#except the 3rd one on the first column

[krakaheimr]

Aperture de Apocrypha: Kayne, the Crawling Chaos

[ID: A digital drawing of Kayne, resembling a vintage advertisement for a circus act. The artwork is monochrome, rendered in various shades of brown, with the exception of his eyes, which glow a bright red. His face is overly exaggerated, resembling a wooden or ceramic puppet, mouth open in a wide grin as he guides a large dagger with a broken-off tip into his mouth. Broken pieces of the dagger lie in his mouth, behind long, blocky teeth. His hands are mechanical, his fingers ending in clawed tips. A large, thick ruffle is around his neck. Smaller ruffles are around his cuffs. His clothes are made of a thin, wrinkled fabric, reminiscent of early 20th century clown attire. Surrounding his entire silhouette is an outline in light tan. Kayne is framed by a rectangular border detailed with gears and tentacles wrapping around it, followed by a second simpler border along the outer edges of the artwork. Various blocks of text are at the bottom of the artwork. At the very top of the artwork is centered text that reads: "Aperture de Apocrypha". At the bottom of the inner border, where Kayne's torso ends, is a headline in fancy letters that reads: "Kayne the Crawling Chaos". Below that are three columns of smaller text. The first column reads: "On the Stage; the Grandest Show in the Cosmos". The second column reads: "The only friend you need; the only friend you have". The final column reads: "Show Opens December 3rd; In Person". At the bottom of the page, centered and below the three columns of text, is a line of text which reads: "Azathoth's Amazing Automatons", followed by the artist signature. /end ID]

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Leave it to Malevolent to make me power through chronic fatigue and draw a robotic circus-themed version of Kayne for 10 hours straight.

I am exhausted but I am living the life; Kayne is such a fun character to draw, even if all the ruffles I gave this version of him became the bane of my existence for a solid one and a half hours.

[exocynraku]

i don't know if any of you are interesting in how i plan projects like these (genetically accurate cats), but i thought i'd show it off anyway! i'm sorting all of the cats in the series into 3 different groups, cats that DONT have and any sort of family, cats that DONT have parents but DO have other family (siblings, children) and cats that DO have parents the first two groups, once i get everything sorted, will be drawn first, and i will most likely take requests for them (don't request now i'll eat you alive) but i have to wait on the 3rd group i have to wait because well, for example, squirrelflight Does have parents. except. one of her parents (firestar) ALSO has parents. so he'll also be on that list. so i'll have to sort all of the Blue column cats into their own groups, based off of how many cats there are inbetween them and the great-great-great-whatever grandparent i drew (squirrelflight again as example, i may draw crystal in the yellow column but i'll have to draw jake and firestar too before i can draw her) this is all so i can have the genetics & designs of the parents before i draw them! where will i be documenting the genetics ? idk . that's a problem for future me . will this plan probably take forever & maybe have a few things that could be changed in them to make it easier for me ? yeah. but shut the hell up

[dungeonmalcontent]

I'll drag myself a little here. When I first drafted Grimdark & Dangerous, I wasn't entirely sure what was going to be in it. It was not my first attempt at a larger collection of content (that would be Kiril's Guide to the Far Realms, which never saw the light of day). But G&D was the first time I was determined and, I thought, organized enough to do it all properly. But I forgot something.

Between drafts and importing and exporting content in to the final doc, a spell slipped through the cracks. The rune magic spell "Runic Scrawl" was listed in the spell list, and mentioned in a passage talking about rune magic but never included. These inclusions, oddly, do not appear in every update edition, but sort of weave in and out. However, the spell did exist. It had been outlined and given a rough draft in a spreadsheet, but never been copied over to get a final draft. Except it had. In one unused draft it had been copied over and relegated to a 3rd column of page 126 (the wrong page) where it was invisible. A subsequent update edition to the book had been implemented hastily to fix a reported issue, and the spell basically vanished.

Along with a variety of other small fixes, this spell has been properly and completed implemented in the book's final (unless someone finds something truly egregious that everyone else has missed) update. All previous update editions have been removed from the upload folder and the 1.5 update is the only one you will find. This will keep the folder mostly clear for future additional content such as the Living Grimoire Expansion, which will likely be added in soon.

It may seem like one spell isn't that much to make a fuss over. But I take ya'lls purchases very seriously, and I want to provide you with the best product for the amount you're spending.

Enjoy this care while it lasts.

[barbietoiles]

etre et avoir - passé composé : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJE8AFfhlwQ

personnal pronoun (P) + auxiliary "avoir" (A) in present tense + present perfect (participe passé = PP)

P + A + PP

Tu + as + eu (2nd person of the singular, verbe "avoir")

Tu + as + été (2nd person of the singular, verbe "être")

(kinda horrible to understand but basically the first column is the pronoun, the second one is always the same (ai, as, a, avons, avez, ont), and the the third one is the same conjugaison)

participe passé : https://dictionnaire.lerobert.com/guide/participe-passe

verbs of the 1st group (ending with -er) : will end with -é

ex : chanter = chanté / manger = mangé / jeter = jeté

j'ai chanté / tu as mangé / nous avons jeté

verbs of the 2nd group (ending with -ir) : will end with -i

ex : finir = fini / dormir = dormi / réfléchir = réfléchi

J'ai fini / tu as dormi / nous avons réfléchi

verbs of the 3rd group : all the rest, ending with -oir, -re etc : will end with -i, -u, -t, is... (I guess you just have to know them?)

ex : perdre = perdu / voir = vu / finir = fini

J'ai perdu / tu as vu / nous avons fini

"être" and "avoir" are exceptions

Good luck, even I had to check how to do it... tbh we learn grammar rules in school but then you just forgot them and do everything by instinct or memory (or, a lot of ppl are really bad at ortograph and conjugaison, a LOT of ppl write "j'ai chanter" or "tu as manger" and it hurts the eye lmao)

-⛰️

Thank you ;-; And thanks for the dictionary site! The french have a letonika (lv dictionary site) too, life is so easy now kkkkk! ill make sure to use it a lot.

I was mostly confused about when to use which one, though this ask helped me organise my understanding of the participals. As far as i understood it, être is for reflexive verbs and the rest you just kinda learn. Some verbs use both avoir and être and those you also just kinda learn. Ill keep trying until i "just kinda learn" it, even if i have to write down every verb conjugation ever.

And i feel that last bit so hard lol. In latvian there arent many exceptions, but some rules are so niche or rarely used that even news sites get the grammar wrong. Savādāk my beloathed. But difficult grammar is my favourite thing, i will love passé composé when i learn it i just know it. Thanks again anon <3

[reflective-research-journal]

Artist and the Book

A short history on the object we call a book -

Originally information and notes were hand-scribed onto parchment or papyrus scrolls and they were stored in cubbies similar to pigeonholes in an office, but court notes and records were written on wax tablets. In ancient Greece the modern version of what we were to call a book wasn’t needed per se as the Greeks would write on lengths of scrolls and fold them accordion style to have them fit ergonomically in the hand, they would use up to 30 lengths of scroll for one ‘pamphlet’. It wasn’t until the 1400s that printing presses were developed by Johannes Gutenburg and popularised in the 1600’s so up until that point everything was recorded by hand in the form of a Codex, this was first accounted for by the Romans of the 3rd Century, or by scrolls and wax tablets. The Codex is the first real account of what we would remark as a book, they were single pages folded and collected together in a stack but were sewn down the left in order to keep them in place. The actual text was all handwritten and composed of columns. Come the Middle Ages, they began to protect the Codices by binding a plank of wood on either side and in some instances would cover the wood with metal and encrust them in jewels. At this point the content was still handwritten by Monks and Scribes.

Artist books-

Artist books are an in-genius way of storytelling and exploring theme, except they are more conceptual. They take the book as an object and reconstruct it to fit the narrative they wish to portray. They are not always complete with text, but the content is just as hefty and undertoned for example ‘Time Out’ by artist Yohei Nishimura, where Nishimura took a book as an object and turned it into something sculptural. This sculpture was made by coating a book in a clay mixture and then fired in an electric kiln. The book miraculously holds its shape and is almost fossilised and frozen in time, the book is now of course illegible but now communicates something different entirely.

Another artist book I would like to touch on is ‘Ulyssesly’ by John Morgan. The artist book is identical to Ulysses (Joyce,1922), it functions as an actual book but inside the pages are blank, but contains two essays in the centre of the book written 27 years apart. The first and earlier on being about the physical movement of the book in terms of production, and the second about all of the covers ‘Ulysses’ (Joyce, 1922) has had over the years.

These ‘books’ are art, they are displayed and not intended to be used because they are one of a kind. Manuscripts are treated much to the same, there are manuscripts held under lock and key, only to be displayed temporarily, their function is suspended. Manuscripts are one of a kind, they hold so much sentiment that they are preserved. Their essence too important, they are the original of series of reproductions. In many ways they are the embodiment of enlightenment.

[atlsportsstan]

INSTANT REACTIONS: Falcons fall in the Motor City.

Okay. So that was something. The Atlanta Falcons just took their first loss of 2023 in a 20-6 finish against the Detroit Lions. I watched all but maybe 2 snaps, and am here to basically recap the game. I will also tell you what has to change for the Falcons in order for them to go across the pond and take a win from the Jacksonville Jaguars. Welcome to the post game recap.

Okay, so before I rant about the game, I have some words for FOX Sports. What the hell? I was trying to stream it on the Xbox application, and it crashed about 5 times during the game. Keep in mind I was watching college football all day yesterday on ESPN, and eventually the FOX Sports app. The entire day of streaming, which started with the Georgia game at 7:30, and I did not get one delay. Come on now FOX. We’re better than this. Anyways, let’s talk about this game.

Let’s talk about the offense, because this is where the root of all of our problems come from. It is very easy to look at Desmond Ridder’s stats and put all of the blame on him. However, even though Ridder throwing for 201 yards on 55 completion percentage is not good, he very rarely had any time to do anything with the football. A Lions defense, who had 1 total sack coming into today, had 7 sacks on Ridder and 8 QB hits. Ridder also did not hit on a majority of his throws when the pocket was clean, I’m not denying that. But if the Falcons offensive line can return to the form they had last year, this offense can be dangerous. But, the Falcons bread and butter is their running game. That’s exactly what every single soul watching that game said as they watched Arthur Smith call double the amount of passing plays as rushing plays. Bijian could never get it going. Couple that with the Falcons being down early, and we can never get the play action going and that leads us to our ultimate demise.

Enough about the offensive side of the ball. How did the defense do? Despite playing against Jared Goff, who has always been regarded as a pocket passer, this defensive line registered a big goose egg in the sack column. Our defensive backs looked lost, with the exceptions of AJ Terrell and Jesse Bates. Detroit only did it with 4 total players targeted in the air, and they just torched our zone coverage. I did not entirely hate the game our defense played. I’d say the average team would win a game like this 7/10 times.

In an afternoon full of negatives, there were a couple of positives. For example, one thing the Falcons have had problems with in the past were penalties. However, with Ford Field being at 99% capacity, the Falcons only registered 4 total penalties, totaling 24 yards. Jessie Bates caught his 3rd interception is basically the same fashion as his first 2. That’s about it for the positives. I wasn’t joking when I said a couple. It was very had to watch.

But, tomorrow is a new day. How can the Falcons go into London and take a win against the 1-2 Jaguars? The offensive line has to keep Ridder’s white jersey clean. This is the same problem we had with Matt Ryan where we have the weapons to torch defenses, but never enough time in the pocket to do anything with it. We also have to get the ground game going early, while getting Lawrence on the London soil.

All in all, today will go down as an outlier in this season. Arthur Smith should not and will not let this slide. This is a one-time occurrence and we have to play better to beat Jacksonville. That’s all I got. Hopefully, I get NFL+ to make a full breakdown of this game and post it to YouTube. But only time will tell. I hope you guys enjoyed and stay tuned for more sports content. Thanks for reading, and I’ll catch you on the other side.

[talenlee]

3e: Arcane vs Divine

3e: Arcane vs Divine

What’s the difference between Arcane magic and Divine magic?

Familiar as I am with 3rd edition, I know there’s definitely a structure that says Arcane magic is the slightly more powerful one, and that Divine magic is easier and more convenient to use out of the box, but that’s the perspective from one extremely bleeding edge level of power that I never really got to play with. My experience of wizards and clerics in 3rd edition were always characters who did that and something else, in order to keep their power level meaningfully contained. Basically, I liked a wizard with a sword or a cleric with a pet rather than

Until 4th edition approached and rebuilt every power source with a specific holistic vision for the shared traits of powers, Arcane magic and Divine magic existed as parts of a continuum that shaped your vision of the world at large. And the machinery of the game was designed to get people involved at one point and you were meant to grow as a player while you did.

What, then, was the difference?

Purest, simplest, core distinction between the two is that in the player’s handbook, Arcane spells experience ‘arcane spell failure,’ which means that when you’re wearing armour, arcane spells have a chance to fail based on how heavy the armour is. Wizards, you’re told, do this complicated magic that needs a lot of components to work, and need rest and a spellbook to set up their spells ahead of time, while the cleric just gets their spells refreshed once a day depending on the rituals of their god.

The spell lists are presented separately and differently. The wizard spell lists are formatted by level and school, to relate to the wizard’s specialisation class feature. The cleric spell list, on the other hand, is just all the spells in that list, by level, and the bard, cleric and paladin spell lists are similarly isolated. Individual spells tell you that they exist on spell lists and where, and you can use that to see what kinds of traits those schools of magic have in common or different.

The first impression the rules try to present then, is that there’s a very clear distinction between these spell lists, but then that distinction is almost immediately dissolved when you start looking at actual spells. Clerics have spells that blast thing with damage from a distance, wizards have spells that turn you into a damage dealer. At first impression, and in the early days of 3rd edition, you could get arcane spellcasting separated from divine spellcasting primarily because arcane magic couldn’t heal things. In 3.5, that was changed thanks to the bard gaining healing spells.

Then, as the game progressed you’d realise that slowly but surely, divine spells would get single individual exceptions to their flavour, so that a divine spellcaster eventually had access to fireball and an arcane spellcaster eventually had access to cure light wounds and only the most fringe stuff lay exclusively in one domain or the other. Differences were extremely specific, and 10d8 damage in a line vs 8d10 in a column are definitely meaningfully different but they don’t make the magic itself feel different.

Part of this kind of blurring intersection was that the two forms of magic were, good or ill, in the game at base and constantly being expanded. Every single individual tradition, every new location, every expansion could add a spell or two to both sides of the ledger, and that meant that over time, their commonalities were pretty universal and their differences were pretty irrelevant. But on the other hand, there was another part of the magic system which was not included all the time and therefore, had potential to be completely separated – and to be kept completely separated.

That was the psionics system, which in addition to working differently on a fundamental level, was also not supposed to interact much with the other two types. The 3e system of healing for psionic characters was weird and inefficient, with the ardent doing things like taking damage onto themselves then recovering it personally, and that at least meant that a healing spell wasn’t as valid for a wizard as it was for a cleric.

The result meant that over time the psionics system was able to stand apart from the other two systems, and had its own specific flavour… at least until they started expermenting with 3.5 magic systems. Oh, a bunch of the experimentation was bad – the Binder, the Truenamer, the Shadow Mage, the Warlock for example. They were saved from their encroachment in this middle space, though by dint of being so shit nobody ever really tried expanding on them.

What makes them more complicated is that they weren’t really clear on why they were the flavour they were. Shadow magic, tapping a dimension, an external force. Totemists in the Incarnum system – Incarnum, oh yeah, Incarnum was in there too, but all these minor systems were just swirling around impossibly inspecific things that felt like magic so they were magic, and forced to fit into the complicated space of these three (two? One and a half?) categories.

Then there’s the way that specific settings handled it. In The Forgotten Realms, for example, magic was done by manipulating the Weave. The Weave was so important to magic that the gods themselves used it to do their spells, and since there was a god who controlled the weave, there was, hypothetically at least, a power imbalance where every divine spell was also, kinda an arcane spell. In some worlds, psionics was just another type of magic literally, and in other worlds, arcane magic was playing with the interaction of divine magic swilling around.

It’s a problem, I feel, with how these magics work in the older system. Flavour could make demands, but it almost always came to the mechanical system which simply didn’t have any meaningful separation between them. I guess the lesson here is that a clarity of purpose, an idea of how things should be, is important to the enforcement of the system’s development.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#DungeonsDragons #Games #DnD3E

[nextpiner]

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[wonieart]

eye meme bc I just made one for a different reason but I might as well post it

[totallynotpuri]

List of Oh Hello Songs that make me think of Last Life

Heads up, some Oh Hello Songs have romantic connotations, but when I talk about these songs, it’s all platonic and friendships except maybe Flower Husbands

Theseus: Gives off the general vibes of Last Life and Third Life. The line “Maybe that's what it's all about, We keep fixing what we know is only bound to break, What's worth saving is never worth letting go to waste” makes me think of the strained alliances that Last Life has and how people keep trying to fix alliances after they’ve broken apart because they don’t want to be alone.

Soap: This one specifically for LL Bdubs and Ethos and Post Session 7 Ethos

Rounds: The dead players, specifically Jimmy. “When did I last breathe in? Am I empty again? Oh, that wind that I've been spending, Is a long one, my friend” just reminds me that he’s dead first again and the fact that he ended his video with “I’ll see you on the other side”.

Cold: The line “Well, I'm not quite ready, To turn to bone, To petrify the shred of life, I'm holding onto”, that’s just, Red Lives in general. Not ready to die, grasping onto any shreds of life they can as they try to outrun the inevitable death awaiting them.

Rose: Renchanting, period. “No, love'll get you slaughtered, Like a ram at the altar, What is safe ain't the same as what is good” and “Wars are raising for her, Crusades to adore her, The light of your afterword”. The second line also makes me think of the Fairy Alliance of LL.

Boreas: Just an overall vibe of Last Life, specifically the line “In the end, All I hope for, Is to be a bit of warmth for you, When there's not a lot of warmth left, To go around“

Passerine: “Cause you were the song that I'd always sing, You were the light that, the fire would bring, But I can't shake this feeling that I was only, Pushing the spear into your side again” makes me think Flower Husbands, but “My palms and fingers still reek of gasoline, From throwing fuel to the fire of that Greco-Roman dream” makes me think Desert Duo. Also, I’ve misheard the line “When the cold wind rolls in from the north” as “When he comes with roses from the door, what am I to do?” for the longest time, so another point in the Flower Husbands section.

On the Mountain Tall: This song is so Desert Duo that it physically hurts, please listen to it.

Constellations: Not really a duo or a group or even the series as a whole, but just something that feels like Last Life for some reason.

New River: A general 3rd life Desert Duo focused vibe, specifically the line “And though the eons may pass as slow as the sands of an hourglass, Every grain that we've counted claims that even the mountains can change”

Bitter Waters: Flower Husbands ;-;-;-;-;-;

Caesar: “Crown him and give him a scepter to hold, Sound every horn as the columns extend, Up to the hill where the king will ascend” short song, but this gotta be Ren “Red King” Dog 

This Will End: I can make an entire post about this and how it fits so well with Scar. “No, I am not afraid to die, It's every breath that comes before, Heartache, I've heard, is part of life, And I have broken more and more” is about how he gave away his lives (not afraid to die) and how he’s constantly faced with nothing but loneliness (the heartache part). “I'll give you all I have to spend And you'll give nothing back to me” is about how he gave away all his lives, and how no one returned that loyalty, how he gave all he had to spend and got nothing back.

Like the Dawn: Very much a post session 7 Bdubs and Ethos song. The line “At last, And you will surely be the death of me, But how could I have known?” has me BROKEN. 

Wishing Well: Jimmy as he BOOKED it with Martyn’s life. It doesn’t fit the mood as much, but I can’t imagine anything for the line “I ran like a speeding train, Cut my hair and changed my name, Only had myself to blame, For the company I was keeping” as Jimmy and The Southerners.

In Memoriam: “And by the time I blink, I'll see your wild arms swinging, Just to meet me in the middle of the road, And you'll hold me like you'll never let me go, And beside the salty water, I could hold you close” just any duos lost after their permadeath, the line could fit with so many of them. Spirits reuniting with allies and friends and not letting go in fear of losing them again.

Hello My Old Heart: Duos who had to see their other half die, “Oh, oh, don't, leave me here alone, Don't tell me that we've grown, For having loved a little while, Oh, oh, I don't wanna be alone, I wanna find a home, And I wanna share it with you”. That’s all, the heartbreak is real.

@chaggle listen to these songs, this is a threat <3

[tortilla-of-courage]

O skyward sword expert, please advise me on how to clear the thunder dragon bosses in master mode for I cannot get past more then three at once and am starting to despair

-Sky floor

ah, boss rush, truly a good but hard mode... i haven't played it in master mode in years, but my general strategy is usually like:

before you go in, make sure your health is full (obviously) (there's a stool a bit away from Lanayru if you haven't seen it yet), and make sure you have a sturdy shield. Shield bashes are definitely gonna be your friend in this mode, but sometimes you're bound to fail them so you want your shield to survive through the entire thing

if you're using medallions, try getting and putting the two heart container ones in your pouch so you have the extra hit(s). the other heart medallion could also be useful, since in hero mode it makes hearts appear from pots and enemies and grow on flowers again, while in normal it just makes them appear more often. if you're going for a no recovery hearts (so no heart medallion) mode run tho, that's okay

start with a boss from the end. I usually start with the one that gives me the most trouble, like Ghirahim's 3rd fight. Or if you have more trouble with a fight at another point of the game, start with that one. that way you start that difficult fight fresh instead of running into it when you're tired from other fights already, and if you see you take too much damage from it you can drop the challenge and start over after one fight only rather than going too deep into it

again, shield is your friend. shield bash those monsters in the face. the bashes will help with almost every boss (i think the exceptions might be Tentalus, Scoldarach, and maybe Koloktos, everyone else you can usually shield parry at least some attacks; i abuse it mostly in the third Ghirahim fight)

talking about shield bashes, i recently learned you can shield bash the electric waves from the imprisoned's steps. after 10 years. bruh moment.

about the imprisoned, the safest (less damage) way to end his fights is to just... jump on his head.

First Imprisoned - what i usually do is do the first round "normal" (slashing the toes), then while he's squiggling and worming around i go up the air currents so i can jump on his head immediately after he gets up (he won't shake you off in this stage)

Second - same as the first, but abusing the shield bashes with the electric waves during the slashing round, then running to the air vents to do the same (he'll throw you off if you stay there for a while)

Third - starts like the second, abuse shield bashes. make sure you save Groose's bomb for when it first starts flying so you can shoot it immediately

If you have heart flowers available (be it with the above medallions in hero mode or just as normal), if you can spare the time some of the bosses still have their pots or resources around. Scaldera has some heart flowers on top of the room, all Imprisoned fights have the flowers by the sealed temple still, the Horde will drop a bunch of hearts all around as you defeat them, and Ghirahim's 1st fight has pots with hearts around (the second doesn't though, so be careful), and when Koloktos destroys the columns they usually drop hearts too. If you get to these and see yourself a bit low on health (and have the time to spare in the Imprisoned's case), i'd recommend doing a little detour to get them (or in Koloktos case, lead it to the columns when it does the spinning swords attack)

if you don't care about Going Fast and just want to win somehow, then stall as much as possible, run away if you don't think you can parry/block the attack, etc etc. focus on conserving health all around, even if this makes a fight last like 10 minutes. maybe you'll be slow but you'll survive!

In general, the first 3 bosses are MUCH faster to beat when you have the True Master Sword, so those shouldn't be much trouble in theory, but don't lower your guard! In some fights if you try going too fast you can also give yourself damage (like me in the Scaldera fight throwing bombs before time and almost running out of hearts), so make sure you're careful

i think those are like, the basic rules i follow, but if you want any specific boss tips i could try and help out too!

edit: apparently in hero mode both kinds of heart medallions are ignored (tested in the wii version, probably the same in the switch one), so be careful with your health!

[joisbishmyoga]

Ok, to go with my headcanon about the Hogwarts Founders (to wit: based on etymology, they can't be contemporous), I have headcanons about Hogwarts castle itself.

Number one! It, like the Founders, was ALSO not all contemporous. (And my apologies that I still can't find the goddamn keep-reading option.)

Helga never-actually-Hufflepuff's Hogwarts, c. 990-1090:

The original and oldest part of the school is the tower that now houses the famous moving staircases and the Headmaster's Office. (It wasn't alone, though: it had a number of outbuildings, stables and smithies and such, that have long since vanished.)

The tower was not, at the time, a hollow column full of moving staircases. It was a defensive watchtower akin to Threave Castle in Scotland, though somewhat taller and a little bit larger. It was also not round at the time, which can still be seen in the fact that the interior is square; later generations simply added walls to make it round. There are almost certainly late medieval and Renaissance defenses, as well as secret passages, built into the space between the original tower and the rounding walls.

The tower's long-since-removed floors:

Cellars (wine and cold storage).

Ground floor (entrance, reception, kitchens).

2nd floor, in the American style of count (dining, Helga's room).
3rd floor (classrooms)

4th floor (dorms: divided by gender and class rather than age)

5th floor (servants and defense).

The cellars expanded regularly over the centuries, a new room or corridor or floor built every time the castle's population (or political demands, see below) needed more cold storage.

The conical roof and the modern Headmaster's suite were added at a much later date.

Rowena Hraefenclew's Hogwarts, c. 1050-1150:

The first expansion of the castle was the modern-day Great Hall, though it lacked the enchanted ceiling attributed later to Ravenclaw. The recieving of guests was transferred to this space from the original tower, and the grand entertainments of medieval feasts and banquets were added to school life -- a requirement of any social networking, as Rowena steered the school through the political mess of the era without getting entangled in any of it.

(The enchanted ceiling was a Renaissance creation, adding light to what had been a very dim space. The original enchantment wasn't of the sky, though, and the modern ceiling would appall the people of the 1400s: what is so grand or impressive or artistic about just making the roof invisible?

(Not having a masterpiece of Christian religious art looming over the heads of hundreds -- thousands -- of magicals who'd just lived through zealous persecution, is what. The people who charmed it all invisible considered the frescoes to be quite gauche and impolitic.))

Salazar Slytherin and Godric Gryffindor's Hogwarts, c. 1150-1250:

The High Middle Ages brought a massive amount of upheaval to England (and France: half of the modern nation was ruled by England at the start of this period), as well as the rest of Europe. This is the era later connected to Robin Hood, the age of the Magna Carta and Richard the Lionheart and Prince (King) John... and that is where we begin, with Richard faffing off to join the (many, many, MANY) Crusades, and King John losing the entirety of the French regions of his rule. Loss of land = loss of wealth --> spikes in taxes and fees on nobles --> furious nobles --> Magna Carta + King John's reputation forever in the toilet + the absentee and therefore not interfering with nobles' power and money King Richard getting lauded as the best king ever (spoiler: he v much was NOT).

Richard's career included internecine rebellions, uprisings, cruelty in what provinces he bothered to rule (in France), and widespread Jewish persecution. (Things that are pretty much always in Europe: Jewish persecution. The Crusades were mostly massive disasters that did very little to Islamic rule and population in the Holy Land, but exterminated some 90% of Jewish Europe on the way. HSST.)

All of this is to say that Salazar and Godric's Hogwarts expanded to accomodate thousands of Jewish, wandering-poor, and magical refugees from the Continent: Hogwarts was still the only formal, centralized school of magic in all of Europe, and would be for several more decades.

The school still didn't reach the modern extent by the end of this building period, but got up to about 50 percent, adding almost everything on one side of the ravine that cuts through the bluff. Except for the clock tower, the Great Hall's half of the school was complete.

This is also when Hogsmeade changed from being a House-Elf farming settlement to a human town, and for the same reason: Continental refugees, largely from the Childrens' Crusade -- thousands of people of all ages, later thought to all be children due to a misunderstanding in language. (The word for "child" was co-opted to mean "the working/wandering poor": basically, "the (socially) powerless".)

The post-Founders' Hogwarts, c. 1250-1900:

The second half of the school, the conical tower rooftops (and rooms inside them), the internal plumbing for baths (but not toilets), and all the bridges -- both the stone ones across the ravine and the wooden one to Hogsmeade -- were all built in a hurry in the late 1500 and early 1600s, this time to handle refugees during the last few decades before the Statute of Secrecy. The modern Headmaster's Office was also built at this time, as high as possible to cover all approaches to Hogwarts.

Unlike the stone bridges of the ravine, the bridge to Hogsmeade has always been made of wood, in order to be easily destroyed should the castle come under attack. (And in fact it actually has been destroyed several times, most recently in the 1970s as a pre-emptive measure against Voldemort. It was then rebuilt in 1982 with more nostalgia than construction skill.)

As mentioned before, this -- the early 1600s -- is when the Great Hall's enchanted fresco ceiling was rendered invisible.

The T-shaped clock wing on the Great Hall's side, being a six-story pendulum-type clock, was built in the early 1800s, and improved in the late 1800s for accuracy and not whacking students around like golf balls. (The restrooms were also added and improved at these times.)

The greenhouses were built around 1900: Dumbledore might well have had Herbology classes before they were put in.

Now then. That is all headcanon #1. Construction headcanon #2:

Hogwarts is in TERRIBLE condition.

The famous enchanted ceiling is perhaps the most obvious damaged spot. Or it would be if it hadn't been charmed invisible. While it had Owl Post holes in it. (For the record, the easiest way to bring down, say, a barn? Chop a 3x3 ft. hole in the roof and wait ten years.) For the last four or five centuries, every time someone on staff noticed they were getting dripped on, they just threw an Impervious Charm up at the ceiling and considered the leak magically fixed. There's literally nothing left but the Impervious charms and a few scraps of gold leaf.

The stairs are another trouble spot. Centuries of people walking on them should have them worn down in the middle to look like you cut a bowl in half vertically. Would have, but the House Elves have been pulling the stone up flat again for centuries, and eventually started using magic to color-match and add enough support to the remaining stone to take people's weight. Some of the well-known trick stairs that like to disappear? That's not the magic being playful. That's the magic of late House Elves fritzing out to show there's no step left. (The moving stairs have also ground down their joints to nothing.)

It's the same across the entire castle. Centuries of manipulating the materials and covering wear with illusions and throwing Impervious Charms at drafts and drips means a lot of Hogwarts is nothing but swiss cheese and fading spells cast by long-deceased magicals anymore.

(Or it was, until the Battle of Hogwarts in 1998 disrupted enough of the remaining spells to drop them. Voldemort's forces were powerful, but not THAT powerful.)

(A large percentage of the two generations following Harry's were saved by the Battle of Hogwarts. Slytherin House was a misaimed hex away from flooding, and most of the towers were going to collapse with a few more winters of ice picking away at the mortar. Of course if the previous several centuries of magicals had just bothered to check...)

[oh-boy-me]

Obey Me! Card Planning Tips

Hello!  This game causes us all a lot of pain and suffering, but I’m MANAGING (?), so I thought I’d give what I’d consider some tips to maybe make things feel slightly more possible for you :)

I’ll split it into three parts and put it all under a read more.

Team Strength Calculation

Team Preparation

General Tips for Resources and Daily DP

Part 1: Team Strength Calculation

Each stage has 2 sins tied to it, as you’ve probably noticed.  In chapters 1-20, the stats of these two sins are boosted for ALL cards (character and support) by 15%.*

In chapters 1-20, your team’s strength is calculated with the following formula:

Strength = 1.15(AttributeSin1Total) + 1.15(AS2Total) + Other5SinsTotal

For example, let’s look at Lesson 10-20, which is a Gluttony/Lust battle.  My team is composed of Pandas Mean Profit (Greed), A Special Ceremony (Lust), and Colorful Panic (Pride).  And I’m using zero support cards just so I only have to add up 3 numbers.

Strength = 1.15(24338) + 1.15(34921) + 122736 = 190884**

Keep in mind that the buffs only apply to the attribute sin scores.  If the battle is Gluttony/Lust, the Pride scores will stay at their base values.  This is the case for all lessons up through chapter 20, both normal and hard mode.

However, from Lesson 21 onwards, there are two changes.  One, there is a primary sin and a secondary sin for each battle, marked by which icon is bigger in the preparation screen.  (There always has been, but now it matters which is which.)  In boss battles, both are primary.  Second, the buffs have changed drastically.

Every card has its main sin, obviously, and its strength in that sin is the strongest.  However, they still have strength in the other 6 sins as well.  There are two non-main sins that a card is very strong in, two that it is average in, and two that it is terrible in.

The percent increase is now dependent on how good a card is in the battle's two attribute sins.  (Remember that these buffs still only affect that sin, not the card’s total strength.)

If a card is the same sin as the battle’s primary sin, that sin gets a 160% buff

If a card is the same sin as the battle’s secondary sin, that sin gets a 90% buff

If a card’s second or third best sin is the battle’s primary sin, that sin gets a 30% buff

If a card’s second or third best sin is the battle’s secondary sin, that sin gets a 10% buff

Any sins lower than third best no longer get a buff

I’m not going to make a formula this time because it’s too long and situational.  But let’s look at that same 3-card team again, this time with Lesson 21-5, a Lust/Gluttony stage in that order.

Pandas Mean Profit has an average Lust score, so it gets no bonus.  Its Gluttony is its 3rd best sin, so that gets a 10% buff (10752 > 11827)

A Special Ceremony is a Lust card, so its Lust gets a 160% buff (17308 > 45000).  Its Gluttony sucks, though, so that doesn’t get a bonus.

Colorful Panic has Lust as its second best sin, so it gets a 30% buff (10423 > 13549).  Gluttony is its third best, so that gets a 10% buff too (9866 > 10852).

With the new system, the team’s Lust score has skyrocketed from 40158 to 65739.  However, its Gluttony score dropped from 27987 to 26399.

This means that the sins of your cards suddenly matter more in battle.  (And honestly I don’t think that’s a bad thing.  I know people complain that it makes it harder, but.  If my Comedy team in A3! is made entirely of Action/Drama cards with poor Comedy, I shouldn’t expect that team to do well.  Idk why people think that shouldn’t apply to Obey Me.)  Which brings us to part 2.

By the way, colored glow sticks raise the card’s total strength by 10%, and rainbow glow sticks raise it by 30%.

* It’s actually like 14.99% but it’s effectively the same.  The “slightly under but so close that I’m just rounding for significant figures” thing will be consistent for all of these buffs.

** The actual in-game strength is 190881, 3 points off due to the .99% thing.

Part 2: Team Preparation

I’m so sorry.  But someone has to say it.  Are you listening?  Great.

URs aren’t automatically better than SSRs.  Honestly, they never were.  They ESPECIALLY aren’t now.  You’re not losing the battle because you’re using SSRs.  You’re losing the battle because you’re throwing Wrath cards at a Sloth opponent.

Morning Voice is an Envy SSR card.  My copy of the card is only level 10, and in a Lesson 21+ Envy battle, its Envy score is 6866.

What is my Level 90 UR Colorful Panic’s Envy score in the same battle?

3489.

Colorful Panic is a higher rarity and 80 levels higher.  It has worse Envy.  Why?  Because Envy is its worst sin.

Obviously you aren’t going to be using a level 10 card in a battle, so for a more realistic standpoint, my copy of Resentment Runs Deep (SSR Envy) has 46108 Envy in the same battle.  That’s 13x better than the UR.

I’ll repeat it one more time before I move on.  The sin scores of a card are far more important than the rarity of the card.  A random SR card of the right sin is better than a UR with no sin bonus.  The most impressive thing about a UR is how hard it is to get one.

Anyway, what does this mean?  Is it hopeless?

Well, if you wanted to binge all three seasons within the first month of playing, yes.  But let’s assume that’s not the case.  (Side note, but the feeling that our cards are never good enough is definitely exacerbated by the aggressive speed at which they release new lessons combined with the fandom’s apparent allergy to spoiler warnings, but that’s a point for another post maybe.)

Remember that having URs isn’t actually all that important.  Now remember the sheer amount of SSRs they release since they also aggressively release events.  Also remember that with every 10-pull, you’ll get at least one SSR+.  (Also remember to never do single pulls; they're not worth it at all.)  If you’re really struggling with a lot of battles, here’s how you can improve your scores while focusing on as few cards as possible.

Open an Excel document or Google Sheets page and make a chart that looks something like this:

[Image Description: An 8x8 Excel sheet.  The columns are labelled with each of the seven deadly sins, and the rows are labelled Cards 1 through 3 and Support 1 through 3, with a blank row in between.  The rest of the sheet is blank.]

Now choose a card you want to use.  Doesn’t matter why you want to use it, maybe you like how it looks, maybe you worked really hard to get it, maybe you like its ability, maybe it’s just your current strongest card.  I don’t care.  For my chart I’m gonna use Pandas Mean Profit because it’s really pretty and I got it from the 100-pull pity reward.

Look at your card’s top 3 sins and put them into the chart.  For the character cards, note who the card is, because you can’t double up.  For reference later, also note whether it’s 1st, 2nd or 3rd best.  (Be sure to do this through Contacts and not a battle so there are no buffs skewing the scores.)

Once that’s in, choose another card you like for a different sin and input that card’s top 3 sins.  Envy is still completely empty, so I’ll put Resentment Runs Deep in next.  It’s an SSR, but I really love the Refresh Team ability.  Do this for one character card and one support card of each sin at first, if you can.  It doesn’t matter what level they are right now.  Then fill in whatever blanks you have with cards that specialize in that sin.

If a sin comes up more than 3 times, keep whichever ones are strongest in that sin without overlapping characters.  Play around with it until you get something that works for you.  Keep note of the sins you’re lacking cards for.

[Image Description: The same Excel Sheet as before, except filled in with various Obey Me card names.  The cells in rows 2 through 4 are color coded to match the character of the card.  Each cell marks in parentheses how strong the card is in the sin of the column it’s in from 1 to 3.]

Mine looks like this.  This chart isn’t perfect (if you look, none of my cards had Envy as a good non-main sin, and Pandas and Bunny have too much overlap for the same character), but it works as a rushed example.  I used the cell colors to mark the characters.

Are these the teams you should be using for each battle?  No, obviously not.  First off there’s no single-sin battle, and second off the game will still build the teams for you.

BUT, this greatly lowers the amount of cards you need to pour resources into.  Instead of 42 cards, with this chart I only have to focus on 18 cards in order to be guaranteed that all my cards get at least a SLIGHT boost in each battle.  The best-case scenario would drop it down to 14 cards.

Later on, once you’ve managed the cards on your chart, the next thing to do would be to find main sin cards to replace those that are only third best in their sin.  On mine I’d definitely focus on a Gluttony character card next, but in general Sloth is the one you want to be the most proactive about.

That should help you get through at least Season 2.  Season 3 is admittedly where the difficulty actually IS ridiculous, but Season 2 really isn’t as hard as we’ve been saying.  It just requires more planning than “the first three URs I ever got.”

I do still apologize for the resources and Grimm it’ll take, though :’)

Part 3: General Tips for Resources and Daily DP

This section is just some extra tidbits to help you have the resources to get cards and upgrade them.

[Image Description: The “hard to swallow pills” meme.  The pills read “You don’t need every single card and unless you’re a whale eventually you’re going to have to prioritize some events and ignore others or you’ll never have the resources to improve the cards you already have.”]

However, events ARE good for farming Grimm, so it’s not the end of the world if you want every SSR.  The only issue will come up when you need hard mode items and never have any AP, but it’s manageable.

If you’re going to log in more than once throughout the day, you can do the 2-1 job distribution.  If not, do three jobs with one character each so you get the daily task done

To save money for leveling up your good cards, complete the devil tree daily mission with N-rank cards.

Use vouchers over DP whenever you can (and use Raven to get vouchers).  The 99 DP level-up sale IS worth it if you can afford it, because that’s like 50% off a 10-pull once you do two.

I’m not certain, but I THINK skill level also influences how often an ability activates?  I feel like my Lv 10 SSR cards activate often but my Lv 1 URs never do.  So if you’re relying on an ability, the permanent SSRs might be worth looking at over limited time cards.

Anyway, I hope this helps at all in our mutual suffering.

[whumpster-fire]

What if The Abyss Was Real?

I haven’t done a dumb “Applying real-world physics to fantasy settings thought experiment shitpost” in a while, I feel like doing one for Made In Abyss.

Okay so long story short, The Abyss, from the manga/anime Made In Abyss, is a really big hole in the ground. Specifically, it’s a circular chasm with an unknown depth estimated to be at least 20,000 meters, but there’s a magical curse that causes any human being attempting to ascend to get sick, with symptoms getting worse the lower you’re trying to ascend from, and if you go too deep you’ll die if you try to return.

Gee... sounds a little bit like Decompression Sickness, doesn’t it? So now I’m curious: would the increased atmospheric pressure in The Abyss be dangerous even if there was no magical curse?

To get this out of the way: a 20-kilometer deep hole can’t exist on Earth in real life - not because lava would come out, because continental crust is usually thicker than that (although the Abyss is on an island in the middle of the ocean so it might be getting into the mantle), but because rocks aren’t strong enough and the immense weight combined with the effects of erosion would cause it to collapse and fill itself in after a while. If there was a hole that deep, the bottom would probably be unsurvivably hot because of a combination of geothermal heat and Adiabatic Lapse (i.e. for the same reason high altitudes are really cold, a really low negative altitude would be extremely hot because any descending air mass will be compressed by the increasing pressure and when you compress air it gets hotter).

But assuming fantasy physics do keep the rocks stable and the temperature normal-ish, would the atmospheric pressure make the Abyss deadly to return from / descend into?

Let’s find out!

High pressure is a hazard divers in the ocean have to contend with, and much like in the Abyss, descending is relatively safe but ascending is the tricky part. It’s very hard to actually crush someone with pressure because the pressure inside and outside your body tends to equalize since we’re mostly made up of non-rigid liquid... gel... stuff. If you rapidly take that pressure away though, you get nasty effects like the solubility of gases in blood decreasing, causing gas to come out of solution and form bubbles which fuck your everything up. This is generally not a worry when going to high altitude because normal atmospheric pressure is only equivalent to about 10 meters of water, but if you go from a highly pressurized atmosphere to normal pressure too fast you can be in danger. In fact, decompression sickness was originally identified in bridge construction workers working in pressurized work chambers called caissons.

So could the Abyss cause that?

Well... the pressure gradient in a column of air is a bit different from in a column of water. In any fluid the rate of pressure change with depth is equal to the weight density of the fluid. In water, this means the rate of change is linear, approximately 1 atmosphere per 10 meters of depth, because liquids are incompressible and their density doesn’t change much with pressure. In air it’s a different story. The pressure change is much slower because gases are less dense than liquids, but it’s nonlinear, because air is compressible - the deeper you go the higher the pressure gets, and the higher the pressure gets the denser the air becomes, and the higher air density means the pressure increases faster. In fact, the pressure grows or decays exponentially with changing altitude!

This can be modeled with a “constant” called the Scale Height - the height it takes for the pressure to change by a factor of e. Scarequotes around “constant” because it isn’t: air density is a function of temperature as well as pressure, and like I said temperature isn’t constant with altitude. It also varies with molecular weight, and therefore with air composition, and therefore with humidity - humid air is lighter than dry air.

Luckily the Abyss has a constant-ish temperature (ish. The 4th layer’s really hot, the 5th is cold, but it’s not like it’s going from antarctic winter to boiling). What about humidity? Well... the thing is, the vapor pressure of water, and therefore the maximum possible partial pressure of water vapor in air at 100% humidity, is a function of temperature, but as the pressure increases that partial pressure becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of the total pressure. Even at the surface, the air won’t be more than 5% water vapor unless it gets above 30 *C, and only about 2% at 20 *C. So the effect of humidity should be pretty small.

So let’s assume we can approximate the air in the Abyss as dry air at... 27 *C because that’s 300 Kelvins and makes my math easier. That’s pretty warm, but the 4th Layer, Giant’s Goblets, is hot, humid, and really big vertically so it probably skews the average upward a bit. This gives us a scale height of about 8800 meters.

So what are the conditions like?

1st Layer: Edge of the Abyss. Depth: 0 meters. Pressure: 100% sea level.

I think the boundary between the city of Orth and the Abyss proper is around sea level? This is just normal air, with no health hazard to humans.

2nd Layer - Forest Of Temptation: Depth: 1350 meters. Pressure: 115% sea level.

So far so good. The air at the bottom of the first layer is a little thicker and contains a little more oxygen, so you might actual feel better going down there. Someone returning to the surface after an extended period of acclimation to the air down there might get mild altitude sickness.

 2nd Layer - The Inverted Forest: Depth: 2600 meters. Pressure: 135% sea level.

The pressure is know about the same as you’d experience at the bottom of a typical public swimming pool. Be careful to equalize your ears! The pressure difference between here and the surface is the same as between the surface and around 3500 meters above sea level, which is pretty darn high! The inverted forest itself and Ozen’s observation camp is probably a bit higher up than this so the pressure’s a bit lower, if somebody rapidly went all the way up to the surface after living down there for months they might get significant altitude sickness?

3rd Layer - The Great Fault: Depth: 2600-7000 meters. Pressure: 135-220% sea level.

This is a pretty tall layer, and by the time you reach the bottom the air is more than twice as thick as at the surface! This also means the updrafts hit extra hard because all aerodynamic forces - lift and drag - are amplified with the greater air density. A falling object’s terminal velocity is around 70% what it is at sea level. If somebody decided to skydive directly to the Giant’s Goblet, they’d still need a parachute but they could use a parachute of about half the area and still make a safe landing - if they weren’t eaten by the giant flying monsters or crashed into the cliff face by the winds.

4th Layer - The Goblet of Giants: Depth: 7000+ meters. Pressure: 220%+ sea level.

The top of the Goblet of Giants is humid and swelteringly hot. While the humid air doesn’t actually contain more water vapor than humid air of the same temperature at sea level, there’s still more air to absorb and conduct heat. The human body might have trouble cooling itself under these conditions, and delvers could succumb to heatstroke very easily. I’m not sure if the body would just adapt to this much oxygen and get rid of red blood cells en masse, so altitude sickness might not get that much worse.

Cooking under these conditions would be strange, because the ambient pressure is now higher than the pressure inside a pressure cooker. Riko would probably have to use specialized recipes to account for water boiling at over 120 *C and the environment basically being a pressure cooker even if you’re just trying to grill something.

4th Layer - Garden of the Flowers of Resilience: Depth: 9,000 meters. Pressure: 278% sea level. The air’s still getting thicker and thicker. The pressure is equivalent to being 18 meters underwater. Decompression sickness might now be a risk if you rapidly ascended to the surface via a gondola. Without a gondola, there’s no way anyone could climb that rapidly. You will not bleed out of every orifice.

5th Layer - Sea of Corpses: Depth: 12,000 meters. Pressure: 390% sea level.

Time to enter the dark, icy depths! The pressure down here is high. A typical car tire is a little over 2 bars above ambient or 3 bars absolute, so if you brought an inflated car tire down here it would be deflated by the pressure. A soda can would also have gone flat long before this depth. The air is now cold, but probably still humid from the sea and water platform thingies all around. This is a dangerous environment because the thick air cools things like human bodies very effectively, creating an elevated risk of hypothermia and frostbite! The Sea of Corpses is a pretty apt name: swimming or diving in this water could turn deadly very fast.

5th Layer - Ido Front: Depth: 13,000 meters. Pressure: 435% sea level.

This is the point of no return! Ido Front’s near the bottom of the 5th layer but apparently the real boundary is below “sea level” a bit. The curse of the 5th layer is loss of senses and hallucinations... which is actually kind of accurate except for the part where you have to ascend to be affected. The pressure down here is close to the limit for recreational scuba diving because breathing air at such high pressures can lead to Nitrogen Narcosis, and delvers would suffer from slowed reactions and reduced mental acuity. However, it’s not severe enough to cause real hallucinations at this depth, at least at the exposure durations for divers.

6th Layer - Capital of the Unreturned: Depth: 13,000 meters. Pressure: 435% sea level. You... can still return from this depth. Divers do it all the time. They have to take decompression stops around every 10 meters - or 1 atmosphere. To create a 1 atmosphere pressure change Bondrewd’s Happy Fun Time Elevator would have to drop its victims to nearly 15,000 meters, near the bottom of this layer and rocket them back up to Ido Front in a few minutes. Even then this is the safe practice because people were sometimes getting sick and occasionally dying. So uhh... myth busted I guess?

7th Layer - The Final Maelstrom: Depth: 15,500 meters. Pressure: 580% sea level.

By this depth, the partial pressure of oxygen should be reaching 1.2 bars assuming the air is mixed with surface air somehow. Oxygen toxicity is now a major concern: the safety limit for exposure duration at this partial pressure of oxygen is about 3-1/2 hours, much shorter than how long a delver would be down there. The true Curse of the Abyss is now setting in, as the amount of oxygen in the air damages the central nervous system, causing seizures. At greater depths than this the high atmospheric pressure would quickly incapacitate and kill a delver. Sufficient breathing gas to descend this far probably couldn’t be carried in large enough quantities to survive navigating whatever the hell is down there.

Interestingly the depth of the 7th Layer actually more or less corresponds to the real-life limits of human physiology, and if there was a chasm this deep in the real world, we would be just as unable to explore the deepest depths without the benefit of modern technology.

[blacksunscorpio]

Could you please explain the difference between synastry and composite houses? I have seen people mention synastry houses but I thought that was only for composite. How would you find/calculate the synastry houses?

Difference Between Synastry and Composite

For any new astrologer, after the primary natal chart comes the study of synastry charts and composite charts. 

The Difference?

Synastry or “chart comparison” is two people’s charts laid on top or next to one another to see how their planets play out. It is the impact two people have on one another based on their planetary positions. As a result, a synastry chart does not have “individual houses” or “synastry houses”. Not the way a natal chart does or the way a composite chart does. Rather, two people’s planets will fall into the other’s houses. This is technically termed as “Overlays”.

EX: 

In the above example, We see what is termed as a “synastry chart”. If you look at the glyphs on top of the grid, you will see person 1 who we will call “Jesse” planets and houses are horizontal. I.e his sun is in his 4th house, Moon in his 1st, Mercury in his 5th, etc. Person 2 who we will call “Milo” planet’s and houses are Vertical on the left. I.e His Sun is in his 10th, Moon in his 5th, Mercury in his 10th, etc.  Aspect wise, we can see from the chart that Jesse’s Sun is squaring Milo’s Moon. Because Jesse’s sun is aspecting Milo’s Moon in the 5th, Jesse’s sun falls into Milo’s 5th house. Conversely, Because Milo’s moon is touching Jesse’s Sun, Milo’s Moon fall’s into Jesse’s 4th House. Make sense?

A Composite Chart

Is the mathematical midpoint between two people’s charts. What you’re doing is merging the two charts to come up with a chart of their relationship. The difference is that synastry shows you how two people interact and affect each other. Composite gives information about the relationship itself. How  It tells it’s purpose and it’s qualities. It illustrates the union of two people [romantic, familial, platonic, etc]. Is the union full of joy and love? Is it a stable relationship? Erratic? Formal? Playful? etc.

EX.

As we can see here, the composite chart looks a lot like a natal horoscope.

 It has a sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus as well as an ascendant and houses. The product of synastry is the composite chart. It is the “natal horoscope” of the relationship itself.  Using the same two individuals, Person 1 [Jesse] being a Virgo and person 2, Milo being a Cancer, the midpoint between those two charts equals a composite chart with a Sun in Leo [the midpoint between Cancer and Virgo]. Their composite sun’s house is in the 7th which indicates they treat each other as equals in a relationship. This placement is an indicator that the relationship itself could wind up in marriage, since 7th house a soulmate and partner/relationship house.

Now Let's Look at Composite Aspects

Just like a natal chart, you can see aspects to planets, minor and major. Here we can see that Jesse and Milo’s composite Sun in the 7th [1st column] is trining the composite moon in the 3rd.

What Does This Mean?

Their communication and understanding between each other in the relationship will be effortless and very vibrant. Deep understanding of each other and passionate as well seeing as the Composite sun is in Leo and Moon is in Aries.

However

We also see composite Mars is opposing composite Uranus at a wide orb but making an opposition nonetheless. Uranus is in Sagittarius in the 11th and Mars is in Taurus in the 5th. This is an indicator that travel, society, and tradition vs unconventionalism can make the two argue or break up just to make up often. Affairs can also be an issue with 5th House Mars. This will be what plays out between the two.

Note:

When studying these two charts, you’ll begin to see trends. You’ll see who may bring more of the energy to the relationship than another. Like synastry, composite chart aspects can usually be traced to one person’s natal chart.In essence, two people can feel really good around each other but still have a relationship that is plagued with difficulty or impediment of some kind. Adversely, you can also have two individuals with very challenging charts, but the moment you put them together, their composite is exceptional. A classic case of two people being better together than apart. Hey, it happens. Those stories people tell at their weddings. Where they say things like “I hated her at first, but then we became an item and I couldn’t live without her.” or “My life was shitty, but then I met….” In addition,  the composite chart is going to be hypothetical unless the relationship actually forms in real life/real time. So a composite chart can be fantastic but will not manifest unless two people make a tangible connection.

[thewidowsghost]

The Daughter of the Sea - Chapter 5

(Y/n)'s POV

I have weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.

I must've woken up several times, but what I hear and see makes no sense, so I just pass out again. I remember lying in a soft bed and spoon-fed something that tasted like (Favorite/Food), only it's like pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovers over me, smirking as she scrapes drips off my chin with the spoon.

When she sees my eyes open, she asks, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"

"What?" I manage to croak.

She looks around, as is afraid someone would overhear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"

"I'm sorry," I slur, "I don't . . ."

Somebody knocks on the door, and the girl quickly fills my mouth with the pudding.

. . .

The next time I wake up, the girl is gone.

A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stands in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He has blue eyes - at least a dozen of them - on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.

When I come around for good, there is nothing weird about my surroundings, except they are nicer than I am used to. I am sitting in a deck chair next to Percy - who was looking at me with concern - on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smells like strawberries. There is a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that is great, but my mouth feels like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue is dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.

On the table next to me is a tall drink. It looks like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol sticks through a maraschino cherry.

My hand is so weak I almost drop the glass once I get my fingers around it.

"Careful," says a voice.

Grover is leaning against the porch railing, looking as though he hadn't slept in a week. Under one arm, he cradles a shoebox. He is wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops, and a bright orange t-shirt that says CAMP HALF-BLOOD.

"You two saved my life," Grover says. "I...well, the least I could do...I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."

Reverently, he places the shoebox in Percy's lap.

Inside is a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood.

It hadn't been a nightmare. My mother was gone.

"The Minotaur," Percy asks.

"Um, Percy, it isn't a good idea -" Grover gets cut off.

"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" Percy demands. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull."

Grover shifts uncomfortably. "You two have been out for two days. How much do you remember?"

"Mom," I say softly. "Is she really . . ."

Grover looks down.

I stare across the meadow. There is a grove of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley is surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, is the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looks beautiful in the sunlight.

My mother is gone . . .

Nothing should look beautiful. The whole world should be black and cold.

"I'm sorry," Grover sniffs. "I'm a failure. I'm - I'm the worst satyr in the world." He groans, stomping his food so hard it comes off. I mean, the Converse hi-top comes off. The inside is filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole. "Oh, Styx!" he mumbles.

Thunder rolls across the clear sky.

Mom had really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.

Percy and I are alone. Orphans. We would have to live with . . . Smelly Gabe? No. I'd live on the streets first.

Grover is still sniffling.

Percy says, "It wasn't your fault."

"Yes, it was. I was supposed to protect you."

"Did our mother ask you to protect me?"

"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least . . . I was."

"But why . . ." Percy begins and I suddenly feel dizzy, my vision swimming.

"Don't strain yourself," Grover says. "Here."

He helps me hold my glass and puts the straw to my lips.

I recoil at the taste because I was expecting apple juice. It isn't that at all. It's chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. But not just any cookies - Mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body feels warm and good, full of energy. My grief doesn't go away, but I feel as if Mom had just brushed her hand lovingly against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was upset and told me everything was going to be okay.

Before I know it, I'd drained the glass. I stare into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.

"Was it good?" Grover asks.

I nod.

"What did it taste like?"

"Chocolate-chip cookies," I reply and Percy looks at me knowingly. "Mom's. Homemade."

He takes the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it's dynamite, and sets it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting.

3rd Person POV

The porch wraps all the way around the farmhouse.

Percy's legs feel wobbly, trying to walk that far, and (Y/n), though her legs feel like Jello, had moved to support her brother. Grover offers to carry the Minotaur horn, but Percy holds onto it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I'm not going to let it go.

As the trio comes around the opposite end of the house, (Y/n) catches her breath.

Percy's POV

We must be on the north shore of Long Island because on this side of the house, the valley marches all the way up to the water, which glitters about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply can't process everything I'm seeing. The landscape is dotted with buildings that look like ancient Greek architecture—an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena—except that they all look brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school–age kids and satyrs play volleyball. Canoes glide across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's are chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shoot targets at an archery range. Others ride horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I'm hallucinating, some of their horses have wings.

Down at the end of the porch, two men sit across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoonfed (Y/n) is leaning on the porch rail next to them.

The man facing me is small, but porky. He has a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it's almost poker. He looks like those painting of baby angles - cherubs. He looks like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park. He is wearing a tiger-patterned Hawaiian shirt, and he would fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I get the feeling that this guy could out-gamble even my step-father.

"That's Mr. D," Grover mutters to me and (Y/n). "He's the camp director. Be polite. That girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron . . . "

He points at the guy whose back is to me.

First, I realize he's sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognize the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, and the scraggly beard.

"Mr. Brunner!" I cry.

The Latin teacher turns and smiles at me, then looks curiously at (Y/n), who is still supporting some of my weight. His eyes have that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulls a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers B.

"Ah, good, Percy," he says. "Now we have four for pinochle."

He offers me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looks at me, then (Y/n), who is leaning against my chair, with bloodshot eyes, and heaves a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to the glad to see you."

"Percy, why don't you introduce me?" Mr. Burnner says, sending a soft smile towards (Y/n).

"Oh, this is my twin sister, (Y/n)," Percy says.

(Y/n)'s POV

I smile and wave shyly.

"It's nice to meet you, sir," I say. "Percy's told me a lot about you. Even said you were his favorite teacher."

A warmer smile spreads across Mr. Brunner's face and then he turns. "Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner calls to the blond girl.

She comes forward and Mr. Brunner introduces us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, (Y/n). Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy and (Y/n)'s bunks? We'll be putting them in Cabin Eleven for now."

"Sure, Chiron," Annabeth replies.

She's probably about my age, maybe an inch or two taller, and a whole more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she is almost exactly when I think a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruin the image. They are startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she's analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.

She glances down at the Minotaur horn in Percy's hands then looks back up at me. She says, "You drool when you sleep." My cheeks take on a slight red tinge as she sprints off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.

"So," Percy says, looking anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"

"Not Mr. Brunner," not Mr. Brunner says. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."

"Okay," Percy says, looking totally confused, then looking at the director. "And Mr. D . . . does that stand for something?"

Mr. D stops shuffling the cars. He looks at Percy like he'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason.

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

"I must say, Percy," Chiron - Brunner breaks in, "I'm glad to see you alive, and the chance to meet your sister. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."

"House call?" I ask, interested.

"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct Percy. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met him. He sensed he was something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to...ah, take a leave of absence."

"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" Percy asks.

Chiron nods. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood, and then we learned of Miss (Y/n), here." He nods to me. "But you still had so much to learn, Percy. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test."

"Grover," Mr. D says impatiently, "are you playing or not?"

Percy's POV

"Yes, sir!" Grover trembles as he takes the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.

"You do know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyes me suspiciously.

"I'm afraid not," I answer.

"I'm afraid not, sir," he corrects.

"Sir," I repeat, liking the camp director less and less.

"Well," he tells me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilized young men to know the rules"

"I'm sure the boy can learn," Chiron says.

"Please," I plead, "what is this place? What are we doing here? Mr. Brun— Chiron—why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"

Mr. D snorts. "I asked the same question."

The camp director deals the cards; Grover flinches every time one lands in his pile.

Chiron smiles at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, I was his star student. He expected me to have the right answer.

"Percy," Chiron prompts. "Did your mother tell you nothing?"

"She said . . ." (Y/n) begins and I remember her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told us she was afraid to send us here, even though our father had wanted her to. She said that once we were here, we probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep us close to her."

"Typical," Mr. D says. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"

"What?" I ask.

He explains, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.

"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron says. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient.

"Orientation film?" (Y/n) asks, quirking an eyebrow.

"No," Chiron decides. "Well, Percy, (Y/n). You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know -" he points to the horn in the shoebox - "that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either. What you may not know is that the great powers are at work. Gods - the forces you call the Greek gods - are very much alive."

I stare at the others around the table.

I wait for somebody to yell, Not! but all I get is Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackles as he tallies up his points.

"Mr. D," Grover asks timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"

"Eh? Oh, all right."

Grover bites a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chews it.

"Wait," I tell Chiron as (Y/n) sits down on the edge of my chair. "You're telling me there's such a thing as God."

"Well, now," Chiron says. "God—capital G, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."

"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about—"

"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."

"Smaller?"

"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class.

"Zeus," I say. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them."

And there it was again—distant thunder on a cloudless day.

"Young man," says Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around if I were you."

"But they're stories," I say. "They're—myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."

"Science!" Mr. D scoff. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"—I flinch when he says my real name, which I never told anybody—"what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continues. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals—they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come so-o-o far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."

"Percy," Chiron says, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"

"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," (Y/n) says.

"Exactly," Chiron agrees. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you Perseus and (Y/n) Jackson, that someday people would call you a myth, just created to explain how children can get over losing their mothers."

My heart pounds. He's trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I say, "I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods."

"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmurs. "Before one of them incinerates you."

Grover pleads, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock."

"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbles, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe!" He waves his hand and a goblet appears on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet fills itself with red wine.

"You're Dionysus," (Y/n) says and Mr. D looks at her. "The god of wine."

Mr. D nods then stares at me as I say, "You're a god."

"Yes, child."

"A god. You."

He turns to look at me straight on, and I see a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man is only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I see visions of grapevines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turn to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I know that if I push him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a straitjacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.

"Would you like to test me, child?" he says quietly.

"No. No, sir."

The fire dies a little; he turns back to his card game. "I believe I win."

"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron says. He sets down a straight, tallies the points, and says, "The game goes to me."

I think Mr. D is going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighs through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He gets up, and Grover rises, too.

"I'm tired," Mr. D says. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, again, about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."

Grover's face beads with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."

Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners." He sweeps into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.

"Will Grover be okay?" I ask Chiron.

Chiron nods, though he looks a little troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been . . . ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."

"Mount Olympus," I say. "You're telling me there is really a palace there?"

"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."

"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like...in America?"

"The what?"

"Western civilization?" (Y/n) guesses and Chiron nods for her to continue. "It started in Greece, then spread to Rome, right?"

"That's correct, Miss (Y/n)," Chiron says.

"And then they died?" I ask, looking between my Latin teacher and my sister.

"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course, they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not—and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either —America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."

"Who are you, Chiron? Who . . . who am I? Who . . . who are we?"

Chiron smiles. He shifts his weight as if he was going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I know that was impossible. He's paralyzed from the waist down.

"Who are you?" he muses. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."

And then he does rise from his wheelchair. But there's something odd about the way he did it. His blanket falls away from his legs, but the legs don't move. His waist keeps getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I think he's was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he keeps rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realize that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair isn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg comes out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.

I stare at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.

"You're a centaur!" (Y/n) says in awe, and Chiron's eyes sparkle with amusement as he nods.

"What a relief," the centaur says. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy and (Y/n) Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."

Word Count: 3702 words