The- so far as we can tell- true story of Mz. Ziz LaSota

An Answer to Our Most-Asked Question

Hello, hello, welcome to Strange New Vegan Death Cult Murders 👋 We hope you’re having a pleasant evening. We are Drosselmeyer: author of this site, & host of this site’s companion program, News on News, in which we break down tricks of the storytelling trade, & 😮‍💨 break down ourselves, occasionally, from the strain. 
The most-asked q. we get on the topic of Mz. Ziz LaSota is— “isn’t she a cult leader?” This is an excellent q. It’s so excellent, we’ve decided to make this post in order to frame our answer w/out doing what we’ve previously done: w/out directing new readers to 6 or 7 posts all at once, & hoping they bite. 
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This story, as we often say, is long & twisted. We have stripped & abridged as much as we can, & yet advise you to:
For your convenience, here is an overview of this post: 
1. Our First Impressions of Ziz in the Media
2. How These First Impressions Got Shaken Up
3. More Shaking-up of First Impressions
4. A Reevaluation of Our Original Sources
5. A Closer Look at Those Sources’ Sources
6. Who Gets Quoted? Who Does Not?
7. In the Big Top of Ziz LaSota’s Cult
8. A 2nd Turn to Face the Press
9. Uncomfortable Questions, Uncanny Candies
10. No Angels, No Devils, Just a Site Index
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1. Our First Impressions of Ziz in the Media
Readers, we are coming at you after 3 short yet oh-so-long months on the Ziz beat. Over these 3 months, our answer to whether “she’s a cult leader” has changed dramatically. 
During month 1, we were reading abt this story thru the press. The first story we ever read abt Ziz was from Wired Mag— it’s widely-shared; perhaps you’re familiar w/ it. The press, so far as we have seen, make no bones abt it: to them, Mz. Ziz iz a cult leader. 
Not only did we believe them (why would we not have?)— their “cult” angle was what first piqued our interest. We love all things true crime— & we esp. love a cult narrative (CN). This CN knocked our socks off! We simply had to know more. 
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This CN also shook us greatly. 
We, as a queer community member, did not walk into 2025 hoping to see “murderous trans cultists” splashed across global headlines. 
Our own gf spent about 2 weeks, in this first month, wondering if Ziz could be a gov’t spook, designed to turn America further against trans ppl. This possibility haunted her so grievously that, for these 2 weeks, we stopped discussing Ziz’s case altogether. 
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2. How These First Impressions Got Shaken Up
We stopped discussing this case, but kept silently reading abt it. By month 2, we fell upon what would be a pivotal source: we fell upon the blog of Gwen Danielson— one of Ziz’s friends. 
Gwen’s blog turned the press’s version of this story upside-down, & it did so w/ receipts: w/ chat logs, w/ screenshots, & w/ links to others who corroborated her claims.
We walked back our first impression of Gwen as “just a crazy cultist (ACC)”— ACC who, incidentally, was not involved in any alleged violence. Gwen filled in many gaps which we’d begun to notice in the press’s stories— cagey descriptions of important plot points, vaguely-defined motives, & other hanging q.s. She filled these gaps in clearly, & w/ evidence. 
Squint as hard as we could, we just weren’t seeing her as a “crazy cultist”. We instead saw a girl whose principles we admired, & whose perspectives on many important issues we shared. 
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3. More Shaking-up of First Impressions
We came to trust Gwen, but still believed that Ziz was a bad apple. Gwen, we figured, would be the exception to the “crazy cultists” rule. 
We were veeeery tentative abt opening Ziz’s blog— whose link we’d found via Gwen. This was bc the press had lampooned Ziz’s blog as violent, dark, dangerous, & unhinged. When we finally clicked the link w/ shaking hands, we found… nothing of the sort. 
We did not find her confessing bloodlust. We found a black background, but that was abt it. We did not find her mesmerically convincing us to join or to do anything. We didn’t think she sounded crazy at all.
How had the press gotten this critical detail so wrong? It sounds small— one girl’s blog— but the press consistently use it as the smoking gun: to prove that Ziz is mad, bad, & dangerous to know. 
There are, doubtless, many reasons why the press have been chronically flubbing their Ziz blog book reports. But here may be the biggest reason: 
Ziz is a wordy girl. She has a lot of ideas, & she wants to write them all down. She also has a v. good memory, & likes to give long, play-by-play descriptions of social interactions, interspersed w/ musings on her internal monologue then & now. A lot of her ideas are complex. To name them— to sum them up in <5 words— she likes to make up neologisms, & to use figurative language drawn from both the tech world, & from her fav fantasy & sci-fi books. 
Incidentally, a lot of her ideas overlap w/ the ideas of v. respectable theorists— everyone from Michel Foucault to Alice Miller. But we don’t think Ziz knows this. She never references these thinkers, & never borrows their vocabulary to explain herself. She instead borrows the vocab of tech, fantasy, & sci-fi, bc this appears to be her frame of reference: she is not a humanities girl; she is a STEM girl, & there’s nothing criminal or unhinged abt that. 
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We will admit sthng: we are a comparative literature girl. Our background is in translation, in reading books from other cultures, & in reading books that drive most ppl up the wall. 
This last one is our favorite. 
We love nothing more than a book that reads like it got thrown in the air, & then shoved in a suitcase; that is full of strange, homespun vocabulary & symbolism; that is constantly referencing itself, & that makes you scramble after its references like you’re chasing puzzle pieces. This makes us clap our hands & jump up & down. We were, as you can imagine, overjoyed to discover that Ziz’s blog is just such a text. 
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The press, so far as we have seen, are not overjoyed when they discover this. They are working on a deadline! They do not want to translate, do not want to decode figurative tech & sci-fi language, & do not want to chase down puzzle pieces. 
That’s understandable! 
They did not sign up to do so: they signed up to write a juicy “death cult” feature. They tend to get v. grumpy w/ Ziz’s blog; &, to squash it into their envisioned “death cult” narrative, they play all kinds of tricks w/ it. 
They take parts out of context, & give them wholly imagined contexts. 
They search for figurative language (FL) that sounds spicy, then ignore Ziz’s descriptions of what the FL refers to. 
When they fail to find the spice they desire, they sometimes, in an act of desperation, just make it up. 
They make up ideas, they make up intentions, they make up dramatic labels which they then saddle her w/: “violent”, “megalomaniacal”,  “incoherent” & so forth. 
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4. A Reevaluation of our Original Sources
If this is shocking to you— if it’s shocking that the press would bend facts to fit their preconceived opinions; if it’s shocking they would play Frankenstein’s monster w/ their primary source docs; if it’s shocking they would read shallowly, then present their flubbed analysis as fact; if it’s shocking they might, on occasion, throw up their hands & simply conjure smoke where there is no fire— boy do we know that feeling! 
It was shocking for us to see such tricks be pulled. We’d grown up idolizing the press, idolizing their ability to bring the whole world into our small, sleepy New England town— idolizing their clarity & their generosity. They were like a pair of magic glasses we could put on whenever we wanted to— whenever we wanted to see thru the bullshit of our daily life, & explore brave new horizons. 
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Like we said: Ziz’s blog was the floor on which the press had staked their sensational characterization— that she was not just mad, but dangerous & manipulative. 
We spent the better part of Month 2 jumping all over this floor to see if it would hold our weight. 
We jumped on floorboards from the liberal press, floorboards from the conservative press, floorboards from high & mighty press institutions, & floorboards from sleazy rags. No matter where we jumped, down we would fall: down we would tumble thru the floorboards, in a cloud of sawdust. 
We are, incidentally, still jumping all over this floor: we are still waiting— & hoping— to find a board that does not crumble to splinters once its foundational claims are evaluated. 
*****
5. A Closer Look at Those Sources’ Sources
If Ziz’s blog is the floor of the press’s claims (OTPC)— what are the walls OTPC?  
What is their fabric spun out of? 
Naturally: it’s spun out of interviews w/ ppl who know— or know of— Ziz, & it’s spun out of many, many screenshots from ppl posting & commenting abt Ziz. Par for the course! What could possibly go wrong? 
Here, we’re afraid, we need to zoom out a little & put Mz. Ziz & her friends in context— so that we can understand who might have known them, & who was chatting abt them online. 
***
Ziz & friends all belonged to a group. This group, like many groups, maintains a well-manicured, unobjectionable exterior; & hides, just under its well-manicured surface, dirt, grubs, pill-bugs, & worms— all sorts of creepy-crawlies. 
Ziz & friends entered this group as true believers: they believed in this group’s mission. They admired & trusted its leadership. They imagined this group leading not just them, but all of humanity, towards a bright & glorious future.
To their dismay, about 2 years into life w/ this group, the dirt became undeniable. This dirt included: 
1. Many scandals of a sexual nature among high-ranking leadership. These scandals were not dealt w/ proactively or transparently; they were glossed over & denied. Alleged perpetrators were kept in positions of power, & in positions of access to potential victims. 
2. A pervasive culture of transphobia— oh yes, in case you haven’t heard yet, Ziz & friends are trans, except for a few who are nonbinary. 
This layer of dirt came to their attention in two ways: first, thru being harassed & degraded by everyone from their peers to the leadership they had so admired.
Second, thru this group’s reluctance to hire or promote trans ppl into positions where they would have a say in decision-making. Many in this group believe that transness is the result of poor thinking, & do not want “poor thinkers” making decisions for the rest of them. 
A few ppl have stopped us here to say: “But Drosselmeyer, this group has many trans ppl!” Indeed it does. 
What it lacks are trans ppl in positions of power. What it lacks are cis ppl, esp. those in positions of power, who are willing to use their influence in order to defend trans group members: who are working to shift the group’s culture away from closed-minded suspiciousness, & towards more welcoming possibilities. 
3. Opinions held by some prominent members that included: all queer ppl are going to hell; one should reevaluate one’s distaste for authoritarianism; colonization of indigenous ppls was a good thing; as were Japanese internment camps during WWII. 
The above may look, on their own, like fearsome but avoidable creepy-crawlies. Unfortunately, certain group members worked v. hard to impose their creepy-crawlies on others, &, when reported, were supported by group leadership, & were allowed to keep their prominent positions.
4. Severe physical & sexual abuse perpetrated by one group member in particular— paired w/ a fondness for all things Nazi.
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Ziz & friends (ZAF) attempted to raise awareness abt these conditions— to which their group’s leadership responded by edging them out of group activities, & warning other group members to stay away from them. 
It was at this point that members of the group started whispering that these friends were, in fact, a cult. 
ZAF kept trying to blow the whistle, to no avail. As thanks for their efforts, Ziz & Gwen were banned from many of this group’s events. They, w/ two of their friends— Somni Leatham & Emma Borhanian— finally protested outside of one such event. They were met w/ police, at least one SWAT unit (numbers vary), an armored car, a bomb squad, dogs, & a helicopter. They were taken to jail, where they were sexually assaulted. 
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In the month to follow, group members & leadership began discussing ZAF online w/ great gusto. It is from this time period which the press overwhelmingly draw their damning screenshots & comments (SAC). 
There are 2 main categories of these SAC. 
In category 1, leadership repeatedly suggests to group members that ZAF— Ziz specifically— are dangerous. That they  are intimidating, & may perhaps be physically violent. This despite a lack of intimidating or violent behavior from any of these girls. 
In category 2, group members solidify their cult hypothesis. They propose that Ziz is this cult’s leader, & that— w/out her mesmeric influence— her friends would never have criticized the group in the way they did. 
Their online suggestions & hypotheses grew so loud that they resulted in the girls losing their jobs & their housing. They were exiled from the group, their families were doxxed, &, for the next several years, they were sent continuous death threats, along w/ threats to, for ex., bomb group events & blame it on them. 
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6. Who Gets Quoted? Who Does Not?
To this day— 6 years later— many members of this group still believe that Ziz & friends were a cult: an intimidating & violent cult at that. There are other members who don’t. There are some who have woken up to what they themselves endured in the group; & this has inspired them to walk back their trust in the group’s zevalution (Ziz evaluation). 
Unfortunately, these types of group-members are not often cited by the press. When they are cited, their words are often taken out of context, & put into a brand new context: a context which furthers the “Ziz cult” narrative. We have heard directly that, when they tried nudging reporters to stop looking at Ziz, & start looking at the dirt of this group, their advice was ignored, & mention of it omitted from the article. 
Instead of citing this sort of interviewee, the press love to cite a website which popped up during the online brouhaha we mentioned in the previous section. We at Strange New Vegan Death Cult Murders have sworn never to direct web traffic towards this site. We call it simply The Unnamed Site (TUS). 
TUS makes many sensational claims abt Ziz & friends— a number of which you’ve prob. heard: they have been widely laundered thru the press. We have fact-checked these claims to the best of our ability, & have found them to be either demonstrably false, or unverifiable.
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Who would write such a site, & why? 
We lack a direct confession (ADC), & may go to our grave lacking ADC. We’ve instead drawn from 4 separate sources who each corroborate each other’s stories, & who credit the site to one boy— working w/ some associates. 
This site frames itself as a PSA on Ziz’s cultiness. In fact, if this boy is its author, his motives were not at all public-spirited. 
These motives run the gamut from “feeling spurned” to “pinning his own wicked deeds on Ziz”. TUS is not, at any rate, an unimpeachable source; yet the press repeatedly treat it like it is, bc it summarizes for them all the wicked cultiness they’d like to assign to Ziz.
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Incidentally, this boy is also said to have created many phony chat logs, which appear to show occasionally-banal, occasionally-alarming convos b/w Ziz & friends. He is said to have sent many other group-members these chat logs— paired w/ transphobic memes. 
If this is true, it’s unknown whether group members know they possess potentially-phony logs (PPL)— but they seem to love passing PPL along to curious journalists; who, in turn, love to wave these logs around as valuable, insider knowledge that supports their cult thesis. 
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7. In the Big Top of Ziz LaSota’s Cult
The previous section of this post, you may have noticed, ended w/ many hypotheticals. We won’t deny it! Yet, on that point, we find it strange that the press never demand significant proof from those group-members who, based on just as many hypotheticals, cry “CULT”. 
They do not ask: “Did members of this cult defect? What did they say abt their experiences?” 
They search high & low for this cult’s ideology, & all come up w/ diff. answers— which they typically attribute to Ziz’s blog, & which Ziz’s blog does not support. 
They ground their culty claims on the reported fear of some group-members (SGM), & on SGM’s trust in other group-members (OGM), who assert, w/ no hard evidence, that this was indeed a cult. 
They never, at least publicly, evaluate the strength of these OGM’s claims. They assume these OGM are making a good-faith PSA— w/out, for the sake of argument, exploring other potential motives these OGM might hold. 
This, then, is the ragtag fabric from which the press have erected, upon their spongy floorboards, the big top of “Ziz LaSota’s Cult”. 
***
You know, we love a big top. We are almost required to: we are from a circus family— well, a sketchy-vaudevillian-carny family. The sketchy vaudevillian carnival circuit lifted our forebearers right off the boat from Italy, & allowed them to decimate their bodies by being (DTBBB) acrobats— rather than DTBBB railway laborers— & for that we are  eternally grateful. We, like our forebearers, love a good show. We love to be swept away by the magic of fine & clever stagecraft. We read Ziz’s story in the first place bc we love to be amazed, we love to be astonished, we love to be blown out of our seat by a really fun story. 
Here, in the legacy of our forebearers, is what we do not like: 
We do not like exposés that promise ✨spectacle✨, & then don’t deliver. We are bored by journalists who practice two-bit sleight-of-hand in an effort to cover up the moth-eaten seams of their own story. We resent journalists who ask us to feign wonder at their flimsy & dubious props. More than anything, we sigh when the press, in pursuit of one storyline, miss a much richer, more rewarding storyline that is right under their nose: when they cheat their audience members out of a v. fun, & v. real night of showbiz.
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8. A 2nd Turn to Face the Press
By month 3 of our zinvestigation (Ziz investigation), we had read the blogs; we had heard from dissenting group-members; we had uncovered a shocking array of dirt. We then turned back to the press, in an effort to figure out: 
a) How they had duped us in month 1; 
b) How, exactly, they made their rickety tents stand tall despite treacherous floorboards & ragged fabric. 
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The secret ingredient to their tents, in every case we’ve reviewed so far, is omission. Here are the 3 big things which the press omit— beyond what we have mentioned already: 
1. They omit dirt on the group— despite this being described extensively in sources they claim to have inspected w/ a fine-toothed comb. They do not mention this group’s scandals. They do not mention this group's systemic transphobia. They do not mention the reactionary views held by some of this group's members, & they gloss over this group's laid-back acceptance of abuse. 
2. They omit the voices & perspectives of Ziz & friends— who are, ostensibly, their main subjects. 
You might say to us, “Drosselmeyer, if Ziz is a cult leader, surely nothing she has to say is credible. The same goes for her frie— uh, fellow cultists.” This may be a wise note of caution. On the other hand, this leads us into a bind. 
Here is the bind that arises when we say: 
“Person A might have done something bad. If so, surely nothing Person A says can be credible. Likewise, anyone defending Person A or trying to explain their position must have been manipulated by Person A, &/or must themselves be a bad person— either way, they are also not credible. We must therefore rely solely on the testimony of Person B— who says many bad things abt Person A. Person A claims they were victimized by Person B, but we do not find this credible bc we do not trust what Person A has to say.”
First, this inverts the principle of “innocent until proven guilty”, & demands that either Person A or their defenders prove their innocence— while denying them the credibility to do so. 
It simultaneously creates a massive confirmation bias in favor of Person B. Person B’s claims are accepted uncritically, while Person A’s are dismissed out of hand. It undermines any claim to fairness or objectivity. 
It also rests on an association fallacy: where credibility is denied not based on evidence, but based on proximity to a disliked person. 
It ultimately creates a closed loop of logic: “We don’t trust Person A bc they might be bad— we know they’re bad bc Persons C-Q don’t trust them either.”
Furthermore, it erases the possibility that someone flawed or even harmful can also be legitimately victimized. It demands the “right kind” of victim, to whom it promises it will extend all sympathy. 
This logic leaves us in quite a bind indeed: it leaves us viewing the world thru a lens of moral absolutism, where credibility, guilt, & worth are all binary, mutually-exclusive— & contagious. This poses a number of risks: 
• The shutting down of critical thinking
• The silencing of dissent
• The guarantee of the conclusion it wants to reach, before any evidence is weighed. 
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On that note, we reach our 3rd omission: the press omit their own uncertainty. 
They omit to mention where, in this narrative, they may not have all the facts. They omit admitting to guesswork & conjecture. They frame their analyses as rigorous & definitive— even when they are full of holes & contradicted by their own sources. They have a yen for suggesting nefarious Ziz plots based on evidence that collapses like a soufflé as soon as you poke it. 
They are intimidating in their certainty of who is right & who is wrong. Yet they maintain this certainty by pushing the “right” side’s skeletons back into their closet, & by denying the “wrong” side a chance to speak. 
***
These 3 omissions were how they managed to trick us for a month. 
We did not know what we were not being shown. We were bowled over by these journalists’ performance of clarity. Now that we’re sliding into month 4 on the Ziz beat… now that the stars have thoroughly fallen from our eyes… are we a happier person? Are we a more well-adjusted member of society? Even as we’ve written this post in hopes of encouraging you down a similar road: do we actually wish this road on anyone? 
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9. Uncomfortable Questions, Uncanny Candies
This road has many pitfalls. You risk losing media figures you once trusted. You risk sounding like a kook— that’s a big one! You risk your own certainty in yourself as a savvy & enlightened reader. You start asking uncomfortable q.s like, “What other stories have I misunderstood?” and, “Where, in 2025, do I find real, living stories from America?” and, “Are these distortions typical for complex stories? Are they typical for stories in general? Where do they begin & end?” 
& yet, we do feel better now than we did at the beginning of month 1 (ATBOMO). 
ATBOMO, we felt strange & uncanny— like we were walking over a bog on peat moss that shook like jell-o & oozed stagnant water into our shoes, yet implausibly let us pass. 
Or here’s another one: we felt like we were eating a digital simulation of cotton candy. It could emulate the look of the real thing, but left us just as hungry as when we began. 
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We may be asking ourself uncomfortable q.s these days— we may even look a little kooky to you all— but we, as we do so, are feeling more grounded. We are no longer walking on muddy bog water. We are no longer looking for sustenance in a confectionary mirage. & this does indeed make us happy. 
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10. No Angels, No Devils, Just a Site Index
We often say on Strange New Vegan Death Cult Murders: we have yet to exonerate Ziz LaSota. We have yet to exonerate her friends. We do not need to do so in order for everything you have read above to be our opinion— stated as honestly as we could put it. 
We often say another thing: in our wildest storytelling fantasies, there are no angels, & there are no devils. There are, instead, lots & lots of human beings— human beings just like us, & just like you. 
W/ that, we’ve reached the end of tonight’s bumpy journey. If you are curious to hear more details of what we’ve talked abt, we suggest you start at the beginning: this story has, you may have noticed, many characters, & makes many callbacks to previous plot-points. However, if you want to jump to a specific point in our story, here is an index of major events. 
What we covered here: 
Intro to Ziz’s group (ZG)
Some instances of ZG’s transphobia
Transphobia from a group leader
Some words from Ziz on this transphobia
Ziz writes an email that will be said to cause "extreme fear"
Reflections on transphobia & general queerphobia
Does this email from Ziz warrant “extreme fear”?
A reply to the email: does this signal an extreme feeling of fear?
More transphobia from the group
Scandals come to light & cult murmurings begin
Ziz & Gwen are barred from group events
How the press write on all of the above
The girls’ protest, & how it is presented by Wired Mag. Also their sexual assaults in jail. 
The start of the online pile-on; a prominent group-member’s reactionary views
Redoubled allegations of “extreme fear”; redoubled cult allegations
Continued cult allegations
Some of what Ziz’s notorious blog contains
Intro to The Unnamed Site
Responses to 8 claims by The Unnamed Site
The boy who may be behind The Unnamed Site; a confession from one of this boy’s victims/ex-associates
More from this boy’s ex-associate on his actions, his personality, & how the ex-associate has changed its evaluations of Ziz
Physical & sexual abuse by a Nazi-loving group member
Diving into Ziz’s most ~controversial~ post
Dawn of the “death cult”
Do we generally agree w/ this person who loves to say “death cult”?
***
Ah, but what of the violent episodes which do tend to crop up around this friend-group? Here they are: 
California, 2022: Emma Borhanian gets shot, Somni Leatham gets shot, Curtis Lind gets stabbed
Vermont, 2022: Ziz recommends vigilante justice
Pennsylvania, 2022: Richard & Rita Zajko get shot
California, 2025: Curtis Lind gets stabbed again
Vermont, 2025: Ophelia Bauckholt gets shot, Milo Youngblut gets shot, a border agent gets shot
***
& here is the page where we write abt what the press make of all of this— & what we make of the press.
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Thanks for reading, & goodbye for now 👋 If you’d like to reach out to us for any reason, here we are on X, & here we are on Bluesky. Warmest wishes— Drosselmeyer
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