Ripping Grass Out Of The Ground Is Therapy

You show a cat something and they're like sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff ooooh I understand now. Don't care

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.

Can we just stop and think about how perfect it is that T.rex got the name it did?

Like, paleontology was still a new field when it was discovered. There were probably like ten dinosaurs listed at the time, and they already gave T.rex the greatest dinosaur name ever. There were thousands of species waiting to be discovered that could’ve proved a better fit for the name.

Imagine if Herrerasaurus had been discovered first and they had decided to call it Tyrannosaurus rex because it was a big predator by their standards? It would’ve become a joke about how the great “tyrant lizard king” was actually a little runt compared to later theropod findings.

Or imagine if they gave T.rex a less impressive name, like some other dinosaurs. It could’ve been called Wyomingsaurus or kept the name Manospondylus gigas. What sort of name is “giant porous vertebrae”?

But thankfully it didn’t happen. The president of the American Natural History museum looked at this fossil that was just one of the first of an entire world of dinosaurs waiting to be discovered, and thought “You are the baddest dinosaur we’re ever going to find, so you’re getting the baddest name we can give.”

And it worked. It’s been like 119 years since T.rex was discovered and it’s still the most badass theropod we’ve ever found, with the strongest bite force of any land animal and so successful that wherever it appeared in the fossil record other predators disappeared. It was so badass that as juveniles they outcompeted small-to-medium adult predators.

The baddest dinosaur ever could’ve gotten a weaksauce name, or the baddest name ever could’ve gone to an undeserving dinosaur. But it didn’t, and now the greatest land predator to ever walk the earth has the equally greatest name Tyrannosaurus rex, the motherfucking Tyrant Lizard King.

bugs are always getting into something they shouldn't

“Why should rich people pay more” because fuck ‘em

“So you are okay for paying more when you have money” I am not excluded from ‘fuck ‘em’ when relevant

the eternal struggle ...

i'm hotter than i think i am but i'm also uglier than i think i am. won't elaborate

what I really like about all these vintage couple’s portraits is that there is a very certain romatic decorum kept up – certain themes and poses – which, while of course being the mainstream preferred view of couples repeated throughout many studios, are just… so nice to look at. 

this staged affection, a mix of theatricality and intimacy, the couple holding still for a couple of moments and now immortalised in a very set sequence of embraces and kisses. there is a charm to it even when I can’t tell whether this was a genuine couple portait or just actors hired by the photographer.

the kiss on the bare shoulder (eyes perfectly averted), the cheek caress, the piano and the violin, the interrupted embrace, the woman tilted back as in a half-stopped dance…

"Rough sea" by Giovanni Allievi

god dammit. every single short horror story audiobook thing on youtube is always titled the same fuckin way

but you know what. i wannna know whats near tower 14