Ursula K Le Guin Said Sci Fi/fantasy Does Not Have To Be About Giant Wars Or Battles Of Good And Evil

i hate them. they’re so adorable

oh yes it's that time of year again

really love dynamics that are like 'it honestly doesn't matter if you view them as romantic or platonic, the point is that they love each other. the type of love is inconsequential, all that matters is that it's there'. gotta be one of my favorite genders.

getting clean with mama

November 2021 Prompt: World

MY personal AU version of a secondary Dark future… in which Shego does as Supreme Shego has but Drakken instead of working for her… uses the same method to play to take over… which means spending a decade in a sort of rivalry where she owns half and he owns the other…. sabotaging and calculating against each other since Kim and Ron are not a factor… eventually they agree to rule together…. if only to avoid admitting neither can live without the other. 

Oh hey, it’s those two. XD I hope people still remember this movie, because it is AWESOME. 

Yes. Finally someone gets it. This is one of the reasons why I fell in awe (not love) with Dune, reading it over twenty years ago while studying environmental sciences at university.

what dune is about: a rant

so

dune

that weird giant in the background of modern sci-fi that everyone knows about and nobody seems to get, not really

what is dune?

is it about the epynomous planet, dune, arrakis?

no

it is an epic story about paul atreides' ascent to power through the combined power of a monopoly on the supply of navigator space-cocaine and the boundless light of islam?

also no

dune is not a space opera, dune is not an epic fantasy story set in space

fundamentally dune is about ecology

and the main character of dune is not paul. nor is it leto ii. nor is it sheeana, or odrade, or miles teg, all names that mean nothing to people who only know the setting through adaptations. the main character is not even duncan idaho

it's the bene gesserit

what is the bene gesserit?

well, it's complicated. everyone knows about their "breeding program" but few people actually think about what the implications of it are

the great houses are not in charge, really. they're gene lines. they're in a very real sense different strains of *domesticated human* selected for different traits. they're not "special" for any reason of faith or exceptionalism

they're "special" in the same way a racehorse is special. because it was bred to be fast. the mythologies are all artificial additions, memetic scaffolding to surround the actual project

and then, what traits?

well, the bene gesserit sought a broad prescience. a "leader" like guidedog is a leader, leading a blind humanity through a future without hitting any metaphorical walls

they misunderstood their own mission, and they learn as much, before the end of their relevance

because paul was an ephemeral storm,

and leto is a wolf, a predator in the ecological sense, a selective pressure on the memetics of humanity, driving them out of the forest, driving them out of their spot at the top of the food chain. no longer their own worst enemy

dune is about the prelude and memetic extinction events before the scattering

it's about a domesticated humanity breaking free, becoming feral, becoming everything else

dune is about the endless struggle for humanity to find its niche before it drives itself extinct, and in doing so finding an infinite amount of niches, for an infinite amount of different humanities

it's about ecosystems and predation and diversification and extinction events both biological and memetical, and how it is ruthless, cruel, and most things go extinct without descendants, but as long as something survives it keeps going

about humanity breaking through its last great filter: itself

such is the golden path

“Fyp” we don’t do that here. I mean, Tumblr the app and website tries, but we don't do that here.

“But then how will anyone see it?” peer review.

“How do you get engagement?” by talking and engaging with other people. Or making a devastating typo. Either way.

“But—” Listen, you’re not doing solo stand up anymore. This is a group improv class being held in a SAW dungeon. Good luck.

Y'all ever wonder how Duke Leto would have been with two children fucked up by Spice, the Water of Life and Prescience. Just sat around at breakfast one morning and...

Paul: One of the planets is dissenting. We will have to intercede.

Jessica: I wouldn't worry, you'll figure something out.

Alia: Grandpa Harkonnen says kill them all :)

Duke Leto: ...

Duke Leto: Sweet Orange Catholic Jesus

- Your words loop, like whispers -