14 grubs honk balefully on “Cupbearer to the Gods”
deeply unsettling how relatable this one struck me. so many passages felt like reverberations of things I’d thought before. the disconnect from one’s own childhood, the shower scenes, the way he snaps at that mother and child. veau is so tragic… brain meltingly potent stuff
Just wanted you to know that I’ve read the first act and loved it. Will be back with, hopefully, meatier comments once I’ve read the entire thing, but I’m enjoying it too much to rush.
Not really what I expected. But since when have I been able to know what to expect from your stories? This is like a counterpart to 18 Foot Leash in some ways: white, moral, and disinfected, while Leash is nocturnal, overgrown, and shitty. I wish I knew why so much yaoi on the internet is gender-essentialist, sentimentalist pabulum, when you’re out there able to write such viscerally sexy and violent fellas.
After reading the first Act, I was wondering whether the ‘rasts represent us, the readers, in some way… we tune in for the misadventures of an innocent boy and get a hardened thirty-year-old with cherry angiomas.
Excellent, expansive story, and I’m not sure I understand all of it even now. I feel like that scene towards the end, Veau seeing the movies in the video store, is the key to a large part of what was going on. The complex, briefly almost-wholesome relationship between Veau and Y is excellent.
The eye removal scene made me feel physical pain. And I’m hardly the most sensitive person (I didn’t flinch at anything in High Kill Shelter, for starters).
Are you planning to revisit these agents at some point?
mmm dirty leash clean cup! I agree. And the cleanliness extends to the style itself. Cupbearer is laid out like a transcript, Leash has tons of dérives and it surges wildly thru perspectives and formats…
“essentialist, sentimentalist…” yes it can be so much more!
haha yes the ol bait and switch…good point!
eye removal fucks me up too haha.
I have more written but I am limited by my health. I will have to triage my next projects but I dearly hope to post more in the future. Thanks for the great analysis, I appreciate when people engage with it sincerely. And thanks for showing them some love <3
Once I was talking about the sorry state of pedophilia discourse with a friend, and they theorized that part of the reason hatred towards pedophiles is as vitriolic as it is, is because society collectively has a huge amount of trauma re: how badly children are treated by adults and someone needs to be scapegoated. The scene with Veau seeing the rastblast movies reminds me of that. It’s not about protecting children or serving justice, it’s about the perverse satisfaction of hurting something more evil than you so you can prove you’re good.
The fact that the boylike program is an offshoot of a program to catch “shitpushers” equates pedophilia and queerness in the way you’re Not Supposed To Do but that equivalence is real and it’s fucking revelatory to see someone actually acknowledge it. All perverts are hated in the same way, gut-level disgust disguised as ethics. It’s a mental illness but it’s also a moral failing.
I love Veau and how uncomfortable he makes everyone around him by saying the quiet part out loud and how he seems to relate more to the rasts than normies. “A lot of them do.” Things you’re not supposed to say.
tl;dr this truly is a certified pedopunk classic, thank you for writing u_u
(P.S. There’s no real textual basis but I read Y as a pedophile and I keep thinking about him and Veau having sex while Veau is in a boylike (and then they’re both shot by INNOCENT probably))
Yeah, the specter of pederasty is just a tool for political violence, and the prisons and punishments and violent rhetoric are a big part of why people get away with it in the first place. It can’t be fought with punishment, it can only be fought with the dismantling of the family unit itself, and the churches and the schools and all the other prisons-for-children. The violence happens because children are powerless, and this is reinforced by a cult of innocence which has nothing to do with protecting them, only disenfranchising them. I knew what adults were doing to me as a kid was wrong, and I was more intelligent than any of them, but it didn’t matter, because I had no power. But people don’t want to hear that…they want to reserve the right to manufacture their own slave.
I definitely think of Y as a rast. If I have the chance to write more, I’ll go deeper into that.
Veau fantasizing about Y fantasizing about mounting Veau’s body in his apartment is so perfect. Cupbearer feels like this exercise in degrees of separation, complex artificial pretenses constructed as a bulwark against reality. The fact that Veau isn’t allowed to just embody a boylike either… Like it would be immoral and irresponsible for someone to enjoy being a child, but it’s perfectly fine and good and not weird as long as they’re an instrument of violence and they hate every second. Hate and condemnation are the safe emotions and anything softer or gentler must be transmuted into those before it can be safely felt.
Looking forward to the next chapter, if and when it happens <3
exactly. that feels like the rule for all life. you can do anything as long as you don’t want to, as long as it is for control/violence and not genuine appreciation. what if the city and the city was just some guy…
thank you, I really want to finish their story when I can! <3
deeply unsettling how relatable this one struck me. so many passages felt like reverberations of things I’d thought before. the disconnect from one’s own childhood, the shower scenes, the way he snaps at that mother and child. veau is so tragic… brain meltingly potent stuff
💜 thank you so much. glad the echoes could meet. tragic veau…
Just wanted you to know that I’ve read the first act and loved it. Will be back with, hopefully, meatier comments once I’ve read the entire thing, but I’m enjoying it too much to rush.
thank you <3 savoring the sipping!
(after reading the whole story)
Wooow.
Not really what I expected. But since when have I been able to know what to expect from your stories? This is like a counterpart to 18 Foot Leash in some ways: white, moral, and disinfected, while Leash is nocturnal, overgrown, and shitty. I wish I knew why so much yaoi on the internet is gender-essentialist, sentimentalist pabulum, when you’re out there able to write such viscerally sexy and violent fellas.
After reading the first Act, I was wondering whether the ‘rasts represent us, the readers, in some way… we tune in for the misadventures of an innocent boy and get a hardened thirty-year-old with cherry angiomas.
Excellent, expansive story, and I’m not sure I understand all of it even now. I feel like that scene towards the end, Veau seeing the movies in the video store, is the key to a large part of what was going on. The complex, briefly almost-wholesome relationship between Veau and Y is excellent.
The eye removal scene made me feel physical pain. And I’m hardly the most sensitive person (I didn’t flinch at anything in High Kill Shelter, for starters).
Are you planning to revisit these agents at some point?
mmm dirty leash clean cup! I agree. And the cleanliness extends to the style itself. Cupbearer is laid out like a transcript, Leash has tons of dérives and it surges wildly thru perspectives and formats…
“essentialist, sentimentalist…” yes it can be so much more!
haha yes the ol bait and switch…good point!
eye removal fucks me up too haha.
I have more written but I am limited by my health. I will have to triage my next projects but I dearly hope to post more in the future. Thanks for the great analysis, I appreciate when people engage with it sincerely. And thanks for showing them some love <3
I wish I could give you some of my health. Not meant to sound melodramatic; I just love your works and want to see more.
<3
A couple of things I forgot to mention before:
Veau longing for masculine camaraderie… too real.
Is Retz a reference to the famous French mediaeval guy (more commonly spelt “Rais”)?
mmm such a hard thing to find the proper titration of…
correct on Retz! nice job, I think you’re the first to make the connection!
Slightly scattered thoughts…
Once I was talking about the sorry state of pedophilia discourse with a friend, and they theorized that part of the reason hatred towards pedophiles is as vitriolic as it is, is because society collectively has a huge amount of trauma re: how badly children are treated by adults and someone needs to be scapegoated. The scene with Veau seeing the rastblast movies reminds me of that. It’s not about protecting children or serving justice, it’s about the perverse satisfaction of hurting something more evil than you so you can prove you’re good.
The fact that the boylike program is an offshoot of a program to catch “shitpushers” equates pedophilia and queerness in the way you’re Not Supposed To Do but that equivalence is real and it’s fucking revelatory to see someone actually acknowledge it. All perverts are hated in the same way, gut-level disgust disguised as ethics. It’s a mental illness but it’s also a moral failing.
I love Veau and how uncomfortable he makes everyone around him by saying the quiet part out loud and how he seems to relate more to the rasts than normies. “A lot of them do.” Things you’re not supposed to say.
tl;dr this truly is a certified pedopunk classic, thank you for writing u_u
(P.S. There’s no real textual basis but I read Y as a pedophile and I keep thinking about him and Veau having sex while Veau is in a boylike (and then they’re both shot by INNOCENT probably))
Yeah, the specter of pederasty is just a tool for political violence, and the prisons and punishments and violent rhetoric are a big part of why people get away with it in the first place. It can’t be fought with punishment, it can only be fought with the dismantling of the family unit itself, and the churches and the schools and all the other prisons-for-children. The violence happens because children are powerless, and this is reinforced by a cult of innocence which has nothing to do with protecting them, only disenfranchising them. I knew what adults were doing to me as a kid was wrong, and I was more intelligent than any of them, but it didn’t matter, because I had no power. But people don’t want to hear that…they want to reserve the right to manufacture their own slave.
I definitely think of Y as a rast. If I have the chance to write more, I’ll go deeper into that.
certified pedopunk classic!!
Veau fantasizing about Y fantasizing about mounting Veau’s body in his apartment is so perfect. Cupbearer feels like this exercise in degrees of separation, complex artificial pretenses constructed as a bulwark against reality. The fact that Veau isn’t allowed to just embody a boylike either… Like it would be immoral and irresponsible for someone to enjoy being a child, but it’s perfectly fine and good and not weird as long as they’re an instrument of violence and they hate every second. Hate and condemnation are the safe emotions and anything softer or gentler must be transmuted into those before it can be safely felt.
Looking forward to the next chapter, if and when it happens <3
exactly. that feels like the rule for all life. you can do anything as long as you don’t want to, as long as it is for control/violence and not genuine appreciation. what if the city and the city was just some guy…
thank you, I really want to finish their story when I can! <3