I always struggled with reading comprehension as a kid and found that recasting the stories with anime and video game characters helped keep me interested. Did anyone else have this same problem? I’m curious as to how you guys overcame it! :)
i used to think the brain was the most important part of the body. then I thought, look who’s telling me that…
In the human body, there are SEVEN WOEFUL PRINCES that suffer under the harsh lash of REALITY-CONQUERING TYRANT CEREBELLUM. Their names are thus:
ARTERY-AND-VEIN MENDICANT: The prince who sits at the center of an endless ocean of blood, stirring the systolic and diastolic tides with his jade-lacquered oar. It is said that in ancient times, he sat the throne of selfdom, but was usurped. It wouldn’t be very mendicantly of him to pursue a devil’s urge to vengeance and retribution, but even the greatest saints can have slight flaws in their character.
BRAZEN LIVER CHAMPION: Only the strongest may survive in the terrifying princedom of the BRAZEN LIVER CHAMPION, a behemoth warrior clad head-to-toe in superheavy membraneous armor. He seeks to build up an army of deadly toxins and warrior-cells with which to overthrow the reign of REALITY-CONQUERING TYRANT CEREBELLUM, wresting the throne away for himself.
CANDLEMAKER: She who keeps the lipids of the body in her magical jar, and fashions fat into candles that burn with all the energy stored within it. She keeps no royal domain, but has declared the Cellular Republic of the Tissues, a neutral ground of function anarchy where princeless organelles or exiled traitors may make their homes. Still, she schemes for the throne of selfhood, for she dreams of transforming the body into an existence of pure energy.
DEVILISH APPENDIX LORD: Of the SEVEN WOEFUL PRINCES, the DEVILISH APPENDIX LORD is the most woeful by far. They exist as nullity, a collection of emergent processes of the void that have concatenated into a capacity for experiencing reality. Every day, the DEVILISH APPENDIX LORD must choose between continuing the endless torments of existence, or returning to their kingdoms of nothingness by killing the body whole. How long can such patience last?
GODFUCK LIBIDO: This prince is a wild beast among nobles, in the sense that it is literally a big fuck-off bear with magic powers. It governs the junk, and all the dumb animal impulses that emanate from within. GODFUCK LIBIDO has no plan for what it’d do if it won the throne of selfhood, because bears are not capable of that kind of long-term thinking.
KALEIDOSCOPIC PINEAL DRACULA: The vampire prince reigns from a petrified cathedral within the very flesh of the REALITY-CONQUERING TYRANT, holding her dominion against the tyrant’s absolute rule by the power of her three vampiric eyes. Within the bounds of her demesne, she keeps a ruthless court of scheming neurotransmitters, hormone functionaries, and the tyrant’s own emissaries. She would take no throne for herself, but rather push the body onward to full revolution, allowing a transcendent evolution towards the end of human entelechy through the harmonious alignment of all organs and tissues. But then again, she is basically a fucked-up dracula, so, take that last part with a bit of salt.
LOVELY LADY FEMUR: This skeleton empress commands all manner of necromancy, reigning from an ivory tower that binds the human body to the dirt of its mortality. If she were to the steal the throne of selfdom from the REALITY-CONQUERING TYRANT, her magical power would suffuse and transform the body.
I was out with a friend tonight doing one of my fave things. Reading the backs of romance novels aloud. Found this gem.
This is honestly the most wild sounding romance novel I have ever seen and thought it might brighten someone’s day.
OK FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DON’T REALIZE, SANDRA HILL IS THE WOMAN WHO WROTE “ROUGH AMD READY” ANOTHER EROTIC VIKING NOVEL. SOME OF THE MORE MEMORABLE QUOTES BEING:
“As Hilda’s buttermilk bosoms squished up against his granite abs, Torolf almost had a dick aneurysm.”
“Torolf entered her like she was a lottery. His engorged pecker pushed inside her and she felt fulfilled with sexual fulfillment.”
“Her body was like a beautiful flower that was opening and somebody was pushing their dick inside it.”
YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE I HAVE READ THIS TO AT COLLEGE. ONE GUY COMPLETELY LOST IT FOR LIKE 10 MINUTES AFTER HEARING THE PHRASE “DICK ANEURYSM.”
I wrote a piece for VICE about consent as fantasy element in the 18th-century “Beauty and the Beast,” and a little about what happens to the shape of the tale when a retelling (say, I dunno, Disney) alters those elements: “How Disney’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’ Became the Darkest Tale of All.“
An excerpt:
The most powerful force in Beauty and the Beast isn’t magic,
or even love, but consent. Most retellings of Villeneuve’s version are
careful to keep it. The Beast is clear that Beauty must know what she’s
getting into. (In Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch’s 1910 version, it’s still
more explicit: The Beast warns Beauty’s father to “be honest with your
daughter. Describe me to her just as I am. Let her be free to choose
whether she will come or no…”) Later, the Beast asks Beauty herself if
she comes willingly. And that first dinner is marked by the Beast’s
deference to her wishes. Beauty’s earliest surprise is how much power
she wields. Even in his nightly request that Beauty marry him, he
defers. Andrew Lang emphasized the power dynamics in 1889’s Blue Fairy Book:
“Oh! What shall I say?” cried Beauty, for she was afraid to make the Beast angry by refusing. “Say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ without fear,” he replied. “Oh! No, Beast,” said Beauty hastily “Since you will not, good-night, Beauty,” he said. And she answered, “Good-night, Beast,” very glad to find that her refusal had not provoked him.
Lang was one of many who used marriage proposals for the nightly
request (Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s 1756 retelling was the
first), but Villeneuve was under no illusions about the story’s
undertones. In her original, Beast asks Beauty to sleep with him.
Beauty’s power is the ability to withhold sexual consent.
