#in terms of complementarity

[ave-immaculata]

sincere question: how do you guys think Catholic women ought to interact with men who aren't their husband/family? how is it the same as or different than women?

[itspileofgoodthings]

anyway this is what’s happening with Taylor and Travis and why the world is losing their minds.

[elysiansparadise]

Hi! I'd like to know more about Mars square Saturn in synastry if you're up to it. Thank you.

How to deal with Mars-Saturn square in synastry?

The square between Mars-Saturn can cause differences when it comes to taking action. One may be more action-oriented, while the other tends to think too much before doing something. Their approach when implementing an idea can be very different, creating irritability or frustration depending on the occasion. One party may constantly feel 'held back' by the other. 

As for practical approaches, I can mention the following:

🤍Accept your differences: Through acceptance, complementation can come. You two are a team and having different approaches can make them an excellent one, mixing the ability to act of one and the ability to plan of the other can lead to not only achieving success, but to being a very strong and lasting couple in the long term. Understanding that differences are not necessarily a bad thing and keeping an open mind by recognizing the good side of these traits in the other can help you create a healthy and supportive environment.

🤍Identify friction and come to agreements: Talk about situations where you feel like you are clashing with the other [for example, money, responsibilities, time together]. This step creates a foundation of mutual understanding and allows you to anticipate future problems. To avoid recurring frustrations, it is essential that the couple work on conscious agreements about how to act in situations of conflict or making important decisions.

🤍Honest and constructive conversations: Don't be afraid to tell your partner how you feel or if you see it as optimal for both of you to make changes. It is important that both seek the well-being of the other without this meaning demotivating them or offering destructive criticism, you can disagree without harming the other person. Tact is a crucial part, but it requires honesty for it to be positive and useful. You need to talk about your feelings, needs, preferences and dislikes.

Some aspects in astrology that can help with this are the following:

🩶Aspects between Mars/Uranus and Moon not only create a happy, positive and comfortable environment in this couple, but both can help each other get out of their comfort zone by reassuring the other that they will be there to make the process smooth and positive for the other. There is a strong camaraderie between them and they work together to ensure that the relationship progresses and does not feel tense.

🩶The aspects between Mercury-Saturn can give you tact to say things. You can help each other through advice to shape or give more structure to your partner's ideas [in the case of Saturn person], or provide greater productivity and guide to action [in case of Mars person]. Constructive criticism, support and ease of sharing your projects, ideas or ways of thinking with your partner without feeling attacked.

🩶The harmonious aspects between Mars-Venus greatly favor sexual and romantic compatibility, and of course, a pleasant and comfortable coexistence for both. Promotes complementarity, the ability to connect in a calm, patient and loving way with your partner and seek to move forward and grow from love and affection.

🩶When we find harmonious aspects between Mars and Jupiter, it not only creates great sexual chemistry and makes it easier to maintain a lively and positive coexistence, but it also favors the resolution of conflicts. This couple seeks to find ways so that both benefit from the decisions they make together, they seek justice and what is right for both of them. Likewise, these aspects create this ease to see a future together in which things look brighter.

🩶When Jupiter is making a conjunction, trine or sextile with Saturn gives the couple that willingness to work on the relationship, the maturity to solve issues calmly and in a practical and beneficial way for both. Likewise, making this couple last over time. The commitment they feel with each other does not feel limiting, since both can guide each other and grow together.

🩶The harmonious aspects between Uranus and Saturn reinforce commitment without the relationship becoming suffocating, since the spark of the unexpected is maintained and refreshes the dynamic. This can be key to alleviating any feelings of stagnation. It is a mix of fluidity with stability, which can provide a supportive and long-term oriented environment.

🩶Your Mars falling in the 6th, 9th or 10th house: With these Mars overlays, the Mars person can help your partner feel more motivated, energetic and able to achieve things. Both will have an energizing effect on the other. Mars in the 6th or 10th does the task of 'shaping' the other's ideas very well, giving them realistic and more achievable perspectives without demotivating the other, support and a way to act and achieve things in the long term. And Mars falling in the 9th house can bring new perspectives and encouragement to your partner.

🩶Mercury falling in the other's 1st, 3rd, or 4th house can be of great help, since any of the previous mentioned helps them connect very easily. Not only in terms of getting to know them well, but also creating a strong intellectual connection in which they feel that they are in tune with what someone else really thinks or believes. The conversations are fluid and they feel that they can be open with each other without being judged.

🩶Honorable mention to: If you and/or your partner have mutable Moon, Mars or Mercury. Pluto-Jupiter trine or sextile. Sun-Mars harmonious aspects.

[queeranarchism]

Feel like this should be getting some more attention.

"Now, an investigation by the Guardian and the Israeli-based magazines +972 and Local Call can reveal how Israel has run an almost decade-long secret “war” against the court. The country deployed its intelligence agencies to surveil, hack, pressure, smear and allegedly threaten senior ICC staff in an effort to derail the court’s inquiries. ...

It is this spectre of prosecutions in The Hague that one former Israeli intelligence official said had led the “entire military and political establishment” to regard the counteroffensive against the ICC “as a war that had to be waged, and one that Israel needed to be defended against. It was described in military terms.”

That “war” commenced in January 2015, when it was confirmed that Palestine would join the court after it was recognised as a state by the UN general assembly. Its accession was condemned by Israeli officials as a form of “diplomatic terrorism”. ...

On 16 January 2015, within weeks of Palestine joining, Bensouda opened a preliminary examination into what in the legalese of the court was called “the situation in Palestine”. The following month, two men who had managed to obtain the prosecutor’s private address turned up at her home in The Hague. ....

“If Fatou Bensouda spoke to any person in the West Bank or Gaza, then that phone call would enter [intercept] systems,” one source said. Another said there was no hesitation internally over spying on the prosecutor, adding: “With Bensouda, she’s black and African, so who cares?” ....

after the ICC had opened a full investigation into the Palestine case, Gantz designated Al-Haq and five other Palestinian rights groups as “terrorist organisations”, a label that was rejected by multiple European states and later found by the CIA to be unsupported by evidence. The organisations said the designations were a “targeted assault” against those most actively engaging with the ICC. ....

A core ICC principle, known as complementarity, prevents the prosecutor from investigating or trying individuals if they are the subject of credible state-level investigations or criminal proceedings.

Israeli surveillance operatives were asked to find out which specific incidents might form part of a future ICC prosecution, multiple sources said, in order to enable Israeli investigative bodies to “open investigations retroactively” in the same cases.

“If materials were transferred to the ICC, we had to understand exactly what they were, to ensure that the IDF investigated them independently and sufficiently so that they could claim complementarity,” one source explained."

28 May 2024

[pierogi-potwater]

A rambling defence of the pines twins

(Part 1)

I’ve been thinking about them all day. I basically want to psychoanalyse them all a bit and attempt to explain why I think, they think the way they do.

Though this is a defence of the characters, they are not perfect people! I’m not trying to say they have done no wrong or haven’t hurt people because they have. I just like saying why I think they did what they did. All their choices make sense from their perspective and I’m just saying why I don’t think they are ‘terrible selfish people’.

Some of this might be stealing insights from other people…sorry y’all have great thoughts and I’ll mention any instance where a thought isn’t fully original because I miss some really obvious stuff and I couldn’t have made these conclusions without this great community!!! Please, please, please provide your own thoughts I love having discussions with people! Like if I missed anything or you disagree with anything please say!

Spoilers for the show, the book of Bill, lost legends and journal 3 but I won’t be showing an screenshots. I should also mention, all quotes are from memory and I haven’t fully read TBOB or Journal 3 so apologies if I get any info wrong!

This is my first text post so apologies for any incoherence or poor formatting/grammar.

So! Starting with…

Stanley Pines

Stan! This guy: I love him! (Quick edit! I was hesitant to call Stan and Ford co dependant because that’s a medicalised term and they were kids/ teens but ig Bill already pointed that out! And calling out Fords PTSD? Dang…)

Going straight in, Stan and Ford were lonely kids, they only really had each other growing up so that ended up with them becoming somewhat reliant on each other. They’re a dynamic duo and as kids their dynamic isn’t something I’d call unhealthy (yet). They have a good complementarity of brains and punches; they are shown to stick up for, and support, one another. When Stan is accused of stealing his father’s watch: Ford goes out of his way to disprove the accusation, with his brother by his side. Even when presented with evidence for Stan stealing the watch, Ford gives his brother the benefit of the doubt and hears out his brother’s explanation that it was an accident and he intended to give the watch back as a Father’s Day gift but was scared of his father’s reaction to the broken case. He was just trying to do a nice thing and it backfired to make him look worse than he intended.

This leads me to how Stan was perceived as a kid, as a troublemaker. His father, being a typical man in the 60’s didn’t really outwardly express any affection towards the boys. All mention of care is normally an assumption or through actions. Of course healthy family dynamics don’t require constant praise and verbal declarations of love. Stan’s dad showed his care for his kid through enrolling him in boxing classes. That being said, the boys clearly didn’t have a good dynamic with their dad. Stan is assumed to be a naughty child and isn’t shown any benefit of the doubt. It isn’t indicated that he’ll ever be seen as anything but a trouble maker. So of course he doesn’t try to be anything else. He cheats off his brother academically and his whole future plan is reliant upon his bother. His future plan, I should also add, doesn’t include trouble making. He hopes to be seen as an adventurer and in this, is still rejecting the deterministic fate of being a huckster and fraud. He thinks needs his brother for this identity though. He is constantly compared to his brother in a degrading manner and isn’t encouraged to find his own niche as it is assumed that he will automatically choose criminality. His brother on the other hand is a genius that can do basically anything he wants in the future. He has a large choice of things he’d be smart enough to do and chose to specialise in science. Stanley has cemented his future success as needing his brother, but his brother so clearly doesn’t need him. And so in an accident while letting out his frustration, slams the table the perpetual motion machine is on and breaks it. The same embarrassment and shame stopping him from confessing to the broken watch case: once again stops him from telling Ford about the broken machine. Telling him about the broken machine could have allowed him to fix it and thus get into that dream school but he couldn’t bring himself to. Either because he’d be accused of doing it purposefully to sabotage his brother or because a shameful part of him wanted to sabotage his brother so he could in some way prove his brother needed him too. To secure a safe future for himself with the only person that has unconditionally loved and trusted him.

Of course that’s not what happened. It’s been pointed out that Stan’s current obsession with money and swindling people is because of his dad disowning him saying ‘only come back once you’ve made millions.’ and so, he hoards money. But, I’d also add the fact that peoples perception of him already being cunning and a fraud definitely added to this. His only other role model aside from his brother was probably his parents ( famously con people). Their dad only viewed the two of them as pawns out of their current financial position [as people have pointed out before]. His mother cared about him though which is sweet (and there’s a high chance that she probably didn’t have much say in Stanley being disowned). Stan still subconsciously wanted to make his parents proud and be accepted again. Another part of the current money hoarding is probably scarcity related. Stan had to live in his car and has been in debt to what I can only assume is the mafia: he likely doesn’t want that same outcome for his niece and nephew. This also might be why he considers arts and crafting his own money to be a fun bonding exercise with the kids. Stan’s dad only seeing his kids as cash cows likely plays into that as well (but it’s very clearly shown that the kids mean more than just money to him but generational habits are hard to shake).

The portal fight. Gosh, what a way to lose your twin brother… Of course after around 10 years of no contact with Ford he’d be both delighted and apprehensive seeing him again. The shame and guilt of what the machine breaking cost Ford; mixed with the hope that this meeting means that’s an event in the past; they are about to reconcile. When met with his paranoid brother pointing a crossbow at him immediately as he opens the door. The suspicion that he inadvertently caused this paranoia (much like being disowned caused Stan’s poverty) lingers. Not a great start. The brother he so hoped called for a reconciliation, and more time together, immediately tells him to go as far away from him as he can: using the same childhood dream he so desperately wanted all this time as a reference for the isolation process. The exact opposite of the dream, the reason he accidentally ruined Fords future with the fear of them being separated . The guilt once again rising. Of course Stan is upset and so tries to burn the journal so he can appease Ford as quickly as possible and try and reform a connection with him. There is no way Stan could have ever known what any of the context around why Ford wanted the journal intact but far away. He had no way of knowing what any of the equipment would or could do. So the fight begins as a confused Stanley wants to spend time with his brother but has no meaningful way to express that. A hurt Stanley that wants his brother to understand him but doesn’t have the emotional intelligence to say that. Ford accidentally brands him with a plate burning through his jacket ( image how hot it must have been for it to burn through his jacket and permanently scar him in those seconds he was pushed against it). When he accidentally activates the portal by pushing Ford into it: he freezes. How could he possibly know what to do to save him? And with the pain in his shoulder also clouding his vision.

It was pointed out to me that the carpet diem room was the same room Stanley stayed in while he worked on trying to save his brother. Ford’s bedroom. ( DEVASTATING HOW HE SECRETLY POCKETS FORD’S GLASSES AND THE ROOM WAS BOARDED UP UNTOUCHED, THE CALENDAR DATE BEING THE ONE THEY FOUGHT ON AUGHHHH). Similarly pointed out that Stan’s affinity to the statue of him was because it reminded him of his brother and the funeral touched him so much because for 30 years he’s been working on this portal to save his brother not knowing if the guy was even alive or not. Grieving the possibility of his twin brother and only friend being dead. (This killed me man :( no pun intended).

Stan learned the complicated science behind the portal despite science never being his strong suit. He worked on it for 30 years not knowing if Ford was even alive. He was willing to potentially risk the safety of gravity falls ( and the universe it was implied) to save his brother. The first thing he gets is a punch to the face as his arms are excitedly outstretched for a hug. He gets called a knucklehead (the thing his father called him after disowning him). Stan asked for a thank you.

The argument about Stan not wanting Ford and the kids spending time together for fear of their safety is pretty self explanatory in the show. The fandom has recognised that Mabel was lying about what she heard to protect Dippers notions of the author he has looked up to all summer. I didn’t think of this at first which is on me. She’s not a dumb character she just likes having fun and is a 12 year old. She gets too much hate ( ANYWAY sorry I know this isn’t about her but it was a nice character moment for her).

In weirdmageddon Stan refuses to hold Ford’s hand. While it -at first- seemed like a purely petty and idiotic thing to do, like then wasn’t the time, I can see why he did that. For Stan, the ‘thank you’ wasn’t just an acknowledgment of the work putting into saving Ford . He needed to prove he wasn’t the heartless con man people always saw him as. (Like he says in the show) .It was a promise that they weren’t going to immediately be separated again. An absolution of the guilt held for the perpetual motion machine breaking and the fight that sent Ford into the portal. In that moment he needed that ‘thank you’ because he needed to know that after the armageddon he wouldn’t be alone again. He needed reassurance that Ford wouldn’t just evict him from the house he made and the stable job he had with no brother to show for it as soon as this calamity was over. A promise that his brother still loved him.

Ford corrects his grammar after the forced thank you: proving all his fears to be correct.

He later sacrifices everything he knows to save Gravity falls, the last coherent thought he has being that of Dipper and Mabel.

Once regaining his memories, he calls the kids ‘ knuckleheads’ affectionately. A phrase used repeatedly to belittle him as an idiot he uses as a send off to the kids he loves so dearly to jokingly show how much he loves them.

Best of all, Stan and Ford finally do get to go on that adventure with the stan’o war. He gets the relationship he dreamed of with him and his brother, the genuine acknowledgment of how hard he’s worked and the genuine ‘thank you he needed.’

I love Stanley Pines!!!!!

Ok so some extra little notes unrelated to analysis :

I was going to make a single post about both the Stan twins here but I didn’t expect how much I’d actually write about Stan here! So a post each it is I assume.

A little reminder I don’t think Ford is a bad person. I’ll get into it in the next post but yeah one perspective at a time!

I somewhat wish the whole erasing his entire memory held more weight. It would have been a lot more impactful seeing it take a bit longer for his memories to come back if at all and give more meaning to his sacrifice. That being said it is a kids show and a finale ep is already heart wrenching. It also seems to be established the gun doesn’t fully erase anything so. Ehhh?

I love his interactions with the kids. Like he clearly leans towards Mabel because of how similar they are but it’s clear he loves Dipper with all his heart also just in a different way to Mabel as he hopes it better caters to him as a kid. He’s a super sweet guy but his rough exterior might make him a bit hard to like at first.

The bro code is so cute. I loved seeing Stan’s little ‘ love ya bro’ in his note to Ford. Screaming crying.

If you made it this far OMG THANK YOU!!!! I’m so normal I prommy. Feel free to DM me if you enjoy listening to more incoherent ramblings!! But yeah seriously I love making new friends so! Yeah! Thanks :^]

[gayleviticus]

in intra-christian arguments about LGBTQ+ issues i think there's always two main levels: 'what does the Bible say?' and 'what is our overarching narrative about queerness?', and i think a lot of resources that promote an affirming stance don't always take this into account.

by this distinction i mean that there's a difference between arguments like 'Leviticus 22.18 is about incest' and 'Know them by their fruits and the fruits of being non-affirming stink' - they're both biblically based, but one is defensively batting away clobber verses used as weapons, and the other is casting a broader narrative that gives queer affirmation some kind of weight.

conversely, for traditionalists, the difference is between something like 'Romans 1 says homosexuality is unnatural' and 'we all need to carry our crosses so suffering with suppressing your sexuality is noble and Christlike'. Again, both biblically based, but one serves to tell you what to do, and the other is the underpinning ideological justification.

(incidentally, i think it's quite frustrating that the anti-trans position in Christianity essentially relies on maybe one Bible verse we all ignore anyway by letting women wear pants, and is otherwise entirely dependent on having constructed an anti-trans narrative that is hardly the only or even obvious option for Christians)

so i think there are four quadrants to arguing for LGBTQ+ affirmation: 1) dismissing traditionalist readings of Scripture (e.g. 'Paul was only familiar with pederasty not committed adult homosexuality') 2) offering queer-affirming readings of Scripture (e.g. 'David and Jonathan were gay' or the Ethiopian eunuch) 3) Dismissing traditionalist narratives about why suppressing queerness is justifiable and good (e.g. 'carry your cross', 'gender complementarity', 'your identity is in Christ alone) 4) Constructing narratives about why queer affirmation is good (e.g. 'Know them by their fruits', 'Love is love', 'God created transsexuals the same reason he created wheat but not bread')

Now, I think a lot of arguments you see tend to focus on 1, 2, or 4.

Arguments for 1 I think often lack a lot of nuance and can honestly be quite bad, at least the passing ones you see online ("'homosexuality' as a term was added to the bible in the 1940s" is a huge oversimplification for starters, and i think the idea Leviticus is talking about pedophilia is confusing it with Paul's Epistles). But I think there are definitely good arguments out there, especially in books like Brownson's Bible Gender and Sexuality.

Arguments for 2 I think, to be honest, are often far too speculative and anachronistic to be helpful - we can certainly read David and Jonathan or the centurion and his slave etc queerly, but I think it goes too far to definitively project it back onto them for the sake of arguments. I think there's fruitful potential in reading things like Gentile inclusion in Acts queerly, or perhaps even, idk, the Book of Job. But these are easily the most spurious and least helpful arguments (which is not to say the Bible can't be interpreted pro-queerly; just that that comes out more in #4 in constructing pro-queer narratives).

Arguments for 4, I think, are actually quite powerful because they provide the underlying engine of actually wanting to be affirming. It's all well and good to argue dry technical points of ancient Hebrew or Greek exegesis, but if there's otherwise no compelling moral issue at stake - oppression of LGBTQ people, rejection of love, the risk of being locked into legalistic thinking, even just alienation from your LGBTQ+ loved ones - why would anyone care?

BUT on the other hand, they can also lapse into cliche and feel like arguments from emotion when they get prioritised over arguments about the actual text/theology. Which is frustrating, because in a sense these arguments are 'more important' - what's going to keep you committed to an affirming position long term, a realisation that the meaning of 'arsenokoites' in 1 Corinthians is ambiguous, or wholeheartedly believing non-affirming theology is ripe with bad and harmful fruits?

Finally, arguments for 3, I think, are relatively lacking. Arguments constructing pro-queer narratives implicitly counter anti-queer ones, obviously, and I think a bit of work has been done around dismantling gender complementarity (albeit not always in the context of LGBTQ+ issues) and the whole 'my identity is in Christ' (probably thanks to the Side B community tbh).

But I feel like there are other narratives that have gone not really explicitly addressed, like 'we all carry our crosses', 'Christians are called to be in the world and not of it; LGBTQ+ inclusion is a secular whim'. And I think these especially are narratives that we progressives are inclined to just dismiss out of hand, because they just feel inherently culty and authoritarian; they don't start from a place of good faith, the assumptions are faulty, let's not bother.

But I think it would be worth picking these apart further for the sake of people stuck in homophobic churches - fruitfully deconstructing what 'carrying your cross' means and the role of suffering in the Christian life, or clearly identifying where LGBTQ+ affirmation comes from within Christian theology, or working out why it's not a problem the secular world took the lead on this (because the Holy Spirit is working throughout history and is not so weak as to be limited to the church, because the church's role isn't necessarily been to be the only arbiters of moral progress, because religious institutions becoming corrupt and losing sight of justice is not a new concept to Christians etc)

[aspoonofsugar]

What do you think of Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss as stories? Are they thematically similar? Structurally?

Hello anon!

I love them both tbh! I think they are mostly on the same level in terms of quality (which is rather high imo), but they are very different when it comes to their focus:

Hazbin Hotel is mostly a theme-driven story, with a rather complex and over-arching plot. It focuses on the macrochosm.

Helluva boss is instead a character-driven story, with an episodic structure, recurring characters and more intimate conflicts. It focuses on the microchosm.

This difference is very obvious if you compare the two series' finales in their first seasons.

Helluva Boss's stakes are... Will Blitz and Stolas break up or will they manage to develop a healtheir bond? Will Blitz die alone or will he manage to let others into his life?

Hazbin Hotel's stakes are... Will the Hazbin Hotel crew defeat the Exorcists and save Hell? Will they die? Or will they survive? Will Charlie stop the Exterminations?

As you can see... the two conflicts at hands are completely different LOL... Which doesn't mean one if better or more serious or has higher stakes than the other. It simply means they are two completely different stories. This is also why I genuinelly feel confused when people compare it and try to determine which is better... they are two completely different genres.

Even worldbuilding-wise, they explore completely different things... With Helluva letting us explore Hell, while Hazbin focuses more on Heaven ironically.

At the same time, you can clearly see there is a thematic continuity between the two works. Both explore love and highlight how even in Hell it is possible to love and to find happiness. Hazbin Hotel does so by trying to change the order of Hell and Heaven. Helluva Boss instead does so by letting a couple of unhealthy demons developing a love story. I actually really love the complementarity of the two series! It is refreshing and a smart way to write different installments set in the same universe that are not repetitive, but actually enrich each other's stories!

Thank you for the ask!

[luzi35]

Doublesexual

Doublesexual is a label for those who experience attraction to doubles, exclusively and not. This can be doubles of themselves, doubles of their same source or sourcemates, doubles in appearance, doubles of their partners, doubles in-sys, doubles outside sys, and so on. Whatever fits your attraction to doubles.

This was made with plurality in mind but you can still use this label for kin, therians, irl, etc. doubles since it’s a term for attraction to doubles in general.

Color meanings: Verisomates / Reiteratives Sourcemates / Variants Attraction to Doubles Amitive / Metaject

The usage of complementary colors represent complementarity attraction.

Double lines represent doubling attraction. (As in general attraction to doubles amplifying)

Double flower represents double love. Pink roses have multiple meanings that can represent the symbol on a more personal level to your liking.

coined by Uzismoouzi (name of a certain group of Uzis who date within our++ collective here; SeeInk Junction)

[darklinaforever]

In fact, the only things that Sylvie and Loki really share, in terms of variations of each other, are the title of divinity of mischief and their powers.

Even though they don't practice exactly the same types of tricks, despite having the same power base and both being capable of the same things. For example, Loki didn't practice enchantment, yet his powers clearly allowed him to do so and it was Sylvie who taught him.

Beyond that, they do not share the same blood / DNA. They didn't grow up together either. Then in terms of their own individual, as I already said, they are different. They do not have the same personality, due to having lived quite opposite lives. Even in terms of Loki's identity, it diverges, in view of the name Sylvie bears, specifically to dissociate herself, and to make it clear that she is not Loki. She's not him. So incest or autocest is non-existent there.

All this to say that once again, the only thing they share as a variant is the title of deity of mischief and their powers.

The rest of their resemblance is simply attributed to most romantic couples wanting to be coded as soul mates and / or essentially a complementary relationship.

To have a concrete example and be more clear, Sylki is as similar as Reylo : - Different, but complicated pasts which return them to their feeling of loneliness. - Their problem of opening up to the world. - The feeling that no one else really understands them. - Similarity in combat techniques and synchronization of movements at various times, etc.

But precisely... if in terms of variation the only thing that Sylki really shares is the fact of being the divinity of mischief and their powers... doesn't that remind you of something ? Like... same divine tutelage and powers ? In the MCU universe ? Like... really not ?

And don't let anyone tell me that it doesn't count, since in the end Jane literally ends up dying as a warrior goddess and goes to Valhalla...

Thor is the god of thunder and Jane literally became the goddess of thunder by recovering her hammer, therefore recovering the same powers. She literally became Mighty Thor / Lady Thor...

So once again, two individuals (Thor & Jane) with the same title and the same powers...

Like Sylvie and Loki (Sylki) but without all this variant stuff ! (And like I said, the rest of their resemblance comes purely from the classic romantic coding involving complementarity / soul mate aspect) However, I haven't seen anyone have a problem with Thor and Jane, two individuals sharing the same divine title and powers, being in love...

[blackrainbowblade]

THE POWER OF PAIRS

One of the grounding principles of Ancient Egyptian thought was the idea of dualities. They conceived of the world existing as a series of complementary or, at times, opposing pairs. Even Egypt itself was known as the Two Lands (Tawy), which can refer to both the duality of Upper (southern) and Lower (northern) Egypt, and to the duality of the black land (Kemet - the fertile land around the Nile and delta) and the red land (desheret - the desert). The known world was made up of earth and sky (personified in the gods, Geb and Nut). Even the next life had a dual existence, sometimes described in celestial terms as an assent to the sky, and sometimes depicted as a journey through a chthonic underworld. Symmetry and complementarity pervades Egyptian art.

To the Egyptians, time itself was a duality. It did not exist in a linear fashion, which is how we often conceive of it, but instead, there were two kinds of time: eternity (djet) and perpetuity (enheh or neheh). 'Eternity' was considered a kind of stasis. It was the time in which stone monuments existed, static and unchanging. Of the two ideas, djet, is perhaps closer to our modern one, a continuing existence, stretching off towards forever. In contrast, enheh is cyclical time. It is time that repeats, yearly, monthly or even daily. The epitome of cyclical time is the cycle of the sun, its rising and setting every day. The repeated cycle of the seasons is also part of enheh.

It's understandably hard to get our heads around this. One way of looking at is is that the fact that we have such things as days or years, these are unchanging facts; they exist in djet time. But the individual events, the sunrises and sunsets, winters and springs, these exist in enheh time. Enheh sees constant change, death and rebirth. Djet, in contrast, is eternally unchanging.

This painting, in the tomb of Horemheb, shows Ra (in the form of Khepri, the scarab beetle) sitting back to back with his counterpart, Osiris. These two gods personify the dual aspects of time. Ra-Khepri represents enheh: he is the sun, constantly circling, always moving and always changing. (Even the name, Khepri, means 'becoming'). He is the king of the living world, which, simply by being alive, is caught in the cycle of life and death. Osiris represents djet: he is a good who was murdered and, in death, he became eternal and unchanging; he is the king of the dead.

When pairs with opposing characteristics, like this, are brought together, they represent completeness. Egypt's myths are defined by themes of separation and return. After his father's death, Horus is exiled to the wilderness; harmony is only returned to the world after he himself returns, claims his birthright and unites the Two Lands. In the myth of Sekhmet, chaos reigns when she leaves behind her father, Ra, and roams about the world, slaughtering mankind. Harmony is restored when she returns to her father. In the Book of the Dead, the journey of the sun is characterised as one full of hazards, where he daily risks his boat being run ashore on a sandbank or being consumed by the serpent, Apophis, in the western horizon. When Ra returns to the western horizon and, in the night, is united with Osiris, he is at last rejuvenated and reborn again.

Separation and union.

Separation and union were at the centre of Egyptian consciousness. In so many temples, you will see the symbol of unification. Here it is shown centrally with the cartouche of Ramesses above. It is usually flanked by a pair of gods. Here, both gods are Hapi, the personification of the Nile, but elsewhere, you will often see Horus juxtaposed with Seth. Such scenes reference an end to their fighting and the restoration of justice and stability to Egypt. In other versions of the motif, Thoth stands in for Seth. Thoth was a 'safe' option, since Seth was, at times, considered too dangerous a deity to depict. However, Thoth also forms a complementary pair with Horus because Thoth is a moon-god and Horus, a sun-god.

The idea at the heart of all these depictions is the union of opposing forces, resulting in the restoration of order and harmony (in Egyptian, 'maat').

[mariacallous]

Oh god, Reeves is back, and now the question (in conversation with the Institute for Family Studies) is: Is Marriage Dying or Just Changing? 

Editor’s Note: This article is an edited version of the transcript for the video, "Is Marriage Dying?" which Richard Reeves made with Big Think. It has been published here with permission.

There has been a general decline in marriage over recent decades. But behind that general decline lies a more interesting story. Marriage is diversifying, with different people tying the knot for very different reasons. But marriage is also dividing, especially along class lines.

To understand these marriage patterns, it is important we try to understand why people get married in the first place. There are perhaps five main reasons to marry: God, money, love, pregnancy, or status:

For some people marriage is simply a religious matter, a covenantal relationship. Marriage is a sacrament, especially in the Christian tradition. 

For many more people there's still an economic element to getting married. (On that note, let me give an early recommendation of Melissa Kearney’s forthcoming book, The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind.)

There is obviously also companionship and love: you fall in love and want to spend the rest of your life with someone. So, for many there's primarily a romantic element to marriage. 

Another reason for getting married, much less common today than in the past, is because of an unintended pregnancy, the so-called, "shotgun wedding." There was a sense that if you were bringing a new life into the world, then that should be done within marriage, and that remains true to some extent today.

Marriage is also a signal of status (what Andrew Cherlin calls the “trophy marriage”), and this may be more common today than in the past—being married is a way of signaling success and status within a society. 

So there are now a range of reasons, including religion, romance, economics, and status, that might lead people to the marital state. But it is clear that the “standard” model of marriage as breadwinner and childrearer is passing away. 

For women, the traditional model of marriage was an economic necessity particularly if she was planning to have children—to be with a man who would be the provider. Obviously, that has changed today. Women account for 40% of sole or primary breadwinners in U.S. households. 

For men, marriage was a way to attach himself to children. If he was going to have children, he had to do that with a woman who would raise those children, and so he had to provide for them. So, there was a complementarity inherent in the traditional view of marriage, but which, of course, was founded on a very deep economic inequality between men and women. 

That inequality was a driving force of the women's movement, especially for people like Gloria Steinem, who said the point is to make marriage into a choice rather than a necessity, and to actually free women from the economic bondage of marriage. “Being able to support oneself allows one to choose a marriage out of love and not just economic dependence,” Steinem said in 2004. That inequality and dependence has been successfully shattered by the women's movement. 

Today, the very institution of marriage, which is central to human societies, has been fundamentally transformed. It's an institution that is now entered into on the basis of egalitarian principles. Women have huge exit power—they are twice as likely as men to file for divorce. As a result, women are no longer stuck in bad marriages, which is a huge achievement for humanity. 

But for men, of course, the old role of providing while their wives raise the children has largely gone out of the window, too. Men's role in marriage and what it means for a man to be "marriageable," to use a slightly ugly term from social science, is very different now from in the past. When it comes to marriage, women are increasingly looking for something more than just a paycheck. 

It's a bit like the kaleidoscope has been shaken, and the patterns haven't quite settled yet. You see lesbian and gay couples being able to opt into marriage. Within a couple of years of the Supreme Court decision, we saw almost 3 out of 5 lesbian and gay couples choosing to get married. You also see a big class gap opening up: fewer working-class and lower-income Americans are opting into the institution. What we now have is what my colleague Isabel Sawhill describes as "a new fault line in the American class structure." No one expected that Americans with the most choice and the most economic power—and especially American women with the most choice and economic power—would be the ones who were continuing to get married and stay married. 

There's been a very slight decline in marriage for those with four-year college degrees, but a really big decline for those with less education. The typical college-educated American woman is almost as likely to get married as her mother was, and if anything, a little bit more likely to stay married. 

One of the other big changes has been a significant rise in the age at first marriage, up to around 30. I think about my parents who married at 21, having met at 17, which was pretty common back then. Actually, as late as 1970, most women who went to college in the U.S., which was a minority of course, were married within a year of graduating. That's a world that's very difficult to fathom now, as both men and women now enter the labor market, become economically successful, and often establish themselves economically before getting married. Today, you do all that first, then you marry. Marriage has become more like a capstone, to use another of Andrew Cherlin’s descriptions, where marriage is a signal of everything that has led up to the ceremony, rather than the beginning of a journey. 

We can no longer tell a single story about marriage in America in the way we could 40 years ago. We need to tell different stories based on class and race and geography. We've seen a real divide opening up in marriage in the United States. 

Americans, today, are much less likely to see marriage as something that you need to do to be a complete person or have a good life. In fact, fewer than 1 in 5 Americans now believe that it's essential to be married to have a fulfilling life. That's a huge cultural change.  

The model of marriage that was founded on economic dependency for women is completely obsolete. This is progress. But while we have created models of the family that are more equal and fair, they are often not such stable unions. The challenge we now face is to find ways to create more stability in our family life, without sacrificing the goal of equality. What we should be asking is how do we have strong relationships within which people can raise kids well? Marriage can still play a role here, of course. But there are alternative models, too. With 40% of children being born to unmarried parents, and most of those born to mothers without a college degree, there will need to be.

Because what matters above all is parenting, the way we raise our kids. It is possible to imagine a renewed future for marriage based around egalitarianism between men and women, but a shared commitment to kids. I think that’s for us to create. (That’s an argument I made in my 2014 Atlantic essay, “How to Save Marriage in America.”)

If marriage is to survive, it will be in this new model founded on shared parenting, not as a restoration of the old one based on economic inequality.

Richard V. Reeves is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It (Brookings Institution Press, 2022). Watch the video this essay is based upon, "Is Marriage Dying?" here.

Editor's Note: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or views of the Institute for Family Studies.

[huaqiangmachine]

Improving soil quality has made organic fertilizer equipment highly sought after

 The reason why organic fertilizer equipment is highly sought after is mainly due to its remarkable effect on improving soil quality, which is reflected in the following aspects:

1. Enhance soil buffering performance and improve fertilizer utilization rate: organic matter and humus in organic fertilizer combine with clay or calcium ions in soil, which is conducive to the formation of soil aggregates and improve water retention capacity; The cationic exchange capacity of soil was increased, and the buffering performance of soil was significantly increased.

2. Improve the soil microbial community and reduce crop pests and diseases: the application of organic fertilizer can increase the adsorption site of soil phosphorus, thereby increasing the soil phosphorus adsorption capacity correspondingly, and the soil easy phosphorus desorption is significantly reduced. At the same time, the application of organic fertilizer realized the complementarity of organic matter and inorganic nutrients, and significantly improved the utilization rate of fertilizer.

3. Improve soil quality: Organic fertilizer is rich in nutrients required by soil, long-term application can improve soil structure, improve soil water and fertilizer retention ability, so as to ensure crop yield and quality.

4. Reduce environmental pollution: Organic fertilizer production line adopts closed fermentation process, effectively control the production of waste gas, wastewater and residue, and reduce the pollution to the environment.

5. Promote sustainable development of agriculture: The rapid development of organic fertilizer equipment production line provides sufficient organic fertilizer for agricultural production, which effectively promotes the sustainable development of agriculture.

In summary, organic fertilizer equipment effectively improves soil quality by improving soil structure, improving fertilizer utilization rate, enhancing soil microbial activity, reducing environmental pollution and other aspects of the effect, which is the main reason why organic fertilizer equipment is highly sought after.

[gergenhaas]

South Korea hopes for a rock-solid critical minerals partnership with Mongolia

A mere 2000 kilometres from South Korea, mineral-rich Mongolia has the potential to be a solid partner in Seoul’s current efforts to diversify its mineral supply chains, particularly for rare earths. This is especially true as technologically cutting-edge South Korea has recently taken steps to provide official development assistance (ODA) to Mongolia to improve the latter’s extractive capabilities.

South Korea’s membership in the US-led Minerals Security Partnership means that Seoul’s involvement in resource extraction in Mongolia could potentially contribute to the efforts of democracies to diversify critical materials supply chains. But despite Seoul’s overt support for the liberal international order as a key foreign policy principle, its ability to leverage ties with Mongolia will depend on the extent to which it can separate its supply chain strategies from broader alignment with the United States.

South Korea, which is highly dependent on China for imports or rare earth metals, increasingly views this vulnerability in the critical resources field as a potential threat to national security. South Korean policy discourse occasionally cites China’s willingness to weaponise exports of rare earths. Beijing did just that during a diplomatic dispute with Japan in 2011, a move that prompted Tokyo to deepen its partnership with Mongolia.

In July 2023, South Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Lee Do-hoon visited Ulaanbaatar for talks with the Mongolian government. While the two sides discussed broader economic opportunities, both governments emphasised collaboration in the field of critical mineral resources. In September 2023, the two sides inked an agreement whereby South Korea would provide ODA to Mongolia for the development of its extractive capabilities. Two months later, the two countries established the Korea–Mongolia Rare Metals Cooperation Committee.

Seoul appears to believe that providing ODA to Mongolia will encourage the export of goods derived from extracted materials to South Korea. In the years leading up to the 2023 bilateral agreement, the value of Mongolian exports to South Korea — which consisted overwhelmingly of mining sector goods such as coal — showed a significant increase when compared to trade figures from the earliest days of Seoul–Ulaanbaatar diplomatic ties.

South Korea’s high-tech industry’s reliance on rare earths, paired with Mongolia’s need for development assistance appear, on the surface, to be a winning combination.

ODA provisions from South Korea — one of Mongolia’s top donor partners — could therefore help sustain the current trend of high-volume natural resource imports from Mongolia to South Korea, while also enhancing external cash flow into Mongolia and helping to mitigate China’s dominance over Mongolia’s exports. But landlocked Mongolia is still at the mercy of its larger neighbours when it comes to exporting materials.

South Korea’s ODA provision to Mongolia for use in its natural resource industries is a relatively small portion of its overall development aid provisions to Ulaanbaatar, which has averaged US$53 million a year between 2018–2024.

Consequently, Seoul could emphasise that the relatively small amount of its ODA provisions directed at Mongolia’s mineral wealth are less for geopolitical purposes and more as part of a tailored development strategy toward Mongolia. Seoul could stress that its development involvement in Mongolia’s extractive industries is part of a wider bid to help Mongolia develop other aspects of its economy and society.

There are several other areas of complementarity between Mongolia and South Korea in terms of the latter’s development strategy and national interests.

Mongolia has the potential to expand its clout in the Information and Communication Technology field and digital services. An Information and Communication Technology powerhouse in its own right, South Korea is in a prime position to assist with Mongolia’s economic development on this front. In light of overcrowding in Ulaanbaatar, South Korea’s experience with smart city development amid overpopulation could also be an area of cooperation.

By tying development assistance in extractive processes with a comprehensive development strategy, South Korea could tailor its development strategy toward Mongolia with an eye on increased market entry into Mongolia. Further access to Mongolia’s natural wealth would of course benefit South Korea, but it could also allow Seoul room to argue that its intentions are not overtly geopolitical.

Of course, it is inconceivable that Chinese officials are unaware of Seoul’s designs to partner with Mongolia for the sake of diversifying critical minerals supply chains. But by tying cooperation with Mongolia in resource extraction in with its overall development aid strategy, Seoul could potentially shore up goodwill with Beijing. China would then be less inclined to use its own geopolitical levers to undermine the export of Mongolian natural resources to South Korea.

This may require Seoul to operate somewhat independently of its accession to agreements such as the Minerals Security Partnership. But any attempts to act as a ‘third neighbour’ to Mongolia depend on the good graces of those countries where adjacency with Mongolia is more than a mere abstraction.

Anthony V Rinna is Senior Editor at the Sino-NK research group.

[enjoy957]

The complementarity between China and Latin America in terms of resources and technology, market and production capacity is like a mortise-and-tenon structure, close and stable.

[cttechx]

How to improve the energy efficiency of energy storage systems

As a key technology for balancing energy supply and demand and improving energy utilization efficiency, energy storage systems play an increasingly important role. However, how to further improve the energy efficiency of energy storage systems has become an urgent problem to be solved in the energy field. This article will explore in depth the methods and strategies for improving the energy efficiency of energy storage systems from multiple perspectives.

Optimizing the design of energy storage systems The design of energy storage systems is a basic factor affecting their energy efficiency. First, in terms of battery selection, batteries with high energy density, high charge and discharge efficiency, and long cycle life should be selected according to actual application scenarios and needs. For example, lithium-ion batteries dominate many energy storage applications due to their superior performance, but they also have unique advantages for some specific scenarios, such as large-scale energy storage power stations and liquid flow batteries. Secondly, the topological structure design of the system is also crucial. A reasonable topological structure can reduce the loss during energy transmission and improve the overall efficiency of the system. For example, a modular design is adopted to divide the energy storage system into multiple independent modules, each of which can be flexibly configured and controlled according to actual needs, which can not only improve the reliability of the system, but also reduce energy loss. In addition, the integration and collaborative work of the energy storage system with other energy equipment should also be fully considered. For example, combining energy storage systems with renewable energy power generation systems, and optimizing energy management strategies to achieve efficient use and complementarity of energy.

Improve the battery management system The battery management system (BMS) is the core control unit of the energy storage system, which has an important impact on the performance and life of the battery. A perfect BMS can effectively improve the energy efficiency of the energy storage system. First, the BMS should have accurate battery status monitoring functions, including real-time monitoring of battery voltage, current, temperature, state of charge (SOC) and state of health (SOH) parameters. By accurately obtaining these parameters, the BMS can detect abnormal conditions of the battery in time, and take corresponding measures to adjust and protect it, avoiding energy loss and battery damage caused by problems such as overcharging, over-discharging, and overheating. Secondly, the BMS should achieve efficient battery balancing management. Since there are inevitable differences in the manufacturing and use of battery cells, these differences will cause imbalance in the battery pack during charging and discharging, thereby affecting the energy efficiency and life of the entire system. By adopting active or passive balancing technology, BMS can keep the power of each cell in the battery pack at a similar level, improving the overall performance and energy efficiency of the battery pack. In addition, BMS should also have an intelligent charge and discharge control strategy. According to the battery status and external environmental conditions, BMS can dynamically adjust the charge and discharge current and voltage, optimize the charge and discharge process, reduce energy loss, and improve the charge and discharge efficiency.

Use advanced power electronics technology Power electronics technology plays a key role in energy conversion and control in energy storage systems. The use of advanced power electronics technology can improve the energy efficiency and performance of energy storage systems. On the one hand, efficient power electronic converters should be selected. For example, a high-efficiency inverter can convert DC power in the energy storage battery into AC power and achieve precise control of the output power. At the same time, optimize the inverter topology and control algorithm, reduce switching loss and conduction loss, and improve the inverter conversion efficiency. On the other hand, the application of advanced power electronic control technologies, such as pulse width modulation (PWM) technology and multi-level conversion technology, can achieve refined control of energy storage systems, improve the dynamic response performance and stability of the system, and reduce energy loss during the conversion process.

Optimize energy management strategy Energy management strategy is an important means to improve the energy efficiency of energy storage systems. By reasonably formulating energy management strategies, the optimized and coordinated operation between energy storage systems, power grids, and loads can be achieved, and the utilization efficiency of energy can be improved. First, a reasonable charging and discharging plan should be formulated according to the load characteristics and electricity price policies of the power grid. During the low load period of the power grid, the energy storage system is charged and stores low-priced electricity; during the peak load period of the power grid, the energy storage system is discharged to provide support for the power grid, realize peak shaving and valley filling, reduce the operating cost of the power grid, and improve the economic benefits of the energy storage system. Secondly, combined with the volatility and uncertainty of renewable energy generation, formulate a coordinated operation strategy for energy storage systems and renewable energy generation. Through the rapid response and regulation capabilities of the energy storage system, the fluctuation of renewable energy generation can be smoothed, and the grid connection rate and utilization efficiency of renewable energy can be improved. In addition, factors such as the life and maintenance cost of the energy storage system should also be considered, and comprehensive optimization should be carried out in the energy management strategy to achieve long-term and efficient operation of the energy storage system.

V. Strengthen system operation, maintenance and management Good operation, maintenance and management are important guarantees for ensuring the efficient operation of the energy storage system. Regular inspection and maintenance of the energy storage system, timely detection and handling of equipment failures and potential problems can avoid energy loss and system downtime caused by equipment failures. At the same time, a complete system operation monitoring and data analysis platform should be established to collect, analyze and process the operation data of the energy storage system in real time. Through big data analysis and artificial intelligence technology, the operation laws and potential problems of the system can be mined to provide a basis for optimizing the system operation and maintenance strategy. In addition, strengthening the training and management of operators, improving their operating skills and safety awareness, and ensuring the operation specifications and safe operation of the energy storage system are also important links in improving the energy efficiency of the energy storage system.

In summary, improving the energy efficiency of the energy storage system needs to start from multiple aspects, including optimizing system design, improving battery management system, adopting advanced power electronics technology, optimizing energy management strategy, and strengthening system operation, maintenance and management. By comprehensively applying these measures, the energy efficiency of energy storage systems can be significantly improved, energy costs can be reduced, and positive contributions can be made to promoting energy transformation and sustainable development. With the continuous advancement and innovation of technology, it is believed that the energy efficiency of energy storage systems will be further improved in the future, playing a more important role in building a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy system.