#I really struggled with the male characters

[justforbooks]

Marianne Faithfull, singular icon of British pop, dies aged 78

Singer and actor overcame drug addiction and homelessness to collaborate with everyone from the Rolling Stones and Metallica to Jean-Luc Godard

Marianne Faithfull, whose six-decade career marked her out as one of the UK’s most versatile and characterful singer-songwriters, has died aged 78.

A spokesperson said: “It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of the singer, songwriter and actress Marianne Faithfull.

“Marianne passed away peacefully in London today, in the company of her loving family. She will be dearly missed.”

With a discography that spanned classic 60s pop tunes to the prowling synthpop of Broken English and onto collaborations with Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Lou Reed and more, Faithfull was idolised by fans and fellow musicians alike, and was also celebrated across the worlds of fashion and film.

Mick Jagger, with whom she had a four-year relationship, said: “I am so saddened to hear of the death of Marianne Faithfull. She was so much part of my life for so long. She was a wonderful friend, a beautiful singer and a great actress. She will always be remembered.”

Born in 1946 in London, Faithfull was descended from Austrian nobility on her mother’s side – her great-great-uncle Leopold von Sacher-Masoch wrote the erotic novel Venus in Furs – but grew up in relatively ordinary surroundings in a terraced house in Reading.

After leaving for London in her teens, she met Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham, who asked Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to write her 1964 debut single As Tears Go By, which hit the UK Top 10. She had three other Top 10 singles in 1965, all of which also reached the Top 40 in the US.

Faithfull also began acting at that time, appearing on stage in productions of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, alongside Glenda Jackson, and Hamlet, playing Ophelia with Anjelica Huston as her understudy and performing each night’s climactic “madness” scene, she later revealed, high on heroin.

On screen, she acted alongside Orson Welles, Oliver Reed, Alain Delon and Anna Karina, and played herself in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1966 film Made in the USA.

Her fame as an icon of “swinging London” was superseded, though, by the infamy that came from her relationship with the Rolling Stones. She had married the artist John Dunbar in 1965 and had a son, Nicholas, but soon left Dunbar for Mick Jagger.

She was often described as a muse for the band: she once told Jagger “wild horses couldn’t drag me away”, which became the chorus line to Wild Horses, and her drug struggles also proved inspirational for the songs Dear Doctor and You Can’t Always Get What You Want. She said: “I know they used me as a muse for those tough drug songs. I knew I was being used, but it was for a worthy cause.”

She co-wrote her song Sister Morphine, recorded with Jagger, Richards and Ry Cooder, and later recorded by the Rolling Stones for their album Sticky Fingers, but her writing credit was left off until she won a protracted legal battle.

Her addiction to cocaine and heroin worsened, and her reputation was damaged by being discovered naked, wrapped in a fur rug after having a shower, during a 1967 police search of Keith Richards’ house, alongside Richards, Jagger and six other men (described by one person as an innocent gathering “of pure domesticity”). “It destroyed me,” she later said. “To be a male drug addict and to act like that is always enhancing and glamorising. A woman in that situation becomes a slut and a bad mother.”

In 1970, Faithfull lost custody of her son, split with Jagger and became homeless, living on the streets of Soho in London as she tried to quit heroin. “I’d been living in a very fake sort of world in the 60s,” she said in 2016. “Suddenly, when I was living on the streets … I realised that human beings were really good. The Chinese restaurant let me wash my clothes there. The man who had the tea stall gave me cups of tea.” She slowly turned her life around, ending an almost decade-long spell away from music with the country album Dreamin’ My Dreams in 1976.

She cemented her comeback with one of her most acclaimed albums, 1979’s Grammy-nominated Broken English, embracing synthpop and postpunk with an affectingly raw, deepened voice. She quit drugs for good in 1985, and regularly released music throughout the rest of her career. Her collaborators over the years included Nick Cave, Damon Albarn, Emmylou Harris, Beck and Metallica. She released 21 studio albums.

Faithfull married and divorced two additional times, to Ben Brierly of punk band the Vibrators, and the actor Giorgio Della Terza. “I’ve had a wonderful life with all my lovers, and husbands,” she said in 2011, excepting Della Terza: “He was American, and he was a nightmare.”

There were other acting roles, too, notably playing God in two episodes of the sitcom Absolutely Fabulous; the devil in a 2004 production of The Black Rider, a musical by Tom Waits and William Burroughs; and Empress Maria Theresa in Sofia Coppola’s film Marie Antoinette.

In her later years she lived in Paris, and reacted to the 2015 terror attack at the city’s Bataclan concert venue, in which 90 people were killed, with a song called They Come at Night written on the day of the attacks.

Faithfull had numerous health issues. In 2007, she announced she had the liver illness hepatitis C, having been diagnosed 12 years previously. She had successful surgery following a breast cancer diagnosis in 2006, and weathered numerous joint ailments in her later years, including arthritis. In the early 1970s, she also suffered from anorexia during her heroin addiction. In 2020, she contracted Covid-19 and was hospitalised for 22 days.

She is survived by her son, Nicholas Dunbar.

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

[lemotmo]

I have never sent you one of these before so I hope I did it correctly. I found this very helpful because I also don't always understand the nuance or subtlety of a scene. Glad to know it's not just me.

Q. I'm not sure if you can even do this but I have autism and I struggle immensely with understanding subtext, framing, sarcasm and anything else really that I'm supposed to be able to pick up on in media. The direct dialogue or action in a scene tends to be what I take as fact. I understand that's not the case and things are always there that aren't being spoken or directly stated. Can you try to explain the Buddie stuff that points to them going canon? I want it but I don't know how to spot those clues. Does this even make sense? Please feel free to ignore this if it's not something that's explainable.

A. Hi, anon. Your question makes perfect sense and I am more than willing to try and see if I can explain or offer some context into some of the scenes. I have a friend who has Asperger's and he struggles with all these things as well so we try to explain things to him as often as he needs. For the sake of length, and not wanting to make this thread too long to keep up with, I will relegate my examples to a few things from seasons 7 and 8 only. Otherwise we would be here all day. I will start with episode 7x4 because that's the episode that is most widely misinterpreted.

As everyone now knows the episode ended with Tommy kissing Buck, keep in mind that we had spent the entirety of the episode up to that point watching Buck apparently being jealous because Eddie was spending time with another guy. The direct dialogue of the scene leading up to the kiss, when Buck tells Tommy that trying to get his attention had been exhausting, is the argument people use to show that the episode was really about Tommy. But Tommy himself doesn't believe that. The audience sees Tommy surprised by that statement, because he was also aware Buck was bothered by Eddie spending time with him, but he clearly thought Buck was bothered for the same reason the audience thought Buck was bothered, because he wasn't the one Eddie was spending time with. That's why Tommy responds with a confused/surprised "Me"? The episode played very much like Buck was jealous of Tommy NOT Eddie. The most obvious example of this was the scene in the firehouse when Eddie is on the phone in the locker room and Buck is trying to get his attention while working out. The show never tells us who Eddie is actually talking too. We don't know who's on the other end of the conversation, neither does Buck. The only thing Buck sees is Eddie laughing and having a good time while ignoring him. Tommy wasn't at the firehouse so he was never going to see Buck trying to show off around the weight room and Amazon priming a basketball to himself so he could pretend he was interested in something he knew Eddie was interested in. The other interesting thing about that episode was the way Eddie was framed, in other words shot and filmed, throughout. He was consistently lit in golden/sunlight, colors associated with warmth and happiness/joy. Tim made a point of telling everyone that the episode was from Buck's perspective which means that's how Buck sees Eddie. Buck associates Eddie with happiness and warmth and joy. The joy theme is important to remember because it comes back into play during season 8. I'm not in any way suggesting that once Buck became aware of his male attraction that he didn't find Tommy attractive, he clearly did in some capacity. But it is not out of character for Buck to over correct himself in the wrong direction. Both times he asked his partners to move in with him were direct results of his belief that he needed to make up for some wrong he had done to them. He asked Taylor to move in with him after he kissed Lucy and he asked Tommy to move in with him after his reaction to the Abby news, and Josh's speech about what they owed the older queer community. Josh said many things in that speech, a speech I did not love, but he said many things and it was telling that the only part of that speech that seemed to register with Buck where Tommy was concerned was the part about what they owed to the community that came before them. It was wrong to ask on both occasions. Taylor said yes. Tommy said no. We will get back to the Tommy one shortly but those are perfect examples of Buck over correcting himself in the wrong direction in order to avoid dealing with the actual issues.

When we arrive at season 8 we get the scene of Buck hearing all the different noise and static in his head when he's trying to calm himself down while Gerard is yelling. The only voice that is clear and audible for the audience is Eddie's voice. Eddie's voice is the one used to calm and recenter Buck. It was an intentional choice to make it Eddie's voice. not his boyfriends voice but Eddie's voice. Episode 8x6 was the biggie though. The episode is titled Confessions. It was the only episode of the season so far where Buck and Eddie didn't say a single word to one another, but I'll come back to that. Eddie was the focus of that episode, it is important to note that episodes 7x4 and 8x6 were directed by the same man. It was intentional on the show's part for these two episodes to sync in some capacity. They have kept the Buck storyline and the Eddie storyline linked since the beginning of season 7. Their storylines are connected. We see Eddie at the juice bar pick up a bottle of juice and hand it to the cashier. He changes his mind though and swaps it out for a bottle of water (a good note to have here is that in the first episode when the crew is running the stairs Buck is holding a bottle of juice, not water, once they make it to the roof). Father Brian watches this interaction and decides he wants to talk to Eddie. We then see Eddie sitting outside at a table, with plenty of empty tables around him, but Father Brian asked if he could join him anyway. Father Brian attempts small talk, and Eddie, unprompted, tells him, 'sorry, I'm straight'. This is not something television has straight characters do. It's not necessary to declare your heterosexuality. In fact it is far more common for television to use dialogue like that to foreshadow a sexuality realization for that character. It is a very common beginning to a sexuality arc. Father Brian then wants to know why Eddie swapped his juice for the water. Eddie tells him he felt like water instead and Father Brian then equates Eddie denying himself the juice as a way of denying himself joy. He tells Eddie that he's punishing himself. Then they talk about why Eddie has the mustache. Eddie tells him he wanted a full beard but the LAFD doesn't allow full beards. A very interesting conversation indeed for a character who has just explicitly stated that he's straight. We all know the term 'beard' and its history within the queer community. Father Brian then tells Eddie to do one thing that brings him joy. That entire scene was written like foreshadowing. I will skip ahead now to Buck and Tommy's break up. Tommy explains to Buck that at some point he is going to figure out what it is that he really wants and even though he won't mean to, he will hurt Tommy once he figures that out. Tommy has known since 7x4 that something is there for Buck where Eddie is concerned. But he also knows Buck is not ready for that realization yet. He makes a point of telling Buck that he's his first not his last. They also made a point of having Buck say sometimes those can be the same, meaning your first can be your last. Tommy says sometimes that can be true but not most of the time. Meaning there is an exception to that rule. The right person can be your first and your last. Tommy was not the right person. Fast forward to Eddie shaving off his mustache and doing his risky business dance.

Buck goes to Eddie following the breakup. Eddie answers the door in his underwear and he and Buck do not speak. Buck holds up a beer bottle and walks in. They don't talk. They sit on the couch in silence drinking their beers. That is the final shot of the episode. An episode entitled Confessions, and the only episode of the season where Buck and Eddie don't say a single word to one another. Again the framing of that scene is also important because of what surrounds them in the scene. Buck and Eddie are on the couch. It's right it's where they belong but the timing is not right. The blurry picture of Christopher between them on the table behind them is intentional. Christopher is missing from their little unit. Then there's the picture of Texas on the wall behind Eddie. Texas, and everything it represents for Eddie, looms over them. Those are the obstacles that have to be dealt with first. They existed in that shot because Buck, and especially Eddie, cannot escape them. They have to be dealt with and fixed first. They didn't talk because they have things they need to do first.

The last shot of the mid season finale being Buck sitting alone on the Diaz couch was also foreshadowing. Eddie is going to Texas. Yes, that scene also indicated that Buck is finally at a place where he won't be able to ignore or misinterpret his feelings for Eddie any longer. Eddie isn't there yet. Texas has to be dealt with first. Therefore Eddie couldn't be physically on the couch with him in that scene because Eddie has to leave first. Eddie has to be the one person who leaves Buck and chooses to come back to Buck.

I hope this made sense, anon. It was still longer than I anticipated. Please feel free to ask me anything at any time. I am more than happy to try and explain something as best as I can, if I can. I have no idea if this was helpful but I hope you were able to get something out of it. 🩷

Thank you Nonny! This is lovely!

Such a great breakdown of the overarching Buddie storyline for Buck and Eddie. Such a great resource for people who have trouble recognising subtext and nuance in a storyline.

I am going to add my own breakdown of the entire last Buddie scene of episode 8x08. Right after it aired someone with autism contacted me with the question if I could break that specific scene down for them.

You can find it here: breakdown of 8x08 final Buddie scene

If anyone ever needs more help in this department, feel free to send an ask. Just like Ali, I'd be happy to try and explain what the viewer is meant to take away from a scene.

Heads up! For anyone who is giving me the shifty eyes for reposting Ali's updates instead of reblogging. Read this.

Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

[mtap-comics]

So, I had been bored over Christmas and started recreating the romanceable characters from Portia in The Sims 4. I didn't finish them back then, but now I've finally got them all! I'm not sure if you can even recognise them, but I've done my best with what I've got! (I'm very sorry for Oaks, but the Sims 4 sadly doesn't offer a bearskin coat).

I made Arlo shortly after I got the game 2 years ago, and he's gone through a few different lives since then. xD From living off the grit, going to college, owning a horse ranch to being a tourist/archeolocist in Selvadorada. Always with Elenya at his side.

I can upload them to the gallery if anyone is interested in playing with them or just letting them run around in their world!

[moonlightflower-queen]

I wouldn't be able to draw this man consistently if you put a gun to my head

[sonknuxadow]

my honest reaction

[spicyicymeloncat]

Idk if this is a hot take but why is it always “Kai slaved away and worked his ass off to raise his sister” and never the other way round or them working hard together?

Like, I know he’s older but in the show, does he really… act older? Like if you think about Kai and Nya’s dynamic yknow? Because from my understanding:

When Kai and Nya are introduced we see Kai fail at making a sword and Nya being the one to chide him for it. Kai makes an overconfident statement about wanting to be a better blacksmith than his father. This suggests that one, Kai is rather rash as well as inexperienced (something that lines up with the rest of his character arc in the pots and also generally), with Nya being the more mature figure in contrast

Also just a note but in the shorts: “I can handle it!” “No you can’t, stupid”

Kai frequently being very good at neglecting people or things: leaving Lloyd at an arcade whilst being focused on finding samurai x, not even knowing samurai x was Nya or that she only did it because she felt left out by him, completely abandoning both Nya and Lloyd in s3 (and Ik he was going through it at the time, but in line with the fandom’s characterisation of him)

Kai in season 5: “After I lost my dad, I lost my way. But I was lucky to have my sister watch over me”

Generally, their dynamic isn’t one where Kai really provides for Nya at all. In fact, judging by the fact that Nya can make entire mechs and Kai struggled to make a sword, Nya was probably busting her ass to provide for Kai. And judging by the s5 quote, that’s probably true. I’m not saying Nya raised Kai, it just rubs me the wrong way when she’s treated like a decorative flourish to a narrative that paints Kai as a burnt out child who was forced to grow up too soon especially since that is such a mischaracterisation of him in the first place.

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

hate when i see a youtube video that's like 'analyzing why [thing] is bad!' and you watch the video and they just say nothing for twenty minutes

[csphire]

Purples, Blues, and Gold

Words: 1,800

A prequel to Rosemary, Lilacs, Lilies and Bergamot

Astarion is at a loss on how to go about picking out something new for himself when given the chance. Floundering a bit he reaches out to his love for help and receives some supportive guidance. Just a short and hopefully sweet fluffy one-shot that's been living rent-free in my head since buying him an outfit at the Facemaker’s Boutique.

Bodies scattered the floors and blood soaked into the rugs at the Facemaker’s Boutique. The staff and owner were still rattled by the murder attempt. But at least Figaro ‘Facemaker’ Pennygood was so thankful to still be alive that he offered a discount to them all on the spot. The last thing Astarion expected was for their defacto leader as well as his lover to actually take up the offer so readily. But in their early days, she was not above picking up rags and anything else not nailed down for a bit of extra coin to buy one more healing potion or spell scroll.

With a soft clap, Anna declared, “Well now that bit of unpleasantness is all sorted out, how about we all do a little shopping?”

He watched as Gale and Karlach gave one another a tired but agreeing shrug. They both made a beeline to pick out some long overdue fresh undergarments to start. Astarion however felt rooted to the spot for so long that she noticed, drew close, and offered her hand. Stopping just short to give him the chance to decide if he wanted the contact or not. He stared at it for a moment before thinking to take it in his, give it a nervous squeeze, and side-eye the others. His lips pursed tighter as one of his brows cocked high in quiet alarm.

In a discrete murmur, so low only he could hear she guessed, “Star… has it been a while since you’ve picked something out for yourself?”

After a soft embarrassed clearing of his throat, he admits in his own way, “To say I’m out of touch with the current trends would be an understatement. What do you think I should get?”

Read on here:

[tiny-sugar-dove]

Day 3... Fireworks!🎇

[ruubyys1]

I’m trying to find the motivation to write Honkai men more, but at this point, Amphoreus male characs are just gonna cover up

[rohirric-hunter]

.

[mewfortress5]

TF2 madoka magica au? 👀

(please please please please tell me more)

Ouhhhhh I've been MEANING to do more with this au but motivations and distractions... mu greatest enemies....

My most basic summary for this au is "what if tf2 but set in madoka magica?" But then I got sad thinking about how it was most likely that they'd all suffer terrible deaths as is tradition so I threw in magia record as well to try and make them a happy ending like in canon

I'd love to talk about them more as I get to working on their designs!! Send me some more asks if you'd like please 👀

[blarsh]

I have this yandere visual novel I've been wanting to make for years but the best I can do is a google slides presentation

[grassbreads]

I've never been particularly interested in genderbends, despite how popular lesbian aus are for some of the m/m couples I'm a big fan of, but the other day I saw genderbend art that made a male character into a butch woman for possibly the first time, and something in my brain went "click"

[carebooks]

makes me kind of sad that no one’s made a proper multifemale edit of taylor’s who’s afraid of little old me? bc, okay look, the song is filled with so much female rage that when i see people using it for edits for male characters, and it’s male characters that i like or love don’t get me wrong, it’s like they’re not getting what the song is about. it feels weird seeing it paired to anything other than women and what we’ve struggled with.

[alisaint]

i feel like sometimes (many times) people get realism / "if this were to happen to a real person in the real world context, then this character would experience and grapple with x, y, z" mixed up with text / what that character is actually going through in the story which is always going to be constrained by time, space, and the creator's biases and experiences