#there's new people both of which have relatively pure desires one of which is fire-based

[coockie8]

i am so excited for roy and ed to actually get to the cult 👀👀👀 how long until they start getting the madness tho 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

As my memes may suggest, it's pretty instant. For Roy anyway haha

[burns-art-account]

Headcanon/ Worldbuilding: Obsessions

I had some thoughts about obsessions and how they could work. What if ghosts could not only be sorted by ectolevel, but also by “complexity” based on the obsession(s) they´re made of. The scale would go something like “simple - medium - complex”, and depending on how simple or complex a ghost is, the easier it is to disrupt said ghost´s being. Since a simple ghost would only have one obsession it´d be relatively easy to disrupt their form and being by blocking/ “fighting” their one obsession. A medium one would have at least another obsession to fall back on, strengthening their resistence. A complex ghost has at least four obsession that can be related to each other (kinda like branches in a tree), therefore the most stable/ resistent.

Some examples to explain and illustrate this concept:

Simple ghost - all variants of blobghosts:

Blobghosts have a few variants (perhaps one could call them races? Like a husky and a poodle are both races of dogs) based on which part of the GZ they´re from, if they live in symbiosis with other ghosts and what kind of core they have.

They are all rather simplistic, having only one obsession (at least until they might “evolve”/ develop into a higher form) a simple, sometimes dripy sometimes gaseous, form and a small amount of powers (invisiblitiy, intangibility, flight and some form of ecto-attack [a pure variant of an ectoblast, a fire-like/ ice-like ectoblast, etc.]). The only obsession this ghost has is the “survive-live-thrive” obsession instilled in all ghosts, disrupting this obsession by repeatedly attacking the ghost, physically injuring it gravely and not giving it a chance to regenerate will cause the being to simply break due to an obsession-induced breakdown which can damage the core, especially in low ectoleveled ghosts, such as our poor blobblobs. If not given a chance to “repair” their obsession, they will cease to exist.

Medium ghost - Cujo:

Cujo is the ghostly remnant of a former Axion Lab rottweiler guard dog, cursed with the fate of being disposed of by euthanasia alongside his fellow guard dogs after the lab updated from dogs to alarm systems. Due to their nature, the costs and the time and effort it would´ve taken to “rehabilitate” them to be able of being adopted by normal people, the individuals in charge decided to put them down and be done with it. Cujo was not the only dog to linger and stay, his family from the living days has yet to be found.

Cujo is a medium ghost, because depending on the form he´s got a second obsession to keep him running, a second purpose if you will. In his docile form it´s the toy this puppy lost before his death, spending the rest of his existence, his afterlife, playing like the puppy he never could have been before. In his hostile form it´s protection and attacking, his guard dog purpose carried over due to it being such an important part of his life. If one of his obsessions is running the danger of an obsession-induced breakdown then his core will subconsciously fall back on his other obsession, making it more important for him while his frailed obsession takes time to repair itself, to become stable again. Even in his puppy form good boy Cujo is more resilient than blobghosts and ectopedes.

Complex ghost - Danny:

Danny embodies to sides of the same coin, on one hand he is not like the alive humans anymore, on the other hand he isn´t like the fully dead, afteralive ghosts yet either. He´s something inbetween, a fact which makes his (after)life peri-life harder. Protecting humans from ghosts, ghosts from humans and trying to establish some kind of peace between them - as a teen, as if teenage angst, puberty (and additionally ghost-puberty), education and work as well as breaking and establishing relationships aren´t enough already.

Danny is one of the complexer ghosts, partly because of his human nature of evolving and developing, so far counting a number of four obsessions, “survive-live-thrive”, “protection” and it´s branches “friends/ family” and “citizens”, as well as “space”. The first is what caused him to become a halfa in the first place, the desire not to die in his teens in a cold,  sterile lab because of teenager mistakes. He didn´t become a full ghost because of several circumstances connecting with each other like a net (perhaps I´ll elaborate in another post). His “protection” obsession gives him a purpose with his new existence, in part because he feels guilty for the attacks following after his accident. His “space” obsession acts as a healing obsession to keep him sane and relatively well. The first time he encountered said obsession was after his first failing as a protector, when he was too slow and too weak and went through his first civilian-death. His obsession with space kicked in and made itself more important, pushing the “protector” obsession into the background so it could heal and wouldn´t cause a breakdown. Due to his several obsessions Danny is one of the most stable and resistent ghosts.

> Obession complexity =/= ectolevel

> Simplicity =/= animalistic/ basic ghost (Klemper is also a rather simplistic ghost)

> Obsession complexity is not stationary, it can develop and de-evolve

[saby-chan]

Why the ATLA comics fail when it comes to Zuko and his family

To whom ever took their time to actually stop and read this post, thank you in advance for not skipping my post and willing to stay and read my humble opinion! I hope I won’t disappoint you!

As a relatively newcomer to the ATLA fanbase since 2020, I’ve come across a lot of interesting debates, comments and rants about the show, characters and fandom in general, but nothing has captivated me as much as the dumpster-on-fire that are the ATLA comics, more specifically: The Promise and The Search. 

On one hand we have the hardcore fans who want them to be animated or serialized into the Netflix live action, praising the comics for the new views and subject matters they’ve brought into the show’s lore, while on the other hand we have the furious Azula fandom who is really angry for the fact that best girl didn’t get the redemption arc she rightfully deserved so much after the painful event that was the Last Agni Kai and the even more angry fans of the Urzai ship (yeah, the people who actually ship Zuko’s parents unironically) who hated the retconning of the show’s cannon since the comics basically took a huge fat dump on what was previously established as official cannon, when the Search entered the scene, but between these two sides, who has the more valid point? In the end, are the comics good cannon or bad written fanfiction?

Well... Here are my two cents on this matter since I myself happen to be an Azula and Zuko fan and had huge expectations from these comics (since I wanted more from my fave hot-headed fiery siblings duo) but ended up disappointed: the comics are indeed a huge mess and actually bad written fanfiction when it comes to Zuko and his family! Don’t click off yet, because I actually documented the reasons why exactly the comics fail in this area:

1. The author of these comics is not part of the BryKe duo

Yes, I would like to start with the fact that if you actually take a second to look up who in the heck took the time to write these two books, you won’t find Bryan, nor Mike, but a fellow man named Gene Yang. This is important because while the wiki of both The Promise and The Search state BryKe as the creators, that doesn’t mean that they were the actual minds behind these comics, but rather because ATLA is their “baby” and these comics involve their characters, over which they have copyright. Mr. Yang here is the actual brain behind the plot, as the main writer, which explains why we find huuuuge inconsistencies between the show lore and the comics, especially Zuko wise.

My main issue with Mr. Yang isn’t that he isn’t BryKe specifically, but because he did an unforgivable mistake in his writing process: He projected himself into Zuko’s character, based on the relationship Zuko had with his father. This is a documented fact from an interview in which he explains that he sees himself and his dad’s relationship into Zuko and Ozai and used that when writing their interactions and built Zuko’s character in the comics. And this is wrong because when you have an already very developed and complex character such as Zuko, you can’t just come in and be like “Oh, I was an angsty teen just like him in my teenage years, fighting with my dad and whatnot, so he must have the same thought process as me!”. NO! This is bad fanfiction writer behavior! Zuko has his own personality and philosophy, which he developed over the course of 3 seasons and is not defined by only 1 unfortunate aspect of his past, so you can’t just base his whole mindset and actions off of your own personal experience just because you had the same daddy issues he had!

2. The whole “Promise that you will kill me if I turn out like my dad!” nonsense in The Promise

Reason number 2 why these comics fail and go under the category of “bad fanfiction” is because they fail to convey the core essence of the source material. The whole point of Zuko’s redemption was that he realized the wrongdoings of his ancestors and his own mistakes. He outgrew his desire of gaining his father’s acknowledgement in favor of choosing his own destiny. Having him worry that he’ll turn into his father is utter nonsense and feels like poor angsty drama material for the sake of angst. At this point in time, Zuko has overcame that obstacle in his life a long time ago and should be at the level where he himself is the “Uncle Iroh” for other people and in no way someone concerned of becoming their own worst enemy!

Not only that, but the whole point of Aang’s journey and the story of the show as a whole was to teach us, the viewers, the importance of forgiveness, empathy and love in life. Aang didn’t spare Ozai, aka “the ultimate evil” just to flex in front of his pals or because he is a “ 12 y/o vegan pacifist monk kid”, but because he knew that killing someone, no matter of what they did or wanted to do, wouldn’t restore balance into the Universe, on the contrary, him killing the villain would have meant perpetuating the “endless cycle of hate” that plagued the world. So having Aang promise to kill his best friend in case “they turned into an evil maniac like their dad” contradicts Aang’s whole character and it’s a nonsense that throws into the trash what we’ve learnt throughout the entire TV series.

3. Azula deserved (and was supposed) to have a redemption ark

This might still be pure speculation, but I count it as a documented reason because I’ve heard quite a few people saying that there should’ve been a book 4 in the show, aka “Book 4: Air”, and no, it wasn’t The Search, but actually Zuko and Azula’s journey as Zuko helps his younger sister heal her broken mind by being her very own “Uncle Iroh”. Sure, they prolly were going to end up looking for Ursa, but the journey should’ve ended with them actually being happy and a family again and not the bs we got in The Search where a still very unstable Azula runs away and becomes the “Next Joker”! The only problem is that M. Night had to pop up and curse the world with his movie, which forced BryKe to delay the project (and eventually abandoned it in favor of Korra).

All in all, either if BryKe had this preplanned or not, it made sense for Azula to get a redemption ark, she deserved it because she was just a broken 14 y/o child! If Katara’s mom’s murderer deserved to be forgiven, so did this poor child who had no fault for what happened to her since she had a dysfunctional family! What Gene Yang did in his poorly written fanfiction was to just antagonize a broken child, turning her into a monster for the sake of friggin angst!

4. The Search is the worst of the two, being flat af character wise

And finally, getting to the point that I personally find the most annoying about these comics: The Search. This one... This one is a mess on a hella lot many levels, and just to list a few: characters are flat as fudge, being either black as vanta black (like Ozai and Azula) or pure white like Gene’s Gary Stue OC, Mr Ikem (or how I like to call him, IKEA man) and his ‘victim’ rendition of Ursa, Azula gets to suffer more for no reason (see reason number 3 to why I find this as a no no), Ursa’s whole character sucks ass (man, I could write a whole thesis on why Yang’s version of her is terrible and doesn’t match the strong woman we got in the show) and Zuko does morally wrong stuff (my man literally used his unstable sister to bribe their dad into spitting info about Ursa... Show Zuko would never do that!;-;)

Oh boy, as a person who’s seen a ton of anime and other media and read many books, I can’t begin on how much I despise this type of writing: flat characters are the worst!

 ATLA characters in the show are nothing close to being flat! What I mean by that is that none of them fall perfectly into pure white (aka goodest of good characters with no imperfections) or vanta black (aka lowest and darkest twisted monsters out there), each of them are various shades of grey (like Aang who is a very light grey because despite being a very kind and nice character, he still isn’t a “perfect hero” since he ran away from his duties, practiced tax fraud with Toph, had insecurities and even threatened to kill people on ocassions like with the sand benders who took Appa) and this is a good choice because that prevents them from becoming what’s globally known as Mary Sues and Gary Stues (aka those either “perfect” characters with no flaws and/or unlimited power, or the twisted monsters full of flaws).

And the other reason why many other people hate The Search: it literally negates previously established cannon. And here comes my short essay on why this comic fails Zuko’s family (since we’ve already talked enough about Zuko himself).

In cannon and even interviews with BryKe, it was clearly stated that Zuko’s family was “once happy”. Where is this “once happy” family in The Search? All I see is pain, deception, lies and betrayal, nothing close to anything that resembles happiness. Okay, some of you might come in and say that “It’s because it was never the case! It was only lies and Zuko trying to convince himself that he didn’t live in hell forever!” and here is WHERE YOU WERE ALL WRONG! And why? Because, my dear fella, where were depicted the flashbacks of Zuko’s “happy family” in The Beach? Ember Island. And what do we know and had been even quoted in the show?  "Like waves washing away the footprints on the sand, Ember Island gives everyone a clean slate. Ember Island reveals the true you." (direct quote from the show). Exactly, no matter who you are or how hard you try, you can’t hide your true self when you are on the Ember Island, best example being Azula, who’s impenetrable though shell cracked and revealed the true vulnerable child that was underneath. If Azula couldn’t resist the “spell of the island”, no one can. So this means that Zuko’s family was indeed happy once and yes, Ozai wasn’t always the douchebag we got to know in Season 3 (I have a whole nother essay on my theories regarding what could be his real past story and why he’s actually the “Zuko” of his generation, based on stuff I gathered from old wiki entries and character analyses I made, but that’s for another time, lemme know if ya’ll are interested).

And what I guess is the biggest proof why The Search did this family’s past trash is comics Ursa herself. My dude, if this woman were indeed the victim of years of endless abuse and never loved her husband, I guarantee you that she would’ve been closer to what we saw in Todoroki’s mom from BNHA and Zuko would’ve gotten that scar or even worse long before the Agni Kai, not from his “daddy dearest”, but from “mommy dearest” herself, because no sane woman would be soo affectionate and attached to a child that’s the perfect copy of their abuser, sepecially appearance wise (again see Todoroki’s mom’s case from BNHA because the stories are really similar) and in no way would’ve she been willing to sacrifice her life for said child’s sake. With this ocassion, I remind ya’ll folks that according to the ancient ATLA cannon wikis on Nick’s site, Ozai was designed with Zuko’s appearance in mind, being meant to be like a “grown up scarless version” of Zuko. So yeah, remember this with a grain of salt that whenever you simp over grown up Zuko, you involuntary simp for Ozai too.

So yeah, I guess this kinda concludes my “not so short” rant about why the comics fail and are bad fanfiction. Lemme hear your thoughts in the comments and if you agree, feel free to leave a like and even reblog.

Bye bye and remember that Momo is the true strongest character of the show!

 Saby out.

[myloyalpet]

English Bulldogs: The Best And Healthiest Foods For English Bulldog ..!

English bulldogs are an ancient breed originally created by breeding fierce animals with smaller ones. When used during bear or bull baiting events (essentially dogfighting), humans could protect themselves while betting on which animal would win out and thus make money off the spectacle. The result is an adorable medium-sized puppy who wants nothing but love. Today, despite their aggressive origins, these dogs have been bred to be sweet, gentle, and timid; they no longer look like what you'd expect from a traditional English Bulldog anymore!

For this reason alone, if you've been thinking about getting an English bulldog, then you must know how to feed them because they might suffer from different health issues such as food allergies, kidney disease, hypothyroidism, Cushing's Disease, and more. Unfortunately, there is not enough information available on the internet related to the best foods they can eat to maintain optimal health. So, we created a helpful guide for you that will provide you ample guidance.

Types of Bulldog

The Bulldog is not a single breed but rather many different types of breeds. Name the word "bulldog," and an image of a muscular, hefty dog with a wrinkled face comes to mind for most people; but there's more than one type! Here are some following types of bulldogs.

1) Olde English Bulldogge

The Olde English Bulldogge is also known as a pure-breed American pit bull terrier. These can get up to 100 pounds and are not recommended for apartment living because of their size; they need room to run around. In addition, the United Kennel Club bred them to avoid interbreeding with other dogs like the American Staffordshire Terrier, making it lose its "true" pedigree. The Olde English Bulldogge was originally developed to preserve the breed's original look before showing restrictions had been applied in the UK. It has a larger build than the modern-day Bulldog but still looks relatively similar otherwise.

2) The French Bulldog

Frenchies are the perfect dog for anyone who desires a faithful, intelligent pet. They have bat-like ears and come in many colors, with their most popular is black and white and cream or brown combinations of these two colors. These dogs can be great companions to individuals living alone due to their loving nature, which is entertaining because they require constant attention from owners! French Bulldog's intelligence has been proven by how quickly it responds when given commands such that some people call them "the Einsteins of Dogs."

3) American Bulldog

The American Bulldog derived from bloodlines present in colonial America before the Civil War between two countries (the US and England). English Bulldogs were brought here due to their popularity in England and their appearance in Roman culture. The American Bulldog is a big, sturdy family dog who loves children and has an innate need for human companionship. They make great fire dogs because they have strong noses that help save their humans from fires or other serious accidents (there's plenty of evidence online about how this breed saved its owner).

4) Pit Bull

Englishmen originally bred the pit bull terrier for entertainment in fighting matches. This type of bulldogs was used in blood sports like bear-baiting or as amusement in building anger in dogs by holding restrained bulls or bears while two dogs fought to the death over them and other similar forms of barbaric entertainment. Both sides claim their own history, whether they have been around for thousands of years or hundreds.

5) English Bulldog

Bred in the United Kingdom and can be traced back through standard bloodlines to ancient times. The English Bulldog is a popular pet for families due to its affectionate nature and calm temperament. The breed has broad chests, wide-set shoulders, drooping jowls that give them their signature look of being "bulldognish" (droopy). Their skin can be loose as well as short coats in colors like brindle or white. A male average about 54 pounds while females average 50 pounds with ears rosed instead of double flopped over on the head and piebald striping patterns on the body with black noses.

Benefits Of Having An English Bulldog As Pet

The English bulldog has many benefits to its owner. First, it makes a great companion because it loves attention and will always be there when needed. Second, bulldogs are also known for their ability to calm down young children and even older adults suffering from depression (as long as they get plenty of affection in return). English Bulldogs are especially skilled at this because of their kind nature. Third, Owning an English Bulldog is relatively cheap compared to other dogs who need more extensive care. In general, the English bulldog makes a great pet. Finally, They are very friendly and give their owners plenty of affection in return for being treated well. If you want to get a dog that can provide comfort when needed, help relieve stress and depression, and provide companionship for yourself or your family, an English Bulldog may be right for you!

1) It Helps With Depression

Because the majority of these dogs love human company so much, they make excellent companions for those who like affection but do not have anyone to hug during their daily routine. Also, since these dogs are so easygoing and calm, having one around can help ease the stress from the tension caused by depression.

2) Very Kind With Children

These dogs have been proven to be especially good with children because of their gentle nature. This is also beneficial to adults who have insomnia or other sleeping disorders. In addition, having a bulldog in the home can provide comfort and security for parents who may have trouble sleeping at night due to worries about their job or family life.

3) Save Owner Money

Owning an English bulldog is relatively cheap compared to other dogs who need more extensive care (such as those that require grooming services). English Bulldogs do not need much exercise either; they are content with taking a walk around the neighborhood or simply exploring the house. These dogs also eat less food than other breeds, which can save money on pet food purchases.

4) Easy To Train

English Bulldogs are one of the world's most popular dogs for their friendliness, and they're also really easy to train. They learn fast, so if you can teach them a few tricks, it won't be long before your pup opens doors or turns off lights without being told! Of course, these pups aren't known as "the brightest," which means that don't expect too much from them when it comes to solving puzzles, but with some training, these doggies will come up big in life by learning tasks such as getting dressed on their own instead of relying solely on human help.

English Bulldogs Prone To Food Allergies

The English Bulldog is one of the most recognizable and iconic dog breeds. Unfortunately, the breed's popularity has actually sparked a few woes, including health issues related to their distinct looks. If you're thinking about getting an English Bulldog, you should know that they are likely to suffer from allergies.

While all dogs can develop food sensitivities, Bulldogs seem more susceptible than other dogs. There's no way to tell for sure if your puppy will become allergic after eating certain foods (or treats). Some owners even start feeding their pups a new diet with little or no problems. Your dog could just get a little itchy or have mild gastrointestinal issues for a while and then eventually adjust fine to their new diet. For other dogs, a new diet causes major skin problems that require immediate attention and care. The worst cases can even result in chronic itching and constant scratching, hot spots on the nose and face, or even hair loss.

Commonly allergenic foods for English Bulldogs are wheat (even small amounts), dairy products, soybean(s)/soy(ed) products (including soy-based treats), corn/corn products (including corn-based treats), flour/wheat flour, or any ingredients containing these items from any source listed above.

If you are worried about what you should feed your beloved pet, you do not need to worry further; you can check our great options here: "best food for English bulldogs in 2021".

What Should You Consider Before Buying the Best Food for English Bulldogs?

English bulldogs are one of the most recognizable breeds in terms of their short muzzle, flat face, and small jaw. Unfortunately, this gives them many health problems, including difficulty chewing food properly or eating without difficulties breathing. They also often have dental issues that can lead to other complications; they may get an immune system disorder or digestive troubles, and obesity because they can't exercise enough due to physical limitations from those ailments. Furthermore, when it comes down to lifespan English Bulldogs don't have much going for them, with 8-10 years being the average age before illness takes over - some living longer than others but not by too long either way!

Consider these important things before buying food for English bulldogs:

1) Choose Healthy Food

English Bulldogs are not as hearty and healthy as other dogs. This is because they have a sensitive stomach that is easily upset by certain ingredients in dog food, such as because they can't digest them well. The efficient way to avoid this problem is with high-quality meat sources like beef or chicken, which will provide the protein your bulldog needs without upsetting his delicate system too much. Besides grains like bulgogi ingredients which may be difficult on their digestive system, there is plenty of other safe options, including fruits and vegetables that can be good nutrition for your lovely dog.

2) Age

The best food for your English Bulldog depends on its age. Puppies require more DHA and protein to support healthy growth, while adults need higher fat content with lower protein levels. Seniors who are growing old should also be given a diet containing joint health ingredients such as glucosamine or chondroitin sulfate in order not to experience weight gain problems caused by arthritis-related inflammation!

3) Budget

Your English bulldog is worth so much to you that the best food out there for it should be your top priority. But, make sure you get one at a good price with great quality! Dry foods are generally cheaper than wet brands However, if you can't find these high quality dry or wet foods locally, in that case, it's worth ordering them online as shipping costs will often be cheaper than purchasing from pet shops or interacting with veterinary clinics for each new purchase trial-and-error (which may end up being harmful to your dog).

If you are having problems finding the best food for your lovely English bulldog, then don't worry; we have great options for you; check out our best food for English bulldog 2021.

Conclusion

English Bulldogs are known for their loving natures, but they often suffer from health problems such as obesity and breathing difficulties. A balanced and healthy diet will provide all nutrients to your lovely pet without disrupting digestion or causing weight gain. Wellness CORE RawRev Grain-Free Dog Food contains everything your Bulldog needs in one bowl of food while keeping his digestive system clear. Not only does it come with vitamins A, C & E, which help strengthen bones and teeth along with omega 3 fatty acids crucial for heart function; this formula has been slowly cooked, so there's no risk of choking on chunks! Furthermore, it will provide them with energy throughout their day so they can be more active! To find out more about the best food for your bulldog…Click Here..!

[thisselflovecamebacktome]

All the little reasons (so far) why The 1 is my tied favourite off of Folklore

Continuation of 'classic Taylor’ patterns:

The 1 helps to carry on the tradition Taylor has put into her albums since RED where the beginning of the stories actually starts with song three. The first two songs are instead used to heavily allude to the story and themes about to be told but aren’t directly part of them and especially not the beginning of them. 

In RED, we get State of Grace which alludes to the intense love and positive side of “red” emotions with hints of ignoring red flags whereas Red shows the painful and negative “red” emotions and alludes to the themes of heartbreak. 

In 1989 we get Welcome To New York, alluding to trying to get past someone and new beginnings before transitioning into Blank Space indicating that the opinions of others, particularly surrounding her dating, is something that was going to cause issues.

In Reputation we got ...Ready For It, where the verses again show a somewhat satirical take of how people see the both of them in a dark, “edgy” beat that is often used for “angry” tracks mixed with a “softer” tune more used for happier music for the chorus where she talks about being alone with him and doing what she actually wants to. Then we get End Game which serves as a contrast and connecting piece to the “angry/unhealthy” and “happy/healthy” sides of the album. We get the big declaration of love and showy attitude with hints of insecurity because that’s ultimately what Taylor saw as love in the past which contrasts with the quieter moments of love in the later half of the album such as squeezing hands in a cab or building metaphorical fires in locked up houses to keep each other warm.

In Lover we get I Forgot That You Existed to indicate the theme of figuring out who and what’s truly important in life before moving onto Cruel Summer which not only shows the theme of holding onto each other when things are rough, but the importance of communication in a relationship.

And what about Folklore? The 1 and Cardigan brings us into the fantasy world of Folklore by first asking “What If?” and reminding us that life is full of choices and those choices matter in the grand scheme of things. While the rest of the album tells seemingly unquestionable stories relying on how the characters actually felt, The 1 and Cardigan both rely on nostalgia before reminding us right at the end of each song that that wasn’t how the story went and that certain choices were the reason for that... Which leads me to my next point:

One thing being different would not have made everything different today:

As I previously mentioned, one of the major themes of Folklore is that choices matter. Another interlocking theme is that things just don’t happen out of the blue. The choices we make add up and can cause a perfect storm. 

Looking at this through the lens of the love triangle, in order for James to be in the position he’s in in “Betty”, it wasn’t enough that August happened to be there. The guy Betty was dancing with had to ask her to dance, James had to feel insecure about it AND be immature enough to sulk and leave rather than telling Betty how he felt, August had to show up when she did, James had to make the continuous choice to spend the Summer with August, Inez had to tell Betty what happened and finally Betty had to be offended enough to break up with James. The situation the three of them found themselves in could have been prevented at several different points, making it impossible to say if one thing had been different, it all would have been. 

Despite the lyric, The 1 also shows that one thing being different wasn’t likely to have the desired effect of the pair ending up together through several lyrics throughout the song.

In my defence I have none for never leaving well enough alone - This gives the implication that the narrator was prone to starting arguments over topics that didn’t need to be fought over.

If you wanted me you really should have shown it - The narrator shows that the other person didn’t make it seem like a serious long term relationship was an option. Though this could have been a miscommunication, it also implied to me that the other person wasn’t ready to settle down and acted as such meaning that a long term relationship probably wasn’t on the cards.

Rose flowing with your chosen family.... In my defence I have none - So I’m going to go into this a bit later because it relates to a couple of the reasons I love this song, but in short, the narrator impliedly did not make an effort with aspects of the other person’s life, in this case loved ones, that meant a lot to them nor did the narrator have those aspects for themselves.

But it would have been fun if you would have been the one - Connecting this reason with the theme of nostalgia, I find the word ‘fun’ an interesting choice from a songwriter who tends to use intense words like ‘magical’, ‘fearless’, ‘permanent’, ‘wild’ and even ‘really something’ to describe the loves of her life. In comparison, ‘fun’ feels very casual. While not a choice of the relationship, the use of the word along with lack of hard moments shown in the song does imply to me that the narrator has based this ‘what if’ on pure nostalgia and makes me assume that there several reasons things turned out like they did.

Its links with other songs on the album:

Anyone who knows me knows that my favourite aspect of an album is feeling like I got something out of listening to those songs in that order together that I couldn’t have gotten from listening to the songs alone. Often this comes from contrasts in songs like how I mentioned End Game’s production and lyrics contrast the back end of Reputation, relatability like how 22 is in between All Too Well and I Almost Do because that time with her friends is merely distracting her from her pain or hearing how the same things can be seen differently like how WANEGBT, Stayx3 and The Last Time come one after another to show the relationship was on and off, why she stayed in said relationship and those same traits that kept her staying were now why she was at the end of her rope with said relationship. Really in general RED as an album is a brilliant example because while a lot of people don’t get it, the whiplash of positive and negative songs really does represent what it’s like to be in that kind of toxic relationship.

But I’m not here to talk about RED or Reputation, I’m here to to talk about Folklore. While many people would probably say that the love triangle songs are the best representation of what I’m talking about, I honestly think The 1 and Peace are the two songs that most benefit from the context of the other songs in the album. Specifically, The 1 benefits in the following ways in my honest opinion:

The 1 serves as the other side of the same coin to Invisible String. The 1 discusses a relationship where circumstances didn’t line up to make it work whereas Invisible String describes a relationship where the stars aligned and it all did work out. Further, The 1 asks the question ‘what if things were different and this one relationship worked out?’ and Invisible String answers with ‘well thank goodness it didn’t’.

You know the greatest films of all time were never made versus I think I’ve seen this film before: the automatic assumption and link that the love in Exile was not either of their greatest loves.

If you never bleed you’re never going to grow links so well with But now I’m bleeding and Peter losing Wendy from Cardigan.

Though it’s not connected with other Folklore lyrics, the little links of things like never leaving well enough alone being in The 1 and past songs (in this case ME!) and the Sad Beautiful Tragic vibe that the second prechorus of The 1 gives always brings a smile to my face.

And finally, my favourite parallel of this whole album:

In my defence I have [no chosen family] and its link with Family that I chose now that I see your brother as my brother from Peace. To me, this parallel brings together everything I have said so far. It brings the album together and once again reinforces that a theme in Folklore is how choices dictate our lives. The fact that somewhere along the lines the narrator realised that there didn’t have to be a ‘his loved ones’ and ‘her loved ones’ and made the effort and choice to incorporate themselves into their partner’s life and found that to be an important part of why they are working out in a way they didn’t with their past partners lives rent free in my mind, heart and soul everyday, not going to lie. Like I don’t know how to explain it, but that link alone just added so much to both of those songs for me personally.

Other little things:

This song is beyond relatable. Like I could not tell you one person who doesn’t have that one past thing or relationship, romantic or otherwise, they wish could have been different and fantasise/romanticise what that would have looked like.

The 1 and August are the two funnest songs to sing to from Folklore and even though both are relatively sad lyrically, always give me a good boost of serotonin when I sing them.

Relating to the two points above, singing “In my defence I have none” loudly when you don’t have family and feel like none of your wishes like me ever came true feels like free therapy lmao.

While I know Taylor didn’t write The 1 from a fully autobiographical point of view, the idea of her seeing one of her multimillionaire exes at the bus stop makes me laugh every time.

It’s a grower. While it was always in my top six, as I mentioned in the title, it’s in a three way tie with August and Exile as my favourite song from Folklore right now.

All in all I just really love this song and all the tiny little details that make it amazing and honestly think it’s a very underrated song in Taylor’s discography.

[astrochats]

Astro Scales: an overview

The basic premise of the Astro Scales system assumes that each astrological element (fire, water, earth, and air) is defined through two competing values. Of these two values, one represents the needs of the heart, while the other represents the logic of the head. Although the head/heart values come from different places, both of these values feel instinctual and fundamentally necessary to that element. Because these values are so instinctual, it can be easy for each element to assume that everyone else shares the same primary values as themselves.

Each of the elements has a different set of head/heart values. They are as follows:

***

Fire (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius)

now vs. later

Fire is a highly instinctual element. A flame doesn’t know why it burns, just that it must continue to burn bright. Fire signs are instinctively attuned to their desires, and fulfilling those desires can feel like a matter of life and death. This results in the fire sign’s primary conflict between fulfilling their desires immediately and realizing that other considerations may force them to wait; in other words, a fire sign wants to have their cake and eat it too. If left to its own devices, a fire sign’s heart tells them to go after what they want in the most direct way possible (now). The conflicting head value is the fire sign’s awareness that immediate gratification may have consequences that prevent later gratification (later). 

Imagine the scenario of deciding whether or not to confront a friend whose behavior has hurt you in some way. For a fire sign in this situation, their heart value tells them to express their hurt right away, in the most direct manner. The conflicting head value, which might prevent them from taking this action, tells them to consider the potential consequences: perhaps confronting the friend will cause them to lose that friendship, to weaken their social network, or to miss out on later opportunities this friendship could bring them. The fire sign’s ultimate action will depend on whether the head or heart wins out in this particular scenario. Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius place differing weights on head vs. heart values; this is true of the three signs in each element, and we will discuss each sign’s specific scale breakdown in our next post.

***

Water (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces)

feeling vs. fantasy

Water is the domain of intuition, emotions, and the unconscious. Water signs are known to have powerful gut instincts; while they are generally less interested in analyzing the reasons why they do something, they know what feels right to them. For water signs, what they feel and what is real are one and the same. Thus we use the term “feeling” to encompass the unfiltered emotional sensation at the core of water signs’ heart value. If the heart value of feeling represents water signs’ raw emotions when meeting the world, their head value of fantasy reflects their need to filter mundane or senseless realities through the rose-tinted lens of a meaning-filled narrative. Water signs can grow very attached to the fantasies they create, even to the point of denying their true feelings in order to sustain a fantasy; therefore, breaking that fantasy can manifest as a real emotional loss. 

A water sign in the same scenario described above will behave differently than a fire sign. Led by their heart value of feeling, a water sign’s first instinct is to respond with their authentic emotions. This may look like lashing out -- purely venting their feelings rather than attempting to start a dialogue or solicit a response from the other party. It may be difficult for the water sign to suppress the overwhelming, even physiological response their emotions generate. The head value of fantasy can play out in multiple ways. For one, the water sign’s prevailing ideal of the friendship or friend in question may lead them to hold back their feelings out of fear that a confrontation would lead to the end of the friendship, and consequently their fantasy. They may think, “This person is my closest, dearest friend. I’m nothing without them.” However, fantasy could also lead the water sign to cast themselves as a victim and their friend as a villain, and they may even carry out this new narrative through a dramatic confrontation that seems disproportionate to the initial offense.

***

Earth (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn)

conviction vs. compromise

Earth signs are unshakeable in their principles: “No matter how the wind howls, the mountain cannot bow to it.” Just as the mountain will not bend to outside forces, earth signs’ heart value of conviction in what they know to be true gives them a strong sense of self. An earth sign will not violate their principles unless their competing head value of compromise overrules the heart. For an earth sign, the idea of compromise is based in an understanding that we all have our own convictions; in order to be fair to everyone’s convictions, some small sacrifices or concessions must be made. This may be why earth is known to be a more practical and worldly element. 

An earth sign in the scenario described above would feel compelled to confront their friend if the friend had offended their principles. They might not be led so much by their feelings of hurt, as a water sign would, but rather by a righteous sense that the friend wronged them. The value of compromise might come into play if the earth sign realized that speaking their mind would not result in a better outcome for all parties: perhaps the confrontation would make things awkward in the future, create unnecessary drama, or seem inappropriately timed. If the earth sign’s desire to maintain stability overruled their trust that their friend would be receptive to their concerns and change the hurtful behavior, the earth sign would feel disinclined to make trouble by confronting the friend, and might instead avoid them or keep them at a distance.

***

Air (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius)

knowledge vs. faith  

A keyword for air signs is “systems”. Air signs enter the world as a blank slate, and build their understanding of the world through logic, reason, and systems of their own creation. This is why air signs’ heart value is knowledge: their trust in the logical process through which they have come to understand the world. Anything that defies logic can feel incomprehensible to an air sign and make them feel lost – this is when they lean on their head value of faith in others, trusting that someone else’s knowledge or beliefs can guide them in the absence of their own knowledge. Ironically, the realm of feeling and emotion (which necessarily defies logic) is often where air signs rely on their head value the most. 

An air sign in the scenario described above would wait to confront a friend until they were able to understand their own feelings/position in a very systematic way -- they might prefer to write down their feelings in a letter or a list, and might even consult with other friends to confirm their own position before having the confrontation. They would choose not to confront the friend if they still had enough faith in that person to give them the benefit of the doubt, or if they thought that the friend in question was immovable. Regardless, air signs would aim to resolve the situation without being overly emotional or talking about how it made them feel, unless they could be relatively objective about it. 

***

Final notes

After reading through this post, you may be thinking, “But I can relate to many/all of these values and conflicts. How is it possible for anyone to only hold one pair of these values?” Indeed, most people will relate to experiencing all four of these head/heart conflicts at one time or another -- all of these pairs of values speak to universal facets of the human condition, and all four speak to a crucial tension between the self (heart) and others (head). But our theory posits that an element’s head/heart values are not just “important” or “relatable” to that element -- they in fact reveal the element’s very essence, the basic matter that joins together and comprises all three signs of that element.

You may also be wondering how the Astro Scales system takes into account the many planets and signs that comprise a person’s entire natal chart. Generally, we feel that since the sun sign represents a person’s ego or soul, most people’s values will align with the element of their sun sign (so a person whose sun is in Aries will be defined through the now vs. later values of fire). However, if you have a strong influence of another element(s) in other areas of your chart, that element’s values will also likely play a role in your overall value system.

Look forward to our next post, where we will break down all four elements by sign and explain how the scales are balanced differently for the three signs within each element.

[stuffdealwithit]

Wiz “Hex” Headcanons

Ah, wiz hex... you either love it or hate it. And when you’ve been playing this hell hole of a game since it first came out, you come up with some weird concepts. Because some people absolutely hate the concept of wiz hex, I will put a “continue reading” cut as to not burn your eyes. But, if you are over 18 and are willing to view some weird stuff, then feel free to continue on!

Word count - 1,257

Created by @stuffdealwithit and an anonymous friend! <3

Fire - Wizards and witches from the school of fire are aggressive romantics. They love their partners openly and passionately, which mirrors how they treat their partners in bed. If a fire wizard or witch is single, they will usually sleep with the same person for a few times before moving on to a new person. Fire wizards love temperature play (no surprise there). The heat, sweat, and the sound of their partner panting in pure ecstasy gets fire wizards all riled up. They love to see their partners squirm and moan in pleasure as they react to the warmth the fire wizards give off. One downside is that when fire wizards orgasm, they lose control of how hot they are, which leads to their partners coming out with a few minor burns.  

Ice – Ice wizards, like fire wizards, are romantics and are into temperature play. The difference between these two schools is that ice wizards are more shy and show love to their partners in a move gentile and intimate way. Ice wizards usually do not like to have multiple sexual partners since they enjoy having a relationship that is based more on one’s natural self. Ice wizards understand that feeling freezing cold while having sex is not the best feeling in the world. Therefore, they opt out for a light, icy tingle around their partner’s sensitive areas (I.e. nipples, thighs, lips, etc) Ice wizards have more control over their orgasms than fire wizards, which usually leaves their partner with a cool (no pun intended) experience without any harm!

Storm – Storm wizards are a bit unpredictable. Most storm wizards are into the BDSM scene. They usually prefer to play the dominant role in a sexual relationship! Storm wizards are given a bad rep for being “mean” and “rude”, but that is not always true when it comes to choosing a sexual partner. Storm wizards love to have sex with people they’ve known for a while and have a good connection with. It’s rare that you’ll find a storm wizard at a bar late at night looking for a steamy one-night stand. They prefer to share their bodies with people who won’t kiss-n-tell. When storm wizards orgasm, be prepared to feel a few tingly shocks travel throughout your entire body, making the hair on the back of your neck stand erect. Storm wizards do tend to move relatively quickly between sexual partners, which makes their pool of sexual partners a little bit larger than the average wizard.  

Death – Death wizards are the most versatile when it comes to intimacy and sex. Death wizards and witches do tend to dabble more in the BDSM scene, however, and tend to show a liking towards light pain in sexual situations. Death wizards relate the feeling of lustful pain of being alive, and reminds themselves that life is not permanent and to savor every feeling they receive. A Death wizard’s sex life will differ from one individual to the next. Some Death wizards enjoy living their life with a plethora of sexual partners, while other prefer to have only a few. Some Death wizards, to many peoples’ surprise, do not desire any sexual encounters at all! Some Death wizards are soft and sweet in bed while others are rough and aggressive. It all depends on the individual. One thing that all Death wizards and witches have in common in what happens when they orgasm. When they orgasm, they can feel an icy electric energy rush out of them from their core into their partner. Many would describe it as the feeling of life being drained out of them and into their partner.  

Life – Life wizards, like Death wizards, are very versatile when it comes to sex. Life wizards are people pleasers! They love to satisfy their partners and make them feel special and loved. Life wizards tend to dabble in just about anything as long as it won’t cause damage to either party. Life wizards are more open to having sex than the majority of wizards from other schools, however, just like Death wizards, some desire a tame sexual lifestyle and others do not desire sex at all. At a bar setting, you’ll most likely find a life wizard engaging in conversation with many other wizards. They are like a social magnet. When life wizards have sex, they tend to favor a more romantic setting with bodies being close to each other, whispering words of encouragement into their partner’s ear, and just savoring the moment. When Life wizards orgasm, both they and their partner can feel a tingly explosion deep in their core. It is almost impossible to explain how blissful the orgasm feels for the Life wizard and their partner. It is like a mixture of butterflies being released inside their core and the feeling of witnessing a breathtaking sunset while holding hands with your beloved. When sex is over for the life wizard, they feel refreshed, almost as if they have been reborn again.  

Myth – Myth wizards are vert straight foreword with their desires. Wizards and witches from the school of Myth are very theatrical people, which mimics how they perform in bed, they love to be attended to and they love to woo their partners at the same time. The Myth’s wizard’s love for the dramatic makes their kinks and sexual desires very widespread. The most common kinks amongst Myth wizards are roleplaying and BDSM. Myth wizards are not usually found at bars, although you might run into a few looking for a quickie. Myth wizards will most likely be found at a club with exotic dancers. The sexual beauty that those clubs provide are right up Myth wizards’ alley. Myth wizards are usually viewed as one of the biggest sexual “freaks”. They’re notorious for being the wildest of the schools while having sex. Rough and aggressive is how the majority of Myth wizards prefer their sex. They like to mark their “territory” and give and receive as many orgasms as they possibly can. When a Myth wizard orgasms, they feel an animalistic side of them pry at their core, begging to be released.  

Balance – Balance wizards are very secretive about their sex life, they enjoy being mysterious to outsiders. Balance wizards tend to be the least sexually active out of all the schools because they tend to enjoy taking in the world as a whole, and not take in a single individual for two to ten minutes of sexual intercourse. Very few balance wizards will be found at bars, and if you do find one, they will most likely be there to hang out with their friends from other schools. That being said, there are quite a few balance wizards to do enjoy incorporating sex into their lives. Balance wizards and witches who do enjoy sex in their daily lives tend to not be as adventurous as the other schools. Balance wizards love sex as it “naturally” occurs in nature. Some people would label that as being “vanilla”, which is not a bad thing. It is what the balance wizards are most comfortable with. Like all the other schools, there are some Balance wizards and witches who are more sexually adventurous and enjoy teasing or dom/sub play. When Balance wizard orgasms, they feel a special connection with the universe for a few moments. Almost as if they have been realigned with their inner self and centered with the universe. A balance wizard’s orgasms almost feel like completing a puzzle that one has been working on for weeks.

[crystalelemental]

Voting is complete.  Now to wait a week for results that will be utterly predictable, in which no major shifts in popularity occur at all, and not a single one of the new characters, who all seem really cool, will break top 20 because god forbid the fandom collectively stops sucking EoSD’s dick for one year.

Anyway, my picks for everything’s under the cut.

Characters:

Okina.  I really love Okina.  I don’t get how she’s so (relatively) unpopular.  Like I really don’t.  She’s so much fun!  Like, every time she’s in the spotlight, you’re constantly caught between what she’s telling you and what you think her hidden motivations are.  And oftentimes, I think both are true.  I also just like how she operates.  She’s drawn to ambition and willpower.  It’s why she likes Marisa so much and is determined to get Marisa to work for her, and why she’s so insistent that Aya take pride in beating her, even when she was holding back.  It’s why she helps Sumireko in Violet Detector despite having nothing to gain from it.  She love ambitious, strong-willed people, and seems to motivate those qualities in others.  She wants to see people overcome hardship on their own merits, which, after the reveal in Visionary Fairies that she is disabled and sometimes needs a wheelchair to get around, adds a great new layer of context to this aspect of her character.  Okina is a fantastic character, and my only wish for future works is to see her play a bigger role.

Keiki.  Surprisingly, I adore Keiki too, despite not having played WBaWC.  Keiki just...hits right, you know?  You have this world where everything’s fucked, and humans are used more as resources than as people by the powerful beast youkai in charge.  Keiki’s spawned into existence by their desperation, but all she can think to do is fulfill her role and turn everything static.  I honestly enjoy how she’s super well-intentioned, but her actions are questionable over whether they’re effective or the right thing to do.  Plus she was adorable in the Komachi manga.

Kanako.  Look, we all know I’m a Mountain of Faith person at heart, and especially love the Moriya Shrine, so I’m not gonna waste too much time here.  Kanako’s awesome, she’s the lowest ranked of the three, this had to happen.

Mamizou.  How a character who’s so routinely important to the stories and plays her role this well is so low ranked is beyond me.  Mamizou is such an interesting character.  She’s like this sweet old grandmotherly figure up until she reveals her master plan and desire for power.  She’s like an active version of Yukari and Okina, out in the open and pulling off her grand schemes, and it’s a ton of fun to watch.

Doremy.  My blood pact to vote for her aside, Doremy does sustain as one of my favorites.  She’s just...I don’t know how else to describe it but “unique.”  She’s different from a lot of the cast, in that she’s overall just really nice.  Like she genuinely seems to care about people, and her dream people especially.  She’s got her job to do and will carry it out, but mostly stays out of the way otherwise.  She’s a bit mischievous, but this is Touhou.

Junko.  I like Junko.  Vengeance mom who won over a part of Hell by swearing to bring chaos to the Lunarians.  I don’t have a ton to say, because unfortunately she doesn’t get much play.  I wish she did.  Maybe in the next Fairy-focused manga.  Everyone goes for a sleepover at Clownpiece’s mom’s place, and has to travel into hell and Junko’s just around.  That’s all I really need.

Sumireko.  While Sumireko’s fallen a bit as a favorite, and is almost certainly going to continue falling, I do like the kid.  She’s a bit of an obnoxious dingus at times, but I find her antics funny.  The way she sometimes just goes off on a ranting tangent that’s spot-on is just...it’s very in line for a super smart teen who’s just disillusioned with everything.  I dunno, I just enjoy her a lot.

Music:

Concealed Four Seasons.  Turns out, Okina’s not just a great character, but has a kickass theme song.  I love this battle theme, I think it’s my favorite.  It’s got such a good energy to it.

Desire Drive.  Best stage theme in the series.  It’s so catchy.

Lullaby of Deserted Hell.  I love this one entirely because it’s this soft, gentle music that plays as you’re traveling through hell.  And I mean that in the literal sense of it was once physically hell, and also this stage is a fucking disaster and I love it.  It’s like why the sixth stratum theme from Etrian Odyssey 2 is good.  Nightmare land with the most calming theme imaginable.

Heartfelt Fancy.  Listen, SA did good music.  I actually like the stage theme more than Satori’s boss theme.

Lost Emotion.  Kokoro’s theme is great, and one of exactly two themes I remember from the fighting games (the other is the Yorigami sisters’).  Fight game music tends to not be very good, in my opinion, but Lost Emotion hits all the right notes with me.

Shining Needle Castle.  Fun fact!  I don’t like DDC.  At all.  I think the cast is pretty boring, especially in the second half.  I don’t like the collection system.  The only cool thing visually, for me, was fighting music-themed enemies in a thunderstorm, which is cool as shit.  But goddamn this song is good.  It’s one of the few highlights of the game for me.

Dream Palace of the Great Mausoleum.  I really like just how grand it sounds.  Like it sounds awe-inspiring, and fits the area you’re in well.  I like the track on its own, but I really like when a track syncs up with the atmosphere of a place.

Fires of Hokkai.  Speaking of, good god this song.  This is probably the single best establishment of atmosphere in the series.  After everything else in the game, and all the craziness of the last stage, you hit the final destination and it starts out with a quiet heartbeat sound.  Then it just builds and builds into this powerful, driving theme that loops perfectly back to near silence as you encounter Byakuren herself.  Stage 6 is so fucking good, shame I suck at this game too much to ever get there.

Beast Metropolis.  This is purely off sound, since I haven’t played the game.  But you may notice that, thematically, it fits in with a lot of my favorite tracks.  Softer vibe, stage theme setting the mood of an area that you’d expect to be crazy but turns out to be eerily...not that.

Faith is for the Transient People.  This was a toss-up, with a lot of options I was considering, but Sanae’s theme won out.  I do like it a lot, and I didn’t vote for Sanae in characters despite her being one of my long-standing favorites, so she got this one.

Works:

Hidden Star in Four Seasons.  Okay listen.  I get that this game is not popular among fans.  I do not get why.  Are you seriously going to look me in the eye and tell me this game wasn’t a relief to play?  After the last four games had bullshit collection systems for resources, having a game that just played lives based off score again isn’t a good thing?  Yes, it was easier.  Good.  Did you miss how bullshit LoLK was?  Sometimes you gotta backpedal, right into the range of things I can actually play.  I know some people don’t like the cast at all, some nonsense about “Why are they so familiar with characters if I’ve never seen them” or something.  But the cast is spectacular.  Eternity Larva’s a fun new fairy to add to the group, and her short-lived stint in VFiS was great, proving that she’s the only fairy who has her own reserve of braincells.  Aunn is precious and wonderful.  Okina.  OKINA.  This was easily my favorite cast since Subterranean Animism, and that was a strong cast.  I just do not get the dislike of this game at all.

Mountain of Faith.  Hey, look at that, I like the games that are simple and fun for me to play.  What a surprise.  MoF was the first game I beat, because Suwako was the first character I encountered and I had to one day git gud enough to beat her.  So I did.  After like three weeks.  That was an adventure.  Anyway, I think MoF holds as one of the best in the series.  Aside from simple gameplay that’s actually fun instead of painful, it had a great cast of characters, and honestly the best environments.  Like, this game just looks good.  Maybe that’s personal bias because autumn theme and autumn is the best season, but I loved the backgrounds in this game.

Forbidden Scrollery.  Hey, it’s the thing that got me into the written works!  Yeah, I really like Forbidden Scrollery.  It’s a fun exploration of things from within the human village, from the perspective of a human who lives there.  Plus we got some of the more interesting lore bits for the series from this work, which is valuable.  And of course...human disguise Mamizou.  10/10.

Visionary Fairies in Shrine.  While there are many fairy-focused manga, this one’s my personal favorite.  Because it’s got Clownpiece.  No really, that’s it.  I like the general fairy shenanigans that the trio gets in to, but I really enjoyed how this one almost focused on Clownpiece’s integration into Gensokyo.  I think it’s a lot more compelling to have that sort of arc for the character, and it really endeared Clownpiece to me as a whole.  My only complaint with it is that Eternity Larva didn’t stick around too.  I know she had less to contribute and that Clownpiece is the central focus of this one, but it would’ve been nice to have Larva stick around and get a bit of development herself.  Maybe next manga, eh?

Subterranean Animism.   I debated this and Cage in Lunatic Runagate.  I actually regret my choice.  Subterranean Animism won out based on my enjoyment of the music and characters in the game, and (if you can believe it) my enjoyment of the gameplay.  Yeah, it turns out when the game rewards just surviving, even if resources are more scarce, I do like 10x better than when resources are only obtained through flying headlong into a storm of bullshit like the next four games demanded.  FUCKING IMAGINE THAT.  Anyway, CiLR was a serious contender that, again, I kinda regret not picking.  Bougetsushou in general was a strong compilation, but CiLR is the one that made it really stand out.  SSiB was a fun silly story, and Inaba was hilarious, but CiLR was by far the most serious and poignant of the works.  It focused really strongly on the characters, something Touhou...hadn’t really done at the time, and still doesn’t always do, and expanded them beautifully.  We get a lot more insight into Kaguya and what her life is like, we get the backstory for the new Reisen, we get background on the Watatsuki sisters, we get the Mokou chapter, arguably the best character development in the entire series.  So it really comes down to a game that I like because I can play it, or a written work that also did a lot for the characters in it.  Both excellent but I locked myself into one or the other.

[raeynbowboi]

Top 10 Disney Villains

10. King Candy Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

Although he’s newer to the villain roster, King Candy was a well-written villain who served as a perfect blend of humorous and genuinely threatening. He also tied very nicely into the themes of the film, which makes him stand out in my memory as a good villain, because I take more than just personality and actions into account when judging characters, but also role in the narrative, and how they support the themes and ideas of the story. King Candy is the perfect villain for a story like this, which is why I consider him good enough to be on this list, even if as a villain himself, he might not be the most memorable among the Disney canon.

9. Gaston Beauty and the Beast (1991)

Perhaps the Disney villain we’re most likely to meet in real life, Gaston is the perfect example of toxic masculinity on full display. He’s a great anthithesis to the Beast, though I never saw him all that handsome, which sort of detracts just a little bit from the story. But in a story about how looks don’t matter, but actions do, he’s a great foil to the love interest. He’s a selfish hateful man who is handed everything he wants, and when he doesn’t get his way, he strongarms people until they meet his demands. Yet, despite his personality, he retains a legion of followers who are more-so admirers than actual friends. He never once considers anyone to be his equal or of sufficient worth unless it was helpful in his own endeavors. And anyone who has ever had a friend who basically used them and then ditched them at the soonest convenience can probably recognize that kind of so-called “friend” in Gaston. He’s a great villain to dissect as an analysis of our current culture, but I don’t want to write a five page essay on Gaston for a top 10 list. 

8. Yzma Emperor’s New Groove (2000)

Inarguably Disney’s best comedic villain (not counting her henchman Kronk), Yzma is a brilliantly funny character whose exaggurated appearance and over-the-top personality blend well with the fast-paced slapstick comedy that fills the movie. Yet, despite being a funny villainess, she avoids a major pitfall of many comedic villains by also being legitimately threatening and dangerous to our heroes. That, combined with the excellent writing in the movie makes Yzma so memorable and likable.

7. Mother Gothel Tangled (2010)

Although her actual villainous actions in the movie are surprsingly few and far between, I genuinely love Mother Gothel as a villainess. Her motivations are well-established, and she’s the sole reason the story has any plot at all. Comparisons have been made to the living conditions of both Quasimodo and Rapunzel, and I would genuinely agree that Mother Gothel is akin to a diet version of Frollo without all the genocide and religious superiority. She has to be more discreet and pretend to be kind in order to keep her little flower content to remain obedient locked away from the outside world. It makes total sense the way she treats Rapunzel, and her entire character, personality, and role all fit together to enhance the narrative of the story.

6. Long John Silver Treasure Planet (2002)

Arguably one of the most human villains from Disney, Silver is a beautiful complexity as he juggles the duality of being a father-figure to the impressionable young Jim, while also betraying Jim’s trust. Since Jim’s father left when he was a child, Jim closes himself off from people and seems adrift in the world. Silver, who has no need to trick the boy for his mutiny to succeed, still takes the time to take Jim under his wing, nurture the boy’s abilities, and form a bond. Heck, with how relatively apathetic Jim was, he could have manipulated Jim into hating being on the ship, and thus have him be happy when the mutiny sets him free. But instead, he chose to teach the boy and boost his confidence. In the end, Silver is a compelling Anti-Villain where it’s hard to really define him as a good or wicked person. That is honestly more interesting than just being a straight deceitful villain.

5. Bill Sykes Oliver & Company (1988)

Perhaps the most surprising choice on my list, Sykes was a villain from Oliver & Company, a retelling of Oliver Twist with stray dogs and a kitten. However, despite Disney’s family friendly brand, Sykes is a surprisingly menacing character. A loan shark and a cut-throat business man, he spends most of the movie threatening to kill Fagin which is far darker than Disney tends to get. While many Disney villains want to kill people, those desires were driven by personal grievances with that person or people. With Sykes, it’s cold, ruthless business. He doesn’t care about Fagin’s life. All he cares about is getting his money, and Fagin’s life just happens to be the collateral. It’s the purest form of cold-blooded murder, and that’s not a common thing among Disney villains.

4. Ursula The Little Mermaid (1989)

There’s a good reason Ursula is one of the flagship villains of this franchise. She has a strong personality, is a great antagonist, and directly plays off the protagonist’s weaknesses to win. Second only to Scar, and possibly Jafar, Ursula is the classic hand-drawn animated Disney villain to get closest to winning. The fact that she’s based on a drag queen is kind of perfect, since the fairytale was written by Hans Christian Andersen to express his love for Edvard Collin discreetly. He intended to give it to Edvard as a wedding gift, but Edvard and his wife purposefully “forgot” to tell him when the wedding was out of fear that he’d make a scene or announce his love for Edvard in front of everyone. Thus, the mermaid’s taboo love of someone she shouldn’t who comes from an entirely different way of living is a direct parallel to Hans’ feelings for the young Gentleman, and the mermaid being unable to speak and suffering greatly to be near her love is a clear metaphor for Hans’ own feelings of torture. So the inclusion of a drag queen in a movie adaptation of a covert metaphorical gay romantic tragedy is just deliciously fitting. 

3. The Horned King The Black Cauldron (1984)

Sykes got a place on this list for being genuinely intimidating, but this villain is living nightmare fuel. One of the best things a genuinely threatening villain can do is successfully scare you, and this villain scared the living daylights out of me as a child. In fact, he was the only Disney villain to truly and completely scare me as a child. The rest of the villains were pretty much just bad characters, but the Horned King was far more terrifying than anything else I’d seen as a kid. Though his movie bombed and the story itself was a bit lacking, the Horned King was a genuinely horrifying presence, and to this day, I can’t think Disney Villains without this guy clawing his way into my mind. Maybe as a villain himself, he’s a bit flat, but he’s a horrific undead murderous monster trying to snuff out all life. He doesn’t need to be that complex for what he is, and that works with the type of villain that he was created to be.

2. Claude Frollo The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1996)

If Sykes made it to number 5 for the cold-blooded attempt at murder on one person, Frollo strolls into 2nd place for his cold-blooded successful mass racial/ethnic genocide of multiple people over a long reign of tyranny. Although we don’t see his treats on-screen, he very verbally implies that he has been executing people one by one for at least twenty years as he crushes ants. We even see him barricade a family with children inside of their house and then proceed to burn it down. This man is not messing around, and I love it. When it coems to dark, twisted, and messed up villains, Frollo takes the cake. He is hands down one of the greatest and most horrible villains out there. And the fact that he does this all in the name of God is a hauntingly dark reminder of the true cruelty of the medieval Christian church. Frollo was written in the original book to be a deliberate critique of the Catholic church, and I for one am grateful that Disney decided to be faithful to Frollo’s horrible nature when adapting to film. 

1. Maleficent Sleeping Beauty (1959)

Finally, we reach the leader of the Disney Villains. How could I not put her at the top of this list? She literally fights with all the powers of Hell. But what I like most about her is what you can piece together from the narrative. Out of all the fairies, only Fauna thinks that Maleficent could be reasoned with, and she feels sad at the idea that Maleficent may not even grasp the concept of happiness, or what it feels like to be loved. This opens Maleficent up to being a product of abuse, abandonment, and bitterness. Her hatred for the world and her actions of spite and envy come into a new light with the idea that it’s kindled from neglect and exclusion from others. It offers the question of what would happen if someone did try to just talk to her, and offers a possibly sympathetic reading of her character. But, the true crux of what Maleficent stands for is that she’s evil, and she takes great pleasure in her evil ways. She cursed a baby because she wasn’t invited to a party. When it comes to pure, unfiltered evil, Maleficent has that in spades. So, Maleficent is a perfect character no matter which type you prefer as a villain: the tormented outcast lashing out, or the heartless monster lighting the world on fire for fun. No matter what kind of villain you prefer, there’s a way of reading her narrative to satisfy you.

[apprenticebard]

How can I make more money like you?

An important question!!

So to start with, I am not a person who has Figured Things Out. I got lucky last year - my friend recommended me for a job in a very high-wage area (specifically, San Francisco’s tech industry) that I happened to be a really good fit for, and that happened to be willing to hire people on a trial basis if they were promising, even if they didn’t have college degrees (’cause I still don’t have one). And that was really good for a while, until some stuff happened and I kinda got eaten. Now I’m unemployed and looking for another job; I think I’ll find something comparatively good again, but I dunno how long it’ll be, and right now I’m looking at both moderately high-paying content-writing jobs and jobs that pay around minimum wage (which is a lot here; nothing pays less than $15 because the bay is lowkey insane), in case getting another really good job takes longer than I’d like it to.

But anyway! Obviously there isn’t a super easy way to make lots of money that’s going to apply to every anon who could possibly have shown up in my inbox, but here are some general pointers:

1) Even if things are going really well for you, you’re gonna tend to make less than most people while you’re early in your career. This is difficult but how it is. It doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong, and you might be on track for a great career in a few more years, once you gain more experience. If this is where you’re at, I think the best way to make more money is to work on leveling up at your current job, or looking for a different job of the same kind that either pays better now or will probably allow you to level up faster. It’s good to take on extra responsibilities when you have the time and energy to do so, especially if they use a lot of skills you do have, but also a few skills that you’ll need to figure out as you go along. 

Note that I do think that this advice is less actionable outside of the bay (which is full of startups that are growing rapidly and trying new things). I do think there’s still something to it. If you gain skills and responsibilities as well as you can, I think that even if your current job doesn’t recognize that and reward it, you’ll be building up skills that’ll make you more desirable the next time you change jobs.

2) Say you think you’re in a really good industry, and you know that other people in your industry make decent money, but for some reason, you’re not. Or, alternatively, say that you have a lot of skills and some work experience in a decent industry, but you can’t get anyone to call you back, and you’re beginning to wonder if maybe you’re secretly terrible and have zero Good Employee Qualities.

Getting a new job is hard, and leaving an old job is scary. I know; I just left my old job, and I spend lots of time being scared that nobody’s gonna hire me and I’m gonna have to go back to working at Kroger again, where I only made it through cashiering shifts by imagining that my characters were being tortured and that I could only save them by making it to the end of the next hour. 

But it really does pay to look at what else is out there. You can get some ideas by very casually looking at job sites like Glassdoor or Indeed; there might be nothing, or a bunch of job postings that you don’t understand, but I’ve found that it’s often good to get the lay of the land and figure out what recruiters are looking for in your industry. If you want better odds, and you have some successful friends, it can pay to ask them whether their companies are hiring for a position you can fill, and whether any of them might like to recommend you for it.

If you don’t have an easy way to get your foot in the door, you’re gonna be filling out a lot of applications. This sucks, but it doesn’t mean that you suck. If you really feel like you’re qualified for the sort of job you want, get someone to help you put together a good resume that shows off your skills, put together a portfolio or similar if you’re in the relevant industries, and resign yourself to applying to dozens or maybe hundreds of things. Recruiters are super arbitrary and will totally disqualify you based on things that have nothing to do with your ability to do the job. (This isn’t even because they’re bad people, it’s because they have a stack of resumes on their desk and have only the faintest idea how to tell which of the associated candidates are gonna be good at things.) It’s a numbers game. If you’re not doing something really ridiculous, like applying to every job with a resume that only lists completely unrelated kinds of work experience, then someone’ll probably talk to you eventually. It’ll just probably take way more applications than you’d think.

(Oh, also, all of the requirements in job postings tend to be pretty silly; as long as you think you’re genuinely capable of doing the work, I think you should apply to jobs where you meet maybe 75% of the stated requirements if the job sounds OK, and maybe 50% if it’s something you’d be really excited to get to do.)

3) If you’re not in a career sort of job at all - if you’re stuck behind the counter at Wendy’s right now, in which case my heart goes out to you, anon friend - or you’ve found yourself in a career that pays very badly or makes you unhappy, and you don’t think your skills will translate to anything you like doing, then you might want to look at changing careers entirely. Most people will tell you to go to college, if you haven’t already. I’m gonna tell you that college is a great thing for lots of people, but not always a good idea financially, and not always the best way forward, especially if you’re not very academically inclined. 

Think about what you’re good at, and think about what your dealbreakers are. You’re approaching this from thinking about money, not about passion, but you still don’t want to end up in a job that you’re a terrible fit for; you’ll get fired or be miserable all the time, and that’s no good for anyone. 

As a first line, if you feel that you’re reasonably flexible and talented, here are some very different jobs that make good money; you might want to consider whether you’re a good fit for any of these, and do more research as appropriate. (This is largely an exercise to get you thinking, not to say that these specific jobs are the ones you should definitely be looking at.)- Nursing. There’s a perpetual shortage of nurses, they have to exist everywhere in the country, and they make at least decent pay no matter where they live. For an RN, you’re looking at an average of about $55k per year in the cheapest states, and about $90k per year in the most expensive ones (although remember that this isn’t what you’ll make at the beginning of your career). I don’t recommend it if you really dislike people, long hours, college classes, heavy lifting, or bodily fluids, but I do think it’s a career that a lot more people should be willing to consider. If you think you can hack the education part, but not so much the heavy lifting, the bodily fluids, or the being around people who might be dying, dental hygienists make about the same amount, and their patients hardly ever need to be carried anywhere while possibly dying. I think.

- Software engineering. The pay rate here is kind of insane; if you have the interest and aptitude, then doing a coding bootcamp and getting a programming job in either NYC or San Francisco is a relatively attainable way of making a genuinely six-figure salary within a few years of starting, even if you don’t have a college degree. It’s not for everyone - I’ve tried to learn, a little, but I’ve bounced off pretty hard so far - but it’s a great opportunity for people who can hack it, so to speak. Like nursing, there’s a shortage here, mostly because software is a rapidly expanding industry that has only existed for, like, forty years tops.

- The skilled trades. We’re talking about electricians, mechanics, plumbers, carpenters, and other people in this space. It’s hard in different ways than an office job, but there are a lot of people who these are a good fit for. While they’re not as highly paid as nurses or engineers, people in the skilled trades do OK; reaching $50k per year is totally feasible, and people who are both skilled and lucky can break $80k. These jobs tend to go by apprenticeship systems, so if you don’t have a family member or friend to vouch for you, it’s a good idea to look at trade schools in your area to get you started, and then expect to spend several years in a junior position until you know what’s what.

- Flight Attendants. Not all flight attendants are particularly well-paid, but many are, and things like waitressing can be counted as relevant experience. The first flight attendant job I found on Indeed just now is $18 an hour and doesn’t require any experience or a degree, though the requirements do have a lot to say about your appearance, height (gotta be able to get luggage out of the overhead compartments, after all), and willingness to work really weird hours. The BLS reports that the median flight attendant ultimately makes about $56k per year. 

- Police officers. Obviously there are a ton of very legit reasons not to want to be a police officer, but I am of the opinion that someone’s gotta do it, and it’s better if the people involved wanna do it right, right? (I guess I don’t know if you want to do it right. Please don’t become a police officer purely for the money and then shoot someone, anon.) The median police officer makes about $60k, and it doesn’t require a college education, which is honestly a pretty good deal even if you’re not as passionate as Judy Hopps. I don’t recommend it as a job unless you’re not scared of people, even the creepy ones, ‘cause scared people make mistakes, and when police officers make mistakes, sometimes people end up dead.

If you read that list and were like, “Bard, there’s a reason I’m at Wendy’s, can you lower your expectations here a little,” you might want to look into stuff like warehousing, groundskeeping, janitorial work, sales, garbage collection, or construction work. Job sites are your friends; it’s useful to browse them and see what sorts of jobs pay the kinds of salaries you’re looking for. I also think you might be well-served by considering whether you can move in with friends or family in a part of the country where wages are higher. The big cost of living difference in other places is rent, so if you have a housing situation figured out or can split that cost with a friend, you can make a lot more money just by doing the same thing somewhere else. For example, before I got super lucky and became a Real Content Writer, my plan was to hang out on my friend’s couch for six months rent-free, work at some supermarket in SF, and then take my wages back home to Indiana to pay for the rest of my degree. And honestly, if I hadn’t fallen in love with this ridiculous place and hadn’t immediately gotten a much better job, I think it very well might have worked.

There’s a lot more that I could say here, but this is already pretty long. The main things are to think about where you’re headed, to look around at all of the different possible lucrative directions to head in if you don’t like where you are, and to figure out what steps you’d have to take to get there. You’re welcome to come to my inbox with more questions about this - my last job was all about helping people find jobs themselves, so I guess I should know something about it by now - but you might need to be a little more specific if I didn’t hit on the thing you’re stuck on in this post.

[wisdomrays]

JIHAD, TERRORISM, HUMAN RIGHTS: Lesser and greater jihad

What is jihad?

Derived from the root j-h-d, jihad means using all one's strength, as well as moving toward an objective with all one's power and strength and resisting every difficulty. This latter definition of jihad is closer to the religious meaning.

Jihad gained a special characteristic with the advent of Islam: struggling in the path of God. This is the meaning that usually comes to mind today. Jihad occurs on two fronts: the internal and the external. 

The internal struggle (the greater jihad) is the effort to attain one's essence; the external struggle (the lesser jihad) is the process of enabling someone else to attain his or her essence. 

The first is based on overcoming obstacles between oneself and one's essence, and the soul's reaching knowledge, and eventually divine knowledge, divine love, and spiritual bliss. 

The second is based on removing obstacles between people and faith so that people can choose freely between belief and unbelief. In one respect, jihad is the purpose of our creation and our most important duty. If the opposite were true, God would have sent Prophets with this duty.

There is an unbridgeable difference between those who remain behind without a valid excuse and those who continually engage in jihad:

Not equal are those believers who sit (at home) and are not hurt, and those who strive and fight in the cause of God with their goods and their persons. God has granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit (at home). Unto all (in faith) has God promised good: but for those who strive and fight has He distinguished above those who sit (at home) by a special reward. (An-Nisa: 4:95)

The Prophet says:

Keeping watch one day to protect the border for God's sake is superior to this world and everything in it. The small place that your whip (used in the way of God) occupies in Heaven is superior to this world and everything in it. An evening or morning walk made on God's path is superior to this world and everything in it.[ Bukhari, Jihad, 142; Tirmidhi, Fada'il al-Jihad, 25. ]

Types of jihad

The lesser jihad is not restricted to battlefronts, for this would narrow its horizon considerably. In fact, the lesser jihad has such a broad meaning and application that sometimes a word or silence, a frown or a smile, leaving or entering an assembly—in short, everything done for God's sake—and regulating love and anger according to His approval is included. In this way, all efforts made to reform society and people are part of jihad, as is every effort made for your family, relatives, neighbors, and region.

In a sense, the lesser jihad is material. The greater jihad, however, is conducted on the spiritual front, for it is our struggle with our inner world and carnal soul (nafs). When both of these jihads have been carried out successfully, the desired balance is established. If one is missing, the balance is destroyed.

Believers find peace and vitality in such a balanced jihad. They know they will die the moment their jihad ends. Believers, like trees, can survive only as long as they bear fruit. As a matter of fact, when a tree stops producing fruit, it dries up and dies. Observe pessimists, and you will notice that they no longer struggle or explain the Truth to others. Thus, God cuts off His blessing to them, leaving their interiors dark and cold. But those who pursue jihad are always surrounded by love and enthusiasm. Their inner worlds are bright, their feelings are pure, and they are on the road to prosperity. Every struggle stimulates the thought of yet another one, and thus a righteous circle is formed. As every good deed becomes a vehicle for a new good deed, such people swim among good deeds. Our hearts are informed of this truth:

And those who strive in Our Cause, We will certainly guide them to Our Paths: For God is with those who do the right. (Al-Ankabut 29:69)

There are as many roads to God as there are creatures. God leads those who struggle for His sake to salvation on one or more of these roads. He opens each road to goodness and protects it from the roads to evil. Everyone who finds His road, the Straight Path, finds the middle road. Just as these people follow a middle path regarding anger, intelligence, and lust, they also follow a middle way regarding jihad and worship. This means that God has led humanity to the path of salvation.

The lesser jihad is our active fulfillment of Islam's commands and duties; the greater jihad is proclaiming war on our ego's destructive and negative emotions and thoughts (e.g., malice, hatred, envy, selfishness, pride, arrogance, and pomp), which prevent us from attaining perfection. As this is a very difficult and strenuous jihad, it is called the greater jihad.

During the Age of Bliss, people fought like lions on the battlefield and, when night fell, lost themselves in devotion to God through worship and dhikr (remembrance and invocation of God). These valiant fighters passed their lives in a corner in worship and solitude. They learned this from their guide, the Prophet, a man of the heart who was first in the material and spiritual jihad. He encouraged his followers to ask for God's forgiveness, and was always the first to do so.

Those who succeed in the greater jihad will succeed in the lesser jihad; those who fail in the greater jihad will fail in the lesser jihad. Even if such people obtain some degree of success, they cannot obtain the full results.

'A'isha related:

One night the Messenger of God asked: "'A'isha, can I spend this night with my Lord?" (He was so genteel that he would ask for such permission. Nobility and refinement were important aspects of his profundity.) I replied: "O Messenger of God, I would like to be with you, but I'd like what you like even more." The Prophet performed ablution and began praying. He recited: Behold! In the creation of the heavens and earth, and the alternation of Night and Day—there are indeed Signs for people of understanding (Al-Imran 3:190). He recited this verse and shed tears until morning. (Ibn Kathir, Tafsir)

Sometimes in order not to wake up his wife, the Prophet would get up and worship without asking her. Again 'A'isha relates:

One night when I woke up, I could not find God's Messenger. . . . When I started to get up in the dark, my hand touched his foot. He was prostrating on the prayer rug and reciting something. I listened to his prayer. He said: "My God, I take refuge in Your compassion from Your anger and wrath. I take refuge in Your sparing me from punishment. My Lord, I take refuge in You from You (refuge in Your blessings from Your wrath, refuge in Your grace from Your grandeur, refuge in Your mercy and compassion from Your domination.) I am not capable of praising You (properly). You are as You have praised Yourself."[ Muslim, Salat, 22; Haythami, Majma' al-Zawa'id, 10:124; Tirmidhi, Da'wat, 81. ]

This incident clearly displays the inner depth and the extent of greater jihad in the Prophet. In another hadith, the Prophet mentioned these two jihads:

There are two kinds of eyes that will never see the fire of Hell: those of soldiers who act as guards on battlefields and fronts, and those who weep because of the fear of God.[ Tirmidhi, Fada'il al-Jihad, 12. ]

The jihad of those who abandon their sleep and act as guards at the most dangerous times is material jihad. Their eyes will not be subjected to the fire of Hell. As for those who do the spiritual and greater jihad and cry for fear of God, they also will not see the torture of Hell. Instead of repeating what others have done, people should have good intentions and implant in their hearts and minds the consciousness of being sincere.

Jihad is a balance of internal and external conquest. Reaching spiritual perfection and helping others do so are of the utmost importance. Attaining internal perfection is the greater jihad; helping others attain it is the lesser jihad. When you separate one from the other, jihad is no longer jihad. Indolence is born from one and anarchy from the other. Thus, the Muhammadan spirit is the only way of settlement. As is always the case, this is possible only by following and conforming to God's Messenger. How happy are those who search for a way to salvation for others as much as they do for themselves. And how happy are those who remember to save themselves while saving others!

[worldwalkernovel]

The dynamic duo: What is their favorite book/poem/song of earth? Of Alleirat? Can they sing? What are some instruments of Alleirat? What are they made of? How are they made? Are they widely available? Of earth's instruments, what is their sound similar to? Are there major festivals/holidays? Any strange ones (like the city in Spain that has an annual tomato fight)? What are Alleirai beds like (raised on four legs/futons/hammocks)? Are there sleeping bags or does everyone just suffer on the road?

Hey, y’all, sorry I just...fucking vanished there!  Real life obligations caught up with me.  Ironically this is a long term positive--I’m much more productive in writing when I have a job, because it leaves me less time to second guess myself.  Point is, I’m going to try and actually Do Things on this blog again.  Also the last one about holidays got pretty long so I put it under a cut.

What is their favorite book/poem/song of Earth?  Of Alleirat?

Oh my God, listen, I’m not gonna get to most of this question because I got overexcited, but let’s talk about these two and Earth poetry, yeah?

Crispin discovers Emily Dickinson in seventh grade English class, and the first poem of hers he ever reads is, of course, Because I could not stop for Death.  He traces his fingers over the words “Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yet//Feels shorter than the Day//I first surmised the Horses’ Heads//Were toward Eternity –” and for some reason he can’t quite put his finger on, his throat closes up tight and his voice breaks when he’s asked to read aloud.  Some indiscernable something about her words ring in his head like English hasn’t rung in years, and he checks a collection out of the library the same day.  His favorite poem of hers is--it’s not really his favorite, but the poem of hers he knows by heart and can’t seem to peel out of the beat of his pulse is I measure every Grief I meet.  Some days he loves it, for how cleanly and purely it seems to scribe him into neat four-line stanzas.  Some days he can’t read it without crying, or throwing the book across the room.

The only Dickinson poem Brenneth likes is Tell all the Truth, and sometimes when she looks at Crispin she thinks it was written for him.

Brenneth doesn’t like poetry much, she mostly prefers songs--they’re easier to remember and she knows what to do with them, she doesn’t really know what to do with poetry (can’t sing it, doesn’t have a narrative, can’t even go see it performed) and she doesn’t like not knowing what to do with a thing.  But once she read Goblin Market, by Christina Rossetti.  She started it by accident, and there was a story, a narrative threading through the ramble, and she kept reading, and--

Brenneth has dreams for a week, dizzy uneasy dreams of Crispin biting into strange foreign fruits and letting juice as thick and red as blood stain his mouth, and of hands--his hands, strong and crackling with lightning--pressing the fruit against her mouth and saying eat, eat, and of a mouth on her jaw and neck and collarbones, drinking the juice from her skin.

What are Alleirai beds/travel beds like?

The basic structure of Alleirai beds is “four legs, some kind of pad, sheets/blanket, maybe a pillow” but there’s a lot of scope there and it’s not unheard of for people to have a different arrangement based on what they’re used to--sailors are used to hammock-style bunks on ships, travelers used to sleeping rough are most familiar with bedrolls that consist of little more than two blankets and possibly a very thin pad.  At the end of the day, though, since a large portion of the continent is arable, elevated beds have the practical advantage of being easier to keep relatively clean of dirt, water, and creepy crawlies.  As such, a cot-style arrangement is considered the bare minimum, with a base of taut cloth and no mattress at all. The rich might have a four-poster bed with a down mattress.  Most people are somewhere in the middle with plain frames and horsehair or straw ticks that get exchanged on a semi-regular basis.

Can they sing?

Yes!  Brenneth has a nice folksy low alto, it’s nothing special but she used to sing shanties and ballads while she worked in her forge, especially while she was hammering or doing anything else that required a rhythm.  Sometimes she gave people a discount on their work if they were willing to teach her a new song instead, and people made jokes about the singing smith.  Crispin has a beautiful mid-range tenor, sweet and clear as glass when he was a child and deepening to something warm and full as he got older.  He has formal voice training, which was part of his education--singing is a good way to learn to project your voice, which is a desirable trait in a hero of legend.  However, he hates to sing alone, which is where all his training lies, so he taught himself to sing harmony to Brenneth’s melodies and that’s the only way he sings anymore.

What are some instruments of Alleirat/what are they like?

They hit a lot of the same major categories as we do--they have necked and non-necked string instruments (things like guitars or fiddles and lyres or harps, respectively), drums and other percussion instruments, wind instruments.  They lack the finesse to make out modern instruments, and most wind instruments are made of wood rather than metals, whereas they have a lot more metal drums than hide-and-wood drums, so playing the drum in Alleirat is equally about knowing how to stop a sound as start it.  You know that dome-shaped hang drum thing?  Something similar to that with only a few tones (like four total) is pretty common on ships and is used to keep time for sea shanties, and more complex versions are popular during festivals, in combination with strings and singing.  Vocalists are prized in Alleirat, so wind instruments are less common than things that allow singing and playing simultaneously.

Are there major holidays/festivals?  Any weird ones?

I’d have sworn on my life I answered this already, but apparently not.  The Alleirai seasons each have a festival at the height and one at the end of the year, four religious festivals and one political.  The political festival is Unification Day, the commemoration of the unification of the continent of Alleirat and the formal truce of the lengthy wars that threatened to kill everyone on it, and takes place in the early days of summer.  How seriously and/or cheerfully people take Unification Day depends on how they’re feeling about the Unified Council at that moment, and whether or not their protectorate state is on the verge of civil war with a neighbor.  

The religious festivals are:

the Feast of the Wanderer, which takes place at midsummer and is a festival of plenty and warmth and alcohol--the Wanderer is the god of life and fire, and the festival is encouraged to embrace and embody joy and revelry.  There are also ritual fights, which are largely in fun and more like friendly bar brawls than formalized gladiator matches, and both participants are usually quite drunk.  Agreeing to be the on-call flesh workers standing ringside on the Feast makes you an obscene amount of money, but you have to be sober.  Gifts are also exchanged at this festival--material gifts, specifically.

the Lady’s Night, or the Night of Stars, which takes place at midwinter and is very much a festival of...keeping out the dark, I suppose, would be the way I’ll put it.  The festival is about remembering that We Are Alive And Life Is Short, as well as remembering the dead, with a lot of candles lit in memorial and just for light--traditionally, you stay up from dusk until dawn, and if your candles and fire go out, you’ll have bad luck all year.  There’s still drinking and feasting and general celebration, but it’s more intimate and less raucous than the Feast.  You exchange stories and sing and hold your breath whenever the flames flicker.  (Cheating with magical glowglasses is considered bad luck as well.)  There are people who learn a single story or song all year in preparation for the Night of Stars, and you display them as a gift for the people you’re celebrating with.

the Landing, the first day of the new year at mid-spring, which marks the day that tradition and lore say the gods first came to Alleirat.  It’s probably not the right day, sort of like Christmas was moved around a bunch, but no one but the very well educated or very pedantic care.  You leave offerings at the temples or shrines at dawn, and then you go out and celebrate.  All day if you can, more often just from “whenever you get off work” to “whenever you collapse.”  The large cities and sometimes smaller towns and villages hold a parade, and crown young people, a boy and a girl in their mid to late teens or early twenties, as the Lady and the Wanderer for the day.  The crowns assigned to each of the two (generally flower crowns, rather than anything valuable) is supposed to be handed around over the course of the day, as a sort of village-wide game of Tag with the crowned people as “it”, and whoever holds the crowns at sundown has the responsibility of leading the town in the service of the Landing, which is a whole thing.  It’s sort of like religious hot potato with drinking.

the Eve of Dead Gods, which is pretty much what it says on the tin.  In terms of the feel of the Eve, it’s sort of somewhere between old celebrations of Halloween and Yom Kippur, with an emphasis on considering your own actions of the past year and serious reflection, as well as a  day when...well, they’re pretty serious about the dead gods.  Gods can’t be ghosts, of course, don’t be foolish, but--but when you worship the last two of a mighty pantheon, it doesn’t hurt to do honor to those who went before.  On the Eve, you lock your doors and windows at dusk and don’t go outside again until the sun is shining, and you remember that everything dies.  Even gods.

Some people--those whose ancestors escaped the sinking of the western continent--hold a quiet holiday for the Chained Lord, the god who didn’t answer when they called for salvation and whose death throes killed thousands.  It’s a small thing of fasting and candles and salt scattered on the floor, observed by most as little more than a cursory tradition and not even a shadow of a shadow of what his festivals must have once been.

[syzygyzip]

His Cage pt. 2: Wheel of Fortune

This essay may be read on its own, but it is a follow-up to another essay which psychoanalyzes the figure of Holy Knight Hodrick, a character from Dark Souls 3. In this section, the method and purpose of Dark Souls analysis comes under investigation, catalyzed by other images from Hodrick’s environment.

Hodrick as meta-critique of Freudian psycho-interpretation

Dark Souls 3 is known for its skillful, self-reflexive commentary; this game is keenly aware of the subculture that surrounds it. That in mind, what are we to make of the relatively blatant symbolic suggestiveness of Hodrick and the Greatwood? Perhaps their on-the-nose imagery is a reaction to analysis of previous Dark Souls games: the castration narrative is often cited in symbolic interpretation of Dark Souls 1, and the birth canal-esque passage of Dark Souls 2’s tutorial area is a classic introduction for people that play around with interpreting Dark Souls psychologically. And surely those myths and images are semi-intentional, relevant, and illuminating, but they are by no means the place to stop. This lore video points out how the vertebrae shackles collected by Mound-Makers resemble inkblots, the old psychoanalytic tool etched into the cultural memory as an image of Freudianism. One “reads out” of the inkblot the contents of their own unconscious. The understanding of projection, and the compensatory nature of the unconscious was one of the most significant discoveries at the dawn of psychology. Dark Souls could symbolize the principle of this discovery in a number of ways, but it is very intentional with its images, so when it decides to show us an inkblot in particular, the historical context is helpful. It’s an old and simple technique, which traces only the broad strokes of the analysand’s complexes. Likewise, Hodrick, the Greatwood, and Mound-Makers provide the interpreter with the rudiments for symbolic exploration of Dark Soul environments. 

Though this area is introductory, it is – like any part of the unconscious – inexhaustible in its depth and generous in its mutability. Consider the amorality of the Mound-Makers. Are they good or evil? Vicious or tender? Sustainers of maya or karmic accelerationists? There is so much room for the player to read into this allegiance a preferred moral perspective, at least partially determined by the general attitude the player keeps in regards to the slaughter of enemies. For the totally “unimmersed,” Dark Souls is a game and a game only, to be played, poked, prodded, to be mastered and speedran, and in that case of course any covenant is merely functional, there to surround and present a mechanic. For that player, the Mound-Makers are truly amoral. But for those who roleplay, who make at least some of their choices based on the imagined ethics of their avatar (despite extremely scarce moral responses from the game itself!), the issue is a little more complicated. Those who are simply in the habit of asking themselves, “Do I want to ally myself with this person’s values?” will not find an easy answer. On the surface, the covenant is abhorrently nihilistic, but a seasoned player may come away with a different take. So in this way the Mound-Makers, like the inkblot, are a measure of a player(/-character)’s feeling-involvement, which is itself born out of the player’s interpretational attitude.

When analyzing an object in a video game, always take into account the method by which it is encountered! Though the route to all this Freudian material in the Undead Settlement is a little arcane, it needs to be. The cryptic riddle about “Nana”, the obscure side-streets: these are there to make the player feel as though they are uncovering something secret. The obscurity is baked-in to make obvious that this material is repressed.

Though the riddle is strange, it is spoken aloud to the player, which is actually quite a telegraph by Dark Souls standards. The handiness of this secret is also metaphorically descriptive of this level of interpretation. If one stops at the purely Freudian: the mother, the father, the phallus, then they will project that schematic onto every available target. They will see reality as nothing more than a circus of oral fixations and castration dramas. If this stage of psychoanalysis is not passed through, it is nothing more than another cage to be carried around. It is the most rudimentary place to get stuck in the engagement with the unconscious.

The Armory of Symbols

What are we to make of the fact that the treasure of this area is the transposing kiln? This round thing, this simple, Arthurian symbol of the Self? It is both representative of the totality, and a totally profane and reductive simplification. I’ll explain what I mean by that.

On the one hand it is a true grail, because it has the capacity to turn the game’s hardest challenges into new tools. This is a fantastic life lesson, fundamental and perennially true. It is the pure gift of interpretation. It is said that the Buddha, in his realization that there is nothing outside of Nirvana, thereby saw that even the most torturous experiences of life, and the most unforgiving realms of Hell, were not apart from Nirvana, and that seeing them in this way thereby rectified this subjective experience of being in Hell. Once it was rephrased as Nirvana, it was always Nirvana, because all the suffering was born out of false views. Anyway, that is a very lofty height of interpretation, but one can see the boundlessness of the tool. That when the true cosmic appropriateness of an instance of suffering is groked, it is changed. On the other hand, transposition is a cheap parlor trick. It changes the essence of a boss into a weapon. It really only does one thing. Some of these weapons are useful, and most are flashy. It is almost mandatory for these weapons and spells to have a unique gimmick. So most of the time they convey to the wielder some unique flavor, some specific characteristic to consider, but even collecting such interpretations as these is merely a “building a collection.” Pinning down butterflies into a glass case. It is really no different than stockpiling corpses as Hodrick does. This device encourages the player to keep fighting, collecting, stacking bodies, finding new and interesting ways to kill people.

And ultimately, the same is true of collecting symbolism. Stockpiling a collection of unused weapons is no more or less a perversion that keeping a catalogue of archetypes for its own sake. The psychological interpretation of Hodrick, the Greatwood, and their unsightly tableau is relatively simple and straight-forward because it is meant to provide the player-interpreter with an introduction to the technique. The “game” of symbolic analysis is pointless if you spend your time taking potshots.

Wheel of Fate

Understanding the symbolism of the Mother through the eyes of Hodrick may be relatively simple, but the Undead Settlement also provides us with a more complex and transpersonal variation of the birth motif, localized at the far edge of town, hidden in a valley below. There we find catacombs tunneled into the rock, reminding us of the community of villagers who labor all day burying their dead. The Great Mother is thereby invoked, in her role which deteriorates form, which composts. The bodies decay, return to the Earth, and nourish new life. We see the skeletons sprouting branches in this dank place.

Also in the catacombs there are the dual figures of Irina the saint and a statue of Velka, goddess of sin, both of whom sit abandoned. The juxtaposition of these two sacred feminine figures is symbolically dense and deserves its own essay, but I mention it here as an echo of Kristeva’s philosophy that we passed by earlier: that of the child’s necessary bifurcation of the Mother into sublime and abject.

Velka alone is highly useful here, amplifying the Great Mother motif to a vast and cosmic context. Velka is a notoriously elusive figure in Dark Souls: she is never seen, rarely spoken of, her motivations are unknown, her ontological status unconfirmed, her objects and attributes seem to contradict each other. Nevertheless she is a crucial if not essential force in the world, and her presence can be inferred for those with eyes to see.

The main Velkan element that should be addressed here is her association with Karma, which is perhaps her principle attribute. From the beginning of DS1, she is introduced as governess of ethics, law, and equity. She explicitly oversees sin, guilt, and retribution. What practices are promoted through this governance? Mechanically, there are primarily two: keeping track of invasion penalties (in DS1) and resetting the world. If you incur penalty as an invader, the Blades of the Dark Moon will find you and punish you. So Velka prolongs and complicates PvP dynamics.

Resetting the world is an effect Velka provides that suggests forgiveness. If you aggro an NPC, and wish to get on good terms with them again, Velka allows that condition. In this way too, Velka is prolonging interpersonal relationships, but it is the relief of debt rather than the accruing of debt. Velka keeps the cycle going, she is like a keeper of the wheel that turns the age. In Dark Souls 1 a statue associated with Velka turns with the cranking of a wheel, in a room full of bonewheel skeletons. In Dark Souls 3, a similar statue turns with the cranking of a wheel in a room full of flies. In both cases, the wheel is hidden in a wet chamber behind an illusory wall. This suggests that behind the façade of the world, there is a primal place from which time is manipulated (though in this case it is but a single “tick” of the clock, an off-to-on switch which causes a fixed rotation).

Does Karma cause the rise and fall of the great ages? Is the distribution of karma the grease that turns the wheel of the world? It does seem to be that desire is what sustains the age of fire. Consider the enemies in the place where the wheel turns: bonewheels, who cling to their instruments of torture, to their suffering; flies, who bury themselves in a mountain of rotted food, a symbol of greed.

The skeletons who throw themselves into combat, and the flies which gorge on their rotting piles: either is a handy metaphor for Hodrick. His lust for the battlefield is another way of keeping himself stuck on the wheel of Samsara, collecting those shackles, representing the Velkan attachments of karma. Velka’s totem, the Raven, is found in flocks on a ravaged cliff in the settlement, among a wealth of corpses to be looted. The Raven is “associated with the fall of Spirit into that which is impure and enjoys carnage […] To raven is to plunder. This is what the word means. To have a ravenous appetite suggests greed and lust and insatiable desires.”(Valborg) Ravens keep the circus of suffering going!

Grist for the Mill

Velka is a bleak goddess, associated with “lifehunt”, the capacity to drain the essence of life, dreaded even by the gods. For this reason one of her attributes is the scythe, so she is something of a reaper figure. But we have seen she is also life-giver and sustainer, through her arbitrage of karma. This ambivalent nature is expressed by the Raven, which is a solar bird yet dyed deep black, who is cruel and enjoys carnage, yet in many myths is associated with the bringing of light and the creation of a new world.

The raven flies to and fro between the solar orb of eternal life and the dying eyes of man in time. He mercilessly pecks away at the delusions formed like veils over the cornea's shield until he penetrates to the darkness of the pupil's cavity and releases the invisible light within. (Valborg)

If the goal of Dark Souls is the realization of the Dark Soul -- the unique potential of the human being -- then perhaps Velka and her karmic processes are meant to midwife that birth as well. Could all the weight of karma, the pain of enduring a body, the cruelty of life’s entropic march … could it all be in service of birthing the Anthropos? It would explain why the Lords of Dark Souls are so antagonist to the Ashen One -- in Gnosticism and Buddhism the makers, the deities, are said to envy the actualized human being. And to be fair, the theme of surviving hardship and loss is central in Dark Souls’ reputation, and something to which countless players can attest, on practical or psychological levels (eg: “Dark Souls Helped Me Overcome Depression”).

Identity Riddles

I am the one who is disgraced and the great one. Give heed to my poverty and my wealth. Do not be arrogant to me when I am cast out upon the earth, and you will find me in those that are to come. And do not look upon me on the dung-heap nor go and leave me cast out, and you will find me in the kingdoms. And do not look upon me when I am cast out among those who are disgraced and in the least places, nor laugh at me. And do not cast me out among those who are slain in violence.

But I, I am compassionate and I am cruel. Be on your guard!

Do not hate my obedience and do not love my self-control. In my weakness, do not forsake me, and do not be afraid of my power.

-- excerpt from The Thunder, Perfect Intellect ca. 100-230

The abject Mother sits at the edge of the symbolic order, in fact it is her abjection that positions the boundaries of that order, yet it itself does not accept boundary. “Abjection preserves what existed in the archaism of pre-objectal relationship, in the immemorial violence with which a body becomes separated from another body in order to be” (Kristeva 10), referring to birth and symbolized by the Hodrick and Greatwood scene, but beyond that it also refers to the Dark Souls creation myth: the archaism in that case being the undifferentiated fog of arch-trees and everlasting dragons in the Age of Ancients. For there to be matter and objects, psyche (dragons etc) must be born into time. Once psyche has materialized itself upon the wheel of time, it cannot exist in immediate, gestalt totality – it moves and changes, expressing its fullness over aeons through its becomings. But everything must be accounted for; Karma only brings what is due. The mystery of how psyche is refined by its extension into matter will likely stay with us until the “end” of time. But with common sense we can suppose that the condition of duration allows things to be taken apart and put back together, and that at least in our mundane lives that process frequently brings about some freshness in the object. But neither the meaning nor mechanics of the larger karmic process can be groked, just as Velka and the Mother are archetypes who inherently escape the fixidity of signification. The ultimate force of taking things apart, entropy – symbolized again by the raven and its desecration of corpses – is something that has been deeply culturally villainized, and it usually takes a second to stop and consider how the diffusion of matter engenders the condition for new forms to grow.

[Ravens] tell of the renewal of the world in terms of the past which is yet to be. The unwanted Truth is told and its insatiable desire to express itself may produce terror and loathing in one who is not prepared to give up all to its insistent glare.

This is keeping with Kristeva’s view of the abject as the eruption of the Real into consciousness. Aside from their role in pecking open an aperture of light, crows have another specific job in the renewal of the world, as described in a number of myths: measuring the size and extent of that world, flying in “progressively longer intervals in order to estimate and report on the increasing size of the emerging earth.” The extremes of incarnation, the edges beyond which dwells the abject, are scoped out in order to create the blueprint; the raven brings knowledge of the schematics.

Interpreting by Attention

And what about our own schematics? We’ve thrown away our tools – the colorful cast of characters transposed into weapons of interpretation – but perhaps it’s time to pick them up again. We cast them off because we didn’t want to fix the Dark Souls myth through explanation. Archetypes cannot be superimposed, prefab, onto a tableaux of psychological symbols. Interpretation is rather the act of elaboration: flying, as the raven does, around and around a widening and changing arena, reporting back continually new understandings of what is appropriate.

The meaning of a game is determined by what a player thinks and feels while they play it. What decisions they make, what their attention lingers on. The game is the inkblot. There are special times when the game insists upon a subject, like a film: for instance, when the crank is turned and the Velka statue rotates. But such a sequence has a different meaning in games than it does in film, because of its context: it anchors a player to a single necessary and unchanging action in the context of a world that is typically responding to their decisions with nigh-unrepeatable novelty. The fixedness of the cinematic exposes the malleability of the rest of the game. “Velka” is an approximation, an aggregate; she is not the same goddess in each playthrough, the scope and the flavor of her influence is always changing – but it is always reflecting the actions of the player.

So how then, can we arrive at a judgment regarding Hodrick? We can’t, because again, each player’s experience of him is different. Earlier I implied that Hodrick is clinging to the world, out of horror and alienation in regards to the Mother figure, and that his killing spree is only building his attachments, keeping him fixed to the wheel of incarnation. So what is the difference between his wild manslaughter, and Velka’s own penchant for carnage and lifedrain? Only the intent:

The transformation of relationship can come about through a genuine understanding of the difference between murder and sacrifice. Both kill or suppress energy, but the motives behind them are quite different. Murder is rooted in ego needs for power and domination. Sacrifice is rooted in the ego’s surrender to the guidance of the Self in order to transform destructive, although perhaps comfortable, energy patterns into the creative flow of life. (Woodman 33)

But see, it is only the inner experience of the act that has authority. In my view, Hodrick’s actions are clearly ego-driven, but another player with different exposure to this character could come away with a different impression. And the archetype speaks through the individual encounter itself, not through lore videos, essays, or any other metatext. This is a crucial function of video games that bears repeating and is rarely addressed. Games commonly use the act of killing as a metaphor for the transformation of relationship (the very notion of EXP hinges on that). The unconscious is receptive to these mutations regardless, but the nature of the effect is dependent on the conscious attitude of the player.

Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror. Columbia University Press, 1980.

Layton, Bentley, ed. The Gnostic Scriptures. Yale University Press, 1995.

Valborg, Helen. The Raven. Theosophy Trust, 2013.

Woodman, Marion. The Ravaged Bridegroom: Masculinity in Women. Inner City Books, 1990.

[choate88sivertsen-blog]

Secret Benefits Of Utilizing A Lift Table.

Serena Styles is a Colorado-based writer that specializes in food, health and wellness as well as fitness. In addition to a month-to-month charge, health clubs normally bill an extra initiation charge. To take control of a health club you need to lower its stature to absolutely no by defeating its inhabitants. A nice idea, however in method - at the very least when I tried it years ago - equally as you come to organize a lift you begin bothering with the opportunity that your potential participant will certainly be a mass killer or something. Some gyms currently use workout machines that will remind you of your most recent lifting weight when you get in a personalized code. With a soft frown Diona thought of just exactly how rich the Dranias' were, awkward with the degree of riches she was seeing. Require time to discover the benefits and drawbacks of every type of Interlocking Rubber Flooring ceramic tiles as well as the outcome would certainly be a terrific house gym floor. However I also understand that the process is more vital compared to the objective I'm mosting likely to enjoy this one, yet I'll be back in the gym on Monday. Fitness centers have made a company out of taking apart olden activities, rebuilding them, injecting fancy packaging and providing them to consumers in a quite studio. As the gifted designers who sent their job to our good friends at show, having the in-home fitness center of your desires isn't really just hassle-free - it's actually practical. The Overall Fitness center 1000 measures 88 inches long by 16 1/8 inches large by 44 inches high when released for usage. One point that all of these home health clubs have in common is that the customer needs to acquire the weights independently. Though it is true that a person system of power could be a minimal wickedness than an additional, I confess, every system of power (i.e. government) is destructive to autonomy, that is, the will as well as need of the people, a living expression of the passion of the residents. As the Blue Ranger, Tori depends on the power of water to combat evil doers, and also pilots the Dolphin Zord. A lift is an enclosed secure space, like a womb, with a little chance that something can go terribly incorrect and eliminate you, likewise like a womb I mean. https://studiosante.de/purodone/ integrated quite possibly, yet I have never check out a book by David Baldacci, nor have I seen the movie based upon this publication. He was a fan of the Power Rangers prior to turning into one, however his friends dismissed the famous extremely heroes as an urban myth. I likewise delighted in the simple design and also the clear descriptions of loads of exercises you can do to enhance your body without equipment. Both Kimberly as well as Zack silently nodded, completely delighting in the thrill of pure power via their systems. Barinthus turned up behind me. I understood without seeing that he reached for me-I can feel him relocating through the power at my back. Its largest shareholders are Kite Power Service's chief executive, Costs Hampton, as well as chief operating policeman, John Hardy. Because it is thankfulness that keeps you linked with power, you could not exercise much power without gratefulness. After speaking with Lagman about his viewpoint of Awaken, I was excited to find a location that integrated restorative motions right into stamina training and was ready to see simply exactly how corroded my gymnastics skills were. Creating has the power to inspire, to show, to captivate, to lead, as well as to attach-- and it can do those things long after words have trembled off my hands and also into the key-board. Homeowner ought to have their very own plans for lift failures, inning accordance with the fire service, which will certainly charge customers ₤ 362 for participation in the future - with an added fee of ₤ 90 for every 15 minutes after the initial hour. What rate of interests me more is exactly how in each story human life is positioned relative to legislation and political power. The oppositions could not wonder about whether the Clean Air Act authorizes EPA to limit co2 air pollution from power plants. The emphasis of his book is the impact power carries those who don't have it. He breaks his analysis down right into three measurements of power: the first is straight bargaining as well as engagement, the second is the exemption of the powerless from that bargaining procedure and/or agenda-setting by the powerful, and also the third is the internalization of the perfects, worths, and also choices of the leading by the dominated. Rather counter-intuitively, the faster detachable quad lift has the exact same uphill ability as a fixed-grip quad. You rest, lie or stoop on a cushioned glideboard mounted on the slope rails, then regulate the glideboard's activity on the rails by pushing or pulling on the wing or leg pulley attachments that came with the Overall Health club. Not just these health clubs as well as camps give acupuncture solutions yet additionally assessments connected to the exact same. When the shore's clear, I mobilize the power of the Wind Ninja, and streak through the city and also into the timbers in a heartbeat. A la maison, dans la cour de récré, en faisant la queue à la boulangerie ... il suffit de repérer les Power Tattoos pour trouver kid prochain adversaire! Despite a max degree of 9999, utilize Transmigration to start throughout once more, yet your characters will be also stronger per degree! Over all it's a wonderful fitness center and so numerous makers that you could always find one to workout on and also Nikko that handles the Pro Store constantly has a fantastic selection of appearal to selected from. If you're a huge sweatshirt (you recognize who you are ...) then its an outright requirement to bring a towel with you and clean down the devices when you're done. And for annual participants, see if your health club is just one of the numerous huge chains that will certainly let you put your membership on hold, inning accordance with Instead, dress and head outside, or pop in that new health and fitness DVD and also exercise in your living room. A thoughtful expert of these methods will not be misinformed by the thrill of the experience of power down the path of self-gratification and also misuse, yet will choose rather to take pleasure in the further delights of making a lasting difference in the world. The person having loss of power must take herbal oil massage therapy to get strong erection as it aids to boost circulation of blood to the body organ to regain power and period normally. Power companies routinely shift generation amongst plants and between business to efficiently provide the power required, as well as to meet contamination control needs cost-effectively. Pure Gym says its company model is based upon providing members economical costs without tying them right into repaired term contracts, with health clubs accessible at any time of night and day. However, his and also various other scientists' searchings for recommend that it is the helpless, not the effective, who will be most receptive to that message (people reduced in power report feeling compassion for others much more frequently). The Total Gym 1000 consists of a bottom external rail as well as an upright column, attached by 2 identical rails. I would claim this publication is except everyone because everybody does not have the skill or drive it would take to maintain power. However motion pictures hardly ever showcase the things I despise most about lifts: terrible elevator Muzak (never ever a cool Miles Davis soundtrack, like the one in Lift to the Scaffold) or the way that, when you're in a rush, a person has pressed all the switches so the damn thing stops at every flooring. In addition to giving an indoor gym that is comfortable for plus-size women, Body Exchange offers various bootcamp and also off-site workout resorts. Making roads safer would have a much bigger impact on our cumulative health and wellness than building more health clubs. A leg drive is where you push against the ground to generate force to raise a resistance. Bel pertained to me with an old buddy of mine, among the friends who surrendered on me. He gently slipped his arms around me and also lifted me from the dirty fitness center floor. There ready reasons to be cynical of the notion that a win for Clinton will introduce a feminist utopia-or even just greater political power for females. The power relocated exterior from me, or possibly I moved on through something that was always there, however tonight I can sense it. Siobhan moved forward, and the power did not load her. As well as it forecasted that kite power would certainly cost so little that developing nations would have the ability to use it to discourage themselves off contaminating diesel generators and other carbon-heavy energy resources. If you desire straightforward workout devices as opposed to a way of life concept, check neighborhood authority facilities.

[architectnews]

World Trade Center Architecture: WTC Manhattan

World Trade Centre Architecture New York, Manhattan Ground Zero Buildings

New York World Trade Center Architecture

Discussion on the Design of the Freedom Tower in Manhattan, NY, USA

post updated September 11, 2021 ; Mar 15, 2004

9/11 anniversary – 20 years since the 11 September attacks

Manhattan World Trade Center

Memory Marker: Remembrance of Things Past

Article by Adrian Welch, Architect and e-architect Editor

Article written in 2004 for the The Drouth Literary magazine

Any marker to ‘9/11’ must sit in relation to polar opposites: the capitalist drive to extract dollars per sq ft on the site and a desire to leave space for memory of this atrocity. But are these truly irreconcilable opposites or could a creative architect – or team (important distinction) – reconcile these goals partly or even fully?

Ground Zero New York photograph : Andrew McRae, 2007

I won’t dwell on questions of how the site is being parcelled up – the sadly separate competitions for ‘building’ and ‘memorial’ – but the separation is relevant background information. The ‘building’ competition came first probably due to its size and thus fiscal importance. The ‘memorial’ was slotted in afterwards – eight typically minimalist ‘spaces’ shortlisted mostly using water and light. If a creative mind was behind rebuilding this site the two could have been married together.

Pre-Modernism memorials were mostly formal objects – think of Lutyens’ Thiepval Arch in the Somme, memorial to the First World War dead. Modernism brought us simple forms – the Vietnam Memorial wall in Washington DC stands out, more recently Libeskind’s Memorial Garden outside his Berlin Museum.

Memorials are described as being places to reminisce, but not normally too vividly: no overt references to falling bodies will appear in the Twin Towers Memorial. To avoid hurt they seem to retract from death and tragedy into abstract pathos or general formality. Memorials inhabit a twilight zone between architecture and sculpture; typically linked to taboo issues – here ‘atrocity’ – they sometimes suffer from lack of critique.

Back to the opening premise: can Libeskind et al make the dollar generator into the memorial, can ‘Freedom Tower’ itself have the required potency? The foot of Manhattan is already a powerful marker for many US immigrants, including members of my own family. Arriving on a ship seeing the towering lights of Mammon and the symbolic Statue of Liberty. The latter has a dual purpose – icon and climbable tourist attraction: how could the ‘Freedom Tower’ express both poles of its duality?

For a start the height of 1776 ft, resonating with America’s Year of Independence, fell flat for me: I expected it to change post-competition and so it did, unusually revised up! The impression is of lip service to the tragedy whilst the fiscal side is worked up in the background: the result is an aim to simply parcel off a patch of prime real estate purely for memory. The Ground Zero site is owned by Larry Silverstein and, with George Pataki, the City Governor, he ran an international architecture competition to find an architect / scheme for the site. The shortlist was whittled down eventually to Daniel Libeskind – radical Polish-born architect – and Rafael Vinõly – a conservative but contemporary architect born in Mexico.

But cries of ‘sell-out to Silverstein’ – especially from relatives – drown out reason: like Swiss Re for London, [after years of IRA bombs] is not the burgeoning tower of real estate the most fitting memorial? It should express city, embody confidence, and emanate determination to progress. The people who died, were primarily part of the bullish capitalist drive to make money: why pretend otherwise, wrap up reality with the cotton wool of disconnected abstraction?

Central to the memorial is symbolism and inscription. From Stonehenge to the humble gravestone we see this. For example Kahn’s 1968 abstract memorial to the ‘Six Million Jewish Martyrs’ proposed for Lower Manhattan contained both – the central pier served as an ohel (chapel), complete with inscription. The written word introduces the personal – the name you can point to, relate to. An unspoken rule of architecture is ‘good buildings don’t need signs’ and, by extension, ‘words’. Yet no architectural memorial seems complete without inscription. ‘Set in stone’ is a phrase to suggest permanency – rootedness is a useful aura when suffering loss. Hope, life after death.

Memorials also of course allow the State, organisations, people to make a statement, exert power, show respect. Just as arguments exist around the extent of ‘respectful’ space around city cathedrals – for example the years of vigorous debate around Paternoster Square’s relationship to St Paul’s Cathedral – so the same applies for memorials: do monuments really need space? Discussion re this site seems to have revolved around the notion of space given over to ‘memorial’: space = respect.

This corollary comes from the public / private opposition that has characterised debate on urbanism for decades: the more ‘public realm’, the greater the developer’s generosity and perceived benefit to the populace. The demand for rent creates maximum development by default. The Public appears to want ‘sacrifice’ where possible. Here the sacrifice could be a viewing platform at the top of ‘Freedom Tower’ a contemplative pool or a square for parades and gathering. The clever bit (in developers’ eyes) is dressing the necessary space around the building (building laws related to light, etc.) as the ‘sacrificial space’.

Monuments were essentially ‘monumental’ in the past [sounds obvious!], hence the textual linkage, i.e. grand and impersonal, arching over singularity to create plurality and collectivist aspirations but mostly subjugation. The Arc de Triomphe, Nelson’s Monument, the Monument to the Great Fire of London all rise above an urban context and dominate the human.

What validates ‘monument’, differentiates it from sculpture or building? Does the ‘title’ matter if you realise there exist ‘living structures’ (The London Eye) and ‘functionless buildings’ (Edinburgh’s National Monument)? The Ground Zero site will be home to one of the most observed memorials ever, trying to come to terms with huge, spectacularly vicious loss of life, and in one of the World’s largest and most popular cities. New York almost epitomises what we think a city should be. The memorial will be a marker for more than atrocity: it will also become a marker for cities, architecture and society.

The agenda of the people, the owner/developer, city and state may all vary. Monuments generally use scale, heroic forms, emblems/icons, metaphor and allusion. The Marker could synthesize function and memory and be emblematic of New York. Empirical institutions and situations of the city stand as allegories of the invisible substance of society as a whole.

Politically the site has to represent unbroken spirit, confidence to progress, unhindered by fears of terrorism but without creating what Giedion termed ‘devaluation of symbols’, empty gestures of civic monumentalism. Monuments should be catalytic. Tension between the ‘opposites’ could be played up or down. Aspirations of State could transmit to surging height or connotations of peace and freedom.

In Rossi’s ‘The Architecture of the City’ he defines monuments as ‘primary elements in the city which are persistent and characteristic urban artifacts. They are distinguished from housing, the other primary element in the city, by their nature as a place of symbolic function, and thus a function related to time, as opposed to a place of conventional function, which is only related to use’. A monument is dialectically related to the city’s growth.

In these days of superfast media the permanence of solid physical memorial may be a welcome antidote, but memorial possibilities have multiplied if NY wanted a more imaginative zeitgeist marker. Loops of crash footage on a massive screen, raining mannequins projected from above, the smell of kerosene and worse, screams and sirens blasted around the site complete with multi-screen slivers of reaction from bereaved families. However, this is not a horror film-set but a place of reconciliation for the bereaved, for East and West, conservative and radical.

Libeskind is working on a book fittingly about ‘tragedy, memory and hope, and the way architecture can reshape human experience’: his asymmetric tower ostensibly follows the Statue of Liberty so unless the forces of commerce puncture this concept, we will have iconoclastic towers forming a lop-sided symbolic gateway. Neither forms a traditional abstract solid, the obelisks, pyramids and towers of the past. The Twin Towers form modern day icons blasted into people’s minds. The Towers were considered by many to be ugly, but they will be a hard act to follow. Memory is what matters most, not built form.

* In 1946 New York State Legislature set up a WTC Corporation to analyse such a facility. The World Trade Centre idea formed in 1960* and preliminary drawings were drawn up by SOM, who slipped in behind Libeskind 43 years later (via David Childs). Michigan-based Minori Yamasaki and Emery Roth & Sons completed the Twin Towers between 1966 and 1973. Yamasaki had over a hundred schemes, one being a single 150-storey tower. Towers 1 & 2, nicknamed ‘David & Nelson’ after the supportive Rockefeller Brothers became quintessential New York symbols, appearing on a large proportion of postcards.

Author: Adrian Welch is an Architect and runs this website. The New York Freedom Tower article first appeared in The Drouth Literary magazine in 2004

Architectural texts welcome – no limit to words : info(at)e-architect.com

Location: 99 Church Street, New York City, NY, USA

9/11 Architecture

Contemporary 9/11 Architectural Designs

Pentagon 9/11 Memorial Visitors Center, Arlington, Virginia, United States of America Design: Fentress Architects image courtesy of architects practice 9/11 Pentagon Memorial Visitor Education Center

September 11th Memorial Building, New York City photo : Jin Lee 9/11 Memorial Museum New York

Architecture in New York City

Contemporary Architecture in New York City

New York City Architecture Designs – chronological list

New York Architecture Walking Tours

Site of World Trade Center New York (destroyed 2001) 1966-73 Minoru Yamasaki, Emery Roth & Sons

Freedom Tower New York – Site of World Trade Center Ground Zero, Lower Manhattan 2004- Daniel Libeskind Architects + David Childs of SOM Architects Controversial towers to replace the World Trade Centre skyscrapers lost to New York in 2001. The main skyscraper by Libeskind was to be a significant number of feet high – 1,776 ft – to mark a key American date in history – United States Year of Independence; the building was largely handed over to architect David Childs. Designed to be the tallest tower in the world for the site leaseholder – real estate developer Larry Silverstein. The angular design is typical for Libeskind but here echoes the Statue of Liberty. A Snohetta building was also due to appear but the situation is in a state of flux, more online soon – 2006.

Daniel Libeskind was commissioned to design the Freedom Tower after a strongly contested World Trade Center design competition in Feb 2003, beating architects such as Norman Foster and in the end winning a two-strong shortlist.

Freedom Tower New York designer – Daniel Libeskind Architects

Six teams were shortlisted in Sep 2002 out of over 400 submissions, including: Foster + Partners Richard Meier Architect Studio Daniel Libeskind United Architects Think Group

Gehry Partners LLP and Snøhetta were selected as architects for the World Trade Center cultural complex by Lower Manhattan Development Corporation in Dec 2004

Ground Zero – first building now on site SOM Architects 7 World Trade Center

New York Skyscrapers

World Financial Center 1986 Design: Cesar Pelli Architect Including the Winter Garden

World Trade Centre – New Museum Complex, Ground Zero Design: Snohetta, Architects International Freedom Centre + Drawing Centre. Also named the WTC Cultural Center. Snøhetta Architects became well known with their Alexandria library in Egypt which won a major architecture competition. Snøhetta Architects have an architects office in New York based at 50 Broad St World Trade Centre Cultural Center architect : Snøhetta

World Trade Centre site – Ground Zero : News 2006 Richard Rogers Partnership to design Tower 2 Foster & Partners (Norman Foster) to design Tower 3

Norman Foster has recently designed New York skyscraper the Hearst Tower and is designing another, adj. The Seagram Building, so despite losing out in the final shortlist for the World Trade Centre site Foster has done well.

Richard Rogers is working on massive designs for the Jacob Javits Convention Center with controversy in early 2006 when he joined a group opposed to certain Jewish settlements in Palestine

World Trade Center Towers – photos of existing buildings + images of new designs

World Trade Center Architectural Drawings : Wright’s Important Design Auction

World Trade Center New York Competition finalist : Rafael Viñoly

Another featured building by Daniel Libeskind: Creative Media Centre – Hong Kong Buildings

Another New York building by Daniel Libeskind: Condominium tower in Union City, New Jersey

New York Architectural Designs

Contemporary Architecture in New York, USA

New York Architecture News

New York Architect

New York Architecture

New York State Architecture

Comments / photos for the New York World Trade Centre page welcome

Website: Visit New York City

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[auburnfamilynews]

John Reed-USA TODAY Sports

Auburn moves back into the rankings!

Do you know what the biggest win in the Auburn-LSU rivalry by either side gets you? A spot back in the Top 25.

Clemson remained No. 1 in the AP Top 25 poll, but not by much. The Tigers received 33 first-place votes — 19 fewer than last week — and have only a two-point lead over No. 2 Alabama. Full poll >> https://t.co/7dTTUiSC1j More coverage >> https://t.co/2qlqr09CPm pic.twitter.com/vFevROpMlj

— AP Top 25 (@AP_Top25) November 1, 2020

Here’s the top 10 as it currently stands:

Clemson

Alabama

Ohio State

Notre Dame

Georgia

Cincinnati

Texas A&M

Florida

BYU

Wisconsin

And other SEC teams in the AP Poll are?

Just us, Auburn, at #24.

We pretty much killed any chance of LSU getting back in the rankings unless they win out, a feat that would include three top ten wins. Let’s see how the rest of the conference did yesterday.

ALABAMA: I’m sure no actual Alabama fans would say that what they’re doing this year is fun. How can it be? Emotionless, murderous, snuff films. It’s murder porn. Only the most sadistic among us could possibly be entertained or satisfied. Seriously, it’s got to be people whose deviant desires have gone so far as to have skewed off the map. They have support groups for people like this. Last night’s 41-0 win over Mississippi State showed more about how bad the Bulldogs are than how good Alabama is, which is still very good.

ARKANSAS: It’s probably good that Auburn caught Arkansas earlier, before they were finding their groove. Despite losing 42-31 to A&M yesterday, they outgained the Aggies and put up more than 460 total yards of offense. It was a close contest until A&M put some distance between the two right before halftime, but the Razorbacks are coming along, and based on what I’ve seen, are definitely not the worst team in the SEC West like they’ve been for the past several years.

AUBURN: Speaks for itself, hahahahahaha.

FLORIDA: Speaks for itself, hahahahaha.

Dan Mullen is here. I'm serious pic.twitter.com/KRtBRRjiW8

— Nick de la Torre (@NickdelaTorreGC) November 1, 2020

Dan Mullen started a fight with a referee that caused both Florida and Missouri players to devolve into an all-out brawl, with multiple players on each side getting tossed. Then he pumped up the crowd on his way toward the locker room at halftime, and showed up like this in the postgame presser. Florida looked okay on the field, beating Missouri 41-17, but these antics took center stage. Who do the Gators get next?

Oh yeah.

GEORGIA: Why couldn’t we get that Georgia team earlier in the year? They beat Kentucky 14-3. That’s it. That’s the tweet. Stetson Bennett was 9-13 for 131 yards with 2 interceptions, and now they get to go face a team that’s got some real fire power. I don’t know how in the world they’re still ranked where they are, but they’re going to get behind Florida this weekend and have no idea how to claw back. What happens to Kirby if he loses the East? Just continuing down the Mark Richt trajectory.

KENTUCKY: If this team could find any sort of reliable offense, they’d be pretty good. Limiting Georgia to 14 points when you can’t move the ball at all is a solid feat for a defense, but Joey Gatewood’s clearly not the answer. We’re all pleased that he didn’t turn out to be a world beater after transferring away, but 15-25 for 91 yards is indicative of a coaching staff with little confidence in your ability.

LSU: I read all 99 pages of the TigerDroppings game thread on this one, and it was glorious. Just pure acceptance of their place in the world on this particular Saturday. In all seriousness, the defense is a complete and utter mess under Bo Pelini, who needed to be fired weeks ago, and the offense has nothing to counter a team that can actually score. There’s talent, but it’s all young. Look for LSU to be good again in 2022.

MISSISSIPPI STATE: In an even quicker fall from grace, Mike Leach’s coaching career may not last all that long in Starkville. After beating LSU in the opener, they’ve lost each of the ensuing games in worse fashion. Getting shut out by Alabama and posting only 200 total yards is frighteningly bad. I’m curious to see how much worse it can get, since they’re our next opponent.

MISSOURI: I’ve been impressed by this team all year under Drinkwitz. They’re not great, but they’re going to fight and they have enough talent to bite you if you try to sleepwalk through them. Florida just had too much at home last night, and the brawl is an ugly stain, but this team will still play hard.

OLE MISS: Talk about taking your anger out on Birmingham. Poor Vandy doesn’t have anything to do with that city except relatively close regional proximity. The Rebels’ Matt Corral had 19 straight completions and tied a holy Eli Manning record with 6 passing touchdowns. Not bad, even if Vandy was the victim.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Did not play, still licking wounds from TJ Finley.

TENNESSEE: Did not play, still awaiting Nick Saban’s true wrath after breaking Jaylen Waddle’s ankle.

TEXAS A&M: Did I miss when Kellen Mond became an actual SEC quarterback? 21-26 for 260 yards and a pair of touchdowns yesterday against a tough Arkansas defense. A&M has bounced back from that loss to Alabama, and has that victory over Florida. The rest of their schedule is fairly light, playing only one more currently ranked team (us). If they’re somehow 8-1 before they come to the Plains, it’ll be a wild weekend.

VANDERBILT: Did not play, apparently, even though they were technically physically on the field against Ole Miss.

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2020/11/1/21545332/saturday-sec-impressions-new-rankings