#poison apple zine

[artworkofolivia]

Can finally share these two pieces from Poison Apple Zine! Some nasty nasty pixies enjoying a rotten pomegranate and a normal man offering flowers at no mortal cost!

(It's shipping soon and I'm very excited to get my grubby little mittens on a copy.)

[tzviaariella]

She comes in the clothes of your mother, her arms full of welcome, her smile full of teeth. My child, she calls you, my sweet one, my darling, but the words are smoke, stinking as they waft from the cheerful crematorium of her mouth.

Welcome her, dear child, your father tells you. This is my wife.

My wife, he says and not your mother. Your mother is dead. This woman is a stranger. But you are a good girl, everyone says so, and you desperately want to be loved. You unbar the door of your home, and as she enters, you gift her your smile.

Welcome home, you say.

The first day, she feeds you milk and sweet honey cake, stroking your hair as you sit to eat it. Such beautiful hair you have, everyone says so, thick and long like your mother's. Her fingers tangle in it, pulling. What a beauty you are, she says, smiling, and only you hear the gluttonous hunger in her praise. She is a wolf in the clothes of your mother, and her claws are caught in your hair. Such a beautiful child.

The second day, she feeds you bread. Slower, child, she chides you, laughing. Eat slower, or you'll choke. The idea seems to amuse her, this unmother, with her hungry eyes and her dead woman's clothes. You wonder what she sees when she looks at you. You know that you don't want to know.

The third day, she feeds you crumbs.

Perhaps she is a witch. Perhaps she is not. Either way, she is hungry. She devours every scrap of love in your house, licking the juice from her fingers and looking to you for more. She will eat you too, you realize, in spirit if not in fact. You have too much of your mother’s appearance, too much of your father’s love, too much that isn’t hers. She strips it from you with cold words and harsh labor, cracking open the bones of your joy to make her soup. Then she shares the soup with your father, and he, too, eats.

What's wrong? your father asks you. Ungrateful child, see how hard she works for you, how happy she makes me. Why are you so difficult? Don't you want your father to be happy? And he is, he is happy, that's the worst of it. You were not enough for him, but she is. He kisses her cheek, and she beams at him, her hands sharpening a knife—for the vegetables, child, for the meat, nothing more—

No one believes you.

You were dear once, but now you are a burden. You were a beauty, but now you wear rags. She gives you impossible tasks, and you complete them. You give her your obedience, then your silence, then your fear. Whatever you give her, it isn't enough. Lazy girl, sullen, ungrateful, underfoot –with these words, she makes you the stranger, until even your father sees you with poisoned eyes. When at last she sends you into the woods, he makes no protest. Neither do you. You are a good girl, everyone once said so, and perhaps the beasts won't kill you. Perhaps if you achieve this, she will love.

She won't, of course. Even there, her hunger pursues you: a huntsman's knife, a poisoned pool, the slow slaughter of a mazelike path. If she is a witch, her power transforms you. If she is not, you are equally lost. The brambles snatch at your ragged clothing, and the cold bites at your tender skin. She doesn't want you to return, you realize, not to her cottage, her palace, her inn. She has burned your home to cook a feast on the embers, and when she serves it to your father, she will fill no plate for you.

You lose your way first, and your hope after. Sometimes, you lose your life. But you do not lose your beauty, and that is what saves you. A man comes, a prince, with a hunger of his own—a gentler hunger, that tastes but does not consume. You startle at his kiss, distrustful, and he looks at you with pity in his eyes.

Come with me, dear one, your savior tells you. Be my wife.

You are a good girl, not a strong one, but there is power in being my wife. She herself has taught you that. You embrace your savior and thank him, weeping like the child you should still be. Then you take his hand and his offer, and together, you leave the beasts behind.

Perhaps she is punished. Perhaps she is not. Either way, she never leaves you. Her shadow is a cloak upon your back, a drape above your children’s cradles. As she gave you nothing, you give them too much. As she drove you out, you do not let them leave. Your teeth are not for tearing, but neither were your mother’s, and a wolf came for you all the same. You burn yourself beside their beds like a candle, but her shadow only grows. In every illness, every mishap, you feel claws in your hair, someone waiting to take what is yours. 

What's wrong? your husband asks you. Silly woman, see how hard I work for you, how happy you make me. Why are you so difficult? Don't you want to be happy? And you do, you do want it, more than anything. You build a new family. You count your blessings. Like Orpheus, you try not to look back.

But in your dreams, a woman comes hungry—her arms full of welcome, her smile full of teeth:

My child, my sweet one, my darling.

Welcome home.

[fleebites]

LAST CHANCE!

poison apple is in its aftersale! it’s an absolutely GORGEOUS collection of monsters, myths and more by so many talented artists and writers! i highly recommend grabbing it before it’s gone!

btw, here’s the each uisge piece i contributed :)

🕯️AFTERSALE🕯️

🍏 Don't wait to take a bite. The Poison Apple shop is available for the last time!

🍏 The shop will be open for 3 more weeks. Closing March 22nd at 11:59 pm pst!

✦ https://poisonapplezine.bigcartel.com ✦

Supplies are limited! So get to the shop first to claim your copy of the project. Includes stunning artwork and writing by~ @tzviaariella | @kuropin | @crayolahell | @artwins | @aemiron-main | @beidak-art | @jabberwick | @iidarts | @baicaozhe | @zephyrbug | @jagalart | @andythelemon | @fleebites | @lgions2 | @crowingoverthis | @desansen | @eshpur | @kutty-sark | @kromanjoma | @elvrenor | @swampthingnepook | @sirswamp | @wyrdle | @mogielnik | @glizdojerz | @bigskycastle | @auroradiation

[alicenpai]

princess tutu: die jahreszeiten 🌸

kind of a companion piece to my 2022 ptutu drawing | it's on inprnt

this print was at anime north; next con is otakuthon!

oops so my hand slipped and i made another princess tutu drawing. i admittedly don't watch that much anime so my catalogue of work is gonna be the same 5 animes LMAO. what can i say, i love "dark" fairy tales, and i've been really enjoying the more fine art approach to a lot of my drawings as of late (and the watercolour brush i've been using has been so perfect for that...!)

as my first princess tutu drawing is now 2 years old, there are some areas i've grown to have ... qualms with... although both drawings as a whole are pretty much exactly what i envisioned, and that's always satisfying!

both of these were drawn in roughly a week's time (yes really...) for con crunch period (and i went back to this drawing after the con to touch up some areas that were a bit rough!). i wanted a different approach to this new pt drawing, with the focus on the line work, rather than on colours and lighting in the 2022 drawing.

this drawing had 2 goals: to continue the style i adopted in my witch hat atelier "lantern bearers" drawing (which i promise i'll post in full soon as soon as all of the zine artists get their go-ahead to post their pieces!), and to emulate the art nouveau movement's heavy emphasis on line work, albeit not a 1:1 style replication of course.

the seasons also aren't a 1:1 representation, as i didn't necessarily pick flowers or colours that are most strongly associated with the season (e.g. summer being a dark tone is a bold choice?). but it's kinda whatever, as i said before i drew this in a week, there may be more appropriate flowers with better meanings. i couldn't spend too too much time drafting and researching.

FLOWER SYMBOLISM:

- spring: apple blossoms, tulips - the apple blossom is a quintessential spring flower, and thus symbolize the arrival of spring. spring is a season of change, which ahiru/princess tutu is a force of, instigating change in her friends and unravelling the story around her. the flowers below her are tulips, and there are many meanings to tulips depending on the colour, due to their ubiquitous nature. i narrowed on one, and intended for them to symbolize happiness. princess tutu's pose is one in which that is open, inviting, and warm - reflecting her nurturing nature in the series, and her willingness to help others achieve happiness.

- summer: deadly nightshade flower, yellow rose - i chose for rue/princess kraehe to symbolize a fiery summer's night instead of the typical dazzling heat of a summer's day, a rather bold and unusual choice. the warmth of sunshine didn't quite fit, as the character is quite dramatic and passionate, with her intentions often hidden in shadow. next, the deadly nightshade - atropa belladonna - has a lot of mythological associations, a lot to do with poisoning, as the flower is toxic. the flowers bloom at night (another reason why i picked a nighttime backdrop for "summer") and also outwardly match rue's dark design scheme, as the cherry on top. yellow roses, at the bottom of her frame, are the archetypal flower depicting jealousy (as with many yellow flowers are), and at one point in the story, rue only wished for her own happiness at the misfortune of others.

- autumn: douglas fir needles, orange calla lily - autumn is another season of change - although much more tumultuous, as this season is traditionally taken to prepare for a long winter ahead - fitting for fakir as the role of the storyteller. the douglas fir is not a flower of course, but is a tree - with many different parts of this tree offering many benefits in advance of the winter season. i wanted the versatile nature of the douglas fir to reflect on fakir's dependable personality. next up, the calla lily is a flower with a dual meaning - on one hand you have life, on the other you have death. a storyteller quite literally can grant both at the tip of their fingers.

- winter: birch tree, snowdrop - winter is a rather still and unchanging season, a lull in the passage of time. this symbolizes mytho's passive nature at the start of the series, especially with his doleful pose here, as if almost in hibernation. to contrast, mytho is perched on the branches of a birch tree, which means new beginnings and renewal - as mytho is one of the characters that undergo the most change throughout the series (i'd argue the most?), regaining pieces of his heart. under mytho's frame is the snowdrop flower - and if you've read my witch hat atelier: seasons piece symbolisms, one of the snowdrop's meanings is rebirth, with connotations to the bible, bringing hope, when all had forsaken eve. the snowdrop is one of the first flowers to bloom even when the snow has not yet fully melted, further echoing mytho as an analogy for rebirth.

[feminetomboy]

Schlatt's heart pounded, and pounded, and pounded, and all the poison from all the apples rushed through his veins. Staring all of them in the eye, he refused to let any of them get the closure of killing them - for once in his life, he would do this himself. Schlatt died from the poison coursing through his heart, spitting a new kind of poison from his lips.   His dying words were a curse upon the land. "When I die, this country goes down with me."

This is a piece I made for Schlatt's entry in @dreamoirezine and it is based on @boonbeenblade's writing. If you haven't yet, I fully encourage you to check out not only their writing, but the whole zine, available to download for free here.

[hauntedmystic]

@darkouter

Normally the beginning of a new school year was the greatest time possible for Regulus. New classes, new books, new school supplies; what could be better? But the past week had been devoid of its usual whimsy. It felt as though the world had lost its colour and too many eyes were on him.

Regulus had never been the most sociable... He was quiet-- observant with an intense demeanor rather than very friendly toward anyone who wasn't Barty--but now it was much worse.

His family was embarrassing. More specifically, Sirius was embarrassing, and when Regulus was under a lot of stress he had a tendency to isolate himself. He wasn't proud of the compulsion; he knew he needed to make time for Barty. He didn't want him to be too worried about him--and Regulus did quite miss him.

Barty already knew all about the family drama that had unfolded over the summer. No, to unfold was too neat a word. Nothing in the Black family simply unfolded. It burned and simmered in poison until the pressure wrought catastrophe.

Sirius had not given any thought to how the disaster would impact Regulus. He already loathed the great hall due to the noise and crowd, but now Regulus entirely avoided it out of fear of how he would feel or behave if he were to lay eyes on Sirius. He despised anyone who would speak to his mother the way Sirius had; Regulus was a momma’s boy 1000%.

At his lunch time he sat alone in his dormitory eating his carrots and corned beef sandwich on pumpernickel bread with mustard and apple slices. Fortunately being in the good graces of the house elves provided him the privilege of being brought whatever he wanted. He just hoped Slughorn didn't catch on that he was always eating alone lately. Regulus did not know why this would be considered a crime, but busybody Professor Slughorn had a way of finding his way into his business.

Slugclub dinners were generally better on his nerves than suffering through eating in the great hall, but Regulus deeply dreaded the dinner he was expected to make an appearance at tonight. He didn't want to be asked about his family drama. He really really didn't. He really didn't want to suddenly be much more interesting to every girl in school for his increase in perceived wealth as heir.

He wanted to work on his zine ideas. No, he wanted to want to work on his zine ideas, but he couldn't even do that when he felt exhausted for no reason. He was too preoccupied with his melancholia. Would Slughorn believe him if he said he was too sick to go to dinner? He'd never given a teacher a reason not to trust him.

Perhaps technically he was sick. He'd been able to function fine enough with his anxiety before though. Either way, if he would just act really tired in Potions after his lunch break, he could convince Slughorn he wasn't up to participating in anything extra today.

The downside of skipping dinner was he would miss a chance to have some time with Barty. As he considered this facet of the situation, he felt guilty for isolating himself this too-long week. But somehow he had survived to Friday.

The weekend wasn't much of a consolation. Typically he exercised his special privilege of going home over weekends, but now he didn't want to be there. Or here. Or anywhere. Everything was Too Much.

He couldn't get through this alone.

After he finished his lunch and dried his tears he moved his antique ouija board for his Independent Study: Advanced Divination and his Potions textbook off his bedside table to find his notebook synchronized with one of Barty's. He reorganized his things, grabbed a purple glitter gel pen, and opened to a new page to write:

I will not be at dinner tonight.

For a moment he stared at this while he contemplated if it made him a bad friend to want Barty to miss out on the Slugclub too. Well, it wasn't like there would be no other dinner parties, and it wasn't as though he was not giving Barty a choice. So ultimately he added:

I miss you. I would like to plan a picnic if you might join me at the lake this evening.

Now that he thought about it, he realised he had never actually had a proper picnic. There was no one he would rather organise one for than Barty; the idea brought him more joy than he had felt in a long while, just when he was sure he would never feel anything pleasant again.

[beidak-art]

I participate in @poisonapplezine which launched a kickstarter a while ago 🍏 The campaign ends on August 29, so hurry up to take a bite! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/comicsmanifest/poison-apple-villains-and-creatures-of-fables-and-legends

[yagami-raito-kun]

🍏ONCE UPON A TIME...🍏

Preorders for @poisonapplezine, an anthology of villains and creatures from fable, folklore, and myth, are now open until August 29!

Feast your eyes upon these previews of some of my pieces for the project, and please check out the project Kickstarter at the link below. All orders in the first 24 hours will get an early bird discount, so don’t linger too long at the ball before you decide...

🍏 🍎 PREORDER LINK 🍎 🍏

[zephyrbug]

Recently I got to make a few pieces for the @poisonapplezine​ !! It is a project full of original works inspired by the villains & creatures of fables & legends from around the world, and along with a page illustration for the book itself I got to illustrate a few cards for the tarot deck so here’s some cropped previews of them!  💚🍎✨

If your interested the Kickstarter link is:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/comicsmanifest/poison-apple-villains-and-creatures-of-fables-and-legends 

[poisonappleprintshop]

Artwork by Adrienne Rozzi for Fiddler’s Green Zine and Three Hands Press

 Photo © Poison Apple Printshop

[swampthingnepook]

Strength Tarot card for "Poison Apple" zine~

[artworkofolivia]

Norns at the Crossroads of Fate 

(what tapestry of time will their needles spell?) 

 print for @poisonapplezine!

[kromanjoma]

Prewiev of a piece I did for poisonapplezine

This is 'snake woman' from Stribor's forest✨

The kickstarter for the zine is open for 20 more days so go chek it out✨

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/comicsmanifest/poison-apple-villains-and-creatures-of-fables-and-legends

[obeymecookbook]

Contributor of the Day: Dustail!

@dustails​ made several art pieces and two recipes for the zine! These include art for the Princess's Poison Apples and Hellfire Mushroom filled Soup recipes, and both recipes and art for Babylon Curry and Hellfire Mushroom Rolled Cigar Cookies!

You can also find Dustail on Twitter @/dustails!

See these pieces and make these recipes and more in the complete zine! Links are in our pinned post!

[barefootdancinghospital]

“The world might be ending.

* * *

There’s a commonly replicated piece of anarchist folk art that means a lot to me. I don’t know who drew it. It’s a drawing of a tree with a circle-A superimposed. The text of it reads “even if the world was to end tomorrow I would still plant a tree today.”

I grew up into anarchy around this piece of art. It was silkscreened as patches and posters and visible on the backs of hoodies and the walls of collective houses. It was graffitied through stencils and it was photocopied in the back of zines. It’s a paraphrasing of a quote misattributed to Martin Luther (the original protestant Martin Luther, not Martin Luther King, Jr., although plenty of people misattribute the quote to him as well). The original quote is something like “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” The earliest reference to it anyone can seem to find is from the German Confessing Church, a Christian movement within Nazi Germany that sought to challenge Nazi power. The quote was used to inspire hope, to inspire people to action.

That’s something I can get behind.

* * *

There’s this book that means a lot to me, On the Beach, by Nevil Shute. I’ve never read it. I can’t bring myself to. I think about it quite often, regardless.

The novel describes a nuclear war destined to kill all life on earth, and it describes the last days of people living in Australia waiting for the inevitable death of all things. It describes how they live their lives, how they find meaning during the apocalypse. It’s a book about how to live without hope. It’s a book of resignation.

It’s too much for me, I think, at least right now.

* * *

The world might be ending.

A lot of people will argue with me about that. They will correctly point out that for large numbers of people all over the world, especially in the parts of the world long ravaged by Western imperialism, the world has been ending for a long time. They will correctly point out that the world itself isn’t going anywhere, that change is constant, and even if what is left behind by climate catastrophe and war is a scorched desert, it’s probable that life will continue. Human life, non-human animal life, and plant life will all, in some form or another, survive all of this.

People will argue, correctly once more, that most every generation has believed that the world was ending. The machine gun slaughter of World War I, the genocide of World War II, the Doomsday Clock of the Cold War, the AIDS epidemic, those all must have felt like the apocalypse. For entire peoples, they were. Yet here some of us are today, alive.

None of those arguments detract from the fact that it sure feels like the world is ending.

Mountains are blown up for coal to pump poison into the air, pipelines clearcut the last vestiges of the wild to help us pump more poison into the air. Oceans are swallowing islands, hundred-year storms happen every year, and it feels like every day we break new climate records.  A sense of urgency about coming disaster is fueling a rise of “I got mine, fuck you” nationalism, and climate scientists are being ignored to an unconscionable degree.

The world is ending.

It’s always ending, but it’s ending a lot right now. For me and the people I’m close to, it’s ending more dramatically than it was when I was born thirty-seven years ago.

That’s fucking paralyzing.

The news is full of extinction and fascism and death and death and death.

And we’re expected to get up in the morning and go to work.

* * *

For awhile, I coped by means of a cycle of denial and panic. The potential apocalypse was, basically, too-much-problem. I couldn’t wrap my head around it or its ramifications, so I acted like it wasn’t happening. Until, of course, some horrible event or reminder of the apocalypse broke over a certain threshold and sent me spiraling into despair. Then numbness took over once more and the cycle began again.

That didn’t do me much good.

About a year ago, I decided to embrace  four different, often contradictory, priorities for my life. I run my decisions past all of them and try to keep them in balance.

Act like we’re about to die. Act like we might not die right away. Act like we might have a chance to stop this. Act like everything will be okay.

Act like we’re about to die

Every breath we take is the last breath we take. You Only Live Once. Smoke em if you got em. Do As Thou Wilt. Memento Mori. Our culture is full of euphemisms and clever sayings that focus around one simple idea: we’re mortal, so we might as well try to make the most of the time we have.

Embracing hedonism has a lot to recommend it these days. It’s completely possible that the majority of us won’t be alive ten or twenty years from now. It’s completely possible, although a lot less likely, that a lot of us won’t be alive in a year.

I used to think, when I was younger, that I was a terrible hedonist. As a survivor of sexual and psychological assault and abuse, I’ve never had much luck with drug use or casual sex. But fucking and getting wasted, while perfectly worthwhile pastimes, aren’t the only ways to live in the moment. Hedonism is about the pursuit of pleasure and joy. The trick is to find out what gives you pleasure and joy.

For myself, this has meant giving myself permission to pursue music, to sing even though I’m not trained, to play piano and harp. To travel, to wander. To seek beautiful moments and accept that they might be fleeting. I’ll rudely paraphrase the host of the rather wholesome podcast Ologies, Alie Ward, and say “we might die so cut your bangs and tell your crush you like them.”

My hedonism is a cautious one. I’m not looking to take up smoking or other addictions. I’m not trying to live like there’s a guarantee of no tomorrow, just a solid chance of no tomorrow. Frankly, this would be true regardless of the current crisis, but it feels especially important to me just now.

Act like we might not die right away

Preppers have a bad reputation for a good reason. The people stockpiling ammunition and food in doomsday bunkers by-and-large don’t have anyone else’s best interests at heart. Still, being prepared for a slow apocalypse, or dramatic interruptions in the status quo, makes more and more sense to more and more of us.

Preparing for the apocalypse is going to look different to every person and every community. For some people it will mean stockpiling necessities. For other people, securing the means to grow food.

One thing I’ve learned from my friends who study community resilience and disaster relief, however, is that the most important resource to shore up on isn’t a tangible one. It’s not bullets, it’s not rice, it’s not even land or water. It’s connections with other people. The most effective means of survival in crisis is to create community disaster plans. To practice mutual aid. To build networks of resilience.

Every apocalypse movie has it all backwards when the plucky gang of survivors holes up in a cabin and fends off the ravaging chaotic hordes. The movies have it backwards because the ravaging hordes are, in the roughest possible sense, the ones doing survival right. They’re doing it collectively. Obviously, I’m not advocating we wear the skulls of our enemies and cower at the feet of warlords (though wearing the skulls of would-be warlords has its appeal). I’m advocating staying open to opportunity and building collective power.

There are infinite reasons not to count on holing up in a cabin with your six friends as an apocalypse plan, but I’ll give you two of them. First, because living a worthwhile and long life as a human animal requires connections with a diverse collection of people with diverse collections of skills, ideas, and backgrounds. It’s all fun and games in your cabin until your appendix bursts and none of you are surgeons—or you’re the only surgeon. Likewise, small groups of people who tend to agree with one another are subject to the dangers of groupthink and the echo chamber effect, which will limit your ability to intelligently meet challenges that face you.

Second, because by removing yourself from society, you’re removing your ability to shape the changes that society will go through during crisis. If you go hide in the woods with your stockpile and your buddies, and fascists take over, guess what? It’s kind of your fucking fault. Because you weren’t at the meeting when everyone decided whether to be egalitarians or fascists. And guess what? Now that rampaging horde is at your doorstep, and they want your ammo and your antibiotics, and they’re going to get it one way or the other. Fascism is always best stamped out when it starts. It’s never safe to ignore it. Not now, not during any Mad Max future.

Tangible resources do matter, of course. Any likely scenario that prepping is good for won’t be so dramatic as an utter restructuring or collapse of society. It might mean food shortages, power outages, water contamination. It never hurts to keep nonperishable food, backup sources of power, and water filtration systems around for yourself and your neighbors.

Still, this is a terrible basket to put all your eggs into. You probably shouldn’t live out your days, whether they’re your last ones or not, over-preparing for something that may or may not come to pass.

Act like we might have a chance to stop this

We can and we should stop the worst excesses of climate catastrophe. We can and should stop fascism by whatever means necessary. Throwing up our hands and walking away from the problem is no solution.

It’s hard to remember that we have agency. Unless we were raised ultra-rich, we’ve had the concept of political and economic agency stripped from us at every turn. We’ve been told there are two ways to effect change: vote for politicians or vote with our dollars. Politicians in western democracies are likely incapable of changing things as dramatically as they need to be changed, and they certainly won’t bother trying unless we motivate them to do so in fairly dramatic ways. As for economic agency, there is a small handful of men with more wealth—and therefore power—than the rest of us combined.

We’ve been told we cannot take matters into our own hands, politically or economically. We’re not allowed to have a revolution. We’re not allowed to redistribute the wealth of the elite.

You’ll be shocked to know that I don’t put a lot of stock in what we are and aren’t allowed to do.

Still, even if we give ourselves permission to undertake it, revolution feels like an insurmountable challenge. We’ve got, optimistically, ten years to completely overhaul the economic system of the planet. It can be done. It has to be done. Yet it feels like it won’t be done.

We’re all running the cost/benefit analysis of acting directly. We all have different “fuck it” points—the point beyond which we can no longer prioritize our immediate wellbeing but instead must act regardless of the outcome. In the meantime, we’re waiting until it seems like we can act and actually have a chance of winning.

All over the world, even in some Western countries, people are no longer waiting. They’re  acting. We need to be helping them, supporting them with words and actions, while we get ready to act here as well.

The revolution needs mediators and facilitators, medics and brawlers. It needs hackers and propagandists and it needs financiers and smugglers and thieves. It needs scouts and coordinators and it needs musicians and it needs people invested in the system to turn traitor. It needs lawyers and scientists and bookkeepers and copyeditors and cooks and it needs almost everyone, almost every skill.

One thing it doesn’t need, though, is managers. The people who claim to know how to run a revolution don’t know how to run a revolution or they would have done it by now. The authoritarian urge, to decide what the revolution should and shouldn’t look like, how people should and shouldn’t express their rage and reclaim their agency, will fail us every time. Authoritarian communism is the death of any revolution. Authoritarian liberalism is the death of any revolution. Even the more dogmatic anarchists will get in the way if given a chance. The revolution cannot be branded. Despite Hollywood representations of rebellions, they don’t work as well under a single banner. They are diverse, or they are not revolutions.

The revolution cannot be controlled by a vanguard of activists; if it is, it will fail. The revolution must be controlled by its participants, because only then will we learn how to claim agency over our own lives and futures.

We have a chance to stop this.

I forget that sometimes, but I shouldn’t.

Still, I can’t count on hope alone, or the days when hope fails me would lay me low.

Act like everything will be okay

All the times the world has come close to ending before, it hasn’t. It’s ended for some people, some cultures. Civilizations have collapsed. Ecosystems have radically shifted. Species have gone extinct—including the species of humans before homo sapiens. Colonization was an apocalypse. Some people survived those apocalypses, but plenty more didn’t.

Still, the world is still here and we’re still here.

Capitalism is a sturdy beast, quite adept at adaptation. Marx was wrong about a lot of things, and one of those things was the inevitability of the collapse of capitalism under the weight of its own contradictions. With or without capitalism, the society we live in might stagger on. We might curb the worst excesses of climate catastrophe through economic change or wild feats of geoengineering.

I won’t bet on it, but I won’t bet entirely against it either.

As much as I need to live like I might die tomorrow, I need to live like I might see a hundred years on this odd green and blue planet. Unless things change, I’m not burning every bridge. I’m trying to maintain a career. If I was certain to die under a fascist regime by 2021, there wouldn’t be much point in writing novels: they take too long to write, publish, and reach their audience. I get some joy from the writing itself, sure, but I get more joy from putting my art in front of people, of letting it influence the cultural landscape. With novel writing in particular, that takes time. That takes there being a future. I want there to be a future. Almost desperately. Not enough to bank on it completely.

I’m keeping some small portion of my time and resources invested in the potential for there to be a future is important for my mental health, because it keeps me invested in maintaining that health.

* * *

The world might end tomorrow, and it might not. If we can help it, at all, we shouldn’t let it end. We still ought to act like it might.

We ought to figure out what trees we would plant either way.

If you appreciate my writing and want to help me do more of it, please consider supporting me via Patreon.

“

[klconstellation]

Once Upon A Time: A Klance Fairy Tale Zine Fairy Tale Spotlight

Snow White

Brothers Grimm

Sentenced to death by the evil Queen and spared by the Huntsman, Snow White finds herself in the home of the Seven Dwarfs. The Queen discovers that she is alive and poisons her with an apple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White