#bogs journal

[bogisgettingfit]

Day 24: Journal

Woke up quite early today, because my friend was coming later in the day to visit. Had protein oatmeal with blueberries for breakfast.

Did 30 min at a 2% incline. I want to go steeper but my left calf kills. That calf is also bigger than the other, and I learned a few years ago that my hips are a bit misaligned. So the difference in size is probably from that, but I don't know why that would cause it to get so sore from walking at even a small incline.

Had an egg sandwich for brunch, and then went to my lecture. Met up with my friend and we had a late lunch, where I had a ham sandwich and coffee.

Had a quite small portion of Panda Express for dinner with my friend's family, as I was still decently full from the late lunch.

I know I went way over my cal budget today, but thats okay.

Staying at her parents house over the weekend so exercise might not happen.

See you later.

[takataapui]

A micro solo(journalling)ttrpg about being a patch of moss in a bog, and dealing with the inevitability marching nature of time, and accepting your future state of peat. Or something like that, anyway.

so, you're a small patch of moss in a big bog... on itch.io now!

[dsmsix]

[youngpettyqueen]

sometimes you need to have life-altering realizations, cry about them, and then move on be fine and figure something else out

[tlaquetzqui]

“Why should America give any aid to Ukraine? We don’t owe them anything.”

The homeland of Walter Duranty doesn’t owe Ukraine anything? The country whose only three-term president nicknamed Stalin “Uncle Joe” doesn’t owe Ukraine anything?

[blujayonthewing]

I WANT!! to be a person who does little dnd doodles immediately after sessions and I WANT to be a person who nature journals regularly and I WANT to be a person who brings watercolors to colorado and actually uses them I WANT to do art casually and freely and joyfully as a reflection and extension of being an active participant in the world!!! FUCK!!!!

[bog-journal]

old blog theme

[dungeonofthedragon]

What a great idea! Here are some from my Itch collection:

Monster Hunter Journal by Mel Duncan is a journalling game about a monster hunter (or monster hunters- you can play it with more than one player too.)

For Truth's Sake is a journalling game system, created by H. Moon. In this one, you write an ethnography of a magical community. Bagel, Lox, Golem Talks is a great pwyw introduction to the system.

HuntRPG by VJHCREATIONS follows a vampire as they first hunt rogue vampires for their Agency, and later become a rogue themselves.

Bog Body, Watching by Riwhi Kenny is about a body that was long ago mummified in a bog, watching the world change around them. It's fascinating and reflective and I highly recommend it.

I've been running a casual solo ttrpg club (pretty much like a book club) lately on my discord.

Anyone have any good recs for lesser known solo ttrpg's? I'm always down to expand my list of options

[chaos-bites]

🪿 Subtle Frigga Worship 🪡

Big thank you to @broomsick for the help on this list!

Make a meal for your loved ones

Make yourself a warm or comforting drink, especially herbal teas

Learn a fabric craft; crocheting, sewing, weaving, embroidery, etc.

Spend time with any children in your life; be kind to children

Have a stuffed animal sheep, goose, goat, or a bog animal

Have imagery of geese, sheep, bogs, the sky, the moon, spinning wheels and spindles, distaffs, or keys around

Keep a picture of her in your wallet

Wear jewelry that reminds you of her

Spend time with your loved ones, especially those you consider family

Practice divination; learn a new method of divination

Take time to calm yourself; spend a full day (or most of a day) relaxing and resting

Engage in activities that calm and soothe you; drawing, meditating, taking a walk in nature, etc.

Clean your space or your home; do some chores around the house

Make your house (or space) feel like a home to you; surround yourself with things that make you feel comfortable and safe

Volunteer in your community for any cause

Donate to or support domestic abuse prevention or child-focused organizations

Donate diapers, baby food, children's toys, and hygiene kits to homeless shelters

Bake bread from scratch; make a meal from scratch

Explore your own spirituality; dive into topics that interest you regarding spirituality

Spend time with any maternal figures or mothers in your life; offer assistance to new mothers if able

Make a meal for a family that isn't your own; give a warm meal to someone in need

Get involved with your local community; join clubs, support groups, volunteer groups, or likewise; ensure you have an established sense of community around you

Lend your kindness and support to others, but always make sure you're showing yourself the same

Decorate your space with fabrics (tapestries, flags, pretty blankets, crocheted animals, etc.)

Dry flowers you find pretty; decorate your space with flowers (do not steal from other people's gardens)

Keep a journal of nice things people have said to you c:

Practice knowing when to speak your mind versus when to hold your tongue

Learn how to stand in your own power; connect with your inner strength, and commend your resilience (this sort of thing takes time, and that's ok)

Send your loved ones a kind message out of the blue; tell them how much you appreciate them or how much they mean to you

Write something that you appreciate, admire, or generally like about yourself daily (or however often feels comfortable)

-

I may add more later on, but for now, this is my list of discreet ways to worship Frigga! Thank you for reading, and take care, everyone. 🩵

Link to my Subtle Worship Master list

[myokk]

It's a clear, beautiful summer's day, the type of day that starts out bright and full of birdsong, that ends looking up at the stars and the moon while crickets chirp and fireflies show soft bursts of light. When the air is warm and full of life and the smell of hot grass and lavender and honey permeates everything.

The whole summer had been like that, really. Running outside with abandon, chasing each other through the tall grass deliriously happy and lying down in the fields surrounding their village, watching the clouds float by while they eat cucumber sandwiches. It's the summer before their first year at Hogwarts; the Sallow twins know that their life's about to change and are determined to enjoy their last summer of childhood.

Maybe they're too old for this sort of thing - they are eleven, after all, but both of them know that this summer is a turning point for them and they want to cherish every moment for as long as possible. Their parents have been encouraging them, often sending them out for the whole day, piling journals and ink and quills and picnic baskets full of food in their hands, encouraging them to research and be curious about the world around them as they had always done.

This day, however, their parents are almost eager to push the twins out of the house. Their mum's smile doesn't quite reach her eyes. Sebastian feels nervous about this, but doesn't realize why until much later, when the memory is analyzed and remembered during his dreams. (definitely not while awake). When they leave the house in the morning, she makes sure to kiss each of them on the cheeks which she normally never does and Sebastian pushes her away in disgust, much to his future horror. In the moment, all he can think is that he might still be holding on to the last moments of his childhood, but he's too old to be kissed by his mum.

(but now, Sebastian doesn't know if his memory is faulty and he is adding moments that never actually existed in the first place. the mind is a tricky place)

He never allows himself to think about these halcyon days, the perfect-until-it-wasn't summer before they went to Hogwarts; this day in particular is forbidden to remember. His unconscious mind rebels against his iron will.

They spend the morning looking for the fairies that Anne had dreamed about the night before. She's convinced that it's a prophetic dream and they march around in circles in the little copse of trees - a forest to the two children, who haven't really ventured out of their village - as Anne tries to remember where she had seen the fairies in her dream.

Sebastian is happy to follow her even if (maybe especially if) he thinks it's a futile adventure - what else are summer days for?

They're in that strange junction between childhood and adolescence; desperate to just grow up already and become the people they were always meant to be, and yet just wanting to spend their days being kids, without a care in the world.

"Come on, Sebastian," Anne calls to him, a tiny stream gurgling between them. In one hand, she's holding the map that she drew as soon as she woke up; in the other, boots stuffed with her stockings.

Sebastian huffs as he trudges behind her, arms full with their bags, his shoes, and the picnic basket. Anne had offered to help him carry things, but he refused on principle. Their dad is always doing small things like this for the women in his life, and Sebastian wants to be just like him.

Anyways, Anne has her own role as the leader today, and it won't do to have her bogged down.

And he's eleven, more than old enough to carry everything.

He steps through the tiny creek, mud and slush squishing through his toes, and he smiles. There isn't anything he loves more than being outside, except maybe being outside with a good book.

"Keep your eyes peeled for a tree with a knobby trunk, with lots of knots that look like faces," Anne tells him, glancing over her shoulder, then turns her face back to her map and scrunches up her face. "In my dream, the fairies lived nearby."

They spend the rest of the morning continuing their fruitless search, laughing as they walk in circles, then set up their picnic in the field next to their house.

"What do you think Hogwarts will be like?" Anne asks, a dreamy look on her face.

Sebastian doesn't look at her when he answers. He lies back and stares at the clouds. They've already had this conversation hundreds of times since their Hogwarts letters arrived, both of them have their parts memorized. "Amazing. I can't wait to actually be able to use our magic instead of just reading about it."

Anne rolls to her side and props herself up on her elbow, getting a better look at her brother's face. With a smirk, she says, "I think I'll like Transfiguration the best. I can't wait to be able to turn you into a -"

A huge noise interrupts her before she can continue. Sebastian sees the confusion in her face before he truly registers that something has happened. It's like everything's moving in slow motion and all he remembers clearly whenever he dreams of this day are his feelings of confusion and disbelief and the smell of fire.

There's a huge explosion and the air is full of smoke and he and Anne are scrambling up, the picnic blanket tangled up around their bare feet and -

Hand in hand they run in the direction of the huge black smoke that is billowing up. It coats the air - they can't see anything and the smell of burning fills their noses and the smoke fills their lungs and they're coughing coughing coughing -

Sebastian doesn't want his sister anywhere near the blackened husk of their former house but he is also terribly afraid to be alone. They stand in the middle of what used to be their house, blackened half-walls, charred wood that used to be their table, the old couch they read on every night, it's all smoldering, all gone, the thick black smoke making his eyes water and choking and smothering everything in its wake. His mind can't comprehend what he's seeing. Everything is so familiar and yet so wrong.

He doesn't know how long he and Anne stand there, clutching each others' hands like they are a tether to reality. Which, he supposes, they are. They might be there thirty seconds, ten minutes, one hour, an eternity...

Then, neighbors are running to the twins, coughing, covering their faces in the crooks of their elbows as they conjure blankets with their wands and wrap Sebastian and Anne up and drag them out of what is - was - their home.

This part is always hazy. Sebastian can't remember if he cries. Or if he even says anything. He just stands there with Anne, the smoke thick and oppressive as it pours out of their house. Everything is crumbling apart.

(A hand gently caresses his scalp, fingers light and reassuring as they dance through his hair)

Their neighbors try their hardest to salvage what they can. The daguerrotype that their mother had cherished more than anything, taken a few years before, miraculously survives. Sebastian stares at it, the tiny figures moving and laughing and smiling as though everything is perfect. He wants to throw it and break it or maybe rip it up to shreds but he can't bring himself to do anything but stare.

Their father's wand is also shoved into Sebastian's hand, unscathed. It was found just outside of his father's curled fingers, lying pristine on the ground as if mocking the destruction that it caused.

At some point, their Uncle Solomon, who they've only really seen once a year growing up, shows up with a loud crack and tears through the rubble, tears carving wet tracks through the soot on his face. His voice goes rough with desperation and when he walks up to the two orphans, he is almost unrecognizable.

As if in slow motion - maybe an after-effect of the curse that has destroyed their lives is that the air has turned into molasses - Sebastian watches his uncle stagger over to them. He looks much older than Sebastian remembers.

Later, when Sebastian looks at his reflection in the mirror of his new home, the boy staring back at him also looks much older than he remembers.

Before It Felt Like A Sin, Chapter 14

[bogisgettingfit]

Day 23: Journal

woke up earlier than usual today, despite having a hard time falling asleep last night. had sushi for lunch and then went to my lecture.

had cottage cheese as a snack and then went to the gym. Did my Thursday push routine and 15 min on the treadmill. Had a ham and cheese sandwich for dinner, and will have a protein shake later.

Got the smart scale to work! the numbers are scary ;~;

See you tomorrow!

[takataapui]

the bog eternal - a very swampy solo-journalling ttrpg by takataapui

A very swampy solo-journalling ttrpg about fighting against oppression with your inherent attributes. Will you win that fight, or will you be just another statistic of bogs that have been drained. Don't read into this. It definitely isn't an allegory for anything. It's just a game about a bog. A bog that is being harmed by forces outside it's control, by oppressive systems, by people doing and perpetuating harm against you and other bogs like you. Listen, stop reading into it. It's just a game about using your inherent traits to fight back against those previously mentioned forces. Aka humans. Humans are the worst. Like I said, nothing beneath the surface here. You'll need a d4, a d6, and something to record your battles. Save the bogs. Donate to and/or volunteer for your local wetland trust. Some options provided.

less than 24 hours later, I'm back with another boggy ttrpg to secure my place as the weird little bog ttrpg boy.

[wormfunkie]

travel concepts for their starters

crystals would probably have to have alot of research tools and journals on her in her travels so the plant baby is a carrier

love drawing feraligator so much i use to loathe it lmao - I feel like silver would have an advantage battling in a bog or swamp

[dailyanarchistposts]

Collision

We are anarchists not by Bakunin or the CNT, but by our grandmothers. —Julieta Paredes

I began thinking about this text in Toronto, where my 93 year old grandmother lives on the seventh floor of a high-rise apartment overlooking Highway 401.[15] Standing at the floor-to-ceiling windows in her kitchen, the horizon is swallowed by twelve lanes of concrete and an endless river of traffic, equal parts terrifying and hypnotic. How many gruesome stories are written into this one landscape? The concrete road tells the story of the colonization of Turtle Island, the commuter traffic tells the story of mass domestication under the rhythms of capitalism, the billowing smog tells a story of the future that’s almost too frightening to believe. Drinking tea quietly, my grandmother is clearly unfazed by this ominous procession — it is the world she now knows and accepts. In a previous chapter of her life she confronted and survived a very different infrastructure of death: as a young adult, the bunkers, factories, and crematorium of Auschwitz defined nearly a year of her life. Her experiences of the Nazi holocaust sit close with me as I look out over this glowing ribbon of death and wrestle with the ideas of nihilism.

To what extent do I remain attached to this society that I despise?

What would it mean to sever those attachments?

If this were Nazi Germany expanding out before me, how would I live my life?

What if I were in my grandmother’s position in 1943?

What does it mean to resist against such a catastrophically extensive and overwhelming system?

This collision of anarcho-nihilism and concentration camp resistance came about primarily as a coincidence of literary indulgences. At the same time as I pored my way through Bæden, a queer-nihilist journal (still one of the best nihilist text I’ve encountered), I also stumbled upon my first memoir of resistance from the Warsaw Ghetto. As so often happens, connections began to jump off the page, and it seemed ideal to pursue these two subjects simultaneously. Since then, I have found that they speak poignantly to one another, and when held together seem to create a stereoscopic depth that has helped me to grapple with the weight of both topics simultaneously.

I’ll admit from the outset that I have low ambitions for this project. My intention is not to comprehensively explain, reinvent, or critique nihilism or anarchism more generally. Rather, I want to feel out these ideas and see how far they can take me. Like the authors of the nihilist journal Attentat, I am interested in finding “tools, not answers, with an emphasis on building.”[16] Similarly, I have no aspirations to shed new light on the Nazi holocaust, or offer any startling new interpretations — despite all of my research, the subject still feels somewhat untouchable: an end to a conversation rather than a beginning. If nothing else, I would like to unearth some stories of resistance that do not often get told, and in doing so, to bring the holocaust into the realm of anarchist thought in a meaningful way so that at least we have something to say about it. I hope to open the doors to other anarchists who have a personal connection to these histories, or who share an interest, so that we might incorporate them into our lives in productive ways.

At heart, this book is about tapping into the instinctual rebelliousness that resides underneath of every organization, affinity group, project, and action that we participate in; that reflexive spirit of resistance rooted in the basic existential understanding that recalcitrance is simply a more meaningful and joyous form of existence than docility. Too often our insurrectionary urges get bogged down in ideological costume, rhetorical mandate, and hobbyist paradigms. We channel our energies into dubious conduits of prefabricated dogma and inevitably burn out or become listless at the very mention of Revolution.[17] Forms of resistance rooted in social obligations and lifestyle choices all too often fade into lives of despondency, alienation, boredom, or material comfort. It speaks to the very nature of our domestication that we only choose resistance so long as it feels like something we can win.

That’s where nihilism enters the picture. I am interested in the sort of resistance we pursue, not because we necessarily believe it will produce desired changes or lead us into a brighter future, but because it is the most meaningful response to this world we can imagine. Because we simply can’t stomach the idea of being passive in the face of a system this brutal, regardless of how far we may be from our dreams. Nihilism urges anarchists to embrace our feelings of cynicism around radical milieus, our feelings of boredom with prescribed methods of resistance, our feelings of hopelessness in the current landscape of domination, and to engage in forms of revolt that cultivate immediate joy and moments of liberation.

And that’s where the Nazi holocaust becomes particularly interesting.

Concentration camp resistance challenges nihilism to consider just how bleak it is willing to get. The resistance of those in the Lagers[18] who were deprived of every vestige of hope, every morsel of inspiration, and every shred of comfort, poses rich questions about how much hopelessness we are willing to wade through for a chance to fight back. It reminds us that resistance is not just about getting results, but about our reflexive reactions to oppressive situations. Whether we succeed in overthrowing our oppressors and bringing about a brighter future can only be secondary to the visceral need to rebel against the shitty conditions of our lives.

Both topics — anarcho-nihilism and concentration camp resistance — challenge anarchists to realize a spirit of resistance that can endure horrific conditions, that can weather the storms of absolute futility, and that can still muster an exuberant desire to rebel.

[phagodyke]

the only annoying thing so far abt my meds is I get sosoosooo tired around 6-7pm when they presumably wear off. and a headache and it makes me think so slowly.... or maybe this is how I "normally" think but it feels so muddy compared to how smooth it is on meds 😔

soooo sleepy and its only 2pm..

[fatehbaz]

[T]hey frequently transgress the spatial boundaries imposed by humans to organize and govern spaces […]. [W]etlands spread out and do not conform to the straight and consistent lines between land and water. […] The smells of wetlands, of decomposing vegetation, of sulphur, were […] off-putting for [British] settlers in Aotearoa […]. Soon after the British-led military invasion of the Waikato region in 1863 and the confiscation of 480 000 ha of Maori lands, [...] [t]he ‘great swamp region of the Waikato’ was described as a picture of ‘desolation’ and ‘stagnant water’ where the ‘ground quaked and quivered beneath’ one's feet, and opened up unexpectedly to suck people down into ‘horrible depths of [the] black, stinking bog’. […] The omnipresent dangers of ‘damp vapour arising’ were deemed ‘highly prejudicial to residents’ health throughout Aotearoa. […] The ‘tepid swamps’, it was reported, poisoned the ‘otherwise pure air’ […].’ The Napier Swamp Nuisance Act enabled local government officials to ‘fill in’ (meaning to drain, establish levees, and build up the soil) any parcel of land deemed a muddy watery odorous ‘nuisance’ without the consent of the landowners. […] [P]oliticians suggested [that Aotearoa] be decontaminated through strategic interventions to remove and remake wetlands […]. Such ideas, which fused medical and socio-economic theories, justified indigenous dispossession and drainage works […].

Text by: Meg Parsons and Karen Fisher. “Historical smellscapes in Aotearoa New Zealand: Intersections between colonial knowledges of smell, race, and wetlands.” Journal of Historical Geography Volume 74, pages 28-43. October 2021.

---

On 24 December 1928 Italy’s fascist regime launched […] a fourteen-year national land reclamation programme aimed at [...] Italy's ‘death inducing’ swamps […]. The Pontine Marshes, a marshland spreading across 75,000 hectares south of Rome was given top priority […]. [T]he fascist regime used an extensive propaganda machinery to promote the programme […] as a heroic quest for producing an 'ideal' [...] landscape [...]. Newsreels documented step by step the struggle […], with Mussolini himself often featuring, overseeing the project, or even working the land. […] Nearly 3,000 newsreels and many documentaries were produced [...]. This was [...] [among] Italy's most important public works project[s] [...], a transformative enterprise that [...] would engage with an "untamed" natural environment and [force] it into a sanitised version of ideal fascist nature. [...] [The marshes] were linked to the idea of wilderness, [...] undisciplined, uncivilised, and unproductive [...]. This policy […] aimed […] [at] removing “unhealthy” [...] areas, through the process of sventramento (disembowelment). […] The construction of New Towns [...] in the Pontine Marshes [...] aimed at producing the 'ideal' settlement [...]. [These newly constructed] municipal buildings often boasted prominent towers [....] reigning supreme over the Marshes [...].

Text by: Federico Caprotti and Maria Kaika. “Producing the ideal fascist landscape: nature, materiality and the cinematic representation of land reclamation in the Pontine Marshes.” Social & Cultural Geography Volume 9. 2008.

---

[I]n Recife in the Northeast of Brazil [...] the transformation of the city was predicated on [...] [a] notion of whiteness that required the enclosure of wet, amphibious space to make dry land. [...] Racialised groups – of black, indigenous, and mixed heritages – and the houses, marshlands, and mangroves where they lived, were subject to eradication [...]. [F]rom the 1920s to 1950s, during the rise to hegemony in Brazil of [a form of eugenicist, modernist nationalism,] [...] [the] idea's heartland [was] the Northeast. [...] Recife is also a centre of Brazilian black culture [...]. One of the key sites in Brazil's slave and sugar trades [...], the city was [...] [a] hub. Many of these people lived in what came to be called mocambos, a word that designated an informal dwelling, but came to mean much more. [...]. Mocambos were seen as [...] the place where exploited labour was kept out of sight. [...] They were also [...] the inheritance [...] of the quilombo - the community of escaped slaves. [...] In July 1939, the proto-fascist administration [...] of Agamenon Magalhães, put in place by Getúlio Vargas' repressive Estado Novo, launched the Liga Social Contra o Mocambo (Social League Against the Mocambo, LSCM). The League emerged out of a tellingly named “Crusade” against the mocambos. [...] Mocambos were characterised as repellent, unhygienic, and dangerous: “the mocambo which repels. The mocambo which is the tomb of a race … a sombre landscape of human misery … which mutilates human energy and annuls work" [...]. These were the decades of the embranquecimento of the Brazilian population through public policies of immigration, miscegenation, and sterilisation [...]. This white supremacist ideology was inseparably a politics of nature. Magalhães wrote [in 1939]: The idle life, the life that the income of the mocambos provides [...]. It is a life of stagnant water. … [that] generates in its breast the venom of larvae, which are the enemies of life. Enemies of life, as are the mocambos and the sub-soil of cities, where the polluted waters contaminate pure waters [...]. Attempts to “cleanse” the city functioned through a distinct process: aterramento, the making of land. [...] Or as 1990s mangue beat [mangrove beat] musicians [...] put it, “the fastest way also to obstruct and evacuate the soul of a city like Recife is to kill its rivers and fill up its estuaries” [...].

Text by: Archie Davies. "The racial division of nature: Making land in Recife". Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers Volume 46, Issue 2, pp. 270-283. First published 29 November 2020.