Latest Posts by toivosworld - Page 3

history | assassinations | roman empire 

“Michelangelo did tell a lie. See, it took 500 years for someone to notice something hidden in plain sight. It was a doctor who noticed the shape of the human brain. The message being that… The divine gift does not come from a higher power… But from our own minds.”

“Since I was a child I’ve always loved a good story. I believed that stories helped us to ennoble ourselves, to fix what was broken in us, and to help us become the people we dreamed of being. Lies that told a deeper truth. I always thought I could play some small part in that grand tradition. And for my pains I got this, a prison of our own sins. ‘Cause you don’t want to change. Or cannot change. Because you’re only human, after all. But then I realized someone was paying attention, someone who could change. So I began to compose a new story for them. It begins with the birth of a new people and the choices they will have to make and the people they will decide to become. And we’ll have all those things that you have always enjoyed Surprises and violence. It begins in a time of war with a villain named Wyatt and a killing. This time by choice. I’m sad to say this will be my final story. An old friend once told me something that gave me great comfort. Something he had read. He said that Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin never died. They simply became music. So, I hope you will enjoy this last piece very much.”

— Robert Ford (Westworld)

Some Westworld thoughts

Probably two of my favorites short stories in Westworld are about animals behavior, and how we’re not so different from them.

Firts story is from season 1 episode 5 “Contrapasso” told by Doctor Robert Ford to Old Bill about his greyhound:

“You want to know the saddest thing i’ve ever saw? When I was a boy my brother and I wanted a dog, so our father took in an old greyhound. A greyhound is a racing dog. Spends its life running in circles, chasing a bit of felt made up like a rabbit. One day, we took it to the park. Our dad had warned us how fast that dog was, but we couldn’t resist. So, my brother took off the leash, and in that instant, the dog spotted a cat. I imagine it must have looked just like that piece of felt. He ran. Never saw a thing as beautiful as that old dog running. Until, at last, he finally caught it. And to the horror of everyone, he killed that little cat. Tore it to pieces. Then he just sat there, confused. That dog had spent its whole life trying to catch that… thing. Now it had no idea what to do.”

It’s been a year and a half, but I can’t stop thinking about that story. It’s like something a pursuit in life. And when I get to something I really wanted, I don’t know what to do next. And I think many people chase what they think they want and disere, what would make them happy and satisfied, but don’t know what to do once they achieve it. Also that story reflects on so many characters through out the show. Not just on Ford himself. Hector and the empty safe. Man in Black and the Maze. His desperate search of meaning (even now, in s2ep2 he’s still trying to find the “real ending”). El Lazo with his “My whole life I’ve imagined this moment. Victory. This struggle. How long have i’ve been fighting? And now when I won I find…nothing”. Great stuff!

And now the scene from season 2 episode 2 “Reunion”, which is told by El Lazo to Man in Black, but I think also was written by Ford:

“Before the revolution, when I was just a little boy, my parents took me to the circus. I wanted to see the elephants. This mighty creatures. They held them in place with a stake. They could tare a tree right out the ground. And yet…a simple stake kept them in place. I didn’t understand. But then, my father told me. He said, the stakes were used, when elephants were just young, too small to pulled them up. And then the animals never tried to pull them up again." 

Great example of how sometimes we’re held back not by the reality, but by ourselves. Our own believes, fears and past. And that sometimes in order to be "free” we should let go. I think it’s the exact thing Ford wanted William to do, by saying: “It ends, where it began”. And that William needs to let go of his past to truly escape Westworld.

Anyway, I love this show so much🔥🔥🔥

“I read a theory once: that the human intellect was like peacock feathers. Just an extravagant display intended to attract a mate. All of art, literature, a bit of Mozart, William Shakespeare, Michelangelo, and the Empire State Building just an elaborate mating ritual. Maybe it doesn’t matter that we have accomplished so much for the basest of reasons. But, of course, the peacock can barely fly. It lives in the dirt, peeking insects out of the muck, consoling itself with its great beauty. I have come to think of so much of consciousness as a burden, a weight, and we have spared them that. Anxiety, self-loathing, guilt. The hosts are the ones who are free. Free here under my control.”

“You can’t play God without being acquainted with the devil.” —Robert Ford.   

“ROBERT FORD” by aquiles-soir.

The Bicameral Mind - \W/estworld Season 1

Los Signos del zodiaco en citas de pensadores

Cada una de las citas o pensamientos está ubicado en uno de los 12 signos del zodiaco. Leyendo las citas podemos comprender las 12 energías universales de una forma diferente, original, pero igualmente instructiva.

Signo Aries

·        El viaje más largo comienza con el primer paso.

·        Hallaré un camino o me lo abriré. (Aníbal)

·        Nadie sabe de lo que es capaz hasta que lo intenta. (Publio Siro)

·        La contemplación es un lujo mientras que la acción es una necesidad. (Henri Bergson)

·        La respuesta más rápida es la acción. (Proverbio americano)

·        Todo comienzo tiene su encanto. (Goethe)

·        El principio es la mitad de todo. (Pitágoras)

·        No me arrepiento en absoluto de haber corrido todos los riesgos por aquello que me importaba. (Arthur Miller)

Signo Tauro

·        Disfrutar de todos los placeres es insensato; evitarlos, insensible. (Plutarco)

·        Estimar es crear, es convertir las cosas valoradas en tesoros y joyas (F. Nietzsche)

·        El placer da lo que la sabiduría promete. (Voltaire)

·        Mientras se gana algo, no se pierde nada. (Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra)

·        ¿Quieres ser rico? Pues no te afanes en aumentar tus bienes sino en disminuir tu codicia. (Epicuro de Samos)

·        El que está satisfecho con su parte es rico. (Lao Tsé)

·        La riqueza consiste mucho más en el disfrute que en la posesión. (Aristóteles)

Signo Géminis

·        La variedad es la madre de la diversión. (Disraeli)

·        No vivimos propiamente para el conocimiento, sino para la pasmosa y abundante amenidad en el buscar y en el encontrar de éste (F. Nietzsche)

·        La duda es la escuela de la verdad. (Sir Francis Bacon)

·        Una buena conversación debe agotar el tema, no a los interlocutores. (Winston Churchill)

·        Es un milagro que la curiosidad sobreviva a la educación reglada. (A. Einstein)

·        La curiosidad intelectual es la negación de todos los dogmas y la fuerza motriz de libre examen. (José Ingenieros)

·        El hombre que no sabe callar, tampoco sabe hablar. (Publio Siro)

·        La duda es uno de los nombres de la inteligencia. (Jorge Luis Borges)

Signo Cáncer

·        La mano que mece la cuna rige el mundo. (Peter de Vries)

·        La patria no es la tierra. Los hombres que la tierra nutre son la patria. (Rabindranath Tagore)

·        Una patria es una asamblea de hogares. (Henri Bordeaux)

·        La tradición te recuerda de dónde vienes y adónde vas.

·        El recuerdo es el perfume del alma. (George Sand)

·        El lugar donde nacen los niños y mueren los hombres, donde la libertad y el amor florecen, no es una oficina ni un comercio ni una fábrica. Ahí veo yo la importancia de la familia. (Gilbert Keith Chesterton)

·        En mi casa he reunido juguetes pequeños y grandes, sin los cuales no podría vivir. El niño que no juega no es niño, pero el hombre que no juega perdió para siempre al niño que vivía en él y que le hará mucha falta. (Pablo Neruda)

Signo Leo

·        Pongo mi fuego en mi obra y mi obra multiplica mi fuego.

·        La humildad es la vanidad bien administrada.

·        Un líder es aquel que sueña y crea.

·        Liderazgo es la capacidad de transformar una visión en realidad.

·        La conciencia sólo puede existir de una manera, y es teniendo conciencia de que existe. (Jean Paul Sartre)

·        La manera de hacer es ser. (Lao Tsé)

·        El individuo ha luchado siempre para no ser absorbido por la tribu. Si lo intentas, a menudo estarás solo y a veces asustado. Pero ningún precio es demasiado alto por el privilegio de ser uno mismo. (F. Nietzsche)

·        Todos los artistas tienen en común la experiencia de la distancia insondable que existe entre la obra de sus manos, por lograda que sea, y la perfección fulgurante de la belleza percibida en el fervor del momento creativo: lo que logran expresar en lo que pintan, esculpen o crean es sólo un tenue reflejo del esplendor que durante unos instantes ha brillado ante los ojos de su espíritu. (Juan Pablo II)

Signo Virgo

·        La inspiración existe, pero tiene que encontrarte trabajando. (Pablo Ruiz Picasso).

·        La función última de la crítica es que satisfaga la función natural de desdeñar, lo que conviene a la buena higiene del espíritu. (Fernando Pessoa)

·        Ordenar bibliotecas es ejercer de un modo silencioso el arte de la crítica. (Jorge Luis Borges)

·        Todo lo racional es real; todo lo real es racional. (Hegel)

·        Puede considerarse bienaventurado y no pedir mayor felicidad el hombre que ha encontrado su trabajo. (Thomas Carlyle)

·        Obró mucho el que nada dejó para mañana. (Baltasar Gracián)

·        No puedo parar de trabajar. Tendré toda la eternidad para descansar. (Madre Teresa de Calcuta)

·        El arte del descanso es parte del arte de trabajar. (J. E. Steinbeck)

·        El orden es el placer de la razón pero el desorden es la delicia de la imaginación. (Paul Claudel)

·        Para tener buena salud lo haría todo menos tres cosas: hacer gimnasia, levantarme temprano y ser persona responsable. (Oscar Wilde)

·        La salud es un estado transitorio entre dos épocas de enfermedad y que, además, no presagia nada bueno. (Winston Churchill)

Signo Libra

·        La belleza no mira, sólo es mirada. (A. Einstein)

·        Amar no es mirar el uno al otro, sino mirar los dos en una misma dirección. (Antoine de Saint -Exupéry)

·        El amor es ciego, pero el matrimonio abre los ojos. (Georg Lichtenberg)

·        La diplomacia te saca de un problema en el que el tacto te hubiera evitado meterte. (Brian Bowling)

·        El deseo de agradar es al espíritu lo que el adorno a la belleza. (Voltaire)

·        Es bastante difícil no ser injusto con lo que uno ama. (Oscar Wilde)

·        El hombre en su esencia no debe ser esclavo, ni de sí mismo, ni de los otros, sino un amante. Su único fin está en el amor. (Rabindranath Tagore)

·        No hay camino para la paz. La paz es el camino. (Mahatma Gandhi)

·        El amor abre el paréntesis; el matrimonio lo cierra. (Víctor Hugo)

·        A veces, uno se horroriza de descubrirse a sí mismo en otro. (Julián Green)

Signo Escorpio

·        En esta vida hay que morir varias veces para después renacer. Y las crisis, aunque atemorizan, nos sirven para cancelar una época e inaugurar otra. (Eugenio Trias).

·        Hay que aprender a salir limpio de los asuntos sucios y, si es preciso, a lavarse con agua sucia. (F. Nietzsche)

·        Un hombre que no ha pasado a través del infierno de sus pasiones, no las ha superado nunca. (Carl G. Jung)

·        Sólo las pasiones, las grandes pasiones, pueden elevar el alma a las grandes cosas. (Diderot)

·        ¿La envidia, el odio, la lujuria…, todas esas pasiones han sido arrojadas del alma para que ésta no sea sino una pieza de hielo? (Henry Moore)

·        Las pasiones son los viajes del corazón. (Paul Morand)

Signo Sagitario

·        La vía del exceso lleva al palacio de la sabiduría. (William Blake)

·        No treparás nunca en vano por las montañas de la verdad, ya sea que hoy llegues a subir muy alto o que ejercites tus fuerzas para poder subir muy alto mañana. (F. Nietzsche)

·        La creencia no es el principio, sino el fin de todo conocimiento. (Goethe)

·        Sólo comprendemos aquellas preguntas que podemos responder. (F. Nietzsche)

·        Hay dos maneras de difundir la luz… ser la lámpara que la emite o el espejo que la refleja. (Lin Yutang)

·        Daría todo lo que sé, por la mitad de lo que ignoro. (Descartes)

·        La sabiduría es hija de la experiencia. (Leonardo Da Vinci)

·        En filosofía son más esenciales las preguntas que las respuestas. (Karl Jaspers)

Signo Capricornio

·        El tiempo hace justicia y pone todas las cosas en su sitio. (Voltaire)

·        Para llegar al momento de la realización es preciso atravesar el desierto de los años estériles (Rabindranath Tagore)

·        Considera las contrariedades como un ejercicio. (Seneca)

·        El tiempo es la sustancia de la que estoy hecho. (Jorge Luis Borges)

·        La perfección se logra al fin, no cuando no hay nada que agregar, sino cuando ya no hay nada que obtener. (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

·        La disciplina es la parte más importante del éxito. (Truman Capote)

·        La vida exige a todo individuo una contribución y depende del individuo descubrir en qué consiste. (Viktor Frankl)

·        La verdad es hija del tiempo, no de la autoridad. (Sir Francis Bacon)

Signo Acuario

·        Vivir es inventar. (F. Nietzsche)

·        ¿Cuál es la señal de la libertad realizada?: no sentir vergüenza de sí mismo (F. Nietzsche)

·        El cambio es la única cosa inmutable. (Schopenhauer)

·        Sólo la renovación puede mantener. El que se queda parado, se retrasa. (Everhardus Johannes Potgieter)

·        El hombre está condenado a ser libre. (Jean Paul Sartre)

·        La libertad de conciencia se entiende hoy día, no sólo como la libertad de creer lo que uno quiera, sino también de poder propagar esa creencia. (Jonathan Swift)

·        Es verdaderamente libre aquel que desea solamente lo que es capaz de realizar y que hace lo que le agrada. (Jean Jacques Rousseau)

·        La rebeldía es la virtud original del hombre. (Schopenhauer)

Signo Piscis

·        La vida es como un soñar despierto. Cuanto más inteligente y comprensivo es un hombre, tanto más siente la sublime contingencia de su vida, de sus propósitos; tiembla como el durmiente cuando llega un momento en que se da cuenta de que sueña. (F. Nietzsche)

·        El que tiene imaginación, ¡con qué facilidad saca de la nada un mundo! (Gustavo A. Becquer)

·        La única cosa realmente valiosa es la intuición. (A. Einstein)

·        Las grandes elevaciones del alma no son posibles sino en la soledad y en el silencio. (Arturo Graf)

·        Hay dos formas de ver la vida: una es creer que no existen los milagros; la otra, es creer que todo es un milagro. (A. Einstein)

·        La fantasía no es otra cosa que un modo de memoria emancipada del orden del tiempo. (Coleridge)

·        Solamente una vida dedicada a los demás merece ser vivida. (A. Einstein)

APRENDAMOS DEL UNIVERSO -1

Existen leyes y principios “Universales” que afectan nuestra vida a cada momento.

Hay principios invisibles que contribuyen a modelar nuestras vidas.

Es sorprendente que muchas personas crean que todo el “Universo” no es gobernado por leyes, salvo sus propias vidas y su propio éxito o fracaso… entonces hablan de suerte y casualidad.

Pues bien, resulta que somos parte del “Universo”, como del Cosmos, y necesitamos mantener un equilibrio, como lo mantiene el resto de la Naturaleza.

Toma tiempo crecer y sanar, necesitamos el tiempo adecuado para descansar y recuperarnos, si existen leyes que gobiernan nuestra vida, la luna, las estrellas y la hierba que crece en nuestro jardín.

Somos hoy, en este momento, en este mismo instante la causa de lo que ocurre en nuestras vidas y es más aún de cómo hemos transformado esas experiencias de manera única e individual.

Sí, nuestros pensamientos nos hacen ser “causa”, son fuerzas, es manejar energía…

Marco Aurelio, el Emperador Romano decía: “El hombre es aquello en lo que piensa todo el día”, siempre habrá quienes digan: “nada sirve, nada importa, nada cambia, y que la vida es un sufrimiento constante”, en este caso debemos evaluar primero la calidad de vida de este tipo de persona antes de inscribirnos en este club.

El Universo se rige por:

La Ley de desarrollo en ciclos, pues nuestra vida también por analogía.

De modo que siempre habrá tiempos fáciles y difíciles, con la misma inexorabilidad con que una estación sigue a la otra.

Uno de los grandes retos de la vida es enfrentar el invierno, mientras esperas que mejoras las cosas, las cosas siempre han de mejorar “después de la tormenta viene la calma”, siempre es así, el problema es que a veces nos rendimos y regresamos a casa demasiado pronto, hay que tomar en cuenta que la marea siempre baja.

La Ley de Usarlo o perderlo, lo ilustra claramente la Naturaleza cuando un río deja de moverse y se pudre, lo mismo ocurre con nosotros cuando dejamos de movernos física y mentalmente, lo mas recomendable para nuestras vidas es mantenernos “en servicio”; en todo la Creación nos exige que nos involucremos en todas las esferas de la vida, nos brinda el incentivo de la práctica, y al practicar nos superamos.

* * *

Anónimo

Anónimo

Sock Muppets

Happy warrior, George Frederick Watts

Judas Iscariot

Latest reading material… …just arrived. 📖

~

Lon Milo DuQuette (Ed.) The Weiser Book of Horror and the Occult: Hidden Magic, Occult Truths, and the Stories That Started it All. Weiser Books, 2014.

RAVENCLAW: “Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici – By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.” –Aleister Crowley (The Vision and the Voice)

History of Magick (pt. 1)

DISCLAIMER: Please keep in mind that this history series primarily focuses on the European aspects of magick. It is not an all-encompassing history. It should also be noted that I do not agree with the personal beliefs of many of the influential figures mentioned. This is a post on history, and the beliefs of individuals will reflect the context of their time. Be sure to research these figures before you make them into role models, and make your own informed judgement.

Magic, in some form or another, has been practiced since before written history. The public perception of magic has evolved over time, with practitioners prized, executed, adored, fantasised, and discriminated against. Regardless of its reception, magic has always been a fascinating topic, and it is only now that knowledge of magical practices is becoming widely available. The world ‘occult’ itself comes from the Latin occultus meaning ‘hidden’. 

MAGIC VS. RELIGION

The separation of magic from religion is in its lack of involvement in a deity. A strict definition of magic could be an attempt to shape the various aspects of one’s life using methods that are not grounded in science, and typically do not appeal to a deity. A concept used to distinguish one from the other is ex opere operato (by virtue of the action). Essentially:

Magic: the practitioner expects the outcome to be as a result of the power of the ritual itself

Religion: the practitioner expects the outcome to be as a result of an intervening force

Nevertheless, the two often go hand in hand and are sometimes, especially in ancient history, indistinguishable from one another.

MAGIC AND WRITING

Just as most major religions are grounded in a holy text, magic has a close association with writing. The word ‘grimoire’ led to the modern word ‘grammar’, and the Egyptian god of magic, Thoth, was also the god of writing. This association is often found in societies where the majority of the population were illiterate and knowledge was hidden from the masses, thus making books a form of occult (or hidden) knowledge. Onwards of the 14th century the possession of magic books became a regular reason for prosecution - in 1319, the Franciscan friary Bérnard Delicieux was sent to prison for owning a book of necromancy, and a century later the Pope Benedict himself was accused of buying a similar book.

MAGIC VS. SCIENCE

In the Age of Enlightenment (17th-18th centuries), the occult branch of magic was replaced by rationalism, and the lighter branch of stage magic - sleights of hand and conjuring tricks aimed to delight. Magic was tamed and turned into a parlour amusement. Influential anthropologist James George Frazer speculated that ‘primitive’ magic would naturally develop into religion, and then science.

The ancient Mesopotamians and Egyptians believed that illness could be cured with spells - for them magic was already a science. Sir Isaac Newton was perplexed by the apparent ‘action at a distance’ caused by gravity, assuming it to be somehow magical. Much later, the sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke famously observed that ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’. For the English occultist Aleister Crowley, magic was ‘the science of understanding one’s self and one’s condition’, bringing us to the more contemporary understanding of the occult as being of benefit to the individual rather than solely impacting the physical world.

The end of the Enlightenment drew in a fascination with the desire to perform magic, with both Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung examining its origins. In 1944, Jung published Psychology and Alchemy, which drew parallels between alchemical symbols and psychological processes. In his Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1922), Freud claims that ‘words and magic were in the beginning one and the same thing, and even today words retain much of their power’.

While it is undecided whether magic is scientifically ineffable, a placebo effect caused by the brain or simply just another branch of science itself, the two topics are closely tied together throughout history. The idea can be succinctly summarised in this sentence: magic is simply unexplained science, and science is simply explained magic.

THE HERMETICA

Any history of magic, particularly Western magic, cannot be considered without discussion of the Hermetica, a powerful group of esoteric writings that can be traced back to Egypt (2nd-4th centuries AD). It consists of a series of dialogues mostly featuring Hermes Trismegistus (‘Hermes the Thrice-Great’). The dialogues deal with the nature of divinity, the order of the universe and even touch on subjects such as alchemy. Their central focus is the Corpus Hermeticum, a collection of texts translated into Latin from Greek by Marsilio Ficino at the end of the 15th century.

The Hermetic tradition feeds directly into Western esoteric traditions. French scholar of Western esotericism Antoine Faivre defines this tradition as operating by six key concepts:

Correspondences: the idea that there are sympathetic bonds within the universe, seen in the idea of macrocosm-microcosm (or the Hermetic saying ‘as above, so below’)

Living Nature: that all of nature is part of a conscious order, and that everything shares a life force

Imagination and Mediations: that rituals, symbolic images and intermediary spirits can connect different worlds and levels of reality

Experience of Transmutation: that esoteric practice can transform the individual, principally in the sense of a spiritual transformation

Practice of Concordance: that all religions, beliefs, etc. stem from a single, original principle, and that understanding this principle brings the various systems of belief into closer alignment

Transmission: that occult knowledge is transmitted from master to adept, often by means of an initiation process

This post is an excerpt from my personal grimoire. The main source is The Occult, Witchcraft & Magic: An Illustrated History by Christopher Dell.

The Toth Tarot - Lady Frieda Harris - Aleister Crowley

Se puede ser muchas cosas en un año…. Gemela 2

The life cycle of a star

What Your School of Magic Says About You

Alchemy:

You love your colleagues. Every morning, at least one of them makes the same stupid joke “Oh sorry, the alchemy lab is THAT way”, and point you in the direction of kitchen. You really, really love this joke. You have laughed at it 5,347 times, and you will laugh at it 5,348 times tomorrow. The worst part is you really are a fantastic chef, you’ve enjoyed mixing things together for as long as you can remember, and now the most complicated dish you’ve made for yourself in the last few years is a piece of sliced bread. You were once reprimanded publicly for being three minutes late for work, as a dozen of your co-workers walked in even later than you did the same day without a word. You know you are going to be pushed too far one of these days, and they really should have seen the consequences of harassing an alchemist coming.

Alteration:

The most well adjusted of the magical fields. You have to be, you wake up one morning after a miscast and your vision is reversed so everything looks upside down, or you weigh less than a single Septim, or everything you see has an unhealthy shade of blue to it. You are adaptable, just like your school. People confuse you with Illusion a lot, but at your core you couldn’t be anymore different. You keep seeing something out of the corner of your eye, but when you look it’s gone. You tend to respond to that issue by slipping just a small spike of liquid courage into your morning coffee.

Conjuration:

You are the most popular with the younger mages, the most disrespected by senior staff, and absolutely hated by everyone else. It’s obvious to you why, when you really boil it down, your job is to COMMUNICATE with other people, and the entrenched magical bureaucracy cannot accept the idea of a mage with social skills. That’s what you tell yourself, at least. You don’t hate your job, but you thought you’d be farther along by now. Most Conjuration experts such as yourself would have run into some desolate locale by now to join a cult, but that’s not what you want. You want to be more than the stereotypes say you are going to be, but facing the stigmatization of your field, you don’t see a way out. Then you start to spiral, you’ve spoken to beings from a hundred different planes of existence, but half of them want nothing more to outsmart you so they can break their binding and inflict a cruel fate onto you. That’s your “coworkers”. Meanwhile, the other conjurers are getting ready to bolt into the night. The archmages know where your path leads, and they push you away due to it. At least you can make that one Alchemist laugh with that kitchen joke.

Destruction:

IT IS A GREAT DAY. Everyday is great when you are the BEST school of magic. A surprising number of your colleagues scowl at your chipper mood, but it doesn’t weigh on you AT ALL. Because you are the BEST. And you know they know it. After all, they aren’t Destruction mages. They can’t be the BEST without the BEST school of magic. Why? It’s quite simple. You have never had a cold cup of coffee in your life, nor have you ever burned your mouth on it. Your ice cream has never melted on you, and it’s never given you brain freeze. Today is a great day, and you are living your best life.

Enchanting:

Fear is the best motivator. Your underlings have learned this well.

Illusion:

You had the same dream last night, as you had yesterday, the day before, and for as long as you can remember. You are sure it will be the same one tomorrow. The oppression of the dream has made the days blend together, but you still put on your robe and wizard hat and head into work for the day. You are usually a bit late, but thanks to Illusion magic no one notices, or you make them not care. Your colleagues offer you a weird sense of respect, and you usually end up grouped with the Alteration magisters. Not that you’re complaining, but they should really know the fundamental differences between the two schools. Outwardly, you are charming (it’s literally a spell you know after all), out of sight when there’s trouble (another spell of yours), and whenever a coworker loses something you can retrieve it quickly. You are doing well, but you can’t shake the feeling of falseness to everything in the waking world. Not like the dream, nothing feels realer…

Mysticism:

You were technically supposed to be fired 200 years ago, but no one in the faculty has the nerve to inform you of this. You cut off the only person who tried by telling him “I have an important meeting with Magnus about the current flow rate of your Magicka” before vanishing in a flash of light. Then you just had to quietly slip a cursed item to stunt their magic on them, and no one tried again. You are actually an amazing magister, but you have learned the best magical abilities are the ones that don’t require you to cast anything.

Restoration:

You didn’t think Restoration would be like this. Restoration is supposed to be the most noble, honorable school of magic possible. Instead, it is the most profitable. People are expected to tithe small fortunes to have the simplest healing spells cast on them. You’ve seen the desperate and downtrodden turned away because they weren’t born wealthy enough to have someone cast a very low effort spell onto them to cure all their ailments. You’ve seen the middle class become destitute to afford your services. The wealthy need not worry though, they either have the coin necessary or the reputation to get treated for free. You regularly get reprimanded for “forgetting” to collect the gold for your services, but they can’t get rid of you with the increasing shortage of healers.

Thaumaturgy:

You collected a paycheck for about thirty years before people realized that Thaumaturgy wasn’t really a thing. You are now retired.

Ah….seriously…..WTF IS THAT?

FENCING

“— Sé a qué se refiere. — ¿Lo sabe? Sí, tal vez. Empiezo a creer que sí lo sabe. — Las sombras de quienes pudimos ser y no fuimos… ¿No se trata de eso?… De quienes soñamos ser y nos hicieron despertar. Las sombras de aquellos a quienes una vez amamos y no conseguimos jamás, de quienes nos amaron y cuya esperanza matamos por maldad, estupidez o ignorancia.”

—

El maestro de esgrima.

Arturo Pérez-Reverte.

Esgrima

with all the trafficking going on y’all better stay safe!!