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Jan. 9th, 2023 10:28 pmA comment on Syconium, an arc of the webcomic Nature of Nature's Art. Content warning: that particular arc abounds with (non-pornographic) sexual content, of such variety that I can't give a more specific warning.
When I was young, I thought I would be the one with fans, and that I would struggle to treat them with patience, firmness and understanding without hiding from them or exploiting them as most famous creators do. But no, it turns out it's the other way around. I'm the fan, and my task (outside physics) is to provide intellectual support for others.
When following this story, I and many others experienced it as a series of thesis statements, each sophisticated enough to supplant the previous one, but each newly sinister in its own way. Thus I regarded the graduate student's thesis with particular excitement, for here was a compassionate, intelligent, academic, but nonetheless subtly rotten thesis. Surely it was the next to last -- surely it could not be the last, if only because it was presented by an outside savior figure, because it had not been presented by the protagonist herself. But then, in his disastrous attempt to explain himself, Braun admitted that this was his thesis too, disappointing many of us. However, I've come to think that Egress did, in fact, present a new thesis, sufficient to supplant and overpaint the graduate student's. The problem for us as readers, and Braun as a writer, is that Egress' thesis is wholly visual, where we were yearning, and remain yearning, for one that can be expressed in words.
To guide my future work in the comments of this story, I'll leave a slogan. *grins* Ditch the author, date the text.
When I was young, I thought I would be the one with fans, and that I would struggle to treat them with patience, firmness and understanding without hiding from them or exploiting them as most famous creators do. But no, it turns out it's the other way around. I'm the fan, and my task (outside physics) is to provide intellectual support for others.
When following this story, I and many others experienced it as a series of thesis statements, each sophisticated enough to supplant the previous one, but each newly sinister in its own way. Thus I regarded the graduate student's thesis with particular excitement, for here was a compassionate, intelligent, academic, but nonetheless subtly rotten thesis. Surely it was the next to last -- surely it could not be the last, if only because it was presented by an outside savior figure, because it had not been presented by the protagonist herself. But then, in his disastrous attempt to explain himself, Braun admitted that this was his thesis too, disappointing many of us. However, I've come to think that Egress did, in fact, present a new thesis, sufficient to supplant and overpaint the graduate student's. The problem for us as readers, and Braun as a writer, is that Egress' thesis is wholly visual, where we were yearning, and remain yearning, for one that can be expressed in words.
To guide my future work in the comments of this story, I'll leave a slogan. *grins* Ditch the author, date the text.
