#speaking as someone studying old literature and English

[theflikchic]

JKR really wrote "I am not transphobic! I don't fear trans people! I'm just absolutely terrified that every trans woman I see is a secretly an abusive man waiting to rape me at every turn!" Girl, I- I just- How did this woman ever manage to write a good, narratively coherent series when she can't even keep her damn tweets straight? Like, hot dog, was HP divine intervention because there ain't no way she had that skill and it just vanished like that. This is ludicrous.

[inkedinshadows]

Hello lovely people! 🌸

(snippet of fanfic at the end)

Hi everyone! I'm not exactly new here, but I've never really posted anything before. I lurked in the dark, sometimes appearing in someone's comments, but mainly silently devouring fanfic for Azriel because I'm such a sucker for our shadowsinger 🖤

But now that I've got a lot of free time on my hands, I've decided to give a shot at writing something of my own and share it with anyone who'd be willing (and kind enough) to read it.

And while I work on the final scenes of my first fic, I thought it could be a nice idea if maybe I introduced myself a little a bit? I don't know, maybe no one really cares, but maybe someone does? So here it is.

🌸 I'm Italian, so forgive me if there are some mistakes or some weird stuff, but don't feel bad about calling me out on it so I can improve ✨️ it's my first time writing something other than an essay or dissertation in English after all

🌸 My name is Yennifer (not very Italian, I know), but you can call me Yen or Yenni. Whatever you like works tbh

🌸 I started writing when I was 10 and the first thing I ever wrote was a crossover for Harry Potter and Narnia, in which Peter and Ginny ended up together. I actually rewrote the whole thing at 13, then again at 15, and then I started writing a sequel. When I tell you I made that my whole personality for a few years, I mean it

🌸 I studied Foreign Languages and Literatures in university (and hopefully it helped with mastering English enough to use it for fanfics) and I recently graduated. I'm currently waiting and praying for my admission to the Master program

🌸 I've always wanted to be a writer, but since now I'm old enough (22 lol) to realize I'm not sure I've got what it takes to plan, write and finish (they tell me this is an important part of it) a whole ass book, my dream job is translator: reading, writing and languages all in one. What else could I possibly want?

🌸 My favorite authors are Jay Kristoff, TJ Klune and Jojo Moyes. If we stick to classics, I love Oscar Wilde and a few Italian dudes probably not many know

🌸 I love the color blue in all its shades, so I like to think it as fate that Azriel's color is cobalt 💙

🌸 I am OBSESSED with music. I can't live without it and I'm not even exaggerating. If I'm not listening to music, then there's still music playing in my mind and it never shuts up. Sometimes it can even be a bit frustrating. But whether it's real or just in my head, music is playing 24/7 around here

🌸 In case you couldn't tell, I particularly like this flower emoji. I just think it's really cute and a nice change from the usual lil red heart

Now, before I wrap this up, here's the little snippet I promised. Enjoy!

His shadows lunged forward as if they wanted to reassure her, but he held them back. He approached her slowly, stopping just in front of her. He crouched down next to her and waited for her to meet his eyes before speaking.

“Let me help,” he said, unable to hide his concern any longer. He wanted to erase that haunted look from her eyes and he’d do anything to make her feel safe and protected again.

“You’re not alone, Y/N,” he continued, his tone gentle. In his mind, he was cursing himself for not having thought that she might experience this kind of problem. “I could help you. We can do it at your pace and stop whenever you wish.”

She stared into his eyes and it felt like an eternity passed before she nodded. Relief flooded his chest at her trust, her willingness to finally let someone help her.

[...]

Tears were streaming down her face and she sobbed, drawing her legs close to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She began to rock back and forth and maybe she was begging for it to stop, to never start, maybe she was screaming or calling out for someone, maybe she wasn’t saying anything at all.

As that dark freezing water closed over her and pulled her under, she knew the pain would come soon. And there was nothing she could do to stop it. She was drowning and there was nothing she could do, nothing she could do, nothing she could…

A tender, gentle touch on her cheek. From far away, someone called her name. And among the chaos, the darkness, the crippling fear, she saw a pair of hazel eyes, soft and yet concerned. A male voice assuring her that she was safe, that he was with her.

She wanted to believe that voice, but the water was pulling her under, cold and dark and terrifying. And yet that gentle voice was still talking to her, those hazel eyes still looking into hers, and she tried to hold on to them, to not let it all slip away.

And then someone took her hand and suddenly she felt something thumping beneath her palm. A heartbeat, she realized. Life.

Heartbeat meant life. Not death, not pain.

Life.

Alright, I really hope you liked this and that it sparked your curiosity just enough to stick around to read the whole thing. I'll post it in the next few days, I just have to write the end.

Whether you've read the whole post or just skipped to the snippet, thank you so much and hopefully I'll see you again! 💙🌸🙈

[effervescentdragon]

Piarles / coffee shop au ☕️

Este elbows him in passing with his unnaturally long arms, almost making Pierre drop the carton of oat milk he is carrying. He would have, if he wasn't such a good barista.

"What the fuck?" Pierre hisses. Este, the fuck, doesn't stop grinning.

"Your Fancy-Pants Chai Latte is here," he sing-songs the last word. Pierre can hear the capitalisation clearly, and he barely restrains the urge to turn around immediately. He knows that if he does it, Este will win. Fuck that.

"His name is Charles," he replies. Before he can add anything else, Este elbows him again, taking the boxes from him and pushing him back to the register in a surprisingly agile manouver for someone who looks like a praying mantis on a good day and like Slenderman on a bad one. Pierre goes, because he isn't in the mood to start a fight with Este. Besides, he's pretty sure they're both on thin ice with Otmar, and they both need this job, no matter how shitty it is. Neither of their scholarships covers everything they need. If they did, neither of them would be working in Alpine Caffe. Needs must, though, or whatever the saying is.

"Hello," he says with a wide smile that is, for once, genuine, and not his customer-service smile. It's hard not to be genuine around Charles for Pierre.

"Hello, Pierrot," Charles says, and the dimple in his cheek is as distracting as ever. "How have you been?"

Pierre shrugs. "Good. Studying, working, same old. How's your finals going?"

Charles groans, and Pierre laughs to cover up the instinctive reaction that groan gives him. "That bad, huh?"

Charles groans again. Pierre narrows his eyes, but Charles says "Don't ask, please. Professor Vettel is set to kill us, I am sure."

"So dramatic, Charlo." Pierre chuckles. "Medieval German literature isn't as interesting as you thought?"

"You know I only took the course because I had to." Charles pouts, and Pierre wants to sink his teeth in that full lower lip.

"You could have taken Intro to Economics," he says instead, then laughs at the utter betrayal on Charles' face. "I'm joking, cher. I would never be so cruel to suggest that for you, knowing what I know about your math skills." That makes Charles smile, and Pierre feels satisfaction in his very core at making Charles smile. "What will it be today? The usual?" Charles nods, and Pierre rings up the order, then busies himself with making Charles' drink.

The whole time he works, he feels Charles' eyes on his back. He imagines Charles checking him out, and many other things he really shouldn't be thinking about at work. He imagines the touch or the rings on Charles' fingers on his skin and wonders if they'd be cold, or warmed by Charles' body heat. He wonders how Charles' mouth tastes right now. He thinks of many things as he adds oat milk into the Chai Latte, and puts it on the counter with a smile.

"One extra large Chai Latte with extra espresso shot and oat milk. That will be 3.98. Anything else?"

Charles' eyes flash mischievously, but he only says "Thank you, Pear" sweetly and pushes a five at Pierre. "Keep the change," he says, and fails to wink, and then he's walking through the almost-empty caffee and out the door. Pierre watches him go, eyes firmly set below Charles' waist.

"You know that order is worth double what you charged him, right? Or are your math skills as bad as his supposedly are?"

"Fuck off, Esteban," Pierre says, refusing to blush. Este laughs from somewhere on the left.

"When are you finally going to ask him out? He's definitely interested. I don't know what you're waiting for."

The group of around seven giggling girls bursting through the door saves Pierre from having to answer Esteban's question. It's an old argument for them, which started the first time Charles stumbled into the caffee, wet from the rain outside and more beautiful than Pierre could have ever imagined a person to be, and started speaking in soft, accented English. Pierre recognized the accent, and switched to French, and the way Charles' eyes lit up and the way he switched into their mothertongue with excitement and relief was still one of Pierre's favourite memories.

Pierre can hear Esteban sigh as the girls approach the counter. "You're a fool," he says and pats Pierre's shoulder.

Pierre doesn't bother replying. Instead, he fixes his customer service smile on his face firmly, and prepares himself for half a dozen fancy, almost impossible orders.

--

The mouth underneath his tastes of watermelon and sweat. It's a singularly appealing taste to Pierre.

"You vaped again," he murmurs into the kiss, and Charles bites his lip in retaliation. "Oh, you'll pay for that."

Charles' eyes are live fire, his cheeks are flushed, and his arms and legs are wrapped tightly around Pierre's body. He stretches, pressing his whole body agains Pierre's. His necklaces are as warm as he is, and Pierre's cross ends up tangled in them. It feels appropriate.

"That's what I'm counting on," Charles says, and Pierre wants to say too many too truthful things, things he can see reflected in Charles' eyes. He doesn't, though. It's not the time.

Instead, he lowers his body over Charles', and he takes Charles' lower lip in between his own, and he pushes inside, and he swallows all of Charles' moans, and all of Charles' whimpers, and all of Charles' breaths.

[hypnoneghoul]

okay, so my uni! @jimothybarnes @sexy-sea-basss

under the cut hehehe

for me to be able to do two things at once there's something called IOS here which means basically individual schedule of studies. not everyone can apply for it, you can get approved when youre disabled, are studying more than one thing or are in a bad living situation and need to work a lot for example. me is obviously because of two courses. what IOS allows me to do is mix class groups in a way that adjusts my schedule to my liking and makes me not have to be in two places at the same time lmao. also I can heva up to 6 classes that I do have to pass at the end but I don't have to regularly attend

first faculty is in polish, called culture and practice of text; creative writing and editing. the subjects:

Analysis of text

Creative writing

Copyright

Poetics

Practical rhetorics

Practical text styling

Anthropology of culture and literature

Culture of language

Philosophy of culture and literature

Old literature

Philologists craft

Film and theatre

second one is in english minutes, english philology

Writing skills

Vocabulary

Grammar

Descriptive grammar

Phonetics

Speaking skills

British society

American society

Linguistics

Literary studies

English literature lecture

English literature workshop

History of GB and the US

so yeah that's why I have so many exams lmao I think that's it for the info tho, unless someone is curious and wants to ask about something else

[finalsentence]

hi everyone!! this is going to be a very simple introduction; depending on how this goes i might get fancy and do something nicer in the future!

this is my second or third time trying to create a space for myself in the writeblr community. both times i failed because consistency is hard. but i’d like to put myself out there and make friends with other writers, so i’m giving it another shot!

about me.

i’m nineteen years old and pursuing a ba degree in english literature! i have absolutely no idea what i want to do after that… if i had it my way i would simply spin my favorite characters around in my head for a living but i’ve been told that’s not how it works. :(

i enjoy reading a variety of genres, including literary fiction, horror, and post-apocalypse!

my top favorite books are: the stand by stephen king, frankenstein by mary shelley, and the kite runner by khaled hosseini. (yes, they are wildly different stories, but they all hold a very special place in my heart. <3)

my writing.

so. confession time. i am a fanfiction writer. i know how that sounds, but don’t scroll away just yet! i put a lot of care and effort into my work to make it accessible and enjoyable for everyone; so even if you aren’t in any of the fandoms i write about, you will still be able to follow my work the way you would follow someone’s original novel. all of my work is a study of canon storylines, settings and characters, but i try to present it in a way that does not assume the reader has any prior knowledge of the source. (and if you do, you get to enjoy the little easter eggs hehe.) there’s something for everyone, i promise! <3

generally speaking, i enjoy writing in the same genres that i read! i write a lot of horror and post-apocalypse, but overall i am trying to develop a more literary style. my work tends to focus on anti-heroes and their super dysfunctional relationships. and lots of my favorite characters are queer-coded!

i want to venture into writing original fiction one day, so you can look forward to that!

my wips.

i only have one active wip at the moment, so that’s what i’m going to talk about here. i might introduce some of my future projects later if i’m able to get this blog off the ground!

the book i’m currently working on is a five nights at freddy’s fanfiction suburban horror novel. it doesn’t have a title yet, because i am notoriously indecisive and i haven’t found one that fits, so until i figure that out, i’ll be using temporary tags and referring to it vaguely as ‘my michael novel.’

the story features an unreliable narrator, sketchy family entertainment restaurants, and lots of paranormal activity!

summary:

michael afton is miserable. living alone in a crappy apartment, unable to hold down a steady job, and haunted by nightmares of a tragic event in his past, he starts to suspect that things will never get better. but then, his estranged father reaches out to him with an unexpected and cryptic offer, asking him to return to his hometown and take a job as a maintenance technician at an animatronic rental facility. though he is unhappy about returning to the town where he grew up, michael dutifully follows these instructions, convinced that rekindling a relationship with his father is the key to turning his life around. however, he quickly realizes things in the facility aren’t what they seem. something sinister is hidden inside those walls, and it’s putting michael’s life on the line. in order to discover the truth about his father—and, eventually, to make things right—michael has to come to terms with his own past mistakes.

it’s not a fantastic summary; i’ll probably rework it soon, and hopefully i will have an entire wip intro to share at some point!

aaand that’s pretty much it! if you’re interested in interacting with me at all, please don’t be afraid to reach out! i am always open to chat, especially about your wips—and feel free to include me in dash games, too! i want to interact with people as much as possible, to build a little space for myself on here with some new friends, and have fun. <3

i hope you enjoy my little corner of writeblr!

[opossum-pity-party]

I really didn't want to derail the very valid conversation on this post, but I do have some thoughts. Namely, thoughts on what constitutes a "favorite" book. Go check out that post (and read the article) and then come back here.

In the Atlantic article, one of the professors laments that their students often say that Percy Jackson is their favorite book instead of classic literature. Which, when taken in a larger conversation about declining literacy, is very concerning. Adult college students should not still be reading at a 5th grade level. But that's not what I want to talk about here. This post isn't about literacy.

One of the commenters on that post made a brief comment about students no longer lying about their favorite book. And that got me thinking about the difference between "favorite" books and "influential" books. While similar, I don't believe they are the same thing. Nor should they be.

Favorite books occupy a very special place in people's lives. If they discovered the book early enough in life, it can become so intertwined with the person they grew up to be that its impossible to separate the two. I don't think it's outrageous to assume that for many of those students, Percy Jackson was the book series that made them fall in love with reading in the first place. It was the gateway drug to literature, so to speak.

But I think what that professor was really asking his literature students was "what is your most influential book?" And that is entirely different. An influential book is what got you interested in studying literature in the first place. While children's books like Percy Jackson are great for encouraging reading, they don't necessarily inspire people to pursue college degrees. An influential book is what inspires you to do that. This is where you get Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein, and to To Kill a Mockingbird. This is where classic literature comes into play. Which is not to say that these two categories cannot overlap. Your favorite book can also be influential.

This is not to pit one group against the other. I hope it's obvious, but if not I'll make myself blantaly clear. While populist fiction and classic literature serve different purposes, both are utterly vital and necessary to becoming a well rounded reader.

I never studied English literature in higher education, but I did go to film school, where there exists a variation of this same argument. Favorite films versus influential films had pretty much the same divide. While the film cannon isn't as old and established as the literary cannon, there are still undisputed "classic" films. And there are populist films.

My favorite movie is The Nightmare Before Christmas. An animated children's movie. It has been my favorite movie since I was 4 years old. I watched the DVD hundreds of times as a kid. It is so enmeshed into my personality that I don't know how to give a different answer to that question. But the movie that inspired me to apply to film school is The Sixth Sense. A very different film, arguably one of the classics.

My point to all of this rambling is that we shouldn't judge people too harshly on their favorite anything. Favorite is an incredibly personal label, something I think a lot of people find and establish as children. And just because someone's "favorite" is something made for children, we shouldn't assume that they've never broadened their interaced with more complicated media ever in their lives. But also, if your favorite media is aimed for children you HAVE to broaden your horizons in order to grow as a person.

[grandhotelabyss]

Do I have to read the Bible to write like Faulkner and Melville? I did enough Bible study in primary school and it kind of sucks. Can’t I just read Shakespeare instead?

I don't know; I don't write like Faulkner or Melville. It's important for persons of letters to know the Bible for cultural literacy, since so much literature, right up to Cormac McCarthy and Toni Morrison at the end of the 20th century, is incomprehensible without it. But if you weren't raised on the King James Bible, and I certainly wasn't, you may not have that particular rhythm in your soul. That's fine, because there are many other rhythms, as for instance Shakespeare's, to cite your own example. In my experience: the Bible was de-emphasized in Catholic school, never taught to us as an intelligible whole or world-narrative—Catholics get that from their theology—but only as a repository of pious parables phrased in slack modern English in our "religion" textbooks. When it was taught, the emphasis was on the Gospels, the Old Testament reduced to a few notable sequences—Moses loomed large—but otherwise a compendium of names and narratives you'd never straighten out. It never really occurred to me as a child that it was a book one might read for pleasure and insight, strange as that may sound; I experienced it only as the distant, dull rule-book governing those who governed me. Learning about Greek mythology in "reading" class, which culminated in the redacted but mostly intact version of The Odyssey they gave us in the eighth grade, was much more stimulating. To this day the Greeks speak to me more clearly. (The Greek canon fancifully corresponds, though, to the Bible, which is why I don't ultimately believe in Athens vs. Jerusalem: Homer, Hesiod, and the Pre-Socratics are lawgivers and historians, the Athenian playwrights and poets are wisdom writers and gospellers, and Plato is Prophet and Paul. Not to mention that the New Testament itself belongs to the Greek canon anyway.) Someone should put together, if someone hasn't already, a 500-page King James Bible with just the parts writers need to read.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Literary prizes go to prison inmates," Montreal Star. February 28, 1969. Page 30. ---- By DUSTY VINEBERG The Creative Awards Association yesterday presented awards for fiction and poetry to three inmates of the Special Correctional Unit, the super-maximum security installation at St. Vincent de Paul.

The Association is a private organization only a little over a year old which has been running classes in art, literature, theatre and other activities every week night at Leclerc Institute, another part of the St. Vincent de Paul complex.

The CAA also handed out five prizes to men in Leclerc who produced work in the creative writing program.

All work was read and judged by novelist Hugh MacLennan, Professor of English at McGill University.

To be published On the strength of his judgment that, though sometimes uneven, it has literary merit, program coordinator Mrs. Gertrude Katz is assembling it for publication.

The winning entry. "Stanley P. U. Smart," which brought its writer the $100 award. is about an old man searching for proof of his identity to present to pension authorities. According to Mrs. Katz, it is characterized throughout by skillfully suggested meanings on several levels and evocative descriptive passages.

The awards were presented by Mrs. Kay Lines, president of the CAA, in the Special Correctional Unit. At the time this installation was

built, outcries were raised against its windowless, super-security atmosphere. It has been open only a year, under the direction of War- den Jean Pagé and Assistant Warden Jacques Lessard.

Mrs. Katz said she originally started working with one inmate within its walls. Subsequently she asked poet Irving Layton to give the men a poetry reading which sparked more of them to try this form of self-expression. She says that as soon as an inmate shows signs of producing a sizable amount of work, "I get him someone to work with him."

The volume of work to be read and criticized and the correspondence involved make it difficult for one per son to handle many inmates, she said.

At the moment, poet George Bowering is working with one English-speaking inmate and Leandré Bergeron, Professor of Contemporary French Literature at Sir George Williams University. is handling the work of three French-speaking men. Also in the program is fourth-year McGill University English major René Akstinas, who has taken on two young prisoners.

Not censored Prison authorities permit manuscripts to go back and forth through the mail uncensored. The relationship between the writer and his editor is apt to be intense. The man who wrote the winning story calls Mrs. Katz his "mentor" (sometimes tormentor, he adds.) and has developed a protective attitude towards her while making it clear that "she does not know everything about prisons yet.'

Both the contact with "outsiders" and the feeling that people care are important to inmates.

The CAA group has based their program of studies, taught by talented teachers, on the idea that "it may be superheated but wrongly directed intelligence, in correlation with environment and various sorts of exacerbated sensibilities, that land men in trouble in the first place."

As Mrs. Lines puts it: non-conforming people are usually creative. Criminals are non-conforming. Therefore, criminals may be creative."

CREATIVE EFFORT RECOGNIZED: Mrs. Kay Lines, president of the Creative Awards Association, and creative writing coordinator Mrs. Gertrude Katz give awards to three inmates in the Special Correctional Unit at St. Vincent de Paul.

Staff Photo by Paul Tallleter

[solradguy]

hello solradguy! as someone who is interested in learning how to translate japanese, i was wondering what your approach was to learning japanese! did you go in knowing you wanted to translate writing, and focus your efforts on reading? or did you try to learn all aspects of it at once (ie audio recognition, speaking, pitch accent, etc)

I started learning it because, at the time (2015), I was still doing art in mostly analog formats and a lot of really good inking supplies came exclusively from Japan with fully Japanese packaging. It was really frustrating having to rely on machine translation to figure out things like replacing pen cartridges or pen nibs upkeep/maintenance. My focus then was reading and I never really shifted from that; I can't verbally speak it and my audio recognition is only marginally better haha

Translating Guilty Gear stuff sort of happened by accident, and improved my Japanese more than anything else I was using to study with (which was mostly Duolingo, Wanikani, and Tofugu articles 😬). I couldn't find anyone else that was actively working on getting stuff into English and there was a massive backlog of official literature that hadn't even been so much as scanned, so I was like "Well, if no one else is gonna do it..." lmao It later turned out that there was stuff that had been translated, it was just kinda stashed away on niche websites or Discord servers.

Artworks of Guilty Gear X 2000-2007 captions were my first non-Japanese workbook translation project and got me to really start taking my Japanese studies seriously. There weren't files of pretty much any of the illustrations in that book online that were in decent quality. It was actually faster/easier just scanning a page (at the time) than manually cleaning and upscaling one.

This was the very first Guilty Gear thing I ever scanned (March '22) and the caption that went with it:

They’re half-realistically drawn here. At the time, I wanted to pursue texture in my drawings and used many thick layers of Copic markers to try to achieve that. I don’t think it was pointless, but if it’s going to take too much time to do such things, acrylic paints would be better. - Cover of the August 2000 issue of Arcadia Monthly.

It's a lot clunkier than how I would translate it now haha I've improved so much since then...

I used to physically write out the captions and translate them in a notebook. Here's how the first pass of this caption went:

They were only half realistically drawn. At that time I wanted to pursue texture in my drawings, so I used a thick coat of Copic marker. I don't think it's "pointless," but if it's going to take too much time to pursue such things, I think acrylic would be better.

It's fun going through this notebook and seeing these old translations. Eventually I got good enough at doing it in my head that I stopped writing them out, but sometimes really long sentences still trip me up. Japanese word order.......

These days I get most of my practice by doing Renshuu flashcards/games and reading posts by my Japanese mutuals over on Twitter. Even though I'm still actively translating GG stuff, the projects have gotten much bigger and there isn't anything left that's like the Artworks 2007 captions that I could whip out in about an hour anymore, it's all long paragraphs or manga dialog.

I still don't have much desire to practice speaking or listening skills because I would never get any use out of them where I live in the Midwest USA—they'd get rusty fast if I didn't practice religiously. But I do handle Japanese text very often and am fine with focusing 100% of my study time on just reading/writing instead.

[jellyfishrunaway]

Finally creating my yuusona/yuu insert bc I'm bored

(Notes in parenthesis are things not known by the other characters bc they forget to tell people stuff, + prev. = in their home world, cur. = in twisted wonderland)

PS: the home world/language section is under the impression that twst common tongue is English, including in NRC and that Latin is a dead language there

Slight chapter 5 spoilers in extra!

<Basic info>

BIO

Name: Yu (they haven't told anyone their last name, so just Yu.)

Birthday: During one of the school breaks (July 12, cancer)

Pronouns: he/him (will also respond to they/them) but creator usually refers to him with they/them

Age: 18

Height: 5'2 / ~ 157.48 cm

Dominant hand: right

Homeland: unknown land (US)

Family: unnamed mother, unnamed father, unnamed older half sister

Voiced by/ voiced claim: currently n/a

Other names: Yellowtail rock fish (floyd), Trickster (rook) (couldn't think of anything so... yeah)

SCHOOL

Grade: freshman/first year (but previously mentioned on how they were a third year before coming to twisted wonderland, but because of their magicless-ness, they have to stay a first year, not that they really care all that much)

Class: Class C (no. 15)

Club: n/a or literature club (also debating if they should be in art club, but to my knowledge, neither of these clubs have been confirmed, so...)

Favorite subject: prev. N/A, science cur. Potionology/alchemy

Best subject: prev. Math, social studies cur. Potionology/alchemy

PREFERANCES

Hobbies: Most forms of art including: painting, sewing, jewelry making, Keychain making, ect. Walking in a circle for hours and day dreaming.

Pet peeves: abuse of power, people that make him uncomfortable

Favorite food: prev. Those mf rice n' roonie microwave things cur. Steak

Least favorite food: Moose/chocolate Moose

+ allergic to hazel nuts, avocados, and almond

Talent: if interested enough, can quickly find ways around seemingly impossible things / problem solving

<extra info>

PERSONALITY TYPES

Intp-t

9w8

PERSONALITY (as described by creator)

People pleaser, if you're rude to them, they are rude to you, could beat someone's ass but is literally to nice, madilaptive daydreamer, procrastinator, severely underestimates them self, probly has self esteme issues, but they loyal and genuinely a nice person to people thye like, thinks there is a basic line of respect and people have to earn to be more respected by them/respect is earned, not given,

PERSONALITY (as described by oc)

Pretty boring, procastintor, an asshole sometimes, annoying ig

HOMEWORLD

Past relationships: n/a

Friends: 4 unnamed, mentioned best friend nicknamed Alph but actual name is unknown, old friend named Ellory

Living status: was upper middle class before coming to twisted wonderland

LANGUAGE

Language: Everything is basically the same, but Latin (the dead language) replaces English. This doesn't interfere with the past, but basically, language developed to swap Latin with English, so English speaking countries (America, Canada, Britain, ect?) just speak Latin instead.

"Then how does Yuu know English if it's a dead language?"

Yuu took up learning English because they were interested in it, and they had nothing to do, so they picked it up as a hobby

EXTRA:

During SDC, once Vil was done overbloting, they passive aggressively lectured him in Latin, and to this day, nobody knows what they said

I will answer questions in comments/reblogs, may add to this later (and maybe, I'll draw them them if i feel like it)

+ will add relation chart later

[rosaline-black]

Hi! Can I get an old fashioned with a male stranger things character? I’m 5’3”, female, petite frame with a hourglass shape. I have a classy style with a bit of an edge, long wavy brown hair & green eyes. I’m sarcastic, a bit feisty, blunt, impatient, moody, reserved, confident, protective, stubborn, independent & stylish. I’m an INTJ. I like to exercise, hang with friends/family, study history & english, cook/bake, & travel. my fav music is jazz/rock. I also speak Italian & German (fun fact ig)

Here’s your old fashioned…

I match you with Eddie munson

Idc idc I see Eddie with someone blunt and moody!!

Sunshine X grumpy dynamic

I’ve always headcannoned Eddie as a huge literature nerd. Growing up he didn’t have many friends but he did have books! Maybe you meet at Hawkins high library or something.

He’s immediately enamoured by how blunt you are… in fact it makes him wanna tease you instantly cause that’s the type of little shit he is

Speaking in your other languages just to wind him up because he can’t understand

Him eventually attempting to learn some Italian or German words to impress you but completely butchering the pronunciation

But it’s the thought that counts eh?

[la-pheacienne]

What are your favourite greek classics? or in general from the greek literature canon? I'm not greek so i confess that i only know the ones that date back centuries that i needed to study from my classic greek classes :) I read antigone and i like it

And, aside from les mis, have you read any other french classics? or any that are now encapsulated as "european" (spanish, polish, romanian etc?

Sorry if any questions sound weird. Do not need to answer if they make you uncomfortable

No it's not weird at all, thank you for asking!!!

Unfortunately, I have read far less greek classics than I would like. My first response will be kind of basic, I think one should always, always, start with Homer (with a slight preference for Odyssey). Odyssey is truly magical. There is nothing quite like it. Thematically, conceptually, narratively, stylistically it is just so flawless. It is like a dream of adventure, love, monsters, good and evil, loyalty and treason, and longing for home of course.

Then since you have read Antigone you could try Oresteia, this is a trilogy (I think the first trilogy ever created?), so it's three consecutive tragedies, and it's amazing, I think this one particularly appeals to someone who is looking for a more, let's say, morally dubious world. It's less idealistic, it's a story about a rotten royal family tearing itself to pieces. What's cool is that every single POV has more or less valid reasons for doing what they are doing, and your opinion on the characters really changes when you go from one tragedy to the next. Everyone is partly right and partly wrong (some more than others), but in the end the gods intervene to settle this affair once and for all. It's really cool. Then Oedipus Rex has of course the OG "trying to change my destiny and making it happen instead" arc which is a really powerful theme, used consistently ever since in any type of modern media, films, tv shows and books.

But since you ask about Greece, in case you are interested in reading modern greek literature, I have a soft spot for the Murderess of Alexandros Papadiamantis (you can find it in Amazon), I think it's the best modern greek novel honestly. It's about an old woman who slowly becomes deranged and starts killing little girls, starting with her newborn granddaughter, because she feels that girls bring only misery to their families (and will only experience misery themselves). Then I will also include this quite niche recommendation (this one will be more difficult to find but an english translation does exist), its The End of Our Small Town by Dimitris Hatzis, it's a book with many beautiful and heartbreaking short stories/portraits of different social types of people in Greece during the period between the first and the second World War.

So, from Europe I have read french, russian, and english literature. And also Kafka, that's it. So I can only speak about this. From french literature, I would recommend a less talked about novel of Balzac, Le Cousin Pons, that is one of my absolute favourite books. Balzac is the contrary of Hugo in the sense that Hugo is a Romantic, he talks about society but aiming to inspire people, to put it simply, while Balzac is a Realist, so he wants to present society exactly as it is, and it is not a good portrait. Where Hugo is hopeful, Balzac is resigned, so it is a really depressing book. But still, hands-out the most in-depth portrait of french society, 100 percent relevant today, and the appeal of it is that it makes the modern reader feel akward cause the things he criticizes are still prevalent in the modern way of thinking. I guarantee that you will find people you know that are exactly like some characters in that book. It is the story of an antique collector that is ignored and scorned by his superficial bourgeois family because he's weird and he only cares about his hyperfixation (his collectables) until they realise the true value of his collection and they construct a plan to steal it and basically destroy him in the process.

[lucydriscoll]

Welcome to Aurora Bay, LUCY DRISCOLL !!! I couldn’t help but notice you look an awful lot like JOSEFINE FRIDA PETTERSEN. You must be the TWENTY THREE year old LITERATURE STUDENT AT AURORA BAY COLLEGE. Word is you’re STUDIOUS but can also be a bit SHY and your favorite song is REFLECTING LIGHT BY SAM PHILLIPS. I also heard you’ll be staying in AURORA BAY DRIVE. I’m sure you’ll love it!

tw: anxiety

GENERAL DETAILS.

BIRTH NAME:  lucy driscoll AGE: twenty three DATE OF BIRTH: 5th of december 2000 PLACE OF BIRTH: aurora bay, california, usa ETHNICITY:  anglo-saxon GENDER:  cis female PRONOUNS: she/her ORIENTATION: panromantic / pansexual RELIGION: atheist OCCUPATION: english literature student

PERSONALITY.

POSITIVE TRAITS: studious & kind NEGATIVE TRAITS: shy & over-trusting MYERS BRIGGS: INFP

THE RUNDOWN.

everyone in town knows about the levin name, and the various family family members most people would be able to rattle off. lucy grew up the lesser known cousin and neice of the levin family, and honestly, she was glad to stay out of the small town limelight. however, to most who grew up in the town around the same time as she, a young lucy had her own reputation that followed her around.

born lucy marriane driscoll, experienced symptoms of childhood anxiety disorder from a very young age, her parents assuming she was just a shy child and would come out in her own time. at the same time, lucy was delayed in terms of learning to speak, it was almost impossible to get her to vocalise words or sounds, with the exception of rare occasions. her concerned parents took her to as many paediatricians as they could, who all relayed the same information that there was nothing physically afflicting lucy that would prevent her from speaking. it would take several sessions with a paediatric speech pathologist for the driscoll's to finally understand that lucy had selective mutism. essentially, it meant that she experienced a complex anxiety disorder in which she experienced a phobia of speaking and being in social situations. often one to hide behind her mothers skirts and dresses, a little lucy found the big world around her very overwhelming. over the years the driscoll's got straight into cognitive behaviour therapy and desensitisation therapy for lucy, and even began teaching her conversational ASL for better communication. by the time lucy went to school, she was beginning to speak in soft tones, but albeit rarely. she was known in classes as the girl that never talked, and occasionally got picked on for it.

frustrated by her own inability to communicate to the level she wished, lucy discovered her love for writing. all the thoughts and feelings inside of her head could be written on paper. finally, she had an outlet. throughout her early schooling years, lucy would write stories daily, including members of her family and those kindest around her to show her appreciation — her own little love language.

lucy would gradually speak more throughout the years, but it would be around fifteen years old when she truly had the confidence to speak out loud. this was managed through the various therapies and the assistance of those closest to her. however, that didn't mean she stopped writing, her passion for the skills still burned bright. this love of literature brought out a confidence in her studies, to the point she'd spend hours reading and writing for school until she'd fall asleep at the table. for the first time in her life she had a drive to succeed, to get into a university and be someone special. still a somewhat reserved person, lucy see's the world in a very different frame of mind as an adult. she loves people nowadays, and works to build strong friendships and bonds.

CONNECTIONS.

current connections.

Long-time close friend of @aiden-stevens Good friend of @lilynunthapak Book Buddy @emersonxcassidy Bestie of @kyleexanthony Friend to @sullivanxshaw Daughter to @noellexdriscoll Classmate to @pytndyer Cousin to @sterlingxlevin & @thelizaxlevin

wanted connections. ( wip )

High School Bully: Who picked on Lucy’s shyness and aversion to talking. Book Club Members: Read books of the week, and meet to discuss. Childhood Crush: She’d never speak to them, rather watched from afar.

[ailelie]

🦉Positivity owl reporting for duty! This was sent by a friend who wants you to smile as much as your posts make them smile. Please list five things that make you unique, four things you are super passionate about and why, OR three of your favorite memories. Feel free to send the owl to those who you feel deserve to smile🦉

I don't know who sent you, but thank you for making me smile this Friday morning.

I'll go with Door #2 and answer the 4 things I'm passionate about and why.

One. Stories

Stories hold such incredible power in human society. Anyone studying folklore, literature, or even history will hear at some point some version of the quote about humanity being storytelling creatures. Our need to tell stories sets us apart from other creatures, etc.

Stories shape reality. I don't mean that as in every story is a reflection of or predictor for reality. I do not think we need to police the stories we tell for fear of cultivating "bad" things. Rather, I think the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we convince others to believe shape our perceptions, which then drives our actions. This both helps and harms us.

Stories inspire and challenge us and we continue to reach for and meet those challenges.

...besides which, I grew up on fairy tales. I love falling into other worlds and losing myself in others' trials and triumphs.

Two. Words

This is not cheating. I love words. I love how they sound in my mouth. I love how connotations shade meanings. I love how placing two unexpected words together sparks new meanings.

Naturally, I adore poetry.

But I also like how every word is a time capsule of the societies and languages that formed it. If you break a word, even "word," apart, you find the past.

Old English word "speech, talk, utterance, sentence, statement, news, report, word," from Proto-Germanic *wurda- (source also of Old Saxon, Old Frisian word, Dutch woord, Old High German, German wort, Old Norse orð, Gothic waurd), from PIE *were- (3) "speak, say" (see verb). [src]

Three. Writing

This is also not cheating. Just because someone enjoys stories and words does not mean they necessarily love aligning their own sentences to tell their own stories. I, however, do.

I have been telling stories for as long as I can remember. I did give up fiction for a short time thanks to a well-meant, but poorly given compliment (good for my age! clearly I was terrible and wasting my time and should never write fiction again! oh past!me...), but what's a few years in the course of a life? And, even then, I tried my hand at poetry (which we also know I ought not write).

Now, embarrassingly, I find myself unable to explain. I do not love only fiction. I even enjoy writing the driest reports for work. I find genuine pleasure in crafting a good sentence. I don't always expend the effort here on tumblr or other social, but I could.

Beyond just sentences, though, I love the structure of things. I imagine essays as images. I see stories as shapes. I love charting how one point or moment leads to another.

And, beyond that, I love communicating. I love taking the mess inside my head, straightening it out on a page, and showing it to others to read. I love being heard and understood.

Even when writing frustrates me and the right words elude me, I love it. I cannot think of a single facet of writing that I do not adore.

I think better with a pen in my hand. I am more me when I am writing.

(Note: That is why, if I stop writing, you should be concerned. Even if I seem all right in every other aspect, an Ailelie who isn't writing at least once a week isn't a mentally healthy Ailelie).

Four. Debate

The struggle with debate is finding someone who is willing to engage without identifying too much with their arguments. If a debate becomes a fight it ceases to be fun. I also dislike pointless debates over important topics. I will not debate an NRA fanatic over gun control unless we have an audience of undecideds. I'm also not going to turn something into a debate or fight when I can tell the issue is a matter of definitions, not true disagreement.

I also dislike debates where I feel patronized. I will not waste my breath on someone who cannot give me the courtesy of engaging fully. It is a matter of respect.

So all those caveats means I have precious few debates, but I was not in high school debate just for something to do. I genuinely enjoy trying to understand someone else's arguments and find the weaknesses in them. I enjoy defending my own points.

And, while it may seem utterly opposite of my initial caveats, I enjoy being right.

Another reason I engage in few debates is a matter of trust. I can get passionate (not loud or emotional/etc, but more insistent) and I have had people pull back because of that, as if they fear I am truly upset, when, in fact, their retreat is the only thing that upsets me. The trust is understanding that my emotions are never at risk. Unless someone is arguing for something I am truly against (e.g., abortion bans), I am not going to think less of them for engaging with me.

I dislike watching most debates, but I do deeply enjoy reading or listening to a well-crafted argument.

[zianramn]

𝐙𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐊𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐌 𝐑𝐀𝐌𝐍𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇-𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐒𝐓 — ​🇷​​🇦​​🇾​​🇲​​🇴​​🇳​​🇩​ ​🇦​​🇧​​🇱​​🇦​​🇨​​🇰

THIRTY-SIX YEARS OLD; CIS MAN ; ENGLISH & CREATIVE WRITING PROFESSOR AT UNCW; has lived in MIDTOWN since april 2022

"The sky set to burst, the gold and the rust, the colour erupts, you fillin' my cup. The sun comin' up like I lived my whole life before the first light;"

name's pronounced zee-ahn; last sibling to join the Hearst empire although, he would rather eat his own foot to ever be involved in the family business; born and raised basking in the old money ways, zian didn't really have that much attention from either parent growing up. when his mother remarried, his step-father was actually the one to give him love and attention. the pressure of being a hearst and the treatment from his step-siblings caused zian to start a long-term relationship with drugs, especially cocaine and crushed vicodin pills. he spent a lot of his summers in wilmington when younger, because his step-dad had a summer home by the beach. yale alumni zian took a job as an english & creative writing professor in uncw two years ago. although he’s always considered himself a functional addict, a bad break-up had him spiraling down and eventually having an overdose a few months ago, which was really a wake-up call to him, so he’s been trying to get himself cleaned. he’s a romantic soul who will speak poetically when in love and in awe. henley shirts and jeans are his usual attire alongside his camera; often has a book in his hands, too, and will definitely stop you to pet your dog.

information —

triggers for — mentions of drugs & drug usage

Zian was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Not only was their father rich, but their mother also came from old Connecticut money, which meant that anything the young boy wanted, they could have it. However, while the Ramnauth residence had tons of money to spare, it also lacked love and affection. Their father traveled a lot and their mother was often too enthralled in high society parties to pay attention to her own child, and so, Zian was raised by nannies, by piano tutors, violin professors and by the help around the house. As a child, he craved for the attention only parents could give, and only parents could also deny, and so, Zian would often find refuge in old sculptures in museums, in beautiful paintings and in books, often capturing the world through pictures which would allow the young Ramnauth to tell a story only they could know.

When he was fifteen, Zian’s mother divorced his father, which, did nothing much to his life as he barely saw the man to begin with. However, it apparently caused his mother Nandini to seek for the young teenager’s attention, thus making him often confuse her neediness for affection. And just like that, the woman transformed someone who had spent their first fifteen years of their life being neglected, into someone who would do anything and everything for their mother, after all, it was them against the world; or so she said.

By the time Zian had finished high school, his mother had already found a new lover to call her own, a man by the name of Oscar Hearst, who came with three other children and a billion dollar empire to be fought over once he bit the dust. One, Zian couldn't care less about because he already was, as a matter of fact, filthy rich, thanks to his maternal grandparents.

To Zian, that union meant little to nothing. He had already been accepted to study English Literature in Yale earlier that year, so he didn't need the Hearst name to make exceptions for him, he already had picked a career, so he didn't need to battle for the Hearst Co. empire... he already had a father, though a distant one, so he didn't crave for one in Oscar. The only good thing it gave him, was the chance to make him come down to Wilmington during his summer vacations and it allowed him to meet his best friend Julian while there. To Oscar Hearst, however, it meant he’d gotten the son he’d always dreamed of having: nice, polite, responsible and dedicated. It meant he could dote on someone without being shut down, that he could take someone to ball games, spend afternoons chatting over a glass of Brandy, and to take on New York by its horns and steer the fate of his company.

The biggest question about this union, however, remained about his step-siblings. Zian didn’t know whether they were annoyed about sharing their father’s love with the younger man, or, sharing his empire with a whole new family, although, Zian had always made it known that he had not interest in getting in the family business. And yet, he still went on and graduated with a Business minor because his mother had asked him to. Yet, he still started working for Hearst Co. in his early years with an entry job because his step-father asked him to, but God, he hated it.

He started spiralling down and developing a close relationship with illicit drugs in order to escape the hell he kept constantly being dragged to, by the people his mother had brought into his life without any sense of consideration for his boundaries. The more time he spent around his step-siblings family, the more miserable he felt. His spark suddenly being diminished by the companies he would keep, his brightness considered weakness. His love for photography was laughed on, his smart and diplomatic ideas were ignored, so, he stopped trying to please the part of his family who dispised him and started working towards giving himself a taste of happiness.

After spending some time enjoying endless nights hopping from gallery soirees, to parties, and eventually landing in strangers beds in New York City, Zian became attached to the boost of energy certain white powders would give him, despite also knowing that should anything like that reach his step-father’s ears, he would be done for. But, Zian was living for the thrill.

Three years ago, Zian accepted a position at the University of North Carolina, teaching English in the Corporate Communications, Public Relations programs and Creative Writing, too, which, is what actually makes him happy nowadays: the academic life. It’s not as glamorous as being in the line of succession of Hearst Co., but considering how he knows his step-siblings would rather see him dead than in charge of their father’s empire, Zian is more than happy to not be going toe to toe with these people and just living the simple life away from the New York chaos.

Wilmington had always been a place that, ever since getting into the Hearst family, he’d always visited, because Oscar had houses near the beach. And so, one could say that Wilmington was the closest thing he’d ever had for a home, so, it almost felt like coming home again when he decided to take the job at the UNCW.

[graceafteraparty]

Sylvia Plath interviewed by Peter Orr on October 30 1962.

From The Poet Speaks: Interviews with Contemporary Poets Conducted by Hilary Morrish, Peter Orr, John Press, and Ian Scott-Kilvery.

Transcript under the cut:

.......................................

ORR: Sylvia, what started you writing poetry?

PLATH: I don't know what started me, I just wrote it from the time I was quite small. I guess I liked nursery rhymes and I guess I thought I could sort of do the same thing. I wrote my first poem, my first published poem, when I was eight-and-a-half years old. It came out in The Boston Traveller and from then on, I suppose, I've been a bit of a professional.

ORR: What sort of thing did you write about when you began writing poetry?

PLATH: Nature, I think: birds, bees, spring, fall, all those subjects which are absolute gifts to the person who doesn't have, you know, any sort of interior experience to write about. I think the coming of spring, the stars overhead, the first snowfall and so on are gifts for a child, a young poet.

ORR: Now, jumping the years, can you say, are there any themes which particularly attract you as a poet, things that you feel you would like to write about?

PLATH: Perhaps this is an American thing: I've been very excited by what I feel is the new breakthrough that came with, say, Robert Lowell's Life Studies, this intense breakthrough into very serious, very personal, emotional experience which I feel has been partly taboo. Robert Lowell's poems about his experience in a mental hospital, for example, interested me very much. These peculiar, private and taboo subjects, I feel, have been explored in recent American poetry. I think particularly the poetess Ann Sexton, who writes about her experiences as a mother, as a mother who has had a nervous breakdown, is an extremely emotional and feeling young woman and her poems are wonderfully craftsmanlike poems and yet they have a kind of emotional and psychological depth which I think is something perhaps quite new, quite exciting.

ORR: Now you, as a poet, and as a person who straddles the Atlantic, if I can put it that way, being an American yourself...

PLATH: That's a rather awkward position, but I'll accept it!

ORR: ... on which side does your weight fall, if I can pursue the metaphor?

PLATH: Well, I think that as far as language goes I'm an American, I'm afraid, my accent is American, my way of talk is an American way of talk, I'm an old-fashioned American. That's probably one of the reasons why I'm in England now and why I'll always stay in England. I'm about fifty years behind as far as my preferences go and I must say that the poets who excite me most are the Americans. There are very few contemporary English poets that I admire.

ORR: Does this mean that you think contemporary English poetry is behind the times compared with American?

PLATH: No, I think it is in a bit of a strait-jacket, if I may say so. There was an essay by Alvarez, the British critic: his arguments about the dangers of gentility in England are very pertinent, very true. I must say that I am not very genteel and I feel that gentility has a stranglehold: the neatness, the wonderful tidiness, which is so evident everywhere in England is perhaps more dangerous than it would appear on the surface.

ORR: But don't you think, too, that there is this business of English poets who are labouring under the whole weight of something which in block capitals is called 'English Literature'?

PLATH: Yes, I couldn't agree more. I know when I was at Cambridge this appeared to me. Young women would come up to me and say 'How do you dare to write, how do you dare to publish a poem, because of the criticism, the terrible criticism, that falls upon one if one does publish?' And the criticism is not of the poem as poem. I remember being appalled when someone criticized me for beginning just like John Donne, but not quite managing to finish like John Donne, and I felt the weight of English Literature on me at that point. I think the whole emphasis in England, in universities, on practical criticism (but not that so much as on historical criticism, knowing what period a line comes from) this is almost paralyzing. In America, in University, we read - what? - T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Yeats, that is where we began. Shakespeare flaunted in the background. I'm not sure I agree with this, but I think that for the young poet, the writing poet, it is not quite so frightening to go to university in America as it is in England, for these reasons.

ORR: You say, Sylvia, that you consider yourself an American, but when we listen to a poem like 'Daddy', which talks about Dachau and Auschwitz and Mein Kampf, I have the impression that this is the sort of poem that a real American could not have written, because it doesn't mean so much, these names do not mean so much, on the other side of the Atlantic, do they?

PLATH: Well now, you are talking to me as a general American. In particular, my background is, may I say, German and Austrian. On one side I am a first generation American, on one side I'm second generation American, and so my concern, I must say, with concentration camps and so on is uniquely intense. And then, again, I'm rather a political person as well, so I suppose that's what part of it comes from.

ORR: And as a poet, do you have a great and keen sense of the historic?

PLATH: I am not a historian, but I find myself being more and more fascinated by history and now I find myself reading more and more about history. I am very interested in Napoleon, at the present: I'm very interested in battles, in wars, in Gallipoli, or you know, the First World War and so on, and I think that as I age I am becoming more and more historical. I certainly wasn't at all in my early twenties.

ORR: Do your poems tend now to come out of books rather than out of your own life?

PLATH: No, no : I would not say that at all. I think my poems immediately come out of the sensuous and emotional experiences I have, but I must say I cannot sympathize with these cries from the heart that are informed by nothing except a needle or a knife, or whatever it is. I believe that one should be able to control and manipulate experiences, even the most terrifying, like madness, being tortured, this sort of experience, and one should be able to manipulate these experiences with an informed and an intelligent mini I think that personal experience is very important, but certainly it shouldn't be a kind of shut-box and mirror looking, narcissistic experience. I believe it should be relevant, and relevant to the larger things, the bigger things such as Hiroshima and Dachau and so on.

ORR: And so, behind the primitive, emotional reaction there must be an intellectual discipline.

PLATH: I feel that very strongly: having been an academic, having been tempted by the invitation to stay on to become a Ph.D., a professor, and all that, one side of me certainly does respect all disciplines, as long as they don't ossify.

ORR: What about writers who have influenced you—perhaps that's the wrong word to use—meant a lot to you?

PLATH: There were very few. I find it hard to trace them really. When I was at College I was stunned and astounded by the moderns, by Dylan Thomas, by Yeats, by Auden even: at one point I was absolutely wild for Auden and everything I wrote was desperately Audenesque. Now I again begin to go backwards, I begin to look to Blake, for example. And then, of course, it is presumptuous to say that one is influenced by someone like Shakespeare: one reads Shakespeare, and that is that.

ORR: Sylvia, one notices in reading your poems and listening to your poems that there are two qualities which emerge very quickly and clearly; one is their lucidity (and I think these two qualities have something to do one with the other), their lucidity and the impact they make on reading. Now, do you consciously design your poems to be both lucid and to be effective when they are read aloud?

PLATH: No, I don't—the ones I have read are very recent and I have found myself having to read them aloud to myself, saying them to myself. This is something I didn't do. For example, my first book, The Colossus, I can't read any of the poems aloud now. I didn't write them to be read aloud. They, in fact, quite privately, bore me. These ones that I have just read, the ones that are very recent, I've got to say them, I speak them to myself, and I think that this in my own writing development is quite a new thing with me, and whatever lucidity they may have comes from the fact that I say them to myself, I say them aloud.

ORR: Do you think this is an essential ingredient of a good poem, that it should be able to be read aloud effectively?

PLATH: Well, I do feel that now and I feel that this development of recording poems, of speaking poems at readings, of having records of poets, I think this is a wonderful thing. I'm very excited by it. In a sense, there's a return, isn't there, to the old role of the poet, which was to speak to a group of people, to come across.

ORR: Or to sing to a group?

PLATH: To sing to a group of people, exactly.

ORR: Setting aside poetry for a moment, are there other things you would like to write, or that you have written?

PLATH: Well, I've become—I shan't say I've become interested in prose—I always was interested in prose. As a teenager, I wrote short stories a lot and I published short stories. And I always wanted to write the long short story, I wanted to write a novel. Now that I have attained, shall I say, a respectable age, and have had experiences, I feel much more interested in prose, in the novel. I feel that in a novel, for example, you can get in toothbrushes and all the paraphernalia that one finds in daily life, and I find this more difficult in poetry. Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline, you've got to go so far, so fast, in such a small space that you've just got to burn away all the peripherals. And I miss them! I'm a woman, I like my little Lares and Penates, I like trivia, and I find that in a novel I can get more of life, perhaps not such intense life, but certainly more of life, and so I've become very interested in novel writing as a result.

ORR: This is almost a Dr. Johnson sort of view, isn't it? What was it he said, 'There are some things that are fit for inclusion in poetry and others which are not'?

PLATH: Well, of course, as a poet I would say pouf! I would say everything should be able to come into a poem, but I can't put toothbrushes into a poem, I really can't!

ORR: Do you find yourself much in the company of other writers, of poets?

PLATH: I much prefer doctors, midwives, lawyers, anything but writers. I think writers and artists are the most narcissistic people. I mustn't say this, I like many of them, in fact a great many of my friends happen to be writers and artists. But I must say what I admire most is the person who masters an area of practical experience, and can teach me something. I mean, my local midwife has taught me how to keep bees. Well, she can't understand anything I write. And I find myself liking her, may I say, more than most poets. And among my friends I find people who know all about boats or know all about certain sports, or how to cut somebody open and remove an organ. I'm fascinated by this, this mastery of the practical. I feel as a poet, one lives a bit on air. I always like someone who can teach me something practical.

ORR: Is there anything else you would rather have done than writing poetry? Because this is something, obviously, which takes up a great deal of one's private life, if one's going to succeed at it. Do you ever have any lingering regrets that you didn't do something else?

PLATH: I think if I had done anything else I would like to have been a doctor. This is the sort of polar opposition to being a writer, I suppose. My best friends when I was young were always doctors. I used to dress up in a white gauze helmet and go round and see babies born and cadavers cut open. Well this fascinated me, but I could never bring myself to disciplining myself to the point where I could learn all the details that one has to learn to be a good doctor. This is the sort of opposition: somebody who deals directly with human experiences, is able to cure, to mend, to help, this sort of thing. I suppose if I have any nostalgias it's this, but I console myself because I know so many doctors. And I may say, perhaps, I'm happier writing about doctors than I would have been being one.

ORR: But basically this thing, the writing of poetry, is something which has been a great satisfaction to you in your life, is it?

PLATH: Oh, satisfaction, yes! I don't think I could live without it. It's like water or bread, or something absolutely essential to me. I find myself absolutely fulfilled when I have written a poem, when I'm writing one. Having written one, then you fall away very rapidly from having been a poet to becoming a sort of poet in rest, which isn't the same thing at all. But I think the actual experience of writing a poem is a magnificent one.