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naffeclipse · 12 days ago

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Petal Pt. 2

Botanist!Reader x Naga!Eclipse

Commission Info

I have another little fic which was a blast to write for @bluemoon1331! We have more Blackwater Lure (naga) Eclipse with a sweet and slightly spooked botanist reader who was promised something precious in the last fic by the terrifying but adoring naga. There are flowers abound and joy to be given.

Content Warning for suggestive themes.

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A sickly sweet smell hangs in the air, hot with a green moisture that prevails through the jungle. Sometimes, you can enjoy the gentle aroma and sit in reassurance that there is beauty and goodness here. The air can change, sharpening with a bitter lethalness that speaks to poison in plants and venom in fangs. The nature of the jungle is ever swiftly twisting like a serpent’s body, crawling along towards you before you realize it is there.

The humid heat of the day clings to your skin, but you are too far engrossed in the aechmea to notice. The flower is bright and soft pink, as pale as the inside of a seashell. The ocean is far from here as you sit in the heart of the jungle and study its thick, flowing rivers and vast and sprawling vegetation.

The flower is tuff-like, spouting beautiful bracts in pointed, wispy tips like a tiny bird in the aftermath of a windstorm. It sits upon the trunk of a rubber tree, clinging to its host plant without harming it parasitically. The flower is unique in that it simply requires a host in order to take in rainfall into its small root systems and gather dust and insects for nutrients.

The top of the aechmeas grows heavy. Paired with a thick and robust blossom and sharp, tiny spines along the margins of its leaves, it will grow unbalanced and yet, perfectly suited for these conditions.

Aechmea. You say it softly under your breath. EEK-me-uh. A Greek word meaning spear tip. You’ve already pricked your fingers on its yellow-green fronds and marveled at the gorgeous flora. You carefully take your camera, aching fingertips pressing down to snap a picture of the flower hooked upon the trunk of the rubber tree.

It is incredible how it leans upon the host plant. It could easily decide to infect the tree and steal its nutrients, draining it of life while gorging itself, but the flower is kind. It merely asks for a place to stay, and the tree provides for the sprawling flower in return.

The quiet click of the camera echoes through the area. You lift your head once, surveying the nearby trees and the moisture-heavy air for signs of a visitor. You haven’t seen him for an hour or two. How strange for him to give you time to study when you are usually well interrupted by now.

The jungle seems calm. It buzzes with its tiny creatures that attempt to nibble at your neck or sit on your boonie hat, and you’ll swat them away with a lazy hand before returning to your poor research journal bursting at the seams. You still only have a few pages left.

You lower your camera and uncap your pen. The ink is dark and thick against the heavy pages, but you make note of the unique relationship this type of bromeliad has with the tree. There is still so much you have yet to uncover. You already climbed a tree containing passion flowers. Well, the more accurate description is that Eclipse carried you up a towering tree to reach the delicate blossoms and lounged with you for the rest of the afternoon in the shade of the canopy as you rambled about the flora. He seemed content in the way snakes are after digesting a large meal.

Your absence was not unnoticed.

Vanessa and Michael have gone to great lengths to see you keep human company with your ventures in the jungle, but it’s clear that they don’t entirely have the patience for your slow and methodical work, nor do their presence put you at ease. The last thing you wish is for Eclipse to find them near you, and take a dislike to their presence.

You shiver with the thought. Again, you reach out to try and brush against the outer edges of the aechmea leaves and end up pricking your thumb on the sharp spines. You draw back, alarmed at the sharpness of the pain before sticking your thumb in your mouth to nurse the small wound. You pull it back out to examine the small hole. Yes, the plant’s defenses are well attuned to this harsh environment.

Returning your hand to the pen, you take it up and ignore the pulse in your thumb as you describe the petals of the aechmea. Pink and tuft-like, and striking in the green environment.

The buzzing of insects has mercilessly left you. Occasionally, you will catch the chitter of monkeys or low grunts and growls of creatures off in the distance, but the quiet leaves you to describe the flower perfectly.

Oh. The jungle is never quiet. Not without good reason.

He must be here.

You lift your head again, and survey the trees around you. You sit near a cluster of them beside an opening of thick, low-level vegetation almost akin to a meadow. You peer across the short distance to the other side ringing the small space. There are more trees, perhaps walking palms, and is there something slipping in between their forked roots, watching you? Are those eyes or the wings of birds sitting still? Is that a predator or a friend?

Your skin prickles. You pose your mouth to call out, and ask who is there, but you don’t see anyone. Who would you be speaking to?

Perhaps you hope to see him, and are barely containing your own wistfulness.

You breathe slowly, feeling the silence.

Nothing reveals itself against the jungle. A frown crosses your mouth but you return to your journal, bowing over it as you jot another note about the sharpness of the spiny margins of the fronds.

A rustle of leaves gives way to a rushing of scales. Before you can gasp, arms wrap around your waist and pull you from the jungle floor. The world twists and a powerful, serpentine body coils your legs in a vice as an embrace secures you to a defined, smooth chest. Your cry of surprise is muffled by joyous, sonorous hissing. Finding the arms caging your chest, you cling to them while noting the green hue of the naga’s scales, dotted with black, and the orange-yellow striping falling down the sides of the tail that now currently holds you hostage.

You breathe out, your pulse racing against the soft squeeze of powerful muscles and the overwhelming length that has folded you within its cage.

“Happy day, petal,” he laughs softly in hissing waves. “Did you miss me?”

“Eclipse,” you finally regain your breath from the strike of his touch. “How did I not see you?”

At least your arms are free this time to trace along his forearms, feeling the smoothness of his scales. His lower half constricts as you attempt to adjust your posture, as if trying to push free but you wouldn’t dare. You understand how he reacts to any struggling movements from you.

You fight to lower your pulse as it pounds in your skull. The mist of a breath falls upon the shell of your ear. The brilliant burning orange hues of Eclipse’s frills touch the corner of your vision when he bows low to murmur against your hair.

“I was right in front of you,” he chuckles, “Your human eyes don’t see very well in this jungle. But don’t feel disappointed. Nothing may see me when I don’t wish to be seen.”

You of course understand that anacondas have the perfect coloring to blend among the deep and yellowed greens of the forest, despite their massive size and length. Snakes have long since used their environment to their advantage to hide and lay ambuses, but you are a botanist, not a zoologist, and you are still stunned you did not see the massive predator right before you.

Yet, you do wish you could have noticed his presence. That something would have been familiar to your eyes despite the never-ending expansion of the vegetation.

He gives you a slight squeeze, and your lower half endures the slightest pressure from a fraction of his strength. Very easily he could crush you. He could steal the air from your lungs by only preventing your ribcage from filling with sweet oxygen. You have yet to discover if there is venom in his fangs.

But he nuzzles softly behind your ear, snuffing your hair as if a flower itself with the sweetest scent.

“Were your eyes closed?” you ask softly, “I would have seen your eyes. They’re unmistakable."

The jewel-dark tones of his two different colored eyes are unmistakable. Emerald and sapphire. The sharp glints of an unmistakable predator using bright, glaring hues to hint at their lethal nature.

He pauses. You watch the end of his tail slip along the ground and wrap a little tighter around your ankles. A hum, deep and pleasing, rolls through him.

“No. I was watching you, my favorite flower,” he hums. “It is a good thing I was here to ensure your safety. Anything could have snatched you from your studies.”

You laugh albeit nervously.

“Eclipse, I think, uh, I have only ever been carried away from my work by you.”

He hums and it drowns out your concern. A quiet squeak leaves your lips when he caresses your throat and his tail twists slightly, pulling you further away from the aechmea and your dropped notebook, pen, and camera. The camera catches on sunlight, shining in the rare slant of sunlight reaching the jungle floor.

“I have a surprise for you.” He muses, glancing down to your equipment. He moves carefully, dragging you along with his movements as he takes your things. You suck in a sharp breath.

“Careful,” you whisper, anxious.

He glances down at you, his eyes amused, before he unlocks you from his grasp and places the items in your arms. You immediately cling to your things, checking the journal for any water damage, much to your relief.

“Hold onto those,” his eyes wink brightly in the wilderness, “We’re going for a stroll.”

A surprise stroll. Again. You hardly have a moment to speak before he unwinds his tail from your lower half. Straightening, he easily towers above you, poised on the great, muscular length of his tail before he scoops you into his arms as if you were a doll. His smile grows, revealing the wicked ends of his pearly white fangs before he turns away and zips you out of the clearing.

“Where are we going?” you gasp. “Eclipse, wait, Vanessa and Michael—”

“They are not here,” he replies with a coolness that sends icy shivers down your spine. “Come, petal, you will find it as lovely as I do.”

Your stomach flip flops as you marvel as to what it could be. Eclipse has carried you off into the depths of the wilds several times.

“What is it?” You glance over his shoulder where he has you cradled against his chest. His body is lithesome and especially large. The lower half of his form moves in strong waves through the undergrowth and over fallen trees without missing a beat. You stare, memorized, at the pattern of black spots and yellow-orange stripes combined with the incredible stamina of his person. The naga is as impressive as he is impossible.

“Ah, ah! There will be no spoiling the surprise,” he simpers. His tongue flicks out, a dark, sinuous thing with a forked end. He boops you once upon the head with his mouth. A peck of affection. You grow warm in the face.

He is excited. You can feel his hands flexing along your person, feeling your sides and legs, squeezing you a little closer to his heart. Your head is tucked back into the cage of his body. He hums, sissing softly as he winds into the emerald shadows.

But you feel safe. There is a reassurance that the apex predator of the jungle has you in his arms instead of his mouth.

Unless he grows hungry.

You clutch your journal a little tighter and stare up at the brilliant adornments around Eclipse’s face. Like staring up at the sun through the canopy of the forest. The rays sharply frame his face and recount his dangerous aspects, but he looks down at you with a wide grin.

But you are a curious mind, and though you have accepted that your study of the aechmea has concluded for the day, that does not leave you lacking with new exploration.

“Are we going to take another nap in an angelim vermelho?” you try quietly, musing over the possibility.

He once stole you up one of those vast trees. You were dizzy from the height but he wrapped his tail around you like a security blanket and sang you into a doze. You’re not sure how he knew you had suffered a particular rough night of itchy bug bites and restless dreams, but you woke up grateful for the moment, and glad that he did not let you fall.

“No,” he chuckles. “Be patient.”

But your mind is whirling with possibilities.

“You are not showing me another… kill, are you?” you ask with barely contained apprehension.

You nearly fainted at the sight of the black caiman he showed off to you. The sight of it, punctured with fangs, made your stomach curdle and your head grow faint, but he quickly took you by the shoulders and guided you away, albeit with a look of disappointment upon his face.

A single finger with a sharp claw presses to your lips. Your eyes widen. Eclipse bows low over you, never breaking his serpentine glide through the woods.

“It is a surprise, petal,” he hums and hisses all at once. “It is just ahead.”

You catch the chirr of many insects. You glance past Eclipse to the trees and vegetation hanging overhead, realizing that a water source is close by to support such flora.

He stops suddenly. You taste the sweetness of water upon the air. He lowers you upon your feet, and you brace for his tail to quickly wrap you up again.

Instead, his hands fall over your eyes, and you are blind to the world.

“Eclipse?” your voice quivers slightly.

“Trust me,” he singsongs. “Use those pretty legs and walk forward. Turn, just a little. There. Now, keep going.”

You move slowly, carefully. You cling to his wrists, vulnerable and exposed, and your heart falls into a quick gallop at what might lay ahead.

You feel the slope change slightly downwards. Eclipse murmurs for you to lift your feet above a fallen log.

Then the toes of your boots come in contact with the soft splash of water. You gasp quietly at the coolness of it soaking into your socks.

“A gift for you, petal,” Eclipse says softly and lifts his hand from your eyes.

You blink against the glare of light refracted from the green surface of a pond. A beautiful, robust aquatic ecosystem teeming with giant lily pads.

You gape. Eclipse leans close behind you, his chin almost brushing your hair as you gaze over the stunning sight.

“Amazonian lily pads,” you look back at him. “They’re incredible. I have never seen them in person.”

He promised to show you them, and he delivered.

His eyes are wide and hungry, gazing upon you. He seems content with what he finds.

“Go on, do what you wish.” His encouragement is met with a nod of his brightly adorned head towards the pond.

You do not hesitate. You pick up your camera and immediately turn back to the water. The lily pads are enormous, spanning almost 10 feet in diameter, crowding the surface. The famous circular leaves turn up at the corners to form a shallow cup, and the outside margins are red and veined. You have been desperately hunting the lily pads since you first entered the rainforest, and Eclipse has brought you directly to them.

He does not restrain you from snapping pictures and cracking open your notebook to begin jotting down everything you see. The flowers are blooming. Oh, what beautiful timing. They only bloom for 48 hours. You find yourself sinking down to the ground, but before you can find wet earth to sit upon, the thickness of Eclipse’s tail becomes a seat, and his cool, green scales allow you to concentrate entirely on the flowers.

He lounges nearby, leaning against a tree while observing you. The very tip of his tail twists around by your feet, brushing against your ankles but never squeezing or distracting you from your study.

The flowers are white, sitting upon the surface with dozens and dozens of soft, silky petals that beg beetles to come and collect their pollen. They are so tiny compared to the lily pads, but they are vital to the plant's continuation.

You write until your hand aches, and you write more before snapping a few more pictures. Then, you stop, and stare, breathlessly, at the sight.

The quiet serene breathes upon you. Turning to face Eclipse, you gaze softly at him. His eyes are half-slits, as if he were close to napping. His attention, however, is entirely upon you.

“Thank you,” you whisper. “Thank you so much, Eclipse.”

He straightens. Slowly, he holds out his arms, and when he takes you against him, your middle floods with the sensation of bird wings. He carefully sees your journal and camera are put aside before he reclines back with you upon his chest.

“You are welcome, my favorite flower,” he murmurs, pressing a soft kiss to your temple. “They are lovely, are they not?”

“Oh, they are stunning!” You beam as you find your head pressed against his chest, right above where his heart beats. The drum of it is strong and constant, You sigh as his tail coils softly around your waist and down your legs. “The lily pads are beautifully unique. Do you know how they pollinate?"

He hums sweetly, and strokes the top of your head with tapered fingertips.

“Enlight me, petal,” he hums.

You beam. Lifting a finger to trace the lighter color of his chest, you begin to describe the process of the petals closing up on the beetle as the flower changes from female to male in preparation for the bugs to exchange the pollen among the other flowers.

Eclipse does not seem to mind your rambling.

#naff's writing commissions #blackwater lure #naga!eclipse #oh gosh i forget how much i love naga eclipse #he's a menace <3 #naff writing

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saturnsbabyboii · 2 years ago

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⚝Pluto Through the Houses⚝

(Brought to you by Sailor Pluto)

(I apologize for the wonky layout and writing. This one took it out of me for some reason)

⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝

⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝

Did you know that Pluto was only discovered in 1930? Many associate it with mystery and darkness. In astrology, Pluto is said to represent our dark side or shadow self, as well as humanity's. As the furthest planet from the Sun its orbit around the system takes around 248 years, and due to its eccentricity, it can take between 12 to 31 years to pass through a sign. Pluto rules Scorpio and the Eighth House, and it is considered the last of the transcendental planets and the higher octave of Mars.

The energy of Pluto may not be obvious, but its effects can be overwhelming. Pluto is associated with transformation, regeneration, and rebirth. Although Pluto's influence can be unpleasant, it is effective. It compels us to discard the old and embrace the new, and we must be prepared for this change. Otherwise, we may find ourselves trapped in misery. Pluto challenges us to transcend our limitations, undergo a process of redemption, and emerge stronger as a result. Despite its creative abilities, Pluto also has a destructive side. It governs the underworld, crime, and subversive activities such as terrorism and dictatorships. Pluto represents secrecy and concealment of hidden activities. Nobody can deny Pluto's power and intensity, as it also rules atomic power. Its energy is often directed toward the masses and their collective actions. Pluto urges people to look inward and explore their subconscious, even if it's frightening. Pluto has a way of pushing people's buttons.

The planet Pluto symbolizes intense changes, mutations, removals, sexuality, attraction, influence, and confidentiality. It brings destruction that leads to rebirth, trauma, and hidden mysteries. It represents things underneath the surface, the subconscious, violence, power, control, obsessions, desires, dictators, sadistic individuals, death, kidnapping, coercion, viruses, waste, violent characters, powerful and instinctive, and possessing hidden strengths. Pluto governs Scorpio and is related to sexual organs and excretion.

⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝

⚝Pluto in the 1st house⚝

When Pluto is located in your first house, it suggests that you possess a commanding aura and possess a fervent and fervid personality. This planetary position indicates that your body is robust and can endure considerable strain. Nevertheless, having Pluto in the first house comes with difficulties. It suggests that you experienced a traumatic event during your childhood that has had a profound impact on you. Planets that are located in the first house are highly influential and have a potent influence on the physical realm.

Pluto in the first house has a big impact on the native's personality and self-expression. Someone with this placement typically possesses a strong desire for transformation and renewal in one's life and the possibility of profound psychological insight and understanding. Those who have Pluto in their first house may desire control. As such, they develop a tendency to assert their power in their relationships and interactions with others. They must remain aware of their proclivity for manipulation and direct their energy toward constructive and positive endeavors. When meeting new people, you may feel as if you are an outsider. This could be because you feel different and excluded as if you have a special purpose or reality. As a result, you may approach the world with caution and a desire to keep a safe distance between your true self and the outside. This is to avoid being duped or caught up in the plans of others.

Pluto in the first house also indicates that you may have been subjected to significant trauma and emotional pain as a child, which can cause you to emit an intense and dark aura that others can easily detect. People tend to perceive who you are, ignoring anything other than your physical appearance or any superficial traits, mostly out of fear. You have a magnetic personality that makes a strong first impression. When people meet you, they either love you or hate you, and some may even be irrationally attracted to you. Here, Pluto gives you power through charisma. With Pluto in this position, you may be perceived as powerful, intense, and mysterious, which may cause some people to be suspicious of you. Others may notice your strength, but you may prefer to be reserved and secretive, valuing and protecting your privacy.

Pluto, being the furthest planet from the Sun and shrouded in darkness and mystery, is comparable to people with Pluto in the first house in that they are difficult to understand, even for those who have known them for a long time. In astrology, Pluto is associated with power and control, and a strong Pluto in the natal chart can indicate a control freak or someone obsessed with power. With Pluto in the first house, the issue of personal power becomes especially important. Pluto in the first house indicates that you discover power within yourself, and it is a fundamental aspect of your identity for people like you. You learned early on to protect and save yourself because you were forced to find your power when you couldn't rely on others. This placement makes you extremely resilient, but despite what others may think, you frequently feel insecure.

You have a fear of rejection or not being accepted for who you are, which is likely a painful experience you had when you were young. Pluto in the first house can also indicate a very strong ego and people with this placement often find it difficult to forgive others. This placement can make you vengeful and uncooperative when feeling opposed or controlled, especially if you have difficult aspects. However, because your natal Pluto is in the first house, you have above-average regenerative abilities, which means you can experience deep renewal several times throughout your life, even when most people are unable to. This is true both physically and mentally.

You may have endured significant trauma that has affected you in various ways throughout your life. The first house represents a person's early years, starting from their birth, and Pluto's positioning in this house could signify a challenging childhood experience. Many individuals with this placement may have encountered abuse and violence, particularly during their formative years, were born prematurely, or were themselves set up for a controlled life since birth. Pluto is a planet associated with the darker side of astrology, making it complex to navigate. Although not always violent, it often is. In the first house of the natal chart, Pluto typically points towards power struggles that may have occurred within the family during the individual's childhood. Perhaps their parents exerted dominance and exploited them in some way, as this is a common manifestation of Pluto. Such early experiences can have a long-lasting impact on a person's life, similar to how a nail leaves a hole even after it is removed from the wall. Pluto can cause profound wounds in the soul, and some people with Pluto in the first house may find it difficult to recover from such profound pain.

If Pluto is negatively aspected in the chart, the individual may exhibit irritability. However, if Pluto is positively aspected, the individual may possess strong healing abilities and be able to help others effectively. By working through their issues, they can inspire others to do the same and lead by example.

⚝Pluto in the 2nd house⚝

The presence of Pluto in the 2nd house can lead to profound transformations in their relationship with their possessions, finances, and self-worth. This placement often signals a strong desire to establish control and power over one's material resources, which can have both positive and negative effects. On the one hand, it can result in great financial success and the ability to accumulate wealth and resources. On the other hand, it can lead to an unhealthy fixation on money and material possessions, which can cause significant stress and anxiety. It's crucial for individuals with Pluto in the 2nd house to strive for a healthy balance between their desire for control and their need for emotional fulfillment and stability.

Individuals with this placement typically keep their wealth and financial status hidden and may appear more modest than they are. They possess a resourceful and intuitive understanding of how to manage finances and make assets yield profit. It's worth noting that many wealthy individuals have Pluto in the 2nd house due to this placement's association with extreme financial success.

This position denotes a strong desire for material possessions and financial success. When you want something, you want it. People with Pluto in the second house are obsessed with what they want. They can devise brilliant plans to achieve their financial objectives, but they can also find ways to obtain what they desire in other areas of life. Pluto is the planet of authority. When it is placed in the second house, you feel the need to control your life, as well as the ability to control others through money. Regarding people as your possession and treating them as such. This could be a problem in your relationships. A natal Pluto in the second house indicates that you want to be in charge of your finances and that you can be secretive about money. Here, there is a lot of conflict between mine (the second house) and yours (Pluto and the eighth house), giving proclivity to want what others have, as well as, wanting something just for the sake of owning it.

Individuals with Pluto in the second house may tend to hold onto material possessions and people due to a fear of letting go. This can lead to an overly materialistic mindset and a failure to recognize the importance of non-material aspects of life. Pluto's placement in the second house can also bring painful life lessons related to material possessions, with the goal of teaching individuals to let go and not prioritize money above all else. Those with Pluto in the second house may struggle with self-esteem and a belief that their worth is tied to their wealth. This may stem from childhood experiences of financial crisis and feeling undervalued. However, they need to learn that their value as a person is not defined by their financial status. Obsessive spending and self-destructive behavior may also be manifestations of this placement. Overall, it is crucial to recognize the potential fears and subconscious issues associated with Pluto in the second house and work towards healthy ways of managing them.

It's very likely that you've faced financial challenges during childhood. Your family may have experienced financial difficulties or lacked financial management skills, resulting in the deprivation of possessions or resources. However, these early struggles can be a powerful motivator for you to strive for financial success later in life. Pluto's influence is strong and resilient, making it difficult to overcome. But with this placement, you have the ability to conquer financial obstacles and turn debt into wealth. A natal Pluto in the second house can manifest as resourcefulness and transformation, which are common traits found in the charts of successful and wealthy individuals. This placement may also make you rebel against the norms and authority figures imposed on you as a child. Buried anger and frustrations may surface during times of crisis. In extreme cases, this placement can lead to greed and a willingness to do anything for money and power. A natal Pluto in the second house can indicate a career in research, banking, managing money, taxation, or investments. But because Pluto also rules the underworld in astrology, this placement may also suggest involvement in sex work or crime. You may earn money through partnerships or even inheritances if supported by the chart.

⚝Pluto in the 3rd house⚝

Your communication style can be intense and transformative. Your words hold a lot of weight and may have a powerful effect on those who hear them. However, this can also lead to power struggles and communication breakdowns in your relationships. It's important to find a balance between expressing your truth and respecting others' perspectives. Remember to listen as much as you speak and be open to learning from those around you. The third house is associated with siblings, early childhood, primary education, and your immediate surroundings. Pluto in the third house indicates that you are a deep thinker with a powerful mind. However, you may struggle with direct or blunt communication. Connecting with others may have been difficult for you as a child, which has left an impression on you as an adult. With Pluto in the third house, you are attracted to what is concealed and what is left unsaid. You understand the hidden machinery and what is secretly at stake when communicating with others. Your communication takes into account underlying information, and you are aware of the subtle quirks and changes in others' body language and speech.

Having Pluto in the third house may indicate a challenging start to your life, with some individuals experiencing traumatic childhood events. However, it's important to note that several indicators in the chart must be present for this to be the case. When Pluto has harmonious aspects, its effects are much lighter. People with Pluto in the third house often keep family secrets and may have intense or dark relationships with siblings. They may also use code language or have an interest in the local underground scene or criminal activity.

For some individuals, trauma may have occurred within their peer groups or school environments. This can result in deep emotional wounds, feelings of isolation and misunderstanding, and potential speech problems that require therapy. It's common for those with this placement to feel like they don't fully fit in and to encounter power struggles or betrayal.

If Pluto in the third house has hard aspects, there may be difficulties with neighbors or relatives and a higher risk of accidents. However, harmonious aspects can bring strong and beneficial connections with friends and family. It's important to be cautious when driving or in traffic.

There's a possibility of experiencing family bereavement, specifically the loss of siblings. The third house in your natal chart represents various people in your life, including your siblings. As such, your relationship with your siblings might be strained. You may perceive them to be self-centered, powerful, or even dangerous. If there are hard aspects to Pluto from Mars, Saturn, or Uranus, it can indicate rivalry between you and your siblings. Pluto is linked to power struggles, which can manifest in your relationship with your siblings or relatives. People with this placement may have experienced verbal abuse from their family members, and often have a sarcastic sibling or family member. On the other hand, if your natal chart shows harmonious aspects with Pluto in the third house, it can indicate a powerful sibling who acts as a protector in your relationship. You may hold them in high regard, and your siblings may initiate a transformational process in your life.

You possess a strong grasp of the power of communication. This placement implies you are selective about what you share with others and have the ability to keep and uncover secrets. You are also skilled at collecting data and piecing together small bits of information. You have an inquisitive and powerful mind, with a tendency to obsess over thoughts, overanalyze and not give up until you find a solution. However, this thinking process may differ drastically from those around you, making it difficult to connect with your peers. At times, you may come across as blunt or shocking to others. An unevolved Pluto in the third house may suggest an aggressive personality. These individuals do not sugarcoat their feelings and can manipulate others through their words and gestures. As they mature, they become extremely persuasive communicators. This placement indicates a fascination with taboos and mysteries, such as the occult, psychology, death, sex, and crime. Individuals with Pluto in the third house are life-long learners, often learning best on their own. They have a highly analytical mind and are avid readers.

⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝

⚝Pluto in the 4th house⚝

The placement of Pluto in the 4th house indicates that your family or home environment may have been the site of intense power struggles or upheavals, leading to deep psychological transformation and rebirth. You may have a strong desire for privacy and control over your domestic affairs, which can sometimes cause you to feel isolated or emotionally distant from others. It is important to address any unresolved emotional issues from your past to create a stable and nurturing home environment for yourself and your loved ones. You may feel a sense of distance and difference between yourself and your family, and you may not always feel in perfect harmony with those around you. However, this uniqueness is also your strength and can drive your personal growth. You may feel that you hold a truth that eludes ordinary people and those in your circles, making you difficult to label or define.

Individuals who have Pluto in the fourth house often have a history of coming from troubled families, which may include domestic abuse or violence. This placement can be challenging to interpret in the natal chart, and it typically indicates that their childhood circumstances were less than ideal. Unfortunately, these patterns often repeat themselves in their adult home and family life, leading to power struggles, particularly with one of their parents/caregivers. These conflicts leave a deep wound in their soul, and the rage is frequently buried in their subconscious, subtly controlling their life. Moreover, many individuals with Pluto in the fourth house have some karmic heritage to work through before they can create a loving and supportive family environment. Ideally, the fourth house should serve as a place of safety and support for a child, but this is not always the case when Pluto is present. People who have Pluto in the fourth house frequently experience struggles early on and might come from unstable families. This placement often indicates that they perceived their fourth house parent as dictatorial, controlling, or even manipulative. Additionally, Pluto in the fourth house with hard aspects can indicate domestic violence or abuse. Therefore, the presence of difficult aspects here frequently indicates a troubled parent. The fourth house represents the mother, and this placement usually represents a domineering one. In extreme cases, the parent may be narcissistic, and their desire to control their child might persist even after they have moved out and grown up. Furthermore, individuals with Pluto in the fourth house rarely receive the emotional support that a child requires, forcing them to learn how to be emotionally self-sufficient at a young age. Power struggles and controlling behaviors are common in these relationships, and subtle manipulation is also possible, occasionally leaving an individual feeling emotionally unfulfilled. This positioning suggests emotional baggage, often buried in their memory, preventing them from being emotionally fulfilled, particularly in the area of home life. Therefore, it is necessary to get rid of this baggage to lead a happy family life.

To achieve true freedom, it is crucial to address any challenging relationships with family members. As Pluto in the 4th house individuals end up developing a tendency to become domineering and controlling during adulthood subsequent to their upbringing. This trait can manifest in a more direct manner for those with harmonious aspects. It is imperative to confront and overcome these issues to avoid causing harm to others. If left unaddressed, individuals with hard aspects may become bullies or even abusive, with this negative behavior being concealed from those outside of their inner circle due to Pluto's placement in the fourth house. Unfortunately, domestic violence can occur within their own homes. Even if they are not abusive, they may end up with a manipulative, controlling, or violent partner. The fourth house represents where power and authority are sought after in a birth chart, therefore for those with Pluto in the fourth house, power struggles may transpire within their homes. However, they possess the power to break the cycle of generational trauma and change their entire family's situation.

If Pluto is in your fourth house, it could mean that you struggle with your sense of self, often feeling disconnected from your family and ancestors. This placement may also indicate a family secret that sets you apart from them. Acceptance of oneself can be difficult for those with Pluto in this position, and seeking psychotherapy or a supportive relationship can help. Harmonious aspects can make this work easier. Additionally, this placement can manifest as an intense patriotism, radical ideals, or religiosity in later life that is followed by a lonely old age, where the native may isolate themselves or be abandoned by family members. Alternatively, natives can develop new forms of family function and support for themselves and others. Pluto in the 4th is also an indication of creating a powerful family/household.

⚝Pluto in the 5th house⚝

You might experience a strong urge to express yourself creatively and actively pursue intense experiences related to love, romance, and sexuality. This placement can also trigger obsessive and compulsive behaviors in these areas, which must be handled with caution to avoid adverse outcomes. Despite these challenges, Pluto in the 5th house can instill a sense of personal power and charm that could assist you in achieving your aspirations and desires. It's crucial to maintain a balance between self-awareness and self-control to navigate this placement successfully. Passion, love, and art might appear elusive and mysterious to you, leading you to be drawn to perilous or unattainable love affairs and harboring concealed emotions. Childhood memories may have a special significance for you, shaping your understanding of love and relationships.

Individuals with Pluto in the fifth house possess a strong personality. However, if Pluto is afflicted or there are challenging aspects between the Sun and Pluto in their natal chart, they may have a big ego. This placement signifies a passionate and creative nature but with a tendency towards melodrama and self-centeredness. Those natives find excitement in taking risks in their romantic lives and often possess a strong will and a daredevil spirit. However, a negative manifestation of this placement can result in a struggle for authority. People with this placement feel the need to receive recognition and become the center of attention. Failure to do so may lead to frustration and jealousy. As a result, they may become easily irritated if they do not receive the attention they desire. The negative side of Pluto can manifest as envy or jealousy, so if they feel ignored, they may act childishly.

They possess a strong inclination towards creative pursuits such as art, movies, music, and literature. This is due to the influence of Pluto in the fifth house which amplifies one's desire to express themselves. Individuals with this placement may have a preference for a darker artistic style, and find leisure in hobbies such as deep dives, gambling, and exploring risky arts forms. However, Pluto's obsessive nature may not be ideal for such activities and may lead to addiction and extreme losses.

Moreover, Pluto's qualities may be embodied by your father if certain aspects of the Sun and Pluto in the birth chart support this. Pluto's energy is directed towards the matters of the house in which it is located, which can be overwhelming and exhausting. It is essential to find a balance to overcome Pluto's dark traits. If successful, you can become a fascinating and charismatic individual, well-suited for creative endeavors, art, and making societal contributions despite feelings of inadequacy.

The fifth house defines your love life, indicating a passionate and intense nature described by Pluto. You give your all in love and expect the same from your partner. Individuals with Pluto in the fifth house often seek powerful and intense partners. This placement implies a lack of interest in superficial relationships. In romance, you tend to embody Pluto's qualities or choose partners who do. Negative aspects of Pluto, such as possessiveness, jealousy, obsession, and power struggles, may arise in your relationships. As a result, your relationships tend to be Scorpionic.

Pluto in the fifth house often transforms through romantic relationships, leading you to become a different person in the presence of your partner. This placement suggests an intense love life, with a strong focus on passion and sex. Pluto represents intense attachment, vulnerability, and intimacy, qualities you seek in a partner. Sexual kinks may pique your interest if Pluto is in this position. On the other hand, this placement can also imply betrayal by your lover and even traumatic experiences in extreme cases. Plutonic relationships may be part of your experience, with manipulative partners or yourself as the manipulator in the relationship.

The position of the planets and signs on the cusp of the fifth house can reveal information about your first child and your attitude toward them. If Pluto is located in the fifth house, it suggests that having a child will bring about a transformation in your life. Your beliefs may be challenged, and you may need to make changes. A child born under this placement may have a strong personality, especially if Pluto receives positive aspects. However, difficult aspects may indicate that your child could be challenging to manage, potentially leading to power struggles in your relationship. Overall, this placement indicates that you have a close relationship with your children and are protective of them. But be careful not to be too possessive or controlling, as this could lead to rebellion from your child.

⚝Pluto in the 6th house⚝

If Pluto is in your sixth house, you may have a strong attachment to your daily routines, which are essential to your well-being. If you're unable to follow your routines, you may become stressed and anxious, and sometimes even display aggressive behavior as a way to cope. Your adherence to rituals may seem morbid or obsessive-compulsive to others. You may experience a transformation and gain wisdom and power in areas governed by this house, but it may also lead to power struggles, deep fear, and even trauma. It can be a difficult area to navigate, with no easy way out. To make the most of this placement, it's essential to acknowledge the hardships and confront your inner demons.

You might have a tendency towards manipulation. Pluto is associated with vast distances and hidden worlds, while the 6th House deals with clearly defined social functions and areas of action. This creates a paradoxical and ambiguous social role for you. Your demeanor may be unsettling on a professional level, and your hidden function may be effective because it is insidious and concealed. The placement of Pluto in the 6th house is believed to bring intensity and transformation to your daily work routine and health habits. People with this placement may have a strong desire for power and control in their job and may be drawn to careers that involve working with the darker side of human nature, like psychology or forensics. However, they may also struggle with issues related to power and control in the workplace and may need to learn to channel their energy more positively and productively.

It's crucial to avoid conflicts with colleagues or being pushed around by superiors. Instead, strive to establish a healthy and secure work environment. You may find yourself drawn to Scorpionic jobs that involve other people's money, death, crime, sex, investigation, psychology, research, or healing. It's crucial for individuals with this placement to find work they are passionate about. However, Pluto in the sixth house can also bring challenges, such as rivalries with coworkers or difficult relationships with bosses. Harsh Pluto's aspects may indicate a dictatorial attitude towards others in the workplace or a controlling coworker. As an employer, you may come across as intimidating and threatening to your workers. This placement can lead to clashes and power struggles in your work life. You may be a perfectionist who dislikes wasteful practices and responds poorly to criticism. You can also be possessive and competitive about your work. Pluto in the sixth house indicates a need for freedom and space to work effectively. Some people with this placement change jobs frequently due to conflicts in the workplace, leading to hardships but also growth opportunities. A well-aspected Pluto in the sixth house can signify great power and effectiveness in your work, as well as a talent for cutting through the superficial and getting to the heart of the matter.

The sixth house also governs the area of health. When Pluto is placed in this house, it can often push individuals to work so hard that their health is the only thing that can force them to take a break. This can result in health issues caused by high job pressure. Pluto in the 6th house can indicate a tendency towards obsessive or compulsive behaviors, particularly related to diet and exercise, which can affect your physical well-being. It is important to maintain a balanced and healthy approach to health and avoid becoming too fixated on routines. Power struggles at work can be a challenge for some. However, one positive aspect of Pluto in this placement is its strong regenerative ability. While individuals may be able to function on little resources for a time, it's important to strive for a more balanced lifestyle by paying attention to diet and exercise.

This placement can also indicate mental health issues such as phobias or anxiety. When Pluto is affected by hard aspects, individuals may experience mysterious health problems, chronic illnesses, or eating disorders. In these cases, it's crucial to seek professional help to overcome health issues, as well as gain psychological insights and guidance to improve daily life.

By embracing transformative experiences, even mundane activities can become intensely engaging. Adopting a powerful daily practice, including daily cleanses and developing healthy habits, can help transform your life. However, it's important to avoid becoming deeply involved in work unions or criminal activities and to stay focused on the task at hand without becoming obsessed or overworked. By embracing a powerful and balanced daily routine, one can regenerate their health and vitality and become a positive influence among coworkers.

Finally, the sixth house also represents pets. With Pluto in the sixth house, some individuals with this placement may have unconventional pets, such as snakes or spiders, and other powerful exotic animals. Meanwhile, others may prefer to have a very well-trained pet for hunting and/or sports, such as dogs or horses.

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⚝Pluto in the 7th house⚝

If Pluto is in your 7th house, it may indicate intense and transformative experiences in your close personal relationships. This placement suggests a desire for power and control in partnerships, which can lead to problems with manipulation or possessiveness. However, it can also result in deep and meaningful connections, as well as opportunities for growth and healing through these relationships. It's important to be mindful of the potential for power struggles and to strive for balance and mutual respect in all partnerships. This placement may suggest that you are drawn to a Plutonic personality, someone who has Pluto in their first house or is a Scorpio rising. This can apply not only to romantic partners and spouses but also to business partners and close friends.

The seventh house plays a significant role in marriage and relationships. When Pluto is located in the seventh house, it suggests that committed relationships can bring about a transformational process for you. Your life changes drastically after marriage, and you learn important life lessons through your relationships. Overcoming challenges in these relationships helps you find your power. However, Pluto in this position can make your relationships intense and dynamic, with strong emotions and a need for passion.

Unfortunately, deep bonding can be blocked by fear, and power struggles may arise. You may crave intimacy but be scared of it at the same time. It is common to experience control issues in relationships with Pluto in the seventh house, which can lead to a lack of balance. To make the relationship work, you need to learn to stand up for yourself and be treated as an equal. You may be attracted to dictatorial partners or be dictatorial yourself. There's a desire and appeal for uneven power dynamics and control. The seventh house is associated with harmony and balance, and a natal Pluto in the seventh house can achieve this by undergoing transformation. It is important to be aware of the possibility of abuse or domestic violence if harsh aspects to Pluto are present.

The seventh house is related to business partnerships and public relations. If you have a natal Pluto in the seventh house, it is advisable to avoid fast-paced partnerships, especially if it receives hard aspects. However, a well-aspected Pluto in the seventh house can be useful in working with the public. This placement is beneficial for individuals working in marketing, politics, law, or psychology, as it provides insight into human nature. Nevertheless, it is essential to behave appropriately with this placement, as Pluto is an unpredictable and erratic planet. A harmonious aspect to Pluto can help you understand people intuitively and excel in many professions. However, it is crucial to remain clear-headed and skeptical about relationships, as Pluto in the seventh house can bring secrets to light and damage your reputation. It is best to view relationships as temporary and not get too attached to them. You understand the illusory nature of social codes and keep your distance from relationships, especially intimate ones.

If you have a natal Pluto in the seventh house, it may indicate a deep-seated fear of forming close bonds with others. While you may crave the intimacy and security of committed relationships, you may also be hesitant to fully invest in them due to issues with trust and betrayal. This fear may even attract untrustworthy partners, leading to a pattern of unhealthy relationships. You may have experienced trauma related to committed relationships in the past. To find balance in your relationships, it's important to establish a sense of power dynamics. With Pluto in this house, there may be a struggle for power between you and your partner. It's important to choose partners who have a well-integrated Pluto, as those who live in the lower octave of Pluto can exhibit negative traits such as possessiveness and jealousy. Your relationship may have darker themes if your Pluto is afflicted, but easy aspects can indicate a strong-willed partner. Remember that you have power within yourself, and by finding it, you can break free from being a victim. Your seventh house planets may reveal parts of yourself that you don't identify with, and Pluto here suggests that you may not feel your power or be able to handle it. This may lead to an unconscious relinquishing of power to your partners.

⚝Pluto in the 8th house⚝

Having Pluto in the eighth house is a noteworthy placement. Scorpio is the natural ruler of the eighth house, which is a familiar place for Pluto. However, having an eighth house placement doesn't necessarily mean an easy life. From a young age, you are conscious of the darker aspects of life. With Pluto here, power holds great importance in your life and is often obtained through crisis, pain, or trauma. If you embrace the positive aspects of this placement, you can become a source of support and guidance for others, showing them that there is always a way out of difficult situations. This is a highly influential placement that can lead to professions with such specialty and mystique. Think of someone that is a psychiatrist for other psychiatrists, a mortician for other morticians, or a private investigator with psychic abilities. You desire something that involves exploring the depths of the psyche and the journey of the soul's evolution. It can also lead to complete psychic and soul makeovers or even the ability to resurrect one's own or another's soul. This placement has the potential to be both a necromancer and a grim reaper, if you believe as such, but it can also awaken a renewed passion for life.

Individuals with their natal Pluto in the eighth house are known for their ability to overcome obstacles. Planets located in the eighth house tend to manifest themselves during times of crisis. This placement suggests that you possess a significant inner strength that you can rely on. The presence of Pluto in the eighth house can result in powerful transformations and intense experiences related to shared resources, intimacy, and psychological growth. It can also indicate a deep desire to explore the hidden aspects of oneself and others and to comprehend the mysteries of life and death. Additionally, it may suggest a potential for power struggles, manipulation, and obsession in relationships, as well as a tendency to attract intense and transformative experiences.

However, with awareness and conscious effort, this placement can also lead to profound healing, empowerment, and spiritual growth. It is important to approach this placement with respect, integrity, and a willingness to confront one's shadows and vulnerabilities. People with this placement are often drawn to taboo topics and the occult, such as life after death and magic. They may also have an interest in morbid things or horror movies, as they are fascinated by mysteries. However, this placement can create both a fascination with and fear of death.

Pluto in the eighth house also indicates that sexuality is an important aspect of your life, or that you have experienced painful and traumatic events related to it. If Pluto has easy aspects, individuals with this placement may have a high libido and be extremely passionate, even obsessive, about sex. With aspects from Mars or Saturn, they may be drawn to role-playing or have an obsession with violence. These individuals prefer to dominate in relationships as Pluto here is thrilled by power. Simultaneously, they may be afraid of being vulnerable and experiencing intimacy, as this placement can indicate trauma related to sexuality, betrayal, and trust issues. Rage may also be buried in the unconscious of individuals with this placement.

Individuals with Pluto in the eighth house possess a natural knack for psychology and can easily see through people's facades. Pluto has an all-seeing eye, making it impossible to keep secrets from those with this placement. However, despite their insight into others, these individuals tend to keep their secrets close to their chest and have likely learned from difficult experiences. They may struggle with intensity and obsessiveness, finding it challenging to let go and recognize when enough is enough. These tendencies can lead to complicated and tumultuous romantic relationships with emotional and psychological manipulation. Pluto in the eighth house can also indicate a willingness to use any means necessary to achieve their desires, especially when challenged or frustrated. Those with this placement may excel in finance-related careers, such as banking, financial advising, accounting, and investing. However, caution should be taken with Jupiter-Pluto aspects as this placement may also indicate involvement with criminal activity or the darker sides of Pluto's influence. Individuals with hard aspects to Pluto may encounter complications with inheritance or experience power struggles related to money within their family dynamic.

The eighth house is a crucial space in your life, though it may not be visited often. It is here where significant events occur, triggering a profound transformation process within you. If your natal Pluto resides in this house, you may experience more of these moments than the average person. This can make you a skilled sailor, as the saying goes, for a smooth sea never made one. You may find relationships unsatisfying unless they push you to the brink of psychological or emotional death. It's possible for you to feed off other people's trauma to recharge your batteries and demand peak experiences in intimate relationships. However, this can also make you a demanding or controlling partner, someone who wants to know all your secrets and personal information. Probe-like behavior can make others uncomfortable, and you may overestimate your psychological understanding while underestimating your psychological complexes. Remember that just because you have access to someone's secrets doesn't mean you understand them completely.

Individuals with this placement possess exceptional resilience, capable of enduring even the harshest of events. Pluto's influence here grants above-average regenerative abilities, allowing for survival in dangerous situations. However, one's interest in darker subjects may attract potential danger. A well-aspected Pluto, particularly in conjunction with Saturn, may indicate longevity. This placement may also bring about psychological challenges, requiring a purging of negative thoughts and attachments to break free from the karmic wheel. Though such transformations can be painful, they ultimately lead to great personal power. It is important to avoid becoming overly convinced of one's own opinions and adopting a dictatorial approach with a natal Pluto in the eighth house.

⚝Pluto in the 9th house⚝

Pluto in the ninth house indicates that you possess higher intelligence than most people. You have a natural curiosity about how the world operates, and you want to delve deeply into its workings. Your mind is deep and inquisitive due to this placement. This placement of Pluto suggests that you will undergo a profound transformation in your belief system and philosophical outlook. You may develop a keen interest in spiritual and metaphysical matters, as well as a desire to explore various cultures and ways of thinking. This sometimes results in a challenging and intense journey of self-discovery, but ultimately, it leads to a deeper understanding of yourself and the world. It is crucial to remain open-minded and receptive to new ideas and experiences if you have this placement, as it can lead to significant personal growth and transformation.

Individuals with Pluto in the ninth house have a keen ability to detect inconsistencies within the belief systems of those around them. This placement can transform travelers into spies and wise individuals into skeptical philosophers. You likely have little interest in rigid moral codes and commonly accepted explanations. Instead, you relish challenging traditional ideals and prefer to develop your concepts, even if they may not always be clear. Your analytical approach to exploration, travel, and discovery is often detached and critical, bordering on indifference. Superficial explanations are not enough for you, as Pluto urges you to delve deeper into the core of a matter. With this placement, you possess a powerful mind and frequently question beliefs instilled in you during childhood. Your belief system and perception of the world undergo deep transformation multiple times throughout your life. You possess a probing mind and can see beyond surface-level information, making you drawn to foreign religions and philosophies. There are often several soul-searching phases in your life that ultimately lead to profound transformation. While this placement primarily relates to mental transformation, some individuals may struggle with embracing change. Failure to recognize when you are wrong can hinder personal growth, but the ninth house's emphasis on expansion encourages growth. Being a mutable sign, Sagittarius, the natural sign of the ninth house, embraces change. Pluto, however, can be tyrannical and dictatorial, making it challenging to accept new ideas with hard aspects. You value honesty and directness in expressions and interactions with others but may struggle with feeling misunderstood. Those with Pluto in the ninth house may be captivated by foreign languages and cultures and often feel a sense of not belonging to their place of birth. A well-aspected Pluto in this placement can find power through contact with other cultures, while some may even spend a significant amount of time abroad.

With Pluto located in the ninth house of a person's natal chart, their personal philosophy holds great significance. This placement indicates a lifelong learner who is eager to educate themselves without necessarily relying on traditional institutions. As a result, subjects like religion and psychology may pique their interest, and they may possess a natural talent for research and investigation. However, a potential danger of this placement is the tendency to impose their beliefs onto others, which may lead to fanatical or bigoted behavior. It is crucial to avoid becoming dictatorial if they gain power in their communities. On the positive side, individuals with this placement may make inspiring teachers and have the courage to challenge outdated beliefs. Nonetheless, they may encounter difficulties with higher education, and some may drop out of college or experience study breaks. Furthermore, this placement can manifest as authority issues, but it can also support a career in education or research.

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⚝Pluto in the 10th house⚝

When Pluto is in your tenth house, you'll develop a reputation as a powerful and influential individual in the world. You may find yourself engaged in power struggles, particularly in your professional life and interactions with authority figures. This is because the tenth house is associated with career and public image. Your ambition and drive to succeed are noteworthy, and you are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve your goals. However, you may feel like success is more difficult to attain than it is for others, particularly if your natal Pluto in the tenth house is harshly aspected.

Having Pluto in the 10th house can lead to significant transformations and power struggles in your career and public image. It may compel you to confront and overcome deep-seated fears or power dynamics in your workplace. While it can also inspire a strong desire for success and recognition, it is important to be aware of any negative aspects of your ambition. With Pluto in the 10th house, it may be necessary to let go of old habits and embrace a new path that aligns with your true purpose and values. Overall, this placement can be both challenging and empowering, providing opportunities for growth and personal development in your professional and public life.

Pluto is a challenging planet in astrology, often bringing about difficult and even traumatic experiences in the areas it affects. With Pluto in the 10th House, you are skilled at navigating crises and complicated environments. Your progress in professional and social settings is subtle and unique, as you excel at operating behind the scenes and detecting weaknesses and false values. You are driven by your self-interests and have a scheming mind, making you a formidable partner in any venture.

When considering career paths in your natal chart, there are many factors to take into account. However, with Pluto in the tenth house, it is one of the significant influencers. Possible career paths include psychology, investigation, research, surgery, politics, or other fields that involve hidden information. If there are other indicators in the chart, it may even indicate involvement with criminal activities. As you do your inner work and resolve your issues, you may find yourself drawn to a career in the medical field, as Pluto supports regeneration. This placement also lends itself well to careers that require extensive research or attention to detail, making you a great investigator.

While Pluto can bring about unforeseen ups and downs in your career path, it also gives you the ability to bounce back and even reach greater heights. However, success with this placement takes time and patience, as the tenth house is naturally associated with Capricorn and Saturn, the ruler of time in astrology. As you mature, you learn to accept that permanent success takes time and to trust in the process.

People with this placement are often ambitious and have a strong desire to achieve their goals. However, it is essential to develop a healthier and more respectful relationship with time and to avoid using force and power to get what you want. Through the struggle to recreate yourself, you will find your power and ultimately achieve success.

The placement of Pluto in the tenth house of your natal chart may indicate some conflict in your relationship with authority figures. If you feel that you have been treated unfairly, you are not afraid to stand up for yourself. This placement could also suggest that you may become an authoritative figure later in life.

The tenth house is also associated with the parental figures in your life. While traditionally, the father is associated with Saturn and the tenth house, any paternal figure, role model, mentor, or caregiver can be included. Pluto in the tenth house could indicate that the parent represented by this house was authoritarian, domineering, or even dictatorial (especially with hard aspects to Pluto). You may have felt intimidated or afraid of this parent, and they may have had a position of authority that was respected or even feared by others. If there are harmonious aspects to your Pluto in the tenth house, this parent may have had a strong personality, was determined, and had a strong will. They may have been an important influence in your life, teaching you strength and how to cope with challenges. Alternatively, if there are hard aspects to your Pluto in the tenth house, you may be at risk of becoming tyrannical, arrogant, selfish, or overly controlling with your power.

In addition to learning to cope with authority figures, this placement also suggests that you need to learn how to use your power in a healthy way. If you use your power for good, you may become a very powerful figure in your community. However, it is important to remember that with great power comes great responsibility. It is important to avoid becoming too domineering or controlling and to use your power constructively and positively. People may see you as mysterious and reserved, but also as someone who always has a trick up their sleeve.

⚝Pluto in the 11th house⚝

If Pluto is in your eleventh house, it's in the area of friends and organizations. This planet's mysterious and dark side can make it tough for you to fit in and compromise, but you can learn a lot from your interactions with groups of people. Pluto's placement in the 11th house can have a significant impact on your social life and relationships with friends and acquaintances. You may feel a strong urge to join groups or organizations dedicated to social change or transformation. Your desire for power and transformation can drive your relationships, and you may be drawn to those who can help you achieve your goals or further your agenda. However, it's important to avoid letting your desire for power and control take over your relationships with others. Keep a sense of balance and perspective in your social life and relationships, and be mindful of how your actions can affect others.

The eleventh house is closely associated with social groups, clubs, and organizations. However, it encompasses more than just your relationship with society. It also represents the universe's support for you and everything that comes into your life. Individuals with Pluto in the eleventh house may struggle to identify their goals clearly, even though they are ambitious and seek great achievements. Nonetheless, Pluto in the eleventh house suggests immense power to transform your dreams into reality. This planet is intense and influential, capable of magnifying things. When used effectively, it can be an excellent asset for fulfilling your hopes and dreams. People with this placement are future-oriented, often to the point of neglecting the present. Pluto in the eleventh house can lead to a preoccupation with ideas and difficulties in executing them in the present. Once conquered, however, this tendency can make you unstoppable. If Pluto is well-aspected in the eleventh house and in harmony with Jupiter, it can indicate potential wealth acquisition. The eleventh house is also associated with money, specifically money earned through your profession and cash flow in your life. Pluto can contribute to financial success with harmonious aspects, but hard aspects may suggest a willingness to do anything to achieve one's goals, even if it involves immoral means. It can also lead to difficulties in managing money.

Based on the placement of Pluto in your eleventh house, it appears that your interest lies in the study of people and their social behavior. You are fascinated by group dynamics and social phenomena, and you strive to comprehend how people function. This helps you understand yourself better as well. You are drawn to criminal groups, cartels, secret societies, large-scale covert operations, and other similar organizations. However, you are also aware of the negative impact these groups have on society. You have an intense desire to control your social relationships and are known to struggle with building and maintaining friendships. You can be highly intense and may have experienced betrayal or a traumatic event related to your friends in the past. As a result, you tend to be guarded and find it difficult to trust others. You prefer to be alone than in bad company and prioritize maintaining power and control in your social circles. If someone has hard aspects to Pluto in their natal chart, they may exhibit dictatorial or domineering behavior when in a group setting. This can create tension, and it's important to strive for balance. It's necessary to adjust your beliefs and attitude towards groups of people. Although you have a strong desire to belong, achieving this can be a long journey. With Pluto in the eleventh house, you crave acceptance but often feel lonely even when surrounded by others. It can be challenging to fit in and find your place. Despite feeling like a loner, it's important to learn how to connect with others and build a network. Unfortunately, some people with this placement may experience traumatic events, such as abuse or betrayal, that force them to reexamine their beliefs about people and society. Through these experiences, however, they can gain wisdom and learn how to heal themselves.

Having Pluto in the eleventh house can bring loyal and supportive friends who have strong personalities like you. You can discuss topics that others may find morbid, such as the occult or life after death. Friendships with Pluto in the 11th House are dynamic and evolve over time. Your conception of the world and ideals are not absolute but rather emphasize the futility of principles and ideas. Your most significant relationships always maintain a degree of mystery, and you distrust universally accepted truths. Your network helps you achieve your goals and learn about various aspects of life. You may find your power through understanding group dynamics, and can even take on an important role in an organization with this placement. Harmonious aspects of Pluto in the eleventh house suggest powerful and supportive friends who can help you turn your dreams into reality. However, with hard aspects to Pluto, it is important to be careful about who you associate with, as envious friends who do not have your best interests at heart may try to manipulate you or bring trouble upon you. Additionally, it is important to respect others' opinions and not think that you know everything best. Pluto in the eleventh house may also draw you to social causes or humanitarian work, and can even make you a powerful and revolutionary leader with well-aspected Pluto in this placement. However, some people with a natal Pluto in the eleventh house may also become members of secret groups or have secret friendships, and there may be indicators in the natal chart for social anxiety.

⚝Pluto in the 12th house⚝

If Pluto is located in the 12th house of your birth chart, it could indicate a strong connection to your subconscious mind. This placement suggests that you may have a desire to explore the deeper aspects of your psyche and inner world. You may also have a fascination with spirituality, mysticism, and the occult, as well as a yearning to understand the workings of the universe on a profound level. At times, you may feel like you are struggling with powerful forces that are beyond your control, which can lead to intense dreams or nightmares. However, with Pluto in the 12th house, you have the potential to harness these energies and use them for personal transformation and growth. It is important to note that this placement can also indicate a tendency towards self-destructive behaviors or escapism as a way of avoiding intense emotions and psychic energies. By confronting these challenges head-on and integrating them into your conscious awareness, you can unlock a powerful source of personal power and transformation. With Pluto in the 12th house, you may have a strong connection with mysticism, ordeals, and the afterlife, and possess exceptional sensitivity. When expressed negatively, this configuration may lead to an interest in macabre subjects and paradoxical sexuality, as well as a tendency to perceive ghostly enemies. However, when expressed positively, it encourages you to attribute a transcendental value to your actions, thoughts, and life.

Pluto in the twelfth house suggests that you are restricted from finding your power. Tapping into your power is not impossible, but it requires a lot of work and developing self-awareness. This placement often indicates anxiety and detachment from your deep desires. This placement suggests that you find it hard to identify with things represented by Pluto, such as power, sex, and violence. Planets in the twelfth house are not integrated into your personality. You possess all the power Pluto gives us, but it is locked up in the twelfth house, hidden from you. You are blocked from accessing it. In other cases, you unconsciously try to sweep this planet under the carpet. Pluto in the twelfth house can indicate that you were told not to be powerful as a child. Perhaps power was said to be immoral or bad, and you learned that it is unsafe and unethical to want it. The same is true for sexuality. People with this placement have a strong sexuality, but they often feel ashamed of it and they are aware of their desires only on an unconscious level. This placement can indicate problems with your sexuality. Pluto in the twelfth house is often a sign of unhealthy power dynamics in your childhood. Perhaps one of your parents was dictatorial and domineering, while the other parent could not express their power and took up the role of the martyr. This placement can indicate abuse in childhood. This can be emotional, physical abuse, or sexual. This experience can be suppressed in the subconscious, but it is often the root of self-destructive behavior.

If you have a natal Pluto in the twelfth house, you may have a fear of losing control. Control is very important to you, and although the planets in the twelfth house are repressed, they have not disappeared. You may unconsciously fear that Pluto will be set free. This placement suggests that you may experience power struggles in your mind. You may be hard on yourself and tend to beat yourself up. You may also use shadowy, manipulative tactics to gain power, such as playing the martyr or emotionally manipulating others. You may not even be aware of these mind games, but others may feel them. If there are hard aspects and other indicators in your chart, Pluto in the twelfth house can indicate crime or prostitution. People with this placement often struggle with low self-esteem and may feel helpless or lack self-confidence. A strong Sun in your natal chart or harmonious aspects from Mars can help counteract this. A well-aspected and well-placed Pluto can give you a lot of strength, but when it is located in the twelfth house, it is hidden from you. If Pluto is close to the ascendant, it may indicate a traumatic birth or near-death experience. Hard aspects of Pluto in the twelfth house can also indicate trouble with sleep or nightmares. Pluto in this placement may explain suffering through startling and dark dreams.

You may tend to be reserved due to your placement in the twelfth house. While this can be a natural inclination, it's important to be mindful of not suppressing your emotions. Finding ways to de-stress through physical activity can be a helpful outlet for any tension or pent-up emotions you may be experiencing.

It's worth noting that a strong emphasis on this house in your birth chart may make you particularly sensitive, both emotionally and physically. Additionally, if Pluto is also in the twelfth house, there is a potential for psychosomatic illnesses. This placement can also cause feelings of anxiety, not belonging, or unworthiness. In some cases, individuals may even use illness as a way to avoid coping with reality.

To address any potential challenges related to this placement, it's crucial to find balance and address any unconscious guilt that may be present. Pluto in the twelfth house can lead to self-punishment or attraction to toxic partners, so it's important to learn to let go and spend time alone. Meditation and spiritual practices can be helpful in this regard, as well as developing a talent for psychology and a natural insight into human nature. By focusing on these areas, you can help ensure that you can navigate any challenges that may arise in a healthy, productive way.

⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝

Bye Cunts <3

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raointean · 1 year ago

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Nuance (can get pregnant (to the best of my knowledge)

#see i'd love to...#except i've got ehlers danlos which is known to get a lot worse during/after pregnancy #because it's the “injuries heal wrong and nothing really bounces back” disease #and pregnancy does a lot of weird things to your body #i might do it someday #but i'd need a robust support system. solid income. flexible job. and spouse who could take a long paternity/non-pregnant maternity leave #and it would STILL be a tough decision

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thanatika · 4 months ago

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The Bachelor's Pharmacy

I made a list of all of the metabolism-affecting consumables I could find in the Quarantine game files. @humancork was asking to see this, but I'll put it in the tag in case anyone else wants to see.

Stimulants (Increase Mania/Decrease Apathy):

Camphor Stimulant, a rubefacient. Causes irritation, just like everything in this damned place.

Coffee Coffee is imported from overseas, so I must conserve my supply. Besides, the delivery of goods to the town is delayed, so the price of coffee can be outrageous. Addictive, with each use, the effect becomes weaker.

Adrenaline (Called "Stimpack" in game files) A hormone produced in the adrenal glands as a response to stress. When administered, it activates the body's fight or flight response. In my case, it increases running speed.

Strychnine A poison. Which is the same as medicine. Invigorating in small doses. Addictive. With each use, the effect becomes weaker.

Concentrated strychnine The word repulsive doesn't even begin to describe its taste, especially in such a dosage, but it clears your mind like nothing else. You can't become addicted to it, even if you want to.

Tobacco It is believed that cigarettes have a calming effect, but in fact nicotine is a stimulant. Addictive. With each use, the effect becomes weaker.

Taurine Taurine is extracted from ox bile—perfectly fitting for a town built on bulls. It stimulates the nervous system and supports energy processes in the body.

Depressants (Increase Apathy/Decrease Mania):

Bromide Increases inhibition in the cerebral cortex. In other words, dulls the brain. Sometimes that's exactly what I need.

Etorphine A powerful analgesic. An overdose can lead to sudden feebleness or even death.

Morphine Relieves any pain, both physical and mental. In return, it asks only for your sharpness of thought. Many people take that deal. Addictive. With each use, the effect becomes weaker.

Refined morphine Strong, robust. Each time it hits you like the first one. However, it's very rare. Use with caution to avoid overdose.

Valerian extract Sedative. Sometimes even Bachelor Dankovsky drinks valerian extract, just like his grandmother used to. [Alt: Sedative. Can't go wrong with valerian.]

Other:

Dankovsky's special (Called "BachelorBrew" in game files, lol) A remedy I made myself. When administered, it allows the body to postpone any current pain and spread it out over time for approximately [Y] seconds. Unlike morphine, this drug doesn’t inhibit the psyche or cause apathy.

Makeshift tonic pill (Called "Craft_Pill_Apat" in game files) Partially mitigates the negative effects of apathy. Effectiveness unknown.

Makeshift stress relief pill (Called "Craft_Pill_Psycho" in game files) Partially mitigates the negative effects of stress. Effectiveness unknown.

Twyrine (Called "Tvirin" in game files, no description)

Swevery extract Serves as a natural tonic. It would be good to cultivate the local herbs...

White Whip toxin The White Whip an endemic species of the Gorhon Steppes. Contains a poison that, in its pure form, is lethal. There have been known cases of murders involving its use.

#mine #one must imagine dankovsky getting pissed at his $7 starbucks order #pathologic #patho lore #pathologic 3 datamining

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theesirenteller · 3 months ago

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𝕯𝖊𝖆𝖑𝖊𝖗

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴇʟᴇᴠᴇɴ : ᴡʜᴇɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴜsᴋ sᴇᴛᴛʟᴇs.

Epiphany had awakened in the backseat of a 1972 Gran Torino. Authentic-almost humorous Mexican music played lowly through the stereo-system. Her eyes felt heavy and she saw everything around her blurry. They felt as though they were filled with water. Sharp pain shot through her head, causing epiphany to wince in pain. Two familiar voices speaking in Spanish she overheard. No doubt Rio was one of the men speaking. Epiphany said nothing, she did nothing but allow sleep to overcome her.

Later on; the laughter of children, the robust sounds of motorbike engines, men and women cussing in Spanish, the scent of spices and the sweetness of bread flourished through the bedroom Epiphany occupied. The freshness of ripened fruit and the warmth of the air had caused her to awaken from her lengthy slumber. Her heavy lids squinted before she fully opened her eyes. A grumpy huff escaped her lips as she sat up straight. Epiphany hadn’t a clue where she was. She wasn’t even in the same clothing that she once had worn on the plane. She was now dressed in a cotton white ankle-length nightgown.

It clung to her sweaty body as she slipped out of bed and began walking around the large bedroom. “Where the fuck am I?” Epiphany muttered to herself as she walked out to the balcony. She had a tropical rainforest in her backyard. The smell of salt water was fresh in the air. Epiphany was beyond confused. Taking one last look at the scenery, she walked out the balcony and made her way across the room.

Luckily the door wasn’t locked. Epiphany stood face to face with a single story cabana-style home. It was extreamly cozy with it’s interior. A vibrant orange couch, large dining room table with six chairs across from the kitchen. “Christopher?!” she called out as she walked around the home. “Chris, got damn it where are you?!” she called out once agan as she yanked the front door open.

Looking straight ahead, she could see the clearing of the town. Whatever town it was, She didn’t know but the colors of it were vibrant and oddly enough it had a western feel to it. Feeling tired and weak, Epiphany didn't dare go out and instead went back inside. Sleep overcame her once again as she laid across the sofa.

“Epiphany, epiphany wake up…”

As soon as Epiphany opened her eyes, she came face to face with Nick. The pudgy male had looked quite tan versus when she last saw him, he’d been bloated and pale. “Where’s Chris at?” she asked as she sat up.

“Working.” Nick sighed. “He’ll be here soon.”

“Figures.” Epiphany spat, rolling her eyes. “And where am I exactly?”

“Yuca, Mexico.” Nick replied.

Epiphany blinked slowly, letting the name roll off her tongue with a mocking twist of her lips. “Yuca, Mexico…” she repeated with exaggerated disbelief, her eyes narrowing. “The hell kind of name is that? Sounds like something you fry in oil.”

Nick stifled a chuckle, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s peaceful here. Safe.”

“Safe?” Epiphany echoed, scoffing as she pulled her damp nightgown away from her thighs. “I wake up in some jungle Barbie dreamhouse, dressed like a ghost from a telenovela, and you’re telling me I’m safe?!” She flopped back against the couch, arms sprawled dramatically across the cushions.

Nick opened his mouth to respond, but Epiphany beat him to it. “And why the hell does it smell like someone deep-fried a carnival in here? You guys got churros? Is that why y’all kidnapped me?” She sat up suddenly, eyes widening with mock realization. “Oh my God—am I being fattened up?! Is this one of those Hansel and Gretel things? I swear to God, Nick, if I find a gingerbread house out there—”

“You’re not being fattened up,” Nick interrupted with a laugh, clearly amused despite himself. “Chris just wanted to make sure you were okay. You passed out for hours on the plane. Something about altitude, blood sugar, and your stubborn ass not eating.”

Epiphany glared at him. “I don’t trust airplane food, and nobody told me we were going on a secret international field trip. My passport’s probably crying in a TSA trash can.”

Nick gave a shrug. “You’re here now. Chris will explain everything when he gets back. Just chill, alright?”

Epiphany huffed, folding her arms like a defiant child. “Fine. But if I find even one gecko in my shoes, I’m setting this whole place on fire.”

Nick raised a brow. “With what? The salt air?”

Epiphany threw a cushion at him.

The air around them crackled—too quiet, too still. Not a bird, not a breath.

Viann’s fingers twitched. Rio’s eyes flicked down—just once—and in that split-second, Viann went for it. His hand flew to his gun, but he wasn’t fast enough.

CRACK.

Rio’s fist collided with Viann’s jaw like thunder, snapping his head sideways. The gun dropped before it could clear the holster, skittering across the dusty street.

Viann stumbled back, spitting blood. “You hit like a jealous ex.”

Rio rolled his neck, calm as a saint. “Nah. I hit like a man who protects what’s his.”

Viann lunged, sloppy. Rio ducked under the wild swing, buried a brutal jab into Viann’s ribs. Another. Then an uppercut that sent Viann reeling against the stucco wall of a nearby building.

Rio moved like water—no wasted steps, each hit deliberate, strategic. The way a boxer fought when he wasn’t just trying to win—he was making a point.

Viann coughed, doubling over. “She was mine…”

“You don’t own people,” Rio growled, grabbing him by the collar and slamming him against the wall. “Especially not her.”

Another punch—straight to the stomach. Viann gasped.

“She came to me. She stayed with me.” Rio’s voice dropped to a whisper, forehead nearly pressed against Viann’s. “You don’t get to hunt her like she’s prey. You don’t get to breathe near her.”

Viann, wheezing, reached for a knife tucked into his boot.

Rio caught it mid-draw, yanked it free, and tossed it behind him without looking. Then he wrapped his hand around Viann’s throat.

“This could’ve been easy,” Rio said, his grip tightening, “but you made it personal.”

Viann clawed at his hand, his feet kicking weakly against the dirt.

“And I don’t let threats walk away.”

There was a finality in his voice—an edge of silence that meant the fight was already over.

Snap.

Viann’s body went limp.

Rio let go, letting him drop into the dirt like discarded trash. For a moment, he just stood there—breathing hard, eyes empty.

Then he wiped his bloody knuckles on Viann’s shirt, turned, and walked away.

He didn’t look back.

Epiphany stirred on the couch, something deep in her chest telling her the air had shifted. She glanced at the open window. A breeze swept through.

Warm.

Safe.

But laced with something darker—something done in her name.

She didn't know it yet, but the man who haunted her past had just been erased by the one who guarded her future.

The sun was brutal in Mexico, its heat crawling over Rio’s skin like an uninvited touch. He didn’t flinch. Not when his fists were already bloodied. Not when his knuckles had split open like cracked pavement after the storm.

Viann's body lay twisted at his feet, dust clouding around them, thick with the scent of sweat, blood, and betrayal. The man had put up a fight—he’d had Epiphany’s name on his lips like a weapon, a taunt. Rio hadn't hesitated. He’d fought like the trained boxer he once was, each jab fueled by fury, every blow a memory of Epiphany’s tears, her voice trembling as she begged him not to go.

He didn’t use a gun. No. He ended Viann with his bare hands.

It was personal.

The heat hadn’t left the air, but something inside Rio had cooled. Snapped clean in half.

He stood over the body for a long while, shoulders rising and falling with each breath. The rage was still there—but hollow now. Like something had been exorcised. He stared at his hands, smeared with crimson, and thought of her. Thought of the way she had looked at him that night in the truck, like he was both her savior and the man who'd set the fire.

He wiped the blood on his shirt, then lit a cigarette with a shaky hand.

"Loose ends," he muttered to himself. "Ain’t so easy to cut when they got a hold on your fuckin’ soul."

A day later, he was back in the city. The familiar hum of traffic couldn’t drown out the silence in his chest. He hadn’t gone straight to her. Couldn't. Not yet.

He lingered outside her building for an hour, hood up, cigarette burning down to ash. Finally, with hands that still remembered the weight of death, he moved toward her door.

This wasn’t survival anymore.

It was love.

And he was done pretending otherwise.

The ocean was whispering in the background, a soft hush of waves brushing the sand like the world was trying to soothe itself.

Epiphany sat on the edge of the bed, her back to him. The room was quiet now, save for the occasional creak of wood beams and the flickering flame from a single lantern that swayed outside the window.

She hadn’t spoken in nearly ten minutes.

And that silence? It was worse than any gun to his head.

Rio stood across the room, leaned against the wall, arms crossed tight over his chest like he was holding himself together. The cabana was small—intimate. There was no place to hide here. No corner to duck into, no shadows to disappear into. Just her. Him. And everything they’d been running from since Paris.

“I ain’t good at this,” he muttered.

Epiphany didn’t move.

“I’m good at threats. At deals. At puttin’ bullets in the right heads.” He let out a low, humorless laugh. “But this shit? You? I don’t got the blueprint.”

She finally looked at him then, over her shoulder. Eyes tired. Raw.

“Then why bring me here?” she asked. Her voice was low, but it cut straight through him. “Why drag me away like I’m something you can just claim—then say nothin’ when I’m breaking in front of you?”

His jaw flexed. He pushed off the wall.

“Because I had to. Because I couldn’t leave you there with him.” He walked toward her slowly. “Viann… he was gonna break you down. And I couldn’t watch that happen, not when I was the one who was the cause of you running to him.”

Her lips trembled. She looked away again.

Rio crouched in front of her, voice softer now. “I thought leavin’ you alone would keep you safe. I told myself if I made you hate me, it’d be easier. But you’re not just some girl I fucked and forgot, Piphy.”

She flinched at the nickname. He hadn't called her that since the night they first broke up.

“I tried to be cold. I tried to turn it off.” His eyes searched hers. “But you got under my skin. You didn’t just get into my head—you took up fuckin’ residence in my chest.”

He reached for her hand, let his fingers rest gently against hers, not holding, just offering.

“I killed him,” he said, voice low and hoarse. “Viann. With my hands. For what he did. For what he almost did. And most of all…I killed him because I love you too much to give you away to someone else.”

Epiphany blinked hard. A tear slid down, but she didn’t wipe it.

“He’s gone now,” Rio whispered. “But you’re still lookin’ at me like I’m the villain.”

She finally turned fully toward him, eyes wet but sharp. “Because you were. You left me. You shattered me. And now you want to act like this was always about love?”

“No,” he said quietly. “I wanna act like I finally see it was.”

He pulled her hand into his, kissed her knuckles like they were sacred. “I never stopped loving you, Piph. I just thought love was somethin’ I couldn’t afford.”

A silence settled between them, but it wasn’t empty anymore. It was heavy. Honest.

And when she leaned forward, pressing her forehead to his, he didn’t breathe.

She whispered, “Then say it.”

And Rio, did just that,” I love you, Epiphany. I love you today, I love you tomorrow, and I’ll love you in this life and beyond it.”

TAGGED! @lovedlover @darqchilddaydreamz @ravennaortiz @fvckthisbxtchup @hausofmamadas @delightfulheroshoeflap @scne-vampire @chompwoman @lanadelreysvs @makeyoumineagain @makeyoumine69

#theesirenteller fanfic #rio; dealer fanfic #theesirentellerstories #theesirenteller characters #rio x epiphany core #rio good girls #fuck beth boland #manny montana x oc #rio good girls fanfiction #rio good girls x reader

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afloweroutofstone · 1 month ago

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okay, but capitalism, neoliberalism, the free market in general, colonialism, zionism, imperialism, they will not end through voting, and write-ins, and calling senators, and as long as those systems are still in place, no marginalized people are safe or free. And representation is important, but if you are represented but still forced to function on the terms of the oppressor, then what?

capitalism, neoliberalism, the free market in general, colonialism, zionism, imperialism, they will not end through voting, and write-ins, and calling senators

Can any of those problems be solved exclusively through electoral strategy? No, probably not. Will electoral strategy play a large role in solving those problems when operating in tandem with a robust non-electoral strategy? I think so, yes. It may not be a romantic truth, but is a truth all the same: most large, systematic problems in modern times that have been meaningfully resolved were addressed through a combination of "insider" and "outsider" tactics, not by one without the other.

And representation is important, but if you are represented but still forced to function on the terms of the oppressor, then what?

I think we may be misunderstanding each other in the way we're discussing "representation" here. There is descriptive representation, which is when you are represented by someone who shares certain demographic features with you. This is what people on this website are describing when they say "representation matters," but it is not what I am talking about in this conversation. I am talking about substantive representation, which is when you are represented by someone who shares your views, values, ideology, and/or strategy.

Without more detail regarding what you mean by "forced to function on the terms of the oppressor," I assume that you mean that there is a structural domination by the oppressing class which goes beyond the representative makeup of a democratic body. But a politically sovereign democratic body is empowered to decide the structure under which it operates: it can decide the distribution of resources, the organization of institutions, the assignment of powers and responsibilities, etc. My argument is that a truly democratic body with significant substantive representation would not be "forced to function on the terms of the oppressor" for very long, because it has both the means and the motive to modify those terms. Capitalism, imperialism, etc. aren't facts of nature. They are human-made systems which can be dismantled by human-made efforts.

#mom can you come pick me up #Brett's doing reform v. revolution discourse again

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jasper-pagan-witch · 10 months ago

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Jasper's Servitor/Thoughtform Resource Post

last updated: December 23, 2024

Please note: The biggest difference between a servitor and thoughtform is the level of sentience (or perceived sentience). A servitor is not sentient, while a thoughtform is. Determine it as you will.

Also, a disclaimer! Even if I don't find a source particularly helpful, you might get more out of it than I did! I just like to categorize and sub-categorize things.

Tumblr Posts I Find Helpful

How to Make a Servitor by viadescioism: A rather straightforward guide on servitor creation.

Creating a Thoughtform by windvexer: A decently lengthy guide on thoughtform creation.

When Creating Thoughtforms by witchesalleyway: A little reminder about picking the shapes of your thoughtforms.

Technowitchcraft - Thoughtforms by aceswitch: A post with the idea of using a USB drive as the "body" of a servitor/thoughtform to allow for future edits.

Egregore by trustmepink: An extremely short post defining what an egregore is. Great for being introduced to the word and concept, though there's not much meat in the post and the sources/helpful links are a bit questionable.

Sigils: Scribbles to Forget or Spirits to Remember by witchofsouthernlight: While not about servitor creation, this is about reusing sigils for specific goals and how those can be spirits in an animist perspective. A really neat post overall and useful here because of the way that servitors are often tied to sigils.

Entity Creation Worksheet by jasper-pagan-witch: Adapted from Creating Magickal Entities, but altered to a decent extent so it's more helpful to me personally.

Servitor Design Template by ritual-and-chaos: Adapted from Servitor Magick, extremely straightforward with an explanation. A great alternative to my adaptation of the template from Creating Magickal Entities.

Chaos Magic: Servitors, Thoughtforms, and Godforms by trollkunnig: Incredibly in-depth and detailed when it comes to servitor creation, but since OP deactivated, the links in reference to the godform parts are broken. Damn the loss of information on the Internet!!!

Destroying Your Thoughtforms: by viadescioism: A fairly detailed (if a little wall-of-text-y) post on the destruction of the thoughtform, with a guide in case you didn't build a kill switch/phrase into your thoughtform to begin with.

Thoughtforms: Theory & Ethics by spiritvexer: A good companion post to the thoughtform destruction one above, giving a few alternatives to total destruction for the thoughtforms when you no longer need them.

Thoughts on Thoughtforms by spellsandwoo-woostuff: An insightful read into another approach to thoughtforms as OCs or writing muses given life rather than spells given sentience.

Basics of Servitor Creation and Implementation by majokkid: Part of majokkid's Magi Praxis series, this goes over the basic steps of servitor creation in a way that is straightforward, easy to understand, and works well even beyond magical girl-aligned practices.

Easy Ways to Charge Energyforms by windvexer: Goes over a bunch of different energy feeding and charging methods for servitors and provides resources for making this shit easier. And gods know we need to make this shit easier.

Books And Websites I Find Helpful

Condensed Chaos: An Introduction To Chaos Magic by Phil Hine: While this is a chaos magic 101 type book, it has an incredibly robust chapter on servitor/thoughtform creation. It also has the benefit of talking about chaos magic more broadly to give you more context for servitor/thoughtform creation. You can find my initial thoughts on it here. APPLICABLE PAGES: 106 to 125, under the chapter name "Chaos Servitors"

The Forty Servants, The Four Devils, and The Grimoire of The Forty Servants by Tommie Kelly: Two pre-made servitor systems that are incredibly in-depth and, in my opinion, quite fun to use. There's a little bit of plug-and-play applicable here.

Magickal Servitors: Create Your Own Spirits to Attract Pleasure, Power and Prosperity by Damon Brand: It is effective, straight to the point, and actionable. But interestingly, it's incredibly combative towards chaos magic, which is where servitor/thoughtform creation sprung up to begin with. You can find my initial thoughts about it here.

Tumblr Posts I Find Less Helpful

Creating a Servitor and Creating a Thoughtform by witchy-oates: These guides aren't bad, but they really seem to focus on the fear that a servitor will spontaneously develop sentience, which I generally disagree with.

Is Your Spirit A Thoughtform? by elysiumconjures: A lengthy questionnaire and list of red flags that an entity you're interacting with might be a thoughtform. Personally I found it frustrating to read, but the list can at least guide beginners who are still learning discernment techniques to figure out what to look for.

On Telling The Difference Between A Thoughtform And A "Real" Spirit by creature-wizard: The counter-post to the above one, though you kind of need to see both perspectives to fully appreciate creature-wizard's wonderful counterpoints.

Distinguishing Imaginary Friends, Thoughtforms, and Spirits by spiritconnect: Another post about deciphering whether what you're talking to is a thoughtform or some other kind of entity.

A Short Guide to Thoughtforms by thewitchofbucktown: Longer than it promises, and I personally don't feel like referring to all deities as thoughtforms is something that works with my understanding of things at this time, but not a bad post considering it was written 11 years ago. Plus, OP hasn't deactivated, which is really hard to find in servitor/thoughtform resources.

Servitors: A Basic Guide to Artificial Entities by tinyrosemarysparrows: While this is a very detailed guide with some interesting and unique approaches to servitor creation, the author dropping back to "destroy if it even blinks wrong" (not that much of an exaggeration) makes me hesitant to recommend it fully, hence its placement down here. The post even says you can reprogram servitors but still recommends immediate destruction for every little thing, so…it's not really how I roll.

Books And Websites I Find Less Helpful

Creating Magickal Entities: A Complete Guide to Entity Creation by David Michael Cunningham, Taylor Ellwood, and T Amanda R Wagener: I hated this book so much. Out of everything in here, I found only four things that were actionable and that I could use. Every single author here was pretentious as fuck and took forever to make their damn point. This could have been an email. You can read more of my complaints here. The three parts that I found most interesting can be read in these Tumblr posts of mine: Servitors as Links; Energy Store-House Entities (ESHEs); and Servitor Biographies.

Protection & Reversal Magick: A Witch's Defense Manual by Jason Miller: I can't fucking believe I'm putting a Jason Miller book here. And look, I can't say this entire book is helpful because I haven't yet finished it, but the section on artificial spirits created for magical offense and defense? Probably one of the best sections on servitors/thoughtforms I've read in a non-dedicated book in a while. Just be aware that his tone of speech is deeply annoying, and this book of his leans more Hekatean. But because I have not finished reading this book, I cannot recommend this book fully. APPLICABLE PAGES: 119 to 146, under the chapter name "Spirit Guardians and Servitors"

Hands-On Chaos Magic: Reality Manipulation through the Ovayki Current by Andrieh Vitimus: I hated this book. I hate this book. I will hate this book. It's deeply frustrating and there's only so many times I can keep writing "stop citing a white woman on hoodoo" in the book itself before I just start eating the pages. That, and many similar problems, are why I do not find this book helpful on the whole despite how in-depth it goes in its three chapters on servitor creation. The author also refers heavily back to Condensed Chaos by Phil Hine, so that's required reading before you even pick this up. Personally, I'm just not impressed. APPLICABLE PAGES: 287 to 339, under the chapter names "Creating Entities with Energy and Information", "Giving Form to Concepts and Ideas", and "Advanced Practicum on Entity Creation"

Jasper's Miscellaneous Bullshit

Jasper's Energyform Zine by jasper-pagan-witch: I suffered for two months to write this damn thing and by the gods I shall shill it.

Jasper's Guide To Energyforms by jasper-pagan-witch: A little glossary of how I, personally, use the terms you've seen speckled throughout this post.

The Modal Commander Servitor by jasper-pagan-witch: A Magic: The Gathering Commander format approach to creating a kickass servitor that can change and adapt as easily as swapping out cards.

Atronachs, Ash Guardians, and Quick Notes on the Less Common Atronachs on @the-college-of-whispers: Want a quick look at how Jasper from 3 years ago approached the idea of elemental Daedra as entities, both created and summoned? These three posts are for you.

@jasper-and-the-forty-servants: Remember how I was talking about the plug-and-play part of the Forty Servants above? Yeah, that's what I do over on this blog. My favorite two are, hands down, Falco Spara, Pactweaver as the Protector and Dina, Soul Steeper as the Healer.

GOFLOWOLFOG and Fotamecus: Two servitors/egregores that I and people close to me have had incredible experiences with. Hell yeah to both of them.

Mesperyian: Tumblr's very own Greek goddess egregore. An excellent study in the power of multiple people taking something and running with it. (Her original story can be found here, by the way!)

#jasper post #masterpost #energyforms

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torchtour · 11 months ago

Note

Hi hello I love your Euclidian designs could you explain their anatomy

tysm!! here's some bullshit biology. if i spelled anything wrong. um. i didnt

transcription (since my colors/handwriting are whack) and elaboration below cut hehe

"cellulose microfibril bricks, colored by carotenoid pigment (xanthophyll)" they help maintain the shape of the cell/provide structural integrity to an overall squishy organism. the pigment xanthophyll is yellow (because. bill. yellow) and facilitates photosynthesis yay solar power. the nature of bill's mutation includes a full wall of this shit covering his whole body like a carapace

""brain"/ganglia" very rudimentary nervous system that's just a bundle of nerves hooked up to the eyes. important to note that the nerves are robust and mobile like electrical wires so don't mind being jostled by eye movement

"cilia assist in movement and sensing" leeetle hairs that aren't hairs at all but microtubules coated by the plasma membrane. kinda like whiskers/barbels but used for swimming

"double membrane (two phospholipid bilayers), pseudopods made of actin filaments and filled with cytoplasm" and also "pseudopods are mobile and variable (stretchy) the gripperssssssss if you wanna see some epic pseudopod action just look up amoeba hunting on youtube

"eyelids and "lashes"/teeth" the retractable sheathes that cover the eye have scutes that can flex and poke out as a sorta velcro-y set of teeth and manipulate objects

"mitochondrial pump" i'm sorry to say i didn't actually have an idea of what this organ was when i drew the first drawing don't tell anyone but i make shit up as i go along ummm but now it's the pseudo-heart organelle that generates atp (mitochondria) and circulates shit 'round the body (pump)

"2D eyes can perceive color, brightness, and a single layer/line of depth" so these basically work how the eyes work in flatland where euclideans can only see an infinitely thin plane of color and shadow

"reproductive organs and gametes" my euclideans have external fertilization where a pair (any pair works cuz they all have the same haploid gams) just mush together their gametes to make a baby love wins i didn't really think this through shhh i just cant imagine these things fucking im sorry they're too weird maybe the foreplay goes crazy idk

that's basically it uhm i labeled each shape as "cuboidal", "triangular", and "circular" and then that "circles are (superficially) bilaterally symmetrical" cuz they only got the one eye oh and the circular one is labeled as "juvenile has no compartment for reproductive organs" cuz why not ok bye

#sorry this is a lot of rambling i didn't rlly know what to say so i said. everything😭#ask #art #myart #fanart #gravity falls #gravity falls bill #the book of bill #bill cipher #euclydia #flatland #flatland 2007 #tw eyestrain #kinda?

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aamputation · 6 months ago

Text

SVSSS AU ... Benevolent System 0.2

related to -> [THIS] Shen Yuan art, just a lil bit i typed up and want to share

EDIT: added more! > [1st] [3rd]

He can’t recall a time where he's ever felt so light before, in his past life or even now. He grins, patting down his new body, flush with health and brimming with energy. If he focuses on his breathing, he can feel his qi and the way it circulates through his meridians, full and robust. It feels wild, and exhilaration takes him over, a laugh bursting forth.

“Hey, System, you sure the prices in the shop weren't glitches? This feels like it's too good to be true for a total of 45 B points…”

《 Answering [Host] … 》

《 This System promises it was not a glitch! 》

《 o(〒﹏〒)o 》

《 This System merely wishes to fulfill its promise to be of use to [Host] in the world of [Proud Immortal Demon Way]!! 》

Shen Yuan snorts; he’s never going to get over the fact that this baby system used kaomojis of all things to express itself. On one hand it's a bit alarming, the difference between the one that attached itself to him versus the original system that yoinked his soul into that extra-planar space to begin with. That system was undoubtedly an asshole and Shen Yuan would have absolutely hated being stuck with such an obnoxious tyrant. Yeah, while this particular system just reeks of didi energy, it sure beats whatever nasty vibes the OG system was putting off. Good fucking riddance!

“So I've still got 55 B-Points left…” he rubs his chin as he hums, staring into the semi-transparent, floating holo-display showing him the System Shop.

《 If this System may offer [Host] a suggestion? 》

“Yeah, sure, didi,” Shen Yuan replies absently, scrolling through some cultivation manuals available for purchase out of his price range, “go ahead.”

The System makes an alarming electronic noise that to his ears, sounds remarkably like a flustered keysmash.

《 Di-didi!? {ERROR.404: Name not found} This System apologizes to [Host] but it does not understand– 》

“Ah, my bad. You just remind me of what having a baby brother might be like, so didi slipped out. I can just call you System if you would prefer–”

《 … 》

《 {REGISTERING.BS01.NAME:[DIDI]} 》

《 … [Host] is more than welcome to call this System Didi. 》

《 (/▽＼*) 》

“Okay then, didi. What was your suggestion about the remaining B-Points?”

《 Answering [Host] ... 》

《 This Didi would recommend purchasing world-appropriate styling. [Host] comes from an alternate world, and modesty standards are different. Would [Host] like to view available options within his budget? 》

《 Y / N 》

Shen Yuan nods, “I should have thought of that–thanks, didi.” He clicks YES, curious as to what the little system will show him.

His System—Didi, now—vibrates a little, the holo-display sending off little pink sparks that look remarkably cute alongside the blue and purple color scheme. It immediately pulls up the section on xianxia fashion, again all with shockingly low prices. Shen Yuan raises a suspicious eyebrow.

《 (←‿←;) 》

Shaking his head in bemusement, Shen Yuan begins his selections. He already knows exactly what he's going to do once he lands in the PIDW universe—why he basically maxed out his constitution, dexterity, and cultivation potential: it’s all for the monsters! He's finally got the chance to observe up close all the incredible beasts Airplane wrote about as mere stepping stones for Binghe's path to conquest! Knowing his plan to get up close and personal in observing and learning about these super cool monsters, he’s got to be practical.

His clothing choices probably would leave his family horrified with how unassuming and bland they are—utilitarian, easy to move in, and all muted neutral colors. He does splurge and spend a whole 15 B-points on the qiankun belt pouch, but the opening is large enough to fit anything the circumference of his arm, so it should be fine for now! He can always get a bigger bag at a later date. His other splurge is the pair of cool eyeglasses he can’t help buying, even though they’re 10 B-points. His face would feel naked without glasses, he's worn them for so long! Left with 15 B-points after his mostly-frugal fashion choices, Shen Yuan goes to close out of the menu but Didi stops him.

《 [Host] is forgetting that his current hairstyle is inappropriate for the world setting! 》

The holo-display automatically opens up the hairstyle menu options, and Shen Yuan's heart drops.

“Didi, no way! I- There's no way I'm going to be able to manage hair like that!”

《 Answering [Host] … 》

《 These are expected styles for a [righteous cultivator] within the [xianxia] genre! Closely cropped hair is for criminals and slaves, and [Host] is neither! 》

“No, absolutely not!” Shen Yuan crosses his arms, the leather of his new arm guards creaking slightly with the movement. “Didi, I'm going to be studying monsters, okay? Big, scary, drooling oozing beasts. There’s going to be sludge and slime and probably shit, do you really think I'm going to have time every day to do my hair of all things?”

《 We- Well– 》

“No! The answer, didi, is no! I'm probably going to be a wandering cultivator once I get into the PIDW world, okay? I'm not exactly going to be living in comfort. Where would I even get the resources to take care of stuff like that? Huh?”

《 … 》

《 … [Host] has made his point. This Didi will remove excessively long hairstyles while remaining within style parameters for the world of [Proud Immortal Demon Way]. 》

Smugly, Shen Yuan grins at the holo-display, watching as the hair options dwindle down to a total of five. He immediately picks the shortest of them all, even if a below-chin length bob still feels like it's too long. Didi makes an electronic grating noise that to Shen Yuan's ears sounds somewhat distressed. He pointedly ignores it and idly runs his fingers through his new hairstyle, poking at the simple guan and hair ribbon that came with it. Meh. Good enough.

Alright, he thinks to himself, that leaves me with 10 B-points. There doesn't seem to be anything else in the System Shop that he can afford with the meagre currency he has left, not to mention his suspicion that he ought to keep at least a few points, just in case. He puts his hands on his hips and closes out of the Shop decisively.

“Well, the only thing I’m missing is a weapon. I can’t afford anything else aside from this simple fan I bought in the Shop, but it’s going to have to do for now.”

《 … this Didi believes it can open the correct pathways to allow [Host] to find his own spiritual weapon within the world of [Proud Immortal Demon Way]. 》

《 Is [Host] amenable to this Didi’s suggestion? 》

《 (*•̀ᴗ•́*) 》

《 Y / N 》

Shrugging, Shen Yuan taps the YES on the holo-display. “I guess so. Hey, quick question! Will anyone else be able to see you after you drop me in there? Like, how do I interact with you?”

《 Answering [Host] … 》

《 This Didi is tethered to [Host]'s soul, only [Host] and other potential [Hosts] can see this Didi. Interfacing with this Didi can be done with a thought. 》

“So the holo-display will pop up if I need to interact with you? That seems… kinda awkward. Really breaks the immersion, doesn’t it?”

《 … 》

《 This Didi understands [Host]'s concern! Would [Host] like this Didi to synchronize with the [Plain White Hand Fan] he purchased from the {System.Store}? 》

《 Y / N 》

Shen Yuan stares at the YES / NO hovering before him, chewing his lower lip. “So you’d be… living in my fan, basically?”

《 Answering [Host] … 》

《 This Didi will not appear to [Host] while within the world of [Proud Immortal Demon Way] as an interface screen due to [Host]'s desire for deeper immersion. [Host]'s hand fan will serve as medium for all interactions with this Didi during his transmigration experience. Should [Host] wish to interface directly with this Didi, he only needs to say so. Otherwise, all needs can and will be met while this Didi remains within the confines of the [Plain White Hand Fan]{System.Store_PlWhite.Hand-Fan.pkg}. 》

“And will you being part of my fan grant it any special capabilities? Like, maybe… turning it into a cool weapon since I don’t have one?”

《 This Didi can modify the content code of {System.Store_PlWhite.Hand-Fan.pkg}, yes. Would [Host] like this Didi to implement code changes? 》

《 Y / N 》

“Yes!”

《 {INITIALIZING … [BS01_DIDI.EXE]{System.Store_PlWhite.Hand-Fan.pkg} INTEGRATION.DAT} 》

Shen Yuan can’t help the tiny gasp that escapes him as the holo-display he’s started to become used to glitches and flickers out of existence. The simple fan he’d bought from the System Shop is forcibly pulled from the confines of his qiankun pouch and with a flash of absurdly bright light and a loud, electronic crackling noise, collides with the glitchy holo-display and explodes in a shower of sparks. The The fan returns to Shen Yuan’s hand, and he flicks it open on a reflex. There, staring back at him, is a message box plastered across the once-blank white surface. If squints, he can see the rapidly developing hex markings and digital-looking tracks that crawl out across the white silk like vines. He still hears didi’s voice in his mind, the Google Translate voice beginning to grow on him as it tracks its integration progress.

《 «𝑃𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑖𝑡... 𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎…» 》

《 ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ 0% 》

《 █▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ 8% 》

《 ███▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ 29% 》

《 █████▒▒▒▒▒ 50% 》

《 ███████▒▒▒ 83% 》

《 ██████████ 100% ᴄᴏᴍᴘʟᴇᴛᴇ! 》

《 «𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠…» 》

《 {INITIALIZING}[BSF01_DIDI.EXE]INTEGRATION.DAT} 》

Shen Yuan blinks down at the fan in his hands as it vibrates and shivers before fluttering with a spray of pink and purple sparkles.

《 Greetings, [Host]! 》

《 This Didi has successfully integrated with [Host]'s {System.Store} purchase. [Host]'s [Plain White Hand Fan] has evolved into the [Benevolent System Fan] and can boast many new capabilities. This Didi is also eager to serve [Host] as he journeys through the world of [Proud Immortal Demon Way]! 》

《 o(≧▽≦)o 》

《 (๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ 》

《 (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ 》

[1st] < > [3rd]

shout out to adornedwithlight for the reblog banner

#my fanfiction #just a lil ditty #svsss fanfiction #scum villain's self saving system #ren zha fanpai zijiu xitong #rén zhā fǎnpài zìjiù xìtǒng #mo xiang tong xiu #mxtx #scum villain au #mxtx svsss #shen yuan #shen yuan au #the system svsss #transmigrator au #benevolent system au #reblog banner and line divider by adornedwithlight

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dolphin-diaries · 7 months ago

Text

How To Prevent Detransition In Five Simple Steps (Part 1)

Originally published on Dolphin Diaries.

What do you think of when you hear ‘detransitioner’?

The Right, likely. Grift and pantomime for clout, such as that of a certain doll or the world’s most Korean and Christian man. Coercion; forced detransition.

What do you think of, say, when you consider willing and genuine detransition? If you could look at Chloe Cole past her rhetoric, her ideological allegiance, her utter lack of compassion for those outside of it—what do you see?

Is it regret? Self-hatred? Pity, maybe? A correction of a shameful (stupid, even) mistake? A bizarre decision you struggle to imagine yourself—or anyone—making? A web of uncanny, discomfiting choices, written in flesh?

Maybe, if you’re trans yourself, you might also see your own fears. Not necessarily forced detransition—that wouldn’t make you like her. No, maybe you look at your past doubts and wonder if you could’ve been her, under different circumstances. Or maybe, it’s merely the thought of something that brought you great joy—your transition, the alteration of your body, your freedom—being broken, hated, turned inside-out. Like a shredded garment.

Perhaps you’re just unnerved to see it undone.

Detransition, in the eyes of the masses, is an undoing. That implies discontent, and since this discontent is over transition—something not only voluntary but often hard-won—it also implies that transition itself was a mistake. Seemingly, a preventable one.

And so there is only one conclusion: detransitioners must be prevented. I must be prevented. I am a stain on the medical, social, and queer establishments that have created me, whether you look at it from the Right or the Left. The ‘reverse’ dysphoria I feel is, by all accounts, utterly preventable. Naturally, then, we must attempt to prevent it.

The belief about detransitioners is that they need medical gatekeeping to prevent them from having transitioned—a more robust system of checks that would’ve helped them realise they were never trans. Or perhaps, that they need the topic of transness altogether excised from the zeitgeist. For instance, a known detrans grifter Maia Poet tweeted she is retrospectively grateful to her parents for having hyper-surveilled her after she came out as trans. She still socially transitioned and continued to identify as trans for twelve years afterwards, so it can’t have helped in the way she wanted, but she’s still grateful for, uh. Something. Whatever it is that was accomplished, which, it seems, was not a lot.

Well, no one was expecting cutting social commentary or lucid solutions from Ms. Israeli Sellout Poet, so never mind her. Let us put the grift aside.

That is the knee-jerk response, isn’t it? Make fun of the loud and stupid and obviously wrong ones?

That has its place, but let me assure you, detransitioners exist outside of TV and Twitter. Most are disinterested in sharing a pedestal with Maia or Chloe, regardless of what they believe. Let us even put myself aside as a singular subject. Let us examine what is normally either cynically weaponised by the Right, or else timidly swept under the rug. Because if you allow the idea that willing detransitioners truly exist—and they do, I assure you; if I turned my screen off, I’d be looking at one—then you must also allow the possibility of, well…

Transition regret.

Allow yourself compassion for a detransitioner—a random, regular person—that is staring at rock bottom and finding that their transition took them there. If I were them, I’d surely ask what could’ve been done to prevent that. What could’ve been done so that I never existed such as I am.

A very rock-bottom kind of question, I know. But the only way out is through.

So what is the most effective way to prevent detransition? What has been done to that end? How is transition handled, and what does that mean for detransition?

1. The Doctor Will See You Now

Over the past few months, I’ve spent a good chunk of my god-given procrastination allowance on scrolling online detrans communities that explicitly ban transphobia. You may call that biased, but I’ve found that detrans spaces which make no such explicit attempts are swiftly overrun by Gender Criticals. Not even detrans ones; the topic is hot-button and embarrassing enough to encourage unmitigated manipulation of the audience. It’s a bit like browsing spaces for discussion of cosmetic surgery. When an issue is too unseemly to be spoken of in polite society, the snake oil salesman can peddle whatever the hell he wants. By contrast, trans-positive detrans spaces tend to be smaller, less fraught, and more diverse in issues discussed and feelings expressed.

(To be clear, I will not quote anyone here. While their accounts were told neither in privacy nor in confidence, online messages in small communities carry a presumption of anonymity and non-disclosure, which I intend to maintain.)

Indeed, a sizeable number of even explicitly trans-positive detransitioners express some desire for a prior intervention. A therapist or psychiatrist that would’ve entertained alternatives, or questioned why their patient wanted to transition. It’s not uncommon, when queried by people unsure of surgery or HRT, for such detransitioners to advise waiting until total certainty is achieved. Unlike GCs, though, they often lament the lack of medical professionals that will neither attempt to do conversion therapy nor consider detransition an untouchable topic.

(As I’ve alluded to before, it is difficult enough in many places to find a therapist that even knows Trans 101. ‘Advanced stuff,’ like detransition, is beyond contemplation. It’s not that skilled-enough professionals don’t exist, but that there is no resource for finding them.)

There is a common denominator among such detrans people. They are often—though not always—young transitioners, having done so either in high school or shortly after. They’re usually from countries that have an informed consent model of transition care. Under this model, a doctor does not diagnose with gender dysphoria—or indeed anything at all—but merely provides assistance in alteration of sexual characteristics. That’s the idea, anyway; reality varies and often does not quite match that ideal, but by and large, the doctor’s job is then mainly to explain what the patient is signing up for. What intervention or investigation exists, if any, is minimal or perfunctory.

From a purely technical perspective, these detransitioners are asking for something that wasn’t this doctor’s job to do. But it is a fairly heartless argument to make. “Well, if your dysphoria wasn’t actually dysphoria, you should’ve gone to a therapist instead!”—rather silly, isn’t it? Easily refuted with: “If I knew then what was wrong with me, I wouldn’t be here.” And anyway, just because that is how the system works does not necessarily mean that is how it should work.

There is a wrinkle here, though. Informed consent may be the norm in, say, the USA—for now, anyway—but it is not worldwide. In most places you ought to receive a gender dysphoria (or transsexualism, if the updated DSM is yet to be adopted) diagnosis before access to medical transition is permitted. So how does the diagnostic model hold up when it comes to detransition?

2. Hoops and Hoops and Hoops

As I mentioned in my first essay, I am a young-ish transitioner from a country that very much does not practice informed consent. I started transitioning medically at 19, which is young for an adult transitioner but post-pubertal nonetheless. However, transitioning in adolescence would’ve been functionally impossible for me. Even if my parents were supportive and I somehow found a doctor to prescribe me blockers/hormones—the latter of which is monumentally unlikely, as it was illegal—it would still basically mean social death. So, in effect, I transitioned as young as was humanly possible.

The procedure to acquire legal access to hormone replacement therapy was pretty antiquated during my time. Internment in a psychiatric ward, a prior real-life test, the nine yards. (For the unaware, a ‘real-life test’ is a requirement to have lived as your desired gender for several years prior to any medical transition.) I was diagnosed rather thoroughly both for presence of gender dysphoria and an absence of alternative explanations, such as schizophrenia, BPD, autism, and, put colloquially, mummy or daddy issues—having a ‘broken family’ was a strike against the transsexualism diagnosis. Anxiety or depression was also a no-no. Under this particular model, literally any other condition is a contradiction to transsexualism. You are to be deeply distressed about your genitals and assigned gender stereotype, and absolutely nothing else at all.

Because yes, naturally the pathologisation of gender entails reliance on stereotype and archetype. What makes a man or a woman, after all? When the goal is to have transsexualism as the last possible resort, it’s not enough to merely wish for a different set of genitals or breasts or to describe oneself as a man or woman—gender must be dissected. And that dissection, inevitably, leads to ‘bitches be crazy.’ Man like car, woman like kitchen. Man fucks woman, subject verb object. Et cetera.

Of course, declaring any ‘irregular’ thoughts about gender to be the sole purview of a perfect and utterly healthy citizen, is just cruel. Gender conformity is a violently enforced social protocol. Therefore people that run up against it—trans or not—are highly likely to be made maladjusted. To deny them care on that basis alone is inhumane. If you are found too ‘wrong’ to be transsexual, you will then be told to go treat whatever is wrong with you—your symptom, not your cause. Gender will not be entertained.

Now, that the psychiatric treatment of gender dysphoria is inhumane, dated, and deliberately difficult and arcane, is not news. It is designed to prevent transition first and foremost and also secondly and thirdly, and only lastly to enable it. Some young people in the US may feel enough distance from such treatment as to not understand what it truly entails. To some it is buried history. Most, though, even when unaware of what such procedures are or were, understand they are/were bad. Nebulously bad or specifically bad (mostly the former), but bad nonetheless.

So here’s the first question: does this work? Does this ensure those that truly need transition can do it, and none that don’t, can’t?

I can obviously just point to myself and be done with it, but one person can be anything from an anomaly to a fun fact, just not a tendency. So let’s work through this.

Obviously such procedures do not prevent all transition. Do they reduce the number of transitioners? It is impossible to count for sure, but certainly such procedures generally exist in societies that are not amenable to trans people, and therefore some plainly do not survive long enough to try. It does not matter whether they would’ve eventually detransitioned or not; severe psychiatric procedure does not coexist with widely available, comprehensive therapy. It does not matter because no one will ever find out.

What of those that do survive, though? One extreme conclusion to make is, if you can survive without something, you do not need it. I’m not particularly interested in a survival-only existence as I do not live in a cave and hunt mammoth. (And even prehistoric people made jewellery and painted cave walls with art, so clearly they cared about things beyond sheer necessity, too.) So that aside, how do the lives of those that actually engage with the procedure pan out?

Naturally, one of the results of such procedures is the delaying of access. Some things, like hormones, you can get on the sly, but surgeries you simply cannot receive without either the doctor’s permission or a great—and I do mean great—deal of money. The procedure is designed to take several years before any access can be granted at all, assuming you go through it swiftly and successfully. The more stringent the procedure, the fewer doctors can do it; a degree of waiting is involved even before it begins. In my country’s case in particular, transition is fully paid for by the patient—there is neither state nor insurance coverage, at all, for anything. Even doctor visits in government-sponsored institutions are de facto paid because you need to grease some palms for someone to bother. No, there’s no suing the doctor that won’t treat you without the agreed-upon bribe; you can’t afford it and you won’t win. Therefore there’s also risk of further depression and suicide as great financial burden falls on people that, as a rule, have below-average funds, poor employability, and no family support. But assuming you soldier through, the overall result is a transition timeline that spans about a decade or two. The bulk of social transition will happen in the first five years, whereas surgical interventions, due to cost and laborious approval processes, fall on the last years.

This can be seen as a boon to detransitioners. Delay in access means more time to change your mind, hypothetically. The fact that surgeries are generally impossible until many years in transition means—hypothetically—there’s less chance you’ll end up with changes that cannot be reversed or amended without further surgical intervention, or at all.

As I’ve mentioned in my previous essay, I do believe such calculus to be heavily hindsight-skewed, favouring present lack of regret and dysphoria over past misery and the humiliation of the psychiatric grinder. It’s a little like getting hit with a hammer to the head and then falling madly in love with the doctor treating you. Sure, in hindsight it softens the blow of the head trauma, but you still wouldn’t recommend anyone walk around with a sticker on their back saying ‘Hit Me.’

I can understand, however, how a detrans person who never went through any of that, now deep in dysphoria blues, could find such an argument empty air. Infuriating, even. Perhaps they’d even say they’d gladly be a bit miserable for a couple years so long as they didn’t have to deal with all this now. Grass, greener, et cetera. So let us say this really is a possible advantage of the procedure—

If it actually makes you less likely to go through with transition once you begin the procedure and uncover doubts creeping in.

Does it?

3. A Patient Is A Person

There’s an elephant in the room, though not many notice it. To a cis person it may well be invisible. You might’ve spotted it when I first flippantly described the procedure I went through and mentioned a real-life test. Most people cannot be reliably and consistently integrated into society as the ‘opposite’ gender until they have some kind of physical intervention. Especially not in places that are highly transphobic, where being visibly trans is either not an option or a very dangerous one. But clearly, people do pass this ‘real-life test’ somehow. Is it really only the most androgynous among us that are allowed to transition under such procedure?

Well, no. Although doctors will be more charitable if you already seem like a ‘lost cause’ to your birth sex. Nothing wasted and so on. But like I said, you can always get hormones on the sly. It’s not even hard or prohibitively expensive.

That’s not the only issue with the procedure. How do you reconcile putting all this time and money into a (marginalised) diagnosis with (often precarious) employment? Why are trans patients supposed to have a singular script for their lives and genders, whereas cis people are permitted variance?

In the end, how do you prove to someone else that transition is right for you? Is it really all the silly quizzes and the identically heart-wrenching stories? Eh. Not exactly. In my experience, the doctor makes half their mind up the moment they look at you. And most every patient seems like a regular cis person—a fertile woman, a boy that can be made a man—and so the knee-jerk response is to help you stay that way, no matter how you feel. So there are two options: memorise a rote script of suffering and hope for the best, or, much more reliably and painlessly—

Already look like a transsexual.

Put plainly, the current diagnostic model of transition only works when you’re already transitioning. To access transition you must’ve already done so. Yes, we all simply pretend. Yes, people just memorise whether they’re supposed to like cars or kitchens and how they should describe their sex lives. Of course they do. People seeking transition are human.

You can wag your finger however much you want and insist that people must follow protocol, and whatever happens as a result of disobedience is their own damn fault. The empirical fact is, protocol as written is un-follow-able. Because it is un-follow-able, no one actually follows it.

The result of a system whose first and foremost purpose is to make as few people transition as possible, is very simple: everyone lies. No one trusts doctors. No one in their right mind would go to a doctor that controls their legal gender marker based on the patient’s tales of masturbation, and then bare their true gender feelings with an expectation of help. Even the doctors themselves do not care how you really feel or whether you’re lying. They know the system is faulty, they know none of this is human or nice, but they also don’t understand why anyone would transition and they don’t care to. They have a hundred more patients, a thousand more protocols that are also neither human nor nice. This is psychiatry, and you are an annoying and rare brand of crazy, one that’s both utterly perverse and—they know—not actually crazy, not hallucinating or threatening suicide (and if you do: you can’t, remember?). What you’re doing is wasting a bed and their time. So all they want is their bribe, maybe a dissertation subject, and for you to cooperate and be gone.

What actually decides access to transition? A little bit of luck, a little bit of social acceptance in one’s immediate social circles, but chief among all: money.

If we must prevent the possibility of detransition at all cost, surely financial disincentive still works? Not the way you’d want it to. The only thing cost barriers ensure is that the rich can do whatever they want on a whim, and the poor can’t have even that which they desperately need. That is the only social balance money can buy.

And what decides eventual detransition?

The truth is, at least for me, it wasn’t regret. I’ve lived a long while in trans circles shaped by such transmedicalism. And if I’ve learned one thing, it’s this:

Transition regret was everywhere.

It is not at all unique to detransitioners. Certainly wasn’t in my circles. Many trans people who were also my contemporaries and fellow countrypersons had something or other they regretted about their transition. Some had even found the whole process extremely traumatic. They regretted not allowing themselves any femininity/masculinity that ‘contravened’ their desired gender. They got haircuts, clothes, friends, surgeries—anything related to gender, which is everything—only and solely because of the need to transition under very strict guidelines. Sometimes consciously, sometimes not. We lie to the doctors, yes, but that does not mean we are untouched by the transition procedure at our heart. The procedure is long and complex, and thus at a certain point, it occupies a lot of your attention and time. You live and breathe the sex questionnaires and psych visits whether you want to or not. And, as I’ve established, no one in the whole hospital cares how you truly feel about your gender—so for a while, you may stop caring too. It’s a matter of survival. Not just in the sense of access to transition, but in the very banal calculus of things that will and won’t get you beat up in an alley. At some point it’s only human to mentally check out.

In other words, everyone was fucking miserable. Trans, detrans—everyone.

People transition because they want to. Because everyone wishes to be an architect of their own fate and body, insofar as they can, and for some that involves choosing which way their body grows and ages. How it occupies the mould of sex. And when barriers are put between you and your agency, what follows is not obedience. You are human; you are not an algorithmic machine; you do not simply obey, you choose. So what do most people choose when they want something very badly and are told they cannot have it? They resist, of course. Resist, lie, scheme. And resistance to stringent protocol takes a lot out of you.

If doubt starts whispering in your head and you’re not listening, will you even hear it?

Put plainly, there’s no space for gender feelings in survival mode. What the diagnostic procedure causes is precisely that. It does not matter whether one’s need to transition is caused by some sort of True Transsexualism or trauma or misogyny or self-delusion or a secret millionth thing. You want it, and there’s no resource, no space, and no help for you to dissect that need. No time, either, because everything costs years—be it in money, in waiting, or your own life. You have an acute need and a difficult path to it. That is all.

And when all is said and done, and now you want to detransition? You’ve spent years to transition in the first place. You’ve invested great effort and great money, even if you’re not yet ‘done.’ You’ve likely lost family members and friends. Sunk cost is a hell of a weight, and sunk cost is precisely what the diagnostic model—a prevention model—engineers in spades.

4. A Dream of Utopia

So the informed consent model has no oversight, and the diagnostic model is a horrible grinder. Informed consent seems to be the patented harm reduction choice of the two. But surely those are not the only things that can exist? Surely we can dream of more than just ‘less harm’? Can there not be some sort of prior screening by an actually humane doctor who understands both trans and detrans needs? No quizzes about masturbation or kitchens or cars or whether you demanded to be called ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ at age four—just a robust way to determine whether you actually have gender dysphoria or not?

Let us say it is possible. When detrans people ask for qualified, humane, non-transphobic aid in helping them through their feelings on sex/gender, they are not asking for the impossible. Their need is one that must be answered in a just and caring world; it is already being answered for trans people, so why should the detrans be any different? And from there, you might think, it follows that it’s possible to attempt a system whose aim is some reasonably brief and minimally invasive pre-screening, which would filter out would-be detransitioners and enable trans people to pursue their transitions.

It is possible to attempt that. But.

All systems of restriction and access have a problem: there’s a power dynamic at play. Transition is often a pretty acute need. Doctors can make mistakes, they’re only human. Who is to decide what is real gender dysphoria? What if the doctors are not so humane? What if they enjoy holding power more than they enjoy helping? ‘Just don’t hire them’ isn’t really an answer—if we knew how ‘not to hire bad people,’ we’d have already colonised Pluto.

That doesn’t mean no system of restriction has its place. Access to weapons has similar problems, but most people would agree it’s probably not right for them to know nuclear codes anyway. Obviously no one worth listening to would compare detransition to guns or nukes, but let’s say, for the sake of the argument, that the possibility of detransition is so utterly undesirable that, if a prevention system could exist, it must.

The question remains: what makes gender dysphoria real?

The answer is very simple. Ultimately, it will always only be real because you said so. Because the patient said so—not the doctor.

If you’re a medical professional, you know how much of your diagnostic work relies on patient testimony. How you must at times cajole them into being honest, or to decode what exactly ‘bubbling pain in the liver’ means. Those unfamiliar with the medical world often imagine there’s always some kind of screening that can determine with certainty if the patient is lying or misguided or unsure. And yes, even if John insists he never put that Christmas ornament up his arse, the X-Ray will show it one way or another. But in many cases, it’s not that simple, and patient testimony is crucial.

When it comes to psychology and psychiatry, this issue could not be more acute. Often there is nothing else to go on at all. That doesn’t mean therapists are just useless soundboxes—but neither are there Top 10 Signs My Patient Is Actually A Narcissist. Nor are there actually body language experts that will totally tell you you’re being delusional; peddlers of simple and exact solutions are, as a rule, charlatans.

In short, therapists and psychiatrists are not mind readers. They are only analysing what you are saying about your own mind, and what you’re doing about it. They can aid you in interpreting yourself, but at the end of the day, you’re still the one doing it.

And here’s the kicker: no single issue faced by detransitioners is something trans people do not experience. Some detrans people first transition as a form of self-harm after sexual assault; but childhood sexual trauma is common among trans people who are happy in their transitions, too. Many detrans women felt pushed out of their gender by internalised misogyny and the impossibility of envisioning happy lives as women; but all those that are brought up or grow up as girls experience misogyny, including trans men and trans women. Detrans people often cite only wanting to transition after they learn of the possibility of transition and not from early childhood, as if that is evidence—but many trans people do not seek transition until they learn of its existence, too.

Trans people doubt their transitions all the time. Feel unhappy with their transitions, at least sometimes. And they self-harm via detransition too—a lot. The idea that none of this happens, or only happens very rarely, is a fiction recited for the sake of self-defence and attaining civil rights in a hostile world. Spending any time in trans spaces will tell you the truth is much more nuanced. And even so, even still, only some of those people detransition. And only some of those do so completely of their own free will, and not out of despair or a successful right-wing pipeline.

For every seemingly telltale sign of future detransition, there are numerous counterexamples. In fact a trans person can have all those signs at once, and nonetheless remain trans. Diagnostic criteria for a condition requires a list of symptoms, and if no number of those can be definitive? That means there can be no diagnosis. No (medical) condition.

In other words, resources, attention, and qualified aid can all accommodate detrans people exactly as it does trans people. Procedure cannot. Just like it can’t satisfactorily accommodate trans people. It is a dead end to treat the matter of gender as if it is a disorder, an ailment of the individual, rather than an exercise of agency against a society which enforces sex/gender.

Additionally, I have so far spoken in extremes. Real and not-real trans people; detransitioners that utterly regret their transition and wish it never happened. It was necessary for the argument. But many detransitioners do not have such black-and-white feelings about their past. Some are nonbinary and unhappy with either ‘man’ or ‘woman’; some do not maintain that their gender dysphoria wasn’t actually real; some even reject the label ‘detrans’ on principle, even though they have verifiably detransitioned. I have not mentioned any such case because I wished to argue that even the most ‘textbook,’ most acutely regretful case of detransition has little to gain and much to lose in a gatekeeping-first transition system. However, I must also point out that the ‘textbook case’ is the only case that can envision any gain at all. It isn’t real, but it’s a lovely mirage. To the rest of us, there isn’t even that.

5. I Have Bad News—Or Do I?

Yes, what I am saying is that detransition is inevitable. I’m saying its negatives can be curtailed by therapeutic and medical care that accommodates for detrans people—as much is true for trans people—but, regardless of how preventable detransition may seem, there is no way to simply solve it. Detransition can only be vanished by going back in time and making medicine freeze at the turn of the twentieth century, before such things as exogenous hormones were invented. Even a full ban on transition would be just a costly inconvenience, but ultimately not a magic bullet. People do banned things because they want to all the damn time. Oh, and I guess we’d also have to sterilise every single female horse.

So does that mean detransitioners are necessary collateral damage?

Only if you think detransition is inherently, inevitably, invariably undesirable and bad.

When you discover you want to detransition, it can be hard to accept for a myriad of reasons. Sunk cost, fear of ostracisation, shame, or even because you have no idea what detransition can look like and you don’t know what to do. And then there’s dysphoria and dealing with the wider society’s disgust and I-told-you-so’s. Some amount of what one might call a ‘bad time’ is unavoidable.

But why? What makes wanting to detransition—not resigning to it; wanting it—bad? What makes it socially reviled and pitiable? What makes going through it feel so difficult? How is the shame of detransition engineered—and what for?

See you in Part 2.

#transfeminism #detrans #detransition #transmedicalism #material feminism #lesbian feminism #feminism

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kivaember · 18 days ago

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me dying from humid heatwave so have a little drabble of drifter releasing the future roomba on the mall bc they cant believe the hex live like this

"Only you can do this," Drifter said solemnly, staring deeply into the glassy, vacant optical sensors of the domestik drone. "I'm counting on you, Trash Baby."

The domestik drone, aka Trash Baby, made a buzzing humming noise, eager to get put to work and saving the day. Drifter very gently set down the hot pink domestik drone in the very centre of the mall, and watched it race off with respectful salute.

"Godspeed, soldier," they murmured. "Godspeed..."

"Aren't you being a little overdramatic," Arthur said beside them.

"You have a cockroach problem."

"It's a large, derelict mall. Of course there are going to be a few unwanted pests here and there."

Drifter slowly turned to Arthur, their expression full of Judgement. "A few."

"A few," Arthur confirmed stubbornly.

"There was a swarm of them eating a half-finished pizza yesterday," Drifter said. They did not bother hiding the utter disgust in their voice. "And there were another ten in the public toilets when I went in there this morning-"

"Well-"

"You have mould growing in the food court kitchens."

"That's-"

"And the floor is covered in dried up techrot fluids from when you guys stomp back after a mission without hosing yourselves down first."

"Alright, I admit that's-"

"And!" Drifter interrupted loudly, "Related to the last, you have a techrot infestation overtaking the potted plants near the rear fire doors!"

"...nothing a bit of fire won't fix," Arthur said a bit weakly.

"Oh, it'll be fixed, alright," Drifter swore solemnly. "Trash Baby will deal with all of it. You guys better kneel before his almighty cleaning skills and express your gratitude when he's done!"

Arthur sighed and rolled his eyes.

Really, Drifter may be a bit melodramatic, but that was just a sign of how utterly dire the situation had been. Initially, Drifter had thought, oh hey, they just rocked up at this mall! No wonder it's so dirty! Clearly they will scrub it down while establishing their headquarters!

No.

Drifter didn't know if it was because their protoframe bodies were far more robust against disease or some subconscious influence from the Infestation making them a bit less hygenic than usual to encourage infection vectors (the Infestation was surprisingly cunning in very bizarre ways), but these guys were more focused on doing missions or fucking around than actually picking up a mop or broom or at least a Sol-damn flamethrower to burn out the techrot invasion currently underway on the mall's poor peace lilies.

Weren't these guys soldiers at one point???? They made Grineer look germphobic in comparison!

"Look, you guys might be immune to things like e.coli or salmonella or black mould," Drifter said curtly. "But I am not. And while I've had many embarrassing deaths in my time, I don't want one of them to be 'shat themselves to death on the fucking toilet'. Alright?"

This actually got through Arthur's head, and he had the decency to look a bit sheepish.

"Alright, I get it." He rubbed the back of his neck with a grimace. "It's always just been something we pushed on the backburner in favour of fighting Scaldra or the techrot but... you're right. We can't be living in filth."

"Damn straight. Not even I was this slovenly when I was on the run."

Arthur gave them a very pointed once over. "Your cloak looks like a potato sack."

"A clean potato sack!" Drifter snapped, and pulled the very worn and stained but clean fabric taut. "See? Look! These are old stains, not fresh ones! As if I'd run around in dirty clothing all the time, that's so disgusting!"

"Huh. Never would've pegged you as a clean freak."

"You have to be one when living on a colony ship," Drifter huffed, letting their cloak go. "Every day we have to sanitise the living quarters and the bathroom, because the moment any kind of infectious pathogen hit the ship's oxygen distribution system? Bam. That airborne disease would rip right through the entire population within the hour."

Arthur frowned slightly. "I would've thought your, er, 'oxygen distribution system' would have... UV sterilisers or something. Wouldn't that stop it?"

"You think UV sterilisers would stop a techrot spore?" Drifter deadpanned. "There are so many weird diseases in the future, you don't even wanna know."

"...point," Arthur conceded.

"Also Ordis says that those UV sterilisers do nothing. I mean, it's why Helminth keeps spreading from its room and into the Orbiter's bathroom. Something about poorly placed ventilaton pipes?"

"Helminth..." Arthur blinked. "As in, the techrot monster in the backroom's closet?"

"Yeah, they exist on the Orbiter too. Have their own room but, uh, it isn't quarantined. I guess I'd take ten cockroaches over a Helminth tentacle sticking out of the toilet..."

Arthur cleared his throat abruptly. "You know, I think... I think I'll go deal with the, ah, techrot issue infiltrating our indoor plants. You know, to be, ah, thorough."

"Yeah, you go do that," Drifter drawled as Arthur hurried off. "Typical. Only cares when being told about a potential toilet tentacle."

Well, whatever got the Hex to clean up their act - literally. Trash Baby could only do so much.

"Hmm, maybe I could get Umbra to get them on task," Drifter mused. "Now there's a clean freak if I've ever seen one."

It might actually get him to stop trying to set the Helminth room on fire. Focus his attention on the mall instead... and maybe bond with the Hex? Nothing was more bonding than a shared cleaning session, right?

#warframe #arthur nightingtale #warframe drifter #when walking around the mall and seeing half eaten pizza and shit everywhere #i really was like that #bitch you live like this meme

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felassan · 1 year ago

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New today on DA:TV from Game Informer:

"A Deep Dive Into Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s Expansive Character Creator by Wesley LeBlanc on Jun 27, 2024 at 02:00 PM As BioWare prepared to show me the character creator for Dragon Age: The Veilguard in its Edmonton, Canada, offices, I expected something robust – it's 2024, character creators have come a long way, and Bioware has a rich history of good customization. Despite my expectations, I was not prepared for how robust it actually is in Veilguard. Robust enough, even, that BioWare used it to create most of the NPCs in the game, save for mainline characters like companions. Setting hyperbole aside, it is a staggeringly rich creation system, and I look forward to seeing player-created near-replicas of celebrities and monstrous creations that'd be more at home in a horror game. But I'm also looking forward to the community's reaction to the Dragon Age series' best character creator yet. At the heart of it is inclusivity, Veilguard game director Corinne Busche tells me before letting me guide her through creating my own character."

"As is usual, there are four races to choose from: Elves, Qunari, Humans, and Dwarves. After selecting Qunari, Busche pages through various presets, explaining the game allows for more detailed looks at each and the ability to choose pronouns with she/her, he/him, and they/them separately from gender, select different body types, and more. You can view your character, referred to as Rook in-game, in four different lighting scenes at any time, including The Veilguard's keynote purple hue, a bright and sunny tropical day, and a gothic night. I joke with the team that after spending upwards of an hour creating my Dragon Age: Inquisition character in 2014, I immediately restarted the game after seeing him in the first cutscene; the in-game lighting made my hair color look terrible amongst other issues I had with my Inquisitor. Veilguard creative director John Epler says the team is aware of countless stories like that with Inquisition and its green-hued character creator, adding BioWare worked hard to squash that concern in Veilguard. Head and body presets can be selected individually and customized to your liking with 40 different complexions that include smooth, rugged, youthful, and freckled skin tones, skin hues ranging from cool to neutral to warm, undertones to those skin tones, and even a melanin slider. Busche tells me BioWare relied on consultation to represent all people authentically. There's a Vitiligo slider (where you can adjust the intensity and amount of it) and sliders for your forehead, brow, cheeks, jaw, chin, larynx, and scalp. You can select your undergarments, with nudity as well because "this is a mature RPG," Busche adds, and use the "Body Morpher" to select three presets for each corner of a triangle and then move a cursor within it to morph your body or head into a mix of these presets. It's an impressive technology I'd like to see adopted in other games. [link to embedded DA:TV gameplay reveal video]"

"I can keep going: You can adjust height, shoulder width, chest size, glute and bulge size, hip width, how bloodshot your eyes are, how visible cataracts are, the sclera color, how crooked your nose is, how big its bridge is, the size of nostrils and the nose tip, and there are as many sliders, if not more, for things like Rook's mouth and ears. On ears alone, I see you can adjust asymmetry, depth, rotation, earlobe size, and even add cauliflower ear to your Rook. Busche says makeup blends modern stylings with the fantasy of Dragon Age with more than 30 options, including eyeliner intensity, color, glitter, eye shadow, lips, and blush. Tattoos are just as customizable alongside options for scars and paint. Tattoos, scars, and paint are very culturally relevant to some lineages, BioWare tells me, with unique tattoos for elves, for example. You can add tattoos to Rook's face, body, arms, and legs, and you can adjust things like intensity, too. Im most impressed, however, by the hair options on display; there are a ton, and as someone with long hair, I'm especially excited about the fun selections I can make. You can finally dye your hair with non-traditional colors, and it's gorgeous. EA's Frostbite engine uses the Strand system to render each style fully with physics. "The technology has finally caught up to our ambition," Dragon Age series art director Matt Rhodes says. After customizing all of that and selecting our Qunari's horn type and material (of which there are more than 40 options to choose from), it's time to pick a class out of the Rogue, Mage, and Warrior – read more about Veilguard's classes here. Since we built a Qunari, we went with Warrior. For the penultimate step of the character creator, at least during the demo BioWare shows me, we select a faction. Out of the six options, we select the pirate-themed Lords of Fortune."

"Rook ascends because of competency, not because of a magical McGuffin," BioWare core lead and Mass Effect executive producer Michael Gamble tells me in contrast to Inquisition's destiny-has-chosen-you-characterization. "Rook is here because they choose to be and that speaks to the kind of character that we've built," Busche adds. "Someone needs to stop this, and Rook says, 'I guess that’s me.'" Ready to begin our Rook's journey, we select a first and last name and one of four voices out of English masculine, English feminine, American masculine, or American feminine options. There's a pitch shifter for each voice, too, allowing you to tweak it to your liking further. Don't stress too much about locking in your character creations before beginning the game – the Mirror of Transformation, which is found in Veilguard's main hub, The Lighthouse, allows you to change your physical appearance at any time. However, class, lineage, and identity are locked in and cannot be changed after you select them in the game's character creator. From here, we're off to Minrathous, and you can read more about that famed city in our cover story, which is available here. For more about the game, including exclusive details, interviews, video features, and more, click the Dragon Age: The Veilguard hub button below."

[source]

#dragon age: the veilguard #dragon age the veilguard spoilers #dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #long post #longpost #lgbtq+

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mc-cookies · 7 months ago

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Golems and Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

I did a writeup about how a character based on the Jewish folkloric golem might work in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy! It includes a short essay about the thematic implications of the golem, and a set of custom rules for living dolls made of unfired clay.

If you don't know what Eureka is, it's the first tabletop RPG by @anim-ttrpgs, an up-and-coming indie studio making carefully designed and rigorously playtested tabletop games outside of the D&D 5e ecosystem. Eureka is a system for stories where amateur investigators look into intricate and (sometimes deadly) mysteries, trying to get to the bottom of whatever conspiracy is at hand. It also has robust rules for a variety of supernatural phenomena that may or may not exist, letting players explore the thematic and logistical implications of people who are vampires, man-eating alien shapeshifters, supernaturally animated dolls, or a variety of other strange creatures. It's one of the best RPGs I've ever played or read, so if you're interested in finely crafted tabletop games, mystery and detective stories, social commentary on the rights of "unsavory" marginalized people, or just supernatural creatures that eat people, I'd recommend checking it out.

My writing under the cut!

(I wouldn't normally post my own long-form writing here, but I felt good about this and also couldn't pass up an opportunity to talk about Eureka. This isn't very polished, so ignore any typos or awkward wording, but feel free to check it out and give your own thoughts. Enjoy!)

Thoughts on golems in Eureka (Essay – Rules below!)

Contrary to how the word is usually used in English-language fantasy media, a golem in its original context is not just a generic term for any supernaturally animated artificial creature. (If it were, then it would be more or less synonymous with Eureka’s use of the term “living doll” to begin with!) Rather, it refers to a specific creature in Jewish folklore: a facsimile of the human form made out of clay, animated by various words of power placed in or on its body, acting as a source of protection and power for the impoverished and oppressed communities which created it. It is a servant which exists to meet a need of its community, animated by the power of God as channeled through the expertise of a meticulous member of the Jewish community. (Arguably the most notable difference from the genre fiction definition is this inherently Jewish perspective. The creation of a golem is a closed-practice, specifically Jewish tradition, and also, the tradition of Jewish mysticism implies high degrees of specialized knowledge – some written down in studied texts, and others discovered by training under a mentor or interacting with other Jewish leaders. In this way, the golem implies a degree of studiousness and community engagement on the part of its creator, both of which are heavily emphasized values in Jewish spheres.)

My analysis of the thematic role played by the golem is probably best represented in the best-known folkloric golem, the golem of Prague. In this story, a 16th century rabbi of the Prague synagogue creates a humanoid form from clay with the purpose of protecting the ghetto (in this context, the dedicated Jewish quarter of the city) from pogroms and other antisemitic attacks, animating it into a golem by inscribing holy words on its head or placing a scroll of those words in its mouth. Things go wrong in ways which vary from telling to telling, with a common version of the story stating that the golem becomes too dangerous and destructive, and the rabbi removes the inscription of the holy name to render the golem dormant (although rather than destroying his creation, he preserves it in the synagogue’s attic to be reanimated if it’s ever needed). In a fun bit of wordplay, some tellings describe the holy inscription as being the Hebrew word “emet” (“truth”), which is only one letter away from the word “met” (“dead”), with the idea that the rabbi deactivates the golem by erasing a single letter. More traditional interpretations would describe a formula consisting of various divine epithets, either instead of or alongside the previous method. In the Jewish mystical tradition, names of God are thought to be emanations of God’s own glory, and invoking their power in specific ways is seen as a way of causing things beyond the bounds of normal reality.

A few thematic points jump out at me about the golem, both from the story of the Prague golem and from the broader characteristics of the golem. One is the fact that a golem is implicitly lacking in personal identity. Golems are almost never named, and they have very little agency in their own stories – in almost every version of the golem of Prague, for instance, it is deactivated because it has gained too much autonomy. It fights the wrong people, uses too much force defending its community, or even just falls in love, and so it is too dangerous to keep around. Even the terminology being used implies this lack of identity, as it etymologically derives from a Biblical Hebrew term, used only once in the Tanakh, which describes the unfinished form of a human before God breathes life into them. A golem is not perceived as a fully formed individual, but rather as an extension of its creator, built by someone else’s will and discarded whenever it isn’t needed. To me, this has a high degree of relevance to the themes associated with Eureka’s living dolls, who often also grapple with defining their own identity and purpose in the absence of their original context. Their unique struggles evoke concepts of alienation and depersonalization, and I think a golem without a master would have to deal with all of the same issues on that front as they navigate life as a newly independent person.

Golems as a whole, and especially the story of the Prague ghetto, also raise another problem that can create thematic conflict for a character: in their attempts to defend vulnerable people in their community, they can end up making situations more dangerous, rather than helping to defuse them. When the golem of Prague rampages, in many tellings, it doesn’t fully stem the tide of antisemitic antagonism. Instead, it destroys more of the ghetto and allows the gentile population to create a post-hoc justification for their hatred of the Jewish community. In the context of Eureka, I think that this can be a powerful metaphor for how the fear of oppression can lead people to become paranoid, closed off, and destructive to themselves and others. A golem whose purpose is to protect and serve the people around them might want to do just that, but if they find themselves in a situation where superhuman strength and stamina can’t solve a problem, they may be in way over their depth, and they might accidentally harm other people when they try to navigate that. (My use of the phrase “protect and serve” here is no accident – one of many inspirations for this thematic element is people who call for increased police presence in their neighborhoods, even when those communities are more harmed by over-policing than they are by crime. Being afraid and wanting to support their community spurs them to action, but it also blinds them to approaches that don’t use force.) For example, one golem character I’ve come up with has had to flee her home and change her name because she saw someone being harassed, didn’t know her own strength, and intervened in the first way she could think of: violently. She was lucky not to be arrested.

To get a little bit more specific, this theme is most specifically inspired by my own experiences in discussions among members of the Jewish community, as the scars from millennia of marginalization, expulsion, and murder don’t fade quickly. Paranoia is a veritable norm even within our households and places of worship. In our homes, many of us keep passports readily available if there’s a need to escape or show identification, and during any prayer service at a synagogue, there will likely be armed security guards standing at the door. Many of us laugh about it, but there’s a degree of genuine fear that we can’t shake. Often, that fear is harmless, but it can get exhausting to live with, to say little of how it affects other people or how it can be weaponized by bad actors. One look at how the Israeli government seeks to justify its violence in propaganda makes clear that the generational trauma of Jewish communities can be exploited and warped as a means to justify some pretty awful things. The figure of the golem is, in a sense our communal power fantasy – it’s comforting to think that with a bit of ingenuity and some elbow grease we can design our own hero to protect us and help us thrive – but even that fantasy is not free of the reality that, like a superhero, a golem’s innate abilities just aren’t always enough to save everyone. (Indeed, this tension is part of what inspired the Jewish creators of Superman: he has superhuman abilities that he uses to protect vulnerable people, but not every problem can be solved by punching it, and with all his strength he has to be very careful not to destroy everything he loves. This has been noticed by a lot of people, and I’m far from the first to bring it up, but in particular I’d say this observation is borrowed from the excellent video essay “The Golem and the Jewish Superhero” by Jacob Geller on YouTube.) A golem being fleshed out as a character can really lean into that tension.

One more theme I want to bring up is not something I’ve come to any particular conclusions about – it’s really just a few spare thoughts I’ve had rattling around, and an invitation to look into this concept more. It comes out of my research on the development of the word “golem” in Hebrew and Yiddish, as the term has developed beyond just the connotation of a humanoid clay form. It can be a pejorative term like “fool”, but more interesting to me is its use in reference to embryos and pupas. This made me consider the transitory nature of the golem as a representative of change, which I haven’t seen explored very much in any stories out there. Not only has the word gained those connotations, but also, looking at the characteristics of the golem as a creature gives some more fuel to that fire. The fact that it’s generally made out of specifically unfired clay gives it the sense of being unfinished. Its nature of being created in its adult form from the very beginning means that it can display a childish outlook as a seeming adult learning about the world outside of its creator’s life. The story of the golem of Prague even has an ending hook entirely centered around the idea of the golem being temporarily disabled but capable of being reanimated if need be. This idea of a golem as a character with a unique capacity to adapt and change hasn’t been explored very much, but I think it could be interesting to consider.

The last thing I’ll leave here is thoughts on character creation beyond themes. In this document, I’ve included a custom set of rules to play a living doll made of unfired clay, which is the traditional material for a golem. This isn’t playtested in any way, but since Eureka doesn’t try too hard to be balanced around physical attributes, I think it should probably work fine – it’s more thematic than anything. To make a golem, the doll’s purpose should be external in some way, pushing them to help and support other people in their community, especially the most disadvantaged of them. In terms of backstory, the details of a golem’s past can be left fairly foggy if you’d like, but the one thing that can’t be skipped is that they were intentionally created by a Jewish creator invoking Jewish traditions. It’s fine to make a living doll that was animated in some other way, but the character would not be a golem in that case. It’s similar to how Eureka vampires must have some association with Christianity, not because non-Christian undead monsters can’t exist, but because outside of that context, the specific vampire mythos lacks any meaning. (Honestly, also, if you don’t have background information about Jewish life and culture, I would recommend asking someone who does to help with your portrayal.) Finally, in terms of giving a golem a hook to investigate a mystery, it could of course be anything, but there’s one aspect in particular that I would consider: in some versions of the Prague golem’s story, it protected the ghetto by looking into cases where Jews were accused of murder and finding the true culprits, thus clearing the names of the accused. Which is to say, there’s genuine historical precedent for golems investigating mysteries, and it often happens as a means of helping people who are falsely accused of a crime. That’s not mandatory, but it could be fun to keep in mind. Have fun, and if anyone ends up playing a golem investigator using these guidelines, please let me know!

Wet Clay Living Doll – Rules

A living doll made from earthenware materials that have not been hardened by firing. This variant was originally designed to represent the golem of Jewish mythology, but it could also be used to portray, for example, an unfinished art project or a proof of concept for another piece. Depending on their construction and the flexibility of the clay they are made from, they may be treated as jointed or unjointed.

Wet clay living dolls weigh more than twice as much as an average person of their size would. They cannot swim or float, and will sink to the bottom of any body of water immediately.

These living dolls take half damage from all weapons while they have at least 1 point of Superficial HP remaining. Damage from falling is unaffected. Wet clay living dolls are immune to electrical damage.

When a wet clay living doll encounters fire or high heat (in excess of about 500 ºC), their outer layer of clay is fired and becomes hard and brittle. When this happens, this living doll should be mechanically treated as an unjointed living stone statue. If another character has access to tools to chip away the outer layer and a large supply of wet clay to replace it, they can reverse this process with a Full Success on a Technology roll. Regardless of the result, this process will take 1 Tick of time and cause 1 Superficial Damage to the living doll.

Wet clay living dolls are easier to repair. Do not apply the -3 Technology penalty when restoring Penetrative HP.

Wet clay living dolls generally possess superhuman strength, but when they are hurt, they may lose chunks of clay that would otherwise generate weight and power. They have a +5 Contextual Bonus to Athletics and Close Combat, but for each point of sustained Penetrative Damage, this bonus is reduced by 1 point.

Given 1 Tick of time, appropriate tools, and a supply of clay, a wet clay living doll can alter their physical appearance and proportions. They cannot precisely change specific details such as facial features, but can make themselves larger or smaller, change their perceived distribution of fat and muscle, and change the shape of their body enough to be recognizably different. When a wet clay living doll attempts to alter their body, roll Technology.

Full Success: The living doll successfully alters their body to exact specifications. They are able to completely alter their facial features and/or specify a new height and body type, and even on close scrutiny they will not appear out of the ordinary.

Partial Success: The living doll mostly succeeds in altering their body, but they get sloppy. They take 1 Superficial Damage, and close inspection reveals that parts of their skin have abnormal marks and blemishes, but they are still able to make the changes that they hoped for.

Failure: The living doll struggles with even the most basic alterations, doing a messy and imprecise job. They take 1 Superficial Damage, and cuts and blemishes are visible across their skin. They also don't convincingly make the correct changes to their bodies, doing either too much or too little to differentiate themselves from their previous form.

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