#but also this is a part of a larger trend

[taleswithoutend]

It’s becoming abundantly clear that nobody cares about jewish people. You’ll get mad on our behalf when it’s convenient for you, and you’ll spit slurs at us when it isn’t.

But hey, I’m glad you’re willing to make excuses for blatant antisemitism when it’s used as a dunk against someone you don’t like. Maybe the next time Harry Potter discourse is in vogue, we’ll still be around to be convenient props for you.

[briannysey]

after oiling my hair for the first time yesterday it looks so alive in a way that it hasn't in such a long time

[phykios]

i've gotten a few very lovely comments on my fics recently, but also a few mentioning something along the lines of "is this fic abandoned, it's been so long since you've updated" and while i appreciate the sentiment, i must remind my audience that i am in the middle of my phd and only got back from my year long research fellowship last saturday and i'm still adjusting to my normal time zone. i can barely stay awake for more than 6 hours at a time. the fics are coming but jfc i'm busy

[thealchemistbae]

Part of Fortune Degree Meanings 🍀

Disclaimer: This post is for entertainment purposes only.

thealchemistbae © do not copy, redistribute, or edit my content.

If you enjoyed this post, you can leave me a tip via PayPal at goddessguapa@gmail.com or via Venmo @goddessguapa. Thank you.

The POF is about how and where you strike GOLD, feel naturally lucky, and effortlessly attract abundance when you lean into it.

🌈: 0° -> You're a natural talent at creating wealth from scratch or inheriting a legacy. New beginnings bring big wins. Every time you try something brand new, the universe rewards you. First to market, early investor, or building a brand from the ground up.

🌈: 1° -> Success comes when you stand alone. Your independence is magnetic. People are drawn to your solo vibe. Think: Solo entrepreneur, lone creator, self-made mogul.

🌈: 2° -> Money follows when you're in the right vibe. You attract wealth through community, aesthetics, or softness. Think: content creator, artist, or someone who gets gifted just for existing.

🌈: 3° -> Your voice, content or writing = gold. Speaking, podcasting, scripts, books, or anything with your words brings the bag. Pitch ideas...they'll hit.

🌈: 4° -> Money flows when you connect to your roots. Family businesses, real estate, or honoring your ancestry could unlock generational wealth. Sentiment = success.

🌈: 5° -> You get paid to be seen. Charisma, entertainment, and creative expression make you $$$. Think: acting, modeling, influencing, or running a show.

🌈: 6° -> You're the queen of systems. Passive income from routines, health regimens, digital products, or service-based offers that solve problems.

🌈: 7° -> Wealth flows through relationships. Business partners, romantic collabs, or social connections open doors. Think: referrals, collabs, marriage to money.

🌈: 8° -> You get luck through shadow work, sex, appeal, and taboo wisdom. Therapy, transformation, manifestation coaching or $ex work = actual income paths.

🌈: 9° -> You get luck and fortune to teach, travel or publish. Courses, online education, spiritual teachings, or anything that expands mine is your jackpot.

🌈: 10° -> Boss energy. You’re here to run empires. Real-world success through business, status, long-term investments, and strategy. Get corporate or build your own.

🌈: 11° -> You make money by being ahead of your time. Tech, trends, astrology, or community-centered biz is your path. Think: influencer meets innovator.

🌈: 12° -> Spiritual, psychic, artistic, and dreamy income streams. You can literally get paid from dreams, intuition, art, or divine downloads.

🌈: 13° -> You profit when you shake sh*t up. Say what people won’t, do what they fear. Your authenticity is rebellious and people PAY for your truth.

🌈: 14° -> There’s something magical about your wealth. You’re protected. Money shows up just in time. Trust the divine timing; you’re spiritually aligned with success.

🌈: 15° -> You are magnetic AF. People want to watch you, follow you, and throw money your way just for showing up. Fame, clout, and visibility = wealth.

🌈: 16° -> You profit by solving deep problems — either through service, healing, or creative problem-solving. Fix a broken system, and you’ll build your fortune.

🌈: 17° -> Your ideas literally turn into income. Brilliant, future-forward strategies = passive cash. You may also attract benefactors who fund your vision.

🌈: 18° -> You turn pain into profit. Period. Your hardest experiences become the very thing that makes you rich. Use your transformation to help others.

🌈: 19° -> Your voice is a weapon. You inspire, influence, and sell with speech. Speaking, hosting, consulting, or coaching can bring you massive wealth.

🌈: 20° -> You’re here to do soulful, purpose-driven work. Your fortune is tied to your spiritual calling. Money comes when you follow your mission.

🌈: 21° -> Main character energy. Luck finds you in the spotlight, in front of a camera, or when you embrace your larger-than-life personality. Fans = funds.

🌈: 22° -> You’re meant to build wealth through serious mastery. Authority, certifications, and real-world expertise = your golden ticket.

🌈: 23° -> Networking queen/king. You meet one person and BOOM…doors open. Events, socials, and group energy = money magnets.

🌈: 24° -> You’re here to make soft, sensual, and intuitive money. Feminine energy, aesthetics, and pleasure-based business = jackpot.

🌈: 25° -> You get paid from the cosmos. Astrology, energy work, divination, or being your weird, wonderful self attracts wealth from magical places.

🌈: 26° -> You’re meant to pass something down. Building a brand, inheritance, or generational wealth is your path. Think: queen of the family empire.

🌈: 27° -> You create wealth with intention. Your mindset is your moneymaker. Vision boards, rituals, scripting? They actually work for you.

🌈: 28° -> You know how to mix seduction with success. Business + pleasure = $$$. You’re intuitive, strategic, and irresistible in the boardroom or bedroom.

🌈: 29° -> You’ve lived many lifetimes and now you’re here to collect. This is master energy; your fortune shows up through power, endings, and full-circle moments. One big transformation will unlock your ultimate bag.

What degree is your POF at ? Drop in the comments.

thealchemistbae © do not copy, redistribute, or edit my content.

If you enjoyed this post, you can leave me a tip via PayPal at goddessguapa@gmail.com or via Venmo @goddessguapa. Thank you.

[jeaninelatragedia]

wait, doesn't personality predate ideology? ideology doesn't create personality, right? (genuine question, i want to learn more)

"personality predates ideology" is a quirky little rhetorical sleight of hand that implies that: 1. people have an innate inclination toward certain or other aspects of personality, 2. ideologies form out of the emotional impulse of (a certain group of) people. what this boils down to then, if we sit down and analyze it, is that it implies certain people are naturally and innately predisposed to agree with particular ideologies, beliefs, etc. this is, to put it mildly, incredibly idealistic and very very dangerous.

this is a belief that's taken a lot of forms and different ways of being expressed, so specifically what i'm honing in on is the time famous gringo comedian Brennan Lee Mulligan said the quiet part out loud in an interview. quote: "people are not motivated by ideological codes, people are motivated by impulse and construct ideological codes to justify and rationalize what they were already going to do. [...] on the level of individuals and civilization, personality predates ideology, meaning that before you were a fascist, you were a bully and an asshole." again, i think this is symptomatic of a larger, yes, ideological trend, and i don't take like, personal issue with the fact this one guy belives that. if anything i'm thankful, because him saying it this way makes the surrounding concept much more easy to analyze!

so let's move around the center thesis point and analyze the surrounding context. many ideologues have spoken at length about the fact that understanding fascism as some kind of catch-all badpersonist ideology is (to not use the also correct term "unserious") not just untrue, but detrimental to how we can study the material weight and implications of fascist ideologies, as opposed to other ideologies that are, frankly, equally as violent and reactionary. "bully" and "asshole" are terms that mean nothing other than like, a vague social idea of "person who other people find abrasive toward those disenfranchised in a setting of comradery" or really just "person who others don't like very much"! to claim that there are people who are fundamentally predisposed (from birth in some models, but really even without that) to being "bad people" as individuals, that then go and adopt the "ideology by and for bad people" is, well. calling it reactionary is genuinely lowballing it. and that kind of sets the tone for the idea, right?

to get really dialectical with it and get into the negative flipside of the idea, think of the common non-denominational leftist slogan of "i wasn't radicalized to the left, i just have empathy and care about people". it's kind of the flip-side to this belief, right? "i don't need a strong framework to inform my political conceptualization, all i need is hope and to #lovethyneighbor! that's true leftism!" but that's not really effective, is it? i don't make the allusion to christianity for no reason, many christians who live good, sinless, charitable lives, are also like, insanely reactionary in a lot of very particular topics! feelings are fickle, and often do not reflect material reality. and so is "personality", so is "belief", these are frameworks that reduce the human experience into the very point at the start, that flatten discursive knowledge, scientific analysis, etc., into being secondary (if even relevant!) against "impulse" and "instinct". personally, i think it's a bleak view!

the first line about "ideological codes" and "impulse" seems to think it's putting the cart squarely after the horse, but looking closer at it, it's doing the exact opposite. sure, a child is not birthed with a fully fledged ideological framework, but a child is not birthed with a fully charted path of "impulses", either. and this is because a child (and therefore all people!) does not exist in an empty vaccuum, their mind does not develop away from a historical context.

people are shaped by context, people interface with other people, and the people of the present grapple constantly with the weight of history. the weight of a history that, in fact, crystalizes ideology within those who live in it! people do not develop ideological frameworks by themselves, their ideological frameworks are shaped by their context. and the same goes for their personality, for their "impulses", for their "instinct". all of these things are built and trained, not innate. people are not, in fact, motivated squarely by an ideological dogma, but they aren't motivated by base impulse either! people are motivated by context, a context that includes both the interpersonal and the broader ideological machinations that have existed ever since society has.

now we circle back to the core phrase. "personality predates ideology", and to your question, which i'll translate for ease of answering into: "does ideology create personality?" both the ideas of "ideology" and "personality" are... very broad concepts, to say the least. at a glance, it definitely seems like a chicken and egg situation. but just like with the chicken and the egg, it's a solvable issue! it's just an answer that may seem unsatisfying without its context.

in short, neither is really true! personality, being the vague thing it is, can't be much argued to have a "starting point", if we define it by a particular set of social traits that form an "identity". what we can say is that the personality of one or multiple individuals did not give rise to the fact that ideological frameworks began to be created as society began to set. ideological frameworks are also messy to define, even if we limit ourselves to the idea of "political ideologies". but what's certain is that, in the thousands of years of human history, frameworks to define society were needed for the sake of, well, defining said society! and that had less to do with personality than it did with the material conditions that shaped societies, and therefore, the people in said societies.

think of the context of the world (geography, biology, every influencial factor on the first societies) as a line, from which the individual personalities of the people in that context split off. eventually the ideology that forms society splits off the same line of context too, and they almost immediately begin to weave together, like a single thread turning into a woven rope. the ideology of the society in which the individual is raised is influential in their personality, and as society develops, ideology too becomes part of the context that informs that individual development, that shapes the individual's personality. but ideology is now so natural in society, it's not able to be influenced by the individual, but rather, by history as a whole.

so, the answer is twofold. the personalities of each and every human individually in all of history were not informed by ideology, because ideology developed with society, and they're both vague terms to define when looking at such a long timeframe. but both those ancient personalities and ideologies were built by their context. and as generations grew within society, ideology became part of that very same context. and now, in the modern day, the ideologies of the world are so inextricably woven into the context of each individual's life, that claiming that ideology is not a major factor in the development of the individual's personality can only really be said if your idea of "personality" is an intrinsic characteristic of a person, and not something shaped by their context. for what i'd argue is basically all of human history, i'd say yes, personality is (mostly if not entirely) created by the ideological context of the individual.

(as an aside: it's also important to understand that even with this model, personality is not actually relevant to ideology! ideology stands without the necessity for an individual's personality, because it needs to be analyzed through the context of history, not the other way around!)

or in less complicated terms: read Dialectical and Historical Materialism by Iosef Stalin.

[genderkoolaid]

everytime someone brings up "just ask a gym bro for T" im baffled, like ah yes. gyms. a famously safe place to be loudly transgender. also "just walk up to the biggest guy and ask him" ask him what? accuse him of using steroids without any prior interactions?

the way people dismiss transmascs fears about the illegalities of DIY T pisses me off (especially because most often the trans guys i see speaking about those fears are TMOC, who are at much higher risk for "possession of controlled substance" being used against them by cops)

Its part of a larger trend of people insisting that cis men are broadly safe for trans men&mascs and that places dominated by cis men occupy a relatively low risk for trans men&mascs.

And like, if you are someone who is a trans man or transmasc or are often perceived as one, and you have experienced little to no hostility or violence in spaces dominanted by cis men, cool! I'm glad!

But then people will take the fact that that is a possibility and extrapolate to "if you are a trans man and you are hesistant or afraid to be in spaces dominated by cis men, it's because you are a birthday boy bitch and probably hate trans women because you still think you are a vulnerable little female! REAL trans men just do whatever and don't get bothered!* which like. hello transphobia hello misogyny hello toxic masculinity.

[kiefbowl]

On radblr, in my early twenties, now what is likely 10 years ago (which, it's hard to remember when I started actually feminist positing on tumblr in earnest), I used to write about rape a lot more. I think my younger self felt invigorated not so much about the conversation of rape (of course, it's horrific), but by being angry and political about it. Being able to articulate complex, feminist ideas about rape, and have likeminded women engage. It felt intellectual and important, while a form of my own conscious raising. As I've aged, I find it harder. I can only say so many things, over and over again. It was never not hard, or depressing, or angering, but where the bad feelings once felt righteous and worth experiencing for the sake of speaking towards truth, now it can feel ineffective and exploitative.

I'm not saying one way is right, the other is wrong. I think (speaking broadly of course) that this is a part of aging. I think there is some truth about the patterns we see between young people and their thoughts and abilities, and then aging out of them. I think, speaking politically, younger and older activists need each other because two perspectives work in congress: the young passion that can be short sighted and ideological, and the elder pragmatism that can fall into complicity. These two perspectives together can be stronger than when apart. It's always more complicated than that, and each person is different, but I do think the trend of "I'm full of energy and angry and shocked and won't faulter" giving way to "I'm going to be measured and find priorities and perhaps become more lenient" is a general trend that is true. You get older and you realize both how short time is and how much longer you get to live it, and constant anger is not only exhausting, but it can be counterproductive. What's more, is that not only do your responsibilities increase, but some of those responsibilities also rub up against the very "machine" you used to rail against. You can achieve a lot with money, and to gain money you have to work. You gain money, you can start increasing your circle of influence, but then that increases the people you need to take care of. You need to take care of people, then you need to buy things. Suddenly, what seemed so easy being young and living off a shoestring budget 10 years ago seems irrational and dangerous today. I need to feed my dog, I need to help my sister, I can't expect my parents to live forever, I want to retire one day, I can bet on declining health...on and on. I'm speaking about myself in many ways, but I'm also trying to gesture to the larger trend generally. Extrapolate as it suits you, I think more of you than you realize will find yourself re-evaluating what actually isn't reconcilable as you get older. It's both hard to swallow and yet...like a toad in boiling water, you're almost not surprised looking back and realizing how much has changed and how right so many adults were when you were younger.

And so to this point, my intellectual posts about rape decreased. Never completely out of the fight, but being more specific about my time, my energy. Opting out of discussions that were too triggering, being more careful about my word choices. Understanding the harm that can come from being combative towards strangers on a public platform. Realizing that some periods of my life could be dedicated to enriching my life and creating enjoyment, and that meant certain things could be put on the backburner. Just because I wasn't writing, doesn't mean I wasn't thinking. I didn't need external validation (especially from strangers on tumblr) that my time was being well spent when it came to observing the news and thinking about it. I know what goes on in my head, putting it into a public post didn't make it more true. I'm not so sure I had the same belief at 22/23/24, etc. I think whether I would have articulated it that way, I think I felt like what went on in my head was meaningless unless it was being crafted into a message that had some sort of impact, with tumblr being my main platform to do that. I don't think that way now. I think my thoughts have value even if I keep them to myself, which means when I really have something I think is worth sharing on tumblr, I can craft it more precisely if and when I find the time. Or at least that's my goal as a 30-something, and I don't think that was as explicit of a goal as a 20-something who just wanted to get every thought down because it felt like my brain was being turned on for the first time.

But something that is coming into focus with the accusations of Gaiman that I haven't really reckoned with, or at least not as much as I have the past 24 hours & past 6 months, is that while I aged privately and passively by blog followed suit, is that the landscape of tumblr has evolved around me. I think there's a trick my brain has played on me: that at the end of the day, something of what I engaged with on radblr 10 years ago still exists. And, yes, to an extent, there are some women here I've followed for the entire time (but they have also aged...). But my followers have increased and decreased and increased and decreased with every stupid post that goes viral, and as I've aged and remained on tumblr, many many more women have aged and bowed out. It's becoming increasingly clear that I have a lot of young women following me who are not my age, and did not see those posts, mine and others. The "classics" that live large in my mind but weren't viral hits, just radblr discourses of the week. Some of these young women have a wildly different online experience than I did, and I think I knew but didn't know know the difference 10 years makes when growing up on the internet. I never had twitter, some of you are "twitter expats." I remember when youtube was people uploading 20 second home videos, some of you only know youtube as the long form video essay platform. I remember events like they were yesterday that are already erased in the public consciousness. Some of you were coming into your own during the "Me Too" movement and gave it so much credence, where I was not surprised nor expected much from it. Now I can see how we retroactively talk about it like it was such a bombshell, when most women I knew at the time, even "normie" women were, like, "yeah duh." I also haven't really reckoned with the fact that it's been long enough era of the "new algorithm" that there are (although young) full-grown adults who don't remember the internet before it.

The conversations I took for granted on tumblr are changing. To be sure, there are still a lot of women on tumblr who are likeminded to myself, making amazing posts that are good, true, & eye-opening. I'm not panicking that the "landscape" has changed so much that I can't recognize anything anyone says anymore, and that ""real"" feminism has dried up and disappeared when I stopped looking. But I want to say some things about rape that I believe are ideas that were shared between a collection of women that I deeply associated with on here a long time ago that maybe isn't explicitly talked about in these terms as frequently as I used to experience. I want to say some things that I used to say all the time that I think I assumed that "everyone knows" I say "these things" and "think these ways" - when maybe I haven't been so explicit in so long that people don't know, or haven't seen me speak these things before.

And so, some thoughts on rape:

Rape as a word is known to be an evil act, and therefore people (men and women) will speak of it as if they are against it. However, rape as it functions in our life is seen as a necessity. This is why people can speak out of two sides of their mouth about it. Rape is a concept of evil, but it is not an evil action. Why? Because women are meant to be raped. This is what's understood: women are inherently rape-able. Women are not sexual beings, they are sexual objects. They are incubators, and they create lust in men, which is what unravels the virture of men.

When a man rapes a women, the ultimate evil is that the man's virtue was corrupted, not the woman's. These ideas aren't explicitly articulated by anyone, but they are patterns at the heart of rape myths. It is a "shame" that a man "lost his will" because he happened across an "object" that "tricked him" into being "bestial", something that is ultimately excusable because man is beast. Is woman beast? No, she is not man.

If a man can resist, he is the paradigm of virtue; if he can't it's because she was too rape-able to remain virtuous. This is how men know they are rapists but don't agree they are rapists. They know they do the necessary action of raping, they disagree it's the same as the agreed upon concept of Rape. Rape that is evil is some monstrous other using these women as they are reserved for men.

When it suits men of a community, they can use this idea against other men they want to other. When it doesn't suit men, no man can be monstrous because all men are brothers, and so rape ceases to exist. You can't rape my daughter, unless you marry her, then do as you please. You can't rape madonnas, unless she is a whore, then do as you please. You can't rape my women, but if they're your women, do as you please. These ideas are not concrete convictions, they will morph to suit the man at the center of the rape accusation. A rapist who date-rapes might very well feel righteous anger when it happens to his sister. He can and will find a way to excuse whatever he did as part of some normal paradigm, a way he must act or should act, or a thing that is excusable for him. The inconsistency of this logic does not matter, because it does not suit him, and therefore does not suit male supremacy.

I say this all because, even though I'm appalled by the reaction of Gaiman's fans online, who are both men and women, and who can only fucking think of how they consume media (truly unbelievable and juvenile), I am simply not surprised. In so many ways, Gaiman's victims were rape-able, and that's why in so many ways his fans can readjust the variables of the situation and come up with some sort of conclusion of how it is rape, but it isn't Rape. Maybe she liked it sometimes, maybe she is misremembering. Maybe he was just confused on the terms of consent.

But what's more important to them is that they give credence to the idea that of course Rape is Evil, because they are good people who must think that way. What they're trying to convince themselves, and what can seem like they are speaking another language, is that this isn't Rape, this is rape. And so it's not that "she is misremembering" means she wasn't raped, but that she was raped in such a way that is the natural order of things. Man, who is a virtuous human and a beast, raped a sexual object who can only expect to exist so long in the world before tempting a man. This seems so obvious to most people. Feminists seem so intense and crazed, because they are centering something that is unnatural to most: a woman's experience as a human, not an object.

It comes natural to these fens to ask: "How can I enjoy my tv show knowing so many people think my hero is a capital R Rapist, when that's philosophical idea on evil and not a material reality, when I don't want people to think I don't take the capital R Rape idea as a serious evil." They are having two conversations in tandem. One is the idea that of course it's possible for Rape to exist, it's possible for some monstrous other to exist, but this man is not a monstrous other, because he is just a man. And men rape, that's just how it goes, because women are rape-able.

I'm condensing many ideas I have about rape into something simplified, for the sake of a tumblr post. And I got there in a circulus way, but I want to encourage the "old guard" who is still here, or women that agree with me above, that although they don't need to, if they have the time to speak more about rape as an intentional weapon against women, to do so. I think there are many ways the political conversation about rape for young women is first happening online, and I think the popular discourse is going sideways. A blind leading the blind moment. This is not a value judgement, but I'm gobsmacked at some things that are said as if they are "given" feminist talking points, that fall outside my understanding of rape as a feminist. Things like equalizing the complicity of Palmer with Gaiman's actions, rationalizing certain sexual proclivities as rooted in some innate sexuality, creating a hierarchy of which actions were worse for which victims, and so on. In many ways, also not surprising, par for the course for how feminism is generally spoken about. What is surprising to me is the confidence of speaking this way, and being convinced of their transgressive ideas. I think feminist online discourse must be so dire that the needle moving to some mid-point in a woman might convince her she's quite enlightened, when there's so much more she could learn. I think this idea that "libfems" are actually women who are clearly anti-feminist has convinced a lot of women that they are "good feminists" by engaging with ideas that are at odds at all with blatant conservatism, that it might be mystifying that they are quite centrist in comparison from many feminist talking points 10 to 20 years ago, at least as it appears to me. I'm speaking broadly, I know, but I had to get some thoughts down. Some angry part of me still exists and I do still feel the need to discuss rape, if only to show some young woman that there really is a deeply radical way you can think of rape that perhaps you hadn't thought of before.

As always, I'm open to critiques about anything in this post.

[the-moon-devi]

Astro Indicators Of Being Curvy

Reminder! This can change based off of genetics, and if you have any harsh aspects from saturn to any of these planets/placements.

🍑 Jupiter Dominance~ Individuals with Jupiter as one of their dominant planets tend to have a curvaceous appearance or a particular body part that is noticeably larger. However, this trait usually manifests in conjunction with other factors. Jupiter governs the legs, which often leads to this body part being much more prominent than others.

🍑 Moon/Venus Dominance: Both of these are feminine planets. Having 1 or both of these as your top 3 dominant planets gives the native a natural, curvy shape and womanly appearance. Moon gives you softness and bust. Moon can also bring the weight, while venus brings in the shape and curves. Moon rules boobs and venus rules the butt.

🍑 Sag/Taurus/Cancer/Libra dominant

🍑 Ceres in 1h/ conjunct Asc~ This is the asteroid of motherhood. And from what I've notice this brings women specifically a plumpness and curviness to their appearance. Their womanly body parts are more accentuated. Usually the chest area is prominent too!

Ex: Marilyn Monroe

🍑 Saggittarius Ascendants- our centaurs bring the legs. Lol. Although it doesn't always have to be the legs but it's usually something nice about that area. Sag Ascendants are ruled by the planet of expansion (jupiter) so its never surprising when I see that they are thicker than most people in their family.

🍑 purva ashada Ascendants

🍑 Cancer Ascendants- cancer all around brings womanliness, and femininity. They can sometimes embody that motherly figure of having wider hips and being thicker especially once they get older. Most the times when we see Cancer Ascendants who are slim they usually have saturn or mercurial influence on the Ascendant. Cancer can also bring the tata's.

🍑 Libra/Taurus Ascendants

🍑 7th house lord (positively aspecting) jupiter/moon

🍑 Moon in 2nd,1st,7th,4th house

🍑 Venus - Jupiter

🍒 Venus - Moon

🍒 4th house ruler aspecting Jupiter

🍒 Jupiter in 1h, 2h, 4h

🍒 Punarvasu, Vishaka, Purvabhadrapada in big 3

🍒 Jupiter aspecting sun/moon, ascendant, ascendant ruler

🍒 Mars ruled nakshatras in big 3; dhanistha,Mrigashira, Chitra

🍒 Aqaurius Moon/ Uranus - Moon; The Curious Case of Aquarius and Curviness/

It's perplexing to think about how Aquarius or even Uranus could be related to body shape. However, these celestial bodies are known for ruling trends, and in recent years, it has become fashionable to embrace curves. Women who are curvier than the norm, especially those from diverse cultural backgrounds, have become the face of uniqueness. Aquarius, the outcast of the zodiac, can bring attention to unconventional body parts on women. This can be unexpected and may occur with age, causing body image issues in some women, especially those with an Aquarius moon. This sign also brings a taboo or otherworldly appearance, which is why I believe Sarah Baartman, who was treated like an animal for her appearance, was an Aquarius moon. Women with an Aquarius moon can stand out because of their unique nature, as this sign is associated with trends. Not all Aquarius moon women are going to be curvy, but it is understandable why some plus-size models with an Aquarius influence on their moon have been celebrated for breaking beauty standards.

Ex: Barbie Ferreira, Ashley Graham, Precious Lee, and Mia Amber Davis w/ Moon conjunct Uranus

🍒 Moon aspecting Ascendant

🍒 Moon- Jupiter

The more you have the thicker you are. It usually takes a combination of these. If you have these and still aren't considered to be thick, check and see if you have saturn or mercury impacting your ascendant or ascendant ruler.

𝓓𝓲𝓿𝓲𝓷𝓮 𝓓𝓮'𝓛𝓾𝔁𝔁𝓮

𝓒𝓱𝓮𝓬𝓴 𝓣𝓱𝓲𝓼 𝓞𝓾𝓽.....

𝓗𝓸𝓽 𝓐𝓼𝓽𝓻𝓸𝓵𝓸𝓰𝔂

©𝓟𝓻𝓮𝓽𝓽𝔂 𝓒𝓪𝓻𝓪𝓶𝓮𝓵

[beneathsilverstars]

Was explaining my thoughts about Vaugardian attitudes towards mental health and therapy as part of a different topic, but it got really long so dfjkghdf here it is as a whole post! Starting with some more general worldbuilsing but hold on, we’ll get there.

Since Houses canonically contain libraries and infirmaries and provide things like education and transition care, I see them as a center of not just community but specifically community resources. If you have a problem or a question, you go to the local House, and if they can't solve it themself they'll point you in the direction of whoever can! Thus Housemaidens generally fill a role similar to social workers, and specific Housemaidens will have specialties like being a doctor, cook, teacher of a particular subject, etc. In larger cities, a lot of the more specific or labor-intensive resources would probably be outsourced to other charities/companies/organizations, or perhaps split into specialties by House, to better serve a dense population instead of trying to cram every resource into every neighborhood's House. But you would still go to any House first to find these other resources, so every House would maintain a focus on educating and advising. Combine this with the fact that religious leaders are often one of the first people that followers go to for personal guidance, and it makes sense that Housemaidens would provide all sorts of counseling, filling the role of everything from job coach to therapist.

If Housemaidens are the people providing all or at least most of the therapy in the country, then even if they're not trying to push religious doctrine, the Change belief is still going to be the source of the values and philosophies that their therapeutic models are based in. They can try to be nonpartisan and avoid mentioning Change in so many words, but it'll still be baked into the default assumptions of the local modalities in a self-perpetuating manner. If you want an entirely different approach, you're probably going to have find someone who specifically studied alternate modalities from other countries, any of which would have a much smaller market share than Change-based therapies.

So! Vaugardian therapy will focus on questions like "What Changes have been happening in your life lately, and how do you feel about them?" "What would you like to Change in your life?" "What can you Change about your thought processes and habits to address the things that trouble you?" and "Who do you want to be?" Which sound like just a particular way to word fairly common topics, but! These questions would be asked in pursuit of Change-y goals, as well.

The goal of irl mental healthcare as an industry is to make sure people can be productive. A common diagnostic question is "does this symptom interfere with your ability to work and otherwise get things done?" But Vaugardians are friendly and helpful to the point of approaching utopia, so I could see them being less concerned with this, because they're more willing to accept that some people can't work and some people need more support. In fact, in keeping with their distaste for carcinization, they might actively oppose the idea that there is any particular goal that people should be working towards. If there's one type of existence that is best for all people at all times, reaching it would mean there's no reason to ever Change again! So instead of any particular milestones, the goal is simply to set and strive towards goals that feel right to you.

I also think they'd be less likely to work off of a diagnostic model at all; you can't just say that someone inherently has depression. They may be depressed right now, but that can Change! The Change might require constant upkeep, but some Changes are like that, and it doesn't mean the Change is any less real. Instead, they'd probably be more focused on individual symptoms (and traits!), which might tend to come in certain clusters, but those clusters would be seen as trends rather than criteria. The Change modality would be less concerned with whether a state of being is disordered vs normal/healthy (and they'd be less likely to conflate "normal" and "healthy"), focusing instead on whether you're happy with where you're at, but also willing and able to Change as suits you.

So, "I feel apathetic all the time, I don't want to put effort into anything and I don't care about anything, I don't know who I am or who I want to be" would be an experience of depression symptoms that a Vaugardian therapist would prioritize helping you Change. But "I don't care about any of the things I used to care about, I think I want to quit my job and cut off all my friends so I can spend more time sleeping" would be... an idea a good therapist may recommend you spend some time exploring, to make sure that's what you really want and you're ready for the ramifications... but they wouldn't say, "No, that's a bad thing to want, we need to treat your depression so that you no longer want to do that." If you really do hate your job and your friends right now, stagnating in that because you feel like you ought to would be the worst case scenario! If pursuing this Change ends up making you feel unfulfilled and lonely and sick of sleeping all day, then, well, you can just Change again at that point, once you've decided that's what you want to do.

In an opposite example, a common criticism of irl therapy is that it provides bandaid solutions for structural issues. "I'm anxious about losing my job" might be addressed by mindfulness methods to lessen anxiety, which is better than nothing, but if you're genuinely in danger of losing your job and thus access to shelter and food, that's not something you can mindfulness away. Versus, in Change-based therapies, they would focus on discussing what you get out of that job and what about it makes you anxious. You might decide that you want to change careers to something that fits you better right now — which would be a lot easier to accomplish in Vaugarde than it would be irl, because of the resources provided by the Houses and general community. Or, you might decide that there's something about yourself that you want to change in order to better fit the job. So instead of working on the feeling of anxiety, you might work on building new skills, or building better relationships with your coworkers.

... I wrote this post thinking that Vaugardian therapy might use similar techniques to CBT (therapy), since CBT focuses on understanding the patterns of thought, behavior, and belief that lead to psychological issues, so that you can replace negative patterns with habits that serve you better. Sounds like making mental changes in order to change your feelings and actions! It would just be in favor of different goals than irl CBT under capitalism.

However. I did some more research, and it looks like Humanistic therapy is very similar to what I made up just now? According to this text, humanistic therapy "emphasizes growth and self-actualization rather than curing diseases or alleviating disorders." Psychological issues are "viewed as the result of inhibited ability to make authentic, meaningful, and self-directed choices about how to live," so it focuses on "helping people free themselves from disabling assumptions and attitudes so they can live fuller lives."

It's less of a set of techniques and more of a philosophy. According to this website, the key is empathy and "unconditional positive regard," which means the therapist "shows warmth, is receptive, and is nonjudgmental." They cultivate a casual, friendly atmosphere, instead of positioning themself as an authority figure. Client-centered therapy is a subtype that sounds like the most cliché sort of talk therapy; the therapist "listens, acknowledges, and paraphrases your concerns," giving you a space where you can be honest and accepted as yourself. Another subtype is gestalt therapy, which "focuses on the skills and techniques that allow you to be aware of your feelings and emotions," and encourages a focus on the present and self-responsibility.

So! That sounds about right! Vaugardian therapists aim to help you recognize your emotions and figure out who you are and who you want to be, through casual conversation and empathetic active listening, without judgement. They help you look at your skills, emotions, desires, and struggles, and guide you to consider the full breadth of options available to you, so you can decide what Changes will lead you to happiness and fulfillment. They especially try to avoid diagnosing, prescribing, or otherwise telling you who you must be or what you must need. They may provide suggestions — help you put something into words, or bring up options that professionals are more familiar with such as medication, or challenge you to re-examine your assumptions — but it's a collaborative brainstorming, and they want you to freely choose the option you think is best for you.

[biracy]

See also: Is this trans guy online actually "misgendering himself" or is he talking about himself as a trans person and not as if he's cis

Definitely definitely definitely not a fan of this whole like "actually trans men and cis women are basically the same if you think about it, due to the sex-based afab womb oppression" thing but I'm ALSO not at all a fan of like Epic Clapbacks that basically just go "actually trans men and cis men are basically the same if you think about it." Like I inherently have a lived experience distinct from that of cisgender men of otherwise overlapping demographics (my age, Latino, bisexual, etc) and I think it's Very important to be able to talk about that. Like transphobia is actually a really really really big seal and if you're super duper clocky (as I am, for the record) and/or just Out to people in general, you are going to face a kind of transphobic harassment that just isn't experienced by cis men who are kind of short. Trans men are certainly the men of trans people but trans men are also the trans people of men

[cripplecharacters]

In my art style everyone is drawn all cutesy with pastel and kidcore clothes, if I made a character with dwarfism would it be infantilising if they also dressed the same or is it alright when every character has that same aesthetic?

Hi asker,

If this is a standard for everyone you draw, I think this is probably fine.

When it comes to infantilizing disabilities, specifically dwarfism, the problem is that the person gets singled out as the only one who is “cutesy” or “childlike” due to nothing else but the fact that they’re disabled and, due to their specific disability, very short. Their actual personality gets ignored and it’s just “person with dwarfism = just like a child because of height,” which of course isn’t true. People with dwarfism have the same wide range of personalities and aesthetics just like anyone else does.

Now, in your art specifically, the larger trend is that everyone has a similar, kid-core, pastel, cutesy aesthetic. You’re not singling out the character with dwarfism — part of infantilization due to ableism involves that, zeroing in onto someone’s disability and seeing that disability as the reason that person should be treated like a child without taking into consideration the person’s actual wants and needs.

In fact, it would probably be weird if that was the only character you drew that didn’t have the same aesthetic, and you would in that case be singling them out just because of their disability.

Hope this helps,

mod sparrow

[cranberrymoons]

wait can we hear more about why traffic light system sucks please

well this is just one guy's opinion (mine) but in my opinion it's part of a larger trend in fandom that I hope is dying out a little where people have been very concerned about showing every bit and piece of negotiation that goes into a sexual encounter when like. if that's the point of your fic and you want to include it, of course write whatever you want! but I don't like when it gets treated as a moral mandate or a requirement or whatever. just make the two guys fuck. free yourselves. you don't have to do all that.

also with the traffic light system specifically it feels like one person put it in one fic one time in one fandom and suddenly everyone thinks it's a requirement or like. THE ONE WAY to have kink sex. like yeah some people do use "colors" in real life kink situations to check in with their partners but it's not the only way to do it. and I think it comes across as corny and ooc in a lot of cases in fic. but it is endemic across fandom for a reason I can't explain to the point where I see it pop up in fics where they're not even having kink sex. they're just doing like regular vanilla sex.

anyway idk it's a pet peeve I guess. lol. it annoys me enough that at one point I wrote an entire like 8k stranger things fic a few years ago specifically to demonstrate how you can show active ongoing consent without doing long scenes of negotiation and/or traffic light system check-ins every two sentences. climbs off soapbox.

[writingwithcolor]

My alternate universe fantasy colonial Hong Kong is more authoritarian and just as racist but less homophobic than in real life, should I change that?

@floatyhands asked:

I’m a Hongkonger working on a magical alternate universe dystopia set in what is basically British colonial Hong Kong in the late 1920s. My main character is a young upper middle-class Eurasian bisexual man.  I plan to keep the colony’s historical racial hierarchy in this universe, but I also want the fantasy quirks to mean that unlike in real life history, homosexuality was either recently decriminalized, or that the laws are barely enforced, because my boy deserves a break. Still, the institutions are quite homophobic, and this relative tolerance might not last. Meanwhile, due to other divergences (e.g. eldritch horrors, also the government’s even worse mishandling of the 1922 Seamen's Strike and the 1925 Canton-Hong Kong Strike), the colonial administration is a lot more authoritarian than it was in real history. This growing authoritarianism is not exclusive to the colony, and is part of a larger global trend in this universe.  I realize these worldbuilding decisions above may whitewash colonialism, or come off as choosing to ignore one colonial oppression in favor of exaggerating another. Is there any advice as to how I can address this issue? (Maybe I could have my character get away by bribing the cops, though institutional corruption is more associated with the 1960s?) Thank you!

Historical Precedent for Imperialistic Gay Rights

There is a recently-published book about this topic that might actually interest you: Racism And The Making of Gay Rights by Laurie Marhoefer (note: I have yet to read it, it’s on my list). It essentially describes how the modern gay rights movement was built from colonialism and imperialism. 

The book covers Magnus Hirschfeld, a German sexologist in the early 1900s, and (one of) his lover(s), Li Shiu Tong, who he met in British Shanghai. Magnus is generally considered to have laid the groundwork for a lot of gay rights, and his research via the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was a target of Nazi book-burnings, but he was working with imperial governments in an era where the British Empire was still everywhere. 

Considering they both ended up speaking to multiple world leaders about natural human sexual variation both in terms of intersex issues and sexual attraction, your time period really isn’t that far off for people beginning to be slightly more open-minded—while also being deeply imperialist in other ways.

The thing about this particular time period is homosexuality as we know it was recently coming into play, starting with the trial of Oscar Wilde and the rise of Nazism. But between those two is a pretty wildly fluctuating gap of attitudes.

Oscar Wilde’s trial is generally considered the period where gay people, specifically men who loved men, started becoming a group to be disliked for disrupting social order. It was very public, very scandalous, and his fall from grace is one of the things that drove so many gay and/or queer men underground. It also helped produce some of the extremely queercoded classical literature of the Victorian and Edwardian eras (ex: Dracula), because so many writers were exploring what it meant to be seen as such negative forces. A lot of people hated Oscar Wilde for bringing the concept to such a public discussion point, when being discreet had been so important.

But come the 1920s, people were beginning to wonder if being gay was that bad, and Mangus Hirschfeld managed to do a world tour of speaking come the 1930s, before all of that was derailed by wwii. He (and/or Li Shiu Tong) were writing papers that were getting published and sent to various health departments about how being gay wasn’t an illness, and more just an “alternative” way of loving others. 

This was also the era of Boston Marriages where wealthy single women lived together as partners (I’m sure there’s an mlm-equivalent but I cannot remember or find it). People were a lot less likely to care if you kept things discreet, so there might be less day to day homophobia than one would expect. Romantic friendships were everywhere, and were considered the ideal—the amount of affection you could express to your same-sex best friend was far above what is socially tolerable now.

Kaz Rowe has a lot of videos with cited bibliographies about various queer disasters [affectionate] of the late 1800s/early 1900s, not to mention a lot of other cultural oddities of the Victorian era (and how many of those attitudes have carried into modern day) so you can start to get the proper terms to look it up for yourself.

I know there’s a certain… mistrust of specifically queer media analysts on YouTube in the current. Well. Plagiarism/fact-creation scandal (if you don’t know about the fact-creation, check out Todd in the Shadows). I recommend Kaz because they have citations on screen and in the description that aren’t whole-cloth ripped off from wikipedia’s citation list (they’ve also been published via Getty Publications, a museum press). 

For audio-preferring people (hi), a video is more accessible than text, and sometimes the exposure to stuff that’s able to pull exact terms can finally get you the resources you need. If text is more accessible, just jump to the description box/transcript and have fun. Consider them and their work a starting place, not a professor. 

There is always a vulnerability in learning things, because we can never outrun our own confirmation bias and we always have limited time to chase down facts and sources—we can only do our best and be open to finding facts that disprove what we researched prior.

Colonialism’s Popularity Problem

Something about colonialism that I’ve rarely discussed is how some colonial empires actually “allow” certain types of “deviance” if that deviance will temporarily serve its ends. Namely, when colonialism needs to expand its territory, either from landing in a new area or having recently messed up and needing to re-charm the population.

By that I mean: if a fascist group is struggling to maintain popularity, it will often conditionally open its doors to all walks of life in order to capture a greater market. It will also pay its spokespeople for the privilege of serving their ends, often very well. Authoritarians know the power of having the token supporter from a marginalized group on payroll: it both opens you up directly to that person’s identity, and sways the moderates towards going “well they allow [person/group] so they can’t be that bad, and I prefer them.”

Like it or not, any marginalized group can have its fascist members, sometimes even masquerading as the progressives. Being marginalized does not automatically equate to not wanting fascism, because people tend to want fascist leaders they agree with instead of democracy and coalition building. People can also think that certain people are exaggerating the horrors of colonialism, because it doesn’t happen to good people, and look, they accept their friends who are good people, so they’re fine. 

A dominant fascist group can absolutely use this to their advantage in order to gain more foot soldiers, which then increases their raw numbers, which puts them in enough power they can stop caring about opening their ranks, and only then do they turn on their “deviant” members. By the time they turn, it’s usually too late, and there’s often a lot of feelings of betrayal because the spokesperson (and those who liked them) thought they were accepted, instead of just used.

You said it yourself that this colonial government is even stricter than the historical equivalent—which could mean it needs some sort of leverage to maintain its popularity. “Allowing” gay people to be some variation of themselves would be an ideal solution to this, but it would come with a bunch of conditions. What those conditions are I couldn’t tell you—that’s for your own imagination, based off what this group’s ideal is, but some suggestions are “follow the traditional dating/friendship norms”, “have their own gender identity slightly to the left of the cis ideal”, and/or “pretend to never actually be dating but everyone knows and pretends to not care so long as they don’t out themselves”—that would signal to the reader that this is deeply conditional and about to all come apart. 

It would, however, mean your poor boy is less likely to get a break, because he would be policed to be the “acceptable kind of gay” that the colonial government is currently tolerating (not unlike the way the States claims to support white cis same-sex couples in the suburbs but not bipoc queer-trans people in polycules). It also provides a more salient angle for this colonial government to come crashing down, if that’s the way this narrative goes.

Colonial governments are often looking for scapegoats; if gay people aren’t the current one, then they’d be offered a lot more freedom just to improve the public image of those in power. You have the opportunity to have the strikers be the current scapegoats, which would take the heat off many other groups—including those hit by homophobia.

In Conclusion

Personally, I’d take a more “gays for Trump” attitude about the colonialism and their apparent “lack” of homophobia—they’re just trying to regain popularity after mishandling a major scandal, and the gay people will be on the outs soon enough.

You could also take the more nuanced approach and see how imperialism shaped modern gay rights and just fast-track that in your time period, to give it the right flavour of imperialism. A lot of BIPOC lgbtqa+ people will tell you the modern gay rights movement is assimilationalist, colonialist, and other flavours of ick, so that angle is viable.

You can also make something that looks more accepting to the modern eye by leaning heavily on romantic friendships that encouraged people waxing poetic for their “best friends”, keeping the “lovers” part deeply on the down low, but is still restrictive and people just don’t talk about it in public unless it’s in euphemisms or among other same-sex-attracted people because there’s nothing wrong with loving your best friend, you just can’t go off and claim you’re a couple like a heterosexual couple is.

Either way, you’re not sanitizing colonialism inherently by having there be less modern-recognized homophobia in this deeply authoritarian setting. You just need to add some guard rails on it so that, sure, your character might be fine if he behaves, but there are still “deviants” that the government will not accept. 

Because that’s, in the end, one of the core tenants that makes a government colonial: its acceptance of groups is frequently based on how closely you follow the rules and police others for not following them, and anyone who isn’t their ideal person will be on the outs eventually. But that doesn’t mean they can’t have a facade of pretending those rules are totally going to include people who are to the left of those ideals, if those people fit in every other ideal, or you’re safe only if you keep it quiet.

~ Leigh

[wisteria-lodge]

2 things about Lily

It's obvious that she was the one to defeat Voldemort the first time around, not Harry, but Rowling refuses to elaborate on the spell, saying that she cast it accidentally (which... yeah sure, but then she created a world where only one mother and child could do it out of love... like did other children that suffered were not loved enough? oh i so dislike that). I don't know why Rowling does it. Like I always wanted it to be an actual spell that she (and James) researched and did as part of their back-up plan, but noooooo. A woman? Win against the big bad? In the 90s?? Noooo

Lily grew up with two people that we get to know intimately, and loved them dearly. Two very miserable, envious people, who likely hid their accents and the fact that they are of working class, two people who did everything, and sacrificed many things in order to be around characters who where wealthy. Two social climbers. And you know what Lily also did? This has to be deliberate. Like, I don't think that it's a bad thing. I think that Lily definitely wasn't as insane about social climbing as Severus and Petunia (I consider social mobility to be a positive thing!!), buuut she too married into money. So there is that.

I find it sad that the prospect of Lily being crazy ambitious and wanting to have better things are always portrayed as bad in fics, if it is discussed at all. You could have made her into a person who dreams about making it and give her a conflict about marrying into money, feeling like she will become a fake, and still craving that security! But nooooooo. Pefect perfection or a sleazy seductress, nothing else ever

Extremely good points. Wanting social stability is just a real, relatable thing, and it's got to be a lot for Lily, being told you're magic... and ADDITIONALLY learning that the power structure of the magical world that you live in now is super prejudiced against you? And there is an active dark wizard *currently* targeting people like you?

Also the sacrificial magic being cast accidentally never made sense. Harry does the same thing (I guess) on purpose at the end, with the result that all of Voldemort's spells have trouble "sticking," because Harry sacrificed himself for EVERYBODY? But I mean Regulus also sacrificed himself to protect people from Voldemort, he didn't have to die. Dumbledore willingly died to protect... Harry, Draco, Snape? Shouldn't that have had some magical effect?

It honestly would have been *so* much easier to say that Lily defeated Voldemort with a spell that sacrificed the caster's life. That's very cool, old-magic vibes.

But... this slots into an larger trend with the way JKR writes passivity and self-negation as heroic traits. The best example of this is Newt Scamander, her hero with the central traits "neutral" and "pacifist." But even with Harry... there's a reason he doesn't level up his core spells, and is most heavily associated with a disarming spell that he learns in year 2 and a shield spell he learns in year 3. JKR actively doesn't want him to be a combat character. It is *true* that Harry does not cast a single spell on-page in the entire first book. He does more magic later, but that original tendency is still there: there's a reason most of Harry's level-ups consist of loot given to him by loved ones, and not so much skills that he improves. JKR's ethos on power (expressed through Dumbledore) is that the people who handle power best are the people who don't want it.

And unfortunately... leveling up your spells on purpose... now that sounds like something that a person who WANTS POWER would do. Casting super duper powerful spells accidently (which harry also does, constantly) (and Lily does, of course) ... now *that* is much more morally pure.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Newly discovered antibody protects against all COVID-19 variants - Published Sept 3, 2024

Researchers have discovered an antibody able to neutralize all known variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, as well as distantly related SARS-like coronaviruses that infect other animals.

As part of a new study on hybrid immunity to the virus, the large, multi-institution research team led by The University of Texas at Austin discovered and isolated a broadly neutralizing plasma antibody, called SC27, from a single patient. Using technology developed over several years of research into antibody response, the team led by UT engineers and scientists obtained the exact molecular sequence of the antibody, opening the possibility of manufacturing it on a larger scale for future treatments.

"The discovery of SC27, and other antibodies like it in the future, will help us better protect the population against current and future COVID variants," said Jason Lavinder, a research assistant professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering's McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering and one of the leaders of the new research, which was recently published in Cell Reports Medicine.

During the more than four years since the discovery of COVID-19, the virus that causes it has rapidly evolved. Each new variant has displayed different characteristics, many of which made them more resistant to vaccines and other treatments.

Protective antibodies bind to a part of the virus called the spike protein that acts as an anchor point for the virus to attach to and infect the cells in the body. By blocking the spike protein, the antibodies prevent this interaction and, therefore, also prevent infection.

SC27 recognized the different characteristics of the spike proteins in the many COVID variants. Fellow UT researchers, who were the first to decode the structure of the original spike protein and paved the way for vaccines and other treatments, verified SC27's capabilities.

The technology used to isolate the antibody, termed Ig-Seq, gives researchers a closer look at the antibody response to infection and vaccination using a combination of single-cell DNA sequencing and proteomics.

"One goal of this research, and vaccinology in general, is to work toward a universal vaccine that can generate antibodies and create an immune response with broad protection to a rapidly mutating virus," said Will Voss, a recent Ph.D. graduate in cell and molecular biology in UT's College of Natural Sciences, who co-led the study.

In addition to the discovery of this antibody, the research found that hybrid immunity—a combination of both infection and vaccination—offers increased antibody-based protection against future exposure compared with infection or vaccination alone.

The work comes amid another summer COVID spike. This trend shows that while the worst of the pandemic may have passed, there's still a need for innovative solutions to help people avoid and treat the virus.

The researchers have filed a patent application for SC27.

More information: William N. Voss et al, Hybrid immunity to SARS-CoV-2 arises from serological recall of IgG antibodies distinctly imprinted by infection or vaccination, Cell Reports Medicine (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2024.101668 www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-3791(24)00382-3?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2666379124003823%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Yes, like I said, I believe that everything that happens after GAME OVER is actually not the ending that was originally planned for Homestuck.

At this time of Homestuck's writing, several factors were in play: first, Hussie had been enduring years of harassment, which had only escalated over time; second, they had bitten off far more than they could chew with the Homestuck game, and third, that's not even mentioning all the other projects they were dealing with, including merch, managing 3rd party artists working on future parts of the comic, managing 3rd party artists putting together an album, etc....

I also can't overstate how horrifically toxic the fandom was, especially to Hussie, and how most people in it genuinely did not know what Homestuck was about, to the point where TO THIS DAY you can be called an actual IRL genocide supporter and fascist for wanting to talk about Eridan - even though he's literally the least casteist highblood, and his entire character arc is about the ways his shitty society have twisted and harmed him.

So, it's my belief that Hussie realized they had several more years of writing ahead of them to conclude Homestuck the way they originally intended, looked at how stressed it was making them, and looked at the way that the fandom didn't even care about what the work they claimed to love was even trying to say, and went "fuck it."

I genuinely don't believe that Vriska was intended to solve everything - what I believe is that bringing Vriska back solves SOME issues, but causes others, and then more Stuff(TM) would need to happen in order to deal with that, ultimately culminating in EVERYONE being brought back to life.

And part of my evidence is actually some of the things you say: in one of his final conversations, Karkat explicitly says that he never figured out what Blood was supposed to be about, meaning he never actually completed his character arc. The same is true for Dave's reluctance to trust himself to step in and intervene, because he's afraid of not being good enough. Basically none of the alpha kids deal with their personal problems, either, and Jade never gets a proper conclusion to her character arc.

It speaks to me of an ending cut short - wrapped up with a shitty bow because the author couldn't fucking take it anymore. I actually sympathize with Hussie; I think it's a monumental kindness on their part that they bothered to end the damn thing at ALL, without cussing out the fandom that had literally not stopped harassing them and accusing them of being every kind of bigot for YEARS, when Homestuck is literally about how the patriarchy and fascism Are Bad.

So, like, y'know, agree to disagree, but the point I'm basically trying to make is to not take anything post-Game Over too seriously, because - in my opinion, at least - other factors are in play, and it feels unfinished and like a wild departure from everything the preceding comic was setting up because it basically was one.

Why the Alpha Timeline is the Alpha Timeline

I figured I'd make a post, since it's pretty subtle and I think it genuinely passed a lot of people by? Homestuck is made up of a lot of words, haha.

The alpha timeline is described by Doc Scratch, functionally, as "the timeline that causes LE to exist."

The path which alone has my absolute mastery is the alpha timeline, a continuum I define as that which boasts exclusive rights both to my birth and to my death, two circumstantially simultaneous events.

Aranea also gives the explanation that the alpha timeline is the one where reality is perpetuated.

AG: Reality itself is using you and many others to propagate its own existence. Strictly speaking, there is only one path to its successful propagation. 8ut it still permits you to make choices.

Caliborn also states that his quest as a Lord of Time is coming to terms with the inevitability that everything, ever, in all of time, will be because of him - that he'll be the one to shape it, including the circumstances of his own defeat.

uu: AS A LORD OF TIME. I THINK I'M GOING TO MASTER TIME. NOT WITH MY BRAIN. WHICH WOULD BE TOO HARD. BUT WITH MY INSTINCTS. uu: LIKE IN A WAY THAT WORKS WITH MY NATURAL IMPULSES. SUCH AS MY AMBITION. MY WILL TO COMMIT MAYHEM. MY DESIRE TO PUNISH THOSE I DESPISE. uu: SO IF I WANT YOU TO BECOME STRONG. SO YOU CAN CHALLENGE ME LATER. AND I SEE EVIDENCE. THAT YOU PROBABLY BECOME SUCCESSFUL. uu: I THINK TO MYSELF. WHY SHOULDN'T I BE THE ONE TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN? IF IT'S GOING TO ANYWAY. uu: I THINK PART OF MY PERSONAL QUEST. IS TO BECOME AT EASE WITH THE FORCES OF INEVITABILITY. uu: INEVITABILITY THAT ALL THINGS SHOULD AND WILL FALL IN MY FAVOR. THAT ALL CAUSALITY ANSWERS TO ME. AND THAT ALL OUTCOMES NOT ONLY SERVE ME. BUT CONSIST OF MY BEING. uu: SO I FEEL THAT. THE MORE I GROW IN POWER. uu: THE MORE STUFF IT SHOULD TURN OUT I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR. uu: UP TO AND INCLUDING. EVERYTHING THAT EVER HAPPENS. uu: EVEN IF IT HAS TO BE. uu: RETROACTIVELY.

Aradia's stint as stewardess of the afterlife is explicitly described as "service to the lord of double death," and Dave explains that he acts instinctively - like Caliborn does - to fulfill the conditions of the alpha timeline. It's also worth noting that their classes, Maid and Knight, are roles that directly serve a Lord in the real world.

TEREZI: LUCK1LY YOU M4K3 4N 4DOR4BL3 H4NDM41D TO TH3 M4ST3R OF D34TH, 3SP3C14LLY 1N YOUR CUT3 CH3RRY P1X13 3NS3MBL3 ARADIA: you think so?

GG: well youre from the future right? GG: dont you know already if itll work? TG: yeah more or less TG: i never really studied how it went down all that closely TG: i just figured when the time came to sort it out the right thing to do would be obvious TG: like it is now TG: managing the loops is a balance of careful planning and just rolling with your in the moment decisions TG: and trusting they were the ones you were always supposed to make TG: by now im pretty used to having my intuition woven into the fabric of the alpha timeline

I'm starting with all that so I can explain that the GAME OVER timeline doesn't end when the time players disappear from it, like doomed timeline offshoots normally do, because it IS the alpha timeline: the sequence of events that causes GAME OVER to occur is the sequence of events that Caliborn/Lord English have chosen: one where (nearly) everyone dies, all hope of victory is lost, and his servant, the Condesce, gets to claim the Ultimate Reward, perpetuating the same misery and oppression in the new universe, and presumably all universes to come.

We see from Caliborn's chess match with Calliope that his (and by extension, LE)'s modus operandi is to follow the rules to the letter, while manipulating his opponent, tricking them with "shitty twists". It's always been explained that LE's actions have been "sanctioned by paradox space," that is, everything he's doing is explicitly allowed, nothing he's doing is against the rules - including the fact that he must be defeated. He has, via his mastery of time, perfectly engineered a situation where the only viable reality is the one where yes, he IS defeated... in the dream bubbles, by the dead and doomed, whom he sent to the dream bubbles in the first place via Condy, Jack English, and all the other boss fights. And his will, his ideals, are imposed on the new universe in spite of his defeat.

In a completely Watsonian read of the text, Lord English is an incredible villain because - subtly and unsublty - he IS basically responsible for every bad thing that ever happens, ever, to everyone. He has legitimately been the puppetmaster pulling the strings the entire time, pretty much all because Caliborn is a huge asshole who loves to hurt other people, and wants to do it as much as he can, to as many people as he can, for as long as he can.

But I think he's especially interesting through a Doylist perspective, through a reading of the text as a coming of age. Homestuck is a worth riddled with theme and symbolism, and thematically, Lord English represents everything that these kids need to overcome in order to mature into kind, empathetic adults who will be one day responsible for the care and oversight of a new universe. He represents selfishness, sadism, greed, destruction, oppression, fascism, murder, genocide, and hatred. And also literally the patriarchy.

And, you know what? Don't take my word for it. Here's Andrew Hussie's commentary from Book 6 Act 5 Act 2 Part 2:

Much of the logic [for who contributes to Lord English] orbits around these negative traits associated with men, or more specifically, the “toxically masculine” aspects often linked to certain male personalities. Dirk has a lot of these traits, which are central to Dave’s feelings of tension and abuse concerning his bro. The intellectual aggression, the power of assertion, the knowitall-ism, the mansplaining. That’s a lot of Dirk stuff when he’s at his worst. Equius shares a lot of those traits too, with some different points of emphasis. Both of them have this creepy-guy streak running through them, with strange or offputting interests, and seem to get a quiet kick out of making others uncomfortable through demonstrations of these fascinations. They are actually pretty similar characters in this way.

He's invited into the trolls' universe (and, by extension, the kids' universe) via the Dancestors, in an original sin kind of way. I'll let Hussie explain on their Formspring (emphasis mine):

We learn more about the troll race, as a once peaceful species and such before kid-ancestors as players scratched their session, though the short term relevance of this is mainly as a preamble to Scratch's religious story. Establishing an Eden-like paradise from which there is some departure through sin is sort of the boilerplate basis for religious lore. ... The failed players from peaceful Alternia made a classic "deal with the devil" move by causing the scratch after being given a choice by the mother of all monsters. (Echidna. Hey, she's a big snake!) By doing so they brought Scratch into their universe, and therefore all the things you'd expect that comes with summoning the devil.

The Dancestor's "departure through sin"? It was the fact that they couldn't get their shit together and grew up inside the Medium. That's why they're the age they are, 9 sweeps - adulthood by troll standards. They aren't kids anymore because that's the ultimate sign of having failed to do a coming of age. Symbolically, the Dancestors represent a prior generation of grown-ups that fucked everything up, leaving a huge mess for their descendents to clean up after. In fact, Doc Scratch even describes the alternate choice Echidna gave them:

The heroes could either accept their defeat along with the extinction of their race, and put no others at risk.

In other words, they could have stopped LE if they'd simply chosen not to Scratch. But once more, in line with their behavior up until that point, they chose the selfish option, and bore descendants into the world they ruined. They're immature, nasty, mean-spirited, cruel, callous, and shallow on purpose, because their role in the story is antagonistic. They're aligned (even if unwittingly) with Lord English, as they're the ones who directly invited him in via their failure to grow the fuck up.

There's also a reason why SBURB/SGRUB directly tie achieving godhood and reaching the Ultimate Reward to planetary quests fundamentally designed to help children mature. God-tiering is supposed to come at the end of one's quest, as achieving it directly teleports you to the Battlefield for the final boss.

AG: I really think how successfully they mature is tied to success in the game. It challenges the players in all the ways they need to 8e challenged to grow, which is different for every individual, and veeeeeeeery different for every race. AG: I don't think we were so hot at that aspect of the game. In fact, I'm sure we were quite awful. Hell, even I wasn't that gr8 at it! I actually just kinda fell ass 8ackwards into the god tier, to 8e honest.

And there's a perfectly functional Watsonian explanation for this - in order to increase the odds that the new universe will successfully propagate new universes, it's ideal to leave it in the hands of kind, mature people. But the Doylist explanation is, again, even more interesting.

Hussie has spoken extensively about the comic having always been about two things at its core: first, a creation myth... and second, a coming-of-age. These are complimentary themes, as Homestuck also makes statements about society and its effects on kids. In the real world, the kids of today become the voters, revolutionaries, and lawmakers of tomorrow. In Homestuck, they create, and are responsible for, a new universe.

I always saw HS as an exploration of young people developing relationships over the internet […] There’s a lot more to HS than just that obviously, but if there’s anything which it’s been about through and through, it’s modern kids relating to each other from afar, developing as people and growing up.

In fact, all the initial kids' entry artifacts are metaphors for "departures, loss of innocence, and sometimes the journey from childhood to adulthood outright." John biting an apple, symbolizing the act that cast Adam and Even from Eden. Rose breaking a bottle, the act of christening a boat, and an item integral to the main means by which she relates to her mother, alcohol - an adult substance. Dave hatching an egg, literally the act of bringing new life into the world. Jade shooting an effigy of her dog, both symbolic of Old Yeller, and of breaking a pinata, an act often done at quinceneras.

There comes a point in childhood where the child stops being a child - the safe, familiar, comfortable world that they knew stops existing, and they can never get it back. They are thrust into a world that is alien and massive, and forced to grapple with the weight of their future duties. They deal with losing their guardians and finding direction in their absence. They must decide how they want to grow up, and then are responsible for shaping the society that comes after them. In other words, SBURB/SGRUB in this metaphor represent adolescence.

Within that context, God-tiering is actually interesting because it symbolizes adulthood - a semi-permanent state that a child is supposed to reach at the end of their SBURB/SGRUB journey. And, in fact, it's treated that way - none of the characters reach god-tiering the "proper" way... and of our god-tiered characters, nearly all of them have some sort of emotional struggle with growing up too fast. Vriska with the expectations of her shitty society, Rose with her emulation of her mother, Dave with his abusive brother, and the Alpha kids with substance abuse (the jujus) and romantic drama.

Anyway, sometimes when Mario's running sideways he gets a star that makes him magic and invincible. OH. YOU MEAN HE BECOMES TRICKSTER MARIO. Yes, but less stupid. So for a while he becomes flashy and hyperactive and nothing's challenging anymore. He just starts barreling over mushrooms and leaping over pits as fast as he can, then gets to the end and jumps on the flagpole and that's it. Mario "wins". But the point is, he didn't really win. That magic star was actually devastating to his development as a human being. WHY. Because he skipped over many critical trials on his spiritual journey. Mario NEEDS to stomp on all those mushrooms. He NEEDS to bonk those bricks with his head, for the sake of his personal growth. By using the star, he is denying himself many powerful moments of catharsis.

Like... I dunno... seems pretty blatant to me!

So with Homestuck so firmly being a coming of age, and with the Dancestors - whose primary failure is that of unrelenting immaturity - being cast in an antagonistic role, doesn't that make Caliborn's position of ultimate final boss extremely fitting when we take this conversation into account?

You may be destined for bigger things, but you’re still an atrocious, stupid child. And you may have won the “game” with your sister, but that doesn’t mean it was the best thing for your development as a person. You had her dream self killed, which is not an opportunity your species typically gets. So she died prematurely, instead of allowing the conflict within you to settle itself naturally. In short, you forced your predomination to happen a little too early, and now you’re stuck. STUCK? Yes. Your personality is stuck in some sort of cantankerous prepubescent limbo. You are going to be a stunted, miserable tool forever.

He's literally a child who chose to stunt his own growth so that he could reap all the game's rewards for himself. Someone who so stubbornly desired the selfish, greedy, and immature option that he was willing to hurt himself to achieve it. Caliborn - and by extension, Lord English - is a direct symbol for the refusal to mature, to be kind, to care about other people. By including Dirk, Gamzee, and Equius at their worst, he also comes to represent misogyny, toxic masculinity, the patriarchy. He's the Condesce's master, and so by extension, he represents fascism and oppression; as Doc Scratch, he gets off on abusing girls, and so he also represents predators and abusers. And his goal is to perpetuate himself, his ideals, what he symbolically represents, down every successive generation. Much like how these cycles of abuse and oppression seek to perpetuate themselves in the real world!

And that's why the alpha timeline, the GAME OVER timeline, is the way that it is: it's one where Lord English WINS. In Lord English's version of the story, everything is fucked up forever. He might be defeated, as is the timeline's inevitability, but his politics, his bigotry, and his ideals live on.

Except.

Our Breath player gains a power that literally unsticks him from time.

Now, personally, I don't believe that the ending we got is the one that was originally intended. I don't feel the need to elaborate upon that here, but suffice to say, given how clearly and consistently these themes are set up throughout the entire rest of the comic, it just makes sense to me that the ending we got, where characters stay dead, never finish their character development, etc. etc., is a MASSIVE tonal and thematic departure, which smacks of external pressures and influences. Everything after [S] GAME OVER is soft canon to me for this reason. But there's things that survive in it that are really really interesting, so I'll mention some.

First, the pre-retcon versions of the characters still exist, as we see from (Vriska). That means that everyone who died in GAME OVER would not necessarily have stopped mattering to the plot. I firmly believe that the original ending would've seen Lord English confronted by the GAME OVER (characters), who would also have the most karmic claim to beating Lord English's face in. This would also satisfy his whole deal of playing by the rules - he knows he HAS to be defeated, he just gets to choose the circumstances of his defeat; without realizing that John's retcon powers can rewrite a timeline, he would've set up his own death to be in the bubbles, at the hands of the already-dead, while Condy claims the Ultimate Reward - thus making it so that he still wins in the end.

But Breath represents freedom, choices - and the retcon powers are something John gains mastery over after completing his personal quest, which we've established is directly tied, both literally and symbolically, into growing up and maturing. By becoming a kind, empathetic, mature adult, John is able to choose something else.

Second, that the Ultimate Self is brought up at all, which seems to me like it would mitigate the bittersweetness of the (characters) from GAME OVER staying dead - because, in my head, the original plan for the retcon was that it would bring everyone back, and therefore, all the (characters) from GAME OVER would live on through the surviving post-retcon gang, who will eventually achieve Ultimate Selfhood, as Davepetasprite^2 says they will. This would also directly mirror the words Godtier!Calliope gives to her counterpart:

CALLIOPE: bUt then... CALLIOPE: what shoUld i do? CALLIOPE: you don't need to do anything. CALLIOPE: be who you've become, and who i didn't. CALLIOPE: consume the fruits of an existence i could never understand. CALLIOPE: live.

Third, there's just so many outstanding plot threads, even for the characters that DO survive. Jake's prophesized to defeat Lord English, Dave never actually gets over his hesitance about time travel and defeating Lord English, Karkat has multiple means of bringing his dead friends back to life and doesn't say anything, Vriska and Terezi still aren't 100% reconciled, Gamzee's tragedy is never addressed, Jane, Dirk, Jake, and Roxy never really figure out their situationship, etc. etc. etc. ... to say nothing about all the plot threads left dangling for the characters that stay dead.

And finally...

Isn't that just kind of a better story? One where the kids get to grow, change, learn from their mistakes, and create a better, kinder universe, after defeating the avatars of cruelty, oppression, and immaturity?

Is it just me? Haha.