#dude built like a wisdom tooth

[dopeepidemic]

Inktober #25: Dangerous

[totem-but-shark]

The differences and similarities between c and Q foolish is always so interesting to look at

They both have an ambition, though that came later on for cfoolish, and a tendency to make connections. Obviously that desire to build and create massive structures is shared as well

There are big differences though. A massive part of cfoolish was his pacifism and his struggle to find balance, which contrasts with with a chaos thrill seeking qfoolish

Cfoolish also isolated himself more. He deliberately built his home further away and harder to get to while foolish built his home right at spawn.

They’re both fairly well aware of cycles of violence and revenge, and act accordingly.

I also like how foolish almost always builds his homes by water, which is a deliberate choice by ccfoolish, as a throughline

it's SOOOOO interesting!!! there's so many similarities and parallels between the two whilst still feeling like fresh takes on the same base, uniquely shaped by their individual smps lore and experiences but the biggest question that prompts for me is "what exactly MADE them different?". If we consider that in a way they're different spins on essentially the same core character of Foolish the immortal shark totem was there some specific event or circumstance or fundamental difference in their hypothetically separate existences that caused them to split off as they seemingly have.

Where it's easy to spot the similarities when they're carved from the same stone, their differences run just as deep. These are characters with starkly different worldviews if you look close enough.

It's something i've thought about a lot and the conclusion I keep coming back to over and over is that thier defining difference is their relationship with or proximity to godhood.

They're two very very different immortals, Cfoolish was a god/demigod, he spent his life believing in his status as something more amongst mortals and this wasn't truly challenged until he found himself bleeding red red red slaughtered at the red banquet. So much of his character was defined by his past divinity, the grace he fought tooth and nail to regain. Remnants of a darker crueler past, bloodstained hands atoned for with 100 lifetimes of pacifism. Beautiful hollow empty temples. I feel there is a clumsiness to cfoolish, having to learn to be a person after a forever of naive arrogance that could only belong to one who thinks themself a god and afraid like a child when the illusion breaks.

Whilst our knowledge of qfoolishs history is more limited, from the little we've been given he feels far more human. Which might be ironic for an immortal shark dude but there are no stories of bloodlust, worship or great powers beyond comprehension. Only the far more tame, almost domestic tidbits about bumping into bad and shenanigans together over the centuries. In my mind he might've been an immortal traveler walking the earth and doing as he pleased, not as a god but a couple thousand years old regular guy living his normal life just for a very very very long time. Qbad and Qfoolish carry a sense of wisdom to them unique to their qsmp iterations, more traveled and emotionally older than previous versions, like they've seen it all before. I see it in the way they speak and talk with one another and generally interact with the world around them and whilst it's likely a matter of both ccbad and ccfoolish expanding their stage presence and refining their RP but it really does add another layer of depth to these characters.

All together there simply isn't this same connection to divinity, the qsmp world is generally quite detached from religious structure. Maybe qfoolish might've been as powerful as cfoolish or had the capacity to be but never sharpened that aspect of himself pulling him further and further away from cfoolishs acts of wrath that became such an integral key turning point for his character. Qfoolish instead growing comfortable in casual eternity. Could qfoolish never have become a totem of death? How would that have effected his character compared to Cfoolish? Maybe not, it's extremely hard to judge how powerful qfoolish might be with a wiped memory and the possibility of federation power limiters/magic suppressors. Before getting on that train he could've been as powerful as cfoolish in his prime however with the information we have we'll simply never know. I think it's unlikely though, if just by his demeanour. Regardless of qfoolishs theoretical power the qfoolish we know is no god, there is no worship, never hailed as something higher. He's simply himself.

There's this odd dissonance between them especially in their relationship with death. Cfoolish viewed death as something he was excluded from, had power over and only saw in the lifeless eyes of others. Until he didn't. Qfoolish knows death is natural and equally inevitable. He fears it too of course though in the way one might fear the tide, he builds sand castles on the shore knowing they'll get washed away by the morning but can't help but bask in the sun anyway. Qfoolish walks among the people and knows you don't have to die yourself for death to hurt.

[autofoebia]

works in progress

1) (something like) an operation - memoir

2) bitterness and black mold - fiction

1

A dentist I’ve known my entire life leaned over me with a pair of pliers in hand and said, “Tell me if it hurts,” before shoving his hands into my mouth. I was too numb to even register the brush of latex against my teeth. I lay there, tiny mouth forced open by a cheek retractor, my fingers in a death grip on my mother’s wrist, and I remember wondering how I would tell him it hurt. How would I even be able to buck up against him with the nurse’s arm across my chest? A mouth full of fingers really knows how to keep one from screaming out in agony. Perhaps the dentist was aware of that and was merely required to calm my nerves. Maybe he was playing a cruel joke on me. I considered there, on the pale blue chair with my chin tipped up and my eyes screwed shut, if pain ceased to exist under the blanket of novocaine.

The tapping of metal against bone rattled my skull. I closed my eyes tight enough to see streaks of illusionary light behind my eyelids and squeezed my mother hard enough to earn a pinch on the back of my hand. This was entirely her decision. In the summer of 2016, they found two impacted wisdom teeth on my bottom jaw. Me, a freshly graduated teenager with my head buried in Pokemon Go, expected and secretly wished for an easy operation. I had never gone under, never really understood all the pretty prose about surgeries I’d read, and somewhere, deep down, I was curious to experience going down into darkness, or waking into light. Things I had never truly considered before, I wished to experience and understand it all.

Suffice to say, when the dentist recommended I simply come in on my off day and get the two teeth out via novocaine-numbed-just-barely-a-surgery-surgery.

He pulled on my gums, my head snapping after his strength. The nurse pulled me back down again and I squeezed my mother’s wrist again, leaving crescent marks in the thin skin. The dentist twisted his wrist. I could feel the coldness of the forceps against my cheek but I couldn’t feel what it was grabbing, and then I heard a crack in the back of my throat. The taste, dulled by my useless tongue, of my own shattered tooth permeated the chill of the numbing agent. I am shaken and, oddly, intrigued. The clinical air, just as clean as the counters to my right and the sink to my left, was shot through with the coppery reek of blood. My mother made a sickened noise behind my head,

“You got it?” She asked. I could tell she wanted to go wait in the other room. Something heavy dripped down my chin and I kept my eyes shut tight as if I were afraid of whatever it was. I couldn’t help but think it was my tongue, cut free from the back of my throat. 

“Got it. I’ll do the next one too.” The dentist said. He pulled his hands back and shook out his wrists, and I opened my eyes in time to see the smearing of gore on his gloves, on his tools. He looked like Dr. Frankenstein himself, hidden behind a surgical mask and a hair net and a pair of thick-framed glasses, all smudged by the faintest mist of red. He loomed over me, the monster, ready to finish the job.

---

2

Mara came a week before the fall season started in a tiny lime-colored car. She pulled into the driveway, still overgrown with roots and brown needles and caked-down mud, stepped out of that little car, and stared up at the wilting walls of 356 Upper Mountain Road. That house, a two-floor Victorian which had laid dormant for the past thirty years, stared back with all the interest of a decayed corpse. Three weeks ago, Mara had seen it while driving to her classes at the local university. Then, a “For Rent” sign leaned against one of the pine trees on the front lawn. A week after that initial discovery, she contacted the owner. Another week and she was there, on the front lawn, surrounded by grass grown high enough to swallow her feet and trees so heavy with age they hung down to caress the top of her head with their needles. If she were a more optimistic person, she may have thought those small touches were enthusiastic hellos from that old house. Greetings, like that of a new roommate. ‘It’s so nice to meet you. I hope we can get along.’

One should consider the house when thinking of haunted houses. Ghosts are different always, with backstories of pain and rage and sadness and murder and love. Houses, though. The houses are usually concrete in their construction, in their own backstories. They are built on graveyards or cursed lands, constructed with awful angles and horrendous hidden rooms that welcome creeping darkness akin to a living, breathing beast. 356 was nothing like those haunted houses. 356 was built in the 70s, lived in by fairly happy families, and then left alone to rot until the landowner accepted the first call she received about a renter. No ghosts haunted 356. Not a soul had been in its gaping halls longer than an hour until Mara showed up with her tiny suitcase and her tiny colorful furniture. When she entered through the front door she felt no chill, no eyes on her back, heard no scratches from the basement or attic. When she investigated the old dusty rooms she found no footprints, no shadows in the covered mirrors as she uncovered them. There were no strange smells, no odd angles, nothing but empty, stagnant air and sunlight streaming through the windows. What haunts a house if nothing has died there, nothing has come and gone there for years? What haunts a house if not a ghost? Well, one should consider the house.

“You sure know how to pick ‘em, Mars,” Lydia, Mara’s younger sister, said as she helped her settle her mattress against the wall of the master bedroom. Her weary gaze took in the square, sturdy walls, covered in a blue wallpaper that may have depicted bundles of flowers once but was now too faded to even have a texture. She scrutinized the dust-gray shag carpet, which Mara had probably deep cleaned only a night or two ago, and the ceiling, which held a weepy fan and enough wrinkles in the white paint to warrant a plastic surgeon. The grand window to the left of them, which was in need of polishing, was perhaps the most beautiful thing about the room, with its curling ornamentation and balcony access. Mara, despite her sister’s obvious worries, still grinned as she stepped into the center of the wide, sunny floor, arms spread wide. She said,

“Don’t I? This place is great, Lydia, trust me, and mom said she’d cover rent until I graduate too.” 

“Lucky break,” Lydia leaned against the wall, pulling two cigarettes from her back pocket. She offered the extra to Mara, who reached over and took it between two fingers.

“Didn’t you quit?” She asked as she lit up and threw her lighter back over to Lydia.

“Thought about it. Didn’t have the guts,” Lydia sighed out a cloud of spicy smoke, “I’ve decided I’m fine with my teeth falling out by the time I’m thirty. Besides, it makes me look sexy.”

“So you think, you baby,” Mara said, “When’re you and mom driving down?”

“Next Friday,” Lydia stared down at her fingernails and found infallible interest in her cuticles, “I’ll miss you, you know.”

“Well, you’re the one who wanted an out of state school,” Mara said, “But I’ll miss you too, I guess.” She smirked and wandered over to the window, dragged her fingers through her hair, and watched as the sun began to sink behind the Jersey suburbs and trees far beyond her and her sister and her empty rented house. Lydia stared at her back. Anything the sisters wished to share, anything left unsaid, remained unsaid. The house felt it too and bided its time. A seed, it thought, has been planted.

Mara was a senior at Montclair University, just up the road from 356. Her commute, which had been a near half house drive from Lyndhurst, was now a mere five-minute scoot from her driveway to the overstuffed parking lot outside the business building. She spent most of her week cooped up in front of a computer, or in the back of her fashion and business courses, popping nicotine gum against the roof of her mouth and texting the ever populated group chat. Her conversations at school usually consisted of monotonous recollections of previous discussions, retellings of stories everyone had already heard before, and, currently, a room-by-room explanation of her new rented home. The audience of other fashion business majors, a gaggle of messy buns and Greek noses and perfectly manicured hands, listened with varying degrees of interest. At the mention of an overgrown but roomy backyard, one of the messy buns who Mara thought was named Cindy let out a happy gasp and said,

“You should throw a party.” 

“What?” Mara responded, unable to fight off a smile of interest.

“A party, dude. Housewarming, you know,” Cindy said, “Drinks and gifts and shit. And if you’ve got as much room as you say you do you can probably host like, half the school.”

“Oh, I’m not sure,” Mara said.

[aster-azimuth]

Moon in Leo & The Journey of Venus

Artwork by @vonnart

Tonight the last quarter Moon moves in to Leo and joins her South node (eclipse point), activating the ongoing fixed grand cross between Venus, Uranus and the nodes. I wrote about this grand cross in my previous blog post, but I'd like to expand on it here. 

The Moon in Leo and this image both remind me of the strength card in the tarot. The card represents not the outer strength that you would think would be required to tame a lion, interestingly, but the inner strength and grace that is required to remain calm and collected in the face of strife and struggle. It's about strength of character. It's about learning to apply that strength to control our animal instincts like fear and aggression, in order to master our own circumstances to the best of our ability, and ultimately to shine like only Leo can do... And we do that shining when we discover just how much we are actually capable of enduring... it's always far more than our fear tells us is possible. And what is often the most difficult thing to face that we all fear? That's right. Change. Especially for the fixed signs. But change is happening and it's time to determine and embrace our individual roles in that change.

This Moon is a Last-Quarter Moon, meaning she is square the Sun, who is incidentally now just about exactly one quarter of the way through the sign of Scorpio... Squares are about what? You guessed it: Also change. Not the kind of change that happens without direct provocation (like Uranus usually brings) but the change that comes as a result of striving and struggling to create it. Change that comes from DOING something (creative & constructive, hopefully) about our discomfort. 

On a personal level (and ultimately all things Moon are personal) the square between Leo and Scorpio is about self expression. Leo doles it out freely, Scorpio does not. They are also both about self-worth, being fixed signs. Leo is concerned with outer self worth being accepted and loved by others, and Scorpio is primarily concerned with inner, self-determined self-worth. 

This theme may be present to some extent in the decisions and changes at hand, especially with Mercury and Jupiter still conjunct, and Mercury moving from a water sign to a fire sign tonight as well... Perhaps there is too much emphasis on one or the other? 

Whatever the case, the theme of change is omnipresent in the heavens at this point. The astrologer Dana Gerhardt has this to say about a Last Quarter Moon: "Squares bring stress-and a potent thrust of energy that makes necessary changes possible.... During the Last Quarter's waning square, we're prompted to find a new direction. The 'something wrong' is generally inside, the change required a mental adjustment, some shift in our thinking, our intentions, or beliefs. Rudhyar called the waxing square a 'crisis in action' and the waning square a 'crisis in consciousness.'"

And he (Rhudyar) says this of quarter moons in general: "Moon phases help us decide our wise next steps. Whatever occurs at the Quarter Moons, we're invited to see it as two forces in conflict. Something wants to move; something else resists. This tension seeks its release in change, involving struggle, or assertive and decisive action."

Now... All this talk about change may feel overwhelming to some, but this particular opportunity for change is not just massive, it's also very well-supported by two grand trine aspects happening at once:

The Moon on the North node in Leo is activating the destiny of humanity right now. (NBD) The north node deals with the evolution of the individual soul and the collective evolution we are all a part of. She is making a grand trine to Jupiter and Mercury in scorpio and to Chiron in pisces, which is also offering a profound opportunity for healing. My last post on instagram (from this morning) is about this particular aspect pattern. It's under this image:

The other two trines are being made by Pallas Athena (the principle of creative wisdom) and Juno (the principle of divine marriage commitment) to the south node, which represents our karma on a personal and collective level. The south node deals with gifts and talents we naturally have that we have a tendency to rely a bit too heavily on, but which are very valuable nonetheless. I believe this aspect pattern is indicating an opportunity to address our relationship issues from a creative angle we may have previously not thought of or overlooked... or perhaps a creative commitment to the changes we know we need to make. Whatever the case may be, the support is there, as two grand trines = a very stable support system indeed. 

Back to the changes. 

While there is likely a very personal component for this transit for many people, there is also a larger-context social change that's happening. While Jupiter has been in Scorpio the last year and some change, (excuse the pun) he has set the foundation for this slow transformation. Venus in Scorpio has sped it up and made it more personal for everyone. Both of those planets are considered "benefics" in classical astrology, meaning that they are bringers of good fortune, but in the sign of Scorpio it's not all rainbows and pots of gold. 

Scorpio quite literally *IS* transformation on a deep and profound level, and the change these two have been bringing us looks like the #metoo movement, the #blacklivesmatter movement and the exposure of the racist, homo/transphobic, mysoginistic, xenophobic, bigoted, hateful undercurrent in the blood running through the veins of this "once great" nation we call the U.S. - those are their gifts to us; They are hoping we will use them wisely. Mercury also having just transited through Scorpio has brought these conversations further to the forefront of political discourse: 

NOW is the time for us to DO SOMETHING to create the change we want to see in the world. Pluto (deep profound change through relationships) and Saturn (rules, laws, boundaries, litigation, etc) both in Capricorn are urging us to do something PRACTICAL about it, not just talk...

Now, it's worth noting that there are always multiple ways any planets position can be interpreted, and Pluto and Saturn in Cap also represent the existing paradigm in all of its might: The oppressive powers that dominate the political landscape and have for centuries: the ones fighting tooth and nail to keep their power using fear tactics and war strategy... AKA the toxic Patriarchy and all that it represents:

But to hell (Scorpio) with those guys. It's time to take real, grounded and meaningful action, because the nodes and the two retrograde planets (Venus and Uranus) are about to move in to cardinal signs, where action begins... Uranus moves in to Aries on Nov. 7th, where he spends about 4 months before going direct and heading back in to Taurus on March 6th. We can plausibly expect some pretty major events in the world stage around that time.

Back to the lion and the inner strength of conviction and determination:

What this boils down to, IMHO, is that the stars are telling us that we need to do the inner work (NOW, not whenever it's convenient) so that we can make our unique contribution to the work that needs to be done to change the outer world - in particular the old, outdated structures that our society is built on... Where do you need to build your inner strength? Where can you change your behaviors and beliefs to be in more alignment with the vision you want to create? Because NOW is the time to address that...

There's one more planet I've left out, regarding all of this change, and that's Mars: The ruler of action. Mars is in Aquarius, the sign of tearing down the old structures in order to build ones based on more freedom for the individual and the collective as a whole... That is what Mars (who rules action) wants us to focus on now. He is currently ruling Jupiter and Venus in Scorpio, and in a week Mars will also be ruling Uranus when he moves in to Aries. To me, this is evidence that this (over any of the myriad of other possible interpretations) is the one that bears the most weight in regards to this transit...

To sum it up:

The time for revolution is here, dreamers. Will you let stodgy old Saturn and mean old Pluto in Capricorn keep you bound by fear to the matrix that was set up by crusty old rich racist white dudes? Or will you tear it down to create a new world? It's yours now, Millenials... just sayin'