had an interesting conversation with @iliana, who reads by moving through the text only audiating words or visualizing stuff in xer head when xie is paying close attention to a particular phrase or description (sorry for the short description, i am not xe, so i can't go into nuances about how reading works for xer)
this differs from me. when i read, it is like i am watching a cartoon or stage play of the book in my head; each character has their own distinct voice and appearance. sometimes i decide that the voice i have cast a character with isn't right and go back and override their voice (which sometimes takes an amount of effort). i imagine the action taking place like there is cinematography, sometimes even editing. i often imagine the smells or feel of textures. there are sound effects i get frustrated if the story isn't describing spaces clearly enough because it makes it harder to reasonably model them.
conversations have flow, for instance, if there's a tense moment, the characters will actually stop talking and sit silently for a moment. i will visualize them shifting in their chairs. sometimes the camera lingers on a landscape. when characters are talking in other languages i often picture subtitles delivering the dialogue and audiate the unintelligible foreign language. sometimes i picture unimportant supplementary flavor scenes or characters doing something unrelated in the background of a shot.
when i am less invested in the story, sometimes a lower-energy variant of this mode of reading manifests were there's still individual character voices and a continuous stream of visuals but its less deliberate, less artful, more blurry and abstract and impressionistic
i could choose to not read in this way, but it is both less fun, and also often results in me not comprehending what is happening when i try to suppress the visualization or when i'm being more abstract about it. i think this probably partially accounts for why iliana is a fast reader, while i am a pretty slow reader. this also probably accounts for why i often get so mentally exhausted when i read for a long time.
(there is also semi-echoalic tics, where i scratch or tap out the rhythm of certain phrases or words, or twitch various muscles in that rhythm)
how do you read, cohost
