Things To Do To Feel Dark Academic

Dark Academia Lifestyle

Remain an enigma, talk less about yourself. In social situations, make it a game, even if you are a rather social person, to shroud yourself in mystery. If others show interest in you, answer vaguely. Disappear at specific times. Reveal little of your background. When you do speak, speak in riddles or quotes. That isn’t to say you should never speak up in class or in debates, have opinions and remain socially active; however, keep people guessing a lot of the time, and, if you’re really into it, only speak when spoken to.

Wear vintage clothes, elegant accessories, monochrome colors. Emphasize sharp features with purely dark or light colors and jewel tones. I usually find nice vintage clothes at random thrift stores. Keep an open mind.

Listen to jazz and classical music. Listening to older, more tasteful music brings a spark of elegance to your life. I, personally, like to hear the used jazz vinyls crackle. There are multiple types of dark academia; to me, jazz demonstrates the erratic artist spirit of revolutionaries, while classical music possesses me with the sophisticated spirit of a Classicist who has preparing tea down to a science.

Light candles. Doing things such as writing, reading, and getting ready for bed by candlelight makes it seem thrice as elegant and academic… going to sleep so late never looked so enticing. On the other hand, you could wake up before dawn, light some candles, and study or read. 

Stay ahead in school. Read your textbooks ahead of time, write essays about anything you’d like at all, just for practice. If you’re learning about something in science, devise experiments to illustrate the concepts to yourself and make them easy to remember. If you’re reading a book in English, read a handful of articles about the author beforehand to prepare, write down quotes from the book, make essay pitches, write to your heart’s content a critique of the book, an analysis of the book, of gender roles in the book. In history courses, find articles about the subject matter, annotate them, and write about them. If you’re taking a math class, devise applications of the concepts and solve problems of your own creation.

Go to libraries, museums, bookshops, and coffee shops. These are all really good places to sit in the corner and read for hours on end. Not only do you get Mysterious Points but you get an aesthetic environment and (hopefully) some peace in which to devour literature. I know that in the upcoming term, I’m going to be in the library from opening time to closing time every day.

Make Ancient Roman or Greek food. To be honest, the food was of so much better quality than it often is today, so I would suggest looking into some ancient cuisine archives to look for some recipes for your dinner party. Not only is it most of the time much better than modern food, but it’s also much more elegant. Not to mention it is fun and enlightening to try recipes which are perhaps completely foreign to  you.

Have routines. Perhaps your life is erratic, but you can feel some semblance of order and elegance by creating rituals for, perhaps, everything. You might start the day off with a walk around the neighborhood or a nearby pond. I start my writing sessions by 1) playing jazz 2)opening my windows 3)reading Belief and Technique for Modern Prose 4)chugging a whole glass of water really fast 5) breathing violently. Feel free to make up really weird Winding Down routines, like, I don’t know, closing all your windows, stripping down, and meditating for 20 minutes before you go to sleep. Literally anything. It doesn’t even have to be useful, it just has to be strange.

Hang stuff up on your walls. Postcards, paintings, drawings, poetry, snippets from books, moodboards, your routines, lists (places you want to go, people you want to meet, things you want to do), playlists. Make it yourself and make it chaotic and, most importantly, make it aesthetic.

READ. Read anything and everything educational. Do it. Just, don’t pick up your phone for 3 days because you’re reading, just ignore everything else. Good things to read would be: feminist literature, nonfiction, mystery novels, Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier…

My three girlfriends. And yes, they smoke weed.

So I had the strangest dream this weekend and nobody understands me so I need to share it with you because you might. Press J to skip this post if you can’t deal, I will accept this.

In my dream I was standing on the back deck of a rural cabin that overlooked a beautiful Vermont/Scottish Highlands landscape of unspoiled wilderness. It was a crisp, perfect autumn morning. I held a cup of cooling coffee in my hands as I leaned against the railing and scanned the perfect rolling hills in the midground, behind which the great patterned mountains with their snowcaps marched on until they blended with the horizon: #aesthetic

As I gazed at a distant meadow clearing in the trees, a pair of brightly coloured humanoid creatures emerged from the woods and began to dance for each other. It was an esoteric, beautiful mating dance, a strange combination of instinct and choreography. I felt awe washing over me. I marvelled. I felt a deep sense of wonder and peace as I observed this vanishingly rare encounter that I had never thought to observe in person. These animals were instantly recognisable but had never been studied in the wild. I felt incredibly humbled and privileged to witness this behaviour - I knew that I was the first human witness to observe this behaviour - and I reached for my phone, wondering if I should film it, so it could join the scholarly record, where it NEEDED to be. This could change everything. But then I held back - something told me “no,” to let the creatures have their privacy.

Ok, I can’t go any further without telling you that they were Teletubbies.

A red one and a yellow one. I know. I know. Stay with me here.

The cryptids melted back into the woods. My subconscious drew a discreet veil over the rest of their mating ritual, but I knew instinctively that this had been a dance of courtship. I was busy pondering the implications, because they were critical. You see, although the creatures were instantly recognisable as Teletubbies, as I had studied them, even at a distance, I had an incredible realisation.

They were adult Teletubbies.

This realisation dawned on me and in my dream I understood it fully. The ones that we know of - the captive ones that we have seen on television - are juveniles. In fact, they are the equivalent of toddlers. When you see the adults this becomes obvious. The garbled speech and silly movements of the four captive Teletubbies we know are the babbles of babyhood, a private primal toddler-language brewed up between sentient beings who have never encountered an adult of their own kind.

The adult Teletubbies have more branching, complex antlers and shaggy coats. They are less brightly coloured. They are terrifyingly large. Their strangely human faces, emerging from the thick fur, are unquestionably adult; remote, serene, reproachful. Their television screens are glitchy, esoteric and unknowable. They are cryptids whose public exploitation has undermined their rarity and their strange, alien dignity.

In my dream my feelings of awe and peace turned to great sadness at the fate of the captive toddler Teletubbies. I realised that I had to be the scientist who brought this discovery to the world and raised awareness of their plight. And I also questioned: are Teletubbies like axolotls? Do they exhibit neoteny? (Axolotls, the cute aquarium pets with flaring gills, are actually juveniles of an amphibious species - if given the right conditions they’ll grow up into land-dwelling black newts. But they can breed in their aquatic juvenile form, and most spend their whole lives in this form. Deprived of their wild potential, will the Teletubbies ever mature? Or are they merely experiencing a long childhood, natural for a species that is unimaginably long-lived?)

So in my dream my husband came out onto the back deck and I began to share these discoveries with him and before I could even bring up the axolotls he just said “what the fucking fuck” and went away again.

I woke up disgruntled and unable to capture the feeling of peace and sadness. I then tried to explain this to my husband in the waking world, and he said “what the fucking fuck” and walked away before I even got to the explanation of the Teletubbies being toddlers, which just goes to show that you never know someone as well as you think you do.

Anyway I’m sure you guys will join me in this knowledge. And also I’ve googled it and apparently the Teletubbies reboot features infant Teletubbies, so clearly they are getting more from somewhere and the time to question this is NOW

If a girl is to do the same superman thing where he takes off his disguise, we just look pervy. Not the same effect

cute gifting ideas!

for the extra-sweet girls, gays, and theys this holiday season

i've been seeing lots of cute wishlist idea posts floating around, but none for what to give this season! so here is a collection of ideas for gifts for your favorite people 🩰❄

crochet/knit goods!! homemade gifts are just a different kind of special. i really love to find an interesting stitch and make a scarf with it, i'm not great at following patterns but cool stitches are super fun and easy to learn and really level up your otherwise simple projects!!

mini body mist + hand cream set ⛸ minis are an essential for any busy bee, they're affordable, and they're a great way for your recipient to try a new fragrance! bath and body works always has excellent choices (i recommend frosted coconut snowball or strawberry snowflakes); or you could pick out a mini luxury eau de parfum if you have a bigger budget.

baked goods ☕ what's better than receiving a box of homemade treats? i love gifting baked goods because there is something out there for everyone. sally's baking addiction (blog) and claire saffitz (youtube) are some of my favorite resources for recipes. if you're on a time crunch, chocolate bark is a no-bake that's SUPER easy and everyone loves.

self care kit 🎀 i love making these for my busiest friends and family!! i typically include a face mask of some kind, hot cocoa or tea, a mug, and a nice pair of fluffy socks. other ideas include a bath bomb, lip balm/mask, sugar scrub, and chocolates! care kits are so fun to make because they are easy to customize and adjust to your budget!

a special book ❄ pick a book that is close to your heart and that you think your recipient would enjoy, and write a special note inside. maybe even annotate or mark special passages that really spoke to you or remind you of them. :3 i think this is a deeply personal gift that someone can treasure for years and years.

have fun gifting!!

HP Background Characters

You know what’s fun? Inventing OC names for the Harry Potter universe. 

If you’re a writer in need of Potterverse style names, help yourself to these random, fan-created names.

Glynnis Mordaunt

Altheda Goshawk

Roderick Ketteridge

Arkie Pennifold

Carlotta Penrose

Graham Smeek

Doris Scrivenshaft

Enid Spinks

Patricia Ellerby

Grogan Troy

Emeric Tatting

Tilly Mylor

Bridget Thruston

Cassie Zograf

Kevin Wagtail

Malcolm Birch

Basil Barkwith

Miles Capper

Betty Dingle

Mandy Tugwood

Ritchie Cresswell

Justin Everard

Victoria Fawcett

Holly Flume

Hesper Gibbon

Anthony Gunnion

Davy Jewkes

Meghan Lufkin

Galatea Meadowes

Cuthbert Ogden

Halwyn McBride

Bastien Parkes

Melinda Platt

Ezmerelda Qwick

Irving Hatton

Euclid Derwent

Antony Porsquatt

Emmaline Munslow

Portia Thruston

Malcolm Gudgeon

Isabelle Watkins

Finbar Brand

Dorea Gifford

Euphemia Vector

Ariel Smudgeley

Gloria Fletwock

Caius Paisley

Sedley Redfern

Milo Broadmoor

Phyllida Sykes

Osric Brown

Tobias Malkin

Annie Vogler

Cora Hitchin

Derrick Marple

Archie Oddpick

Dylan Puckle

Abbie Dagworth

Winston Pyle

Nigel Pinner

Bartly Serks

Belle Nithercott

Dagny Pober

Libby Woodbead

Mable Hatman

Elric Buckles

Amelia Culpepper

Clary Ducker

Ollie Thrussell

Mallory Miskin

Happy writing!

Best of Brian and Joey: Choose Our Destiny edition

What are your thoughts on Vanya’s book? I’m torn between knowing it was an empowering thing for her and being like damn girl, you were all abused, not cool putting that out there without their consent. The lines I’ve seen from it were about how Vanya’s siblings treated her but I don’t see how she can talk about their childhood without the abuse coming up. Do you think Vanya would have to apologize for the book as part of improving the siblings relationships?

I think that Vanya’s book was very important for her to write - for herself. I don’t think she should have published it without the consent of her siblings, because Vanya does not exist in a vacuum. If you think Allison was not absolutely grilled over the contents of that book in interviews and it didn’t continuously pop up in her world you’re wrong. And anyone who both knew the other siblings and read the book might make comments or ask questions or make assumptions. Vanya wrote an entire book about how terribly she was treated and then pointed the finger at her siblings.

Because the issue is this: Vanya was abused. Horrifically and terribly abused and neglected. She was drugged for the majority of her life against her consent, frequently emotionally abused and belittled, and isolated from the rest of her siblings. She has a right to be angry. BUT. That does not erase the fact that her siblings were all also abused and victims. And Vanya was so wrapped up in her own pain she couldn’t really see that. 

Of course, the reverse is also true. The others were all wrapped up in their own trauma to the extent that they never considered Vanya’s point of view or the ways that Vanya was being abused.

But imagine for a moment that you father raises you as a child soldier. You and all your siblings except one. While you’re running drills and learning to fight and gathering bruises and the only time you’re allowed to yourself is half an hour during the weekend - the life of the one sibling who is allowed to pursue her own passions (violin) and is generally ignored by your drill sergeant father seems to have it pretty darn good wouldn’t you think? You’d give your left leg to be invisible or not be forced to do the training. You’d give your left leg to have her freedom.

And then she publishes an entire book painting you the bad guy because, what, you didn’t include her in your half an hour of freetime? You had better things to do trying to survive your father’s regime than take a few to play happy family with her? You look at this book and ignore all the emotional abuse and gaslighting that she’s highlighting because you think she had it easy, and she’s saying in here that she was jealous of the attention your father gave you. Jealous. As if gaining your dad’s attention was ever a good thing. 

She spills a whole bunch of family secrets. Discusses your brother’s death, something you find very private (maybe you even witnessed it and she didn’t), with the entire world. She drags up all the shitty things you did as a child. A child raised in an emotionally and honestly probably physically abusive household from which your only adult human role model was your asshole father. He built you a robotic mother who obeys his orders and parrots his words. The only other person is a chimpanzee who also only ever seems to regurgitate Reginald’s ideas and always defended him even though he was hurting you. Abusing you.

Vanya deserved to write down those thoughts and discuss them. With a therapist. Or friends. Or anonymously!  Maybe a blog and give everyone pseudonyms and work through it that way. Because like it or not, her siblings did hurt her. They probably gaslit her about how bad things were, blowing her off because clearly her life wasn’t that bad. And they’d probably roll their eyes and call her lucky that she wasn’t included in training anyway. And Vanya would have to grit her teeth and smile and agree because it’s six against one.

Vanya was abused. But that doesn’t mean her siblings weren’t equally abused. Honestly I bet if Vanya had called up Diego and was like “hey I’m writing a whole book about how much growing up with old Reggie fucking sucked, thinking about publishing, wanna help?” Diego would be the first one on board like “HELL YEAH let’s ruin dad’s whole career I have like, seven stories about child endangerment off the top of my head let’s go”

the book we deserved to have was a collab by the whole family offering different points of views and discussing the trauma their siblings didn’t get to see - like private training. 

So what I’m saying is that Vanya does write a sequel to her book. Except this time it’s with everyone sharing. That’s the apology. The opportunity to set the record straight with what they’re comfortable sharing with the world. 

Luther can talk about never feeling good enough, can talk about his isolation at the top of the pyramid and his relationship with Allison who was also there. He can talk about impossible standards and his father never using his name. Strained muscles and terrible testing. The nonconsensual body modification and the isolation on the moon. The realization that four years of his life had been wasted because his dad never even bothered to read the reports - he didn’t even care enough to try. He can talk about the fact that he was so raised up as a child that he feels like a failure at everything he does now. 

Allison can talk about her father forcing her to rumor her sister when they were both four years old. She can talk about the training, having to rumor her siblings and then later the random people Reginald would bring to her. Delivery men and door to door salesmen and girlscouts who were always rumored to forget after. (And then the homeless people, the people no one would miss. The ones who weren’t rumored to forget after because they didn’t go home. She doesn’t write about them though). She can talk about rumoring her way through life and never learning how to get anything without forcing people to give it to her. Constantly on the offensive. The way that’s impacted her career, her relationships.

Diego can talk about never being good enough. His stutter that Reginald had no patience with. The training, being forced to throw knives at the one person in the world he really truly cares about as she smiles at him with her plastic smile. Trying desperately to keep Klaus from drowning under the weight of Reginald’s expectations when he was barely treading water himself after Ben’s death. Leaving the first chance he did and never looking back. The way he still tried to prove himself by joining the police academy, and when he failed at that by becoming a vigilante. 

Klaus can talk about his father throwing him in a fucking mausoleum. Being scared of the dark and claustrophobic. The ghosts he sees screaming behind his eyelids and sometimes even when his eyes are open. The one escape that he found being looked down on by everyone around him when he was only doing his very best to survive because the sad truth is that he could not live that way. Not how it was. He can talk about Ben showing up after his death, and nobody believing him. Being homeless. Living on the streets with no one but a ghostly follower for company. Every moment of sobriety in that house was one of fear - and Klaus is just so very tired of being afraid. (Maybe he can bring himself to talk about Dave, the one person that made him feel safe and protected and loved and how he lost him. Maybe he can’t.)

Ben can talk through Klaus about his own life. He was forced to kill people against his will with a power he couldn’t really control and that he was afraid of. He ended missions covered in blood that he never wanted to shed. Then his death which was reportedly very bad. Then showing up again and only being able to talk to Klaus. Not being able to hug him or stop him or intervene - forced to become a spectator to his brother overdosing over and over again. Loving him but being so angry that he’s squandering the chances Ben wishes he could once again have. 

Five can talk about growing up pushing the boundaries and the way the others only seemed to notice when Reginald praised him and never when he was punished. And he was punished. Reginald tried over and over again to get Number Five to come to heel and never quite succeeded. Every point Five gained in his own personal score was gained through blood and bruises and willpower. There’s all that to talk about, and then there’s the time travel and forty years of isolation and Dolores and becoming an assassin and his plethora of issues regarding that he doesn’t even need to get into to make a whole book of his own. Coming back and seeing that cold portrait sitting on the mantle and knowing that Reginald used his presumed death in order to further control his siblings. 

And they write it together, sitting in the living room and contradicting each other’s memories of events (”No, Dad caught us because you tripped on the table!” “Nuh uh! It was because Klaus was whispering too loudly!” “Actually guys looking back I’m pretty sure Dad just checked the cameras and noticed us leaving.”) and maybe they don’t publish it! They don’t have to! Or maybe they do, taking out all the bits about, you know, murder and all of that sorry Ben they could probably just downgrade the language to ‘hurting a lot of people’ though I mean. He’s dead it’s not like they can charge him with excessive use of force at this point. 

And it’s a bonding experience. And they all come out of it better understanding that they were all traumatized and abused and groomed and gaslighted and neglected and just overall their childhoods were shit. Five will defend Vanya’s book with his fucking life and probably is instrumental in making the others see that just because her abuse looked different doesn’t make it less valid. And he’s also instrumental in making Vanya see that just because the others abuse looked different doesn’t make it any less valid, either. 

Do yeah, have enough material for a sequel? There’s enough material for a fucking series. 

Honestly though genuinely do you know what I think would have been a way better and more empowering move on Vanya’s part? Writing a fiction novel about an ordinary child in a world of magic and superpowers who saves the world. Writing about her own life through the lens of fiction. Basing her characters on real people, yeah, but not writing a tell all book about people whose lives it would very much still affect. Plus, I bet the others would actually read the book at least and recognize it. 

I mean, if they read an entire book about a character who was excluded and belittled and ignored and told she wasn’t worth anything because she wasn’t special in the context of this fictional world, I think they would sympathize. And then if Vanya told them hey, actually this is me projecting and I really did feel this way a lot then it might go over a sight better than hey I’m writing about our childhoods and all your friends are going to read about it

and honestly?? I think that’s a story that needs to be told to other little girls as well. Maybe they aren’t literally being told they’re ordinary because they don’t have superpowers, but there’s a lot of girls who are told they aren’t special and can’t do things and having an ordinary character save the world is an important and inspiring narrative. And it might help Vanya get some closure, because she gets to come up with an end to the story. Wish fulfillment. She gets to write about an ordinary little girl who saved the world. Or maybe she didn’t save the world. Maybe she saved her piece of the world and left the rest up to the people with powers. Small acts of kindness that change everything, for some people.

(and it would reach more people than whoever reads autobiographies and memoirs)

I have a lot of feelings about the book as you can probably tell lmao

I just think the book could have been handled better on Vanya’s part. But I also think she had a right to write it because she had a LOT of stuff to work through. Honestly I think the book originally began from an exercise her therapist gave her and took on a life of its own until it reached the publisher. But like I said, she doesn’t exist in a vacuum and her actions have effects on other people - specifically her family. 

Granted, it’s not like I’ve read the book in its entirety and can’t judge it because of that. But the others had a right to their privacy and I don’t blame them for feeling angry and betrayed because of that invasion of privacy I mean damn. And I doubt Vanya put any of the good stuff in there really, mostly bad. Because that’s how she was feeling.

(If I wrote a book about my childhood with my brother - I could talk about how he sold our joint runescape account without consultation despite all the hours I put in. I could talk about him chasing me through the house or eating my chocolate that I was saving. I could talk about some of his shitty views and his self-isolation, how he would call me stupid and never let me play with him. When he purposefully ditched me in Mini-Amsterdam when I was six and I had to find someone to call my mum for me. Maybe the time he left me on the school bus when I fell asleep next to him. When he pushed me into a bank of nettles, ouch. Or I could talk about how when my balloon popped when I was seven, he gave me his balloon. Or the time he won me a toy starfish on a crane machine. Or when he took me to school after my surgery so I could pick up my homework and when I went back before I was ready he was the one to pick me up again. Or the time when my sister and her friend were being horrible and he let me hang out with him and his friend in their secret base even though he usually didn’t give me the time of day.)

At the end of the day, you can frame people any way you want, and Vanya was going for the bad stuff. Because she was hurting. And she hurt them. And she needs to acknowledge that, so yeah I do think she needs to apologize for writing the book without asking or consulting in order to improve their relationship. I think the others need to apologize to her as well for what little shits they were as kids, because their own abuse is a reason but it doesn’t excuse what they did, either. Vanya was abused and they hurt her and they need to apologize for that. But that didn’t give Vanya the right to hurt them back, so she has to apologize as well if that makes sense??

I dunno this ended up longer than I thought it would oof but I hope it answers your question!!

“it is a marvel that those red rose-leaf lips of yours should be made no less for the madness of music and song than for the madness of kissing. Your slim gilt soul walks between passion and poetry. I know Hyacinthus, whom Apollo loved so madly, was you in Greek days.”

Oscar Wilde to lover Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas, January 1893

am I crying even more?

yes, yes I am