#literary world politics

[qhazuban]

thoughts as i read "savage tongues" by azareen van der vliet oloomi, part 4

ok so here's an example. (also i'm reading the book in epub format and i really struggle with citations in this regard, especially with long chapters, which is something i need to figure out for my teaching!! but anyway...) in the first chapter, right, several pages in there's a section where the narrator says (I'm skipping over some parts with ellipses to highlight the areas that stand out most to me):

I was interested in how desire is shaped by the destructive logic of empire, how at times sex facilitates the transmission of historical violence from one body to another. Xavi [her husband], however, possessed a purity I'd never be able to access. He experienced sex as a bridge, as union, as an explosive, an exhilarating coming together; I didn't deny that was so, but that didn't constitute the entire inventory of my experiences. [...] [...] I resisted the line of thought that Xavi was sure would salvage me from my pain: demonizing Omar [someone who abused her] in order to purify myself. I had no interest in obliterating the contradictions of the past. To the contrary, I wanted to savor them. Xavi was, I felt, asking me to ignore the nuances of my relationship with Omar, the historical and political terrain that had informed it. He didn't see that in doing so I would be sacrificing my own sense of self and my ability to articulate that self in language. He didn't understand, at least initially, how his attitude, pure to the extreme, dispossessed me of my own narrative, my sexuality, my appetite for inquiry, my openness to examining the darkest aspects of human nature, the things most people prefer to look away from. I was left to raise the frightening questions alone. In the process of vilifying Omar, Xavi had unwittingly placed an invisible restriction on my speech; what I needed was an eruption of language. He couldn't tolerate the idea that I was complicit in my own destruction, that I had weaponized what little agency I had and wielded it against myself.

so i really like a lot of this! and it's totally something i would reblog or repost, or save to think about, ha.

but the thing is. even if this is just the beginning of the novel and all of this is explored better later, setting the novel up like this -- and having a stream of consciousness intellectual/emotional style of narrative -- only works if there are just as many questions and unanswered fragments and just -- emotions in the present, not only retrospective -- or maybe just if the language is explored more? i'm not sure. i just feel mixed about this. i think that we need more moments of perplexity and narrative confusion.

idk. i'm having trouble expressing this but, based on what i have been reading so far, as well as interviews with the author etc., it does not seem like there's really a lot of the... turning things on their head?... that i feel would actually make this kind of self-reflection more potent.

i think it probably comes across as *very* potent as-is to a lot of people -- and here i worry about sounding haughty again lol -- and it does feel potent to me too. but in an actual friendship or conversation or interaction or communication between diasporic writers and artists, if it were *actually* to be that and not the absolute shit that goes on in the sorry excuse of a literary world that currently exists -- in the moments that actually truly matter -- it's not just a restatement of what we know and we've read and realized and applied to our lives. there's restatement, yes, but there's also interpersonal hypocrisy and chaos and bizarreness and complexity that summing things up just won't work for.

and i worry that this novel -- in setting things up like this -- like how much can you explore scenes if you have already set things up with such clarity of self-actualization? i don't know if that makes sense. but i am just skeptical about what is actually happening here!!!

and also. so many times people say these kinds of things in the circles i've been part of. but what does it matter if, when it comes down to it, hardly anyone *actually* wants to do the extremely difficult work of exploring complicity, power, nuance, complexity, etc. in interpersonal situations???

[kaizenc]

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” ― George Orwell

Tote bag Link- Make Orwell Fiction Again Tote Bag

[voluptuarian]

[enigmaxcx]

we need to bring back assassinations.

[panvani]

On some level I appreciate encouraging people to read "translated novels," but the action itself is pretty hollow unless you have some concrete intellectual/artistic/whatever purpose or goal in mind while reading translated novels. The predominance of English language novels at the detriment of all others within the Anglosphere, when other languages/cultures tend to import translated English language novels at a high rate, is, indeed, problematic, but this is more because of general American media hegemony and its relationship to American exceptionalism than an esoteric quality inherent to the virtue of the Translated Novel. An English language novel by, for example, a (living) African or West Asian author represents a greater gesture towards international literacy than a translated classic from Western Europe, and neither of these represent real political or social understanding, just your willingness to engage with literary figures and traditions that are not already within the immediate American cultural sphere.

[gennsoup]

"The world is bad. One does not know whom to trust. The good ruler who stands for the people becomes a victim too soon. And bad rulers like bad sauce, stay longer! A world that knows not what it wants. A dizzy world, this."

Ola Rotimi, The Gods are Not to Blame

[fan-dweeb]

We’re studying Medea (by Euripides) in school, and I’ve been really into bnha recently……

Long story short, imagine a Medea-style story but about All For One.

Like, scratch vigilante/ villain Deku, if being able to explore the dawn of quirks from the perspective of either one of the most influential brothers isn’t the best study of morality and narrative building, I don’t know what is.

[joinsideke]

It's been for fucking ever, but my impression was that Rem's love for her was more familial. Also pretty sure the death gods couldn't fuck anyway.

this is the realest tweet i have ever seen in my life

[qhazuban]

thoughts as i read "savage tongues" by azareen van der vliet oloomi, part 3

i think the problem that i’m having with Azareen van der Vliet’s writing here is that there are a lot of great and important insights, but it’s written in the stream of consciousness perspective of someone who has already figured so much out — many of the questions have also already been figured out — even the acknowledgment that there is always more language to be languaged is already figured out. and this feels incomplete and a little boring at some point. i want to stay with the moments of total whiplash and confusion, where the narrator is in the thick of it.

and maybe it gets better, or there are parts like that — i have only begun the book — but it’s not a great sign that so many pages are already just in this retrospective “figured it out” “profound insight” mode. maybe it would seem more revelatory and radical if i had read it in college without much knowledge of these subjects (colonialism, feminism, the western gaze, orientalism, the ironies and devastations of desire and empire) — i expect so. which sounds haughty — like i’m saying i already know everything! lol. i really don’t.

but like. if it’s not a conversation. if it’s just an explanation, and that explanatory overstated style is being treated as a radical literary subversion, an intentional technique — and seems really profound for people who haven’t necessarily studied or lived these things so much — then ok, but it’s like, the irony is that it really is being written and expressed for a social milieu of erudite elitist westerners then — to restate and proclaim our findings. it really is. perhaps cross-cultural, diasporic ones, but the language of “i have figured out these profound insights about my pain and how history has inscribed it” etc etc, like, this is only really interesting if we genuinely ask questions and show that process, yeah i guess “show don’t tell” again, but i mean.. ugh! there’s *some* validity in that!

and i feel like there needs to be — some kind of scientific curiosity there, like let’s see what happens if we explore this event or train of thought or encounter or experience — beyond what we know, however profound our knowledge already is… hmm, and i can see the value of this book being a conversation among diasporic intellectuals, yes, but even then — like can there be more curiosity? peril in the unknowing? idk maybe i’m being too harsh, this is why i never fit in anywhere, i always start with critique!!!

and i do run into the problem where i presume too much, of course i do. (this is reminding me of that time i really launched into a critique of a couple of [a particular poet's] poems, after many of her poems i loved and was jealous of — and how she excoriated me for my critique, which definitely presumed too much, and i definitely overstepped! it’s so embarrassing to remember. although i do think her whole attitude that her work should somehow not be critiqued or whatever was also rather frustrating. but like, that was a clear example of me burning a bridge rather than being kind, but then again the bridge was nonexistent and it was all futile anyway. but anyway….)

i do wish it was actually just — like i wish we could get beyond whatever tenderqueer bullshit about active listening and somatic whatever and never critiquing anything and blah blah blah and be able to give honest critiques, ask difficult questions, of each other’s art and writing. like there has to be some kind of other way of doing things than just “no critique, only conscious affirmation and listening!” OR “i am going to rip this poem apart for its lack of literary sophistication according to elitist standards” …… and i think that that in-between needs to really tackle the personal, the vulnerable, the political that cannot be separated from who we are and who we are figuring ourselves out to be. like art *is* interpersonal. trying to be fucking professional about it is such capitalist imperialist bullshit!

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"However, his father made no effort to pursue the subject. Instead he said abruptly, “So you’re Lettie’s boy.”

Yours too, Joe was on the verge of retorting, but his father was scowling, and it struck him for the first time that his father was probably as uncertain as he as to how to proceed.

“You’re a good size.” His father rolled the cigar back and forth across his fingertips. “Kind of scrawny, but you’ll fill out. How old are you?”

“Going on twenty.”

“Got a job?”

“Part time, here and there. And summers. I go to college, to UCLA.”

“Still in the same house, are you? You and Lettie and the dummy?”

“She’s not a dummy! Pauline is slow, that’s all. But she can talk, she’s no trouble, and everybody likes her.”

His father shrugged. “Is that all? Just the three of you?”

“Uncle Jerry stays with us from time to time.”

“That free-loader. That parasite. Long on talk, short on action.”

“He does like to talk.”

“Big bag of wind. Well, if it’s money trouble, kid, I—”

“Oh no,” Joe said hurriedly. “Mother’s been doing pretty well with the store, all things considered. Business’ll probably pick up, too, Southern California’s bound to be a boom area once the defense contracts start to spread around.”

“Defense my ass. War, you mean. We’re going to—” He was interrupted by the return of Melba, who shoved the papers into a pile on the corner of the bridge table, then set a coffeepot on it and two mugs, and turned her back, all without saying a word.

“How do you take it?”

“Black.” Actually he liked milk with his coffee, but he did not see any; and he was afraid not only of putting Melba out, but of giving his father trouble.

But when his father filled a cup to the brim and shoved it at him, Joe was hard put to swallow without choking or making a face. The coffee was not only bitter, but sour, as though it had been standing around too long, heated and reheated time after time; it had a taste like the smell of the half-rancid lemons outside on the path.

“They’re going to get you, kid,” his father said, rinsing coffee around in his mouth as though it were toothbrush water. Maybe it loosened up the cigar taste? “Don’t think they won’t. First comes  the draft, then they drag you off to the war.”

“Oh, I know!” Joe said eagerly. He thought he must sound like a fool, but this was his first chance to talk seriously. He went on in a rush, “I don’t kid myself about that. My mother doesn’t understand though. It’s hard for her to see why I’ve suddenly gotten interested in politics. The fact is, I’m more concerned with the antiwar movement than I am with college. You know what I mean, don’t you?”

His father, his face furrowed, muttered something he could not catch.

Then he ground out his cigar butt and said, “What’s all this stuff with movements. You’d be better off keeping your nose clean and trying to make a living until Morgenthau and his crowd shove you into the Army.”

“Why should I toss in the sponge? I don’t mind telling you, there’s plenty of students want no part of the war.”

“Students,” his father said scornfully. “Bunch of Commies. You see them trying to stop the Russians from gobbling up Finland? That’s the only goddam country ever paid its debts, but you think the college boys care?”

He added irrelevantly, “Girls and good times.”

“At least we’re trying to do something. As a matter of fact, I’m on my way to the national convention of the American Student Union.”

“Now what do you want me to do about that?” his father asked. “Pat you on the back? You want to save your skin, don’t make out like you’re a hero in the bargain.”

“It’s not just my skin,” Joe persisted. Looking not at his father but at the worn rug that lay in the shade between them, he felt that maybe they might at least have in common the fact that they both wanted no part of the war. He went on doggedly, “When the CIO was getting started, I never paid too much attention to it. Maybe I was too young. But now I think that if the anti-war people and the students and the labor movement can get together —”

“The labor movement! Christ I hate that word. Where’d you pick up all this crap, from that dumb drunk uncle of yours? Don’t you know who John L. Lewis’s stooges are, big fella like you, college boy? Bunch of red agents, that’s what. Don’t you know what they’ve been doing right here in the state of California?”

“As a matter of fact, I thought I’d try and find out—I’m going up to the San Joaquin Valley, to see what’s been going on with those cotton pickers in that strike.”

“I’ll tell you what’s been going on. Commie agitators stirring up the Mexicans and Okies so you can’t get a goddam day’s work out of any of them. Think that’s funny, like in College Humor? Not to somebody that’s been knocking himself out trying to make a go of it.”

“All I said was—”

“I heard what you said. Those brain trusters never taught you at college that it’s the same Jew crowd behind both Lewis and Roosevelt, no matter how the two of them pretend they’re feuding. You know why? Because the professors are hand in glove with Morgenthau and the Jews to drag us into the war and turn the country over to the CIO.” 

With real satisfaction, as though he had invented the phrase, he repeated it: “Hand in glove.”

“I guess …” Joe cleared his throat in order that he might go on, and was almost surprised that it was not blood risen to his mouth. “… you and I haven’t got much to talk about.”

His father clattered cup into saucer and flung back his head in an oddly youthful gesture, to get his straight black hair out of his eyes. As though he were discussing the weather, he said neutrally, “I didn’t go to see you. You came to see me.”

Joe hated himself for sitting there, still, on the sofa, as though he were nailed to it, but he could not gather strength or breath to rise and flee. At last, though, he was able to pull himself erect. 

Looking down at his father seated before his coffee and his columns of figures, he said, “That’s true. Now that I’ve satisfied my curiosity, I’ll be on my way. And you can get back to what really matters to you.”

These words seemed to touch something in his father that had hitherto been beyond his reach. He too arose, his long, defeated countenance darkening with concentration. “Now wait a minute,” he said. “I didn’t mean it that way. Let me get Melba to fix you a sandwich.”

“That’s all right I’m not hungry.”

“It’s no trouble for her, it’ll only take her a minute.”

“I’ve got no appetite.”

His father hitched up his trousers. “Then let me give you a lift downtown. I can run you back to the bus terminal, or wherever, in my pickup.”

“Don’t bother. I can go the way I came.”

As he walked to the front hall to retrieve his bag, Joe could feel his father’s breath on his neck; he was afraid to stop for fear they would collide, but at the door he had to turn once more.

“I thought you were coming to put the bite on me, see,” his father said, his voice somewhat shrill with uncertainty. “And I’m in no position—”

“Neither am I."

“Then don’t go off mad.” His father barred the door. He held Joe’s arm in a surprisingly strong grip while with the other hand he dug deep in his pants pocket.

“Here.” He fished out something and pressed it into Joe’s free hand. “It might bring you luck. Everybody can use a little luck.”

Joe pushed open the screen door with his shoulder and went on out with his bag before him, not looking back. When he was halfway down the walk his father called after him, “Keep your nose clean, kid!”

All the long way back to the highway, he did not unclench his fist, nor did he shift the bag from one hand to the other. Only after he had stood for some time at the intersection, alone, waiting for a ride to Route 99, did he open his hand.

A silver dollar lay there, wet from his sweat. As he stared down at it, and at the deep circular groove that it had bitten into his palm, the odor of lemons seemed to rise to his nostrils, dilating and prickling them.

He lifted his arm and flung the coin away with as much force as he could muster, and then, as he felt the tears coursing down his cheeks, he rubbed his palms along his thighs and pressed them to his wet face, rocking slowly back and forth at the side of the road, waiting for someone to come along and drive him away." - Harvey Swados, Standing Fast: A Novel (1971, 2013 Open Road edition)

[gildedbearediting]

Library Snap Shot Day

April 1st is both Library Snap Shot Day, and Edible Book Day. A day for both fun and awareness when it comes to celebrating literature, and public access to it. Library Snap Shot Day being a day to bring awareness to what life could and would be like without access to library services. Some may say that libraries no longer have any purpose or use in society with the rise of the internet and its…

[joncronshawauthor]

Exploring the Tropes in The Fall of Wolfsbane

As readers, many of us find a certain joy in understanding the tropes that make our favorite stories tick. Tropes, after all, are more than just recurring themes or motifs in literature; they offer a shorthand that helps us dive deeper into the world of a book, understand its characters better, and appreciate the narrative’s nuances. They are the threads that weave together the tapestry of a…

[baronessvonglitter]

Pretty Please

QZ!Joel Miller x f!bookworm!reader

Word count: 2.7K

Summary: your roommate Joel Miller is stressed out, and you offer a creative solution to ease that frustration

WARNINGS: 18+ Only! Mature and Explicit, slight bullying (name calling - from Joel), reader is a bookworm and wears glasses, no age description for reader, Boston QZ, friends with benefits, oral sex (f receiving), soft!Joel, sub!Joel, dom/sub themes, edging, rough sex, unprotected p in v sex, Joel loves nerdy girls, reader is *shaved*, no use of y/n

Author's Note: I know that we all love a good strong DOM Joel, but I wanted to wade in the waters of the Ocean of Possibilities and see what a more submissive Joel would be like. Just like those CEO/investment banker types who visit dominatrices at the end of a long workday just to be treated like lesser than and hand over the reins of power for a bit. Maybe there's a part of Joel that likes being put in his place 🤫

JOEL MILLER MASTERLIST | FULL MASTERLIST

It's just past curfew in the QZ and you're curled up with a good book. The new (to you) apartment you live in came with a great collection of literary masterpieces and your only delight in this cold, cruel world is reading by flashlight, at least until your surly, sourpuss roommate Joel Miller comes home.

The front door opens and slams shut loudly, making the thin walls vibrate. You sigh. He's back.

Joel walks in, looking tired and cantankerous as usual. You quickly shut off your light but not before he sees it. "What have I told you about wastin' the batteries?" he puts his hands on his hips, glaring at you.

Not in a mood to argue, you mumble a quick "Sorry" and scurry past him, but he catches your shoulder. "Just 'cause I can get stuff doesn't mean I will. You need to be more careful with our supplies.. what's this stuff you're readin' anyway?" He makes a grab for your book which you quickly hide behind your back.

"Just some Shakespeare," you lie.

Joel narrows his eyes as if detecting your fib. Suddenly he pulls you toward him and takes the book you're hiding. Eyeing the cover, he visibly blushes and swallows hard. "What's a nice girl like you readin' trash like this for?"

You find it impossible to meet his eyes as your heart roars in your ears. He has your copy of romantic erotica, an old book written decades ago about a woman who trains her lover to be her sex slave. You think to yourself there's no way you can finish it now that he's judging you.

"All right, Bookworm. Out," Joel says, nodding towards the hall before he settles in with a stiff whiskey drink.

Sighing you go to your room. Ever since you moved in a couple months ago after your former QZ was abandoned, Joel has treated you like little more than an imposition. His seemingly affectionate nicknames of "Bookworm" or "Four Eyes" on account of your fondness for books and your need of eyeglasses, respectively, has you wondering if he even cares to remember your real name.

Putting your book away you contemplate another existence. In your story a young woman brings a powerful man to his knees. Had the world not changed so irrevocably, would you have had the fortune of living a life like the characters in your books?

A shower is in order. Once you wash your hair and shave your legs (with shampoo and razors that Joel begrudgingly smuggled for you when you'd politely asked) your spirits are lifted. Hair towel-dried, you put on an oversize tee and some panties and start down the hall where you bump into Joel. He takes a look at your sleepwear and you can see the blush creep up his neck. "Can you put somethin' else on? I can see right through your shirt."

You look down and see your nipples, two puckered points through the cotton of your tee. "I'm just going to bed. Besides, I can wear what I want," you say in an unusually defiant tone.

Joel gets quiet, his body language clearly showing he's getting annoyed. "I just don't want to see you half-naked, Four Eyes." His frustration comes through clear. "Don't you have anything else you can wear?"

You sigh and walk past him to your bedroom closet and pull out a thick flannel shirt. You change with your back to him, feeling his eyes on you like two burning holes in your flesh. His breath hitches, eyes glued to his old shirt he'd let you borrow a time or two. Something primal awakens in him, which he quickly squashes.

"I'm all out of clean pajama pants," you shrug.

"Find some," he says sternly. "That shirt's gonna ride up on you. It's inappropriate."

"No." You stand your ground. "I'm not changing again." You take a moment to look at him, really look at him. He looks stiff, the veins prominent in his neck and forehead. You imagine his warm flesh beneath your kiss, and part of you softens towards him. "You really need to relax. You look stressed."

"Yeah, like you really give a shit," he mutters, looking away.

Studying him more intensely you realize he's not frustrated because you're not obeying him. From the bulge in his jeans it's evident he's turned on by you. Joel Miller is a good-looking guy when he's not being a full-on jerk. Hell, he may even be good-looking then. You take the situation into your hands and approach him, your tongue gliding over your lips. "I could help you relax.. if you want."

Joel freezes and you notice his breathing quicken. "What.. what do you mean by that?"

"You're upset with my lack of 'decent' clothes because I'm a distraction to you. Even if you don't like me, you're still attracted to me."

He gets flustered and it gives you satisfaction to see how much power you have over him. "Maybe.. no. I don't want to. I mean it. I have no interest in anything like that with you."

"Really? Your jeans are having a different reaction."

He looks down quickly, embarrassed and a bit surprised. "It doesn't mean anything," he looks askance.

"Do you want to touch me, Joel?" You start to unbutton your flannel shirt.

"You're my roommate. It's wrong," he says, yet his large, strong hands are reaching into your shirt. His fingers are rough and calloused but damn they feel like heaven as he cups your breasts, runs his thumbs slowly over your nipples.

"Don't think anymore, Joel. Just feel. Just be here with me."

He's unused to following his purely bodily instincts, having to live on his survival instincts for so long. But your skin is so soft and you're so warm and clean from your shower. "God, I want you," he whispers.

You take the lead and kiss him, filling in the space between you. Joel doesn't hold back, cupping your ass in his hands and pressing you to his need, his bulge in direct contact with your clit. Your panties dampen in response. Realizing how far he's taken it, how far he wants to take it, he mumbles an apology. "S..sorry."

"No. No apologies. I want this. Don't you?"

"God yes," he growls, meeting your eyes. He watches, rapt, as you slowly unbutton your shirt and remove it. He's speechless as you go to sit on the edge of the bed, knees parted. You beckon him with one finger.

"I know you've always wanted this," you tell him. "You fantasize about eating me out, how good I taste on your tongue."

As he comes to you he wonders where the shy, docile woman has gone. But he likes this new version of you. "How do you know what I think about?" he asks as his fingers curl into the waistband of your panties. You lift your hips as he eases your panties off. What he sees makes him growl with yearning. "You shaved."

You rest on your elbows, satisfied with the look of sheer gluttony on his face. "A girl's gotta have some luxuries in these trying times.." you smirk and run your fingers delicately over your clit and your smooth folds. Joel moves your hand away. Keeping his eyes on you he laps his broad tongue over your delicate womanhood, then swipes his tongue side to side over your sweet little clit.

You moan loudly at the intimate contact, threading your fingers through his hair. Joel devours you, and the little moans he makes reverberate through you, fill you with vibrations. While he's sucking your clit he slides two fingers in, crooking them so they rub your G-spot, and this combination makes you squirm with delight until you're pushed over the edge. He doesn't stop there, lapping up your honey, holding your thighs as they quake around his head.

"I've wanted this for so long," he growls against your belly, kissing his way up, divesting himself of his clothes. He feels your body heat radiate against him and teases your opening with the tip of his cock, spreading your slick onto him. He kisses both breasts, nuzzles your neck before claiming your mouth again, lining himself up with you. Out of habit you remove your glasses but he stops you. "Leave them on," he whispers. "You look so damn hot, like a naughty schoolgirl.." He watches as you put them on again, your eyes big and bright behind the lenses. Keeping his eyes on you he lets himself sink into your heat, slowly, letting you get accustomed to his size.

"Fuck," you whisper in awe as he fills you, starts to move against you.

He revels in the feel of your soft body underneath his, the snugness of your cunt that dares to take every inch of him. "You're so beautiful," he whispers, taking in the clean scent of your freshly washed skin, the natural fragrance of your arousal. With each press forward he elicits moans, sighs, gasps. Your heart thunders within when you feel how deeply you're joined.

"I need more," you tell him. "Please.."

"More?" His voice is shaky with desire.

"Harder," you gasp.

A dark growl gathers in his throat as he sees this new side of you begin to reveal itself. "You sure you want that from me?"

You nod. "I want you to release all your stress out inside me. Just use me. Please." You look up at him with innocent eyes. "Just for tonight, Joel. Tonight I'm yours."

His body looms large over you. "That's a big request, y'know."

"And I can handle it. I'm a big girl."

He nods, excitement flowing through his veins. "If anything becomes too much, you tell me. Okay?"

Your heart flip flops when he tells you this. Despite this random hookup, he's proving to be a caring gentleman. "I'll tell you, I promise."

Joel can't help but smile and he kisses your forehead. "Good." With heavy breaths he uses all his strength to fuck you into oblivion. He takes out his frustrations on your willing, eager body, his thick, large cock plunging into your tight cunt. "I'm gonna fuckin' tear you apart," he mutters.

His rough way with you takes your breath away, makes you tremble. Joel doesn't hold back, ruts against you, mouth watering as he watches your breasts bounce with each thrust. "God, you're gorgeous," he mumbles, leaning in to kiss you.

You whimper as your mouths meet again, tongues dancing against each other. "Joel.. you're so fucking good."

Grunting in response, he presses against you deeper, harder. You gasp, your body accepting every movement, stretching you more than you thought possible. "You feel too good," he moans.

"You're in.. so deep," you sigh. "Just a little more, I'm gonna--"

"Wait!" he groans, pulling himself away from you. "You're making me.. almost.. I can't hold back," he breathes heavily.

"Shh.." you climb onto his lap. "Let me help you. I'll do all the work," you promise. "All you have to do is grab my hips or touch my breasts," you instruct him, lining up his cock to fit into you again. Joel watches himself disappear between your swollen pussy lips.

"God.. slow.. please," he grunts, grabbing hold of your hips, moving his hands all over your body, exploring every inch of you.

"Yes," you agree, sighing sweetly. "You feel so good.. I like seeing what I can get out of you, Miller."

He lets out a short moan, gripping your hips tightly, running his fingers up the insides of your thighs. His touch is ubiquitous as you ride him slowly and thoroughly. "Please don't stop.. please don't stop." He tries to make it a command but he's so caught up in you that it comes off as begging. "God I want.. please, I need.." he can't even finish his sentences for how much his lust and need has taken over him.

"I know what you need," you moan, moving faster, slamming your hips down on his. The sounds of your colliding flesh fill the room.

"God damn it!" Joel grunts, unable to continue his line of thought. He starts to growl and groan, gritting his teeth.

You smile, biting your lip as you watch him coming apart, completely helpless beneath you. "I'm gonna tame this beast," you tell him boldly. "No one else can do it but me."

"I won't let anyone else handle me," he growls, trying to say something more meaningful, but his brain is overwhelmed. He's just handed over all control to you and it's making him crazy. "Just.. please.."

You stop moving altogether, staying still. "Please what?" you tease him from finishing.

He's about to blow but he can't even get a full sentence out. "Please," he repeats, shaking now just from the feel of you. "Don't stop.."

You remain still. "Say, 'pretty please.'"

"No," he groans. "You.. you won't get me like that." But there's a hint of a smile on his lips.

"Oh," you pout. "That's a shame. I was getting so close and I know you were, too." You start moving slowly and teasingly.

Joel's breath is faltering, pulse dangerously rapid. "Not like this.. wait.. I'm gonna.."

You stop again, a stern look on your face even though you're utterly enjoying dominating this big strong alpha male. "No. You're not," you command him.

Only able to communicate in grunts and groans, Joel thrusts upward, needing the relief that would make you both find release. You gasp, your cunt clenching around him. It would be so easy to just let him keep going, but you hold your hips firmly in place. "'Pretty please,'" you remind him.

"I'm gonna cum. Please let me cum," he whines, desperate now, his fingers tightening on your flesh.

You remove his grip and pin him down. "'Pretty. Please.'" Your lips are millimeters from his, and you can see tears start to well in his dark eyes.

He's losing it now. He's right on the precipice, pain and pleasure mixed as one while you edge him. "All right, okay, I'll say it.. pretty please," he grunts out, voice cracking.

"'Pretty please with sugar on top,'" you smirk. "Say it."

Joel shuts his eyes in frustration. "Pretty please with sugar on top."

You give his lips a tiny lick. "Good boy." Sitting up again you start riding him. You've won but you're both going to reap the benefits.

"God, keep goin'," he moans, eyes still shut, breath labored as he pushes against your hips.

"I'm gonna fucking break you, Miller," you growl, riding him at top speed, without mercy.

Joel is at a complete loss of self, having lost any semblance of control. "Do it.. please," are the only words he can manage among incoherent sounds and grunts as he rises up to hold you.

You feel the friction between you like lightning as you satisfy yourself on his generous cock. "Joel Miller, you're such a good boy for me!" You move against each other in desperation, seeking the moment that will bring you to cum together. You feel him start to twitch and just then your climax hits like a tidal wave. You scream his name as you feel his copious release inside you. All Joel can say is your name, your real name, uttered in an entreaty of gratitude as he buries his face in your neck.

"Sorry if I got a little rough with you before.." he mumbles into your skin.

"I like your roughness," you tell him as you ruffle his soft grey hair with your fingers. "You had a lot that you needed to let out."

He lifts his head and softly kisses the side of your mouth. "Just so you know, I don't intend on stoppin' at just tonight. I have a lot of stress that needs releasing."

"Stressful times we're living in.." You trace his beard with your fingertips and he quickly moves in to kiss your palm.

"Damn right. And it looks like you did tame this beast."

You grin. "Does that make me Beauty?"

"Maybe that's what I'll call you from now on.."

"It's a lot better than 'Bookworm' or 'Four Eyes'."

"I'll still call you those things, from time to time," he grins, and your entire body is warm from his smile.

You are delicate with him now, knowing this man will probably steal your heart just as you've already stolen his.

divider by @saradika 👑

[creature-wizard]

Looks like it's time to talk about starseeds and the New Age movement again.

Since I'm seeing more starseed content being posted, I'm gonna make another post on why the whole starseed thing and the surrounding New Age belief system are... not good.

So for those who don't know, New Age mythology is essentially a hodgepodge of cherrypicked and distorted myths from various cultures, racist pseudohistory, and far right conspiracy theories. To put it very briefly, starseeds are supposedly here to help Earth resist the reptilians, a race of politics-manipulating, war-starting, media-controlling blood-drinking aliens. For those who don't recognize the tropes here, these are basically all antisemitic canards. The reptilian alien myth as most know it today comes from David Icke, who ultimately cribbed a bunch of his material from The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a Russian hoax created to justify violence against Jews. He was also influenced by the work of people like Fritz Springmeier, a hateful crank who based much of his work on other hateful cranks.

(David Icke, by the way, also claims that transgender is an evil reptilian conspiracy. You'll never find just one form of bigotry with these people.)

There are supposedly numerous alien races out there, and one of the most prominent among them are the Pleiadians, AKA Nordics. While modern depictions of the Pleiadians give them more variety in skintone, there's no denying that older Pleiadian mythology basically pictured them as Aryans In Space, even associating them with the swastika.

You see what's going on here? "Good" swastika-loving Aryan aliens versus "evil" Jewish aliens? Sound familiar?

Racism isn't just a tangential part of the starseed myth, either. It lies at its very core. It's inextricably tied in with the ancient astronaut hypothesis, which has a history of racist motivation behind it. The TL;DR is that a bunch of white people couldn't believe that non-white people had built a bunch of things they couldn't figure out how to build themselves (EG, the Great Pyramids), so they proposed that the real builders were anyone from Atlanteans to aliens. (Atlantis, by the way, never existed; it was a literary device created by Plato.)

One supposed purpose of starseeds is to help the world "wake up to the truth," which basically just means "convert people to New Age spirituality." New Age believes that world peace is contingent on a majority of the world being converted to New Age belief, and that resistance against their belief system is ultimately the work of the aforementioned reptilian aliens.

To put it another way, New Agers think they understand other cultures' spiritual traditions better than the actual members of said cultures, and think that anyone who disagrees with them is being manipulated by the conspiracy, or is an agent of the conspiracy. This includes Indigenous cultures which are already endangered from white Christian colonialism.

Essentially, endangered cultures cannot speak up for themselves and resist New Agers' efforts at cultural assimilation without being labeled a problem and an enemy. It's basically white Christian colonialism repackaged as "spiritual, not religious."

Again - if you heard from these people that some ancient text or myth describes extraterrestrial beings visiting our planet for one reason or another, you heard misinformation. They twist and misrepresent literally every myth and text they get their hands on. For example, you may have heard that the vimanas from Hindu traditions were actually alien spacecraft. They were no such thing. Or maybe you heard that the Book of Enoch describes aliens performing genetic experimentation on humans. It literally does not. At best, all of the stories they cite just kind of sound like aliens if you ignore most of their content and pay no attention to their cultural contexts.

The starseed movement preys on alienated people, especially autistic people and people with ADHD. You can look up nearly any list of signs that you're supposedly a starseed, and many of them will align perfectly with characteristics associated with autism and/or ADHD, or that people with these conditions commonly report. Some people within the movement even go so far as to claim that ADHD and autism don't even exist, but were actually made up by the conspiracy as a cover to suppress and control starseeds, which is some yikes-as-hell ableism.

So basically, people are being told that if they have these certain characteristics or symptoms, that means it's their job to spread New Age spirituality to defeat the conspiracy and help others ascend to the fifth density.

And what's the fifth density, you might ask? It's supposedly humanity's next evolutionary level, because New Age is also based on biological misconceptions. Supposedly once everyone's DNA "upgrades," they'll essentially morph into an aetheric form. Supposedly, this is preceded by a number of "ascension symptoms," including depression, headache, gastrointestinal issues, and any number of other symptoms that could indicate almost anything, including stress.

What many of these people don't realize is, this prediction has already failed. Back in the 2000s and 2010s, experiencing "ascension symptoms" was supposed to precede ascension to 5D beginning December 21, 2012. One lady, Denise Le Fay, was convinced that the hair loss she was experiencing in 2008 was an ascension symptom. As we can see by looking her up, she's very much still with us on the 3D plane these days, repeating the same tired old scripts New Agers recycle endlessly.

By the way, everything you near New Agers saying today about old systems being dismantled, dark forces being arrested or kicked off the planet, and new economic systems on the horizon? They've been recycling these scripts for years now. Take a look at this page written back in 2012. You got stuff about the complete dismantling of an enormous network of sinister forces," "the arrest and removal of a world-wide cabal," and a "new economic system."

("Cabal," by the way, is a dogwhistle term for "Jews.")

Furthermore, people in this movement are often encouraged to try and access past life memories through dreams or hypnosis, which makes the whole thing feel even more real to them. But the thing is, you can have incredibly vivid experiences about literally anything you put your mind to - the people in the reality shifting having vivid experiences of living another life in the Harry Potter universe are a great example of this. Just because you have vivid experiences, doesn't mean they have any bearing on anything happening in this reality.

So yeah, the starseed movement and the larger New Age movement are both extremely harmful. They promote racist pseudohistory, medically-irresponsible pseudoscience, conspiracy theories that target numerous marginalized groups, and functionally target aliened people with ADHD and autism to convince them that spreading its beliefs is their job.

[headspace-hotel]

I hate a lot of trends in climate-change-aware nature writing, but this is one I particularly detest: works insisting that we live in a "post-natural" world.

The lostness, bewilderment, aching, and searching in this piece is understood by the author to be an all-consuming and universal dysphoria, when it is actually a highly specific predicament that the author put himself into: He tried to understand the universe exclusively through the point of view of white people.

I mean that Purdy takes the colonizer point of view without realizing that it is a colonizer point of view. He thinks the colonizer point of view is a universal document of the authentic, naive encounter of "humanity" with "nature," instead of burning wreckage left over from the apocalyptic destruction of a rainbow of ideas and cultures.

It feels weird to be talking about this as a white person, but it shouldn't, any more than it should feel weird to say (as a white person) that aliens didn't build the pyramids.

Very little of what he's writing about would exist or make sense without European colonization of the world. Purdy constantly says "we" and "our" in reference to things that are very restricted to a particular cultural point of view, as if totally oblivious to the idea that other cultures and other perspectives even exist. When he searches for historical references to chart "human" relationship with nature, history goes like this: Pre-Christian religion in the British Isles->British monarchy-> George Washington-> Industrial Revolution->Thoreau.

He manages to repeatedly stumble over giant hunks of colonialism embedded in every concept he's thinking about, like boulders obstructing a pathway, and pretends so hard that they don't exist that his points are janky and meandering. For example, his discussion of Helen Macdonald's book H for Hawk, touching upon human identification with the landscape and with non-human "nature," blunders into this:

Those who love (certain parts of) nature are often making a point of preferring it to (certain kinds of) human beings. The problem is not only literary. Macdonald describes an encounter with a retired couple who join her in admiring a valley full of deer, then remark how good it is to see “a real bit of Old England still left, despite all these immigrants coming in.” She does not reply, but is miserable afterward. The meaning of landscapes is always someone’s meaning in particular. Confronted with all of this, Macdonald tries to shake off the complicities of her own identification with the terrain: “I wish that we would not fight for landscapes that remind us of who we think we are. I wish we would fight, instead, for landscapes buzzing and glowing with life in all its variousness.” The alternative that Macdonald wishes for is, of course, not an escape from political-cultural projection onto landscape, but another approach to that same practice — really, the only one a 21st-century cosmopolitan is likely to feel comfortable embracing. 

AND THEN HE JUST SEGUES INTO THE NEXT POINT LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED. Like don't worry about it :) We will simply project onto landscapes in a non-racist way :) because we aren't racist anymore in the 21st century :)

The next book he discusses is Landmarks by Robert MacFarlane, which is basically about how the vocabulary of landscape in English is sterilized and monoculturized, and contrasts that with Scots Gaelic. This is how Purdy explains the thesis of the book:

 Our sense of what lies outside ourselves has been blunted by “capital, apathy, and urbanization” — enemies likely to draw a range of friends, from cultural Marxists to Little Englanders to those who would like to see a bit more effort, please. But behind this scholarly sketch, Macfarlane’s work is testament to a pretheoretical obsession with unfamiliar ways of encountering places. We disenchanted and distracted (post)moderns describe terrain, he complains, in terms of “large, generic units” such as “field,” “hill,” “valley,” and “wood." (...) Many people who have lived intimately with landscapes have had words for nuances of form, texture, and use. Macfarlane’s purpose in Landmarksis to gather these words as proof of how precisely it is possible to name a place, and so, perforce, to know it.

Why is Gaelic endangered? Because of an effort to extinguish its speakers' culture. This article I found on it talks about the history of the language's decline, and it's strikingly similar to what happened to indigenous people in the Americas and Australia, with children being put in schools where they were beaten with sticks for speaking their native language.

This whole essay is about Purdy's general disappointment with nature writing, his craving for an ineffable Something, some sort of magical, primitive identification with the natural world. In the very first paragraph he claims that the pictures of animals on nursery walls are "totemic" and quotes a guy saying that zoos are an "epitaph" to the relationship between people and animals. It's never very clear what he means, but he uses the term "animism" repeatedly, such as when he says this about MacFarlane's goal in writing Landmarks:

His quarry is an animistic sense that Barry Lopez once identified in “the moment when the thing — the hill, the tarn . . . ceases to be a thing, and becomes something that knows we are there."

Given that ambition, Landmarks, which Macfarlane calls a “counter-desecration phrasebook,” can be disappointingly thin as a lexicon. Too many of the terms are simply dialect or Gaelic for some generic form, such as “slope,” “hilltop,” “stream,” or “tuft of grass.” The effect is less pointing out how many things there are to see than cataloguing how many names there are for the same thing.

This is Purdy missing the point, perfectly crystallized as though frozen in amber. He is oblivious to the clear subtext of a language showing a culture's connection to its home, and of the violence against that culture. The Gaelic language doesn't make him feel primal and mystical the way he wants it to, therefore it doesn't mean anything to him. MacFarlane doesn't make him feel a magic animistic connection to nature, therefore his book must have failed at its task.

Who gives a shit? Gaelic isn't FOR you.

He discusses another book about a guy that hikes a bunch of Cherokee trails, but I don't know what to say about that one, observing it through the sludge of the reviewer's unwillingness to recognize that historical context exists. He summarizes his disappointment in a confusing way, using the Gaelic language as a symbol for an obscure and inaccessible place where the answer to your personal emotional cravings lives (???) Then he talks about a kind of epistemicide, or extinction of knowing, of nature, but again, totally oblivious to any relationship to colonization.

Every inhabited continent has been denuded of ecosystems and species. Most North American places have shed wolves, elk, moose, brown bears, panthers, bison, and a variety of fish and wild plants, which were all abundant four hundred years ago. 

Wow, I wonder what happened four hundred years ago?

This writing acts like the dominant Eurocentric attitude towards the world is universal, but the author is haunted by this nameless specter of the possibility of a different way of thinking, which he treats as some kind of mystical, primordial state hidden in the past instead of just a different cultural perspective.

Not only does he not recognize that his own cultural perspective of Nature is dysfunctional and unsatisfying because it was created by exploitation and genocide of other cultures and their symbiotic relationships, he acts like other perspectives don't exist. Take his perspective on forests and the mycorrhizal network:

Wohlleben’s emphasis on interdependence and mutual aid is part of a recent tendency to recast nature in an egalitarian fashion — as cooperative, nonindividualist, and, often enough, hybrid and queer, in contrast to the oaks of generals and kings. Nature does answer faithfully to the imaginative imperatives and limitations of its observers, so it was inevitable that after centuries of viewing forests as kingdoms, then as factories (and, along the way, as cathedrals for Romantic sentiment), the 21st century would discover a networked information system under the leaves and humus, what Wohlleben calls, with an impressive lack of embarrassment, a “wood wide web.”

Listen, I don't think this is accurate to how Europeans thought of forests throughout time, let alone "humanity" in general. The emphasis of power and competition in ecosystems emerged after Darwin, in collusion with capitalism and "race science." Trees have been symbols of life, wisdom and selflessness, and regarded as sacred or even sentient, for centuries before that. But on top of that, this is just blatantly pretending that only white people's ideas count as ideas.

It's the same dreck as all the other "literary" writing about climate change: self-pityingly and unproductively mourning "Nature" and a fantasized "wild" state of the Earth, ignoring colonialism, treating human influence of any kind on other life forms as something that either destroys them or makes them soft and "tame."

I'm tired of reading nature writing from people that obviously do not go outside, or if they do, they do it in such a suffocatingly regimented, goal-oriented way that they can't just sit outside and relax.

Maybe I shouldn't be such a hater if I want to do nature writing. But my love of nature is WHY I am a hater.

[qhazuban]

thoughts as i read "savage tongues" by azareen van der vliet oloomi, part 2

like, there are some good political and ethical and intellectual and emotional insights in this book. a lot of somewhat profound understandings, etc. maybe it would work better if they were on tumblr or something lol. or if there was a clearer sense of personhood and approachability amidst it all. idk.

it’s just… hollow because of how all this shit so easily becomes the next cool leftish superior queer thing to say. i mean. i get wrapped up in that shit too. but at some point… like unless you’re actually conveying some kind of crucial relationality, some kind of intent to actually communicate, some kind of self-reflection that isn’t already self-actualized… what’s the point?

i know too many people who can say all the profound things. i’ve done that too, though i fumble a lot more as well. i’d rather fumble, though, honestly. i don’t trust people — writers, narrators, artists, speakers, teachers, peers — who can be so ~profound~ — but that could just be my trauma speaking. being really fucked over by so many people like this. reading too much into who the writer may or may not be, collapsing narrator with writer (ugh i have so many complicated feelings about this though!!), etc etc.

(separating the narrator from writer, maintaining professional distance from a writer or artist or political speaker — it is so based in this… classically liberal separation of self and other, this bounded superficiality of relation… when i read something i want to feel it! i want to see you in the ways you are scared to be seen. call it invasive — but what’s the point if we are not willing to exist in those terrifyingly vulnerable possibilities as writers and artists?!?! i just. ugh. i hate the discourse around this. it’s complicated! but can we talk about what’s actually scary and real? idk!)