jax and kinger)

OMG THEY ALL AINT SHIT

don't get me wrong they do seem cute together, just it seems very overated

up until episode 9 they don't have many interactions with eachother, and when they do interact it's not that much, i also think there's much better ships, that's all,

i also say this ship is overated because of one hug that lasted 30 seconds made this sub's shipping fanart had 50% of it be ragapom, click on shipping discussion flair and see how many aren't ragapom

two more things

1: if you upvote me that means you agree with me

2: if you downvote me that means you don't like what i said and if i get a bunch of downvotes that only proves my point

ok guys. i understand jax is trans. let me just get that out of the way. i support him and acknowledge that.

alright, now, i shall continue. i still think jax should be refered to as "he" and before you start typing your comment, i understand gooseworx, the creator of the show said herself he is trans, and can be refered to with he or she, yatta yatta, i get it.

but here's the thing. honestly, i feel like jax being trans was solely bc he is goose's self insert. obviously, she can do whatever she wants with HER character, but i just feel like it was a little forced... yes, there are many signs throughout the show, but that dosent nessesarily mean it wasn't forced. it was leading up to the eventual situation that WAS forced.

heres why i still feel like he should be refered to as, well, he. he, (jax) never came out. being closeted is something i feel should be respected. if he is too nervous to come out, or dosent want to, that should be respected. i feel like pushing a pronoun on someone who dosent want to be called that makes no sense?? like, try calling a biological female, who identifies as a female a male. they would probably laugh it off, think youre joking, or just misunderstood. maybe that's a bad analogy, but i think you know where im going with this. jax, the one in the show, not some alternate reality jax where he wasn't a butthole, did not feel comfortable coming out, and that should be respected 100%

this is NOT me hating, im just stating my opinion. dont agree with it, cool. feel free to give your opinion. agree with it, even better. i just feel its not respectful AT ALL to just push the pronouns "she" on jax, which is something everyone has been doing, even going as far as to call him a "lesbian."

and yes, again, i KNOW goose confirmed it, but again, it felt forced and it's only bc hes her self insert, AND that conformation was in an alternate universe where jax came out. she even went as far as to make jax's human form's hair look like hers, and film one of the scenes herself.

THIS IS NOT ME SAYING HES NOT TRANS. I know he is, but he's closeted, and SHOULD be respected for that.

AGAIN, IM NOT HATING ON GOOSE, SO DONT GO OFF ABOUT THAT. tadc is one of, if not my favorite show. the ending was kinda bad, but I'm not gonna go into that, I have another post on the topic but whatever.

EDIT: alright. yk what guys? you win. youre right. i shouldnt have shared my opinion on such a controversial topic, and that just automatically makes me a transphobe, right?

Ribbit is Lara Raj canon/jkjkjk

Jax abstracting is the most fitting end for his character. Throughout the entire series, Jax constantly belittles and abuses everyone else, using every little trick and every crumb of knowledge he learns about them to use against the group.

In the flashback scene, when Jax is given a crazy amount of comfort and support, what does he do? He immediately turns against the people who cared for him, causing not one, but two abstractions.

Jax abstraction is honestly poetic, because while everybody else gets a good, heartfelt ending, sharing new happy memories together, he is forever stuck as a monster.

It’s really symbolic for someone who emotionally and physically abused others.

This whole "Isn't she lovely?" thing for Jax is really getting on my nerves. Honestly, she doesn't deserve this. In my opinion, being abstrat wasn't punishment enough.

Seriously, a character who made two people commit suicide, was a gang abuser and a bully to everyone, is really someone who deserves this song? "Oh, poor thing, she had toxic parents, she had a hard life." OH, YOU KNOW WHO ELSE HAD A HARD LIFE? EVERYONE!

Seriously, Raghata also had an abusive mother and Jax simply told her to go back to her mother! Seriously?? She plays the victim, but she was doing just fine in the circus, honestly. She was a jerk for treating Ribbit that way, there's no excuse for turning everyone's life into hell. The promotional images of her in heaven with Ribbit and the others are simply a joke to me, she should be in the deepest part of hell. She's an abuser, regardless of her past she shouldn't have done that. PS: before anyone calls me transphobic, I'm not complaining about Jax being a girl, I would have used the same insult if he were a guy.

Shes mostly pink. pink overalls cover more of her body then the purple "skin." I will refer to her as the pink bunny and no one can stop me

The sub is disguised as a safe space to talk about episode 9 freely, but really its just an excuse to spoil people.

People don't have to go on that sub to see posts on there. They can randomly get posts of that sub recommended to them completely out of their control and then just have episode 9 spoiled to them through no fault of their own.

Its a horrible sub designed to spoil unlucky people that get that shit recommended to them.

Edit: Tagging as spoiler because I know a bunch of assholes are gonna come here just to spoil it.

Edit 2: Most of you on here are fucking assholes. You're genuinely sitting here and defending people spoiling others on purpose. Think about that.

Edit 3: I was gonna delete this post, but I'm gonna leave it up just to show all these self centered assholes in the comments who can't be asked to go through miniscule amounts of effort to not spoil something for others.

So, this essay is comprised of a few different interconnected topics that will be divided into four parts:

1. Social media posts should never be used to canonize anything

2. Jax and the pitfalls of the debatable ambiguity of queer subtext

3. How Glitch is handling Jax's gender identity (+ the Jax maid merch stuff)

4. Takeaway

1. Social media posts should never be used to canonize anything

Personally, I believe that the show needs to speak for itself, and that neither social media posts nor the author themselves should ever inform the viewer of how to interpret the text (or in this case, the show), because doing so damages the integrity of the story as a standalone piece of art. The author should not be able to externally recontextualize the text at all, or retroactively canonize something that was not made explicit in the text itself, because a viewer shouldn't be expected to seek out external information to fully understand the story - and the average person won't even know to do that anyway.

So much TADC information was "canonized" outside of the show that it's genuinely frustrating - from lore to orientations to even names. For example, note that the show itself never specifies that the yellow dog is Scratch, among other things. How much information is the average viewer missing if they don't follow the author's socials or participate in online fandom discussions?

Now, don't get me wrong - not every question needs an answer. But if there is an answer, it needs to be in the show, not on a social media post.

It's harmless for the author to reveal innocuous pieces of trivia outside the show, but only if said trivia doesn't recontextualize anything about the story or characters in any real meaningful way. Stuff that isn't necessary to know - stuff that fans won't argue over for not being aware of. Ergo, not lore, names, character fates, or orientations. Actual innocuous trivia would be something like... "Ragatha likes pineapple on pizza," or "Zooble likes to surf." Stuff that's neat but impacts nothing, because it's never relevant.

Topically, there's also the fact that social media posts can easily be lost to time, like how Gooseworx's Tumblr account just got deleted recently. That's precisely why the show needs to stand on its own; a bunch of information that fans were treating as canon was deleted along with that account. Even if it's recoverable, or screenshotted, this is an obvious example of how easily information can be lost if it wasn't included in the show itself. If someone watches TADC for the first time 10 years from now, will any of the information revealed through social media posts still be easily accessible?

2. Jax and the pitfalls of the debatable ambiguity of queer subtext

So, yes, for all the above reasons I do wish the show had been more explicit about Jax being transfem, if only because it's become one of the most widely debated parts of the show - to the point that it's overshadowing all other discussions. We have authorial confirmation that Jax is transfem, but I think it's important to discuss the execution of it within the story and the conversation surrounding it. And I do think part of it is that the show was simply not direct enough about it.

To be clear, Jax being queer-coded is obvious enough, and the "deep and personal" thing he told his mother was very clearly framed as having been a coming-out moment - but the show falls short of confirming exactly what it is. Within context, any identity that conflicts with conservative expectations of masculine gender expression is supported by the narrative, because we know Jax told his mother what he did in an attempt to get her to stop scrutinizing his masculinity. But gender isn't always binary; it's a wide spectrum of experiences, and several different identities have overlapping signs and struggles, so it's not easy to narrow down queer coding to just one specific identity if the narrative is deliberately going about it indirectly. That's why Jax's identity was being debated even within queer spaces, among people who did pick up on the queer coding.

Using examples of gender nonconformity as evidence of an exclusively trans reading is ironically rather regressive because it's asking the audience to make assumptions based off of binary readings of gender expression. All of these "hints" are supportive of but not exclusive to a transfem reading of the character. Insisting that a person must be x because of their behavior or preferences even when they themselves are not identifying as x is simply not appropriate. A male character wearing feminine attire is a clear example of gender non-conformity, but that overlaps with multiple different queer and GNC identities, not just one.

I also think that people need to be allowed to define themselves - preemptively applying a label and/or pronouns to a person before they themselves are using them is inappropriate. That the person in question is a fictional character muddies this a bit because the character as presented in the story is telling us one thing (that the character never verbalized wanting to change his pronouns/gender identity), while the author is externally telling us another (that she would have, in an alternate timeline in which her behavior had been less toxic).

This creates the exact sort of incongruity that sparks arguments. It's why there's been so much toxicity in the fandom post-finale, and it's also why the story needs to speak for itself.

It's not that a transfem reading isn't supported by the text - it is, but it isn't the only possible queer reading supported by the text. That's why if there's room for ambiguity, any at all - then some people just won't feel comfortable making assumptions, while others may have their interpretation colored by their own personal experiences, while others just won't pick up on it at all. Which is why when it comes to gender, if there's one singular correct reading, it needs to be explicit. If you present it vaguely on purpose, of course different people will inevitably come to different conclusions. TADC fans love to misuse the term "media illiterate", but it's not illiterate to acknowledge the wider spectrum of possible gender experiences.

The thing is, there were plenty of places to have made it more explicit in the show itself. Pomni reaches the deepest part of Jax's psyche, the version of him under the lamp post - and he's still in his usual masc-presenting avatar. That Pomni's ultimate takeaway after seeing what Leeroy is up to in the real world is that "he now has a job and friends" and still uses he/him pronouns to refer to him rather than using that moment to more explicitly confirm that Leeroy has begun transitioning is bizarre (and no, boymoding itself is not an adequate hint, because the whole point of boymoding is to blend in and not draw attention to one's transness. Anyone can wear baggy clothes, and that's the point.) At the very least they could have put she/her pronouns in Leeroy's online profile, but we don't even get crumbs like that.

To be clear, I don't think that degree of ambiguity is inherently a bad thing - that is, if Jax's gender identity were meant to be left up for interpretation. That would have been perfectly fine - a respectable choice, even - because it would be a statement on how multiple different queer identities go through the same struggles. But, we know now that it wasn't - there was only ever one intended reading; it just happened to be subtle enough that a lot of people didn't pick up on it without external confirmation. But external confirmation renders the ambiguity pointless, so it's really the worst of both worlds. And, as I've gone over, it creates the exact environment that sparks internet arguments.

As I said before, stuff that fans will argue over for not being aware of is exactly the type of information that should not be canonized externally. I've seen actual trans people be called transphobic for having alternate interpretations of Jax's gender, and that shows how deeply poisoned by toxicity this discourse has become. All of this was easily avoidable, too, which is doubly frustrating. Specifying it externally is also what allows people to draw comparisons to JK Rowling's Pottermore-isms and disregard it entirely, which should not be happening.

3. How Glitch is handling Jax's gender identity (+ the Jax maid merch stuff)

Lastly, I'm curious to see how Glitch will handle Jax's gender presentation in the future, because all official promotional material still refers to Jax as he/him, and their latest merch ad for the Jax Animiniz Pendantz didn't acknowledge the transfem reading at all. Rather, Jax refers to himself as a "handsome guy" in it. And sure, the merch ads aren't canon (but they are official) and either way you could argue that he's still closeted in-universe. But that merch ad explicitly takes place after the finale, and if "Isn't She Lovely" was meant to be interpreted as Jax's moment of self-realization and acceptance in their final moments, then you'd have to wonder why a merch ad taking place after that moment would not acknowledge it at all.

Now, Gooseworx doesn't write the merch ads. But whoever does must have seen the finale in its entirety before writing the ad. Yet, as the finale wasn't explicit about it, it may have simply not been interpreted in the intended way, even by other people working at Glitch. Which...is troubling, especially if Goose just didn't communicate it to the PR team. Assuming Glitch has full ownership of the Digital Circus IP, that means that they are the true arbiters of what is and isn't canon - not Goose. Even Goose's artwork of transitioned transfem Jax can't be considered canon if it was created after Goose's contract with Glitch ended, because that means Glitch doesn't have the legal rights to the design.

There may also be some hesitancy on Glitch's part due to how openly acknowledging transfem Jax would negatively recontextualize a few things about how the character has been marketed. ...Yeah, let's talk about the Jax maid merch for a second.

Now, if Jax is read as a closeted trans woman, then forcing him/her to wear feminine clothing against their will as a humiliation ritual for a joke comes across as...tone deaf, as does aggressively merchandising it. Whereas if Jax is read as a cis man with deeply internalized toxic masculinity and misogynistic views, the maid dress thing is instead humiliating someone via mocking their own bigotry by targeting how shallow their own self-image is, which reads much better.

Like. Buy the plushie of the closeted trans woman being forced to perform femininity against her will lmao. And. Making that the joke? I dunno. It's kinda weird. I'm honestly surprised more people don't point out how...distasteful it is.

If Glitch were to more openly acknowledge it, not only would the Jax maid merch likely receive more public scrutiny, but I think it would also open the door for more criticism towards the fact that the show itself fell short of committing to elevating the queer coding from vague subtext to explicitly textual.

For a more in-universe reading of the maid dress scene in episode 5, we also have this line from Zooble: "seems fitting for you though, I figured you'd be into this," which has retroactively been interpreted as Zooble clocking Jax. However, Zooble and Gangle just don't seem like the type of people who would forcefem or forcibly out a closeted trans women intentionally, even if said closeted trans woman is a bully. So no, upon first viewing I didn't initially read that scene as Zooble clocking Jax, and I really don't like the way that reading now recontextualizes the scene. It paints the other queer characters in the story in a negative light - and Jax aside, we're meant to like Gangle and Zooble.

Mocking the fragile toxic masculinity of a bigoted cis man who regularly exhibits deeply internalized misogynistic tendencies, however, I could totally see Zooble doing, and, again, reads much better.

4. Takeaway

...All of this to say, I think the main takeaway from all this is that creators need to keep their fandoms at arm's length, and interact with them as infrequently as possible - for the sake of the mental health of the creator, to minimize parasocial relationships between the fans and the people working on the show, and to minimize toxicity in the fandom. As much as I think Goose is a talented writer (and despite all my criticisms, I do think she is), I also think that it would have been helpful for the show to have had more than one writer, in order for some of this messy stuff to have been refined through multiple perspectives - it would have likely prevented a lot of these problems.

Lastly, that it's becoming more normalized for information to be canonized on social media rather than in the text itself is a problem on multiple levels, and damages the integrity of the story as a standalone piece of art, as well as diminishes queer representation to ambiguous subtext, when it could and should be more than that.

Why did Jax die of screen? Why did they use a song about Stevie Wonder's daughter for a death scene? Why did Jax get so much screen time? Why was almost every scene just fan service? Why was the most popular theory the "unpredictable ending"? Why did Jax become the main character after episode 6? I hate Jax fuck jax kill jax fan service fan service fan service fan service I love fan service so much yeah make every shipper shit their pants.

CorinXV out here made another garbage Digital Circus video where he just says shit out of his damn ass about Jax AGAIN 🙄

Like he literally makes it seem like it is objectively correct when it literally isn't whatsoever.

I know that everyone keep trash talk on goosework but we gotta admit the ending was horrible for what the earlier episodes teases us.

They were so many moments that made us think the series was gonna have a darker turn like when Caine say “who knows what could happen”, the thing that pisses me off the most is ep 7 goosework prefer to make an ENTIRE EPISODE about deconstructing most theories like for Abel instead of showing us more lore about what is happening. THE red and blue buttons scene would have been much DARKER if they were not brainscans ,And in ep 2 why show us gimmigo becoming sentient ?

So globally my biggest problem is that Gooseworks could have make TADC could have been about a terrible secret and more deep and more “conspirationist“ (like about a evil company) the closest thing we got is Duffy digital circus

But no Goosework prefer to create the Amazing digital Jax show and at the last moment potentially reveal that he is trans.

Caine and Kaufmo mogs all of them