dunhaven; ic community.

ATTN: Beauregard Alderman

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🐧

I understand that Valentine's Day tends to inspire strong feelings, one way or another, but I always found its history fascinating. The Romans celebrated Lupercalia (yes, those etymologists among you might notice the 'luper' prefix, and yes, this is tied with a cultural perception of a roving, ungentlemanly man being referred to as a wolf) on February 13-15th. This festival kicked off with a ritual sacrifice of a goat and a dog, and once the animals had been skinned, eligible Roman women lined up to be hit with the hides by eligible men.

So, just like modern day dating, really.

Once the fifth century came around, things got a lot less fun: Pope Gelasius I combined a day meant to honor a martyred Saint with Lupercalia in a bid to clamp down on those pesky pagan practices, and a holiday mostly about sex became a holiday about romantic love. Shakespeare and Chaucer popularized the holiday in their works. A brief attempt was made to make the holiday embrace platonic love between friends during the Victorian period to soothe the hearts of unloved spinsters, but that doesn't sell chocolate and cards, and the holiday slowly evolved into what we know it to be today.

I'm ambivalent about Valentine's Day, one way or another. It's fun when celebrated with the right person, and it's just as fun not having to share chocolate. If you try to pass love notes in my class, go right ahead - I'm thrilled you're doing it the old-fashioned way, and not over text message.

[ Filtered to Family + Friends; feel free to assume ]

Sexist Hogwarts. Ring any bells, pop culturally speaking?

WHO: Jules Hart
WHEN: Afternoon of February 12
WHERE: Primarily the parking lot of Wilkerson's
SUMMARY: Jules has a perfectly normal day, until suddenly it's not normal at all.
WARNINGS: None

( All pretenses of normal shattered when she loaded the bags into her car, slid into her seat, and glanced in the rearview mirror. )

I keep getting emails about signing up for this network and I'm officially giving in, just to make them stop. Not that they were all kinds of incessant or anything, but there was no unsubscribe button and it would be tragic if they kept cluttering up my inbox and I missed all my other important emails, like coupons for Red Lobster (not sure when I was last at a Red Lobster, but okay?) or Steam trying to coerce me into buying whatever game I forgot was on my wishlist is suddenly on sale.

So anyway, hi. I'm here. What have I missed? I'm assuming everything.

TESSA

I turned into Lysandra at the grocery store.

GABE

Guess what.

SISTERS

Hi. How are you guys?

[...] Something happened.

THOMAS

Hey! I wanted to check in. How are you doing? How is Calliope?

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