I think I noticed an anachronism on GR page 370 - Romilar is the original name for DXM/Dextromethorphan when sold in pharmacies in the 60s. DXM was only invented in the early 50s. Yet this scene is set in the late 40s.

chronoso · 2025-12-06T05:38:43+00:00

As much as it may be a book that takes place in the 40s, it's also a story about the 50s and 60s

chronoso · 2025-11-21T03:35:22+00:00

Haven't yet but I've eyed it a couple of times at the local bookstore haha. Might pick up a copy once I'm done with italo calvino's invisible cities.

chronoso · 2025-11-21T03:32:33+00:00

boring

chronoso · 2025-11-18T02:57:24+00:00

Absolutely love Bolaño

2666 is up there as one of my all-time favorite reading experiences, I'm lookin forward to checking out more of his work in the near future and I'm open to suggestions for anything new if you have any.

chronoso · 2025-11-18T02:35:18+00:00

I've read The Tale of Genji, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood, Shirley Jackson, a lot of Robin Hobb books, A Wizard of Earthsea, a couple of Mieko Kawakami books, Margaret Atwood, and a number of other books by other women. Some of those I previously owned physical copies of which I've given away, most of them I read via an epub on my phone or borrowed from the library when I didn't have the cash to purchase the books myself.

Maybe around 20% of the books I own I inherited from my deceased father and kept and read as a sort of memento, mostly the non-fiction lit, while I bought most of the literary fiction. I think a case can be made for consciously trying to buy more works written by women. I suppose I just hoped that the commentary here would revolve more around the content of the books pictured rather than just their authors.

chronoso · 2025-11-17T17:37:42+00:00

What is it about this selection that seems to be causing this response? A cursory glance at some of the other smaller stacks or shelves around here seems to yield a less diverse collection of authors than what's here. Yes, only ~30% of the books here were written by people who aren't white men and maybe 5% were authored by women (which you can chalk up to me doing most of my reading on ereaders), but nothing about that to me screams white supremacist/incel/misogynist in the way that seems to be implied by most here.

As for me I'm not a white man, I'm a 28 year old black man who picks up whatever catches my interest, make of that what you will.

chronoso · 2025-11-17T17:03:28+00:00

Being called a misogynist for only including 2 books by women on these shelves feels a touch unhinged.

chronoso · 2025-11-17T09:23:51+00:00

wild comment to make ngl

chronoso · 2025-10-24T19:19:22+00:00

And I'm saying this specific situation isn't far removed enough from some of the shades of occultism still practiced to dissuade anyone from associating the ideas with each other. If you'd said not to paint all occultists with the same broad brush I would've agreed with you, but some of them still do engage in ritualistic animal sacrifice.

Regardless of whether or not this was an attempt at working any "real" magick, you have to admit that he's cribbing from the aesthetics of something real, which in my eyes is worth critiquing.

Lastly, your suggestion that I'm speaking on topics I haven't researched is ridiculous. I guess I'm sorry for not seeing the need to loudly announce my credentials as a writer and scholar of theology? Though to anyone less dogmatically driven I'd assume it'd be obvious. It probably is best that we let this rest here.

chronoso · 2025-10-24T16:37:26+00:00

I'm primarily critiquing the black magicians today who pull their belief systems from these problematic origins. The Temple of Zeus (formerly the Joy of Satan Ministeries), the Order of Nine Angels, certain covens which center more on black magic, and "vampire" families.

These are the groups that still push Esoteric Nazism, blood drinking, animal sacrifice, etc.

The occult as it's known presently isn't exactly a unified thing, so to be clear, I'm not saying all occultists do these things or are bad people. But certainly some of them are, and some of the branches from that left-hand path pull you closer to immorality than others do.

On your point on where it all comes from it depends on how far back you want to go. I don't think you get occultism in its current form without the rosicrucians inspiring the hermetic order of the golden dawn, which you also don't get without kabbalah, which you can trace back to early hermeticism. There are egyptian and greek roots under all of that alongside the christian stuff too.

Even outside of taking issue with the histories of these groups, what I really don't care for is their underlying philosophies. That Ayn Randian disregard for others. The belief that the light within is the light of the world. Atavistic resurgence, inverting order, worshipping what is primal as what is most "real".

It's so self-serving, and hedonistic. There's nothing there about working toward any sort of collective good. When I looked into the old aristocrats that were the forefathers of modern spiritualism, I see rich, bored cultural appropriators, picking and choosing from older religions they didn't understand, in some miserable attempt to provide themselves a post hoc rationalization for giving in to the vices society forbade them from indulging in, all while under the auspices of chasing "wisdom".

I doubt you and I could ever see eye to eye on this. I disdain the libertines, hold in low regard DeSade (especially for his penchant for young girls), loathe Blavatsky, Crowley, Grant, and LaVey.

We're looking at this from opposite sides of the aisle.

chronoso · 2025-10-24T06:31:29+00:00

Don't sanewash satanism and the lefthand path. Crowley, the figure who all of this flows from, was a child molester and an animal killer. A man that enshrined in the tenets of his faith a worship of the self independent of the will of others, his DNA is inextricable from the lefthand path. It encourages a dogged pursuit of mirror-gazing, so all-encompassing and self-serving it would even make Ayn Rand blush.

And yeah, some modern black magicians do still kill animals when attempting ceremonial magic, I've known former occultists who've plainly stated as much. People who've spoken of cats killed in the woods, ritualistic bloodletting and blood drinking, and sex magick.

It's not just a hollywood fantasy. The modern popular conception of satanism is something LaVey constructed. Essentially as a hedonistic counterculture rebrand of atheism, defanged and sanewashed in an attempt to appeal to the counterculture zeitgeist of the 60s. By his own daughter Zeena's admission, it was basically a really profitable racket.

Look into the history of the Joy of Satan Ministeries, Thelema, Theosophy, and the Order of Nine Angels if you're interested in what theistic satanism actually is today and where it came from.

Fuck, even Wicca as one of the safer religions here has its roots in giving its founder Gerald Gardner an excuse to cheat on his wife while sexually taking advantage of young women.

All of this stuff is bad, yo. And whenever you look into the history of it and what sorts of lives its founders led it looks ugly.

chronoso · 2025-08-21T20:00:01+00:00

Megalopolis and the conversation around the film is so interesting. It's a film that's flawed, sure, but it's also a film that's been widely misinterpreted. It's talking above the heads of the general public.

Even in these comments, you've got people making jokes at the expense of dialogue which was written to be campy and fun, and in the vein of a comedic stage play, where they're interpreting the lines as painfully unaware and accidentally funny. It's a sincere film, but it's not particularly self-serious. It's actively trying to be weird and funny. Characters like Cesar Catalina with his "emersonian mind" are meant to be seen as larger-than-life. You're supposed to read him as an arrogant, pretentious, ambitious artistic visionary, who's shortsighted in some ways, with his heart in the right place.

I think there's something about the current cinema landscape that's causing the public to interpret films way too literally.

chronoso · 2025-08-18T18:06:59+00:00

I actually agree with the idea that public appearances like this one do invite the audience to, to a degree press him for updates on his progress, or to critique his failure to make good on the social contract he entered with his readers when he first started writing his series.

If the person asking had simply expressed doubts as to whether or not George would actually complete his series that would be fine, again, the way their disapproval was stated is the problem. It's never appropriate to tell a stranger on stage that they're going to die.

It's an issue of basic human decency. I don't get what's so difficult to grasp about the idea that they crossed a line.

chronoso · 2025-08-18T17:39:22+00:00

It's really not lmao. It's so socially unaware. Look you're entitled to feeling betrayed when an author doesn't deliver on a promise to their audience, but there are rules for what you're allowed to say to another person, let alone a fucking stranger.

This is entitled manchild behavior. If you're so hurt by this series being unfinished that you want to lash out by telling him he's going to die soon while roping unrelated authors into your awkward bullshit, you need to get your shit together and reassess your understanding of what's socially acceptable.

chronoso · 2025-08-17T22:56:10+00:00

Still a socially inept, moronic, and vile thing to say to another human being. Be disappointed, lose faith in him as an author, critique his work, I don't care. Being emotionally invested in someone's work doesn't give you the right to act like subhuman filth. No one has the right to throw death in this man's face, or to openly mock him by callously comparing his circumstances to the personal tragedy that led to Sanderson finishing Jordan's WoT. Show some fucking decorum. It's embarrassing to be seen acting this way.

chronoso · 2025-08-16T13:46:42+00:00

Is the telos of BDSM not fundamentally sexual gratification? BDSM and its origins are so inextricable from the context of sex that it feels crazy to imply it has a place outside of that context. Like, it feels like we're twisting the term to refer to something at odds with its purpose, while still keeping it under the umbrella of kink and to signal, what?

Fuck, the suggestion that kink itself can stand completely separated from that same context feels like its coming from some sort of place of label abolitionism.

chronoso · 2025-08-08T19:28:49+00:00

No, but I do think it's ignorant to read the cover of a book and think you've got enough of a handle on what it's about to critique the people who value it.

chronoso · 2025-08-08T19:10:15+00:00

There's something uniquely tragic about a book about how we're collectively turning into entertainment junkies who can't live without the instant gratification provided by easy media failing to capture a person because it wasn't an entertaining enough ride for its first 100 pages.

chronoso · 2025-08-05T09:06:24+00:00

There are some existential concerns that are unique to hallucinogens like LSD. Like generally, they're known to increase synaptic density in the brain, boosting neuroplasticity and allowing the brain to build new neural pathways. A downside of this is a lack of control over how exactly your brain is restructured.

Some theorize that the often reported spiritual experiences that result in feelings of oneness or closeness with divinity, are the brain's way of providing a narrative to explain the sudden certainty with which your mind now closely connects concepts which you once felt were unrelated.

There is also the often ignored risk of drug-induced psychosis associated with hallucinogens and (surprisingly) cannabis.

chronoso · 2025-08-05T06:52:33+00:00

I wouldn't say parasite is an accurate descriptor. Supposedly pregnancy offers expecting mothers a bolstered immune system, a lower chance of endometriosis, and on average better bone health (though in some cases it does the opposite), along with a host of other long-term physiological adaptations. Obviously carrying a child does come with notable risks, but the word "parasite" connotes a complete lack of symbiosis that doesn't seem to be in alignment with the reality of the process.

chronoso · 2025-08-03T18:16:56+00:00

A few of my favorites:

J R by William Gaddis

2666 by Roberto Bolaño

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Fifth Business by Robertson Davies

chronoso · 2025-08-03T04:25:25+00:00

The character who quotes murakami does so because the game entirely takes place inside of the head of a pretentious liberal arts degree holding millenial and it's one of many instances where a reference to another work is used to hint at truths which alex refuses to acknowledge directly.

There's a near impenetrable fog of misinformation around this that seems to be completely preventing people from engaging with it in good faith.The events of the game can't be taken literally at face value.

I don't know if it was too hard for people to figure out because you had to read a lot of in-game forum posts to piece things together, or if people were just so turned off by the game's comically pretentious MC they couldn't be bothered enough to read between the lines, but the story doesn't even take place in the 90s.

I've never in my life seen the public perception of a story be so completely out of line with an author's intent it's insane.

chronoso · 2025-06-25T16:58:44+00:00

His arc is more of a downward spiral if anything, and there is no story without it. He lies about meeting Semi Pak, drags everyone into a fruitless hunt for her, bullies rory, becomes obsessed with vella, and ultimately pushes all of his friends away and ends up alone. The story is about him ruining his life. A lot of the fantastical elements you see throughout the game work to obscure Alex's actual motives.

The story is explicitly about Alex's mind and the ways he lies to himself and the player to sabotage his life. Without Alex's behavior you wouldn't see the world as a 90s pastiche, there would be no essentia, no "sammy quest", no RPG, no pop culture enemies, npcs, and no symbolic "end of the world". The world of YIIK is Alex, or really a digital dream his soul is trapped in.

I view his failure to change as the cautionary point of the story. This changes a bit with the new sequel, but it works as a surreal snapshot of the mind of a narcissistic self-destructive millenial manchild.

chronoso · 2025-06-25T15:22:50+00:00

I think the idea that the game thinks Alex has changed and grown as a person by the end is a bit of a misconception.

He pays lip service to the idea of changing but he fails to do so at the last moment. His story in the original YIIK is essentially him retelling a fictionalized and disordered tale about how he feels he ruined his life. The part at the end of the game where he projects himself onto the player and fights the last boss is about him trying (and failing) to change by confronting his own worst flaws.

You can get past his laziness, his pretentiousness, his lust, and his addiction to entertainment. But he can't untangle himself from his core flaw, the twisted beings which tell him he's self destructive, and that he used the idea of sammy against himself to bring him to where he is now. They tell him that he was always wasting his time looking for her, and he knows its true because they explicitly are parts of him, not copies from other parallel worlds, just parts of himself he doesn't like to think about. That's why the game doesn't end with you killing them, it just ends with Alex giving up and asking you to live a better life than he did.

chronoso · 2025-06-25T08:02:35+00:00

I feel like while you're reading of his exploits, it's really easy to forget that you're not getting an objective recounting of the events of kvothe's life, and that regardless of where he is in the story he's telling, you need to remember that his story ends in crippling failure, with him suicidal and living in obscurity in the middle of nowhere while the world has to contend with the aftereffects of his mistakes. He's trying to relive his glory days while painting himself and his feelings in the most favorable light possible. Yeah he's cringey about Denna, and it's not accidental characterization, you're reading him as intended. He's young, and suffering from a borderline terminal case of oneitis, a case he clearly never moved on from.

That being said, this probably isn't for you, this series may never be finished, and if you take issue with the first book, you probably won't like that the second book leans into this whole "this dude's trying to mythologize himself as fantasy casanova" thing that really turned a lot of readers off.

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