WRITTEN BY
Zoe June
Substack:

CONTENT WARNING
⚠ This piece contains graphic imagery, blood, death, and themes of violence.

I’ve always imagined her bloodstained.

I love to imagine her. I love the place my mind wanders to when I picture her. My body seethes. When I imagine her, I taste blood in my mouth. My own. Hers. She reeks of viscerality. She smells like fear and I taste her truth drip down my throat. She is liquid temptation and contempt and she passes through me, she digs her fingernails underneath my skin and sinks into me and releases a secretion only she possesses inside of my veins. She’s addictive when I breathe her in, I taste and savor her. She’s bitterly repulsive when I swallow her remains and when I digest her, she sears me to the core. Her aftertaste coats my insides with regret.

I am a rotting carcass. A mass of flesh decomposing in the sunlight, attracting all that feed off of the dead. I am viscera, spoiling and decaying from the inside out. She is silk chiffon. She is holy, she is sacred like a wish I promised to keep secret, a vow whispered between our lips and only ours. She is the purest petal of a flower gently pressed between the pages of time, she is eternal. Her eyes glare at me ever so innocently and conniving as she seeks my seething envy I bestow upon her. My wish. Our promise. Her secret.

Her heartbeat pulses delicately underneath my fingertips. Her complexion gleams, she is a delicacy of her own. I want to be delicate with her. Isn’t that what she deserves? A voice whispers to me, “Sever her softly. She’s delicate, care for her gently. Smile at her while you do it, as if it’s what she has wanted all along.” She does deserve it. Because she is delicate. She is a delicacy of her own, and a delicacy is handled with care. It is treated kindly, softly. I must be gentle. No. No? Yes, No. But isn’t this what she deserves? Doesn’t she deserve to bleed wrapped delicately in silk chiffon and lace whilst death awaits her? Don’t you know that I burn? That I hurt? I hurt for her, I hurt because of her, I hurt and I want her to hurt, and suffer and burn as I do. I will sear her with rage that burns into envy and seethes with passion that seeps into devotion and will bloom and become loveliness. I love her. No I do not. I do not love her, I hate her. I want this. I want her. I want to consume and become and do it all with a smile on my face and her blood on my hands and her silk chiffon wrapped delicately around my body. She has sucked the life out of me, and with the little life I have left in me the least I can do is be reborn. To be reborn I must sever. Her. I must sever her. I must sever the tie that connects me and her. I will be reborn. This is what she has always wanted. This is what I have always wanted.

I trace her veins with my blade. Her veins are colored blue and purple. They protrude, and pierce through her silk colored skin. I’ve become numb. She stares at me with bloodshot, icy blue eyes. I stare back at her. Her skin is pale, she’s screaming but I can’t hear her. I only hear an echo of her voice. I hear silence and the beating of my own heart and my breath, inhaling and exhaling. She looks as if all of the blood has already been drained from her face. She keeps her gaze on the blade. One delicate slit, and her gaze falls lifeless. Her eyes glass over, and I watch her soul leave her body with one last exhale like a whisper out of her pale white lips. I glide my thumb over her wrist, her heartbeat has fallen cold.

Imagination and reality blurs when I am stained with her blood. Her blood stained silk chiffon. She is sugar, I crave her nectar. Her blood is sweet as it drips golden silky droplets like honey sticking to my fingers, dripping onto the floor becoming a shimmering, luminous pool bathed in sunlight seeping in through the windows shining through the curtains and trailing up her body and hitting her face. She bathes in it. She’s basking in the golden honey shaded light, it fills her body up and flows through her like her divine stream of honeyed blood. She is made of pure light. She is bleeding light and honey and her eyes drip diamonds onto her cheeks that trickle down her face. She’s luminous with diamonds dripping down her cheeks and my heart seethes for her. My fingertips begin to burn in her sunlight as I lift them to touch her face, I gently close her eyelids and her dripping diamonds are no more. She looks as if she could crack like porcelain, shining pearly with her cheeks dripping with diamonds and her eyelids closed, her eyelashes resting softly, shining blonde and pearlescent in this light coursing through and out of her body. Her silk chiffon is bathed and stained in her honeyed blood. It’s see through when I dress myself in it. I can smell her on me. Her scent is sugary, sticky sweet and sickeningly addictive. I’m wearing her silk chiffon dress, I look radiant. I look like a dream. I look like her. Divinely rotting. It’s as if I’m wearing her skin. She seeps into me and I seep into her until I don’t know who I am or who I was or who I’m becoming. She is gone. I’m made of porcelain and glass, I gleam iridescently and I see a glimpse of myself in my reflection and my eyes are dripping diamonds down my cheeks. The diamonds are streaming, pouring down my face and flowing onto the floor, creating a crystal pool. I taste it in my mouth, I feel it as it trickles down my throat. Blood. My own. Dripping tastefully, candied rust. I savor it. My eyes filled to the brim with diamonds, I see in the reflection of the crystal pool beneath me. A red diamond droplet falls and sinks into the crystal pool below.

I’ve always imagined myself bloodstained.

Love, Zoe

DESCRIPTION OF THE PIECE:
(by the author)
We all have this dream in our minds, don’t we? A vision, an image of yourself as your most idyllic, glimmering, and beautiful version of you. What if that version of yourself that is in your mind, transcends the mental realm and becomes reality? In Silk Chiffon, I explored aspects of my mind I’ve never discovered in which these images and visions reside. In this piece, I wanted to emulate a horrifyingly beautiful creation of my own, obsessive yet repulsive. There are many juxtapositions throughout the piece, the piece in itself is very juxtaposing. In Silk Chiffon, I personified this image that resides in my mind of my most idyllic and beautiful self, I wanted to let loose this emotion of beautiful rotting that lies somewhere inside us all, and I wanted to see what I could create with it. A feeling of wanting to destroy it, yet being obsessed with it and being so obsessed that you become it, it consumes you whole. These emotions of obsession, and repulsion, and envy, and longing for beauty, I wanted them to roam freely about my mind and see what could become of them. Silk Chiffon is what I have created from them, and I hope it speaks to you, and if you let it, I hope it uncovers something inside you that was always half in shadow. As always, I am incredibly grateful for my readers and those who support my writing. I am so very grateful to Euonic Muse as well for seeing something special in this piece, and wanting to publish it. Thank you to you all. Love, Zoe June

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Zoe June is a young writer and actor who is passionate about creating pieces that inspire change within her generation. She is fueled by creativity, and is most passionate about fiction writing. Her writing is often fueled by freedom, creativity, and raw emotion. She aspires for her writing to inspire her readers to tap into their emotions, their creative side, and explore the world around them to hone in on their craft and fuel their passion to create.

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Set four years after Spider-Man: No Way Home, Spider-Man: Brand New Day finds Peter Parker living completely alone in New York. After erasing himself from everyone’s memories, Peter has continued being Spider-Man full-time, protecting the city on his own while keeping his distance from the people he once knew, including MJ and Ned.

He watches their lives from afar, knowing that staying away is supposed to keep them safe. But the loneliness that comes with this decision slowly begins to affect him, both mentally and physically. As Peter starts experiencing strange changes he cannot control, a new threat emerges, forcing him to deal with something much bigger than the usual criminals he has grown used to facing.

The story eventually becomes less about simply defeating an enemy and more about Peter confronting everything he has been carrying with him. Memories of Aunt May become important in the final conflict, and instead of trying to erase his reality completely, Peter begins to accept it for what it is. By the end, there is a small possibility of reconnection, as an encounter with Ned hints that perhaps some things aren’t as forgotten as they seem.

And maybe that’s what makes Brand New Day such an interesting title. Peter isn’t starting again because everything has gone perfectly. He’s starting again because, after everything that has happened, he has to.

Why Spider-Man?

I think one of the reasons so many people love Spider-Man is because he never really feels like someone who has everything figured out. He’s a superhero, but he is also a teenager trying to get through school, deal with friendships, fall in love, make money, make mistakes, and somehow find the time to save an entire city in between all of that.

Stan Lee once said that one of the things he liked about Spider-Man’s costume was that anyone reading the comics could imagine themselves underneath the mask. I think that’s such a simple but important part of why Spider-Man feels so personal – you don’t have to look like Peter Parker to imagine yourself as him.

There is something comforting about that. Peter Parker isn’t someone who is always confident or knows exactly what to do. A lot of the time, he is just trying his best with whatever has been thrown at him. He gets things wrong, he makes decisions he regrets, and sometimes he has to deal with consequences that he never expected.

And I think that’s why Spider-Man can feel so much closer to us than some other superheroes. Most of us aren’t going to wake up one morning with superpowers, but we do know what it feels like to be overwhelmed, to feel like we’re falling behind, or to have absolutely no idea what we’re doing next.

Maybe we don’t relate to Spider-Man because we want to be him. Maybe we relate to him because, underneath everything that makes him extraordinary, he’s still figuring things out just like we are.

The Superhero Who Still Feels Human

Peter Parker can swing between buildings, climb walls, and stop criminals with his bare hands, but none of that makes the rest of his life any easier. He still has relationships to maintain, people to lose, difficult decisions to make, and expectations that can sometimes feel impossible to meet.

He can save an entire city and still come home feeling lonely. He can be one of the most powerful people in the room and still have no idea what he’s supposed to do next. Having all these abilities doesn’t suddenly make him immune to grief, mistakes, or the consequences of his choices.

I think that’s what makes Peter feel so human. His powers are extraordinary, but the things he struggles with aren’t. And maybe there’s something comforting about watching a character who can do things we could never imagine still struggle with many of the same things we do.

The Many Versions of Peter Parker

One of the things I find interesting about Spider-Man is how many different versions of Peter Parker we’ve seen over the years. Toby Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland all play Peter Parker, but they each have different personalities, relationships, problems, and even slightly different ideas of what being Spider-Man means to them.

Yet somehow, we still recognise all of them as the same character.

I think that’s partly because there isn’t really one version of Peter Parker that everyone has to fit into. Each adaptation gets to take something different from the character and make him their own, while keeping the parts that make Spider-Man feel like Spider-Man.

And maybe that’s something we can relate to as well. We change as we grow up. The person we are at fifteen isn’t going to be exactly the same person we are at twenty, or thirty, or even a year from now. There isn’t one perfect version of ourselves that we’re supposed to eventually become. We are allowed to change, and maybe that’s part of figuring out who we are.

We All Have a “Brand New Day”

I think we all have our own version of a “brand new day.” It can be something as obvious as starting a new school year, but it can also be much smaller. Deciding to talk to someone again, picking up something you gave up on, walking away from something that wasn’t good for you, or simply waking up one morning and realising you don’t want to keep doing things the same way.

The funny thing is that we rarely know we’re living through a fresh start while it’s happening. You don’t always get some dramatic moment where everything changes. Sometimes you only notice months later that you became a different person somewhere along the way.

And I like that about the idea of starting again. You don’t need to have your entire life worked out before you begin. You can just start with the next day, the next decision, or the next small thing you want to do differently.

Peter gets another chance to move forward, but so do we. We get new days all the time. We just don’t always recognise them as new beginnings.

You Can’t Undo Everything

A new beginning doesn’t erase what came before it. Peter can move forward, but he can’t bring back the people he’s lost or undo the choices that led him here. The same goes for us.

There are things that stay with you. A friendship that ended badly, a decision you wish you’d made differently, a version of yourself you’re embarrassed to remember, or a person you still think about sometimes. You can grow around these things, learn from them, even make peace with them, but you can’t pretend they never happened.

A fresh start isn’t a blank page. It’s picking up the pen again with everything you’ve already written.

I think that’s what makes starting over feel so complicated. You’re not walking into a completely new life. You’re taking everything you’ve learned, everything you’ve lost, and everything you’ve become with you — and trying to make something different from here.

The Pressure to Have It All Figured Out

There is a strange expectation that the older you get, the more you’re supposed to know. What you want to do, who you are, where you’re going, what kind of person you want to become. As if growing up comes with some invisible deadline for having everything figured out.

For so much of Peter Parker’s story, we’ve watched him as a teenager, still in high school and trying to understand what it means to be Spider-Man while figuring out who he is. Now, Brand New Day brings us a Peter who has entered adulthood, living on his own and carrying responsibilities that feel very different from the ones he had when he was younger.

But Peter never really gets that luxury of having everything figured out. He is constantly making decisions without knowing whether they’re the right ones, trying to balance different parts of his life, and learning from things only after they’ve happened. Even when he seems like he knows what he’s doing, there is usually something new waiting for him that he has no idea how to handle.

I think that’s probably closer to what growing up actually feels like. You don’t suddenly wake up one morning with all the answers. You just get a little better at making decisions, changing your mind, admitting when you were wrong, and figuring things out as you go.

We’re all still becoming who we’re going to be. There isn’t a point where you suddenly arrive and become the finished version of yourself.

What Does “Being the Hero” Actually Mean?

When we think of a hero, we usually think of someone powerful. Someone who can save people, defeat the bad guy, or do things that an ordinary person couldn’t. Spider-Man obviously fits that image, but I don’t think his powers are what actually make him a hero.

Peter has plenty of opportunities to walk away. He gets hurt, loses people, makes mistakes, and sometimes has every reason to think that helping everyone else isn’t worth what it costs him. Yet he keeps choosing to show up. Not because he always knows what the right thing to do is, but because he knows that his choices affect other people too.

Maybe being a hero is less about being extraordinary and more about what you do with what you have. Taking responsibility when you could blame someone else. Helping someone when you don’t get anything in return. Admitting when you’ve made a mistake. Choosing to try again after something goes wrong.

Most of us will never have to save New York City from a supervillain. But we still get countless smaller opportunities to be there for someone, to do the right thing when nobody is watching, or to take responsibility for our own choices.

You don’t need a mask or superpowers to be a hero. Sometimes, it’s simply choosing to show up.

Why We Keep Coming Back

Spider-Man has lasted for decades, and I don’t think that’s because Peter Parker is the strongest superhero. It isn’t because he always wins, either. If anything, Peter spends a lot of his time getting things wrong.

He loses people. He makes mistakes. He gets overwhelmed. He has moments where he doubts himself, where he doesn’t know what to do next, or where the cost of doing the right thing feels unfairly high. Yet somehow, he keeps moving forward.

That is what Brand New Day comes back to. Not the idea that everything suddenly becomes better, but the fact that life keeps going. Peter can’t undo the past, and he doesn’t have all the answers for the future. All he can do is wake up the next morning and decide what to do with the day in front of him.

In a way, that’s something all of us have to learn.

We’re constantly told that we need a plan, a purpose, a five-year vision for our lives. But most people are figuring things out as they go. Most people are just taking one step, then another, and hoping they’re heading in the right direction.

Peter Parker never stops becoming the person he’s meant to be. There isn’t one final version of him waiting at the end of the story.

The same is true for us.

WRITTEN BY
Poppy Algie (Poppy Sophie)
Instagram: @poppyalgie

“Why do so many artists sing about being seventeen?”

The question comes as my best friend and I drive to our local op shops, Noah Kahan’s ‘A View Between Villages’ playing through the car speakers.

“It just feels like every singer I listen to talks about being seventeen at some point.”

I haven’t stopped thinking about her question since. The more I notice it, the more I realise she’s right. Seventeen keeps appearing in songs, novels and films I watch, usually wrapped up in ideas of freedom and the panic of getting older.

But I don’t think people keep returning to seventeen because it was the happiest year of their lives. For a lot of us, it wasn’t. When I was seventeen I remember feeling exhausted. Year 12 was swallowing every spare moment I had. There were assignments and exams to think about constantly and the pressure of every decision determining my whole life was always there lingering. The world was still recovering from Covid-19, and I think my friends and I were too, everything still felt uncertain.

Beneath all that anxiety however there was still so much hope at seventeen.

Looking back, I think that’s what makes seventeen so memorable. It is the last age built almost entirely on possibility. You are old enough to recognise that childhood is ending but too young to understand what adulthood feels like. You stand in the doorway between two lives. One foot in everything you have ever known and the other is reaching towards a future that exists only in your imagination. Everything is about to happen but nothing has happened yet.

Adults repeat: “What are you doing after school? What will you do with your life? Where do you see yourself in five years? The world is your oyster!”

You start to invent future versions of yourself. You’ll move to a bigger city, maybe one you will have to get to by plane. You will meet people who will change your life. You will decorate your first shared house and you will meet up with your school friends, who you will still see every morning, for milkshakes before skating to class together. Little do you know the friends you thought you would always see slowly become people you occasionally see on Instagram through a photo.

I think the thing I am most jealous of my seventeen-year-old self for was that she was so certain about what was next.

She grew up in a small city where life was comfortably contained. There was school, family and the same familiar streets. She knew she wanted to go to university. She wanted to create things that mattered, live with her friends and maybe become famous on social media.

Now I’m almost finishing university. I studied the creative subjects I loved. I’ve lived with some of my closest friends. I never became famous but I found a community I wouldn’t trade for anything. But now? What happens after university? Will I be able to afford rent and still feed myself? Will AI take over my job that I’ve spent years working towards?

And maybe that is why we look back on seventeen with so much affection. The uncertainty still felt exciting and now it just feels frightening. We begin telling ourselves we are running out of time, that it’s too late to change careers, too late to move cities, too late to write that book, learn an instrument or start over. When I think about my seventeen year old self, I picture a girl with two messy pigtails who was convinced she would have everything figured out by twenty one. She was wrong.

I don’t have all the answers. If anything, I have more questions than ever but every age has its own version of seventeen. As long as you’re alive, there is still a future you haven’t met yet.

You have time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Poppy Sophie is a Perth-based creative studying Screen Arts. Her work moves between film and writing, often exploring identity, memory and human connection. She is drawn to intimate, stories that look at the messy parts of being human. Her work is grounded in lived experience and aims to feel honest, personal and reflective.

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WRITTEN BY
Aurora Kim Pham Collins (Rory)
Instagram: @inked.in.bloom

Some mornings,
I awake already folded.
A life creased in places, I don’t remember bending.

My skin feels like paper
Left out in the rain,
Softened at the edges,
One touch away from tearing.

Papers remember...

Once you bend me,
Even gently,
The line never leaves,
It becomes a scar,
A quiet, permanent reminder of the pressure.

I’ve been folded so many times,
I am not sure what my original shape was.
Was I a letter meant to be opened?
A page meant to be written on?
Or just a scrap someone crumpled in their fists
When they got angry and didn’t know
Where else to put their hands?

Every expectation is another corner pressed down,
Another attempt to make me smaller,
Neater,
Easier to look at.

People don’t realise they’re turning me into
something that fits into their convenience.

And when you unfold me,
When you finally want to read me.
I’m covered in lines you pretend not to see.
You act as if I should still lie flat.
As if the indentations aren’t your fingerprints of every moment
Someone taught me to keep myself contained.

Tears don’t fall down paper;
They sink in.
They warp the surface.
They make the words run.

And once that happens,
You can never pretend it was untouched.
I try to smooth myself out,
Press my palms over the ridges
Iron out the past
But paper never fully forgets.
Neither do I.

So when someone asks:
Why do you flinch?
Why do you fold into yourself at the slightest weight?

I wish they understood.
I am paper,
Every crease stays.
I am always one memory away from
tearing along the places you have already marked.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aurora Kim Pham Collins is a 16-year-old poet whose work explores various struggles that people often face. She does this through personification, imagery, and introspective verses. Giving voice and perspective to struggles and topics that are often left unwritten. If you want to read more of her work, you can follow this account to keep posted, or you can follow her personal poetry account: inked.in.bloom!

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WRITTEN BY
Bade Pusat (Bade)
Instagram: @bade_pusat

When a beautiful young woman die instead of an old person, it deeply affects everyone’s heart. We think of it as a tragic end for the loss of a young soul. Because we know that this soul could taste the life much longer.

Lady Jane Grey, is a symbol of a tragedic end in British history. She died when she was only seventeen years old. She was known as a queen just for nine days. According to this, she is an example of shockwaves in the history.

Grey was the great-granddaughter of King Henry VII. She was a highly-educated women compared to her time. In her childhood, she knew several languages such as Italian, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. Moreover, she was interested in religion and philosophy. Even before she was executed, she had a conversation about theology, which is the study of religion, the nature of God, and religious beliefs, with priests.

The Protestant Edward VI died in 1553 when he was fifteen years old. Therefore, British public accepted Mary Tudor, Edward’s Catholic half- sister as their new queen. To prevent this situation, politicians forced the dying Edward to put Jane in charge. On 10 July 1553, Jane was proclaimed to be the Queen. However, after nine days, Mary Tudor gathered support from the public and those who trusted her. Within these mount, she took back the throne from Jane.

After she stepped down from the throne, she was judged mercilessly. On 12 February 1554, when she was seventeen years old, she was beheaded in the eyes of the public.

The french artist Paul Delaroche created The Execution of Lady Jane Grey’s painting in 1883. This dramatic masterpiece show us the reality of her death and details in people express sorrow.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bade is a fifteen-year-old writer with a passion for poetry and essays exploring art, music, fashion, teenage life, and all things creative. Through her work, she hopes to inspire young women and create thoughtful pieces that resonate with readers. She's excited to share her writing through Euonic Muse and is incredibly grateful for everyone's support.

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WRITTEN BY
Vienna

“I wanted to do everything, and yet I did nothing.” – The Bell Jar

I’ve always considered myself an ambitious person. My journals and the Notes app on my phone are filled with topics to research and learn more about. I’d spend countless hours imagining and planning future projects, opportunities, and all the things I want to accomplish. However, there are days when I struggle to do get myself up to strive toward that goal. I’ve always thought this made me considered as a lazy person. Sometimes the people who seem the laziest aren’t lazy at all; they’re so afraid of falling short of their own expectations that they never allow themselves to begin.

How could someone dream so big and accomplish so little? The greatest irony of ambition is probably that the people who want something most are often the ones who find it hardest to take the first step.

Think about how many times this year have you promised yourself that this day/week/month would be different. Maybe it started at the start of this year (like I did at first, when I was determined to make sure this would be my best year but ended up getting burnt out in February). You made a new playlist for your “productive era,” bought a notebook you’d finally fill from beginning to end, planned to wake up at six, exercise every morning, read twenty pages before bed, journal every night, and become the kind of person who somehow had their life perfectly together.

For a few hours, it all felt incredibly real, didn’t it? The moment you finally reach the classroom or workplace, the day’s schedule gets packed. The work, events and appointments take over. By Wednesday, it dawns on you that you don't know how to write a single word to get you started on the first page of that new notebook.

The paradox of our ambition is the absence of a real lack of interest.

You wanted all of it. Every goal, every hobby, every version of yourself seemed equally exciting, and that’s exactly where things became complicated. I wanted to learn French, take ice skating and badminton classes, continue piano lessons, try acting, learn boxing, learn how to the guitar, make pottery, even try candle-making. It wasn't that I couldn't decide what I wanted – I wanted a lot of things.

We tend to believe that wanting something badly is enough. If we care enough about a goal, surely we’ll find the discipline to work towards it. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realised that wanting and doing don’t always go hand in hand.

It isn’t our ambition itself that keeps us back – quite frankly, it can actually be the underlying fuel. It is our belief in one perfection – the illusion that one attempt has to fulfill every future potential the goal can provide.

I did some research and found this article where laziness, lack of motivation, and depression were categorised and explained. (Since depression is a complex mental health condition that deserves its own conversation, I'll be focusing between laziness and motivation throughout this essay.)

LAZINESS → Laziness is choosing to not put effort in even though you could, often because the easier option feels more appealing in the moment. You still have the desire or ability to do it, but you willingly avoid the work.

LACK OF MOTIVATION → According to that article, it is basically the lack of passion. It is when you do not have the drive to act, usually because your goals do not feel meaningful anymore or you're emotionally exhausted.

Thinking about it more, ambition itself can really become overwhelming. Ambition isn’t what keeps us stuck. It’s our belief that our first attempt has to live up to the perfect version we’ve imagined.

Let’s say you have a goal to become a writer. Sounds exciting, until you sit down and a blank page is just there staring back at you. As someone who has personally written two unfinished manuscripts based on concepts I couldn’t stop mentally creating (as a creative writer) I remember staring at that blank screen wondering where to even begin. The characters? My dialogue and plots? Summaries? The number of chapters?

I think perfectionism is a factor affecting this cycle too. Most of us probably see perfectionism portrayed in the context of perfect grades and colour-coded notes. But it doesn’t always look like that. Being somewhat of a perfectionist, I understand the desire to postpone activities until the “perfect” time arises. You can be inspired and have an amazing idea for a concept, but you also see a million and one reasons why now isn’t a good time, and the actual will never be good enough for the imagined.

There's a quote I first found months ago that is one of my most absolute favourites: progress over perfection.

There’s a line from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar that was the one of the main inspirations for writing this essay: “I wanted to do everything, and yet I did nothing.” For me, I don’t think Esther Greenwood is describing a lack of ambition. But instead what it feels like to want so many different things that choosing just one almost feels impossible. Later in the novel, she imagines her future as a fig tree, where each fig represents a different life she could live. She wants every single one, but because she can't bear the thought of losing the others, she stays beneath the tree until the figs begin to wrinkle and fall.

I think that's one of the most beautiful and tender metaphors I've ever read. How many of us have spent so long trying to choose the "right" path that we end up not choosing one at all?

I think it makes so much more sense for us to be the tree and not the figs. We often convince ourselves that our worth depends on choosing the one "right" path, as though one missed opportunity means we've failed. We're constantly growing, changing, and capable of bearing new possibilities, even after some have slipped away. So why do we have to be defined by one single dream or decision?

Looking back, there are moments that happened because I got tired of thinking about doing things and finally decided to do them. None of them were perfect. There were things that did not go the way I had hoped, opportunities I didn't get, and ideas that sounded much better in my head. But I don't regret any of them. If anything, I regret the things I never started more.

It might be best to stop expecting so much from yourself before you even start. I wanted every first attempt to look like a finished one, and that's never how it works. You're probably going to write things that make you realise a year after that it could’ve been better, create things that don't turn out the way you imagined, and make mistakes you'd rather forget – a mistake that you want to bury forever, and yet I think I’d take that over the idea I’ve never even dared to give a chance.

Failure shouldn’t be avoided because it is part of the learning and growth.

Usually when I open social media, I’d see posts and reels of people announcing/celebrating something. They published a book. They got into their dream university. They started an internship, launched a business, or reached another milestone. Don’t get me wrong – I feel really happy for them and I feel inspired. However, I do find it hard not to wonder if I’m somehow falling behind, even though I’m comparing the parts of my life I question most to the highlights of theirs they chose to show.

Unlike how I used to, I don't want to measure my ambition by how many goals I've written down or how detailed my plan for the next five years look. I am looking to measure it by the willingness to actually begin. To write something that isn't perfect. To create something knowing I'll probably look back and wish I'd done parts of it differently.

This is not to say that all of a sudden I will stop overthinking things. That I won’t procrastinate and say this is the time where I should wait for the right opportunity. Even then, I'd rather look back on something imperfect than another idea I never gave a chance.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Vienna is the founder and editor-in-chief of Euonic Muse, a youth-led editorial magazine exploring identity, literature, fashion, and art. When she's not working on the magazine, you'll probably find her journaling, curating playlists, watching films, or collecting ideas that eventually find their way onto the page. Through her writing, she hopes to spark curiosity, encourage reflection, and remind people to look a little closer at the world around them.

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WRITTEN BY
Vienna

More Than Just Clothes

I’ve always loved fashion.

However, I don’t really love it in the sense of chasing every trend or buying something new every weekend, but because I’ve always believed that clothes have a language of their own. They tell stories before we ever open our mouths. A perfectly tailored blazer carries confidence. A pair of worn-in trainers speaks of familiarity. The jumper you’ve owned for years somehow feels more like home than the one you bought last week. I don’t think that fashion has never simply been about looking nice. It is identity, creativity, memory, and self-expression stitched together.

That is precisely why writing about overconsumption feels so complicated.

This isn’t an essay written by someone who dislikes fashion or believes everyone should own five white T-shirts and call it a day. It is quite the opposite. I understand the excitement of finding a dress that makes you feel beautiful, the satisfaction of putting together an outfit that feels undeniably you, or the confidence that comes from wearing something that reflects your personality. Fashion is art. It deserves to be celebrated.

The Algorithm That Changed Fashion

The biggest difference between fashion today and fashion twenty years ago isn’t clothing itself. It’s the speed. There was a time when trends arrived with the seasons. Today they arrive with every swipe.

Open TikTok, Instagram or Pinterest, and within minutes you’ll be introduced to another aesthetic you’re apparently missing out on. Coastal granddaughter. Tomato girl summer. Balletcore. Office siren. Cottagecore. Downtown girl. Quiet luxury. Before you’ve even figured out what one trend means, another has already replaced it. Fashion has always evolved. But I don’t think that trends were meant to move this fast.

Social media has transformed fashion into an endless stream of consumption where novelty becomes more valuable than longevity. We no longer simply admire beautiful outfits – we consume hundreds of them every single day. Every haul, every “Get Ready With Me,” every sponsored post quietly reinforces the same message: your wardrobe could always be better.

The unsettling thing is that our wardrobes haven’t actually changed while we’ve been scrolling. Only our perception of them has. The jumper we loved yesterday suddenly feels boring after watching someone else’s shopping haul. The trainers we’ve worn happily for months somehow seem outdated after an influencer declares a different style “the shoe of the season.” We begin looking at perfectly good clothes through the eyes of an algorithm that profits from convincing us they’re no longer enough.

When Shopping Stops Being About Need

I sometimes wonder whether shopping has quietly become one of our favourite forms of entertainment.

At one point, shopping usually had a purpose. You needed a winter coat because yours no longer fit. You bought school shoes because your old pair had worn through. Clothing was still enjoyable, but it was often tied to necessity.

Today, shopping often begins with boredom. We’re waiting for a bus, lying in bed, or procrastinating homework when we open a shopping app “just to browse.” Thirty minutes later, we’ve convinced ourselves that a cardigan we didn’t know existed half an hour ago is somehow essential.

Modern shopping platforms aren’t designed to help us make thoughtful decisions. They’re designed to keep us scrolling. Limited-time discounts. Countdown timers. “Only two left in stock.” “Recommended for you.” “People also bought.”

Every notification creates a small sense of urgency, encouraging us to act before we’ve had time to think.

Researchers even have a name for many of these techniques: dark patterns – digital design choices that subtly manipulate users into making purchases they might not otherwise have made. Fashion brands increasingly rely on personalised algorithms, constant sales, and psychological nudges because they understand something fundamental about human behaviour.

We’re far more likely to buy something when we’re afraid of missing out than when we’ve carefully considered whether we actually need it. Perhaps that’s why overconsumption rarely feels excessive while we’re living it – because it is normal to some people.

The Price Tag Rarely Tells the Whole Story

One of the most remarkable things about fast fashion is how successfully it has changed our expectations. We have grown so accustomed to inexpensive clothing that seeing a T-shirt for five dollars barely surprises us anymore. If anything, we begin questioning why another brand charges four times as much.

But perhaps the better question is this: How can clothing possibly be this cheap? The answer, of course, is that it isn’t. The true cost simply exists somewhere else.

Behind every bargain dress is an enormous amount of water, energy, raw materials, transport, and human labour. Producing just one pair of jeans requires approximately 2,000 gallons of water – enough to make anyone pause before describing fashion as disposable. Meanwhile, the industry itself is responsible for up to 10% of global carbon emissions, making it one of the world’s most polluting industries.

Those numbers are difficult to imagine because they exist far beyond our wardrobes. We see the parcel arriving at our front door, but not the cotton fields, dye factories, cargo ships, or landfill sites connected to it. Distance has made it remarkably easy to forget that every garment has a story long before it reaches us.

Clothing Doesn’t Disappear

Globally, around 92 million tonnes of textile waste are generated every year, and an estimated 85% of textiles ultimately end up in landfill or are incinerated. Many garments are discarded after being worn only a handful of times, sometimes because trends have moved on before the clothes themselves have had the chance to.

Then there are the fabrics we rarely think about.

Polyester, the material found in much of today’s clothing, is made from plastic. Every time it’s washed, it sheds tiny microfibres that eventually make their way into rivers and oceans. Around half a million tonnes of these microfibres enter marine ecosystems every year, becoming part of an environmental problem that is almost invisible to us, yet impossible for nature to ignore.

The Cost We Don’t See

When conversations about fast fashion arise, we often picture overflowing landfills or polluted rivers. Those images are important, but there is another side to the story that is much easier to overlook because it exists so far away from us.

Every garment begins with someone. Someone who stitched the seams of the jumper hanging in your wardrobe. Someone who dyed the fabric of your favourite dress. Someone who spent hours cutting, sewing, ironing, packaging, and preparing it long before it appeared on a website or arrived on your doorstep.

The faster fashion moves, the faster people are expected to work. Many garment workers, particularly in countries where much of the world's clothing is manufactured, continue to work in unsafe conditions for wages that are often insufficient to support themselves and their families. The organisation Fashion Revolution, founded after the 2013 Rana Plaza factory collapse, has spent years encouraging consumers to ask a deceptively simple question: "Who made my clothes?" The question isn't meant to make us feel guilty every time we buy a T-shirt. Instead, it reminds us that every garment has a human story behind it, even if we rarely stop to think about it.

When brands compete to produce clothing at impossibly low prices and astonishing speed, the pressure doesn’t simply disappear. It moves down the supply chain until it reaches the people with the least power to resist it. The clothes themselves are not inherently harmful. A white T-shirt is simply a white T-shirt. But behind something so ordinary is an entire system built on producing more, selling more, and consuming more at a pace that neither people nor the planet can comfortably sustain.

It reminds me that fashion isn’t only about what we choose to wear. It’s also about whose work we choose to value.

The Problem With “One More Thing”

I think one of the cleverest lies consumer culture has ever told us is that satisfaction is only one purchase away.

One more sweater. One more pair of shoes. One more dress for that holiday. One more handbag because this one is somehow more “timeless.” The list never ends because it was never designed to.

Consumerism survives by convincing us that contentment is temporary. The moment we finally feel satisfied, another trend appears to replace the last one. The “must-have” trainers become last season’s trainers. The jacket everyone was desperate to own six months ago quietly disappears from our feeds. Suddenly, something else takes its place. It’s difficult not to participate when we’re surrounded by it every day.

Our generation has grown up in a world where algorithms know our preferences almost better than we do ourselves. They know which colours catch our attention, which aesthetics make us stop scrolling, and which advertisements we’re most likely to click. Shopping is no longer just shopping. It has become deeply personalised, carefully curated, and remarkably persuasive.

Loving Fashion Means Caring About It

I think those who care most about fashion should also care most about protecting it.

Fashion is one of humanity’s oldest forms of art. It tells stories about different cultures, preserves traditional craftsmanship, reflects social movements, and allows people to communicate who they are without saying a single word. To reduce fashion to endless online hauls and disposable trends feels almost unfair to everything it has the potential to be.

Buying less doesn’t mean appreciating fashion less. In fact, I think it allows us to appreciate it more. When we stop viewing clothes as disposable, we begin noticing details we might otherwise overlook. The quality of the fabric. The craftsmanship behind a garment. The memories attached to particular pieces. We stop asking, “What’s trending?” and begin asking, “Will I still love this in five years?”

Dressing More Slowly

There will always be moments when buying something new is the right decision. Not everyone has access to expensive ethical brands, and not everyone lives near vintage shops or charity stores. Sustainability isn’t about achieving moral purity or making people feel guilty for every purchase they make.

It’s about becoming more intentional. It could mean building a capsule wardrobe filled with versatile pieces that can be worn in countless ways rather than constantly replacing them with micro-trends that disappear within weeks. Or borrowing a dress from a friend instead of buying one for a single evening. Perhaps it means shopping second-hand, repairing a favourite jumper rather than throwing it away, or simply taking a moment to ask ourselves one small question before clicking “Checkout.”

“Would I still want this if nobody else saw me wearing it?” – I think that’s one of the most honest questions we can ask ourselves. Because if the answer is no, we were never buying it for ourselves in the first place.

One idea that has been gaining momentum is the concept of a circular economy. Instead of following the traditional “take, make, dispose” model, a circular system asks a different question: “What if clothing never truly became waste?”

That could mean repairing a favourite coat instead of replacing it, buying second-hand so garments remain in use for longer, or recycling fibres so old textiles become new ones rather than ending up in landfill. The World Economic Forum argues that designing fashion around reuse, repair, resale, and recycling is one of the industry’s most promising paths towards reducing its environmental impact. It isn’t a perfect solution, but it shifts the conversation away from endlessly producing more and towards making better use of what already exists.

Of course, shopping more consciously has become increasingly complicated. Sustainability has become a marketing strategy as much as a movement. Buzzwords like eco-friendly, conscious, and green appear across advertisements, often without explaining what they actually mean. This practice, commonly known as greenwashing, can make consumers feel as though they're making responsible choices while encouraging them to keep buying at exactly the same pace. Perhaps the most sustainable garment isn't always the newest "sustainable collection." More often than not, it's the one already hanging in our wardrobe.

Fashion Was Never Meant to Be Disposable

Some of my favourite pieces of clothing aren’t my newest ones.

They’re the thick jacket I’ve reached for whenever I’m cold. The shirt that has travelled with me on holidays, study sessions, and hangouts with my friends. The pair of sneakers that goes almost everywhere I go.

The older these clothes become, the more I love them. Isn’t that strange? Most things become less valuable with time. The clothes that matter most become more valuable because they become part of our lives. This leads me to believe that fashion was never meant to be disposable; it was meant to be lived in.

So How Much Is Really Enough?

“How much is enough?”

Enough isn’t a number. It isn’t twenty pieces of clothing or two hundred. It looks different for everyone. The problem begins when “enough” becomes impossible to reach because the finish line keeps moving. Social media has a remarkable ability to convince us that there is always someone with a better wardrobe, a newer trend, or a more aesthetic version of the life we’re trying to create. If we measure ourselves against that constantly shifting standard, then enough will always remain just out of reach.

I’m sure that at some point I’ll probably still be tempted to buy something new. I don’t think that feeling disappears overnight. We live in a world that constantly whispers that happiness, confidence, or reinvention can be found inside another shopping bag. Those messages are persuasive because they’re repeated so often that they begin to sound like our own thoughts.

If anything, I think loving fashion has never meant owning the most clothes, but about caring about the entire journey of a garment. From the hands that stitched it together to the memories it collects long after it leaves the shop. It means appreciating the craftsmanship behind a beautifully made coat, understanding the resources that went into a simple pair of jeans, and recognising the people whose work so often goes unseen.

I still think fashion is one of the most beautiful forms of self-expression we have; clothes tell stories about who we are, where we've been, and sometimes even who we're becoming. But the most beautiful wardrobes aren't the ones overflowing with the latest trends. They're the ones built slowly, worn unapologetically, and loved enough to become part of our lives. Maybe we've spent so long searching for the next thing that we've forgotten how to appreciate what's already hanging in front of us.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Vienna is the founder and editor-in-chief of Euonic Muse, a youth-led editorial magazine exploring identity, literature, fashion, and art. When she’s not working on the magazine, you’ll probably find her journaling, curating playlists, watching films, or collecting ideas that eventually find their way onto the page. Through her writing, she hopes to spark curiosity, encourage reflection, and remind people to look a little closer at the world around them.

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WRITTEN BY
Vienna

There is something oddly comforting about handwritten letters, especially considering that most of us have never really lived in a world that depended on them. Most of us grew up with text messages, social media, and instant communication. If I want to talk to someone, I can do it in seconds. Yet somehow, a folded piece of paper tucked inside an envelope still feels infinitely more romantic than a message that arrives the moment I hit send.

I think it has something to do with effort. A letter demands time in a way that a text never will. You have to sit down, find a pen, and decide exactly what you want to say. You cannot rewrite every sentence a dozen times or unsend your words the moment you regret them. Your messy handwriting, your crossed-out lines, the little imperfections on the page all become part of the message. It feels human. For example, when I receive birthday cards from my friends, all written in different handwritings, it feels like I am hearing their voices and getting little glimpses of their personalities through a piece of paper.

When you text someone, you always have an escape route. You can delete the message, edit it, or pretend it was never there in the first place. A handwritten letter doesn’t give you that luxury. Once you’ve folded the paper and placed it into someone’s hands, your words belong to them. There is something incredibly heartwarming about that kind of permanence – the idea that someone chose their words carefully, knowing they could never take them back.

There is also something beautiful about the fact that letters stay. Text messages disappear into endless conversations and are eventually buried beneath newer notifications. A handwritten letter, on the other hand, can be kept for years. It can be tucked inside a journal, pressed between the pages of a favourite book, or rediscovered in the back of a drawer long after it was written. Even passing a folded note across a classroom feels strangely special now. It is a tiny act, but there is something endearing about receiving words written by someone's own hand. I still have a few folded notes tucked inside my pencil case from when my friends and I would write to each other during class. In a strange way, letters become time capsules. They preserve not only our words but a version of ourselves.

I think that is why so many people romanticise them. We are living in a time where almost everything is instant. We are expected to reply quickly, consume quickly, and move on quickly. There is very little room for slowness anymore. A handwritten letter rebels against all of that. It says, “I took my time with this. I sat down and thought about you long enough to fill an entire page.”

And honestly, isn’t that what most of us want? To know that somebody paused their busy day and thought we were worth the effort?

Maybe our fascination with handwritten letters is not really about letters at all. Maybe it is about our longing for things that feel intentional. We keep buying paper planners despite having calendars on our phones. We fill our books with annotations and collect old postcards from places we have visited. We are drawn to physical things because they remind us that not everything meaningful has to exist behind a screen.

I do not think the art of handwritten letters is completely lost. It still exists in the notes slipped into birthday cards, in messages scribbled on sticky notes, and in the letters people write to their future selves. It exists in every small act of putting pen to paper and choosing to leave behind something tangible. A letter can be folded, creased, stained by coffee, or faded by time. A message on a screen rarely carries the same evidence of having been loved and held.

In a world that moves so quickly, there is something quietly radical about writing a letter. It asks us to slow down, to be deliberate with our words, and to create something that can be held long after the moment has passed. Maybe that is why handwritten letters continue to captivate us. Not because they belong to the past, but because they remind us of the kind of connection we are still searching for today.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Vienna is the founder and editor-in-chief of Euonic Muse, a youth-led editorial magazine exploring identity, literature, fashion, and art. When she’s not working on the magazine, you’ll probably find her journaling, curating playlists, watching films, or collecting ideas that eventually find their way onto the page. Through her writing, she hopes to spark curiosity, encourage reflection, and remind people to look a little closer at the world around them.

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WRITTEN BY
Vienna

How one of Shakespeare’s quietest characters became one of literature’s most enduring tragedies.

There is something strangely unforgettable about Ophelia. Perhaps it is because we never really get to know her. She enters Hamlet quietly, speaks far less than many of the characters around her, and disappears from the story long before its devastating conclusion. She is neither the hero nor the villain. She never delivers a triumphant speech or alters the course of the kingdom. Yet, somehow, she has become one of Shakespeare’s most recognisable figures, inspiring countless paintings, poems, photographs, films, and reinterpretations long after the play itself was first performed.

For someone given so few lines, Ophelia has remained astonishingly loud throughout history. I think that’s what has always fascinated me most. Shakespeare filled his plays with ambitious kings, witty fools, ruthless villains, and unforgettable lovers, yet it is often the image of a young girl floating among flowers that lingers in people’s minds.

Four centuries later, her face still appears in museums, on book covers, in fashion editorials, and across social media feeds whenever people try to capture a certain kind of melancholy. It almost feels impossible to separate Ophelia from the visual culture she has inspired.

However, before she became a painting, before she became an aesthetic, she was simply a girl caught in a tragedy that was never truly hers.

The Girl We Barely Get to Know

When people think of Hamlet, they perhaps often think of revenge.

After learning that his father was murdered by his uncle Claudius, Hamlet becomes consumed by grief and vengeance. His pursuit of justice slowly unravels into obsession, dragging nearly everyone around him into the consequences of his actions. The play is filled with betrayal, political corruption, madness, and death, yet among all of its complicated relationships, Ophelia’s story feels remarkably different.

Unlike Hamlet, she is never driven by revenge. Unlike Claudius, she never seeks power. Unlike Laertes, she is never allowed to pursue justice for herself. Instead, she spends much of the play being told who she should be.

Before we are given the chance to understand Ophelia on her own terms, we meet the expectations placed upon her. Her brother, Laertes, warns her not to trust Hamlet’s declarations of love, reminding her that a prince’s desires rarely belong to himself alone. Shortly afterwards, her father, Polonius, dismisses Hamlet’s affection entirely, instructing her to end their relationship because he believes the prince cannot possibly be sincere.

Ophelia obeys. It becomes a pattern that follows her throughout the play. Time and time again, the men in her life make decisions on her behalf while she quietly complies. Even her relationship with Hamlet eventually becomes another opportunity for manipulation. Hoping to discover the cause of Hamlet’s increasingly erratic behaviour, Polonius arranges for Ophelia to encounter him while he secretly observes from behind the scenes.

She is transformed into evidence rather than a person. Looking back, I find it difficult not to feel frustrated on her behalf. Shakespeare never suggests that Ophelia lacks intelligence or emotion, yet we are given very little access to her inner life. We know what her father thinks she should do. We know what her brother expects of her. We know what Hamlet projects onto her. Yet the question of what Ophelia herself truly wants remains strangely unanswered.

A Tragedy Written Before It Began

One of the reasons Ophelia’s fate feels so devastating is because it never seems entirely within her control.

While Hamlet actively makes choices that shape his own downfall, Ophelia inherits the consequences of choices made by everyone else. She falls in love with someone whose life has already been consumed by revenge. She is caught between loyalty to her father and affection for Hamlet, forced into a position where every decision feels impossible.

Eventually, the pressure becomes unbearable.

In one of the play’s most famous scenes, Hamlet confronts Ophelia with unexpected cruelty, repeatedly telling her to “get thee to a nunnery.” Scholars have debated this moment for centuries. Some believe Hamlet is genuinely attempting to protect her from the corruption surrounding the Danish court. Others argue that he is performing madness to deceive those spying on him. Some simply see it as an expression of his own emotional turmoil.

Whatever Shakespeare intended, the result for Ophelia remains the same. She is publicly rejected by the man she loves.

As though that heartbreak were not enough, tragedy strikes again when Hamlet mistakenly kills Polonius while believing him to be Claudius hiding behind a curtain. In an instant, Ophelia loses her father at the hands of the very person she had once imagined building a future with.

I don’t think people talk enough about how impossible that situation must have been.

Imagine grieving your father while knowing he was killed by someone you still cannot entirely bring yourself to hate. Imagine mourning a relationship that had already begun to crumble before your eyes while simultaneously losing the only parent who had guided your entire life. It is grief layered upon grief, leaving almost no room for recovery.

Perhaps that is why I struggle whenever people reduce Ophelia’s story to simply “the girl who went mad.”

Madness is certainly how Shakespeare presents her final appearances, but I think describing her that way risks overlooking everything that led her there. Her breakdown does not emerge from nowhere. It follows emotional manipulation, public humiliation, profound bereavement, and overwhelming isolation.

Rather than asking why Ophelia loses her mind, I find myself asking a different question: “How could anyone survive what she experienced?”

More Than a Drowning

By the time Ophelia appears again, she is almost unrecognisable.

The composed young woman introduced earlier in the play is gone. Instead, she wanders through the court singing fragments of old songs, speaking in broken thoughts, and handing out flowers whose symbolic meanings have fascinated literary scholars for generations. Rosemary for remembrance. Pansies for thoughts. Fennel and columbines associated with flattery, betrayal, and infidelity.

Even in her apparent madness, Shakespeare allows symbolism to speak where ordinary language can no longer reach. Shortly afterwards, Queen Gertrude recounts one of the most haunting deaths in all of literature.

Rather than showing the audience the event itself, Shakespeare chooses to describe it through Gertrude’s eyes. She tells of Ophelia climbing into the branches of a willow tree to hang flower garlands above a brook. A branch suddenly breaks beneath her, sending both Ophelia and her flowers into the water below. For a brief moment, she floats upon the surface, continuing to sing as though unaware of the danger surrounding her. Eventually, however, her heavy garments become saturated with water, pulling her beneath the surface where she quietly drowns.

It is remarkably peaceful to imagine. Almost too peaceful.

What makes Ophelia’s death so enduring is that Shakespeare deliberately refuses to answer the question readers continue asking more than four hundred years later.

Was it an accident? Or was it suicide? The play never tells us.

Some literary scholars argue that Ophelia, consumed by grief and detached from reality, simply failed to recognise the danger after falling into the brook. Others believe the circumstances surrounding her life suggest a deliberate decision, interpreting her drowning as the final consequence of a world that had gradually stripped away her voice, autonomy, and hope.

I have always found Shakespeare’s ambiguity more powerful than certainty. Had he clearly declared her death accidental, we would mourn her. Had he explicitly called it suicide, we would attempt to explain her. Instead, he leaves us suspended somewhere in between.

The Girl Who Became a Painting

If Ophelia’s story had ended with Hamlet, I don’t think she would have become the cultural figure she is today.

What transformed her from a Shakespearean character into an enduring symbol was not only literature, but art. Nearly three centuries after Hamlet was first performed, the Pre-Raphaelite painter, John Everett Millais, immortalised Ophelia in what would become one of the most recognisable paintings in Western art. Even people who have never read Shakespeare often recognise the image: a young woman floating in a river, surrounded by wildflowers, her hands gently outstretched as though suspended somewhere between life and death.

It is a beautiful painting. That is precisely what makes it so unsettling.

I sometimes wonder if we have become so accustomed to seeing Millais’ Ophelia that we forget what we are actually looking at. It isn’t simply a girl lying peacefully among flowers. It is the final moments of a young woman’s life. Yet the painting softens the violence of her death into something almost dreamlike, inviting viewers to admire a tragedy that, within the play itself, is anything but beautiful.

Millais was meticulous in his attention to detail. The landscape was painted from life, and the flowers surrounding Ophelia were carefully chosen, many carrying symbolic meanings that echo Shakespeare’s text. Flowers have always followed Ophelia throughout the play. Earlier, during her descent into madness, she distributes flowers to members of the court, each representing ideas such as remembrance, fidelity, sorrow, or regret. In the painting, they return once more, almost as though nature itself has become the language she can no longer speak.

Perhaps that is why the painting has endured for so long. It does not merely illustrate Shakespeare’s words. It expands them.

Then again, multiple other artists have painted The Fate of Ophelia – John William Waterhouse in 1889 (Pre-Raphaelite / Romanticism), Arthur Hughes in 1852 (Pre-Raphaelite), Alexandre Cabanel in 1883 (Academic Art), and Friedrich Wilhelm Theodor Heyser in 1900 (Art Nouveau).

Over the years, Ophelia escaped the pages of Hamlet altogether. She appeared in photography, fashion editorials, films, contemporary paintings, and countless reinterpretations across popular culture. Sometimes she represents heartbreak. Other times she symbolises femininity, vulnerability, or the romanticisation of melancholy. More recently, many artists and critics have begun questioning whether these depictions reveal something uncomfortable about the way society has historically aestheticised women’s suffering.

I think that question is worth asking.

There is an undeniable irony in the fact that one of literature’s most powerless young women became one of art history’s most visually celebrated figures. The image is breathtaking, but behind it lies a story about grief, manipulation, and the loss of agency. The flowers may be beautiful, yet they cannot disguise the tragedy beneath them.

Perhaps that contradiction is exactly what continues to draw us back.

Why Ophelia Still Haunts Us

Every generation seems to discover Ophelia in a different way.

For Victorian audiences, she was often admired as an image of innocence and purity. Later interpretations became increasingly interested in psychology, viewing her madness through the lens of mental illness or emotional trauma. Today, conversations surrounding Ophelia often focus on questions of agency, identity, and the ways in which young women are expected to navigate worlds that constantly speak over them.

I think each interpretation says just as much about its own time as it does about Shakespeare’s.

Whenever we revisit an old story, we inevitably bring our own experiences with us. That is why the same character can feel entirely different depending on who is reading her. Ophelia has become a mirror. Some readers see first love. Others see grief. Some see mental illness, while others see a young woman crushed beneath expectations she never chose for herself.

Personally, I don’t think Ophelia continues to resonate simply because her story is tragic. Shakespeare wrote countless tragedies, many of them far bloodier than hers. What makes Ophelia unforgettable is the quietness of her suffering.

She is rarely allowed to explain herself. She is spoken about more than she is listened to. Even her death reaches us through someone else’s account.

There is something profoundly heartbreaking about a character whose inner world remains almost entirely hidden. Shakespeare leaves us with fragments rather than certainty, forcing generations of readers to imagine the thoughts he never wrote.

Perhaps that is why Ophelia feels strangely modern. Despite living in a play written over four hundred years ago, she embodies emotions that still feel painfully familiar: the desire to be understood, the loneliness of carrying grief, the feeling of losing yourself beneath other people’s expectations.

Of course, our lives are vastly different from hers. Most of us will never find ourselves in a court tangled in political revenge. Yet emotional truths rarely depend on historical context. Grief still overwhelms people. Love still disappoints. Expectations still become burdens. Sometimes the oldest stories remain relevant precisely because human emotions change far less than the societies surrounding them.

I also think there is something deeply human about our instinct to return to unfinished characters. Shakespeare gives Hamlet endless opportunities to reveal his thoughts through soliloquies. Ophelia receives no such privilege. Her silence creates space for readers, artists, and writers to continue imagining the life that exists beyond the page.

In many ways, history has spent centuries trying to give Ophelia the voice Shakespeare never fully allowed her to have.

More Than a Tragic Ending

It would be easy to remember Ophelia solely for the way her story ends. After all, her drowning has become one of the most recognisable moments in literary history. But reducing her to that single image feels almost unfair.

Ophelia is more than the girl in the river. She represents the countless people whose stories unfold quietly alongside louder ones. While Hamlet explores revenge, justice, and corruption, Ophelia reminds us of something equally important: that innocent people often become the casualties of conflicts they never created. She is neither the architect of the tragedy nor its hero, yet she suffers some of its deepest consequences.

Perhaps that is why she has never truly disappeared. Long after readers forget the political details of the Danish court or the sequence of Hamlet’s revenge, they remember a girl carrying flowers beside a river. They remember the uncertainty surrounding her final moments. They remember the painting, the symbolism, and the silence she leaves behind.

For someone who speaks so little, Ophelia has inspired an extraordinary amount of conversation. Shakespeare never gave us enough of Ophelia to completely understand her. Instead, he left behind a character filled with unanswered questions, allowing every generation to search for its own answers. Some see innocence. Others see resilience. Some mourn the tragedy of her death, while others focus on the tragedy of the life that led to it.

As for me, I don’t think Ophelia has remained one of literature’s most enduring figures because she drowned beautifully, or because artists transformed her into an icon. I think she has survived because she reminds us that not every tragedy announces itself with dramatic speeches or heroic sacrifices. Sometimes, it arrives quietly, carried by someone whose voice was never given the chance to be fully heard.

And perhaps that is why, after many centuries, we are still drawn to her.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Vienna is the founder and editor-in-chief of Euonic Muse, a youth-led editorial magazine exploring identity, literature, fashion, and art. When she’s not working on the magazine, you’ll probably find her journaling, curating playlists, watching films, or collecting ideas that eventually find their way onto the page. Through her writing, she hopes to spark curiosity, encourage reflection, and remind people to look a little closer at the world around them.

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WRITTEN BY
Vienna

You know that moment when you tell yourself you’ll start something tomorrow, and you genuinely believe it? Not in a careless way, but instead in a fully convinced, slightly comforting way — like future-you is somehow a completely different person who will suddenly have more energy, more discipline, more time, more everything. And then tomorrow arrives, and future-you feels exactly like today-you. That gap, that strange illusion between intention and action, is where procrastination quietly lives.

The number of times I’ve been given an assignment and told myself I would start early, only to let it stretch from hours into days, is almost embarrassing, until I’m left rushing through it at the last minute just to get it done.

Procrastination is often misunderstood as laziness, but research consistently shows it is much closer to something like emotional avoidance than a time management issue. In psychological terms, it is not that we do not know what to do, but that doing it feels emotionally uncomfortable in the present moment. Dr. Fuschia Sirois and Dr. Timothy Pychyl, who have extensively studied procrastination, describe it as an emotion regulation failure: we delay tasks not because we are unable to do them, but because we are trying to escape the negative feelings they trigger right now — anxiety, boredom, self-doubt, or even boredom disguised as restlessness. In other words, procrastination is less about the task itself and more about how the task makes us feel.

At a neurological level, this makes even more sense. When we face something stressful or overwhelming, the brain’s emotional system, particularly the amygdala, can interpret the task as a kind of threat. This is sometimes described as an “amygdala hijack,” in which the emotional brain reacts faster than the rational brain.

The limbic system pushes for immediate relief, while the prefrontal cortex, responsible for long-term planning and decision-making, tries to argue for future consequences. But the brain is not balanced in real time; it is biased toward what feels safe and rewarding now. So instead of starting the assignment, we open our phones, clean our room, or do anything that provides instant emotional relief.

Psychology Today describes this pattern as a form of self-deception as well. On some level, we know we are avoiding the task, but we also convince ourselves that avoiding it is temporary and harmless. This is where present bias becomes important — the tendency to overvalue immediate comfort and undervalue future outcomes. Our future self becomes almost like a stranger we are willing to burden. “I’ll deal with it later” is not just a scheduling decision. It is a psychological distancing from responsibility.

One of the most interesting findings in procrastination research is how strongly emotion, rather than logic, drives the behavior. Low task value, for example, plays a major role; when something feels meaningless or unrewarding, the brain’s motivation systems simply do not activate in the same way. At the same time, fear of judgment or failure can intensify avoidance. As someone who is a perfectionist, I tend to procrastinate a lot because of the perfection I want to achieve with my work. Perfectionists are especially vulnerable here: if the task feels like it could expose inadequacy, not starting at all becomes psychologically safer than risking doing it imperfectly. In that sense, procrastination can function like protection, not from the task, but from the emotional risk attached to it.

Melbourne University researchers describe procrastination as a cycle that begins with a trigger: a looming task creates dread, insecurity, or stress. Avoidance then provides immediate emotional relief, which reinforces the behavior. But that relief is short-lived. As deadlines approach, guilt, anxiety, and shame increase, which makes the task feel even more overwhelming the next time. Roy Baumeister and Dianne Tice’s research found something similar: procrastinators often experience lower stress while avoiding tasks in the short term, but significantly higher stress overall because of the buildup of pressure over time. The relief is real, but it is borrowed.

This is also why the idea that people “work better under pressure” is mostly a myth. While some individuals may feel a rush of adrenaline near deadlines, research suggests this is less about productivity and more about emotional intensity — a last-minute spike that feels like motivation but often compromises quality. It is not that pressure improves performance; it is that avoidance delays discomfort until it becomes unavoidable.

Psychologists also identify several recurring patterns behind procrastination. Fear of failure and fear of judgment are among the strongest drivers, especially in academic environments. Complexity and overwhelm also play a role when a task feels too large or unclear; the brain struggles to initiate action. On top of this, modern environments amplify the problem. Instant-reward systems like social media create constant opportunities for dopamine-driven distraction, making delayed-reward tasks feel even harder to engage with.

But what makes procrastination particularly difficult to break is that it is self-reinforcing. Each time we avoid a task, we temporarily reduce discomfort, which teaches the brain that avoidance is an effective strategy. Over time, this strengthens the habit loop. The issue is not just willpower — it is learned emotional regulation.

However, research also points toward something hopeful: procrastination is highly responsive to small psychological interventions. One of the most effective is lowering the activation threshold — essentially shrinking the task until it no longer triggers avoidance. Once the emotional barrier is crossed, momentum often takes over.

Another important factor is self-compassion. According to the American Psychological Association and studies by Dr. Kristin Neff, self-criticism actually increases procrastination because it adds emotional weight to the task. When we feel guilty about procrastinating, we are more likely to avoid the task again to escape that guilt. Self-compassion interrupts this cycle by reducing shame and making re-engagement emotionally safer.

Even reframing how we think about tasks can shift behavior. Instead of seeing them as threats or obligations, connecting them to personal values can increase perceived meaning and reduce avoidance. This is not about forcing positivity, but about reducing psychological distance between present discomfort and future purpose.

In the end, procrastination is not a simple failure of discipline. It is a negotiation between emotion and action, between immediate relief and future consequence, between who we are right now and who we expect ourselves to become later. And most of the time, it is not that we do not care enough — it is that we care in a way that makes starting feel emotionally loaded.

What I find most important in all of this is that procrastination stops looking like a character flaw once you understand it. It becomes a pattern — one shaped by the brain’s preference for short-term comfort, the mind’s sensitivity to emotion, and the very human tendency to avoid discomfort when we can. And if it is a pattern, it can be changed not through punishment or pressure, but through understanding how to make starting feel just small enough that we can finally begin.

Bibliography:

• Psychology Today (2017). Procrastination. [online] Psychology Today. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/procrastination.

• Quintero, L. and Willett, T. (2022). The Psychology Behind Procrastination. [online] umsu.unimelb.edu.au. Available at: https://umsu.unimelb.edu.au/news/article/7797/The-Psychology-Behind-Procrastination/.

• Starr (2025). PROFESSOR RJ STARR. [online] PROFESSOR RJ STARR. Available at: https://profrjstarr.com/the-psychology-of-us/the-psychology-of-procrastination-why-we-put-things-off.

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  Vienna is the founder and editor-in-chief of Euonic Muse, a youth-led editorial magazine exploring identity, literature, fashion, and art. When she’s not working on the magazine, you’ll probably find her journaling, curating playlists, watching films, or collecting ideas that eventually find their way onto the page. Through her writing, she hopes to spark curiosity, encourage reflection, and remind people to look a little closer at the world around them.

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WRITTEN BY
Vienna

There is a reason people are constantly searching for places to belong.

We join clubs, fandoms, group chats, communities, and online spaces. We follow people who think like us, listen to music that reflects our experiences, and seek out stories that make us feel understood. Even in a world that celebrates individuality, much of our lives are shaped by a desire to find connection.

Belonging is one of those concepts that seems simple until you try to define it. It is not quite the same as friendship, and it cannot be measured by the number of people you know. Being surrounded by others does not automatically create a sense of belonging, just as being alone does not necessarily mean feeling disconnected. Instead, belonging is something quieter. It is the feeling of being accepted without needing to constantly explain yourself.

Perhaps this is why belonging can be so difficult to find.

Many people spend years searching for the right place, the right community, or the right version of themselves. We often imagine belonging as something permanent, a destination we eventually arrive at. Once we find our people, we think, everything will fall into place.

In reality, belonging is rarely that straightforward.

It changes throughout our lives. The places where we once felt at home may no longer feel the same. Friendships evolve, interests shift, and communities grow apart. A person who felt completely understood in one stage of life may feel out of place in another. Belonging is not something we find once and keep forever. It is something we continue building over time.

This is especially true in a digital age.

Today, people form connections in ways that would have seemed impossible only a few decades ago. Entire communities exist online, bringing together individuals who may never meet in person but still share interests, experiences, and ideas. A reader in one country can discuss a favourite book with someone on the other side of the world through an online club, perhaps. A teenager can discover a community of people who understand their interests when nobody in their immediate surroundings does.

For many people, these spaces provide a sense of belonging that traditional communities cannot always offer.

Yet belonging is not only about finding people who are similar to us. It is also about feeling seen. At its core, the desire to belong is often a desire to be recognised — to have our experiences, thoughts, and emotions acknowledged by others.

This may explain why stories are so powerful. Whether through books, films, music, or personal essays, stories remind us that we are not alone in our experiences. They create connections between people who may never meet, offering reassurance that someone, somewhere, has felt the same thing before.

I have read multiple books and sat down to watch countless films where I found pieces of myself in the characters. Sometimes it was something obvious: a shared experience, a similar personality trait, or a struggle I understood immediately. Other times, the connection was much harder to explain. A character could live in a different country, belong to a different generation, or lead a life completely unlike my own, and yet there would still be a moment where I thought, I’ve felt that before.

There is something comforting about seeing yourself reflected in a story. It reminds us that our experiences are not as isolated as they often feel. The emotions we carry, the uncertainty, excitement, loneliness, hope, and desire to belong, are rarely unique to us. Someone else has felt them too, whether they are a real person sitting across the world or a fictional character written years ago.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons stories remain so important. They create connections between people who may never meet. A reader can find comfort in a character’s journey, while a viewer can feel understood through a scene written by someone they will never know. Through stories, we are reminded that many of our thoughts, fears, and experiences are shared. In a world where it is easy to feel disconnected, that reminder can be surprisingly powerful.

Perhaps this is the true art of belonging.

Not the search for a perfect community or a perfect group of people, but the gradual discovery that connection can exist in many forms. It can be found in friendships, in shared interests, in creative spaces, and in stories that make us feel understood.

Belonging is not always about fitting in. More often, it is about finding people, places, and stories that allow you to exist as you are.

Perhaps that is why belonging matters so much. It reminds us that connection does not require perfection, and that understanding can be found in the most unexpected places. In a world that constantly asks us to become more, do more, and be more, there is something incredibly comforting about being accepted without needing to change at all.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Vienna is the founder and editor-in-chief of Euonic Muse, a youth-led editorial magazine exploring identity, literature, fashion, and art. When she’s not working on the magazine, you’ll probably find her journaling, curating playlists, watching films, or collecting ideas that eventually find their way onto the page. Through her writing, she hopes to spark curiosity, encourage reflection, and remind people to look a little closer at the world around them.

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