polkadotjellyfish

[polkadotjellyfish]

I’ve seen a lot of people talking about this so I just wanted to add my two cents.

Jax, “The Funny One” vs Violence

Some people are noticing a dissonance between how Jax is trying to portray himself, as the funny one, versus his clear inclination toward violence. Even Pomni asks if he’s taking on being “the villain.”

This dichotomy was intentional.

Being “funny” is what works in a cartoon setting. It’s a safe role. But in a world without consequences, violence can equate to humor.

However, his encouragement of Pomni to let go of her humanity suggests that his harmful tendencies aren’t consciously a part of the role he plays.

Acting the comedian is a common real-life coping mechanism to stressful situations. Being a role he likely took on long before he joined the circus, it fit like a glove.

But along with this new mentality, that they are no longer even “human,” he starts falling into behaviors that dehumanize himself and others.

His behavior lacks humanity.

It was an intentional write — he lets go of his complex human personality for “the archetype” to survive. But he yearns for more, he can’t flatten himself into a character because he’s a person. He fills the empty depth by feeding deeper into the notion that they aren’t humans.

His taking on of the funny persona came from his need to let go his humanity. His relinquishment of his humanity made him violent. His aggression is a symptom of his attempted self-dehumanization.

He doesn’t TOTALLY lack his human side. There are attempts to separate himself from his humanity as much as possible, but it isn’t something you can easily rid yourself of without going insane.

He only seems perfect in his role before becoming friends with Pomni. In his success at distancing himself from the others, he lets his guard down. Pomni walks past his defenses easily.

You can SEE his humanity come back because of her. He instantly apologizes for shooting her. His facade breaks, his character breaks.

It’s instinct for him once he’s made a friend. He can be a good friend. It humanizes him, though. Thats why he tries to hard to distance himself from the others.

He realized he was getting too close with Pomni too late. He was allowing himself to feel human without even realizing it. It scared him.

He tried to yank himself back.

But he unintentionally subjected himself to the psychological torture that he knew made others abstract.

His friendship with Pomni was so real, that — paired with the absurd and terrifying circus setting — made clear to him a juxtaposition that highlighted the brutal fact that they are trapped in this circus. They can’t be fully human. No matter how badly they want to leave, no matter how human they are, no matter how wrong it is to be stuck here, they are forced to be characters in this environment.

He cannot be “just an archetype.” No matter how hard he tries, he cannot own that role. He doesn’t have a choice in this, none of them do. They are all humans forced to be characters in the digital circus. This disjunction breeds the hopelessness that causes abstraction.

The gap between their human selves and the circus feels like an unbearable distance. Them being so close to humanity that they’re aware of it, but so far that they know they’ll never truly reach it, they’re just being deprived of it.

He was brutally reminded of this when he befriended Pomni.

After everything, his bonding with Pomni and his efforts to sustain his own sanity, he ended up alone.

[polkadotjellyfish]

some of the comments on my censorship post are like “um I think books should be rated like movies because some books feature stuff like gang rape that teens shouldn’t be allowed read”

ok. now imagine being a librarian and looking a teenager who’s been gang raped in the eye and saying “oops, sorry, can’t allow you to read this one, it’s for big kids and you’re not ready for it”

[polkadotjellyfish]

You become at least 1% more patient I think when you remember that literally nothing is obvious. Nothing.

[polkadotjellyfish]

The UK government did an investigation into the porn sites that haven't yet implemented the age verification measures and they...I shit you not, they published a list. A LIST of all the porn sites. That you can still access without having to verify your age. They made a government employee make a list of all the porn sites and check if they have age verification and then they published a list of those that don't. For all the public to read.

[polkadotjellyfish]

“do you think my abusive partner can change” yeah man you know I’ve heard some stories where these dudes received massive traumatic brain injuries and it knocked the hatefulness clean out of them. my grandpa with Alzheimer’s brain is slowly dissolving and he’s nice now. if you want him to change you’re going to have to beat him within an inch of his life with a brick or wait 50 years for him to develop dementia. I think the better option is leaving.

[polkadotjellyfish]

i know that “don’t harass people for being weird, they might be autistic!” is a fairly popular take on here. but as a Certified Autist, i’d like to add that harassing allistic and/or neurotypical people for being weird is also bad, and should not be done

and before you come in with “yeah, you never know who is and isn’t autistic, and you shouldn’t force people to out themselves!” i want to say two things: one, i agree. and two, even if you could magically avoid ever harassing a single autistic person, it still wouldn’t be okay to go after NTs for being weird. they’re people, janice. they’re allowed to be really invested in naruto

[polkadotjellyfish]

DC Pride #1 - "Master Planner" (2025)

written by Jenny Blake art by Sara Soler

[polkadotjellyfish]

[polkadotjellyfish]

Ok so, I just remembered how people in the comments of a tiktok video were being assholes, and I want to rant now :3

The video showed two wheelchair users at a train(?), who had just arrived to their stop to find nobody was there with a ramp so they could leave the train. One of them blocked the door so it wouldn't close, and this lasted for 15 minutes. The train was stopped for said 15 minutes. There was a button by the door, that said that it'd contact the driver when pressed. It didn't. People offered to go find the driver, and they came back with the news that there were no people in the platform to put the ramp. In the end, passengers had to go out, and place the ramp themselves, before the train could carry on. The wheelchair users had warned they were coming, and asked to have the ramp put there so they could get down. The platform turned out to have workers, they all just ran away because they'd never encountered the situation in which they needed to do this simple task.

Because of the workers' negligence, the train was forced to stop for 15 minutes.

Everyone's comments?

"Why did they block the doors and stop the train? So selfish" Selfish were workers who refused to do their job.

"What if someone had needed to get to their stop urgently? They shouldn't have stopped the train" It wasn't the disabled people's fault, it was the workers who were negligent.

"Why didn't they just wheel themselves down those steps?" They shouldn't have to risk their (expensive) chairs just because people didn't do what they were paid to do.

"If I had been in that train I would've been pissed, how dare you stop it" And you probably wouldn't have even thought about fixing the problem yourself, would you?

"Entitled assholes" Ok I'll leave you stranded in a train with everyone who could help you get down outright refusing to. Let's see who's an entitled asshole now.

If someone fights for accessibility, as much as it might be a bother for you, you do not have the right to be mad at them. If someone fights for accessibility, it is exclusively the fault of a world catered exclusively for able-bodied people.

So next time you think, "hey the consequences of these disabled people fighting for their rights bother me", instead of blaming them for this, help them solve the issue. This way, next time they will not have to fight at all.

Able bodied people, go out and fight for a fucking accessible world if you're not an asshole.

[ Able-bodied people are encouraged to reblog this post, but try not to derail ]

[polkadotjellyfish]

I WORKED FOR THIS.

[polkadotjellyfish]

That post about 1960s housewives watching Amok Time and opening their eyes and this passage from “True Love,” one of the Searoad stories by Ursula K Le Guin (noted author and 1960s housewife)

“Do you like science fiction?” I asked her, because all I can really talk about is books. And of course, she couldn’t talk about books. That had been knocked out of her years ago. We compromised on “Star Trek,” new and old. She liked the new series as well as the old one. I liked the old one better. Antal stared, not at Rosemarie, only at  me. “You watch it?” he said. “You watch television?”

I didn’t answer. Books were all Antal and I had in common, except a bit of sex and heroism. Whereas Rosemarie and I had everything in common, even Antal—everything except books. I was not going to let him try to shame us for our commonness.

“The one I liked best was the one where Mr. Spock had to go home because he was in heat,” I said to her.

“Except, he never, you know,” she said. “They just had a fight over the girl, him and Captain Kirk, and then they left.”

“That’s his pride,” I said, obscurely. I was thinking how Mr. Spock was never unbuttoned, never lolled, kept himself shadowy, unfulfilled, and so we loved him. And poor Captain Kirk, going from blonde to blonde, would never understand that he himself loved Mr. Spock truly, hopelessly, forever.

“Truly, hopelessly, forever.” GIRL?

[polkadotjellyfish]

What i wouldn't give for the guts to paint this on a wall irl

[polkadotjellyfish]

[polkadotjellyfish]

I love when I’m watching a tv show that’s supposed to show me something futuristic and sci fi and it’s just this stuff glued to something else

Like you can’t fool me. That’s my friend the tube. We are well acquanted

[polkadotjellyfish]

that is the nastiest water, i have no idea how any of them willingly swim in it