Bloodfromleeches - Ideals Of A Procrastinator

MBTI: DARK ACADEMIA AESTHETICS

ISTJ: jet black fountain pens and thin wire glasses, illustrated books on lepidology, microscopes with delicate geers, library card-catalogues, neat signatures, the scent of formaldehyde and the art of precision.

ESTJ: shiny black Oxford loafers and white button down shirts, busts of Roman generals, prefect’s badges, sepia maps, grandfather clocks, translating Herodotus, sharp silver letter openers with bloodred handles.

ISTP: leather-banded watches and ships-in bottles, sketched diagrams of bridges, chesterfield coats, bronze protractors and disheveled piles of graph paper, Voltaire quotes, chalk equations, pulling all nighters.

ESTP: roguishly loose striped neckties and crooked grins, varsity sweaters and scraped knees, secret passageways to the rooftops, Beat poetry, the scent of cedar, steam engines barreling through winding mountains.

ESFJ: black monogrammed gloves and red scarves, snowball fights, cups of hot chocolate, angelic choral voices, etiquette books, Jane Austen novels, silk robes, ballet shoes, light through stained glass windows.

ISFJ: cups of Earl Grey and wool button down cardigans, pressed lavender in books of Emily Dickinson poetry, piano sheet music, personalized wax letter seals, watercolor paintings in faded blues and greys.

INFP: Chelsea boots, olive green sweaters and tousled hair, existentialist novels and espresso in rainy cafes, signed postcards and fresh baguettes in bicycle baskets, moving to a new city alone, dried roses and stormy eyes.

ENFP: Disheveled brown corduroy, stradivarius violins, bell towers full of bats, Shakespeare comedies performed for raucous audiences, chai tea, Irish setters, impassioned marginalia, Botticelli curls, ivy creeping over red brick.

ISFP: reading Romantic poetry in grave yards, black turtle-necks, charcoal-stained fingertips, record collections, black and white films on antique projectors, gothic spires through fog, gin cocktails, poker faces.

ESFP: Maps hidden on the backs of paintings, muddy derby shoes, bacchinalia rituals, the scent of pomade, Oscar Wilde essays, crystal goblets and crystal chandeliers, green grapes and purple velvet, curled ram’s horns.

INFJ: tattered paperback copies of Virginia Woolf novels, tower windows, local ghost stories, Faire Isles sweaters, letter-writing by candlelight, flutes, paintings of rosy-cheeked Greek nymphs, pistachio macarons.

ENFJ: reading Whitman aloud, frescos of angels, paisley pocket squares, sumptuous dinner parties, passports and polaroids, oil portraits of royalty, studying multiple languages, plates of pasta, emerald rings.

INTJ: silver cuff links and black umbrellas, antique chess boards, ravens perched on wrought-iron gates, photography dark rooms, anatomical illustrations, suits of armor, stone gargoyles, hedge mazes, horror short stories.

ENTJ: leather-bound planners, tartan scarves, memorized political treatises, debate podiums and briefcases, black coffee, bookstores in the morning, statues of Nike, gold pocketwatches, fresh newspapers, brown berets.

INTP: oversized tweed blazers with elbow patches, tortoises in terrariums, the scent of old books, spiral staircases, stargazing under indigo skies, knee-high socks, Sherlock Holmes stories, breaking secret codes.

ENTP: glasses of dark red wine, laurel crowns, starting arguments about philosophy, tortoise shell glasses, domed ceilings, lore of trickster gods, snowy owls, Socrates’ dialogues, DaVinci sketches, ripe pomegranates.

dark academia lookbook from a conservation biology major // ♡

Research ideas for bored students

The evolution of national identity in the country of your interest (ancient or modern)

The influence of paganism on christianity in Ireland and Scotland.

The impact that fairy beleif had on the Scottish witch hunts.

How fashion was influenced by the second world war.

The differences between and evolution of first, second and third wave feminism.

The impact the post-modern globalism has had on human rights.

Depictions of homosexuality in the ancient world (are there similarities/differences between nations?)

The evolution of tavern and drinking cultue in England, Scotland and the Netherlands.

The portrayal of women in early-modern English ballads.

The use of certain tunes or melodies in E.M. English ballads.

Portrayals of the devil in E.M. English ballads.

The difference between collective memory and historical facts (war is a time when our memories are often romanticised).

Fashion in the Elizabethan era and how it changed after.

The evolution of pens and writing materials

Historical methods of making paint/paint thinners.

Men in the early-modern witch hunts.

Differences between old world and new world witch hunts.

The use of torture in witch trials and the laws regarding torture (differences between countries)?

The use of salt as currency.

Depictions of intoxiication in ancient art.

How ancient societies viewed drinking and how they drank.

The lives of great poets.

The decline of the latin language.

The English civil war during the 17 century.

The relationship between ancient Celts and the Romans.

Religious symbolism in early modern art.

The history and evolution of marriage.

“In Praise of Folly,” by Desiderius Erasmus

The Protestant Reformation and/or the resulting split of protestantism (calvinism, lutheranism, anabaptists, etc.)

The history of Christmas in the new world.

Add your own in the comments!

Hi, i love your posts and the dark academia aesthetic and I want to start dressing in the da style but there are no good thrift stores where I live, could you recommend some online clothes shops please?

Hey! Sorry for the delay, here are some ideas that will hopefully help.

Facebook Marketplace and ThreadUp are great options for online thrifting, though the former can also depend on your location and honestly the furniture is the greatest selling point, at least for me. But I do often find good shoes on there. 

Etsy is great for higher quality staple pieces, especially for good materials like linen. Though I know it can run a bit more expensive, especially since the stores often sell hand made products. So, for things on the cheaper side, try:

Stein: Stein is great in both price and style. They have a filtering system that includes the “elegant” filter, which gives tons of dark academia styled clothing. The only downside is most of their clothes isn’t great quality in terms of fabric; it’s mostly polyester. You can filter fabric type for higher quality, like cotton. Still, I’d highly recommend them for unique cheap pieces as well as staples. They’re pants especially are great. 

Old Navy: This surprised me at least, but Old Navy has some very high quality items, if you’re willing to hunt. If you use the right keywords (High waisted, ankle pants, trousers, cigarette pants, button down, etc.) most of their stuff is around 100% cotton, and quite cheap. Most of their stuff is pretty basic, but that means they’re good for cheap basics. 

ASOS: A bit more expensive then the previous two, but still on the lower end price wise. Check out their “suits and tailoring”, especially for good pants or matched sets. Plus, they seem to have a broader array of clothing for different body types, so that’s a bonus. Most of their stuff seems like good quality; they have a lot of linen and cotton blends.

White House Black Market: Okay, now we’re at the more expensive side of things. Obviously with that, comes higher quality. WHBM has some gorgeous stuff, and a lot of my favorite pieces come from them, though admittedly I’ve never bought anything from them that wasn’t heavily discounted or thrifted. They have both staples and some wonderful statment pieces. You can try entering higher end brands like them into ThreadUp though, so maybe try that if this is too expensive?

Let me know if you have any more questions, and everyone else feel free to add more in the comments! 

Masterpost of Free Gothic Literature & Theory

Classics Vathek by William Beckford Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë The Woman in White  & The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu The Turn of the Screw by Henry James The Monk by Matthew Lewis The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin The Vampyre; a Tale by John Polidori Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson Dracula by Bram Stoker The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Short Stories and Poems An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce Songs of Innocence & Songs of Experience by William Blake The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Pre-Gothic Beowulf The Divine Comedy  by Dante Alighieri A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe Paradise Lost by John Milton Macbeth by William Shakespeare Oedipus, King of Thebes by Sophocles The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster

Gothic-Adjacent Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood Jane Eyre & Villette by Charlotte Brontë Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems by Coleridge and Wordsworth The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens The Idiot & Demons (The Possessed) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas Moby-Dick by Herman Melville The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells

Historical Theory and Background The French Revolution of 1789 by John S. C. Abbott Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth by A. C. Bradley The Tale of Terror: A Study of the Gothic Romance by Edith Birkhead On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle Demonology and Devil-Lore by Moncure Daniel Conway Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism by Inman and Newton On Liberty by John Stuart Mill The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Feminism in Greek Literature from Homer to Aristotle by Frederick Wright

Academic Theory Introduction: Replicating Bodies in Nineteenth-Century Science and Culture by Will Abberley Viewpoint: Transatlantic Scholarship on Victorian Literature and Culture by Isobel Armstrong Theories of Space and the Nineteenth-Century Novel by Isobel Armstrong The Higher Spaces of the Late Nineteenth-Century Novel by Mark Blacklock The Shipwrecked salvation, metaphor of penance in the Catalan gothic by Marta Nuet Blanch Marching towards Destruction: the Crowd in Urban Gothic by Christophe Chambost Women, Power and Conflict: The Gothic heroine and “Chocolate-box Gothic” by Avril Horner Psychos’ Haunting Memories: A(n) (Un)common Literary Heritage by Maria Antónia Lima ‘Thrilled with Chilly Horror’: A Formulaic Pattern in Gothic Fiction by Aguirre Manuel The terms “Gothic” and “Neogothic” in the context of Literary History by O. V. Razumovskaja  The Female Vampires and the Uncanny Childhood by Gabriele Scalessa Curating Gothic Nightmares by Heather Tilley Elizabeth Bowen, Modernism, and the Spectre of Anglo-Ireland by James F. Wurtz Hesitation, Projection and Desire: The Fictionalizing ‘as if…’ in Dostoevskii’s Early Works by Sarah J. Young Intermediality and polymorphism of narratives in the Gothic tradition by Ihina Zoia

dark science

okay i’m starting a new aesthetic, mashing together dark academia and sciencecore / mysterycore, i call it...

dark science

some dark science stuff:

so like. dark academia but instead of literature (which is pretty good) it focuses on the sciences

biology

chemistry

the natural sciences

forensic science!!

anatomy and physiology

a dash of psychology for good measure

studying the human body inside and out

staying in a lab until the early morning light, distraught and fascinated over your most recent discovery

thinking about science ethics and morality

frankenstein!!

the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde

mad scientists in general

spending hours at a time engulfed in a subject

preserved specimens, bones, pinned insects

trips to science museums

bundling up in warm coats outside, cold air chilling you still

wearing colors just as cold, hues of blue and deep forest green and the gamut of grey to black

having lab gloves or goggles available at all times

messy hair, perhaps pulled back into a bun or ponytail if it’s too long

a fascination with bunsen burners, candles, etc

beakers, graduated cylinders, evaporating dishes, all sorts of science equipment

curious things trapped behind glass, drenched in formaldehyde

mock crime scenes

investigating real crimes, solved or unsolved

hastily written notes written in the fervor of discovery

retracing your steps when an experiment goes awry

glancing behind your back as you walk home from the lab, books under your arm

Masterpost of Free Gothic Literature & Theory

Classics Vathek by William Beckford Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë The Woman in White  & The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu The Turn of the Screw by Henry James The Monk by Matthew Lewis The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin The Vampyre; a Tale by John Polidori Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson Dracula by Bram Stoker The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Short Stories and Poems An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce Songs of Innocence & Songs of Experience by William Blake The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Pre-Gothic Beowulf The Divine Comedy  by Dante Alighieri A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe Paradise Lost by John Milton Macbeth by William Shakespeare Oedipus, King of Thebes by Sophocles The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster

Gothic-Adjacent Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood Jane Eyre & Villette by Charlotte Brontë Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems by Coleridge and Wordsworth The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens The Idiot & Demons (The Possessed) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas Moby-Dick by Herman Melville The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells

Historical Theory and Background The French Revolution of 1789 by John S. C. Abbott Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth by A. C. Bradley The Tale of Terror: A Study of the Gothic Romance by Edith Birkhead On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle Demonology and Devil-Lore by Moncure Daniel Conway Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism by Inman and Newton On Liberty by John Stuart Mill The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Feminism in Greek Literature from Homer to Aristotle by Frederick Wright

Academic Theory Introduction: Replicating Bodies in Nineteenth-Century Science and Culture by Will Abberley Viewpoint: Transatlantic Scholarship on Victorian Literature and Culture by Isobel Armstrong Theories of Space and the Nineteenth-Century Novel by Isobel Armstrong The Higher Spaces of the Late Nineteenth-Century Novel by Mark Blacklock The Shipwrecked salvation, metaphor of penance in the Catalan gothic by Marta Nuet Blanch Marching towards Destruction: the Crowd in Urban Gothic by Christophe Chambost Women, Power and Conflict: The Gothic heroine and “Chocolate-box Gothic” by Avril Horner Psychos’ Haunting Memories: A(n) (Un)common Literary Heritage by Maria Antónia Lima ‘Thrilled with Chilly Horror’: A Formulaic Pattern in Gothic Fiction by Aguirre Manuel The terms “Gothic” and “Neogothic” in the context of Literary History by O. V. Razumovskaja  The Female Vampires and the Uncanny Childhood by Gabriele Scalessa Curating Gothic Nightmares by Heather Tilley Elizabeth Bowen, Modernism, and the Spectre of Anglo-Ireland by James F. Wurtz Hesitation, Projection and Desire: The Fictionalizing ‘as if…’ in Dostoevskii’s Early Works by Sarah J. Young Intermediality and polymorphism of narratives in the Gothic tradition by Ihina Zoia

you’re my favorite person

Dark Academia Lookbook
 “Fashion is what one wears oneself; what is unfashionable is what other people wear.” - Oscar Wilde 
I’ve noticed that a lot of dark academia inspired fashion uses brown and beige as neutrals - which looks great, however they don’t always go with all skin tones (like mine). Here are a few outfit ideas that use black/grey/white as base tones!
Remember, you don’t have to be rich to afford the aesthetic:
Tartan skirt - vintage, charity shop
Green corduroy trousers - vintage, depop
Burgundy paisley shirt - vintage shop
Ugly blue shirt - charity shop
And the burgundy suit was from my y11 prom, which I’m still wearing!