skyxstl

[skyxstl]

Dark/Light Academia Inspired Outings

In Montreal Quebec

1) Go to a crêperie for brunch and then thrifting

Spanel Crêpe et Gourmet is a small crêperie with outdoor seats & a menu of sweet & savoury options, coffees, desserts & wine. 

(The place is so peaceful and cute and the staff is really nice!!)

Address: 1960 Notre-Dame St W, Montreal, Quebec H3J 1M8

CUL-DE-SAC thrift store is a shop that sells trendy clothes at low prices, and they also have used furniture and supplies! 

Address: 3794 St Laurent Blvd 

The thrift store and crêperie are only 14 minutes away by car. 

(If you don’t feel like going thrifting that day or if it’s too far, you could bring a book and read in the crêperie or sit outside at the park across the street!)

2) Get some bagels and stock up on some more books 

S W Welch bookstore is a cozy book nook (complete with giant leather couch) known for their special editions and signed copies of classics!!

Address: 225 St.Viateur Ouest Montreal, Quebec H2T 2L6

St-Viateur Bagel is an iconic 24-hour storefront known for wood-oven baked bagels with varied flavors & toppings.

Address: 263 Rue Saint-Viateur 0, Montreal, QC H2V 1Y1

S W Welch bookstore and St-Viateur Bagel shop are literally right next to each other so it’s super convenient, only a 1 minute walk away!

#dark academia #light academia #date ideas #books #thrifting #bagels #brunch #crêpes #cozy #montreal #quebec #outings

[skyxstl]

I seriously need to implement this into my (somewhat) daily life...

dark academia on a budget

(because not only rich people can be dark academics)

-thrifting with friends for old sweaters that someone’s grandfather must have worn

-getting second (or third or fourth) hand books and reading the notes that other people left in them

-making sure everything is tidy and clean, no matter what

-adopting a minimalist aesthetic

-or making your own decorations (which then makes you better at lettering and art)

-sitting in a local cafe and buying the cheapest thing so that you can study there (and making sure that you tip as much as you can)

-reading poetry online, printing your favorites, and posting them on your walls

-taking as much of your family’s clothing that they’ll let you have

-rotating the same few shirts, pants, and shoes without anyone noticing

-a lack of jewelry (because there are more important things)

-sitting outside at a park to read or write

-looking outside windows on public transport while listening to somber music

[skyxstl]

Another dream room aesthetic

#darkacademia #cottagecore #room #aesthetic

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Dream room compilation: low-key dark academia/cottage core vibes. 

#darkacademia #cottagecore #room #Aesthetic

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made an emoji list thank me later

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the secret history by donna tartt

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We've been fixing our garden today and will plant flowers/ food soon! :)

#garden #nature #earth pictures #stones

[skyxstl]

Dumbass Academia: A Concept

Making snarky jokes when someone asks what you plan to do with your major

Ex: “My real life plan is to marry rich and become a wealthy widow at a young age. College is just a pickup scene.” 

Getting used to various mystery stains on all your books/essays/papers 

Is it food? Is it a water stain from reading in the bathtub? Is it tears? Were you annotating the book and some ink blotted up? Who knows? Certainly not you, better read around it. 

Speaking of annotating books: Underlining all the bad words 

This is especially fun if it’s something more “high brow” like a poetry book

Your glasses (if you wear them) are somehow always either dirty or scratched. You can’t see with them off, but you can’t see all that well with them on either. 

You have a book. You want to read the book. It is highly recommended. It’s supposed to be very good. It will allow your mind to grow. It may even have a deep meaning or important historical significance that you really care about absorbing. Alas, neither your brain nor your heart has room for new characters to love or new obsessions to fixate on. You read fanfiction instead. 

Finding a way to justify pretty much anything you like as part of your preferred aesthetics

Ex: “The show Rick and Morty totally counts as dark academia because it heavily involves science and education and also because gay stuff happens in it.”

Ex: “Wearing black lipstick is totally within the realm of cottagecore because there are black flowers and good rich dirt is often black and there are black nights with beautiful shining stars. 

Correcting people about small errors on an impulse and then realizing two days later that they were actually right. 

Writing things in code and posting them randomly online

(If I get to 150 followers on this blog I will be doing that btw)

Posting stuff or saying stuff and pretending that you don’t care about people’s opinions on what you say because you’re in this for you but secretly anytime you get a notification you almost cry because you’re so excited 

Using old beat up notebooks and any pens you can get your hands on because you don’t have the time or money for fancy stationary 

Being a little pretentious and doing things purely For The Aesthetic but then ten minutes later you’re eating mac and cheese and watching cartoons in the bathtub because being elitist is fun but it takes so much time and effort 

Having a lot of mottos but none of them actually really apply to you but you insist that they are in fact what you base your life on anyway. Sometimes they like, half apply? But never all the way

Ex: “Be gay do crime”

Were you a gifted kid who didn’t quite fit in with everyone else in the gifted program’s intellectual strong suits? Or a gifted kid who now feels like you’ve become completely mediocre/average? You fit in

Alternatively were you a student who wasn’t considered one of the “smart” kids and even may have been treated like you were dumb and/or less than other students because you didn’t connect to your schooling “the correct way”? You fit in too

Constantly changing your aesthetic because something else seems cool

You read those “tea or coffee?” things and scoff because who can decide? 

Going feral over abandoned buildings for no reason

Making bad jokes that most other people don’t get because they’re about really niche topics 

Whenever someone asks you about a book you’re reading or what you’re studying you panic and say something nonsensical 

Coming up with or researching conspiracy theories, but more about small local things like why there are never major storms in your town than big conspiracies like the moon landing 

Not that you can’t also be into the big conspiracy theories

Being either ridiculously emotional all the time or being completely devoid of emotions all the time. 

[skyxstl]

There is something inside me that craves stormy weather. Sitting by a window and watching rain spatter the glass somehow awakens a long lost and deep feeling rarely felt today. Having no excuse to go out except to collect rain water for my house plants. Gloomy skies and rolling thunder give way to a new world full of inspiration. I am in love with Nature’s grayest days.

[skyxstl]

tiny things that are inherently dark academic:

full notebooks

creeping vine

rain

world maps

red lipstick

scraps of paper used as bookmarks

torn photos

plaited hair

engraved daggers

fae

second or third-hand books

essays on obscure subjects

poetry in romance languages

castles

[skyxstl]

How To Taste Divinity

Light candles and sit with them in the dark. You are light upon light.

Wear silk and lace and fall into bed

Wear whatever makes you feel connected and at ease

Talk to the stars, read them poetry, tell them how much you’ll miss them in the morning.

Make tea with some milk and honey and breathe in the steam curling up to your face

Take a bath and sink so the water is up to your neck. Feel the air struggle to slowly fill your lungs and come back up, breathe deeply (you don’t need fancy bath bombs/salts/flowers but if you have them then great)

Feel your heartbeat at the pulse points: wrist and neck. Then press your hand against your chest and feel your heart beating again and again.

Imagine the blood rush with each pump and acknowledge that it’s not in your control and that’s ok. Someone’s looking out for you.

Make eye contact often. Even if it’s for a split second.

Talk to a plant, give it water, nature is always there for you, waiting.

Try to feel moonlight. Bathe in it and feel it’s power to wash over you.

Reach out to graze rays of sunlight with your fingertips and slowly sink your body into sunshine as it seeps into your bones and reminds you of your own warmth

Drive down an empty highway with the windows down and imagine you’re the music being whisked away on the wind

Let yourself feel the love you have for everyone in the world. Drown in it. When you feel alone remember this abundance and know it’s reciprocated by someone somewhere. <3

[skyxstl]

Things I've learned about my study habits during my final year of high school:

> I really really like taking notes!!

For example, my fav class this year was english; before each book we were assigned to read, our teacher would give us facts about the author and their life.

If you know facts about the author it provides so much more insight to the book! (i.e Tennessee Williams with A Streetcar Named Desire: a lot of characters have the same traits as his family members)

I am now able to reference them whenever I please which allows me to remember said facts and bring them up during conversations and I love that.

It reminds me of how I invision cegep/college to be like. Lectures, note taking, studying etc...

I feel like there is a purpose! In english we took notes, read the book, did some journaling, maybe a project or a discussion group. We also had informal debates and gained a bunch of knowledge! The entire unit was leading up to a greater theme which we had a full understanding of by the end of the unit.

In law class we also took notes, and did mock trials where we would sort of "role play" as different characters to see what it's really like during civil and criminal court cases.

I legitimately loved sitting and taking notes, and then doing hands on activities to put those notes into perspective. We also only had 1 quiz per term so I learned the information instead of memorizing it. (❗)

> I dislike worksheets very much!

Worksheets are good for practice but if thats all we do I lose interest and stop caring!

I always got bored in math because my teacher wouldn't TEACH anything. She'd just say "this is our units, look at the formulas and do all the worksheets" and that's all we'd do for the entire week until the test. IT WAS SO REPETITIVE!

In French class for example; we would do worksheets to practice verbs and I wouldn't remember anything. The times we were told to write a text and use a certain verb, I would understand much better.

> I feel so much more productive when I am organized!

I am a huge procrastinator by nature so I'm trying to break that habit!

I will waste so much time watching netflix or mindlessly scrolling through my social media feeds but then I stress out about not having time.

Luckily I am always able to wait till the last minute and still do well but it just adds so much stress for absolutely no reason.

I am going nuts waiting for my online classes to start because some of my teachers are so disorganized and wont tell us when they are starting classes.

I just want to get everything done as soon as possible so that I am able to have free time and do the things that make me feel good (like reading or walking around outside).

[skyxstl]

Dark academia reading list ✨📚

-The Secret History by Donna Tartt

-The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman

-If We were Villains by M. L. Rio

-Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

-The Magicians by Lev Grossman

-Metamorphoses by Ovid

-Dead Poets Society by N. H. Kleinbaum

-A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket

-The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

-Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro

-The Bacchae by Euripides

-The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

-Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar

-Possession by A. S. Byatt

-Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire

[skyxstl]

So! Important!

stop shaming people for being passionate about the things that they love. stop mocking people for having unusual interests. like, honestly, i'm so tired of feeling embarrassed for being "too much". if being too much means having deep interests that fill my life with romanticism and excitement, then let me be!!! i'd much rather listen to anyone ranting about their latest obsession with 16th century swords than have a boring ordinary conversation with those who shame passionate people

[skyxstl]

Drawing of Colby Brock

This took about 2 hours and YES thats actual glitter, and YES it is now all over my room

#colby brock #drawing #glitter #makeup

[skyxstl]

“Which side do you want?” he asked.

“What?”

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I agree I agree I agree 

That moment in If We Were Villains when they’re playing Romeo and Juliet and Oliver is desperate to keep James’s attention that he gets so caught up he skips some lines and says “Be ruled by me. Forget to think of her” while staring deep into his eyes and they’re both caught off guard reblog if you agree