Fictional Worlds I'd Live In

You’ll find my attempt at a post with the aforementioned title, as suggested by Sylvia via our post title trade! Read more about the initiative, or contact me if you’d also like to trade!

If you offered me a one-way ticket to any fictional universe...where would I choose?

I’ve thought about this. I guess I do it every single night, in a way. To quieten my raging mind to convince sleep to come one night at age thirteen in Japan, I tried telling myself a story. (Silently, of course.) In as much detail as possible. Excruciating.

And it worked. Perhaps the cognitive load exhausts my mind or calms it down, but who am I to fix or question what isn’t broken? And it’s become one of my favorite parts of the day.

I’ve pondered every world I’ve enjoyed engaging with. So choosing just one? That’s hard!

My first instinct is the Star Wars galaxy, during the High Republic era. Before the Empire, before the darkness took hold, when the Jedi were peacekeepers.

I’m drawn to its vastness: thousands of worlds, each with its cultures, ecosystems, and histories. The possibility of standing on a planet with two suns, traveling through hyperspace, encountering species with different ways of perceiving reality. How a man can dream!

But living in Star Wars means accepting evil empires rise, planets get destroyed, and while authoritarianism can be defeated, it never stays so for long. It’s a universe of perpetual conflict, where peace is always temporary. Beautiful but dangerous.

And now I think about it? It’s just like ours.

Philip Reeve’s galaxy, perhaps? The Great Network? The worldbuilding in Railhead blew me away. Yet that universe is also fraught in its awe-inspiring grandeur.

The world of Avatar The Last Airbender seems intriguing too. As does that of The Dragon Prince, Kipo And The Age Of The Wonderbeasts, the Owl House, and of course, Gravity Falls.

I’m drawn to worlds with depth but with heart. Where friendship matters, small kindnesses can change fate, and beauty/art/love are as important as power or knowledge.

If I had to choose now, I’d pick the Galactic Commons from Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers series.

It’s not perfect. It faces threats, has flaws, makes mistakes. But it’s a galaxy striving to be better. It's a place where doing the right thing matters, even when it’s difficult.

Of course, ask me tomorrow and I might choose differently.

That’s the beauty of fictional worlds. We can visit them through reading, imagining ourselves as citizens of a thousand realities. And in that imagination, bring a little of those worlds back with us to help us navigate the complex, messy, beautiful reality we inhabit.

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