#<- unfortunate that our existence is political

[vioyume]

Queer Zine Archival Project (QZAP)

With all the chaos that is currently happening in the US (I'm not American), I feel that it's important to not lose hope in what we are still fighting for and to continue to express our experiences and desires when it comes to being/supporting the LGBTQ+ as a whole.

Because unfortunately, America has a very strong influence on the rest of the world.

The very least I can do is share and encourage going through the QZAP website since zines played a major role within LGBTQ history. The website has very much helped me learn the experiences of what people have been going at that time, and I believe much of it can be applied now.

But I also encourage people to create zines of their own so that we continue to stay strong remind others that our existence will not be going away.

Link to Archive

What's a Zine and how to make one?

Look through this post to find out

It also inspired me to share the archives.

Want to Donate a Zine?

Fill out this form.

Other LGBTQ+ Archives:

Assorted Early Zines by Houston LGBT History

Lesbian Herstory Archive

Digital Transgender Archive

Gale: Gender and Sexuality Research Archive

Queer.archive.work

Queer Music Heritage

Anchor Archive (They have more than lgbtq+ topics)

Queer Zine Library

[serpentface]

What's the Wardi cultural take on Akoshos sleeping with/partnering with/marrying other Akoshos?

It's not highly regulated to a degree that there are overwhelming cultural norms about it. There's a lot of societal focus on akoshos being theoretically suitable sexual partners for both men and women due to being dual-gendered, but not to an extent that relationships with One Another are stigmatized.

They also largely get to escape from the most severe concerns about penetrator/penetrated power dynamics because they're not regarded as Men (they're regarded as dual-gendered, and they're a female social class on every practical level), there's no status of manhood to Lose by receiving sexual penetration. The only real thing you see in that department is people assuming that one acts as 'the man' and one acts as 'the woman', but this is largely due to preoccupation with a notion of sex being Penetration With A Penis (and that Penetration With A Penis means that one person is in a Man's Role and one person is in a Woman's Role). But this will not be regarded as unnatural as in same-gender male relations, akoshos will Have to take up a position in this sexual dichotomy if they want to have Real Sex (Penetration With A Penis) with each other, and this is not unnatural and doesn't involve gaining or losing status since they are simultaneously male and female, not men.

So like you might see individual culture critics finding stuff to nitpick about it as their annoyance of the week or a singular Guy here or there who thinks it's weird, but this isn't a widespread norm. The vast majority of people don't give a shit about akoshos having sex with each other. The worst thing you're likely to experience Solely by virtue of being in an akoshos-akoshos relationship is someone asking you (probably with genuine curiosity) which one does the man stuff and which one does the woman stuff.

Akoshos also don't experience Hard expectations for marriage (though there are societal pressures that make marriage an attractive safety net all the same, ESPECIALLY marriage to a man) so unofficial life-partnerships between akoshos are pretty much the Only same gender partnerships between unwed people that are going to go unquestioned. ((Sworn brotherhood is technically a same gender life partnership for men that is Functionally similar to marriage (in that it's a kin-making practice between unrelated adults), but the tradition is Built upon the assumption that both parties will be married to women and that a primary goal of this kinship is to provide security for both parties' wives and children)). Marriage obligations in general are more lax in the economically secure but not Wealthy lower mercantile classes (as obligations to support and perpetuate one's family are universal, but these obligations can be filled simply by having at least One son who can get hitched, and marriages in the lower classes have no political functions and therefore there's less reason to ensure All your children are wed (there's still incentives like dowry, but this is not desperately needed when a family is economically secure)). So akoshos in this class group tend to have a Lot more freedom in terms of their life arrangements and chosen partners (though still experience the limiting frameworks of structural misogyny in other capacities).

The only thing that is out of the picture is akoshos/akoshos marriage. Marriage in this society has a predominantly reproductive function, the concept of reproductively non-viable marriages is generally considered absurd. This is not JUST this culture's form of homophobia, as marriage is a very practical arrangement at its core - both in a reproductive capacity and as bedrock for the patriarchal blood-kinship family system that forms the core social unit. The idea of same gender marriage isn't just absurd because 'ewwww weird' it's like, that Cannot work within this system, it Cannot fill core functions of what a marriage intends to do here, the ways on which marriage and kinship are BUILT makes same gender marriage practically (rather than just socially) untenable.

The sole exception to the 'marriage = reproductively viable" rule is that akoshos can be married to men (which in practice is almost always as a remarriage after a man has secured At Least an heir). This has a Little bit of internal logic here in that they perform predominantly female social roles (thus are suited to being a wife, even if they can't bear children) (and also on practical levels of them having the same legal status as women) but it's really more of a 'this is just how it's always been' kind of thing. A lot of the older pre-Wardi identity dual-gender roles that got mashed together under the 'akoshos' name would have involved marriage to a man as a second wife/concubine, in addition to his primary wife who would bear his children. Men potentially having multiple spouses has not been retained as a cultural practice, but the notion that an akoshos Can be a wife to a man has survived into modern day legal and doctrinal practices around marriage.

So like this being said, marriage as it is legally defined is only between a man and a woman, a man and an akoshos, or a woman and an akoshos. In practice the latter two are comparatively VERY rare- a man/akoshos marriage cannot provide children (though an akoshos can practically fulfill all other obligations and duties of a wife), a woman/akoshos marriage Can provide children (and while akoshos cannot function as a male heir, these children Will take their akoshos-parent's family name (though the wife retains her father's family name)), but akoshos are legally grouped with women in terms of rights and privileges (including being permanently under legal domain of their father unless they have been legally handed off to a male husband) and Cannot provide hard power patriarchal support that this family system is built upon and therefore depends upon, which makes these marriages socio-economically insecure. They can obviously still be a good partner and parent, but this is not the same as having the Legal hard power of a patriarch.

Akoshos marrying each other would be reproductively and socially nonviable, and is treated as a similarly absurd concept to a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman. It's just not a part of the marriage and kinship framework, it's not a thing that you can Do.

[ursie]

Brennan’s statement on Palestine :

[ ID: Statement from Brennan Lee Mulligan, on Instagram. It consists of three black squares with plain white text. The text reads as follows:

"I'm calling on my government officials to immediately demand a ceasefire and de-escalation in Gaza.

I applaud anyone and everyone calling for peace, with the understanding that real peace only exists if it deeply and honestly accounts for and fully ends violence in all its forms. Real peace addresses and corrects wrong-doing in the past and guards against it in the future. It goes hand in hand with justice and requires truth, restoration, reconciliation, reparation.

Peace cannot co-exist with collective punishment, ethnic cleansing and forced displacement. It cannot co-exist with blockades, embargoes, or with 2.2 million people, half of which are children, trapped with no hope of escape or political recourse. it cannot co-exist with murdered journalists, bombed hospitals, or years of protesters being shot and killed at the border. it cannot co-exist with illegal settlements, segregated roads, and the silent, imperial chill that settles over the gaps in the violence - the unspoken geopolitical consensus that a group of people need to unflinchingly accept permanent subjugation and occupation.

My hear breaks for every Israeli person who lost loved ones during the attacks of October 7th. It breaks for every Ukrainian person who has lost their loved ones. It breaks for every Congolese person who has lost their loved ones. I do not speak on behalf of Palestinians now because some lives are worth more than others. I speak on their behalf because I, and all Americans, have a responsibility to pressure our government because we are responsible for this. Some have said that this situation is complicated. The Unites States government clearly disagrees. It has definitively, categorically, militarily chosen a side, and I do not agree with that decision.

In wiring this, I have been wrestling with what I am sure many people like me wrestle with: There is a powerful narrative surrounding violence in the Middle East that asserts and ever-moving goalpost of self-education and study in order to even be qualified to have an opinion. As someone with a love of research, I have at times in my life fallen into the trap that I am not educated enough clever enough, or aware enough to have a worthwhile perspective, and that three more articles and two more lectures and one more book will do the trick. Unfortunately, democracy doesn't work that way - we, the citizens of any democracy, cannot possibly be experts on every aspect of the policies of our governments, and yet if we do not constantly weigh in an make our voices heard, the entire experiment falls apart. Not only do people constantly doubt themselves and the things they can see with their own two eyes, but old shortcuts for political action can fall apart as well: This specific issue exists along a raw, charged and unique faultline in American Politics. Nobody I grew up with has ever challenged me on my support for abortion rights, LGBT rights, Black Lives Matter, anti-capitalism, anti-fascism, none of it. The people in my country who would despise me for those positions are, for all intents and purposes, strangers to me. But there are people who I've broken bread with and shared honest affection with who will see the words I've written here and incorrectly conclude that I do not wish for the security, dignity and happiness of them and their loved ones, and that breaks my fucking heart. Full-throatedly condemning the actions of the Israeli government while battling rampant anti-semitism at home is an urgent moral necessity, and doing so is made unnecessarily challenging for the average person to navigate by the pointed obfuscations of cynical opportunists, bigots, and demagogues on all sides of the political spectrum who see some advantage in sowing that incredibly dangerous confusion.

So, I'm calling my representatives. I'm having hard conversations with friends and family. I'm here, talking to you. I should have done it sooner. If you're Israeli and hurt by this statement, know that I want freedom, dignity, security and peace for you, and that every ounce of my political awareness believes whole-heartedly that the actions of your government are not only destroying innocent lives, but doing so to the detriment of you and your loved ones' safety. If you're American and feel lost and confused - I understand and empathize. This, the whole country, only works when we get involved. I am constantly haunted by the specter that maybe I missed some crucial piece of information on this, or any, important world event. I'll just have to make my peace with that self-doubt and trust my gut by going with Jewish Voice for Peace, Amnesty International, the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations, etc. And if you're Palestinian and reading this: I unreservedly support your right to life, to freedom, to happiness and human flourishing, to full enfranchisement and equal rights, to opportunity, prosperity and abundance, to the restoration of stolen property and land, and to a Free Palestine." End ID ]

[p0orbaby]

magic 8 ball

summary: What starts as Leah crashing your pity pint spirals, predictably, into something far less wholesome and far more hands-on.

warnings: SMUT 18+, just general sex stuff so you know the drill

a/n: i was inspired, not sure by what, but here we are

word count: 2.5k

-

“I’m not having a breakdown,” you say, peeling the label off your beer with such deep concentration you forget you have to breathe to survive. “I’m having a perfectly rational response to the current state of the world. And also to my boss, who thinks ‘relevance’ is when a TikTok account reposts our gallery’s Instagram.”

Leah makes a sound, something between a laugh and a sigh, and slides onto the stool next to you as if she owns the place. She probably does. Or knows someone who does. She’s wearing a camel coat from The Row that looks like it’s never seen a hanger. Soft, fluid, draped like wealth. Her hair is up—one of those deliberately lazy ponytails that costs £80 at a salon and makes people call you effortless like it’s a compliment. She probably just didn’t bother sorting it after training.

She orders a double gin and tonic. Not with Bombay or Tanqueray or any of the pedestrian options available to people who wear polyester and say OOTD. She points, without looking, at a bottle of something artisanal. Something with botanicals. Something brewed by a man with a beard who lives in Hackney and forages moss recreationally while naked.

“You’re twitching,” she says, when the bartender walks away.

“I’m fine,” you reply, tight. “I’m absolutely fucking fine.”

You’re not. You’re vibrating with the same energy as a microwave that’s just been asked to reheat a bowl of leftover soggy chicken chow mein.

Leah squints. “Your eye does this thing when you’re on the brink of homicide. It’s cute, all things considered.”

You think about stabbing her with the cocktail stick that came with the complimentary olives you got when you ordered. Instead, you finish peeling the label. The bar is now covered in neat, sticky curls of Beck’s branding. You take a vicious sort of pride in it—like this bar owes you something and you’re slowly destroying it molecule by molecule.

“I had to explain post-conceptualism to a man who unironically collects Funko Pops today.”

“God.”

“He said, ‘So it’s like Banksy but sadder?’”

“Oh, sweet Jesus.”

“And then he asked me if Damien Hirst invented fruit winders.”

Leah bites her lip to suppress a grin. You hate that she finds this funny.

“I’m in hell,” you say. “I live here now. It’s beige and the lighting’s fluorescent and all the curators wear Balenciaga in the wrong way.”

“There’s a wrong way to wear Balenciaga?”

“Yes. It’s when you do it with sincerity.”

Leah hums, amused. Her drink arrives. She picks it up like she’s in an advert for skincare. You hate her glass. It’s too clean. You hate how she sips, like the liquid is trying to earn her respect. You hate her in general, really. But it’s a specific, curated hate. The kind that comes with longing. Jealousy. Proximity.

“You’re not angry,” she says, “you’re heartbroken.”

“I am not heartbroken.”

“Fine,” she shrugs. “You’re artistically blue-balled.”

That, unfortunately, lands. You clench your jaw. You spent two months assembling an exhibit that got described as visually competent by someone whose own work consists of melting Barbie heads onto coat hooks. The only person who seemed to get it was a caretaker, and even he asked if it was “about feminism or something.”

Leah’s watching you with the sort of curiosity she usually reserves for rare mushrooms or political scandals. You feel exposed, like she’s mentally peeling your skin back to check for rot.

“I just—” You stop. You sip your beer. You stare at its froth like it insulted your mother. “I just want to make something that doesn’t immediately get filtered through someone else’s idiot-brand algorithm of what art is supposed to do. I don’t want it to do anything. I want it to exist. And I want that to be enough.”

There’s a pause. A proper silence. A respectful one.

Then Leah says, “Well. That’s depressing.”

You blink. “Do you ever have a normal human reaction?”

“I do,” she says, “just not to tantrums disguised as philosophies.”

You groan. Loudly. Obnoxiously. “Why are you here?”

She takes another sip, smacks her lips, says: “You texted me the words ‘I hope my body gets mistaken for a performance piece when I die.’ So I cleared my schedule.”

You rub your face. You did text that. You thought it was funny.

“You’re a masochist,” you mutter.

“You’re dramatic.”

You look up at her, eyes narrowed. “You think you’re better than me.”

Leah leans in, her face maddeningly calm. “Sweetheart. I know I am.”

You want to throw something at her. A pint glass. the chair you’re sitting on. Your entire unresolved emotional history. But instead you say, “Do you ever get tired of always being the most emotionally detached person in the room?”

She tilts her head. “Do you ever get tired of pretending your anger is intellectual when really you’re just sad and lonely and catastrophically underfucked?”

You nearly choke on your drink.

“I am not underfucked.”

“I can see how tense your jaw is from here. It’s clenched like a Victorian child repressing her feelings about having to crawl up another chimney. Go home and look at yourself in the mirror. Tell me that’s the face of someone getting railed regularly.”

You want to die. You also want her to say it again, slowly, in private, with less clothing.

There’s a long, crackling pause. You both know it’s no longer about art.

Leah sets down her glass. She taps the rim once, twice. Rhythm. Precision. Her nails are short, square, coated in clear polish that you don’t normally notice but have now because you can’t look her in the eye. Then you catch yourself staring at her hands for too long and quickly look away.

She doesn’t comment. But you know she notices. Leah notices everything. She notices the hair tie on your wrist has snapped and been retied in a knot, twice. She notices you’ve stopped wearing mascara, which you used to call your “armour” in that stupid, performative way you used to talk about beauty like it was actually important. She notices the crack in your lip that won’t heal because you’ve been biting it every time you think too hard.

She says, eventually, almost to herself:

“Right. That’s enough tragic brooding. Come on.”

You glance at her sideways. “Come on what?”

She lifts her chin, shrugs like it’s obvious. “It’s time for the three F’s.”

You blink. “The what?”

“The three F’s,” she repeats, counting them off on one hand like she’s listing dinner party ingredients. “Food. Fucking. And… I haven’t decided on the third one. It’s usually ‘forgiveness’ but tonight it might change depending on my mood or how close you are to bursting into tears.”

You narrow your eyes. “Are you having a stroke?”

Leah ignores this. She taps her temple. “It’s a system. A trifecta. A deeply spiritual practice.”

“Sounds like a religious cult run by Gordon Ramsay.”

She smirks. “Exactly. Chips first. Sex second. Existential clarity optional.”

You stare at her, arms folded. She’s smiling now, that crooked, smug half-smile that suggests she knows she’s funny, even when you want to shove her face into a vat of chip grease.

“You offering?” you ask, dry. “For the second F?”

Leah shrugs again. “No. I saw a homeless man outside and thought you two might hit it off.”

You snort, despite yourself. “You’re a bitch.”

She sips her drink like she’s just said something unremarkable and bureaucratic, like we’ll be closing early due to maintenance. She doesn’t look at you. You’re glad. You’re not ready for the look she gives you when she’s being sincere. It’s like being x-rayed.

Then she adds, almost as an afterthought, “Of course I’m offering. Don’t be daft.”

You freeze. A beat. Another.

“I thought I was a neurotic, emotionally volatile husk of a woman with a martyr complex and an inflated sense of artistic purpose.”

“You are,” she says. “But you’ve got a decent face and you’re good with your hands. So, you know. Swings and roundabouts.”

You scoff. And you’re trying really hard to stay calm because your doctor has informed you your concerningly high blood pressure is a direct correlation of your erratic emotions.

“What happened to chips first?”

“Oh, I still want chips. I’m starving. I haven’t eaten since three and I’m craving something fried and disgusting. Preferably served by someone with a name badge and an attitude problem.”

You nod slowly. “That’s the most grounded thing you’ve said all night.”

“Thank you. I’m a woman of the people.”

She drains her gin and stands, smooth and sudden, like movement happens to her rather than from her. You watch the line of her coat shift across her hips and hate her a little more. In a nice way. A respectful way.

She glances back at you, already heading toward the door. “You coming, or are you going to sit here frowning into warm beer like the ghost of failed gallery interns past?”

You mutter something under your breath and follow. Of course you do. It’s Leah.

It’s always Leah.

-

“You’re making that face again.”

Leah’s looking at you from the other end of the bed—half undressed, half mocking, propped up on her elbow like some god-awful, lesbianised version of a Greek statue who knows exactly how fit she is.

You’re topless and regretting all your life choices. “What face?”

“The one that says, ‘this is a terrible idea but I’m already wet so fuck it.’”

She’s not wrong.

You shoot her a glare and yank your bra off in one not so smooth move. It slaps the floor with the exhausted whimper of cotton that’s held too many disappointing breasts over the years.

“God, you’re hot when you’re angry,” she says, and you want to laugh. Or hit her. Or sit on her face. All three feel valid.

“Shut up and lie down.”

She does. Immediately. The smugness fades slightly, replaced by something quieter. More concentrated. She watches you crawl over her like a lion stalking its prey. Or more realistically like you’re some slow-motion car crash she wants to get hit by.

You kiss her. Sloppy. Unapologetic. More tongue than technique. It’s not romantic. It’s hot. It’s urgent. It tastes like gin and old rage.

Somewhere between biting her lip and grinding down against her thigh, you lose track of how long you’ve been pretending not to want this. Leah’s skin is warm and annoyingly soft. Her bra’s still on. She’s still wearing her bra.

You reach for it, fumbling. “Why are these always like a NASA launch?”

She laughs into your neck. “You’ve never undressed another woman before, have you?”

“Only emotionally.”

You finally get the clasp and she shrugs out of it, tits bouncing slightly. You both pretend not to notice how your brain flatlines for a second. You’re supposed to be cool. You’re supposed to be in control.

But her nipples are hard and you’re throbbing and when she reaches between your legs without warning, you gasp—loud and unedited.

“Oh my god,” you breathe. “Warn a girl.”

“You’ve literally been grinding on my thigh for five minutes.”

“That’s different. That’s friendship.”

Leah slips her hand down your knickers. Finds you soaked. She hums like she’s impressed. Or smug. Probably both.

“Jesus, babe,” she says. “You’re soaked.”

You scoff. “Don’t call me babe. You sound like some weirdo on Love Island.”

“Fine. Darling?”

“Worse.”

“You’re tight when you’re annoyed,” she murmurs, and then pushes two fingers in. Just like that.

You moan. Too loudly. Your hips buck automatically.

“Oh, fuck—”

Leah grins like a wolf. She curls her fingers and your whole spine tries to fold in half.

“Yeah, that’s it,” she says, pumping slow, deliberate, unfair. “There. Right there. Don’t move.”

You immediately move. “Fuck, wait—fuck, there.”

She groans, her forehead pressed to yours. “You’re so annoying.”

You kiss her to shut her up and reach down between her legs. Her knickers are drenched too. You laugh.

“What?” she says, breath hitching.

“Nothing. Just didn’t know England’s golden girl got this wet.”

“I’m a footballer,” she pants, “not a cardinal.”

You pull her knickers aside, push two fingers in easily. She’s hot and slick and all kinds of fuckable. Her eyes roll back for a second. She grabs your arm, anchoring herself. Her nails dig in.

“Oh my god. Keep doing that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Don’t—don’t fucking stop.”

You thrust harder, matching her rhythm, both your hands moving now—sloppy and synchronised. Her hips are rolling. Yours too. There’s swearing. Lots of it. You’re both flushed and swearing and laughing in between grunts.

“Fuck,” she gasps. “Harder.”

You give it to her harder. You give it to her like a promise. Like revenge.

At one point you both reach for each other at the same time and bang foreheads. Loudly.

“Ow,” you groan, blinking.

She’s laughing. “This is the least elegant sex I’ve ever had.”

“Good,” you growl, sucking a bruise into her neck. “I’m not here to be elegant.”

You push her legs wider. You go lower.

“Wait—are you—oh fuck—”

You don’t bother answering. You just get your mouth on her. One long, filthy lick from her entrance to her clit and she arches like she’s being electrocuted.

“Jesus CHRIST,” she chokes. “You’ve done this before.”

You don’t dignify that with a response. You just moan into her cunt and keep going.

Her hand finds your hair and tugs. Not hard. Just enough to make you feel owned.

She’s close. You can feel it. She starts talking like a woman possessed.

“Yes. There. Don’t stop. Don’t stop, don’t you fucking stop—”

You don’t. Of course you don’t. You flatten your tongue and she breaks.

She cums hard, loud, practically shaking, her thighs closing around your head like a vice.

When she collapses, she pulls you up, kisses you like she’ll die if she doesn’t, and flips you over. She doesn’t even hesitate. Her mouth is on you like it’s home. She licks you open, groaning like you’re her favourite meal and she’s been fasting.

“Oh fuck me,” you cry, gripping the headboard like it’s a lifeline.

She hums against your clit. You nearly black out.

“Yeah?” she says, lifting her head. “That good?”

You nod, dazed.

“Use your words.”

“More.”

“More what?”

“More Leah.”

She moans like that’s the final straw and fingers you hard, mouth locked around your clit as if it belongs there. You cum embarrassingly fast. Practically scream. Collapse against the pillow like a dramatic Victorian wife.

There’s a beat. Silence. Both panting.

Then:

“I think I saw god.”

Leah wipes her mouth and shrugs. “Tell her I said hi.”

You both dissolve into hysterical laughter, tangled up and sweaty and slightly horrified.

“So,” you say, catching your breath. “The verdict on the third F?”

She grins. “I think I'll stick with forgiveness. For all the shit we’re about to pretend didn’t just happen.”

You nod. “Fair.”

And then you kiss her again. Because honestly, what else are you going to do?

[starsintheskyandtheeye]

Respect for the Dead

By Lois Lane and Clark Kent

1,436 words

By now most of the world has been shaken by the news.

Ghosts are real! And ghosts are in danger! The original publication written by Lois Lane can be found here but we are not here to follow that well trodden avenue of discussion.

Here at the Daily Planet we have elected to focus on speaking to the ghosts themselves, rather than debate their existence alongside our fellow papers. During the hunt for the new source of Kryptonite that sparked this discovery Lois Lane made contact with one Danny Phantom. Originally he chose to anonymous but since the outpouring of support from much of the world he has since chosen to come forward publicly.

Given that the ghostly teenager is operating as a hero similar to our own Superman much of his personal history could not be shared. What was safe to share however was very different from what this reporting team had been expecting.

We had gone in prepared to hear the story of what caused a ghost that looks like a schoolboy to lead a life of ghostly vigilantism.

What we got was sweetly sarcastic individual giving us amusing anecdotes of his start as a hero, descriptions of the stranger habits he's gained since his death, and many many tips on how to politely interact with a ghost. At our confusion (who knew there were so many different types of ghost!) Phantom went on to explain and correct several common misconceptions about ghosts. So without further ado; here are the highlights of that discussion.

We begin with what was given to us as the number one rule of human/ghost etiquette. Never ask the individual, be they glowing werewolf, ghostly lunch-lady, or undead rock star, about the circumstances of their death.

It seems simple does it not? A matter of everyday politeness, and yet that is the number one reason for communication breakdowns between ectoplasmic entities and still living humans. Fortunately for the health of the interview this reporting team did not make that mistake. Phantom did not explain the nature of the offense but did not need to. It was clear that the, until then, friendly conversation would have ended abruptly if we had gone any farther down that path.

What we were encouraged (and warned) to talk to a ghost about was their obsession. As Phantom explained, "It's what drives a ghost, why we are still here, or why we formed at all."

When asked about his own obsession Phantom laughed a bit and said, "I'm a bit young for a ghost, so I don't really have one yet, I bounce around a lot. My doctor, he's a yeti, says it's normal for me though! The options are all over the place though. I know one ghost that haunts the high school to prevent bullying, a really nice guy. Another just wants to have her music heard by the world. Unfortunately her music brainwashes people to love her so we aren't super close. Or another that is all about granting wishes, but not in a singing blue genie way, in a fairy tale way, it's a mess whenever she gets over here."

That seems to be a common theme in ghostly/human interaction. Ghosts largely mean no harm but the pursuit of their own obsessions can have devastating effects on any that stand between them and their goal. Something to keep in mind if you're ordering pizza when the Box Ghost is at large.

Hoping it wouldn't cross into the realm of ghostly faux pas we went on to ask how old Phantom is. Once again Phantom seemed somewhat awkward although no more than what seemed to be his baseline when talking to (self claimed) famous reporters, saying only, "Time works differently in the realms. It can be really weird sometimes, you'll be talking to someone that looks like a toddler only to learn that they were last in a human world during the 1400s or something."

As Phantom continued to share however, the everlasting aspect seemed to be the least interesting part of the Infinite Realms, or the Ghost Zone as the Doctors Fenton, previously mentioned as ghostly experts here, call the place where the vast majority of ghosts dwell.

Ghostly yetis practicing medicine, while certainly not the least of the inhabitants were just the start. Phantom went on to share with us a sampling of the being he has encountered in his travels, medieval women moonlighting as temperamental dragons, the very concept of time, a warden of any ghosts that cross his path, and of course the ubiquitous creepy toddler so often featured on the silver screen.

According to Phantom up until extremely recently (whether by ghostly or human terms we were unable to determine) the Infinite Realms was closed off from our own home except for the occasional haunting. Which was explained to us by the telling of what was, to Phantom, a very funny joke about pop culture influencing ghost culture as people died and brought it over with them. From this we can glean several things. That the realms of the living and the dead have never been so far apart as it would have seemed to the living. That the near future will hold many changes as major religions, governments, and the common people hear what the dead have to say as they weigh in on what respect for the dead really means. And that while many things do translate, ghostly humor is not one of them.

Although of course that may be that, despite his real age being possibly many times our own - combined, Phantom is still eternally a teenager. And a teenagers jokes are often incomprehensible to any who do not share that state.

When asked about the sudden ghostly interest in our own living Earth Phantom had this to say, "Lots of ghosts want to go to the lands of the living. Especially anyone that used to be alive themselves. And anyone that didn't is curious what the fuss is about. Earth is so different from the ghost zone but it's still where a lot of us came from. If someone gets a chance to hop through the portal they'll go, to see how things have changed, or to keep things from changing, or just to stretch their obsessions. Really it's a chance to go home, just for a little while," he said, reminding us that for all they look like aliens ghosts are just as human as you or I.

With a few caveats.

The portal Phantom spoke of is an invention by the Doctors Fenton, Ectobiologists. Up until recently Jack and Maddie Fenton had been the worlds foremost ghostly experts, building a portal to the "Ghost Zone" in order to study what up until recently had been considered to be a non-sentient classification of emotional ectoplasmic imprintation.

We spoke to the researchers after our interview with Phantom, at his request. Despite the recent evidence come to light the couple remain the foremost (living) human scientists in the field. When asked about the setback to their work they had this to say, "We were devastated of course. To learn that we won't be able to study spooks -" Jack Fenton broke off there, at an extremely well executed elbow jab from Maddie Fenton who then said. "We got an extreme tunnel vision, a hazard of obsessive science. We were told we were wrong about the existence of ghosts for so long that we forgot to check that we were correct about their nature. We look forward to pivoting to ghostly anthropology and human/ghost interaction technology."

Ultimately we did not learn any groundbreaking secrets, but then if a ghost willing to go on record ( a written record at least, our recorded transcript of the conversation was near unusable due to static) you sit down and listen. We can never anticipate what a reader will take from an article but if we could make a suggestion? In this reporting teams opinion, the balance of ghost and human realms is not unlike the inversion of a mirror. We are reflections of one another. Opposite, yes, and dangerous to one another for it, but ultimately we are all the same. After all what is a ghost but emotion and ectoplasm (according to current science)? And for all that we try to rise above it, what is a human but emotion and flesh?

Fin.

Coming Soon!

Keep an eye out for top ten tips on ghostly interaction and interviews with the Justice League on diplomatic efforts with GHOSTLY ROYALTY!!

[doberbutts]

The rise of acceptable anti-blackness is everywhere, and leftists have insidious way of positioning black bodies and black communities as regressive, monsterous, and in need of guidance. I'm finding it works the exact same way as the neo-nazi pipeline. They ask "genuine questions," that ultimately serve to gather an audience, shift through the ramble for supporters, and fan the flames of fascism. All their questions already have a (bigoted) answer. It's a recruitment strategy:

"Why are black southerners homophobic, but vote Democrat?"

"Why is rap music so sexist?"

"Shouldn't black people know better than to be sexist/transphobic/homophobic?"

These are actual questions I've seen. I'm stumped at what to do about it.

It comes, unfortunately, with being a hypervisible marginalization.

Black people are not allowed to just be. We are required to do so much more than just exist in order to get basic respect and acknowledgement as fellow human beings.

My new manager (a black man) and I were just joking about this- he was complaining that my clinic which is now majority white due to some serious workplace drama (previously was majority Puerto Rican) had some very drying soaps and chemicals we clean with but an ancient mostly empty bottle of hand lotion and how he'd have to fix that. I made a joke about being ashy and we had a giggle about making sure to moisturize the hands, knees, ankles, and elbows especially in a customer-facing job where you are expected to look presentable, clean, professional, well-groomed, always wearing crisp and freshly laundered clothes, and of course your best customer service smile and polite language.

And it's not to say that that isn't true of everyone who works there- but I do find it interesting that one of the white women who work there can show up with frizzy hair and be fighting with the humidity all day and be fine, but I have been Spoken To in this profession for my hair looking "sloppy" and "dirty" while wearing it in a natural style, freshly done up and with products in it. Not at this specific job, but within this career.

Our margin for error is much narrower than others- and our ability to be seen as individuals instead of as a hive mind is even less. Every single person asked me about the Kendrick Superbowl thing- I don't watch football and I don't listen to Kendrick as a general rule (if I'm listening to rap 99% of the time I'm listening to black women and not men because often I like their sound and lyrics better) so it took me several days to even watch the thing. But every white person out there made sure to ask me how I felt about it.

I'm always willing to discuss the Problems in the black community in an open and honest light, but I find I'm less willing to discuss them if I don't feel like the question is coming from a place of wanting to understand and more like the question is coming from a place of ignorance and/or racism. I talk about these things with my white friends sometimes- my white friends who have never given me weird vibes about race and who often are of marginalized experience themselves (and sometimes highly visible marginalized experience such as my Jewish friends and my trans fem friends!) - but a random ask I am less inclined as I do not think that person is actually wanting to understand the answer to such a short question with such a nuanced and complicated reason.

[drdemonprince]

what are your thoughts on people drawing a correlation between kink and trauma?

People like to make satisfying narratives out of things. Our brains often look for patterns automatically. Also, many people feel obligated to explain where their kinks come from, as if they've got to justify their existence.

In the book The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture, Daniel Harris describes how gay BDSM practitioners in the 80s and 90s took to describing kink practices using therapeutic language, in hopes of sanitizing kink's reputation among the public and winning greater social approval. This had the unfortunate effect of only feeding in to the respectability politics that had already tainted conversations about kink -- suddenly it felt obligatory to prove that a person's kink practices made them healthier, happier, more effective, productive, and sane, rather than allowing kink to just exist for the sake of pleasure.

This pressure is very much still with us today. Many kinksters now lean on a traumatic history to explain why they really need kink, instead of feeling free to just say that they like it.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Google’s new phones can’t stop phoning home

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

One of the most brazen lies of Big Tech is that people like commercial surveillance, a fact you can verify for yourself by simply observing how many people end up using products that spy on them. If they didn't like spying, they wouldn't opt into being spied on.

This lie has spread to the law enforcement and national security agencies, who treasure Big Tech's surveillance as an off-the-books trove of warrantless data that no court would ever permit them to gather on their own. Back in 2017, I found myself at SXSW, debating an FBI agent who was defending the Bureau's gigantic facial recognition database, which, he claimed, contained the faces of virtually every American:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/mar/11/sxsw-facial-recognition-biometrics-surveillance-panel

The agent insisted that the FBI had acquired all those faces through legitimate means, by accessing public sources of people's faces. In other words, we'd all opted in to FBI facial recognition surveillance. "Sure," I said, "to opt out, just don't have a face."

This pathology is endemic to neoliberal thinking, which insists that all our political matters can be reduced to economic ones, specifically, the kind of economic questions that can be mathematically modeled and empirically tested. It would be great if all our thorniest problems could be solved like mathematical equations.

Unfortunately, there are key elements of these systems that can't be reliably quantified and turned into mathematical operators, especially power. The fact that someone did something tells you nothing about whether they chose to do so – to understand whether someone was coerced or made a free choice, you have to consider the power relationships involved.

Conservatives hate this idea. They want to live in a neat world of "revealed preferences," where the fact that you're working in a job where you're regularly exposed to carcinogens, or that you've stayed with a spouse who beats the shit out of you, or that you're homeless, or that you're addicted to Oxy, is a matter of choice. Monopolies exist because we all love the monopolist's product best, not because they've got monopoly power. Jobs that pay starvation wages exist because people want to work full time for so little money that they need food-stamps just to survive. Intervening in any of these situations is "woke paternalism," where the government thinks it knows better than you and intervenes to take away your right to consume unsafe products, get maimed at work, or have your jaw broken by your husband.

Which is why neoliberals insist that politics should be reduced to economics, and that economics should be carried out as if power didn't exist:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/05/farrago/#jeffty-is-five

Nowhere is this stupid trick more visible than in the surveillance fight. For example, Google claims that it tracks your location because you asked it to, by using Google products that make use of your location without clicking an opt out button.

In reality, Google has the power to simply ignore your preferences about location tracking. In 2021, the Arizona Attorney General's privacy case against Google yielded a bunch of internal memos, including memos from Google's senior product manager for location services Jen Chai complaining that she had turned off location tracking in three places and was still being tracked:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/01/you-are-here/#goog

Multiple googlers complained about this: they'd gone through dozens of preference screens, hunting for "don't track my location" checkboxes, and still they found that they were being tracked. These were people who worked under Chai on the location services team. If the head of that team, and her subordinates, couldn't figure out how to opt out of location tracking, what chance did you have?

Despite all this, I've found myself continuing to use stock Google Pixel phones running stock Google Android. There were three reasons for this:

First and most importantly: security. While I worry about Google tracking me, I am as worried (or more) about foreign governments, random hackers, and dedicated attackers gaining access to my phone. Google's appetite for my personal data knows no bounds, but at least the company is serious about patching defects in the Pixel line.

Second: coercion. There are a lot of apps that I need to run – to pay for parking, say, or to access my credit union or control my rooftop solar – that either won't run on jailbroken Android phones or require constant tweaking to keep running.

Finally: time. I already have the equivalent of three full time jobs and struggle every day to complete my essential tasks, including managing complex health issues and being there for my family. The time I take out of my schedule to actively manage a de-Googled Android would come at the expense of either my professional or personal life.

And despite Google's enshittificatory impulses, the Pixels are reliably high-quality, robust phones that get the hell out of the way and let me do my job. The Pixels are Google's flagship electronic products, and the company acts like it.

Until now.

A new report from Cybernews reveals just how much data the next generation Pixel 9 phones collect and transmit to Google, without any user intervention, and in defiance of the owner's express preferences to the contrary:

https://cybernews.com/security/google-pixel-9-phone-beams-data-and-awaits-commands/

The Pixel 9 phones home every 15 minutes, even when it's not in use, sharing "location, email address, phone number, network status, and other telemetry." Additionally, every 40 minutes, the new Pixels transmit "firmware version, whether connected to WiFi or using mobile data, the SIM card Carrier, and the user’s email address." Even further, even if you've never opened Google Photos, the phone contacts Google Photos’ Face Grouping API at regular intervals. Another process periodically contacts Google's Voice Search servers, even if you never use Voice Search, transmitting "the number of times the device was restarted, the time elapsed since powering on, and a list of apps installed on the device, including the sideloaded ones."

All of this is without any consent. Or rather, without any consent beyond the "revealed preference" of just buying a phone from Google ("to opt out, don't have a face").

What's more, the Cybernews report probably undercounts the amount of passive surveillance the Pixel 9 undertakes. To monitor their testbench phone, Cybernews had to root it and install Magisk, a monitoring tool. In order to do that, they had to disable the AI features that Google touts as the centerpiece of Pixel 9. AI is, of course, notoriously data-hungry and privacy invasive, and all the above represents the data collection the Pixel 9 undertakes without any of its AI nonsense.

It just gets worse. The Pixel 9 also routinely connects to a "CloudDPC" server run by Google. Normally, this is a server that an enterprise customer would connect its employees' devices to, allowing the company to push updates to employees' phones without any action on their part. But Google has designed the Pixel 9 so that privately owned phones do the same thing with Google, allowing for zero-click, no-notification software changes on devices that you own.

This is the kind of measure that works well, but fails badly. It assumes that the risk of Pixel owners failing to download a patch outweighs the risk of a Google insider pushing out a malicious update. Why would Google do that? Well, perhaps a rogue employee wants to spy on his ex-girlfriend:

https://www.wired.com/2010/09/google-spy/

Or maybe a Google executive wins an internal power struggle and decrees that Google's products should be made shittier so you need to take more steps to solve your problems, which generates more chances to serve ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

Or maybe Google capitulates to an authoritarian government who orders them to install a malicious update to facilitate a campaign of oppressive spying and control:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)

Indeed, merely by installing a feature that can be abused this way, Google encourages bad actors to abuse it. It's a lot harder for a government or an asshole executive to demand a malicious downgrade of a Google product if users have to accept that downgrade before it takes effect. By removing that choice, Google has greased the skids for malicious downgrades, from both internal and external sources.

Google will insist that these anti-features – both the spying and the permissionless updating – are essential, that it's literally impossible to imagine building a phone that doesn't do these things. This is one of Big Tech's stupidest gambits. It's the same ruse that Zuck deploys when he says that it's impossible to chat with a friend or plan a potluck dinner without letting Facebook spy on you. It's Tim Cook's insistence that there's no way to have a safe, easy to use, secure computing environment without giving Apple a veto over what software you can run and who can fix your device – and that this veto must come with a 30% rake from every dollar you spend on your phone.

The thing is, we know it's possible to separate these things, because they used to be separate. Facebook used to sell itself as the privacy-forward alternative to Myspace, where they would never spy on you (not coincidentally, this is also the best period in Facebook's history, from a user perspective):

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3247362

And we know it's possible to make a Pixel that doesn't do all this nonsense because Google makes other Pixel phones that don't do all this nonsense, like the Pixel 8 that's in my pocket as I type these words.

This doesn't stop Big Tech from gaslighting* us and insisting that demanding a Pixel that doesn't phone home four times an hour is like demanding water that isn't wet.

*pronounced "jass-lighting"

Even before I read this report, I was thinking about what I would do when I broke my current phone (I'm a klutz and I travel a lot, so my gadgets break pretty frequently). Google's latest OS updates have already crammed a bunch of AI bullshit into my Pixel 8 (and Google puts the "invoke AI bullshit" button in the spot where the "do something useful" button used to be, meaning I accidentally pull up the AI bullshit screen several times/day).

Assuming no catastrophic phone disasters, I've got a little while before my next phone, but I reckon when it's time to upgrade, I'll be switching to a phone from the @calyxinstitute@mastodon.social. Calyx is an incredible, privacy-focused nonprofit whose founder, Nicholas Merrill, was the first person to successfully resist one of the Patriot Act's "sneek-and-peek" warrants, spending 11 years defending his users' privacy from secret – and, ultimately, unconstitutional – surveillance:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/depth-judge-illstons-remarkable-order-striking-down-nsl-statute

Merrill and Calyx have tapped into various obscure corners of US wireless spectrum licenses that require major carriers to give ultra-cheap access to nonprofits, allowing them to offer unlimited, surveillance-free, Net Neutrality respecting wireless data packages:

https://memex.craphound.com/2016/09/22/i-have-found-a-secret-tunnel-that-runs-underneath-the-phone-companies-and-emerges-in-paradise/

I've been a very happy Calyx user in years gone by, but ultimately, I slipped into the default of using stock Pixel handsets with Google's Fi service.

But even as I've grown increasingly uncomfortable with the direction of Google's Android and Pixel programs, I've grown increasingly impressed with Calyx's offerings. The company has graduated from selling mobile hotspots with unlimited data SIMs to selling jailbroken, de-Googled Pixel phones that have all the hardware reliability of a Pixel, coupled with an alternative app suite and your choice of a Calyx SIM and/or a Calyx hotspot:

https://calyxinstitute.org/

Every time I see what Calyx is up to, I think, dammit, it's really time to de-Google my phone. With the Pixel 9 descending to new depths of enshittification, that decision just got a lot easier. When my current phone croaks, I'll be talking to Calyx.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/08/water-thats-not-wet/#pixelated

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

never stop deal with this so this your periodic reminder that

⬇️

!! if you see someone write different online. unless they explicitly tell you something different. leave them alone. don’t comment on their write. don’t do anything unprompted to “help” without ask. it rude annoying we heard it million times promise. !!

⬆️

some people with language disorders. agrammatism. cognitive struggles. or write with symbol base AAC that not support grammar inflections.

yes we will sometimes write different than you use to.

yes it not “correct grammar,” you so observant (sarcasm).

no it not for fun, no it not choice, no it not writing quirk.

whatever you want say, we probably heard it million times. yes even if it friendly joke - n we appreciate you friendly. but please

great that it “actually help you read/understand better than full grammar.” some people may like you tell them that. but personally not want hear it too - my way write my disability, it about me n it not on purpose it out of my control. would rather you talk about how way break down concept (something can actually control n try really hard at) as easy understand.

“this just gave stroke/seizure/whatever ‘funny’ ‘edgy’ disability” joke. not that anyone make it would listen but. shut up. it not funny to me it not funny to stroke survivors or to seizure havers.

decide stop apologize for exist if it hard read. even if you have receptive language / comprehension / reading / cognitive / etc disability - it unfortunate but conflicting accessibility exist. (yes, do understand actually, because speak from experience.)

if you want know what am say please at least put in some effort to read it.

if after genuine try, still struggle, do what you do when you see tumblr post in “perfect grammar” you don’t understand - polite ask for explain or rephrase or summarize.

it still english, or whatever language person use. unless you actual look for it be turn different language, it still english, no you not need “translate.” (no don’t care that “translate” okay in writing quirk community because again. not writing quirk)

not “fix.”

and. understand sometimes we can’t rephrase in different way, even if that different way include still write different.

personally am allow other people answer “can you rephrase” questions without go through me first, for now, because of this. - but understand this is reluctant compromise. because:

understand sometimes we still sensitive to other people rewrite explain in perfect grammar. because have long history of people refuse put effort in read our stuff but instead always give more attention to people who write perfect, even if their writing not any less complicated than ours. because have long history of be charity case n get unsolicit “help” “translate” when we never ask.

because have long history of be forcibly spoken for n be misunderstood. because people who answer may (& many times do) get it wrong & we then have to spend more effort chase down n correct when we already struggle with communication, n that other version always spread faster than our correction.

so know other people who write different, don’t allow people rephrase at all unless go through them first. please also respect that even if inconvenient.

n on that note.

unless we give you explicit permission to you (like “you specifically can do it” or like above “can do it if someone ask,” or “anyone can do it all times”). don’t. don’t rewrite what we write into correct grammar, into perfect grammar.

don’t give random disabled person unsolicited help. it not friendly it not helpful it rude n annoying. not your charity case. who even are you. no one asked.

none. of. your. business.

not need your fix. get off moral high ground.

n like everything. there some jokes n comments that *some* people who write different may be okay with if they friend with that person make it - sometimes opposite of what this post say. if you not friend with that person then. maybe don’t.

people who write different not all same. sometimes okay or not okay with different things. but. this general see.

the first time you hear about [stuff am tell you in post] probably 456737th time we re-explain it. excuse us for be exhausted n done n our time be tired n angry n impatient.

this been a PSA.

[punkpandapatrixk]

🌟Blessings Rolling In throughout 2025 ♦︎ Timeless Pick A Card

Labyrinthia: When a government begins to falter, its people descend to pitiful depths… Perhaps this is what the fall of a nation looks like from ground level.

Clarissa: They’re as much victim as anyone else… Victims of the twisted chaos in this kingdom…

— conversation after defeating a band of bandits at Fallen Fowl Swamp; Wild Arms XF

☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

The whole world right now, apparently, is going through a massive Dark Nights of the Soul. It is apocalyptic for a lot of people…but… It is ideal. The Apocalypse essentially denotes the end times for the ruling class ha ha and indicates a new era of liberation for Mankind. Well, in reality it's a bit more complicated than that...but let this perspective suffice for the time being. Normal peeps shouldn’t fear the end times, but uhm, not—not saying this with a religious spirit🙃

☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Charlton: Force can destroy a nation, but it doesn’t make building one any easier, much less maintaining order once it’s built.

Rupert: Is that so?

Charlton: It is the ability of the princess mediums to connect with the Guardians that keeps Elesius stable and strong. The very existence of that power sends an unmistakable message to the people about who is the ruler, and who is being ruled. Clear stratification based on one’s inherited gifts is a tradition that has preserved Elesius since the time of our forefathers.

Edna: But now that system is breaking down.

— conversation about the importance of princess mediums (pssst High Priestesses) of the Kingdom of Elesius; Wild Arms XF

☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

An Apocalypse is happening for the ruling class, but unfortunately—and hopefully soon enough you understand this—such a destruction is just the very thing they want to happen; all so they can build anew upon the ashes of the deconstructed establishment. In reality, it’s an ugly Hyper Game of which rules most peeps can’t even begin to comprehend.

But then…if the normal peeps are losing either way, what’s the Game Plan? Is there even one? There is something you can try to comprehend for the time being: to make apolitical of every decision you make in this world.

The problem with Gen Z (Sagittarius Pluto generation, which is 9th House aenergy, which is the House of Philosophical Foundations for Politics) and every other wokist from every generation, is that you make politic of every single thing that you do or think. You think it's the right thing to be this much politically awake in today's world, but with most people's level of exposure (or lack thereof) to real truths of Mankind's history... this is actually how you become a most effective generative pawn to the ruling class.

What if the most effective way to ‘dissolve the Matrix’ is to ignore its social engineering? ha ha

This year, what if you chose to live fully in your own Zero Point Awareness? From a plane of consciousness that feels most natural to you, when you're most in your element, true heartfelt Creation begins. Before you can save somebody else, you gotta make sure your bed is comfy and all the time tidy. Let the blessings roll up like tidal waves to pamper you this year, babe. You've survived too much all on your own~♦︎

This year, it's about YOU~\`★_★`/ Commence the personal miracle~!!

mind barricade: Apocalyptic Survivor Subliminal by DrVirtual7

evolution: Your Consciousness Can CHANGE Your Genetics by Dr Bruce Lipton

deck-bottom: I The Magician, Silver Astrologer (John Dee), Priestess of Success

[PAC Masterlist] [Patreon] [Paid Readings] [buymeaboba]

☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Pile 1 – Prosperity Abound, Beauty All Around

field: ★Green Aventurine Frequency★(Luck, Money, Wealth, Joy, Good Fortune, Abundance) by Quadible Integrity

direction of sounds – V The Hierophant

First of all, do you have a strong Saturnian/Capricorn placement? Or maybe you’re right in the middle of a Saturn Return period upon reading this? Or, it could be that you’re freshly out of a heartbreaking, bone breaking Saturn Return moment that almost killed you! Yeah, whichever the case, with The Hierophant being here, and it being a major arcana, know that whatever hardship is or has transpired in your Life was sorta…designed that way to strengthen the foundation of your incarnation this time.

It's because you have a massive, very important mission with your incarnation—what with having two major arcana back-to-back. You, are, intended to be very powerful and abundant in this lifetime. Some of you reading this are probably on your way to becoming some kind of a public figure. It could be anything, really. Influencer or thought leader or celebrity of some sort. You’ve known it since you were a wee kid that you were meant for something much, much, much bigger than the mundane Reality you were born into~♪

And when you consider that, maybe, just maybe, your path was that much harder, that much more restricted, because the Universe needed to test your innate goodness—whether or not you’d fall victim to the world’s greed and evil whatsoever. But you being YOU~ My gosh, you proved yourself, didn’t you? That in spite of everything, you’ve remained pure of heart and intent. I see you’ve devoted so much of yourself to the service of Love and Light. You know you were put here to make the world a better place with whatever natural talents you were bestowed with~ \`★_★`/

lights of intent – III The Empress

And so, what’s next? What’s in store this year for all of you powerful Souls in the world? If you’ve been around, maybe you’ve heard or read other readers say: ‘You’ve shifted paradigm!’ Or something along the lines of: ‘You’ve jumped timelines!’ Yes, all of this is very much true for you! I get this feeling that you may have felt ‘different’ in the sense that your manifestations are trickling in more effortlessly. The way that you work; the way that you walk; the way that you engage in your day-to-day tasks; even the way that you breathe and how your body feels…somehow everything is more aligned, effortless, and you feel safe.

You have manifested a world of your own design, babe~ All this time, all these painful years, you were building a world of your own ideal, brick by brick, with what little guidance you heard from your Higher Self and team of Spirit Guides. Within your Team and Crew are your Cosmic Ancestors who are making sure that none of that devotion goes to waste. You have to have your abundance and happy ending lest it beats the purpose of you being born. Got it~? Where your abundance and financial security are concerned, this quote sums it best for you this year:

‘I know why most people never get rich. They put the money ahead of the job. If you just think of the job, the money will automatically follow. This never fails.’ – Hedy La Marr

Your greatest blessing this year, if we could sum it up with this major arcana, is the freedom to engage in whatever creative pursuit is aligned with your Highest Intended Destiny. With The Hierophant accompanying this Pile, I’m sure you’re amongst those who’ve worked for a very long time for the manifestation of this great blessing. With that said, know with every single cell of your body that you deserve the peace and ease you’ll be swimming in this year~★

Highest Intended Action – 7 of Pentacles

I know that you know in your heart of hearts that this calm period is at best temporary—and that’s exactly why it’s exciting~☆ Where you are right now upon finding this reading, you’re already this wee close to a BIGGER manifestation what will propel you into the spotlight (do you see the lights shining upon this man in the card?) and with that, some rest period is needed just because you DESERVE it!! Do you have any idea the load of your spiritual work that’s given birth to this new timeline for a chunk of Mankind? I don’t even think you give yourself enough credit, boo!♥︎

This year, you’re being prepared for a call or an opportunity that could be classified as your main Soul Mission—if there ever was such a thing ha ha Souls usually carry a multitude of missions with their incarnations, especially the very, very advanced Souls. But anyway~

Of all the piles, this one is the most varied in terms of what kinds of blessings are rolling in for you. This is because your blessings are highly individually specific to the spiritual work you’ve done on your terms. What’s certain though, is that an element of destined orchestration is huge at play for you. So that’s literally saying that there’s practically nothing you need to do at this point in your Life. All that’s left for you to do is enjoy your peace, abundance and creativity~\`★_★`/

PROMISES FROM THE UNIVERSE🔻❤️

catching the Future Express – Green Magus (John Dee)

on my way to Destiny – Priestess of Contemplation

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Pile 2 – All Shackles Dissolved, an Uncontrollable Revenge Glow-Up!

field: ★"The Elite" Mind Control Detox★ 264.377 GHz + 439.3920 MHz + 1111Hz + 139.6Hz by Quadible Integrity

direction of sounds – Ace of Pentacles

Ow yeah, baby~! Of all the piles, yours indicates the strongest a real physical glow-up~★~ This could be in the form of a beauty glow-up, but for many of you it also involves financial/career glow-up, house/apartment glow-up, country/city glow-up, and many other forms of real-living improvements that I feel you’ve been manifesting for quite a while! Honestly, you’ve worked so hard on this, practically all by yourself, with a tonne of shadow work!

Some of you probably resonate with having ghosted so many people so as not to get distracted by their low-quality frequencies and opinions. You hustled in secret, and you hustled motherfuckingly hard. Your health—mental and physical—is returning and improving this year! That’s the number one blessing you’re totally receiving this 2025~\`★_★`/

I’m hearing: when your finances and living situations get better, it would be wise to start ‘investing’ in higher-quality produce and eat cleanly and healthily. What is healthy for you may differ from the common narrative, so you may need to R&D yourself the ‘healthy dietary habits’ that work for you by reading and learning a lot! Naturally, as your diet gets cleaner and ‘healthier’ for you, it’s only a given that your physical beauty and energy improve as well. Babe, that’s just logic~😉

lights of intent – XV The Devil

If this is your main pile and you resonate with having struggled with health in some way—be it mental, physical, emotional or spiritual or all at once—this would do you good to acknowledge that some bad spells had been sent your way by some demonic entities. I really mean demonic as in the intents—the negative thought forms—were so bad, so evil, they sought to (possibly) even murder you.

This could’ve been done by an ex-lover, ex-fake ass friend, even relatives and ‘family’ members. Yeah, we don’t call those ‘family’ in this household but you know what rings true for you~♦︎ There’s also a possibility of an envious ex-worker or even…some of you will know this for yourself if this is your message…you could’ve been specifically targeted by some negatively-polarised e.l.i.t.e groups, yeah? Whichever the case may be for you, this year is all about a much deeper purging of the layers of negative effects from all this karmic trauma bullshit.

You’re guided to further separate your Reality from those who’d burn in the 3D-hell version of Earth, aight? Closing karmic cycles comes in…cycles LOL I feel that so much of your karmic burden wasn’t even yours to begin with. But your Soul may simply have volunteered to be born under such circumstances to end all forms of curses and break bloodline chains for many Humans in this world. It is a great, noble sacrifice, so your Cosmic Ancestors would like you to acknowledge that~!

Highest Intended Action – 6 of Cups Rx

You may want to check out other piles or readings on this blog if you want to truly get a sense of what kinds of ‘blessing’ or ‘action’ are available to you at the time you’re reading this, but for the most part, if this is your main pile, I’m getting the sense that you’re being guided more towards protection and the shedding of past karmic ties before you can even jump to your next chapter of Life~\`★_★`/

Any possession that you’ve had for a long time, if it doesn’t aenergetically feel good anymore to be wearing/using it, get rid of it. We’re Kondo Marie-ing shit in this household this year! Where it’s possible, get rid of old things that have some emotional or karmic ties to your Old Reality—they have no place in your superfluously abundant future, OK? If the items/gadgets are still good enough to be used by someone else, try this ‘burning ritual’ so you don’t accidentally pass on negative aenergy to the next recipient:

Imagine the item(s) burning in Violet Flame and make a clear intent to never have any connection to any past person or place tied to that item(s). If you’re burning a memory or a place, burn that motherfucking bridge, burn the whole city or house in your mind’s eye. This way, you will never be pulled to that bandwidth of Reality anymore~♥︎ Honestly, you can do whichever ‘cleansing ritual’ you know of that works for you—the intent is the KEY~★

PROMISES FROM THE UNIVERSE🔻💚

catching the Future Express – Gold Physician (Hippocrates)

on my way to Destiny – Priestess of Ritual

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☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Pile 3 – They All Knew You’d be This Big, That’s Why They Cursed

field: ★Leadership Gene rs4950★ [Advanced Genetics] by Quadible Integrity

direction of sounds – XIX The Sun

When I tap into your aenergy, there’s this notion that dings clearest as a crystal: Child of Light~★ You are an Ancient Soul with immaculate purity and massive powers. Many individuals within your ‘family unit’ knew of this since your birth. Maybe there were unusual—cursed or miraculous—happenings and events surrounding your birth. Immediately, you already had opps since you were practically a wee baby. There were individuals who saw your ancientness and instantly felt threatened by your immense wisdom.

It could be that the ‘family unit’ you were born into dabbled in black magick or some underground criminal shit of sort, and they knew that one day, one way or another, you were going to discover and uncover their bullshit—effectively disintegrating their entire ‘empire’ made of pure manure. There’s some dark shit in that sick family unit like maybe there was an ancestor who went mad or there was somebody who was a serial killer or a drug dealer, what have you. The aenergy not only is bleak but incredibly dark and evil.

It's unbelievable that a Soul as pure as you would sacrifice your Light by integrating into a bloodline like this tsk tsk… Are you a Blue Ray Starseed? he he you could be. Anyway, some fucks within that insane family unit knew that one day, a power—and beauty, and intelligence, and purity—as witnessed exuded by you would make you VERY big and important on a community scale, even world scale. They hated that. They wanted that for themselves ugh…

lights of intent – King of Wands Rx

Do you daydream a lot, luv? If you feel that you often drown in fantasies, like excessively to a point where you find it hard to even cope with physical Reality, I’d like you to understand that it’s only an effect of never truly living a Life of your ideals. Your Heart is yearning to dwell in the Higher Timeline you know deep, deep down you’re meant to traverse along~♦︎ And yes, you’re absolutely capable of living the life you can’t stop thinking about. Aaand…that’s where your opps came in, right?

Not sure if you’re aware of this yourself at this point in time but all of the passion and intelligence that you are, those are the very things they never wanted you to nourish. But goddam, silly them—they underestimated your sheer willpower! Your opps are insanely illogical; as much as they wanted your power for themselves, they didn’t want you to ever realise your true potential. It’s such petty envy, all things considered. But hey, all of this is in the past if you’re tuning into this aenergy as your main pile~★

You’ve uprooted yourself from that false Reality where your Light wasn’t loved. But you were just doing your Lightwork there akin to training at a military camp. And you survived, goddamn hoe, you’re a Dark Feminine Goddess. This year, or whenever you find this reading, you’re fully grown and ready for your greatest Soul Purpose for being born at this passage of time~ Know that this whole blueprint was created by not only your Higher Self but also all of the Cosmic Ancestors who wanted to bring down this dark bloodline. In the grand scheme of everything, hoe is you da VIRUS within their System LMAO

Highest Intended Action – 10 of Cups Rx

The family unit you were part of, whether you were born or brought into it, operates like a cult. This is an entirely ‘insane family unit’—yes, it’s a thing. I see feminine figures akin to the members of Bene Gesserit from DUNE. These were most likely femcel mothers, aunts or grandmas that were operating like cult leaders. Before we continue, try to understand that we’re talking about ‘femcel psychology’ from a sociology perspective, which can be an entirely different discussion from ‘girls that ain’t getting laid’ XD

Check out Exoticals United on YouTube to learn valuable gems of societal observations~\`★_★`/

Anyway, these dusty ass femcel fucks loved power with a sick mind and when they saw your birth, they couldn’t stand the potential of THE FUTURE LEADER THAT YOU ARE DESTINED TO BECOME. They saw and knew that when you grow up, you’d have the natural talent to attract a large audience—babe, if this is your main pile, I KNOW you’re gorgeous for daaays~♥︎ The way you attract attention by your natural beauty and sweetness, my gosh, they sought to destroy that very thing which they covet: people’s admiration!

It was apparent to them since your birth or at least from when your puberty started, that your greatness comes from the ‘other side’ of the bloodline. By that alone, they knew they could never be what your Ancestors were preparing you to become. Your superior DNA from the ‘other side’ appeared like bright wings from heavens which they knew would overshadow their ‘cult-like’ influences on everything good and harmonious which they sought to destroy!

PROMISES FROM THE UNIVERSE🔻💙

catching the Future Express – Green Astronomer (Nicolaus Copernicus)

on my way to Destiny – Priestess of Prosperity

Access full reading + cards on Patreon🌸

☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

[PAC Masterlist] [Patreon] [Paid Readings] [buymeaboba]

[devilish-cherry]

ᨳ♡₊➳ jujutsu kaisen x reader

ᨳ♡₊➳ crack with plot

"You hate your job. The pay is bad, your manager is worse, and customers are somehow both entitled and clueless. Just as you finish contemplating whether unpaid breaks are a human rights violation, weird new people keep showing up to the café. They all seem to know each other. Sometimes they talk in cryptic phrases. What the hell is this domain and why do they want to expand it? One time, a man with stitches on his forehead walked in, made prolonged eye contact with you, and then left without ordering anything. You’re pretty sure he was a serial killer. Another time, the one with white hair and sunglasses indoors mentioned a "higher mission", and you’re 90% sure this is how cult documentaries start. One of your regulars only speaks in weird food-related phrases. You assume he has some kind of medical condition, but no one explains anything to you. But you are not about to ask questions, because ignorance is bliss and also job security. And unfortunately, they are all weird and they seem very interested in coming back."

꒰ masterlist ꒱ ₊⊹. ꒰ chapter 7 ꒱ ₊⊹. ꒰ chapter 9 ꒱

ᨳ♡₊➳ or read on archive of our own!

ᨳ♡₊➳ a/n: hihi!! i would’ve updated sooner, but unfortunately, my body decided to nerf me with a sickness debuff. tragic. 😔 BUT!!! i had so much fun writing this chapter. like, full-on giggling to myself like a mad scientist. i really hope you guys enjoy it!! (or at the very least find it as funny as my fever-ridden brain did)

The day starts like any other. Which is to say, badly.

Greg the Manager, who has been conveniently absent all morning, suddenly materializes with the urgency of a man who just remembered his parole officer exists. He’s slightly out of breath, like he sprinted exactly halfway here and then gave up. His tie is loose, his shirt is untucked, and his eyes have the glazed-over look of someone who is about to make their incompetence your problem.

“Oh, by the way, a news crew is coming in five minutes.”

You pause mid-coffee pour. The statement is so absurd, so wildly out of pocket, that your brain flatlines for a solid three seconds. “A what.”

Greg, already retreating like the rat he is, waves a dismissive hand. “Yeah, yeah, some feel-good story about supporting small businesses or whatever. They called a few weeks ago? Thought it’d be good PR. Forgot to tell you. Anyway, good luck!”

You stare at him, waiting for some kind of elaboration. An explanation. An apology. A joke. Anything.

“And you’re telling me this now?”

Greg shrugs, the human embodiment of the ‘Not My Problem’ energy. “I forgot.”

“Greg.”

“Gotta go, bro.” And like that, he vanishes, as if he were never there to begin with.

You stand there, emotionally buffering. You stare at the empty space where he once stood, trying to come to terms with the fact that a news crew is about to descend upon your personal hellscape with exactly zero warning. You look down at your apron, which has a very concerning stain on it (origin unknown), and realize your only hope is radical acceptance.

There’s no time to panic. You take a deep breath, straighten your apron, and slap on your best retail smile—the one that says I hate my job but I need to pay rent!

The café door swings open, and in comes the news crew with the confidence of people who have never suffered a single day in food service. The camera crew bustles in, setting up tripods, adjusting microphones, and looking around like they’re trying to absorb the rich ambiance of your workplace. Which, to be clear, smells like burnt espresso and quiet desperation.

The reporter, a professionally dressed woman with overly bright eyes and the enthusiasm of someone who has never once been berated by a middle-aged woman demanding to know why oat milk costs extra, beams at you. "We’re so excited to feature your charming little café!"

The words I would rather die are on the tip of your tongue, but you figure that’s not what she wants to hear. Instead, you nod politely. “We are also excited.”

She turns toward a customer near the window—Muffin Guy, your most mysterious regular. He sits in his usual spot, staring unblinkingly at the muffin before him, as if waiting for it to reveal a prophecy.

The reporter, undeterred by the strange aura surrounding him, approaches. “We love to highlight loyal customers!” she chirps. “Sir, could you tell us what you love most about this café?”

Silence.

The camera zooms in.

Muffin Guy does not blink.

He does not move.

He does not acknowledge the camera, the reporter, or the fundamental concept of human interaction.

The silence stretches.

The tension is suffocating. The reporter’s smile wavers. A single bead of sweat rolls down the intern’s forehead. Someone in the back coughs.

The reporter, clearly regretting all of her life choices, tries again. “Sir?”

Still nothing.

The camera stays on him for a full twenty seconds.

It is unbearable.

You mentally check out just as the reporter shifts focus to you, her expression slightly cracked but still hopeful. “So, tell us about this lovely café.”

You recite your dead-inside script: “We serve coffee. Sometimes people drink it.”

There is a beat of silence.

The reporter’s enthusiasm dims like a cheap LED bulb. “Wonderful.”

The reporter, visibly eager to move on from whatever existential nightmare Muffin Guy just put her through, scans the café for her next victim. You can see the calculations happening in real time behind her eyes: Okay, that guy and the barista were a bust, but surely the next person will be normal.

Unfortunately, she picks Choso.

Choso, who has been standing near the counter watching you with his usual unblinking intensity, straightens up as she approaches. You can tell he's eager to be of assistance, but his posture is too stiff, his expression too serious, and he moves with the slow, deliberate energy of a cryptid trying to blend into human society.

“How about you?” The reporter smiles, extending the mic. “What’s your name?”

Choso stares at her for a beat too long, like he’s mentally reviewing whether or not he should tell her. Finally, he leans toward the microphone. “Hello,” he says in his usual dead-serious monotone. “I am Choso."

The way he delivers it makes it sound like a warning. Like he's introducing himself as an omen of death.

The reporter, momentarily thrown off by his delivery, laughs nervously. “Oh! And what do you like about this café?”

Choso considers this. Too long.

Like, way too long.

The camera guy shifts. The boom mic sags. The intern wipes a bead of sweat from his brow.

Finally, Choso nods to himself, having seemingly reached a conclusion of great personal significance. A normal person would say something safe like the coffee or the atmosphere or that it’s not a Denny’s. But Choso is not normal. “The barista.”

The camera zooms in on your horrified expression.

The world stops. The temperature drops. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barks.

The reporter blinks. Once. Twice. Three times, like she’s trying to reboot her system. Her professional instincts desperately try to steer this awkward trainwreck back onto the tracks. “And what about the drinks?”

Choso nods, like this is an acceptable question. “The lattes bring me peace.”

The reporter hesitates. “They… bring you peace?”

“Yes.” Choso stares directly into the camera, like he’s about to issue a public service announcement. His expression is completely unreadable. “I have known suffering. But the lattes are satisfactory.”

There is an audible silence. The kind that only happens when everyone in the room is simultaneously thinking Oh, this man has killed someone before. It’s like everyone suddenly realizes they are part of something far bigger than themselves. Something unknowable. Something profoundly unsettling. Somewhere in the background, Yuji is shaking his head like a man watching a car crash in slow motion.

There is no appropriate response to this, and yet the reporter is contractually obligated to continue this interview. “...Right. And, uh, what do you do?”

Choso doesn't hesitate. “I protect my brother.” he answers with a hint of pride.

“Oh!” The reporter latches onto this like a drowning woman grasping for a life preserver. “That’s… nice?”

Choso tilts his head, as if considering the very concept of “nice.” Then, as if suddenly struck by divine realization, he adds, “I would also protect the barista. If required.”

You nearly choke on your own spit.

The reporter, alarmed, shifts slightly away from him. “...Required from what?”

Choso does not blink. “Threats.”

“What… kind of threats?”

Choso narrows his eyes. “Unclear. But I remain vigilant.”

The weight of that statement sinks into the room. The energy shifts. The café suddenly feels smaller.

Then, with no warning, Choso reaches into his coat.

The reporter flinches. The intern drops his clipboard. The cameraman tenses, like he’s about to record a live crime.

Yuji, who knows exactly where this is going, starts waving his arms in the background like a man desperately trying to stop a rogue missile launch.

Choso pulls out… a single hard-boiled egg.

The collective exhale from the crew is audible.

Solemnly, as if this is the most important action he will ever take, Choso extends the egg to you.

“Eat.”

You stare at the egg, then at him, then at the egg again.

You clear your throat. “I, uh... Thanks, Choso.”

Choso nods once, as if you’ve just agreed to some kind of unspoken contract.

The reporter looks at the camera like she is moments from calling the police.

While the reporter is still trying to process the whole mildly threatening egg presentation situation, Gojo—human calamity, agent of chaos, destroyer of peace—has decided that his one and only mission is to singlehandedly ruin every single camera shot.

The moment the cameraman turns around, Gojo materializes behind the reporter, flashing a double peace sign like he’s about to drop the hottest mixtape of the century. His grin is blinding. His sunglasses somehow catch every possible light source.

The cameraman pivots, adjusting the shot.

Somehow, impossibly, Gojo is already there.

This time, he’s leaning against the counter, holding a latte he definitely did not pay for, sipping obnoxiously with exaggerated flair. He winks at the camera like he’s in an over-the-top commercial for overpriced cologne. If he had a fan blowing his hair back in slow motion, it would be perfect.

“Sir, please move,” the cameraman pratically begs.

Gojo, unfazed, turns his full attention to the lens.

“HELLOOOOO~,” Gojo sings, waving both hands like a game show host who has just revealed a brand-new car. “I’M THE FACE OF THIS ESTABLISHMENT!”

This is objectively false.

Before you can attempt damage control, Gojo launches himself next to you like a man with zero impulse control and a PhD in being a public nuisance. He throws an arm around your shoulders, his sunglasses catching the light dramatically, making it impossible to tell if he’s about to endorse your café or announce the second coming of Christ.

“This barista?” he announces dramatically, pointing at you with a flourish like he’s about to knight you on national television. “The best. The backbone of this place.”

Yuji, in the background, is visibly panicking. “Gojo-sensei, please. No.”

Gojo completely ignores him. Instead, he strikes a different pose, basking in the camera’s attention like it physically sustains him.

“I come here every single day,” he declares with the confidence of a man who lies recreationally.

You narrow your eyes. “You show up, like, once a week at best.”

Gojo ignores you, too.

The reporter, attempting to maintain some semblance of control, nods hesitantly. “Oh! So you’re a regular—”

“You know why?” Gojo interrupts and then pauses, letting the tension build as if he’s delivering the monologue of a lifetime. “The experience. The drama. The coffee that, against all odds, continues to exist despite this machine’s cursed energy.”

He gestures vaguely to the espresso machine.

As if in response, the espresso machine lets out a deep, unsettling groan that seems to reverberate through the walls.

The reporter looks horrified. “Cursed—what?”

“Nothing!” Yuji yelps, visibly panicked, as he attempts to grab Gojo. “He’s joking! Joking! Ha ha ha!”

Gojo, still completely ignoring Yuji, gestures dramatically to the café at large.

“I’m just saying,” he continues, effortlessly resisting Yuji’s efforts, “the vibes? Unmatched.” He motions toward Muffin Guy, who is still staring directly into the camera like an urban legend caught on night vision footage. “Where else do you find a guy like that?”

The cameraman—who is either an artist or a man in the process of losing his grip on reality—zooms in on Muffin Guy.

It is haunting.

Yuji tries to grab him once more. Gojo dodges effortlessly, throwing up finger guns at the camera.

“Hashtag Support Local Businesses!”

You consider whether it's legally permissible to quit mid-shift.

The reporter, who looks like she has aged twenty years in the past five minutes and like she's beginning to suspect that this café is actually some kind of underground social experiment, attempts to regain control.

Before she can salvage any part of this nightmare of an interview, the door opens.

The camera instinctively pans toward the entrance. The crew is expecting another customer, maybe, finally, someone normal.

They are wrong.

Toji walks in, moving with the kind of dangerous ease that suggests he’s about five seconds away from committing a felony or taking a nap—whichever comes first.

Toji, who was very much not expecting cameras, tilts his head slightly, his eyes flicking to the reporter, then the crew, then to you.

You lock eyes with him.

You watch, helpless, as he slowly takes in the situation.

Then, with the kind of ease that only comes from years of very questionable decision-making, he smirks.

“Damn. This place got cameras now? What is this, evidence?”

Behind him, Shiu walks in, immediately lights a cigarette inside the café like a man who has never respected a single law in his life, then realizes—far too late—that there are cameras everywhere. 

Slowly, with the calculated movement of a man processing a series of very poor life choices, he lowers the cigarette, muttering under his breath, “Oh, shit.”

The reporter goes still.

You can see the realization dawn on her face—the slow, sinking horror that she has just stumbled into something she was never supposed to witness. The reporter looks at you, eyes wide with concern.

You meet her gaze, deadpan.

You just nod.

By the time the segment actually airs, it is nothing like the wholesome, feel-good small-business feature it was supposed to be. Instead of showcasing a “quirky but struggling café,” the final product is an absolute trainwreck.

The official headline?

"Muffin Man, Mystery Egg, and Wanted Criminal? Local Café More Concerning Than Quirky."

It gets worse.

The tone of the segment suggests the café is possibly haunted, a front for illegal activity, and a gathering spot for deeply concerning individuals. It does not encourage people to visit. It warns them. Every shot looks like it was pulled from an unreleased horror documentary about places you should not go. The ominous background music—something that belongs in a Dateline special—only adds to the effect. 

The highlights include:

The news crew inexplicably leaving in the full, unbroken 15 seconds of Muffin Guy staring directly into the camera like he’s either a demon or an AI-generated horror experiment. No words. No movement. Just him, staring—waiting—as if challenging the audience to comprehend his existence. The way they edit it makes it look like he’s part of some psychological horror movie, a lost soul trapped between dimensions.

Choso’s interview, which, thanks to the dramatic lighting and his very serious tone, is framed like a true crime documentary. They use dramatic zoom-ins on his expression, emphasizing the fact that he looks way too intense for a man talking about coffee. The way he deadpans “I have known suffering. But the lattes are satisfactory.” is played over eerie background music, making it sound like he's fought in at least three wars, suffered great personal loss, and only finds solace in lattes. The words "Remains Vigilant Against Threats.” slide across the screen in bold letters.

Gojo and Yuji wrestling in the background while Gojo dramatically yells, “They can’t prove I don’t work here!” The footage is grainy, shaky, and the captions just read: [Incoherent yelling] as Yuji desperately tries to prevent Gojo from launching himself directly into the camera.

Toji, smirking at the camera, casually implying he is a wanted fugitive. The producers slow down his words for dramatic effect: “Damn. This place got cameras now? What is this, evidence?” followed by a zoom-in of his grin and the words: "??? Unknown Criminal Activity ???"

The espresso machine, actively rattling and smoking in the background of multiple shots. At one point, the camera catches it letting out a deep, unsettling groan, and they overlay dramatic violin music as the reporter visibly recoils. The segment's b-roll footage of the café includes multiple instances of the espresso machine shaking, glitching out, and occasionally making a noise that sounds vaguely like a demonic whisper. The captions simply read: [UNSETTLING METALLIC GROAN]

Greg the Manager, with the most suspicious phrasing humanly possible, stating, “We’re totallyyy not violating health codes!” The phrasing alone guarantees that everyone now believes the café is absolutely violating health codes. The camera cuts immediately after, giving it the same energy as a villain’s last known sighting before fleeing the country.

There is a random, blurry, and heavily pixelated, freeze-frame of Greg at the end of the segment, edited in black and white, with the words: “DOES THIS MAN KNOW WHAT HE’S DOING?”

The answer is no.

And finally, the closing words from the reporter, who stares deadpan into the camera, fully drained of life and hope, and states with exhausted finality:

“I am never going back there.”

The screen cuts to black.

A single ominous boom sound plays.

Gojo, watching the segment from his phone at full volume in the café, nods to himself, clearly proud of his work. “We did great!”

Yuji is actively attempting to dig a hole and bury himself in it.

Choso, on the other hand, looks genuinely pleased. He gives a slow, approving nod. “I have promoted the barista’s establishment.”

You stare at him. “That was not promotion, that was a federal warning.”

Gojo waves a dismissive hand. “Details, details.”

You don’t have the energy to argue. You’re already preparing for the worst when you walk into work the next morning.

You expect Greg the Manager to be pacing anxiously, waiting for someone from the health department to shut the place down.

You expect fewer customers because, surely, surely, no sane human being would willingly come to a place that was just portrayed as a front for criminal activity, a ghost-infested hellhole, and a potential cult meeting ground all in one.

You do not expect to see a line out the door.

You stop in your tracks, processing the sight of dozens of people wrapped around the block, all eagerly waiting to enter the chaos.

The café is more popular than ever. People aren’t scared. They’re curious.

Inside, Greg—who has learned absolutely nothing—is practically buzzing with excitement.

“Dude, FREE PUBLICITY!” he cheers, spinning in circles like a man who thinks chaos is good for business. "We need to, like, start making merch!"

You stare at him. Then at the never-ending line of morbidly curious customers.

Then at the espresso machine, which lets out a low, menacing growl.

Then at Muffin Guy, who is—as always—unmoving.

Then at Choso, who is standing in his usual spot by the counter, nodding approvingly, like he has manifested this outcome through sheer force of will.

Slowly, you reach into your pocket, pull out your phone, and start updating your resume.

ᨳ♡₊➳ a/n: fun fact: this chapter is based on my real-life nightmare scenario. i have never been a barista, but i have worked in an animal shelter (as a manager, no less—why did they trust me with that? unclear.), and i still have war flashbacks to the absolute menaces that walked through those doors. (there was a time when a man i instantly recognized from a local true crime documentary tried to adopt a dog from us?? he was found innocent because of very questionable reasons so needless to say i was terrified the whole time lmfao)

one day, the higher-ups told me the news was coming to interview us, and i lived in pure fear from that moment on. i spent days spiraling, imagining the absolute worst possible situations. (what if i tripped over a dog? what if i accidentally said something insane on live tv? what if i just. forgot how to speak?) i had actual nightmares about it. thankfully, they never came while i worked there, but the fear? the dread? permanently ingrained in my soul. so naturally, i had to make the barista suffer through it. :)

also!! just a heads-up—i wrote another side story for a choso x reader request set in the minimum wage, maximum suffering universe! not canon to the main fic, just a fun little “what if” scenario, feel free to check it out! as always, thank you so much for reading and your feedback!! reading your reactions makes my day, and i’m so grateful for everyone enjoying this little unhinged fic. hope you all enjoyed the chaos of this chapter!!

₊⊹. tag list: @alpha-mommy69 @luluminati @amortsukii-writes @inthedarkshadows000 @isomehowexist @not-aya @emochosoluvr @lov3vivian @literallyushiwaka @kodditty @arrozyfrijoles23

[deathbxnny]

The death of my love for you. | (Arlecchino x Wife!Fem!Reader)

Other parts of this series can be found in my genshin masterlist under Arlecchino's name!

So, due to formatting issues, I had to make a separate post from the ask, which you can find HERE.

Anyhow, this is a continuation of our favorite genshin series led by my lovely X Anon. I'm sorry it took so long to get to, but I hope that the wait was worth it and that you'll enjoy this guys!

A special thanks again to my X Anon for the ask and their contribution to the blog!!<3

Content: Wife Reader, heavy angst, established romantic relationships, threats of divorce, some violence (one slap)?, toxic behavior, wlw, Sfw

Reader is afab and uses she/her pronouns.

((Not proofread))

The sound of your heels clicking against the fine wooden floors of your home echoed through the halls as you pushed through moonlit darkness towards your wife's grand office. Your body was stiff and rigid, tense shoulders near trembling from the withheld anger you have been internalizing for days now. This wasn't right. You should have never been pushed to feel this way, even if you claimed to be used to it. It's been years of this neverending struggle between two different ideologies you foolishly believed that one day could co-exist together.

But you were wrong. You can admit that now, although with seething, burning difficulty.

Is this what you expected life to be like for yourself? As a young girl, stuck in your own mother's cage, no. You dreamt of adventuring through the lands of Teyvat, accompanied by Peruere and Clervie, far away from everything. Especially the wrath of the motherland and its Archon.

Exhaling a short, 'calming' breath, you politely knocked on the large double doors, doubts beginning to crawl into your mind on whether this was truly worth it... but hearing her voice burned all of it to ash again.

"Come in."

You obliged, head held high with a stoic expression, eyes colder than ever before as they met her own. "Ah... it's you." She says, but you knew that she was expecting you already. "Is something the matter?" On any other day, you could've deluded yourself into thinking that she actually genuinely meant her oh so heartfelt question. But this wasn't possible anymore. It hadn't been for years now and yet denial was much easier to live with than the truth.

"Why... Why are you doing this?" You breathed out finally after a near eternity of unfathomable silence, eyebrows furrowed, lips shaking in anticipation at her answer. The question has been on your mind for a while now. It had many layers, a lot of hidden trauma that was never uncovered or acknowledged before. You were committing a large taboo in your relationship for the first time in your life. You were questioning her authority, her position, her love. You've never done that before.

And what made you do this in the first place? What was the last straw? It ultimately might have been all of the incidents leading up to this moment. But what really did it for you was the misery your children were clearly plunged into. If it weren't the concerned whispers and rumors of the fall of your relationship weren't enough for you, then it must've been the exhausted gaze of your dearest son Lyney, who was clearly struggling to keep everyone together.

And that's why you were here now, standing before the Knave, your once loving and caring wife, for an answer to her behavior.

But unfortunately, she didn't seem too keen on answering a thing, as she simply went back to her paperwork with a dismissive hum. "Whatever do you mean?" "So you'd rather pretend to be a fool than just answering my question, Peruere? You know exactly what I mean. You're willing to throw years and years of progress down the drain and for what? For your ego? To get back at me? No... to get back at Curcabena through me-" You stilled, when she slammed the pen down and gave you a glare that made your blood run cold.

Seems like you've hit a nerve. A very dangerous one at that.

"Enough. I suggest you turn and leave at once." She said with finality in her voice, but you couldn't back down now. If you did... then there was no point in any of this. You were trying to save your relationship despite your rage... but is it too late now? "No, I can not do that. Not anymore. If... If I leave this room without an answer, then I suppose this marriage is over." The silence that followed was deafening, and you could see that even she didn't expect this. Not from you, never from you.

She then stood up. Her domineering figure was as rigid and tense as ever, but you could see the hesitance in her uncertain gaze. But underneath that, you could see that unnamed anger bubble up again. "... How dare you come into my office and threaten me like this? After all I've done for you-" "-You've been unnecessarily cruel to the children lately, Peruere. You've been absent, barely look at me, or speak to me. How do you think that looks in front of anyone in the house? Have you ever stopped to think about us, me? Or has your position as the Knave clouded your judgment so deeply?"

Rounding the table with dangerously slow steps, you found yourself taking a couple back in secret worry. You never believed that she could hurt you... but even that was beginning to become likely in your heartbroken mind. "You are not the woman I married anymore. You are not who I fell in love with. You are not my Peruere-" You were being backed into a corner, you couldn't breathe, everything around you was spinning, and you could barely think under her suffocating glare. She wasn't saying a thing either.

You needed to get away. Get away from her, from everyone. Just away from this cage, she's trapped you in.

Freminet was nervously fiddling with a letter in his hands as he rushed through the halls and avoided bringing attention to himself. He hoped that Father was in a good enough mood to just accept the envelope and let him leave wordlessly. The last thing he wanted was to become the next victim of her wrath. This really applied for all the children here, ever since the tension between you and Arlecchino reached an all time high.

You two were trying to hide it... but it was clearly not working, and the worry over the future of the house was becoming worse with every passing day ever since the failed date you two had. Lyney, Lynette, and Freminet were trying their best to keep everyone in the house together, but it was unclear if their efforts were in vain or not. Until today, that is.

The young man stilled at the sound of your voice, his hand hovering over the doorknob to his father's office. Pressing his lips together in thought, he thought about leaving and coming back another time, when he suddenly heard a smack echo from beyond the door. A gasp left his lips, body automatically pushing the door open in fear that you might have been the one getting hurt. He never thought he'd think of his Father in such a way... but was it really beneath her to hurt you physically too now?

Freminet's heart beat against his ribcage in uncertain bravery when you scurried past him blindly, seemingly not having noticed him. His breathing felt uneven and heavy, as his head slowly turned to look at his father in disbelief, yet the sight make him freeze again.

The Knave stood there with a hand to her reddened cheek, eyes and mouth slightly widened in surprise, whilst her gaze trailed after your disappearing form. Had you... really slapped her?

The thought of it was so surreal that Freminet stumbled out of the office wordlessly, leaving the equally as speechless woman behind to process the end of your love for her.

[artbyblastweave]

One interesting question about zombie fiction is, when do you set it? Sometimes, that choice is made for you; you set it contemporary with when you made it, and the long march of history turns anodyne non-decisions about the set design, costuming, and basic political assumptions about the world into marked indicators of a different zeitgeist. Night of the Living Dead (1968) plays out at least a little differently if everyone has a cell phone, although unfortunately the thing at the end with Ben still basically functions. Any film from 2010 or earlier where people learn about the threat from television news broadcasts instead of the internet have inadvertently chronologically marked themselves. World War Z is actually set during what would have been the Obama admin, and is loosely prescient about some technologies, but is ultimately so thoroughly of the Bush admin that it hurts. The comic version of The Walking Dead started in 2003; and consequentially there's a low-key but very noticeable lack of references to pervasive internet culture (not the case in the TV show- Glenn namedrops Portal!) The comic survived past the cultural moment in which it was created and stretched that moment like taffy. Peter Clines, author of the tightly plotted Ex-Heroes pentalogy, once remarked that one of the biggest pains in the ass as the series moved away from the moment when it started was keeping track of which pop culture references the cast would still be able to make in a world where pop culture ended in 2007 or so. Given that it's a story about people nerdy enough to put on costumes after getting superpowers that's a bigger problem than it sounds.

Some works go backwards on purpose. Sometimes this is to examine the implications of the unintentional alternate histories generated by extant tentpole media in the genre. The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners was set in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which happened on schedule despite the end of the world two years prior. The so-so comic series '68 delves further into the period piece aspect of Night by examining the rise of the dead as experienced by soldiers in Vietnam, among others. Other times it's a period piece from the word go. Into The Dead: Our Darkest Days is set in the 1980s. Project Zomboid is set in the 1990s- most likely to allow for the greatest number of recognizable technologies while maintaining a sense of distance from our current zeitgeist, and avoiding having to factor in the ubiquity of social media into the worldbuilding.

In response to all this I've been toying with the idea of a zombie setting that's aggressively hostile to the idea of being set in a specific year, in the style of Archer- a fever dream of cultural moments that are long past alongside ones that haven't happened yet, technologies that never existed alongside the conspicuous absence of ones that do. A comical, pointed hostility to specifying what year it is. Probably recognizably America, but not our America, no clear point of divergence or logical chain of events that could have generated this version of it. The future can prove you wrong, the present moment becomes the past before you can finish writing about it, and the past raises questions about your clarity of purpose in selecting any given part of the past to write about. But the counterfactual anachronistic pastiche is a different country. They do things differently there. And if you think they wouldn't, good luck calling my bluff.

[fairuzfan]

"And so when one begins to write or speak about Palestine, it is tempting to look at loss and only loss, and to find in this loss a plea for survival. We have suffered a lot, we say to those who will listen, we have suffered enough. Too often our suffering is reported without a culprit, our anguished cries exist outside of history and politics. We have no national aspirations, no land to cultivate. Our existence is purely mechanistic — we are reminded, through policy and procedure, that we are unfortunately born to die. And in our deterministic march to the grave, we encounter each other as unlucky strangers, frail and futureless.

But there is — and always has been — more to our reality. We are, without a doubt, subjects of conquest and colonization, products of circumstance, but we are also so much more than that. At every turn of our bloodied history, we have been brutalized, bereaved, dispossessed, exiled, starved, slaughtered and imprisoned, but we have, to the world’s dismay, refused to submit. For every massacre and invasion, there have been and there are now men and women who pick up their weapons, makeshift and sophisticated — Molotovs, rifles, slingshots, rockets — to fight. There has always been struggle, there has always been jasmine."

[karlachismylife]

I am a little scared to write characters with different backgrounds, like Russian characters in the CoD franchise, because I'm afraid a Russian person will see it and be like, "What the fuck is this" and laugh at it maybe 😭 So I have to ask, do you ever find yourself judging fics based on how they portray the characters and the language? Like "this doesn't fit well" or "that's not how it works" type of stuff.. Are there any deal breakers, something you despise in fics, or maybe even advice for writing Russian characters... Thank you in advance, have a great day! 🩵

Hey comrade! This is a good question! And I can totally relate; not just to writing non-Russian characters, but even writing Russians from CoD is intimidating, because they are much older than me and witnessed a lot of historical and cultural changes in the country (even a whole another country if we think that at least Nikolai was born in USSR) that I haven't, and trust me, times haven't stopped being crazy here for the last 30 years or even more, so for me not having witnessed the 90s or being a baby in 2000s is a reason to be scared shitless writing for them, cuz fuck if I know how a person that lived through those times thinks.

All that to say, I think it's completely normal to feel awkward writing characters with backgrounds you're not familiar with, and also it's not a big deal if you get stuff wrong sometimes. I mean, isn't there like a whole bunch of fics about task force 141 and the "tapping out" ceremony that seems to exist in USA army only? People still enjoy them and no one was hurt by it. It's fiction and art, and first and foremost we want you to enjoy creating it; moreover, you are doing it and sharing it for free, so every decent person will always be grateful and supportive, and if anyone is coming at you aggressively for getting something wrong, you can tell them идите нахуй and block them. Mocking an artist that put effort and love into a piece of art is one of the worst things one can do.

(sorry this turned out longer than I expected so I'm hiding it under the cut). CW!politics and heavy themes, somewhat of a rant. I tried to summarize in the end and give a few tips so if you want to skip the rant, go down.

So me and my Paris (@nrdmssgs) came togther to make a list of stuff that might catch our eye or turn us off from reading a fic. Keep in mind that these are just opinions of two people! And I know for a fact that some Russians will not agree with me on some of these. So again, my main tip is not to overstress; we are genuinely glad when Russian characters get recognition despite all the negativity often surrounding them.

First, I'll just say, there are a lot of things that irk us in the games themselves. This goes not just for weird Russian accents or sometimes broken Russian altogether; I personally am very displeased with how freely (and wrongly, lol) they use the term "gulag" (ГУЛАГ) there. First of all, it is not a synonym to prison/camp, it's the name of the government agency that was in charge of running labor camps in USSR, so calling the camp itself this word is simply incorrect; second, it's a big tragic page in history, so throwing it around willy-nilly as some oooh scary prison place where characters in a pew pew game are put and can escape just feels insensitive to me. Generations of people whose countless families were hurt by this system are very much alive right now and it is a raw wound unfortunately, and the government is very much refusing to acknowledge this tragedy in its fullness. So there's that. There's also way too good-looking Makarov that spent who knows how much time in solitary confinement (we have people actively dying in solitary right now in much shorter time), there's Milena with a single bank account (show me one Russian oligarch that doesn't have their money shoved in 100 different places, uh-huh), there's Yegor Novak who is Ukrainan, but speaks Russian (yes, considering that he was born in USSR, he most likely speaks both languages, but erasing his identity is still problematic). So you see, there's a lot of shit to combat in canon already, and it's worth spending time looking into some of these things. Now to the fics!

I will say, I do notice of course when a Russian character is written by a non-Russian person that doesn't know much about Russian language/culture/mentality/history/whatever. And while I understand that it's hard and won't throw a fic away for not getting every little thing right, there is stuff that catches my attention.

The most obvious would be the language, of course. Russian is grammatically much more complicated than English and number one giveaway are mistakes in grammatical cases/genders. Even my good comrade here who knows Russian very well and surprises me with impeccable use of complicated constructions that show they understand some nuanced connotations/usage of words, even they often make mistakes with genders of words. And I can't blame them, for a native English speaker it is a new concept! But this, and also just the sentence structures, incorrect word choice (again, connotations are key) are always jarring in text. Usually I just skim over it and forget in the next sentence, sometimes it does make me laugh, but like. I'm not gonna make fun of anyone for making a mistake in a language, I appreciate when people make effort. But I do encourage everyone to send their Russian text to someone who can proofread it (me, for example, DMs and askbox always open). And if you really want to do it on your own, maybe don't just rely on google translate and such and try to do it with a dictionary and some base-level grammar lessons so you can make sure the endings of the words are alright, at least. Then we can talk about the difference between "blyat'", "blyad'", "blya", "blyadina" and "blyadstvo" :D

Another thing I do always have a quick upset sigh about is when people call borsht a Russian soup. No it's not, it's Ukranian. We do eat it a lot, yes, and it's not inherently bad or wrong to write a Russian character eating/cooking it, but it is nice when people do not add to the appropriation of Ukranian culture that's been going on since for-fucking-ever. Same goes for unfortunately many other cultures that Russian imperialism tried swallowing, so it's always better to google it and check. And just food in general, maybe spend a little time looking up what's the difference between pel'meny and varyeniky or what's okroshka. It's always an amazing experience when someone gets such details right! And an even better experience when you don't erase other Slavic or even Eastern European identities, brushing everyone under "Russian" rug. We are definitely nor a homogenous crowd! Moreover, not everyone born in Russia (and especially USSR) will be Russian. Looking into different ethnicities and nationalities that live here is just interesting if nothing else, but also very very important after centuries of opression.

I also have some non-serious beef with this magical "Siberia" western comrades love writing about, I touched on the topic here. An amazing impression is when people use less broad geographical names or look at less overused places. Did you know that Natalia "Raptor" Orlova is from Kamchatka? It's such a rich region with a lot to tell about!

What I do definitely dislike and it can turn me off from finishing the read at all, is insensitive writing of the characters themselves in terms of their background. It's complicated since I myself am not patriotic at all and I couldn't tell you for the life of me what it means "to be Russian", but it just. You can feel when a person thinks in stereotypes, you know? Like somewhere I saw something, I won't give a direct quote, but the main idea was that Russian/Slavic men all 100% have a breeding kink, and it was worded in a way that kinda felt like, hm, like a bit dehumanizing? Making them out to be these ooga booga barbaic cavemen? And yes, there is a lot to be said about Russian men, much of it very not good, and there is NOTHING wrong with writing a Russian character with a breeding kink, but it felt not nice to read that sentence, so just maybe after you write your piece do some introspection to make sure you weren't dipping into that kind of portrayal out of prejudice. If that's the effect you went for storytelling/your personal enjoyment cuz you like them ooga booga? I won't say a thing. Also the whole vodka/balalaika/ushanka/whatever bullshit, not entirely untrue, again, especially the vodka one, but if you write Nikto drinking kvas (which is non-alcoholic, okay, but still) or baltika beer instead of vodka, you'll make me happier, because it's like a signal "hey look I know a bit more about your culture that a James Bond movie intro showed me once". And in the next scene I'll forgive you even him riding a battle bear with vodka and balalaika in hand.

Coming back to the "barbarization" of Russian men in fics, it irks me a little when people lean too much into the whole Russian bandit/mafia stuff, and there are two characters that suffer from it, but each a little differently, the most. First is Nikolai, and while yes, he is a crime lord of sorts and he has that goddamn golden chain (which most Russian people or at least women find absolutely horrid and oh we do not come near men sporting those irl), I think people often write him... not intelligent enough? Too gruff and rough? He's an intellectual. Well-read, well-spoken, cultured. Level-headed. Whenever people write him too much like a 90s bandit, my heart breaks a little. But then again, I know Russian people that lean into the same set of stereotypes when writing him (but those same people have a lot of other uhhh xhenophobic tendencies that show when talking about other characters so I wouldn't rely on their views).

And then there's probably the biggest pet peeve of mine. Vladimir Makarov. Now, here is a big big disclaimer: YOU CAN WRITE WHATEVER YOU WANT IN YOUR FICS!!! We are already romantacizing military men that none of us (I hope) would approach irl; and if you want to write Makarov or Nikolai or whoever else in a certain way because that's what hits the spot for you, just do it. You want yandere Makarov or mummy issues Nikto or whatever else your heart desires? Go for it. I will be the first one defending your right to write it with a crowbar in hand, even if I myself would never read such a fic. So this here is entirely MY PERSONAL ISSUE. Deal? Deal.

I see it a lot here on tumblr (mostly in x reader fics) and it actually bothers me a lot, but when people write Makarov as this edgelord dark mafia boss. It just misses the point so much. He's an ultra-nationalist, a head of a PMC. They are not mafia, I would honestly argue that they're much worse. I get that they cast a very attractive man to play reboot Makarov and honestly the og Makarov too; I get that villains are the hot thing to be attracted to (sorry if I sound bitter, this is a separate problem I have with fandom and it doesn't matter rn), but Wagner (PMC that Konni is heavily based on) is a real life horror that is still existing even though there have been like structural changes. And they killed a lot of people and had enough power to threaten to overthrow the government so very recently. Rusich (another nationalist military group) is still active and doing horrible things and proudly reporting them online. Smaller far-right pigs are out in the streets doing horrible things. And a lot of it is (not so) subtly encouraged by the government. A lot of it is actively used by the government to gain more power, kill more people, instill more fear. It's a reality we live in, and to me seeing Makarov portrayed with none of that nationalism in sight and with all the allure of a dark romance novel mafia boss is... honestly, painful. Feels like a slap in the face, to be honest, and while I understand that this is the kind of nuance you can't just realize out of nowhere if it's not something you live around and that it's all fiction, it just is really, really hard to read for me. He is not just a complete crazy Joker-type freak, he's not a cool sexy mafia boss, he's a fucking nazi terrorist that can and will be paid by certain people in power to do their dirty work.

In the same route, but luckily I haven't seen it anywhere besides a certain group of Russian CoD fans (which is even more terrifying considering the political implications), but anyone who writes Barkov as a hero/in a positive light - fuck you. Just fuck you. He has interesting/attractive traits as a character, yes, I'm not saying you can't write about him, looking into him from different perspectives, simping for him if you want; but again, just spend some time reading up on recent history and politics that inspired the whole Urzikstan situation0 - and do it all with nuance. Or with a disclaimer that you don't support genocide at least, lol, cuz I'm telling you, I've seen people that made me scared.

However, once again, if you really want exactly that - ignore MY PERSONAL opinion and write it. I am just a gorilla on tumblr, my opinion is not the centre of the world. But what I do consider not a taste issue, but a deeper issue, is writing REAL PMCs and the likes of those in positive light. If anyone with a "Wagner OC" sees this post, just know, I would probably spit in your face irl. Making made-up Makarov go kiss kiss uwu or whatever irks me personally, but I can close the tab and let the author be; I'm sure many people have same opinion about Graves whom I write much more affectionately than some would prefer. But the real shit? That's a hard line.

A quick addition, back coming back to the "barbarization", just portraying Slavic characters being oh so very mesmerized by the !!!wonders of western civilization!!! is funny. There are definitely moments like this, but not as much as you think. Believe it or not, we actually don't live in bear caves.

This got way too long and dark, so let's finish on a lighter note. Russian characters celebrating some very non-Russian holidays (like Thanksgiving or catholic Christmas, even though the second one is not as bad) is funny, when it doesn't have much explanation (like them celebrating it with someone who actually does). "Suka blyat'" is funny, because it's often used where a simple "blyat'" would suffice.

Summarizing, here are general semi-short tips how to write Russian characters:

get your Russian proofread by someone who actually speaks it or at least don't fully rely on google translate. check your cases and genders!

especially if you use cusswords. it's an amazing characterization tool if you manage to use it right, so putting effort into it is always worth it

don't lean into stereotypes. they are partially true, but we kinda can tell when you do that intentionally and with nuance and when you don't know anything beyond them

be mindful about characters' identities and spend a little more time to make sure you are not writing someone else's stuff as "Russian". for the lack of better analogy, it's like mixing all Latin American identities together and writing them all as uhhh Mexican. we don't want to claim others' culture and others most definitely do not want to be erased again

be careful about the "barbarization" of your Slavic characters. sure, someone like Maxim "Minotaur" Bale won't strike you as the most intellectual individual (love you Max), but be intentional with it and don't just make every Slavic man go ooga booga but in Russian

didn't touch much on Russian/Slavic women, but be careful around the whole "money-hungry" stereotype

read up on political shit surrounding your characters. whether you like it or not, Russian people have been shaped by a lot of recent/current political happennings, so missing out even on general understanding of what your character witnessed/what their political views are can ruin a lot of characterization

Russia is fucking huge and does not consist just of Moscow and abstract "Siberia". the amount of cultures, confessions, nature stuff etc in the country is insane. not all Russians are orthodox Christians, but also - many of them are. and also - church was under fire in USSR so this is a separate layer of cultural shit you might want to consider

read Russian literature if you really want to write Russian characters a lot, it'll help you catch a feel of some very specific things like our yearning. it's a very specific thing that if you get right will give me a reading orgasm

same goes for Russian songs. also just don't underestimate the role of music in Russian life!

try to look up Russian "pop culture" (it feels kinda wrong to call it that, but I dunno how else to call it). if you can make your Russian character make an appropriate reference to a movie or say a Russian saying we actually use, it'll be amazing. but it's like level impossible i think so don't give yourself a headache over this, this is just that extra spice that will have me scrolling through your profle suspecting you're actually secretly Russian yourself

watch Soviet/Russian movies to get a better understanding of the vibe, not just what Hollywood portrays!

looking into architecture can be an interesting way to approach a character. we went through many different unique architectual styles, so if you're describing a character's home, it'll be a very cool move to specify what kind of apartment building they live in, for example

but most importantly remember: it's art you do for yourself first and foremost. don't take any of it as a strict guide you'll be punished for straying away from! we REALLY appreciate you writing for these characters, and you showed you put more thought into it than some of Russian comrades I know <3

and if you have specific questions, never be afraid to ask me or anyone else you know can help.

I hope I didn't scare you even more with this all, lol, I genuinely do appreciate you coming to me for advice, it means a lot when people show interest and effort. If you feel comfortable enough, send me/tag me in your fics, I'll be glad to read them and share with comrades that will enjoy them! From Russia with love ❤️❤️❤️🦍

[girlactionfigure]

"Two distinct patterns of antisemitism can be identified by the Jewish holidays that celebrate triumphs over them: Purim and Hanukkah. 

In the Purim version of antisemitism, exemplified by the Persian genocidal decrees in the biblical Book of Esther, the goal is openly stated and unambiguous: Kill all the Jews.

In the Hanukkah version of antisemitism, whose appearances range from the Spanish Inquisition to the Soviet regime, the goal is still to eliminate Jewish civilization. This goal could theoretically be accomplished simply by destroying Jewish civilization, while leaving the warm, de-Jewed bodies of its former practitioners intact....[The regime] isn’t antisemitic but merely requires that its Jews publically flush thousands of years of Jewish civilization down the toilet in exchange for the worthy prize of not being treated like dirt, or not being murdered."

Dara Horn, "People Love Dead Jews" 

THE ORIGINS OF THE LEFT AND LEFT-WING ANTISEMITISM

The left-right political spectrum is a rather recent phenomenon of history. In fact, prior to the late 18thcentury, there was no particular set of political viewpoints or values associated with either the “left” or the “right.” The terms came into use during the French Revolution (1789-1799); those loyal to the king were considered “right-wing,” whereas the revolutionaries were considered “left-wing.” Needless to say, antisemitism long predates these designations. 

It was in the midst of the French Revolution that France’s Jews, long subjected to statelessness and limited rights, were first emancipated. On the surface, this was a positive development. For the first time in European history, Jews were granted the opportunity to live as equals. Under one condition. 

Jews could no longer exist as a distinctethnic, cultural, and national minority and were to assimilate into French society as French citizens. Napoleon Bonaparte himself believed that in systematically stripping the Jewishness from the Jew, he could turn Jews into “good citizens.” He also claimed to do this in pursuit of a “universal liberty of conscience.” 

This, unfortunately, remains emblematic of much of the antisemitism we still see on the left today. Many left-wing antisemites may not want to physicallyeradicate Jews, but they sure work hard to eradicate the qualities that make us distinctly Jewish, oftentimes under the banner of "human rights" or "equality."

"The Jews should be denied everything as a nation, but granted everything as individuals."

French revolutionary Count Stanislas de Clermont-Tonnerre, 1789

"[It is necessary to] reduce, if not destroy, the tendency of Jewish people to practice a very great number of activities that are harmful to civilization and to public order in society in all the countries of the world. It is necessary to stop the harm by preventing it; to prevent it, it is necessary to change the Jews…Once part of their youth will take its place in our armies, they will cease to have Jewish interests and sentiments; their interests and sentiments will be French."

Napoleon Bonaparte, 1806

THE SOVIET UNION (PRE-WORLD WAR II) 

The far-left Soviet Union was hostile to non-Russian forms of nationalism that might threaten Soviet hegemony or rule. For this reason, shortly after its establishment, the regime began targeting Zionists. 

In 1918, the Soviet Communist Party established a “Jewish branch,” with the consent of Vladimir Lenin. It was named “Yevsektsiya,” meaning “Jewish Sections of the Communist Party.” The mission of the Yevsektsiya was, quite literally, the “destruction of traditional Jewish life, the Zionist movement, and Hebrew culture.”

From the outset, the Yevsektsiya began harassing Zionist Jews. Initially, the Yevsektsiya legally abolished the “kehillas,” the traditional Jewish community organizations. Sometimes, they even burned their offices down. They shut down everything from Jewish political groups to theaters to sports clubs. They raided all Ukrainian “Zionist” offices and arrested every single one of their leaders. They worked to “de-Hebraize” Yiddish by changing the spellings of all Yiddish words that came from Hebrew.

Until their dissolution in 1929, they imprisoned, tortured, and murdered thousands of Jews. According to historian of Soviet history Richard Pipes, “In time, every Jewish cultural and social organization came under assault.”

THE SOVIET UNION (POST-WORLD WAR II) 

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the Soviet Union went through great lengths to deny the specifically antisemitic nature of the Holocaust. For example, they erected a memorial for the Babyn Yar Massacre, in which 34,000 Jews were slaughtered over the course of two days, but never mentioned its Jewish victims, instead labelling it a massacre of “the peaceful Soviet people.” 

The Soviet Union also persecuted members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee who worked to document evidence for the Holocaust. 

As before World War II, the Soviets worked hard to suppress Jewish cultural and spiritual life, stripping many Jewish families of thousands of years’ worth of history. For example, though not officially illegal, Jews were punished for speaking or studying Hebrew or participating in religious traditions. Jews were not allowed to assimilate into Soviet society due to their ethnic background, but they were also criminalized if they tried to hang on to their ancient traditions, ultimately resulting in a catch-22. Oftentimes, Jews were imprisoned under false pretenses, with the Soviet government accusing them of “Zionist crimes.” People with Jewish last names were subject to highly restrictive university quotas or banned from performing certain jobs.

"Hitler wanted to destroy us physically. Stalin wants to do it spiritually."

Peretz Markish, Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, before his 1949 execution

In its Tisha B’Av guide, “Jewish” Voice for Peace encourages participants to pray in Arabic or English, rather than in Hebrew, the language Jews have been praying in for three millennia, because our ancestral language, which predates the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by thousands of years, could be “deeply traumatizing for Palestinians.”

Video here. 

At a Rabbis for Ceasefire event, with prominent left-wing activists and politicians in attendance, including Rashida Tlaib, the rabbi drops her voice to a whisper during the section of Parashat Toldot that reads “to you and your descendants I have given these lands [the Land of Israel].”

Parashat Toldot was likely written sometime between the 10th and 5th centuries BCE.

Video here. 

The parts being skipped are “to you and your descendants I have given these lands [the Land of Israel].”

Parashat Toldot was likely written sometime between the 10th and 5th centuries BCE.

SOME (APPARENTLY NECESSARY) DISCLAIMERS

(1) “Hanukkah antisemitism” did not originate with the left. This is not the point I am arguing. After all, the French Revolution took place some 1,956 years after the Maccabean Revolt. 

Other prominent, earlier examples of “Hanukkah antisemitism” include the Spanish Inquisition and the forced conversions to Islam that periodically happened throughout the Muslim and Arab worlds. 

(2) If there’s anything that was made clear after the celebrations following October 7, it’s that “Purim antisemitism” very much exists on the left as well. 

(3) Yes, of course antisemitism – including “Hanukkah antisemitism” – also exists on the right. Again, I am not arguing that antisemitism only exists on one side of the political spectrum, or that it’s only dangerous on one side of the political spectrum. 

(4) Rather, the point of this post is to illustrate that “Hanukkah antisemitism” has long been rampant in left-wing, so-called progressive, and/or liberal circles. Under the guise of “equality” and “human rights,” antisemites have worked to strip us of our distinctly Jewish identities.That is not to say everyone on the left is an antisemite, either. Obviously.

For a full bibliography of my sources, please head over to my Instagram and  Patreon. 

rootsmetals

Please read the disclaimers before you argue with me in the comments about things I never said 😅