#I’m not actually a classics nerd but like I want to be pretentious and dark academia so

[iris-of-the-lambs]

More fore edge painting! This time it's a 1947 collection of poems by the roman poet Horace (snagged it for 5 bucks at a used book store, felt very self satisfied)

the illustration on this is supposed to be like.. a generic Muse? i do not know enough about greek mythology

#illustration #books #fore edge painting #greek mythology #classics #my art #artists on tumblr #I’m not actually a classics nerd but like I want to be pretentious and dark academia so

[ferret-not-microwave]

Les Amis Modern AU: What They Wish Others Believed About Them (Part 1).

[I'll do this series in 4 or so Parts].

[I kind of wrote this in response to some general trends in characterising the Amis. There are some stereotypes which I'm not quite comfortable with. ]

Enjolras:

• Wants people to know that he isn't always angry and uptight.

• That he can giggle for hours on end and even snort like a malfunctioning car when supplied with enough puns and Penguin videos.

•That people can walk around him without being on eggshells all the time. He doesn't like the idea of Christmas Capitalism, but that DOES NOT mean that people need to stutter "Chris-sorry-non-denominational holiday party" to him all the time.

• That he does hang out with Bahorel, Joly, Bossuet and Chetta as well. And they know he's scared of nightclub crowds, so they also find nice places to go with him. Enjolras has a photo of them in front of an amusement park carousel pinned on his headboard.

• He's also super unhappy that people think of him as a pretentious wokeboi who never accepts a different point of view. He tries too hard to undo whatever prejudices he has, and frequently cries in the shower when he thinks he has been horrible to someone. He apologizes almost instantly if he fucks things up, and tries his level best to fix the situation.

• That he likes other colours too. Enj has a blanket which is a soft shade of mauve, which he simply cannot do without at night. He also loves porcelain blue, rose gold and emerald green. He had a dark academia phase once.

• That he has had high school crushes. A few, intense ones. Except remembering them hurts him still.

• That he does like his caffeine, but he's careful enough to not overdo his coffee intake. In fact, Enj does take remarkably good care of himself and people around them. He's meticulous in following grocery schedules and house-cleaning routines, and actually enjoys them. He's a brilliant plant parent, second to Jehan.

• That people sometimes wait for him to "open up" and ultimately "reveal" his softboi self. He's what he is, not a coconut. -_-

• The Amis do know all this, and live him for what he is. Just, some others don't believe him. :(

Combeferre:

• Wants people to know that he is not always so "put-together". That there are days when he has crippling anxiety and self-doubt and can't get out of bed, let alone shower and make breakfast. There are also days in which he can't stop himself from crying in the Musain's bathroom, for inexplicable reasons.

• He also has extremely short bitten-off nails.

• He's frustrated when people don't believe that he has ever received horrible feedback on his dissertation drafts and has a few fail grades in his school report cards. The last thing he wants is people brushing off his sadness at bad feedback because "ofc you'll bounce back, duh!"

• He's super scared of brain fart moments, or being cornered with things he's not clever at at all. Like card games. He's clever at some things, not so in others, and is NOT a know-it-all.

• His favourite birthday gifts are never books.

• His temper is actually shorter than people think it is. He can snap fairly quickly when someone is actively being an asshole. He resorts to sarcasm usually, because if he gets angry angry, he starts crying.

• He wishes that people don't look at him simply as an over-serious, nerdy, kind-of-dull Deputy Enjolras. He has a completely different style of leadership to Enj, which often helps the Amis a lot, particularly in non-protest events like fundraisers, awareness campaigns and bake sales.

• He is actually pretty good at displays of affection (even the cheesy kind), which he combines with acts of service.

• He knows when people are absent-mindedly nodding away when he launches into his nerd rants about moths, science, art and cinema. He has reduced his rants to a bare minimum, and most people think it is him being quiet.

• There are days when being the mediator/ "mom-friend" burns him out.

• He's extremely picky while shopping. He'll spend HOURS looking for the perfect sweater vest/cardigan/turtleneck and shirt combination. Even though they are almost always shades of blue, black, white and grey, they often come with neon yellow or pink accents. He DOES NOT like argyle, and barely tolerates beige.

• He has ridiculously dramatic classical music choices. Courf once found his "angry playlist" (it had Verdi's Requiem, Beethoven's Fifth, Grieg's Hall of the Mountain King, and Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries). Ferre often plays it while proof-reading his papers, or after a fight with Enjolras.

Courfeyrac

• He gets really miffed when some people infantilize him. He's the eldest sibling in his family, for fuck's sake, he knows how to take charge and be the adult in the house! And no, he doesn't break things at the drop of a hat.

• He has trust issues. He can make small talk sound like really friendly conversations, but it takes him months to trust people enough to tell them about what he really likes, dislikes, wants and opines. The ultimate trust test? When he finally trusts someone enough to cry in front of them.

• He's just as good a "mom-friend" as Ferre. Taking care of R when he's low? He's there. Applying first aid to all of them after protests? He's got it. Making sure to check on Eponine when he babysits Gavroche? Yep. Goes out of his way to look for Cosette to stop Marius's pining? Yes again. He feels a little low when the same people he had "mothered" over treat him like an overenthusiastic kid.

• He likes glitter. He isn't obsessed with it. And certainly doesn't carry bucketfuls of it, because it can get inconvenient af. His pink colour choices are oddly specific (he loves baby pink, and dislikes Barbie pink).

• He needs his alone-time to recharge. A LOT of it. He walks all around the city in those days, headphones on, blocking out the world. He likes calm classical music then, instead of his usual repertoire.

• He was really good at schoolwork. It's just that he didn't want to walk the academic path for his career. He loves to indulge in loooong, nerdy debates about anything and everything with people. And he ABSOLUTELY rips people a new one when they look at his pink denim aesthetic and try to peg him as airheaded and stupid (if the other Amis don't get to the people first).

• Marius does Courf's nails better than he does it himself. Far better. Also makeup.

• Contrary to popular belief, he doesn't randomly talk to everyone he meets. He just happens to participate in a lot of group events.

• Like Enj, Courf is extremely scared of his own prejudices and problematic sides.

• For the longest time, he hid the fact that he loves wearing makeup, dieting, watching Queer Eye and reading cheesy romance paperbacks because he was super scared that people would judge him. The Amis doesn't, so he showers them with trivia on these.

• Courf is actually really punctual, but on reaching the venue he usually finds someone needing his help, so he dumps his bag in the Musain and runs out again. The bag is evidence of his punctuality.

#les amis #modern au #les miserables #enjolras #combeferre #courfeyrac #please don't stereotype #enjolras isn't always terrible #combeferre is more than a nerd #courfeyrac isn't childish #ferret's freshly microwaved post

[wolfstarlibrarian]

Hello lovely friends, and welcome to the second installment of the Beyond the Shelves series! This month the library is featuring @aryastark-valarmorghulis​ who’s beautiful prose borders on poetry, and always manages to access those lovely tender feelings we so wish to share with the world. Hope you enjoy this interview here, and make sure to check back later today for the list of her favorite fics!

Name/Creative Type: Arya (she/her) / Author

AO3: aryastark_valarmorghulis  

Tumblr: @aryastark-valarmorghulis

What's your favorite thing about Remus & Sirius? 

Oh, well, this answer will be incredibly sappy.

Let me begin by saying that I am truly disappointed and horrified by JK Rowling and by the harmful, awful views she’s expressed in the last years. I don’t share her ideas and I don’t support her anymore.

Having said that, HP was my childhood and is still incredibly important for me – it helped me, saved me, even, during some very dark and difficult moments, and I believe those books – as flawed as I see them now, as dated as they are – will stay with me until the very end.

Remus and Sirius have been my favorite characters since I read PoA – I was intrigued at once by that tragic yet epic backstory we only get glimpses of and I was very interested in what was left unsaid (the Marauders’ school years, the First War, how their friendship deteriorated, why Remus and Sirius reconnected so quickly). 

Even a naive thirteen-year-old could see there was something worth exploring under the surface, and after a few years I opened a fanfiction on LiveJournal: it was the Shoebox Project. From that moment, I started shipping Punk and Nerd-Wolf and never stopped. Even if I left fandom quite a few times during uni, I kept coming back and I’m still here, because I think those two characters have everything a reader and a storyteller need: there’s friendship, self-discovery, queerness, love, betrayal, war and second chances. What else could I want in a pairing?

What do you think your signature is?

I’m not sure I have one, but what I really love is to let the unsaid things speak more than the actual conversations between characters. I often write from Remus’ Pov and he isn’t a big talker for me – not about his feelings anyway – so I try to convey what he doesn’t dare say, which is actually more important than what he does say.

I think objects like clothes or furniture or even houses can carry a lot of hidden significance, and very mundane actions like brewing tea or putting on a record or touching an elbow can convey more feelings than an actual conversation, so I try my best at describing all these things.

What advice would you give new authors?

Write what you like and not what you think other people will like. That's pretty obvious advice.

I would like to say something even more basic for writers like me, whose first language isn’t English: just try!

I know it can be scary to post a story written in a language that isn’t yours and there is the overwhelming fear that you’ll never be as good as a native speaker, but being bilingual can actually be a resource – you can mix together words in unexpected ways and use surprising metaphors.

I won’t lie because there are days where you don’t even know words in your mother tongue, let alone in English, but there’s no harm in trying and this is something we do for free, for ourselves first, and most of all it’s super fun to play with a new language and bend it to our will – sometimes it’s very frustrating and some sentences will never make sense but it’s nothing that a good, trusted Beta can’t fix.

My advice is that it’s worth trying.

What inspires you?/Where do you get your ideas?

I’m actually not sure; I usually get my ideas when I’m about to go to bed and I’m too sleepy and lazy to jot them down, so I can only hope I remember some vague stuff in the morning.

Most of the time I think of a particular atmosphere (a Welsh cottage in the middle of nowhere during a sweltering summer day, a chilly walk in a misty graveyard etc...) and the story develops around it.

Pick a favorite fic of yours and explain what inspired it.

Midday, Midnight is definitely my favourite fic among the ones I’ve written and, I think, the best one. I wrote it very quickly and it didn’t need much editing, except for the usual grammar stuff. It was absolutely unprecedented, it never happened again and probably never will.

I was inspired by two things.

One is this excellent piece of meta by @shaggydogstail​ regarding the Prank that I absolutely agree with; I was musing over a Post Prank story for a while, mostly because of my disagreement with the trope “The Prank was this huge Greek Tragedy that foreshadows the lack of trust between Remus & Sirius etc”.

The second thing I had in mind was writing something that respects Aristotle’s Classical Unities: a story that lasts for no more than 24 hours, with a single plotline and only one location. The many quotes by Ovid and Sappho underline this classic inspiration. I am acutely aware of how pretentious this sounds, just in case you were wondering.

I knew I wanted to write something about the (lack of) consequences after the Prank, and the idea of a fun summer romance came to me after reading that meta and the interesting discussion that it created.

⭐🌙

Last Month’s interview with @theprongsletthatlived​ can be found here. 

#beyond the shelves #aryastark-valarmorghulis #wolfstar #remus x sirius #interview #creator spotlight

[saltlamp]

what are some book recs? I want to read a new series 🤩

thanks for asking!! 🙈 get ready for some basic recs and hopefully recs you haven’t heard before! gets less basic and more pretentious (?) as u go down, i think,,, also sorry this took me so long to post! i’m the worst, bless you for putting up with me. the list and my descriptions are under the cut!

1. The Shatter Me series is pretty good so far. It’s a YA series that has eight books, and it’s completed, but I’ve only read the first three. So far, it has a lovelyyy enemies to lovers romance that is very reminiscent of ships like captain swan (and reylo, just for you, kat. there’s a scene in the second book that reminds me so much of the throne room scene where rey is debating joining kylo ren). It’s about a girl whose touch is lethal and her growing into her power and doing some badass stuff. She’s a little annoying because she’s horny the entire time but all in all, I’d highly recommend it, especially considering your tastes!

2. I always always always have to recommend the Six of Crows duology, if you haven’t read it yet. It’s objectively the best ya series around and is a sequel series to the Shadow and Bone trilogy, but reading that first isn’t necessary. It’s about a heist and the group of six criminal teens who try to pull it off, and the found family trope is strong with this one. I would die for every single character, and the plot is twisty and so so good!! The romances are all perfectly angsty, too.

3. Another ya classic is The Raven Cycle series and its spinoff, The Dreamer Trilogy (which only has one book so far). It’s extremely difficult to describe but the found family is good here too. It’s about a group of friends in Virginia who are looking for a dead Welsh king. There’s lots of supernatural things and dreams and psychics and dead people who are alive and alive people who are dead. It’s so odd but so endearing and unique and reading it makes me so nostalgic for some reason.

4. Onto non-ya but still basic! The Goldfinch is one of those books that you read because everyone says you should and then suddenly you’re crying over the last 20 pages and overthinking the meaning of life. It’s a coming of age story about a boy who steals a painting after his mom dies in a museum bombing and deals with the guilt and repercussions of this theft for the next decade or two. It can be a bit problematic (as I find with Donna Tartt novels) but it’s mostly good.

5. The Great Gatsby is a good one, especially if you (like myself) had to read it in middle/high school and didn’t actually read it. And then you go back and read it and realize it was actually really good! Basically: guy simps for girl, his neighbor narrates the whole thing, and there’s death and a roaring 20’s aesthetic and ~ s y m b o l i s m ~

6. The Inkworld Trilogy (starting with Inkheart) is a childhood favorite of mine and I just remembered by looking at my bookshelf omg. It’s about a girl and her dad who can read themselves and other things in and out of books, and there’s a specific obsession with this book called Inkheart. Super unique and lovely aesthetics and nostalgia, especially if you grew up reading books! It is middle grade, though (or at most early YA). Speaking of middle grade, if you haven’t read Harry Potter or Percy Jackson, you must.

7. Till We Have Faces by the guy who wrote Narnia is a retelling of the myth of Eros and Psyche through the eyes of the oldest sister who is so ugly she has to cover her face with a veil (or so she’s convinced). Her ‘ugliness’ is a big plot point, contrasted against Psyche’s beauty. She loves her sister more than her own life and is convinced that the beast who takes her in is actually evil. But who’s the real villain of the story? Who’s the real hero? Hmm... It’s such an interesting take on the myth and no one ever talks about this book!!!!! The last two chapters are a trip, but CS Lewis considered it his best work (and I agree!)

8. Any and every Shakespeare play. Specifically Much Ado About Nothing, it’s an easy read and has the funniest plot: Two exes ‘hate’ each other and people are tired of them fighting so they set them up. Side plot where girl’s cousin has to fake her death to defend her honor. I’m a shameless Shakespeare nerd. Ignore this one if u want lol, or watch the Emma Thompson movie!

9. If you actually are a Shakespeare nerd, I’d recommend the dark academia murder mystery novel If We Were Villains. It’s about a tight-knit group of seven pretentious young actors in their final year studying at an acting conservatory. This year, the casting list for a particular performance is different than usual, and it causes drama between the characters and eventually leads to one of them being murdered. It uses themes and plots from Shakespeare plays such as Julius Caesar, King Lear, and more, and there are scenes where characters’ actions off-stage match or contrast their actions on-stage, and it’s super cool if you’re a NERD like me.

10. Red White and Royal Blue is like every rom-com you’ve ever watched with every cute (fanfic) trope you could think of! What if the first son of the United States hated (read: was secretly in love with) the Prince of Wales? They’re rivals until they bond over Star Wars (there’s more than that, but, mood). They are so dramatic and the writing is wonderful. Covers absolutely everything I could ever want from a story, honestly. It has the best cast of side characters, too! 

11. The All for the Game trilogy is no easy read, it’s very gritty and I’d recommend reading the list of trigger warnings before opening the books. But, if you’re up for it, it’s a good story involving a fake sport and a bunch of college students from rough backgrounds who play said fake sport and eventually bond over trauma and such. Also, it’s set in my state with an orange paw-themed sports team... hmmm familiar

12. It was at this point that I wondered if I should recommend the Shadow and Bone trilogy. It’s getting a Netflix series this year (!!) and it’s the series before Six of Crows, mentioned earlier, but it’s not as good. Many people complain about the ending (even though I liked it) and Leigh Bardugo’s definitely found her style since writing these. Also, the character development is lacking. That being said! It’s a good introduction into the Grishaverse and it helps you get a feel for the magic system and all that. It’s not a terrible series, it’s just cliche and Alina makes me want to rip my hair out :))

13. Classics promo ok... if you haven’t read all those (specifically greek) classics that were on the english syllabus that were ignored or sparknotes’d, now’s the time to read them to enjoy them! My personal favorite is The Iliad.

#here u go kat!! sorry these are late #i went through my entire 200 goodreads 'read' list for this #this looks like a syllabus i hate it #half of these are Gay whoops #that's just how it be babey #book recs #answered #thank you!!! #kat tag

[lightlorn]

💘 FOXHOLE!

send me 💘 + A SHIP and i’ll tell you—

where they first met and how: Alright, so maybe the stories lied. Maybe you can go home again, though Kokoro hardly recognized it for the way it had been sealed tight against invasion. There was no great family reunion, just inhuman figures who introduced her to a cell. If Xemnas didn’t have use for her, that might have been the end of it. Instead, he leads her through the Castle, her guardian devil, retracing her steps as if she might lead them to the heart of it, and to the boy they sought.

how long their ‘flirting’ phase was before feelings got involved: Implying their flirting was not just them clashing in battle as Xemnas tried to make it poetic and Kokoro just tried to beat him. That lasted for some months before they got a little tired of the battles for dominance, until Kokoro found better ways to get what she wanted out of him.

who fell for who first ( if applicable ): Xemnas was a fool for this woman almost as soon as he saw her. It deepened in the ensuing two years, but that first glance left him at least intrigued.

where their first date was and what it was like: A low-key affair, playing at the normalcy they hadn’t seen in a lifetime. Dinner, and then a long walk along an eternal Twilight, where she spoke candidly of the world’s architecture and history. She thought she must be boring him. He didn’t want her to stop talking, not when it was about her interests.

who asks who out and how ( with a sign? spelled out on a cake? just a simple ‘will you go out with me’? ): Xemnas played it like he wanted to have further discussions about their agreements and arrangements, Kokoro jokingly asked if he was trying to get her to go on a date with him. His silence afterwards told her that her joke struck a little too close to the truth. And then they had to.

who proposes first: Kokoro tries, bless her, but Xemnas is not one for matrimony even after everything is said and done.

if they keep / kept their relationship secret or let everyone know right away: Hi he’s one of the leaders of the forces of darkness and she is pretty firmly standing with the light this time. No one knows what is up except for the questionable couple themselves. Besides, who would believe a Nobody could feel the echo of another life playing at whatever was left of his patchwork heart?

where the proposal happens and how ( kiss cam at a baseball game? on a hillside surrounded by ducks? at a disney park? ): The two in bed, early morning, Kokoro straddling Xemnas’ chest and curling her fingers in the spaces between his. She brought it up conversationally, travel the worlds, find a religious official somewhere and be married before taking off to a long honeymoon. He shot her down gently, but they did travel in the end.

if they adopt any pets together: Vanitas counts right??? Kokoro insists they get a proper library cat, who is swiftly adopted by the kids and often kept from his duties as official library guardian. He is named ‘Hamlet the Lesbian,’ Ham for short. More on that later.

who’s more dominant: Kokoro. Any way she wants to use Xemnas is fine by him, so long as he gets to be in her presence.

where their first kiss was and what it was like: I’m pretty sure it’s established to be in the aftermath of him seeking an explanation for one of his Organization members turning traitor. For how he failed, for what he was to do with it. When she refused to be his object of worship or tell him what to do. I remember her pushing aside his ethereal blade and kissing him gently, giving him comfort rather than the orders he was so fond of following and handing down in equal measure.

if they have any matching couples stuff ( mugs? sweaters? pillowcases? ): One year Mads and Nam surprised them with ‘If Lost Return to Kokoro’ and ‘I Am Kokoro. Keep Him’ sweaters for Christmas. Xemnas was insulted they imply the family matriarch would be so cold as to refuse him. Kokoro just started wheezing into her shirt trying to hide the fact she was cracking up.

how into pda they are: Kokoro is far too reserved and ladylike for any such teenage nonsense. A hand held or a kiss on the cheek is the most she will muster with others around outside the privacy of their own home. Unless, of course, a certain someone is coming back from some dangerous nonsense to prove he is still a bad bitch, at which point decorum is off the table and she will run to embrace and kiss him.

who holds the umbrella when it rains: Kokoro. Do you really think Xemnas is troubled by rain? No, so her 5′7″ ass has to strain to try and lift an umbrella to his towering 7′ chad height.

where their usual ‘date spot’ is ( if applicable ): Radiant Garden Opera House, a private box, kept in her name and often the subject of gossip by the elite of that world. The lady is beautiful, true, but the gentleman with her has the oddest bearing. They watch the show, hold hands, and whisper about the plot or the quality of the performers.

who’s more protective: It’s about equal, as both try to present a united front. Xemnas wants to protect what is ‘his,’ and Kokoro refuses to lose anyone else.

how long it is before they sleep together ( can be as in ‘had sex’ or as in ‘shared a bed’ ): Roughly a year if we take into account the canon timeline. 

if they argue about anything: They’re the worst kind of snooty nerds who debate literature and authorial intent very passionately. The cat being named ‘Hamlet the Lesbian’ by Xem nearly sent Kokoro into a fit. He thinks Hamlet is a lesbian and that’s why he is like that, Kokoro wants to know if he’s high. He smokes crack? Is that it?

who leaves more marks ( lipstick, hickeys, scratchmarks etc. ): If Xemnas didn’t cheat and heal from anything, this would be Kokoro’s victory to claim. As it is, she is the one left marked up as a result.

who steals whose clothes and how often: He couldn’t fit in her clothes if he tried. On days, post-canon, where she doesn’t feel like putting on her entire kimono first thing in the morning, she absolutely snatches something of his to stumble through the morning. His clothes are so long on her that she’s absolutely decent in them.

how they cuddle ( spooning? facing each other? ): Kokoro lays beside him, head on his shoulder, as he curls an arm around her and toys with her hair most of the time.

what their favourite nonsexual activity is: They’re snooty nerds who dissect literature, rave about the opera season in the Gardens, and drink wine while laughing pretentiously at Scala high society.  

how long they stay mad at each other: While tempers might flare at times, often from Kokoro, they do cool quickly. They have never gone to bed angry since becoming a proper couple.

what their usual coffee / tea orders are: Xemnas is a tea elitist, knowing just the perfect mixture of leaves and a specific kind of water you can only get in this specific words, with just a drop of honey for texture. Kokoro has slurped coffee right out of the pot when she gets on a roll. Two kinds of people.

if they ever have any children together: Well, Xemnas does end up a father to Kokoro’s adoptive daughter Mads, and as we plot Nam and Vani kind of end up part of the family as well. Then there’s Kogitsune, their son, who is just a soft baby and dearly beloved by both of his parents.

if they have any special pet names for each other: He has always called her Foxglove in private moments, first as a way to soothe her and remind her of a certain memory with Terra, and then as an actual pet name. She, in turn, often calls him ‘my heart,’ which is pure schmaltz but never fails to tug on his heartstrings.

if they ever split up and / or get back together: Nah they are ride or die. And then die.

what their shared living space is like ( messy? clean? what kind of decor? ): Their bedroom is carefully cleaned and orderly, sort of a minimalist classical. The decor available is rather old fashioned and makes a statement, and there are also books scattered around rather than properly put away on the room’s singular bookcase.

what their first christmas / hanukkah / etc as a couple was like: A few stolen moments while Kokoro was in the company of certain allies. No one ever knew he was there, but she did offer him a small gift before he had to leave. As for when they could actually be together, it was a quiet, intimate Christmas morning, she made pancakes, they curled up comfortably and stared at snow falling behind the stained glass windows of her childhood home. And then Mads started trying to beat the door down to spend the latter half of Christmas day with her mom and that was the end of their peace for the day.

what their names are in each other’s phones: ♖Foxglove♖ for Kokoro, ♔King♔ for Xemnas.

if they have any ‘couple traditions’ ( buying a new mug for their collection every year? baking every friday evening? ): Once a year they recreate that first ‘date.’ He always buys her a new charm from every world they visit as a couple.

who falls asleep first and who wakes up first: Xemnas doesn’t sleep, so Kokoro takes both of these.

who’s the big spoon / little spoon: Kokoro would love to be the big spoon, but alas, He Thicc. So instead Xemnas curls his arms around her and snugs in close as she privately fumes.

who hogs the bathroom: They are both incorrigible bathroom hogs who need to perfect Their Look. It takes a lot of work to look as flawless as they do.

who kills the spiders / takes them outside: Kokoro moves them outside, Xemnas argues that they can help to keep pests out of the castle.

#charismastatic

[fahrenheit45done]

Younger me went off hardcore

Right so I was looking through old files today and I just found this pretty much essay young me wrote on the faults of studying literature in the education system and like, she went hard. 

We say that poetry, that literature, is a noble art- but how is it noble if it does nothing in the face of tragedy?

Right, so this is coming from a person who was completely enamoured by the idea of studying English literature as little as maybe five months ago. I was planning on applying to Durham University (actually rated as the best UK University to study English Lit), I did a summer course at 16, I read and still read most of the highbrow classics but the education system is so good at suppressing this love. I’m not saying they make you read bad texts as most people do- I genuinely have never studied something I didn’t like the first time reading (the second go at the sign of the four, however....). My problem is with how you’re not allowed to give an interpretation that either goes too far or is too simplistic. 

My most likely outcome at GCSE was a 9 (the top 5% like hardcore nerd category), I got an 8. Okay so my radical theory on Lord of the Flies (starring Jack as Hitler, Simon as the Jews, and Piggy quite bizarrely as Winston Churchill) worked out, only dropping three marks on the 96 mark paper (and this is three essays and a comparative answer on two poems), but sign of the four and Macbeth. EEK! I won’t go into Macbeth - I had this weird point linking it to Hamlet through the last words of the titular character and Lady Macbeth’s diminishing power of speech- but Sign of the Four, I still would defend my viewpoint even with its shitty grade. I argued, quite simply, that Sherlocks Holmes was a hero written for a dark time, and that’s not good enough for examiners. They don’t want to hear about how Sherlock Holmes is literally the crime novels of the nineteenth century- that they’re for fun. 

I’m okay with my 8. I’ve gotten over it. 

But A-levels... How is it that I can apparently ‘try too hard’ in an essay that I’d spent forty-five minutes on the night before with, what I thought was, a valid viewpoint. Okay, so Shakespeare was probably not a feminist and probably wouldn’t really be using the Winter’s Tale as a way to portray the tragicomedy which is women’s experience at the time. But wouldn’t it be interesting if it was? And the evidence is there- Hermione and Paulina may extrinsically be typical conventions of a comedically outspoken female character, but intrinsically? They’re so badass at speech that all the men fall apart next to them. I used quotes, I related to the time, I just don’t understand how that’s trying too hard. I think it’s exploring viewpoints. 

And then you get the more recent view I’ve picked up on- the what’s the point of studying literature anyway? There are many books that celebrate literacy, but there are also many books that highlight the flaws of society. So why is it we study literature, arguing like pretentious snobs with nothing better to do, whilst all those problems still reign supreme in our world? What does studying literature even do? Nothing. It’s so pointless and I don’t know what to do with that. I love books, adore them. I’ve written and read them all my life and still, it seems selfish to study something and work towards something that’s not for the betterment of society. So I want to write, so I want to highlight the world’s problems- as so many have done before me- and yet what has it done? We write the flaws, literary critics highlight the flaws and then nothing’s done. Isn’t anyone else tired of it? Yes, I love literature, I love learning, but how can I go and study accumulating debt when there are children out there, girls especially, who never even learn to read? How can I go to Uni and have the Uni experience, learning to cook, to live on my own, when I know that thousands don’t even have the food that I’ll stupidly burn, that some will be alone in their house with the dead bodies of their family all that joins them? 

I just, we say that poetry, that literature, is a noble art- but how is it noble if it does nothing in the face of tragedy? Tragedy is treated as a genre, caused by a fatal flaw, a hubris- we use big words to comprehend feelings we don’t understand as anything more than themes to teach us lessons. The human experience, human tragedy is not a lesson, it is something that shouldn’t happen. It just shouldn’t. And maybe if we focus on first elevating everyone to a decent education, we could live in a world where studying literature can be a worthy endeavour. 

#english literature #younger me #I don't know if I still agree with all her sentiments but damn she made her point #A levels #GCSEs #education

[bardqueenofgallifrey]

I didn't have a tumblr account in 2013, so I have no idea how the fuck a 53-year-old Sci fi show became part of something as cringe as "superwholock". I mean, I watch Sherlock but damn this match makes no sense. Could you explain to me how it happened please???

Honestly? I don’t know exactly.

I was never really a part of SuperWhoLock, and I don’t think I was on here for the origins either, but whenever it was that I did get on here, I was just a passionate Whovian who also watched and liked Sherlock (these days I’m pretty indifferent about Sherlock one way or another, and give as few shits about Supernatural as I ever did).  

BUT, I’m gonna see if I can try and work out/theorise how SuperWhoLock rose and fell, if only to try and make the point that Doctor Who never deserved to be lumped in with it. Feel free to challenge any points I make, because I’m guessing here. 

although, frankly, this idea of cringe culture is kinda snobby and gross. let people like shit, damn, if they’re not hurting anyone or trying to say Supernatural is the best show ever, who gives a fuck, honestly

Firstly, the thing about Doctor Who is that it has been around for literal multiple decades. Almost fifty four years. It has been around since before some of our parents were born. 

Doctor Who fans were around long before the internet was invented. They were here before, and will be here long after everyone has forgotten what the hell Supernatural ever was. Doctor Who fans are now the ones making Doctor Who. They were the ones who, when it got cancelled, created an entire thriving Audio Drama business through the love of it that still existed everywhere, and they are the ones who brought it back and now create it. They’ve never let it die. 

You know why? Why Doctor Who’s endured, and is so passionately loved by so many, and before all this mess wasn’t any more cringy than being into Star Trek? Because it’s good. 

It is a flawed show, of course (always, somehow, in some way, in ways that vary across different eras), but one that is good in a reckless, nonsensical, optimistic way. No matter the ups and downs of its objective quality, it’s never really lost its heart. 

It is a show with a protagonist that uses words/intelligence/compassion over violence to fight, a show that focuses on telling hopeful adventures that can be watched by children and also inform them of some of the harsher aspects of the world in an interesting way.

Also, it’s always been quite progressive. It had the first female drama producer at the BBC, and a gay Indian director. No one wanted it to succeed and it’s a miracle the show ever got off the ground. 

People like to talk about the “screaming Classic companions” but you know what? Fuck that. The Classic ladies were all wonderful, including the biggest screamers. Susan? The Doctor’s granddaughter, genius, with telepathic abilities and a whole lot of heart. Mel? Computer programmer aka fucking smarty pants, who once flipped the Doctor over her shoulder, and was such a genuinely nice person that it was genuinely impressive. Zoe? Adorable 60′s companion who canonically had a higher IQ than the Doctor. 

Doctor Who ladies have been awesome since the beginning, and calling out misogyny from the beginning. 

(It ALSO had errors of its time, especially an Orientalism issue that is pervasive through a lot of older sci-fi, that can’t and shouldn’t be forgotten either. But that’s for the most part irrelevant to this discussion other than the general whiteness which is still obviously a problem albeit one the show is slowly working on.)

The reboot then brought in (some, not enough) queer characters and main characters of colour, etc, and its general diversity has only been getting better and better on that front for the most part, especially in the last couple of years. 

But anyway, how the hell did it get mixed up with the whole SuperWhoLock mess? 

Well, the reboot brought in a whole new generation of fans, and only got bigger and bigger and bigger, and was peaking RIGHT about when Sherlock aired. 

The Doctor Who and Sherlock crossover is easy enough to work out; they had the same headwriter(s), and they’re both about neurodivergent (coded??) genius white guys that theoretically have a kind of unconventional attractiveness to them. You can see how they drew in the same crowd. 

Now, how the hell Supernatural became a part of that, I’ve no idea. I’ve never been a Supernatural fan (even if I did watch the first four and a half seasons once, more or less enjoy them, but also not find them massively interesting). 

But I’m going to assume it’s because it again involved white guys with Big Emotions, that the fans could thirst over, who were undertaking some larger than life shit. 

My theory is that it, at least partly, was the White Male Slash Fandom. 

You know. That group of mostly straight girls who treat shipping conventionally attractive white men like a fetish and a kink to explore, who will ship basically any two CAWM under the sun if they so much as look at each other. I imagine the Johnlock crowd overlapped with the Destiel and Wincest crowd, and Doctor Who, since it had Ten/Simm!Master (and Eleven/Rory to a lesser extent) as well as some nice hetero ships, kind of got dragged along because almost everyone in the Sherlock fandom was probably in the Doctor Who fandom too. 

You can kind of see how it fits. The Supernatural gang and the Team TARDIS are big damn heroes with a lot of heart, while Sherlock fulfilled the ideal levels of pretentiousness that we all go through in our teenage years. 

Of course, then everyone realised that Supernatural kinda sucks because it’s an incredibly white, incredibly male, incredibly STRAIGHT show that just queerbaits its audience and doesn’t know when to call it quits, and so everyone started jumping ship. 

Then everyone looked at Sherlock, either went “this has its issues but it’s still fun”, “this is QUEERBAITING TOO, WHY WONT JOHNLOCK KISS, FUCK MOFFISS”, or “this is also incredibly white, incredibly male, and incredibly straight, so fuck this also”, and that was it for Sherlock and general opinion too. 

(For the record: Johnlock was not queerbait. Johnlock was an expression of Steven Moffat’s own very intimate, but platonic, friendship with Mark Gatiss, and they explicitly told everyone they were not gonna make it gay. And then the toxic ass fandom, deluded out their minds, started sending Gatiss - an actual gay man - abuse about being “an honorary straight” for not making their fetishised fictional relationship canon, at one point literally the day after the Pulse massacre. Seriously. What the fuck. Never speak about it being queerbaiting ever again and leave Mark Gatiss the fuck alone.) 

Now. Doctor Who had meanwhile been dealing with the changeover of the showrunner. 

Series 5 went down pretty well for the most part, but a lot of people had their issues with Series 6 and Series 7. The fandom had kind of gotten too big, for a show this unconventional. To the point of a lot of people not being able to deal with the distinct change from the style of Russell T Davies, because they weren’t really aware of how the show needs to reinvent itself constantly even on a stylistic level. Because they were treating the show like any other show, when one can’t really do that. 

It was all kind of a mess of:

very mixed fan reception on Series 6

Series 7 being on the weaker side (not as weak as some people who missed the whole point of Clara’s storyline make it out to be, but weak nonetheless, though Moffat has admitted to this and explained it was because he was under so much pressure about the looming 50th anniversary, and like, fuck, fair enough)

people being pissed at Moffat for Sherlock shit

Russell T Davies having done quite a few things in his era that are questionable from a wider Doctor Who standpoint, which Moffat as the Ultimate Who Fan didn’t go along with, only to then receive hate from people who were convinced that if RTD did something it must be right, because they haven’t seen Classic Who or apparently bothered to do a couple of google searches to educate themselves

plus, a few of Moffat’s quotes around 2012ish got taken out of context because he’s a sarcastic little shit who runs his mouth

and so people got the idea that Moffat’s a narcissistic misogynist who “loves white men”

also people confused “plot hole” with “is going to be explained later” and complained about him having plot holes in series 5-7 when really it’s just that he was waiting to tie up all the loose ends in Matt Smith’s finale episode

Anyway, thus began the popular - to this day! - sentiment of thinking that Moffat is one of the worst things to happen to television, or at least Doctor Who (and Sherlock Holmes). 

And so, that was the “downfall” of Doctor Who and SuperWhoLock, so to speak, as all three shows were written off by the wider Tumblr/nerd community as being incredibly cringy. 

Now, to examine it from today’s view, in light of recent series/opinion about the series/the female Doctor reveal. 

The problem is, the general attitude about Moffat - who don’t get me wrong, is far from a flawless writer, or person - has literally reached the point of mass delusion. It’s very clear that literally thousands of people have a completely fictionalised version of him in their heads. 

How do I know this? I saw someone say that a female Doctor was a “defiance of everything the Moffat era stood for”. 

As in, the same Moffat era that, in the last three seasons:

explicitly made the genderfluidity of Time Lords canon (Dark Water/Death In Heaven, World Enough And Time)

changed the Master into a woman (Dark Water)

had the now female Master refer to becoming a woman as an “upgrade” (The Witch’s Familiar)

had a companion’s whole storyline be about “becoming the Doctor” in her own right, with her getting a whole episode of her pretending to be the Doctor, and her flying off in her own TARDIS with a companion of her own in the end of her final episode! (Flatline, Hell Bent)

had ANOTHER companion’s storyline end with her immortal space girlfriend at the console of the TARDIS, offering for her to travel through all of time and space with her in a direct parallel to the Nine/Rose offer from the first episode to the reboot (The Doctor Falls, Rose)

had a Time Lord regenerate from a white guy to a black lady onscreen just to FINALLY shut up people who said race/gender changes couldn’t happen (Hell Bent)

had the Doctor positively reacting to the suggestion that he could be  - or had been - a woman, multiple times (Death In Heaven, World Enough And Time, The Doctor Falls)

Moffat’s era has been statistically proven to have shifted public opinion in favour of a female Doctor (ask @scriptscribbles, if you want proof), thanks to the above. 

Simm!Master: “She? Is the future going to be all girl?” 

Twelve: “We can only hope.” 

Also, Moffat wrote Lumley!Doctor in The Curse of Fatal Death in 1999. He’s been pushing for a female Doctor for 18 damn years. 

So, the idea that anyone thinks he’s against it, as opposed to having explicitly worked to help make it happen for years, shows that the general opinion of him is literally a mass fictionalisation/delusion. 

(It’s just one example, but there are hundreds of others, like how everyone seems to think he thinks of himself as The Greatest Ever and having a huge ego, when he’s literally one of the most self-deprecating people ever, if you watch him in an interview. He’s openly admitted to mistakes he’s made on his time on the show, such as the way he handled the scene at the end of Flesh and Stone, and how Series 7 wasn’t his best because of the pressure he was under about the upcoming 50th anniversary; he is aware of his fallibility.) 

He’s not a perfect person, or writer, and no one knows that better than him. There’s a lot of critical discussions we could have about his writing, and there are a fair few actual problems with it, just as there are in the RTD era, and every damn era of Who that has existed. I’m not saying everybody has to like it, because every era of Doctor Who is down to personal preference, and that’s fine. There are plenty of rational, well-informed people, fans and otherwise, who have their -often sound - reasons for not liking Moffat and/or his era of Who in general. I am friends with some of them. 

But those rational, well-informed people are like, 5% of the people who otherwise make up a sea of loud, ignorant delusion that condemns Doctor Who under Moffat’s direction and downright refuses to acknowledge some of the amazing stuff it’s done in the last few years. 

(Like, Series 10 featured a black lesbian co-lead who got a happy ending, leaving the Moffat era finishing strong on six canonically sapphic women, four of whom are still alive, none of whom died pointlessly or without agency, and three of whom are immortal or close enough, in a time when all other TV sapphics are dropping dead like flies. It also had the Doctor punch a racist in the face and comment on how history is whitewashed, and had an episode slamming capitalism. Plus, the finale canonised that Time Lords don’t view gender the same way, reinforcing canon genderfluid Time Lords.)  

Between his second and third seasons of DW being divisive and/or a bit weak, all the Sherlock shit going down, and the fall of Supernatural, and the issue of people taking RTD Who as the baseline for everything Doctor Who when they really shouldn’t have, anti-Moffat sentiments got so big that masses of people fell off the show, and continue to refuse to acknowledge that he might have done anything worthwhile with it since they left. That he might, as a person, have developed and improved. 

And so, that is potentially how Doctor Who got lumped in with SuperWhoLock, labelled “not progressive”, and considered “cringy” to this day. 

Or at least, that’s my theory, as someone who wasn’t really paying a lot of attention, but knows her Doctor Who. 

#doctor who #steven moffat #fandom theory #dw fandom #fan theory #i say shit #fuck this became an ESSAY #my god #I might be totally off base here but these are my Thoughts #anon asks #I spent HOURS on this god #i edited it more than I've edited essays for uni lmao

[reading-with-nixie]

Top 11(ish) Books of 2017

This was a weird year for me reading-wise in a lot of ways. For one - I didn’t just fail my 100 book challenge, I basically turbo-failed it: I only read about 44 books (I’m on 45 now). Like last year, this year was not conducive to reading for many reasons. As most of you know, this year was pretty shit for me until about late September, and then in early October I switched to full-time employment and needed to chop my long commute into three much shorter parts - meaning that reading on my commute became harder.

All that said, I actually read more books that I actually liked this year than I have previously, because I started being less strict about my rules for putting down books. I used to only stop reading books if I had a major ideological difference with the text (not the story, the text - if this confuses you, talk to me). But this year I also stopped reading books if I noticed that I wasn’t inclined to read them. I finally settled into the fact that there are enough books out there that I’d love to waste my time on ones I don’t. So instead of 10 or 9 favorites this year - I have 11 or 12 (I lumped two books together; I’ll explain why when I get there).

So here we go, in no particular order:

1) Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

You’ll probably notice a trend for this year, which is that I read a lot of horror/thriller novels - Elizabeth is Missing falls into the thriller category, but only because of the point of the view in which it is written. Namely, the protagonist is an elderly woman named Maud who struggles with dementia. 

She is convinced that her friend Elizabeth has gone missing and that her older sister Sukey (who disappeared herself after World War II) was murdered by her husband. But no one is listening to her about Elizabeth, nor did anyone listen to her about Sukey - so Maud decides to solve both mysteries by herself. 

This book was memorable for me, again, because of the POV. The book portrays exactly how terrifying it is to feel with all your might that something is true, only to have everyone around you be dismissive. The reader also gets a glimpse into Maud forgetting things that her daughter, caretaker, and other people surrounding her say. So what happened to Sukey? What happened to Elizabeth? Is Elizabeth even missing in the first place?

All in all a very interesting read, but if you’re already terrified of aging, I’d maybe pass. 

2) The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley

Kameron Hurley is a Hugo award winner and a woman...which means she’s needed to deal with a lot of shitty nerd boys. This (pretty inclusive) book discusses feminist sff, misogyny in nerd culture, and (most prominently) what it’s like trying to thrive in sff as a woman. Especially a woman who writes diverse books. 

This book is great for feminists and nerds - but above all I recommend it for my woman writerly friends. I really enjoyed her snark, but the main thing I got out of this book was an extreme increase in my desire to create.

3) The Girl with All the Gifts by MR Carey

This was definitely one of the more inventive books I’ve read this year or possibly ever. I’ve described it to people as being a zombie book that reads (at least in part) like a fairy tale; it’s been compared to Matilda a lot -- which I think makes sense. 

The narrator for much (though not all) of the novel is Melanie, who is a child zombie who “grew up” in an army base/school for child zombies. Then one day the school is attacked and Melanie, her favorite teacher (their relationship is really fucking touching), and some military folks escape and must try to survive out in the world. 

The book switches narrators, which allows for some interesting shifts in perspective. Some parts feel more like a typical horror novel than others, but all in all I would highly recommend this to someone who is interested in seeing a unique approach to zombies or horror. Or just people who like horror novels and also like Matilda. 

4) All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Another really unique one -- but very, very different from the last. This one won the Pulitzer Prize and pretty much all the awards in 2014 and goddamn if there isn’t a reason. 

This one is less unique for the way it tells its story (it’s very lyrical, but not particularly groundbreaking in that regard as far as I remember), but for the content of the story itself. It’s a story set during WWII in Europe...but not the sort of story you’d expect. The main characters of the story are a young blind girl living in Nazi-occupied France and a German kid who ends up (obviously) working with Nazis. Neither of them ends up in a concentration camp or anything like that. Rather, Marie-Laure must deal with the social and economic everyday consequences of the occupation and Werner sees terrible shit happening around him all the time and doesn’t interfere despite having an increasingly bad feeling about what the German army is doing. 

Obviously, the novel is heavy as fuck, so definitely proceed with tissues. 

5) Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire and The Diviners by Libba Bray

These two go together in my head, so I’m also putting them together here. They have completely different premises, but I read them at the same time and there are some weird similarities. Most notably, both books have serial killer antagonists who remove body parts from their victims - and the same body parts at that. 

Every Heart a Doorway is a really interesting novella which explores the idea what happens to children once they return from magical worlds (a la Alice in Wonderland and The Chronicles of Narnia). Nancy is a newcomer to a boarding school for these kids who makes fast friends with a couple of her classmates. When someone starts killing them, Nancy and her new pals come under suspicion and need to prove their innocence, and in so doing save the school from being shut down. It’s actually a novella, so it’s fairly easy to read in a short period of time. And gets a TON of brownie points for having a CANONICALLY ASEXUAL MAIN CHARACTER. 

The Diviners is set in the Roaring 20s and features a cast of teens with various and sundry magical powers that have to deal with shutting down a ghost that some dumbass rich kids unleash with a luigi board in the first scene. I was kind of pissed that there’s a scene early on in which sexual assault occurs and the narrative never addresses it as such - but aside from that major qualm I have with it, it’s solid. Also, totally spooky.

I recommend both of these books - just maybe not the same time? Don’t repeat my mistakes. 

6) The Secret History by Donna Tartt

If you know me more than just in passing, you know that I love me some Dark Shit™ in my literature. The Secret History more than satisfied that craving. The story, set in a rural Vermont college (apparently a Bennington expy...which I’m gonna go ahead and say is NOT a complement to Bennington), is one of pretentious classics students who are basically a cult. A new kid comes to the school, gets indoctrinated into said basically-cult’s bullshit, and gets fully entrenched into their bullshit when they semi-accidentally kill a guy and THEN kill one of the basically-cult-members (this is not a spoiler - the book literally opens with them killing the dude).  

It’s definitely not for everybody, but if you are also Team Dark Shit™ and like gorgeous writing - it’s probably for you. You’ll probably get even more out of it if you A) went to college in rural New England or B) were a classics student.

7) The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

The Hate U Give is another book that got a LOT of hype and 100% deserves every amount of praise it received. 

Sixteen year old Staff is one of few Black kids at a private school and still lives in a poor neighborhood, thus she divides herself up into two versions of herself to fit who those two communities expect her to be. One night, she’s being driven home from a party by an old friend (Khalil) they get pulled over and Khalil is fatally shot by an officer.

Both the media at large, at least one of Starr’s white friends, and a local drug lord try to paint Khalil as a thug. Thus Starr has to decide whether to stay quiet and keep her life in tact or to speak up and upend everything about her life.

Highly recommend, especially for other White folks.

8) Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Another thing to know about my reading habits: I really love mixed media and weird layout/typographical decisions.

Give me maps, photographs, whole pages with only one word, transcripts, just ALL the variety of ways of telling -- and I’m a happy camper. Like, go to a bookstore and flip through a copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. There is a reason its my favorite. 

Illuminae has an interesting story and all of these things. 

It’s sci-fi YA told from multiple POVs - the main characters are two halves of a couple that breaks up on the day that their home planet is destroyed, but there’s also an AI who becomes progressively more and more of an interesting character as it goes along. 

On top of a conspiracy, there’s a lot of action, potentially evil tech, and a scary af plague. It’s a little much for some readers, but I think it works - and it’s interesting to see several genres intersect. 

I highly recommend this for other mixed media loving folks and people who want to see how many tropes can interact with each other at once. 

9) Bird Box by Josh Malerman

Unlike most of the books I have on this list - I would actually recommend this to VERY FEW PEOPLE. It has aspects that could be triggering (namely, there’s a lot of suicide and some child abuse), it has multiple dog deaths (one of which is probably the saddest I’ve ever read; it had me crying on the bus), and is fucking TERRIFYING...but I loved it, so here it is.

In the world of Bird Box, something weird started happening - people started seeing something which launched them into a violent frenzy, causing them to sometimes kill those around them and always kill themselves. The book follows two stories - one is set five years after people started seeing whatever it is that’s driving them to madness, when Malorie and her two children need to leave their safe haven and travel down a river to a safe location that may or may not exist any longer; the other is set when Malorie is pregnant, people are just starting to see the thing, and Malorie finds (and loses) a chosen family in a sort of “how we got here” situation. 

I love this one for two main reasons: 1) It addresses things in a really interesting, vaguely Lovecraftian way because, by the very nature of the crisis, NO ONE has seen the thing (or even spoken to someone who has seen the thing) and lived to talk about it - so the characters spend the whole time wearing blindfolds, covering their eyes, or inside with things to block any windows and the readers spend the entire book having NO IDEA what the thing is. And that makes pretty much everything more terrifying. One of the most nerve-wracking moments in the novel is when a LEAF falls on someone’s shoulder and there’s the question of “OH SHIT WHAT IF IT WASN’T A LEAF” but the person obviously can’t just check. There are also several times when whatever the heck this thing is is in the same space as Malorie (in one of them it actually plays around with her goddamn blindfold) and obviously she wants to see what it is, but she can’t or she and her kids will die. Both Malorie and the reader also need to trust that her kids won’t look. 2) It addresses the sorts of questions that would occur in that situation. What if you view whatever the thing is indirectly? Are animals immune to the insanity? Couldn’t blind people just go about their lives more or less normally, provided they don’t end up around someone who saw the thing?

You can judge for yourself (or ask more questions), to figure out if this would be a good or safe read for you. 

10) Uprooted by Naomi Novik

To say that I enjoyed the experience of reading Uprooted would be completely incorrect. Anyone who was around me when I read it can tell you about the pained noises I was making most of the time. Most of the book was a conga of backfiring plans, terrifying bullshit, and the protagonist being thrown into generally unpleasant and/or bleak-looking situations. At one point I actually told Lauren “I...I don’t think I would ever say this...but it might be too depressing for me?” 

That being said, it’s actually really good - which is why I kept reading through the pain. All of the characters were really engaging, even the ones I didn’t like; I wanted to know what happened plot-wise; there’s a really interesting magic system; and so much fae nonsense. 

Agnieszka lives in a small village located near malevolent woods,a wizard takes her away from the village....and basically the entire rest of the plot is spoilers. But you should read it if you’re into fae nonsense. 

11) The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

I haven’t finished this book yet, but I’m close enough to the end that I feel comfortable recommending it.

This is another ensemble cast book featuring a spaceship full of compelling characters (one of whom is basically an alien cultural anthropologist - which is neat) that form an amazing little chosen family. 

It has a cool plot, too, but let’s be real - this book is about the characters and their relationships. Insofar as it’s possible to have representation in a book with mostly alien characters, this book pulls it off pretty well. There’s at least one lesbian couple, an essentially chronically ill character, an alien/AI relationship, and an alien who’s basically autistic. A fabulous people who like the ideas inherent in science fiction but are bored of pew-pew action crap. 

I also have one anti-recommendation to close this out, because I feel the need to warn people away from this book.

DO NOT READ BOY, SNOW, BIRD by Helen Oyeyemi. It’s a transphobic piece of shit. 

It starts off gorgeous, has some nice magical realism, involves some really good discussion of racism and what it means to be biracial...and then gets WILDLY transphobic very suddenly in the last twenty pages or so. I’ve heard people say “OH, but it’s actually a METAPHOR, you see!” but here’s the thing, you can’t use real marginalized groups as your goddamn metaphors. NOPE. Stay away from this piece of garbage, or at least don’t give Oyeyemi your money and everything except the last two chapters out of a library copy. 

[theparaminds]

As much as it’s taken for granted, light and clarity could not exist without their antithesis’ of darkness and misdirection. Maxwell Young is looking for such light, looking for the moment where he is blinded by reality and pulled back into the world he has found himself disconnected from. It’s an emotion of realization that, at all times, he is two degrees separated from the core to humanity and daily existence. He has become an omniscient narrator to himself, instead of allowing the story to write freely. 

He can describe his current state through films and sounds he connects to, but in words, the answer is revealed in pieces and often is not aligned with his heart. With more emotional experiences in the last year, he has less he can relate with and a deeper need for answers. Epiphany is always on the horizon, always an eluding answer he desires. But seemingly, an untouchable feeling that rests far and away. Away from reality, away from his art, and away from tomorrow. 

Yet Maxwell Young is close. He trudges on because the beauty of life itself has struck him. His heart is full and his mind is hungry. While he may be in search of an answer, he is not lacking love, nor is he lacking trust in himself. It is now a period that’s beyond confusion, it’s closer to hope. The belief that his efforts and heartwarming vision will take him further than he has prior. And in that sense, in that hope, the light is already there for him. But now, it can only grow brighter and become ever so consistent. 

Our first question as always, how's your day going and how have you been lately?

My days going good, a slow weekend day. Recently I’ve been trying to focus on researching more, to focus on the untouchable, magical feeling of music again. I’ve been working on other people's music and thinking of the parts to creation that isn't actually making something new. And I want to get back to that. Being a music nerd and really chasing that feeling. That's the reason why we do it. These new projects are doing that for me, really bookmarking parts of my life is a diaristic way.

In your eyes, what's the single most overwhelming feeling in your life right now?

Being broke.

Do you find art helps gets you past that and not caring for money in some part of your life?

I think that’s what I have to do at the moment because even though streams would be fantastic with this project, it’s really more of a scene-setter than a huge piece. It’s a very slow, melancholic and hesitant period of my music and you can hear those feelings within the songs.

You said it’s a bookmark to this chapter in your life, so, if you gave it a title to this chapter, what would you call it?

The subtitle I guess I’ve already given it: Melancholic Introspection into Coexistence. Pretty pretentious but it’s really just me having a first relationship and navigating making music in that space. It’s a very focused bookmarking about a few months that were very intense where I learned a lot and it ended up feeling very dramatic. Most of this new project was made in a week because I was just feeling so much. I spent more time in Auckland and couldn't record there, so when I came back to Wellington, music just flew really quickly.

Would you say then that you've had an arctic epiphany and seen the light a bit? Or is it something else within you?

With that, it was more natural. It even feels like some of it existed at that moment and is now gone. I’m now trying to figure out the next step. I’m trying to figure out what I’m actually writing about and what the theme of the next project is. But you can't force that too much, it’s something I think a lot of people do, even my peers, where they imagine the whole project way too early and box themselves in. What I tend to do is fall in love with a title and then get excited about the early songs, but then close off the tracklist early. I now think I need to be open as possible and to not allow myself to have time pressure. I should allow myself to grow and make a strong project that can make a dent.

During this process, what was the spark really to create this EP and the moment you realize it had to come out? The time you realized you needed to give yourself this therapy through the work and to know you needed to embark on this journey.

I knew I wanted to make this project right before I finished Daydreamer. Something more thematic instead of being an all-encompassing diary. I fell into a relationship that allowed me to feel new feelings. When I was feeling dramatic and listening to new songs they became lullabies for me, that's when I knew they needed to be released. When they truly captured a moment rather than just being a cool sound or an interesting melody.

It seems like it’s more about journalizing what's been going on and giving a window to your soul more than anything?

Pretty much, and in a way that’s kind of selfish. That was a huge issue I was thinking about because I thought the project was too obtuse and the lyrics were too specific with their references and at times it was too poetic. Someone said that the more specific you get, the narrower the window of an audience you draw, but those you draw will be much more connected to it.

If you could use this project to soundtrack a film, which would you pick and why do you feel as though they connect?

I thought about this a lot recently and I’m pretty sure Lost in Translation is quite fitting. I know that's a cult classic at the moment and everything, but that aimlessness and intense melancholic feeling is this. There's something which Sofia Coppola does in all her movies, they have this feeling that you know so well but you can't put a finger on.

Kind of like a word such as sonder sort of thing?

Yeah, I think sonder is a good word to describe it.

Is that then what you've been going through? The overwhelmingness of life's beauty and taking it all in?

Yeah, the beauty and the negatives too. I think sonder-pop is a really great way to capture so much of what is being made by independent artists today.

Do you feel like you are someone who rejects the industry itself through your independent ideas or are you trying it embrace in your own, more fair way?

It’s not something I’m trying to totally reject but more and more I’m thinking of what a label really means to me in 2019. I have ideas and I can think conceptually and I’ve been inspired by people like Radiohead to focus on sticking with a specific small circle for the supplementary elements to the music which resulted in having my best friend make all of the cover art. I have some help with management but I don't know what funding would really add to that. It would make me seem more accomplished in a way. I’ve been frustrated at times seeing people who I’ve come up with over the years be more successful than I, but you can't compare, at all, ever. It’s never helpful. I think I have a really good project in me somewhere, I don’t know how to get there or how much money I need for it, or where I need to be, but it’s there and perhaps the present untouchability is the most endearing part of music for me currently.

Would you say that with this new work, you're finding yourself to be more honest than your past output or do you feel it's a different shift other than honesty?

I wouldn’t say it’s honesty because that has been pretty constantly prevalent in my work. I think it’s more just growing up and more being frustrated at life and feeling the beauty in life. I can’t be so negative.

What do you feel is the biggest sonic shift within this new work compared to the past. To some, it may sound more instrumental and with a personal, poppier flare, but do you think there’s more?

It’s definitely much more production based. I think about it as experimental pop and I’ve been worried at times that it won't fit on many playlists or anything. My favorite song on it has no structure at all and more feels like an interlude. It’s got autotune a lot. I feel like I’ve found my production sound and I didn’t know what that meant, but it now means to me that you’re being more colorful with the emotion you're trying to express throughout the production rather than lyrics alone. A lot of the songwriting is very freeform and freestyled.

Would you say that as a person you fear growing up and adulthood? Or is it more so exciting time for you?

I don’t know, it’s both currently. As a person, I’m very future thinking all the time and that's something my parents and friends have noticed since I was very young. I’m trying to get better at living in the present and focusing on little things because I always think ahead and it can get me frustrated.

To ignore the future then, what's one thing you miss from yesterday and one thing you're grateful for today?

At the moment the stability that was present during school. I had so much hatred for education and argued with a lot of teachers and knew I could be a lot more productive with research on my own, and I have been this year. But the fact is that I’m independent and have to be productive in whatever way possible. Whether it’s admin or creative or research. And even though I’m doing the best in those areas, the lack of satisfaction is weird. It’s disheartening. Once Zack Villere said to me that when you have a job, which I don't currently, it forces you to use your time wisely. When I've made the songs I'm proud of, It’s always a happy accident, so trying to create music daily isn’t as easy as it used to be. Maybe I'm learning new production things daily but it doesn't mean a new song is coming every day, and that's fine.

To you, who’s your individual hero and why do they hold significance to you?

I mean, Matty has been huge for me with this new era of his. I really connect with his values, morally and aesthetically and I’m so grateful he connected with me, but it also makes the world feel smaller. Which is good and bad and it’s just growth. I really look up to my friends as well.

Knowing you personally, I know you really value friendship and heavily bring it into your life. And then that asks, for you as an artist, what that means and what value there is in having such a collective group that's following the scene you helped cultivate?

It’s huge. I didn't have friends for a while until the end of high school. I met my art director and we became best friends soon after. I don't have tons of friends but I've realized more and more that everyone I have is extremely talented and this group of musicians is really special. I hope in the next year it shows that this collective is one worth taking note of because I think there's so much talent in this group and some of the songs are going to be huge and influential.

Does it matter to you and do you take pride in being part of a scene, or as someone who's rejected past scenes labeled on you, does there hold any weight in the idea?

It’s really special to be a part of it. I never think that I need it, but without, it would be much much much harder. It’s not from a place of validation but more knowing people are on the same boat. Getting coffee with Luke puts me in the right track of mind and James Ivy has really been so inspiring as a songwriter.

Do you personally think that artistic immortality and really leaving a legacy is overrated or does it matter to you as an artist?

Yeah, I think it does matter, that's why a lot of us do this. You don't have to think too much about it if you are staying true to yourself and capturing the moments properly, which takes a long time to figure out. A lot of time. My favorite artists all did that like Prince or D‘Angelo.

Then what do you hope your immortality is?

That's huge. I would love for someone to be caring by the time I’m dead. I’m thinking of Nick Drake a lot. No one knew him at all, died a poor man, and now he’s regarded as one of the greatest songwriters. No one can do Nick Drake music. My immortality comes within honesty I think, also, being focused and passionate and being someone who cared about their work. And of course, to push things and be counter-culture.

What do you really feel true happiness is and how do you hope to achieve it?

When Luke did a little interview with me, he asked what I most want in life, and I said to be at peace. I also don't think that’s going to happen really. But, to be truly at peace. Inspiring work as well, to be someone others can learn from. Goddard does that for me currently. Collaborating with friends as well, the song Seungjin, Luke and I made still I love so much and it makes me feel true happiness. True happiness, god damn. What gives you true happiness?

Me? I guess I think a lot of Plato’s idea of the cave and that whole allegory. I’m butchering it but he basically gives this story of people chained in a cave and all they can see are shadows on a wall and that's all they know. But one day they escape and see the outside world and really ‘see the light’ and have that epiphany. And to me that's what matters, to constantly have an epiphany and to see the light. I had one of those moments meeting Harry, Drake, and James in New York because I felt I escaped an anti-social cave. It's the feeling when you read a challenging book and at the end, you're so proud and feel so much stronger mentally. I guess for you it’s writing a song and realizing you pushed yourself further than you ever have.

I totally resonate with that. That search for epiphanies. If you forget about that then the music isn't going to come. That's kind of been my focus this week, feeling that style of energy. I listened to a bunch of records with my friends just lying to the carpet and those moments are just complete awe at not thinking of anything but simply experiencing music and feeling sound. It's a less manic style of excitement.

And personally, maybe you find the same thing, but through difficult episodes no longer is there wallowing in self-pity, but instead, I question when the epiphany will come and it becomes exciting. Sadness is exciting now.

Even being uninspired. The question of what will pull you out of that and what will be the next wave of happiness.

Yeah, I found myself listening to the same music constantly for months but then I hit a dry spot and then boom, I found Loveless. And now everything is a complete different soundwave. It’s realizing that un-inspiration and odd lonely moments are just the dark before the dawn.

Absolutely. I've been having that feeling so much and it is so far and above the single best.

There’s a great Kevin Shields quote where he says the music should be like an endless horizon you're always chasing and that you're always running towards this endless horizon.

That's very true, and it's also applicable to life in that sense that it's what we’re always doing.

To kind of come back to the earlier idea as a close, if you could title your entire autobiography, what would you title the whole book and what do you want it to say?

There's this poem that would sum it up it's called ‘Here Lies..’ by Stevie Smith. It goes like this:

Here lies a poet who would not write

His soul runs screaming through the night,

‘Oh give me paper, give me pen,

And I will very soon begin.’

Poor soul, keep silent. In death’s clime

There’s no pen, paper, notion -- and no Time.

It's an all composing resonation to who I think I am as an artist and person.

Do you have one to shoutout or a thought you want to know you've said?

James Ivy is the best songwriter around today. Shoutout Max who did the cover art for Only Romantics, you are an extremely talented artist. The collective, which they know who they are. I don't know what I’d be doing without them. It’s so special to have that.

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Words and Interview by Guy Mizrahi