my doodles

ty friend!! Yeah, I'd been kinda surprised by so much of the fandom reaction to him being like "he sucks and he should die" (though perhaps that also speaks to the quality of the game's writing that so many people come away with the same opinion the town seems to have of him). Especially in a game that's full of morally grey characters, many who you witness at some of the most stressful/lowest moments of their lives. Like a lot of the characters can choose to do some really awful things!

I also think just writing him off as an irredeemably terrible person weakens Avery's entire storyline (which Julius serves to further as a side character). Like they do consider him a friend - they're willing to publicly (and repeatedly) go to bat for someone who everyone else in town views with disdain. Even in spite of how much they want people in town to like them. And it does end up negatively affecting people's opinions of Avery! Yet still Avery doesn't back down or ever retract what they say. Just like how, even if they see Duke literally kill Julius right in front of them, it doesn't stop them from immediately trying to argue for sparing Joseph's life. It all says something about Avery's loyalty, as well as their ability to empathize and see beyond what other people see.

The ambiguity of their relationship and how many ways you can interpret it is just kind of fascinating to me. And I feel like watering it down to "Julius is a shitty person and Avery's dumb/wrong/crazy to care about him and would be better off with him dead" ends up missing out on all the fun possible interpretations of why they connect. Like, for example, I have seen surprisingly little discussion of gender in episode 5. That, in offering Julius what he secretly wants more than anything, Sybil doesn't offer him a wife or some way of finding love that could lead to a pregnancy. No, he jumps straight to handling the pregnancy himself. He may not be carrying the baby himself at first, but he is the one actively tending to it and bleeding himself to feed it. And, depending on the outcome, he can end up more actively birthing the baby.

[Side Rant: what I do see instead is people calling Julius an incel more times than I'd like to see lmao. Like man, what kind of incels do you know that wanna skip the sex bit and go straight to birthing a baby themselves??? But...whatever lol.]

But what exactly does connect them? Is it purely just that they're both lonely, that they're both outsiders in their own ways? Julius is estranged from his cousins, Avery's estranged from their parents. They both nurture plants (and then potentially Joseph). They both work with their hands to make things (Avery's garden, Julius's woodworking). They both fail to create the connections they want - Julius pushes people away and Avery tries to draw people closer but never quite manages it. Their appearances in the game both center around the diner, a hub of social activity in the town, yet they're both extremely alone. Julius admits openly to having been suicidal. Avery vaguely hints at just how unhappy they were previously in Charlotte.

Could there be potential for Julius admiring/envying how Avery lives (always being themself, regardless of how others might react negatively)? Because I think there's a lot of room to interpret Julius as repressing either his sexual orientation or gender identity, and not even realizing what "kindred connection" there is between them.

FLAMES OF MEMORY a Doris fanmix // LISTEN