#guine talks
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The Books of Earthsea Illustrations from the complete illustrated edition, Illustrated by Charles Vess [X]
#Earthsea#ursula k. le guin#charles vess#illustration#book cover#book illustration#a wizard of earthsea#the tombs of atuan#the farthest shore#tehanu#tales from earthsea#the other wind#ged#sparrowhawk#tenar#arren#lebannen#therru#ogion#lookfar#theres so many characters i could tag but those are the big ones i think#just thought tumblr could use some more earthsea art out here#these illustrations are lovely#and if you go to ursula's blog she has a couple of posts talking about working with the artist that are nice
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it is quite funny to me as someone who studies philosophy and has had to have the conversations that bh and ludinus have been having many times over and often with people who like ludinus do not have any reading comprehension and truly like. the notion of “this shouldn’t exist” is almost always one that comes up regardless of whether it’s a discussion on the metaphysics of a potential God(s) or divinity, high political powers, or vehicles of systemic oppression. and what anyone who cares about people more than their ideals (even, sometimes, ideals that started out being about people but quickly come to be about the ideals themselves) realizes very quickly in a philosophical discussion about what should and shouldn’t exist is that it does not matter if what you’ve decided ‘shouldn’t’ exist does in fact already exist. like that tends to be the difference between sociopolitical philosophy that actually has teeth and substance in the world — a willingness to engage with the world as it is, not as it should be. because you can have the perfect image of a just and wonderful future world, but if you do not at every step reckon with the unjust world from which you are aiming at that future, you’re doing nothing. ideals are helpful because they aim us toward goals and hopes, but they’re nothing without a reality that grounds them.
and so people like ludinus, who in the real world would play the role of a graduate student with critical thinking skills that make every professor he comes across question how he arrived at his level of study, they don’t have Wrong ideals, there’s obviously plenty of reasons why an exandria without gods might in fact be a better place for mortals (there are also many Many reasons why it would not). but ludinus has also chosen his ideals to weigh heavier than the mortals he claims to uphold them with. i think ashton is also interesting, because i think a lot of their positions have a fun fluctuation between being ideal focused and person focused, where sometimes they’re focused on how unfair life is in a very nihilistic position, and at other times they seem quite clear about how much ideals help no one if they’re not second to the desire to help others. and i think that made their role in the convo with ludinus in 102 especially interesting and irritating (but in a narratively fulfilling way). anyway, truly so fun watching ludinus argue with the amount of fallacies and undeserved confidence of like right wing first year students in an ethics class explaining how actually the ends justify the means and thanos had the right idea actually if it means no more starvation. get a grip old man.
#ludinus da'leth#cr3#critical role#cr spoilers#ashton greymoore#i don’t think ludinus is neat at all i think he’s fucking dumb as bricks and not even in an fun way#i do think he prompts interesting dynamics in the party though so he’s extremely valuable in the narrative#but like . ludinus is truly emblematic of exactly what brennan was talkin about when he was referencing#ursula k le guin and talking about how evil is often simple and good is endlessly complex#it is Easy. (which is not to say unwarranted) to look at your own pain and say Burn Down Everything That Caused It And Threatens to Do So#And Burn Everything If It Allows Me To Protect Myself From Being Harmed Ever Again#which is. both ludinus and most of the betrayers#it is much much harder to feel the desire to burn everything and still find something worth fighting for anyway . even if it’s just the#hope that you won’t have to burn everything .
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omelas writing masterpost
accepting that I will be thinking really hard about omelas approximately once per year for the rest of my life so here's a bunch of links for future me next time I go down this rabbithole
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, Ursula K. Le Guin (1973)
Omelas, Je T’Aime, Kurt Schiller (2022)
The Ones Who Stay and Fight, N.K. Jemisin (2018)
The Ones Who Yell at Omelas, Rite Gud podcast (2022) [links a bunch of other responses]
tumblr post by shedoesnotcomprehend (2018)
After We Walked Away, Erica L. Satifka (2016)
Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole, Isabel J. Kim (2024)
and bc I always forget, the BTS music video that references it is Spring Day
@ myself read another story jfc
#le guin#omelas#hmu if you've got other stuff that's interesting#always want to talk about uklg#also I want to see some older interpretations since all of these are from the past 10 years
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ursula le guin’s afterword to the farthest shore
#ursula le guin#earthsea#this is so crazy this is like my philosophy as well… the foundations of my own novel#which i have been struggling to write (she talks about her writing process in this as well)#mannnnn ursula ursula ursula we’re really in it now#okay i think i’m done posting these for now tho i just wanted to save them !!!!#shoebox
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I've been thinking about the various Omelas takes (in creative or directly argumentative form) I've seen or am familiar with. And personally, the "Omelas story" I want is one where there is no child suffering for the utopia, and there never has been one.
The very idea of the suffering child as a necessary condition for imagining a radically improved world is, in my opinion, the very thing the story is criticizing. In the original story, Le Guin presents the Omelas utopia in quite a bit of detail, and punctuates it by asking at what point it becomes believable, what it would take for us to believe in Omelas, to even imagine or describe such a society, altering and discarding details as she goes to suit the imaginations of the audience and herself.
The narrator introduces the conceit for which the story is known—the terrible "terms" exacted for Omelas's utopia to function—because she cannot persuade us of the utopia without such a price at the heart of it. We will only imaginatively engage with the concept of utopia if there is some dreadful truth that renders the whole thing monstrous and hypocritical.
The narrator essentially goes okay then, if you insist on a dreadful truth behind all the joy of Omelas's people, here's your dreadful truth and how that goes. After explaining the lore of the suffering child, the narrator specifically says of Omelas's people:
Now do you believe in them? Are they not more credible?
I mean, I don't think the story is about "solving" the problem of the suffering child, or even the futility of solving the problem of the child. It's about the assumption that there must be one. The arguments that "the ones who walk away" should instead overthrow the exploitative government of Omelas (if it has one) or free the child or whatever generally seem to ignore this element of the story altogether. I think the story's indictment is less of the ones who walk away, or the government of Omelas, or the people who know about the child and just ignore them, than of the audience's demand for suffering at the heart of utopia.
(To be honest, I think this demand is what the ones who walk away are rightly turning their backs on.)
So, for me, I feel that an Omelas story that really engages with the "point" of Omelas needs to engage with this desire for a metaphysical dependence on exploitation and suffering, and the refusal of so many to imagine a better world without those things. And even in-story, the assumption of a "suffering child" behind Omelas's prosperity and decency seems like it'd certainly be convenient for Omelas's neighbors. I can imagine a sort of "well, some amount of poverty and exploitation is inevitable, but at least we don't have a suffering child" or "we can't change things too much, we all know how that goes, you end up with a suffering child" while ignoring the many suffering children all around them. At least they don't have that specific suffering child that absolutely must exist!
#isabel talks#text: the ones who walk away from omelas#artist: ursuka k le guin#long post#utopia#sff chatter
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they would be best friends
#I’m certain of this#and you know what#these are the kind of stories Ursula K Le Guin was talking about#the carrier bag stories#the carrier bag theory of fiction#these are important#both really good films#anyway#fox post#amelie#amelie poulain#perfect days#wim wenders#perfect days wim wenders#le fabuleux destin d'amélie poulain#carrier bag theory#stories & writing#films & shows
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@july-19th-club HI I just thought I'd respond to these EXTREMELY flattering tags because they were the push I needed to finally get around to listening to the Xenogenesis series. I've been meaning to check out Octavia Butler for a really long time, and after finishing those books I'm actually mad at myself for not getting around to it sooner, because like, holy shit.
Looking at the books I've enjoyed the most out of all the titles I've listened to in the last year, to picking out commonalities and trends, I came up with:
Explorations of speculative societies and cultures
Xenofiction! Inhuman perspectives, inhuman thought processes; monsters, aliens, and animals as perspective characters
Alienation. Relfect the experience of living in a society which is strange to you, persisting, finding value and beauty in a world that is ugly, complicated, and hostile
Body horror, shape-shifting, transhumanism
Surreal imagery and situations
Often violent, often sexual, (frequently both at once...). strongly visceral
Unsurprising preference for sci-fi over fantasy (it's much more prone to high concept strangeness, though on a surface level I like the trappings of fantasy more)
A LOT OF THESE ARE DOWNERS but I noticed there aren't a lot of straightforwardly bleak endings, I guess I can't resist that uncertain glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel... barring what they say about oncoming trains
Given all that it turns out Xenogenesis was baisically laser targeted to appeal to me and I'm incredibly grateful for these tags for nudging me to nudge Butler to the front of my queue.
#ive also already got at least one of my friends to start listening bc i NEED someone to talk to about these#also yes i have been cataloging my book listening and collecting exploits in spreadsheet form whats it to ya#catwings feels hilariously out of place on this i know but the audiobooks i have are narrated by Le Guin herself and they make a profoundly#cute and pleasant 2.5 ish hour listen#off topic#books
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The My-Eyeballs-Are-So-Happy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Bluray Watch
Episode 5: Tinker Tailor
- You don't break exactly, you just run out of stories to tell.
#tinker tailor soldier spy#alec guinness#*TTBR#ian bannen#this is the hardest ep to gif I think#(and not just cos there's no guillam in it)#it's an amazing combo of lots of talking saying a lot (like jim talking about his interrogation#and smiley recalling VERBATIM the letter bill wrote about jim#(which is even better and more detailed in the book)#and absolutely no talking but speaking volumes#control's unbelieveable subtle reaction about the news of jim#BILL'S reaction about the news of jim#god there is a whole essay to write about bill's reaction#anyway this gifset is for the anon who asked if I was going to gif more tinker#and made me realise I never finished this run#my wee gifs
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Tunes of Glory (1960) dir. Ronald Neame
#STILL THINKING ABOUT THIS MOVIE!#if you have seen it pls talk to me about it#if not GO WATCH IT#tunes of glory#alec guinness#john mills#my screencaps#wwii#film#vintage film#edits#screencaps#vintage film edits#old hollywood#tunes of glory 1960#dennis price
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— ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴇꜰᴛ ʜᴀɴᴅ ᴏꜰ ᴅᴀʀᴋɴᴇꜱꜱ, ᴜʀꜱᴜʟᴀ ᴋ. ʟᴇ ɢᴜɪɴ
#the left hand of darkness#tlhod#ursula k. le guin#therem harth rem ir estraven#estraven#paragraphs that open the floodgates on a reread#the way genly talks about estraven (once you've gone through the story and experience it in hindsight just like genly) is so...#like i'm breathless!!#god i was really saving up so much of the emotions this book unlocked in me just waiting for a friend to talk to about it#i'm done for now#i already wasn't going to recover but ough. god
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I wanna share more erm.. belly stuff about my favorite characters and media on here but I'm already REALLY pushing it with this blog being named after e/q/u/i\u\s since I'm, like, one of maybe 5 of his total fans, and make it very obvious on all my main accounts.
If anyone finds the art or fics it's like. There's maybe a handful of people that even care about that character or fandom enough to make something for it and it doesn't take a lot of searching to see who they are and narrow it down lol.
I'll try to hint at what some of them are in the tags if anyone is curious, and wants to request anything with the characters from those medias so I have an excuse to post about em lol.
#I'm using my kink blog as an actual blog now huh. Oops#Lmao. anyways...#My biggest autistic interest is from 1967 and was even left out of a timeline in an official "history of S/tudio G/hibli” book-#-and most media about SG in general-#-despite it being literally the entire reason S/tudio G/hibli exists#Even the mfs who own the rights to it don't give enough of a fuck to even mention it anymore-#This anime also inspired countless other media to an insane degree like DM me if you're curious because I couldn't-#-possibly list everything. I'm talking entire TROPES. Iconic tropes and concepts in film as a whole.#ALSO: copyright issues with a spin off of this anime directly resulted in the creation of Inspector Gadget.#My other interest is a game made in 2003#^^it holds a Guinness World Record for “most critically-divisive video game”#Yet the fanbase is so empty that I have literally talked with the creators on discord.#Considering the record it holds that might be less surprising.. but still...#This next game is from 2007. Despite its source company using it to debut an entire public animation software-#-and animations made using said software ushered in an entire subgenre of entertainment on youtube in the early 2000s-#-the creators have been all but abandoned the game. Leaving only the most annoying tryhards or bots to reside within the modern servers..#^^it seems to be making a comeback though in terms of popularity because of this tho#so maybe I made it too obvious haha#self post
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mildly annoyed today and turning evil about it
#it's not about this but i did just see that damn ursula le guin quote Again and it is starting to get to me#like yeah i get it i fucking get it but also shut uppp#i am not 'refusing to admit' that bad things are bad i am 1. telling lies. bc that's what fiction is for#2. seeking catharsis. bc that's what fiction is for#3. trying to confront u with the uncomfortable truth that people who have done bad things are people#'bad' people deserve human rights. hashtag grimdark hashtag no fun hashtag kicking puppies#also it's an out of context quote From A Work Of Fiction so idfk what le guin actually thought or meant#but ppl keep sharing it in a hashtag inspirational hashtag hopepunk way and it's sooo annoying#also like the fact that ppl who say these things so often talk about *evil* like it's a state of being#like EVIL PEOPLE (kind of person that definitely exists) aren't ever interesting or complex and Shouldn't be the focus of your art#(bc examining them must mean excusing or endorsing them somehow or at very least distracting from more Virtuous Matters)#hmm. yeah you're why i'm writing this#'cool motive still murder' thats it youre going in the labyrinth -> -> ->#like yes. it is ofc possible to get too deep into What A Fascinating Twisted Mind etc etc#but also. rargrgrgrgrgrgghrghhhh
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I am clearly much more insane about ursula le guin than either I or anyone else bargained for
#i am rotating the common motif of 'opposites that are not actually opposites' that le guin has going on#got it in tlhod earthsea the dispossessed#OOH it's in the word for world is forest too actually! need to think about thay one some more#either i need to find an essay/video essay on this topic or i need to write my own lmfao#but anyway. just talked for literally hours straight purely because someone was mean about how much i was talking#and i took that as a challenge. tbf i think it was meant to be light hearted but im kinda tired of him saying these things to people so yeah#also i was Not just talking about ursula le guin that was just yhe most pressing topic lol#ursula k le guin
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i DO wanna know about butches and werewolves btw
read the werewolf pride movement and then @queen-maybe's beware the bite of the were-lesbian zine and then think REALLY hard about werewolves for like 6-9 months. and then youll know.
#basically its like. *projects images and visions into ur mind*. you know?#its about queer masculinity its about being seen as monstrous its about being a hairy beast.#also hi guin. yeah im talking abt ur zine again. sorry but its too awesome#askbox of inquiry
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Y'ALL
I just saw an article about this incredible photoshoot and I'm completely obsessed.
During covid restrictions, photographer Steven Haining was joking with some friends that "well hey if we all have scuba tanks we could all be breathing our own air during a photo shoot" and then was like wait hold on that's not a bad idea.
Flash forward, and he's doing a full photo shoot in Fathom Five National Marine Park.
Now please keep in mind that this park is in Tobermory, Canada, on Georgian Bay. It is COLD. The water temp is about 14 C (or 57 F) in the middle of July when they did this shoot. They shot for close to 30 minutes at a depth of 9.5m (32 ft) with the model, Ciara Antoski, having a support person nearby at all times to give her air. Everyone else is in full wetsuits or even dry suits and she has this pretty dress and a weight belt. I have been swimming in Georgian Bay. It is COLD. This is incredibly impressive and must have required intense training.
The results are breathtaking.
And safety first of course:
Link to the photographer's website:
I cannot find any links for the model Ciara Antoski but if I do I'll add them here.
Anyways. Figured this is the kind of thing tumblr might appreciate!
#photography#guinness book of world records#world record#underwater photography#Canada#Tobermory#shipwrecks#mermaids#mermaid vibes#Emily talks#diving#scuba#like this is just unreal y'all#image description#alt text
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it goes without saying i am hopelessly nostalgic for my 8th grade english class
#scott is talking#if you tag this as “gifted kid” shit i'll kill you. this is about my lesbian teacher introducing me to ursula k le guin and allen ginsberg#like !!! fuck !!! she made me sooo much worse (affectionate <3)
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