this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
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If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
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If you were late teens / early 20's or older when it first came out, I don't think it that weird.
It was bloody amazing. And then we've just all been waiting for it until the sequels, which are just now starting to roll in. The second one was a bit of a disappointment (bro) in my opinion, but I'm hoping the third one will be a positive surprise.
Basically I went to watch it for nostalgia, as I think a lot did.
AAA-game? Aren't there like lots of Avatar games?
Yeah, 2009 there was one, online shut down for it in 2014.
Guess you're talking about "the frontiers of Pandora" from 2023?
There's also "Pandora rising" from 2020.
The sequels were always in the works. The first movie was an experience and now people are just chasing that high again.
Hell, there's still tons of people waiting on the continuation on what happens to Jon Snow in the books after he's stabbed. That's still in the works with George, hopefully. Since like 2011.
i was, but i also saw disney's pocahontas as a kid. so uh... it was just that, but in 3d.
Yeah I saw Pocahontas in theaters as well. Loved it. Dad took me. Thanks for unlocking some memories of my late pops. Thanks, for real.
Prolly primed me to like Avatar tbh, or just liked it for the same reasons.
Yes, the similarities are remarkable, but it's not literally the same story, just mostly similar beats.
But I needn't remind you that a majority of all stories are more or less the monomyth aka the hero's journey:
Very much applies to Jakesully in this Avatar as well. Ofc there's much more that matches up with Pocahontas, I'm just pointing out that "true originality" doesn't exist, we seem to enjoy more or less similar stories/story structures, and the thing people loved in Avatar was the millions they spend imagining a rather complete world with a tad more complexity than Disney's -95 animated Pocahontas had. Although it waa beautiful as well. But the world building and animation used doesn't really compare, does it?
I wonder why people don't make the same argument for sports players. "It's just [previous champion] who looks different. Yeah it's totally different but like... is it totally different? Yes, it is, one is subjective one is objective. This comparison blows.
Food? We invented putting things on bread and have been doing variations of it since. All pretty similar, but also, a million different types. Bread and some filling / topping.
Anyway yeah the first movie is more or less Pocahontas. But like. I don't see how that matters. It does explain why the second sucked in comparison though. Doing something that has been already established to work but improving on it is the thing.
I only hope they go back from Jakesully family man to at least some semblance of heroes journey in the third. Maybe it'll be one of his kids idk.
Anyway No spoilers for 3 guys I'm not watching the trailer or reading anything
surely you must see how nonsense this sentence is.
people make to same argument for other creative arts all the time. books, music, painting. programming, even.
also, that thing where "everything is the hero's journey" is based on skewed data. it's not actually that prevalent.
Oh, "creative arts"? Like... subjective things? Unlike sports, in which there's usually an objective scoring system. Wish I had thought about that.
Oh wait I did yes.
In modern books? Probably not.
But in general? Yah, it is.
we both know that's not what i was referring to. i'm talking things like intellectual properly rights. also, there are plenty of subjectively judged sports.
one major criticism of the monomyth theory is that it relies, perhaps subconsciously, on confirmation bias. many classic works that have been called monomyth-conforming only fit that mold when you ignore stuff that doesn't fit, stuff that in some cases completely change the context of the other beats.
folklorist Barre Toelken, in an essay from 1996, wrote
Now it's just semantics about how much story structure we have.
I'm not saying it's the "hero's journey" every time, but if you for instance look at Dan Harmon's story circle — which is very much based on the monomyth — you'll see how those apply to pretty much all narrative stories. Not all, but most.
It's just the form we seem to like or which at least works well enough.
Also saying "we both know that..." online is a bit naive.
i personally go with the most charitable interpretation, trying to figure out what people mean rather than assuming that the text as written, no matter how incongruous to the rest of their argument so far, is exactly what they meant. but you do you.
That's called being "prescriptive", and I... was not.
well thank you for teaching me a new word!