Dude, I Don't Even Know

returning member

[dumdogs]

i want to interact with people more but what if they kill me

[normal-horoscopes]

Everyone shut up and look at this carving of a whale from the 1200-600 CE Chumash culture

[theslowesthnery]

ohhhhhh my godddddd

[clarelyobvious]

I’ve been watching M*A*S*H and have been worrying how I would feel about Trapper leaving but now I’m almost two episodes into season 4 and I’ve come to a conclusion.

[anxeious]

[headspace-hotel]

narnia has actually way too many completely devastating concepts in it that are not explored At All

[headspace-hotel]

We talk a lot about how in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the Pevensie children live full adult lives as kings and queens of narnia before stumbling out of the wardrobe by accident and being children again after like 15+ years. But I’ve never seen the same level of analysis devoted to how in Prince Caspian they return to Narnia and discover that over 1,000 years have passed in Narnia since their last visit.

Imagine undergoing the grief of losing an entire life you lived in another world, being forced back into the body of a child and to grow up all over again without the ability to even talk about what happened in the decades you lost. Every person you knew and loved, vanished, leaving no indication they were ever real and no guide for how to move on.

But returning to that world where you were a King or Queen and discovering that centuries have passed without you and that the people you lost are not only dead, but mostly aren’t even remembered? That’s almost worse.

[headspace-hotel]

That series is really something for “worldbuilding threads picked up and never touched again” too like

in the silver chair it’s confirmed that deep underneath the earth in narnia there’s a molten, fiery abyss world called Bism that is apparently populated and also apparently gemstones are living creatures that live there, and what we understand as diamonds, emeralds, rubies etc. are just the discarded husks of once living creatures

Jadis is actually not originally from Narnia, but accidentally gets sent there at its creation (making her one of the oldest beings in narnia) and she annihilated all life in her world of origin. she also very much does go to literal actual London and terrorize people. she is like 7 feet tall and can tear iron with her bare hands like it’s taffy.

Jadis makes it “Always winter and never Christmas”…what the FUCK is her beef with Father Christmas. I know it’s supposed to be like a metaphor or some shit but I’m imagining what exactly the fuck must have happened between them for jadis to specifically want to prevent him from coming to narnia to the extent that her powerful seasonal-change-stopping magic also includes a “fuck that guy in particular” clause.

like think about it, Jesus is not a thing in narnia, he’s just aslan. and aslan did not get born. ergo, the origin of such a concept as Christmas is the entity Father Christmas. Christmas is not a religious holiday to Narnians it has no symbolic meaning it is just specifically the time of year when Father Christmas fucks around across the landscape giving children gifts, such as very deadly real weapons. There’s no reason for him to do this. It’s just what he does. And Jadis fucking hates it.

another thing from the magicians nephew that is never brought up again is that Polly and Digory don’t go directly to Narnia, they end up in this intermediate place between the worlds that’s like a forest full of pools leading to other worlds, potentially infinite other worlds, and they end up in Narnia pretty much at random.

I think it’s also confirmed that Archenlanders were originally from Earth, and are the descendants of a small group of people who traveled to Narnia by accident and got stuck. One wonders why Aslan didn’t whisk them back out. Or why being too old wasn’t a problem for them.

I think this is early installment weirdness but there are Roman gods in narnia. ?????

stars are sentient???

narnia is flat. this is not actually an unresolved thread but I don’t think it’s common knowledge even though in one of the books they literally sail to the edge of the world. caspian specifically thinks it’s super cool that the earth is round

[athoughtfox]

I LOVE the whole concept of Bism. Like Lewis really just said oh yeah there’s a whole world under Narnia where people live and jewels are alive too actually you wear dead ones in your jewellery and then no one ever spoke about it again, not even the fandom

No wonder this series infuriated Tolkien so much. Lewis just threw paint at a wall and jokingly asked the man who’d spent a decade on a single painting if he liked it.

[fireladyofink]

Holy shit there is a lot about Narnia I don’t know.

[marlinspirkhall]

Writer’s block? Why not try peppering panpsychism into your atheist-turned-christian young adult literature and never addressing it again?

[narnia-renaissance]

So many fics, so little time.

[gay-jesus-probably]

Fun fact about the woods between worlds thing and what the inspiration behind it was:

This is an illustration of it from the book.

And THIS is a forest full of shell craters from WW1. Which C.S Lewis fought in as a teenager.

[bllbabaggins]

I’m sorry @stargirl-and-potts I couldn’t leave your tags there 🥹

[purplesaline]

Oh

It’s literally no man’s land

The area between the trenches. One world/culture on one side, another on the opposite, with no man’s land between them

[atinymekanie]

I can answer the question about Christmas and Santa, @headspace-hotel!!

So, Jadis wants to be THE most powerful witch/wizard/whathaveyou, and Santa has magic. She views him as an opponent, as an antagonistic wizard or small deity, and therefore, she never wants it to be Christmas, because that is when he has his power at its peak. She does not know nor care that he is not interested in fighting her for power or territory or prestige, she just Does Not Want Him Around, because she wants to be The Best. He also stands for good and joy and love and caring and generosity, all things she Does Not Approve Of.

So yeah, she’s a bit of a dick to Father Christmas.

[threeeyedharemp3]

first day in the time loop it is not a loop yet. i go about my day and its a pretty good day and when i make my evening cup of tea i wish all days were like this

[threeeyedharemp3]

second day in the time loop and in the moment before waking i have a dream about something i have to do tomorrow. i do not realise i will never get to do it.

[threeeyedharemp3]

third day in the time loop i get hit with a wave of deja vu sitting in traffic. i am bored of the songs on the radio.

[threeeyedharemp3]

fourth day in the time loop i realise i am mouthing along to my lecturer even though i do not know anything about the sampling of early electronic music.

[threeeyedharemp3]

sixth day in the time loop my friend says hello to me and i say 'yes i know'. she looks at me funny and i apologise. she starts telling me about her girlfriend and i simply do not care. i feel mean for not caring. when i get home i accidentally walk into a doorframe which does not improve my mood. i realise i already have a bruise on my elbow.

[threeeyedharemp3]

seventh day in the time loop i realise there has been a cloud shaped like a weasel outside my bedroom window for the last week. i think 'what are the chances of that' and then i realise the chances are very very low.

[threeeyedharemp3]

eighth day in the time loop i skip everything i had planned to sit by the river and read. i know all about the sampling of early electronic music now and if i have to listen to the radio play summertime or my friend talk about her girlfriend and her stupid cat one more time i am going to scream.

[threeeyedharemp3]

ninth day in the time loop the irony of hearing summertime every day becomes apparent. i am trapped in an endless summer day. i remember the saying about not being able to stand in the same river twice so i make a point of standing in the same river for half an hour on the off chance i'm doing it at the same time as i dipped my feet in yesterday just so i could be the exception.

[threeeyedharemp3]

tenth day in the time loop it is very obvious that no one else know they are in a loop. i wonder if the whole world is looped and i'm just the only one who knows it or if i'm the only one who is looped and the world is seeing endless double exposures of me. i wonder which loop is the real one.

[threeeyedharemp3]

eleventh day in the time loop i wonder if i'm aging at all.

[threeeyedharemp3]

twelfth day in the time loop i start to think about video games. playing the same level over and over and over again. you die on the same point of the level every time but you re appear the start to have another go. i wonder what part of the day i am stuck on. which obstacle i have to beat to get to move on to tomorrow.

[threeeyedharemp3]

thirteenth day in the time loop i am remembering everything now. i do not think i did at the start but i can definitely remember what i had for breakfast yesterday morning because that was today. my friend calls me in the middle of the night asking why i wasn't at the lecture. i start telling her that i've already been to that lecture six times when it hits midnight and the loop resets.

[threeeyedharemp3]

fourteenth day in the time loop i drive as far away as possible to see if i still wake up in my bed when the loop resets. i get a cheese and pickle sandwich from a gas station but it sucks so i leave without paying. i do buy a packet of gum though. just not the sandwich. i wonder how food works in a time loop and suppose food consumed gets um-consumed. the radio stills play summertime and as i drive i think about the inherent time loop of a song. the exact same four and a half minutes over and over and over again. i wonder if we have a god complex about our favourite songs. i wonder if i am getting to wound up in the themes of the time loop and if there is an easier way to solve this than getting philosophical. it is a long car ride and i have a lot of time to think. but still only twenty four hours.

[threeeyedharemp3]

fifteenth day in the time loop i get up early wash my hair and sit outside on the porch. a woman walks past with her dog. they were not there on the fourteen day and i think this is a good sign.

[threeeyedharemp3]

sixteenth day in the time loop i open my diary and see that i have been writing on the same page over and over and over. i turn the page and write 'today is tomorrow' in big letters.

[threeeyedharemp3]

on the seventeenth day i the loop breaks. i still don't know what i did. i don't think it was the diary page because that reset but the world didn't. or i didn't. or something. i go to the scheduled lecture and i'm so relieved its not about early electronic samples i get lost in the lecturer's voice and forget to take notes. i order a piece of lemon cake from the cafe because they didn't have it yesterday but they do today. i hang out with my friend and she tells me about some endearing silly thing her girlfriend did and i laugh. it's a nice day. i find myself thinking 'i wish more days were like this' but i don't think i do, actually.

[official-time-loop-posts]

Official Time Loop Post

[liminal-spaced-out]

I remember making these. How time flies. I'm probably just gonna make more tftgs animations eventually, i've been meaning to make animation memes because i think all fandoms need them

[wizardarchetypes]

like are you going to look me in the eye and tell me Hozier AND Elmo were wrong???

[wizardarchetypes]

[cringeonmainst]

Born to dilly-dally forced to lock in

[gokesterthejokester-deactivated]

The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

Director: John Ford

Cinematographer: Gregg Toland

Tech Specs:

— Aspect Ratio: 1.37:1

— Cameras: Mitchell Camera

— Negative Format: 35mm

— Cinematographic Process: Spherical

[violentdevotion]

[hauntingyourself]

He didn’t go through the portal and in fact he forgot about this whole interaction as soon as it was over

[heartwarminganimals]

It wimdy

[pkmndaisuki]

[regicidal-defenestration]

She would not fucking say that. Yes she said that in canon, but I perceive a greater truth unaffected by her writer's misogyny

[regicidal-defenestration]

Addendum:

[conceptual-orange]

[thelaughingspaceman]

"We need to break up my sense of impending dread. Budd, tell a joke."

"Ah, well, I don't have one ready at the moment. Something embarrassing did happen to me, though. This morning, my wife asked me to get her lipstick, I accidentally gave her a glue stick instead. She hasn't spoken to me since."

"Okay, well, let me know when you think of one. Will, do we have time for me to crawl into a bathtub and disassociate for about thirty minutes?"

Will looked at his watch. "If you start running the water now."

- Zoey is Too Drunk for This Dystopia by Jason Pargin

[thelightfluxtastic]

Zoey's Villain Arc

I want to get this theory out and on paper before reading/finishing Zoey Is Too Drunk for this Dystopia. This will reference plot points from the first two books in the series and contain nothing from the third.

I believe the ultimate arc of the Zoey Ashe series is her slide into villainy. And that this will happen without her internally feeling like a more callous or bad person. It will be an example of the political idea that there is no ethical way to be a billionaire, and that privilege inherently corrupts in a way that can't be fixed by putting a "good person" into power.

In the first book, Zoey doesn't want Athur's money, power or privilege. She's forced into situations at the threat of her life, and spends 99% of the book just trying to survive. At the end, it's only vaguely hinted she might stick around instead of just going back home. But there's scenes and hints of her changing things- like the pizza scene in squatterville. It's something of a left-leaning/liberal power fantasy. If a poor (or at least "average") person got access to billions of dollars, they'd fix the system, they'd be more humane, they'd use that power for good.

Then there's book two. And arguably, Zoey is fixing things. She's a lot less directly violent in her business than Arthur ever was. She's arranging public transit for folks who need it. She's divesting from unethical practices.

Except.

The entire point of the book is how much bigger the machine is than her. There's a running joke (/not a joke) that Zoey owns several businesses without knowing what they are or what they do. That her innocuous actions (like asking about a noise in the AC) have drastic ripple effects. She's doing better than Arthur, but hey, Arthur's dad was even worse...

I see the opening scene (and the conversation with Shae afterwards) as super critical to this. The young woman is as terrified of being in the Livingston house as Zoey was in book 2 (this is explicitly stated). And Zoey tries to reassure her with all the things the reader knows/is likely to think at this point: Will isn't that bad, they're trying to improve things compared to Arthur. But critically, Shae doesn't buy into it. As she points out, Will is still terrifying to the average person (and not seeing that says something about Zoey). And in terms of cleaning up the business, Zoey has kept the suits around, AKA the people that did all of the worst things for Arthur. After all, as Zoey points out, they're the ones that know how to run things...

So yeah, that's what I mean by villain arc. Not becoming the cannibal caricature that Zoey's harassers assume her to be, the cartoon villain. But I don't think the philosophy of these books can really allow Zoey to become a "good billionaire" and fix the system from the inside.