#academic satire

[daytaker]

Sins, Virtues, and Motivations: A Critical Analysis of Characters in Shall We Date?: Obey Me!

In this essay, I will argue that each demon brother some of the demon brothers can be associated with a sin (no duh), a virtue, and a core motivation--and that this motivation is best pursued through a synthesis of that sin and that virtue. Hegel would be very proud. Yes, this is critical media analysis. No, I will not try to explain the twisted, broken path that led me to this point in my life.

I will be looking at Lucifer, Mammon, and Levi in this study. Their core sins are obvious - Pride, Greed, and Envy. Their accompanying Virtues and Motivations are listed below.

I used the Seven Heavenly Virtues for this little game. These are Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance, Faith, Hope, and Charity.

They should not be confused with the Seven Capital Virtues, which are inversions of the Seven Deadly Sins. These are Humility, Charity, Kindness, Patience, Chastity, Temperance, and Diligence. I tried these first and damn were none of them easy to match up. Tell me, fandom for this mobile game designed for players to lust over hot demon men, which brother should have the "chastity" virtue?

Lucifer

Core Sin: Pride. Core Virtue: Fortitude. Core Motivation: To protect his family.

Lucifer's core motivation is to protect his brothers. He looks at this as a sort of penance for the outcome of the Great Celestial War. He knows that he's the reason they rebelled, and he feels responsible for their wellbeing. He is able to endure the relentless pressure of the responsibilities he puts on himself thanks to his core virtue, fortitude.

Fortitude is strongly associated with courage. Specifically, it is courage in the face of pain and adversity. We see him displaying this trait any time those he cares for are in jeopardy, and it often helps him make difficult decisions where neither outcome is ideal. Lucifer is decisive, canny, and accepts the consequences of his choices, good or bad.

His driving motivation is also bolstered by his core sin: pride. He views himself as ultra-competent, while his brothers consistently make mistakes; beyond that, it's only natural that he take responsibility for the choices of his brothers (like the choice to join him in rebelling) because he is so significant an influence as to virtually rob them of their autonomy.

This has led to Lucifer having a somewhat toxic relationship with his brothers. Lucifer often acts as a parental figure rather than a peer, while the rest of them are all in arrested development of some sort, often acting more like kids than the adults they insist they are.

Lucifer either doesn't recognize that by doing everything for the family on his own, he's stemming their ability to grow and learn, or he does know the consequences of what he's doing and he feels conflicted about it. He ultimately blames himself for the fact that they're all in the Devildom in the first place, living as avatars of sins to the extent that they struggle to function as independent adults.

So, while fortitude and pride allow Lucifer to simulate the act of protecting his family, it's a matter of perspective whether controlling every element of their lives is protection or harmful coddling.

Mammon

Core Sin: Greed. Core Virtue: Charity. Core Motivation: To be valued and valuable.

Mammon is simultaneously a vessel of greed and its inverse, charity. This is because his core motivation is twofold, and those are the rewards of greed and charity; to be valued - to fulfill a want, to be desired, to look flippin' cool - and to be valuable - to fulfill a need, to have inherent worth, to serve a purpose.

Setting aside his unhealthy relationship with money, let's examine how Mammon behaves and what his deeper interpersonal motivations tend to be. He clearly places a high value on his brothers and MC, and he has shown on multiple occasions that he is willing to put himself at risk to help or protect them. Early on in both the original game and in NightBringer, Mammon attempts to heroically rescue MC (and his younger brothers, in NightBringer). In both cases, though, Lucifer shows up and does it for him. Mammon's pursuit of his core motivation clashes with Lucifer's quest for his, and Lucifer is strong enough to simply take it from him. Although in NightBringer he and his brothers do earn the not-insubstantial reward of the title "Lords of the Underworld" after Lucifer's rescue, he appeared so dejected by Lucifer's oneupmanship that he spent a good portion of the next day sulking. In the original game, Mammon wants MC to promise that they won't be saved by anyone else besides him in the future. It appears that his greed for an improved status in his interpersonal relationships is left unfulfilled.

Mammon wants to be heroic - to be valuable - and he wants to be admired for it - to be valued. The cognitive dissonance that accompanies motivations like these is all that sustains a person with such a diminished sense of self-worth.

Speaking of a diminished sense of self worth...

Leviathan

Core Sin: Envy. Core Virtue: Hope. Core Motivation: To find joy in the things that give him joy.

Confusing motivation? Yes it is. But envy is a confusing sin. All the other sins--pride, greed, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth--are enjoyable to indulge on some level. Losing your temper when you feel you've been wronged, or eating a bunch of delicious food, or sleeping through the snooze alarm: We know why we do those things. We might regret them later, but we indulge them in the moment because of the enjoyable side.

There is nothing enjoyable about envy. Wanting something that isn't yours, that belongs to someone else, be it tangible goods, talents, a partner, a job... is nauseating. And it makes you feel like a bad person, and it drains the joy out of things that you used to love. Speaking from personal experience for a second, when I was a teenager, I played music in a company with a much younger musician who was incredibly talented, and I was deeply envious of her. I wanted her talent; I wanted the praise she received; I wanted to impress people; I wanted what she had. But there was nothing I could do. I hated feeling that way, but I couldn't shake it. And it ate away at my desire to play music. It took the joy out of something that once gave me joy.

You see the connection?

Levi struggles to find pleasure in anything he does, despite how many interests he has, because, in spite of his blustering dismissal of all things "normie", he is deeply envious of those he perceives as his social superiors. Now, I am not in any way saying that Levi is or would be an inc3l, but there's an element of his character that has a strong parallel to inc3l culture. The idea that there is something fundamentally wrong with him that prevents him from achieving what he wants socially and that the only way he can protect himself from those who would ridicule him is with a defensive contempt for the group that rejects him... Does any of that sound familiar?

But Levi is not an inc3l. No, not because you're willing to **** him and his two *****, though I'm sure that helps. It's because he has his core virtue: hope.

Have you ever heard of the black pill? It's kind of like the final stage of inc3l culture, where you accept that you're not an alpha male, you'll never be one, you'll never be accepted by a woman, you're ugly and unloveable, and you might as well just stop existing. It is sheer despair.

Levi maintains hope for the future, even if he prefers not to admit it out of fear of jinxing himself. He is able to form a deep bond with MC, who he views as a "normie", without renouncing his hobbies or being mocked for them. In fact, I would argue that the anxiety Levi sometimes displays over the possibility of being made fun of (for example, in NightBringer when he considers trying out cosplay) is emblematic of the hope he has that he can be accepted.

"But wait, daytaker," you say. "That doesn't sound like he's making progress towards his core motivation of getting joy out of the things that bring him joy! Being self conscious is not joyful!" Well, you're right. What Levi needs is to somehow find the right balance between enjoying his hobbies and allowing himself to enjoy other people as well. As we can see from his effusive excitement in sharing his favorite games and stories with MC and his brothers, the social component of media consumption is a major component in making it enjoyable. If Levi loses hope, he loses that connection to the world offline, and if he loses that connection, he loses the joy.

@blackstqr (I did it.)

[boof-chamber]

The Reification of Desire at the Intersection of the Rural Masculine and the Masculine Rural in Late Neoliberal Digital Post-Truth Era Escanaba

[madame-helen]

[gay-classics-student]

What's something fun to do which isn't arts and fucking crafts

I swear to God I will castrate whoever tells me to do fucking arts and crafts if I'm bored .

[kaylaauandromedus]

• Bunny by Mona Awad 🧁🐇🪓

• Aesthetic owned by me pictures are not

• Booksta: Kaylaauandromedus

[youmustfixyourheartt]

listening to panic! for the first time guys

[salvadorbonaparte]

I'm reading qualityland right now and saw there's an English translation which I obviously have to hunt down and compare to the original

[postgraduate]

lol to be perfectly honest, i am having a ball writing niles crane on disco.rd. what began as me angling, "let's push the diane/niles bff agenda" is still me angling, but also me -- who accidentally became a SchOlar of gothic art/architecture -- pondering how niles and maris, these two bizarre characters, live in a gothic house with alleged genuine 15th cent. decor in the middle of SEATTLE.

i don't have the time nor mental bandwidth for tumblr rp :o( but i do have time for, and lots of fun with, intermittent disco.rd writing & making inspo sideblogs for the cheers/frasier universe characters like some kind of unwieldy stickerbook

[thenewestmedia]

Indirectly, Ricken and his ilk serves as the perfect pro-Lumon propaganda for Mark’s outie. He’s the character farthest away from Lumon, and he’s self-centered and pretentious, two traits that are stamped out by Lumon’s fundamental structure (dedication to Kier removes the ego and the severed don’t have identities to be proud of).

Recall: before Lumon, Mark worked as a history professor and his wife was a literature professor. I’m around academics 23/7: we’re obnoxious. Everyone is like Ricken. Hell, before Gemma died Mark was possibly Like That too, or at least dealt with a lot of Rickens. So him interacting with Ricken on a daily basis, dealing with his brother-in-law’s bullshit — it’s a reminder of the life he chose to leave and what he’d have to go back to if he leaves Lumon.

I know some people view Ricken as the "self-centred and bumbling but ultimately well-intentioned buffoon" archetype but I personally think he's a genuinely bad person. Imagine being so completely self-obsessed and delusional that you can't deprioritise yourself even for the length of time it takes for your baby to be born. Imagine your integrity being so fragile that attention from a beautiful woman and a paycheck is enough for you to dilute and inverse every moral you've ever proclaimed to hold, insofar as you willingly produce propaganda for the company that you know for a FACT has malicious intent (including the imprisonment and torture of your brother-in-laws innie). Being such an insufferable prick that you attend no-dinner dinners and host readings of your own shitty literature and book birthing cabins, without even for a SECOND pausing to make space for what your wife and the mother of your child might want. She rolls her eyes behind your back; she has to make apologies for you when you leave the room. She is beautiful, intelligent, funny, kind, and she is giving away pieces of herself (helloooo innie/outie metaphor) to make more room for your ever-inflating ego, and you don't even have the decency to notice. I need to take him out with a shotgun.

[untypicable]

Grounded Theory: Making It Up As You Go Along (But With Integrity)

This week, in a break from stalking the usual parade of sociological ghosts—Marx, Weber, Bourdieu and the like—I thought we’d do something different. Let’s talk about something alive, terrifyingly current, and capable of causing existential dread in postgraduate students across the globe: methodology. More specifically, Grounded Theory. Now, if you’ve never come across Grounded Theory, count…

[roryleighgilmore1984]

Advice Request #2

Okay so the Dean poll won to the "No's" of pursuing a relationship with him and I listened (even though I think he's cute). NOW I need to know if this guy at my new school whose been bugging me seems better. He keeps asking me out. What do I say? This is a photo my grandmother took of him at my birthday party. His name is Tristain.

Lmk in my comments too what you think of him. Thank you,

Rory Gilmore.

[drdamiang]

LITTLE

LITTLE

let's subdivide this!

put in numbered sections

classes and clauses

sub

classes and subclauses

bullet point

apportion

avoid every

challenge

and subversion

detailing exactly

why how where and when

in glorious

self-

referential

painstaking detail

what little we did

little little we did

[themisinformer]

Motivational Speaker Tells Middle Schoolers That Marijuana Really Helps You Get Through the School Day

TOLEDO, OHIO - Making the bold claim that it would make all of your stresses go away, 34 year old motivational speaker John Bastion, who describes himself on his website as a “life coach, stage performer, and leader for the next generation,” was hired by Jefferson Junior High School in the Toledo area to relieve stress and provide some end of year motivation and would get attention when he encouraged the middle schoolers to relieve their stress with marijuana.

“Look,” Bastion told the gymnasium full of middle schoolers. “Middle school is a stressful time for everyone. You have to deal with excruciating schoolwork, peer pressure, and constant drama. We as adults deal with this kind of stuff all the time too. And do you know how we relive these stresses from our life? By taking a puff of the devil’s lettuce.”

Bastion would then go on to pull out a hemp stuffed stress ball and launch it into the crowd, encouraging the audience to throw the ball around at each other and “inhale the inner peace of ganja.”

“What y’all are experiencing right now is the sensation known as getting high,” Bastion went on to explain. “It’s a great feeling. It makes you feel like are the problems in your life, in the world right now, feel suddenly minuscule. You guys are going to remember this moment for the rest of your lives. The first time you got high. And you guys can thank me for it.”

Before he was escorted out of the building by his probation officer, Bastion would provide the young adolescents with some parting words. “Remember, whenever you come into problems in your life, just resort to drugs.”

Ever since Bastion’s visit to the school, teachers and staff have reported a much more peaceful, calm environment. “It’s like night and day,” reported Science teacher Diana McMillan. “Before, students were stressed and rowdy, fights were constantly being started, the whole nine yards. But after John Bastion’s visit to our school, everyone is much more calm, which is especially appreciated during the end of the year when there’s a lot more tests and heavy grading. And for that, we thank you, John Bastion.”

[chungledown-bimothy]

I cannot overstate how much I love Tom Lehrer's story. It sounds so fake but is entirely real.

He's a goddamn genius- he started studying mathematics at Harvard when he was 15 and graduated magna cum laude. He worked at Los Alamos for a few years before being drafted and working for the NSA, where he claims to have invented jello shots to get around alcohol bans.

He then went back to Harvard for a couple years before starting to teach political science at MIT.

Through all of that, he was writing and performing both some of the funniest shit you'll ever hear (Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, Masochism Tango) and absolutely scathing political satire (Who's Next, Wernher von Braun, Send the Marines). Until the mid/late 60s counterculture gained momentum. He didn't like their aesthetic, so he stopped making music.

Shortly after, he moved to California and started teaching math and musical theater history at UC Santa Cruz for the next 30 years.

I don't know if non-Californians understand just how goddamn funny that is. It's where stoners and math (and now computer science) kids who couldn't get into Berkeley go. Leaving Harvard/MIT for UCSC is peak academic phoning it in. And by all accounts he had a blast.

Plus the whole putting all of his music in the public domain thing. That fucked.

[chlorinejello]

I was definitely born in the right era. I can’t imagine handing in these assignments via pigeon. gotta get up from bed to pick up a mf scroll and finish my theses? fuck no. I’m chatgtping this shit, paraphrasing and correcting all the way to Microsoft word mobile without moving anything other than my thumbs. turning that shit in? In person? fuck no. i’m emailing this in with -5 days left.

[kesarijournal]

Does Meritocracy Reign Supreme in a World Where Box-Checking is King?

**Dateline: The World – January 5, 2024**In a stunning revelation that has left literally no one in shock, it appears that the very institutions we’ve entrusted with the sacred task of molding young minds, ensuring public health, and steering our nations have been doing so with the utmost integrity and merit. Yes, you heard it right. In a world where box-checking for DEI has become the norm,…