When Oscar Wilde Wrote “there Are Moments When One Has To Choose Between Living One’s Own Life,

my playlists (+ descriptions)

asparagus is in season: character playlist for francis abernathy from the secret history

dark academia but it’s girls: imagine the secret history, dead poets society, and if we were villains but all the male characters are replaced with female counterparts

donna tartt’s walkman: some music donna tartt probably listened to from her bennington days into her secret history days; also evokative of a sexually ambiguous classics student from a homoerotic dark academia novel

the holy trinity: florence, mitski, and hozier

prep school nostalgia: best of my effy stonem phase

scary girl fall: inspired by the gory girls from suspiria, midsommar, the vvitch, the moth diaries, and ginger snaps

turtleneck season: 'tis the season to become the pretentious protagonist of a modern greek tragedy (dark academia but it’s girls pt. 2)

slavic androgynous bette davis and the incongruous meathead: playlist for the goldfinch starring russian vampire and erudite sad boy

ode to the 2010s: music that shaped me in my formative years

this is the actual best picture, there is simply not a better image

– @jstor, quietly blowing my mind with keywords (x)

push yourself to get up before the rest of the world - start with 7am, then 6am, then 5:30am. go to the nearest hill with a big coat and a scarf and watch the sun rise.

push yourself to fall asleep earlier - start with 11pm, then 10pm, then 9pm. wake up in the morning feeling re-energized and comfortable.

get into the habit of cooking yourself a beautiful breakfast. fry tomatoes and mushrooms in real butter and garlic, fry an egg, slice up a fresh avocado and squirt way too much lemon on it. sit and eat it and do nothing else.

stretch. start by reaching for the sky as hard as you can, then trying to touch your toes. roll your head. stretch your fingers. stretch everything.

buy a 1L water bottle. start with pushing yourself to drink the whole thing in a day, then try drinking it twice.

buy a beautiful diary and a beautiful black pen. write down everything you do, including dinner dates, appointments, assignments, coffees, what you need to do that day. no detail is too small.

strip your bed of your sheets and empty your underwear draw into the washing machine. put a massive scoop of scented fabric softener in there and wash. make your bed in full.

organise your room. fold all your clothes (and bag what you don’t want), clean your mirror, your laptop, vacuum the floor. light a beautiful candle.

have a luxurious shower with your favourite music playing. wash your hair, scrub your body, brush your teeth. lather your whole body in moisturiser, get familiar with the part between your toes, your inner thighs, the back of your neck.

push yourself to go for a walk. take your headphones, go to the beach and walk. smile at strangers walking the other way and be surprised how many smile back. bring your dog and observe the dog’s behaviour. realise you can learn from your dog.

message old friends with personal jokes. reminisce. suggest a catch up soon, even if you don’t follow through. push yourself to follow through.

think long and hard about what interests you. crime? sex? boarding school? long-forgotten romance etiquette? find a book about it and read it. there is a book about literally everything.

become the person you would ideally fall in love with. let cars merge into your lane when driving. pay double for parking tickets and leave a second one in the machine. stick your tongue out at babies. compliment people on their cute clothes. challenge yourself to not ridicule anyone for a whole day. then two. then a week. walk with a straight posture. look people in the eye. ask people about their story. talk to acquaintances so they become friends.

lie in the sunshine. daydream about the life you would lead if failure wasn’t a thing. open your eyes. take small steps to make it happen for you.

“I am never in control of what happens around me, but i am always in control of what happens within me.”

— Fearless Soul

i think yall are just pretending to have an excess of black bile so the doctors will give you more leeches

i spend way too much time on spotify and thus have way too many playlists, but here are some of them as a thank you for 11k !!

neptune / soundtrack to a warm coffee on a sleepy afternoon 

pluto / 3am, lying upside down off the bed with dim phone light on your face

saturn / laughter, pillow fights and intentionally bad singing-along

mars / quiet piano floats through the window on a warm, windy evening 

lunar / during windows-down summer car rides with your friends

solar / fingers tracing on a thigh and quiet evening humming 

jupiter / gentle, wordless, beats to see you through revision 

eclipse / a soft voice paired with a guitar, and a cup of tea

earth / for dozing off amidst gentle yawns, wrapped in blankets

cosmos / a face amongst the crowd, stairs to the subway, city lights

galaxy / clink of glassware and muted murmurs amongst background jazz

sapph / for the girls who love girls

cappuccino / the feeling of a 9am coffee on a gently sunny morning 

anyway since we’re all baking bread and dealing with a plague, here’s a quiz on who you would be in the middle ages

Giovanni Strazza, “The Veiled Virgin”.