Ilana Masad
@ilanaslightly
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Writer and critic for hire. Author of the novel ALL MY MOTHER'S LOVERS. Queer, tired, Jewish, and ill. (ilanaslightly most other places)
http://ilanamasad.com
Joined December 2008
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Okay, Ursula K. Le Guin's introduction to the 1978 edition of her 1966 novel, Planet do Exile. This little essay is stunning and proactive and so brilliant and thoughtful. Going to post the pages here, and will link at the end to a read-only Google doc with the text of the pages.
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You ever think, "I may never have insurance this good again so maybe I should do this thing now" or do you not live in the United States?
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Is it just me or is the infrastructure for existing without a smartphone just slowly disappearing?
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The reason I relate to Eeyore so hard is because he is grumpy and sad and wants to be included but is also never able to appreciate the fact that he is included 95% of the time and everyone in the Hundred Acre Wood loves him. True anxious-depressive vibes.
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An aspect of this that especially frustrates me (beyond the clear systemic barriers created by a smartphone powered world) is that there is simultaneously a cultural acknowledgement that we all use our phones too much AND no real way to disconnect.
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So yet again, as with so many things, our phone usage is made to seem like an individual choice. As if, if only we *controlled* ourselves better, we wouldn't have these issues, etc.
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What will you beat yourself up about today, with your one wild and precious life?
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I feel so judged by both cool Twitter and uncool Twitter. Where is mediocre Twitter.
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@innermeetme
Omfg during the height of reopening during the pandemic - the removal of paper menus drove me nuts especially as we knew by then that surface cleanliness wasn't the goddamn issue!
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We need an American Girl doll who has had an abortion and refuses to celebrate the 4th of July
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Just like all bodies are beach bodies if they're at the beach, all books are beach reads if you read them at the beach.
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What is a book you read as a child that you think about surprisingly often?
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You ever read something you wrote when you were younger and wonder, "where did that brave and beautiful writer go?"
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Every published writer has two or three friends whose writing is so much better but who haven't managed to get it published. Just saying.
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Nobody:
Absolutely nobody:
Me: I've never watched The Crown and probably won't start now, but have you listened to the five-part series about Diana from
@yourewrongabout
?
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Anyone else feeling super duper unsettled these days because you're trying to make various big life decisions because you kind of have to but it feels impossible to plan anything at all?
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I JUST MET A CAT ON A LEASH NAMED MR. BAGEL AND HE WAS VERY GOOD
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@NicoleFroio
Appreciate this whole thread because I've been thinking about all this, especially because I've noticed myself almost *wanting* to be swayed. I think that another layer here is that because Depp has played lots of quirky characters, people just *want* to like him again?
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@RottenInDenmark
What if - stay with me here - news outlets stopped using "human trafficking" in the titles of all these stories that are firmly NOT about human trafficking?!
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The thing no one tells you is that even when you publish a book, you'll keep getting rejections over and over and over again.
It's okay, it's part of the process, I just wish people talked about it more.
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Hey, I passed my oral exam for my MA thesis! I have a Masters in English!
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aaaand now I'm going to mute the original tweet because I am getting pretty overwhelmed and need to stop worrying about what people are going to act like I'm a dingus or backwards or a luddite or or or. Please be kind to each other and drink some water today.
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@NyashaJunior
So hard! And scary to see how cut off people can be. Like do bookstores even carry maps anymore? How many newsstands still exist where maps, say, would live?
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TFW you're not sure if you're close enough to a new friend to ask them if they're mad at you yet.
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I don't know how historical fiction writers do it.
Googling things like "did department stores play music in the 1960s" and "men's clothing catalogue 1964" doesn't get me very far, but also I don't want to read five books on 1960s fashion and retail for one scene TT__TT
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People who read fiction:
Does your reading experience involve morally judging the characters in said fiction?
Is your reading experience fundamentally shaped by that approach?
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Fellow writers, a somewhat shameful question: do you ever read your own work, maybe something from a while back, and feel moved by it? Are we allowed to feel emotional about our own words? Must we always and only hate/disparage them in public?
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@123gr00vy
Yes, this is the thing - there are many reasons for why this is bad, but the way that so many people's daily lives and pleasures rely on this connected, tracking, selling-us-shit bummer machine is just exhausting
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Okay so the above has gotten much more popular than I'm used to so, uh, I guess I'd love it if you wanted to support the
@hcpunion
strike fund:
Also I wrote a novel, link to it in my bio if you want to support me!
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Normalize admitting you do not know things even and maybe especially when you're in a position of power or authority instead of acting like you have all the answers and then letting people down/putting them in harm's way 2020
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@viclarious
@adamkotsko
This is one of the things I was thinking about - I only recently learned (since I don't live in NYC anymore) that Metro Cards are going away in favor of a swiping phone system and like...why why why
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Good morning to everyone except my positive COVID-19 test and my state's lack of mask mandate and this country's shitty policies and presidency that mean this pandemic is still pandemicking all over the place.
Here's hoping my chronically ill self doesn't get complications.
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@timschaffert
Reading as a child - in a bed with a pink summer blanket in LA, or very late on hot summer nights in Israel; reading Tamora Pierce books about powerful girls and women and their magic. When the weather is a certain way, I remember these reading sessions vividly, painfully.
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@kattenbarge
Also the conspiracy theory talk does not sound like a comeback so much as an attempt to get in with the alt right??
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I mean...this happened to me with one of my favorite authors and of course I kept reading her? She's human, she seemed to be tired and grumpy that day, that's fine, people make mistakes. Rudeness isn't abuse, and a bad encounter doesn't mean you have to write someone off forever.
If you met your favourite author, and they were incredibly rude to you, would you keep reading their books? ✍🏻📚
#writingcommunity
#books
#book
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I FINISHED MY NOVEL
I FINISHED MY NOVEL
I FINISHED MY NOVEL
I FINISHED MY NOVEL
I FUCKING FINISHED IT
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So.
I have some news.
My novel and I are, as of Monday, officially represented by
@esimonoff
of
@WME
.
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I PASSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Huge thank you to my advisor,
@timschaffert
, and my readers,
@HopeWabuke
(who is also going to hood me at graduation!!!), Tom Gannon (who I don't think has a twitter???), and Emily Kazyak!
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Filling out my state's vaccine signup website and the options for "Are you pregnant?" are:
1) Yes
2) No
3) Suspected
SUSPECTED!!!!
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My nonfiction writing process these days is, apparently, write 2000 words before getting to the point.
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@Remember_Sarah
I remember and I while I'm hopeless about plenty of things I am NOT hopeless about this: we will peruse used bookstores again, we will breathe in their dust and cat dander once more, we will sniff volumes covertly and will purchase bizarrely titled and out of print books.
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Fun story, I once spent about ten hours on an international flight (during which I had a migraine and couldn't sleep) realizing I was in love with my best friend at the time and then realizing that, oops, I wasn't. A wonderful, if confusing and emotionally draining, pastime!
If you need a new quarantine pastime I recommend “do I have a crush on this friend or am l just bored”
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@ambernoelle
There's something so clearly fetishistic in this. Like I can't imagine there isn't some weird sexual charge going on from her very detestation of depictions of "sexual acts"
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Oh my gosh just realized I'm allowed to share this:
I'm thrilled to say that I'm going to be attending the
@Tin_House
Summer Workshop in July! I've applied...half a dozen times before? And I finally got in. I'm so excited to learn bunches and meet people I've only known online.
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Every time a celebrity starts a book club, I really wish they would just give money to critics and writers and editors to start sustainable publications to get people stoked about books and criticism instead
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The three Harry Styles songs I've heard on the radio in the last few weeks have convinced me he's definitely a service top.
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Once again, I beg you to stop using Judeo-Christian when you mean Christian. Judaism does not traffic in the same kind of shame regarding the body as Christianity does. Judaism literally includes sex as a mitzvah. Judaism has no original sin. Please internalize this.
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Anyone else both really glad to be able to see vaccinated friends safely and also deeply exhausted by all the sudden socializing?
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Well, I locked myself out of Twitter last night before this blew the hell up apparently. I guess it would be great if you wanted to buy my book so I can eventually earn royalties and afford good insurance when I'm done with grad school?
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"Who's going to burn a bra, Sarah? They're very expensive." -
@Remember_Sarah
's mom and also my own (...she called me Ilana not Sarah but you get it)
Hilarious how the bra burning feminist trope survives still despite BRAS STILL BEING QUITE EXPENSIVE
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Something I really love is seeing writers boost other writers for no reason other than they truly admire and love the writing and the work.
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@tylachelleco
I do now, but I know I didn't always. It was something I learned to recognize as I learned more about white privilege and white supremacy and became aware of them.
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Nick at Nite is probably a better measure of micro-generations than any other because I remember seeing Nick at Nite go from I Love Lucy to the Cosby Show to Roseanne during my childhood and last time I tried to watch it they were airing Full House which made me feel old.
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@Kristen_Arnett
I mean, first of all, SAME.
Second of all, I thought it was possible to become an appliance, apparently, because I wanted to grow up to be a dishwasher, as in the machine, not a person who washes dishes.
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It's been a whirlwind. It's been nuts. It's been years of working towards this. And I am incredibly pleased and rather floored to announce that Maya Ziv at
@duttonbooks
has acquired my…
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@ChappellTracker
@MaraWilson
Peanuts is a postmodern masterpiece way ahead of its time and one day I will have read all fifty one years of the comic and will be able to write the manifesto to prove my point (to the approximately three people who will care 😬)
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Also I am going to try to see/look through as many comments as I can (but this is kind of overwhelming and also I'm trying to remember that this not about me but rather our collective need for better freaking healthcare)
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@laurenthehough
Next year, on the cover of his book:
LAUREN HOUGH CALLS THIS BOOK BOOK "FUCKING HILARIOUS HONESTLY"
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I am finally - FINALLY - reading Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. It is, suffice to say, freaking me out.
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@MaraWilson
Fun fact, they also never got voted in, really, despite the cultural memory that they were. Like, no, actually, they had about 37% of the votes in 1932, then had *fewer* in 1933 (about 32% if I recall) and then Hitler was given unanimous power via a parliamentary shot in the foot
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So I read that Harper's letter thing and, uh - am I missing something or is it just a bunch of powerful people whining about how much they don't like being uncomfortable and witnessing actions having consequences or learning new things bc they're already well established?
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@MaraWilson
They don't get it. They just don't understand that the reason so many of us carry bags around is because WE HAVE NO REAL POCKETS.
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Important question:
Was your dad a jeans dad or a never-jeans dad?
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@mathangiwrites
@salesses
I didn't grow up here and I do not have a child and the children my friends/family have are all toddlers so this makes me naive of certain things...
Which is to say, WHAT THE FUCK THEY STILL MAKE KIDS PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO A FUCKING FLAG WHAT WHAT WHAT
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An interesting thing about talking about both physical and mental illness on the internet is the not insignificant nor paranoid concern that people will assume you're lying about either or both and will still each as a reinforcement of the other and/or "attention seeking"
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Another question for people-who-geek-out-about-books twitter:
What is your favorite experimental fiction that was published before the year 2000?
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So I've been sitting on this news for quite a while due to potential job reasons but as I'm reasonably sure it's not happening, I decided it's time to share on main. I'm pregnant! Six months or so. Due April 23rd, which I'm told would make baby a Taurus, which I'm told is great.
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I mean... duh? He clearly has no interest in fixing anything and wants us all to go down as flaming bits of trash together
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Okay, screw it, I'm annoyed. I spent a lot of time captioning this video about the reason I write it antisemitism and not anti-Semitism (language will not save us/fix things but language IS important) and tiktok has it under review, so, enjoy this 60 rundown on this topic!
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It's Yom HaShoah / Holocaust Remembrance Day, and if you follow any Jewish people, your feed is going to be full of stories about our dead ancestors. But before they were dead, they were alive. They made music, they raised children, they fed cats, they climbed stairs, they smiled
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@slooterman
@EricMGarcia
...it's the with chronic illness that gets me even more than usual with her shit
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@mollypriddy
@DuhShwaZee
@JoyceCarolOates
No, keep it up. So people finally believe how shitty our literary cultural icons can be.
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Belatedly reading the latest
@yourewrongabout
Patreon email and am startled and tickled to discover that his name is not, as I've supposed, Effly Bailey, but rather F. Lee Bailey.
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When
@Remember_Sarah
said "the Ted Bundy Industrial Complex" in the recent episode of
@yourewrongabout
I nearly screamed. When I learned the other day there is YET ANOTHER movie coming out about him, I wondered aloud why we need more entries in the Ted Bundy Cinematic Universe
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@iaiaOjosama
yes! a healthy middle! A lot of the responses to this are very all or nothing, but like, we need some kind of in between!
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My first trade review came in. I started shaking violently when I got the email and had to put it away to speak to a writer and friend for a half hour before I could go look at it. But it's a ⭐! From publisherswkly!…
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@thrasherxy
It occurs to me that so many of the articles about kids having learning disabilities or being somehow "slowed" by the pandemic measures is such a goddamn cover for the fact that childhood poverty went down so drastically >.<
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This question bother me. Writers are human. The people who make your entertainment are human. It's never fun when someone is rude to you, but like... People are not perfect, they're not always in a good mood, and this toxic positivity shit is just exhausting.
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For my
@BuzzFeed
debut, I wrote about something very near and dear to me, the depiction of mental illness in novels. (
@melissabroder
@MiraTLee
@esmewang
@johngreen
)
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@AlanaMassey
Holy fuck. I find this deeply depressing and gross. Do very wealthy people really truly not understand that those who are not very wealthy are... Also people?!?!
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Question:
How have none of the Jurassic Park movies (as far as my partner knows anyway) involved dinosaur as a culinary delicacy because you KNOW that would be a thing if dinosaurs were walking around again
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@MsPackyetti
@hnicolemartin
Thank you. I'm already mad at the idea that this is the end of the line for some people, their hope demolished. We have so so so many to mourn and haven't had any chances to come together and do it, but we can't stop fighting now. No way.
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What stands out to me especially about the highlighted bit below is that people regret other kinds of surgeries too and no one is flipping out about it?
My elbow surgery sorta failed long term, for instance, and I'm not thrilled about the fact that my nerve has been moved.
As usual, this story presents no evidence whatsoever that there is any reason to be concerned.
I dunno, maybe wait until the wave of bomb threats against these clinics has subsided before printing yet another Just Asking Questions article about trans kids?
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@LaurenGraceBFYR
Wait, wait, wait, why are bagels and doughnuts competing? They are entirely different foods for entirely different purposes!!!
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I just got my first piece of really, truly, utterly shocking good news in ~a while~ which will mean that I can spend the next academic year focusing down on getting through my comprehensive exams and writing my dissertation (i.e. what is hopefully the next novel).
AHHHH!!!!
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Statistically, vaxxed people getting the Delta variant is still very rare.
Anecdotally, online, half my timeline seems to be vaxxed people getting it.
No wonder so many of us are so confused all the time.
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After a long time where things were really rough, I suddenly have a wealth of good news and today's is this project I'm so so stoked I get to work on with my co-editor (who is wisely not on here) and
@TurnerPub
. Thank you so much to
@abwycisk
and
@trellislit
😍🙏
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I kind of wish it was more acceptable for people to just tell other people that they don't have room in their lives for more friendships right now. Instead, so many people overextend or overpromise and then ghost. (I have been on both sides of this)
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@alyssaharad
That makes sense. I think it just sometimes hits me that like, sure, I want to do a phone fast or whatever, but my audiobooks, for instance, are on my phone. My podcasts are there. Etc.
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This is probably an unpopular take, but I find it sort of strange how often non-Jews feel comfortable publicly sharing their journey of learning about the prevalence of antisemitism or their journey of learning about Jews in general. It's assumed we'll be grateful, not offended.
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When I first heard about the Internet Archive's National Emergency Library, I didn't know it was, you know, stealing authors' work. I, naively, like many people I suspect, thought this was a things-out-of-copyright kind of deal. Or a related-to-how-real-libraries-work situation.
As a reminder, there is no author bailout, booksellers bailout, or publisher bailout. The Internet Archive’s “emergency” copyrights grab endangers many already in terrible danger.
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@neilhimself
NO ONE WHO READS AMERICAN GODS DOESN'T WANT TO GO TO THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK. YOU HAVE DONE A THING TO A GENERATION.
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*whispers* I'm reading We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson for the very first time and I am entranced
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@SequoiaN
Yes! Exactly! All these conveniences (which are obviously also monetarily restricted) require this whole other expense to even access
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