@rbhvleo // roberto ferri // mothering by ainslie hogarth // rainer maria rilke // ? // planet of love by richard siken // a self portrait in letters by anne sexton // indian summer by ron hicks
James “The Archer” Potter
Sirius “You’re On Your Own, Kid” Black
Remus “this is me trying” Lupin
Peter “Getaway Car” Pettigrew
Lily “Karma” Evans
Dorcas “mad woman” Meadowes
Marlene “Dress” McKinnon
Mary “The Man” Macdonald
Regulus “Anti-Hero” Black
Evan “Cruel Summer” Rosier
Barty “Don’t Blame Me” Crouch Jr.
Pandora “State Of Grace” Lovegood
Once in a dream I saw the flowers
That bud and bloom in Paradise;
More fair they are than waking eyes
Have seen in all this world of ours.
And faint the perfume-bearing rose,
And faint the lily on its stem,
And faint the perfect violet
Compared with them.
I heard the songs of Paradise:
Each bird sat singing in his place;
A tender song so full of grace
It soared like incense to the skies.
Each bird sat singing to his mate
Soft cooing notes among the trees:
The nightingale herself were cold
To such as these.
I saw the fourfold River flow,
And deep it was, with golden sand;
It flowed between a mossy land
With murmured music grave and low.
It hath refreshment for all thirst,
For fainting spirits strength and rest:
Earth holds not such a draught as this
From east to west.
The Tree of Life stood budding there,
Abundant with its twelvefold fruits;
Eternal sap sustains its roots,
Its shadowing branches fill the air.
Its leaves are healing for the world,
Its fruit the hungry world can feed,
Sweeter than honey to the taste
And balm indeed.
I saw the gate called Beautiful;
And looked, but scarce could look, within;
I saw the golden streets begin,
And outskirts of the glassy pool.
Oh harps, oh crowns of plenteous stars,
Oh green palm-branches many-leaved—
Eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard,
Nor heart conceived.
I hope to see these things again,
But not as once in dreams by night;
To see them with my very sight,
And touch, and handle, and attain:
To have all Heaven beneath my feet
For narrow way that once they trod;
To have my part with all the saints,
And with my God.
- Paradise: in a Dream, 1865, Christina Rossetti
detail of Garden of Flowers, 1917, Gustav Klimt
In Memoriam Elizabeth II (21st April 1926 - 8th September 2022)
Symbols part 3
This one’s all about archetypes! (Think TV Tropes)
Symbols part 1
Figured I’d start out my quarantine with a bit of spring cleaning, so here’s some notes! Exam season is coming up & there’s no reason we should be unprepared
There are three categories of symbols:
- Archetypal - the first symbols of humankind that have replicated themselves into stories across history
- Cultural - as cultural groups use archetypal symbols to represent their values/fears/beliefs/expectations, these objects take on a specific meaning to that group
- Nuance - these objects take on symbolic meaning in the work in which they appear
Note that a motif is a recurring symbol. A leitmotif is a motif specific to a particular work. As these leitmotifs become more familiar, they can be considered symbols.
60 Tips for IB - from a 45 pointer
A lot of people have been asking me about general tips for surviving IB and how I got 45 points. If I’m honest I think the difference between 40 and 45 points is just pure, dumb luck, but at least here are some tips to getting up to the 40 -points level :D
This is a list of tips my friend and I wrote right after our IB exams. We were feeling quite high at the moment, so I had to edit some of the tips so you could actually take the advice seriously…
1. HAPPINESS FIRST DO WHATEVER YOU CAN TO KEEP YOURSELF HAPPY
2. Don’t do “homework” at home!!!
3. Find a study buddy
4. Proceed to ignore everyone but your study buddy
5. Not your dog though
6. Escape from your family / responsibilities (e.g. do your homework abroad, in someone else’s basement, coffee shops, libraries, group rooms at school, sneak into university study halls etcetc. The possibilities are endless)
7. Set yourself a time limit for doing the TOK Essay. (Don’t do it two weekends in a row, you will go crazy)
8. Don’t attempt to finish the EE in one day
9. Remind your science teacher about the IA. It’s for your own good.
10. Whether it’s 5am or 2am, figure out when you work best and stick to it.
11. Don’t think you’ll learn stuff in class. Seriously. Read the books instead, and use classes as revision / sleep time / relaxing time.
12. Mark schemes will be your best teacher.
13. Write syllabus notes FROM THE VERY START.
14. You won’t understand TOK but at least try to have fun with it.
15. Don’t forget about CAS, but don’t spend too much time on it either.
16. Install “StayFocusd” but don’t go nuclear option for a week
17. Memorize the opening hours of the public study areas in your vicinity
18. Listen to Christmas music if you’re sad
19. Get a whiteboard for revision
20. Physics students: buy the Tsokos revision guide
21. Chemistry students: YouTube Richard Thornley
22. Biology students: YouTube Alex Lee
23. Read the language books during the summer
24. Don’t give a fuck about English B…but TAKE ENGLISH B IF YOU CAN
25. Don’t choose science as your EE subject (unless you have a super smart and helpful and amazing supervisor)
26. Love your teachers, see them as your friend. They’re adorable.
27. Love yourself too
28. Making a plan (without necessarily following it) will help calm you down
29. 8tracks have amazing playlists
30. Dictionaries are cool
31. Thesaurus.com is cooler
32. Watch TV shows all year round to get your mind off things, just not season finales right before the exams
33. Cry it out
34. Shout it out
35. Drink it out
36. Just don’t get too drunk or violent that’s bad
37. Your nerdy classmates are your friends and teachers
38. Bring coffee / tea to school, if you make it to school
39. It’s OK to skip school for school
40. Waste money on school shit, you’ll earn it back in the future
41. If you can afford it, go to Lanterna summer course. You might get friends from other countries who’ll be able to help you throughout the year, by exchanging resources etc.
42. Make puns about nerdy stuff (like, about life, the universe and everything)
43. Be proud of being a nerd, everyone knows it already
44. EAT
45. SLEEP (sometimes it’s worth skipping school for)
46. Some teachers are nice about students sleeping in class
47. Concentrate when doing IA experiments though, take notes, or even better: film it
48. By the way, FILMING can reduce a lot of errors in science experiments. Write that as an improvement in your evaluation part!!
49. Question banks can be found, if you know where to look
50. Don’t care about other people’s grades
51. Don’t care too much about your own grades either. You’ll survive either way. Calm down. “Chillax”.
52. Don’t do TOK presentation alone.
53. WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER (uni will be a piece of cake for you. also u can puke out a 4-paged-essay, proof-read and everything, in less than an hour, handwritten. amazing)
54. IB therefore I BS
55. Decorate your wall with IB gems
56. You’ll learn a lot from teaching others / making up games / doing past papers. Don’t just read books and highlight. Don’t just listen to the teachers. You won’t remember shit that way.
57. I repeat, DON’T JUST TRUST THE CLASSES, READ THE EFFING BOOKS
58. You’re allowed to protest sometimes
59. Don’t think too much about TOK / the uncertainty principle / relativity / astrophysics / DNA / nihilist bullshit from the language books. Stick to your reality and be happy. Have fun. Enjoy life. Stop giving so much fucks. Lower your expectations. (I honestly spent IB preparing to fail and start a bakery or something. Life is full of pleasant surprises that way)
60. Your Non-IB friends will laugh at you. Your siblings will laugh at you. Your teachers will laugh at you. You will laugh at you. But it’s okay, 2 years will be over in a flash ^^
I know I’ve reblogged this before but for any students going into IB yr1 or even yr2 this is actually super helpful
Annotating Effectively
Not to brag, but if there is anything I have mastered so far in my high school career, it is the art of annotating poetry and prose for close text analysis. This guide will focus primarily on close-text analysis, but will also touch on a full annotation of a larger piece. Basically, I will be giving you a few different techniques given to me by my English teacher, as well as a few that I have learned on my own! Enjoy!
{ Some of the names are weird because my english teacher is a hilarious person! }
Coondog
- What: Basically coondog is all about “sniffing out” motifs and symbols. So for example, when reading a series of poems, if you realize there is a lot of references to the ocean, go through from the beginning with a highlighter and highlight every single reference to the ocean you can find – whether it literally mentions something like “waves” or “fish”, or is far more subtle.
- Why: Using coondog is extremely helpful, especially as writing about a motif is a great starting point for an essay or paragraph. If you are in the IB program, motifs are awesome for anything from an English extended essay to your unseen oral commentary. Remember, a motif can vary! Some examples of some I have seen commonly are: water, corporeal, animals, time of day, cosmic, textile, etc.
- My English Teacher came up with the name (I think it comes from one of her crazy life stories haha)
WWWWWH
- Who: Who are the characters? What is the point of view?
- What: What happened in the piece (paraphrase)?
- Where: What is the setting? How does the setting effect the piece?
- Why: Why did the author do _______?
- When: When was the piece written?
- How: How does the author create the feeling of ________?
Read Aloud Silently
- What: This is basically just making sure you hear the piece in your head as you read it. This is extremely important while reading poetry.
- Why: Reading aloud silently will you help you catch so many things you wouldn’t by just skimming through it. Things like internal rhyme, rhythm, onomatopoeia, tone, consonance/assonance, cacophony/euphony, etc. will all become more obvious. This also ensures that you don’t skim past a line or anything.
- Even if you hate every single other tip I have given you, just use this one and you will benefit incredibly.
TIPCASTT
- Title: Read the title before reading the piece. Is it an allusion? What does it connote? Does it reveal anything about the novel?
- Irony: Look for irony and humour in the piece. Both are excellent to write about, so keep your brain peeled!
- Paraphrase: After you finish reading everything, think about what literally happened in the piece. Do this before finding the ‘sub-text’.
- Connotation: Time for sub-text! What is the piece saying indirectly? As in what is it trying to reveal other than the literal happenings of the work? Ladies and Gentlemen, it is time to read underneath the lines!
- Atmosphere: Highlight anything that reveals the tone/atmosphere of the piece. Highlight any hints you find that make you think the story is shifting in one way or another.
- Shift: Find any narrative shifts. This could be anything from a shift in tone, to a shift in point of view, to a shift in the characters feelings.
- Title: Now that you have examined the piece, look back at the title and think about it’s relevance. Were you right when you looked at it the first time? Or did it reveal a hint about the ending?
- Theme: Now it’s time to put it all together! What is underneath the piece? What is the author trying to convey? Remember the theme will often be something profound and important!
BE
- Beginning & End
- Never skip your beginning and ending as I personally feel as if they are perhaps the most revealing sections. The beginning will set the tone and mood for the poem, while the end will ultimately reveal the theme. When examining the beginning and end, one way to comprehend what happened in the piece is to map out where it started, and where it finished, and fill out (with quotes) how the narrator/characters got there. This is most helpful with poetry or prose excerpts as novels would have wayyyyy to much going on in the middle.
Feeeeeeelings
- Poetry has feelings. Yup. That’s a thing.
- So, remember, atmosphere and tone are incredibly important. Write down how the poem makes you feel, how the poet might have felt when they were writing it, how the characters/speaker feels about the situation – any feeling word that comes to mind will be significant when you talk about the atmosphere of the overall poem! Plus it will give you a more thorough understanding of the premise :)
Handy Dandy Things to Watch For!
- Bored of talking about Simile’s and Alliteration? Here are some other things (often a little more rare) that are almost always relevant when annotating poetry (and a lot of prose as well!)
- Allusion: I promise you, there is almost always allusion in poetry. Biblical will probably be the most common allusion you see (in Western literature), and it is extremely easy and effective to talk about it. Allusion to mythology is also common, and is often used in order to show the universality (through space and time) of a specific theme.
- Elevated/Archaic Language: Always keep an eye out for this, it is extremely
- Parallel Structure/Anaphora: You can never go wrong with parallel structure and anaphora as they will exist often! It doesn’t have to be a perfect parallel structure, it always elevates and intensifies a piece of poetry or prose.
- Structure: In poetry especially, sentence/stanza structure is extremely significant. Look at the length of each line? Is it short-long-short-long line structure for the first few stanzas and then all of a sudden just a rhyming couplet of two short lines? Mention this! Talk about why this might be. Also keep an eye out for the actual structure of the stanzas on the page! This is not on accident, poets often put thought into the way it will look printed out. Plus, if you are unsure, you can always say “perhaps” to keep yourself save. Remember rhythm, syntax, enjambment, and general structure are your friend!
My Method (close-text, small section) ~ This is how I annotate for unseen timed commentary’s (but it is effective for all annotation!)
- Read aloud silently.
- Write down the general tone/feeling I get from the piece.
- Read second time focusing on a possible theme.
- Underline any poignant/interesting/beautiful imagery (as guess what, this is usually the best stuff to talk about in your paper!)
- Write down a tentative theme and/or thesis (just off of what you get out of the poem the first time around – don’t worry, this isn’t permanent!)
- Why did you pick that thesis/that theme to work with? Think of 2+ points that support your thesis.
- Highlight any quotes that support these points.
- And there you go, a body for your essay is completed.
- Annotate with more specific notes towards each highlighted section. This is when you think of literary techniques used like simile, alliteration, onomatopoeia, etc.
For a Whole Book / Set of Poems:
- As you read the book, highlight any interesting/potentially useful quote.
- Let’s say you finish reading for the day after an hour. At that point, open a word document (or notebook), and record every quote you have found in different categories (include page numbers!!!!!).
- Categories could be things like: John Doe’s Character Exposition, Water Motif, Setting & Context, etc. etc.
- There are a few perks to doing this. First of all, you have all your quotes sorted, chronologically. This means that when looking at something like character development, you have a list of interesting quotes in the order of them happening thus basically creating a skeleton of their character arc! Second of all, having quotes in a large word document makes it far easier to find them! You can use command-F (if on a Mac), and search for a specific word/quote. This way, you don’t find yourself wasting time tracking down one tiny detail for an essay. Another perk is that by recording a few chapters wort of quotes at a time, you won’t be overwhelmed by hundreds of highlight marks throughout your book after you have finished reading. This basically ensures that once you have finished reading, all you have to do is sit down and write! No more spending hours searching for that one perfect quote in a 400 page novel!
basiilhallward
instead of actually writing an essay.. i wrote a thing on how to write an essay (woah meta) & added some pictures of my plans so u can see what i actually mean!! enjoy my friends i hope this is useful to someone
Victor Frankenstein build the monster for his creative CAS
he tried to pass it off as service but he was only really serving himself and didn't actually help the monster.
In Orwell’s essay “A Hanging,” the writer watches the condemned man, walking toward the gallows, swerve to avoid a puddle. For Orwell, this represents precisely what he calls the “mystery” of the life that is about to be taken: when there is no good reason for it, the condemned man is still thinking about keeping his shoes clean. It is an “irrelevant” act (and a marvelous bit of noticing on Orwell’s part). Now suppose this were not an essay but a piece of fiction. And indeed there has been a fair amount of speculation about the proportion of fact to fiction in such essays of Orwell’s.
The avoidance of the puddle would be precisely the kind of superb detail that, say, Tolstoy might flourish; War and Peace has an execution scene very close in spirit to Orwell’s essay, and it may well be that Orwell basically cribbed the detail from Tolstoy. In War and Peace, Pierre witnesses a man being executed by the French, and notices that, just before death, the man adjusts the blindfold at the back of his head, because it is uncomfortably tight. The avoidance of the puddle, the fiddling with the blindfold—these are what might be called irrelevant or superfluous details. They are not explicable; in fiction, they exist to denote precisely the inexplicable. This is one of the “effects” of realism, of “realistic” style.
But Orwell’s essay, assuming it records an actual occurrence, shows us that such fictional effects are not merely conventionally irrelevant, or formally arbitrary, but have something to tell us about the irrelevance of reality itself (…) There was no logical reason for the condemned man to avoid the puddle. It was pure remembered habit. Life, then, will always contain an inevitable surplus, a margin of the gratuitous, a realm in which there is always more than we need: more things, more impressions, more memories, more habits, more words, more happiness, more unhappiness.
— JAMES WOOD, from How Fiction Works.
That scene in the epilogue
Camilla: I can’t marry you Richard, I still love Henry
Richard: Hey I love him too
Camilla: ..the fuck?
The First Taste, Fiona Apple / Hunger, Kateryna Bortsova / Hunger, Florence + The Machine / The Number of the Beast is 66, Hannibal, Season 3 / Hunger, AURORA / Animal, AURORA / Paper Bag, Fiona Apple / Hunger Painting, Filip Odzierejko
thinking about some underrated lines from love run
- but our voices collide with each howl of the tide // singing all hell and it's fire waits for us
- and our muscles that's are waltzing // and our shadows that are bold sing // come rip up the flesh of my fears
- my entire life it's running away too fast, watching everyone I've ever loved walk past // never really quite getting the knack of knowing no one will not ever come back for you
- you're the one who asked me if i'm feeling okay // I said i'm fine // it's just a sitting down in the shower day
- love does not exist here // in this garden there's no feeling // and you say the words so often that I barely know the meaning
- god made all man in his image // honey, i'm no man // i'm what's left when children go to war
- the cracks you made, I filled with mortar // a broken pot can still hold water
- it's like all the wallpaper inside my heart // is slowly, slowly peeling off // and i'm showing all the stains and things // they wrote on the walls before
- run from all you know that's coming // run to show that love's worth running to
- let foul men band and heed your hum // for that ancient hymn you heard me strumming // is nought but fumble-falls and guns and tumbleweeds, love run // it's nought that rum won't solve // though some would harm you, none, not one, no none // will raise to you a hand nor thumb // not while by you I stand and hum
for the love of god please let the gays run away together at least once successfully
leave me alone im in my the virgin suicides girl interrupted lana del rey the bell jar era
LGBTQ+ book recc master-list:
(Cause the last time I did this was in 2018 and a LOT of great queer books have been published since then)
Lesbian:
1) The lies we tell ourselves by Robin Talley
2) Girl <3 Girl by Lucy Sutcliffe
3) As I descended by Robin Talley
4) Lumberjanes by Noelle Stevenson
5) Our own private universe by Robin Talley
6) Paper Girls by Brian K Vaughan
7) Giant days by Allison, Sarin, Fleming, and Cogar
8) Princess Princess by Katie O’Neill
9) Goldie Vance by Hope Larson
10) CREMA by Johnnie Christmas
11) High class homos by Momozerii
12) You should see me in a crown by Leah Johnson
14) Laura Dean keeps breaking up with me by Mariko Tamaki
15) Love Frankie by Jacqueline Wilson
16) Girl from the sea by Molly Ostertag
17) Hani and Ishu’s guide to fake dating by Adiba Jaigirdar
18) The good girls by Claire Eliza Bartlett
19) The love curse of Melody McIntyre
20) Always human by Ari North
21) Afterlove by Tanya Byrne
22) I think I love you by Audriane Desombre
23) Tell me again how a crush should feel by Sara Farizan
24) Who I was with her by Nita Tyndall
25) She drives me crazy by Kelly Quindlen
26) Some girls do by Jennifer Dugan
27) Trouble girls by Julia Lynn Rubin
28) Royals duology by Rachel Hawkins
29) Patience and Esther by Sarah Winifred Searle
30) Margot & me by Juno Dawson
31) The henna wars by Adiba Jaigirdar
Gay:
1) Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
2) Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
3) Simon VS the homosapiens agenda by Becky Allbertalli
4) Will Grayson, Will Grayson by David Levithan and John Green
5) I’ll give you the sun by Jandy Nelson
6) Hold me closer by David Levithan
7) Two boys kissing by David Levithan
8) Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe (+ unreleased sequel) by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
9) Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan
10) The raven king by Maggie Stiefvater
11) Blood bank by Silb
12) Heartstopper series by Alice Oseman
13) Nick and Charlie by Alice Oseman
14) Openly Straight by Bill Konisberg
15) Honestly Ben by Bill Konisberg
16) The perks of being a wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
17) Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell
18) Any way the wind blows by Rainbow Rowell
19) Date me, Bryson Keller by Kevin van Whye
20) Sonnet by Emily Cheeseman
21) Castle Swimmer by Wendy Lian Martin
22) Tripping over you by Owen White
23) Starfighter by Hamlet Machine
24) Long Exposure by Kam Heyward
25) Obliviously in love by Jiaoski
26) I’ll be home for Christmas by Mason Denver
27) Liebestrasse by Greg Lockard
28) Check, Please! By Ngozi Ukazu
29) Always raining here by Bell
30) I was born for this by Alice Oseman
31) Red white and royal blue by Casey McQuiston
32) The gravity of us by Phil Stamper
33) They both die at the end by Adam Silvera
34) Dreamer trilogy by Maggie Stiefvater
35) If this gets out by Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich
36) Fifteen hundred miles from the sun by Jonny Garza Villa
37) You spin me right round by David Valdes
38) As far as you’ll take me by Phil Stamper
39) Darius the great is not okay (+ sequel) by Adib Khorram
Bi:
1) Leah on the offbeat by Becky Albertalli
2) Odd one out by Nic Stone
3) We are young by Cat Clarke
4) Brightsiders by Jen Wilde
5) Everyday by David Levithan
6) Paris Syndrome by Lisa Walker
7) Beneath the citadel by Destiny Soria
8) Ship it by Britta Lundin
9) Home and away by Candice Montgomery
10) Ink Mistress by Audrey Coulthurst
11) Reign of the fallen by Sarah Glenn Marsh
12) The Gentleman’s guide to vice and virtue by Mackenzi Lee
13) The gentleman’s guide to getting lucky by Mackenzi Lee
14) The doctors are out by Blauerozen
15) Fence by C. S. Pacat
16) Be more chill by Joe Tracz
Trans:
1) George by Alex Gino
2) The art of being normal by Lisa Williamson
3) The Magnus Chase series by Rick Riordan
4) What we left behind by Robin Talley
5) Gracefully Grayson by Ami Polonsky
6) If I was your girl by Meredith Russo
7) Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart
8) I am J by Cris Beam
9) Symtoms of being human by Jeff Garvin
10) A + E 4ever by I. Merey
11) All I am by Chaaistheanswer
12) The weight of them by Noelle Stevenson
13) Dream Daddy vol 2 by Lee C.A.
14) Fluidum by Layla E.
15) Magical boy by The Kao
16) The passing playbook by Isaac Fitzsimons
17) Sasha Masha by Agnes Borinsky
18) The deep and dark blue by Niki Smith
19) Cemetary boys by Aiden Thomas
20) All boys arent blue by George M. Johnson
21) Detransition, baby by Torrey Peters
22) Felix ever after by Kacen Callender
Other/ambiguous:
1) Dear Evan Hansen the novel by Val Emmich (Connor describes his sexuality as something fluid)
2) The lady’s guide to petticoats and piracy by Mackenzi Lee (Felicity is implied aro/ace) (sequel to the gentleman’s guide but I’m not sure it can be read as a stand-alone)
3) The Magnus Chase series by Rick Riordan
4) The Trials Of Apollo series by Rick Riordan
5) How they met and other stories by David Levithan
6) Deadpool comics (pansexual)
7) Nimona by Noelle Stevenson
8) Final Draft by Riley Redgate (pansexual)
9) Lets talk about love by Claire Kahn (ace/biromantic)
10) Lost on plant earth by Magdalene Visaggio
11) Youth by Curt Pires
12) The backstagers by James Tynion IV
13) Loveless by Alice Oseman (aro/ace)
14) Six of crows (+sequel) by Leigh Bardugo
15) Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
16) How they met and other stories by David Levithan
17) Rock and riot by Chelsey Furedi
18) Kiss number 8 by Colleen A.F. Venable
19) This is how you lose the time war
20) Upright women wanted by Sarah Gailey
21) The wicker king by K. Ancrum
therealcharlesmacaulay