probably the worst thing that's ever happened to me was when this one time i was wearing my shirt that says "I HATE PAGANS" in giant block letters that i wear to the ren faire so that gay people don't try to involve me in their roleplays or whatever and i somehow thru a series of events that i will omit bc it's boring & i don't understand it encountered some kind of temporal rift and ended up in a roman forum in like the 390s or something. and immediately these guys in armor are pointing at my shirt & getting very excited bc obviously paganism had just been outlawed in rome, and i'm trying to be like "no no you don't understand" but they don't speak english & i don't speak latin so i'm just gesturing frantically at the shirt and then at myself and doing like a thumbs up motion which i later learned is not a good gesture to make in ancient rome. they're getting increasingly animated and i'm trying to pantomime like "different kind of pagans, future pagans, neopagans" by pointing at the ground (to indicate here/now pagans) and then making a big X with my arms and then pointing at the sky (to indicate future/different pagans) but this apparently makes them think i am doing a bit about how the old gods are pathetic, and they're really into this like slapping their thighs and stuff. anyway they take me to this official-looking building & there's this older guy there who seems important & has better robes than everyone else and through a series of elaborate hand gestures and latin & ingvaeonic cognates i manage to express to him that i am jewish, and in my time there are these different people called also pagans who “stelen” from my “tribe,” and then i see him start to nod and he says something to the guards & i'm like oh good we've achieved understanding and i'm feeling pretty good about this intercultural exchange we're having & then i got stoned. like with rocks.
