the verb for i

"I remember perceiving very early, in almost a raw way, that if people didn't find women almost seductive, they generally regarded them with disgust. I remember seeing that and knowing there wasn't a neutral feeling toward women, whereas people mainly felt toward men in a neutral way. They didn't go out of their way to make fun of an older man walking down the street, whereas with a woman there were countless ways to describe her, as a cow or a dragon lady, all those contemptuous terms. Unless she's upfront seductive, generally the terms are contemptuous. I remember realizing that as a kid. I remember even discussing it with people, trying to figure out why it was so. I was absolutely baffled by it because I perceived myself mainly as neutral and invisible, and I didn't particularly want to be perceived either way, either with disgust or as seductive. So obviously that must influence my writing. I don't like to deal with that aspect of life. I don't like going around in a book being somebody who has to either be seductive or face people's disgust. I haven't resolved all my feelings about it, so it's easier to write from the male point of view. I do find it easier to write about gay men for that reason and others. I feel like I'm removed from everything, that I can really have a fresh perspective." -- Conversations With Anne Rice, by Michael Riley

[ID: Obsession (2026) fanart, stylized as a Polaroid. The photo shows Nikki lit by a harsh flash, capturing her shoulders and her grin, but not her eyes— they are pinpricks of light. Her hair is wild, there is a splatter of blood down her face. Sharpie captions the image, “not me”. End ID.]

i think abt anne rice’s answer to “what are your work habits for a novel?” probably every single day

The rise of AI slop & the endless waves of books that feel written to spec by people who are terrified of their own audiences has given me a new appreciation for Anne Rice. It's not even that she didn't give a fuck; she cared passionately and was famously, publicly hurt by the reception of at least one of her novels, but she never let that distract her from her mission of writing whatever the fuck she wanted. No one could write Anne Rice's books except Anne Rice. They are singularly, entirely hers and while I won't pretend she was a perfect person or it's wrong for readers to be offended or uninterested in spending their one and only life on earth reading something that offends them, I also think her work is valuable and humane and also often hilarious and it's not a crime to have a muse you adore.