I Am Back. Kind Of? Anyway, Here’s A List Of Series I’ve Finished That I Love:

taylor swift really wrote two albums for the hopeful romantics, the dark academics, the yearning lovers and the quiet souls of the world

What language are you fluent in?

silence 

— Fiona Apple

we've all gone through friendless periods in our lives. don't fall into the trap of thinking there's something intrinsically wrong with you - that is a) untrue and b) a belief that will make your isolation grow and cause feelings of worthlessness that will prevent you from accepting people into your life because you feel like you're not deserving of their friendship

Omg you read regency romance??? I got hooked after bridgerton and thought it such a guilty pleasure as radleaning (I mean romance as a genre can be steeped in misogynistic tropes but there are some good eggs there) 😭😭😭 I was surprised to see you recommending devil in winter though I HATED the male lead in that book though he's generally a fan favourite.... kidnapping Lillian, calling Evie a bitch etc (in general I'm not much of a keypas fan, her male protagonists can be a bit too possessive alpha male for my taste)

I read all romance - historical, paranormal, urban fantasy, contemporary, etc.

Romance novels aren’t something to be ashamed off - it’s like being ashamed of enjoying watching Love Actually at Christmas. Romance novels are the largest genre of fiction.

Do romance novels contain things that are anti-feminist? Yeah. So does 99% of all other literature. I don’t read any with bdsm or other things that normally extreme pain, limited mobility, punishment, etc for the heroine. But just don’t read those. You’re actually more likely to find libfem stuff than anything like in an Eggers novel.

As for Devil in Winter - it is quite literally the best villain to hero trope in a historical romance ever. Second to being the best example of the trope in the genre in general only to Kresley Cole’s Lothaire.

He’s my fave Kleypas hero because he has the best hero’s journey - he goes from being a total lout to coming into responsibility. But I understand why he’s be hated!! If you want to find more books you’d like try keeping date of publication in mind:

Kleypas started writing before 2000 - which means her heroes are always going to be influenced by Julie Garwood, Johanna Lindsey, Kathleen Woodiwiss, Jude Devereaux, etc. This is the period of the OG alphahole heroes. During the 70s-80s women were facing significant economic challenges, workplaces actively hostile to their interests, backlash from men on a personal and professional level, and were being told they would never be able to get married. These heroes ALL: provide economically for the heroine, protect her from physical danger, give her elevated status, drop their backlash against women for the heroine, and marry and sexually satisfy the heroine. So these heroes had to be literally strong enough to “pull” the reader from the real world.

After 2000 until about 2007 you had the intermediary period. More women were in school, economics improved, women were living alone, and fear that marriage wouldn’t happen for you declined. These heroes became slightly softer - less kidnapping, more independence for the heroines (contemporary really started using birth control, heroines had their own careers and apartments). Writers that started before 2000 kept more alphas. The height of paranormal.

2008-2012: The Billionaire Years - economic anxiety and collapse causes women to seek out novels where the heroines are insulated against economic woes. Enter Beautiful Bastard and 50 Shades. These books also were when fanfic started producing conventional authors - and they brought bdsm from fic to the mainstream. Erotica (which usually bumps it’s heat “up” with bdsm) reveals the strain on marriages and relationships resulting in an inadequate sex life. Women seek it out in books.

2012-2019: Cinnamon roll heroes. Economic situation once again improves. Women don’t want the alphaholes any longer, heroines get feistier, romcoms break out everywhere.

Devil in Winter exemplifies the 2000 to 2007 period. St Vincent is a dick, but less of a dick than his 1982 predecessors. He ensures economic stability for Evie through managing her assets - an example of economic partnership relatively absent in romance still. But Evie is able to escape her abusive family (aka protection!). The novel is written masterfully - any professor teaching about romance novel structure would do well with DiW on the syllabus.

But since you hated him - try sticking to books published after 2012, 2014 especially. Also for the next years going forward I think alpha heroes will make a return. Already we see books written in 2020/2021 have fewer children. So as economic stress gets worse I think more billionaires, more protective heroes will once again emerge.

If you like Bridgerton I’d recommend Sarah MacLean, try her Bare Knuckle Bastards series or Bombshell (and skip Ewan’s book).

thinking about “you haven’t met all the people who will love you” and like!!! you also haven’t found all the things that will make you happy!!!! there will always be new authors and musicians and artists whose work you will one day discover and love!!!! there will always be new hobbies and skills for you to learn and feel fulfilled by!!! there will always be new things around the corner that will bring sudden and unexpected happiness!!!!!!!!!!!

What if the guy in Nabi’s mom’s bedroom was Jae Eon himself???? Like how did he know it was her bd, which train station she was at, at that she should make up with her mom???

God gave me social anxiety cause he knew i’d be unstoppable without it

This Is How You Actually Take Notes In College, Bitches

it’s occurred to me that nobody fuckin knows how to take notes in classes and most advice about it is bad. What the fuck are “key words?”

So anyway here’s how I’ve gotten a’s in all my classes in college so far

I’m not gonna bother too much with telling you to take notes in class. Everyone knows that shit. But most people’s note taking skills suck ass and there are two main types of sucking ass I have observed

The first is the one where your notes look like a list of key terms and words. Sometimes they are underlined or there are dashes that connect them to other words. So if your prof was talking about Henry VIII you’d write down something like

Henry VIII

Church of England—divorce

DON’T DO THAT. Those words are gonna show up on the test, sure, but writing them down isn’t gonna help you with the test. What the fuck does any of that mean? High school is shit and your “key words” can’t help you now.

Here’s the other type of bad note taking:

It was necessary for Henry VIII to have a male heir who could succeed him, but his wife was unable to conceive a son. The Catholic Church

I stopped writing there because your professor moved on to something else. But, tbh, even if you can write fast enough to keep up with the content of the lectures (and you can’t for the entire lecture) it’s not helpful to have a solid wall of Everything That Was Covered In The Lecture, in grammatically correct complete sentences. Are you gonna read that shit again? No!

And honestly most people have like, sentences here and there that look important instead of the whole lecture. Which is also bad.

So what’s the not shitty way to take notes? It comes down to these principles:

Shorthand

Show Relationships of Things

These kind of go together

I cannot emphasize enough that you don’t need to write sentences like a normal person. Shorthand everything, and I don’t mean some fucked up studying shorthand you just came up with like “AmR” for American Revolution, I mean like...fuckin text/memespeak. Don’t write complete sentences, completely abandon formality. Abbreviate anything you would in a text message, you know what it means.

HOWEVER: You Must Show How Things Are Related To Things

To understand broad concepts you gotta understand how the things in them are related to other things.

That’s why writing down “Henry VIII” and “Church of England” isn’t gonna help you, because you’re not learning that there is a Church of England.

Did Henry VIII burn the Church of England? Cheat on his wife with it? Who knows? Definitely not you.

This is why you have to connect stuff like

Catholic Church says no divorce

Henry VIII—starts Church of England

But ya know you can make that more memorable AND more clearly show how one thing caused the other

Henry VIII: divorce >:)

Catholic Church: no

Henry VIII: fuk u *church of england*

I’m completely dead serious about this, this kind of slang is very good at indicating exactly how things relate to things in zero time and you know exactly what it means and you’ll remember it

But furthermore

You have to come up with shorthand to quickly indicate how things are related. Say you write down the definitions of two terms for like, opposing theories on government in class. That’s great but you’re leaving it to yourself to work out the opposing part later from what you write, and your brain’s a flaky bitch.

Like part of what you’re doing it giving yourself help with HOW to study your notes later.

So like. Do something like write a jagged line in between the definitions, indicating conflict. Write “OTOH” or “HOWEVER” in between in big fuckin letters. Writing down “Catholic Church” and what that is and “Church of England” and what that is, is fine. But like, if the main theme is the contrast between the two, “Catholic Church HOWEVER Church of England” immediately tells you the basicest basics. It’s like a tiny outline, telling you what to expect. Sure, you can figure it out reading your notes but I’m telling you how to write skimmable notes that you can glean stuff from even when you’re half spaced out and shit, okay?

Same thing for like, dates and sequences and cause-and-effect and stuff. Even if you’ve got the dates down...be sure to put arrows or something so even at a glance you’ve got basically what’s going on.

Also i know it feels like wasting paper but DONT scrunch all your notes together into small space on the paper. That lil dialogue between Henry and the Church of England is spread out over 3 lines which means if you have ADHD like me you can actually fuckin read it. Turn things into bullet lists. Indent things with little arrows to show things leading to things. If there’s a clear move to a new topic, new page. If you’re actually filling up the paper all the way that shits hard to read and it’s even harder to pick out the Big Important Stuff.

Last word of advice: If you end up like writing down two things and can’t tell what they’re for or how they’re related to each other...ASK QUESTIONS. Like “I’m sorry can you explain how the Church of England is related to the Catholic Church? I didn’t quite catch that.” If talking in class makes you feel like you might be percieved badly, you can frame it like a Nerd Question “So, what kind of relationship would you say the Church of England and the Catholic Church had?” or just play it off like you didn’t hear it like “I’m sorry, what was that last thing you said about the Church of England and the Catholic Church?”

Or just make a mark on your notes to remind yourself that you need more info and to go to your prof’s office to ask questions. I would really not be nervous about that, professors normally really like it when students show that they really want to succeed in the class and that they care. Unless they’re like, a complete dickhead, in which case, fuck what they think, right? You’re gonna ask questions and it’s their problem because you’re essentially paying them for your presence in the class.

So...yeah.