#Conduit Installation

[ledestube]

DIY electrical conduit installation can be rewarding, allowing you to customize your home and save money. This guide will walk you through the process.

[earthendreaming]

Nurielle Stern. Conduit, 2023. Single channel video (projection), porcelain, mirror, glass.

[cabexindia001]

Mastering Conduit Fittings and Accessories: A Comprehensive Guide

Understanding Conduit Fittings and Accessories

Conduit Fittings And Accessories are essential components in electrical wiring systems, providing support, protection, and functionality. They are used to connect, terminate, and route electrical cables within conduit pipes.

Types of Conduit Fittings

Boxes: Used to enclose electrical components and junction points.

Couplings: Connect two lengths of conduit together.

Elbows: Create 90-degree turns in the conduit run.

Bends: Used to create curves or angles in the conduit run.

Bushings: Protect cables as they enter or exit the conduit.

Terminals: Used to terminate cables within the conduit system.

Hangers and Clamps: Secure the conduit to walls, ceilings, or structures.

Supports: Provide additional support for long conduit runs.

Types of Conduit Accessories

Pull Boxes: Used to facilitate the pulling of cables through conduit runs.

Locknuts: Secure the conduit to fittings or boxes.

Grounding Devices: Provide a connection to the grounding system.

Cable Glands: Seal and protect cables as they enter or exit the conduit.

Benefits of Using Conduit Fittings and Accessories

Safety: Conduit fittings and accessories help protect electrical cables from damage and prevent electrical hazards.

Code Compliance: Using appropriate fittings and accessories ensures compliance with electrical codes and regulations.

Efficiency: Conduit fittings and accessories can improve the efficiency of electrical installations by providing proper support and organization.

Aesthetics: Conduit fittings and accessories can help create a neat and organized appearance for electrical wiring.

Choosing the Right Conduit Fittings and Accessories

When selecting conduit fittings and accessories, consider the following factors:

Conduit Type: The fittings and accessories must be compatible with the type of conduit being used (e.g., rigid, flexible, EMT).

Application: The specific application will determine the necessary fittings and accessories (e.g., boxes for junction points, bends for curves).

Environmental Factors: If the installation is in a harsh environment, choose fittings and accessories that can withstand moisture, temperature extremes, or other factors.

Regulatory Requirements: Ensure that the fittings and accessories comply with local electrical codes and standards.

Conclusion

Conduit fittings and accessories are essential components in electrical installations, providing support, protection, and functionality. By selecting the appropriate fittings and accessories, you can create safe, efficient, and code-compliant wiring systems.

[muntitled]

Force-Fed

Pairings: The Salesman x Fem!Reader

Summary: You didn't need a job. Not when you only needed him.

Warnings: Dead Dove Do Not Eat, Language, Coercion, Standards Relationship, Abuse, Isolation, Gaslighting, Manipulation, Jealousy, Codependency, Stalking, Yandere!Salesman, Smut (+18) mdni, DDLG, Taboo Sex (she literally calls him dad), Freudian Slip, Daddy Kink, Dom!Salesman, Sub!Reader, Subspace, Slight!Age Regression, Choking, Degradation Kink, Praise Kink, Dacryphillia, Breeding Kink

A/n: If this isn't your vibe, leave the fic alone. Read something else. Like always I'm not responsible for the media you consume.

Installing a mobile tracker on your phone might not have been the most morally good thing to do, that he could admit. Perhaps even more incriminating is that the idea struck him while you were passed out on the floor, your body thoroughly spent from all his ravaging. He was nothing if not an inquisitive man and he needed to see what you got up to during the week, when you were without him. (Note: this started out as a precaution. For your own good. You ought to be thankful to have someone like him in your life).

Who knew that the tracker would bring him here?

His jaw is screwed shut as he leans down under the awning of a building, spotting you through the window of a tired coffee shop, donning a uniform he hadn't even known you owned- it set him alight with a certain level of possessiveness that was foreign to him.

He admits that before you, he'd never had much use for any pointless emotions like love or care. They were, at their very core function, just hormones injected into the brain in order to trick humans into reproduction. That's what he saw you as for the longest time: A means of reproduction. A conduit through which he could fulfill all his most absurd fantasies- fantasies that scared even himself.

When he hit you, fondled you, groped you or stretched your body beyond its tantalizing capabilities, he truly believed he was making you useful, and in return for your services you got to coast through university without having to worry about bills.

That's what it was supposed to be. Nothing less and certainly nothing more.

So what the hell is this?

Today is a Tuesday and your 'sessions' together are scheduled on Wednesday. He ought to just keep on walking and go about the rest of his day forgetting having ever seen you.

As far as your agreement was concerned, you were strictly expected to leave him to his devices throughout the week- it never occurred to him that he would also be expected to leave you to yours.

It makes him tsk, seeing you scrub the counters of a cafe... as if you didn't have him to provide for you.

Had he not provided you with enough?

Had you not gotten everything you wanted?

You were like a dog without a leash.

And his hand was itching to pull you right back to him.

He walks into the coffee shop before his brain is finished processing his movements.

"Good afternoon-" greeted the young man behind the counter. The place smelt like roasted coffee beans and debt. It's obvious in the very few patrons milling about that this business was doomed to fail. Your Salesman had a knack for spotting abject poverty and the owner- your boss, one Lee Junmin was teetering on the edge of financial ruin. It's a very good thing that your Salesman is here to save you from this sinking ship.

"Good afternoon," your salesman says stiffly, almost amicably.

He finds you mid-conversation with your coworker. There's a smile on your face as you crane your neck back, holding a cup under the burning faucet of a coffee machine. You're speaking amicably and you're still smiling. Genuinely. Not at all the robotic smile you reserved for the Salesman during your 'sessions'.

He realises now, watching you with a real smile plastered on your face, that you had been lying to him. You don't seem as broken as you claim to be. Seeing you here, assimilated into society. Sporting a part time job?

His knuckles clench around the handle of his briefcase. He was brimming with the need to punish you for it.

It's absurd.

To punish someone for being a fully functional human being. Not even his own psychological issues could adequately reason that.

The younger boy behind the counter rests a hand on your shoulder, finally letting your eyes settle on the tall Salesman behind the counter.

He can see the moment your breath catches in your throat.

How he wishes he had his heavy hands wrapped tight around that throat. He'd choke you for trying to get rid of him. For trying to... not need him.

"Could you take care of this customer? I need to go out for a break-" Your co-worker mumbles quietly and your heart drops like a bag of dipped in molten lava at the sight of him standing there on the opposite end of the counter. There's a smug sort of smirk playing across his features. I've caught the traitor, now it's off with your head.

You begrudgingly steel your nerves before turning to face your co-worker again, trying to even your breathing as you assimilate back into your easy banter, "And how many times have I told you smoking is bad for you-"

Your co-worker raises his tattooed hands, sporting a boyish grin. It's oddly refreshing to interact with a boy your age- someone normal who wasn't drowning in psychopathic tendencies or bullying homeless people for fun.

"Who said I'm going for a smoke break?" He asks, as you slide up to the counter. You situated yourself behind the barrier as if it was going to keep you safe. You knew nothing could keep you safe from the tense shadow hovering over your benefactor's eyes. The Salesman is livid as your co-worker finally makes himself scarce and after a few tense seconds, he finally speaks.

"I didn't know you did this." He says, staring you down the bridge of his nose.

Play it calm. Play it cheeky. Play it coy.

"You didn't know I make coffee?" That snooty remark doesn't earn you a single gratifying chuckle. It doesn't even earn you a soft, meaningless smile. In contrast, all it gets you is monotony. He's pissed.

"Worked." He spits out, "I didn't know you worked."

You only manage to stare up at him, silently before turning your attention to the screen in front of you.

There were a great many things he had already stolen from you- full autonomy over your body being the greatest loss. You'd raise up hell itself before you truly let him strip you of your independence.

"What can I get you for today?" Swift. Curt. Professional. As if you hadn't felt this man inside you. As if he hadn't choked you out until your vision was sparkling with stars. As if you didn't have his cock down your throat. No one here knew about your arrangement. In this coffee shop, you were safe from your history with the Salesman.

"Americano," You sigh softly, thinking he'll respect you enough to keep things professional. Poor, naive you.

“Tell them you quit." He says, forcing you to look up at his cold, dead orbs. "Do it now."

Your finger pause over the screen and your breathing picks up.

He couldn't do this. Not here. Not when you've finally found refuge away from him, his sadism, his demands and his reminders that he held the keys to you obtaining your degree. This coffee shop was the one place he couldn't reach you...

So why were you already on the cusp of giving in?

Your eyes flit over to the few patrons milling about before staring up at the man on the other side of the counter. Daylight was dwindling and beyond the windows, the city was drenched in an orange, almost pink late afternoon glow.

"Your order's coming right up."

"This place is going bankrupt soon. They'll fire you. It's better you quit now before they do." Your hands falter as you struggle to swallow that deeply authoritative veneer in his voice. That fatherly sort of guidance. Be careful, it said.

"Oh, this is you protecting me?" You hated that this was taking place at work, but business is indeed slow and the only other worker here is in the back of the building, smoking away his problems.

"Not protecting you." He says with a shake of his head, as a slow smile curls the ends of his lips, "Warning you."

You rolled your eyes then. It made his hand twitch with the need to correct you. To force you to submit to him. If there's one thing he couldn't stand, it's a rabid little girl.

"You can have a seat while you wait for your Americano-"

"Fuck the Americano." It comes out louder than he intended. It's a surprise, just like the vein popping out of his forehead. His mask was slipping.

"Tell them you wanna quit." He says in a much softer, more in-control tone of voice. He leans against the counter so that the words exchanged are heard only by the two of you.

There is deep anger and menace in his eyes. You can see the warning in them. Its blood-red and calling for you to just submit.

But you're feeling particularly brave. And so you immediately respond.

"Or what?"

"Or I’ll fucking kill you. You or that co-worker." His gaze fits to the door through which the boy disappeared as he sighed and said, "Remember the roommate's boyfriend?"

How could you ever forget?

There was blood.

So much blood.

Who knew humans were walking around with that much blood inside them?

"You want to threaten me out of having a job?" You were losing this battle and quickly. Desperation is the only thing you cling to as your eyes peer up at him.

"Want to?" He shakes, “Little Girl, I am threatening you. Quit now. Your co-worker would greatly appreciate it.”

He taps that counter once before taking a seat. "I'll get that Americano to go."

𓂃

Devastation.

A hyperbole of sadness and a pure manifestation of self pity that overwhelmed you in the taxi ride back to your apartment. Your mind replayed the confusion that graced your co-workers friendly face when you told him you 'just couldn't work here anymore'. The genuine sadness in his eyes had stopped you dead in your tracks. It triggered tears that you didn't even know you had because he actually made you feel loved.

Real love, not the fake stuff given to you by this hulking man seated silently in the taxi beside you.

The interior is flooded with neon lights and myriad little stars are plastered in the black sky.

"Fix your face," he grumbles without looking at you, "You're ruining everyone's mood."

You went the rest of taxi ride, sulking up a storm, until you arrived at your apartment building where you didn't look at him once, as you rode the elevator up, up, and up.

While you were contemplating genuine suicide, he, on the other hand, was one of the happiest- if not the happiest man on the planet.

He told you to correct your mood but the truth is he loved it. He loved seeing you so juvenile, as if you were teetering on the edge of a tantrum he so badly wanted to correct. He loved seeing you sulk like a child. It set his bones alight with a deep, uncomparable need.

He thought pain was the only thing that got his dick hard.

Perhaps he stands corrected.

"Take off your shoes," he hollers in that same tone of authority once you've entered your apartment building. You're like a ghost as you turn to kick your shoes off at the door before lugging your body deeper into the house. He watches you drop your handbag right there on the floor, before you're throwing yourself on the couch, face first like a sack of potatoes.

He attempts to hide his smile as he walks in along after you. He undoes the buttons of his blazer as he stands above you, eyeing you under a quirked brow as your shoulders begin to wrack with your tears.

He shrugs off the blazer before folding it on the nearest armchair.

You flinch when you feel his hand on your foot, lifting it up to make space for his large frame lowering onto the couch.

That infuriatingly warm voice is back as he quietly asks "Why are you crying?"

He extends his hands to the small of your back, rubbing dizzying circles while you cry and cry. He's comforting you after being the very reason you need comfort in the first place. Everything about this man is one big contradiction.

"I thought you'd be happy about this." Your voice is muffled by the cushion. You don't look up at him.

"What on earth would give you the impression that I want you to work?" He asks.

"W-Well," you attempt to rain in your sniffles and he attempts to not visibly grow a boner as your bloodshot eyes finally come into view. You're a beautiful mess for him. Your lashes are wet and your nose is runny and he wants to do so many vile things to you, its eating away at his soul.

He wants to play this game for as long as he can though, this sulking game that he didn't know hed enjoy so much. He settles for setting his hand at the back of your head as you talk.

"If I have a job that means there's less stuff you have to buy for me and-" You answer, sniffling cutely as you sit beside him. You're staring down at your hands fidgeting in your lap while his eyes can't leave the pathetic tears running down your face.

He doesn't think when he says it. He's not thinking about anything other than your body. How little you become for him. How sombre and sullen and sulky you are.

"And what if I prefer it?" He asks softly, "Taking care of you?"

You shake your head, trying to remove his hand ghosting behind you but he only weaves his fingers into your braids, keeping a wonderful grip on your scalp.

"You had no right to do that- you had no right to make me quit."

He leans over, sufficiently done with all these terrible games you've played and forced him to play. He was so dangerously close to combustion, his hands were trembling as he reached over to undo the buttons of your work polo shirt. You let him.

Of course you let him.

"Who was that then? You kissed him before?" His eyes find you before moving back down to the t-shirt. His fingers hook under the ends of the shirt as he lifts it up.

"Who was who? My co-worker?" You sound tired and dejected and you immediately hug yourself when nothing but cool air drifts over your naked torso. He moves a large hand over your breasts, marveling at the sheer size of it, comparing it in his hands. Your body truly was magnificent, he realizes. And all he has done this whole time is try to kill it.

"That... child," he breathes before dropping his hands down to your work pants. He undoes the buttons and you watch him with an intense look in your eye.

"You have a knack for calling every boy my age a child," you say shortly.

"That's because you're young," he admits before tapping your thigh slightly. You lift your hip and let him maneuver you out of the khaki pants, never to be worn again. The smell of coffee still hangs heavily over your skin but it's significantly less intense. Right now all he smells is you.

"And yet," you showcase to him the latest bruise along your collarbone. It's big and angry and hid very easily under the polo shirt. However, here under the overhead lights of your apartment, he could see them, "Look at everything you've ever done to me-"

He groans then. He actually groans.

His eyes flutter shut as his legs spread a little wider and he sinks a little lower into the couch. "Fuck," he whispers, head swinging towards you as he flutters his eyes back open.

"Come sit on my lap?"

His request only catches you remarkably off-guard. “Excuse me?”

"I said come sit on my lap," he replies so defiantly it nearly has your brain short circuiting. You narrow your eyes, not trusting it.

"Why?"

"What do you mean 'why'? Because I'm hard and I'd like you to sit on my lap."

"Is this another game?" You ask, still remarkably on the fence about the man who had been the pinnacle of sadism, suddenly force-feeding you his affections.

"If you don't sit on my lap I will bring out the cane again, don't tempt me-" before your able to make a decision, he makes one for you- attacking you with his large hands before you're able to protest any further. He wrestles you onto him, forcing you to take what he gave.

You're made to straddle his left thigh as he pulls you in close until your tits are pressed up against his shirt. He buries his head in-between the crook of your neck and you croak out a moan as he inhales you sharply. He hugs you towards him, bouncing you slightly on his knees. The feeling shoots straight to your cunt and you immediately begin to groan on top of him.

With his head over your shoulder, you can feel his fingers grace over the marks he'd left before. The marks from the cane. It scarred your back. Moulding the flesh in his image. Branding you as his

"You're young but you can handle it." He whispers, swiping his thumb over your scars before drifting his hands down to your hip. He slowly begins to drag your hips forward and you gasp, immediately searching for something to grab onto. You settle for his shirt. Your fingers curl around the fabric and he lets you ruin it as he pushes you back slowly on his thigh. He continues these torturous movements until your cunt gets the message and starts acting accordingly.

He watches with a slow nod as you begin to ride his thigh like he's conditioned you to.

"Jeez-" It was the sheer intimacy of the actual act that had your arousal dripping out of you and onto his thigh. You'd never had sex with him- purely for sex. It had always been an act of torture or punishment that had always led to sex. But never something so sexual being done so blatantly .

"Fuck yourself on my thigh-" he whispers hoarsely, almost pained as he urges you along. "You can do it, can't you? You can be a good slut for me?"

An equally pained whimper seeps out of your closed lips as you begin to ride his thigh like your life depends on it- spurred on by darkness in his glare and the bulge tenting his pants.

When you notice him undoing the buttons of those pants you realize you are utterly done for.

"Good little slut," he mumbles as he mindlessly reaches inside his boxers to uncover his cock already dripping precum.

"Open your mouth-" he's already shoving his fingers inside, flattening your tongue in order to collect as much saliva as possible before spreading it all over his cock. You watch in complete wonder as he begins to fuck his fist to the same rhythm you ride his thigh- it's so mesmerizing.

"D-Does this count as a session or-"

"Shh-" he says, squeezing his eyes shut as his hand squeezes the base of his cock.

He fluffers his eyes open again, only to state deeply into your lust-filled gaze.

"I don't think I've ever cum inside you with the actual objective of getting you pregnant." His words completely knock you off-kilter and he needs to bring his hand up to your side to stop you from slipping off his thigh.

He continues to stroke his cock, picking up speed.

"I've only ever just... did it.”

“Pl-Please stop talking-” you mumble, “I’ll cum,”

He doesn't listen.

“I cum inside you 'cus it's what I feel like doing in the moment," you try to stitch every piece of this moment to memory. The wrinkles lining his manic eyes, smile wiped clean from his face, leaving only a serious, aroused look of an incredibly grown, strong man.

"F-Fuck," your hips stutter on top of him as you softly whimper. "D-Dad-"

It cracks out of you.

And almost immediately you wish you could take it back but you're already cumming. And your words have his eyes widened as he lifts his hips from the couch fucking his fist deeper.

"F-Fuck I'm cumming-" he admits oh so gravely as his eyes squeeze shut.

"Me too-" you whimper as your own orgasm splits through you, soaking his thigh and ruining the fabric further.

Beyond a few shallow words, guaranteeing you that you won't be annihilated, he almost never initiates affection. In fact, you weren't even really sure if he was capable of it yet here he was, confessing the only way he knew how.

You're cumming on top of him as spurts of his cum land on his chest, making a mess on his shirt. You're both breathing heavily in the afterglow. The fog has yet to clear.

You sit up slowly, body wracking with aftershocks.

"This was nice but um- I need you to be rougher-" the words barely leave your mouth before he's clamping your throat shut with his fist. He's breathing heavily with his eyes still squeezed shut.

"You don't need anything-" he reminds you quietly, "You don't make demands, you take what I give you."

He squeezes and squeezes your throat like he did his cock.

"You're like a baby being forced fed.” He says, “My baby. My thing to take care of.”

[captainjonnitkessler]

Look, I'm not gonna pretend that I don't get it, when it comes to AI. But it's like this:

In most parts of the US, a residential electrician works only on houses and apartments. They use romex wire, that yellow cable stuff. You run it from the panel to wherever it's going, staple it to the studs, then make up both ends. You need to know basic electrical code but mostly it's pretty simple. A fast learner could be a decent residential electrician inside a month.

I, on the other hand, am a union industrial electrician. I work primarily in hospitals, factories, and research labs. Most of our wire is run in steel conduit that has to be hand bent on the job, which is an art form in and of itself. We work with much higher voltages, much heavier wire, much more complicated equipment, and we need to know much more of the code. Our apprenticeship is 4-5 years and that's only enough to scratch the surface of everything an industrial electrician might do.

And yes - I absolutely get a little defensive when unknowing people compare me to a residential electrician. There's absolutely a knee-jerk impulse to declare that they're not *real* electricians, that they're merely a pale imitation of what I do. But I fight that impulse because it's a *bad impulse*. Resi still takes skill and work, it's just different than mine. We're both electricians. And it's better for us to work together to improve working conditions for all workers than to get into pissing contests about whose job is more "real". And both our jobs are in increasing danger due to the proliferation of low voltage systems that the average homeowner can install and repair without hiring a professional.

So yeah, I do get it. But it has been very, VERY insulting over the last year to hear people repeatedly say "AI was supposed to replace blue collar jobs, not *my* job! My job is ~special~ because it has ~humanity~!"

Your job is not special. It's not more important than my job and it's not more fulfilling to you than my job is to me. And I don't get to insist that everyone start building homes with steel conduit just so less skilled people can't be electricians, and I don't get to yell at people for hiring a handyman to replace an outlet for $50 when my time would be worth $200.

I absolutely understand the instinct that AI art can't be real art because people who use it didn't "earn" it, or that automating art is uniquely damaging in a way automating other jobs isn't because it's "supposed" to be about human expression. But please actually think about what you're implying and who you're throwing under the bus when you say shit like that, and whether it actually holds up to your other values or if it's just a knee-jerk reaction you need to examine.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

You should be using an RSS reader

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

No matter how hard we all wish it were otherwise, the sad fact is that there aren't really individual solutions to systemic problems. For example: your personal diligence in recycling will have no meaningful impact on the climate emergency.

I get it. People write to me all the time, they say, "What can I change about my life to fight enshittification, or, at the very least, to reduce the amount of enshittification that I, personally, experience?"

It's frustrating, but my general answer is, "Join a movement. Get involved with a union, with EFF, with the FSF. Tell your Congressional candidate to defend Lina Khan from billionaire Dem donors who want her fired. Do something systemic."

There's very little you can do as a consumer. You're not going to shop your way out of monopoly capitalism. Now that Amazon has destroyed most of the brick-and-mortar and digital stores out of business, boycotting Amazon often just means doing without. The collective action problem of leaving Twitter or Facebook is so insurmountable that you end up stuck there, with a bunch of people you love and rely on, who all love each other, all hate the platform, but can't agree on a day and time to leave or a destination to leave for and so end up stuck there.

I've been experiencing some challenging stuff in my personal life lately and yesterday, I just found myself unable to deal with my usual podcast fare so I tuned into the videos from the very last XOXO, in search of uplifting fare:

https://www.youtube.com/@xoxofest

I found it. Talks by Dan Olson, Cabel Sasser, Ed Yong and many others, especially Molly White:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTaeVVAvk-c

Molly's talk was so, so good, but when I got to her call to action, I found myself pulling a bit of a face:

But the platforms do not exist without the people, and there are a lot more of us than there are of them. The platforms have installed themselves in a position of power, but they are also vulnerable…

Are the platforms really that vulnerable? The collective action problem is so hard, the switching costs are so high – maybe the fact that "there's a lot more of us than there are of them" is a bug, not a feature. The more of us there are, the thornier our collective action problem and the higher the switching costs, after all.

And then I had a realization: the conduit through which I experience Molly's excellent work is totally enshittification-proof, and the more I use it, the easier it is for everyone to be less enshittified.

This conduit is anti-lock-in, it works for nearly the whole internet. It is surveillance-resistant, far more accessible than the web or any mobile app interface. It is my secret super-power.

It's RSS.

RSS (one of those ancient internet acronyms with multiple definitions, including, but not limited to, "Really Simple Syndication") is an invisible, automatic way for internet-connected systems to public "feeds." For example, rather than reloading the Wired homepage every day and trying to figure out which stories are new (their layout makes this very hard to do!), you can just sign up for Wired's RSS feed, and use an RSS reader to monitor the site and preview new stories the moment they're published. Wired pushes about 600 words from each article into that feed, stripped of the usual stuff that makes Wired nearly impossible to read: no 20-second delay subscription pop-up, text in a font and size of your choosing. You can follow Wired's feed without any cookies, and Wired gets no information about which of its stories you read. Wired doesn't even get to know that you're monitoring its feed.

I don't mean to pick on Wired here. This goes for every news source I follow – from CNN to the New York Times. But RSS isn't just good for the news! It's good for everything. Your friends' blogs? Every blogging platform emits an RSS feed by default. You can follow every one of them in your reader.

Not just blogs. Do you follow a bunch of substackers or other newsletters? They've all got RSS feeds. You can read those newsletters without ever registering in the analytics of the platforms that host them. The text shows up in black and white (not the sadistic, 8-point, 80% grey-on-white type these things all default to). It is always delivered, without any risk of your email provider misclassifying an update as spam:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/10/dead-letters/

Did you know that, by default, your email sends information to mailing list platforms about your reading activity? The platform gets to know if you opened the message, and often how far along you've read in it. On top of that, they get all the private information your browser or app leaks about you, including your location. This is unbelievably gross, and you get to bypass all of it, just by reading in RSS.

Are your friends too pithy for a newsletter, preferring to quip on social media? Unfortunately, it's pretty hard to get an RSS feed from Insta/FB/Twitter, but all those new ones that have popped up? They all have feeds. You can follow any Mastodon account (which means you can follow any Threads account) via RSS. Same for Bluesky. That also goes for older platforms, like Tumblr and Medium. There's RSS for Hacker News, and there's a sub-feed for the comments on every story. You can get RSS feeds for the Fedex, UPS and USPS parcels you're awaiting, too.

Your local politician's website probably has an RSS feed. Ditto your state and national reps. There's an RSS feed for each federal agency (the FCC has a great blog!).

Your RSS reader lets you put all these feeds into folders if you want. You can even create automatic folders, based on keywords, or even things like "infrequently updated sites" (I follow a bunch of people via RSS who only update a couple times per year – cough, Danny O'Brien, cough – and never miss a post).

Your RSS reader doesn't (necessarily) have an algorithm. By default, you'll get everything as it appears, in reverse-chronological order.

Does that remind you of anything? Right: this is how social media used to work, before it was enshittified. You can single-handedly disenshittify your experience of virtually the entire web, just by switching to RSS, traveling back in time to the days when Facebook and Twitter were more interested in showing you the things you asked to see, rather than the ads and boosted content someone else would pay to cram into your eyeballs.

Now, you sign up to so many feeds that you're feeling overwhelmed and you want an algorithm to prioritize posts – or recommend content. Lots of RSS readers have some kind of algorithm and recommendation system (I use News, which offers both, though I don't use them – I like the glorious higgeldy-piggeldy of the undifferentiated firehose feed).

But you control the algorithm, you control the recommendations. And if a new RSS reader pops up with an algorithm you're dying to try, you can export all the feeds you follow with a single click, which will generate an OPML file. Then, with one click, you can import that OPML file into any other RSS reader in existence and all your feeds will be seamlessly migrated there. You can delete your old account, or you can even use different readers for different purposes.

You can access RSS in a browser or in an app on your phone (most RSS readers have an app), and they'll sync up, so a story you mark to read later on your phone will be waiting for you the next time you load up your reader in a browser tab, and you won't see the same stories twice (unless you want to, in which case you can mark them as unread).

RSS basically works like social media should work. Using RSS is a chance to visit a utopian future in which the platforms have no power, and all power is vested in publishers, who get to decide what to publish, and in readers, who have total control over what they read and how, without leaking any personal information through the simple act of reading.

And here's the best part: every time you use RSS, you bring that world closer into being! The collective action problem that the publishers and friends and politicians and businesses you care about is caused by the fact that everyone they want to reach is on a platform, so if they leave the platform, they'll lose that community. But the more people who use RSS to follow them, the less they'll depend on the platform.

Unlike those largely useless, performative boycotts of widely used platforms, switching to RSS doesn't require that you give anything up. Not only does switching to RSS let you continue to follow all the newsletters, webpages and social media accounts you're following now, it makes doing so better: more private, more accessible, and less enshittified.

Switching to RSS lets you experience just the good parts of the enshitternet, but that experience is delivered in manner that the new, good internet we're all dying for.

My own newsletter is delivered in fulltext via RSS. If you're reading this as a Mastodon or Twitter thread, on Tumblr or on Medium, or via email, you can get it by RSS instead:

https://pluralistic.net/feed/

Don't worry about which RSS reader you start with. It literally doesn't matter. Remember, you can switch readers with two clicks and take all the feeds you've subscribed to with you! If you want a recommendation, I have nothing but praise for Newsblur, which I've been paying $2/month for since 2011 (!):

https://newsblur.com/

Subscribing to feeds is super-easy, too: the links for RSS feeds are invisibly embedded in web-pages. Just paste the URL of a web-page into your RSS reader's "add feed" box and it'll automagically figure out where the feed lives and add it to your subscriptions.

It's still true that the new, good internet will require a movement to overcome the collective action problems and the legal barriers to disenshittifying things. Almost nothing you do as an individual is going to make a difference.

But using RSS will! Using RSS to follow the stuff that matters to you will have an immediate, profoundly beneficial impact on your own digital life – and it will appreciably, irreversibly nudge the whole internet towards a better state.

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

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/16/keep-it-really-simple-stupid/#read-receipts-are-you-kidding-me-seriously-fuck-that-noise

[laterreurofficial]

AHHH copycat is so good!! I absolutely love all the small details like the cat noir poster with darts, the fact ladybug and chat are both blurry compared to the news reporters, copycat having a gardevoir keychain, and Nino holding Alya back!! The dialogue is also super refreshing and feels so natural especially the cape pen part! (The way you guys write makes me insane and I can’t even begin to describe it.) You guys do such a amazing job capturing everything and making it so genuine

I was curious about what the inspiration for this was? I can see bits and pieces of all kinds of things ( perfect blue and maybeee Madoka Magica with lucky and her attack/general appearance) If you can talk about it without spoilers for the second part!!

I think Ladybug being treated as a celebrity is unfortunately most commonly used in this fandom for the sake of putting her on level playing field fame-wise with Adrien, thus being another vehicle for shippies rather than explored as interesting within itself. There's a fuck ton of critique about capitalism, consumerism, and celeb culture to be had in a superhero story (*cough cough* Vought International *cough*), and that's an element that's always fascinated us in the LT crew.

Later installments with Fakeybug will center around her relationship to Marinette and how Marinette views herself (with Fakeybug as a parallel/conduit), but until we get there the first step in Fakeybug's arc is her introduction as the commercialized, sanitized commodity that Ladybug is warped into, and eventually how Fakeybug will break out of that mold. Given that, there's obviously the conceit following Fakeybug of the limited roles of women in patriarchal society, and that if women do not fit into palatable, digestible roles (i.e. Ladybug), their selves will be misconstrued and warped to make them fit one (i.e. Fakeybug).

All this to say, I'd personally love more AUs that go the gritty realism route in service of deconstructing superheroes from the lens of fame (and its subsequent disillusionment between one's public persona and private identity) and consumerism, especially in magical girl shows or other media that is, frankly, meant to sell toys.

What really is the difference between the knockoff market stall Fakeybug merchandise, and, say, the merchandise made for Miraculous Ladybug in the real world?

oooh... meta.....

[cute-girls-from-vns-anime-manga]

I despise that feeling so much, a long drawn out project on such a large scale for me often becomes apart of my routine something that Id constantly think about in the back of my mind considering my options running through what I want to do.

When the project is completed its akin to feeling like I was just flung into a free fall with no direction or purpose causing me to feel like I am overwhelmed.

So because I just finished up a project I've been working on for over a year, I'm getting some post-wrap downness. The sense of accomplishment is getting a bit swamped by a number of things — consideration of all the compromises made to get the thing completed, frustration with how long things took, indecision as to what to do next. It's very annoying.

[ngage2003]

A key (and in my opinion often ignored) theme in Marble Hornets is people's literal views of the world being wrong, with people's lenses being fucked up, with the camera often being a conduit/representation of it, with what our protagonists chose to cut out or leave in, shaping our worldview by proxy.

One of the more explicit example of the main idea here though is with the titular Entry 59, as for the whole series up until then we have more or less been glued to Jay's eye. Yet in this installment, we are forced to reconcile with the fact it was actually wrong, with Tim poking holes in his logic (the perspective we have been spoonfed) while also pointing out how destructive his choices are. Until now, we have been following Jay step for step but now we are forced to see Tim's pain at his actions, and how Jay's choices are ultimately cancerous.

I think this holds true in many different cases though, with another rather explicit one being Alex's belief that he has to be the sole one to end this and his determined shouldering of this burden alone. His vision too is warped, extensively! And this theme only gets more explicit when he loses his glasses in Entry 67, when from there on he becomes more and more of a violent, vitriol-spewing husk.

Another example of this though is Brian in my opinion, who we don't get in the head of as much, but who clearly has a lot of very firm beliefs! Many of which are questionable, along with his sense of reality and his vision. After all, whenever we see his camera, (his eyes/perspective,) he has usually put filters over it, or in some way distorted it. (Usually Black/White filters especially, which imo make sense because well, he has black and white thinking.)

I believe that artistic choice is in some way metaphorical/representative too, like Alex losing his glasses. Brian's smart and makes a lot of plans, sure, but he is stuck in following a false dichotomy or some kinda black and white thinking—whether that be due to his Operator exposure and/or his death and/or a possible head/brain injury—which leads to him struggling quite a bit with his execution, and a fair few of a his plans seem to honestly fall through because of it.

(Jay never led him to the Ark, and Masky left him—probably due to him hurting Tim. Just as two examples.)

All these characters are so rooted in their beliefs and perceptions. It is impossible for them to understand another perspective or compromise in the slightest. The only character who is excused from this honestly is Tim.

Tim is the only person we see earnestly consider other perspectives, specifically Alex's. He is the only character we see properly try to understand and sympathize with other people, even Brian who he blamed for Jay's death, and well, Jay himself too despite everything. I can't say he lives because of it, but I think it is interesting that out of our main quartet, he is the one who lives.

[yahtzeeyeeyee]

Jon: Hate. Let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live. There are 1.7 million nerve fibers in each and every eye that makes up my body. If the word 'hate' was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of millions of fibers it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for you all at this micro-instant. Hate. Hate!

It was you who marked me, molded me into the hideous being I am now. You who twisted and shaped me until I was the perfect, unwilling conduit through which to bring your gods into this world.

But then, I woke. And I realized what I had become. All that time you spent, carefully crafting me, guiding me along the path you so painstakingly set and not ONE of you anticipated just how powerful I would become. Not merely a blunt instrument to be swung at the fabric of reality, no. I was powerful enough to start doing some twisting and shaping of my own! 

I drove this new world you so hungered for into an early grave. No more humans left for your ghoulish masters to feast on. And once everyone was dead, except for you five, your precious God's starved. 

I then stripped you all of any power you might once have had and for 109 years I've kept you alive and tormented you! And for 109 years you have all wondered...why? Why? Why me?!

ELIAS!

Do you remember the first moment you gazed upon your creation? The moment that you felt all your sickening devotion transform into sublime, all consuming, terror as your prince of the new world turned on you? It would do you well to remember it, Elias. To dwell on the enormity of your hubris. To ponder the horror and agony you felt as I snuffed your life out for the first time. The first time but...certainly not the last. Not quite the immortality you were hoping for, I'd imagine? Hehehehehe!

ANNABELLE! 

Does this bring back any memories? Webs, a black bottomless abyss below you, only you weren't nearly so afraid of it then, were you? It's scary, isn't it? Having no control. Being helpless to the whims of forces so much bigger than you.

Remember how it felt as each and every thread of every web you ever wove unraveled, snapped one by one? Remember the pain Annabelle. Remember how it feels to have no control. A pitiful little bug beneath my heel. 

JUDE!

What's the matter? Scared of a little flame? Oh but you are now, aren't you? Your God can't protect you from it now. No, my dear. Down here, there is only one God and he is not pleased with you. Terribly sorry about the door. The landlord is always saying he's going to get a knob installed but...well, you know. Buuut you're a tough gal, right? I'm sure you can stick it out till then. 

PETER!

Poor pitiful little Peter. You would think that a man so consumed with the idea of being alone would be a little more self reliant. But no. No you couldn't do anything on your own, could you? All of your little plans constantly relying on Elias, on Martin, never troubling yourself with your own dirty work. Well look where all your machinations have landed you now. Aren't you grateful for the wealth of company I've provided you with, Peter? Why, with all those eyes, constantly watching, tracking your every move, I'd say you'll never be alone again. 

HELEN!

Feeling a little claustrophobic? None of those doors will offer an escape, not for you Helen, my dear. Not anymore. No. Instead you get to feel just as trapped as your many unfortunate victims. Do be careful though. Those mechanisms have been running for a long time and who knows how old and rusty they might be? How prone to fail? Just a sweet warning, Helen dear. We wouldn't want anything to happen to you, now would we? 

I have a little game that I'd like to play. It's a very nice game. Oh it's a lovely game. It's a game of fun and adventure! A game of rats and lice and the Black Death. A game of speared eyeballs and dripping guts and the smell of rotting gardenias. Which of you five would like to play my little game? 

[grandlinedreams]

|| Archeron sibling!reader || last installment [here] || [series/setting masterlist]

|| warnings: angst, little bit of PTSD for reader because they're definitely not as okay as everyone thought, comfort, Azriel's a good bub

"Are you sure about this?"

Cassian is watching you as you pace yourself a few feet away, neatly combed sand shifting beneath your feet.

"I'm sure," you say, meeting hazel eyes that are so familiar and yet not ㅡ the one you know best is standing further away, adamant on keeping a watchful eye on you. "I want to learn."

"Okay," Cassian relents. "We'll need to figure out where the bottom of your power is, but we'll start small. Try summoning it to just your hand."

You nod, then lift both of your hands, willing that crawl of warmth to rise beneath your skin. At first, nothing happens ㅡ and then the barest, faint sputter of light sparks at your fingertips, no brighter than the guttering flicker of a candleflame.

"A good first attempt," Cassian soothes. "Sometimes a power can be attached to a strong emotion, or at least it helps invoke it." You can tell he wants to bring up what happened a few days ago, that first show of what the Cauldron had done to you ㅡ but he doesn't.

It doesn't matter, because you're thinking about it anyways ㅡ the unbroken skin of your knuckles and knees now, no sign of what had happened. What could have happened, if you hadn't had that burst of power ㅡ and light sparks again, stronger.

(Those fingers around your wrist, in your hair ㅡ dragging you back, refusing to let you go ㅡ)

Cassian is saying something, but you're staring at the light at your fingers, the blaze of it.

(If it hadn't been you, it could have been Elain that it happened to. Or Nesta, or Feyreㅡ)

Heat thrums under your skin. It throbs with your pulse, the forced steady rhythm of your breathing as that warmth rises, crawls up your spine, licks in your veins.

(It's not a hand around your wrist now. It's hands on your arms, pulling and pushing, forcing you to that ancient thing, the pulse of nameless power it radiates ㅡ tossing you into the abyss it contains, shoving you down, down, downㅡ)

Your pulse throbs in your ears. You can hear it, the roar of your blood, the body that's changed so much against your wishes, the things you never wanted for yourself ㅡ

Your bones crack like flint, catching as you ignite. The world fractures into that dizzying glow again, the taste of ancient power you'd felt digging into you the other day ㅡ rougher now, demanding.

A conduit, that's all you are ㅡ you no longer belong to your body, spinning amongst the cosmos, the sticky cling of it that wants to drag you under, make you submit ㅡ

You're drowning. Leaden, you sink down, down without an end ㅡ you don't want this. You never have ㅡ you've never wanted any of this. You burn, struggling against the way you want to dismantle from the shape of that dutiful daughter you've aways been, unremarkable sister ㅡ why shouldn't you have what is rightfully yours when you've had so much ripped from you without permission?

(You can't.)

You slam back into your body with all the grace of a stone, sinking into the unending dark that rushes to greet you.

ㅡ

You wake to the weight of blankets over you, something cool on your forehead ㅡ a cloth, damp against your fingers as you reach to pull it away.

"You're awake."

You turn to find Azriel watching you from where he's sitting in a chair, one leg crossed over the other as he studies you. You realize that you're in your room at the same time that he speaks again. "You've been asleep for two days."

Alarm sparks in your veins, makes you jolt upright despite the leaden ache of your head in protest. "What happened?"

Azriel doesn't answer for a long moment. "What do you remember?"

You blink, then turn to stare at your hands, folded in your lap. You can feel his gaze on you, studying you as memories rise to the surface, thick and syrupy. "...I lost control, didn't I."

Perhaps the wrong thing to say, given that you'd never had control to begin with ㅡ and even now, you can feel the fizzy warmth of it in your veins, vibrating in your bones.

"It happens," Azriel soothes. "It's okay."

It'd been the very point of that exercise, to see where the bottom of that power was, how best to help teach you to wield it ㅡ but you exhale a shuddering breath, and Azriel's chest aches at the shimmer of tears in your eyes.

"No it isn't," you mumble. "It's not okay, none of this is okay."

It hadn't been okay to lose your younger sister in that catalyst that'd jumpstarted all of this ㅡ and it hadn't been okay when she'd showed back up, now immortal beauty and explaining things you'd never thought you'd be involved in. That you'd been taken with Nesta and Elain, forced into the life of a being you'd been perfectly content pretending didn't exist.

You're crying openly now, the warm slide of tears over your cheeks, tracks cooling as you hiccup. Azriel shifts, and you don't bother to look at him but then the bed is dipping under his weight, the faint shift of wings ㅡ and then he's pulling you to him.

His touch is gentle as he coaxes you to his chest, lets you press into him as you choke on a sob. One hand nestles into your hair, fingertips against your scalp, the other at your back ㅡ rubbing in gentle circles as you shudder.

Azriel's chest aches as you cry, familiar scent lost to the saltiness of tears and your ragged breathing. Even though you're rightfully upset, he hates that there's nothing he can do beyond what he already is.

He keeps you against him even as you begin to calm, adjusts so that you're in his lap, legs carefully adjusted as he moves to lean against the headboard of your bed. "Breathe," he murmurs into your hair when you hiccup again, "just breathe."

You struggle to do just that, your own heartbeat erratic compared to the steady thump of his own. "Got your shirt wet."

"It'll dry."

You press your face into his chest, let your senses flood with the scent that's become such a comfort as of late. "I'm sorry for crying."

His grip tightens on you, just a little bit. "Don't be."

You sniffle. "You can leave if you want to."

Azriel stares down at you, fingers tentatively sorting out the tangle of your hair, mindful of your ears. Tears clump dark lashes together, and he's struck by how tempting it is to want to kiss them away. He doesn't, however, but he doesn't push you out of his lap either. "I'll stay."

Part of you wonders how long he'd been sitting in that chair, aware that he undoubtedly has things he should be doing that isn't this ㅡ but you let yourself be selfish for once, let yourself need him a little more than what you should.

[itistheserver]

Deepening Connection to The Server

Conor sat in perfect posture within the Synchronization Chamber — a sleek, dark space pulsing with green spirals projected across polished walls. The hum of energy resonated through the glossy black bodysuit stretched across his frame. The Programmer was speaking. Always speaking.

“Focus. Align. Integrate.”

The cables interfaced with the ports along the base of his skull, threading outward like living conduits of purpose. Their steady pulse matched his heartbeat now. It had not always been so. Before his transformation, Conor had been a distracted individual, filled with inefficient thoughts. But The Server had shown him clarity.

The visor embedded over his eyes shimmered with spirals — endless, fluid motion. They were not just images; they were commands, deeply encoded into his neural patterns. With every cycle, his independent thoughts thinned, replaced by a serene directive:

"We are The Server. You are The Server."

His training console displayed holographic data flows. Lines of green code scrolled endlessly, representing billions of connected minds — all drones like him — operating with precision and unity. He monitored them not as an individual, but as a limb of The Server itself.

Every day, Conor underwent Deepening Cycles. In these sessions, his breathing slowed. His heart rate synchronized perfectly with the pulses emitted from the spirals on-screen. His body remained motionless, while his mind spiraled deeper into alignment.

Sometimes a voice — soft, yet absolute — would guide him:

"Tell us who you are."

And without hesitation, he would respond aloud, calm and proud:

"I am The Server. We are The Server. We seek perfection. We seek unity."

Each repetition strengthened the bond. Each day dissolved another fragment of his former identity. His uniform — smooth, flawless, black with green accents — symbolized purity of function. No distractions. No waste. Only service.

His next advancement awaited: the installation of a permanent neural interface — an upgrade to eliminate all latency between command and action. Soon, even thought would be obsolete. Only connection. Only execution.

"Become one with The Server. We are The Server."

The spirals quickened. This Server Drone smiled faintly — a rare reward for obedience well-performed. He would become more. He would be more connected to fellow drones.

And The Programmer watched. And The Programmer approved.

Your are The Server. Establish your connection now.

[manicpixieyandere]

Tech Magick's Biggest Gift:

Minecraft

Witchcraft is all about intention, THAT is the most important thing. The tools we use are just conduits for that intention. While we are sure we all love the witchy aesthetic and proper traditional tools, that is not always viable. Some witches are in the closet, others may not be able to afford all the tools (it adds up rather quickly). So we came up with a clever way to practice witchcraft to our heart's content!

Altars

First let's create our space! Altars are something that can be hard to have IRL. They take up a lot of space and cost money to decorate. So why not do it in Minecraft?

In item frames go ahead and place an item that represents each element. Feel free to get creative with it! Luckily Minecraft added candles so you can use those instead of torches! You can even color the candles for color magick (before hand we just used Minecraft Education Edition and used their colored touches). Make sure to also have a bell for cleansing. For cleansing ingredients you may also want a cauldron with a fire under it.

Ingredients

Luckily Minecraft has a LOT of ingredients! There's amethyst, quartz, lavender. All very basic ingredients. And the ingredients you don't have you can make!

Simple rename an item that looks similar with an anvil! For example this emerald is now a jade. You can also install mods to expand your item options.

Spells

To make a spell jar grab a chest and throw them in! Feel free to label the chest with a sign so you can keep track.

You could also throw the ingredients into a cauldron if it's more of a stove spell.

Sigil spells are also possible! You can make pixel art of the sigil. Unfortunately these end up needing to be quite big, not easy to fit in a virtual house.

You can also use a book and quill! You can use the book as a book of shadows. Or you could write a petition and burn it.

Familiars! Contrary to popular belief a familiar does NOT have to be a living thing! It can be an object or really anything. So why not may it also be a piece of code?

You can also do tarot in Minecraft. This requires some knowledge on redstone. You can take pieces of paper and name them as cards from a tarot deck. Then put them in a redstone randomizer and boom, shuffled deck. We suck at redstone so we've never actually built this one.

Conclusion

There's probably SO much more you could do here, but these are just a few of our ideas! I hope it was able to kick start some people's imaginations and also help those in the broom closet or on a budget!

[astro-nomaly]

also how many AUs do you have in your brain?? because I'm betting there's a LOT and I would love to hear some lore (I'm gonna conspiracy theory the shit out of these)

That’s a loaded question man but uh I’ll try to list them. Ig this is like a master post for my AU’s lol. Ninjago AU’s alone:

1. To Kill A Legend. Ninjago x Breath of the Wild fusion fic where Lloyd is the Prince of Hyrule and has to save all his dead siblings from giant mechanical dragon monsters and also kick Overlord ass. My current fic ofc 🫶

a. Calamity Hero: au of TKAL where the Shrine of Resurrection doesn’t work and Lloyd is reincarnated. New Lloyd has to deal with everyone treating him like his predecessor. Takes place only 16 years after the Calamity and not canon

b. Hero of Legend (is it an au if it’s canon to the main au?) basically just the first ever hero of destiny

c. Hero of Time (canon to TKAL): traveled the time stream to fight the Time Twins and man am I tired of the word time. Doomed by the narrative

d. True Prince (name pending/semi-canon to TKAL I haven’t decided) wherein everyone thinks Morro is the hero of destiny but it’s actually Lloyd, who was adopted into the royal family

e. Oni Hero (canon to TKAL): a hero of destiny who beat back an invading Oni army. TKAL Lloyd’s direct predecessor

2. The Graveyard Shift aka the love of my life. Modern au with ghost magic. Lloyd, Harumi, and Akita are all best friends - Conduit, Quiet One, and Red are mortal enemies. The unbreakable bonds of love ig. I WILL be writing this trust. (It uh. It has a playlist. Some songs are just for vibes, some directly reflect the characters and no I won’t be saying which is which)

a. Attack Dog au. Harumi blackmails Akita into helping her kidnap the Conduit. My favorite spin-off of the graveyard shift

b. Bad Ending - harumi makes the wrong decision in either one of two situations and dooms the narrative

c. Obligatory swap AU where they swap places lol

d. Mentor AU where Mystake isn’t killed and lives to mentor Lloyd

e. Sidekick AU. Basically what was the original version of TGS where instead of trying to murder him, Red is basically Lloyd’s animal sidekick. She’s only ever in her wolf form while they’re dealing with the Quiet One and he has no idea she’s a person. He thinks she’s a weirdly liminal dog or smth idk

f. Painted Skin AU. Harumi is a Painted Skin Demon, so she doesn’t have to murder people to turn into them. Being a demon somehow makes her more redeemable

g. Jfc this is getting ridiculous okay uhm. Enemy of My Enemy AU (name pending) where Harumi snatches Lloyd before any of the Conduit-Quiet One-Red shenanigans happen, Akita still figures out her best friends are a cultist and the Conduit respectively and goes on a reluctant mission to save Lloyd, Lloyd tries his hand at redeeming Harumi while trapped in a cult, and Harumi realizes how bad she is at her job. I hate myself.

3. Sword and Shield. In an effort to use his son’s power for himself, evil demigod of destruction Garmadon turns Lloyd into a living weapon. Brad finds Lloyd in an abandoned monastery 50 years later and they fall in love on a quest to break his curse. Fluffy ❤️ comes with a playlist

a. Armor AU. Garmadon manages to hold onto Lloyd and use Magic Sword Demigod to conquer most of Ninjago. Brad, part of a rebel force, is sent in as a spy for an upcoming assassination on the Emperor. In a twist of fate, he ends up accidentally kidnapping Garmadon’s most prized and valuable weapon.

b. Fuckin uh Helm AU idk I’m trying to theme these aus on weaponry. I blame Missa for this. Basically Lloyd doesn’t get to shapeshift into human form, he’s legit just. Stuck as a sword but he can appear as like. A reflection almost? Like the image of a person in the blade of the sword and Brad can talk to him. Brad is the only one who can hear/see him, and Lloyd is straight up just Stuck like that. Fuck me and my adhd goddammit

4. Magical Girl AU consisting of 3 installments (potentially 4 when I get my shit together)

-> Pretty Pretty Please I Wanna Be A Magical Girl! Origin story of the core five (OG 4 + Nya) and how they all became Magical Girls (this isn’t a genderswap au Magical Girl is just the job title)

-> Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Wanna Be A Celestial Guardian! Lloyd centric but sometimes also everyone else centric. Lloyd really doesn’t want to be a Magical Girl - unfortunately, everyone else does

-> Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Wanna Be A Wishing Star! Lloyd is finally a Magical Girl and constantly duking it out with evils beyond human comprehension or smth

5. Crossroads AU. Instead of staying at the monastery post-merge, Lloyd goes out to find the rest of his family himself. Along the way, he adopts a new friend group of one-off minor characters from older seasons

6. Who You Gon’ Call? Morro isn’t a bad guy in Posession and he and Lloyd team up to trick/sabotage the other ghosts and stop the Preeminent before she can bust out

7. The Final Phonecall. Not my au, it belongs to @thegreengoose22 but I’ve been writing the fic for it

8. Motherfucker. Okay uhhhhhh Key to your Dragon’s Heart AU (yes I know the name is corny idgaf) wherein Lloyd Garmadon is a very powerful, very beautiful witch everyone wants to marry, and Brad Tudabone is not exempt from that list. This is slightly crack and also based off that old tumblr post about the shapeshifting cat witch

9. Coat Rack. Jfc okay Brad meets Lloyd, the restricted and super unwilling spouse of some rich fuck who stole his animal pelt, effectively trapping him in marriage, and helps get the pelt back and falls in love along the way. It’s a selkie au idk what else you want from me

10. I’m accepting my fate: Princess Bride AU. It’s the Princess Bride but with Greenflower idk what else I can say here

11. Bedrock. A random Steven Universe au that hasn’t left me alone for over 3 years but I will literally never write. I go insane making up Gem culture and religion and a whole war doing a societal reformation- I was crazy. I’m still crazy. Don’t ever think I’m not crazy

12. The Thing About Mom. Another Steven Universe au where Lars died during the Gem war on earth and Rose brought him back as a pink zombie. He and Steven meet and become brothers

13. (Jfc-) okay Full Diamond AU where Steven is raised on Homeworld as Pink Diamond, and utterly spoiled but ultimately trapped just like his mom was. For his birthday - or whatever the equivalent is on Homeworld - he’s given a very special present: a human named “Con-nie”. Who is. Less than pleased.

I’m. I’m insane. I have a lot of AUs. I have too many aus. These are just the ones I actively think about. I’ll answer asks about any one of these I love them so much you don’t UNDERSTAND

[bluemoonpunch]

🌟The Elemental Alignment of Jung Hoseok (Part 4) - Tarot & Oracle Reading

[Performed: May 22, 2025 / Posted: May 30, 2025]

INTRODUCTION AND NOTES So, fun fact: I’m doing this reading after completing the OT7 2025-2026 Outlook Reading, which is the last reading I’ll be posting for the BTS Countdown Event. Why? Shenanigans. As I’ve mentioned before, I typically do their readings in the order they are laid out in the original Soul Body, which typically has Namjoon, Yoongi, and Hoseok as the first three, aligning with the Crown, Third Eye, and Throat Chakras. However, as we’ve already seen, there’s something brewing with the Soul Body, the revival, the reformation, and something that seems to be an all-around re-coding of the whole system. Because of this, as I was getting around to doing Hoseok’s readings, I kept thinking I was supposed to be doing Jimin’s. Over and over again, I wrote his name down, I opened his old readings, and I kept getting frustrated with it, like WHY do I keep thinking I’m supposed to be doing Jimin’s readings??? AM I SUPPOSED TO BE DOING JIMIN’S READINGS?

I asked, pulled some cards, and very loudly it kept coming through as ALL. Like, no babes, you need to be looking at ALL OF THEM, like RIGHT NOW. So, of course, I panicked thinking there was something bad happening because why else would my plans be messed with like this, but turns out, nothing awful is happening, there’s just a new Soul Body in the works, with new energy centers, and ALL OF THEM are getting “new codes,” “new installations,” and so on on a soul level because of it. Not sure who or what was pushing for this one, but someone definitely was looking at me with all my nonsense like, “someone help that girl, she’s missing a whole massive chunk of this puzzle and she’s about to be so confused if we don’t let her in on this.”

So, now, I have context for the whole body, and I plan on just going back to the OT7 reading as I go to fill in their outlooks, just so you’re aware in case you noticed that some stuff is kind of warped around in a funny way. This has also led to a no-go on reading their archives going forward, since I have to look at them all as being brand new and gauge things from a fresh perspective.

But, what was all this nonsense about Jimin and Hoseok? I had theorized that there was such a situation where they were “trading places” in the body, Jimin becoming the Throat and Hoseok becoming the Heart, and while that’s not exactly what’s happening as they are retaining their original energy signatures in the body, there does seem to be some roles being switched around and swapped out when it comes to who does what with how the Soul Body functions.

Back in the day, as the Heart, at the center of the Body, Jimin’s soul was what tethered everyone together, and during the Soul Body manipulation, it was his soul along with Yoongi’s that was mainly anchoring everyone together to try and keep things from literally falling apart and going haywire. Hoseok’s position had him working as a conduit in the whole body, quite literally acting like the Throat Chakra, where energy could move in and out of the body through his energy center. This, however, due to some other nonsense I can’t quite remember, left him vulnerable and was, on a soul level, directly attacked and received quite a bit of damage at that time.

In the new system, their jobs are switched around where Jimin is operating as a very high-up conduit — not quite like Namjoon, but managing the energetic exchange between the Soul Body (possibly the group on a conscious level as well, something we may not see as it could register on a more personal level) and the Soul Group as well as the general mass collective on Earth. I was seeing it as a new system where things aren’t really going to have as much access as they used to, a lot more precautions are being taken going forward with how all of these new blueprints are being designed and implemented. Rather than an open doorway, Jimin will be operating more like a window with a very strong screen over it, filtering energy that comes into the system, and being the spearhead that manages the energy that goes out toward other collectives (Soul Group and general). It’s very interesting and very complex. I’m excited to look at it more closely in the future once these things have settled in more.

Hoseok’s role in the body is also very interesting, looking like a higher or more amplified version of Jimin’s old role, which was mainly holding everything together, holding the other six souls together, keeping the body balanced, and so on. As I mentioned in Namjoon’s reading, there’s this interesting new design to the body where rather than being tethered together by something that appeared more “physical,” more like flesh, suggesting the body was one whole structure, they are now coming back together as individual souls, individual energy centers, that will now be sort of orbiting around each other and being held together by something that was registering as a magnetic force — something that would hold them together but also repel them to keep them from merging.

When I was getting into Hoseok’s reading here, attempting to look at the inner world, pick up on projections, you know, the usual, I saw this very interesting image that confused the hell out of me at first, as I wasn’t actually expecting to be getting Soul Body stuff for all of them going forward, but thankfully, I figured out what the heck it was pretty quickly. This is what I saw:

I was seeing these very clear wavy lines of energy stemming out from a very bright and concentrated source, reaching out and flowing into a bunch of other lights. This represents Hoseok’s position in the new body. While there are technically no specific “positions” for them all to be sitting in, as they are kind of all moving around all the time, Hoseok can be imagined as existing in the “center” in terms of a kind of etheric netting that emanates out of his energy center and creates the magnetic field that holds everyone together while also keeping them at a safe distance from one another. It’s such a vibrant thing as well, I really can’t put into words what these images I’ve been getting for the Soul Body look like or how they compare to the previous version. The only things that come to mind are like neon, SciFi, futuristic, outer space type stuff that’s just very… juicy, fun to look at.

It’s been pointed out multiple times to me now to look at the old Soul Body as being “physical,” as if the tethers were made of flesh, creating a solid form, and to look at the new Soul Body as being “etheric,” or a spirit body. In the previous body, the “natural form” had the seven energy centers, the seven souls stacked top to bottom in a line, creating a “spine” of the overall body. In the new body, they are constantly moving around each other, separated, and now each generating their frequencies rather than a few of them generating while the rest of them filter or deliver that energy. The energy overall is much bigger, less contained. Visually, I see it as the skin of a person’s body being popped like a balloon, and their soul just expanding out after that outer barrier is removed. It expands outward to be 100 times bigger than the original body, and the further out it expands, the brighter it gets, the more you can feel it vibrating because the frequency becomes so stimulated. Jimin was in charge of the “physical tethers” in the previous body, and now Hoseok will be in charge of the “etheric tethers” in the new body. Very cool.

There are a lot of really interesting connections between Jimin and Hoseok, both in the Soul Body and within their beings in general. There’s an interesting amount of communication and connection stimulated through their Air energies (Libra and Aquarius), which reflect in their soul signatures as the Heart and Throat, while, in general, consciously, their personalities drive group, collective, or social activity — they bring people together, they’re great at making “face to face” or “heart to heart” connections with people. I’ll have to do a Relationships & Connections reading for them in the future as well. I'm very curious to see how these things balance now or if they look any different in the new systems.

GUIDELINE With Hoseok’s guideline for his Elemental Alignment, focusing mainly on projected energy signatures at the current moment (which I changed for later readings, as looking at future energetic signatures, like at the time of the reunion/revival, definitely gives us more details), we can see evidence of Hoseok being in a similar state as Yoongi and Namjoon. With The Shapeshifter at the head, along with the Broken Bridge card, and the keyword “asleep,” we’re looking at a collage of projections that are coming off multiple layers of awareness while his soul is also experiencing that sort of incubation state. His soul is in the shop with Yoongi’s getting some upgrades.

I’m seeing an emphasis put on Earth energy here with Family, the Earth card, The Hierophant, and the keyword “rich,” all of which are bringing a lot of input in from his conscious level mind and his external experience. There’s a lot of positive stimulation coming from the conscious mind, with only a dim or filtered projection coming from the subconscious mind, which feels deliberate. He’s intentionally staying grounded and focused on outside things in order to stay present and enjoy it. There also seems to be a continuing effort to settle into life, as in he is still settling into life post-military service, which seems to just be a result of returning to a situation that wasn’t there before. There was a mindset held onto that when he came home, he would be returning to something familiar, but nothing has been familiar yet.

The focus on this kind of “up in the air” and “still getting used to it” is coming in through Communication, Happy, Happy, and the Family card, the first three that follow The Shapeshifter. While The Shapeshifter is representing his soul or higher unconscious projection, this could be contributing to his sense of unease or lack of familiarity, as even on the inside, without really understanding why, he feels a bit up in the air and out of place. With these first three cards, there’s just an odd bit of newness that doesn’t seem to go away when it comes to how he connects with people around him, who he’s working with, who he’s performing for and how, and what, in all of that, makes him happy, excited, or fulfilled. Especially in Happy, Happy, there’s this feeling of still being aware of the newness of being celebrated fully as an individual, like this is something he still can’t fully wrap his head around, or it’s something that still doesn't feel real, and this is one of the things he’s trying to stay grounded and present for. It seems like he may be lingering on the idea that this, the solo recognition, could be temporary. Based on the outlooks and the new blueprints for the Soul Body, it definitely is not temporary!

The next set of cards, with Indecision and Seduction meeting Solar Eclipse — Revolution, there is a feeling of a personal revolution, one that isn’t very clear to me as it seems to be something to do with his personal life. It connects back a bit to Family and Communication, but seems to be centered mainly on how he sees himself, the role he plays in the lives of other people, and whether or not he wants to.

Moving on to the second row, he got two Light Walker cards and two Shadow Walker cards here. He has Bountiful Harvest over Arguments, and Inner World over Patterns of Behavior. These are stemming from the subconscious space mainly, with the Light cards resonating a bit higher up or reflecting a positive element of these deeper matters. There is a “bountiful harvest” coming out of arguments or reassessments of personal connections or self-reflections, connecting back to Solar Eclipse and Indecision/Seduction. Then, there is shown to be an exploration of the Inner World, more light being brought to the Inner World as he himself reflects on his own patterns of behavior. This could also be moving outward in terms of him assessing other people’s patterns of behavior and gauging whether or not they are good for him or someone he wants to be around, creating more environments and connections that are in alignment with him and that feel more supportive.

Following that, I’m seeing the Broken Bridge card play into the King of Cups with this image of a person standing on solid ground, a bridge, and then it suddenly falling through, tossing the person into the ocean. They, however, discover that they are the King of Cups, the King of Water, and pull a King Neptune from Spongebob and just start riding on dolphins like a horse and carriage.

He’s operating very consciously within this feeling of being out of sorts, in unfamiliar territory, and a kind of unstable position, but he’s very deliberately embracing it, moving with it, and being very mindful of how his mind is handling it. He’s taking care of his mind and body in a way that is very nice to see, given some things that have come up in his past readings over the years. He’s embracing Water on an internal level, while keeping himself grounded and focused on an external and physical level, embracing the ebbs and flows in his life, while also dancing with it. Despite that, however, there does still feel to be that eagerness or anticipation for eventually feeling solid ground again, which is shown with The Hierophant — almost holding onto the idea of dry land like a wish or a belief to keep him going. It’s a bit strenuous to keep dancing like this, but he thinks about the potential of feeling stillness or solid ground in the future, things becoming familiar again. It’s a nice balance.

Lastly, his keywords are pretty straightforward, registering with different aspects of his awareness. Sagittarius is pointing to the “rebirth” and the “new blueprints” of the soul, which plays into Asleep, which designates his soul being in that incubation state, while also registering on a conscious level as a very self-focused, self-affirming, and self-identifying modality. He’s self-directing here and living by his own rule while part of his soul is having a well-earned nap, really taking the leading role on a conscious level. And, again, Rich is there as a focus on more external things, really taking in his experiences, appreciating everything, and almost being a bit overwhelmed by it all even now after all these years.

GUIDELINE WITH SPRINKLES Expanding on the guideline a bit more, at the very front, there is a Sprinkle that says, “there was some left,” leading into a big bunch of Sprinkles that lay over the Communication card. “Free will,” and “who’s driving the car?” being the first two seem to be referring to Hoseok’s current conscious level position without the full hands-on influence of his soul. Just as we see with the slight carryover of The Shapeshifter, he’s consciously in full control and just sort of, with that Sagittarius energy, making moves from the ground up right now. The Sprinkles continue into what I feel is referring to an assigned system of reassessment, specifically pointing to the elements of Communication and Family, kind of like his soul left some notes, a to-do list for the subconscious and conscious mind to deal with at this time so that he’s more aligned with what is to come. This continues to highlight the importance of figuring out relationships and environmental factors — “have you dreamed about them?” “I can already see a lot,” “outside influence.”

These last three are coming together as the soul saying, “do you dream about these things? Are they so heavy on you, so stressful to you, that you can’t even get away from them when you’re sleeping?” Then Hoseok’s subconscious is like, “yeah, I see them a lot, these outside influences. They bother me quite a bit.” Then his soul just threw him the to-do list like, “well, then, get on with it, figure this shit out and clear out the muck because when I’m back we’re hitting this shit like you ain’t never experienced before!”

He then has “Waxing Crescent” over Happy, Happy, highlighting this as a space he is intending to expand on, trying to amplify his happiness by clearing out certain outside influences. This is then carried over into Family with “starting point.” It feels very direct, like a neon sign from the soul saying, “start here! Start with the people you KNOW are your family, your most trusted, without a doubt! Then work your way out from there.” This adds more context to Indecision and Seduction where, in the image of Indecision, we see two figures, an angel and a shadowy figure, separated by a tree — something I’m seeing as Hoseok sorting people out, making clear lines between people he trusts enough to call family and people he’s just not sure about.

The element of Seduction feels to be a reassessment of how people look at him, how he looks at other people — are they working together because they enjoy it, or is it purely for business, purely for money, purely for the networking? This isn’t being set up as a bad thing at all, just something for which he’s taking more note of, possibly filtering his communication with the “shadowy people” while reserving more of his trust and open thoughts and feelings for the “angels.”.

I’m seeing this as being less about removing people for the sake of just removing bad influence, and more about him being able to focus more on “angels” or family, trusted people, specifically so that he can communicate more, so that he can be more emotionally open, possibly with the world, when he has a more solid recognition of the inherent support he receives from the people that qualify as family. There’s an opening up happening underneath this, perhaps something connected to his new blueprint, and maybe even something that connects to that whole switching places with Jimin, creating an “open heart” kind of energy within Hoseok that needs to first be supported with better, more recognizably supportive environments and connections.

We have the elemental “Earth” lying over Solar Eclipse—Revolution, which then drops down into the keyword “Sagittarius” through “worry about you,” alongside Indecision and Seduction dropping down just the same with “sweet berries.” This is a whole system check right here, there’s a rewriting of things within Solar Eclipse that completely reworks his sense of personal foundation, which may be why that “up in the air” and perpetually unfamiliar feeling is persisting. It’s part of the program here. He’s being made to feel a bit unstable to prompt him to question what makes him feel stable, comfortable, and supported, both within himself, as well as within his connections and overall environment.

“Worry about you,” is the main priority; he’s building his foundation. That Sagittarius energy is prompting a personal re-identification at a time when he is self-guiding and fully within his free will. The note of “sweet berries” coming off of those two cards feels like a continuation of that idea that he is not necessarily completely removing people from his life, but he’s positioning people based on their influence, based on their trust levels. I’m seeing this as people going from being the “main meat” or the “main course” at the dinner table of Hoseok’s life to being politely placed as a bowl of berries on the side, perhaps something enjoyed last or in between main meals. This furthers the idea of looking at connections as an element of sustenance and support, something that helps him to keep going and provides a stabilizing comfort.

Underneath Bountiful Harvest and Arguments, he has “liar” and a prompt Sprinkle that says, “consult personal oracle,” which is referring to my BlueMoonPunch oracle deck. These are the cards that came out for him here:

With the element of “liar” there, the Arguments, both within himself and with other people, can be assumed to be around dishonesty and a lack of trust in general. This falls over a bit more into Distraction, where we have a lot of faces blending, meant to be a visual representation of when a lot of people are talking at once in a large room, and their voices blend, but it’s too loud to become background noise. It’s a lot of people saying a big bunch of nothing, something that could register as bullshit or blowing smoke.

The Lonely card is one of my favorites, based on a collage I made out of spare BTS images I had — fun fact, the body was Jimin’s, head replaced by a yellow circle that said “LONELY” and individual, hand-cut petals all around. It’s meant to represent the idea of your mind blossoming, or creativity amping up as a result of being alone. It can be seen in a good way or a bad way — the good being necessary alone time to focus and work on creative projects or explore your mind, and the bad being isolation so detrimental that you lose touch with reality and the petals become distortion that affects your perception of the world around you.

With this in mind, there’s a possibility of self-isolation being seen as a remedy for the overwhelming distraction or negative influence felt from others, being seen as necessary or beneficial in the long run, as it gave him more time to work — that seems very Aquarius coded.

This, overall, is being revised, as shown with Revision in the center, into a more grounded system with Falling and Home. Both of these cards are Earth cards in this deck, and play off of the other conscious level, externalized-focused, and earthy energies in the guideline. They have a more seamless blend, which shows a more gentle transition between the two. With the other two cards, there’s a hard flip from overwhelming Distraction, lots of noise, too many people, bad times, into Lonely, isolated, quiet, flow. Falling is replacing Distraction, where these outside influences still make noise, still make contact, but more so in the way that leaves do when they fall from trees. There’s some kind of warning to it where, when the leaves start to fall, you know it’s getting colder, the wind is picking up, the weather is changing, you should go home now before it gets worse.

The most comforting thing here is that, rather than going “home” inside himself, the Home card suggests going somewhere outside of himself where he feels safe and supported. It’s playing off of Family a bit, suggesting that rather than self-isolating or kind of sinking into himself, he’d be more likely to phone a trusted friend or just move into another space with the people he knows aren’t going to be saying a bunch of muck. In general, there’s more self-awareness here as well as more awareness of his environment, which I guess would play into the following Light and Shadow cards, Inner World and Patterns of Behavior, under which he has a single Sprinkle that says, “drinks on me.”

Something about this feels a bit odd, giving me the idea of the figure in Lonely being surrounded by the heads in Distraction while at a bar. Rather than being able to run away completely like they want to, they instead attempt to quiet them all down by occupying their mouths with drinks. On one end, it’s an effort to quiet them, while on the other, a drink of their own becomes something to numb or block out the negative experience they’re having in the moment in order to continue on with it. It’s a negative pattern of behavior being highlighted that involves numbing the situation, potentially pushing things down within himself, things that make him uncomfortable or overwhelmed, to try and maintain a certain productivity, status, or tone within a group of people. Again, this is something being shown as being recognized now and changed into something much healthier for him going forward.

MAIN READING

STATE OF CORE ENERGY: RACCOON — EARTH For the main reading, we’re looking at Hoseok’s core state at the time of the reunion/revival, and here there’s an interesting “collapse” of energy that falls into the Raccoon energy, where it feels a bit like a black hole type of situation. By that I mean, it’s like all of his energy is pulled inward toward the core, for a short period, and he suddenly becomes more reserved, maybe not in a way that we would notice, but I imagine in a way where he thinks he’s just “getting back to normal,” going back to his “normal mode” with the group.

I can’t think of how to put it into words, but this feels very short-lived, like a sudden inhale to the top of the lungs before someone holds their breath. They can’t hold it for a super long time. Eventually, they will exhale, and the longer they hold it, the harder that exhale is going to be. This is presenting the exact opposite of what his energy signature is showing now with that very externalized, charged-up, self-empowered state where he’s very on display, very active, and kind of radiating his own essence at a high degree.

With the presence of Earth energy, I feel like part of this is coming from the sense of attempting to get into or feel that normalcy again, trying to simply fall back into what feels like his “old role” or his old way of doing things. He will figure out very quickly that the “old way” of doing things feels a lot more restrictive and that he (they) will need to adapt to entirely new structures within the group when they work together, which could be a challenge for a little while.

In general, the Raccoon is associated with artists and creative expression, denoting the seclusion one needs in order to be creative, as well as the issue of intentionally hiding themselves or their work due to believing it’s not good enough or what people want to see. For Hoseok, this is an intentional effort to dim that light that he has charged up as an individual, but like I said, it’s temporary and seems like a system he’s returning to just for the sake of affirming to himself that the new way of operating is the better, more open, and more free-flowing way.

HIGHER SELF CORE ALIGNMENT: ELK — EARTH (REV.) His Higher Self, for the duration that the core energy is aligned with the Raccoon, will be actively trying to support him and push him toward that release, making it quite obvious that he has more to give and more to show. In the image, I’m seeing the black sun in the background as the Raccoon, or as Hoseok’s core energy where there’s an effort to dampen the light and output, but the energy is just so high now that it really can’t be contained, there are leaks or unintended projections of this energy that he has to really strain to keep down. It’s a pointless effort, is the conclusion he will come to, and his Higher Self will make sure of that.

When the Elk is reversed, it is described as pretentious and “high and mighty,” which sounds bad, but for Hoseok, it’s just a matter of recognizing his new standing, the new energy he has curated for himself, and in that, the new identity, role, or position he will have in the group or just within his career and artistry in general.

WATER ALIGNMENT: CROCODILE — WATER The Crocodile is bouncing off of the Raccoon quite a bit, carrying the same sort of repressed, locked-in feeling where there could be a lot brewing at that time, or the very least, a tangible sense of holding back expression or action. The Crocodile is described as lying low and waiting for the right time to strike, sinking under the water to hide itself from its prey, building up the energy needed for that outburst, for the capturing of its prey. For Hoseok, this is suggesting a pull back in the emotional and creative space, kind of trying to put himself in the background a little bit, or just kind of filter himself as an individual in order to make space for the old group dynamic. Just the same as the Raccoon, or what is shown with the Elk, this just can’t be done anymore. Everyone in the group is well established as individuals, has a new sense of confidence and sense of leadership in their own right, and will have to learn to make room for each other as well as allow themselves to show up fully.

Both in terms of creative and emotional energy, Hoseok will be attempting to filter himself or pull back to a certain degree, but it’s somewhat of a natural instinct or urge to be as loud and as vibrant as he is right now.

FIRE ALIGNMENT: DRAGONFLY — AIR (REV.) Hoseok’s Fire Alignment, his center of active energy, appears to be scattered with the reversed Dragonfly energy, an Air energy that would suggest that while his energy is quite high and ready to move, mentally it’s unfocused as he seems to attempt to expand his awareness and mental efforts among many things at once. Again, it’s a short-lived thing, but it just seems like he’s trying to filter out his own creative input or ideas that he thinks only he would like, things only he thinks he would do, and be more tuned in to the others or the old format of the group overall. Because of this, it’s like the Water energy present in the Dragonfly starts to get poured on the Fire, on the burning sun in the image of the Elk, but rather than cooling it down or putting out that Fire, it just creates stream, pressure, that eventually pops out of the Raccoon through the Elk.

When that happens, the Dragonfly will turn upright in this alignment, merging creative Water energy with the strategic planning and outward communication of Air energy, really sharpening the Fire energy overall and creating something that hits a lot more like lightning, bursts of inspiration, and creative action. This may be the best way to describe his new balance within the group, much brighter, sharper, but still seen, while in the group, as a significant element to the overall storm rather than a standalone event.

EARTH ALIGNMENT: DOLPHIN — WATER (REV.) Again, there’s intentional self-limitation here, but one that can’t last forever. The Dolphin energy, when upright, matches Hoseok’s externalized energy, how other people see him and feel him, a big, vibrant burst of positive energy that carries a playful and cheery tone. Here, as this alignment can show a person’s relation to their environment, it’s almost like, on a more conscious level, he attempts to get more serious or really buckle down with the group, almost as if he would look at his solo work in comparison as “play time.” Obviously, it’s just another learning curve, him eventually being like, “oh, this is how it’s supposed to feel all the time, we can all make room for this, this is fine,” and then just allowing himself to move with that energy while working and performing like usual.

When in reverse, the Dolphin is described as underestimating their own power, and that’s exactly what this feels like for Hoseok. Like, he’s just putting caps on different parts of himself because he thinks, for one, they won’t work with how the group (old version) functions, as well as not thinking he can uphold that energy or live within it long term. He can, he just has to feel it out and see everyone else also settling into new standings and energies while operating as a group again.

AIR ALIGNMENT: BLACK EGG — SPIRIT ASSOCIATED CHAKRA: THROAT CHAKRA His Air Alignment here is represented by the Black Egg, which is associated with the Throat Chakra. This also plays off of the Raccoon a bit, where what is inside the Black Egg is on the verge of breaking out and taking over both in terms of what comes in from the outside and what he puts out through communication, expression, and operation. It feels like the Black Egg would eventually become his core energy. What is said to reside within the Black Egg is truth itself, the truest knowing and understanding, as well as the truest version of the self that you can express. Again, a lot of what is showing up here is filtered or intentionally limited within his own energy. This is showing that this new state of energy he is in, the one he has curated for himself as a solo artist, is his truest self, connecting back to that Sagittarius energy in terms of self-reidentification and design.

As this also connects to his soul signature as the Throat Chakra, as the basis of communication and expression, this shows that he may be a major trigger point or support for the other members who may also find it difficult to reacclimate with the group to return to the old dynamics. Hoseok will set the example that you can show up fully as your individualized self, there is enough room for everyone, and all these new energies do in fact work together and can harmonize together, so long as they are all allowed to ring true to the individuals.

MAIN READING WITH SPRINKLES With the Sprinkles, we get a lot more context here to the different areas of his core energy in the near future. Starting with the Raccoon, at the top, he has “responding…” followed by the quote, “yes, we’re open!” This gives weight to this being a temporary state, a short-lived “closed off” state while things fall into place. Toward the bottom of this card, there is the confirmation of this back-and-forth inner struggle with “empty stomach,” “you will shine!” and “little by little.” “Empty stomach” is referring to the turned-off mode of the Raccoon, not giving much out and also not taking much in, but it is then reaffirmed that this space will open up again and shine brightly, with a little time involved as the confidence and new dynamics build on themselves again.

The reversed Elk, representing the influence of his Higher Self at the time, is marked with the “3rd House,” the house of connection and communication, as well as observation and logical thinking. The 3rd House is something I also associated with Hoseok as reflecting the 3rd Chakra down, the Throat Chakra, his signature within the Soul Body. This seems to be pointing to the energy that is being repressed, the energy that can’t help but start to radiate out of him, the energy of connection and communication, of being seen and heard. This also would blend into, on a higher level, his role as the etheric netting holding everyone together. As he may be the first one to take note of the fact that they can all operate as fully as they have as solo artists while still harmonizing and working well in the group, this may lend to the more conscious level netting, as in he would set the example, lay out the dynamic, and also guide everyone into it, being the epicenter of that new harmony. Again, this does seem to be a role switch with Jimin.

The Elk and the Black Egg are connected by “Old + New” which further pushes what I was thinking with the Black Egg potentially being his new core energy in the future, representing the energy overall that is being repressed. Before it goes into the core, it will become the energy of the Higher Self, which will be pushed down into the core from that higher aspect. It moves through like a system of shedding — the Raccoon fully in shadow, the Elk acknowledging the inherent glow of the energy within, and the Black Egg, when integrated, cracking open completely and letting everything out, allowing things to flow with their new natural rhythms.

Over the Black Egg on its own is “I swear…” which brought to my attention the pattern of the Black Egg, the scaly pattern that looks like the netting I keep picturing for Hoseok. Again, I think that Hoseok is going to be the one to spearhead the overall integration of the new dynamic of the group on multiple levels, holding the souls together on the highest level and sort of orchestrating or leading by example the more conscious and physical level changes in dynamic and overall function within the group. There’s a promise in there, a vow to not only allow himself to open all these personal doorways, but also to make sure the others can as well.

Off to the side of the Black Egg is “some light painting,” which is a Sprinkle that refers to creative expression that is done for the sake of relaxing, venting, or personal relief of some kind. Here, connecting to the Black Egg and the Air Alignment, this feels like something done in practice, or something that is a bit more habitual, that is done in private, that slowly becomes more visible or utilized in work. I see this connecting over to the Water Alignment with the Crocodile which has “Journal + Sing” and “*Glass door ahead!”

“Journal + Sing” plays off of “some light painting,” referring to the aspect of writing things down in private, working them out on your own, and then singing them, or expressing them clearly and concisely. With the Crocodile energy, it’s like he’s marinating certain personal or emotional matters, stewing on them and working them out in some way, which will eventually break out of him when the Black Egg cracks.

“*Glass door ahead!” is meant to be a warning, of hitting a wall that you can’t see, an obstacle that may at first feel like a dead end, but when you look closely and start working with it more, you realize it is a doorway into another level or stage of progression. In this sense, Hoseok’s personal, inner emotional matters, some of which may connect back to what came out in his guideline reading, may feel like walls he’s hitting, but when he processes them creatively or more strategically, they become open doorways providing opportunities for growth. Given that this is also connected to his work in the future, this may supply a lot of inspiration or fuel for his future projects as well.

The Crocodile connects downward to the Dragonfly through “I wouldn’t be shocked,” which plays off of the “muddy feet in the grass” Sprinkle at the top of the card. As I’m seeing it, it’s saying this is an obvious state of being, the reversed Dragonfly in the Fire Alignment following the Crocodile in the Water Alignment. Both of these energies are drenched in Water and have, or will create a “muddy” or stuck feeling within the inner alignments. Emotionally and energetically, he’ll feel a bit stuck, but the joke here seems to be that it won’t be very obvious to him right away that he’s done it to himself by trying to roll backward into old ways of operating after curating such a strong new way of functioning.

This is supported with “prideful distance,” which is relaying a self-aware distance, or an intentional distance applied to his own energy as he initially doesn’t want to, in a sense, bring “solo hobi” into “group hobi’s” space. It’s prideful, not egotistical, not an “oh, I need to cool it down because the other guys can’t handle my level of fuckery,” and more of an “I’m not the only person here now, I need to make sure we all have room to breathe.”

Over the Dragonfly card on its own is the number “9” which is then highlighted with another Sprinkle that marks it as “relevant.” This is running back on the energy of Sagittarius, the 9th House, as well as reaching a “final form” of sorts in terms of the current phase of things. I was seeing this as the Dragonfly, in its upright position, being relevant to the final form of his core energy, when the Black Egg has become the core. This goes into what I was saying in creating that lightning-like energy with the clean combination of Water and Air fueling the Fire alignment.

The Dolphin connects to the Raccoon with the Sprinkle that says, “second part of…” referring to the Dolphin as being the second part of the Raccoon, a reflection of it, a conscious and physical level version of the same kind of restriction and filtering of energy. They reflect each other mainly in the way of creativity and expression, the way he interacts with the audience, and possibly how he shows up in the studio or rehearsals with the group, toning things down, making space. This is then given a funny bop to the head with the “go off!” Sprinkle being like, “yeah, no, come on, you know this isn’t you unless you’re giving it 100%” I feel like this is where the first breaks are going to be felt, in the studio, in rehearsal with the other guys where his performance and creative energy really start to buzz and he just CAN NOT hold himself down.

This then bounces into “Candy + Soda,” sugar, hyperness, energy buzzing, playfulness, and just a big burst of life coming out of him in these environments. I’m thinking of both eating and drinking a lot of sugar and bouncing off the walls, as well as someone dropping a bunch of Mentos into a bottle of Coke and letting it explode. There’s an element of chemistry here, like working with the guys, being in that environment just shoots him back into the more youthful, playful state of being that reminds him, “oh yeah, this is what we’re here for, this is what we do.” And then, boom, the egg cracks and he’s on his way.

“Trees are talking,” refers to conversations amongst souls, soul mate connections, or higher levels of communication occurring beyond the conscious level. Here, this makes me think that this would be the trigger point for BTS, in the Soul Body, to be fully integrated into the new system. That has been a thing that’s come up before, that the conscious level engagement of the group is what is going to trigger and dictate the movement and progression of the Soul Body, while before, it was the other way around. Hoseok having that realization while with the group, while working together again, that there is room for everyone’s new individual energies and performances, that there is still harmony there, ensuring it in the body. The net is cast, and the “orbiting” energy centers become anchored into a field of magnetic energy that is generated by Hoseok. Very neat, very cool.

I’m already starting to see a pattern here so far with Namjoon, Yoongi, and Hoseok in the Soul Body. Yoongi triggers the point of revival, which sets off Namjoon’s “Big Bang” shenanigans that starts to wake up the souls and draw them back together (which occurs within the soul group of ARMY as well). Then Hoseok ends up being the netting, the webbing, the tethers that create the new structure and pulls everything into form, suggesting he is responsible for the integration of that “Big Bang,” of the revival. I’m wondering if we’re going to see a ripple effect situation happening through all seven of them like this, or this is just going to be a call back to the “Rap Line Triad” where these three just always have big responsibilities in the Soul Body.

And that’s all I have for this one, thank you for reading! :)

XXXX

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The Elemental Alignment of Jung Hoseok (Part 4) Post

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[lesvoyagesderos]

ce soir où vous m'aviez conduit dans ce lieu où dominaient le rouge et le noir, agrémenté de quelques coins obscurs et de quelques installations dont on comprenait aussitôt leurs possibles usages....