#Applying Vs Separating aspects

[lafemmemacabre]

Goth 101

🦇 tl;dr version for those who prefer that format

Goth is a music-based subculture that started out in the UK in the late 70s/early 80s and spread internationally from there. It spawned from the UK Punk scene, keeping the DIY ethics but turning the music more melancholic, introspective and experimental.

The music genres that the subculture was built around are (dark) Post-Punk, Gothic Rock, Darkwave, Ethereal Wave and a few other smaller subgenres.

While the fashion and other non-musical aesthetics are very prominent and beloved by goths, they're non-essential to the subculture. What defines a goth is the music we listen to.

Our "big 4" bands are The Cure, Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus and the Banshees. However, 3 out of 4 of those bands are Post-Punk acts (Sisters of Mercy being the exception Gothic Rock band), and while very influential to the rest of the goth music scene, they by no means are the end-all, be-all of what goth music sounds like. The genre has evolved through its over 40 years of existence, creating diverse sounds. Anyone darkly inclined can find something to love, even if it takes a bit of research.

The Dark & Gothic playlist on Spotify is a pretty decent way to get started into goth music. In my old blog I had entire tags dedicated to goth music as a whole, and separately to Post-Punk, Gothic Rock, Darkwave and Ethereal Wave too. I had a few playlists based on popular goth aesthetics here.

The longer description of goth music will include playlists for each bigger goth subgenre, but please keep in mind they're made by me in a way that appeals to my personal tastes for each subgenre. I don't know every band that exists and my personal taste is biased towards the 90s.

Now, to a more detailed introduction to the goth subculture...

🦇 Dark alternative vs Goth

What a lot of people need clarified is that the goth subculture doesn't have a monopoly on the dark alternative world, nor are we the home for everyone sad, spooky and weird who doesn't fit in and might listen to any sort of sad, spooky or weird alternative music.

There are SO many dark alternative music scenes that have nothing or very little to do with the goth subculture. We've influenced a lot of them fashion-wise, but just because they copied us we look alike doesn't mean we're interchangeable.

There's no scale that goes from Prep to Goth and measures how Valid™ your inner darkness is, in which if you're anything below goth then you're a poser and lame. It's perfectly fine and cool to be dark alternative without being a goth. Goth isn't a badge of legitimacy or honor, it's just one specific flavor of dark alternative among so many.

Goth is a very small and obscure subculture despite our superficial hypervisbility (our looks and infamy are hypervisible, what we're actually about is extremely buried underground), and most dark alternative people aren't goths.

🦇 What does it take to be a goth?

There's one rule, and one rule only: LISTEN TO THE MUSIC. You wouldn't call yourself a metalhead without being a fan of Metal music, would you? The same principle applies to goth.

There are many types of alternative subcultures; some examples are fashion-based subcultures, another are lifestyle-based subcultures. A third type of subculture that's very prominent (especially in the West) are music-based subcultures.

Goth is a music-based subculture, just like the metalhead, punk, emo, rivethead/Industrial, hip-hop, rave, K-Pop and grunge subcultures are.

This means that, while the music isn't THE ONLY aspect the subculture has, in order to be a goth you have to listen to goth music, and we have a specific set of music genres that our subculture was built around, so not just anything dark and melancholy will do, as we don't have a monopoly on that, but we do have something closer to a monopoly on a specific sound and musical legacy.

You don't have to listen to goth music EXCLUSIVELY to be a goth, that'd be insane. You don't even have to limit yourself to dark alternative music either. You just have to listen to goth music to a relevant degree and be passionate about it and you're in, the rest is up to you.

This means too that the way you dress has no impact on your validity as a goth, whether you don't have the gothic wardrobe of your dreams yet or you just don't want to dress goth at all. I'm TikTok mutuals with a girl who dresses exclusively in pink-white sweet lolita coords, but who's passionate about goth music. She's a goth, no questions about it. On the other hand, a lot of the influencers you'll see online who look like a lost Addams cousin aren't goths at all, and no house decor or outfit will make them gothier if they don't listen to the music.

🦇 What music counts as goth?

From the previous points I made you probably gathered that Industrial and Metal ⁠– both genres that outsiders usually associate with the goth subculture ⁠– aren't actually part of the goth genre. So, what is goth music?

Goth music developed initially in the UK in the late 70s/early 80s off of dark Post-Punk. Post-Punk itself developed from UK 70s Punk Rock, being also influenced by Glam Rock, experimental electronic music, and many other influences more specific to each band that took part in this musical development (Bauhaus were very influenced by Reggae!).

What characterizes the goth sound are elements such as; being bass-driven rather than guitar-driven (in almost every case), guitars playing more of a decorative or atmospheric role instead of being the main focus (which contrasts starkly against genres such as Metal), preference for voices with a lower vocal range (altos, this is your genre to shine in!), optional use of synthesizers, recurrent replacing of human drummers with drum machines, and common use of lots of reverb and delay effects everywhere for an extra sensation that you're listening to music recorded in a catacomb.

Dark Post-Punk was the starting point of the goth subculture, and from it, all other goth music subgenres developed. Depending on who you ask there's a billion goth micro-genres. In my opinion a lot of those subgenres are rather meaningless (a lot of them are just specific flavors of Post-Punk or Darkwave) but the main 4 subgenres of goth music are:

(Dark) Post-Punk

Gothic Rock

Darkwave

Ethereal Wave

POST-PUNK:

Post-Punk took the standard sound of Punk Rock and its DIY ethics and made the sound more melancholic, romantic, experimental, less angry, and more introspective. Dark Post-Punk in particular was influenced by gothic literature and old horror movies (including their soundtracks, the Banshees created their characteristic guitar sound after the violins in the Psycho soundtrack).

Besides the 3 Post-Punk bands I listed as part of the goth "big 4", there's bands such as Skeletal Family, Twin Tribes, Specimen, She Wants Revenge, Sex Gang Children, Xmal Deutschland, Lebanon Hanover, Cruex Lies, The Secret French Postcards and The Birthday Party.

GOTHIC ROCK:

When goth became slightly more established in sound, Gothic Rock is what happened. Less experimental than Post-Punk, a bit more Rock-based, more decidedly dark and miserable than Post-Punk necessarily is, and finally severed from goth's punk roots. Sisters of Mercy is THE most popular and influential Gothic Rock band; they popularized the use of extremely low baritone vocals and drum machines. Despite existing since the 80s, its popularity peak was in the 90s.

Goth as a whole has its "big 4", but the subgenre of Gothic Rock has its own "big 3", which are Sisters of Mercy, The Mission (UK), and Fields of the Nephilim. Other Gothic Rock bands are Rosetta Stone, Corpus Delicti, Inkubus Sukkubus, Mephisto Walz, Angels of Liberty, Two Witches, Nosferatu, Wisborg and Soror Dolorosa.

DARKWAVE:

Goth going electronic! There's basically two types of Darkwave; the one that's more a combination of Post-Punk + Synthpop (very popular in the past decade), and the one that's more a combination of Gothic Rock + electronic music in general (most popular in the 90s). EXTREMELY danceable, but then again goths can dance to literally anything. This genre has existed at the very least since the second half of the 80s and has never stopped being relevant in the goth scene, save maybe during the Deathrock revival phase.

Clan of Xymox might be the single most influential Darkwave band. There's also The Frozen Autumn, The Crüxshadows, Switchblade Symphony, Collide, Dark, Ghosting, London After Midnight, She Past Away, Drab Majesty and Boy Harsher.

ETHEREAL WAVE:

This genre is heavily linked to Dream Pop, Neoclassical Darkwave and Shoegaze. Like with Darkwave there's basically a few styles of Ethereal Wave, I can pinpoint three; the one that's like, regular Goth Rock/Post-Punk but with a lot of extra delay and reverb and other stylistic choices that make it sound, well, Ethereal, dream-like. There's the type that has lots of Folk influences (be it Medieval/Rennaisance-ish type of Folk or "ethnic" type of Folk), and there's one that's synth-based but, unlike Darkwave, sounds like what ketamine must feel like. This genre has existed since the mid 80s but its peak in popularity and relevancy in the scene was in the 90s.

Dead Can Dance is THE most influential Ethereal Wave band, but there's others such as Cocteau Twins (started as Post-Punk, ended up as Dream Pop and Ethereal Wave), Miranda Sex Garden, Faith and the Muse, Lycia, Claire Voyant, Hamsas XIII, Love is Colder than Death, SRSQ, Black Tape for a Blue Girl and Mors Syphilitica.

What about Deathrock, Gothic Metal and Industrial?

Deathrock is goth's American twin, basically. While in the early 80s in the UK morose ex-punks were playing Post-Punk, in the early 80s in the LA Punk scene morbid and brooding punk kids were playing Deathrock; it's closer to Punk Rock in sound than Post-Punk, being more about being spooky and brooding than about being eerie and romantic. Goth is to vampires and witches what Deathrock is to zombies and werewolves.

To summarize the consensus on Deathrock and its place within the goth subculture; it's rare to find a goth who's not also into at least some Deathrock, and even rarer to find a deathrocker who's not into goth. Personally, I think Deathrock is its own separate though very similar thing, but I don't mind Deathrock being lumped in with goth music.

I made a whole TikTok video on why Gothic Metal isn't a goth subgenre, but in summary; Gothic Metal is a Metal subgenre that was somewhat influenced by goth music in its earliest stage of development, but is for the most part a cross between Doom Metal and Death Metal with lyrics inspired by gothic literature. By adhering to a Metal sound it doesn't fit the type of sound goth music has. The goth influences in Gothic Metal were mostly only present in the earliest bands and a majority of the newer acts are completely disconnected from the goth scene.

As for goth's ties to the rivethead subculture (and thus, Industrial music): We've been sibling subcultures since at least the early 90s. Both very, very small and underground scenes that despite being different, had enough similarities in music, idiosyncrasy and aesthetic sensibilities to comfortably band together for the sake of scene viability. That's why you might hear people talking about the "gothic-industrial scene".

Keep in mind too that 80s and 90s Industrial music sounded very different from how it does now (compare your average Grendel or Combichrist song to your average Skinny Puppy or Die Form song). There was a lot less influence of raver music in the rivethead scene back then, and a lot more influence from 80s dark alternative music and New Wave, which are key influences for the goth scene as well.

As told by goth YouTuber Angela Benedict (goth since 1995), every goth back then listened to at least some Industrial, every rivethead listened to at least some goth music, and they all loved 80s New Wave, so DJs at shared club nights had a very easy time entertaining both audiences simultaneously.

🦇 Trivia & other things to know

The term "gothic Rock" was being used in music journalism as early as to describe releases by The Doors and The Velvet Underground, but the word "gothic" there wasn't so much used to point to a specific type of sound at that stage, it was used to imply the mood of the music and that's not where the subculture gets its name.

We don't know for sure why this subculture began to be referred to as "goth", initially the music was called either New Wave (just a darker and more underground variety of it) or Positive Punk. However, one of the potential roots of this name for our subculture is that it comes from an inside joke from members of Southern Death Cult/The Cult about Andi Sexgang (Sex Gang Children) about how he was a creepy little guy obsessed with the macabre and dark romanticism living at the Visigoth Towers, so they called him a "goth goblin" and if he was a goth, then his fans were goths too.

From the comments that the goth bloggers/vloggers I follow get, apparently it's common for baby bats and people interested in the subculture to think that they HAVE to find a goth "type" to lock themselves into, like "trad goth" or "romantic goth" or whatever else, and if they don't, they're a poser. This isn't true at all. Most goths wax and wane between fashion styles and goth music subgenres. These terms are far more useful to describe aesthetics rather than people or music.

If you ever hear people talk about "1st/2nd/3rd wave goth/Gothic Rock"; that's an (in my opinion) outdated and not too functional terminology to differentiate between "eras" of goth music, 1st wave being between 1975-1985, 2nd between 1985-1995, and 3rd between 1995-? That terminology was used widely when I was a baby bat but not so much anymore.

"Baby bat" is what a lot of more established goths call newbies! It's NOT meant as an insult nor to be condescending. It's a loving cutesy term and while of course most baby bats are very young, it's perfectly plausible to be a very grown adult and a baby bat if they just got into goth instead of getting into the subculture as a teen.

Most goth bands are easily found on Spotify except for more underground ones that haven't been active for a while (I have so many beloved bands and songs that just don't exist on Spotify), but the real goth jackpot is at Bandcamp.

Facebook is still useful for one (1) thing and it's for finding goth events; that's where I've found out about gothic fairs, goth nights and gigs; from the largely popular ones in my local scene to the very underground ones.

The song most of the subculture agrees is THE first official goth song is Bela Lugosi's Dead by Bauhaus, which was recorded as a singular take. It was the first track the band recorded together, too.

The Batcave is infamous nowadays as a huge goth night club in Soho (London) during the early 80s, owned by the band Specimen, BUT as told by the very people who used to frequent the nightclub, the whole thing has been a little overblown and its current reputation is more legend than fact. YouTuber Gothcast has a great video on the subject that was praised by members of Specimen itself!

Most of the most iconic pioneer goth musicians HATE being referred to as goths or to have their music referred to as such. When the term "goth" was first starting to be used to describe our music and scene it was a pejorative used by outsiders and/or mostly associated with the campier and more "low brow" bands (Specimen and Alien Sex Fiend come to mind). Andrew Eldritch from Sisters of Mercy especially hates it, to the point he refuses to even say the word and refers to it as "the G word". Which is hilarious since he sounded the most stereotypically gothy out of the big 4 and looked like this at the time he started to be a piss baby about it:

Goth isn't really a "youth" subculture anymore if you ask people within the scene. Unlike people from many other subcultures, goths have a tendency to stay goth far into adulthood (even if covertly). When you go to any events, besides teens and people in their early 20s, you're gonna see plenty of goths in their 40s and older, a few of them will bring their kids along if the event is family friendly.

Besides the obvious chance of many goths being professional creatives (musicians, writers, artists, etc), for some reason A LOT of goths work in tech and healthcare!

Metalheads headbang, they and punks also mosh. What do goths do to vibe to our music together? We dance! We don't dance the same as non-goths but we LOVE to dance to our music, together or solo. There's no established dance styles to adhere to; it's just letting your body flow to the music. Some goth dancing is very intricate, some of it is very simple, it depends on the goth in question. Just in case, this is NOT like the dance gifs of cybergoths/rivetheads under that damned bridge. Think less that and more Wednesday Addams dancing to The Cramps, or the girl from the Night of the Demons movie. Here's some videos about how goths dance:

We fucking love 80s New Wave. No, Depeche Mode isn't a goth band; yes, you'll have to dig deep to find a goth who doesn't ADORE them. The only one I've come across who disliked Depeche Mode liked Soft Cell instead.

Goth IS international! Not just in the sense that there's fans of goth music basically everywhere, but that there's local goth scenes with their own local goth bands everywhere. Outside of the US + Europe + Canada, there's huge goth scenes all over Latin América (our Deathrock and Post-Punk are at times even popular among 1st world goths), and there's also smaller but still present goth scenes in Africa, Asia and Oceania. She Past Away is very much one of THE most popular goth bands in recent years and they're from Turkey.

The goth scene has always been in friendly terms with the LGBT community. Not only are many of our biggest icons LGBT themselves (the whole band Specimen, AVC from Sopor Aeternus, both members of Diavol Strâin, the vocalist from Male Tears, Cinnamon Hadley, and many more) but plenty of cishet goths (especially the men) embrace gender non-conformity and/or androgyny. In most local scenes, goth club nights are held at gay bars/nightclubs, as they don't tend to have privately owned venues. And either way, at any goth night there'll be tons of gay and gender non-conforming goths no matter where they're held. To varying degrees depending on the locality of the scene, gay and bi people are completely normalized in the goth subculture, and gender non-conformity and androgyny aren't just encouraged, but praised and coveted.

There's goths of any religion you can think of, but Neo Pagans are somewhat over-represented in our community compared to the rest of larger society (for better or worse). Funnily enough, very few goths are actually Satanists of any sort. I'd say the numbers go more or less similar to our local non-goth peers. In the West and westernized countries I'd say it goes; majority culturally-Christian atheist or agnostic goths (usually not militant about it), a few practicing Christians of whichever denomination (usually whichever is dominant in the country they inhabit), the rare but entirely plausible Jewish, Muslim or Buddhist goth, and a bunch of Neo-Pagans. Probably one (1) or two (2) actual Satanist goths per state/province/etc, tops.

World Goth Day is celebrated every year on May 22nd.

"Mallgoth" isn't a type of goth in either a musical or fashion sense. I made another TikTok about it, but in summary; it was originally hurled as an insult towards a very specific type of poser; the American kids in the late 90s and early 00s who imitated how goths dressed and called themselves goths while only listening to Nu Metal and maybe the most mainstream Industrial Metal. They tended to congregate at malls and behave particularly obnoxious to everyone there, further ruining our already delicate image (especially at that time).

Cybergoths aren't really goths either. Their music scene is centered around EBM, which is basically slightly darker and slightly more aggressive raver music that may or may not have Industrial influences. And to be honest they behaved like a rapacious invasive species in goth club nights to the point that they almost decimated the actual goth scene and it took us a while to recover from that.

Goths are sometimes perceived as too self-serious but honestly? We love making fun of ourselves and we tend to have a very silly or dry sense of humor. We're just tired of the same cheap and inaccurate jokes made by people who don't know anything about us. The best jokes about goths will often come from goths ourselves; you can only properly make fun of something you understand well! The few times outsiders get it right though? (Sad to confirm that the South Park goth kids are hilarious and I wish they were in a better show) You'll see goths sharing the SHIT out of it, such as me being obsessed with the goths from Ridonculous Race, or the clip below:

#goth music #music #goth #gothic #gothgoth #goth subculture #trad goth #gothic rock #post punk #darkwave #ethereal wave #Spotify #goth 101

[shiny-holographic-star]

Aspects: Applying vs Separating

How to find them

Websites like astro.com show you whether the aspect is applying/lower with an (a) or separating/upper (s) next to the symbol of the aspect.

How to find them manually

When we have two planets or objects in consideration, one of them moves faster than the other.

Pick the slower planet. For example, between the Moon and Mercury, Mercury is the slower one.

See what's the opposite point to where Mercury is. If it is in 2° Libra, then the opposite would be 2° Aries. It's literally across the wheel.

If the faster moving planet/object is moving towards the opposition point (applying), then the aspect is applying/lower:

But, if the planet/object is moving away from that opposition point back to the slower moving planet/object, then it's a separating/upper aspect:

Meaning - Bil Tierney

You can read more about his definition of aspects and interpretations of each one in his book Dynamic of aspect analysis.

Applying aspects

These aspects are "associated with basic formative processes urging the individual to build a structure of personal self-image or ego-identity".

They help you to develop your subjectivity.

They aim to gain experiences to make sure you distinguish yourself as an individual.

They direct unconscious releases of energy toward the individual's needs, which means that they show how you act impulsively to meet your needs.

They represent the individual's tendency to impose themselves onto the enviroment.

With the inconjunct and square though, we start to become aware of tensions with other people's desires and needs.

Applying aspects are characterized by instinctial impulses, spontaneity and selfishness.

Separating aspects

These aspects are "associated with basic evaluative processes concerned with the balance of individual vs social needs".

Usually individual goals are reconisdered as one becomes increasingly aware of the social enviroment.

One starts to detach from desires and needs when they interfere with other people's rights.

Awareness turns to the greatest good.

We develop responsibility as we learn to share, interact and work along with others.

We develop a sense of community and aim for wholeness and unification.

Separating aspects are characterized by self-reflection, consideration for others and deliberation (as opposed to unconsciousness).

#astrology #astro placements #astro community #astro posts #astrology observations #birth chart #natal chart #astro chart #solar return

[kairologia]

How to read a natal chart in 13 steps.

This is simplified guide geared towards beginners and people who want to transition to a more traditional approach when assessing a chart. There is no standard method of reading charts, this is simply the method I follow & find most comfortable. It’s a practical, methodical synthesis and just the right amount of intuitive.

Before I begin, I must mention that while assessing planetary conditions I personally verify the following factors — in this order: the sign, house, angularity, direction, whether a planet is direct or retrograde, sect (day vs night), hemisphere (1-6 vs 7-12), phase (morning vs evening, especially notable for venus & mercury), domicile lord (draw a disposition tree if needed), exaltation lord, triplicity lords, bound lord, decan lord, dodecatemoria, aspects to domicile lord if any, aspect to the ascendant if any, apsects to other planets, bonification conditions (i.e aspecting benefics, so supported by aspect), maltreatment conditions (aspected by malefics). This is important to remember because the term “conditions” will come up a lot.

Now onto the actual guide :

1. For starters, you should (assuming you don’t already) learn how to read a whole sign house circle chart. Table charts are nice as a gateway drug, but if you're somewhat serious about learning astrology this is an important transition to make. Once you do, put the chart you’re aiming to assess in front of you, then proceed further.

2. Determine the sect of the chart. This becomes an automatism once you’re used to looking at charts, but if you're not there yet — draw a line on the chart (or visualize said line) going from the degree of the ascendant to the degree of the descendant. If the sun is ABOVE that line — it’s a day chart, so of the day sect. If it’s BELOW that line — it’s a night chart, of the night sect.

3. Take a look at the ascendant. Take note of the rising sign, its modality, & its ruling planet. Does this chart have any 1st house planets? Also, remember to do a quick overview to pinpoint which planets are angular (as in, located in the 1/4/7/10th houses)

4. Track down the ascendant ruler. Check its house placement, condition (see above), and aspects (applying vs separating).

5. Track down the Sect Light. If it’s a day chart, the sect light is the Sun. If it’s a night chart, that would be the Moon. Assess the sect light’s condition (see above), aspects.

6. Check which houses are ruled by the Luminaries (Sun/Moon). The interpretation of the luminaries is intrinsic to the areas of life (Houses) they rule, in addition to their independent significations.

7. Check out the phase of moon at birth. The lunation phase is extremely important as it defines the dynamic between this individual’s luminaries.

8. Take a look at how Mercury is doing in said chart. Condition (see above)? Aspects? Morning or Evening star?

9. Take a look at the Benefic Of Sect & Malefic Out Of Sect (day: Jupiter/Mars, night: Venus/Saturn). Assess their condition (see above), aspects they make, etc. Regarding Venus: verify if she’s Morning or Evening star (if Venus is on the right of the Sun - Morning star, if it's on its left - Evening star). For the Malefic OOC, check if it is bonified by enclosure (i.e : Saturn or Mars are touched by a benefic (Venus/Jupiter) on each sides) — it’s a huge alleviating factor.

10. Then, assess the Benefic Out Of Sect & Malefic Of Sect (day: Venus/Saturn, night: Jupiter/Mars).

11. Then, take a global look seeking anything that may be of note. Stelliums, several retrograde planets, a Cazimi, Out Of Bounds planets, a void moon, etc.

12. Lastly, I go through each house individually. This is where the chart synthesis proper begins. In practice, I like to tell a story beginning from the 1st house & culminating in the 12th, while highlighting the thematics of each house as I go.

13. This is optional, but I like to take a look at annual and monthly profections to see which themes are presently highlighted/emphasized for the individual whose chart I’m looking at.

And we’re done.

Check pinned if you want to book with me!

#how to read a natal chart #astrology #astro notes #astrological observations #hellenistic astrology #astro observations #traditional astrology

[spanishskulduggery]

Adjective Placement in Spanish Overview

With regards to adjective placement, I know I linked that bigger post I made about what the placement of adjectives generally mean but I'll give a very brief overview and if anyone has any specific questions please let me know.

IN GENERAL for like 70-ish percent of the time, adjectives go behind the noun in Spanish. These are your basic everyday adjectives that just describe nouns; el gato negro "the black cat", la mujer alta "the tall woman", los datos importantes "the important data", las tormentas peligrosas "the dangerous storms"

And again, IN GENERAL, if an adjective precedes the noun it is as if you bolded or italicized the adjective. It makes the adjective really stand out because of how out of the ordinary it is. It's very commonly used in poetry, writing, or for hyperbole:

La cruel realidad = The cruel reality La fea verdad = The ugly truth Mis sinceras disculpas = My sincere apologies Mi más sentido pésame = My most heartfelt condolences/regrets

If you were looking at it more poetically you could think of "blue sky"... el cielo azul "the blue sky" is everyday Spanish, very typical. Saying el azul cielo "the blue sky" draws the eye to azul making it seem like "blue" is the most important or noteworthy thing about it

You typically see this kind of construction in everyday Spanish with expressions of gratitude, grief, horror, deep love, or any very strong emotions or when you're trying to make an impact

(More below)

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Note: This will impact certain aspects of grammar, such as the nouns that are actually feminine but take a general masculine article such as el agua, el arma, el hada, el hambre, el águila etc.

As an example:

El hada madrina = Fairy Godmother La buena hada = The good fairy

To further explain this rule - el hada is written with a masculine article. This is because it has its vocal stress on the first syllable and begins with A- or HA- [where H is silent]; and treating it as feminine would cause the sounds to run together, so the el adds a kind of phonetic break to preserve the sound; but in plural it will be las hadas "fairies/fey"

A word like this would still retain its normal functions as a feminine word, thus el agua bendita "holy water", el águila calva "bald eagle", el ave rapaz "bird of prey", and then in this case el hada madrina "fairy godmother"

By adding a separate word in front, you interrupt that la + A/HA construction and create a hiatus in the sounds already... so you can then treat it like a normal feminine noun, la buena hada "the good fairy"

You might also see this with grande "big" and its other form gran "great/large", el águila grande "the big eagle" vs. la gran águila "the great eagle"

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Moving aside from the normal grammar, we now enter the exceptions. First - determiners.

There are a handful of adjectives that are known as determiners which come before the noun and they provide an important function in communicating things like number, possession, and location

The most common determiners include:

Definite articles [el, la, los, las]

Indefinite articles [un, una, unos, unas]

Possessives [mi, tu, su, nuestro/a, vuestro/a]

Demonstratives [este/esta, ese/esa/, aquel/aquella]

Interrogatives [qué, cuál/cuáles, cuánto/a] (Also work as exclamatory determiners which just means ¡! instead of ¿?)

Cardinal numbers [uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco etc]

Ordinal numbers [primer/primera, segundo/a, tercer/tercera, cuarto/a, quinto/a, etc]

There are also a few determiners of quantity such as mucho/a "a lot/many/much", todo/a "all/every", cada "each", vario/a "various/many", poco/a "few/less", tal "such", tan "so much" / tanto/a "so many", algún/alguna and ningún/ninguna etc.

And it will generally apply to más and menos "more" and "less", and sometimes mejor/peor "better/worse"

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Note: With possessives is that there are two forms depending on adjective placement:

mi amigo/a = my friend mis amigos / amigas = my friends un amigo mío = a friend of mine una amiga mía = a friend of mine [f] unos amigos míos = a few friends of mine unas amigas mías = a few friends [f] of mine

All the pronouns have their own version of this possessive pattern

mi(s) and mío/a, tu(s) and tuyo/a, su(s) and suyo/a, and then nuestro/a and vuestro/a are the same but the adjective placement is different

As an example - nuestro país "our country" vs. el país nuestro "the country of ours", or nuestros familiares "our family members" vs. unos familiares nuestros "some family members of ours"

A common religious example - Nuestra Señora "Our Lady" and then el padrenuestro "the Our Father prayer"

The possessives that come after the noun are usually translated as "of mine/yours/his/hers/ours" etc.

You can also see a few determiners/adjectives in different places in a phrase like - un viejo amigo mío "an old friend of mine" vs. mi viejo amigo "my old friend"

-

As mentioned in the very beginning there are a handful of exceptions

Most notably:

viejo/a = old / elderly

antiguo/a = ancient, old / antique, old

mismo/a = same / self

gran = great, grand grande = large

And includes propio/a "own / appropriate", as well as bueno/a "good" or malo/a "bad". I discussed a lot of these in more depth in the previous posts and in the one linked above

In many cases the exact meaning is different, even if it's slight - such as el hotel grande "the big hotel" vs. el Gran Hotel "the Grand Hotel"

bueno/a and malo/a are generally either "good" and "kind", or "bad" and "unkind", though the meanings can kind of blur together... as something like la buena hada "the good fairy" isn't so far off from el hada buena "the nice fairy"

When places before though bueno/a turns to buen + masculine, and malo/a turns to mal + masculine

As an example - un buen augurio "good omen", un mal presagio "a bad omen/portent"

.....but in feminine it looks like you'd expect: buena suerte "good luck" vs. mala suerte

Similarly, and one I didn't include the first time is cualquier/cualquiera

cualquier persona = any person una persona cualquiera = an ordinary person

cualquier in front - regardless of gender - means "any", literally "whichever"

cualquiera in back comes out as "ordinary" or colloquially "any old" [such as un beso cualquiera "an ordinary kiss" / "any old kiss"], or in the case of people it could be like "a person of dubious/unknown background" sort of like "they could be anyone"...

-

And then you run into what I would consider "collocations" which is another word for a set noun or expression

There are some words/expressions that have the adjective in a specific place and you can't really change it or it sounds weird, so you sort of have to learn them as specific units to remember:

las bellas artes = fine arts [lit. "beautiful arts"]

(de) mala muerte = "backwater", "poor / middle of nowhere", a place of ill repute or somewhere very remote or inconsequential [lit. "of a bad death"]

a corto plazo = short-term

a largo plazo = long-term

(en) alta mar = (on) the high seas

alta calidad = high quality

baja calidad = low quality

Blancanieves = Snow White (the character/fairlytale)

la mala hierba, las malas hierbas = weeds [lit. "bad grasses"; plants that grow without you wanting them to or that grow in bad places etc]

los bajos fondos = criminal underworld [lit. "the low depths"]

el más allá = "the great beyond", "the afterlife" [lit. "the more over there/beyond"]

buen/mal augurio = good/bad omen buen/mal presagio = good/bad omen

buena/mala suerte = good/bad luck

...Also includes all the greetings like buen día / buenos días or buenas noches etc. they're all considered set phrases

There are also many collocations that use adjectives in their normal place that also can't be separated such as los frutos secos "nuts", or el vino tinto/banco "red/white wine" etc.

A collocation just means that they are treating multiple words as set phrases or a singular unit

And again, some history/geographical terms will have these as well:

la Gran Muralla China = Great Wall of China

la Primera Guerra Mundial = First World War

la Segunda Guerra Mundial = Second World War

el Sacro Imperio Romano = Holy Roman Empire

la Antigua Grecia = Ancient Greece

el Antiguo Egipto = Ancient Egypt (el) Alto Egipto = Upper Egypt (el) Bajo Egipto = Lower Egypt

Nueva York = New York

Nueva Zelanda = New Zealand

Nuevo México = New Mexico

Nueva Escocia = Nova Scotia [lit. "New Scotland"]

la Gran Manzana = the Big Apple [aka "New York"]

Buenos Aires

There are many such terms

#spanish #langblr #spanish language #learning spanish #spanish grammar #learn spanish #long post #spanish vocabulary #vocabulario

[aoflameandco]

GrimmNell: character study

Well-well-well, I mentioned once that my GrimmNel brainrot is far from being over - so here we go! What else's to analyze about them though? Well, this time we have a new subject to focus on... the Bleach personality quiz!

Yes, I know it's a bit questionable source for a character study, but let me explain! June 2011. The third Bleach Official Character Book UNMASKED was released in Japan. This databook was mostly famous for giving Ulquiorra a more detailed backstory and showing more of Halibel and her Fracción. However, there was another small tidbit for Arrancar's fans - the official quiz from Kubo - Which Bleach character are you? 

The quiz was extremely simple.  Add up the numbers of your full date of birth and don't forget your blood type. Voila! In the end you get a short profile about your Bleach "personality type", which highlights the key qualities of this particular character.

Now, y'all know where I'm going with this. So, what's like to be like Grimmjow- or Nel according to the databook? Let's check it!

And- Even without any translation, we immediately bump into the first problem. There's only Nel's profile. Not Nelliel's.

Well, they're the same person! It would be weird to separate them, right? But yeah... there's a solid difference in a way her kid and adult forms act.

So the question remains - can we apply this profile's info to the adult Nelliel? Let's read it to find out.

a bit messy not word to word translation's incoming, pls take it with a grain of salt

Cheerful and playful

Nel type!

Good at opening people's hearts. Very quick to make bonds, no matter with who - friends or foes. She is attentive and good at conveying information to those around her. But sometimes she says too much.

• works at her own pace • high sense of camaraderie • doesn't run away from difficulties • hero of justice

Ofc this info perfectly fits baby Nel. She quickly befriended Ichigo, even though he was a shinigami; she was a sort of his guide, explaining how Hueco Mundo works; also she is a big chatterbox, saying surprisingly harsh things sometimes. Her attentive side shined during the Ichigo vs Grimmjow fight, when she noticed Orihime's turmoil and gave her a good advice. She is surely down for justice, but it's a little bit difficult to fight for it in her small body. So the real Nelliel has to step up.

Same qualities but a different approach - that's what I would say about adult!Nel. And it's very visible when it comes to her later interactions with Grimmjow, esp in CFYOW.

But before giving some bright examples, let's take a look at his quiz profile as well - to understand the similarities and contrasts between these two characters.

Responsible but mischievous

Grimmjow type

There's still a bit of a boyish heart (shounen no kokoro) in him. But deep inside he's unexpectedly serious and has a sense of responsibility. He catches the information fast and adapts quickly, but his tendency to get bored could be a problem. If he'll improve this aspect, good fortune is likely to come his way.

• has a sense of responsibility • thrives in adversity • quickly adapts • gets bored easily

And - the quiz highlighted thrice (!) that Grimmjow is indeed a responsible person. Something Nelliel didn't expect as well. As a true hero of justice she was prepared to stop Sexta as soon as he starts an unnecessary violence. But to her surprise - Grimmjow was far from an uncontrollable beast and followed his own codex.

A sense of responsibility didn't turn Grimmjow into an obedient boy though. Him and Nel keep arguing due to their different perspectives - especially when it comes to handling the former enemies.

Nelliel easily bonds with anyone - quincy, Aura, etc., meanwhile Grimmjow picks a fight as a first option. This choice isn't just a result of his bloodthirst though. Grimmjow's survival instincts are strong, so he always stays on guard and doesn't trust easily. That's why he warns Nelliel that her pacifism might end up badly for them all.

Another proof that even though he acts as if he doesn't belong to the group, Grimm isn't as indifferent as he pretends to be. Very responsible of him, huh?

Yet there's another obstacle in their dynamic. Their pacing. Grimmjow is quick to adapt and quick to act, meanwhile Nelliel doesn't like to rush and prefers to gather as much information as possible.

Hard to say who's wrong in this case. Quick reaction benefited Grimmjow in general, but ofc Nel likes to remind him about Askin's incident, her favorite argument to cool him down.

And usually her persuasion works, surely Grimm argues back but still stops. When his stubbornness wins though- there's no way that Nelliel will just let him go. She'll do everything to find him, stop him and bring him back.

Nel complaints but doesn't give up on her fellow arrancar, no matter how difficult the other side is. Knowing Grimmjow's past, the sense of camaraderie isn't an empty word for him too. With creak he opens up to Nel, sharing his thoughts with her. Even though she is too bold with her words sometimes, it doesn't look like Sexta feels a grudge against her.

Grimmjow isn't a friendly type. He likes to fight, but a disappointed look quickly appears on his face, if his enemy doesn't meet expectations. He gets bored easily, he always needs some action. And yet- for some reason Nelliel got his attention.

There's no doubt that he sees her as a nice opponent, he even provoked her to fight with a smirk. He easily forgets anyone who didn't pique his interest and yet Nel's reiatsu is safely stored in his memory.

However, it wouldn't be correct to reduce Grimmjow's attention to a desire to fight, when we have several scenes of him watching Nelliel's peaceful shenanigans. He was calmly watching over kid Nel in anime probably wondering about the connection between this brat and the mighty Tres, he was dying of boredom, but still didn't take his eyes off her tea party in the novel. Even Halibel noticed it and offered him to join, but ofc he proudly refused.

So what did we confirm again? Even though Grimmjow and Nelliel share rather opposite views when it comes to socializing or making decisions, some of their character traits are surprisingly compatible. Grimmjow gained some respect points, when Nel started to notice his responsible side, meanwhile he opened up to her pushy yet reliable presence. Nelliel doesn't give up on her persuasion and he doesn't get bored of arguing with her. Covering eo's flaws they make quite a powerful duo, isn't?

So let's hope we'll see more of their rocky bond next season~

#grimmnel #grimmnell #grimmjow x nelliel #grimmjow jaegerjaquez #nelliel tu odelschwanck #meta

[uroboros-if]

Your story is so impressive! All aspects from the lore to the writing and the game display are so beautiful!!

I want to ask about the 'look' feature in your game. Like, how to make it? What is the difference in the coding to make it open a separate textbox vs appear new sentences in the current passage? And how to code it for the game to realize that the players have clicked on it and let them continue to the next passage/remember that the players have look at something?

Thank you in advance! And sorry for my bad English 😭

Aww, thank you so much!! ;; I appreciate your kind words!

EDIT: Under the read more shows you how to do it manually, but I have updated the macros so they are MUCH easier to install!!

I made some quick and dirty macros just now if you're interested, so you don't have to do the somewhat ugly way I do it! Here's the itch.io link. Instructs on how to implement are on the page! Password is "looking". You can demo it + download it to see how it works!

The macros I made will probably be more than adequate for most of your needs, though it is limited to having 10 of each of the three different ways you can look at something in one passage (opens a new window of text, reveals some lines of text, or reveals new lines of text with the include macro).

Underneath, I'll go over how I manually do it in Sugarcube—and it's going to be horrible to look at if you try to do it without syntax highlighting in your project. For the sake of this guide, I'll be highlighting it!

Separate textbox

I am going to show you two ways to do this—one, the way I typically do it; two, with Cycy's liveupdate macro (thanks to my friend, Gwen for teaching me this revolutionary way!!!). You'll need:

StoryFormat - SugarCube (need for both ways)

Chapel's Popover macro (need for both ways)

Cycy's liveupdate macro (if you're doing it With Cycy)

With Cycy - easier to understand, but the text replacement (when you click on the link and it gets replaced with new text to show you've already seen it) does not happen smoothly/with a transition.

Without Cycy - harder to understand, but can replace the link with a smooth transition so the text does not instantaneously and abruptly change.

Each guide is going to rehash pretty much the same information as the other way because I'll just assume you haven't read the other way.

With Cycy

Here is an example:

1. LIVEBLOCK. A custom macro from Cycy. Whatever is inside the ((liveblock)) will be updated when ((update)) is called inside of it. We need this because, once a passage is rendered, even if a variable is changed through ((click)) or ((link)), the text will not change to reflect these changes. What Cycy's liveblock macro offers is allowing you to live update the text! All the code we'll be writing will be contained inside liveblock.

2. VARIABLE. You'll need a variable to remember that you've looked at this specific place before, and you're going to have a make a variable everytime you have a looking place like this one. I'm guessing you can use temporary variables (which only apply to one passage) instead if you don't want to clutter your StoryInit with global variables (which apply to the entire IF).

The reason why I make my looking variables global variables is because I want to be able to remember that a player has looked at something to update the codex and/or remember that the player has looked at something, in case we want to check that they've done that in the future. It's also because, if a player goes and looks at their stat page, it may refresh the variable and let players look at the same thing again.

3. IF STATEMENT. Again, a simple if statement to test if a player has seen something won't work on its own, as the text does not update live to reflect the changes—even if you use ((link)) that has a ((set)). However, with Cycy's live update macro, this is actually very relevant. If the player hasn't seen the link, show the link; if the player has, show the text that will replace the link.

4. LOOK SPAN. I want the link for all my "looking" links to be distinct from actual choices, so I wrap (span id="look")...(/span) around the entire ((link)) that is in #5. This span is going to style the link to be a bold, gold color.

Here is how I style my links in my Story Stylesheet (here's a link to the Pastebin):

5. INSIDE THE LINK. Of course, make the ((link)) which the player will click on to look at something. Set the variable that tests if they've looked at it to true, and then call ((update)) to update ((liveblock))'s contents. Next, we will be using Chapel's Popover macro—what this does is "pop over" in a new dialog everything that is inside ((popover)...((/popover)). I specified "noclick" so the players click on an X instead of the screen to exit out. I use the ((include)) macro inside, which is especially useful if the text you're going to be "popping over" is quite long (which my character descriptions are).

Here, I put my closing ((/link)) and then also my closing (/span) for the look span.

6. ELSE — SPAN CLASS LOOKED. Just the same way where I use a (span) to style the link, I use a (span) to style the text that replaced the link. I classed the link with "looked" so that the text that replaced the link is gold, but not bold, and styles normal text instead of links.

Here's how I did it in the Story Stylesheet (also included in the Pastebin already):

Everything that is in ((else)) will be the text that replaces the link to show you've already looked at something. Sometimes I don't want the entire thing to be gold text, just an indicator of where it has changed; so I might only put the (span class="looked") around a part of the text and make the rest of the text normal.

7. ENDING. Close the if statement and close the liveblock.

Without Cycy

Here is an example, ripped straight out of the IF:

The reason I'm showing this way is because if you want to just reveal new lines of text instead of opening up a new window of text, the code for the way I teach you how to do that is basically the same, except you don't use ((popover)).

Also, the text replacement is smoother because the ((replace)) macro we'll be using has the option to use a transition/fade by simply adding "t8n". Cycy's liveupdate macro, when you call ((update)), instantaneously changes the text, which is abrupt.

1. THE IF STATEMENT AND VARIABLE. The if statement tests a variable. If it's true, it will show the link; if it's false, it does not.

This usually does not come into play. When a variable is changed with a link macro, the text does not live-update once the passage is fully rendered. Meaning, even if you click on the link changing $salvatore_looked[0] to true, it won't change the passage. What you'll want instead is the ((replace)) macro that is executed when you click on the link.

So why did I include an if statement anyway? If a player looks into their stat page, which counts as another passage, when they look back at what they were reading, they're able to look at the link again. If you don't care about this, you don't need the if statement—but I'll include it anyway.

2. THE LOOK1 SPAN. The look1 span contains the entire thing, because whatever is inside the span will be replaced when the replace macro is executed. You can call this span anything of course, just make sure the replace macro replaces the specified ID.

3. THE LOOK SPAN. This is actually entirely different from the previous span. The previous span is used by the replace macro to replace everything that it contains; this look span styles the link. If you want the link of your look interaction to look distinct from your other links, you'll want to include a span specifically for this.

Here's a link to the Pastebin of how I style my links in the Story Stylesheet:

4. INSIDE THE LINK, PART 1. Set the variable of the looking variable to true and use the popover macro from Chapel to popover the new screen. I use "noclick" because my popover dialog can be quite long, and I don't want them to accidentally click out of the popover while scrolling. Usually, you click anywhere on the screen to exit; with the "noclick", there is an X button instead.

The popover macro "pops over" in a new dialog everything that is inside it before its closing tag. I use the include macro to include a different passage (optional, but recommended if your popover is going to be long).

5. INSIDE THE LINK, PART 2. Now this is the replace macro. The replace macro I use here replaces everything inside the look1 span with whatever is inside the replace macro's contents. Meaning, what will your link look like after you click on it? The link said "Salvatore" previously, but after clicking on it, I made it so that it still only says "Salvatore" right after.

I used a span class called "looked" to style the text to show that you've clicked on the link before. I did this so that people know where the text has changed. Here's how I did it in the Story Stylesheet (also included in the Pastebin already):

Same color, no font weight, and styles normal text instead of links.

6. ELSE. Of course, if the player has already looked at the link before, you will want to do the same thing you did in Part 5, albeit without the replace. Again, this is only relevant when players can click on a different passage and return to that passage where it can be looked at (e.g. looking at a stat page and then returning).

7. CLOSING TAGS. Make sure to keep organized with your closing tags, there are many here. The looked span should end before the link ends; the look span ends after the link ends; the else statement comes next, with its own span that ends after the last if closing tag. This all sounds confusing on text, so go ahead and just look at the screenshot above.

New sentences in a passage

There is almost no difference if you don't use Cycy's way, except that I don't use the popover macro. You don't have to use the include macro here though, especially if the text that it reveals is minimal. In the case of revealing entire paragraphs or choices, though, I recommend using include.

If you do use with Cycy, I highly recommend looking at the guide "without Cycy". Again, the code is the same, except there is no ((popover))—just ((replace)) with ((include)) inside.

Closing Thoughts

I'm sorry if this guide or the demo on itch.io is a bit scuffed, it's late and I'm rushing to put it out, but I hope it helps! Please let me know if you have any more questions, and again, thank you so much for asking and being interested!! <3

#asks #anon #coding resources #twine resources #sugarcube resources #looking macro #looking interaction

[hrodvitnon]

Abraxasverse Headcanons - The Titans

Some headcanons of mine about the Titans, specifically their differences. ;)

(1) How Titans understand each-other - As the TV Tropes page on Animal Talk points out on the “Playing With” page and in the first paragraph of the main page, the “all animal species understanding each-other” aspect of the trope isn’t exactly realistic to real animals. Even we humans can only understand our own species’ foreign languages by learning them. But I think there’s a way that the trope can be justified in the case of the different Titan species which all have very distinct-sounding vocalisations: telepathy. We already know Ghidorah, their shed skins and the Many have very potent telepathy that enabled Ghidorah to pick up information like Vivienne’s name in Antarctica, and Mothra seems to show pretty strong telepathy too. Then there’s the KotM end credits’ mention of the links between some ancient humans and Titans being telepathic in nature.

I can imagine that most of the other Earthborn Titans at the very least have some low-level telepathy (how powerful it is varies from species to species, but mostly it’s nowhere near Ghidorah and Mothra’s levels), which is enough to act like a kind of “anti-language barrier crutch” when they’re communicating with Titans outside their own species or Titans they’ve never heard before. It probably isn’t half as effective at bridging human-Titan cross-species communications as it is at bridging Titan-Titan cross-species communications because of some explanation like human neurology being much smaller than Titans’.

(1.5) Fitting with a semi-realistic take on Animal Talk, I can imagine that it’s not just Titans of separate species that need at least low-level telepathy as a language-bridging crutch to communicate. I can imagine it also applies to Titans of the same or very similar species meeting if they’re from different cultures that haven’t interacted in aeons, such as Kong meeting the Scarred Ones.

(2) Why most Titans don’t make technology - Perhaps because, as intelligent as Titans are, sentient species that feel compelled to craft tools and use them to adapt their environment to suit themselves (humans, Kongs, Thor’s species) instead of the other way round, are in the minority. To other Titans, the idea of crafting any tools more sophisticated than, say, hurling a piece of wreckage you find, is just alien. Maybe for some Titans, their mindsets are fundamentally “you adapt yourself to your environment or suffer the consequences,” and “your tools are within (body and biology), not without.”

---

Nice! These make a lot of sense, yeah. It’s also possible that members of any given Titan species can have “accents” - not like human accents obviously, more like the difference between, say, how a European wolf howls vs an American wolf howl. It’s not as noticeable with endlings like Rodan, but might definitely be a factor in species with larger surviving members like the Scarred Ones sounding similar enough to Kong but just different enough to give him pause. Body language is also a key factor, and that alone can vary from species to species as well.

#submission #zerm2v0hg #zerm1v0hg #abraxasverse

[pokemonunderdogtournament]

Hi! I've seen you receive a (rather rude) message in the past about the 12-hour later reblogs of new polls - I am not here to be rude about them. They are kind of frustrating for me and hard to filter off my dash. I'm guessing the reason for them is so people don't miss the polls. Is there any chance you'd make a poll for who likes/wants those reblogs and who doesn't?

Ah, yes, so the purpose of the 12th hour rbs is basically to cast a wide net for those in different time zones/people who are going on Tumblr at different times of day. If you see one poll on your dash, you may be motivated to pop in here to see what else you might've missed and so on.

The problem with removing them is, I have consistently seen large numbers of votes come from the timezone reblogs, moreso even than letting the polls run for more than one day, so they are, on a significant level, vital to the health of the tournament.

I guess the main thing I don't necessarily understand is what specifically about them makes them hard to filter out vs other posts you want to filter out? I am more than willing to update aspects of the tagging system if there is something about my specific tag that makes it difficult. (Additionally, if you are primarily a desktop user, X-Kit allows you to minimize and even entirely hide filtered posts, though these settings apply to all filtered posts.)

If that parenthetical isn't a solution, there is always the option of following the poll tag specifically (#uptunderdogtournament) and unfollowing this blog. It exists pretty much for that purpose. I'm not sure how many people do that but it was at least one for the main tournament.

But yeah, because of how important it is, I'd even be more inclined to switch to one day polls than to remove the timezone rbs (not that that's on the table—no one has complained about the 1-week polls). The only other option I can think of is to switch them to halfway reblogs, which wouldn't reduce the number of self-reblogs at all, but at the very least they'd be more separated temporally. I had originally thought of implementing this in the main tournament but figured the cons (even more clutter, scheduling conflicting with other 12th hour rbs) outweighed the benefits. The problem with switching to this only is that it de-emphasizes the importance of wanting to deliver these polls to the full international audience, at least within the same 24 hour period.

There is, of course, a lot more to say specifically about the strategy of these rbs. For instance, reblogging only a few does mean less clutter, but it also unbalances the polls—some people won't check what they've missed—so this is not an option... But I figure you sending this ask was not an invitation for me to write a full book on why I see them as vital lol, so just know like there's more than what I included here.

#inquiries

[demondamage]

I'm sorry if you've already answered in another ask, but I haven't seen it: if your angels and demons have (largely unrestricted) regenerative and healing capabilities, how can they maintain their gender-affirming alterations (whether masculine or feminine in nature)? Did they receive their gender-affirming care while human? If a demon or angel determined they were trans after death, how would they alter their form appropriately? Generally - how does this part of your lore work?

Anon I love you for this ask holy FUCK-- Because I have like-- the first bit of this figured out and then you throw a whole ass wrench in my lore?????

So- when a human dies and ends up reincarnated, if they become an angel they are made a brand new body separate from their human one that is aligned with how they see their ideal self. Because of this, a lot of angels who were trans in life and wanted to fully transition on the Male or Female side of this are basically reborn in a cis body (this is what happened with Haziel!!). For NB angels or trans angels who did not want to fully transition, or who's ideal self carries visible markers of being trans, their new bodies will be aligned with their ideal self in that sense. Same sort of thing with disabilities and body types- an example being Kotarou, albino and not the best vision, never considered himself having a life with great vision and as such his afterlife involves him using magic and other skills since he does not technically see the best. Its rooted in personal choice I guess?

Demons are a lil different, since instead of being gifted a new body upon reincarnation, they instead have their human body changed and "corrupted" into the demon form. A similar rule applies, their body will change to reflect their gender/other aspects as they see themselves, however the transition is less perfect, with heavy scars/body horror stuff and may appear more "trans" than an angel would (hence why Aziphem's top surgery scars are dark and visible). I haven't drawn many demons, but when I do, I love to take inspiration from wild displays of gender and a love of trans bodies for how they differ from cis bodies? IDK a lot of this aspect of the lore is born from my personal relationship with my own trans body and how I am perceived by others/vs myself? I wont dump my own personal lore here lol yall didn't ask for that-

Anyways, these forms are what they revert to when they heal, and as such, any gender affirming modifications would be considered inherent to their form.

Now where you throw a wrench in my lore is what happens when an angel or demon transitions after death--

My best guess (I say as if I do not write and control the lore in this universe...) would be that their form would change as their view of themselves does. With angels it would probably be more fluid and smooth, vs demons where it would be more physical in the sense they are actively performing these modifications on themselves. This would also apply to gender fluid folks if I think about it--

The root of a lot of this world's magic is based in manifestation. The ability to say things into existence (especially for angels since they are derived from the diety of creation-). I've written a lil bit of Kotarou using magic where using commands he can force someone to do something, and that would apply with just about any situation? So with gender being such a strong expression of self, I would imagine that it would be able to alter an angel or demon's true form, even after it was created and even in creatures who are not that attuned with magic.

Anyways- FANTASTIC ASK Anon, I gift you a cookie, a head pat, and send you on your way.

#Necrotrophic Soul #Answered Asks #Lore

[life-on]

Okay I’ve been scouring sunnyblr (which I am admittedly new to) for a while and I have not yet come across the following theory: Mac is lying about all the gay sex he’s supposedly been having. The times we see Mac being explicitly gay onscreen with another guy (outside of The Gang) are few and far between. Just off the top of my head we have the stripper from PTSDee, the dads he was flirting with at laser tag, the hot priest from Ireland, and his in-person date from Frank Vs Russia. Yet he talks himself up constantly?? It’s very strange he hasn’t had a boyfriend of any kind since he officially came out. And I may be applying logic to a situation which has none but I keep coming back to the fact that RCG (maybe just Rob) said it was homophobic to keep Mac in the closet which is why they wrote him coming out. I don’t necessarily disagree with that but if you follow that reasoning then it’s homophobic that Mac hasn’t had a real boyfriend, it’s homophobic that he’s spent multiple seasons pining over his (a thousand air quotes) “straight” friend (that second point is a separate topic), so part of me has to believe it’s intentional. Because they know right?? They’re aware that it’s very noticeable that Mac hasn’t had a boyfriend yet right?? One of Mac’s defining characteristics is he’s delusional about every aspect of his life, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he brags about banging dudes left and right despite it not being true. I guess the only question is…if this is an intentional thing, where is it going?? Am I onto anything here?

#iasip #mac mcdonald #is this anything?

[halcy0ng1rl]

Symbolism in Resident Evil Zero

(disclaimer, I look into things too much)

The entire game has a focus on the idea of Good vs Evil, which in the early game, Rebecca and Billy seem to take the two sides of. (of course as it goes on that idea is shattered, but it’s still very prominent in most of the symbolic aspects of this game)

The first example of this are the good and evil statues, which when placed both on the scales, have an equal weight.

(even the brady games guide book from 2002 calls this “a symbolic balance”)

This next one is a bit of a stretch, but the Verse of Poetry found un the training facility can be applied to Rebecca and Billy’s current predicament. Unless i’m totally reaching and i’m delusional but whatever

“A woman in love with a demon” painting, or really, one of Titania and Bottom from one of Shakesphere’s works. In the original story, Titania is punished by her husband and has a love spell placed on her, that causes her to fall in love with the weaver, Nick Bottom. Bottom’s head was turned into a Donkey’s as result of another spell. However, for the sake of my oozing brainrot, we’ll ignore most of that. The thing that interests me the most is how Zero phrased it. (Resident Evil ignores most of the actual stories behind the paintings they use, an example can also be used in Zero when there’s a painting of a man but says it’s an “aristocratic lady”.) You find this painting in the hall next to the blue leech door, a colour that has been associated with Billy (will get into that later). The games iteration of the painting could represent Rebecca finding herself more trusting of Billy, wholly believing that he’s innocent, and knowing he’s not a “demon” like everyone claims him to be. This painting normally being found by Billy could be a representation of what he wants at that moment: affection.

Resident Evil Zero and colour:

Zero uses colour to display mood a lot of the time. When Rebecca learns Billy has “killed 23 people”, the room takes on more of a grey tone, and the entirety of the section when Rebecca is alone without Billy after he falls in the water is very monotonous, and dark. There’s a sense of looming dread over the maybe 20 minutes you play as her. When she’s back to Billy, the rooms up ahead are still disgusting (thanks a lot James Marcus, love what you did with the place) but they take on more colours. Green and Blue walls, the option to fight the Proto Tyrant alongside Billy rather than alone, more glowing lights and things like that. The leech charms are separated into two colours, Blue and Green. In the main story, It’s more convenient to find the green one as Rebecca (The mixing set is needed) and the blue one as Billy. Even in the leech hunter minigame it alludes to this, Billy needs to collect blue, Becca with green. Even in their character designs this is evident. Rebecca’s S.T.A.R.S uniform is almost entirely green, and Billy’s tanktop has purpley blue undertones.

Anyway that’s it for my overbearing obsession with this game, Happy saturday 🫶🫶

#resident evil #resident evil zero #rebecca chambers #billy coen #re0 #rebecca chambers x billy coen #biohazard #biohazard zero #i think too much about this stuff lol it probably means nothing

[shiny-holographic-star]

Astrology

Natal Chart Observations

Aries Sun

Leo Sun

Sagittarius Sun

Cancer Ascendant

Lilith (h13) observations, 2

Sirene (1009) observations

Aspects

Applying vs Separating

Separating sextile

Asteroids - my interpretation

Sirene (1009)

Synastry observations

Sirene (1009)

Chiron

Composite chart observations

Capricorn Sun

Solar Return 2023/24 Observations

Leo Ascendant

Libra Venus in the 2H (Fashion)

12 House in Cancer at 8° (Dreams)

Taurus Moon in the 9H (coincidence with composite chart with friend)

9th House stellium (Travel/spirituality)

Intuitive / Tarot

Messages for the Sun Signs (Spirit animal oracle)

#astrology #astrology observations #astro placements #astro community #astro posts #solar return #asteroid astrology #astro chart #birth chart #masterlist #masterpost

[johannestevans]

Hi, this is the anon who was asking about the afab term stuff 👋

Firstly thanks for the longer explanation, I hope it wasn't too frustrating for you, I really don't mean to bother you, so if this is too many questions feel free to ignore it

Secondly, this has actually kinda explained a couple things about my own experience with the terms, like how people asking if I'm afab/amab (which doesn't really apply to me in a binary/dyadic sense) has always felt a little like someone asking my deadname. So thanks for making me consider that more from a different perspective

Thirdly, my experience from having my identity heavily medicalised (intersex healthcare in the UK is a mess) and from being raised by a doctor is that female sex vs female gender were two separate things, and that one doesn't always correspond to the other. I never really approached the idea that female/male sex weren't useful/real categories because their meanings to me were entirely anatomical definitions of a collection of parts that are usually found together. To me it would be completely the same to refer to them as Sex A and sex B, with the understanding that there are people who fit neither category. Intersex anatomy is often talked about as if its the crossover in a Venn diagram of characteristics, between the two categories of 'male sex' and 'female sex'. For this purpose having those categories for communication purposes, is somewhat helpful, e.g to say that an increase in my testosterone will cause my male characteristics to become more prominent. The categories serve a purpose for communication more than anything else.

If the categories weren't using the words female/male do you think it would be any better of an experience for you? Aka if the terms used to describe them had no relation to any gender identity, but there was still two prominent categories.

Of course I can see the issue with when people assume that you fall exactly into one category or another, so regardless of name/language no number of categories should ever be assumed to be a universal set, but that doesn't mean that the terms don't have positive uses. Our language exists for us to communicate, so if terms to describe a category of anatomical parts help us do that, surely they still have meaning/usefulness?

Nope, don't worry about it, Anon! If anything bothers me so much that I don't want to answer it, I'll say or I'll just delete the ask.

I absolutely think that some people do ask after ASAB because they want to just find out what people "really" are and whatever, have just internalised the whole gender aspect and do think of some trans people as being female (good) and male (bad), and there's so much transmisogyny baked into it, but also just... misanthropy, you know? Like a real distaste for the variety in humanity and a desperate desire to force everyone into particular categories.

The thing about current medicalised perceptions of intersex identities is that there are dozens of so-called "intersex conditions", but we literally have 0 way of knowing how many people are the "pure" standard of female with the exact female anatomy and the "pure" standard of male with the exact male anatomy without like, MRI-ing and later dissecting massive swathes of the population and comparing them all, and we don't do that because people want the male/female divide to exist when like.

It doesn't, not in the way people want to imagine it does.

These are broad categories people have projected onto people, and while I agree that medical professionals knowing someone's physical anatomy is valuable, I actually think that the M/F binary actually is more likely to harm them than otherwise.

Many doctors will meet someone who they assume was AFAB, and therefore they must have all this anatomy, and then they'll just put any abdominal or even chest pain down to their period, on top of not really caring how much pain they're in - and then they won't even check for shit like appendicitis or gut problems or even more significant uterine problems like endometrioisis, but also like... testicular torsion.

I frankly don't agree that "female sex" and "male sex" are genuinely useful categories. They're just weaponised too much for me to believe that - I think we should do away with M/F categorisations on birth certs and medical records, and that doctors should have to fucking, God forbid, examine people to see what their problems are.

I'm so sorry that you've received shitty treatment for intersex medical issues, several of my friends are intersex and experience just roadblock after roadblock - even as a probably dyadic trans dude with a few chronic issues it's just painful to navigate, and I just get pissed off because it's complicated by doctors religious devotion to a cis medical binary that's not nearly as important as they desperately want to believe it is.

#musings #anonymous

[cee-grice]

Happy WBW! I noticed your tags on a post where you mentioned magic ethics and I'm curious - are there any magical laws or anything else related to ethics with magic that you'd like to mention? I'd love to hear about how that functions in your world.

hi!! thanks for the ask!! it's such a fun one, because this IS a very interesting topic to me that I'd love to talk about more haha

also. I fucking lied. I said 'a slight bit' of discussion, but actually, there's a LOT of discussion of this in the story lmaoo. idk why I said a bit??? it's literally at the center of the conflict??? holy hell omg i'm tired

okay, so. magic ethics is HUGE in my setting, to the point where there's a whole separate branch of law that's dedicated to all the minutiae of it. it's... quite a complicated topic ahaha.

(also, I'm gonna be covering the ethics of magic in just One country, where the story takes place, but I wanted to mention that this stuff does vary from place to place)

so, first things first. to perform magic, you need a magia conduit. to get a magia conduit, you need a license. to get a license, you need to have finished appropriate studies in appropriate institutions (most commonly, magic-focused academies, but some specialized vocational schools offer it, too), so it's definitely not a thing Anyone can do. and you can very much lose that license for misconduct (this is, of course, not mentioning anything outside the law lol).

ethical violations are the most common reason people lose their licenses. broadly speaking, using magic on/against other people is, in most cases, not allowed. this affects some areas more than others - for example, charm magic, which is essentially manipulation of the psyche. this branch of magic is the most heavily regulated, for obvious reasons lol. it helps that, 1) in most cases, people can tell they've been charmed afterwards (it takes a very adept charm user to fully conceal it), and 2) magic always leaves a trace, so even if the person doesn't remember, it can still be uncovered if they'd been charmed, even a long time ago. rule of thumb is that you may only charm someone if they had given their consent, but even that can get pretty muddy lol

of course, an entirely different set of ethics apply to magic academies and research institutions. which is where some major parts of my story's conflict rise from, actually lol

essentially... wow, I'm struggling to condense everything here because the whole story is very much intertwined heavily with this topic, but. a huge part of magic advancements come from research done on people - specifically those afflicted with magical conditions. ''but wait!'' I hear you say. ''isn't it forbidden to do magic on people?" well! depends. to put it very simply, every study needs to get approved by an ethical committee, who weight the potential harm the subjects may experience vs the potential knowledge gained from the study. and potential knowledge is the most valued aspect of any study (or person).

thus, if you can prove that your study could hugely advance the understanding of some part of magic, then, in terms of ethics, you can get away with a lot.

now, this brings us to an interesting part of the justice system. depending on the severity of a mage's transgression, their punishment may range from a temporary suspension of their license to the death penalty (which, fun fact, Quil almost got HA). somewhere in the middle of that falls exile. and that is by far the most popular form of punishment for disgraced mages (only those who are deemed active threats to society get locked up, which in academia circles happens quite rarely).

why? well. I'd love to go in depth, but this is already getting too long lol. guess you'll have to wait to read the story to get the full picture! but, putting it shortly, remember what I mentioned about potential? yeah. there's also a reason why those exiled mages don't actually get their magia conduits confiscated... sure, other countries would confiscate them if they chose to travel there, but there's the whole Wilderness! you can do whatever there! you can even continue your...studies...that got you exiled.... hm. hmm.....

also, here, have this snippet:)

But of course she dared. From the moment he’d walked through Cielle Academy’s doors, he’d given them his life, and even death hadn’t been enough to release him. He’d died, and yet they still dragged him back. Because it hadn’t been the right time. Because they hadn’t given him permission. There was a reason, after all, why exile was such a popular punishment for disgraced mages. Let them see how life looked like beyond all they’d ever known, let them see exactly what they’d lost, and when the Academy graciously offered them forgiveness, they’d come running back like starved dogs. Never again would they dare step out of line. Never again would they betray the Academy's trust. Because it was where they belonged.

well, anyway. I love complicated and perhaps-kinda-immoral ethics lol

#wbw #wwcc worldbuilding #wwcc wip #oop this got long ahaha #can u tell i'm p passionate about this topic lol #ty for this ask omg #:DD

[basedkikuenjoyer]

1082 you were worth the wait. This is a fun one. Starting off with the Marines, reeling from Cross Guild’s own bounty system. We also get to see the lovely Hina. This line in particular though. It’s the exact type of thing I’d pull out as an example of Egghead making explicit Wano’s subtler themes that are usually big ones Kiku holds up. If anyone said it. Naturally though, the Crane is such a big motif that it carries more weight coming from the Great Advisor.

As far as I’m concerned, bookending another intermission chapter with this and anything on Kamabakka is staying the course. Wouldn’t it be wild if the middle had something like a big beat for showing off the raw power of saying the right thing at the right time?

Smash cut to CrocHawk having a business talk while a battered clown hangs in the background will never not be funny. Hi Buggy! Always a favorite face for us here and one we were talking about well before introducing Cross Guild. For everything said about her crossing paths with Shanks in The Red Thread of Fate, that could all equally apply to Buggy. You’re used to seeing him look like the fool and Shanks the cool guy, we play with that very idea heavily in this chapter. A situation built around the pair being curious about Neko & Inu’s big sister when they had a few hours in Wano though...guy like Buggy might actually be a little better at reading between the lines. 

What comes from this alone is vindication for looking at the tail end of Wano into Egghead through this lens. It’s a clarion call this is what we’re playing with and it makes perfect sense for this point in the story. Power vs. the Illusion of it. Using either responsibly when the world rocks in your wake. How even empty bluster at the right moment can change the course of history. To pile on with this idea of reignting dashed dreams, feeling outshone by another...it’s easy to forget this chapter started with VA Tsuru spelling out the “products of our environment” theme.

“There’s a difference between battle prowess and winning or losing.” Buggy just claimed a victory over Crocodile & Mihawk. And I love his philosophy. Snag the treasure, screw the fight. Buggy’s legitimately showing how he has the capacity to rise to the occasion here. When push came to shove, he got his way and a big part of that is that the apparatus is his to be fair. But he took charge and did it flashily. The right words at the right time can accomplish so much. 

You know what would be a great way to beat someone like this? Choosing the right moment to expose and humiliate them publicly. There’s also this big element of rekindling a dream. Reasons you might bury the true one, settle for less. This chapter leans so heavily into this running thread I’ve been on about. So many aspects of Egghead so far have just been hammering in this territory the quiet lady from Wano can bundle together so elegantly but Buggy here is sprinting ahead with it in this intermission.

Then it just keeps giving. Subtle, but the exact type of thing I was looking for out of Shanks in that Red Thread post. We’ve already poked a little at the bit about the high bar of swaying loyalties. Blackbeard did it, Buggy’s more succeeding where Rocks failed through sheer charisma, Shanks has his gag of failing to poach Marco. A weak fleet. Losing Buggy as a potential underling here. It always stuck with me he has a pretty weak philosophy. “If two people can’t see eye to eye, it’s best they go their separate ways.” Clearly has all the potential in the world, but lacks the drive. That idea of a stifled prodigy. 

It’s that he feels like he lacks something here. Bare minimum, I do still see that heavy potential for it to stem from the brief visit to Wano and an encounter with the then-slightly older Kiku. It’s such a perfect spot and you could use her in so many ways to cloud Shanks through those themes of looking out for the masses, poise & composure, being responsible with power. Seeing the harm Oden caused incidentally is a great initial spark to making that decision of staying with Buggy rather than going to Laugh Tale. Snowballing into whatever he asked Roger about that moved him to tears. What spurred this change of heart here. Just like Luffy will ultimately need to surpass Shanks, Shanks based on what we’ve seen could be someone who failed to feel like he’s done so with Roger.

#one piece #chapter 1082 #captain buggy #post-Wano musings

[oceanbaby888]

Astro Observations by Claude! 💕🔥🦋✨👽👾

Don’t steal my work. Do your own research hoe.

- Mars-Mercury natives may pick up on skills quickly or learned concepts quicker than their peers in school. This is esp if the aspect is conjunct or trine. 🔥

- Pluto in the 3H natives could have a hard time expressing themselves due to some backlash or pain surrounding how people respond to their communication styles. These natives like to speak the truth, even if it hurts. Yet, Pluto is a triggering planet so the result is a a lot of triggered folks.

- Neptune in 2H may lose things a lot or misplace them often. ☁️��🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️

- I discussed this with some Astro peers of mine, and the most elevated planet (planet nearest the MC) could also give insight on the best fit career for you. Also check your progressed chart too as it represents you at the current time.For ex: if Uranus is the most elevated, then astrology, physics, programming, freelancing, or social work could be best fitted for you career wise. ✨🌟

- The 4th house talks about family & ancestry but it also talks about safety. This angular house talks about what foundations make us feel safe. Some come from horrible family backgrounds, so look to your 4th house as a house of where you find that sense of emotional stability, comfort, and safety. I hope this helps. 🥺

- The 6H/12H is quite an extreme axis. Extreme as in “we’re either cleaning and fixing all of this with no breaks.” vs. “well fuck it, it happens as it happens.” I feel like I couldn’t capture the extremity in words but I know these placements know what I’m talking about.

-Speaking of, the 12H can show places where you need to surrender to not cause your own undoing. It’s like reverse psychology. Want better results? Don’t try so hard for it. For ex: a Leo in the 12H shouldn’t fight too hard to be seen. Yes it may hurt, but 12H wants you to go with the flow and then eventually you’ll get what you’re looking for. They can’t ignore you forever. 🤷🏾‍♀️

-People with a chart filled with air houses (3H, 7H, 11H) need a community. They need to be able to socialize and make new ideas and new experiences with people. And if your NN is in one of these houses, you may not think so but having a strong community will strengthen you! 👩🏾👨🏾👶🏾👧🏾🧓🏾👴🏾🧍🏾‍♀️

- Having an Aries or Pisces AC is quite rare. It’s because in the Northern hemisphere these signs rise for a shorter amount of time. Quite interesting when I read about that because I truly don’t know many Pisces or Aries rising people. 🤯♓️♈️

- If you have many aspects in your chart (as some people don’t), look at the aspects with the smallest orbs (0°-3°) and I would argue applying aspects (go on Astro.com, pull your chart, look at the aspects column, and if you see a number and “A” = applying aspect while “S” = separating aspect). This may be the most prominent aspects you may feel in your waking life.

I hope you learned something! Tell me your Astro observations as well!

-Claude

#astrology blog #astrology #astrology mention #spirituality #astrology notes #astrology observations #learning astrology #astro notes #astrology basics #spiritual blog #astro observation #ask claude #astrology for beginners #Astro lessons #black blogs #black woman astrology #Astro