#Mutability of fate

[downfallofi]

Forgive me, thought not complete, need more tags

[astrologydray]

Critical Degrees in Astrology🫰🏾🫰🏾🫰🏾

Anaretic Degree (29° - The Karmic Degree)

• Known as the “degree of fate” or “degree of urgency.”

• Represents completion, transition, or final lessons related to the sign it’s in.

• Can indicate indecision, last-minute changes, or a feeling of pressure.

• In natal charts, it may show mastery of that sign’s energy or difficulty integrating it.

Effects by Modality:

• Cardinal (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn): Rushed action, impulsivity.

• Fixed (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius): Stubbornness, difficulty letting go.

• Mutable (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces): Restlessness, indecisiveness.

0° (The “Pure” Degree)

• Represents a fresh start, raw potential, and new beginnings.

• The energy of the sign is most pure, undiluted, and powerful.

• In predictive astrology, planets at 0° often signal major life transitions.

Classic Critical Degrees💋

Certain degrees are considered “critical” because they carry extra intensity and impact.

💋Cardinal Signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn)

Critical Degrees: 0°, 13°, 26°

• Strong leadership qualities, initiating energy.

• Increased drive and ambition, but can bring impulsivity.

💋Fixed Signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius)

Critical Degrees: 8°, 9°, 21°, 22°

• Extra determination, stability, and persistence.

• Can indicate stubbornness or resistance to change.

💋Mutable Signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces)

Critical Degrees: 4°, 17°

• Heightened adaptability, intelligence, and versatility.

• May indicate frequent changes or shifts in life path.

Other Special Degrees

15° of Fixed Signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius) - The Avatar Degree

• Considered a point of power and mastery.

• Often seen in charts of influential leaders or public figures.

18° - The “Fated Degree”

• Sometimes linked to karmic themes, challenges, or destiny.

• More intense in personal planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars).

22° - The “Kill or Be Killed” Degree (Especially in Capricorn)

• A controversial degree associated with power struggles and survival themes.

• Found in charts of people who have faced extreme challenges or transformation.

23° - The Royal Degree

• Linked to influence, prestige, and success, especially in Leo and Sagittarius.

Degrees of Fame (Typically 5°, 17°, 29° in Leo or Aquarius)

• Found in charts of celebrities, public figures, and performers.

[ivesambrose]

ʜᴏᴡ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀɴᴅ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʟᴏᴠᴇʀ ᴍɪʀʀᴏʀ ᴇᴀᴄʜ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ🪞

Applicable to future spouse, soulmate, whatever term you prefer 🧡

To book a personal reading with me DM or email me at Ivesambrose@gmail.com

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Masterpost

Picture 1

- Both of you are intellectually driven. Good at observing and reading people. Assertive and often cut throat when circumstances call for it. Will prefer independence and being single over empty or surface level connections.

- May have dealt with a strict mother figure or sibling.

- Seeks wisdom and travel above all. Academics and knowledge is also extremely important to both of you. You and them may also be overqualified or haven't liked sticking to one particular degree or field for long.

- Both of you might like trekking or feel connected to the mountains and outdoors.

- Often display obsessive and perfectionist behaviour in terms of work. Might have specific hyper fixations.

- Might have struggled and overcame addictions or addictive behaviour or have faced controlling partners or people in their lives.

- One of you prefer leisure time and being left alone to pamper yourself when stressed or overwhelmed, other might resort to channeling that into sports, working out or getting work done.

- Animals feel safe around both of you.

- Prone to sleep paralysis or vivid dreams. One of you can't tolerate alcohol or recreational drugs at all.

- May have mercury and 9th house synastry. May have Sagittarius, Libra or Leo in chart.

Picture 2

- Both of you carry grief that has made you feel stuck, may have made you feel ashamed or guilty. But y'all have channeled that into perseverance. Might have been victims of bullying or have witnessed it. This has given both of you a strong sense of justice and the desire to help those in need, the underdogs and the oppressed.

- Neither of you back down from something you're dedicated towards even if it takes time.

- Both of you might come across intimidating to most.

- One of you posseses good language, understanding and networking skills. Are rather mutable. The other is a natural born leader. These two qualities overlap or interachange in each other's presence with time.

- Fiercely protective of loved ones and just as nurturing. Often too sympathetic and need to establish stronger boundaries.

- Life has knocked both of you down a notch several times but it has given you two the ability to rebuild stronger foundations every single time.

- Don't necessarily do well under pressure but will come up with the most radical idea or breakthroughs when least expected.

- May have dealt with intimacy issues.

- Need to be very mindful of the people both of you trust and are vulnerable with.

- Can be an extremely influential duo together. May lead a rather non traditional life.

- Might have 8th and 12th house synastry or moon synastry. Might have cancer and aquarius placements.

Picture 3

- Both of you believe in fate, destiny and luck. Right place and right time but are also rather controlling by nature. Some days you'll go with the flow and let things happen other times you will take charge.

- Both of you cannot and will not back down. Life has thrown daggers at you, yet you have overcome them. Unmatched determination.

- One or both of you may have suffered from anger issues and now transmute that elsewhere.

- Excellent wordsmiths and magnetic personalities. Might be good writers, poets, directors, planners etc

- Both of you have distinct, attractive and memorable voices.

- May struggle with anxiety or insomnia. Might stay up late at night cuz that's when your brain feels most active.

- Both possess emotional intelligence but tend to carry burdens, emotional labour and resentment for long periods.

- Love luxury that is earned after hard work.

- Fond of fragrances.

- Passionate and intense lovers by nature but just as picky.

- Old souls, have a personal relationship with time and it's fleeting nature. Might prefer preserving memories.

- Work better independently, make excellent entrepreneurs.

- Both love to travel or travelling is extremely important to both of you.

- Might have Saturn, mercury, Sun and 10th house synastry. May also have nodal synastry. Might have Mars or Jupiter influence in chart.

[astrolocherry]

~Astrological Archetypes

Aries archetype - Hot as ice, firelight Leaves an impression while being impressionable Suggestive and suggestible, Fever dreams breaking in the dawn, Wounded warrior, Broken though never forlorn.

Taurus archetype - Patroness of The Flowers of Life, Festivities, & Enchantment. Embodies the Creative Fertility Principle; nurtures All Life in her surroundings. The Stylist of the Star Signs.

Gemini archetype - Personification of the rainbow – delivers messages to Gods and mortals on the other end; Mercurial style, dressed in all of its colors, winged platform shoes, with the caduceus scepter – her timeless accessory.

Cancer archetype - Guardian of Girls ages 12–19 in the night; She is the Queen coming to reclaim her daughters. Kept awake at the helm of the Lunar Chariot; a quiet & internalized life by day – a spiritually dangerous secret night life.

Leo archetype– The Genies of the Sun draw the golden carriage of Divine Power and Royalty; they are the psychic protectors & guardians of Light against Darkness, supplying life’s natural desire to recreate over and over

Virgo archetype– The Genies of Mercury contain and awaken the wisdom of the Divine Feminine; working alongside the Great Mothers of Healing & Medicine, & responding to all those who send a message for assistance

Libra archetype – Flower crowned, keeps the earth spinning on its axis. The arch opponent of Discordia/Eris. Personification of Reason & Redemption. Responds to the call of injustice, deliverer of merciful compassion & absolution.

Scorpio archetype – Personify Moral Retribution, armed with psychic defenses & the mysteries of supernatural powers. Children of the Eternal Night serving the Lord of the Underworld, the conscience of the Dead, agents of Fate.

Sagittarius archetype – Personifies Fortune, Chance, Pot Luck, & the Unexpected. Libertine & hedonistic, she encourages the risk for the windfall it may bring. Mutability; changing faces & personas as the wheel spins from favor to misfortune.

Capricorn – The archetypal sacred women who thread and spin the wheel of destiny and govern time, life, and death. An image that honours older women in the affirmation of their authentic selves and trusted inner Feminine wisdom And she does appear to become internally and immersibly more joyous for those early years

Aquarius archetype – The Celestial Queen and receiver of starry prophecies. Unobtainable, ubiquitous, impossible to capture; personifies the stars that fall from the sky as the result of an unwanted romantic pursuit.

Pisces archetype– The Little Mermaid: Earthly existence is blurred by a view below the surface, a plexiglass of ideals that she imagines the world to be. And yet when she arrives, she realizes that nothing is as it seems. Pisces is the zodiacal ruler of the feet where the spell is set.

Cherry

[possamble]

As much as the added Falin portrait made me lose my mind...

(The fact that it was framed with Laios, in a way that shows that Falin has been relegated to memory--Laios, in front of her, who will inevitably suffer the same fate--and Marcille's little hand, almost out of frame, desperately holding on...)

In hindsight I do think it was overkill that muddles the metaphor. Marcille's gallery of portraits is supposed to represent her memories and is an account of the things she feels she can no longer change--that's why Falin is a doll in her arms. Lifeless, with her autonomy stripped away, in such a terrible state that Marcille is too terrified to do more than desperately hold onto her while running away, but tangible nonetheless. It's supposed to show that Falin's fate is terrifying but still mutable to her, that she doesn't consider Falin "lost" just yet.

It also presents the disturbing but incredibly relevant metaphor of Falin being her doll, a plaything, an object to project her wishes upon. Which is really, really important, and also parallels another "gallery of portraits" and "person reduced to a doll" that we see attached to another character later on.

[windvexer]

Hey chicken,

You previously said that you believe even doing simple things in spellwork, like leaving something in a dish of salt, need to be worked over. How would you work over simple things like that? Burning a candle? Just infusing it with some energy?

Even more simple than infusing it with energy, maybe.

This isn't like, set in stone. But I generally believe that the first step of all Witchcraft is permission.

As in, you speak from a place of authority as a Witch, and give permission that reality may become abnormal.

Witchcraft is abnormal, in my opinion. I think it's perfectly nice that people build paradigms based on the idea that magic is altogether completely natural and there is no difference between the magic and normal, but I like the sinister stuff.

So IMO the first, most basic, essential "working over" is to take something (the dish of salt) and, give it permission to become abnormal and begin to effect reality abnormally.

This is the hinge upon which Witchcraft pivots: the Witch going in and taking normal things, and realigning the tracks of fate beneath them, compelling things to start happening which never would have happened if not for that specific intervention.

A dish of salt does not normally just make a space clear of emotions. If it did so, that would not be normal. It would be abnormal. Paranormal, even.

So how do you get salt to stop being normal, and start being a paranormal substance that does abnormal things?

Charging with energy is a later step. You charge with energy to fulfill an intent already set.

The first step is to give reality - the reality of the salt, of the emotions in the room - permission to be a fucked up little guy. It's easy as pie. And it mostly comes down to magical headspace: you seeing reality as something quite permeable, and easy to change, and almost illusory, springing from the web of fate that underpins it; but you can change that fate. Reality likes us. It mimics us to show that it wants to be friends. Put yourself in a state where the world is mutable, and around you the world complies.

So step one is magical headspace.

Step two is telling the salt what to do. "Listen here, you fucked up glorious little guy. Before you were dead, only crystals harvested and mined, sold on a grocery shelf where you've been reduced to nothing but flavor. They chew on your bones and forget to worship your soul. But here, in my house, you are a god. Rise from your grave in this new form, to this new purpose: purify from this room the unwanted, the harmful, and the malignant. By my word and my will, this new fate has been granted to you."

No energy work. No visualization. Just tell it like it is.

Or you could be more corporate about it. "This salt purifies negative energy from the room." It's just setting intent, if you want to be crude.

It's hard for me to do corporate magic. With all apologies to the people who do prefer the very simplified present-tense intentions.

Reality mimics us. If something is stirring inside of you, then something is stirring inside of the salt. No visualizing energy roots required.

A simple sentence may not be enough, or a paragraph. Sometimes it takes a while to find the right words. Maybe the salt isn't really a god. Maybe it's a gnome, a saltwork machine, the dead crest of a long-forgotten ocean wave that preserved a billion amoeba in crystalline purity, ready now to purify your room.

Over time, intuition and experience will both grow and combine to advise exactly what to say.

After all, you're telling it like it is - not making it up.

Go to the place where magic is real and you're doing it.

Assign new fates through words.

These are the simplest steps to working over something.

[evilminji]

:O !!! Wait a second... GHOST DINOSAURS!!!

They died. There are ghost animals. You CAN NOT tell me getting fuckin nuked from space by a GIANT rock that blasted you and everything you've ever known into near instantaneous oblivion, wouldn't leave some Unfinished Business and a shit ton of Ectoplasm.

BILLIONS of things died all at once.

Did most move on? Probably. We're any of them sentient? We have no idea! Maybe! Unlikely, but maybe! Still a MASSIVE, countries wide, molten earth lined, crater of instant death. World shaking and history making. Death in the blink of an eye.

If you're lucky.

But! I hear the arguments now. That was one event. The X or Y dinosaur lived before that! What I'm interested in came AFTER! Good points! But not RELAVENT!!! Because you know what ELSE that giant fuck-off meteor is good for? Aside for Death(tm)?

Television.

Makes for some damn good documentaries. Exciting graphics and neato visual effects. Ooooh~ look at our dramatic recreation! The cute baby animals, unsuspecting of their Doomed Fate~! Tense music! And now, a world from our advertisers!

You know who LIKES Space Documentaries? Danny. He's all ABOUT that Science Channel. Granted, they've been pulling more and more of these mid-tear "aliens built the pyramids" and "look at these swords!" Shows... but! Still! He grew up on this channel! He doesn't WANT to give up on it!

And, yeah, this is... kinda hammy... but it's still watchable!

He's enjoying the live tweeting from paleontologists who are ROASTING the thing to a lovely golden brown. Has choked on his noodles like three times already. It's great! But now? They are arguing over what the dinosaurs actually looked like again... and??

And, look, maybe it's the good mood and boredom. Maybe it's having the house to himself. Maybe it's his parents finally encouraging him to use his "ghostiness" for SCIENCE(tm)(!) the other day. Could even be his bad idea impulse acting up again, buuuuut.....

Teeeeechnically?

Nothing? Is STOPPING him? From finding out? He DOES have Zone compatible cameras. And can probably back trace where they should-ish be? He can find out. The colors might be off, but it's a starting point? Right? And heck, he's pretty sure inverse coloration in standard unless someone's shape-shifting, so he'd just have to inverse it AGAIN to get an approximately correct coloration for them!

....eh, as long as he leaves a "not exact, this was the best I could get" note, it should be fine.

Road Trip time! Better call Dani and see if she wants to ride a few giant mammals and some lizards!

(Needless to say? Some researchers get VERY exciting emails. And only accept they are POSSIBLE, because this is a DC crossover. So there is aliens and magic regularly popping up in their field of expertise, so WHY NOT? Just the other day, a whole ass TOWN that has been wiped out... got UN-wiped out! 23 years later! It's made headlines. Weird shit happens.

So gib. Release to them the Dinosaurs, mystery email man. Fork them over before they begin biting. You think this corduroy jacket means they won't hunt you down? HA! You know NOTHING of academics! WHERE ARE THE EXTINCT ANIMALS? Where are you hiding them!?!?)

@the-witchhunter @hypewinter @nerdpoe @ailithnight @hdgnj @mutable-manifestation

[grandhotelabyss]

You said in your ancient Sandman blog post there’s a way to read Death as the villain of the comic. Would you elaborate on that?

Can we distinguish her cheery pragmatism from a complacent nihilism? It may be poetically apt for Death to have the manner of a good service worker, a cute (but not conventionally sexy) barista, the better to draw us in to her realm; a comparison to Gaiman as crowd-pleasing author, crowd-pleasing because of his charmingly "harmless" put-on, and comfortable in the routine exercise of his vocation, behind which he is monstrous, suggests itself. But if Gaiman were more spiritually serious, or spiritually serious at all, he would have shown what hides behind Death's human-flattering veneer, would've given Death a Krishna-reveals-himself-to-Arjuna moment, as Alan Moore might have. (This point applies to the portrayal of all the Endless, but it would have been most damaging to Death qua the series icon and mascot, as Gaiman's canny projection of the self-image of the female audience he pursued.) This unintentional ambiguity—pragmatic cheer as the camouflage of lethal power—exists on the plot level, too. I understand Gaiman wished to use the structure of a Classical tragedy, but still, his more novelistic literary mode gives us free rather than fated characters. On her first appearance, Death chides Dream for not asking for her help—but once the situation becomes clear, why doesn't she do anything? Why does allow Desire's plot to unfold to the bitter end? Death enframes Dream's story; she is essentially complicit in the scheme against him. The rules governing the Endless seem mutable enough—Destruction leaves, Delight becomes Delirium, and, indeed, Desire scripts Dream's doom—which means that Death could attempt to avert the tragedy. But why should she? The whole narrative tends toward death, and thus toward Death. The moral of the series is that Dream must change, but fan-favorite Death remains throughout the most static character, and morally undamaged by her stasis, or so the narrative implies. She enforces the status quo in the series' universe: a cute authoritarian. Behind her mask is Gaiman's own complacency and ruthlessness; the mask itself is his preferred erotic type, a spiritedly young but ultimately docile woman.

[seafoamreadings]

week of september 1st, 2024

these are written predominantly for the *rising* signs but they are also intuitively "channeled" enough that they should work for any dominant energy you have! (try your sun if you don't know rising, or more advanced readers can try moon, anywhere you have a stellium, etc and see what works best for you!)

aries: this is not a week of small transits. while grounding is typically not the name of your personal game, you might want to give it a serious try this week just so you don't get too frazzled in the momentous shifts occurring.

taurus: the vibes are earthy and mostly quite solid although change is still auspicious. it is good to be strong and grounded without being brittle, inflexible, or completely immutable. your sign is well known for stubbornness but at this time, avoid it as well as you can.

gemini: if you need to move to a new home, shake things up in your current household, or unearth some old family secrets, this is the time to do it. conversations around home and hearth and ancestry are favored this week, thanks to the new moon in virgo. on the other hand such a new moon is always useful for just getting your life together if that's where you're at.

cancerians: this week has a new moon (in virgo) which is always a whole thing for you - clean slate, do whatever you need to do! writing is super auspicious too! and also mars moves into cancer. other things happen too of course, but these are the things that will reinvigorate you and get you going where you want to go.

leo: your priorities this week should focus around your subconscious and your resources - money, time, energy, whatever. in fact, consider all the ways in which your subconscious *is* a resource. if it doesn't feel like one, it needs some cleaning out, so do your shadow work while you spreadsheet your budget or whatever other resource maintenance you mean to do.

virgo: this tensely mutable energy features a prominent new moon in your sign. broadly this should be fairly comfortable for you, and yet you may feel an itching, urgent pressure to work for a development. it may be better to sit still, focus on your plans, backup plans, and flow charts and see what unfolds for now. leave room for flexibility and spontaneity in all that planning. don't set anything in stone.

libra: the new moon may hatch a new dream in your psyche, but it's likely so deeply ingrained you can't see it clearly yet. let it gestate. meanwhile you have some strong nodal activity occurring. fate lines are more visible than ever; you see where you come from and where you are going. embrace your destiny, whatever it is, and leave a little room to make your own choices about it.

scorpio: there is a certain social and friendly tone about the week and yet a lot of murky intensity along with it. this is a time to build trust, and yet not to exercise it naively or wildly. let it be earned.

sagittarius: probably this week proceeds relatively smoothly for you but there will later in the week be a sun-saturn opposition. this need not cause any serious turmoil but it could reflect some frustrations in your life where you feel stuck, or in a tug of war between one part of your life and another. meanwhile, all week, excessive spending is definitely not advised.

capricorn: the big highlight of the week is pluto back into your sign for the last time in a couple hundred years. the lord of the underworld hangs out in the farthest reaches of your sign for just a couple of months. use this period to clean up the vibes you want going into the pluto in aquarius era.

aquarius: sometimes, like probably right now, it feels like your hard work has paid off only it setbacks, or having to go back to fix things. the blast from the past taking place is not necessarily pleasant, but isn't it always good to have a second chance to make sure things in the future go just how you want them to?

pisces: tension you can practically touch permeates the air, or whatever subtle plane you are experiencing now. but this tension is highly productive, provided you don't shy away from it too much.

[theironclooch]

I find it really interesting that both of the prescient primarchs killed themselves tbh.

When Sanguinius and Konrad saw their own deaths they both believed that nothing could change their fates. And while they both had drastically different attitudes about it, they were both wrong, funnily enough.

When it comes to seeing the future in 40K, the end result is always muddled and mutable. In the Traitors Tarot, a short story in both the 9th and 10th csm codexes, the leader of a chaos warband goes to a witch to tell him his fortune; to which she drones on and on about several different futures that are all equally likely and unlikely to happen. The head of Kairos Fateweaver that sees the future continues to madly mumble to itself about events that are yet to come. Hell the Eldar’s entire shtick is combing through several futures to find an ideal outcome. The fracturing of the future even happened to Konrad Curze in his own primarch book.

While the Night Haunter confronted a young rapist two notable futures flashed before him, one where he nurtures the boy into becoming a guiding figure for Nostramo, and one where the boy stabs Konrad and gets away. Neither of these things happen as the Night Haunter eats him anyway and while gnawing on his femur, he notices that the knife the boy would have used to stab him was no where near the position it would need to be to be used.

Now Konrad very easily could’ve killed the assassin that came for him, but that would be proving himself wrong; and we can’t have that, can we? Besides death is nothing compared to vindication.

Sanguinius though is surprisingly simple. He could’ve just…not have gotten on board the Vengeful Spirit. Simple as that. But at the same time he had to, because that’s just the kind of person he is.

And now we Segway into the conclusion that KONRAD CURZE AND SANGUINIUS ARE JUST THOSE GUYS. KONRAD MADE MACRAGGE A LIVING HELL. BY HIMSELF. HE FOUGHT THE LION AND GUILLIMAN AT THE SAME TIME AND WAS HOLDING HIS OWN!!!SANGUINIUS CONTINUED TO THRUST HIMSELF INTO CONTINUOUSLY MORE DANGEROUS SITUATIONS BECAUSE OF “Fuck it we ball” ENERGY. LIKE HE FOUGHT AND KILLED KA’BHANDA AND ANGRON WITH LIKE A 30 SECOND BREAK IN BETWEEN EACH FIGHT. THATS NOT EVEN MENTIONING THE TITANS HE TROUNCED AT ETERNITY GATE. God damn. This pair of absolute madmen very well could’ve died at any point during their shenanigans, and they both only died when they decided to.

Fuck.

[elminx]

Energy Update: Lunar Eclipse 9/17/24

Note: all dates and times are in EDT

We are fast approaching our lunar eclipse, which will occur at 10:45PM on Tuesday, 9/17, at 25° Pisces. This eclipse is an off-element eclipse, which means that although our lunar nodes are still on the Aries-Libra axis, this eclipse will occur while the Sun is in Virgo and the Moon is in Pisces.

We are nearing the end of this lunar cycle (the nodes switch over to the Pisces-Virgo axis in January), and this eclipse can be viewed as a preview of the next cycle.

Pisces-Virgo (the North Node is always listed first) is a 12-6 cycle, with our North Node focused on Piscean matters and our South Node pointing away from Virgoic matters. Both Pisces and Virgo have a shared interest in serving humanity - Virgo serves humanity in the physical realm, and Pisces serves humanity in the spiritual realm. As the North node turns towards Pisces, we cross the cosmic line between sign number 1 (Aries) backward into sign number 12 (Pisces).

In a way, this first early Pisces lunar eclipse may seem like a de-evolution, but it's an important part of the process. This entire year (and 2025 as well) is one of transition. We are in the in-between, the liminal if you will. Many of us are being forced to walk forward in the unknown, but others are hanging back and clinging to what was.

Astrology is, at its most base form, a study of the cycles of life. We all know that winter follows autumn and eventually leads into spring. Likewise, monumental changes (like a worldwide pandemic) have a ripple effect that slowly morphs the world. There is no going backward. We all need to adapt. This cycle began in January 2020 when most of our planets (except for Neptune and Uranus) all met up in Capricorn simultaneously.

We have gone through the physical side of things (Taurus), and we were forced to face ourselves and what it meant for each of us individually as people (Aries). Now, we all need to deal with the spiritual side of how it impacted us (Pisces).

Pisces can be a really wise sign, but it can also be highly immature. The 12th sign in the zodiac can be seen as an amagym of all the wisdom of the signs that have come before it. Alternatively, it can also be the purest seed of a child yet to be born at dawn in Aries. Expect this lunation to bring up some major birthing pains or death pains, depending on your outlook and stage of life.

Standard eclipse advice applies: Eclipse season carries with it wild card energy but it is often referred to as the hand of fate reaching into our lives. At times, it can seem like anything is possible during and between our eclipse pairs, but a wise astrology student knows what comes and goes during the eclipse is meant to be. Eclipses don't so much erase what has come before; they tend to realign us with where we are supposed to be.

I think this is what people find the most unsettling about eclipses. Our Western culture has a pretty iffy opinion about fate and free choice. I want to be clear here that astrology does not take away your personal choice or control your life; it is merely a guideline that shows - with a high deal of accuracy - how your life will likely play out.

The first place one would look in a natal birth chart to determine this is (you guessed it) the lunar nodes. Each of us was born under particular nodal energy, symbolized by one of the six astrological Sun sign pairs. How much any individual eclipse cycle will affect you will be determined in part by your lunar nodal pairs and how the current eclipse cycle interacts with your natal chart.

Allowing for a 5° orb, we can say that next Tuesday's eclipse will affect the following groups of people in order of significance:

Anyone with a planet at 25° in a mutable sign (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces) firstly or any sign secondly

Anyone with a personal planet from 20-29° Pisces or Virgo (Conjunction and Opposition)

Anyone with a personal planet from 20-29° Gemini or Sagittarius (square)

Anyone with a personal planet from 20-29° Taurus, Cancer, Scorpio, Capricorn, and Pisces (trine and sextile)

Anyone with the lunar nodes on the Virgo/Pisces axis

Anyone with the Sun or Moon in Virgo or Pisces

Anyone with a personal planet, Jupiter, or Saturn between 20-29° in any sign

I want to reiterate here that eclipses do not have to have negative or harmful effects. Some eclipses visit us as great epiphanies about what we should do with our lives.

Eclipses seem to rock our worlds when we are holding on to something we are not meant to be anymore. Because we are all imperfect, stupid, fragile, egoic humans (affectionate), this happens far more often than we would like to admit.

If it happens to you, it's okay. Surviving these moments is a part of living our stupid human lives. Astrology is a huge cosmic sign in the sky saying: sometimes it isn't you. Sometimes you couldn't have done any better. Sometimes everything sucks, and it's okay to not be okay. Part of being human is getting knocked down, crying over the spilled milk until you can't cry anymore, and then getting the fuck back up again.

Life hasn't been fair to us. Like all of us. Collectively. Every single human that has been living on this planet had a fucking sucky four years.

This is a watery eclipse, and it's going to bring some serious 12th house unconscious shit. That's what a Pisces moon is made to do.

You are probably going to cry over it even if you do it in the shower so that the sound is and nobody hears you. As your friendly neighborhood astrologer, let me tell you: it's okay not to be okay.

Those of you who are afraid of the darkness may have a really hard time. That's okay, too. If that's you, do your best and maybe lie low early next week. Practice your best self-care often and early.

For those of you who live here, have planets in Pisces or the 12th house, or are drawn to working with and in the shadows, if you have the bandwidth, now is the time to pay attention.

This crossover point between Pisces and Aries will be very important next year (much like the cross-over from Capricorn to Aquarius featured heavily in the energy of 2024). In January, the North Node will move from Aries to Pisces. In March, Neptune will move from Pisces to Aries. In October, retrograde Neptune moves from Aries into Pisces.

I've already discussed the starting/stopping/backtracking/starting/stopping pattern we've been in all year.

The easiest way forward is to allow the 12th house of Pisces to show you what you need to see. It's as simple as that. (ironic)

Oh yeah, it's a Pisces full moon, so you should clean your house.

Wash, wash, wash it all away.

Do you like my work? Kofi

[drdemonprince]

I have Borderline personality disorder and deal with chronic suicidal ideation. up to 10% of us *will* die by suicide. not *might* or *are more likely to.* *will.* which is 50 times greater than the general populace. it's hard to talk about and even harder to deal with bc it's such a heavy topic. the best thing, I think, is to just listen to somebody who is suicidal. let them talk about it. don't offer solutions, none of that "you have so much to live for" shit. the best thing you can say is "I understand how you feel." yeah I might think about suicide every day, but that doesn't mean I'll just suddenly pop and kms. suicides are largely decided within half an hour, and even more are decided within minutes. help a suicidal person feel grounded, let them know that you respect their decision should they follow through. they know that it's not the only way.

Thank you for sharing your experiences, anon. I would caution you very strongly to not take psychiatry's profoundly flawed and biased statistics as a predictive declaration of your fate, however.

*Will* makes it sound unchangeable no matter a BPDer's circumstances -- and given that psychiatry already operates out of the stereotype that BPDers are "incurable" (and therefore not worth much effort in helping), it's subject to a ton of bias. statistically, we can't actually say that a person "will" die of something like suicide with any certainty, as it's not a simple progressive illness like a cancer or something. suicide risk is dynamic and influenced by a person's social support, relationship dynamics, financial situation, whether they're on medications that exacerbate or help things, their trauma recovery, all kinds of things that *are* mutable.

Psychologists and psychiatrist are taught downright cruel things about people with BPD -- i've been in those programs, i've heard things that have shocked me -- and it leads to profound isolation, internalized stigma, and sometimes unnecessary death. many providers give up on ya'll or make things worse for you when they have no right to do that, and they're taught that it's the most yall deserve. that's part of why the suicide risk for BPDers is so consistent.

A person ought to have the freedom to choose death and preventing all suicides is not a respectful goal. I am a harm reductionist and supporter of body autonomy to the maximum. my point here is that when psychiatry says you and people like you "will" die by suicide 10% of the time, what they mean is that that's the general trend they have observed, and they have decided that because of their (bigoted, hateful, scientifically unsupported) belief that yall can never feel better that it's a loss they are okay with accepting.

Anyone who has heard nothing but negative things about BPD I would strong recommend pick up a copy of the book Psychiatric Hegemony.

Sorry for the aside and the rant, but I really want to make that reality exactingly clear. Living with suicide ideation doesn't mean a person can't have a worthwhile life, or that their existence wasn't meaningful and important however long or short that it was.

[failbettergames]

The Great Hellbound Railway

The Great Hellbound Railway is an expansive storyline that unlocks after your Persuasive reaches 175, and once you are a person of sufficient importance within London. These new additions expand upon activities and round out stations throughout the journey.

New Research Projects in the Jericho Library

"There are few pleasures greater than being in a library of one's own."

There are two new research projects available to everyone with a Library in Jericho! Return to the Oddlion Septagonal Reading Room to hit the stacks in pursuit of obscure knowledge and errant citations. Pursue forbidden histories of mutability and countervailing mysteries of the Elder Continent in the supreme comfort of your own library, and overturn popular scholarship in style.

These new projects are a permanent addition to the Library, and join the Hinterlands research project as always-available avenues of research.

Practising Law in the Courts of the Evenlode

"The traditions of the Evenlode are older than the courts in London, and the appointment of unconventional counsel is an expected part of proceedings. In fact, many here would be doomed to represent themselves unless you deign to offer your services."

You can now intervene in trials at the Courts of the Evenlode! You've been a spectator for long enough; it's time to wade into the fray and put your legal nous to good use. Defend rattus faber from the sticky fingers of local urchins. Prosecute the case of the Guild of Gondoliers against the Society Matron. Work out exactly what this Rubbery Man is being charged for, and how exactly he feels about it.

Pursuing justice in the Courts of the Evenlode is a permanent new activity, available to all players who have spent enough time in the Magistracy.

Story Additions to Burrow-Infra-Mump

"It is as though it grew in some other place where the colours are brighter and more vivid than our world can support. It is, unquestionably, a rose."

We've released a short new story in Burrow-Infra-Mump! London's ill-fated war against Hell casts a long shadow. Debts remain unpaid, relationships strain, and old obligations come due. A rose has appeared in Burrow-Infra-Mump; a curious plant of petal and bone that neither London nor Hell seems enthusiastic to claim. Cultivate it, or burn it to the ground, and learn of its relevance to the conflict of '68.

This short story is available to anybody who has completed the development of the church at Burrow, and starts via an Opportunity Card in Burrow-Infra-Mump.

It is also now possible to develop the old ruins at Burrow into a secular freehold. This is an alternate means of completing the station, and does not commit it to any faith or denomination.

New Artwork

Finally, something that you might just have gathered from this blog post already. Each station along the Great Hellbound Railway now has its own unique header art! New artwork joins the existing headers for Ealing and Station VIII, so keep an eye out for these new delights all up and down the journey to Hell.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

So ive diagnosed my blorbo as a knight of doom; how fucked is he?

Honestly, he's probably just fine! Though Doom is the aspect associated with death and suffering, and its players tend to be pessimists, that doesn't mean that they're slated for permanent, terrible fates.

aspect = base personality, class = character arc

So we don't have much on Doom players, but every Aspect exists as an equal-but-opposite reflection of another Aspect, so Doom can also be understood as being equal-and-opposite of Life. All three of our Life players are marked by a stubborn optimism - Feferi's main defining characteristic is outright stated to be her undeterrable optimism, and Jane stubbornly refuses to believe that Crockercorp is evil and that her friends are from a post-apocalyptic future. Meenah, too, stubbornly and wilfully refuses to listen to her friends telling her that trying to kill the invincible demon is an impossible task. If we then look at our Doom players through the lens that they ought to have opposite traits to our Life players, we see that this rings true - both Doom players are pessimists (at least, Mituna was before his injury, given his defining trait then was yammering on about a terrible fate that would befall his team if they didn't all stop being such assholes) who are marked by mutability. Mituna is noted as having this thing where he switches wildly between being highly offensive and then highly contrite, while Sollux's character introduction is literally a double bait-and-switch, where he initially refuses to be introduced, and then changes his mind. Life is also associated with the physical world and biology - the Condy giving herself the psionics of the other bloodlines through whacked out genetic experimentation - while Doom seems associated with artificial technological processes, like code.

I'm also personally convinced that being a dual dreamer is actually a Doom thing, and not a Captor/bifurcation thing, and here's my reasoning: Doom is associated with death and prophecies. Mituna was noted to still have prophetic visions even though he was an Heir, a class not associated with futuresight. Sleep/dreamselves in Homestuck are associated with prophecy - the clouds above Skaia and the whispers of the Horrorterrors - and having an extra dreamself means the player functionally has an extra "death" to spare. Moreover, having two dreamselves gave Sollux extra abilities in the dream bubbles (read: afterlife) - he was able to become "half-dead", which enabled him to leave the bubbles, something Aradia remarks he "shouldn't be able to do". Finally, there's another heavily bifurcated member of the cast, arguably much moreso than Mituna or Sollux (who are both shown to be dual dreamers) - Gamzee. Sollux and Mituna have a tendency to swing between two different emotional states, but Gamzee is confirmed by Hussie in the book commentary to literally have two halves of his personality (and after he snaps, he refers to himself as if he's two people - "THE MIRTHFUL MESSIAHS WERE ALWAYS ME (o: and me :o)"). It's not necessarily a split personality so much as the result of many years of masking his true self behind a persona, but it's still bifurcation AT LEAST comparable to Mituna, if not Sollux - but Gamzee is not a dual dreamer.

Plus, it just makes sense, right? Sleep and death are interlinked in Homestuck; the death one has to take to become God Tier is called "the Ultimate Nap", God Tier clothes are equated to pajamas, and becoming God Tier merges you with your dreamself. Thus I posit that Doom's domain is over pessimism, negative feelings, death, sleep, rest, prophecies, and endings. Its players are negative and pessimistic, but empathetic compared to Life's tendency towards callousness; they tend to be contradictory and standstill compared to Life's stubborn forward motion, and they're commiscerators, not healers. They are guides in stormy weather, reminders that sadness, grief, and pain are not bad things and not to be shunned; they aren't really super noticeable when things are going well, but when things turn to shit, they often become the team martyrs, willing to sacrifice themselves to course correct - but because they have a bit more death to spare, they're able to do so without losing themselves (Sollux, after all, ends the story alive).

Knights, meanwhile, have a character conflict centering around insecurity and façade. They're usually handed some great destiny - Dave to defeat LE, Karkat to unite all the bloodlines. However, they're struck by self-loathing and imposter syndrome, and to cope with those feelings, project a façade opposite of their Aspect. For example, Dave is consistently shown to be one of the most detail-oriented members of the team, who listens and absorbs all the bullshit Karkat says and picks up on "hints" that he's meant to kill LE, and he's constantly working to polish his "art" - these reflect Time's association with minutiae and its driven, goal-oriented nature. However, he has a crippling insecurity about Not Being Good Enough, and a fear of genuine sincerity, brought on by years of abuse at his brother's hands; this leads him to project a front of "disaffected cool kid who doesnt [sic] give a fuck". At its worst, this causes him to make the wild assertion that LE has never even done anything directly to him or his friends, so he refuses to fight the guy - even though he literally watched LE pop a bubble, and was haunted directly by LE in his youth via Lil' Cal.

Similarly, Karkat loves his friends and feels personally responsible both for their success and their failure, and when push comes to shove, and he's able to calm down and get serious, he's actually one of his team's most level-headed and reasonable members (his counselling of past!Kanaya comes to mind, where he talks her through her romantic woes and reassures her that she's doing just fine at frog breeding and will figure it out) - these are reflective of Blood and its focus on bonds, and its mature, responsible (if neurotically so) nature. However, he has intense self-loathing due to both his mutant status AND crippling insecurity about his status as the Second Coming of Troll Jesus (something he's confirmed to know about because he rants at Jade at one point about how his blood color makes him good only for an execution in the exact manner the Signless suffered); these lead him to try and project a façade of a Strong Leader Who Don't Need No Friendship, which ended up having disastrous knock-on effects for his team - he functionally sanctions the Tavros/Vriska situation, which dashed any hope of Tavros self-improving; he ignored Equius/Nepeta, which stifled Nepeta's ability to grow due to Equius's isolating overbearingness; he ignored the Terezi/Vriska dynamic, which ended in disaster; and he left Eridan all alone to fester and stew in loneliness and anxiety - all the worse because it's heavily implied/foreshadowed that Eridan and Karkat have a naturally pale dynamic, and confirmed that Karkat is basically the only person on the entire team who cares about Eridan and takes his problems seriously. His fixation on being an independent badass distanced him from his Aspect, and his team paid the price, and then, with half his friends dead, he had no way to complete his arc as a Blood player.

Finally, Latula is beset by crippling insecurity, especially over her role in the team and whether or not people like and respect her - she neurotically tells Meenah that she used to view Meenah as a competitor for the team's "badass cool girl," and worked herself into knots about it, before "rationalizing" it as being okay because Meenah could be the team Bad Girl, but Latula could be the team Rad Girl. This is her façade - she acts like a dumbass exaggerated Gamer Girl stereotype so that people will like her better, opposite Mind's associations with intellect, logic, and rationality. Porrim outright says that she's smarter than she lets on, and tells her to drop the act, which Latula agrees to do, confirming that it is, in fact, a façade. Latula also confirms for us that justice and karma are Mind things, stating that she "gets" how the Mindfang/Redglare situation turned out that way karmically, and that Porrim doesn't because she's not a Mind player. But, as a result of her dedication to her façade and pursuit of likability, Latula ends up being one of the team's ultimate bystanders. She's friendly towards Meenah and hostile towards Damara, even though, given she can sense how nasty Aranea is, she should've been able to easily identify how horrifically Damara was treated - the poor, rustblood immigrant being bullied by the rich fuchsia heiress? C'mon. All the worse because Latula IS anti-casteist, as this is one of the things Kankri likes about her. Moreover, she's dating Mituna... and I've gotten death threats for saying so before, but I stand by this; it's not a healthy relationship.

MITUNA DIGRESSION TIME. Asked by Meenah what she even likes about him, Latula can't come up with anything besides "idk, there's more to him than all the awful stupid shit he says" and "he will always need me". 😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬 Like she literally can't resist insulting him when she's trying to come up with why she likes him, and the only specific thing she can name is that he's dependent on her... terrible! Terrible icky bad! Moreover, Mituna himself doesn't seem to... know... that he's dating Latula? He never comments on it, and in fact, when Meenah asks him to take off his shirt so she can see if he has God Tier wings, he ENTHUSIASTICALLY assumes that she's romantically/sexually interested in him and reciprocates. Cronus outright says that part of what he "likes" about Mituna is that he's too incoherent to understand anything Cronus says, which appears to be the common consensus. Look, I am not at all saying that neurodivergent people OVERALL can't consent. I am just saying that, given that Mituna literally forgets how to take his own shirt off, and seems confused and unhappy about Cronus's intimate shoulder-touching, but can't articulate it any more coherently than "why is your hand touching me, i don't want it to be touching me", I would personally feel uncomfortable doing anything romantic/sexual with someone drunk or high enough to be similarly impaired - especially because Mituna's condition is always framed as an injury and not who he is as a person. Not only that, but it's an injury he suffered at Kurloz's hands so Kurloz could use him as a hypnopuppet (the source of the "rumor" Cronus hears that Mituna can speak coherently around Kurloz)... basically, the injury is framed as a Very Bad Thing that happened to Mituna, which allows him to be taken advantage of and abused by the others on his team. And given that Latula's only stated reason for liking him is "he's dependent on me"? 😬😬😬😬😬😬😬

Finally, the thing people always point to as "Latula cares about him awww" is that she yells at Damara not to touch him while he's sleeping, or else Latula will kill her. The thing is, though, Damara is the victim in her story, no matter how explosively she retaliated, and Latula - the smart Mind player who instinctively understands karma - would know this. Moreover, we know that Damara is perfectly kind and polite to people she has no beef with, because she's very sweet to the humans - and she's even still needlessly kind to Rufioh, offering him genuine romantic advice, just because he can actually speak her language. Before his injury, Mituna is characterized as constantly trying to warn his team to stop being shitty or else something bad will happen to them - AKA, the only person on the team who likely WASN'T a complicit bystander in the Meenah/Damara situation - meaning that it's more likely than not that Damara is friendly to Mituna. What does it ACTUALLY say, then, that Latula tries to keep her away from him? Just food for thought.

Anyway, Mituna digression over - point is, Latula dating him is her taking advantage of him (in fact, it probably passes her team's smell test because of the way it resembles culling - which, by all means, Latula is AGAINST), and thus, a nasty, unjust thing to do - but done because it assuages her insecurities and helps her push her façade as the Gamer Girl to have a Gamer Boy BF.

So an Knight of Doom takes shape - someone who's pessimistic and contradictory, who has prophetic abilities, but deeply insecure about some aspect of themselves. Given Doom's association with prophecy, the impact of the Knight's usual overhanging prophecy is probably magnified - the Knight of Doom is intended to accomplish some great feat, but their powers naturally cause them to see only poor endings. Thus, to cope with it, they adopt a persona that distances themselves from Doom - probably something relentlessly cheerful and positive, like a self-help guru. They also probably stay awake as often as possible, avoiding Doom's sleep and rest. Still, they're actually quite drawn to some aspect of their Aspect - like Dave to rap, Karkat to romance, the Knight of Doom probably has some great, earnest fondness for code, or lucid dreaming.

Their arc is one of internal struggle against insecurity, the façade against their true self. At their worst, the Knight of Doom's insistence on shallow, hollow optimism will lead them to ignore their prophetic visions, and all signs of brewing trouble - which the Knight, the party's direct leader, who wields their Aspect like a tool or weapon (and who can, in turn, wield others as such through their Aspect), is uniquely poised to intervene in. A Knight is the steering force of the party, for good or for ill, and a Knight of Doom who ignores all the warnings their Aspect provides will certainly charter a course for disaster.

However, Doom players are uniquely gifted in course correction, and having two dreamselves means they have an extra death to spare. Even if the Knight of Doom fails to steer the party away from trouble, once they're in trouble, the Doom player may just be able to pull them out at the cost of one of their own lives. In general, this ability to course-correct has great synergy with the Knight's role as a leader; if the Knight of Doom is able to overcome their insecurities, and come to terms with their pessimistic nature, they'll be uniquely poised to intervene in any situation before it gets too messy or passes the point of no return - but even if it does, the Knight still might be able to turn it all around. After all, death isn't really the end in Homestuck, and in the realm of the dead, nobody has more sway than the Doom player.

Doom as an Aspect isn't very glamorous, and its associations with pessimism, suffering, and death can even make it seem like the short end of the stick - which I'm sure Doom players would agree with, those negative nancies. But pain is the bricks that build the bridge of empathy, and one can't have joy without sadness. If you never live, you can't die; if you can never die, are you really alive? Finite things are more precious for their finiteness, and all things must eventually come to an end, one way or another; what a Knight of Doom does for the party is ensure that, when they reach that ending, it's a peaceful, satisfying, and restful one - one in which they can look back and go, "that was pretty great."

Also, being able to wield doom and death like a tool or weapon sounds Sick as Hell

[talonabraxas]

New Moon In Gemini

The New Moon connects with Venus, Saturn, and the Nodes of Destiny. This is a fateful moment in which we communicate our desires and let them be known. The possibilities are infinite, and anything seems to happen. The caveat is that Saturn creates a square to the lunation, bringing roadblocks. Therefore, it’ll take effort and work to attain our goals — as long as we are down to give our visions all of our energy to come to fruition, we are golden. The lesson Saturn imparts upon us is to not give up on our dreams and ourselves — even if it takes time and requires patience.

The Gemini stellium (the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter are in the air sign) asks us to choose wisely. Using our voices and thoughts to implement radical change will enhance and evolve our lives. The Venus Star Point (aka Venus Cazimi) and the Mercurial alignment with Jupiter from June 6 is ushering forward towards greatness. But, we may get stuck in a moment since the Venus Portal asks us to reflect on the events from June 2020. Think of ways to transform that moment in time and reclaim it. Gemini energy is mutable, so we can augment matters and situations to demonstrate our power and strength.

The asteroid Juno and centaur Chiron link up with the New Moon, allowing us to heal partnerships — especially our relationship with ourselves. Balance, compassion, and understanding are crucial. The fixed star Rigel adds abundance and beauty to the New Moon's overall performance, positively impacting us.

Under this lunation, we should cleanse the roads ahead and utilize energy to our advantage. Take copal incense and cleanse your home with it. Open the windows and use the incense in the room's corners and doorways. This should detox the energy swiftly. Also, take a cup of water and invert it on a plate on the floor in the corners of the room for a week to dispel negativity. These activities will bring freshness and goodness to the mix, helping you jumpstart your endeavors on a great note.

Owl Witch 🦉 Talon Abraxas

[transbookoftheday]

Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton

The story of Christine Jorgensen, America’s first prominent transsexual, famously narrated trans embodiment in the postwar era. Her celebrity, however, has obscured other mid-century trans narratives—ones lived by African Americans such as Lucy Hicks Anderson and James McHarris. Their erasure from trans history masks the profound ways race has figured prominently in the construction and representation of transgender subjects. In Black on Both Sides, C. Riley Snorton identifies multiple intersections between blackness and transness from the mid-nineteenth century to present-day anti-black and anti-trans legislation and violence.

Drawing on a deep and varied archive of materials—early sexological texts, fugitive slave narratives, Afro-modernist literature, sensationalist journalism, Hollywood films—Snorton attends to how slavery and the production of racialized gender provided the foundations for an understanding of gender as mutable. In tracing the twinned genealogies of blackness and transness, Snorton follows multiple trajectories, from the medical experiments conducted on enslaved black women by J. Marion Sims, the “father of American gynecology,” to the negation of blackness that makes transnormativity possible.

Revealing instances of personal sovereignty among blacks living in the antebellum North that were mapped in terms of “cross dressing” and canonical black literary works that express black men’s access to the “female within,” Black on Both Sides concludes with a reading of the fate of Phillip DeVine, who was murdered alongside Brandon Teena in 1993, a fact omitted from the film Boys Don’t Cry out of narrative convenience. Reconstructing these theoretical and historical trajectories furthers our imaginative capacities to conceive more livable black and trans worlds.