chthonic-cassandra

[chthonic-cassandra]

Ahem

[chthonic-cassandra]

1 May 2025

Tea: Harney and Sons Paris

Perfume: Datura Blossom; so happy about white florals right now

Reading: finished Nancy Worman, Tragic Bodies: Edges of the Human in Greek Drama!

Watching: rewatched Xena 1.15 "Warrior...Princess"

[chthonic-cassandra]

[chthonic-cassandra]

“The Sacrifice of Polyxena”, 17th century Chinese tapestry, part of a series llustrating the story of the Trojan War, made for sale to the Portuguese market. More than a bit chaotic when reduced to internet size, no doubt far more effective in person.

[chthonic-cassandra]

had been looking for hekate through museum archives and found this gorgeous hydria 🏺

[chthonic-cassandra]

ιὼ ιὼ λιγείας βίος ἀηδὀνος

[chthonic-cassandra]

✍️ even more fic writer asks!

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Start to finish, how long did it take to plan and write? Did you take breaks during the process?

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If the fic required it, what did you research in order to write it?

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Did you cut something out of the outline or an early draft? What was it and why did you decide to cut it?

Did you get stuck at any point? How did you get past that?

How did you approach writing the fic? (e.g. wrote it start to finish in order, started with the ending, starting with the twist)

What was the most challenging aspect of writing it?

What program(s) did you use to write and edit?

Did you write any of the fic by hand? If yes, which parts? Do you find you write differently by hand vs typing?

Talk about the fic’s opening scene & how you approached it

Talk about the characters’ struggles & how you decided on those

Talk about the fic’s biggest moment & how you came up with it

Talk about the fic’s ending. Why did you end it where you did?

Talk about your editing and revision process

While editing, did you kill any darlings? What were they?

Did you work with a beta? How did that affect the finished fic?

Did the fic end up shorter or longer than you had planned?

What is something you learned about yourself as a writer from the experience?

How did you come up with the title?

How did you celebrate finishing?

Share your favorite line

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Write a new summary for the fic, but badly

If you made a playlist, talk about the songs on it and share a link

Would you ever return to the story’s universe and write more?

[chthonic-cassandra]

30 April 2025

Tea: Bigelow earl grey.

Perfume: Indescribable Solemnity and Fear (golden frankincense and cardamom smothered by honeyed kisses of labdanum, red rose, merlot, black oud, and myrrh); this is one in the smallish category of resinous wine scents I have; it's deep and complex though doesn't work as well as an everyday scent for me as Athens, which is also in that category in my mind.

Reading: still very slowly reading Nancy Worman, Tragic Bodies: Edges of the Human in Greek Drama, getting very emotional about just reading all the dense quotations of Greek language for binding and for violence. As I was typing this I accidentally switched my keyboard to Greek so that says something.

Watching: nothing today but yesterday, when I didn't have time to do this, I went to a screening of 8 1/2 (1963) which was an absolute delight to return to on a big screen. I've seen it enough times now (6, maybe?) that I can really hold the whole architecture of the film in my mind and appreciate the details which is such a joy.

[chthonic-cassandra]

Tortures

by Wisława Szymborska tr. Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh

Nothing has changed. The body is a reservoir of pain; it has to eat and breathe the air, and sleep; it has thin skin and the blood is just beneath it; it has a good supply of teeth and fingernails; its bones can be broken; its joints can be stretched. In tortures, all of this is considered.

Nothing has changed. The body still trembles as it trembled before Rome was founded and after, in the twentieth century before and after Christ. Tortures are just what they were, only the earth has shrunk and whatever goes on sounds as if it’s just a room away.

Nothing has changed. Except there are more people, and new offenses have sprung up beside the old ones — real, make-believe, short-lived, and nonexistent. But the cry with which the body answers for them was, is, and will be a cry of innocence in keeping with the age-old scale and pitch.

Nothing has changed. Except perhaps the manners, ceremonies, dances. The gesture of the hands shielding the head has nonetheless remained the same. The body writhes, jerks, and tugs, falls to the ground when shoved, pulls up its knees, bruises, swells, drools, and bleeds.

Nothing has changed. Except the run of rivers, the shapes of forests, shores, deserts, and glaciers. The little soul roams among these landscapes, disappears, returns, draws near, moves away, evasive and a stranger to itself, now sure, now uncertain of its own existence, whereas the body is and is and is and has nowhere to go.

[chthonic-cassandra]

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Design inspried by the White Rabbit Candy

It's been on my to-do-list for a very looooong time to make a White Rabbit Candy inspired rebind

It's an HTV wrap cover, and I'm glad most of the measurement turned out correct

[chthonic-cassandra]

Man is quite ill in Aeschylus, but still thinks of himself somewhat as a god and does not want to enter the membrane, and in Euripides, finally he splashes about in the membrane, forgetting where and when he was a god.

Antonin Artaud, "The Theater and Anatomy" quoted in Nancy Woman, Tragic Bodies

[chthonic-cassandra]

Yesterday I saw someone on the train wearing a magnolia-patterned dress; today I saw someone wearing shoes with pictures of snakes on them.

[chthonic-cassandra]

✍️ even more fic writer asks!

This one is a behind-the-scenes dive into a specific fic. Followers can send an ask with a number & the fic they’d like you to talk about ✨OR✨ you can decide what fic you’re focusing on and just ask for numbers. (Or reblog and answer everything like a Q&A)

Start to finish, how long did it take to plan and write? Did you take breaks during the process?

How did you come up with the idea?

Did the idea change at all by the time the fic was complete?

If the fic required it, what did you research in order to write it?

Did you outline the fic?

How did you decide what tense and POV(s) to use?

How did you decide what character(s) would narrate the fic?

Did you cut something out of the outline or an early draft? What was it and why did you decide to cut it?

Did you get stuck at any point? How did you get past that?

How did you approach writing the fic? (e.g. wrote it start to finish in order, started with the ending, starting with the twist)

What was the most challenging aspect of writing it?

What program(s) did you use to write and edit?

Did you write any of the fic by hand? If yes, which parts? Do you find you write differently by hand vs typing?

Talk about the fic’s opening scene & how you approached it

Talk about the characters’ struggles & how you decided on those

Talk about the fic’s biggest moment & how you came up with it

Talk about the fic’s ending. Why did you end it where you did?

Talk about your editing and revision process

While editing, did you kill any darlings? What were they?

Did you work with a beta? How did that affect the finished fic?

Did the fic end up shorter or longer than you had planned?

What is something you learned about yourself as a writer from the experience?

How did you come up with the title?

How did you celebrate finishing?

Share your favorite line

Share your favorite detail

Share a piece of lore you made up for the story

Write a new summary for the fic, but badly

If you made a playlist, talk about the songs on it and share a link

Would you ever return to the story’s universe and write more?

[chthonic-cassandra]

@goblins-riddles-or-frocks

Hey, that’s me

[chthonic-cassandra]

Night of blues , Blue Night - Hsin-i Kuo , 1921.

Taiwanese , b. 1974 -

Watercolour , 56 x 113 cm.

[chthonic-cassandra]

[chthonic-cassandra]

@asimplecreature

Luigi Lucioni, Irises, 1928