Latest Posts by elixir-chai - Page 2

hot take maybe, but my opinion of you automatically dives if the first reaction you have to a cool character is to ask if there’s a c.ai bot of them. write shitty fanfic like the rest of us, or just maladaptive daydream if you must. find a community and rp online!! we’re losing important social and writing skills to a tech product controlled by and overseen by the slimiest, most exploitative billionaires silicon valley has seen in a generation and we’re doing it willingly???

s1 jayvik in my mind

you probably wouldn’t like me at all

Getting a canon trans woman character was not on my bingo card but damn am I happy about it

A part of Richard's isolation from the group that I would like to put forward is this:

I truly do believe the group care for Richard as a friend, even when their relationships start to spiral out of control near the end. But that care isn't always present throughout their lives, the same way most people aren't constantly obsessing over their friend's feelings 24/7, and he cannot understand it.

It's not just the stuff you would typically think of that proves this to me, like the twins going out of their way to include him, companionable rambles with Bunny, making food with Francis. The most obvious instance of this is Richard being excluded from the Bacchanalia, and yes, this obviously sucks as someone trying so desperately to be included and a part of the group, but also makes so much sense from their perspective.

If Richard had been normal, he would have been so weirded out! This could be a convenient excuse, but it could just as easily be the group showing their own desires to be accepted by HIM, in a kind of reverse of roles that Richard naturally doesn't want to pick up on, because that would be seeing them human, and fallible, and SIMILAR TO HIMSELF. Unthinkable!

Something I've not seen discussed is the little aside when he first falls in with the group proper and relates that they had found him just as aloof as he had found them. Their inviting him to Francis's house was simply an urge to impress him, and I can't see any other way of reading it than that. If they had simply wanted to include him, but didn't care about how he saw them, they could have simply kept inviting him to their houses and out for lunch.

But, it's the moments that also double as little instances of ostracism that really interest me: Camilla saying Henry didn't want to do another pig ritual because he thought it would upset Richard, the group telling him they've already involved him enough and that he shouldn't participate in Bunny's murder. The general reading of this (that I've seen so far) seems to be that Henry did these things purposefully to keep Richard apart from the group, he didn't know him as well as the others, an unknown quantity, someone he didn't care for as much since he hadn't known him as long. But there's a lot of ambiguity there as well, and I think what makes things so compelling is that uncertainty. It could be purposeful, or unintentional, or some inextricable combination of the two.

(As an aside- ironically, I believe Henry may care about Richard the most out of anyone in the group. Helping him while he was sick, worried about seeing Richard drunk during the day, it's all rather sweet, and I don't believe it was entirely some machievellian scheme.)

However, I like to see the isolation as mostly, if not entirely unintentional, because that makes it so much more cutting to me. It's subtle. They don't put any special thought into doing it, they just…don't even think how these things could make him feel.

The worst part is, as far as I remember, Richard never fully engages with his feelings about this, but they are felt so much through the story and his actions within them. They are moments that sunk deep within his psyche like a stone that's dropped into water and swallowed immediately without a trace. It sits very still inside him, unmoveable.

His acceptance of these moments as they are happening to him is likely a result of his history of loneliness and being apart from others. There is nothing unusual to him about this, that it would require further thought from him within his narrative.

A large part of Richard's isolation is due to his glorification of the people he deems worthy, which continues even after he begins to see their flaws. Despite them, he still can't bear to see them torn down to his level, people he can relate to instead of glorify or look down upon. I think there is an element of self destruction to this, not wanting to understand so he has an excuse to punish himself for self perceived deficiencies.

It's very intriguing, this uncertainty of how much of Richard's isolation from the group is imagined, or perhaps even self imposed in a kind of feedback loop, where he feels pushed away and so pulls himself away from them, to anonymous parties with people he professes not to care about, takes pills and sleeps for days, to numb himself from the pain of their rejection.

And in the process, this feeling of isolation is enforced, becomes more a reality through the concrete evidence he has produced by himself. Maybe the group see his behaviour and think he needs space, they give it to him. He feels lonely, he says nothing. Because he would rather freeze to death than ask for help.

i am so sorry i am only reading the secret history for the first time because i feel like i am missing a lot of details that can only be noticed by re-reading the book. i'm on chapter three and so far every chapter talks about immortality and "living forever." i am wondering if this will last longer and how it will be mentioned in the chapter with bunny's murder. if it will be mentioned at all?

and the whole third chapter can probably be considered the character's first test of the idea of ​​immortality. and already here he faces reality - the proximity of death for any person, the fragility of life (and btw, it is significant that he does not fully realize that he can die, since life among his Greek circle makes him not think about it, they constantly repeat to him 'live forever' no one discusses death).

Judy Poovey — Fancast + Moodboard

Rachel Sennott as Judy Poovey

“I found her lying in her bed, watching a Mel Gibson movie on a VCR she’d borrowed from the video department. She was managing somehow to polish her fingernails, smoke a cigarette, and drink a Diet Coke all at the same time.”

So I just recently finished The Secret History by Donna Tartt and let me just say, Judy Poovey is my baby!!! Anyway, just was thinking about actors I would want to play her, and I just thought, ‘Oh my god, Rachel Sennott!’ you cannot tell me that she wouldn’t be a perfect Judy I mean come on!!!

The deeper I delve into The Secret History, the more I encounter ideas similar to those Dostoevsky explored in his works.

For example:

"And it’s a temptation for any intelligent person, and especially for perfectionists such as the ancients and ourselves, to try to murder the primitive, emotive, appetitive self. But that is a mistake."

It seems to me that this is exactly what Raskolnikov faced after committing his crime. After all, according to his theory, he wanted to prove that he could act rationally, without being troubled by his conscience. He wanted to show that by allowing himself to commit a crime, he could also master his conscience and emotions. But of course, this was a mistake, as Dostoevsky intended to demonstrate: people cannot always dominate their emotions, no matter how dedicated they are to logical reasoning.

Plus, this excerpt:

"Because it is dangerous to ignore the existence of the irrational. The more cultivated a person is, the more intelligent, the more repressed, then the more he needs some method of channeling the primitive impulses he’s worked so hard to subdue. Otherwise those powerful old forces will mass and strengthen until they are violent enough to break free, more violent for the delay, often strong enough to sweep the will away entirely."

Dostoevsky opens people's eyes to the limits of rationalism and logical reasoning. This is especially evident in Notes from Underground, where a character who ostensibly follows rational thoughts sounds absolutely unhinged to us.

Well, I must admit the idea of limited rationalism sounds legit, don't you think? 🤔

You will not use AI to get ideas for your story. You will lie on the floor and have wretched visions like god intended

it's kinda funny to me how many people are so focused on henry being so 'logical' & 'rational' when the man is superstitious af. like he tried to do ornithomancy (the greek divination practice when you read omens through birds' behaviour), & at a certain point, he & richard see a pregnant dog & henry says that's a very bad omen, referencing horace's odes (“let the wicked be led by omens of screeching from owls, by pregnant dogs, or a grey-she wolf, hurrying down from lanuvian meadows, or a fox with young.”), & i found it quite interesting too, as that puts part of the dark in dark academia, u know what i mean?

When I was little and read the myths of Ancient Greece, I thought that the ancient gods were very cruel, turning people into trees. Now I am older and I want to be a tree too.

re-reading tsh and richard papen called his ex a pop psychology version of sylvia plath i can't-

on the other hand, man has just met henry (who yet has done nothing but scoff at him rudely) and was already getting offended on his behalf when judy poovey criticized him lmaoo

Richard "Took a year of pre-med and still couldn't correctly identify his symptoms of pneumonia and hypothermia" Papen

no i dont think richard was "not smart enough" for the greek class. but lets not pretend his monetary status is what kept him from fitting in. Bunny was not rich, despite his illusion of wealth/big rich guy persona and his 'friends' knew this. Even the twins weren't well off, lol. Only Francis and Henry were wealthy.

The reason richard never became a core part of the group (unless absolutely necessary) was simply this: he was boring. he was a voyeur whose sole purpose was bearing witness to something greater than himself (nnnot really. all these guys were kind of pathetic and swept up in the tides of their delusions.)

that is part of the tragedy of richard and his entire story: he wanted, so badly, to be a part of this group, this other-worldly phenomenon that could never really accept him. he got swallowed whole and spit right back out by the very people he had built up to be these divine beings of perfection. He becomes doomed to forever feel the grief of a rejection so in-his-face and the only closure he gets is some fantasy he forces in a foggy dream.

AND THIS IS WHEN MOST OF THE THINGS HE DID CARE TO TELL WERE LIES

CAN YOU IMAGINE A STRANGER ENTERING YOUR SMALL GROUP, HE IS VERY QUIET AND MYSTERIOUS. HE SAYS VERY FEW THINGS AND IN ALMOST EVERY CONVERSATION HE LIES

Honestly, this is the best scene that shows Henry's madness.

Interestingly, in the first class Richard attended, Julian asks about the one desire we all have. And Camilla says it's the desire to live. And Bunny adds:

"To live forever"

After all, he is the one who will be killed. And because of this, he will always live in the memory of others. Always young and never old

I kinda hope The Secret History never gets a movie adaptation because being forced to read the book is a test you have to pass to get into this fandom.

One of the latest works