#or language classes in general

[eltingvillez]

SIIIIIII IO CUCINO LA PIZZA!!!

MY MOST ITALIAN OF UQUIZZES BE UPON YE

[canisalbus]

So, are Machete and Vasco both from Naples? As Italian, I can now imagine them talking with some kind of accent :)

Machete is originally from Sicily! But he hasn't been there since he was little. Vasco's family is from Florence.

Vasco's Tuscan accent is deeply rooted and clearly noticeable, but Machete is a lot harder to pin down. He strives to sound as impersonal and formal as possible, which renders his form of speech kind of stiff and flavorless. He's always been reasonably good at absorbing languages though, so I'd like to say that he can communicate in several of the major Italian dialects/languages if necessary. In work matters he readily switches to ecclesiastical Latin.

Maybe his southern origins show up more clearly whenever he's off-duty and his mask of soulless professionalism is a little looser or something.

[pseudophan]

today we did our german essays (german is literally my fourth language, so no skills detected) and we were supposed to write "an email to our international friend" so i adressed it to you, lol. peak parasocial

I LOVE THAT and hey i'm sure your german is better than mine at least if that helps lmao. in hindsight i should've done german at school but i wanted to avoid that class because it's where everyone who wanted to just fuck around went because german is far easier to learn as a norwegian person than fucking spanish or french. i ended up having to do french and you can imagine how well that went

[bmpmp3]

voicevox humming might also be good for those looking weird metallic noisy vocal synths if they're willing to play with the unpredictability of it because i had akashi on the absolutely wrong range setting for this song and he started breaking down like faulty motor

[anniebass]

ngl I still don’t fully understand the situations in which you could use "had had" in a sentence

[skogsdotter-draws]

Ok but, regarding TMAGP 27, I can't stop thinking about Jonah writing, after sending Archibald to a certain death, "It is done, and I am surprised to find how little remorse I feel." It reminds me of his statement in MAG 160:

"The discovery, not simply of the dark and horrible reality of the world in which you live, but that you would quite willingly doom that world and confine the billions in it to an eternity of terror and suffering, all to ensure your own happiness, to place yourself beyond pain and death and fear. (...) It is an awful thing to know about yourself."

I will never get tired of little details about his life being revealed (regardless of the timeline/dimension) because the parallel between his discovery of the supernatural world and the discovery of his own true self and the things he's capable of is so interesting and compelling to me.

Along with the knowledge of the horrors that exist in his world comes the horror of the realization that he might be capable of anything to stop feeling scared and vulnerable, to put himself over everybody else if necessary. Every time curiosity leads him into a new experiment, a new sacrifice in the name of knowledge, he lets go a little bit of himself and his morality. And then, as it happened with Archibald, and as it happened with Barnabas in another world, he feels surprised of how easy it was. Of how he doesn't feel regret or grief, how at most he finds himself thinking that it was all a pity. So it becomes even easier each time, he finds freedom in it, as he also mentions in MAG 160— and one sacrifice after another, it all becomes incredibly simple. There is no fear of losing himself, only the fear of death and pain remains, and only after that process of two hundreds years can one condemn the world for his own sake.

The progressive descent into evil of Jonah Magnus, slowly exposed through statements and letters, will never stop being one of the more interesting parts of this podcast imo.

[lilaccatholic]

Everyone's getting so heated over evolution right now that I kinda want to say I believe in some secret, third thing for kicks and giggles. Get real gnostic on 'em.

Oh? You believe in evolution? And you believe in creationism? Well *I*, the most learned of individuals, believe that we are actually yet still in our larval stage as a species and will only be able to enter the kingdom of heaven when we grow the exoskeletons which will make it so our flesh can handle the gaze of God, like a REAL Christian

[twinklingwatermellon]

I know, I know, all’s well that ends well, but I can’t stop thinking about how the altered timeline probably ended up with Yichan and Cheong-ah getting married later than in the first timeline.

[nerdie-faerie]

I was like 'oh I'll just get on with my assignment while I wait for our landlord to show up for her monthly check in' and then realised that being sat around surrounded by every patient information leaflet I own looks a bit dodge without context

[measureformeasure]

this assignment is really boring and i need to finish it in the next 17 minutes and that's not happening i've barely started

[arachnerd-8-legs]

im getting real sick of 'intelligence'

who decided reading books and writing counted as intelligence? who decided that getting high scores on a strict, unfeeling system meant you were better than everybody? who decided that people should be turned into numbers, tie their worth in society into numbers, to compare people on a scale that ultimately does not matter, so that the people who didn't dump everything to perform for it are berated and the people who did end up with nothing?

who decided not reading or writing was a lack of intelligence? who decided that living differently to them was a sign of lower 'societal worth' than those who conformed?

[bleachbleachbleach]

Hello again, ti's I! I've hit a major stumbling block in my academy calculations (either the seireitei has an astronomical death rate 10x real world examples or I messed up my beginning calculation and have to do the whole thing from scratch ToT) but I have to ask: how often do shinigami stand on air in soul society?!

In the human world that's all they do, in heuco mundo I can think of several examples off the top of my head, but in soul society? I can think of *maybe* one example that isn't filler or film. Their buildings are built on a 2d plane for a people that can move in 3 dimensions. Do you have any memories or screenshots of people running on air in ss? Do you know if there's any explanation?

(Do either of you have memories of irl class exercises that involved multiple year groups??)

[DO YOU REMEMBER ASKING THIS, ALMOST A FULL YEAR AGO? LOL. Trust that we never forgot!]

whipplefilter:

What do we know about the atmosphere?

According to Renji, the Living World has a relatively low concentration of reishi in its atmosphere; 

according to Ishida, Hueco Mundo is reishi dense;

and according to Byakuya, so is the Royal Realm.

What do we know about sky standing?

We've certainly seen shinigami stand in the sky in the Living World, no question. Until earlier this year I honestly assumed they could do this anywhere and didn't think about it, and it wasn't until a few months ago it occurred to me I couldn't think of any examples of this! (NB: In the time elapsed since I wrote this, we've gotten 999 examples of shinigami sky-standing in Soul Society in TYBW lol. ALL THE SAME--)

We also have a lot of examples where they are explicitly not sky-standing in Soul Society. Every battle that immediately comes to mind definitely takes place on the ground, to the detriment of the buildings and rooftops. (When I say "every battle that immediately comes to mind" I mean Hitsugaya showing up to fight Ichimaru in socks and Kira, Hitsugaya, and Matsumoto causing roof damage as they tear after each other after discovering Central 46 dead. Rumor has it there are other fights that happen in Bleach.)

The existence of Zabimaru Express also kind of makes it seem like it's not as second nature to sky stand in Soul Society:

[DiamondDust Rebellion]

-> Below the cut, 2 theories about how sky-standing might work!

Renji also ran down all the Soukyoku Hill stairs, which seems like maybe something that wouldn't have happened if he could have simply Tony Hawk'd it through the air.

I briefly trawled some forums that said that Quincy showed shinigami how to sky-stand in Soul Society, and that Vizard sky stand in Rukongai in TBTP, but neither of those things rang any bells for me. I would happily be tagged in someone else's post if you remember either of these things happening, though!

How does sky standing work?

We know shinigami are able to stand in the sky by concentrating reishi particles under their feet. But what… what does that mean…

Theory 1:

In order to stand on air, you need to be less dense than air. If you can gather reishi under your feet and sky stand, maybe reishi is less dense than air. If you gather enough of it beneath you, it can also suspend you. Kinda like… imagine the atmosphere as a liquid, and concentrated reishi like little air bubbles under your feet as you sky stand.

* Caveat 1: Of course, Shinigami are already made of reishi, but they don't float off into space in the Living World, so not all reishi is less dense than air. But I think we're asked to believe that reishi can take on multiple forms/states and cannot be described as any one thing with any one set of characteristics--shinigami are reishi that understands itself to be corporeal: It holds the memory of blood and weight and flesh. Free air reishi understands itself to be free air.

** Caveat 2: I don't think it makes sense for reishi motes to be knocking around with, you know, carbon dioxide and nitrogen and hydrogen and whatnot in the Living World, so I feel like the units of measurement when thinking about density/displacement don't even actually track in exact computational ways. Like, they can probably occupy the same molecule-sized space simultaneously. We know shinigami in their fleshy-reishi state of being can sit on beds and crash into buildings in the Living World, but they can't eat (easier to imagine interaction with a hard surface than it is to imagine the entire chemical process of digestion? if a shinigami was well-studied enough and concentrated hard enough, could they pull off an autonomous process in the Living World??). Regardless, we know there's various and ineffable forms of interaction between the physical and spiritual worlds, so maybe trying to separate them into discrete categories is the wrong move.

My theory about why sky standing might not work as well in Soul Society is because there's more reishi in the atmosphere and less more-dense-than-reishi Nothing, so it's more cumbersome to gather it under your feet effectively.

BUT THEN. THEN. Why is it possible in reishi dense environments?? I'm going to be honest with you, we just watched the whole Hueco Mundo arc (NB: again, this was like, last winter lol) and I have zero memory of anyone sky standing. I'm not saying it didn't happen; I just have no memory of it. I do have memory of Byakuya BUNNY HOPPING THROUGH THE DESERT, which sure is a Choice if sky-running on an even plane was an available option.

And then Byakuya spends a page and a half hypothesizing as to why they can't sky-stand in the Royal Realm:

[Bleach 628]

Something something Quincy blah blah, but the relevant part here is that Byakuya seems very certain that normally they can stand in the Royal Realm, and that this is due to the reishi dense atmosphere. Why he would be certain about this, I don't know, but I don't think he's just freeballing. Byakuya doesn't freeball. Maybe he aspires to be Soul Society NOAA incarnate, and that's why he wants to be friends with Hitsugaya. ANYWAY. 

Why would Byakuya's whole spiel here be true? I don't know. If we're assuming it's easier to do in the Living World and not as easy in Soul Society, just based on how often we do or do not see them doing it--this throws a spanner in the works. Maybe they can sky stand in Soul Society, but it's distracting and tedious to sky stand. So if they're not worried about destroying human buildings/killing people, they just resign themselves to destroying the Seireitei on the regular and condemning Joe Shinigami to several lifetimes of new construction. 

Theory 2: Solid vs liquid vs gas particle states

ippoddity: This theory requires us to review a bit of high school chemistry. To review, in order of reishi concentration levels, from low to high: Living World < Soul Society < Hueco Mundo = Royal Realm. Somewhat related to the previous theory, we can think about reishi particles existing in different states of matter, which relates to their availability for usage in situations like sky standing. 

[particles in states of matter]

Let’s think of the reishi concentration in the Living World as existing in a gaseous state. In this state, particles are in the lowest concentration, because they’re constantly bouncing around in a free state. But, this also allows for skilled reishi manipulators to “grab” those free particles flying around and craft them into platforms to stand on, so they can stand in the air. So even though there’s overall a lower concentration of reishi particles (gas particles floating around in the big ol’ Living World container), they’re easier to scoop up and pack together into a different shape.

In Soul Society, reishi particles might exist in more of a “liquid” state. Meaning they are pretty high in concentration, but not as freely available to manipulate and use for purposes like standing in the air. Since there’s less freely available particles, we don’t see any shinigami sky standing. But for example, as seen in Ishida vs Mayuri, a Quincy can come on by and suck up the liquid reishi particles and craft them for their own use. Maybe there’s some kind of Quincy ability to apply energy to a reishi particle, so that it goes from a liquid to a gaseous state, thus “freeing” it up from the more dense state so that they can use it. 

The most high concentration reishi realms are Hueco Mundo and the Royal Realm. Particles are the most dense in a solid state, and in this state, particles are the least available to use. This is why solid shapes are fairly stable and don’t go around changing very much. Solid states like all their particles to stay packed together, so they’re not available to use for other things (like gathering random particles to stand in the sky). If all reishi are in the “solid” state, then they can’t be grabbed and used for other things, like sky standing foot platforms.

I’m sure there are plenty of loopholes and exceptions to this theory, but it mostly holds up, at least until the TYBW arc I think?

Note: This theory is only half thought out, as my knowledge of chemistry and states of matter is loose at best. It probably doesn’t hold up well if you examine it too closely, but maybe you can get the gist of it!

[heyheyarnold]

Free ASL Class Online - Cincinnati State

For anyone interested in learning American Sign Language in a low-stakes environment, Cincinnati State offers a free online, cameras optional, all ages course. You can join via Zoom or access class recordings afterward if you can't attend.

More info, sign up, and resources from previous sessions are available here.

Link: https://www.cincinnatistate.edu/freeasl/#list

[suppenzeit]

one detail i like to include with my da ocs is where they learned to read. i doubt standardized schooling is a big thing in thedas so i think its a neat thing to include.

[pastempomat]

i've been side eye-ing the odyssey discourse from some distance bc in my experience illiad and odyssey were told in the same breath most of the time & that meant both works were regarded as v important and highly influential and not knowing the general plot of them is such an abstract concept i don't think i can quite fathom it at all

[hylianengineer]

The fun thing about living with a theatre major is that I get to be the rubber duck for art projects and literary analysis. This is great because I love literary analysis but don't get to take lit. classes anymore.