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#And it's on postmodernism
martini-with-a-lizzard · 10 months
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Tonight, in the form of memes:
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Okay, but fr, I did always ask him (mostly) before taking some drink - and I did give him sweets in return. He's so nice frfr, dead ass went out of his way to make sure I got home safe and was checking up to see if I was okay, this man I stg agjsksengjalcjjskl
And he has a Costco card
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bidiotka · 5 months
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being a full-time kendrick fan and drake hater who also happens to be on tumblr is FINALLY paying off. everyone wants to fuck me because I don’t have to google the 2013 BET awards, “who is aubrey” or what role Ozempic plays in their feud. I have been training for this for 10 years
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loveinstreams · 2 years
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the way whatever is written or made about goncharov is technically goncharov itself because the source doesn't exist
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neil-gaiman · 3 months
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youtube
I'm loving this.
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jareckiworld · 5 months
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Milan Kunc — Frutonium (oil on canvas, 1999)
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House "Russische Paleisje" (1988-93) in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, by Piet Blom
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gutsby · 7 months
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Cabin Fever
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Pairing: Dark!Joel x Dark!Reader
Summary: Joel saves your life, but help comes at a price.
Warnings: 18+. DEAD DOVE: DNE. NONCONSENSUAL. I’m never ever beating the insane bitch allegations, I fear. Protector-turned-pervert-turned-unwilling-captor-kinda. Corruption kink. Daddy kink. Somnophilia. Misogyny. “It’s too big; it won’t fit” + Joel “I’ll make it fit” Miller. Captivity on both ends. Oral (f!receiving). Gunplay. Oversimplified first-time anal. Uno Reverse Drugging. Evil, inexperienced reader meets evil, feral, slutty Joel. Attempted murder x3. Russian Roulette…as foreplay?
Notes: Both characters SUCK. I condone nothing they do. Please do not take any of their behavior or language to reflect my own moral predilections. That is all 🚬😵‍💫
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You were hardly shaking at all when he’d found you chained, maimed, and frozen half to death on the plains.
He didn’t see that every day, that was for-fucking-sure.
Joel Miller barely got to see his share of happy, grinning girls on the cold and bitter frontier he inhabited. Ones that were tied to posts and clinging to life were even less common, so the sight of you there had almost frightened him at first. He’d approached you like one might advance upon a sleeping bear: with the utmost caution and a Winchester Model 70 levelled directly at your head.
He’d learned you were unarmed and defenseless in less than a second. He’d come to realize you were largely unconscious—and unclothed—even sooner than that.
He had been industrious in freeing your hands and feet from their restraints but never uttered a word as he did.
Even on the two-and-a-half mile trek back home, he hadn’t spoken once. You’d hung off his left shoulder like a pretty, frosted slab of meat, covered only with the sherpa blanket he’d secured around your neck, and dangled precariously down his back for the entire fifty minutes.
Your toes were two shades shy of onyx with frostbite.
Your limbs were hanging like lead over his chest.
A whisper of, ‘You’ll be fine, darlin’, I promise’ had just seemed ill-suited for the circumstances and his nature. In truth, Joel didn’t know if you’d be fine. You might die. The blood wouldn’t be on his hands one way or the other, but he never had liked burying bodies this time of year. He’d have to wait until April to break ground, at least.
Presently, he dropped your limp form to the floor of his cabin and hoped he wouldn’t be needing to bury anyone.
You sort of looked charming in the firelight.
He stomped off to the kitchen and began rifling for pans, preparing to defrost the icy stranger as best he could.
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You didn’t die.
You didn’t wake for forty full hours, but you didn’t die.
When you stirred on the floor with warm sherpa around your shoulders and a rough calfskin rug under your ass, you thought you had died—maybe taken a pit stop in cowpoke purgatory while you were at it—but then you blinked. Breathed. Realized you were still very much inside your body and most likely still in Wyoming.
You sat up where you were and looked around.
“Da-a-d?”
You knew it was useless, calling for your father.
He had been dead almost eight months; you just wanted to double-check to make sure you were still on earth.
When dead dad didn’t answer, you tried someone else.
“Momma?”
Still no answer.
Figured, since she was among the ones that had left you chained outside in the first place. It’d been worth a shot.
You started to rise from your place, when a sharp pain in your side made you plop back down on the rug. You winced and lifted the blanket, then your old nightie.
A neat little taped-down bandage had your ribs encased in antiseptics and gauze. You frowned down at a stain in the centre, which looked to you an awful lot like blood. That circle of old fluids must’ve been twice the size of your fist and currently oozing tiny, fresh beads of blood from the strain you’d just exerted. You pursed your lips.
Least they could’ve done is kill me, not leave me here.
You’d take it up with your old would-be assassins another day, you were sure. Right now, you were parched, starving, in dire need of a piss, and reeling on the floor to grab hold of something sturdy to lift yourself. But you were as much a child then as you had ever been, swaying in place and clawing at air like someone who’d never kept their balance before. Or might’ve been drunk.
You rolled onto your good side and cast a sweeping look around the cabin. You smelled slow-cooked barbecue.
Thank fuck, you thought.
Now, if I were a juicy rack of ribs, where would I be?
The kitchen was dark and empty; the smell was coming from elsewhere. You craned your neck, tilted your chin, spotted a loft overhead but figured it wasn’t too likely to find someone grilling up there, so where the hell was it?
And who the hell was it, smoking meats and mending up strangers in the cold and lonely dead of winter like this?
You put a pin in that thought as you searched for a place to pee.
By the time you’d hobbled out of the bathroom, the smoky smell had grown even stronger. It was so pungent it bordered on vertiginous, invading every inch of the cabin with a force. Then it was leading you, teasing you by turns to venture outside. All you had on your feet were some oversized socks and two strips of medical tape.
Against your better judgment, you continued to hobble.
Out the door, down the steps, slowly, then following your nose and the first whiff of smoke you smelled to make it to the place you were almost certain you needed to be.
You trudged around a corner of the cabin’s exterior and stopped. Turned around. Cursed your own senses for being so stupid to miss the huge fucking shed spewing smoke out front—or was it the back?—and plodded on.
Your feet might have carried you a third of the way there before your powers of sight and sound eventually failed you again, and you missed another big something.
Big and beige and coated in snow—baring its teeth and snarling at the unfamiliar presence as soon as it saw you.
The next thing you knew, sixty-two pounds of Belgian Malinois had had you knocked to the ground in less than a second. You hardly understood what had hit you until it was barking and chomping away an inch from your face.
You fought hard and frantic to shove the ugly fucker off, but your bandaged hands were no match for its paws. The dog continued to tear at your blanket, nip at your ears, claw at your neck, and all around snuff out any sense of peace you might have acquired in the dozen-odd minutes since you’d first woken up. You screamed.
You yelled as loud as you could and felt yourself cower and sink lower into the snow as you fought.
Just when you tried to raise a knee—to kick the animal in the ribs or else protect your own—a sound broke out above the buzz.
A voice, clear as day:
“CUJO!”
The dog stalled on top of you a moment, just to be yanked off the next, and the closest thing afterward was a face—kinder than Cujo’s but not by very much.
It was a broad, bearded, pock-marked head with more soot to recommend itself than skin. Lips smeared with ash and grime and curved down in the single most decisive frown you’d seen in your life, the man looked to be beside himself seeing you tits up in the snow.
He gripped one arm of yours, then dropped it.
Picked a leg up, paused, then hauled you into a cradle carry as graceless as you’d ever felt it done before.
“Come!” he snapped, and it took you too long to realize that he was talking to the dog. You’d already wrapped your arms around his neck in abrupt complaisance.
He carried you back into the cabin and kicked the door open in front of you. He held you firm for a second, then, just as he had outside, changed course before you knew what to do and was shortly depositing you on the sofa.
You winced when your ass hit the cushion.
You started to sit, grab a pillow for your back or just bring your knees to your chest, when suddenly a palm was pressing flat on your front. Forcing you to lie down.
“Hey, hey!” you cried when the man started lifting the hem of your nightgown.
If he’d heard you at all, he didn’t show it. He just worked his thick, dirty fingers under the fabric and raised the white satin like he might the hood of a car. He frowned.
It was then that you noticed a blooming red splotch on your side, slowly overtaking the terra-cotta color of dried blood on the bandage and spreading out. Then a pain.
Instead of pushing the man’s hands away, you were holding them tight, wrestling that same touch which was trying to keep you from poking around the area now.
“Quit,” the man said, sedate as could be.
“Hurts,” was all you could think to tell him—and you guessed he’d already had that part down by the outpouring of blood. He shoved your hands off.
The brand new crimson hue had already soaked through the bandage. He pulled it off. You caught a glimpse of a wound that seemed to be weeping through its stitches—oozing pus and blood and a gore you could’ve gone your whole life without seeing. You would’ve liked to run a couple gentle, awed fingers over it, but as it was, your coarse and tight-lipped medic wouldn’t let you.
“Hold still,” he commanded.
“Heystopstopstop!” you implored him, feeling a streak of pain up your side as his calloused hands delved deeper.
At your latest flinch and plea, the man seemed to have had enough. Or just needed to angle your body in a different direction for easier access to the site. He gathered you back up in his arms and walked over to the kitchen, where he set you down again on the counter. Hands moved to your hips, briefly, to push you back on the surface and allow him to stand between your legs. Again, the man frowned as he peeled off your pyjamas.
Two warring fears of pain and overexposure fought like wild beasts in your brain for a second—you yelping and trying to cover your breasts in a hurry, then realizing how much it hurt to lift your arms that way when your ribs were dripping blood, then the man making the decision for you both as he pushed your hands behind your back and said a simple ‘Fuck’s sake’ to keep you pinned.
You didn’t like it.
You didn’t like it, and you let him continue, because you knew that you didn’t know shit about doing this yourself.
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Joel must’ve fixed your dressings fourteen times before turning you loose. He’d had you perched atop his counter like goddamned Prisoner-of-War Barbie, all riddled with bumps, bruises, and lesions galore, looked your body up and down just once, and nearly grew sick at the sight.
He’d disgusted himself by feeling as aroused as he was.
Shortly thereafter, he’d toted you off—before the blood could rush down to his dick and start to swell—shrugged your gown over your torso, and stepped away. Simple.
Then you’d had to go and throw a wrench in his plans.
“What if I need to pee?” you’d said as soon as Joel started up the stairs with you in his arms again.
He had meant to drop you off on the bed in the loft, out of sight, but it seemed you were more concerned about the prospect of traversing the steps up and down for potty breaks. Joel had audibly huffed above you.
“I can leave a bucket.”
“Yu-uck.” The latter word had been given two syllables to show the full extent of your disgust, like a child might do.
And that was how you’d ended up here: snug in his bed on the ground floor, curled up in more layers of flannel and wool than you could count and staring blankly up at the man who was standing cold and aloof off to the side.
Your eyelids were growing heavy with sleep.
He figured they would be.
Joel picked up the glass that sat beside your empty one on the nightstand and drank, watching you all the while.
“D’you know my momma?” you asked, voice sounding extra small coming from the depths of your cocoon.
Joel finished his drink in four big gulps.
“Sure hope not,” he said once he’d set it back down.
By the sight of the scars he’d found littering your hands and back alone, Joel was able to surmise you’d come from a pretty rough, ragtag group. Maybe even Raiders. Knowing folks like that simply never struck one’s fancy, so he’d been honest. You might’ve argued, or laughed, if you hadn’t been nabbed so tightly in the grips of those first stages preceding sleep, so instead, you nodded.
“Figured,” you mumbled.
7:11, Joel read on the clock. You’d finished your drink at seven, or somewhere thereabouts. Judging by your size, it wouldn’t take long at all for the medicine to take effect.
‘Medicine,’ Joel thought, sounded a whole hell of a lot better than ‘drugs.’ One was meant to rehabilitate, rejuvenate, bring new life to your worn and weary bones. The other would just knock you cold and keep you there.
On second thought, those were definitely drugs Joel had just slipped in your water before giving it to you to drink.
As your eyes blinked from closed, to open, to closed, then open but slightly less open than the time before, and closed again, he felt a sick sense of accomplishment twist in his gut. If only his former-nurse friend could have seen what he was doing with those morphine sulfate tablets he’d traded for—he likely would’ve slapped Joel across the face. And Joel would’ve smiled all the same.
Yeah, okay, drugging the unsuspecting and defenseless female he’d just saved from death’s doorstep two days ago didn’t look great on paper, he would fully concede.
But this was all in good fun.
Great fun, even.
For him.
“Sick fuck,” Joel muttered as he started to undo his belt. The button and zip were taken apart just as fast, and with two steps, he was standing at your bedside—his bedside—and tugging his trousers down his legs. He took his cock in his hand and glanced over at the clock.
7:15.
He nudged your shoulder.
7:16.
Peeling layers of blanket away from your body.
7:17.
“Hey…honey?”
A lot more nothing from the girl sleeping in front of him. He shrugged his jeans to the floor, kicked them off at his feet, and moved onto the bed. You just looked so sweet.
Joel tried working around the fabric of his boxers but got impatient pretty quick. He hauled those off, too.
Soon, his beefy, bare, and surprisingly tan legs were bracketing your hips as he stroked himself above you. His eyes roamed the lax and tranquil features undeniably characteristic of sleep, and he pumped himself faster. Really, there was no need for theatrics or enhancements now—he was already hard as three tonnes of steel—but Joel would be lying if he said he didn’t like the build-up.
You were no longer in danger of dying, thanks to him. You were slowly but surely on the mend, no thanks to Cujo at all, but many thanks to him, Joel Miller, the man who had pried you off of that post, pulled you out of your chains, ushered warmth back into your limbs, and stitched up your side out of the goodness of his heart.
Any objective onlooker could see that you’d availed yourself of his medical attention and aid without ever asking, so why should he request access to you now? This was the way of the world these days, anyway. Sex was no longer so much a question as it was an answer in most scenarios—a mere transaction, wherein the physically weaker of two parties was forced to capitulate. Not within the four unsullied walls of Jackson and a few other pockets of homestead communities here and there, but on the whole, absolutely. Jackson was down the road a ways away and sufficiently far enough from Joel’s cabin for him to be disentangled from their rules. What mattered now was obtaining what he was owed.
Still, the man hesitated a half-second longer above you. He jerked his cock even faster and felt his stomach start to clench. Was that? No—nerves were fucking juvenile. Getting close to cumming from just the sight of you alone was for chumps. Joel Miller was no chump.
He lifted your nightie and lowered the head of his cock to rest between your folds. Then he shifted his knees so that he could rub himself gently against your warmth.
Joel Miller was a monster, but he was no brute. He also understood female anatomy well enough to know that, well…wetter was better. He started moving his hips.
You exhaled through your nose. Nothing major; you probably hadn’t even felt him long enough to whine.
Joel planted a hand beside your head—a preemptive warning.
“There…” He liked to talk as though you could hear him. Like you might be semi-conscious and dimly aware of what he was doing to you then, “Right there…ah, baby.”
He never did catch your name.
That was no matter. So long as you stayed put and made a nice, wet, pretty little hole for him to fuck, you would be fine. By the feel of your folds alone, he could tell you’d be a fun thing to use. Soft and snug and plied with drugs, you could do, and be, anything he damn well needed.
Or maybe nothing at all, he thought without humor.
Joel brushed your cheek with the knuckles of his free hand and watched you turn away, making a face. He snagged your chin and tilted it back to him, sharply, before gliding those fingers down your chest, then your tummy, then your hips, then dipping between your legs. He found your clit and pressed it with a deliberate touch.
“Hey,” Joel whispered, again, as though you might hear, “You’re gonna stay still and let me do this.”
Your nose scrunched in response, thighs clamping together. Joel pried them apart with one push and continued sliding his cock back and forth. He grunted.
“Gonna let me take what’s mine, hear?”
You didn’t hear much of anything, he suspected, but he asked the question all the same. At least now your legs were staying open and he could rut himself gently into that space without having to keep them spread. A first, gentle ‘mmph’ sounded from your lips, and he was glad. He kept thumbing that spot he knew you would like and rubbing along the seam of your cunt with his erection.
Then Joel felt a weight on his shoulders. Remorse? No. Anxiety? Perhaps. This felt more like a fog, though, seizing his muscles and seeping gently between the grooves of his brain. He gave his head a fierce shake.
“Hold still,” he said, more to himself; you hadn’t moved.
Joel fisted the base of his cock and angled the tip toward your entrance, caring much less whether you were ready or not now that his desires had grown stronger.
He was met with resistance on trying to push in. He dug his fingers in the pillow beneath your head and scowled.
“Quit…clenchin’…like that. Ain’t…fair to me,” he huffed.
He was one to talk.
Now, he’d been with a staggering number of women, experiences ranging all across the spectrum, but even the tightest, most untouched pieces of ass he’d ever tapped had given way more than this. Your walls were unyielding, refusing to give him entry. Joel cursed and rutted his hips in a rough, entirely unsuccessful, thrust.
You hummed in response, eyes still closed, one hand fumbling mindlessly for something to hold. Joel seized it.
“Not lettin’ you off that easy, darlin’, I—”
“Fuck,” you breathed, followed by a low whimper.
Joel froze. Had you heard him? Felt him just now?
Something about the uncertainty laden in those questions sent his mind into overdrive, heart beating a wild cadence in his chest. He realized then that his mouth had gone dry, his vision was skewed just slightly on the outskirts. And his cock was throbbing.
“Ya like that?” Joel seethed, not thinking, still rubbing, “Like givin’ daddy a hard time before lettin’ him in?”
“Uh-huh.” Softly.
You little slut. He knew it all along.
Whatever it was that kept your body from being coupled with his was almost immaterial to him now. Joel’s mind was swimming with desire, cock dragging in desperate, fitful bursts between your legs, never penetrating but still wringing massive jolts of pleasure from that place.
With the way he was feeling now, Joel could cum from just fucking your thighs. And that was alright.
You were moaning underneath him. Even…smiling?
“Fuck, baby, you look so pretty.”
Joel had never called a girl pretty before and meant it. But he hardly knew how else to describe you now with how good and sweet and fine you were making him feel. A strange warmth sank into his chest, making it harder to breathe, and then he was panting above you, as if he were really inside that dripping wet spot. He was close.
“Such a pretty…sweet…fuckin’ thing for me.”
That red, raging, leaky cock of his was almost a blur between your legs, he was thrusting against you so fast. Joel thought for one frightening second that it might be his skull that would explode instead, so high was that pressure between his ears, but his fears were promptly put to rest as the first rope of cum came stuttering out. Then another. Then another. Then another.
By the time he finished, he could’ve sworn he’d left a hundred spurts on your tummy. When Joel glanced down and saw a sea of opaque, sticky white, he groaned.
Then he fell. Fully collapsed at your side with his brain in a tizzy of wild, heady feelings and sank into himself.
He hadn’t even fucked you, and he felt like he had.
He lifted a hand to wipe away his spend, but he couldn’t.
He would get to it in the morning, before you stirred, he thought. He thought. He didn’t have the chance to think much longer at all, as darkness started hedging him in.
He slept.
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It was 7:57 when he woke.
The man had no real way of knowing that, though, seeing as he was greeted with a nickel-plated revolver between his teeth the second he opened his eyes.
You were straddling his torso, gun pinched between two calm, bandaged hands. You frowned when he jumped.
“WH—” he started.
“Shut up.”
“ST—”
“I said shut,” you cocked the gun, holding it tighter, then shoving it even further inside his mouth, “the fuck. up.”
The man obeyed.
‘Joel M.’—you’d read the name etched on the butt of his pistol before picking it up some twenty minutes ago.
“Pretty fuckin’ thing,” you mocked the man’s Texan drawl as you wiggled the barrel even deeper along his tongue, “Like givin’ daddy a hard time before lettin’ him in?”
The man’s eyes widened.
How dumb did he think you were?
Offering a semi-clear liquid that should’ve been water; he hadn’t even waited for the morphine tablet to fully dissolve before handing it over to you. Fucking idiot.
You were more disturbed by the fact he’d thought you stupid enough not to notice than him actually trying to drug you. The latter was almost to be expected from predatory, execrable men like him, but the insult to your intelligence? Unacceptable. You’d remedied that affront fairly quickly, though, swapping his glass with yours the second he hadn’t been looking, then nestling into his bed and playing pretend for what had felt like an eternity.
You’d been awake the whole time the man touched you, not knowing what the hell was going on but feeling like you had to stay still. Let him finish. Out of fear, at first, then curiosity, then some strange and unfamiliar sensation that you couldn’t quite describe as anything but a pleasurable itch between your legs. You let the man continue, hearing him grunt and groan and swear up a storm before he shot something hot all over your tummy. By the end of it all, you knew it was wrong, and you knew it was dirty—though you weren’t sure exactly what it was that he had done—but you wanted to learn more.
Which was probably why you hadn’t just shot the old pervert right between his eyes the second he’d stirred.
You shifted atop this ‘Joel M.’ and frowned once more.
“Why’d you stop?”
Gun still wedged in his mouth, Joel’s voice sounded garbled as he spoke, “Wha-agh-at?”
You retracted the metal just long enough to pose the question again. When you had, he still looked stunned.
“Answer me,” you barked, and feeling your patience lapse, got straight to pistol-whipping the motherfucker upside his half-grey head, “You DUMB, or somethin’?”
The man sputtered again.
“No, no— I don’t— dunno what you mean.”
He sounded dumb. You would need to spell this out.
“Why did you stop rubbing me like that?”
If anything, the clarification only seemed to baffle him further. He opened his taut, bearded mouth, then closed it, then eyed you up and down with a look that said he was considering something. Then he stared at one spot.
You glanced down at it too.
“And what is this, anyway?” you asked, swiping one finger at the mostly dried moisture on your stomach, “Why’d you spit this stuff up all over me, huh?!”
“I ain’t—”
You raised the gun as if to hit him again. He jolted back.
“I didn’t mean— shit. Shit, I just…came on you, ‘s’all.”
“Came?”
The word hung in the air like a grenade, waiting. Mr. M was already bracing himself for the impact, it seemed.
“Came?!”
That bracing served him well, because in the next second you were lifting the weapon even higher and eyeing him with the most pointed, putrid look of disdain. You’d never been one for letting grenades go untouched.
“Ejaculated!” Joel hissed, lifting a hand to shield himself, “Felt— felt so good I just couldn’t stop and I-I-I came.”
You paused.
Came. Felt good. Couldn’t stop.
You had felt good when he’d rubbed you. You had not wanted him to stop. But then he had. And you were mad. You’d never been touched that way in your life, and now you were feeling fifteen hundred emotions at once.
Were you supposed to ‘come,’ too? Why did he stop?
“Why didn’t you let me…ejaculate, too?” The words felt foreign and strange on your tongue.
For the first time, you saw one side of Joel’s lips twitch. Evidently fighting the urge to turn them into a smile.
“Girls don’t really…do that,” he said. Then, after a beat, “Why? Ain’t ever had your pussy rubbed on by a man?”
You shortly landed the blow you’d been holding over his head, splitting the skin along his brow with one hit from the butt of his gun. Joel jumped again, then moaned.
“Crazy bitch!”
“Creepy fuck.”
Your eyes narrowed with loathing, unable to comprehend how a man so vile had just made you feel so good. Your stomach was twisting in knots while Joel rubbed his forehead, pawing helplessly at the gash you’d just left.
“I saved your life,” he grumbled, low, “You owed me.”
“Did I?”
Abruptly, and without really thinking, you were sinking the muzzle of the gun into the spot you’d just cut, mouth kicking up in a smile at the sounds of pain it elicited.
“Did I, Joel?” you cooed.
“How the— the fuck do you know my name?”
Momentarily, you yanked the revolver from his face and tilted it to show him his name carved into the bottom.
“What’s the ‘M’ stand for? ‘Molester’?”
“Means ‘mind’ your fucking business,” he spat.
You probably would’ve hit him again had it not seemed as though he were trying to sit up just then. You slid swiftly from his frame—just to take a step off the bed, gun still pointed at his head. Then you backed away.
One by one, rapidly, you unloaded the bullets from the cylinder, maintaining a safe distance from the man all the while. You watched him blink and try to get some thing from his eyes, but he didn’t seem keen to move.
You left just one live round inside. You made a point to spin the cylinder and, again, aim it straight at his head.
The man was blinking even harder. Rubbing now, too.
“I feel…” Joel murmured.
“Drugged?” you returned, “Yeah, that must suck.”
A set of wide, irate, and horrified eyes met yours. His mouth hung open in a stupid look of shock. Trying to piece the last bits of this fucked up jigsaw puzzle together and growing angrier by the second.
“You fuckin’—”
Joel’s words were cut short by the weight of your body barreling back over his. Graceless, you imagined, but still nothing close to something you cared about now. You planted your knees on either side of his ribs and grazed the tip of the six-shooter down the length of his nose.
“Tell me,” you said, “How’d you make it feel so good?”
Your hips twisted for effect, jostling the man’s own parts beneath yours and clearly causing some effect in him. The muscles in his jaw jumped up as he gritted his teeth.
“You know damn well, slut,” Joel griped.
Without another thought, you squeezed the trigger.
Click.
The man’s whole body lurched underneath you. Trembling with the realization that you’d left just one lone bullet for him—and he didn’t know which chamber.
As far as foreplay went, Russian Roulette was probably a first, even for a man as wanton and depraved as Joel. You smiled sweetly and made another gyration with your lower half, which prompted him to grip you. Tight.
“What? Ya want me to fuck you, is that it?” he growled.
“I thought it wouldn’t fit.”
“I’ll make it fit.”
“How?”
Try as you might to conceal it, your gaze likely betrayed a hint of sincerity as you made that last inquiry. Joel’s eyes flickered between yours, searching for something there, and just when those glossy brown irises had found it, they stopped. Blinked. He shook his head, incredulous.
“My mind ain’t…right,” he said, slowly, “But I— I know you know what I mean by that, sweet pea.”
Something in your tummy fluttered at the sound. You gripped the pistol tighter to get rid of the feeling.
“I don’t,” you answered.
Again, Joel was stumped. For the first time, though, there appeared to be some sympathy behind his eyes. Or stupidity. Or just a shit ton of morphine coursing through his veins as he tried to make sense of this situation.
As if to confirm an idea in his drug-addled brain, he lowered a hand between your legs and hovered there a second. He watched you; you watched back but didn’t move.
Then slowly, almost clinically, Joel slipped two fingers underneath you and found a soft, pulsing warmth—far wetter than the last time he’d touched down there. When he pulled his hand away, both fingers and half of his palm were glistening with a fluid. You let out a startled cry at the sight of it and nearly dropped your gun.
“What is that?!”
Joel looked to you, equally awed—for different reasons.
“What do you mean?”
“Why’s it all…sticky?”
You couldn’t even try to hide your horror at the thought of that weird, syrupy stuff leaking out of you. It was strange enough feeling it come out of a freak like Joel, but from your own body? He had to be fucking joking.
“It’s normal.”
“Like hell it is— you— STOP!” The last fragment of your sentence was swallowed by a scream, leaping back when Joel moved his fingers toward your face.
“What? You’ve never seen this?” He sounded like he was teasing. You could shoot him for how smug he sounded.
In very small amounts, you’d seen stuff. Blood every month. Bits and pieces of bodily secretions that, to you, had always seemed gross. But never this. Never big, sticky globs of…whatever the fuck this was. You continued to back away on the bed, gun still tipped toward Joel but now trying to put some distance between your bodies. You didn’t know how else to act.
You did know you wanted to scream when Joel stuck his fingers in his mouth. Bile might’ve jumped in your throat.
He sucked the dew clean off the digits, then wriggled them to show what he’d done. You felt the urge to vomit.
“That came from— from— why are you eating it?!”
Joel grinned. Big.
You weren’t sure why, but he looked psyched to be alive in that moment, and not just because of the narcotics.
Before you knew what was happening, he’d pushed you flat on your back, hips pinned underneath his hands as he moved over your body. He didn’t even try for the gun.
“And here I was thinkin’ you were just fuckin’ with me,” he chuckled, palms sliding under your nightdress. When you felt the residuum of wetness from his spit and your slick stuck together on his fingers, you wanted to squeal.
But you didn’t. You tried propping yourself up on elbows until Joel was sliding your one and only article of clothing over your head, then beckoning you down on the bed in front of him. You watched his gaze flit down to your side.
“Still hurt?” he murmured, tracing over the bandage.
You shook your head no, though it did, a little. At the moment, it seemed the pain was the furthest thing from your mind as you saw Joel slide down your body and try to take up residence between your thighs—with his face planted right there. You kicked his shoulder in protest.
“Quit!” you cried, pulling your legs up to your chest.
“You quit,” Joel returned, yanking them back.
Then you felt you had no choice but to brandish the gun, taking the thing between two palms while you pointed it again—as if he needed the reminder.
“Fine. Why don’t you keep that thing aimed at my head while I give you some?” he muttered. The subsequent ‘See if I give a shit’ was silent.
“Give me some what?”
“Head.”
Head. You’d never heard something phrased that way. Joel’s head was down there, sure, practically grinning from ear to ear as he hooked your legs over his shoulders, but certainly he didn’t mean to do a thing as drastic and dirty as—
“JOEL!”
“Hm?” His voice was muffled by your thighs.
You tried to shy away, but he held you down.
“Joel, I— I pee out of there,” you hissed, “Why the fuck would you wanna put your mouth on that?”
As if your groans of disgust and vehement attempts to get away weren’t enough to deter him, you watched Joel’s tongue dart between his lips and down to yours. The sick fuck was actually licking your folds, tracing the tip across that warm, sticky place and moaning into your skin. Holding you tighter when you pleaded for him to stop. Then, with the hand that wasn’t prying your legs apart, he reached down and started stroking his cock.
Again, it felt dirty and wrong. Beyond the fact that this man was a perfect stranger and easily decades your senior, you were repulsed by the sight of his lips and his tongue and his spit mixing up in that messy, wet place you still didn’t quite understand yourself. You didn’t know much about your body, but it had never once occurred to you to be kissed down there. Joel was roaming every contour and crevice with his tongue like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like he liked it.
“I hate it,” you whined, feebly.
You knew you could’ve easily blown the man’s brains out, but some small part of you was still plagued by curiosity. ‘Hate’ was just the first word that came to mind when you were faced with something that made you scared.
“It’s weird,” you tried again. This time pressing the gun to the top of his bobbing head while you grit your teeth, “And wrong.”
At that, Joel stopped.
His eyes flickered to yours, all glass-like and hooded.
“Why? Practically lickin’ ya clean here,” he said, starting to grin to himself as his words came slightly slurred, “There’s nothin’ wrong about this, sweet pea.”
You felt something flutter between you. He felt it, too.
“Like when I call ya that? ‘Sweet pea’?” he said, pausing to flick his tongue over the spot that had just stirred at his words. He watched you fight back a whimper.
“No,” you choked. You pinched your eyes shut, unsure whether it was pleasure or pure revulsion overtaking you—or both.
Suddenly, you felt Joel’s hand smooth over your thigh, still warm from when he’d been stroking himself below. He placed an affectionate kiss to your belly and grinned.
“Is that what this is? Feel guilty about feelin’ this good?” he murmured, “Think it’s…dirty, what we’re doin’?”
At length, and just barely visible to him, you nodded.
“It is dirty,” you corrected him quietly.
Then you saw that stupid pseudo-sympathetic smirk tug at the corners of his lips, and just when you thought he might nudge his way back up your body—to do what, you weren’t sure—he sank between your legs. This time, he made sure to hold your gaze as he re-assumed the position. His palm continued to rub at your thigh, as if to distract you from the rough brush of his stubble or the fact that his mouth was hovering so dangerously close.
“Sweet pea,” he rasped, “Ain’t nothin’ dirty about this.”
As if to punctuate his words, Joel dragged his lips down your slit to press a kiss to your centre, eyes never leaving yours.
“Not here…”
He pointed with his tongue, moving it deftly between your folds. You gripped the sheets, trying to ignore the pleasure that the simple act wrought through your body.
“Not here.”
He kissed your clit. You squeezed even tighter.
“Not on my tongue, on my fingers, anywhere, y’hear?”
You were about to answer—maybe tell him he was supremely full of shit, then flash the gun in his face—when Joel shifted onto his knees on the bed. He moved slowly and as calm as he ever had, motions languid while his mind was likely steeped in the morphine by now. He snagged one of your ankles. He slid his hand up the back of your calf and tugged you down to the edge of the bed. Then he stood up, right between your legs. The warmth radiating from his bare lower half was immediate, almost suffocating from where you lay. You didn’t like it at all.
You refused to meet his gaze, grip tightening on the gun.
“Joel…”
When that warmth at your front shifted inward, though, you hardly had a say in what your reflexes did or didn’t do. You jumped when you felt the head of his dick slip past your pulsing core, closer to the other hole below it.
“Not here, either,” Joel continued, grin still evident from his tone.
Before you could even think to ask what he meant to do ‘here,’ Joel moved one of your legs up, tilting your hips, and pushed ahead with just the tip of his cock. Not breaching it fully, but nudging—prodding at that hole.
For the first time, you let out a moan.
You hastily clamped a hand over your mouth to stifle it.
“Aw, honey,” Joel murmured, “Did that feel good?”
His words reeked of condescension. You scowled at the ceiling.
“No.”
You felt him push a little further—this time making the head of his dick notch into that tight ring of muscles.
No, the word rang through your skull once more. Your curiosity was shortly supplanted by disgust—how the fuck could you let this creepy old man, this stranger, press into you like that? Talk to you like you were dumb? You seized hold of Joel’s pistol with both hands and aimed directly for his chest.
“Stop doing that,” you growled. When the man’s grip on your leg only tightened and you couldn’t writhe away, you lifted the other and tried kicking him in the gut. Of course, Joel caught your foot midair, and it never landed.
“Just givin’ ya options, darlin’,” he said, easy-going. Not seeming to care about the firearm pointed his way.
Fuck it.
You squeezed the trigger again.
Empty chamber.
If Joel flinched, you didn’t see it. He did, however, knock the gun right out of your hand the next second, sending it tumbling with an unceremonious thump on the bed behind you. You tried to leap back for it, but your arm was quickly pinned. Joel cocked one silver-flecked brow.
“You done?” he asked, almost bored.
Your last—and only—leverage taken away from you, you couldn’t help but feel a pang of anger. And desperation.
“I don’t wanna do this,” you cried, trying to squirm away.
Joel didn’t move his cock, but he did hold you still. Blinking with indifference and a fair bit of drug-induced dissociation, it seemed, from the far-away look in his eyes. He pushed both of your legs so they were folded up to your chest, and ignored your whimpers when he did. At length, he pulled out just enough to smear some of your wetness down to the hole he was trying to fuck.
“You want this,” he countered gently.
“I DON’T!”
Joel continued as though he hadn’t heard you, and moments later, you sensed another slick something pooling against you. From your position beneath him, you could see a bead of spit slip from Joel’s mouth and stretch into a thin, glistening string all the way down to the space between your thighs. You watched him rub the saliva in with his fingers, almost meticulous as he did it.
Then he eased his hips forward an inch, wedging himself back in your ass. He groaned when he felt resistance—and a sharp clench of your muscles.
“I can teach ya…show ya everything…there is to know.”
His words somehow made it out through ragged breaths. That broad, tan chest was heaving with every labored pull of his lungs, and you could tell he was feeling good.
You might’ve been able to say the same for yourself, were your mind not singly occupied by the desire to escape. Still at war with yourself, wondering how it would feel or what you might see that first time, all the while despising the man who seemed hell-bent on forcing it.
He might’ve saved your life, but there was no fucking way he’d get to use you like that and stay breathing.
You were raised better than that.
You could do better than anything this man had to offer.
You resolved to kill him as soon as the drugs knocked him out—just like you’d had planned from the second you woke up on the floor of his cabin that afternoon.
Of course being chained, maimed, and frozen half to death on the plains for some well-meaning stranger to find you had always been part of your mother’s—and the rest of the Raiders’—grand plan. Having this stupid, horny sap take you into his home with the hope of claiming you as his own was just the icing on top.
Now you had a reason to kill Joel and steal all his shit.
At present, he fed another inch of himself inside you and grinned when you let out a startled cry.
“Atta girl,” he said, smirking, “Feelin’ okay?”
“Fuck you.”
“Will do.”
Then, as if to prove a point, he bottomed out, sheathing his cock to the hilt in spite of your cries. Your hands fisted the sheets, and you tried to pull off. It didn’t work.
In fact, all it accomplished was giving Joel more room to thrust back into you. And pull out. And shove back in. The snap of his hips was like cruel and excruciating clockwork, completely unhindered by your words or your gestures or your pleas to stop fucking doing that Joel, it fucking hurts! If anything, the sounds of your censure only got him harder, and with it, made it that much easier to fuck you rougher. His eyes shone with pride.
“What’s’at, sweet pea?” he hummed, strokes coming into a steady pace.
“It’s too…big…doesn’t fit,” you whimpered.
In response, Joel glanced down to see the spot where your bodies were joined. He pushed even deeper.
“Yeah?” he said when you yelped, “I think it fits just fine.”
Motherfucker, you wanted to wail, but then your neck craned sideways—your mouth trying to find purchase in anything you might grit between your teeth—and the only thing that escaped your throat was a sob. You tried burying your face in the comforter, only for Joel to yank it back.
Cupping your chin and pinching both your cheeks in a single, punishing squeeze as he continued to fuck you, “What’s the matter, darlin’? Too much?”
You groaned and clenched your jaw, head jerking away.
Per usual, Joel was undeterred. Even smiled.
“My pretty girl need somethin’a bite, huh?” he hummed.
He probably knew you wouldn’t nod, so he went ahead and decided to oblige that one need he saw anyway. Snagging your nightie, Joel raised a hand to your face and proceeded to push the fabric inside your mouth.
Just as he started to lift his hips to deliver another thrust, he had to stop. A sudden, sharp ‘FUCK!’ left his mouth, then a groan, and his hand retreated fast.
You’d bitten him.
You were grinning just a little, and you’d bitten him.
Joel promptly slapped you across the face. If you weren’t so fucking amused by the sight of his bright red fingers, you just might’ve winced. Instead, the smile stayed on your lips, the slap barely registered, and, to your utmost disbelief, something else had just then started to form.
Pleasure, in the pit of your stomach.
“Fuckin’—” Joel snarled.
“Shit,” you finished, eyes rolling back.
You couldn’t help it. Joel was rutting into you relentlessly. That brief hand bite detour had only stoked the flames of his hatred—and arousal—and now he was practically splitting you in half with the force of his thrusts. He slapped you once more for good measure.
“Oh, that you fuckin’ like?” he seethed, cheeks flushed, “Can’t get off with my…tongue on your cunt, but a slap— and my cock buried deep in your ass gets the job done?”
“Uh-huh,” you answered softly. Mindlessly.
Really, there were no two people more fucked up than you in this moment, you thought. Joel growing harder with each desperate objection of yours, you going all soft and hot and bothered the second he slapped your face and fucked you rougher, and together, the two of you letting out grunts and moans of pleasure while the bed shook like an earthquake just shy of a 9.5 on the Richter scale. Were you not already planning to slit the man’s throat after all of this was over, you just might’ve wanted to marry this Joel M for how wonderfully he fucked you.
You let him know as much when you seized his forearms.
Bouncing into his thrusts, you bit your lip and finally met his gaze. Joel’s eyes were trained in somewhat of a daze, pupils all but swallowing his irises as he fucked you.
“Like being daddy’s little cocksleeve, huh?”
Only the sentence was slurred so bad you could scarcely make out half the words. You nodded just the same.
“Like it when he fucks you in the ass?” Joel panted.
You nodded again.
That pleasure in your belly had worked its way up to a full swell—and whatever it was, you couldn’t bear the thought of losing it now. You gripped Joel’s arms even harder as his chest swayed into you, then sank further and further until your fronts were pressed flush to each other and your ankles were hooked tight around his back.
It almost felt intimate. That coarse, weathered, sweat-coated face spattered with patches of grey seemed to you nearly handsome as his lips hung limply in an ‘o.’
Joel’s cock dragged back and forth between your walls at this new, snug angle, and moans fell out of you both.
“Baby.” His voice was hoarse. Strained.
You couldn’t quite make sense of the expression above you, but there was an unmistakable, muted desperation lurking somewhere beneath it. Joel rutted into you quicker, balls leaving rapid smacks against your ass with every thrust. His hair was disheveled, and his hands were making fists in the sheets on either side of your head.
“Joel—”
“Jus’ lemme use you.”
Words so low they were barely audible as he panted.
“But—”
“Daddy’s…almost done, sweet pea. Just take it.”
You were surprised he’d had it within himself to be so soft. A peculiar sort of haze hung over his face, the pace of his hips picked up even more, and suddenly those plush pink lips were hovering a mere hair’s breadth away from yours. Mumbling. Rambling on and on about how wet you were, how perfect you fit him, how nice and sweet and tight your body felt as he fucked you stupid.
That sensation in your own stomach grew even stronger.
Unsure of what to do, you pressed a palm to his chest.
“Joel, I…I feel funny,” you whispered.
Joel hummed. Didn’t slow.
“I know.”
He knew?
“What’s it—ah, fuck.” Your words broke off in a whimper.
Instead of proffering a verbal response, Joel just slipped a touch between your bodies—thumbing sloppily between your folds to earn a couple more high-pitched moans. Your legs tightened around his middle.
“Joel, s-stop!”
It felt so good it almost hurt. He didn’t stop.
“S’just an orgasm, baby,” Joel panted, “You’re okay.”
And, in spite of his own impending climax and the effect of the drugs likely reaching a fever pitch inside him, Joel managed to slide his other hand beneath the back of your head. Cradled you to him while he fucked you into the bed and made you come unraveled with his touch. You tried to writhe away, but he was used to the drill by now—he just fucked you harder and rubbed you faster.
Whatever he wanted would come soon. You doubted there was anything you could do to stop it, but you tried.
Without thinking, you grabbed hold of the damp locks of hair at the nape of his neck and yanked on them hard.
“Joel, I can’t— I can’t,” you keened.
The hand at the back of your head held you firm.
“You can,” Joel returned, tough but surprisingly calm, “Give it to daddy, ‘s’all ya gotta do.”
What exactly ‘it’ was was still unclear. You just knew you felt good and warm and full—about ready to burst. When you felt tempted to give his hair another tug, Joel’s eyes met yours, and they were soft. Insistent, still, but soft.
Dilated as all hell and probably swimming in clouds of a delirious, bleary haze, but always soft. Almost tender.
“Be a good girl and give it to daddy,” Joel slurred, slow, “C’mon, sweet pea…cum for daddy, please.”
For the first time in that short, rough, utterly deranged time you had known this man, he was begging you. Pleading with you, now, as his body grew overwrought with pleasure and just needed release. You needed it, too, not even knowing how you would get it, but the force of his thrusts, the warmth of his body, the look in those warm, bare, powerless eyes—you fucking loved whatever it was that could make a man like that so weak.
You had to strike while the iron was hot. You slid back.
Joel didn’t notice, too focused on your face and the feel of your body to see when you’d reached for the gun.
Just as you took hold of it, a jolt of pleasure tore through you. Your heels dug into his back, and you nearly lost control of the pistol. Joel groaned in your mouth, begged you once again to cum all over this cock, make a fuckin’ mess of it, baby, please, and you could only whine, grip the metal tighter, and raise it slowly to the side of his head while he buried his face in the crook of your neck.
The peak of your pleasure had come into view. You felt it.
You nudged the muzzle through those soft, slick, salt-and-pepper shaded tufts of hair near the edge of his temple right when the first throes of euphoria seized you.
“FUCK!”
You squeezed the trigger.
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whereserpentswalk · 4 months
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I have decided to become a walkablity extremist.
Cars should not be allowed in towns and cities at all. The only places where they should be at all present is in rural areas where any other means of transportation should be impossible.
High speed rail networks should allow for a trip from Mexico city to Montreal in under 24 hours.
All public transportation should be 100% free.
Lawns should not exist.
It doesn't make sense for single family homes to be built in most American cities.
Architecture must be beautiful again.
Every commercial street should have at least one bench.
Public restrooms must be free, common and accessible.
The pigeons are not enemies. The pigeons are freinds.
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obsessedbyneon · 11 months
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Horton Plaza Mall, San Diego, California, 1985.
Scanned from 'Shopping Centers & Malls 1'
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softpng · 2 years
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sometimes I think about that guy on amazon who reviewed pride and prejudice and did an entire angry, weirdly math focused rant about how awful darcy is and then ends it all with "I could carve a better man out of a banana"
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stukko · 5 months
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peacemaker-ic · 6 months
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Postmodern Living will be bright and colourful, but there is still room for a moody and classy version too.
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weaselandfriends · 1 year
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Post-postmodernism in Pop Culture: Homestuck’s Revenge
I recently saw an excellent video essay titled Why Do Movies Feel So Different Now? by Thomas Flight. Though the title is opaque clickbait, the video is actually about major artistic zeitgeists, or movements, in film history. Flight describes three major movements:
Modernism, encompassing much of classic cinema, in which an earnest belief in universal truths led to straightforward narratives that unironically supported certain values (rationalism, civic duty, democracy, etc.)
Postmodernism, in which disillusionment with the values of modernism led to films that played with cinematic structure, metafiction, and the core language of film, often with more unclear narratives that lacked straightforward resolutions, and that were skeptical or even suspicious of the idea of universal truth 
Metamodernism, the current artistic zeitgeist, which takes the structural and metafictional innovations of postmodernism but uses them not to reject meaning, but point to some new kind of meaning or sincerity.
Flight associates metamodernism with the “multiverse” narratives that are popular in contemporary film, both in blockbuster superhero films and Oscar darlings like Everything Everywhere All at Once. He argues that the multiverse conceptually represents a fragmented, metafictional lack of universal truth, but that lack of truth is then subverted with a narrative that ultimately reaffirms universal truth. In short, rather than rejecting postmodernism entirely, metamodernism takes the fragmented rubble of its technique and themes and builds something new out of that fragmentation.
Longtime readers of this blog may find some of these concepts familiar. Indeed, I was talking about them many years ago in my Hymnstoke posts, even using the terms “modernism” and “postmodernism,” though what Flight calls metamodernism I tended to call “post-postmodernism” (another term used for it is New Sincerity). Years before EEAAO, years before Spider-verse, years before the current zeitgeist in pop cultural film and television, there was an avant garde work pioneering all the techniques and themes of metamodernism. A work that took the structural techniques of postmodernism--the ironic detachment, the temporal desynchronization, the metafiction--and used them not to posit a fundamental lack of universal truth but rather imbue a chaotic, maximalist world of cultural detritus with new meaning, new truth, new sincerity. That work was:
Homestuck.
That’s right! Everyone’s favorite web comic. Of course, I’m not the first person to realize the thematic and structural similarities between Homestuck and the current popular trend in film. Just take a look at this tweet someone made yesterday:
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This tweet did some numbers.
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As you might expect if you’re at all aware of the current cultural feeling toward Homestuck, many of the replies and quotes are incredibly vitriolic over this comparison. Here’s one of my favorites:
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It’s actually quite striking how many elements of the new Spider-verse are similar to Homestuck; aspects of doomed timelines, a multiversal network that seems to demand certain structure, and even “mandatory death of parental figure as an impetus for mandated personal growth” are repeated across both works. The recycling and revitalization of ancient, seemingly useless cultural artifacts (in Homestuck’s case, films like Con Air; in Spider-verse, irrelevant gimmick Spider-men from spinoffs past) are also common thematic threads.
As this new post-postmodern or metamodern trend becomes increasingly mainstream, and as time heals all and allows people to look back at Homestuck with more objectivity, I believe there will one day be a rehabilitation of Homestuck’s image. It’ll be seen as an important and influential work, with a place inside the cultural canon. Perhaps, like Infinite Jest, it’ll continue to have some subset of commentators who cannot get past their perception of the people who read the work rather than the work itself even thirty years after its publication, but eventually it’ll be recognized for innovations that precipitated a change in the way people think about stories and their meaning.
Until that day, enjoy eating raw sewage directly from a sewer pipe.
(Side note: I think Umineko no naku koro ni, which was published around the same time as Homestuck and which deals with many similar themes and then-novel ideas, will also one day receive recognition as a masterpiece. Check it out if you haven’t already!)
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jetleparti · 8 months
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Exercise #3. 2022. in North Hollywood. Oil, acrylic, inkjet, graphite, wax pencil, paper collage on canvas. via Jet Le Parti archive.
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jareckiworld · 7 months
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Bettina von Arnim — Labyrinth (oil on canvas, 1997)
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what are your thoughts on the whole situation with the women’s Olympic boxing competitors Andrea Carini and Imane Khelif? I don’t know why feminists are so mad about it, Imane is a cis woman or has an intersex condition, either way she’s not a man.. I thought feminists were supposed to support women winning
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/s/taXu5IeFZc
Hello!
I expect you also sent the ask with the following link: https://www.tumblr.com/assignedmale/757629682153897984?
So, my short answer is that the situation is complex and I don't believe we have enough information to come to a definitive conclusion. In addition, the current cultural context about "trans athletes" is only exacerbating the already complex issue.
---
My long answer:
My understanding of the situation is that Khelif is a biologically male individual (i.e., "of the sex" that produces the small gamete/sperm) with a difference/disorder of sexual development (DSD, commonly referred to as "intersex") and was, as a result of this DSD, assigned the female sex at birth.
I want to take a moment here to point out that this is the exact sort of situation the AFAB/AMAB labels were created for. The vast majority of individuals are not "assigned" a sex, they are observed to be a particular sex (OFAB/OMAB?). It is in this sort of situation, where the sex is ambiguous or incorrectly determined that the “assignment” comes into play. Further, I will be referring to all AFAB individuals as "she", given the sociocultural context in which biologically male, AFAB individuals are raised and treated as women.
That being said, the participation of people with DSDs in competitive sports is an ongoing, contentious debate that is both separate from and related to the debate about the inclusion of transwomen in women's sports.
In reference to Khelif, it appears as though the original regulatory agency for boxing (IBA) disqualified her on the basis of her DSD. However, they have lost their position due to (either claims of or actual) corruption. The IOC defaulted to determining eligibility based the sex listed on the athlete's passport, which for Khelif is female (as she is AFAB).
The issue here is we do not know what her DSD is. The IBA claims she has XY chromosomes, but there are multiple conditions this can occur with. For example, as described in [1]:
Individuals with 5ARD2 are "genetic males and exhibit phenotypic male features at puberty and during adulthood". They are "raised as girls during childhood" but "usually develop a near-normal male phenotype" after puberty.
Individuals with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS) have "no tissue response to testosterone and no masculinization" even at puberty where they can develop a "near-normal female phenotype". This is despite them having testosterone in the "normal adult male range".
Individuals with partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (PAIS) "show a range of phenotypes with progressive masculinization depending on the degree of androgen insensitivity".
Just based on this, the best solution for each of these may be different. For example, it likely would be unfair for someone with 5ARD2 to compete in the female category, although it would be reasonable for them to compete in the male category. On the other hand, it would likely be unfair to prevent someone with CAIS from competing with other women, even with their male-typical testosterone levels.
And speaking of testosterone:
The same article [1] describes how men's testosterone level is substantially greater than women's levels, even in women with PCOS. (If you look at the article, make sure to take note of the log-scale. It highlights that the mean/median level in any male subgroup is more than 5 times the mean/median level in any female subgroup.) But again ... does the amount of testosterone really matter if the tissues don't respond to it (as in CAIS)?
In contrast, this study [2] also takes note that "testosterone exposure at puberty had unique effects such as changing skeletal structure and limb length which estrogen exposure to later in life cannot suppress" in males without a DSD. So, it's unlikely that artificially lowering the testosterone in individuals with 5ARD2 or PAIS (or males without a DSD, as in transwomen) would resolve the advantage.
So ... there are clear and significant differences in testosterone between men and women, even when they have a DSD. But in some cases (e.g., CAIS) the difference may not be relevant, and in other cases (e.g., artificial hormone suppression) a lack of difference may not be relevant.
I mention all of this to highlight how the situation is nuanced, and why I don't think we can make any judgements about Khelif. But I also want to explain how this situation is, in fact, connected to the "trans athlete" debate. It's a matter of public trust —specifically public trust in the athletic regulatory agencies.
Currently, there are regulatory boards that are making decisions that are neither consistent with biological realities [1, 2] or public opinion [3-5]. These decisions allow unambiguously biologically male individuals to compete with women.
Now to be clear, this particular case (Khelif) does not fall into this category. The problem here is one of trust: how can the public (or the other athletes) trust these regulatory agencies to make sound and fair decisions on complex cases involving DSDs if they can't adhere to scientific consensus on far clearer situations?
This is important, because athletes also deserve medical privacy. I am aware that public figures are often expected to give up a degree of their personal privacy rights (although I disagree with the extent of this). However, I expect most people will agree it's unreasonable to expect an athlete with a DSD (or any other medical condition) to release the extensive amounts of personal medical information needed to prove it is fair for them to compete with women. This is why we need trustworthy regulatory agencies, so that the public and other athletes can know that this information was provided and appropriately assessed without it having to be made public.
(And none of this touches on how the current disregard for clarity of language (e.g., claiming transwomen are "biologically female") has created so much confusion that many people seem to believe Khelif was AMAB.)
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In addition to all of that, the harassment and vitriol being directed at both women in this situation is excessive, unhelpful, and harmful. I've seen racist and misogynistic comments that black women are "more masculine". I've also seen misogynistic comments that Carini is "weak" for exiting the fight. Slurs are being directed at both women, and in neither case is that acceptable.
I understand why the tone of this debate is so hostile, but I do not support the behavior.
For the comic: the claim that "science and experience shows trans athletes on H.R.T are at a disadvantage" is false (see [2]). The rest of the comic neglects to consider the nuance of the situations and the current cultural context. That being said, most people arguing that Khelif shouldn't compete in women's sports are also ignoring the nuance of the situation.
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All in all, I do not think we currently have enough information to draw any conclusion or make any decisions about this specific situation. That being said, the current sociocultural context has inflamed this debate, created confusion, and eroded public trust in the parties responsible for making the aforementioned decisions. I personally consider that to be the more relevant issue.
References under the cut:
Clark, Richard V., et al. “Large Divergence in Testosterone Concentrations between Men and Women: Frame of Reference for Elite Athletes in Sex‐specific Competition in Sports, a Narrative Review.” Clinical Endocrinology, vol. 90, no. 1, Jan. 2019, pp. 15–22. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1111/cen.13840.
Luu, Tyler. “Should Transgender Athletes Be Allowed to Compete with Cisgender Athletes?” University of Toronto’s Journal of Scientific Innovation, Feb. 2022, pp. 59–65. jps.library.utoronto.ca, https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/jsi/article/view/38091.
Brown, Kim Parker, Juliana Menasce Horowitz and Anna. “Americans’ Complex Views on Gender Identity and Transgender Issues.” Pew Research Center, 28 June 2022, https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2022/06/28/americans-complex-views-on-gender-identity-and-transgender-issues/.
Where Does the British Public Stand on Transgender Rights in 2022? | YouGov. https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/43194-where-does-british-public-stand-transgender-rights-1
Where Americans Stand on 20 Transgender Policy Issues | YouGov. https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/48685-where-americans-stand-on-20-transgender-policy-issues.
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