#but also caspians era

[fairmerthefarmer]

One time for character design practice I decided to draw Captain Drinian and also give him a sister except I’m not much of a writer so I don’t even have a name for her, all I know about her is that she’s an asexual lesbian, and like super strong or something.

Also I just want to believe that Lucy wasn’t the only woman on that ship the entire time.

[helianthusaster]

Just watched Columbo S8 E2 "Murder, Smoke and Shadows" and I have a proposition:

Q!Columbo

[geek-talk000]

couple of months late but oh well. happy 15th anniversary of my crush on ben barnes.

[medievalandfantasymelee]

THE HOT MEDIEVAL & FANTASY MEN MELEE

QUALIFYING ROUND: 133rd Tilt

Guildenstern, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990) VS. Caspian X, The Chronicles of Narnia (2005-2010)

Propaganda

Guildenstern, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990) Portrayed by: Tim Roth

“I'm a sucker for 90s Tim Roth, and this is one of his most iconic performances from that era, with his Guildenstern (or is it Rosencrantz?) going through a very relatable mixture of boredom, annoyance, and confusion as he and his buddy talk bullshit and stumble around in the background of all the familial drama at Elsinore.”

Caspian X, The Chronicles of Narnia (2005-2010) Portrayed by: Ben Barnes

“How can you not love Caspian?? He is brave!! And noble!! And smart!! He goes from luscious locks and baby face to PONYTAIL AND BEARD!!!! He also gets a delightful fake Spanish accent in his first movie, which mysteriously disappears in the following movie!! AND!!! He's got the prettiest sunshine smile you will ever see!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Additional Propaganda Under the Cut

Additional Propaganda

For Guildenstern:

(+ Bonus Rosencrantz)

For Caspian:

“He grew a beard for his second Narnia outing, and it really upgraded him to spank bank worthy.”

[Gifset]

[Gifset]

[Photoset]

“I once read a HeyAlma magazine article on how Andrew Garfield had auditioned to play Prince Caspian, but lost out to Ben Barnes since Andrew supposedly *wasn't handsome enough.* Imagine being so dashing that you make Andrew Garfield look ugly...”

[v0id-seajay]

okay I tried to post this with like the longest caption known to man explaining what's going on in this painting but it deleted itself so I think that was my sign to stop yapping. this is my hero of brightwall caspian, I've posted her before, every time I think about her for too long she gets worse. she's like the worst ever. but this drawing is in her brief normal girl era where she stops being an asshole to the kingdom and the people around her. significance of the background is that reaver is her father (I KNOWWW 😭) and the gazebo thing in the middle of bower lake is where she got married. ALSO she dies one year after this down by the lake. the picnic over to the side is a lot to explain but it has to do with her weird situationship with a priest if anyone's interested I'll post more about that it's kinda crazy

[ariazou]

Hi! Do you have any suggestions for persian clothes references? I haven’t seen dungeon meshi yet but I saw your AWESOME fanart, and remembered I’m working on a fic with such a setting that it would be very fitting I think!

I’d love to incorporate some clothes designs/styles like I saw you use :) if you don’t mind

THIS IS SO SWEET tysm 😭!!!!!!

Hmm honestly I would start with picking an era and def doing extensive research on the culture. Personally, I really love the Qajar looks and they're easy to find because of the popularity of Persian Miniatures!! Second favourite is definitely Safavid, the flow of the outfits are so yummy. Museums are also helpful! Like the Met Museum

Also keep in mind Persia, and even now Iran, is not just desert! Its a very annoying stereotype that West Asia is just covered in desert when that's not the case. By the Caspian sea there's a rainforest, by Tehran there's the Damavand mountain that is the location for a lot of Persian Myths that is covered in snow (though my relatives have said it seems like its all melting, but we're talking historically here!) So yes theres desert in some areas, but they still have (or i guess had now 😭) winters, lush forests and moutains so this definitely affects their outfits esp depending on the region

I will say it's still definitely hard :( Theres not as much information on the clothing as lets say European fashion at the time which is really frustrating. I'm also struggling to find more resources but research is our best friend here!

[fishenjoyer1]

Fish of the Day

The beluga sturgeon, also known as the great sturgeon, scientific name Huso huso, was requested by Andromeda! Known for being the largest freshwater fish, and the third largest living fish species in the world, only behind the whale shark and basking shark! This fish is euryhaline, meaning that it can live in many different salinities and environments, and as such moves comfortably through estuaries and rivers alike. They are native to areas around the middle east, Asia, and Europe. Their historic range was in, the Adrian sea, the Black sea, Caspian sea, and sea of Azov, and all connecting rivers between, but as of modern era they can be found only in the Black sea, the Caspian sea, and some rivers connected, notably: the Danube. Like other sturgeons, this is one of the more ancient species still alive, and they started appearing in the fossil record as far back as 200 million years ago.

Beluga sturgeon are some of the only active hunting species of the sturgeon family. Prey consists of molluscs, crustaceans, small mammals; such as caspian seals, and any fish they fit in their mouth. In fact, they're very hard to keep with any other animal, as they can and will eat anything that will fit into their mouth. They pursue their prey, moving faster than expected, and being able to travel up to 37 miles a day, and reach speeds of 15mph in short bursts well hunting, prey is sucked into the mouth quickly. This supports their huge sizes, they can get as large as 28 feet recorded, but there are claims for them reaching as large as 40 feet. Beluga sturgeon can live a long time, taking 10-16 years to sexually mature for males, and 14-20 years for females, and claims that they live more than 100 years in the wild. They have no known predators, other than humans.

Humans are the main and only cause for the reduction in beluga sturgeon populations. These fish fall to dams, like many large fish, and most sturgeon in particular.  As it turns out the caviar are perfect for meals, and worth as much as $3,500 US per pound. During breeding season large fish can carry hundreds of pounds of these caviar at a time, and are regularly illegally hunted for this. Although they are large, they are easy to catch, and their meat can go worth good money as well, although due to the legality of its nature I was unable to find exactly how much it's worth, since them being marked as endangered. Efforts to repopulate the sturgeon into their native habitats, but it is a slow effort.

Spawning takes place further upstreams, and they have historic routes they remember over years. Spawning events take place every 4-7 years. Being as this sturgeon has lived in the Danube as it was forming, they have adapted strategies to spawn in it. Spawning is done in two stages, necessary because spawning is up to more than a thousand miles upstream for some fish. The first stage is in autumn which is when they enter the danube in masses, The second stage is after they winter in the river, taking place in spring where they actually lay and fertilize eggs. The eggs will hatch after 2 weeks, and well they age in the danube they will be benthic, feeding mostly on small bugs they can catch. That is, until they are large enough to subsist off of mostly fish.

Have a good day, everyone!

[slotumn]

One of the many things I cannot help but be a pedantic bitch wrt 3H worldbuilding/fanon portrayals is Almyra's physical environment. Defaulting to "Middle East (or anywhere that seems vaguely culturally adjacent to there) = all of it is stereotypical video game desert level" is very uninspired imo, and directly contrary to the few tidbits we get in canon.

I mean, it's stated that they do have deserts, but they also have mountains and plains (and even forests), probably in about equal amounts (or more). Look at this tidbit in-game:

Almyra

A great kingdom to the east of Fódlan. Its territory borders that of the Leicester Alliance, with the precipitous mountain range known as Fódlan's Throat acting as the dividing line. Its people maintain a strong legacy of horsemanship and relish in the thrill of battle. This vast kingdom is rich in fertile prairies, deserts, and mountain ranges.

As for more solid visual examples of Almyra's environments, we can always look to its real-life motifs. In Claude's support with Hapi in Hopes, they reference Almyra as having steppes, which might look something like this (Kazakhstan):

For mountains, including Fódlan's Throat range, something like this (eastern Anatolia, Turkey):

or this (Ural Mountains, Russia; and since Urals are considered the "dividing line" between Asia and Europe there's a good chance this is the actual motif for the Fódlan's Throat mountain range; they even have precious gemstones there, like in Goneril):

Almyran navy's fleets appear to be active up north, around the Whitehorn Sea. I think the approximate analogue to Whitehorn irl would be Black Sea/Caspian Sea, probably? Here's what those places look like (Batumi Bay in Georgia for Black Sea, Gorgan Bay in Iran for Caspian Sea; btw I'm pretty sure Shahid's unique class name, Gurgan, is from Gorgan):

Moving south, Almyra is called Palmyra in the original Japanese, and the real Palmyra is located in present-day Syria. Here's a photo of the Palmyra historical site:

Closer to the Mediterranean, this is Byblos, Lebanon:

I'd guess the fertile plains (emphasis on fertile) are approximately equivalent to Mesopotamia? In the current day, the area— and most of the places mentioned here— have undergone a lot of desertification. It's especially massive and a rapidly growing threat now, but it was a thing even before human industrial activities. But I'd guess the agricultural production in the equivalent regions are still pretty good as of canon 3H era.

Here's Nineveh from Iraq:

Now, as for the deserts: big sprawling sandy areas you usually think of when you read "desert" probably aren't under the direct control of the regime for the most part, but rather the local tribes that have pledged allegiance to Almyra while still being mostly autonomous in practice. That's usually how it was irl, in places like the Najd (inner part of Arabian Peninsula); these places are difficult to navigate and difficult to govern, easier to just let the guys who were already there keep doing their thing so long as they agree they're your vassals and don't get too rowdy. Applies to colder deserts too, btw, so I like to think that Almyra has the horse-riding desert nomad archetypes in both the scorching and freezing variations.

The desert regions that are under more direct control of the regime are likely ones that have active centers of trade. So, port cities by the coastline, or oasis cities.

Some real-life examples of cities famous for commerce in the Arabian Peninsula (Salalah in Oman, Aden in Yemen):

Tl;dr: if Fódlan isn't a monolith, either in culture or geography, no way in hell Almyra is.

(Also West and Central Asian history is super interesting and I think more people should get into it but that's my personal taste/opinion,)

[visualsandvoices]

Ok idk if anyone said this re: Greta gerwig’s narnia on here already I only pop in from time to time…

But it seems like Liam Neeson will return to voice Aslan and Tilda Swinton is set to return as the White Witch?

There was also a comment in an interview saying it won’t change people’s conception of narnia, but just make it bigger (I think that was the phrasing, or close to it).

So I’m cautiously optimistic. That makes it sound like they want to get the audience on familiar territory — hopefully it lands! To use the same actors and then depart to dramatically from the 2005 version would be pretty jarring, so maybe they want to recreate that movie relatively closely as a launchpad for the rest of the series? But they still gotta make it their own which makes me nervous lol

Netflix handled the Shadow and Bone adaptation pretty well so maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised 😬

The only thing is that Greta Gerwig seems emphasize messaging and themes in equal measure as plot. Little Women deals prominently with marriage, expectations of womanhood, wealth/class, etc. Barbie is theme over plot, I’d almost say, given the virality of America Ferrera’s speech, I’m Kenough, and the overall impression of Barbie having an awakening to being a human woman or whatever. I haven’t seen it so maybe there’s plot I’m missing but that seems to be the idea.

This kinda thing doesn’t work for narnia, imo. I don’t want to hear Susan give a speech about womanhood in the war era, or some remark on femininity, firstly because it’s so overdone in movies these days but also bc if you’re going to put any theme/motif/messaging on equal footing to Narnia’s plot it should be faith.

I’m not saying Christianity has to slap you in the face. The Disney adaptations handled it well I think. It was there without the movie overdoing it, and there wasn’t any sort of moral or speech or sound bite to sell to the audience otherwise. It was a fantasy movie.

Susan would make an easy target, and I really hope Gerwig doesn’t fall into the “lipstick and nylons” trap everyone argues about. First of all it should hardly be foregrounded bc it doesn’t really become an issue until after she’s left narnia in which case she’s offscreen. The Last Battle maybe, but again it’s brief. My two cents on it though are that I always took it to be her grief for not being able to return to narnia forced her to try to move on, and maybe the resentment over her loss broke her faith. She’s still a character to sympathize with. People say Lewis couldn’t get past her being female and hence the lipstick and nylons but I think that’s a bad read. She was a queen, an adult woman, and cerebrally mature only to return a boarding school student. Of course she didn’t return to her dolls. I also think that it happened because she’s so logical and calculated and careful (neither good nor bad as a trait on its own) that loosing something she loved only augmented her original doubts and made her stubborn. So again it’s not about womanhood nylons and lipstick, it’s grief and sort of an internal self-defence kinda thing. If Gerwig were to explore anything with Susan as she’s older I would say doubt and logic versus faith and responsibility would both be true to the character and far more original/interesting for audiences.

I would love to see how they handle The Horse and his Boy, the Golden Age and how the kings and queens earn their titles (just, gentle, valiant, magnificent). I would love to see a Jill Pole who is allowed to cry, to be a scared school child, and also brave and stoic and thrust into an underground world on a rescue mission. I will be fascinated to see their concept for The Last Battle, because again it’s very much so a Christian story.

So I really do hope Netflix allows the series to live past the first 3, so we get new material. Caspian and Dawn Treader are gonna be a test for Gerwig’s strengths before she’s allowed into fresh territory with the other books.

I just think that if you’re intending to strip it of the intention behind the story — lost faith, found faith, tested faith, resilience, trust, redemption, all through a Christian lens, then maybe don’t adapt it at all. I’m not saying you have to make Christianity so foregrounded it feels like a sermon, but you cannot have narnia without that being the lens through which the world is understood. They aren’t separable things.

AND going back to the casting hopefully it’s not Timothy chalamet / Saoirse Ronan / Florence Pugh. As much as they’re great actors, I think for narnia as a reboot to land, they need a bunch of unknown, fresh faces and actual kids not people in their twenties/thirties. Even as a background narnia cameo it would honestly be distracting.

[tigers1o1]

Spoilers ahead for Riptide episode 101

Ava Lives AU (tentatively being named ‘Old Habits Die Hard’)

In the battle with Shadowbeard, Ava Ferin died. Or at least- that’s what she wants you to think. Because when a navy bomb went off, targeting Shadowbeard, and got close enough to Ava for rumble to be all around and dust hanging in the air, she had a moment of clarity. If she disappeared right now, everyone would think she’d died in the explosion. She’d be free from the navy and her family. So, in a split second decision that completely altered the events of history as a whole, she hid.

They didn’t find her. Her family grieved the loss of a daughter, a sister, and they didn’t even have a body to mourn- assumed destroyed in the wreckage. In reality, she was on the other side of the ocean, looking for someone

After Shadowbeard’s death, all pirates were silent in mourning. Rumors floated around that his crew had split up, unable to choose a new captain. In this era of pseudo-peace, Ava began going by a new name, Ava Finch. Because “Ava” was a common enough name to get by without any raised eyebrows. She called herself Finch to most people, tho. And she died her hair and covered one of her eyes- the one that went blind in the explosion. All in all, she looked nothing like a Ferin.

She tracked someone down that could help her with a scrying spell. With their help, and a necklace given to her by her love, she got a location. All-port. Getting rides from odd merchants and sailors, she finally made it to the Hull of the World.

There, she ran into Caspian- who didn’t recognize her, considering he’d maybe only met her once or twice (if at all). She asked where Lizzie was, and albeit with a suspicious look, he told her. The Port-Hole. The crew used to go there a lot, and even if the crew has disbanded, old habits die hard. (Alternatively, Ava pays for information through someone and learns that that’s where the crew used to hang out and so she goes there hoping to find someone from the crew who can tell her where Lizzie is. Instead,)

She finds Lizzie. She’s drunk and a fucking mess. More of a mess than Avas ever seen her. She sits down across the table, her hood still pulled up over her newly-darkened hair.

Lizzie asks who the fuck she is and what the fuck she wants. Ava laughs. Lizzie looks like she’s seen a ghost, because she could recognize that laugh anywhere

They end up building a crew together, the Grandberries.

On joaldo, Lizzie still threatens jay but this time it’s out of fear that she’ll learn the truth about Avas death

Idk from there on out but you get the idea

Also I’m thinking the war is still gonna happen bc they’re both mad at the navy so fuck em

[hydrangea-bouquet]

Would the Narnia characters be on tumblr?

Peter

No. Peter Pevensie has never and will never know of tumblr because he is a magnificently well-adjusted human being. The only social media he is aware of is Facebook and Instagram.

Susan

She used to be on tumblr, specifically on the aesthetic-and-sad-prose side of tumblr. Susan was your og tumblr hipster. Definitely has a drawn-moustache-on-index-finger selfie buried deep down somewhere. She made a galaxy diy shoes once.

(She also used to have a keep calm and carry on banner in her bedroom but she will deny it until the day she dies.)

Susan has long since left tumblr and she is barely active on social media these days, only occasionally posting a picture on Instagram or getting roped into a TikTok trend by Corin. She still rocks a fishtail braid from time to time though.

Edmund

He wasn't, but he is now. He used to make fun of Lucy for being on the fandom side of tumblr, but the quarantine and the tumblr memes he found on Instagram explore persuaded him to make one in secret. He is now addicted. Unknowingly, Lucy is one of his mutuals and they ship the same unhinged crack pairing.

Lucy

Yes. Totally. 100%.

Lucy is your tumblr elder, she's been here since the start of tumblr civilization, she was here during tumblr Renaissance Era of SuperWhoLock domination, and she will be here when tumblr reaches its end. If tumblr had a million users, Lucy is one of them. If it only had one user, then Lucy is the only one there. If it had zero user, then it means Lucy Pevensie is dead, buried, and there is no internet access in the afterlife.

Lucy still religiously uses Supernatural gifs as reaction because Lucy Pevensie never forgets her roots (and because Supernatural has reaction gifs for everything).

Lucy is also active on fandom twitter.

Caspian

He made a tumblr account once because he wanted to look at ship (actual ship, not fandom ship) arts and he must have an account to explore more. Caspian has long since forgotten of its existence.

Eustace

No. Eustace is anti social media. He doesn't want the government to spy on him. He only has LinkedIn for 'professional purposes'.

(and also a secret twitter account he uses to have anonymous internet fights.)

Jill

Yes. But she only uses it a normal amount, which is only barely, two times a week at most. She is a twitter girly who migrated because of you-know-who.

Corin

No. He is a devout Gen Z TikTok user.

Cor/Shasta

No. Social media confuses him and he is barely able to manage his own Instagram account. Every time he hears about a new social media he dies a little more inside. (Just how many more of these things do you need?! -Cor, inwardly).

Aravis

Yes. She is a new user though. Lucy helped her to get one and they both follow each other. Aravis' tumblr is full of movie scenes and Kate Sharma edits.

Trumpkin

No. He thinks social media is ridiculous.

Trufflehunter

No, unfortunately. But Trufflehunter is a very famous baking influencer on every other platform.

Mr. Tumnus

Yes. He is your favourite tumblr professional writer.

Jadis

She used to have one until she got banned. You guess why.

[ego-osbourne]

Sorry if this comes off as rude, but I'm curious, how do you write Velehk? Since he seems different to how he is in-game. Aka what is his personality? Is he still a cruel pirate lord or is he just hanging out?

Not rude at all! I’ve changed up Velehk Sain quite a bit, and I’ve been needing to lay it out for a while. His story goes a little something like this:

Velehk was a serving dremora, one of two dremora types in Coldharbour, the other being power dremora. Serving dremora are treated as little more than property in Coldharbour, and Velehk was no different. Wanting to escape, he struck a deal with Molag Bal, managed to trick him, and left Oblivion in the 2nd Era.

Now on Nirn, Velehk found it difficult to find a place that would accept him for shelter or work. He eventually found himself boarding a pirate ship and serving under its captain. He enjoyed a life of pirating and began to pursue it, eventually working himself up to his own ship, crew, and many titles.

Velehk was particularly known for his cruelty in the 3rd Era. He fought as hard as he could to separate himself from his old life of obedience, and because of that he demanded the upmost respect from his crew. He would crack down on these rules to the point of extreme violence, and it eventually led him to chasing away a few of his closest crew members. Still, he doubled down and continued with his cruel streak.

With the Oblivion Crisis came Caspian, a Thalmor sea lord determined to keep the Abecean Sea clear of any daedric influences. Through many scars he’d find that banishing Velehk was no easy task to accomplish, and eventually became Sheogorath-touched in his maddening pursuit of Velehk (though he’s in denial about his madness). Their two-century long rivalry has turned into something of a game between the two of them, where neither wants to see the other quite dead or gone. They’ve even secretly aided each other when facing common enemies.

Then, in 4E 180, Velehk vanished from his ship. No one knew what happened or where he had gone, and without a captain the crew of the Blodea Mahree scattered and the ship was taken by the Thalmor.

Velehk had been summoned and bound to a gauntlet in Winterhold by a group of overzealous students at the Mages College. However, all these students died in the process due to extreme conjuration burn, and Velehk was left trapped.

He remained in a tiny pocket of Oblivion for 20 years until he was freed in 401, where he then made his return to Hammerfell and reclaimed his title as captain. There he collected a new crew and recruited some older members. These older members noticed a stark change in his demeanor, though: he was easier to startle, and seemed to lash out less (though was still just as easy to annoy). His time in the pocket plane had changed him significantly, as he had two decades to reflect, but it also left him with new mental scars (he’d developed claustrophobia, for example, and ordered very specific changes to his quarters).

The rest of his story (and more specifics of his backstory!) will be shown in Salt in the Wound, a collaborative work between myself and a few others in the tes fandom who offered me their lovely lovely characters to work with. I plan on writing SITW after TDI is done with. For now, I hope this gave a broad overview of his backstory. I can pick parts from these events and go into heavy detail, but for now have these simple silhouette shots. Thanks for the ask!

[daughter-of-melpomene]

Crossovers for the Lewis siblings!!! We never discussed them!!

Yesss, of course!! I hope you like these!! <3

As we’ve said before, I definitely think that Kai, Isaac, and Edmund would team up to be judgy gay besties! Caspian would be so done with all the Looks he’d get from the three of them together.

(On a similar note, Kai would absolutely get sick of Isaac and Edmund’s pining and plot to get them together, because they’re younger than him and “I have to help the children, Caspian!”.)

Hemera would be in absolute awe of Skye’s dragon; she hadn’t even been sure dragons existed in Narnia anymore growing up, and the thought always made her sad, so seeing Hephaestus for the first time would be a dream come true for her. (She would absolutely try to pet him and have to be held back by Susan, though, because her light magic does not make her immune to fire and the burns that come with it.)

I’m not entirely sure if you’re okay with ships for crossovers, but if you are I think Tamlin, Skye, and Lucy would be an amazing throuple! Just some beautiful lesbians who love adventure, Narnia, and each other.

I can totally imagine Allison taking Hemera under her wing a bit when the Golden Witch moves into Cair Paravel, Hemera teaching her about Narnian history and culture while Allison plays her big sister role and helps her learn how to live among people after being alone for so long.

I definitely feel like Alaric and Skye would be unexpected besties - Skye’s more fiery (pun intended) personality would balance out Alaric’s calculated quietness, and they’d have fun talking shit about Narnian nobles together.

Hemera would also be absolutely fascinated with all the siblings’ stories of the modern world, since it’s so different from Narnia or even the Pevensies’ era, and I imagine all of them would be happy to talk to her about it!

Alaric would absolutely come to view all three siblings as part of his family as well, and would be happy to break the fingers of anyone who dares to disrespect them (even though I don’t imagine Allison or Isaac would necessarily want him to).

Again, hope you like these, and thanks for sending the ask!!! <33

[malkaviian]

i tried to imagine an interaction between the two ocs i have the most brainrot over (so chase and maverick) but they wouldnt have that much convo ksnfkjsdnfjs

[broomsticks]

narnia kink meme: fic rec list

some fics i read and loved from the spring bacchanal run by @thenarniaficexchange! lots of lovely 1-2k M/E rated goodness--heaps more brilliant unclaimed/unwritten prompts too--and i've got so many more ideas for ships and scenarios now :D :D

.

I'm Glad it Left a Mark || Edmund/Susan || 1.4k, M. golden age: deep connection and aching need heightened by the dread of imminent parting. the writing is just gorgeous -- the turn of phrase! the rhythm! the feels.

He wants to tell her how like a bird she is, all hollow bones and bright eyes, all ruffled feathers and deadly, dangerous longing to take flight, an instinct beyond thought or control. Wants to beg her to turn the ship around, to stay with him for always, to never fly beyond his reach. To be the waves beneath him, the tide surrounding him, enveloping and receding, leaving him renewed and wanting, all at once.

I have loved you for a thousand years. I'll love you for a thousand more. || Lucy/Sea Girl || 1.4k, E. oh the wistful pining, the sweet innocence, the dreamy haze of sensuousness and nostalgia... <3 <3 <3

After returning for the last time, she dreams of their days on the Dawn Treader. Of climbing the rigging, of sneaking through wizard homes, of meeting stars. Of seas of light and endless flowers. Tonight, however, she dreams of a girl under the waves, surrounded by colorful fish, and eyes filled with longing only matched by the ache in Lucy’s heart. It still haunts her, sailing away from her without ever speaking a word cut sharp, as if she was saying goodbye to an old friend.

Blossom rising delicate || Susan/Dryads || 2k, E. multi-era vignettes and the structure is so good. love the epigraph of choice, and such an unexpected and perfect ending.

The beacons are lit || Caspian/Lilandil || 1.1k, T. SO funny, such a unique take on the prompt. Three different eras of Narnian historical commentary on the wedding night of King Caspian X to the Star's Daughter… versus what really happened.

Well worth looking at || Digory/Statue || 1.8k, E. jesus christ, the humiliation kink here is done just perfectly. the tone is impeccable too, so narniaesque. also, polly is here and magnificent!

A wintry charm (or: Rim(m)ed with Frost) || Aslan/Jadis || 1.2k, E. aslan/jadis fuck yeah say no more.

[antonia-gergely]

COSMISM!

Anton Vidolke and the Institute of the Cosmos. Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh. 1st July - 28th October.

Anton Vidolke is a founder of e-flux journal.

Some time around 1882, God was pronounced dead. For certain Russian thinkers of the era, this loss provided an opportunity: where the place of one god closes, space for another one opens. Unlike most established schools of thought, Russian cosmism does not present a consistent epistemology, or a unified theory. On the contrary: the ideas of its nineteenth- to early-twentieth-century protagonists are often so divergent and contradictory that they appear paradoxical, or delirious.

Russian cosmism’s known scientists, philosophers, and writers include figures ranging from Nikolai Fedorov (known as a founding thinker) the nineteenth-century librarian who aimed to resurrect all living and dead ancestors into an eternal church-museum focused on the revolutionary tenet of brotherhood; Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Fedorov’s library pupil who went on to formulate mathematical equations used for spaceflight; Alexander Bogdanov, who cofounded the Bolshevik party with Lenin and experimented with blood transfusions to rejuvenate one and all; and Alexander Chizhevsky, the “heliobiologist” who discovered and mapped connections between sunspots and human political behavior, and then created lamps to harness solar energy to restore fellow prisoners in labor camps. (He concluded that a liberal change in the english government correlated directly to the sun having more than 93 sunspots at the time. Very goofy and fun, but it's the kind of 'science' that makes me laugh and then makes me serious. The entire foundation of cosmism is corollary and sometimes seems far fetched, but any corollary is based in a previous truth, so it's fun to entertain as possible.)

Similarly to Marxism, which sees labor as the engine of the emancipation of the proletariat, cosmism sees laboring towards resurrection by means of science, art, technology, and social organization as a way of collaborating with God, a collaboration that will result in the active evolution of humanity and the universe towards becoming a single interconnected, sapient organism, immortal and infinite like God. So it's like space-communism.

Biela's Comet and its incorrectly calculated trajectory into earth led to a lot of publications centred on the concept of cosmism, and these really exemplify the hopes of the cosmists.

Originally published in fragments between 1835 and 1840, The Year 4338 describes a futuristic society in the year before a comet emerges from the depths of cosmic space to destroy earth. The protagonist of the novel, a young man from Beijing, travels to St. Petersburg to meet with scientists who he thinks can prevent this impending cataclysm before doomsday in 4339. He travels on a high-speed electrical train under the Caspian Sea, through a futuristic Russia where all households are connected by telegraphs, and where people read newspapers made of liquid-crystal screens, have personal flying devices in the form of hot air balloons, eat synthetic foods, inhale special gas for recreation, and wear electric clothes that change colors and patterns. A moneyless economy has also been achieved. The few published fragments as well as the ideas behind this unfinished novel were almost certainly familiar to Nikolai Fedorov, who most experts credit with being the founder of cosmism. Fedorov worked at the very same library in Moscow as Prince Odoevsky.

While a prolific writer, Fedorov did not publish during his lifetime, partly due to his modest character but also possibly because he suspected his radical ideas could lead to excommunication from the Orthodox Church, of which he was a devout follower. After his death, a volume of Fedorov’s writings was published in Almaty, Kazakhstan, under the title The Philosophy of the Common Task. This first publication did not circulate commercially. In brief, the common task is no less than a project of human immortality achieved by technological means. It involves materially resurrecting all human ancestors (starting with Adam and Eve), controlling all the destructive forces of nature (including death), and exploring and colonizing all the stars and planets in the cosmos. An intergalactic educational project whose aim is to turn the universe into a unified feeling and thinking organism, immortal, infinite, and selfsame with God, its creator. In other words, the horizon of the common task is the construction of God by scientific, technological, and artistic means.

Despite rarely seeing publication, these revolutionary ideas influenced numerous key figures in the Russian intelligentsia, including such writers as Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, religious philosophers such as Solovyev and Florensky, among many others. These ideas also influenced many in the Russian visual arts, and are partially responsible for the fascination with zero gravity, flight, and the cosmos that we can clearly observe in numerous artworks, from Malevich’s Black Square to Tatlin’s Letatlin. In a more subtle way, the influence of cosmism can be felt in the sensibility behind constructivism and productivism, which treat a work of art not as a mere fetish of sublimated sexuality in a consumer economy, but as a microcosm of world-building and God-building. Faced today with ambivalent liberal platitudes of resistance or the disposable instrumentality of “disruptive tech,” we might wonder more generally how artistic and creative thought could have been so heretical to Marxist-materialist and religious orthodoxies alike, while simultaneously believing so completely in their unified capacity for advancing human civilization.

While it never became a part of official Soviet doctrine, much of cosmism dovetails with the ethos of early postrevolutionary utopian socialism in its drive towards a classless, egalitarian society completely dedicated to the emancipation and self-transformation of humanity, and to the construction of a man-made paradise on earth. The first postrevolutionary decade saw an explosion of cosmist ideas and their application in very diverse areas of life, from art and science to the practical organization of labor, time management, and the health system.

- e-flux journal no. 88

Speaking to my friend during the three films (we were the only ones there so it was non-disruptive), we got talking about immortality through technicalities. Our energy might not travel into space as particles, but it does, say, enter the soil when we die, and nourish a plant, potentially one that bears fruit. I'm not a holistic or deeply spiritual person, but from a logical standpoint, that makes sense. I know my soul doesn't go into the fruit.. but I say that without knowing if or what the soul even is. So I don't really know.

What I do know is that the energy, the chemicals, the carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen that makes me up can enrich soil, and that very same atoms that lived in me can become building blocks in a hypothetical fruit that grows out of my grave. Maybe the DNA of the fruit contains me, in some shape or form.

My friend also mentioned Ted Lasso and the desire of a character to have a fruit tree planted on their grave when they died, to be nourished by their body and fed to their loved ones. It was funny, sure, but it got me thinking. It's another element of the consumption and interrelationships I am currently focused on researching. If I am a fruit borne from my own grave and you eat me, I then become part of you forever. My chemicals build your cells. I can become engrained into the very fibres of your being. And it cycles.

Everything eats and is eaten, as Adrianne Lenker says.