cuthali0n

[cuthali0n]

Reblog if your art project has not, does not, and never will make use of generative ai at any point in your creative process.

[cuthali0n]

”what i’ve done?”

[cuthali0n]

damn people rly hate type 2 diabetics don't they

[cuthali0n]

Happy pride month to my dad. When I came out as bi to him, this man googled what it ment, look at me and said "ohh. Yeah. You get that from me. You'd have far more siblings of I only shaged women." And went right back to his work emails.

[cuthali0n]

I think I may never be sad ever again. There is a statue entitled "Farewell to Orpheus" on my college campus. It's been there since 1968, created by a Prof. Frederic Littman that use to work at the university. It sits in the middle of a fountain, and the fountain is often full of litter. I have taken it upon myself to clean the litter out when I see it (the skimmers only come by once a week at max). But because of my style of dress, this means that bystanders see a twenty-something on their hands and knees at the edge of the fountain, sleeves rolled up, trying not to splash dirty water on their slacks while their briefcase and suit coat sit nearby. This is fine, usually. But today was Saturday Market, which means the twenty or so people in the area suddenly became hundreds. So, obviously, somebody stopped to ask what I was doing. "This," I gestured at the statue, "is Eurydice. She was the wife of Orpheus, the greatest storyteller in Greece. And this litter is disrespectful." Then, on a whim, I squinted up at them. "Do you know the story of Orpheus and Eurydice?" "No," they replied, shifting slightly to sit.

"Would you like to?"

"Sure!"

So I told them. I told them the story as I know it- and I've had a bit of practice. Orpheus, child of a wishing star, favorite of the messenger god, who had a hard-working, wonderful wife, Eurydice; his harp that could lull beasts to passivity, coax song from nymphs, and move mountains before him; and the men who, while he dreamed and composed, came to steal Eurydice away. I told of how she ran, and the water splashed up on my clothes. But I didn't care. I told of how the adder in the field bit her heel, and she died. I told of the Underworld- how Orpheus charmed the riverman, pacified Cerberus with a lullaby, and melted the hearts of the wise judges. I laughed as I remarked how lucky he was that it was winter- for Persephone was moved by his song where Hades was not. She convinced Hades to let Orpheus prove he was worthy of taking Eurydice. I tugged my coat back on, and said how Orpheus had to play and sing all the way out of the Underworld, without ever looking back to see if his beloved wife followed. And I told how, when he stopped for breath, he thought he heard her stumble and fall, and turned to help her up- but it was too late. I told the story four times after that, to four different groups, each larger than the last. And I must have cast a glance at the statue, something that said "I'm sorry, I miss you--" because when I finished my second to last retelling, a young boy piped up, perhaps seven or eight, and asked me a question that has made my day, and potentially my life: "Are you Orpheus?" I told the tale of the grieving bard so well, so convincingly, that in the eyes of a child I was telling not a story, but a memory. And while I laughed in the moment, with everyone else, I wept with gratitude and joy when I came home. This is more than I deserve, and I think I may never be sad again.

Here is the aforementioned statue, by the way.

[cuthali0n]

The Secret History Theory: The Wasp at Bunny's Funeral

okay so when I read The Secret History for the first time, one of the images that stood out to me most was the wasp at Bunny's funeral. There's a wasp buzzing near Richard, Charles, and Camilla at the service, which Charles ends up smashing with a prayer book. Donna Tartt makes such a point of describing this moment, particular the buzzing sound of the wasp, that I felt it had to carry some significance but I was puzzled as to what. There's a line afterwards about Bunny being good at k*lling flies and bugs, but I didn't think that was just it. I had two initial theories...

This is just another moment that illustrates the characters' comfort with m*rder and violence, even with a small and relatively harmless creature (ie, the wasp poses a minute threat but not extreme and they k*ll it anyway, slightly disrupting the service).

This is a pun or a play on words with wasp/WASP - as in, wasp the insect vs the abbreviation of White Anglo Saxon Protestant, which all textual evidence seems to indicate Bunny is. They've k*lled a wasp...after just k*lling a WASP. (Hopefully it goes without saying that this observation is not an insult to anyone's religious or ethnic background - just going on the book.)

But neither of these felt as powerful as other symbols or recurring themes in the book. But then, recently, I was listening to TSH audio book, narrated by Tartt. During Richard's first few days at Hampden, he offers many lush descriptions of the college's scenery - the dorms, the students, the twilight. And suddenly I was struck by the line, "Trees creaking with apples, fallen apples red on the grass beneath, the heavy sweet smell of apples rotting on the ground and the steady thrumming of wasps around them." And then it clicked -

Richard and the Greek class are rotting. The wasp is there to show they're just like the fruit: once ripe and promising but now they're fallen, corrupted, and the consequences of their actions are destroying them like fruit rots. It's almost too fitting for the old saying about bad apples. The wasp is there as a callback and a symbol...but this time, it's moral decay to which it is drawn.

Maybe other people grasped this sooner than I did, but just wanted to share! Always love revisiting this novel and wondering what new questions and answers I'm going to stumble upon each time.

[cuthali0n]

[cuthali0n]

Thinking about how everyone always draws the eyepocalypse with like a giant eye in place of the sun but what if.

Thousands of tiny eyes in place of the stars, their gaze giving off a faint glow but that terrifying crawling feeling of a crowd all turning to you at once---

[cuthali0n]

THE SNOW in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.

instagram | bluesky | patreon

[cuthali0n]

There’s a reason why “dick” is a nickname for Richard.

[cuthali0n]

no way i just saw people in tiktok comments crying screaming throwing up at the idea of aslan being a jesus figure. worsties the lion literally dies to save edmund (the sinner) and then rises from the dead. he tells the pevensies he can be found under a different name in our world. what else could this have meant

[cuthali0n]

why do all the words sound heavier in my native language?

—  @metamorphesque, Yoojin Grace Wuertz (Mother Tongue), Still Dancing: An Interview With Ilya Kaminsky (by Garth Greenwell), Jhumpa Lahiri (Translating Myself and Others), @lifeinpoetry

[cuthali0n]

donna tartt writes the shit out of a first-person pov

[cuthali0n]

the prince and the king

[id in alt] | inspiration for Aragorn's design comes from @/tzitzki

[cuthali0n]

[cuthali0n]

My brain: You have so many tight deadlines. So many things on your weekly schedule. So many important jobs. You have to get important work done!!!

My hands:

[cuthali0n]

Flowers in Her Hair