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butcharium · 6 months

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Gym updates:

° I am actually..... enjoying this..? Especially strength training makes me happy! I've had the complete sicko sequence of thought and actions being "wow I feel so shitty today maybe I should work out that will help" - then actually gone to the gym - and it works

° I'd still rather eat glass than do running for any extended period of time tho, running does NOT spark joy for me

° I signed up with a PT, we actually work really well together and I feel like she gets me AND she's a fellow pcos girlie!! (Well that's actually maybe why she gets me)

° some of you might remember back in January (?) I met an older butch4butch couple at the gym and womaned up enough to ask for help with bench press! Well I've met them again!!! We randomly met at a market and they invited me to sit down with them and have a coffee!!!! And it was really nice!!! They also told me what days they go to HIT&strength classes at the gym but the one time I've been able to fit it into my own schedule neither of them were there and also I hated the class rip. Sometimes I do pass one or both on my way in and out of the gym tho which is always nice!

° I listen to the original Sherlock Holmes stories on audiobook, and keep this as a treat reserved for the gym. Now I only have a few short stories left! I loved these stories as a kid and would rummage through flea markets to find translations. Now I listen in English and they're just really funny and interesting and have made working out more enjoyable! Idk what to do when I finish tho. I guess I'll have to stop going to the gym or maybe just start from the top again.

° the sauna is currently out of order which is making the dip into the small cold pool after workout slightly less enjoyable. But I've been promised that it shall be back and running by next week (not true the other times I've been told this) but I hope that's the case bc I Love the Sauna, and I enjoy that there's a space where you can just be naked and introverted with strangers (or on your own).

° net positive in my life! I think it is contributing to my being a bit more up-beat and energized, or at least less tired, in my day to day life. I am one who needs structures, but I struggle with implementing them, and the gym has actually been one of the few things I've been able to keep up, and it helps me structure my week!

°EDIT: how could I forget?? My knees are doing much better!!!

(I still appreciate any tips any of you would have regarding the gym or exercises or experiences etc!!)

#i am realmy happy and satisfied!#today i went to the one class i enjoy!#also regarding experiencing that working out actually helps me feel better on shitty days that actually didnt use to be the case during the #previous 5 years ive tried periodically to work out at the gym and it was the same gym and many of the same exercises even but i just think #baseline well being was so bad that the ebdorpins from working out just werent enough to make a proper difference #but now my baseline is a lot better so i feel like for once im able to reap the benefits of working out #musings

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benkyoutobentou · 5 months

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Ranking the books I read in Japanese this year

It’s the end of the year and I don’t think I’ll be finishing any more Japanese books this month, so I thought it would be fun to rank what I read! I read twelve novels in Japanese this year, hitting my goal (but not quite reading one a month). There won’t be twelve rankings here, though, because I read multiple books from the same series and will be combining those.

9. コーヒーが冷めないうちに - 川口俊和: This book just didn’t do it for me. I listened to it on audiobook in February for a target language listening challenge and got stuck in a vicious cycle of not paying attention because the story was boring me and being bored of it because I wasn’t paying enough attention. Most other people I’ve seen who have read it in Japanese also thought it was boring, though, so I’m not mourning any loss.

8. 宝石商リチャードの謎鑑定 - 辻村七子: I really wanted to like this series but the negatives outweighed the positives so much that I only read the first volume. The most damning part of this for me was that I couldn’t stand the writing style. It was extremely confusing, and having a language barrier on top of that just made it miserable. I’m really glad I read this with others because I was not the only one who found the writing style to be ridiculously confusing for a book that doesn’t even handle confusing or difficult topics. Seriously, the writing was so bad that I considered continuing the series in English. But the characters were good.

7. あん - ドリアン助川: Now we get into the books that I enjoyed, just not as much. I liked this book well enough, but it was just a bit middling. I wasn’t overly invested in the characters or story and I found myself wondering how on earth this story could go on for another hundred pages. It was sweet, but ultimately I don’t think the story will stick with me at all.

6. ちょっと今から仕事やめてくる - 北川恵海: This was another audiobook read and although I know I enjoyed it, I really don’t remember much about it. I’m also not sure if the twist, which I did think was really good, actually happened or was something I misunderstood (I’m pretty sure I understood it though). Overall, this one goes on the to-reread pile, just as soon as I can find a physical copy of it.

5. 旅猫リポート - 有川浩: This was an adorable story perfect for cat lovers, but the end had me a little bored. Honestly though, it was quite the experience to go from being a bit bored to crying my eyes out in the span of ten pages. The writing style and the main cat’s perspective was super charming as well.

4. 人間失格 - 太宰治: This was my first classic in Japanese and wasn’t as difficult as I expected. Dazai’s writing style is a pain in the ass, but I will admit that it started to grow on me as the book went on and now I find it endearing. It also wasn’t as depressing as I had heard it was, and I really enjoyed getting a perspective of that time period.

3. 美しい彼 - 凪良ゆう: I only read one volume of this, probably exclusively because I suddenly couldn’t stand romance when I had fifty pages left of this. What can I say, I love a good toxic gay romance. The writing style is chronically readable and the story is super engaging.

2. No. 6 - あさのあつこ: I’m a fan of the anime for this and the novels have not let me down. I’ve only read two so far, but the story and characters are super gripping. I really love the emphasis on dialogue in this series, I really feel like it makes the characters pop more. The only problem I have is this odd quirk in Asano’s writing style, where the majority of the series is told from third person point of view, but will suddenly switch to first person point of view for a single sentence. It’s not enough to deter me, but it is a little odd to see.

1. キノの旅 - 時雨沢恵一: My number one favorite read in Japanese this year and no one should be surprised. I’m a massive Kino fan and read three volumes this year. I love books that I can analyze the hell out of and this is exactly that. Additionally, I think the writing style and the way both Kino and Hermes are characterized adds so much to both the stories and the underlying meanings that Shigusawa is trying to get across.

#some of these reviews are so vague because I read them so long ago #but some are vague because I’m like. it was good. I enjoyed it. next #but also there are some where I’m holding myself back so hard #god I wanted to rip 宝石商リチャード APART that book made me so mad in so many ways #sometimes I feel like the more I like a book the less I have to say about it #langblr #studyblr #studyinspo #polyglot #japanese langblr #日本語 #language learning #booklr #bookblr #benkyou posting #studying #this post is a lie because i havent quite finished my twelfth book #(as of writing this because im not sure when itll be posted. queue vibes)#but i completely intend to finish it before the end of the month and i dont think it will be difficult to do so

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 months

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All the books I reviewed in 2023 (Novels)

Next Tuesday (December 5), I'm at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, NC, with my new solarpunk novel The Lost Cause, which 350.org's Bill McKibben called "The first great YIMBY novel: perceptive, scientifically sound, and extraordinarily hopeful."

It's that time of year again, when I round up all the books I reviewed for my newsletter in the previous year. I posted 21 reviews last year, covering 31 books (there are two series in there!). I also published three books of my own last year (two novels and one nonfiction). A busy year in books!

Every year, these roundups remind me that I did actually manager to get a lot of reading done, even if the list of extremely good books that I didn't read is much longer than the list of books I did read. I read many of these books while doing physiotherapy for my chronic pain, specifically as audiobooks I listened to on my underwater MP3 player while doing my daily laps at the public pool across the street from my house.

After many years of using generic Chinese waterproof MP3s players – whose quality steadily declined over a decade – I gave up and bought a brand-name player, a Shokz Openswim. So far, I have no complaints. Thanks to reader Abbas Halai for recommending this!

https://shokz.com/products/openswim

I load up this gadget with audiobook MP3s bought from Libro.fm, a fantastic, DRM-free alternative to Audible, which is both a monopolist and a prolific wage-thief with a documented history of stealing from writers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff

All right, enough with the process notes, on to the reviews!

NOVELS

I. Temeraire by Naomi Novik

One of the finest pleasures in life is to discover a complete series of novels as an adult, to devour them right through to the end, and to arrive at that ending to discover that, while you'd have happily inhabited the author's world for many more volumes, you are eminently satisfied with the series' conclusion.

I just had this experience and I am still basking in the warm glow of having had such a thoroughly fulfilling imaginary demi-life for half a year. I'm speaking of the nine volumes in Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, which reimagines the Napoleonic Wars in a world that humans share with enormous, powerful, intelligent dragons.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/08/temeraire/#but-i-am-napoleon

II. Destroyer of Worlds by Matt Ruff

The Destroyer of Worlds is a spectacular followup to Lovecraft Country that revisits the characters, setting, and supernatural dread of the original. Country was structured as a series of linked novellas, each one picking up where the previous left off, with a different focal characters. Destroyer is a much more traditional braided novel, moving swiftly amongst the characters and periodically jumping back in time to the era of American slavery, retelling the story of the settlement of the Great Dismal swamp by escaped slaves.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/21/the-horror-of-white-magic/#anti-lovecraftian

III. Scholomance by Naomi Novik

The wizards of the world live in constant peril from maleficaria – the magic monsters that prey on those born with magic, especially the children. In a state of nature, only one in ten wizard kids reaches adulthood. So the wizarding world built the Scholomance, a fully automated magical secondary school that exists in the void – a dimension beyond our world. The Scholomance is also an extremely dangerous place – three quarters of the wizard children who attend will die before graduation – but it is much safer than life on the outside.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/29/hobbeswarts/#the-chosen-one

IV. Tsalmoth by Steven Brust

Longrunning Brust hero Vlad Taltos has been convinced to recount the story of how he and Cawti came to fall in love, and how they planned their marriage. This is quite an adventure – it plays out against the backdrop of a gang-war within the Jhereg organization, with Vlad in severe mortal peril that he can only avoid by uncovering an intricate criminal caper of crosses, double-crosses, smuggling and sorcery. But while Vlad is dodging throwing knives and lethal spells (or not!), what's really going on is that he and Cawti are falling deeply, profoundly, irrevocably in love. The romance that plays out among the blades and magic is more magical still, a grand passion that expresses itself through Nick-and-Nora wordplay and Three Musketeers swordplay.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/27/mannerpunk/#ask-anyone

V. Hopeland by Ian McDonald

Seriously what the fuck is this amazing, uncategorizable, unsummarizable, weird, sprawling, hairball of a novel? How the hell do you research – much less write – a novel this ambitious and wide-ranging? Why did I find myself weeping uncontrollably on a train yesterday as I finished it, literally squeezing my chest over my heart as it broke and sang at the same moment? The stars of Hopeland are members of two ancient, secret societies. There's Raisa Hopeland, who belongs to a globe-spanning, mystical "family," that's one part mutual aid, one part dance music subculture, and one part sorcerer (some Hopelanders are electromancers, making strange, powerful magic with Tesla coils). Amon is a composer and DJ who specializes in making music for very small groups of people – preferably just one person – that is so perfect for them that they are transformed by hearing it.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/30/electromancy/#the-grace

VI. The World Wasn't Ready For You by Justin Key

These are horror stories, though some of them are science fiction too, and more to the point, they're Black horror stories. In his afterword, Key writes about his early fascination with horror, the catharsis he felt in watching nightmares unspool on screen or off the page. And then, he writes, came the dawning recognition that the Black characters in these stories were always there as cannon-fodder, often nameless, usually picked off early. "Black horror" isn't merely parables about racism. In the deft hands of these writers – and now, Key – the stories are horror in which Blackness is a fact, sometimes a central one, and that fact is ever a complication, limiting how the characters move through space, interact with authority, and relate to one another.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/19/justin-c-key/#clarion-west-2015

VII. The Future by Naomi Alderman

A cracking, multi-point-of-view adventure novel about billionaires prepping for the end of the world. Three billionaires, the lords of thinly veiled analogs to Facebook, Google and Amazon, each getting ready in their own way. Stumbling into their midst comes Lai Zhen, a prepper influencer vlogger with millions of followers.

When Zhen becomes romantically entangled with Martha Einkorn, the top aide and chief-of-prepping for one of these billionaires, she finds herself in possession of an AI chatbot that is devoted to protecting a very small number of people from incipient danger. This chatbot determines that Zhen is being stalked by an assassin at a mall in Singapore, and guides her to safety.

The chatbot is a closely held secret among the tech billionaire cabal. It is designed to monitor world events and predict when The Event is imminent, be it disease, war, or other cataclysmic disaster. With the chatbot's predictive powers and its superhuman guidance, the billionaires, their families, and their closest confidantes will be able to slip away before the shit hits the fan, fly by different private jets to one or another luxury bunker, and wait out the apocalypse. Once the fires raging without have died down to embers, the chatbot's billionaire charges will emerge to assume their places as wise and all-powerful leaders of the next human civilization.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/07/preppers-of-the-red-death/#the-event

VIII. Liberty's Daughter by Naomi Kritzer

There's so much sf about "competent men" running their families with entrepreneurial zeal, clarity of vision and a firm confident hand. But there's precious little fiction about how much being raised by a Heinlein dad would *suuuck*. But it would, and in *Liberty's Daughter*, we get a peek inside the nightmare.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/21/podkaynes-dad-was-a-dick/#age-of-consent

Like I said, this has been a good year in books for me, and it included three books of my own:

I. Red Team Blues (novel, Tor Books US, Head of Zeus UK)

Martin Hench is 67 years old, single, and successful in a career stretching back to the beginnings of Silicon Valley. He lives and roams California in a very comfortable fully-furnished touring bus, The Unsalted Hash, that he bought years ago from a fading rock star. He knows his way around good food and fine drink. He likes intelligent women, and they like him back often enough. Martin is a—contain your excitement—self-employed forensic accountant, a veteran of the long guerilla war between people who want to hide money, and people who want to find it. He knows computer hardware and software alike, including the ins and outs of high-end databases and the kinds of spreadsheets that are designed to conceal rather than reveal. He’s as comfortable with social media as people a quarter his age, and he’s a world-level expert on the kind of international money-laundering and shell-company chicanery used by Fortune 500 companies, mid-divorce billionaires, and international drug gangs alike. He also knows the Valley like the back of his hand, all the secret histories of charismatic company founders and Sand Hill Road VCs. Because he was there at all the beginnings. Now he’s been roped into a job that’s more dangerous than anything he’s ever agreed to before—and it will take every ounce of his skill to get out alive.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865847/red-team-blues

II. The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation (nonfiction, Verso)

We can – we must – dismantle the tech platforms. We must to seize the means of computation by forcing Silicon Valley to do the thing it fears most: interoperate. Interoperability will tear down the walls between technologies, allowing users to leave platforms, remix their media, and reconfigure their devices without corporate permission. Interoperability is the only route to the rapid and enduring annihilation of the platforms. The Internet Con is the disassembly manual we need to take back our internet.

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con

III. The Lost Cause (novel, Tor Books US, Head of Zeus UK)

For young Americans a generation from now, climate change isn't controversial. It's just an overwhelming fact of life. And so are the great efforts to contain and mitigate it. Entire cities are being moved inland from the rising seas. Vast clean-energy projects are springing up everywhere. Disaster relief, the mitigation of floods and superstorms, has become a skill for which tens of millions of people are trained every year. The effort is global. It employs everyone who wants to work. Even when national politics oscillates back to right-wing leaders, the momentum is too great; these vast programs cannot be stopped in their tracks.

But there are still those Americans, mostly elderly, who cling to their red baseball caps, their grievances, their huge vehicles, their anger. To their "alternative" news sources that reassure them that their resentment is right and pure and that "climate change" is just a giant scam. And they're your grandfather, your uncle, your great-aunt. And they're not going anywhere. And they’re armed to the teeth. The Lost Cause asks: What do we do about people who cling to the belief that their own children are the enemy? When, in fact, they're often the elders that we love?

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause

I wrote nine books during lockdown, and there's plenty more to come. The next one is The Bezzle, a followup to Red Team Blues, which comes out in February:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

While you're waiting for that one, I hope the reviews above will help you connect with some excellent books. If you want more of my reviews, here's my annual roundup from 2022:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/01/bookishness/#2022-in-review

Here's my book reviews from 2021:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/08/required-ish-reading/#bibliography

And here's my book reviews from 2020:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/08/required-reading/#recommended-reading

It's EFF's Power Up Your Donation Week: this week, donations to the Electronic Frontier Foundation are matched 1:1, meaning your money goes twice as far. I've worked with EFF for 22 years now and I have always been - and remain - a major donor, because I've seen firsthand how effective, responsible and brilliant this organization is. Please join me in helping EFF continue its work!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/01/bookmaker/#2023-in-review

#pluralistic #books #reviews #science fiction #gift guide #graphic novels #2023 in review #novels

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mswyrr · 7 months

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"Ballad" politics and absolute monarchy

So, Collins quotes Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan at the beginning of Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

“Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man, against every man.” — Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651

This relates to the debate that went on in Europe over absolute monarchy - when it first came about (arising out of a prior order where individual nobles had a great deal of control over their own areas, even able to make war against each other without the king's permission: that is, there was no central authority with a "monopoly on violence") it was in light of truly brutal religious wars. There was a sense--like during the war that precedes Ballad--that nobody was safe anywhere, you couldn't go about your life in even the most basic ways without violence and terror.

This was particularly true in France, the place where absolute monarchy first really took off, with events like St Bartholomew's Day (1572) Massacre and the assassination of Henry IV (1610) by a radical for trying to make peace between Catholics and Protestants, haunting the whole discussion.

Leviathan's frontispiece is an image of the entire body of the people brought into order and peace in the body of the unifying absolute monarch:

Notice how all the people (subjects, not citizens) are not facing us or each other, but looking to the absolute monarch and, in doing this, there is stability and order? That image (and the concept of control of nobles who abused their power) sort of embodies the hope of the advocates of absolute monarchy.

Now, it became a horror show! It's a bad idea!! But there's also the fact that people were looking for an answer and some people thought it fit the bill. It's important to look at the context for why people might be persuaded of that.

I was really excited when I started listening to "Ballad" audiobook and heard the Leviathan quote. I think it's neat that Collins chose to reference this period of history in Gaul's sincerely held ideology and to make Snow someone who doesn't have any particular ideology - he just wants to maintain his comfort and privilege and to have control and her ideas are convenient for that. A pre-made set of justifications for what he comes to realize he wants most for less intellectual reasons.

I think Dr Gaul's going to become an even more interesting character (and contrasting voice to Lucy Gray and her Covey ideas about people and the "natural" order of human beings, which are basically a form of anarchism), since the trailer has her say something not in the books:

"If you want to protect people, then it's essential to accept what human beings are and what it takes to control them." (first trailer)

(rubs hands together) I feel like she was more of a flat character in the book, but with Viola Davis in the role and a deepening of the character she could be really fun to watch. I hope we get more of Lucy Gray's Covey culture and anarchist ideas too. The fact that the director talks about it as a struggle over ideas--conceptions of the human and of what a good social order is--really makes me giddy.

I think the quote by Rousseau that Collins also starts with is meant to represent something closer to Lucy Gray’s pov:

“Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.” — Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762

#the ballad of songbirds and snakes #the hunger games #lucy gray baird #coriolanus snow #volumnia gaul #my meta #thg meta

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ofliterarynature · 1 month

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FEBRUARY 2024 WRAP UP

[loved liked ok nope dnf (reread) book club*]

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years • The Memory Librarian • Pixels of You* • Arch-Enemies • Moby Dyke • Pip Bartlett’s Guide to Magical Creatures • A Sinister Revenge • Lud in the Mist • Crying in H Mart • Something Close to Magic • Hula • (Renegades) • The Divorce Colony • Foundryside • Earthlings • A Far Wilder Magic

total: 13 books (12 audiobook, 1 print)

Not as many books this month! And not just because February has fewer days, I was really in a funk this month and struggling to pay attention to my audiobooks (and enjoy them). You wouldn't think there's such a thing as too many books, but I think the overtime hours at work are hitting their peak mental health destruction. Here's to hoping things improve in March!

The Divorce Colony (4.5 stars) - genuinely can't believe this was my 3rd nonfic of the year already! I picked a print copy of this up at a library sale in December after hearing about divorce colonies in the early 20th century on a recent episode of the 99% Invisible podcast. Turns out this book was actually about the beginning of the moment that took place in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in the 1800's. Western states had shorter residency periods and less strict divorce laws, so women (and the occasional man) would travel west and live there for several months in order to obtain a divorce. This book tracks the movement through the stories of 4 of the more infamous cases to make the papers, and does an incredible job of weaving in the surrounding political and religious discussions. Would recommend, and has a great cover to boot!

Renegades (3 stars) - a reread, and for some reason it was torture. I originally read this back in 2018 and loved it, and wanted to tackle it again and actually finish the rest of the series. But I kept getting worked up and frustrated this time around! It kept trying to take itself seriously while also being very YA and kind of superhero-camp, and I was absolutely overthinking it lol. I found the strength to press on into book two, Archenemies (3.5 stars). I liked it a bit more! Something about it being new, the story being a bit more settled and maybe getting a better grasp on its message/politics, the characters growing more, me figuring out that I shouldn't listen to the audiobook for more than an hour or so at a time, lmao. Not great, but fun, and possibly worth reading? I'll keep y'all updated when I finish book 3.

Hula (5 stars) - incredible. Part generational family story, part history, part discussion of what it means to be Hawaiian, culturally and legally. Not always the easiest of reads, but it was so so worth it. It was also doing something very interesting with parts of the narration voiced by a collective "we" (culture/community?) that I would love to get a look at in print. Highly recommend, I'll definitely be getting myself a copy.

Something Close to Magic (4.5 stars) - an absolute delight! The Gail Carson Levine comp on this one is not entirely unearned, anyone who's a fan of fairy tale type fantasies will enjoy this, I had a great time! Very interestingly, it has characters who are in their mid to late teens, but is written in a way where they're still allowed to be young, to the point I'm surprised it didn't get shoehorned into MG instead of YA. If the author writes any more of these I'd be happy to read them.

Crying in H Mart (3.5 stars) - nonfic number 4! I'm sure everyone's heard of this one by now, which is why I finally picked it up. It's fine (which is why it got an extra .5 star), but on the scale of take it or leave it, I'd leave it. It just wasn't for me and I kind of wish I'd dnf'd it. A great cover though.

Lud-in-the-Mist (3.5 stars) - this one seems to be considered a sort of early precursor to fantasy and fairy tale type stories from the early 20th century, and I was eager to try it! While I definitely don't think it would feel out of place amongst it's more recent fellows (think the Last Unicorn, Robin McKinley, DWJ, etc), I absolutely could not get into it. Probably the chief recipient of "my brain doesn't want to cooperate, sorry," so maybe I'll give it another shot someday.

A Sinister Revenge (4 stars) - enjoyable as always! Not to hide this deep in my reviews or anything, but have the Emily Wilde people tried Veronica Speedwell yet?

Pip Bartlett's Guide to Magical Creatures (3 stars) - This one's been sitting unread on my shelf for a while, and since I was on a bit of a Maggie Stiefvater run, I figured it was perfect! Well. Unless you are like 7, this was so bad. Not good. Having previously read and not liked a book by Maggie's co-author Jackson Pearce, I think it would not be unreasonable for me to assume she did most of the writing while Maggie did the illustrations - if the audiobook had been any longer than 4 hours I'd have absolutely DNF'd it, and I have no intention of continuing the series.

Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in the Country (4.5 stars) - part of me was wondering what I was doing trying this lol, not being someone who drinks or goes to bars, OR, as previously mentioned, is not the biggest fan of memoirs. It was not, as I hoped, also part research project, but it is a travelogue, and as a consequence has a strong narrative thread. It also has a lot of discussions about issues in the LGBTQ+ community, and overall I really liked it once I figured out what it was doing!

Pixels of You (3.5 stars) - a very short sapphic rivals-to friends-to lovers graphic novel about a human-form AI and a human with an android eye competing for a photography internship at an art gallery. The creators clearly put SO much thought into their characters and worldbuilding, but sadly there is nowhere near enough length here to do it all justice, and a number of elements felt very odd or under explored. The relationship parts are great! I just think this needed to be twice as long to really given everything its due, or maybe explored in prose instead.

The Memory Librarian (3.5 stars) - to start, I know nothing about the musical album this is related to, so I don't know how much that might have affected my reading. Overall I wasn't super impressed - when I discovered that the first story was cowritten by Alaya Dawn Johnson - no shade to her - I almost dropped it then, I just really didn't like her writing style in the one book I've read. But I stuck through it. Of the five stories, only one really stuck in my mind - Nevermind, cowritten by Danny Lore, which I could have read an entire novel about. I wish I could recommend it on its own, but overall I just don't quite understand the world Monae has created.

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years (3.5 stars) - I probably should say more about the book, it was fine, I was surprised to find that it's set in relatively current day, I found myself a lot more interested in the second narrative about the house's history, which did make me cry a bit. Mostly though, I really just want to let you know how MUCH of a non-entity the djinn was in this story, I have no idea why it was there and why it was included in the title of the book. All the author had to do was make the house a little more sentient and haunted and it would be fine, idk. Read it if you want, but it's not one I would rec.

DNF'S

Foundryside - I was so ready. I had the first two audiobooks checked out, I had the third one on hold. I started this but oh, the writing. bleh. I was looking thought reviews and someone referred to it as something like "21st century internet speak." In a high fantasy novel. I noped out at just 10%.

Earthlings - I've considered the author's other book before but haven't read it, but thought maybe a sci-fic book would work better for me? The beginning was odd but not uninteresting, and I might have continued if it had stayed that way. But then the main character was in school(?) and her teacher started getting handsy after class and I wasn't invested enough to stick it out.

A Far Wilder Magic - the success of Something Close to Magic made me a little too hopeful I think, bc while I'm still a little leery around YA, I know people have liked this. And it sounded interesting, truly, and I love the cover. But first it was the religion stuff. And I didn't really like the characters. Then it's like, oh, this is the same plot as The Scorpio Races, but nowhere near it's quality in any shape or form. I decided to stop while I was ahead, before I started to actually dislike it. (anyway here's your PSA to go read The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, I recommend doing it in October if you can).

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growup-gloup · 2 months

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Make the Best of your Alone Time

Many of us live with someone. Whether it's our parents, roommates, or partners, living with someone means we get used to someone around us all the time. I don't know about you lovelies, my sometimes, I blank out on what to do when I'm suddenly alone after a long period of social stimulation. Even if you live alone, it's easy to get lost in the daily responsibilities that you forget to take time for yourself.

It's so easy to get sucked into doom-scrolling or marathoning our favorite shows, but there are so many productive ways we could spend that time if we could just remember those options during that time. Hopefully, this list can remind you not only of your options but motivate you by reminding you of your potential.

Journal

You can do it digitally, but I personally prefer the feel of the traditional pen to paper. If you have a prompt or something on your mind, write to process that. If you don't know what to write, you can just start writing whatever first comes to mind, even if it sounds like gibberish at first. Write about what you can see and hear around you. Focus on everything you're feeling at this very moment and try to put those feelings into words. Just write.

Try a New Recipe

If you have access to a kitchen, find a recipe that is one step above your cooking level and try to replicate that dish. This one may involve some planning, especially if it requires a trip to the grocery store. Alternatively, you can look up the ingredients you have at home to see what you can make with it.

Read

I like to do this thing where I keep two different books on me. One fiction, and one non-fiction. I used to be able to finish entire novels within 24 hours, but that just isn't realistic with my schedule now, so I give myself a month to go through both of them. Pick the medium that works best for you, traditional, digital, audiobook. Bonus points if you reflect on what you read afterward, like what you liked, didn't like, and what you learned.

Deep Cleaning

I don't mind deep cleaning sprints at home, but I can't do it when there are other people around. Being home alone is the perfect time to clean your space as well as catch up on any errands that you've been putting off. Put on a podcast or a deep dive essay on YouTube in the background as you clean.

Passion Project

We all have things we wish we had time for but never get around to doing when we have time. No more. Whether it's a book you've been thinking of writing, an art project, or just something really cool that you want to do, this is the time to do it.

Get a New Hobby

Don't have a passion project? No problem. Start a new one. Try something you've always admired other people doing. The best part is that you don't even have to be good at it in the beginning. You just have to get started somewhere. Remember, it's about doing something, not showing people how good you are at it.

Learn Something New

Hobbies are great, but it's also great to expand your worldview. You could listen to informational things while you do other things, or you could take a free class online and take notes like you'd be doing for a class. Whatever helps you learn best.

Remember, this isn't a conclusive list. It's just a guideline to get you started on your first step. We all have to start from somewhere.

💋

#level up #carpe diem #checklist #adulting #advice

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 2 months

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I am continuing to run out of John + Elis Radio X episodes at a mildly distressing rate, I'm into August 2018 now and they run until March 2019. Yes there are several hundred BBC episodes after that, but they'll be different, and I've got used to these ones. The Radio X episodes are escapist, from when the world was easier. The BBC episodes are going to run through 2020 and I just can't listen to those initial months where they'll say everyone should wash their hands and make jokes about the Imagine video.

Luckily, the side project of following all John Robins' other things alongside the radio chronology will extend this a bit. Their book came out in October 2018, though I think it was written by August, so I could listen to that audiobook pretty much any time now and call it in line with where I'm at in the radio show. I'll get on that soon.

Also, I've reached the radio episodes in which John Robins is telling us about filming his digital television internet-based quiz show. Specifically, he's telling us about the production company hiring someone to buy him new clothes, because he's not allowed to wear Queen-branded or brewery-branded t-shirts while presenting a show on Dave. I was looking forward to this radio show letting me know what happens to a comedian the year after they win the Perrier Award (I'm aware that it wasn't actually called that when he won it in 2017, but I cannot be bothered to look up what it was called in any given year), and now I know. Apparently it's extending a tour to the point where you develop different medical ailments every week from the stress of traveling and at one point turn up to a radio show an hour late because you forgot you were recording, and they give you a digital television internet-based quiz show for which they buy you new clothes that do not advertise breweries or rock bands. It sounds very glamorous.

I've referred to it as a comedy panel show before, because for some reason I thought it had comedians as guests. I've just looked it up and learned it actually features members of the public, like a regular quiz show. And that sounds quite bad. I didn't have terribly high expectations anyway, but this has lowered them. Sunil Patel's all right, though. I mean, I think he's all right as a comedian. Don't know what he's like on this TV show, haven't watched it yet.

But I've got it downloaded and I think I'll get into it this weekend, as I've reached that point in the chronology. I looked up the Chortle review, and its opening paragraph is exactly what I imagined this show would be, based on the synopsis:

This next bit of condemnation comes off as significantly harsher, just because it could function fairly accurately as a description of John Robins' broadcasting/comedy style as a whole, and not just being about this one quiz show that I assume John Robins does not hold up as his greatest artistic achievement:

Sick burn and everything, Steve, and you do have a point that John Robins' habit of going into a vaguely Partridge-inspired voice can sometimes blur the line between parody that works and just actually doing a thing that doesn't work. However, that is some harsh criticism coming from someone who doesn't know how to put a period at the end of a sentence. Maybe learn to use punctuation first, Steve, and then you can talk shit about digital DJs who watched too much Alan Partridge when they were growing up, and possibly base just a touch too much of their persona on ironically imitating that.

Actually, that sounds all right. I enjoy watching John Robins at once try to embrace and stay at arm's length from things. Maybe it won't be so bad.

I think I will start watching this show this weekend, I'll let you all know if it's terrible. Or, tell you what, I'll let you all know if it's good. I don't need to report on it every time I expect something to be bad, but watch it anyway due to my brain's relentless drive toward completism, and it meets my expectations. If it surprises me, I'll definitely let you all know.

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ifidiedinadream · 1 year

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Hi! I'd like to request something where Joel is dating a bookworm (the reader) and one day he asks her to read out loud, which leads to him discovering that it helps him fall asleep. Because of that the reader reads to him every night, even when he's on tour. Firstly, the boys tease Joel about it but when they learn it's actually helping and his mood is better, they can't thank the reader enough.

this was extremely cute 😭😭😭 hope you enjoy!

“How do you even keep your focus on that for more than ten minutes?”

Joel’s words take you back to the here and now. He’s lying next to you in bed, on his side, phone face down by his chest on the mattress as if he’s just put it down. He’s watching you with his head resting on his hand, propped up on one elbow.

“You spend much more time on your phone than I do reading.”

“It’s not the same. When I’m on my phone I’m never focused on one thing only. How can you read such a long ass story to the very end?”

His question makes you snort. You close the book and turn to face him. There’s genuine curiosity in his eyes.

“Books are more interesting than scrolling down social media. That is, if you find the right book.”

“Maybe for smart people like you. I could never,” he laughs. “If anything, I’d grow impatient after two pages and spoil the ending within the first five minutes. What even is it you’re reading now anyway?”

You show him the cover. “Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Fits your aesthetic, doesn’t it?”

Joel looks at you with big eyes. “You know horror movies scare me. And books too, I guess.”

“I think you’d like this one. Don’t you call yourself a vampire all the time? For example when you point out how Joonas has smile lines and you still don’t?”

“Stop that,” Joel looks down. You reach your hand and caress his cheek. “Dracula is scary.”

“Is not,” you insist. “Want me to read a passage to prove it to you? There’s nothing to be scared of, babyboy.”

That seems to wound Joel’s masculinity, judging by how he stiffens and frowns. “I’m no babyboy. Go on and read. I’ll show you!”

You smile at him - he’s so predictable it’s endearing.

Feeling merciful, you choose a paragraph you know won’t upset him - a chapter from Doctor Seward’s diary, where he’s talking about his experience at the mental institution, when he still doesn’t know he’s dealing with something paranormal.

You read the passage out loud and Joel listens silently. So silently, in fact, that you find it suspicious, and when you glance over at him, his chest is rising and falling slowly and his eyes are closed.

A rare sight, him peacefully asleep at a decent hour. The tranquility of it makes you smile fondly and you reach out to remove a strand of hair from his face. You close the book, putting it on the nightstand, and turn off the lights, ready to join your boyfriend in dreamland.

***

It becomes a habit. You reading out to Joel makes him fall asleep in no time and in the morning he’s well rested and overall in a better mood than usual. It’s incredible what a full night of rest can do to one’s mental health and you love seeing him energized and happier.

That is, until Blind Channel needs to go on tour again.

Joel was biting his nails, worried that he wouldn’t be able to sleep without your soothing voice reading the most diverse stories to him, and as much as you tried to reassure him that probably his circadian rhythm had adjusted by then and he’d be able to doze off just the same, or that he could still listen to audiobooks, he didn’t listen to reason; it was not about his sleep schedule, he could be exhausted and still find it impossible to sleep; it was not about having someone reading him a story, it was about you reading him a story.

After a while of searching for a solution, you agreed to join him on tour for the first week (when you’re not busy) and later join the band again for shorter periods of time as often as you can.

Now it’s the first day of tour; the first gig is over, it was awesome, the afterparty was just moderately alcoholic and now it’s silent, the bus already on the road to the next city.

It’s crowded in Joel’s bunk bed - you, him and your suitcases. The little light is on and you’re half sat up, half reclined, as much as the bunk allows; Joel’s head is on your chest as he’s listening to your quiet strings of words, telling him a story about a man beating up other men until he finds out he’s been beating up himself all along. Soon Joel is fast asleep.

***

“Dude, what the hell was going on last night?” Olli asks as soon as he leaves his bunk the morning after, walking to the front area of the bus where everyone else is hanging out. He’s rubbing the sleep away from his eyes, hair all messy.

“Yeah, someone was talking and talking. Had to go take a leak in the middle of the night and then I couldn’t go back to sleep,” Aleksi says.

“Do you happen to know anything about it?” Joonas is addressing you and Joel with a knowing smirk. You blush - you thought you were being quiet enough.

“I - she reads me to sleep. It helps. It’s all,” Joel is blushing even harder than you, toying with the ends of his hair.

“Yeah, sorry, we didn’t mean to disturb. Maybe we can sleep in the lounge area tonight?”

Niko and Aleksi are trying hard to keep from laughing, but just can’t resist any longer when they exchange a glance.

“Dude, when you told us your girlfriend was joining us on tour I thought I’d be woken up by another kind of sound, not this,” Joonas says and now everybody is laughing. Joel flips him off and curls up in his seat, knees to his chest and head on his knees.

“It helps me sleep! It’s not my fault I suffer from insomnia.”

“Have you tried jerking off like everybody else?” Aleksi asks.

“Fuck you too!”

The conversation just turns into playful teasing after that, ending up with Joel and Joonas playwrestling in the seats by the small table and the others cheering them on.

You and Joel sleep in the lounge area the following nights, keeping the little tradition going. And the day after you leave, at work, you receive a text from Niko during your lunch break:

we forgot how grumpy joel can be when he doesn’t sleep. please come back! we’ll pay you

You snort to yourself and then text Joel.

facetime tonight? <3

#my writing #blind channel rpf #blind channel imagines #blind channel fanfic #blind channel fanfiction #rpf #joel hokka x reader

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the-writing-moon · 2 months

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so i work in a well-known library, right, as a part-timer, and it's been great working with the books, they're real friendly and everything. but this is a very exclusive library, right, you have to send in an application and maybe get interviewed to get in because we're dealing with really old archival material here; i've had to dust crumbled paper off of desks and some of the spines of these hundreds-of-years-old books have been replaced with electric tape with their titles rewritten with wite-out from how much the spines have fallen out. i look up and see dead white men glaring down at me from murals and paintings and busts from the ceiling, probably aghast and wondering how a fucking little island girl is handing their precious books and poking at their dutch-painted glass windows with her grimy brown fingers. this is just set-dressing, so you really know where i'm coming from.

anyways, you know those memes that go around writing communities? doesn't matter if you write fics or manuscripts, we've all seen them, liked them, reblogged them.

"writing a slash fic instead of writing i've been googling what jewelry young german women wore in the 1700s"

"i'm pretty sure i'm on the fbi and interpol hitlists because of my search history"

"story prompt: overly helpful serial killer sweetheart x clueless crime fiction writer"

"when you don't know long division but you can talk about the taxation laws in victorian england because you needed to find out how taxes work to make your story believable"

they're memes that make you chuckle, guffaw, and nod because they're relatable! everyone hates the idea of being corrected by a random poindexter who can call you out on your bullshit on victorian tax laws, you uncultured fool, or who happens to know how blood sprays look if you shoot a person a certain way, you gormless coward, not because they were shooting the gun but they were part of the forensics team, pinky promise, i wasn't there on the 15th of november. and it's a bit absurd. like, who exactly knows - or cares - about victorian tax laws? does it really matter to write about reality in all its facets into fiction? majority of your readers probably aren't vampires or other extant immortals so does it really matter if you don't hold history up as accurately as possible in your 30k friends-to-enemies-to-lovers dark academia yuri slashfic? does historical accuracy matter when you're writing about samurais in the heian period in modern english with modern sensibilities? who would even know what stuff was really like back then? some things aren't googlable, and you can't always trust google anyways.

i don't know the answer to all these questions. but i know the answer to one.

so, back to the library.

one day, i'm shelving history books one after the other, listening to an audiobook from a public library using a library card of which i faked my address for me to use. reparations. and way more ethical than piracy in my eyes. support authors, patronize libraries, and all that. when i shelve books, i like to wonder about who reads them and why. what research they're doing. what they're doing here. whether they know how lucky they are. i envy this library where i work. i envy the people who live in this town. i envy the readers. they have all of this because someone recognized the value of hoarding, the value of taking and tabulating and preserving. one could argue it's the colonial way. but enough of that, i'm shelving books, books that i sometimes wonder at, because i never could have imagined so many books on so many topics, and sometimes they are topics that are so trivial and-

and i'm holding, in my hands, a book about the jewelry young german women wore in the 1700s.

being in a university town, you come to understand that academics have their pet projects; the drive to understand the minutiae of their field, of humanity, of nature. think of a topic and there's probably a dissertation for that. you also understand there is a lot of publishing politics, that researchers' papers are paywalled behind exorbitant fees for which they receive no royalties from. you also understand that academia can also be elitist, even when the people inside it call for open access.

to other people, i'm sure i sound incoherent and raving. but i'm sure that there are people out there who understood why i took several moments staring at this book, recalling all those fucking memes about historical accuracy, of people joking that they're looking for things even the internet has no answer for. because the answers do exist. someone's written about them. someone took the time to look at and tabulate and write about german jewelry. someone else, tax laws. some other person, blood sprays, either through study or applied experimentation. the knowledge is out there. they just aren't available to you.

#writeblr #writing community #writers of tumblr #essay #personal essay #thought this was going to be a funny haha post #but you kno what #sure #i love writing essays on tumblr actually because i get to be as batshit and descriptive as i want here #anD EVEN IF THERE WAS AN ONLINE COPY OF THE BOOK #COULD YOU ACCESS IT FOR FREE? SAFELY? ON DEMAND?#booklr #open access

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themysciraprincess · 3 months

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Misc. Tag Game~ (thanks a lot for the tag, Emily @1waveshortofashipwreck!♡) started by @ronald-speirs

Favorite place in the world you’ve visited? - Well, I think my favorite has to be Australia. I was there for ANZAC day last year and the sights really took my breath away.

Something you’re proud of yourself for? - I'm quite proud of my determination and ability to be analytical. It's a really handy skill to have in my academics and in daily life. I just love analysis a lot, helps me feel more connected with the world as a whole.

Favorite books? - In no particular order, here are some books that have left an incredibly lasting impression on me:

The Things they Carried by Tim O'brien - (blurb taken from the internet) '[...] tells the story of the men of Alpha Company, a squad of soldiers in the Vietnam War. O'Brien cuts through the veil of romanticized war to show these men as heroic, flawed, loyal, afraid, and above all - human.' -> This book is nothing short of a masterpiece in my opinion.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt -(blurb taken from the internet) 'Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love - and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.' -> Has a forever special place in my heart :)

Behind the Secret Window by Nelly S. Toll - (blurb taken from the internet) The autobiographical account of an eight-year-old Jewish girl as she hides from the Nazis in a small bedroom in Lwo+a7w, Poland, in 1943 contains twenty-nine examples of her many paintings during that period. -> I picked this up randomly because I liked the illustration on the cover...made me really emotional as I finished it

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy - (blurb taken from the internet) Anna Karenina is a novel of unparalleled richness and complexity, set against the backdrop of Russian high society. Tolstoy charts the course of the doomed love affair between Anna, a beautiful married woman, and Count Vronsky, a wealthy army officer who pursues Anna after becoming infatuated with her at a ball. -> About over a year ago I listened to the audiobook during my bouts of insomnia and found that I quite enjoyed it

Something that makes your heart happy when thinking about it? - My very niche interests and dreams hehehe. A lot of it is historical related, of course. I love historical and vintage architecture and fashion, etc. My dream since middle school was to be a historian.

Favorite thing about your culture? - Hmm...perhaps the values of being fair and hardworking!

When did you join the HBO War fandom? What was the first show you watched? - Pretty late last year, hahaha. My teacher did once show a clip of Band of Brothers in class once and it left quite an impression. Recently I started watching The Pacific. I've only had Eugene Sledge for five minutes but if anything happened to him I'll kill everyone in this room and then myself

Have you read any of Easy Company’s books? If so, which ones were your favorite? - I'm reading Ambrose's book at the moment. I intend to get my hands on a copy of each of the others, too...especially Speirs'. @ronsparky 's posts really interested me

Favorite HBO War character and your favorite moment with them? - Eugene Roe and Shifty Powers my beloveds :( My favorite moment is perhaps when Doc Roe receives the chocolate from Renée for the first time and he smiles..I think my heart melted then and there. As for Shifty, it was when he spoke to Winters in the last episode. Again, I'm weak for that boy :( ♡

Do you make content for any fandoms, if so; what sort of content? - I mostly make content for Band of Brothers but I intend to branch out now that I'm getting pretty into The Pacific...I post some stuff from comic books I like from time to time on my instagram (mostly art).

Favorite actor/actress and your favorite film of theirs? - I love Emma Stone and Audrey Hepburn!! I find them to be really witty and charming. They're quite my role models hehe (esp. Emma). I'd say for Emma Stone I'd prefer Easy A, and Roman Holiday for Audrey.

Favorite quote/s that you wish to share with others? - "Life shrinks and expands in proportion to one's courage" by Anais Nin is something I like to live by

Random fact your mutuals/followers don’t know about you? - I can't swim, guys

If you’re a writer, do you need a beta reader? - Most of the time I just write and then call it done. No beta, we die like men

Three things that make you smile? - 1. Sunlight 2. french windows 3. sunlight pouring in through french windows (all of which remind me of my younger years sighh) bonus: Christmas!

Any nicknames you like? - I like being called by my name usually but I particularly enjoy it when people call my by my last name, especially when followed by a 'Miss' . Something about it makes me want to chuckle in amusement

List some people you love to see around on tumblr! - All my moots and the entirety of the hbowar fandom, to be honest! Historical blogs, too! bonus: @pilferingapples @just-aloststar @myrthena @rknchan @foolsocracy @macau1ay are some personal favorites that I always enjoy seeing

What would you do during a zombie apocalypse? - I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try to survive which can be possible if you can be pragmatic and smart enough about it. I'd try to explore how far I can go, maybe try to enjoy a few lawless days or months, help out when I can.

Favorite movie? - Roman Holiday (1953). I watched it a long time ago, but it still has a special place in my heart. aaand Sleeping Beauty (1959).

Do you like horror movies? - I'm always a sucker for good horror movies

Again, thanks so much for the tag Emily! 🥰 No pressure tagging: @montied @roeinyourheart @vanellq77 @executethyself35 @star-trek-supernatural and anyone who'd like to give it a go

#this turned out lengthier than anticipated haha oops #ask game #vasilisa speaks #emily🌸

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blysse-and-blunder · 8 months

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In lieu of a week in the woods

sunday, august 27, 2023 ~ 11:30pm

just got back from 6+ days off the grid, swimming, drinking tea, porch sittin’, and generally revisiting old stomping grounds. somehow it still wasn’t long enough.

(you can add a read more on mobile now??!!)

Reading picked out some specific weird old trade paperbacks to read at the cottage, and successfully finished one: margaret atwood’s lady oracle. one of those books where I will be thinking about it forever, but not necessarily because I enjoyed it? good prose moments, good turns of phrase or moments of clear perception, but i found the main character sort of perplexing—the bits of old Toronto, vintage mid century canadian childhood and adolescence, were probably what will stick with me. That and the way that I think it was trying to get psychonanalytic but, in classic 80s feminist fiction style, it didn’t make a ton of sense. also the fatphobia? like, experimenting with the pov of someone with intense body dysmorphia / weight shaming / internalized fatphobia felt unempathetic? like i was supposed to be impressed or titillated or surprised by this choice, that the book would even consider having a main character who was fat. period typical, sure, part of the mid century setting, sure, but also like. gratuitous.

also finished italo calvino’s the baron in the trees, and a.k. larkwood’s the unspoken name, and started the audiobook for the long way to a small angry planet. Also began my harrow the ninth reread, and wow this book is good. and even more so when you can follow what’s happening.

listening only the fact that I did spend so long literally in the woods has prevented me from having in-depth thoughts and feelings about hozier’s unreal earth. more to come as I sit with it longer, but so far—strong positive feelings. some new ground, some old ground, and some things that bridge the two nicely. worth listening to with headphones or however you can pick up all the layers in the mix. I really like ‘Icarian carrion’ on this listen.

watching watched a couple of episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds this evening, since being back— ‘lost in translation,’ and the lower decks cross-over. loved seeing boimler and mariner in the flesh, and the different gags they fit into that one, despite the fact that one of the things I’ve liked most about this season has been the show gradually giving time to some of the more philosophical questions trek can explore—but lower decks does that too, sometimes better, and these two episodes back to back fit pretty well.

playing it was a very boardgame forward week at the cottage— clue, PARKS, and a new one for me, shadows over Camelot. not an uncomplicated setup, but some of the tie-ins to actual arthurian themes (the grail quest keeps pulling players in but it will grind them up and spit them out! the next generation are the ones who survive!) caught and held my enjoyment when the different mechanics threatened to lose it. I also tuned in to d&d remotely for a bit, though my connection was bad, and my rig was rated ‘haunted’ by the other players. they could hear crickets over the voice chat 😌🌲

making sewed a new patch onto my jacket and moved another two—picture to follow. didn’t do any of the mending I brought, but have had thoughts about what makes sense and what I might buy to supplement the projects. new fabric store on my commute deserves a visit, methinks.

working on truly the answer here is ‘not overthinking or delaying out of perfectionism’. which I have already done. finished all but the last eng 385 essay feedback, finished proofing for joe and responding to the department’s newsletter person for the piece she’s writing; still have to finish this letter of recommendation and these two (2!?) chapter drafts. the point is to be able to write a final sentence and just. let them go. learn how to not stop shy of finishing something. learn how to bring something (anything) to a state of some kind of completion. sure, right. sure.

if you need me, I’ll be back in the woods.

#in lieu of a commonplace book #weekly roundup #ilcb

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ariel-seagull-wings · 11 months

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BOOK REVIEW:

GHOSTBUSTER' S DAUGHTER - LIFE WITH MY DAD HAROLD RAMIS (VIOLET RAMIS STIEL)

@amalthea9 @professorlehnsherr-almashy @angelixgutz @the-blue-fairie @princesssarisa @themousefromfantasyland @scarletblumburtonofeastlondon @thealmightyemprex @bixiebeet

I got curious about this book for a while after seeing posts of pages, pictures and quotes from it here on Tumblr.

I finally got to listen the audiobook, in a site that provided it for free that downloaded it from Audible.

The story of how the conception of this book happened is interesting: the author, Violet Ramis Stiel, initially tought of writing a collaborative book about parenting with her father, Harold, when he was still alive and she had just become the parent of two children.

They intended it to be a project where they would compare and contrast their perspectives on parenthood and share those perspectives with the public.

Sadly, Harold Ramis got ill and passed away in 2014, before getting a chance to write a paragraph of the provisionally titled We're All Gonna Die, Now Go To Sleep.

During the period of mourning, while corresponding with friends and fans of her father's work online, Violet mentioned the idea of the book about parenting.

And people encouraged her to write the book, even tough her father passed away and it did turn into something different than originally intended.

So, this book, published in 2018, was the result. After sharing a letter she wrote right after Harold's passing as a way to proccess her grief and briefly introducing her father's birth date and place and who his parents were, she goes to what she calls her beggining, telling about the peculiar romance and eventual marriage of her parents, Harold and Anne Plotkin, in 1967, soon after they graduated college, and his change of jobs from psychiatric hospital caregiver, to farmer for a week, to taxi driver, to freelance journalist, before his joining of the Second City and National Lampoon Radio Hour troupes, where he really discovered his vocation for audiovisual arts and comedy while his wife developed her talent for painting.

In 1977, Harold and Anne decide to have a baby, with Anne specially seeing this as an adventure to go with the flow, and in that same year, Violet was conceived and born, and because Anne had a complicated childhood and also suffered from post partum depression in a time that it wasn't really understood, Harold became Violet's primary parent, feeding her, bathing her, nursing her when she got sick, and joining her in her naps.

Besides this inversion of roles, other aspects that made the family unconventional was that they were very open in talking to little Violet about things like sex and drugs (wich both members of the couple consumed alongside their friends from artistic circles), traveled a lot, and had a deal where each one could have relationships with other people, as long as the other returned home.

From 1978 forward, after his work on television in the first two seasons of SCTV, we get information about Harold Ramis slowly getting experience in filmaking, enjoying the success of Animal House, wich he wrote with Doug Kenney, despite the fact that he got frustrated when John Landis acted controling as a director and didn't cast him in one of the roles, the complicated production of his directorial debute, Caddyshack, to later have a more narratively consistent success with National Lampoon's Vacation, writing and acting in an important role in Stripes and writing and acting in his most famous work, Ghostbusters.

After this period of slowly getting success in the movie industry, there comes the production of his next film as a director, Club Paradise, which os overall fun backstage (him once getting arrested by the Jamaican Police for posession of marijuana not withstanding), is not a box ofice hit.

It was around this time that Harold had an affair with director Amy Heckerling, when both were still married to their respective spouses, which got her pregnant with his second child, Molly, and for a variety of reasons, he regretfully distanced himself from that child until years later, when a DNA test revealed that she wasn't biologically related to her mother's then husband, and eventually she decided to contact Harold, becoming close to him and, specially, Violet.

This complicated development is told divided in three chapters.

By the late 1980s, Harold works in the more luke warm received Ghostbusters II, divorces from Anne, falls in love with production assistant Erica Mann and eventually proposes and gets married to her.

Violet's custody is shared between Harold and Anne, which is a challenge because each household has a different aproach in raising her: whereas Anne keeps being free spirited and letting her loose, at Harold and Erica's house there are more extricted rules, to which Violet reacts by becoming more gloomy and rebelious. To add more complications, she is bullied at school, and her mother starts to date a man who turns out to be a pedophile and sexually abuses Violet, who, despite constantly blaming herself in her mind, eventually gets the courage to denounce him to her parents, with her father acting specially protective and suportive.

The 1990s start, and in paralell to Harold's success as a director with the acclaim of Groundhog Day, his personal life still gets in turmoil, with his backstage fight with Bill Murray, Violet still acting in a rebellious and gloomy way that even involves a fascination with the gangster life style, and a night where he and his two young songs get hold at gunpoint by two robbers at their home in Los Angeles.

At 16, Violet gets pregnant for the first time, and after repressing herself in secrecy, she shares her plight with her family, who support her when she decides to get an abortion.

Is after this moment that her unstable fase starts to go away, and she starts to open herself to dialogue and retakes a loving relationship with her family.

The later half of the 1990s come, and Violet graduate in college with honors, while Harold presents another directorial critical and comercial success with Analize This. Her father comes clean to her about having another child that he was distant from during a trip they make together.

Come the 2000s, and with it, a lukearm reception to Harold's remake of Beddazled, the family proccessing the trauma of 09/11/2001, Violet figuring out her career ambitions until deciding to become a Social Worker, and having two kids of her own.

Harold continues to work, with his movie The Ice Harvest receiving mixed reactions, while as an actor, he is complimented for his performances in Orange County and Knocked Up.

Violet parts ways with the father of her first two children and eventually finds a new love who becomes her now husband.

Harold works in Year One, the biblical satire that he hopes to be his next important movie. Unfortunally, lack of rewritings due a writers strike coinciding with the production and the studio changing the movie's rating rom R to PG 13 harm the quality of the movie, and when it comes out, is a financial and critical failure.

Harold has to deal with a period of depression, from which he slowly comes out with the help of his friends and family.

Until it returns, heavier, alternating with glimpses of calm and hope, when he suffers an infection that slowly turns into the brain disease that would take away his strength to walk, his ability to hear and talk, and kill him.

We follow the narration of his agonizing, the grief of his family, and end with a full circle, as Violet returns to the memory of the conception of the book, and writes a new leather to her father in the afterlife.

I already enjoy biographies, calling them "a more (at least appearance wise) respectfull gossip magazine".

And yes, there are elements that feel like reading a gossip, while other times it feels like a book of funny anedoctes, a novel, a film history book, a series of philosophical diaries, and the guide to parenting that it was originally imagined to be.

I was surprised and chocked at some moments, laughed at others, and specially was in the verge of tears as the book was coming to an end, knowing that it was based in real life and so we were coming to Violet's loss of her father, but still wishing for a happy ending, like watching a tragic play where you know the ending will be sad, but still hopes that the characters will end happily ever after.

Trough this sharing of their life together, the story of Violet and her father Harold explores a lot of themes: artistic and sociopolitical influences, the art of filmaking, fame, consumerism, gender roles, family dinamics, friendship, faith and spirituality, grief and trauma and the eventual peace we can slowly find when focusing on the good moments we had with our loved ones when they were alive, rather than just on the fact that they are phisically gone.

I'm glad that she decided to share that complex, but not complicated story, and I got to listen to it, and be touched by it.

Highly recomend it, specially for people who are enthusiasts about film history.

#violet ramis stiel #harold ramis #ghostbuster's daughter #book review #tw abuse mention

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inkofamethyst · 8 months

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September 6, 2023

Actual goals for this school year:

Stay within my monthly budgets (I'll give september a pass if needed)

Take a programming course (in R or Python probably)

Go to fitness classes both to stay fit and to meet people

Maintain connections with interesting people (pretend to be the fearless extrovert)

Try at least one new recipe each month (again, september gets a pass)

Decorate my room

Go to symposia and talks in various departments; bask in the intellectual community

Read for fun or listen to audiobooks on occasion

No studying while eating (exceptions include: exam in 48 hours or less, expected reading due in 24 hours or less)

These are more like "additional" goals, I guess, since I would indeed like to become hotter, weirder, richer, more terrifying, and more unpredictable. I know I should become richer and I'm always on the trajectory to become weirder, but I may have to put work into the other three.

A wise man on tiktok once said "not every day can be a slay" and you know what? He was right. Sometimes it's totally worth having a chill day where you just don't put massive amounts of thought into your life. Yes, romanticizing the little moments feels good. But if it requires more mental energy than I can reasonably give that day, then it's not worth it. Same goes for outfits and meals and all sorts, really. It's actually something I've been putting into practice long before I'd heard it put into those words. Granted, a day of "non-slay" might look different for everyone. But it doesn't mean that I'm a failure for deciding to wear leggings or sweatpants on a day when I really just can't be arsed.

When I was talking to that random dude the day before school started, I told him that this school year felt different. He asked why and I had to say that I couldn't really put my finger on it. That was a lie. I just didn't want to make our lighthearted conversation into a therapy session. In fact, I could place not just a finger, but all of my fingers and some of my toes on it. 1. far away from home for an extended period 2. the whole thing with ~~~elite~~~ education (not imposter syndrome, more like the internal and personal discomfort of contributing to a system of hierarchies (the same way that race is a human construct that isn't really real but the effects of racism are real? academic elitism is socially constructed but has real effects (and you know ultimately this may not matter because the academic job market sucks and I may not be offered find a position (that I like bc why not be picky) in the first place lol))) 3. feeling very young 4. feeling ungrounded because, unlike the rest of my cohort, I came up here a week before school started and moved in merely days prior, so I wasn't nearly as grounded in my space as I would liked to have been. There's probably some other things that I just can't conjure up right now.

Full disclosure, most of the above comes from before school started. I'm not swamped with work, not exactly, but I certainly haven't had much time to devote to journaling (tbh this is exactly the time that I should be journaling). I don't really know where all of my hours are going (and maybe it's just the school adjustment period, it is only the second day, after all). I'll do a full recap sometime later. Ultimately: I'm doing okay.

Today I'm thankful that I'm doing okay.

Last thing: considering auditioning for/joining a choir. It's mostly undergrads, though they take grad students. It seems like a dope program. But there's a musical theatre one (also mostly undergrads lol) that also seems cool. It's been a long while since I've done MT. I do miss it, I think. But doing MT covers doesn't make me feel nearly as powerful as singing as part of a symphony :/ I could always go for the real choir some other year if I really wanted. I'll be here for six or so. I've got time.

I mean I've always wanted to do a musical theatre duet.

This could also just be pre-audition nerves ha.

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sylvasa · 22 days

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Tag game

Tagged by @dangerliesbeforeyou to list five things I can talk about for an hour without preparing. Thank you for the tag!

1. Ateez.

I only discovered them last year, when Bouncy came out (June 16th, a day after Yeosang's birthday). I was still in the middle of recovery, and wasn't able to game much yet. So I was lying in bed or on the couch all day, scrolling through various social media apps, amongst which tiktok. And when I did find them, I fell hard. I watched any content I could find on them for the past 5 years, bought so much merchandise, made my husband like them too.. up to the point where we got up early last Saturday to watch their coachella performance live through YouTube. My husband was even unable to sleep, scared I wouldn't wake up form the alarm and miss it. What a saint.

2. Doctor Who

I've only ever really seen new who. My all time favourite doctor is 10, but I really love all of them. I even have a huge airbrushed artwork done of the 50th anniversary episode, my favourite episode ever. Also arranged by my husband as a gift, commissioned from his friend and their airbrush teacher helped too! Okay my husband is great at supporting my obsessions. Did I tell you that I'm meeting David Tennant this summer!? We got tickets to comic con, including meeting and getting pictures with him! Just two more months to go!

3. Stormlight Archive

I've read this several times. First I read it by myself, then I read them out loud to my husband who is really into the series as well. Then, while I was recovering and couldn't properly use my eyes so I couldn't read, we listened to them on audiobook. I love everything about the world. I can probably rant for over an hour about my favourite character alone, honestly. If you like reading, read the stormlight archive series!

4. Elden Ring

This was the first souls game I ever played. My husband loves the dark souls series and I watched him play it a lot, but I never though I'd be able to because I can have a bit of a temper when things don't go my way while gaming. So he'd gotten the game for himself and when I watched him play, I was really amazed by everything about it. So before he finished (he doesn't game nearly as often as I do), I started the game instead. Then I cleared it before he did, and 4 more times after that, before helping him clear his run. After that I started to really like souls games, and I'm actually pretty good too!

5. World of Warcraft

I started playing WoW since 3 days after its European release on February 11th 2005. I have had periods where I didn't play much, but since a few years I'm back to raiding with some friends and I love it! I also push mythic keys, and of course have AotC every patch since then. New patch coming next week!

There are probably more, but these are my biggest obsessions, especially Ateez currently.

I am really bad at tagging so if you see this and want to do it, please do!

#tag game #ateez #doctor who #stormlight archive #world of warcraft #elden ring

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