i-feel-something-when-icu

[i-feel-something-when-icu]

darrow and virginia

redraw of The Kiss by Klimt

have not made red rising art in a bit omg!!! still the best series eva

[i-feel-something-when-icu]

“Thunder and lightning, brother.”

Cassius and Darrow at The Institute

I miss this era of Darrow so much, like he was just a guy™️. (Also i’ve been kinda head empty just Darrow and Cassius lately, they’re so Gold Rush by Taylor Swift)

[i-feel-something-when-icu]

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON (2022-) S02E06 | "Smallfolk"

[i-feel-something-when-icu]

"everything is about reaching the end except for the ending, which is about wanting to go back to the start."

art catching patrick during their first scene together // patrick catching art during their last scene together

[i-feel-something-when-icu]

i think we are all forgetting something when we talk about how toxic patrick, tashi, and art are — or when we decide one is “worse” than the other. they all have moments of seeing right through it, seeing each other’s toxic behavior for what it is, and STILL want and need each other in this possessive, envious, visceral way.

1. in the way beginning, tashi is clearly flirting more with art than patrick, and patrick is visibly annoyed. art sees right through it and even challenges him like “okay, let’s leave”, and has this little smirk on his face because he knows patrick won’t give up on tashi.

2. tashi immediately sees the visible tension and love between art and patrick, and literally orchestrates their first kiss. she sees right through their repression, and even calls herself a “home-wrecker” but still entangles herself with them, especially patrick because he’s clearly the better tennis player at that point and that is tash’s ONLY true love. tennis. that’s what she desires most in him, and patrick knows that. he even calls her out on it in the dorm room scene. but they have this mirroring fire in each other that neither of them can give up, not until patrick breaks the balance and bails — tashi’s injury is literally a metaphor for the balance shattering between all three of them when patrick leaves her.

3. before this, patrick sees right through art trying to break them up, and even admires that quality — maybe even feels smug and flattered because art is jealous and feels left out from both tashi and patrick. patrick has known this all along, we saw it in the “tick-serve” scene, where he even swears to tashi he won’t tell anyone but he still tells art, who is desperate to feel a part of them and patrick wants that, too — even keeps that close intimacy with art that we see in the churro scene (swoon swoon swoon).

4. haven’t you noticed that arts desire to be great is only ever tied up in patrick and tashi? how he needs to beat patrick to win tashis affection, how he needs to win in tennis so that tashi can live through him, how he lives up to his potential in the ending only because tashi and patrick push him to it, in their little fucked up ways? he knows this — he even admits that he’s playing for tashi, that he knows she’s living through him. he even admits he’s playing a fucked up little game with patrick when they’re in the sauna. yet he still does it. again, he knows what’s happening, sees right through them — still does it, still loves them.

5. when tashi calls patrick to come pick her up he knows it’s not just to tell him to throw the match — and despite how she battles him about it, they still have sex in the car, because he already knows. he’s so fully aware of her and her game and he’s so willing to be caught up in it, the same as art.

just some examples of how they all have moments of clarity and agency and yet they still choose to be entangled in one another because they’re all fucked up in their own, individual ways, and they’re all living through each other for their own specific needs. arts is to be seen as worthy, as great, but only through their gaze. tashis is to have the career that was stolen from her. patricks is truly to be in love and in lust with both of them, because we even see that from the beginning that tashis love alone will never satiate him; it has to be arts love, too. that scene in the sauna when he thinks he’s lost it from art is the most sad and fucked up we ever even see patrick. on top of tashi asking him to throw the game — he’s so defensive of arts feelings.

in short this is an actual love triangle (and i would go as far as to see it as a polyship). you can’t erase one without the whole thing unraveling, and you can’t say one character was the “worst” without picking apart the motivations and pointing to the fact that their bad behavior was never a secret or left unchecked.

even at the end, patrick signals to art that he slept with tashi — art knows and they still have that intimate completion at the end, all three of them. art living up to his potential and embracing patrick fully (id argue this could even be a metaphor for embracing his bisexuality), patrick having both tashi and arts affection again, and tashi playing a phenomenal tennis match through her little white boys — in such a visceral, emotional way that she cries out like she did in the beginning and the last frame is her smiling.

in a fucked up way, they all get what they wanted out of each other.

[i-feel-something-when-icu]

[i-feel-something-when-icu]

[i-feel-something-when-icu]

Adam Schürk: Ich mach Home Office.

Auch Adam Schürk:

[i-feel-something-when-icu]

Hör mir mal gut zu. Du wolltest Gerechtigkeit, dafür bist du losgezogen. Und die hast du jetzt, kapiert? Das heißt, es gibt für dich nur noch eine Sache zu tun. Brav fröhlich sein, dass der liebe Gott das alles ganz genau so eingerichtet hat, okay? Fertig, amen.

Schüttel das ab, Leo. Wir brauchen dich hier.

[i-feel-something-when-icu]

JUNGE NACH WEM GEHT ES DENN??

[i-feel-something-when-icu]

2021 | 2022 | 2023

[i-feel-something-when-icu]

cant wait for cassius to die in rr#6 and darrow has to come up with the gayest eulogy since mark antony at caesar’s funeral.

[i-feel-something-when-icu]

congratulations to Cassius on being Darrow's third wife btw

[i-feel-something-when-icu]

Top 5 Darrow Cassius Heterosexual Moments™️ from light bringer

5. Flirting over swordplay (not a euphemism)

4. Married disapproval

3. Tending to the homies wounds

2. Whatever the hell this was

1. They’re literally honeymooning. Cassius and Virginia are going to fight each other for Darrow’s hand. She literally had his baby and is married to him and I’m still not sure she’s winning.

[i-feel-something-when-icu]

The Ultimate Dark Academia Book Recommendation Guide Ever

The title of this post is clickbait. I, unfortunately, have not read every book ever. Not all of these books are particularly “dark” either. However, these are my recommendations for your dark academia fix. The quality of each of these books varies. I have limited this list to books that are directly linked to the world of academia and/or which have a vaguely academic setting.

Dark Academia staples:

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

Dead Poets Society by Nancy H. Kleinbaum

Vita Nostra by Maryna Dyachenko

Dark academia litfic or contemporary:

Bunny by Mona Awad

The Idiot by Elif Batuman

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever

White Ivy by Susie Yang

The Cloisters by Katy Hays

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates

Attribution by Linda Moore

Dark academia thrillers or horror:

In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

Ghosts of Harvard by Francesca Serritella

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

The It Girl by Ruth Ware

Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian

Dark academia fantasy/sci-fi:

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

The Betrayals by Bridget Collins

Dark academia romance:

Gothikana by RuNyx

Alone With You in the Ether by Olivie Blake

Dark academia YA or MG:

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

Crave by Tracy Wolff

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

Dark academia miscellaneous:

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou

Alphabet of Thorn by Patricia A. McKillip

[i-feel-something-when-icu]

[i-feel-something-when-icu]

pov: you’re Paris and you must choose