u/MissDeborah8060

Is he part of the Wrong Organ team (either as a developer or promoter), or just a big-name fan? I feel like I'm getting conflicting information about exactly who he is and what his role in the fandom is. I know he does a lot of fandom-style videos and artwork, but he also seems to have access to the actual models used by the game (judging by his videos), and he made his own advertisement for the YouTooz Anya plushie. It isn't a product review, either, because the ad is designed to make people aware of the pre-order dates for the plush. That's a LOT of privileged information for a fan to have access to, unless Wrong Organ are unusually open and collaborative with their fans (or even if they are).

This is a rant, if that's not obvious from the title.

It seems to me that, whenever I post to this community anything about criticizing or not liking Valentino, it gets downvoted at least once. I just don't get it. I understand that a lot of people here like StaticMoth, but is it really that surprising that someone in a community dedicated to woobifying Vox would dislike a notorious abuser who makes Vox look bad and drags him into his drama constantly? People have no problem pointing out that Alastor is bad for Vox, but somehow the idea that Valentino could also be equally bad for Vox (and therefore subject to the same criticism) gets ignored or downplayed constantly even here. If the idea is that "Vox should only be surrounded by people who truly love and care for him," then how does that square with him being with Valentino? Keep in mind: this is the guy who has a habit of throwing things at Vox for extremely petty reasons, and recently ripped his head off and was PRAISED for it by the narrative. By all appearances, he is abusive toward Vox, whether his fans like it or not.

I just don't understand why the people who like Valentino and/or StaticMoth can't just content themselves with the Valentino Cult and the StaticMoth sections of the regular Vox Cult. Or just ignore comments from people here who don't like Valentino and/or StaticMoth (I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one). It's already hard enough to be on the regular Vox Cult as someone who ONLY likes Vox and NOT the other Vee's (especially Valentino), without the same attitude bleeding into a community that exists to woobify Vox specifically and no one else.

Think about it: at the beginning of the show we're introduced to a grand total of six people who seem to be positioned as main characters. This is before we consider Caine and Bubble (who are arguably the main villains of the story) and the various NPC's who come and go. A lot of viewers complain about how some characters get way more screentime than others, but I actually think it was sort of inevitable based on how the series is structured. A main cast of six is unusually large by pretty much any metric. In my experience, most stories that feature more than one main character have two or three, with five being the absolute max. The main example of a show I can think of with the same or more main characters as TADC is Digimon, but that show had dozens of episodes per season AND multiple sequels and spin-offs. There is simply no way that a series of only nine episodes could meaningfully develop six entire lead characters and still have time left over to explain the lore in a satisfying way.

All of this sort of goes back to my previous point, that the series would have been better if it was open and honest about the fact that Jax was going to be the main POV character from the beginning. Above and beyond that, though, a main cast of six is simply not compatible with a series of just nine episodes. It would have been way more logical for Goose to have decided in advance which was more important--nine episodes or a large ensemble cast--and then tailored the rest of the story according to that vision (whether that meant a smaller cast or a longer runtime). In other words, the problem is not so much that the series actually lacked time to tell a cohesive story, but rather that the writer/s couldn't manage the time properly.

Just make Jax the main POV character and show the whole thing from his perspective. Sure, that might not be everyone's cup of tea, but at least we would know what we were getting. There's nothing intrinsically bad about having a bad or unlikable person as a main character. At its best, the story could have looked like, say, Mouthwashing, a game where the audience plays the role of a deranged ex-convict. The reason Mouthwashing works is that the game uses the opportunity to explore what the thought processes of someone like that would be, without actually justifying or excusing any of them. TADC could have done something similar if the writers made intelligent decisions. Heck, even Hazbin Hotel, for all its faults, at least establishes right away that it's set in Hell and, therefore, a large chunk of the cast are going to be terrible people by definition.

As it is, we're stuck with a bait-and-switch, where the likable characters are introduced first only to be shoved aside in favor of the single worst member of the main cast. I'm not sure whether this was intentional (because Goose knew that people wouldn't watch the show if someone as unlikable as Jax was the lead) or whether it just happened as result of the fannish desire to have the self-insert be at the center of everything, but either way, it doesn't work and it's deeply dishonest. And I suspect part of the backlash is that fans feel cheated, because they thought they were getting one kind of story and got something else instead.

Stay with me.

The premise here is that Jimmy does in fact get rescued, and subsequently undergoes a battery of medical tests that reveal him to be hopelessly insane and out of touch with reality. He spends the rest of his life in a group home for people with severe mental illness, drugged to the gills (and suffering all the side effects that come with antipsychotics, like severe weight gain and movement disorders), still blaming everyone and everything but himself for his predicament.

This AU was inspired by the post I saw about whether Jimmy could benefit from therapy. In my view, not only is he someone who would never seek therapy, he's also probably someone who believes that inpatient psychiatric care is always worse and more abusive than whatever behaviors led up to it in the first place (a trend I've actually observed in real-life people, mostly creatives, who remind me of Jimmy). By this logic, the thought of being locked up in a psychiatric institution for the rest of his life might actually be a fate worse than death in his eyes!

There's this one person on social media who writes a lot about how to raise children with a range of different temperaments. The advice itself actually seems pretty sound, but what I can't get past is the way she constantly compares children to dogs. Agreeable, laid-back, cool children are "Golden Retriever" children, while spunkier ones are either "Bloodhound" or "German Shepherd" children (depending on how strongly she's trying to make her point). I get that she's not actually describing dogs, but was there no other analogy she could have used? Could she not have compared them to flowers like everyone else ("Daisy" vs "Orchid" children, anyone)? Or, better yet, just used terminology that already exists, like "spirited child" or "highly sensitive person?" It's all the same thing, after all!

I realize that it's a minor point in light of everything else to do with dog culture, and I feel kind of petty for even being annoyed at it, but COME ON! Does EVERYTHING have to be made about dogs?!

I mean, granted, he's no Jimmy, but I don't think it's fair to call him a good person either. Apart from (again) not being Jimmy, the main evidence people cite in favor of his being a "good person" is that he was saving the cryopod for Daisuke. Which is all well and good, except...why not communicate that to Daisuke? Why does it take Jimmy drugging him and forcing his way into the utility room for anyone to realize that Swansea was saving a cryopod (let alone that it was Daisuke he was saving it for)? I suppose it's possible that Swansea simply didn't trust Daisuke not to spill the secret to Jimmy, but does Swansea really have such a low opinion of Daisuke that he can't trust him to keep a simple secret from a guy Swansea KNOWS is dangerous and untrustworthy? And if he does, is that fair?

There are other things Swansea does that harm Daisuke too, most notably when he actively encourages Daisuke to drink the mouthwash despite KNOWING how destructive an alcohol use disorder can be. And, when he finally decides to mercy-kill Daisuke, he does so by SLAMMING AN AXE THROUGH HIS FACE, something that I can only imagine would be extremely painful and frightening even if Daisuke followed his advice to "close his eyes". I get the sense that he thinks of Daisuke more as a symbol--of either the naivety and arrogance of youth or pure innocence and optimism, depending on which part of the game you're in--than an actual person.

He also doesn't do anything to protect Anya, either from Jimmy or just in general. For instance, I think there was a statement from someone on the dev team about how Jimmy broke the motion-activated Polle statue that Anya had been using to alert her to his presence, and Swansea just watched and laughed. He also seems totally unconcerned when Daisuke and Jimmy are frantically trying to get into utility so they can make contact with Anya in the med bay, and doesn't even bother to ask what's going on or why they're so upset. I get that Jimmy and Daisuke don't tell him much, but he doesn't even seem to want to know. Oh, and when they bring him a mysterious cocktail, he accepts it seemingly without any hesitation, even though it's coming from Jimmy of all people.

So...yeah. Swansea really doesn't seem like that great of a guy when you think about it hard enough. He might have good intentions, but one of the points of the game is that those only get you so far.

I know that "Jax is so much worse than Caine" is a popular meme right now, both on this subreddit and just in general. But as someone who has never been a fan of either Jax or Caine, I find it frustrating to see so much apologia for Caine, even if it's in service of making Jax look bad. Especially since most of the Caine apologists seem to be making the exact same argument as the Jax apologists: that it doesn't matter if he makes everyone around him miserable because he "means well" and "just doesn't know any better," so he should be given all the credit for "trying." Meanwhile, the moments where he either openly revels in tormenting someone else or callously tramples their feelings to make a point because he can get swept under the rug. Just like with Jax and his diehard fans.

This is probably the last you will hear from me on this topic. Most of what I'm about to say is based on The Primal Wound by Nancy Verrier, a book from 1991 that was the first comprehensive attempt to highlight the struggles faced by people who were adopted when they reached adulthood. And...it got long. There's so much here, you guys.

Item 1: His relationship with Jimmy

On the face of it, it seems strange that someone as respectable as Curly would consider someone like Jimmy a friend. However, Verrier points out that some people who were adopted chose to run around with social "losers and stoners" in adolescence because those are the people they felt they "deserved" to have as peers. Jimmy definitely fits that bill. Other interviewees in the book describe having difficulty separating in relationships, even if those relationships are toxic. Curly's tendency to overlook Jimmy's flaws (even when they cause problems for others) could also stem from a belief that he can't judge Jimmy because he is just as wretched if not more, even if he hasn't actually DONE anything (see Item 4 below).

Item 2: His relationship with Anya

Curly's relationship with Anya is a somewhat ambivalent one. On the one hand, he genuinely enjoys her company and may even have romantic feelings for her. On the other, he has difficulty opening up to her, to the point Anya explicitly says that she wishes he'd open up more. What's even stranger is that he seems to open up more easily to the problematic Jimmy than to Anya, the woman who is actually trained to administer psych evaluations. His lack of trust in Anya could very well be due to the fact that she's a woman, and people who were adopted often have trouble trusting women due to their biological mothers leaving them.

Interestingly, after the crash, Curly becomes dependent on Anya for everything, almost as though she was his mother and he was her baby. In the end, his fear of being abandoned by her comes true when she kills herself right in front of him, which could be part of the reason he suddenly starts laughing.

Item 3: His fears of being in the "wrong" career

Is his dissatisfaction at work a reminder that he grew up in the "wrong" family? Alternatively, could he be struggling to choose a career path because he doesn't know himself that well?

Item 4: The general sense that everything is his responsibility (in fairness, Jimmy is the one who expresses this view directly, but nothing Curly says or does challenges it)

This relates to his being adopted in two ways. First, some folks who were adopted develop a need to feel constantly in control to stave off bad outcomes. Second, someone who loses their biological mother at a young age (whether through death or surrender) might believe that they were intrinsically flawed, and brought it on themselves somehow. Curly might well believe that he wasn't good enough for his mother to keep around or, if she's dead, that he bears responsibility for her death. Either option would be in keeping with his belief that everything that goes wrong on the Tulpar is somehow his fault, or his to fix.

Item 5: His depressed mood and related symptoms

This goes back to the irony of someone as successful, attractive, and accomplished as Curly struggling with depression. Of course, plenty of successful people still struggle, but there's always a reason. In light of everything else, being adopted could very well be Curly's reason. Verrier's book goes out of its way to point out that many people who were adopted struggle with depression and anxiety, up to and including suicidal ideation.

And there you have it. I can definitely see how some of this applies to Jimmy too, but I also think Jimmy was adopted, or a former foster kid, or both. However, I don't think Jimmy "needs" a reason for being the way he is in the same way Curly does. Lots of pathways can lead to someone becoming a career criminal, but to me, the range of options for how a "respectable" person could be as miserable as Curly is much narrower, with adoption being pretty close to the top of the list (because of the points above).

Before you harp on me, I'm not saying I think Christian Borle does a bad job as Vox. Far from it. However, if the goal was to make Vox out to be a silly foil to Alastor with an unrequited crush and nothing more, Christian Borle--a super manly, charismatic, award-winning Broadway star with "main character energy" written ALL OVER HIM--is pretty much the worst sort of person they could have picked to play him. Especially since the person they got to play Alastor is a (imo) kind of annoying guy who seems to have no credentials other than being Viv's personal friend. If they wanted Alastor to be the super-important, intimidating main-character type role, and Vox to be an annoying weirdo who revolved solely around him, it would have made much more logical sense for Christian to be the one to play Alastor and Amir to play Vox, not the other way around. I just get the sense that, once again, the people behind Hazbin didn't think things through (in this case, with their casting choices).

I actually feel the same way about several of the big-name actors in Hazbin, especially Keith David as Husk. It seems like they got people purely for their reputation, with no thought to how their voices would sound coming from their respective characters. Both Christian Borle and Keith David are skilled enough that they make it work, but the voices just don't match the characters that well, and the fact that said characters don't get bigger parts or more respect feels like a waste of their (considerable) talents.

So, we all know that the characters in Mouthwashing (sans Curly) are based on the colors of the board game pieces, right? But there's also a deeper meaning for which color corresponds to which character. At least in my view, the rationale goes something like this:

• Jimmy is green because green is the color of envy. Jimmy is envious of Curly and wants everything he has.
• Swansea is yellow because yellow is a color traditionally associated with self-indulgence. For instance, yellow and gold are often connected to greed, and the color yellow is right next to orange (the color of gluttony--think alcoholism) in the rainbow and color wheel.
• Pink is a tint of red, which is supposed to be a strong, manly color. That Daisuke is represented by pink rather than "true red" shows that he is not yet a man, but still just a kid.
• Blue is often associated with Mary, the Mother of God. By using blue to represent Anya, the game is subtly hinting at her status as a mother (kind of like her name is also supposed to mean "mother").

Meanwhile, Curly's signature color is white. In scientific terms, white is not actually a color at all, but rather a combination of all the other colors (a rainbow is what happens when you pass white light through a prism, causing it to split). This demonstrates that he's the most consequential character in the game, and everything the other characters do is on some level a reaction to his actions (or lack thereof, in Jimmy's case).

The reason I ask is that, from my perspective, when I see Vox and Valentino's interactions my mind immediately goes to the relationships between, say, Ragatha and Jax in "The Amazing Digital Circus," or Curly and Jimmy in "Mouthwashing"--that is, the latter is clearly a dangerous abuser and the former is clearly their victim. That said, I'm trying to keep an open mind, so I genuinely want to know what the logic of people who enjoy Valentino and Staticmoth is. Is it that Vox has more power in the relationship? Is it that they are shown to have good times together? Or something else entirely?

This is based off of an earlier post where I speculated that Curly and Jimmy were both adopted, and met through one of the networks that exist to connect people who are adopted/in foster care. Now that I've had more time to think about this headcanon, it's gotten a bit more expansive.

Basically, what I think happened is this. Both Jimmy and Curly were adopted, but whilst Curly was adopted at birth into a loving home, Jimmy was not. I go back and forth on whether he was taken away from an abusive native family and placed into foster care, or whether he was adopted into a family that was abusive or negligent themselves (or both). Either way, by the time he was an adolescent, he had internalized the idea that violence and domination were normal facts of life. In those days, the only person he considered a genuine friend--and so refused to victimize--was Curly. Curly could get him to behave when he wouldn't do it for anyone else, and also ran cover for him when he got in trouble out of a misplaced sense of loyalty.

As far as Curly himself is concerned, he's better adjusted than Jimmy because he had an easier and more "normal" life overall. However, he still suffers from a lack of contact with his biological family, and especially his mother, which causes him to have a very low sense of self-worth. This explains why someone as apparently respectable and capable as him would associate with a lowlife like Jimmy, let alone consider him a friend. Simply put, Curly thinks Jimmy is the sort of person he "deserves" to be friends with, and so he continues to trust him against his own better judgment. Jimmy takes advantage of this feeling (to the extent he's aware of it) to keep Curly close. Hence their dynamic in the game itself.

And I do mean that very specifically. Not just in a "These two would be such a cute couple I'm rooting for them!" kind of way, but in a "Were they ever actually together in the narrative of the game?" kind of way. The reason why I ask is that if they were ever actually together, or even just thinking about it, that would add an entirely new layer to the whole situation with Jimmy. It would make him not just a rapist, but someone who's "stealing another man's woman," so to speak. Worse still, the "other man" is the one person he seems to respect, but also envies. So, he could have been intentionally trying to engineer a situation in which Anya--like the Tulpar itself--used to be "Curly's" but now is "Jimmy's."

Come to think of it, it would make for an interesting plot twist and source of drama if there was actual doubt over whether Anya's baby was Jimmy's or Curly's. Oh, well.

Suppose that both Jimmy and Curly were former adopted/foster kids, who met through one of the networks used to serve such people. Their experiences with their native families were problematic at best, and any other families they ended up in might have been as well. Somewhere along the line, they created a dynamic in which Curly was the "good" one who did what he was told and Jimmy was the "bad" one who lashed out to test the limits of his guardians and authority figures--a dynamic that followed them into adult age.

Going off of this, if they were indeed adopted and/or in foster care, it's theoretically possible that they could be brothers or half-brothers (and they do look kind of similar). Which, depending on your perspective, would either explain their level of closeness or add an extra layer of squick to any romantic tension between them (or both at the same time).

Who would you personally consider to be more interesting--Jimmy or Curly? For me, Curly is the one who seems more interesting and complex. I feel like Jimmy is easy to figure out once you realize he's basically a career criminal who does criminal things. His decision to put Curly in the cryopod instead of escaping and leaving Curly to die is a bit more unexpected, but probably the most depth he gets. By contrast, I could spend ages constructing a full psychological profile of Curly: why he's friends with Jimmy, why he hired the crew he did, why he didn't take Jimmy's threats more seriously, and so on.

Believe it or not, there's actually evidence to support this. According to my research, people who grow up without a connection to their mothers can struggle their entire lives with the idea that they don't deserve to exist, or must somehow "make up for it" by being better, more hard-working, or more worthy than everyone else. They might also believe that there had to have been something intrinsically wrong with them for their mother to leave (whether she's alive or dead). If this is true of Vox, it would handily explain pretty much everything we know about him, from his human life on. I also have a headcanon about Alastor's upbringing that compliments this one rather nicely. Simply put, at least in my view, Vox is someone who never knew his mother and whose father terrorized him; meanwhile, Alastor is someone who never knew his father and whose mother spoiled and smothered him.

I remember that before the finale dropped, Goose spent a lot of time on social media talking about how "dark" and "heavy" the ending would be, even going so far as to post memes about it. But now that the ending's revealed, it seems like the main sources of "darkness" were...Jax having a bad home life, Jax causing Ribbit's abstraction, and Jax abstracting himself, all of which were already fairly obvious. I'm genuinely unsure whether Goose was deliberately making the finale out to be darker than it was in order to build up hype, or else just just took it for granted that Jax was everyone's favorite character (to the point their experience of the finale would be colored entirely by what happened to him).