#boris and pippa

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

We need to talk about Tartt’s character descriptions

More Donna Tartt praise.

She writes human physical descriptions in the most genuine and true-to-life ways. I didn’t even realize how many books do not go into the actual nuance of human appearances until I read TSH and Goldfinch.

I think most books kind of categorize people as pretty, ugly, or plain then lean into what generally makes people pretty, ugly, or plain plus hair and eye colors. I love how Tartt’s books make characters appear how the majority of people really do: an assortment of specific details. There’s Boris’s bitten nails and how Henry is big and square but does not carry himself as if he is. Bunny is a once-muscled guy (now more chubby) whose naturally good looks are starting to get a little sloppy. His nose is also a bit small/sharp for his face shape. Camilla is pretty, and we hear about her thick ankles and the way her curls rest at her temples. Francis is nice-looking because he carries and styles himself well, but we hear that those things compensate for his kind of beaky nose and boney angles.

Pippa is another great example! Theo describes her looks as tender and precious. She comes across as very cute in a homely way. But we hear that her eyes look “naked” because her lashes are so pale (I can imagine this so well!) and that her nose is long. Her cheeks are thin. Theo notes these things, and thinks she’s pretty anyway; he assumes he must have some personal affinity for her and is given a wake-up call when Everett also finds these traits cute.

OH actually let me squeeze in Mr. Barbour here. Because lol???

His eyes were a queer unstable gray and his hair was pure white, which made him seem older than he was until you noticed that his face was young and pink — boyish, even. His ruddy cheeks and his long, old-fashioned nose, in combination with the prematurely white hair, gave him the amiable look of a lesser founding father, some minor member of the Continental Congress teleported to the twenty-first century.

This is so specific and so easy to see. It stuck out to me when I read it, and my mom mentioned it to me when she read it. She said she was really hit by Andy’s dad’s description and thought it was funny but did a really good job delivering an image.

It’s just so real and gets at how normal people actually are: not always pretty in a “safe” way. Tartt has the guts to give you a description of an actual unique, textured person and say “This is nice.” Or, in Bunny’s case, give someone who is basically handsome but not necessarily pleasant-looking. Theres so much nuance, and it’s honest.

It kind of made me rethink how I write human descriptions. There are “safe” things to point out that become a little insubstantial if you combine too many of them: “The pretty girl has glossy hair and curves and bright blue eyes.” And then there’s going into actual shapes and the way people carry themselves and how some features look against others. It honestly just makes the characters really pop and they’re easy to envision.

[reddiemato]

There’s a theme here… the 13 year old boy in love with his best friend Finn Wolfhard and the gorgeous girl with the hair like winter fire <3

[theotherwoman69]

Probaganda I'm not falling for:

-popchyk was not a gay little dawg

-theodore decker was a heterosexual

-the movie was better than the book

-boris being a reason for theo's addiction

-making Theo and Boris 100% good people

-coffee place AU's

-insulting Kitsey, Pippa and Kotku just because they're women and "getting in a way of the ship"

-pineapple on pizza.

[mygoldfinch]

The Goldfinch 12 part mini series but it’s soundtracked with a mix of songs actually referenced in the book (Thelonious Monk, Elliot Smith, the velvet underground, Dimitri Shostakovich, Beethoven, The Beatles white album, The Magnetic Fields, Argo Pärt, etc)

[frothingbeerbottles]

Breaking news, gay man, reflecting of the thoughts of in love with a girl he forced himself to be in love with and completely conflicting himself because he knows that he’s gay but the compulsion to be normal, accepted and loved the way society views it without it having to be that other gay man who loves him more than anything, has now broken down upon seeing her at her lowest.

[jamiessecretoh]

My hot take is that Theo is actually in love with pippa but the way he loves people is so weird and messy that she should be free from his reign of terror. Boris on the other hand is worse, and is entertained with how weird and possessive Theo is

[hearts4popchyk]

some of the shit theo decker admitted to in tgf couldnt be water boarded out of me honestly

[spongewormedpants]

literally shaking and overflowing with emotions over the goldfinch by donna tartt

[sparklygraves]

love this ques & curious to see others’ answers!!

well so far I think we just saw them together at the pre-wedding party & they seemed to get along (a bit too well for Theo’s liking :P)-- Boris draped all over her, Pippa laughing at whatever fun nonsense Boris was talking... 

I feel like they are immediately charmed by each other-- but there may be some jealousy on Boris’ side-- cuz he knows Pippa is the one Theo used to write lovelorn letters to back in Vegas...

so Boris would probably go over the top to seem casual & charming & maybe even seductive-- to make Theo jealous/gain some sense of power.

but I’d say his charms don’t work on Pippa-- romantically anyway!

but as friends-- hellz ya!

they’re basically Theo’s only 2 friends in the world & I bet would put their heads together to conspire to make his life better-- but that may involve pranking him to get him out of his shell.

I feel like Pippa’s quieter than Boris but just as fiendish & they would make a formidable pair!!

What do you think the friendship between Boris and Pippa would be like?

[i-promise-i-am-not-on-drugs]

(The good ending we deserve AU: )

— Boris ended up buying an appartement less than 1km away from Hobbie's, and he lives there when he's in NY, which is becoming the norm these days.

— Theo has a key to Boris's appartement (obviously) and he use it when Boris's not here. He likes Boris's appartement. It has a calm and cozy vibe to it, and Boris always had the best blankets anyway. (It feels safe. It feels like home. It feels like Boris's arms around him after he had night terrors, in LA.)

— After Theo and Kitsey officially broke up, she and Tom "started to" date each other. They ended up breaking up not too long after that, as she discovered that Tom was cheating on her and using her for her family's money and her body.

— Pippa and Theo had another talk about their feelings for each others. They agreed on staying good friends, and Theo promised her to try and become friends with Everett. They actually get along pretty well.

— Hobbie convinced Theo to try to see a therapist. The therapist diagnosed him with a huge depression, internalized homophobia, and suicide idealisation. They are working on it, slowly but surely.

— Hobie and Theo are trying to convince Boris to go to therapy too, it isn't going anywhere for now. Boris doesn't like to talk about his problems, and even less having to pay for it.

— Theo is going to detox therapy for drugs and cigarettes. Not for alcohol thought. He recently managed to convince Boris to do it with him.

— Pippa and Boris meet each other by chance in a bar and didn't realize that they where "the one Theo was talking about". They went along pretty well.

Weeks later, they meet again at Hobbie's because Theo wanted them to meet each other, and they went "HEY! I know you!!" and started laughing, and Theo was just so confused.

— Boris came back to NY after a 3 weeks long travel, and while he walked to a bus stop not too far from the airport, he saw a cardboard box with "free" written on it. Of course, he crossed the road to see what was inside the box. And he saw a small white pup, looking at him with it's big and sad brown puppy-eyes. Boris has a soft heart for animals, dogs and cats especially, but this one somehow made him think of Popchyk. And he just couldn't leave this little guy here in the middle of winter, could he?

— Theo loved Popchyk, and he was absolutely devastated when he died. (Of course he was. Popchyk was another living being in Theo's life who missed Boris, and that was a comforting though. Even if he was only a dog.) When Boris entered his appartement with a small puppy in his arms that looked at him with the same look Popper used to have, Theo couldn't help but feel like his little gay-looking dog came back to life, somehow.

— They agreed to name the pup Popchyk Jr., in honor and memory of Popchyk.

— Boris and Theo's relationship is... Complicated, to say at least. They pretty much live together, they have a dog, they sleep in the same bed. They like to cuddle while reading, watching the TV or just talking. They cook, eat, and do the dishes together, and they split the chores. They also have sex together sometime, and they kiss. Just because they can.

But they don't talk about the implications of any of that.

And maybe they should.

But for now, it's fine. They're both happy with how things are between them.

(Maybe one day, they will have enough courage and mental stability to put words on what they are. And maybe, these words will be "life partner", or even "soulmate". Not today, and probably not tomorrow either. But one day. They will.)

[theotherwoman69]

I think the only digital footprint that Theo would have left would've been on tumblr when he got invited to the college party for once and photos of him doing all sorts of stuff would just end up there (posted by random people on the party) and Theo goes on tumblr as usual and just sees pictures of himself doing drugs and some strange woman being all over him on a dorm couch, seeing the pictures becoming more, more, more popular and he slowly loses his mind asking the ppl to delete them and they do but the footprint stays... And guess who has screen shots of the pictures.... either Boris himself or one of his friends, also Pippa but she's too scared to ask about them.

[homophobicdecker]

heres my thoughts on who in the book would have nipple piercings

boris yes pippa no kitsey no kitseys roommate yes kotku yes xandra no (but she has infected dermals) platt yes but they got infected and he took them out theo just one hobie also just one

[frothingbeerbottles]

hey so we’re all in agreement that gender swapping Theo, Pippa and Boris just changes their builds slightly and doesn’t affect the way they look at all right? no? fucking rip my heart out would you??

[jamiessecretoh]

My hot take that Theo WAS inlove with pippa and just because his love for her was born out of his mothers death doesn’t mean he didn’t love her. The reality is it wasn’t feasible or healthy in any way. A part of Theo’s (many) problems is that his grief causes his love for one person to bleed into another. He compares pippa to his mother, and his loss stops them from having any vaguely good relationship because he can’t see her as her own person.

But this isn’t the only person that Theo does this too. There’s many times in the book that he compares Boris to his father (Especially after his death). To me the difference between his relationship with pippa and his relationship with Boris is that he has the ability to see Boris as his own person and he doesn’t connect Boris too a time where he wasn’t traumatised and he still had his mother. Theo believes that having a relationship with Pippa would fix all his problems. He idolises the possibility with obsession, but what he’s really longing for is his life before the explosion. Funnily enough he doesn’t do this with just Boris and Pippa. He also does this with Kitsey as well.

there’s multiple moments in the book that you can see his grief from losing Andy bleeds into his relationship with Kitsey, his grief from losing him makes their relationship move fast, as Theo often laments in the book how much time he wasted not getting into contact with Andy. He wants the closest thing to him, and that just happened to be Kitsey. Am I saying that Theo had romantic feelings for Andy? Absolutely not. What I’m saying is that Theo allows his love for people he’s lost mix with people who are still around. he doesn’t just do this with love interests (Pippa, Boris and Kitsey) He does this with Hobie and Ms.Barbour as well, in a way that’s easier to comprehend as he views both these characters as parental figures

anyway in conclusion: he loves Pippa for all the wrong reasons and not for who she is, or what she wants/needs.

[alltimefail]

Finding out there are people who read the Goldfinch who do not think Theo is some variation of queer will knock the wind out of you. Mind boggling, truly!!! Like there is no way we read the same book!!!!

Anyway heteronormativity must be one hell of a drug for some people, but it is rotting brains fr 🥴

[carduelism]

Drew them :3 honestly Pippa is such a joy to draw so I need to do it more often!!! This is the start of my new sketch book so the tgf fandom will for sure see more of her from me :) Honestly it was such a joy to pick up a pencil again and actually have an idea of what I’m drawing lol so if any of you guys have any ideas for what I should draw please send an askkkk