I’m Not Sorry.

I’m really obsessed with the idea of worldbuilding that refuses to clarify its relationship to reality

When we read books we instinctively try to categorize books based on the kind of book they are, oh this is fantasy, post-apocalyptic, etc. and we try to find out things and clarify what kind of world it is and whether or not the things in it are make believe and how make believe they are.

So what if I...Messed with that process?

For instance. A book is set in Ohio. We mention the names of cities in Ohio and pieces of Ohio’s history and famous landmarks in Ohio and it’s incredibly well researched, even down to the names of museums in Cincinnati or something. We’re talking very firmly established in the facts of a place. It’s kind of an eerie book and in some ways the setting seems weird or cloudy or dreamy but it seems grounded in just the amount of facts that are in it about the setting.

There are little factoids dropped here and there. At first very boring ones. Something that happened at an Ohio water treatment plant in 1995. What it takes to serve on a jury in Ohio. Ohio laws about spraying pesticides on corn. Facts about corn itself. Probably one of those cutesy little facts about weird local laws.

They start to get...stranger. The little bits of worldbuilding. Did you know that Ohio has had more nuclear power plant accidents than any other state? In this small town in Ohio, you used to need a license to perform an exorcism! This charming small town’s mayor is a ghost. In Ohio, it is legal for doctors to draw more of your blood than they need to sell to third parties. There are no Dollar Tree’s in Ohio. (Have you ever seen a Dollar Tree in Ohio? Are you sure?)

At some point the reader catches onto something that is clearly not right. Maybe the book states at some point that Indiana is to the east of Ohio instead of the west. This is clearly a mistake, and they move on.

Some things about the everyday realities of the setting seem peculiar. There seem to be quite a bit of packs of wild dogs about, and mold seems to grow a lot quicker. Grass is described very strangely—a shade of green that isn’t very characteristic of grass. There seem to be a lot of cults, and there are a lot of empty lots in town enclosed with razor wire for no apparent reason. Sometimes a character’s hands grow suddenly cold, and they panic and hasten inside. Frostbite? Is it the climate? Why does the author write that way?

At some point, though, it becomes clear that the author is fictionalizing a bit. It may certainly be the case that nuclear accidents have occurred in Ohio more than any other state, but the tale of how deer from that area glow in low light is probably made up. And though that famous televangelist existed and it seems plausible enough that he owned tigers, like some kind of janky drug dealer would purchase, it seems implausible that he regularly fed people to them.

As the story continues, more and more facts seem a little off, though. The spatial relationship of Ohio to its surrounding states, and the shape that Ohio is (it’s described at one point as having a panhandle, and as bordering East Tennessee) seems to make less and less sense. The wild dogs are massive, and have smoldering eyes like hellhounds. One nuclear disaster apparently wiped out a full sixth of Ohio’s population. The deer, plagued with cancer from the radiation, have turned carnivores. The wild horses run under a red sky—the sky is always described as red. The original capital of Ohio is lost, its stones dashed down in the war that made its citizens turn to cannibalism. The invasive plants of Ohio can pry open windows, and once choked a woman in her sleep. The people of Ohio dream more frequently of birds of prey gouging out their eyes than people in any other state. There are plagues of rats in Ohio that sometimes devastate towns. In Ohio, unexplained disappearances are rarely investigated. There are eagles in Ohio—their wings blot out the sun. Ohio briefly seceded from the Union in 1922, and there are those that still believe in the Free People’s Empire of Ohio. Ohio shares a border with Arizona. Ohio has a coastline on the edge of a dark and perpetually cold sea.

It becomes abundantly clear that this is not Ohio. It is something else, named Ohio and superficially wearing Ohio as a skin, but it is not Ohio. And looking back, it is hard to tell when it stopped being Ohio. When it stopped being just quirky Americana and an eerie mood and started being...this. Small details were off early on, but these were not noticed, because they seemed so normal. The sky was always described as red, but that was because it was supposed to be sunset...right?

The governor of Ohio has been struck down. All bow before the God-Emperor of Ohio. The black wolves of Hell await those who will not bow with their teeth.

LET’S GROOVE! an ode to unsettling dance scenes

books for when you want to feel like a beautiful 15th century milkmaid or an adventurous schoolgirl in the english countryside

(I honestly couldn’t think of a better way to categorize it) 

We Have Always Lived in The Castle by Shirley Jackson

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Tess of the D’urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay

A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce

Thistle and Thyme by Sorche Nic Leodas

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Bernett

I Capture Castle by Dodie Smith

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

Howls Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce

The Weaver: what did you bring me?

Feyre: dinner *slams door shut, trapping Ianthe* 

 Me:

When your the lead heroine in a classic literature novel and someone proposes to you:

“In 2020, feminism is as simple as buying the right products. It requires no thought, no critical analysis, and no changing any other behavior of your own. When everyone is a feminist, no one is. And the fallacy of empowerment basically stuck a whole generation of women with the idea that being hot is the same thing as being powerful, without realizing that if your power goes away as soon as men don’t want to fuck you anymore, it was never yours to begin with.”

- @kendallroy, this post

garrus: shepard died so i'm gonna go to omega and become a vigilante mercenary

liara: why

garrus: she's pretty much 85% of my impulse control

hallmark movie

woman: i have a high paying job in new york city that i love and christmas isn’t that important to me

her black friend: you need a MAN

woman’s dad: come to the small town,, we are suffering without a baker for our town festivale

woman: ok dad

man: i harvest maple syrup for a living and make 2 dollars a year

woman: :/

man: will you harvest maple syrup with me…

woman: i’ve decided i hate my job and i’m going to resign myself to making christmas tree ornaments in fuckberg for the rest of my life

When it’s 3 am

Me: I really need to sleep, I have an 8 am class

Me: *lies still for about five seconds*

Me: ok but smut *goes to the internet *