Summer Smith (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
somethingwithturquoise) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2025-01-17 06:40 am
somethingwithturquoise) wrote in fandomhigh2025-01-17 06:40 am
Entry tags:
So You're New To The Multiverse....; Friday, First Period [01/17].
The class was meeting in the danger shop classroom again today, only instead of dinosaurs out the window, the students would find a sort of cyberpunk neon landscape spread out around them, replacing the old medieval aesthetic of the island to no purpose at all except that it was amusing to Summer. Also amusing to Summer was the fact that she'd leaned into the whole teacher vibe with her outfit, pencil skirt and button up and cardigan, fake glasses perched on her nose and her usual ponytail coiled up into a neat bun. Just like the landscape outside the window, she had no intention of addressing this and, in fact, just started in on the lesson.
"We're going to start branching out into different concepts of the mutliverse as they relate to alternate realities," she began, turning toward the blackboard and writing ALTERNATE REALITIES in big letters, and then, with a helpful sort of branching reality tree diagram, explaining the concept a little further, with a little extra emphasis on many-worlds interpretation, mostly because she just wanted to be able to mention quantum mechanics and sound particular smart about it.
She wasn't sticking on this for too long, though, because eventually, she lead herself to a part of the board where she wrote FANDOM and circled it and started to branch out with a few things: AU Kids, 20 Year Reunion, 'THEMES' and Alternate Versions.
"Now," she said, now turning back to the class, "I want to use today to look at the sorts of Alternate Realities that are frequently experienced just by living here in a Multidimensional Nexus. Those of you who have been around for a bit have probably experienced several, if not all of these variations, and for those of you who haven't experienced them, you'll now have a head's up for when they happen. Of course, they are not entirely restricted to these experiences, but they have, in my experience, been some of the more consistent and frequently occurring examples. So let's go through them briefly, and then we'll discuss a little. Ask questions about what you're not sure on, share your experiences with these kinds of Alternate Realities if you've had any, especially if you've had them outside of the purview of this island, or just sort of try and piece it all together without hurting your brain too much."
From there, she broke into the categories with as best an overview as she could. Explaining to those who didn't already know that, yeah, the most ubiquitous example of Fandom playing around with Alternate Realities are the times when the Alternate Universe kids show up, where potential future kids or impossible kids or kids from the reality where you made this decision instead of that one arrive to show you, generally, that procreation is a messy thing that's probably better avoided (in Summer's professional opinion, anyway). Then, she expanded into the 20 Year Reunion Phenomenon, where, somehow, they all seemed to forget that when a Reunion happens around here for the school, everyone massively forgets that sometimes people show up as a version of themselves from 20 years in the future. Is that future prophetic? Maybe! Maybe not! But there's a pretty good chance, if you remember anything about those weekends, it'll put your current life into some interesting perspectives. That, naturally, involves the matter of how one multiversinal experience can shift the course of certain universes, but they didn't need to go into that right now, if they didn't want to, or, fuck it, let's talk quantum theory if that's where you heart is leading you!
But first, she wanted to talk a little bit about thematic ones, which was what she was calling those weekend where we all find out what it would be like if the universe was a Hallmark movie, or everyone was a pony, or a different sex or gender, or if some fundamental detail of the way the world work was altered, but just for a weekend. A little harder to predict than the previous categories, and usually a lot less impactful, but still an interesting glimpse into the What-If of it all.
And, finally, she concludes with an overview of those times when you find yourself either a different version of yourself, or maybe someone completely different that still seems to oddly share some characteristic. A person entirely different from yourself that just so happens to look like you, or sound like you, or sometimes, just a different version of someone with the same name as you. Obviously, being a different version of yourself from a different timeline or dimension is far more in line with the topic of the class as just being some other person who happens to be named Summer or has the same face as you, but it does lend itself to some interesting perspectives, especially when one considers that the doppelganger effect, where someone else on Fandom already has the same face or looks like you or someone you know or maybe you look like someone they know, is also a thing.
"Overall," she concluded, "when you really start to dig into these and inspect them closely, it can all feel really meta on a level that you're not really sure you should be examining. It can almost make you start to question what reality even is...is there One True Reality? How do you know which is which? Are you the imposter, the slightly-altered version of some other Prime Reality? Maybe none of it's real, it's all just some sort of simulation or, I don't know, a game of some sort and we're not actually autonomous creatures but rather some playthings of higher powers acting in ways beyond our control.
"And that's usually the point where, if you don't just stop and take a breath and not think about it too much, you'll just end up in a spiral, so that's where I'm going to stop and open it up to you guys, and I swear, we're not going to be doing too many of the esoteric psychological theory lessons, I'm usually a much more experiential and hands-on teacher, but I do believe these are important things to look at if we're doing a class about the multiverse. What are your thoughts?"
"We're going to start branching out into different concepts of the mutliverse as they relate to alternate realities," she began, turning toward the blackboard and writing ALTERNATE REALITIES in big letters, and then, with a helpful sort of branching reality tree diagram, explaining the concept a little further, with a little extra emphasis on many-worlds interpretation, mostly because she just wanted to be able to mention quantum mechanics and sound particular smart about it.
She wasn't sticking on this for too long, though, because eventually, she lead herself to a part of the board where she wrote FANDOM and circled it and started to branch out with a few things: AU Kids, 20 Year Reunion, 'THEMES' and Alternate Versions.
"Now," she said, now turning back to the class, "I want to use today to look at the sorts of Alternate Realities that are frequently experienced just by living here in a Multidimensional Nexus. Those of you who have been around for a bit have probably experienced several, if not all of these variations, and for those of you who haven't experienced them, you'll now have a head's up for when they happen. Of course, they are not entirely restricted to these experiences, but they have, in my experience, been some of the more consistent and frequently occurring examples. So let's go through them briefly, and then we'll discuss a little. Ask questions about what you're not sure on, share your experiences with these kinds of Alternate Realities if you've had any, especially if you've had them outside of the purview of this island, or just sort of try and piece it all together without hurting your brain too much."
From there, she broke into the categories with as best an overview as she could. Explaining to those who didn't already know that, yeah, the most ubiquitous example of Fandom playing around with Alternate Realities are the times when the Alternate Universe kids show up, where potential future kids or impossible kids or kids from the reality where you made this decision instead of that one arrive to show you, generally, that procreation is a messy thing that's probably better avoided (in Summer's professional opinion, anyway). Then, she expanded into the 20 Year Reunion Phenomenon, where, somehow, they all seemed to forget that when a Reunion happens around here for the school, everyone massively forgets that sometimes people show up as a version of themselves from 20 years in the future. Is that future prophetic? Maybe! Maybe not! But there's a pretty good chance, if you remember anything about those weekends, it'll put your current life into some interesting perspectives. That, naturally, involves the matter of how one multiversinal experience can shift the course of certain universes, but they didn't need to go into that right now, if they didn't want to, or, fuck it, let's talk quantum theory if that's where you heart is leading you!
But first, she wanted to talk a little bit about thematic ones, which was what she was calling those weekend where we all find out what it would be like if the universe was a Hallmark movie, or everyone was a pony, or a different sex or gender, or if some fundamental detail of the way the world work was altered, but just for a weekend. A little harder to predict than the previous categories, and usually a lot less impactful, but still an interesting glimpse into the What-If of it all.
And, finally, she concludes with an overview of those times when you find yourself either a different version of yourself, or maybe someone completely different that still seems to oddly share some characteristic. A person entirely different from yourself that just so happens to look like you, or sound like you, or sometimes, just a different version of someone with the same name as you. Obviously, being a different version of yourself from a different timeline or dimension is far more in line with the topic of the class as just being some other person who happens to be named Summer or has the same face as you, but it does lend itself to some interesting perspectives, especially when one considers that the doppelganger effect, where someone else on Fandom already has the same face or looks like you or someone you know or maybe you look like someone they know, is also a thing.
"Overall," she concluded, "when you really start to dig into these and inspect them closely, it can all feel really meta on a level that you're not really sure you should be examining. It can almost make you start to question what reality even is...is there One True Reality? How do you know which is which? Are you the imposter, the slightly-altered version of some other Prime Reality? Maybe none of it's real, it's all just some sort of simulation or, I don't know, a game of some sort and we're not actually autonomous creatures but rather some playthings of higher powers acting in ways beyond our control.
"And that's usually the point where, if you don't just stop and take a breath and not think about it too much, you'll just end up in a spiral, so that's where I'm going to stop and open it up to you guys, and I swear, we're not going to be doing too many of the esoteric psychological theory lessons, I'm usually a much more experiential and hands-on teacher, but I do believe these are important things to look at if we're doing a class about the multiverse. What are your thoughts?"
Sign In - SYNTTM, 01/17.
Re: Sign In - SYNTTM, 01/17.
Re: Sign In - SYNTTM, 01/17.
Re: Sign In - SYNTTM, 01/17.
Re: Sign In - SYNTTM, 01/17.
Listen to the Lecture - SYNTTM, 01/17.
Class Activity: Discussion - SYNTTM, 01/17.
Talk to the Teacher - SYNTTM, 01/17.
OOC - SYNTTM, 01/17.