i know it’s not advised to reveal your location to random strangers on the worldwide web dot com, but in case anyone wants to know, I am right here, in the kitchen with these two yearners, it has been months and i’m still here btw.

"Neil hesitated, then set the bag on Matt's bed and struggled out of his shirt. It was getting a little easier every day, but it hurt when he raised his arms too high and when he twisted he felt the pull at his stitches. He got his shirt over his head and to his elbows before Andrew got tired of watching him struggle and tugged the shirt loose. Andrew tossed it off to one side and didn't look to see where it landed. He was more interested in the scars and bruises covering Neil's front."

This chapter holds so many great passages I might draw another one from it asp. But in this one there was something that felt very real, a mix of pain and trust and interest and discovery, and even desire maybe.

the soviet union wasn’t some radical departure from the russian empire. it was simply the same empire in a new uniform. red flags and marxist rhetoric instead orthodox crosses or symbols of tasrdom. the core goal always stayed the same: control the non-russian peoples by any means necessary.

on paper, the ussr was a “friendship of nations,” a voluntary union of 15 republics. in reality, it was a centralized empire run out of moscow. the republics had no real say in foreign policy, trade, or even their own leadership. step out of line? you’d face censorship, arrests, or worse. this is well documented and it's gross that people try to downplay this because it challenges the theory they've consumed.

the soviet regime cracked down on local languages, histories, and identities. flags were banned. historians and artists were persecuted. even alphabets were changed with non-russian scripts rewritten in cyrillic to sever cultural memory. it was pure russification.

ethnic cleansing was policy. in the 1940s, stalin deported entire nationalities: chechens, crimean tatars, kalmyks, and others. shoved into cattle cars, sent to siberia or central asia and many never made it. half of the deported crimean tatars died. scholars now call these acts what they were: crimes against humanity, even genocide. ukraine’s holodomor (1932–33) was another brutal example. millions died of famine caused by soviet grain policies, right as the regime was wiping out ukrainian culture and religious life.

the baltics suffered too. in 1941 and 1949, tens of thousands of estonians, latvians, and lithuanians were deported, targeting everyone from political leaders to schoolteachers. all while moscow insisted it was promoting “friendship.” and after wwii, the ussr exported this "model "friendship" to central eastern europe. poland, hungary, czechoslovakia, east germany, and others swapped nazi rule for soviet occupation. local revolts were crushed (hungary in ’56, czechoslovakia in ’68). sovereignty was tolerated only when it served moscow.

even economically, the ussr followed the imperial playbook. resources flowed to the center; local populations got pollution and poverty. ukraine powered soviet industry with coal and grain but saw little investment or infrastructural support. the baltic states were productive yet politically silenced.

kazakhstan? used for 456 nuclear tests without consent, leaving over a million exposed to radiation. uzbekistan and turkmenistan were turned into cotton monocultures, poisoning land and water for moscow’s benefit. sound familiar? it’s the same exploitative dynamic seen in british india or the congo.

and the legacy lives on. russia’s invasions of georgia (2008), crimea (2014), and ukraine (2022) aren’t accidents. they’re rooted in an old imperial belief that former soviet republics can’t exist without moscow’s blessing. the kremlin still pushes “russkiy mir”, this insane idea that russia has the right to “protect” russian speakers wherever they are. but this protection has meant war, occupation, and death, especially for russian-speaking ukrainians.

ukraine’s refusal to bow to this narrative is exactly why it’s under attack. the empire might’ve changed flags, but its logic never died. and the fight for true decolonization is far from over.

Hey! I haven't been very active for a while due to some life stuff, but I wanted to thank everyone for all the support and kindness I received at the last few cons 🥰 It always means so much to hear about the ways in which my art is still being enjoyed!

I spent this week sorting out store and admin backlog, which I had been falling behind on due to the life stuff – my gratitude for everyone's patience in that regard too. Gonna be working on the whole "drawing" thing next!