#terriblygrimm

vader:

soft

baby pink | iridescent | glitter is always a good option | no bra | minimalistic tattoos | cherry patterns | sweet scented perfumes | wearing generous amounts of blush | doodling hearts | getting excited to pet an animal | fun nails | rewatching old barbie movies | hair sticking to glossed lips | heart shaped sunglasses | taking pictures of the sunset or sunrise | stuffed animals | protecting nature | stickers everywhere | teen movies | the light rain that falls from a clear sky at the beginning of the night |

dark academia

neutral tones | masculine outfits | studying languages | worn down copy of books | grey skies | turtleneck sweaters | loose fitting pants | hair tied with a silk ribbon | trying to remember a cool difficult word you read somewhere to use in a convo | thick belts | minimal makeup | windows fogged by rain | vintage jewelry | blouses with cuffed sleeves | reading a murder mystery and trying to solve it | oxford style shoes | sweater vests | subtitled old movies in a language you don’t speak | leaves crackling as you walk | annotating books to express your emotions about the story |

edgy

closet full of dark clothes | fishnet tights | makeup sweating off | neon signs | searching for unknown songs | chokers | band tees | doodling on old converses | finding smoking aesthetically pleasing but not doing it | weird humor | accidentally very dramatic | dim lights | layered outfits | chain belts | chipped nail polish | messy hair | low quality pics | piercings | combat boots | scribbling on desks |

70s

colorful wardrobe | doodling flowers | wearing short shorts | using a bikini top or bra as a normal top | listening to ABBA | flowers in your hair | DIYing everything | jamming to songs alone in your room | drunkenly telling your friends you love them | patterned bandanas | mid heeled shoes | messy braids | flared sleeves | walking barefoot on grass or sand | bold sunglasses | the good kind of tired you get after doing something you enjoy for hours | feeding stray animals | fun patterned socks | room decorated with succulents and other plants | likes to go roller skating or skateboarding |

preppy casual

collared clothes | drinking juice out of a champagne glass | getting excited to see the met gala looks | thick headbands | small pastel cardigans | making your friends take your ootd pics | plaid mini skirts | tweed two pieces | watching reality tv to pass time | frilly tops | watching old hollywood movies | academically driven | long manicured nails | new year’s eve fireworks | colourful tights | layered golden jewelry | yearns for luxury brand items | decorating your room with fairylights | cursive and neat handwriting | lace details |

Tagged by @hellocutepanda

1. My nails grow super fast, and my pinkie nails fastest of all, for some reason (or else I just break them off less often than my other nails); my friends regularly refer to them as my crack nails because I’ll have the two long pinkie nails, and then the rest of my nails are broken down to normal, human length.

2. I’m really sensitive to sound and can’t sleep without blocking out even everyday, ambient noises. I used to wear earplugs to bed every night, but recently I found some noise-cancelling ear buds that are actually comfortable to sleep in, so I were them now. They’re Bose and were super fucking expensive, but worth it; they block out way more than the earplugs did. I turn on the noise cancelling, put on some white noise, and I can’t hear a damn thing. You could break in and murder me and I’d never hear it coming; it’s excellent.

3. I have really small ear canals and regular foam earplugs can be incredibly painful if they’re left in too long. I can wear them for a little bit, but I always had to wear the silicone ones overnight because after a single night of the foam ones my ears would be raw and throbbed awfully. Last time I went to an ENT, she actually commented on how small they were and had to switch out her usual tools because they were too large to fit in my ear.

Tagged by @garglyswoof

1. Favorite book of all time?

If I pick one, all the others will get jealous, and anyway, with much hand-wringing I could maybe provide a top ten list of books that are very important to me for one reason or another, but picking one solitary favourite is an impossible task, and I won’t attempt it.

2. What are you currently reading?

Leucippe and Clitophon. It’s one of the few surviving novels of Ancient Greece, and it’s delightfully bizarre, and also features an argument about how gay sex is better than straight sex, but I’m not sure it can hold a candle to that one Roman novel that involved bestiality, a man getting his face peed on, and the protagonist twice escaping peril thanks to the timely arrival of some explosive diarrhea.

3. Have you ever considered writing a book?

Why yes, yes I have. It’s the one great existential crisis of my life, actually, thanks for asking.

4. Favourite series?

These are probably all going to be fantasy, because no other genre feels like you just absolutely can’t tell a story unless it’s 22 1000+ page volumes long. (If anyone wants to call me out here, let me just point out that there are 13 fics in that series, the first three are around 30 pages, and even the longest one is only about 200. It’s about 1400 pages altogether, which is like one and a half volumes in The Wheel of Time series or whatever. So THERE.)

Phedre’s Trilogy. I love Jacqueline Carey’s worldbuilding and the concept of a bunch of pansexuals running around doinking each other and playing dangerous political murder games.

Imriel’s Trilogy. See above. There’s actually a third trilogy set in the same universe a couple hundred years later, but honestly, I didn’t find it as compelling and didn’t read the third book. The first two are grand, though.

The Banned and the Banished. I read this series as a kid and it was dark and fucked-up and further proof that my parents left me to my own devices when it came to reading and really did not vet my books, because this would have made the TIMMY SHIELD YOUR EYES list for sure. The image of a naked woman parting her knees and a bunch of spiders crawling out of her vagina is still, for obvious reasons, viscerally with me.

The Deathgate Cycle. Another childhood favourite. Just a really good old school fantasy series with some great worldbuilding; I’ve been eyeing them again lately because I’ve been in the mood for some fantasy.  

The Chronicles of Narnia. I’ve made it really clear that I’m not remotely religious, so you’d think the overt themes of Christianity might annoy me, but these are just great stories, and honestly, I don’t find them overly preachy; I think C.S. Lewis’ writing has so much to take away from it, whether the reader is devoutly faithful or an unrepentant sinner like myself.

5. Book you’d like to read?

Sea of Darkness by Brian Hicks. This is actually one of my dad’s Christmas presents. It’s about the history and discovery of the H.L. Hunley, a submarine that sank during the American Civil War. 

Nicholas II: Life and Death by Edvard Radinsky. I spotted this at the used bookstore Friday afternoon and it immediately called to the obsessive Russophile part of me, so I had a flick through it and decided I must own it. Then I remembered that I was pretty sure I’d seen the Russian edition in one of the bookstores I use for all my Russian reading needs, and rushed home to find it. I did nick a copy from e-bay, so it’s now on its way to me, and, weather permitting, in about a week we will find our way into one another’s arms and I can read yet again about the brutal demise of the Romanovs and wring my hands over it, except this time in Russian, so with 3x the misery for half the price.  

Neil Gaiman’s The View From the Cheap Seats. This is a collection of essays on writing and creating that I’ve been eyeing for a while because Gaiman has such a great attitude about writing and seems like such a down-to-earth guy who probably has some great things to say about literature and the way it shapes us. 

 The Telling Room by Michael Paterniti. It’s about cheese. Also, Kelly’s descriptions of it really intrigued me.

And Quiet Flows the Don/Quiet Don (It’s literally just Quiet Don in Russian, but the English title is And Quiet Flows the Don, I’m sure because a lot of English speakers have no idea that it’s a river in Russia.) This is a massive War and Peace sized novel on the Don Cossacks during the turbulent years of WWI and the following Revolutions that I’ve been meaning to read for a while; I’m just waiting for my Russian vocab to catch up; I think I’m going to attempt it soon.

7. Favourite fictional character(s)?

D’artagnan, the little poncing YOU WANNA’ GO?? shit

 Edmond Dantes/The Count of Monte Christo, because I aspire to those levels of revenge but I know I’m far too impatient to carry out anything so glorious.

Magdalen from Wilkie Collin’s No Name because despite restrictive Victorian conventions meant to keep women in their parlors with a dainty cup of tea, she said ‘Fuck you all, I’m gonna’ steal back the rightful inheritance you cheated me out of through cunning and deception’ and went on to outwit a bunch of men.

Pierre Bezukhov from War and Peace because he’s such a great bumbling dweebus of a well-meaning Russian aristocrat, and I’ve always had a soft spot for him

Elizabeth Bennett, Pride and Prejudice. She destroys men with only her words; a true rolemodel for us all.

8. Book Ships

Elizabeth Bennett/Mr. Darcy

Sarra Ambrai/Collan Rosvenir from Melanie Rawn’s Exiles series. At one point I was so upset by something that happens to this couple that I actually threw the book across my room

Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler; they’re both terrible people, and tbh I think Scarlett totally gets what she deserves in the end, but their push and pull is so entertaining.

Jo and Laurie from Little Women and, ok, I know it doesn’t happen, I know this book was published over a century ago, but I’m still salty about it, all right??

9. Pick up the book closest to you, open page one and write down the first paragraph.

The closest book to me is a Russian translation of Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth, so I walked over to the closest available English books and picked one at random. It’s a collection of Keats’ poetry:

Now Morning from her orient chamber came,

And her first footsteps touched a verdant hill;

Crowning its lawny crest with amber flame,

Silv’ring the untainted gushes of its rill;

Which, pure from mossy beds of simple flowers,

By many streams a little lake did fill,

Which round its marge reflected woven bowers,

And, in its middle space, a sky that never lowers.

10. What’s the 1st fandom you were in?

I don’t remember ever really participating in any fandom related to books. I do remember when I was a kid getting pretty into an online forum dedicated to Quest for Glory (90s point and click fantasy game), though.