The Very Hungry Caterpillar is, on a the surface, merely a sweet story about a very hungry caterpillar and his journey of consumption and metamorphosis.

The author had an entirely different meaning in mind.

TVHC is a story about the author's struggle with their sexual and gender identity, preceded by years of substance abuse and high-risk sexual encounters.

The story begins with the caterpillar hatching from an egg. The Egg is both vaginal and penile, resulting from the combination of ovum and sperm. Within the author, they realized their own sense of vagina and peepee, causing a cognitive dissonance in their own identity.

TVHC's insatiable hunger for food can be seen as a metaphor for a deep longing to explore and understand one's own identity. It reflects the desire to consume knowledge about gender and self-discovery.

TVHC starts by eating through one red apple. This symbolizes the early stages of puberty, menstrual blood, and singular s*x (masturbation). The fact that future foods continue to grow in number and frequency shows the author's increasing libido, but also a shame cycle that is both calmed and exacerbated by continued high-risk exploration.

When TVHC eats through two pears, this symbolizes their first sexual encounter with two people. The green color of the pears symbolizes marijuana abuse, as well as the color of young, supple growth of a plant and the loss of the author's innocence. Since this is the second day of TVHC's life, it can be inferred that this sexual encounter occurred early in life, most likely in abuse as a minor, setting the stage for a life of sexual confusion and impulsiveness.

As the numbers of food increase, so too do the sexual partners. As visualized in the artwork, the penetration of TVHC through food symbolizes the penetration the author experienced as the sexually receiving partner, and the resulting holes in the food represent the continued diminishing of their psyche and worth.

After the numerical scaling of partners achieves maximum, TVHC binges in many different singular foods, much like the author's series of promiscuous encounters. The pace of the text is at a crescendo, the sexual encounters frequent and fleeting.

The Cocoon is not a transformative moment, but one of death and burial. Death of the Soul. Death of the Vagina. Death of the Peepee. Death of the Self.

The emergence of The Butterfly is the emergence of Denialism. Unable to face the damage to his body and soul from illicit drugs and STDs, the author adopted a new persona in order to dissociate from their true self. It is too late however, and so a short-lived life of denialism is all that is possible, until TVHC lays a new egg for the cycle of abuse to continue.

!bookworms

To discuss the second chapter of our book club pick, "Petersburg" by Andrei Bely. I'll finish the chapter tomorrow and give my takes then but the threads get published on tuesday so here it is.

!bookworms last week GRRM wrote an update on the new HBO schlock adaptation of his Dunk & Egg novellas.

Did I just read the words "Finish" and "Winds" in the same sentence? Am I dreaming? George? Are you promising me personally that WINDS OF WINTER will be complete by end of fiscal year 2025? In time for the holidays? Did you say that? I'm just going to go around believing that now.

OMG, A TWOW MENTION

I can feel some new year optimism from George. I'm super excited for the Dunk and Egg adaptation, it looks good.

THIS TIME FOR REAL GUYS

https://old.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/1icwbb4/am_i_crazy_for_believing_grrm_about_twow_spoilers/

No. The super-cynical posture some people take here that he's not working on it at all, is some kind of fraud, etc. is just a perverse form of copium. It's just a way for people to not get their hopes up. It's pretty obvious that he's trying to get it done but he's slow, it's hard, and he has a lot of other things going on. But it's pretty obvious that he's been working on it and probably has a ton of material at this point. What that means about him being close to an actual release date or anything like that is less clear.

Asoiafbros, will Dany finally leave Westeros? Will Ser Robert Strong kill the faith of the cucks champion? Is Aegon fake? Is the pink letter real?

Get this washed up frick some cocaine already

If you would all pause fighting for a moment and pay attention to me, I have an annoucment to make: My book is available for pre-order. If you or someone you love has tried and failed to get control over alcohol, this book is for you: https://t.co/51Y10eiMVT

— Katie Herzog (@kittypurrzog) February 3, 2025

I got it used so he didn't get any money, this is why my life is already over.

One of the most characters I can imagine:

>Neurodivergent

>Incel

>Puer Aeternus

>Oedipus Complex

>Nearly commits then has a mental breakdown

!incels required reading. There's a (very well done) online reading by the author if you're a .

i dunno if yall do comics

but i need to find a conan the barbarian book

its like...about conan time traveling to the modern(?)day and meeting a and fighting off some evil thing

i swear to god it was real and on the kindle app but i cant find it

anyone know what comic this was???

To discuss your weekly readings of books, textbooks, and papers.

!bookworms

@Aevann can you pls

Beloved ASOIAF audiobook narrator Roy Dotrice passed away before GRRM could get WoW out. RIP

But now, using preview chapters from The Winds of Winter and the power of 11labs voice cloning, Roy Dotrice can narrate book 6 from beyond the grave!

if you haven't read the Forsaken sample chapter it's pretty sick. shame we'll never get the book because it gets me hyped

bottom text.

I haven't used audible that much, and now I have 8 Audible credits accumulated and I need to expend them before canceling my membership or they disappear back into Bezos' pockets

Please recommend me

Literary Fiction/novels

Classics

Sci-Fi (more obscure or newer stuff is better, I have read a lot of the popular classic scifi)

Well written histories/historical biographies

K thx. Also judge other people's recommendations

Brandon Sanderson

For those that don't know, Brandon Sanderson is a Mormon author that specializes in writing fantasy for people that believe video games are art. The Mormonism manifests itself as embarassing and clunky attempts at insults.

For example:

But don't worry. He doesn't need the crutch of Mormonism to help him write atrocities.

Sanderson started getting big in 2006 when not mentioning current-day issues in your writing wasn't considered violence. Because his early work was inoffensive, some of his fans had certain opinions and would be described as chud-adjacent today. We'll come back to them in a moment.

With success came the the desire to expand, and what better way to reach more people than making it more relatable™ and courting a "modern audience"! It started out subtle: a background character making comments about the same s*x, allegories about mental health and, eventually, an out-of-place political desire to install a modern democracy in a medieval fantasy world. It got progressively more obvious with each new book, but it clearly worked, because you can't go anywhere online to discuss fiction now without being bombarded with Sanderson recommendations.

And now a large chunk of his fan base looks like this

Wind and Truth

The most recent addition to the Sanderson Literary Universe was the 5th book in the Stormlight Archive series, Wind and Truth.

We're going to look at some 1-star reviews, which are mostly chuds dumb enough to have kept reading up until now.

Remember the excerpts from earlier? ALL his writing is like that. All 4 previous books in the series. These geniuses endured 4,546 pages of slop to get to this point

Goodreads Link. Sort by 1-star reviews. 2-stars are also funny, but it's mostly just people begging him to get another editor.

I will be honest, I cried

I didn't realize I was reading garbage until there was a gay character!

^ This is an actual quote

This guy wrote a whole novel in protest

Can't read it? You're welcome!

It turns into an impassioned plea for Sanderson to renounce Mormonism in favour of mainstream Christianity, which is funny, but not actually worth reading.

I couldn't drug myself to sleep, so I used boring audiobooks

The best part of these 1-star reviewers pouring out their hearts (and some of them posting from accounts with face pics and real names) is that none of it meant anything. The book was well-received overall and will fund the next 5 books in the series!

!bookworms to discuss the first chapter of Andrei Bely's "Petersburg".

An neurodivergent old tsarist statesman (and a cuck) has a difficult relationship with his incel son but takes too long to realize his son's commie friends might be into something. Vivid descriptions of what St Petersburg looked like during the 1905 Revolution.

Next week discussion to cover chapter 2.

!bookworms

For those upset over Dark Horse’s actions here…I respectfully point you to the words of a person who can express these things more eloquently than perhaps I can: https://t.co/QkMeXVYFBc pic.twitter.com/bkfp2gLz6U

— Valerie D'Orazio (@TheVallyD) January 25, 2025

it's a good read

To discuss your weekly readings of books, textbooks, and papers.

!bookworms I'm about to finish "Afgantsy" and already started with the first chapter of Andrei Bely's "Petersburg", the latter which will be the center of our book club discussion thread on Tuesday Jan 28th. Join our book club discussion if you're interested!

https://rdrama.net/h/lit/post/334655/rdrama-bookclub-next-pick-petersburg-by/7654072#context

@Aevann can you pls

!bookworms !anticommunists

Attention !bookworms and !classics

Our next book club reading will be "Petersburg" by Russian author Andrei Bely.

Written between 1913-1916 and initially published on a serialized manner, the book covers the story of a young man who becomes involved with revolutionaries who tasked them with a job, to kill a high ranking tsarist official, his own father.

https://oceanofpdf.com/authors/andrei-bely/pdf-epub-petersburg-download/

Here's the free epub for you guys to download it.

The book consists of 8 chapters, so ideally we'll cover 1 per week but before committing to another failed bookclub I'll ask how many of you want to participate.

I'm in - 13 votes

I pass - 0 votes

For those who're in, another option is to do one chapter on a bi-weekly basis. Let me know in the comments which one you prefer (one chapter per week or one chapter every two-weeks)

To discuss your weekly readings of books, textbooks and papers.

!bookworms

@Aevann can you pls

I'll start off by saying that the writing for this book is sometimes less-than-literary. But the fact that the author clearly didn't spend a lot of time in writing seminars is a good thing in all other respects

It's a memoir of an orphaned half-latinx/half-Korean kid with a junkie mom who ends up in the foster system at a real young age. His recollections of his childhood made me give my kids an extra hug, and he was one of the lucky ones since he didn't get r*ped (which is super common for foster kids).

He talks about growing up in the system, then finally getting adopted by a good family which eventually falls apart (twice). He joins the Chair Force (affectionate) and kicks butt but is still just a fricked up kid inside, and nearly drinks himself to death. He then goes to Yale on the GI bill and eventually Cambridge for his PHD on scholarship.

All his memoirs lead up to the final two chapters which deliver the crux of the book:

• First that elite virtue signalling is (luxury beliefs) the new Venblen Good and that the trickle-down effects of this really hurt normal people

• Second that a stable, loving, family is the most important thing you can provide a kid. More than money.

The most important thing for the chuds on this site is that it puts elite virtue signalling in terms that elites themselves cannot brush aside. He calls out that the things rich college kids support socially are not the way they actually live their lives. It's a great read, and definitely a very centrist take IMO. He reads the audiobook himself too, which is always a plus. !grillers !bookworms

https://annas-archive.org/md5/976ee4ddd60489055460700ab947d5d9 - pdf link