[Tumblr User Asked]: hi AO!! i would love to hear ur take on the life aspect, and maybe some of the ways it can ghost other aspects!
Certainly! The Life Aspect is very interesting. There's quite a bit to it that I feel gets misunderstood or overlooked.
Life is another aspect that I feel gets flattened down into something misunderstood, and I think this might partly be because its inverse is poorly understood. Ironically enough, I did not understand Life until I understood Doom. Where Doombound are commiserators of suffering, Lifebound are celebrators of comfort, joy, and pleasure.
From The Extended Zodiac, I pulled these keywords from the Life Aspect description. These would be the "canon" traits; they are what I adhere to when analyzing, but it should also be understood that this concept encompasses much more to do with than these keywords. Its "vibe", if you will, is much more than what is written.
TEZ Life Keywords: Healers, betterment of everyone, growth, progress, empathetic, medicinal, therapeutic, advisors, listeners, caretakers, nurturers, (passive aggressive, pushy)
The keywords I chose to represent Life are "Growth, Perseverance, Empathetic, Healing". This aspect, like all the other aspects, is inherently neutral. It is not good or bad, but has the potential to be either.
Life is about celebration, and finding the joy in being alive. It is euphoria in existence. It can be the joy children feel just going out into the world, or it can be finding a safe space and finally feeling comfortable enough to exist. It is allowing yourself to grow, acknowledging the wrongs and mistakes of yourself or others towards you and healing from them to grow. It is persevering onward into a better version of yourself, or a better version of the world for yourself and for others. Something that comes to mind are Pride Parades, in that they are a celebration of everyone present and pushing for the positive progress towards acceptance. This example will not apply to everyone, but I feel as though Life is also the euphoria of being transgender in some way and hearing your correct name and pronouns be used to refer to you.
This is why Lifebound "grow bitter when they feel their own self-care has had to be shunted aside"; they will push for the growth of not only others, but themself as well. If they are not allowed to grow because they are busy healing and helping everyone else and receiving no breaks to themself, they will most certainly become unpleasant to be around, as I'm certain most people will when their boundaries are not respected.
We can see this very much in canon with Feferi, Witch of Life (Active Changer), who repeatedly has her boundaries disrespected by Eridan, and ends up snapping at him. Feferi is also often referred to as a bubbly and excited character; she celebrates life all around her by taking care of her cuttlefish and her Horrorterror lusus equally. We don't very much get to see this with Meenah and The Condesce, who are Thieves of Life (Active Allocators), nor with Jane, who is a Maid of Life (Passive Enhancer), and I am inclined to blame it on their classes. Thieves don't understand the value of their aspect, but they lack it and fiercely want it despite that, while Maids rely on others for their aspect. Meenah and The Condesce do not understand the value of Life, but take it anyways; this is why Meenah is obsessed with money (a very surface level metaphor for Life, growing wealth, money can buy many things required to live, etc.), and why the Condesce's Alternia positively reeks of Doom; she stole all the Life from it. Jane, meanwhile, is trapped, controlled, and forced to rely on the Life others have set out for her; she doesn't get to figure out what Life means for her until much, much later.