#stalking nabokov

[hairtusk]

anyway look at my most recent book purchases

[snalsupremacy]

the fujoshis did to killing stalking what the americans did to lolita send post

[cherries-in-wine]

Lolita rant because why not:

WHY DO SOME PEOPLE STILL CALL IT A LOVE STORY WHEN THERE'S LITERALLY A PART WHERE DOLORES ASKS FOR THE NAME OF "the hotel where you first raped me" LIKE EXCUSE ME WHAT PART OF A 12 YEAR GIRL GETTING RAPED AND ABUSED IS ROMANTIC TO YOU??

I cannot stress this enough LOLITA IS PSYCOLOGICAL HORROR. Humbert Humbert is an unreliable narrator that's manipulating and charming YOU into believing it's a love story but it's your responsibility to read in between the lines and realise what's actually going on. How lolita is just a 12 year old girl named Dolores who is isolated, raped and abused throughout the entire book by Humbert Humbert and has no voice in his story.

Even the people behind the lolita movies did not get this they still think of lolita as some sort of seductress which is just disgusting.

I think the reason why people sometimes interpret it as a love story is because of how beautifully it is written. The way Humbert Humbert writes about Lolita is very dreamy and poetic but that's literally the point of the book it's a cautionary tale.

Some people turn Vladimir Nabokov into the villain for writing a book like this when in reality he was victim of child sexual abuse himself. He called lolita his "poor little girl". He wanted the cover of the book to be an American landscape and especially NOT that of a little girl because he wanted lolita to be faceless. It's so heartbreaking to see the author's wishes be blatantly disrespected.

I love psychological horrors/thrillers with unreliable narrators like lolita and killing stalking but they get misinterpreted so often it's sad.

[nightshadehoney]

I never watched James Somerton's shitty Killing Stalking video because I was trying to be good to myself and avoid something that I knew would make me very angry. In fact, I never watched any of his stuff because the fact that he made a video like that was enough to discount any thing he ever had to say (also I heard about the Celluloid Closet plagiarism).

But man, is the James Somerton discourse bringing a lot of Killing Stalking-related feelings back up for me. Because I'm mad; I'm still so mad. There are a suprising amount of people on social media who are saying they never watched any of his stuff except for the Killing Stalking video. I'm annoyed not just to find out that the vid had that sort of reach and influence, but also because Somerton's unmasking hasn't seemed to make people reasses the validity of the kind of thing he was saying. People are just now being like "hmm I think this guy might have Issues With Women" but that doesn't warrant any reflection on what exactly the motivation is of people who complain about women enjoying a niche webcomic? Because I don't actually believe you're concerned about the influence of some obscure piece of media when you advertise its existence to your large audience many of whom had not heard of it and would never have heard of it but for your transparent outrage porn video. It's rage bait and the target was women that are perceived as straight. A big channel has publicized the fact that they excised a section that endorsed the opinions in this video from their own because they became aware of Somerton's plagiarism and dishonesty (presumably; if it was actually because they recognized his views were coming from a sexist place I would welcome a clarification). And you know, I don't think that's a good look actually. That you needed to be told he was a bad person and couldn't idependently put together that the misogynist man was saying misogynist things.

The comic ended years ago and the fandom has gone mostly quiet, but to this day people are still the peddling the"fujoshi/stupid teenage girls who don't know what's good for them are shipping these characters because they are too braindead to realize it's not a romance; it's a horror, two things I believe are mutually exclusive. I am smarter than all of these cringe degenerates" bullshit. It's in the comments of the hbomberguy video even; one comment was such a gross misrepresentation of the series that my friend needed to talk me down from getting into a pointless youtube comments argument (bless him) because these people are officially making me lose my marbles.

This narrative is full of shit, it's demonstrably not fucking true. You can go on the artist's twitter right now and its full of her retweeting shippy fanart of that pairing readers were apparently never intended to ship.

(I don't think Koogi knows or cares about James Somerton; she just reblogs the works of fans who tag her. This made me laugh though).

Now this is all speculation because he died decades before social media existed, but I think if Nabokov was alive today his twitter would not be full of Humbert Humbert x Dolores Haze fanart. And yet, I have unironically seen people compare shipping Sangwoo and Bum in Killing Stalking with the misreading of Lolita as a precocious sexual temptress more than once.

And this isn't me saying that Killing Stalking is the disgusting"pro-sexualized abuse" comic that tumblr purity police used to characterize it as either. One of these days I'm going to go truly bonkers and end up banging pots and pans on the street corner, yelling at random innocent passerbys about how stories about romantic and sexual relationships are not required to be Hallmark movies. You can make art about the negative, dark, and troubling parts of these feelings and relationships without creating a pat morality tale. You don't need to approach media analysis like your 7th grade teacher has assigned you an essay on explaining what a novel's "message" is.

Nobody, not the author and not the fans, genuinely thinks that Sangwoo and Bum have a healthy or aspirational relationship. This hypothetical person that does not understand the relationship is toxic doesn't exist. Because girls and women, even the ones having cringey fandom fun on tiktok or whatever, are not so stupid and naive that they are unware that breaking someone's legs and locking them in a muder basement is bad. The type of concern troll rhetoric Somerton employed in his video is directed near exclusively at women interested in men and there's a reason for this. Women are not responsible for abuse that men do to them; nobody is responsible for their partner abusing them. If I never saw people spit this bullshit again it would be too soon.

[floweryprosegarden]

Hello friend, it’s been a while. I completed the first draft of my adult thriller novel, which I’m currently referring to as Project Istanbul, so I wanted to share my mood board for this project and some excerpts with you.

a little about me/the blog™

I’m a Turkish-Kurdish English student living in Canada

I’m very introverted

I mostly write literary fiction

This blog is a nook for my novels and short fiction wips. I also share works I adore from my fellow writerblrs

a little about Project Istanbul

Set in Istanbul, Turkey (obviously) during the early 2000s

Story features a morally ambiguous journalist, unethical stalking, controversial therapy methods, too many expresso shots, glamourous outfits, and murder

Vague aesthetic inspos: Despair by Vladamir Nabokov, The Bell Jar by Slyvia Plath, The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Rear Window (1952)

TW: my novel explores mental illnesses including PD and NPD

random excerpts just because

1.

2.

[harrowclare]

harrowclare's 2024 reading lists

currently reading/listening to

Stormflower by Keegan Kozinski & Tristen Kozinski (ARC) The Dead Take the A Train by Cassandra Khaw & Richard Kadrey Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage Indian Burial Ground by Nick Medina The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis

up next

The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa Rouge by Mona Awad Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moerno-Garcia

finished books

here is the long, long list of my 2024 reads, with ratings, dates, and links to reviews. wanna read along or chat with me about books? i'm super active on fable.

because of tumblr's limit on links, i cannot direct to individual reviews at this point. for this reason, i will be sharing reviews here separately from time to time using the tag #harrowclare reads. if you would like to view my reviews on their respective sites, you can find them on thestorygraph & goodreads.

dates are listed as month, day. manga volumes that are binged will be grouped so that this list isn't a million miles long, with the range of ratings for the volumes in the stack. a few of these titles were started in 2023, lol whoops! those are the only dates with a year stamp.

current reading goal progress: 98/100

Five-Star Stranger by Kat Tang 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 - 08.30—08.31 - fiction

The Haar by David Sodergren 🌕🌕🌑🌑🌑 - 08.25—08.29 - fiction

None of This is True by Lisa Jewell 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑- 08.26—08.27 - fiction

My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 - 08.19—08.25 - fiction i actually gave this a 3.75 on thestorygraph, which may seem obnoxious, but it felt right idk. sometimes rating shit 1-5 feels arbitrary and hard.

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 - 07.30—08.24 - fiction

Killing Stalking Deluxe Edition Vol. 1 by Koogi 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 - 08.24—08.24 - webtoon

House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 - 03.16.23—08.22 - fiction

Schappi by Anna Haifisch 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 - 08.20—08.20 - graphic novel

You Will Own Nothing And You Will Be Happy #1 by Simon Hanslemann 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 - 08.20—08.20 - graphic novel, reread

Werewolf Jones and Sons Deluxe Summer Fun Annual by Simon Hanselmann & Simon Pettinger 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 - 08.20—08.20 - graphic novel

Something Akin to Revulsion by Judith Sonnet 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑 - 08.19—08.20 - fiction

Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 - 08.16—08.18 - fiction

Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 - 08.09—08.16 - fiction

The Troop by Nick Cutter 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗 - 08.12—08.14 - fiction

Nestlings by Nat Cassidy 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 - 08.01—08.12 - fiction

Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 - 07.27—08.09 - fiction

The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 - 07.30—08.06 - fiction

The Ruins by Scott Smith 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 - 08.01—08.05 - fiction

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕 - 07.24—07.30 - fiction at the time of reading and reviewing this i was unaware of the controversies surrounding the author (uncredited use of the likeness of a video game and possible Zionism.) i don't want to change my rating & review because the book did have a profound impact on me, but i also do not believe in separating art from the artist, so i will not be purchasing the book or reading more from the author.

Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 - 07.14—07.29 - fiction

Playground by Aron Beauregard 🌕🌑🌑🌑🌑 - 07.23—07.28 - fiction

Middle of the Night by Riley Sager 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑- 07.17—07.27 - fiction

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑- 07.15—07.24 - fiction

The Spirit Bares its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑- 07.11—07.23 - fiction

The Liminal Zone by Junji Ito 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑- 07.20—07.22 - manga

The Summer Hikaru Died Vol. 1 by Mokumokuren 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 - 07.19—07.20 - manga

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 - 07.11—07.16 - fiction

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 - 07.10—07.13 - fiction

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 - 07.09—07.10 - fiction

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 - 07.08—07.09 - fiction

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 - 07.03—07.08 - fiction

Do a Powerbomb! by Daniel Warren Johnson 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕- 07.05—07.05 - graphic novel

The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 - 06.27—07.03 - fiction

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕 - 06.26—06.26 - fiction

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 - 06.23—06.25 - fiction

Victim by Andrew Boryga 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 - 06.14—06.17 - fiction

A Good Happy Girl by Marissa Higgins 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑 - 04.19—06.14 - fiction

A Sweet Sting of Salt by Rose Sutherland 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 - 06.06—06.13 - fiction

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley 🌕🌑🌑🌑🌑 - 06.01—06.06 - fiction

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗 - 05.22—05.31 - fiction

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 - 05.26—05.27 - non-fiction

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗 - 05.19—05.21 - fiction

You've Lost a Lot of Blood by Eric LaRocca 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 - 05.10—05.19 - fiction

Ghost Eaters by Clay McLeod Chapman 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 - 05.18—05.19 - fiction

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 - 05.14—05.18 - fiction

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕 - 05.10—05.13 - fiction

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 - 05.01—05.03 - fiction review: thestorygraph, goodreads

The Measure by Nikki Erlick 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 04.21—04.23 - fiction

Tokyo Ghoul Vol. 1 - Vol. 8 by Sui Ishida 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 - 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕 04.22—05.08 - manga

Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 - 04.18—04.21 - fiction

Know My Name by Chanel Miller 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕 - 04.05—04.18 - non-fiction

Chainsaw Man Vol. 1 - Vol. 11 by Tatsuki Fujimoto 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 - 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕 - 04.16—04.22 - manga

Jujutsu Kaisen Vol. 5 - Vol. 26 by Gege Akutami 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 - 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕 - 12.23.23—04.16 - manga

Tampa by Alissa Nutting 🌕🌕🌑🌑🌑 - 04.02—04.03 - fiction

Circe by Madeline Miller 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 - 03.29—04.01 - fiction

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗 - 03.25—03.28 - fiction

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 - 03.23—03.25 - fiction

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 - 02.02—03.20 - fiction

Time Is a Mother by Ocean Vyong 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕 - 03.06—03.06- poetry

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗 - 02.01—02.01- fiction

Y/N by Esther Yi | fiction 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 - 01.31—02.01 - fiction

my tiny DNF pile

People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry stopped at 24% - 05.03 - non-fiction explanation: thestorygraph

new words

alacrity, aplomb, assiduously, avulsed, detritus, garrulous, germane, gloaming, gunwale, inexorable, lassitude, palliative, palimpsest, pernicious, pugnacious, sententiously, scrim, sepulchral, shale, splume, stalward, surreptitious, rime, verisimilitude

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Any opinions about that post that's going around saying seeds and leaves and fruits and roots and stems and stalks and flowers and buds should be illegal?

That's very funny! It's definitely absurd, and it's obviously intended as absurd satire, but I'm not convinced that it's very funny.

The author is following a very standard template for humor -- something said in a very matter-of-fact way in a serious context gets written as if it were actually meant to be serious. Then, you reply with a version of the statement that makes it look silly, which is usually enough to fool your audience into believing it's actually serious, even though it can never be so serious.

The classic case of this template is the situation comedy. A husband and wife fight over some trivial thing, and when they break up you notice that there are just enough hints that it's possible they were actually upset about some pretty serious issue they didn't want to talk about. Thus, the joke is that the silly people we watch are really serious and would get hurt if you didn't laugh at their silliness -- but of course no such thing can happen, because the silliness is the actual joke, and that's why you're laughing.

Aside from the standard template for humor, there's another thing that's important here. Most of the time, the core of a joke's logic is simply a natural fact, or at least a fact that is taken for granted by the audience. But for a joke to work, there must be an element of contradiction between the fact and the consequences that are drawn from it.

If your audience doesn't normally expect your conclusion to be true, then you just won't get a laugh. A joke about, say, Socrates must build on a premise which is very obviously false, or at least surprisingly false, to the audience.

This is why cleverest-of-the-wise puns rarely work. If you're clever enough that you can work out the truth of some statement, then you can often see its truth and still make it sound funny. This is not because it's "actually" funny, any more than a statement of standard calculus is "actually" funny. Rather, it's because there is no contradiction between the parts of your statement and their conclusion.

To see what I mean, consider a terrible pun like this:

"Why did the poor man clean the floor with soap?"

"Because he had no money to rent a mop."

If you know the definition of "poor man" and "rent a mop," the pun is less interesting than the usual pun that is of the form:

"Vladimir Nabokov walked into a bar."

"Vladimir Nabokov walked out of a bar."

Why does this work? Because most people would never even think of walking into a bar unless they were literally going to do so. Thus, when we hear a statement about Nabokov walking into a bar, we're naturally expecting that statement to have an actual sequel, where he also walks out of the bar. This makes the statement in question a contradiction: "Vladimir Nabokov went to the bar . . . and then didn't."

What makes the pun boring is that it would be possible to write, say, a story about Vladimir Nabokov who went to a bar, never comes out, and yet eventually the bar manager decides to accept the presence of Nabokov as natural and not call the police. This is not a contradiction, so the "pun" itself is no longer surprising.

I bring this up because the humor in the Fruit and Seed / Power and Control post is not really based on contradiction. We're not expecting the author to actually be a traditionalist and think fruit and seed belong in the kitchen. So it's simply not surprising, as a possibility, that the author might think that.

My point is not to invalidate the joke, or to say that it isn't absurd. It is to point out that if it were clear that the author was the same person as the statement's target, it would not be surprising to hear her say the statement seriously. It would no longer be a contradiction, because it would no longer be a surprise.

It's surprising that a certain post was "for the two of us, and [y] and z" -- surprising in the way that it would be surprising if Nabokov went to the bar and stayed there for the rest of his life. But this is not because the post is in a comic genre. It's because it is true that people in a certain subset of the Tumblr community will consider "fruits and seed [sic] belong in the kitchen" to be a silly, absurd thing to say, and the post is exploiting this fact.

(It's not just true in the subset of Tumblr users who are interested in reading this post. I would still say it's true in general, except that I think "silly" and "absurd" are weird to say about someone who takes you seriously and you take as an interlocutor. People who take you seriously are often looking for some kind of justice, and the justice is in the idea itself. So to say a statement is "silly" means that the speaker is uninterested in the idea because she thinks it's silly, meaning that she lacks the "cred" to bring it up as an interlocutor. This would have to be true in the defendant's argument to reach a guilty verdict, or something like that. Which is not to say that someone who thinks a statement is "silly" isn't fit to be an interlocutor -- only that it's not going to be in the same place where you talk about the ideas being considered. "Silly" is the place where you talk about the disagreement, not the idea.

"Absurd" is more complicated, and I'm not sure I can understand it because it's used in so many different ways. I think absurd probably means "I'm letting you know that it's in the same genre as a certain genre of joke." It makes sense to "say that something is absurd" if and only if there is a such a genre. But in the past, people have thought it absurd to talk about the existence of universals, or to talk of God in unobvious ways. Maybe if that were a consistent tradition, absurd could become a genre? (But I'm not sure it's a genre yet.))

You might have noticed that I've been leaving out the genre of humor in this essay. This is because it's not my favorite kind of humor, but I understand it. It's comedy in the traditional sense, of making a joke out of one's own ideas (or out of ideas in one's own culture).

[cmcgt]

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh | Goodreads

"So here we are. My name was Eileen Dunlop. Now you know me. I was twenty-four years old then, and had a job that paid fifty-seven dollars a week as a kind of secretary at a private juvenile correctional facility for teenage boys. I think of it now as what it really was for all intents and purposes—a prison for boys. I will call it Moorehead. Delvin Moorehead was a terrible landlord I had years later, and so to use his name for such a place feels appropriate. In a week, I would run away from home and never go back.

This is the story of how I disappeared.

The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman trapped between her role as her alcoholic father’s caretaker in a home whose squalor is the talk of the neighborhood and a day job as a secretary at the boys’ prison, filled with its own quotidian horrors. Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary days with perverse fantasies and dreams of escaping to the big city. In the meantime, she fills her nights and weekends with shoplifting, stalking a buff prison guard named Randy, and cleaning up her increasingly deranged father’s messes. When the bright, beautiful, and cheery Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counselor at Moorehead, Eileen is enchanted and proves unable to resist what appears at first to be a miraculously budding friendship. In a Hitchcockian twist, her affection for Rebecca ultimately pulls her into complicity in a crime that surpasses her wildest imaginings.

Played out against the snowy landscape of coastal New England in the days leading up to Christmas, young Eileen’s story is told from the gimlet-eyed perspective of the now much older narrator. Creepy, mesmerizing, and sublimely funny, in the tradition of Shirley Jackson and early Vladimir Nabokov, this powerful debut novel enthralls and shocks, and introduces one of the most original new voices in contemporary literature. Ottessa Moshfegh is also the author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Homesick for Another World: Stories, and McGlue."

July 2023

[casspurrjoybell-18]

Mutual Desire - Chapter 26

*Warning - Adult Content*

Alexander Nabokov and Damien Clark rose from their chairs in synchronization, eyes locked. 

Damien captured a last look at the breathtaking view with a dreamy smile.

"I would have brought my camera if I knew I'd have such a view," Damien couldn't refrain from saying.

He had muttered these words while sustaining his contemplation of the scene in front of him. 

He really regretted being unable to engrave this amazing scenery in a photo.

"Take a picture with your phone," Nabokov suggested, as if he was reading Damien's mind.

Although the Russian spoke to him, Damien didn't look away to observe him. 

He maintained his attention on the tall, illuminated Manhattan buildings. 

For once, he didn't need to bend his head to escape the man's greyish stare. 

He had this scene in front of him that served him as an excellent cover up so as to not cross the wealthy man's eyes.

"Nah, my phone wouldn't do this view justice," Damien spoke vaguely.

He stared eagerly at the lovely sight for a few more seconds in a strangely endurable silence. 

Then, he turned his head slowly, thinking of surprising Nabokov in the act of looking longingly at him but unexpectedly discovered the man also enjoying the view. 

Damien then exploited Nabokov's inattention to inspect subtly the man. 

Grey-Eyes was impeccably dressed in a white shirt with a blue tie and dark blue classic trousers. 

His attractive face radiated as it was expected. 

This man was a model without even wanting it. 

It was no longer the view Damien wanted to memorize in pictures. 

The view was already a thing of the past when Damien thoroughly analyzed Nabokov for the first time in the evening. 

Damien's examination of the Russian soon came to an end when Nabokov's intent gaze suddenly fell on Damien, apprehending him in the shameful act of eyes-stalking. 

Damien turned his head as fast as his muscles allowed it, while his cheeks quickly changed color. 

He was mentally praying Nabokov wouldn't invoke this completely uncomfortable short moment in which he had been caught in the act.

"Are we making a move?" Nabokov politely asked.

Damien sighed mentally, barely nodding his head and started walking smoothly, while Nabokov joined him shortly thereafter, both of them walking side by side. Damien lowered his head slightly as his body instinctively distanced himself from Nabokov.

A grand space was then formed between them.

"Do I smell?"

This odd question inadvertently caused Damien's head to toss back hastily towards Nabokov, his expression swimming in confusion.

"What?" he exclaimed softly.

Damien was uncertain of having heard correctly. 

With Nabokov next to him, it wasn't impossible his nervousness played tricks on him and caused him to imagine hearing things.

"You put a big distance between us, so I was wondering if it was because I stink," Nabokov answered, the impassiveness on his face naturally making it hard for Damien to figure whether he was serious or not.

A nervous chuckle escaped Damien, and he lowered his head again.

"No, it's not because of that."

Nabokov was quite perceptive, spotting the most minor detail. 

He had been capable of noticing the gap between them, which wasn't as big as the man made it seemed.

"Oh. So, I do stink but that's not the reason," Nabokov said soothingly with a barely visible smile.

Damien laughed softly, his gaze directed forward.

"I mean it's not done intentionally," Damien explained smilingly.

It wasn't indeed intentional on Damien's part. 

Nabokov was a man with an imposing posture and an aura exuding the very danger. 

It was only Damien's protective instinct that automatically created that space between them.

"Oh. I see."

Expected silence came back and Damien took a risk by shooting a subtle glance at Nabokov, who was looking in front of him. 

Damien saw Nabokov's faint smile with a mocking glint in his eyes, which gave him the hint that Nabokov was simply messing with you.

"You're shitting me. You know how amazingly good you smell," he says jovially.

As soon as these words were said, Damien regretted the odd way they had gone out. 

Nabokov raised an eyebrow, his delighted grin remaining intact.

"Amazingly good?" The Russian repeated.

Damien lowered his head, cursing his impulsive mouth. 

He decided not to say anything anymore, judging to have spoken enough. 

Perhaps it was best to stay silent for the remaining time he was going to spend with Nabokov, which for Damien wished wouldn't be much time since he knew his heart beat wouldn't be able to bear it.

"Thank you. I think you smell amazingly good too," Nabokov complimented him back.

Damien looked up at Nabokov and rolled his eyes slowly with a smile on his lips. 

They walked in silence, the distance narrowing, their arms almost touching.

"If one day you feel like coming back here to look at the view, just tell me and I'll give you the key," Nabokov said, breaking the short silence.

Damien was surprised by this offer. 

He didn't expect it and didn't know what to think of it or what to say. 

He had to be sure Nabokov was actually serious to begin with and that it wasn't a joke. 

Damien would never have thought that this word would ever be associated with Nabokov. 

He realized he was, day by day, learning surprising details about Nabokov. 

For one, the man wasn't a homophobic as Damien once believed so firmly. 

And two, he was a pretty perceptive guy.

"Uh... thanks, but, you don't have to do all that."

It wasn't the answer Damien had wanted to give but it was the one that seemed to be the most adequate to his delicate situation. 

He could no longer allow himself to go ahead and accept gifts from Nabokov, his best friend's boss. 

This dinner they had just partaken in was, inappropriate to say the least and had no reason to be. 

Damien himself knew it better than anyone.

"What if I set up a table filled with cheesecakes, would you change your mind?"

Damien joyfully welcomed this pleasant idea with a cheerful smile. 

This conversation was going well, all too well, which meant it was going to go sour as it inevitably always does.

"I would think about that, that's for sure," Damien said, opening the door that had brought him on the roof.

They arrived in front of the elevator as silence returned. 

Damien had no intention of prolonging the conversation. 

He knew what he would embark on and the risks he would take if he did so. 

He and Nabokov had some sort of curse that withheld them from engaging in a normal conversation without some tension taking over. 

Besides, he had no clue what to actually discuss with Nabokov and how to even engage in a normal conversation with him. 

The doors of the elevator opened and Nabokov gestured a hand, encouraging Damien to enter, which he does, followed by Nabokov. 

The doors closed and Nabokov pressed the button on the seventeenth floor while the two men's reflection appeared prominently on the doors. 

On the silver doors, Damien saw Nabokov take his phone from his pocket and start playing with it. 

Then, Damien redirected his attention to the ceiling, so he could escape the view of his reflection and Nabokov's. 

Damien had a sense of déjà vu. 

He recalled the time he had found himself in an elevator with Grey-Eyes. 

The similar tension and silence of that last time was presently there but much more intense. 

The silence was so heavy that Damien himself was unable to bear it and he had no choice but to break that inaudible sound.

"Will the rest of the food be given to the homeless?" Damien questioned Nabokov, turning his head to look at him.

Damien Clark was incapable of finding a better approach to undo this icy silence than this lame one. 

He took the first thing that appeared in his mind. 

His damn brain was to blame for this completely random question. 

Alexander Nabokov turned his attention away from his phone to deposit it on Damien, a shrug of an eyebrow giving a little emotion on his face.

"Yes, if that's what you want," the intimidating man responded in a tone that sounded uninterested.

They quickly exchanged glances before Damien jerked his head and then lowered it, his cheeks slowly turning red.

"Cool," Damien whispered, his eyes planted on the ground.

He regretted breaking the silence since it came back in no time and was way more awkward as if that was possible. 

Then, he raised his head, falsely believing that Nabokov would still be on his phone. 

But he was mistaken. 

Damien saw Nabokov's gaze on him thanks to the elevator reflecting their figure. 

He gradually turned to Nabokov, their eyes instantly connecting.

"Do I have something on my face?"

Damien was as surprised by his words as he was by the courage he possessed to sprout them out of his mouth.

"Apart from beauty, no, you have nothing on your face," Nabokov replied emotionlessly.

Damien opened his mouth slightly and closed it immediately. 

He had no idea what to answer to that... compliment? 

Though taken aback, he couldn't help the small smile that crossed his lips however. 

Damien's grin wasn't because of what Nabokov's words but rather the intention behind. He saw right through the guy. 

Nabokov was doing what he always does teasing and fucking with Damien.

"You enjoy making me uncomfortable, don't you?" Damien asked with a weak smile.

An all but innocent grin appeared on Nabokov's lips.

"What makes you say that?"

Damien didn't take time to reply.

"I don't like when someone answers a question with one."

Nabokov's grin widened and he narrowed his eyes.

"And why should I care about what you like, Damien?"

It was Damien's turn to smile almost maliciously and his eyes intensified.

"Then, how would you have succeeded in fully satisfy me in the limo if you don't care just a little about what I like?"

The audacity of his words surprised Damien himself but he revealed no such thing, keeping his smile and expression almost intact. 

If he wanted a reaction out of Nabokov with those provoking words, then Damien succeeded because Nabokov's eyes darkened and his smirk added fuel to it.

"I don't think I need to know the things you like to satisfy you in bed, Damien," Nabokov said in a deep soothing voice.

Damien's smile weakened little by little as Nabokov's confident smile grew, clearly enjoying the unusual direction this conversation was taking.

"And I told you before I was rather authoritarian in bed, so I decide what you like," Nabokov added, his eyes cooling.

Damien's grin ultimately abandoned him as his brain recorded Nabokov's words. 

He could no longer make a sound, much too troubled by what was being said at the moment. 

All he could do was breath difficultly while being a spectator of the disaster his impulsive stupid mouth had created.

"But we're just talking here, it's not like it will happen anytime soon, right?"

Nabokov didn't give Damien time to respond.

"Since you're in a relationship and it's serious between you two," Nabokov quickly added.

Damien swallowed his saliva with difficulty, an expression of shame inhabiting his face but couldn't look away from ‘Grey Eyes’.

"Yes. It will never happen," Damien finally managed to say bitterly, his voice sounding like a whisper.

Damien felt fire in his dry throat and he suddenly felt trapped in that elevator and in this uncomfortable conversation that a man in a relationship shouldn't be having.

"Never?" Nabokov said, raising an eyebrow.

Damien's mouth was sealed. 

He stared uneasily at Nabokov, unable to generate even a single word. 

Yet the answer was easy, especially since he would only reconfirm his words. 

But it was this glimmer of defiance in the Russian's gray eyes that blocked all the courage that Damien possessed. 

That was what he was getting for provoking Nabokov, the last man that anyone would want to provoke.

Fortunately, the doors opened, providing Damien the means to escape this conversation that was beginning to consume him. 

Unluckily, for him, Nabokov didn't move, his eyes not leaving Damien for a second, clearly waiting for an answer. 

The doors closed and Damien had no choice but to give the wealthy man what he wanted.

[vladimir-nabokov-official]

Errors of memory, especially when they involve dates, may, like casual slips of the tongue or the pen, seem of a different order from apparent inconsistencies in fictional worlds whose details Nabokov entirely controlled himself. But even there, although he was meticulous in the extreme in correcting his work for the smallest imprecisions of phrasing or fact, errors still persisted. Véra Nabokov, never one to denigrate her husband, told me he was very ‘absent-minded.’ When I asked her about resolving editorial problems by consulting the manuscripts, she told me the ‘manuscripts should not be trusted’ as copy texts since ‘he would often write one word when he meant another�� and ‘might not catch it until the galleys.’

Brian Boyd, ‘Even Homais Nods: Nabokov’s Fallibility; Or, How to Revise Lolita,’ in Stalking Nabokov (p. 300)

[z-odiology]

VENUS SYNASTRY SUMMARIZED

Venus in the:

1ST: walking into a pole while looking at them, play wrestling to full on WWE matches

2ND: crypto bf/gf & astrology/bookstagram bf/gf and monthly spa trips. Movie and dinner…at home. “Is that my shirt??”

3RD: staying on the phone till 10AM, “oh fuck”. Golden retrievers with unlimited messaging & data

4TH: initials in the bio and buying rings for Valentine’s Day. Family friends with benefits…shared recipes.

5TH: proposal pranks in restaurants. One is the Parent at times. Leashed backpacks and weird inside jokes…finishing each other’s sentences

6TH: Hubby/Wifey activity under bf/gf status…Type to wash your dishes if they see them in a sink. Melania slapping Trump’s hand away

7TH: (almost) codependent old married couple that is the equivalent of Nabokov & his letters to Vera

8TH: Mr. & Mrs. Smith with tantric sex and old money & private IG accts

9TH: Chris McCandless adventures and flirtatious best friends that like each other’s company more. Think favorite person at a function

10TH: mentor relationship; one has the connections, other has the image. Christian and Christine Grey with coordinating outfits

11TH: friendzone vibe but Venus is painting House person and likes to be alone with House. Phoebe Buffay(House) in a relationship with Steven Hyde(Venus). House is Venus’ diary. Cyberstalking and unique slides in the DMs

12TH: Ariel but Ariel is stalking Eric and Eric is distracted by a butterfly (think “is this a ___?” meme) and likes Ariel but he gets distracted. Ariel is staring at him and he’s just. Distracted. “WHERE ARE YOU??” texts from Venus unanswered cause House is asleep. Ursula is Ariel’s “””dArK siDe”””

[clawsofakiller]

Chapters: 5/5

Fandom: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Daredevil (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse), all new all different - Fandom

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Relationships: Victor Creed/Lester | Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter

Characters: Victor Creed, Lester | Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter

Additional Tags: Out of Character, inverted sabretooth, inverted victor creed - Freeform, past victor creed/monet st.croix, Graphic Description of Corpses, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mental Breakdown, Mental Anguish, Altered Mental States, Hurt/Comfort, dark humour, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Blood Loss, Mild Smut, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Panic Attacks, Homophobia, Depression, References to Depression, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Suicide, Suicide thoughts, Self-Hatred, Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Drugs, Drug Addiction, References to Drugs, Drug Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcohol, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Rape/Non-con Elements, Stalking, Obsession, Obsessive Behavior, Self-Indulgent, Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov References, Parody, Child Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Child Death, Spiritual, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Substance Abuse, High Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Death Fantasy, Butterfly, minor fluff, Hugs, Psychopaths In Love, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dead People

Summary:

Victor had been stalking Bullseye for four days. Watching his target wander out of that bar in a delirious state, reaching the rock bottom of his form in days, he deemed it was time. He put out the cigar in his mouth, smoothed his jacket and followed quietly.

Finally finished the shit. I can die peacefully now.

[stacystacyoneoneone]

Sorry if spoilers, but I’m in love with the ending of killing stalking.

While reading the ending I felt nauseous and sick, I was really nervous....

It was sad to see how characters lives laid out, but as fan of russian literature, I’m used to see characters suffer.

cHaRacTer development is really good.

When you read Killing Stalking, I suggest that you think of their behavior as that of two mentally ill people. I think the story here is similar to Nabokov's “Lolita”. This is not a romantic story. Only for the writer it's was pedophilia, here it's stockholm syndrome and bipolar personality disorder.

Yes. “Killing Stalking” is yoi. But it doesn’t change anything. Yes,earlier bed scenes could be a little cringy. But it’s only a tool to show characters slowly developing codependency to each other. This wasn’t love. Just codependency.

My favourite character would be Yang Seungbae. I think his story is really interesting and realistic.

Second favourite character would be Yoon Bum. I’m very emotional person and I think he did nothing wrong:( I saw a lot of comments saying that he is really dumb for not running away, but this is just victim blaming.

And at last- Sangwoo’s mom. I think is a great representation of postbirh depression and manic thoughts. I think my favourite chapter is a flashback to Sangwoo’s, I guess teenagehood, where she tried to poison her own son.

I would definitely recommend you reading this piece, if you are in to disordered behaviour, and severe mental illneses.

[whisperthatruns]

On Translating Eugene Onegin

1 What is translation? On a platter A poet’s pale and glaring head, A parrot’s screech, a monkey’s chatter, And profanation of the dead. The parasites you were so hard on Are pardoned if I have your pardon, O, Pushkin, for my stratagem: I traveled down your secret stem, And reached the root, and fed upon it; Then, in a language newly learned, I grew another stalk and turned Your stanza patterned on a sonnet, Into my honest roadside prose--- All thorn, but cousin to your rose.

2 Reflected words can only shiver Like elongated lights that twist In the black mirror of a river Between the city and the mist. Elusive Pushkin! Persevering, I still pick up Tatiana’s earring, Still travel with your sullen rake. I find another man’s mistake, I analyze alliterations That grace your feasts and haunt the great Fourth stanza of your Canto Eight. This is my task---a poet’s patience And scholastic passion blent: Dove-droppings on your monument.

Vladimir Nabokov

[theelliottsmiths]

Tbh I’ve been kind of uncomfortable lately with all the content till’s put out lately about the mistreatment of women (the poem that was about drugging and assaulting a woman, some of the lindemann videos) and wondered if you had any thoughts because it’s weighing on me and I want to believe he’s a good person and treats women well, but it’s stressful to see/hear about the controversy.

My question for you is: how is this any different to the rest of his work?

This is long, it's been building up for a while and may stray from the ask in places. If I sound pissy I promise that's not directed at you.

So just, first off I honestly think a lot of people were so upset about the poem because it's much closer to something that could potentially happen to them and therefore it's harder to think about from the angles he favours; If it was the poem itself not a single one of them would be a Rammstein fan because the only difference between it and Tier, or Hallomann, or Weißes Fleisch is the likelihood of them or someone they know experiencing it.

Any of us could have out drinks spiked: in the past year I know one guy whose date slipped ketamine into his drink so she could take him home (he managed to escape) and a woman who was given something that ended up setting off her seizures in a club. It's more likely to happen than Wiener Blut Part 2 is and for some people they haven't had to process his texts, or anything similar, in that way before. Its scary and gross and disturbing to slip inside the mind of an abuser, which is why he does it and brings us with him.

There's also the fact that its reminding people that they could potentially be that person. It would be easy to do it if you decided you wanted to do it and it's hard to stomach if you're not Empathy Till who puts himself in thousands of peoples shoes a day and should not be counted.

Arguably, this is all his reaction to learning more about how women are treated through things like the me too movement and examining his own behaviour (re: Till the End, not WDS). He uses current events as inspiration all the time. We talk more about date rape, he writes a poem about date rape. He uses the dehumanisation of the women in Platz Eins to show the dehumanisation and oversexualisation of women in other aspects of life. Maybe he's even using it to explore attitudes towards women that he didn't realise he had because of when and where he grew up and the rockstar lifestyle in general, Schneiders quote seems relevant right now

His art is exploring, as it always has, the darkest parts of humanity. He didn't write Wenn du schläfst as an ode to date rape, it's him exploring the phenomenon the same way Akwaeke Emezi kind of does in Freshwater, just from the other side. He's addressing how awful and common mistreatment of women (along with all the other stuff) is, but any woman who is asked will tell you that he's a very gentleman, and even his exes barely have a bad word to say. How many people can say that?

The reason he usually writes from the perpetrators perspective is that he thinks it's cowardly to try and separate himself from the dark shit that all of us could potentially be capable of. He isn't that man any more than he is Bernd Brandes in Mein Teil or Grenouille from Perfume, the inspiration behind Du Riechst so Gut.

If you look at it that way, a lot of this stuff is incredibly respectful and understanding of the victims experiences. He doesn't say the villain isn't bad, he just highlights their potential reasoning.

For the record, I don't like the degree of sexualisation of women in Rammstein and Lindemann videos, it's just that it's about the same as it is in... Most media, actually, so it's hard to be that mad about it. I do think a couple of them have issues that a lot of men their age do where they seem to think women are a completely different species but again, not unique to them and Till does actually listen intently to women when they're talking (fans and coworkers have said so, see the Ausländer making of for Till being engaged and trying so so hard not to get distracted by actors breasts as she's talking about her culture).

Also I'm not trying to start a fight but Zoran is to blame for a lot of the Lindemann stuff, by his own admission.

But yeah no I totally see why you might feel icky about it, I still feel a little icky about PE and TTE and will fistfight Zoran specifically for Ach so fucking Gern. It's healthy to criticise and question your faves and decide for yourself if you support what they're up to

A non-exhaustive list of works that must be thrown out if Tills work really is such a problem:

Polly by Nirvana because it's about kidnapping and torture from the kidnappers perspective

The Collector by John Fowles because of the stalking and kidnapping from the kidnappers perspective

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess for the glorification of violence and accompanying misogyny

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov because it's about paedophilia from the paedophiles perspective

Perfume by Patrick Süskind because of the stalking and murder

The Wasp Factory by lain Banks because of things that would be spoilers but the main character, jesus christ.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy because of the Everything About It

Don't Stand So Close to Me by the Police. It's about a teacher and a student. Yuck.

See my point?