see-through-stars

Latest Posts by see-through-stars

corrupted godhood. reluctant false messiah. prophecy as a creeping all consuming malady. does the oracle see the future or make the future? the horror of trapping yourself inescapably on purpose. the chains of destiny dragging you towards the path you are fighting tooth and nail to free yourself from. there never having been a chance to begin with. no other choice to make. but making that choice regardless.

STEPPING INSIDE OF THE VOID .

a collection of sentence starters from the warning's album keep me fed . edited to fit rp needs , adjust pronouns as necessary , note that there are some spanish sentences ! warnings for darker tones , swears ,

❛ so what if i'm selfish , everyone else is . ❜

❛ you're not a product of god , quit telling yourself this , ❜

❛ you always come back over & over , ❜

❛ put your ego where your mouth is , ❜

❛ it's way too late , ❜

❛ pray to your god 'til you're chewed up & spit out , ❜

❛ i'll be seeing you underground , ❜

❛ i'm bleeding just to feel alive , ❜

❛ life is nothing more than passing the time , ❜

❛ give me violence , ❜

❛ i want to make mistakes & live in regret , ❜

❛ if there's a price to pay , i'll deal with it when i'm dead , ❜

❛ show me that i'm human , ❜

❛ i have lost the pleasure , ❜

❛ skin on skin means nothing if there's no blood to bleed , ❜

❛ simply quenching hunger doesn't kill the need , ❜

❛ i don't mean to make you nervous , ❜

❛ just check if my heart's still beating , ❜

❛ it's not your fault , ❜

❛ dime, ¿qué más quieres ? ❜

❛ la sed que te da solo me hace recordar con qué poco yo te puedo ahogar , ❜

❛ sin fallar lo que tú puedas necesitar , aquí va a estar , ❜

❛ ya no te lo niegues , ❜

❛ aunque a veces quieras escapar , yo sé que aquí te vas a quedar , ❜

❛ won't you tell me what to say ? ❜

❛ pull me in & keep me nice & quiet , ❜

❛ won't you fill my void ? ❜

❛ you know you love it when i need you , ❜

❛ i find desire leaves me frozen , ❜

❛ go in for the kill , ❜

❛ you leave me begging for more , ❜

❛ i want it & you know it , ❜

❛ you like it when i'm broken , ❜

❛ it's the hope that kills you , ❜

❛ i'm still aching & breaking , ❜

❛ i wish i could enjoy worthless means of communicating , ❜

❛ i close my eyes till it all fades , ❜

❛ you can take all that you want , but it will never be enough , ❜

❛ cut me open , pay attention , ❜

❛ i will obey , ❜

❛ ' i don't care ' is such an easy lie , ❜

❛ tell me , are you satisfied ? ❜

❛ you think you're good enough , ❜

❛ you're so blissfully unaware , ❜

❛ you've got it so bad , ❜

❛ you're just a burnout , ❜

❛ the world moves on without you , ❜

❛ if you're going to rot , then add to the plot , ❜

❛ shut your mouth , ❜

❛ they're always watching you , ❜

❛ isn't it normal to love what we hate ? ❜

❛ give me something to believe , ❜

❛ the chaos drives me wild , ❜

❛ if this can't bring me to life , what will ? ❜

❛ i can't take anymore , ❜

❛ you greedy little fucker , ❜

❛ you're dressed for the slaughter , ❜

❛ love me , hate me , am i worth it to you ? ❜

❛ make me be perfect for you , ❜

❛ i couldn't die as the martyr , ❜

❛ shovel it down my throat , wash it down with remorse , ❜

❛ the silence at midnight feels like your nails down my back , ❜

❛ try not to think about it too much , ❜

❛ you've got me begging , ❜

❛ give me your psychosomatic love , ❜

❛ if you crawl to me , will you reflect what i need ? ❜

❛ the way you hurt me is never enough , ❜

❛ if you want it all , just take it , ❜

The Ultimate Dark Academia Book Recommendation Guide Ever

The title of this post is clickbait. I, unfortunately, have not read every book ever. Not all of these books are particularly “dark” either. However, these are my recommendations for your dark academia fix. The quality of each of these books varies. I have limited this list to books that are directly linked to the world of academia and/or which have a vaguely academic setting.

Dark Academia staples:

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

Dead Poets Society by Nancy H. Kleinbaum

Vita Nostra by Maryna Dyachenko

Dark academia litfic or contemporary:

Bunny by Mona Awad

The Idiot by Elif Batuman

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever

White Ivy by Susie Yang

The Cloisters by Katy Hays

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates

Attribution by Linda Moore

Dark academia thrillers or horror:

In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

Ghosts of Harvard by Francesca Serritella

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

The It Girl by Ruth Ware

Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian

Dark academia fantasy/sci-fi:

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

The Betrayals by Bridget Collins

Dark academia romance:

Gothikana by RuNyx

Alone With You in the Ether by Olivie Blake

Dark academia YA or MG:

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

Crave by Tracy Wolff

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

Dark academia miscellaneous:

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou

Alphabet of Thorn by Patricia A. McKillip

front man in squid game s2 is just korean! mads mikkelsen send tweet

arcane videoessays bc i love arcane and i love videoesays so

How Arcane Crafted the Perfect Fight Scene (an analysis of the Ekko/Jinx fight in S1)

Jinx Most Mysterius Line Explained (Two Theories) (i cant sum up this video, just watch it)

How Arcane Writes Women (self-explanatory)

This is a Perfect Side Character (an Ekko analysis)

The Color of Fascism: Arcane, Aesthetics and Opressions (study of the usage and meanings of colors in the show)

the dance matters even more than you think (explanation of why S2 E7 was so important)

+little plus if you know spanish: El personaje que lo cambio todo: Isha (how Isha changed everything in Arcane)

if anyone has recs.....

IS ANYONE ELSE TERRIBLY INTRIGUED ABOUT THE FACT THAT WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THE ARCANE S2 SOUNDTRACK TRACK 10??? LIKE???

It has to be someone suuuper cool for the song's title and artist to remain unknown when we know the rest of the soundtrack!

This is what it looks like on Spotify:

— Nikita Gill

What are some chronic illnesses that can only occur in a fantasy setting?

[on the verge of having a complete breakdown] i need to make some kind of list or perhaps sort things into categories

obsessed with characters being saved against their will. being knocked unconscious and carried away from a danger they won't stop trying to fight. being shoved through a portal somewhere far away and safe right before it closes. trying to self-sacrifice only to have the exact person they're trying to save swap their places at the last second. getting the only cure to the disease or curse bc the person administering it loves them too much to give it to anyone else, including themselves. being thrown to safety right as they had accepted dying. someone else they thought had gotten to safety running back to drag them out of danger. it's so fucking tasty

i have such a love for characters who descend into madness or villainy out of deep, deep empathy. characters who fundamentally cannot cope with the cruel realities they find themselves in and blow up about it in spectacular fashion. fallen angel type characters with tears of outrage in their eyes. characters who break before they bend, and break so badly they splatter blood all over their noble ideals. every variation on it gets me so good

i looooove characters who are sacrificial lamb coded. characters who have never lived for themselves. characters born to be a tool, a weapon, a sacrifice, all of the above. a character raised by the heroes to save the world, at any expense, even their own health, even their own life. a character raised by the villains to end the world, at any expense, even their own health, even their own life. characters who are denied personhood so they can be used as tools instead. characters who never even had a chance to be people because they were shaped into something else from the moment they were born. characters who were born to die.

no more cold and calculating i want warm and calculating. i want characters who use deductive reasoning to figure out whether their friend would like a wool or cotton quilt based off of their lifestyle, career, hobbies, and habits. i want "your nails are often chipped because you work for a law firm as a typist for this company which notoriously underbudgets their IT department, so ive bought you a keyboard cover that will not only prevent manicure damage but is also sensory friendly because I know you dislike certain clicking noises". i want characters who figure out their friends entire schedules and social battery levels just by examining who only use that info to know when the best time is to hang out with them. i want characters who create elaborate, supervillain level schemes just to get their hands on some collectible they know their best friend wants. most of all i want characters who do not use intelligence and reasoning skills as a reason to be cruel but as a means to be kind

folklore is for the girls who can't bring themselves to close the last page of a book. for the girls who hate the cold but love the feeling of snowflakes upon eyelashes. who wear sweaters to cover up their aching, who notice every single little detail, who sit in solitude and silence and observe their loved ones. for academic validation girls who love the moon. for girls scared to get drunk, because of the fear that they will lose everything if they lose themselves.for the oldest sisters. girls with not a lot of friends but the ones they do have are considered family, who appreciate the little things, who tell their mothers everything. girls who love their families with their entire soul and just want their grandparents to be proud of them, and know that they are loved. girls who are 'mature for their age' but miss growing up, who sneak stolen glances and feel like second chances, girls who feel forgettable and retreat into themselves wondering if anyone will care. girls with quiet voices, who don't know how to dance, who worry over everything. for the introverts. for the ones who long to be understood with their whole hearts so much it hurts. girls who hope to recieve a love letter at least once in their life. girls who like rain. girls who want to say i love you but the words get caught in their throats. girls who forget about their stuffed animals for a month or so and then hold them tight while sleeping to apologize. the girls who don't know if they're an augustine or a betty, who love and love with all their hearts but end up brushed aside, wrists broken and bruised from fighting their feelings. girls like me.

Spoke to a gen z person the other night and apparently the young folks don't know about the very legal sites from which you can access public domain media (including Dracula, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and other Victorian gothic horror stories)?

Like this young person didn't even know about goddamn Gutenberg which is a SHAME. I linked to it and they went "aw yiss time to do a theft" and I was like "I mean yo ho ho and all that, sure, but. you know gutenberg is entirely legal, right?"

Anyway I'm gonna put this in a few Choice Tags (sorry dracula fans I DID mention it though so it's fair game) and then put some Cool Links in a reblog so this post will still show UP in said tags lmao.

hey, don’t cry. one half flour one half yogurt knead into dough and fry for easy flatbread and dip in balsamic vinegar, okay?

VIDEO ESSAYS 2 (PT. 1)

The Adorkable Misogyny of The Big Bang Theory what happens to youtubers after they “expire?” the problem with aesthetics QUEERING THE SLASHER: SCREAM why you hate learning Heterofatalism: WHY straight women aren’t okay. How David Fincher Uses Pop Music Dunkirk - The Art Of Fear THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. (2015): Style Vs. Substance Homosexuality Is Not Moral And Here’s Why Alternative self help is brainwashing you. How To Harm Your Audience - Wonder Woman 1984 Dark Academia: The Corruptive Allure of Aesthetic Beauty TW: trigger warnings aren’t helping you How CAGE THE ELEPHANT Overcame Their Fear of Music Netflix’s Decisions are a Very Funny Joke What Makes Disney Villains so Gay? Succession Deserves the Hype the problem with teen dramas Miss Congeniality’s Mixed Messages | Good & Bad Takeaways The Lotus Blossom Stereotype - Dangers of the Asian Fetish How To Do A Fight Scene Why the Media NEEDED Joker to Fail you’re not s3xually liberated, you’re 16 Why You Should Stop Using Times New Roman Why a movie like Who Framed Roger Rabbit will NEVER be made again The Babadook: The New Physicality of Ghosts in Horror Get Out — A New Perspective in Horror Why The Shining is Terrifying The Importance of Horror (Why Horror Movies Don’t Suck) Vaping: A Lesson in Irony I don’t have a dream job: self-help scam or revolutionary concept? How To Do A Plot Twist Hunger Games clones and how they work Why The End of Jenna Marbles Is The End of Authenticity This Angel YA romance killed my ability to feel joy or love tiktok is kind of bad for fashion The Problem with Museums Is TikTok Hurting the Music Industry? I HATE “Guilty Pleasure” Music (A Rant) our obsession with glowing up Triumph of the Will and the Cinematic Language of Propaganda Talent Belongs to the Beautiful - How Media Manipulates your Tastes Edgar Wright - How to Do Visual Comedy NIETZSCHE: THE MAN WHO VIBE CHECKED GOD KANYE EXPLAINED: A Guide To Bipolar Disorder & Creativity Sleep is Just Death Being Shy This Is NOT How People Talk Men In Black International — How to Build a Toxic Hero How Spielberg Shoots A Film At 3 Budget Levels

i want to be a sweet and friendly girl but there’s all this anxiety. and the horrors

stargazing, the smell of earth after it rains, misty mornings by the sea, earl grey tea, lavender, the smell of old books, charcoal drawings, braids, long conversations late at night, quiet afternoons spent listening to music, baking, owls, winter, open windows, getting so absorbed in a book you forget the world exists, snow globes, watching milk swirl into coffee, getting up early to watch the sunrise, the sound of rain on a rooftop as you try to fall asleep, keeping a journal

Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.

The hopeless romantic urge to look at the moon and stars, forever.

my five year plan? sit in the sun as long as possible. take millions of pictures of sunset. smile more :) hold doors open for people. take a selfie with a penguin. read 237362808 books watch 33563737 movies. be brave & be strong. befriend the neighborhood kids and tell them stories. dont worry about falling in love. FOLLOW JOY.

i love sunsets, i love discovering new music, i love stargazing, i love walking, i love the smell of earth after it rains, i love coffee, i love the smell of books, i love quiet afternoons, i love open windows, i love the underlying flavors in food, i love poetry, i love freshly baked bread, i love painting my nails, i love flowers growing through cracks in the pavement. etc etc

there is love in this story. even in its most brutal end. there is love in the story. how? where? here: here in me telling it to you, in spite of everything. because of everything.

annotating my books gives me a unique sort of literary validation i don't think we as a society talk enough about. like here is my favorite book i annotated staying up for days and nights. here, my words are attached with the writers forever on these pages now and i think that's just so beautiful

chaotic academia is annotating gen Z humour on 100+ year old books

brought a poem to the gun fight

oh my god there are so many books to read and instruments to learn and languages to speak and poems to write and oranges to eat and ideologies to study and songs to sing and films to watch and people to kiss and

something that stuck with me once, way back in middle school when i was still learning how to write - my teacher said "writing shock and tragedy is easy, it's humor that's the hardest."

i have been up and down the halls of academia. i have the fancy degree and the experience in publishing. i think i paved most of my own road with the little bricks of sorrow i had stored inside of me. i know i did it mostly with works that are blisteringly lonely. i know why we write like that. it's lifesaving.

but yeah, i mean. i also know how much people think that "sad" media is the same thing as "good" media. our human desire to connect is so hard-pressed that we immediately latch onto any broken themes. the bullied kids and the tales of inspiration. people keep saying things like "glass onion" and "everything everywhere" weren't actually good. because, you know, they're. happy. or happy-ish. happy enough. and we only value art if it's grimdark-adjacent.

do you know - people still consistently whine at me that my writing would be so good if i just capitalized things. i used to flinch. i get kind of a weird, vindictive little rush these days - i get to say thank you for the comment! i have chronic pain and this is how i conserve my hands so i can write more during the day :) grammar isn't real anyway! and now they're trapped in the room with me, you know? i get to pull out my map and show them how grammar is not the same thing as good writing.

writers have this thing. we scratch at our insides, constantly, prying our lives apart into splinters. prying the splinters apart into atoms. when we combust something into poetry, we control it. it cannot hurt us if it exists outside of us rather than burning a hole through the bottom of our lungs. it's not a wonder to me that so much of what i make comes out like a death gasp. i spent a long time at the bottom. i keep going back, too. when you're down there for so long, the only thing you can exhale is fumes.

but humor is hard. humor needs timing; which i can't promise in a paragraph. i can kind-of force it through careful spacing, but i have no idea how fast you're reading these things. humor needs a somewhat awareness of your audience, when really - anybody could be looking. humor needs us to understand what the joke is, why it's a joke, and to think - ha! that is funny. in tragedy, everyone understands the metaphor of a kicked puppy. in humor, you need to introduce them to the concept of a dog.

and forget about positivity. forget about anything not made for adults explicitly. every time i see a well-made children's media piece, i feel fucking horrible for the creators. most of the time, people see children's media as being sort of "not worth" applause, even though i'm pretty sure they have to work twice as hard. i have no idea how hard it must be to not be able to have your character just say. "well, fuck." something about a message of peace or friendship or caring - for some reason, that makes the media not for adults. like, okay. i'm pretty sure my father actually, out of all of us, could use a good book on how to control his temper and talk about his feelings.

but whatever. i write a short story about my ocd, and how it's fucking killing me. it gets an award. it gets published. i write a short story about my ocd, and how i'm overcoming it, and how my days are getting lighter and starting to flourish. i keep getting ghosted. no response. it just is lacking... something.

is this it, forever? you can be an artist, okay. but the trade off is that the things you make - if they're happy? if they're joyful? people will say it's stupid and pandering. you bite your nails off. you file your teeth. you hear something inside of you breaking.

the other day in a writing group, someone i'd thought of as a friend said: "you write so much better these days! i love what you make when you'd rather be dead."