emily > Recent Status Updates

"The standard of general courtesy and intelligence of the officials, and of the average passer-by, was as much above what I remembered as the standard in Boston used to be above that of New York." lolololol hilarious to hear boston described as a courteous city

(however, they've apparently made gypsy moths extinct, and given the absolute horror i have of them, i'm back on board)

killing all apex predators in order to make the world safe for humans doesn't quite fit my definition of a utopia but go off i guess

"We used to think that people hated work—nothing of the sort! What people hated was too much work, which is death; work they were personally unfit for and therefore disliked, which is torture; work under improper conditions, which is disease; work held contemptible, looked down upon by other people, which is a grievous social distress; and work so ill-paid that no human beings could really live by it."

oof, i just pulled up the full text of dracula on project gutenberg to check my progress and i'm way less far into it than i thought-- the downside of reading it serially, lol. i might pick up reading it at my own pace and then just revisit the entries as they come into my email...

alec nooooooooooooooooooooo you absolutely deranged and soft-hearted baby man!!!!!!!!!!

what CPG considers the building blocks of a utopia is really fascinating. absolutely zero mention of racial equality so far, nary even an acknowledgment that queer people exist, but i did get a chuckle at how without a shred of irony, the white male American main character declares, aghast, "You can't sell a human being!"

"This natural tendency to hope, desire, foresee and then, if possible, obtain, has been largely diverted from human usefulness since our goal was placed after death, in Heaven. With all our hope in "Another World," we have largely lost hope of this one."

CPG coming out the gate swinging!

i can understand how, after chorus of dragons and its enormous cast, lyons wants to scale down and just write a story about 2 characters, but i do wish there were at least one or two other people besides math and kaia getting a more in-depth treatment.

cw body horror!!!!!

hell yeah immediate trans rep, absolutely love to see it

and referencing one of his own books, lol, come on uncle steve

boy, stephen king really loves his sentient/possessed/evil cars, huh?

it's always a weird experience to be invested in a book despite not being able to stop noticing it's flaws-- for example, nash clearly has done zero research on how far horses are able to travel without needing rest. i guess some books are meticulous in their worldbuilding and some are just based on vibes, lol.

thank christ for romances written in third person

this feels like the glass menagerie, i just want to protect poor constance from her insane family and this vulture of a cousin!

jackson's writing is so particular and vivid. loving this so far.

this is off to a rough start - i sense a dnf coming on. sigh... so many romances set in ancient Rome, so few that are worth the time.

ep 30, the killing floor. first time i listened to this one was in the bath, alone in a house i was dogsitting at, late at night. great choices! still gives me shivers and is probably the reason i'm never reading tender is the flesh; i can barely make it through this 23 min episode, that book is not for me, lol.

convenient way to record relistening to the podcast, treating it as an audiobook, which it frankly IS, a story told in serial parts. on ep 25, growing dark, which skeeves me out SO bad not only as someone who's scared of the dark but someone who's had some really fuckin weird roommates in the past.

the problem with having read some heated rivalry fanfic is twofold: one, i've lowkey forgotten what's book canon and what's fanfic, and two, THIS lowkey reads like fanfic and i forget that i'm reading more canon. :E oops?

"are you insane?"
"no, but i did get the idea from an insane person."
somewhere huck's ears are burning

i wonder if my understanding / enjoyment of this will be hindered by the fact that i've never read either tom sawyer or huck finn...

jamaal's voice is SO GOOD :'D

i love where this is going

i have never been an adherent of friends to lovers as a trope because i simply cannot buy that two people know each other as well as these two are supposed to, yet they can't tell they're attracted to each other? they can't tell their feelings go beyond platonic? it beggars belief. maybe this one will fill my "requires suspension of disbelief" prompt, lol.

"people have bones for a reason, Carl." god i love imani

anyone else picturing Tara as played by Erika Ishii? 🤔