venusinmyrrh

[venusinmyrrh]

I used to work at an occult store, and while this wasn’t my area of expertise, I have some recs! I'll preface this by saying that generally most astrology texts are self-help books, in the sense that astrology is a field designed to give you a framework to understand and improve yourself and your life, and if it doesn't do that, there's no point. That being said, it sounds like you're looking for something with more depth and information than your average Cosmo article. Understandable! Most people aren't actually curious to know the ins and outs of the discipline, they just want to know what they can blame their poor communication skills on. (Usually themselves.)

The Inner Sky by Steven Forrest is by far the most highly recommended book I've come across. It’s praised as accessible, thorough, and well-organized, and I know multiple people who say this was their gateway to astrology. I think it might be exactly what you’re looking for.

(If you like his style, or any topic in that book piques your interest, here's the link to his other, more specific books.)

Ada Pembroke is the astrologer who put me onto Steven Forrest! She writes excellent blog posts that focus on using astrology to tell the story of you and your life, which was extremely helpful for me once I’d gathered all my chart info but didn’t know what to do with it. She’s active on her blog and on Instagram, and if you find yourself stuck in your studies, her Tea with an Astrologer sessions are a great place to turn.

Austin Coppock is an old-fashioned astrologer in the style of Copernicus and Dee— he’s got it all down to as precise a science as it can be, with endless calculations that are dazzling in their complexity. He does have a book, as well as several lecture series on various specific astrological topics, but this stuff is pretty advanced, and to be honest most of the time I have no goddamn idea what he’s talking about. Still, his work is the hardest science you’ll find in this field, so if that’s what you’re into it’s worth checking out.

I also can’t NOT recommend Kaitlin Coppock of Sphere & Sundry. She’s a creator and purveyor of magical materia in collaboration with her husband Austin— he calculates and recommends the most auspicious astrological elections, and she creates and performs the rituals to infuse their products with magical energy. Each of her product lines focuses on a specific placement of a planet or star: Jupiter in Sagittarius, Mercury in Gemini, Exalted Venus, etc.

The products are good (I’ve bought them myself!), but imo, the real gems are the extensive essays Kaitlin writes to explain how each series was created and what it’s meant to do. They are incredible. You have got to read at least one. It’s like attending PhD-level college courses if the lectures were delivered in the style of transcendental meditations. I adore them, and they’re so full of information I feel like I’m getting away with something by accessing them for free.

(Note: I know many of these astrologers are Selling Product, but there’s a difference between scammers and people who are extremely knowledgeable making their living profiting from that knowledge. I promise all these folks are the latter.)

Hope this helps! If you’d like any more, I can ask around my old friends from the shop!

Does anyone have any recommendations for...I'm trying to think how to put this...guides to astrology that don't require a lot of buy-in from the reader on all of that stuff being true?

Like, books that explain, in detail, what having any given sign in any given planet/house (I don't know all the terminology; this is why I want the guidebook) is alleged to indicate about a person's personality+future, maybe with extra notes about the effects of various combinations/interactions, but frames it a little bit more like a mythology the reader is trying to learn about, rather than a belief system they're trying to internalize?

I don't mean stopping every two pages to go "Obviously this isn't true." I don't even necessarily mean that the author can't think it's true. I just mean something that's more textbook than self-help guide.

[venusinmyrrh]

Let's hear about The Last Words of Lachlan Malory!

Also requested by @alintalzin!

I am a certified gothic fiend, and yet have never ventured into the original, the one and only, the source of all the best themes, tropes, horrors: the Victorian era. Until now!

Magdalena Malory was raised from an infant, along with her older brother Benjamin, by her uncle Lachlan, a famous explorer and national hero... but after her brother's mysterious death on an ill-fated expedition to Africa, Lachlan sent her away to her mother in London, shut himself up in the old family manor, and has not been seen since. A decade later is when our story begins... Her father's business is floundering, and Magdalena must make an advantageous marriage quickly to secure enough capital not to go under. She ought to feel lucky, she knows, to have secured as wealthy a man as her fiancé, but when a plucky female journalist turns up asking questions about Lachlan (for a biography, for goodness' sake), Lena begins to wonder if she could get the money out of her uncle instead. They had been so happy, long ago, before Benjamin's death... surely, after kicking her out of her childhood home, he owes her that much. And there's another face she hasn't seen since she left Malory Manor: Benjamin's ghost, now dogging her steps in London. It's time for Magdalena to go home.

(And I haven't even brought up her mother, her grandparents, or the generations-old willow tree on the manor grounds— not to mention what happens when she gets there and finds that damn reporter living in what she still considers to be her house.)

[venusinmyrrh]

tagged by @mordredsheart!

RULES: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title/emoji that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

Purple Sunrise

Crimson Sunset

Oak and Holly, Ash and Bone

The Last Words of Lachlan Malory

Carpe Noctem

Carpe Carnem

The Point of Singularity

Paper Faces

Love Lies Bleeding

Cigarette Starlight

Angels All the Way Down

tagging anyone who wants to play, as long as you tag me so I can see 💕

[venusinmyrrh]

Toby Stephens as James Flint BLACK SAILS | 2.06

[venusinmyrrh]

I will succeed because I'm crazy. 2025 mantra

[venusinmyrrh]

tagged by @mordredsheart!

the rules: post a picture of your OC and then four random (or whatever number you’d like) photos with no explanation that conveys their vibe.

Magdalena Malory is the lady at the center of The Last Words of Lachlan Malory, aka my love letter to Victorian gothics— dark, deadly, haunted, and incestuous; as influenced by Crimson Peak and Mexican Gothic as it is by Wuthering Heights and Poe.

tagging @forthegothicheroine, @lucacangettathisass, @alintalzin, and anyone else who has a fave OC they want to tell me about!

[venusinmyrrh]

this is a safe space for toxic relationships and unhealthy romance and unhealthy power balances and of course who could forget stockholm syndrome

[venusinmyrrh]

tagged by @thedupshadove <3

the rules: post a picture of your OC and then four random (or whatever number you’d like) photos with no explanation that conveys their vibe.

i’ve been working on my new england gothic/folk horror six swans retelling this weekend, so here’s the heroine, susanna! (i also cannot draw, so please accept miss freya mavor as her face for now.)

tagging @alintalzin, @ladykarloff, and @venusinmyrrh!

[venusinmyrrh]

PARKER POSEY as VICTORIA RATLIFF THE WHITE LOTUS (2021–) 3.06 Denials

[venusinmyrrh]

When a modern woman is blessed with a body that can move, run, dance, play, and bring her to orgasm; with breasts free of cancer, a healthy uterus, a life twice as long as that of the average Victorian woman, long enough to let her express her character on her face; with enough to eat and a metabolism that protects her by laying down flesh where and when she needs it; now that hers is the gift of health and well-being beyond that which any generation of women could have hoped for before—the Age of Surgery undoes her immense good fortune. It breaks down into defective components the gift of her sentient, vital body and the individuality of her face, teaching her to experience her lifelong blessing as a lifelong curse.

— Naomi Wolf (1990) The Beauty Myth

[venusinmyrrh]

Leonard Cohen by Darryl Pitt

[venusinmyrrh]

Rain Coat by Andrew Wun Silk Mix Jaquard and Embossed Taffeta. Hand Beaded with over 30000 Swarovski Clear Crystals.

[venusinmyrrh]

"Symphony in Black" by Erté (Romain de Tirtoff), a Russian-French artist (1892-1990)

[venusinmyrrh]

the sense of horror when you finish a book that was Ass Bad and you go to see what fellow haters are saying but all the reviews say it is the best thing they've ever read. feel like i just saw my reflection in the mirror move all by itself or something

[venusinmyrrh]

Bonus points: tell me which ones are your faves, or which ones you want to read!

[venusinmyrrh]

oh, hey, i heard we’re doing this for books now!

[venusinmyrrh]

Does the word realism have any meaning to you as an actor? No. When you say realism, I think of naturalism, and I think about natural acting. And when I think about natural acting, I think about natural behavior. And I think sometimes that destroys movies, you know? Because we don’t just want to see imitations of life. We want to see something that is beyond that. Cinema is not just about telling stories. Everybody clings to this. Telling stories, telling stories, telling stories! It’s about light. It’s about space. It’s about tone. It’s about color. It’s about people having experiences in front of you, where, if it’s transparent enough, they can experience it with you. You become them. They become you. That’s the communion. That’s the experience.

--Willem Dafoe summing up my feelings about the obsession with realism and an impoverished notion of "storytelling" in film in an interview with Matt Zoller Seitz