#and I say all this as a VERY left/liberal leaning person

[funkytoes]

everyone claims they want people to think more critically abt stuff in general, especially in this digital age, but i get the feeling most people (yes, even very left leaning people), while claiming that we all need to use our critical thinking skills more often, actually only actually want people to think "in a way that confirms their personal biases" and not like, y'know, what is required of people to ACTUALLY use critical thinking skills, which is, in fact, ironically, the Opposite of using critical thinking skills 🤔

[drdemonprince]

what was your journey from libertarian to leftest/anarchist like?

well, as a teen i hated authority and society and wanted complete freedom so i was a libertarian. then i realized i was gay and trans and libertarianism weren't gonna do shit for me. when obama won in 2008 i noticed that i felt relieved, even though i had not voted for him. I went away to academia shortly after that, and became surrounded by liberal people, all of them doing research with a liberal point of view, and what do you know, product of my social environment and queer and desperate for acceptance among the group that said they cared about me, I became a liberal too.

over time academia mistreated me and rejected me for who i really was, and i started to transition and realize that i was disabled. i became more left-leaning frankly because it seemed like that was the only way to be able to survive as what i was, identity wise, and find anyone at all who would correctly gender me or tolerate me. if you want to be able to hang out with other trans people and have them treat you right, there are values you basically have to say that you subscribe to. anyone who didn't subscribe to those political values was mistreated, viewed skeptically, talked to like they were dumb, and ostracized. and some of those values did make sense to me, whereas others didn't.

i saw people pushed to the social margins for being libertarians, for instance, as if that is a political ideology that carries any danger when some random trans woman with a very weak social support system says in a support group that she maybe kinda subscribes to it. i was even terrified of people finding out that i used to believe in anything "wrong" according to the social dogma, for a while. but i tried to make the most sense of the confusing tangle of community held beliefs as i could, so that i wouldnt be completely ostracized from both straight and queer society at once. and so I was vaguely leftist, but with a confused understanding of systemic oppression based on identity (among lots of other things, like abolition and anti-colonialism), and a deep terror of ever saying anything that would ever get me criticized/cancelled/viewed as a bad person.

and then the pandemic happened and i wasn't so beholden to mass community scrutiny anymore. i read a ton i looked at how politics actually plays out, and i got a little bit more capable and secure in myself and came to similarly feel awed by how much people are really capable of when they aren't being controlled or dependent upon approval in order to survive. and anarchy basically asserted that it had always been there in me, i just hadn't known the name for it. and by then i felt safe and strong enough and had enough faith in others to decide it was okay to have opinions that others disagreed with, and that i wouldn't starve out in the cold if i gave voice to them.

like a lot of people, i had misconceptions about what anarchism really was and writers like Graeber, Wengrow, Solnit, etc really disabused me of that notion and made me understand that it wasn't a scary worldview at all, it was the most human and accepting one there really was out there.

My political journey has not been especially principled or philosophical, it has been emotional, intuitive, and rooted in a lot of social influences. i think that's what most political ideologies are about for people, ultimately, belonging and safety.

I was originally a political scientist by training and in that field's body of research we see that most people do not have consistent political belief systems, they agree to a mish-mosh of statements and support various policies that don't all add up in a logically explicable way. they also don't tend to have stable views over time. just as i think morality is a pretty bad explanation of why humans do what they do, and why we help eachother and avoid doing harm, it's very evident that political ideology is a piss poor predictor of political behavior or affiliation. the far clearer explanation far more consistent with the evidence is that people politically align themselves based on their social milleu and their feelings.

this is why i always feel myself holding back from dying for a cause, and blanch when MLMs start talking about needing to do all they can to bring about communism with an almost religious fervor (beyond the fact that such thinking also doesn't line up with a lot of communist thought and theory about how capitalism falls anyway). i dont think that any of these ideologies really carry all that much weight or influence people's actions, affiliations, or political behavior on the level we all pretend that they do. i dont think they're "real". anarchy is more of a philosophy of how to relate to other people in daily life, for me, rather than a religion about how the world needs to be or where we specifically need to be heading. it's more big-I Ideological for plenty of other people, and again, i blanch when they start preaching about it as if their whole life is in service to the idea of it. I think we do anarchism by living as if we're free, every day. and that's what i care about, if i'm being honest. feeling free, safe, and cared for by some other people, without conditions, right now.

[sailoryooons]

King of Tides | KSJ | Drabble

☾ Pairing: Pirate!Seokjin x Sea Demon!Reader 

☾ Summary: Seokjin meets a ghost of his past when he and his crew stop to celebrate for the evening. 

☾ Word Count: 1,969

☾ Genre: Pirate AU, Angst, Lovers to Enemies 

☾ Rating: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately. 

☾ Warnings: References to smut, explicit language, weapons and mentions of murder, betrayal, vague world building, Seokjin is an Asshole, brief references to childhood trauma, angst. 

☾ Published: Friday, January 5, 2024

☾ A/N: Drabble 2 of the 100 Drabble Challenge is prompt #67, pirates! I had no idea what I was doing with this until I wrote it. It is obviously inspired by Pirate of the Caribbean with the whole Davy Jone’s chest thing, but I very much put my own spin on it. The ring is inspired by Solomon’s Ring, which is a Christian-centric mythology that Solomon had a ring that could summon the forces of Hell. So I did that but like… sea hell hahaha. I hope you enjoy this! I’ts very different for me!

☾ Disclaimer: All members of BTS are faces and name claims for this story. This is entirely a work of fiction and by no means is meant to be a projection, judgment or representation of real-life people. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios.

Main Masterlist ☾ 100 Drabble Masterlist ☾ Ask ☾ Song Inspiration

Seokjin is used to the occasional knife in the dark. As one of the most notorious captains and thieves on the seven seas, he’s even been the knife in the dark himself. 

When he feels the pressure of a blade against his spine tonight, he’s not surprised. His crew is too drunk to see the threat standing behind their captain, and Seokjin has made the ridiculous mistake of letting a pretty woman lure him to a dark table in the corner, away from the noise and celebrating. 

Seokjin immediately feels like a fool for letting his guard down, the worst mistake he could ever make. 

The pretty girl in front of him grins and looks at Seokjin’s assailant before nodding her head and slipping from the chair. He grits his teeth, realizing she is in on it. He clenches his fist as he starts to turn, but the knife digs into his ribs. A hard push would send it right between the two of them and into a lung. It would be a slow, gross death.

The raucous noise of the tavern buzzes in his ear as a hand taps his shoulder, signaling for him to stand. He does so slowly, looking around the tavern to see if there’s anyone he can appeal to for his plight.

No one pays him any mind, hands going up dresses or down pants, wine flowing, and crowd singing. His crew is too busy celebrating. And why shouldn’t they? They’ve just stopped at their favorite port after a successful three years of hunting a timeless piece of treasure. A power that puts Seokjin on edge.

The ring sits heavy in Seokjin’s pocket. Only Yoongi his firstmate and Namjoon his chronicler know of the power in Seokjin’s pocket, too dangerous to be left on the ship with the remainder of the treasure. He doesn’t enjoy hiding the ring from his crew, but he hasn’t quiet yet decided what to do with it. How to explain what it is that it does without scaring the loyal members of his crew.

Slowly, a hand turns Seokjin around and walks him toward the stairs, still at knifepoint. He grins as he goes, leaning his head to the side to see the person who holds him captive. The knife digs harder into his back, a warning that makes him chuckle and turn forward, holding his hands up in defeat.

“If you wanted to lure me to your bed, you just had to ask,” he says, going up the steps. His boots are heavy on the creaking wood as he goes. “I am the most handsome of pirates, but I’m also quite liberal with my affections.”

His captor says nothing as they reach the second landing. Doors line either side of the hall. Seokjin can detect all manner of lovemaking and laughter beyond each closed door. He does not typically favor staying upstairs or renting rooms for whores, preferring the rocking of the ship in the harbor and the canvas of the night sky. It makes him unfamiliar with the second floor, but he counts his steps as they go. 

They turn and go down another hall and stop at the last door of the right. It’s not a far run to get to the stairs and sound the alarm. Once he disarms his captor, he just needs to sprint and scream. He’s pretty quick on his feet and-

The knife prods him and he realizes the door to the room is open. He steps over the threshold into the room, glancing around. It’s simple enough. A single bed stands in the corner with a chest at the foot, a nightstand to the left, and a candle burning, smoke drifting toward the ceiling. 

When the door shuts behind him, Seokjin’s muscles coil. He prepares to spring, hand sliding into the front of his jacket pocket, inching towards the small knife there-

“Don’t bother,” the voice says, knife ever-present. Seokjin’s hand freezes, recognizing the rasp of your voice anywhere. “That’s not the right knife, Captain.” 

You’re right. The knife in his jacket pocket would do nothing against you, but the knife in his boot would. He’d grown lazy, no longer keeping the adamas dagger at his hip or within close reach. Three years haven’t made him feel safe, exactly, but he had started to think that you were still captive in that little home he’d left you in.

Evidently, it’s a mistake that will cost him. 

Now he’s nervous. You push him further into the room with your palm but remove the knife from his back. He doesn’t reach down to the weapon in his boot, stuck between fear and the desire to see you - to talk to you again. 

When he turns, his heart cracks open and starts to bleed. 

The last time Seokjin saw you is fresh in his memory. You’d been chained to the bed you shared in a small island home off the coast of the Americas. He remembers the smell of your skin, like salt and driftwood. The cool touch of your lips against his burning skin. You always felt like the depths of the ocean, every part of you fluid as you’d fucked him last night, your breath sea breeze against his mouth, cries a haunting siren song.

And your eyes. Seokjin sees the inhuman blue-green glow of your eyes every night. 

Now, those same eyes are staring at him, glowing in the dark. You stand so far in the shadows that it’s hard to make out any of your features or expressions, but Seokjin has your face burned into every part of his memory. The bow of your mouth, the slope of your nose, the roundness of your cheeks. It’s all there along with the knowledge that he’d betrayed you. Chained you. Loved you. 

When you step into the light, Seokjin holds his breath. You’re so beautiful. It’s what lured him to you in the first place, a sailor to a siren, but he knows you’re so much more than a pretty face and glowing eyes. You’re also incredibly smart and wicked, a ruthlessness in you as brutal as the sea running in your veins, an unpredictably like a storm destroying the tropics. 

A pirate by trade. Daughter of Leviathan by nature. 

“You must be talented to get out of those cuffs. We should have used them more” Seokjin doesn’t know what else to say. You’re not advancing further into the room, and he’s worried reaching for his knife will startle you. 

Behind him, the candle casts an orange glow on your face. It makes the sneer much more twisted, the furrowed brows as you glower harsher. Your features are sharper than he remembers, your eyes burning with the unnatural glow of a demon of the deep. You are murderous.

“I’m the favorite daughter of Leviathan, King of the Depths, Destroyer of Seas, and Maker of Tides. You think he would leave me to rot?” 

“No, I suppose he doesn’t want that pretty face to wilt.” He tries to appear casual, spinning and tossing himself on the bed. You don’t move, eyes tracking him. “I suppose you’ve been following me all this time, then?”

“I have far more important things to do.”

“Perhaps, but you’d always loved revenge.”

“I loved you.” 

There. You said it.

Seokjin doesn’t say anything for a moment, shocked to silence. Usually, you like to spar with your words, dancing around what you want to say with quick barbs and turns of phrase. Tonight, you cut right to it, leaving all playfulness out of your voice.

It makes his heart squeeze painfully. In the years that you sailed together, he cannot recall a time that you’ve ever been so direct. Even when you loved him most. Even when you were at your most vulnerable. 

Perhaps you are here to kill him after all. 

“So you’re here to win me back over?” he tries, desperate to get on familiar ground. Desperate to goad you. To make you snap back, to throw an insult. “You’ll need more than a knife to do that.”

“Give me the ring.”

“What do you want with it?” 

“The likes of you shouldn’t have the power to summon the demons of the depths.” 

“What if I’m in peril and need to call you?”

“You had me!” You roar, the force of your voice shaking the room, the candle almost guttering, the window panes shaking. He hears the scream downstairs, the entire building rattle with the rage of the ocean in your voice. 

Seokjin drops the act, sitting up and squeezing his fists to fight the nausea of guilt twisting his stomach. He can feel your rage fill up the room like a solid thing, a cold pressure pressing on his skin as the candle on the nightstand flickers. 

“Humans are not made to command Leviathan and his children” you growl, stepping further into the room. Standing closer to the light, Seokjin realizes your eyes are watery. He sucks in a sharp breath. He’s never seen you cry. “You are weak and petty, your lives but a speck of sand in fathomless oceans. You are selfish and greedy and cruel.” 

“Are demons not the same? Do you not fight amongst yourselves for power? Do you not cause chaos among the seas? Do you not hunger for power, lust, and riches?” 

“Those things belong to us.”

Seokjin stands abruptly. “Now they belong to me!” 

“Seokjin.”

“Now I will command the seas. I will have the power to rein in the monster of the depths when he wants to destroy innocent ships. When he wants to send storms against islands. When he wants to swallow the souls on the sea. He will bow to me, now.”

“This is madness.”

“This is fair.” He feels his heart rate speed up. Feels rage pumping through his system. Feels like the little boy clinging to a piece of driftwood as the sea destroys the ship he and his family were sailing on, feels the burn of saltwater in his lungs as the ocean drags him down, feels-

“You’d risk the world for a sense of vengeance for your lost childhood?” your voice is barely audible, a sea breeze. “The infamous Captain Seokjin of the Blue Moon, Scourge of the Seas, so afraid of losing control of the tide that he’d dare assert his dominance over it.”

“Captain Seokjin, King of Tides has a better ring to it.”

You glance at his pocket where you know the ring sits heavy. He can feel the power ebbing from the cool metal as thought it senses you in the room. Like calling to like. A tool to control Leviathan and all of his demonic children of the sea sensing one of those very creatures in front of him.

“The sea will bow to no one.” 

A blade glints in your hand. Seokjin finally realizes why you refuse to jest. Why there are tears in your eyes. You’re not here to negotiate or to let him loose. He truly has fallen out of your favor, and you’re here to take what he used you to steal. 

He slowly bends down, watching you all the while. You let him remove the knife from his boot, kind enough to offer him a fair fight. “The sea loved you, you know?” 

He knows you’re not just talking about the oceans he sails. His throat constricts as he nods. “I love her.” 

You appraise him once more, uncanny eyes flickering. If his admission that there is still warmth flickering for you has an effect, it doesn’t show. 

“Your love means nothing. You betrayed her and now you will meet your death, King of Tides.” 

He grips his knife firmly. The ring is heavy in his pocket. “I welcome the attempt.”  

[decolonize-the-everything]

Reminder that liberals aren't leftists and are in fact closer to being centrists and conservatives. Leftists are people like socialists.

Leftists want everyone's needs met. Healthcare, housing, food, etc and within the USA where the GDP is 23 trillion those things should be provided by the government. Workers should equally own the businesses they run and distribute profit equally as well.

Being a leftist can look like a lot of things- like calling for the straight up destruction of a government- but most can agree that until that happens then everyone's human rights and basic needs should be provided at the very least. Lots of leftists work towards this.

Remember that when leftists ask you to vote for 3rd parties with platforms that include universal healthcare, housing, and police reform.

Because liberals who stopped their political growth in 7th grade will try to make leftists out to be "Russian psyops" or white supremacists because we vote with principles and values and that don't allow us to vote for people who commit genocide, let single moms and their kids starve, and/or call environmental protests terrorists.

They'll reduce all this nuance to us "being immature and splitting the vote"

Quite frankly, I refuse to fall for this narrative in 2024.

We are ALL exercising our right to vote for the person who represents us. No, my beliefs don't line up with Democrats so I don't vote for Democrats ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm not "splitting a vote" because I can't split my own fucking vote and I'm not a member of your party. I don't owe your shitty genocidal party any of my loyalty, quite frankly idk why You even vote for them since you say you care about human lives but I digress.

If your guy loses that means your views aren't the majority.

It does NOT mean I'm a Russian Psyop. And because I've already seen a post floating around about how The-Russian-Tumblr-Bots-Were-Real-And-Pretending-To-Be-Black I'm asking y'all to use your brains and critical thinking skills this election.

There's a REASON why they specifically wanted to undermine your trust in BIPOC. So let's think about this for a second.

Why would anyone want to undermine your trust in BIPOC? What kind of things do BIPOC say about the government and it's history? What are the political leanings of BIPOC? What would happen if everyone started to agree with those politics? Which party would those views harm most?

It's crazy to me y'all think those bots were there to help Trump when it's obvious as fuck to me that the Real concern is that BIPOC would make y'all more left which would only be trouble for Biden/Clinton. The only people that would lose votes if y'all voted more left like BIPOC bots told you to would be Democrats. We want Republicans to vote more left, remember? That would be a good thing.

They were on the site to keep liberals from going left and voting for someone like Sanders or Claudia de La Cruz instead of Clinton/Biden. They weren't helping Trump. They were helping Democrats. Republicans aren't the people listening to BIPOC Tumblr bloggers, are they?

And that psyop is STILL working cuz now liberal goons put in overtime to accuse anyone who criticizes the 2 party system of being a Russian bot 🥴🥴

Yeah. I'm sure the two parties who rely on that system definitely didn't expect or want that outcome at all. And I bet they really didn't want you to refuse to vote for anyone outside those 2 parties either. I'm sure they hate how this psyop ended with you having more trust in a corrupted 2 party system and less trust in 3rd parties that challenge the corruption of the system. How awful it must be for them, that the Russian Bots Ordeal ended with MORE trust in the current government and people being less willing to change it :(

[mxrobinhearts]

One thing that jumped out at me about the situation with @photomatt (huh, did they disable tagging him?) is this post. I think this, more than anything, hints at why this particular episode has upset Matt so much.

There's a type of person who considers themselves very liberal, very progressive, open-minded, and left-leaning. Who donates to LGBT+ causes, who flies progress flags during Pride month, who respect pronouns and will happily declare that "love is love".

These are all obviously good things, but the thing that will really infuriate a certain subset of this type of person, more than bigotry, is the accusation of bigotry.

I doubt that Matt has ever been as incensed at actual transphobia as he has been at the suggestion that he is transphobic. All of his responses during this episode have been laced with this outrage - how could anyone call him transphobic? How dare you call me transphobic when I've done x, y, z for you people?

And I get it. It sucks. If you consider yourself an ally and suddenly people are labelling you a phobe, it does suck. I wouldn't want to be labelled a bigot either. But here's the thing: well-meaning people, who do not consider themselves bigoted, fuck up all the time. Hell, queer people fuck up all the time.

However, if your reaction to many, many people calling out your behaviour is to be enraged at those accusations instead of doing anything to make up for those mistakes, then doesn't that say something about your priorities? People have pointed out how trans women are constantly being left hanging by the moderation team, about abuse against them being rampant, how Tumblr still labels non-sexual content as mature if it contains transfemme people.

Hell, you even admitted yourself that you had an openly transphobic moderator doing that recently! Did you chase that person across social media in a rage too? Because if not, then I think it's clear what bothers you more.

[the-lisechen]

~6.7k. gen. copia/f!oc. the cardinal has a cigarette with a fan. from there, it gets a little weird. (or: copia gets into a fist fight at 3am in a denny's parking lot over theology. metaphorically speaking.)

header by the divine @enjoy-my-swearing

(the fic that started it all and has eaten my brain ever since. don't mind me, i just wanted to reformat this one and also have it on my tumblr for posterity)

some kind of cosmic rearrangement - ao3

(full series here)

religious discussion, catholic character that isn't an asshole, unresolved sexual tension. tw: catholicism

Copia stepped out into the night, face paint mostly cleaned off, save for the black around his eyes. He couldn't even remember the name of the town they were in. Somewhere in the American South, the air warm and heavy with humidity that felt like silk against his skin. He settled his shoulders against the brick of the alleyway, and sighed, his blood still fizzing from the ritual. The comedown from the adrenaline dump always left him a little hollowed out and shaky.

As he passed a hand over his face, the car in front of him trilled out like a bird and flashed its lights. He turned to the sound of boots up the wet pavement. A small figure, female, dishwater blonde hair, head down, hands stuffed into black skinny jeans. Humming something he could recognize as one of his songs, and that never got old.

He watched her approach, curious. When she at last stepped into the light, she looked up at him, and startled like a deer. Her hands flew up to her mouth, and she squeaked out a breathless “Oh shit!” It took her a moment to recover, and my, wasn't that an interesting shade of pink. He’d seen people blush, of course, but this was remarkable, that red, that quickly.

He had to smile, even bowing a little. “Bunoasera, signora."

"Um! Hi! You are very good at your job!"

Her purse plopped next to her feet, and she knelt down to recollect it, the blush deepening to the color of late spring roses. "Sorry, I'm sorry--" she said, hands shaking as she scooped spilled detritus back into her purse, pens and lip balm spilling from her fingers.

He bent over to help her, smiling. "It is no trouble, signora. Not the worst I've seen." He paused, sitting back on his heels, and picked up a battered paperback the color of burnt orange. "'The Liberation of Theology.'" He looked up at her, mismatched eyes sharp, assessing. "This is what you read? At my show?"

The girl-- woman, really-- went still. She got to her feet and took half a step back, widening her stance, her shoulders squared. "Yeah." She tilted her chin up. "Is it really that strange?"

He flipped it to read the back cover, and her spine relaxed a fraction, with his focus off of her. "Perhaps... somewhat unexpected." An understatement. He stood, slow, putting himself further into her personal space, eyes still on the text in his hand. He read the subtitle. "'An instrument in human liberation.' Has it been?" He looked down at her, not exactly trying to loom, but not exactly going out of his way not to. "In your experience."

The woman folded her arms, leaning back against her car. Keeping her distance. "It can be. It should be." She flipped her keyring, once. "And in my experience? Yes, actually. But I am fully aware my experience may be-- atypical."

"In what way?"

"Well." She looked up, exposing the long pale line of her throat, and her Southern accent became gradually more apparent as she spoke. "I converted to Catholicism. Not really from anything, you understand, unless you count the vaguely agnostic Protestant background noise in America. And I did my catechism classes with a Capuchin Franciscan. A lot of mysticism. And a lot of social action to offset the navel-gazing that comes with that. The culture was-- it's different. I mean, how much do you know about liberation theology?"

"For the purposes of this conversation?" He idly tapped her book against his thigh. "Let us say... not much."

"In simple terms: feed the hungry, clothe the naked. Like the guy said in the book, right? It's both defending the poor and taking aim at the structural issues that are actively oppressing people. Real basic."

"You need a God to tell you this?"

He saw her warming to the subject, eyes alight and not quite on his. "Of course not, but it's a useful framework. And some people do! Whatever provides incentive. Besides that, it works on a practical level, if the Church is your primary social apparatus, that's a structure in place to distribute resources if the state is failing. I mean, the Jesuit approach in South America is not quite the same as the Black church in the Civil Rights movement in the USA in the Sixties, but it's not too far off, either. It's like--" and she cut herself off, the blush coming back, eyes cast downward. "It's just what's supposed to happen. What it says on the tin."

He ruffled the pages with a gloved hand a few times, watching her. "Incentive." He gestured at her with the book, halfway to accusatory. "If someone is doing something in expectation of divine reward, then they are, I'm afraid, an asshole."

"Man, I truly do not care about the motive. I care about the effect it has on the world. But faith without works is dead."

"You believe this."

"Yeah."

"You are this passionate about it, and yet you came to see me. My songs are nothing but blasphemy. Why?"

"Look, as blasphemy goes-- and I'm not trying to denigrate anything you're doing here-- this is just not that big a deal."

He stared at her. "I am literally praising the devil. Literal songs about, literally, devil worship."

"Yeah, and it slaps. Can I have my book back?"

He held it out carefully, as if it was a chunk of meat and she was a strange animal. One that might bite. "What is it, then, that qualifies as blasphemy? In your opinion."

She took it, opened the backseat door to her car, and tossed it in, careful not to turn her back on him. "I dunno. Start with that 'prosperity gospel' bullshit. 'If you're rich, it's because Jesus wants you to be rich!' Joel Osteen can bite the fucking curb. It's lazy exegesis, is what it is." Again, he saw her restrain herself, and she ran a hand through her hair, embarrassed. "I can go on. Obviously. But I think if you're getting bent out of shape about this kind of thing, you need to reassess your priorities."

"No, this is-- at least amusing. You haven't chased us out with torches and pitchforks yet, so I will continue to assume good faith." He smiled. "So to speak."

"Trust me, I am leaving a lot of stuff out." She fished around in her purse, picked out a brilliantly blue pack of cigarettes, and tapped them rhythmically on the heel of her hand. "So what's your deal? I don't know a lot about theistic Satanism. Pop the hood on it, man, tell me how it works."

"In simple terms?"

"Sure." She cracked a smile, thumbing a cigarette out of the pack.

"We honor the serpent that brought knowledge to Eve, as a liberator from the oppression of the corrupted demiurge that you call God."

"The snake, this was one of those gnostic things, right? That was, what, the Ophites? I thought they found it at Nag Hammadi."

"Fragments. References. But we have had the Syntagma for centuries. This was Hippolytus, yes? We borrowed a few things from Marcion of Sinope, as well. From those texts, and other pieces of what you would call apocrypha, we solidified a doctrine. Eventually. These things take time, no? Remind me, when did your people decide on the canon?"

"Council of Rome. I wanna say three..." she tapped the unlit cigarette, "...eighty seven? Somewhere in there. Fourth century, anyway."

"Just so. As a, you'd say-- distinct movement, yes? I would say sometime around the twelfth century that we came together."

"Hold on, twelfth century, evil demiurge-- what was this, like a splinter of the Cathars?"

"Not unrelated. When it came to that kind of dualism, we merely decided to side with the physical world."

"By running straight to the devil."

"Eh. No half measures."

"I'm just kinda surprised it got traction in that environment."

"Mostly on the-- margins, you would say? We had solidified the clerical structure some time before, modeled on the Catholic church. Camouflage, yes? But it was with the obvious corruption of the fourteenth century that we started to gain momentum. Acolytes. A whisper network of proselytization."

"That is neat. Like, what, a Dark Reformation kind of thing?"

"...That is, perhaps, somewhat reductive. But not inaccurate."

"Oh that is so cool. It's like finding a whole new life form in the Marianas Trench. No, I can see a kind of sense to it. Get far enough away from Rome, look as close as you can to the actual Church, you might get away with it."

"They did burn us. Your people did do that."

"I am sure that they did," she said, with a certain blithe amicability. "Burnt a lot of Cathars, too, makes sense. Sir-- Father-- I'm sorry. What is the title?"

"Cardinal."

A blink, barely perceptible. "Cardinal, then. Your Eminence, if you want me to stand here and apologize for every atrocity the Church committed, we're gonna be here all night, and it'll get boring quick. And, forgive me, at what point have I attached a moral judgment over your faith?"

He spread his hands, smiling a little. "Very well, I concede the point. You can understand if I am somewhat-- defensive."

"Yeah, of course." She grinned, mostly to herself. "And here I am, a good Catholic girl. Everything you rail against."

"Eh. It could be worse. You could be a Baptist."

She let out a laugh at that, an entirely inelegant sound, and Copia felt as if he'd won something.

"Oh. No. No, I couldn't. Too diffuse. A million different opinions going every which way. I'm also not into sola fide--"

"'By faith alone.'"

"Yeah. Not my bag. If it doesn't inspire you to help your fellow human beings and not just focus on your own salvation, it's probably bullshit." Finally she put the cigarette she'd been fidgeting with into her mouth. "Man. Cathars and gnostics." The woman brought out a burnished zippo and flipped the lid, a faintly musical sound. She didn't light her cigarette, but shot him a sidelong look, eyes alight. "Sounds more like heresy than outright blasphemy."

"Oh, now I'm offended." He was not, in fact, offended. He was fascinated. He wanted to study her under a microscope. "Certainly, that's the first time I've heard that. Maybe I should send you to talk to the-- ehh, how is it? The protestors. What do you call, the evangelicals, yes?"

"They don't like Catholics, either. The veneration of Mary, y'know? Idolatry." Finally she sparked the lighter, her face turning to alabaster in the light of the flame. "We're both going to hell in their lights. Just different neighborhoods." She bent her head to the light. A long drag on the cigarette, exhaling a plume of smoke upwards. "So no, I don't think going to a concert counts as a sin. There's just some songs I can't sing along to, is all."

Copia leaned back against the wall, arms folded, considering her. "You know that your Church would call this blasphemy. What is it, then, that you think I'm doing, if not spreading the word of Satan?"

A long drag of her cigarette. "Sick tunes, man," she said, around the smoke. Shrugged. "It's fun. And fun is underrated, as a concept."

"Signora, I don't think 'fun' is what brought you here." He leveled her with his mismatched stare, and she dropped her eyes.

"No," she said, studying the cherry on her cigarette. "No, fun would not be enough."

He took a step closer, not quite edging into her personal space. "What, then? What could possibly bring you to deny your programming, when you clearly believe with such conviction?"

The back of her shoulders hit the top of her car, but she tilted her head up at him in challenge. "Call it joy, then." A defiant kind of vulnerability. "That's what I hear in your songs. And that's a rarer thing."

"What a monstrous thing, to deny joy. To yourself, to others. That sounds to me like blasphemy. What abnegation of the self. We are not hurting anyone. I am not hurting anyone. Why not do as you like?"

"'An it harm none, do as thou wilt.'"

"Precisely."

"Isn't that, what, Louÿs by way of Crowley? Nineteenth century. I thought your stuff was older than that."

"That is beside the point and you know it. Answer me."

"Because that's where it falls apart for me! To begin and end with 'do no harm' does not work. You cannot always do exactly as you like, you have an obligation in society! Feed the hungry. 'Do what you want, whatever,' that's too passive. And being passive in the face of oppression is oppression! Come on, man, you must know this. You're too smart not to know this."

"I'm sorry, you want to talk about oppression? With the literal Catholic Church? With the colonialism and the forced conversion and the actual literal Inquisition? Even laying that aside, the harm it's doing now, how can you still stay with it?"

"Because that's not all it is! Not all it could be. Because it can be just, it can be equitable, and it can be used as a tool for liberation. I believe that, I do. And if if I'm in it-- and oh boy you would not believe how much I'm in it-- then I have a moral obligation to try to shape it towards those ends. Because those people--" she flung a hand out, gesturing towards what, he couldn't say, and he took a step back. "Those bullshit assholes that want to strip people of healthcare and gut the social safety net-- they're in my house! And they don't get to fucking win."

"You must see that this is about control. You are too smart not to know this."

The woman slumped back against her car, and took another long drag on her cigarette, before dropping it and crushing it under her boot, an oddly fussy swiveling motion. "I dunno, man. For me it's about service. You just don't fix something by walking away. And anyway I'm committed."

"I think you are tilting at windmills." He watched her, the last tendrils of cigarette smoke from her exhale the same blue-grey of her eyes, letting the silence linger until the smoke cleared entirely. "What is your name?"

She flicked her eyes back up at him, and then away, coming to a decision. "Sophia Turner." She bit her lip. "Sophie."

"Sophie. That's lovely."

"Thank you. And what do I call you? Feels a little weird, saying 'Your Eminence' to a guy whose faith you don't subscribe to."

He tilted his head in the faintest approximation of a bow, biting back a smile. "Copia."

"Well. I am delighted to make your acquaintance." Her accent more pronounced with the formality, a distinctly Southern drawl.

"You say you're committed. How? You don't have to stay anywhere forever."

"Oh. Oh boy. Um." She looked down at her hands, picked at the edge of a painted nail, and then turned to him, watching his mismatched eyes for a long moment. She smiled, a little rueful. "I am taking my vows in a few months." And to his blank look-- "The Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic." He blinked, recoiled a little, and she flinched, turning to look down the street, not seeing the rain on the asphalt, the streetlight shining on the fire escape. "I still don't think it's a sin. But it's-- maybe a little harder to square. After that. Wanted to see you while I could."

Her face composed. No-color hair hanging in grey eyes. He wanted to reach out, to brush it away, to see her clear, to make her look at him. A gulf between them, on the narrow sidewalk. Something twisted in his chest, at the waste of it, the thought of a fire like that locked in a cloister. And yet: "I could never fault someone for devotion to their faith. The discipline is admirable. Truly. But I would-- Are you allowed? To fraternize with the enemy?"

"Well. Maybe in the spirit of friendly ecumenical dialogue." She looked up at the streetlights, shoulders tensed. She chewed at her lip. "We are allowed to have friends, you know."

He had to drop his gaze, at that, a sharp inhalation. "Ah." And again: "Ah. Hm." He looked back up at her, at the tense muscle in her jaw, her face still resolutely turned away from him. "I wonder--?"

She darted a quick look at him, not quite daring to look at him full-on, yet, and made a motion for him to continue.

He had to smile, even if it was with a little trepidation. "Do you have another cigarette?"

That rough bark of a laugh again, and yes, it felt like a victory. "Yeah. Yeah, man, sure." She pulled out the cigarette pack and extracted one, holding it out with the slightest self-deprecating hint of ceremony. He took it between his gloved fingers, careful not to touch her. When he put it to his lips she leaned in to light it in a movement that seemed both courtly and instinctual, an ingrained habit. He couldn't quite look at her when she did it, shocked by the casual intimacy of the gesture. The warmth of the flame through his gloves, the first rough hit of smoke at the back of his throat and the head-swimming nicotine rush. An awful taste, and completely satisfying. He closed his eyes at it and drew in deep, amazed all over again at how much tension dissipated on the exhale.

When the initial wave of the nicotine high had passed, the fatigue settled in, and he tilted his head back against the bricks, eyes still closed, too tired to be on guard. "Where are we? I confess, I lost track."

"...Asheville, honey." A pause."D'jeet yet?"

Well, that certainly got him to look at her. "I'm sorry?"

"Oh, that was very pronounced, wasn't it? My apologies. Have you eaten?"

His brain felt like static. It was all the answer she needed. "What I figured. C'mon, I know a spot."

"I should--" He stopped, inexplicably stricken. "We're leaving in the morning. I don't remember where's next. Charleston, perhaps?"

"I'll have you home before bedtime, scout's honor." He hesitated. Gently: "I don't have designs on your virtue, Cardinal."

He was tired, and sore, and his head was starting to hurt somewhere behind his right eye. He could feel the dried sweat on himself, like a film, absolutely revolting.

"Alright," he said.

She led and he followed, falling into step at her left elbow, almost without thought. "This is the South, yes? We won't-- we might attract. Attention."

"Mm. I might would worry about it somewhere wasn't Asheville. Here'd probably be fine."

"That seems to be an awful lot of weight to put on 'probably.'"

"More worried about someone from your show running into us and losing their minds, be honest with you."

"As in, dropping their purse and squealing?" Was he enjoying this? He was.

"Oh you think you're funny. And I did not squeal."

"Heh. It was a little bit of a squeal."

"Ain't gonna argue the point with you."

The nicotine felt wonderful. He grinned up at the streetlight filtering through a magnolia tree, the orange light reflecting on the leaves, the faint citrus scent hanging in the thick air. He couldn't restrain himself. "You are not, I hope, leading me into temptation?"

"Oh, foul! Foul. Get thee behind me."

"Equally terrible, signora."

They lapsed into silence for a while. Copia came to the last quarter inch of his cigarette, pinching off one more drag before dropping it down a storm drain. The smell would linger, but it had been blissful in the moment. "So."

"So."

"Where are you taking me?"

"Barbecue joint, open all night. Just up here, actually. You had barbecue yet?"

"I have not."

"You in for a treat, then."

They rounded the corner, heading into the jaundiced sodium light of a patchy parking lot, under a flickering red neon sign. 'Little Pigs Genuine Pit BBQ.' It seemed somehow ominous, but the set of her shoulders reassured him. Somewhat. She pushed open the door with its small jangling bell to red vinyl booths, formica tabletops, wood paneling. Vinegar and roasting meat.

He could feel the eyes on them as she ordered for them both, in a dialect so thick it was almost incomprehensible to him. He stepped closer to murmur, "Coffee for me, please, signora," while he surveilled the crowd. Not outright hostile, had seen stranger things, maybe, but a collective flicker of curiosity before sliding off of them. That flat and unsympathetic gaze. Her accent helped. His obvious manners did as well. Still, he was on edge.

He stayed on edge until he slid into a booth opposite her with his back to the wall, and even then it only let up slightly, a background hum to go along with the labored air conditioning. The barbecue was very nearly worth it, salt and sweet and vinegar and umami, along with the blunt force animal pleasure at hot food after a long time without. He looked up at her, making an inarticulate noise of shocked delight through the sandwich, and she nodded in eager agreement with her mouth full. Swallowed. "I know, right?"

"You cannot convert me."

"Okay. Wasn't trying."

"If you could, this might do it."

"Welcome to the South. It's got problems, but there are compensations."

"So I see."

They lost themselves in the food for a little while, and Copia, a usually fastidious man, found that it was actually impossible to eat a barbecue sandwich neatly. After a while he gave up trying, grateful for the strange softness of American paper napkins. It made sense, if the food was like this. He eyed her iced tea, wondering about it, if that was also an American custom, or if it only applied to the region.

She caught him looking after half a second, and passed it over with barely an eyeblink of thought, the most natural thing in the world.

"Oh, and you've lost me. This is an obscene amount of sugar."

"They do call it 'sweet tea' for a reason."

"Are you sure that this isn't just colored sugar water?"

"Reasonably so. Might be accentual, brings out the depth of flavor, like. Least it isn't corn syrup."

"This is a nightmare dystopia you live in."

"Could be. Try one of them hush puppies, then you get back to me."

"Mm." Then, after following instructions, "I will concede on the food."

"Yeah. There's nowhere and nothing that's bad all the way through."

"Perhaps." He took another sip of her tea, pleased at her sputter of mock-indignation. "This brings me to where it falls apart for me. An omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent God."

"That is the doctrine."

"Why, then, evil? Why suffering?"

"We going with theodicy, then?"

He motioned for her to continue, a little gleeful.

"Which answer would you like, from the, oh, four-five thousand years that this has been a question?" She tossed the rolled-up sleeve of her straw in his general direction, smiling. "Why you coming at me with this shit, man?"

"Ehh. I want to know what you think. You, not your Church."

She nodded, and poked at the ice in her tea with her straw while she gave the question the consideration it was due. Finally: "I like Simone Weil for this. You read any Simone Weil?"

"Let us say that I haven't."

"Okay." The vinyl booth squeaked as she leaned back. "This isn't necessarily unique to her, it's got a lot of similarities with-- a Jewish creation story, yeah? But creation is where God withdrew. If God is everything, for creation to exist, there has to be places where God is not. If there's places that God is not, then almost by definition they are not, inherently, holy. It's apophatic, unknowable, like John of the Cross or Kierkegaard or what have you-- I'm getting into the weeds here. Evil is the form which God's mercy takes in the world. Affliction-- she's got a specific term for this, she's talking about spiritual affliction more than physical affliction-- doesn't create human misery, so much as reveals it. And it drives us towards God."

"That sounds, if you will pardon me, fucking horrific. The act of a sadist."

"I don't know that I'm explaining this well. We are created matter, and with affliction we are consumed by God. In the Incarnation, God suffers affliction, is made matter, and consumed by us. It's reciprocal. And if you can go through affliction and still love, and recognize your fellow human being as someone else who has suffered like you, then your duty is to help."

"No, still terrible."

"How do your people explain it, then?"

"By not having an omnipotent deity, to start."

"...I walked right into that one. I surely did. Evil demiurge, again?"

"All about control," he replied, amiable.

"Fair enough. I'm not a Jesuit, I could maybe get at this better if I was. My whole thing with it is, there's a difference between affliction-- which is personal-- and, say, generalized oppression, right? The personal makes you more empathetic with the collective."

"I can see the logic there, yes. I do not know if I agree, but I can see it. But do you truly need to suffer to sympathize with another's suffering?"

She turned her glass around in her hands, focusing hard on the ridged plastic edges. "I'unno. Some things you don't understand till you've been through them. Difference between empathy and sympathy, I guess."

"This is, what. You say, 'the personal is political?'"

She cracked a grin at that. "Oh, you done a lot of reading on second-wave feminism, then?"

"Condescending and uncalled for," he said, wagging a finger at her, mock-stern.

She held up a hand. "Fair point, apologies."

"Te absolvo."

"Thank you." She turned her glass in her hands, trailing through the condensation with a chipped fingernail. "My point being. For me. Affliction leads to empathy, and empathy leads you to act. What's the quote. 'Misery as a collective fact expresses itself as an injustice that cries to the heavens.' That's Oscar Romero, I think? Yeah. Oscar Romero. Anyway the thing he gets at-- Saint Oscar Romero, excuse me, did a lot of stuff in El Salvador in the the seventies, but the idea being: turning people into commodities for economic oppression, that's sin. The idolatry of wealth, of 'national security systems,' that's sin. Divine love should be mediated through justice. Gloria dei vivens homo--"

"'The glory of God is the living person.'"

"Yeah, exactly. Romero was on some-- gloria dei vivens pauper, which I think is probably about right."

"'The glory of God is in the poor.' Hm. And how well did that work out for him?"

"Well. They shot the guy during Mass in nineteen eighty."

"A martyr's death. Isn't that what your people aspire to?"

"Not me, man. I wanna live. But yes, he did lean in hard after his friend was killed. That was an inciting incident. I won't deny it."

"So, what, it is acceptable for one death, if it spurs on 'the greater good?'" He made air quotes at her, and she frowned.

"Not gonna debate the very concept of martyrdom with you, but I'm gonna say no, of course not. But like. Me personally? Rather that than have it go to waste. Some right wing fascist chucklefuck takes me out, I'd sure hope my people'd leverage it for all it's worth."

He sat back and tipped his coffee at her. "Bleak."

"Maybe. We each owe a death. And I mean, despite the guy being beatified, he isn't even necessarily the main dude in Latin America. None of these are exactly new concepts, you understand. But as a modern movement, really, it starts in nineteen sixty-eight, with the Medellín conference in Colombia, kind of as a response to Vatican Two, and from there--" she stopped herself, and raised her glass of tea at him in mock-salute. "Minutiae. The point, and I think I'm cribbing from Ernesto Cardenal here, is that while God is love, love can only exist in accordance with equality and justice."

He tilted his head, raising his eyebrows in total skepticism. "I can only say that this has been-- the opposite of my experience. To put it in the most, eh, diplomatic terms possible."

"The Church has done horrible, fucked up things. Continues to do horrible fucked up things. In a space that big, though, there are always going to be practices that are inherently contradictory. This one is mine. And I have the benefit of being fucking right."

"You do see, don't you, how that-- attitude? Mentality, yes? Is dangerous. Even you! Even if I happen to think that you're right. Which I actually do. The benefit of Satanism, I find, is that we do have room for differences. It is, you would say, I think, built in? There is no wrong way to approach. You find your own way. Nobody will lead you, nobody will control you."

"And how far has that kind of rugged individualism progressed the reduction of human suffering?" she snapped.

"At least it doesn't perpetuate it!" he shot back.

They glared at each other over the formica, not quite snarling, equally frustrated.

The diner had gone quiet. Blank suntanned faces, the lone clink of a spoon in a coffee cup, the somehow awful bubbling of the deep fryer. A lot of people, for one in the morning, he thought. They looked at each other in mutual alarm for one tensed breath, and went for their wallets at the same time.

"No," he said, firm, fishing past Euros for American dollars. "You are taking a vow of poverty and I am an actual rockstar." He shot a stern glance at her opened mouth and felt a stab of immense satisfaction when she shut it, apparently- miraculously, even- chastised. He threw down enough to cover the bill and the tip and reached to drag her out, stopping short of actually touching her elbow at the last moment. "Come."

She went.

They escaped with the perversely jaunty ring of the bell over the door into the thick warmth of the night, and she brayed a laugh again, not quite on the edge of hysterics.

"Go, go, this could get ugly." But he was laughing, too. Madness. He'd seen these exact sort of people outside of a venue, enraged, faces red, carrying hateful picket signs. One small woman and one man frankly built like a noodle could be in real danger. Still, their laughter echoed down the gravel-lined drive they had ducked into, their boots crunching in a staccato rhythm in the stones. This was far too much adrenaline for one night, he thought.

While they slowed to a walk, he watched the fireflies darting upwards in the undergrowth, the ascending dashes of yellow-green light seeming fantastical to him, otherworldly. You heard of great masses of them, in America, but in such quantity it was like seeing a fairytale with your own eyes. They thinned out as the landscape started to shift, from residential suburbs to side streets.

"This was-- good. It was good, to get out. To talk. A lot of this, it is, ehh." He waved a hand in the general direction they were moving, to the venue, the concert, the tour. "Movement. Instinct. There is, by definition, no quiet. And that is fantastic, I enjoy it, I love what I do, I am fortunate in that. But it is not often that I get to speak about these things." The thud of their boots, and the high monotonous drone of a cicada somewhere off in the distance, blending with the faraway hiss of a car on the damp streets. "Thank you," he said, soft. "For this."

Her eyes forward, mouth closed tight. It took her a few steps before she spoke. "You are very welcome." She cleared her throat. "And I appreciate the outside perspective."

"Interesting thing, is it not? Having a vocation."

"Being called. Yes."

"What I do not understand-- and I do not wish to, as you said, litigate the very idea of martyrdom, of course--"

"Of course. That's above my pay grade anyhow."

"But the denial inherent in your practice. The self-denial. It seems to me a, hm. Turning away from joy. You say your God is love, very well. This is removed from my experience with Christians, but I do understand that it should be the intent. To claim that divinity is love and then to willingly cut yourself off from the experience of love seems to me contradictory. Not merely the physical, although that alone seems hideous. Some people of course are not interested, but this cannot be true of all your monsastics, your clergy, your unmarried."

"This is also an old question."

"You cannot tell me it is not vital. Few people are physically martyred, and I can see the value there, even if I think it grotesque. But this seems to me a martyrdom, and willing. And pointless. Everyone should be loved, yes? Is that not your very doctrine?"

"It is, but there's different kinds of love--"

"You are dissembling. Do me the courtesy, Miss Turner, of your honesty."

Copia heard her sharp intake of breath. He had stung her, and he very nearly regretted it.

"Discourtesy wasn't my aim, Cardinal. It's an old question, and people struggle. It's maybe the struggle, for most people, the stumbling block. How can I answer you? It's kind of a personal question, y'know?"

"I can see how it would be. I do not wish to intrude, but come now. What, you offer your suffering up to God? What kind of God would ask you to give up love in the very name of love? It's monstrous!"

"The standard answer is that one becomes the bride of Christ. My thinking is, in turning away from the singular, you're better able to focus on the collective. To focus, to pay attention. And attention in its highest form is prayer."

"You deny yourself. In denial, you turn away knowledge. You said this yourself, how can you understand suffering if you have not suffered? You should know joy, or else how can you understand joy? You should be free to do that, to be in the world, and the world is here! You are here, and while you are here you should be here fully. You should allow yourself to be loved!"

He had actually raised his voice, and his words hung in the thick air, almost suspended with the humidity. He couldn't take it back, and he fell silent, mortified. They had fallen to a stop.

"It's discipline," she said, helpless. She couldn't look at him, and he had to look away at her expression.

"In any case." He cleared his throat, and resumed walking. "Discipline I understand. There is discipline in my practice, you know."

"I can see that. Dedication, certainly. Seems like the whole world's against you. The dominant social climate is not accommodating to being that outspoken about, well, anything to do with sincere belief, really, but especially in your case."

"No. And in this situation, it is easy to-- tend to isolate. To stay in one's own community. Safer. Especially in a hostile environment. Anger is easy, you would say."

"Don't I know it. You do have to live in the world. I think you and I both have cause to be angry. Hell, we're probably angry at a lot of the same things. Coming at it from opposite directions, is all."

"The hypocrisy is galling," he agreed. "If I am a monster in the eyes of these people, let me be an honest monster. They feed their children poison and tell them it is virtue, to hate, to fear, I do not--" he cut himself off, blew out a laugh. "We are angry about the same things. The work is the same. We are both called to liberate, yes?"

"Yeah, I would allow that's fairly definitional."

"Here, you take that side, I will take this one, and we will meet in the middle and cast off all oppression," he said, grandly, sweeping out an arm as if he were back on stage. He echoed her smile on pure reflex.

"And all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."

"Julian of Norwich. An anchoress." Something in the concept, and in the simultaneous hope and resignation in her face, pierced his heart all the way through. She was remote, and lost to him, a marble statue of a saint. The nature of his ministry was to encourage pleasure, of mind and of body, and he did want to break her out of the cell she'd walled herself off into. Perhaps merely for his own satisfaction, when freedom was the whole of his law. Even her freedom to walk into her own cage. "Not so much to be consoled as to console," he said, halfway to himself, watching her.

"Francis of Assisi. But I think you knew that."

"I did."

"You are something else, aren't you?" She looked at him, pleased and reassessing. He felt seen, almost entire.

It was not an entirely comfortable feeling. "Ah," he said. "Perhaps."

He recognized, now, the alleyway they had walked down, the venue shuttered for the night. The only lights inside were deep in the back, distant. Likely everything had been packed away, or near enough. Likely the ghouls were wondering where he was. And she was small, and faith alone would not protect her.

It was too much for him. "It is very late. And I do not know if-- do you have a place to stay? This is not, I think, your home."

"I don't and it's not." She waved him off. "Was planning on just sleeping in the car. The seats fold down, I got a pillow, it's fine."

"I don't like it."

"Ain't about what you like." She dropped her head. "I apologize, that was rude."

"No, it is only--." He rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish. "I do have a hotel room."

"No." It seemed reflexive. But he could see the split second flash of her face cracking open with sheer want. Watched her snatch her composure together just as quick, even as the afterimage lingered in his brain like the echo of a lightning strike. "No, I-- I do not think that would be a good idea."

"There is a couch, even. I could take the couch."

"Copia." Oh, and it was costing her. Painful to watch. That wretched self denial. "Please." A brittle little laugh, accent creeping back in as she forced herself to sound brighter. "I seen you bounce around that stage, you gonna need a mattress."

"Nothing you do not wish, Miss Turner. Never that," he said, as gently as he could. A breath of silence strung out in the thick air, the space of a heartbeat. "Anyways." He considered his position, took a breath, and made the leap. "It would be good to-- I would like to continue this argument. You have some time, no? Before you are-- fully committed. Come to Charleston. My guest. In the spirit of, eh, ecumenical dialogue."

That got a smile out of her. "I'll think about it."

"Please. Do."

"I will. I will think about it."

"In that case." He straightened his spine by three degrees, took the smallest step forward, and picked up her hand in both of his. Even though the gloves it made something catch behind his sternum, the stutter of some cog in engineering. He bowed over it as deeply as he ever had on stage, registered the barest breath of the smell of her, leather and nicotine and something like amber, a clean animal scent. It was only an instant, and he straightened with some regret. "I have enjoyed your company, Sophie."

"I--. Yes. Yeah. Me too." She squeezed his hand, once. "Very much. Be well, Cardinal." And then she slipped away.

He watched her carefully measured walk to her car, head held up with the dignity of the condemned. She opened her door and looked back for the space of one brief inhalation. Orpheus, he thought, nonsensically. He stared at her taillights, the red glow like eyes, the dragon's breath curl of exhaust, long after it had faded into the wide restless night.

It was another twenty minutes before one of the ghouls dragged him back inside.

[communist-ojou-sama]

Surely inquiring minds wonder why I am so frequently so hostile toward liberals and especially rationalists when I encounter them online, and you might be surprised to know that it's less emotional than it may seem.

Indeed, it does try my patience to see moronic whites discount the work of the global south revolutionaries and thinkers who have done basically all the hard work making the world a better place in the past century and change, but the sum total of that irritation is not anger but disdain, the disdain necessary to basically say whatever comes to mind to make sure their interactions with me are as hurtful and humiliating as possible.

And you may ask further, okay anomie, whatever you say, but why That though.

Well you see, my maximum conflict, maximum hostility doctrine toward liberal "intellectuals" is borne not of an emotion, but of an heuristic.

That is, when you have a clique of liberals who are exposed to the thought of global south intellectuals and revolutionaries, exposed to the thought of Marxists and communists, and still choose liberalism, that says something very important about their values.

Specifically, it means that for the time being, at core, their allegiance to the imperial core and to its masters is greater than to the oppressed of the world, and certainly to any "leftist" principles they claim to be fond of.

And that is bad, yes, but more than being bad, it is a liability. Liberal pseudo-intellectuals like these are worse than dead weight in any serious left-wing movement, they are a net negative. And what's worse, despite their arrogance and lack of intellectual talent, they sometimes catch the ears of well-meaning communists largely out of being half-decent writers.

Personally, the thought of a liberal pseudo-intellectual being in a serious decisionmaking decision when the shit hits the fan makes my fucking blood run cold. That's what motivates me.

And so, I have elected to do all that I can to make these people the right's problem. I'm already reasonably certain that once a major economic crisis happens in the US most of them will join the ranks of cresting explicit fascism anyway, but just in case any of them might keep cosplaying left and undermining the communist cause, I will engage in every hostility to get them to leave the left, because they aren't needed and indeed we need to have as few of this type as possible

(Incidentally this is why I am civil to those whom I recognize as genuinely talented regardless of their current ideological leaning)

[transmutationisms]

possibly too broad but do you have any thoughts on the discourse around self-pathologizing? seems like there’s weird territory there since there are so many barriers to diagnoses and people should be free to self-report, yet some pathologies are essentially capitalist inventions and it may be more harmful than helpful for people to fixate on them without some kind of external guidance (though i don’t mean to imply they need to consult medical practitioners). i also don’t really think faddishness is the big concern it’s made out to be, but what do you think?

yeah to me this is a good example of how genuinely epistemologically radical critique of psychiatry can become assimilated into pretty staid liberal discourses of self-empowerment / -care / -improvement. pathologisation, imo, is basically materially meaningless if it's not backed by the sorts of institutions and power relations that characterise the psychiatric establishment. which is to say, if we're only talking about diagnostic labels in a kind of personal-choice framework (as so much of the medium dot com industrial complex seems to be doing lately) then it robs these conversations of a lot of their urgency and impact. i don't think overreliance on the language of the dsm is particularly helpful, as a general matter of seeking to develop political consciousness as well as self-knowledge, but i also don't think it really matters one way or another if someone self-dxes or un-dxes. what makes a difference is things like: is this person being robbed of their autonomy? are these explanatory frameworks being imposed on them by credentialled experts levelling their professional status to claim epistemological authority over the psyche? what social and economic violence is being committed here? some rando online relating to a diagnostic label and using it for themself is not doing these things, and may very well be helpful to that person (it may also not. but again the harm here is p limited).

i have said before, a lot of what puts me personally off dsm labels is the essentialism they're in bed with. ie, it's not just a shorthand descriptor of behaviours or symptoms—these terms are pretty much always being wielded as claims to have identified a biologically based 'neurotype', eg, or some as-yet-unverifiable misery-engendering genetic complex, or whatever else. and to be clear, i think these types of claims do actually carry widespread social harm, because no matter what rhetorical games you play, you're never just saying these things about yourself. it's a claim to certain forms of bio-essentialism that both shores up professional psychiatric authority and applies to people besides yourself (this is just the nature of such universalising claims about human biology). but this is an issue that goes so far beyond use or disuse of diagnostic labels; plenty of people who have embraced superficial principles of anti-psych critique still make all manner of such essentialist claims when it comes down to it, with or without grabbing onto a specific diagnostic label. so i think the kind of panicking we see in certain left-leaning circles about self-dx is not actually about this issue at all, and is certainly not capable of addressing it productively.

without going insanely long here i would just add that this is kind of a general answer because different labels have different histories and functions (eg, compare the social and political function of pathologising a depressive episode, vs autistic traits / behaviours, vs a so-called personality disorder). and also, whenever talking about self-dx i think it's important to add that one of the most important functions of these labels from a patient perspective is they function as means of gatekeeping access to certain accessibility measures, so any kind of anti-self dx position in current political conditions will harm people who need those accommodations. and i have less than zero interest in questioning anybody who wants accessibility measures for literally any reason or uses any method to obtain them.

[is-the-fire-real]

'Reminder that "punch a nazi uwu" leftists utilize Nazi rhetoric to justify punching Jews.

It was never about punching Nazis; it was about getting social permission to punch.'

It was this very mentality that drove me away from considering myself a liberal anymore (I AM VERY MUCH LEFT LEANING, I DIDN'T DECIDE TO BECOME CONSERVATIVE JUST TO BE CLEAR. I just don't feel like those spaces have any intrinsic safety any longer). It feels like so much of western leftism has become about "punching up". I don't think it's about compassion or concern anymore, it's about finding the "right" targets. And so often that was just used as a way to excuse bigotry. I'm a goy but I noticed this on a personal level plenty with people identifying as feminists, they'd be perfectly okay saying something unquestionably sexist, as long as "white women" was attached onto the front. It's very much the same with shaming people over physical features that others may have, as long as the individual person is "bad enough" it doesn't matter if wide foreheads or big noses or acne are features many people have and would feel hurt by seeing them used as an insult, because they're only "really" directing it at "one of the bad ones"

So, I'm going to link to this piece again because it's been embarrassingly useful, and explains why I say things like "pretending to believe" despite their clunkiness. For new material, I hope you don't mind that you have accidentally triggered a massive unskippable cutscene, but you tapped into a few things I have been pondering and I'd like to take advantage of your observances to add my own.

Part of what you're discussing here, which I agree with, is that toxic slacktivists pretend to believe that they are Good People Doing Good Work. They are Bad People and their work is Bad Work, but if they all get in a group and pretend together that it's Good, then that's almost the same as being Good, right?

Another worthwhile aspect of what you're discussing is something I became aware of in the aftermath of the collapse of Occupy Wall Street. One commenter on a liberal blog I still follow lamented that mass protest never seems to accomplish anything, and how the millions of people who turned out for OWS protests should have affected more political change. Considering most of them could also vote, write to representatives, etc., something other than littering and arrests could've been done.

Another commenter pointed out that he had personally been at most of the anti-Iraq War protests, including the largest worldwide protest on 15 February 2003 (6-10 million estimated participants). But most of those protesters did not agree with each other. There were at least four major coalitions of antiwar protesters showing up then and thereafter. The ones he listed were:

"Just war" advocates who believed the Iraq War was unjust.

Total pacifists who believed all armed conflicts are unjust, and therefore the Iraq War is as well.

Right-wing bigots who believed a war might potentially benefit those they thought of as religiously or ethnically inferior and subhuman.

Xenophobes, both left- and right-wing, who believed "the US can't be the police of the world" and that any action taken outside USian borders was immoral.

Imagine four people with these beliefs in a room talking about the Iraq War... then bring up the war in Ukraine to them and see how fast the coalition falls apart.

"Well, the war for Ukrainian liberation is a just war," says the just-war advocate. The pacifist starts to scream "HOW COULD YOU DEFEND ANY ACTION THAT MIGHT LEAD TO CHILDREN DYING, YOU MONSTER!". The right-wing bigot says they support the war, too--on the side of the ethnically and religiously superior Russians. And then a left-wing xenophobe says we're wasting money that should be supporting American workers and uplifting Americans out of poverty instead of buying new bombs for Ukraine.

And your "antiwar" coalition collapses, with the pacifist wandering off to agree with the xenophobe while the just-war liberal and the right-wing bigot scream at each other pointlessly and without resolution.

This is one of the wisest breakdowns of human behavior I have ever discovered:

Any coalition of people is made up of many sub-coalitions who only temporarily agree on a single aspect of a single issue. Making sure the group does not collapse prematurely is the true, unsung labor of movement maintenance.

To be real, it's much easier to let one's coalition collapse and scream about how The Menz, or The CIA, or Greedy Capitalists, or The Jews artificially forced your group's collapse than it is to admit that one might just suck a big one at coalition building. This is especially true among leftists, who are sometimes anti-hierarchy and frequently fall for populist, anti-expert nonsense. Having a leader means you're suggesting someone should have authority, and a lot of leftists are allergic to that suggestion.

Moreover, though, a lot of "leftists" are "leftists" but only agree with one or two aspects of leftism.

To use your feminism example: I have absolutely seen feminists who think they can be misogynists so long as they say "white" before they say "woman". I mean, who can even argue? I have also seen feminists who think they can be gender bioessentialists so long as they're doing it towards "men" (a category which includes a lot of people who neither look like men, nor live as men, nor benefit from male privilege). I have seen feminists who think they can call themselves "trans allies" while consistently ignoring, degrading, and dismissing the concerns of anyone who isn't a binary trans woman. Etc.

The thing is, they are all feminists. What makes someone a feminist, at bottom, is the acceptance of and opposition to patriarchy. That's it. It's similar to how what makes a person a Protestant Christian is the acceptance of Jesus as their Lord and Savior--you might need to do one or two things to be considered a part of a specific branch of Christianity, but all you need is that one specific belief about that one specific idea. There's a lot of bunk about how "you can't be a REAL Christian unless you do X" just like there's bunk about how "you can't be a REAL feminist unless you do Y", and it's all bunk.

There are people who might be really bad feminists or Christians, but that's not the same as not being feminists or Christians.

So, the coalition of leftism has several sub-coalitions who actually despise each other. Here is my proposal for the sub-coalitions. (Please keep in mind that I am not defining groups by how they define themselves, but by the far more useful metric of their actions.)

Liberals who agree with leftist economic thought, but strongly disagree with leftist conclusions regarding violent revolution. Liberals do not have time for online arguments and superficial action. They are generally participating in protests, running for office, writing postcards to advocate for candidates, informing voters, and working within the system for positive change that alleviates suffering. They are pro-expert but opposed to a vanguard party due to its inherent authoritarianism.

Tankies, whose primary interest in leftism is authoritarian. They oppose capitalism and support violent revolution because they imagine themselves as the vanguard party who gets to control everything when the revolution comes.

Anarchists, whose primary interest is opposing hierarchy. They want to burn down the system because it is a system, and frequently become angry and defensive if you try to ask them any questions about what would be built out of the ashes.

Progressives, whose primary interest is opposing liberals. They also oppose capitalism; they are, like tankies, positioning themselves as the vanguard party because they are already in political power. What makes them Not Tankies is that they care more about sticking it to "the Dems" than they do about actually being the vanguard, opposing capitalism, or achieving anything of worth or meaning politically.

"Red fash", who used to be called "beefsteak Nazis". They say all the right things regarding violent revolution and economics/capitalism, but they only believe what they believe for the sake of their specific ethnic group and nation (frequently, white and USian, but this is extremely popular in Europe too). IOW a red fash wants the vanguard party to only have whites of a specific ethnicity in control of the revolution; they only want universal health care for "their" people, that sort of thing. Some red fash are actual Nazis cosplaying as leftists, but some are just really, really, REALLY bigoted leftists.

Whether we like it or note, the acceptance of armed, violent revolution as a Good Thing means that leftism has always regarded punching up and violence as a necessary component of leftist thought. This is not a perversion of Real Leftism. This is leftism. If you think revolution is good and necessary instead of a terrifying possibility, then you also think punching up is okay; it's just a matter of who is Up and who gets to punch.

Of the five sub-coalitions I described, only one has rejected violent revolution--and it's the one all the other leftists accuse of being right-wing. And interestingly enough, only liberals are habitually accused of secretly colluding with the right... when red fash are natural allies to the right, and when all other forms of leftists openly ally with right-wingers so long as they say the right things about economics. (See under: "After Hitler, us" leftists, left-wing Trumpistas who think they'll rule the ashes after Trump burns down the current system.)

And if you believe in violent revolution, then (let me be facetious for a second) what's the problem with making fun of your political enemies for being ugly? If we believe Steve Bannon is a Nazi, aren't we obligated to stop him by any means necessary, and doesn't that include mocking him for his alcoholism? Isn't mocking someone for their appearance and intrinsic characteristics mild compared to, say, threatening them with exploding cars covered with hammers? Or retweeting pictures of pitchforks and guillotines?

If we believe Ben Shapiro is an opponent to the revolution we accept is necessary and vital to the movement, then what's a little antisemitism in the name of the people? Don't we have to be bigots to oppose bigots? And--

--oh. There's that horseshoe bending round to the right again.

[taylortruther]

This is more aimed at your audience than you but I’m a communist living in a red state (not the kinda red I want haha). I obviously do not come across people in my every day life who share my particular views very often. Frankly until recently I only knew one or two other people irl who i identified with politically.

All this to say, making broad sweeping judgments about *normal people* not exiling folks based on political leanings is just … exhausting. You have got to learn to deal with people in your life you even vehemently disagree with. You’re gonna have friends who date people you don’t like and you’ll be doing a disservice to the ideas you represent if you’re gross to them.

no exactly like, almost no one in my life aligns with me politically (because they're liberals and i'm further left). it is really strange to me that some parts of the fandom are acting like they don't know anyone who still associates with republicans. i try really hard not to in my personal/intimate life, but i am only like, 1 or 2 steps removed from republicans. some of my friends are completely apolitical except for voting blue in the presidential elections. i had several friends ask me who to vote for during local elections because none of them pay attention and didn't want to research lmao

[finitevariety]

have to say I really loved how Shiv brought up the waiter. Does she give a shit about him, or that Kendall killed him? Nah, not really. Will she weaponise it to appear more moral in the moment? Yeah, absolutely.

It's like she said to Mencken: she's flexible. She LARPed as progressive to get her career in politics and genuinely believed she believed all these things--it's easy to believe you believe nice things, when the shit you actually do care about isn't in conflict with those beliefs. But then she wrangled Gil and Logan into a handshake, and she played her card as a woman to silence a victim--and, by shooting the one with her head above the parapet, many more victims--of institutional sexual abuse. She has even hurt herself by sailing too close to the wind in her girlboss liberal lean-in shit sometimes, with her dinosaur cull comment at Argestes, or with overplaying the hand she thought she had at Tern Haven.

She was viscerally angry at having to take the photo with Mencken, and perhaps angrier still when ATN called the election for him. Not because he's a fascist, although he is, and not because she dislikes him--although she does! She was angry primarily because the photo nuked any chance of a political career for her going forward, and because the call for Mencken hurt her chances with Matsson.

Did she ever make any of that clear in the moment, though? No. She talked about fascism and morals and things do happen, Rome. It is easier to wear that cloak that sometimes helps her--the woman cloak, where she claims to care for the group that she belongs to and steps upon its members at the same time--than it is to admit personal rage or vulnerability. That would be hysterical, and grasping, and not CEO material.

Shiv's relationship with womanhood is like Peter Pan's with his shadow. She used to be able to cast it off, or feel like she could, and now it is sewn in to her very fabric: it's everywhere she fucking walks.

She hates that there is not a play she can make that will separate her from the group of women-who-experience-misogyny. And still she makes use of that group, because it's one of an increasingly limited set of options she has. She was never allowed to gain experience--so she's inexperienced, and implausible, and shut out. It's the treehouse, again, Kendall up there playing king of the fucking castle. Shiv must have spent some holidays like that: Roman might have stayed with his mom in England on shorter breaks from military school, and Shiv was left to snotty, whickering horses and fucking tennis, throwing rocks up at Kendall whenever she saw a limb emerge from a window or doorway.

Anyway, if Shiv can't have the high ground, at least she can try to claim the moral one when it suits her. That's what I see as the context for her jab about Andrew Dodds.

[petewentzisblack1312]

question coming from also a third world supremacist (i think?) figuring out political ideology: how did you form yours?? i think i remember you saying you used to go off of empathy before forming a more solid worldview and i'd wanna know how to start that. apologies if i'm completely off base and you didn't say that in that case it's just nice to follow someone who's not from a first world country thank you for that

sorry this is quite meandering. i dont have a clear cut answer of a specific turning point, its just been a journey of learning ive been on as ive come of age. as for how to go about doing it yourself, id say to stay curious, but also stay skeptical. learn about the patterns that repeat in history- the way outsiders are blamed for problems, the way the world tends towards complicated answers, the fact that things are more often implicit than intentional- and be wary of them when you are confronted with an answer. remember that 'common sense' is not an edict passed on by god, its the culmination of a lot of decisions, some made with ulterior moments, so interrogate who benefits from you believing certain things that 'everyone knows'. and try to get some bearing on the theory behind certain philosophies and modes of thought. it could be a video essay, if you just need to get your foot in the door. my mentor is wary of documentaries and video essays because he thinks they can lie to you easily, but a book can do that too, especially if you think it cant! still, the audiovisual language is very easy to take at face value, and its more difficult to assess the legitimacy of a youtube video or documentary than it is with a book thats been cited by other authors a lot.

anyway, my own journey. i did in fact say my ideology is founded on empathy first and foremost. i was already pretty left leaning (but without a framework, just very 'live and let live') at that point but one of my teachers in secondary school (who ive known since my sister went to that same secondary school over 10 years prior) (hes the guy i call math dad occasionally) used the times allotted for christian education and christian family life education which were basically free periods during which were supervised by our homeroom teachers (though its not really supposed to be that) to teach the basics of anarchist philosophy (like what can or should be considered violence) to our class, and i was really engaged in that framework. there were only two people in the class who were interested in that myself included so he eventually stopped but hes always been something of a guide to my beliefs, and this introduced me to anarchism as a philosophy.

i have to say what radicalized me beyond just my love of my fellow human was curiosity. i wanted to know why the caribbean is poor. i wanted to know why certain people are mistreated. i wanted to understand racism. and it was a gradual process for me but eventually i learned that pretty much all real bigotries are systemic, but i didnt fully understand why those systems were in place until i started to understand the 'flaws' inherent to capitalism, or rather, the way its supposed to work. all these systemic injustices are in service of capitalism.

i was still quite imperial centric until fairly recently in my life though, id say like the past 5-7 years ive become more and more critical of modern empire and more disillusioned with its manifestation worldwide and as you might imagine especially in the caribbean. i hate tourism now, while it tends to be something both major parties invest in to some degree (its the liberal position). while im a little less superficially patriotic than the average st lucian, im very invested in our politics, though i find it difficult to navigate as a lay person for a myriad of reasons that frustrate me. as much as i have opinions on politics and policy, im not an economist or political scientist or commentator and have auditory processing issues that make it just hard enough to sit and watch parliamentary debates and things like that that i dont.

i would be remiss if i didnt shoutout the tumblr community for also informing my politics. ive been introduced to all sorts of people and all sorts of problems and all sorts of ideas by being on this website for as long as i have, and listening and learning and looking into things myself.

[artist-issues]

so it turns out the daily wire show, which is a conservative youtube channel are making a new version of snow white. it will have politics and conservative views in it.

I saw that! I’m learning that movies should communicate values; the studios making them should let those movies speak the values for themselves.

Example: one of my friends was shown a screening of Zootopia while it was still in development and he said that the Disney execs working on it introduced the clips like “check out this movie we’re making! It will have amazing worlds designed totally by animals, for animals.” And all the scenes were of animal puns and chases through the mice town, et cetera.

Now, we know that Zootopia’s values and themes are all about trying to make the world a better place, and racism, and how everyone actually has a lot in common. But none of the trailers or promotional material made that the sole focus. It was more about how the world was entirely “animal.”

Everybody likes animals. Everybody is likely to have very little problem with going to see a movie about animals. Left or right, liberal or conservative, they’ll go see a story about animals. And the they’ll let their “guard” down. And they’ll be open to learn what the story has to say about what might otherwise be considered “political.”

But if Disney had come out and said (like they do in a lot of their promotional stuff for new movies like Snow White) that the movie was ABOUT racism, or sexism, or oppression, less people would have given it a chance. Only people who agree with Disney’s views on racism would have gone to see the movie; and they would have done it without objectivity, because they would’ve walked in, ready to champion a movie that represents their values, no matter how good or bad the movie actually was.

The problem with Daily Wire’s Snow White is that it is so obviously a political move, or a swipe at Disney, or a swipe at “woke” values. It is being made to do that, or it will be associated with that, no matter what. So people who think poorly of Daily Wire will not go see this movie, unless it’s to hate-review it, because they know it’s made by Daily Wire. The movie isn’t allowed to speak for itself.

That’s the problem. The stories are becoming all representation of politics and sides, and no genuine communication.

The whole point of a movie is to convince people of a truth statement. The story of Snow White should say “Innocent love is valuable.” It should not say, “I believe that innocent love is valuable.”

See the difference?

The first example of a statement is about the value. The second statement is about the person making the statement about the value. One is virtue-signaling, and here’s-the-side-I’m-on. The other is simply a demonstration of truth, regardless of who’s side you’re on.

Nobody who is liberal or left-leaning or just plain doesn’t like the Daily Wire will go and see their Snow White in good faith. Instead, they’ve probably pushed liberal people toward the Disney version, out of a desire to demonstrate who’s “side” they’re on. Just like nobody who is conservative or right-leaning will go see the new Disney Snow White in good faith. Instead, Disney’s pushed conservative people toward the Daily Wire version.

Cuz it’s not about the story anymore. It’s not a story. It’s just an obnoxious political flag to rally under.

Stories are supposed to be HOW you open your mouth and talk about values. Whether it’s through your company’s press or the trailers or whatever, you’re not supposed to say what the story is really about; it’s supposed to say that for itself.

It’s like saying, “Snow White, tell everyone here your name!” Well, why? You just gave it away. Now nobody cares what Snow White has to say.

[icarusbetide]

the time my friend argued that jefferson would be a raging capitalist today

questions along the vein of "would this founding father be a democrat or a republican", etc. etc. are impossible to answer for a lot of reasons - 18th century politics don't match up nicely with our idea of left or right. even if we really really dumb it down to big gov, small gov; manufacturing vs. farming; it gets complicated. throw in modern issues and it's a whole other deal entirely. and obviously if they were resurrected and dropped into this world today they would be so overwhelmed and irrelevant it doesn't even matter.

but as someone who believes environment has a huge impact on people, i do wonder what they would be like if they were born and raised in today's world. how many political convictions or personality traits are going to translate directly?

my fellow history geek who studies economics had a really interesting argument about hamilton and jefferson. (all of this is based off of the assumption that they were born and raised in the modern era. this was a stupid conversation we had while procrastinating, don't take it too seriously!)

Hamilton:

obviously based on history, the first thing i said is that hamilton would be a wall street capitalist dude. but my friend said that you could make a (simple, rough) argument that his economic policies were radical for the time, moving away from the existing more mercantile structure. if we're going by solely what's considered radical today, it's a different picture. and he made the point that hamilton had a focus on energetic, involved government - very clearly clashing with fiscal conversative values of free markets and reduced debt, etc. so even if we translated him as a capitalist, it wouldn't be purely fiscal libertarian/conservative.

he wasn't by any means a destitute rags to riches story, but he did face quite a lot of early trauma and prejudice. illegitimacy and being west indian aren't as stigmatized in today's world - but if he still goes through similar experiences in a modern context, in a world less bound to enlightenment ideals? my friend (again over simplistically, he wants me to emphasize that) said "okay. let's say we translate that struggle to him being raised by a single mom and a deadbeat dad, with an immigrant status? he faces the problems in the existing structures, maybe the foster system? and if we accept that he might have had feelings for john laurens, that's probably going to affect him heavily; in today's world i can see him being more of a left-leaning person politically."

we both hesitantly agreed that given some of his qualities, childhood experience, etc. the fanfics that depict a modern hamilton to be at least liberal might not be too off? he'd still be a realist, wary of perceived demagogues, etc. and always fighting on twitter. my friend very strongly made the case that "just because he created and backed a capitalist financial system in the 1700s doesn't mean he would be right-wing now. simplifying but if he genuinely believed that his plans back then would improve the lives of americans, then he might see the system we have today and hate it. because it's not working: we're falling behind in a lot of important statistics; hamilton had negative qualities for sure but i do think he was genuine in trying to find what he thought would actually improve people's lives. he wasn't entirely motivated by money, right? he cut off his other incomes as treasury secretary? yes he was ambitious but he wanted to get things done. if anything, he'd see the ineffectiveness of a whole bunch of crap happening today and hate that."

he also thinks that because hamilton dedicated a lot to working on systems (both federal governmental and economic, perhaps the two most controversial and important ones at that time) it's valid (given that earlier childhood translation as well) that he'd be very interested in social programs and economic programs today. less of the federal government thing since that's more set in stone.

so his tldr: "i know it seems like presentism and wishful thinking for me to say that modern hamilton might've been left-leaning, but i really do think it's a possibility, if we translate some of his experiences to our world. there are other founders i'd argue that would be much more conservative and or capitalist. please don't attack me."

me: "wait who do you think would be the raging capitalist?"

him: "Jefferson. if we assume he's born into a rich, rich, prestigious family today - chances are he's the son of a ceo or some corporation. and that isn't exactly old money but you can argue that any colonist family is less old money compared to the actual british nobility. and how far back is old money? if it was his grandfather who struck it big then he's still got that trust fund kid energy. so in a way, we could argue that he'd actually be the raging capitalist, probably still wanting a smaller government but for the free market and tax cuts."

this was hilarious because i focused in on his ability to hone into what the public wants to hear, and thought he'd be one of those hipster, seemingly social justice warrior people who still harbor a great amount of elitism and hypocrisy.

my friend pointed out that both can be true. he can be like kendall roy and tweet "we must overthrow the culture of corruption that silences women" while being a piece of shit with a crazy family.

you'll probably notice that this is entirely speculatory, and a lot of it is based on vibes. and we made a lot of logical jumps in terms of translating influential experiences at that time to something equivalent in the modern day. this isn't scholarly or well justified in any way - we aren't trying to prove anything but it's fun to see what aspects of their personalities we pull out. how hilarious is it to consider a hamilton raging against the financial systems and structures of america while jefferson supports big corporations or whatnot?

[manicpixiedreamjew]

hi. i don't want to trouble u so if u don't want to answer this feel free to ignore it. it has been my dream for years to convert to judaism and i've been in contact for a while with a synagogue in a town near mine, participated in shabbat services and some high holidays even (rosh hashanah was my favorite), started reading the recommended books etc. i loved it all but once i mentioned the unjust treatment of palestinians by the israeli government and my politics which are generally very left-leaning i was told that the palestinians aren't oppressed, that no jew thinks like me and that with my views it would be more than difficult to get close to the jewish religion and i was basically told to distance myself from the community. this was a progressive synagogue btw. i live in germany and in one of its smallest states population-wise as well, so now due to this rejection i'm kind of losing hope to be ever able to realize my dream. i assume you'refrom the us and i know the us has a big jewish minority while germany has a very small one for obvious reasons. i have a lot of understanding for why zionism exists but i simply can't agree with it bc it goes against my morals. i can't feel patriotic for any country. and personally i do not agree that being a leftist and a jew is mutually exclusive. i get the impression from your blog that you are a leftist as well. did you have any such problems when first getting in contact with a jewish community? i don't want judaism to be a space where i need to leave my morals at the doorstep (that would be ironic and nonsensical to me) and hide things abt myself (like that i'm a leftist, lgbt, mentally ill) but i'm scared now that this won't be possible. anyways. hope you're having a nice day/night. here's a monke for u. 🦧

ty for monke!!

im so sorry youve had this experience, as far as my own experiences go, this sort of treatment is extremely unusual for any liberal or leftist jewish circles in the us. i myself am not versed in the israel/palestine conflict but my rabbis are, and they CONSTANTLY speak out against the injustice happening over there, and they offer unbiased tours of israel where you go talk to palestinians and israelis both

i dont consider myself zionist or antizionist and i really have no energy to go into the whole shebang debate, so i will publish this and see what my followers have to say :) pls no vitriol or meaningless political fighting on this post this person is genuinely confused and hurt

anon if you want to private message me i can get you in contact with my rabbis who could explain this better than any of us could i bet!

[itsawhumpsideblog]

The Safehouse, pt. 5

CW: for institutionalized slavery, mentions of abuse, treatment of people as things, description of injuries, brief mention of someone having vomited in the past.

Advice from the Box Boy Liberation Movement:

Names are vital pieces of a person's identity; most people know this almost instinctively and many have strong feelings about their own name or what they prefer to be called. Many rescuees are stripped of their names during the course of the trauma they endure or told that they have not merited the privilege of receiving a name. It is important to name the rescuee as soon as possible, to reinforce the message that they have inherent worth and personhood. Some rescuees will eventually choose or desire to be given new names to reflect their status as free people.

Getting the second rescuee up the stairs was more difficult; Francis, despite his terrible injuries, at least had been used to using his legs, but this rescuee didn't seem able to straighten his knees or flex his ankles properly. Even leaning on Angie and Tim, he moved awkwardly as if he was trying to remember the individual steps necessary to swing a leg forward and put weight on it. All three of them were relieved when they reached the bathroom and the rescuee could sit down on the closed toilet.

"This sink is yours," Angie told him. "Francis chose the other one and all the things that go with it. We've gotten you a toothbrush and toothpaste and all kinds of soaps and things. You'll like them. When do you suppose you last brushed your teeth?"

His good shoulder raised in a very soft shrug and Angie smiled at him. "Well, let's take care of that while Tim draws you a bath, okay?" He nodded, as she had known he would and she put some toothpaste on the brush.

"Bare your teeth for me," she instructed and he did so, but the look of fear in his eyes was unmistakable. As she moved toward him, he flinched backwards involuntarily. "Don't worry, I'll be gentle." The distrusting look never left his eyes as she began to brush, briskly but not too hard. His mouth would be sensitive if this wasn't done often and, from the look of his teeth, it probably wasn't. She guessed that Francis had come from someplace where the people were intensely concerned with outward appearance, whereas this boy-

"We need to find you a name," Angie said, and the boy's eyes widened. "What do you think, Tim?"

"I agree." The bathtub was filling quickly and Tim turned to help the boy undress. "Did you have a name at all? Uh, before, I mean."

The rescuee seemed to be thinking very hard and then gave his head a little shake. He looked nervous and ashamed and it made Tim want to give him a hug.

"Don't worry, we'll find a good one. Now, let's get you into the bath and we can talk about it while you get clean. I can help you- I bet those hands are going to give you trouble if you try to use them too much. The rescuee nodded in that same embarrassed way and Tim pretended not to notice.

He started with the shirt, which presented a significant challenge. Any time Tim came near to touching the rescuee's left arm, he began to gasp and tremble with anxiety and anticipation of the pain. "I'll try not to hurt you," Tim said. "Promise. Here, start with your right arm. No, I won't touch it. I'm just going to hold your sleeve, like this, and you get your arm through the hole. There you go, and see, I'm not even touching your hand. You poor thing, it looks like it hurts."

Another nod.

"Okay, now I'm going to reach over and- Angie, what are you doing?" She was heading out of the room.

"We might as well just cut his shirt," she said. "It's not like we're going to make him wear it again. I'm going to get scissors." That was as good a plan as any.

The rescuee sat there, watching his strange new Master and Mistress and trying to listen to what they were saying. It was hard to do; his head felt crowded and everything was too loud. He had not heard so much noise in a long time and everything seemed to be moving very fast. He wondered what they had done with the other one, the feverish boy who had been kind to him and fed him when his ruined hands were too stupid and bad and weak even to hold a spoon. But they were going to name him- that was good, wasn't it? Maybe that meant they intended to keep him.

Master was asking him something, but it took a moment to filter through. It was: "Does that sound all right? Would you like that?"

It didn't matter what it was, but Master repeated himself and this time it came though. "Okay," Master said. "Michael it is, then, just like my brother. I bet he won't mind sharing his nickname, either- Mikey. Hi, Mikey. Nice to meet you."

Michael. Mikey. They had named him and surely they would keep him. He smiled gratitude up at his Master, who smiled back and somehow there didn't seem to be any anger behind his eyes at all.

Mistress was there, too, he realized when he saw the scissors in her hand. At first, he panicked when she brought them out. She was going to use them on him, he knew it, he knew what scissors were for. This would not be the first time.

Mikey bent over his left arm- stupid, bad, useless, painful- and couldn't help the whimpering sound he made when Mistress came closer with the scissors. She was going to touch his arm, he could tell, and he was going to go to pieces, like last time. He had a vague, terrifying recollection of it, how someone wearing all white in an all-white room of cages had grabbed his shoulder and he had seen stars and his belly had emptied itself and before he fainted he had screamed so loudly and so much that they had to punish him.

"Shhh, shhh," Master was saying, running his hand over Mikey's head. "It's all right." But it was not all right, she had the scissors near his shoulder and he was shaking so hard he thought he would fall and he didn't think he would survive the agony of hitting the ground on his hurt arm.

But the horrible pain he expected never came. Mistress cut through the shirt he was wearing and they peeled it gently away and didn't even try to touch his arm.

Tim sucked in a breath when they got Mikey's shirt off. He was scarred all over, like Francis, but the source of his panic was clear, now. His shoulder was black and blue and misshapen, like it had been dislocated and set poorly- or not at all- and a bump below his swollen wrist was clearly a break. His fingers, too, were twisted and bent and he held his arm protectively against his stomach.

"Can you stand up?" Tim asked, as gently as he could. "I'll help you." The boy- Mikey- nodded and Tim put a hand under his right elbow and helped him climb to something like a standing position. "We're going to get your pants off and get you into the tub," he said. Then he reflected on the difficulty of getting him up and down when the porcelain bath was slippery and shook his head.

"Angie," Tim said, turning to her, careful not to unbalance the rescuee. "I think he'd do better in a shower. All he'll have to do is stand still on the bath mat and we won't risk him slipping and hurting that arm."

"I think that's a good idea," she agreed, and then pulled the plug on the bathtub and got the shower running instead. They stayed far away from his left arm as they helped him in and didn't let go until he was balanced well enough to hold himself upright.

Although he was nervous, Mikey had to admit to himself that the water felt amazing. It was warm, but not hot enough to burn and Master and Mistress were very gentle as they washed him, never digging too hard at his scabs and scars. They didn't once threaten to touch his arm, not even to make him jump so they could laugh at him for being afraid, and Mistress scrubbed his scalp when she washed his hair, her fingernails applying just the right kind of pressure. He could almost trust them not to hurt him when they toweled him off.

Getting the new clothes on was another matter, and Mistress had to stroke his hair and speak softly to him while Master drew the shirt on over his sore arm so that he didn't panic and jerk away.

When he was dressed, they did something strange. Master opened one of the cupboards and pulled out an item, blue fabric with a white strap attached to it. He knelt in front of the toilet seat, where Mikey sat, and held it out.

"Do you know what this is?" Master asked him. Mikey eyed the contraption warily. It didn't look familiar, but he could guess. It looked like it would be used to tie him up- maybe this was how they would fasten him to the pipe and keep him securely inside the room they had chosen. It was certainly a lot fancier than the rope his previous Master had preferred, and probably more expensive, too.

Master looked troubled and Mikey froze. Had he done the wrong thing? Was he supposed to guess? But his voice didn't seem to work anymore, and he couldn't write. How did Master want him to communicate?

"This is called a sling," Master said. "You can put your arm in it and it'll take the weight off your shoulder." At the mention of doing something to his arm, Mikey sucked in a deep breath.

"It won't hurt," Master went on. "We'll be very gentle and it'll help your arm feel better. Then we'll get you some pills and ice to help with the pain, all right?"

Mikey wanted, deep down inside, to protest and make them leave him alone. He tried to find his missing voice, to tell them to go away and not touch his arm, but he couldn't. He could only back up until he was pressed against the toilet tank and squeeze his eyes shut, breathing frantic, whimpering breaths in anticipation of the horrible pain that was coming.

Tim and Angie exchanged a look. "Do you really think we should go ahead?" Tim asked, doubtfully. Angie seemed similarly conflicted.

"I mean... it won't hurt him, we know that," she said. "And if we try to convince him first, we'll be here all night."

Tim weighed his options and sighed. "I'll go slowly," he said. He unfastened the strap at the front and very gradually, without actually touching Mikey's arm, he drew the fabric over his elbow. Mikey was panicking and Tim stopped to reach up and rub his head.

"It's okay," Tim said, hoping he was getting his message across. "That was the worst part. I'm almost done. Angie? Can you help me with the strap, please?"

Angie came over and reached behind Mikey's head to take the end of the strap and fasten it again in the front. Mikey's breathing was fast and desperate and they both stepped away to give him a chance to calm down.

"We're done," Tim assured him. "Completely finished. And it's not getting any tighter, so don't worry about that. When you're ready, you just let it hold your arm, like you're already doing, and it'll take the strain off your shoulder."

"He can't hear you," Angie said in a low voice and Tim shrugged helplessly.

"I know, but what am I supposed to do?"

They answered the question by waiting quietly and keeping their distance until the rescuee's breath slowed down and he opened his eyes, wide in his pale face, to examine what they had done. He moved as if he was alone in the room and Angie and Tim watched as he moved his right hand gingerly along the fabric, fingered the strap, determined that the sling moved and was loose enough and likely to stay that way. Then, at last, he lowered his arm down to be cradled in the fabric and looked up to find that he had an audience. Mikey nodded slightly, looking very solemn, and Tim finally relaxed.

"Ready to go downstairs?" he asked.

Next time: Some rest and care for the rescuees.

Master Post