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so don’t get me wrong because a lot of arthurian stuff is super misogynistic. but it’s never really in the damsel in distress way you expect. like the most helpless damsel is lancelot trapped and crying in a tower, completely useless, until this random girl who made him behead a guy in front of her fifty pages ago rolls up with a pickax and rope and is like “ok I’m minecrafting you out of here.” and this works.

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jokes on you guys OC stands for offended chicken

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so. my wife came downstairs just as i took a bite out of the remaining half red onion on the counter. literally within seconds of just getting away with it. i looked at her, and she looked at me, and we both sat there a moment, all frozen, beforeshe said babs, what the fuck. i tried to say i can explain but it came out as or corn explorn because such was the onion in my mouth that there was no room for words. its honestly a miracle that she understood me at all. at least, i'm assuming that she understood me because she did let me get my bearings for a few moments. a smarter man would've used that time to think up a good lie, but instead i just chewed as fast as i could because i knew i was gonna have to tell a whopper and i really wanted to be able to use big words again.

big words are instrumental to telling a whopper.

anyway, i totally ran out of time. i barely got my first swallow of onion in before she said well?, and i did at least have an empty mouth to match my empty head. but also i had no lies. so i looked her dead in the face, opened my mouth and waited, every bit as curious as her, to hear what excuse my mouth was gonna come up with.

im pregnant, said my mouth.

great job, mouth, said my brain.

mmmmm onion, said my mouth.

better you than me, said my wife. then she went upstairs. it has been two hours she still refuses to kiss me. im devastated. im shook. im crying a little, i think.

(but that might just be the onion.)

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I felt like I needed to clarify some things before we could continue any more conversations on this godforsaken website.

I’m very proud of the European Robin, I think I really captured it.

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simulacra for bootlickers

FYI, this post is a little more NSFW than usual with the language.

Usually I think McMansions are kind of funny. Sometimes, I even like them. If I didn't like them at least a little bit, I don't think I'd be running this blog for a solid eight years and counting. Some McMansions are so strange and so fascinating in their architectural languages (it's never just one language) that they test the boundaries of what residential architecture can do on an individual and often ad hoc level. Others so cogently and often whimsically express various cultural fascinations and deeply entrenched American ideas of what prosperity looks like (read: neuroticisms), that, as a sociological text they remain unrivaled.

But some (many!) McMansions are, to put it bluntly, evil. And it is these McMansions that reveal the ugly truth beneath the ugly architecture: that the McMansion is a manifestation of power and wealth meant to communicate that power and wealth to others as explicitly as possible, and that it does so in a country besieged by brutal and inescapable income inequality. In our present political moment characterized by extreme and deliberate cruelty, fear, and baleful destruction of all that is pro-social in nature (and nature itself), I figured it was my duty to show my readers a house that embodies these sentiments, one we can all use to assuage some of our perceived powerlessness by way of mocking the shit out of it.

There are a lot of fake White Houses in the US. Most of them can be found in or around the area of McLean, Virginia, the ground zero of DC blob sickos whose job it is to mete out the ratio of lethality and economy for weapons manufacturers. This one, however, is in Indiana, outside of Evansville. It was built at the apex of theme park mindset in architecture (1997) and is on the market for $4.9 million dollars. However, don't be fooled by this opening exterior shot. It takes literal drone footage to show how unhinged this house actually is. In reality, the White House facade is akin to the light dangling from an anglerfish, luring the unsuspecting victim in...

Completely NORMAL amount of money at play here!

There are some images historians (if there are any left) will look back upon and say, such a phenomenon truly would not be possible without an abundance of cheap oil and derivative products. Fortunately, in the immanent post-neoliberal chobani yogurt solarpunk utopia, this house will be converted into a half ruin garden (though this will take some time with all the plastic) half public spa complex. A better world is possible, but only if we imagine it.

Pro tip: there's a way of saying "wow it's so big" that can land as the most devastating insult in the rhetorical lexicon.

I'll be real, the armchair thing is a new one for me, too.

(Rise and grindset voice): Inside you are two lions. Both of them are hungry for prosperity and success. Let's get this bread, king.

Not to do gender here, but compared to the rest of the house, this is a "my wife got her way" room if there ever was one.

Fixer Upper was basically 9/11 for "architectural foam trappings" and "color." Look what they took from you...

Honestly, what a great juxtaposition. This is what that book The Machine in the Garden was all about. (No it's not.)

Half of this post tbh:

Well, that's it for this extremely upbeat and positive McMansion Hell post in this extremely positive and upbeat time we are living in. Join us soon for the concluding part 2 of the Neuschwanstein Castle series, especially if you like beautiful, psychosexually crippled swan boys (real and fictional) and kitsch theory.

If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including a discord server, extra posts, and livestreams. (Don't worry! This doesn't adjust for inflation! Now's the perfect time to join!)

Not into recurring payments? Try the tip jar! McMansion Hell stocks, much like mortgage-backed securities only ever go up!!

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Blue Birch Marsh, 2024 by Jef Bourgeau

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My adaptation of the God of Arepo short story, which was originally up at ShortBox Comics Fair for charity. You can get a copy of the DRM-free ebook here for free - and I'd encourage you to donate to Mighty Writers or The Ministry of Stories in exchange.

Again it's an honour to be drawing one of my favourite short stories ever. Thank you so much for the original authors for creating this story; and for everyone who bought a copy and donated to the above non-profits.

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me holding a gun to a mushroom: tell me the name of god you fungal piece of shit

mushroom: can you feel your heart burning? can you feel the struggle within? the fear within me is beyond anything your soul can make. you cannot kill me in a way that matters

me cocking the gun, tears streaming down my face: I’M NOT FUCKING SCARED OF YOU

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coming out of my cage and they’re shouting oh fuck it’s loose call for backup i repeat call for backup subject has breached containment area

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jesse don't touch that that's the growth potion i've been synthesi-no jesse DON'T

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you know what actually, let this be its own post

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The organisation was also widely criticised last year over a statement on the use of artificial intelligence in creative writing. After stating that it did not support or explicitly condemn any approach to writing, including the use of AI, it said that the “categorical condemnation of artificial intelligence has classist and ableist undertones”. It went on to say that “not all writers have the financial ability to hire humans to help at certain phases of their writing”, and that “not all brains have same abilities … There is a wealth of reasons why individuals can’t ‘see’ the issues in their writing without help.” Fantasy author CL Polk said at the time that “NaNo is basically asserting that disabled people don’t have what it takes to create art when they trot out the lie that scorning AI is ableist”.

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