I read through the mirror with Margot and helped edit this and have a few additional thoughts and notes.

On the Silence Mill: I really don't get trying to make the whole, opening a studio in delaware for lower taxes thing into such a big drama bc like. Most? Game studios do that? From a lot of AAA studios being in Montreal to indie devs opening studios in Texas for lower taxes that's just like. A thing people do.

On Gio's Analysis: He never directly quotes the text in his longer opinion pieces, and the comments he makes in the text really do not have much substance, aside from being revealing on how he talks about women but like, more on that later. So, he just presents the text, and his "analysis" is just saying it's bad, but he never elaborates on why. In fact, as Margot notes several times, sometimes when he does refer back to the text, he just lies about it. The more generous reading is that he forgot, but it's still highly unprofessional for a thing that is, again, in his professional portfolio.

On the quality of the mirror: Margot mentions it briefly, but the mirror is so bad. Sometimes the wrong song is linked, and none of the embeds work so the music doesn't loop. Panels are missing, or placed out of order, or repeated?? I genuinely don't know how they fucked it up that bad.

On how Gio talks about women: Gio talks down about Zhen all the time?? When Zhen talks about how she sees sexuality as a weapon, Gio's comment is "Nice relationship to sexuality there, babe!" which is just. uncomfortable? this is in addition to elsewhere calling them "little lady" and "little noodle". I get she's a fictional character that Gio overwhelming dislikes, but it's still odd he just resorts to uh. misogyny?

On Gio's transphobia to Hussie: Gio constantly throws doubt on Hussie's identity, in this mirror and in general, basically implying they think hussie is "choosing to identity" as a minority to avoid criticism. Which is just. wildly fucking transphobic. Like, Hussie isn't some saint, I still have issues with Hussie's ableism recently, but even if they were they exact type of evil predator cult-leader that Gio says they are, it still wouldn't be cool to be transphobic to them! When you say " oh no, it's okay to throw doubt on this person's identity bc they're bad" it signals to all the trans people around you that you do not actually care about us!

On Gio's use of implication: Margot points this out quite early in her post, with how Gio implies he thinks Andrew legitimately wants to be/is a cult leader. There's another point later on that is even crazier, where Gio implies Hussie shares ideological similarities to eco-fascists and white supremacists?? He doesn't elaborate on that, he just says it and moves on.

Look, overall, Gio is very careful to not actually say "go harass these people", but look at what he's doing. At every turn you have to be reminded of the "evils" these people committed. You have to know they're like eco fascists, they're faking their identities, using them as shields. They're snakes and criminals. And Gio knows the type of fans that read his "articles", he knows what he's implying. At the end of the day, he's trying to tell people who their "enemies" are, and why, and he knows what results from that.