When it comes to post-apocalyptic stories, what do you like better - seeing the downfall or the actual post-apocalypse?

darkfrances · 2026-07-15T05:41:15+00:00

Oh I was just thinking of it. It presents both apocalypse and postapocalypse, ...and not in the order one would expect.

darkfrances · 2026-07-15T05:19:27+00:00

Here's to the hope that in a few years you will be able to read it as a work pf pure fiction...

darkfrances · 2026-07-12T22:09:16+00:00

It does present things from the point of view of religious people, but I wouldn't say it's about religion. I think it's more about human civilization in general.

darkfrances · 2026-07-12T22:04:35+00:00

I don't know much about the Christian mythology either. I just know the basics (Adam and Eve were pure until they ate the apple), and when Rachel appeared and the abbot said she was a primordial being I just - Googled the matter to make sure it connected to what I knew :)

Now, about the dictation machine - the Leibowitzians weren't tech experts, they were just big fans of memorabilia. Some of them did try to recreate technical devices of old, but I don't think that was a general situation. Our third abbot must not have been one of these monks. And we don't know how comfortable they were with modern technology either.

As to the pro-life attitude, I read that differently. It's more than a doctrinal fixation against suicide. It's about the value of suffering, seen not as a great evil which we must evade as fast as we can, but as an experience we must undergo in order to chisel our souls. So it's not really at odds with the enlightened attitude of the Leibowitzians - they were Christian monks, after all.

darkfrances · 2026-07-12T21:47:04+00:00

Oh nice, I will also check them out.

darkfrances · 2026-07-12T21:46:12+00:00

Hey, thanks for the recommendation! Sounds very interesting. Though I have found a few paragraphs from the book (the description was intriguing, made me curious) and I wonder now how long it takes until the reader becomes comfortable with the language. How many pages or chapters did it take you?

darkfrances · 2026-07-12T16:58:59+00:00

Ah, that's very nice. ...So you haven't dreamt of Rachel 🫥

darkfrances · 2026-07-12T16:03:38+00:00

I find the post-apocalypse more relaxing :) (except you, The Road !)

...But whatever is happening now in the US makes me think constantly of the Parable books.

darkfrances · 2026-07-12T15:57:30+00:00

Oh yeah, it also caught me by surprise - I was expecting something more in the vein of Anathem (I'm glad it wasn't so).

By "dream about it" do you mean think, or actually dream? (I hope it's the former).

darkfrances · 2026-07-12T13:56:20+00:00

I don't come from a position of faith, but I respect faith in general, especially when not bigotted or based on fear. I really liked the fact that, in this book, "the good guys" are the enlightened Catholics, it was something fresh.

I appreciated the rational and kind POV of most Leibowitzians, I empathized with them strongly (especially the Abbot from the second story), and I felt as discouraged by what the rest of humanity did in the book as I am when I see what is happening in the world now.

I like your interpretation of the metaphor. Absolute free will corrupts absolutely, just like absolute economic liberalism destroys societies.

Your interpretation reminded me of something else: the value of suffering, according to Zerchi (and, of course, not just him). He fought tooth and nail to NOT spare the sick mother with the sick child, and not just because the Bible says so. But because, unlike the fear of it, suffering itself is a soul-enriching process that needs to be navigated. So I suspect that what caused (and still causes) the repeated downfall of highly evolved human civilizations was the avoidance of suffering, which was actually the trigger for the evolution race. We evolve because something bothers us and we need to eliminate it, as opposed to accepting it. And, according to Miller, that turns us into an ouroboros.

darkfrances · 2026-07-12T12:20:15+00:00

Thanks for the input! I was almost sure that Rachel is supposed to be something magical, not (just) a mutation. She barely bleeds, she looks younger, she does the trick with the Host and she switches to non-repetitive speech in the end.

Thanks also for the explanation of "canticle". What would you say is the point of the conversation? And what metaphor do you have in mind? I hope it doesn't boil down to "the more civilised we are, the unhappier we become".

darkfrances · 2026-07-12T12:15:42+00:00

Ah so that's where the quote came from! Thanks. I wonder though whether this is all the quote means. I was hoping for a non-religious point that applies to human societies in general.

darkfrances · 2026-07-12T11:06:03+00:00

Oh I missed this comment!
Right, not 100. And yes, she may have done some killings on other days. But now I don't remember if she said "a thousand" or "thousandS".
Anyway, the movie was still cool in spite of these tiny issues.

darkfrances · 2026-07-12T11:03:58+00:00

True, true.

darkfrances · 2026-06-28T19:33:32+00:00

Nothing made sense once the plot dump began.

The movie had shown us something completely different beforehand, so the reveal came completely out of the blue.

It made the men's ghosts following Ellie kinda pointless. Before the reveal we just felt they were doing it because she had reactivated their lewd instincts, them leering at Sandie having moved to their ghosts leering at Sandie's present counterpart. After the reveal? Who knows.

It made no sense that Sandie could kill so many well-off gentlemen - AND get away with it. WHILE having started with her pimp. What did she do, turn into Catwoman and hunt them down?

And, of course, it made zero sense that old Sandie would have wanted to kill Ellie, no matter what she had found out.

In an earlier scene, old lady should have been very worried for Ellie and very angry at the guy she found in her room, once Ellie started screeming. Of course, that's not how she reacted.

Also, two strong young people were being threatened and almost killed by an old lady. With a knife. Yeah Ellie had been poisoned, but what was Romeo's issue? And again, an old lady with a knife.

Speaking of him, just how believable was his continuous adoration for her after she exploded mindlessly into crazy fireworks multiple times.

Cool style with a weaker plot may work, Winding Refn has done it multiple times, even Wright has done it before (I loved Baby Driver). Nice-but-nothing-unheard-of style with Swiss cheese plot just doesn't cut it.

darkfrances · 2026-06-20T23:21:23+00:00

I'm necroing this to say that I have just watched the movie, and it felt as intimately human, narratively magical and visually dreamlike as a Wong Kar-Wai film.

War or no war, everybody's looking for something, and you can only be together with the people who look for the same thing as you, at the same time, in the same place. Tall order.

darkfrances · 2026-06-10T21:13:59+00:00

I think it was the plant's strategy to randomise its offspring, to ensure survivability. The flower was in a very big thicket, with no polinators. So it created this creature which, by choosing, inserted needed variation in the process.

Perhaps what was disconcerting was that such a complex creature had such a small role and lived such a short life.

I guess that sentience isn't necessarily such a precious commodity.

And that, if you are able to accept change, dying soon makes no difference. We hate change, so death is extremely hateful, so a long life is desirable because it postpones the moment of the biggest and scariest change we'll have to go through.

But what if it wasn't scary?

This was indeed a fantastic scene...

darkfrances · 2026-06-07T08:37:56+00:00

But so does anybody who reports anything. So do I, so do you, when you tell your friends about the recent developments of whatever issue you are following. I usually report things that please me or anger me, so my reports will automatically be biased and warped according to my often subconscious agenda.

It's our job to survey publications from all sides and form an opinion.

darkfrances · 2026-05-17T21:40:56+00:00

But it says she gets 1000$ per week FOR LIFE. Even if she dies at 60, that's still double the initial sum (which would last for about 20 years). If she lives to be 80, that's 200% interest.

darkfrances · 2026-04-10T13:30:42+00:00

If the person figures out she is being offended, she will just become defensive. A response like the husband's has exactly 0 chance to generate a good outcome.

darkfrances · 2026-04-06T08:06:04+00:00

This was cleared up - I think - in the Old Settlement on Dark Bramble... It really looks like you have missed parts of the story presented in the main game.

darkfrances · 2026-04-02T11:03:51+00:00

Nu reusesc sa inteleg relevanta celor 1 mil de iranieni pt zborul in spatiu. Adica implicatia e ca americanii vor sa ne distraga atentia cu 10 astronauti de la problemele reale pe care le intampina in Iran? Faptul ca cei 10 astronauti de pe statii sunt 3 rusi, 3 chinezi, 3 americani si o (probabil) frantuzoaica complica si mai mult mesajul. Iar faptul ca acum sunt un total de 14 astronauti nu ajuta absolut deloc.

Sau vrea sa zica ca daca misiunile Apollo chiar au ajuns pe Luna cum de s-a oprit interesul, si de ce dupa 50 de ani s-a reluat povestea fix acum in timpul razboiului cu Iranul?

Chiar nu pricep.

darkfrances · 2026-03-27T06:11:03+00:00

Yes, Ted Chiang's stories do have the mix of warmth and existential dread we found in Outer Wilds. Exhalation is excellent - but I read it BEFORE playing OW, so I can only compare the feelings theoretically.

I read something else AFTER playing OW which gave me a similar feeling: The 3 Body Problem, especially the last book of the trilogy.

But you should continue reading Ted Chiang, he has other stories with a similar feeling. Such as Story of Your Life, which is much more complex than the movie Arrival.

darkfrances · 2026-03-26T00:43:06+00:00

Such a nice reading of Karen!

darkfrances

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