Donna Tartt with Her Pug, Pongo.

hektor knew he was already dead and andromache knew it too. but still she drew him a bath.. hope really is an open wound on the souls of mankind. and what a wound to tend to

Garden Witch | A4 Print by NessPrints

How to feel like an ancient empress

*Wear velvet, silk, fine fabrics

*Take long baths with milk, honey, and olive oil

*Wear perfume with frankincense or rose or myrrh or neroli

*Wear gold and pearls and precious stones

*Paint your nails red or gold

*Put lavender satchels in your drawers

*Have good posture

*Give yourself a facial massage

*Speak with confidence–no one has the right to overpower your voice

*Rub a body oil into your skin when you get out of the bath

*Use a face oil with your moisturizer

*Wear a watch and be punctual

*Listen to those in need

*Clean and declutter your space

*Smile–but only when you want to

*Braid your hair

*Read novels or folklore/myth or poetry

*Be kind to children–have no sympathy for those who would hurt them

*Use cosmetics with pearl powder

*Go to bed early

*Eat well

connections between the humane, the monstrous, and the divine:

1. “Wanna make a monster? Take the parts of yourself that make you uncomfortable–your weaknesses, bad thoughts, vanities, and hungers–and pretend they’re across the room. It’s too ugly to be human. It’s too ugly to be you. Children are afraid of the dark because they have nothing real to work with. Adults are afraid of themselves.” (richard siken, from editor’s pages: black telephone)

2. “Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?” (clarice lispector, the hour of the star)

3. “This beast, this angel is both you and I.” (adrienne rich, from the complete poems: this beast, this angel)

4. “Frankenstein not only gives form to the dialetic of monstrosity itself and raises questions about the pleasures and dangers of textual production, it also demands a rethinking of the entire Gothic genre in terms of who rather than what is the object of terror. By focusing upon the body as the locus of fear, Shelley’s novel suggests that it is people (or at least bodies) who terrify people, not ghosts or gods, devils or monks, windswept castles or labyrinthine monasteries.” (j. halberstam, skin shows: gothic horror and the technology of monsters)

5. “Monsters exist because they are part of the divine plan, and in the horrible features of those same monsters the power of the creator is revealed.” (umberto eco, the name of the rose)

6. “But girls contain multitudes. We are made up of so many odd parts. The reason that the monster in Frankenstein is so memorable is that, when it opens its mouth, out comes the voice of an alienated teenage girl.” (heather o’neill, portrait of the artist as a young corpse)

7. “God should have made girls lethal when he made monsters of men.” (elisabeth hewer, wishing for birds)

8. “I think the devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.” (fyodor dostoevsky, the brothers karamazov)

love makes you do really stupid things

concept playlists

feel better;  it’s been a long week, not moving from your permanently dark bedroom, your phone forgotten under the bed with a hundred missed messages, but you’re finally opening your eyes and seeing a sliver of early morning sunlight filter in behind the curtains that a mysterious breeze blew open.

daisy chains;  it’s late spring or early summer and you’re dozing with your best friends in the grass, the slow and peaceful brush of the warm breeze keeping you in that state of just waking from a pleasant dream.

songs to run away to;  you’re packing an overnight bag and taking the first bus out of the city. you’re not exactly running away, but you don’t plan on coming back. all you know is that your only goal is to keep on running.

classical jams;  it’s your fancy neighbour’s annual ball held in their gothic castle and you’re getting turnt to tchaikovsky while very deliberately disappointing your parents who wanted you to use the occasion to find an upstanding suitor.

dark academia but it slaps;  vague fuck the school system vibes, doing stupid shit with your close friends, caffeinated all-nighters, a chaotic gleam in your eye as you throw paper planes made from your essays out of the highest window in campus, not knowing if your friend really did commit murder. in this household we don’t take ourselves too seriously.

when oscar wilde wrote “there are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely-or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands” i felt that

“I am too young and I’ve loved you too much.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky / The Brothers Karamazov