#someone finally finds kaufmo funny :'[

[oneshlut]

Oh my God.

I had a very funny and slightly strange idea...

Imagine that there is mutual sympathy between the reader and Jax. In short, Jax have crush on reader, but the reader... don’t know it (or just don’t see it.)

So, a new person appears in the circus. It doesn't matter who it is, what it is, what their name is, etc.

So, newbie and the reader became very close friends. I mean, sometimes spending the night in the same room, hugging, holding hands...(I mean friends not like lovers)

Look, I just want to see Jax get jealous, okay...?

Thank youuu🫶💋❤️

A/N: awwwww we love a jealous jax,,, thanks a bunches for requesting!! i've been getting OVERLOADED with requests (which is why i closed them for a while, dw, i've got a schedule goin for me now), i'm just so happy you guys enjoy my works!! yesyes, enjoy! <33

Overly Warm Welcome (Jax x Reader) [Imagine]

Rules For Requesting

Characters I Will Write For

Masterlist

Imagine: Reader gets a bit too close to a new character, and Jax gets jealous. How does he respond?

You and Jax have always been close. Everyone in the circus knew this. Mainly because you were partners in crime, pranking everyone in sight together.

Jax would never admit it--not to you--but he had always enjoyed your company. You didn't think of him as some 2-dimensional asshole, but rather someone who actually had a life before. He felt.. seen.

On good days, you'd spend a bit of time in his room with him, chatting about nothing in particular.

Yup, I'm lying. The two of you gossiped about everyone all day. Bantering, teasing, joking.. Jax found himself growing increasingly fond of you. Eventually, he had put his full trust in you.

One day, a new sucker joins the circus. It happens every now and then, but not often, so he finds himself intrigued. Apparently, not as much as you were.

You and the new person became friends immediately. Jax is glad you were able to find someone to relate to, as you were both still pretty new.

Doesn't think much of the two of you at first. He's not immediately jealous, don't worry, his confidence is still intact.

So you start spending more and more time with them. Jax does miss you, but he's, again, not that fragile. He doesn't really care, neither does he care to know the person's name that you started spending all your time with.

He will get slightly more antsy around you, though. Doesn't ask you to join in on pranks anymore, since he thinks you're too busy. Okay, he's just dragging himself away from you at this point.

Jax will watch from afar as you and your friend chit chat and what not.. hoping you still cared for him, and then he just happens to spot the two of your hands were interlocked with eachother.

Surprisingly, that wasn't his final straw. Although, when you had talked to him earlier, he was much more tense with you. He forced laughs, and had a constant envious glint in his eyes.

He would've been fine, if you had just went up, introduced yourself to the new fella, and went on to your day. You could've stayed in a safe relationship with them where you only talked sometimes because of circumstance.

But that's not what happened, huh? Now, you had only spent about two minutes a day with him. And he missed you. There, he admitted it. And if he was being honest, he always wanted you and him to be something.. maybe something more. He's not too confident that's going to happen now, though. He felt overlooked.

You just now begin to notice the edge to his voice. Suddenly, he feels a lot more hostile to be around. He'd mumble about nothing in particular, be lots more rude around you. Ruder than usual, at least. And sometimes, he didn't even want to look you in the eye. Part of you thought that it was something you did.. and a small part of you thought he was just close to abstracting. But you knew him better than that. He had a better mental state than Kaufmo ever did.

One night, he decides to approach you about this. He didn't want to live in silence forever, did he? He also didn't want to.. live without you. But when he knocked on your door, his response was a hollow room.

Jax goes to Ragatha for answers, and tells him that the last she heard of you, you were on your way to the new fella's room. If anything was his last straw, this would be it.

But how else is he supposed to drag you away from them? He'd need a reason, and all he's got right now is.. either admitting he missed you, or admitting to something even more mushy and gushy. He did not feel like doing that at the moment.

Instead, it ends up accidentally slipping out in one of your conversations. Not the liking you romantically thing, but the, uh, missing you thing.

Hearing that he missed you left your heart soaring a mile a minute. I mean, sure, you were close, but.. Jax doesn't normally care for anyone. Except for.. you, apparently.

After you were able to silence the flush look on your face, you questioned him about it. He told you about how much time you've been spending with the "newbie", and how he just misses your company, is all. It didn't seem like everything, though. You decided to save that question for another conversation.

So, he was jealous? Hah, he denied it, but you knew better. You had apologized to him, and agreed to set up a prank on Zooble later that day. His voice no longer felt as tense, and you saw a glint of his usual cheeky grin coming back to him. You smiled back. Not before teasing him relentlessly about it, though.

[bookishbrewer]

Jax & the Tumblr Sexyman phenomenon - an opinion piece:

This is just my opinion. I may be misremembering, misunderstanding things. I'd love to have a civil discussion + be corrected if necessary.

So, The Amazing Digital Circus released it's 2nd episode and the reception was overall very positive. The episode was written very well and tackled sensitive subject matter such as existentialism, friendship, guilt, denial & abandonment with as much grace as possible within the limits of the story.

All of that being said, there was a new controversy in the horizon: the portrayal & arc of Jax.

In the pilot, Jax is portrayed as, well - a douchebag:

When Pomni first arrived, he essentially encouraged her existential crisis, mocked her for freaking out & made fun of her (in addition to making fun of the rest of the gang).

He broke Gangle's comedy mask, as she was crying over it being broken.

He uses Zooble's arm as a scratching stick (& gets choked for it, good for Zoobie).

He disregards Zooble being dismembered & taken away by the gloinks (even as they're literally screaming in agony as they're being taken away by hostile NPCs).

He (maybe) put centepides in Ragatha's room, even though it is "literally her only fear".

He deserts both Pomni & Ragatha immediately as they find out Kaufmo has been abstracted (Pomni is new & still horrified & he may know about the pain that glitching can cause to Ragatha if she's caught by Abstracted!Kaufmo).

He throws a bowling ball at Kinger after he lies to him about Kaufmo's mental state (which may especially worry him both because he is losing his own mind & because he may have lost someone to abstraction before, namely Queenie). Causing the 3 of them to fall down the "Zooble hole".

Allows & disregards Zooble being consumed by the Gloink Queen (right after refusing to help them because they were "rude").

He pushes Gangle after mockingly suggesting that she goes first.

He tells Zooble to shut up. For really no reason (after being rude & dismissive of them the entire day).

Mocks Kinger for not "even being relied on to abstract".

Moving on to episode 2:

After one of the mannequins gets run over by a truck Jax exclaims: "oh, violence!".

Jax wants to shoot the thief!NPCs "until they're unrecognizable" and shouts at Gangle for being uncomfortable with the idea.

He throws Pomni (who's on her first out-of-circus adventure) out of the truck.

He calls Gangle "submissive & agreeable" (I mean, it's funny. But still kind of a douche move, given how sensitive she is).

He blackmails Gangle over "the figurine thing" so she does what he wants (ram into the thieves' trunk because "it'll be epic").

He hints that Ragatha's hair looks like licorice in front of a candy-eating fudge monster.

Jax is later seem distraught over the fact that there was no "big final battle, bloodshed, chaos".

He left the kingdom's gates open so that there will be carnage in the candy kingdom anyway (even though he won't even be there to witness it. Sadistic a-hole xD).

He doesn't attend Kaufmo's funeral

So, in conclusion: Jax is an a-hole (to quote Pomni).

But, the fandom was incredibly, well, surprised. A lot of fans immediately latched onto Jax, shoving him into the "bad boy" in need of "fixing" archetype. Obviously, tons of ships started (FunnyBunny, RibBun, Jagatha, KingRabbit, ClownBunny etc), headcanons about him "actually being a sweetheart", Human!Fanart and much more.

Now, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with being huge fans of barely developed characters & creating headcanons while waiting for more canon appearances, but that isn't the only thing that happened.

Besides comments like these:

There was also outright backlash against Gooseworx, including alledging she "retconned" Jax in accordance to the fandom's reaction to him (when in reality she predicted the backlash & divide over Jax over a half a year ago):

in addition to essentially blaming her for "Sexyman-bait".

Now yes, Jax does fit the bill of a "Tumblr Sexyman": tall, thin, douchebag, chaotic, sarcastic, cynical, implied to have deeper lore, shipped with just about anyone (well, maybe besides Bubble, wait... WAI-) & I'm sure there's other stuff that I missed. He even has his own Sexypedia page (which I didn't even know was it's own website but hurray! Research!).

He can definitely join the ranks of (reads from scrapped paper): The Ouncler, Bill Cypher, Sans Undertale, a lotta vivziepop characters (no shade!) & others.

But honestly, I think fans need to ACTIVELY try to pretend Jax was portrayed as anything else but a meanspirited jerk.

One of the most popular theories I saw is that Jax was in Kaufmo's funeral, but out of sight, even though we had 2 outward shots of the funeral, and Jax was nowhere to be seen:

Their basis for this theory? This:

That's right. A 2 second snap shot of Jax (still) looking salty & then leaving. You remember how this happened before? RIGHT BEFORE THE VERY SAME EPISODE?? Fans thought that this:

Was going to be some sort of "angsty" or "character development" scene, and even went so far as to theorize that this episode may be a "Jax Episode".

But then we found out the reason:

Not enough violence.

Jax's character essentially reminds me of a 13 year old with a copy of any GTA game, enjoying the freedom to destroy property & NPCs as he pleases through the limitlessness of a sandbox high-quality game. That's who he's actually meant to be, at least from my understanding of it.

I think Jax is a great SUBVERSION of the Tumblr Sexyman trope: he isn't some "bad boy" (shoo, Nifty, SHOO!), he's just, well. An a-hole. If my memory serves me right, Gooseworx did refer to Jax as "chaotic evil". Meaning: characters who are driven by their own desires and will do anything to achieve their goals, often disregarding laws, ethics, and the rights of others. They revel in chaos and destruction for their own sake. Though, granted, he was also discribed as a "troubled individual" about which the audience will learn more of. Also, he's 22. While technically an adult, he's still very young.

To conclude, I think fans of the "Tumblr Sexyman" trope/characters are really reaching with Jax, and it sometimes escalates way too much (to the point both the creator & VA are involved). I don't think Jax was written to be another "bad but sad boy" (if you'd pardon the Owl House reference), but I do think he's going to be interesting to watch unfold.

I understand that some people love their tropes, but let us all be mindful of each other as fans & casual viewers, and of the creator & team.

Thank you for reading 🙏