dracusfyre

[dracusfyre]

hey! take it easy soon, if you can. 

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If you take asks can you perhaps draw Loki?

Here you go! I hope he looks alright to you :P

I had the biggest crush on him as a teen, so drawing him again was such a joy haha

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I hate when I say things like "oh I want an ipod classic but with bluetooth so I can use wireless headphones" and some peanut comes in and replies with "so a smartphone with spotify?" No. I want a 160GB+ rectangular monstrosity where I can download every version of every song I want to it and it does nothing except play music and I don't need a data connection and don't have to pay a subscription to not have ads and don't have popups suggesting terrible AI playlists all over the menus.

Gimme the clicky wheel and song titles like "My Chemical Romance- The Black Parade- Blood (Bonus Track)- secret track- album rip- high quality"

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windows users, save money using these free apps!!

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decentralize and clean up your life!!!

use overdrive, libby, hoopla, cloudlibrary, and kanopy instead of amazon and audible.

use firefox instead of chrome or opera (both are made with chromium, which blocks functionality for ad-blockers. firefox isn't based on chromium).

use mega or proton drive instead of google drive.

get rid of bloatware

use libreoffice instead of microsoft office suite

use vetted sites on r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH for free movies, books, games, etc.

use trakt or letterboxd instead of imdb.

use storygraph instead of goodreads.

use darkpatterns to find mobile game with no ads or microtransactions

use ground news to read unbiased news and find blind spots in news stories.

use mediahuman or cobalt to download music, or support your favorite artists directly through bandcamp

make youtube bearable by using mtube, newpipe, or the unhook extension on chrome, firefox, or microsoft edge

use search for a cause or ecosia to support the environment instead of google

use thriftbooks to buy new or used books (they also have manga, textbooks, home goods, CDs, DVDs, and blurays)

use flashpoint to play archived online flash games

find books, movies, games, etc. on the internet archive! for starters, here's a bunch of David Attenborough documentaries and all of the Animorphs books

burn your music onto cds

use pdf24 (available online or as a desktop app) instead of adobe

use unroll.me to clean your email inboxes

use thunderbird, mailfence, countermail, edison mail, tuta, or proton mail instead of gmail

remove bloatware on windows PC, macOS, and iOS X

remove bloatware on samsung X

use pixelfed instead of instagram or meta

use NCH suite for free software like a file converter, image editor, video editors, pdf editor, etc.

feel free to add more alternatives, resources or advice in the reblogs or replies, and i'll add them to the main post <3

last updated: march 18th 2025

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Half the world’s population lives in countries spending more on debt interest than on health. 2.1 billion live in countries spending more on debt than education. This is the cost of a broken financial system.

30 top economists—brought together by the Catholic Church—have laid out what must change to establish a fairer system. Their report is out today.

Let’s hope leaders act at #FfD4

Read the report by the Jubilee Commission chaired by Joseph Stiglitz:‬

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every leftist acting like they don’t understand how antisemitism could be racism “because Judaism is a religion” are lying through their teeth. we spent the last 2 decades plus fully understanding Islamophobia was racist.

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Wore a couple modified shirts recently and someone asked “how?” so my illustrator background made me draw this because work was slow ✂️ Featuring examples at the end— drawn in Procreate.

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Oregon bans the corporate practice of medicine

I'm in the home stretch of my 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in PDX TODAY (June 20) at BARNES AND NOBLE with BUNNIE HUANG and at the TUALATIN public library on SUNDAY (June 22). After that, it's LONDON (July 1) with TRASHFUTURE'S RILEY QUINN and then a big finish in MANCHESTER on July 2.

Private equity firms are the demon princes of the hellspace that is the imploding, life-destroying, plutocrat-generating American economy. Their favorite scam, the "leveraged buyout" is a mafia bustout dressed up in respectable clothes, and if you mourn a beloved, failed business, chances are that an LBO was the murder weapon, and PE was the killer:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spineless/#invertebrates

(Despite simplistic explanations and bad-faith apologestics, a leveraged buyout is nothing like a mortgage – it is a sinister, complex, destructive form of financial fraud:)

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/05/rugged-individuals/#misleading-by-analogy

As bad as this is, it's ten quintillion times worse when applied to healthcare. When PE buys your hospital, people die. A lot of people:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/28/5000-bats/#charnel-house

PE doesn't even have to buy the whole hospital – for a long time, PE groups bought out anesthetist practices affilated with hospitals and pulled them out of the hospital's insurance affiliation. Unsuspecting patients who went in for routine surgical care at a hospital that was in-network for their insurer would get a rude awakening from their sedation: "surprise bills" running to tens or hundred of thousands of dollars. PE groups did the same thing with emergency rooms, so that people experiencing serious medical emergencies who had the presence of mind to insist upon being brought to an in-network ER nevertheless got hit with life-ruining surprise bills:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/14/unhealthy-finances/#steins-law

Donald Trump sometimes panders to anti-elitist elements in his base by threatening the private equity racket. For example, Trump has frequently railed against the "carried interest" tax loophole that allows PE bosses to pay half as much tax as you or I would on their vast takings. "Carried interest" is a tax law that gave 16th century sea-captains a break on their "interest" in the cargo they "carried." It is both weird and fantastically unjust that richest, worst financiers in America are able to take advantage of this Moby Dick-ass-law:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/29/writers-must-be-paid/#carried-interest

But while Trump sometimes talks a good line about fighting private equity looters, he does not, has not, and will not lift a finger to them. He dares not. The carried interest tax scam is preserved in the Big Beautiful Bill, joined with many other giveaways the least productive, most guillotineable looters America has produced:

https://www.pillsburylaw.com/en/news-and-insights/no-changes-carried-interest-big-beautiful-bill-so-far.html

Working people cannot rely on Trump's federal government and the Republican Congress to protect us from these vampires. But this is America: when the feds fail, that creates an opportunity for state legislators to step in and act. And that's just what's happened in Oregon, where the state legislature has passed sweeping, bipartisan legislation that bans corporations from owning or operating a medical practice in the state:

https://prospect.org/health/2025-06-13-united-health-care-oregon-corporate-medicine/

This is called the "corporate practice of medicine" (CPOM) and it's already banned. The American Medical Association has a longstanding, absolute prohibition on medical practices that are run by anyone except a doctor. Oregon has had a CPOM ban on the law-books since 1947. Private equity meets this prohibition with a very transparent ruse indeed: they get a "rent a doc," often out of state, to serve as the nominal owner of their practices, and the doctor takes orders from the PE firm, and hires the PE firm's outsource agencies to actually operate the clinic or hospital, absorbing the entirety of the practice's profits.

The Oregon bill closes this loophole, and not a minute too soon. Giant healthcare monopolists – most notably groups associated with Unitedhealth, the largest health corporation in America – have embarked on a statewide buying spree, buying and shutting down rural hospitals and clinics, and transforming the remaining facilities into understaffed charnel houses that hemorrhage doctors.

The bill took several tries to get through the legislature. As Oregon House Majority Leader Representative Ben Bowman told Matt Stoller and David Dayen on their Organized Money podcast, the statehouse was crawling with lobbyists hired by out of state private health-care firms who were worried about "contagion" if Oregon's bill passed and spread to other states:

https://www.organizedmoney.fm/p/how-oregon-is-ending-corporate-run

But the bill passed anyway, thanks to a combination of two factors. First, during the bill's legislative adventure, Unitedhealth's Optum bought out the Oregon Medical Group and made working conditions so terrible that dozens of doctors quit, leaving thousands of rural patients (from predominantly Republican districts) without medical care. Optum "fired" thousands of patients, including some who were undergoing cancer treatment, on the basis that they weren't profitable enough to care for:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/private-equity-unitedhealth-take

In the midst of all this, another Unitedhealth monopolist, Change Health, got hacked and virtually no one in America could get a prescription filled – worse, the hack exposed the health records of almost everyone in America, the largest health-related breach in US history:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/28/dealer-management-software/#antonin-scalia-stole-your-car

Then, as icing on the cake, Unitedhealth's Oregon operation screwed over multiple, cancer-fightin lawmakers who were serving in the state-house as the bill was under debate. Combine this with testimony from doctors who described how they were unable to practice medicine after leaving Unitedhealth's terrible facilities because they had been trapped with noncompete clauses in their contracts, nor could they warn other doctors away from falling prey to this trap because they were also bound by nondisparagement clauses.

The new bill, SB 951, passed out of the legislature and was signed by the governor earlier this month. It is now good law in Oregon, which means that corporations can't operate medical practices, and that medical personnel can't be subjected to noncompete clauses (fun fact: every noncompete clause is written by a lawyer, but the American Bar Association prohibits noncompetes for lawyers).

Now it's time for those out-of-state healthcare looters' worst fears to be realized. It's time for the contagion to spread to other states.

The US federal system is a big, gnarly mess, but by design, it leaves a lot of power in local hands. That's bad news when local power is being used to ban trans people from peeing, or to attack school librarians, or to ban masking. But it's good news when states and cities can use the American system to create sanctuary systems that welcome asylum seekers and treat them with dignity (which is why the American right, the standard bearer for "states' rights" when it came to school segregation and voter suppression, is now all-in on sending armed soldiers to terrorize their fellow Americans with assault rifles).

Another reason to like state and local politics: local Democrats often suck way less than the necrotic federal Dem establishment. Some of them are even good! In Philly, Mayor Cherelle Parker just signed the Protect Our Workers, Enforce Rights (POWER) Act, which protects 750,000 workers from wage theft:

https://prospect.org/labor/2025-06-18-how-philadelphia-secured-basic-rights-for-750-000-workers/

The POWER Act shifts the burden of proof for wage theft allegations from workers to their bosses and allows them to recover their stolen wages plus $2,000 in statutory damages per violation; it sets up a new fund (replenished with employer fines) that gives money to victims of retaliation, and it creates a public "bad boss" database of repeat offenders.

As Brock Hrehor writes for The American Prospect, the POWER Act was passed after Trump gutted the National Labor Relations Board and left it unable to protect American workers. The POWER Act tackles one of the most pernicious forms of crime in America: wage theft, which accounts for more losses than all property crime in America combined, with losses overwhelming borne by Black and brown workers, especially women. Wage theft is notoriously hard to police, thanks to fear of retaliation and the precarity of victims of this crime.

The POWER Act passed as a result of the combined efforts of unions (SEIU, AFL-CIO) and the Working Families Party. Along with the Oregon Corporate Practice of Medicine ban, it shows how local, grassroots activism can protect everyday, working people from even the worst corporate criminals, even in Donald Trump's America.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/20/the-doctor-will-gouge-you-now/#states-rights

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I got an ad for Chat GPT when I clicked on the link lol

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Ok but I've read that book and if the section the book is open to is true and not picked at random for the vid THEN I KNOW WHAT PART IT IS AND THIS IS ABSOLUTELY THE CORRECT REACTION. I had to set the book down and stare into space about it. The book is called Blood Over Brighthaven and you should absolutely read it.

[dracusfyre]

The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice

I'm in the home stretch of my 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in PDX THIS FRIDAY (June 20) at BARNES AND NOBLE with BUNNIE HUANG and at the TUALATIN public library on SUNDAY (June 22). After that, it's LONDON (July 1) with TRASHFUTURE'S RILEY QUINN and then a big finish in MANCHESTER on July 2.

Margaret Killjoy writes fantasy stories of relentless tension, boundless wonder, thrilling adventure…and completely radical, unflinching anarchist politics. Her 2024 YA novel "The Sapling Cage" is a queer coming-of-age epic that motors with all the narrative energy of a genderbent Conan epic:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/24/daughters-of-the-empty-throne/#witchy

Today, Strangers In a Tangled Wilderness Press publishes The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice, a collection of three linked short stories set in Killjoy's celebrated Danielle Cain series, which Alan Moore called "ideal reading for a post-truth world":

https://www.tangledwilderness.org/shop/p/the-immortal-choir-holds-every-voice

Danielle Cain is a freight-train-hopping, anarcho-queer hero whose adventures are shared by solidaristic crews of spellcasting, cryptid-battling crustypunk freaks and street-fighters. In Immortal Choir, the action opens with Danielle and a motley band around a campfire in a dark Idaho woods, surrounded by the night-screams of some distant demonic presence. It's Samhain, and the veil between the realm of the living and the dead is as thin as it gets. Bad things are stalking the night.

To save themselves, they must court their own dead, welcoming them to their circle. They pile a camp-plate high with food for the dead to eat, build the fire up, and begin the tell the stories of their dead comrades, summoning them as a defense against the monstrous forces that stalk the All Saints night. This is the setup for the three linked short stories that make up this short book.

This is a great setup: a group of endangered comrades, huddled together against the darkness without, telling tales to buoy up their bravery. It's the framing device that makes The Decameron an enduring classic after 800 years and counting. In Killjoy's hands, it sings.

The first story is "The Troll King's Court," a ghost story about a Norwegian troll cult that came to America in a failed Manhattan-Adjacent Project to create a mystical superweapon with which to win WWII. It's ultimately a story about how the competent people who have their shit together in our lives are just as broken as the rest of us, and about the many ways that release, fulfillment and actualization can take place. It's spooky as fuck.

The middle story is "The Fairies of the Spring," which summons up the old, mean roots of the Fair Folk, the cruelty behind their beauty and merry laughter. Pratchett did one of these (Lords and Ladies), and so have many others – but no one's done it where the resistance comes from a motley band of queer punk club-owners in a rural town, who team up with local shitkickers to hunt the elves and banish them to their realm.

The final tale is "The Battle of Miami," a story about a streetfighting anti-globalist battle. It's a tale of Black Bloc tactics and true queer love, that lights up with joy.

Killjoy's really onto something with this series. She's tapping into the deep roots of fantasy – maybe the socialist parables woven into William Morris's stories. She's also connecting with the roots of urban fantasy (I was delighted to see a reference to Terri Windling's superb, absolutely amazing Borderland series).

These three tales stand alone, so there's no need to read the previous volumes before diving into this one. But you should read the other two, because they're great:

The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion (2017):

https://reactormag.com/excerpts-margaret-killjoy-the-lamb-will-slaughter-the-lion/

The Barrow Will Send What It May: (2018):

https://reactormag.com/excerpts-the-barrow-will-send-what-it-may-margaret-killjoy/

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

https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/18/anarcho-cryptid/#decameron-and-on

[dracusfyre]

Tamsyn Muir's writing beyond The Locked Tomb

Y'all, turns out there's lots of imagery and themes in TLT that Muir was already playing with in her earlier fiction. A lot of it is easily available online, in which case I'll link to it. (The short stories that aren't can also be easily read if googled, to be quite honest—that's how I read The Deepwater Bride and Why the Mermaids Left Boralus). • The House That Made the Sixteen Loops of Time (2011)

5K. Short sort-of-cozy romance (?) with (you guessed it) a time travel loop. Explores a very queer potential relationship. CamPal enjoyers might find a similar sweetness.

• The Magician's Apprentice (2012, Lightspeed Magazine)

5K. This is the one that stopped me dead on my tracks. It features an older, male mentor figure called John (a “very ordinary man” with “dark eyes”) who introduces the young, female main character to magic that has a terrible cost—and to literature such as Lolita. This excellent post by @familyabolisher does an incredible job of analyzing the very deliberate intertextual links between TLT and Lolita.

• The Woman in the Hill (2015, Lightspeed Magazine, originally for Dreams From the Witch House anthology of Lovecraftian horror by women)

4K. Possibly my favorite! It's a straightforward Lovecraftian horror, centered on the image of the woman (is it human though?) trapped in an unnatural pool inside a cursed cave. Chain imagery too. It does something different from Alecto, mind, but you can see links, ways of playing with facets of a strong central image. It's fun to consider how reliable the two narrators are. Here's an analysis and afterthought from Reactor Mag.

• Chew (2013) 4K. Zombie abuse and cannibalistic revenge story ft. an uncanny woman revenant, told from the eyes of a traumatized German boy. I was strongly reminded of Harrow's conversations with the Body. Tamsyn gave an interview on the themes and her intentions. Interesting to read in light of Alecto, I think, although I don't think she's going the same route in TLT: “the idea of post-war rebuilding connecting to rebuilding the body of the zombie; a Frankenstein who once rebuilt doesn’t act as planned or desired. […] I love cannibalism […] it’s innately spiritual […] any afterlife she goes to, he’s going too.”

• Apothecia (2014, published on Tumblr and tapas.io)

Short webcomic where an alien monster tries to corrupt the ruthless human girl who holds it captive. Musings on responsibility and murder, mention of child abuse. The alien's speech patterns remind me of a Resurrection Beast. You get wonderful dialogue like “Murder is a profession. Job. Employment, you tiny leg dog. There you are, walking along. Walk walk walk. Now you are a walker. Good job. Special child. Murder is like this.” Art by Shelby Cragg.

• The Deepwater Bride (2015, Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine)

The opening line is: “In the time of our crawling Night Lord's ascendancy, foretold by exodus of starlight into his sucking astral wounds, I turned sixteen and received Barbie's Dream Car.” Need I say more? Extremely fun. A novelette where a young queer girl from a clairvoyant family struggles with an apocalyptic event while being annoyed by another very plucky girl. Lots of descriptions with nerdy marine zoology terms. Close in tone to Gideon. In the background, someone dies EXACTLY like that one death at the end of Gideon, which makes me wonder what happened to make Tamsyn interested in this particular image. I also liked that Tamsyn is aware of Nightwish. No link, but you'll get a PDF immediately if you Google.

• Union (2015, Clarkesworld Magazine)

5.5K. Very weird, extremely Kiwi story about a town that gets sent lab-grown wives by the government, but they're not made the usual way so they're Weird and people have feelings about it. Fascinating and eerie description of non-human (in some people's eyes, sub-human) women (?) who cannot be observed to have recognizable feelings or thoughts, yet have some sort of inner life. Quite touching, very uncanny.

• Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower (2020)

Short novel (~200 pages). Very funny. I was reminded of Coronabeth because the whole plot is “princess finds herself branching out into decidedly non-princess-like activities”, but other than that—this is a fairytale for adults about people who make eachother worse. No particular links to TLT but a very fun read with some gut punches. Extremely Tamsyn through and through, what with the dubious morality and all.

• Why the Mermaids Left Boralus (2021, in Folk & Fairy Tales of Azeroth by Blizzard Entertainment)

Set in the World of Warcraft universe. Haven't read this one yet, will report back lmao. As with The Deepwater Bride, no link but I easily found a PDF of the entire compilation. It's illustrated!

• Undercover (2022, from Into Shadow, Amazon Original Collection)

Haven't read it either. Will edit once I do.

[dracusfyre]

IG@polissya_bushcraft

[dracusfyre]

Literati Bookstore - Ann Arbor, MI