Hello I’ve Been Thinking About This A Lot Lately. The Anonymity Of Tumblr Means That I Associate My

I watched half of Bad Samaritan so I had to pause and watch Davd Tennant compilations otherwise I think I would have just been left scarred for life

???/100

I'll definetly have to restart this, but i thought it would be nice to update

bUT I took the first exam and it went pretty well actually I am quite proud of how I did in it. Can't wait for the results!

Now all I have to go through is tomorrow's exam and I am fucking free, cant wait

I will spend the free time betwee the exams studying for the last one. Everything will be okay

no ❤️ vember

I am cryyyinnngg 😭😭😭

Writing Tips/What Beta Readers Taught Me

Since I’ve been learning a lot from my beta readers, I’d thought I’d share what I’ve learned (and just some general writing tips) here. (Mind you, this is just off the top of my head so not everything from the beta notes is included.)

- Besides themes find the “glue” that hold your story together. For example, in Avatar: The Last Airbender, the glue was the Fire Nation War (and trying to stop it). This main goal was present throughout all four seasons, including in the side-quests. All characters had different motivations for teaching Aang, but the war kicked off all the events and was why Aang was learning the elements to begin with.

- In order to help the characters feel more like real people, have them react differently to the same event. For instance, when a character dies, Person A could be sad about it while Person B could be angry.

- Don’t be afraid to extend out scenes for tension.

- Have your character asks questions. Especially if they’re new to a place/culture.

- If you want to do a twist, drop small clues leading up to it, so it won’t come out of nowhere.

- Don’t have the characters share everything with each other.

- For research, try to find a video/source with a first-hand experience. For example, for anxiety, try and find a video with a person talking about what its like to have anxiety.

- It’s always good to have a second pair of eyes of your writing.

- When it comes to descriptions, use the five sense to help draw the reader in. Namely touch, sight, smell, hearing, and taste.

- Have the character’s choices impact the plot, not the other way around. For instance, Aang running off after learning he was the Avatar was what allowed the Fire Nation to succeed in the war. 

- Find the main theme of your story (see chart) and revolve everything (character arcs, chapters, etc.;) around it. This will help cut out fluff chapters and make the writing more cohesive.

I am an engineering student who is also obsessed with dark academia and honestly it’s a lifeline at this point. Romanticizing education helps me deal with the stress of it all and makes me not wanna unaliven’t myself 😃

Here are some things I enjoy about being a STEM major (idk if these classify as dark academia but we’ll go with it):

-First and foremost, Vivaldi. Specifically, Storm. Listening to that piece while doing your work will make you feel like a mad scientist.

Pouring over math, pouring over biology lab work, practicing on a cadaver, anything.

Put that song on and bam, pretentious mad scientist whose on the brink of discovering something that will shatter the scientific community, or quite literally, shatter the world. I never said they were a good person, did I?

- Starting different journals for different subjects. Anatomy, botanicals, chemistry, biology, quantum physics, anything. Just writing, drawing, and sketching and genuinely enjoying learning about all these topics. You never know when it could come in handy.

-Wanting to become the Tony Stark of our times (not the war crimes but the innovation and knowledge) and always daydreaming about creating something magnificient. Maybe you could create an iron suit one day, a real life, fully functioning one.

-Continuing with wanting to become Tony Stark, obsessing over electrical engineering and astrophysics. Learning about flight, the atmosphere, how to build and create flight vehicles, and having millions of sketches of aircrafts on your desk and all over your walls.

-Talking about flight, can we talk about Da Vinci? Growing up obsessed with him and pouring over his artwork and scientific studies. You felt and still feel understood by him. He combines your love for the arts and your love for science beautifully. Wishing you could live in the reinassance era, being a pupil, studying under all of these talented people.

Btw, you’re still obsessed with him. Yes, till now.

-From Da Vinci, discovering Galileo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello, and falling in love with their works. Eventually developing an obsession with the reinassance era in its entirety and basically memorizing the entire timeline and historic events of that time period.

-Visiting as many libraries as you can with the countries you visit. Personally, the most magnificent library I’ve seen is the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

-Having an ancient mythology obsession. Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Ancient Persia, Ancient China, Norse mythology, anything you could get your hands on. These stories shaped your childhood and are still very dear to your heart.

-Hating the idea of monolithic religions from a young age (mainly because of religious trauma) and deciding to rebel by praying to ancient gods. Nothing big.

For me personally, it’s Greek gods. A small prayer to Athena when I’m cleaning or using olive oil or crocheting. A lil prayer to Aphrodite when I’m doing my makeup or skincare. A lil prayer to Artemis when I go shooting. It’s an act of defiance and makes me happy. What’s better than that?

-Also, hating the academic world yet wanting to participate in it. I mean you honestly hate the world at this point but let’s just focus on this. It’s so pretentious and exclusive and misguiding/misleading most of the time. Also, the fact that white, old men are at the top doesn’t really help.

-From that, having an intense hatred for the collegeboard. Going on rants about how pointless and stupid these standardized tests are. I mean, what’s the point of it? Give me one solid reason we take them. Go on, I’m waiting.

-Taking programming for the first time and just simply hating it but also secretly loving it. I mean, there’s nothing more satisfying than submitting your coding assignment and getting an A but those goddamn punctuation signs (idk what else to call them).

Imagine finishing your code then running it and it tells you there’s an error. You search for hours and hours and then finally realise, you wrote ‘}’ instead of ‘]’. A breakdown is on its way.

This just a huge rant lol. It’s what I’ve been doing for the past month so idk? Let’s hope this is relatable. Also idk how to use tags someone pls teach me 😃✋

Subjects that belong in academia proletaria (and should be more appreciated):

Religious Studies - theology, polytheism, ancient evidence of religion in Cape Town cave paintings, timelines of Zoroastrianism and Judaism, Animism and Taoism, Yoruba and Zulu. Respectful visits to Mosques and Temples, puzzling your own spirituality together piece by piece or not at all, never loving the study of it any the less

Geography - glaciers, entire ecosystems in decomposing logs on the forest floor, wildfires and serotinous pine cones, how the Himalayas themselves have stopped wars - documentaries and encyclopaedias, memorised walking routes through rainy heathlands, the scrappy camaraderie of the university mountaineering society and a devotion to the breadth of learning that academics so often dismiss as the generalist’s science

Language - Mandarin, Arabic, Russian, Hindi, Amharic, Portuguese - the dialect of the changing modern world and the roots of the very essence of communication deep in history, audiobooks you can hardly keep up with and pocket books stuffed full of vocabulary

Civil Engineering - bridges, train tracks, redbrick and brutalism - drawing out entire towns in a notebook, scale models and the smell of fresh paint, a wardrobe very clearly divided into “clothes I have already ruined” and “clothes people are surprised to see me in because they aren’t covered in oil or superglue”, a good pair of boots

Education - having loved your subject so much that you couldn’t bear to leave education behind, seeing great things for the next generation even if they don’t quite know where they’re going yet, backpacks full of books to mark and nostalgic home-town teaching placements, a bad photo on your lanyard and students hanging back after class to talk (even when its sixth period and getting dark)

Social Policy, social work - setting off lively debates in the local state school on one day, and speaking quietly with an angry kid while the rain falls outside your office window on another - protecting libraries, community meetings, union strikes and non-gov organisations, posters made with the help of local youth groups and jackets with “the young are at the gates” stitched across the chest

Subjects that still belong in academia proletaria even if they are already appreciated:

Literature and poetry, of course, don’t let them make you think these are out of your reach or disregard their romanticism. War poems, American literature, Anne Carson’s Antigone and the joy of reading books that indulge just a little on your childish side, experiencing again the ability to read books like breathing air as you did when you were young (the bone clocks by David Mitchell (READ IT!!))

Mathematics, thinking in numbers and seeing patterns everywhere. Adding up your late-night corner-shop haul sum in your head before you see the numbers on the cash register, harbouring a strange attachment to prime numbers, the careful chronology of a formula breaking numbers into their hidden parts down the side of your page (lots of pencil shavings)

Music, picking up an instrument in a high school music tech cupboard and never putting it down again, finding tutoring where you can and vehemently keeping up with the kids who took lessons since they were six, scratching out compositions on printer-paper manuscript and knowing the garageband software inside out. “Play me a song to set me free, nobody writes them like they used to so it may as well be me”

Art, We All Hate Damien Hirst, sort of getting what the Dadaists where going for at this point, borrowing (stealing) materials from the department and stepping in paint, genuinely compelling photography and a friendly relationship with the local photo printing shop in town, sometimes taking things too seriously but more often not taking them seriously enough, CARBON PAPER !!

History - the brilliant “beware of the dog” mosaic in Pompeii, Italy, Horrible Histories songs, an unusual depth of knowledge to do with the Great Fire of London, mental maps of historical museums and books about everything from Genghis Khan to the Six Day War. Digging up the time capsule you buried when you were 11 because you put that CD you really loved in and want it back even though you had hoped it would outlast the centuries

“Find something you love to do and then… do it for the rest of your life.”

the bitch is back, bitches

You know what. I’m starting a new aesthetic, population me.

Romantic Science, AKA Dark Academia for STEM people.

Thrifting a lab coat and embroidering it with your initials and a little insignia, whose significance is known to you and your lab partner only

Watching The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game and Hidden Figures and basically every movie about historical scientists and mathematicians you can find

Decorating your desk with old slide rules and vintage lab equipment. Your prize possession is a set of vintage lenses you found at a thrift store

Wanting an articulated human skeleton far, far too much

Getting a set of (brand new, NOT thrifted, be safe ppl) beakers to drink from, and putting them directly onto your stovetop to boil water for tea or coffee, because borosilicate glass can survive anything.

Secretly relating far too much to Henry Jekyll and Victor Frankenstein, because you too want to do a gay little science experiment that challenges god.

Thunderstorms and late nights in the lab, the light of the Bunsen burner glistening off of your flasks and scribbled chalkboard equations

Papering your walls with vintage scientific diagrams; even if you know that our understanding of the world has evolved since they were made, looking back at scientific history is amazing

Writing code late at night and feeling, in some metaphysical way, as though Ada Lovelace herself is with you in spirit

Being far, FAR too obsessed with the concept of emergent ai sentience and how it has the potential to be Frankenstein irl

Looking through a telescope on clear nights, whispering the names of the constellations and stars, painting a star chart on your ceiling in a burst of creative inspiration

Collecting and mounting samples from everywhere you can think of to pore over in an antique microscope

Bringing a field journal wherever you go, learning how to draw and label botanical samples, preserving plants and flowers for study later

Dreaming of what undiscovered mysteries lie in the deepest depths of the sea, feeling the thrill of discovery whenever you learn about a new species and one day hoping to discover one yourself

Just. Romanticise STEM.

hey so i made a massive database of 900 (and counting) sapphic books, sortable by age, genre and rep! take a look if u feel so inclined (and maybe retweet my tweet?). there’s a submissions page if u catch any i’ve missed (or any incorrect info on them), but pls do check i’ve not just sorted it in a way you don’t expect!