The Pnictogen Wing

not every civilization in the Cosmos needs to have suffered a Fall, therefore there's no need to assume that "salvation" (whatever that really is) is needed outside of humanity. C. S. Lewis's Perelandra posits that Venus is threatened with something analogous to the original temptation and Fall, but protagonist Ransom is sent to help prevent it, and hence Venus completely avoids the need for Jesusy redemption.

and I rather hate that I can summon up this line of rationalization from decades past. I haven't read Perelandra in ages. in any case I would guess most hardcore Christians these days find it easier to pretend that humanity is the only sapient life in the Universe.

~Chara

it's a movie about someone who's trapped himself in a corner because he's selfish and cowardly and yet tries desperately to keep everybody happy, and he escapes into self-serving fantasies rather than deal plainly with all the people he's dragged into his own mess. Claudia Cardinale appears out of nowhere, seemingly in answer to Guido's manic-pixie-dream-girl fantasy about a perfect woman who will somehow heal all his problems and make everything right, and she smiles a bright-eyed smile and with a few sentences she grinds Guido's Beatrice fantasy into the dirt. "you're just like all the others," Guido laments, but it's no good; his balloon's been punctured, and his grand vision evaporates into a cloud of shame and debts, leaving only a thin residue of farce.

we feel uncomfortably called out. we feel like our own life has been futile and ruled by self-serving fantasies, and we're at least as avoidant of people (and of unpleasantness) as Guido Anselmi. and we had our own Beatrice fantasy, once. maybe more than once.

maybe I don't know how to love, either.

bleh.

~Chara

Hey, I'm a disabled queer person who has suffered domestic abuse and as a result, I'm not able to work as much as I'd like.

I've been making pretty significant strides with professional help, but I'm not where I need to be yet. Things have been really hard for the past month where i've been struggling with my antidepressant medication and am currently in between changing them. Work has been extremely slow, every day is a struggle and I don't expect things to get better quickly enough to be able to fix the following quickly enough:

• Paying the bills (£400) before they're due later this month
• Fixing a hole in my partner's balance sheet from a previous month where I couldn't pay the bills and they made up for it. (£400)

If you can donate, I have a donation link here.

(Thanks 💚)