being self-taught in any type of practice will eventually lead to you having to seek out formal learning resources to bridge what you think is a trivial knowledge gap and realizing that you've been operating similarly to that french guy who went about his daily life unknowingly missing 90% of his brain
im taking my time reading it, though, bc i dont wanna speed through it and miss details. i've been poring over every single line like a madman
i don't think i've ever liked a book this much, and this fast the same way i'm so enamored by the picture of dorian gray after reading just the preface and the first chapter. it usually takes me a couple chapters to get a feel of a book, but with tpodg? im so fucking hooked HWJAKSBSJ
I’m not a classicist, but I suspect one of the reasons so many of the Greek gods are portrayed so unflatteringly was less because they were seen as villains than because they represented their domains. Of course Zeus sometimes misuses his power, that’s what a king does. Of course Artemis’s wrath is wild and painful, that’s what nature can be. Of course Hades snatched away a young girl from her mother’s arms, that’s what death does. This is one of the reasons callout posts for some gods comparing them negatively to ‘nicer’ gods are kind of missing the point.
I’m obsessed with tragedies that you know are tragedies from the beginning. I am obsessed with Horatio ending the play surrounded by the dead. I’m obsessed with Achilles and Patroclus not being able to grow old because they’ve been taken from the world too young. I’m obsessed with Romeo and Juliet lying dead, side by side. I’m obsessed with Orpheus turning around and Eurydice crumbling to dust over and over.
I’m obsessed with stories that are so engrained in our society that we know how they are gong to end, and that they are going to end with everyone dead or destroyed. I’m obsessed with the fact that we read them anyway. I’m obsessed with the hope that it could turn out differently and the willingness to feel that despair again.
Absolutely no one is doing it like the Long Quiet and the Shifting Mound.
They’re nascent gods. They’re the embodiments of change and stagnation, and as such are in constant opposition. They used to be one. They were torn from each other, edges purposefully left bloody and ragged. They feel each other’s absence like a wound. They love each other, because all that is not one is the other. They love each other, because to love the other is to love what once was theirs. They are beyond human comprehension, and yet their relationship encompasses all the brightest and strangest and most grotesque human emotions. They flirt awkwardly with each other. They threaten each other. They trick each other. They have erotic knife fights. They have intense philosophical debates. They make each other better. They mutilate each other. They are the universe itself, perceiving itself, ever evolving and self-immolating and expanding as they discover new avenues of expression and experience. They destroy each other, over and over again. They forgive each other every time.
This is a love story, and they are love.
"are you the person who says goodnight to everyone at 9PM then stays up all night reading fanfictions at tumblr?"
Full Moons of 2024
Maybe if I was prettier. Or maybe if I was more horrifying actually