#n.k speaks

[desire-daddy-nk]

@chatisthatrizz donated 20 gold!

Yoooooo what’s up? You seem like your cool lmaoooooo

you grant wishes yeah?

"uhh.. yea..?"

[desire-daddy-nk]

He smiles.

"Just because. Now, where exactly.. did you get that stick..?"

Niklaus appears before you.

"Hello Dopplegilly."

"AH"

*DG jumps, turning to look at Niklaus.*

"HOW- WH-"

[desire-daddy-nk]

[ @gratuitousconundrum started trolling desire-daddy-nk!]

GC : ! > HEY

GC : ! > you seem WEIRD

GC : ! > not in a BAD WAY

GC : ! > LIKE a really GOOD way actually

"Thank you...?"

[pansexualandscared]

Hi just read This is How You Lose the Time War because one of the campers at the sleepaway camp i work at handed it to me, looked me dead in the eyes, and said “read this. it’s the best thing i’ve ever read” and how can you not trust a 15 year old who is also holding an N.K. Jemison book with your life.

So I read it in a day and cried about it and now i cannot describe this feeling i have in my chest. I need everyone else to read this now, i want to hug this book to me forever, i don’t ever want to speak to anyone again, “I want to meet you in every place I ever loved. Listen to me. I am your echo. I would rather break the world than lose you.”

[fuckitydoodah]

A plague upon the houses of all fantasy authors who include a map, but only mark 3% of the cities and places they mention in the book.

[desire-daddy-nk]

"Oh nooooo not Niklaus.... Hes back 😔😔😔😔"

dude Niklaus is back and making more deals ??

oh come ON

[gr1mstar]

The type to… ( N.K )

notes: this is part 2 of the series “the type to…”, the first part was about gojo, so if you want to check it out is here. also, who should i do next? sukuna? toji?

content: nanami kento x reader | sfw :) | these are my ideas so if you don't agree please ignore it

check out my masterlist too if you liked this post

═══════════════════════

NANAMI IS THE TYPE TO surprise you after a hard day of work. you will come home all stressed out and tired, and the first thing you’ll notice is a wonderful smell of nanami’s homemade food. then adventuring further into your shared apartment you will see rose petals all around the house.

NANAMI IS THE TYPE TO offer to bathe you when you are too tired to take a shower yourself, not wanting you to me uncomfortable the next day.

NANAMI IS THE TYPE TO just admire you when you being to talk about things you are passionate about. even though he has absolutely no idea about the subject you are talking about, he would be all ears and than at the end of the day he would search about that topic, just to know what are you talking about the next time.

NANAMI IS THE TYPE TO call you sweet nicknames everyday and only use your name when he is upset or disappointed. also he would calm down after a kiss on the cheek because he is so in love with you.

NANAMI IS THE TYPE TO carry all your shopping bags to the car and never complain about how many are there or how heavy it is. he would also never let you carry something besides your purse. a small bag with snacks? “no, a princess never carries anything”

NANAMI IS THE TYPE TO learn how to braid hair just to help you create different hairstyles every day before work. he would call it “practice for our daughter”, even though he is not sure he would have a girl or a boy. and you are not even pregnant.

NANAMI IS THE TYPE TO always open the door for you. even though he has a lot of things on his hands, even though he is injured from his job, we would always be a gentleman.

NANAMI IS THE TYPE TO bring you flowers every end of the week, not skipping a week. he would buy you roses, lilies, jasmines, magnolias. he would also learn the symbolism of every flower and colour just to make things special for you.

NANAMI IS THE TYPE TO pick out your nail colour and actually listen to why “that shade of pink is different than this one”. he would not see the difference, but he would leave you speak and pick something else. his favourite nail colour on you is dark red or royal blue.

NANAMI IS THE TYPE TO have his hand on your thigh whenever he is driving and subconsciously move his thumb and hum when you are speaking just so you know he is listening.

═══════════════════════

© 2024 gr1mstar — all rights reserved. please do not copy, modify, repost, translate, or claim my content as yours.

[desire-daddy-nk]

My name is Niklaus Hendrix. I am the wish doctor, desire daddy, papa possibility, granter of all wishes, call me whatever. I don't mind.

I presume you're here to make a deal? Tell me, what do you wish for most?

CREDIT:

pfp / header

TAGS;

#the deal of a crescent moon - A deal was made.

#Anonymous wishes - ask answered.

#N.K posting - Niklaus posts random shit.

#N.K speaks - In character

#N.K Rb - reblogs without any text from niklaus.

#Closed dealing - Out of character

#Nora spotted - Niklaus's cat Nora!!!

#the entry log. - Niklaus's log.

#Noted. :) - instances that Niklaus nor Nora wasn't apart of, but may be useful later.

#Seen and saved :) - to reread

#WEHATENIKLAUS!!!!111!!- Niklaus hate posts

PRONOUNS;

Any. I do not care.

[nateconnolly]

“I have tried to show you what I am,” says Barb, the protagonist of one of the most controversial short stories ever written. “I have tried to do it without judgment. That I leave to you.”

Barb comes from I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter by Isabel Fall, a science fiction story about gender and imperialism. It was Fall’s first published story. There was no backlog of stories to analyze, and her author’s bio was sparse. Readers weren’t given any information about Fall’s gender identity, but that didn’t stop activists from speculating. “… this reads as if it was written by a straight white dude who doesn’t really get gender theory or transition,” complained Arinn Dembo, President of the science fiction writers’ collective SF Canada. The author Phoebe Barton even compared the story to a weapon against trans people: “Think of it as a gun,” she tweeted. “A gun has only one use: for hurting.” N.K. Jemison joined in, tweeting, “Artists should strive to do no (more of this) harm.” But Dembo and the hundreds of thousands of others were mistaken about Fall’s supposed cis identity. The publisher responded to the backlash by taking the story down and posting a statement about the author’s identity. Isabel Fall was a transgender woman, and self-identified activists for trans rights bullied her so mercilessly that she attempted suicide. Dembo later adjusted her criticism, saying “a lot of people might have been spared a lot of mental anguish” if Fall had made a statement about her gender identity. Meaning, Fall had a moral obligation to out herself as a trans woman. Both of Dembo’s comments reveal a preoccupation with the author that distracts from the text. The recent obsession with author identities is one of the great failures of contemporary liberal movements. In order to win liberation for any given group, liberal activists must focus less on who speaks and more on what is spoken. 

Roland Barthes’ 1967 essay The Death of the Author argued that an author’s intentions and life experiences do not make the “ultimate meaning” of their text. The author might as well “die” once the text is in the reader’s hands. The text is “a multi-dimensional space” that one cannot simply flatten with biographical details about the author. Barthes has largely been vindicated among literary critics and theorists, but his idea has not been well-received among liberal activists. It is easy to refuse to acknowledge multiple dimensions of a text. Moralistic groups like liberation movements might even be tempted to sort texts into a simple dichotomy—“good” or “bad,” without any gray areas—on the sole basis of the author’s identity. That is exactly what Dembo tried to do: she suggested that Attack Helicopter was bad simply because of the author’s (supposed) gender. 

I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter is not a transphobic story. Although an in-depth analysis would be beyond the scope of this essay, I can confidently say that Fall critiqued American imperialism, not transgender people. I think that would be clear to anyone who reads the story. But apparently, reading a story is no longer a necessary step in the process of interpreting it. Barton—who suggested her fellow trans woman was a “gun”-wielding transphobe—had not actually read the story. Jemison also admitted she had not read the story before tweeting that it was harmful. We now have a complete reversal of Barthes’ idea: this method of moralistic interpretation is nothing less than the death of the text.

Fall is far from the only queer storyteller to face backlash for allegedly not being queer. Becky Albertalli, Kit Connor (who was still a teenager), and Jameela Jamil all came out of the closet because they were harassed for telling queer stories as “straight” and “cis” people. It is a common talking point in activist circles that the government should not compile lists of queer people or forcibly out them. Why, then, do activists engage in the same behavior? It simply is not always safe to admit that you are gay, or trans, or autistic, or epileptic, or that you have had an abortion. The reason that we need liberation movements for these groups is the same reason that people might not want to publicly claim these identities.

You can read the rest on Substack

[desire-daddy-nk]

"if only there was a way.. like a deal or something.."

this is never going to work! I’ll just forever be sick and I’ll die and we won’t find the inventor. And if I die and we can’t find this guy I’ll never get my fucking legacy! I just wish I wasn’t sick anymore!

[lxvsxjy]

Casual dominance • n.k

Cw: afab!reader, no uses of y/n, slight suggestive remarks, husband!nanami, pet names (babe, sweetheart) not proof read (sorry)

﹥*:ꔫ:*+ﾟ﹥*:ꔫ:*+ﾟ﹥*:ꔫ:*+ﾟ﹥*:ꔫ:*+ﾟ﹥*:ꔫ:*+ﾟ

Nanami has manners, he’s very polite no matter where he is. You would’ve thought that his mannerisms would have rubbed off onto you, but that’s not what happened. You sometimes get jealous of how natural his demeanour is, he doesn’t have to remind himself not to be a bitch.

He will always remind you to fix your posture, he puts his hand on your lower back to make sure you straighten it up, he didn’t realise what effect this has on you.

He’ll hold the door open for you, anywhere you go he’ll hold the door and let you go in first. Nanami is very laid back, he’ll mostly just get angry at his work. His laid back personality makes him even more desirable in your eyes. Nanami will always look you in the eyes when you talk to him, every time. It was so sexy but it can be intimidating at some points.

Like when he gets jealous, you know. His demeanour changes and his attitude is completely different. When he invites you to a work event, he knows he’s gonna have to keep an eye on his coworkers. There has been many times where his coworkers have tried to feel you up, he knows you wouldn’t let that happen but he just can’t stand the thought of someone else touching you in that way.

Your stood next to the drinks stand as you pour yourself a glass of wine, one of Nanami’s coworkers chatting you up. To be honest you weren’t even listening to what he had to say, you scanned the room in search for your husband. Your eyes stopped on Nanami, it was clear his eyes were fixed on the bloke who was clearly trying to make a move on you.

You notice his frame began getting closer. His hands snake around your waist. “Hey sweetheart, hope I’m not interfering” his voice was stern, his eyes glared at his coworker as he spoke. “Not at all, babe” His coworker seemed to get the hint because before you knew it he was making his way over to a group of people in the corner. Nanami still felt a slight pinch of jealousy, he doesn’t know why.

The rest of the night he tried to keep his cool, for the rest of the night, staying as close as you as possible. You were leaving the event, getting into the passenger seat of his car. It was an half an hour drive, his hand rests on your inner thigh, as his other one grips the steering wheel. “I don’t think bringing you to future events is a good idea” his serious tone was intimidating, not once did he take his eyes off the road. “Why not?, did I do something wrong?” Your head turns to look at him, he bites the insides of his cheeks as he focuses on the road. “Its nothing that you did, it’s just can’t stand the way they look at you”

The jealousy in his voice was clear as day, he finally turned his head to face you for a second before turning forward again. Pulling up in the driveway he stepped out of the car walking towards the passenger door to open it for you, you let out a small thank you in response as you followed him into the house. “I think we should continue our conversation” he placed his car keys down on top of the counter, as he spoke again this time walking towards you. “I don’t appreciate how those men talk to you, hell I don’t like the way they look at you either” his voice wasn’t harsh, he was just trying to talk.. “babe it’s okay it’s not like I’d let anything happen” you spoke up, looking anywhere but his eyes. “Look at me in the eyes when I’m speaking” this was a demand, though his voice wasn’t demanding. It was sexy, seeing him all jealous.

Safe to say, he’s definitely not going to take you anywhere near his coworkers in the future

[fernthewhimsical]

Hopepunk Primer pt. 3

How to practice Hopepunk

Find joy in the small things. The flowers growing through concrete, the way the sunlight hits the grass. There is beauty and joy in the small things, but it takes a bit of training to find them. Mindfulness or a gratitude journal (or even a Tumblr sideblog) helps with this training. Hope can be learned, I promise.

Be a pebble. [8] Imagine a tall glass that is half-full with water. Imagine you are a crow. You try to drink the water but you can't reach, the glass is too deep. So you take a pebble and throw it in. The water level rises slightly. Other crows come in with pebbles, and with each pebble the water level rises until finally you all can drink from the glass. There is a lot of focus nowadays in activism circles to be aware of every horrible thing that is going on in the world and to work on each and every one of them. The tough reality is: we can't. We're only human and right now we are all very prone to burn-out. We can't bring change if we are burnt out or have compassion fatigue. So be a pebble. Stay small, perhaps even stay local. If everyone focuses on one thing and focuses their efforts and energy there, we will make it. We'll make the water rise so everyone can drink. Be a pebble.

Stop doom scrolling. It's ineffective and only serves to make us feel more hopeless and demoralized.

Be responsible for your own internet experience. This is related to doom scrolling. Unfollow people who make you feel hopeless and like the fight is useless. Block trolls and don't engage them. Find people who make you feel inspired, invigorated, hopeful. Blacklist tags, block, delete.

Look into hopepunk media. Be inspired by the stories told. Some examples are movires: Lord of the Rings, Mad Max: Fury Road, Pacific Rim. Series: Sense8, the Good Place, Star Trek. Books: Binti by Nnedi Okorafor, A conspiracy of truths by Alexandra Rowland, the Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. Music: Torches by X Ambassadors, This Yeah by the Mountain Goats, Be More Kind by Frank Turner.

Build/Find your Community. Share what you have, ask for what you need. We're in this together. If you grow your own fruits and vegetables share them with friends and neighbours. Exchange favours like doing a grocery run or offering to watch the kids for a night. Make a tiny library or give & take cabinet. Share skills and resources. This can be done both online and in person, but making a difference locally is easier with boots on the ground, so to speak.

Create. Live authentically. Do things just to do the thing. So much needs to be "content", these days. So much needs to be a "side hustle" or "monetized". Resist. Create because it makes you feel good. Because you want to. Create bad art, sing off key, swing your arms wildly and call it dancing, write edgy poetry, create Mary Sue self-inserts. Live.

Resist capitalism. Reuse, recycle, repair, thrift, make, trade, etc.

Vote. If you really want to make a difference get out there and vote. Especially in the US they do not want you so rebel and vote. Not just for the president. Voting locally for your representatives will have more of an influence.

Unionize. Alone you beg, together you negotiate. Only together can we make change

Spread hope. Do random acts of kindness, compliment people, share positive things that happened, spread love and joy where you go.

[8] Be a pebble

Further reading:

Alexandra Rowland's Hopepunk Manifesto What is Hopepunk by Vox.com Hopepunk-Humanity blog on Tumblr Hopepunk: A Genre, Philosophy and Movement by Lexi Drumonde (Video) Intro to Hopepunk by Morgan Hazelwood (Video)

Part 1: Intro and history Part 2: Philosophy of Hopepunk Part 3: How to practice hopepunk and further reading Part 4: Extra! Hopepunk and magic

[desire-daddy-nk]

He smiles.

"How are you?"

"Hello, Alphonze." You turn around and see Niklaus Hendrix.

[he looks at one of the Many, Many, Posters of his face and full name scribbled on it on a wall and looks back]

Oh

[songofwizardry]

It's speak your language day! I have some fun facts on Kiswahili! Translation under the cut.

Leo hapa Tumblr ni siku ya kuongea lugha yako ya kwanza (inaitwa speak your language day)! Kuisherehekea siku hii, nilitaka ku shiriki nanyinyi nyote semi chache za Kiswahili. Kiswahili ina utajiri nyingi ya mapokeo ya mdomo, na kuna desturi na historia ndefu ya kusimulia mahadithi, kutega vitendawili, n.k.

Kwa mfano, ukitaka kusimulia hadithi, unaanza hivyo:

Msimulizi: Hadithi hadithi!

Hadhira: Hadithi njoo, uongo njoo, utamu kolea!

Msimulizi: Zamani za kale...

Hadithi zinazosimuliwa mara kwa mara ni hadithi za wanyama wa porini: sungura mjanja, mfalme simba, fisi, na kadhalika; hadithi kama hizi zinapatikana katika nchi nyingi za Kiafrika.

Vitendawili ni semi zinazotegwa, na watu wanatakiwa wazifumbulie. Watu wanaoongea Kiswahili kawaida wanajua vitendawili vingi, kwasababu tunazifunza katika shule ya msingi—mi mwenyewe nakumbuka nilipokuwa katika darasa la saba, kabla ya mtihani ya taifa, nilikaa ninakariri vitendawili kama arobaini! Vitendawili vinachekesha na vinachemsha bongo, kwa mfano:

"Askari wangu ni mpole lakini adui wanamhara." (Jibu: paka)

"Tajiri wa rangi." (Jibu: kinyonga)

"Numba yango ina nuguzo mmoja." (Jibu: uyoga)

"Mzungu katoka ulaya no mkono kiunoni." (Jibu: kikombe)

Kwa ukweli mi mwenyewe nimeaanza kusahau vitendawili vingine—lakini zinapatikana ukiGoogle siku hizi!

Kiswahili ni lugha yenye historia, desturi, na vipengele vingi vya kuvutia—siwezi kuziandika zote hapa, lakini kwa mfano, muda ya Kiswahili ("swahili time"), ngeli za nomino, historia ya uandikishi wa Kiswahili (kuanza na harufi za Kiarabu), na ilivyotengenezwa 'lingua franca' katika Tanzania, na lugha ya taifa baada ya uhuru. Natumaini mtafunza kidogo kuhusu lugha ya Kiswahili leo—usiache baada ya kujua 'Hakuna Matata' tu!

(Kama nimokesea sarufi, samahani sana! Siku hizi siandiki kwa Kiswahili kwa kawaida.)

(Translated from Kiswahili/Swahili, with some extra notes)

Today, here on tumblr, is Speak Your Language Day! To celebrate this day, I wanted to share with you a few short sayings in Kiswahili. Kiswahili has a rich variety of oral traditions, and there is a long history and tradition of narrating stories orally, posing vitendawili (common riddles), etc.

For example, it is traditional when one is narrating a story to start like this:

Narrator: A story, a story!

Audience: Story, come! Fiction, come! Make it sweet!

Narrator: Once upon a time...

The common tales that are narrated are folk tales involving wild animals: common characters of the cunning hare (sungura mjanja), the king lion, the hyena—folk tales of similar nature can be found in many African countries.

Vitendawili are short sayings that are posed, and people need to solve/figure them out. People who speak Kiswahili will know many of these, because we learn them in primary school—I remember when I was in Grade 7, before my national exams (standardised tests taken at the end of primary school), I sat and memorised about forty different vitendawili! Vitendawili can both make one laugh, and be mind-bogglers (literal translation: they boil the brain), for example:

"My soldier is so gentle, but the enemies are scared of them."

"The one wealthy in colours."

"My house has only one pillar."

"The white man has come from England with his hand on his waist."

Answers to the vitendawili are at the bottom.

In all honestly I have forgotten a lot of the vitendawili—but these days you can Google and find lists of them easily!

Kiswahili is a language with a rich history, and many fascinating features—I couldn't write them all here, but for example, Swahili time, our many noun classes, the history of writing Kiswahili (there are early Kiswahili writings using the Arabic script), and the way it originated as a lingua franca and how it became the national language and a uniting factor in Tanzania after independence. I hope you'll look up the history of or a little bit of Kiswahili today—it's much more than just the phrase 'Hakuna Matata'!

(My apologies if I've made any grammar mistakes—these days I don't often write in Kiswahili. Also, because I intentionally wanted to write this in Kiswahili first, and then translate it, and I'm not practiced at translation, the English sounds clunky/weird—my apologies, but hey, it's SpYLD, I gotta prioritise the non-English text.)

Answers to the vitendawili:

A cat

A chameleon

A mushroom

A teacup

Some links:

Langfocus' Swahili video, which is a really good primer

The online Kiswahili dictionary I use most

For Kiswahili news, BBC Swahili (both online and you can listen to the radio) is pretty good. There's also many, many Kiswahili language news sites you can find, eg Mwananchi.

And of course, music!

Bongo flava is a genre of Tanzanian music (that originated in Dar es Salaam! Bongoland!)—it's a vibrant genre, it's closely linked to hip-hop and Afrobeats; I have a soft spot for the Bongo Flava of the 00s, so here's Usineseme by Ali Kiba (2009)

Sauti Sol are super well known these days, with good reason! They're awesome! They sing in both Kiswahili and English, but my favourite song of theirs is Nairobi

And in a departure from my usual brand, some patriotic music—this is a remix of the traditional patriotic song Tanzania Tanzania, recorded to encourage people to vote in the 2015 elections. I like it because it's a fun video that captures a lot of different parts of Dar es Salaam.

[b-plot-butch]

9 BOOKS I PLAN TO READ IN 2025

Thanks for tagging me @seiya-starsniper !! ☺️

Can’t be bothered to include the covers so:

Smoke and Ashes by Amitav Ghosh: Probably the third time I’ve ranted about this book in a tag/ask game rip. I started this book in May last year and I STILL haven’t finished it yet 😭😭😭

Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones: WEREWOLF WEREWOLF WEREWOLF. I have it on good authority that this book is 11/10 and I can’t wait to get into more of Jones’s work (My Heart is a Chainsaw was such a standout of this year)

You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue: any book that gets @the-everqueen raving to this degree is an automatic 👀👀👀👀👀👀

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Garcia-Moreno: I read Certain Dark Things by the same author this year and loved it, so I’m eager to dive into more of her work!!

The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez: Still on a huge vampire kick and me and a friend are gonna read this book together! I should get started on it today…

Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah: it sounds like a great fantasy adventure! It is the first in a trilogy and I haven’t committed to reading a series in a hot minute, but hopefully I’ll like this one enough to see it through the end! Speaking of series—

The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin: I read the first book in this duology last year and I really enjoyed it, but never got around to reading the sequel. I want to do that this year!

Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez: I read one of her other collections, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, and I heard this one is even better, so I’m excited to check it out. Short stories aren’t generally my thing but I’m really liking Enriquez’s.

Organ Meats by K Ming Chang: it sounds so nasty and visceral. I hope it’ll be right up my alley!

This was super fun! Tagging Horse as previously mentioned @lucienne-thee-librarian @aeide @grecoromanyaoi @flower-dagger-gay @dreadfuldevotee @mimbotomy and anyone else who wants an excuse to ramble about books!

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading update: March 2024

March was so !!!!!! so fucking long, but that means that I got to read a lot of books - more than I did in January or February. they're pretty all over the place in terms of quality, but I think they're also all going to be pretty memorable in one way or another. shall we discuss?

what have I been reading?

The Ballad of Perilous Graves (Alex Jennings, 2022) - I bought this novel at Crescent City Books in New Orleans last June, then tucked it away to wait for exactly the right moment. and I'm so glad I did, because it was a gorgeous little flash of NOLA in the middle of a gray midwestern winter funk. this novel is so, SO steeped in celebrating the art, history, and culture of New Orleans, creating a version of the city filled with talking animals, living songs, and moving graffiti that hardly even feels that different than the real New Orleans. and in this book, Nola is distinct from New Orleans; there's some interesting multiverse stuff going on in the city that might be really interesting to my fellow fans of Dimension 20's Unsleeping City and N.K. Jemisin's City We Became. not every part of the book totally worked for me: the parts of the books following the kids - the titular Perilous "Perry" Graves and company - are definitely the strongest, and the actual details of how the plot got resolved got a little muddled for me before the surprisingly abrupt end. but! it must be said that the vibes are immaculate, and vibes will get you really far with me. I want to see a thousand more stories set in this world.

Thank You For Sharing (Rachel Runya Katz, 2023) - with god as my witness this was one of the most boring romance novels I've ever read, and that's saying something considering I literally just read Red String Theory. what I really adore are romances that take place at around an 11 on a scale of 1-10, under circumstances where absolutely no normal person should even be able to contemplate fucking but our protagonists power through because they're horny to a degree that renders them clinically unwell. this book was hovering somewhere around a 2; it's literally just two adults having jobs and hanging out in pretty mundane circumstances. the only thing that really strains my belief is that an otherwise well-adjusted woman is still upset about something that happened at summer camp over a decade ago, but I guess if she wasn't mad about something then the protagonists wouldn't be able to have a conversation about their feelings to show off how good they are at therapy speak.

Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent (Dipo Faloyin, 2022) - genuinely one of the most excellent pieces of nonfiction that I've read in a hot minute. Faloyin's book consists of interconnected essays that just dazzlingly brilliant, in turns solemn, sardonic, and sly, always ready to offer the audience a little wink as it subverts expectations. Faloyin walks the reader through the history of several African countries, from colonial looting to rocky political regimes to the common tropes that plague modern media with depictions of Africa as universally backwards, impoverished, and struggling. I really felt like I was *learning* while I was reading this book and learning the specifics of so many places that are often portrayed as interchangeable in American media. I really sincerely can't recommend this enough, it's an excellent read.

That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon (Kimberly Lemming, 2024) - I can't in good conscience say that I enjoyed this book, but it is kind of a great read if you enjoy updating your housemates on the latest bullshit in your horny fantasy romance. Lemming's in a weird middle ground where she's putting a lot of effort into the backstory of the world that justifies our protagonist (who's named CINNAMON HOTPEPPER!!!!) meeting and hooking up with a demon (who's also a dragon, because all monsters are just a subspecies of demon. I'm not crazy about that but the worst part by far is definitely that his dragon form has hair) but also stops giving a shit about it the second it's not necessary. like (spoilers) but all of the human characters are REALLY chill about finding out that the goddess they've been worshipping for CENTURIES is actually an evil lich? and there's another human character who pretty casually watches the city where she's spent her entire life get razed to the ground by monsters with absolutely zero remorse, which is genuinely bananas. also this book misses SOOOO many opportunities to be really nasty horny because it's so focused on hyping up Cinnamon and Fallon's all-consuming five day spiral into unhinged magical demon marriage. even the "light bondage" promised in the content warning was disappointing; the emphasis was definitely more on the "light" than the "bondage." what does a bitch have to do to find a decent monsterfucker book. for the love of god please.

It Came From the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror (ed. Joe Vallese, 2022) - I've heard a lot of hype about this book, an anthology of queer writers musing about the queerness that draws them to the horror genre. I was expecting the essays to be of an analytical nature, but it turns out they're much more personal. that's not necessarily a bad thing, but some of these essays ended up falling SUPER flat for me, with weak analogies that felt like the result of authors remembering at the last second that they were supposed to be relating their life to a horror movie somehow. which isn't to say that there weren't high points as well, but overall the collection was low lows and medium highs for me.

Sex Criminals Volume One: One Weird Trick (Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky, 2014) - I'm trying so hard to remember to read comics that aren't 30 year old Batman stories, and my friend Emily lent this to me months ago when I helped them move, so it seemed like high time to get around to checking out Sex Criminals. the premise is fun! what if time stopped when you had an orgasm? then what if you met someone else with the same ability and the two of you could have sex and run around in a time-stopped world together? and then what if you robbed banks? and I'm a huge fan of that. the writing isn't the most gripping thing in the world, and now that it's a decade old I find that it feels very emblematic of the kind of aggressively offbeat, Whedon-ish writing style that felt like it was really unavoidable in the 2010s, which I can't say has aged MAGNIFICENTLY for me. but I'm willing to read more, see where this series goes, and give it the chance to really win me over. stay tuned for Volume Two!

Rental Person Who Does Nothing (Shoji Morimoto, trans. Don Knotting 2023) - I can't decide if I want to sit Morimoto down for dinner to pick his brain or just skip the niceties and put his brain in a jar to study it, but either way this guy definitely has something fascinating going on. tl;dr: in this memoir Morimoto recounts his experiences using Twitter to let other people hire him out as a person who will do nothing. "doing nothing" covers all kinds of things: accompanying people to eat a meal that they felt too self-conscious to eat alone, keeping someone company so they don't get distracted while they should be working, or waving goodbye to a stranger at a train station. he's not paid for this, either, or at least doesn't charge a fixed rate; all the Morimoto asks for is the price of his train ticket to meet clients, who sometimes buy him extra gifts as a thank you. there are so many FASCINATING ideas presented in this book about work and value and interpersonal connection, and yet the book clocks in at under 200 pages. Morimoto isn't here to tell you how to feel about anything he's done, only to present some experiences and let you unravel the meaning for yourself. and I guess that's sort of brilliant. throughout the memoir he's adamant that Rental Person doesn't offer advice or tell anyone what to do, offering only basic responses when prompted. telling someone else what to think or attempting to offer up any wisdom gleaned from his rental work would count as doing something, wouldn't it? I really recommend checking it out for yourself and deciding what you think, especially if you're in a slump seeking something quick, engaging, and easy to read.