#My Stupid Intentions

[thehappyscavenger]

Books Read in July 2023

This month was crazy. I can't believe I read 8 books. True they were also shorties but I started 2 really huge books as well and made headway into them. WTF.

The House of Skin by Karina Lickorish Quinn

This is a really short novella (about 60 pages) that is a haunting gothic piece. A London artist is adopted by this family of patrons who bring her to their mansion to work. More of a mood vibe than anything. Really liked it.

I Am A Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter

This was Hofstadter making a stab at human consciousness and trying to explain what makes humans different from machines. I'm not sure it works fully but the ideas are interesting. The first third has a lot of math explanations I found confusing tbh so that was a bit of a slog to get through but I enjoyed it overall.

My Stupid Intentions by Bernardo Zannoni

Something about books about anthropomorphic animals just get me every time. This is about the exceptional life of a beech marten and is just absolutely soul crushing and beautiful. Pitch perfect, loved it.

Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy

This was recommended to me by someone as the best book they read all year and, while I liked it while I was reading it, upon reflection it really falls apart and I hated it.

Part of it is about the rewilding of wolves in Scotland and part of it is a murder mystery following the lead character, a twin, and her sister who was abused so thoroughly she stopped talking. I found the abuse narrative like... shockingly dumb. I mentioned this on a book discussion forum I frequent and they mentioned lots of other books about the Scottish rewilding so I'm excited for that!

Fruit by Brian Francis

So I first heard of this when it came out around 2004 and it sounded interesting but it took me this long to read it! 19 years till I carved out time for this book during which it's become something of a modern Canadian classic.

This is about a little 8th grader in Sarnia who is fat and is struggling with his friendship and sexuality. Just pitch perfect and funny and heartbreaking. Hard recommend.

Bluebeard's Castle by Anna Biller

I got this as an ARC. I like Biller as a filmmaker and I was wondering how her unique style would work as a novel since her dialogue is so weird.

Oddly as it turned out. I feel like a lot of people are either going to hate this or not get it but while it's a very modern book her style of outright stating themes and blaring plot in neon lights is very reminiscent of early gothic works. Like 1700s gothic morality stuff. By the end I was won over by this so worth a shot imo.

Promise by Christi Nogle

Black Mirror-esque stories of worlds set in the near future. Like all short story collections this was mixed but there was plenty to enjoy and it left a favourable impression overall.

Blackouts by Justin Torres

I can't even explain this book except to say it's pretty brilliant. Even though I read an ARC of this I think I'm going to buy it.

It's fictionalized history and reminded me a bit of Autobiography of X even though it's about real people. I loved it though. Highly recommend.

[biblioklept]

Bernardo Zannoni's My Stupid Intentions is a brash and brilliant picaresque fable

A few pages into Bernardo Zannoni’s brash, brilliant novel My Stupid Intentions, our narrator Archy and his eldest brother Leroy have the following conversation about their youngest brother Otis: “Are you cold?” he said. “I’m hungry.” “Me too. We could eat Otis. He’s small, and weak.” Otis is small and weak, but his brothers ultimately elect to remain hungry and not consume him. A few pages…

[cthulhum]

does anyone realize how crazy it is to have the actor of a mostly headcanoned queer ship say the fans were never crazy and they were right all along after 10+ years of everyone just absolutely going nuts over the said queerbaited ship

[fictionadventurer]

I love libraries.

I'm browsing the WWI shelves (as you do) and notice a very old book about the war. I glance at the first pages that talk about how one day the war will be over and we'll look at this place and not see any signs of the battlefield.

Then it hits me. And I check the publishing date.

This book was printed before the war's end. Not written. Printed. The physical object was created in 1918, while the war in question was raging and the end was as yet uncertain.

Now I'm standing on the other side of the apocalypse, with this physical link to that era in my hands. I'm living proof that the war did end and life did go on and we can all look at the end of the world as a long-ago memory.

Reading old books is cool enough, connecting our minds and hearts through the ideas of people who lived long ago, but there's something extra profound about holding a copy of the book that comes from the time that it was written. It's a physical link between the past and the present connecting me to those long-ago people. A piece of the past come into the future that gives me the chance to almost take the hand of some long-ago reader, to hold something they could have held, connecting not just mentally but physically to their era, a moment of connection across more than a century.

Excuse me while I go weep.

[rapidhighway]

[beeduoo]

i really like this meme

[shorthaltsjester]

i truly am baffled by some of the cr fandom when it comes to the topic of the gods and c1 and death in general because. the raven queen didn’t kill vax. in fact she gave him more time. she Does get the blame from keyleth and some from vex but even those two by the end were more so just holding grudges wrapped up in their own issues that were exacerbated by vax’s choices. but it was always vax’s choice. which, y’know, i’m aware of a portion of the cr fandom’s propensity for dismantling every interesting choice a character makes into something forced upon them, but the role of fate in exandria has never been like bad faith you must adhere to the path chosen for you, it’s much more like what brennan has spoken about wrt specificity: as one makes more choices they become more particular to a given outcome. but that’s not some curse by the gods that dooms characters that’s literally just. what living is.

and of course death is a complicated thing that everyone approaches differently but. god the amount of people who view vax’s dynamic with the raven queen as an injustice or his death as some unforgivable thing the raven queen caused some how? in the words of laura bailey, Were We Watching The Same Orb? it isn’t an injustice that vax, completely willing to pay whatever it cost him to save his sister, was bound to the Deal He Agreed To. his role as the champion was one he found meaning and purpose in. further, it was the raven queen that allowed him to be resurrected later in the campaign. like, it isn’t fair that vax had so little time but it is time he chose and time he was given, but vox machina tends to fall on the reaping the benefits side of unfairness of power in exandria. if what makes the gods — particularly the matron of ravens — irredeemable is that they have the power to make choices that mortals can’t like denying someone’s resurrection, how irredeemable must the group of heroes called vox machina (whose members drop like flies to be revived moments later) be to the everyday person who just has to watch the people they love die and make peace with it?

of course it sucks that vax could not have a happy ending or epilogue like the rest of vm, except of course, vex has a family and is happy and loved, and keyleth is strong and alive and protected, and i think that looks a lot like what vax wanted most.

[fate-defiant]

Day 5 - Dangerous Hope

THIS JEWEL. IS NAMED COURAAAAAAGE AAAAAAAAAAAAAH

just lock me up your honor

[avalencias]

I don’t know what to do—I have to trust someone—I don’t know who to trust

massive, massive props to aabria for this episode (here at this point and after!!)…to all of them really, but it was about here that I was driving yesterday morning and had to frantically try to hold the image in my head for the rest of my commute. I only kind of succeeded but it is what is. wow. what an episode

[tzarrz]

to all people who said PART 1 made them laugh - i lov u 💗 this is for u

[pen-and-page]

In a land of myth and a time of magic…✨

[unit-ssn0va]

[edwinisms]

it’s actually so wild to me that this fairly quirky YA type show gave both of its main characters deaths that can, in one way or another, solidly be considered hate crimes. they were both flat out murdered as a result of being A) gay and effeminate or B) brown (south asian, specifically) and you could argue whether or not those kids thought of it that way in the moment or whatever but the bottom line is that they would not have been in the situations that killed them if they weren’t of their respective minorities. like legitimately that is a ballsy choice for this kind of netflix show, let alone for the two Main Characters, and i respect it big time

[brainrot-stitch]

THEYRE FINALLY DONE AREHSGJXGDH

[fure-dcmk]

personal relationship chart for my gosho boys au

[rainbowpufflez]

Giovanni homophobia arc™️