Ashley > Recent Status Updates

Me? Procrastinating on schoolwork? It's more likely than you think.

six (6) weeks left in the semester yeehaw!!!

The pulpy sci fi novel is all fun and games until there's a brutal depiction of cannibalism in it!! Forget whispering softly, here's for me shouting WHAT THE FUCK really loudly!! I was all set to enthusiastically recommend this to other people, but now I don't think I will. Been a long time since I read something that made me feel that genuinely queasy, ugh.

So, turns out the Gold Rush was really terrible for women and POC. Kinda mad nobody taught me about any of this in K-12 education but that's just institutional oppression at work I guess! :/

Under better circumstances, I might be pretty interested in the environmental impact of the California Gold Rush, but as it stands, I am very tired of doing my class readings and mostly want to take a nap. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

tfw people on your tumblr dash and in the discord chat keep singing a particular author's praises so you give into the peer pressure and start reading their work to find out what all the fuss is about lmao. that said, this has been super enjoyable so far. fun and breezy. perfect for audiobook material. it's exciting but also easy to remember what was going on when i return to it.

Alexander Freed has an article on his personal blog about pieces of media that influenced him when writing for SWTOR. And since I'm buzzing w/impatience waiting for abc squad 2, I thought I'd look into his recs. Reading this book, so much about Freed's work makes more sense. Banks employs lots of beautiful prose contrasted w/brutal imagery. "War is hell" themes. Great worldbuilding. Really digging it so far.

This is a very serious book, but all the nature similes (an army is like a fire - it will be put out or burn out on its own; one's strategy should be shapeless like water; etc) keep making me think of the "I'll Make a Man Out of You" song from Mulan. "We must be swift as the coursing river/With all the force of a great typhoon/With all the strength of a raging fire/Mysterious as the dark side of the moon."

Side effect of reading so much military sci fi lately is now I wanna read some military strategy? And this has been sitting in my to-be-read pile for a while, so why not? The preface with the rundown of ancient Chinese history was pretty interesting! The paradox of a book titled The Art of War aggressively arguing that war is a great ill and should be avoided whenever possible has captured my attention.

-rip d6, too good, too pure for this world
-wyl called nath his FRIEND!
-kairos wiping the floor with chass in sabacc is wonderful
-wyl and chass dancing alone! then together! then kairos and chass dancing together! :D
-dunno if i'm friendship-shipping chass and wyl, or like, ship-shipping them, but oh boy do i have very strong feelings everytime they interact
-that ending!!! :O
-i'm sad the book is over ):

-kairos pov :D
-"Be the bastard they all say you are." p329 hi nath you're murdering my emotions (cute how he said he wasn't interested in vengeance AND YET)
-oh no yrica having flashbacks to nacronis?? ;m;
-ilu chass but please chill w/the martyrdom + glory deathwish
-wyl screaming as he hurtles toward a swarm of ties to try and start a 1 on 7 dogfight is #iconic. precious baby boy has a battle cry i'm proud