a̴r̶e̸ ̷y̵o̷u̵ ̸a̷l̸i̵v̴e̸?̴

It wasn’t as though her mother was cruel or her husband was unkind. It was just that one day, out of nowhere, it struck her that she had lived her whole life belonging to someone and never to herself. As Kore, she belonged to her mother. As Persephone, she had belonged to her husband.

She tried to ignore the thought, which of course made her think of it more. And the more she tried the more uncomfortable her throne became, and the more she scowled on the growing wheat, and the more she enjoyed the limbo of possession between the seasons, when she made the long trek down into the underworld in Autumn and the long trek back to the world above in Spring.

One year, when the thought had become too big to keep bottled up, she said this to her husband. Like all unpracticed thoughts the words came out in a tumble, but he kissed her brow and told her that he agreed with whatever she decided.

And so, during one summer with her mother, Persephone packed her things and began a long, solitary trek through the mortal world.

She had managed to go a very good distance before the giant eagle caught her.

*

She was a prisoner in a cold, empty castle, far out of the reach of the gods.

It was funnily familiar in a cruel, not at all funny sort of way.

There were differences, of course. Rocky peaks and pine forests instead of black, blasted lands beyond her window. The rumble of distant avalanches instead of the whisper of the Styx. Giants, huge and blue and indistinct from sheer distance, striding through the mist instead of monsters.

There was her captor - the eagle turned out to be a giant in a magical disguise, as you do - who didn’t speak her language, but kept her in a high tower of his castle as a pretty, foreign trinket.

And then there was the huntress.

The huntress was the giant’s daughter, as far as she could tell. Huge and pale, with red braided hair and a grey wolf-skin draped over her shoulders. She would return from the wilds beyond the castle with a boar over one shoulder and soft bundles of violet flowers, the latter of which she would press into Persephone’s hands before walking away.

She called Persephone “Idunn.”

*

After a few weeks of slowly understanding each other’s languages, the huntress and Persephone made a plan.

The huntress enlisted another giant - a giant magically disguised as a falcon, as you do - to steal Persephone out of the hands of her father and out to safety, wherever that was. The huntress would stay behind to distract her father and his forces long enough for the two to make their escape.

Before leaving, the huntress pressed her lips to Persephone’s hands, mumbled her thanks, and then walked away.

Just for a moment, as she brought her hands up to her lips and smelled the perfume of the violets there, Idunn chose her name.

Then the falcon who was really a giant turned her into a walnut.

*

The rest of the story you probably know, in some form.

She woke in a hall that smelled of smoke and wood and rain, surrounded by gods in furs and chainmail. One of them - the grey-bearded one, with ravens whispering into his ears - bowed and said it was an honour to have the great Persephone in the halls of Asgard.

Idunn corrected him on her name, but thanked him nonetheless.

The apples she had brought from her mother’s orchard were a famous success in this new land, and the gods begged her to grow an orchard of them there. And for a year, this was how Idunn spent her new life, planting, growing, harvesting, and having every Aesir and Vanir come vying for her hand.

She said no to all of them, of course. Bragi came close to winning her over, and Freyja came even closer, but she turned them down all the same.

Finally, one year later, the huntress came to Asgard.

✨ emoji angels 👁️

○ yes

○ hell yes

Ooooooh this is gonna be a lot so buckle up, but the short answer is: far right death cult that's gaining a deeply, deeply concerning amount of traction right now.

TW for absolutely fucking everything.

Long answer is Qanon is a far right death cult that started on 4chan in 2016. It started with one jackass anon who called himself Q and made (completely false) predictions, claiming insider knowledge to help Trump and defame democrats. Followers decided that, due to the pseudonym chosen, he must be someone in the military with Q-level clearance. It's basically confirmed at this point that Q is (and probably always was) an asshole named Jim Watkins. Jim is the founder of 8kun, which hosts child porn. Hold this in your mind for later.

Qanon centers on the belief that Trump is a) secretly really smart b) secretly a really good guy and c) secretly working behind the scenes to root out the Very Evil Bad Guy Deep State Democrats. At its core, the conspiracy is about worshipping the Asshole, waiting (for now), and interpretation. This allows them to dip into basically every conspiracy theory that has ever existed before. Evil deep state Jewish People? Absolutely. Lizard people (which is just evil deep state Jewish People with a weird new coat)? Yes. Hillary Clinton is the antichrist cause a fly landed on her? Absolutely. Vaccines are a way for uhhhhh Bill Gates to put microchips in your blood? Mhm. 5G caused Coronavirus? Yes. Donald Trump is the archangel Uriel? Jesus, yeah, some of them actually believe that.

Because Q is online, and disparate, and anonymous, and based so heavily on interpretation, people can bring whatever personal brand of crazy they want. It's dangerous, it sucks you in, and it camouflages itself. Here's why:

The big, center stage of Qanon the reason you, anon, me, and everyone else on Tumblr has to be just as careful as Aunt Karen, is that Q sucks you in by pretending to care about pedophilia and child trafficking.

Do you remember the Wayfair scandal that got a hundred thousand notes a while back? The one about the cabinets on Wayfair being priced high and having the same names as missing girls? Yeah, that was Qanon conspiracy.

Q gets its talons in good people, people like you and me, by pretending it's about "saving the children." It pretends that when it wants to kill individual democrats who oppose Trump, it's because they're secretly pedophiles. It positions itself as a moral authority against global elites who are trafficking and abusing innocent children and who can argue with that??

I mean, not me. Hollywood DOES have a pedophilia problem. It just isn't Chrissy Tiegen, ya know? And I'm sure that there are pedophile democrats but look who they've put in the center of their conspiracy theory, a dude who is named in a rape case against a 13yo, a dude who was buds with Jeff Epstein.

Also, I think it's important to note how wacky their idea of pedophilia is, and how nefarious it gets. Their idea of pedophilia isn't molestation or anything like that. It's buying a kid on Wayfair and then raping it in a ritual while you cut its face off and take its blood to harvest a magical chemical called Adrenochrome so you can stay young forever (yes, this is blood libel. Hello again, antisemitism!!) This means that they get desensitized to actual, average, everyday pedophilia. This also means that they sucker you into the rest of their far right death cult. Because if the left is doing this, then you have to be on the right, right?

So what is the right doing?

Well, they're waiting for something they call the Great Awakening. They're expecting, soon, televised trials and executions of all of these pedophiles (who are, again, just people who oppose Donald Trump). They are expecting a military takeover of America and the world. They are expecting everyone to be forced to watch this to reprogram their brains and get them used to the new world. They've been expecting this for a while (and, not to get too scary, but they're getting impatient, and they're getting scared what with the election).

I think Q spreads because it makes the world feel safer and more simple, and that appeals to everyone.

I guess, ultimately anon, Qanon is a right wing death cult that most people think they're too smart and too good for, but I see Tumblr spread pieces of it ALL the time, and it scares the shit outta me. Good people, smart people get lost to this. Be careful out there, do your research, and always think about who stands to gain power from the things you spread.

If you want to go back a bit, all of QAnon’s stuff is basically rehashed from the Satanic Panic of the 1980s (sacrificing children), Milton William Cooper’s book Behold a Pale Horse (anti-Semitism, Deep State/Evil Government, secret cabals and banking dynasties, HIV/AIDS is man-made), and William Luther Pierce’s book The Turner Diaries (anti-Semitism again, Deep State/Evil Government, supporting assassinations and hate crimes), the American version of Evangelical Christianity (anti-Semitism again, except Israel is important because Israel is how you get The Rapture to happen), and probably a hundred other things.

Working in the library you get genuine questions about this--and lectures. I’ve come across dozens and dozens of other conspiracy theories that I haven’t yet seen in QAnon but I’ll bet it’s in there somewhere. Far be it from me to support censorship, but I wish I could put more context or explanations around these things instead of people just taking the ideas on whole.

So when you look at it, the “HIV/AIDS is man-made!” idea links up pretty well to the more recent “COVID-19 is man-made!” ideas. Likewise the “Great Awakening” concept maps almost perfectly onto American Evangelical Christians’ general interpretations about the biblical book of Revelations. 

Nothing QAnon says is entirely original. Whether the QAnons (I’ve heard there’s possibly two writers, one who started on one site and one who picked up on another site, and the writing styles are different enough to make it clear that it’s at least two different writers) know any of these sources specifically and are specifically taking pieces of them for their stories, I don’t know. But certainly all the ideas contained in the works and events referenced above are in the ether of the right wing. I mean, they were chanting quotes from The Turner Diaries at the insurrection about executing government officials. Whether they know the sources or not, these old ideas are being dredged up and put into the minds and mouths of right wingers. 

All the stuff that was dismissed as irrational nonsense and fringe ideas is now being paraded around as true. I’ll leave you with a quote from Alan Moore that sums up the mindset of the conspiracy-favoring right wingers:

vampire: my fangs are literally inches from your throat right now

me: good, how are you?

my counselor: good, what brings you in today?

“i do!” followed by me not saying my name, ever, at any point

“do you?”

“i have many” no idea what i meant w/ that one like, sincerely, and that was probably deeply unnerving or at least moderately unnerving

“possibly? who knows”

“that sure is.. a question. that has an answer”

I’ll make this short. Today a racist idiot burned our car completely. It can only be sold for scrap because the motor, brain and sensors are fried.

We’re a family of black latine immigrants. we did not get any stimulus checks. I was forced to drop out cause I can’t pay for college so I’m using my shop to sustain my family, and without a car this is just so, so much more difficult.

I beg of you. If you’ve ever used these:

Please. please consider boosting and/or donating. I’m in complete shambles over this. 

http://paypal.me/mothcharm  http://ko-fi.com/swordknight  https://mothcharm.bigcartel.com