#i dont. have words im not using hyperfixation it feels wrong it feels. worse than that

[thatneoncrisis]

sometimes i think about jinx and like. idk theres something about her that irks me thats seperate from her as a character its like. the language the show and fans use to discuss the kind of person she is in relation to what she was like as a child.

at times it feels borderline ridiculous how much powder is put on a pedastal. im not saying shes secretly evil or bad or whatever that's fucking stupid but like. shes the kind of good you can only be when you are a child that young. and the need for the story to posit that as like, the best of jinx, a naive child with documented extreme emotional regulation issues is bizarre

i got this short recommended to me with the boards from season two of isha stopping violet from killing jinx in that sewer fight. and someone in the comments was like oh they should have kept that shot of jinx crying, bc it shows she still has POWDERS innocence. its shit like that that makes my skin crawl. its like the kind of thing your emotionally dense family says to you, oh why arent you happy like you were when you were six years old? now youre hateful and rude? why dont you like the same things as you did when you were in goddamn elementary school

the way i initially thought of it was along the lines of: powder isnt Better than jinx- theyre the same person! powder did everything jinx did, she changed. theres no like, stagnant pure untouched baby heart wrapped up in the skin of a killer she just. grew up. made shitty choices.

then i sat on it. identity is a powerful conplex thing. gonna pull out the most basic ass example here- bruce wayne and batman. theres this scene in batman beyond. if you dont wanna click the link the long and short is that batman is talking to his protégé and states that he knew the voice in his head telling what to do during that episode wasnt a form of psychosis because the voice was calling him bruce. "thats not what i call myself," he says. batman is fully integrated into his identity. he is batman before hes bruce. if anything, the billionaire playboy thing is more of a costume than him literally dressing up as a menecing bat themed superhero. he identifies with fear and vengence and justice more than his birthright

with all of that i accept jinx having this sort of mentality about herself. a before and after. there was powder then there was jinx. i accept the people in the show talking about her like this- especially violet. i honestly found her refusal to engage with jinx as her own person and constantly trying to appeal to "powder" interesting and kind of pathetic (IN A GOOD WAY THIS WAS A GOOD CHOICE). it makes things simpler when you actually have to deal with the damage shes caused. you arent killing your sister- jinx already did that. powder is already dead, this is just a loose end. i also think this makes One thing about the season 2 scene where they find their father again touching. violet acknowledges that vander was jinxs dad too. it was both of their losses from a horrible accident. there are other bits about that exchange i dont like but this isnt about that

what gets me is like. the very mechanics of the show and the fandom as a whole just sort of accepting this idea of jinx/powder in its most simplistic form. yes powder is the Good Baby and jinx is the Evil Murderer. all good things jinx does is actually her becoming powder again and all bad things powder did was foreshadowing jinx. it scrubs the line between maladaptive copong mechanism and just. a really dull way of thinking about her

i think its very. very sad. that we go through ekko interacting with an alt world jinx/powder, one seemingly more well adjusted but has still suffered a heavy loss. but shes had kinder people in her life to help her bear that weight. and then when we see him confronted with his own jinx, at the end of her rope, actively committed to blowing it all up and erasing herself from the picture. we dont get to see any of it. he finds the middle ground Off Screen. we see her and shes just decided dying for real is dumb or maybe shell just let herself die during the battle, she has the new haircut and hoodie and.

it just kind of says nothing we dont know what changed her mind we dont know! ive sewn people say that ekko brought up the alt world jinx as a sign of her being capable of good but 1. we already got a whole season of that with her and the baby, and if you bring up that she feels guilty about that bc isha was killed, i will mention that alt world powder was ALSO wracked with guilt bc SHE was the one messing with the little magic crystals and got violet blown up. these are comparable situations and neither of them really end with her feeling good about herself

maybe its about perseverance. maybe its him saying hey i saw you go through something awful in another life and you lived. you got better and you had people who loved you and i love you and. fill in the rest of the speech. maybe thats it. maybe the middle point of powder and jinx issssss. resilience. maybe the show is just kind of ambiguously having her deal with severe dissociation. maybe everyone has a good baby and an evil monster in their brain at a control panel fighting at all times for dominance. maybe there can be inherent good qualities to jinx that has nothing to do with peoples foggy recollection of her at 9 years old