Tal Lavin

thank you!!!

yay!!!

well written smut is such a balm in these trying times

a vagina is sometimes called a "beaver" because of the profound way in which it alters its ecosystem

[or, in my case, sperm]

Immersed as I was in the world of vice, I was not so far gone that I had lost all moral sense. I could not say with Macbeth that 'I am in blood [or in my case, sperm] stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er' I still had a memory of virtue, if not the actual habit thereof; I hoped

i am reading an exceedingly witty book called the palace of varieties by james lear (a gay virgin-to-whore picaresque set in a london music hall in 1934) and this quote had me dyingggg

"Standing on his balcony, they’d watched the moon rise over perfect, horrible Florida, where the warmongers pulled the world down around them, and left with full bank accounts, and the great sea lapped at the gilded shore, but never managed to pull it under."
flaminghydra.com/issue-518/#t...

the way you made lentils the perfect succinct & cutting insult.........

Poisonous paradise New, highly speculative fiction from Tal Lavin

in which I get Le Carriéd away and wrote some spy fiction of my own for @flaminghydra.com flaminghydra.com/issue-518/#t...

my first published fiction since.... high school maybe?? im getting wild at the Hydra

Might be time to bring back war criminal trials that include rich people this time

its awful

seems like you just did though

It went away for several years… this only lets me know you are not real trash… you probably eat lentils

Basically, take the amount of money you think your favorite author gets, halve it, and then halve it again, and you have a number that's probably a lot closer to their actual earnings from writing.

"But I don't think they make that much!"

Halve that. Halve it again.

jerrification is a separate and distinct process

We'd all be happier if we lived somewhere walkable (The Deep Space Nine space station)

Sir Gawain Fucks the Green Knight Here’s a tale ripe for telling. Can’t say where I heard it first—in pretty French or Dutch. Perhaps as a young lady walking ‘longside the Rijn. I’ll spin it for you in an English tongue, fine as frost on lace, sweet as malmsey wine. So it goes that young Gawain, strength kissed into his limbs, fresh as the bright dawn, comes trembling down to the Green Chapel. You’ve heard this tale, I know. His breath makes peach fuzz in the air, fear into him like worm to apple. Christmas Morn is too soon, time is short. You have your own life to save, he says, picking through thorn and bough to an ivy-clad cave. The creature is the Jack O’ the Glen / forest prince / the wood’s own laughter. Beard of lichen and eyes like dark elder. I need not repeat their exchange—my boy’s flinching heart—a songbird in a rattled cage. It is after the blows are dealt, he asks, what god is worshipped in these green trees? Boy, the Knight replies, boy, were you not just down on your knees? The Knight is the tang of sap / bark rough and petal soft / everywhere leaves scatter / easily crushed / Gawain clings / hardly knows what he clings to / he is the forest and the flower / a turmoil of roots / where god and tree meet and melt / the birch the oak the fern the deer / mushroom maggot crow / here Gawain is branch and bud / blow returned for blow

This is a sheer indulgence on my part, but it turns out I never actually shared the poem here, so:

🍃

ok. cuz im not sure why youre saying that except to defend christianity

i don't, however, think people reading books is a crisis of literacy

As trans rights go, so does access to healthcare for all. Can't selectively cut off access to key hormones and reproductive medicine. You got thyroid disease, hormonal imbalance? Tough shit. Hormones are getting regulated harder than weed and alcohol at this point. 🩺 🧪

its created real pressure on authors to write in ways unnatural to them and that sucks

by the end of the article it becomes clear she's moved away from that.... by developing reading as a skill through reading a lot of books she found accessible and entertaining.

there was a physical barrier between men and women during prayer; women couldn't lead prayers and the women's section was often a tiny box in the back of the room. by age like 15 i was infuriated and by 21 i was done (and ive spent the ensuing 15 years unpacking the first 21)

By now there’s enough independent, third-party data analysis of AI’s impact (or apparent lack thereof) on the current job market that there’s no reason not to include some skepticism about the executive claim when you write it up.

i think the real issue which is kind of glanced on is that this kind of social trend is overindulged by panicky publishers who then pressure authors to write in the Trendy Mode

yeah i know im just questioning the latter assumption

it's called hell creek boys and it's terrible

im also reading the constant gardener by john le carré and the empire must die by mikhail zygar

this is a dude trying his *hardest* not to shit on romance and actually talking to good sources but then shooting himself in the foot due to pride

to everything there is a season etc etc