Labels

Labels aren't as helpful as they should be in the anagogic sciences.<ref>

It’s important to remember that designations between others are artificial.

I wouldn't say so. Designations between Others are so blurry as to be terminally misleading. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref><ref> Peter said. “What the hell right do you have, calling yourself an angel?”

“That would be a label others applied to me,” Faysal said. “Human invention.”

“I was under the impression that all Others of any given classification were of human invention, to some degree, conscious or unconscious,” Rose said. “Influenced, at the very least.” - Excerpt from Possession 15.7</ref> Rose Thorburn Senior waxes about this subject that one shouldn't be hampered by the labels people give Others,<ref>The being I have named Barbatorem is an entity falling under the classification Insolitus Nex. This author does not believe in stricter classifications, and leaves it to others to label him a devil or goblin as they see fit. It is difficult to impossible to guess as to his origins, but one can speculate that it came about after the dawn of human civilization, given the common elements and the trend in appearances. - Excerpt from Bonds 1.7</ref> even if an applied label can change the nature of the Other itself.<ref name=mft/> Rose Thorburn Junior built on this work.<ref name="ndj"/>

This also extends to practitioners of course.<ref>“Definitely. Which overlaps with shamanism, dealing with spirits. None of these things exist in their own completely unique sphere. Your friend Avery’s gets close though. Lost practices are out there, by definition. Finders, path runners, collectors of Lost things, losers, envoys of the lost, yadda yadda.” - Excerpt from False Moves 12.9</ref> Collectors doesn't just mean curators of private museums but also those who might collect things like people or legends. Practitioners might dip into areas of practice not usually known. A Law Magus particularly will deal ith labels titles and what is expected of such names and titles.<ref>

"Law" is easy to confuse with justice or the general concept of doing the right thing, but in the same sense that Karma is about Right and Wrong in a cosmic sense, morally positive actions are not necessarily intertwined in the practice of Law. The universe likes certain establishments like Truth, but other things can play into this: sanctuaries, labels, rules of order for things like warfare or duels, or declarations that establish your future position clearly. Rituals include forcing opposition to have to deal with you last, if there are other valid targets on the battlefield, gaining karma over time while wounding that of opposition, or spending excess karma in a large ritual to influence the outcome of a major event. Lesser practices include making hurting a specific target impose a karmic penalty, or creating a sanctuary.
[...]

The Law practice Theobald uses is aimed at creating labels, specific to each child. He strips away the prior name and identity and turns them into whatever kind of assassin suits their innate talents and residual personality. Then, wrapping this new label and identity into karmic imperatives, he buries their karmic consequences behind riddles. To capture or beat them one must first unravel them and they move fast. Most often they operate in circles of practitioner and career criminal, but most have some form of law enforcement starting that process of unraveling them. Until that's done, however, they'll have a few more years in them. Theobald himself has a shroud of mystery around him, odd patterns and symbology that investigators have yet to link to him and what he's doing. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref> Scrivners deal with concepts that are even harder to classify.<ref name="yikes"/>“Do

Oni are well known for messing with labels,<ref name=Oni>“Speaking of fairy and goblin… I was taught once that labels don’t matter as much as we think they do.”

“They matter exactly as much as we all think they do,” Toadswallow told him, pointing one clawed finger at him. “[...] Labels, by their very definition, matter as much as we let them matter. That’s not to say it’s weak or flimsy. Money makes this world go round, even if it only has value because we think it does. Oni tried to shuck and confuse labels and got saddled with another one instead. Brownies and Chandlings benefit if the uninitiated can get a feel for what they are in their hearts, and are then open for the discussion and deal, but they’re also tied down. When the rubes stop lining up, they lose their raison d’etre. The poop for their scoop. But that’s good to bring up, Reese, boy. Labels.” - Excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.1</ref> even Others outside of the eastern kingdoms get in on the act.<ref name=JumpUp>“Sure,” Rose said. She smiled. “Next option… well, you like your birds. What does it mean to you if I say James Corvidae? [...] Long thought to be a member of the seventh choir, chances are good he perpetuated the myth himself, to make himself scary even to the practitioners who had some idea what was up.”

“Oh, so this is a clever one. Fits, with the corvidae motif.”

“Yeah. Aside from deciding what he isn’t, nobody’s really stepped forward to say what he is. I guess, if you had to stick a label on this one, I’d say ‘Bogeyman’. Which seems to be a convenient practitioner label for ‘loner Other with a penchant for terror or murder’.”
[...]
“What does he do?”

“He forges connections between things. Very inconvenient connections. [...] He takes that which people most love, then gives it to another. Your favorite possession finds its way irrevocably to the hands of your best friend. You can’t fault him for having it, but resentment builds. In a year or two, you’re mortal enemies, and you’ve lost both your favorite thing in the world and your friend. Except it’s not always an object. It could be your soulmate. Your mother or child.”

“That would suck.”

“Putting it mildly.”

“It would suck a lot,” I amended.

“I’ve thought about it, and I’ve read some of the side stories… I can’t help but feel it’s almost worse than what the Barber or the demon in the factory could do. If you go mad, or if you get erased, that’s… it’s horrible, but you’re still gone. James Corvidae, he leaves you completely and totally intact, but missing that one thing or person that gives it meaning and purpose. [...] Grandmother had a note in her book. She summoned him once, and he was grateful enough to finally see some of the outside world that he was willing to play along with her needs.”

“Grandmother was good at what she did. We’re novices. If other people think this guy is too scary to fuck around with, I’m thinking that’s a pretty good indication to go by.” - Excerpt from Subordination 6.7</ref> Again there is some justification here as Others aren't strictly confirmatory to given labels, two goblins can be wildly diffrent from each other.<ref>“Few Others are entirely one thing or another,” Rook told Chloe. “Goblins born to one area may be more vicious than goblins elsewhere, if that area has hosted enough viciousness. The Ruins may taint one area and its Others, and traces of Echoes may infect spirits. In another area, spirits may empower elementals.” - Excerpt from One After Another 10.c</ref>

While types of Others may have multiple names this is a separate phenomena from imprecise terms; that are widely and imprecisely applied to multiple unrelated Others.

Specific examples

Non-Demons<ref name="ndj">“No! No, look, listen!” Rose was more agitated. She flipped the book open. “Grandmother wrote some stuff saying that back in the day, before studies in diabolism had come so far, people had a bad habit of chalking up any particularly nasty Other as a demon or something infernal. There was a whole period of history where almost every bad Other was thought to be a demon or demonic, and the classification was harder for some to shake than others. So I’ve been researching, and looking at the criteria.”
[...]
“I’m kind of surprised that you’re okay with this,” I said. “The danger, the fact that Rose is talking about monsters that are bad enough they were almost classified as demons, not so long ago…” - Excerpt from Subordination 6.7</ref>
- James Corvidae<ref name=JumpUp/>
- Mary Frances Troxler<ref name=mft>“Then, um, let me see here, I’ve got it in one of these books, I color coded the bookmarks. Except I didn’t have a bookmark for the sixth, so I used a sprig of herb. Here. First option. She’s Mary Frances Troxler. Origin unknown, but she may have been a wraith, a ghost that took on other qualities. Mediums used to call on her to help women find their husband to be. The ritual was tainted, too much negativity, maybe it got blamed when the marriages didn’t work out. Calling her a demon or a thing of darkness, and the label starts to become true, in a roundabout way. She started showing up when she wasn’t called, was eventually bound, and she remained a minor tool of diabolists for some time.”
  [...]
  We’ve got a Bloody Mary,” Rose said.
  
  “What’s that?”
  
  “A boggart or a wraith, not sure. A ghost loaded with enough negativity that it went off rails. Built with echoes that aren’t its own. Lurks in mirrors, carves up women if they spend too long looking.” - Excerpt from Subordination 6.7</ref>
- Midge
- Cubi<ref>Incubi and Succubi, Others of shadow that corrupted their targets by changing their dreams and using those dreams to alter the Self. Some did dark things to turn the Self evil, or devoured the Self and weakened or eventually killed the victim, and victims wouldn’t fight the process because the dreams were, um, really pleasant. Others edited the brain through nightmares to corrupt the Self to be salacious, wanton, or just corrupt in a way that had the wantonness and lack of inhibition as a consequence, which apparently created a sex-focused label that might have shaped the Succubi and Incubi that came after. Once confused with demons, because they were so insidious. - Excerpt from Cutting Class 6.2</ref>
- Havours<ref>Historically they have frequently been confused for possessing demons or demons borne of tragedy, or been described by uneducated innocents as ghosts with enough evil in them to ascend to demonhood. These assumptions are reinforced by the fact that most practices to banish such evils (exorcism, etc) will work on the Havour. - PactDice: Bestiary: Havour</ref>
Dog Tags<ref>“He’s a Dog of War, known in some circles as Dog Tags. I think his name is an older equivalent to John Doe, but for soldiers. When warzones are at their ugliest and most chaotic, and people start losing track of who is where, who is alive and who is dead, certain Others may crop up on the battlefields. Ones that fight, so long as there is conflict around them. If the soldiers in that war are killing innocents, so will the Dogs of War. If they commit other atrocities, so will the Dogs. They don’t sleep, they keep the battle going, and as long as the battle continues, they don’t stay down. Related to Revenants, but Revenants are the province of Death, not War.” - excerpt from Lost for Words 1.4</ref><ref>“The Carmine Beast predated us,” the Aurum said. “But not the Alabaster Doe.”

“She was an Animus, a walking intent,” the Alabaster said. “Much as your Dog of War is one.”

“I- I’m not familiar with that.”

“Forces between spirit and incarnation that exist for purpose. Often malign, but not always. Physical. They are defined by the task they accomplish. The Swordbearer animus exists to find the noble and heroic, equip them, and send them on their path. The Dog of War exists to perpetuate the senselessness of war. Muses inspire art.”

“What did she do?”

“Before she was the Carmine Beast, she reminded civilized men who had come here why their ancestors were so afraid of the deep night,” the Alabaster said. “Henhouses emptied, livestock slaughtered. Howling that shook hearts, and fangs that took the lives of people who were in the midst of discovering just how dark a forest can be without the torches, candles and lamps of a nearby city.”

“Was she evil? I know we asked, but- before?”

“She wasn’t good or evil so much as she simply was. Just as she was the Carmine Beast. The role precedes all.” - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.1</ref><ref name=dtdt>Munch shrugged. “We have terms. Don’t try to remember them, they’ll change or get forgotten. Goblins don’t like labels. You’ve got your bumps, they go bump in the night, scare kids, mess with people. You’ve got the snots, they’re just gross, they make gross things grosser. The scrappers, obvious enough. You could call me a lunk, you could call Gashwad a blighter who thinks he’s a scrapper.”
[...]
Munch gave her a blank look.

“The Sick Dog?”

The blank look continued.

“John Stiles’ friend.”

“The Black Dog,” Munch grumbled. “You’ve got special, specific terms for everything… labels, labels… goblins don’t truck much with that. Call a spade a shovel, then use the shovel to beat the person who crawls up your ass about it being a spade, specifically.” - Excerpt from Stolen Away 2.7</ref><ref>He reached into his coat-

And they attacked. Dog Tags. Technically Animus by label, though it got complicated. They were spirit, and that might’ve made the spider webs easier to venture into than it was for others.

It was still Scott’s spider webs, still the domain of a powerful shaman-

But they only had to get so far. The guns weren’t spirit. - Excerpt from Wild Abandon 18.c</ref>
Goblin Specifics<ref name=dtdt/> - Puissance and specialties are mutable,<ref name=":1">“Butty’s thing.”

“The mayo bomb?”

“He’s a fester, you know. That’s what he does.”

“I’m not playing that game, Gash. I’ve been told he’s a bulge, a fester now, ummm, I think Cherry called him a boil. You guys make this up.”

“Exactly! Perfect, you’re not so dumb after all. That’s what he does. He takes all the ugly, all the mess, all the bile and crap and he concentrates it. Longer he waits and lets it sit before it goes pop, the better. Rest of the time, he’s just a greasy stain. He’d be good to have around if he wasn’t so shit.” - Excerpt from Back Away 5.4</ref> in some cases even reactive to an attempt at classification.<ref name=":0">Goblin, third class, which put her between lesser and middle tiers. The problem was that goblins despised and defied boundaries and convention, and trying to apply one saw a given goblin slip into a tier above or even a tier below. They came in all shapes and sizes, humanoid and not, and as Deedee went, she was a beauty among goblinkind and she was a beauty to him. - Excerpt from Poke 2</ref>
Oni<ref name=Oni/>
Choirs<ref name=Ch>“Demons and devils fall into choirs. Choir of dark, choir of chaos, choir of ruin, choir of madness, choir of the feral, choir of sin, and choir of unrest, in order. [...] The choirs aren’t real things… only an idea that some have clung to, some demons and devils included. They’re a handy way of categorizing.” - Excerpt from Conviction 5.5</ref> - What demarcates between kinds of Demons and Angels.
Imprecision - including nebulous others<ref>

- Excerpt from Wild Abandon 18.9</ref>

- Urban Legends - Bugge,<ref>“Mr. Rudbeck is a Fancy, an old version of a Bugge or Buggane, or an old version of an Urban Legend, though I despise how imprecise that particular term is. In an era before the printing press, certain ideas or glyphs would take hold, recur in the public consciousness, and find something to latch onto or manifest within. The recurring story or idea feeds the Fancy, and the Fancy can, on rare occasion, become crafty enough to perpetuate the story that feeds it. Mr. Rudbeck is one such Fancy, and attained a level of influence approaching that of a lesser divinity.” - Excerpt from Cutting Class 6.1</ref>, Nex Machina,<ref>[Nex Machina] tend to arise from or be linked to online urban legends or particular websites that have ceased to be managed. - Beastiary: Nex Machina</ref> of course an odd Bogeyman now and then.
- Imaginary Friends - can include Todds, Bugge (again) Jockey and possibly other parasitic others.
Pre-Seal of Solomon<ref name="yikes">“Don’t know, doesn’t exactly matter,” Milly replied. “Basil would be better at explaining this.”

“Would I?” Basil asked.

“Labels, Others, old Others, constraints and confinement.”

“Ah. Yeah. Some say that we invent labels and constrain Others by those definitions and ideas tied to the label. We categorize Fae and then Fae are obliged to act a certain way. That because these categories exist, when a new Other comes around, they tend to go in a bucket. Or mostly in a bucket. Pretty relevant to what I do, because I deal with a lot of Others who are pretty nebulous up until they bucket themselves.”

“And then there’s things like the Beorgmann, who were around a long time before we had good labels,” Milly said. “Could say it’s a bit Fae because it lures children away, a bit goblin because it’s wretched, a bit bogeyman because it’s scary. Could say it’s divine, a godling thing that gets worship or feeds off the fact it’s the sole presence in the lives of the trapped children…”

“Pre-label,” Basil mused. “From a time when goblin, spirit, ghost, and horror were interchangeable.”

“Like Durocher’s things?” Avery asked. “From the Blue Heron? She calls out these monsters…”

“Those are pre-label and pre-language. They take the same idea further back,” Milly replied. - Excerpt from Wild Abandon 18.9</ref>
- The Beorgmann
- Primevals<ref name="yikes"/>
- Very Old Thing<ref>Say you're a practitioner in Europe. Your town is hundreds of years old, and it borders a bog. In that bog lives a Very Old Thing. It predates Solomon, it predates tidy labels, and it is nasty, predatory, and prone to kidnapping children to eat. It can't be killed and most conventional ways of binding it will see it throwing itself against the walls of its metaphorical cage until the people who set up the seal give up or people start to notice something's up. Wildbow on Reddit</ref>
Personal names<ref>“Yes. I see it in the light that reflects in your eyes,” he said, shifting his posture, picking one hand up off the desk to sit upright, instead of leaning out to one side. “You, who named yourself Lucille in your awakening, have clarified your name since. That which was established in your awakening is violable, by your very name. I could concede this point and leave you with a supplementary argument, but I’d be obliged to dismiss your name in all matters.” - Excerpt from Crossed with Silver 19.10</ref> and nicknames<ref>“Some newcomers came in and dropped that into my open mouth while I was sleeping, before anyone could tell them the rules,” Toadswallow said. “Did you know my given name isn’t even Toadswallow?”

“Huh? I almost forgot,” Verona said.

“But nicknames can have power. Including inspiring goblins to find toads to feed me when I’m not paying sufficient attention.” - Excerpt from Go for the Throat 23.5</ref>

References