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RE_PSYCHED

                                             May 12, 2026

Japanese popular art (at least, I think it's "popular")
explores the cultural space by a very thorough process
of imitation with small innovations--

It shines it's light on every detail of the one path it's
taken, and keeps that up for for years on end-- but it does
have trouble breaking free of that path and exploring
alternate ones.

   Consider that if you think of Gerrold's "The Man Who
   Folded Himself" as a thing-in-itself, you feel like
   Gerrold owns that particular territory, he covered it
   already, so you don't feel like you should do it again.

   But in Japanese doujinshi, this kind       Though you *could* do this
   of thing has become it's own thing         again-- Gerrold's version
   (perhaps a subgenre?) with tag             of this is weirdly
   "selfcest" (the id for a slot in the       depressing-- his main
   "database")-- the artist is entirely       character (already a bit
   free to go over the same ground again,     colorless and uninteresting)
   but you have to expect to be tagged        voluntarily dives off into
   and compared to other similar works.       a solipsitic life where he
                                              only interacts with small
   In the "western" form of pop art, I        variations of himself.
   gather that there's been some other
   work using the "selfcest" element
   (Desi Lydic made a joke about it),
   but it took some time to get there.        Gerrold evidently notices that
   It might even be independant               the book can't really go
   reinvention-- or possibly                  anywhere, and so he closes the
   consciously importing an element           novel with a new element-- the
   from the Japanese form.                    main character can now interact
                                              with female variations of
      A few more of those can eliminate       himself, too...  But that doesn't
      any sense of ownership of a trope,      seem to fix the real problems--
      and make it available for re-use.
                                                 It doesn't even work as a fig
          Consider the case of the               leaf to cover for the offense
          superhero.  Once upon a                to straight sensibility-- the
          time "Captain Marvel" was              book is still going to incite
          shot down for being too                homosexual panic in anyone who
          similar to "Superman".                 can be paniced.

          Now that seems like a
          weird relic of another
          time, as though no one
          but Edgar Allen Poe was     Bram Stoker better back off,
          allowed to write a          he's on Polidori's turf.
          mystery.
                                           Respect for The Creator,
                                           treating the first as most authentic--

                                              Versus the impulse to recycle.

                                                        MUTATION



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