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read in 2018 — the hazel wood, melissa albert.

once upon a time there was a beautiful queen who thought words were stronger than anything. she used them to win love and money and gifts. she used them to carry her across the world.

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Critic Caitlyn Paxson says there’s a lot to like in Melissa Albert’s new The Hazel Wood: 

This book is crafted with all the care that goes into spinning nettle shirts for your enchanted swan-brothers and all the agony and beauty of spitting up roses and diamonds. It looks head-on at trauma, and gives its compelling heroine the space to find her truth and begin the hard work of healing her wounds.

But, she adds, the book’s relentless darkness drains some of the magic from fairyland.

Check out her full review here.

– Petra

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When you read that there is going to be a show about young! Catherine of Aragon

When you read that it’s going to be based on Philippa Gregory’s book and it’s going to be done by the same producers that worked in The White Princess

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HISTORY MEME | eras / periods [1/7]

DARK AGES ( often conflated with the early middle ages, or the “migration period” ) lasted from circa 476 CE  (the fall of Rome / antiquity ) and 1000 CE ( the beginning of the high middle ages / beginning rise out of “darkness” ).  It was a period in western Europe’s history when there was no Roman emperor in the West or, more generally, an era that was marked by frequent warfare and a virtual disappearance of urban life. The name of the period refers to the movement of so-called barbarian peoples—including the Huns, Goths, Vandals, Bulgars, Alani, Suebi, and Franks—into what had been the Western Roman Empire. Though sometimes taken to derive its meaning from the dearth of information about the period, the term’s more usual and pejorative sense is of a period of intellectual darkness and barbarity. 

My particular interest in this history is strange, because the Fall of Rome and the decline (and great loss) of the Western civilization’s culture, art, education, philosophy, and texts breaks my heart. That said, what I find very intriguing about this period, is the women and men who attempted to keep education and classical culture a part of European culture, trying to save ancient art, philosophy, and texts, in the face of the extreme fundamentalism that dominated the time ( for example, in terms of education, only monks were considered worthy of learning to read/write. These women and men slowly and quietly began to reject this.). These people helped spur Europe into the High Middle Ages, their influence bringing Europe into the Renaissance ( covering the span between the 14th and 17th centuries ).

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High-ranking female members of the Queen’s and Empress’ Household (c.1520–1870)

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please reblog if you’re a studyblr!

my dash is dead and i follow maybe 10 people lol

bonus points if you study/want to study something like engineering / sciences in general

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I fear I’ve done some things in life too late and others too early.

The Duchess (2008), dir. Saul Dibb

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What time is it? Time for a weekly spread  ! ! !  It’s been a bit of a tight fix, but I feel like this week has been productive (ish) I N S T A  ( Day 4 / 100  of the one hundred days of productivity challenge)  

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My notebook in Contemporary Arts (front cover). I personally designed it and I’m pleased with the outcome. 🌹

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Resources For Describing Characters

Physical Appearance

Arms

Athletic Build

Back

Butts

Cheeks

Chest

Chins

Curvy Build

Ears

Eyebrows

Eyes

Faces

Facial Hair

Feet

Fingernails

Fingers

Hair

Hands

Head

Hips

Jaws

Knees

Legs

Lips

Muscular Build

Neck

Noses

Shoulders

Slender Build

Sickly Build

Skin

Stocky Build

Stomach

Teeth

Toenails

Toes

Underweight Build

Character Traits

Affectionate

Ambitious

Bossy

Brave

Calm

Cautious

Charismatic

Clever

Conceited

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Creative

Critical

Curious

Determined

Diplomatic

Dishonest

Disorganized

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Excitable

Friendly

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Honest

Impulsive

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Just

Kind

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Reckless

Stingy

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Talented

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Worry Wart

Wounded

Talents & Skills

A Knack for Languages

A Knack for Making Money

A Way with Animals

Archery

Astral Projection

Astrological Divination

Baking

Basic First Aid

Blending In

Carpentry

Charm

ESP (Clairvoyance)

Empathy

Enhanced Hearing

Enhanced Sense of Smell

Enhanced Taste Buds

Farming

Fishing

Foraging

Gaining the Trust of Others

Gaming

Gardening

Good Listening Skills

Haggling

Herbalism

Hospitality

Hot-Wiring a Car

High Pain Tolerance

Knife Throwing

Knowledge of Explosives

Lip-Reading

Lying

Making People Laugh

Mechanically Inclined

Mentalism

Mimicking

Multitasking

Musicality

Organization

Parkour

Photographic Memory

Predicting the Weather

Promotion

Psychokinesis

Reading People

Regeneration

Repurposing

Sculpting

Self-Defense

Sewing

Sharpshooting

Sleight-of-Hand

Strategic Thinking

Strong Breath Control

Super Strength

Survival Skills

Swift-footedness

Talking With The Dead

Throwing One’s Voice

Whittling

Wilderness Navigation

Wrestling

Elemental Abilities

Miscellaneous

Voices

Voice Types

Speech Patterns

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List of Character Flaws

List of Archetypes

Hairstyles

Describing Body Types & How They Move Around

Secrets To Give Your Character

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Majestic café | hanieauo

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these puppies believe in you, and you should too

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Hello! :) I have to do a synopsis on King Lear for english class.. I need to choose a problem formulation (for example, in midsummer nights dream it could be "How did the transformation of the two pairs of lovers take place").. I was thinking smth about madness, but I wanted to hear your opinion :).. Also, which play do i watch if i want to get as close to the text as possible? Have a really nice day! (Not the best english i know, sry, im not native :))

So, madness is a great topic for King Lear because we see a lot of different versions of it, including but not limited to Lear’s real madness and Edgar’s fake madness. That might be a place to start: What’s the difference between real madness and pretend madness in the play? How do you tell? As far as which version of the play to watch to get closest to the text, that’s kind of impossible to answer because I haven’t seen every filmed version of Lear and there are like four extant versions of the text anyway and they’re all different. Your best bet is to actually read the play and use a version like the Arden that’s going to indicate which lines come from which source (Quarto, Folio, et cetera).

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another tv show entry on my journal! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ //

why do i sound like i’m roasting broadchurch? hahaha! broadchurch fans, i’m so sorry omg but i’m actually thinking of giving the show another chance?? if you read what i wrote, i’m kind of in the so-so side. does that make sense? anyway, this spread turned out better than i expected. hope you’re having a good day!

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Would you mind explaining/going on a small rant about the differences between Regan and Goneril?

I touched on this here and here already. (And I don’t do rants on request.)

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*Curtsies* Hi! I just finished reading King Lear for class. Hearing your thoughts really helps me understand & like this play more, I went through your entire tag haha! My teacher left us with some interesting questions about love and I'd love to hear your thoughts. Does Lear frame certain types of love as morally superior to others? Is it a redemptive force? Are the characters' identities products of their bonds? Sorry! I know this is a lot - you can choose what you want to answer. Thanks!

*Curtsies* Like so many other things in Lear I think it depends how you read it. But ‘love’ as a force in the play is difficult to analyze because you have to start with a definition of what love is in the play and even that’s not easy. Do Lear and Cordelia really love each other or it is mostly ego? Is it incestuous? Does Edgar love his father or is it his filial duty? (Notice how often words like ‘bond’ and ‘duty’ are used throughout the course of this play when discussing characters’ relationships.) What about Edmund and Regan and Goneril? What about Edmund and Cornwall and their short but important father/son relationship? What about Kent? And the Fool? There are a million different ways you can pick it apart. As for whether one kind is morally superior to another, personally I think no, because look at what happens at the end of the play. Lear and Cordelia rediscover their love for each other and they both die anyway. When Gloucester learns how much his son really does love him the emotion is too much and he dies of a heart attack. Love literally kills him. Edmund’s dying lines include the words “But Edmund was belov’d.” Love is not enough to save anybody, so I think it’s hard to say whether one form or another is morally superior, and I think that’s partly the point Shakespeare is making. Thus also to the idea of duty. As I already mentioned love is often treated as an obligation in this play, and characters (especially the elder ones) spend a lot of time harping about the duties of children to their parents, subjects to their king, etc. etc. And yet, in no other play in the canon do characters break those rules with such abandon, and have such good reasons to break them. And while the survivors (Kent, Albany, Edgar) have mostly maintained their moral allegiance, there are plenty of others who die for exactly the same reasons (Cordelia, Cornwall’s mutinous servant, the fool if you read it that way, etc.) 

Basically, there is no moral teleology in this play, and that’s part of the reason it’s so, so bleak (and part of the reason it’s often interpreted as nihilistic). There is no moral. Nothing matters. At the end everyone who’s still alive basically stands around going “Well, this was fucked up, let’s not do this again,” but nobody has anything more insightful to say, and I do not think that’s an accident.