Molly Templeton

@mollytempleton

I read, I write, & I pet cats. Column, news, & book reviews at @reactorsff.bsky.social; publicity, prize, & more for @ursulakleguin.com. Once a bookseller, always a bookseller. PDX.

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Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· 12d

I've had this saved for at least a year and I just pulled it up and started absolutely cackling, thank u tumblr, bless

hiveapologist on tumblr wrote: "loois, louies... watch this programme de télévision with me, loeuies. it has revealed to me a most thrilling premise ... you see, the handsome psychoanalyst communes with the troubled young man who is ill at ease with his sublime gift, that which allows him to hear the dark songs in the hearts and minds of men ... and it appears it is the very doctor of his mind, louise, whose heart mind sing the darkest song of them all. is that not electrifying, louuie? don't you find it devastatingly fateful? luouise?"

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· 21d

do I dare

a box full of packages of sour patch kid Oreos

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· 22d

cat are you serious v2

A small black cat crouches on a desk with one paw on a coaster that also has a cat on it.

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· 23d

cat. cat are you serious.

A long-haired gray cat is curled up on a cluttered desk. She is draped over a small green box and sitting on a glasses case. She takes up a lot of space.

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· 29d

bless u tumblr for I cannot stop thinking about this

a tumblr screenshot that reads "i absolutely adore sam reid as an actor but I think one of my favorite things about hims is that when he's acting as lestat he's exuding sex and aura and charisma but as soon as it's him in front of a camera, he poses like the yellow m&m"

photos below the text prove this: one is of sam reid with his hands behind his back; another is of sam reid in the same pose with another man; the third is of the yellow m&m in almost the same pose, though also waving politely.

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Jul 6

thank you yes this is actually pretty much exactly what Lestat looked like in my head when I was 16, how is this show real and how are there only two more episodes this season!!!!!

Sam Reid as the vampire Lestat, wearing a sort of lacy scoop-necked goth top and leather pants, with a bitchy, judgmental expression on his perfect face

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Jun 25

the menace is likewise exhausted from all her hard work

A black cat curled up in the shape of a croissant in a light gray fuzzy cat bed

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Jun 23

somehow this made me think of this absolutely wonderful thing I saw on reddEET

screenshot of a reddit thread titled "i found baby Armand on fb marketplace" and the photo is of a terrifying ceramic baby figurine with exactly the same wide amber eyes as the vampire Armand

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Jun 10

what in the pregnant Easter horsie chocolate-looking fresh plastic hell is this

The Odyssey popcorn bucket is a rearing horse that looks like it's made of cheap chocolate. It is shown, um, in full, and then there's a second image that shows how the poor horse's belly unhinges so that you can eat popcorn from its groin area. Should you so desire.

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Jun 2

for years I have been stalking eBay for this promotional book that was produced for The Fall, and now there is one that I'm allllmost willing to spring for ... or would be, were it not for this listing image

some totally imaginary hands holding a copy of the promotional book made for The Fall. there are three hands and two books; in the upper right corner the book has gone transparent to see the arm behind it. it is bafflingly and mystifyingly clearly Wrong.

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Jun 1

really specific cat-related advice request! this fluffy dingdog has decided of late that she does not like to eat food that gets near the edges of her bowl, so I need a shallow cat bowl that'll easily hold at least 6-7 oz (because I also have to mix water into her wet food). any suggestions?

a long-haired gray cat lies on a light-blue comforter next to a pink pillow. she is on her back, sort of like a human, with her ridiculous paws resting on her fluffy belly. she has her head turned to the left and is staring pensiively into the middle distance. I honestly couldn't tel you where her back feet even are.

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· May 25

rereading The Vampire Lestat for the first time in [redacted] years and I keep distracting myself trying to figure out what I imagined Lestat looked like when I was a teen. probably this guy, tbh

Sebastian Bach from Skid row wearing a peculiarly cut red top with a deep V neck and flames up the side of the sleeves.

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· May 22

your moment of bun

a photo of a small brown rabbit sitting in the leafy detritus at the edge of a sidewalk. a rosebush dangles overhead, and some puffball-headed dandelions are in the foreground.

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· May 19

this is a very depressing but I think very important read and I would like to lie down now

What all of this amounts to isn’t just one problem but a stack of them, each feeding the next. Most people now encounter the world through algorithmic feeds built to warp reality, on platforms with every commercial incentive to keep users scrolling and very little incentive to distinguish genuine interest from astroturfed imitations. Into those feeds flows an unprecedented amount of undisclosed advertising engineered to resemble the improvised enthusiasm of human strangers. The platforms reward it with reach; traditional media picks it up and validates it. Meanwhile, as trust in journalism collapses and most of the actual reporting disappears behind paywalls, readers head straight for the comment sections, which seem more like the voice of the people than anything written by a reporter — except many of those commenters may not be people at all.

The good news is that this will all be over soon, according to Lim, because something worse is coming to replace it. He recently shut down Floodify after trying to scale too fast and falling behind on deliverables. At one point, the company accidentally posted the same video to 7,000 accounts, which got them all banned. But he wasn’t discouraged. When we last spoke, he was building a new company and thinking even further ahead. “All of this nonsense is only going to last three to five more years, because in the future, people will stop trusting what they see on social media.” By then, the job will have moved one layer up. “You’ll have to start distributing your content toward AI agents and then they’ll teach humans what they want.”

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· May 5

Thank you!!! I was really quite nervous about how much sense I may or may not have been making that morning. another thing about The Paladin: this COVER

CJ Cherryh's novel The Paladin, which has a cover that is a sort of structurally baffling woman's face with a great emphasis on her lipstick and eyeliner (both black). In the foreground her hand - with a very pointy, lacquered nail - holds the hilt of a sword, probably, those it's so close up it's really hard to know anything for sure. The book title is on her forehead and the letters follow the shape of her brows. When I was 13 I thought she was SO cool.

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Apr 28

Without downloading anything new, where are you, mentally?

Emma Thompson, kneeling on what I assume is her star on the Hollywood walk of fame, wearing a fussy white dress under some sort of magical goth-ish black overcoat thing, sipping from a pint, pinky up, while holding the leash of a small adorable pig in the other hand. I don't know what any of it means. This photo is purely aspirational. I do have a drink, though.

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Apr 17

LOOK AT HIM THO

a stuffed loaf of tillamook medium cheddar cheese. he smiles. he has tiny little arms that are sort of like t-rex arms in that they could not possibly reach around his large torso, and tiny little legs that could not possibly bear his weight. he is beautiful.

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Mar 30

some men simply do not know when to stop talking

“I’m a blunt person—always have been. And it’s been 10 years since the media cared what I had to say about anything so I kind of forgot to watch my words when I have a film in theaters,” Weir concluded, before offering Kurtzman the chance to talk to him about his comments in private. “In a couple months I’ll be back in my cave writing novels and no one will care again.”

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Mar 30

it was some sort of ... benefit? fundraiser? thing? that I got asked to do because I was at the time the arts editor for a local paper. I don't remember if there was a winner, but yes! there is photo evidence! let's not talk about how long ago this was, lol, sob

two white humans, one with short curly dark hair and one with medium-length blonde hair, both wearing aprons, stand proudly behind a very inaccurate chocolate model of stonehenge

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Mar 18

book folks: anybody know what this is? it appears on the title page of a knopf volume from 1932 and I just keep seeing it as a delightful fat bird. but I wish to know its actual provenance.

a round blue figure, made up primarily of what look like evergreen branches, with some viney-like frills at the bottom corners, and under some overhanging branch-like bits at the top. decorative bits at the top center give it the impression of having eyes. it is roughly the shape of a cherry, with a blank interior. I am having a hard time making sense of it, sorry

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Mar 16

looking at this list, and thinking about how overwhelmingly male it is, it occurred to me: if you're going to let entire seasons compete against single episodes of a given TV show, should you not acknowledge all the writers on said season? anyway here's who actually wrote Pluribus season one

A screenshot of the IMDB listing for Pluribus lists writers Vince Gilligan (the creator and only writer credited on the Nebula ballot), Vera Blasi, Ariel Levine, Jonny Gomez, Gordon Smith, Alison Tatlock, and Jenn Carroll

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Mar 12

it is a recent occurrence and it's in my personal and work email and I HATE IT (it's the little sparkle pencil)

screenshot of the bottom of a gmail draft, which has next to the send button the text format button, and then the stupid sparkle pencil which, if you mouse over it, offers to "help" you write

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Feb 26

"Friends" is a beloved American sitcom that aired from 1994 to 2004, following six young adults—Rachel, Ross, Monica, Chandler, Joey, and Phoebe—living in New York City. The show explores their friendships, romances, careers, and personal growth over ten seasons.

the cast of Battlestar Galactica (yeah, there are seven people here, one's a Cylon, okay?)

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Feb 19

powell's .... no

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Feb 16

it is an absolutely central detail of Jo Clayton's Duel of Sorcery trilogy that the protagonist, Serroi, has green skin, so please can someone explain to me why this ebook cover looks like a knockoff version of a Keira Knightley-centric poster for that rancid King Arthur movie of the early 2000s

the cover for Jo Clayton's Moongather, which is mostly gold swirls on a blue background, but has an inset image of a red-headed white lady, visible only from the nose to the waist or so. she is wearing a tube tob and holding a sword, which is not our heroine's weapon of choice.

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Feb 10

this CREATURE

a long-haired gray cat with a tiny white bib sits on a mostly-blue, multi-colored, patterned rug in front of some boring gray apartment cabinets. she is mostly loafed up but with one leggie stretched out in front of her, like she is claiming the whole rug as her own. she stares pointedly at a space in front of me. she will not acknowledge me until treats are offered.

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Jan 29

this is heartbreaking www.portlandmercury.com/food-and-dri...

The reasons that Medina gave for República's closure ranged from decreased demand—which he says seemed to immediately follow Donald Trump's return to being president—to rising costs, and Medina wrote that "one issue rose above all others."

"When the safety of my staff; people who built this place with their hands and their memories—could no longer be assumed, when their dignity and security were treated as negotiable, silence stopped being an option. We stayed quiet for a year, hoping things wouldn’t worsen. They did. And they will continue to."

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Jan 29

just absolutely not, my bro

screenshot of the hollywood reporter BREAKING NEWS alert that tells us "Darren Aronofsky Has Reconstructed the Revolutionary War Using AI"

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Jan 23

this is what his email said, in part. it was largely about him creating an AI podcast (??) of the newsletter.

My AI pledge to you.
The editorial judgement, sourcing, writing, and editing of WTFJHT, as well as the personal accountability for corrections, errors, and omissions will always be uniquely human. That’s my job and my responsibility.

Here’s what AI is not allowed to do: (1) write WTFJHT, (2) decide what’s news or replace my editorial judgement, (3) “fact check” my work, or (4) publish anything automatically without my review and approval.

Here’s what I am willing to use AI for: (1) narrate an audio edition using a clone of my voice, (2) check for typos and grammar cleanup, (3) help me debug the occasional tech issues I have, and (4) organize my ideas.

Above all else, you can expect me to explicitly and transparently disclose the use of AI at the top of each audio edition, in the show notes, and on the FAQ page.

Molly Templeton@mollytempleton· Jan 18

I would follow her (and her inability to sit "normally" in a chair) into the absolute depths of space