Latest Posts by metalleach - Page 3

learning lately that a lot of confidence is about owning up. like "yeah i'm a little addicted to my phone right now" or "yeah i'm not really over this person yet" or "yeah i still get pretty anxious in crowds" just saying anything at all but then following it up w "but i'm trying to get better" and being super nonchalant and unaffected. so powerful. you would literally be undefeatable in the face of even the most judgmental person. no one can judge you for things you already know about yourself and are trying to improve on. the trick is to know yourself from the inside out, to hold yourself accountable, and to actively improve every day. like that is literally the secret to never feeling like you're at the mercy of somebody else's judgment

Richard Papen going from not much of a meat eater and giving his lamb chops to Bunny at the beginning of the book to wolfing down Camilla’s room service lamb chops at the end is probably a metaphor I’m too stupid to figure out

francis when henry said he found gucci “grand”

Francis IS a predator, and it always seemed sketchy to me how at some point during their stay at bunny's family's house for his funeral Francis and Charles were fighting abt Charles driving the car with the top down in the rain, and Charles said "I've seen you leave the top up in the rain before, but you don't want to remember that because that's the day you tried to get me to-" TO DO WHAT. HUH. AND THEN FRANCIS GOT ALL PANICKED AND CUT HIM OFF.

The Secret History set in the modern day and everything is the same except Francis has no less than four strawberry ice vapes on his person at all times

Lana Del Rey released a song called "Henry, come on"?! Excuse me?

"I heard God say, "You were born to be the one

To hold thе hand of the man

Who flies too close to thе sun"

Ok Richard Papen. Hold his hand. Not the Greek mythology reference.

"I'll still be nice to your mom It's not her fault you're leavin'"

Somebody sedate me!!!...

"Do you think I'd really lose it on ya If you did nothin' wrong?"

I'm sensing Camilla?...

Why don't you just push me off a cliff, Lana? You might as well. It's already April.

Henry is not this perfectly composed psychopath that some people like to pretend he is. He loved Bunny, and he hated him, and those two things can and do coexist. Killing Bunny broke something in Henry, or maybe it unearthed something that had always been broken. But he still loved him. That was his best friend and his worst enemy and sometimes those two things aren’t so different. In this essay, I will…

each paragraph in the epilogue of the secret history is like another gunshot and by the time i finish the book i’m in literal shambles

list of things Henry Winter wouldn’t believe in after the moon landing (Yk, if he lived long enough), but only some of them get context!

-AIDS

-AI (“Your telling me artificial intelligence is more intelligent than me? That is unheard of.” “Don’t worry Henry, it still can’t spell ‘strawberry’ correctly.”)

-Australia

-The mobile phone (“How does this work?” “Well with this particular model you swipe up to unlock…” “Yes, but what does it do?” “So many things! It’s like a portable laptop!” “A portable WHAT.”)

-The laptop ( “it’s a computer but… it fits on your lap I guess?” “Please never show me one.”)

-The kindle.

-Solar panels/hydroelectricity farms.

-Climate change ( “So why is the earth warming up…?” “It’s because of like greenhouse gasses and being unsustainable?” “And you’re just LETTING the scientist tell you this? How do we know it isn’t a lie to improve the economy!”)

-Video games

-Lazer tag/nerf guns (“Are you certain they can’t kill me?” “Certain.” “They sure look like they can… never let me see one again.”

my theory for what henry whispered to camilla is "kitten, i'll be honest. daddy's about to kill himself"

henry writing in his journal in rome

Pocket Check: Francis

Hermes and the Infant Dionysus

Aka Hermes loves his wittle brother very very much

im still losing it over the "how did high schoolers write 600 word essays before chatgpt" post. 600 words. that is nothing. that is so few words what do you mean you can't write 600 words. 600 words. this post right here is 45 words.

I love the “cubitum eamus?” exchange in the text of The Secret History, however I think Donna Tartt really elevated the line with her delivery of it in the audiobook. “Are you the new neanias?” is mocking and flirtatious the emphasis on “young man.” Richard’s response is almost gravelly. The “cubitum eamus?” is more serious. The almost singsongy tone she gives Francis on “Nothing.” It makes the whole scene read as lighter and more playful than it does strictly as words on the page. You can interpret it as flirtation even without knowing what the Latin means. It shows the fine distinction between Francis’ elitist disdain and genuine interest. Donna Tartt deserves more hype for the quality of her narration in the audiobook of her own novel. There is a reason it so frequently gets clipped out as audios.

The reason I'm shaking my head at Richard is that he should've learnt his lesson in school, not during his second shot at studying in college. Trying to fit into an aloof, mysterious group because you think you're more mature and deeper than everybody else, only to find out that the group in question is not that cool and they only hang out because they're insufferable to everyone else, not exclusive. That's typical middle school experience right there.

One guy desperately trying to squeeze into the group, a homophobe who everyone calls queer, a girl and a boy who have a secret code of communicating, another one who's blatantly gay, one that you can tell will grow up to have an addiction...

There was "the Greek class" in every school.

‘the slow burn will make you insane’ god forbid a woman has hobbies

O Apollo, sing with Golden Lyre

Done with watercolor and a brown prismacolor pen! On a TINY paper..

have a photo dump of random pictures of Dionysus I just had on my phone

Absolutely be political in your worship.

Aphrodite isn't called Pandemos (of All People) so you can sit around and let the big names capitalise love and serve it only to those who can afford to pay past the persecution. Hermes isn't called Oeopolus (Shepherd) so you can sit around and let a bunch of power-hungry wolves lead a flock of influencable sheep. Apollo isn't called Paean (Healer) so you can sit around while wealthy corporations serve healthcare only to those who can afford not to die. Athena isn't called Ambulia (Counsellor) so you can sit around while the people are being fed propaganda against each other to divert them from the real enemy at the top. Dionysus isn't called Eleuthereus (the Liberator) so you can sit around while freedom is only granted to those whose skins have the acceptable colour while the others die in chains. Zeus isn't called Xenios (of the Foreigners) so you can sit around while the borders are closed to those who need it and only open to those who can give back the money.

The Gods stand with the oppressed, and so should you.

Still the biggest iceberg in this field.

Too many people who are interested in Dionysus worry that he'll reject them if they aren't some flavour of alcoholic, so I say this gently:

PLEASE RESEARCH HIM

Dionysus is so much more than a drunkard wine god who requires your inebriation (he isn't and he doesn't). He's a god of the oppressed, of insanity, of liberation, of death and rebirth, of fertility, and yes, of wine

Dionysus is violence, love, the calm before the storm and the rage within one, the breath before you scream and your roar of victory, communion, ecstasy, dance, utter stillness, anger, joy...

And he will love you no matter what

This post has been rephrased from the original

today’s thrift shop find          Ares and Aphrodite 

what i currently can’t get over at the moment is what happened to camilla during the bacchanal.

not only did she remember becoming a deer, and the boys remember chasing a deer for hours, she also was found away from the group, her chiton clean, all except for her hair bloody red. and then she goes non verbal for three days.

not to mention early on in the book it’s shown how angry and violent henry and charles can get.

i just KNOW their bitchass did something 😭

i need the secret history set in england. instead of bunny saying “hello, old sport”, it’d just be him going “wagwan bruv”

Wikipedia / Image from pinterest / Machiavelli / George Santayana / Thucydides / Image from pinterest / Abba - Waterloo / J. M. Barrie - Peter Pan / Fibonacci spiral / Catherynne M. Valente

MY ACTUAL GIRLFRIEND HELOO I LOVE THISSSS

Camilla Macaulay

pretending i’m camilla macaulay as i write my 7,000 word essay on women in ancient greek mythology for my EPQ

Recent classics class doodles