professionally boring person

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Of the Life of an Orphan Girl, a Street-Seller, 1840s, recorded by Henry Mayhew, in 'London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1,' 1851.

“Father was a whitesmith,” she said, “and mother used to go out a-washing and a-cleaning, and me and my sister (but she is dead now) did nothing; we was sent to a day school, both of us. We lived very comfortable; we had two rooms and our own furniture; we didn’t want for nothing when father was alive; he was very fond on us both, and was a kind man to everybody. He was took bad first when I was very young—it was consumption he had, and he was ill many years, about five years, I think it was, afore he died. When he was gone mother kept us both; she had plenty of work; she couldn’t a-bear the thought of our going into the streets for a living, and we was both too young to get a place anywhere, so we stayed at home and went to school just as when father was alive. My sister died about two year and a half ago; she had the scarlet-fever dreadful, she lay ill seven weeks. We was both very fond of her, me and mother. I often wish she had been spared, I should not be alone in the world as I am now. We might have gone on together, but it is dreadful to be quite alone, and I often think now how well we could have done if she was alive.

“Mother has been dead just a year this month; she took cold at the washing and it went to her chest; she was only bad a fortnight; she suffered great pain, and, poor thing, she used to fret dreadful, as she lay ill, about me, for she knew she was going to leave me. She used to plan how I was to do when she was gone. She made me promise to try to get a place and keep from the streets if I could, for she seemed to dread them so much. When she was gone I was left in the world without a friend. I am quite alone, I have no relation at all, not a soul belonging to me. For three months I went about looking for a place, as long as my money lasted, for mother told me to sell our furniture to keep me and get me clothes. I could have got a place, but nobody would have me without a character, and I knew nobody to give me one. I tried very hard to get one, indeed I did; for I thought of all mother had said to me about going into the streets. At last, when my money was just gone, I met a young woman in the street, and I asked her to tell me where I could get a lodging. She told me to come with her, she would show me a respectable lodging-house for women and girls. I went, and I have been there ever since. The women in the house advised me to take to flower-selling, as I could get nothing else to do. One of the young women took me to market with her, and showed me how to bargain with the salesman for my flowers. At first, when I went out to sell, I felt so ashamed I could not ask anybody to buy of me; and many times went back at night with all my stock, without selling one bunch. The woman at the lodging-house is very good to me; and when I have a bad day she will let my lodging go until I can pay her. She always gives me my dinner, and a good dinner it is, of a Sunday; and she will often give me a breakfast, when she knows I have no money to buy any. She is very kind, indeed, for she knows I am alone. I feel very thankful to her, I am sure, for all her goodness to me. During the summer months I take 1s. 6d. per day, which is 6d. profit. But I can only sell my flowers five days in the week—Mondays there is no flowers in the market: and of the 6d. a day I pay 3d. for lodging. I get a halfpenny-worth of tea; a halfpenny-worth of sugar; one pound of bread, 1½d.; butter, ½d. I never tastes meat but on Sunday. What I shall do in the winter I don’t know. In the cold weather last year, when I could get no flowers, I was forced to live on my clothes, I have none left now but what I have on. What I shall do I don’t know—I can’t bear to think on it.”

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The day to day of a young happily single women in London, 1840s, recorded by Henry Mayhew, in 'London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1,' 1851.

A woman of about 26 or 27—I may again remark that the regular street-sellers rarely know their age—made the following statement. She was spare and sickly looking, but said that her health was tolerably good. “I used to mind my mother’s stall,” she stated, “when I was a girl, when mother wasn’t well or had a little work at pea-shelling or such like. She sold sweet-stuff. No, she didn’t make it, but bought it. I never cared for it, and when I was quite young I’ve sold sweet-stuffs as I never tasted. I never had a father. I can’t read or write, but I like to hear people read. I go to Zion Chapel sometimes of a Sunday night, the singing’s so nice. I don’t know what religion you may call it of, but it’s a Zion Chapel. Mother’s been dead these—well I don’t know how long, but it’s a long time. I’ve lived by myself ever since, and kept myself, and I have half a room with another young woman who lives by making little boxes. I don’t know what sort of boxes. Pill-boxes? Very likely, sir, but I can’t say I ever saw any. She goes out to work on another box-maker’s premises. She’s no better off nor me. We pays 1s. 6d. a-week between us; it’s my bed, and the other sticks is her’n. We ’gree well enough. I haven’t sold sweet stuff for a great bit. I’ve sold small wares in the streets, and artificials (artificial flowers), and lace, and penny dolls, and penny boxes (of toys). No, I never hear anything improper from young men. Boys has sometimes said, when I’ve been selling sweets, ‘Don’t look so hard at ’em, or they’ll turn sour.’ I never minded such nonsense. I has very few amusements. I goes once or twice a month, or so, to the gallery at the Wick (Victoria Theatre), for I live near. It’s beautiful there. O, it’s really grand. I don’t know what they call what’s played, because I can’t read the bills. “I hear what they’re called, but I forgets. I knows Miss Vincent and John Herbert when they come on. I likes them the best. I’m a going to leave the streets. I have an aunt a laundress, because she was mother’s sister, and I always helped her, and she taught me laundressing. I work for her three and sometimes four days a-week now, because she’s lost her daughter Ann, and I’m known as a good ironer. Another laundress will employ me next week, so I’m dropping the streets, as I can do far better. I’m not likely to be married and I don’t want to.”

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The story of a teenage runaway and how he came to be homeless in the streets of London, 1840s, recorded by Henry Mayhew in 'London Labour and the London Poor, Vol.1,' 1851.

CW: Domestic Abuse

When I was collecting information concerning brace-selling [suspenders-selling] I met with a youth of sixteen who about two years previously had run away from Birmingham, and made his way to London, with 2s. 6d [2 shillings and 6 pennies]. Although he earned something weekly, he was so pinched and beaten by a step-mother (his father was seldom at home except on Sunday) that his life was miserable. This went on for nearly a year, until the boy began to resist, and one Saturday evening, when beaten as usual, he struck in return, drawing blood from his step-mother’s face. The father came home before the fray was well ended; listened to his wife’s statement, and would not listen to the boy’s, and in his turn chastised the lad mercilessly. In five minutes after the boy, with aching bones and a bitter spirit, left his father’s house and made his way to London, where he was then vending cheap braces [suspenders]. This youth could neither read nor write, and seemed to possess no quickness or intelligence. The only thing of which he cared to talk was his step-mother’s treatment of him; all else was a blank with him, in comparison; this was the one burning recollection.

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The story of Mary, a young, sometimes homeless, Irishwoman, living in London, in the 1840s, recorded by Henry Mayhew in 'London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1,' 1851.

Deed thin, sir, it’s more than 20 long years since I came from Dublin to Liverpool wid my father and mother, and brother William that’s dead and gone, rest his soul. He died when he was fourteen. They was masons in Ireland. Was both father and mother masons, sir? Well, then, in any quiet job mother helped father, for she was a strong woman. They came away sudden. They was in some thrubble, but I never knew what, for they wouldn’t talk to me about it. We thravelled from Liverpool to London, for there was no worruk at Liverpool; and he got worruk on buildings in London, and had 18s. a week; and mother cleaned and worruked for a greengrocer, as they called him—he sold coals more than anything—where we lodged, and it wasn’t much, she got, but she airned what is such a thrubble to poor people, the rint. We was well off, and I was sent to school; and we should have been better off, but father took too much to the dhrop, God save him. He fell onste and broke his leg; and though the hospital gintlemen, God bless them for good Christians, got him through it, he got little worruk when he came out again, and died in less than a year. Mother wasn’t long afther him; and on her death-bed she said, so low I could hardly hear her, ‘Mary, my darlint, if you starruve, be vartuous. Rimimber poor Illen’s funeral.’ When I was quite a child, sir, I went wid mother to a funeral—she was a relation—and it was of a young woman that died after her child had been borrun a fortnight, and she wasn’t married; that was Illen. Her body was brought out of the lying-in hospital—I’ve often heard spake of it since—and was in the churchyard to be buried; and her brother, that hadn’t seen her for a long time, came and wanted to see her in her coffin, and they took the lid off, and then he currused her in her coffin afore him; she’d been so wicked. But he wasn’t a good man hisself, and was in dhrink too; still nobody said anything, and he walked away. It made me ill to see Illen in her coffin, and hear him curruse, and I’ve remimbered it ever since.

“I was thin fifteen, I believe, and hadn’t any friends that had any tie to me. I was lone, sir. But the neebours said, ‘Poor thing, she’s left on the shuckrawn’ (homeless); and they helped me, and I got a place. Mistress was very kind at first, that’s my first mistress was, and I had the care of a child of three years old; they had only one, because mistress was busy making waistcoats. Master was a hatter, and away all day, and they was well off. But some women called on mistress once, and they had a deal of talkin’, and bladherin’, and laughin’, and I don’t know how often I was sent out for quarterns of gin. Then they all went out together; and mistress came home quite tipsy just afore master, and went up-stairs, and had just time to get into bed; she told me to tell master she had one of her sick head-aches and was forced to go to bed; she went on that way for three or four days, and master and she used to quarrel of a night, for I could hear them. One night he came home sooner than common, and he’d been drinking, or perhaps it might be thrubble, and he sent me to bed wid the child; and sometime in the night, I don’t know what time, but I could only see from a gas-lamp that shined into the room, he came in, for there was no fastenin’ inside the door, it was only like a closet, and he began to ask me about mistress. When he larned she’d been drinking wid other women, he used dreadful language, and pulled me out of bed, and struck me with a stick that he snatched up, he could see it in the gas-light, it was little Frank’s horse, and swore at me for not telling him afore. He only struck me onste, but I screamed ever so often, I was so frightened. I dressed myself, and lay down in my clothes, and got up as soon as it was light—it was summer time—and thought I would go away and complain to some one. I would ask the neebours who to complain to. When I was going out there was master walking up and down the kitchen. He’d never been to bed, and he says, says he, ‘Mary, where are you going?’ So I told him, and he begged my pardon, and said he was ashamed of what he’d done, but he was half mad; then he began to cry, and so I cried, and mistress came home just then, and when she saw us both crying together, she cried, and said she wasn’t wanted, as we was man and wife already. Master just gave her a push and down she fell, and he ran out. She seemed so bad, and the child began to cry, that I couldn’t lave thin; and master came home drunk that night, but he wasn’t cross, for he’d made out that mistress had been drinking with some neebours, and had got to her mother’s, and that she was so tipsy she fell asleep, they let her stay till morning, and then some woman set her home, but she’d been there all night. They made[467] it up at last, but I wouldn’t stay. They was very kind to me when I left, and paid me all that was owing, and gave me a good pair of shoes, too; for they was well off.

“I had a many places for seven years; after that, and when I was out of a place, I stayed wid a widder, and a very dacint woman, she was wid a daughter working for a bookbinder, and the old woman had a good pitch with fruit. Some of my places was very harrud, but shure, again, I met some as was very kind. I left one because they was always wanting me to go to a Methodist chapel, and was always running down my religion, and did all they could to hinder my ever going to mass. They would hardly pay me when I left, because I wouldn’t listen to them, they said—the haythens!—when they would have saved my soul. They save my soul, indeed! The likes o’ thim! Yes, indeed, thin, I had wicked offers sometimes, and from masters that should have known better. I kept no company wid young men. One mistress refused me a karackter, because I was so unhandy, she said; but she thought better of it. At last, I had a faver (fever), and wasn’t expected for long (not expected to live); when I was getting well, everything went to keep me. What wasn’t good enough for the pawn went to the dolly (dolly-shop, generally a rag and bottle shop, or a marine store). When I could get about, I was so shabby, and my clothes hung about me so, that the shops I went to said, ‘Very sorry, but can’t recommend you anywhere;’ and mistresses looked strange at me, and I didn’t know what to do and was miserable. I’d been miserable sometimes in place, and had many a cry, and thought how ‘lone’ I was, but I never was so miserable as this. At last, the old woman I stayed along wid—O, yes, she was an Irishwoman—advised me to sill fruit in the streets, and I began on strawberries, and borrowed 2s. 6d. to do it wid. I had my hilth better than ever thin; and after I’d sold fruit of all kinds for two years, I got married. My husband had a potato can thin. I knew him because he lived near, and I saw him go in and out, and go to mass. After that he got a porter’s place and dropped his can, and he porters when he has a chance still, and has a little work in sewing sacks for the corn-merchants. Whin he’s at home at his sacks, as he is now, he can mind the children—we have two—and I sells a few oranges to make a thrifle. Whin there’s nothing ilse for him to do, he sills fruit in the sthreets, and thin I’m at home. We do middlin, God be praised.”

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Clothing with hidden pockets is the shit. I fucking love clothes with inside pockets where I can put things and nobody knows about it;

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Robots Universe Lore Pt 2: In which humans accidentally create a robot that reads minds perfectly and then accidentally fry its brain.

In this story, our protagonist, head robot psychologist examines a robot that can inexplicably read human minds. Like look at a person and see their deepest darkest secrets and hear thoughts.

However, the Robot is still bound by the first law; It cannot harm people. So it starts lying to make people feel better. Turns out that lying to make people feel better can inadvertently harm people. When pointed out, this fries brain, meaning nobody can figure out how it got the ability to read minds anymore.

So thats a bummer

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Humanity powered by massive lazers controlled by Robot Space cults and other fun lore from the Robots Universe…

I love the framing of the 'I, Robot' novel. It's about this company executive of the US Robot Corporation, giving an interview about notable stories from her career.

Anyway, she relates a story about how they made a robot, who was their smartest so far, to take over control of an essentially a giant space lazer that transmits solar power to the Earth. It is stressed that if they point it anywhere else other than the ground station, it is a literal death ray.

Anyway, turns out that the new robot, is just on the verge of being smart enough to start questioning things, and consider the wider picture, so to say. But not smart enough to actually get the wider picture. In other words, it's a massive conspiracy theorist.

It assumes it's smarter than everybody else (obviously) and that since the humans bosses are clearly dumber than him, they couldn't have made him. Cause, duh, you can't make something more cleverer than yourself.

So the poor sods on the station try to convice the robot, named Cutie (QT-1), btw, that they are in charge and they made him.

Cutie has none of this. The 'Earth,' the 'Sun' and 'Stars' and 'Space Station,' are clearly made up, for the benefit of lessor human minds, obviously. Those dots out the window are just dots, also what even is a window? Also, 'US Robots Corporation,' can't be his maker, if it's made up of humans, duh-doy.

Cutie, even almost sort of convinces, one of the two humans. (And does convince all the Robots that he is the messiah.) Eventually, the next shift arrives at the station, confirming that the 'Earth' and stuff is real, thank God, eh.

Anyway, they explain all the crazy robot cult stuff to their boss, and the boss is like, did he keep the lazer point the right way? He did. Well, what's the problem, then?????

Yeah, at one point in the Robots Universe, all of the electricity on Earth was controlled by a series of Robot Cultists, each individually convinced that they were the second-smartest being in existence, and they were serving a higher power by doing a thing on a control panel, and that was the purpose of the entire universe (which is just a small space station, btw).

[layla-was-here]

Losing innocence is learning hummingbirds primarily eat insects and the nectar feeding is a mere energy boost before they murderise the local flying invertebrate population.

In hindsight, as a bird photographer whose old house was practically the buffet line for a flock of closely-related-to-hummingbirds non-avian dinosaurs called Purple Sunbirds who I've seen do literally what I described hummingbirds as doing above, I should have known.

Anyways here's a picture of a female purple sunbird who aren't shiny purple because of bird sexism or something.

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I've been watching Superstore and like I've worked retail and everything, in fact, I worked at a big grocery store literally called Superstore, but like even in the sanitized toned down version of what retail work is like in the US in the show, oh my god, is it absolutely awful. Like there are things in the show that are just incidental to the plot that I'm looking at and going how is that even possible.

There's an episode where I guy gets his thumb cut off and they try to hide it because they think it's their fault? WTF.

Like people post on here and Reddit and Lemmy and twitter about how awful retail is and I'm like yes, I've done that I can relate comrade. But now I'm like do I even count. I feel like a poser.

I worked in the Real Canadian Superstore but its in Canada and we were unionized with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. so like for the thumb thing, We would immediately obviously report it because workman's comp is literally the law in all of Canada. Like our union rep told us to literally report anything worse than a paper cut even if you don't need medical treatment for it (for good reasons that I don't want to explain rn)

And like the shitbag company I worked for loblaws which is just as scummy and shit as Walmart and whatever paid for dental insurance for all of us out of their pocket, no premiums for us because of our union obviously. If I stayed an extra 15 minutes past my shift time because my manager asked me to and I agreed, I would get paid extra for the extra time because obviously wtf why wouldn't I?

Like I was watching the whole strike 3 parter and I was like just so confused why they didn't just form a bloody union. I'm like 100 percent certain UFCW or another union was present wherever the store was. Seriously they never even bothered to explain why they didn't in the show. Like our scumbag store still had paid maternity leave, it'd be insane not to have it wtf. I was so confused.

Why are labour laws so fucking awful in America. I'm like realising that my experience in retail was literally in easy mode. Like I am so sorry for American retail workers that don't have government or union support. How do Americans work like this?

[layla-was-here]

Cw: mental health, ptsd

Sometimes I wonder if I read like a fan fiction pretending to be Hunger Games (like for years I thought this half blood Prince fan fiction was legit and Harry and dursley somehow became friends) because the amount of things that I've seen described as Hunger games vibes that like weren't at all.

Like Locked Tomb is not Hunger games vibes wtf. Has everyone forgotten that Katniss spends literally two books feverishly tying knots to distract herself from the awful flashbacks and overwhelming guilt.

She spends the whole first book Lazer focused on the massive wealth inequality and agonizing about potentially having to kill someone. Even at the end of the book when she is having the 'happy ending' she literally can only think about the mass grave under the village green that her children are playing on.

There is nothing upbeat at any moment in the Hunger games. It's bleak and awful from the start to the end. It's a book that manages to have the textbook happy ending (seriously most people survive, the new president is decent, the government isn't awful, even 12 gets rebuilt) yet has it be really fucking sad. Katniss still has PTSD. It's obvious that the memory of war will never ever leave her.

Sidenote: I think Hunger games is a good example of how a story can tick all the boxes of happy ending yet be the definition of bittersweet.

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I just want to give specific examples. Oftentimes Hunger games music and Hunger games esque is used to describe chosen one special other YA protagonist character books but like the whole inciting incident of Hunger Games is caused by someone other than our protagonist being chosen.

Also Katniss is not special or actually that important to the whole revolution thing going on in the books. It is literally said out loud on the books that Peeta would be a better figure head. In fact it is not until the very end of the very last book that Katniss does something that meaningfully affects the plot that only she could have done (i.e. killing coin).

The rebellion was happening even if she didn't do the berry thing in the ring. The tributes were going to be rescued from the arena and her breaking the forcefield was basically dumb luck after the actual plan that didn't involve her went wrong.

Every time she does a hero thing it fails horribly. All the arena heroics lead to her district being firebombed off the face of Panem. The train station speech gets her shot. The hospital propo gets the hospital bombed. Her trip to kill Snow just ends up with everyone dead but Peeta and Gail. It's the whole point of the book. It's an account of a civil war from the perspective of someone basically incidental to it who experiences all of the horrors and basically none of the glory.

[layla-was-here]

Cw: mental health, ptsd

Sometimes I wonder if I read like a fan fiction pretending to be Hunger Games (like for years I thought this half blood Prince fan fiction was legit and Harry and dursley somehow became friends) because the amount of things that I've seen described as Hunger games vibes that like weren't at all.

Like Locked Tomb is not Hunger games vibes wtf. Has everyone forgotten that Katniss spends literally two books feverishly tying knots to distract herself from the awful flashbacks and overwhelming guilt.

She spends the whole first book Lazer focused on the massive wealth inequality and agonizing about potentially having to kill someone. Even at the end of the book when she is having the 'happy ending' she literally can only think about the mass grave under the village green that her children are playing on.

There is nothing upbeat at any moment in the Hunger games. It's bleak and awful from the start to the end. It's a book that manages to have the textbook happy ending (seriously most people survive, the new president is decent, the government isn't awful, even 12 gets rebuilt) yet has it be really fucking sad. Katniss still has PTSD. It's obvious that the memory of war will never ever leave her.

Sidenote: I think Hunger games is a good example of how a story can tick all the boxes of happy ending yet be the definition of bittersweet.

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Duck influencers are my favourite genre of influencers. Like just a whole side of tiktok of people with pet ducks that they take to like Dunkin Donuts and the Boston Marathon like quack quack bitch.

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Still thinking about the guy in 9th grade that sneered at me and said that I look like the type of person that is a Pink Floyd fan and then looked immediately immensely hurt when I said I don't listen to music that old.

The male gender I tell ya...

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How do books written over a century ago have more obviously queer characters just existing, chilling, not being judged, described matter of factly, than books from the last decade?

I think they hadn't really decided that homo was contagious, thus figures that included that character detail was about as exciting as being vegetarian.

Any way would highly recommend King's Row by Henry Bellamann, written in 1940, yet somehow feeling so modern that if it came out today it would be considered woke and accused of not being historically accurate.

In this book, set in the 1890s, you'll find a disabled main character that is still loved and cared for by his friends. A condemnation of a christian doctor that purposefully malpracticed innocent people who he considered immoral (one of his victims is MC's friends who are prostitutes,and the book is very clear on who the victim is).

An indeprantly successful black bussiness woman, and the story of her fragile white male lover, who was so distraught at the fact that this black woman was better than him in everyway, he tries to screw her over, failing miserably and cw: killing himself.

One time the other main character unknowingly goes on a date with his gay ass aspiring poet friend, who tries to kiss him under the full moon. MC does not react violently (but is a bit confused), but gently explains that he isn't into that and they continue being friends.

Oh, since the book follows two guys from their childhood to adulthood, the white trash bully kid becomes the sheriff. The book from 1940 is ACAB.

MC's wife is the breadwinner for her family that has her physically disabled MC husband and her autistic brother in it. The brother is treated with more care as a character than most neurodivergent character in today's media.

MC's wife is not some seamstress or other basic 1910s woman's work type job either, she is a real estate developer.

MC becomes a doctor, and after his best friend (other MC) becomes a double amputee (i.e. the disability alluded to before), he is immediately concerned about the depression his friend is now suffering. He treats it like the actual illness it is and there is no judgement from the book or the wife and other characters.

Same wife helped her husband sober up, and note this saint of a woman married him after his accident and after he lost his inheritance. She married a broke, double amputee because she loved him, and the book is very clear that this is the moral correct thing to have done.

I would like to remind you this book came out in 1945, based on the authors experience growing up in his real life hometown.

This book is more progressive than 90% books out today and it's honestly shocking how little progress we've made.

MC1 is an atheist in 1890. This is not treated as something horrible, but just is.

The daughter of the sadistic surgeon that treated his patients so poorly tries to expose him. Gets diagnosed with hysteria, MC1, as a doctor, actually listens to her, investigates her accusations, believes her and attempts to help her.

Note I am leaving out some of the wildest plot elements of the book just for the sake of spoilers. It's genuinely amazing the subjects this book tackles and tackles well considering when it was written.

Also Reagan starred in a film adaptation of it. It was apparently highly censored, dont recommend.

Unfortunately the book isn't in print, I only read it from a random 1945 second edition that I found in a used book store. It's available in ebook format for a dollar.

[atavist]

When Lesley Hu wanted to vaccinate her young son, her conspiracy-obsessed ex-husband went to unimaginable lengths to stop her. Issue no. 137 — “Sins of the Father” — is now live at The Atavist.

When Hu discovered that Pierce wasn’t at school, she wondered if O’Loughlin had agreed to the vaccinations only because he was plotting to steal Pierce away before their son could receive them. To Hu it wasn’t improbable—her ex seemed that far gone. Hu and her boyfriend, Jim Baaden, had recently decided to move in together; Hu was planning to tell Pierce the news that evening at dinner. Now Baaden picked Hu up at Pierce’s school, and together the couple sped to O’Loughlin’s home in San Francisco’s posh Marina District, trying not to dwell on worst-case scenarios. When they arrived outside O’Loughlin’s Mediterranean-style apartment building, they noticed that the blinds in the living room, which was on the ground floor of the unit, were drawn but disheveled. For a moment, Baaden recoiled. O’Loughlin was a gun owner. What if he’d barricaded himself and Pierce in the apartment? Baaden imagined O’Loughlin aiming the barrel between the blinds, ready to shoot. Baaden and Hu approached the building’s intercom and buzzed O’Loughlin’s apartment. No one answered. Hu began banging on the door to the building and screaming. She considered breaking in, but Baaden told her to call 911 instead. Hu could not fathom how someone like O’Loughlin—a man of means and privilege—had come to believe outrageous lies. She knew that various misinformation networks and snake-oil salesmen had facilitated her ex’s paranoia and exploited his psychological fragility. But Hu had always stayed focused on what she considered her most important task: raising and protecting Pierce. There would be time in the future to consider, almost endlessly, what happened to O’Loughlin. For now, in a panic, all Hu could do was wonder: Where had he taken their son?

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Atavist putting out excellent if utterly horrifying articles as usual.

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Carolyn McCormick's reading of the hunger games is so far superior to the version that's on Audible. The audible narrator is so flat and cool and like cold, cynical and stuff. It's terrible. Katniss isn't some brooding I don't care about people type. Why have they made her sound like a marvel hero???

McCormick's Katniss has the same sort of monotone but like there is this edge of constant worry and stress about everything and everyone which is so much more authentic. Like Katniss isn't cool and suave, she's like a walking bundle of worry and stress about everything.

Like McCormick's Katniss actually sounds like someone who is constantly preparing for the worst, yet is trying to put on a brave face for everyone around her. She's clearly a very emotional person who is terrified of showing the vulnerability because she thinks she has to be a rock that everyone else can lean on.

[layla-was-here]

I'm listening to this book and one of the main characters is like this super religious cat?? Like it's not like an especially magical cat as far as I know. It doesn't talk or anything. It's not much smarter than a regular cat either? And like religion isn't even some special cat based religion, it's just Christianity. Like this cat is obsessed with jesus, but it's also a regular cat that does things like nap and knock things off counters.

Like seriously this cat loves Jesus so much. In the first chapter it literally feels conflicted about something and it knocks over it's owners bible, so it'd open to a random page and reads a verse for advice like what?

I want to stress so far this cat has shown no magical powers at all other than reading the bible. It's not like human in a cat body or something. She's basically as smart as say Buck in Call of the Wild?

Again I want to stress this cat is immensely religious, all on its own. Its owner isn't religious at all either. It's not surrounded by religious people or anything. It's just a devout christian cat???