It also had to do with social status too - generally a brilliant inventor that shuns social interaction to work on their inventions would be widely considered to be mad. They usually weren't terribly successful, either, for lack of that interaction.





True, but also madness is often used to dismiss what people don't understand. If Faite insists she changed things and averted disaster, but people around her don't actually see the change, even in a fictional universe they might think she's lost it. She doesn't mind that, because such non-invasive changes means she's doing her job correctly. If she has to make obvious, sweeping changes, something has gone horribly wrong.





The entire concept of steampunk comes from that. It's mechanical engineering gone awry, to the point of...madness. A mechanic's worst nightmare or craziest dream.

And yes I'm using the word correctly, because before automobiles, a "mechanic" is anyone who works with mechanized systems, from those who build it to those who maintain it. I've seen steampunk anime using the word correctly, although it appears quirky nowadays when people associate it with cars. One in particular, Bubblegum Crisis, could be considered post-modern steampunk. And in that, too, the man who builds the hard suits calls himself a "mechanic".





Mental Illness or "madness" is the basis of horror simply because most of us have an intense fear of suddenly losing our minds. Even more so of encountering something that causes an instant loss of mental facilities.

Let's take the "insanity inducing" Shoggoth, for instance. He can make a flat tabletop become a smooth sphere that tastes like mint when you look at it. Liu Xi avoids insanity by taking the artists' route and simply appreciating the spherical table that tastes like mint as something beautiful. Don't overthink it, just enjoy it. It works for her because it also worked for Pablo Picasso, and many other abstract artists. The more logical a person you are, the more likely something like that is to push you into insanity as you try and analyze how it can be that way.

Lara Night has a different appreciation for the insanely abstract. After all, she's met a goddess who has no physical form, crossed boundaries that have no appearance or shape, but feel and taste a certain way. Stepping through a Shoggoth for her is just another interesting encounter to check off the list.





Basically their most popular stories are not the greek-style bigger than life hero who goes through trials and fights to win, like in Western culture. Theirs are all about a struggle against futility - very often a losing struggle - and self-sacrifice. A common story there is a complete unknown hero who comes out of the masses, fights, loses and dies, but is remembered for what they've done.

An oddly modern anime that parallels that is Tokyo Godfathers. It's a group of homeless people who find a baby, go on a crazy journey to return it to its mother, and end up preventing a suicide. They touched a lot of people's lives, but at the end they're still homeless and disrespected.





Movies from about the 1970's on tend to follow the journey of rule-breaking rogues who go from being an unknown scoundrel to a brilliant leader. The first Star Wars movie was one of the more notable ones. Another one would be the Dirty Harry movies.





She has no illusion of being able to turn him into a "good guy" because she feels that would go against his very nature. She would only want him to take a good look at the destruction he's trying to cause and really think about whether it's worth it. Why should he bother? That's the reason why she'd sweeten the deal by offering help achieving his goal if he thinks of a not so destructive way to do it.





Like the Spanish Inquisition? Nobody expects them, either.

There would really be no point to Lara asking a question like that, just curiosity. Even if he had a direct hand in her finding the Parodyverse, she's happy to have found it and has no regrets at all about how she did so.





She's probably irritated that all of the plots she's in involve her losing her clothing.