— HOGWARTS SEEKERS

subjects as dark academia aesthetics

english: knit turtlenecks, corduroy pants. going to stationery stores and buying ink. writing notes and penning stories in leather-bound notebooks. critiquing your friend’s essay as you walk hurriedly through a grove of oak trees in the rain on your way to class.

math: perpetually foggy glasses. biting your pencil eraser to focus when you’re stuck on a particularly difficult problem. taking notes and putting them into a worn binder, bursting with variegated papers. late night study sessions fueled by multiple cups of black tea.

chemistry: heavy old textbooks covered in post-it notes. empty beakers sitting in the windowsill, reflecting random patterns of light onto the classroom walls. a cozy striped sweater peeking out from underneath a pristine white lab coat. coffee from the local cafe, filled just to the brim with creamer - very precisely, a skill learned from hours spent measuring chemicals.

history: dark woolen coats, long socks hidden under plaid pants. old maps from all across the glove hung around the room. analyzing (and admiring!) prolific writing and pieces of art that have survived the test of time. long walks on cobblestone streets, stopping to read on the steps of a museum.

latin: sturdy leather backpacks with straps. stopping to explain the meaning of words and their roots, followed by looks of intrigue. writing latin sayings into tea-stained planners. sitting in a cafe, eating a macaron in a window booth and watching people walk by.

art: hair pulled back into a low bun, random strands poking out. hands always stained with paint, charcoal - the medium changes daily. sketching under a sycamore tree, its leaves slowly browning. standing in front of a painting in a museum, becoming lost in it, slowly pulled back in time into its story.

The Booksellers (D.W. Young, 2019)

Wenzel Tornøe (detail)

Paul Éluard, Victory of Guernica (Trans. by Wallace Fowlie)

obsessed with this girl in my bio class who always brings a full litre bottle of coke to every lesson, today she said “im just genuinely not a nice person” to my bio teacher when he asked her why she swore so much. In year eleven before one of our gcse exams as we were lining up outside the exam hall she came up to me and said “what exam is this” and when i told her physics she said “yeah i think i can do that” and got in line

saturday reading 

you’re either mentally stable or your favourite comfort movie is Dead Poets Society

hand-written manuscripts by Lee Luvisi

dark academia but it’s online school

- waking up early in the morning to watch the sunrise, even though you don’t actually need to

- staying up late to read or paint because you don’t have to get up early

- handwriting assignments that should be typed and submitted digitally

- having a coffee cup with you, rather than a thermos because you don’t have to take it anywhere

- still getting ready and dressed so that you can feel focused on your work in the mornings

- emailing your teachers to see if they have any extra reading related to the topic

- turning in all of the assignments for the week earlier than the rest of your class because you wanted to finish them early

- not doing any assignments for the week because you were too interesting in researching about different planets or the deep sea