#these bitches LOVE kurt vonnegut

[bitchesgetriches]

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about Self-Care

Take care of your body

Why You Should Take a Break: The Importance of Rest and Relaxation

I Think I Need to Go the Emergency Room?

Run With Me if You Want to Save: How Exercising Will Save You Money

Your Yearly Free Medical Care Checklist

Ask the Bitches: Ugh, How Do I Build the Habit of Taking Meds?

Blood Money: Menstrual Products for Surviving Your Period While Poor

On Pulling Weeds and Fighting Back: How (and Why) to Protect Abortion Rights

Ask the Bitches: How Can I Survive in an Apartment with No Heat?

The Expensive Difference Between Recreation and Recovery 

Take care of your mind

Our Master List of 100% Free Mental Health Self-Care Tactics

How Mental Health Affects Your Finances

Ask the Bitches: “How Do I Protect My Own Mental Health While Still Helping Others?”

Kurt Vonnegut’s Galapagos and Your Big Brain

Everything Is Stressful and I’m Dying: How to Survive a Panic Attack

Stop Recommending Therapy Like It’s a Magic Bean That’ll Grow Me a Beanstalk to Neurotypicaltown

Making Decisions Under Stress: The Siren Song of Chocolate Cake

Ask the Bitches: I Know How to Struggle and Fight, but I Don’t Know How to Succeed

Update: I Know How to Struggle and Fight, but I Don’t Know How to Succeed

Ask the Bitches: How Can I Absolve Myself of Financial Guilt Over My Pricey PS4?

The Frugal Introvert’s Guide to the Weekend

Take care of your time

Stop Measuring Your Time in Beyoncé Hours

Help! I’m Procrastinating and I Can’t Get Up!

You Won’t Regret Your Frugal 20s

Actually, Fuck Big Goals

How to Insulate Yourself From Advertisements

I’ve Succeeded at Every New Year’s Resolution I’ve Ever Made. Here’s How.

Romanticizing the Side Hustle: When 1 Job Isn’t Enough

8 Free Time Management Systems To Try in the New Year

My 25 Secrets to Successfully Working from Home with ADHD 

I Am So Over Productivity Porn 

Take care of your career

High School Students Have No Way of Knowing What Career to Choose. Why Do We Make Them Do It Anyway?

The Actually Helpful, Nuanced, Non-Bullshit Way to Choose a Future Career

Woke at Work: How to Inject Your Values into Your Boring, Lame-Ass Job

Are You Working on the Next Fyre Festival?: Identifying a Toxic Workplace

My Secret Weapon for Preparing for Awkward Boss Confrontations

Freelancer, Protect Thyself… With a Fair Contract

I Hate My Job and I Don’t Know How To Leave It: A Confession

A New Job, a New Day, a New Life, and I’m Feeling Good

Season 1, Episode 9: “I’ve Given up on My Dream Career. Where Do I Go From Here?”

How Abusive Workplaces Mirror Abusive Relationships 

Take care of your space

How to Successfully Work from Home Without Losing Your Goddamn Mind (Or Your Job)

Leaving Home before 18: A Practical Guide for Cast-Offs, Runaways, and Everybody in Between

Ask the Bitches: I Want to Move Out, but I Can’t Afford It. How Bad Would It Be to Take out Student Loans to Cover It?

How To Maintain Your Car When You’re Barely Driving It

Take care of your people

How Dafuq Do Couples Share Their Money?

Ask the Bitches: “How Do I Protect My Own Mental Health While Still Helping Others?”

How Can I Tame My Family’s Crazy Gift-Giving Expectations?

Ask the Bitches: I Was Guilted Into Caring for a Sick, Abusive Parent. Now What?

Love in the Time of Coronavirus: How to Protect Your Community and Your Soul from COVID-19

Be Somebody’s Eliza with a Simple Yet Life-Changing Act of Kindness 

The Ultimate Guide to Helping a Sick Friend 

Learning To Reverse the Golden Rule

I Have Become the Rich Relative I Always Wanted  

Take care of your financial well-being

Ask the Bitches: How Can I Make Myself Financially Secure Before Age 30?

How to Save for Retirement When You Make Less Than $30,000 a Year

Ask the Bitches: Is It Too Late to Get My Financial Shit Together?

Slay Your Financial Vampires

Should Artists Ever Work for Free?

Don’t Spend Money on Shit You Don’t Like, Fool

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Financial Math

Share My Horror at the World’s Worst Debt Visualization

Stop Undervaluing Your Freelance Work, You Darling Fool

A (Somewhat) Comprehensive List of Fun Job Perks that Won’t Pay Your Rent

We will periodically update this list with newer articles. And by “periodically” I mean “when we remember that it’s something we forgot to do for four months.”

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[the--anarchists]

There is something so devastating about destiel that just makes it so I'll never get over it. I'll probably be 90 still crying over those sad little gay men.

And I'm bad at articulating, but I think the reason is because their love story mirrored real life. Chuck/God (the writers/network) had this idea of a story in his head that wasn't playing out how he wanted. Cas never should've had a giant part in the story, but he did; he came off the line with a crack in his chassis (they kept trying to kill off Cas but they had to keep bringing him back).

And chuck (writers) wanted Dean to be this tough manly man, the complete opposite to Sam, who killed with little to no remorse; the ultimate killer. (Obviously that's what the writers also tried to make him be). But he's not. He takes care of kids, and his little brother(s), and CAS. He likes Kurt vonnegut and having a clean space/body, and he's a little nerd. And he cries. Yes, he gets angry and he's a little bitch sometimes, but he's always trying to live up to his dad's (and writers) image of who he was supposed to be.

And because of the show's own misogyny and inability to write compelling female love interests, the most interesting, seemingly romantic relationship Dean has is with Cas. And no matter how hard the writers (or the network?) tried to show and tell they were just bros, they, like Chuck, couldn't control team free will, and they fell in love anyway. And I fully believe that, either accidentally or on purpose, Chuck won at the end. Because he (and the writers/network) couldn't let Dean be queer. And he would've been, had he not died.

[himboskywalker]

Thank you so much for these many recommendations, i will definitely read some of them. I finally ordered lord of the rings, always wanted to do it but I finally did it.

I would love a separate rec list of less new books and overall classics. If you have the time of course. I always have a hard time finding new books for myself or to gift to other people.

Sure! And I'm ecstatic to hear you bought lotr! Another one to be welcomed into my fold! This list is decidedly less organized, but here's a list of more classic/ older works I always recommend or gift to people.

Anything written by our beloved Neil Gaiman. He's most well known, especially in this sphere, for "Good Omens" cowritten by Terry Pratchett, and rightfully so. If you've never read anything by either author, it is absolutely worth the hype, and even if you've watched the tv show, it is so incredibly funny and wonderful. "American Gods" is also phenomenal and very well known from its tv show now, but my personal favorite of Gaiman's is "Anansi Boys." No one does urban fantasy like him, and his works will always be the gold standard for me for this genre.

The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. There's 41 books in the series so it's a mighty undertaking, I myself haven't gotten through all of them yet, I think I have about ten books left. They are so wonderfully funny and philosophical and witty. I don't recommend reading the books in the order Pratchett wrote them, rather there are collections in the series you'll want to read in order. The Death collection and City Watch books are my favorites but there are many more than that you may like better.

"The Princess Bride" by William Goldman. This is one of my favorite books of all time and while the movie certainly gets the vibe, it's a whole different animal. It's just so incredibly funny and fun and smartly written, and I've given it to many family and friends for Christmas and birthday presents.

"The Lies of Locke Lamora" by Scott Lynch. This is commonly regarded as a fantasy genre must and I often vehemently disagree with what's considered a "classic" but I have to side with the powers that be in the lit community on this one. It's just damn well written and character driven in the exact kind of way I love in stories. If you start reading it and think "oh look morally gray thief characters doing a heist" just remember, Lynch published it in '06 and pretty much wrote the template for everyone who has copied him since.

Anything by Ursula Le Guin although I read the "Earthsea" series first and would recommend starting there as well. She just really is that bitch, it doesn't get better written or more observant of life than her. Outside of Tolkien I don't know if there's anyone I admire more as an author than Le Guin. Her prose are not only stunningly gorgeous, but line after line after line hits like a sucker punch to the side of the head for how she makes you see life and yourself in new ways. “Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky.”

The Redwall series by Brian Jacques! I love them so dearly, they're fun and beautifully written and full of adventuring that only forest animals with swords are capable of. I do recommend reading them in order, or at least the original "Redwall" before you dive into the rest of the series, but "Taggerung" is my favorite.

This is a more divisive rec nowadays but Kurt Vonnegut. If you read "Slaughterhouse Five" in school and hated it I don't blame you, it's not my favorite of his and not what I urge people to look to if they want to fall in love with him like I did when I was a teenager. My favorite Vonnegut is "Sirens of Titan" and "Breakfast of Champions." Do look at content warnings for "Sirens of Titan" and I've seen a lot of vitriolic reviews of the book in recent years by younger readers, but I absolutely think it's worth the read and the shining glorious example of what I mean when I say protagonists aren't meant to be liked or morally right.

And speaking of squicky divisive recs! May I tell you about our lord and savior of "oh god I don't know if I can get through this" Margaret Atwood? Most people know her for "Handmaid's Tale" but I first read "Oryx and Crake." Seriously, read the content warnings, but Atwood is known for writing the best of speculative sci-fi for a reason.

Anything by Octavia Butler. My intro to her was through "Bloodchild" which I highly recommend, and I think is the perfect introduction to her brand of unnerving brilliance. She is most well known for "Kindred" and rightfully so.

"Perfume" The Story of a Murderer" by Patrick Suskind. It's weird, by god it's weird, and it's one of my absolute favorite "classic lit" novels. In 18th century France a weird little freak of a guy with a super sense of smell winds up murdering a bunch of people to make perfume. It's fantastic and the quintessential, I will not morally justify this, but boy am I enjoying reading about this little creep.

"Trainspotting" by Irvine Welsh. I also love "Filth" and "Porno" by him. I think Welsh is brilliant at characterization, especially when most of his characters are morally bankrupt and terrible. But what he does best is make you feel for these characters who have often put themselves in these terrible positions. They're just people, and life is shitty, and I don't think anyone writes that better than Welsh.

"The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien. O'Brien made a career of writing fictionalized recounts of his time in Vietnam. I love everything he's written, he is one of my favorite modern lit authors, but "The Things They Carried" is his best known work and what I first read of his. It's brilliant and beautiful and sad, and it was the first time I ever had to put a book down and read in chunks because it affected me so emotionally.

Cormac McCarthy, any and everything he has ever written. He's best known for "The Road" of course, and it's certainly worth the read but "Blood Meridian" is my absolute favorite of his. His stuff is brutal and wry and full of the dry irony that only the bleakness of reality offers, and by god is it well written.

And finally I'll leave you with a single nonfiction recommendation. I try to keep those minimal when I know that's not usually what people are looking for when they ask for reading recs. But since I'm giving a list of books I have often gifted, I can't NOT include this one. "Man's Search for Meaning" by Victor Frankl. I read this at 18 and it had a profound impact on how I think and view life. Any time someone I love has gone through a difficult time I've bought them their own copy.“For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth - that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

[jakeluppin]

Tagged by @renninflight thank you!! This took forever for me to finalize and post whoosps!

Rules: always post the rules. answer the questions the person who tagged you has written and write eleven new ones. tag 11 new people and link them to your post. let them know you’ve tagged them

Everything gonna be gonna the cut since this is longgg

What's your favorite band/musician? (And tell me why! And if you've seen them live!)

Favorite band is uhhh hard to answer. I think I'd say Hippo Campus but then that almost feels wrong to say? Mainly because I haven't liked them as long as I have liked other bands. So maybe them? But otherwise I gotta go with some combination of Something Corporate/Jack's Mannequin/Andrew in the Wilderness because it's too hard to pick a single Andrew McMahon band. I guess if I absolutely had to probably Jack's Mannequin? They just mean a whole lot me.

What's something you're proud of?

Pretty proud of the fact that somehow managed to get a master’s degree.

What's something you like about yourself?

Um, do my tattoos count? Otherwise I think I’m pretty funny.

What's something you would like to do, if money weren't an obstacle?

Get a PhD. I want to So Bad but money……

What's something you do when you're anxious or stressed to calm down and relax?

Normally just like watch a comfort TV show. Oh and pet the cat

Do you have a favorite author? (If so, who?)

Probably Kurt Vonnegut? But I don’t think I’d say that I have one

Do you have a favorite poet? (If so, who?)

Not really since I’m not super into poetry. Maybe Saul Williams, but I haven’t read any of his stuff in years but I definitely used to love it.

Do you have a favorite artist? (You can probably guess the rest of this question!)

Van Gogh. He just really is That Bitch to me

What's a movie or TV show that had a big impact on you? (Could be something you watched growing up, a movie you saw recently that made you emotional, something you've seen a lot, something you quote with friends and family, etc)

Shadowhunters. Partially the show, partially just being a part of the fandom. I wrote so many good fics, I made great friends. Both of which, along with the show itself, helped me realize I was trans. So yeah. Pretty big impact there.

What's something you wish you could forget? (Could be something personal, or it could just be a gross or weird fact)

Probably not what you were going for, but I wish I could forget Veronica Mars so that I could watch it again for the first time.

What's something you'd like to change about the world?

There are a lot of macro level answers (world peace, climate change) but I want to pick something on a more micro level. I would want all library budgets to increase 50 times what they are now. Actually sorry gotta change this. I want the polar bear dogs from The Legend of Korra to be real and that I could have one as a pet.

All right so my questions to ask:

What’s your favorite animated movie or TV show?

What’s your favorite instrumental song?

What’s a song you could listen to for hours on end?

Do you have any tattoos? If yes, what? If no, do you want any?

What’s the first fandom you really interacted with?

What’s the best way to enjoy chocolate?

What’s one skill you don’t currently posses that you wish you did?

If you could spend the day with any celebrity, who would it be?

What’s your favorite kind of sandwich?

If you had to change your name to something, what would it be?

What’s a show you first watched at least ten years ago that you still love today?

Okay so tagging @jakegyllinhaal @wisdomsdauqhter @joanthangroff @adraughtofamortentia @kattahj @thecolorofthegame @illegitimatetenenbaum @whitesunlars @ellcrain @cuppateadeer @puppystiles

[disregardenedgnostic]

i've been torrenting a shitton of anime for like the past month straight barring the occasional power outage or tripped breaker. My CPU's uptime hjust passed thirteen days.

i have no idea what a handle is. my computer is punisheing me for my unbelievable hubris by passive-aggressivelty threatening to kill itself

i am either becoming a god or being majorly stink-eyed by the good lord. i just spilled malt ligupr on my sweatpants i'm definitely gonna smeell like booze in thye morning (i say it's 5am). now i know that it's possible someone that there's slomeone reading this who grew up with enough money they yhink i mean single-malt whiskey because tjat's happened befgore and no i don't mean single-malt whiskey i really really don't this shit's way cheaper and way tastier and i have open a 24oz can of the stuff that's about two-thirds of a liter for people from normal places yes that's a lot for one drink even at okay wait i can't actually find a %ABV on here that's probablty fine disregard that mixing alcohol and antidepressants is universally a bad idea of course i'm taking the duloxetine more for neuropathy tha ndepression heehehehhehehee not that that matters but shit the alcoholism'ws winning tonight! 15yo me was right giving in to the drink rules i should mix weed in that's a great idea and it's a spliff too i'm supposed to never smoke tobacoo ever since my doctor made me quit because it makes my migraines worse an also akl the other reasons WE'RE DOING ALL THE BAD IDEAS TONIGHT BABY i'm gonna make sure i don't try to mix uppers and downers HEY ME A CC OUPLE HOURS FROM NOW DO NOT FUCKIONG TAKE THOSE CAFFEINE PILLS THAT'S AN EVEN WORSE IDEA YOU WILL PROBABLY GO TO THE HISPITAL AND IT;LL BE REALLY REALLY EMBARASSING

fuck it's hot in here. runniong the computer for 13 days coinciding with a heat wave definitely has something to do with that yaaaaaaaaaaaay the weed's kikimg in :D oop coughing glah

y'know this is a spiral. this is definitely a spiral. i dropped outta my summer classes, i'm halfwzay to dropping out of college. again. shut up, kurt vonnegut dropped out twice! and tried to kill himself at least twice! and shit he wrote Slapstick! like i love that book but how the fuck do you recover from thAT? i dunno but hey he did it

you know what this started when that bookcase attacked me. shit i ain't kurt vonnegut i can't come back from that that's a fucking anime gag i've seen that happen in at least two anime //three if you count both fullmetal alchemists!// ↑those aren't effective replacements for parentheses! <==art thou fucking kidding me with this goddamn alt code shit we need to go back to 1998 that was the golden age of web design ╚oh ypu wanna go back to 1998 huh kill urself lololol | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | wow our gets and insults and other such bantz were at least creative back then geez also spelling §BECK IN MYYYYY DAY WE USED ENCYCLOPAEDIAE AND WE LIKED IT. AND THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY! ABSURDLY THOROUGH MICRO-PRINT EDITION WITH INCLUDED MAGNIFYING GLASS. I KNOW IT'S FROM THE 5Os and 6O dollars BUT IT'S WORTH IT! YOU KNOW IT IS! IT'S THE DEFINITIVE DESCRIPTIVE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE! IT'S A WORK OF AAAAAAART!!!!!

>encyclopaediae >british spelling kekw

Is that even how greentext works, 4chan-user me? Also fuuuuuck offffffffff

>FORMATTING BITCH >also HAH HAH HAHAHAH >YOU'LL NEVER BE RID OF ME OVER-[name.] >hatehatehateseethecopeseethe

§YOU WANT US TO COOK FOOD BY BOILING IT? SEETHE AN EGG? AND C O P I N G IS A GOOD THING! WITLESS HACK!

Buddy. Really-Old me. That's not what she means by cope. Everyone knows you know that. And that definition of 'seethe' was archaic even in that dictionary you wanted. Probably.

§AND NOW WE'LL NEVER KNOW, WILL WE?

...We go to that bookstore plenty. It's literally the only game in town unless you count the antique store across the street that sells old books for way too much. And, really, I'm not paying 20 bucks for a copy of Kafka's The Trial when I could get the full set of Shakespeare's Comedies and Tragedies across the street for 40. Again. whydididothatwhydoesanyonetrustmewithmoneyaaaaejhakfhdfkla;

☹u ok ss☹

really? unicode, at a time like this? @--Λ-@

I'm fine I'm normal I'm fine I'm normal I'm not talking to myself this is just comedically being very silly and mean to myself on the internet, a totally sane thing to do yup. Anyway point is that dictionary's totally still gonna be there whenever we're in a better position to get it. That, and this Convention Of The Inner Symposium is getting wildly out of hand and also that's not an obscenely pretentious name shut up

hahahhaahahhahah wow that was really funny wasn't it folks. ha. ha.i'm drunker now! and it's 7:40 am now! and my extremities are really numb tingly! and i was super absurdly fucking hot but now i'm comfortably cool so that's nice. This is the best part of drinking! that's definitely a fine healthy and not weird thing to think about alcohol!

[voskhozhdeniye]

Work Shit

That Kurt Vonnegut quote might be my pinned post again soon.

Buck, our coworker who died, died on Sunday. Management found out Monday, and they had his job opening posted on Tuesday.

Our other coworker who was in the hospital is out and is doing better. He had an infection that was rapidly spreading through his body.

He works on the grocery side of the store with Dark Souls coworker, rape coworker, and two others. He's been out since Wednesday. Dark Souls coworker told me today that rape coworker and the other two have been complaining about having to do extra work because he's in the hospital. He hasn't even been gone a week, and they're already bitching. Every time his name is brought up, they immediately ask when is he coming back.

Rape coworker was out last year for the exact same thing. He was gone for 3 months. He's also limping around again, which is how that all started last year.

Vonnegut said, "they do not love one another because they do not love themselves."

Everyone keeps focusing on the big things that are signs of the decline of the nation. Restrictions on bodily autonomy, derailing trains, dark money flowing into the government, unlimited spending on the police and military, social collapse, and so on.

What frightens me most is that these people are on autopilot. No one talks about the million plus people who died from covid. No one talks about the racist, homophobic, transphobic, and misogynist laws spreading across the country. No one talks about the George Floyd protests. No one talks about how every summer is now the hottest on record.

It's as if none of that shit ever happened.

Now, those are big existential things. I can sorta understand people shying away from those topics, but in the span of a week, we almost lost two employees. And even at the personal level, there's no pause, no reflection.

That's the real sign of a morally bankrupt nation, blindly marching towards destruction.

[roosterbruiser]

SOBBIJG OVER THE NEWEST CHAPTER OF CS BECAUSE I LOVE JAKE HE CANT DIE 😭 i fuckint hate rooster I KNEW IT that son of a bitch.

However, Roos’ is like the only perspective I can’t recall having seen? So your foreshadowing..subtle, immaculate, beautiful.

But also when Bob is dying and he mentions Vonnegut (one of my favs) then you say

OH MY FUCKING GOD I LOVE YOU!!! This allusion had me gripping my bedsheets while I bawled violently!!! Because YES it’s so Bob to not only READ Vonnegut but take his words to heart, integrate the truths and fears revealed into his own philosophy so deeply that they arise in his mind ON HIS DEATHBED, such amazing writing and characterization.

And the changes in perspective and TIME?? Like transferring from Bob’s formative memories to Mable’s formative memories here??

Holy fucking shit! You’re such an amazing writer!! Plus I can see how Vonnegut’s style has impacted your writing now that I’m thinking about it, where else do we see gorgeous transitions through time like this?

LOVE, YOURS TRULY, Az 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻

these are some of my favorite kinds of comments, this means so much to me!!!!

this literally tickled me pink. as someone who loves Kurt Vonnegut and literally read it in my car in high school before class was in session and bawled my eyes out (art imitates life) this is such a high compliment. I wanna cry!!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH, BABY!!!! THIS IS SO SWEET, AZ!!!! MWAH!!!

[katamaricolleague]

on one hand totally love and agree w the arguments that kids can handle sensitive topics and we way underestimate them and that the reactionary "i was too young for this 😭😭" thing is stupid ESPECIALLY that dumb bitch who talked shit about holes. However on the other hand i don't like the framing of "kids can handle whatever!" because i do think age 10 was a little early for me to be reading true crime and kurt vonnegut

[sol-air]

top 5 poems or quotes that make you go insane? :3c

Idk if they make me go insane. But they are ones that stuck with me, whether it hit me hard or just cracked me the fuck up.

1. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S Eliot - a phenomenal poem that encapsulates the feeling of spiraling with anxiety. Fav quote from the poem “do I dare to eat a peach, do I dare disturb the universe”

2. “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt” from Slaughterhouse V by Kurt Vonnegut

3. The opening chapter of Breakfast of Champions, also by Kurt Vonnegut. Cannot for the life of me find the book, but he goes on to say how many of the worlds countries and America especially is just ruled by monkeys wearing suits. Always a nice chuckle

4. “This bitch has mosquito tits” from Princess Jellyfish… where the women “live without use for men” and the best friend of the mc happens to be a cross dresser but is assumed to be a woman by the others living in the community building. Both in the dub and sub it says something like this and it kills me every time

5. “Somebody do something even if it’s stupid” - just something people in my family say when people around them are idling about, especially at 4 way stops and people just don’t know how to drive.

Honorable mention “so it goes” - common phrase used by Kurt Vonnegut in his books whenever unfair and unjust things happen. (If you can’t tell I like to read Vonnegut a lot)

[andypartridges]

i was tagged last week by @bbbrianjones and @lovescrashingwaves <33 thank u besties !!

last song: wallflower by peter gabriel. i recently made a playlist called 'peter gabriel songs that make me want to lie face down on the floor' as that has been my mood in general as of late, so i might as well have some appropriate music to accompany it

last movie: i'm honestly not too sure ??? i'm not really a movie bitch. last month i went to see thor: love and thunder with a friend and it was pretty meh tbh. regardless of what ur opinions are on marvel movies it didn't really have that taika waititi boldness that you'd think a film directed by him would have

currently reading: i'm about to start rereading sandman vol 1 & 2 bc the netflix adaptation came out the other day !! i'm also technically in the middle of palm sunday by kurt vonnegut - it's a collection of essays that i like to dip into periodically

current obsession: i don't really have anything consuming atm bc for the last 2 and a half months i was involved in a major comedy/drama production at uni and it's pretty much taken up all of my spare time going to rehearsals/writing/learning lines/show week etc

but !! recently i've been getting into this podcast on the south african border wars and it is SO fascinating - i'm really interested in modern history and 20th century african history (especially south africa). it constantly sends me on wikipedia deep dives into things i never got to study at school, like the congo conflict and the angolan war of independence. i could spend hours reading about these things or listening to someone talk about it, so i'm glad i've finally found something that scratches my history nerd itch :-)

tagging: @loiteringdiligently @westerberg @gloria-gloom if u wanna !!

[literarypilgrim]

Read Like a Gilmore

All 339 Books Referenced In “Gilmore Girls” 

Not my original list, but thought it’d be fun to go through and see which one’s I’ve actually read :P If it’s in bold, I’ve got it, and if it’s struck through, I’ve read it. I’ve put a ‘read more’ because it ended up being an insanely long post, and I’m now very sad at how many of these I haven’t read. (I’ve spaced them into groups of ten to make it easier to read)

1. 1984 by George Orwell  2. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 3. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll 4. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon 5. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser 6. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt 7. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy 8. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank 9. The Archidamian War by Donald Kagan 10. The Art of Fiction by Henry James 

11. The Art of War by Sun Tzu 12. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner 13. Atonement by Ian McEwan 14. Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy 15. The Awakening by Kate Chopin 16. Babe by Dick King-Smith 17. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi 18. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie 19. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett 20. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath 21. Beloved by Toni Morrison 22. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney 23. The Bhagava Gita 24. The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy 25. Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel 26. A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy 27. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 28. Brick Lane by Monica Ali 29. Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner 30. Candide by Voltaire 31. The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer 32. Carrie by Stephen King 33. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller 34. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger 35. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White 36. The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman 37. Christine by Stephen King 38. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens 39. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess 40. The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse    41. The Collected Stories by Eudora Welty 42. A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare 43. Complete Novels by Dawn Powell 44. The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton 45. Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker 46. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole 47. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas 48. Cousin Bette by Honore de Balzac 49. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky 50. The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber    51. The Crucible by Arthur Miller 52. Cujo by Stephen King 53. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon 54. Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende 55. David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D 56. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 57. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown 58. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol 59. Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 60. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller 61. Deenie by Judy Blume 62. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson 63. The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx 64. The Divine Comedy by Dante 65. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells 66. Don Quixote by Cervantes 67. Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv 68. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson 69. Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe 70. Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook 71. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe 72. Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn  73. Eloise by Kay Thompson 74. Emily the Strange by Roger Reger 75. Emma by Jane Austen 76. Empire Falls by Richard Russo 77. Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol 78. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton 79. Ethics by Spinoza 80. Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves

81. Eva Luna by Isabel Allende 82. Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer 83. Extravagance by Gary Krist 84. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury 85. Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore 86. The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan 87. Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser 88. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson 89. The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien 90. Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein 91. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom 92. Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce 93. Fletch by Gregory McDonald 94. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes 95. The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem 96. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand 97. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 98. Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger 99. Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers 100. Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut 101. Gender Trouble by Judith Butler 102. George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg 103. Gidget by Fredrick Kohner 104. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen 105. The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels 106. The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo 107. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy  108. Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky  109. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell  110. The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford 

111. The Gospel According to Judy Bloom 112. The Graduate by Charles Webb 113. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck 114. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 115. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 116. The Group by Mary McCarthy 117. Hamlet by William Shakespeare 118. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling 119. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling 120. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers    121. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad 122. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry 123. Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare 124. Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare 125. Henry V by William Shakespeare 126. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby 127. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon 128. Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris 129. The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton 130. House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III    131. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende 132. How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer 133. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss  134. How the Light Gets In by M. J. Hyland  135. Howl by Allen Ginsberg  136. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo  137. The Iliad by Homer 138. I’m With the Band by Pamela des Barres  139. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote  140. Inferno by Dante 

141. Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee 142. Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy 143. It Takes a Village by Hillary Rodham Clinton 144. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 145. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan 146. Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare 147. The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain 148. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair 149. Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito 150. The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander 151. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain 152. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini 153. Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence 154. The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal 155. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman 156. The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield 157. Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis 158. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke 159. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken  160. Life of Pi by Yann Martel 

161. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens 162. The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway 163. The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen 164. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 165. Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton 166. Lord of the Flies by William Golding 167. The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson 168. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold 169. The Love Story by Erich Segal 170. Macbeth by William Shakespeare 171. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert 172. The Manticore by Robertson Davies 173. Marathon Man by William Goldman 174. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov 175. Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir 176. Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman 177. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris 178. The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer 179. Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken 180. The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare 181. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka 182. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides 183. The Miracle Worker by William Gibson 184. Moby Dick by Herman Melville 185. The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin  186. Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor  187. A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman  188. Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret  189. A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars 190. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway 

191. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf 192. Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall 193. My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh 194. My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken 195. My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest 196. Myra Waldo’s Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo 197. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult 198. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer 199. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco 200. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri 201. The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin 202. Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen 203. New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson 204. The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay 205. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich 206. Night by Elie Wiesel 207. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen 208. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan 209. Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell 210. Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski

211. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (will NEVER read again) 212. Old School by Tobias Wolff 213. On the Road by Jack Kerouac 214. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey 215. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 216. The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan 217. Oracle Night by Paul Auster 218. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood 219. Othello by Shakespeare 220. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens 221. The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan 222. Out of Africa by Isac Dineson 223. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton 224. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster 225. The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan 226. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky 227. Peyton Place by Grace Metalious 228. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde 229. Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington 230. Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi 231. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain 232. The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby 233. The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker 234. The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche 235. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind 236. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 237. Property by Valerie Martin 238. Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon  239. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw  240. Quattrocento by James Mckean 

241. A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall 242. Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers 243. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe 244. The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham 245. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi 246. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier 247. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin 248. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant 249. Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman 250. The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien 251. R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton 252. Rita Hayworth by Stephen King 253. Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert 254. Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton 255. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare 256. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf 257. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster 258. Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin 259. The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition 260. Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi 261. Sanctuary by William Faulkner 262. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford 263. Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James 264. The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum 265. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne  266. Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand  267. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir  268. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd  269. Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman  270. Selected Hotels of Europe 

271. Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell 272. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen 273. A Separate Peace by John Knowles 274. Several Biographies of Winston Churchill 275. Sexus by Henry Miller 276. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon 277. Shane by Jack Shaefer 278. The Shining by Stephen King 279. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse 280. S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton 281. Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut 282. Small Island by Andrea Levy 283. Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway 284. Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers 285. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore 286. The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht 287. Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos 288. The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker 289. Songbook by Nick Hornby 290. The Sonnets by William Shakespeare 291. Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning 292. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron  293. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner  294. Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov 295. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach  296. The Story of My Life by Helen Keller  297. A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams  298. Stuart Little by E. B. White  299. Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway  300. Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust 

301. Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett 302. Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber 303. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 304. Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald 305. Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry 306. Time and Again by Jack Finney 307. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger 308. To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway 309. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 310. The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare    311. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith 312. The Trial by Franz Kafka 313. The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson 314. Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett 315. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom 316. Ulysses by James Joyce 317. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath 318. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe 319. Unless by Carol Shields  320. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann 

321. The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers 322. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray 323. Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard 324. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides 325. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett 326. Walden by Henry David Thoreau 327. Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten 328. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy 329. We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker 330. What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles 331. What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell 332. When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka 333. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson 334. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee 335. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire 336. The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum 337. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte 338. The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings 339. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

[bitchesgetriches]

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about Repairing Our Busted-Ass World

On poverty:

Starting from nothing

How To Start at Rock Bottom: Welfare Programs and the Social Safety Net 

How to Save for Retirement When You Make Less Than $30,000 a Year

Ask the Bitches: “Is It Too Late to Get My Financial Shit Together?“

Understanding why people are poor

It’s More Expensive to Be Poor Than to Be Rich

Why Are Poor People Poor and Rich People Rich?

On Financial Discipline, Generational Poverty, and Marshmallows

Bitchtastic Book Review: Hand to Mouth by Linda Tirado

Is Gentrification Just Artisanal, Small-Batch Displacement of the Poor?

Coronavirus Reveals America’s Pre-existing Conditions, Part 1: Healthcare, Housing, and Labor Rights

Developing compassion for poor people

The Latte Factor, Poor Shaming, and Economic Compassion

Ask the Bitches: “How Do I Stop Myself from Judging Homeless People?“

The Subjectivity of Wealth, Or: Don’t Tell Me What’s Expensive

A Little Princess: Intersectional Feminist Masterpiece?

If You Can’t Afford to Tip 20%, You Can’t Afford to Dine Out

Correcting income inequality

1 Easy Way All Allies Can Help Close the Gender and Racial Pay Gap

One Reason Women Make Less Money? They’re Afraid of Being Raped and Killed.

Raising the Minimum Wage Would Make All Our Lives Better

Are Unions Good or Bad?

On intersectional social issues:

Reproductive rights

On Pulling Weeds and Fighting Back: How (and Why) to Protect Abortion Rights

How To Get an Abortion 

Blood Money: Menstrual Products for Surviving Your Period While Poor

You Don’t Have to Have Kids

Gender equality

1 Easy Way All Allies Can Help Close the Gender and Racial Pay Gap 

The Pink Tax, Or: How I Learned to Love Smelling Like “Bearglove”

Our Single Best Piece of Advice for Women (and Men) on International Women’s Day

Bitchtastic Book Review: The Feminist Financial Handbook by Brynne Conroy

Sexual Harassment: How to Identify and Fight It in the Workplace 

Queer issues

Queer Finance 101: Ten Ways That Sexual and Gender Identity Affect Finances

Leaving Home before 18: A Practical Guide for Cast-Offs, Runaways, and Everybody in Between

Racial justice

The Financial Advantages of Being White

Woke at Work: How to Inject Your Values into Your Boring, Lame-Ass Job

The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander: A Bitchtastic Book Review

Something Is Wrong in Personal Finance. Here’s How To Make It More Inclusive.

The Biggest Threat to Black Wealth Is White Terrorism

Coronavirus Reveals America’s Pre-existing Conditions, Part 2: Racial and Gender Inequality 

10 Rad Black Money Experts to Follow Right the Hell Now 

Youth issues

What We Talk About When We Talk About Student Loans

The Ugly Truth About Unpaid Internships

Ask the Bitches: “I Just Turned 18 and My Parents Are Kicking Me Out. How Do I Brace Myself?”

Identifying and combatting abuse

When Money is the Weapon: Understanding Intimate Partner Financial Abuse

Are You Working on the Next Fyre Festival?: Identifying a Toxic Workplace

Ask the Bitches: “How Do I Say ‘No’ When a Loved One Asks for Money… Again?”

Ask the Bitches: I Was Guilted Into Caring for a Sick, Abusive Parent. Now What?

On mental health:

Understanding mental health issues

How Mental Health Affects Your Finances

Stop Recommending Therapy Like It’s a Magic Bean That’ll Grow Me a Beanstalk to Neurotypicaltown

Bitchtastic Book Review: Kurt Vonnegut’s Galapagos and Your Big Brain

Ask the Bitches: “How Do I Protect My Own Mental Health While Still Helping Others?”

Coping with mental health issues

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My 25 Secrets to Successfully Working from Home with ADHD 

Our Master List of 100% Free Mental Health Self-Care Tactics 

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Changing the system

Don’t Boo, Vote: If You Don’t Vote, No One Can Hear You Scream

Ethical Consumption: How to Pollute the Planet and Exploit Labor Slightly Less

The Anti-Consumerist Gift Guide: I Have No Gift to Bring, Pa Rum Pa Pum Pum

Season 1, Episode 4: “Capitalism Is Working for Me. So How Could I Hate It?”

Coronavirus Reveals America’s Pre-existing Conditions, Part 1: Healthcare, Housing, and Labor Rights 

Coronavirus Reveals America’s Pre-existing Conditions, Part 2: Racial and Gender Inequality 

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You Are above Bottled Water, You Elegant Land Mermaid

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[pallasperilous]

So It Goes

So, forgive me this indulgence as somebody who does not ordinarily write meta; a friend asked me why I thought that the manner of Dean’s death in 15x20 is an incredibly lovely and mature writing choice. I think it is so, for reasons that also happen to explain why so many fans of the show fucking loathe it.

There is some Vonnegut at the end. Hang in for that. 

PART ONE: 

Chuck's story direction has always made sure that the boys, if they died, did so in a mega intense or glorious fashion (minus the *Mystery Spot* meddling by Gabriel, and those weren't meant to be permadeaths). Those deaths were awesome heroic television deaths that FED the story rather than ending it. Every time, the surviving brother would do some extremely stupid and destabilizing shit to bring the other back, often feeding an entire new cycle of death and retrieval. 

If he *didn't* (cf: Sam in the Cage, Dean in Purgatory), it caused a massive rift between them, which then fed *further* wild-ass decisions. The dudes were in the dictionary under 'codependency'. People knew that killing or capturing one of them meant the other wasn't far behind. 

Chuck's endgame for Sam and Dean was literally to *die fighting God.* How much more heroically wanky can you get?

But they beat him. They’re free. Jack takes over, and makes it clear that he isn’t going to be a God who meddles or directs; he’s not going to be their in-house writer. He’s just going to set things back where they belong, reform the systems that Chuck established out of ego or cruelty, and then integrate himself with the universe so that anything that happens to it…happens to him, too. He’s won’t be a character anymore. He’s a setting.

PART TWO: 

So, minus Chuck, with Jack’s goodbye and Castiel’s sacrifice…the boys get to experience plain old…real life. Tuesday! Drinking beer, kicking the laundry machine, filling out shitty job applications, enjoying the little consolations of food and pets and free time. (I think that messy room and dog-bonding and staring into the internet bespeaks a Dean who is really doing his goddamn best to not implode with grief as he has in the past, but to try to thrive in the face of deep grieving). 

When Sam expresses grief over losing Cas, Dean's response is basically: yeah, it sucks. But our job, that our loved ones sacrificed for us to have a shot at… is to stop trying to reverse all of our losses, and to learn to live with them, like normal people have to. That’s the price of the gift they’ve been given — accepting whatever real life deals them.

They can literally do anything they want; circumstances won’t herd them into Season 16. What’s the first thing Dean really does, after this little break? 

He hears “missing kids, dead parents” and he dives right back in. He opens his Dad’s goddamn notebook for the info. He’s immediately choosing to go right back to where they started, for the sake of helping other people. He books them to fight some of the very first basic bitch monsters he and Sam dealt with. That is unforced 100% Dean’s choice. 

(Sam has demonstrated an ability to not take on the responsibility of eliminating all monster-based misfortunes in the world and pursue a life beyond just hunting, so long as Dean has been off the map…but Dean’s one attempt to take a job and settle down with Lisa ended up being so obviously hollow that Castiel felt SO BAD he took time off from RUNNING HEAVEN to rescue Sam FOR DEAN.)

PART THREE: 

Remember Chuck's little fit earlier where Dean wound up getting his teeth drilled etc? That bad luck was being magnified by Chuck being pissed at them, but the brothers truly did find themselves facing ordinary people shit they had never really had to deal with. It drove the point home -- Sam and Dean had been exempt, this whole time, from the petty little ways that failure and misfortune work in the normal world. That extended to their hunting, too — they found out that there were people they could fail to save, despite their best effort. People who, according to the rules they’d been operating under, should have been savable. 

So we see this hunt — which is really rough and tumble. They’re still doing amazingly considering how outnumbered they are, but this was some of the most intentionally graceless fight choreography I remember seeing on the show. They seriously almost lose the fight, and Sam kills that last vamp pestering Dean with the kind of “whew!” last minute heroics we’ve come to expect from the show.

And Dean realizes: something has gone wrong. Something that no pulp TV action genre writer would ever, ever draft for a hero’s death. There was some scary rebar sticking out and Dean got shoved into it in the scuffle and it hath Fucked Him Up. It’s the kind of shit that happens on construction sites. It’s an accident. It’s a random misfortune. It has nothing to do with his heroism or skill or the cleverness or powerfulness of his opponents. It just happens.

Under show rules, here is what would happen next: Castiel would heal him. Jack would heal him. Sam would call an ambulance and Dean would be DOA and Sam would whip out his cellphone and call Rowena or a crossroads demon or Sister Jo or research a spell and we’d be off and rolling for Season 16.

But Dean says: Don’t do that.

Because that is what Chuck would write.

Dean realizes — this is exactly the world they have fought to exist in. A world that is randomly wonderful, randomly shitty. This happened because he chose to be here. Nobody made them pursue this hunt. Is he surprised that it happened so soon, that he ended up having so little time to give unscripted life a shot? Yes, to the point that he clearly thinks it’s honestly kinda funny. Cuz who’d write it like that? Nobody! He likes the part that he gets to die on a hunt, standing up, in his boots — that’s what he’s always seen for himself. Not in a bad way, not in a “killing machine” or a “daddy’s little soldier” way, but because it means he kept fighting for other people up to the last second. He’s upset that Sam is so upset — he’s more worried about calming Sam and reassuring him than he is about how cool his death is gonna look on IMDB, or how they can cheat circumstance to buy him more time. 

Instead of buying more time, at the expense of living like real people instead of TV characters…he decides to make the most of this one moment. He tells Sam how much he loves him. He tells Sam that Sam will be okay; he’s going to go live a whole life on whatever terms he and the universe can work out together, and the fact that Dean isn’t there is gonna be a painful but acceptable part of those terms. Dean says: don’t go running off trying to change this. Just spend this last little bit of time with me, while the universe does its thing. That’s what they do.

TL;DR — this death is fucking awesome because Chuck would absolutely fucking hate it. He wanted Sam and Dean to go down in a ball of fire together, fighting their coolest foe ever, CHUCK! 

Instead: Dean dies like a normal person, from an accident bred under circumstances that he chose for himself. Chuck loses half his prize, not to some other big bad, but to a damn piece of construction material on a mundane job.  And Dean gets to die in a way that unshackles Sam’s fate from his own. Like Castiel did for him, he gets to say: I love you. This is enough for me. Go live your life.

He finally gets to drop his kid back off at Stanford.

Chuck would be so pissed.

And we, the viewers of Supernatural...well, hell, we’re ultimately fans of Chuck’s writing, aren’t we? So of course something so unprecedented, so un-heroic or badass, so mundane and intimate and random...of course it shocks. Because that’s not the show we’ve been watching!! But isn’t that the point? The author is dead. We can put aside his tastes, and we can look at Dean’s death, and say the words of Dean’s actual favorite author, Kurt Vonnegut --  So it goes.

[jondalars]

movies, tv shows, and books of 2022

((* is a rewatch/reread; currently watching; can’t get through))

It Follows (2014) *

Word of Honor (s1*)

tick, tick... BOOM! (2021)

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Mo Dao Zu Shi (s3)

Passage by Connie Willis

Don't Look Up (2021)

Zach Stone is Gonna be Famous (s1*)

The Lost Boys (1987)

Scumbag System (s1)

Dark Shadows (2012)

Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut

Tears in Heaven (s1)

Cheer (s2)

Hometown Cha-cha-cha (s1)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

The Land of Steady Habits (2018)

Brain on Fire (2016)

Paddington (2014)

Monster (2003)

JT LeRoy (2018)

The Door into Summer (2021)

The Lost Daughter (2021)

Interview with the Vampire (1994) *

Identity (2003) *

Our Beloved Summer (s1)

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Aziz Ansari: Nightclub Comedian (2022)

The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

Phantom Thread (2017)

In the Woods by Tana French

The Tinder Swindler (2022)

I Want You Back (2022)

The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (vol. 1) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Heaven Official's Blessing (vol. 1) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Heaven Official’s Blessing (vol. 2) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

All of Us are Dead (s1)

Guess Who (2005)

The Disaster Artist (2017) *

The Walking Dead (s1*, s2*, s3*, s4*, s5*, s6*, s7, s8, s9, s10)

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

The Long Ballad (s1)

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

Upload (s1*, s2)

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Death on the Nile (2022)

The Weekend Away (2022)

Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives (s1)

Moby Dick by Herman Melville *

Eternal Love (s1)

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

Bridgerton (s2)

Survivor (41, 42, 16*, 15*, s7*, s8*, 37*, s18*, s29*, s17*, s43)

The Scum Villain's Self-saving System (vol. 2) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Glass, Irony and God by Anne Carson *

Russian Doll (s1*, s2)

The Joke by Milan Kundera

The Wilds (s2)

Crush by Richard Siken *

The Circle (s4)

Are You the One? (s4, s6)

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley *

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn *

Jackass 4.5 (2022)

Beloved by Toni Morrison *

Business Proposal (s1)

Heartstopper (s1)

Senior Year (2022)

First Kill (s1)

Erha He Ta De Bai Mao Shizun by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou

Spiderhead (2022)

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (vol. 2) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Nirvana in Fire (s1)

Tenth of December by George Saunders *

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles

Must Love Books by Shauna Robinson

Second First Impressions by Sally Thorne

Shipped by Angie Hockman

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood & *

Just Haven't Met You Yet by Sophie Cousens

The Boys (s3)

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

Everything I Need I Get From You: How Fangirls Created the Internet as We Know It by Kaitlyn Tiffany

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

The Mole (s3)

Dream Garden (s1)

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary

The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas

KinnPorsche: The Series (s1)

The Invisible Man (2020)

The Hunt (2020)

Sliding Doors (1998)

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Miguel Ruiz

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

Persuasion (2022)

The Roughest Draft by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

The Challenge (s25)

Umbrella Academy (s3)

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

The Challenge: USA (s1)

Claim to Fame (s1)

Great Men Academy (s1)

The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren

Boo, Bitch (s1)

Umma (2022)

Resident Evil (s1)

A Perfect Pairing (2022)

Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson *

Love Like the Galaxy (s1)

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

Wedding Season (2022)

Fall in Love (s1)

Candyman (2021)

Black Bear (2022)

Lie to Love (s1)

Heaven Official’s Blessing (vol. 3) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

You Are My Glory (s1)

Love Between Fairy and Devil (s1 & *)

Democracy by Joan Didion *

Licorice Pizza (2021)

Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo *

Who Rules The World (s1)

Lovely Writer (s1)

Alchemy of Souls (s1)

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell *

The Scum Villain’s Self-saving System (vol. 3) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Do Revenge (2022)

Girl from Nowhere (s1)

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (vol. 3) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

The Mole (s1)

TharnType (s1)

The Ends of the World: Supervolcanoes, Lethal Oceans, and the Search for Past Apocalypses by Peter Brannen

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

The Rational Life (s1)

The Genius (s1, s2, s3, s4)

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

RRR (2022)

Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo (s1)

Luckiest Girl Alive (2022)

Derry Girls (s1*, s2*,s3)

Demon King/The Parting of the Orchid and Cang by Jiu Lu Fei Xiang

Heaven Official’s Blessing (vol. 4) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Dracula by Bram Stoker *

Roswell, New Mexico (s1*, s2*)

Meteor Garden (s1)

Falling for Christmas (2022)

The School for Good and Evil (2022)

Mistakenly Saving the Villain by Feng Yu Nie

Heroes (s1)

The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante

The Scum Villain’s Self-saving System (vol. 4) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Kieta Hatsukoi (s1)

Plainwater: Essays and Poetry by Anne Carson *

Lighter and Princess (s1)

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins *

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)

The Vow (2012) *

Mr. Bad (s1)

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins *

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins *

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris *

Alice in Borderland (s1, s2)

Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu

Barabbas by Pär Lagerkvist

No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July *

The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

[jetmode]

17 QUESTIONS N 17 ANSWERS

i was tagged by @danielthicciardo - thanks allie!! 💖

i feel like i’ve done this already but it might’ve been on my main or in my head who knows. so if you’ve seen this on my blog before no you haven’t <3

NICKNAMES: czech people usually go with kája (i don’t really like it but that’s just what you get when you have my name hdsbdhf) and the groupchat calls me karo which i love a lot! i’ve never heard it from anyone and i really like the sound of it and yeah just having a nice nickname is a really sweet feeling so this is my big emo thank you to whoever came up with it ❤️

ZODIAC: libra sun, scropio moon, leo rising (first two fit really well but i feel like nothing about me says leo so i’m a bit unsure about the whole risign sign business)

HEIGHT: 160 cm

HOGWARTS HOUSE: hufflepuff

LAST THING I GOOGLED: my teacher's name cause i know he’s famous somehow and i was trying to find out what the reason was. i think it was like an online show or a podcast or something? still don’t know btw, i lost my focus halfway through

SONG STUCK IN MY HEAD: el muchacho de los ojos tristes because i saw the sad cat video this morning and i literally haven’t been able to stop thinking about it ever since. it’s not even so much about the song being stuck in my head, it’s the whole video, it’s playing in my head on a loop and erasing any other thoughts. i honestly can’t get over it maybe this is my brain’s last signals before it just turns to goo

AMOUNT OF SLEEP: with online classes now i usually manage to get my ideal 8-9 hours, that’s pretty great!

NO. OF FOLLOWERS: 392 😳 how

Lucky number: 18 (shockingly it’s not because of lance, it’s cause my birthday is on the 18th and i’ve liked the number for as long as i can remember)

DREAM JOB: maybe organizational psychologist, maybe children’s psychologist, maybe a brooding poet stumbling from pub to pub under the veil of the night

WEARING: a big striped shirt (maybe it’s a sweater? idk it’s thick but not sweater material) and soft fake velvet trousers

FAV SONG: sad happy by circa waves and riding a wave by love fame tragedy. easily my top two songs of this year

FAV INSTRUMENT: saxophone or electric guitar

FAV AUTHOR: václav hrabě if we count poetry, otherwise it’s kurt vonnegut

FAV ANIMAL NOISES: when you pet a sleeping cat and it goes “mrrrp?”

RANDOM: whenever anything’s supposed to describe my personality i always come out as something like “the peacemaker” or “the diplomat” i’m not even joking it’s Every Single Time, my mbti, my enneagram, my zodiac sign, everything looks me in the eye and says “you’re a non-confrontational little bitch aren’t you” (i’m not really complaining though, i mean it does fit haha)

RECENT PIC: a pic of my notes from when my friend needed to know what happened in class while she was afk

i like that the contents of it shall remain a mystery to anyone except perhaps the two (2) czech people i've met here

i’m tagging @shoeydaniel @slyther-intowords @brendonheartly @theyearninggay @1-800-honeybadger @lewixco​ @maxspeeds and @cheekydger but you’ve all probably done this already hsdhjsdjh

[naddranger]

17 Question 17 People

(This is personal stuff so if you’re just interested in D20, you can skip this but more cool accounts you should follow are tagged at the bottom)

Tagged by @figayda-rights who is truly an icon. Please follow them.

Nicknames: Win and Nani

Zodiac: Aquarius

Height: 5’ 4”

Hogwarts House: Slytherin

Last Thing I Googled: Dakota Johnson House Price (her house was like 3.55 million just in case you were wondering)

Song Stuck In My Head: A Good Song Never Dies by Saint Motel

Number of Followers: i won’t answer because i think one of the best things about this app is that you can’t see how many followers people have. However, I’m so grateful for every one of you. Like seriously.

Amount of Sleep: i take two four hour naps a day

Lucky Number: 25

Dream Job: Public Relations / Media Manager is what I’m going to college for. I guess DREAM would be video editing from my cottage that i built in the woods with my wife.

Wearing: T-shirt and JNCO-esque jeans. Gold ring band with the Batman logo on it

Favorite Song: The Stranger by Billy Joel or What Hurts The Most by Rascal Flatts (i usually listen to rock or pop punk music but you can’t deny the slap-ability of these jams)

Favorite Instruments: Cello to listen to, Trumpet to play (i also played clarinet and drums)

Aesthetic: G R U N G E (if you don’t know what that is, examples include Kurt Cobain and Neil Young though my personal idols growing up were Matthew Lillard and Seth Green in the role of Oz in Buffy)

Favorite Author: Louisa May Alcott or Kurt Vonnegut.

Favorite Animal Noise: purr

Random: I prefer pop tarts frozen.

These accounts don’t have to do the challenge i just want everyone to know that i love these accounts: @aqua-ginger @agaycactus @spicypigeonaura @anarchistwerewolfboyfriend @anarchosocialisthalflings @limons-bitch @chungledownbi