elke

My favourite animals are foxes and deer. My mum has given me a fox birthday present every year since I was a baby, and I just adore them! I have two cats, a neurotic Burmese called Jonesy (named after the orange cat from Alien), who compulsively eats furniture but is very cuddly and friendly, and a rescue tabby named Chelsea, named after the foster parent's favourite death metal song. (In case you're wondering, no she is most certainly not a death metal cat). My favourite scents are floral, my favourite fragrance is L'ombre dans L'eau by Diptyque, I saved up enough money at my part time job to buy the solid perfume, which is beautiful, and definitely contributes to my love of swans, and for my sixteenth my mum's wealthy friend gave me the full one! My mum thinks it smells like grass but it has been engraved into my soul, and I can feel myself ascending slightly into what is closest to heaven I will ever see (not because I'm evil, merely because I am atheist) every time I catch the gorgeous aroma drifting with the wind into my presence.

My favourite albums include Grace and Sketches For My Sweetheart the Drunk by Jeff Buckley, Honeymoon, Ultraviolence, and Blue Banisters by Lana Del Rey, Lana Del Ray AKA Lizzy Grant, Talkie Walkie by Air, Homework by Daft Punk, Tales of the Inexpressible by Shpongle, She Hangs Brightly by Mazzy Star, Statues by Moloko and Into the Great Wide Yonder by trentemoller. I own most of these on either vinyl or cd, mostly due to my dad who used to be a vinyl dj, and owns over 1000 records and four turntables between him and his identical twin brother, aka the carpark crew (due to their habit of hosting parties in carparks). He was a Psychedelic Trance, or psy-trance, dj, and although i love the sound nothing too much except the mellower sounds of Shpongle have made it to this rather extensive list. Additionally, I love soundtracks! Lovelovelove them, I own several and they are the first section I check in record stores.

I love films, but I am more knowledgeable when it comes to books so beware this may not be an impressive list! To start, my childhood favourite movie is Song of the Sea, a beautiful must-watch detailing myths and legends from Ireland while following the journey of a boy trying to save his selkie sister, accompanied by an unforgettable soundtrack. To continue on with the childhood theme, How to Train Your Dragon! Not the third one of course, but I still cry watching the second. I adore Monster High, it is just so cool! I love all the fashion and the characters and the lessons on individuality. I love Alien and Aliens, and they hold the standards high for science fiction (looking at you Star Wars and Star Trek). I love the horror genre, and I adore every thing gothic. Dracula: Voyage of the Demeter and The Witch are two excellent films. I love Robert Eggers, however Nosferatu was not an impressive film. Here me out: visuals, aesthetic, cinematography, acting was all amazing but in the efforts to not get sued over coping Dracula (which failed) the plot and characterisation was substantially weakened in comparison, and I found myself often comparing the two, only points going to Nosferatu being over the more dramatic ending, compared to Dracula's anti-climatic finale. I also love what I interpret as sort of the equivalent of literary fiction, so the slower movies like The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation. (Sofia Coppola my beloved). One of my more controversial opinions is that the Girl, Interrupted film, while on its own is excellent, is a horrific adaptation of Susanna Kaysen's memoir. It was changed for drama and entertainment, the characters are shallow and lack depth, and it fails to show many of the ways they were together in the books, such as watching the racism protests and supporting all the anti-racism, instead making Susanna spit out a derogatory, disgusting, racist slur because it was more entertaining and dramatic.

Some tv shows I love include my childhood favourites, such as Ruby Gloom and How to Train Your Dragon: Riders of Berk, Defenders of Berk, and Race to the Edge. As for other shows, I don't watch many, or I quit after a bit. Season one of Stranger things is peak, and everything just got worse and worse each season, fighting to be relevant and be in pop culture references instead of staying true to their original vibe. I also adore Sweet Tooth, but I didn't love the second season, the first was best and I cried the whole of the third, but the second left me feeling neutral.

I love reading so much. My favourite genre would probably be literary fiction, but I do enjoy a fantasy or science fiction novel sometimes, occasionally a horror too. My main issue with those three genres are often the firm archetypes and repetitiveness between novels. An example with fantasy is the strong and different female main character who is often caught in a love triangle (sound familiar?) but that is merely one and there are many more, but I will not dive into them in here. Maybe a future blog. Now onto some of my favourite books, starting obviously with children's ones, are Withering Heights and the two books that follow by Judith Rossel, who recently released another novel that I have purchased and can't wait to read! They are filled with lovely characters, beautiful illustrations, lots of lessons and morals, and a blend of humour and sadness and all the emotions in between. I read these at 7-8 years old, and still reread them if I want some childhood nostalgia. A great young adult series that I read maybe 10-13 and still reread once a year is Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children. I have a love-hate relationships with Tim Burton's adaptation, which I will dive into sometime in the future, but the novel is filled with magic and wonder, great writing accompanied by fascinating photos, collected by Ransom Riggs over many years.