#swiss reformation

[montyshistoryblog]

I found a quote of a Hutterite yelling at a pastor in 1525, and I couldn't stop myself turning it into something. Sloppy as fuck cause this is like, 10 minutes work.

[tmarshconnors]

“Only fools, pure theorists, or apprentices fail to take public opinion into account.”

Jacques Necker was a Genevan banker and statesman who served as finance minister for Louis XVI. He was a reformer, but his innovations sometimes caused great discontent.

Born: 30 September 1732, Geneva, Switzerland

Died: 9 April 1804, Geneva, Switzerland

Swiss Origins: Necker was born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1732. His Swiss background made him a foreigner in the French political landscape, and this sometimes influenced the perception of his policies.

Self-Financed Publication: Necker was known for his publication titled "Compte Rendu," or "Report on the Finances." This document, which detailed the state of France's finances, was unique in that Necker personally financed its publication. This move aimed to showcase transparency and gain public support.

Resignation through Illness: In 1781, Necker resigned from his position as Finance Minister, citing health reasons. His resignation was accepted, but he continued to influence French politics from behind the scenes. He was later recalled to office in 1788.

Criticized by Revolutionaries: Despite being initially celebrated for his efforts to improve financial transparency, Necker faced criticism from revolutionary figures like Maximilien Robespierre. They accused him of being too sympathetic to the monarchy and not fully supporting the revolutionary cause.

Exile in Switzerland: After the fall of the Bastille in 1789 and the escalation of the French Revolution, Necker resigned once again. Fearing for his safety, he sought refuge in Switzerland. His departure marked the end of his active political career.

[mllytll]

Sometimes you have a meme in your heart that no one around you will understand.

[rabbitcruiser]

On 11 March 1421 construction began on the Bern Minster under the direction of the Strasbourg master builder Matthäus Ensinger.

[batnomadblog]

Switzerland, Day 1 - Zurich

Switzerland, day 1, Zurich. Though Zug would be my base in Switzerland. A small town 30 minutes train ride from Zurich in the canton of Zug. Not really a base; my friend has been living there for over 15 years, Kim. Having no plans whatsoever for Switzerland (nothing new), Kim had kindly invited me to stay with her. Heading back to Europe it felt like going home, going back to familiarity. Having…

[reportwire]

Join our Financial Services tax webinar on 9 November 2022 at 08:30 to discuss legislative developments, court cases and practice - Banking blog

Join our Financial Services tax webinar on 9 November 2022 at 08:30 to discuss legislative developments, court cases and practice – Banking blog

We would like to invite you to our half yearly webinar where we provide key updates and discuss recent tax developments that are important for the financial services industry on Wednesday 9 November 2022 at 08:30. The focus of the webinar will be on the following topics: The impact of the recent vote on Swiss withholding tax reform Recent EU Court of Justice decisions and national and…

[trungles]

Cross-posting an essay I wrote for my Patreon since the post is free and open to the public.

Hello everyone! I hope you're relaxing as best you can this holiday season. I recently went to see Miyazaki's latest Ghibli movie, The Boy and the Heron, and I had some thoughts about it. If you're into art historical allusions and gently cranky opinions, please enjoy. I've attached a downloadable PDF in the Patreon post if you'd prefer to read it that way. Apologies for the formatting of the endnotes! Patreon's text posting does not allow for superscripts, which means all my notations are in awkward parentheses. Please note that this writing contains some mild spoilers for The Boy and the Heron.

Hayao Miyazaki’s 2023 feature animated film The Boy and the Heron reads as an extended meditation on grief and legacy. The Master of a grand tower seeks a descendant to carry on his maddening duty, balancing toy blocks of magical stone upon which the entire fabric of his little pocket of reality rests. The world’s foundations are frail and fleeting, and can pass away into the cold void of space should he neglect to maintain this task. The Master’s desire to pass the torch undergirds much of the film’s narrative.

(Isle of the Dead. Arnold Böcklin. 1880. Oil on Canvas. Kunstmuseum. Basel, Switzerland.)

Arnold Böcklin, a Swiss Symbolist(1) painter, was born on October 16 in 1827, the same year the Swiss Evangelical Reformed Church bought a plot of land in Florence from the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Leopold II, that had long been used for the burials of Protestants around Florence. It is colloquially known as The English Cemetery, so called because it was the resting place of many Anglophones and Protestants around Tuscany, and Böcklin frequented this cemetery—his workshop was adjacent and his infant daughter Maria was buried there. In 1880, he drew inspiration from the cemetery, a lone plot of Protestant land among a sea of Catholic graveyards, and began to paint what would be the first of six images entitled Isle of the Dead. An oil on canvas piece, it depicts a moody little island mausoleum crowned with a gently swaying grove of cypresses, a type of tree common in European cemeteries and some of which are referred to as arborvitae. A figure on a boat, presumably Charon, ferries a soul toward the island and away from the viewer.

(Photo of The English Cemetery in Florence. Samuli Lintula. 2006.)

The Isle of the Dead paintings varied slightly from version to version, with figures and names added and removed to suit the needs of the time or the commissioner. The painting was glowingly referenced and remained fairly popular throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The painting used to be inescapable in much of European popular culture. Professor Okulicz-Kozaryn, a philologist (someone with a deep interest in the ways language and cultural canons evolve)(2) observed that the painting, like many other works in its time, was itself iterative and became widely reiterated and referenced among its contemporaries. It became something like Romantic kitsch in the eyes of modern art critics, overwrought and excessively Byronic. I imagine Miyazaki might also resent a work of that level of manufactured ubiquity, as Miyazaki famously held Disney animated films in contempt (3). Miyazaki’s films are popularly aspirational to young animators and cartoonists, but gestures at imitation typically fall well short, often reducing Miyazaki’s weighty films to kitschy images of saccharine vibes and a lazy indulgence in a sort of empty magical domestic coziness. Being trapped in a realm of rote sentiment by an uncritical, unthoughtful viewership is its own Isle of Death.

(Still from The Boy and the Heron, 2023. Studio Ghibli.)

The Boy and the Heron follows a familiar narrative arc to many of Miyazaki’s other films: a child must journey through a magical and quietly menacing world in order to rescue their loved ones. This arc is an echo of Satsuki’s journey to find Mei in My Neighbor Totoro (1988) and Chihiro’s journey to rescue her parents Spirited Away (2001). To better understand Miyazaki’s fixation with this particular character journey, it can be instructive to watch Lev Atamanov’s 1957 animated film, The Snow Queen (4)(5), a beautifully realized take on Hans Christian Andersen’s 1844 children’s story (6)(7). Mahito’s journey continues in this tradition, as the boy travels into a painted world to rescue his new stepmother from a mysterious tower.

Throughout the film, Miyazaki visually references Isle of the Dead. Transported to a surreal world, Mahito initially awakens on a little green island with a gated mausoleum crowned with cypress trees. He is accosted by hungry pelicans before being rescued by a fisherwoman named Kiriko. After a day of catching and gutting fish, Mahito wakes up under the fisherwoman’s dining table, surrounded by kokeshi—little wooden dolls—in the shapes of the old women who run Mahito’s family’s rural household. Mahito is told they must not be touched, as the kokeshi are wards set up for his protection. There is a popular urban legend associated with the kokeshi wherein they act as stand-ins for victims of infanticide, though there seems to be very little available writing to support this legend. Still, it’s a neat little trick that Miyazaki pulls, placing a stray reference to a local legend of unverifiable provenance that persists in the popular imagination, like the effect of fairy stories passed on through oral retellings, continually remolded each new iteration.

(Still from The Boy and the Heron, 2023. Studio Ghibli.)

Kiriko’s job in this strange landscape is to catch fish to nourish unborn spirits, the adorable floating warawara, before they can attempt to ascend on a journey into the world of the living. Their journey is thwarted by flocks of supernatural pelicans, who swarm the warawara and devour them. This seems to nod to the association of pelicans with death in mythologies around the world, especially in relationship to children (8). Miyazaki’s pelicans contemplate the passing of their generations as each successive generation seems to regress, their capacity to fulfill their roles steadily diminishing.

(Still from The Boy and the Heron, 2023. Studio Ghibli.)

As Mahito’s adventure continues, we find the landscapes changing away from Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead into more familiar Ghibli territories as we start to see spaces inspired by one of Studio Ghibli’s aesthetic mainstays, Naohisa Inoue and his explorations of the fantasy realms of Iblard. He might be most familiar to Ghibli enthusiasts as the background artists for the more fantastical elements of Whisper of the Heart (1995).

(Naohisa Inoue, for Iblard Jikan, 2007. Studio Ghibli.)

By the time we arrive at the climax of The Boy and the Heron, the fantasy island environment starts to resemble English takes on Italian gardens, the likes of which captivated illustrators and commercial artists of the early 20th century such as Maxfield Parrish. This appears to be a return to one of Böcklin’s later paintings, The Island of Life (1888), a somewhat tongue-in-cheek reaction to the overwhelming presence of Isle of the Dead in his life and career. The Island of Life depicts a little spot of land amid an ocean very like the one on which Isle of the Dead’s somber mausoleum is depicted, except this time the figures are lively and engaged with each other, the vegetation lush and colorful, replete with pink flowers and palm fronds.

(Island of Life. Arnold Böcklin. Oil on canvas. 1888. Kunstmuseum. Basel, Switzerland.)

In 2022, Russia’s State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg acquired the sixth and final Isle of the Dead painting. In the last year of his life, Arnold Böcklin would paint this image in collaboration with his son Carlo Böcklin, himself an artist and an architect. Arnold Böcklin spent three years painting the same image three times over at the site of his infant daughter’s grave, trapped on the Isle of the Dead. By the time of his death in 1901 at age 74, Böcklin would be survived by only five of his fourteen children. That the final Isle of the Dead painting would be a collaboration between father and son seemed a little ironic considering Hayao Miyazaki’s reticence in passing on his own legacy. Like the old Master in The Boy and the Heron, Miyazaki finds himself with no true successors.

The Master of the Tower's beautiful islands of painted glass fade into nothing as Mahito, his only worthy descendant, departs to live his own life, fulfilling the thesis of Genzaburo Yoshino’s 1937 book How Do You Live?, published three years after Carlo Böcklin’s death. In evoking Yoshino and Böcklin’s works, Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron suggests that, like his character the Master, Miyazaki himself must make peace with the notion that he has no heirs to his legacy, and that those whom he wished to follow in his footsteps might be best served by finding their own paths.

(Isle of the Dead. Arnold and Carlo Böcklin. Oil on canvas. 1901. The State Hermitage Museum. Saint Petersburg, Russia.)

INFORMAL ENDNOTES

1 - Symbolists are sort of tough to nail down. They were started as a literary movement to 1 distinguish themselves from the Decadents, but their manifesto was so vague that critics and academics fight about it to this day. The long and the short of it is that the Symbolists made generous use of a lot of metaphorical imagery in their work. They borrow a lot of icons from antiquity, echo the moody aesthetics from the Romantics, maintained an emphasis on figurative imagery more so than the Surrealists, and were only slightly more technically married to the trappings of traditionalist academic painters than Modernists and Impressionists. They're extremely vibes-forward.

2 - Okulicz-Kozaryn, Radosław. Predilection of Modernism for Variations. Ciulionis' Serenity among Different Developments of the Theme of Toteninsel. ACTA Academiae Artium Vilnensis 59. 2010. The article is incredibly cranky and very funny to read in parts. Contains a lot of observations I found to be helpful in placing Isle of the Dead within its context.

3 - "From my perspective, even if they are lightweight in nature, the more popular and common films still must be filled with a purity of emotion. There are few barriers to entry into these films-they will invite anyone in but the barriers to exit must be high and purifying. Films must also not be produced out of idle nervousness or boredom, or be used to recognise, emphasise, or amplify vulgarity. And in that context, I must say that I hate Disney's works. The barrier to both the entry and exit of Disney films is too low and too wide. To me, they show nothing but contempt for the audience." from Miyazaki's own writing in his collection of essays, Starting Point, published in 2014 from VIZ Media.

4 - You can watch the movie here in its original Russian with English closed captions here.

5 If you want to learn more about the making of Atamanoy's The Snow Queen, Animation Obsessive wrote a neat little article about it. It's a good overview, though I have to gently disagree with some of its conclusions about the irony of Miyazaki hating Disney and loving Snow Queen, which draws inspiration from Bambi. Feature film animation as we know it hadonly been around a few decades by 1957, and I find it specious, particularly as a comic artistand author, to see someone conflating an entire form with the character of its content, especially in the relative infancy of the form. But that's just one hot take. The rest of the essay is lovely.

6 - Miyazaki loves this movie. He blurbed it in a Japanese re-release of it in 2007.

7 - Julia Alekseyeva interprets Princess Mononoke as an iteration of Atamanov's The Snow Queen, arguing that San, the wolf princess, is Miyazaki's homage to Atamanoy's little robber girl character.

8 - Hart, George. The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods And Goddesses. Routledge Dictionaries. Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge. 2005.

[hdslibrary]

Eclipse(s)!

We are pleased to be positioned on Earth like one of figures in the first picture and will get to experience the 2024 solar eclipse!

These diagrams illustrating solar and lunar eclipses are from a 16th century book of astronomy. For more on this interesting little book (including its volvelles, and an inscription by Swiss Reformed theologian Simon Sulzer) see earlier post here.

Sacro Bosco, Joannes de. Libellus de sphaera : Accessit eiusdem autoris computus ecclesiasticus, et alia quaedam, in studiosorum gratiam edita...Vitebergae : Per Iohannem Crationem, 1558.

[cliozaur]

It’s a well-known fact that Hugo was deeply invested in reforming the penitentiary system and led a lifelong campaign against the death penalty. He first saw the conditions of imprisonment for those condemned to death and hard labour while visiting the prison of Bicêtre with his friend David d’Angers (a sculptor) in 1828. Their main intent was to preserve the gothic past and explore the ancient prison building. It was easy to get inside the jail because prisons at that time were open to the public. David Bellos explains:

“jails and dungeons were considered picturesque, and tourists in Paris visited all kinds of places that modern visitors shun. A prim Swiss student who came to Paris in 1830, for example, whiled away a Sunday afternoon at the women’s ward in a lunatic asylum and then dropped in at the morgue, just to see. Fashionable interest in ruins and medieval remains and a widely shared taste for the quaint and the bizarre — the main components of Romanticism when reduced to a statement of style — provided respectable cover for interests now served by the noirest genre of film.”

[artandthebible]

The Last Supper

Artist: Hans Holbein the Younger (German-Swiss, 1498–1543)

Genre: Religious Art

Date: circa 1524-1525

Medium: Oil on Panel

Collection: Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland

The Last Supper is the final meal that, in the Gospel accounts, Jesus shared with his apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion. The Last Supper is commemorated by Christians especially on Holy Thursday.

Holbein painted his version of the subject under the influence of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper, which he may have seen on a visit to northern Italy or have known from prints. Only nine of the apostles appear in Holbein's picture, because the outer boards of the painting, which was part of an altarpiece, were lost during iconoclastic riots by reformers in Basel. The head of Christ was sawn out of the picture at one time, and dents from hammer blows are visible on the work. According to the 16th-century inventory of the Amerbach collection, the damaged painting was "coarsely" (aber vnfletig) glued back together. It was often repainted over the centuries and has only been restored to Holbein's work since 1988, though some paint and subtle glazes have been lost.

[mariacallous]

As an ex-Soviet myself, I am baffled by the renewed global fascination with autocracy. According to Freedom House, 8 out of 10 people now live in a partly free or not free country. In the United States, surveys show that a substantial number of people would support authoritarian rule and do not consider the decline of democratic institutions a mortal threat. In China, Russia, and elsewhere, the winds of change seem to be blowing in the wrong direction.

Given this shift, HBO’s miniseries The Regime, whose finale aired on April 7, could not have been timelier. With Emmy Award-winning Kate Winslet and Succession’s Will Tracy at the helm, along with all the trappings of prestige television, The Regime was poised to explore some of the 21st century’s heftiest political questions: the allure of demagogues, the slide into unfreedom and tribalism, and the mechanisms a society can employ to reverse this slide.

Instead, The Regime provides only vague winks to the tendencies of the world’s strongmen that fail to rise to the level of serious critique or analysis, deployed with a naivete that feels distinctly American.

Winslet stars as Elena Vernham, a middle-aged chancellor of an unnamed fictitious country in Central Europe who is obsessed with the black mold she believes is invading her palace. To fight it, she summons Herbert Zubak (Matthias Schoenaerts), a hunky army corporal from a province that grows sugar beets. Prior to his arrival at the palace, Herbert was thrust into the national limelight for his role in gunning down 12 protesters at one of the country’s cobalt mines, earning him a gruesome nickname: “The Butcher.”

Elena and Herbert quickly develop a Beauty and the Beast kind of attraction (postmodern, of course, with no clarity about who is the beast—capricious and delusional Elena or self-loathing, bullied-turned-bully Herbert). After a brief falling out, resolved by Herbert saving Elena from an assassin, the two begin to rule the palace through a Rasputin-style combination of hysterics and nativism.

For the next five episodes, we follow Herbert’s zigzagging ascent through Elena’s wobbling realm, from a walking humidity monitor to a trusted political advisor and lover. Herbert witnesses, engages in, or directs various antics that, according to the show’s description, depict a “modern authoritarian regime as it unravels.” Scenes include cabinet meetings that Elena conducts from an ice-filled tub and bizarre conversations with her dead father, preserved in a glass coffin in the palace’s basement. Herbert, a man of rural origins, caters to Elena’s paranoia by cleansing the palace’s supposedly poisonous air with the steam from boiled potatoes (a folk remedy popular in my Soviet childhood).

Of course, no leader can outrun geopolitics. The country’s rich cobalt reserves attract international interest, and after chasing out a deal that would have given the United States mining rights on the cheap, Elena cozies up to China, promising it a free trade deal and a cut of the mining profits. Together, Elena and Herbert then navigate their way through the illegal annexation of a sovereign neighbor, a half-baked flirtation with nationalization and land reform, and the sting of Western economic sanctions.

All this chaotic politicking unfolds against Elena’s droning on about love, which she constantly either bestows on or demands from her people. Ever the shrewd economist, Elena proclaims, “The American beast and its client states try to strangle us, but petty sanctions will always fail because our love cannot be sanctioned.” Having shipped her subservient, poetry-loving French husband, Nicky (Guillaume Gallienne), to Swiss exile, Elena, who has regained her sex drive, passionately makes up for lost time with Herbert—and fails to notice the unrest growing among her populace over the country’s economic downturn and crude handling of protests.

By the final episode—spoilers ahead—it seems that Elena’s ruling model is no match for revolution. She is chased out of the palace and must run for her life through a land it’s clear she knows nothing about, despite the “special connection” she often claims to have with its people. For once, someone in this world other than Herbert has managed to outmaneuver her delusions. But soon enough, Elena bends the knee to the very oligarchs she once vilified. A would-be coup is undone with the snap of a U.S.-backed finger.

“What was that all about?” Nicky asks his wife at the end of the show. He is offered no conclusive answer—and neither is the audience.

Tracy, who created the show, has compared The Regime to a dark fairy tale, which may explain Elena’s look—a cross between an aging Sleeping Beauty and Madonna’s Evita—and the glass coffin. One could also see it as a love story, in which two broken individuals find a semblance of happiness by tormenting each other in their own make-believe reality. It may even be a dark comedy, as HBO describes it, if one can have comedy without a single funny joke. (Her cabinet member’s quip, “His profits are fucked like a spring donkey,” is certainly rude, but rudeness isn’t necessarily funny.)

One thing the show isn’t is satire. For that to be true, it would actually have to satirize something. Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels derided the rigid mores of 18th-century England. Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin poked fun at the brutality and hypocrisy of Joseph Stalin’s flunkies in the postwar Soviet Union. Making Elena’s regime a pastiche of autocracies was a fatal choice because those regimes are products of their unique, often brutal environments. Because the show nods to a little bit of everything, it takes aim at nothing.

Instead of real people, The Regime offers us walking cliches: a delusional woman with hot flashes and daddy issues; cowering and corrupt ministers; greedy Americans pining for other nations’ resources; the dull, kerchiefed masses who look like props recycled from last century’s movie sets. It’s not that we can’t care for bad people. We did for the Roys in Succession because they were nuanced characters, at once tragic and funny, with clear agendas that drove the plot. But The Regime’s characters feel generic, simply dropped into the set, stirring no feelings from the viewer, sympathetic or otherwise. The only character with an identifiable interest is the U.S. senator, Judith Holt (Martha Plimpton), who just wants the country’s cobalt. The rest merely float through the episodes, as though searching for a good scene to act out but coming up blank.

This is a shame because the show has no lack of talent. Winslet does her best with the material she is given, but there isn’t much she can do with lines such as, “I like a bit of spice. Spice is nice,” in reference to Herbert’s “spicy” dreams. She has no real antagonists, no articulated desires, and no emotions. Viewers are left to blink at the screen, admiring her outfits and waiting for something substantive to happen.

Schoenaerts, who plays Herbert, is more plausible, if cliched: a tortured warrior prepared to kill—and die—for love. Andrea Riseborough, playing Agnes, the palace manager, is less lucky. Having shined as Stalin’s daughter in The Death of Stalin, here she is reduced to a brittle, peacoat-wearing loyalist who has an unexplained co-parenting arrangement with Elena and yields her maternal rights the moment Elena demands it. Her epileptic son doesn’t seem to mind, as long as he gets new toys. Hugh Grant as Edward Keplinger, the country’s imprisoned opposition leader, is charming, but his cameo feels like a checkmark on the celebrity cast list. With his carpeted cell, steady supply of sausages, and access to the prison’s keys, Grant’s performance lacks the gravitas that the suffering of real imprisoned political figures, including the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, deserves.

And then there is Mr. Laskin (Danny Webb), the head of Elena’s security service. In real dictatorships, the requirements of this job are gruesome and attract rather monstrous personalities—think Lavrentiy Beria of the Soviet Union or Heinrich Himmler of Nazi Germany, both of whom orchestrated horrendous mass murders. Yet in The Regime, Laskin speaks politely about his duty to his country and that he “believes in a principle, the legal transition of power.” Unlike in a real dictatorial regime, we see no blood on his hands. There’s a difference between a temporary suspension of disbelief, which viewers will happily grant, and constantly being asked to accept improbable things.

Herein lies The Regime’s fundamental problem: It fumbles what seems to be the primary point of the show—the portrayal of autocracy. The issue with autocrats is not that they’re narcissists who force others to listen to their off-key singing, as Elena does at seemingly every banquet and celebration she can, but that they are ready to sacrifice millions of people to their delusions. Their subjects, including their inner circle, live in constant fear because the autocrat’s government and law enforcement apparatuses are weaponized and can be turned against them at any moment.

But there is no fear in Elena’s kingdom. Her out-of-grace oligarch is not dispossessed and jailed but simply ordered to clean up chairs at a press conference. Her ministers plot for her downfall in a downstairs bar before mockingly denying her a seat on the rescue helicopter. The rebels take the palace in a span of an episode. (If only real dictators were toppled that easily!) The Regime makes Elena look stupid and pathetic. We do not flee from her in terror; we shrug her off.

Despite her European aesthetics, the portrayal of Elena as a ruler reflects an undeniably American attitude toward autocracy. Even after four years of a Donald Trump presidency, many Americans still don’t take his threats seriously, unable to believe that his cartoonish personality and ineptitude could translate into a real assault on their democratic rights and liberties. With the memory of World War II fading away, others may simply underestimate the difference between living in a free society and living under tyranny.

At some level, plenty of Americans may even hanker for a strongman because he offers simple solutions to complex problems, blind to the fact that—like Elena—he is animated not by public service but by his own vanity, enrichment, and survival and occasionally those of his cronies.

As a creative project, The Regime is free to be whatever it wants to be—a fairy tale, a dark comedy, a saga of human vices. But any serious work of art must be about something, some pressing aspect of human existence, and should be evaluated on those terms. What, then, is The Regime’s message? That love is an exchange of perversions? That the United States is a colonizer propping up authoritarian regimes because it wants their assets? That nothing ever changes and we should resign ourselves to endless inevitable iterations of the narcissist-in-chief?

Cynicism doesn’t win battles—or make for very good television. Perhaps HBO’s next meditation on authoritarianism will give us substance on the topic rather than winks.

[random-thought-depository]

""Moreover, it turns out that the United States is not all that tightfisted when it comes to social spending. “If you count all public benefits offered by the federal government, America’s welfare state (as a share of its gross domestic product) is the second biggest in the world, after France’s,” Desmond tells us. Why doesn’t this largesse accomplish more?

For one thing, it unduly assists the affluent. That statistic about the U.S. spending almost as much as France on social welfare, he explains, is accurate only “if you include things like government-subsidized retirement benefits provided by employers, student loans and 529 college savings plans, child tax credits, and homeowner subsidies: benefits disproportionately flowing to Americans well above the poverty line.” To enjoy most of these, you need to have a well-paying job, a home that you own, and probably an accountant (and, if you’re really in clover, a money manager).

“The American government gives the most help to those who need it least,” Desmond argues. “This is the true nature of our welfare state, and it has far-reaching implications, not only for our bank accounts and poverty levels, but also for our psychology and civic spirit.” Americans who benefit from social spending in the form of, say, a mortgage-interest tax deduction don’t see themselves as recipients of governmental generosity. The boon it offers them may be as hard for them to recognize and acknowledge as the persistence of poverty once was to Harrington’s suburban housewives and professional men. These Americans may be anti-government and vote that way. They may picture other people, poor people, as weak and dependent and themselves as hardworking and upstanding. Desmond allows that one reason for this is that tax breaks don’t feel the same as direct payments. Although they may amount to the same thing for household incomes and for the federal budget—“You can benefit a family by lowering its tax burden or by increasing its benefits, same difference”—they are associated with an obligation and a procedure that Americans, in particular, find onerous. Tax-cutting Republican lawmakers want the process to be both difficult and Swiss-cheesed with loopholes. (“Taxes should hurt,” Ronald Reagan once said.) But that’s not the only reason. What Desmond calls the “rudest explanation” is that if, for whatever reason, we get a tax break, most of us like it. That’s the case for people affluent and lucky enough to take advantage of the legitimate breaks designed for their benefit, and for the wily super-rich who game the system with expensive lawyering and ingenious use of tax shelters.

And there are other ways, Desmond points out, that government help gets thwarted or misdirected. When President Clinton instituted welfare reform, in 1996, pledging to “transform a broken system that traps too many people in a cycle of dependence,” an older model, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, or A.F.D.C., was replaced by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF. Where most funds administered by A.F.D.C. went straight to families in the form of cash aid, TANF gave grants to states with the added directive to promote two-parent families and discourage out-of-wedlock childbirth, and let the states fund programs to achieve those goals as they saw fit. As a result, “states have come up with rather creative ways to spend TANF dollars,” Desmond writes. “Nationwide, for every dollar budgeted for TANF in 2020, poor families directly received just 22 cents. Only Kentucky and the District of Columbia spent over half of their TANF funds on basic cash assistance.” Between 1999 and 2016, Oklahoma directed more than seventy million dollars toward initiatives to promote marriage, offering couples counselling and workshops that were mostly open to people of all income levels. Arizona used some of the funds to pay for abstinence education; Pennsylvania gave some of its TANF money to anti-abortion programs. Mississippi treated its TANF funds as an unexpected Christmas present, hiring a Christian-rock singer to perform at concerts, for instance, and a former professional wrestler—the author of an autobiography titled “Every Man Has His Price”—to deliver inspirational speeches. (Much of this was revealed by assiduous investigative reporters, and by a 2020 audit of Mississippi’s Department of Human Services.) Moreover, because states don’t have to spend all their TANF funds each year, many carry over big sums. In 2020, Tennessee, which has one of the highest child-poverty rates in the nation, left seven hundred and ninety million dollars in TANF funds unspent."

- The New Yorker: "How America Manufactures Poverty" by Margaret Talbot (review of Matthew Desmond's Poverty by America).

[arachnidsgrippysocks]

the two pony designs i decided got to 8e insects feat reformed changeling Sollux and classic edgy swiss cheese changeling Vriska

[dwellordream]

“Like the Christians’ Eve, the Iroquois Sky-Woman had an insatiable desire to satisfy her hunger. At first she sought her husband’s guidance, but in time she struck out on her own. Her curiosity brought her to the sacred tree at the center of the Sky-World--a place where, as she soon discovered, the floor of the sky was very thin. Losing her footing, she slipped through a hole at the tree’s base and fell headlong ‘toward the great ocean far below.’

…Like her Iroquois descendants in North America, this first fallen Sky-Woman farmed the rich earths she created, gathered its fruits, and built a hut upon it to live in. After a time, her pregnancy ran its course and, legend says, she ‘was delivered of a daughter.’ The girl and her mother continued to look after their lands till one day, ‘when the girl had grown to womanhood,’ a man appeared. He stayed only briefly--just long enough to impregnate Sky-Woman’s daughter. When her time to deliver arrived she, like many women during the premodern period, died while giving birth. Her offspring survived: two boys who would come to rule the earth their mother and grandmother had made.

…Every native group had its own account of the world’s beginnings. For the Pueblo of the Southwest, human life began underneath the earth when a woman named Tsichtinako (Thought Woman) nursed two sisters: Iatikyu, the Mother of the Corn clan, and Nautsiti, the Mother of the Sun clan. The Ottawa, an Algonquian-speaking people living in the northern Great Lakes region, traced their origins to a male figure called the Great Hare and his younger brother.

…To the Protestants of New England, the followers of the teachings of the Swiss theologian John Calvin, the devotional practices of the Catholics in New France and the Spanish colonies seemed as alien as those of the Narragansets and Wampanoags who lived among them in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In turn, the faithful in Virginia and Maryland, who followed the orthodox traditions of the Church of England, considered New England’s Puritans to be overzealous reformers.

…Even in the most physical, tangible sense religion was a constant presence. From the stark clapboard spires that capped New England’s Congregational meeting houses, to the sturdy brick of Virginia’s Anglican churches, to the poles marking the underground kivas in which the Pueblo held sacred rituals, places of worship dotted the landscape. Each and every day, the English villages lining the eastern seaboard would have been alive with the sound of church bells.

…Every part of colonial America had its own rhythms of religious devotion--rhythms that helped women and men make sense of their lives. But nowhere did religion play a greater role than it did in early New England. Almost without exception, the leaders of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, New Haven, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island were dissenters from the Church of England.

…No matter whether they enthusiastically supported or dared to question the Puritan mission, all law-abiding New Englanders gathered in their local meetinghouses every Sunday, and often once during the week as well, to hear their preacher expound upon scripture. One perennially popular sermon topic was the nature of women. Between 1668 and 1735, women’s lives were the subject of no fewer than 75 printed treatises. Some of these tracts were funeral sermons that eulogized an especially pious female parishioner; others were more general “how-to” homilies dealing with marriage or mothering.

…Pious women were praised by ministers and neighbors alike. If they resembled any Old Testament figure, it was the industrious Bathsheba (the ‘virtuous woman’ described in Proverbs 31:10-31) rather than the perfidious Eve. Where Eve tempted, persuaded, and seduced, Bathsheba planted, prayed, and spun. Her every word testified to a womanly brand of piety: faith tempered with respectful submission. More than one New England minister echoed these verses from Proverbs, exalting the woman who ‘openeth her mouth with wisdom…in her tongue is the law of kindness.’ As the biblical passage suggested, such well-spoken women were indeed more priceless than rubies.

…In fact, New England’s ‘virtuous women’ may have been even more devoted to religious practice than their husbands and fathers. At the very least they were more dedicated churchgoers. At first, men and women joined the churches in equal numbers. Within a generation, however, women outnumbered men in many if not most of the churches in Massachusetts and Connecticut. By the mid-1700s, women comprised nearly three-quarters of many congregations.

…One of the more radical groups in the entire spectrum of dissenting English Protestantism, the Quakers granted female believers an extraordinary degree of autonomy and equality. …Converts of both sexes were encouraged to preach about their religious experiences, and one of the movement’s early and most prominent leaders was an English wife and mother, Margaret Fell. …Where Quaker women were concerned, Massachusetts authorities made the links between female preaching, rejecting ministers’ teachings, and worshiping the devil even more explicit.

…Black women and men brought a very different set of religious beliefs to the southern colonies. Their traditions concerning the supernatural were as diverse as the many African peoples from which they came. There were, however, important common threads; most West Africans believed in more than one God and made the veneration of ancestors an important part of their worship ceremonies.

…Until the 1730s, southern whites made little effort to convert their slaves to Christianity. But in the late 18th century, evangelical sects such as the Methodists and the Baptists appealed to blacks and poor whites alike. …Call-and-response hymn singing and joyful shouting are examples of African forms that influenced the style of worship practiced by both whites and blacks in many southern denominations.”

Jane Kamensky, “Daughters of Eve, Daughters of Zion: Women and Religion” in The Colonial Mosaic: American Women, 1600-1760

[zombie-rott]

Survival Is A Talent: 2

Part 1.

Pairing: Gen. None.

Rating: Mature for difficult themes throughout.

Word Count: 6,733

Summary:

"Weakness was not something Phantom had ever been permitted to show back beneath the ground. His father, a tyrant leader of their pack, came down harshly on anyone who dared to show an ounce of discomfort or disdain. Male or female, grown or child; he was a brutal man with brutal ideals. But despite Phantom’s inept ability to hide his pain, he’d never felt quite like this before. Nor had he trembled quite as much as he had done since coming to the surface."

Or

Phantom, the new quintessence ghoul, is struggling to adapt to live on the surface. What started as surface sickness has quickly developed into quintessence burn out. And with a reluctance to ask for help, Phantom finds himself down a dark path. It's up to Papa, Aether and the pack to drag him back; kicking, screaming but alive.

In full on A03.

Life back at the ministry was more difficult than Phantom remembered. Between his summoning and tour, his days were filled with band practice and the occasional shift in the laundry room. He’d been so overwhelmed by a new life on the surface that his anxiety never caused anything more than a mild panic attack. He concealed them, hiding in alcoves and counting to ten. But coming off tour felt different. Phantom felt more alive and with this new awareness came a spike in emotions he didn’t understand, much less could control. Being on tour was nerve-racking, yes, but it was nothing to being back within the walls of the ministry. 

They were thrown headfirst into a crowd of excited siblings welcoming them back, followed by no more than a night to settle back in before they were expected to pick up their chores. If anyone else felt overwhelmed, they didn’t show it. But Phantom felt his breathlessness creeping in the second they approached the ministry gates, and it grew steadily until he spent his first night home in ruins. Worst of all, Papa was several staircases away and the little ghoul didn’t much fancy trekking through the dark vastness of the hallways in the dead of night. 

As the days moved on Phantom made several attempts to reach out, none of which were pressing and concerning. He kept his texts light as if testing the waters as to what their new relationship meant now that they were back on unholy soil. They talked intermittently about work and some of the TV shows Copia had introduced to the young ghoul. But it was clear that the clergyman was being pulled from pillar to post and replies became more infrequent and apologetic. The man was trying and Phantom knew it from the way they spoke on the phone or through text. It was even obvious in how Copia tried to approach him in the hallways. But he was almost always pulled away by a sibling or ministry official, seeking him out for some task or service. 

Phantom became aware that if he was to survive and thrive in the ministry he needed to throw up a mask. Metaphorically speaking. Ghouls were not forced to wear their masks in the halls anymore. Not since Papa Terzo’s reform during his reign. And for that Phantom was grateful.

The young ghoul forced himself to join in on organised cuddle piles, nest building and meal times. There were nights when he would curl up next to his ghoul-kin by the grand open fire and watch as they indulged in their various hobbies. But as the darkness crept in he was ultimately alone. Swiss had Cumulus, Mountain preferred his solitude and the remainder happily fleeted between. But his door was always missed by Rain, Dew and the other ghoulettes, none offering to sleep beside him as they did with each other. 

Phantom never had anyone except for Copia in those brief stolen moments on the bus. It was only as he lay alone and cold in his bed that he realised how much better he’d slept in the clergyman’s arms, listening to the rhythmic beat of his human heart and comforted by the heat of his body.  His quarters were a far cry from that small, cosy bunk on the bus. The bed suddenly felt miles wide and the space around him was suffocating. 

There was no one there for him. Not in the quiet of his room. Not in the laundry rooms where the rattling of the dryers was overwhelming and the sweet smell of soap made his head hurt. 

Of course, he could just ask his ghoul-kin for comfort when the tendrils of breathlessness crept in. But he was much too embarrassed. He was a ghoul, a creature of the pit. There was nothing to be scared of and yet, there he was, defected by fear.

The other ghouls fit snuggly back into ministry life like they hadn’t been trapped together for six weeks on a cramped bus. They thought nothing of the vastness between them all, and the ability to simply be out in the open. Where Phantom was from space meant danger, and in the ministry, he felt exposed and alone in a wasteland of it. 

Even with the vast emptiness between them, the silence was by far the worst. Something he had longed for in his worst moments on the bus was not what he had wanted at all. Phantom heard too much within the complete and utter silence. No snoring or the shuffle of other bodies. No purring or smothered moans of ghouls in lust. No. This silence was richer, more empty. This gave way to the eerie clanging of old pipework, the whistle of the wind; the thoughts in his head.  They weren’t pleasant, they never were. They called him names and recounted every little thing he had ever done wrong. Over and over and over again until he was breathless and counting to ten.

~ ~ ~

Phantom had been stuck on laundry duty since his second week of summoning. He had no idea what laundry was but the clergy thought it a good place to put him regardless. Most Quinnissence ghouls ended up in the medical unit taking on various jobs within that role, jobs more suited to their elements.  But Phantom had been such an ‘ emergency hire ’ that they hadn’t had much time to think about his job. They saw an opening and slotted him in hoping he’d fit. 

It’s not that Phantom didn’t like the laundry. He got on with the siblings that worked there and it wasn’t exactly rocket science. But some of the sisters were overly chatty, the machines were too loud and the smells were overwhelming. More often than not he developed a throbbing headache by noon and went home stinking of generic detergent, and a bombardment of floral scents that just added to the pain behind his eyes. 

Four weeks after returning home Phantom woke with a headache that simply wouldn’t budge. His sleep was perpetually broken, he was sore from hauling sheets through the cellar and his mood was dropping more and more as the days went on. Swiss had made a joke about it being his ‘ time of the month ’ over dinner the previous evening, but Phantom had brushed it off. He knew the multi-ghoul hadn’t meant it viciously but it still stung. 

Were his wayward emotions becoming that obvious? 

Worst of all, Phantom thought as he brushed his fangs, was the fact that he was due to go on duty with Sister Samira. He sighed around his toothbrush. 

Sister Samira, a slender woman with a shrill voice and head full of mischief, was the loudest of siblings he worked with. While Phantom was fond of her on a good day there was nothing he wanted more than to run from her when he was feeling at his worst. When the mood struck him he was much better suited to the quiet company of Sister Greta or Brother Roe, neither of which pushed much for conversation. They were happy to work in relative silence, while Sister Samira felt the need to fill every inch of silence with conversation just for the sake of it. 

With a groan of despair, Phantom pulled on his work clothes and went straight to the kitchen for his morning coffee. As he shuffled down the corridor he silently prepped himself for his ghoul kin. He could already hear the strident voice of Dew, followed by the baritone notes of Moutain’s laugh, both creating a mix of contradicting emotions blooming in his chest. 

He loved his pack, he truly did, but with their company came questions and concerns, neither of which he had the energy to engage with. Fortunately for him, the gathering turned out to be small. Mountain manned the stove top, eggs bubbling on the griddle, while Dew and Cirrus crowded the island. 

“Good morning Bug!” Cirrus chirped as Phantom stepped carefully into the tunskin spotlights. 

He nodded in response, a small smile forced to the corners of his lips. Wordlessly he poured himself a cup of fresh coffee and came to stand next to the vivacious air ghoul. Dew continued his crusade, this time complaining about the siblings working alongside him in the kitchens. Phantom tried to listen, tried to make an effort to engage and laugh when appropriate, but his mind kept losing focus. There were glimpses of the conversation that would draw him back but he was largely planted in a far-off land, dreaming of a day when his soul would no longer feel like a shrivelled husk. 

“Bug?” 

The sound of his name brought Phantom crashing back to earth. He blinked several times, orbs dancing behind his eyelids, and shook through the haze. 

Cirrus’ head was bowed, almost touching the table as they struggled to meet his gaze. From their troubled countenance Phantom could only assume he’d missed more than just the one queue. 

“Bug, you in there?” They continued. 

“Y-yeah. Sorry. It’s - um- it’s early.” The young ghoul answered, his voice more cheery than his insides felt. 

Cirrus pursed their lips. Beside them, Dew exchanged interested glances with his earth counterpart. 

“Are you sure little bug?” Mountain slung a dishcloth over his shoulder and leaned heavily on the worktop, “If you’re not feeling good you should head up to Aether.” 

“No offence but I don’t wanna’ get what you’re carrying,” Dew remarked in a tone edging ever-so-slightly on patronising. 

“Dew! Don’t be so nasty.” Cirrus scolded. 

“I’m just sayin.’ If you’re sick, don’t spread it.” The fire ghoul scoffed.

“I can make some tea,” Mountain offered as he moved to his cupboard filled with loose leaves and herbal blends, “What ails you the most? Is it a headache? Brain fog? Maybe -”

“I’m fine, just drop it!!” Phantom snapped, his voice cracking in the middle and his nostrils flaring. With a sharp intake of breath, he struggled to stop his composure from dipping any further. 

He was met with surprise, his ghoul kin’s eyes unblinking and, in the case of Dew, mouth hanging open. The young ghoul didn’t know where his sudden outburst had come from. As a placid beast, anger was never his first emotion. And yet it ripped through him and spewed outwards before he had the opportunity to stop it. 

“Alright then,” Dew growled from behind his mug of coffee, “there’s no need to be so crabby.” 

Phantom swallowed back the lump forming in his throat. He felt hot, heat starting at the tip of his tail and peaking at his scalp. He wanted nothing more than to bite again but the fire ghoul was much too quick and sharp with his comebacks. Instead, he downed the remainder of his coffee, the liquid scalding his tongue and burning as it slid its way down into his stomach. 

“I-I have to go.” He whispered as he sidestepped Mountain who was still frozen by his cupboard of remedies, and dropped his mug into the sink, “S-sorry.”

He didn’t so much as turn to say goodbye, hellbent on leaving the quarters as soon as possible. No words from his ghoul-kin followed, instead left frozen on the tip of forked tongues, and for that Phantom was grateful. What else could possibly be said to take back the vicious way he’d spoken to them? And for what? Expressing concern?

As the door creaked shut behind him Phantom felt the heat of tears brimming in his eyes. He pushed onward, pulling the neck of his jacket up over his nose, and rushed towards the nearest haven. There was no way he could go to the laundry rooms like this, especially not with Sister Samira present. She would mother him too much and he feared he didn’t have the strength to hold his tongue. He made for the only other safe space he could think of; the basement bathrooms. No one else would be there this time of the morning, not even his colleagues in the laundry. 

The walk did nothing for his perverse emotions. Around him, the ministry started to shutter into life and he ramped up his pace, afraid he might run into some of the other ghouls or siblings. The last thing he wanted was to be caught crying in the hallways. 

Finally, he met the stairwell to the lower floors and, taking the steps in twos, he breathed a sigh of relief when he found the corridors silent, save for the static of the overhead lights. Phantom carefully approached the bathroom and listened intently for any sign of life within. Fortunately, the devils were shining upon him. There wasn’t a soul to be found.

He quickly shoved through the door and slid the solid lock in place before coming to rest against it. His heart thundered in his chest, the rhythm rattling against his ribcage causing his breath to catch in his throat. There it was again; the breathlessness. So intense this time that it brought Phantom to the floor, his arms wrapped around himself and body rocking forwards and back, like a pendulum. 

He tried desperately to engage in active breathing. Slow. In and out. But it wasn’t working. If anything the sweat was building across his body, prompting him to tear at his coat until it was discarded on the floor in front of him. 

Get it together!

Phantom bit down hard on his lip, feeling it pop beneath the pressure of his fangs. He didn’t even wince, instead, he brought his fists to card through his hair as he tried to chase the stars from his vision. 

Everything around him flashed in and out of focus. First distorted by tears and then by his wavering breaths. His chest felt like it was trapped within a vice, doing everything it could to wring the oxygen from his blood. 

This is how I die, isn’t it? Alone on the floor of a grubby bathroom drenched in my own tears? 

He pulled his body inwards, claws digging graves into his biceps and knees shaking beneath his chin. Sobs wracked through him.

Phantom didn’t know how long he sat there, wrapped up in his chaos and grievance. Voices came and went along the corridor beyond, footsteps shuffling as siblings and ghouls went about their workday. And he gradually became aware (but only vaguely concerned) that he too should be hauling sheets and mixing detergents. Guilt joined his fluster of blended emotions and he couldn’t help but berate himself for letting his colleagues down. 

Again.

Because this wasn’t the first time he was rendered useless by these feelings. It wasn’t the first time he had crawled into an alcove or hidden in the bathroom as his body was taken over by a sense of impending doom. And, of course, he knew it wouldn’t be the last. 

Eventually, some hours after, his heart began to still. The chains around his chest loosened and all that was left behind was the dull ache of tension throughout his body. Pain bloomed across his skull and his eyes felt like sandpaper. A telltale sign of a morning spent in misery. 

On quivering legs, Phantom rose to his feet and staggered across the floor towards the sink. He glared through the scratches and watermarks at his own sullen face, his cheeks red with valleys of tears and blood spotting his lips. 

Through all the feelings, both physical and mental, most of all Phantom was exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to crawl into the arms of Papa and sleep for an eternity. A sense of yearning appeared, so strong it broke through to the surface. This was a big enough reason to seek him out, right? It wasn’t just some anxiety and feeling unwell, this had been an honest-to-gods attack. 

He splashed water across his face, rubbing circles beneath his eyes and teasing his fingers through his hair. The coolness brought him further back to solid ground. 

There was no sense in dancing around it anymore. Papa had insisted that he reach out when things were getting tough. The man had made several attempts, as had Phantom, to correspond. Yet each had been interrupted by the clergy’s ever-incessant need to keep Copia busy. Sure it was three o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon, but Phantom needed help. And by Satan, he was done pretending that he didn’t.

~ ~ ~

In the dimly lit hallway leading to the clergy offices, Phantom clutched at his chest as he moved along the walls. His breath felt as if it were catching in his throat, coming in short increments as the weight of anxiety weighed down on him like an anvil. The air around him seemed thinner than it had been in the depths of the basement and every heartbeat echoed loudly in his ears. 

The bravado that had driven Phantom towards Copia’s office was dwindling with each step. But he was desperate for relief and had come too far to allow his guilt and shame to win. Yet, his legs trembled beneath him like jelly and his mind screamed profanities, words he didn’t want to hear but had no strength to stop. 

Finally, he stopped outside an ornate, deep mahogany door. The lettering on its golden plate read ‘Papa Emeritus IV’ . The young ghoul took a deep, shuttering breath, his eyes shutting briefly, before wrapping his knuckles against the wood. There was the shuffling of papers and muttering of voices from within, followed by movement. 

“Un momento per favoure.” Came a melodic voice from within. 

Phantom took a step back, a hand still grasping at his shirt, as the door was pulled inwards. Copia stared back at him, brows rising upwards as their eyes met.  

“Ah, Phantom.” He said before turning his head to address those in the room, “I will be just a moment. I trust you can talk amongst yourselves, si ?”

Without waiting for a response he stepped out into the hallway, clicking the door shut behind him. Phantom, visibly shaking and out of breath, leaned heavily against the window behind him, holding the sill for better support. 

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t m-mean to interrupt you.” The ghoul stuttered, his voice somewhat strangled. 

“Please do not be sorry, Quin.” Copia gently placed a hand on Phantom’s shoulder, “What is going on? You look - I hope you do not mind me saying - terrible!” 

“Y-You’re busy. I-”

“Phantom, mio diavolo , I have a moment for you. Please talk to me.” 

Between ragged breaths, Phantom began recounting the overwhelming wave of panic that had engulfed and left him desperate for solace. The plea for help hung in the air between them as the ghoul slowly lost all momentum, his mind taking over and shutting down word by word. Guilt swirled in his gut, made worse by the knot in Copia’s brow and the remainder of company beyond the door. 

He was a busy Papa for Satan’s sake. What made Phantom think he had time for him? 

“But it’s - it’s fine. I-I s-should go. I really don’t know what brought me here.”

Phantom struggled,”I-I’m alright.” 

“Are you though?” Copia questioned. 

Before Phantom could respond the door to Copia’s office began to open behind him. The clergyman quickly turned on his heel to hinder the interruption. Phantom couldn’t see who he was speaking to, all he could hear was an exchange of Italian between the two, but he knew it was urgent. When Copia finally returned to him, the office securely shut again to give them some level of privacy, his lips were pulled into a tight frown. 

“I am so sorry, Quin. I want to be here for you, believe me, I do, but the clergy are relentless in their tasks,” he explained, his voice filled with genuine regret.

Phantom’s desperation deepened and he fought back tears, feeling a pang of disappointment at the inability to find relief. But he bit at his bottom lip, determined to accept his rejection with at least some resemblance of dignity. 

“Please accept my deepest apologies. I do not intend to do this, believe me, but I need to finish this meeting with Brother Gabriel and Papa Secundo. You understand, si ? I promise I will call you later.”

“O-okay.” Phantom whispered, taking several deep and shaky breaths. 

“We will speak later this evening. In the meantime keep breathing deeply, and practice what we talked about back on tour, si ?” 

Silence stretched thin between them as Phantom fought to find the words to respond. His heart felt heavy in his chest, stomach wrought tight with festering shame and anger. Yet, he understood the obligations life as Papa held. Phantom was not his only priority and he was selfish for ever thinking any different. 

"O-okay, I'll-I’ll try," he finally whispered, taking shaky breaths as he continued to lean against the cool glass. 

“Will you be alright until then? Do you need me to call one of your pack to walk you back to the den?” 

Phantom shook his head, careful to avert his eyes for fear that the clergyman would see his tears. The last thing he wanted was any of his ghoul-kin to see him like this, defeated and rejected outside their Papa’s door. 

“Quin,” Copia reached for Phantom’s hand but the ghoul moved away, his body shuttering backwards. A flash of surprise flooded the clergyman’s countenance but only for a moment, “We will talk this evening. Please be safe until then. Promise me?”  

But the ghoul didn’t respond, he simply nodded over and over until he resembled a novelty ornament. His body continued to back away as Copia stood, hands helplessly in the air as if he wanted nothing more than to reach for him. 

“Phantom…”

The little ghoul turned on his heel and bolted from the hallway. He ignored the shouts from Papa and pushed through the pain blazing in his chest, his thoughts consumed with hiding. He had made a fool of himself and as he ran, brickwork and bodies blurring around him, it was all he could do to keep himself from falling apart.

Not now. Not until you’re safe beyond the door of your nest. The shame he felt was heavy enough. He didn’t need the pack or, Satan forbid, strangers seeing him for the pitiful wretch he truly was. 

Eventually Phantom found himself at the entrance to the ghoul wing and it occurred to him that while his bed was safely beyond, so were his kin. 

The ghoul dragged the rough fabric of his sleeves across his eyes. The skin felt raw and swollen from crying, and he knew without a doubt that his pack would clock it immediately. Sighing he stepped into the den and prayed to Satan that everyone was still working on their chores. 

But he wasn’t so lucky.

Crowded around the open fire of the living area were Swiss, Cumulus, Dew and Cirrus, all cradling mugs of various colours and enjoying each other's company. Their conversation drifted off as Phantom attempted to move past them and into the corridor connecting their rooms.

“Afternoon bug!” Swiss called through a toothy grin, “Want a cup of coffee?” 

Phantom offered a firm shake of his head in response, his eyes fixed on the floor in front of him. His heartbeat thundered in his chest and he felt his fingers begin to shake. He thrust them into the pocket of his hooded top in an attempt to conceal them. 

Cumulus placed her mug on the coffee table and swiftly moved towards the little ghoul. 

“Are you alright bug?” She asked, raising her arm in an attempt to pull him into a hug. But he flinched and moved backwards away from her grasp. 

“I-I’m fine,” Phantom replied, his voice high and cracking in protest. 

He gave her a half-hearted smile and attempted to move around her, only to be stopped in his tracks by Dew’s shrill voice.

“What? Did Papa kick you out like a stray dog and now you’re too good to hang out with us?” The fire ghoul said, clearly meant as a joke but not landing as one. 

Phantom, despite his fragile mental state, growled deep within his chest. 

“H-how did -.” He grumbled, his hands closing into fists in his pocket. His mind was swimming; How had they known he’d just been at Papa’s?

Beside him Cumulus hovered close by, her ears pulled downwards and her hands daring to come closer. 

“Dew! That was inappropriate.” Cirrus snarled at the fire-ghoul before focusing on Phantom, “Little bug, Papa sent me a little text to let us know you’d just left his office and you were quite upset - .” 

“W-what?” Phantom whined, embarrassment coiling within him and wrapping around his chest like a viper, “No. I-it’s not like that. I-I-I’m fine. It’s - I - I” He struggled to find the words, his heart was hammering in his ears and his mind hazy. 

“Use your words, Bug. You’re not a kit.” Dew spoke again, his voice softer. But the words still stung in Phantom’s ears. 

A kit. They thought him nothing more than a baby unable to use his words. A helpless child running to Papa when things got tough. How pathetic. 

“Fucking hell, Dewdrop! Read the room, dude!” Cirrus landed a strong punch to Dew’s bicep. He hissed as his coffee spilt over the rug under his feet. 

“What? I was only kidding. He knows that. Right, bug?” 

“It’s not the time. He’s upset. Christ!” Cirrus barked, “You need to learn how to be more sensitive.” 

As the pair squabbled, each nipping at the other's heels, Swiss stood to join his mate in comforting Phantom. The multi-ghoul attempted to cross his arm around the young ghoul’s shoulder only to be shrugged off. 

“Bug if something's worrying you we can talk about it. That’s what we’re here for.” Swiss urged. 

Phantom shook his head. He couldn’t meet their eyes, instead keeping them fixated on the blue opal pendant around Cumulus’ neck. In an attempt to calm his beating heart, Phantom thought back to the day it was bought and how excited Swiss had been to find something that described his mate's eyes so perfectly. He’d dragged Phantom and Dew along with him to a crystal shop in downtown Stockholm just for it. It was one of the only times that Phantom had felt included and not just someone to fill the line-up. Swiss, despite his playboy demeanour, had always tried to make an effort with Phantom because, in the multi-ghoul’s words, everyone was new once. 

Somewhere above him, in the land of the living, Cumulus said his name. He looked up to show acknowledgement.

“Bug, sweetheart, can I take you to your nest? Swiss can make you some hot chocolate and I can get you tucked into bed.” 

She meant well, Phantom knew that, but the more she talked the more he felt like a baby being mollycoddled. 

“What do you need, buddy?” Swiss, once again trying and failing to pull the little ghoul into a loving embrace, “We can’t help you if you don’t let us.”

“I-um-I-I just want t-to be left alone.” Phantom managed, his voice hoarse with tears. 

 Swiss and Cumulus exchanged worried looks. Behind them, Cirrus and Dew were silent, their scuffle having come to a close. Phantom didn’t dare look in their direction for fear of what he might see. More pity? Further judgement from Dew? Maybe even frustration. 

“P-please. Can I just go?” Phantom asked meekly. 

With a heavy sigh and a brief moment of ponderous stillness, Swiss nodded. 

“Okay, bug. But you know where we are, right? Just call for us and we’ll be there.” 

Phantom didn’t wait for further confirmation. He pulled his jacket tightly around himself and all but ran in the direction of his room. Behind him, he could hear the hushed whispers spark between the ghouls, but he did his best not to listen. Already ripe with kindling of his own, he didn’t need any more fuel for his fire.

~ Read In Full Here ~

[darkmaga-retard]

John Ellis

Aug 05, 2024

1. Stock markets tumbled on Monday, with Japanese shares at one point exceeding their 1987 "Black Monday" loss, as fears of a U.S. recession sent investors fleeing from risk while wagering that rate cuts would be needed to rescue growth. The safe haven yen and Swiss franc surged, as crowded carry trades unravelled, sparking speculation that some investors were unloading profitable trades to get money to cover losses elsewhere. Such was the torrent of selling that circuit breakers were triggered on stock exchanges across Asia. (Source: reuters.com)

2. Taiwan stocks ended down 8.4% on Monday, a record slump, with tech stocks including TSMC plunging as investors sold off one of Asia's top performing markets this year, spooked by a poor outlook for global tech stocks and the U.S. economy. The main index shed 1,807.21 points, its worst one-day percentage fall, to close at 19,830.88, the lowest level since April 23. The decline was fuelled by a sell-off in tech, and then spread more broadly as the index dipped below the key 20,000 level. (Source: reuters.com)

3. Earlier today, South Korea's stock market marked its worst session since the global financial crisis of 2008, with trading curbs activated for the first time in four years, as tech stocks slumped amid U.S. recession fears. The benchmark KOSPI stock index ended the session down 8.8% at 2,441.55, its biggest percentage fall since Oct. 24, 2008. During the session, the KOSPI fell as much as 10.8%, triggering circuit breakers for the first time since March 2020, which are trading curbs activated when the index falls or rises more than 8% and halts trading of stocks and derivatives for 20 minutes. (Source: reuters.com)

4. A closely watched measure of expected US stock market turbulence surged to its highest level in almost four years today as a global stock sell-off gathered pace. The Vix index of expected volatility in the S&P 500 — commonly known as Wall Street’s “fear gauge” — rose to as much as 41.8 points by morning in London to its highest level since November 2020, breaking above an intraday peak in March 2023 following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. The Vix measures the price of options that enable investors to profit from swings in the S&P 500. (Source: ft.com)

5. U.S. pension funds are beginning to explore investments around bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, a move that could expose millions of former teachers, police officers, firefighters and other retirees to the wild ups and downs of a largely unregulated financial product. In at least five states, industry lobbyists have aggressively hawked the idea, aiming to woo local lawmakers with the promise that digital assets can deliver sky-high profits — often without fully acknowledging the possible risks. The emerging sales campaign contrasts with the broad warnings in Washington that investing in cryptocurrency could leave retirees’ life savings vulnerable to “fraud, theft and loss.” (Source: washingtonpost.com)

6. After more than a decade as a recurring tea-time conversation topic, the delay in retirement is nearing reality in China, set to impact over 500 million workers as the country grapples with a rapidly aging population. The five-year reform blueprint, released last month following a key Communist Party gathering, includes a commitment to raise the retirement age. According to the resolution adopted at the Third Plenum of the party’s 20th Central Committee, China will gradually increase the statutory retirement age based on the principle of “voluntary participation with appropriate flexibility.” For the first time, a key policy document outlines the principles of the reform, fueling expectations that the decade-long initiative will soon be implemented. (Source: caixinglobal.com)