xiaoflu

[xiaoflu]

Henry and Camilla at the lake

The Secret History, page 98

McCaughey, Eleanor. The Secret History. 2013. Oil and acrylic on wood. Accessed on flickr.com.

[xiaoflu]

Henry and Bunny Polaroids in Rome. Bunny is probably complaining in his. I feel like in all the pics they have Bunny is looking away from the camera and Henry is looking too intensely at it.

[xiaoflu]

living far away from a coast in summer is actually torture i think governments should start torturing prisoners with images of beaches and summer houses and lakes while being stuck in nebraska

[xiaoflu]

OBSESSED with the way donna tartt reads the "cubitum eamus" scene in her audiobook. the little 🎵nothing🎵 lives rent free in my head

[xiaoflu]

bunny corcoran aesthetic

[xiaoflu]

why r ppl surprised ab the girl harmonizing with the ceiling fan on tiktok. like didn't we already discover that the constant whirring is the sound of grief and melancholy and mourning a life you once could've had from class of 2013 (audiotree live version) by mitski miyawaki

[xiaoflu]

"i do not need a core" I DO NOT NEED A CORE. i am ME! I am me! i am free from "aesthetics". sorry u dont understand my shoujo girl americana the secret history jazz chic newjeans nostalgia core style.

[xiaoflu]

being young is like. is this burnout or am i just incapable of work ever. is this just a slump or have i already hit my peak at 12. is this me spiraling or am i fundamentally cursed to live an unpleasant life forever.

[xiaoflu]

there is a huge difference between criticizing an institution and criticizing individual behavior. i can criticize the makeup industry without criticizing the 14 year old girl who uses concealer because she’s self-conscious about her acne; i can criticize the plastic surgery industry without vilifying the woman who decided to get a nose job after two decades of pointed comments and bullying. it is intellectually dishonest to respond to an institutional criticism as if it were a personal attack; on the flip side, it is cruel and unnecessary to leverage personal attacks in the name of institutional criticism

if i see one (1) more person respond to a perfectly reasonable beauty-industry-critical sentiment with “but i personally enjoy eyeshadow. why are you attacking people who like eyeshadow :(” or “exactly, all women who wear makeup are miserable and brainwashed” i am going to climb a tree and bite the top of it

[xiaoflu]

(The secret history spoiler warning)

unironically the thing I love most about the secret history is that it’s messed up by all means. Each character from the Greek class is messed up one way or another, and their faults, their fatal flaws—they’re not just any flaws no, they’re flaws that make these characters horrid. Yes they had cute interactions, yes I always think about their time in the countryhouse, when they were by the lake and Camilla injured her foot, Francis in his robe and Henry in his suit with the trousers rolled up to the knees, looking like a banker in an old impressionist painting, as he wades into the water, Charles saving Richard a sandwich and almost getting in trouble for it, bunny being kind to Richard at the start of the book and trusting him to the very end, the way bunny and Marion were so old married couple coded, Judy Poovey talking Richard’s ears off and being a girl 🎀, Henry beating up that jock for Camilla

Despite all this, Charles remains an incestuous drunkard and an abuser, Francis remains a melodramatic man who’d ask just about anyone he thinks attractive to bed on the first meeting, he’s also an anxious mess and refuses to believe there are consequences to his chain smoking, Camilla is manipulative and we know little of her bc of Richard’s idolisation, Richard morbidly longing for the picturesque at the expense of others’ lives and viewing the Greek class through rose tinted glasses, bunny was a homophobe and racist and leeched off everyone’s money—he literally put Richard on the spot during one of their first interactions in the book when he took him to the Brasserie and had Henry pay for everything—and looking through his sick friend’s diary and he was so darn annoying I couldn’t stand him at all in the first read, and even that might as well be exaggerated because it’s only Richard’s perspective on him, and bunny seemed to be well liked in the university by those outside the Greek class. I don’t even know where to start with Henry, I’m gonna have to make a separate post for him alone at this point. And even Judy, remember when Richard met her in the bathroom and she was talking about her slamming into Camilla when Camilla JUST entered the place, and when Camilla called her out Judy just dunked her beer on her because being drunk is a perfect excuse to see that as the right thing to do? And then when Henry and Charles went up to defend Camilla Judy called them abusers for defending her? 😭 though Henry breaking Spike’s bones is another thing to be honest. and don’t get me started on the bacchanal—the four of them killing an innocent man in their frenzy and getting away with it and brushing it under the rug later on. They’re literal murderers, and that’s before the plan of murdering Bunny was introduced

and ALL of them are chainsmokers and alcoholics to a dangerous point, can you even imagine the smell?????

anyhow, the main point of this ramble, is that to get a good sense of what this book is really about, I’d suggest rereading it at least once. Donna is a master of her craft, and this work of hers is anything but shallow, even the flaws are so perfectly placed and shadowed by our unreliable narrator to the point where there’s a big bunch of readers who completely ignore them (think of how there’s critics and readers who assume that Lolita is a romance novel) , but if you look from a more rational angle you’ll understand what Donna was trying to communicate

and I love love love how she did all of this

[xiaoflu]

me: chat what do we think

the angel and devil on my shoulders: can you not call us that please

[xiaoflu]

AI defenders will make it seem as if art is this gatekept pastime that only the most elite can partake in and they’re making it possible for the “normies” to create meanwhile one of the most memorable pieces of recent art I’ve ever seen is “My son’s drawing of safe”

[xiaoflu]

what do you think of moving to a brand new city and teaching yourself how to die

[xiaoflu]

best thing i ever accepted about people is that most people are just kind of gross like, physically

[xiaoflu]

names not numbers

The Palestinian Ministry of Health released a report on Thursday, including the names of more than seven thousand Palestinians who were martyred in the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip.

Red color highlights 0-4 years old age group

Green color highlights age group 5-17

White color highlights the age group between 18 and 59 years old

Gray color highlights the age group over 60

These are not just names, but people killed in the midst of a brutal war. Remember their names.

(Designed by @georgedeebstudios on insta)

[xiaoflu]

i've never been into hozier (me admitting this on tumblr is like flinging myself into a pit of sharks except i'm practicing exposure therapy to criticism hashtag vulnerability) but the new snippet of his song is very good and i will be sat on march 22

[xiaoflu]

Henry Winter

— the secret history, donna tartt.