Archive Moodboard For @bakwaaas

So I’ve been really into the Academic Life™ lately and started to notice a few little things that strikes me as dark academia, so here’s a list: 

1. Always wearing my family rings. The women in my family are problematic as hell and definitely have a part on the outcome monstrosity that I am today, so I’ve decided to embrace my biggest fear of becoming one of them in the future by always wearing my grandmother’s ring (that was passed down to her by her mother), my mother’s ring and my aunt’s ring. They’re all on the same hand and constantly haunt me with the reminder of the bad blood that runs through my veins. 

2. Random numbers on the palm of my left hand in black ink. My University’s library is organized in codes and it’s really hard to find a specific book between thousands of others in the archive. Whenever I need a book, I look up its code and write it on my hand before my scavenger hunt - so by the end of the day I have about five or six lines of numbers and letters on my left hand, and nobody outside University knows why. 

3. Walking with the Cryptid™ around campus at weird hours. I love my classical literature teacher, or as we call him, The Myth, but sometimes I feel obligated to grab a coffee with him and just sit on the bandstand to discuss Homer so I can argue with him about his interpretation of the Iliad. Wanna grab a coffee and smoke near the pool so I can tell you why Helen of Troy and Helen of Sparta have different meanings? Oh, you’re at the library and you just found this Longino copy about the Sublime and you want to know if I’m interested in joining you despite being dark already? Hell yeah. 

4. Made up traditions with my friends. C’mon, we’re lit students! We have to be at least a bit pretentious. Drinking mead and absinthe on a horn that the biology students gave us? Speaking in latin with each other when walking on hallways and having other student’s eyes on us? The whole group gathering at this one person’s house every Tuesday for dinner and always wearing all black or all white? Yes. 

5. Explaining concepts to myself (and ghosts) at unholy hours in my room under the shitty yellow light I have for a lamp while smoking a cigarette and drinking reheated coffee. I learn faster when explaining things. I’m not even sorry. 

6. Carrying an umbrella with me every day. It hardly rains in my city and people are always looking at me with a confused expression whenever they see the big pointy black umbrella in my hands. This is actually because I walk to (and back from) Uni every day, so I don’t feel so powerless on the streets. You’ll really try to take my purse? Bring it on, punk.

7. Adding dead words to our vocabulary. My friends and I teamed up to buy this dead words dictionary and now we’re addicted to it. Walking around the corridors and using an old as time vocabulary really makes people curious and whenever the senior teachers hear us they look so intrigued! 

8. So, okay, this one is probably my favorite. We bought a star. Yes. We gathered money to buy a start, named it after our group, and now we frequently go to the physics department observatory to look for it. We even have matching pendants with the location of our start and it’s name.

Extras that are responsible for making this semester look specially dark academia for me: the smell of warm grass that hits me when I’m crossing the campus; me and my friends using Homeric epithets; the feeling of warm shoes when I get home after a long day of walking around campus; constantly handing each other different books that we personally love (and making our group a big book club); the empty perfume bottles and black ballpoint pens at the end of the semester; small and quiet kisses on the knuckles and temple me and my friends got used to give each other whenever we’re close enough to touch; the unfinished chess game I started with my friend still on top of my book pile; honoring Donna Tartt and asking my friend ‘cubitum eamus?’ in front of my latin teacher and having him giggle; the weight of an old, dusty and almost in pieces book about the decline and fall of the roman empire that we particularly love; books that we pick up so often that it’s location is already memorized; sitting in the warm sunlight on the bandstand when changing classes, smoking and drinking way too sugary coffee; ditching linguistics classes to attend a Russian literature lecture on the other side of campus; forgotten pennies on my coat pockets that once were coffee change; my friend who keeps constantly changing languages and speaking in french mid-conversation with us; 

Long walks, warm bookshops

How to be a sustainable dark academic:

Buy clothes from charity shops or second hand online. I know that this is technically part of the aesthetic already, but it's still worth mentioning.

Glass is really difficult to recycle, so use your old wine bottles for candle holders, vases, water bottles, or anything else you can think of.

Try not to wear polyester, or to buy it. I know that it's cheap and easy to get a hold of, but it really isn't that good for the environment, especially if you wash it often, because plastic micropartickes come away from the clothing and are washed away in the water.

Big plus: candles are good for the aesthetic. It might be a bit of a stretch, but limiting your electricity use through using sunlight in the day and candles when it gets dark? Very dark academia.

Trains and buses are criminally underrated modes of transport. And they fit the aesthetic too, because I mean, have you ever seen a Regency poet driving a Prius? I think not.

You could also walk, I guess, if you're a peasant. Or travel in a carriage, which is far more stylish.

Basically, whenever possible, limit your use of single-person vehicles. And things like Über or Taxis too, if you can take a train or a bus instead.

Take a reusable coffee cup with you. If you always have one with you, you won't have to buy coffee in one of those takeaway cups that can't be recycled when you go bookshopping.

Speaking of books, again, try to buy second hand. I regret to say it, but the printing industry isn't exactly the pinnacle of sustainability. There's also always the plus of finding a really nicely bound vintage book if you buy second hand.

I feel like most people in the dark academia community already have this in the bag, but fountain pens. Even just a small thing like throwing away empty biros can really add up. Using a cartridge pen with an ink well or something similar could reduce that wasted plastic, even if just by a very small amount. It fits the aesthetic, too. Every little thing counts.

When it comes to furniture, this aesthetic has it in the bag. Buying second hand and vintage is far better for the environment than buying newer furniture.

Mend your clothes! Again, I think that this really fits the aesthetic of blazers witb elbow patches, but honestly, if you have one vintage wool blazer that you mend over and over for years to come, it's far better for the environment than buying a new polyester blazer from H&M every time you get a hole in the sleeve.

I feel like as far as aesthetics go, DA us one of the best in terms of sustainability, because of the focus on vintage and antique items.

Also, it is A-okay if you don't stick to doing everything sustainably all day every day. It just isn't realistic to be the perfect person, and as long as you make the choice consciously, it's all okay!

Stay safe :)

lesson planning last night while the snow kept on falling

a concept: scene academia

- kandi bracelets with literature quotes

- a blazer over a my chemical romance shirt

- wearing raccoon eyeliner to an academic event or poetry reading

- playing classical music on electric guitar or bass

- detailed notes in sparkly pink notebooks

- vandalized oxfords

- academic clothes, but bright colors

- tidy blue hair

-anticapitalism

- writing a musical analysis of classic literature

How old are you and what do you do for work?

i am immortal and unemployed 

over the moon with the joy of autumn and old books lying on my desk.