I don't know what I'm doing, but can you please just play along

“He is exactly the poem I wanted to write.”

Often quoted as if it’s romantic. But here’s the thing

I'm a thief. I steal. I break the rules. Sometimes I break the rules because the rules let people get hurt. No. The rules say it's okay to hurt people. To be cruel. And it's not. People need to be kind. And if they're not kind, I will steal their stuff and Eliot will punch them in the face until they are kind. But the main to do this my way is...it's our way. And doing this lets us be us. And that's enough.

Beth Riesgraf as Parker in season 3 of Leverage: Redemption (2021-2025) created by John Rogers and Chris Downey

Yes, I was tearing through books constantly, and talking to this teacher at least weekly. Because even though I always loved reading as a kid, literature was always a very weak subject for me in terms of a teaching-to-standardized-test school setting (I just do awful on "what color were the curtains" type multiple choice questions. Those details don't stick in my memory THEY JUST DON'T). But that didn't matter for this class. I could just read my way out of any bad test score. I have always had fond memories of how I "fudged" my way through that class and "abused' the extra credit policy.

Essentially, politically coherent works are works where the political message of the story is supported by all (or at least most) of the major story elements, and a politically incoherent work is a story where the political messages of different elements are seemingly all shooting off on different vectors.

The nice thing about this is it can bypass authorial intent (and the discussion of whether intent matters). This is about the text.

Like, politically incoherent works that had no authorial thought behind them are a dime a dozen of course, and politically coherent works that clearly had a lot of authorial thought are if not equally common than at least easy to spot. But there are also plenty of works that are politically coherent without the author intending them that way—like, whatever faults there are with Project Hail Mary, the overall opinion the book has about the nature of humanity & of science is consistent throughout. Likewise there are stories where the authors clearly meant a coherent political point and totally wiffed it. (The works @specialagentartemis has collectively termed “cozy colonialism” come to mind)

It also means wearing things they might not approve of. Using accommodations that they might not think you need. Not falling for their guilt trips. Eating when you’re hungry, not when it suits them and their idea of your weight or health. Making your own friends instead of seeking the stamp of approval from them.

Of course, some parents are stricter than others, and some use abuse to keep you from expressing yourself. But do what you can, even if it seems small.

Otherwise, when your parents are no longer in the picture, you’ll try to find it somewhere else to get validation. A strict boss, an abusive partner, a selfish friend.

But there's some other group, and when they talk about economics they'll have a great, engaging tone with easy to follow graphs based on easy to locate data, with catchy titles and everything they write is like "not only is the economy getting better all the time, but it's the best it's ever been, and everyone is doing tremendously well, our system has never failed and never will, and looking at these figures we actually need to give even more resources to those six guys."

like the first signs of a flare up from stress/over exertion used to be red face + fever + rash on my hands

but the lines of my tattoo will become raised and then a little itchy before it progresses to that point

and im discovering that, yeah, if i just listen to the wizard and rest/recuperate/stop pushing myself when it starts acting weird, i can sometimes avoid triggering the other symptoms