#the great gatsby sentence starters

[crownmemes]

The Great Gatsby Sentences

(Sentences from The Great Gatsby (2013). Adjust phrasing where needed)

"Back then, all of us drank too much."

"Hey! What say after dinner we go into town?"

"Would you like to hear a family secret?"

"Shh, don't talk! I want to hear what happens!"

"Your daughter, I suppose she talks and eats and everything?"

"All the bright, precious things fade so fast, and they don't come back."

"Do you want to sit on the sideline and watch, or do you want to play ball?"

"Neither of them can stand who they're married to."

"I don't know how I got home, but I had the distinctly uneasy feeling that somebody was watching me."

"Alone, and a little embarrassed, I decided to get roaringly drunk."

"I heard he killed a man once."

"This house and everything in it are all part of an elaborate disguise."

"I like large parties. They're so intimate."

"Rich girls don't marry poor boys."

"I'm afraid I haven't been a very good host."

"Young men don’t just drift coolly out of nowhere."

"What is your opinion of me anyhow?"

"I don't want you to get the wrong impression from all those bizarre accusations you must be hearing!"

"I don't want you to think I'm just some nobody."

"I’m going to make a very big request of you today."

"Looking at my tie pin? It's the finest species of human molar."

"The way he looked at her is the way all girls want to be looked at."

"Look here, you don't make much money do you?"

"Why did I have to come alone? Are you in love with me?"

"Did you ransack a greenhouse?"

"I'm certainly glad to see you again."

"You're acting like a little boy! You're being rude!"

"I wish I had done everything on earth with you."

"I wish that it could always be like this."

"I don’t think I recognise a single person here."

"Is all this made entirely from your own imagination?"

"I wish we could just run away."

"Remember how much fun we used to have? Why can’t we just have fun like that again?"

"You can't repeat the past? Why, of course you can!"

"I knew it was a great mistake for a man like me to fall in love."

"Now see here, if you're going to make personal remarks, then I won't stay a minute."

"Why, how could I love him, possibly?"

"You're nothing but a goddamn coward!"

"They're a rotten crowd! You're worth the whole damn bunch put together!"

[projecthipster]

The Great Gatsby

This super cool rendition of the iconic cover eyes by @sadder-daisy. Follow the link.

I love the Baz Luhrman soundtrack, but let's save that for a long post on that movie. For now: it's all jazz baby.

“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”

Back when I wrote on The Perks of Being a Wallflower, of all things, I said that because I’d already written about the cultural monolith that was The Catcher in the Rye, I didn’t have any reason to be nervous about writing on The Great Gatsby.

That was a lie. It’s still scary. Because despite the fact that I suppose this novel may be Hipster just for its associations with those other books, I mean, just read what Holden Caulfield says about it:

Ignore the bit about nukes.

Not to mention Gatsby’s status as a product of the 1920s Paris of A Moveable Feast (look at all these connections!) Despite all that. It’s still a cultural force like little else. The last public jigsaw puzzle I worked on at the Central Library was “The World of the Great Gatsby.” There’s been, how many movies? There have been prequel and spinoff novels written to welcome Gatsby into the public domain. And there’s that Lord Huron album and its spinoff movie where to “follow the emerald star” is to pine for and chase down an ultimately doomed reunion with a lost love. That’s not what it is without Gatsby. At my favourite literally underground literary-themed cocktail and jazz bar on Notre Dame Road, you ask for the daily special drink by requesting "today's Gatsby."

So yeah, buckle in. This one's going to be a lot.

It doesn’t seem like there’s much point recounting the actual plot of The Great Gatsby. You all know it. If not, go read it. It’s like a hundred pages, it’s pretty quick, I promise you’ll enjoy it, and it’s probably not too hard to find a copy considering there have been 30 million of the things sold. And I already know I’m going to give it top marks. So what even to talk about?

For starters, I guess, there’s the fact that every sentence in those hundred pages could be a little poem, replete with meanings and double-meanings. Take that famous opening, for example. Our dear narrator, the somewhat scrutable Nick Carraway (like the tasty seed, though spelled differently; or like apathy, you know, to throw one’s care away) tells us, dear readers, about how dear he holds his father’s advice to check his privilege and not to judge others. This as the opening to a novel in which every character is judged, passively, without acting much, by our man who stands by within and without! This irony is pointed in in the academic marginalia of my copy’s previous owner, which makes it especially easy to identify. I like to think, or at least to hope, that I might have been able to identify this myself, but let’s not put too much faith in my fairly sorry interpretive abilities.

Apparently some people can’t stand having previous readers’ notes and interpretations scrawled into their paperbacks. I can’t understand this. I also have lots of marginalia in my used copy of Hemingway’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro. I’ve made my own notes too, not in library books of course but in my own secondhand paperbacks of Tolkien and Homer and Herbert, because I find it fun. It’s like being part of a huge, worldwide book club separated across time. I don’t know who made the notes (much neater and better than mine!) in my copy of Gatsby, but I appreciate them. Tell me your thoughts, and I’ll tell you mine, somewhere down the line when someone finds my vandalized copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. There’s more to text than text. There’s context and subtext and interpretation aplenty.

Back to that first sentence, and all the characters Nick judges. In fairness to him, though we may not be able to trust Nick wholeheartedly in everything he tells us, it’s fair to see that a lot of the people he encounters in the gilded circles of the jazz age American aristocracy that the novel moves through, are pretty shitty people. In the very first chapter we meet some, as Nick goes to that famous dinner party scene with all the ethereal imagery of billowing curtains around people so useless that they can't even light the candles on their own table. Nick is invited as family, which may perhaps rightfully make the reader raise an eyebrow at his posturing at being the objective outside observer. The sun at the centre of this golden-white star system is the utterly awful Tom Buchanan. To tell the truth, there’s something refreshingly simple to the modern reader about how simple and justifiable it is to hate Tom with one’s whole heart. He doesn’t have a sympathetic edge, a tragic backstory, or an understandable drive. No, he’s just the old money, athletically acclaimed, socially privileged in every possible way, strapping, boisterous ideal of an egotistical and chauvinistic and domineering straight white man, who’s only known the top of the heap in all his time, and so any shift in the heap seems a threat to him. Nick says as much in his judgmental judgment-reserving narration. “Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart,” he says. The reader today can probably think of far too many contemporaries who unfortunately fit that description exactly. Your country might be run by some of them.

So if Tom feels like a Trumpian terror of fragile machismo, what does that make Daisy? The bystander, innocent technically but part of the system. Daisy is complicit but complicated, more so than people seem to often want to think. Even in that first chapter, that famous line that the best thing a woman can be is “a beautiful little fool” belies an understanding of the systems of gender hierarchy in her gilded house, along with an acceptance of their unchangeability. Daisy is frustratingly passive, an object rather than a subject, and you just want to shake some spine into her, but what could she do?  She’s powerless in her place and time. The best you could say about Daisy is that she’s a subtly keen survivor. She does also kill someone with a car but that’s not until later when the postured morals have been thoroughly eroded by Plot Stuff.

Last in that Chapter 1 dinner party main cast is good old Jordan. Maybe I’m just biased based on Elizabeth Debicki’s charmingly wide-eyed and energetic portrayal in the 2013 movie (an adaptation that I like quite a lot, for the record) but I’ve always liked Jordan Baker. She’s this kind of lazing, chilled-out, independent figure of the Modern Single Woman that you see in cartoons from Fitzgerald’s era, cartoons that were meant to be mocking at the time, but that a century and several waves of feminism later, end up making their subjects look pretty cool.

Later on we learn that she cheated at golf, which I guess is bad. I still can’t help but think that Jordan kind of rules. She and Nick might be using each other to both pass as straight. Maybe Jordan’s not a commentary on anything; maybe F. Scott just wanted a bit of his dear wife Zelda in the book, a famed flapper socialite who from the sounds of it was only willing to marry into at least a modicum of success and fame, prompting Fitzgerald's writing career. There's a bit of Zelda in Daisy, too, then.

There’s just one person for whom Nick forgives pretty much everything, as he says right on the first couple of pages and that’s the titularly exalted Gatsby himself. And as the title character, obviously he’s gonna take some more talking about, but it is all interrelated within this lens of the uniquely American reach upwards; the famous green light, the colour of dollar bills, but also of spring, of youth, of fresh blooming daisies. Gatsby pines for Daisy, creating a facade of a life in the hopes that she’ll come by to look at it. But is it Daisy as a person, her simple beauty and charm, that he pines for, or is it Daisy as a concept, what she represents? And what does she represent? Her wealth, her status as arm candy for those of unachievable aristocratic birth? Or does she represent the lost years before the war, of her and Gatsby’s halcyon youth? Fitzgerald wrote as part of the generation perdue, after all. The rattling of the world by the Great War can’t be uncoupled from Gatsby or any of the 1920s. The answer of course to “what does it mean” is all of the above and more. That’s the beauty of this and of any really great novel: true meaning and ironclad motivation of any really good character is more of an electron cloud of probability than any set orbital, as it is in reality with everyone we meet, including ourselves.

Take ours truly Narrator Nick, for example, turning again to the one character we spend the most time with. We still don’t know everything about him, even living in his head for 200-odd pages. He’s fascinated by Gatsby’s mystery, that much we know and can understand. It’s pretty often thought, very reasonably, that Nick is actually in love with Gatsby. There is, after all, that weird scene at the end of Chapter II that begins in an elevator and proceeds, in a browned-out stupor of concealing drunken flashes, to show Nick seemingly sleeping with a male photographer. Why wasn’t that in the movie, Baz? Of course you can’t just say “oh, it’s not fascination as a concept, just love and attraction.” I don’t know of any situation where the latter can arise to any proper degree without the former as at least a  companion sentiment, if not the very source. That inseparability of love and symbolism in the object of one’s desire, that applies to Daisy as the fulcrum of the Gatsby-Tom triangle, that applies to Gatsby in Nick’s eyes, that applies back-and-forth somehow, probably, to whatever’s up with Nick and Jordan, that applies to Tom keeping Myrtle as a mistress even when he’ll break her nose for bringing up the fact, that applies to Myrtle keeping Tom as the Other Man even when he breaks her nose, because he gives her a chance to be someone else and wear party dresses. Everything and everyone is a tool for our own identities, our own self perceptions, and our perceptions to others, in this Americanesque world of ladders and status and ever receding green lights. And what is it for? We make images of ourselves to bring in others, who become part of the image-making, and the end goal is...

And at a certain point when it all begins to collapse, you follow the logic to this narrow point of illogic, and you just have to shrug. Because there is no point to it all in the end, is there? It gets to some kernel too deep to do anything but:

And that’s the American Dream babyyyyy. You gotty, Scotty.

Maxwell Perkins, one of the most famous editors of the twentieth century — Hemingway dedicated his final novel to Perkin’s ability to polish a story into a finely trimmed gem for the ages — allegedly said that Gatsby, the character, was too much of a cipher, that he ought to have been figured out in a more concrete way by the novel’s conclusion. It’s a good thing Fitzgerald didn’t listen. On the other hand, it is a good thing he changed the title. Are you ready for the original working title? It's strikingly awful. Trimalchio in West Egg. Being a reference to some sort of utterly forgotten Roman classic. Sounding more like some kind of deli sandwich. Francis Scott, I know you can do words. So what in TJ Eckleburg's name is a fucking Trimalchio?

Do I really need to give a rating to one of the great books?

Alright.

I give this hipster book a rating of old sport.

Project Hipster is a futile and disorganized attempt to dive into the world of things that the internet has at some point claimed "are hipster," mostly through ListChallenges search results.

This review comes from the twentieth result for "Hipster," the always longwinded The BBC and Goodreads Declare: "If You Score 20+ on This Quiz You Qualify as a Hipster"

Up next: another good old book, but one I don't have a copy of on hand. A response to a later war, with more parties and more jazz and more cars, but no one gets hit in this one.

Stay deck.

[elizabeaufort]

“I promise you’ll never be bored.” - for Aviel!

Aviel became one of those people with whom she could see a friendship outside of the club. She always finds him fabulous, interesting as a person, and knows how to have a delightful conversation. ⏤ And she always had a little fun when they did things outside of the club, like the day of karaoke. ❛ I'm sure, I'm in good hands. ❜ She holds his hand, as they enter this party that was in a big mansion, which reminds her of the Great Gatsby party, and she feels like being in the movie.

House of Cards sentence starters + @theangellies

[vincememes]

the great gatsby starters

feel free to change pronouns as needed.

❛   angry, and half in love with them, and tremendously sorry.  ❜  

❛   so we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight.    ❜  

❛   i like large parties. they’re so intimate. at small parties there isn’t any privacy.  ❜

❛   i was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled.  ❜  

❛   i couldn’t forgive him or like him.   ❜  

❛   it was all very careless and confused.  ❜  

❛   i wasn’t actually in love, but i felt a sort of tender curiosity. ❜  

❛   i usually find myself among strangers because i drift here and there. ❜  

❛   i drift here and there trying to forget the sad things that happened to me. ❜  

❛   reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope.  ❜  

❛   you can’t repeat the past.   ❜  

❛   why, of course you can!  ❜  

❛   there are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.  ❜  

❛   i felt a haunting loneliness sometimes.  ❜  

❛   they were careless people.  ❜  

❛   they smashed things up and then retreated into their money.  ❜  

❛    and they let others clean up the messes they had created.    ❜  

❛    i think everything’s terrible anyhow.  ❜  

❛    i’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything. ❜  

❛   sophisticated—   god, i’m sophisticated! ❜  

❛    i am still a little afraid of missing something. ❜  

❛   whenever you feel like criticizing someone...  ❜  

❛   just remember that people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had. ❜

❛   you make me feel uncivilized.  ❜  

❛   can’t you talk about crops or something?  ❜  

❛   we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.  ❜  

❛   all i kept thinking about, over and over.    ❜  

❛    you can’t live forever; you can’t live forever.  ❜  

❛    it takes two to make an accident. ❜  

❛   you looked at me the way everyone wants to be looked at.  ❜  

❛   i am one of the few honest people that i have ever known.  ❜  

❛   ...and for a moment i thought i loved you.  ❜  

❛   i am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires.  ❜

❛   do you ever wait for the longest day of the year and then miss it?  ❜  

❛   i’ve been drunk for about a week now.  ❜  

❛   you’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.  ❜  

❛   it’s a great advantage not to drink among hard drinking people.  ❜  

❛   his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.  ❜  

❛   there was something gorgeous about him.   ❜  

❛   every one suspects themself of at least one of the cardinal virtues.  ❜  

❛   there is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind… ❜  

❛   they must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves.    ❜  

❛   their face was sad and lovely with bright things in it.  ❜  

❛   life is much more successfully looked at from a single window.  ❜  

[ask-the-great-gatsby]

#6 - Fluff (Sentence Starter Prompts)

Requested by @justbootleggerthings

"Can we just stay like this forever?" Jay sighed, resting his head on his boyfriends chest. The silk sheets that were typically washed and replaced by one of Jay’s maids were now messy, tossed about. Those sheets were draped over and between Jay’s legs--his legs entwined with Nicks. 

He could hear Nick’s heartbeat. The way it would beat quicker whenever Jay spoke. Nicks hands moved slow, up and down Jay’s back, neck, and head. His hands were warm, soft. It’s like his time in the war had no effect on his hands. They weren’t rough, or callused. They were soft--and Jay loved feeling those soft hands on his own body, loved feeling those hands toy with his hair and trace the bullet scar on his back. It had been a miracle that he had lived through Wilson’s angered rampage--but now wasn’t the time to think about that. 

“As much as I wish we could, I have work on Wall Street tomorrow and...” Nick trailed off. His hands worked in and out of Jay’s beautiful short golden strands of hair. “...and I think I’m going to call out sick...” he finished.

Jay smiled against Nick’s collarbone. He placed small kisses on Nick’s neck and chest--earning a small chuckle from the younger male beneath him. As Jay tilted his head up to look at Nick, he noticed Nick was staring straight up at the ceiling of the bedroom. “What’s the matter old sport?”

It was a hot summer night in New York--the hottest it had been in a long while. It was dark, and the stars were out--the party had ended hours ago--but the heat had made the night sleepless, unbearable. 

He and Nick had laid down almost two hours ago with every intention of falling asleep while in each others arms--but all they both did was toss, turn, and remove articles of clothing that seemed to be suffocating them. They had wound up like this, clad only in their trousers--Nick on his back, Jay’s head on Nick’s chest--sweating so much their hair was damp. They had the intention of laying with each other--and no hot New York night was going to keep them from that. Their bodies were inseparable. 

There was no light on in the bedroom. Just darkness, and silence--the only occasional sound resonating from the beach, or somewhere on the ocean. Jay had gotten up an hour earlier and open his bedroom windows, letting a small breeze in off the bay, though it barely did anything at all. The only light around was the moonlight--illuminating their damp bodies, and shining on Nick’s beautiful, damp brown hair. Jay reached up, running a hand through that hair--something that never seemed to get old. The feeling of running his hands through Nick’s hair hadn't changed since the first time Jay did so--and Jay hoped the feeling would remain the same forever, hoped it would always make him feel as enamored of Nick as he was the day they met.

That day had been over a year ago, and Jay and Nick had lived peacefully together ever since.

“Nothing is wrong...” Nick trailed off once more. Jay pushed up on his arms, body more than halfway on Nick’s, their skin pressed flush together--both so hot they felt as if they would melt together. “...I am just--” he stopped, huffing, “I am still just so blown away by the fact that laying here with you, in this bed, in this mansion, in West Egg, New York, has become my reality in less that a years time. And it could have been anyones."

Nick smiled and pushed up on his arms as well, looking into Jay’s eyes. He placed a hand on Gatsby’s cheek. “And Jay?”

Jay stared, his own eyes half-lidded, gazing into Nick’s gorgeous blue ones. He loved the way the moonlight always made them look, and seeing them made Jay feel like he and Nick were the only ones in the world. “Yes, old sport?” His voice was quiet, almost a whisper.

“I wouldn't dare trade a single second that I have spent with you for anything--not even for the entire world.” Nick smiled, his eyes squinting just the slightest as he did.

Just when he assumed it wasn't possible, Jay felt his cheeks grow hotter than the New York summer night. He pressed his lips warmly to Nick’s, the kiss more than accepted by Nick himself.

The green light shone through the window for what seemed like a split second, then it was gone. Gone like Daisy, like Tom. Jay didn't bat an eye to that damned light any longer--not in regards to Daisy Buchanan and the like. Now? That light represented a new beginning for himself and Nick. His new beginning was Nick, whether Nick knew it or not. He didn't want to waste his time repeating the past--because the future with Nick at his side was so much brighter than what it would have been with Daisy. It was almost like that green light was shining even brighter now--brighter now that Nick Carraway was a permanent part of Jay’s life. 

“I want to stay like this with you forever, darling...” Nick whispered--his forehead pressed to Jay’s.

“Then we shall, old sport.” Jay whispered back, kissing Nick once more.

A long, cool breeze rolled through the windows blowing the curtains upward, carrying with it the smell of the bay. The green light made its momentary return as Jay returned his head to its usual place on Nick’s chest. He hadn't felt tired all night--but as Nicks soft fingers worked through his hair, and the cool ocean breeze cut through the sheets, getting rest no longer seemed to be such a difficult task.

[rp-grannies]

[Sentence Starters] The Great Gatsby (2013)

Feel free to add context, change pronouns, names, jobs, and anything else you need to change to make these work for you! Have fun! ^-^ 

❝ I’m inclined to reserve all judgements.  ❞

❝ Back then, all of us drank too much. ❞ 

❝ Only one man was exempt from my disgust. ❞

❝ He was the single most hopeful person I have ever met... ❞

❝ Let's say, after dinner, you and I will go into town! ❞

❝ Life is something you dominate if you're any good. ❞

❝ Is that you, my lovely? ❞

❝ (Full Name). The golden girl. ❞

❝ I'm paralyzed with happiness. ❞

❝ She was the most frightening person I'd ever seen... but I enjoyed looking at her. ❞

❝ I've been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember. ❞

❝ Oh, you must know (Name)? ❞

❝ You remind me of a rose, an absolute rose. ❞

❝ Its just, well, you see, I think everything’s terrible anyhow. ❞

❝ I've been everywhere, and seen everything, done everything. ❞

❝ I'm pretty cynical about everything. ❞

❝ That's the best thing a girl in this world can be: a beautiful little fool. ❞

❝ All the bright, precious things fade so fast. And they don't come back. ❞

❝ (Name)'s said to be very good looking, by people who oughta know. ❞

❝ Ain't we havin' a party? ❞    

❝ Alone, and a little embarrassed, I decided to get roaring drunk. ❞

❝ Small parties, there isn't any privacy. ❞

❝ May I have this dance? ❞

❝ You penniless pantywaist. ❞

❝ Rich girls don't marry poor boys. ❞

❝ His smile was one of those rare smiles that you may come across four or five times in life. ❞

❝ I've just heard the most shocking thing. ❞

❝ What is your opinion of me, anyhow? ❞

❝ I didn't want you to think I was just some nobody. ❞

❝ I'm going to make a very big request of you today. ❞

❝ Looking at my tiepin? Finest specimen of human molar. ❞

❝ The way he looked at her is the way all girls want to be looked at. ❞

❝ We could take a plunge in the swimming pool. I haven't made use of it all summer. ❞

❝ I bought cakes. ❞

❝ Did you ransack a greenhouse? ❞

❝ I'm certainly glad to see you again. ❞

❝ This was a mistake. This was a terrible, terrible mistake. ❞

❝ You must understand that I like all things that are modern. ❞

❝ Remarkable little camera, isn't it? Latest design. ❞

❝ I don't want to forget a single moment. ❞

❝ Music... And then we can dance all night! ❞ 

❝ I've never seen such beautiful shirts before. ❞

❝ We can't lose each other and let all this glorious love end in nothing. ❞

❝ Come home. I'll be here waiting, and hoping for every long dream of you to come true. ❞

❝ I wish I'd done everything on earth with you. ❞

❝ What the hell are you doing, old sport? ❞

❝ You can't repeat the past. ❞

❝ It was a great mistake for a man like me to fall in love. ❞

❝ If I could just get back to the start... ❞

❝ I could only climb if I climbed alone. ❞

❝ I knew that when I kissed this girl, that I would be forever wed to her. ❞

❝ I don't wanna go home. ❞

❝ My life has got to be like this. It's got to keep going up. ❞

❝ What'll we do this afternoon, or the day after that, or for the next thirty years? ❞

❝ Oh, don't be morbid. ❞

❝ You look so cool. You always look so cool. ❞

❝ You must think I'm pretty dumb, don't you? ❞

❝ He wears a pink suit for Christ's sake! ❞

❝ I'll make you a drink, (Name). Then you won't seem so stupid to yourself. ❞

❝ You see, we were born different. It's in our blood. ❞

❝ None of this has any consequence. ❞

❝ I just remembered... today's my birthday. ❞

❝ (Name), you should go home and get some rest. ❞

❝ I had a lot of things, but the truth is I'm empty. ❞

❝ I can't describe how surprised I was to find out that I loved her, and that she loved me too. ❞

❝ They're a rotten crowd. You're worth the whole damn bunch put together. ❞

❝ It's perfect. From your perfect, irresistible imagination. ❞

❝ Wait up with me. ❞

❝ I became aware of (Name's) extraordinary gift for hope. A gift I have never found in any other person... and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. ❞

❝ So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. ❞

[bi-nick-carraway]

Send me natsby prompts :) I'm lacking inspiration and I haven't written in a while

prompts list :)

fluff/general

“how much did you drink?”

“aw, you’re so cute.”

“what did you do?”

“i asked if you were having a party. i didn’t tell you to have a party.”

“this is the opposite of what i told you to do.”

“well, it’s the thought that counts.”

“wait, no, don’t take kissing away from me.”

“okay, where are all my jumpers?”

“oh, you’ve started stealing my socks now?”

“yeah, okay, but i’m cooler.”

“you owe me a kiss.”

“how did you get in here?”

“for starters, that’s impossible.”

“how did you fail a survey?”

“yeah, well, if you weren’t so drunk maybe i would.”

“that’s not even fair.”

“you promised me a cookie!”

“did i ever tell you how beautiful your eyes are?”

“ew, that is so sappy, i might vomit.”

“i’m not playing truth or dare.”

“you’re not very intimidating.”

“i love you.”

“well the probability of that is 0, but you go ahead.”

“that was, by far, the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”

“why don’t you take a picture? it’ll last longer.”

“maybe not.”

“why the hell is there glitter everywhere?”

“well, i’m pretty irresistible.”

“how much money would you give me to flip this table, right here, right now, in the middle of class?”

“detention? again?”

angst

“why don’t you just go?”

“no, it’s not like that.”

“if you cared about me, you wouldn’t do this.”

“it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“what’s the point?”

“fuck you.”

“you should’ve said that yesterday.”

“don’t lie to me.”

“i swear, if you say another word, i’ll leave.”

“change in mind or change in heart?”

“it’s over, it’s done, just leave it be.”

“why do you keep bringing it up?”

“we can’t go back in time, so stop trying to reverse what you said.”

“you say you’ll stop, but then you keep doing it!”

“maybe in another world.”

“why are you like this?”

“stop making empty promises!”

“what about us?”

“don’t say that.”

“i’m done. we’re done.”’

feel free to reblog :)

[resourcesofaqueen]

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald Sentence Starters. Feel free to change pronouns.

I hope ... will be a fool.

I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.

There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.

Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.

I knew it was a great mistake for a man / woman like me to fall in love.

I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad thing that happened to me.

The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.

Can't repeat the past?

You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.

You can't live forever; you can't live forever.

We haven’t met for many years.

I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes.

If there's anything that you want, just ask for it, old sport.

I thought you ought to know something about my life.

I didn’t want you to think I was just some nobody.

You had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it.

I like large parties, they’re so intimate.

It takes two to make an accident.

[ask-the-great-gatsby]

Since this isn't an rp blog, I'll be using these for fic starters. If you like, just request a pairing with the starter of choice

SOFT ANGST STARTERS.

‘stay for me.’

‘what’s this between us?’

‘i don’t want your apology.’

‘you know i have feelings for you.’

‘yeah, i remember the drill.’

‘you’ve never hurt me. ever.’

‘then leave her/him/them. at home.’

‘i don’t believe it.’

‘this is breaking my heart.’

‘you met me at a very strange time in my life.’

‘what keeps you up at night?’

‘i wish you were here.’

‘i let you down.’

‘something strange happened here.’

‘you’re not safe here.’

‘i wasn’t ready to say goodbye.’

‘we are not the same, and never will be.’

‘don’t touch me.’

‘is it my fault?’

‘i’m not like them.’

‘i forgot my name again.’

‘i don’t know who i am.’

‘your fear of looking stupid is holding you back.’

‘are you still alive?’

‘i don’t like being told what to do.’

‘am i making you uncomfortable?’

‘nobody cares if you don’t go to the party.’

‘it was supposed to be fun, and you ruined it.’

‘where the hell are my friends?’

‘stop pretending life doesn’t terrify you.’

[dxsole]

❝ You must think I’m pretty dumb, don’t you? ❞ Josiah @ Didi

[Sentence Starters] The Great Gatsby (2013)| Not Accepting

“I think you’re pretty. Period.” But she must also think he’s a little dumb if she really thinks the way her lips slightly pucker when she coos those words to him would sway him. Or how her lashes flutter. Or how her finger idly twirls itself round a lock of her dark hair.

Maybe she just wants a little attention even if he told her he was going out with the guys tonight. Maybe she’ll miss him real bad when he goes and he has to make sure she doesn’t miss him too much. Or maybe she’s just being her usual greedy self and wants him to be a few minutes late–

[ask-the-great-gatsby]

//I have some sentence starters memes lined up in my queue. This isn't an rp blog, clearly, but I do typically use sentence starter memes as more of like, fanfic prompts, cause I write on here

So if you all want, when the sentence starters post from my queue while I'm in bed, just choose a sentence starter and pairing and slap 'em in my inbox and I might get around to them!

[beyondthepage]

London's Best Kept Secret

General Tso. Cereal chicken. Salted egg.

How can all this be related, you might ask? Meet the Po Bar, a Chinese-takeout restaurant that has quickly built its reputation with snake-long lines. Though it’s still new on the night-out dinner scene, it has become the talk of London. But why?

First impressions are everything—and Po Bar takes it to the next level. Upon entering the emperor-like door that resembles a snake, I was surprised to find out that there were only four tables in it. ‘Am I lost?’, I thought. Turns out I’m in the right place! As a way of building intimacy, Po Bar decides to only have four tables, embezzled in gold beads, which looks like something from The Great Gatsby.

Overlooking the ceiling, there were snake sculptures (yes, snakes all over again), that embodies the luck, the longevity, and the wealth of the restaurant. If you think four tables would make the restaurant dead silent, you’re wrong! Po Bar features an open kitchen, where you can have a peek of all the wok-banging magic happening.

What about the good, you might be wondering? For starters, I got the salted egg yoghurt parfait. At first, it might sound like something from Mars, isn’t it? But oh boy, did it live up to its hype! Even at the very first bite, I was taken aback. ‘No way!’, I thought. Moving onto the real deal—General Tso’s chicken. Bathed in crispy batter, this dish was oozy, salty, decadent—it had it all. If only my mum were here, we would go crazy on this!

Don’t get me started on the drinks. Right after devouring all that astronomically finger-licking goods, the chef turned up with a china-like glass filled with cereal-chicken latte. Yes, you read it right! Honestly, I was pretty sceptical at first. I mean, who wouldn’t, right? And again, everything in Po Bar passed my standard with flying colours. Even at the first slurp, you’ll be greeted with this odd texture, which is actually the cereal from the cereal chicken, and tasted nothing like your Starbucks order.

No matter how many times I passed by Po Bar, I would never ever forget all the goodness I had. Everything—the atmosphere, the food, the drinks—was just too good to be true. It was as if I was on a roller coaster ride, with all the fun! If you’re wondering where to go this weekend, Po Bar happily welcomes you. Have you made your reservation yet?

To start with, the review was written from a first-person point of view, which is supported by the use of pronouns like ‘I’ and ‘my’. Written in a chatty and colloquial style, the review is directed towards the younger audience, particularly teenagers or readers who are in their twenties. In terms of the form, the text started out with a shorter paragraph, before entering longer paragraphs filled with longer sentences in the body. This is done so in order to effectively capture the whole scene and experience of the restaurant. Throughout the test, a cheery feeling is maintained in order to keep the readers engaged as well as to entertain them. Hence the purpose of the text was not only informative, but also entertaining to some extent. In terms of the tenses, past and present tenses were used Both tenses are used in order to create the different timestamps of the author, one where they are writing the review, and one when they were in the restaurant, which allows the reader to have some sort of first-hand experience. Overall, the text is written with some humour in it, although there were some parts that might sound serious.

To start with, the text came out with a one-line paragraph—General Tso. Cereal chicken. Salted egg. Not only did this paragraph capture the attention of the reader, but also served as a hook, making the readers wonder why such foods are dropped in the first line. Then, in the next paragraph, the readers are directed to a clearer view, where the author promptly describes the big picture of the text, which was a review of the restaurant. In the second paragraph, rhetorical questions such as ‘How can all this be related, you might ask?’ and ‘But why?’ were used in order to engage the reader, making the text a two-way street between the author and the reader.

Several literary devices were used in the text. In the second paragraph, ‘snake-long lines’, which is a hyperbole, is used to show just how trendy and big of a deal the restaurant is. Allusions were also used in the third paragraph—The Great Gatsby—as well as in the first paragraph—Starbucks. The use of name-dropping well-known titles not only created a lively feeling to the text, but also allowed the author to express their interests of a different subject to their reader.

In the third paragraph, it all started out with a simple and short sentence. Yet when it is in the body of the paragraph, longer and wordier sentences are used, allowing the reader to have a full-on view of the dining experience. The inside thoughts of the author were also displayed in the text—’Am I lost?’, I thought—which shows that the text not only was some sort of review that highlights the external details, but also effectively serves as a window into the author’s mind. This makes the review to be more authentic and less advertisement-like. This is further supported with the text found in parenthesis—yes, snakes all over again—which reinforces the feeling that the review was genuinely and wholeheartedly written by the author. Group of three was also used in the paragraph—the luck, the longevity, and the wealth—to effectively describe what the restaurant stands for or believes in. Pronouns like ‘you’ could also be found in this paragraph, putting the readers in the author’s shoes, which again, allows the reader to give a first-hand experience. The adjective ‘wok-banging’, as well as the idiom ‘dead silent’ further supports the lively feeling of the text.

Onto the next paragraph, the author describes another point of focus, which is the foods of the restaurant. Even in the paragraph where everything seems to be all descriptive, the author still manages to capture and engage the reader’s attention with rhetorical questions. In this paragraph, shorter sentences were used, which shows that not much of a word can truly describe the foods of the restaurant, but also shows the excitement and the uplifting feeling of the author. ‘Taken aback’ highlights the author’s surprised feeling of the food, effectively making the reader wonder why such food could create that feeling. The author, again, displays their internal feeling—’No way’, I thought. The paragraph ended with an if clause, contrasting the other sentences while also showing a feeling of longing for the author.

The penultimate paragraph, which started with ‘don’t get me started’ shows how awe-struck the author feels about the food. While the phrase could be interpreted as a start of negative experience, it was the opposite. Again, the author effectively captures the highlight of the dining experience, in this case, the drinks. From the hyperbole used ‘astronomically finger-licking’ to the odd drink that was described, it made the reader wonder why such dining experience was this all about. Again, the author shares their internal thoughts about the odd drink with the phrase ‘pretty sceptical at first’. And then, the author engages the reader by snipping in rhetorical questions, which gives the reader room for interpretation. An idiom could be found in the paragraph—flying colours—which not only makes the text more lively, but also shows the various figurative languages used by the author.

In the closing paragraph, the author effectively exhibits their feelings and thoughts about the restaurant. Although descriptive adjectives were not used, it showed the author was impressed with the dining experience when they needed the first sentence of the paragraph with ‘never ever forget all the goodness I had’. Again, the author utilises a group of three in the paragraph, as well as metaphor, with the word ‘rollercoaster ride’. This just shows how the lively feeling is still well kept even at the end of the text. And then, the author shifts their focus to the reader, where they use rhetorical questions as well as the personification ‘welcomes’ to create an inviting feeling to the restaurant.

Overall, the text is written in a chronological manner, in which the author started out from entering the restaurant, to the drinks they had. This allows the reader to have a clear sense of time, which may be beneficial for those who are planning to visit the restaurant. Throughout the text, the author paces back and forth between their point of focus, to make the reader feel as though they were in the restaurant as well as to engage the reader by the pronouns ‘you’ or the use of rhetorical questions.

[imperialsea-a]

❝ I’m inclined to reserve all judgements. ❞

[Sentence Starters] The Great Gatsby (2013) ;; always accepting. // @bluedignity

⊰ ♛ ⊱—;   ❝ Regardless, I still believe in striving to make a good first impression whenever possible. Although I travel frequently, it’s not often I get to speak with other people at leisure. ❞  

               The blonde gives a reserved close-lipped smile, quietly relieved she’s not dealing with anyone who could call themselves a hunter.  ❝ This place, around Scepter 4 .  .  .  I love the atmosphere. ❞

[dxsole]

❝ Music… And then we can dance all night! ❞ Teah @ Leslie

[Sentence Starters] The Great Gatsby (2013)| Not Accepting

Leslie was mesmerized. She just…seemed so happy. So light-hearted, much different than the general sad sack she was currently dating. Well, at least she brought a smile to his face. “Uh, alright, what…what sorta music makes you wanna…” He does a little dance, hips wiggling, shoulders bouncing. “Groove– wait, uh, I think this might work, hold on–”

He’s messing around with his iPod until the music pours into the room. “Aw, wait for it…yeah. Yeah– groovy, right? A lil’…slow dancin’ to get us started, huh?” He’s grooving again, arms outstretched so she could dance with him.

[ask-the-great-gatsby]

//Gonna do one of the sentence starter requests y'all tossed in my inbox here in a bit. I have a good idea for one.

[gamblinggangster]

❝ Back then, all of us drank too much. ❞

The Great Gatsby (2013) Sentence Starters || accepting! || @trustnottheseer

Oliver snorted. “You sound like you were one of the dames who wanted prohibition.” he teased, leaning against the wall as he cupped his hands around his cigarette to light it. “Not that there’s anythin’ wrong with that, ‘course.”