#i played these games in different periods of life which definitely affected the perception

[thevirgomen]

Should I give up on my Virgo Man?

New Post has been published on https://virgomen.net/should-i-give-up-on-my-virgo-man/

Should I give up on my Virgo Man?

Many women ask the question, ‘should I give up on my Virgo man?’ because the male born under the sign of Virgo can be an infuriating partner to be with.

Having said that, his character of being honest and shy makes a Virgo guy the dream lover of most women looking for romance and a permanent relationship.

The part of a Virgo man’s hidden character that infuriates a woman the most is down to the time he takes to make up his mind before allowing her to see the true person.

A Virgo man can blow hot and cold seemingly at any time which makes a woman question whether he has the potential of being a serious long-term prospect.

Even after being together for a long period a Virgo man can come across as being disinterested leaving his partner thinking she must have done something wrong.

A recent study by a renowned relationship expert uncovered some startling facts as to why a Virgo man should act this way.

After extensive trials with 100’s of women, a formula has been devised that show the simple steps a woman needs to take to get a Virgo guy to commit to her. Following this program will give any woman the knowledge she needs to totally win the heart of her Virgo guy.

The expert who devised this system has produced a short video in which he takes you through his findings and explains why a guy acts the way he does. He explains his method HERE. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on it in the comment section below.

Why you should not give up on your Virgo man.

Virgo men are generally intelligent hard working and conscientious. They tend to have a direct and planned outlook on life and like to keep up to date with current affairs and topics that may affect their future.

This can lead him into thinking that he is always right, so a relationship with a Virgo man will require a woman ‘To be on the Ball’ and ready to debate her point of view.

The good thing is a Virgo man has great respect for a woman if she remains unemotional in getting her point across.

Although a relationship with a Virgo man may have its up’s and down’s the upside prevails in getting someone who is honest and fiercely loyal. Once understanding and acceptance are reached on a Virgo guy’s characteristics harmony and romance will blossom.

Related article: How to get a Virgo man to forgive you

The caring side of a Virgo

Every woman seeking a relationship with a guy wants him to be caring and devoted. I’m sure you like me has had our share of uncaring men in our lives. Men are usually very different from women who get devoted quickly in any relationship she starts.

One of the very first things a woman may notice in a relationship with a Virgo man is that he cares. He comes across as wanting things to work out and starts by delving into finding the things that make you happy.

You may have noticed during the first few dates his caring nature coming to the surface. You may well be delighted but a Virgo man can sometimes tend to care too much in the early stages.

This then leads a woman to be confused when later he pulls back because he is one that needs his own space occasionally.

See also: What a Virgo man wants to hear – But needs you to discover it

When to ignore a Virgo man

From a woman’s perspective, I’m sure you like me had the opinion that most single men seem to be carefree with life.

Most men have a kind of confidence about them of ‘Take it on the Chin’ and ‘Whatever happens’ is meant to happen’ Type of attitude.

This is generally not the case with a Virgo man who has a much more structured outlook on how his life will pan out. He is known to be fussy about everything being in its place.

You may initially be bowled over and find it a refreshing change but sometimes he can take things too far.

A Virgo man tends to have an opinion on everything and can be fussy about things that fall out of his line of reasoning. Learning when to ignore him and just step back and let him work it out himself rather than get irritated is key to harmony.

Related article: Will Virgo man miss you more if you ignore him?

Can Virgo men be controlling?

A Virgo man is a definite person to go to for advice on most subjects. They tend to be someone who is prepared to give an opinion and often wise words on most subjects. This is something that will adhere them to women who tend to love them for it.

However, this advice thing can be a two-edged proposition. On the one hand, a Virgo man is willing to offer advice but does have a tendency to sometimes go overboard with its delivery. A Virgo man is keen to help which can lead to pushing their opinion too hard.

The difference between inspiring and motivating a person who needs advice or being over controlling is a fine line which sometimes a Virgo man misses.

For them, because of the high standards they set themselves, they tend to get close to controlling the situation rather than allowing a person to accept their advice.

See also: What kind of woman attracts a Virgo guy?

Will a Virgo man test you?

A Virgo man has a straightforward way of how things should be in his life and because of this he does not enjoy mind games.

In fact, he views this kind of behavior as underhand and deceitful. He will not get involved in it and he will expect his partner to do the same.

Any woman wanting a relationship with a Virgo guy should stay well clear of trying to get his attention by instigating a situation to try to make him jealous for instance. In his mind, there is no room for underhand deception and beating around the bush.

A male born under the sign of Virgo respects a person more for saying it how it is rather than trying to flower the words to avoid an argument. If you are not happy with something it is far better to broach the subject and get it in the open rather than ignore it and let it fester.

Related article: Does a Virgo man play mind games when dating?

Will a Virgo man want me back?

This is where so many factors need to be taken into account and considered. A Virgo man’s response will depend a lot on how much he feels let down by the break in trust that you once shared. If he feels you have not been honest with him and try to cover it up, there is probably no way back.

A Virgo guy is usually very perceptive and his intuition tells him when to walk away. To pick up the threads of a broken relationship your Virgo man will need a compelling reason.

Depending on the reason the relationship has turned sour will depend on how much energy you will need to put in to turn things around.

If you feel you have made a mistake it is best to come clean and admit you were wrong. A Virgo man hates needy and groveling but does respect humility. When trauma happens in a Virgo man’s life he usually withdraws inside his shell and thinks deeply before moving on.

This is where you need to give him some space to evaluate the good times you had between you before things started to go wrong. If you are serious about wanting him back take this time to examine yourself.

Ask yourself if you had been taking him for granted and may be starting to let yourself down without realizing it. You need to explore different avenues of letting him know you still care for him but without coming across as crowding him.

A unique method that has helped 100’s of women

Relationship expert Amy North has a unique method that has helped 100’s of women stay in the thoughts of their man while still giving them space. Words said in a certain way have been proven to have a deep-rooted effect on the subconscious brain.

Amy has developed a system whereby these carefully worded sentences can be sent directly to your Virgo man via text. These messages with their hypnotic connotations are proven to excite his feelings for you while still giving him space. Amy explains her method in a short video HERE.

For more on a Virgo man

I hope this article has been of help with understanding a Virgo guy. My website http://virgomen.net specializes in situations regarding a relationship with a Virgo man, so why not bookmark for future reference?

My joy is in giving

Charlene

[anaithya]

2018, etc

2018 was one hell of a ride.

I spent the NYE working on thesis proposal with my best friends A & G at G’s home. It was tense, since the deadline was close but none of us was even halfway through. At midnight we took a break and walked to Bundaran HI to join the crowd and watch fireworks. We had a bit of fun, grabbed some food in the nearest McD, talked all the way back, and prayed for our hopes and dreams for the year, before finally continue to work. 

We had our common goal: to graduate. Little did we know it will took a long, winding road before we finally reach one.

January was fine. IECOM was successful, despite me being a zombie for several days. It might not be perfect but I’m very proud of what my team has done. There were unexpected things happened in D-Day but we handled them well. It feels so nice to see people work together--voluntarily put their time, mind, and energy to make the plan come true. We did our best and that’s what mattered. 

Two days after IECOM, batch 2014 went to field trip in Malang and Bali. Having too caught up with IECOM, my friends and I planned our extended trip on the bus lol (I wrote about it here). It was reaaal fun! I liked how chill we all were, stopped for a moment not thinking about thesis or our routine anxieties, living the moment we were in. Thank you crew #gogotrip.

But the chaos was waiting for me. From then on, I was drained working on my thesis. Thesis was like the epitome of my uni life: crappy and messed up. Full of regret and wrong decisions. Perfectly summed it up! I thought I planned everything perfectly, but then Murphy Law happened. I remember panicking when things were still uncertain. I overthinked a lot, I was desperate and felt so clueless on April, but things began to unfold in May. In early July, I was finally certain in what I had to do. But still not sure whether I could make it or not in October. The pressure was even higher after you see your own friends graduating. 

Whole September I couldn’t manage to do anything but working on my thesis. The month slipped perfectly from my life, I barely remember anything but me sitting in my computer, whether looking on Word, Excel, or Lingo. I remember staying up all night in the then-newly-opened coffee shop until 2 in the morning with my friend N (we’ve been there for hours), working on our thesis, too tired to talk to each other. Then we do the same thing in the day, only in our lab, and there will be our other friends. On repeat, for days. 

On Tuesday, 25th, I finally did my thesis defense. Got an A, with extremely minor revision. Happiest day of the year. Took a day off on Wednesday, printed the final draft Thursday, got my supervisor’s signature, submitted it to the library, and signed up for October graduation on Friday. 

Took two companies, months of hustles and hurdles, loads of papers, countess lingo solving, and series of sleepless nights to finally did it. And also a great supervisor. I couldn’t thank my supervisor enough for all the help that he gave me. If it wasn’t him, I don’t know if i can still manage to graduate in October.

In between the mess, with the thought that I need a break, I signed up for HPAIR conference. After two essays and an online interview, I got accepted! So for a full week in August I went to KL. It’s been a long time since I visit KL, and it was my first time participating in an international event like that. (one bucket list checked!). The conference was lit with the intriguing theme and notable speakers. I made new friends and tried superb food in town.

I also got the chance to participate in Maybank Impact Challenge, which I think the most interesting part of the conference. It was modelled upon Maybank Go Ahead Challenge. We were divided in teams, and the members came from different backgrounds and nationalities. In the span of 6 hours I had to make a country development plan, played board game, took the role as a COO in an engineering company, cracked codes and analyzed financial statements, ran for 1-2 km?--wearing a smart casual attire--from Sunway Uni to a bowling alley in Sunway Pyramid, pitched my company to investor WHILE playing bowling, ran back to the Uni, and took the role as management in company-in-crisis. Too much for a day, eh? It was crazy but I got to learn a lot: 1) How to work under pressure 2) How to work with strangers, especially with a very dominating person 3) How to estimate and make up numbers that still make sense 4) How to do impromptu speech.

(I also signed up for IELTS and Germany course. The courses were so refreshing since I love learning languages. I stopped showing up in September tho when the stakes on my thesis were high)

October 19 was my graduation day, and 20 was the parade. Bachelor of Science, I am now. I finally ended my university life. (another bucket list checked!)

The past four years was rough for me, especially in terms of my own ambition and personal development. To be honest, I hate my university life so much. I hate it to the point I don’t like to talk about it. About this class, about this exam, about this task, about this A B C, about this time when we had to do X.

If I could turn back the time I would definitely pick another major and another university. I hate how I didn’t work hard enough. I hate how I didn’t give my 100%. I hate how I DID work enough but still failing anyway. I hate how the world seemed so unfair. I hate how unprepared and unplanned I was. But what I hate the most is... I hate that I didn’t pursue for things I really like the most, because I was too scared. I hate how I wasn’t willing to take chances and chose the easy path. I hate how scared I was, to the future, to the what-ifs, to things that were actually in my head.

So messed up. So many wrong decisions. So many regrets.

Nonetheless, university life gave me valuable friends and... meaningful relationships! I really didn’t expect this from ITB back then, but yeah. The people I met were good ones. MTI ITB IS AWESOME!!! (at a certain period of time lol). I’m thankful that I found trusting, reliable friends that might not be 24/7 for me but surely make me laugh and make me feel much better when they’re around. It is my memories with them that I cherish the most.

Several days after graduation, I secured my first job (or not? I’m not permanent yet but nevermind), and started to work rightaway--in a company that I really admire. (bucket list checked once again!!!)

November and December were about adjustments. Adjusting myself back to Jakarta, coming back home after years of living alone. Adjusting to the new role that I take, as an employee. Adjusting to the new routine.

I also got two free concert tickets in November: Gun N Roses and Blackpink lol.

I spent the last day of the year with my high school friends in a friend’s house. Learned to play poker, chit chatted about life, reflected on how the year was for each of us. 

Calm and serene. 

Despite the sour, sour lemons, I learned a lot in 2018. 

Four years of desperation crafted this worrisome and pessimist attitude in me. Contrary after graduating high school, after uni graduation I feel like I have self-confidence issue and I feel like not knowing what I really want or what I have to do next. I am still clueless apparently. 

However, knowing the fact how terrible last year was, and I still survived after all gives me this weird strength to carry on. It gives some me kind of positivity and energy for 2019. 

I get this epiphany that... maybe life indeed sucks, it still has loadsss of lemons to be thrown at me. There will be more cancelled and altered plans, and there will be other twists, turns, and surprises. Nevertheless, I shall focus on things that I can control and let go the ones I can’t. I shall control my perception and reception towards what’s happening instead of letting it affect me. I shall not waste my energy panicking and thinking too much on things that don’t matter like I did last year (and throughout my uni life also). I shall let go of my fear and let loose, be less rigid.

I shall focus on me and my personal growth, also on people that matters. I want to regain my confidence and cut all the negativities that the past might have caused me. I need to reorganize my life and construct my future plans.

This year, I want to be chill like I was in Bali.

[plurdledgabbleblotchits]

Some Limericks, by Norman Douglas, 1928

One of the most often pirated books of all time. At one time, it was considered obscene; but it is also quite amusing.  Not for the easily offended, puritanical, overly pious, uptight, humorless, doctrinaire, the soi-disant highbrow, or simply too young -the author suggests that a reader should be older than 10. In America, I would suggest older, prob 18. Do not click on the link if ribald content is upsetting.

I find the long introduction by the author remarkable. One blogger (Jildy Sauce here) puts it eloquently thus: “In his introduction and commentary to the limericks, Douglas strikes a certain kind of pose: magisterial and magnanimous, mock-authoritative and understanding, bullet-proof as far as being shocked or outraged is concerned.  It is a stance that gives rise to a definite and delightful frisson when set beside limericks that are salacious, scatological and blasphemous – or all three together, a rare treat.  Douglas’ Geographical Index is a helpful pointer toward his choicest and wittiest remarks, for example: ‘Manchester, waggishness of mill-hands near’.”

“INTRODUCTION He must be a quintessential fool who does not realize that the following fifty limericks are a document of enduring value. And I beg leave to say that the collection has been made not for such people, but for those who can appreciate its significance. I may be abused on the ground that the pieces are coarse, obscene, and so forth. Why, so they are; and whoever suffers from that trying form of degeneracy which is horrified at coarseness had better close the book at once and send it back to me, in the hope that I may be simple enough to refund him the money. As to abuse—I thrive on it. Abuse, hearty abuse, is a tonic to all save men of indifferent health. At the same time I am fully convinced that nobody under the age of ten should peruse these pages, since he would find them so obscure in places that he might be dis- couraged from taking up the subject later on, which would be a pity. Ten, and not before, is the right age to commence similar studies; a boy of ten is as sagacious and profound as one of eighteen, and often more intel- lectual. Ten was the precise age (see page 39) at which I began to take interest in this class of literature, and it has done me all the good in the world. There was a time when one collected butterflies, or flowers, or minerals. But the choicest specimen of (say) precious opal can be replaced, if lost. Now if these limericks are lost, they cannot be replaced; they are gone for good. You may invent new ones, as many as you please. Such new ones, however, will inevitably have another tone, another aroma, because they belong to another age. The discerning critic will detect a gulf both in technique and in feeling between most of the limericks of the Golden Period and those of today, and naturally enough, seeing that the poets, and not only the poets of the Victorian and the Georgian epochs have an entirely different outlook. Precious opal remains the same yesterday, today, and fifty thousand years hence. That is why lately, with increasing intelligence, I have taken to garnering what future collectors cannot hope to possess without my aid—perishable material such as the Street Games of London children, or the blas- phemies of Florentine coachmen. It would interest me to know what proportion of those thousand-odd Street Games are still played, and which of them have died out in the short interval since my little book on the subject was written. In that book itself I predict their decline, and give reasons for it (page 119-121). And it is the same with the swear words. I caught the old ones in the nick of time. A good half of them have already grown obsolete and are unfamiliar to the new generation of such men. Why is this? Because these men, being no longer cab-drivers but chauffeurs, are afflicted with the neurasthenia common to all such mechanical folk; they lack—their distemper makes them imagine they lack—the leisure which is essential to the creation of original works of art, however humble; they forget the ripe old blasphemies and have not the wit to invent a fresh supply. How shall good things be generated if, instead of sitting over your wine and cheese, you gulp down a thimbleful of black coffee and rush off again? Mechanics, not microbes, are the menace to civilization. A writer in the New Witness (Dec. 9, 1921) once suggested that this collection of swear words should be privately printed. That cannot be done; it will never see the light of day. But I shall now permit myself, for reasons which will be apparent later on, to reproduce the few words of introduction which I wrote for it in the year 1917: "Nor is there much bad language to be found in Romola. Perhaps the Florentines did not swear so horribly in those days. Perhaps their present fondness for impious inveftice is likewise a reaction from Savo- narola's teaching (I had been discussing Savonarola's puritanism). For Tuscans of today are pretty good blasphemers. They have many oaths in common but, unlike others, they pride themselves upon an individual tone in this department. A self-respecting Florentine would consider his life ill-spent had he not tried to add at least one blasphemy of his own personal composition to the city stock; it survives, or not, according to its merits. Of how many other art-products can it be said that merit, and merit alone, decides their survival? "Adventures are to be adventurous. "I have begun to make a collection of these curses, imprecations, objurgations — abusive, vituperative or blasphemous expletives: swear words, in short. It already numbers thirty-eight specimens, all authentic, to the best of my knowledge. Most of them, I regret to say, are coupled with the name of the Deity. That cannot be helped. I propose to treat the subject in a scien- tific spirit—from the "kulturhistorischen Standpunkt", as the Germans say. I did not invent the swear words, and if the reader dislikes their tone he may blame not me but Savonarola for generating this pungent reaction from his bigotry. Violence always begets violence. "Why not interest oneself in such things? Man cannot live without a hobby. And this is folklore, neither more nor less; an honorable hobby. Furthermore, unlike stamp or coin collecting, it costs practically nothing; a seasonable one. It has the additional advantage that the field is virgin soil and the supply of material very considerable—unlimited, I should say. Moreover, the research leads you into strange byways of thought and causes you to ponder deeply concerning human nature; some of these oaths require a deal of explanation; a philosopher's hobby! Unexploited, unexplained, unexhaustible—what more can be asked? And, as aforesaid, absurdly economical. "There is yet more to be said in its favour. For while these swear words are as genuine a flower of the soil as Dante or Donatello and every bit as character- istic, they happen to be up to date. A live hobby! They portray modern Tuscany with greater truthfulness than any other local product. Indeed, it will not take you long to discover that they, and they alone, are still flourishing in this city. For the rest of Florence is dead or dying. The town decays, declines; it shrinks into a village; grows more provincial every day. Pol- itical life has yielded up the ghost; art and literature and science, music and the state—they gasp for breath. There is no onward movement perceptible. It either stands still, or moves actually backwards. The oaths alone are vital. In lightning flashes, and with terrible candour, they reveal the genius loci." Are not these words, most of them, applicable to a collection of English limericks? A curious parallel! "A self-respecting Englishman would consider his life ill-spent had he not tried to add at least one limerick of his own personal composition to the national stock; it survives, or not, according to its merits"—how true! And what shall we write instead of Savonarola? We can write puritanism; indeed, we must. This verse-form is a belated product of puritanical repression. That is why Latin races cannot appreciate such literature. If you tell a Frenchman: II y avait un jeune homme de Dijon, Qui n'avait que peu de religion. II dit: "Quant a moi, Je deteste tous les trois, Le Pere, et le Fils, et le Pigeon" — he will look at you  in a dazed fashion, wondering whether he has heard  aright, while Spaniards are pos- itively shocked when  you translate for them a lyric such as: There was a young girl of Spitzbergen, Whose people all thought her a virgin, Till they found her in bed, With her quim very red, And the head of a kid just emergin'. They regard these things as dirty. Now tell them that all such "dirt" is the outcome of protestant theories of life, and that the poets of the Restoration expressed the same reactionary spirit in other metres, and they will suggest that you become a convert to the R. C. Faith which, they declare, is based on notions that are both cleaner and saner. "We don't require such ambiguous outlets," they say. It may be true. They may not require them. But they need them. For what have they not lost, these Latins, with their Catholicism! One limerick is worth all the musty old Saints in their Calendar. Saints are dead—they have died out from sheer inability to propagate their species; limericks are alive, and their procreative capacity is amazing. (One would like to know how many new ones are born every day.) The cult of Saints is mediaeval affectation; the cult of limericks, as I shall presently show, is a Bond of Empire. No doubt malnutrition plays a part, and Southern races are apt to be underfed. Limericks are jovial things. An empty stomach is hostile to every form of joviality; it can produce nothing like the generous and full-blooded lines already quoted. Our own half-starved classes are a case in point: they know not these poems. The well-fed youngsters of the universities and the stock exchange, commercial travellers for good houses, together with a wise old scholar or two—these are the fountain- heads. It is gratifying, meanwhile, to have captured a few specimens of what, historically speaking, is a protest against protestantism, and strange to think that our little ones would never have learnt to babble about the "old man of Kent, whose tool was remark- ably bent," or "the young man of Fife, who couldn't get into his wife," but for Luther's preaching and the victories of Naseby and Dunbar. Whatever may be thought of speculations such as these, there is no denying that limericks are a yea- saying to life in a world that has grown grey. That alone justifies their existence. They are also English —English to the core. Of how many things can that be said? Take only our other poets: can it be said that Milton, or Keats, are English? They may have been born in England, and they certainly write the lan- guage of that country—quite readable stuff, some of it. But how full of classical allusions, what a surfeit of airs and graces! Open their pages where you will, and you find them permeated by a cloying academic flavour; one would think they were written for the delectation of college professors. The bodies of these men were English, but their souls lived abroad; and the worst of it is, they carry their readers' souls abroad with them—abroad, into old Greece and God knows where, into the company of Virgil and Ariosto and Plato and other foreigners. There is none of that continental nonsense here. Limericks are as English as roast beef; they, and they alone, possess that harmonious homely ring which warms our hearts when we hear them repeated round the camp- fire. Wherever two or three of our countrymen are gathered together in rough parts of the world, there you will find these verses; it is limericks that keep the flag flying, that fill you with a breath of old England in strange lands, and constitute one of the strongest sentimental links binding our Colonies to the mother- country. Indeed, I should say that their political value is hardly appreciated at home, and that the Colonial Office might do worse than install a special department for the production and export of ever-fresh material of this kind (I have reason to think that such a department is already in existence). These planters and Civil servants, the cream of our youth, might often suffer from the irritation produced by living lonely lives in lonely places; they might often be at loggerheads with each other, but for the healing and convivial influence of limericks that remind them of common ties and com- mon duties and a common ancestry, and make them forget their separate little troubles. Or do you fancy they discuss art and politics in their leisure moments? If so, you have never lived among them. Can you hear one of them reciting cosmopolitan effusions like the Ode to a Nightingale or Paradise Regained? Let him try it on! When we consider the popularity of limericks wherever our tongue is spoken, it is surprising how few of them can be traced to a definite author. In no other branch of literature do we find so great a num- ber of anonymous writers, writers of talent and industry, sometimes of genius, whose labours have received no adequate reward or even acknowledgment. We hear of the Unknown Soldier: what of the Unknown Poet? Is he never to have his memorial? I have done my little best in dedicating to him the following pages. Another appropriate inscription would have been to Queen Victoria, under whose reign these verses achiev- ed their highest development. Edward Lear has been fruitful and suggestive. Yet it is open to doubt whether he was the actual inventor of such poems, as Professor Saintsbury {History of Prosody, III, p. 389, note) seems to imply; the verse must have existed before his time, but he popularised it and fixed the epigrammatic form. We have now abandoned his tiresome canon by which the last word of the last line is identical with the last word of the first; the chief difference, however, is that ours have a deliberate meaning, while his are deliberate nonsense. Limericks alone would have made the Victorian epoch memorable. That was the Golden Period. We are now in the Silver Age, the sophisticated age, the age of laborious ornamentation, such as: There was a young girl of Aberystwith, Who went to the mill they grind grist with, etc. or There were three young ladies of Grimsby, Who asked: "Of what use can our quims be," etc. or There was a young girl of Antigua, Whose mother said: "How very big you are," etc. or (a less familiar example of this exotic school) There was an old man at the Terminus, Whose b__h and whose bum were all verminous. They said : "You sale Boche! You really must wash Before you start planting your sp___ in us." Some of these baroque things are not without charm, but one gladly returns to the Aeschylean simplicity of the earlier period. I said that limericks were English; I should have said, English and American. Whatever one may think of America's achievements in other fields, it must be admitted that in this one she is a worthy competitor with the old country and that her productions are all that could be desired in point of structural excellence and delicacy of imagination. Not for nothing did the Mayflower sail westwards. And thank Heaven the cabin-passengers were puritans and not catholics! If, later on, these good people in- dulged in a little amateurish witch-burning out there, they have now made amends by the non-amateurish quality of their limericks. This verse-form, as we all know, is of yesterday, but, once imported into the New World, it struck its deepest roots into the soil most congenial to such a growth—the soil of the Eastern States. The New England regions are by far the most productive, and such examples as are here given have been garnered one and all by an assiduous lady-collector of Boston in the immediate vicinity of her home. Though dealing with different parts of America and of the world they are without exception a local product; so she assures me. I am sorry to have been able to include only a few samples from her richly varied store; sorrier still not to be able to thank her in this place for her kindness in allowing me the use of these specimens. She has made it a condition that her name shall not be mentioned in connexion with them. And this would bring me to the final and pleasant task of acknowledging my debt to a number of other contributors, mostly of a still youthful age. I find my- self, however, in a serious dilemma; none of them— no, not a single one—will permit me to print his or her name. Never did I have so many ardent collabor- ators, and never such modest ones! Their unanimity in the matter is both rare and praiseworthy, and yet I must be allowed to say that even such a commendable trait as self-effacement can be pushed too far, when it leaves another man in the awkward position of being unable to perform what he considers his duty. Modesty is no doubt a charming characteristic of youth, but I never knew what that word really meant, till I embark- ed on this little undertaking.”

(I edited two words )

[silkandconvalescencerpg]

The day has finally come in which all of the prompts are completed! To make things easier for you all, I’ve placed each of the skeletons’ prompts below, so that you’d save yourself the energy having to seek each individual one out. These have been a long-while in the making, so I truly hope they help, even the smallest bit, in your application process. I bid you all good luck!

RUFESCENT.

 001.  Honestly, while writing Rufescent I was just giggly the entire time (hopefully nottoo obvious to you guys), so I’d love to read a para sample that is completely filled to the brim with quirks and jokes, if only for the laugh. It would be a nice nod to the circumstances of their birth into the group, and a firm representation of one of their main facets. Moreover, it doesn’t have to be entirely silly, and it’d be lovely to read a scene in which they manage to incorporate their blazing wit and comicality into a situation in which it might be uncalled for or inappropriate, which makes it all the better. Surprise me, shock me, make me bite my lip hard enough because I have to hold back vicious laughter ⏤ that’s how the rufescent rolls.

 002.  Another detail that I implanted in their skeleton is the “you know, when they ask for silence in a library, they don’t exactly mean your kind of locked lips” line, and I absolutely adore it. The subsequent para doesn’t necessarily have to fall into this scenario, but this blunt, rebellious cheekiness is one of my favorite aspects of the rufescent, and I’d be a fan to witness a situation where this quality of theirs is magnified and shining brighter than a lumos. They’re just someone that you can’t help but snort at, really.

003.  Something that I feel would be overlook in the rufescent is their absolute, uncannily sharp wit. They are charming, they are hilarious, they are outspoken, they are a flirt to a fault, but they are also perceptive and clever beyond belief, which is how they get by. Write something that zeroes in on this, and how they use this to their benefit, or on the opposite spectrum, how perhaps it’s a “loss of potential”. In the same vein, maybe write about the cowardice they may be rooted in, the “carefully crafted bush” of theirs and how they “just wouldn’t fly away” from their current setting. Write about why! Write about pressure, and shedding personas, and just everything. I’d love to see your take.

NEMESIS.

001.  As stated explicitly and dramatically several times within their skeleton, nemesis is what I would call a double-edged dagger, a dichotomy if there ever was one. It may prove difficult narrowing this down into tangible words, or elucidating this into a specific scene where it can be properly captured, but I urge you to try. They are the extremities you wish you hadn’t touched, miraculously burnt and frozen over from simple contact, be it flesh, words, a look. Then again, fire is always mesmerizing before you get burned and ice is stunning before it pierces your heart ⏤ a vicious, beautiful cycle, one a healing charm can’t magically cure. They are fatally complex, and it’s a noble cause to attempt to corral them into mere words ⏤ an honorable challenge!

002.  I’m personally quite attached to the “cursing one parent while clinging onto the other” line, so I definitely wouldn’t object to seeing this sentiment portrayed in some form or another. Which parent did you pick; how do the dynamics differ; how do you suppose the parents react? All questions that can be carefully weaved and crafted into a passage of a scene, and my curiosity is certainly peaked.

003.  The biggest question you can ask when faced with nemesis is why ⏤ why are they the way they are? How do they cope without turning to ashes inside out? I want intimacy, an inside look into the labyrinth that they sheathe. Who are they? A clear answer, a stark analysis. I need to be shown an understanding and development of what exactly they have become and will continue to be. The five W’s and H would be a fun tactic with nemesis, if I’m being honest, because I want to see that transparency that proves you know them inside and out, even the mangled, molten parts that nobody else can define. “What’s it all for anyway?” You tell me.

THRASONICAL.

001.  One of my favorite little snippets about the thrasonical was making them a history-loving fool! I’d love to see how this obsession began, how it coiled into the very core of who they are. Perhaps a scene where we see them in the middle of a particularly vigorous session where they just went deep, completely encompassed within their own world of the past and its greats ⏤ the thought process, certain mannerisms, anything and everything that just embeds you into the world with them. Moreover, reveal some of their favorite pieces and periods of history! Strictly magical (here, you can really have fun and make up some lore on your own) or do they have a soft spot for muggle history as well, and how do the two mix, if so? How does the study and love of history complete them, and why?

002.  Now, I wouldn’t be hyperbolizing if I said they were fuck-all, one hundred percent, tits-up charming, so much so it’s nasty. In fact, you could accuse me of understating it. Capture this in action. The suaveness, the delicately tempered eyebrows that can throw the strongest wills into frustration, the quirk of lips that can shake foundations. Please ⏤ this is their arena, and I’d pay to watch, so make the show worth an audience.

003.  So, I kind of threw that line of “balling up fists and growling deep in your throat and calming the temper of a furious forest fire (sometimes it’s too late, sometimes you burn)” abruptly into the end, but that certainly doesn’t lessen it’s impact; perhaps it creates an emphasis, even, and I want to see that notion explored, abused, and taken advantage of. This is a bomb, and I want to see it detonated. Write an instance where they did allow the temper to catch fire and burn, and the consequences and clean-up of such a disaster. Or perhaps detail a moment when they could have, were so close to blowing up, but reined it in at the last second; capture the strength and will that it took, and how they blew off the steam in the aftermath. Go crazy together.

ACHILLES HEEL.

001.  One of the funnest qualities of the skeletons was coming up with the names for each and every one of them, and how exactly they would be molded to fit their titles. For achilles heel, there’s a lot of weight behind their name, for it’s perhaps the most well known out of all of the skeletons. I know why I picked it, but I want to know why youthink it’s well-suited. How do you tie it into your character? Do you prioritize the myth, the biology, or the general meaning behind it the most? Maybe show me a scene where the name just clicks so perfectly with who your character is. It’s a classic that has survived centuries, and I’d love to witness the clash between old and new ⏤ your interpretation against the very own Achilles.

002.  I instilled somewhat of a religious aspect within their skeleton ⏤ “analyzing scripture with your father in the italian countryside to fill up endless summer days, screaming at the top of your lungs blasphemy the next” ⏤ and it’s something I’d dearly love to see emboldened. I genuinely didn’t have any details in mind for this other than what I wrote, so I’d love to see any take on it whatsoever; it was a very impulsive inclusion, but one that I knew I couldn’t replace, simply because there’s so much that you can fabricate from that one line. Moreover, the Italian countryside is mentioned, and I’m curious to see how you would pave a subsequent path from there. This is where you can build up on the idea of their childhood (religion, family, residence), and there are so many roads to explore, it’s difficult to choose just one. The constant of achilles heel is their back-and-forth dance that is embedded into every facet of their existence, and it’s again apparent here. How did they go from point A to B? What is their relationship with religion and how does it affect them in their daily life? It’s a very boundless arena, but one that can only declare a single champion.

003.  To me, one of the most gut-wrenching pulls of the achilles heel is their complete ability for self-destruction, not to mention adeptness as self-deception. It’s like a demented game of whack-a-mole, and it’s fair to say there’s no winner. I want to see this underlined, magnified in the harsh and bright light that it deserves. This is the most imperative facet of who I introduced them as, and it’s something I’m beyond thrilled to see come to life. I want to see how they face this in their daily life; paint an instance where “playing peek-a-boo with feelings” radiates from a passage or dialogue, where it can be seen without being explicitly told. To pull achilles heel off, a tender and clever portrayal is needed, and I’m excited to see what you can pull out of the bag. Moreover, your interpretation on the unrequited torture aching within their bones is a particular desire of mine, and I want to see it exploited and dissected. Do with this what you will!

ACCISMUS.

001.  The driving force behind accismus is their undying and fervent passion. Beyond all else, they are like the unyielding embers in a stark winter; if you were to strike their bones together, a flame would appear. However, it’s almost as if this is lost on them. There is a certain desperation that trails their every breath, and every moment of their existence is spent trying to coax something deeper, something more, out of themselves. There are several lines within their skeleton that touch upon this, but “visiting the forbidden forest just to feel the thrum of explicit life around you, reminding you of your own blood pumping in your veins” works wonders to accentuate this point, and I want to see your own rendition of the meaning behind this. In order to wholly portray accismus, you must have a strong grip onto who they are, what their mindset is, the core understanding beneath it all. It’s complex to untangle and pinpoint, but I want to be shown that you know every single centimeter of the map of who they are.

002.  Truly, it wouldn’t be unfair to call them a mess. They really, really are. In their skeleton, it’s touched upon that they nearly gave up the honor of head student, and I want to tour the thought process behind this. There’s a subtle tragedy that lurks beneath the surface, and it needs to be exploited. Perhaps it’d be interesting to see the snapshot of when they found out they landed the position, and how they news shot through them. Who did they tell? Did they keep it to themselves for a while? Did they laugh, cry, go numb? It might be difficult to capture, but that’s exactly why I want to see it. I want them to be empathically, appallingly human ⏤ after all, so they do.

003.  For me, accismus is the rare introvert-extrovert type. It’s hinted at several times throughout the skeleton, such as “knowing the answer in class and waiting for the professor to call on you as a last salvation, drawling response and shy smirk at the ready.” They’re a beloved fixture within Hogwarts, despite not trying to call attention to themselves, especially in any boisterous or rowdy way. One of my main excitements relies on interactions, and so I’d love to see any dialogue between accismus and others. How do they react around others, what is their general temperament, if they were interrupted in a thrilling part of a book, how would they lash out, if at all? Really try to dig into their very essence.

GORDIAN KNOT.

001.  The inspiration behind gordian was clearly the old legend, and the very idea has been a tug at both my mind and heart for a while. The character concept was one of the first that I came up with, and this core of tangled ties, of a mangled and impenetrable mess, is the center of this skeleton that truly draws you in. Of course, it’s nice and complex on paper, but I am eager to see how you can enact this through dialogue and a realistic and meaty characterization, in which I can truly envision your muse coming to life. I want you to make this hidden and intricately tortuous character utterly transparent to me, to prove that you know them inside and out, knotted soul and all. They may be a complete riddle to everyone else, but you must be inside that sphere, right inside their head. I want to be excited to figure each facet of them out, bit by agonizing bit.

002.  One of my favorite injections within their skeleton was this idea of existentialism and their own curiosity with it. I was quite vague with the concept, for I wanted this to be the field where you can totally go off the tracks. What does this mean, specifically to your muse? How far and creatively wild can you go with this route? To me, gordian is a weird one, and I’m truly so excited to gather your interpretation of their mindset and how this idea became rooted in them. There’s a huge well of opportunity here, and I want to see how deep you’re willing to go.

003.  There are some gothic themes implanted within the group, and gordian is one of the tiers in that aspect. Within the line “chasing (my bad ⏤ walking, casually, slowly, always on the disinterested front) fulfillment in empty corridors tense with brimming old souls of centuries past ; what is it that deceiving emptiness can lend you that a breathing, talking human can’t? is it the breathing or the talking part ; or both?” there is plenty to uncover and explore with, and I want to this notion to somehow, in some (obscure or not) way, be addressed. I mean, just dissecting that part of the skeleton can lead you in so many directions, with a plethora of insanely delicious storylines to trek into. I want to see you blossom in this element, and really run with it. Give me something to sink my teeth into and groan in appreciation. Moreover, take into account their three words: stoic, precarious, nomadic. How do they fit your version of gordian? Do you disagree with them? Really show me your vision, in whatever capacity you deem best.

PROCRUSTEAN.

001.  The procrustean is quite the heavy character, and it’ll take a bit of skill to maneuver their characterization into something legible. The main notion attached to their skeleton, the very core of who they are, is this gilded cage that is shackled to their bones. The definition of procrustean reads “enforcing uniformity or conformity without regard to natural variation or individuality,” and it’s a perfect exposition of the center of the character. That latter part rings especially true, and truly emphasizes that not only are they weighed down by familial (or whichever direction you took) pressure in their future, but also their soul, their heart. They are clearly affected, but how? Strip every shackle off and reveal to me who they are underneath. Even more, show me who they could have been, had they not been born into a cage. Have they ever wondered this themselves? What is their mindset? Divulge these possibilities, these truths.

002.  A section of their skeleton focuses on that “if anything, you own the distinct talent of fabricating an escape in any pleasure or pain, tiny crevices or eyebrow-raising reaches alike, you can find, seeking out with a desperate vengeance that momentarily grants you a shortly saccharine fantasy, even if the tang of blood is more bitter than sweet ( can you even tell? )” line, and my, does it pack a punch. This introduces a whole realm of possibility, and I’m keen to see what kind of vices you have affixed to their character. It even hints at delusional fantasies and lapses of desperation that may be all too disastrous for them. How dark are you willing to go, and how do you interpret the direction of the last few words within the line? Include a scene or snippet of how cavernous this vein really runs.

003.  A regal mien is somewhat embedded into the flesh of their skeleton, and it doesn’t necessarily conclude that they’re born with a silver spoon in hand. They just naturally exude this palatial air that bears an imprint on anyone who crosses their path. I’m somewhat desperate to see procrustean in action, to be given a diagram of their mind, soul, and everything more. What are their interactions with others like; how do they react and how are they reacted to? The cloak of a coward conceals them, but how is this a player in the game of their life? How gracefully do they fit into their predestined box?

LOTUS EATER.

001.  The very concept of lotus is derived from the greek myths and legends in which, “as a result of eating the fruit of the lotus plant, a group of people were stuck living in a state of idleness and dreamy forgetfulness.” This is one of the more interestingly based skeletons, and there’s so much that you can do with this. I wanted to pack in everything I could into this concept, and I want to see all possible fronts exhausted. This notion of laziness beautified and an extravagant stupor is etched into the very fragrance that islotus eater, and I want to see this grand sloth reverberate a heartbeat. Perhaps even weave a tale that compares them to their namesake, how they would bear in such a mythological tragedy (or peace?). Hearten me to their lethargic existence.

002.  Moreover, an idea that can be warred within your application is the question of: how much of their soul is true, embedded laziness, and how much is clouded with the fear of change; of achieving the bare minimum so that perfection is the lowest bar to attain? Lotus is truly a tricky one, for their intentions are up in the air, floating in bliss among sunsets and daydream clouds. Take this line: “layering jewels upon jewels as they catch a shimmer and shine, layering shadows upon shadows of a girl, catching personas like light on diamonds” and wholeheartedly rip into it. You can take so much from those words, and I’m excited to witness your interpretations. As for scenes in which you can enwrap this into dialogue and interaction, perhaps a piece of synergy in which you highlight the conversation happening both inside and outside of their head. You do what feels most comfortable, as well as what can portray your enriched understanding of their character.

003.  There are several hints of a rather rough exterior inside the skeleton, such as “running idle circles barefoot in an orchard, playing hide and seek within the groove of trees and healing scrapes and bruises on knees with the soft caress of emerald grass and blooming flowers” and the only foul word (“shit”) found within any of the skeletons, battled against a delicate, mortal softness that begs to be damaged: “careful, don’t prick your delicate veins on a rose’s thorns ; your flesh is too brittle.” I want to see this played out brilliantly, in a bright, sunshine gold light that catches the eye. With lotus specifically, I think the childhood facet is an important one to explore, for a section of the skeleton directly refers to it, and how they evolved from there to here. Thrill me with tender and bittersweet nostalgia!

PRESCIENT.

001.  The prescient is a funky one, and I’m gearing for this to be played out spectacularly. Off the bat, you are drowned in this Alice in Wonderland swirl of an identity ⏤ except darker, funner, and snarkier. Truly, their skeleton holds some of my favorite lines, and one of them is this introduced notion of a holier-than-thou attitude regarding Divination, reminiscent of our favorite Brightest Witch of Her Age, while desperately gripping with both hands tight onto their own eyebrow-raising “prophecies”: “coughing bitterly on the dense fumes that cloud the divination classroom ( a roll of your eyes here, a barely disguised scoff there ), but clinging tightly onto the prophecies designed by your leftover tea leaves from that morning’s cuppa.” It’s honestly just so like them, and I want you to attain your own comfortability with the lunacy raging inside their head: not simply understand who they are, but sacrifice a piece of yourself to adopt their madness; Alice, meet your Mad Hatter.

002.  I don’t typically like to reveal certain fictional characters who have played a role in the initial, loose characterization of the skeletons, but in this case, I don’t see it deterring you from your own interpretation, but rather pinpointing some new perspectives to get your mind turning where it may have not been. That said, particularly in the Harry Potter universe itself, I drew some influence from Luna Lovegood, Lavender Brown, Hermione Granger, and even Tom Riddle. They each lent something to the building of the skeleton diagram, and from there, I expanded it and fluffed it with a lot of my own twists from how these “seer-esque” characters are usually done ⏤ it’s safe to say I had a little too much fun with prescient. They are truly different at every turn, and mangle expectations inside out: thus, I want you to shock me with your application; surprise even (and especially) me.

003.  One of the three words I included for prescient was meddlesome, and boy, oh boy, is that the truest thing I’ve written. This, mixed with their fatal curiosity, is a disaster brewing in the horizon. A large section of their skeleton reads: “everything and everyone has a rhyme or reason and oh, oh, oh, you’re too curious for your own good ⏤ what do you exist for if not for prodding and poking into a semblance of understanding / after all, one can be pushed down the rabbit hole or jump ; what difference does it make in the end if you’re the one to prod them off the ledge, as long as wonderland is reached at the crash of the fall?” and if anything, this is what you must pick up on in your interpretation. They can almost be suffocating in their ways, and that makes for some nasty interactions; or perhaps not? Detail their relationships across the sphere, or highlight a scene or dialogue in which their meddling ways are magnified for my viewing. Is the cat killed, or brought back?

FAVONIAN.

001.  The tug of favonian is this grand, old-fashioned fairytale hook, which cloaks you in its worn, mysteriously-shadowed aura (I generally get more descriptive the longer I write for periods at a time, my sorrowful, regretful bad). Their skeleton is actually one of my shorter ones, but I believe it to be more within less. This idea of a desperation to find oneself magically within the pages of a storybook leads to a more grandiose and perhaps even tragic analysis, for who must you be ⏤ what life must you live ⏤ to wish to exchange your reality for fiction (says I, the hypocrite)? Moreover, the line: “worn copies of beedle the bard graining your fingertips as age-old excitement pulls you to turn the page, again and again” hints that this pull has seized favonian since childhood, and what can you twist and weave with this piece of news? Is this fascination like the roots of a tree, growing sturdier and stronger with each passing day, until oh!: an evermore, majestic oak? In a world of magic, with goblins, and spells, and wheezes ‘til the eye can see, what more can you long for?

002.  I’ve been asked about this in the past, but allow me to reiterate and truly expand on my answer: a darkness clings in between the lines of favonian, and it’s hinted at through the “at least try and shave that hairy heart of yours, before they catch onto you” line. Like I said before, this is referring to the short story within The Tales of Beedle the Bard, and it’s perhaps the short story that reeks the most of the gothic theme, a thread that is most definitely deliberate. How you choose to incorporate or address this vein is up to you, but I suggest you get clever with it ⏤ if you’re having fun with it, I assure you that the same elation will radiate to me. Not all enchanted forests have a Tinker Bell, so run with it; after all, Hogwarts does have its very own forbidden forest to venture. A dark seed must always first be tainted.

003.  An extremely vital part to favonian is the “plucking your way through your garden, dismembering one flower at a time, chanting childish demands of ‘will they love me … love me not’ ( try : will i love me, will i not? pity, my dear : not )” line, which is why it was chosen as the crucial sentence to highlight within the masterlist. Here, darker themes are also underlined, for the innocent children’s act of plucking petals from a flowers is twisted into a literal, crippling action, maiming what was once sweet into something pungent. Even further, an insecurity is introduced in the parenthesis, sharp enough to prick your finger on. It’s truly key to at least talk about this in some capacity, so search for that dark, deep crevice within yourself and channel it.

PHAETON.

001.  The phaeton was a concept that was very original in the entire premise and creation of the roleplay, and I’m elated to see them finally flapping their wings out in the wild. Like essentially all of the skeletons, there is a soft dichotomy edged between the lines: arrogance versus inherent destruction. They are a very difficult concept to skillfully grasp, and can only be achieved with an exquisite and keen hand. They are wholly based upon the greek phaethon, and the myth instantly affords the skeleton depth where it may be hidden within the text: “inexperience proved fatal” is the theme that strikes severely, the chord that must be struck. However, legends may not be whole reality, and thus, I urge you to create a new picture rather than coloring within the lines.

002.  Following that same vein, arrogance is a key factor that is deeply implanted within the bones of the skeleton. Moreover, you can play on the “inexperience” and conceit by meshing them to attack the Head Student position that has been gifted to phaeton. “Arrogance is a certain type of breed, but are you a perfect design or a mangled mutation?”: where can this lead them? What part does this line play in their future / potential storyline? How will this fail them or uplift them? You can address these questions in whichever format you may wish to use, as long as the grip you have on their mind, heart, and soul is stable and obvious to my own eyes.

003.  A clever little input within the skeleton was “smirking dimples into fruition ; narrowing twinkling eyes into slits” and this truly warps what you thought the skeleton was into something else. This introduces a mischief to the concept, a fun gist and flowing wind that injects an acrid jest that you simply can’t help but inhale until you’re sneezing to the nines. Moreover, phaeton is perhaps the skeleton with the most singular lines, in which each new fraction amounts to a different meaning, and so much like the previous line, “heavy hearts weigh on the heaviest minds” is one that speaks thousands, and opens dozens of doors, without revealing much within the direct words themselves. Expand on these notions, and how they affect the vision of your own character; how they coil and root to encapsulate the core of your muse. Really wrap your fist around the center of their stem and tug.

[ajokeformur-ray]

Hey~🌸 I’m a bit anxious,but can I please request a match up~? So umm… I’m an asexual female,but I love hugs and cuddles from both genders.

Looks…pretty average.5'4",thin,dyed hair(almost always blue or red)

(INTP,Slytherin,Capricorn,Forensics student-idk if these matter,but I’ll add them just in case)

Regarding hobbies,I love reading,writing,video games,arts and music(I play the piano&guitar).

Walking through the forest,climbing mountains,the sea breeze,travelling and the feeling of freedom are my favourite things to experience.

I tend to be quite independent and stoic,even if I’m anxious about it. Sarcasm is always used,especially when I mock/tease my friends…or make snarky comments when someone says something stupid.

I love the goth culture/art/style and aesthetics.Absolute guilty pleasure.

I’m an empath,so I kind of feel the emotions and vibes of those around me.Double edged sword,cause I know when a friend needs emotional support,but it’s draining,so I tend to stay away from social interaction.

I’m sorry for writing all this useless trivia,I hope it will help and everything is okay. Thank you sooo so much for everything,and especially,running this incredible blog!🌸😍

harry potter, naruto, got and black butler

GOT - Sandor Clegane (it was the obvious choice!)

- You love physical affection and while Sandor is gruff and definitely is not into PDA unless it’s for a political reason or to make a statement such as, you thought you had won but look at me, I’m happy, he tends to not touch you when others are around. In the privacy of your own rooms, though, he makes a show of not wanting affection and might tell you to “fuck off” but don’t. Stay. It’s a show, it’s always just a show. He doesn’t want people to get too close, to see the sheer vulnerability behind his anger. So stay, persist, and when he melts at your touch, press yourself tighter into his hold. He’ll appreciate far more than he could ever say.

- It would take a long time, years, for Sandor to be able to tell you what he’s feeling and when he’s feeling it. This is where your empathy would definitely come in handy. He wouldn’t like the fact that you know him as well as you do, but there’s not much he can do about it so he grudgingly accepts it and starts to realise that King’s Landing is a place full of liars and whores, but you… You, he can trust. So he does. He starts with small things such as telling you how his day was, his favourite kind of wine, and one day, when he’s drunk, he’d tell you the story behind his face. But do not ask about it because that’s the fastest way to shut him down. 

- Your hobbies are relaxing and self-expressive. Some evenings, you’re writing or drawing on parchment that Sandor swiped from Joffrey’s chambers while he polishes, cleans and sharpens his sword - the sounds in the room are a crackling fireplace, the singing metal as it is cleaned, and the harsh scribblings of quills on parchment. It’s the nicest way for the two of you to relax and neither of you would ever have it any other way. Alternatively, when he’s off duty the two of you go on long walks. Under the moonlight, through the rain, the harsh sunlight, through the Godswood if you’re ever in Winterfell… He spends time with you. The two of you don’t talk on these journeys but you don’t need to; you have a mutual understanding of each other and words aren’t always needed.

- Sandor appreciates your independence more than he can say; as a member of the Kingsguard he rarely gets free time so the fact that you’re self-reliant and don’t feel the need to answer to someone settles his mind and he feels secure that you’ll be okay while he’s busy looking after “the boy-king”. If someone does something stupid in front of the both of you, your sarcastic comments tend to match up, making the person being targeted raise an eyebrow. It never fails to make Sandor smirk, though.

BB - Ciel Phantomhive

- Ciel isn’t one at all for physical affection… During the day. At night… Don’t be surprised to find him coming into your room, climbing into your bed, lying completely still for a few moments before rolling over and burrowing into your front or back, depending on which side of the bed you sleep on. If you ask him about it in the morning, he’ll obviously completely deny it and will glower at you until you stop asking him about it. If PDA is appropriate during a social event, then he may wrap a loose arm around your waist, his hand staying above where it’s appropriate. 

- Ciel is closed off, stoic, and he does not show any emotion readily. Your empathy definitely comes in handy and Ciel finds himself coming to speak to you about odd things that are bothering him. He appreciates how you listen to him but he also knows when you just need to be alone because socialising takes a lot out of you. Ciel is perceptive and he knows when you need the attention that you give him. So it’s definitely a equal measure of give and take as far as support and TLC goes.

- You write, draw, and you play games. When Ciel has an evening off, the two of you play games well into the night, much to Sebastian’s chagrin. You write or draw while Ciel works, and he provides you with parchment, quills, inks and charcoals. Whatever you need or want, he’d get it for you without question. As far as he’s concerned, buying you gifts comes with no price tag. Sometimes, Ciel walks with you through the gardens, talking about the future or the past (often followed up with cuddles because Ciel revealed something that hurt a wound not yet healed). Ciel would also take you on adventures to mountains, hilltops, parks and carriage rides… Anything to see you happy and smiling, he would do without question.

- Both of you are independent and self-reliant so from the outside it very much looks like the two of you aren’t even together. But behind closed doors, in private, you’re actually pretty close and Ciel makes sure that you go to bed each night knowing you’re loved and appreciated. If he feels you’re not feeling that way as you go to bed, he’ll come and find you, crawl into your bed, and whisper words into the darkness that he wouldn’t ever admit to in the light of day.

HP - Harry Potter

- Harry loves cuddling and hugs. When he hugs you, one arm goes around your waist and the other around your shoulders, his head resting on your shoulder or on the top of your head if he’s taller than you. He feels safe with you; he feels like he has a future with you. Of all the people in his life, you listen to him and he listens right back; respecting and genuinely caring for your well-being as much as you care and respect for his.

- Because of everything he’s ever been through, Harry would take a while to adjust to being allowed to feel, to feel like it’s okay to not be okay. He has a huge burden on his shoulders and there’s no one to help him shoulder it; only people telling him that he needs to be this, he needs to be that, and do this and that.  He’s the boy who lived but he’s also the boy who has no choice. You give him a choice, you give him a voice, and he appreciates the freedom you afford him more than he could ever say. In return, he makes sure that you always feel listened to, valued and appreciated. If not… Well, he won’t sleep that night, not without making it up to you.

- You have relaxing hobbies and just being around you makes Harry relax. You may be in different Houses - the opposing Houses - but he doesn’t care. You complement each other and he often sits with you in the Great Hall when it’s a free study period. He enjoys your creativity and would be genuinely interested in where you get your motivation and inspiration from. You often go on walks through Hogsmeade, holding hands and occasionally sharing a quick kiss, or around the Quidditch pitch and sometimes, on the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest, being careful to keep Hagrid’s Hut in view as a safety measure.

- Harry is definitely independent and tends to rely on himself but slowly, s l o w l y, he realises that it doesn’t have to be that way. Still, being in separate Houses means that you don’t get to spend much time together, so he cherishes every moment he can get with you. Your gothic aesthetic fits in quite well with Slytherins, and he often compliments you… After Hermione has nudged him as if to say, well, say something!. Hermione tends to be the reason Harry compliments you, because otherwise he just wouldn’t notice.

Naruto - Itachi Uchiha

- Itachi is a complete and utter cuddle bug in private. It’s not that he clings because both of you appreciate having space to yourselves, but he’s always there when you decide you want a cuddle. Doesn’t matter what he’s doing or how important it is - paperwork can wait. You can’t, even if you insist you can. He’ll still scoop you up and carry you to bed for a cuddle. You’re a logician as an INTP so logic tends to take place of emotion, which Itachi appreciates... sometimes. If you’re being too logical where you don’t need to be, he’s not afraid of telling you. 

- Both of you are highly perceptive and empathetic so as soon as one of you isn’t okay, the other is already well aware of it and will wait for whoever is affected to open up to the other. Itachi is very patient so he’ll wait for you to tell him whatever it is that is bothering you, though if you take longer than it usually takes you, he’d gently encourage you to open up to him because letting it fester is never a good thing. On the other hand, if Itachi is the one hiding something, you’ll know it’s a Big Deal because he’s usually very forthright with things. The cure? Cuddles!

- He admires your creativity and would want to see every piece of writing and every piece of drawing. It’s more than all right if not, though it’d only increase his curiosity. Either way, for birthdays and anniversaries you could expect small, meaningful gifts that seem plain to outsiders but mean the world to you as Itachi wouldn’t ever buy anything unless he was one hundred percent sure that you’d love it!

- Itachi is away a lot as a shinobi and a member of ANBU so the fact that you’re independent and can take care of yourself takes a lot off his mind. He’s definitely in the mood for a lot of cuddles whn he comes back after eating and having a shower, just to remind himself that he always has someone to come home to after all the bloodshed of war. He’s also very independent and wouldn’t appreciate clinginess unless it was mutually agreed in that moment. Your aesthetic suits you and if you so much as cut a millimetre of hair he’d notice it and would compliment it straight away; he doesn’t ever miss a thing when it omes to you, his number one priority.

[tanadrin]

(Warning: talking about things I have no expertise of, or indeed any kind of comprehensive knowledge)

I’m interested in the way our perceptions of magic differ from actual magic, and in general, how different the pseudo-historical “ISO Standard Fantasy Setting” differs from the thing it supposedly imitates. What it actually imitates is, of course, a certain genre of Romantic literature recycled through D&D (or through Tolkien then D&D again, or Tolkien, his imitators, and D&D), and closely related works. The conventional tropes of modern high fantasy were established in a relatively short period, even compared to hard SF, in the middle of the 20th century. They don't much resemble either their immediate predecessors (Dunsany, for instance) or their supposed source material (actual medieval literature) except in very very superficial ways--knights on horseback, for instance, things called faeries.

Sometimes there's back-contamination, where our erroneous impression of the past as conveyed by pseudo-historical settings in fantasy literature (Medieval Tymes, if you like) color our perception of *actual* historical periods. The video game Crusader Kings 2, for instance, feels much more like an ISO Standard Fantasy Setting that happens to be set in Europe than it does the actual Middle Ages (and this is before they added the admittedly silly Monks and Mystics expansion, which adds a whole new level of tongue-in-cheekness to a game that already played around a lot with its source material). There's very little use of medieval art or architecture in CK2, or even direct imitations of it; even less medieval music. THere's a lot of imitation, though, of what we *think* the middle ages should look like based on fantasy literature and its derivatives--which is why the Elder Scrolls and Song of Ice and Fire mods work so well with the base game's style, since in a way they're truer to the spirit of CK2 than actual history is. Both those works--Martin's especially--are firmly embedded in pseudomedievalism, and built on the ISO Standard Fantasy Setting in different ways.

But let's talk about magic in particular, which is a mainstay of the fantasy genre outside high fantasy, but which I feel, as a reader, tends to be treated in common ways across very diverse works of genre fiction. Here I'll include video games like the Elder Scrolls, traditional games like Dungeons and Dragons, novels of low fantasy (The Dresden Files, Harry Potter) and novels of high (Chronicles of Amber, China Mieville's Bas-Lag books, Discworld, Codex Alera). Every one, I contend, against our intuitions on the subject, while formally fantasy resembles science fiction in its treatment of magic; that is to say, magic is treated as an element of the world, and bears far more relationship to our modern conception of the natural order and of the natural world than any traditional form of magic. Magic is gone; magic has been killed stone dead. With very, very few exceptions, anything we think of as "magic" in film, books, TV, comics, etc., is really a form of not-magic, a kind of exotic naturalism, and at some point between the Renaissance and the industrial revolution, our cultural understanding of the world shifted so much that we (read "the people reading this post, not every human alive") became unable to conceive of magic as it was traditionally understood.

First off: in anthropological and philological terms, magic is a broad and vague label for a huge variety of practices from various cultures in various times and places, founded more or less in common quirks of human psychology, and without a single coherent definition. It's a collection, not a system; "systems" of magic are modern inventions, though there are definitely various kinds of magical traditions from different cultures. If you pick up a book like "The Book of Magic: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment" (Penguin, 2016; ed. and trans. Brian Copenhaver), you can look at a nice cross-section of different references to and discussions of magic from Biblical, Classical, Persian, Medieval, and Renaissance sources. Obviously, there's a lot going on that's different in each text, but a couple common themes emerge, I think.

First of all, you can classify most forms of these "magics" into discrete categories: divination through randomness or omens (entrails, crows, smoke, dreams, the stars); theurgy, or appeals to higher powers like angels (or accusations of appeals to powers like demons), which is big in medieval magic; speaking with the dead or with spirits (e.g., necromancy); and medicine. None of these are distinct, and none of these are distinctly magic, by which I mean many or most of these categories blend into one another and to other activities like cooking, worship, healing, or scholarship, and a strong "natural" versus "supernatural" dichotomy does not seem evident, especially in ancient sources like Plato, Pliny, and the Old Testament.

I think it's important to remember that a systematized explanation for how the world works was lacking for most of human history; you might see salt dissolve in water and precipitate out again, and fire burn things and acid eat them away, but knowing nothing about atoms or chemical reactions or the various electromagnetic and atomic forces which govern most human-level behavior of particles (to say nothing of the gravitational forces which dominate the heavens), it makes perfect sense to speak of the material universe being sustained and governed on an ongoing basis by the direct intervention of God, or spirits, or gods, who act according to consistent principles; in these circumstances, a denial of free will and a statement of absolute Divine control of the physical world isn't just a philosophical position, it's a productive explanation of minute details of life that otherwise lack compelling ones. Even if, as Plato and Pliny, you are more systematic about things and posit that sympathy operates between objects and can produce effects at a distance, much as one musical instrument can be caused to resonate by another, absent understanding of sound (and air molecules) or light or the particles and fields which mediate the electromagnetic or graviational forces, you still need to posit things like daimons and spirits as the actors which actually transmit such connections; and there is inevitably a tendency to personalize such things, even if you're not entirely anthropomorphizing them.

(Likewise, if you notice study of the heavens is capable of predicting things like eclipses and the tides, you may reason that it's capable of predicting other things, like whether you're going to win this war--after all, the moon seems to have an effect on the tides, why shouldn't it have an effect on human beings? Astrology isn't just primitive astronomy; it blends with astronomy in a perfectly seamless fashion.)

*How* magic works is not distinct from *what you do to make it work*. The two are the same; the former does not exist as a separate concept. A spell is performative, not in the sense that it's fake, but in the sense that saying "I take you to be my husband" actually marries you to the person standing next to you if the circumstances are valid.

So substances might have inherent properties; how those properties interact with one another and with the body is going to belong to the same category of knowledge as how the planets affect individual persons or spells affect your neighbor's cow, i.e., the fundamental mechanisms remain mysteries. Thus, medicine blends seamlessly with other kinds of magic, with ritual and with religion. Praying for your son to get better and putting a salve on his forehead aren't entirely distinct actions; thus, medical treatments from the middle ages contain a mix of what seems to us like perfectly sensible actions (mash up this plant and eat it) and insanity that nobody could possibly believe helps (then bury the rest in a cornfield and say verses from the Bible over it). And because other kinds of magic can help or harm, and medicine can help or harm, medicine is prone to being viewed as a kind of malicious magic: it's no coincidence that our word "pharmacy, pharmeceutical" comes from the same Greek word used to translate "witch," as in "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live": pharmakeos, i.e., a poisoner. In fact, all the vocabulary around magic-users is a pile of confusion, a conflation of different kinds of action that don't fit neatly with modern notions of A Wizard. "Witch" is from a word originally meaning "diviner;" in the Middle Ages and early Modern period it seemed to be understood as one who invokes the power of supernatural beings to do evil things--note that the crime of witchcraft was because witches necessarily consorted with the *devil*, not because they used magic per se (presumably, power from God or the angels was OK--and indeed, grimoires like the Lesser Key of Solomon talk about magic from these sources, and emphasize the necessity of moral purity in order to get the spells to work). "Maleficium," in Latin, originally just meant "evildoer," however that evil was done; likewise, mekashefah, the word (originally feminine) which "witch" translates in the above Bible verse. The "witch" of Endor is not at all a crone; she's an apparently respectable woman capable of furnishing Saul and his men with a decent meal, and the term the Bible actually uses is "sho'el 'ov" - i.e., one who knows how to ask ghosts questions.

(With the exception of necromancy, little distinction is in fact made in the Old Testament between kinds of supernatural power; e.g., in Exodus the magic of the Egyptians is depicted as illegitemate, but no less efficacious for that. Magic plainly works, even if it's wrong.)

Charms, spells, and incantations are more often than not about invoking a specific power: gods, in Greek and Roman magic, God and his angels in Christian. (Pliny divides magic into medicine, astrology, and religion; the first two, he says, produce predictions which corroborate divination--as stated above, astrology is not entirely distinct from divination for obvious reasons.) Later, alchemy begins to produce actual theories of matter; but it's still not at all distinct from the kind of magic that involves invoking higher powers.

So what *isn't* magic? That's considerably easier to answer than what is: when you look at the kinds of things that look like magic to us moderns, it becomes easy to recognize the ways in which scientism has so preoccupied our way of viewing the world that it becomes inextricable even from our supposedly "magical" fantasy.

Magic isn't sufficiently advanced technology, for one, or a highly refined and subtle art (Tolkien; he knew this, obviously, and wasn't going for magic-qua-magic). Magic isn't *energy*, or a *force* or a *field*; these things are the language of *science,* of electromagnetics and gravity and atoms (contra Jim Butcher, Terry Pratchett, and every video game ever). It's not local variations in the natural law (as a distinction between natural law, human law, and especially moral law actually *isn't* that clear cut). It's not telekinesis or ESP, however those are caused! Remember, these are pseudo-*science*, they were invented in the scientific era. If you're an ancient using magic to make objects move, you're not "moving it with your mind." You might be invoking spirits to move it for you, but *you* are not doing it with some invisible arm. Magic isn't beams of light or deadly green lasers. It's also not some kind of metaphysical illusion. Sure, magicians have been denounced as tricksters and illusionists all throughout history, but if there's deception in magic, it is good old-fashioned sleight of hand--maybe your court magician replaced his staff with a snake when nobody was looking. It's not a ghost-snake you can put your hand through, though.

A fantasy story using traditional notions of magic would involve attitudes pretty alien and unsatisfying to a lot of modern fantasy readers: a close connection between the physical and moral world, little attention to *how* things worked, and more attention to what you *did* to make things work, nothing like a systematized, sciencified magic, and a blend so close between magic, religion, and nature that they are entirely indistinguishable.

None of this is to say that the traditional F&SF conception of magic is wrong or bad somehow; it fits our modern sensibilities quite nicely and makes for compelling stories. But don't make the mistake of confusing these functionally-distant reinterpretations of history for how people actually used to understand the world.

[artistselinsarialtin]

Adult Home Study for Hellenic and Roman Polytheists

How do we know what we know about the gods? Much of our knowledge comes from mythology: ancient tales about the gods, fantastic creatures, heroes, and mortals.

There is another meaning of the word “myth”: “widely held, but false, ideas or beliefs,” and all too many of the readily available sources of information about mythology fit that definition. A vast majority of the general population discovers Greek and Roman mythology from motion pictures, video games, and general texts like D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths and Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. A few more have read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil’s Aeneid, Ovid’s Metamorphosis, and Apuleius’ Golden Ass.

Yet more scholarly, in-depth resources are available to polytheists who want to learn about mythology. The fields of history, archaeology, anthropology, religion, literary criticism, art history and psychology all look at mythology from different perspectives.

History examines how the myths were composed, who told or wrote them, and what people said about them.

Archaeology identifies mythological motifs found on objects and structures, and tries to determine their meaning to those who viewed and used them.

Anthropology seeks to understand the cultural reasons for the creation and  transmission of myths, and the relation of myth to rituals such as rites of passage such as the transition to adulthood, marriage, and death.

Religion regards myths as sacred stories that explain the creation of the universe, and teach moral truths, and seeks to understand the relationship between mythology, belief, and ritual.

Literary criticism investigates the sources of myths, the oral art of storytelling, motifs and themes, the composition of texts, style, meaning, and comparison of different versions.

Art history focuses on images from mythology throughout history, the religious and symbolic meanings, and artistic techniques.

Psychology delves into the myths as archetypes and symbols, expressions of the collective unconscious, or as a symbolic language to help individuals find meaning and negotiate challenges.

You’ll notice there’s some overlap between these fields. And you should remember that scholars don’t talk to people outside their fields as much as they should.

Many people are initially drawn to the gods after viewing a work of art or reading a story. Some of us have an experience in nature, or in an altered state of consciousness. Becoming aware of a deity is known as an ephipany or personal gnosis, a subjective perception or experience of the presence of the divine. It can be a feeling that a place is sacred, a sense that there is a greater power than ourselves in the universe, or a realization that a higher power has brought about a particular situation.

So, how we know what we know about the gods is…complicated. To really know something, one must regard it from different angles, and take time to understand it. Taken altogether, it’s fairly obvious that each of us necessarily has a different interpretation of mythology, depending on our personal study and experiences.

Unfortunately, many Hellenic and Roman and polytheists have only read the basic mythology titles listed above in their study of the gods. A few more have read books on devotional practice, but most of us haven’t gone much further in our studies. And, because the sources we’ve read just scratch the surface of available knowledge about the gods, our understanding is so superficial that many of us lack the vocabulary to describe our beliefs, and may even harbor misconceptions about one or more gods that harms our relationship with them. Not only does this impede our spiritual progress, but it makes it difficult to talk about our religion to another person. “I worship the gods of the ancient Greeks,” really tells them nothing, except that one is a polytheist.

Since you’re reading this, I assume your religion is an important part of your life, and, if so, your understanding of it deserves to be developed to the best of your ability. I realize not everyone is interested in or has the temperament for research, and that books can be expensive and difficult to obtain. However, most libraries have sections on the fields above, quite a lot of solid information is available online, and it can be done in easy-to-digest bites.

Here are some ideas for study that can help to enrich your understanding and interpretation of mythology:

Read about a Mystery cult, a hero cult, the cult of the nymphs, the Roman Imperial cult or the deified personifications of the virtues in ancient Greece and Rome.

Visit a museum and learn about the archaeology of the regions in which your deities were historically worshiped.

Learn the names and significant events of the different time periods in the ancient Mediterranean. How did agriculture, literacy, mathematics and theater affect society and religion?

Mark the locations of temples dedicated to one of your deities on a map. Are they focused in one area, or are they widespread? What conclusions can you make based on this information?

Read the Orphic hymn(s) about a deity to whom you feel little connection, and read a list of their epithets and cult titles. Think about whether the deity seems more approachable, or just as inaccessible.

Study a work of mythological art. What does it tell you about the meaning of the subject in the era in which it was created?

Read an article on Hellenic or Roman mythology from the viewpoint of of a modern monotheistic or polytheistic religion.  

Learn a bit about C.G. Jung’s psychological theories and use of mythic symbols, or Joseph Campbell’s monomyth.

Choose a favorite myth and see how many different versions you can find. Are the versions from different times, different places? Do they  have similar or different meanings?

Learn some of the terms used by scholars to describe key concepts in the study of religion. Which of the concepts applies to your own beliefs and practice?

Prepare a meal from an ancient recipe using ingredients that were available in antiquity.

Find out what the ancient philosophers and critics thought about an epic poem or drama.  

Select an art or skill favored by one of your gods, study it, and try applying in your own life. For instance, you could dedicate a study of strategy in honor of Minerva and apply one of the techniques to help win a game, or learn a little about weaving to make a wall hanging to honor Athena.

Choose an ancient war. What issue(s) led to conflict? How was it resolved? What were the chief deities of each side? Did religion, omens, or religious rites play any part in the warfare? Were there heroes of the war? Were legends told about them? Were they given offerings such as a monument or hero-shrine?

The more one studies, the more one can deepen their relationship with their deities, the more clearly one may be able to explain their religion to others, and the better equipped one may become to counter criticism of their beliefs.