#May Reading Goals

[nerdynatreads]

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may tbr || Content Pieces? -- May Monthly Reset || Bookshelf Organizing, Content Planning & Plan with Me

are you buddy reading any books in may?

I’ve got so many buddy reads and book clubs this month and I love it— buddy reads just always make the reading experience better. I’ve also got quite a range of genres, thankfully, after reading so much fantasy and so many comics last month.

PS: I totally forgot to include Ace of Shades by Amanda Foody!

[cocoawithbooks]

May Reading Wrap-up: Top-Notch Audiobook Narrators

I experienced my first Maycember this year with all of my kids finally in elementary school together. And June is not indicating that there will be any slow downs. However, I was able to read everything on my Reading Goals TBR. That, my friends, is a rare feat for this busy mood reader. Through the power of audiobooks I also finished a few more! I recommend every audiobook that I listened to this…

[fisheito]

I started reading beastars so now HE's reading beastars .wait

THEY'RE reading beastars

[uncanny-tranny]

Choosing to be alive is a hard task sometimes, so I'm always so proud of people who choose to live for "weird" reasons.

Like, yes! Live to watch your favourite show for the millionth time! Yes! Live to hear rain against your car windshield! Live to laugh, to cry, to make Naruto proud! Do all of this to live, no matter how strange it is. You enrich this world, and no matter what you are living for, it is good enough. I am so incredibly amazed at your resolve, and your sheer willpower. I hope you never forget that part about your spirit because it is spectacular.

[essektheylyss]

need storygraph to add a setting where you can input non-book readings so grad students everywhere can get credit toward their yearly page goal, instead of crying over their stats on top of staring wistfully at their tbr pile over an endless feed of the crustiest pdfs known to man.

[vigilskept]

seeing a take that “the veil would’ve come down anyway, solas was just too impatient/prideful to wait” but…. i don’t think that’s true actually?

he’s extremely prideful that’s beyond question, but based on the conversations in veilguard & trespasser (albeit both conversations where you’re in an adversarial role and can only get limited information from him!) my impression was always that the veil is already in piss poor condition & that it was never meant to function as it does. it was meant to contain the blight & the evanuris who were exploiting it.

it failed to do both of those things and had innumerable unintended consequences (hence the regrets, hence the inescapable guilt as he bears witness to all of this)

“2 more blights and it would’ve been fine” to me is an odd take given the sheer amount of devastation that a blight causes. ferelden still hasn’t recovered 2 decades later, whole swathes of the thedosian continent were irrevocably transformed by the earlier blights (which…. lasted anywhere from over a decade to over a century)

even in a best case scenario, a blight would entail significant devastation across the continent followed by more devastation as the veil weakened AGAIN after the death of 1 archdemon, followed by another blight & the total collapse of the veil before anyone could begin to recover from that second blight.

trying to avoid two more blights is an understandable goal surely?

we don’t get much out of solas, but if he’s taken until 9:52 to tear down the veil when he’s had that ritual dagger since 9:45……. i feel like there’s some merit at least to the idea that he was planning to tear down the veil AND contain the evanuris + the blight by some other mechanism. so that there would be no more blights, ever.

would it have worked? maybe. maybe not.

i genuinely can’t see how sitting back and waiting it out is in any way a preferable alternative to trying to do something unless you’re just making the argument that witnessing a catastrophe you could prevent makes you less culpable than acting in a way that might cause some other (seen or unforeseen) harm.

all this to say it’s an insane trolley problem regardless — and it’s absolutely solas’ pride that makes him believe he has to be the one pulling that lever! — but it’s critical that the side of the tracks solas is trying to swing the trolley over to does not involve those 2 more blights. he’s trying to AVOID those blights. he’s trying to avoid the veil coming down in a way that will release ALL of the contained blight into thedas.

[luxuryandlilacs]

May Review and June Reset

My meditation practice and affirmation habit have been getting better in May! I pray I continue this in June. I have been in a reading slump so I only finished two books. I really want to get into Bookstagram and start posting my book photos.

I have been making green smoothies with spinach, a banana, a green apple, and almond milk. It’s so good and kind of filling lol.

In June, I want to finish at least 5 books. That is a big goal but I just need to keep my butt off of YouTube and I’ll actually succeed lol.

I am going to be more active in my language learning habit, learning coding, and belly dancing. I also want to get back into qigong as well!

Here is to a productive and an amazing summer! ☀️

[piningpebbles]

the dream smp journey: attempting to make the lore of the dream smp more accessible.

so back when i first wanted to get into the dream smp i had absolutely no idea where to start. i asked some people and they told me pretty much “look up dream smp + [insert youtuber name] and start there” and so i did, but i quickly came to realize how much i was missing from the story by not seeing all the different points of view.

so i decided to make my own playlist.

it was just for myself at first, but as i got more obsessed with the story, i also gave the link to some friends of mine so they could have the full experience, and they loved it. so i kept updating it.

my goal was to try and make a capsule of the entirety of the lore on the dream smp across almost every single POV, because while i do appreciate those who make recap videos, they always miss something and it’s usually with peoples’ POV who aren’t considered to be “main characters” which sucks because one of my favorite things about the dream smp was how everyone was their own main character with their own individual storyline you could get invested in.

i’ve seen every single video in the playlist, and did my absolute best to discern what should be included and what didn’t need to be. 

for instance, while i personally enjoyed streams where they’d just goof off, this is a lore-centric playist so i didn’t include all of them unless one of the jokes or such gets mentioned/becomes important later on. or if there is a lore event happening but two people have almost identical streams to one another then i decided between the two of them which one to keep. or if the cc themself made an edited version of their experience, i would decide whether to go with that or keep the original vod

it’s far from perfect. i tried to keep up with it as long as i could I STILL HAVE VIDEOS IN MY WATCH LATER THAT I PLANNED TO ADD but simply put while the dream smp storyline got longer and longer it became harder to keep up with. i watched pretty much all the streams when they happened but failed to update the playlist accordingly so right now it has almost everything up until ”Hitting on 16.”

i always wanted to finish it before i posted it, but i’ve been seeing people talk about how they miss the experience of watching the dream smp and while i obviously can’t provide the full interactive experience that the dream smp offered as it came out, i knew i couldn’t just keep this in my back pocket and thought i could at least offer a good chunk of the experience for you guys to still be able to keep!

here’s the playlist, spanning over 300 videos.

there’s also a semi-canon playlist (not nearly as thorough) for events that get mentioned by the cc’s a lot or are just cool to have and i wanted to include them somewhere so here it is also!!

to go along with it i also made a masterpost (can you tell i love making lists) which is what every single video on the playlist is supposed to be (and was last i checked, but videos get taken down every so often so there might be a couple missing here and there).

i hope to update this one day and have it fully finished, but with my schedule (full-time college student babyyyy) and simply the hundreds of hours of content i’d need to sift through it just seems impossible (and frankly just really intimidating) to challenge alone right now. so i also wanted to give this to the community to maybe be able to do what i couldn’t!

my hope with this is that if someone in a year or two (or whenever really) is interested in the dream smp they won’t have to sit through recap videos and instead can watch the real thing in a single playlist connected to the doc. my dream is for the masterpost and the playlist to go hand-in-hand, being like a guide people can follow that would also link to other moments and lore that is saved but just not avaliable on youtube, so we don’t have all these moments just lost to time.

i want to make this collaborative, i’m hoping this will maybe spark others to share what videos/moments they have saved and stored with each other for the dream smp and maybe together we could complete this thing somehow!! make the playlist and masterpost i dreamed of (the one right now is scuffed, but at least it’s something). the dream smp is one of my absolute favorite pieces of media out there and i want to share this with people but (as you can probably tell) i have no idea what i’m doing!! any step to help make the story more readily accessible is a good one, though!

i know i’ve missed things but i’ve done my best. and while not the perfectly polished thing i hoped it would be when i sent it out to the world maybe it could be a good building block for the community to use. so please share this!! reblog it!! all that jazz!! i want this to be for everyone!!

anyways, this is a long post. but the whole reason i got into the dream smp in the first place was because of the awesome fan content i saw and this crazy and creative community and i want to be able to give back, if i can.

[fallloverfic]

I love singNsong again reminding people in Side Story that Dokja wanted other people to read TWSA (he wrote reviews and comments! It was his first wish), and he only stopped bothering because people harassed him for it. He didn't gate-keep the story. When he's avoiding talking to Sangah about it at the beginning of ORV, it's because he knows what happens when he tells people about the story, not because he's gate-keeping it from her. He notes he's not proud of his hobby (likely because he's been bullied all through his life, including for reading the thing he loves): he finds it embarrassing to talk about, and better respects her studying Spanish in her free time (learning another language is a generally accepted thing in society). He assumes she won't care or will look at him funny (or worse) for when she learns about the novel he's into.

Basically anyone writing "let's gatekeep ORV" posts because of the anime announcement or because they dislike the manhwa or some other weirdness, y'all are the villains in the scenario.

The literal climax of the story is about sharing ORV with as many people as possible. What story were y'all reading?

[misscrazyfangirl321]

If I stay up 16 more minutes, I can open my February box of books.

However, if I don't, I get more sleep.

[tolive1000lives]

We’ve hit the halfway mark of the 2024 reading challenge! These are most of my 2024 reads and I’m excited to add to the stack!

[rose-n-gunses]

My goal for this year was to read three books. It took me MONTHS to finish even one (burnout and schoolwork do that too a bitch). BUT! My other goal was to spend my winter break ACTUALLY relaxing and recovering from the semester and all of the fuckin stress I was dealing with. I have been on break for not even a full week and I've already finished an entire book!! I have not felt this good in ages

[bluebunnysart]

Neru took me like 2 hours. I was out of practice and when I had to do the legs (the very first thing you do), I immediately got confused like, "Wait, isn't this too big??" so I had to revisit the tutorial to figure it out again lmao.

I wanted to finally do Neru for fun, so my favorite Triple Baka squad is now complete. Then I realized I could make them this blog's header, so I did a small photoshoot lol. It's not perfect in the slightest but that's what makes them so fitting. xD 🥰🥰

[icewindandboringhorror]

currently at That Point which occurs once every few months where one briefly begins pacing around the house teary eyed contemplating selling their own organs or becoming an online scammer or getting on anxiety meds so you can bear the risk taking required to be a hitman or so on and so forth.... why must everything so Expensive... Surely all would be healed in life if only I had one big plate of lasagna and a simple loan of $40,000 ... auoughhh....

[shrips]

tagged by @melrosing to list 9 books I want to read this year…

tagging um… @calicobunnyrabbit @sanlupo @kulliare @pngjpeg ?

[kbookblurbs]

The Stone Sky - N.K. Jemisin (Broken Earth #3)

4.5/5 - at times too cerebral for my tastes; very fitting pyhrric victory; the mother-daughter relationship in this book makes me SICK. I'm obsessed.

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW!!!

In an effort to keep this a bit more concise and to the point than my review for The Obelisk Gate, I'm structuring this review into three main sections:

Worldbuilding

Pacing & The Ending

Essun, Nassun, & their relationship

Worldbuilding

I deeply love that Jemisin devotes so much time to making sure that the worldbuilding here reflects on a (sub)textual level the point she's trying to convey regarding race, oppression, and the consequences of othering people. It's rich and allows for a really nuanced exploration into what it means to consider people subhuman, what that does to their psyche, and what that exposes about that society. The section about the "Briar Patch" is ... particularly horrifying. A match to the scene in The Fifth Season with the node maintainer in terms of sheer banal evil.

I do feel, however, that sometimes the commitment to this description and this worldbuilding on every page interfered with getting to know some of the characters. Obviously Essun, Nassun, Schaffa, etc. are very well-developed, but characters like Tonkee, Ykka, and Lerna felt very one-note at times. Since our main characters are in their own heads so much, it doesn't really feel like we really get to know anyone else - though that could be a narrative technique given Essun's tendency to misunderstand or underestimate her relationships with others. Either way, I personally wanted to see a little bit more interaction between everyone.

Pacing & The Ending

At times, the book dragged for me. I think this may be because I felt some scenes with Schaffa and Nassun were somewhat repetitive, but I understand the need to keep them in. They each show something different and unique and horrifying, to be perfectly honest, about their relationship and Nassun's underlying traumas.

The ending, however, was everything I could ask for. It's felt all along like Essun wouldn't survive this, but through books one and two, I had imagined more of a go-down-swinging type of exit. This one was, frankly, all the more heartbreaking. She loved her daughter more than she loved humanity, more than she loved herself.

And what a blow for Nassun. To be orphaned twice over, basically, and to have a hand in the death of each of your parental figures makes my heart ache for her. She's so young to have experienced the world like this. It's especially tragic and fitting, as far as endings go, that she loses her orogeny at the end of the series. It's not a stretch to say that Nassun literally lost everyone who ever loved her and a part of herself she loved (and an arm!). What ultimately brought her the most happiness was also the seeds of her own personal tragedy.

Essun, Nassun, & their relationship

Few things have made me more sick, angry, and deeply conflicted than the twisted ties between Nassun, Essun, & Schaffa. How tragic to be so traumatized by even the attempt to live a normal life that you inflict the same pain upon your child. That your abuser can recognize your actions as wrong. That there's no way you could have known any different!

That said, Essun being afraid of her daughter and understanding that she is afraid of Nassun because Nassun is just like her was, again, deeply sad and frustrating on my part. It was understandable, because even as Essun has attempted to accept the whole of her life, who she is, and what she's done, good and bad, she hasn't really forgiven herself for it. She hasn't forgiven herself for being born powerful and stubborn and ambitious and seeing those traits reflected back in her daughter made her frightened!

From Nassun's point of view, for her to know, but not quite understand, that Schaffa had a hand in making Essun who she was and is, made me as the reader miserable. Schaffa is treating her better than many of the adult figures in her life. But he's also grooming her into a weird, toxic, codependent relationship that only serves to confirm Nassun's impression of her mother as someone who doesn't (or can't) love her when Schaffa is literally the reason that Essun acts and parents the way that she does. It goes round in circles and makes me sick and ill and I will be thinking about this for the foreseeable future I fear.

Overall - an excellent book and an excellent series that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys a dense high fantasy or science fiction story. It packs a punch!