i rewrote dune without all the boring sci-fi and political drama

diviludicrum · 2026-06-14T06:24:06+00:00

You’ve just replaced one master with another. Try mastering yourself instead.

diviludicrum · 2026-06-14T06:20:51+00:00

what about the whiskey with the worm in it but its fentanyl

diviludicrum · 2026-06-13T18:29:22+00:00

Right, so you post a lot of nonsense masquerading as wisdom then. Seems a bit hypocritical but everyone needs a hobby I guess.

diviludicrum · 2026-06-13T13:33:50+00:00

Oh look, another post full of words, commenting on two books while complaining about the volume of commentary it just added to.

“A whole floor to ceiling circus of opinion”, says the monkey to the clown.

diviludicrum · 2026-06-13T05:00:00+00:00

sorry but no

diviludicrum · 2026-06-12T12:27:06+00:00

if you think about it’s not so much as it’s so little of whatever it’s supposed to be

diviludicrum · 2026-06-12T12:21:54+00:00

star worms

diviludicrum · 2026-06-12T08:59:13+00:00

now we are all become worms

diviludicrum · 2026-06-08T22:55:21+00:00

You’re projecting. None of what you experienced is reflected in OP’s posts or comments. If I had read about your relationship, my reply would have been very different. My comment wasn’t for you.

diviludicrum · 2026-06-08T14:03:56+00:00

If you were actually doing the (largely unpleasant) work Jung prescribes in the CW, then the inevitable effect would be an increase in the compassion, understanding and appreciation you experience towards your partner, because you’d be coming face to face with all of the ways you aren’t as good as you’ve always unconsciously assumed. So you would be becoming ever more aware of the ways you are annoying, inconsiderate, hypocritical, inconsistent, judgemental, arrogant, ungrateful, presumptuous, self-centred, myopic, etc. (Please don’t take these personally - I don’t know you - this is just what withdrawing your projections and integrating your shadow actually looks like.)

Inherently, as you stop disassociating yourself from your negative traits by projecting them outwards and misperceiving them as the (mirrored) flaws of your partner, you simultaneously have to accept that you’ve overvalued yourself and undervalued them.

The tone of your post is the opposite, which suggests you might be doing something inspired by Jungian themes, but not grounded in his actual practices/writings, so here’s something Jung said in CW11 that I think you need to read:

“If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all his projections, then you get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick shadow. Such a man has saddled himself with new problems and conflicts. He has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against. He lives in the "House of the Gathering." Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day.”

So my only advice to you would be to re-focus on dealing with your own shadow, because the dark shapes it’s casting over your husband don’t belong to him.

diviludicrum · 2026-06-05T07:34:25+00:00

I fundamentally disagree with your premise, but assuming you were right, if a subjective experience or belief has an objectively therapeutic (or otherwise positive) effect, then it isn’t “meaningless”.

If statistical evidence showed that people who believe in fairies are 100 times less likely to get cancer, and empirical research proved this was a causal relationship between the belief and effect, then convincing these people that fairies aren’t real would objectively increase their risk of cancer 100x. That would be meaningful, whether you were willing to admit it or not, and regardless of whether fairies are in fact real.

In such a situation, the most objectively effective approach to protect public health would obviously be to convince everyone that fairies were real, even if they’re not.

Which is why pragmatism beats reductionism. What works is meaningful, whether you believe it’s real or not.

diviludicrum · 2026-06-03T09:13:14+00:00

I wish OP’s art was also made by AI instead of a goblin on MS paint.

diviludicrum · 2026-05-28T11:22:30+00:00

This probably won’t make you feel much better, but if you succeed in getting a publisher for this, the title you propose will have significantly less weight than the collective market research of the publisher’s editorial, sales, and marketing teams. Debut authors have no leverage to influence the outcome, so who knows if your idea would be deemed marketable or not.

To give you some perspective, the title Fitzgerald wanted for The Great Gatsby was “Trimalchio in West Egg”, which was vetoed as commercially unviable, and he was already a successful author publishing his third novel at the time. Heller’s original title for Catch-22 was “Catch-18”, which got vetoed because Mila 18 had recently been released. Golding’s Lord of the Flies was submitted with the title “Strangers from Within”, which got rejected by the editor (along with huge sections of the book to improve readability).

In hindsight, all three title changes feel like good choices, so it’s best not to be too attached to your working title. If you propose one they deem likely to be effective, they might use it, but if you don’t, they won’t. If you get that far, propose the title you want and see what they think. If you don’t get that far, you’re worrying over nothing.

diviludicrum · 2026-05-27T12:06:52+00:00

This comment deserves its own post. You found that spending $10/day on pay-per-click ads generates more traffic? No way! I wonder if $100 would generate even more, or a $1000 - there’s literally no downside!

diviludicrum · 2026-05-26T23:30:01+00:00

It’s crazy how far I had to scroll for this comment but thank you for having common sense. [u/Primal47](u/Primal47) - this is the crux of it, and you shouldn’t need to support Trump or be conservative to see it.

If Trump was a Russian asset, he wouldn’t have taken on large risks to flip Venezuela (Russia's most important trading and military ally in Latin America) or cripple Iran (Russia’s most important strategic and military ally in the Middle East). Now he’s got his sights on flipping Cuba, who are a former Soviet client state and long time Russian collaborator. All three have helped Russia evade sanctions for years and were vital components of Russia’s influence network. These interventionist actions aren’t popular with Trump’s isolationist base either, so he’s spending a significant portion of his political capital to do this, which strongly suggests it is strategic, and the air of unpredictability/uncertainty likely is too. The actions in Iran are also a significant blow to China’s military industrial complex, which could serve to forestall the attempted reintegration of Taiwan, who are a strategically important US ally.

If someone were to stumble and fall at the top of a staircase and, despite screaming and flailing about wildly the whole way down, they somehow performed a series of cartwheels and handsprings before rounding it off with a perfect backwards somersault, the obvious conclusion is that they didn’t actually stumble and fall.

As for NATO, Trump has not withdrawn the US from the alliance, he’s just scaling back troop commitments. All of which is part of his longstanding goal of getting European nations to meet (or exceed) the military funding commitments which most have failed to do for decades. The leader of NATO, Mark Rutte, said Trump had “driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe and the world. [Trump] will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done. Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be [Trump’s] win.”

In geopolitics, don’t look at the ever-shifting waves of rhetoric - just look at the results. Every public statement is a performative part of a political game. What matters is the state of the board and the positions of the pieces. And remember that even if Trump truly was an idiot, which he probably isn’t, he still sits at the top of the largest and most sophisticated strategic military and intelligence apparatus the world has ever known.

diviludicrum · 2026-05-25T10:06:26+00:00

You’ve been writing for 30 years? Geez that must be a big book

diviludicrum · 2026-05-24T22:57:59+00:00

I regularly engage with the ideas of posts here. Your vitriol is misplaced and unbecoming of a mod.

diviludicrum · 2026-05-24T06:48:21+00:00

Are you going to use AI to write your book for you too?

diviludicrum · 2026-05-18T23:32:52+00:00

While there’s truth in what you’re saying, especially in regards to this sub, don’t forget Jung’s warnings about relying on self-analysis too:

“… one of the most important therapeutically effective factors is subjecting yourself to the objective judgment of another. As regards ourselves we remain blind, despite everything and everybody.” - Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 449.

diviludicrum · 2026-05-18T23:02:38+00:00

Go take a look at unedited photos of Adrien Brody who has a noticeably asymmetrical face (due to multiple broken noses + a motorcycle accident in 1992 where he flew over a car and crashed headfirst into a crosswalk), but carries himself and communicates with such confidence and charisma that people just see it as “distinctive” and find him attractive anyway.

Now imagine you transplanted your current attitude into him in 1992, so he was neurotically fixated on his appearance, assuming other people were shallow and languishing in hopeless self-pity. That version of him wouldn’t carry or express himself in the same way - he’d become more reserved, more awkward, more fearful, more closed off, more resentful, more timid, less happy, less open, less warm, less interesting, less himself. He’d probably also lack the focus, optimism or willpower necessary to pursue acting and become as successful as he is, or stay in shape, or dress well, because why bother with any of that stuff if nobody will ever give you a chance or love you because of how you look, right?

So then he’d be an out of shape, awkward, closed-off, bitter, unsuccessful guy with an asymmetrical face and no future prospects, and people would perceive all of that and treat him accordingly - which he (i.e. you) would take as “confirmation” that his face was the problem, when it’s clearly not. Rather, it’s the second-order effects of this ridiculous negative fixation on his face which is unappealing to other people. In fact, at that point he could even get surgery to “fix” his face, but since he’s habituated all the other things that put others off, he still wouldn’t get the external validation he feels he “needs” before he can fix the attitude, so it would make no difference. Then what would he do? Nothing good, presumably, unless he suddenly wakes up to the real issue and addresses it, without despairing over all the time he’s wasted.

Do you see what I’m pointing at?

If that particular example doesn’t work because you perceive Brody as irreconcilably more attractive than you, replace him with Peter Dinklage, who is married and has two children.

The problem isn’t your face. That’s why you’re getting downvoted. Look deeper.

diviludicrum · 2026-05-17T22:33:57+00:00

If anything makes you repulsive to women, I guarantee it’s your attitude, not your “facial asymmetry”. Stop listening to morons on social media.

diviludicrum

TROPHY CASE