The moment she used artificial flavors in her first bake, I turned to my partner and said “she’s going home.” The judges generally hate that, and it rarely turns out well.

I watched it Saturday morning and it was there. Maybe they added it back in after some online protest/complaints?

I don’t buy full size candy bars, but I do get the good brands—always a mix of mini chocolate bars and fruit candy like Skittles and Starburst, usually I throw in a few toys too, like spider rings, because I used to love those—and I tell them to grab a handful.

Not a parent, but I’m planning on putting a table on the path in my front yard (avoiding kids coming up to the porch) with a bowl of candy and bottle of hand-sanitizer.

My neighborhood does something similar. They host a big party in the little park at the center of the cul-de-sac a week or two before Halloween itself—announced on the private neighborhood Facebook group only— and on Halloween itself my house is one of the very few with lights on and candy for the children (mainly) fro…

My mom just got out of the hospital after multiple pulmonary embolisms were found in both lobes of both of her lungs. The embolisms are a symptom of COVID, which has been found to coagulate the blood.

For me, the past six months have been about asking myself what I wanted my future to look like. My partner and I have had many discussions about what we want to do when the world (hopefully) settles back into some form of normalcy. Recently, one of those discussions ended in the decision that we’re ready to get…

Not to mention the constant references about how beautiful she is, of course, entirely in contrast to how ugly and horrible every single other woman in the series is. I don’t remember any other favorable characterizations of women in the series either. They were all “psycho” or clingy or fake or vein or…

I agree, and while it’s one thing to understand that on a general level, it’s another thing to actually implement that worldview as a 15yo writing thinly veiled pastiches. (I’m sure even then, I thought other people should be wary of their heroes.)

I thought the same thing, that it was her attempt at being “gritty” and “dark” and maybe even just “adult?” The Casual Vacancy was similar as well... just trying so hard to be gritty and edgy and “adult.”

An author’s view IS the art. Art is a vehicle for expressing their views. Hence the trash that’s apparently in this latest book.

When authors get to a certain level, many start to feel like they no longer need an editor.

In the 90s and early 00s, the bar for not-shitty social views was also much lower culturally.

And for those of you who are wondering what that “subplot” is and can’t get behind the paywall:

Oof, I read the first couple of Strike books and couldn’t get over how mean-spirited they are. Just full of awful stuff that, when you look back on, was present in Harry Potter, too—misogyny, fat shaming, transphobia, etc. etc. She has a weird obsession with describing how ugly people are, like GRRM and his food…

The worst ones exist mainly for gifts and attention (or at least it seems that way to me). The better ones are small get-togethers for immediate/near-immediate family members and are mainly meant to celebrate the pregnancy.

That’s what I read too. She was mainly celebrating a milestone in her pregnancy because it was the first pregnancy she had that was able to reach it.

I agree for movies 4 & 5, but I think his movie 6 Dumbledore was spot on.

Those temperatures are horrible! We’re slowly, slowly falling out of the 90s here in Southern Louisiana. Meanwhile, I’m trying to convince my partner to move to Connecticut. 

Fall is, without hyperbole, my favorite thing about life on earth. My image of a perfect day involves fog and chill and pumpkins and piles of yellow leaves on the ground. It involves snuggling up with blankets and coffee and bundling up in wooly sweaters and thick socks and listening to crows cawing from the branches…