This brazilian prog rock band, called Papangu, has just released Celestial, their third album. Heavily influenced by 70's prog rock, but also merging elements of brazilian popular music with extreme metal influences. As someone who thinks that Heritage feels kinda dull, this album encapsulates the vibe that Opeth tried to achieve at the time, imho.
You can still have and share your opinions, art is made to be appreciated and discussed, but this doesn't give you the right to be an asshole and to shit on other communities.
Some of these were just some kind of montage, others were actual drawings that I made. I have other crossovers planned, but I am taking suggestions too
Rewatching ep 5, I realised that, although Gangle called the vote, you can clearly see Zooble whispering something on her ear. Probably during the lightning round everybody could call only one vote, and Zooble had already used their to make Jax a vegan, then she suggested the ideia to Gangle, so they could use her vote callout to make fun of Jax (and hitting her where it hurted)
TL;DR: I mistakenly thought that I already knew everything that I had to know about the character by episode 6, and basically reduced her to a Shinji Ikari, with the whole hedgehog dilemma situation.
Even though not a single soul asked for my opinion, I felt like writing about Jax being actually a trans girl and giving my two cents about this reveal too. First of all, I am cis straight man and my knowledge around the whole trans universe is really hollow, so a lot of the terms and metaphors that I stumbled upon, while reading posts around social media, were all new to me, like the “Egg” or the name of the transition stage for the androgynous-esque look that Leroy had on the last scene (that, while writing this post, I completely forgot the term, sorry).
With that out of the way, I actually want to begin with the last episode, because it’s where I think that I should’ve noticed it more easily. On the scene with the Jaxes door, that “only girls allowed” thing just completely flew over my head, since it was Maid Jax that said it I was like: “yeah, he’s just being a complete agent of chaos, even at the end, as usual”. Later, we have that incredible flashback sequence with Ribbit and Kaufmo and the bedroom scene. I have to be completely honest with ya’ll: as soon as I saw that round bed, how Ribbit was looking at Jax, that whole vibe, the dim lightning and the performance of her brazilian voice actress, the first thing that my monkey brain came up with was sex. I’m only human, after all. Instead, we had this incredible dialogue sequence, where Jax opens up for Ribbit.
As I heard Jax’s story all that I could see was actually someone really insecure with their own masculinity, which is something that I found relatable at some point. There are things that I like to do and like to consume that aren’t considered “manly”. I also feel really insecure and sad at times, but the world always teaches us to “be a man”, swallow everything up, and godspeed you. When the “something really personal” came up, I believed that after everything that he had to go through (like constantly being assigned as the man of the house or the comparisons that an ex-wife, that clearly didn’t accept the divorce, always did to his father), Leeroy would say how she hated that treatment. I have a friend with a really narcissistic mother, so I know how venting like this to the wrong person can turn anything into a hell on Earth. When Ribbit said that Jax's secret was safe with her and offered her bowtie, again, I saw that as just a metaphor for sex, but this time in a more poetic way. She was just exposed for Jax, showing her vulnerability, but didn’t care because she trusted that bunny, and for a brief moment Jax trusted her as well. Sex is trust, exposing yourself to another one like this is an act performed after building a solid trust, just like telling how you really feel to another person. Jax “fumbling” was just another thing that actually dialogued with his fear with being betrayed, as seen on his torture on episode 8, and to my early interpretations as I watched on theaters.
I gotta admit that I don’t use to listen to Stevie Wonder, so that scene with Pomni and Jax at the end was actually my first contact with “Isn’t She Lovely” (beautiful song, btw). English isn’t my native language either and the audio system of my theaters were really poor (the audio was literally crackling at some moments), so I barely heard the verse and I wasn’t able to understand anything else. So, when I heard the “Isn’t she lovely” verse, I actually thought it was a reference to Pomni herself, because… well, she is lovely! This girl went through thick and thin and almost abstracted too just for that purple thing, calling her “lovely” is the bare minimum. I also never watched that movie that the tent for abstracted Jax referenced, so I would never guess. Also, Leeroy look on the end was obviously an androgynous look, but I just interpreted it as an emo and called it a day. I didn’t know that the hoodie and long hair was also a reference to a stage of MtF transition.
Now, backtracking to earlier episodes, I always understood those masculinity reassurance discourse as just him mocking the others. I have to admit that the reaction with the Maid Outfit and her pink room was just ignored by me, I dunno why, maybe I thought that it was just Goose messing with us. Then we had the Jax breakdown on episode 6, that was the main responsible for my early interpretations on the character: as soon as I saw Jax just basically trying to gaslight Pomni into believing that nothing was true and used the little fetus in an egg metaphor after realizing that lying wouldn’t work, I associated with Shinji, from Evangelion. Another character that fears getting attached to someone and end up losing them or getting hurt by them.
And here goes my brutal opinion, that I fear that might get me stoned, but part of me didn’t want to believe that those insufferable fans from Twitter were right. When I reached my male vulnerability interpretation I thought to myself: “I appreciate that Goose didn’t go for the most obvious route and explored this theme”. So when I saw her post on Bluesky revealing that Jax was actually a trans woman, I dunno, a little part of me felt…betrayed? Maybe I related a little bit too much with my own headcannon, but, hey, that’s the magic of art, right?
So giving a proper conclusion to it all, the reveal didn’t make me like the character less or more either. Jax, just as the other characters from the show, is really fun, has a compelling design and there is something that you can relate to. I am having fun with all of her fanarts and The Amazing Digital Circus still amazing.
Thank you for reading it all!
I never drew the whole gang before, I think the end is a proper excuse for that (original The Doors' self-titled for reference)
Curtindo bastante. Construção impecável, unboxing rico e som igual cachorro: energético, divertido e amável, por mais que as vezes morda
I don't know if I flair it like meme or fanart though…