#classification criteria

[leatherbookmark]

gently shakes mxtx hoping some worldbuilding falls out

[thetaxguyin]

How to get Udyam Registration

Deciphering the Classification of Enterprises Enterprises play a pivotal role in the economic landscape, driving growth, innovation, and employment opportunities. Understanding how enterprises are classified based on their size and scale is fundamental for availing various benefits and support mechanisms. Here’s a breakdown of the criteria for classifying enterprises as micro, small, or…

[hadone]

COMEMİXGO - MEGA+ (4)

Welcome to Comemixgo, the ultimate solution for businesses looking to enhance their online presence and connect with a broader audience. In today’s competitive digital landscape, having a reliable platform is essential to stand out and grow your brand. Comemixgo offers an innovative way to expand your reach with its extensive resources, including a comprehensive free company directory and an unlimited company directory option, tailored to meet your unique needs. 

Free Company Directory

A free company directory serves as an invaluable resource for individuals and businesses looking for information about various companies without any associated costs. Such directories provide comprehensive listings that include essential details like company names, addresses, phone numbers, and industry classifications. When it comes to navigating vast amounts of company information, a free directory offers users an accessible way to locate the businesses they need swiftly.

Among the numerous platforms available, Comemixgo stands out by offering not only a free company directory but also an unlimited directory option. This flexibility allows users to browse through countless listings for various needs. A free company directory can be particularly beneficial for small businesses and startups, helping them to establish connections and discover potential partners or clients. Additionally, it empowers individuals looking to research companies for employment opportunities, investment prospects, or service providers.

Utilizing a free company directory is straightforward; users can often search by keywords, industries, or geographical locations. This functionality streamlines the process, making it easy to find just the right business. Furthermore, having access to an extensive company directory without the constraints of fees or subscription plans can greatly enhance networking opportunities and resource accessibility for everyone.

Unlimited Company Directory

The Unlimited Company Directory offered by Comemixgo is a comprehensive resource designed to empower businesses by providing unrestricted access to a diverse array of company listings. Unlike standard directories, this feature ensures that users can explore an extensive range of businesses without limitations.

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Overall, this tool serves as an invaluable asset for anyone looking to thrive in today's competitive market.

Comemixgo

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One of the key features of Comemixgo is its user-friendly interface, allowing users to swiftly navigate through the extensive listings. By leveraging advanced search functionalities, you can easily filter results based on various parameters, ensuring that you find the most relevant companies for your needs. Whether you are looking for potential partners, suppliers, or competitors, Comemixgo makes it easy to access a wealth of information at your fingertips.

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For those looking to maximize their outreach or explore new avenues for growth, utilizing Comemixgo's resources can prove invaluable. With a focus on providing both a free company directory and an unlimited company directory, businesses can leverage the platform to enhance their visibility and tap into new markets!

[420technoblazeit]

wait i never posted the tumblr sexyman criteria pluto and i came up with during friday's stream. ok so. technically speaking we've divided classification up into eras according to which sexymen were most prevalent during that time in tumblr's history but it should be noted that older classifications of tumblr sexymen can still pop up today. harry du bois for example best fits as a neo tumblr sexyman despite coming from a relatively modern game

[kenyatta]

It took a long time for things to change, even a little bit. Until 2013, being trans was considered a mental illness. Transition was to be used only if other efforts to ‘cure’ this illness had failed by adolescence. In contrast, modern criteria – such as the WHO’s International Classification of Diseases (11th Revision, effective from 2022) and its discussion of gender incongruence, and the DSM-5’s discussion of gender dysphoria – viewed being trans not as a mental illness, but as a normal (if uncommon) segment of the population.

The fact that modern profiles of trans youth differ drastically from past profiles reflects differences in referral patterns: not only are many trans youth now brought into a clinic for transition-care by supportive parents, many of the children in prior samples came in alone; they were generally viewed as gender nonconforming (not following other people’s ideas or stereotypes about how they should look or act based on the female or male sex they were assigned at birth) and may or may not have been trans.

Further, even care for adults often was denied if the adults in question did not wholly conform to stereotypes of their newly affirmed gender. An AusPATH report in 2022 on the history of trans healthcare in Australia details how trans people were denied care; sometimes denial could be as petty as clinicians not finding a client attractive.

And because gender conformity was (and is) more strictly enforced for boys, trans boys may have simply flown under the radar and never been counted at all, leading to the shift in the sex ratio we see today. These earlier referral patterns are also likely a reason why papers from this period claimed that, by adolescence, children often outgrew identifying as trans – a phenomenon called ‘desistance’, considered exceedingly rare today. In what could be seen as a contradiction, some of these same authors found that the intensity of gender dysphoria – the main focus of the modern diagnostic criteria – was the strongest predictor of ‘persistence’.

In short, there is a straightforward explanation why current samples of trans youth don’t resemble past samples: samples from the past were not well-characterised. They were small and inadequate, collected when parents were unsupportive, and the goal was to prevent adult transition if at all possible. Indeed, the same 2020 Dutch paper that described the rise in youth seeking care as ‘exponential’ concluded that this increase was mainly due to adolescents with gender dysphoria being more willing to seek help than they were in the past, with greater family support.

[cripplecharacters]

Complex Dissociative Disorders Terminology: A Basic Primer

[Large text: DID Terminology: A Basic Primer]

Here are some common terms you may see when researching complex dissociative disorders! 

Basic Terms

[Large Text: Basic Terms]

Dissociation - An internal feeling of disconnect between one's body, history, thoughts, emotions, memories, acts, and/or environment. Not everyone who experiences dissociation has a dissociative disorder. Dissociation is a common coping mechanism in times of stress. 

Alter - A dissociated part of a personality that failed to integrate into the self due to trauma. These parts may have their own age, gender, needs, wants, sexuality, species, memories, actions, urges, opinions, skills, abilities, etc. 

Fragment - An alter who is not fully “fleshed out” or differentiated. They may have a single function, emotion, or memory. 

System - The entire collection of alters in one body 

Front - The alter who is “in front” or “fronting” is aware of the outside world, and controlling the body. 

Switch - “to switch” is to change what alter is fronting (controlling the body). This can be slow or fast, planned or unplanned, accidental or intentionality. 

Co-consciousness (co-con) - When two or more alters are aware of the outside world they are co-conscious. 

Passive Influence - When an alter who is not currently fronting affects the fronting alter. This can be in the form of memories, thoughts, emotions, desires, preferences, actions, etc. 

Splitting - To split is to create a new alter 

Amnesia - partial or complete loss of memory (not exclusive to CDD) 

Disorders 

[Large text: Disorders]

Complex Dissociative Disorder (CDD) - An umbrella term for all dissociative disorders that cause systems. This list includes Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), Other Specified Dissociative Disorder Type 1 (OSDD-1), Unspecified Dissociative Disorder (UDD), and Partial Dissociative Identity Disorder (P-DID).

Dissociative Disorder - To quote https://did-research.org/ “a disorder characterized by a separation of consciousness from emotion, sensation, memory, personal history, sense of self, or sense of reality.”  

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) - DID is characterised by two or more dissociative self-states "Alters" that are linked to some degree of amnesia and are capable of assuming executive control. 

Other Specified Dissociative Disorder Type 1 (OSDD-1) - OSDD-1 is a disorder that is very similar to DID but lacks fully differentiated selves (type 1a) or amnesia (type 1b). OSDD in general is a category of dissociative disorders that while not fitting the criteria for any other dissociative disorder, can still be specified. 

Unspecified Dissociative Disorder (UDD) - A category of disorders that can not be labeled, or are unable to be fully understood. This diagnosis is most often applied in crises or emergencies.

Partial Dissociative Identity Disorder (P-DID) - As outlined by the International Classification of Diseases is a condition similar to DID where “One personality state is dominant and normally functions in daily life, but is intruded upon by one or more non-dominant personality states (dissociative intrusions).” Essentially one alter is always in front, but they regularly experience passive influence or co-consciousness. 

Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) - This is a former term for DID. The name was changed because DID is not a personality disorder, it’s a dissociative disorder. Many people today find this term insensitive, outdated, and offensive, although some systems may choose to self-identify with the term. 

The Theory of Structural Dissociation (TOSD)

[Large Text: The Theory of Structural Dissociation (TOSD)] 

This is the current understanding of how dissociative disorders as well as other disorders caused by trauma are formed and function. To quote https://did-research.org/ “this theory centers around an inability to integrate traumatic memories and materials into one’s primary personality, sense of self, and self history that results in an overall inability to integrate parts.” 

To learn more about anything referenced above I would recommend checking out https://did-research.org/

Thanks, Mod Patch

[ocean-sunfish-hater]

Hi,

I saw your post about barrel bugs and I wanted to ask if you know more interesting marine parasites?

(Personally I think that dendrogasters are quite cool)

Dendrogasters are pretty cool! I don't know much about them but they look really... odd.

ID: a picture of Dendrogaster showing its unsual body plan, with its branching structures that end in spherical growths. It is light yellow to orange in colour. It is set against a black background and part of a ruler can be seen.

There's a whole host (haha) of interesting marine parasites, and I won't go through all of them now but here's a few that you might like.

Rhizocephala are a parasitic group of barnacles that live on crabs. They have no internal organs except gonads, a few muscles and the remnants of a nervous system. In fact, their only distinguishable bodyy structure is the female reproductive organs, which sit outside of its host's body. Here's a really cool drawing of the filaments which it sends out into its host's body to absorb nutrients directly from their blood:

ID: a black and white drawing of a crab infected with the parasite Rhizocephala. It shows the underside of the crab with the externa (female gonads) visible and a network of filaments that the parasite has grown throughout the host body.

I'm sure you've heard of tongue lice, so I won't labour the point too much, but spark notes is that they attach to the gill arches or tongue of a fish, then cut off the circulation to the tongue so that it withers off. It then replaces the fish's tongue.

ID: an image of a tongue eating louse inside a fish's mouth. The louse is pale, almost white in colour and has two black eyes. The fish is like :O

Finally, this isn't a marine parasite but you'll see why I include it in a second, but the tongue worms (not to be confused with the tongue eating louse). They are actually terrestrial and mostly infect the respiratory tracts of vertebrates (sometimes, though very rarely, us). What I find interesting is that they have no circulatory, excretory or respiratory organs and rely soley on the host to do all these things. Isn't that cool?

ID: a drawing of a tongue worm (Pentastomida). It has a segmented body that ends in a point. At the other end there are 4 stubby limb-like structures.

If you're still reading , you might be wondering why I picked these ones and why the tongue worm is awkwardly shoved in there? Because @chowaniec I have tricked you; this is not a post about marine parasites, it's a post about the diversity of crustaceans. THAT'S RIGHT, ALL OF THESE ANIMALS, WITH THEIR WEIRD LIFE CYCLES AND UNCRUSTACEANY BODIES ARE COUSINS OF CRABS AND SHRIMP AND LOBSTERS. AND THAT INCLUDES YOUR ORIGINAL SUBMISSION OF DENDROGASTER, WHICH IS WHAT GAVE ME THIS IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE.

All of these lil guys just have highly specialised bodies that have lost many of the features we associate with crustaceans so that they can be better parasites. It's really only though careful analysis of their lifecycles and genetics that we can even determine them to be crustaceans at all.

I wanted to showcase the immense diversity of crustaceans and the weird and wonderful flexiblity of evolution. I also wanted to show you why morphological criteria for classification fall short, even beyond the "coconuts are mammals" meme.

Thanks for the submission, and thanks for being patient with me! I know this one took a little while longer to receive but I hope it was worth it.

[sexcromancy]

young adult, new adult, and fantasy fiction: the audience of a book is who reads it

title clumsily based on the purpose of a system is what it does.

before we begin, I want to focus a bit on defining our terms. young adult, new adult, adult, science fiction/fantasy, speculative fiction, contemporary romance - all of the terms I will use in this post are created by marketing companies and readers, and all of them have fuzzy and subjective applicability to any given book. there is no objectivity in cataloging, which is the lens through which I approach knowledge organization projects like this. there is no definitive answer to what any given book or genre "is", because these categories are not fixed values. instead, their values are expanded and developed by what gets placed in which category, by whom, and what criteria they base that decision on. that's what I want to discuss.

to provide some context: debates over age categories and who is reading what books for which age ranges currently dominate discussions among publishers, authors, librarians, and readers. ages of characters in YA are skewing up, sales are slowing down. young adult as a category has existed for 50+ years, but it is currently undergoing some growing pains. here's one more article for good measure. new adult is a term created by the publishing industry in 2009, which developed in fits and starts despite multiple bestselling authors publishing under the category. oh well. in 2015, sarah j mass published her new book, a court of thorns and roses, which is widely regarded as a turning point for the popularity of new adult (more on the classification of ACOTAR itself in a moment). NA stalled out for many years, but has recently very quickly grown in popularity, especially for romance readers on booktok. some of the most popular books listed under new adult on goodreads are colleen hoover's it ends with us and it starts with us, ali hazelwood's check & mate, and rebecca yarros' fourth wing.

I want to look at two of these currently very popular authors as case studies to really dig into what new adult has come to mean.

in this 2014 interview, SJM discusses her currently running throne of glass series and the upcoming release of ACOTAR in 2015. she notes that the book is intended for "a slightly older YA crowd (aka steamy times ahead!)". earlier in the interview, she dodges a question about whether throne of glass will be YA or NA by saying she appreciates her teen and adult readers - if I had to guess, the label was still too new and publishers didn't want to alienate anyone. in 2023, I can't find anything on her website or bookseller sites that specifically identify the series (or any of her series) as YA, NA, or adult. however, Goodreads (which relies on user generated tags and is, to put it lightly, a mess wrt information organization) firmly classes ACOTAR as YA - almost 9k tags in young-adult and ya (lack of authority control is just one aspect of the mess), as opposed to about 3.5k new-adult. the thing is, though, ACOTAR comes up in essentially every blog post and article I read on the definition of new adult. it is a flashpoint in the discussion: it either did or didn't restart the term, it is or isn't too sexually explicit to be classed for teens, the writing is filled with young adult tropes and this does or does not matter. the answers to these questions aren't particularly important to me, but it's very interesting to see how people are attempting to draw those boundaries. I took a quick census of how SJM's series are classed in my library system. her throne of glass series is uniformly shelved in YA; ACOTAR is mostly YA with a few copies in adult, and her newer crescent city series is mostly adult with a few copies in YA. I do think that any discussion of ACOTAR is partially colored by this divisive relationship to the new adult category itself, so I'd also like to bring in a much newer book facing similar conversation.

if you follow this blog you might already know that I have an entirely non-neutral relationship to ali hazelwood; I love her books both as books and as cultural objects deserving of study. previously, she published three adult romance novels and a set of adult romance novellas, which all fall firmly and inarguably into those defined categories, based on age range and content (I have an argument for the love hypothesis being a horror story, but that's a different conversation). last year, she published her newest book, check & mate, as a young adult romance. it was widely marketed as such by the young readers imprint at putnam. however, on reading it, I (and many goodreads commenters) were surprised to find that it aligned more with some hallmarks of new adult. the characters are out of high school, and the challenges and growth moments are more focused on evolution, rather than coming of age. one blog post I read made the argument that YA is about high school firsts and NA is about adulthood firsts. this is amorphous, partially because there is no real one life path into adulthood by which to judge this, so let's switch focus to something more concrete: sex. in each of Ali's adult novels, there are a few explicit sex scenes. they're not as explicit as other romance novels, but they're definitely not fade-to-black. in check & mate, characters have sex, but it happens entirely off-screen and any discussion is fairly chaste or, at most, relying heavily on implied content. this is a real disconnect to me. much of NA lit (ACOTAR included) is quite sexually explicit. among those most popular NA books on goodreads, there are many books that get marketed specifically for their sexual content (spicy🌶️ to the tiktokers, smut to everyone else). to me, this cements check & mate as a YA novel - if she was going to write a book with explicit sex, like her others, she could've. she's mentioned in interviews that her chess novel concept originally featured older characters, and she aged them down once she realized what kind of story she wanted to tell. to me, it is telling that moving from adult to YA creates more clumsy caution around the handling of sex, as opposed to SJM, whose books "aged" upwards over time.

another interesting example I've noticed in the emerging NA space is how the age category intersects with genre. YA as a category has a pretty expansive genre playing field - we've all read YA fantasy, contemporary romance, historical fiction, action/adventure, issue novels, etc. NA so far seems pretty exclusively limited to romance as a main focus, especially in the most popular offerings as discussed above.

I've seen many a tiktok alleging that despite the drawn out fight scenes, extensive lore, and huge interconnected web of characters, the ACOTAR books are not "real fantasy." even more so for the fourth wing books. I've seen these books compared to Tolkien, as if to say, well, if you didn't invent a language, you're not really on the same level. that's entirely unfair, imo - plenty of fantasy doesn't engage at that level. but there is a wide array of contemporary fantasy I do think we can contrast with ACOTAR and other popular NA series.

we've discussed some of the hallmarks of YA and NA as categories: the age range of characters, coming of age, explicit sex for NA. i'd add fast-paced, immersive writing, especially in first person or close third, because so much of the appeal described on booktok is a book sucking you in completely. now, i want to bring up a few books that, on the surface, might check several of these boxes: dune by frank herbert has an 18yo protagonist, and the first book is very much a coming of age story. eragon (christopher paolini) and the name of the wind (patrick rothfuss) focus on a young person coming into their magical abilities through school/mentorship, a similar setting to many YA series. mistborn (brandon sanderson) and game of thrones (george r.r. martin) both have prominent protagonists that are 18 or younger when the story starts. of all these series, only eragon has young-adult as its most popular age-related tag on goodreads, and eragon was, at the time of release, very specifically marketed to and shelved in young adult in bookstores and libraries. some of these books have explicit or non-explicit sexual content, but only GOT has even close to as much as your average NA novel (to my knowledge).

i am not alleging that any of these books should be classed as YA, necessarily. but the glaring difference in their marketing and readership does point to one thing: these books are largely about men, and they are all written by men. i am not the first person to point out this gender gap in fantasy writing, and i don't have anything particularly new to say about it, except to bring it back around to my original point. none of these novels "are" adult fiction, and plenty (plenty!) of teenagers read them, in an interesting reversal of the trends in YA. who is making the decisions about where these books go, and why? what can we draw out about the books and their marketing? how is the future of "adult fantasy" shaped when these are the benchmarks by which we measure new entries?

i did also look into a few of my own favorite sci-fi series by women to see how they ranked by similar parameters. parable of the sower by octavia butler, featuring an 18yo protagonist and sexual content, has no age category at all in the top 20 most popular goodreads tags. it's in adult fiction in every library in my system that owns a copy. ive seen gideon the ninth (18yo protag, and yeah lets go ahead and say explicit sexual content) on YA shelves in bookstores, but its adult tag on goodreads is more popular, and almost every library in my system has it in adult. in my opinion, these books are important in rejecting the "women write YA, men write adult" narrative around speculative fiction, but they're not necessarily an exception to a different trend. it is not difficult for me to think of more adult scifi/fantasy books by women, because i actively seek them out. however, almost every single one of them has a protagonist under 25, as is the case with so much of the adult fantasy written by men listed above. last year, i read the adventures of amina al-sirafi, by s.a. chakrabotry, which was (i believe) the first non-contemporary/realistic fiction book ive ever read with a middle aged mother as the main protagonist. the book club at my library branch, mainly composed of middle aged and older women, read it, and expressed such genuine joy and excitement over a fantastic, adventurous book featuring a woman they saw themselves in. representation really does matter, and it matters to everyone, not just young people. but that's a different soapbox.

young readers are extremely picky. i've watched many a teenager (or younger) browse the YA section and turn up their noses at books with a cringey cover, an overly dramatic blurb, or just because. marketing books to teens is hard. booktok is an incredibly powerful marketing tool and divisive social force. it skyrockets an author one day and by the next week, other accounts are tearing that same author to shreds. in this environment, its no surprise that the sensationalized books - extremely good or extremely bad, blatantly sexual, shocking, consumable - become flashpoints of discussion. who should be reading ya? who is it for? what is inappropriate for young teenagers to read? what is inappropriate for adults to read? i think about these topics a lot, especially as what the publishing industry terms a "gatekeeper" - i'm a children's librarian; i control the access teenagers in my community have to these books. i take that role seriously, and i want to be thinking deeply about the books i put in my YA section and who will read them. our decisions, about where we class books, how we label and present them, how we discuss them: that is part of what dictates what genre and age classification a book "is", in addition to marketing.

[findmeinthefallair]

An Uncommonly Discussed Trauma Symptom

Disclaimer: This is in no way a substitute for therapy: it’s only psychoeducation. Please consult a therapist and/or hotline and get the help you need if you are experiencing mental health difficulties, especially if experiencing distress or issues that feel unmanageable.

Warnings: Mentions and discussion of suicidal ideation, death, abuse and violence.

Special thanks to @ashanimus and @childlikegoblinqueen

Ever heard of "the sense of a foreshortened future"?

If you have suffered trauma over a sustained and long enough period of time, you may find that you can't imagine yourself living long. You can't see yourself reaching milestones, because it hardly makes sense to your mind that you can go on for that long...given how much you have felt like you've escaped danger, given just how many close calls you have had in life.

Yet the sense of a foreshortened future is a separate thing from suicidality.

If you have both of those together though, it really isn't fun because they may feed one another in a cycle, in the way that symptoms under the same mental health condition have the potential to do the same.

It isn't a desire for pain to end (which is what suicidality is), more so a generated expectation that takes root, and a framework which a survivor tries to fit their experiences into, with the goal to get things to make as much sense as can be. Because it's often the easier thing to devise a simple formula, to feel certainty and to manage one's expectations: rather than embrace the grey areas of uncertainty about how life will turn out.

It's almost as if this feeling of a foreshortened future is in a tug-of-war match between what appears to be solid reasoning, and a person's natural survival instinct along with the hunger for a meaningful life.

This symptom isn't on the *official* criteria for a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist to make any diagnoses, it is not listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) or International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10). But informally it is sometimes categorized as an avoidance symptom under both PTSD and Complex PTSD, and also under longer-term depression.

(however, I think it can extend to other conditions. The key criteria is it emerges from repeatedly experiencing horrible things until it makes sense in one's head to expect themselves not to last much longer)

If you hop onto Google Scholar to find proper research about it, the findings are very scarce because it's hard to define it, empirically measure it and quantify it in the first place.

Again, it's not the same as suicidal ideation because a foreshortened-future view is an expectation, while the latter is about a desire.

I wasn't taught about this symptom in any training and supervision before becoming a licensed therapist, nor did any of my own therapists bring it up as psychoeducation when I saw them. It was only through online articles on informal websites that I stumbled upon the phrase and it all clicked for my long-term experiences.

But I feel it is good knowledge for anyone providing psychotherapy to bear in mind.

In The Owl House, the grimwalker lore weaved into Hunter's arc, can shockingly be linked with this symptom, symbolically and thematically.

But the show's age rating means it would likely be too dark for the writing team to explicitly incorporate it into Hunter's dialogue.

Hunter was a lamb marked for the slaughter early on.

He has questioned his survival and ability to thrive.

The following article on Psychology Today describes Belos's long-term influence on Hunter pretty well and provides info that strengthens the points I'm making in this whole post:

Link

It's bad enough that before Hunter and Luz found Belos's mindscape, he struggled with the fear of failure to the extent that there was already the raging inner battle between his primal survival instinct and the already knackered part of him that sought eternal rest from his suffering (showing up as suicidal thoughts):

Fast forward a number of episodes...and we see the looming horrors in Hollow Mind that culminated in Hunter's discovery of what his predecessors went through:

followed by permanent rejection by his parental figure:

The power held by a foreshortened-future view, and its potential to isolate you - to make you feel like you're invisible, or a ghost - can be strong.

What Hunter said to Gus in the following screencaps sums up what it feels like pretty well:

In the context of having an abuser, it emerges from the negative beliefs they impose on you. It gets tricky if those beliefs are internalized, and which may remain internalized even after you get to safety and away from said abuser. Internalized until they become what you expect of your life.

It's about those thoughts which you know in your rational mind are lies, but you feel their apparent truth. They go more silent when you practice self-care but they return to try and reel you in again, and to a degree, they succeed in getting you to believe them all over again, before you renounce them once more.

Being in the C-PTSD Club along with Hunter, I personally experience the feeling of a foreshortened future as a voice deep down which almost always says that life feels too long and it therefore feels absolutely weird, like it doesn't make sense. Life feels too long, contrary to that commonly heard cheesy quote, "Life is too short to blah blah blah".

When I reached milestone birthdays like my 21st, it was confusing and made me irritable, feeling an itch deep down that I could not scratch.

The voice asks me why the heck I'm still around when it apparently doesn't make sense. It's a pervading feeling which can be pretty annoying, though I have it far enough in the background that it's like noise instead of being a source of distress.

It's not the easiest thing to explain this, but Hunter may have confusing thoughts creeping into his head like "Caleb didn't last long, why would I?" whereby such thoughts have a strange feel to them. They aren't exactly hard rules, nor are they distant enough that they can be easily brushed aside. Brain hurty, emotions spooky.

After the horror of this night:

I can definitely see Hunter wrestling with this symptom from time to time. No doubt. It was a major loss of autonomy and control that would significantly aggravate what was already brewing deep down.

I'm doubtful that the crew even established this on purpose (unless they actually consulted trauma experts and/or experienced mental health practitioners), but...this one symptom ties in with grimwalker lore so perfectly...it's hella fascinating that all Hunter's predecessors' lives (including Caleb's) were cut short. Prematurely.

They came with an expiry date set by their abuser: something very characteristic of this foreshortened future feeling, though not unique to survivors of abusive home environments (e.g. if you experienced natural disasters over many years, yet had a loving family, you could also feel like you may not live long). And Hunter's experience of seeing the grimwalker graveyard in Hollow Mind is a shockingly visceral and visual metaphor to symbolize a concept like this, which matches perfectly with his symptomology as a Complex PTSD survivor.

The battle for inner peace has a high price: it is ongoing, and extends beyond him being physically free from Belos. Because Hunter can't just trim away the Belos-related memories from his earliest years and formative years. He can't forget, but he can choose to give those memories less attention, and choose not to let them take the steering wheel in the long-term.

In my opinion, the possession scenes don't just portray the physical experience of an abuser returning to try regaining control or restoring the status quo of having the survivor in their grasp.

The scenes also represent the abuser's imprint upon the survivor that lasts beyond the duration for which Belos is present in Hunter's life. Belos is the kind of abuser that is so insidious that he knows he could leave some marks that outlast his directly physical presence, in the event that he meets his own end. He would have definitely thought about this. Leaving the kind of grisly reminders that won't ever technically fade away (not to be confused with how they can certainly "fade further into the background" via therapy, new positive experiences and the support of loved ones).

For example, the patterns of the permanent scars on Hunter look so much like the patterns on Philip's own face and body. When possessed, the markings were dark green, later faded to the colour of scar tissue once Belos leaves his body.

As we all know, it's hella sad to imagine Hunter having to look at himself in mirrors throughout the rest of his life. It was awful enough that he had the haircut-related panic attack.

If we tie all that back to the symptom of a foreshortened-future view: Hunter might be left with a spooky nebulous feeling (that will alternate between coming back to haunt him, and subsiding) that he too has some expiry date that is different from how the people around him naturally and confidently expect to live a substantially long life. As a cult survivor with C-PTSD, Hunter can't afford the luxury of those natural expectations.

I don't mean that he might plan a day in the future to end his own life, not at all. But he may have a strange ghostly expectation of how long more he has till his life may come to an end, and he wouldn't be sure of how this subconscious expectation came about.

The darker days of navigating the confusing mess of his complex trauma may feel like exhaustion from paddling and swimming to keep your head above water to breathe.

Speaking of water and drowning, plus the theme of sinking down vs. rising back up above the water surface...the fact that Camila jumped in to bring him back up, his friends helped to pull him out, and Flapjack passes new life to him...this is also some crazy powerful symbolism for surviving complex trauma.

Falling back on a support network, your "tribe", that won't abandon you.

My other Hunter analyses (link) go into more detail about his support network and why he needs it.

I was talking to a friend about all this: she has relevant lived experience and mentioned that poor Hunter would reach a milestone birthday and perhaps cry at least a bit on that day, maybe even during the birthday party: out of sheer confusion. The confusion would be silently screaming "But...this doesn't...make sense?". And he might feel confusing waves of darker emotions along with a strange sense of joy.

He may make a decision to start a family with Willow, and a confused questioning voice will bother him now and then with "How are you still here, doing this and living to see this?".

(...also, when is his birthday...? Is it documented in some Emperor's Coven records that they will find..? Even the mere concept of having a birthday is messed up for him to think about, given the purpose behind his creation)

Complex trauma changes its survivors' relationships with the world, not just with people, and this can even apply to their relationships with things like joy and how joy is experienced.

Flapjack's absence would have bred survivor's guilt. It might translate into Hunter questioning whether he is worth the love and effort his friends put in for him. This feeling could emerge at random moments over the years in his life.

Visually, I feel that these two frames - the lighting (which I'd say is unique among all his scenes because they are parts of his arc that stand out so much), his pose, his expression - somehow capture the experience of how complex trauma is chronic and long-term:

The currently most known C-PTSD memoir out there, What My Bones Know by journalist Stephanie Foo, has some content that I feel matches nicely with what Hunter is experiencing in the two separate scenes above.

The author describes something she calls "the dread" (if you get the book, it's first mentioned on page 51). I would call it the amalgamation of multiple things such as shame, the fear of impending harm, self-doubt where you question whether you did something wrong, fearing that someone hates you, etc.

And basically, good lord my poor boy in the first screenshot..with that expression of suspecting what he thought was Belos's presence in the room: something about it fits the book author's words, feeling like she was "on the precipice of fucking everything up".

That's certainly something that would cross Hunter's mind multiple times as he processes the worst night of his life. That he could have done something to prevent all that.

With so much pre-existing worry that his friends and family might actually hate him, the possession scenes and Flapjack's death would definitely shake his foundation and I'm sure he isn't past this kind of ingrained thought pattern at all:

Second, the book author calls C-PTSD a shapeshifting "beast" (page 316). And when she fights it, she must use a different strategy depending on what form it takes, and that it will keep coming back from time to time in another form. Which is why there is a particular exhaustion one feels from having to adapt to each battle.

For Hunter, the second screencap of him fighting Belos's coercion in a direct physical manner is the first of many battles he has to win in his mind, even after Belos is gone for good. Outlasting whatever invisible assailant is trying to get him, as he faces inevitable episodes of being retraumatized in the future: these are called emotional flashbacks (one of the symptoms of C-PTSD).

Being a survivor of complex trauma who experiences a weird sense of time via a foreshortened-future view, can feel like being on the outside looking in.

But! To end this meta on a hopeful note, I should reiterate something from my most recent long meta about Retraumatization vs. Self-Soothing, the first part of Hunter's important speech in Thanks to Them touches on wild magic and palisman. Wild magic represents freedom, while palismen (quoting the Bat Queen) represent close bonds in relationships, emotion, and conviction.

Applying this to how we can navigate the swampy waters of a foreshortened-future view, Hunter can use his newfound freedom and sense of agency to create the story he'd like to tell about his life. It is pretty much impossible to avoid bringing beliefs from our young formative years into adulthood. But expectations (which have a direct link with emotions we end up feeling) of ourselves and of life can be altered over time, so they become less rigid and instead more open to new possibilities.

He has an inquisitive mind which is a big plus point in understanding the impact of what he has been through, and I have full faith that he'll do just fine in that regard because of the courage we have seen in him.

Among the hobbies he explores in the future, flyer derby will be one example of an excellent outlet for him because of its physicality: trauma and grief are not only emotional battlegrounds but also highly physical ones. The body is also very much involved e.g. feeling the lead-like weight of depressive moods in one's body, feeling the physical tension of hypervigilance, etc.

It's fantastic that he has Luz, Willow, Gus and company, he will have a very meaningful career, and he'll have everyone else in his large found family.

His story...his heart...his resilience and vitality...it's all truly inspirational.

We might learn even more about the grimwalkers in the finale and that would undoubtedly prompt me to do a shorter Part 2 on top of this meta.

[missbehavior0u0]

Ideal arafef AU is one where they’re both working summer internships at the natural history museum comorbid to their university. They’re doing an inventory re-evaluation and archival work. Feferi has got this job because her family owns the museum and she needs some slightly more low-key stuff to put on her transcript because if she keeps up the seven different volunteer programs she’s been enthusiastically shoving her time into she will have a heart attack before she can finish her graduate degree. Aradia has got this job because her one professor who likes her enough to look out for her is worried that her grades have been slipping off into the hadal zone, so he has recommended her for a position that will look nice and would require her to actively expend effort to fuck up. Feferi is bringing to the table a type AAA personality suffering from nuclear instability and an encyclopedic knowledge of the inventory department’s classification system that she made sure to commit to memory a week before arriving. Aradia is bringing to the table the DSM-5 criteria for depression and the work ethic of Bartleby the Scrivener. They will be spending the better half of the next two months alone in a dimly lit room classifying specimens for seven hours a day. Feferi is going to fucking strangle her.

[actual-changeling]

Aziraphale Does NOT Have Depression

or: Please Have a Look at the ICD

or: This Word Does Not Mean What You Think It Does

I cannot believe I even have to make this post, but here we are. Hi. Hello guys. Maybe I should start a series called "Alex fact-checks meta posts" because I have seen things that should have never been written.

A small excursion before we start: The way things usually work in academic circles is that the person making the claim needs to provide proof for said claim, which is then peer-reviewed by unrelated academic parties. That involves not only making sure that the results they are basing their claim on are replicable—meaning that if someone else were to do the same work, they would receive the same result—but also that their methods were ethical and functional.

If it turns out that their methods or any other part of the process are not replicable, functional, or otherwise waterproof, then the paper is marked as not being correct and that it should be disregarded.

While this is far from academic circles, these rules still apply to any kind of conversation or discussion, especially that last part:

If you make a claim, back it up, or it should be disregarded.

With that, welcome to the peer-review of "Aziraphale has depression" claims. Obligatory note that this is not about fanfiction or headcanons but people claiming that Aziraphale canonically has depression.

You may sit in front of your screen and think Alex, why do you think you can write this post? To which I happily respond that not only am I professionally diagnosed with both Dysthymia and Recurrent Depressive Disorder, I have also a) done my research offline with psychiatrists and psychologists and b) know how to read academic literature because my degree very much requires me to be able to do so.

If you want to go and fact-check what I am about to present—which you are explicitly invited to do in case you want to publicly disagree with me—you can find the entirety of the ICD 11 right here.

No paywall, completely free access.

For those who have never heard of it, ICD stands for "International Classification of Diseases", which is by now on its 11th version and written and maintained by the WHO/World Health Organization. It contains all kinds of relevant information, like diagnostic criteria, about all diseases. As you can see, this includes mental disorders and illnesses:

Let's get into it!

First things first, there is no such thing as "depression", that term is a colloquial reduction of a number of different disorders categorized under Mood Disorders -> Depressive Disorders. Said category also contains any and all diagnoses related to Bipolar Disorders.

"Depression" is nondescript, loose, and can mean a long list of things, and social media has diluted and romanticized its meaning. For the purpose of this post, we will have a look at the criteria for three diagnoses:

Dysthymic disorder (shortened here to dysthymia)

Single episode depressive disorder, mild ( // to single episode)

Recurrent depressive disorder, current episode mild ( // recurrent)

I assume people mean a crude mix of these when they say "depression". Both recurrent and single episode can be diagnosed with dysthymia, but they cannot be diagnosed with each other. Recurrent automatically excludes single episode as a diagnosis, which I think is obvious if you think about it.

Before we look at the symptoms themselves, here is something very important to keep in mind about diagnoses: There are two requirements that pretty much every listed disorder and illness in the ICD has.

The first is that the symptoms are not related to something else—whether that's another mental disorder, a physical illness, or simply a cultural influence. It needs to be clear that they are due to something outside of what is already known and not circumstantial.

The second one is that the present symptoms are causing significant distress and impair a person's functioning in at least two different areas of life.

Or, to put it bluntly, a disorder needs to be disordering or it isn't one.

Additionally, the severity of the displayed symptoms needs to be taken into account. If several of them are not causing any negative impact on someone's life, they are not symptoms and cannot be counted.

Now, I will very much reduce the information the ICD provides us with or we will be here forever, but it is all correct and not partial in its meaning. To keep everything neat and tidy, I created a nice, colour-coded table:

If you disagree with what I marked for Aziraphale, great, please provide me with textual evidence of where exactly he exhibits each criteria, that it is not related to periodical stress or something else, and cannot be attributed to exceptional circumstances (like the end of the world).

The ONLY symptom we ever see Aziraphale consistently show throughout all six thousand thousand years is the one marked in yellow: low self-worth or excessive or inappropriate guilt.

However, if you paid attention to what I explained above, you will notice why this is in no way indicative of a depressive disorder.

Not only is it one symptom out of several required ones, it can also be explained by something else, which is the emotional neglect and abuse heaven subjected and subjects every (former) angel to. The same can be said for any anxious symptoms he exhibits sometimes, emphasis on sometimes.

In conclusion, Aziraphale does not have depression, and I think making a case that he does will be almost entirely built on assumptions and subjective interpretations, not anything that is in any shape or form supported by text or subtext.

Does that mean all of his struggles are somehow invalid? No, of course not. They are simply not due to a disorder but something else, that's literally all this post proves. It makes no moral judgement.

[maeinthekinning]

I hate so many things about the aspd diagnosis that I don't hate about having aspd.

1. The needing to have fitted conduct disorder which is entirely an action disorder so it should be removed from a mental disorder classification.

2. Many of the diagnostics criteria of aspd could be rewritten to be about existence or personality cause its a personality but instead primarily written as action based.

3. Studying primarily men in prison when most with aspd arent prisoners.

4. The assumption from therapists that it's "good" to change my moral code, to try to push for feeling guilt, shame, affective empathy. Thats not a problem for me. My problem is my impulsivity, maybe my anger issues, my proneness to addiction.

5. The outright refusal from some therapists to treat what i see as real issues because i even have aspd on my record.

[tombfreak]

A Deep Dive Into Antisocial Mindsets

how does the mind of a person with aspd work?

First off, it's important to understand what ASPD is, so let's get a few things cleared up before we really dive into it.

Antisocial Personality Disorder is classified in the DSM-5 as a cluster B personality disorder, and in the ICD-11 as a "personality disorder with dissociality".

(Since I live in a country that typically uses the DSM-5 as a guideline and it has a set classification for ASPD, I will be referring mainly to that.)

It's described as "pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others", and characterized as a maladaptive* practice of antisocial* behaviours.

*Maladaptive: Behaviours that cause issues in someones ability to adapt normally to daily situations

*Antisocial: Behaviours that are antagonistic to social practices, rules, and/or expectations

A personality disorder is

characterized by deeply ingrained maladaptive patterns of behavior, thoughts, and emotions that deviate from the cultural norms and cause distress or impair functioning in various areas of life

The current criteria for diagnosing ASPD involves a reoccurring, ingrained pattern of three or more of the following (occurring from at least age 15):

failure to conform to social norms, as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest.

repeated lying, deceitfulness, conning others for personal pleasure or profit

impulsivity or failure to plan ahead

irritability and aggressiveness

reckless disregard for safety of self or others

consistent irresponsibility

lack of remorse, being indifferent to or rationalizing having mistreated another

To understand ASPD, we need to dig a little bit deeper than a set of symptoms. It is important to note also that antisocial traits and beliefs are not necessarily an indication of antisocial personality disorder.

"only when antisocial personality traits are inflexible, maladaptive, and persistent and cause significant functional impairment or subjective distress do they constitute antisocial personality disorder." - DSM5

Antisocial beliefs in ASPD are views about themselves, others, and the world that are heavily engrained into their thoughts, perceptions, and behaviours. Most importantly, these traits negatively impact the individuals life on a regular basis. They are dysfunctional and reoccuring. In the criteria for ASPD, these harmful behavioural issues must have been present in the individuals life from at least 15 years old.

Looking into what causes ASPD can help us further gain insight into the condition as well.

"child abuse or neglect, unstable or erratic parenting. or inconsistent parental discipline may increase the likelihood that conduct disorder will evolve into antisocial personality disorder." -DSM5

"...in the absence of a parent or other caring, involved adult, a child cannot internalize his parent's values, a necessary factor in the development of morality."

"in homes where no adult takes an interest in or expresses love to a child, the conscience does not develop and the individual fails to be socialized in this very critical way. It seems likely that this is at least one possible cause of antisocial personality. Another possibility is that highly inconsistent discipline and attention, even from the same person, prevents the child from forming normal values."

"This form of child rearing allows the child to grow up without a clear understanding of what is right and what is wrong. Behaviorists believe that individuals learn their behavior by testing behaviors to see which is successful. Studies have shown that people with antisocial personality disorder frequently have fathers with the same disorder, and the child often observes and mimics the father's behavior." - Drug Therapy & Personality Disorders

A very important factor in early years of development is being taught about the "social contract". Like any other animal, children learn by seeing, and doing. They are highly impressionable, coming into the world as a blank slate. Children look to their peers and primary caregivers for guidance on how to respond to situations, and how to view the world.

(It is believed that there is commonly a genetic component to ASPD, and the environment may either worsen the antisocial traits or teach the child how to cope/adapt in positive ways)

If a child develops in an unstable situation, they may internalize maladaptive behaviours as a way to adapt, or because they don't have any healthy guidance to challenge these beliefs and behaviours towards the world.

Studies show that people with ASPD are highly likely to have grown up in neglectful and/or physically abusive households. There is also a correlation with children growing up witnessing criminal activity and the development of ASPD.

This is a very important factor to consider when looking into the mindsets of somebody with dysfunctional antisocial traits.

If a child comes into the world with no clue how anything works, or what anything means, and the only information they're given about the world is harmful, they will uncritically learn and adapt to that information.

A key element of ASPD beliefs is self-preservation. This heavily connects to a history of neglect, as the child who had no stable caregiver will grow to not trust that others will be reliable. They may also grow to not know what a healthy, trusting, caring connection with others looks like.

Personality Disorders are often thought to be something of a defence mechanism. A maladaptive defence mechanism as a response to a stressful environment in childhood that remained unchallenged and unsoothed.

Another key feature of this is that antisocial beliefs are related to justification. This is directly mentioned in the DSM-5 criterion A.7

"being indifferent to or rationalizing having mistreated another"

It is important to note, however, only 51% of those with ASPD will match this criteria. This doesn't necessarily take away from the general idea that antisocial beliefs include a rampant chain of excuses and justification to brush off their behaviours.

"individuals with personality disorders often view their symptoms as consistent with their own self-image, or ego-syntonic, and not as problems that need treatment." - Drug Therapy & Personality Disorders

ASPD is characterized by a disregard for others, rules, and norms. A common belief in people with ASPD is that they are above consequences, and never in the wrong. They refuse to put themselves in a submissive position to others, which often manifests as refusal to follow rules, responsibilities, and expectations.

At their core, they fear being controlled, weak, and losing power/dominance in a situation. They often lack the care, self-control, and forethought needed to healthily adapt to situations that threaten them. To them, it is a dog eat dog world, every man for themselves, survival of the fittest.

If we view ASPD as a maladaptive defense mechanism, then we can understand better how and why they respond to situations this way.

Studies show that reactive aggression* and hostile interpretation* is heavily prominent in those with antisocial behavioural patterns.

*Reactive Aggression: Aggressive behaviour in reaction to a perceived threat

*Hostile interpretation: Interpreting something as hostile or threatening to them

This means that people with ASPD are more likely than the average person to view an ambiguous comment, situation, etc as hostile (regardless of whether or not it actually was), and more likely to respond to that percieved threat with aggression.

The child who grew up in a hostile environment may have developed a brain that scans for the tiniest sign of an attack, and responds as it sees fit. It bites back.

As stated before, self-preservation is a very prominent trait in those with ASPD, and it is associated with a justification of their actions. People with ASPD think and act based on a worldview that everything is a matter of power and control, being on top or being hurt, dog eat dog.

In those who have ASPD, they commonly find themselves unwilling to, or unable to, care for anything but themselves. They often lack an empathetic response to others. "Not my life, not my problem". They are typically very defensive and protective of themselves, and protective towards things they value, but wont experience or express any care, compassion, or empathy towards anything they deem 'unworthy'.

It is the persistent irrationality and the ingrained lack of healthy adaptations and reponses to situations that makes ASPD a disorder. And it's the aggressive/dominating responses to threats, and justification of their responses, that makes the disorder antisocial.

[clduiue]

Summer recap 🫖

I went to Japan for the fourth time, right before alevel scores came out. Was luckily there in time for sakura season — My favorite places: Hakone Crafthouse, Meguro river, TeamLab: Borderless, and Atago shrine.

I wanted to be productive but also enjoy myself, reading not only fills these criteria but also helps me with my attention span (or that’s what I try to convince myself anyway). — My favorites: Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, When Breath Becomes Air, and Murder on the Orient Express.

I started keeping a notebook, originally wanted to use it to commonplace but right now it’s more like a hybrid between a journal, a diary, and a commonplace book i.e. I don’t really know what I’m doing anymore, but who cares, if it works then so be it. Journaling really made me spend more time to myself and it helped me a lot with my mental health (my thoughts often run wild when I don’t have anything to occupy my mind for too long).

I also got my driver’s license! Although I don’t plan to drive any time soon.

uni-related activities:

I got a dorm pretty quickly because I was afraid that it would fill up before I could get a room. Funny story is that I actually signed the contract before the third round results even came out, absolutely baffled at my past self’s confidence when 20k was on the line.

I got some materials from a senior, and skimmed through it a little. I think I’ll do fine?? It’s alright because I made some friends that will hopefully carry me.🫠

There’s not much information available about the MU-ELT exam, but based on the classifications I thought I could land myself in the advanced class pretty comfortably. And I was absolutely correct!

Baan Ramathibodi (Orientation camp) was amazing, really respect my seniors who are able to pull something like this off so well. I made a lot of friends(?) from this camp, hopefully they’ll stick around haha.

[dyssonant-skyline]

Hellbound Hostel Lore: Denizens of Hell

The circles of hell are host to several varieties of devils and demons along with fallen angels and unfortunate damned souls. To a novice, these different hellish inhabitants can blend together, but an experienced eye can discern between Hellbound and Hellborn with relative accuracy. (This is a very surface level layout of the basics for people living in hell, it isn't the most interesting on its own... but it sets up some important ground rules for the story!)

Hellbound

A.K.A. Damned souls, Sinners, Ex-Mortals

Possess souls

Immortal as long as their soul is intact

Don’t have innate magic

Can have supernatural abilities related to their form

Cannot traverse between circles without help

The souls of the damned are called Hellbound, as they are bound to hell, completely unable to leave. They are sometimes called sinners, however not all of them are at the same level of depravity, and others don’t seem to be rotten at all. The denizens of hell don’t know the exact criteria that results in someone being sent to hell, and the people in hell are so dissimilar it is hard to make sweeping conclusions.

The appearance of a Hellbound soul is influenced by many factors such as how the soul died, which circle they were sent to, what sins they committed in life, and a soul’s own subconscious preferences. Hellbound will always be humanoid, though they might be able to transform into non humanoid forms. Some forms have supernatural abilities like flight, transformation, or the ability to teleport. These abilities are considered mundane and non magical in hell.

Hellbound are distinguished from Hellborn primarily by their possession of a soul. Souls are a valuable currency in hell and powerful Hellborn can always use more of them. Hellbound may enter contracts with devils by bargaining their soul in exchange for numerous things. Depending on the contract, this soul debt may be paid off through service over time, their soul may be taken after a number of years, or another condition agreed upon by both parties. Any Hellborn can tell if a Hellbound still has their soul free by placing a hand on the Hellbound’s chest. 

The only way to kill a Hellbound permanently is through destroying their soul. This can only be done through magic. A Hellbound that is killed temporarily reappears in their original circle anywhere from a few days to a week after their initial death.

Hellbound are somewhat bound to the circle they are sent to upon reaching hell. They may only leave if they get the assistance of a Hellborn. Luckily there are many that are willing to assist sinners for a price. There is no way for a Hellbound to leave hell.

Hellborn

A.K.A. Demons, Devils, The Fallen

Do not have souls

Immortal-ish

Have access to innate infernal magic 

Can have supernatural abilities related to their form

Can traverse between circles

Hellborn refers to any creatures created in hell, they need not be humanoid but most of them are. All Hellborn are descendents of the angels that were cast out of heaven along with [Lucifer]. Because of this, Hellborn fall into distinct lineages associated with fallen angels or other high ranking Hellborn. Some of these lineages include Hellhounds, Imps, and Arachnes. While being technically inaccurate, The Fallen are generally accepted as Hellborn for the purpose of classification. In general, more powerful Hellborn are given the title of devils and less powerful Hellborn are called demons, but there isn’t a clear line that defines this distinction.

Instead of biological children, Hellborn are created through a ritual performed by any number of powerful Hellborn. The resulting Hellborn will primarily take after the person who initiated the ritual, however they take traits from all participants. A Hellborn’s form may have supernatural abilities that are not magical just as a Hellbound does.

A Hellborn, in most situations, draws its magical power from the power of hell, which depends on how many mortal souls are trapped within it. Without sinners trapped in hell, they would have no power. This magic involves glowing sigils and rigid rules. In general, every lineage of Hellborn has their own type of magic pioneered by their primary ancestor. They are born with the knowledge of this magic and can perform it innately. Their magic gets weaker outside of hell.

Hellborn can only permanently die in two situations. The first situation is if they are killed by a weapon specifically designed to kill them. This involves a ritual that requires you know a Hellborn’s true name. The second situation is being anywhere aside from hell. The infernal magic that allows for reviving Hellborn is not strong enough within the mortal realm or heaven. Otherwise the Hellborn reappears near instantaneously in a place they believe is safe in hell. 

Hellborn can traverse hell as they please. They may take Hellbound with them when they do, but in some situations there can be complications.

[honourablejester]

One of the things that fascinates me, thematically, about wizards in D&D is the consciousness of their interactions with magic. They learn their craft by study, by conscious thought. And they choose their school, too, by conscious thought. When you make a wizard, you choose what elements of magic they choose to prioritise. What draws them, what repels them, what do they rely on, what do they seek out. The choice of school is as much a characterisation detail as anything else. It’s not just a case of learning spells by rote out of a book (well, no, it can be, but that’s probably a discussion in and of itself). Wizards are the class where you can dig in and get nerdy. There’s magical theory up in this joint.

The eight schools in themselves are also an interest mesh of themes and rationalisations, and that makes sense from a Doylist perspectives, because the game designers are choosing schools and effects outside the game, but it also works from a Watsonian perspective, because these are in-universe classifications based on what wizards assume is how magic works. All the spells are tied to a school, and thus the eight-school classification system, even if there are wizards who aren’t. And with any system of classification, there are arguments. Which is, of course, the fun of it.

So. With that in mind. Eight schools. Abjuration. Conjuration. Divination. Enchantment. Evocation. Illusion. Necromancy. Transmutation. Some essay questions slash thought experiments slash personality quizzes for student wizards in a D&D world, focusing on the classification of magic:

If you were choosing (or have chosen) a school of magic to specialise in, what would it be?

What do you think is the overriding purpose of your school of magic?

What element of your school of magic excites you the most?

What is one common derogatory misconception about your school that makes you angry?

What’s one spell of your school that you think should belong to another school? Explain your reasoning.

What’s one spell of a different school that you think should belong to yours? Explain your reasoning.

What would you consider the school of magic most diametrically opposed to your own? Explain your reasoning.

What would you consider the school of magic most similar to your own? Explain your reasoning.

Name one area of overlap or potential overlap between your school of magic and each of the other seven.

Name one area of conflict or potential conflict between your school and each of the other seven.

Which other school of magic would you consider it necessary of have a good understanding of in order to better study your own?

If you were grouping the eight schools into subgroups, what would the groups be, which schools would they include, and why?

Do you consider the purpose of magic to be useful or to be extraordinary? Which schools do you think best match each outlook?

What do you consider the primary ethical concerns with your school of magic? What would you consider the primary ethical concerns with each of the other schools?

Which school of magic do you find most difficult or unpleasant to work with? Why?

Which school of magic do you find easiest and most reassuring to work with? Why?

What is one question about the workings of each school of magic that keeps you up at night?

Do you think that magic should be divided into schools at all? If you think that it should, do you think that the eight schools currently agreed upon are the most accurate choices, or do you believe that they should be rearranged or replaced?

Do you believe that rigid classification aids or hinders the understanding of magic as a whole? Explain your reasoning.

Do you think that a spell should be considered part of a school of magic based on its effect, or based on the methods or rationale that created it, or based on some other criteria?

Is there a school of magic that you considered to be particularly badly defined? Is there a school that you consider particularly well defined? Do you consider this a clarifying factor or a limiting one?

Which school of magic do you most want to disassemble to base parts and understand the workings of? Is this the same school you are happiest using, or a different one?

What is your favourite spell that you have learned of? Is that spell of your own school or a different one?

What is one spell of your least liked school of magic that you consider worthwhile, and why?

What is one spell that you think should never have been invented, and why?

And, finally, just for fun and so everyone knows where we all stand: which school of magic do you find the adherents of most annoying? Not necessarily the school you think shouldn’t exist, but the one where when you meet a wizard of that school, you kneejerk want to punch them in the face, just because?