some unrelated thoughts

-I guess "presume" is the "correct" substitute for the evil "assume" because it acknowledges that the speaker's statement is 'presumptious'?

-Early Tamora Pierce is actually not nearly as bad either as I remember, or as her later stuff.

-Latin diplomas = win! (but don't bother congratulating me: I'm still in undergrad for one more semester, as I finish up my second major in spite of having graduated in the first one.)

-Why don't Naomi Novik's characters read any literature? All these scientific treatises don't actually seem to help at all, and Temeraire would probably learn more useful things, emotionally and socially, from things Aeschylus or Shakespeare or even Jane Austen. Also, it would be more fun if Laurence pulled out his Horace and Virgil to try to persuade his dragon that they need to sacrifice everything for king and country.

-Philosophers beating their slaves while maintaining perfect calm is a really weird and disturbing trope. But also rather fascinating.