When I’m reading smut and the author breaks the flow of the story so that the characters can tell us that they have enthusiastic consent it feels exactly like when Dora the Explorer looks directly into the camera and says ‘Seat belts so we can be safe!’ anytime she gets into a motorized vehicle.
This is later made pretty explicit but it’s a subtle moment here, at least one I didn’t catch until I read it a third time. Flowers for Algernon is a wonderful book, thoughtful and empathetic for its times and, well, ours. If you read it in school and thought one thing, read it again and you’ll find another. That’s kind of evergreen advice but still
I’ll never get over the part in Flowers for Algernon where Charlie realises that he’s being made fun of. He bites into a (fake, wax) apple given to him by a woman, realises the truth and feels “shame” for the first time. By undergoing this surgery, he ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Of course he’s going to die.
i got these knockoff boots online and instead of the brand name on the tag they have the name of an apparently nonexistent martin scorsese movie??? what the fuck