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[vanilla-vivillon]

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.

[vanilla-vivillon]

who wants to go on an aesthetic road trip with me through desolate small town motel americana (pictures not mine!!)

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Jurdan✨

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Kaz “my mother is Ketterdam” Brekker

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WOOOOOOO NO CABLE PRIDE BABY!!! That website slapped!

Disney kid? Nickelodeon kid? No, I’m sorry; I was a PBS Kids kid. I’m talking Arthur, Cyberchase, Ruff With Ruff Ruffman, Read Between the Lions, Sesame Street, Clifford, Dragon Tales, Martha Speaks, Maya and Miguel, Word Girl, Zoboomafoo, Sagwa, Mr. Rogers, Reading Rainbow, Zoom, Bob the Builder, Boobah (ngl don’t know why I liked that one so much), Postcards From Buster, Caillou (which I recognize now is actually terrible but I loved it as a kid), Curious George, Jay Jay the Jet Plane, The Berenstain Bears, Thomas, It’s a Big Big World, Noddy. And don’t even get me STARTED on the website! Those games were FIRE! and I was learning something?! I played on the PBS Kids Go website well into middle school, past when I stopped regularly watching the shows.

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Do any of you have that one tv show that is just so close to your heart? Like you could watch all these other shows; but when you go back to that one, you just feel like you’ve stumbled your way home after being lost for a little while. Maybe the show ended years ago, maybe the show is still airing or is on hiatus, but no matter what the same holds true; when you see it, or talk about it, it feels like home.

#the good place #i just always find myself coming back to it #it’s got the right amount of sweetness

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The valorant display art is so decieptful yall lead me to believe chamber was a well dressed, arrogant intelligent elegant man well into his thirties but yall modelled him as a cryptobro who defintely designed the most misogynistic dating app

#I’m so confused #i wish I understood this reference #the fact that h looked it up throbbing no I would see some art piece 😭

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What color do you associate with the person you reblogged this from?

#hot pink

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What color do you associate with the person you reblogged this from?

#ivory

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What color do you associate with the person you reblogged this from?

#a white and pinky kind of color

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Let’s not forget to acknowledge Alexandre Dumas this Black History Month

The writer of two of the most well known stories worldwide, The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo was a black man. 

That’s excellence.

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What color do you associate with the person you reblogged this from?

#deep blue #new tags game

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Kaz is a material girl

#like wanting to grab 30 mil??? #very material girl #kaz brekker #six of crows

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My clownery thinking that they was in America to🤡

[vanilla-vivillon]

new reblog game actually put in the tags what the blog you reblogged from tastes like

#cinnamon and milk chocolate

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trying to find something out so please rb and give your opinion on these cookies specifically in the tags

#best things in my life #just ate a box of them the other day #my childhood