Liberty Reads

Your local library may be able to offer you:

- 3D printers

- a place to hang out

- articles, magazines, newspapers

- arts and crafts

- cassette tapes

- CDs

- chargers

- coloring pages

- computers

- DVDs

- fax machines

- food

- help filing paperwork

- help finding resources, support groups, or community activities

- phones

- printers

- puzzles

- seeds to plant

- sewing machines

- temporary housing / shelter

- VHS tapes

Well wouldn't you know it, when I got to that town, the landmarks were different from what they'd been when Google took its photos, so I was up shit creek and got my dumb ass lost for a while because I only had my phone on me and obviously it was useless at the time--I couldn't even call them!

But I knew there was a sign on Main St for the local library, so I went there. They let me use a computer with an internet connection no questions asked (just a sign-in, I think, nbd) and I was able to look the place up and find it that way! And it was free! And they had a nice clean restroom which was a godsend after driving in circles all over town, lemme tell ya

In System Collapse, Tarik says “motherless” (as opposed to something like motherfucking) and the BE corporates say things like “lame-skulled” and while you could think those are just futuristic insults as a result of linguistic drift (which they could also be), I think they’re just literal translations. It becomes more noticeable when you see how religious terms are rendered: “oh high one! Oh deity!” Which is like…sure. They could literally be saying that. But imo it makes more sense if MB is translating something they’re saying in another language.*

I think the most notable case of this is when Thiago calls Amena “my daughter.” On first read I literally thought it was just a Preservation thing but then I realized it made a lot more sense to me (a 21st century American) if he was saying something like mija but MB was just literally translating it into its archive bc that’s how it processes language.

This is also the reason for Amena’s use of Second Mom and Third Mom. It sounds kind of clunky in English but Chinese does a similar thing which sounds perfectly natural in that language (e.g. da-ge, er-ge, san-ge for first/oldest brother, second (oldest) brother, and third (oldest) brother).

Anyway! It’s a fun little detail I really enjoy about MB. There are definitely way more examples but I didn’t have time to track them all down.

alice is dragged from place to place without warning, forced to play stupid games with no good prizes, grilled over her schooling and manners and recitation and dress, scolded, judged, insulted to her face, sent away, given gifts she didn’t ask for and doesn’t like, corrected incorrectly, been subject to shifting and arbitrary rules, and then when she gets snappish with all this bullshit everyone acts like a little girl’s temper is the end of the fucking world.

I dunno, maybe because they don't know they're in a story?

And also cause if they did, it would negate like 90% of the things that drive a plot forward to a satisfying conclusion?