#and so i can make a coherent argument in opposition

[glitchbirds]

the more i think about it the more i think “dont hatewatch anything dont give (x) any attention” is a sentiment thats a bit misguided, though i understand completely where it comes from

because, like, in that ideal world where no one online Does hatewatch anything that looks like trash from the first preview.. should only official film/television critics hired on major publications and already established in the industry have the privilege to watch whatever studio slop is pumped out? or does that privilege extend to people who make, like, informal critical essays and videos online discussing media; but beyond them the average person should not watch these things because its Bad and Morally Wrong to do so, they have to achieve the Special Privilege of having an audience for them to be allowed to watch something for critical purposes? or are they ALL corporate shills and not even critics should be covering shows like velma because its all free publicity? because idk. i feel like the implication here is either “death to all discussion of things i personally think suck (that i havent watched myself yet and never will) we should all just ignore it until it goes away” OR you make allowances for official film critics and the like and we have a roger ebert-type situation where ppl trust the word of certain critics so thoroughly that they never watch media outside their bubble of immediate interest themselves and just parrot the opinions of critics they like. so media can live and die by the force of what the most popular film writers of our time have to say about it, regardless of their actual quality. (frankly, we’re kind of already nearing at that point in certain online circles with some popular video essayists/“video essayists”, but i digress.) also, like, as plenty of ppl have pointed out, hatewatching is Not the main source of engagement for most shows you and all your tumblr mutuals think sucks, because there are plenty of ppl earnestly watching these things because theyve been heavily advertised to/because theyre interested in the IP/because it Actually seems to align with their sense of humor/etc. so in the ideal no-hatewatching-ever society, only ppl who have no real reason to object to the media in question will watch it, making actual debate and critique of the media impossible. because if all you can really say to them in protest is something you read in a polygon article once, you cant pull genuine examples that you understand in full context and it gets increasingly difficult to argue your points with someone who actually Has seen the full thing, even if their conclusions are heavily flawed.

obviously this is all hypotheticals and extremes because its impossible for hatewatching and media critique to just cease. and i absolutely dont think theres like a moral issue with telling ppl to not watch the stupid scooby doo television show, let alone being annoyed at it all over your dash. but im starting to think that the refrain shouldnt be “dont hatewatch EVER” and should be “dont create a fandom out of hatewatching”. because really fandom IS the problem here- you can watch whatever the hell you want on your own time and i honestly have no issues with ppl constructively picking apart shows like velma on their own blogs but its another thing entirely to be making harry potter “fix it” aus in 2023, u know? or making countless posts of just out of context screencaps (of dialogue the creators of the show Knew you were going to make out of context screencaps of), w/ no further critique beyond “what were they thinking?!?”-type captions. idk. just hatewatch and engage critically.

and pirate whatever you’re watching. obviously.

[dk-thrive]

Writing is thinking, but it’s thinking slowed down — stilled —

... And that’s one of the arguments for writing well — for taking the time and summoning the focus to do so. Good writing burnishes your message. It burnishes the messenger, too.

You may be dazzling on your feet, an extemporaneous ace, thanks to the brilliant thoughts that pinball around your brain. There will nonetheless be times when you must pin them down and put them in a long email. Or a medium-length email. Or a memo. Or, hell, a Slack channel. The clarity, coherence, precision and even verve with which you do that — achieving a polish and personality distinct from most of what A.I. spits out — will have an impact on the recipients of that missive, coloring their estimation of you and advancing or impeding your goals.

If you’re honest with yourself, you know that, because you know your own skeptical reaction when people send you error-clouded dreck. You also know the way you perk up when they send its shining opposite. And while the epigrammatic cleverness or audiovisual genius of a viral TikTok or Instagram post has the potential to shape opinion and motivate behavior, there are organizations and institutions whose internal communications and decision-making aren’t conducted via social media. GIFs, memes and emojis don’t apply.

When my friend Molly Worthen, a history professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a frequent contributor to Times Opinion, took the measure of the influential diplomat Charles Hill for her 2006 book “The Man on Whom Nothing Was Lost,” she noted that a principal reason for his enormous behind-the-scenes influence was his dexterity with the written word. He took great notes. He produced great summaries. He made great arguments — on paper, not just on the fly.

Worthen noted in her book that “transmitting ideas into written words is hard, and people do not like to do it.” As a result, someone who performs that task gladly, quickly and nimbly “in most cases ends up the default author, the quarterback to whom others start to turn, out of habit, for the play.”

Good writing announces your seriousness, establishing you as someone capable of caring and discipline. But it’s not just a matter of show: The act of wrestling your thoughts into logical form, distilling them into comprehensible phrases and presenting them as persuasively and accessibly as possible is arguably the best test of those very thoughts. It either exposes them as flawed or affirms their merit and, in the process, sharpens them.

Writing is thinking, but it’s thinking slowed down — stilled — to a point where dimensions and nuances otherwise invisible to you appear....

I think you can take the “pen and paper” out of the equation — replace them with keystrokes in a Google Doc or Microsoft Word file — and the point largely holds. That kind of writing, too, forces you to concentrate or to elaborate. A tossed-off text message doesn’t. Neither do most social media posts. They have as much to do with spleen as with brain.

What place do the traditional rules of writing and the conventional standards for it have in all this? Does purposeful, ruminative or cathartic writing demand decent grammar, some sense of pace, some glimmer of grace?

Maybe not. You can write in a manner that’s comprehensible and compelling only or mostly to you. You can choose which dictums to follow and which to flout. You’re still writing.

But show me someone who writes correctly and ably — and who knows that — and I’ll show you someone who probably also writes more. Such people’s awareness of their agility and their confidence pave the way. Show me someone who has never been pressed to write well or given the tutelage and tools to do so and I’ll show you someone who more often than not avoids it and, in avoiding it, is deprived of not only its benefits but also its pleasures.

Yes, pleasures. I’ve lost count of the times when I’ve praised a paragraph, sentence or turn of phrase in a student’s paper and that student subsequently let me know that the passage had in fact been a great source of pride, delivering a jolt of excitement upon its creation. We shouldn’t devalue that feeling. We should encourage — and teach — more people to experience it.

— Frank Bruni, from "A.I. or no A.I., it pays to write — and to write well" (NY Times, December 21, 2023)

[orionsangel86]

Seeing criticism of Good Omens Season 2 on here is a wild ride for me because I generally seem to agree with everything gomens critical people are saying whilst at the same time still absolutely loving gomens S2.

It's like this: Okay so you have written this super popular book revolving around this precocious kid who happens to be the antichrist whose birth kickstarts the apocalypse. The four horseman turn up as well as these other strange human characters one of which is an actual witch whose great great great grandmother wrote an accurate prophecy book which predicts armaggedon. Through a series of somewhat hilarious events, the kid, his friends, and the other weird humans manage to stop the apocalypse.

Also throughout the whole thing there are these angel and demon characters fussing about getting into arguments but not actually doing anything to forward the plot or make any difference to the main storyline. For some reason everyone reading the book finds these characters far more compelling and entertaining and seems to think they are the main characters. But they are not.

Then the book gets adapted into a show and the focus shifts onto the angel and demon characters because obviously they are the popular ones that everyone loves. So what's a writer to do when the fan favourite characters basically don't have any part in the primary plot points? Give them a more coherent side plot steeped in romantic tropes and claim that they are in love. Boom. Instant fandom catnip.

But then you are presented with a problem. The show has become super successful and everyone wants more story. You may have discussed a sequel over the years with your writing partner but it never really came to anything probably because its difficult to plot out a sequel centred around two characters who weren't the protagonist of the first book, and that story is done and dusted. Whats a writer to do?

Lean into the fans thirst for more angel on demon action and write what amounts to high budget fanfiction pulling the love story b plot of season 1 into the main focus for season 2. Of course book purists are gonna hate that!

Any legitimate sequel to Good Omens should have centered around Adam. The former antichrist now coping with everything he went through growing up a normal human whilst still having a creeping sense that its not quite over, that maybe heaven and hell still have a part for you to play in their grand plan. Sure, Crowley and Aziraphale could have been involved, continuing their b plot love story, but at least this way the sequel would have been more consistent with the plot of season 1.

The problem with continuing Adam's story is that, and I mean no disrespect here, no one cares about Adam. Adam and his friends are the weakest elements of season 1. People tune into Good Omens for the Crowley and Aziraphale show, and Neil Gaiman knows this.

The plot of Gomens S2 is weak. The mystery around Gabriel is a bit silly, and is only connected to the season 1 plot in the loosest sense. The fact that he and Beelzebub speedrun an angel/demon romance is bizarre and does come out of left field... like something out of fanfiction. It also does indeed rob some of what made Crowley/Aziraphale so special - the fact that they were unique in their love and respect for each other despite being on opposite sides. Also I wish Maggie and Nina were given more development (and less clunky dialogue).

The only criticism I really don't agree with is the criticism that Aziraphale was written out of character, because quite simply, season 1 never ever resolved the fundamental issue at the center of Crowley and Aziraphales relationship. Throughout season 1 Aziraphale constantly insults and berates Crowley, claiming he's the "bad one" and refusing to accept that they aren't on opposite sides. There have been plenty of metas stating that this was all out of fear and a need to protect Crowley, and sure, you can interpret it that way, but not once in season 1 does Aziraphale actually say "yes we are on our side. Yes we are the same. I was wrong to claim you were bad when you've clearly been showing me how good you are for millennia." Its maybe implied that he has learned, but its never truly confirmed, because season 1 wasn't about Crowley and Aziraphale and their relationship. But season 2 takes its lead from that.

It's just rather amusing to me how the discourse that has built around season 2 seems to be fundamentally forgetting these points. GOS2 isn't really a sequel to Good Omens. It's a spin off. It's a spin off about Crowley and Aziraphale and their silly relationship drama whilst they deal with a silly low stakes mystery regarding Heaven and Hell (also characters that were barely involved in the book if at all!). It doesn't really tie into the first story at all.

In my opinion, all it needed to link it more closely to season 1, was to bring back Frances McDormand as God to do the narration. If that had happened, season 2 would have been just fine. As it stands, it comes across rather like a spin off fanfiction. But I love fanfiction, and I have always only ever watched Good Omens for Aziraphale and Crowley. To me, season 2 is fantastic, its like if Supernatural had a spin off show all about Castiel in which he is the lead character, and part of the main A plot is him getting together with Dean finally - Dean being the love interest in this particular show. Amazing. 10/10 would watch another 15 seasons of just that - but general Supernatural fans who aren't fandom specific would probably HATE IT.

So yeah, I do understand the criticism its receiving, but I find it funny, because ultimately Neil Gaiman gave fans exactly what they wanted, he gave them an Ineffable Husbands fanfiction - M/M Romance, F/F OC Side Pairing, Rated: Teen and Up, #Fluff, #Dancing, #Excessive Jane Austen References, #Crack Treated Seriously, #Surprise Final Pairing (check the end notes for spoilers!), #Miscommunication, #Love Confessions, #First Kiss, #Angst #Hurt/No Comfort, #Cliffhanger Ending.

Can any of us really say we wouldn't immediately click "proceed" on this fic and then stay up til 3am reading it til our eyes bled? Me neither.

[ewingstan]

So there's a few ways we've seen the public hostility to capes be framed.

There's complaint 1, the general "all parahumans are more trouble than they're worth," which has been something that's at least been brewing since Worm (a lot of Cauldron and the PRT's activities being focused on tamping down on this perception). A fairly common trope in superhero media. You see it everything from the X-Men to the Civil War comic event. Hell, its popular enough that the last two comics I've read (Chainsaw Man and Clown Corps), which are pretty much as different as you can be while still being in the same vague genre and medium, both had "Villains try to get everyone to fear superpeople indiscrimantly" plots.

But then there's the more specific complaint 2: "cape heroes aren't justifying their presence because they directly cause violence without lowering the amount of crime and violence overall." Now, Capricorn is obviously framing it in these terms because he's trying to appeal to the police he's talking to; he knows that's a complaint made about cops and he wants to make them feel like they're on the same side fighting the same battles (and in turn kinda claiming that both capes and cops are "against" a public who criticizes them). But I'd also say that the text itself wants us to consider complaint 2. Worm basically endorses it; a lot of the book reinforces the claim that capes/cops are integral to how a system gives rise to villains/criminals and largely fails to deal with such problems in a useful manner.

The question is whether Ward is best interpreted as making the opposite claim, endorsing Tristan's argument against complaint 2. Its certainly sympathetic to the frustrations of the "don't tell us we didn't make a difference when you weren't there to see" crowd—it almost has to be, given our narrator. But whereas in some parts I read Ward as saying "yeah its frustrating, but they're right, you aren't making a real difference and are part of the problem" other times it does portray Breakthrough making real changes for the better that couldn't have been accomplished other ways by fighting ontologically evil enemies (see: Teacher).

Again, kinda hard to do a story from this POV and completely avoid that. Disco Elyisum probably does the best job of it and I've still seen people argue that it doesn't avoid it entirely (still unsure where I land on that). Zdarsky's Daredevil (man I need to catch up on that) tries to avoid it in a way that doesn't really cohere; largely because it tries to be anti-prison while still framing characters like Spider-Man as paragons. Though in that at least it kinda works with Matt Murdock's whole pattern of righteous violence followed by intense doubt and guilt followed by newly directed righteous violence. I guess I'll have to keep reading to see how things ultimately land.

[leviathan-supersystem]

you know, in the abstract, i think there can, and have, been decent arguments for deontological morality. i don't quite find myself convinced by those arguments personally, but some of those arguments are actually decently well-constructed and coherent. Kant gets a lot of shit, but like, "I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law,” while a pretty flawed and incomplete concept, isn't terrible. like i can see the logic of it, and a community where that was the guiding principle everyone was attempting to follow would probably function at least somewhat adequately.

but like, in practice, outside of the context of philosophy wank, when i encounter deontological moral arguments in the wild, it's always the most mindless thought-terminating shit imaginable. like this:

and to be clear this is extremely standard for libertarians, a vast number of them hold as their core deontological moral belief that it is never under any circumstances acceptable to have taxes, and while they may sometimes make arguments that hinge on the supposed utilitarian benefits of a libertarian ethos, this is mostly a show put on for outsiders. the bulk of libertarians and similar (ancaps, objectivists, etc) believe as this guy does that even in situations where following the libertarian ethos would lead to certain disaster, we are nonetheless bound to do so anyways. Because.

similarly from antiworksters- the whole thing hinges on the core deontological rule of "it is always bad to incentivize labor in any way whatsoever" and when you point out that if this were to be implimented on any kind of large scale, it would make it more likely that disabled people who require labor to care for them would be left to die in the absence of incentives to ensure that the labor to care for them is performed, instead of acting like a reasonable person and going "oh jeez! that's a massive oversight in our ethical framework, we should revise our framework to better account for that, perhaps jettison the 'never incentivize labor' rule since it's apparently deeply flawed" instead they either dodge the question or go "it doesn't matter if paraplegic people end up being left to die as a result of antiwork principles being implemented, the "never incentivize labor" rule can never be broken! Because."

and it's like. why not. like you guys realize you made these rules up. if following this moral code ends up bringing disaster or leaving disabled people to die you can just. not do that. no one is forcing you to follow this poorly thought out ethical code. quite the opposite in fact, since both anarcho-capitalism and anti-work anarchism are fringe ideologies at odds with how the vast majority of contemporary societies function.

and in both cases it's so obvious that the ideologies in question fundamentally hinge on a knee-jerk emotional reaction of not wanting to work/pay taxes, and then just deciding that actually, the very universe itself agrees with you that you should never ever have to work or pay taxes, and therefore the world should have to bend to your- sorry i mean the universe's will, even if society crumbles to dust as a result. fundamentally juvenile.

[ghelgheli]

Can I ask why you would dis-recommend Decolonising Trans/Gender 101? I had heard good things about it and it is on my shortlist to check out.

So, both in the title ("101") and the introduction, binaohan is expressing a commitment to writing a text that can serve as an effective introductory reading for people looking to understand the relationships between transness and colonization. I would expect that with a commitment like this, the text is both cleanly argued and, you know, doesn't make very many false or misleading claims that could send the unfamiliar reader down a garden path. My experience was that this is not the case!

For example, binaohan asserts several times that 15th and 16th century colonialism marks the beginning of transmisogyny and the gender binary. As though there was no transmisogyny before this, in e.g. byzantine surgical practice or roman rhetoric! As though misogyny and its commitment to the opposition of men to women did not precede the use of misogyny as a technology of european colonialism. I just don't think this is a true or useful claim.

Or, take binaohan's defense of family structure against coming-out narratives—the criticism being that white trans culture presents coming out as an assertion of agency, but that this overlooks racialized experiences of commitment to the family over and above the notion that coming out is the only way to be true to oneself. Criticism of coming-out-as-responsibility is fair, but I don't think we should be doing "families are good as long as they're not nuclear" here.

There's a whole section on how "passing" and "stealth" language is essentially compromised because "trans women don't 'pass' as women, they just are women" (paraphrase). But this is just wordplay; nobody is using these terms with those connotations but to denote important material facts about moving thru the world as trans. And the section gives the impression that there's nothing important being done with these uses of language.

The book leans a bit too much on privilege-language, and combines it with gender-eternalism: that if you are a man, you were always a man, and if you are a woman, you were always a woman. This is a self-narrative that works for many trans people. It also doesn't work for many others, including e.g. trans lesbians I know who are comfortable narrativizing themselves as having been boys. I wouldn't want someone to read binaohan's prescription, delivered in the second person, and take it at face value.

I also didn't think I'd ever say this, but the book overcorrects against transandrophobia-truther arguments, denying that "transphobia" is a coherent concept. Now, I'm open to a particular line of reasoning: that perhaps all trans-antagonisms are reducible to mechanisms of transmisogyny. But that's not what's done here, and the possibility of something like anti-transmasculinity (not necessarily in those terms) is not even acknowledged.

I think binaohan writes effectively about the particulars of both contemporary and historical Tagalog gendered experience and embodiment. Those were the sections of the book I most enjoyed. I just thought they had been slot in between a great deal of arguments and claims I would not want to present to someone looking for a "101". I don't think the book succeeds at being the pedagogical text it wants to be.

[shitty-proendo-blackout-posts]

Could you please explain why you think endo systems are valid? I'm genuinely curious and would like to see your point of view as someone who is on the opposite side of that argument

[I'm mixed on it. I have little information on the topic and would like the thoughts of someone who is pro-endo before I make a decision!]

I'm not the best at wording things so this might not be very coherent, but I'll try my best :)

I'd say the main reason is that I have no place to tell people what's going on inside their head. Or how anything in their mind works. The only person who can know those things for sure is the person themself. A person's lived experiences aren't something to argue about.

I know some people are going to get mad at me for comparing plurality to queerness (because thats a sin for some reason /s), but I find it to be a good analogy. If some guy says that he's gay, who am I to try and debate him on that? Who am I to say that he might be bi or straight and just not realize it yet? I would be an asshole! The way I see it, the same applies to plurality. Who am I to tell someone that they're wrong about their own identity and how they chose to label it? If they end up being wrong, then that's fine! Being wrong is apart of self discovery, after all.

Not to mention, accusing people of lying does more harm than good. And saying that everyone who considers themselves endogenic is actually mistaken and that they secretly have some big trauma? I can't see how that is in any way helpful. Worst case scenario is that the system does have some severe trauma, and went searching for it before they were ready to handle it. Let me just say, that fucks you up.

We also consider ourselves to be mixed origins (trauma definitely played a part in our plurality, but it wasn't the sole cause) so it'd be hypocritical of us to not be pro-endo /lh

I hope this makes at least some amount of sense 😅 If not, I'd recommend checking out this post instead! Its a massive list including studies and (more coherent) community responses!

[voxpraxis]

lately i've been... idk if you can really call it "debating" but i've been interacting with some muslims in the comments of an instagram reel in which a young girl was speaking to a young boy (i want to emphasize that they are both children) and telling him that she wasn't allowed to speak to boys until she was married, because her parents and her religion said so. the boy was sad but replied with something like "oh, alright" and the caption & comments were all talking about how "sweet" the situation was. i commented that i didn't think it was sweet, and actually that's a horrible thing to put in a child's mind. the post never directly mentioned islam and neither did i, but everyone who's been replying to me is proselytizing islam, so. anyway, these are the points that have been thrown at me so far:

it's not wrong because both genders are forced apart from each other

in response to me saying it still enforces an extreme divide between genders and encourages them to see each other as opposites rather than equals: the separation is necessary to prevent rape

there is no rape in islam because of the separation between men and women, rape only occurs in western society because men and women are not separated (...because apparently we cannot expect men to not rape women unless they're physically kept away from them at all times)

rape does not happen between family members, it's just not a real thing, ever (incest doesn't exist?)

if you're interested in a girl you should marry her immediately, because dating leads to cheating

men and women cannot be just friends because "islam and science and psychology says so." one guy said it's because "women can't talk about cars and sports"

(i also got called a simp for saying i have female friends. can't make this shit up)

in response to me pointing out that what the girl is saying implies that she won't have any say in who her husband is: arranged marriages are better because they always work out and unlike western marriages, they never end in divorce! (i'll give you one guess why that is.)

similarly, single parent families and suicide are solely western problems

men and women are NOT equal

i need to shut up and respect it because that's their religion

islam cannot be questioned because islam says islam is true

and that's not including all the personal insults and threats i've received, in just a few days.

i will say this is one of the least challenging "debates" i've ever had, in the sense that almost no point brought against me has any logical foundation and is easily refutable. but it's one of the most frustrating because the problem is that they won't hear me at all, because islam teaches its followers to never consider anything else. it teaches them to accept exactly what they are spoon-fed as the ultimate truth. and this is by no means a problem exclusive to islam, but islam does this kind of control better than any other religion i know. people raised into islam are not taught to think in any logical terms - in fact, they're deliberately taught to avoid thinking logically. logical fallacies are the rule. so not only can they barely form a coherent argument in favour of their beliefs, but they have absolutely no clue how illogical they sound sometimes. when i point out a lapse in logic in something they've said, the response i get is "no, that's true because islam says it's true." no other explanation required. at least, i've sometimes heard people of other religions attempt to use logic or science to prove their beliefs, but with the muslims in these comments, those are unnecessary things to be absolutely avoided - it's like they don't even understand why i'd bother to use them. you can't use logic to get through to them because they've been taught to avoid logic and cling to the mantra of islam-is-true-because-islam-says-so.

[trickstarbrave]

hang on i gotta be insane for a second

"The Void Ghost said: 'Stay with me a full hundred years and I will give you a power that no divinity will dare disobey.' But before the hundred years was up, Vivec was already looking for Lie Rock and found him.'Stupid stone,' Vivec said. 'To hide in the Scaled Blanket is to make a mark on nothing. His bargains are only for ruling kings!'"

"The ruling king is armored head to toe in brilliant flame. He is redeemed by each act he undertakes. His death is only a diagram back to the waking world. He sleeps the second way. The Sharmat is his double, and therefore you wonder if you rule nothing. Hortator and Sharmat, one and one, eleven, an inelegant number. Which of the ones is the more important? Could you ever tell if they switched places? I can and that is why you will need me."

"By chance, Nerevar met the Void Ghost first, who told him that he was in the wrong place to which the Hortator said, 'Me or you?' and the Void Ghost said both. This sermon does not tell what else was said between these masters."

these are three different things from the 36 sermons

so we're clear allow me to explain some things: "ruling king" here refers to someone who has achieved apotheosis. the amaranth, the new man, a bit vague on it, but whatever you want to call it. a man who is redeemed with every action he takes, who is freed from both fear and desire and uncertainty.

the void ghost meanwhile is lorkhan, the one who made this world precisely to make such a being through trial and hardship.

and lastly, vivec says the ruling king has the sharmat as his double before immediately describing the hortator (nerevar) and sharmat as doubles. nerevar isnt a ruling king as far as we know in lore. if he was he probably wouldnt have rly died the first go around.

i believe vivec intends for nerevar to become a ruling king. but i am curious then if lorkhan made the same deal to nerevar. or if he had attempted to just delay baar dau (the lie rock who in this story is sentient and one of vivec's children) by trickery. vivec doesnt elaborate, but he seems content with their discussion as he deals with baar dau (and uses it as a threat)

theres more stuff too i havent been able to put into coherent words. in the 36 sermons and what my beloved taught me both say nerevar's hands have the ghartoki on them. GHARTOK PADHOME to be exact. in the sermons it also describes them as a curse. the translation is roughly weapon+hand of padomy/change. ghartok can be translated as the hand you use for a weapon or hands that are weapons. it could just be an auspicious mark that marks him as a hero, but i am reminded of the accounts of mephala's black hands.

to quote the new whirling school on it

To become a Ruling King, you must blacken your hands by becoming intimate with both Theory and Terror. Logic and Hysteria, two chiral opposites. Desire disappears in the hands of a Theorist, and fear does not exist in the hands of a Terrorist. You become clear of mind and devoid of fear. […] Facing down the Godhead requires incredible bravery because God is armored head to toe in terror. Simply being in its soul-nullifying presence is terrifying, and commanding all the Terror in the world will not aid you. Neither will Theory, for CHIM is a form of self-delusion. You are insisting that you exist despite inarguable evidence to the contrary, and this requires an argument made with a complete lack of reason

but i might be stretching it here

[olderthannetfic]

While we're on the topic of Mainstream Publishing Discourse...

There's a lot of discussion about how a lot of sci-fi/fantasy written by women and especially WOC that is not YA gets miscategorized as YA on Goodreads and other sites like that. And sure, sometimes it's unfair and just misogynistic/racist. Like, no one should be calling NK Jemisin's writing "YA."

But sometimes you get writers who will make that argument about where you're like.... okay, the reason people keep thinking you're YA is because of actual features of your writing that are similar to YA. Like if R.F. Kuang (she's the one I feel like gets complained about the most lately and I recently read Poppy War and Babel and agree with the complaints) wants to stop being seen as YA, she could maybe learn to have enough faith in her readers to not feel like she has to mention the moral of the story - that is already obvious from every other feature of the story - explicitly spelled out like 50x. She also seems to assume that her reader will disagree with her unless she does that, which is a strange thing to conclude about "colonialism bad" which I don't think anyone who is picking up Babel and reading the description on it is going to go in thinking the opposite of! And that is what makes it feel like YA: because so much YA is designed as intros to "serious issues" for teens that writers assume don't pick up on that stuff without explicitly being told (which I think is a bit insulting to teens, but whatever, it is the genre convention and it is why by 15 I was already reading books for grown-ups in both my free time and my classes). You don't NEED to do that and if you didn't, way fewer people would think your books are YA!

Or like Erin Morgenstern, you'll be seen as YA less if you were able to construct a coherent plot and characterization and didn't instead seem to be going entirely on aesthetics and vibes. Or like Casey McQuiston, whose books absolutely do read like YA books that just have more explicit, fanficcy sex scenes in it. You cannot be shocked people think of Red White and Royal Blue that way when it has such a YA-tastic romance premise that there have been multiple actual YA books since that were blatant rip-offs of it.

I also saw a post about how a lot of these books seem to be set in things like "magical boarding school" or focus on teen protagonists and like, yeah, I feel like in general if your books keep focusing on teenagers in a very similar to way books written FOR teenagers, you can't be shocked that people keep thinking they're YA. Of course there are books about teens that are for adults, but they are usually approached in a very different way with different plots.

Anyway, I do wish people would stop assuming that books that are clearly not YA "are YA" because they are sci-fi/fantasy written by women, because it just makes it that much harder to talk about the ones that really do feel like YA in ways where the authors should probably take that criticism to heart a little bit more. Someone like Kuang clearly does want to be writing for a more adult-litfic-style audience, and should probably listen to the people telling her that her books are too didactic in a way that feels insulting to people who aren't BookTok YA readers.

I tried to bring that up to my book club though when we read Poppy War and one person wouldn't stop shouting me down about how it's "just sexism and racism." And I had to keep shouting back, dude, yeah, I know that's what the discourse is. I know that's why writers like this can brush that off. I'm saying though that in this case, I think some of it's warranted based on how *the book is actually written*

--

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

Okay, this may come off sounding overly Buffypilled, but I think the fatal flaw that keeps preventing the pieces from coming together in SyFy's The Magicians (a show that is often good in its elements but Does Not Cohere) is that it can't figure out the nature of its core metaphor around magic.

But Milo, you say, maybe not everything has to be like, a metaphor? Maybe it can just be a fantasy show where people cast spells and bop around between dimensions because it's fun and entertaining? And to that I say, yeah, theoretically it can be that, but stuff that wants to be emotionally resonant is usually not that.

So there's typically an operative metaphor to these things, an idea that gives structure to the supernatural elements and helps us understand what's going on thematically. So like in Buffy and Supernatural, the structuring metaphor is The Pleasant-Seeming World Vs The Monsters Below Us. You understand the story by locating various characters in terms of their role in the conflict -- predators, protectors, prey -- and there's an ongoing tension around whether or not it's okay for protectors to dabble too much in Monstrosity, if the powers and tactics of the Monstrous can ever be repurposed for good.

That's not the structure of all stories, even in that genre! Teen Wolf and Harry Potter both have "secret occult world parallel to the familiar one" premises, as does The Magicians, but none of those stories impose the predator/prey metaphor onto their worlds. Teen Wolf structures its metaphors around the opposite assumption: that the supernatural element (The Wolf) is inherently neutral, and that accessing it makes characters simultaneously more dangerous and more capable of good. Hunters are bad guys in that universe, but good guys in Buffy and SPN, because the audience understands that "magic" is carrying a different set of meanings in the different stories, right?

The novels that The Magicians is based on has an extremely clear and pointed perspective on the meaning that magic carries metaphorically, and it's a positive meaning. Magic stands in for the power to make sense and meaning out of your own life, which is why the books follow Quentin's process from being a frustrated child using escapist child-stories to distract himself to playing an active role within those stories to assuming authority as a Magician King to ultimately killing the god of his childhood fantasy stories and creating his own Magician's Land to explore. Gaining more magic is always good in the books; it makes Quentin more sure of himself and the world, and it makes him more able to change it. It's an obvious metaphor for evolving over his 20s from a child who consumes stories to an adult who tells his own story.

But that's not the case in the show. A significant percentage of the show is an argument with itself about what magic even is -- does it solve problems or create them? If it's the reason lives across the multiverse are constantly at risk, is that bad? It sounds bad! But it's also power, and the show is highly sympathetic to the desire to Have More Power -- often completely divorced from the purpose or use of power. Gods seem mostly terrible, except Persephone, who's right to give Julia divine power, which we want Julia to be able to keep? But why do we want Julia to be a god? They're terrible! It's not clear. The nature of the power isn't clear, but the show has a general bias toward more power being a good thing -- except that the Library clearly has too much power, and so probably does Brakebills, both of which withhold magic for purposes that are protective or elitist or both? The show advocates for fewer restrictions on magic, but it also shows total carnage resulting from minor fuckups with magic, so -- does it really want the Library to just throw open to the floodgates? Doesn't it pretty strongly imply that a bloodbath would ensue if people had unfettered access to magic?

I realize it kind of sounds like I'm saying complicated stories with conflicting perspectives are bad, but I'm not. I just think it's difficult to know how to feel about anything that happens in the show because of this extremely loose approach to its use of themes. Alice is presented as wrong and bad when she tries to stifle magic, because the other characters like magic, but is she wrong? Why is she wrong? Why do the other characters like magic so much? It's presented as something that provides -- meaning or joy or some quasi-spiritual sense of identity ("the secret heart of who you always were"), but the show doesn't actually make that case, it doesn't demonstrate that the characters are better or happier because they're Magicians -- not in the same clear way that Scott McCall or book!Quentin are demonstrably more confident and comfortable and wiser at the end of their stories than they were at the beginning. As many times as I've watched The Magicians, I have to say I get less convinced every time that any of them benefit much from being Magicians -- and yet the story itself seems sure that they do, that magic has inherent value of some kind.

That's a weird combination, and it leaves me with the uncomfortable sense that the addiction metaphor is the one the show is fleshing out most fully. Fogg offers Quentin magic in exchange for his pills. Julia can't access magic legally and immediately behaves exactly like a junkie. If you do too much you'll be consumed, leaving an angry ghost. Kady's literal substance abuse, like Fogg's, is entwined at every step with the struggle to cope with the traumas of magic. Eliot is possessed by a creature of enormous magical power who is enthralled by the sensation of being high and has no perception of limits or consequence. They go back and back again to this entangling of magic and intoxication and addiction and self-destruction, but they never seem either aware of or willing to admit that they've created a world where magic itself is an addictive intoxicant, unable to provide real solutions to anyone's problems, but just pleasurable enough compared to the pain of sobriety to keep people chasing the sensation right over the cliff.

It's not intentional enough to be a metaphor that carries through consistently and explains everything, but it returns so frequently as a subtext that it ends up seeping into all the gaps where they've refused to show up with any other clear thematic agenda.

[lilac-hecox]

Another donation to Gaza and another flash fic this time for @yestomexicansalsa who requested Ian and Amanda! I ran with the idea of her audition and a sort of semi crush at first sight!

Amanda/Ian -Amandian - Audition

--

Ian considers himself a professional. While he’s still getting used to the position of being the person in charge and making decisions, being a leader, he likes to think he is respectful to those who work for him and those he meets. He would never hire based off of just looks and especially because of someone he’s attracted to. He’s not that kind of boss. He doesn’t want Smosh to be that kind of company. All that being said. They call the name of the next audition to be a cast member on Smosh, and in walks a gorgeous woman. The kind of gorgeous that Ian notices right away.

She’s tall, very tall, even in flats. Her hair is long and dark, and her eyes are smoky, but bright as she smiles at Ian, and Kiana, and Sarah at the table.

“Hi, I’m Amanda Lehan-Canto,” The woman says, her voice rich as she meets their eyes.

Ian tries to school his face into something normal so he doesn’t come off as a freak upon their first meeting and scare Amanda out of here.

“Nice to meet you,” Sarah says sweetly, “We have some scenes we want to toss you and we just want to see you improve a little bit.”

Amanda nods, tucks a strand of dark hair behind her ear and she doesn’t look scared at all, instead, she looks ready, energized by the idea of a challenge, of showing off her skills. Sarah gives Amanda a scenario where she’s a PTA mom getting in an argument with another mom during a meeting.

“Ian, care to be the other mom?” Sarah asks.

Ian nods and then he’s opposite her and he’s used to comedy and improv, but he still feels rusty, still feels like he doesn’t really belong here anymore because he did improv with Anthony and now Anthony is gone, and Ian is here, and he wants to be funny and follow Amanda’s lead.

Turns out. She’s hilarious. Amanda is quick on her feet, and she comes with an improv comedy pedigree. Anything Sarah, or Kiana, or even Ian tosses at her, Amanda is able to find the humor and mold the scene to fit around her, her acting breathing life into the scenario.

Ian finds himself laughing. When’s the last time he even really laughed like this?

They pitch Amanda another sketch. She and Ian are two baristas working the counter at a coffee shop. Amanda puts on a voice and sinks into a character quickly, leading the scene and having Ian playing follow-up.

In their scene there is an angry customer and a boss who is wanting to fire Amanda’s character. Her eyes sparkle as she glances at Ian.

“You can’t fire me! I’m pregnant! Ian and I are having a baby!” Amanda says.

Sarah, acting as the boss, says, “Prove it,” through giggles.

Amanda looks between Sarah and then Ian and then her hand seeks out the collar of Ian’s sweater and she tugs him close, close enough to highlight their height difference. Close enough he can smell her perfume. Close enough that her hair brushes his cheek as she dips down to meet him and with zero fear or hesitation, she presses a kiss to his mouth.

Sarah hoots and claps and Ian is lost in the warm and innocent press of Amanda’s mouth against his. She doesn’t know him. He doesn’t know her, but he feels a spark zing up his spine. She’s fearless in a way that reminds him of when he was a teenager in Sacramento.

The kiss breaks and Amanda grins, squeezes his shoulder as Sarah and Kiana clap.

“I hope that wasn’t crossing a line?” she asks, her voice gentle as her eyes bashfully search Ian’s.

It takes all of Ian’s brain power to shake his head, to form coherent words.

“No, it was good, it was funny,” he stresses, “You don’t hold back, huh?”

“Anything for the joke,” Amanda says, as her hands fall away from Ian’s shoulders.

Ian would never admit it, but he misses the warmth of her touch as soon as it leaves him. He can taste her faint on his lips, a new sensation worming through his brain, mapping itself to him.

“Do you write too?” Ian asks.

For a moment, it’s as if the conversation is just them, and Sarah and Kiana don’t exist. Amanda’s eyes brighten and she smiles even wider.

“I do. I love to write.”

Ian looks at Sarah and Kiana, and his mind was long since made up, long before the kiss, and based on her skills, how funny she is. The kiss was a part of a bit, and nothing Ian will hold as an indication that hiring her means she’ll kiss him again, but he would be a fool to not hire Amanda, to not bring her on the team.

“I think you’d be a great fit,” Ian says.

“Really?” Amanda asks excitedly.

Sarah and Kiana are nodding.

“We have a few more auditions, but it’s safe to say we would love to bring you on board,” Sarah is saying.

Amanda smiles and then she hugs Ian before she slips away and her warmth is gone, and she goes and hugs Sarah and then Kiana. Ian watches her and he smiles, feels sure of his decision, feels like Smosh needs Amanda.

[ghostaholics]

Sooooo, in the enemies with benefits prompt kissing is a big NO. So what if they kiss?

Like they are in the middle of a heated argument, and she is so tired of his shit that she shuts him up by kissing him, and Ghost instead of pushing her away does the complete opposite, getting really into it.

And then, once they end their little make out session it's like "NO. this never happened. I hate you, you are a terrible kisser and your breath stinks"

It’s one of his hands cupping the back of your neck, a large palm keeping you in place while the other curls into the material of your uniform near your lower back so that nearly every inch of you is pressed up against him. Close proximity –the much-needed space between your bodies is completely nonexistent.

It doesn’t automatically register in your mind how very wrong this is. Because the only thing occupying the hollow space in your head is something worse than the thick cloud of tobacco hanging around him after his smoke breaks.

You expect him to taste like tar and ash; there’s nothing of the sort. The first coherent thought that isn’t obscured by something bitter or carnal is that he must’ve quit his cancer sticks sometime between now and Venezuela when you’d commented on it two months ago.

And then, the next is the heat of his breath. It’s all mouths clashing with tongue and teeth. This is far from a nice kiss. It’s not allowed to be, especially when he growls deep in his throat, an unwarranted response to you softly biting his lower lip as this goes on longer than it should.

Under any other circumstance, you might admit—

Well, it doesn’t matter.

You lightly shove at his chest, trying to recuperate, trying to distance yourself.

He backs off, breathing hard. There’s a look in his eye that you’ve only seen when you know you’re in for it. “That was—”

“Horrid.”

Simon gives you a flat look like you’re full of shite. Can’t fault him for that – you don’t even believe yourself at this point.

“… well, at least you can eat cunt better than you can kiss,” you say, panting and wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. “Might benefit from some practice – maybe not with me, but definitely somebody else who'll take pity on you."

[paperstarwriters]

ive come kneeling at your doorstep to beg for that essay on murio and luciels parallels you mentioned 👀💦👉👈

i love loathing lucio so much so it would deal my lil hater ass so much psychic damage and i cannot wait to get rekt

(onlyifyouwanttothoofcoursetakeyourtime)(just making sure youre aware id print that shit n frame it above my bed were it to come to existence)

Hello @tetsuooooooooooo! I know you said I can take my time, ok I'm still really really sorry this took awhile, I've been kinda burnt out from classes lately, and writing a bunch of essays for that lol, but I've managed to make a somewhat coherent argument for my case here lol.

Now, to preface this:

I only really like Lucio as a character to thematically dissect and kick around occasionally for giggles. I am a far, far cry from a Lucio stan, I just find him interesting—like a bug. Honestly I don't think I'm gonna convince you he's in any way a good guy I just might make you loathe him more 😅

I haven't played Lucio's route. I'm too busy and I get too annoyed with some of his antics + the options of reactions that MC is allowed to make. I've only played the side stories and a lot of my understanding of his character is built from Muriel's route (and I know he's much more different in his own route than he is in the others') as well as hearsay from other people talking about Lucio

I know I said that I'd include Aurora's songs in my original statement but that got wayyyyyyy too messy so I'm just opting to exclude them lol. (not to mention youtube is doing a very irritatingly strange thing of deleting and then reuploading Aurora's songs??? so I don't wanna deal with the messy files :/)

With that out of the way here is my essay :)

Wordcount: 2,908

──────── ✎ ────────

Muriel and Lucio are both very, very caught up in how they are seen by others. While it's clearer when it comes to Lucio, it is also made clear in Muriel by the fact that Social anxiety is often caused by stress over how a person is perceived and their mental belief that they are helpless to change that perception. This causes of their self perception are also quite similar, due to their similar histories, but in the same way that there are some notable opposites between them with their struggle for their identity there is also some notable differences in their histories that arguably causes the slight difference in their struggle for their self image.

To begin with their history, Muriel and Lucio are noted to both come from the South. They come from two opposing tribes, and are both eventually chased out of their home and community by 1) a cruel person who arguably causes their struggle of identity and 2) the plague. Of course, the major difference here is that Lucio actively made decisions that would lead to him being chased out of his tribe, he was arguably aware that if it failed he'd have to leave, he just hadn't considered that it would actually fail.

Muriel on the other hand is chased out of his home at a much younger age, and he has no choice in his eviction from his home or his family. There is no action that Muriel could have done that would have allowed him to stay where he was, unlike Lucio who had a clear option that would have allowed him to stay.

Or at least would have allowed him to stay until he grew tired of his mother's attitude towards him.

I don't believe that Morga's cruel and dismissive attitude towards Lucio started when he tried to kill her, rather, I believe that she has been doing that for a long, long time. She often states that she had been "too soft" on Lucio, but I think her "softness" is the same kind we see in Muriel's route. She berates him, she threatens him, she tells him how awful and unskilled he is to everyone else and makes a show of his failures, but when she is completely and fully enraged and is about to hit Lucio, she hesitates.

Is that softness? To her perhaps. To the tribe, perhaps. But not to me, and not to Lucio.

So, despite all of the harsh words thrown his way, he decides to take action to prove her wrong. I'm willing to bet that a lot of Morga's criticisms were about how strong he was and how he was in fact not actually as strong as he could have been, not as strong as he should have been. That's why when he takes action to prove Morga wrong, he immediately snaps to killing her. There is, after all, no better way than showing your power than killing your opponent (we see this belief in Morga when she spars against Muriel and he beats her.) Of course, in hand-to-hand combat, and on fair terms, Lucio can't actually defeat his mother, so he takes to more under-handed methods in order to beat her.

When this fails, it is the first major wound on his self-image. He cannot defeat his mother. He is not strong enough to defeat his mother despite cheating.

So, he runs away.

Besides marking a wound on his self-image, this also marks Lucio's connection to others. Having been exiled from his tribe, he is disconnected from the friends who may have actually supported him somewhat, he is robbed of his connections and separated from anyone who may have actually loved and cared for him (platonically and/or romantically)

Similarly, Muriel's separation from his own family, and his eventual abandonment into the streets of Vesuvia separates him from any stable sense of love and affection as well. Because he was separated from loving parents as a child and was likely surrounded by a number of children who were abandoned because they were unwanted, or because their parents were unable to care for them, Muriel has no other answer than what the other kids give him it is the only answer he has. Further more I believe that Muriel was probably abandoned by that merchant because they were unable to keep feeding him, which he also attaches onto his real parents as to why he was abandoned in the first place.

And so Muriel believes himself to be unloved and unlovable after being separated from family, or any semblance of a family.

Returning to Lucio, he moves on from his tribe and eventually joins a military group(? I think? Idk. I'm sure there was a specific name for it but I can't remember sorry) Once again, this is an act of trying to prove to his mother and to his community that they were wrong, and when compared to the ordinary person outside of their tribe, he's actually a really good and capable fighter. Of course, however, this is inevitably cut short as he looses his arm, and is once again confronted with the fact that he is unskilled as a warrior and so he retreats from his perceived deficiency and takes a different route to getting the love and admiration he wants—politics.

Of course, as we see in Muriel and Asra's childhood tale, this inevitably puts him into direct conflict as, in order to climb the social ladder he offers to "clean up" the streets. While it's largely left up to interpretation as to whether or not the Threat of Asra's safety came first or Muriel's position as a gladiator came first, I can't help but believe that Muriel's position as a gladiator came first, as otherwise, he might've gone out and tried to check on Asra's safety. (though this is mostly a headcannon) I believe that Lucio offered Muriel a chance to have some say in who gets "cleaned up" from the streets, and for Muriel to be able to get rid of the "actually bad criminals". Regardless of whether or not this is true, the arena gives Muriel his first taste of admiration, as people cheer for and adore him, but it also tears that sense of admiration away as he eventually has to come to terms with what he is doing. Whether that sense of dread and awareness was always there or it occurred somewhere in the middle is also unknown but the outcome is the same regardless. Being known and being admired becomes tied to hurting and harming people—because it is the only trait he sees that other people admire, he sees it as his only lovable trait.

And so Lucio and Muriel begin to reflect each other—and I don't mean reflect as in they show the same image, I mean reflect as in we see a similar image, but the image is reversed (*wink wink nudge nudge*). Here Muriel sees himself as only capable of being loved for his ability to commit violence, and Lucio sees himself as being incapable of being loved because he cannot complete the amount of violence he needs to commit.

Now, I feel the need to emphasize here, despite having many people around him who Lucio may truly believe love and admire him, the people around him very likely don't actually care for him very much because they either do not know him well, or they see him as little more than a pawn in a plan, or at least someone who gives them benefits. And even if there are a number of people with genuine admiration for Lucio, it still wouldn't be enough. Admiration is never enough when you lack genuine emotional connections with others, and Lucio, clearly does.

Again, this parallels Muriel who also struggles with a lack of genuine emotional connections to others. Although he has Asra with him, it's clear that, Asra's tendency to be fickle with connections has extended to him as well, especially when Asra spends more time with MC than him, leaving Muriel feeling abandoned and alone. Considering that Asra is the only person we ever really see Muriel connect or talk to, it's no stretch to say that Asra is one of Muriel's only friends, if not their only friend period, and so with Asra disappearing on him as often as they do, Muriel is left feeling that he actually has no connections at all.

Of course once again reflecting each other, where Muriel clearly sees he lacks connections and pretends he does not, Lucio, makes unsteady transactional rather than emotional relationships and pretends that that is enough.

It is of course, not enough, because if it were, he wouldn't have treated Muriel like that, he likely wouldn't have plucked Muriel out at all. Although this is largely speculation, I believe that Lucio treated Muriel the way he did because he feels as if Muriel is the very child Morga would have wanted. He is big and strong, and although not technically skilled if Muriel were raised by Morga like Lucio was, he might've been. This is why his first reaction to seeing Muriel and Morga working together is that Muriel is Morga's replacement son. It's because that's how Lucio had been treating him. Muriel is Lucio's little avatar to live out the glory of being a fantastically skilled fighter who can beat up all of his opponents. This is also, why I believe that Lucio purposefully trained Muriel to be less skilled in fighting than he was. In Muriel's route, Lucio comments that he's always been able to beat Muriel, and while I do in fact believe that Lucio is actually a skilled fighter, despite how he is often presented and despite my arguments above—he's most often a skilled fighter in the technical sense. He knows all the movements, he knows all the strategies, he knows all the underhanded tricks. By not fighting Muriel too often, and refusing to teach him these tricks however much it may be able to help Muriel out in the arena, it allows Lucio to be able to defeat him whenever he wants to. It allows Lucio to make it seem to himself that he is better than the person his mother would have wanted as a son, which I believe to be both horrible but also sad, for both Lucio and Muriel.

With Lucio, it shows how desperate and inferior he feels with his fighting skills, constantly trying to compensate for it something we can also see that in the portrait of himself he has in his room.

For Muriel, it keeps him scared, and keeps him pinned in place despite having realized the consequences of his fighting. Something which only furthers his self-hatred when he realizes he actually could have easily left.

So yes, Muriel and Lucio are both very self conscious people, and while for Muriel his self consciousness stems from people seeing him as a monster, and him believing that he is one although he does not want to be one, Lucio is self-conscious in the fact that he is not seen as the brutal fighting warrior he was supposed to be.

These reflected aspects of each other, alongside of their self consciousness is the very thing they struggle through in their routes, the very thing that MC helps them to get through.

Lucio believes that through various paintings of himself that rearranges his past (paintings of himself as a triumphant fighter, while his mother is demure and elegant), various unfair/practically staged fights, and celebrations of himself on top of it all, he would be able to convince people that he is awesome and amazing and that he deserves to be loved. In doing all of this however, Lucio runs away from confronting the beliefs at his core and wondering if perhaps, what he understood as traits that make a person great may be incorrect—that his mother had not just been incorrect on the fact that he was a failure, but on the fact of what makes a person successful or powerful. By constantly covering up what he sees as deficits, Lucio skims over his own internal struggles entirely which makes him look foolish and annoying as he ignores what's so clearly there for others.

Meanwhile, for Muriel, he is aware of his deficits, and is unable to properly hide them without disappearing completely himself, he tries to figure out and fix all of his problems through introspection and isolation, but it is not something he can do on his own. Muriel of course, can't accept the fact that he may need help. He can't accept the fact that despite what he believes of himself, other people may actually care for him the same way he cares for them, and will actually offer help. And so, as he runs away from people and community, from friends, and possible friends alike, Muriel runs away from his own problems as well, even if he tortures himself with confronting them (I can't remember if he actually does this or if this is a fanfic trope 😅) Essentially, by constantly trying to deal with his struggles on his own, he neglects his connections to others who may help him, or at least offer support.

And then MC comes along, and because they both desperately needed that deep connection to someone else, regardless of whether it is something platonic or romantic. MC is able to leverage their relationship in order to further propel Muriel and Lucio's development into acknowledging the thing they refuse to acknowledge, and finally balance out their coping mechanisms, which, on their own isn't actually unhealthy (Lucio's really good at connecting with others; Muriel knows how to confront his inner turmoil) using that single method as their crutch for their traumas only ever hurts them more.

As Muriel progresses through his route, he grows more connected with his community and people. One meaningful moment that I don't think they give enough screen time in the game is the moment that Muriel is forced to confront people recognizing and seeing him again. He's forced to confront everyone's perception of him, their memory of him and he retreats into the mirror maze where he stares at all these reflections of himself, all reversed images of himself, but he believes them all to accurately represent himself—as if his superficial physical image is what represents himself mentally and emotionally. And then MC (and Morga 🙄) come through to him and pull him out of that panic attack (or interrupt and yank him away from properly addressing the problem in Morga's case 😤) And that's the first step to being loved. As they say, in order to let yourself be loved you have to let yourself be known, and in that first step, choosing to step forward and prioritize the lives of others over his own self image, Muriel begins to be admired by others. Genuinely admired, for traits that he likes in himself rather than traits that he hates.

Similarly for Lucio, (although I haven't played his route so this is largely based on hearsay) he's faced with problems that he Has to face on his own (or at least somewhat on his own) the main one being that he has to confront the consequences of his own actions, he has to acknowledge to himself that he isn't perfect and that he can't be perfect. It's why at the end of his route on the upright ending, he leaves Vesuvia, to take on a life of (semi)solitude to further take some time to improve his ability at introspection, while in the Reversed ending he's still talking with people, still trying to manipulate their perceptions of him (and the MC), and still trying to be a "good boy" (ie. perfect) for the MC.

Now, it may be argued that Julian can/should be included in this struggle of how others perceive him but I raise you this; that guy is the most dramatic ass dude in town and his biggest dramatic act was telling everyone about how horrible he is. He clearly has no issues with how other people see him, but he has problems with how he sees himself, which again, reflects Muriel a bit, but I'm sure most people are familiar with their (more blatant) similarities by now lol

So yea.

Muriel and Lucio are reflections of each other. At their core, they both struggle with the same problem of caring way too much about how they're seen by others, but they cope with (and thus worsen) the problem in opposite ways, so when they take steps to heal themself, they also go in opposite directions, with Lucio needing to take some time to himself to get into his own head, while Muriel needs some time away from himself to get out of his own head.

Essentially they're heading in opposite directions to reach the same conclusion: other people's opinions don't matter as much as your own opinion of yourself and the opinions of the people close to you.

Interesting parallels, no?

Of course, I believe this could've been better illustrated if Nyx Hydra didn't rush the last three routes, but alas, this is what fan fiction and fan-analysis is for lol

Anyways I don't tend to poke around the Lucio side of the fandom too much to begin with so if this has all been said and argued before forgive me for the repetition, and If I've gotten some points wrong, please feel free to correct me! I've mentioned before I haven't really played through Lucio's route so some things may be wrong.

[redcloverf3y]

This has probably already been mentioned but i am SO UNWELL /pos over the perfect parallels of the two balcony scenes this ep.

The first one is dim and cold. The apartment is dark, and the only little source of light they get is the distant city lights.

Kazuki and Rei are sat facing opposite of one another for basically the entire scene, with Kazuki looking back towards the house that doesn't really feel like home anymore, while Rei is looking away, looking forward.

Rei is the first to make a move towards their separation, saying that he's going to move back in with the boss after new years has passed. Kazuki doesn't fight it, just accepts it with a dismissive "Not like there's much reason for us to stay together now". (To my interpretation, I'd see that as Kazuki not seeing it as a point worth arguing anymore, since, with Miri out of the way, he doesn't see why Rei would have any reason to stay. This mentality likely ties into not only Kazuki's previous experiences with losing loved ones but also into the whole "people like us don't deserve happiness/we can't change" ideas that they've kind of fallen back into once now that Miri's gone)

The scene ends with them more or less going their separate ways, Rei being the first to leave while Kazuki lingers behind, pondering the so-called 'parting gift' he was handed (I have many thoughts about that damned lighter but none of them are coherent enough for this post)

In contrast, let's now look at the second balcony scene.

Once again, we are starting with Kazuki and Rei facing opposite directions, yet this time the positions are reversed. Kazuki is the one looking forward, at the distant city, while Rei is looking back towards the house.

The setting is also quite different; as opposed to the previous scene, which was dark and cold, this one is brightly lit in warm colors. Not only that, the light is coming from inside the house.

Following with the looking forward/looking back pattern, this time it's Kazuki who pushes for their separation. The difference? Rei fights against it. He opens up about how Miri has changed him, how being part of a proper family changes him. And that reaches Kazuki, to some degree.

(Kazuki doesn't really want to give Miri again either, really. He's still stuck with that mentality that they "don't deserve" to have Miri in their lives, and Misaki's death only served to really nail home how dangerous it was and still is to have her around given their livelihoods.)

For the first significant time, Rei and Kazuki are properly facing each other. Nothing and no one to separate them, an argument ended by a simple conclusion that is exactly what both of them needed to realize.

"We can change."

The scene ends with them leaving the balcony together, called back into the light of the house by Miri.

Man. I'm so normal about this show.

(Also, isn't it ironic how Kazuki was willing to put Miri through an orphanage/the system while having gone through that himself and acknowledging how much it fucked him up?)

[luxe-pauvre]

For Hume, the self, the notion of identity, is nothing more than a bunch of perceptions happening one after another. Continuing this line of thought, Dan Dennett says that identity is an illusion created by our narrative: It is the language that leads us to talk (and talk to ourselves) and think “as if there were someone inside.” Moreover, we earlier saw that our body’s sense of belonging is relative and occurs because of the coherence of our feelings: We believe the illusion that a rubber hand is part of our body, or we believe the opposite if an “alien” hand doesn’t behave according to our predictions. According to this perspective, we are nothing more than sophisticated organisms, but so complex that we can reflect on our own behaviours and even be conscious of our existence, creating the illusion of a self. And if the self doesn’t exist, wondering about death makes no sense because there was never someone who would die. The denial of the self is much easier to accept if we abstract ourselves and analyse the problem in the third person, that is, if we stop thinking about what would happen to us and see it all from the outside, say from the perspective of a Martian who arrived on Earth and is trying to understand the philosophical problem that is the bane of our existence. […] Nonetheless, the idea that the self doesn’t exist is not an easy pill to swallow. It is a blow to what we consider philosophy’s first truth — I think, therefore I am — proposed by Descartes. The argument is still valid, but it radically changes the conception of what exists, since it would no longer be the self. But the feeling of existing, of being a person, is too strong. In fact, it is what I believe I know with the greatest certainty. It is not based on any rational argument; the feeling that there’s a self writing these lines is in my gut.

Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, Neuroscience Fiction