Welcome to Fictitious
This blog is written by me, Oleg V. At some point in 2022, I got tired of living in a world where a LinkedIn post is considered high-effort content. A world where ideas are recycled and made into SEO-optimized articles. To escape that world, I started this blog. And that brought some balance.
Getting in touch
You can always email me at tuxunefo@gmail.com with any comments, ideas or just to say hi.
Supporting Fictitious
By subscribing for just $6/month, you can help me dedicate more time to writing. You can also tip me via the Ko-fi platform. ☕☕☕
Recommended pieces
Inspired by a not-so-engaging tour guide in Montenegro, this piece called I told you and now you know (a phrase the guide repeated after every factoid) pushed me to think more about why so many tour guides can’t tell a good story. The ripple effect is my plan of becoming a licensed tour guide in 2023 myself.
Probably my most (or even only) controversial piece, The consequences of not punching a Nazi is one of several essays discussing the morality of certain choices, in this case - seeing a literal Nazi (SS tattoos and all) walking a WWII exhibit and doing nothing about it.
That sweet analog smell was the first in a series of posts about the things I saw, read or experienced as a kid. This one was about the long-forgotten medium that the filmoscope was. I really enjoyed writing about the stuff that connects me to certain periods of my childhood, and since that first post came out, I wrote about a 800+ page “encyclopedias for boys”, a 1974 Soviet sci-fi kids movie, and the reason why the sight of an old lady struggling with a big bag still sends shivers down my spine.
Although two of the pieces predate the blog, I’m especially proud of the three short stories I published this year: No duplicates, Gathering amber and Pulling no punch cards. They all sit somewhere on the speculative/sci-fi spectrum, a spectrum I’d like to expand next year.
I also wrote the first installment in what will be a series of observational essays revolving around things we rarely notice, like people on our commute. Called Commuters, the piece is a condensed and slightly edited collection of thoughts on people on the buses and trolleybuses of Vilnius. If you read Lithuanian, the piece, published by the Literatūra ir menas literary magazine, is also available in translation.
And the title of my favourite piece so far goes to Shadowboxer in the dark. It’s a story about my neighbour, who likes to do crunches outdoors in sub-zero temperatures.
