#Olive Again

[quotespile]

What frightened him was how much of his life he had lived without knowing who he was or what he was doing. It caused him to feel an inner trembling, and he could not quite find the words — for himself — to even put it exactly as he sensed it. But he sensed that he had lived his life in a way that he had not known. This meant there had been a large blindspot directly in front of his eyes. It meant that he did not understand, not really at all, how others had perceived him. And it meant that he did not know how to perceive himself.

Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

[litsnaps]

[godzillaswaisttrainer]

Broke: adopt a child

Woke: borrow your boyfriend's

[pmg227]

Favorite Reads for August '23

I’ve read several times lately that the blog is dead. I do listen to more podcasts than I read blogs, but there have been several blogs I enjoyed following and the writers have quit for different reasons. Most of the blogs I follow are about reading; book reviews especially. I suspect that one reason there are not as many of these can be pointed to the rise of the YouTube channels where people…

[spooksier]

GET HIS ASS

(shirt avalible here!!)

[stevenrogered]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[existential-queeer]

Ryan on his way back to PR jail after wreaking havoc on the Buddie fandom .0005 seconds after being freed

[artofalassa]

Nothing Beats Pizza On A Cliff

Right? And some things are said...

Part ONE | Part TWO | Part THREE | Part FOUR | Part FIVE | Part SIX | Part SEVEN | Part EIGHT | Part NINE | Part TEN

[hypnogogyc]

Every song has a final note.

[lorephobic]

“the class commentary in saltburn was shit” WHAT CLASS COMMENTARY???? NOT EVERY MOVIE WITH RICH PEOPLE HAS TO OR SHOULD HAVE CLASS COMMENTARY. EMERALD FENNELL KNOWS VERY WELL THAT SHE IS NOT THE RIGHT DIRECTOR FOR A MOVIE ABOUT CLASS COMMENTARY WHICH IS WHY SHE DID NOT WRITE A MOVIE ABOUT CLASS COMMENTARY.

[truly-sincerely]

Obsessively reading everything in game by and about Gortash and the dude is

On a philosophical trajectory that ends in immortality thru technology / the machine

Doesn't have an original bone in his body, but he can backwards engineer anything

Halfway to being a decent scientist but doesn't have the education and is deeply impatient

Overconfident in the veracity of his own results and conclusions

Accurately predicted that the brain would metamorphose and become more difficult to control and then did nothing about it

Outsources his propaganda / arts and humanities

Charming, but he got there in a Pavlovian way (learned from trial and error and probably doesn't consciously know how he does it)

Vindictive af (learned / reinforced)

Darwinian (in the worst way)

Sociopathic, obviously, but extremely Rationalist about it

Never asks questions he doesn't know the answer to and probably thinks this makes him sound more authoritative

Completely incompetent as a strategist (but doesn't know it)

Not nearly as narcissistic / full of himself as he pretends to be

Thinks what he wants is praise but it's never enough because it's not actually what he wants (he wants to be wanted)

Bane makes him feel wanted (conditionally)

Durge made him feel wanted (unconditionally)

Understands intellectually that Durge got ambushed, but he feels abandoned

See also: thematic parallels between Gortash and

Silouv Yali (the Adamantine Forge & the construct Grym)

Oliver (in the shadow-cursed lands)

Astarion and Gale, obviously

[quotespile]

I think our job — maybe even our 'duty' — is to bear the burden of the mystery with as much grace as we can.

Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again

[litsnaps]

[n-jostcn]

the song of achilles — madeline miller

night shift — stephen king

euripedes — anne carson

circe — madeline miller

a conjuring of light — v.e. schwab

west wind — mary oliver

the song of achilles — madeline miller

the fragile threads of power — v.e. schwab

[captain-flint]

Buck and Tommy looking at each other's lips

[davidtennan-t]

handsomest man to ever handsome