My Original Utopia Revisited

"Now," the Devil said, reaching out for MJ's hand. "Let's think about that Utopia again. The one we talked about before. The one where you're the ruler of everything."

MJ shut her eyes and concentrated. The smell of Brimstone was fairly distracting, but not so much that MJ couldn't still see that world, the one she was so invested in before. She chewed on her bottom lip.

"Concentrate, MJ," the Devil said. He had a weird, raspy voice, so MJ imagined he was probably in his normal-face rather than the personas he'd been taking on all semester.

"I am concentrating," MJ said.

"We can make this happen if you really think about it. If you really focus."

MJ focused. But at the same time---would she really want this world, now? The more she thought about it, the less she really liked the idea of running a world. How would she be any better than Big Brother? Or Mustapha Mond? Or Sean Bean in the Island (which is a significantly different Sean Bean to the one in Game of Thrones who was way cool but wasn't on the show enough.)?

Would MJ really be able to run a good, solid utopia? Something worthy of Utopia-ness? Something that didn't turn quickly into a dystopia? Or a non-functioning utopia, like Rapture in BioShock?

"You know," MJ said, pulling her hands away from the Devil. "Maybe this isn't such a good idea. I've got some great leadership skills and I really like people, but I don't think I'd be the best ruler. We should stop this. Let's just let things be like they are."

The Devil didn't speak, but MJ had the feeling that the ceremony was over. Or something. Always hard to tell with the Devil. He did things very differently from everyone else.

"Don't open your eyes," the Devil instructed her. "If you look at me, you will die."

MJ sighed. "Yeah, okay, you got that line from Doctor Who. Loser."

This Is Why I Should Never Talk About Religion Ever

On Wednesday, MJ was spending an afternoon having lunch with the new Pope. He was significantly nicer than the old Pope, but just as unwilling to listen to MJ's concerns about the church's influence. She also thought it particularly odd that he didn't want the Devil or her personal Angel at this lunch. This was significantly better than MJ's experience with the last Pope, of course, who greeted the Devil (then appearing as Anakin Skywalker) like an old friend.

"So explain to me again what your concerns are," the Pope said.

"It was something I said in class," MJ replied. "We were discussing controlling the masses with utopia."

"All right," the Pope said. His ice cream arrived. Rocky Road. MJ found this worrisome, but she was happy to see her cookie arrived. Ice cream was gross.

"Isn't that exactly what you lot do?" MJ asked.

"I beg your pardon?" the Pope asked.

"Control the masses with utopia," MJ replied. "Or, at least, the promise of Utopia."

"I don't understand."

MJ sighed. "Heaven. It's basically a utopia, isn't it? I mean, it's where everything is great and wonderful and you get to have head-explody."

The Pope looked at MJ with a confused expression on his face.

"Sorry, that was a comic book reference."

"Please continue," the Pope said.

"Okay," MJ replied. "So, basically, you do good works, you get into Utopia. That's what we were talking about. Isn't that heaven? You do good works on Earth, you get into heaven. That's the whole basis of your religion."

"I think there's a good deal more to our religion than you understand, my child," the Pope said.

"Is there?" MJ inquired, taking a bite of her cookie. "I mean, really?"

Love and 1984

"So, tell me why you love 1984."

MJ wasn't entirely certain where the psychiatrist's chair had come from, or why the Devil had chosen to appear as Tony Stark this time around, but she wasn't one to shy away from discussing her favorite novel.

"It's one of the most tragic love stories of all time," MJ said. "Winston and Julia, torn apart because they literally can't be together in the world where they live."

"Interesting," Tony Stark said. MJ didn't like his tone. It was the tone the Devil used whenever he was getting ready to manipulate her. She hated that. Primarily, because the Devil was so damn good at it.

"I agree with MJ," her personal angel, who had taken the form of Steve Rogers, said. "It's a terribly raw, but realistic interpretation of love."

"As if an angel would know anything about love," Tony said.

"Better than you," Steve replied.

MJ had a feeling that the two of them were having some sort of a row that involved romance. She didn't approve. First of all, this was supposed to be about her, and before she knew it, tumblr would be just gifting the two of them.

"What makes you think it isn't love?" MJ interjected.

Tony coughed, and put on a pair of bright red reading glasses. He read from MJ's worn copy of the book.

"You notice, when O'Brien is talking to Winston and Julia about what they will go through in order to become part of the Brotherhood, Julia forcibly interjects, much like yourself in this situation?" Tony said. "Why didn't Winston feel as passionately? Why did she have to make certain that he loved her best?"

MJ's eyebrows knitted together. "Winston doesn't love her like she loves him," she said. "There's nothing wrong with that. It's a fundamental flaw in love."

"She's right, you know," Steve said. If MJ didn't know better, she'd think he was trying to be sassy. It was annoying.

"I'm certain she is," Tony replied. "But how can you love this book as some sort of quintessential love story, if the love story isn't perfect?"

"What about life is perfect?" MJ replied. "That's what makes the book phenomenal. The imperfections make it real."

Herland: The Motion Picture Event of the Summer!

"Places everyone."

It was Tuesday, and MJ was set to start the filming of the newest big-budget science fiction movie, "Unveiling a Parallel". The internet was going absolutely nuts about it, excited for the graphics, the actors, and the like. 4chan had decided that it would be much better if MJ had spent her time making the internet sandwiches, but MJ rarely listened to 4chan anyway.

"I think your Elodia has a question," MJ's personal angel, who was still in the form of Benedict Cumberbatch, said.

MJ waved over the lead actress, Lucy Liu. Lucy had been chosen for her acting capabilities and the fact that she was lovely and exotic even without makeup (though this had been a problem, and MJ suspected it would be a problem again).

Lucy stepped forward sheepishly. The fact that MJ's personal angel looked like Benedict Cumberbatch made Lucy uncomfortable in ways she was contractually obligated not to talk about.

"If this is about the false eyelashes, Lucy, I'm telling you. Elodia would not wear them," MJ said. Also, MJ thought Lucy's fake eyelashes were hideous, but that was for another post.

"No," Lucy said. "It's about the marketing for the film. It's been bothering me and I wanted to talk to you about it."

"All right, but we are on a schedule," MJ said in her most Big Budget Movie Director voice.

Lucy took a breath. "Are we really a utopia?" she asked.

MJ was taken aback. "What? Of course we are." A pause. "Well, I mean, you are." Another pause. "In the context of the movie."

Lucy nodded emphatically. "But---from what you said. About a utopia. The fact that we would need a plan, and a place and---"

MJ hadn't considered this, not really. But she supposed that this story had less of a structure than most of the other utopias that she had studied.

"I mean, I think Star Trek has more of a basis in utopia," Lucy added. She looked at Benedict Cumberbatch and her face went a bit red. "Sorry."

"It's all right. It's an odd numbered movie," Benedict said. "In a few years everyone will be pretending it never existed."

"Let's stick to the subject, shall we?" MJ said, letting out a sigh.

"Lucy's right, you know," Russell Crowe added, awkwardly appearing on the scene. He was to be playing Van, even though MJ had originally insisted that he was too old for the part. Still, when the studio dropped that amount of money in her bank account, she wasn't about to say no. However, MJ couldn't work out if he was awkward because of the topic, or because the Devil had taken the part of Philip Quast.

"Oh, here we go," Philip Quast said. "Go on, Javert. Tell us about it."

"There's no real plan for a utopia here," Russell said. "We were talking about it. Don't utopias require a plan? A way to make the utopia a reality?"

"Don't we just remove all women?" Benedict Cumberbatch said. "Isn't that a plan?"

"I don't know," MJ said. "I always thought utopias required far more planning than that. I'll bring it up with marketing. Back into places, everyone!"

What Has Been Keeping MJ From Updating; Also: Isolation

So, that old saying "Bit off more than you can chew" really applies here, to my blog posting. I had made the awesome decision to do all of my blog posts in story format, and ended up slipping into a Socrates-like story where I'm saying all of the things I'd normally say only to somebody. Which, I guess, worked out for me. For, like, three posts.

I got freaked out about my little stories sounding bad, or becoming repetitive. In the end, I became that student, the one who needs to post something like ten blog posts before the end of the week or else her grade will be really poor.

So, we're doing a new thing. If I've got the story pre-written, I'm gonna post it as is. Otherwise, I'm going to take my big file of half-written blog posts and put them together in a standard format. And you will love it. I promise you.

So, let's talk Bioshock.

I'm playing Bioshock again for work on my last paper for this class. Among the things I'm discussing within the Utopian setting of Rapture is the isolation involved in Rapture's underwater world. For those of you who haven't played Bioshock, here's a trailer for the game.

Rapture is an isolated fallen Utopia (not a dystopia, per se, but a world that had been a Utopia at one point but had fallen to ruin.) The world was created in the mindset of Andrew Ryan (the narrator of the trailer), who wanted a Libertarian-esque world where no outside forces could come in and screw things up.

This sense of isolation is something I've noticed before in other works. In Herland, the female world is set aside from the rest of the population, the same with More's Utopia, and our recent viewing of The Island. Other Utopian stories we've discussed, such as 1984, Minority Report, Gattaca, and Brave New World have the whole world changed rather than just an isolated segment. For places like Twin Oaks in Virginia, isolation makes this system work, but I still see the "whole world change" as significantly more realistic. A slow, gradual change over the world can change everything just a little bit at a time, rather than isolating and completely altering everything at once.

What do you guys think?

A Funny Thing Happened During Allocated "Procrastination" Time...

I'm going to take a quick step out of my ordinary blogging style (An angel, the Devil, and MJ), and discuss something quickly that I found particularly interesting.

As a frequent online role-player on Dreamwidth, I find myself bombarded by a variety of role-playing games where one can do pretty much anything with their characters that they could possibly want at pretty much any time. There are games for horror, games for sex (not that I would ever join one of those or anything) and the like. I frequent a place called bakerstreet, that is a "meme" community, specializing in short, one-shot game threads for people to play in. There are usually topics one can use from (or use a random generator to get a random number for) and character options to keep your character in the "world" of the meme when tagging (aka: playing) with other people.

I have been playing in a long-running "thread" for the last few weeks in a particular meme, and it wasn't until today that I realized something. This meme is a Dystopia Meme. The word "Dystopia" is so frequently used in fiction for me that I didn't even recognize until now that it relates directly to this class and what we're working on. I don't think that an actual "Utopia" meme has ever appeared in this roleplaying community, perhaps because Utopia would not mean drama, and unless you're a PWP writer without a life, that's no fun at all.

Now, some of the options chosen by the meme's creator, steahl, are very interesting. There is a subject of "Class" as one of the options to be chosen. S/he gives options from "High/Royalty" to "Transitory", with everything in the middle from "alien" to "pariah" to "created". I find the fact that class is such an important issue very interesting in this meme. It reminds me of Plato's "The Republic", and the importance of the class within the city Socrates had created. This sort of a topic is almost never seen in memes, since "class" isn't something most Americans think of. Even in historical or "royal" AUs (that is, Alternate Universes), class doesn't come up, but steahl sees is as an important part of the meme. In #22 of the "Prompts" section, s/he even mentions "the City". An interesting mention, probably relating back to "the Republic".

The next section, the one I just mentioned, is the Prompts section. It's fairly standard fare for a meme, from "mix and mingle" to "SCIENCE" and "Brave New World". They throw in little references to all sorts of different utopian and dystopian books and movies, which, again, I didn't even think to relate to a class on Utopia until just now. There's even a subtle nod to Firefly, which I have always seen as one of the ultimate dystopian stories.

The most important thing in this meme to me is that this is all set in a futuristic setting. Unlike Plato or More, who see Utopia as something that can be achieved now, this meme sets up utopia (or, in this case, dystopia) as something that has to be made in the future.

Just FYI: My thread involves a "created" character living in a futuristic New York that is blotted out by pollution and riddled with crime and drugs while the elite sit on their high towers. In other words: Standard Dystopian fare. What do you think makes this "standard" for Dystopia? Why do you think I failed to notice that this was so intimately related to this class?

What are your thoughts on this? Besides the fact that I am clearly a huge loser.

Also, if you work out which character is mine, DO NOT EVER TELL ME THAT YOU KNOW.

Also, standard disclaimer: I haven't read all of the threads, some of them could very well be NSFW (that is internet speak for Not Safe For Work/School).

The Girl Who Never Grew Up

MJ was out flying with Peter Pan above Neverland. It was the perfect time of day, the sun was warm against their backs, and the clouds were fluffy little puffs of aerated happiness for them to bounce on.

"This place is amazing!" MJ exclaimed, hopping from one cloud to the next.

"That it is!" Peter replied, tossing a cloud in her direction. She caught it and took a bite. It tasted like candy floss. Normally, MJ would be very grossed out, as candy floss is far from her favorite food, but here it made sense and was ultimately delicious, so she ate it.

"It's a utopia!" she further exclaimed.

"No it isn't," Peter said. "Utopias are perfect, this place isn't perfect." Peter was acting very knowledgeable, but MJ was very aware he didn't know what the word 'utopia' meant until about five minutes ago when MJ first mentioned it. He had also forgotten MJ's name at least six times since the beginning of this adventure. But he was very handsome and MJ had always had a crush on Peter, since she was a wee little MJ hearing Peter Pan stories from her mother.

MJ shook her head as she dived under a cloud to avoid another cloud-ball Peter threw her way.

"Perfect isn't everything about utopia. Utopias are nowhere places somewhere in time and space."

"But that's everywhere," Peter says. "To me, Frederick is like a nowhere place in time-space."

"Time and space," MJ corrected him. She tucked clouds on her feet and they looked like big, fluffy shoes.

"That's what I said," Peter said, huffily. "And besides, Neverland is so much better."

"That's what makes it a utopia," MJ said. "It's better than the society I live in is."

Peter flew under her cloud and gripped her hand, spinning her around. MJ giggled, her heart all twitterpated by this magical boy who would never grow old.

"Of course, any utopia could go bad," MJ said. "To someone who feels differently than you and I do."

"What does that mean?" Peter demanded.

"I mean, if someone thought that the bright sunlight and the big jungles were too bright or too scary, this place could easily become their dystopia."

Peter blinked at her. MJ was very aware this meant he did not understand what she meant by 'dystopia'. But it was true, she thought. What is good for one may not be good for others, and things could go very wrong very fast if things started to change. What if Peter decided that all the Lost Boys had to find mothers, or a new leader took over and wanted them to become someone else, someone they thought would be 'better'?

"This place is better," Peter said, mirroring her thoughts.

"Better is subjective," MJ replied.

Peter laughed. MJ was very aware this meant he did not understand what 'subjective' meant. All the same, he took her by the hands again and spun her around and around in the clouds, while the sunshine shone down on them and the warm, happy presently-a-utopia Neverland sat below them, waiting to be explored.

This was when MJ woke up. She sighed, stretched, and padded out of her bedroom to the kitchen. Her personal angel, who had presently taken the form of MJ's biggest celebrity crush, Benedict Cumberbatch, was already making breakfast.

He turned around and gasped in horror, and then threw the pot he was cooking with down to the floor.

"You hussy!" he cried. "You were dreaming about that boy again!"

MJ looked down in shame. The cloud-shoes were still on her feet.

A Heavenly Retraction

MJ and the Devil sat at a Burger King, eating lunch. She picked at her whopper. It was, of course, made Her Way, and she was quite hungry, but it was verymuch against her diet and Sparkpeople(tm) informed her that she would be going over her caloric limit if she ate it.

The Devil, who was reflecting MJ's recent poor taste in music, sat in the form of Paul McCartney across the way from her, sipping on a milkshake.

"Just eat it," he insisted. "You're hungry and it's delicious."

"You want to hit that fourth level on Sparkpeople(tm), MJ, and if you go over in calories, you won't," her personal angel, who had taken the form of Barry Manilow to counter the Devil, said. MJ had to agree, and she sipped on her coffee instead. MJ always needed at least three cups of coffee whenever she had lunch with the Devil.

The Devil let out an irritated sigh. "So," he said, by way of changing the subject. "Tell me again about this utopia where you're the dictator."

It had been an exercise in class earlier in the day, where everyone had to say one thing that would make the world a better place. MJ, in a fit of extreme First Day Sassiness(tm) had said the world would be better if she ruled it as dictator. This had seemed like a great idea at the time, and when she told the Devil about it, he offered her a super cool demonic high-five.

"Clearly, I'd just tell everyone how things would be, and they would be that way," MJ said. In her mind, it was all like a rather big dollhouse, but everyone was happy.

"All very Big Brother of you," Barry Manilow said.

"Don't bring that book up," Paul McCartney said. "She doesn't have to start analyzing it until halfway through the semester."

"President Snow, then?" Barry Manilow asked. "Greatest Elder? Destiny? Myspace Tom? Lord Rassilon? There are many reasons why dictatorships don't work in fiction, which is the only place MJ would be living if she expected to actually rule a world."

It was true. MJ could hardly balance her own checkbook, much less juggle the economics of a whole planet. She was, however, very good at actually juggling, which she believed meant something in the long run.

"But what if it could happen?" Paul McCartney said, and his eyes flashed evilly with the evilest of evils. It was moments like this that MJ remembered she was actually dealing with the Devil, and those were always very awkward moments for a biology major in secular education. She wondered if she could be excused from this conversation politely.

"I wasn't being entirely serious," MJ admitted. Paul McCartney looked over to her, and she knew he was mentally retracting that super cool demonic high-five from earlier.

She continued, "I think if one thing could be changed, then everyone should just have to accept that evolution is real. It would fix a lot of problems in the scientific field. So much is being missed because of ignorance regarding evolution! I mean, think about how much impact it would actually make if we---"

"Oh bother," both Barry and Paul said, simultaneously.