itselv > Recent Status Updates

"But I refuse to blame myself for my choice.
I could not have known."

:(

"I am establishing my own blessed routine, namely that of taking two walks a day. One in the midmorning and one around sunset. I enjoy the midmorning foray. I wake up, read, study, fuss over a few things, and then break out into the weather. It is good. Very good. But my true love is the evening walk, that last hour of daylight that has its way with sunlight, shadow, and soul."

I take my previous update back—I am loving this!

While quite interesting, I still don’t know what to make of it!

"Things were no longer as they had been for him as a child, easy and natural. Every action he took or decision he made sent him in the direction of one or the other, boy or man; he seemed to bear this heavily."

"We went out when we weren’t supposed to, we were too free, and this—all of this—is our punishment. It has nothing to do with the idea of us becoming dogs, and everything to do with the fact of us being girls."

"He feared the villagers appetite for oddness."

I don't think the oppressed x (somewhat) oppressor and the power imbalance is working for me.
I understand why they might be drawn to each other, but actual love feels like a stretch.

Reading this while simultaneously taking a course in Data modeling & Neural Networks is so much fun,
whenever a part of the magic system is being explained I am like "Ha! I know where that one is from!"

I can’t wait for her to treat him like a human

Marvelous first chapter. So good!

"فماذا كان بوسعي أن أقول له، يا دون سالفاتوري؟ حياتنا انقضت، وصرنا عجوزين. فبماذا أُجيب؟ أن نبدأ حياتنا من جديد، يا دون سالفاتوري. كنتُ جبانة. أن نبدأ حياتنا من جديد، لكنّ الأعوام انقضت وانتهى الأمر."

"فقط في آخر يوم من حياة المرء يمكنه القول إذا عاش سعيدًا أم لا. قبل ذلك عليه بالسعي قدر المستطاع. اتبع طريقك، لا أكثر."

"أنتَ لا شيء يا إيليّا، وأنا لا شيء. المهم هو العائلة. من دونِ العائلة تموت ويستمرّ العالم في دورانه غير آبهٍ لموتك."

"كانت تلك الكائنات المهمَلة لا تجد سببًا واحدًا للعيش كي تتشبّث به، وغالبًا ما تستسلم طواعًا لسكرات الموت، ملؤها الغبطة في قرارةِ النفس، متبسّمة لخلاصها، أخيرًا، من تعاقب المحن والمذلّات الذي كان قوام حياتها."

"لا بدّ من أنّ أحد أجدادنا كان وحيدًا
رجلًا مرموقًا محاطًا بالحمقى،
أو شقيًّا مسّه العته،
لكي يُلقّن أحفاده صمتًا كهذا دون قعر"

But this world’s life has much to dread,
Not so, my father, with the dead.

Not one faint breath can enter here
Enough to wave my daughter’s hair

"I can’t stand how even now, after all these years, I sometimes look down the hall and expect to still see you, coming out of our bedroom. […] I used to sit up at night, saying your name, waiting for you to appear before me. But it was only silence that followed. And this silence made me feel so stupid. Your silence, it has always been the most perfect punishment."

"That night, I noticed something about Dad: He spoke with Billy in a way he never spoke to us—like they were colleagues or something. Two men, just talking about a game together."

"Like everything Jayde did was going to be stupid and trivial and obvious until she was twenty-five.
Even then she’d probably still be hearing well, when I was twenty five…"

"I think sometimes these self-identified geeky kids really underestimate the intelligence of those they deem 'normal'."

I understand the message behind the usage of offensive language but I hope it gets deeper than just that or use different tools to give similar impact

Summer is the time for horror

Unnecessary last minute plot twist… smh

"إنّ الأمور التي كان عليّ أن أفعلها بوعي، كانت تفعلها هيَ بالفطرة. كان الخيرُ فيها أساسي، وأما أنا فقد كان نتيجة تربيتي. لم أكوّن المعايير الأخلاقية الخاصة بي إلّا بعد وقتٍ طويل. وأرتني هي أن أخلاقي مجرد إنضباط."

"إنّ الكتابة ليست ربةَ عملٍ متساهلة؛ فالجمل التي لم تُكمل، لا يُمكن أن تُنهى كما بدأت بجمالٍ وسلاسة. والأفكار الجديدة تثني جذع النص، فلا يستقيم تمامًا مع منبتهِ."

"لا أجيدُ الكلام سوى على الورق، وأمّا في الحياة فلا قدرةَ لي على تقصّي الكلمات المناسبة والإمساك بها"

Every time a thriller sucks I imagine how it’d be if it leaned more into literary fiction. This would’ve probably been much much better.

I feel a bit unconvinced why Alex is so shocked by what Josie went through. Based on her experience with her previous podcast, she should've met people with similar backgrounds to not act as if she never heard anything close to its atrocity.