#mars in literature

[dearlyjess]

working on my cane paper at the cafe, and reading a lot of mars! sometimes you just need to get out of your room to be productive 🌱

[luckshmi]

Exploring Mars in the 12 Houses

Mars, the red planet, holds a prominent position in Vedic astrology. Known as Mangal or Kuja in Sanskrit, Mars is revered as the planet of action, energy, and vitality. Its dynamic and assertive nature imparts a fiery intensity to our lives, shaping our ambitions, desires, and endeavors.

It signifies courage, strength, and determination, urging us to rise above challenges and pursue our goals with unwavering resolve. Mars inspires us to embrace our inner warrior, empowering us to confront obstacles head-on and emerge victorious in the battlefield of life.

Mars governs various aspects of our existence, from our physical vitality and sexual prowess to our ability to assert ourselves and take decisive action. It rules over attributes like ambition, passion, and competitiveness, fueling our drive for success and achievement.

Mars, with its fiery temperament, resonates with the color red, symbolizing passion, power, and vitality. Its corresponding gemstone, the red coral, is believed to enhance Mars' positive influences and mitigate its malefic effects.

Mars is associated with the divine archetype of Kartikeya, the courageous and valorous son of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati. Kartikeya embodies the martial spirit and represents the triumph of righteousness over evil, serving as a potent symbol of courage, leadership, and protection.

1/ Mars in the 1st House: Mars in the 1st house embodies dynamic energy. Individuals are natural leaders, exuding confidence and assertiveness. Devotion is expressed through self-expression, taking bold initiatives, and leading with passion.

2/ Mars in the 2nd House: Mars in the 2nd house infuses vigor into financial matters. Individuals express devotion by actively managing resources, taking action to secure financial stability, and asserting themselves in matters of values and possessions.

3/ Mars in the 3rd House: Mars in the 3rd house fuels communicative prowess. Devotion is shown through assertive communication, taking initiative in relationships with siblings, and being proactive in intellectual pursuits.

4/ Mars in the 4th House: Mars in the 4th house brings dynamism to the home. Devotion is expressed through protective instincts, taking action to create a secure home environment, and passionately caring for family matters.

5/ Mars in the 5th House: Mars in the 5th house ignites creative pursuits. Devotion is shown through passionate self-expression, taking risks in artistic endeavors, and actively engaging in activities that bring joy and fulfillment.

6/ Mars in the 6th House: Mars in the 6th house channels energy into service. Devotion is expressed through taking action to help others, actively participating in routines, and asserting oneself to overcome challenges.

7/ Mars in the 7th House: Mars in the 7th house emphasizes relationship dynamics. Devotion is shown through assertiveness in partnerships, taking initiative to maintain balance, and actively working together to achieve shared goals.

8/ Mars in the 8th House: Mars in the 8th house dives into transformative experiences. Devotion is expressed through deep emotional connections, taking action to explore the mysteries of life, and facing challenges with courage.

9/ Mars in the 9th House: Mars in the 9th house fuels adventurous pursuits. Devotion is shown through taking action in spiritual exploration, passionately pursuing higher knowledge, and actively participating in philosophical discussions.

10/ Mars in the 10th House: Mars in the 10th house energizes career endeavors. Devotion is expressed through ambitious pursuits, taking bold steps in the professional realm, and asserting oneself to achieve recognition and success.

11/ Mars in the 11th House: Mars in the 11th house energizes social connections. Devotion is shown through actively participating in group activities, taking action to achieve shared objectives, and passionately supporting friends.

12/ Mars in the 12th House: Mars in the 12th house navigates spiritual realms. Devotion is expressed through inner strength, taking action in solitary pursuits, and actively engaging in practices that foster spiritual growth.

[eldiariodetiara]

We should always make time for the things we like. If we don't, we might forget how to be happy.

T.J. Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea

[individuality-complex]

thinking about her ♡ 

[callme-dreamer-callme-pearl]

One of the hardest parts of life is deciding whether to walk away or try harder... -Unknown

GIF by shessocrazy-imsofucked

Synastry edition-

1. Moon in 12th house

2. Moon/Mars in 8th house

3. Moon conjunct/opposite Pluto

4. Moon-Saturn aspects

5. Moon/Venus/Mars - chiron aspects

6. Ascendant- Saturn aspects

7. Ascendant/Venus/Moon conjunct Neptune

The reason to put it so is that mostly, these aspects create a dynamic where one or both is either too cautious of the other or too attached, to a point that they start ignoring the obvious, frequently these aspects cause paranoia, hurt or disappointment as they may not recieve the same care, passion and empathy they gave out, causing them to be rather engrossed, confused or desperate, where they can or the relationship itself becomes toxic yet hard to just give up.

However, don't feel like you or your relationship is doomed or something, pain is not love but a part of it, a part of life. So breathe, and move forward 💝

(Overall chart should be taken into consideration)

[llovelymoonn]

rachel kushner the mars room

kofi

[dariomekler]

The Third Expedition

by Darío Mekler

Illustration for the story by Ray Bradbury included in "The Martian Chronicles"

Instagram

[that-ari-blogger]

This Is About Relationships (Hell's Greatest Dad)

I feel like we are seeing more and more stories that draw on horror elements as of recent times, with mixed success.

Critical Role, for example, has put some heavy emphasis on body and cosmic horror in their most recent campaigns, and I think that has worked really well. They are telling a story about feeling powerful in the face of adversity, and so having villains who are either unknowable or far too knowable really works for that idea.

On the other hand, the horror elements of Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness actively took me out of the story, because they didn’t fit with the rest of the franchise at all, and I found that rather jarring.

Then there is Hazbin Hotel, which isn’t scary, but it definitely draws on some of the tools of writing horror. Although it doesn't do that in the way you might expect. Specifically, it uses the character of Lucifer to both embody and subvert the very nature of Gothic horror itself.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD: (Hazbin Hotel, Ratatouille, Paradise Lost, Frankenstein)

I have made my stance on genre extremely clear in the past. I think it exists, but I think it is bollocks, and Hazbin Hotel kind of proves my point.

Because, yes, you can boil Horror down into however many constituent parts as you would like in order to organise a bookstore, but however you spin it, Hazbin Hotel fits that, with the exception that it isn’t scary.

Then again, being scary is entirely subjective. For example, I am completely fine with ghosts and ghouls, so the only thing that gets me about games such as Phasmophobia are the jump scares, and Jump Scares aren't horror. By the same score, I am incredibly squeamish, so Hazbin Hotel itself was more difficult for me than a few of my friends.

Which leads me to gothic horror, which has a distinct aesthetic to it that isn’t actually essential at all.

The name actually comes from its aesthetic. Gothic fiction got started in the 1700s when Gothic architecture was popular but gained traction in the early 1800s when authors such as Edgar Alen Poe and Jane Austin got involved. The latter of whom wrote Northanger Abbey in 1818 to parody the overdramatization of the genre in a book that I personally despise.

Austin’s book comes across to me as incredibly insincere. I have an infinite respect for Austin’s work, but there is a deep sense of contempt in Northanger Abbey that drives me up the wall.

I want to be clear here, this is not me saying the book is bad. It is incredibly well written. I just hate it with every fibre of my being.

To me, Northanger Abbey missed the point of the gothic genre. Gothic isn't about the emotion, it's about the humanity. The fallibility, the force of will, the instability and resilience that come and go like the wind.

Gothic horror turns that into fear, specifically the fear of morality. It’s the Ratatouille genre. Any angel can sin, any demon can rise. Or in other words:

“Anyone can cook.”

Gothic horror is the fear of inconsistency. That someone you trust can betray you, or spiral into awful deeds, or that someone you despise might be right. It’s the fear of redemption, and conversely, the terror of good motives leading to bad ends.

Other subsets of horror draw on the fear of the unknown, or of not knowing. Gothic fiction is steeped in the terror of what you know being wrong.

Case and point, Frankenstein is both the archetypal science fiction book, and a phenomenal Gothic story. The terror is derived from the fact that it’s titular character can be so great and yet such an absolute monster, as well as the horror of creating a conscience.

The creature is intelligent, and its intrinsic morality is up for debate the entire time. Frankenstein calls it his "Adam", for Pete's sake. It kills multiple people, but as a reader you are unsettled by how much you agree with its motives.

Gothic horror is the fear of absence. There is no good or evil here, just people.

There’s a reason I brought up Ratatouille. The conflict of the series is derived from Skinner’s visceral fear that someone he despises as much as Linguine can actually be competent, combined with a field rat rising from the gutter to run a restaurant. “Anyone can cook” is a threat in this movie, but it gets better explained by Ego in a way that I really like.

“In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau’s famous motto: ‘Anyone can cook.’ But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.”

According to one of the greatest fanfics ever written, Paradise Lost, Lucifer rebelled against G-d’s vision and fell, which can be taken any number of ways. It’s written so that you sympathise with the main character, who is, may I remind you, the literal devil.

Worth noting, Frankenstein's monster reads Paradise Lost. I wonder if there is any significance to that.

Lucifer from Hazbin Hotel is nominally the same character as his biblical counterpart, except that he is blissfully unaware of any of the themes surrounding him. Kinda.

He has grasped the fact that anyone can fall, but the reverse of that hasn’t quite registered to him yet.

Case and point, he doesn’t understand people at all. He has sought escapism through “stuff”. By which I mean the ducks, but I also mean his song, Hell’s Greatest Dad.

Part of the gothic theming in Hazbin Hotel is that people aren’t static, and that relationships are more important than anything else. Angel Dust and Pentious don’t become better people through trust falls, the find it through love and companionship, both platonic and more than platonic.

To demonstrate this, we contrast Lucifer with Alastor, who once again doesn’t sing his own song but steals it off someone else. Alastor’s relationship with Charlie is so obviously sinister, and that will be better explained two episodes down the line, but at least he has a relationship with her.

The agony of this is that Jeremy Jordan is a phenomenal voice actor, who, along with Lucifer’s stellar writing, endears the character to you from his first scene.

Alastor is a villain; Lucifer is an absent father. Who do you side with here? That’s gothic fiction.

“Sailors fighting in the dance hall, Oh man, look at those cavemen go. It’s the freakiest show. Take a look at the lawman Beating up the wrong guy Oh man, wonder if he’ll ever know He's in the best selling show. Is there life on Mars?”

This is the chorus of a David Bowie song called Life On Mars. It centres around someone seeking escape through television and storytelling. It points out the futility of this, but the fact that it works. It’s a stable dynamic that doesn’t go anywhere.

Remind you of anything?

“Who needs a busboy, now that you've got the chef? Michelin tasting menu, free à la carte I'll rig the game for you because I'm the ref Champagne fountains, caviar mountains, that's just to start!”

Lucifer is offering Charlie anything she could dream of. Any thing. But Charlie doesn’t need an object. She needs a father, and she needs her relationship with Lucifer.

Enter Alastor, who, up to this point, has been generally benevolent to Charlie. He’s basically the embodiment of that old Tumblr textpost that described someone as “chaotic gay. I haven’t done anything evil yet, but my general aesthetic and demeanour tell you that I will, any day now.”

Side note, I know this post exists. I have seen it, I have screenshots of it. But Tumblr’s search function is so legendarily awful that I cannot locate it. Tumblr’s search function has beaten the FBI before, and I don’t have that much patience.

In any case, Alastor offers up his own curriculum vitae in the form of this:

“Who’s been here since day one? Who’s been faithful as a nun? Makes you chuckle with an old-timey pun? Your executive producer.”

He’s pitching himself via his relationship with Charlie. But what I wanted to point out specifically was how the two characters relate to the beat of the song.

This song is inspired by Friend Like Me. I know it's subtle, but I'm onto something, and I can pick out the clues. If you look closely at his moustache in this shot...

Lucifer is clicked to the rhythm, or rather, his backing music is. The band hits ever downbeat as one, looping back to play the same thing every few bars. It is incredibly stable. The one thing that isn’t, is Lucifer.

The man misses every single beat by a fraction of a second. Not much, but when you contrast him with the entirely of the rest of the song, you notice that tiny imperfection, especially when Alastor doesn’t share it.

Alastor starts singing by matching the beat perfectly with his opening sounds, then going free within the restraints. Later, when he co-opts the song, the band begins playing along with him and matching his melody.

The Radio Demon understands people incredibly well, and he works on relationships. As such, his music has a much more symbiotic relationship between each of the parts. Lucifer’s feels like a creation, Alastor’s feels like it was created, if that makes sense. There’s a human element to Alastor’s take on this song.

Which brings me back to the gothic stuff going on here, and the relationship between Lucifer and Alastor. Alastor is, of course, a manipulator. He takes issue with Lucifer because he wants Charlie isolated. But Lucifer has no reason to get upset by Alastor, right?

Alastor shakes up Lucifer’s entire worldview, to the point where I find some of the double dad dynamic between them rather compelling. Most of it.

Alastor is risk incarnate; he stands for the idea that anyone can do anything. A radio presenter can be a cannibal, and have parenting instincts take over with Nifty and at times Charlie. But he is unsafe. Because he is such an unknown, he is untrustworthy. You don’t know where you stand.

Lucifer, meanwhile, is terrified of this fact. He likes the safety of knowing where he stands, he can protect himself there, but he can also protect others. In my eyes, that’s why he was so absent with Charlie. He found something he could understand and kept it because he didn’t want to shake up the rhythm. But that was futile, and he realises this over the course of this episode.

But you might say “wait, Alastor is ace, he can’t be with Lucifer,” and my answer is twofold. First up, I am ace too, that doesn’t prohibit relationships. I’m not even talking about romantic stuff here, Alastor is the poster boy for being aromantic, but more importantly, parenting isn’t just about the other parent.

The two can both be dads, joined by their mutual care for their daughter, rather than affection for each other. I find that compelling. Charlie needs both the security and the sign that everything is possible. She needs someone to lift her up, but she also needs someone to catch her when she falls, and Lucifer and Alastor both play different roles in that dynamic.

Any angel can sin, any demon can rise. Anyone can be a dad, anyone can cook.

Final Thoughts

Jeremy Jordan is a global treasure and even if this series doesn’t stick the landing with its next season (we will see), Lucifer will be amazing.

Do I have a crush on this man? No. No, I do not. Why do you ask?

In all seriousness, I think episode five should have been two episodes. One for this song, and one for the next. Lucifer would join the Hotel’s crew for a few days, befriending Pentious and co., being utterly disrespected by Husk, and being eased into the fact that morality isn’t binary.

I don’t even mean this from just the pacing perspective, I think the series would have so much more thematic weight if it devoted more time to the literal devil learning the thesis of the series and becoming on board with redemption. I think that would be cool.

I'm also just now realising that this is a Gothic Horror musical, so of course Alex Brightman got cast in it.

In any case, next week is More Than Anything, which is yet another case study in why Jeremy Jordan is amazing. Stick around if that interests you.

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[alexanthonymar]

i miss you,

[psykopaths]

Solaris, (1972)

Dir - Andrei Tarkovsky

[maghamoon]

hi! i know you made a post about magha placements but can you tell me a little more about specifically magha venus? i have mine in the 8th and was curious how this would play out. thank you in advance if you choose to answer :)

Magha Nakshatra: Pitri Secrets

the magha nakshatra (early leo) is ruled by:

planet- ketu

sacred animal- male rat

body part- nose, lips and chin

deity- pitris, forefathers of humanity

it is ruled by ketu, who is the guardian of our past karmas. wherever you have magha in your chart is where the past karmas are ripe enough to be experienced in this present life.

michael jackson- sun in magha

one thing i have noticed is that magha natives can easily become very class conscious. the symbol of magha is the throne, they seek attention and can also observe who is on “the top” of the pyramid and why they belong there. it’s a way for them to gauge what behaviors will help them eventually get on the top.

magha is the type of nakshatra that isn’t accompanied alone. usually magha natives have other indicators of karma, ancestry or forefathers in their chart like: sun conjunct saturn, any planets in 10th house, rahu/ketu in significant aspects, saturn conjunction moon, the magha planet in house 4/8/10, etc.

to completely understand your magha nakshatra, you must check where it’s ruling planet (ketu) is. for example- someone with magha mercury may have their ketu in the 12th house. this could mean they get their knowledge from their forefathers in the form of dreams, intuition, etc.

eva green, magha asc

magha venus can “attract” their ancestry very easily. venus is utter fulfillment and contentment in astrology, hence why you can attract easily using your venus. seeing that your venus is in the 8th house, you may uncover ancestral secrets or gain money through the property/riches of your forefathers. doing any sort of ancestral prayer/acknowledgement will help you understand intimacy and gain shared wealth.

magha mars may have a lot of karmic work to do regarding anger, drive and power. especially if it is conjunction/square saturn or sun. these are very fatherly, masculine planets. it can show wrongdoing of the ancestors on their male part, so now it’s someone’s time to change the tide.

generally, whatever house your magha is in- if you are facing difficulties in it, honoring your ancestors will help you.

uma thurman, magha asc

helena bonham carter, magha moon

How to Honor your Ancestors:

in general, any sort of acknowledgment to the ancestors can work.

in mahabharata, karna’s soul transcended to heaven where he was offered gold and jewels as food. he asked indra, the lord of heaven, the reason for serving gold as food.

karna had never donated food to his ancestors in shradha, since he was unaware of his ancestry. to make amends, he was given the opportunity to return to earth so that he can perform shraddha and donate food and water in their memory. this period is known as pitru paksha (fortnight of paternal ancestors).

amavasya (new moon) is a great time for magha natives as well.

doing shadow work related to your paternal ancestry / generational trauma helps you connect with yourself

reading about your genealogy, finding more about your ancestry

meditating, making art inspired from your ancestors, etc.

[litsnaps]

[shaylogic]

From my personal notes on The Case of Crystal and Charles. . .

[quotespile]

He occasionally missed Simone, but every time, right after feeling a desire to see her again, he was always relieved not to have to deal with her. If she could just appear at certain exact moments — when he was horny, or needed someone to talk to — that would have worked out fine, but people were not like that. There were hours built in where you had to hear someone express feelings about something that didn’t seem important, and you nodded and pretended that it was. You had to mask your own ambivalence and pretend to be in love one hundred percent of the time, and he’d rather swim in a lake of hellfire.

Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room

[nopeferatu]

Happy Thanksgiving, don't forget to watch everybody's favorite Thanksgiving movie today 💕

[everything-on-red]

“… ‘cause i wrote it ten times or more.”

art of dolores haze. i finished reading lolita recently, and it was insanely good! i was listening to “life on mars” the other day and it seemed to strike a thematic chord with the book, so i drew this.