Let’s Not Forget To Acknowledge Alexandre Dumas This Black History Month

“I am constantly trying to communicate something incommunicable, to explain something inexplicable, to tell about something I only feel in my bones and which can only be experienced in those bones. Basically it is nothing other than this fear we have so often talked about, but fear spread to everything, fear of the greatest as of the smallest, fear, paralyzing fear of pronouncing a word, although this fear may not only be fear but also a longing for something greater than all that is fearful.” - Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

4/4/2021

Textures of the sleepy forest, cold air, wind running through the naked branches, czech nature, cold spring days, easter holidays, dirty shoes, taking pictures, feeling the creative rush, tones of brown, red noses and calmness.

photos are mine

Honestly, me everyday.

Ravenclaw: I need a break.

Gryffindor: From what?

Ravenclaw: *vaguely gestures*

Gryffindor: Same.

HOW DO YOU EVEN KNOW THAT?! ARE YOU WATCHING ME RIGHT NOW?! Are we all the same fcking person?! What is happening?!

“It is only in the body of a person whom we have loved deeply for a long time that we don’t perceive the passing of time, and that growing old with that person is a way of never growing old. Seeing someone from day to day has a slow, compassionate rhythm. The people who live at our side always exist in the most immediate time: yesterday, today, tomorrow; and we can’t see this shrunken distances; we don’t see the effects of the passing years. I realize that my wife has aged only when I see old photographs. And not even then, because they were taken in surroundings so different from the present ones and in such ancient clothing that I look at them as if they weren’t of her, as if the portrait represented not my wife but a character similar to her […] Her aging hands, her eyes surrounded wrinkles, and her grey hair don’t surprise or displease me or make me remember the smoothness of her skin and her black hair of a former time. The changes have occurred so slowly and are so intimately tied to my own that neither she nor I has been able to notice them. I think the great miracle of sharing your life is not perceiving the brutal destruction, the annihilation of the body that you love.”

— Josefina Vicens, The Empty Book (trans. David Lauer)

I love this.

look i know we’ve discussed every which way the sorting system is bullshit but also??? people’s values??? change??? as they get older???

give me a hufflepuff who was never taught to advocate for themselves as a kid, who was taught that their worth came from being selfless and sacrificial and making others happy, so they value loyalty and hard work and all of those amazing hufflepuff traits, but through this warped lens because they don’t have a solid foundation of self-esteem or any sense of boundaries. give me that kid getting sorted and being the huffliest puff there ever was, but who is literally driving themselves into the ground trying to help others and has quickly become the castle’s number one choice when someone needs a favor. and they think it’s good! they think they’re living up to their house and those expectations because they don’t have any other foundation for affection and love besides being praised for being useful. 

give me that kid barely scraping by and getting sick from staying up so late and having no legitimate friendships because the people they interact with just want favors all the time. give me that kid getting yanked into an empty classroom by a seventh year slytherin and her hufflepuff girlfriend (they’re in love shut up) and having a real uncomfortable conversation about where/how the kid gets validation and hey, are you happy? are you healthy? are you taking care of yourself? is anyone taking care of you?

and because the answer is obviously no, give me that kid suddenly having two seventh-year moms, one of which is a terrifying slytherin who will hex anyone who comes close asking for a favor, and whose pep talks basically boil down to aren’t you tired of being nice? don’t you just wanna go ape shit?

give me six months of that kid realizing that their self worth isn’t tied to what they can provide to people and that they love their house but honestly? they have their own shit to deal with. they have goals and ambitions and dreams and nearly failing out of school because they’re trying to help everyone else is not the way to live life. i want that kid to wake up in the slytherin dorms one morning, completely bedecked in green and silver, and their slytherin mom being smug about it for fucking weeks because, i called it babe, you know i did

because people’s values change! getting older shifts your perspectives and what you value and there are so many ways that kids with shitty home lives or even just one with bad self-esteem could end up in one house and feel like a fraud when their morals and values adapt to growing up. because everyone changes as they grow up oh my god 

tl;dr @ jk rowling your binary sorting system sucks let kids change what they believe in and represent it in canon you coward 

“At an early age I learned that people make mistakes, and you have to decide if their mistakes are bigger than your love for them.”

— The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

I see myself in many things from this list. If I actually am a maladaptive daydreamer, I'm definitely not a severe case, I can mostly function, do my homeworks and chores and other stuff. My life is actually really good and I do have plans and hopes for future. But the daydreaming is always with me, since I was a child. Everywhere, everywhere I go, there it is.

I don't have my own OC's, they are always already existing characters from medias I consume... but I'm worried that I don't have control over it anymore. I feel exhausted at the end of the day from all the daydreaming, my brain hurts. Trigger can be literally anything: a movie, a TV show, books, situations in real life. The conversations with the characters are neverending, and even when I don't daydream, I have this icky feeling that someone is with me. I know they are not real, but I spend so much time in their presence, that it is hard to let them go.

When I'm watching a movie, I have to really focus to not imagine myself in it. I hate it, because it ruins the whole story, every character is suddenly me, I think about them all the time and then I don't even know, what actually happened in the story and what was just my daydream. I watch scenes from movies and random interviews on youtube, and act with them, because I already know them word by word, imagining that it's me whose actually talking. I always loved stories and now I don't know how to consume them normally anymore.

But the thing that is scaring me the most, is that I'm terrified that I will not be able to connect with other people in real life properly. For a couple of months now I feel like I'm losing my friends and they don't even know. I try to act normally, show them that I love them, but I feel weirdly dull inside. I'm so worried that I will not be able to create a meaningful romantic connection (eventho I want it soo badly) because of this yearning for some kind of thrill and passion that only fiction can give me and that I can't get anywhere else.

alright look since people don’t seem to understand why maladaptive daydreaming is a big deal here’s a grand list of some of the reasons why.

first off: yes, you little babies, maladaptive daydreaming is often characterized by:

zoning out

“snapping back” to reality

which is often followed by mild alarm and confusion like “what where am i what am i doing whats going on”

seeking emotional satisfaction in daydreams that you didn’t get from real life

it’s often developed due to childhood isolation, not having a lot of friends, having too much time to yourself as a youngling

yep also those bless-ed long car rides

being deeply comforted by music and/or alone time because it means yay daydreaming time

intricate stories that exist inside vivid imaginary worlds (called paracosms) with their own highly developed “characters” (which are called paras, and i hope you’re taking notes) 

constantly looking for an “escape” so you can daydream

repetitive motions to stimulate daydreams such as swinging on a swingset, bouncing up and down, pacing, spinning, etc.

an idealized version of yourself through whose eyes you live out these daydream stories (called parames, like para-me…)

BUT!!!! but but but but but but (and this is the stuff y'all seem to constantly be forgetting/overlooking/not taking seriously) maladaptive daydreaming is also characterized by:

deep and dependent emotional attachments to paras such as intimate friends, lovers, family, and pets that don’t exist

deep guilt due to favoring paras over “real life” (called thisverse) people

a phobia that you will never be able to care about people in thisverse and will therefore be a terrible lover/spouse/parent, etc.

trancelike states where you lose time anywhere between a few minutes to several hours straight without even realizing it until you’ve returned to reality

maladaptive daydreaming steals so. much. time.

withdrawal-like effects if you don’t daydream for a long time (even a day), such as shaking, nausea, agitation, aggression, breakdowns, etc.

you don’t control your daydreams, they do whatever they want to, they are invasive, intrusive, and often unwanted

intense absorption, so when the daydream is exciting you will get an adrenaline rush and your blood gets hot and starts to rush and you sweat and breathe weird and see red and your heart rate goes up. when the daydream is depressing you will cry with real tears and your limbs actually feel heavy

it steals an incredible amount of energy

daydreams are often violent, sexual, and/or disturbing

difficulty focusing, high anxiety

paranoia caused by a feeling that you’re under observation

compulsive behavior (like, “i have to pace right now” even when your feet feel like they’re broken… I’ve often been afraid to look down because i thought i might see blood but i couldn’t stop walking even when it hurt so much that i started crying)

sleeplessness, insomnia, nightmares

suicidal thoughts and tendencies (“maybe if i die, i’ll be with my paras”, “i can’t take it anymore”)

feeling uncomfortable in your body/with your identity (i often have trouble recalling my real name because i’m so used to be my parame’s name, i avoid mirrors because i expect to see my parame’s face and it always catches me off guard)

weight loss or weight gain

appetite loss or appetite gain

dissociation and “out of body” experiences

avoidance and the death of your social life

not being able to feel anything either neg or pos about “real life” things because you’re only concerned with your paracosms

speaking the dialogue out loud or whispering, acting out daydreams

i have seriously been asked if i’m possessed when i got caught daydreaming

it is so painful and so detrimental and it makes our lives difficult, it is not “cute”, it is not “lol relatable”, it  is not “creative”, and it is not “fake”

I feel stupid. I literally thought that the avatar was this picture of David Tennant.

Not a dream

Things that somehow still surprise people

1) I am not a guy

2) I am not American

3) that's Audrey Hepburn in my DP

4) ???

Academic writing advice inspired by Umberto Eco’s ‘How to Write a Thesis’:

Planning

Determine primary sources/bibliography.

Determine secondary sources/bibliography. 

Find title.

Brainstorm a table of contents with as much detail as possible (with chapters, sections and even paragraphs and sub-paragraphs - see How to Write a Thesis’ own table of contents as an example at the end of this document) (if the first drafted table of contents is good enough, it will not be necessary to start the writing from the beginning).

Do a first draft of the introduction.

Note-taking and research

Use Google Scholar to make sure you do not miss important sources.

Keep the table of contents in mind when researching and take notes of which sources could go where.

While note-taking, differentiate which parts could be used as quotations from the ones that are simply important for the argument.

Eco underlines the importance of what he calls reading sheets, which can be understood as your notes on your readings. According to him, these should contain:

information about the author if he is not a well-known figure;

a brief (or long) summary;

they should mostly consist of quotations (accompanied by all the corresponding page numbers)

any commentaries you might want to add;

an indication of which part (or parts) of your table of contents the information mentioned belongs to.

Keep reading sheets on primary sources (which should be the longest) separate from those on secondary sources (which should only be 1-2 pages long).

In the end, re-read the notes and color-code all the different parts according to where they would fit in your table of contents.

Writing and editing

A good place to start would be by redrafting the introduction.

Define every key/technical term used/mentioned unless indisputably obvious.

General writing tips:

keep sentences short;

do not be afraid to repeat the subject twice (ex: Roberta went to the shop (…) Roberta bought carrots and tomatoes);

avoid excessive details;

avoid subordinate clauses (orações subordinadas);

avoid vague language;

avoid unnecessary adjectives;

avoid the passive voice.

While drafting, write everything that comes to mind. Leave the editing for the end.

Use your tutor as a Guinea pig. Make them read your first chapters (and, progressively, all the rest) well before delivery is due. 

Ask for as much feedback as possible. Ask colleagues, friends and/or family to read your work. They will provide you with more diversified feedback, as well as allowing you to know if your writing is clear to anyone.

Stop playing ‘solitary genius’.

Don’t insist on starting with the first chapter. Start with what you know best and feel more comfortable writing about, then fill in the gaps.

Leave time for editing and try to take at least a one or two days long break in between writing and editing. 

Do not forget to fill in the gaps. When you revisit your writing, go through it with all these writing tips in mind as well as a conscience of what your most common mistakes are.

Use Hemingway in the final editing phase.

Quotations and footnotes

Since there are two kinds of sources (primary and secondary), there are also two kinds of quotations: either we quote a text which we will interpret, or we quote a text which supports your interpretation.

Some quotation rules to know:

“Quote the object of your interpretive analysis with reasonable abundance.”

 “Quote the critical literature only when its authority corroborates or confirms your statements. (…)  when quoting or citing critical [aka secondary] literature, be sure that it says something new, or that it confirms authoritatively what you have said.”

“If you don’t want readers to presume that you share the opinion of the quoted author, you must include your own critical remarks before or after the passage.”

“Make sure that the author and the source of your quote are clearly identifiable.”

“When a quote does not exceed two or three lines, you can insert it into the body of the text enclosed in quotation marks. (…) When the quote is longer, it is better to set it off as a block quotation. In this case the quotation marks are not necessary, because it is clear that all set-off passages are quotes, and we must commit to a different system for our observations. (Any secondary developments [like the quote’s reference] should appear in a note.) (…) This method is quite convenient because it immediately reveals the quoted texts; it allows the reader to skip them if he is skimming, to linger if he is more interested in the quoted texts than in our commentary, and finally, to find them immediately when need be.”

Some footnote rules to know:

“Use notes to add additional supporting bibliographical references on a topic you discuss in the text. For example, ‘on this topic see also so-and-so.’”

“Use notes to introduce a supporting quote that would have interrupted the text. If you make a statement in the text and then continue directly to the next statement for fluidity, a superscript note reference after the first statement can refer the reader to a note in which a well-known authority backs up your assertion.”

“Use notes to expand on statements you have made in the text. Use notes to free your text from observations that, however important, are peripheral to your argument or do nothing more than repeat from a different point of view what you have essentially already said.”

“Use notes to correct statements in the text. You may be sure of your statements, but you should also be conscious that someone may disagree, or you may believe that, from a certain point of view, it would be possible to object to your statement. Inserting a partially restrictive note will then prove not only your academic honesty but also your critical spirit.”

“Use notes to provide a translation of a quote, or to provide the quote in the original language.”