THS

brit-ish, she/her, witch cackle laugh, trainee solipsist

[thathelpfulstranger]

after having seen the father, anthony hopkins, i’m not sure if i should be impressed, scared or worried about you.

[catchymemes]

[k-cakes-baglez-deactivated20240]

This is so funny what

[articulate-anxious-atheist-deac]

At first I thought it was just a really funny guy giving a tutorial for ppl who didn’t know how to run bc the title didn’t say IN PLACE but when the supermarket came up I was like OH WAIT that make WAY more sense

[guerrillatech]

[pisshandkerchief-deactivated202]

Holy shit that's so cool

[knightofleo]

[camelotsheart]

An amazing speech by Kenya at the UN Security Council regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, 22/02/2022 (video excerpt from this reddit post)

Transcript:

Kenya is gravely concerned by the announcement made by the Russian Federation to recognise Donetsk and Luhansk Regions of Ukraine as independent states. In our considered view, this action and announcement breaches the territorial integrity of Ukraine. We do not deny that there may be serious security concerns in these regions, but they cannot justify today’s recognition of these regions as independent states. Not when there are multiple diplomatic tracks available and underway that have the ability to offer peaceful solutions.

Mr President, this situation echoes our history. Kenya and almost every African country was birthed by the ending of empires. Our borders were not of our own drawing. They were drawn in the distant colonial metropolis of London, Paris and Lisbon with no regard for the ancient nations that they cleaved apart. Today, across the border of every single African country live our countrymen with whom we share deep historical, cultural and linguistic bonds. At independence, had we chosen to pursue states on the basis of ethnic, racial or religious homogeneity, we would still be waging bloody wars these many decades later. Instead, we agreed that we would settle for the borders that we inherited, but we would still pursue continental, political, economic and legal integration. Rather than form nations that looked ever-backword into history with a dangerous nostalgia, we chose to look forward to a greatness none of our nations and many peoples had ever known. We chose to follow the rules of the Organisation of African Unity and the United Nations Charter; not because our borders satisfied us, but because we wanted something greater forged in peace.

We believe that all states formed from empires that have collapsed or retreated have many peoples in them yearning for integration from people in neighbouring states. This is normal and understandable. After all, who does not want to be joined to the brethren and to make common purpose with them? However, Kenya rejects such a yearning from being pursued by force. We must complete our recovery from the embers of dead empires in a way that does not plunge us back into new forms of domination and oppression. We rejected irredentism and expansionism on any basis including racial, ethnic, religious or cultural factors. We reject it again today.

Kenya registers its strong concern and opposition to the recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states. We further strongly condemn the trend in the last few decades of powerful states including members of this security council breaching international law with little regard.

[atavus-blog]

Mark Daniel - Kolmanskop, 2008

[rowdybutch-deactivated20220528]

[poisonousquinzel]

The Tale of Pamela Isley told by Bella Garten in Batman Secret Files: The Gardener 

[thathelpfulstranger]

true strength is needing to pee but withstanding the urge because warm bed > listening to your body.

[valtsv]

whoever first decided that talking to yourself is weird was literally just a hater

[valtsv]

like what's wrong? are you bothered because i'm having a conversation that doesn't involve you? mad because i have shit to say? jealous because i'm interesting and sexy enough to hold a discussion with myself? huh? bitch?

[exitwound]

when whitman said “i contradict myself. i am large… i contain multitudes” and wilde said “what are you? to define is to limit” and sumney said “i insist upon my right to be multiple”

[existential-celestial]

and ashbery said “accept yourself as numerous”

[soracities]

and when mahmoud darwish said “I am besieged by contradiction” and when lewis carroll said “I knew who I was this morning, but I’ve changed a few times since then”

[callmearcturus]

when the poet wentz said “never the same person when I go to sleep, as when I wake up, as when I wake up”

[0912408179182]

Romanticizing your own loneliness and turning it into a cool girl thing only works for like a few months and then it just becomes a throbbing black hole i think. Not that ive ever experienced anything like that

[snoopy-dyke]

love is attained through embarrassing yourself by asking for it instead

[thathelpfulstranger]

just got a private twitter.

do i have too many online platforms at this point? possibly.

do i even use half of them frequently? objection: relevance? (no)

but do i continue to collect them and add them to my “free virtual real estate” portfolio as a means to categorise and quantify my thoughts? absolutely.

and that’s on my healthy habits™

[thathelpfulstranger]

[thathelpfulstranger]

so i just finished top boy: summerhouse and BRO WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME IT WAS THAT GOOD?

I mean shit! What the fuck? Top Boy was fucking amazing but summerhouse? Kmt!

SPOILERS!

For instance, the last episode of the final season? WOW! I don’t know what they did differently but it was top (hehe) notch quality - there were so many moments I loved such as the shot they did for dropping off Kayla’s kid Elijah - idk why but I replayed that scene and just had to admire it; there was something about the way they placed elijah in front of the door and as the camera zoomed out, it just made me realise how small he was, literally because in comparison to the house and the door, my man was like 0.1% of the picture but then when you remember how much of a pivotal piece he played in the whole kamale ting - it's kinda marvellous...

idk if that makes a whole bit of sense but there are honestly so many nuances in this show and i just appreciate it sm because we need more shows like this yk?

especially about the working class living in london and how much the system has failed them cus' yeah you can watch this show and think "rah this shit is so fucking wild!!" or yell in chorus with the characters whenever a good thing happens (or bad) but at the end of the day, it's still very much so real like i'd hope that of all the things people take away from this show when they watch it, is the realisation that that way of living? isn't fucking fantasy -- perhaps exaggerated to a certain extent, aye true but nonetheless, it still represents the authentic experiences of living in a criminally deprived area:

there are still kids at risk of ending up in foster care or being taken away by social services because their parents (singular really) can't afford to look after them, be it at the cost of their mental health, sobriety or just the fact that being a single parent in london the UK and raising X number of kids is a fucking madness anyway

that the local educative institutions are a fucking joke and that is not at fault from the teachers or folks working inside but entirely up to the government and how little of a fuck they give for anyone lower class

or how there are still young girls and boys being groomed into these gangs under the pretence of "second family" - and it's not even like you can blame the gang members either - i mean it's all a fucking cycle! you grow up poor, you've got little to no money (or maybe just not enough), you want to help your family (or yourself), maybe you're not doing great in school or maybe you are but the financial burdens keep rearing their head at you, you hear whispers of people making bank and even though you know you shouldn't (or maybe you don't and you don't care) - desperation pushes you towards it (or maybe it finds you anyways) and before you know it, you're slanging gear and pills before the age of 16...

and don't even get me started on the racial elements of all this and how it gets x100 worse if you're black (and i'm gonna stress that part especially because yes, being black is a whole factor in itself, people of colour have it bad but the UK is very much so anti-black my g!)

all in all though, it's a terrible terrible life that wc kids in london (and elsewhere because this shit is national fam) have to live and it hurts me at my soul that people are still going through it -- i'm snorting now at myself because i didn't expect to end up with a massive rant about the depravities of the uk's working class and crime but i think it's something we all as brits should be talking about - how can the UK with her whole chest shout "first world country!!" but we've got kids from the ages of 10 YEARS OLD in gangs, a pitiful excuse of support for folks with addictions, single parent folks, folks in abusive relationships - or fucking all bloody three - and an even more pitiful excuse of a fucking government - we must do better. we have to.

[thathelpfulstranger]

ok so where are my black british folks at?? specifically the women but also at this point, i can’t even find black british PEOPLE so mandem and gyaldem WHERE TF ARE YOU

i have no reason but i just wanna know okay *mutters something about a mother’s instinct*

[thathelpfulstranger]

The Priory of The Orange Tree - A “Review”:

5 days since, 120 hours later, and I finally finished reading the masterpiece that is The Priory of the Orange Tree….

Wow. What a story.

I always find it difficult to piece together my thoughts on what I think of X book because…well I’m not sure, I think I just don’t know how to articulate myself very well when it comes to finishing a book but I know that’s based on the fact that I’m a nonchalant hedonist and I tend to place more value on how a book makes me feel then The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’s.

Nevertheless, I do have a few things to say such as - and please believe me when I say I truly do love this book - NICLAYS ROOS WAS THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE.

I felt something akin to mild-then-rather-heated vexation whenever I turned a page and found myself stuck in his POV. I know, I know, it’s kinda tight but bro, I just didn’t give a flying fuck about his storyline. I think I just might not have grown to his character which is a shame because in the end, I did switch from ‘a perpetuity of loathing’ to ‘a perpetuity of begrudging acceptance’ with regard to Roos but…too many times I found myself exclaiming during my reading, “Ugh, not this guy!” or “IT’S ALWAYS HIM,” and I actually almost skipped his pages because I just couldn’t bring myself to read his POVs but…obviously I didn’t and masochist as I am, read every single word in this fantastic piece of fiction.

So now that I’ve got that out of the way, time to sing praises on the greatest character in the book, *points to my motherfucking g*, Eadaz du Zāla uq-Nāra

My favourite character, HANDS DOWN. From start to finish, I was invested, wholly entrenched in the journey and development of Eadaz’s character who btw has one of the most beautiful and brilliant names I’ve ever heard/read? I mean, my god…I’m in love with it. *shakes my head out of the love-laced clouds* Anyways, she was honestly fantastic in this - a really fleshed out and well written character that I could visualise so bloody well - *presses hat to my chest with obeisance to SS, another legend* - not to mention she’s just SO fucking COOL??? *gesticulates with far too much vigour*

Plus her romance with Sabran? God, Sabran! What a character as well, I thought she was fucking brilliant - as were many, many other characters like Tané, Loth, Meg and Estina Melaugo (narrator: oh yes, she most certainly had a, for lack of a more polite and appropriate word, thing for this character in particular) and so many more but-right-now-they-do-not-come-to-my-mind-so-hush.

Anyways, back to Sabran and Eadaz’s romance (and I also will spend a pretty paragraph or two on Sabran as well because because), I, of course, loved it from the minute I first noticed the embers of this pairs love story beginning. Hell even calling it a mere love story doesn’t really do them justice tbh - romance isn’t really a main feature of this story (but it is there so don’t fret!) but it’s so bloody well done and incorporated so naturally that it’s sort of something you aren’t really vying for 100% of the time, and I say this as a fervent closet romantic who adores a wlw storyline — I loved it all.

I loved the way they interacted from the stiff respectful manner in which Eadaz gave to Sabran at the beginning to the way Sabran in turn responded; their dynamic can’t be articulated in a way worthy of truly showcasing these twos relationship (narrator: she couldn’t articulate in a way worthy of truly showcasing the pairs relationship *corrective cough*) so honestly, *points at the obvious* - just read the book, and find out for yourself, my dude.

But yeah, um I’ve sort of run out of steam now and I don’t really know what to add - I said I would pay homage to Sabran but honestly I wouldn’t know what to say; she was superbly written and for a character who wasn’t a main one, I won’t be forgetting her story anytime soon. (But don’t hold to me that, I’m often acquainted with a somewhat frightful memory...)

For now, I think I’ll just end this - can I even call this a review? Feels a little messy, a tad chaotic, and more akin to *honest to god self inflicted exasperation* - whatever here with a handful of some sentences from The Priory that made me double take and/or gasp:

“I am seventeen years old, Mistress Duryan, and possessed of sufficient wit to dress myself”

Something about that last part made me grin so wide.

“Like Ead, she was of both Lasian and Ersyri descent, her skin like sand lapped by the sea. ”

Originally, I was going to put just the part in bold but then I realised without the whole sentence, that exquisite metaphor becomes crippled so herebeit; what a wonderfully creative description.

“He fed his descendants to the jaws of his lie.”

Noted with a “!” from yours truly - methinks I’ve said enough.

“The pillar of her throat and the little chalice at its base.”

*tries to stifle my impressed grin as I clap with so much effort*

“The light feathered in his eyes.”

Another well done descriptive sentence (I’m sure there’s a word for this type of thing but *hmm’s and aah’s* it escapes me) that I found just fucking cool which in comparison to the rest of my selection, appears somewhat “low-level” but if there’s anything I’ve learned from reading The Priory, it’s that grand words may be grand but simple sentences can be far grander when used right.

(However on the topic of grand words, oh my god this book was a smorgasbord of beautiful archaic language that made my head spin with enjoyment - in another life, I definitely would’ve taken to etymology as a career!)

tl;dr - niclays roos was my anathema and you should read the priory of the orange tree basically...today

[thathelpfulstranger]

not sure if i’ve lost the plot—

(narrator: she had indeed, many eons ago, lost the plot but for the sake of appearances and levity, liked to pretend she hadn’t)

—but i fully just moaned whilst starting a new book….

i don’t know what came over me but i finished three other novels in the last five days (and they were fucking glorious i tell you)..…should I be concerned?

(narrator yep i’m making this a thing: rhetorical question - she was not concerned in the slightest, better yet; she was quite the opposite)

off to the land of the priory of the orange tree i go (dear lord my unnecessary and totally excessive use of “of” is putting me off……)

…yea i’m just gonna go.

(don’t hate man cus she’s funny STILLLLL)