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justforbooks · 7 months

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Lonely, as words go, is a bit of a loner. As the critic Christopher Ricks writes, it pleasingly has “only” one rhyme, and no real synonyms. After all, being alone and being lonely are quite different things. For all this, poets and writers, from Audre Lorde to Philip Larkin, have made much of loneliness, drawn to the challenge of bringing us close to an emotion whose very nature is to stay at a distance.

Some lonely renderings turn out to be a bit of a sham. Records show that when Wordsworth “wandered lonely as a cloud”, his sister Dorothy was strolling companionably beside him, and she liked the daffodils too. Thoreau’s standing as the poster-boy of solitude, living “alone” and “Spartan like” by Walden Pond, starts to unravel when one actually reads his book, which contains a hefty chapter on “Visitors”. (The fact that Thoreau’s mum probably helped out with his laundry has also – maybe unfairly – raised a few eyebrows.)

It is, of course, perfectly possible to feel lonely in the company of others. “Loneliness”, as Olivia Laing writes, “doesn’t necessarily require physical solitude, but rather an absence or paucity of connection”. Her Lonely City is a powerful account of the loneliness explored and expressed by writers ranging from Alfred Hitchcock to Billie Holiday, combined with Laing’s own experience as a “citizen of loneliness”: “I often wished”, she writes, “I could find a way of losing myself altogether until the intensity diminished”.

Loneliness may be a condition that’s tricky to categorise but it is also, in Laing’s words, “difficult to confess”. Indeed, loneliness’s favourite companion seems to be shame. One of the many beauties of Kent Haruf’s small-town love story, Our Souls At Night, is the way in which his heroine breaks this seeming taboo, surprising her neighbour with an unconventional proposal, not of marriage, but of a kind of lo-fi pyjama party. “I’m lonely”, Addie candidly states. “I think you might be too. I wonder if you would come and sleep in the night with me. And talk”.

For some, such as Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant, loneliness is a lived atmosphere, a kind of chronic condition. For others, it comes from a tectonic shift – a sudden loss or bereavement. As Juliet Rosenfeld writes in her memoir, The State of Disbelief, the painful force of her husband’s death made her feel as if she’d been captured by an unseen captor: “I learnt quickly that to protest would make no difference, and choice-less, I submitted to this saboteur with no prospect at all of release or freedom. I believed for a long time that I would never feel differently. I felt a painful absence and loneliness all of the time.”

“We read to know we are not alone”, as C S Lewis famously didn’t say (the line belongs to his on-screen persona in Shadowlands). So it is a sad irony that books which might best provide company nearly didn’t see the light of day. Radclyffe Hall’s Well of Loneliness was banned, after its first publication, for more than 30 years, accused of promoting “unnatural practices between women”. Because of that judgment, many readers missed an encounter with the beauty of the novel’s prose, its tender account of the heroine as she reflects on her childhood home. She dreams of “the scent of damp rushes growing by water; the kind, slightly milky odour of cattle; the smell of dried rose-leaves and orris-root and violets”, and knew “what it was to feel terribly lonely, like a soul that wakes up to find itself wandering, unwanted, between the spheres”.

This sense of loneliness as a kind of between-ness, an uncharted territory, is movingly captured in Sam Selvon’s 1956 novel, The Lonely Londoners. This Windrush chronicle charts the trials of those arriving at Waterloo from the West Indies, as they struggle to navigate the “unrealness” of London. Selvon’s hero, Moses Aloetta, becomes, over time, the reluctant guide to this latter-day Waste Land. Selvon leaves us with Moses’s lyrical and allusive understanding of the city’s “great aimlessness”. Standing on the banks of the Thames, he conjures a vision of a world in which we are all, in the end, alone together:

As if … on the surface, things don’t look so bad, but when you go down a little, you bounce up a kind of misery and pathos and a frightening – what? He don’t know the right word, but he have the right feeling in his heart. As if the boys laughing, but they only laughing because they ’fraid to cry.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

#just for books #lonelly #loneliness

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seolinah · 11 days

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some new test muses -- if you're interested give this a like and i'll message you or lmk which one you like and i'll write you a starter with them !

park jae-hwa | fc: go min-so | social media influencer & model | vampire (if spn verse) | bisexual

selfish and greedy, does what's necessary to get what she wants; uses her looks to get ahead; deeply insecure about her upbringing so she lies about her past; relies heavily on her brother to get her out of the consequences of her actions

zachary davis | fc: josh hutcherson | journalist | heterosexual

awkward loner type but tries badly to socialize; came from nothing and has had to work twice as hard to get anywhere in his life; always trying to find the next big story to try and make a name for himself

johanna ryeo | fc: catherine haena kim | cello player | bisexual

was considered child prodigy in the music world; used to perfection in all aspects of her life and very ambitious; willing to do what it takes to remain on top and relevant

simone jensen | fc: rachel hilson | tutor & graduate student | bisexual

makes a living tutoring students of rich families in english, history, and piano; typically hates the families she works but is jealous of what they have

park jae-sung | fc: lee jongsuk | software engineer | vampire (if spn verse) | bisexual

was expected to take care of his family, especially his sister, and grew kind of resentful of it; tends to be on the antisocial side; if a vampire - cannot control his thirst & was turned against his will by his sister

jennifer chu | fc: son na-eun | dancer | bisexual

l*ve quinn coded; desperately wants to be in love and loved but is afraid they won't like the real her; can be on the obsessive side and will form a co-dependent/toxic relationship with you; will kill to protect someone she loves

hannah won | fc: yang hyeji | interior designer | bisexual

based on the book home before dark by riley sager; her family's famous because her father wrote a best selling "memoir" about their family fleeing a haunted house they lived in while she was a child; estranged from her family bc she thinks it's all lies despite not remembering anything about her childhood; has currently inherited said-haunted house after her parents' passing

carina torres | fc: carmela zumbado | former actress | bisexual

washed-up child/teen actress who barely gets roles anymore; constantly in tabloids for poor behavior; recently is growing concerned about her money drying up and very desperate to keep her current lifestyle up

david crawford | fc: penn badgley | mostly unemployed | heterosexual

libby day from dark places coded; sole survivor of a family murder that became an unsolved cold case; has made a living through donations he received from anonymous strangers but that well has slowly been drying up as he got older; makes appearances or speaks publicly for a fee

samuel hino | fc: andrew koji | professor | heterosexual

son of a serial killer; turned in his father for his crimes once his father tried to get him to kill too; still struggles with what he's grown up with; is concerned will end up having the same darkness as his father and maybe already does but doesn't know it yet

#indie rp #indie supernatural rp #indie crime rp #indie bi rp #indie horror rp #[ ooc ]#// open to new peeps or peeps i'm already writing with!

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mack-anthology-mp3 · 10 months

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Very long post with an intro into music I like! i have posted about most of these bands before at some point, but here's a masterpost of sorts.

@literatureisdying here it is! it is intimidatingly long sorry but I really hope you enjoy it! i tried to group the songs, they are in a more or less logical order but feel free to just pick some or shuffle.

Patti Smith - my favourite! I could talk forever about Patti I love her with all of my being. she was initially a poet and artist before turning her poems into rock and roll in the early seventies in the New York punk scene - she is very influential to just about every female rock musician since. her four earliest albums are the best, her debut Horses is generally regarded as one of the best albums ever. in more recent years she has written a series of memoirs which are also amazing and definitely worth reading even if you don’t know anything about her or her music. her androgynous style and generally i-don’t-give-a-shit punk attitude have become iconic. (***disclaimer for this part - she has one song using the n-slur, she isn’t racist, she was trying to reclaim the word but she’s white and it came off wrong. it was the wrong choice of word. she’s not racist, i don't support use of that word, the fanbase as a whole understands what she was *trying* to do and then ignores that song and moves on. this is a PSA, please no one try to argue with me about this thanks. sorry to put this right at the top.***)

Einstürzende Neubauten - German industrial band led by Blixa Bargeld, they formed in west Berlin in the early 80s and had a bit of a reputation for wrecking stuff - a lot of their early stuff is shouting in German with distorted guitar and hitting metal stuff but as they evolved they wrote some really beautiful things.

PJ Harvey - my other love! PJ is a constantly evolving artist and every single one of her albums is something different and also very good. She has an amazing voice and plays guitar and piano and has incredible stage presence, especially from 1995 with all the costumes and makeup - a lot of her songs kind of fit the ‘female rage’ vibe (especially Rid Of Me) but she does it very very well - since the mid 2000s she has done some stuff concerned with england and the folk history of it, her new album I Inside the Old Year Dying is amazing and slightly bizarre. some vaguely sapphic undertones to some of her stuff :)

Radiohead - a band to obsess over if there ever was one. They are stereotyped as being music for depressed loner virgins which is a little funny but also kind of true haha. A lot of their music is very ominous and emotional and a bit dark and pessimistic, but that’s the appeal. they are all top-tier musicians - Jonny Greenwood plays a lot of instruments including some you’ve never heard of and Thom Yorke has one of the most iconic voices, and his lyrics are just brilliant. they started off as like a britpop adjacent - prog rock sort of band but then in 2000 they released Kid A, which has not a lot of guitar and lots of ominous electronics instead - all their albums have their own distinct vibe. Thom and Jonny also have a new project called the Smile which are currently releasing and touring.

*interlude* - This Mess We’re In by PJ Harvey and Thom Yorke - my two favourite 90s musicians make a song together!! this is from PJ pop-rock album, she wrote it but Thom sings the second part. I don’t know if they recorded this in the same studio or if she sent him a tape to sing over, but if they did do it together there are no photos of them together which was a missed opportunity if you ask me.

Hole - Courtney Love’s band. sort of riot-grrrl adjacent grunge, very angsty (a lot of this is very angsty though haha). lots of very female - specific songs which is cool. pretty intense, lots of screaming but she’s very good at screaming

the Slits - 70s feminist punk reggae band! they only made one album when they first started but it’s very cool. also quite female-centric, songs about being yourself and fighting conformity and capitalism yay

Bob Dylan - arguably the most influential figure in western music, he has like 40 studio albums but Desolation Row is my favourite song of his. he started off doing folk music, then did stoner psychedelic folk-rock and then almost died and did some country, then folk rock but with a massive band, then gospel rock, etc etc he keeps changing. very enigmatic, hard to place. still tours at age 82. famously has a kind of grating singing voice but lyrics make up for it.

Joan Baez - folk singer and activist - Silver Dagger is a traditional song from her first album - she was only 19! she has an incredible voice, really string vibrato. she was big into anti-war activism and civil rights, did a mix of covers of traditional and contemporary stuff and wrote her own songs too. played at Woodstock festival of music and arts!

Pentangle - late 60s english folk-rock band. they are all insanely talented musicians and Basket Of Light is one of my favourite ever albums - it’s all acoustic instruments but played in really interesting ways.

Led Zeppelin - they may be a band mainly enjoyed by middle aged white men but damn are they good. another band where every member is insanely talented - jimmy page and john paul jones between them can play everything with strings. blues rock - III is their best album and super underrated. songs about lord of the rings, folklore and wizard battles, because y’know, they’re also hippie nerds. some of their stuff is a bit problematic :/ Jimmy was weird and also into occultism.

Joni Mitchell - a folkpopjazz musician - very inventive guitar style, only two of her songs are in standard tuning, and she is also an amazing piano player, and has one of the best voices - she is the originator of the confessional-singer-songwriter-very-specific-lyrics-acoustic-guitar-women, she did it first and best. alas most of her stuff is no longer on spotify, she left the platform to protest antivax podcasts on the site, but everything is on youtube and there are always cds. Raised on Robbery That Song about the Midway Ray's Dad's Cadillac

Aldous Harding - she is from very close to where I live! she does completely bonkers art-folk-something with John Parish who also produced PJ. she’s wonderful. she describes her performance as ‘song acting’ more than singing. i love her. she’s so awkward. Warm Chris was definitely my album of the year for last year.

Marlon Williams - from the same place! last year he invented a new genre, as you do, Māori disco pop, on his album My Boy. very soulful voice, he was a choir boy, used to do very folk stuff but not so much anymore.

*interlude* Nobody Gets What They Want Anymore by Marlon Williams and Aldous Harding.

SO - Aldous and Marlon were romantically involved for a while a few years ago, he produced her debut - when they broke up he wrote the album Make Way For Love about her, AND THEN invited her to sing with him on this song, he sang his part then sent it to her. so very tragic emotional and cool. BUT THEN - i saw Marlon live last year, and he BROUGHT ALDOUS ON STAGE TO SING THIS WITH HIM. FOR THE FIRST TIME. anyways i was so excited and also very normal about that. there’s a bad phone video of it on youtube but i was thrilled and also astounded to say the least. i have also been lucky enough to meet both of them :D benefits of living in a small country i guess.

The Beths - NZ’s best indie band! lyrics are much darker than the cheerful music and backing vocals would suggest. very good vibes, their music videos are delightful as well.

Courtney Barnett - queer Australian singer-songwriter! she’s very cool, a nice mix of folkier and grungier stuff, has that sort of talking singing style - plays her own guitar, likes fitting as many syllables as possible into the line.

Björk / The Sugarcubes - the Sugarcubes were an 80s Icelandic band doing sort of new-wavey pop stuff but with bonkers lyrics - when they split Björk started doing bonkers electronic pop music. she’s delightful. she’s very good at screaming and singing wordlessly.

Spiritualized - shoegaze-inspired space rock, atmospheric alt-rock - this song borrows from Elvis

the Flaming Lips - delightful 2000s indie rock this album makes me so happy

Voom - another NZ band! indie band very good

Built to Spill - indie rock, fantastic guitar in this one

Pulp - britpop, songs about sex and despair in a way that makes it sound like an intellectual pop-culture review, if Jarvis Cocker says something weird it’s almost definitely tongue-in-cheek

Neutral Milk Hotel - bonkers indie album about loss of innocence inspired by Anne Frank. it’s a bit of a joke that people are like ‘i’m so alternative i like Neutral Milk Hotel’, it’s not as obscure as it sounds like it is.

Dean and Britta - these songs accompany Andy Warhol’s Screen tests, where people would be sat in front of a camera for a couple minutes. designed to match the vibe of the person.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Australian gothic rock - a lot of their stuff is kinda intense, Nick had some issues, but a cool mix of *sex and death* and yearning love songs. Blixa Bargeld (mentioned above) was in the band for a while - their songs range from full sleaze to full orchestra.

*interlude* Henry Lee by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds with PJ Harvey. hehe now this song - it’s a traditional murder ballad re-written by Nick for his album Murder Ballads. he wanted a woman to sing this with him and so asked PJ - now go watch the VIDEO. like stop reading this right now and go watch the video. it is the single most romantic tension-filled video clip i have ever seen and i love it so much. they hardly knew each other at that point!! and they’re dressed the same and the touching ashajkshakjhs anyways. in one live version Nick has pink nails too hehe. they started dating shortly after this, intensely but not for very long - when she dumped him Nick wrote The Boatman’s Call and the stuff PJ wrote for him is on Is This Desire?.

Sigur Ròs - Icelandic post-rock ambient band - very cool rolling wave of sound music, atmospheric doesn’t even begin to describe it. Svefn-g-englar translates to ‘Angels of Sleep’, sleepwalkers. the sometimes sing in Icelandic and sometimes in Hopelanic, a made-up language

my bloody valentine - one of the first and best-known shoegaze bands - loveless took them a really long time to record but is amazing, the layes of reverb and delay - you can't ever really hear the lyrics but it’s more about the general feeling.

Slowdive - another shoegaze band, a bit lighter instrument-wise, but lyrics way more tragic. Souvlaki Space Station is a really good album.

The Smiths - original emo band for sad introverts. lots of songs about being alone and unloved, rife with literary references. tragic but in a good way. great guitar, great bass, Morrissey has good voice & good lyrics but some *problematic opinions :/*. lots of plagiarising both lines in songs from books & poetry and also using other people’s photos for album art but it’s cool.

Sonic Youth - new york no-wave band - lots of distortion, ten-minute-plus songs etc. Kim Gordon is the bass player and lyricist/singer of some of the songs and she’s very very cool. another one of those bands with a lot of music

Rowland S Howard - he was in Nick Cave’s goth band in the 80s, this is his solo work from later, it’s pretty heavy musically and lyrically, but it’s cool. there’s just something i really like about how this sounds and how al the instruments work together.

The Cure - they’d make a goth album, then a pop album, then another goth album etc etc - the pop stuff is fun but the goth stuff is way angstier.

anyways, there’s a very long introduction to my taste in music! i hope you like at least some of it :D <3

#very long music taste post #patti smith #pj harvey #radiohead #aldous harding #nick cave #bjork #blixa bargeld #music recommendations #Spotify

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lilcatastrophe · 11 months

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thank you for tagging me @silentwillowwhisperer this seems like a good one :)

Rules: Put your playlist on shuffle. For each of the 10 interview questions, select a lyric from the random song that comes up (skip the song if there aren’t any lyrics and make sure to drop the name of the song)

(now to decide which of my playlists to play) here we go !

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1. How would you describe yourself in one sentence ?

• “Can’t you see? I live the way i choose Away from robots making all the rules” (starting strong and edgy great job Kay)

Song: f*ck you i’m going underground - Grand Commander

2. What kind of (gemini) are you ?

• “All my troubles in a burning pile, all lit up and i start to smile”

Song: Burning pile - Mother mother

3. You’re in your favorite spot, what are you thinking about ?

• “I’m just a problem that doesn’t wanna be solved” (damn)

Song: Novocaine - Fall out boy

4. If your life was a movie, what would the first review say ?

• “Growing up isn’t something you can make happen” (why are mine so moody)

Song: Growing up - The Linda Lindas

5. What would you title your memoir ?

• “Oh, the things we wish we could wash away”

Song: & - Tally hall

6. What would you say about your best friends ?

• “We were wrecks before we crashed into each other” (this one fits so perfect actually wow)

Song: Sober to death - Car seat headrest

7. What was your life motto as a teenager ?

• “ I can’t stand the thought of you seeing me For who i truly am” (on point but wow emo much ?)

Song: Cryptid - Lucas Lex (honestly tho this is my favorite song go listen to it it’s very good)

8. Describe your current aesthetic plz be good

• “All i can say is that my life is pretty plain, I like watching the puddles gather rain” (fair enough)

Song: No rain - Sleeping with sirens

9. What’s a lyric they’ll quote in your eulogy ?

• “We all pretend to be the heroes on the good side but what if we’re the villains on the other”

Song: Villain - Stella Jang

10. What would your soulmate’s first impression of you be ?

• “I don’t hate you I’m just a loner too Don’t go, stay here why can’t we disappear” (real nice one to end on i think)

Song: STAY HERE - Chronic nostalgics (their stuff is so good omg go listen to everything. they’re not that well known with not too many songs but all of it’s absolutely amazing. i’ll shut up now)

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aaand we’re done. thank you again @silentwillowwhisperer for tagging me i enjoyed this !! it was a lot harder than i expected though haha

i don’t have anyone specific to tag for this but whoever wants to do it just go for it it’s real fun i had a great time :))

#tagged #music #lotta rock here #not art #long post #<3

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mermaidsirennikita · 9 months

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You have any recommendations where the hero hates everyone except her? 💕 Historical’s included if any.

Hmm...

Managed by Kristen Callihan. An all-time favorite contemporary romance. Hero is the uptight, strict manager of a rock band. He does love the guys as they're his longtime friends, but he's very snappy and standoffishness by nature. He hires the heroine as the band's photographer/social media manager, but he has insomnia and can only sleep when she's in the bed with him. So they become platonic nap partners. Naturally. Has a particularly incredible scene when he jacks off while smelling her dirty underwear and dodging her question from the other side of the door, before handwashing said underwear and hiding them underneath his mattress.

Hotel of Secrets by Diana Biller. Historical. The hero is less about hating people and more about being an extreme loner who doesn't want to get close to people. He's an American spy on a case, the heroine is this social butterfly who's trying to save this Viennese hotel her family has owned for generations. He saves her life, like, thrice. Also, he's a big ol' virgin and she is... not. SO good.

The Truth About Cads and Dukes by Elisa Braden. Historical. Again, he's more standoffish and he does love his siblings, just is exceptionally bad at expressing his feelings. The hero marries the heroine after his brother ruins her (in a non-sexual manner) and it's really largely your standard marriage of convenience book, but done very well with an excellent love confession. Heroine is plus size, which is nice. Maybe my favorite Rescued from Ruin book? I really like all the times his lust cannot be contained and he just tackles her.

How to Marry a Marquess by Stacy Reid. Historical. BIG this vibe. The hero is kind of ostracized by society because he claimed his illegitimate daughter and is raising her without shame. He's very FUCK ALL Y'ALL about it, but the heroine, who is this very proper miss type, is his longtime friend and he adores her. She's been in love with him for forever, but he doesn't think she can deal with being an outcast so he won't make a move. Which is why she asks him for lessons in seducing some TOTALLY RANDOM GUY she's FOR SURE IN LOVE WITH. Very hot, and leads to some fabulous angst towards the end.

What I Did for a Duke by Julie Anne Long. Historical. Super this. Hero is a jaded snappish duke pushing 40 who finds a local rake in bed with his fiance. He decides to exact revenge by seducing said rake's innocent, virginal sister (who's like, half his age). She's super smart, so she catches on immediately, but she wants her friend who she's into to make a move, so she kind of allows him to court her... But then he becomes genuinely fond of her and it gets real.

After Dark with the Duke by Julie Anne Long. Begins as light ETL, becomes more like this. 40-something war hero duke is staying at the same boarding house as 20-something scandalous opera singer while he's writing his memoirs. She bugs him, he offends her, in penance he offers to teach her Italian to help with her singing, and they develop a very sweet friendship that quickly shifts into major sexual tension.

Marrying Winterborne by Lisa Kleypas. Historical. Rhys Winterborne definitely has like, FRIENDS, but he's also kind of super grumpy and sort of socially awkward, lol. He adores Helen and would move heaven and earth for her, even if he's bad at giving flowers. Benefits from reading Cold-Hearted Rake first, as they begin as a secondary romance in that one. People will tell you Chasing Cassandra is this even more, and I guess it is, but... Idk, maybe I should reread that one because it didn't super do it for me, and I think Tom Severin would've been better off with a different heroine.

Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas. Historical. I think this absolutely counts, lol. Like, does Derek have one friend who isn't under his employ? Yes. But they're not as tight by the time the book begins because reasons, and he meets Sara Fielding when she shoots some guy to save him, and while he tries to be grumpy to her, he's quickly like "I've known Sara Fielding for five minutes and if anything happens to her I'll kill everyone in this room including myself".

My Darling Duke by Stacy Reid. Historical. Heroine pretends she's being courted by a recluse duke in order to help her sisters find husbands, but then recluse duke shows up in society for the first time in years to be like "and exactly what is happening rn". He's a recluse because he was super injured years back and is now a wheelchair user; he's very bitter about his disability. He makes the heroine continue the charade for a minute for his own reasons, but falls for her. I really liked how this book explored sexual dysfunction and like, having sex in a way that isn't the standard romance novel HE TOOK HER CONQUERINGLY manner.

Sworn to the Shadow God by Ruby Dixon. Fantasy. Gamer girl gets teleported to this fantasy world and becomes the sorta servant to the literal God of Death. Everyone hates him so he hates everyone. It's honestly very funny and sweet. He has this thing going on with him wherein he can't like... tell the truth... so everything he says is the opposite of what he means. This girl gives him head fairly on in the book and he's like "YOU'RE TERRIBLE AT THAT" (translation: you're great at that) during, and I think she bites his dick? He has a lot to work through after that. She thinks he hates her, but he actually adores her.

The Taming of a Highlander by Elisa Braden. Historical. Another, "he technically loves his family" guy. The hero was considered the golden boy of the family, but he was tortured and lost an eye after being wrongfully imprisoned for months, so he's not doing great. The heroine catches him attacking one of the people responsible for what happened to him, so she offers to marry him to keep from having to testify against him.

Shadowheart by Laura Kinsale. Historical. Hero is a total villain and persona non grata throughout Italy; heroine does initially dislike him, but quickly falls in love and she's like his treasured possession. Soft noncon in the beginning. The sex scenes are otherwise are super great, very femdom.

#romance novel blogging #book recs

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dk-thrive · 2 years

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I’m a slow burn. Someone has to really like me in order to be with me.

The truth is, I am a person who is meant to stay home and read books, maybe have a nice dinner, and then put myself to bed. That is the life I’m built for. It’s all about the setting. When I’m out in public, it’s as if my system gets overwhelmed and instantaneously short-circuits. I turned the phoenix into ashes, by accident, in small ways, all the time...To my family, I’m brooding and quiet. To the world, I’m like Phyllis Diller in drag—attention seeking and big. I’m a loner, but when I talk to people, I overcompensate and try to give them their money’s worth (even if no one asked and no one paid). But it doesn’t always have the intended effect. I get overstimulated, unreadable. Thank goodness there are the Sienna Millers of the world. Those who are willing to play. Those who are willing to see. Once a person has patience for me, I calm down. But first I throw everything at the wall trying to see what sticks, trying to connect. I’m a slow burn. Someone has to really like me in order to be with me. It’s just one of the reasons I love the friends I have so much—the ones who understood me and loved me just the same.

— Selma Blair, “Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up” (Knopf, May 17, 2022)

#Selma Blair #introvert #read #books #reading #homebody #quiet #brooding #loner #alone

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lifesucks-2 · 6 months

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IT FELT PERSONAL.......

My first story but I never thought I would be writing about my ultimate and personal favorite character from the world’s favorite series F.R.I.E.N.D.S.. This series is equal to the real world and just like Monica’s dialogue Reality Sucks…..

So, As we all know the world knows about Chandler Bing a character played by the legendary actor Matthew Perry, who died on 29th October 2023 and that was a day when every single person who saw the series lost an ultimate friend.

Chandler is a character who resembles half of the population in this sad generation, Damaged Childhood, the lonely, awkward and has commitment issues. Everyone sometimes, somedays experienced him. Chandler taught us to use sarcasm as a shield even when there are sad days or bad days. Likewise his quote

There’s nothing better than a world where everybody’s just trying to make each other laugh. and it is a good trait. Matthew Perry has this trait he was and is an iconic comedian forever. The character Chandler will live on…. Whenever we watch Friends we can watch him in his favorite role and with his favorite people. But at this time watching that series it always reminds us of Matthew Perry.

The song which was sung for Friends is the famous song I’LL BE THERE FOR YOU. You hear it now it hits you hard enough to cry…. Why I am saying this because I felt that. Everyone just sadly making the song with Chandler’s pictures. But the First Line of the song goes like this……

SO NO ONE TOLD YOU LIFE WAS GONNA BE THIS WAY and that’s right no one knows what we gonna do or how our life would be. Common we can’t even predict what’s going to happen after a minute. That one line describes life in depth.

My conclusion depends on Matthew Perry’s last interview That people are not alone, there are people exactly how we feel and we are not insane. It is not our fault to be different. If we are troubled we can get better. Live in the present, Work on yourself, for yourself and to improve yourself.

My Opinion is if you feel low or lonely just hit me up. I never want to see myself in others. I am a loner. I am not an introvert or an extrovert. I just want to improve myself accept my mistakes and learn from them. Just trying to love myself. Sometimes I use the Chandler technique. You know Sarcasm as a defense mechanism.

MATTHEW PERRY AKA CHANDLER BING You will be missed by the whole world. Thanks for teaching us what laughter is. You are my comfort character and will be remembered always. Rest In Peace MATTHEW PERRY And You will be remembered exactly how you wanted to be “I would like to be remembered as somebody who lived well, loved well, and was a seeker.” CHANDLER BING WILL NEVER LEAVE THE WORLD it’s a character you played and it will cherished forever.” This truly is The One Where Our Hearts Are Broken.”

Please Read his MEMOIR “FRIENDS, LOVERS, AND THE BIG TERRIBLE THING” It will surely help.

#celebrities #chandler bing #matthew perry #friends tv show

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last-tambourine · 1 year

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"One reason for my choice of these particular girls was the peculiar mixture of fragility and courage I sensed in them. They were what you would call loners, who did not belong to any particular group or sect. I admired their ability to survive not despite but in some ways because of their solitary lives. We can call the class “a space of our own,”

~ Reading Lolita in Tehran a memoir in books, by Azar Nafisi

#azar nafisi #courage #fragility #delicate

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thegirlwholeftthefridgeopen · 11 months

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"Out of school, I was a bit of a loner, I'd say. In school, I was doomed. I was not only damaged by the death of my mother but also suffered from dyslexia. In those days "word blindness" was considered a sign of stupidity rather than a condition that calls for a special needs teacher. One or two teachers were sympathetic but others humiliated me. For a very long time I assumed I was an idiot. What's more, I felt like a freak." -the devil in the kitchen, March Pierre White

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hazelnut-u-out · 1 year

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Hello mutual! For the writing thing: 🥺, ✨, 🎶, 👀 and/or 🤲, 🧠 for Rick, and if there’s anything you particularly want to answer that you haven’t been asked then that too if you want to?

thank you for sending in an ask!! <33

i just saw your reply to mine, hehe. answers under the cut!

🥺Is there a certain type of moment or common interaction between your characters that never fails to put you in your feels?

hmmm... this one is kind of difficult to answer because, yes, but it's difficult to pick just one lol. if i had to pick one that makes me the most emotional, it'd probably be a tossup between young rick being any sort of paternal/doting to baby beth or any kind of moment where morty shows how sweet and pure his intentions are when everyone he puts himself on the line for is so undeserving.

also, rick crying or morty getting angry enough to just tear into someone. it's kind of their respective, "something is really wrong here."

✨Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it.

thank you, hehe. i'm my own worst critic, but i feel like i can make anything angsty and painful if you want me to. i also think i'm pretty good at painting visual details with words??

🎶Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

i have a hard time listening to music while i read or write because i get overstimulated SUPER easily lol. i do base a lot of my fics off of songs, though!

one i keep coming back to for rick is "storms" by fleetwood mac:

"did i ever really care that much? is there anything left to say?

every hour of fear i spend, my body tries to cry

living through each empty night

a deadly calm inside

i haven't felt this way i feel since many a year ago"

one that always makes me think of morty is "ghost on" by angel olsen:

"when should i believe the things you say?

you change your mind from day to day

and i don't know if you can take such a good thing coming to you

and i don't know if you can love someone stronger than you're used to"

i also have plenty i revisit for birdrick stuff.

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

i'm working on a couple of multi-chapter concepts atm! i've been rereading the original "the adventures and memoirs of sherlock holmes" rn to work on my rick and morty x holmes and watson au!

🤲 Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

some morty dialogue from an upcoming angst fic between the boy and his mad scientist grandpa:

"What, Rick? Woul- Would that make for a better story? W-Would it make me a more developed character? Or maybe a different answer would make you feel better! I-I'm so sorry! D-Did you have a different character arc in mind? One that would make you feel better about the character you've wr-written me to be? Would it be easier for you to forgive me if there was a-a-a reason that I did what I did? Would it tie up loose ends if -(redacted for spoilers)-? Give you closure? W-Well... 'tough luck, buddy.'"

also, just for you, a birdrick snippet from a revenge-era space cowboy multi-chapter wip:

The young man was unfurled below his companion like a blanket beneath the stars, and they studied one another like a loner’s wide eyes would peruse the cosmos sprawled out above them- Rick's quivering fingers and lips taking note of constellations divinely created for nothing more than his sinful touch along the way.

🧠 Pick a character, and I'll tell you my favorite headcanon for them. (Rick)

i have so many silly headcanons about rick. my favorite is probably that he doesn't let morty get adult meals when they go through drive thru's. he has to get the kid's meal, but rick demands he give him the toy.

#my fics #asks

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kamalghazi · 2 years

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SPACES, ANNEXED – Should not have been – by Kamal Ghazi

“Nothing here should have ever been.”

MY NAME IS KAMAL.

I, PERFECTION

Memoir 1.1

My life has been a collective problem. Since the day of my birth, my name has been the first of problems yet to come, and, possibly, the first major one of them until today. My mother, the strong-willed civil engineer, who had love and cherished her father so deeply that she wanted her first born child, who is also a masculine child—which represents good and a blessing in a culture that dominantly favors the masculine over the feminine—to be named after her father; whose name meant: PERFECTION. And so had he always been in her eyes, ever since she had the efficient consciousness to comprehend the world around her and to understand the importance of work for the individual and for the group altogether. Henceforth, she tried as much as she had been capable of to follow in his footsteps. Her father—who is my grandfather—for some reason I have never known of, had found himself in the unfortunate circumstances of having to work, since the age of ten years old, and to provide for his numerous family members, which consisted solely of females, who had not been able to work due to the social barriers of the era, 1939. Although my grandfather had had a younger brother, who had been born in 1948, nearly ten years younger than my grandfather used to be, however, his brother had been always treated like a son of his, and to my mother (whom had been the elder child) and her siblings, although they called him “father”, he had always remained a big brother in practice, not an uncle at all. For many years, a tiny two-bedroom flat held the happy family of thirteen members; eight siblings, uncle, aunts, grandmother—whom my mother had been named after, which, by the way, the literal interpretation of her name means: THE GREAT–in addition to individuals all of my grandfather’s side (since my grandmother had been forbidden from having tight nor strong contact with her family members under any circumstances). However, in such tiny space the way her father kept order inside such incomprehensive crowdedness, and provided for them all equally, made her realize that this man had been extraordinary; not only had he been in her eyes, but in every other person who had had a direct connection with him, as he was both feared and respected, and, in the same time, he was loved; an extremely a combination she was able to attain along her life—which in itself is an undeniable achievement, which had never been forgotten by my mother. In a heavily male dominated culture like this, when the first newborn masculine is named after his grandfather to his mother, this is taken as a feature of shame to the father as well as a sign of weakness against his wife. Therefore, my father named me legally, Kamal al-Din, which means Perfection of Religion, after the Sheikh he used to follow back then. But never I have felt that my name ever had been with al-Din attached to it. Everybody knows me as Kamal. Nothing Else. This represents the war between my father and my mother, that went on and on, while I paid a heavy price for.

Between two pinks—I AM

I, PERFECTION

Memoir 1.2

Bi. Queer. Drug-addict. Seductive. Self-centered. Disturbed. Gifted. Disordered. Exhibitionist. Calm. Talkative. Quiet. Kinky. Fetish. Lover. Lusty. Desirer. Hunter/hunted. Dancer. Stylish. Cool. Handsome. Reckless. Taker. Lazy. Risky. Idle. Giver. Kind. Cunning. Curious. Playful. Lustful. Wondrous. Wonderer. Wanderer. Loner. Desperate. Dependent. Pleasant. Charming. Thoughtful. Unique. Egotistical. Psycho. Skeptical. Ungrateful. Forgetful. Broke. Workless. Horny. Intelligent. Stupid. Dangerous. Thinker. Intellectual. Sick. Creative. Artist. Womanizer. Quitter. Careless. Violent. Sex. Drugs. Creation.

‘‘C’est la vie.“

#about #about the author #archives #bio #secret #first post #in the closet #coming out #filmmaker #writer #intro post #test post #testtag

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seolinah · 11 days

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some new test muses -- if you're interested give this a like and i'll message you or lmk which one you like and i'll write you a starter with them !

park jae-hwa | fc: go min-so | social media influencer & model | vampire (if spn verse) | bisexual

zachary davis | fc: josh hutcherson | journalist | heterosexual

johanna ryeo | fc: catherine haena kim | cello player | bisexual

was considered child prodigy in the music world; used to perfection in all aspects of her life and very ambitious; willing to do what it takes to remain on top and relevant

simone jensen | fc: rachel hilson | tutor & graduate student | bisexual

makes a living tutoring students of rich families in english, history, and piano; typically hates the families she works but is jealous of what they have

park jae-sung | fc: lee jongsuk | software engineer | vampire (if spn verse) | bisexual

jennifer chu | fc: son na-eun | dancer | bisexual

hannah won | fc: yang hyeji | interior designer | bisexual

carina torres | fc: carmela zumbado | former actress | bisexual

david crawford | fc: penn badgley | mostly unemployed | heterosexual

samuel hino | fc: andrew koji | professor | heterosexual

#indie rp #indie bi rp #indie lesbian rp #indie crime rp #indie horror rp #indie supernatural rp #// me just casually reposting it again so more peeps can see #for new peeps and peeps im already writing with !

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whileiamdying · 5 months

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The Defiance of Salman Rushdie

After a near-fatal stabbing—and decades of threats—the novelist speaks about writing as a death-defying act.

By David Remnick February 6, 2023

When Salman Rushdie turned seventy-five, last summer, he had every reason to believe that he had outlasted the threat of assassination. A long time ago, on Valentine’s Day, 1989, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, declared Rushdie’s novel “The Satanic Verses” blasphemous and issued a fatwa ordering the execution of its author and “all those involved in its publication.” Rushdie, a resident of London, spent the next decade in a fugitive existence, under constant police protection. But after settling in New York, in 2000, he lived freely, insistently unguarded. He refused to be terrorized.

There were times, though, when the lingering threat made itself apparent, and not merely on the lunatic reaches of the Internet. In 2012, during the annual autumn gathering of world leaders at the United Nations, I joined a small meeting of reporters with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, and I asked him if the multimillion-dollar bounty that an Iranian foundation had placed on Rushdie’s head had been rescinded. Ahmadinejad smiled with a glint of malice. “Salman Rushdie, where is he now?” he said. “There is no news of him. Is he in the United States? If he is in the U.S., you shouldn’t broadcast that, for his own safety.”

Within a year, Ahmadinejad was out of office and out of favor with the mullahs. Rushdie went on living as a free man. The years passed. He wrote book after book, taught, lectured, travelled, met with readers, married, divorced, and became a fixture in the city that was his adopted home. If he ever felt the need for some vestige of anonymity, he wore a baseball cap.

Recalling his first few months in New York, Rushdie told me, “People were scared to be around me. I thought, The only way I can stop that is to behave as if I’m not scared. I have to show them there’s nothing to be scared about.” One night, he went out to dinner with Andrew Wylie, his agent and friend, at Nick & Toni’s, an extravagantly conspicuous restaurant in East Hampton. The painter Eric Fischl stopped by their table and said, “Shouldn’t we all be afraid and leave the restaurant?”

“Well, I’m having dinner,” Rushdie replied. “You can do what you like.”

Fischl hadn’t meant to offend, but sometimes there was a tone of derision in press accounts of Rushdie’s “indefatigable presence on the New York night-life scene,” as Laura M. Holson put it in the Times. Some people thought he should have adopted a more austere posture toward his predicament. Would Solzhenitsyn have gone onstage with Bono or danced the night away at Moomba?

For Rushdie, keeping a low profile would be capitulation. He was a social being and would live as he pleased. He even tried to render the fatwa ridiculous. Six years ago, he played himself in an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in which Larry David provokes threats from Iran for mocking the Ayatollah while promoting his upcoming production “Fatwa! The Musical.” David is terrified, but Rushdie’s character assures him that life under an edict of execution, though it can be “scary,” also makes a man alluring to women. “It’s not exactly you, it’s the fatwa wrapped around you, like sexy pixie dust!” he says.

With every public gesture, it appeared, Rushdie was determined to show that he would not merely survive but flourish, at his desk and on the town. “There was no such thing as absolute security,” he wrote in his third-person memoir, “Joseph Anton,” published in 2012. “There were only varying degrees of insecurity. He would have to learn to live with that.” He well understood that his demise would not require the coördinated efforts of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or Hezbollah; a cracked loner could easily do the job. “But I had come to feel that it was a very long time ago, and that the world moves on,” he told me.

In September, 2021, Rushdie married the poet and novelist Rachel Eliza Griffiths, whom he’d met six years earlier, at a pen event. It was his fifth marriage, and a happy one. They spent the pandemic together productively. By last July, Rushdie had made his final corrections on a new novel, titled “Victory City.”

One of the sparks for the novel was a trip decades ago to the town of Hampi, in South India, the site of the ruins of the medieval Vijayanagara empire. “Victory City,” which is presented as a recovered medieval Sanskrit epic, is the story of a young girl named Pampa Kampana, who, after witnessing the death of her mother, acquires divine powers and conjures into existence a glorious metropolis called Bisnaga, in which women resist patriarchal rule and religious tolerance prevails, at least for a while. The novel, firmly in the tradition of the wonder tale, draws on Rushdie’s readings in Hindu mythology and in the history of South Asia.

“The first kings of Vijayanagara announced, quite seriously, that they were descended from the moon,” Rushdie said. “So when these kings, Harihara and Bukka, announce that they’re members of the lunar dynasty, they’re basically associating themselves with those great heroes. It’s like saying, ‘I’ve descended from the same family as Achilles.’ Or Agamemnon. And so I thought, Well, if you could say that, I can say anything.”

Above all, the book is buoyed by the character of Pampa Kampana, who, Rushdie says, “just showed up in my head” and gave him his story, his sense of direction. The pleasure for Rushdie in writing the novel was in “world building” and, at the same time, writing about a character building that world: “It’s me doing it, but it’s also her doing it.” The pleasure is infectious. “Victory City” is an immensely enjoyable novel. It is also an affirmation. At the end, with the great city in ruins, what is left is not the storyteller but her words:

I, Pampa Kampana, am the author of this book. I have lived to see an empire rise and fall. How are they remembered now, these kings, these queens? They exist now only in words . . . I myself am nothing now. All that remains is this city of words. Words are the only victors.

It is hard not to read this as a credo of sorts. Over the years, Rushdie’s friends have marvelled at his ability to write amid the fury unleashed on him. Martin Amis has said that, if he were in his shoes, “I would, by now, be a tearful and tranquilized three-hundred-pounder, with no eyelashes or nostril hairs.” And yet “Victory City” is Rushdie’s sixteenth book since the fatwa.

He was pleased with the finished manuscript and was getting encouragement from friends who had read it. (“I think ‘Victory City’ will be one of his books that will last,” the novelist Hari Kunzru told me.) During the pandemic, Rushdie had also completed a play about Helen of Troy, and he was already toying with an idea for another novel. He’d reread Thomas Mann’s “The Magic Mountain” and Franz Kafka’s “The Castle,” novels that deploy a naturalistic language to evoke strange, hermetic worlds—an alpine sanatorium, a remote provincial bureaucracy. Rushdie thought about using a similar approach to create a peculiar imaginary college as his setting. He started keeping notes. In the meantime, he looked forward to a peaceful summer and, come winter, a publicity tour to promote “Victory City.”

On August 11th, Rushdie arrived for a speaking engagement at the Chautauqua Institution, situated on an idyllic property bordering a lake in southwestern New York State. There, for nine weeks every summer, a prosperous crowd intent on self-improvement and fresh air comes to attend lectures, courses, screenings, performances, and readings. Chautauqua has been a going concern since 1874. Franklin Roosevelt delivered his “I hate war” speech there, in 1936. Over the years, Rushdie has occasionally suffered from nightmares, and a couple of nights before the trip he dreamed of someone, “like a gladiator,” attacking him with “a sharp object.” But no midnight portent was going to keep him home. Chautauqua was a wholesome venue, with cookouts, magic shows, and Sunday school. One donor described it to me as “the safest place on earth.”

Rushdie had agreed to appear onstage with his friend Henry Reese. Eighteen years ago, Rushdie helped Reese raise funds to create City of Asylum, a program in Pittsburgh that supports authors who have been driven into exile. On the morning of August 12th, Rushdie had breakfast with Reese and some donors on the porch of the Athenaeum Hotel, a Victorian pile near the lake. At the table, he told jokes and stories, admitting that he sometimes ordered books from Amazon even if he felt a little guilty about it. With mock pride, he bragged about his speed as a signer of books, though he had to concede that Amy Tan was quicker: “But she has an advantage, because her name is so short.”

A crowd of more than a thousand was gathering at the amphitheatre. It was shorts-and-polo-shirt weather, sunny and clear. On the way into the venue, Reese introduced Rushdie to his ninety-three-year-old mother, and then they headed for the greenroom to spend time organizing their talk. The plan was to discuss the cultural hybridity of the imagination in contemporary literature, show some slides and describe City of Asylum, and, finally, open things up for questions.

#Salman Rushdie #The New Yorker Magazine #Amy Tan #David Remnick

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