Camilla Macaulay - Tumblr Posts
I think my absolute favorite thing about TSH is how vague the whole story actually is in the end. I still have so many questions and things I'd like to know, but at the same time not knowing them and being able to speculate about what has or hasn't happened is probably the main reason why I'm still thinking about it.
And it's not even only about the plot! But also about the characters, their actual motivations, their true feelings, their relationships and dynamics, and more. There are so many clues and details here and there to be used to find out the truth, but they're still indefinite enough to allow the reader to come to their own conclusions.
I love seeing everyone's takes. I may not agree with them sometimes, but it's still so COOL to see so many different theories about even the littlest things. I only have to read one single post about something that I hadn't even considered before to start doubting all I had taken for granted. And that's amazing!!
That's what really made the book for me, and I'm quite sure that I wouldn't have liked it as much as I did if everything was explained. And that's also why Richard is a fantastic narrator and the only one who could've told this story so effectively.
It's been said a lot of times before but I'll say it again because it's true: the country house section is one of the best, if not THE best section of the book.
It's weird to say considering how "useless" it is in terms of plot (there's the Bacchanal happening in the background but of course we know nothing about it yet), and there are many parts that are way more interesting in which actual things happen. Plus, it is quite long, so a lot of pages of basically nothing.
And yet in retrospect, that's the part that stuck with me the most in the end, and it still is one of the first things that come to mind when I think back on TSH.
It was just that vivid. Maybe it's because I've experienced something similar myself so I could sympathize with how Richard was feeling too. I just remember I was totally immersed in it the first time I read it. I really felt like I was there. And even if it did last longer than I expected and I wanted to go on with the story already, I didn't feel bored.
Apart from simply ✨the atmosphere✨ and ✨the aesthetic✨ being on point, I think the main reason for this is that it really fed the illusion, and it made you FEEL like Richard. We knew from the very first page (lines!) that this book was probably not going to be a joyful one. But while they were in that country house, everything seemed fine. Richard was finally making his way into the group, they were starting to be more open towards him, they were all having a great time together, we got to see their little stupid shenanigans which made us know all of them better and me inevitably attached to all of them (Bunny throwing Henry and Francis in the water will never not be funny to be) and they even started daydreaming about the possibility of living together in that house without anything changing in the future.
It was clear even while I was reading it that all those things would have never become true, and that the illusion would have shattered soon. But still a little part of me kept on believing that maybe that could last, because the way it was narrated by Richard was... weirdly hopeful, which isn't something I can say about any other part of the book I believe. It was hopeful, and yet there was that unsettling sense of dread creeping through the lines, because you KNEW the murder was coming soon and everything would end. But just like Richard, I just... didn't care in the moment.
The country house section to me was somehow a snippet into what could have been if they never murdered Bunny- or even before, if they never had the Bacchanal at all. Could things have gone wrong at some point still, for whatever other reason? Probably yes. Maybe they weren't meant to last anyways, maybe they weren't even friends in the first place, everyone has their own thoughts about this. But it's sweet to think about. Now knowing the whole story and how terrible the situation actually got makes those pages even more painful. Those really were their happiest times.
Also I could talk about Camilla cutting her foot too but that's maybe another post for another day before this becomes way too long lol.
Also also the cherry on top for me was definitely that last couple of lines which got to me HARD and make my heart ache still:
There was a ragged burst of laughter; faint, but clear, it floated back across the evening air. That laughter haunts me still.
Everyone remembers where they were when reading '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' for the first time.
Ok let's try something.
Reblog with your favorite TSH lines!
Just, a quote, a piece of dialogue, a random specific passage- anything you'd like that you feel stuck with you!
I'll start- I have several, but the first that comes to mind is this one:
I looked at him. There was so much I wanted to ask him, so much I wanted to say; but somehow I knew there wasn't time and even if there was, that it was all, somehow, beside the point.
'Are you happy here?' I said at last.
He considered it for a moment. 'Not particularly,' he said. 'But you're not very happy where you are, either.'
'I hope we're all ready to leave the phenomenal world, and enter into the sublime?'
Today I discovered that a couple of TSH characters were based on actual people Donna Tartt knew at Bennington College- amongst them were students Todd O'Neal and Matt Jacobsen, who were the inspiration for Henry and Bunny respectively.
AND JUST—
There's even their own comments about it and it's so funny wait:
Here's the source
Some random Henry moments and quotes that I really like (in no particular order):
Henry winked solemnly at her from across the table.
Many times, I've seen Henry pick up the telephone with an irritable, cautious 'Hello,' and may I never forget the harsh and irresistible delight of his 'Khairei!' when Julian happened to be on the other end.
"Some little place I've got here, huh?" I said, and laughed. He glanced up at the hole in the ceiling. "Yes," he said brusquely. "Like the Pantheon."
"Reason is always apparent to a discerning eye. But luck? It's invisible, erratic, angelic."
"Anything might happen, Francis. He might be hit by a car tonight, and save us all a lot of trouble."
"You wore chitons?" "Yes," said Henry, irritated. "It was all in the sake of science."
But that came to a quick end when Henry, who was very nearsighted, shot and killed a duck by mistake. He was quite shaken by it and we put the pistol away.
Henry took a deep breath. Then he closed his eyes; and exhaling sharply, a hand to his chest, he fell back in his chair as if he'd been shot.
"Who is it?" "Henry." "Tell him I'm in the bath." "He's in the bath," I said. "He is not in the bath," Henry said. "He is standing in the room with you. I can hear him."
"I haven't eaten anything in three days." Henry marked his place with a ribbon and slipped the book in his breast pocket. "Well," he said amiably, "go get a doughnut, then." "I don't have any money." "I'll give you the money, then." "I don't want a goddamn doughnut."
[...] the armchair in which Henry sat, motionless, a glass in his hand and the cigarette burning low between his fingers. For a moment his face, pale and watchful as a ghost's, would be caught in the headlights and then, very gradually, it would slide back into the dark.
"Anything is grand if it's done on a large enough scale."
Henry glanced up. "Salve, amice," he said, and a subtle animation flickered in his rigid features, usually so locked up, and distant: "Valesne? Quid est rei?" "You look well," I said to him, and he did. He inclined his head slightly. His eyes, which had been murky and dilated while he was ill, were now the clearest of blues. "Benigne dicis," he said. "I feel much better."
I already have an idea on how this will go and want to see if I'm right
The Greek Class as these animated text things:
(all gifs belong to @animatedtext)
Richard:
Henry:
Bunny:
Francis:
Charles:
Camilla:
All of them:
Bonus – Julian:
Along with Camilla's and Bunny's, another pov I would love to see is Charles'. He had such a tragic development throughout the book, but we get to know very little about what he actually went through, and it makes it easy to put all the blame on him – of course, he was an abuser and that doesn't change, but it would still be so interesting to actually get his own opinion, without Henry, Camilla or Francis speaking on his behalf. Not to justify him, but just to see things the way he did and get yet another interpretation of the whole story.
We'd get to know what his and Camilla's relationship was actually like – and it would probably look even worse from his perspective. His encounters with Francis, too. He puts the blame on Charles taking advantage of him, even though they were probably both taking advantage of each other in some ways – but we never got to hear how Charles felt about the situation.
We'd get to see him slowly lose his mind to alcohol, and it would probably be even more subtle than how it felt from Richard's pov, making it even the more chilling. Him getting progressively more depressed, more irritable, more violent (and therefore, I believe, more guilty about his own behavior too), to the point of being basically drunk all the time, and feeling like a totally different person to how he was at the beginning.
And then we'd get to see him get more and more paranoid about Henry. I would have loved to see more of their dynamic, because while I've seen some people reducing it to a love triangle with Camilla (?), it wasn't just that, and Charles had quite a few valid reasons to hate him. Henry pulled Charles into the whole mess basically against his will – he was the only one who, more than once, tried convincing the others the murder was a bad idea, and no one listened to him and listened to Henry instead. He was depressed for Bunny's death. He got coerced by Henry to get involved with the police too, having to bear the weight of everyone possibly ending up in jail if he did something wrong.
He realized that all of this was mostly Henry's fault, but then the situation with Camilla came along, and Charles suddenly understood he had just become the next target Henry might have wanted to get rid of – and he even tried to. He had every right being scared of him, but the others barely even believed him. So the paranoia turned into genuine fear for his life, until he eventually snapped, and we know what happened next.
All of this was hidden behind Richard's pov, which definitely made it difficult to understand his actions or how he was feeling. As much as I don't like him as a person, he really grew on me and genuinely became one of my favorite characters. And seeing it all from his perspective would be terrifying.
I just love doing polls
The Greek Class texting:
Richard: all lowercase, but apart from that he uses proper punctuation and grammar, and makes sure to always correct his accidental mistakes because he's insecure. also does that thing of ending his every message with a fullstop, so he always looks mad for no reason and the others have a hard time understanding when he's joking or not. doesn't laugh or use emojis ever, but he will throw an occasional "lol" in there from time to time.
Henry: Perfect grammar, perfect punctuation, always respects his uppercases. S l o w texter. Rarely even mispells anything, and when he does, he'd rather delete his whole message and write it anew than leave it as it is. Cannot and will not laugh in text, barely even knows how to correctly use emojis — and they're not aesthetic enough for him anyways. (Bunny swears he's seen him accidentally send a "😂" once, but there's no evidence to support his claims.) Always corrects the others' mistakes to the point of being insufferable, and often leaves them on read for prolonged amounts of time.
Bunny: very sikmilar to His regular Writing style. random Uppercaswes here adn there. HE TYPES SO FAST so his Messaaages are full of Mispells. one of those People that write like 3 words per Text. so he Ends Up swnding 10000 messages to say like Two things. hes Always on the lookout for any mistake cominf from henry to correct him as Soon as He can. Uses emojis quite often ‼️‼️ but would rather Die tahn send a heart 💥 laughs in "AHSJAHSKS"
Francis: all lowercase, but generally respects grammar and punctuation. doesn't end his messages with fullstops usually, so when he does he IS being passive-aggressive. and he uses so many exclamation marks!! they give henry the creeps so he uses some more!!! he's the one who uses the biggest amount of emojis out of them — most of them are hearts! 💕 mostly sends them to the twins just to mess with charles 💖 he's simultaneously a "lol", "HAHAHA" and "askhszksk" type of guy
Charles: cant be bothered types very fast doesnt care about either grammar spelling or punctuation and just. does whatever. manages to write pretty much correctly most of the time but he purposefully mispells thigns just to piss henry off and it works. he does use exclamation marks when hes excited sometimes! laughs in "HAHAHAH" and like camilla he only ever uses ":)". when hes drunk his texts become absolutely incomprehensible
Camilla: She's the middle ground, less rigid than Henry but more attentive than Charles but she also types fast and sometimes misses her uppercases or mispells words because of it and even though it bothers her she doesn't care enough to correct herself — but she WILL correct Richard just to see him panic. Doesn't use emojis apart from things like ":)" or sparingly even a heart if she feels like it ❤️ Always laughs in all lowercase haha
I made another one because I love these (and apparently you do too?)
The Greek Class as these animated text things part 2:
(gifs still belonging to @animatedtext)
Richard:
Henry:
Bunny:
Francis:
Charles:
Camilla:
(left to right) Francis, Charles, Henry, Camilla and Richard meeting Bunny at the ravine:
Once again thinking about the fact that I really want a TSH series adaptation.
Would it suck? Most likely, yes. It would be extremely difficult (impossible?) to show Richard's unreliable narration. And there are so many little things, interactions and details which actually make the story what it is, that it would take a lot of time to cover them all on screen, even with a series – so, much of it would probably have to be cut out, and the overall thing would be affected by it.
Still... I think that it could be done. It would in no way compare to the novel, because of course it wouldn't, but I'm sure it has the potential to be something very good.
Especially since it could give the same feeling of the book through visuals. The atmosphere being colorful and warm when Richard first arrives at Hampden, only for it to gradually become darker and colder as the plot unravels (Bunny's murder being the event after which the shift becomes more evident), along with the characters becoming progressively more unsettling and less aesthetic – which is really how it felt to me.
We've all heard about that one bacchanal theory – that it wasn't them who killed the farmer, but a mountain lion. It's all left vague enough for anyone to decide whether to believe it or not, but the reason why I love it and think it could make the whole story even better if it were true is because it would add to how meaningless everything was.
The five of them had a motive to want Bunny gone, which was definitely not enough to justify their action in the first place anyways, but it still made sense. Bunny knew they had killed a man and the only way they found to prevent him from spilling their secret was getting rid of him. From their twisted point of view, it was necessary.
But if they hadn't actually killed that man? Bunny would have been murdered for nothing. Bunny's death, Henry's death, everything that followed that one night would have been caused just by a big misunderstanding.
Of course, the first murder wasn't the only thing that pushed them to commit the second one, and actually we could argue it wasn't even the main reason why they did it and maybe they would have done it even under different circumstances, maybe they were always going to end up like that – but still, what happened then was the practical catalyst for all the rest. So if that wasn't their fault, then there was no actual reason for things to go as horribly as they did.
It really makes it all look even more like something out of a Greek tragedy. Everything could have been easily avoided, hadn't they been so hubristic. But instead they played gods, payed the price, and brought their own fate upon themselves.
Hampden College dashboard simulator
(credit to @barnbridges too for some of the ideas :))
🧣 françois-abernathy follow
🥃 mcaulay-ch follow
@ richard-papen ?
📚 richard-papen follow
???
📚 richard-papen follow
no.
📚 richard-papen follow
who DOES keep voting yes????
📚 richard-papen follow
who even are you people reblogging this??????
#please stop.
351 notes
🐇 thebunster-deactivated follow
drew tihs
🥃 mcaulay-ch follow
this is really nice bun
👓 H-M-Winter follow
No, you did not draw this.
🐇 thebunster-deactivated follow
SHUT
🥃 mcaulay-ch follow
oh
🧣 françois-abernathy follow
HAHASJHASHJA
7 notes
💅 ritch-bitch-jpoovey follow
real talk what do you guys think is ACTUALLY going on at the lyceum atp cause like i've heard too much weird stuff about those freaks......
💅 ritch-bitch-jpoovey follow
not richard btw!! he's fine he's cool
🦌 mcaulay-cam follow
He still won't sleep with you anyways. Let it go. Get better soon 💕
💅 ritch-bitch-jpoovey follow
what do you and your creepy ass brother want from me OMG leave me ALONE
#i'm blocking ALL five of you jfc
120 notes
🌝 hampd3ncore follow
AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO REMEMBERS THAT MUTILATED FARMER THEY RANDOMLY FOUND IN THE WOODS IN NOVEMBER?? WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT IT ANYMORE?????
#like hello??? #that WASN'T normal #why isn't the police investigating...... #hampden #mystery #unsolved
666 notes
📰 The-Hampden-Examiner ☑️ follow
Edmund "Bunny" Corcoran — everything we know so far about the case of Hampden's missing youth:
https://www.thehampdenexaminer.com/disappearance-of-edmund-bunny-corcoran-1627125.html
🏫 student-council-president follow
‼️IMPORTANT!! STUDENTS OF HAMPDEN PLEASE REBLOG THIS!!!
🎀 bunnysbarnbridge follow
💔💔💔 Please guys help us find him...
👩🏻 dearest-sophie follow
^^^ reblog!!! i really hope he's fine... share if you know anything that might help!!
🚗 flipper follow
What have those greek guys got going on 😭 it's always them everytime something happens istg. let's hope they find him and all's well tho...
5.389 notes
🏛️ has-bunny-corcoran-been-found-yet follow
YES.
#04/14/1983 #THOUGHT IT WOULD TAKE LONGER OMG #it's not even been two weeks #this is crazy... #i can't believe he actually died #rest in peace #bunny corcoran #hampden #hampden college
2.473 notes
🏫 student-council-president follow
Guys they found Edmund Corcoran... He's dead...
🪞 stauralaura follow
HE'S DEAD????
🏫 student-council-president follow
The Examiner just confirmed it. They're saying it was an hiking accident. He went in the woods near college for a walk and fell down the ravine... It was a girl with her dog who found him the other day when the snow had melted and she called the police. Broken neck and everything...
🔍 truecrimeenjoyer63 follow
You still believe it was an hiking accident? lmao come on. There's clearly something else behind this. Not to mention NONE of his friends have ever spoken about it or anything. Ain't that suspicious for anyone else? They have to know something.
🏫 student-council-president follow
Stop using his death as an excuse to start fights and get clout omg... You people are horrible. Maybe let's not make assumptions on things we know nothing about and just be respectful towards him and the people grieving???? The police will take care of it it's literally not your business
⛓️ spik3yy follow
whatever he was awful tbh he deserved it
🏔️ mount-cataract follow
no he didn't?? what the hell? did you even know him
⛓️ spik3yy follow
you're all ridiculous he was an ass and you know it, no one could stand him and now everyone suddenly pretends to miss him just cause he's dead, be fr now 💀
🏫 student-council-president follow
If you think Bunny deserved what happened to him just block me. I'm so serious I don't want anything to do with you.
#i hate this school sometimes #if it was your family member or your friend you'd be devastated #maybe think about that before opening your mouths #bunny corcoran #justice for bunny #hampden #hampden college
3.749 notes
🚬 invisibilitycl0ke follow
stop spreadin shit aboyt bunny btw. he wsa NOT involved in drugs.
🚬 invisibilitycl0ke follow
ME NEITHER. jsut so were clear yk haha
🚬 invisibilitycl0ke follow
i swear
🚬 invisibilitycl0ke follow
listen to my pdocast
🔥 blazed 420 notes
🌝 hampd3ncore follow
THAT ONE HUGE GUY FROM THE GREEK CLASS SHOT HIMSELF??????????
🚗 flipper follow
?????? NO WAY IT'S THEM AGAIN
🏫 student-council-president follow
Yeah it's true... Chilling...
https://www.thehampdenexaminer.com/hampden-college-student-dead-by-suicide-3683920.html
🇺🇸 bornintheusa follow
Nah that place is cursed I tell you 😭 first that Corcoran guy they found in the ravine and now this... No wonder they shut the class down
✨ aesthetic-academic follow
they really did fuck around and find out with all that cult shit they were into 💀 bet they really got themselves some curse or something messing with dyonisus or the devil whatever it was 💀💀 crazy people. who cares the college is better off without them tbh they're creepy
🏫 student-council-president follow
Not the same discourse again... No one cares about your opinion on them. He died. TWO of them died. And you're here speculating on them and still treating the whole thing as a joke?? Gross.
🏔️ mount-cataract follow
no fr y'all did the same with bunny corcoran when he went missing and now you're doing it again... i don't care if you didn't like them i mean they were kind of weird but... at least just try to be a decent human being in front of an actual tragedy. all you people should be ashamed of yourselves.
🔍 truecrimeenjoyer63 follow
I CAN'T be the only one thinking there must be some kind of connection between these two events right????
#idk maybe i'm crazy but hear me out #just think about it #it's barely been a month since corcoran and now THIS happens?? #like yeah maybe he was just #depressed?? for corcoran???? and so he did that #idk #but it sounds REALLY weird to me #plus what was the whole fuss with julian morrow just #randomly leaving college out of nowhere?? #AND let's not forget mcree either like????? #WHAT IS HAPPENING #hampden #hampden college #bunny corcoran #henry winter
1.479 notes
