Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up.

Arepo built a temple in his field, a humble thing, some stones stacked up to make a cairn, and two days later a god moved in.

“Hope you’re a harvest god,” Arepo said, and set up an altar and burnt two stalks of wheat. “It’d be nice, you know.” He looked down at the ash smeared on the stone, the rocks all laid askew, and coughed and scratched his head. “I know it’s not much,” he said, his straw hat in his hands. “But - I’ll do what I can. It’d be nice to think there’s a god looking after me.”

The next day he left a pair of figs, the day after that he spent ten minutes of his morning seated by the temple in prayer. On the third day, the god spoke up.

“You should go to a temple in the city,” the god said. Its voice was like the rustling of the wheat, like the squeaks of fieldmice running through the grass. “A real temple. A good one. Get some real gods to bless you. I’m no one much myself, but I might be able to put in a good word?” It plucked a leaf from a tree and sighed. “I mean, not to be rude. I like this temple. It’s cozy enough. The worship’s been nice. But you can’t honestly believe that any of this is going to bring you anything.”

“This is more than I was expecting when I built it,” Arepo said, laying down his scythe and lowering himself to the ground. “Tell me, what sort of god are you anyway?”

“I’m of the fallen leaves,” it said. “The worms that churn beneath the earth. The boundary of forest and of field. The first hint of frost before the first snow falls. The skin of an apple as it yields beneath your teeth. I’m a god of a dozen different nothings, scraps that lead to rot, momentary glimpses. A change in the air, and then it’s gone.”

The god heaved another sigh. “There’s no point in worship in that, not like War, or the Harvest, or the Storm. Save your prayers for the things beyond your control, good farmer. You’re so tiny in the world. So vulnerable. Best to pray to a greater thing than me.”

Arepo plucked a stalk of wheat and flattened it between his teeth. “I like this sort of worship fine,” he said. “So if you don’t mind, I think I’ll continue.”

“Do what you will,” said the god, and withdrew deeper into the stones. “But don’t say I never warned you otherwise.”

Arepo would say a prayer before the morning’s work, and he and the god contemplated the trees in silence. Days passed like that, and weeks, and then the Storm rolled in, black and bold and blustering. It flooded Arepo’s fields, shook the tiles from his roof, smote his olive tree and set it to cinder. The next day, Arepo and his sons walked among the wheat, salvaging what they could. The little temple had been strewn across the field, and so when the work was done for the day, Arepo gathered the stones and pieced them back together.

“Useless work,” the god whispered, but came creeping back inside the temple regardless. “There wasn’t a thing I could do to spare you this.”

“We’ll be fine,” Arepo said. “The storm’s blown over. We’ll rebuild. Don’t have much of an offering for today,” he said, and laid down some ruined wheat, “but I think I’ll shore up this thing’s foundations tomorrow, how about that?” 

The god rattled around in the temple and sighed.

A year passed, and then another. The temple had layered walls of stones, a roof of woven twigs. Arepo’s neighbors chuckled as they passed it. Some of their children left fruit and flowers. And then the Harvest failed, the gods withdrew their bounty. In Arepo’s field the wheat sprouted thin and brittle. People wailed and tore their robes, slaughtered lambs and spilled their blood, looked upon the ground with haunted eyes and went to bed hungry. Arepo came and sat by the temple, the flowers wilted now, the fruit shriveled nubs, Arepo’s ribs showing through his chest, his hands still shaking, and murmured out a prayer. 

“There is nothing here for you,” said the god, hudding in the dark. “There is nothing I can do. There is nothing to be done.” It shivered, and spat out its words. “What is this temple but another burden to you?”

“We -” Arepo said, and his voice wavered. “So it’s a lean year,” he said. “We’ve gone through this before, we’ll get through this again. So we’re hungry,” he said. “We’ve still got each other, don’t we? And a lot of people prayed to other gods, but it didn’t protect them from this. No,” he said, and shook his head, and laid down some shriveled weeds on the altar. “No, I think I like our arrangement fine.”

“There will come worse,” said the god, from the hollows of the stone. “And there will be nothing I can do to save you.”

The years passed. Arepo rested a wrinkled hand upon the temple of stone and some days spent an hour there, lost in contemplation with the god.

And one fateful day, from across the wine-dark seas, came War.

Arepo came stumbling to his temple now, his hand pressed against his gut, anointing the holy site with his blood. Behind him, his wheat fields burned, and the bones burned black in them. He came crawling on his knees to a temple of hewed stone, and the god rushed out to meet him.

“I could not save them,” said the god, its voice a low wail. “I am sorry. I am sorry. I am so so sorry.” The leaves fell burning from the trees, a soft slow rain of ash. “I have done nothing! All these years, and I have done nothing for you!”

“Shush,” Arepo said, tasting his own blood, his vision blurring. He propped himself up against the temple, forehead pressed against the stone in prayer. “Tell me,” he mumbled. “Tell me again. What sort of god are you?”

“I -” said the god, and reached out, cradling Arepo’s head, and closed its eyes and spoke.

“I’m of the fallen leaves,” it said, and conjured up the image of them. “The worms that churn beneath the earth. The boundary of forest and of field. The first hint of frost before the first snow falls. The skin of an apple as it yields beneath your teeth.” Arepo’s lips parted in a smile.

“I am the god of a dozen different nothings,” it said. “The petals in bloom that lead to rot, the momentary glimpses. A change in the air -” Its voice broke, and it wept. “Before it’s gone.”

“Beautiful,” Arepo said, his blood staining the stones, seeping into the earth. “All of them. They were all so beautiful.”

And as the fields burned and the smoke blotted out the sun, as men were trodden in the press and bloody War raged on, as the heavens let loose their wrath upon the earth, Arepo the sower lay down in his humble temple, his head sheltered by the stones, and returned home to his god.

Sora found the temple with the bones within it, the roof falling in upon them.

“Oh, poor god,” she said, “With no-one to bury your last priest.” Then she paused, because she was from far away. “Or is this how the dead are honored here?” The god roused from its contemplation.

“His name was Arepo,” it said, “He was a sower.”

Sora startled, a little, because she had never before heard the voice of a god. “How can I honor him?” She asked.

“Bury him,” the god said, “Beneath my altar.”

“All right,” Sora said, and went to fetch her shovel.

“Wait,” the god said when she got back and began collecting the bones from among the broken twigs and fallen leaves. She laid them out on a roll of undyed wool, the only cloth she had. “Wait,” the god said, “I cannot do anything for you. I am not a god of anything useful.”

Sora sat back on her heels and looked at the altar to listen to the god.

“When the Storm came and destroyed his wheat, I could not save it,” the god said, “When the Harvest failed and he was hungry, I could not feed him. When War came,” the god’s voice faltered. “When War came, I could not protect him. He came bleeding from the battle to die in my arms.” Sora looked down again at the bones.

“I think you are the god of something very useful,” she said.

“What?” the god asked.

Sora carefully lifted the skull onto the cloth. “You are the god of Arepo.”

Generations passed. The village recovered from its tragedies—homes rebuilt, gardens re-planted, wounds healed. The old man who once lived on the hill and spoke to stone and rubble had long since been forgotten, but the temple stood in his name. Most believed it to empty, as the god who resided there long ago had fallen silent. Yet, any who passed the decaying shrine felt an ache in their hearts, as though mourning for a lost friend. The cold that seeped from the temple entrance laid their spirits low, and warded off any potential visitors, save for the rare and especially oblivious children who would leave tiny clusters of pink and white flowers that they picked from the surrounding meadow.

The god sat in his peaceful home, staring out at the distant road, to pedestrians, workhorses, and carriages, raining leaves that swirled around bustling feet. How long had it been? The world had progressed without him, for he knew there was no help to be given. The world must be a cruel place, that even the useful gods have abandoned, if farms can flood, harvests can run barren, and homes can burn, he thought.

He had come to understand that humans are senseless creatures, who would pray to a god that cannot grant wishes or bless upon them good fortune. Who would maintain a temple and bring offerings with nothing in return. Who would share their company and meditate with such a fruitless deity. Who would bury a stranger without the hope for profit. What bizarre, futile kindness they had wasted on him. What wonderful, foolish, virtuous, hopeless creatures, humans were.

So he painted the sunset with yellow leaves, enticed the worms to dance in their soil, flourished the boundary between forest and field with blossoms and berries, christened the air with a biting cold before winter came, ripened the apples with crisp, red freckles to break under sinking teeth, and a dozen other nothings, in memory of the man who once praised the god’s work on his dying breath.

“Hello, God of Every Humble Beauty in the World,” called a familiar voice.

The squinting corners of the god’s eyes wept down onto curled lips. “Arepo,” he whispered, for his voice was hoarse from its hundred-year mutism.

“I am the god of devotion, of small kindnesses, of unbreakable bonds. I am the god of selfless, unconditional love, of everlasting friendships, and trust,” Arepo avowed, soothing the other with every word.

“That’s wonderful, Arepo,” he responded between tears, “I’m so happy for you—such a powerful figure will certainly need a grand temple. Will you leave to the city to gather more worshippers? You’ll be adored by all.”

“No,” Arepo smiled.

“Farther than that, to the capitol, then? Thank you for visiting here before your departure.”

“No, I will not go there, either,” Arepo shook his head and chuckled.

“Farther still? What ambitious goals, you must have. There is no doubt in my mind that you will succeed, though,” the elder god continued.

“Actually,” interrupted Arepo, “I’d like to stay here, if you’ll have me.”

The other god was struck speechless. “…. Why would you want to live here?”

“I am the god of unbreakable bonds and everlasting friendships. And you are the god of Arepo.”

I reblogged this once with the first story. Now the story has grown and I’m crying. This is gorgeous, guys. This is what dreams are made of.

This is amazing!

Once upon a summer evening (2023)

What ate my brain at 3 am

The doctors call him touch-averse but the truth is he’s starving for it. The truth is he aches for something he’s been taught he cannot have, and that’s nothing new: in another lifetime he was taught he couldn’t have another man’s touch the way he wanted, too.

But when it’s offered he feels his old bones shake so hard the metal in them rattles, and it leaves him shocked and reeling, on the verge of panic when Steve thinks the wrong thing and takes his hand away.

But fuck fear, fuck pain and all its lessons: he wants like a forest fire. With his heart in his throat he catches the retreating wrist and draws Steve’s hand to his cheek. The fingers curl around him and he can breathe again, like he’s been suffocating for decades. He turns his face into the palm because he can’t meet the fragile glass wonder on his friend’s face. Steve takes the hint, finally, and strokes deft fingers through his hair, traces the shell of his ear, the line of his neck.

It’s effervescent. It sings under his skin and lights up his blood, makes his battered heart beat quick. Wetness pricks at his eyes. He lets it gather and fall in silence; the only sound is their breath and the whisper of skin on skin.

Why don’t I hear more about undead beings coming back to warn people? It’s always zombies wanting to drag people down to join them in the grave, ghosts seeking vengeance, spirits trying to chase people out of their domains - but if you died horribly and were left rattling around some spooky mansion for eternity, wouldn’t you want to stop people from blundering into the same death you had?

You feel a cold breath on your neck as you get in the car. It won’t leave until you fasten your seatbelt. An unseen force catches your foot as you pass the fourth step every time you walk up the stairs. During a renovation, you find out the wood is rotten. You can never find a pack of cigarettes - even ones guests bring disappear from their pockets and are found weeks later on the lawn, empty. Your daughter is giggling and laughing at something unseen, chasing after it away from the cliffside on your family hike. You don’t know why, but you feel compelled to leave a spare hairband and some stickers on a picnic table as you leave the park. Tribute? A thank you? The items are gone by next time you visit, and you swear a happy child’s hum follows you home on the breeze.

…More preventative hauntings. It just makes sense.

Everyone is convinced the old house on the hill is full of evil spirits because anyone who tries to sneak in gets the ever loving shit scared out of them by the craziest poltergeist imaginable

Turns out the house had massive structural issues and was just one door-slam away from caving in on itself and the ghost was trying to keep people safe

Once the house did finally collapse the ghost moved on to the old abandoned factory that never had its industrial waste properly disposed of

Eventually the local inspection unit gave it an honorary OSHA certification

@osha-official-the-sequel

As a ghost, it’s much easier to shriek and bellow than enunciate the words “there’s black mold in here”

Why is this phrased as though you have been the ghost, tumblr user fieldbears

I don’t mean I have personal experience. I just have friends who complain

God, I can't tell you how much the "there's not enough enrichment in my enclosure" joke has helped my mental health. Because, for some reason I can't comprehend, pretending that I'm a zoo keeper caring for an animal (which is also me) just makes everything easier to comprehend. Like "Your head gets screwey when you're apartment is messy" just doesn't carry as much resonance as "The tiger becomes agitated when its enclosure is cluttered" because then I'll be like, no shit? The tiger? I've gotta keep things nice and clean for the tiger.

This is how the golden age of piracy ended.

The first mermaid to get tattoos :)

“we didn’t know any better,” the crewman says, and swallows, presenting the chest to the captain. “what do we do now?”

“kill it,” the captain says, but the ice is melting in his eyes.

“we can’t,” the first mate says desperately, praying she won’t have to fight her captain on this. “we can’t. we - i won’t. we won’t.”

“i know.”

x

“daddy,” she says, floating in a tub of seawater in the hold, “daddy, la-la, la-la-la.”

her voice rings like bells. her accent is strange; her mouth isn’t made for human words. it mesmerises even the hardiest amongst them and she wasn’t even trying. the crew has taken to diving for shellfish near the shorelines for her; she loves them, splitting the shells apart with strength seen in no human toddler, slurping down the slimy molluscs inside and laughing, all plump brown cheeks and needle-sharp teeth. she sometimes splashes them for fun with her smooth, rubbery brown tail. even when they get soaked they laugh. they love her.

“daddy,” she calls again, and he can hear the worry in her voice. the storm rocking the ship is harsh and uncaring, and if they go down, she would be the only survivor.

“don’t worry,” he says, and goes over, sitting next to the tub. the first mate, leaning against the wall, pretends not to notice as he quietly begins to sing.

x

“father,” she says, one day, as she leans on the edge of the dock and the captain sits next to her, “why am I here?”

“your mother abandoned you,” he says, as he always has. “we found you adrift, and couldn’t bear to leave you there.”

she picks at the salt-soaked boards, uncertain. her hair is pulled back in a fluffy black puff, the white linen holding it slipping almost over one of her dark eyes. one of her first tattoos, a many-limbed kraken, curls over her right shoulder and down her arm, delicate tendrils wrapped around her calloused fingertips. “alright,” she says.

x

“why am I really here?” she asks the first mate, watching the sun set over the water in streaks of liquid metal that pooled in the troughs of the waves and glittered on the seafoam.

“we didn’t know any better,” the first mate says, staring into the water. “we didn’t know- we didn’t know anything. we didn’t understand why she fought so viciously to guard her treasure. we could not know she protected something a thousand times more precious than the purest gold.”

she wants to be furious, but she can’t. she already knew the answer, from reading the guilt in her father’s eyes and the empty space in her own history. and she can’t hate her family.

“it’s alright,” she says. “i do have a family, anyways. i don’t think i would have liked my other life near as much.”

x

her kraken grows, spreading its tendrils over her torso and arms. she grows too, too large to come on board the ship without being hauled up in a boat from the water. she sings when the storms come and swims before the ship to guide it to safety. she fights off more than one beast of the seas, and gathers a set of scars across her back that she bears with pride. “i don’t mind,” she says, when the captain fusses over her, “now i match all of you.”

the first time their ship is threatened, really threatened, is by another fleet. a friend turned enemy of the first mate. “we shouldn’t fight him,” she says, peering through the spyglass.

“why not?” the mermaid asks.

“he’ll win,” the first mate says.

the mermaid tips her head sideways. Her eyes, dark as the deep waters, gleam in the noon light. “are you sure?” she asks.

x

the enemy fleet surrenders after the flagship is sunk in the night, the anchor ripped off the ship and the planks torn off the hull. the surviving crew, wild-eyed and delirious, whimper and say a sea serpent came from the water and attacked them, say it was longer than the boat and crushed it in its coils. the first mate hears this and has to hide her laughter. the captain apologizes to his daughter for doubting her.

“don’t worry,” she says, with a bright laugh, “it was fun.”

x

the second time, they are pushed by a storm into a royal fleet. they can’t possibly fight them, and they don’t have the time to escape.

“let me up,” the mermaid urges, surfacing starboard and shouting to the crew. “bring me up, quickly, quickly.”

they lower the boat and she piles her sinous form into it, and uses her claws to help the crew pull her up. once on the deck she flops out of the boat and makes her way over to the bow. the crew tries to help but she’s so heavy they can barely lift parts of her.

she crawls up out in front of the rail and wraps her long webbed tail around the prow. the figurehead has served them well so far but they need more right now. she wraps herself around the figurehead and raises her body up into the wind takes a breath of the stinging salt air and sings.

the storm carries her voice on its front to the royal navy. they are enchanted, so stunned by her song that they drop the rigging ropes and let the tillers drift. the pirates sail through the center of the fleet, trailing the storm behind them, and by the time the fleet has managed to regain its senses they are buried in wind and rain and the pirates are gone.

x

she declines guns. instead she carries a harpoon and its launcher, and uses them to board enemy ships, hauling her massive form out of the water to coil on the deck and dispatch enemies with ruthless efficiency. her family is feared across all the sea.

x

“you know we are dying,” the captain says, looking down at her.

she floats next to the ship, so massive she could hold it in her arms. her eyes are wise.

“i know,” she says, “i can feel it coming.”

the first mate stands next to the captain. she never had a lover or a child, and neither did he, but to the mermaid they are her parents. she will always love her daughter. the tattoos are graven in dark swirls across the mermaid’s deep brown skin and the flesh of her tail, even spiraling onto the spiked webbing on her spine and face. her hair is still tied back, this time with a sail that could not be patched one last time.

“we love you,” the first mate says simply, looking down. her own tightly coiled black hair falls in to her face; she shakes the locs out of the way and smiles through her tears. the captain pretends he isnt crying either.

“i love you too,” the mermaid says, and reached up to pull the ship down just a bit, just to hold them one last time.

“guard the ship,” the captain says. “you always have but you know they’re lost without you.”

“without you,” the mermaid corrects, with a shrug that makes waves. “what will we do?”

“i don’t know,” the captain says. “but you’ll help them, won’t you?”

“of course i will,” she scoffs, rolling her eyes. “i will always protect my family.”

x

the captain and the first mate are gone. the ship has a new captain, young and fearless - of the things she can afford to disregard. she fears and loves the ocean, as all captains do. she does not fear the royal fleet. and she does not fear the mermaid.

“you know, i heard stories about you when i was a little girl,” she says, trailing her fingers in the water next to the dock.

the mermaid stares at her with one eye the size of a dinner table. “is that so?” she hums, smirking with teeth sharper than the swords of the entire navy.

“they said you could sink an entire fleet and that you had skin tougher than dragon scales,” the new captain says, grinning right back at the monster who could eat her without a moment’s hesitation. “i always thought they were telling tall tales.”

“and now?”

“they were right,” the new captain says. “how did they ever befriend you?”

the mermaid smiles, fully this time, her dark eyes gleaming under the white linen sail. “they didn’t know any better.”

She protects her family.

Little Maid Masterlist:

Sleepy Tea Recipe 🌙

Are you or a loved one among the many people who have difficulty sleeping? This tea recipe of mine may help!

-ingredients-

• 1 part Chamomile

• 1 part Mugwort

• 2 parts Lemon Balm

• 1/2 part Lavender

Steep in hot water for 15 minutes, strain, then enjoy about an hour before bed as you wind down to prepare for sleep! This blend brings feelings of euphoria and helps you to deeply relax. The Mugwort in this blend can also help you to remember your dreams as well as increase how vivid they are.

⚠️ if pregnant or menstruating, do NOT use Mugwort. Artemisia vulgaris stimulates blood flow that can cause a miscarriage or excessive menstrual bleeding⚠️

Whoever invented kangaroos is a fucking idiot

Kangaroos are animals that seem like they should be cryptids but it’s an entire species.

God: What if we just made a really horrible man? Give it. Give it lots of things. Tail leg. Belly sack. Talons. Abs. taste for flesh. Valid driver’s license. Fur.

the ability to beat the goddamn piss out of you.

and taunt you afterward

excuse me, this is an actual kangaroo? not a cunning-edit furry joke? you’re telling me this is what literal live kangaroos look like in real life?

yeah kangaroos are actually pretty mean looking. The cute ones are wallabies.

kangaroo^

wallaby^

kangaroo^

wallaby^

this is just so fucked up

Awww, roos can be cute too:

Unless they wanna beat your ass:

Why do they look like rabbits who are into CrossFit?

Because they are

Why don’t you have a filler episode with no real stakes that’s focused more on exploring character relationships than moving any sort of plot along and maybe you’ll feel better

It’s INSANE to me how controversial romance novels are. Romance novels. Like, being openly a fan of them immediately opens you up to people constantly coming at you like “but don’t you think it’s ~limiting- and ~juvenile~ to have a genre of books with happy endings for women?”

Like.

No?

Why is it such a big deal to want to read stories where women have sex and then don’t die at the end? Jesus Christ.

Why is the concept of female characters being happy seen as less creative than female characters suffering? (Trust me, creating a world where women win in the end takes a lot more creativity and artistic vision lmfao)

Anyway, literary bros will pry my romance novels with their happy endings from my cold dead fingers.

Or die in the very beginning of the book. But no one calls out James Patterson for writing another formulaic thriller in which a woman is horrifically killed after getting laid and then some man solves her murder. Every. Damn. Time.

But hey, those romance novels where women get happy endings are so limiting, eh?

Real talk: realizing how common it is for female characters to be punished for on-the-page sex with death was a big part of my embracing the romance genre. Once I noticed it I couldn’t unnotice it. It’s everywhere. A woman having sex in literature or non-romance genre fiction is the literary equivalent of a red shirt on Star Trek.

It’s not just the sex thing, though that’s a key element. It’s that, in romance novels, the heroine gets to be cared for the way she normally would care for everyone else. It’s wish fulfillment in that her romantic partner will do emotional labor, spend a great deal of time thinking about her, or sacrifice his desires or fortune or reputation to be with her, or spend days nursing her back to health, or risking his life to save hers. In romance novels, you’ll find men taking care of children, talking about their feelings, putting effort into their appearance—even if they are adorably bad at it. Watch how many romance novel protagonists fall in love with a man who happens to be rich or handsome, but she didn’t give in until his behavior changed and he starts mentoring her, or providing for her, or being gentle toward her, nourishing her, listening to her, appreciating her… I suspect romance novels are looked down upon not for being juvenile formulaic “beach reads” but because they paint a fantasy world that leaves men feeling uncomfortable or even emasculated. But whether you’re a Midwest housewife or a big city CEO, women who read romance novels just want to read about men loving women the way women are expected love everyone else—with a nurturing and protective form of unswerving loyalty. Great sex they don’t have to die for is also a huge bonus, but the *romance* part of the novel is genuinely more about the woman being appreciated (for her beauty or spunk or intelligence at first, and then for all of her by the end).

“women who read romance novels just want to read about men loving women the way women are expected to love everyone else—with a nurturing and protective form of unswerving loyalty.”

THANK YOU.

According to the website smartbitchestrashybooks, which analyzes romance novels to a great degree, one common element of the average romance novel is what they call the grovel.  That is, there’s a turning point near the climax of the book where the leading man says, in effect, “I hurt you.  I had my reasons, but they don’t make it right.  I am devastated that I hurt you, and I will do whatever it takes to make it okay again.  Leaving you is completely on the table even though I find the prospect horrific.”

And that’s a very important fantasy.  To have your feelings, your pain, be made so absolutely central to the narrative, to someone else’s world.  You could call it a power fantasy, but I don’t think that’s exactly right.  It’s a significance fantasy.  A romance story is a story in which the woman is the most significant damn thing in the book.

And when you think of it like that, you realize why some people are really, really threatened by it.

I will never not reblog this.

The qualities that divide good children’s literature from bad children’s literature:

1) The dragons are real.

2) The adults don’t believe you.

will elaborate

what I’m getting at here is that being a child is an experience defined by marginalization—by powerlessness, not being taken seriously, not being believed.

when you are a child you are aware of the terrible things in the world and terrified by them, and you feel everything so intensely. Before you learn to manage your emotions, they are consuming, incandescent experiences that are almost impossible to access again as an adult. You are small but your emotions and experiences are as large and as vivid as anyone else’s, but they are not taken as seriously as everyone else’s. You recognize that adults condescend to you and dismiss you.

As a child, you know that the world ought to be fair, that people ought to be helped, and you ask “Why?” And you ask “What is the point?” And as you become an adult you learn to repress those things. The answer to every question you ask as a child is “Because you have to” or “Because that’s the way it is,” and these are bullshit answers and we all know it, but defending an authoritarian relationship to someone weaker is easier than defending things about our world that are indefensible if we look at them honestly.

In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, when Lucy first enters Narnia, she is not believed. Narnia has so much about it that makes it THE quintessential children’s book series, the archetype for children’s book series, and it all centers around how Narnia cannot be understood by adults.

Imitators have reduced this down to something about the Wonder of Childhood, something about how children are innocent and special that means only they can see magic because only they are able to believe in it. This is Not Correct. Books that do this are saccharine and awful because this is fake and we all know deep down that it’s fake.

Here’s the truth. Children do not live in an idyllic fantasy land where bad things aren’t real, adults do. For kids who have dealt with grief, abuse, trauma of all kinds—and let’s be real, that’s most of us—it’s condescending and idiotic to treat children as if they’re innocent about the evils in the world. Almost every child experiences evil early and is unable to communicate that experience to adults, whether this is in the form of a relatively innocent childhood fear or deeply damaging abuse.

There is much that has been said about how the Narnia books are about the trauma of World War 1, but most of that can also be said about how Narnia is about childhood in general—the traumatic nature of the return to the Real World is left unstated, because it is understood by the audience. Children have a vivid inner world that they do not have the vocabulary to explain to adults, and this is what Narnia is about.

There’s a reason why Neil Gaiman’s children’s books are so memorable, and it’s the same reason that they scared the living shit out of adults. There’s a reason why Where the Wild Things Are and Shel Silverstein’s poetry have had such a long cultural shelf life. These are not cozy, comfy stories that affirm adult perceptions of the childhood world as flat and innocent; they are troubling and ambiguous.

There’s also a reason why the children’s books that are so important often piss adults off. The best example I can think of is the Captain Underpants series. I never read any of them and yet I remember the extraordinary disdain people had for those books; they were the poster child for What Terrible Thing Has Become Of Literature.

And sure, maybe to an uncritical adult eye the adventures of misbehaving kids thwarting the rules of the world with poop jokes has no value, but I would argue the opposite—the poop jokes are, in fact, fundamental to the anti-authoritarian message. Adult attempts to suppress the scatological sense of humor children have hold a very important message about power.

Because here’s the thing: poop and farts are funny because they’re taboo, and especially so to children because we are constantly telling children what they Can and Can’t say. It’s not about poop, it’s about how adults betray themselves every time they get in a tizzy about a seven year old saying “turd,” because the fact that “turd” gets such a reaction means that uptight adults don’t have the power over kids that they want kids to think they have.

Scatological subjects embarrass adults, and the more uptight and controlling those adults are, the more devastating the embarrassment is. Kids are super conscious of the power dynamics in all their dealings with adults—how could they not be? And the explosion of raucous laughter that results from an elementary school teacher saying something that sounds sort of like “doody” wouldn’t happen if elementary school teachers weren’t constantly trying to reassert and solidify their position of power.

They, too, can be mortified and laid low by a humble “doody,” and if it did not have the power to do so, they wouldn’t try so hard to stop the kids from saying it.

I'd argue that where that all stands for Captain Underpants, part of it is also that it's a comic book series for kids that features two kids who constantly disobey their teachers and principal. Dav Pilkey, the author of Captain Underpants, has ADHD and dyslexia and has been open about the fact that he was punished very often for both of these things. The reason why many adults find Captain Underpants distasteful is not only because of fart and poop jokes, though that is certainly a factor, it's that the series is for those kids who can't focus, who struggle in school academically because the author himself was a kid like that, and as a result Captain Underpants has some pretty strong anti-authority messages. For example:

Dab Pilkey genuinely has the best ‘about the author’ I’ve ever read and I think it’s a crime that it hasn’t been included yet

Dav Pilkey is not even in the vicinity of fucking around, is he.

I'm not sure this is actually a complete theory. I think its true as far as it goes. But most of the big examples do have a range of adult responses. Going back to the Narnia example; the Professor believes Lucy, its actually her siblings that don't. And of course, once they get to Narnia the various adult Narnians take them totally seriously.

I think its possibly more important that in a children's story, especially a children's fantasy, it doesn't matter if the adults believe you.

Having an adult not believe you, as a child, is horrendous, in part because its never nice to be disbelieved, but much more critically, because telling a grownup is often the only thing children can do to address a problem. If they aren't believed they're literal only option is to try again with a different adult. In children's stories; if the adults don't believe them, the kids just get on with things and fix the problems themselves, and often it ends with the adults realizing they were right and doing what the children say. The Lives of Christopher Chant is a really good example of this, its what happens in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe in the final battle scene.

Art Block

I got an art block and I thought to do something about it. We’re friends now! \o/

This is the best way to see it.

the cutest encouragement.. 🥺 wanna encourage writers with this as well

Same with writer’s block too! Sometimes when I lose motivation to write the thing I’m writing because of the block™ it allows me come up with new ideas to add to the wip pile lol

can we weaponize comfort already? 

a lot of places have a culture that valorizes never sleeping and not eating right and not taking breaks and stuff like that. 

fuck that. I want like

look at how comfortable and well rested I am. I am well-nourished, I take bubble baths, and I have a good work-life balance. 

self-care has made me strong. has running yourself into the ground made you strong?

I will destroy you. and then I will have a pleasant lunch.

can we weaponize that?

This is the most metal self-care post I’ve seen in a while.

The world told me to hate myself; I realized the greatest act of rebellion was to love myself

Emergency cleaning: Unfuck your whole house in the shortest time possible

So, your landlord/parents/home inspector/favorite movie star is dropping by, and your place is a disaster. You don’t have much time to clean it up. You’re in emergency mode. Let’s get started.

You can do this. It’s overwhelming, yes, but it is not impossible. You just need to do it. You have a list. You have directions. You have a whole bunch of Internet strangers who have been there before and who are cheering you on. You can do this, but you need to get started.

Why are you still here? GO. START. NOW.

the number of times in my past that I desperately wanted/needed someone to sit me down and tell me this stuff. I will never get back the hours and hours lost to headless-chicken mode, but it’s nice to know that in the last year I’ve learned so many coping mechanisms :D

this is also good if you’re NOT in crisis mode but you need to Do Something with your mess & can’t focus enough for an in-depth clean of one spot. wander through all rooms with a trash bag and get rid of obvious trash, and you’ve done a lot for your space without having to concentrate too much. if in a few days you have the energy for doing the next step, hooray! if not, at least all the trash is gone.

I need this right now!  Thank you!

So when Earth gets its own permanent superstorm like Jupiter’s Great Red Spot and it makes it so the tropics are basically no longer habitable by humans is it going to have one of these random old-person hurricane names

How fucked up would it be if they chose your first name for that storm

Like you’d pretty much have to change it, right? The storm’s not going away and keeping your name would be in pretty poor taste, I’d think

in a Young Adult novel it would just be called The Storm

In a Terry Pratchett novel it would just be called Alfred. Not Hurricane Alfred, or Tropical Storm Alfred, just Alfred. This might be brought up once by a naive, sympathetic viewpoint character, but some wiser (for certain values of wise) character will admonish them for discrimination against natural phenomena, and noting that we would never call a human “Human Jim”. Later in the story, the Alfred’s individuality and relatability will be a significant plot point.

in a cyberpunk novel it would be the second half of an ordinary word, with an apostrophe at the beginning. the ‘phoon, the ‘cane, etc.

goddammit you’re absolutely right

“In a cyberpunk novel”

As if half the english-peaking internet doesn’t already call The Plague “the ‘Rona”

etc., etc.

My favorite “Great Moment in Moderate History” was when Abraham Lincoln called John Brown a lunatic for trying to end the expansion of slavery through violence and then five years later ended slavery through violence.

The moral of the story is violence becomes morally acceptable the moment the powers that be approve of its use and not a moment before.

I had an angry row with my dad over John Brown (because this is what my family is) after listening to John Browns Body. His arguement was that ‘John Brown was a crazed fanatic, and he murdered people’, and my response was ‘Yeah, it would be a shame if slavery had to be abolished through violence or something. Good thing they stopped that crazy fanatic John Brown and then didn’t fight the bloodiest war in human history about it just afterwards and instead just abolished it peacefully’, to which the response was ‘No, that’s different’ - because one sort of violence upholds the state and is legitimised by it, and the other undermines it. State ideology is strong.

“if a private person should be guilty of the same things the government is doing all the time, you’d brand him a murderer, thief and scoundrel. but as long as the violence comitted is “lawful” you approve of it and submit to it.” ~Alexander Berkman

-Max Stirner

I wish you all very good sex. if you don’t like sex, I wish you a very good romance. if you don’t want either of them. I wish you a very good bowl of soup and some bread, mate.

so january is almost over huh? what’s next? february? give me a break