#but i do think its good to be aware of where the narratives living in our subconscious come from and who they benefit

[metanarrates]

Hello. Sorry if this a stupid question u can ignore if u want.

How can someone get better at media analysis? Besides obviously reading a lot.

Im asking this bc im in a point where im aware of my own lack of tools to analyze stories, but i don't know where to get them or how to get better in general. How did you learn to analyze media? There's any specific book, essay, author, etc that you recommend? Somewhere to start?

I'm asking you because you are genuinely the person who has the best takes on this site. Thank you for you work!

it sounds like a cop-out answer but it's always felt like a skill I acquired mostly thru reading a ton, and by paying a lot of attention in high school literature classes. because of that I can't promise that I'm necessarily equipped to be a good teacher or that i know good resources. HOWEVER! let me run some potential advice to you based on the shit i get a lot of mileage out of

first off, a lot of literary analysis is about pattern recognition! not just pattern recognition in-text, but out-of-text as well. how does this work relate to its genre? real-world history? does it have parallels between real-life situations? that kind of thing.

which is a big concept to just describe off the bat, so let me break it down further!

in literature, there is the concept of something called literary devices - they are some of the basic building blocks in how a story is delivered mechanically and via subtext. have you ever heard of a motif? that is a literary device. it's a pattern established in the text in order to further the storytelling! and here is a list of a ton of common literary devices - I'd recommend reading the article. it breaks down a lot of commonly used ones in prose and poetry and explains their usage.

personally, I don't find all the literary devices I've learned about in school to be the most useful to my analytical hobbies online. motifs, themes, and metaphors are useful and dissecting them can bring a lot to the table, but a lot of other devices are mostly like fun bonus trivia for me to notice when reading. however, memorizing those terms and trying to notice them in the things you read does have a distinct benefit - it encourages you to start noticing patterns, and to start thinking of the mechanical way a story is built. sure, thinking about how the prose is constructed might not help you understand the story much more, but it does make you start thinking about how things like prose contribute to the greater feeling of a piece, or how the formatting of a piece contributes to its overall narrative. you'll start developing this habit of picking out little things about a text, which is useful.

other forms of in-text pattern recognition can be about things like characterization! how does a character react to a certain situation? is it consistent with how they usually behave? what might that tell you about how they think? do they have tells that show when they're not being trustworthy? does their viewpoint always match what is happening on screen? what ideas do they have about how the world works? how are they influenced by other people in their lives? by social contexts that might exist? by situations that have affected them? (on that note, how do situations affect other situations?)

another one is just straight-up noticing themes in a work. is there a certain idea that keeps getting brought up? what is the work trying to say about that idea? if it's being brought up often, it's probably worth paying attention to!

that goes for any pattern, actually. if you notice something, it's worth thinking about why it might be there. try considering things like potential subtext, or what a technique might be trying to convey to a reader. even if you can't explain why every element of a text is there, you'll often gain something by trying to think about why something exists in a story.

^ sometimes the answer to that question is not always "because it's intentional" or even "because it was a good choice for the storytelling." authors frequently make choices that suck shit (I am a known complainer about choices that suck shit.) that's also worth thinking about. english classes won't encourage this line of thinking, because they're trying to get you to approach texts with intentional thought instead of writing them off. I appreciate that goal, genuinely, but I do think it hampers people's enthusiasm for analysis if they're not also being encouraged to analyze why they think something doesn't work well in a story. sometimes something sucks and it makes new students mad if they're not allowed to talk about it sucking! I'll get into that later - knowing how and why something doesn't work is also a valuable skill. being an informed and analytical hater will get you far in life.

so that's in-work literary analysis. id also recommend annotating your pages/pdfs or keeping a notebook if you want to close-read a work. keeping track of your thoughts while reading even if they're not "clever" or whatever encourages you to pay attention to a text and to draw patterns. it's very useful!

now, for out-of-work literary analysis! it's worth synthesizing something within its context. what social settings did this work come from? was it commenting on something in real life? is it responding to some aspects of history or current events? how does it relate to its genre? does it deviate from genre trends, commentate on them, or overall conform to its genre? where did the literary techniques it's using come from - does it have any big stylistic influences? is it referencing any other texts?

and if you don't know the answer to a bunch of these questions and want to know, RESEARCH IS YOUR FRIEND! look up historical events and social movements if you're reading a work from a place or time you're not familiar with. if you don't know much about a genre, look into what are considered common genre elements! see if you can find anyone talking about artistic movements, or read the texts that a work might be referencing! all of these things will give you a far more holistic view of a work.

as for your own personal reaction to & understanding of a work... so I've given the advice before that it's good to think about your own personal reactions to a story, and what you enjoy or dislike about it. while this is true that a lot of this is a baseline jumping-off point on how I personally conduct analysis, it's incomplete advice. you should not just be thinking about what you enjoy or dislike - you should also be thinking about why it works or doesn't work for you. if you've gotten a better grasp on story mechanics by practicing the types of pattern recognition i recognized above, you can start digging into how those storytelling techniques have affected you. did you enjoy this part of a story? what made it work well? what techniques built tension, or delivered well on conflict? what about if you thought it sucked? what aspects of storytelling might have failed?

sometimes the answer to this is highly subjective and personal. I'm slightly romance-averse because I am aromantic, so a lot of romance plots will simply bore me or actively annoy me. I try not to let that personal taste factor too much into serious critiques, though of course I will talk about why I find something boring and lament it wasn't done better lol. we're only human. just be aware of those personal taste quirks and factor them into analysis because it will help you be a bit more objective lol

but if it's not fully influenced by personal taste, you should get in the habit of building little theses about why a story affected you in a certain way. for example, "I felt bored and tired at this point in a plot, which may be due to poor pacing & handling of conflict." or "I felt excited at this point in the plot, because established tensions continued to get more complex and captured my interest." or "I liked this plot point because it iterated on an established theme in a way that brought interesting angles to how the story handled the theme." again, it's just a good way to think about how and why storytelling functions.

uh let's see what else. analysis is a collaborative activity! you can learn a lot from seeing how other people analyze! if you enjoy something a lot, try looking into scholarly articles on it, or youtube videos, or essays online! develop opinions also about how THOSE articles and essays etc conduct analysis, and why you might think those analyses are correct or incorrect! sometimes analyses suck shit and developing a counterargument will help you think harder about the topic in question! think about audience reactions and how those are created by the text! talk to friends! send asks to meta blogs you really like maybe sometimes

find angles of analysis that interest and excite you! if you're interested in feminist lenses on a work, or racial lenses, or philosophical lenses, look into how people conduct those sort of analyses on other works. (eg. search feminist analysis of hamlet, or something similar so you can learn how that style of analysis generally functions) and then try applying those lenses to the story you're looking at. a lot of analysts have a toolkit of lenses they tend to cycle through when approaching a new text - it might not be a bad idea to acquire a few favored lenses of your own.

also, most of my advice is literary advice, since you can broadly apply many skills you learn in literary analysis to any other form of storytelling, but if you're looking at another medium, like a game or cartoon, maybe look up some stuff about things like ludonarrative storytelling or visual storytelling! familiarizing yourself with the specific techniques common to a certain medium will only help you get better at understanding what you're seeing.

above all else, approach everything with intellectual curiosity and sincerity. even if you're sincerely curious about why something sucks, letting yourself gain information and potentially learning something new or being humbled in the process will help you grow. it's okay to not have all the answers, or to just be flat-out wrong sometimes. continuing to practice is a valuable intellectual pursuit even if it can mean feeling a tad stupid sometimes. don't be scared to ask questions. get comfortable sometimes with the fact that the answer you'll arrive at after a lot of thought and effort will be "I don't fully know." sometimes you don't know and that can be valuable in its own right!

thank you for the ask, and I hope you find this helpful!

[uriekukistan]

JJK 261 ANALYSIS: What happened, how, why Yuuta made the choice he did, and a discussion of tragedy & major themes of JJK

MAJOR spoilers below the cut so please read at your risk.

i wanted to dissect what happened a bit, and address a few points i saw floating around since the leaks dropped. of course, these are all my interpretations, so feel free to disagree, i just had a lot of thoughts floating around that i wanted to put out for discussion.

I. Gojo was never coming back

first of all, i don't know how you guys expected him to survive bisection. i said this earlier in the day as my justification for why i didn't think gojo was coming back, prior to leaks, and i don't think i can say it any better now.

and this is just my interpretation of reverse curse technique, but if anything, yuuta in this chapter supports my theory. in the scene where he's on shoko's table and arata nitta says that he's used rct to keep the wounds from getting worse, but it might be too late for yuuta to recover. in that case, gojo wasn't coming back from being sliced in half. it's just not possible.

additionally, and this is another thing that i've said for a long time. he says right in episode 6 (i forgot the chapter) that his dream is to reset the jujutsu world raise up a generation of strong students that work together. that is why he became a teacher. this very clearly comes from his relationship with suguru, and it's one of gojo's clearest motivations from the beginning.

the problem is, in order to achieve this, he has to die. so long as satoru gojo is alive, he will have to carry the burden of being the strongest alone. his students won't have to work together, because gojo will just take care of everything. this is already in the works, with how many people have come together to stand against sukuna. if gojo lived and defeated sukuna on his own, this wouldn't have happened, and bringing him back would, again, reduce the need for his students work together.

unfortunately, gojo has been doomed by the narrative from the start, and his primary goal as a character basically requires his death to be realized in its entirety.

II. They're not heroes, they're jujutsu sorcerers.

yeah, i'm stealing megumi's line because it's true. he literally said it twice for a reason, and then yuuta said a repackaged version of it in this chapter ("we're about to fight history's strongest jujutsu sorcerer. if we can win by throwing away our humanity, we shouldn't even be arguing about this").

trust, all the characters are well aware of the ethical issues with taking gojo's body after he's dead, both with what it means for gojo, and with what it means for yuuta. but this isn't a story about heroism, this isn't a story about the power of friendship. if it was, yuuji would have saved junpei all the way back at the beginning of the series. it was pretty clear from the start that this wasn't going to be the typical shounen manga like that.

in fact, expecting it to be is unrealistic. it's unrealistic in real life too, if i'm being so honest. everyone wants to think they'd take the moral high road in this type of situation, but the reality is, when you're fighting tooth and nail against an opponent that is fighting dirty, you have to fight dirty too if you want to win, and i think that's what yuuta is trying to point out in this chapter.

this happens in real life wars which im not gonna get into examples because i dont want to start that kind of discourse, but like...it's so great to be idealistic and hope that virtue will triumph simply because it is virtuous, but i think if you take a look around, you'll realize it's true that good people do not get what they deserve simply because they're good (that's so megumi of me to say...). or if you think of it like a board game, if a player is cheating, it is infinitely harder to win without cheating yourself.

maybe this is a bit pessimistic of me to say, but you will not win a dirty fight without getting dirty yourself, and i think it's pretty clear that sukuna fights dirty.

additionally, it's shitty to see gojo be weaponized, and i understand that, but it plays into the themes about strength in jjk, which i will get into.

III. This was not an "ass pull."

i don't really have much to say to this. did you think yuuta wouldn't take kenjaku's technique? plus, kenjaku being eaten by rika is probably the only surefire way to ensure that they're dead and won't just hop to another body. i've already said why gojo wouldn't come back, but it makes sense that if yuuta were to copy kenjaku's technique, who else would he body hop into, if not gojo? there's already narrative evidence to support this action, from the guidelines of yuuta's technique, kenjaku's technique, and gojo's technique, to the character of yuuta okkotsu, which i want to do an analysis in a separate post for him, so i won't get into that right now.

idk...to me, all the threads connect, plus i felt like yuuta's return was foreshadowed pretty heavily in 259 & 260, with the mention of yuuta's plan that yuuji couldn't know, and then on the last page of 260, the comparison of sukuna and yuuta, so for me, i always thought that it was not actually gojo, but yuuta at the end of 260.

IV. Themes of JJK: The burden of being "the strongest," or even just strong

even many jjk fans see gojo as "the strongest," and nothing more, doing exactly what the narrative sets up as one of the chief problems of jjk. a lot of gojo's actions are spurred on by the burden he feels from being the strongest modern sorcerer. his entire character is built around this problem of the responsibility and burden that falls on someone who's considered to be "the best" at anything.

in fact, this is also a driving point for geto too, and the conflicts geto and gojo come into with each other, as well as geto's inevitable fall from grace. it all comes from this issue that's at the core of jujutsu society. gojo recognizes that, and, as i mentioned, that is why he became a teacher. so that no young sorcerers will feel the burden of being the strongest alone.

the problem is this is easier said than done. after gojo dies, this burden gets passed down to yuuta, and he feels that immense pressure, which is why he decides to do what he does. he says "haven’t we been pushing the burden of being a monster onto gojo-sensei alone? if gojo-sensei is gone, then who else will be the monster? If no one intends to become one, then I will!" and i think this really powerful evidence of the pressure and burden of being the strongest, and i think the word monster is really important here. the burden pushes people to be something they're not, a shadow of their true self.

it distorts morality, like with geto. it isolates people, like with gojo. it forces people to go to unspeakable lengths to uphold their burden, like with yuuta. it leads people with immense power to doubt themselves, like with megumi. it leads people to feel like a cog in the machine, not a human, like with yuuji.

this is sooo so important and a key theme of jjk, and this chapter in particular, and the driving force behind yuuta's actions.

V. Themes in JJK: Loneliness and Isolation

this one has, in my opinion, a bigger role in the story overall than just in this chapter.

as i mentioned before, gojo is lonely. the only person who could understand him was geto, and he turned away from him, and then died. he seems like a silly guy or whatever, but it's just a mask.

but geto also felt alone and isolated, and that's why he turned away. between gojo and geto, neither of them were able to put share the burden of carrying their strength alone, and it's what kept them apart and made their relationship so tragic.

arguably, and though he would never admit it, sukuna is also lonely, though it's buried deep within him and something he will likely never acknowledge, despite it, and his lack of understanding of love (arguably a symptom of his loneliness), are major reasons for the way he acts.

yuuta, though supported by maki, inumaki, and panda in a way that the previously mentioned characters are not, is still isolated. he alone carries the burden of his strength. he was also alone his whole life after rika died, and then again when he was shipped off to africa, away from his friends (yeah he had miguel, maybe i'm missing something, but i dont see them having that type of relationship.

not only that, but yuuta recognizes gojo's loneliness, and reaches out to tell him not to try to stand by himself once again, and gojo admits that's something he can't do, the reason being his relationship with geto.

even further, yuuji and megumi, the parallel to satosugu, are both deeply lonely, except for when they have each other. i mentioned in this analysis that the reason megumi can't just get up and keep going is because he's alone and has been for over a month. i want to get into this more in my next point.

VI. Where I think (hope) this leads for JJK

a satisfying ending for jjk, in my opinion, would be the resolution to this loneliness and burden of strength issue that has been present throughout the narrative. something like yuuji being able to save megumi and them being able to correct what went wrong with satosugu in their own relationship.

personally would like to see satosugu reach the ending they should have had through the itafushi parallels - let them save each other! but i do know gege said only one of them (the trio + gojo) will die, or only one will live....that was years ago maybe he changed his mind :D

we all want to see yuuji take down sukuna himself, but i think it would be a great resolution to see everyone take down sukuna as a team. no one person is alone, no one person has the burden of the strongest. i know i said this wasn't a "power of friendship" manga, and i stand by that, but i think this would be the perfect ending. yuuta throws his humanity away to do what he did in 261 because he felt like it was the only choice and it was something he alone could do, but yuuji represents unwavering humanity (literally his name), and i think to preserve that, they all need to share that burden. let them realize they need each other.

this is what gojo died for, and this is what he lived for. this is why he became a teacher in the first place- to raise a generation that can be strong together, that can support one another.

VII. "It's poorly written torture porn!" "There's no point if there's no happy ending!" etc

i said this in a separate post but tragedies have existed in literature since the 6th century BCE, 2600 years ago. many of the most popular stories throughout history have been tragedies, for example, orpheus & eurydice, romeo & juliet, even things like the fault in our stars and the titanic movie. here's a quick explanation of what it means for a story to be a tragedy (yeah it's from wikipedia but they want me to pay to access the original source and im not doing that for a jjk analysis)

one of things i like most about this definition is the use of the word "catharsis," which is to say that the expression of strong emotions is a way of bringing about renewal and relief. in literature, it's used to say that with the arousal and following release of negative emotions relieves suppressed emotions for the viewer. im not gonna get too personal with it, but i know i've experienced this with jjk.

additionally all of the aforementioned tragedies, they have a message, no matter how sad they are. orpheus & eurydice inspires perseverance and faith in the gods. even something like titanic has messages about everlasting love that overcomes all boundaries. jjk has its message too, and it's long underway. we just have to wait for it to reach its conclusion.

it's easy to lose sight of the bigger picture when we only get one chapter a week, and the fact that the pain is so dragged out is a bit tiring, i'll admit. but that doesn't mean it's bad. having negative emotions stirred by a story doesn't mean bad writing. i mean, i would hope you feel sad. i would hope you feel angry. i would be concerned if you didn't. but given that jjk is a tragedy, that just indicates good writing. especially these last two chapters, i've felt moved in a way nothing else has done for me in a long time.

as always, these are just my thoughts!!! im happy to hear from anyone what they think :D

[thosearentcrimes]

Read Too Like the Lightning, part of the Terra Ignota series, by Ada Palmer. I generally try to be a lot nicer about books written by living authors, on the off chance that they read what I'm saying. For example, I tried not to be very mean about the Baru Cormorant series, which I thought was pretty bad but had some strong points I could highlight, but I was perfectly willing to go in on Madame Bovary. All I can say is, I tried. You see, Too Like the Lightning is straight up terrible, and it is basically impossible to find anything nice to say about it at all.

Too Like the Lightning is an unbelievably stupid book. Now, I don't require total scientific fidelity from my science fiction, not unless the author signals I should. But I do think authors should be at least broadly aware of what laws they are breaking to get what they want, and Palmer very clearly isn't. Basically everyone has the predictive/prescient powers of Dune characters through mathematical oracles, despite this being provably impossible. Everyone travels in cheap supersonic private jets that probably also have VTOL capability, which are powered by Fucking Magic presumably, the author sure as hell doesn't seem to care. This wouldn't be as annoying if the book didn't spend so much time musing on the deep sociological effects of the FM-powered aircars, while entirely forgetting that evidently both Fucking Magic and oracles apparently exist and should probably affect society in some way also. There's also more minor points. At one point, the first of the aircars is analogized to the Nina and Pinta and Apollo XI, all of which were notable exploration vessels, not technical breakthroughs. The appropriate comparisons would be to something like the Kitty Hawk Flyer or Stephenson's Rocket or some of the Trevithick machines. Sure, it's a minor error, but for a novel this pretentious, all errors are serious. There is no appreciable narrative reason for this error either. If the book were edited, perhaps someone would have noticed.

The ideological and historiographical (more on this later) background is also just kind of dumb. The book is trying to make some tedious liberal points and also say that we need to have very serious discussions about like sexism and racism or whatever. What the content of these discussions is supposed to be is extremely unclear, and as far as I can tell simply the existence of them will basically fix things on its own because discussion is magic and leads to Truth and such, except, of course, when the narrative needs for it not to. Also destroying a book is kind of like killing a person, and other trite garbage. Anyway, where the book actually ends up is in my opinion quite far from the apparent intent, but unfortunately not in a very interesting way. Suffice to say, if I wanted to read kinda racist gender-normative rapey fiction with clockwork twists scattered around, where all the characters are secretly serial killers (notably Mycroft and the Saneer-Weeksbooths) because that makes them edgier or something I guess, I suspect I could still do a whole lot better than Too Like the Lightning, for example by reading self-insert Wattpad romance novels about pop stars, or werewolf erotica, or self-insert Wattpad erotica about werewolf pop stars. The incest is boring as hell and cowardly, too. It's a book that's trying to shock you, but the author doesn't know how to actually do that because, again, just not very good at writing at all. It doesn't help that the pacing is so horrible that none of the shocking twists actually land, especially since absolutely nothing keeps actually happening. Sure, Too Like the Lightning is the way it is for a reason, but so is the werewolf erotica, and helping other people jack off is a far more noble pursuit than jacking yourself off.

If the book is so stupid, why do a lot of fairly intelligent people seem to like it so much? Well, a lot of those people are Rationalists it seems (or close enough to it), and Rationalists have insanely bad taste in fiction for some reason. Actually Rationalists have insanely bad taste generally speaking but it's especially marked in fiction. And it's obvious why Rationalists would like the book, it treats intelligence as a comic book superpower the way they do, there's group homes and libertarianism and all sorts of other stuff they like. But there's a more fundamental feature that I think a certain kind of nerd loves about Too Like the Lightning. It's the omnipresent didactic tone, just like with Baru Cormorant, though here it's somehow even more obtrusive. Some people evidently like it when the author has a character read an encyclopedia entry for a paragraph or two for no particular reason, or pointedly make and then exhaustively explain a reference. I suspect it's because if they knew the reference, they feel like very clever students who read ahead, and if they didn't know the reference they feel like they are learning. I think it might be a form of high school nostalgia, the nerd version of student athletes unable to move on. Which is normal I suppose, I still think about doing amateur theater after all, but it does seem kind of embarrassing. To me, at least, the didactic tone always feels insulting regardless of if I knew the reference or not.

This insistence on transforming most of the characters into condescending lecture or encyclopedia entry delivery mechanisms understandably has serious consequences for the readability of the novel itself. It is impossible to believe that any of the supposed 10 billion people in the Hives that we barely ever see any actual traces of are actually persons in the eyes of the author or the narrative. Nor are most of the several dozen very important characters we do meet, to be fair. There is a single character, Eureka, who reaches the dizzying heights of "is an actual character" and she barely shows up. Thisbe is the only other one under consideration, but, eh, nah. Everyone else is functionally just a rhetorical device, because outside of the exposition most of the novel is poorly stylized as philosophical dialogue in Enlightenment style.

According to the Author's Note, Palmer sincerely wants to be participating in the Great Conversation. Now, this is a lost cause from the start. You cannot engage in a conversation by just parroting the words of others, and if you don't have any ideas of your own (and it is quite reasonable not to, there are so many people and so few ideas to be had), then a bare minimum would be the ability to rephrase or synthesize them. Now, maybe Palmer can do this, in lectures to students. Or maybe not, I have known instructors like that too (especially in history, lately). All I know is that Too Like the Lightning is no thoughts, all cliches. But if there were original ideas, the framing device would interfere anyway. You fundamentally cannot participate in a conversation while maintaining plausible deniability for everything by hiding behind your fictional characters, as Palmer does with Mycroft. Whenever I object to, well, more or less any feature of the novel, its fans can always say that actually I just haven't been paying enough attention to the unreliability of the narrator. This objection tends to be either false or irrelevant, but it's a pain in the ass to prove, and the only reason it is possible in the first place is that the author is actively refusing to stake out a position to be held to.

For what it's worth, I don't think it's out of cowardice. Palmer seems to have noticed that the tradition of the conte philosophique and the genres that take off of it includes a lot of different styles and narrative devices, and has ultimately decided to use most of them, invariably quite poorly. I've read conte philosophique, and it does not read like conte philosophique, sorry, the writing is all so painfully 21st century. Ironically, the one major device for philosophical stories I can think of that was not used, the travelogue, is the one I think is clearly most appropriate to the sort of worldbuilding-based speculative fiction Palmer is engaging in here, both from a practical and a historical perspective. The eclectic stylistic muddle makes the novel much longer without giving it any additional depth, the styles do not complement each other, and also the author very obviously does not have the skill required to pull any of it off. Authors, unless exceptionally competent, should pick at most one gimmick per work. Might not have helped here, but it's good practice either way.

One of the techniques that gets talked about with regards to the book is the unreliable narrator, probably because the device is referenced in the book right at the start. In fact, contrary to what people insist, it is not really present in the sense I would understand it, of a narrator styled as deliberately deceiving the audience in order to promote his own agenda. Since the narrator of Too Like the Lightning, like basically every other character in the novel, evidently only actually has an agenda or motive as an informed attribute, there is no way for the reader to reason their way to the implied meta-narrative of what "actually happened", because I'm pretty sure that meta-narrative doesn't actually exist. As far as I can tell, the only actual function of the extremely tedious and obtrusive in-universe narrator is to justify telling the exposition in a particular twist-preserving order, which, again, is not what the unreliable narrator is.

The novel really does consist almost exclusively of dry narration and loredumps. Nothing ever happens in this miserable 460 page slog. I really mean this, nothing actually happens and nobody really does anything except flit around irrelevantly at supersonic speeds. A bunch of characters talk to each other, or talk at each other, or read the encyclopedia at each other. But it turns out none of that actually matters, because enough of the characters are basically omniscient (except for all the stuff they can't know otherwise the story falls apart, even though there's no conceivable way they wouldn't know) that there is no appreciable difference between characters talking at each other and thinking at each other, which they also spend way too much time doing. None of the dialogue serves to develop the characters, because, as discussed earlier, there aren't any. None of the dialogue serves to establish the plot or stakes, because the plot gets retconned every other chapter with yet another tedious twist so there's no real point in following the intrigue, which I'm pretty sure consists mostly of plot holes by the end anyway. Worst of all, a consistent pattern in these retcons is that it becomes clearer and clearer that an alarming number of the conversations in this book are actually functionally just a guy talking to himself.

It kind of makes sense that the novel is more or less entirely people talking to each other (well that and poorly done metatextual horseshit) because it turns out the novel endirses a fundamental theory of historical change consisting entirely of people talking to each other, specifically, a variation on Great Man Theory that says change happens because the most important members of the very real and existing natural aristocracy get into a room together in order to figure out what's going to happen next by finding the smartest bestest boy from among them all and all just doing what he says, and then maybe some other stuff that doesn't matter happens after who cares, all of the actual persons have made their decisions. History of ideas people are basically all wacky, but this seems extreme even for them, so I sure hope Palmer isn't actually teaching anything like this. In addition to being based on a variant of it, Too Like the Lightning references and then explains its own reference to Great Man Theory, and naturally has its own Great Man in the narrative itself, the guy talking to himself from the last paragraph, and boy is he unbearable.

The guy in question, Y.U.D.D. MASON, is genuinely in the running for the most insufferable character ever written. I wouldn't mind him being written like a particularly annoying teenager with delusions of grandeur who has evidently somehow read both far too much and far too little philosophy so much if the novel did not take every single opportunity to make it absolutely unquestionable that this horrid little git is in fact an unparalleled superhuman intellect omniscient oracle capable of outright mind control through speech alone. And no, that's not a unreliable narrator thing. My understanding is that somehow this gets much worse over the course of the rest of the books, which I will not read because frankly 460 pages was an unreasonable test of my patience and commitment to reviewing everything I read and finishing everything I review. Apparently at the end he starts a civil war and becomes God-Emperor of Humanity or whatever, who even cares.

Look, a persistent obsession with Mars, nonsensical car-based revolutionizing of transportation, references to De Sade, excessive confidence in mathematical oracles, these are not the preoccupations of a serious thinker, these are the preoccupations of Elon Musk. Musk really is a convenient example of the sort of Great Man that actually exists by contrast to the ones you get in fiction and in Carlyle. Richest man on the planet, widely acknowledged power behind the throne of the most powerful state out there, owner of what was once (you know, before he bought it) regarded as the online public square, AI magnate, rocketman, surely here we have the Great Man of our time? Except, wait, we know him. We know him from his irrepressible habit of Posting, his now decades of pathetic self-promotion, his desperate need to turn himself into a living meme to get the attention he never got from his father, and which he in turn will not give to his two dozen kids. He is a massive loser whose aesthetic interests consist of the most accessible symbols of coolness and futurism that he can find, up to and including the glyph 'X' and memes that got old over a decade ago. What does it say about Too Like the Lightning that half of its aesthetic language is not only shared with this fucking loser, but is even projected out to the 26th century? Nothing good, that's for sure.

It is my opinion that novels should be edited. Unfortunately publishers do not seem to agree. Editing could never have made this book good, but it might at least have informed the publishers of the scale of mistake they were in the course of making. This novel was a lost cause the moment it was accepted for publication, which happened by a mechanism I am still quite unable to explain. The Author's Note does contain a very helpful list of the extraordinarily many collaborators allegedly responsible, of whom I would pick out for particular discredit the editorial decision-makers and the peers who apparently encouraged the creation of the work. That this book was written was a mistake, that it was published was a travesty, that it got sequels is an absurdity. The existence of Too Like the Lightning is an enormous embarrassment to the entire genre of Science Fiction, whose reputation was frankly already quite bad for very good reasons. Anyway, I'm never going to read Worm that's for damn sure.

This novel made me afraid to write my own intended stories, for fear that they will end up like this. Ordinarily, this is where I mention what kinds of person might enjoy the novel, recommend it to someone even if I did not like it myself. Frankly, I think I have provided enough information for people to figure out whether or not they would like it, but I have to confess that I do not think anyone should read this book, including the ones who would enjoy it. It's not for moral reasons or anything, I just think the book is that bad.

[cherrytea556]

Lore Rekindled; The Lore Olympus that should have been

To be honest, I checked out the rekindled version before the original one and now having reading the original as well, it's extremely odd. Y'know goodbye volcanic high where the original was a mess but a group of 4chaners made a parody game which turned out to be of better quality than the original? This is like that but replace 4chan with tumblr users, mainly @genericpuff whose series is pinned in their tumblr blog where you can check all of the episodes, especially updated ones. In this post, I will be praising this series of how it fixes the problems of the original

The Pacing

One thing I notice about lore olympus and lore rekindled is the pacing. Not just the flow of the story but where it chooses to focus on. Now in lore olympus, the pacing is kinda a mess and its mainly to do with what it focuses on. An example is the magazine plotpoint; in the original, its basically kinda there in between doses to focus on other stuff like persephone and hades together, persephone's sa (i'll get to that later), eros story, zeus and hera etc...The flow generally isnt that bad per say (except for persephone's sa cuz that was way too quick) but for a story meant to be a romance between hades and persephone, you'd think it idk, it would focus on persephone and hades specifically, not eros which is another example of; its flashbacks. Eros specifically has such a dragged out flashback in episode 12 which we didnt need or at least with that much exposition when it should've naturally expand in the story and that's what rekindled does. The magazine plotline has turned into the first conflict of persephone and hades as we see how it affects their lives and relationships. This works for its pacing better because it doesn't give you too much stuff to jumble with, making the narrative more concise and easier to understand where the story is going. And with the flashbacks, rekindled cuts out the fat in the flashbacks from the original to a perfect balance where it gives exposition of the characters while also leaving mystery for the audience to be intrigued, my favourite one would have to be this (though it more of a nightmare than a flashback specifically speaking);

It's of persephone in a greenhouse her mother placed her in with this red eye thing following her from outside the greenhouse. I have no idea of this lurker if its her metaphorical rage or a danger in her life but either way, i am intrigued by its presentation.

The Characters

When reading lore rekindled and lore olympus, the characters are definetly an odd experience. For lore olympus, the characters arent exactly uh....great per say. I think the main reason for this is how their ultilised, with characters like eros, hera, hectate etc being there to mostly be a matchmaker for hades and persephone even if it was initially seen as wrong like with hera and hectate, be antagonistic as a way to have conflict between hades and persephone like minthe, demeter and recently leuce even if ones had reasons too like minthe with hades emotionally cheating on her and demeter because lets be honest, she had a point. Then there's hades and persephone, whoo boy where to start with them.

Hades starts off as a creep eyeing at persephone during a party, specifically at her body and still lusts persephone even being aware that shes 19 and he's 2000 years old. Also is a shitty boss, father AND contributes to slavery with it while being adressed in some way, doesnt change him which isnt good for a character that's meant to be the main protagonists love interest.

Persephone though, I can get the self insert vibes. From favouritism towards the story, being who most of the men in the story are attracted too, portrayed as a 'cinnamon roll' (they actually said that early on in the story, im not kidding) who cant do no wrong. She acts like a teenager rather than a young adult which makes the scenes where shes sexualised just more uncomfortable (and they already unnecessarily were) along with adding that uncomfortability to the romance

But with rekindled, they expanded on the characters much more than they originally were. Persephone for instance has turned from a 'sexy baby' legal teenager to an actual young relatable adult with agency and allows her to screw up (e.g, getting drunk on her own rather than eros drunking her). Her adult attitude makes the romance between her and hades not only more palpable, but also strays away from the infantilisation/uncomfortable sexualisation of her character which is nice to see. Hades also is written well in the series from how it acknowledges his faults while still making him likable. And thats the same for every character really, their personalities are much more fleshed out and nuanced which makes their characters feel real to life, gaining effectiveness for more emotional scenes with them. An interesting thing too is that they even expanded the magazine guy's character from making fake news for profit into feeling guilt over what they done, standing up for persephone which is a pretty nice change.

No Sa Plotline

Not like you cant have sa in your story ever but if you never planned it from the beginning and only did when people tell you that the scene you drew from your comic was sa then....maybe just not do it. Lore olympus does exactly that where while an attempt was made, it goes on to retcon it into making apollo (the guy who sa'd persephone) into a lesser evil like that would made a difference instead of just cutting it out from the very beginning. Lore rekindled thankfully just made apollo into his pilot version, a shitty bf but more likeable and expanded upon (which should have been his portrayal from day 1). His shittiness doesnt come up in the story, more like self absorbness/egotisticalness although with its recent chapter of the magazine guy offering persephone lunch, it might reveal some cracks or at least further down the story it will be revealed to us which futhers how effective rekindled character writing is in how its expansion of characters would give us the feels. That or portray him as not a good match for persephone, either way much better than the original.

Artstyle

Lore olympus has a pretty good artstyle (at least in s1/the early episodes, s3 is just kinda goofy) but lore rekindled has got a good artstyle which is on top, more consistent too. Here's some examples;

Comedy

It's objectively funnier than lore olympus, no question asked

All in all, if you want to read lore olympus, i recommend you to read the lore rekindled one instead as it's better in every way. Give it a read.

[starleska]

YELLING THOUGHTS ABOUT DOCTOR WHO SEASON 2 EPISODE FIVE 'THE STORY AND THE ENGINE' 🕷️💈

enormous gigantic insane spoilers for this episode!!!! what are you doing?!?! GO AND WATCH IT NOW!!!!!

jaw is on the actual floor after that episode, holy SHIT. we knew that anything written by Inua Ellams was going to be profound and absorbing, but oh, that felt like a movie in its own right. this might be the most...evolved episode of Doctor Who we've had in a long time: a perfect, self-contained story that encompasses multitudes of stories and cultures and ideas, and such a huge love letter to Black barbershop culture and African mythology 👀 from the second we saw the spider lots of us clocked that Anansi and West African folktales were likely going to be a huge part of this episode, especially with Inua Ellams being known for The Barbershop Chronicles...and the beautiful, meta, character-driven story is such a wonderful combination of them all! it was so interesting to hear how the Doctor reached out to the Black community in Lagos to find a sense of belonging in his new body, and absolutely devastating to see that sense of safety and comfort ripped away again, reinforcing that he is still an alien, and still without his own family and culture...jesus 😭💔💔 Omo's betrayal was so well-written, and it cut like a knife, because he was trying to save those who he has true allegiance to: his fellow humans. it echoes the transactional nature of the Doctor's relationship with so many humans, because the Doctor is an 'evolved life form': he's the one who's supposed to save us, and time after time he's wounded for it, but he can't stop himself coming back. so much so that in this ultra-meta run of Doctor Who, he's aware of the power of his own stories: that he drives the narratives, he powers the engine. but that's the difference with this story, isn't it? this time, the Doctor was saved by the ingenuity of enslaved Black women and the maps they wove in their hair. he's saved by the stories he's lived through with humanity. and he's saved by knowing that he does always have a place on Earth, with us 💔 i loved seeing more of Fifteen's insecurity, anger, and fear...we need that. this is definitely one of Ncuti Gatwa's best episodes 👏👏 i could gush for hours about The Barber | Adetokunbo: what a spectacular performance from Ariyon Bakare, i got chills!!! 😭💖 gahhh i adore the idea of a spurned, overworked human being who propagates the stories of the gods and becomes so consumed with envy and spite that he wants to take the power for himself!! he's so skilled and intelligent that he could well have ascended to godhood himself, and honestly, i would've loved to see it. there was a good ten minutes in there where i thought the Barbershop was a TARDIS and The Barber was a Time Lord name—but the concept of the Nexus and his spider-inspired machine-shop traversing the web is so genius and fitting with the story!!!! i'm just so blown away. sounding like a broken record without offering much criticism this season, but of all the episodes for series 2, this was the one that had me rapt and breathless the entire time. i yelled seeing all of the other Doctors and the Fugitive Doctor again!!! what a treat!!! the big question on my mind is: where does that leave us with Mrs. Flood? i was utterly convinced that she was going to be a member of the Pantheon and have dominion over stories, but is that possible now we've seen that The Barber | Adetokunbo effectively ghost-wrote the gods' narratives?? god i need to watch all of series 1 and 2 again to understand 🙈💖 my guess? i think that The Story and the Engine was able to happen as a consequence of the Doctor casting salt and inviting in the Pantheon, driving the main narrative from science-fiction to sci-fi/fantasy, and without that happening, we would not have been able to see The Barber | Adetokunbo or Abena. and i think past The Interstellar Song Contest, reality is going to break in a huge way 👀

[dialalagirl]

Heyy lovley jester 🥰 how do you feel about Physco analyzing Reiji? Mostly because I do not understand him at all 😭

I don't get what his trauma is, why he's such a bitch, why no one blames him for killing Edgar?? Like wtf its literally his fault what do yall mean 😭😭 I mean I know it's supposed to be " He was ignored by his mom and put against Shuu " but I see none of that in his More Blood story?? His background is him popping out the womb with world domination in mind. Like he genuinely confuses me but I also love how messy he is

one psychoanalysis coming right up! on the condition we pretend MB reiji didn't happen because that route was unabashed dogshit, sorry not sorry 💀

I'll admit, butler-bitch-san is not an OBVIOUSLY sympathizable character. to compare (even if you're not the biggest stan), subaru's more readily understandable given that he is the product of rape/incest, one clearly schizoaffective mother, and being isolated from the other siblings in having no full-blooded sibling to relate to and/or share the burden of his troubles. reiji's mother merely ignore him. thus, it would seem as though he got off easy by Sakamaki family standards

BUT. this is where I shall challenge this dismissive narrative presuming we are basing this analysis on HDB. childhood abuse can just as easily manifest as emotional/physical neglect. reiji was not merely dismissed by his mother for 18 years. no, he basically slaved away for likely centuries to reach intellectual/social levels that we couldn't even begin to reach in our lifetimes for a mere ounce of his mother's attention (which typically signals a parent's love, even though I don't necessarily believe this is true in Beatrix's case). meanwhile, shu received it in spades due to something out of reiji's control (i.e., the order of his birth) DESPITE in all other ways failing to meet the standard expected of the eldest

couple the above with the fact that:

DL vamp society places unusually high emphasis on the value of the eldest (case in point, the cordelia/oreo dynamic); AND

his father follows the classic 'just-out-for-ciggies' model of parenting

bro basically is wholly unwanted and unloved

despite this I believe the later games hint at this, he does not necessarily hate shu nor necessarily covets his position, but resents the fact that he has the opportunity to live up to his parents/expectations and is strangely at peace not doing so while he is worst kind of perfectionist, never being satisfied DESPITE trying his damn hardest so relatable, tbh

let's be honest, the sakamaki household is not a fertile ground for breeding the ability to introspect into how, in Reiji's case, having too much attention is just as bad as having none

thus, we have the famous edgar/village burning incident. considering that killing = ultimate expression of love in vamp world, it is reasonable to think that reiji did this out of some misguided love for shu to try to get rid of the reason that he is strangely at peace with defying expectations, so he would be forced to meet them in order to achieve peace. only for that to backfire when shu basically gives up on any semblance of living. all that outward vitriol he displays towards shu I believe is a form of projection, another expression of dissatisfaction towards himself for failing to model shu into the son his parents wanted him--a responsibility key in his supportive role as second son (i.e., shu is not the 'good-for-nothing', he is).

also, I would wager that his desire to acknowledged is such that even the negative kind would do, hence the above (where shu will always be aware that REIJI and REIJI ALONE took away the one thing good about his childhood)

why he ultimately loves yui in HDB is because she is the first person in his life that truly acknowledges and appreciates him, so much so that he becomes more concerned with saving her from her predicament with cordelia than raising his mom from the grave to make her acknowledge him

tldr: bro crumbles at the slightest bit of attention

[time-is-restored]

do you guys every think abt death vs immortality as a thoroughline in like. literally all of the mechs albums.

old king cole is explicitly warped by immortality (never to forgive he would eternal live, his hands dyed red by gore - can be read a few ways depending on where u place the emphasis, but at the very least communicates that his wrath is facilitated By his immortality), and the olympians commit attrocities in order to hold onto their wealth and the immortality that it grants them (murdering arachne, yanking heracles' chain the second he tries to go freelance, having a monopoly on the acheron etc). the value they put on immortality and living forever, and the fear they have of ever possibly losing it, has completely warped their morals and priorities.

and while it comes up less in tbi, there's still significant emphasis placed on how odin has been in power for a century (both thor + the narrator bring it up, and there's also an emphasis on how long ago the bifrost project was started, and how 'no one left living' can explain its science). her villain monologue in rangarok iv places the extinction of asgard as an honour - a ruin that no one can possibly rebuild from is called 'apotheosis'. and as she says at the end, the idea that no one can possibly outlive her is a key draw for odin. asgard dies with her.

in hnoc, the only really immortal character is brian (and we only really know that bc of knowledge we get from outside the album), but the axis of life and death as a privilege vs a curse is still very present. 'mordred's gift to Arthur could be love in his own eyes / fating him alone to keep the life to which he clings', not only posits that the gift of survival isn't inherently good + kind (which the audience would immediately recognise as love, not possibly love), but places emphasis on the fact that arthur is now utterly alone. the station's death at the hands of mordred is hardly a happy one ('Its people damned, doomed by a man who's lost all his regrets'), but arthur's fate is arguably worse. severed from the finality and closure of death, what does he become? [insert that one cool theory abt hnoc arthur becoming old king cole here]

it's like. on a meta level, the reason we as fans don't put much emphasis on the depravity + cruelty of the mechs is bc the people portraying the mechs are all charismatic + skilled performers. in live gigs they're all portraying the fun side of their characters - roasting each other, bantering with the audience, making fun of the characters they're singing about, referencing off-screen violence - bc if they portrayed their lore too literally they'd be comitting felonies LMAOOO

but narratively, its like. literally every album is a meditation on the ways that the glorification of immortality can ruin civilisations - can ruin galaxies. whether its rooted in the fear of you specifically dying, or of being outlived, or overpowered or forgotten, or if its done for the sake of someone else's survival... it's all corrosive. if u refuse to accept the indisputable impermanence of life, you lose the ability to value it, and u numb urself to the reality of just how fucked up it is to cut another person's life short for any reason.

like. i do think some of the mechs started as good people, and some of them even might still have ethical standards, but i REALLY cannot stop thinking about how fucking. fascinating it is that this group of immortals who are KNOWN for basically considering nothing but how fun and/or violent any given activity will be, have basically filled their entire discography with songs about how their continued existence is corrosive and brings tragedy + ruin wherever they go.

so how self-aware are they? do you think those old morals + ethics still linger in their mind, when they're writing down these tragedies? they willingly self identify as liars + thieves + bastards, etc etc, and they seem to have no trouble identifying the 'bad guys' in the various albums (ie: humanising snow + cinders + rose, but not king cole), but do those concepts actually mean anything emotionally, or even theoretically, for them all beyond their dramatic potential? do they remember their lives before they were mechanised as it actually happened, or do they remember it as lyrics to a song? is it possible to be entirely self aware abt ur own capacity for violence (as jonny in paticular claims to be), if you no longer relate to violence as anything other than a narrative device - a means to an end, whether comedic or dramatic?

[pancake-breakfast]

Finished Day 5 of Disco Elysium.

Now that the autopsy has been completed and Kim is back, the case is moving forward en force, so we're definitely getting into spoiler territory here.

Talked with Kim about the bullet. They make a very sound argument for only allowing front-loading guns in civilian populations. That includes for law enforcement.

Rene passed away. I'm actually kinda sad about that. I gave his friend the old photograph I stole from Rene's guardbooth. I did not steal his uniform.

Painted the wall with the message, "Something beautiful is going to happen." Dunno if it will, but we can hope.

Kim was unimpressed. Spoilsport.

That also marked the second time Cindy gave me something out of sheer pity.

Talked to Klaasje about the murder. Hoo boy, I could write an essay on my interactions with her today. The short version is I actually trust her a lot less now. She's worked in corporate espionage, and I suspect that's actually what she bonded with the victim over, given he had also ruined a lot of lives for pay. (I... have very mixed feelings on corporate espionage and will not be expounding on them in this post.) But I do think she feels bad about all that's happened, and that on some level, she cared for the victim more than one generally would for "just a fling."

I appreciate the way they approached the false rape charges. In my own research, I've found that that sort of charge is very, very rarely drummed up by individuals. Considering the victimizer is almost always someone socially connected to the victim, even when it's true, it can really muck with social circles, and most people aren't willing to explode their social circle for wrongs they think are done solely to themselves. Or, you know, just out of fear that they'll lose part or all of said social circle. The cops, on the other hand, frequently create false narratives around these sorts of things and then actively circulate them, as it discourages anyone from standing up for the person they're victimizing. After all, most people don't want to defend a potential rapist, and if the authority is saying they have "reason to believe" that's what happened, well, it's not like any of us knows all of what happens in another person's life, and it's MUCH more difficult to prove an absence of a thing than fake its presence. And we've already established in game that the Hardie Boys are basically the cops for this area. Basically, the devs did their research and it shows, and this sort of story needs to be told more often because not enough people are aware of it.

I managed to get in cahoots with Cuno. I think this is a good thing, but I'm not placing any bets right now. The world is too much of a freaking powderkeg.

I found a pinball machine!

I also found out you can regain morale by hugging a plushie, which seems pretty legit.

I miiiight have managed to die twice trying the same conversation. What really made me worry, though, is my actions also got Kim killed. New Fear Unlocked: Getting Kim killed and living to know about it.

The fact that I haven't tracked down the last of the mercenaries yet worries me. 2/3 isn't good enough when they're trying to start a war.

Did karaoke. Sang a little song about a little church.

Had to submit to working with Evrart again to find my gun. Words cannot describe how much I dislike working with that guy. He's the type to take good things and turn them into shit because it's profitable for him, and he'll somehow have half the people he's fucking over thanking him as he does it.

Which reminds me, I did hit the only point in the game thus far where I've very much been like, "But what if the other option...?" And that was talking with Joyce about Evrart's plans. As a cop, it was 100% my duty to take a step back and say the choices she made based on that knowledge were hers to make, but as a private citizen? I want to encourage her to cut the head off the snake. The one thing that kept me from going back and redoing that dialog (at least) was the thought of the power vacuum. It's already established that he trades power off with his twin brother, so I have no reason to think the brother wouldn't just weasel in there unless she could off them both. Even then, that's less likely to result in a win for her than it is to result in, say, the Hardie Boys or (shudder) Measurehead filling the gap, and I'm honestly not sure the Hardie Boys are business savvy enough for the position. After all, they've already demonstrated they have a bit of a weak point when it comes to underestimating women, and as much as they might think of themselves as "better than cops," if they had that kind of power, they might find themselves having to strong-arm control. I still don't know if that would be better or worse than Evrart. I don't think anyone does. On top of that, I highly doubt it would result in a win for Joyce, and she may be crazy, but she's not stupid, so I'm not sure I could get her to bite. She probably made the best choice I could hope for by giving up and backing down. It should (theoretically) limit some of the bloodshed.

I'm actually on decent terms with the Hardie Boys now. I don't think they like me, but we've developed a mutual respect. I knew there was a chance we could get here when Hardie himself gave me that key, no questions asked, despite his men razzing me about it. It was... a peace offering of sorts, I think. Or maybe a "take whatever you're hoping to get here and get the fuck out" offering, but that's close enough for me. It's the one time I didn't press for any additional details about something. They told me what they knew about the key later freely and with ease. I didn't need to interrogate them when I got it.

Aside from hitting and passing a Point of No Return with Joyce, I found the Point of No Return trying to hunt down Ruby. I had to back off of it, as I didn't have my gun. I hadn't even sung karaoke yet. We'll try and follow her in the morning.

The hat that automatically makes you more communist amuses me.

I made a lot of progress with the druggies by the church. I still haven't got them into the church, but we're buds and I've been helping Egghead make a good track. It's what Harry would want to do.

Did I teleport to the top of a building? Kim says no, but I think he just lacks a certain amount of imagination.

I found a book that healed my morale! That's a nice change from all the books hurting.

For the first time in who knows how long, Harry got a good night's sleep. That's been a bit of a goal of mine since starting the game, so I'm glad it's accomplished. Hopefully, the lost time won't screw up my search for Ruby too much....

[gatheringbones]

[“The problem is that we have exiled sex in our minds. We have isolated it from the larger inclusive narrative and we have limited its definition to that which serves the most privileged class of protagonists.

I think that this is a symptom of that other habit of treating whole classes of human beings as though their stories do not have the stakes, narrative depth, and complexity typically assigned to dominant protagonists. It is a craft quandary indeed to write yet another sex scene in which a white male protagonist exercises his archetypal masculinity on a secondary, two-dimensional character functioning as a prop in his hero’s journey without any narrative awareness of this exhausted trope.

But to write a sex scene in which that marginalized character is treated with some reverence and depth? To write it from their perspective? Or to write a scene in which a white male character experiences, even in an inchoate way, the deep discomfort that occurs when we act out our erotic story on another body without recognizing its humanity? I’ll repeat the unrule: you can use any words you want.

Here is Eileen Myles, from Inferno, in case you thought comparing a pussy to soup, or using the word crotch, was out of bounds or unsexy:

But after kissing her mouth a little chapped which seemed familiar then feeling her breasts not so large, but nice round and beautiful, familiar breasts, ones I already knew in some way I tugged down her pants. She said Oh. Like a soft amount of light, a small gust of wind. And luckily she had some sweatpants on or something, a stretchy waist. Easy getting them down and there were her lemony legs. Not big not strong, but smooth soft hair like peaches everything that way. Pink rose warm. I just dived down. It couldn’t have been too fast. Time was being so slow and warm. And there it was. A pussy, the singular place on a girl, it’s where I’m going. Wiggly thing, like soup, like a bowl. Another mouth. Like lips between her legs and the taste of it. Piss and fruit. I pressed my face against its bone and it moved. She was letting me. All this was happening. I smelled the future right there, a present and a past. All that went through her, known through the soft sweet flesh of her lips and clit. It was like my face felt loved temporarily […] I felt plunged into a tropical movie in which light was bathing my head and her pussy, her cunt, her crotch was a warm smile and for a moment I lived in her sun.

The revelation here is not that these words can be used in a sex scene, but that a pussy, a cunt, a crotch can be transformed by a sex scene. “Language is never innocent,” Roland Barthes once wrote, and I agree. Here, in the sense that the words pussy, cunt, and crotch all carry the connotative luggage of all their previous contexts—the violence, disgust, and pornographic theater of all the scenes and mouths I’ve heard them in and from. Experience, however, is innocent. This narrator’s sexual reality is so powerful a phenomenon that it washes these words of their previous connotations. Now they mean not a wimp or a bitch or the place on a woman that belongs to a man, but something magnificent and weird, pure and exotic, deeply familiar and erotic—a warm smile, a cosmic body. Just as sweatpants become perfect attire for such a scene, smooth soft hair like peaches, and the actual smell of sex a good one. When they enter this revelatory scene, these degraded words are suddenly imbued with the same reverence as their speaker. To use them is an incontrovertible act of (re)creation.”]

melissa febos, from body work: the radical power of personal narrative, 2022

[greeen-bean]

Day One:

First annotation I made was "AHHHH LETS FUKING GOOOO"... So

I always loved how they (Francis specifically) addresses the aftermath of the fire from solitaire because that was basically all I was thinking about, peoples work still being in there, having to change schools, etc, etc

Also love that it starts with Carys - She haunts the narrative so well <3<3<3

This book is sooooooo 2016 and I cant figure out if that a good or bad thing - its a time capsule

I cannot wait for Francis' world to crumble around her ahhhhhh she's so mentally ill bbg its okayyyy

I am going to come out and speak my truth! I do not know how to pronounce Francis' last name. When I first read the book the dyslexia kicked in and I read it as "Janiver" (Jan-i-ver) and when I finally realised I was wrong it had stuck

Under the "I felt fine because I was born for this" I wrote "Frowen?" and stand by it

I drew a heart around Daniels name the first time it was mentioned, just encase there was any confusion on who my favourite character is

LOVE Francis' mum!!! like the old people in IWBFT I love the parent mentions in this

Francis mentions people thinking she's Spanish for being mixed race and doing Spanish GCSE and I wrote "Bilingual/Bisexual queen" but I did/do not know how to spell bilingual so I wrote "Bilingwil" and again, I stand by it

Aled and Francis are SOULMATES your honour - the way she talks about the narrator having a soft voice that got her hooked on the show GOD they're in loovvvveeee

Francis is out to get Daniel!! Grabbing him, someone who is actively not her friend, so hard it hurts to then tease them with interesting information about you that seeming they would not care less about only to not even tell them when they ask, diabolical!! I love them

I am dan, dan is me (bar all the smart people shit) like he lives in my head and says my thought

ALEDDDDDDDD - I love love love how Aled in introduced in this book like ahhhh it sets him up so perfectly to then show who he really is (More on this in a different post)

the idea that everyone who knows Daniel knows of Aled because they are "inseparable" drives me crazy (in a good way) because it kinda probably unintentionally shows the differences of how they view their relationship (more in a separate post)

Francis: And you said yes [to saying the speech]? Aled: Yes F: Why? D: Because he's a turnip A: Yes ONE OF MY FAVE LINES YGIUIOKJBHVGCTDR^TUHJH

The seeds of Aled having to do things from some unknown pressure - its COOKING

Francis' mums switch up from being worried to telling Francis to do the universe city thing after finding out she wasn't going to do it, BAMF BEHAVIOUR

"I always wished I had a hobby" Girl what was that whole last chapter about then????

Have soooo many thoughts about Francis putting all her worth into her academic success specifically as someone who was not good at school, but again, separate post

the seeds of Francis becoming self aware whooooo

Oh the autism of it all (about being worried of being exceled socially from people you don't even like -but really all of it)

Francis says the gayest shit - just wait till she's talking about Carys

Loooovvveeeeeee Raine actually so much

AHHHHhh the perseption Francis has on Aled and Daniels relationship it !!!!! im !!!!!!! INSANE COO COO CRAZY INSANE

Did Francis know she was bi when she met Carys? Cuz if she didn't...babe i have news for you

"The sun silhouetted her like she was a heavenly apparition" Uhu.....uhu....sure

Okay right! Carys' vice it described (again, its very gay to take this much note of a persons voice, Francis) as "posh London Made in Chelsea accents" so then WHY does Aled have a Welsh accent in the Nick and Charlie audiobook?!?!!? WHERE DID IT COME FROM!??!?!?! (I know he's Welsh but he grew up in fucking Kent stfu)

Computer with a sad face mention whoooooo

Aled is soooooo messy for how he acts around Francis - not to victim blame but DUDE what were you expecting to happen

Dan being like "oh... Francis... I didn't know you were here..." after making eye contact with her is CRAZy - Francis is right what is his damage

Daniel/Francis beef will ALWAYS be famous to me

Again, Aled, I do fear this is actually all your fault

[physalian]

On Punishing your Characters with SA

***Trigger warning for discussion of SA in fiction***

Because I am still recovering from the bizarre alternate reality I fell into where “SA is hot and if you were a survivor you’d think so too” is at all an acceptable and defensible stance to take, I want to talk about punishing your characters, and the means through which we go about it.

This post is NOT condemning stories that go “we know this is awful, you’re here because it’s awful, we’re all gonna have a good time with it anyway”. Or, your usual Dead Dove.

This is instead critiquing stories (and their authors) who either think:

SA is kinky

SA is just a run of the mill thing that happens in adult fiction, especially fantasy, it’s par for the course

If you’re a fan of either or both and plan to attempt to justify them, you have been warned, turn back now. My tolerance for harassment about this is at an all-time low.

Disclaimer:

I am not hating on BDSM or a character whose kink is feeling helpless and controlled. BDSM is, after all, consensual, and there’s mutual respect involved. Nor am I hating on a character who is attempting to self-medicate in a harmful way and they and the narrative know it.

Keywords being: Consent, mutual respect, and self-awareness

Which is completely lost in stories that either romanticize SA or toss it in there for shits and giggles and cheap drama.

—

In fantasy in particular, rampant SA is kind of ridiculous and getting worse. It may be for “mature audiences” but often the stuff written for kids and families has more “mature storytelling” in that it can show you horrible things without being gratuitously r*pey. Characters suffer other hardships and get the same point across.

And SA is one on the list of many things in fiction that usually isn’t written with the grim reality of a realistic aftermath. Things like broken bones that heal with supernatural speed, head injuries with cherry-picked symptoms, and grief and mourning.

We don’t want to derail the whole narrative to focus on the nitty gritty recovery period of a one-time event that moves characters from A to B. That’s just how fiction works. They absolutely deserve to be written better with proper awareness and understanding, they’re just not what this post is about.

But SA is different, because it’s often treated like this horrible threat, this scandalous thing…while then not being written with the respect and tact it deserves, written like a character merely got tortured, interchangeable with any other kind of suffering but with ~titillating undertones~.

Because, odds are, the average person won’t ever know what it’s like to be tortured, or suffer debilitating injuries from an accident, or have to live with the long-term disabilities of a major head trauma or coma. But far too many of us do know SA intimately, and the flippant way it’s tossed around in fiction will never sit right with me, especially when it’s romanticized and glorified.

So in short, I’d like authors who toss it on like a garnish to pause and think: Are you prepared to write the consequences of the situations you throw your characters into? If not, then write something else.

There is of course many levels to including SA in fiction, and its importance in the story should be proportional to the effect it has on a character’s arc and how much time is spent discussing with it and dealing with it, as with any element of backstory.

Having it be a distant memory in a side character’s backstory as just A Thing that happened to them years ago should demand, bare minimum, a cracking of that character’s worldview. Otherwise, why is it here? What purpose does it serve other than to be tragic, and why is it SA over straight-up torture or any other tragedy?

If it’s just another incident and this character grew up with or is surrounded by those who take advantage of them (first of all, writer beware, that is a daunting story to tackle) the trauma of this individual event might be insignificant to them in the grand scheme of things, but it should still matter to them and how they see themselves and how they interact with those around them. Otherwise, why is it here? What purpose does it serve other than to be tragic, and why is it SA over straight-up torture or any other tragedy?

And if you’re setting up a character’s first encounter with SA, however horrific it is, or it’s this encounter with this character that makes it unique, and it’s going to be a big moment for them and the story, it had better fucking matter to them once it’s over. Otherwise, why is it here? What purpose does it serve other than to be tragic, and why is it SA over straight-up torture or any other tragedy?

It's a whole different world if this is a Stockholm syndrome story, where it is very, very clear that this relationship is fucked-up, but the character has no idea and they themselves romanticize and glorify their abuser—in those stories, it is understood that they’re an unreliable narrator and that their thoughts on what’s happening do not align with the author’s. (Most of the time. People unironically and uncritically love and want to have relationships like Harley Quinn and the Joker, without having any experience on what it’s actually like, but most of the time the comic writer tries to make it clear that she’s a victim. Most of the time).

—

I have two characters in two different WIPs who suffer this, more than once. A handles it a lot better than B. More time has passed and the perpetrator for A was a clear cut villain, while B's was someone they trusted. Neither spends every waking moment defining themselves by their abuser, but the impact of what happened to them shows up in multifaceted ways.

A is self-conscious about their body, as it still bears marks from that encounter. Some intimate things they used to enjoy or would have enjoyed are now off-limits. Certain conversation topics are triggering. And because everybody knows, they have a permanent reputation they can never escape, hanging over them even when nobody mentions it. They have mostly healed emotionally and have healthy romantic relationships, but it’s not something they’re ever going to forget.

B blames themselves and any chance at physical intimacy is now lost to them, though they were already asexual to begin with. They’ve told no one and anyone who would guess or might know, they’ve lied to, to protect their abuser. The SA happened among other hellish circumstances, when they have nightmares, it’s all tangled up together. But they’re also quiet and kind and thoughtful and you’d never know unless you knew.

Did I have to give SA as a backstory to both characters? No. I didn’t have to, I chose to, understanding the responsibility involved, and for these two characters and how it impacts them, SA can’t be exchanged for any other violence. It’s SA, specifically, that hurt them so badly.

People react to and adapt from and heal from SA in different ways and not everyone all the time suffers daily reminders of it—those two characters don’t—but even something as simple as having that survivor always keeping their door locked, or always having their back to the wall of a room so no one can sneak up behind them, or wearing more layers than necessary, or if they are a little bit shy or skittish or skeptical, at least shows that you, as the author, tried?

You didn’t just write it in a vacuum? You acknowledged that SA is its own kind of horror?

And lastly: If you’re using SA as a way to punish your characters’ choices, whether it’s the narrative punishing them for being painfully naïve and stubborn, the villain who “deserves it”, or a symbolic death of innocence, just please be prepared for pushback from your audience if your message is: There are situations where SA is the victim’s fault and deserved.

You don’t have to spend pages and pages distracting from the plot, but if you’re going to have your character assaulted, you owe it to them to let them hurt and heal.

Otherwise, why is it here?

[itsgirlcraft]

Heyoooo back at it again with my old "dragon!Sabre saves knight!Rainbow from Princess Nightmare" au

Sooo this is from 1/31/2021, apparently. I'll put the first bit from the og fic idea down, bc the second half is just rambling about Sabre's backstory and I wanna talk abt Nightmare tbh.

@woahrarepairsagemare potential sagemare fic incoming? And also @its-indigos you n your man ((Genesis)) wanna join the fic? :)

...

The eldest princess of the Yellow Kingdom was said to live within a hidden castle in the Nightmare Mountains' forest, supposedly performing dark spells and horrifying experiments on not only herself but the people of the Kingdom of Yellow. They will fear the name Nightmare Stevens. And. They. Will. BOW.

Princess Night used to be sane. Some say she was infected with a strange ailment known simply as "The Darkness," which caused her to go mad with power. Others say she was locked away in that void-like ruin of a castle, but why? Was "The Darkness" worse than we thought? Did she get locked away for her safety? Or for ours? Did she do something so horrible I dare not utter another word, that she deserved to be locked up? Or was she never sane in the first place. Perhaps her heart was always dark.

The Kingdoms may never know why, only that Night was no longer an innocent girl who had to be protected. She was scarred. Broken. A force of nature which no man could stand up to. Something that no one will be able Magic and against unless they wished to be dead. Some thought she was a lost cause. Others wanted her dead.

"After all, we all have a dark side, I simply chose to show mine to this useless excuse of a world." The Nightmare whispered as she breathed life into her first Dark Creation. "You shall be known as Dark Steve, and together we shall rule all the Kingdoms," Nightmare cackled as her Corruption Magic gave Dark startling deep blood red eyes against glassy white, hungry. "You shall be my general, and you will command The Soldiers of Darkness as the second-in-command of the Night Terror Army!" the insanity of the isolated princess causing her yellow eyes to finally crack, the light searing her eyes, leaving the once-loved Yellow princess as a mere reflection of her former self. Twisted and broken, she kidnapped a young knight said to have been a Color Kingdoms' Creation destined to end "The Darkness's" reign of chaos with finally stopping Nightmare and her plans for complete and utter rule of the Color Kingdoms, and later the entire MC Realm.

But the Rainbow Knight was far too young to be fighting such a dangerous enemy. He lacked control and understanding of the powerful and dangerous abilities a member of the Color Kingdoms could have, and being a collective Creation between all Colors, he held far more potential than he could imagine. But with great power comes much, much, MUCH longer training sessions, and Rainbow was getting nowhere.

Meanwhile, Nightmare could already destroy chunks of land with her new Darkness fireballs the size of the average Yellow apartment, big enough to house up to 8 people. Not only had the dark princess improved her new Red Kingdom skills quickly, but she could already run from the far end of the Nightmare Mountain range to the other end where the Night Terror Castle stood within 5 minutes! Dark was greatly pleased with the progress his young creator had made on her original abilities, her Yellow-Born powers. The Rainbow Knight and the Nightmare Princess may be similar in mental age, but there was no likeness of one in the other. Neither were aware of each other's saddeningly young age, until the kidnapping came.

...

Ngl, it feels kinda cringe n edgy, but I think I like it that way. It's a good starting point for a revamp. Sooo obviously reworking Night's dialogue and the narrative around her would be good, but I think it could be REALLY good with some Sagemare.

This og version feels kinda mehhh at best in terms of how alive the characters feel, they're one-dimensional at best. I kinda wanna mess around with including Sage as the knight or dragon, but ehh it might work out easier if I just keep Sage separate from that dynamic.

So one key thing here, is that the Steve Realm is both RQ and TSS at the same time, it's very vague. And if I'm including technically SSO for Sagemare, I might as well add in the rest, yknow? I mean that I wanna add dragon!Genesis and dragon!Indigo, too. Because I've got those mcrp designs and like. Why not.

I could get a real bingo with all these series 💀 like Sabre starts off in Assassin's Creed, then we've got RQ/TSS as the MC Realm, then add in SSO and SL for flavor. AND the dimension/kingdom that Sabre comes from feels like a knockoff Cozen kingdom, so we've got AR too.

I feel like drawing some callbacks to AR would do a lot of good in fleshing out all of this, especially the og part after this lil analysis. The Guardian of the Spirit World is the one to send Sabre on his way, but it seems kinda out of place, tho if I wrote it more as a multi-chapter, the pacing would probably fix itself. Maybe mixing some AR in with that would make this 2nd part a little less awkward.

I also think the vagueness doesn't really work well here, especially with the color kingdoms. Exploring how Rainbow/Nightmare's dynamic effects the kingdoms would definitely fix some of the awkwardness as well, and including other dragons besides Sabre.

And here's the second half:

The strange dark gray/green dragon which came to save the Rainbow Knight was not the strongest or the most powerful dragon. In fact, he was not always a dragon. He is a...peculiar case, random curses and hybrid origins and assassin friends litter his past, like one insane plot twist after another. E.S. thought he was human, back in the so-called "True Reality" Realm which he called home. After he and his father were chased by men claiming to simply be guards wanting to collect tax, the young boy's parents were both killed.

Some time after being taken in by assassins, he learned that the men who killed his parents were, in fact, not guards at all. You see, E.S. lived in a world where magic and inhuman beings were real, but were all in the MC Realm or taken away/killed. "True Reality" was called such thanks to mass anti-magic propaganda that said those who were hybrids, cursed, magic etc. were simply monsters or did not exist, and that the MC Realm did not exist. The ones who killed E.S.'s parents were supporters of such, and were like magic police that tried to censor and remove anyone against them and/or were magic.

E.S.'s mother had a family curse, while his father was a hybrid trying to live a normal life. But both caught up to E.S. when his hybrid side began to show and the curse had finally appeared physically. E.S.'s curse caused his eyes to change constantly, cycling through almost human eyes, to animals like cats, snakes, etc., demonic/bloody eyes which could get particularly scary, and code-like patterns which sometimes made him "glitch" with a spike of pain throughout his body.

E.S. discovered this on his 16th birthday, to his horror. Almost a month later, E.S. found white wings growing on his back. Later the feathers continued appearing along his torso, shoulders, neck, and upper arms. That was when he realized his parents were far more interesting than they wanted him to think. They tried so hard to let him live a normal life without their own past ruining it. E.S. began wearing a reddish-brownish dark gray bandanna around his eyes, and his adoptive father made him a special little hoodie which would make an illusion that would hide E.S.'s feathers as a chicken suit.

E.S. continued to wear both as his journey as an assassin continued. That is, until he got a job to kill a particularly nasty man who was deeply obsessed with finding a way to enter the MC Realm. The man had done so many horrid things to other people and their loved ones while exploring the magic of the MC Realm. E.S. got many jobs from different people asking to kill the obsessive man. He was the first target that saw through the magic hoodie and magic bandanna, and the man seemed to recognize E.S. rather than be fearful. He violently took down E.S., plucking out a few feathers as E.S.'s scream of pain was muffled.

Ripping off his bandanna, the crazed man ignored E.S.'s struggles and collected some blood from his crying eyes, murmuring "you are the one, yes yes yes you must be the chosen, I am sorry my winged child but you must fulfill the prophecy, the boy with rainbows for eyes needs your help, you are the only one who can save us from the dark beasts now, the terror queen must die to the dragon within the child of a cursed and the winged one, you must rescue hope from the nightmare my boy."

'How can this thin old man keep me pinned to the ground?!' E.S. was sure there was no way that the man was somehow stronger than him, he is a hybrid after all. Soon something happened while the man was mixing strange things with the blood and feathers. A portal. And not just any portal. The only one to the MC Realm.

"You truly are the chosen one!" the man wheezed, as a strange concoction finished brewing. E.S. could not move, what was this man planning to do to him? Was the job really all a hoax?? How, how was the man keeping E.S. down without touching him?! Why did the portal just appear?!? E.S. barely managed to grab his bandanna before the man slouched over to him, holding the strange bottle. The liquid seemed to shine in the dim light, like a green fire against metallic scales.

"You must take this, my boy. You may be a hybrid, but. You. Will. NOT SURVIVE. Unless you take on the identity of the dragon within you," the man began pouring the liquid on E.S.'s wings as he spoke. It burned. It burned through his veins as some was forced down his throat. His vision went blurry, barely catching a glimpse of his wings. He had no feathers. There was a green shine on them now. The man wheezed in joy as he dragged the panicking young man towards the glittering glitched purple portal.

For a moment, there was kindness in his voice. "I am sorry for all I have done," the man spoke with a softness E.S. had never heard, "I have grown too old to return to the broken MC Realm, please, help them. The Color Kingdoms used to be my home, but now I cannot reunite with my family until the Darkness Age is over. You should be able to get help with returning home once you end the Darkness, mention that The Guardian brought you." And with that, he pushed an oversized iron sword into E.S.'s hands, which were growing sharp black claws. E.S. looked up at the older man, tears in his eyes. "Save them. I wish we had more time but we don't," the man whispered with a sad smile before pushing the rapidly transforming boy through the portal, still clutching the sword.

And thus, E.S. became the dragon sent to save the Colors from the Darkness. He took on the name Sabre, his middle name, as his dragon form. The oversized sword fit perfectly in his new clawed hands, now a glittering purple and blue, almost like a galaxy. The previously empty socket in the handle had what looked to be a star, having fallen long ago. E.S. went on to find the Rainbow Knight, knowing that the two of them were the only ones who could save the Kingdoms. With some help from each Color, of course. He could not do it alone, even if he were the so-called "saviour." The once-human dragon must rescue the young knight from the Nightmare princess, or else all will be lost.

[kurishiri]

18.5 . . . “ a meaningless emotion ”

꒰ ִ ֺ ⊹ @ notice ⊹ ֺ ִ ꒱ this translation may not be 100% accurate or contain creative liberties due to characterization or narrative flow purposes. if you enjoy, please consider reblogging, but don’t repost these or claim these as your own!

— 🤍 his side story, chapter 18. this is one you can purchase on your second play through of his route.

— cw: the very end may be considered suicidal ideation.

Alfons: ...I think I’ve had just about enough of this blasted sob story.

I slipped out of the bed and changed——if I loitered around the castle, running into her would be a pain.

(Today there’ll be some merrymaking happening amongst the eccentric nobility.)

It wasn’t as though I wanted to go out of my way to go there, but it was a perfect way to kill time.

—— Time skip ——

Alfons: Alright then, what shall we bet on next?

Drunken man: I got it! How about this oil painting that my old man said was his most valued one, not that I know anything about it!

Crossdressing woman: Did you steal that? Vincent… huh, who is this? Never heard of him. Isn’t it just a cheap thing?

Alfons: Hehe, I must say it’s quite unlike nobility to worry over the value of the good.

Crossdressing woman: But it’s not so exciting, you know, it’s better to have something that shows its value.

Alfons: Well then… how about I give a dream where “this painting is worth 500 pounds?”

Man smoking a cigar: Oh, that’s a good idea.

Whether it was nobility, drunken people at some street corner of the bar, the orphans at the East End, and what have you, they weren’t so different.

They would find any pleasure they could through gambling, liquor, or sex, so they could live while avoiding their pains and worries.

Drunken nobleman: Hey, Al, is that rumor about you having a recent favorite true?

Noble lady with gloves: Al, you mustn’t become someone’s partner! We need you to stay a star of all single nobles.

Alfons: Yes, yes, such was my intention.

Drunken nobleman: So you say, but your heart’s already taken by that person, isn’t it?

Alfons: Hehe, I digress.

Man smoking a cigar: …Let’s just leave it at that. If we question him any more, he may never come again, and that would sure put us in a bind.

Man smoking a cigar: Even if his heart’s got its sights set on someone, it’s fine as long as he shares some of that pleasure… isn’t that right?

Noble lady with gloves: Well, I suppose. Ahh, I hope my father gives up on matters of my marriage soon…

(‘My heart’s already taken by that person’… huh.)

When I heard those words that seemed to embody the soul of romanticism,

Kate was the one and sole person who came to mind, and for a moment, I felt called out.

——You hurt me so much and leave me in the dust, but now you decide to commit? That’s just cruel…!

At some point, the little robin had made its home within my mind, making an angered face and suddenly turning away.

(Hehe… it’s not as though I’m committing.)

Alfons: Perhaps I do have some guilt left in me… ah, it’s a straight flush.

Drunken man: Al’s win again?!

As I was staring in a daze at the trump cards raining and fluttering down,

just as I had intended, time melted away into idleness.

I ended up drinking through the night until dawn and having a meat pie from a street seller for breakfast, I returned to the castle, and——

Alfons: Oh?

In a stroke of bad luck, I happened upon Roger and Miss Kate walking together.

Kate: Ah... w-welcome back.

Roger: Hey there, Al.

Leaving aside the mentally strong former doctor who, regardless whether he was aware he was being hated on, would initiate a conversation with a light tone and carefree smile,

Miss Kate very obviously looked awkward.

(I can’t even flatter your acting skills.)

She was the complete opposite of me, who had a lot of practice when it came to plastering on a smile.

Alfons: Well I’ll be, are you on your way to a most friendly outing, the two of you?

Kate: Ah, no, we’re...

Roger: What, curiosity got you piqued?

As if to make a point, Roger wrapped his arm around Kate’s shoulder snugly.

Kate: Roger!? What are you doing—

Roger: Alright then, let me fill you in. We’re gonna be spending the whole entire day holed up in a locked room, just the two of us. Let’s get along now, yeah?

(This man needs to get a hobby.)

(I hardly have any intention of hopping on that cheap provocation.)

Alfons: Oh my, is that so? It would appear you’ve found yourself a lovely playmate while I was not around. I’m happy for you, Miss Kate.

Kate: …

I gave a smile to convey I didn’t think anything of it, and Miss Kate, as though hurt, furrowed her brows.

(Aha, you poor soul, you.)

I figured she probably wasn’t clinging to Roger in hopes that he would heal her broken heart.

I knew very well that she was hardly the type to be able to do such things.

Her single-mindedness in facing me no matter how much I refused or hurt her was staunch to be sure.

(And that’s exactly what makes her different from me… I suppose.)

(Well, whether she’ll make it out safely from the basement after being alone with this man is a different story…)

(But it doesn’t have anything to do with me, so.)

The moment I tried to leave, Miss Kate opened her mouth, as though trying to pull me back.

Kate: Alfons..!

Alfons: ? Yes, what is it?

Kate: ...I still very much like you.

Alfons: ...Come again?

Roger: ... (O_O)

It was such a sudden confession of love, I stiffened out of instinct.

(………Has she gone bonkers?)

(You do know I’m the man who played your feelings of love, and to top it all off, told you it was all a ‘nuisance’ and left the bed, right?)

And yet she still insisted on pouring these dazzling words on me; what else could I think her as, if not crazy?

Kate: Even if this all amounts to a nuisance to you... this is the ‘truth’ for me, so.

Alfons: .........

(Ah, now I’ve done it. This should be the part where I laugh it all off.)

I needed to make her think that, no matter how earnestly she threw her feelings at me, they would never get through, so she could give up on me.

(So that these feelings of love she holds for me amounts to nothing but garbage…)

(I need to laugh at her, to deny her——)

My mind knew that, and yet for some reason, my lips couldn’t form a smile.

Kate: Okay, we’re going, Roger.

Miss Kate, seeming as though she wanted to run from my silence, ran down the staircase leading to the basement.

Roger: Pfft, haha... I feel like I haven’t seen you so dumbfounded in forever.

As Kate’s footsteps grew more distant, I heard an unpleasant laughter.

I hated how this man would not seem to pay any mind to the feelings of others like that.

Alfons: ...Oh, believe me, she is far from the first who’s rendered me so positively dumbfounded like this.

Roger: Hmm? So is it safe to say she’s no different than anyone else to you then?

R: Because if so, I may or may not end up stealing her away for real.

While slowly turning for the staircase, those egoistic lips showed a provoking smile.

Roger: After all, it’s not like you’d really care what happens to a toy you don’t need anymore, right?

Alfons: ………

Perhaps the reason I felt displeasure rise up from within me was because the one before me was a man filled with haughty arrogance.

Or was it because she was the one getting stolen?

(Whichever it is, I shouldn’t care for the answer.)

(Because, in any case, I didn’t have such a choice to step even further into her life to find the reason for this temporary displeasure.)

If that was the case, thinking on it was foolish. And yet——

Her lips, which were trembling as she declared how she ‘still liked me,’

the palms of her hands, which were gripped tightly together as though grasping onto courage,

and those eyes that looked so directly at me, as if to say to not misunderstand,

were all engraved into the back of my mind, refusing to let go.

The heavy footsteps going down the staircase grated on my ears, severely so.

For the feeling of a favorite toy being stolen away, it felt extremely bitter.

(Is this… jealousy? Me, of all people? But, how?)

The notion of getting something I said I didn’t need taken away, and then still feeling displeased over it and whatnot, was much like a child’s selfishness.

And besides——

(…The most I was able to do was imitate love, feeling nothing but emotional disconnect.)

Alfons: …I suppose the biggest mystery to one is themself.

Labeling the jealousy I felt that bubbled up from somewhere in me as ‘meaningless,’ I threw it behind me.

Thinking on it more would only make my helplessness more clear than it already was.

Hoping to idle the time away, I walked to my room, when all of a sudden, a certain question came to mind.

(Come to think of it, if they’re not doing anything shady, then what in the world are those two doing in the basement…?)

For a moment, I felt a sense of unease.

Miss Kate, who had said she ‘still liked me,’

was with Roger, the one who spouted off some nonsense about ‘changing fates’ and whatnot,

and they were in the basement, where a lot of documents concerning ‘Cursed ones’ were abundant, which would mean…

Alfons: …Now that just can’t be. She wouldn’t be so much a fool as to not know when to not give up, would she.

I denied it with my voice, but my chest got more and more filled with that uneasy feeling.

(What if, even after I pushed her away this far, it was already too late?)

(What if she poured even more of her feelings into me, continuing to spend more time with me——?)

Alfons: …Should that time ever come,

A: Perhaps I should simply up and disappear, just like that.

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masterlist🪞 ╱ ko-fi ☕️ ╱ comms 🤍

NOTE: this is the last his side story i will translate, and the last chapter i will translate concerning alfons main story. thank you for accompanying me so long in this translation, to those who have read it all! it really means a lot to me! i enjoy translating for al lots, and i hope that came through as you were reading overall 🥹🙏

to those who will be reading his route in en, i hope you enjoy what this roller coaster of a route has to offer! theres a lot of complexities woven into his route thats sure give you something to think about. i translated this last chapter to close off the project, putting in my best wishes for you 🫶

i have heard from those who have read what i did for elbies main story that reading my tl has helped enhance their reading experience in en, and i hope this can do the same for you! or if you cant afford the premium stories or dont want to grind for these his side stories, i hope i could provide a way for you to access them more freely. again, thank you to everyone who has supported me, read my tls, interacted with these posts, etc.

its largely thanks to you that i can close this project and look back on it with positive memories! 🪞🤍✨

꒰ ִ ֺ ⊹ @ tags🏷️ ⊹ ֺ ִ ꒱ @drachonia

[rayroseu]

This line is making me sad akjdkakdks its making me imagine that once Malleus sees that his overblot causes pain rather than making the people of his life happy... he'll realize that "he is no good as a king at all since he harmed his people"😭😭

"Seeing you all worry helped me calm down..." ARGHH IT MAKES ME THINK OF THE SCENE WHERE HE SAW HOW ANGUISHED SILVER WAS ABOUT LILIA'S DEPARTURE... Like... I CANT??😭😭 HE'S SO CARING ABOUT THE HAPPINESS OF OTHERS BECAUSE THATS AN EMOTION HE RARELY FELT SO HE VIEWS IT AS THE MOST PRECIOUS FEELING ??

but sadness and partings and goodbyes..."harms happiness", thats why he just created a world where it never exists... He's not just doing it for his own desires KSJAKDJWKD plus if "all dreams come true" none of the previous overblots wouldve occured and they'll live a peaceful life... but living that way would stagnate their growth... they'll be living the same life repeatedly without any improvements towards themselves

that's why even if Malleus' overblot stems from a good intention, his vision is not applicable to a human life as we all require growing up, overcoming hardships, admitting our mistakes and developing out from that... Those painful feelings are what makes a human life more meaningful and allows a person to give themselves a genuine good life. 🥲🥲🥲

But Malleus who's still in the state of "learning to be human", he cannot naturally perceive that kind of moral.

I just hope that after Book 7 there's no narrative implication that Malleus' coping was flat out purely wrong lol Bcs as Yuu said, everyone wishes they won't lose anyone important to them either...

Going back to the fact that he feels responsible for the happiness of others... I think Malleus lives his life very literally...

I think it was Lilia who said this...(?) That Malleus' power (or the Draconia's power in general) gives happiness to the people of Briar Valley (as their power can protect the dark faes) 🥲✨

Maybe this is the reason why he's "so desperate" in keeping the happiness of others and also giving them blessings that'll surely make them happy...

Okay separate theory... Maybe I'm just overthinking lol But the occurence of "falling" in TWST is so fascinating to me since thats a heavy reference to "Alice Falling In Wonderland" yk

Book 6 we already had Idia falling to the Underworld because he wants to follow Ortho, There's this implication that Overblots "falling to a deep sleep/darkness" thats why all overblotees "wakes up after their own overblot... I wonder if Overblot Malleus will take a fall as well??? His overblot title is "The King of Abyss" but I doubt that the "timeless Sage Island" is the abyss yk? What if we actually learn about the origin of Overblots through Malleus Overblot?

Because in the trailer we can see him snapping out in awareness(waking up) before he's trapped in thorns in what seems to be an Abyss--- So maybe, we won't defeat Malleus Overblot bcs he'll wake up from it (presumeably once he realizes that his overblot caused Lilia and the others pain???) but him breaking his overblot wont be possible bcs the "darkness" will engulf him of smth

I'm thinking of this because the existence of Overblot is so weird. General Lilia should've recognized the blot when it was taking Silver because of his despair since before Leona's overblot, he knew the vibes of whats occuring yk and same thing with Malleus with how he knew that he's planning to overblot, plus he knows the existence of STYX whos focused on overblot too

But strangely, the mages of the past (Meleanor and Knight of Dawn even Lilia and Baul) dont seem to possess any magic limitations concerning blot accumulation, additionally they dont even have magestones (that they use to gauge their blot consumption like NRC pens). Which makes me think that "blot or overblot" was not a "trait" that existed naturally in mages???

Since TWST world's history is implied to be changed... I wonder if blot existence was something that "a being" made up/cursed upon all mages lol

Idk where Im going with this tbhhhh ajsjaj but I just think its suspicious that only human magicians is heavily concerned with blot accumulation... whereas Malleus and Lilia never worries about using magic too much...

So wild guess, maybe Maleficia (since shes the only powerful person here lol) cursed "magic in general" so humans will never be on par with fae's magical abilities no matter how hard they develop it

Ig its to never repeat the "occurence of another Knight of Dawn" who's magic is even stronger than faes since he has no limitation so she created blot to curse humans to limit their magic else they'll fall into "darkness" idk

[mariacallous]

When Italian philosopher and essayist Andrea Colamedici released Ipnocrazia: Trump, Musk e La Nuova Architettura Della Realtà (Hypnocracy: Trump, Musk, and the New Architecture of Reality), he wanted to make a statement about the existence of truth in the digital age.

The book, published in December, was described as “a crucial book for understanding how control is currently exercised not by repressing truth but by multiplying narratives, making it impossible to locate any fixed point,” according to a description by Tlon, a publishing house Colamedici cofounded. While the book attracted buzz in philosophy circles, Italian magazine L’Espresso revealed in April that the book’s purported author, Jianwei Xun, did not exist, after one of its editors tried and failed to interview him. Initially described as a Hong Kong–born philosopher based in Berlin, it turned out that Xun was actually a hybrid human-algorithmic creation. Colamedici, listed on the book as translator, used AI to generate concepts and then critique those concepts.

“It’s not just a book but a philosophical experiment, a performance. My aim was to raise awareness,” he tells WIRED. He says the point of the book was to help readers understand AI and invent a new concept for this era.

So far, Hypnocracy: Trump, Musk, and the New Architecture of Reality is available in three languages (Spanish, French, and Italian) and has sold some 5,000 copies.

“From figures like Trump, Musk, and other world leaders to the ways in which digital platforms grab our attention, Xun unveils the mechanisms by which power shapes our perception of reality. It is a clear and disturbing analysis that goes beyond traditional critiques of digital society to reveal how reality itself has become a political battleground,” its description reads.

However, the controversy surrounding the decision to use AI to author it, and initially withhold that information, has now become a major part of the discourse around it—and that’s what Colamedici wanted.

“When readers discovered the truth about how the book was created, many were hurt. I deeply regret that, but it was necessary,” he says.

WIRED interviewed Colamedici in a conversation that explored the nuances of his project.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

WIRED: What was the inspiration for the philosophical experiment?

Andrea Colamedici: First of all, I teach prompt thinking at the European Institute of Design and I lead a research project on artificial intelligence and thought systems at the University of Foggia. Working with my students, I realized that they were using ChatGPT in the worst possible way: to copy from it. I observed that they were losing an understanding of life by relying on AI, which is alarming, because we live in an era where we have access to an ocean of knowledge, but we don’t know what to do with it. I’d often warn them: “You can get good grades, even build a great career using ChatGPT to cheat, but you’ll become empty.” I have trained professors from several Italian universities and many ask me: “When can I stop learning how to use ChatGPT?” The answer is never. It’s not about completing an education in AI, but about how you learn when using it.”

We must keep our curiosity alive while using this tool correctly and teaching it to work how we want it to. It all starts from a crucial distinction: There is information that makes you passive, that erodes your ability to think over time, and there is information that challenges you, that makes you smarter by pushing you beyond your limits. This is how we should use AI: as an interlocutor that helps us think differently. Otherwise, we won’t understand that these tools are designed by big tech companies that impose a certain ideology. They choose the data, the connections among it, and, above all, they treat us as customers to be satisfied. If we use AI this way, it will only confirm our biases. We will think we are right, but in reality we will not be thinking; we will be digitally embraced. We can’t afford this numbness. This was the starting point of the book. The second challenge was how to describe what is happening now. For Gilles Deleuze, philosophy is the ability to create concepts, and today we need new ones to understand our reality. Without them, we are lost. Just look at Trump’s Gaza video—generated by AI—or the provocations of figures like Musk. Without solid conceptual tools, we are shipwrecked. A good philosopher creates concepts that are like keys allowing us to understand the world.

What was your goal with the new book?

The book seeks to do three things: to help readers become AI literate, to invent a new concept for this era, and to be theoretical and practical at the same time. When readers discovered the truth about how the book was created, many were hurt. I deeply regret that, but it was necessary. Some people have said, “I wish this author existed.” Well, he doesn’t. We must understand that we build our own narratives. If we don’t, the far right will monopolize the narratives, create myths, and we will spend our lives fact-checking while they write history. We can’t allow that to happen.

How did you use AI to help you write this philosophical essay?

I want to clarify that AI didn’t write the essay. Yes, I used artificial intelligence, but not in a conventional way. I developed a method that I teach at the European Institute of Design, based on creating opposition. It’s a way of thinking and using machine learning in an antagonistic way. I didn’t ask the machine to write for me, but instead it generated ideas and then I used GPT and Claude to critique them, to give me perspectives on what I had written. Everything written in the book is mine. Artificial intelligence is a tool that we must learn to use, because if we misuse it—and “misuse” includes treating it as a sort of oracle, asking it to “tell me the answer to the world’s questions; explain to me why I exist”—then we lose our ability to think. We become stupid. Nam June Paik, a great artist of the 1990s, said: “I use technology in order to hate it properly.” And that is what we must do: understand it, because if we don’t, it will use us. AI will become the tool that big tech uses to control us and manipulate us. We must learn to use these tools correctly; otherwise, we’ll be facing a serious problem.

Why did you choose to present yourself as a translator rather than an author?

I use translator as a metaphor. Yes, I am the translator, but not in the literal sense. I am one because to translate can also mean to transport, and that’s what I do: I transport something. However, I wrote the book in Italian. I didn’t translate it from Chinese—I don’t know Chinese—or from English (the other language that the fictional Jianwei Xun knows). Jianwei Xun is a liminal figure: a meeting point between East and West, a point where cultures collide. And that is the opportunity he offers, to understand that we must meet in these strange spaces that are AI. We can do it, but we have to proceed with caution and courage. I know it sounds paradoxical, but this is how we must embody this connection. To be a translator here is also to be a translator of a historic opportunity: to reflect on what we do. If we do not reflect on this, we will be mere passive subjects. It has to be problematized. We cannot just say “AI, give me more, more, more.” We must be neither techno-enthusiasts who accept everything uncritically, nor technophobes, because it is impossible to live without technology today. AI is here to stay and we must understand it. It offers an opportunity to live more deeply and we must seize it.

If AI can create a convincing philosophical treatise, what is left for human authors? You have said that “we must think, we must be critical.” So what is the way forward for today’s intellectual?

This is a beautiful question because if AI can draw better than we can, if it can drive better, if it can make music better than we do ... then what are we doing here? But we should look at this from another angle, not from the neoliberal perspective that turns all of life into a competition where it is all about winning. It’s not like that. We must seek our own personal fulfillment, find a way to express ourselves, with or without AI. What does it matter if someone else can draw better than me? That’s not the important thing. What matters is that I can learn to draw better and improve my abilities—working with AI or with another person (I recommend with people, but if you choose AI, that’s fine). The big problem of humanity is this obsession to be the first, to be the centre of the story. But science already showed us in the 19th century that we are not at the centre of the universe; we are in a remote corner of the Milky Way. Nor are we even the centre of life on Earth: more than 99% of the biomass is plants, trees, other life forms. We are so small and we have only been here for a very short time, barely 200,000 years. Think of a pine tree or other species; a chicken, which is a much older species. Even among humans, we aren’t a whole. “I am large, I contain multitudes,” as Walt Whitman said. We are also not the most intelligent species on the planet. That doesn’t have to be understood as a tragedy, it can be viewed as a liberation.

Let’s talk about Ipnocrazia [Hypnocracy]. Why did you choose that title for your book? And while we’re at it, let’s delve some into the Trump-Musk relationship that you analyse in the book.

Yes, I talk about a hypnocracy because what is happening is not a power physically acting on our bodies nor even on our minds, but instead on our very state of consciousness. This is what is happening to us: They are manipulating, through algorithms, our way of perceiving the world. And that is really dangerous. When we use a smartphone and social networks, we think we are connected to the world. We read newspapers, but we receive a personalized timeline that create a bespoke reality for us.

This is very concerning. We think we inhabit the same world as others, but our reality is shaped by our biases, opinions, and political positions. We need contact with those who think differently, but these filter bubbles and echo chambers only show us our own reflection. We must build bridges to the unknown, to the different. If not, we are heading for civil war. The other will become a threat, when in fact they are first and foremost a mystery—and perhaps even something to be treasured. That should be our first thought when confronting difference.

Can AI have an original point of view, or does hypnocracy simply recycle human thoughts through algorithms? How would you define this relationship?

This is another big question, because there’s a paradox: Hypnocracy begins with a human perspective. Without it, it wouldn’t exist. But at the same time, I couldn’t have generated this concept without AI. It’s a creative codependency: just as I would need a conversation with another person to develop an idea, I needed that dialogue with artificial intelligence. AI does not live by itself. It requires prompts and stimuli while humans think autonomously. But that is precisely why we must understand what AI is. If we do not respect it for what it is, a tool, we will end up degrading our own humanity. To give an example: If we are used to saying “Alexa, turn off the light” in an impersonal tone, we will end up talking to our partner or friends in the same way. I’m not saying that we need to thank Siri as if she has feelings, she doesn’t, but that we should make sure to preserve our ability to express kindness in real life.

Some intriguing studies indicate that when we order an Uber through an app, we treat the driver worse than when we call for a car by phone. The risk is twofold: humanizing AI (which is of course not human) and “platforming” people (that is, turning them into interfaces). This is dangerous and confusing these different categories of exchanges can dehumanize us.

Do you consider AI to be simply a tool for humans, or how would you define its ontological status?

AI is a human tool, no question. It’s a product of our past, a type of collective consciousness that we created and that helps us understand why we are here. But here’s a paradox: While AI can tell us the weather, recite verses from ancient poets, or suggest possible solutions to problems, it can never help us understand the meaning of life.

The mistake is in asking AI “tell me why I exist.” The better approach is to tell it that, “I’ve been reflecting on the meaning of life. I’ve read Sartre, who says that there is no predetermined meaning, but that we construct one. What other thinkers from other cultures, would you recommend I look at in order to broaden my understanding?” The West is exhausted. We need to find other radical connections: with Native American philosophies, the Vedas, and other distant cultures. Therein lies the great opportunity of AI: It’s not an oracle, but a bridge to the unknown.

What led to the choice of Jianwei Xun’s nationality and the specific cultural context for this fictional philosopher? Was it your decision, the result of AI, or maybe a strategy to challenge certain Western narratives?

The world needs to understand that Western culture must look outside itself. Western civilization has a serious problem: It still believes that it is at the centre of the universe, the only one capable of solving problems, and it treats other cultures as only being able to produce mere copies at best. This is a profound mistake. Today, that which is truly revolutionary—the ideas that may fundamentally change our perspective on the world—will not come from the West. It’s possible that they might come out of China, but even more likely they will come from one of those spaces on today’s frontier where different cultures meet. And we need to beware that even the concepts of East and West are absurd simplifications, but I use them for now.

I wanted to create a perspective that sits outside of this Western narcissism. Something that combined the new with old but forgotten ways of thinking. In Italy, for example, we have a crazy situation: The government demands that schools teach that only we have a history. Can you imagine? As if the Chinese dynasties or the indigenous peoples of America and Oceania did not. This reflects the fragility of a society that, instead of accepting that it is losing its centrality—which is not a tragedy, but a liberation—clings to ridiculous myths.

The book has become a publishing phenomenon. What do you attribute this success to? Is it interest in the conversation about AI, the philosophical provocation, the debate about authorship in the digital age?

It’s true that we’ve had three printings already, although I don't remember whether they were 2,000 or 3,000 copies each. In total, the book has sold between 4,000 and 5,000 copies. But the strangest thing was when a journalist from [the Spanish newspaper] El País contacted me and asked: “Did you use a pseudonym to sell more copies?” It’s actually the other way around! In Italy my books already sell well; I don’t need to invent other names. The first printing was, in fact, only 70 copies; it was an experiment. Then I saw that the concept resonated with readers and we increased the print runs.

Right now, my life is chaotic. I have interviews in five countries, packed schedules of events in France and Spain. But this is a great opportunity and, although it’s fun, it’s serious too. Play is not a trivial thing: If we don’t play, then what are we living for? We are in a dark historical moment; we need to reinvent how we exist.

When El País learned that the philosopher and coauthor of this book wasn’t real, they decided to remove their review of the book from their website. If the thesis of the book is valid and it contributes to an important debate, why delete it instead of contextualizing it? Do you think this reflects our inability to handle the ambiguity between fiction and truth in the age of AI?

I understand that fear. Journalism is under attack, and many media outlets act out of fear of damaging their credibility. Their first instinct is to attack something they see as an “impostor” and erase all traces of it. It’s an understandable reaction, even necessary in some cases, because we must protect journalists. They are crucial to uncovering the truth and restoring trust in experts. But the mistake that El País made was not taking the time to understand the context. For example, they talked about the EU’s AI Act, but in 2023 I attended the [State of the European Union], and I listened to Ursula von der Leyen [president of the European Commission]. She admitted that tech moves faster than regulation, and that legislating is complex because innovation doesn’t wait. El País could have gone deeper into that. Instead of deleting the review, they could have created something more nuanced along the lines of “Yes, the author is fictional, but his analysis of AI is relevant because ...”

However, I understand why the media acted as they did: They played it safe. The problem is that’s not the smartest solution. The smart thing would be to open dialogues, to accept that nobody knows everything about AI. It is a huge and changing field and we should encourage curiosity as a driving force. People are exhausted and scared, but curiosity generates energy. We need more complex discourses, not simplifications driven by fear.

The game, if you will, behind the book exposes a paradox: Readers connected to the fictional philosopher despite knowing he was a creation and not a real person. Doesn’t this demonstrate that, in the age of AI, we crave believable stories more than real facts?

I don’t know. We’ll see how the public reacts now that they know the book is more complex than it first appeared. Before, readers were drawn to it thanks to its interesting theories; now they face two challenges: to discover the real structure of the text—perhaps not until they reach the end—and to approach it with the knowledge that the “author” is not a conventional one. I have read articles in Italian media that embody an absurd contradiction. They engage deeply with the research, but then the headlines reduce the book to its most sensational element: “The Philosopher Who Is an AI Creation.” But no, it’s not that the AI wrote this book, it’s an investigation into ideas of authorship and truth. I know it’s hard to sum it up in a headline, but we should take a few minutes to reflect on it. Otherwise, we feed a tendency to simplify ideas and sow mistrust. We have a huge responsibility to readers.

A possible more nuanced headline could be “An AI Philosopher or a Reflection of Our Times?” But instead we prefer the easy click. Our world now revolves around the immediate reward even when we should encourage slower pursuits—meditation and productive boredom. As Walter Benjamin said: “Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience.” You have to sit on the egg and wait for it to hatch.

Do you see other similar collaborations with AI in the future or was this a one-time thing, a way of questioning what it means to be an author in our time?

I’ll continue to publish works as Jianwei Xun—he’s a bridge between the human and AI—but it won’t be my only voice. It would be dangerous to start thinking that I can only express myself through algorithms. I need to write with and without AI, because I must preserve my ability to dive into myself without intermediaries. Not everyone sees it right now, but in a year or two we will understand the risks of this moment. We are on the verge of losing the ability to think and live without technological dependence. The paradox is that AI itself, used properly, can be an antidote. It’s like a fire that, when it burns in a controlled way, warms us but doesn’t harm us.

When readers discover that this “philosopher” is, in fact, a fusion of AI and human thought, many say they are puzzled and even disappointed. What would you tell them about the value of this hybrid creation? How should they read the book once they know it’s true structure?

It’s a fascinating question, because it’s not about percentages—Jianwei Xun is not 30 percent AI and 70 percent human, for example. Jianwei Xun is the name I use when I engage with artificial intelligence. It’s an identity where the human and the algorithmic merge without any clear boundaries. I’d tell readers to enjoy the journey and allow yourself to be amazed, because a sense of being amazed is what we lack today. As Plato said in The Theaetetus, philosophy is born from thaumazein, a Greek word that means both wonder or amazement and terror. This is precisely our historical moment: It is terrible in two different senses of the word—terrifying and awesome. It’s not a matter of blind optimism, insisting that it’s sunny even when it’s raining, but of choosing how to look. It’s choosing to see beyond the abyss, knowing that we may be lost, but we are not alone.

True freedom—and our defense against manipulation—lies in actively choosing to embrace mystery and the unknown, even when it is scary. Only then will technology become a bridge and not a prison.

What do you see as the future of philosophy in the age of AI, and why do you think it’s urgent that we reflect on these issues now?

The future of philosophy is found in the cracks between what we might call “normality.” Intersectional feminism has taught us that all truth has layers—not only in the struggle around gender, but in every aspect of reality. And yet we continue to pretend that there are pure bodies, minds, and ideas.

One last thing: We have been measuring intelligence with our own yardstick for centuries, ignoring that forests have memories and octopuses dream. Meanwhile, AI infiltrates our refrigerators and the locks on our homes as stealthily as some modern trickster god. It is the myth of Thoth revived: Plato warned that writing, that “poison of memory,” would make us sages only on paper. Today, AI repeats the paradox: It promises knowledge while emptying the act of knowing of its meaning. The trick is to do as Plato did and use this poison as an antidote. Criticize the machine from the machine, write about writing, and think against thought. In the end, the coming philosophy will not be a refuge, but a spur. It is something that will wake us up from the technocratic dream with more pointed questions than those posed by any algorithm.

[on-leatheredwings]

i've found your account only a few days ago but ever since then I've been STUCK here rereading your fanfics, especially ones with damian. i wasn't even a dc fan (heard about some stuf, watched some films and cartoons, but that's it) but now im reading comics since im Obsessed and need more batboys in my life (rip my productivity😔)

Anyway, after Sleepover i'm curious what will Bruce (and maybe even Thalia) think of batboys strange behaviour towards reader. He's smart, so he definitely notices it early on, but how he'll react....

I can see him being weirded out (like he was by Jason's anger issues, before his death), but he also can be an enabler, since Robin (literaly any of them) had a hard life, so if those relationships can help him why not pretend that everything is normal? you'll be safer in a Wayne's Manor anyway

All in all, thanks for a new hyperfixation 💞💞

P.s. About games:

1. Boyfriend to death 1&2 - since you're into yanderes you might want to check this game out. I prefer the second game, but the first is also fun. But beware the trigger warnings!!

2. Long live the Queen - more of a raising sim than dating sim but you still can romance some guys and girls.

,3. Hatoful Boyfriend - mostly a comedy, but there is a yandere.

4. The Royal Trap - it's been a long time since i played it, but it used to be one of my favorites so i'll just mention it.

5. Higurashi - once again not really a romance sim, but its an interesting horror mixed with a slice of life

;A; AWWWW THANK YOU IM SO HAPPY YOU LIKE MY STUFF.... THAT MAKES ONE OF US GIJSDOFAFGHFOJDSD

and yes yes get into DC!!! (girl who hasnt even read a full run since like. injustice)

damn now you got me thinking and excited. incoming spiel

i agree entirely about bruce just knowing how Bad things can get, so to make things simpler, he's like "yes, your darling(s) can stay in the manor, boys. 🙄"

mmm yes..... when it comes to bruce noticing the batboys are yandere, i think it's always sinfully delightful to just have him be reluctantly okay with it. 😈 it's also easier narratively ngl but i also like the idea that the batfam is all just corrupted.

bruce's thoughts are that they (his sons) fight for vengeance and justice but this is where they could use some leeway.... we all need our vice... they fight so hard for gotham, they deserve a little treat (getting rid of your human rights)... it's very "Dad who wants his sons to have happiness even if its not healthy" of him. in fics where bruce is a yandere, well, he's the exact same way so he can't judge. although if that's the case, i like the idea of bruce just being like "yes what we do isn't right. let's not talk about it. just don't kill <3"

still wondering what i like more. a yan!bruce who's self aware what he's doing is wrong but he just refuses to think about it. or a yan!bruce that justifies it all because of his paranoia, Tower of Babel style (if you don't know, that's when it's revealed batman has plans to subdue/kill the justice league just in case they go rogue.)

for the batboys depends on their personality... for damian, he's so resolute in things that i prefer when he just believes 100% what he's doing is okay, if not actually righteous. ^_^

hmmm talia.... I'M STILL UNSURE HOW I PREFER THAT AS WELL... i think talia being a you-arent-good-enough-for-my-son mom is a little cliche but also. she kinda would say that. you'd have to prove your worth somehow but idk how tf darling would do that LOL. in the end, i think talia is just relieved/comforted that her son indeed feels desire and wants love and will continue the family legacy (regardless if youre afab/can biologically have children.)

no THANK YOU FOR THE ASK!!! AND THANKS FOR RECS!!!! heheh yeah ive checked out btd and im not averse to the warnings its more like im not that most of into the designs ngl. fox guy seems cute? AND LMAO FUNNY BC IM ON A HIGURASHI REWATCH (never played it tho)