Marysia > Recent Status Updates

“Our husbands had been friends since their military service. Once a year, they’d drive north to the woods of Rasht, near the Caspian, to smoke cigars and drink and fish and retell the same stories they told each other every year”

queue “He Was a Friend of Mine” by Bob Dylan ….

“Zee bent over, holding his unlit cigarette between his lips to light it within the shield of his coat. Cyrus thought that was very cool. Some point before “Green Eyes,” Cyrus passed out; when he woke up again it was morning. The bottle was nearly empty on the couch between him and Zee, and their shoulders were just barely touching.”

and their shoulders were just barely touching…

“He had expected either amused tolerance or stormy rebuke, but sensed neither. The artist just sat there staring at him for ten seconds, fifteen, thirty, her expression seemingly larger than what was visible, like it continued somewhere else beyond her face. After what seemed like an eternity she reached her hand across the table. It has been my incredible luck to meet you, Cyrus.”

She’s kinda hot…

“Early spring, that’s when I first thought I might love him”

AYOOOOO I DIDNT THINK I WOULD GET YAOI LETS GO!!!

“They both knew Cyrus well enough to not be flustered by his directness. But Cyrus was, for his part, more than a little surprised by the words as they came out his mouth, how they gave shape to something that had long been formless within him. It was like the language in the air that night was a mold he was pouring around his curiosity. Flour thrown on a ghost.”

awesome metaphor

(intersectional) feminism win: the dead mom character is bisexual!

“She left her snowshoes by an exposed ledge and hiked on, bouldering with hands and feet, the way becoming more and more difficult, until she came to a sheer rock face that was blown clear of snow and broken in two down the middle, so that a kind of wide open chimney reached through the rock to the top”

bouldering mentioned

i bet eating a beehive bees included would taste good as fuck if you were a bear

this is my beautiful perfect boyfriend’s fav book so i gotta lock in 🤓

“He went back to his first morning in Oxford: climbing a sunny hill with Ramy, picnic basket in hand. Elderflower cordial. Warm brioche, sharp cheese, a chocolate tart for dessert. The air that day smelled like a promise, all of Oxford shone like an illumination, and he was falling in love.”

I CANT DO THISSSSD bawling in the staff lounge.

“Letty, glaring proudly, her face a bit strained after such a long time. Ramy’s hands affectionately on both her and Victoire’s shoulders. Victoire’s half-smile; chin tilted down, eyes raised and luminous. His own awkward shyness. Ramy’s grin.”
…
““He wanted to rip it to shreds. But it was the only remaining likeness he had of Ramy”

RAMY’S GRIN.

“I know it hurts.’ Victoire’s throat pulsed. ‘I know – I know it feels impossible to move on. But your motivating goal cannot be to join Ramy.’
A silence. Robin considered denying this. But there was no point lying to Victoire, or to himself.”

😵‍💫

rf kuang adding moments of comic relief like im gonna forget how she killed off 6 beloved characters

Ramy nation …

Oh so we’re just killing anyone now

“Robin’s mind exploded: feelings and memories flooded to the fore, everything he’d hidden, everything he feared and dreaded, all the truths he dared not acknowledge. He was a babbling idiot, he had no idea what he was saying; words in Chinese and English both spilled out of him without reason or order. Ramy, he said, or thought, he didn’t know”

He thinks of Ramy first 🫩🔫

“One day Robin would ask himself how his shock had turned so easily to rage… And the answer would elude and disturb him, for it tiptoed around a complicated tangle of love and jealousy that ensnared them all, for which they had no name or explanation, a truth they’d only been starting to wake up to and now, after this, would never acknowledge.”

SO YOU’RE TELLING ME NO YAOI????? BC OF COLONIALISM??

1. Screaming at the pages for them to not trust letty
2. When are they burning down the tower

“Griffin cocked the gun and pointed it at a birch tree across the yard. ‘But I’m a sceptic. I think decolonization must be a violent process.”

Girl I don’t think they were saying “decolonization” casually in 1840 😭😭

“You’re sweating buckets.’ Professor Playfair scrutinized his face, looking concerned. ‘And you’ve got enormous shadows under your eyes, Swift. Have you been sleeping?”

this is just like crime and punishment

“He stepped forward. ‘Father, say her name.”

IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THE ‘FATHER’ MIC DROP !!!!

“I’ll be fine,’ said Ramy, pulling on his coat. ‘I’ll be with you.”

ramy…. 😵‍💫

“Their eyes met. Robin felt a prickle at the back of his neck. The space between them felt very charged, like the moment between lightning and thunder, and Robin had no idea what was going on or what would happen next, only that it all felt very strange and terrifying, like teetering over the edge of a windy, roaring cliff”

EEEEEEKKKJK

“your sentences are far too long—’
‘They’re not too long; they’re Ciceronian.’
‘You can’t just excuse all bad writing on the grounds that it’s Ciceronian—’
Ramy waved a hand dismissively”


meeeee. stealing this

robin is probably bisexual but he’s a babel student involved in an anti-imperialist secret society so he doesn’t have time to deal with that right now

“Even worse, the effect is contagious. You activate the bar when it’s on a pile of silver, and it spreads to everything it’s in contact with. Easy way to waste a couple dozen pounds if you’re not careful.’ He placed the engraving pen back on the worktable. ‘Is this understood?”

is this gun perhaps chekhovian in origin?

“No translation can perfectly carry over the meaning of the original. But what is meaning? Does meaning refer to something that supersedes the words we use to describe our world? I think, intuitively, yes. Otherwise we would have no basis for critiquing a translation as accurate or inaccurate, not without some unspeakable sense of what it lacked.”

this is so awesome ..

More than anything I was relieved that in my unfamiliar babbling-and-wanting-to-talk state I'd stopped myself from blurting the thing I'd never said, even though it was something we both knew well enough without me saying out loud to him in the street - which was, of course, I love you.

“Could we actually learn anything from what infants utter?’
‘Not that I’m aware of,’ said Professor Lovell. ‘The issue is it’s impossible to isolate infants from an environment with language if you want them to develop as infants should. Might be interesting to buy a child and see – but, well, no”

Prison one million years

“They might as well have been back in Hampstead. The long table was arranged precisely the same way Robin was used to, with him and Professor Lovell sitting at opposite ends and a painting to Robin’s right, which this time depicted the Thames rather than Oxford’s Broad Street”

waittttt i need the movie…