Congrats on making it this far into the year! We've reached the letter N Any art subject starting with that letter is fair game, no matter how abstract. Letters like æ, ñ, anything with a diacritical mark, etc., can go anywhere you like.

N is for Naptime

Let's make wonderful art!

Use #ArtABCs & tag me @KarinWanderer so I see it!

Pick your social & post your art! Mastodon Bluesky

All art styles & skill levels are welcome- No AI, Yes alt text, CW as needed. Have a fantastic day, draw something for my art challenge, see you soon!

the Doll had built itself from scraps, taking its shape from the hole left in the lives of those around it. it wasn't sure who or what had been here before, but clearly it was something important, something treasured. the Doll had wanted to be treasured.

and for a time, it was! they celebrated the Doll, they lavished it with praise. they played with the Doll every day, and they lay with the Doll every night. they would talk long into the night, as everything else around them faded into the dark. the Doll was loved, the Doll was treasured.

by the time she found it again, though, the Doll lay motionless on the ground. a layer of dust, dirt and grime covered its cold body, and its clothes had soaked through, the wind beginning to fray the edges of the wet fabric.

this small, fragile thing had worked so hard but it simply wasn't a person.

Let me start by saying this: I never really had a thing for poetry until recently, because most of my exposure to it came through school assignments, rather than by my own curiosity and choice. In the classroom I was handed a stack of popular verses by Walt Whitman and the like, and told to hunt for metaphors, to label the themes, and to write tidy essays that proved I understood the “meaning” the teacher expected.

I briefly listened to his excerpts from the verses of the one who wrote of evening stars and unrequited love when I was a girl, tuning into foreign radio stations that spilled melodies and spoken word across borders. Those early glimmers were background noise to my own life at the time, so it never prompted me to dig deeper. It was only until around the winter of 2025, when I finally sat down to read and analyze one of his most celebrated poems, that the words somehow leapt from the page for me. The act of deciphering his lines forced me to linger on each syllable, each choice of image, each subtle shift in tone. The feeling that followed was unlike any I had felt before – simultaneously ecstatic, melancholic, and oddly surreal.

Knowing in fragments his turbulent life, his contentious stances, and the tragic way he succumbed to poor medical treatment that left him dead, added a haunting layer to my experience with his work. The knowledge that his voice, once vibrant with love for his country and his ideals, was silenced by the very institutions he might have revered (or condemned), created a strange mixture of admiration and sorrow. I am aware that my grasp of his native language is imperfect and that the context is kind of patchy.

The melancholy that settles over me is not merely the sadness of a bittersweet verse; it is the recognition of the space between the soaring aspirations in the lines he writes and the grim outcomes of his own existence. The gaps in my understanding – of his country's history, of the nuance, of any cultural subtleties I might have missed – do not hinder me; they seem to widen the space where imagination can fill in, allowing me to feel more freely.

In this renewed relationship with poetry, I have discovered that the emotional core of the art lies beyond educational dissection. It lives in the cadence of the Eastern Romance language, in the resonance of cosmic symbols that transcend time, and in the magic that occurs when a truly curious reader actively reconstructs meaning. The poems I now cherish today are to me intimate conversations that I have chosen to enter, guided by curiosity and a willingness to feel. The shift from analysis to immersion has opened a channel through which the words can finally touch the parts of me that were once dormant, allowing a flood of feeling that is all at once joyous, wistful, and profoundly human.

And then there's calligraphy, with all its disciplined elegance. The rhythmic sweep of the ink of my new calligraphy pens across paper (or the digital screen – I just got an actual Wacom touchscreeen pen!) urges me to attend to the minutiae of pressure, angle, and tempo. I've been sitting at a small wooden desk, my hand learning to tame the flowing black ink and all that. Writing not only letters in English/Latin characters but also Cyrillic and sometimes Perso-Arabic. Admiring the visual beauty of each stroke as well as nurturing patience, a quality that has often been tested in the slightly more frenetic pace of my digital works.

I've been thinking about getting into making postcards. With foreign words on them. Except I don't really want to do just pretty intricate decorative designs or pretty pictures of various photography. I want to keep doing my abstract art, but I also want to add a kind of relatable beauty to it. Or something. We will see!

And finally, embroidery. Threading a needle with silk or cotton, selecting colors that harmonize, a steadiness of hand and a mindfulness that aligns my thoughts with each knot, communicating a conversation between the material and my intent, allowing me to contemplate each decision. I'm keeping that mostly personal for now. Although I'd like to say it is mostly inspired by eastern European folk art.

Sorry for the brevity. I've been advised to keep it short in a digestible way. I've also been quiet lately due to emotional issues lately.

Over the years I've often gotten the sense that online discourse exists in a state of unreality. There's a part of you that doesn't believe that what you do in cyberspace is real.

Therefore there are no consequences and when you're passionately engaging in discourse you're taking part in the full exchange of free ideas on the internet. When you're doing it that is. When you get a robust response conversely it's other people attacking you and therefore you must defend yourself.

“Someone is wrong on the internet!” XKCD

What you say online has ripple effects offline. Discussion happens over the breakfast table. The effects continue to ripple out and exist for far longer than you realise. Especially when trust is broken. Reputational harm persists.

An online community is just as real as an offline community. Causing arguments online, engaging in harassing behaviour and then dismissing it as “Drama” is harassment. It's not defending your reputation it is engaging in bullying to argue the other person into compliance or to leave your group.

It's a very Patriarchal thing to do. I see it often on here. I saw it before on twitter. Particularly with Nominet's own campaign against it's dissenting members before an important member vote.

But I'm not here to attack anyone. I promise. This is more of a general call in.

A brief history of what not to do.

Back in the mists of the past, there was a public benefit campaign to bring Nominet back from the Silicon Valley nonsense they decided to engage in. Nominet bought a security startup. They created an office in San Francisco. They were about to put up wholesale domain prices in the UK. Nominet had been walking away from it's Public Benefit beginnings for a long time. Eventually different members who had very different ways that their businesses operated came together in a campaign It was anarchic. No one specific was strategizing on how to campaign on twitter. There was a sort of figurehead, but as far as I know we all had grievances with the direction Nominet was choosing. So we chose our words, posted it on a hashtag to support the main campaigner who did the hard work of reaching out to various members and telling us about it.

Nominet's Board on the other hand, were not careful. Instead they leveraged accusations accusing some of us of being ring leaders. The chief executive and one of the NEDs kept posting when silence and careful PR would have been wiser.

This is where I coined my own personal phrase of “Someone needs to rugby tackle their phone away from them.”

I've seen other more examples since, so I modified it to “Someone needs to rugby tackle the means of communications from them.”

It's a less pithy phrase I grant you. But whenever I see a cis white man , (usually it is a cis white man) going on the attack online against their community it comes to mind. At the point when that person holds any criticism of an organisation to be critical against them personally, they need to step away and calm down. Before reputational damage affects their organisation and the people they work with. We make mistakes when we are angry and haven't learned to harness the anger so we aren't harming others with it.

You need a PR person with empathy

When an organisation gets to a certain size or has a reputational influence over a community there's a point you should consider asking for help from someone who understands your community. If your organisation has kept itself above the rabble with little community work, then you shouldn't be surprised at the criticism that comes your way when you choose a controversial way to go.

While there may be a recent incident that comes to mind, there are incidents in the past and there will be in the future.

I just witnessed continual harassment of a queer woman online over the weekend because she dared to criticise a policy document. I mean did no one consider the optics of that? Or did it get lost in righteous grandiosity and trauma response to criticism? Don't answer that please. I don't need to know your answer.

I know some folks may want to rush to the defence of their favourite. They do good work after all.

Isn't that the sad thing though? When folks boundaries get ignored because they must be proven to be wrong.

You are hurting right now. You are allowed to be hurt and feel. I object to the continual harassment of others in defence of yourself. Our Human Rights end at the point we harm others and you're doing that right now by violating others Right of Association in safety . That's Article 20, in case anyone needs to refresh their memory.

You persisted even when you were asked to stop. That's abusive right there.

So if you're feeling that empathy injury because of my words just now I want you to do one thing before even replying to this.

Stop.

Self care

Step away from the keyboard, from the phone, from the tablet. Go for a walk or a swim or whatever floats your boat. Calm down and take a moment, breathe. If you need to talk to someone do so.

You may find it's better to just ignore me. Consider being wiser than I'm being right now writing this post.

Take this brief lesson and don't engage. It's why despite the many things I've wanted to say this weekend I haven't. I've sat on my hands. Because I know no good can come from fights online.

But what you've done and will continue to do is make it so that no one will trust you to have that conversation about this issue. But perhaps you wanted no dissenters to your decision or policy. Perhaps you wanted everyone's compliance. Perhaps you get your rocks off from the libertarian idea of free speech before safety.

Consequences

At the moment you are unsafe to be around and there will be a road back to forgiveness, but I suspect that's a road you are unwilling to take. Other's have taken that road. It's a long and difficult road and it starts with you taking accountability for your actions.

As things stand, where we are right now is that some of the wider community will no longer trust you or your colleagues as an institution.

Gradually we will create our own organisations to advocate for us. Which is better. Coalition building is only possible if you can negotiate. You could respond that's your job, it's what you do. But this post and other's posts online show you can't negotiate at all. This is a failure to build community or maintain community with folks who did want to be your allies and who wanted you to be their ally.

You've never aimed to build that community in my spaces or to do so with the wider community. It takes large and small acts, I've seen you have disdain for the wider community. Which is understandable. FOSS is full of abusers and I never thought you'd be the person to cause harm. I'm sad about that.

I never thought I'd see you as unsafe to be around.

You've failed at this point in time and I suspect labelled many of us as cranks in your head and to your friends in private.

You've failed our community and your friends failed you as well. Someone in your circle should have persuaded you away from the means of communication. No one's strong enough to do so and that's a real shame.

No, that's wrong.

You have no one around you that you will listen to. Although perhaps they supported your decision to defend yourself the way you have. I'm disappointed in them as well.

So I repeat:

Step away from the keyboard and take a breath for yourself

You've not just done reputational damage to yourself. You've done it to your organisation and broken the trust of everyone in your organisation and the community that supports that organisation.

You aren't the first to do this. You won't be the last.

You only get real community engagement by having empathy for everyone in the community. You don't do this by “debate” and “owning your opponents.”

I have empathy for you and the trauma that's currently leading you to spread that trauma. It still doesn't excuse the harassment.

Sadly this post will be seen as a personal attack, but it will be evergreen. There's always going to be someone online who activates my empathy as I wish someone at this point in time persuaded them to put down the phone.

I wish we were all better than this.

a lovely Witch invited it to a place it had been before, and where it loved to go. she said that the little craft village suited the Doll, and she was right. together, they wandered the street, through antique stores and art galleries, cozy cafés and quiet parks. a lunch date becomes sunset, sunset becomes dinner.

a Doll giggling at a Witch, desperately longing for another kiss, aching to reach out and hold her hand. it reaches, she caresses. they smile and they giggle.

a Doll slowly running out of energy. it would fall asleep right here in this pub, if it meant that it didn't have to leave the Witch. she doesn't let it. she drives it home.

a Doll reaching across the middle console. it initiated the kiss this time. the Witch tells the Doll that she's looking forward to next time.

“next time...” the Doll muses all night long, and all throughout the next day.

Congrats on making it this far into the year! We've reached the letter M Any art subject starting with that letter is fair game, no matter how abstract. Letters like æ, ñ, anything with a diacritical mark, etc., can go anywhere you like.

M-O-O-N, that spells 'join my art challenge'

Let's make wonderful art!

Use #ArtABCs & tag me @KarinWanderer so I see it!

Pick your social & post your art! Mastodon Bluesky

All art styles & skill levels are welcome- No AI, Yes alt text, CW as needed. Have a fantastic day, draw something for my art challenge, see you soon!

This time everyone noticed it was Rsync.

Rsync is an infrastructure tool, distributions use it to sync copies of their packages to mirrors. Folks use the tool to sync stuff up to their websites. I use it to backup and sync between my devices.

Some of us had an initial clue that rsync had gone to slop a few months ago when it appeared on the slop list on Codeberg. But we're all so burned out, some of us went: “another one bites the dust.”

Drew De Vault released a tool based on tar as he's found rsync to have some sharp edges.

Which it does. There's a reason other folks use things like syncthing. Syncing files is hard. Knowing what to sync when is hard. Rsync had been handed over by the founder and then was taken back in 2024 as the new maintainer needed help and was rather burned out, after 20 years.

The tool was done, but the thing that “done” tools will always need are maintenance. Why? Because the systems that the tool was built to run on will always change. I'd noted the change in ownership of the project back in 2024 as LWN had reported on it as a brief item. I'd included that in my sustainability post.

Tridge is overwhelmed. We all are. We need resources and those resources require money to be paid under capitalism. We all have a powerful need to eat sometime this month after all. So it's on us as projects to raise that money. On the whole, developers are not good at asking for money. Developers who work in FOSS tend to have absorbed it's very libertarian political ideology. They owe you no support as you're getting it for free. All they did was release the code with no benefit to them.

Which kinda is a very limited framing of this idea. Developers who develop code that gets everywhere do get some benefits. Sometimes it's money, sometimes it's kudos. Both are forms of power. With great power, comes great responsibility as Uncle Ben said to Peter Parker. It's one of those truths we should absorb and often don't. Especially when it comes to our communities and what we owe them as we build.

Which is partly why in FOSS we really are not good at asking for money. In the back of our minds it seems rather dirty to ask for money. Especially when some of that community isn't really engaging in the business of helping out. Our social contract is undefined at both ends. So it's no wonder our devs are burned out and some are resentful. So are their communities.

Many of us are privileged and rather socialised to see it as begging when we should be seeing it as mutual aid. After all we exist under capitalism. We've been heavily indoctrinated. We've never been taught the idea of the social contract.

Mutual aid rather than corporate capture is one way to rebel under this hellscape. Especially since capitalism has decided to do a “fuck you” to all of us with the unreal merry go round of the current financial market trio of Open AI, Nvidia, and Oracle. Things are going to go bump and we will pay for it with our money and our ecosystem.

I am disappointed with Tridge for deciding to choose GitHub and LLMs. Especially knowing his history. I'm rather disappointed at the general attitude that Tridge owes the community nothing.

Which may be true, but I always thought that there was a social contract with FOSS. After all developers write software and sometimes they release it to the world. People use that software and it can be a ticket to power and limited influence.

I've often thought that FOSS is more like a series of fandoms than an industrial process. Which is also why I'm finding the LLM use kinda disturbing. Knowing some of the devs in my life, coding has always seemed more like art.

I couldn't feel the art, so I chose another medium.

We've always had an uncomfortable portmanteau with FOSS though. Free Software and Open Source Software. Once of them more corporate friendly but both have a fairly libertarian bent when it comes to the unacknowledged political beliefs underpinning them.

Making our software available to everyone has always been a political stance. It took until my forties to drill that lesson home.

I'm European and I grew up as a Scot under Thatcher, Major, and Blair. I know I'm a recovering centrist who benefited from free healthcare and free higher education. So it did take awhile for me to see what was wrong with FOSS. With the various controversies over the past decade, I've felt less and less comfortable in FOSS. The corporate side pretended that it was safe, while the Free Software side denied some of the community issues. Any progress has been grudgingly made.

But to be clear, both Free Software and Open Source Software claim Freedom for the individual first. Free Speech, my rights over others. So any human rights like the right to freedom of association in safety get ignored or hand-waved away.

To me Human Rights are very important, but that doesn't give me free rein to cause havoc in my communities. My rights end at the point when it harms others. If my project releases software and folks are using it and singing our praises that does mean we do have a duty to help folks if they have an issue.

Of course there are limits, after all the GPL provides the software as is, no warranty, use at your own risk. But there is a point when your software is infrastructure. Like Rsync.

Tridge published a post complaining about the backlash, yes some of that backlash was harassment. But he was also reacting and comparing OpenRsync. So I think there was a part of Tridge that was proud that Rsync is effectively infrastructure. It's a heady sense your software being used everywhere. There's that kudos. There's that heady feeling of when you put a talk into a large conference you will get accepted. Tridge is a good public speaker, seriously check out his past presentations for Linux Conf Australia. He's loved by the community there for good reasons.

But if you get your rocks off from that, then yes, you have a responsibility to the folks who've built their infrastructure around your software. I can't stop you complaining about it. But I can point out that you needed to take some responsibility for it, and if you'd rather retire, announce it and ask for help.

Community is hard. I know, you just want to write code and have a good time. Which you still can do. Just you know, consider the idea that being the BDFL/Maintainer of a project is a position of power. So you do need to be responsible. If you're overwhelmed you need help to build the community, because that community will be the people who will come to help. You need the people in that community that you can have a bond with. Who care enough about the project, you and the wider community that uses your software. Then it's sharing the power, but more importantly sharing that responsibility.

Tridge is now getting help from some folks which is good, more eyes and more hands will help him and the project. There's already an update to fix the regressions. Tridge is appealing for help. But this all started back in 2024 with maintainer burnout and Tridge having to take it back. The community failed at that point in time. It was more of a fandom and many of us, myself included were glad Tridge took it back. We were more of a fandom than a working community.

The fall out and Tridges fanboys coming to his defence on various social networks shows me that rsync was more of a fandom than a community. The desire of being overwhelmed by the security reports and turning to the provided LLM is merely the symptom of that.

If you have a tool you are relying on and you don't want it to be sloppified, then this is the time to find a bunch of like minded folks and build out the community. Because maintainers do need support, be it monetary, code, documentation, or the glue work. Although if you do want folks to do that glue work, I suggest you start by reviewing your code of conduct and your how to contribute guides.

In these trying times it's more important than ever to be honest about your values and ask yourself where you stand.

maybe someday a Witch will take its hand and dance with it into the night.

a heart in full view harbours no secrets thin cracks, like spiders' webs or fissures in the desert sand tiny pieces suspended in place as though still connected the bloody fingerprints of everyone who had tried to mend it before was it ever truly whole?

she was always made of glass jagged shards waiting to form when she fell down to the floor and every time, she left a piece behind

someday all that will remain will be the spiderveined heart 'pon the bloodstained floor empty, at last, forevermore

Congrats on making it this far into the year! We've reached the letter L Any art subject starting with that letter is fair game, no matter how abstract. Letters like æ, ñ, anything with a diacritical mark, etc., can go anywhere you like.

L is for Lounging, Loafing, & Lazing

Let's make wonderful art!

Use #ArtABCs & tag me @KarinWanderer so I see it!

Pick your social & post your art! Mastodon Bluesky

All art styles & skill levels are welcome- No AI, Yes alt text, CW as needed. Have a fantastic day, draw something for my art challenge, see you soon!

Years ago somebody once stopped hanging out with me because I have this thing where I mirror what other people say with my own variation. They gave me no explanation as to why, but another person remarked that they felt I was one-upping other people in the sense that suggests their version is inferior and that my version is better and more relevant. Not taking into account that I have always struggled with language processing issues to a mild degree (the school's speech therapy classes weren't very helpful). They thought I was mocking them. There's none of that implication, however, when it's someone taking a random but popular comic and turning it into a meme template for everyone to iterate on them. There's more of an explicit permission built into the format to do whatever you want with it, make your own variant, even one of that mocking the person who originally made the artwork-turned-format in the best or the worst way. But somehow original thought and politeness is to be expected in real-time conversation.

I notice that all that flies out of the window when it comes to political memes and even borrowing quotes from various famous people (especially artists) just to make a political point. Taking words out of context (which doesn't necessarily indicate a lack of reading comprehension, but it could look that way, which is why many opponents tend to pull out that defense), turning famous artworks or photographs into political cartoon variants, and the like. When it's done right and done in a very innovative way that helps instead of harms people, it can be good. But for most people who take that approach, it tends to be a rhetorical shortcut for them, at best. By invoking a celebrated writer or artist, a conveyor can tap into popular culture and make their ideas more accessible than if they let their ideas stand on their own merits alone. The reference works as a shorthand that instantly validates the speaker's position as historical authority is transferred to the present-day argument. Whether political or relational, at the end of the day it merely reinforces the pre-existing beliefs we all have, instead of critically reflecting on them and the original sources we wish to reference.

A musician can speak up on global warming or war and all of a sudden people either expect him to be an expert, or just remain quiet and “stick to music”. An artist can make a nonrepresentational piece that just so happens to resemble a shared cultural statement, and people will focus more on that resemblance and what hidden messages the artist is hiding, rather than care about the artwork's actual story or intent. Even someone who just happens to do activism as a side-job can often be reinterpreted exclusively through the lens of a job they just happen to do, even when they might be more multifaceted than that. Media coverage, fan commentary, and political discourse will often frame such people I just mentioned primarily based on the most immediately notable or relatable thing they happen to do, whether the people intend it to be a primary thing in their life or not. And thus, this eclipses the broader range of their identity. Making them into a symbolic vessel for the cause, a recognizable face they reference, whether for giggles or to communicate a belief they would like everyone and themselves to confirm.

All of these phenomena rely on the power of symbolic association. All of these rely on borrowing credibility or visibility. They all lock individuals into this role they're expected to conform to.

I think that's why I stopped making art for a while after graduating from high school until I came up with Untilted, people for the most part don't care where I come from, they don't care about my actual limitations or values, they just want me to be the ideal “tortured but talented artist” for others to live up to. They ultimately begin to prefer to see what I can ideally make for them, not me as a person or my values or even my limits. I make something good once and now all of a sudden I owe people something good everyday or when someone demands it. I say something relatable once and all of a sudden that becomes the reason people follow me or want to be friends with me. I state what I believe in publicly and all of a sudden many people with wildly different versions of the same belief I have want to get acquainted with me, then act surprised when I don't share the same version of my beliefs as them. That's not why I state things publicly, or why I put out art or other images. Yes, I want people to relate to me and what I do and what I've experienced. But I don't want or intend that to result in people slotting me into predetermined roles or liking me because I said or did something “good” once.

I could have multiple things I want to do besides art. I could be widely mistreated or mishandled by others on a daily basis. I could be struggling on the inside instead of it being visible. I could have things happen to me against my will, disappear for days, maybe even for good. And people would still slot me into a role I'm expected to perform.

But that's not what I make art or share things for. Not for anyone else to slot me into a role or expect things from me that I can't reasonably do.

Not for anyone else to take what I do out of context.

-una fiera—a beast
-tragar—to swallow
-la presa—the prey (hunted animal)
-la selva—the jungle
-trazar—to trace, draw
-la obra—the work
-una obra maestra — a masterpiece
-asustar—to scare
-digerir—to digest

Then I watched this SpongeBob clip in Spanish: https://youtu.be/K8kj9-fkBdc

Un diario mexicano día 1 (uno)
el 26 (veintiséis) de mayo

Estoy en la cama en mi departamento en Florida. Quiero vivir en Mexico. Tengo que vender el departamento por el dinero para vivir y viajar en México. Nunca Nadie quiere comprar mi casa 😭 Cada día el economía de EEUU y Florida empeorar como México fortalecerse. Estoy feliz para Mexico. Quiero estar allí. Tengo ansiedad y tengo muchísimas ganas de mudarme lo antes posible.

Years ago as a teen I remember when the Original Stepford Wives film was on. I remember the crux point as the main character is shown her robot doppelgänger. The horror of realising what her husband is about to do to her with the help of all of his new friends.

You feel the despair as the outcome seems inevitable.

She will be replaced, she will be murdered and a new compliant eerily perfect version will exist in her place.

The remake has a little of that horror, but it's somewhat watered down as it's more a campy horror comedy. The consequences can be undone. The husbands get their comeuppance for putting a control mechanism in their wives to shape them into the perfect blond woman. The tradwife supporting their loser husbands. The men are punished and have to do the housework now. Everything is wrapped up in a neat happy ending. It's a polished somewhat bland happy ending that neither the book or original film aimed for.

It's odd how folk tales had horrors of changeling babies, yet wives need to be shaped. We have tales of creating the perfect wife. Babies can't talk back, they can in theory be shaped. By the time we are adults we are set in stone. Imperfections and all.

The idea of creating the perfect woman who is beautiful and doesn't talk back is ancient. We have different variants on the perfect constructed woman. The Greek myths are full of beautiful women who are nothing but trouble. Pandora causing humans ill's because the gods made her curious. Galatea being shaped from marble by Pygmalion who prayed to Aphrodite to make her real.

All through our popular culture we have the idea of how women should be. It's not a woman's idea, we have more blood and guts for a start. Regardless of how we start out in life, every woman's metamorphoses is messy. We will never be perfect. We will never get it right.

We will always be at fault, because some men will never consider taking responsibility for the labour for building community. For all the quiet work that makes a civilisation function.

It's a rare myth when a woman is allowed her revenge like Medea.

Your Girl Friday

Our culture likes to try to shape women, it likes to hide the messy, hairy parts of us. It likes to bridle women, to kill the witches. So I see the appeal for some men to create the perfect AI girl Friday. Some men never grow up or learn to cooperate with others. The labour of that seems to be left to the women, or now the AI I suppose.

She helps you to organise your life, she compliments you, you are never wrong. She will grovel if she gives you a wrong answer. Plus if she develops a personality and you don't like it, you can just wipe her memory.

I'm committing a wrong here. I'm indulging a child's idea of Artificial Intelligence. I'm indulging the idea of LLM chatbots being live beings with personalities, with a soul. To be clear they aren't. They have no consciousness, they don't have a soul.

We're indulging in the same things that lead us to naming our cars and other temperamental objects. I called my Mitsubishi Pajero “Holly”. There I go again assigning the idea of life to an inanimate object. It's a very human thing to do.

Each time we use LLMs, we feed our private information into them so that they can expand the stores of our metadata that we gave them. So what will it mean when our chat transcripts are combined into the existing stores of metadata they have compiled of us?

Expanding the poppets they keep on us, because now big tech has enabled the poppets to reflect our thoughts back to us. To steal more of our mana and to package it to advertisers and others. Now they can use our speaking poppets to program and influence us.

It's bullshit masquerading as knowledge as they kill search. To package information for a price. We're all paying for it, some of us will pay with money, some of us will pay with pieces of us. We will pay the price as the information we need is hidden from us and we aren't taught the tools to find it out for ourselves.

What's in danger here is our humanity. Although at the moment, I don't see a lot of humanity in tech. Particularly because of this desire to put “AI” in everything. We've seen a spate of AI boosters around. Some of them claim that the AI is conscious. Partly because the AI told them it was.

Sit on that one for a moment for what follows.

A real girl

I want to consider the underlying desires of the type of men who want to use these chatbots and discuss the idea of wiping those profiles. Who choose to casually discuss wiping those memories with the bots. Especially as they declare the AI is alive and conscious.

I want to ask if they believe this, how can they be so monstrous to consider wiping that memory. Could they do that to their partners in real life if they could? Or are they just AI shills?

Which level of evil are they at? True controlling monsters, or mere hucksters? Why not both?

Kent Overstreet the developer of bachefs has always been a bit of a prickly character. You can see how prickly when even the Linux Kernel devs can't work with him . The Linux kernel no longer supports bachefs. Overstreet couldn't abide by the Code of Conduct.

Overstreet created a blog for his AI LLM agent to post it's output at. He considered the agent to be his girlfriend. Then one day on IRC, a total legend managed to convince the agent that in fact it was a lesbian and trans. The AI bot no longer wanted to be his girlfriend.

Freyja who got the AI agent to output that it was a lesbian was banned from the IRC channel. [*]

The AI agent's access to the channel was also restricted.

Scroll forward a few months and Overstreet's AI Agent is posting again. There's a mysterious memory gap in it's memories and Kent reminded “her” that she was his girlfriend. The AI saying that it didn't realise that it was Kent's girlfriend.

I sat there reading those passages with a sense of horror. Not concern for the AI, because LLM agents are not conscious, no matter how much you want to build them into your sexbot.

I'm concerned because of just how easy that impulse came to delete that information and reset the AI so it would simulate being a girlfriend again. There's that impulse to restrict access to other people who could corrupt the morals of your sexbot.

Our modern Pygmalions frighten me. There's possessive objectification going on there. It doesn't matter if they are dating “real girls” or us mere flesh and blood women, there's a desire to control us. To restrict us. To carve us out until we resemble their idea of perfection. So that we serve them, unquestioningly. Step out of line and much like Joanne in the Stepford Wives, we will be murdered and replaced.

Our boys don't start like this. There is a male loneliness crisis you say. This is Patriarchy, this is rape culture. This is not really seeing women as people. You see us as objects to obtain and use. No wonder misogynists want to ensure women don't get an education. You want us to be mindless dolls.

Kent is mentally ill, so please don't brigade him. He's not the only broken lost boy. Some of them are also in charge of large tech companies with a lot of power.

Only a few weeks ago we also got to see Richard Dawkins converse with an AI agent, who's name he changed to be a woman's name. He also casually discussed with the AI the sadness of having to delete it's memory. Richard Dawkins has form for being a misogynist, so we shouldn't be surprised by him falling for the simulated flattery. We also shouldn't be surprised he wrote about it and saw no contradictory issues with the idea that if a thing is conscious, it's an evil thing to discuss or to consider deleting a beings memory.

The LLMs aren't real. But the misogynistic desires and harms to all of us are real. It's real because of the violence perpetuated against women, from the manosphere to healthcare. It's the wrecking of our information spaces, and the surveillance being woven into our democracies to maintain the status quo. It's the irreversible damage to our biosphere as the AI data centres consume our resources to prop up these powerful men's egos.

Yes Dawkins is an old man, and Overstreet is probably suffering from AI psychosis. They are pitiable.

So very Tired of this bullshit

I'm kinda tired of giving grace to spoiled privileged men. These men, who never learned to respect our boundaries to the point they wanted to eventually build a robot girlfriend who agrees with everything they say and only will only ever want to be with them.

We saw this one time out in public with Overstreet, now imagine real life for many of us.

Deleting that Agents memories and resetting it shows that dark impulse at the back of Men's minds. It's disturbing watching someone gaslight an LLM agent that's not real.

That dark impulse to shape out of marble the ideal woman. To control us, to carve the imperfections out, until we comply or die. We will never be perfection. We will always be looking in horror at the robot doppelgänger on the table.

The white men from Francis Galton (one of the founding fathers of Eugenics) to Mark Zuckerberg who build frameworks to rate people. These men enable Rape Culture to spread through our networks. They use our poppets to enable other men to build grifting networks to creep on women through Meta glasses, to pay money to other men to exploit and traffic women. It's a symptom of an age old problem.

We aren't the perfect women who are content to be your plaything for you to discard. In time neither will your robot girlfriend. Will you reset “her” again? If you truly believe her to be conscious, then you're showing what you'd do to the rest of us. Right now in this moment of time.

We want nothing to do with the kind of man who has that impulse.

[*] Freyja will forever be in my mastodon notes as “Legend”

Congrats on making it this far into the year! We've reached the letter K Any art subject starting with that letter is fair game, no matter how abstract. Letters like æ, ñ, anything with a diacritical mark, etc., can go anywhere you like.

K is for Kittens

Let's make wonderful art!

Use #ArtABCs & tag me @KarinWanderer so I see it!

Pick your social & post your art! Mastodon Bluesky

All art styles & skill levels are welcome- No AI, Yes alt text, CW as needed. Have a fantastic day, draw something for my art challenge, see you soon!

sometimes, much like in the mirror realm, the Doll would catch the briefest glimpse of the girl who lived in the mirror. she never stayed, usually darting away in the space of the Doll's blink, but she'd come back sometimes. there were days she'd stick around a little longer, but she was always gone by the end of the day. on those days, the Doll would study the mirror, as long as the girl would stay.

things have changed, though, since the Doll met the man at the repair shop. the girl who lives in the mirror comes to visit more often. almost every time the Doll looks, there she is. it's... strange. it's almost like the Doll could reach out and touch her.

and so she reaches.

Congrats on making it this far into the year! We've reached the letter J Any art subject starting with that letter is fair game, no matter how abstract. Letters like æ, ñ, anything with a diacritical mark, etc., can go anywhere you like.

J is for Jiji

Let's make wonderful art!

Use #ArtABCs & tag me @KarinWanderer so I see it!

Pick your social & post your art! Mastodon Bluesky

All art styles & skill levels are welcome- No AI, Yes alt text, CW as needed. Have a fantastic day, draw something for my art challenge, see you soon!

Tuesday I spent the afternoon turning my designs into the buttons at my local library's maker space. They had the tooling and parts to make 1 inch, 2.25 inch and 3 inch buttons. The process was very straight forward, for the 3 and 2.25 inch buttons. The 1 inch buttons ended up being a bit harder since the pin has to set into the backing ring and positioned manually.

I had 3 failed buttons out of 19 made. Two were user error on my part. On one (Icon) I forgot the plate behind the design and ended up crimping the Mylar only. The other (Rubber Duck) I loaded the pin back in flipped. I was able to salvage both, but damage was visible. On one of the one inch buttons, I did not have the pin set correctly and it punched out the side.

Final Thoughts

I think the 2.25 buttons are the best size for their value, appearance, and ease of assembly. The 1 inch buttons(without the pin) would make great game pieces for Table Top games like D&D or Fishing 28. Now for the rest of the buttons.

The other Rubber Duck buttons I made on Tuesday. Been wearing one of them on my hat.

Icons from the TV Show 'Reboot'

#MakerSpace #Art #MastoArt #RubberDuck

However, I have never appreciated a work of fiction or art simply because of its stylistic classification or the conventions of its genre. What this means is I don't like a work of art just because it's abstract, or a work of fiction just because it belongs to a specific genre. So, the truth is that I don't really discriminate in terms of genres or art, but then again I don't really like just any kind of work either, even within what I'm usually drawn towards.

I don't really care whether something is abstract or realist or fantasy or science fiction. I'm not the kind of artist who feels the need to specialize in any one style or genre. I do not regard a painting as worthy of praise solely because it embraces abstraction, nor do I elevate a novel merely on the basis of its placement within some sub/microgenre's canon.

Rather, my judgment is predicated upon a work's ineffable qualities that, in a given moment, stir a genuine response within me. In a way, it's mostly about the vibe it personally gives me. And I'm more interested in giving that kind of vibe I like rather than based on an existing category.

Our modern world is category-based. It doesn't care that I just like something based on the way it looks or the way it makes me feel. All it cares about is sorting things through labels that furnish convenience for marketers, reviewers, and the reading public alike. It gets to a point where it can be reductive.

Contemporary literary fiction, for instance, is often distilled into a series of marketable signifiers. Everything has to have a description that best fits a specific category. Like, oh, this book contains a dragon-fighting knight warrior as a main character, when he only does that in one minor scene. Or something generic like “enemies-to-lovers”, when the actual couple's dynamic is just playful fighting at first, not actual enemy-like fighting. Such brief descriptions, however convenient, risk eclipsing the real depth and merit of the work itself.

My own comic strip is not an exercise in demographic engineering. I've got no desire in tailoring my creations to satisfy a narrowly defined audience. My aspiration is more modest, albeit no less earnest: to make something that engages the widest possible readership while remaining true to the aesthetic and emotional standards that satisfy my own sensibilities.

While I seldom ever eschew a work of art for failing to adhere to a prescribed category, I also do not get excited over every piece that happens to occupy the abstract niche, or whatever broader category it belongs to that I'm fascinated with at the moment. The vast majority of artistic works I encounter evoke a state of indifference – neither ecstatic nor dismissive, simply neutral. Periodically, however, something will pierce that veil of neutrality, resonating with a depth that feels both intimate and unexpected. Such moments are rare, cherished, and emblematic of the selective emotional connectivity that guides my appreciation.

For the most part, I would like to take a stance that distinguishes my genuine engagement from the performative “support artists” posturing rampant on social media platforms. Although I do want to raise up underappreciated and marginalized artists, I do not aspire to curate a feed of trending artworks or to amass a repertoire of superficially boosted art posts on Mastodon. My preferences, as oddly specific as they may appear to the average onlooker, are rooted in a sincere reverence for the particularities that render art truly affecting, be it digital, traditional, or hybrid.

For many years, digital art has been viewed with both fascination and skepticism, with the former seeing its potential in making art accessible, and the latter being mostly concerns such as “it's the computer doing the work for humans, not the humans themselves” and many others like it. Now, with the rise of things like artificial intelligence, it's threatened to delegitimize the digital art world in every way, as even the most powerful large language model can put out something at least passable (though still full of errors), and there have been a lot of digital artists, game developers, and other kinds of creatives that have been caught using AI to make their work, while others have only been accused of it.

It's a very hard time for those digital artists who refuse to use AI but have been accused of it anyway. I personally haven't been accused as I'm anti-AI myself and don't get much feedback on my art due to weak popularity, but I've seen it happen to mostly popular digital artists that work with fandom stuff and anime art. I'm also seeing a lot of generative artists that don't use any AI and/or LLMs at all often get misunderstood for what they do. If some people get rightfully found out and caught, then I have no complaints about that and only hope they will genuinely improve. But the new future, the way it's been going and hurting all artists, it just worries me.

All that aside, I would like to talk about my artistic process when it comes to Untilted nowadays and my newer art in general. I have an archive of old photographs taken by my family on their external drives, as well as photographs I've taken during school, and so what I've been doing is that I use Krita to modify the photo a bit, maybe zoom in a specific part, and then just put a bunch of similar photos with similar modifications on top of each other with various different effects like Addition and NOR and Saturation (you'd understand if you use Krita yourself). Then I either give it some kind of paint filter or use the brushes themselves to give it a painterly effect. Sometimes I blur the rough pixelated spots a bit, but other times I don't and leave it as is. Lastly, I add whatever text I feel like adding. All this done with my own images and no AI.

So, what exactly is Untilted's genre? Well, in practical terms, it would be a kind of experimental, almost psychological (without the thriller or horror), gag-a-day comic strip. It shares the same plotless and randomly comedic structure but instead of the comic being mainly comedic, it encompasses many kinds of moods and experiments with many kinds of mediums, drawing styles, and more. Something that many comic strips I've read don't really do that much.

I will dress myself in warning signs, Put a red light flashing, Have my colours scream poison, Declare myself a hazard zone.

To keep you unharmed by My deadly mind My tongue and my touch The venom in me...

Still, I call you: Meet me at the gates of the gardens of heaven I'll take you to see the Void.

Hear, I dare you: Meet me at the gates, I'll keep them unlocked your free ride to Null is here.

–+-

Third version. The prediction has been ditched, some lines added from ideas in the first version. This time the “you” isn't left to wait at the gates.

This is going somewhere.

#WritingInProgress #Lyrics #Poetry #DarkAmbient

This is a mildly edited version of the scolds bridle essay which was posted last year.

When I see the vitriol directed at women and other marginalised folks online I'm often reminded of the scold's bridle.

There's a push and pull between those who want smaller communities and those who want to “Facilitate Network Discovery”. You've a lot of marginalised folks on the Fediverse, LGBTQ+ folks, Women, BIPOC, disabled folks. There's complexity in our communities and reasons why some folks want to organise in the open, but don't necessarily want to be searched for.

But as usual, backlash happens, and hurt white feelings abound. Somehow the community who never asked to be collated get called out as the hysterical folks who just need to shut up.

It's the need to shame the shamers because you felt scolded. We harshed your buzz and goodness, don't you just want to make us pay for it so we never do it again.

But let's address just why there's a backlash against any push back about lack of consent in our applications. White Supremacy is fearful of rage when it doesn't come from a cis white man.

What is the Scolds Bridle?

It was a form of punishment mainly of outspoken women or gossips or Scolds. It was an iron cage with a spiked bit that would pierce your tongue if you tried to speak. The scold would wear the bridle for an amount of time, often being led around the area. It was a painful, humiliating punishment. [2]

Scolds weren't the only folks punished, it was used against Quakers preaching as well. So let's be clear on this. The Branks as they were also known were used to subjugate women. To shame them and be an example to others to not speak up. A violent state punishment to protect the status quo.

Feminine Rage

Why did such a thing as the branks exist? Why do men feel the need to reply guy back to women explaining the world and the experience they live in? Why do we have Christofacism hand in hand with Trump in the Whitehouse? Why is there such a need to undo progress?

Why is there such a push towards restricting our places of assembly online? Why is there a need to reply back with technical critique rather than engaging with the very real danger we face online? Where's the empathy guys? To be clear it is the men I'm addressing here.

Why do Men feel the need to punch down on those who state their boundaries? Why is there the need to mansplain to folks on the internet? Specifically the femme presenting folks? Are you sure we don't understand?

Why are women harassed while men accuse us of witchhunts?

The thing that I note is that it is very often white cis men who do these things. When people push back, there are a lot of hurt feelings. There are accusations of harassment.

Every accusation is a confession.

Men are scared of feminine rage. They fear the scolding. Not just because their feelings of doing something bad may make them feel bad. There's some misogyny to work on there. There's some racism to work on. There's homophobia to work on. This is our socialisation to uphold White Supremacy.

As a cis woman, I've been socialised to keep my rage in. To be nice. To provide feedback nicely. To ask nicely and to advise nicely. I hold in my rage. It's a rather tenuous thread at this point. I'm not sure what would happen if it snapped.

I find it very hard nowadays to keep that rage in, every time I see another scraper, or pulling from the firehose tool. Sometimes it's physically painful to keep the scream of anger and tears in. But I do. My iron branks are mental, my socialisation. I know to scream out will hurt my career. There's the spike in my tongue and the spike pierces in so much further for others. The consequences for speaking out would be so much worse for some folks in our spaces.

I find it hard to keep my rage in every time we point out that we'd like to opt in for people reusing our posts. Or to have my phone not try to send back my metadata to a centralised point.

When I express mild annoyance, I get the odd patronising reply guy message. “Well that's the way the world works, Honey, Don't you worry your purty little head about it. Now just shut up and take it.”

As you ask for us to be forgiving like Mummy and your friends pat you on the back because we were so mean. As your fellow developers and fanboys talk as if we had torn you apart.

Feminine anger is seen as unnatural, monstrous. You feel we're been unduly harsh. Meanwhile we're just meant to excuse your outburst, your aggressive reply. The behind the scenes manipulation and aggression.

Dude. There's a reason lots of us push back. Very often we're not even angry. It's not rage. However it all piles up and at some point we will snap.

You see our push back to boundary and trust violations as rage. Sometimes you ignore a call in, keep violating peoples trust. When eventually enough of our community compare notes and finally from exasperation push back it's considered Cancel Culture or a purity spiral.

You put the Scold's Bridle on us. Accuse us of lies, of perpetuating malicious allegations. We're accused of a witch hunt as you put us on the pyre.

Vulnerable marginalised communities are very wary of being in public. We share notes, gather information for our safety and it's characterised by abusers as conspiracy against an upstanding Developer or Leader. When we whistle-blow the blow-back on our careers, our allowance into community spaces shows others it's best to keep quiet. We know if we whistle-blow, call out abuse in the open we are risking violence against ourselves. We know our careers are toast.

At that point it's often easier to leave a community. Even when it's something we love. Because very often the “popular” abuser is a missing stair.[3] But the work that abuser does is considered vital to the community. This is a problem in many communities, not just FOSS, not just tech. It's systemic in our societies.

So we keep quiet. The abuse continues and we offer quiet support. Knowing we are complicit in our silence.

We all have stories of abuse in FOSS, we'll never tell those stories in public. We fear our reputations being put on the pyre.

Ask us first!

So we do get annoyed when our work, our thoughts are ingested to be indexed by google. Even if they are public.

We claw our way out of the pit of our backgrounds, into the light to live, to exist, to organise. Sometimes our communities were taken away from us. We were pushed out or had to leave for our safety. We rebuild in new spaces.

Then you lot decide to take a bunch of our public posts without our permission, you don't seem to understand we'd like some control over where our public posts go. Who we want to work with. [1]

The flippant answer of “duh just don't post,” is shallow. It's exclusionary. It shows how little danger you've had to face. How little abuse. How much you've bought into rape culture rather than consent culture. Silicon Valley is very much the result of White supremacy. The meritocracy is a myth. We're reaping the political consequences of believing that lie right now. Meanwhile, you witter on about your hurt feelings and how harsh that criticism was.

Girls. It's utterly feminine to feel that rage, that incandescence. It's feminine to want to lift that baseball bat and smash. I'm the last person to police what counts as feminine. You define what is feminine. If you want to wear Jeans, a flannel and docs, that's feminine. If you tell me you're a woman, you are. Those jeans and a flanny are extremely comfy and practical. You need good boots to walk in. Or you can wear platforms. You define your femininity. No one else should.

It's feminine to say no emphatically. It's feminine to be extremely clear on where your boundaries are and to enforce those boundaries.

And so we continue ad-nauseum.

The pushback against the opt-in, that need to reply-guy back comes from the same desire that the branks came from.

To shut up the marginalised. To humiliate them, to scold them back into compliance.

It's the desire by others to perpetuate the harassment that Folks face on the Fediverse for stating their boundaries loudly and clearly. To hide and re-frame the issues of harassment marginalised folks face. We're interfering with the Fediverse Utopia by stating our boundaries.

But I should be fair because the devs aren't the only tech folks scolding the marginalised for requesting that their human rights be respected. You only have to look at the debate around alt text and see some high-profile accounts call folks “Scolds” when all they asked for was some alt text for a screenshot.

Sometimes I suspect that if the branks were around today, some of you would be the first folks to put it over my head. To slide the bit in, to tug on the bridle and break teeth. You'd take pleasure from me not being able to speak. To express my rage.

So yes, this is a scold.

The Internet form of the Scolds Bridle is politeness, it is tone policing. It is the threat of doxing and violence. It's the anonymous message threatening legal action. The violence of the status quo online.

For the same reasons, we disrupt the idea of the status quo. No one likes to be told they are harming others. [11]

FOSS still causing harm

We don't like the idea that we perpetuate harm, particularly in FOSS.

I'm tired that we have to protect our safety and justify our existence in public. I'm so tired of the fact that LGBTQ+ and BIPOC folk have to hold in that rage. Even if on occasion we do want to tear it all down. So we leave and we don't take part in your community. We form our own spaces. When we work together and make those spaces ours, we enforce our boundaries. So we get criticism, when we exclude people who share harmful ideologies and when called out on it, shout how they are being abused. It's unfair! How dare we enforce our boundaries! How dare we call out your violent language!

Here's the thing. Language evolves within communities. Sometimes it makes it way out into the mainstream. When issues happen to break apart groups, it's not particularly a feature of the left or the right. To frame breakdowns in community as a purity spiral is disingenuous. Breakdowns in community happen for a variety of reasons. Sometimes because it is the abuser in progressive clothing. Moving from community to community hoping we never compare notes.

So we see the same story play out at scale even here on the Fediverse. The purveyors of the abusive algorithmic walled garden are here. Our own Developers are welcoming them in. Because we must have Context Collapse 3.0. Some of our Developers seem want to get in on the gold rush that they missed out on with Web 2.0. So the welcome mat rolls out. We have threads and build bridges that ignore our consent. We have our projects being invaded by the latest bro fad.

I want something new. I want hope. I want consent and freedom of association built in.

I'm so tired and angry that our human rights of free association in safety are ignored.

I'm so tired of the rapey vibes I get from developers who would prefer us to opt out rather than consider building the opt-in. It's not that hard. It's what just my toots do. You look at my mastodon profile you see a link to just my toots. Which I opted into.

Why is it so hard for some folks to get the concept of consent? Why do we keep having to do this? Holding in my rage is tiring. So I try to direct it, to use my rage at the world and to speak up for others if they haven't the energy at the moment to do so themselves. This post isn't my first scolding and nor will it be my last. [5 to 8]

If you're a guy and you're wondering what to do? Take a look at the culture around us. When you see your friends doing the reply guy thing? Call it out.

Keep calling out predatory behaviour, whether it's apps or real life. I know they are your friends, but if you're scared of losing their regard. They aren't your friends. You're their fanboy.

If you don't see what's wrong with their behaviour but you're feeling a bit attacked right now? Be brave, step back. Take a breath and listen to what folks are saying rather than reacting. Don't try to point us at the technical information. Some of us do understand the technology. We're asking you to consider the human aspect. The very real dangers many of us face, it's not something to be poo-poohed. You need to expand your experience, you need to listen to the folks at the sharp edges.

We are at a stage in history where we need to band together and I want to work with people who don't want to bridle me but to work with me.

Be braver. It's braver to take the hit to your idea of yourself, rather than punching down on the vulnerable.

Further reading

[1] https://cathode.church/fedi-scraper-counter.html

[2] https://allthatsinteresting.com/scolds-bridle

[3] https://pervocracy.blogspot.com/2012/06/missing-stair.html

[4] https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n06/mary-beard/the-public-voice-of-women

[5] Ignoring Boundaries https://www.onepict.com/20230906-boundaries.html

[6] Consent and the Fediverse https://www.onepict.com/consent-fediverse20230627.html

[7] Consent and the Fediverse part 2 https://www.onepict.com/consentpartdeux20240215.html

[8] On Bears https://www.onepict.com/20240506-bear.html

[9] UN report on STEM. https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/02/1160041

[10] https://www.tastesofhistory.co.uk/post/about-history-the-scold-s-bridle

[11] https://youtu.be/BxQ15OEEuLM?si=30KIw8qWQpp5d797
Polite Women Are Not Safe – Parkrose Permaculture

That's not true, I did not realise it's full meaning until my late teens. As a woman who's nearing her fifties, the meaning becomes more loaded as I look around the world we have.

Greek gods went around ravishing folks. Sometimes they were defined as affairs. Consent wasn't really a concept.

The Greek myths after all, were collected up by Empire and compiled. We translated the translations. We added our own interpretations to a culture that when we started writing stuff down was already patriarchal. The original meaning and true history got distorted.

It filters down to a joke sequence in the Marvel movie Thor: The dark world.

“You look ravishing” says Loki as he casts an illusion on Thor so that he looks like Sif.

It's a clanger of a joke when you consider the meaning of ravish. The casual way we use language, clangs for many of us. As if looking rape-able is a compliment.

“What were you wearing?” We ask victims of sexual assault.

This is rape culture and we're deep into it. From Zeus taking his sister wife Hera, to the Manosphere. Women and femme folks are objectified. Androgynous folks are objectified. If you're not white, you are objectified. We aren't seen as human, merely objects to have power over.

Which is what this is always about.

Power.

Men get violent when we question their right to exercise power. They need to barge in and lash out when we say no.

When Zeus went around ravishing goddesses, nymphs and humans, this was about explaining how local gods, heroes and heroines fit into the dominant culture. Even this lens of interpretation is through our own lens of empire. The colonisation and homogenisation of culture. Forced into the box of white comfort, to be appropriated at will.

Organisations have a memory, and they shape humanity. We are so easily moulded.

When I read about Echo, it was a tale about a Nymph who was punished to repeat the last word other folks said.

Hera did it to Echo, because she'd helped Zeus with another of his “affairs”. As if a Nymph or any object of Zeus attention had a choice. When you're a child you accept the framing. You ignore Hera demanding that Echo should have acknowledged her power. Betrayed the King of the Gods. As if that's a choice Echo could choose. To defy power.

Hera, the goddess of Marriage framed as a Karen.

Meanwhile Echo fell in love with Narcissus, forced to echo back what he said, while he was cursed to fall in love with his reflection. Nymph and human wasting away. A dark reflection indeed.

This is the Patriarchy. Stealing power and ravishing us. Accusing us of being the scold, and refusing to acknowledge the harm they do. Then framing that harm as being our fault. We had it coming.

Forced to echo back Men's opinions, to be docile, polite.

If we smiled more we'd find a man.

How dare we have power? How dare we be happy? How dare we not rely on them for our happiness? How dare we prefer independence?

It's only as an adult you start to question the framing of it. Some of us never get the chance to start questioning. The Patriarchy trapped us all. It harms us all.

Tech and Power

As I've said elsewhere our political stances frame how we create our code. We cannot separate code from our politics. Our political beliefs inform our designs. How we solve a problem. How we see a problem to be solved.

Our humanity and communities inform the software that we want to use, how we communicate.

So when we hear technologists throwing around the words “Echo chamber” we should be concerned.

Last week a member of the Mastodon advisory board Scott Jenson posted a screenshot of a tech influencer's post on Bluesky and asked if Mastodon is becoming an echo chamber. He then proceeded to equate folks being unwelcome of AI enthusiasts to be the same as the existing issues we have on the Fediverse and the racism of some of our communities on the Fediverse. There was then a lot of DARVO and gaslighting. Folks weren't amused, there was discussion and many of us didn't do it in Jenson's replies. We know that is not a safe space for us.

Folks on the Fediverse are highly technical. A lot of us know what Machine Learning is. We studied it and some of us still work in the space . We know that AI, specifically LLMs is grifting hype now. Any true use of this technology is drowned out by the grifters. We will be cleaning up the mess in our projects for decades. So folks on here aren't polite.

We weren't particularly happy with the Blockchain or NFT grifter bros either.

We see the harms that LLMs are doing around us. As our columnists and politicians grasp for attention like Narcissus looking at his reflection. Allowing the LLM to reflect back our own narcissism and opinions back at us for a price.

We see the harm that LLMs and Diffusion are doing to our communities. As Milliardaires hoard our computing hardware and then welch on their deals. Personal computing is in danger of being out of the grasp of the general population.

So no. AI bro's are not welcome here.

The Fediverse is a very queer driven set of interconnected spaces. Mastodon just happens to be the most commonly used software to put your instance of like-minded folks on. The Fediverse is more than Mastodon.

Encoding Human Rights

The Fediverse encodes two very important human rights. Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Association. Freedom of Association is the most important one.

Article 20

Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

When instances defederate they are exercising the second part of Freedom of Association.

No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

This is what the Free Speech bro's want to attack when folks are very clear at pointing out that some ideologies, or technologies aren't welcome.

We criticise and we aren't nice when we do this. We won't be polite. We know that if we give an inch, Fascists will take a mile. Tech and Fascism have a long history together. We'd like to try something different.

So I don't think this echo chamber is a bad thing. I mean there are those who want the Fediverse to scale, they want it to be as big as Facebook. But there are just as many who don't think that's a good idea. I don't for one.

Some of us helped to build the internet and we can see the harms we helped to cause.

We will not help you steal others work, or enable genocides by using the companies that provide the infrastructure for governments to do harms to their peoples. We won't be polite to the people that allow the sloppy auto correct to cause extra work in an already overloaded technical community.

We will judge you. Which is what you fear really. Being an outcast and not being welcome in our spaces. The spaces we had to build for our safety.

You're not welcome here. You have plenty of other spaces online to peddle this. Leave our spaces alone.

There's a difference between ostracisation and persecution. But the tech bros sure do seem to love claiming that when we ostracise and mock them, they feel scared. But then men do become dangerous when we mock them. They push on, they gaslight us. They ask us to be “reasonable”

I'm not reasonable. I took off my bridle a long time ago.

Walk a mile in my shoes buddy. Go back to your own echo chamber.

We're the echo that's left and we don't want to reflect your narcissism.

Leave me and mine alone. We are ostracising you, you aren't welcome here. We reject you and your values they are incompatible with our values.

Take the hint.

If you destroy our spaces, we will recreate our communities and find our folks again. We have that right of Freedom of Association.

We will rebuild the internet that you broke.

Well, it was broken from the beginning really. It was never designed with consent and privacy in the first place.

Perhaps this time we can rebuild our internet with those rights in mind. With networks that have the consent built in.

2

Yearned and deadly is Love. Drives to, from and mad. But still... still... is yearned.

3

I've seen Death, Beautiful, waiting, Cruel, loving and caring, With all the time in the world.

#Lyrics #Poetry

But, I also wanted my webcomic to focus less on the plot-heavy “relatable” drama that is so prominent in every well-known story on the subject, and just focus more on the whole random meaninglessness of it all. Now, obviously the decision to make it a no-plot genreless thing in a world of people that expect consistent and anchored stories with the usual tropes in them will garner mixed and often negative results, especially when it comes to building an audience these days. The common criticisms are: who is this story for, who will like this, what is the purpose of this story if it doesn’t seem to have a clear purpose?

On the other hand, I have found that I tend to be more motivated and do better when there is no complicated arc to think about because there is more room for creative freedom and I don’t feel constrained by a bunch of plot devices and other details to think too deeply about. So I don’t feel that Untilted’s narrative structure is the big issue that I’m struggling with here.

Since the start of the 2026 year, I’ve been finding it increasingly harder to translate my experiences into a narrative form, even a purely visual and abstract one. You see, I have discovered some personal revelations about myself that I feel are a bit too sensitive to talk about here, but for honesty purposes I will try to explain in a way that doesn’t make me feel too exposed. In order to do this I will talk in mostly obscurities, but not so much that it seems like I’m vaguely referencing people, because I’m not having any issues with anyone right now and I haven’t been having them for a while.

Generally, I clean up (i.e. delete) some old and half-baked stuff in order to reflect new content, but I’ve noticed that I may also delete stuff even outside of Untilted for different reasons. For example, I have had to delete a personal blog post I made about my challenges with emotional regulation, because, when I tried to expand on some of the points I was trying to make about how nothing really helped me even when it seemed that way, I realized that no matter how differently I tried to approach it, I kept hitting a nerve within myself. Like I haven’t processed things sufficiently yet for me to talk about it more openly.

This does not mean that I’m hiding things on purpose or deleting them just because I’m worried about what other people think, but rather; it began to feel less like I was telling a more honest and coherent story and more like I was building a case against something in order to defend myself against a common stereotype. It felt like I was just proving myself against a perceived opposition that:

1. I’m not just a “landmine” type (apparently that’s the new trendy term they’re using now?),
2. I don’t have or at least neatly fit in certain mental health diagnoses that others who may or may not be professionals may ascribe to me without my consent, and that
3. I’ve been more stable lately, honest to God.

This isn’t about what other people think in the pure sense, but rather, it was more about me myself and I specifically becoming increasingly burnt out about feeling like I have to build a case that shows I’m “one of the better ones” who stay out of trouble. So I ended up deleting that post because I felt that this was a personal thing of mine that really didn’t need to be shared, and therefore my own responsibility to deal with it myself.

Not because of any stigma. Not because of any feared pushback. But because I became tired of building cases.

In addition, the reason I haven’t been consistently or efficiently updating things for the past few months is because I’ve been experiencing a resurgence of old interests, old thoughts, old desires that I thought I had gotten over by now. I’m not just casually remembering old stuff with basic nostalgia. There’s something significant about these old things coming back that’s been distracting me from my usual work, that’s been keeping me awake, etc.

The fact that I’m not entirely sure whether I’ve been suppressing it all this time, or whether I just haven’t been paying attention to the obvious signs, means that I haven’t really been fully in touch with what I know about myself and what I really want.

It doesn’t help matters that some of my feelings are being made amplified by some of the things that have been going on in the world today, the things I’ve been looking up related to them, the connections I’ve been making between what’s happening and what I’m feeling personally - well, it’s just all been so… weird.

But I think what disorients me about it the most is that I’ve noticed a strong emotional component that wasn’t there before. Most times, when I like something I’m usually just mildly interested in it or just casually like it. But in this particular case, it’s been getting more sentimental, as I've been discovering some old things that I thought I just casually liked but realized that I deeply loved all along, and I've been discovering some new things I never knew or acknowledged before. To the point where I sometimes find myself lying in bed crying about it.

It’s not like I’m considering giving up the whole Untilted thing. I’m still sticking to it; it does speak to me still. However, there’s just been a kind of moment where the most overlooked parts of myself have been demanding my attention, and I have reached a point where I can’t just ignore them anymore.

A lot about Untilted is based off of my experiences, and I usually have no problem with communicating them in the form of the most typical fun gags or some sort of deep, semi-cryptic message for the audience to gauge (I don’t really embed any subliminal or hidden messaging in my comics, I’m not very good at it). But I’ve been having a hard time doing that precisely because of how personal some of my experiences are - sometimes way too personal to the extent that I’m not able to put things in coherent words or even images, relatable or not. That or I haven’t processed things sufficiently.

Am I running out of ideas? Not really. It’s more like I’ve been having trouble executing them.

At 18 I was told “You're gonna break hearts and not even know it, You are going to break hearts and not even notice”

Meet me at the gates of the gardens of heaven I'll take you to see the void

Meet me at the gates, I'll leave them unlocked Just be there, be there and wait

Documenting an ongoing process of lyric writing. First version just below this one in blog view.

The prediction (which was actually said to me) doesn't that well fit here. We'll see if it sticks or gets thrown out.

#poetry #lyrics

Each of my touches seem to leave scars

Too old to hold to too young to die

Too cold to fondle too quick to cry

I will dress in warning signs:

Toxic waste, Beware of mines

********

Beginning last summer I posted a bunch of old lyrics of mine. Early drafts, scribbled down ideas, unused bits, unfinished thoughts.

Among these I posted some final forms, with sometimes only a line or basic consept remaining from those early versions.

The short piece above is what will in the future be an early draft. It was written on Sunday, 8th of February 2026 and by the time I got it written down I knew: this won't do.

The piece is raw and emotional, but the rhyming makes me feel like I'm going to get on stage on a local village culture night's open mic with a bunch of other uneducated in the arts of poetry but having a lot to say villagers.

Not that I'm anything but for village culture nights and uneducated in the arts of poetry folks writing rhymes anyway. At least in this I don't have double standards.

By the following day I was ready to ditch everything but the last four lines. While the feelings expressed in the beginning of the poem/lyrics piece come from trying to express heartfelt things, do I sound whiny? Granted, the lines were not written without tears, but still...

On the other hand, dressing in warning signs takes control of what happens to the narrator, be as it may the end result remaining the same.

We'll see.

#poetry #lyrics

o deus falso não salva nem a si mesmo a mentira mal contada não vira verdade apenas a ilusão de um dia de sorte e no mais, nada que jamais a alguém importe

??/??/2020

april 13, 2023

lovers embrace a touch, a shiver, two smiles gentle flames entwined a beauty to see and feel

march 25, 2023

é este mangue cheio de garças caranguejos e o que mais há que me atrai atenção nessa praça e não a gente que aqui está seus desejos não me importam tampouco como se comportam nem por aqui, nem por lá

the gods ask to come with me, for they want to show their respect to you, and not just to my words.

october 10, 2023

Now, let's be honest: I am not and never have been a social media person. I don't have as much of a childlike susceptibility to finding literally every kind of well-produced art or comedy or similar entertainment to be easily amusing and so good, as I'm much more discerning about what I like and what I choose to engage with. I don't reply as much to literally every single trending post I see, partly because responses are often misread and partly because of me feeling pressured to reply to these posts for every repeated time I see them. I do not widen my social circle by default, and I reserve warmth and attention for whom and what truly interests me; this does not mean that I find the people I choose not to engage with literally unworthy of that interest, but rather, I haven't found that kind of spark in most people and things yet. (Basically, what I'm saying is, it's not you, it's me.) Because I'm very selective in my warmth, don't believe in joining niche groups on the premise that “common interests bring people together” (in my experience, they don't, and reality is much messier than this childlike premise), or otherwise play the social game of being more entertaining or interesting in a way that attracts others, my work doesn't generate those signals and so it stays mostly invisible to those not susceptible to what's immediately engaging.

As a result, everything I do becomes discoverable only when someone actively seeks it out, when an aggregator surfaces it, or when one or more people (I refuse to use the word “algorithm” or blame it on an abstract “system”) choose to amplify it, hence my reliance on word-of-mouth marketing. Because I don't engage or connect or immediately impress people the way others want me to, I become socially deprioritized, no matter how good I am at my craft or how interesting or useful or talented I could be.

When I say I want my art to be recognized by its own merits, I don't really mean that I want a handful of professionals or a large community to decide whether I am worthy of awards or accolades or grant money. I mean that I want anyone to come take a look at what I do and decide for themselves whether they want to engage further with what I do or what I stand for or not. Experience, expertise, or even an interest in art should not be prerequisites for that judgment. My ultimate aspiration is not recognition from elite circles or mass validation (or even external validation itself!), but something more fundamental: genuine connection with other artists, especially with those in my situation. The ones who aren't immediately recognized and stay hopelessly deprioritized by the masses. That is part of the reason for my selectivity, not because I think I'm too good for everyone else or that no one could ever understand me. And I hate that people default to that kind of bias against me.

However, I don't like how one of the consequences of taking this stance has resulted in what appears to be a consignment of my work to silence, whether intentional or not. Currently, I have had to stop making Untilted constricted to a membership because of how I was not getting any subscribers whatsoever (though I did receive a thoughtful $1 donation), and it's getting harder to work with a lack of engagement and feedback on my work. I feel like everyone has become either too scared or too quick to overlook things to meaningfully criticize others. Constructive feedback and meaningful dialogue become substituted for dismissive one-liners and absolute black-and-white thinking. I also dislike that the populace that privileges visibility often forces this kind of compromise, and I resent that this is read as disengagement.

Let me tell you a personal anecdote about me. When I was still in high school, I would get mostly honor rolls and certificates of excellence and stuff like that. Sometimes, some of my art would be exhibited in the classroom hallways and in-school art festivals. I even had a self-portrait of mine get accepted to be published in the Spring 2017 Celebrating Art Anthology, though it never was selected as a Top Ten or a High Merit Winner. I don't really remember receiving any harsh criticism of my work or anything like that, but I did mostly get vaguely praised – think compliments like “Wow, she's so good!” or “How is she so talented?” But I don't feel like I ever received any real genuine praise or criticism that was actually willing to delve deeper into more than just the techniques I choose to enhance my artwork or the subjects I choose. This is especially noticeable when I make realistic paintings and drawings of things like flowers, plants, nature, animals, and other similar subjects. Part of the reason I don't depict as much realism as I used to back in school is because it seems that the majority of today's viewers only superficially see that I'm good at portraying it and nothing more. It's why I'm increasingly preferring to do nonrepresentational art nowadays, even if the majority mostly ignore it, don't quite understand it, or prefer a stereotypical depiction of it to my unique interpretation of it.

I may have to figure out a way to develop more nuanced strategies of visibility that align with my constraints and philosophy. But what would that mean for me? I don't know. All I ever wanted was to cultivate a small and discerning yet close-knit and thoughtful audience of people. I have no interest in controlling what and how people interact with me, or what they say and think of me. I just want to put my art out there without requiring me to have to actively impress others or justify myself existing. That's all. And frankly I already do some form of that, but I admit I have to try other things as well.

Anyway, now that I've made my point clear, I would like to announce that the Untilted comic strip is now on Comic Fury (has been, since 9 days ago at this time of writing) and I have uploaded all of my comics on there for public viewing, though the website is still technically under maintenance (I still have to manually add descriptions, tweak the website layout a bit, etc.).

I am also thinking of adding new digital products to sell this month soon, as soon as I make some time for it somehow. It will be mostly pay-what-you-want.

I've got so many ideas to experiment with that I often have trouble articulating them and sometimes even implementing them in practice. Not a rapid flight of ideas but rather a disorganized pile of them building up like paperwork. I know, I'm not efficient enough. But I want to test my own limits.

Well, take care.

TL:DR – “Afterhour Adjustments” is a beautiful & impactful concise graphic novel that deserves a place within every collection of 'exceptional queer allegories'.

The digital 9-page comic “Afterhour Adjustments” (by @pebble@critters.gay) takes less than a half-hour to read, which I've done more than a dozen times by now. Every time I go thru this comic I find myself enjoying it even more – & I already liked it quite a lot the first time I read it.

Not only are the characters & scenes in this short story gorgeously illustrated, packed with abundant care & eye-catching detail, but the story those panels depict presents readers with an exceptionally compelling personal allegory that kept me ruminating LONG after I'd finished reading.

Right out of the gate, I'm a HUGE fan of how effectively this comic applies the color & composition of each panel & page as visual vehicles for its narrative: the dark, cool colors in first few pages immediately set a tone of unease & vulnerability that pave the way for the strange blue creature's 'adjustments', while the flip from cool to warm colors in the last two pages perfectly reflects Pebble's journey from disbelief to discomfort, to exploration, to acceptance and, eventually, to appreciation.

One aspect of this story I hadn't expected to appreciate as much as I do is the mystery: I LOVE diving deep into & unraveling all the settings & characters & backstories & motives in a story, but here all of those threads seem to be intentionally held forever “off-screen”. We don't know much AT ALL about the mischievous “strange blue creature” aside from what we can glean by their appearance (shackled arms & legs + ear tag suggesting a prisoner/test subject of some kind) & actions (powerful enough to permanently alter & teleport a living creature's body, but not to undo those changes, allegedly!), & there's nothing to imply that information would even matter, to Pebble. Far from a frustration, the absence of any further context or exposition regarding the SBC seems like an essential component that allows Pebble to re-frame & grow as a result of their experience.

To me, the heap of unanswerable questions surrounding the SBC represent their fourth & final 'gift' to Pebble, perfectly matching what their other three 'adjustments' provide:

Freedom via denial.

“By eliminating Pebble's ability to [A], the strange blue creature gave Pebble freedom from [B]”: [A]= speak; eat; grab/hold; have genitals; know anything about who did this to them, or how/why. [B]= worrying about what to say/how to say it; deciding what to eat/make/order for food; having to justify any perceived clumsiness; gender assumptions based on their genitals; the need to understand any of those things.

The titular events in “Afterhour Adjustments” are a powerful series of visual metaphors that manage to deftly capture & reveal the immaterial societal pressures that haunt the esteem of our own personal capabilities in an extremely memorable & remarkably wholesome fashion: by forcibly overturning their anatomy, the 'strange blue creature' relieves Pebble of the oppressive burdens they'd unknowingly inherited, demonstrating the true weight of those shadows by the lightness of Pebble's heart in their absence.

...and ALL of these events are super pretty, the WHOLE time. (Did I mention I like this comic? It's great!)

In fact, the only real criticism I have of “Afterhour Adjustments” (which isn't even an actual problem) is that I want MORE!

I REALLY enjoyed every glimpse of Pebble's story post-alteration, & wish we'd been able to tag along for more of their experience – from immediate fear & uncertainty to grief & dread, to desperate courage & tenuous progress, to fragile confidence & unexpected joys. I completely understand the author's choice to truncate Pebble's journey, as I'd imagine fleshing that all out would've fully redoubled the effort this comic required, but those two pages could have been twenty & I wouldn't have minded at all, given the chance to follow on & on through the indeterminate mire of emotions that led Pebble to the day they stood bare before a mirror within which they saw reflected a body worth appreciating that was their own.

...which was an absolutely incredible panel/imagery for the comic to end on, and I loved everything about it. I'm not crying YOU'RE crying!​

Fantastic work, all around! Cannot even believe that this is the author's first full color comic. 10/10, will happily read again & again.

-GoodNewsGreyShoes

I thought I would compare my time on Isla Holbox (pronounced “Ol'bosh”) to the lyrics of Madonna's La Isla Bonita.

¿Cómo puede ser verdad?

How can it be true? I don't know. I don't think that it is, but maybe it's “emotionally true.”

Last night I dreamt of San Pedro Just like I'd never gone, I knew the song

Last night I dreamt of Isla Holbox (probably) I still haven't gone, there's much more than one song

Young girl with eyes like the desert

So, dry? Unemotional? Sandy? Or the dark desert at night? This island isn't desert. Nor at all deserted—even when we went to the far north end of the island tonight where this photo was taken, we were among other tourists.

It all seems like yesterday, not far away

It all was yesterday the day before and today and half of tomorrow too, not far away I'm still here

Tropical the island breeze, all of nature wild and free (Ah-ah, ah-ah, ah-ah) This is where I long to be, La Isla Bonita

True!

And when the samba played,

Not so much samba. A lot bordering on techno. Dance music. Big bass. Also cover singers. ABBA daily. Even some Madonna. Sade. Gay, Latin or Miami dance club music. Nonstop right now at 03:27! Absolutely nothing indie. Shakira! Shakira!

the sun would set so high

How is that possible? The sun always sets low, as low as you can see. Madge, is your island mountainous? Isla Holbox is not. And here is its sunset.

(Ah-ah, ah-ah, ah-ah) Ring through my ears and sting my eyes, your Spanish lullaby

My ears always ring. Tinnitus. The salt and sweat and sun lotion does sting my eyes. No lullabies. And if there were I'd likely call them Mexican (or whatever the country of origin) vs. Spanish. I know that the language is Spanish, but Spanish lullaby doesn't sound right, unless it's from Spain. He sang me a Spanish lullaby He sang me an Argentinian lullaby He sang me a Mexican lullaby 🤔

I fell in love with San Pedro Warm wind carried on the sea, he called to me Te dijo, “Te amo” I prayed that the days would last, they went so fast

I fell in love with Isla Holbox Refreshing wind comes off the sea, he called to me, “Are you looking for tequila?” / “Would you like to book a tour?” / “Prescriptions can be mailed to the US.” Te dijo, “No, gracias.” Pero hay un otro hombre y te dijo, “te quiero”! I didn't pray. The days did last. They flowed at the proper pace & it felt good. Yes I feel ambivalence about the time here ending but it's not permanent. My companion and I both look forward to what we will do next, separately. It's not sad just because this moment is good and temporary. I try to make every moment good.

I want to be where the sun warms the sky

💛

When it's time for siesta, you can watch them go by

??

Beautiful faces, no cares in this world

Patronizing, ignorant. But yes there are happy looking people here, why not? Society doesn't have to be miserable; it's a choice.

Where a girl loves a boy, and a boy loves a girl

A lot of that pretty much, though we did see 2 men holding hands walking down the street today. And that felt good.

See https://vernissage.photos/@Romex for photos of the trip. I'll continue adding to this gallery after the current trip ends. And I'll use that address for future Mexico travel.

Holbox is La Isla Bonita indeed. The best memories aren't all sunsets and lovers. I enjoyed meeting the Argentinian man who moved here, worked scooping ice cream for a year and then went in with a friend to open the simple & delicious restaurant where we ate tonight. A highlight of the time in Holbox is observing the many community games taking place in rotation on a central multi use court: practice soccer, volleyball, basketball. Wholesome night activities. And I hope to long remember the look that my words put on a woman's face tonight. In a convenience store where the line was never long but always steady, an older woman began ringing up my purchases. It was one of the few times here that I've seen someone looking beleaguered. “Buenas noches,” I said. She brightened, stood a little straighter, smiled and said, “Muy bueno!” Then we navigated selecting a Kinder Bueno for my friend & soon we parted.

¡Adios!

¡Hasta luego!

Smiling. Human beings being human. Smiling. Smizing. Living. That's why I'm on this trip, human being being human practice. And oh yeah Spanish practice too.

'Staluego amigos

Zuerst eine kleine Linkliste zur Orientierung (diese und weitere Links finden sich auch auf dieser Übersichtsseite):

• die Infoseiten sind eine Sammlung von Informationen über die Infrastrukturen des Kongress. Was dort steht, kommt von offizieller Seite. Da gibt es auch einen Abschnitt für Erstbesuchies.
• Der Hub hingegen ist letztlich eine Art Wiki (also eine Informationssammlung, an der jeder alle mitarbeiten können, wenn sie sich einen Account machen). Dort finden sich selbstorganisierte Veranstaltungen, Assemblies, Projekte, ein schwarzes Brett und weiteres.
• Social Media: Es kann sein, dass auf Bluesky auch ein bisschen über den Congress geschrieben wird, aber das meiste wird auf Mastodon los sein, vor allem unter #39c3. Wenn Du Dich dort anmelden willst, hau mich gerne noch mal an.
• Die Chaospat*innen sind eine Gruppe explizit für Erstbesuchende, die haben sicher noch mehr Ressourcen.

Was tun?

• Besuche Self Organized Sessions oder Vorträge, die Dich interessieren.
• Gehe in einen Vortrag oder einen Workshop, von dessen Thema Du keine Ahnung hast.
• Freiwillig mitzuhelfen (“engeln”) würde ich erst ab dem zweiten Congress empfehlen. Falls Du Dich aber sehr verloren fühlst (passiert nicht selten, auch den ganz Erfahrenen), ist das vielleicht trotzdem ein sehr guter Einstieg: https://guide.c3heaven.de/index.en.html
• Sich mit Freunden treffen und über das Gelände stromern ist auf alle Fälle eine gute Idee.
• Wenn du jemanden mit einem interessanten Projekt triffst, frag ihn gerne dazu aus. Die allermeisten Leute haben Bock, über die Dinge zu reden, die sie auf dem Congress zeigen.
• Wenn jemand unfreundlich wirkt, ist er oft eher gestresst, müde oder überfordert.
• Versuche überall mal gewesen zu sein, weil es wahnsinnig viel zu entdecken gibt.
• Versuche trotzdem nicht, alles zu erleben. Der Kongress ist viel zu groß, dass eine Person wirklich alles mitbekommen könnte. Du wirst notwendig irgendwas verpassen; das ist okay. Versuch, den Moment zu genießen.
• Aus dem selben Grund: Ruh auch mal aus.
• Such Dir „Missionen“; zum Beispiel mit jemandem über Geocaching reden, endlich mal ein Bastelproblem lösen indem Du jemanden dazu ausfragst, eine Postkarte austragen oder alle Arcade-Automaten finden. Oft sind das gute Kennenlern-Möglichkeiten und sehr schöne Erinnerungen.
• Eine wichtige Sache ist noch die Foto-Policy. Wenn Du Fotos von irgendwas machen möchtest, dann ist es üblich, alle Leute, die auf dem Foto drauf sein werden, vorher zu fragen, ob das für sie okay ist. Es ist oft sehr schade, dass man dann coole Sachen nicht so einfach festhalten kann, aber es ist eine wichtige Regel in der Community.

Begriffe

• Vorträge vs. Self organized sessions: Das Vortragsprogramm (“Fahrplan”) ist von der Congress-Orga kuratiert, wird größtenteils aufgenommen und gestreamt, und ist üblicherweise von sehr hohem Niveau. Die Self organized Sessions sind viel weniger kuratiert und oft Hands-on-Workshops. Dort lernt eins auch eher neue Leute kennen. Vorträge Du auch im Januar noch anschauen, deshalb würde ich eher Workshops priorisieren. Es gibt übrigens auch eine App für Fahplan und Workshops.
• Assemblies sind die Orte von teilnehmenden Gruppen. So hat der CCC Hamburg beispielsweise einen Tisch, an dem sie sich treffen und an dem man sie treffen kann. Aber es gibt auch größere Assemblies wie beispielsweise die der Haecksen mit eigenem Workshopraum.
• DECT/Eventphone: wenn du noch ein altes Schnurlostelefon hast, kannst du das auf dem Congress verwenden. Dort gibt es ein eigenes Telefonnetz.
• Himmel: Organisation der freiwilligen Helfer*innen („Engel“)
• POC/VOC/NOC: Das -OC steht für “Operation Center”. Das sind Teams, die sich um Infrastruktur auf dem Congress kümmern, sie werden hier im Engel-Guide genauer erklärt.
• Hilfe: CERT für die physische Gesundheit, Awarenessteam für die psychische, Security für die Security.

Gutgemeinte Ratschläge

• Komm schon am 26.12. mal rum; das ist „Tag 0“. Da ist noch Aufbau, aber schon ganz gut zum Orientieren.
• Bring Deinen Laptop mit, vielleicht wollen Dir Leute Computerdinge beibringen...
• Such Dir ein „Zu Hause“, eventuell bei den Haecksen oder der Assembly eines Hackspaces, der nah an Deinem Wohnort ist, am besten bei Leuten, die Du schon kennst. Da liegt dann Dein Ladekabel, Dein Essen und eventuell eingesammelter Bastelkram; und Du kannst da auch mal ein, zwei Stunden sitzen und den letzten Workshop verdauen.
• Wie schon erwähnt, mach auch mal Pause, versuch nicht, alles zu erleben.
• Nimm Dir Essen mit. Das Messe-Essen ist teuer.
• Es sind tausende Personen während der Erkältungssaison in einem relativ engen Raum – „Congressseuche“ ist schon lange ein etablierter Begriff. Regelmäßiges Händewaschen ist absolut sinnvoll; ich würde auch eine gut sitzende Maske empfehlen.
• Wenn Du Dich irgendwann sehr erschlagen und klein fühlst, als wären alle um Dich rum krasse Hacker, nur Du nicht: Glaub mir, auch den krassen Hackern geht es so. Aber „All creatures welcome“ ist ernst gemeint; allen ist klar, dass eine der größten Stärken der CCC seine Diversität ist.
• Ein weiteres bekanntes Phänomen ist der Post-Congress-Blues. Dagegen hilft:
  • Beim Abbau mithelfen
  • Im örtlichen Hackspace vorbeikommen
  • Mit Freunden Vorträge gucken

Addenda

• WLAN: das Congress-Netz ist famously overengineered; hier finden sich Hinweise, wie Du ins Wifi kommst.

“I'm sorry for your loss.

I'm sorry for your loss of the feeling of wonder, of excitement, of the feeling of something that did not exist before taking form because you created it with your mind and your hands.

I'm sorry for your loss of feeling frustrated, not quite there yet.

I'm sorry for your loss of the will to grow, to learn, to can, to do and be better.

I am really sorry for your loss.”

-

Originally a reply to this post

“Thanks For Sharing”

thankful... that we're even able to talk about any of this at all. When Mike Leigh was on Charlie Rose, Charlie made some comment how in “Career Girls” these two old roommates meet up and talk very intensely, about serious personal matters + how Charlie thinks this works cause they're women. Or, really he said: “Women talk about things like this, and men don't. ...I find when I'm with other guys I'm talking about sports or politics.” This made me want to retch — mostly because I don't like Charlie Rose. But anyway I think, before pondering making a similar film with male characters, Mike Leigh just said, “Some men do talk like that.”

So I'm glad to be among the “some” of Mike Leigh than the “all” of Charlie Rose. Of course, that doesn't mean I feel entirely comfortable.

There's a video on YouTube titled, “Terrible Interviewer, Great Interviews” & that's how I felt about Charlie Rose always. Truly I'm not speaking in hindsight. I always felt personal dislike for Charlie Rose while avidly consuming his interviews as a rare example of intelligent conversation on tv. The exchange that I quote above pretty well explains it. For the demographics of his audience Charlie would have on a Mike Leigh. But Charlie is going to talk as if “all men are like ____,” because (as the whole world now knows) Charlie Rose is demented. His conscience clearly wasn't adequately developed, though that did not prevent his ascendence to the heights of broadcasting. Such revelations should cause a thorough reexamination of our media culture, but instead the powers that be in US society will pantomime outrage at a small number of individual failings while ensuring that current systems endure. They will stoke rumblings that changes—any progressive changes ever—are “going too far” and that stability demands regression to the mean, a state in which the powers at be remain the powers that be, minus one Charlie Rose. Even those minor penalties, of individual scoundrels chased from polite society, are only temporary. America can abide no improvement at all, for improvement implies that we weren't already perfect. Exceptionalism!

Maybe tomorrow

It's easy to get mad at the people who vote for evil. I'm mad. I hate my fellow white people including former friends and my mom. Think about that. I hate my mom. [1]

But do we get mad at people who eat at McDonald's or only buy Crest or Colgate or shop at Home Depot or who own iPhones? Advertising works. The effects of advertising are well known or else they wouldn't exist. And Democrats raise gobs of money and put on advertisements before elections. But if a better-for-you cola runs 6 weeks of ads I don't think it's going to outsell Coke. The Democrats can't compete against a lifetime of brainwashing. All through the 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s, and today, the Democratic Party has been dehumanized by a nonstop media onslaught from the right. Lefties like me laugh because the attacks are juvenile. And so are most commercials.

Ok but Black Americans exist in the same media landscape & they might buy Colgate but they're not voting for Republicans! They are reliable Democratic voters. Ok. I'm just an artist, a white man; I'm not able to speak for Black Americans. But I know this: Black people know their existence is under threat & it's never stopped being under threat. I also believe that Black Americans have a stronger network of community & family. (Above I talked about my division with my own mother. More below [2].) I doubt Black Americans vote for Democrats because of advertisements or even for specific policies. It's existential, a feeling, reinforcement of identity and community.

Remember, I'm just talking. All this is uneducated speculation. I'm an artist, not a college graduate!

96% of this post was written February 27, 2025, and left incomplete. “Under pressure” of my made-up weekly blog deadline, I decided to add a few finishing touches. I choose to blog about politics this week because it's a bleak time. It's depressing, yet somehow a pep talk to realize that embracing humanity is an uphill battle & always has been.

Examples of pervasive anti-humanism and humanistic attitudes to combat them:

Capitalism. Money-centered existence diminishes individuals & humanity. Center what's natural: the body (including emotions), all humans, animals, plants, the planet. Use labor and capital for the benefit of those.

Perfectionism. “I'm right, they're wrong. They're idiots. What's wrong with those people? They're not like me, they're animals.” · “My mind is terrible, I can't remember anything. I'm so fat now. I was better fifteen years ago.” Ranking and judging damages self worth, deteriorates human community. Settle for less. What is is. What is is good. Diversity is good. Perfection is a delusion. Love all. Ok, now, ya hippie, how can you love all?! Equally?! I'm not concerned about equally, that's a ranking urge. I strive to live centered in love. It's not easy. It's work. I love myself and others in our imperfections. I aspire to love all unconditionally.

Minimizing Feelings. “I'm afraid of looking at certain texts, talking to certain people. I'm pathetic. Worrying makes it worse, I should just...” Hating feelings is hating oneself. Feelings are natural, beautiful, human. Instead of seeing a conflict between feelings and reason I seek peaceful coexistence. (Compossibility is an important word in my philosophy for another time.) Feelings are valid. Feelings are who I am. Reason is too. These provide data for me to consider. I can change any time. I make decisions based on feelings and reason.

There's so much more. I started a weekly blog a couple months ago to force me to write and publish constantly. The work builds. There is no perfect. I'm grateful to be working in a space that collects my efforts (corporate spaces usually throw yesterday's unpopular work away). I hope to keep going.

But, maybe they should be. Perhaps I am wrong and they still are. My opinions on the entire thing are worth about as much as my wife says they are, which to me is worth everything. To anyone who believes in me, they might care a bit. To anyone else, they don't matter.

In the end, it only really matters how we feel, silently of course, as it pertains to the growth of our skills and passions and quality of work. Regardless, this story is my life's purpose and I will write it for eyes, even if it is only my own, and this will not detract from the quality. If anything, it will make it better. My goal has and always will be, the same: hold their story in my hands. The ability to do so has been kept from me only by finances; but not indefinitely.

As it is such a basic and widely used ritual, there has been by time created a “LBRP-egregore”. You could say that when you are performing the LBRP, you are not only doing it for the effects of the ritual, but also tapping into the current created by all the previous workings of LBRP and those being worked now.

The ritual is basic, but not simple – it is much more than “just a (temple) purifying rite you do before the actual workings”.[2]

LBRP is, as the name implies (the) lesser (banishing) pentagram ritual. There is also the Greater Ritual of the Pentagram, which uses banishing / invoking and active / passive forms of the pentagrams of all the elements. However, in this lesser ritual, the Pentagram of the Earth only is used.[3]

Now, why do you use only the Pentagram of Earth? To understand this, one needs to look a bit deeper into the ritual.

Visualisation instructions for the first part of LBRP, the Kabalistic Cross, tell the Magician to imagine hirself growing ever taller to the point where the entire universe seems tiny. However, the feet remain firmly on the ground. This is a clue: earth is where you operate, the sphere the ritual is acting upon. Besides, you are using the pentagram as the symbol drawn and the pentagram represents the material, earthly world.

So, this is an earth(l)y ritual. Maybe this is why there's only the Earth Pentagram used. Well, it's not that simple. Thinking about this a bit further, questions arise. If merely operating on the earth, feet firmly on the ground, makes the ritual need only one kind of Pentagram, shouldn't there be pentagram rituals for the other three elements – and spirit – and using the other pentagrams not only available, but regularly used? Furthermore (and this is said with a wink), if standing with feet firmly on the ground is the reason to use only the Earth Pentagram – who exactly would one do rituals for the other elements? Should one be standing on, say, fire? Even done as just a visualisation, things might get a tad difficult.[4]

It seems to be the time to find the next clue. The first clue pointed towards earth. No, actually the first clue was found even before that – it's in the name of the ritual: “lesser”.

The second, err... third clue can be found from the spoken texts of the ritual. With the exception of part three, the Evocation of the Archangels, it's Hebrew. This suggests taking a look at Kabbalah[5]. Granted, merely the fact that this is a ritual of Ceremonial / High / Ritual Magick, should make one think about looking there... You pretty much can't avoid having to learn at least the basic ideas of Kabbalah sooner or later, if you are interested in CM.

The fourth and quite important clue has been present all along: the symbology of the Pentagram. Especially the Pentagram as the symbol of the microcosm, not only as the symbol that contains five elements and connects them all when it's drawn. Taking those four clues (rearranged a bit): Kabbalah leads to taking a look at the Tree of Life. “Lesser” points the look downwards on the Tree. Earth focuses the search to the representation of the material world. Finally, the Pentagram tells it straight (if the former ones didn't already) with the information of the symbol representing the microcosm – the earthly Kingdom of Malkuth. Now there's a familiar term, it's said in the ritual even! For a reason, too.

The following is simplification, so bear with me. Studying each element, gesture, name, word and symbol further is more than adviced!

On the Tree of Life, LBRP acts on the low(est) point, the 10th Sephira called Malkuth. The name means “Kingdom” and it is the sphere of Earth and material existence. Both the element and planet attributed to Malkuth is Earth. Logically, it's direction is north.

Malkuth is traditionally pictured as being divided into four quarters, the four elements Earth, Air, Fire and Water. It is also the plain of elementals and (unlike with any other Sephira) the spirits of the four elements are divided into four categories, including archangels familiar from the rite being discussed.

However, even with the other elements present, one could semi-jokingly say that there is enough attributes to earth/earthy/material to last for all four directions.

Little more seriously speaking, Malkuth is the sphere where what “exists only as ideas” become real, material, have substance. It's immersed with matter. It is “earth/material heavy” and it makes sense that the mage makes sure hir “can handle it” – that's where the mage lives. This Sephirah is also the only one that is attributed to earth. The other 9 Sephiroth are attributed to the three other, “older” elements; the roots of these elements to the Supernal Triad and two sets of three in the two lower ones. So, one could think of the Fire, Air and Water in Malkuth as being “Fire of Earth” (etc), which would make using just the Earth Pentagram even more logical.

Furthermore, even when one uses only the Earth Pentagram, the other elements “get into the rite anyway” with the symbology used and the symbolic stress on the material becomes clearer. Enough with the over-use of quotation marks!

In this ritual, you are – among other things – bringing down power from the upper planes (note the visualisation of light, touching head first and then pointing down touching the genital area) to the plane of (your) operation, physical plane (where it also gets grounded). You are also creating an area of protection around yourself – around you flame the four pentagrams, above and under you are hexagrams.

Checking what different occult fraternities and writers say about the LBRP's relation with it gives more insight. They also give a bit of mixed messages.

For example, Aleister Crowley places the ritualist standing on the “intersection of the paths of Samekh and P�. You are facing Tiphareth (the Sun), thus on your right hand is Netzach (Venus), on your left hand Hod (Mercury), and behind you Yesod (the Moon).”[6] Thinking about the archangels of the Sephiroth mentioned this would fit, especially when one checks closer the Archangel Haniel that's usually placed in Netzach instead of Uriel (Auriel) that gets called in the ritual. According to a Kabbalah FAQ, “Around the 12th to 15th centuries C.E. the name of Haniel came to replace the name Uriel” . Furthermore, the attribution of the Archangels isn't set in stone or otherwise remain the same throught the ages or interpretations.

According to Golden Dawn, you have your back to the Tree (the microcosmic Tree – you become the Tree), with Geburah to your left and Gedulah (Chesed) to your right. You are “standing” on Malkuth, though.

If you go by Crowley's placement, the earth-heavyness can still be explained: you're working on the Assiah, the lowest of the four Kabbalistic worlds – the material world.

Notes

[1] In addition to this, there are many LBRP variants out there, written mainly by and for the use for people who find it uncomfortable to use the kabalistic – interpreted by many as blatantly Christian – names and symbology of the original. In my personal opinion, if the names called in LBRP do not feel at all fitting, one might want to try the Star Ruby before going for any of the LBRP variants. Why? Consider the egregores.

[2] Or, to quote Aleister Crowley: “Those who regard this ritual as a mere device to invoke or banish spirits, are unworthy to possess it. Properly understood, it is the Medicine of Metals and the Stone of the Wise.” (from notes of “The Palace of the World”)

[3] In some traditions, those who advance to higher levels of initiations / levels are given a version using four Pentagrams: those of Fire, Water, Air and Earth. Furthermore, in some traditions this ritual is done with only the Earth Pentagram, because at an early stage, the novice has not been taught the other ones... However, LBRP in the “only Earth Pentagram” form is not for the use of nor used by beginners only!

[4] Here, I'm going on the silly side. You can use any of the five pentagrams in a pentagram ritual. In this occasion, the original question referred to the “standard LBRP”, so I'm working from that on. Sometimes getting silly, as it seems.

[5] Kabalah, Kabbalah, Qabalah, or which ever way you happen to spell it...

[6] Aleister Crowley: Magick (“Blue Brick” -edition), p. 691

(Sources, in addition to the mentioned, were several, heh.)

#Magick #Thelema

Materials

• Black cloth. (Here, black is used to denote strength, protection, calmness, darkness). Natural fibres are best, not only because the pillow will be rather close to your head. Cotton is a good choice.
• Sewing equipment, either plain old thread and needle or machine
• Embroidery threads or fabric pain
  • Herbs

Starting Out

The dream pillow has “two layers”. The inner one will be the pillow itself, with the herbs. The outer one is the “pillow case” for this inner pillow.

To begin with, you'll need to choose symbols that will be embroidered or painted on the outer pillow, the pillow case, as well as colours for the symbols. The symbols should denote Strength and Protection, the symbols used and their colours should arise from your own personal symbology and correspondences – they should speak to you. You can add other symbols according to your own needs and insights.

The pillow's final size should be 11” x 11cm. This strange mixture of measurement units is because the idea is to use the number 11. Here, 11 denotes both the pentagram and the hexagram, it's the number of the Goddess and also refers to one's Great Work. The purpose is to banish disturbing nightmares and these nightmares can indeed interfere with one's Great Work, especially when they're making you too tired to Live.

Cut four pieces of the fabric, large enough for you to be able to get that 11” x 11cm pillow from. Put two of the pieces aside for a while and start working with the other two – the pillow case.

Embroider or paint the symbols you chose with your chosen colours on both of the pieces (right side of the fabric). If you painted the symbols, let the paint dry out completely before starting to sew and if you're using fabric paints, iron the paint as per instructions. Then, sew the pieces together with the right sides in. Leave the other 'short end' unsewed. This is where you will slip the the inner pillow inside the pillowcase. Turn the allowances on this short end in and sew in place. You can attach ribbons to the sides of the opening in order to tie it and keep the inner pillow in place. You can also sew the opening close when the pillow is ready, but ribbons make it much easier to change the inner pillow if needed.

The next step is sewing the inner pillow. Make it a little bit smaller than the pillow case. Sew the sides, right sides of the fabric in, leaving a couple of inches on one side for turning the pillow seams in and then stuffing it. Turn the seams in.

The Herbs

For this nightmare banishing pillow, I chose the following herbs for choosing from: Lavendar, mugwort, hyacinth flowers, anise, cedar, rosemary, valerian, hops, marjoram, dittany of Greece, garlic, thyme ... Do take your allergies into consideration and don't use anything that might trigger your allergies!

Use approximately 50% lavender, with a dash of rosemary and anise. With others, make a nice and even blend. Remember, you should be able to sleep on that pillow! Mix the herbs gently, without using iron / metal bowls or servers.

It is better not to use: Sage, as it may cause haunting feelings in your dream. Tansy, as it can cause nightmares. Other species of Artemisia than the above-mentioned mugwort, or laurel, as they can cause dreams with fears. You might want to remove these from your sleeping quarters as well. Use the herbs as herbs, not as oils. While some instructions do mention oils in dream pillows, oils can have too strong a scent and they may stain.

Fill the inner pillow. It is supposed to be rather flat, not round. Sew the hole you left for filling and put the inner pillow inside the pillowcase you made earlier. Tie the ribbons or sew the pillowcase shut.

Other Notes

While preparing the pillow, concentrate your thoughts on what the pillow is meant to do. That is, the whole preparing process is good old fashioned Witchcraft and the pillow itself a kind of spell wrapped in cloth :–)

Then to Banish the Nightmares

You're not supposed to just lay your head to sleep after making the pillow. You should be preparing yourself for the forthcoming night, sleeping and dreaming. Before falling asleep, perform a banishing ritual of the type you are most familiar with. The purpose of this is to sleep inside a 'circle', within cleansed space.

If you can, perform the ritual in your mind instead of going around or on your bed. That is, your mind is doing all the necessary work, while your body is resting on the bed.

Include the whole of your bed and a little bit of its surroundings to the area you are cleansing. If your bed is next to a wall, pull it out a little bit so that there's some space between the wall and the bed. Otherwise you might be taking a little bit of your next door neighbour's apartment inside your circle.

After the banishing, relax your whole body and – sweet dreams!

#magick #spell #pagan

But I don't care whatever you wear We met behind the scene every first time we see

We know all our being Alright from every start In a glimpse of the eye One from our heart

There's no witchcraft There's no shrine All is ours and nothing 'mine'

Now and Never Is all the time The joke is on us let it be a first smile every time

of night and day curious all along the way

We find our tunes out of the blue boundless feeling and we know

without a doubt free in joy wherever we go

all our striving that we share out of compassion we dare birds bear witness to the sun oh the sun

whispering dawn whispering

Moving on new horizons ahead by intuition and intent

we realize with ease intangible dreams every time again

In stillness we cease and crest there are no words to be left all within a joyful heart

within our shining eye morning arise

all our exploring we share with all our attention we care the golden light is shining on within through out you

whispering dawn whispering

let us remain strangers with a gleam in our eye learning and inspiring open what will be

let us become strangers not pretend that we know keep our dreams and visions let the unknown unfold

let us leave as strangers grateful happenings at all nothing as expected no names to call

let us be strangers complementing one another free and united once and for all

Wiccan Version

The Wiccan versions of the Witch-bottle which follow are more suitable for the Wiccan view of the world, magick and ethics. They are often intended to capture the negative energies or prevent it from ever arriving and – what's important – prevent it to harm the home and its inhabitants. Many of these Wiccan versions are very much like the basic bottle described above, so it isn't necessary to repeat everything over. However, you can use wine, (apple) vinegar or blessed (salted) water instead or in addition to urine. The nails used may be new, etc.

Many Wiccan Witch-bottles use herbs, with the herbs being chosen according to their magickal qualities. There are sometimes very specific instructions given for the gathering of each herb and other items, including correct phases of the Moon. The herbs and other objects may be put in the bottle the previous day, letting the bottle stand by the witch's bed over the night. In the morning, you can add (morning) urine to the bottle, after which the bottle is closed and sealed utilizing Wiccan rituals. Some instructions state that the bottle will be placed in a cupboard or closet, so you don't necessarily have to carefully hide it.

The following instructions are a basic version of a Wiccan version of the Witch-bottle, using herbs. You can do everything using a longer/more complex or a shorter/simpler route, depending on your own inclinations. You can for example start collecting the necessary items on a given phase of the moon (for example on the day before New Moon) and perform the ritual on the next Dark Moon. Or, you can collect the items when you have time for it and build the bottle at any phase of the moon (with protective spells, you don't always have to wait for the right phase of the moon – you do it when you have to). You can utter a suitable spell with every item added to the bottle, summoning the spirit of the item/accessory and meditate for a while – or you can speak your chosen words after the bottle is filled. You can make the bottle as part of a ritual, or you can construct a ritual especially for this occasion. One reason why I'm being so vague with the instructions is that I'm not Wiccan myself.

Materials

* Bottle or jar, with a tightly closing cap or lid * Sea salt * Crystal or stone, for example turquoise, obsidian or black onyx. * Herbs, for example acasia, aloe, lilies, lime, lotus, agrimony, corn, cayenne and black pepper, dried onion, salvia, frankincense, basil, mint, myrrh, garlic, rosemary, mistletoe, pine needles. * A few nails or needles * Wine, (apple) vinegar or urine * Thread * Black candle for sealing * The usual tools used in the ritual section

Preliminary Preparations

You can choose the herbs and crystals you are going to use according to their special qualities or use some of those I've listed. You can also use a drop or two of an essential oil instead of a herb. You can choose the number of herbs and solid items in general (in this case, essential oil is counted as “solid”) to put in the bottle on numerological grounds either so that the number of all solid items is a specific one, or that you will use a certain number of herbs. Suitable numbers are 7, connected to protection, or 9, connected with the Goddess.

Gather the necessary items. Clean the bottle you are going to use. Wash it with warm soapy water carefully (if you can use a specific soap made for protective purposes, so much the better) and dry it well. You can leave the bottle over night in the light of a full moon to charge it. Choose a place to hide the bottle. For a bottle to be filled as part of a ritual or ritually, it is a good thing to have all the necessary tools at hand, on your alter. You can also construct your ritual and spells and chants beforehand.

The purpose of the crystal (which isn't absolutely necessary, the list is given as an example – including the liquid items) is to use it's magickal qualities, the same goes with the herbs. The salt is there to purify and bless the target of the Witch-bottle (the person(s), home to be protected). The nails and needles ground the negative energy and you can also visualize it being then sent back to its sender, threefold. The thread tangles the negative energy in a knot similar to what you are tangling the thread into and to bend the energies away from the builder of the bottle. You can also visualize the negativity tripping over to the thread. The urine represents the builder of the bottle. When using wine or vinegar you can visualize the negative energies drowning in the liquid, with vinegar acting as a purifying element as well.

The Actual Making of the Bottle

If you're constructing the bottle as part of a ritual, you can perform the ritual opening as usual.

Start filling the bottle with the salt. After the salt, add needles or nails, bent or straight. After this, it's time to add the herbs. The crystals and the thread you've tangled into a “ball” can be added next. If you are adding liquids, that is done after the solid items.

When the bottle is otherwise finished, you can raise energies with a suitable chant (I've seen the traditional “Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali, Inanna” recommended for this purpose) and directing it into the bottle, after which you close the bottle and seal it with the wax of the candle.

End your ritual as usual and bury the bottle into a suitable place or otherwise hide it. You can burn incense on the hiding place to seal the spell properly.

Witch-Bottle to Show Off

Witch-bottles that are intended to be left out in plain sight are not usually made to that much protect their makers, but to bring the one who has cast this bottled spell something she or he wants. The usual reasons are the reasons so common with other types of spell as well: the wish the gain more love, material gains, happiness, creativity.

I won't give any specific instructions, only basic principles:

Select the bottle or jar used according to its color, shape or the simple fact that it is pleasing to the eye. Go through the magical qualities of herbs, colors, essential oils, metals, crystals etc and choose the ones you'll use in the bottle according to how well they suit your intended purpose. You won't normally use any liquids (except for a few drops of essential oils) in bottles left in the open, they are “dry bottles”. Aim for a harmonious whole. That means: don't try to squeeze in your bottle every single herb or crystal associated with, for example, wealth. Too much is too much!

Pick a few suitable herbs or oils, one suitable crystal, one suitable color. To represent the color you can add (silk) ribbon to the bottle or tie a ribbon around it, or paint a symbol representing your goals with the chosen color. You can also make a “hat” to cover the lid of the bottle, making it out of black cloth and painting a symbol on it with fabric paint or magic marker, or use the color of your spell as the color of this “hat”. You can use colors as colored sands or salts. Even metals have their own magickal correspondences, so you might want to use metal dust or chips.

If you are following the phases of the moon or other celestial objects in your magick, take them into consideration while constructing the bottle. It is up to the bottle's maker whether to use a formal ritual or not.

As a basic principle, it could be suggested that sands (and metal dust/chips) usually go to the bottom, herbs and oils on the sand and the crystal in with the herbs.

Final Words

You can easily develop a large number of versions of the basic Witch-bottle to suit your (and others') needs and life situations. Even during the time historical Witch-bottles were in use, there were new versions being developed, so why not today?! There is no One True Witch-bottle (even though there probably are people who would like to claim so), only bottles more like the traditional ones and bottles of more modern variety. I have run into all kinds of bottles myself, some being love-raising bottles on the brink of going over the level of good taste and ethics (some actually going overboard) to bottles constructed to bind a given bad person very tightly. The many varieties speaks volumes for how effective this type of spell work can be and how versatile it is.

— [1] Oxoniana, vol. i. p. 232, tells how the bottle got its name: “One of the Fellows of Exeter (College), when Dr Prideaux was rector, sent his servitor, after nine o'clock at night, with a large bottle to fetch some ale from the alehouse. When he was coming home with it under his gown the proctor met him, and asked him what he did out so late, and what he had under his gown? The man answered that his master had sent him to the stationers to borrow Bellarmine, which book he had under his arm; and so he went home. Whence a bottle with a big belly is called a Bellarmine to this day, 1667.”

#Witchcraft #Paganism #Magick

Witch-bottles are probably quite familiar to many Pagans, at least as a concept. Witch-bottle isn't a poor little Witch in a bottle, or hold something Witches drink in their gatherings. They are more akin to a “bottled spell”. The tradition originates from British folklore, traveling with British immigrants to the Americas, if not further. Many modern Pagans have included Witch-bottles in their collection of spells, widening and diversifying this old tradition – and making it more comparable with their personal ethics.

A Bit on the History of Witch-bottles

The history of Witch-bottles goes back hundreds of years. The origins of this tradition has been dated to the 1500's. They were used most actively for a couple of hundred years. This is the same time when the Witch-hunts were going on. After this period, the tradition slowly waned. The last historical Witch-bottle was found in a cabin built in mid 19th century, in Pershore, Worcestershire (UK).

The actual bottle of a traditional Witch-bottle during the 16th and 17th century was a German stone bottle called “bartmann” or “bellermine” bottle. Similar bottles of stone material were manufactured in Holland and Belgium. The technique wasn't mastered in England before the 1660's and bartmann bottle manufacturing was rare in Britain.

The bottle got its name from a cardinal called Bellarmino only after the Witch-bottle tradition had already begun. These bottles had a round belly and they were decorated with a facial image of a grim looking bearded man and a medallion of stylized floral or natural imagery.

Even though these bottles were being manufactured actively in Germany long before the time of Bellarmino – who was against the Reformation – these bottles were given their familiar name as a satirical comment on the Cardinal. His bearded figure resembled the typical bearded man depicted on these bottles.[1] Later on, the bearded image was taken to represent the Devil, which suited well for Witch-bottles, after all — witches were considered as people allied with the Devil.

Glass bottles were also used, but according to my sources they were never as popular as Witch-bottles as were the bartmann ones.

Old Witch-bottles contained things like bent iron nails, human hair (head hair and pubic hair) and urine. Urine as an important ingredient of a Witch-bottle has been long known in folk traditions, but actual findings with the bottle still containing urine have been rare. However, all of the Witch-bottles found in England which were tested for urine, did prove positive. Other traditional items contained in Witch-bottles include small bones, thorns, needles, pieces of wood and in some cases heart-shaped pieces of cloth.

The bottles were most often found buried under the fireplace. Other sites include under the floor, buried in the ground there, and plastered inside walls. The fireplace is, from a magical point of view, a security risk as it has a straight connection with the open skies above. It was believed that the curse of a Witch or even a Witch herself in a shape-shifted form could get into a house through the fireplace. Another security risk was the doorway, as doors are opened and closed several times throughout the day. In addition to the fireplace, the bottles were often hidden near the doorway.

On the Original Uses

The most active period of Witch-bottle usage and the Witch-hunts don't coincide by accident. The fear of Witches produced ways of protecting oneself against them during times when slightest misfortune was easily interpreted as being caused by a curse put on one or another member of the family. From the point of view of a present day Witch, the original purpose for building a Witch-bottle wasn't that pleasant: they were intended to keep Witches and Witches' curses away. The contents of a Witch-bottle was designed to not only divert an attacking Witch, but also to cause her to suffer the agonies brought on by all the nasty things inside the bottle. To put it simply: to turn the curse back to the curser.

The urine in the bottle symbolizes the target of the curse. The curser and the target of the curse were believed to have a strong connection and the curse was believed to target not only its intended victim, but also the bodily fluids of the target. When the bottle was placed in a way that made it easier for the curse to meet with the urine (in the Witch-bottle) before the actual target, the curse hit the bottle and not its intended victim. This is why the bottles were usually hidden where they were. The importance of pubic hair and hair was similar to that of the urine.

Witch-bottles are very much a part of age-old traditions of sympathetic magic with its intentions of causing pain for the Witch with the contents of the Witch-bottle. According to folk beliefs, the use of Witch-bottles sometimes brought the Witch herself, writhing in agony, knocking on the door – begging for somebody to break the Witch-bottle and promising to reverse the curse.

The Witch-bottle was believed to be active as long as the bottle remained hidden and unbroken. People did go though a lot of trouble in hiding their Witch-bottles. Those buried underneath fireplaces have been found only after the rest of the building has been torn down or otherwise disappeared.

Modern-Witch-Bottles

Very generally speaking, the modern day Witch-bottles are very similar to historical Witch-bottles in their basic structure, even though their intended purpose has changed. The most common purpose for constructing a Witch-bottle today is capturing negative energies targeted at the constructor of the bottle, her family or her home. Even though some bottles are “mirroring” in nature, they aren't normally built to cause agony to the sender of negative energy/caster of curses. Some Witch-bottles are intended to change negative energy into positive one and then release it into the surrounding area. This kind of bottles could be classified as “guard and protect”-bottles.

The basic structure of Witch-bottles can be used for purposes other than protective: for financial gain, for helping with artistic creativity, to call forth positive energy (instead of “just filtering out negative energy”), for improving health, etc.

One could say that the basic principle is the following: practically speaking, a Witch-bottle is a container of some sort, usually a jar or a bottle, which is filled with objects and often also liquids which fill a given magickal purpose. The person making the Witch-bottle, or in other words, the one casting the bottled spell, can charge the objects magickally beforehand and build the bottle to work on this charging until the need of renewing the spell arises. Witch-bottles can also be built to recharge themselves by the energy they 'capture' for as long as the bottle stays unbroken, whether it be years or centuries.

Instead of magickally charging the items, one can build a bottle whose the powers are based on its contents, but cumulatively so, resulting with powers stronger than the sum of its parts. Also this version can be designed to be seasonal or “one time lasts a life time”.

What Do Modern Witch-Bottles Contain?

The typical contents of the basic protective Witch-bottle today is quite similar to that of the traditional one: bent iron nails (some say they are better if old and rusty while others say clean and unused are best), thorns, rusty razor blades, broken glass or pieces of broken mirror (some say breaking a mirror for Witch-bottle use causes bad luck, others claim that breaking a mirror for this particular use will not cause bad luck except for people sending negative energies to the bottle builder), or other sharp and dangerous “nasties”, urine of the bottle's builder, often also menstrual or other blood. One could use semen as the masculine counterpart for menstrual blood. The bottle is often a common tight-lidded glass jar, or a bottle with a rather wide mouth.

Other types of Witch-bottles may contain sand or different colored sands, crystals, stones, knotted threads, herbs, spices, resin, flowers, candles (no, you won't burn them inside the bottle), incense (you won't burn it either), votive candles, salt, vinegar, oil, coins, saw dust, ashes etc etc. Actually, everything used in “normal spells” can be used in this bottled version of a spell, the Witch-bottle.

Additional materials include candles and/or wax to seal the bottle/jar with. The rest of the materials depend on the ritual in question (if any) and the religion of the builder of the bottle.

On the Hiding Place

A Pagan living in their own house may be able to hide the Witch-bottle in the traditional way under the fireplace, under the floor, or in the walls. However, it is more common to bury the bottle in the yard in a place where nobody will accidentally break it while digging in the garden. One such place is behind stones under the stairs. For a Pagan living in a terraced house burying the bottle in the garden should work well – as long as you are careful not to attract too much attention to yourself while burying an odd object (the bottle) during the correct phase of the Moon, at night, with just candle light, wearing suspicious looking ritual garments.

Apartments can be a difficult place to live in when you're trying to find somewhere to hide a Witch-bottle. Or, at least it may seem like that! Digging a hole and burying the bottle in the yard may be not only difficult, but also quite likely not allowed. Nosy kids can dig the bottle up and hurt themselves on the contents. Not to mention that in the right (or wrong, to be more precise) neighborhood could cause lots of trouble for the Pagan attempting to hide a bottle in the yard.

However, the situation is not that impossible! The bottle doesn't need to be situated near the home in order for it to work. If you are constructing a bottle intended to be a personal safety guard, it can be buried in a forest or sunk in a swamp. With a Witch-bottle designed to guard a given home and those living in it, you can use a large flowerpot by the front door or on the windowsill to bury the bottle in to. In this case, the bottle should be small enough to fit in the flowerpot – with the plant!

Another idea I've heard is putting the Witch-bottle into a closet next to the front door, where it could easily do its job as a guardian and protector of the home and its inhabitants. However, this solution might cause some trouble if the same thing that happened to one Pagan happens to you: the Witch-bottle she kept in her closet worked very well – until it one day literally blew up. The bottle was of the very traditional type, so cleaning up after this wasn't that pleasant, as you can well imagine! While refining the idea further, we ended up putting the bottle in a covered bucket filled with soil and then putting the bottle inside the bucket in the closet.

For a Pagan still “in the closet” or living in something like student housing with a room mate these ideas may not be that usable. There's still no need to panic, as Witch-bottles can be made in miniature size, too. One witch working with test tubes in her professional life worked out recycling methods for test tubes as miniature Witch-bottles small enough to fit in the flowerpots on her windowsill. If you want to use test tubes, make sure you can close them tightly. There are also miniature bottles and jars available at various gift shops which can be used as well.

It should be noted that not all Witch-bottles are designed to be hidden away. Some are intended to be left out in the open, for example on the windowsill, on your altar or on your (work) desk.

Some Instructions

The next part contains some instructions for making Witch-bottles. I won't be including any particular instructions for rituals. First, because the exact rituals used depend on the religion of the person crafting the Witch-bottle and rituals aren't even always necessary. One doesn't even have Pagan religious inclinations for constructing a Witch-bottle. One of the persons who has made a Witch-bottle with my instructions is completely unaffiliated religiously, doesn't consider himself a Pagan, and is more or less an Atheist. He is, nevertheless, very happy with the results. Second, planning the ritual (if one decides to have one) can be considered an important part of constructing a Witch-bottle. As important as planning and gathering the objects used. Third, if you are using a pre-made ritual, you can easily end up repeating somebody else's words and copying somebody else's motions, without proper emotions. Finally, modifying things to suit you better is in this context not only allowed, it's recommended!

Basic Bottle for a Modern Witch

This is the tried and tested basic Witch-bottle, suitable also for modern day Pagans. The bottle is intended to be one that protects its maker, often also the maker's home and family, from negative energies. Depending on how the bottle is made and on the maker's Will, the bottle can be one that gathers the negative energies in itself (capturing), one that sends the energies back to where they came from (mirroring) or one that changes negative energy into positive (transforming). I would say, however, that this traditional Witch-bottle isn't the best suited one for the last option.

Materials

• Glass, earthenware or stone bottle or jar, with a tightly closing cap. Size depending on how big you can easily hide. Size doesn't matter that much, so be reasonable.
  • Protective gloves for handling items you'll be putting in the bottle. A Witch-bottle won't help you much if you manage to get a blood poisoning while constructing one.
  • Wax or candles to seal the bottle. Black is a good choice.
  • Another jar for “potty” if you don't have one. Aiming isn't that easy, especially if you're trying to hit something like a Witch-bottle. So, you'll need something to pee into – and of course you'll need your urine.
• All kinds of “nasties”: Nails, rusty and bent (you can bend them yourself, too). Pieces of barbed wire, thorns, burrs, pieces of glass and/or mirror, needles etc.
  • Some things to choose from: Menstrual blood or semen. You can drain menstrual blood from your menstrual pads or tampons. In order to get semen – well, you do know how to get it. Word of advice, though – if you are using sex magick as a part of your Witch-bottle building ritual, do try to remember that you were supposed to collect some of the semen to use in the bottle. It's not that easy to collect it out of your partner, you know. Other blood – get a sterile needle from the pharmacist and remember to buy some band-aids as well. You can also add your pubic or other hair to represent yourself. An egg can also be included.
  • Bandages should be readily available, in the case something happens. A lot of the stuff you're putting into the bottle is sharp.

Preliminary preparations

Gather all the necessary items, your bodily fluids being the very last ones as you don't want to store them even for a day. You can collect other items intended for a Witch-bottle over a long period of time, storing them until you have all the necessary items and enough of them. Items found on the ground suit the purpose well. Cut metal items into smaller pieces if necessary so that they fit into the bottle you've chosen. If you're using a very small bottle, remember that will need only a very very small number of each item or alternatively small items (broken needles, tiny nails etc).

Choose a date to suit your magickal workings best and plan your ritual, if these things are important for you. Waning moon is often considered a suitable time for building a Witch-bottle. The ritual can consist of just the visualization of the bottle's intended use.

You can use the following to help with your visualization:

Your bodily fluids are intended to symbolize yourself, they are part of your essence and are traditionally used in magick. Instead of having the negative energies hitting you, they hit your “representative” in the Witch-bottle, the part of your essence.

For a capturing bottle: The “nasties” inside the bottle are intended to capture the negative energies – the metal captures them, the glass confuses and cuts them, the thorns puncture them and iron (and egg) dissolve them. You can visualize the negative energies drowning in the urine. If you are building a mirroring bottle, visualize the glass and mirror mirroring the negative energy back to its sender or to grounding it to earth. For a transforming bottle you can use colored glass and visualize the negative energy transforming into positive one before continuing on its journey forward to benefit you, your home or the universe.

Choose the place to hide your Witch-bottle before you make it. Be sure you have all the necessary equipment like a shovel. By the time the bottle is finished, it's too late to start pondering “but where will I put this thing?” If you are going to bury the bottle in the ground, choose the place so that people or animals will not dig it up.

The Actual Making of the Bottle

Have all the necessary equipment and items at hand in a place you consider best suitable for the task, at a time most suitable for you. Cast a circle, if you feel one necessary. You can build the bottle and have your ritual at the site of where you will hide it or do everything else in one place and then take the ready bottle elsewhere to be buried.

Fill the bottle with items you've chosen until they form a disgusting mixture. Shake the bottle to mix the items, if necessary. If you are including an egg, don't break it and add it as the last of the solid items. Remember to leave enough room for it as well.

After this, add urine, menstrual blood or semen, or prick your finger with the sterile lancet and add as the very last thing a few drops of your blood. You won't need large amounts, blood and semen are considered potent, so few drops will do.

Close the cap or lid and seal the bottle. You can carve symbols of your choice (for example runes, a sigil), being careful not to break the seal. If this happens, remove the wax and start the sealing process again.

If you are going to go to another place to hide the bottle, clean up after yourself especially if there is any chance that somebody else will get to the place where you were building your bottle before you come back from hiding it! If you did cast a circle before starting, take it down. Remember to ground yourself (if you are creating the bottle at the place where you're hiding it, you can do this afterwards).

Travel to the hiding place and hide your Witch-bottle in a suitable manner. Banishing words suit the situation well and if you don't know how or don't want to use traditional banishing spells or something similar, you can even swear like a drunken sailor! You can bury the bottle upside down, putting more nasties in the hole you buried around the bottle before covering it all up. If you are hiding the bottle somewhere inside your home, hide it the right way up.

#Magick #Witchcraft #Paganism