I think I may have discovered the worst piece of short fiction ever written. It’s on a manosphere/pickup-artist blog called Colonel Crimson (slogan: “The Colonel of Truth”).
Here’s how it starts:
So I’m in bed with a dime and she says to me, “Willis, what are your goals in life?”
“Simple, Adime,” I respond with my larynx. “To explore the caverns of dimes throughout the world.”
And it only gets worse from there. I would quote the worst bits, but then I’d have to quote the whole thing. Pretty much everything is a worst bit.
There’s some domestic violence, some utterly horrifying descriptions of sex, a lot of mansplaining, and even a sammich joke. There’s an element of self-parody to it — or at least I hope that’s what I’m seeing there — but the author seems to actually believe all the things he’s gently satirizing. You should of course go and read the whole thing immediately.
If you’re hesitating, here’s another sample:
I remind her of her last gentleman suitor. Average height, median weight. Put the schlub in the word schlub. “Do you remember when he strapped on his kneepads and proposed marriage to you?”
“Unfortunately I do.”
“And do you have any recollection of how the beaver felt in that moment?”
“Dry.”
Oh, and in case you were wondering, a “dime” is a Hot Babe 10. Either that or the dude is having hallucinations about talking currency.
Argenti- No, not at all! I just got put on Eszopiclone to help with my insomnia that’s been made worse with my antidepressant. It’s been…. odd. I also seem to sleepwalk occasionally in addition to the mild memory loss.
I am sad to report that I still remembered that horrible bit of prose on waking up. :c
The picture I got in my head on reading this is a throat cancer survivor who speaks through one of these little devices you hold against the throat rather than through his mouth.
And yeah, the woman having a dry pussy on hearing a proposal is weird, because… I was really happy when my husband proposed to me, but I don’t recall becoming instantly horny the moment he asked me (neither do I recall, btw, my pussy being dry as the Gobi desert. I honestly don’t recall anything about how my genitals felt at that exact moment). Proposals aren’t about “let’s have sex right now”, they’re about “let’s spend our lives together”. Even if you have a great sex life in general, there’s just no reason to become BANG super horny the minute your boyfriend asks you to marry him, because that’s not what the situation’s about.
What dudebro was attempting to say is that a desire for commitment is something that turns women off when they see it in men. This is of course nonsense, but it’s a standard part of the PUA worldview.
Don’t PUAs literally believe that women make all their decisions by how horny they get?
OT, I’d love to imagine this story was written as a parody, but it wasn’t. Take out the silly language and you’ve got standard PUA fare with no actual joke. It is, however, a fascinating window into this dudes head. Especially since apparently earth-shattering sex that can lead to 8.5 orgasms can be succinctly described as roaming around.
‘Oh, that’s right, Meine Fuhrer …’
I can’t believe he Godwined his own story by comparing himself to Hitler. Was that unintentional or did he mean to do it?
What, the rest of the women here didn’t choose their computer and their mp3 player based on the level of tingles said appliances produced?
You know, this reminds me of the way I would write in high school in an attempt to sound creative and brilliant by trying to find new and better ways to say “said” or “he replied”. Or substituting “very” with “extremely”, “incredibly”. I’ll never forget the creative writing paper when I described the protagonist as “flooding” during an emotional breakdown. I still cringe with embarrassment. I’m pretty sure my attempts were Shakespearian compared to the dime dude.
I kept seeing dimes as dames, so I read this in the voice of a 1940s detective.
@Nitram: Yeah, but you’re not alone, though. I do quite a bit of writing myself in my spare time and I often find it to be a challenge just finding how to put things on (virtual) paper: Like, for example, how would Robert E. Lee react to a Unionist uprising in East Tennessee after a massacre over draft riots in Knoxville? Or what would King George think if the Patriots lost the Revolutionary War, but if someone on their side offered a tantalizing compromise, etc.?
@Pear_tree: I’d hope that it wasn’t intentional, and that he was just being over the top….. but you never know: there are, sadly, a few, maybe more than a few, MRAs out there who really do have a thing for Hitler, and fascist ideologues(and ideology) in general. 🙁
@Me: This reminds me of Rockstar’s(the makers of GTA) “L.A. Noire”. Anyone else here played it, btw? It was a pretty good game. 🙂
“I respond with my larynx”. I think he’s confused larynx with arse.
Same here.
Buttercup, may I present you with one gift-wrapped internetz with added kitties? That song was all sorts of wonderful. 🙂
As for getting aroused during a proposal … yeah, well, doesn’t it sound just like a PUA to reduce every emotion to that? It’s all about horny/not horny for them, however much they like to pretend they’re cultured/sophisticated/whatever, and as usual they’re projecting.
I was laughing and then serious when Mr K proposed, but that was partly because a) we were already married and b) he went down on his knee in a car park and c) he made some very sweet vows he didn’t need to, afterward.
Lots of emotions, but getting physically turned on at that moment? Nope. Who’d’ve guessed grownups could have feelings about a lover that aren’t an aroused/not aroused binary?
I was the one who actually did the proposing to my husband. Then we were engaged for a couple years. Then when I got pregnant and we were looking at houses, he was like, “Maybe we should make this officially official.” And was like, “Yeah, I guess so.” So we went in front of a magistrate and got married. The thing I remember from it is all the paperwork. And paperwork does not give me ‘gina tingles.
The horny/not horny binary makes for some odd questions.
“When you found out your wife’s cancer was in remission, how hard were you then?”
“When your daughter did well in her 1st grade play, how aroused were you?”
*shiver* Thinking of that made me feel icky. I am done with this game.
“How dry was your beaver when picking out a new home?”
“Pretty wet because lodges have entrances underwater.”
“How moist was your clam when he proposed to you?”
“Very dry. We told the manager and she had them cook a new plate for me.”
And… trying to think of more I crossed the line of even worse taste. Done.
*lol* Opium!
Husband actually proposed to me on impulse, in a pub, when we were both a bit drunk, after we’d been a couple for merely a few months. I said yes. Then we actually stuck to the decision after we’d sobered up, got properly engaged and got married the next year. I do not necessarily recommend proceeding in this manner to other couples, but it worked for us – been happily married for twelve years now. 🙂
crmsnfrn — never heard of it, glad it works for you though, seroquel was like my third attempt at getting some fucking sleep. Ick on the sleepwalking though.
Cassandra — out of PUA/MRA context, I think most people do pick their tech based on what gives them tingles. Because static electricity and tech is just an unpleasant combo. (And this is why “gina tingles” is so hilarious)
Sorry to be completely out of the subject (this incredible and amazing piece of literary art), but I wanted to say that it was fun “delurking” a bit this week. I am going travelling today, I am very excited about it! So I won’t be online in general much this week. (Actually, I will try to avoid computers at all costs and just relax a bit ^__^)
Merry Christmas / Yule or any holiday you may celebrate! 😀
@Lady Mondegren Thanks for the compliment (I think) and the link was hilarious.
Found this line and had to share:
Business was kinda slow at the “If You Build It” sperm bank. — Simon Petrie, Hawker ACT, AUSTRALIA
I couldn’t get past the beta-male-rejecting desert. Just couldn’t.
How do other deserts feel about betas? I’m pretty sure that the Sahara has vowed to kill them, but it’s possible that Death Valley might be more beta-friendly.
…
…
……SO THERE I WAS; in bed with Bitcoin. It was a bit of a horrowing experience, suddenly face to face with ten figures in suits and white masks around a conference table shaped like a giant bed.
What? No, I didn’t mean the currency, I meant I was literally in bed with the actual Bitcoin shadow overseers. I understand your confusion. I was sharing it. Last I recall, I was drinking vodka and eating skittles by the truckload to make up for my dime leaving me for some wanton coffee machine.
“WE ARE THE BITCOIN OVERSEERS! THE MAJESTIC MINERS! THE ZEROES IN THE CODE OF CURRENCY! THE— Apologize, the voice scrambler was on High. We are all a metal concert last night. We have brought you here to discuss the future of this planet and the implications of our new, genetically superior currency!”
Shaking my head groggily to clear out the aftershock of a voice like a thousand feedback screeches ripping into my eardrums, I slumped into one of the available pillow-chairs around the massive feather bed. It was surprisingly soft, and looking closer at the figures, some of them did seem to be reclining a little too much for a mere meeting. The bastards were probably sleeping. What had I gotten myself into?
“The pre-occupations of our age have been washed away by forces beyond the control of any ideologue!” continued the Voice, now sounding rather like Eddie Izzard “So what does all this have to do with feminism?”
Was that an opening or a rethorical question? Sort of difficult to tell.
“Women have been imprisoned by a false idea of liberation, and children farmed out to “nurseries” so that the public school boys and girls* who make up today’s political and social elite can benefit!
Man this pillowchair was remarkably comfortable. I was beginning to sympathesize with Shadow FIgure #5 over there, drooping and snoring audibly (The voicemask turning the snores into a gentle raphsodian melody). Everything was so heavy and the air in here like a soft blanket and…
“…. feminism… taxes… gender idelogues… FIAT CURRENCY… dystopia! Draconian measures…”
Man I had to get myself a conference room that doubled as a bedchamber.
“Any questions?!”
… I blinked, and tried to remember the words of my previous spiritual mentor; that very same dime that has so callously left me for a coffee machine.
“… it’s all… symbols and hoes?”
“YES. You understand! Bitcoins will mean the end of Feminism, for women can’t use computers and then finally, we, the shadow network MRA’s, will own all the money! Now, this meeting is on hold for 20 minutes to have our daily naptime. Number SIx gets really irate if he doesn’t get enough sleepytimes, yes he does”
Heheh. I was thinking yesterday that beaver’s a really bad term for these idiots to use. After all, beavers have mighty big teeth* that are capable of cutting wood down to size.
*As far as I’m aware there is no Killer Beaver of Caerbannog. But you never know.
Eargh, that brings up the scene in Dead Again when Andy Garcia smokes a cigarette through one of those devices (resulting in Ken Branagh quitting on the spot).
Fibinachi – You owe me a cup of milk (if I were drinking milk at the time).
I’m honored.
Happy holidays, people 🙂
Happy holidays to you, Fibinachi, and thank you for the awesome sequel! I’m sure it’s tough mining for bitcoins with just a canteen.
@kittehserf – aw, thanks! Moar kitties makes it extra special 😀
The Gobi is a hypergamous slut, everyone knows that. It’s just waiting for an alpha tectonic plate to come along so it can divorce it and take half its mountains.
Oh wait, I’ve got that all wrong. First it rides the Alpha Rock Carousel. Then comes continental drift. By the time it’s 30 million years old, it will be a lonely, wrinkly island populated by cats.
No no, it’s riding the cock carousel south until it gets to that beta Nepal so it can spermjack Nepal and run off with Everest!
(And now I’m picturing the highest peak on the planet surrounded by desert instead of snow)
And she replied, “I don’t know, you silly goose, it’s out damming a river!”
Nope, nope, sorry, this doesn’t hold water next to Cockrub Warriors of Mars or g0y porn. Doing it non-seriously takes a bit of the fun out of it; it takes special skills to outdo the unintentionally bad intentionally.
Ah, but is this character doing it for fun? That’s the question.
“No, Adime. For do you not like me for my charm, wit, intelligence, looks, penis size, and extensive Scandinavian stamp collection? Is that not ‘shallow’?”
What?
I don’t even…
*flips the table*
*sets the whole internet on fire*
*rage punts the flaming mess into freeway traffic*
WHY!?!
Why oh cold, uncaring universe have you extruded this madness upon me!?
What insanity has crawled from the formless depths of the unknowable regions and whispered this gibbering lunacy into the deepest regions of my most primal mind? What terrors has the Captain released on to the blissfully ignorant masses sleeping soundly comforted in their blindness? Not since the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred penned the foul and blasphemous Necronomicon has such terror been unleashed on the unwitting humanity!
The horror! THE HORROR!!!
We have a Timer of the Old Ones Keening?
@cynickal
WTF?!?
Lovecraft is no excuse for ableist slurs.
Are you taking the piss?
If not, no, just no. Also, read the threads!
So fucking sick of this shit! I do not want to be the person who lectures people on the internet, it’s Christmas for fucks sake!
I’m all for calling out people who go “MRA:s must be mentally ill, no sane person would write such stuff” (also, it’s personal to me, since I’m mentally ill myself). BUT I thought Cynick’s Lovecraft parody was fine. I didn’t see it as making the point that “MRA:s must be mentally ill, no sane person would write such stuff”, but rather as comparing them to some kind of “nameless horror” from the Lovecraft universe. I’m fine by that.
Granted, I’m just one person and can’t decide for everyone what they’re gonna be offended by… Also I don’t really know Cynick’s posting history and whether zie has written ableist stuff before?
I’m torn because, as Dvärghundspossen points out, Lovecraftian cosmic horror drives people to madness and I love me some HPL, but it would be pretty neat for one day to go by without people having to address ableist language.
I’ve written exactly the same sort of stuff on this blog without comment other than “Hah, Fib!”.
(“Slithering, gibbering parochialism lying in wait behind the words like some incipient spore of elder madness springing forth to subsume and consume the minds of the reader” comes to mind)
I also don’t see the abliest slur in question (Is it Mad Arab? That’s his title. Like the Red Baron?).
Granted, I could be a total spitballing ignoramus with no capacity to see things right in front of me, so I’m hardly the best witness here – but I do think there’s a clear difference between calling someone crazy as a putdown trying to slide them into a “If you’re mentally unwell, you are less of a person, and wrong!” and insinuating that MRA logic bears a striking resemblence to the mad gibbering of a cosmos bereft of meaning and direction and guided only tbe blind, trashing Eldest God at the heart of the universe that exists only to destroy and create in a spiral of antipathy towards every human sentiment.
… Happy Holidays.
Yeah, I’m restarting the timer, since we’re having this discussion again, but ableist or not, we made it just over 24 hours, so no one owes me a unicorn.
A citation might’ve been nice though.
Ophelia — I found this working on the Borg 101 pages — http://wingsandtails.tumblr.com/post/14163388508/tw-ableism-ableist-slurs-conflating-violence-with — it’s been added to the Welcome Package as a stock response to ableism since yeah, we’re all sick of it, or at least getting there.
Hmm…maybe this one owes me a horse? We did go just over 24 hours, and it is a quote, but we have no gone much more than a day without having this discussion again. I’m gonna collect a horse. My herd is now two unicorns and a horse.
In other animal things, the cat decided to sit on a flowerpot holding just soil (long story), in front of the fish tanks. Well she couldn’t reach the 55g, and after a quick look decided the 30g was empty (she’d already had a sad over the terrarium not having fishies in it). Puff, not being the skittish sort, came to check her out. So she’s got her neck craned to watch the 55g while puff is like 6″ from her head moving in a manner that had me chuckling that you can’t attack her silly! (Since she’d gotten him in hunter mode, I gave him a snail to hunt) I actually think they could make friends, once she notices him. She can’t actually get in the tank, and he seems to have no real sense of fear, he’ll back up for a bit, but always comes back to continue his investigation.
The 2 month old cories are getting so big, and the week old ones are getting big enough to easily spot, but still look more like tadpoles than fish, so cute!
/OT cute
Fibi — “gibbering lunacy”. Mad, in the angry sense, certainly describes MRAs!
I’m starting to wonder if refusing to admit that it really is possible for people to be as hateful as MRAs without there being any medical explanation is a form of magical thinking. Maybe people find it comforting to refuse to admit that some folks really are that hateful, just because.
The feeling of moral superiority that comes with outrage is addictive.
Cassandra — it’s the simple “they aren’t normal, because I am and I could never do that”
In other things…my FB feed of cute kids and holiday wishes also includes this…
Trigger warning, suicide, fatal child abuse
http://www.wfsb.com/story/24286205/man-throws-3-year-old-son-himself-off-nyc-roof
If the MRM defends this…
I am in no way criticising Lovecraft’s writing, I was criticising the way his style was applied.
This text was specifically aimed at the PUAs writing in this blog post (unless I’ve missed something,)
In that context when it talks about “what insanity has crawled from the formless depths” and “this gibbering lunacy” it is referring to the PUA and what they wrote, this is no different to saying “PUAs be crazy!”
Oh.
That makes sense, thanks.
I read the faux-Lovecraft comment as the PUA prose being so terrible it drove cynickal to madness, not cynickal saying that the PUAs are crazy.
In terms of terribleness, I agree with Argenti, the cockrub warriors stories are far more hideous than this. This made me roll my eyes, but no brains were melted in the process of reading it.
You mean you agree with LBT, he said that, not me. But yes, he’s right.
Whoops, sorry!