#if there is a soul society wikipedia

[troius]

How did Kisuke know everything about everyone to solve every problem but somehow only knows the vaguest of info about the right hand of the soul king?

I'm not saying he should know about Jushiro's condition but he should have at least known a wikipidia level of info.

Nah because something that is abundantly clear about Soul Society is that nobody in the Seireitei has the slightest bit of actual knowledge of Rukongai. And Kisuke isn't an exception.

Like, Soul Society is an incredible stratified place. All of the most powerful and important people are in the Seireitei. And even the powerful folks from outside are eventually brought in, because the temptation of power/a better life is much too high to resist. And so the Soul Reapers don't care too much about what goes on beyond their walls! Sure, they might need to kill a particularly nasty hollow now and again, or mass-murder the inhabitants to maintain the balance of souls in an emergency, but otherwise? Who cares!

Ichigo and co. jumped from the world of the living to Soul Society, but the Court Guards literally did not care so long as they were not in the Seireitei. Aizen was conducting crazy hollow research for years out there, and Kisuke hadn't the slightest inkling, because why would he? He's a retainer of the Shihouin clan! Their eyes are on their peers around them and the god above them, not the outside world that they consider beneath them.

[literallymechanical]

Alessandro Volta's Electric Eels

Okay so, it turns out that your cell phone battery is a basically a homunculus of an electric fish. 

These are the same thing. Let me explain.

@fishteriously, a paleoichthyologist, told me that Alessandro Volta invented the electric battery after studying electric eels and rays.  This sounded like a fun science factoid!  I wanted to know more!  I saw the claim repeated on any number of pop science articles from the last century or so, but none that quoted from primary sources.

The voltaic pile is one of the most important inventions, ever, of all time.  Before Volta, electricity could be stored in Leyden jar capacitors, which would discharge in a single, brief burst. Volta's pile was the first method of producing a continuous electric current, which launched the modern era of electricity as we know it. His explanation for how it worked was incorrect, but it was still a massive breakthrough.

Batteries use the same principle to this day, just with different materials (e.g. cobalt oxide, graphite, and lithium salts rather than silver, zinc, and brine).

But is it a fish?

This is Volta's first schematic of a battery, or "voltaic pile" – at the time, "battery" referred to a bunch of Leyden jars linked in series, the term wouldn't come to refer to piles until later. "Z" and "A" stand for zinc and silver ("argentum"), with brine-soaked paper disks between. It does look a bit like an eel?

But is it truly?

Surely, if Volta modeled the pile after electric fishes, I’d be able to find a citation!  Wikipedia is usually a good place to start when hunting primary sources, but no luck.  No mention of fish at all.  I trust fishteriously more than wikipedia, however, so I went digging.  Looks like Volta first reported his discovery in a Letter to the Royal Society in 1800.

Found the letter!

Aw beans, it’s in French.  I haven’t studied French since high school.

BUT WAIT. WHAT WAS THAT.

Une commotion électrique? A trembling eel???

Okay so now I NEEDED to read the letter in English. I found an English-language summary published by the Royal Society, but it looks like the only English translation of the full letter was in the appendix of an out-of-print book called “Alessandro Volta and the Electric Battery.”

So I bought a used copy. Let's see what Volta has to say about this:

"To this apparatus ... I have constructed it, in its form to the natural electric organ of the torpedo or electric eel, &c, than to the Leyden flask and electric batteries [battery = linked Leyden flasks], I would wish to give the name of artificial electric organ."

Yes! The voltaic pile was explicitly modeled after electric fishes – torpedo rays and electric eels.  Fishteriously was 100% correct. Volta never even calls it a "pile," it is always "artificial electric organ." A significant portion of the letter is devoted to electric eels and torpedo rays, in fact.

But also, the rest of the letter is bonkers.

He wrote pages on painful experiments with the artificial electric organ – touching it, poking it into his eyes and ears, making other people touch it, generally just shocking the ever loving hell out of himself over and over. He routinely shocks himself so hard that he has to take breaks. And of course, he licks it.

But that's not the best part:

He says that the artificial electric organ can be turned sideways and submerged in liquid...

"...by which means these cylinders would have a pretty good resemblance to the electric eel ... they might be joined together by pliable metallic wires or screw springs, and then covered with a skin terminated by a head and tail properly formed, &c."

There you have it. One of the most important scientific discoveries of all time, and it includes a crafts project for building an authentic electric eel puppet.

In summary, next time you charge your phone, take a moment to thank the soul of the electric fish inside of it.

[nohoperadio]

Imagine a far-future society, we don't know what's happened but the Earth is dead, I'm vaguely picturing them all living on space stations or something, there are only precious few species of plants and animals being kept alive, very few indeed, you couldn't quite count the remaining species on your fingertips but you could certainly check out all of their Wikipedia pages within the space of an hour. Future Wikipedia I guess, I mean whatever it is they have. No edible fruit or vegetables have survived at all, I'm not sure what they do for food, something futuristic presumably. Some kind of... future powder?

But there's this project that's been in the works for decades, they've figured out they can synthesize an apple. I don't know how that works, but the scientists have figured out a way. They're going to make an apple and this is like landing on the moon for them, everyone's insanely hyped about it, nobody's seen an apple for millennia... well see part of what's going on here is that the historiography of the time back when Earth still existed is irreparably bad now, it's super impressionistic because so little survived. And I guess partly because the Genesis story has been all blown out of proportion (there's more to it but that's a big part of it) these guys have a really exaggerated idea of the importance of apples to Earth humans, they basically imagine us eating apples all day long and worshiping apple gods and making apple art and all stuff like that. It's pretty silly but remember they have NO fruit or veg, they eat powder or whatever it was I said, they don't even have a rough concept of what "eating an apple" might be, like does it get you high for example? I bet they think it does, like a really spiritual special kind of high! They must have embellished it so much right? Gotten real carried away.

So like I say it's really hype, they're going to finally make an apple! A real one I mean, not like an approximation of what some scientists theorize an apple might be like, they've figured out how to definitely do it accurately (somehow, idk, just trust the omniscient narrator that they're doing it for real). But: they can only make one. Too much resources required or some shit, like I said this is their equivalent to the first moon landing except maybe more so, it's not a sustainable plan to reintroduce apple trees or something, they can only make one apple ever and that'll be it.

So as you can imagine, quite apart from all the scientific resource that's gone into this project, there's been a ton of resource invested into (not to mention endless public fascination and debate over) the question: who gets to eat the apple? It's a big deal! Everybody envies whoever's gonna eat it; most people also don't envy them. Since time immemorial, the essence of the apple has been defined by centuries and millennia of myth and speculation and storytelling holding together scattered fragments of a mysterious glorious past. Very soon, the essence of the apple will be defined by whatever this guy says it is, whatever the apple eater manages to communicate of the ineffable experience that will always be theirs alone. Humanity will demand a report, and the apple eater will have to be a poet of rarest genius at the very minimum to be trusted to deliver it, they hold the most privileged position maybe anyone will ever hold by being allowed to do this, and all that will remain of that briefest experience for all eternity will be their words. They're an instant prophet, no questions asked. I don't know about you, but if that was me I would definitely shit myself.

Well anyway forget about all that stuff. I was only thinking of this because it occurs to me, you're kind of like the apple eater of your own life, right? I mean nobody's making a big song and dance of it like those crazy apple space freaks, but it's true no?, you *pokes you in the face quite hard* with your highly specific soul positioned in your highly specific situation, that's only going to happen once, you're the only one who's ever going to know what that's like, assuming you aren't going to give some sort of big testimony, somehow. Only difference is like I say, no one really cares in your case, although actually I do sometimes, I hope that doesn't weird you out. I'm just saying imagine being asked the question! As if the answer really did matter! In theory anybody could just walk up to you and do that! I promise I won't ask you, if you promise you won't ask me.

[heavenlybackside]

Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum’s steam locomotive Southern Railway 630 crosses over the CSX W&A Subdivision as it heads to East Chattanooga, Tennessee with a trainload of passengers, on April 27th, 2024.

According to Wikipedia: Southern Railway 630 is a 2-8-0 "Consolidation" type steam locomotive built in February 1904 by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) of Richmond, Virginia for the Southern Railway as a member of the Ks-1 class. It is currently owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee where it resides today for use on excursion trains.

The Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum was founded as a chapter of the National Railway Historical Society in 1960 by Paul H. Merriman and Robert M. Soule, Jr., along with a group of local railway preservationists. They wanted to save steam locomotives and railway equipment for future historical display and use. Today, the museum offers various tourist excursions from stations in Chattanooga and Etowah, Tennessee.

#trainphotography #railroadphotography #trains #railways #trainphotographer #railroadphotographer #jimpearsonphotography #PassengerTrain #TennesseeValleyRailroadMuseum #TennesseeTrains #steamtrain #tvrm

[literary-motif]

Author's Note

To whom it may concern,

Let me preface this by saying a few things. For the sake of my sanity racism, sexism, and homophobia do not exist. The story is set in the 1890s in London, making it the late Victorian era. However, due to my morphing history into a significantly more equal and diverse frame, the society and the times are nearly unrecognizable. I must admit that I did not study Victorian London or the Victorian age nearly thoroughly enough to write a historically accurate historical fiction (even with the changes I chose to make in favor of keeping the reader gender-neutral), so prepare for a myriad of (sometimes unintentional) historical inaccuracies.

I will be the first to point out that the sole reason I set this in the 1890s was because The Picture Of Dorian Gray was published in 1891, and I thought it criminal not to reference it at least once. (In the depth of my soul, I hope Oscar Wilde is proud of me and my frankly very queer longing for the picturesque). 

This novella explores some backstory of our beloved Xanthus. It has ten chapters, including Prologue and Epilogue. The vibe I was going for was something akin to dark romance and gothic horror.

Due to the sometimes darker nature of the story, I advise to caution the following content warnings, which I will also add to their respective chapters: memory manipulation (via compulsion), talk of suicide, smoking and drinking. Religious themes and imagery are present throughout the story.

Sometimes, I rant a little about history and literature because I researched specific things that led me down a rabbit hole of Wikipedia articles. Take everything with a large teaspoon of salt because I did not do in-depth research. I tried to be as accurate as possible, within reason.

To declutter some of the text and enlighten you (pun intended) on the things I found, I wrote annotations, so in case you’re interested or confused about the historical happenings that I cannot explain in the text, I give an exposition of them there.

Enjoy the fruit of my labor with which I rewarded myself after finishing the last of my exams and successfully graduating. I began working on this on the 22th of May, and truthfully, I am quite happy to have finished it in pretty much a month's time.

Have fun reading! And feel free to give me feedback :)

[defining-skyology]

Believing in Light. (Defining Megabird #2)

You.

Yes you, I'm talking to you.

You know who you are.

I'm talking to you; the Sky Lore community.

Did you know Skykids have Religions?

Which means

You

Likely have a religion.

[[[Long read/article ahead]]]

[[[Continue Reading]]]

In the real world, real people will do things, or see something incomprehensible, and they will connect with that small bit of information or broken sensory concept, and develop on it.

In the real world, we see nature, the beauty of the world, the social complications of our confusing and dissonant race

And we make Connections.

We think, we dream, and we Feel.

Further than what we see in front of us and feel on our tongues and fingers, we claim this 'feeling' as within our Soul, and we find Meaning.

This is what Spirituality is.

My goal here would have been to ask you, the reader of these articles, to make these same connections of Spirituality, to draw on your emotions and your Soul, in order to Feel more complex things than just what is on the surface; but about Sky, about the World of Sky, and about what parallels can be made to our real lives, our real society, and our real living breathing world.

But then I remember: You already do.

You take Beings, mere characters in a walking-sim game, and you develop on them. You define a passion in illustrating a world around these figures, and you develop on and revel in that world, and what it does to these characters. The Elders, the Ancestors, our Skychildren, and the Prince/King Resh. We worship these Beings, and we fall in love with the concept of them so much that we can't imagine Sky without them.

These are Religions.

The third and most (personally) generally reliable definition of religion in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is stated as:

a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith

which can be attested to by so many of our attempts to care for and develop on these Beings. Just observe the fanbase of the Forgotten Valley Elder.

(Link to the infamous Tumblr post about it at the bottom of this article; post is by SoupofOwls [@whitebookposts], art in the sceenshot is ThatSkyMoz [@thatskymoz].)

I've said a lot of words and we've made very little ground here, so let's get it rolling now.

You may have noticed in the last post that I actually avoided using my traditional format of solidly Defining things. (Yes it was totally intentional I swear. 😃)

This occurred because of the nature of this two-part approach to the Megabird. First, we defined the Physical concept of the Light; the one that we can see and interact with. And now, we'll be discussing the metaphysical aspect of it.

According to Wikipedia, Metaphysics is:

the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality.

I had wanted to try an approach where, instead of leaving the physical plane to the physical and the theoretical to the theoretical; I presented a concept of the Megabird, something that you see and feel and witness. And instead of explaining to you what I think you're supposed to feel about it, I left it up to you. And now we'll be talking about something we are supposed to only feel, and not see.

Yet this time... we will bring it back to comprehension, if only in a theoretical way. And it's up to you to think about it on a level that makes it 'Mean something' to you.

Now let's make a Distinction.

Spirituality is not necessarily Religion

Religion is an organized measure of 'faith' and service to a belief, even within personal, subjective terms.

Spirituality is not necessarily organized; but is the search within oneself for meaning, for purpose, and for something that is 'greater' than our simple, material lives.

Every time you feel a connection to society, to communities, to nature, to something more vast than you comprehend just in your life around you; you are Understanding some sense of spirituality, of being drawn to feel connected to something greater than yourself.

And to make that connection Matter.

Because everybody wants to belong to something greater than themselves.

But this 'something' is not always people; not always a 'community'. We have our own thoughts, our own expressions, and our own descents into madness and deeper ponderings, just as I do here every Tuesday and Thursday. This is exactly why Religion is different from Spirituality. Spirituality is personal and isolating, brazen and impulsive, spontaneous in its ways and surging in the emotions it instills in you. I have always been spiritual about Sky, and its tumultuous social stratosphere, but I hope to make this attempt at Writing a 'religion'. Our personal searches, outside of our attempts at daily/monthly rituals, are what make us Spiritual beings, and what make us Individuals.

It is through this that you have a Soul.

'Soul', as defined by Oxford Languages, is described as

"The spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, [often] regarded as immortal."

Everything about your thoughts, emotions, and character are considered 'Soul', and it is believed by many, a very generalized 'many', Religious and Spiritual ideologies... that the Soul that is created by your Journey through life never ceases to exist, even after your body has long since de-materialized. While this is a fascinating general topic, I want to stray from it, and observe two of some of the most unique and influential ideologies in the real world, to hopefully draw some parallels we can use for Sky.

<<<PLEASE NOTE: I do not and have never practiced the religions and practices I am about to reference, so my understanding of them is only as great as my light digging and many days worth of research on spiritual topics. I am also summarizing them in a way that only touches on their spiritual aspects and not their religious; only merely as a way to draw parallels for Lore purposes. I do not mean to offend or disrespect anyone's beliefs, but if I get something wrong, feel free to message me about it, because I will always love to learn. >>>

To start, let's look at the anti-agent of the concept I explained above: Buddhism.

Buddhism is a religion that describes the Soul as impermanent. The Soul has arisen out of your creation, and will be erased upon death. All life will be erased and shuffled into everything else, and you are no exception.

Buddhism treats Reality and the material world as a blip, an inconsequential circumstance in the grand scheme of things, with the only thing that truly matters being the conscious Escape from this circumstance. If your Soul has been born for no reason, you might as well use this chance to Free yourself from this existence, and ascend to the 'True Reality', which you can only enter if you are able to consciously break free of holding on to this 'lower world'.

How can we tie this to Sky?

If all Beings are made of Light, and after Ascension they enter the Sea of Light, are they then 'erased' in the same way Buddhism expresses? If a drop of water, its own little body, falls into the Ocean, is it still that drop of water, or is it now the Ocean?

We can also potentially see a concept where Ancestors and possibly also Descendants believe it would be better to Remain as One with the Light, and not ever be rebirthed back into the 'lower world'. [That'll be a topic for another day.]

We've obtained some nice fresh inspiration from Buddhism! Let's now turn to take a look at Hinduism.

We quickly find that Hinduism is a lot less dismissive when it comes to the concept of Soul, but not for the reasons you might first think.

Hinduism proposes that the universe, all matter, all living beings, all essence of the 'Everything', is 'god'. And 'god', is a natural, essential essence within the 'Everything'.

Alright... so we can immediately draw the parallel. All living Beings are made of Light, and the Light is all of Life. Not 'in' Life, not 'a part of' Life; but just is. If that's not enough, Hinduism elaborates a bit more.

All creatures have a Soul; all Souls are a part of the 'supreme Soul'.

There it is. Now our concept of a One-ness with the Light is starting to shape itself rather swimmingly. We can start to understand that that consciousness; that the Soul doesn't get Erased [at least in Sky 💀] upon death, or upon merging with the Light. Instead, the experience that the Being had down in the world, is absorbed into the Greater 'One-ness'; joining the collective mind.

A chorus of voices, all different, but all the same.

It is important to note that Beings of Light do not have to Ascend in order to 'Connect' to the Light. Through meditation, both Ancestors and Descendants can contact Souls within the Light. This is seen when we interact with Elders upon meditating at their temples. The connection to the Light can be focused on by the Being, and therefore strengthened. This will be important on another day.

Souls bleed in and out of the supreme One-ness, gaining new experiences and living a new life every time, then joining back with the Light to commune together with every other Soul as one almighty Being.

This revelation matches interestingly with the last thing to note from Hinduism, which is that, through meditation and intense connection to the One, the goal is to:

Bleed into the Eternal One; finally liberated from Passion/Soul/Death/Rebirth.

Which proposes a concept that Beings of Light could possibly hate being separated from the Megabird. This can mostly be expanded upon on a later date, but we can note that there are theories that the voice of Aurora, the melody/theme song of Sky, is the voice/programming of the Light, beckoning us and all Beings of Light to return.

This is groundbreaking information, because it redefines our initial concept that the Megabird/Light is not sentient or 'alive'. It is sentient and it is alive, because it is all living Beings of Light, communing together.

We've come a good long ways to get to where we are now, and I did not do a very good job of keeping things concise. Regardless, let's wrap this up.

From the last article, we learned that:

the Megabird is a 'Sea' of Light in space, hovering in Orbit over the world.

We learned in this article that:

pieces of Light are shed from it

this shed Light gains/builds their own Souls/Consciousness

these Souls are summoned back to the Megabird over time

their experiences are added to the collective wisdom of the Light

Because of this, we can now begin to understand that The Light appears to have intentions. It has goals, and intentionally does things for a reason. Whether the collective consciousness of the Megabird is fully 100% aware of all Beings and what they each do for the collective, we may never know. Does the Light give Descendants the freedom to live and play and explore by intentional will? Or is it not aware of what they do exactly, and just pleads for the Descendant to return? 🤔

Perhaps that is a mystery for another day, or for us to decide on our own. A lot of this theoretically was subjective even to the Ancestors, which means there could've been many different Religions and beliefs about what their Connection to the Light should be and how they should manage it. It will certainly make for an interesting read someday.

If you made it this far you're a trooper, this stuff isn't very light to tackle. Thank you for reading, and I hope everyone has a good rest of their week. If you actually enjoyed this for some reason, I highly recommend you Follow. Adios y'all 🎉🎊😴

Also, here's the post explaining the Valley Priestess by Soup of Owls if you were still interested:

https://whitebookposts.tumblr.com/post/714683254088908800/um-question-during-one-of-my-endlessly-scrolling

[olympic-paris]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more …

September 2

1853 – Ferdinand Karsch-Haack (d.1936) was a German entomologist. His most significant contribution to the sexual emancipation movement in Germany consisted of demonstrating the occurrence of same-sex sexual activity throughout the animal kingdom, among the so-called primitive peoples, and in all non-Western cultures. His zoological and ethno-historical arguments were intended to enable a deeper understanding of human sexual diversity and to promote the acceptability of same-sex love in Western societies.

Although the sexual emancipation movement became increasingly divided between a group centered around Magnus Hirschfeld and the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee and another with more elitist aspirations known as "Die Eigenen," both groups recognized the intrinsic merits of Karsch-Haack's work and were eager to publish his essays in their journals. He is depicted, along with Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Magnus Hirschfeld, and Havelock Ellis, as one of the "great authorities" in the area of sexual science in the book Homosexuelle Probleme [Homosexual Problems] (1902) by Ludwig E. West.

Ferdinand Karsch-Haack was born on September 2, 1853 in Münster, a city in northwestern Germany, the son of a physician. He pursued advanced education in Berlin, where he presented his dissertation on the gallwasp in 1877. Eventually, he was named "Privatdozent" for Zoology and became Curator at the Zoological Museum of the Friedrich-Wilhelm University in Berlin.

Despite being an entomologist by profession, Karsch-Haack was best known for his ethnological and cultural treatises on same-sex love and for his critical studies of homosexual personalities in European history.

Karsch lived his later life as an open homosexual in Berlin. The rise of Hitler to power and Nazi repression of homosexuality led to the eclipse of his reputation. In 1933, the year Hitler seized power, Karsch-Haack published his last important essay, "Die Liebschaften des Prinzen Heinrich, Bruder Friedrichs des Grossen" [The love affairs of Prince Heinrich, Brother of Frederick the Great]. He died three years later, on December 20, 1936.

The most significant writings by Karsch-Haack may be read as a twofold reply to the typical objection that same-sex love is the regrettable product of "overcultivation" or excessive civilization. Karsch-Haack contended that homosexualty is not a product of civilized refinement, but a phenomenon frequently observable at different levels of animal evolution, and disputed the unwarranted assumption that homosexuality is absent from the animal kingdom. In time, Karsch-Haack amplified the scope of his argument to include the sexual complexities of the plant world. Not surprisingly, he underscored in his later work the idea that human homosexuality is grounded in a "natural disposition", which humans share with other complex life forms.

1946 – (William Everett) Billy Preston (d.2006) was an American musician whose work included R&B, rock, soul, funk and gospel. Preston became famous first as a session musician with artists including Little Richard, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles and the Beatles, and was later successful as a solo artist with hit pop singles including "Outa-Space", its sequel, "Space Race", "Will It Go Round in Circles" and "Nothing from Nothing", and a string of albums and guest appearances with Eric Clapton, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and others. In addition, Preston was co-author, with The Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson, of "You Are So Beautiful," recorded by Preston and later a #5 hit for Joe Cocker.

Alongside Tony Sheridan, Billy Preston was the only other musician to be credited on a Beatles recording: the artists on the number-one hit "Get Back" are given as "The Beatles with Billy Preston". Stephen Stills asked Preston if he could use Preston's phrase "if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with" and created the hit song.William Everett Preston was born on September 2, 1946, in Houston, Texas. When he was three, the family moved to Los Angeles where Preston began playing piano while sitting on his mother Robbie's lap. Noted as a child prodigy, by the age of ten, Preston was playing organ onstage backing several gospel singers such as Mahalia Jackson, James Cleveland and Andrae Crouch. At twelve, he appeared in the W.C. Handy biopic starring Nat King Cole entitled, St. Louis Blues, playing W.C. Handy at a younger age. A year prior, Preston appeared on Cole's national TV show singing the Fats Domino hit, "Blueberry Hill". In 1962, Preston joined Little Richard's band as an organist and it was while performing in Hamburg that Preston met the Beatles. In 1963 he played the organ on Sam Cooke's Night Beat album and released his debut album, 16 Yr Old Soul, that same year for Cooke's SAR Records label. In 1965, he released the album The Most Exciting Organ Ever, and that same year played organ and performed on the rock and roll show, Shindig!. In 1967, he joined Ray Charles' band. Following his exposure with Charles, several musicians began asking Preston to come to sessions, most notably the Beatles, who asked him to contribute to two of their albums, Abbey Road and Let It Be.

Preston was an openly gay man but did not speak publicly about his sexuality.

He died on June 6, 2006 in Scottsdale, Arizona, of complications of malignant hypertension that resulted in kidney failure and other complications. He had voluntarily entered a drug rehabilitation clinic in Malibu, California, at the suggestion of guitarist Is'real Benton and suffered pericarditis there, leading to respiratory failure that left him in a coma from November 21, 2005.

1949 – Frank Ripploh was a German actor, film director, and author (d.2002). He is best remembered for his semi-autobiographical 1981 movie Taxi zum Klo.

The film, produced on a shoestring budget of 100,000 DM, explored the day-to-day life of a Berlin schoolteacher who also led a very active gay sex life. Extremely explicit, especially for its day, Taxi zum Klo was considered groundbreaking for the subject matter it portrayed, and achieved something of a cult status among gay audiences of the time.

Ripploh also participated in the creation of a small number of other art house films during the 1980s, and had a role in the 1982 movie Querelle.

He died of cancer in 2002.

1950 – Mel Odom is an American artist who has created book covers for numerous novels, including a number of paperback editions of the novels of Patrick White, the Australian winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and several books by fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay such as The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy, Tigana, A Song for Arbonne, and The Lions of Al-Rassan. Dreamer, a collection of his work, with an introduction by Edmund White, was published by Penguin Books in 1984. Odom is also the designer of the Gene Marshall collectible fashion doll.

Odom was born in Richmond, Virginia, USA, and grew up in Ahoskie, North Carolina, where his parents encouraged his interests in drawing and in dolls. He majored in fashion illustration at Virginia Commonwealth University and then attended Leeds Polytechnic Institute of Art and Design in England for graduate work before moving to New York City in 1975.

"Hard Stuff"

His Art Deco-like style established him as a commercial artist, at first via erotic illustrations for sexually oriented magazines such as Blueboy, Viva, and Playboy, the last of which named him their "Illustrator of the Year" in 1980. In the same year, he provided the cover art for Edmund White's novel Nocturnes for the King of Naples.

"Mouth to Mouth" for Blueboy Magazine

During the 1980s, his work covered many commercial media. He created album covers for CBS Records and book covers for numerous other novels, usually in the genres of fantasy, mystery, or horror. He provided illustrations for the science/science-fiction magazine OMNI and (in 1989) a front cover for Time magazine.

In 1990, Odom proposed to design the cosmetic facepaint for Mdvanii, a 25 cm limited-edition collector's fashion doll. The experience renewed his childhood interest in dolls and led him to create a doll of his own, the 15.5" Gene Marshall.

Gene Marshall's appearance, wardrobes, and history are modelled on the glamour of Hollywood's golden age from the 1920s through 1950s. The doll made its commercial debut at the 1995 Toy Fair and was an immediate success, creating a wider market for large, fully articulated collector's fashion dolls in contrast to the slightly smaller and less flexible Barbie doll. Since then, Odom has largely concentrated his professional pursuits on the Gene Marshall doll, regularly modifying her design to create new variations and creating similar companion dolls to share her world, such as Gene's "co-stars" Madra Lord, Violet Waters, and Trent Osborn.

Odom continues to attend doll collectors' conventions to make personal appearances and buy dolls for his own collection, as well as to support charitable causes. Of his early friends in the art world, he estimates that two-thirds of them died of AIDS in the 1980s before the awareness and treatment of the disease became better known. At a 1997 doll convention entirely devoted to Gene Marshall, a charity auction of uniquely modified Gene dolls raised more than $30,000 for Gay Men's Health Crisis, an AIDS service organization.

1955 – Eric Allman is an American computer programmer who developed sendmail and its precursor delivermail in the late 1970s and early 1980s at UC Berkeley.

Born in El Cerrito, California, Allman knew from an early age that he wanted to work in computing, breaking into his high school's mainframe and later using the UC Berkeley computing center for his computing needs. In 1973, he entered UC Berkeley, just as the Unix operating system began to become popular in academic circles.

As the Unix source code was available at Berkeley, the local hackers quickly made many extensions to the AT&T code. One such extension was delivermail, which in 1981 turned into sendmail. As an MTA, it was designed to deliver e-mail over the still relatively small (as compared to today's Internet) ARPANET, which consisted of many smaller networks with vastly differing formats for e-mail headers.

Sendmail soon became an important part of the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) and continues to be the most widely used MTA on Unix based systems today, despite its somewhat complex configuration syntax and frequent abuse by Internet telemarketing firms. In 1998, Allman founded Sendmail, Inc., headquartered in Emeryville, California, to do proprietary work on improving sendmail.

Allman, who is openly gay, lives in Berkeley, California with his partner of more than 30 years, Marshall McKusick. McKusick is a lead developer of BSD; the two first met in graduate school. Allman says:

"There is some sort of perverse pleasure in knowing that it's basically impossible to send a piece of hate mail through the Internet without its being touched by a gay program. That's kind of funny."

1964 – Keanu Reeves is a Canadian actor. Reeves is perhaps best known for his roles in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Speed, Point Break and the science fiction-action trilogy The Matrix. He has a new hit trilogy in th John Wick movies. He has worked under major directors, such as Stephen Frears (in the 1988 period drama Dangerous Liaisons); Gus Van Sant (in the 1991 independent film My Own Private Idaho, also written by Van Sant); and Bernardo Bertolucci (in the 1993 film Little Buddha).

Reeves was born in Beirut, Lebanon. His mother was English and his father was a Hawaiian-born American of English, Irish, Portuguese, Hawaiian, and Chinese descent. Reeves's mother was working in Beirut when she met his father. Reeves' father worked as an unskilled. He abandoned his wife and family when Reeves was three years old, and Reeves does not currently have any relationship with him.

Reeves moved around the world frequently as a child and he lived with various stepfathers. He grew up primarily in Toronto. Within a span of five years, he attended four different high schools, including the Etobicoke School of the Arts, from which he was later expelled. Reeves stated he was expelled "...because I was greasy and running around a lot. I was just a little too rambunctious and shot my mouth off once too often. I was not generally the most well-oiled machine in the school. I was just getting in their way, I guess."

Reeves excelled more in hockey than in academics. He was a successful goalie at one of his high schools (De La Salle College "Oaklands"). While Reeves dreamed of becoming an Olympic hockey player for Canada, an injury ended his hopes for a hockey career.

Reeves' first studio movie appearance was in the Rob Lowe ice hockey film Youngblood, in which he played a Québécois goalie. Shortly after, Reeves received a sizable role in the 1986 drama film River's Edge, which depicted how a murder affected a group of teens. Following this film's critical success, he spent the late 1980s appearing in a number of movies aimed at teenage audiences, including Permanent Record, and the unexpectedly successful 1989 comedy, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, which, along with its 1991 sequel, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, typecast Reeves as a spaced-out teen.In addition to his film roles, Reeves has also performed in theatre. His performance in the title role in a Manitoba Theatre Centre production of Hamlet was praised by Roger Lewis, the Sunday Times, who declared Reeves " ... one of the top three Hamlets I have seen, for a simple reason: he is Hamlet."

Reeves is included here primarlity for his role in My Own Private Idaho, playing a street hustler opposite River Phoenix, his real-life friend. Van Sant based the story in part on the Henry IV cycle, and in part on John Rechy's 1963 novel about street hustlers, City of Night.

But he is also included because of the persistent rumors that he is gay, which he neither denies nor affirms. These stories include one which said he is married to David Geffen, based on the fact that Geffen owns a painting with a naked Adam looking very much like Keanu. Another report, now proved to be false, claimed Reeves and actor Alan Cumming (NightCrawler of X-Men 2), married one another before a small party of invited friends in Massachusetts. The report stated "Reeves ... had always been rumored to be gay, but always maintained his heterosexuality. Cumming ... had always been openly bi-sexual, but had never married before."

1966 – Charles Curtis Tuc Watkins is an American actor, known for his roles as David Vickers on One Life to Live and Bob Hunter on Desperate Housewives.

Charles Curtis Watkins III was born in Kansas City, Kansas, to Charles Curtis Watkins II, a salesman, and a photographer mother. He attended Indiana University where he majored in communications with a triple minor in theatre, psychology and French.

Watkins started his career with guest appearances on various television series including Sisters, Baywatch, and Melrose Place. He portrayed con-man David Vickers on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live from 1994 to 1996, next joining the soap opera General Hospital in the recurring role of Dr. Pierce Dorman from 1996 to 1997. Watkins went on to star as Malcolm Laffley on the Showtime series Beggars and Choosers for its two-season run from 1999 to 2001.

In 1999, he made his film debut in I Think I Do, a small budget independent screwball romantic comedy, playing Sterling Scott, the soap opera hunk boyfriend of Bob, played by Alexis Arquette. He followed this with his first appearance in a big studio production, The Mummy as the near-sighted glasses-wearing tomb raider Burns, later guest-starring on television series such as NYPD Blue, Six Feet Under, and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

After brief appearances in 2001 and 2002, Watkins rejoined the cast of One Life to Live full-time from 2003 through 2006, with several short term returns to the show in 2007, 2008, and 2009, returning again on a regular basis beginning in June 2010.

On October 21, 2007, Watkins made his first appearance on ABC's primetime series Desperate Housewives as Bob Hunter, a new resident of Wisteria Lane who is a gay lawyer with a husband. He was a recurring character in seasons 4-6 and a series regular in season seven.

Watkins came out as gay on April 26, 2013, in an interview on Marie with Marie Osmond. In that same interview, Watkins announced he had become a single dad in December 2012 by welcoming twins Catchen and Curtis via surrogacy

Tuc Watkins, proud daddy

Since 2019, he has been in a relationship with actor Andrew Rannells. The two met the year before while playing a couple on the Broadway production of The Boys in the Band. They reprised their roles for Netflix's film version of the show and also worked together on Black Monday in 2020.

1996 – The Toronto District School Board launches the Triangle Program, Canada's first alternative high school program for at-risk LGBT youth. The Triangle Program is designed for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students who are at risk of dropping out or committing suicide because of homophobic and transphobic harassment in regular schools. It is also open to anyone who has been affected by homophobia or transphobia.

Operated by the Toronto District School Board at the campus of Oasis Alternative Secondary School, Triangle is the only program of its type in Canada. It was created as an organization in 1995, and launched its first classes in 1996.

In conjunction with the LGBT youth organization Supporting Our Youth, Triangle also holds its own annual prom during Toronto's Gay Pride Week.

The school day is divided into two halves. For the first half of the day students work on self-directed studies or smaller teacher-led classes. The afternoon is spent in a classroom setting, working on curriculum with a gay, lesbian and transgender focus. Units on LGBTQ history, healthy sexuality and equity and oppression allow gay, lesbian and transgender youth the opportunity to experience education geared to them.

[recurring-polynya]

Izakaya Kamenoya, part 3

It's been so long, and I kept getting busy with stuff, but rest assured, I have not stopped thinking about every shinigami's favorite watering hole, Izakaya Kamenoya, for even one second of that time, and today I am going to talk about what's really important: what kind of booze can you get there.

The multiplicity of drink options is honestly the thing I really love about Kamenoya. On a meta level, someone has to draw all this stuff, like, with their hands. I have no idea, actually, if the animators consider this sort of thing a break from all the powering up and sword fights and rolling across cave floors, or if they consider a Trip to the Bar to be really tedious. My point is, they very well could have just always drawn people drinking out of the same cups, except they didn't, they drew a series of loving close ups of sake-pouring and a variety of drinkware styles. On a more Watsonian level, I just like the idea that, like Alice's Restaurant, you can get anything you want at Izakaya Kamenoya. So let's get into it!

I think the thing that really made me notice this was this scene from the Amagai Arc, where you see Kira doing mokkiri, or overpouring his sake. (At least I think that's what he's doing. The articles I read sounded more like the server is supposed to do it, which emphasizes the establishment's generosity, so maybe Kira is just being a messy drunk. I'm pretty sure you're also not supposed to pour yourself sake, you're supposed to do it for your tablemates)

Often, mokkiri is done into a masu, which is a small square box that was used as a standard measure for rice. You can see Nanao drinking out of one here!

What kind of cup to drink your sake out of is a huge topic, but basically, it depends on the flavor and characteristics of the sake. The fact that Kira and the Lads are drinking out of clear glasses might imply that they're drinking chilled, summer-style sake (or possibly trying to appreciate the clarity of the vintage, as if this is what you call up Iba and Renji to go to the pub for).

I am not an expert, so I'm not going to attempt to identify exactly what these different cups would be classified as, but you can see a variety of shapes, sizes and materials.

I found less information on different shapes of tokkuri (that's the slightly bigger bottle that you serve from), but those come in a variety, as well. Mostly, they have either the large, oval-shaped jugs you can see in the first picture, or the more slender white ones in the second. I am really fond of these tall boys that Kira and Hisagi have, which seem to have straighter sides than the other kind, kind of like a milk bottle.

While we're looking at that picture, there's an ad on the wall for beer. Beer!

In modern times, beer is actually the most popular alcoholic beverage in Japan, which Wikipedia tells me came about after WWII because of restrictions on the use of rice. They've had beer since the Edo era, though, and many of today's major breweries got started in the late 1800s. I love the idea that beer is a thing you can get in Soul Society, but it's clear that it has not overcome sake in popularity the way it did in the World of the Living--which makes sense, because of they never had those restrictions. (In other words, throw this in the bucket of stuff like tattoos and attitudes toward homosexuality that I think diverged from the Living World because of weird quirks of history).

In fact, Kamenoya apparently imports beer from the World of Living (maybe it also has local brews as well).

Look how lovingly that bottle of Kirin is drawn. 😂 The fact that it's shown in a glass mug in the ad, but served in a Pilsner glass here supports the idea that there are multiple kinds of beer available. Now, I believe that Kirin Zero is non-alcoholic. It's surprisingly hard to do research on beer labels from 20 years ago. I couldn't find a label that looked exactly like that, and Kirin's non-alcoholic offering seems to be called Kirin Free now (Kirin Zero is now zero-carb and I couldn't figure out if it's alcoholic or not). In any case, I am choosing in my heart to believe that this is because of weird TV censorship and in no way implies that Rukia is not one of the champion drinkers of the Gotei-13.

Don't get me wrong! I love a bar that offers non-alcoholic options! You can also get tea at Kamenoya, which you can see Tobiume and Okyō drinking below; Momo has some as well (they also have a discussion about it)

earlier posts in this series: (part 1) (part 2)

[joys-of-everyday]

The two SQQs: SY and SJ

Completely different people? The same person? Reincarnations of one another? Foils?

Aiyah, don't you love it when there's enough content to get juicy analysis but just enough ambiguity for wild theories? There's a surprisingly large spread of onions opinions on this topic which is fun to read though.

It has been pointed out by a number of people that SY and SJ are very different from each other (some interesting bits of analysis: 1, 2, funny: 3). Equally noted are their similarities (nice post here 4), and others have picked out things which hint in that direction, such as the fact SY seemingly isn't possessing the body, and has SJ's memories in his brain (5). Of course the system could very much be operating on different terms to the rest of the world, but it's consideration worthy because a subtroupe of the 'reincarnate into the villain' troupe is 'the transmigrater was actually the same person all along'. Even without going into the nitty gritties of how transmigration works, they are connected by their shared body and name - here's a great post on how SQQ describes his own feelings through og!SQQ (6).

Now then *cackles* *rubs hands*

The Lack of Self

SJ is a former slave who does everything in his power to survive and excel. SY is fairly well-off and has a dangerous lack of self-preservation.

SJ is ambitious without end. SY is a wastes his life on webnovels.

SJ is acerbic and stand-offish. SY is softer and friendlier.

They are different people!

An onion opinion I see a lot are 'they're obviously different people so they can't be reincarnations of one another'. Firstly, like bro, do you know how reincarnation works? If I reincarnate into a slug, don't try to tell me that the slug and I have the same personality. Jokes aside, this naturally begs the question: 'what constitutes our soul?', or adjacent: 'what within us is permeant?'.

Some would argue nothing. (And this is a highly radical statement if you think about it.) This is subtle (I won't pretend to understand it fully), but for example what does it mean to be 'selfless'. To do selfless acts? To be compelled to do selfless acts? But what compels me to do selfless acts? An innate 'selflessness' within me? If right now I can decide to stop doing selfless acts, that means I am no longer 'selfless'. So that innate 'selflessness' isn't in fact permanent, so can it really be something I own? On the contrary, if I can't just decide to stop the compulsion to be 'selfless', can that compulsion really be called 'me', since I am not in control of it?

Even without going so far, it's clear that our experiences have a deep impact on who we are. Take Bingge and Bingmei. They are different people, yet they are the same. Their divergence started at age twelve. Now at age twelve, a human is still rather squishy. Some studies suggest (the Best Source is Wikipedia Obviously) that human personality shows most active development between the ages of 20-40 (note Bingge was in the Abyss between ages 17-22).

Fundamental characteristics vs outcomes

Okay, 'they could be the same and still different' isn't particularly useful, but something that could be argued with SJ and SY is that they have the same personality seeds, expressed differently. 4 does this (see above), adding a few points.

Acerbic. Neither SJ nor SY are really people people. SJ’s love language seems to be blatantly insulting people (poor YQY). SY’s interactions with PIDW and Airplane bro need not be explained (they’re hilarious) (and also, SY was an internet troll). But SJ’s acerbic attitude pushes people away from him when he needs them most, while SY’s snarky wit is a joke to whoever has the honour of witnessing it. SJ is perceived as a violent and hateful person (‘I’ll kill you’ he says to at least two people he ends up saving the lives of – Shi Wu and LQG). SY, having grown up in a much less violent society and having much less violent ways of expressing this stinginess (calling for the castration of a fictional character vs. saying you want you co-worker dead), is perceived as far more lovable.

Difficulties with communication. Both SJ and SY are infamously bad at expressing themselves. This gets both of them in trouble. But SY’s difficulties in communication primarily arise around his feelings and his sexuality. He doesn’t have the same distrust of others as SJ, arising in SJ from his many childhood traumas. So while SY manages to create a disaster with LBH, he manages to maintain amicable (if hilariously frustrated) relationships with everyone around him. SJ? A lot of his difficulties with communication come from his strained relationship with his past. He is unable to admit weakness. He cannot ask for help. Ruins everything.

Empathy, but in a funny way. SJ is a funny one. He goes out of his way to save people with no gain on his behalf on several occasions and yet he continuously tries to tell you he’s evil. Then there’s SQQ, who justifies letting a bunch of teenagers die by being like ‘oh they’re book characters’ but then clearly feels uncomfortable about it as soon as it starts to happen. Both of them have this weird way of internally dismissing the fact that they do – in fact – care about people. The stark difference between them is that SJ is much more comfortable with murder and violence, although that’s very much explainable by his background.

Anyway, I could go on (their insanely unreliable internal monologues, their negative self-perception, how they both pretend to be people they aren't...) but the point is that the same personality traits, nurtured in different environments, can produce very different results. On one hand, this is a narrative choice - SY and SJ's parallels are precisely what makes them good foils of each other. But also, these connections are what allows the various reincarnation/SY=SJ with memory loss theories to float. (Then again, different people can have similar personality traits.)

The influence of roles

‘Qingqiu’ is the title of the Qing Jing Peak Lord as much as a name, to SJ as well as SY. So what does it mean to 'be Shen Qingqiu'? (parallel question, I like Doctor Who, what does it mean to 'be the Doctor'?).

Both of them are actors. In their own way, they are acting Shen Qingqiu – the (emotionally constipated) scholar, aloof and restrained. This isn’t like a… bad thing, inherently. We all have different 'faces' for different social situations – people act differently towards say, their boss or teacher, as opposed to their close friends. There's a tendency to view this as 'acting' as opposed to an illusive 'true self'. While there's definitely scales to how authentic you are being (you might feel like you're 'acting' far more around say a coworker as opposed to a close friend), but you could also argue that bundled together, this so-called 'acting' is precisely what makes you you. In acting Shen Qingqiu, both Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu become Shen Qingqiu.

The Influence of Body

Slightly more on the side of metaphysical bs, the body is the bridge between your consciousness and your body. Since we don’t do a lot of body hopping, we don’t often appreciate just how much your body influences your perception of reality and the way reality works around you. (Apparently the bacteria in your gut can influence your moods. Like, isn't that crazy?)

SY is in SQQs body. At least after the Lingxi caves, he is comfortable in that body. He experiences the strengths and limitations of SJ’s physical reality. On a wider scale, he experiences (at least for the first few months) how the people around SJ interact with him. Very literally, he is in SJ’s boots. How could that not rub off on him?

It’s quite interesting that all the peak lords thought ‘oh he lost his memories, that’s why he’s like this’ and just accepted that. Their mannerisms were similar enough for that to be plausible. That might be a sign that they're somehow connected on the level of souls, or it might be something that's written into SJ's body.

(Theory that the mushroom body was 3-4/10 similar to SJ okay bc he used SJ’s blood, but also cuz SY sees himself in the mirror so often that he’s unconsciously accepted it as his own face, the way your internal image of yourself changes as you grow old.)

Same People From Parallel Universes

A sister onion opinion to 'they're different people so they can't be reincarnations of one another' is 'they're different people so they can't be the same person' (I know, the question is funny). Mirror universe in Star Trek anyone? It's the evil twin troupe right?

Conclusion

Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu are pretty different! They also have some interesting similarities. Experiences make you what you are. How much of what you are? ...well that is up for debate.

And of course, for the purposes of writing fanfic, 100% endorse going crazy on the theories. I love Shen siblings. I love SY=SJ for angst purposes. I love SY and SJ ripping each other to shreds. I love SY and SJ making each other better.

[linnienin]

⁕Chiron conjunct AC: the Ugly Duckling? 🥀⁕

A research by Linnie

Disclaimer: "no one is born ugly, we are just born in a judgemental society" K.Namjoon

(Other disclaimers will be added below)

⁕⁓ This will be a pretty long post, so make yourself comfortable and take your time to read ⁓⁕

Chiron's phyisical appeareance in mythology:

In the traditional Greek representations of Chiron, his front legs are human rather than equine like all the others centaurs.

This clearly sets Chiron apart from his fellows, making him easily identifiable.

Chiron is also often depicted wearing clothes, demonstrating he is more civilised, unlike a normal centaur.

In Roman depictions of Chiron, we see a fully equine lower body, in contrasts to the ancient Greek representations. Chiron's appearance is further altered with his ears, matching those of a satyr, folded over at the top (he had human ears in the Greek representations)

Take into consideration it may be possible that due to the rise of written sources, Roman artists were inspired by written descriptions of Chiron; simply using the word centaur, rather than having available traditional visual representations. This may then, not be a deliberate reworking of the Chiron myth on the part of the Romans, but simply a lost nuance of the character in its migration from Greece to Rome.

Source: Wikipedia

Chiron conjunct AC natives' appeareance:

Disclaimer: our appeareance is not delineated by just ONE aspect, these are just my observations on celebs who has this placement

These natives have features that don't usually conform to the beauty standars or ideal proportions, making them stand out from average looking people

🥀 They have the look of a tormented soul, this can make them unforgettable

🥀 They also appear wiser than their years, they have the face of an individual that has been through a lot ,and knows a lot too

🥀 Can have distinctive ears (very small, or protuding, towards one extreme or the other, usually bigger)

🥀 Can have distinctive legs (quite short or long in proportion to the other parts of the body)

🥀 Can have long torso

(Their features can resemble those of a Sagittarius natives cause Chiron is also represented by a centaur)

Fred Astaire had very long elegant legs and distinctive ears, making his presence even more unforgettable.

Lily Rose Depp has a long torso that she likes to accentuate by wearing low raise pants

Martin Luther King had very cute small ears with a unique shape, almost like the ones of an elf

Clark Gable, Maya Hawke and Antonio Banderas all have beautiful protuding ears that look like butterflies 🦋✨

Amitabh Bachchan and Whitney Huston and their long legs, Priyanka Chopra has a sinuous long waist

We will continue to analize how Chiron conj. AC manifests in ones appeareance with the roles the actors with this placements has been playing 👇

The hero, the weirdo and the badass:

We all know that cast directors have an eye for one's demeanor, so we will take advantage of this to further see how this placement affects one's image

THE HERO

Good or Bad?

Doesn't matter, they have that main character vibe, usually the hero/villain has deep wounds from the past left unhealed that still hunts them in the present, and usually they cover this deeper part of them with a mask (for some of them quite literally)

Julie Newmar in the role of Catwoman , George Clooney in the role of Batman and Antonio Banderas playing the unforgettable Zorro

Willem Dafoe playing the iconic role of Goblin,Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye and Margot Robbie in the role of Harley Quinn

THE WEIRDO

Misunderstood and rejected by society, loners, unusual personalities, they have a unique and peculiar view on life. Usually suffered from difficult traumas that left a mark and shaped who they are.

They might escape reality through art

Selena Gomez as Mabel Mora, Willem Dafoe as Vincent Van Gogh, Louis Garrel as Théo

They might obsess over proving their worth to others

Giulietta Masina as Gelsomina, Margot Robbie as Tonya, Maya Hawke as Robin

They might shape their own absurd reality and impose their beliefs on others

Vincent Price as Dracula, Antonio Banderas as Armand, Robert Carlyle as Tremotino

They might just live in silence, outcasted and distrusted by others, but still finding their own way to survive

Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood, Peter Dinklage as Trumpkin, Penelope Cruz as Angelica

THE BADASS

Fierce, steady and determined. Those people developed a tough personality due to previous experiences. They don't want to be taken advantage of anymore, and they'll stand their ground.

Lily Rose Depp as Catherine of Valois

James Coburn as Flint, Priyanka Chopra as Alex Parrish, Jeremy Renner as William Brandt and Amitabh Bachchan has done multiple roles in action movies

Robert Carlyle as Franco, George Clooney as Danny, Maya Hawke as Eleanor, Willem Dafoe as Elias and Antonio Banderas as El Mariachi

Penelope Cruz in 'Jamon Jamon'

( These three 'roles' often can merge into one)

The pretty crier

I have noticed people tend to find somehow attractive when those natives cries (especially women)

There's something deep and inspiring when these people shares their vulnerable side, and somehow the impulse to control these emotions while experiencing them (usually these natives don't like to share this emotional side in public) make them look even more 'interesting' and 'appealing' to the others (as distorted as it can sounds, sometimes people just idolize other people's pain for the wrong reasons)

But others don't understand how difficult and exhausting really is to cover their vulnerability all the time, and even when they explode because they can't take it anymore, they feel so bad and guilty that they try to stop their "pity party" (in their view) as soon as they can, apologizing immediately for their behaviour (even if you can still see the pain in their eyes)

Good dancers?:

These natives can have a great sense of music and their body, finding it easy to move to the rhythm.

In Greek mythology, Chiron was taught by his foster father Apollo the art of music, archery, hunting, gymnastic, prophecy, herbs and medicine.

No wonder we see people with this aspect attracted to these activities, and they also seem to posses a natural talent for them.

Can you recognize them in the pictures below? 💃🕺

The sacrifice:

In Greek mythology, Chiron sacrifices his immortality for the freedom and life of Prometheus.

The reasons behind Chiron's sacrifice aren't just those of his noble spirit. The centaur was fated to suffer from the wound of a poisoned arrow that Heracles shot at him by mistake while trying to complete the fourth task described in the Labours of Heracles.

Ironically, Chiron, the master of the healing arts, couldn't heal himself, so he happily gave up his immortality to free Prometheus of his excruciating pain and destiny.

We can see this theme of sacrifice in the characters mentioned above, some of them with literally sacrificing themselves, while others having to sacrifice an important part of themselves (i will not mention the details because i don't want to make spoilers if you haven't seen some of the series/movies)

And how not to mention the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., fought his whole life for the American civil rights and racial equalty, making himself vulnerable to any attack for the good of his people

TW: body shaming, abuse, use of drugs

Disclaimer: please remember that if you have this placement it doesn't mean you will certainly use drugs or experience other disorders. These are just consequences of deeper wounds left untouched that haven't been fully healed yet, please, if you can't heal by yourself exactly like Chiron, don't be ashamed to reach others out for help and professional treatment

These natives can be mistreated by others especially at a young age, they can be victims of bullying and this can make them struggle with how they perceive themselves and their worth.

🥀George Clooney suffered from Bell's palsy (a partial paralysis of the face) during his first year of high school and was bullyied by his peers. He declared that he had a hard time but the experience made him stronger.

🥀Lily Rose Depp has always been in the eye of the public and the medias, feeling pressure since a very young age (coming from very well known parents) she also admitted to have suffered from anorexia.

🥀Demi Lovato has been victim of bullying, bulimia-nervosa, self-harm, bipolar disorder and has been experiencing lots of mental and physical abuse. She couragiously admitted to have used cocaine and she added that she began using opiates at the age of 13 after a car accident and "was already drinking" by that time.

🥀Selena Gomez suffers from lupus (that can be treated assuming drugs) and bipolar disorder, she also spoke about suffering from anxiety and depression

🥀Whitney Huston and Carrie Fisher both suffered from drugs abuse

The legend:

In Greek mythology, after Chiron's death, Zeus placed him among the stars in the sky to be honored. The Greeks identified him as the constellation Centaurus.

It is easy to say these natives will always be remembered for what they did and they will inspire and encourage lots of people that feel lost or hopeless

Their battles with pain and their courage to whithstand it will make others feel heard and understood, lightening their internal burdens and spreading light to their path ahead.

Congrats! You have reached the end of the post 💞

Here's the LIST of every Celebrity i have analized that is mentioned in this post:

CELEBS WITH CHIRON CONJ AC FROM THE 12TH HOUSE:

Julie Newmar

Clark Gable

Demi Lovato

Margot Robbie

Amitabh Bachchan

Robert Carlyle

Martin Luther King

George Clooney

Penelope Cruz

Priyanka Chopra

Antonio Banderas

Luis Garrel

Evanna Lynch

Maya Hawke

CELEBS WITH CHIRON CONJ AC FROM THE 1ST HOUSE:

Peter Dinklage

James Coburn

Selena Gomez

Jeremy Renner

Giulietta Masina

Vincent Price

Lily Rose Depp

Willem Dafoe

Whitney Houston

Carrie Fisher

Further disclaimers:

Disclaimer: I am not a professional astrologer, i like to research on it and i use this blog as a sort of diary where to keep track of my observations while also sharing my thoughts with you

Disclaimer: i made the collages (because there were way too many photos and i coulnd't insert them as singles because of the limits in numbers) but in no way i own the photos in them

Sources:

Wikipedia and Astro.com

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Thank you 🥀

for sticking to the end, i hope you enjoyed this little research of mine.

As a Chiron conjunct AC native myself, i wanted to dive deeper into the meaning of this placement because i realized there's not much out there on it

I also wanted to gather more info to further understand myself and my patterns because sometimes i find it easier to write down and analize others to realize things about myself lol

Let me know if you resonated or if you have something else to add, you know i always appreciate your feedback 😊

I wish you a great day! 🥀

Linnie

[sunflowersandcherryblossoms]

List of regions of Japan - Wikipedia

I think I just solved my own issue with the division of the regions that each Squad would oversee...

All I need to do is follow the Regions map and take in account Okinawa as its own separate region.

That makes 9 regions.

Now, we exclude four Squads from World of the Living duty:

Squad 1, since they accumulated commanding the Gotei 13 and also oversee the Shi'no Academy.

Squad 2, since they are pretty much also a security force (onmitsukido), which needs to be free to be sent anywhere Central 46 (ugh) and the Sotaichō orders. They're also in charge of internal crimes and the prisional system.

Squad 4. The healers. Also more of an internal team, having only ever truly sent ONE squad member (Hanataro) on a special mission to Karakura. (which belongs to Squad 13)

Squad 12. Surveillance. Internal. They oversee everything on the three realms, (Soul Society, Hueco Mundo, World of the Living) therefore their personnel also doesn't get sent on missions and have no region to oversee.

Anyways...

Squad 3 - Okinawa

Squad 5 - Kyūshū

Squad 6 - Kansai

Squad 7 - Chūgoku

Squad 8 - Shikoku

Squad 9 - Tōhoku

Squad 10 - Chūbu

Squad 11 - Hokkaido

Squad 13 - Kantō

[theeldritchcorvid]

TMAGP 19 Thoughts

Spoilers, as always, below the cut

So the alchemy stuff in the ARG was apparently Massively significant, huh?

First things first: All this 'spiritual transference' shit seems like multiverse stuff - and of course Celia is interested in it if it'll explain why she keeps waking up in weird places. What's interesting is that Sam recognised it from the Institute. I think everyone suggesting that the Institute is figuring out how to hop between universes is bang on the money.

Now. The INCIDENT. HOLY SHIT! This has given us major intel about the Protocol.

So. The Protocol appears to have been originated by the Royal Society as a way to control blasphemous science, such as alchemy which was illegal in Britain at the time of the statement. What's really interesting, though, is that apparently Newton was investigating the Arbor Philosophorum Perfecta. This is apparently a precursor to the Philosopher's stone called Diana's Tree, made of crystalline silver. Which befits the description. But, most importantly:

According to wikipedia, all of Newton's research on this - was DESTROYED IN A FIRE. (caused by his dog, apparently, irl. and indeed, in this episode, Hooke's proof of Newton's blasphemy IS THE DOG.) Sound familiar, anyone? It should. This seems to imply that the Protocol, whatever it is, is the same thing that destroyed the institute. and I think I know why:

THEY GOT TOO CLOSE TO FIGURING OUT UNIVERSE TRAVEL.

And the OIAR shut it down. The Royal Society was a huge part of the establishment historically so it makes sense that the OIAR may now be linked to them.

ALSO Sam's onto it! He's right. The computers are listening. Sidebar: Now I really need to look over all the incidents: specifically, WHO heard them, which may be able to tell us WHY they heard them. It is no coincidence that Sam gets an incident about alchemy and the Protocol the moment he and Celia discuss the field.

And also, this may tell us why Alice is getting the JMJ errors - her refusal to engage or learn further. This is awfully reminiscent of S3 of Archives, though, when Elias was feeding Jon statements to lead him toward becoming marked by the fears. I think Alice knows this, or at least suspects, so is trying to prevent Sam from going any further into his case and being led down some horrible path by the computer. Is this from experience? We know she's seen some shit.

We now also know the Bouchards are powerful, corroborating what Lady Mowbray told us by mentioning them. And Elias did seem to come from wealth. Hmmmm. More lore to come I suspect.

Finally: Colin's alive! And listen to what he says. 'He.' Is He the computer system? He also mentions 'it all balances' - not too much mercury or the world ends, not too much sulfur or we all go mad. (direct quote, thank you Transcript)

In alchemy, mercury is believed to shift between life and death. Sulfur represents the soul, evaporation, expansion and dissolution.

Is 'he' Freddie, I wonder? Lots of 'seeing'. And the alchemy is linked to the Institute... it's all right there, I know it is, I'm just still unsure if Chester, Norris, and Augustus are from Archives or not. Sigh.

In short, I think I need to get into alchemy. Anyone got any alchemy book recommendations?

Next week: Last episode before another hiatus, possibly a new external, and hopefully some major lore.

[dani-fox]

Tiny H0ly-Tea ramble

This is a rant/ramble post about a user named H0ly-tea's stupid post so if you dont want to read it you can go ahead and ignore this. Its fine if you do want see it.

if you do, click the keep reading bit but CW: slight mentions of transphobia.

Im sure im not the only TF2 tumbler user whos seen the post about 'i hate when ppl make the mers trans because its the 60-70s'

It would take you two seconds plus google to see that Transgender/transsexuality has existed for fucking years.

Transgender people existed years and years before the period where tf2 exists. Years that show many people who were transgender way before the term was made. The best example i can give is a transgender woman by the name of Mary Jones who was a transgender (male to female) African American sex worker who lived in the 1870s and the first recorded transgender reassignment surgery was in 1906 on a man named Karl.M Baer who was intersex but was dubbed female at birth at the age of 21 he came out as a male and underwent surgery at the age of 23. The term transsexual was created in 1907.

I got all that and even more from the first source. The first source is a Wikipedia article a free online source anyone can see. Here is the link to the article if anyone would like to see it: Timeline of transgender history - Wikipedia

This is also Team Fortress 2 were talking about here. This whole game takes place in a world where Australians are buff super-intelligent beings. -New Zealand is an underwater society. -The first group of mercenaries for the Gravel Wars consisted of both real historical figures like Abraham Licon as Pyro and American folk tales like John Henry as the Heavy -A martial called Australiem exists that makes people super humans. -Yetis,spycrabs,Pyro sharks, the weird tube snakes, pootis birds, and more weird animals exist in tf2 -An older than time itself Wizard exists and has beef with an American who can survive blasting his feet with a rocket. -Krampus and Santa exist. -Medic basically invented Mpreg, surgically removed souls, and can fucking do all these crazy medical experiments!

-Heavy Weapons guy can fist-fight bears twice his size.

-Scout can double jump and survive drinking liquified radiation.

-Pyro exists and he is probably not a human being.

-Demoman's eye socket is haunted.

-Aliens exist.

-SAXTON HALE EXISTS

-AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON WILLIAM CHADSPEAR WHO INVENTED ROCKET JUMPING AND HOW SATION HALE BOUGHT THE ENTIERTY OF ENGLAND.

But apparently trans people is to unrealistic and 'Makes your unconvertible' according to the original user Like at this point just Amit you're transphobic and don't make shitty posts like this becuse your just going to get proven wrong with stupid saying like "trans people did not exist in the 60-70s"!

If you stayed this long for this ramble, thank you for reading over my big barf of words. I don't normally make these types of posts, i try to stay close to my art content. Also sorry for the shitty grammar or spelling. The American education system failed me lol

[bleachbleachbleach]

[Bleach e312]

Snake Wines and Beer Steins*: An Anthropology of West Rukongai

* I learned this morning that is not a stein, but I’m keeping it for the assonance!

Really down the rabbithole with this episode and cannot put it down, but this cap is such a completely fascinating glimpse at potential Rukongai cultures and trade routes! 

The first thing that caught my eye, naturally, was the snake, which when this scene first came up I thought was just a completely undressed snake on a plate. But when I went to take the cap, no! It’s a snake in liquid! Which led me to believe it was a pickled snake. 

But then my co-blogger brought up snake wine, which it definitely is. According to Wikipedia, the liquid part of habushu, snake sake from the Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa), is mixed with herbs and honey, which is why it has a yellow tint. The Habu snake is a pit viper viewed as both a menace (it can launch itself and bite you from pretty far away) and as a god, bestowing health and virility. (Contemporary Ryukyuan/Okinawan literature sometimes includes habu snakes as an anti-colonial metaphor, such as Medoruma Shun’s 1999 short story, “Hope.”)

1. Increased Importance of Medicinal Food vs. Sustenance Food in Rukongai

Makes all the sense in the world to me that Rukongai would have virility wine. If you don’t need to eat to survive, I imagine the value of virility wine is quite high. ...I mean, what else is there to do out there?

2. Climate Profiles Suggest Far-Reaching Trade Networks

Because the Gate Guardian who shows up in this episode is Jidanbou, this means the village Oomaeda encounters is in West Rukongai somewhere—probably close to the gates, since Soi Fon expected him back after a day trip. (But per the Bount arc, Renji can apparently run to the ass-end of Rukongai to the Seireitei and back in a few hours, so there’s some wiggle room here.) 

Nothing we’ve seen from West Rukongai suggests it’s climatologically similar to the Ryukyu Islands (or to southeast Asia, where similar pit vipers live), which are subtropical. Soul Society always gives the impression of being fairly temperate. At least, it snows in the Seireitei without mountain elevations being involved (Winter Fireworks chapter). West Rukongai is where Hokutan is, the mountains where Kaien and Rukia trained, which gave the impression of being pretty temperate. West Rukongai is also where Junrinan is—where Hitsugaya and Hinamori are from. Judging by Hitsugaya’s behavior in the Beach Episode, if Junrinan was anything like the Ryukyu Islands, he’d have perished long ago.

So… DID THEY TRADE FOR IT. DID THEY GET THE SNAKE WINE FROM ELSEWHERE. How far away is that elsewhere? How many different owners’ hands did it pass through to make it to this village, to this feast? Snake wine is intended to age fairly substantially, which in Rukongai could mean quite a bit of time. How old is this snake wine? What is its provenance?? Potential evidence of complex and far-reaching patterns of trade and shared ascriptions of value, is what I’m saying. snake wine snake wine snake wine

In my mind, I’ve mostly transposed Japan over Soul Society and imagine  North Rukongai as northern Japan, West Rukongai as western Japan, etc. Except in my mind sometimes south is southern Japan and sometimes it’s northern New Mexico lol. East Rukongai in my mind is "idk, New Jersey?" Maybe the snake wine is from the version of southern Rukongai where Pirate AU Soi Fon lives, dominating the high seas…

3. Evidence of Glassworking and Alcohol Production Characteristic of the late 19th/early 20th Centuries

[For reference, Soul Society is typically described as being similar to the Edo Period of Japanese history, which spanned the 17th-19th centuries.]

The second standout beverage here is the beer stein, which I called a stein and then learned that the original beer steins came from the Bubonic Plague era and had tops, for plague reasons, and were made out of wood and leather and then pewter. What do I know, I don’t drink, LOL.

That is more technically a ten-sided handled glass pint, which became popular in the early half of the 20th century in England, though some sources place it in Austria a few decades earlier. Drinking beer out of various forms of glass predates that, and there was a whole period of ceramic drinkware and trade with China and Japan thrown in the centuries between, blah blah. But two things are probably true if there’s a glass beer mug: 

 1. Glassworking has developed enough to make this workable/not a holy pain, production-wise. But again, this is Rukongai—maybe this is the one mug in all existence in West Rukongai and not something intended for mass production. They’re toasting the once-in-a-lifetime event of a Gotei captain slumming it with them, after all. Heck, maybe they got it from the Seireitei, which definitely has more than one of these, though after a cursory look at two places I thought they’d appear, neither does. LOL. Welp. 

2. Beer production has developed enough that it’s filtered and there’s not unseemly gunk floating around in it (made obvious by the fact that you’re drinking it out of a clear glass mug). This could mean Rukongai is pretty with the times with is alcohol production.

Not that that begins to touch why ten-sided handled glass pints from late 19th/early 20th century England and/or Austria are in West Rukongai, a place less likely to have them than the Seireitei, where weird anachronistic stuff seems like it would come into circulation with more regularity.

I love the idea that even if souls don’t remember their previous lives, there’s still imprints and rogue dreams and strange images floating around in their heads, their muscle memories. But like, specifically the version where sometimes the rogue dream is just a gigantic, bomb-ass cup that Some Guy then proceeds to spend his entire afterlife re-developing. He is a VISIONARY. A GENIUS. A rare mind inventing something the likes of which have never been seen is this world but that exist in his mind so clearly it is as though he has seen it in his hands before!!

[abwwia]

Anne Wardrope Brigman (née Nott; December 3, 1869 – February 8, 1950) was an American photographer and one of the original members of the Photo-Secession movement in America.

Brigman's photographs frequently focused on the female nude, dramatically situated in natural landscapes or trees. Many of her photos were taken in the Sierra Nevada in carefully selected locations and featuring elaborately staged poses. Brigman often featured herself as the subject of her images, such as Soul of the Blasted Pine, for which she received the Birmingham Photographic Society's first silver medal. Many of her other photos used her sister as the nude model.After shooting the photographs, she would extensively touch up the negatives with paints, pencil, or superimposition. Via Wikipedia

[thoughtportal]

In 2010, an old man, Robert Fowlds, picks up a discarded note dropped by teenage vampire Eleanor Webb, who has taken to writing her life story and then throwing the individual pages to the wind. Realising what she is, the old man invites Eleanor to his house and tells her that he is ready for death. Eleanor proceeds to kill him and consume his blood. Elsewhere, Eleanor's mother, Clara, is chased from the lap-dancing club where she has been working. Werner, a member of the vampiric Brethren, demands to know where Eleanor is and captures her after an extended chase. Clara decapitates Werner, burns his body and leaves town with her daughter.

Eleanor and Clara seek sanctuary in a dilapidated coastal resort. There, Clara sets her sights on a lonely soul named Noel, who has just inherited the Byzantium Hotel, a once-thriving business that has fallen into disrepair. Eleanor plays the piano in a restaurant and is approached by a young waiter named Frank, who takes a shine to her. Having seduced Noel, Clara turns the Byzantium into a makeshift brothel and Eleanor joins the local college which Frank also attends. Interested in her past, Frank questions Eleanor, who writes her story for him to read. Not entirely believing it, he shows it to their teacher, Kevin.

The story, revealed in a series of flashbacks over the course of the film, begins during the Napoleonic Wars, when a young Clara encounters two Royal Navy officers, Captain Ruthven and Midshipman Darvell. Much to the dismay of Darvell, Clara leaves with Ruthven, who forces her into prostitution after raping her. When Eleanor is born in 1804, Clara leaves her at a private orphanage. Years later, Clara is dying of what appears to be tuberculosis when the brothel is visited by Darvell, who has become a vampire. He gives Ruthven a map to an island where people can become vampires if they are willing to die. Clara shoots Ruthven in the leg, steals the map and makes her way to the island to become a vampire. Darvell finds Clara and takes her to the Brethren, a secret society of vampires that protects the secret of vampirism.