#once to read and once to annotate

[sillimancer]

I ran into a bug w/ Libby a few weeks ago where the highlighters break if you try to highlight two separate passages in the same paragraph with two different colors, which only affected one book on my shelf for some reason and after days of emailing back and forth with tech support we decided it was just something weird going on with that particular book

fast forward now, I have replicated the bug on a second book 🙃 very annoying

[marivanilla05]

In the middle of exams so here are just some higher quality versions of my last sketches!

(There will be no context for Menelaus dressed as a seal and Helen doing drugs. If you know, you know.)

[thatswhatsushesaid]

jin guangyao’s tremendous capacity for both cruelty and compassion is core to his character. trying to insist that he is one to the exclusion of the other (and let’s be real: it is normally the former rather than the latter) does a disservice both to mxtx for writing him that way, and also to jin guangyao's role in the story.

[thatscarletflycatcher]

I was probably going to mention this on that post I wrote about the social dance episodes of The Nanny and Frasier, but going to dance classes has given me so many interesting insights, and one of them is the lie --we may call it imprecision, if we want to be precise :P-- that in order to dance well you need to relax.

Because that's not really it. Even from the most basic technical standpoint, dancing depends hugely on things like balance and precision, which you cannot really produce if you are relaxed, really.

What they mean by relaxation is actually that you need to un-stiffen in order to acquire elasticity. And elasticity in action is a form of tension, just not the kind of tension where all the movement stems from you as a motor, and you have a vice grip on. This becomes even more complicated if it is a couples dance, because the tension involved in leading is different from the one involved in following.

In any case I've been thinking about this a lot in the context of my thesis writing. I've always been a very tight, concise academic writer. I'm very used by method to only start when I have a clear scheme in mind not only of the general structure of what I'm writing, but of each part too. That's my only way of reaching flow in writing --I'm writing one section but my mind is already in the next section and is bringing them both to a neat connection. This my advisor with great kindness and elegance calls the metaphysical drive, but tbh with all of you, it's just being a stiff, white knucked gripping writer. And that's just not a viable way of writing something of the length and complexity of even an honors thesis.

(Amusingly, I did write 8 pages of introduction back in December, which advisor called excellent ,in a matter of a few days, which probably gave him the absolutely wrong impression about my normal writing speed. Hence his comments about me sending him 6 more pages whenever I have them, no matter how unpolished. He probably thinks I spend a lot of time polishing before I send. No, siree, my brain just doesn't conceptualize the first draft. I WILL stare at the page for 5 minutes then write two lines. Repeat ad infinitum. Yes, I'm working 15-60 minutes a day on my thesis. That does NOT translate to the reasonable number of words you'd expect from that time.)

So what I'm really musing and grasping after is... what is the writing equivalent to the elastic tension of dancing? Because ultimately when people advice me to "enjoy the process" and to "loosen up", they don't mean that I'll achieve flow when I relax (though they might think that that's what they mean), but when I finally acquire elasticity. The problem is that, in dancing, you have a dance teacher that models the elastic tension of dancing for you, that can even physically demonstrate and show you with actual touch what it means. I don't think there's such a thing for writing, not in any sense that is comparable. I guess part of the process of thesis directing is creating the sort of feedback loop of writing that gives you a mind opposite the way dancing gives you a body opposite, but of course the process is much less intuitive. A thesis director can correct your style, can also give you pointers as to how to cross some rivers and fill some potholes, but they cannot really model for you the skill of writing as a process.

[hayconrisa]

NEW BOX SET ACQUIRED we are so fucking back !!!!! thank you ebay

all of our box sets all lined up..... happy family,💚

[etherealhoneypie]

i want a little bag to carry my book and then have a separate pouch to carry all my sticky notes and tabs and pens. i’ve been searching the internet and just can’t find one i like.

[aq2003]

ok the illness is getting to me

[plusultraetc]

Actually for real this time!! I’m going to be reading the manga starting with volume 1 (bc what better time to start than the week it ended lol). Would anyone be interested in doing some kind of book club/buddy read? Either way I’ll be using liza reads mha as the tag for reactions etc on this blog, bc I can’t NOT blab. There’s like a legal requirement about it.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Daisy Chaining; Or, Connecting the TBR!

Does anybody besides me like to find Connections between Seemingly/Largely Unrelated Books and use those connections to plot a route through the old TBR?? I don't know about you, but I have a LOT of books I want to read, and sometimes I get Whelmed™ by my choices. So I'll either pick a small stack and make that a particular month's micro-TBR (good if I have specific Goals!), OR I'll start with something I really want to read, and I'll daisy chain from there.

For example: I'd been waiting for TRANSLATION STATE to release in paperback since the hardback was announced (because Translators, my beloveds). So I annihilated that in a couple days (it was very good, all right??), and then I had to figure out where to go next despite cruising on the Translators High.

Because the Translators' fucked up body horror (which I mean mostly affectionately, but I'm side eyeing the matching pretty hard) was at times....goopy...I thought a book about a shapeshifter whose default form is an amorphous lump would be good next, which got me to SOMEONE YOU CAN BUILD A NEST IN (which I also enjoyed!! shout-out to @asexualbookbird for gifting it to meee!!).

Since NEST is Monsters in a Fantasy Forest with a side of Politics and Power, my next read is THE BUTCHER OF THE FOREST (because it's also...wait for it...Monsters in a Fantasy Forest with a side of Politics and Power). And after that, I'll come OUT of the forest with AT THE EDGE OF THE WOODS, which promises to be weird and vaguely monstrous but with a literary bent (I put it on one of my writing TBR lists, and my general "read this by the end of 2024" list).

So, yeah! That's how you daisy chain to get from SF to fantasy/horror to fantasy to weird Lit Fic in the span of four (4) books, while maintaining something like a continuity. By the end of the year, my Books Read shelf looks a little chaotic, but there generally really is a rhyme AND a reason about it!

(Please click on the photo for better image quality! I edited it weirdly compared to usual and it looks good on my screen but ah. Less So, in tungledlandia.,.,)

[the-worms-in-your-bones]

Read the book I’m currently on: boring, predictable, why would I be doing this

Reread vampire science: a great choice, new, innovative, no one (everyone) could have seen this coming

[acourtofquestions]

"You'll come back," Manon said.

It sounded like more of a threat than anything

Dorian smirked. "Would you miss me if I didn't?"

Manon didn't reply. He didn't know why he expected her to.

He'd taken all of a step, when Asterin clasped his shoulder. "In and out, quick as you can," she warned him. "Take care of Narene." Worry indeed shone in the Second's gold-flecked black eyes. Dorian bowed his head. "With my life," he promised as he approached her mount and grasped the dangling reins. He didn't fail to miss the gratitude that softened Asterin's features. Or that Manon had already turned away from him.

A fool to start down this path with her. He should have known better.

The hours that passed were some of the longest of Manon's existence.

From anticipation, she told herself. Of what she had to do.

Abraxos, unsurprisingly, found them within an hour, his reins sliced from the struggle he'd no doubt waged and won with Sorrel. He waited, however, beside Manon in silence, wholly focused upon the gate where Dorian and Narene had vanished.

Time dripped by. The king's sword was constant weight at her side. She cursed herself for needing to prove-to him, to herself-that she refused to let him go into Morath for practical, ordinary reasons. Erawan wasn't at the Ferian Gap. It'd be safer. Somewhat. But if the Matrons were there … That was why he'd gone. To learn if they were. To see if Petrah truly commanded the host there, and how many Ironteeth were present. He had not been trained as a spy, but he'd grown up in a court where people wielded smiles and clothes like weapons. He knew how to blend in, how to listen. How to make people see what they wished to see. She'd sent Elide into the dungeons of Morath, Darkness damn her. Sending the King of Adarlan into the Ferian Gap was no different.

It didn't stop her breath from escaping when Abraxos stiffened, scanning the sky. As if he heard something they couldn't.

And it was the joy that sparked in her mount's eyes that told her.

Moments later, Narene sailed toward them, making a lazy path over the mountains, a dark-haired, pale-skinned rider atop her. He'd truly been able to change parts of himself. Had made his face nearly unrecognizable. And kept it that way.

Asterin rushed toward the mare, and even Manon blinked as her Second threw her arms around Narene's neck. Holding her tight. The mare only leaned her head against Asterin's back and huffed.

Manon hadn't dwelled long on what she'd say.

And as the three hundred Ironteeth witches filed into the hall, some coming off their patrols, Manon half wondered if she should have. They watched her, watched the Thirteen, with a wary disdain.

Their disgraced Wing Leader; their fallen Heir.

When all were gathered, Petrah, still standing in the doorway where she'd appeared, merely said, "My life debt for an audience, Blackbeak."

Manon swallowed, her tongue as dry as paper. Seated atop Abraxos, she could see every shifting movement in the crowd, the wide eyes or hands gripping swords.

"I will not tell you the particulars of who I am," Manon said at last. "For I think you have already heard them."

"Crochan bitch," someone spat.

Manon set her eyes on the Blackbeaks, stone-faced where the others bristled with hatred. It was for them she spoke, for them she had come here.

jacket, then hoisting up her white shirt. Rising in the stirrups to bare her scarred, brutalized abdomen. "She does not lie."

UNCLEAN

There, the word remained stamped. Would always be stamped.

"How many of you," Asterin called out, "have been similarly branded? By your Matron, by your coven leader? How many of you have had your stillborn witchlings burned before you might hold them?"

The silence that fell now was different from before. Shaking shuddering.

Manon glanced at the Thirteen to find tears in Ghislaine's eyes as she took in the brand on Asterin's womb. Tears in the eyes of all of them, who had not known. And it was for those tears, which Manon had never seen, that she faced the host again.

"You will be killed in this war, or after it. And you will never see our homeland again."

"What is it that you want, Blackbeak?" Petrah asked from the archway.

"Ride with us," Manon breathed. "Fly with us.

Against Morath. Against the people who would keep you from your homeland, your future." Murmuring broke out again. Manon pushed ahead, "An Ironteeth-Crochan alliance. Perhaps one to break our curse at last."

Again, that shuddering silence. Like a storm about to break Asterin sat back in the saddle, but kept her shirt open.

"The choice of how our people's future shall be shaped is yours," Manon told each of the witches assembled, all the Blackbeaks who might fly to war and never return. "But I will tell you this." Her hands shook, and she fisted them on her thighs. "There is a better world out there. And I have seen it."

Even the Thirteen looked toward her now.

"I have seen witch and human and Fae dwell together in peace. And it is not weakness to do so, but a strength. I have met kings and queens whose love for their kingdoms, their peoples, is so great that the self is secondary. Whose love for their people is so strong that even in the face of unthinkable odds, they do the impossible."

Manon lifted her chin. "You are my people. Whether my grandmother decrees it so or not, you are my people, and always will be. But I will fly against you, if need be, to ensure that there is a future for those who cannot fight for it themselves. Too long have we preyed on the weak, relished doing so. It is time that we became better than our foremothers." The words she had given the Thirteen months ago. "There is a better world out there," she said again. "And I will fight for it." She turned Abraxos away, toward the plunge behind them. "Will you?"

Manon nodded to Petrah. Eyes bright, the Heir only nodded back. They would be permitted to leave as they had arrived: unharmed.

So Manon nudged Abraxos, and he leaped into the sky, the Thirteen following suit.

Not a child of war. But of peace.

[puppydog-princess]

oooooooo i fucked up i should have gone to bed but i just got sucked up reading my book

[catastrxblues]

so glad i decided to go to my school library when i started feeling sick during class this morning because otherwise i would never have found a rare copy of a room of one’s own by virginia woolf and borrowed it and have it at home with me right now ready to be continued oh my god

[gr8ntaire]

It took me just under a month but I finally finished a book. As always it can still be done thank fuck for that

[sorryimananti-romantic]

im so unserious hahaha (why do the quality look like wet cardboard i fr need a new phone 😞)

according to the info given so far, Rui is supposed to be like a tough, independent girl yk? this is only page 40 and its so obv 😭 (unless 👀)

annotating on paper <<<<< annotating on pdf

Darker by Four - June CL Tan

my phone looks like a wet cardboard these days /i/ need a new phone-

okay look even the strongest soldiers quake in their boots at times like these lmao the ouh em gee is taking me out

also excuse me annotating on paper will always be superior

is this book good should i read

[erinsstillreading]

⋆⁺₊⋆ ˘◡˘ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

☾ who: erin, 27, newlywed :')

♡ hobbies: reading, annotating, journaling, lit crit, martial arts

✰ authors that inspire me to be better: rf kuang, ml wang

✦ movies that made me cry (i never cry): everything everywhere all at once, onward, inside out 2

❀ random facts: i memorize every line to the movie Holes, i live with lupus, my friends and i flew to california to see yoongi in concert