Dark Science Academia ♡

please reblog this if it is okay to anonymously confess something to you.

A father warns his daughter about men's intentions, their shallowness and crudeness; a father thereby warns his daughter about himself, his past self, too. I am a man, I know what it is to be a man; I was like them, and now I must warn you about them. I am warning you about myself; be careful.

Katherine Angel, Daddy Issues

henry winter: *accidentally shoots and kills a duck during target practice, is freaked out, quite shaken and has to put his pistol away and take a breather*

also henry winter: *kills a person* that was fun we should do it again

He asked me when I fell in love with him and I knew it sounded dramatic to say the moment I saw him, so I told him this story of my grandma who had Alzheimer's- she forgot her name and the words for fruit and food, she forgot her address and how to use the washroom, all her life lost to the disease. The only thing she remembered was her son's name and when that began to fade, the one thing she always remembered was that she loved him, even in illness, even in insanity. She saw this 6 foot 2 man with a scrubby beard and she didn't know him but she said she trusted him, she asked him to hold her hand when she died. When does memory end and love begin? All I know is- she loved him before she remembered him.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire

No one talks about the transition from being the girl everyone respected too much to come forward to and the girl that everyone desires. To feel like you are never someone's first choice, just a woman they would eventually settle for. To never be the girl they passionately, intensely ache for. To be the one they're afraid to taint. The one they will compromise with. To be the girl that becomes the mother of their child, but never their love.

And suddenly, suddenly you're the girl of their desires. The one with a free spirit and reckless behaviors and self-sabotaging actions. The one that hates herself so much, she throttles her own soul to fit an ideal image of what a man yearns for. To be savage and soft, simultaneously. To gaze at a man like a siren and never admit to being hurt.

No one talks about how you slowly feel both of these girls within you amalgamate. So achingly, so abruptly, you feel yourself spiralling out of control. You jump, face first, infront of a moving train, you wrench your heart inside of your chest. You swallow the thought of not being loved. There is a perpetual knock at the base of your mind of someone burning to come out, to be heard, to be felt, to be accepted.

You either become the trophy wife, or the girl they never wed. No one talks about girls like us.

Lauren Ernwein by Szilveszter Mako for Vogue Hong Kong March 2022. Lisa Jarvis and Sean Kunjambu (Fashion Editors/Stylists), Massimo Di Stefano (Hair Stylist), Vanessa Icareg (Makeup Artist).

I agree with you SO MUCH. The core value of the dark academia subculture is academics, hunger for knowledge, love for knowledge. It is disheartening to see people completely ignore that part, and focus on the 'aesthetic'. At this point it has just become a fashion trend.

I find it funny that it is widely believed that the dark academia phenomenon was born on tiktok. Maybe I’m too old now (even though I’m not) and I’m starting to think like bitter old people who observe the changes around them and stubbornly can’t accept them? I remember when dark academia reigned supreme on tumblr, when we used to read, watch, listen, take photos and share it all while getting deeper and deeper into the dark corridors. Years later, I get the strong impression that we were doing it tired of the world around us growing so fast - a reality that was slipping more and more out of our hands, that was harder and harder to keep up with. We were just kids on the internet sharing sad quotes and “aesthetic” photos on our blogs. Dark academia was some sort of universe to escape to after a hard day. Something along the lines of video games. Today, dark academia is a negation of everything it originally carried with it. Once again, tiktok has appropriated it as an online aesthetic and subculture to spend more money, to pressure others to spend more money; to make certain demands and set the bars. The moment dark academia went beyond tumblr, it automatically ceased to be this imaginary universe, created for fun, and became a capitalist game. 

I hate that I’m taking this tone, but it’s hard for me to stop myself. After all, tumblr has always been a place where you can be mad, sad, happy all you want, without the specter of being cancelled. Ok, we’re anonymous here, but most of us are also total individuals who didn’t care too much about this platform besides our own blog. So yeah, I’m disappointed that dark academia reigns supreme on tiktok, and stores are starting to have special “dark academia fashion” tabs. I guess the only positive aspect of this is that it only raises the discussion of eurocentrism and elitism in literature and filmography that is identified with dark academia. Now that it has gone out into the real world some of the items in the “dark academia syllabus” can have negative effects if approached uncritically. And we all know how critically one approaches things on tiktok….

I’ve always wanted to complain about it a little bit. Am I alone in this? Do I sound pathetic and oh god - like a boomer? I just hate tiktok SO MUCH. And I used to love dark academia, SO MUCH. 

One of the worst realizations that I have ever made is realizing that all I ever wanted was to be loved by my parents. I never would've turned out like this if they just loved me unconditionally.

This is a pro-choice blog.

It’s an I wanted this baby but at my anatomy scan I found out my baby will die after it’s born blog.

It’s an I’m not financially, mentally or emotionally stable enough to bring a child into this world blog.

It’s an I can’t live with the result of my sexual assault blog.

It’s an I miscarried but the fetus will not evacuate on its own blog.

It’s an I will die if I carry this to term blog.

It’s an I don’t want to be fucking pregnant blog.

It’s a pro-choice blog.

If you see this decision as a win, educate yourself. People with uteruses WILL die. And if that’s okay with you, don’t claim you’re pro-life.

Oh, and a big, fat FUCK YOU.