#thgwswls

[average-background-character]

[vole-mon-amour]

hey, this? this is bad parenting and they don't deserve to be your parent. wtf.

[vole-mon-amour]

respectfully, who tf talks like that when they're seeking to sell an item? are you writing poetry or living your your life? especially the second one. what.

[vole-mon-amour]

— Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca

[syncast-err0r]

This life inside me is ours. No matter what you say. No matter what you think.

It’s always going to be ours.

[actual-autocannibal]

reading negative reviews about things have gotten worse and quietly seething because none of them understand agnes and zoe the way i do and i already have a psychotic attachment to this story

[tinseltrinkets]

In a semi-defense of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke:

While I agree that a lot of the events could’ve been more cohesively tied to one another, I can’t say I find it completely unnatural that it’s messy. I think it teeters on the line between the characters themselves being messy and the writing being messy.

But I found that overall, a lot of the complains of inconsistency come from the fact that the two central characters, Agnes and Zoe, are both juggling two different motives, their obligations and their desires, and as a result, act inconsistently and hypocritically.

At first, I was confused as to why Agnes agreed to take a submissive role when her fascination seemed to center around a life being completely at her mercy. I think it becomes clear when it’s shown that Agnes feels obligated to have her actions justified. She wants someone other than her to blame. If someone is telling her what to do, she doesn’t have to feel guilt.

Despite expressing a desire to create and nuture, what she really wants is to destroy and to hurt. While the stories of the salamander and the short eared rabbit and Baby Christ are somewhat out of left field, they’re not purposeless. The way she tells them in such detail make her sound fascinated and almost reverential, and only when she’s finished does she backtrack and express that she’s disgusted by them.

Zoe is similarly torn between wanting to inflict harm upon Agnes and feast on her downfall whilst battling guilt when she begins to care for Agnes.

Zoe herself admits that her justifications for her proposed tasks (“earning her eyes” and then being for Agnes’s wellbeing) were meaningless, and she really just wanted to cause harm to Agnes.

Agnes has been doing the same thing and only appears to realize (or begin to realize) this at the very end when she wonders if she truly does “deserve her eyes.”

The story is by no means perfect but the concepts within it are solid, and I think the main issue was the execution.

[eldr1tchcrypt]

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes by Eric LaRocca

I have been wanting to read this for two years and i finally did! It’s a three story collection : Things have gotten worse since we last spoke , the Enchantment and You’ll find it’s like that everywhere . The first story was a bit underwhelming as this was a highly anticipated read of mine , but the second story? Beautiful. Religious horror my beloved. The third story was very short but funny, a little poke at society and wanting to be seen as polite by everyone where you live, and the lengths you’re willing to go to achieve that. Overall, underwhelming but the last two story’s absolutely made up for that. 4/5 stars