moonstruck;

shana. 30s, woman of many letters. new new romantic, enjoyer of old films & books, attempting to become a renaissance woman. substack

[expressions-of-nature]

Fyrish Monument, Scotland by Kier Allen

[whitealbum]

does anyone else feel like we need to raise the standard for writing quality across all mediums like right now

[tyronepowerbottom]

couldn't sleep, so I put on an episode of Twin Peaks................... um

it actually is Thursday the 23rd

[postarcadian]

re: adaptation and the supposed “purity” of the original work it’s complicated right. and ultimately I think that whether classicists like it or not, it’s just the nature of the beast that (a) the texts we study have been and continue to be radically readapted and reinterpreted and we can have strong opinions about which adaptations we like or don’t but it’s just the nature of a 2000+ year reception tradition to produce variance, and (b) the texts we study are much more a scholarly construction, and authorial intent far more difficult (and ideologically suspect) to try to recover, than is true of, say, a 19th or 20th century novel. which is to say that it’s one thing to say that Fennell’s Wuthering Heights misunderstands Charlotte Bronte’s novel and something quite different to say that Nolan’s Odyssey misunderstands “Homer’s” epic, because the latter is responding to another 2500 years of a reception tradition that in some sense is not entirely or even primarily about the Odyssey as a poem in Ancient Greek. this is not to take a stand on either one as an ideological project or whether either is a good film (I am reserving judgment but strongly suspect that neither is) but to say that I think that whatever the Odyssey is on a conceptual level is much less singular and well-defined than what Wuthering Heights is, if that makes sense

[postarcadian]

basically what I’m getting at here is that “Homer” or “the classical” is not a real, tangible, solid thing out there in the world that can only ever be correctly or incorrectly interpreted. it’s an ongoing process of cultural conversation and production and assignment of value judgments that operates across thousands of years of accreted meaning, and the impulse to see an adaptation or interpretation you don’t like for ideological or aesthetic reasons and immediately claim that it’s a misinterpretation of the Original Text is a kind of rhetorical dodge

[petaltexturedskies]

Virginia Woolf, in a diary entry written c. July 1935, from Selected Diaries

[renmoldovan]

Kvernufoss, Iceland

Instagram

[unsubconscious]

Brent Cotton Before the Thunder Speaks, 2026 Oil on canvas, 91 x 121cm

[kinkydorah]

beautiful almond but at what cost? :(

[matchingjuicylockets]

[clytemnestraaa]

one of my creative writing professors once said that to evaluate a work as good or not, first you ask what the work is attempting to do, and then you evaluate how well it does it. and this is how to judge everything from critical essays to romance novels to snack packaging to theory tracts.

[abyssalaquarist00]

pick up that non-fiction book

[abyssalaquarist00]

not all of us can live in fantasy 100% the time like i see some people on here do and it's refreshing to learn something new. its been philosophy, essays, and history for me and i feel much more at home on planet Earth for it knowing that people have been struggling and wishing similarly for millenia.

its not that fiction doesnt have its place, its important and healthy to exercise the imagination, but non-fiction can do so much to boost and supplement that. if not for yourself, for your art or for the people you're around

[abyssalaquarist00]

"representation matters!" but you wont read or engage with non-fiction works about any demographic outside your own

[abyssalaquarist00]

this version of the post doesnt seem to be getting much traction but this is arguably the most important reason why we should be reading nonfiction in addition to fiction

[random-brushstrokes]

Elisabeth Wolf (German, 1873-1964) - Interior with a sleeping cat in front of the window

[charnel-grounds]

Skull with Pipe and Coat

anonymous, c. 1900

[lousolversons]

Because I will not lie! That is love!

[spookyboywhump]

I do really love it when women write graphic and fucked up things. I feel like so often people react to fucked up fiction with “of course a disgusting man would write this 🙄” and it often carries an unspoken (honestly sometimes spoken) message of “a woman’s PURE and DELICATE and FEMININE mind could NEVER think of something this VILE”. Thank you women in fucked up fiction 🫡

[notebooks-and-laptops]

Fucked up fiction by women you should 100% read:

[ofgeography]

okay this is a list of exclusively bangers, not even counting the fact that WE HEXED THE MOON is on here which obviously makes me feel joyous. but kushiel's dart fuckin RULES as did on sundays she picked flowers and patricia wants to cuddle. 10/10 no notes

[powerbottombrucespringsteen]

“Who yells?” Is unquestionably the best broad city line i think about it every time someone raises their voice even slightly

[junkyarded]

so awesome that you can see something new come out and think wow that looks bad and then never watch it and keep living