/lit/ - Literature

>>19325059
The worms are lying on top of the dirt mound, they are organized like a bullseye. The worms in the middle were just those who didn't commit cannibalism and were running away from the other cannibal worms. They weren't dead yet but they were out of energy. For some reason, the tainted Crystal Pepsi caused every living thing in the town to cannibalize each other. By the time the two researchers enter a week later, several rounds of cannibalism have taken place, and the human survivors were running low on food. So some of the survivors, ashamed of what they had done, left the town and closed the bridge. However, they still became sick if they refused to cannibalize more people, leading to their deaths in nearby hospitals. The CDC assumes the cause is pathogenic so they detach only two researchers to avoid spreading panic. Darren becomes whatever the people in the town became, because they find and talk to him after his suit gets contaminated with a supposed unknown substance

>>19323740

Biding his time, James saw something which piqued his interest. A decaying mound of compost lay at a far edge of the property, near a hill. Ruptured cases of Crystal Pepsi were embedded into the mound. It was the new edition, with a design different from the one he had seen on the billboard. At the base of the mound, a lump of worms wriggled excitedly. James assumed they were feasting on the compost, but then he looked again. Something was wrong.
At the center of the lump, smaller motionless worms were surrounded by larger, excited worms. The larger worms slithered closer and contacted the smaller worms. James watched in horror as the worms in the middle were devoured from both sides within thirty seconds. Then the worms from the edge burrowed back into the mound, as if recognizing their sins.
“Ah… you know what James…” came Darren’s voice again, much clearer now. “Maybe the factory is a good idea. The responsible pathogen probably came from the hill behind the factory and spread through the town on the wind. I’m thinking a virus or endospores.”
“Sure –” James said, before his blood ran cold. “Wait a minute. How do you know about the hill? I haven’t seen you around.”
James felt, rather than heard, steps behind him, but he dared not look. Someone – or something – was breathing on his suit.
“They told me.”
(3/3)

>>19323734

After the expected amount of time, James and Darren sighted their destination.
“How long do these tanks last?” Darren asked, his voice slightly distorted through the cracking of his two-way radio, even though he stood next to James.
“Six hours, at the most,” James said, nerves catching in his throat. “let’s meet back at four.”
He and Darren split to take measurements from different parts of the ruins, which used to be a small village called Burnsville. However, after a loss in communications last week, the village, and the lives of the people in it, inexplicably ceased to exist.
James went on his way, peaking inside the recently abandoned houses of the residents. However, it seemed they had all disappeared without a trace. Nothing living remained in the town, not even house pets.
After an hour taking dirt samples, James came across a startling sight. At the end of the main road sat an empty factory with bright lettering. Pepsi. It seemed that Burnsville was a company town, and all roads led to this building. But he didn’t see Darren anywhere.
James stepped through a cut fence onto the property. He tried each door, but with disappointment found each one locked. As soon as he felt like giving up, a voice came over the radio.
“James,” called the voice. It had to be Darren, but it sounded heavily distorted, like static come to life.
“I accidentally stepped in something,” continued Darren. “I don’t feel well. My head feels heavy. I’m going back to the rendezvous point.”
“No, no, come back to the factory. I’m afraid you’re going to get hurt,” James pleaded. But the signal went dead.
(2/3)

>Dead worms and Crystal Pepsi

James felt an eerie presence as he pulled to the shoulder just before the north terminus of Pennsylvania Route 72. He and his passenger, Darren from the Philadelphia branch, strained to look past the foggy visors of their hazmat suits; dense forest surrounded them in all directions. What’s more, the CDC hadn’t bothered to give them spare oxygen tanks even though they faced possibly the most dangerous contagion this side of the twenty-first century. No bother. The 300 Spartans had no time to worry about budget cuts.
“There’s an unmarked inlet somewhere around here,” Darren said.
“I think we’ve found it.” James replied.
The bright glow of morning reflected off a steel bridge to the right. A plethora of fluorescent orange construction signs blocked the way forward, yet no other equipment remained. Unwilling to chance the bridge’s stability, James told Darren they would have to proceed on foot.
James tentatively stepped out and parked the van under leaf cover. Immediately left of the bridge sat a sun-faded billboard with an advertisement for limited edition Crystal Pepsi.
“How old do you think that is?” James asked absentmindedly as he approached the bridge, which evidently had been vandalized since its abandonment. ‘Abandon all hope ye who enter here’ was scrawled in white on the roadbed.
“What, the billboard? It’s not that old. Pepsi did a re-run of Crystal Pepsi a few years ago. I hear they planned to do it again before this incident.” Darren said. “What’s real strange is the bridge. No one said it would be closed.”
A pregnant silence hung in the air. There were no birds, cars, or human voices, only water rushing below. The two researchers slowly navigated the bridge and sighed deeply after successfully crossing it.
“It’s a half-hour walk from here,” James said, unrolling a map from a duffel bag he had brought. Certain thoughts nagged at the back of his mind: why would the CDC send only two researchers and not a dedicated team? Would decontamination upon their return be thorough enough? But he pushed these thoughts away for the time being. The two men walked in silence towards the ruins at the heart of the forest.
(1/3)

I'm almost done but I'm submitting it after midnight ;___; pls forgib me

>>19319099
That's pretty fair, although I don't expect him to make different observations from The Culture of Critique or Gramsci

I have not read Lasch, but his positive reception in multiple threads lately has piqued my curiosity. From what I can glean, he yearns for the values of self-sufficiency and virtue lost in the post-WWII culture of narcissism. Part of me disagrees with his claims of the degeneration of American culture when our society has always contained discriminatory, violent and self-destructive elements. If anything, society after WWII is more honest about its desires. The problem is that humanity tends to build false idols rather than acknowledge real evils, and Lasch seems to fall prey to recency bias in recognizing the latter. To me, the thesis of Revolt of the Elites feels more prescient because it reckons with the idea that pure democracy doesn't work and our American form of democracy is deeply flawed because the elite foment polarization as it benefits them. However, the modernist spiritual crisis is not isolated to America but exists in all industrial cultures that have realized the pitfalls of centralized power in religious establishments. Perhaps the key to restoring spirituality is taking care of material anxieties, such as improving job security and working conditions among the middle class. Workers cannot maintain a sense of esteem if they are disposable.

I would advise against falling into the trap of painting secular thought with a wide brush. It's true that late or postmodernism exists to break down the existing structure, while globalism introduces a superstructure. But secularism is not inherently bad. It's merely a competing set of values that some groups wield to extract the maximal value from their sphere of influence. The competition and weaponization of different values is unavoidable in a pluralistic nation, and so conflict in the modern nation-state is characterized mainly by a war of ideas: meme propagation and misinformation, a race to the bottom. I assume what Lasch means to criticize is not secularization but the destruction of organic identity, the hegemonic subsumption of culture by the elite.

i thought i could go but i procrastinated really hard this semester and now midterms are biting me in the ass. take pictures for everyone who can't be there

Call me

>>19273939
You're looking for a pet and a servant, not a wife
Hire a maid for god's sake, or are you too cheap for that

>>19273905
you got every part wrong except emperor, but this is a bait thread anyway

Talk to her about her interests and impress her by listening and demonstrating empathy. It will not be so much the empathy that will impress her but your restraint and patience because by this age she knows that any man who interacts with her wants to fuck. Also you should have the minimum hygiene and pick up on social cues. Like if she looks away from you or doesn't make eye contact, she probably doesn't want to talk

That's the thing, you don't

But to be serious, become a graduate student at some institution with a theater program and ask their department for volunteers as a part of your thesis

haha peepee poopoo

>>19273404
That story is pretty interesting, especially the character of Peter Warner. Sadly he passed in April this year

This book fucked me up but Golding did not need to be so hamfisted with this line

/phil/ - Philosophy and Religion

>>19273305
why the fuck does everyone say this. I'm Native American
Also Mike your writing sucks but if you aren't gay then get in touch expeditiously

>>19273239
i-i'm not that hairy mike

>>19273206
I've posted my picture here before lmao
Eat shit

>>19273009
I'm a bisexual woman and Bret Easton Ellis himself is gay. Not my fault you can't analyze literature. Or let me guess, you haven't even read the books and think watching the movies or wikipedia is sufficient
>>19273014
Mike Ma is a crossdresser

I find it really funny that Mahoney bandies around the hypermasculine aesthetic because it's obvious that he's gay. He even fantasizes about conducting a copycat Pulse nightclub shooting in Harassment Architecture when the real life perpetrator had been a self-hating homosexual. Ma's work is interesting only as unintentional metafiction where the author must reject his identity for fear it will consume him. Undertones of homoeroticism were also present in Fight Club and American Psycho, his clear literary influences

>>19266378
>Dead worms and Crystal Pepsi
mine

Butterfly is my favorite trip
I admit that I used to post my pictures on here because I wanted the simps, but it also precluded me from being taken seriously. Butterfly navigates the irreverent culture of the board by posting seriously even if people don't respect the trip. It takes a lot of courage to do that