Zia @ZiaMacPine@awoo.space

Its a bad start if you arrive at the airport hoping your flight is cancelled

I had an awful night's sleep. Great way to statt a trip. Also I miss my dog

Its raining here. I woke up to rain which makes me happy. These sustained rainy nights are good for my home.

My dog dislikes them, but she hates water and seems to think I can control the weather.

I am not excited about this. I am tired in general with people and yesterday was just one more frustrating reminder.

I am so exhausted with managing people and trying to be nice and just failing.

I dont want to go on this trip. The pnly reason I am going is to support one friend and their book which is coming out. There is literally no other good reason for this

I was being nice because I think people should be treated kindly. But give me a break.

This was been your subtoot of the day

We were never friends. We were acquaintances due to a mutual friend. We were never close friends. Sorry I misled you? But yeah bro...

One of the big hallmarks of a noir is the protagonist(s) essentially fail because their own flaws (and society's) undercut their growth and goals. Still this book needed several contrivances to set up the failure that in my opinion didnt work

The noir's core themes of the inherent hopelessness in humanity's ability to change and how corrupt systems perpetuate even when hopeless to stop real evil is never not relevent

Reading a noir mystery from 1994 qnd jts fascinating how the 90s were a. Era when writers in so many genres were digging into HOW communication and news consumption impacts society and people

End of the book she has improved her social position via manipulation and being discrete. Sure she brought down a criminal conspiracy but she did it as a side hustle and parlays her discretion into greater wealth and comfort

She jsnt interested in changing things for the better or helping people broadly (that would be chaotic good) but she is happy to help those in her friend circle

The key is when she essentially says to her Maid Lilly "the class system is ridiculous but since I have money and a title I dont see why I and my friends cant turn that into indolent comfort. Just act subservient around other people then we pamper ourselves."

Honestly this one fascinated me because it is essentially a chaotic neutral character insinuating herself into a lawful neutral (but believing it is lawful good) society. A chatacter ensuring her own comfort via manipulating cultural and legal systems she has utter contempt for is an interesting dynamic

A "prologue" that is 130 min of audio and takes up 7% of and 880 page book isnt a prologue Robert.
These five scenes are fine... mostly... but I can see why people consider this firmly in slog territory