#these two objects have a direct correlation

[pozaba]

1. Catherine of Sien - Book of the teachings of God

(early 15th century)

2. Skylabs - NANOboc onboard computer (2020)

[suugarbabe]

[6 DRINK MATTHEO]

summary: it's always a good time when you're drinking with mattheo; you never know what or who you're gonna get ; mattheo x theo, enzo x reader, poly!slytherin boys if you squint

warnings: mentions of drinking, parties, the likes

an: reader is mostly a side character but is involved with most of the story; you get a lot of theo and matty for this; thank you to my love my life my baby @musingsofahufflepuff for the drink dividers (hubby so talented)

There was a buzz all around the great hall, and for good reason, too. This mornings matchup on the quidditch pitch between Slytherin and Gryffindor was a big one…and Slytherin came out on top. 

Much of this win was thanks to Mattheo and his friends (who all very much dominate in every game they participate in). With Theo as chaser, the game was barely going for two minutes before he scored their first goal. 

Berkshire as keeper made it nearly impossible for anyone on the Gryffindor team to catch up. But the real kicker was how Mattheo performed today. 

As a beater, typically his job is just to keep the bludgers away from his chasers (Theo in particular). But Mattheo had a bit of a different objective today.

While he did his usual duty, using all his ab and lower body strength to steady himself on his broom he was swinging his bat with all his strength; any chance he got he aimed the large, charmed iron balls towards another target. 

It was perfect timing, too. Potter was hot on the snitches tail (and Draco hot on Potters). Mattheo eyed the bludger heading toward Theo and accelerated in that direction. With near perfect precision, Mattheo swung with professional connection, sending the bludger zipping towards the raven haired boy. 

The bludger connected with the tail end of Potter's broom. The sheer force sending Harry down toward the ground and giving Draco ample time to grab the snitch and assist in securing the win and ending the game officially. 

Which leads to now. Mattheo, Theo and the rest of the team itching to get to the common room and start partying in celebration. Enzo was all but shoveling food into his gob to ‘line his stomach so he could drink more’.

“That’s kinda disgusting, Berk. Very sloppy. You look like a elefante.”

“Elephant,” Mattheo translated the Italian for Enzo; something he’s grown habit to do for Theo but he couldn’t tell you when it started or when he picked up on so much of the language. 

As expected, Enzo ignored them both. Once dinner was officially over, the majority of fifth, sixth and seventh year students (with the exception of most Gryffindors) made their way down to the dungeons for what was sure to be “an incredibly epic party” to quote Enzo. 

To “ensure it’s epicness” (Enzo again), he insisted on the three of them waiting back before going down to the party. However, it was only five minutes in before Mattheo was getting antsy, “Screw this, I need a drink.” 

The cup’s cold in his hand and the alcohol is smooth down his throat and instantly Mattheo feels ten times more relaxed than he did at dinner. It typically happens that way. 

He always gets a bit jittery before a party, but as soon as he gets there he knows he just needs a drink and everything will calm down in his mind again. Matty has contributed this correlation to the fact that most parties happen after a quidditch match. And even if he’s not the one playing, just the intensity of the game gets his adrenaline going. 

After another sip, Matty lets out a long sigh of relief. “Relaxed?” Theo gives him a knowing smile and a nudge with his elbow. Mattheo nods in content, “Yup. Finally.” 

“Ever think maybe you have a problem if you need a drink to relax, mate,” Enzo playfully jabs at his friend. Mattheo then watched as Enzo swirled his tongue along the inside of the small plastic container to loosen his third jello-shot in twenty minutes. 

Mattheo flicked the bottom of the shot, causing the contents to slip through Enzo’s finger and land instead on the common room rug. “No, my shot!” Enzo whined, Mattheo and Theo rolled their eyes. 

The pair left Enzo searching for a replacement while they found solace on a sofa. Theo leaned back against the couch, digging in his pocket to for his usual party favor, “Enzo ruin your relaxation?” Mattheo shook his head, taking another long sip of his drink, “I’m good. Think I’m gonna go grab another though. Be right back.” 

When Mattheo didn’t return after ten minutes, Theo stubbed out his spliff and willed himself off the couch to go and find him. Before his eyes could locate a dark mop of curls he heard it. The slightly high pitched, almost hidden giggle made Theo’s ears perk up. 

Turning towards the sound, he made his way towards the drink table where he saw Mattheo standing with you and Enzo. His bottom lip was tucked into his teeth as he held his cup in front of his mouth; obviously trying to suppress another giggle. 

You, on the other hand, were eating it up. Theo was sure whatever story you were telling wasn’t even that funny; but Mattheo had a second drink in him so therefore everything was more humorous. 

As Theo approached the three of you, you turned to him with a beaming smile, “Hi, Teddy. Did you know I’m hilarious?” 

Theo raised his eyebrows and gave you an unimpressed look, “Sure, tesoro.” You gave a slight pout, only for Enzo to sling an arm over your shoulders, “S’alright, lovie. You’re proper funny.” Your smile returned and Theo turned to Matty instead. 

“Gonna tell me what’s so funny?” Theo couldn’t suppress his own smile any longer. Not when Mattheo was grinning so big that the corners of his eyes were crinkling. Theo decided that Matty had a really nice smile. 

“Enzo brought up the prank we played on Draco a couple months ago, when we..” Matty’s shoulders shook slightly as he couldn’t contain his laughter, “when we charmed his hair Gryffindor red and convinced everyone not to say anything until lunch.” 

Theo nodded, not being able to hold his own laughter in as he recalled the memory, “He was ready to avada you, Matt.” 

Mattheo was wiping tears from his eyes, chugging what was left in his cup before turning around to fill it once more. 

Theo had made a mistake. If you asked him, though, he’d say he was ‘lured away by a hufflepuff making him an offer he couldn’t refuse’. 

Normally free weed from a badger trying to get on his good side wasn’t a problem. It’s what he came back to that make him realize his timing was rather poor. 

Just as he breached the small crowd of people forming near the back corner of the common room, he saw Mattheo take a long chug of merlin knows what before handing you his cup to hold. 

Theo watched as Mattheo got into a slightly crouched position, hands at the ready in front of him like he was about to wrestle. Across from Matty was a Ravenclaw that had a tendency to run his mouth. 

Theo grabbed Mattheo’s cup from your grasp, catching your attention. “You’re just in time,” your eyes were looking a little hazy, but they sparkled with a bit of mischief. 

“Perfetto, what’s happening then, hmm?” Theo took a sniff of Mattheo’s cup, giving a shrug and a head tilt before downing its contents. 

“Abraxas said Matty’s lost his touch. That now-a-day’s he’s more bark than bite. Matty didn’t like that, said he’d be able to wrestle Brax to the ground in two minutes flat,” you were clearly enjoying the situation. 

Theo started counting how many drinks he’d seen Mattheo have so far. Four. He nodded his head, confirming that Matty’s current behavior now made total sense.Theo decided to not intervene. Yet. 

It had been a while since Matty had gotten into a proper fight. Not necessarily due to him not getting angry; but the rest of the group had figured out ways to distract or deter him from seeing red. Theo figured he’d let him have a little fun. 

Mattheo did manage to wrestle Brax to the ground pretty quickly; however, drunk Mattheo tends to be extremely poor at realizing how drunk he is. Hence why Brax was then able to flip them both over, seemingly taking charge. 

Drunk Matty was having none of it, pushing and flinging limbs until he was nearly free from Brax’s hold. Very easily did Mattheo ignore the ‘bloody fuck’ that left Enzo’s lips when he got kicked in the shin. You did warn him not to get too close. 

After a bit of a stalemate, the crowd started to chant for their respective prospect. “Mattheo, Mattheo!” and “Brax Brax Brax!” started to get louder, and truly it was ruining Theo’s buzz. 

So if he happened to send a slipping jinx Brax’s way, just so Mattheo could get him in a chokehold and Brax to tap out; if no one witnessed it then no harm was done. Right?

Mattheo stood, pumping his arms in the air victorious. Enzo let his earlier injury be forgotten as he slapped Matty on the back, “Atta boy, now let’s get you a celebratory drink, shall we?” 

You did your best to hold your drink steady in one hand while patting Mattheo’s back with the other. “Really, Mattheo, it’s okay. I’m sure he’s not mad at all…right, Enzie?” You gave Enzo the sterndess look you could muster in your tipsy state without giggling. 

Mattheo sipped his drink after lifting his head from your shoulder, wiping fallen tears from his cheeks as he looked over to Enzo on the other side of the couch. 

Enzo stuttered over his words, “Y-yeah, mate. S’alright, I, erm, I don’t even remember you kicking me hard as shit twenty minutes ago. S’fine!” Enzo scratched the back of his neck, giving an awkward smile. 

Thankfully, Matty bought it, “R-really? ‘Cause,” he sniffled, bottom lip wobbling, “I-I’m so sorry, Enzo. Y-you mean so much to me, I-I’d never hurt you on p-purpose.” 

You could see the tears brimming again as you moved your hands in soothing circles on his back, “And you mean so much to Enz, too. Isn’t that right?” You glared at Enzo for a response. 

“Oh, erm, yeah..yeah mate, you mean loads to me,” Enzo gave a quick tap to Matty’s knee. 

Theo walked up to this scene, four shots held between his fingers, “Here.” He handed the small glass of clear liquor to each of you. You rolled your eyes, “Theo. Not really the time,” you motioned your eyes and tilted your head slightly towards Mattheo, “someone is having a moment.” 

It was Theo’s turn to roll his eyes, “Yes, yes. I know. Here Matty, take it.” Ever the obedient one when it came to Theo, he took the shot glass. 

“Drink,” Theo nodded, “I cannot take your wet eyes any longer, Matty mio caro.” 

You huffed, but raised your glass nonetheless to clink against the others before tapping it on the table and shooting it back, everyone else following the same routine. As the alcohol made its way down your throat you shuddered. 

Matty, though, gave a final wipe of his eyes before a smile then plastered on his face, “Mmm, tequila. How did you know, Teddy?” 

You and Enzo exchanged a look, waiting for Theo to complain about the use of the pet name, only to be disappointed when he actually smiled. 

“Because I know my Mattheo. Now let’s get off this couch,” Theo grabbed hold of Matty by both wrists and pulled him to stand before slinging an arm over his shoulder. Enzo was quick to follow, “Wait for me!” 

With the tequila now in his system, Mattheo seemingly forgot whatever it was that he was upset with some fifteen minutes earlier. You watched as he and Enzo seemed to be conspiring together across the room. 

You leaned closer to Theo, “What do you think they’re up to?” Theo’s eyes met yours briefly, “I do not know, but it seems supiscious.” Your brows furrowed momentarily, “Do you mean suspicious?” 

Theo waved off your correction, turning back to the last spot he saw the two trouble makers only to not find them at all. His head was on a swivel, eyes scanning the room for a mop of curls or messy brown hair but continuously coming up short. 

“Do you see?” Theo asked a half sentence, but it didn’t matter as you fully understood. “I can’t find them either.” 

In that moment, you heard a row of people grunt, gasp or seem startled and shocked. Then you saw it; a very excited but stumbly German Shepherd being chased by a continuously tripping and falling Aussie. 

“Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” you turned to Theo eyes wide and slightly panicking. Theo seemed to only be able to stare in the direction they went before shaking his head and wiping his hands over his face. 

“Okay, you go for Enzo, I go for Matty.” And with that, the two of you split off. 

Mattheo proved slightly ornery while drunkenly in his animagus form. But Theo thanks the many drinks Matty had for making it much easier to sneak up on the German Shepherd and wrap his long arms around its middle. 

He walked a whining puppy Mattheo towards the dorm room path, setting him down only once past the dorm door just as you entered with Aussie Enzo who’s back paws were definitely dragging along the floor, causing you to stumble slightly with every other step. 

Once both were released, you looked positively peeved, hands firm on your hips and mouth open, ready to scold only to be cut off by a slew of Italian shouting. 

“Cosa pensi di fare? Hai perso la testa? Torna indietro subito. Subito! Sei fortunato che siano tutti ubriachi fradici!”

Both Enzo and Matty’s puppy ears folded back; the two of them slowly starting to lay down submissively and whine slightly. You weren’t sure what Theo was saying exactly, but you knew they were not going to try this again the rest of the night. 

After their Italian reprimand, both Enzo and Mattheo found themselves one last drink. Mattheo would be lying if said he wasn’t feeling it; the range of emotions and amount of liquor was starting to weigh on him. 

He looked from Theo to you to Enzo, then to Theo again and his heart just felt so…full. All he could think about was needing to show his affections. 

Mattheo turned to Enzo, tugging the sleeve of his shirt, “Enz…Enzo look at me.” Heavy lidded eyes met Matty’s with a lazy smile, “Hmm?”

“I love you, mate,” Matty grabbed Enzo’s face and gave him a loud, smacking smooch on the cheek. 

Mattheo ignored the confused speechlessness on Enzo’s face and instead turned to you. “And I love you, babe,” He leaned down, lips pressing heavily against your forehead. You hummed in acknowledgement, “I love you too, Matty.”

When Mattheo turned to Theo, the latter willed his cheeks not to flush to dark a shade of pink. He braced himself for the Matty love fest about to happen, only to feel his pulse quicken when Mattheo laced his fingers behind Theo’s neck, thumbs tracing lazily along his jawline. 

“And you..” Mattheo leaned in a little closer to whisper in Theo’s ear, “You’re my favorite, Teddy. But promise not to tell the other’s okay?” 

Theo nodded with a nervous smile just before Mattheo’s lips landed on his own. His breath hitched before pulling away, “Alriiight, bedtime for Matty, yes?” 

Mattheo nodded, allowing Theo to guide him towards the dorms. Theo heavily ignoring the taunts and cheers from you and Enzo on the way.

[buttastic]

I've been making a new battle jacket for myself and also both independently from that and in direct correlation to that been thinking a lot about the value of "virtue signaling"

like. idk. I think online a lot of the circles I run in are jaded & removed (& live in liberal enough places) that broadcasting your values just to do it comes across as kind of trite at best, blatantly consumerist at standard, and secretly predatory at worst.

I think the consumerism angle is an especially incisive point--god people please look up what making custom enamel pins entails--but also it kind of falls apart when you're talking about handmade stuff, doesn't it? an enamel pronoun pin that's made in southeast asia and a homemade button pin made out of a bottlecap and a safety pin with pronouns on it are two very separate beasts, right? both undoubtedly have exploitation in their labor chains either way (I'm just assuming beer bottling isn't the pinnacle of ethical labor but I could be wrong here) but it's hard not to see them as pretty different materially, right?

a lot of discourse around this sort of thing reminds me of zine discourse but in a way where there's no push to recontextualize the diy object as a diy object instead of a capitalist product. but this is a tangent

what happens if you're virtue signaling to a general public that DOESN'T already agree with you? I live in one of the reddest states in the nation. I saw someone say you're just painting a target on yourself, but like--that's why it's a jacket, I can take it off.

I interact with a lot of local younger people when I go out, and I think in this instance it is actually better for me to telegraph which things I do and don't find acceptable so that other people who are less secure can feel like maybe the whole world isn't against them...and I know they feel that way because they tell me that!

idk maybe it's just the artist circles I operate in that keep coming back to "caring is cringe" but for me the art I make being messy has little to do with how I as a community member operate. I hate when a comic I'm trying to read uses identities like buzzwords but I like walking into a room and seeing people carving spaces for themselves, and I don't really see those as mutually exclusive pursuits

[grapecinnamon]

Welcome Home headcannons (bc I'm obsessed now)❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🏳️‍🌈♾️

Julie, Sally, and Poppy have an all-girls slumber party every once-in-a-while. Sometimes they invite Wally

Wally and Barnaby have regular sleepovers too, usually in Home. They don't like to leave him out

Frank likes to infodump about butterflies to Wally. It's easy to infodump to him, since he doesn't talk much anyway

Wally can pick up weird bugs off the ground with his own hands because to him, "they're just tiny neighbors who live outside."

Wally's the one everyone goes to whenever they have a problem. Wally doesn't mind listening to them and giving them advise. But sometimes, Wally isn't having the best of days and can't listen to anyone. But he always has Barnaby to go to

Julie's most common stim is flapping her hands

Julie only owns dresses. She doesn't really own pants. She has to borrow from Sally

Sally loves romance novels. She'll usually read them when she's not directing

Wally loves talking about art. He'll mainly ramble on about shapes and perspectives, and the color theory, his most favorite to discuss.

Eddie Dear kisses Frank on the forehead to calm him down whenever he's angry. It always seems to help

Howdy is practicing juggling. you'd think it'd be easier with four arms but... not for Howdy

Barnaby is always trying to get Wally to try new foods, even some Wally doesn't think he'll like. It's not that Barnaby doesn't respect Wally's boundaries, he just wants him to at least try it

The neighbors celebrate Thanksgiving, but they call it something else (Feast Day I suppose?)

Poppy is always nervous for Feast Day because she usually makes desert. Since she's afraid of using kitchen appliances, desert making is usually a two person job, sometimes with Julie and sometimes with Sally

Wally loves Feast Day. He gets to make pumpkin pie for everyone. The problem is that Wally doesn't like stuffing (Julie's usual) cause of all the weird textures. He would still make himself eat it so he wouldn't look rude, even though he would be visibly uncomfortable eating it. Now every Feast Day, Julie makes two stuffing dishes. One for everyone else, and one for Wally, which is a bit more plain. It's currently Wally's favorite Feast Day dish.

Wally ate a flower in Frank's garden one time. It did not go well for either of them.

Julie and Frank like to gossip. Nothing too bad, they just talk about how extra bossy Sally was being or Barnaby telling another bad pun, etc.

Wally likes to put his paintings around the neighborhood, almost as if the buildings are fridges

Julie is afraid of ghosts. Frank usually has to be the one to tell her they're not real. "I bet they don't like to play games," Sally says.

Howdy has all of Wally's food preferences memorized, since Wally never really changes his opinion that much. Plus he likes his hot dogs plain

Eddie Dear and Wally bond over their love of arts and crafts. They sometimes get together and make stuff

Wally is usually the stagehand during Sally's plays. He sometimes plays a role, but he's much more comfortable pulling the curtain or moving the spotlights

Wally actually loves pulling pranks. Barnaby got him into them. Most of the time, Wally's pranks are just misplacing objects where the neighbors didn't leave them (he once hid Sally's script, and Frank's butterfly net). But sometimes he'll feel bad and tell them where their missing object is

Wally and Poppy are very good at sewing. Wally loves making sweaters for everyone when it gets cold. Poppy likes knitting scarves and sometimes crochets little messages (she has a "bless this mess" sign in her home)

Wally has a sensitive stomach and can't eat certain things. There's a correlation between autism and stomach problems, and Wally seems like the type to have them

Whenever they have meetings, they always have them in Home, so Home could also be apart of the discussions

Poppy loves having picnics. It's easier to make sandwiches because in her mind, nothing bad has ever happened to anyone who made a sandwich

Wally loves taking naps. He'll sleep for about an hour during the day everyday. if he doesn't get his nap, he gets so drowsy during the day. If he does this, you'd usually find him sleeping with his head leaning on Barnaby, giving up his long battle of not napping. He was once found facedown in Frank's garden. Frank, of course, was not pleased

that's it. for now. Ik it's a long post, but I'm just so obsessed with Welcome Home. Clown, if you see this, you're a goddamn genius

[wolveria]

Sorry to bring up shipping discourse on your blog. Reminder that you have every right to just ignore this. It’s your blog.

But the whole thing around shipping aspec characters tends to be less “should we do it?” and more “stop fucking erasing a character’s identity just bc you don’t know how to write it”. I mean, not for everyone, obviously, but that tends to be what it boils down to.

Me, personally, I don’t mind the shipping (esp crackships and selfships. They get too much shit as is and I’m not adding onto that), but I do mind when people just ignore the characters identity or treat it as Straight Lite™️, which I have seen a lot of people do. And I know you said that it’s less about what they do with fictional characters and more about how they treat actual aspec people, but oftentimes (as far as I’ve seen) their attitude towards actual people tends to be similar to how they treat the identity of a fictional character. Which is to say, bad.

Again, this is all just from my personal experience with people, so maybe you’ve had a much more positive one. I just figured as another aspec person I could share my view. If it’s not welcome, no hard feelings or anything. I do hope you have a nice day/night.

(Anon is responding to this reblog)

And you can acknowledge your feelings about how fans interact with aspect characters. You have a right to be uncomfortable.

But these are your feelings, shaped by your experiences, and your perception will always be subjective. That's simply a part of human existence.

In other words, feelings don't inform reality (ask any person with anxiety).

There are two separate points you bring up, that 1) fans can erase a character's identity, and 2) how fans treat characters is a direct correlation to how they treat real people:

1) A character isn't a real person, therefore it doesn't have an identity that can be erased. It's an object. A fictional concept. You cannot harm them no matter what you do to them.

I am not speaking about representation. A fan does not have the same impact as a Disney executive. I am not, and will not, put them on the same level of power. How a fan headcanons a character will never equate to how media treats queer representation, and I will repeat this until my dying breath.

Which leaves this question: Do you believe it's immoral for other fans to fantasize about characters in a way that you find uncomfortable?

If so, why? Do you believe it's an actual problem? What would be your solution? How do you control people's fantasies, and is it your right to attempt to do so?

If the answer is no, then you must accept that how people interact with fiction isn't your responsibility or obligation, and that discomfort does not equal immorality.

If the answer is yes, please see below.

2) Correlating fantasies with "immoral" behavior is a talking point of conservatives, fascists, and pro-censorship groups.

People writing stories, making art, creating headcanons, etc., is not an accurate indicator or predictor of behavior. It might be helpful to ask yourself why you're equating these two things.

Why do you believe fantasy influences behavior? Or the inverse, do you believe that fans who treat others poorly will always have "problematic" headcanons/ships?

If so, why is your focus on how fictional characters are treated, and not on the actual behaviors towards actual people?

Are your opinions based on facts or on fears?

Pro-censorship groups will argue that reading certain books will lead to a corruption of morals, or those who write toxic relationships will become an abusive partner, or kids who play violent video games are more likely to hurt other students.

Claiming that fans who "erase" the queer identities of fictional characters will lead to actual bigotry towards real people, is the same kind of fear-based argument as above--it just uses leftist language to do so.

(I don't even know how to address the Straight Lite comment without getting into a whole other discussion about how you seem to believe some headcanons aren't queer enough. And following my own example, I am not going to extrapolate that onto how you might view real people's queer identities.)

I've seen a lot of shitty fans in my decade of fandom involvement. I can make a lot of assumptions about what kind of characterizations they like and how it relates to their behavior. I could do that, with a lot of gut feelings behind it, but that doesn't make it true.

Sometimes, shitty people have certain headcanons, or ships, or fantasies, and it doesn't actually mean a damn thing.

At the end of the day, I understand that what someone enjoys, their headcanons, their art, their fantasies, do not inform who they are as a person, nor does it predict how they treat other people. That's not how human behavior works, and there are decades of research to support it.

You can be uncomfortable. You have every right to feel uncomfortable. But discomfort is not an indicator of right or wrong, nor is it evidence your discomfort has an inherent moral weight.

This concept even has its own term: the wisdom of repugnance.

I hope this has been helpful to you. Thank you for your ask.

[ancientcraftnoccultism]

Beginner Class - Correspondences 101

Ancient Craft & Occultism

Correspondences 101

By KB

Introduction

Welcome back to another lesson! Today, we're diving head first into the world of correspondences. What exactly are they? Why do we use them? We're going to discuss that and more in this lesson! Let's get to it.

What Are Correspondences?

In essence, correspondences are objects or aspects of objects that represent symbolism in direct correlation with a specific energy. Practically anything and everything has the potential to be a correspondence, therefore correspondences are subject to change depending upon the individual practitioner. Some of you may find yourself attributing certain emotions with colors - this itself is an example of a correspondence. Everything has its own energy, and using the energy that is in direct relation to your spellworking allows for that energy to be amplified and released into your work.

As Antoine Faivre (a French Occultist) states in his book Access to Western Esotericism:

"Symbolic and real correspondences (there is no room for abstractions here!) are said to exist among all parts of the universe, both seen and unseen....These correspondences, considered more or less veiled at first sight, are, therefore, intended to be read and deciphered....The principles of noncontradiction and excluded middle of linear causality are replaced here by those of the included middle and synchronicity. We can distinguish two kinds of correspondences. First, those that exist in nature, seen and unseen, e.g. between the seven metals and the seven planets, between the planets and parts of the human body or character (or of society). This is the basis of astrology - correspondence between the natural world and the invisible departments of the celestial and supercelestial world, etc. Next there are correspondences between nature (the cosmos) or even history, and revealed texts. Here we find the Kabbalah, whether Jewish or Christian, and varieties of 'physica sacra'....Ultimately the world stage is a linguistic phenomena."

Or as Pierre Riffard (a French philosopher) states in his book Dictionnaire de L'ésotérisme:

"The doctrine of analogy and correspondence, present in all esoteric schools of thinking, upholds that the Whole is One and that its different levels (realms, worlds) are equivalent systems, whose parts are in strict correspondence. So much so that a part in a realm symbolically reflects and interacts with the corresponding part in another realm. For instance, the Sun in the mineral realm is the counterpart of the Lion in the animal realm. The relation between A and B is similar to the relation between C and D. The microcosm and macrocosm are analogous, that is, equivalent, similar in their structures, even though they are outwardly dissimilar. The parts are in strict correspondence, closely knit together and closely interacting: thus feet/pisces, veins/rivers."

This is exactly why you use specific herbs, go for specific timing or moon phases, use certain colored candles, and much more.

Why Do We Use Them?

When raising our energy and directing our energy towards our goal, it's very useful to have elements that align with that as a means to amplify the energy. It takes less energy on the practitioner's end, as the natural energy of the objects being utilized is aligned with the energy needed in the work. A lot of it has to do with association, as that's a natural way for our mind's to process information. If you're doing a spell or ritual that is about healing, and you include a solar symbol or something orange, your mind may focus on a different energy rather than healing, which would interfere with the energy of your working.

It's important to make sure all correspondences are considered with your personal associations of things as a means to help you raise and direct energy.

Can I Make My Own Correspondences?

As stated above, the energies connected to particular items are known as correspondences, and they can be employed to increase the power and efficacy of your spell while also giving additional energy. These energies are influenced by a variety of elements, such as nature, colors, history, and culinary and medicinal applications. You would probably find at least one or two lists of correspondences for frequently used items in any book on witchcraft, especially for herbs and crystals. While the majority of correspondence lists are excellent, there are occasionally those that contain ambiguous correspondences, thus it is crucial to investigate any correspondences you are unsure about. Even if I wholeheartedly endorse the usage of these lists, especially for novice practitioners, how can we do away with them, particularly those in which we are unsure about the source of the information?

Look At Practical Uses

Examining the object's beneficial uses is the simplest method to get started writing your own correspondences. How do you utilize the item on a daily basis? What role does it play in the home? Take the broom, for instance. The broom's primary use is to sweep up dirt and debris from the house. Brooms can therefore be used to tidy up an area. Is the plant you're looking at utilized for cooking? What flavor does it have? What flavor does it add to the food? Is it able to glue the elements together, thicken, or color them? What is it used for if it has therapeutic uses? Does it relieve pain, calm rashes, improve focus, promote sleep, or treat infections?

Cayenne peppers, for instance, are hot and add long-lasting heat to the dish. They can also be used medicinally to reduce pain, increase metabolism, and hasten digestion. Based on these real-world applications, cayenne can be used to speed up a spell for a long time, eliminate rivals, or ignite your romantic life. We can begin to deduce some of their elemental correspondences from these practical applications. The cayenne pepper, which is hot and red, is related to the element Fire, whereas the broom, which is sturdy and purifying, is related to the element Earth.

Historical Uses

Once you have examined an item's practical applications, you might explore its history. Most things we use every day, especially those found in nature, are covered in folklore. To start figuring out other correspondences for an object, I advise consulting mythology, urban legends, medical books, and other historical documents. It takes time and needs critical thought to determine correspondences, but the effort is definitely worth it.

Scientific Nature

Next, start examining the object's scientific nature. The easiest way to do this is to use natural objects like plants, rocks, fungi, animals, insects, and other living and nonliving things that are present in your local environment. Where is the item often located? What features or qualities distinguish it from other things? What function does it serve in the ecosystem? Does it exhibit any distinctive behaviors? Take the flavor of mint. Almost all mint species develop swiftly and prolifically. If you don't watch them, your entire yard will be taken over. They are associated with abundance, prosperity, and fertility because of their prodigious nature. Some of these scientific correspondences are simple to infer, while others require some additional research.

Your Intuition

When determining an object's correspondences, the first three ways use logic; your intuition uses your psychology and emotions. Intuition is one of a witch's strongest weapons, although our contemporary culture frequently downplays its accuracy and trustworthiness. Start by wrapping your consciousness around the item in meditation before using your intuition to find correspondences. What does your intuition have to say about the thing? What comes to mind when you think of the thing you're looking at? Personal correspondence frequently starts in this area. At least for you, your personal connection to an object and the correspondences you create by employing your intuition have incredible power.

Consult With Spirit

Finally, you can speak with the object's spirit to learn more about its correspondences. The concept of animism holds that all things, both living and nonliving, have a spirit that we can interact with and form relationships with. This is easier said than done, and before attempting this kind of communication, you must be able to distinguish between your own intuition and mental chatter. It's normal for some witches, especially novice witches, to struggle with this correspondence determination process. This is an excellent chance for you to develop your spiritual gifts. Start by grounding and meditating with the object in issue, just like you would when using your intuition to determine correspondences. However, leave yourself open rather than putting your mind into the thing.

Keep the general mental chatter at bay and concentrate on the work at hand. Set out with the goal of listening rather than speaking. Depending on the object, you might hear it speak loud and clear in full sentences, or you might only see a flash of color or experience an emotion. But the secret is to approach this situation with no expectations. The item may not speak to you at all because you are not entitled to a dialogue with it. However, by building a relationship with the object beforehand, you can increase the possibility that it will communicate to you. Offer it gifts, communicate with it, take care of it, etc. Do essentially everything you would to make a new friend.

You will gain a strong understanding of how to employ the object in your own magical practice after combining these five techniques. Additionally, it will improve your magical practice overall and reinforce your bond with the object, enhancing its effectiveness as a component of your spells. The object will be considerably more likely to help you if you can communicate with its spirit.

[mindblowingscience]

Since the 17th century, when Isaac Newton and Christiaan Huygens first debated the nature of light, scientists have been puzzling over whether light is best viewed as a wave or a particle—or perhaps, at the quantum level, even both at once. Now, researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology have revealed a new connection between the two perspectives, using a 350-year-old mechanical theorem—ordinarily used to describe the movement of large, physical objects like pendulums and planets—to explain some of the most complex behaviors of light waves. The work, led by Xiaofeng Qian, assistant professor of physics at Stevens and reported in the August 17 online issue of Physical Review Research, also proves for the first time that a light wave's degree of non-quantum entanglement exists in a direct and complementary relationship with its degree of polarization. As one rises, the other falls, enabling the level of entanglement to be inferred directly from the level of polarization, and vice versa. This means that hard-to-measure optical properties such as amplitudes, phases and correlations—perhaps even these of quantum wave systems—can be deduced from something a lot easier to measure: light intensity.

Continue Reading.

[novinoviarts]

My Winx OC Desa!

All this info is from my script so its not cohesive or makes a lot of sense but i will update it later to make sense.

So, as I always do when I fall or re-fall into a fandom is create an oc that has lore that intertwines with some canon. 

Some. The lore is so messed up in winx anyway it doesn’t really matter. Honestly, I could make a random claim about some piece of lore or magic or whatever and I bet you there's a 50% chance it's actually real.

So let's get the backstory out of the way:

Desa was the younger sister of Scarlette, The fairy of Red. Scarlette was a member of The Rainbows, (creative i know) whose members were Her, Amber, Marigold, Forest, Celeste, Indi, and Violet. Each name is a shade of the respective ROYGBIV although I cheated with the last two. 

This group of fairies is responsible for all the colour in the world, Desa in particular would reflect that colour, her name being a shortened variation of Iridescent.

If any of the Rainbows or Desa were to die no heir, there is no colour. Objectively Desa would be the most important, as without her the colour could not spread at all. While a biological heir will only access their powers once their predecessor dies, the power can be passed onto another, non-direct heir through a very long ritual.

One of The Rainbows, unsure of who but not Scarlette, found a ritual that would guarantee all 7 of them eternal life. The key is word is “seven”, and it would require to strip Desa of not only her powers but her life force.

Once Scarlette became aware of this plan, she pretended to go along with it, as she didn’t know who in her group was aware of the plan, and who would oppose it.

When the group began the process of creating the rainbow as they usually did, the ritual began, and Scarlette made her move. Instead of funneling Desa’s lifeforce and magic into themselves, she funneled all of theirs into her.

It corrupted the rainbows, turning them into monsters that fled to all corners of the magical realm, and left her a sad, terrified, and very lonely fairy.

Scarlette made sure this was a public Rainbow, that all who had gathered would know it was Scarlettes fault, not her baby sister that she had already failed to protect.

Desa, now all powerful and immortal, was all alone.

So, if we get to season 1 episode 1, she would be around years old.

Desa, on most days, is fine. In the earlier years after all the magic was funneled into her, not so much. She was prone to magical outburst and general instability, and often found it feeling like her skin was stretched to tight and her bones rattle and her headaches-

It was a rough few decades until she was able to regulate it.

This has left her with a drawback that if she uses any other fairy form besides her most basic form, she can be left bedridden for days, if not weeks on a particularly bad run.

If she were to have a season, it would be about the winx finding and purifying The Rainbows, and them earning a Prismix form, one of each correlating with red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. Not sure where this would slip in between what season, but there it is.

Her “winx” form is the one she uses as it's the one with the least amount of drawbacks. Desa is basically a few steps away from being a god, but her body can’t handle it, and the stronger fairy form she uses, the worse and longer the drawbacks.

Her prismix form, which i am working on, has enough power to be realm ending. There's a very real chance that if she uses it, it could destroy her, regardless of her immortality. 

The season would end with all The Rainbows being saved, and some of Desa’s power being returned to them, although she still would retain most of them. In the season finale she would use her Prismix form to beat the main villain of the season, would barely survive, and then would go a loooong, well overdue vacation with her husband, appearing in later seasons as cameos and postcards she would send to Faragonda. 

Also, I ship her with a character I may or may not have had a crush on as a kid. And maybe, I found out that in the comics, he has a girlfriend. Something I didn't find out until writing this script. So yeah, in the cartoon version only they are married.

Personality wise: She is a bit on the motherly side, concerned about these 16 year olds being thrown into awful and dangerous situations over and over again. Also think of Rarity from mlp, and she is an actress, a model, anything she can do to maybe feel a little more put together. Desa has a lot of trauma from The Rainbow and this version of Desa is, and i'm hesitant to use this word, better? This is post-trauma, post-therapy, post-finally coming to terms with everything. She isn’t 100%, but more like 75%, 85% better? There are bad days, there always will be, but they’re less frequent.

Headcanon but also possibly canon that a fairies age is dependent on how often they use their final fairy forms. The less they use that form, the more they age. They still age in their base form, but stop once they reach enchantix, so long as they transform. In Desa’s case, even if she never transformed again, she doesn’t age.

She can sometimes be a little out of touch? Being alive for so long and so many trends coming and going that she loses track of what's relevant. She’s stopped caring but she might say outdated slang so that would be a humorous thing?

Anyway, now that all the lore is out of the way, time for the design details as I draw her in my style!

Desa was born with black hair, but the ritual that she was forced into to become the Fairy of Iridescence turned it white. I wanted to give her a bit of a regal-ish style, and wanted her to be someone who was confident, and give her a risque top, something that if it were in the actual show would just be a crop top but shows a little more in this art. Her jacket is supposed to be one of those semi-clear ones with a stained glass pattern. I couldn’t quite get it to look the way i wanted to and if-

-as i have a bad habit of creating oc’s drawing them once and then never again-

-I draw her again, I will try it again, with hopefully better results. Her “Winx” form wings are supposed to be stained glass like, with light filtering through to cast colorful shadows or something.

[moodymisty]

On the topic of space marines and sexual desire: While I agree with what you said. I do have to add that hormones don’t always equal desire. And while I get that the people we’re talking about are genetically engineered supersoldiers, there were some studies done that said there wasn’t a direct correlation between the two.

Also asexual and aromantic people exist, and I dont see why the Emperor (well known fan of messing with peoples minds+bodies) wouldn’t want to use that to his advantage. Since being acearo usually happens from a mix of genetic factors and the environment the person was raised in, and the process of becoming a space marine is all about changing those two things in a child. Also not to mention how space marines are made by adding in/taking away stuff from their brains, so I don’t see why some lobotomy-adjacent procedures can’t happen. Like yeah kid we got rid of the part of the brain that makes you horny, but don’t worry, cause now you’ll feel somewhat similar emotions when you kill someone in cold blood!

And I think the reason why I enjoy the lore of most space marines not being able to feel romantic/sexual attraction (other than the trope of a big tough guy in armour getting shy at the smallest bit of affection) is the inherent tragedy of it all. Sex and romance are a pretty big part of most people’s lives, every culture and every time period will write grandiose love stories or draw porn or make jokes about fucking someone’s mom. It’s a huge part of the human experience. People will set life goals on things like having sex for the first time or getting married to a person they love. Even cave paintings from hundreds of thousands of years ago featured stuff about sex and romance. But due to space marines being, well, space marines. They’ll never be able to experience that. Because falling in love means that the space marine’s loyalty now lies elsewhere. And if the space marine in question falls in love with someone, someone mortal, someone who has a life outside of constant battle, who has a family that cherishes them and would never demand them to die on the battlefield in some twisted cultlike form of “respecting your elders”. Then that space marine might develop standards, and we wouldn’t want that would we?

Of course not. We want a killing machine that’s only loyal to his family, to his father, to the Emperor. We want someone who’s an oversized attack dog, running into mortal danger because of his unquestioning loyalty, because he’s got no one else, because no one else would love him, because we made sure he can’t love anyone else. And even if he could, if his conditioning didn’t fully take, if some part of his brain grew back, if chaos somehow helped; then you’d be left with someone whose wires are so deeply crossed that it’s concerning. He doesn’t know how to be gentle or how to be normal about your relationship. He’d either be hyper possessive of you or he’d be “lending” you to his brothers like you’re some kind of object. If you try to break up with him he’d wail and scream as if you just died, because in his family the only way you can leave is through death. He’s too loud, too clingy, he’s got no control over his emotions and he gets horny every time he imagines you getting wounded in battle. Overall: he loves you very much, but it’s super toxic.

In conclusion. While sex can work as a good narrative tool in a grimdark setting, I feel that asexuality can also be a pretty good one too :)

I never meant to diminish aroace people by talking about hormones (which I do agree that hormones don’t always equal sex drive), I was only adding my own two cents about what the og post was already talking about.

I enjoy the lack of sex and romance in 40k as a way of getting away of a lot of the super forced hetero content that is in everything (my bookshelves are mostly horror and sci fi because of it), but I’m also not aroace, so there’s only so much I can relate to/talk about in that regard. So as with most things in the internet, if I’m not part of that community I’m just gonna not mention it and shut up xD

I enjoyed reading your HCs anon, I hope I didn’t step on your toes by accident

[mariacallous]

Practitioners of American statecraft have always used our leverage—positive and negative—to alter the behavior of others. For President Donald Trump, applying pressure on other countries and groups in order to advance U.S. interests comes very naturally. He’s done so with the Houthis in Yemen to stop their attacks on international shipping and on Israel—objectives that have not yet been achieved. The president is also applying U.S. leverage in a bid to end the war in Ukraine—which he’s described as a major priority. The problem is, so far Trump has been unwilling to apply the pressure evenly.

With Ukraine, Trump insisted on a deal in which the United States would gain access on very favorable terms to Ukraine’s rare-earth minerals. He actually suspended military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine. That suspension both limited Ukraine’s means to defend itself against Russian missiles and to resist Russian offensives in the areas around Kursk, where Ukrainian forces had penetrated and held Russian territory. The Institute for the Study of War pointed out that there was a “noteworthy” correlation between the suspension of U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine and the start of Russia’s collapse of the Ukrainian Kursk salient.

Pressuring the weaker party in a conflict, especially one that depended on our assistance, can work. Although Ukraine initially resisted a temporary cease-fire without security assurances, it gave in and accepted the Trump administration’s proposal. In return, the administration resumed military and intelligence assistance.

But pressuring the stronger party, the Russians, so far appears to be a different matter with Trump. By all appearances, Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to avoid saying no to Trump. But not saying no is not the same as saying yes. Putin said in principle a cease-fire is a good thing, but he then posed questions and conditions, including that the military assistance to Ukraine needed to stop and the Ukrainians could not rebuild their military—while, of course, no such conditions would apply to the Russians.

By getting Ukraine to accept the temporary cease-fire, Trump did, in the words of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, “put the ball” in Russia’s court. That was a form of putting subtle pressure on Putin and reflected a smart framing of the issue. Framing of issues so everyone has to respond to the United States is an important tool of statecraft and required Putin to figure out a way forward without alienating Trump. In response, Putin adopted the posture of saying “yes, but”—meaning he did not agree to the cease-fire but was willing for the two sides to halt attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure and end attacks in the Black Sea.

Whether this was a Russian concession is debatable at best. Before being willing to implement the truce in the Black Sea, the Russians want a series of sanctions lifted, including international banking restrictions with Russia reconnected to SWIFT—the global financial payment system. Even if Putin does move ahead with the deal, Russia would continue its military advance—retaking the Russian areas that Ukraine had captured—even as it gains an end to Ukrainian attacks on its oil infrastructure, which have been taking a toll.

If Trump truly wants to broker a peace agreement, at some point he must be prepared to impose a real price on Putin for saying no. The U.S. president did threaten this week to impose secondary tariffs on buyers of Russian oil if Putin blocks his bid to end the war in Ukraine. The tariffs, which Trump said could be as high as 50 percent, would hurt not just Russia but also its main oil customers, China and India.

Still, Trump has not been willing to put more direct, overt pressure on Putin to date. While it may be easier for Trump to exert leverage on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, make no mistake, the United States has the ability to apply it to Putin. Russia has real vulnerabilities: It has suffered more than 700,000 dead and wounded, and, according to some estimates, it has lost a significant number of its armored forces; its economy is experiencing 21 percent interest rates and double-digit inflation; it has experienced a terrible brain drain; and its dependency on North Korean soldiers and Iranian drones and missiles is hardly a sign of strength. Putin’s ability to sustain the war for another year or two is not so clear—particularly if he understands from Trump that the consequence of a rejection is that the United States will commit to meeting Ukraine’s military and economic needs. The more Ukraine’s war effort is sustainable, the less time is on Putin’s side.

Put simply, if Trump wants to end the war, he will need to play hardball with Putin—and he has the means to do so. But Putin must believe it. He must believe that Trump is willing to continue to provide real support to Ukraine as a response to Putin’s unwillingness to make any meaningful concessions. In fact, he must believe that Trump will actually ratchet up what we provide to Ukraine. That is not a message Trump has sent to date, instead speaking only of possible sanctions on Russia—something that, at this point, is too vague to be compelling to Putin. But greater military backing for Ukraine coupled with Trump signaling that he will support using the $300 billion in frozen Russian assets for the Ukrainian economy and reconstruction could make a difference. Of course, Trump can also offer inducements—something that he seems prone to do with Putin. But in a case like this, where the stakes are high for Putin, it is what he stands to lose that will convince him that he needs to look for a way out.

Until now, Putin has not felt the need to do so. The irony is that Trump—if he is willing to apply real pressure and let Putin know our support for Ukraine will not change so long as he rejects an acceptable outcome—could actually be the one to produce an end to the war. It is important for Trump to have a clear picture of an acceptable or defensible peace—one in which, for example, Ukrainian sovereignty is not compromised, Kyiv can become a member of the European Union, the territorial adjustments are modest or the result of an internationally run referendum, and peacekeepers in Ukraine make the security assurances real. (And, should Russia violate any deal, NATO membership for Ukraine could be the response.) Coupled with that, Trump could offer Putin a lifting of the sanctions, a restoration of U.S. business in Russia, the unfreezing of Russian assets, adjustments to the size and location of NATO strike forces, etc.

In other words, Trump can use American leverage—combined with the Europeans, because they control the bulk of the frozen Russian assets—to achieve his objective of ending the war. He can marry U.S. objectives with U.S. means. For that to happen, for him to successfully conduct statecraft, he will have to apply our leverage not only to the weaker party but the stronger one as well.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

X-ray echoes reveal 3D structure of molecular clouds in our galaxy's center

Researchers from the University of Connecticut have created the first 3D maps of star-forming gas clouds in one of the most extreme environments in our galaxy, and have studied previous flaring events from our galaxy's supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*).

The center of the Milky Way is an extreme environment where gas temperatures, densities, and turbulence are about 10 times higher than the rest of the galaxy. In this central region, inflowing gas can sometimes find its way into the supermassive black hole at the very center.

When Sgr A* feeds on this material, it emits X-ray flares that propagate outwards in all directions. These flares interact with molecular clouds—gas clouds where stars form—in our galaxy's center through the process of fluorescence. As the X-ray light travels, it illuminates slices of the molecular clouds over time, like an X-ray scan.

University of Connecticut Physics Researcher Danya Alboslani '24 (CLAS) and postdoctoral researcher Samantha Brunker, part of the Milky Way Laboratory led by Associate Professor of Physics Cara Battersby, developed a new X-ray tomography method to make 3D maps of two galactic center molecular clouds dubbed the "Stone" and the "Sticks" clouds. These maps are the first ever renderings of galactic center molecular clouds in three spatial dimensions.

Alboslani detailed this research in her presentation "X-ray echoes from Sgr A* reveal the 3D structure of molecular clouds in the Galactic Center" at the 245th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in National Harbor, Maryland on January 14. Two manuscripts have been submitted to AAS Journals and are available on the arXiv preprint server.

"We can study processes in the Milky Way's Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) and use our findings to learn about other extreme environments. While many distant galaxies have similar environments, they are too far away to study in detail. By learning more about our own galaxy, we also learn about these distant galaxies that cannot be resolved with today's telescopes," says Alboslani.

Alboslani explains that Sgr A* has gone through periods of intense activity in the past when it emitted X-ray flares. We did not have X-ray telescopes when those X-ray flares first came to Earth, however the X-ray light interacted with molecular clouds in the CMZ.

"The cloud absorbs the X-rays that are coming from Sgr A* then re-emits X-rays in all directions. Some of these X-rays are coming towards us, and there is this very specific energy level, the 6.4 electron volt neutral iron line, that has been found to correlate with the dense parts of molecular gas," says Alboslani.

"If you imagine a black hole in the center producing these X-rays which radiate outwards and eventually interact with a molecular cloud in the CMZ, over time, it will highlight different parts of the cloud, so what we're seeing is a scan of the cloud."

Since the galactic center is filled with large amounts of dust, the visible light may be obscured, but the X-rays emitted by Sgr A* during intense accretion events can be seen.

Alboslani's paper focuses on the Stone cloud, while Brunker's paper studies the Sticks cloud. "The overall morphological agreement, and in particular, the association of the densest regions in both X-ray and molecular line data is striking and is the first time it has been shown on such a small scale," says Brunker.

Alboslani and Brunker used data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory spanning two decades to create their 3D models of the Stone and Sticks molecular clouds. Battersby explains that while we typically only see two spatial dimensions of objects in space, the X-ray tomography method allows us to measure the third dimension of the cloud because we see the X-rays illuminate individual slices of the cloud over time.

"We can use the time delay between illuminations to calculate the third spatial dimension because X-rays travel at the speed of light," Battersby explains.

Alboslani and Brunker also used data from the Submillimeter Array and Herschel Space Observatory to compare the structures seen in the X-ray echoes to those seen in other wavelengths. Because X-ray data is not collected continuously, there are some structures seen in submillimeter wavelengths that are not seen in X-rays. However, they use these "missing" structures to constrain the duration of the X-ray flare event illuminating the Stone cloud.

"We can estimate the sizes of the molecular structures that we do not see in the X-ray," says Brunker, "and from there we can place constraints on the duration of the X-ray flare by modeling what we would be able to observe for a range of flare lengths. The model that reproduced observations with similar sized 'missing structures' indicated that the X-ray flare couldn't have been much longer than 4–5 months."

Pioneering approaches like this method to model molecular clouds in 3D are helping researchers glean more information about the conditions that lead to star formation.

"While we learn a lot about molecular clouds from data collected in 2D, the added third dimension allows for a more detailed understanding of the physics of how new stars are born," says Battersby. "Additionally, these observations place key constraints on the global geometry of our galaxy's center as well as the past flaring activity of Sgr A*, central open questions in modern astrophysics."

Another exciting aspect of this work is that it presents a new way to use archival data, says Alboslani. "New instruments and telescopes launched in the future will provide astronomers with higher resolution, allowing us to study objects in more detail. However, we can also look back in time and study objects over longer periods to extract new information-which is what this project does."

TOP IMAGE: A schematic showing how the X-ray flares from our supermassive black hole, Sgr A, propagate outwards, interact with and re-emit light from molecular clouds and then travels to Earth. The X-rays illuminate slices of the molecular cloud over time. By combining observations over decades, astronomers can use these X-ray echoes to construct 3D maps of molecular clouds, constrain the past flaring history of Sgr A, and better understand the overall geometry of our galaxy’s center. Credit: S. Brunker/UConn

LOWER IMAGE: Molecular gas data from the Submillimeter Array in the background grayscale with the X-ray emission from 2010 to 2017 shown in the colored contours. There is good overall morphological agreement, with strikingly good correlation for small-scale structures in years 2013, 2015, and 2016 especially. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UConn/S. Brunker et al.; radio: ASIAA/SAO/SMA

[dailyanarchistposts]

Final Objectives: Social Revolution and Libertarian Socialism

We carry a new world in our hearts. Buenaventura Durruti

The political and social project of anarchism is a free and anti-authoritarian society that conserves freedom, equality and solidarity between all its members. Nestor Makhno

But the universal revolution is the social revolution, it is the simultaneous revolution of the people of the fields and the cities. It is this that it is necessary to organise – because without preparatory organisation, the strongest elements are impotent and void. Mikhail Bakunin

Having drawn a brief diagnosis of the current society of domination and exploitation, we affirm two objectives that we understand as final: the social revolution [55] and libertarian socialism. The objective of the social revolution is to destroy the society of exploitation and domination. Libertarian socialism is that which gives constructive meaning to the social revolution. Together, the destruction – as a concept of negation – and the construction – as a concept of proposition – constitute the possible and effective social transformation we propose. “There is no revolution without profound and passionate destruction, salvaging and fruitful destruction, because from it, and only by it, are new worlds created and born.” [56] However, destruction alone is not enough, since “no one can wish to destroy without having at least a remote idea, real or false, of the order of things that should, in their opinion, replace that which currently exists” [57].

The social revolution is one of the possible outcomes of the class struggle and consists of the violent alteration of the established social order, and is considered by us the only way to put an end to domination and exploitation. It differs from the political revolutions of the Jacobins and Leninists by supporting the alteration of the “order” not just with a political change, through the state, exchanging one directing minority for another. As we emphasised earlier the state, for us, is not a means for the emancipation of the exploited classes, nor should it be removed from the hands of the capitalists, through revolutionary means, by a supposed vanguard that claims to act on behalf of the proletariat. A political revolution such as the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution, which does not terminate the state in order to produce equality in its midst, becomes a bourgeois revolution and ends, “unfailingly, in a new exploitation, wiser and more hypocritical, perhaps, but that does not lessen the oppression of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie” [58].

Unlike political revolution, social revolution is accomplished by the people of the cities and countryside who bring the class struggle and its correlation of forces with capitalism and the state to the limit, by means of popular organisation. Social revolution occurs when the social force developed in the heart of the popular organisation is greater than that of capitalism and the state and, put into practice, implants structures that support self-management and federalism; wiping out private property and the state and giving rise to a society of complete freedom and equality. It is the social revolution that will bring popular emancipation, as repeatedly stated by Bakunin:

It is precisely this old system of organisation by force that the social revolution must end, returning complete freedom to the masses, to the communes, to the associations, to individuals themselves and destroying, once and for all, the historical cause of all violence, domination and the very existence of the state [...] [The social revolution is] the abolition of all exploitation and political oppression, juridical or administrative and governmental, including the abolition of all classes by means of the economic levelling of all wealth [...]. [59]

The social revolution is not a “grand night” on which the people revolt, spontaneously, and produce a new society. It is undeniable that the class struggle produces a series of uprisings or even insurrections, spontaneous events of great importance. However, if there is no intense and hard prior organisational work these episodes will pass, sometimes with gains for the exploited classes, but they will not manage to overthrow capitalism and the state, nor give body to a new society. The construction of the popular organisation will develop the spirit of struggle and organisation in the exploited classes, seeking the accumulation of social force and incorporating within it the means to struggle in accordance with the society that we wish to build. Thus, we do not understand the social revolution as simple evolution nor as an obligatory consequence of the contradictions of capitalism, but as an episode that marks the rupture and is determined by the will of the organised exploited classes.

We emphasise that in this revolutionary process it is necessary to use violence, because we do not believe that the expropriation of the capitalists or even the destruction of the state can be accomplished without the ruling class promoting violence. In fact, the system in which we live is already a system based on violence for its maintenance, and its exacerbation during revolutionary moments only justifies the use of violence on the part of revolutionaries, primarily as a response to the violence suffered in the past and present. “Violence is only justifiable when it is necessary in order to defend oneself or others against violence.” [60] The ruling class will not accept the changes imposed on it at the moment of the realisation of the social revolution. So it is necessary to know that, although we are neither promoters nor lovers of violence, it will be necessary for the blow that we intend to deliver against this whole system of domination and exploitation.

Since revolution, by force of circumstance, is a violent act it tends to develop the spirit of violence rather than destroy it. But the revolution conducted as conceived by anarchists is the least violent possible; it seeks to stop all violence as soon as the need to oppose, by force, the material force of the government and the bourgeoisie ceases. The anarchist ideal is to have a society in which the violence factor would have completely disappeared and this ideal serves to halt, correct and destroy this spirit of violence that the revolution, as a material act, would have the tendency to develop. [61]

The violent action of the social revolution must, at the same time as the expropriation of the capitalists immediately destroy the state, giving place to self-managed and federated structures, tried and tested within the popular organisation. Therefore, the authoritarian conception of “socialism” as an interim period in which a dictatorship is established within the state is, for us, nothing but another way to continue the exploitation of the people and must be rejected absolutely, under any circumstance.

As the social revolution must not be made only by the anarchists, it is important that we be fully inserted in the processes of class struggle in order to be able to orient the revolution towards libertarian socialism. This is because the experiences of the revolutions of the twentieth century show us that if this does not happen, the authoritarians will decimate emancipatory experiences in order to occupy the state, ending the possibility of self-management and federalism, and constituting more tyrannical regimes than the previous ones. For this reason the revolution is a risk because, if the anarchists are not sufficiently inserted to be able to give it the desired direction, they will work in order that another regime of domination and exploitation be implanted. A culture of self-management and federalism should already be well developed in the class struggles so that the people, at the revolutionary moment, do not allow themselves to be oppressed by authoritarian opportunists; and this will be through class-based practices of autonomy, combativeness, direct action and direct democracy. The more these values exist in the popular organisation, the less will be the possibility for constituting new tyrannies.

As much as we reject completely the conception of Marxist “socialism”, of dictatorship in the state, it is undeniable that there would be a post-revolutionary moment of adaptation towards libertarian socialism. This may still be a time of many conflicts, and so must rely on the specific anarchist organisations – which will only merge with the social organisations at a later period of the full development of libertarian socialism, when the threat of counter-revolution has passed and libertarian socialism is in full operation.

When we treat our conception of social revolution, or even when we think of a possible future society, we want to make clear that we do not seek to determine beforehand, absolutely, how the revolutionary process or even libertarian socialism will occur. We know that there is no way to predict when this transformation will take place, and therefore any reflections must always consider this aspect of strategic projection of future possibilities from the point of possibilities, of references, and not of absolute certainties. The characteristics of the revolutionary process depend on when and where it occurs.

Thus, the reflections explicit here about the social revolution, and especially about libertarian socialism should not be understood as formulas or predictions of what will necessarily happen. We work with the possibilities that come with our theoretical expectations. However, if on the one hand we do not want to be too assertive, on the other we think discussions about the future society and the possible functioning of libertarian socialism are important. On this point, we believe that practical revolutionary experiences have much to teach us.

To advocate libertarian socialism as a proposed future society implies, for us, relating two inseparable concepts when it comes to a political project. On the one hand socialism, a system based on social, political and economic equality, and on the other hand, freedom. For us, “socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality” [62], a system that degenerates into authoritarian regimes, as we have known well throughout the twentieth century. At the same time, “freedom without socialism is privilege, injustice” [63], a way of continuing domination and exploitation in a society of class and authoritarian hierarchies. Therefore, a project for a future society that promotes equality and freedom can only be, for us, libertarian socialism, which takes shape in the practices of self-management and federalism.

Despite being terms that have arisen at different times [64], self-management and federalism are today necessarily linked and should be understood as complementary concepts. Self-management is a form of management, a model of organisation in which decisions are made by the workers themselves, to the extent by which they are affected by them either in their workplaces or the communities where they live. Federalism is a method of linking self-managed structures, enabling decision-making on a large scale. Contemporary interpretations of self-management and federalism separate the first as the economic and the second as the political system of libertarian socialism. We do not understand the separation between the economic and the political in this way when it comes to self-management and federalism.

The self-managed and federalist society of libertarian socialism has as one of its goals the alienation and ending of the relations of domination and exploitation of labour. The critique of work today, including by libertarians, is for us a critique of work within capitalism and not a critique of work as such. Under libertarian socialism free labour should be a means of liberation for workers who, through self-management, will bring back to themselves the wealth that they have been usurped of by capitalist private ownership. Thus, the socialisation of labour, of the products of labour, the means of production, the forms, rhythms and tempos of work would contribute to the creation of a model of work as the “intelligent action of men in society with the preconceived end of personal satisfaction” [65]. In the new society all those that are able to would need to work, there no longer being unemployment, and the work would be able to be performed in accordance with personal ability and disposition. People will no longer be obliged to accept anything under threat of experiencing want and not attaining their minimum living conditions. Children, the elderly and those unable to work will be assured a dignified life without depravation, all their needs being met. For the most tedious tasks or those perceived as unpleasant, in some cases, there could be rotations or alternations. Even in the case of the carrying out of production, where the co-ordination of some specialists is needed, rotations in function and a commitment to the training of other workers with similar skills will also be necessary for more complex tasks.

Under libertarian socialism, it will no longer be possible to have power or higher remuneration by reason of being the owner of one or more means of production. This is because private property would have been abolished, giving place to the collective ownership of the means of production, which can be thought of in two ways: 1.) no one would effectively be the owner and the means of production belong to the collectivity as a whole, or 2.) all the members of the collectivity will be owners of a portion of the means of production, in exactly the same proportions as the others. “The means of production being the collective work of humanity, they have to go back to the human collectivity from which they came.” [66] In a system of collective ownership; rights, responsibilities, wages and wealth no longer have a relation with private property and the old class relations, based on private property, must also disappear. Libertarian socialism is, therefore, a classless society. The ruling class will no longer exist and the whole system of inequality, domination and exploitation will have disappeared.

In the cities there are different types of workers. Firstly, there are those that perform activities with simple tools, with almost no division of labour in which production can be performed, often, by just one worker. For this type of worker collective work is not a necessity, but it is desirable since it saves time and labour, besides helping a worker to enhance themselves with the skills of others. Then, there are other workers who perform their activities collectively, with relatively simple tools and machines in small companies or factories. Finally, a third category of workers of large companies and industries in which the division of labour is enormous, structured to produce on a large scale with high technology and large capital investments. For the latter two categories collective work is absolutely necessary due to the nature of the work itself, since all the technology, machinery and tooling must be collective. Thus,

every workshop, every factory will therefore organise itself into an association of workers, which will be free for them to organise in the way they see fit, provided individual rights are guaranteed and that the principles of equality and justice are put into practice. [...] Wherever an industry needs complex equipment and collective labour, ownership should also be collective. [67]

In the country there could be two situations: that of peasants that have worked on large properties that must be collectivised in the same way as the large companies and factories; and that of peasants that would prefer to have their own slice of the land and cultivate it themselves. In this mixed economy,

[...] the main purpose of the revolution was achieved: the land has become the property of those that work it and peasants no longer work for the profit of an exploiter that lives from their suffering. With this great victory obtained the rest is of secondary importance. The peasants can, if they choose, divide the land into individual parcels and give a portion to each family. Or they could instead institute common ownership and the co-operative cultivation of the land. [68]

It is important to mention that we do not consider state ownership as collective. For us, collective ownership is self-managed by the people, and not managed by the state which, when it centralises ownership – as in the case of the USSR, for example – does nothing more than become a state employer that continues to exploit workers. But in the case of the persistence of the individual property of the peasants, of those that work the land themselves, it would be more appropriate to understand this situation not as property, but as possession. Thus, property would always be collective, and possession individual. Possession because the value of the land would be in its use, and not trade. And relations with this would be guided by the needs of the producer and no longer that of the market. Such a situation alters everything, so it is necessary to establish a new category.

There is still a fundamental question that should complement the end of private ownership on the path to equality, and that is the end of inheritance with the goal of preventing any kind of accumulation that has consequences on the starting point early on in one’s life. So, true equality is a goal, since

while inheritance exists there will be hereditary economic inequality; not the natural inequality of individuals but the artificial inequality of classes, and this will always be necessarily translated into the hereditary inequality of development and of the culture of the intelligencia, and will continue to be the source of the consecration of all political and social inequalities. [69]

The economy of libertarian socialism is conducted by workers and consumers. The workers create the social product and the consumers enjoy it. In these two functions, mediated by distribution, the people are responsible for economic and political life, having to decide what to produce, and the consumers what to consume. The local structures of libertarian socialism in which workers and consumers organise themselves are the workers’ and consumers’ councils.

Councils are social bodies, vehicles through which the people express their political and economic preferences and exercise self-management and federalism. In them daily political and economic activities are decided and carried out.

Each workplace will be able to be managed by a workers’ council in which all workers have the same rights, the same responsibilities and decide its management equally, since there is no hierarchy. If necessary smaller councils could be formed by staff, teams, small divisions or even larger councils for big divisions, work locations or industries. In these councils the workers and others involved in the production process make all the decisions.

Consumers can organise themselves into consumers’ councils that occur within the communities. Thus individuals are organised in families, these into block and then neighbourhood committees, and so on. These councils would be responsible for pointing out to the producers what they would like to consume, as we believe that it is need that must guide production, and not vice versa.

The workers’ council organises production and the consumers’ council organises consumption. Obviously, this explanation aims to be instructive on the reality and problems that are likely to mobilise the future self-managed society; but, once in this new context, the consumers will also be the workers themselves, and the task of the councils will therefore occur more easily, since profit will no longer be the imperative in the relations of production.

Under libertarian socialism the workers’ councils might still not have eliminated the separation between manual and intellectual work, and this should be done as soon as possible. The argument which holds that both manual and intellectual work are important, and that, therefore, they should be equally recognised and rewarded is not true. Many tasks, primarily those involving manual labour are completely unpleasant, harsh and alienating, and it is not fair that some workers are fully occupied with them, while others are dedicated to performing enjoyable, pleasurable, stimulating and intellectual tasks. If this happens then certainly the class system will be rebuilt, no longer based on private property, but on a class of intellectuals that will command, and another of manual workers that will execute the commands.

Seeking to end this separation the workers’ councils could have a balanced set of tasks for each worker, which would be equivalent for all. Thus, each worker will be responsible for some pleasant and stimulating tasks, that involve intellectual work, and other harsher and more alienating tasks, that involve manual labour. This does not mean that everyone will be doing everything at the same time, but that everyone performs a set of tasks that, when compared, have the same level of intellectual and manual labour. In practice this process would function, for example, with a worker in a school that performs the task of a teacher for some of the time, but also that of the cleaner. Or someone that works in industrial research part of the time, and the rest of the time helping with the manual labour of production. Another person could work the whole time in a job that involves some manual and intellectual activities.

Obviously the scheme is simplified, but the idea is that all the workers of each council have the same level of manual and intellectual work, according to a ratio of time devoted to the execution of tasks and the level of these tasks (manual and intellectual labour). It is important that the councils also have between them equivalent levels of manual and intellectual work, so that a worker from one council has a balanced set of tasks similar to that of another. If eventually there are only manual tasks in a given council, then the worker must work in more than one council.

That is, both internally as well as between the councils one should seek an equivalent level of manual and intellectual labour in the set performed by each worker, which may have one, two or many other tasks. This would obviously mean a decline in productivity, but we shall see later how other elements of the future society would compensate for this.

The goal is not to eliminate the division of labour, but to ensure that people should take responsibility for a sensible sequence of tasks for which, most of the time, they have been properly trained and that no one enjoys constant benefits, in terms of effects of the training for their work. [...] Everyone has a set of tasks that together make up their job, so that the full implication of the entire set of tasks is, on average, like all the implications for the enabling of all other works. [...] Every worker has a job. Every job has many tasks. The tasks are adjusted to the workers and vice versa. [70]

The goal in libertarian socialist remuneration is that it be guided by the communist principle “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”. However, we understand that to implement this principle libertarian socialism should already be in full function, with production in abundance. Until this is possible, remuneration can be done according to work, or effort – this being understood as personal sacrifice for the collective benefit. Remuneration by labour or effort would mean that everyone that has a balanced set of tasks would receive the same and could choose how to spend it. Some would prefer to acquire a thing or two, others would prefer to invest in leisure, free time, less stressful work etc. A model that is closer to the classic collectivism advocated by the federalists who worked in the IWA of the nineteenth century.

For us, therefore, it would be a case of functioning collectivism, using the maxim “from each according to their ability, to each according to their labour”, and, at the moment in which it becomes possible apply the communist principle, giving “to each according to their need”. In fact this “becomes a secondary issue, since the question of property has been resolved and there are no longer capitalists that appropriate the labour of the masses” [71].

The market would be abolished and in its place put the self-managed planning system, with pricing being done between the workers’ and consumers’ councils, along with their federations and associations which would facilitate this interaction. This planning model differs from the authoritarian form where states plan the economies in the “socialist” countries. It would enable the workers and consumers themselves to decide completely on distribution, wiping out the problem of competition.

For all this to work we believe the role played by technology to be fundamental. Unlike some libertarian tendencies which believe that technology contains in itself the germ of domination, we believe that without it there is no possibility for the development of libertarian socialism. With the advent of technology and it being used in favour of labour, not capital, there would surely be a gain in productivity and consequently a significant reduction in the labour time of people, who could use this time for other activities. These technologies could also be regarded as “the marvellous application of science in production, [...] whose mission it is to emancipate the worker, relieving human labour [and constituting] a progress of which civilised man is justly proud” [72]. Obviously, we understand that there are good and bad technologies and that, therefore, society

need not reject advanced technologies on a large scale, but shift them, really necessitating further development of technology [in agreement] with ecological principles, which will contribute to a new harmonisation of society and the natural world. [73]

This concern with using technology that is in accordance with the environment should be considered in all spheres of the future society, meeting the demands of a social ecology.

To defend this ecological consciousness does not mean that human beings would be constrained by a system of natural laws, since man is part of nature and as such should not be subjected to it. Obviously we also do not hold that the relationship of domination between human beings and nature should continue. On the contrary, it must cease as soon as possible and give way to an egalitarian relationship between humans and nature.

Ecological consciousness should be developed from the time of struggles that precede the revolutionary rupture and in the future society itself, based on the relations of mutual aid theorised by Kropotkin. This development could have as a principle reference the premise that we, human beings, are an integral part of nature “which becomes consciousness of itself”, as Reclus put it.

Human beings differ from other natural elements and other species by establishing social relations with everything surrounding them, because they possess the capacity to think about themselves, to make theories about reality, and with these aptitudes have managed to drastically modify the environmental setting that is their surroundings. In this way the capitalist system, by the very reason of its existence, means that the capitalists exploit natural resources in a way in which these cannot regenerate themselves at their natural rate. In the future society this will no longer be able to happen. The development of human beings brought about by libertarian socialism should stress the importance of the relations of mutual aid between species and nature.

It is worth emphasising that our ecological proposals differ radically from “conservationism” and “primitivism”. From the former, because this means the maintenance of class society and the complete commodification of nature. From the latter, because we consider the “anti-civilisation” proposal a complete absurdity, seeking a romantic return to a distant past or, even worse, a kind of suicide of all humanity and a negation of all our contributions to the maintenance and well-being of nature.

We believe that a society that completely respects the principles of social ecology will only be possible at the moment in which capitalism and the state give way to libertarian socialism. Therefore, with libertarian socialism we hope to harmonise society and the environment again, considering that “if we were not capable of founding an ecological society it is, besides the disastrous consequences that would result therefrom, our moral legitimacy that would be at stake” [74].

With the use of technology in favour of workers and its development; with the end of capitalist exploitation and the fruits of labour going completely to the workers; with full employment in place workers will have more time that could be spent in three ways. First, with the natural loss of productivity that the balanced set of tasks will cause, seeing that it will “de-specialise” labour a bit. Second, with political decisions, which will demand time for discussions and deliberations that would have to be made in the self-managed workplace and community. Finally, with the remaining time – and we think that with these changes time off will be much greater than that of today – everyone will be able to choose what to do: rest, leisure, education, culture etc.

Decisions under self-management do not have to obey a specific model. The workers’ and consumers’ councils can choose the best application of direct democracy, horizontal discussions and deliberations being fundamental, with the clear exposition of ideas and the discussion of questions presented. Clearly, consensus should not be used in the majority of decisions, since it is very inefficient – especially if we think about decisions on a large scale – besides giving a lot of power to isolated agents that could block consensus or have a lot of impact on a decision in which they are a minority. Questions can be decided on by vote, after due debate, it being variable as to whether who wins is who has 50% +1 of the votes, or if who wins is who has 2/3 of the votes, and so on. We must bear in mind that the decision-making process is a means and not an end in itself and, therefore, we also have to concern ourselves with agility in this process.

In the decision-making process self-management and federalism imply direct democracy with the participation of everyone, collective decisions, delegation with imperative mandate, rotation and recallability of functions, access to information and equal decision-making power. Both worker and consumer councils would use self-management as a form of management and decision-making, both in the workplaces and in the communities. Federalism would link both labour as well as the communities, allowing for decisions to be made on a large scale. “Federation, from the Latin foedus, genitive foederis, means pact, contract, treaty, convention, alliance” [75], in which those that are organised “are equally bound to one another for one or more particular objective, the burden of which falls specifically and exclusively on the delegates of the federation” [76].

The linkages within federalism would permit decision-making on a large scale, from the smallest instances of self-management to the most extensive. In the work environment federalism would link units, small divisions, large divisions, workplaces or even entire industries. In the communities federalism would link families, neighbours, blocks, neighbourhoods, cities, regions or even countries. These linkages would be performed by delegates that would articulate and discuss the positions deliberated in the councils. Delegates that would have imperative mandates, that is, they would represent the collective positions of the councils and not their own positions, as occurs under representative democracy. In addition, the delegates’ mandates would not be fixed and would be revocable at any time. Since “the federalist system is the opposite of hierarchy or administrative and governmental centralism” [77], we believe that it would be responsible for the structure that would replace the state and through which, together with the self-managed councils, politics would take place under libertarian socialism. The councils, as voluntary associations,

would take on an even greater extent in order to replace the state and all its functions. They would represent an interwoven network, composed of an infinite variety of groups and federations of all sizes and levels, local, regional, national and international, temporary or more-or-less permanent – for all possible purposes: production, consumption and exchange, communications, sanitation, education, mutual protection, defence of the region and so on; and, on the other hand, for the satisfaction of a number of increasingly scientific, artistic, literary and social needs. [78]

In this way the state and representative democracy would depart and self-management and federalism would take their place; and politics would take its proper place, which is in the midst of the people, there no longer being the separation between those that do politics and those that don’t – since under libertarian socialism it would be the members of society themselves that would realise politics on a daily basis.

Consciousness should accompany the pace of growth of struggles and be stimulated by pedagogic processes whenever possible. Besides not believing that in order to make the revolution all the people must be educated we recognise that, at the moment of the social revolution, the higher the level of consciousness of the people, the better. Increasingly, society should develop its culture in a libertarian direction and this should not only happen at the moment of the social revolution and after it; but already at the moment of struggle, of the construction and the development of the popular organisation. It is undeniable that ideology, already transformed into the culture that capitalism has introduced into popular imagination, will have to be undone bit-by-bit and this will occur through a long process of popular education. Positions such as racial and gender prejudice, patriarchy, individualism etc. will have to be combated as much as possible, both in the processes of struggle as well as at the moment of social revolution or even afterwards. Under libertarian socialism we understand that self-management and federalism will have to contribute to this process in practice. Besides this, one should invest heavily in educational and cultural activities for the whole of society, stimulating “teaching [that] should be equal in all ways for everyone; and consequently must be integral” [79], providing theoretical and practical knowledge for children and adults of both sexes.

Thus, we believe that the system of domination and exploitation of the state and capitalism will have been ended – no longer will anyone accumulate power thanks to the social force obtained by the exploitation of other people – and the new system will support itself on the pillars of social, political and economic equality and freedom. An equality that will occur with the establishment of collective ownership, self-managed councils, balanced sets of tasks, equal pay, self-managed planning, collective decisions, and the constant struggle against prejudice and discrimination. Freedom both in relation to the system of domination and exploitation, as well as in relation to what we wish to attain. A freedom that will be collective, considering each one free to the extent that all others are free; “freedom that consists of the full development of all material, intellectual and moral potential that is found in a state of latent faculty in everyone” [80]. Libertarian socialism will bring a luxury ignored by everyone: “the luxury of humanity, the happiness of the full development and freedom of each one in the equality of all” [81].

[skxrbrand]

𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐁𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞

When it comes to verbal communication, the Bloodkin are the most laconic of the daemons. Though perfectly sentient (most of the time), most Khornate Daemons are not creatures who make rousing speeches or long winded monologues. Most of their communication is nonverbal body language obvious enough that even non-khornate daemons and mortals can guess a Bloodthirsters mood and intentions at any given time.

Not that this is particularly hard to start with...

Perked Ears - The Bloodthirster's ears are moderately mobile. When perked and tilted forward, you have it's undivided attention-- for worse or better.

Flattened Ears - Offense, aggression, or much more rarely -- Fear. Ears may also flatten to avoid damage in battles.

Side-ways ears/ 'Air Plane' Ears - Confusion/Uncertainty. Uncommon and brief-- confusion usually terminates into anger and so side-ways ears flatten soon after 'airplaning'.

Head Tilt - Curiosity / Confusion. Often paired with perked ears. The Bloodthirster's teeth will be hidden / partially hidden, assuming they have lips to hide them with.

Wings Folded In / Hooked Around Self - By default, most Bloodthirsters have their wings at half-flare, so that they can utilize them quickly ('be ready so you don't have to get ready'). A Thirster with it's wings folded is calm, perhaps even off it's guard. The most 'conversational' state to encounter a Deathbringer in.

Pawing / Snorting / Tail Flicking / Growling / Flashing Fangs - All signs of, you guessed it, annoyance or aggression. More severe than flattened ears. Bloodthirsters often do not have substantial tails, so the first and last two behaviors tend to be more evident.

Staring / Steady Eye Contact - More aggression.

Stiff Tailing - Again, this is difficult behavior to spot as Bloodthirsters often do not have substantial tails. A still, non-wagging upright held tail communicates dominance / the desire to dominate to all other Daemons present. Coupled with other stiff, and enlarging behavior.

Looming - Looming is a dominance display, invading the space over another daemon and demonstrating the size difference (and suggested strength difference) between the pair of you. Height doesn't necessarily correlate with strength, but does contribute to ones intimidation factor. This is part of why Bloodthirsters can take umbrage with Greater Daemons who are bigger than them, Khornate or not.

Hackles Up - The mane of hair between the horns, running the neck, and running down the back will stand up with the design of making the daemon appear larger and more intimidating. Aggression (usually restrained), but also possible fear / alarm.

Play-Sneezing - In dogs, this is behavior to let the other dog know that they are playing / not serious in a playfight. In Bloodthirsters, this behavior is exhibited between an older Bloodthirster and a much younger one, usually a forgling, and usually after it has stepped out of line in the eyes of it's superior. It is appeasement behavior and practically unseen outside of this dynamic.

Horn Grabbing - Unlike Stiff Tailing, Horn Grabbing is a direct and unambiguous expression of the Bloodthirster's higher station over another Daemon. It is a physical invasion of another being's space as well as the grabbing and threatening of the horns which are socially important throughout all chaos factions, excepting perhaps the Tzeentchians. The Horn is grabbed and the head is wrenched to uncomfortable angle. Or completely off, depending on the Bloodthirster's mood.

Snout Wrinkling - Annoyance or disgust. When paired with growling and bared teeth, annoyance hardening into aggression. Volume is in proportion to intensity of the annoyance/aggression.

Wing Flaring - A challenge. Dominance. Aggression.

Chest Beating - Usually done with an object, such as the Bloodthirster's axe. The Daemon will clash the flat of it's axe against it's chest or perhaps another object. Could be done to express anger, confidence, exuberance.

Straightening the Back - Most Bloodthirsters have a natural hunch; in posturing situations, they may draw upon their true height and stand completely straight.

Hand on Shoulder - A physical greeting between Bloodthirsters. Most are verbal; this type of greeting suggests longstanding familiarity or particular respect from the Khornate to the recipient.

Lowering Eyes / Avoiding Eyes Contact - Submission, usually from one seasoned Bloodthirster to another, more dominant Daemon. Less obvious than the previously discussed 'sneezing', this lacks the appeasement to the other Daemon.

BONUS: Forglings can be told apart from older Bloodthirsters due to the presence of a tail, their sleeker bodies, and larger ears relative to their heads. Their ears can go through some funny stages before reaching a Tempered (Matured) State. This hazing is considered traditional among Bloodthirsters, so most grin and bear epithets such as "odd ears" "soft eared" "foldie" ect.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Since the 17th century, when Isaac Newton and Christiaan Huygens first debated the nature of light, scientists have been puzzling over whether light is best viewed as a wave or a particle -- or perhaps, at the quantum level, even both at once. Now, researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology have revealed a new connection between the two perspectives, using a 350-year-old mechanical theorem -- ordinarily used to describe the movement of large, physical objects like pendulums and planets -- to explain some of the most complex behaviors of light waves. The work, led by Xiaofeng Qian, assistant professor of physics at Stevens and reported in the August 17 online issueof Physical Review Research, also proves for the first time that a light wave's degree of non-quantum entanglement exists in a direct and complementary relationship with its degree of polarization. As one rises, the other falls, enabling the level of entanglement to be inferred directly from the level of polarization, and vice versa. This means that hard-to-measure optical properties such as amplitudes, phases and correlations -- perhaps even these of quantum wave systems -- can be deduced from something a lot easier to measure: light intensity.

Read more.

[schizoidvision]

Schizoid Dynamics: Correlations between Libidinal and Anti-Libidinal Egos and Other Psychological Theories

The schizoid personality can be better comprehended by delving into the psychological intricacies of schizoid dynamics, particularly via the conceptualization of the libidinal and anti-libidinal egos. In exploring this, it is of value to discern how this conceptualization correlates with other prevalent psychological theories on personality development and psychopathology. By shedding light on these correlations, we can derive a more nuanced comprehension of the schizoid personality, linking it to broader psychological perspectives and establishing a dialogue between different theoretical frameworks.

Schizoid Dynamics:

In the schizoid personality, the libidinal ego focuses primarily on forming relationships with their inner being/ internal self, rather than people in the external world. This is because the anti-libidinal ego serves as a regulator, constraining the external drives of the libidinal ego, and directing libidinal energy towards thoughts and ideas. In early infancy, this process served to help the individual to feel safe from threats associated with the external physical world. Over time, however, the anti-libidinal ego, turns from being a protector to becoming a stringent gatekeeper that confines the true self, preventing it from emotionally connecting with the external world even when fears of the external environment have passed. Thus, the schizoid individual is often more strongly attached to internal mental representations rather than to external physical object relations.

Correlation with Freudian Theory:

Freudian theory posits that personality development is governed by the interactions between the id, ego, and superego. The anti-libidinal ego in schizoid dynamics can be likened to Freud’s concept of the superego, which acts as a moral compass and inhibits the urges of the id. The struggle between the libidinal and anti-libidinal ego in schizoid personalities can be seen as a reflection of the conflict between the id and the superego in Freudian theory, with the libidinal ego seeking gratification and the anti-libidinal ego enforcing restraint.

Relation to Object Relations Theory:

Object Relations Theory, notably expounded by Melanie Klein, posits that early interactions with primary caregivers significantly impact personality development. In schizoid dynamics, the inability of the libidinal ego to form relations with external objects (people) may relate to disruptions or deficiencies in early object relations, leading to a reliance on internal mental representations.

Attachment Theory and Schizoid Dynamics:

Attachment Theory, developed by John Bowlby, emphasizes the importance of early attachments in shaping personality and psychopathology. Schizoid individuals often display avoidant attachment styles, wherein the anti-libidinal ego plays a pivotal role by preventing the formation of attachments, rendering the individual self-sufficient but isolated, aligning with the emphasis on internal over external relationships in schizoid dynamics.

Jungian Perspective:

From a Jungian perspective, the libidinal and anti-libidinal egos can be viewed as archetypal polarities within the psyche. The libidinal ego might represent the archetype of the Self, seeking unity and wholeness, while the anti-libidinal ego may embody the Shadow, harboring the repressed and denied aspects of the personality. The schizoid dynamic between these two entities may reflect the individuation process’s inherent tensions and conflicts, where reconciliation and integration are sought.

Conclusion:

The conceptualization of libidinal and anti-libidinal egos in schizoid dynamics significantly correlates with various psychological theories. By understanding these correlations, we gain deeper insights into the schizoid personality, allowing for more comprehensive and empathetic approaches in psychological practice and research. The parallels between different theories emphasize the multifaceted nature of human personality and psychopathology, illuminating the interconnectedness of various psychological constructs. This was just a brief overview, however, the exploration of schizoid dynamics within the context of broader psychological frameworks fosters an integrative understanding, bridging gaps between different theoretical perspectives and enriching our comprehension of the human psyche.

For individuals with a schizoid personality, understanding these correlations can provide a frame of reference and a language to articulate their experiences and inner dynamics. By relating schizoid dynamics to other psychological theories, we create a dialogue that integrates the schizoid experience into broader psychological discourse, contributing to increased awareness, acceptance, and de-stigmatization of schizoid personality. The integration of insights from different theories can also facilitate therapeutic approaches that are more attuned to the unique needs and experiences of schizoid individuals, promoting healing and self-understanding.

Video From My Youtube Channel: Object Relations Theory Made Simple

[thewakingcloak]

Um... wow. You know that thing they say about how writing something down in detail can sometimes trigger a revelation? Within an hour of sending you that question, I fixed the problem: as I suspected, your script is perfect and does exactly what I needed it to do(and you'll be credited for it, I assure you!). After weeks of frustration and checking/doublechecking every bit of code and documentation, it suddenly occurred to me: what if GMS2's error reporting is misleading the direction of my troubleshooting? What if the error messages I keep getting are entirely arbitrary and not in any way related to the issue, even though they must be related in some way to the script (since it's the only script I'm using so far to utilize those layer functions)? What if the problem and the error messages represent an example of correlation devoid of causation, but I overlooked that possibility because the two began to appear at the same time? Well... yeah, that was it. Once I began to consider that possibility, I started going through related code and ended up slapping myself on the forehead rather roughly: I had forgotten that sprites created from surfaces aren't automatically drawn by the instances that create and assume them, and therefore neglected to specifically instruct the instance using draw_sprite. Once I did that, evrything worked brilliantly... such a simple solution. The debug report continues to throw those errors at me, and I have no idea why.... but my z-height objects are now skinning themselves as intended, so... thanks for the great code! Here's hoping this bizarre pair of messages from me will, at least, provoke a laugh... and I'm still looking forward to The Waking Cloak. cheers!

So glad you were able to figure it out and that everything is working! You've probably heard this before, but software engineering calls that "rubber duck debugging", as in explaining your problem to a rubber duck usually helps you figure out the issue. I'm always happy to be a rubber duck lol

And yeah those layer error messages are weird. I think they're just noise. I tried to resolve them back then but at this point I don't even think about them anymore lol. Might be able to solve with a try/catch, except it's not actually throwing an exception. They don't seem to cause any issues either way!

Oh and don't feel like you need to give me credit for a script. Happy to share 😁