Little Things To Do Every Day:

“Dress how you want to be addressed.” ...so can i now dress like a person who lives in a large mansion and is probably a witch/necromancer but the only thing she actually brings back from the dead is her bone cat/miniature dragon, and her cottage looks ramshackle and forgotten, but if you go down into the cellar it’s a spiral staircase that keeps going down and down until you find new rooms full of hidden knowledge and forgotten spells?

Hi!  So, I’ve been homeschooled my entire life, and am starting at a private school in a week.  I feel extraordinarily over my head, but excited.  Is there anything I need to know about what to expect or anything that I just... wouldn’t think of in the first place.

Tell me, what do I need to know to thrive?

okay so if you need more veggies/fruit, protein or fibre (bc most people do NOT eat enough) in your diet but you struggle to do so, hear me out:

look up recipes (especially snack recipes) that are child/toddler/baby-friendly

i can guarantee there is a woman with a cooking blog out there who has found away to pack a bunch of vegetables into a surprisingly delicious little snack for her kids. this process has never failed me when i feel like i am not eating enough fruits and veggies. my entire flat is eating spinach muffins at the moment, which doesn’t sounding particularly appealing to most people and yet somehow. they’re delicious.

Classic Book Recommendations For Each Hogwarts House

Gryffindor

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Henry V by William Shakespeare

Beowulf

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Histories by Herodatus

Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville

Hufflepuff

East of Eden by John Stenbeck

Othello by William Shakespeare

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

Love In the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

White Fang by Jack London

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Ravenclaw

Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Odyssey by Homer

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Slytherin

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Dracula by Bram Stoker

slytherin culture is constantly being on the verge of either snapping a pencil in half because you can’t anymore or napping because you can’t anymore

Submitted Prompt #60

The empath let the pain run through them, embraced how it made them feel and let it sink in. They screamed as it sank through their bones, not allowing the knowledge of their plan act as a comfort.

Then, when the villain came in close to gloat, they did it. They quickly moved to touch their captor and transferred all of the pain to them.

This is a long post. Buckle up.

Recently I've been thinking a lot about how the dark academia aesthetic, whilst rich in aspects such as literature, music, and material beauty, is lacking in things such as activities.

So I've compiled a list of activities that I would personally deem as befitting the dark academia aesthetic (please do add to this list, as it's far from complete).

Sports:

Rowing (it's in literally every dark academic approved movie.)

Fencing

Tennis

Cricket

Croquet

Rugby (contrary to popular belief, women, men, and everyone in between can play this sport. It's not just for the boys.)

Polo

Equestrian sports

+ Figure/ice skating

+ Running (sprinting is handy for catching your lover when they fling themselves from a tower or something, and long distance is great for running alongside carriages that you want to rob.)

+ Boxing

+ Javelin, discus, wrestling covered in oil, think ancient Grecian Olympics.

+ Archery (how could I have forgotten.)

+ Ballet, ballroom dancing, traditional dances

+ Climbing

+ Snooker/Pool (either professionally or just for fun.)

Or, if you prefer the Oscar Wilde approach, no sports at all. That's cool too.

Games:

Chess (of course)

Backgammon

Cards (rummy, poker, blackjack, speed, whist, any game really, maybe with the exception of snap.)

Cluedo (I think it's 'Clue' in America. Don't argue with me, it counts as dark academia. It's got murder in it.)

+ Scrabble

Crafts:

Knitting (I knit socks, scarves, and am attempting a jumper. I find that it's far easier to knit your own jumper, scarf, socks, or whatever than hunting for one suitably 'aesthetically pleasing'.)

Embroidery (monogrammed handkerchiefs and shirts are so in.)

Weaving (sweet mother, I cannot-)

Making lace

Gardening

Cooking (not sure if this counts as a craft, but I'll throw it in just in case.)

Sewing (making clothes for yourself through sewing is a great way to make sure that your clothes fit perfectly, and are styled the way you want them to be. With practise, it becomes easier, and is definitely a useful skill to have.)

+ Calligraphy

+ Painting, of course. (release your inner Basil.

Outings:

Museums

Art galleries

Places of historical interests (in the UK, this might be more easily accessible with things like the National Trust. If you visit often, it might be useful to invest in a membership card with English Heritage (England), Cadw (Wales), or a National Trust card. I have a Cadw card, and I've found that it's accepted all over the UK, in the same way an entrance card specific to whichever country you're in would be too. I hope that makes sense.)

Public executions

Pubs

+ Go to a Café and sketch the people around you (I hear that charcoal or graphite is preferable here.)

Parks

Gardens

Churches, quaker meeting houses, graveyards, synagogues (sometimes the only places that are quiet are places of worship, and a lot of the time, they will be very welcoming in letting people in just to sit and think. Just remember to be respectful: don't insult people for their faith; don't scorn the place of worship; respect people buried in graveyards; don't take pictures, tempting as it may be, just to be on the safe side.)

The theatre

The opera

Concerts (classical music or otherwise)

Social events (memorial services, tours of your local university, open days, anything. It's an opportunity to learn, and spark intrigue because of your darkly mysterious and alluring demeanour.)

Things to do when you're bored.

Writing essays (it's really nerdy, but I find writing essays really interesting if they're on a topic I'm passionate about. It doesn't have to be an intellectual masterpiece, it could be 'The Top Ten Sexiest Classical Writers' for all I care. Just make it fun. Plus it's always an added bonus to that pile of messy papers that aesthetify your desk.)

Research (as above.)

Daydream about how you could have prevented the burning of the Library of Alexandria

Plan a murder / heist. Thoroughly.

Read something light (Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, Wilkie Collins or Colin Dexter novels are really good for relaxing. Murder mysteries are always good for winding down a little, whilst still keeping an active mind, so I would recommend those, but really, read whatever you want.)

Dress up

Read aloud

Perform a play alone (or to a pet, if you have one)

If you play an instrument, play through all of the pieces in your repertoire

More daydreaming

Take baths

Fake your death (by murder, of course)

Draw or paint something (no, it doesn't have to be good. Just do it to relax. See what kind of things you can create, like designing Frankenstein's monster)

Write a narrative piece

Watch a movie. A whole movie. Just sit down and watch a movie, no getting up and walking around, no flicking back and forth, no checking your phone. Just enjoy a movie without distractions.

Watch every single 'Greek Gods as vines' video on YouTube and count it as studying.

+ Listen to some classical music! I have a post on getting into classicl here:

Congratulations! You made it through!

Please, add to this list. I really want this to be expanded on, as I'm interested to see whether or not I've missed things, and if people agree.

i think the near-extinction of people making fun, deep and/or unique interactive text-based browser games, projects and stories is catastrophic to the internet. i'm talking pre-itch.io era, nothing against it.

there are a lot of fun ones listed here and here but for the most part, they were made years ago and are now a dying breed. i get why. there's no money in it. factoring in the cost of web hosting and servers, it probably costs money. it's just sad that it's a dying art form.

anyway, here's some of my favorite browser-based interactive projects and games, if you're into that kind of thing. 90% of them are on the lists that i linked above.

A Better World - create an alternate history timeline

Alter Ego - abandonware birth-to-death life simulator game

Seedship - text-based game about colonizing a new planet

Sandboxels or ThisIsSand - free-falling sand physics games

Little Alchemy 2 - combine various elements to make new ones

Infinite Craft - kind of the same as Little Alchemy

ZenGM - simulate sports

Tamajoji - browser-based tamagotchi

IFDB - interactive fiction database (text adventure games)

Written Realms - more text adventure games with a user interface

The Cafe & Diner - mystery game

The New Campaign Trail - US presidential campaign game

Money Simulator - simulate financial decisions

Genesis - text-based adventure/fantasy game

Level 13 - text-based science fiction adventure game

Miniconomy - player driven economy game

Checkbox Olympics - games involving clicking checkboxes

BrantSteele.net - game show and Hunger Games simulators

Murder Games - fight to the death simulator by Orteil

Cookie Clicker - different but felt weird not including it. by Orteil.

if you're ever thinking about making a niche project that only a select number of individuals will be nerdy enough to enjoy, keep in mind i've been playing some of these games off and on for 20~ years (Alter Ego, for example). quite literally a lifetime of replayability.

hiiii guys.  also fyi my old account was @pygmydragon but i kiiiinda deleted that email address accidentally that was linked to the account so now I can’t get into it.  Oops.  the chances of the people that liked my writings over there actually finding this are very very slim but if you do- Hi!  I love you guys!  I do still exist!  Just not over there!  I moved!  (aight imma shut up now)