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Robert Smithson. Untitled (Spiral Jetty Drawings), 1970

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Nikoleta Sekulovic, Virginia Woolf, 2024

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writing a huge essay on lolita straight into the posting form and i just accidentally backspaced and erased like an hour of work. my whole face is hot with rage FML

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some moons

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The Emotional Centre of Shinjuku Station by Hiro (1962)

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"BEAUTIFULLY HANDCUFFED BRIDE" NOELIA TOWERS // 2023 [oil on canvas | 30 x 30"]

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"WHAT PLATO SHOULD I READ!!!!!!" (A HANDY GUIDE) (not all are represented)

"I hate myself!" - The sophists

"I wish I had experienced sex at some point in my lifetime! Or perhaps recently!" - The Symposium

Alternatively: "I am experiencing a terrible insatiable pining and am on verge of tears!" - The Symposium

"I love it when someone's a slightly arrogant asshole!" - The Euthyphro

"It really bothers me when people ignore their friends!" - The Crito

"I've always thought about how nice soldiers look in their little outfits but I think they should train naked instead sometimes!" - The Laches

"I want to imagine a place that may or may not suck for everoyne involved!" - The Republic

"I imagine Socrates would have enjoyed oiling up young Athenian men with olive oil granted the chance!" - The Charmides

"I need to understand the concept of hotness so I can do it myself!" - The Phaedrus

"Does Socrates experience love, and if so, what does it look like?" - The Alcibiades I

"How do I know if I even have friends?" - The Lysis

"I'm not a Socrates fan :(" - The Phaedo

Alternatively: "I am a huge Socrates fan and would like to see him surrounded by friends, but I also take pleasure in crying!" - The Phaedo

"Socrates did nothing wrong!" - The Apology

"I love to know about murder mysteries!" - The Hipparchus

"I'm a math major!" - The Theatetus, The Timeus

"I understood AND enjoyed Hegel!" - The Parmenides

"I don't think it's possible for people to get better!" - The Protagoras

"I forget things often!" - The Meno

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Blue Moon

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Tales of the Amur, illus. Gennady Pavlishin (via riowang)

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Margaret Watkins - The Kitchen Sink (1926)

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Takato Yamamoto aka 高遠山本 aka Yamamoto Takato aka 山本 タカト (Japanese, b. 1960, Akita Prefecture, Japan) - 吸血妖鬼 (Vampire Fairy Demon), 2008, Paintings: Acrylic on Paper originally printed in the book "Coffin of a Chimera"

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This may be a bit of an odd rec request but I wonder if you have any rec for mentor/mentée or teacher/student that are your favorites? i love how complicated it can be.

I don't find it to be a particularly odd request, but I had trouble parsing from your message whether you are interested either in recommendations for fiction which deals with these relationships romantically or in recommendations for narratives (fiction or memoir or otherwise) which contend with them as a site of trauma and abuse. Your tone suggests the former to me, but I'm not sure, and of course I imagine that receiving a response intended for the opposite of what you intended to request would in this case not feel particularly good!

For now I am going to hedge my bets and share a list of fiction which deals in some way with mentor/mentee relationships somewhere on a spectrum from loving and romanticized to traumatic.

My suggestions are primarily from sff novels, which is interesting and perhaps revealing here. My realistic/literary fiction suggestion is Kate Elizabeth Russell's My Dark Vanessa.

But here's the sff list, very roughly ordered from most romantic/benign to most horrific (it's an inexact progression, please don't quibble with where I've placed something). While all of them prominently feature compelling mentor/mentee or teacher/student relationships, not all of them show these relationships becoming sexual or romantic, and in some of them I am stretching the definition because I think they are doing something interesting with that trope. I am happy to give specific content notes for any of these, though I not including them below.

Tamora Pierce, The Circle of Magic series - this series is all about extremely wholesome and loving teacher/student relationships within which absolutely nothing sexual happens

Tamora Pierce, The Immortals quartet

Naomi Novik, Uprooted

S. A. Chakraborty, The Daevabad trilogy

Anne Rice, The Vampire Armand

Catherynne Valente, Deathless

Octavia Butler, Dawn - first in a series, but can be read on its own

Tanith Lee, Personal Darkness - second in a trilogy, but the one which deals directly with this trope. Can't very easily be read on its own.

Octavia Butler, Mind of My Mind - also one in a larger series (reading order is debatable), but can be read on its own

N. K. Jemisin, The Broken Earth trilogy

Scott Hawkins, The Library at Mount Char

C. J. Cherryh, Cyteen

Seth Dickinson, The Masquerade series

Caitlin Sweet, The Pattern Scars

From this list, my personal favorite example of this kind of relationship is in The Pattern Scars, though Cyteen and The Masquerade are both doing wildly compelling and exciting things with the idea of mentorship more broadly.

Uprooted and Daevabad only barely made it on the list, but they both are tropey about this in a particular way that I felt should be represented.

ETA: In non-sff realm of course A. S. Byatt's Frederica Quartet deals really extensively and complexly with relationships between teachers and students from several angles. I'm sorry for momentarily forgetting you, Byatt! I don't know, maybe I should have made a non-sff list after all.

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The Brides of Dracula. Art by J.H. Williams III. 💀🦇

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i glow pink in the night in my room. BY the fucking way.