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i think that Pirate King Elizabeth Swann

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Work Song by Hozier except you’re deep within a coal mine, working tirelessly to support your family.  Somewhere nearby, you can hear Hozier telling all the other boys in the mine about his beautiful girlfriend.  It fills you with a strange sense of peace.

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So... you said Francis/Charles reminds you of Echo/Narcissus? Tell me more. I'm intrigued.

OH I WILL TELL YOU MORE. THANKS FOR ASKING!!

Alright, friends, stick with me, because we’re in it for the long haul. I’ll even properly capitalize things, just for you, since this is A Proper Analysis™. Also all quotes are from the Raeburn translation of Metamorphoses and the UK copy of The Secret History.

So first things first, I study Classics (and drama but Classics is what’s important here). I focus on the Roman side of things, rather than the Greek (don’t shoot me!), mostly the Julio-Claudians, so this is going to be coming from the Roman version of the myth. This term I’m in a class on Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I had read the Metamorphoses a few times before, but this is way more in depth since the class is devoted purely to that poem. I recently wrote a paper on “extreme people” in the poem, and focused on Echo and Narcissus, specifically how Echo is not what she seems on the surface. NOW LET’S GET STARTED, SHALL WE?

The thing about Echo and Narcissus is that people have an image in their head already, a preconceived idea of what these two characters are like, when in actuality, they’re very different (at least Echo is) than what people think when they hear the names. Echo wasn’t just a passive nymph who was super cautious and very timid like people make her out to be. And Narcissus wasn’t completely heartless in his choices, although he definitely could have been kinder to Echo. Echo covered up for one of her fellow nymphs when she thought Juno was going to catch the nymph with Jupiter. She protected her friend and the consequence was that she lost her own voice, she was doomed only to repeat the ends of what she heard. And even though her autonomy is seemingly taken away from her, she still tries to take what she wants. She sees Narcissus, this god-like boy, and she wants him, so she puts herself out there. And then we have Narcissus. He was doomed since his birth to be his own downfall if he “knows himself” (we’ll talk a bit about how this means different things in different versions later). He knew he was handsome, and he scorned all of his suitors, men and women alike. Yes, he was a little shit, but you would be too if you had

“rippling curls like the locks of a god, Apollo or Bacchus, cheeks as smooth as silk, an ivory neck and a glorious face with a mixture of blushing red and creamy whiteness”

I mean, WOW. Basically what we have is a nymph who knows what she wants and is never apologetic for it, and a boy who is too handsome for his own good.

After Echo sees Narcissus, who refuses to be with anyone at all, she follows him, repeating his words. He eventually asks her to come forward so that he can see who she is, he literally says “we must come together!” kind of deceiving knowing what’s coming right? And when she bursts forward, ready to give Narcissus her entire being he actually scorns her, saying she’ll never “enjoy his body” which sadly she has to repeat which makes things pretty awkward. Echo leaves Narcissus, but still harbors this bitter love for him that ultimately makes her waste away until she is only a voice. And yet she still cares about him. She watches him fall in love with his own reflection, sees him trying desperately to kiss and touch the reflection. Narcissus stays in front of his reflection in the water, slowly wasting away as well, destroying himself because of his own selfishness, and Echo watches, she watches and she is moved to pity, because she still cares so deeply about this selfish, beautiful boy. And yet she knows she can’t help him. Even though he was horrible to her, it doesn’t matter, she still feels sorrow for him, she even mourns him when he finally dies.

“Echo had watched his decline, still filled with angry resentment but moved to pity. Whenever the poor unhappy youth uttered a pitiful sigh, her own voice uttered a pitiful sigh in return.”

She was the only one to say goodbye to him as he was dying, she was the only one who actually cared, even though, until his very last breath, he cared about no one but himself.

Do you see where I’m going with this? So then we take Francis and Charles.

Francis, our Echo, bound to follow and love our Narcissus, despite how selfish and careless he is. Francis, our Echo, being bold with his love, taking whatever attention he can have from Charles, giving himself up readily for him, even though they both know that our Narcissus would never really give anything in return. Francis, our Echo, still loving Charles, always loving Charles, bitterly, coldly, but no matter what, because

“Just when I’ve managed to harden my heart, he’ll turn around and be so sweet. I always fall for it. I don’t know why.”

Francis, our Echo, believing that, despite the selfishness, there must be something good in Narcissus, because how can someone so beautiful be rotten?

“I tend to equate physical beauty with qualities with which it has absolutely nothing to do with. I see a pretty mouth or a moody pair of eyes and imagine all sorts of deep affinities, private kinships.”

And Charles, our Narcissus, in love with the reflection of himself, “he was her brother and they did look an awful lot alike.” Narcissus who, in some versions of the myth, is actually in love with his twin sister and not merely his own reflection. In some versions, incest is the crime, not just narcissism, to use the word directly from his name. Knowing himself means knowing the one who looks strikingly like him, seeing his reflection in someone else and becoming obsessed, loving his twin. Charles, our Narcissus, who is his own ultimate downfall, his own worst enemy, whose passion wrecks his life. Our Narcissus who only cares about himself, who leads people on with his beauty, hiding the selfishness with golden hair and a charming smile. Charles, our Narcissus, who acts as if he cares about our Echo, in private, only to scorn him and develop sudden bouts of amnesia when the apparent affection is brought up again.

Francis and Charles, our Echo and Narcissus, who watch each other waste away, bitterly, angrily, never really able to let the other one have what they want.

I sort of like to imagine that years later, after the end of the book, Charles has left that older woman he was with and Francis maybe realized that he can get by on his own and divorced Priscilla. Maybe they’re both struggling with money and having trouble getting by, but it’s better than being trapped with someone you don’t really love, isn’t it? And Charles finds his way to Francis again. Maybe he tries to apologize to him, finally, and maybe they sleep together one last time, but Francis doesn’t need Charles anymore, he has himself, and now Charles doesn’t even have his reflection. So they say their final goodbyes, their roles being reversed.

“[Our new Narcissus’s] final words, as he gazed once more in the pool, rang back from the rocks: ’Oh marvelous boy, I have loved you in vain!’ Then he said, ‘Farewell.’ ‘Farewell,’ said [our new] Echo.”

So yes, Francis/Charles reminds me of Echo/Narcissus, in the sad, no one gets a happy ending sort of way that I love so much.

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my new thing has been just… acting on my ideas. like i thought maybe my desk would look better on a different part of my room so i like. moved it? just like that! i ripped an old anatomy book and stuck the diagrams up on my wall like some kind of old timey victorian doctor. i wanted a starbucks and i walked one and a half miles back and forth in a floridian storm and goddamn it was a good coffee. life is too short babey if you think of something just do it. nike

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“you make my heart beat in iambic pentameter.”

no you don’t understand shakespeare literally writes to the beat of your heart

that’s why shakespearean actors will sometimes pound their chests in time to the words during readings

that’s why you use fluctuations in the rhythm to track your character’s emotional state - any irregularities in the scansion are like the character’s heart stuttering or jumping or skipping a beat

that’s why when characters share the rhythm - switching off in the middle of a foot - those characters inevitably have an extraordinarily intimate connection

shakespeare fucking writes viscerally, he is literally in your body, and that, my friend, that is why the best shakespearean actors don’t posture and emote

you have to be fucking alive and passionate and electric - it can’t be intellectual, in the end, it has to be about connection and the sweating, cheering, jeering, bleeding masses you’re performing to, because make no mistake, shakespeare may go to lofty heights, but he only works if you’re just as grounded in the earth. he has to be in your body. he has to be in your body.

holy motherfucking shit i love shakespeare so much, get him in your bones, breathe him in, stomp and rage and pine, dadum dadum dadum dadum dadum, it is literally to the beat of your heart

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from part three of fake god, the play: TELL ME WHAT COLOR THE SUN REALLY IS

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i have been fucked up ever since i took a mythology class in college and learned that the greek mythology we know today is not only deliberately patriarchal (i mean duh) but was put in place specifically to abolish the matriarchal religion that came before it, nearly all traces of which were systematically erased. AND, the reason the modern west is so obsessed with greek mythology specifically is that it aligns so closely with our own patriarchal values. like we are literally taught greek mythology IN SCHOOL, that’s how hugely important it is in our culture. (i mean think about it… there is no real benefit to placing that much emphasis on greek mythology specifically over any other part of history)

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Staying Focused: Tips for Maintaining Focus while Studying

You’ve sat down at your desk. You have everything you need on your table or somewhere around you. You start to work. You think, “this is going well,” until a notification pops up on your laptop screen. And then another notification pops up on your phone. And during that period when your eyes were off of your study material, you also noticed a bag of chips, a magazine, your unfinished journal spread, your roommate bobbing their leg up and down and up and down, the pattern of the wood on your bookshelf, a text message, your bed … suddenly you can’t remember what you were supposed to be doing but instead think about how much you want to sleep. Or how hungry you are. Or how much you want to go hang out with your friends. Or your entire life choices.

I’m sure we’ve all been there. Sometimes it’s really difficult to stay focused while studying, and with all the distractions that surround us, it really isn’t surprising. However, there are ways that you can minimize the chances that you’ll give in to those distractions and focus on your work instead. Here are some that have worked for me:

Prepare for the session

The first thing you should do is clear your space. Don’t have things lying around that could make you distracted - put all your food where you can’t see them, your phone inside your bag, etc. However, there also comes a time when you have a thought that’s super important, but you can’t extend that thought or you’ll get sucked into a chain of other distracting thoughts. I like to have a notebook or piece of paper nearby where I can jot down these compulsive thoughts that I’ll get back to later - this is usually my bullet journal.

You could also find a study space where you’re the least prone to distraction. For me it’d be a cafe, since I would only have the things I brought with me. My dorm is where a lot of the distractions are: my books, all my journals and stationery, and my bed. Some people like studying in the library, but personally I find it distracting when other people around me are studying as well (especially when it’s super quiet and you can hear every pen click and page turn).

In addition, you might also want to do things like have a snack, go to the bathroom, and check your phone before you start your study session, so you won’t have the urge to do those things during your study session.

Block out your time and assign specific tasks

I’ve found that whenever I have a very vague schedule - like “I’ll study [ subject ] from 3 to 5 or something” or “I’ll complete these 5 tasks in 4 hours” or even worse “I’ll learn the whole syllabus in the next 2 months” - I don’t get as much done as I could. It’s hard to focus when you don’t really have a specific thing to focus on. You know how on the weekends especially, you have a whole list of things to do but every time you do one thing you get distracted by the thought of another? That can be solved by time blocking. Set aside a specific period of time to do a specific task, and eventually, those will accumulate into more productive hours.

It’s even more efficient to block smaller periods of time - 5 or 10 minutes or so. For example, even though I use the pomodoro technique of doing a task for 25 minutes then taking a 5-minute break, I break up those 25 minutes. If I were studying my flashcards, I might set a goal of finishing one stack - usually one topic - in 10 minutes (depending on the thickness of the stack). If I simply assigned 4 pomodoro sessions to review all my cards, this would make me prone to stretching out the amount of time I spend on a single stack, and in that stretching of time comes a loss of focus. It is a lot easier to focus for 10 minutes on one thing than 25 minutes on 3 things.

Note: What has helped me study for exams is scheduling out my time in months, and then weeks, then days, then hours, then minutes, so I’ll know the direction I’m going in, but I also won’t be overwhelmed by the amount of tasks I have to complete since I can do one small task at a time.

Practice, practice, practice

Like everything else in life, in order to be good at something, you have to practice. Learning to maintain focus is the same. At first, focusing for 25 minutes might feel hard and maybe even painful, but as you complete more pomodoro sessions, you’ll find that focusing for 25 minutes is effortless (or whatever period of time you usually work/study for).

Another way to practice focusing is by meditating. Meditating is part of my morning routine, and it’s definitely helped me stay focused in other activities, so you might wanna give that a try. 

Work alone

I can tell you that of all the group study sessions I’ve had with my friends, most of them are much less efficient than if I had chosen to work alone. (The exception was when I was stuck with a bug in my code and my friend helped me figure it out.) Friends are very distracting, and even when you promise yourselves you’ll work on assignment or that you’ll only discuss the topic you’re studying, your conversation will inevitably stray from that.

Take breaks

When you’re tired, you’re sure to be distracted, so one way of combating that is to take breaks. It refreshes you so that you have more energy to focus during your next study session.

Aside from that, you should schedule your distractions during your breaks - go to the bathroom, grab a snack, go on your phone, or during longer breaks you can talk to your friends, take a nap, etc - so that you won’t give into those compulsions during your study sessions. Because you’ve already done those distracting things, when you’re studying, you’ll end up thinking something along the lines of, “Oh, I’ve already checked Instagram five minutes ago; my phone can wait,” or “I just had a snack, I can go get another one once I’m finished.”

That’s all the tips I have for you right now about how to maintain focus while studying. I hope this has been helpful, but as usual, if you have any questions, or some of your problems aren’t covered in this post, feel free to reach out to me by dropping an ask or sending me a message. Also, linked below are several of my posts that you mind find helpful. Have an awesome day!

Relevant posts

How to Beat Procrastination

The Mandatory Midday Break

4 Secrets to Efficiency

Getting Stuff Done: How to Deal with Lack of Motivation

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Arthur/Eames AU Recs

Been wanting to do a list in this vein for sometime given my fondness for aus and have been spurred to get this in motion. This list is by no means fully comprehensive to all the aus out there. They are very much fics and au’s I’m reccing due to my own personal enjoyment from reading them so in that regard take these with a grain of salt. Search deep! There are lots of gems far out in the tags of ao3 and livejournal.

Keep reading

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That’s it, the Professor is truly the King of Sass

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“You clap for us now.”

— Britain’s immigrants and children of immigrants who are key workers 

Credit: created by Sachini Imbuldeniya

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So this is Queen. You must be Freddie Mercury. You’ve got a gift.

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I still love you.

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Hi Tiffany! You're from Canada so I was wondering if you speak French? If you do, I'd love to have some recommendations about French movies or music because I'm learning the language at the moment. Thank you, and have a lovely day!

Je ne peux parler de français, anon. I studied French for four years in and stopped around 8th grade, so it’s been well over 7 years since I’ve learned the language. I wish I had spent some time in Quebec but I’m from Western Canada and never had the opportunity to so I just learned the basics while I was a student. 

I’ve only seen a handful of French films so I can recommend the ones I’ve seen and loved, here are a few

Jeux D’Enfants (this made me cry out of joy and love)

Amour

Amelie 

La Vie En Rose

The Artist 

Blue is the Warmest Colour 

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (haven’t actually seen this one but the score is beautiful, I assume the film is as well)

Inglorious Basterds (has a bit of French in it with German, English and Italian)

Allied (has some French)

Paris J’taime (not all French, but mostly)

Un long dimanche de fiançailles (this is very sweet, I loved this one)

Adieu a la Reine 

Jeune & Jolie (approach with caution, can be quite graphic)

Coco Avant Chanel

Yves Saint Laurent 

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latin or ancient greek? iliad or odyssey? rome or athens? ivory or scarlet? history or mythology? sea or mountains? apollo or dionysus? gold or pearl? flute or lyre? glory or wisdom? 

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you know... of all the things that shattered arthur to his core when merlin, when merlin finally told him his biggest secret, the one he’s been hiding from everyone his whole fucking life, is that he wouldn’t have cared if merlin have told him sooner. it wouldn’t have changed anything. or, it would have. for the first couple of days. weeks, maybe months. but it wouldn’t have truly changed anything. because arthur would have never, ever, ever have killed merlin and that realisation scared arthur the most. he heard his father’s voice in his head, the voice that told him since the day he was born that magic was wicked, it was evil, a curse to their world. and merlin had magic, merlin, his manservant, his friend, best friend, and deep into the heart of it it didn’t really matter. it was the same merlin. arthur wouldn’t have told uther anything and he wouldn’t have hurt merlin because of it. merlin would be loyal to arthur till the day of his death and arthur knew it, has always known it, just as merlin would never be truly able to betray arthur. and arthur was just baffled because - can you imagine the amount and the power of the feelings battling inside him that very moment? first, it was the horror of merlin having lied to him since they day they met, merlin having lied to him about the most important thing there could be; second, magic happening just before his eyes, and him not being able to tell because he trusted merlin so wholeheartedly he’d never truly think merlin would ever to something like that to him. the stupor of what he would have had to do if he’d have found out sooner, or if merlin had told him sooner and - for one second, the ugliest thought that could have crossed his mind, what if merlin only wanted to hurt, kill him all this time? but then, of course not, of course not, you idiot, he had so many chances, and every time he could have killed you, he instead proved you that he’d die for you. so many damn times. and arthur realises that he wouldn’t have pushed merlin away. he’d be baffled at first, stunned, scared, angry, frustrated, but merlin told you, didn’t he? he trusts you with his life, he does and he’s been proving this to you since the day you met him. i think arthur was most angry at merlin because only then he’d realised who merlin truly was, what he could really do and what he’s done for him throughout the years, he wasn’t just the stupid clumsy, goofy, big-eared and sometime scarily wise manservant that became your friend, a friend whom you trusted with your life, he was the most powerful sorcerer alive and everything he ever did was for you. and that was just too much for arthur. it was fighting head-in with every rule he’s ever set for his kingdom, for his life and for him as a person and just. considering their history, really, he would’ve been a thousand times less stunned and angry if merlin had just right up told him he loved him in front of the whole court. and he wished that merlin would have told him sooner. didn’t he trust him enough? but then of course he didn’t - not with camelot’s ban on magic, not with everything he’s been raised to think about sorcery. and they never truly admitted their feeling towards each other, damned be all the bantering they ever did. it’s just. arthur simply didn’t have to die. he had to live so they could sort this out, they could talk, really talk about this, not the single fucking day we got when arthur was half-dead and didn’t even have the time to make peace with the idea that merlin, his merlin, was such a powerful sorcerer and he’s never given him enough credit for anything he did... and jesus, i’m just - they should have goddamn TALKED about this. it’s everything they deserved.