#you guys sound like Mormons

[torchickentacos]

Knowing Andrew Rannells for being Harley of Pokemon fame is probably like knowing Taylor Swift for voicing that chick from The Lorax or knowing Harry Styles as that guy from wattpad. And I do not mean to diminish Andrew Rannells' amazing contributions to the world of theater, he has done far bigger and probably better things, but that's just Harley's voice actor to me tbh

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Kickstarting a new Martin Hench novel about the dawn of enshittification

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/07/weird-pcs/#a-mormon-bishop-an-orthodox-rabbi-and-a-catholic-priest-walk-into-a-personal-computing-revolution

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by @wilwheaton:

http://martinhench.com

This is the third Hench novel, following on from the nationally bestselling The Bezzle (2024) and Red Team Blues (2023). I wrote Red Team Blues with a funny conceit: what if I wrote the final volume of a beloved, long-running series, without writing the rest of the series? Turns out, the answer is: "Your editor will buy a whole bunch more books in the series!"

My solution to this happy conundrum? Write the Hench books out of chronological order. After all, Marty Hench is a financial hacker who's been in Silicon Valley since the days of the first PCs, so he's been there for all the weird scams tech bros have dreamed up since Jobs and Woz were laboring in their garage over the Apple I. He's the Zelig of high-tech fraud! Look hard at any computing-related scandal and you'll find Marty Hench in the picture, quietly and competently unraveling the scheme, dodging lawsuits and bullets with equal aplomb.

Which brings me to Picks and Shovels. In this volume, we travel back to Marty's first job, in the 1980s – the weird and heroic era of the PC. Marty ended up in the Bay Area after he flunked out of an MIT computer science degree (he was too busy programming computers to do his classwork), and earning his CPA at a community college.

Silicon Valley in the early eighties was wild: Reaganomics stalked the land, the AIDS crisis was in full swing, the Dead Kennedys played every weekend, and man were the PCs ever weird. This was before the industry crystalized into Mac vs PC, back when no one knew what they were supposed to look like, who was supposed to use them, and what they were for.

Marty's first job is working for one of the weirder companies: Fidelity Computing. They sound like a joke: a computer company run by a Mormon bishop, a Catholic priest and an orthodox rabbi. But the joke's on their customers, because Fidelity Computing is a scam: a pyramid sales cult that exploits religious affinities to sell junk PCs that are designed to lock customers in and squeeze them for every dime. A Fidelity printer only works with Fidelity printer paper (they've gimmicked the sprockets on the tractor-feed). A Fidelity floppy drive only accepts Fidelity floppies (every disk is sold with a single, scratched-out sector and the drives check for an error on that sector every time they run).

Marty figures out he's working for the bad guys when they ask him to destroy Computing Freedom, a scrappy rival startup founded by three women who've escaped from Fidelity Computing's cult: a queer orthodox woman who's been kicked out of her family; a radical nun who's thrown in with the Liberation Theology movement in opposing America's Dirty Wars; and a Mormon woman who's quit the church in disgust at its opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment. The women of Computing Freedom have a (ahem) holy mission: to free every Fidelity customer from the prison they were lured into.

Marty may be young and inexperienced, but he can spot a rebel alliance from a light year away and he knows what side he wants to be on. He joins the women in their mission, and we're deep into a computing war that quickly turns into a shooting war. Turns out the Reverend Sirs of Fidelity Computer aren't just scammers – they're mobbed up, and willing to turn to lethal violence to defend their racket.

This is a rollicking crime thriller, a science fiction novel about the dawn of the computing revolution. It's an archaeological expedition to uncover the fossil record of the first emergence of enshittification, a phenomenon that was born with the PC and its evil twin, the Reagan Revolution.

The book comes out on Feb 15 in hardcover and ebook from Macmillan (US/Canada) and Bloomsbury (UK), but neither publisher is doing the audiobook. That's my department.

Why? Well, I love audiobooks, and I especially love the audiobooks for this series, because they're read by the incredible Wil Wheaton, hands down my favorite audiobook narrator. But that's not why I retain my audiobook rights and produce my own audiobooks. I do that because Amazon's Audible service refuses to carry any of my audiobooks.

Here's how that works: Audible is a division of Amazon, and they've illegally obtained a monopoly over the audiobook market, controlling more than 90% of audiobook sales in many genres. That means that if your book isn't for sale on Audible, it might as well not exist.

But Amazon won't let you sell your books on Audible unless you let them wrap those books in "digital rights management," a kind of encryption that locks them to Audible's authorized players. Under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it's a felony punishable with a 5-year sentence and a $500k fine to supply you with a tool to remove an audiobook from Audible and play it on a rival app. That applies even if the person who gives you the tool is the creator of the book!

You read that right: if I make an audiobook and then give you the tools to move it out of Amazon's walled garden, I could go to prison for five years! That's a stiffer sentence than you'd face if you were to just pirate the audiobook. It's a harsher penalty than you'd get for shoplifting the book on CD from a truck-stop. It's more draconian than the penalty for hijacking the truck that delivers the CDs!

Amazon knows that every time you buy an audiobook from Audible, you increase the cost you'll have to pay if you switch to a competitor. They use that fact to give readers a worse deal (last year they tried out ads in audiobooks!). But the people who really suffer under this arrangement are the writers, whom Amazon abuses with abandon, knowing they can't afford to leave the service because their readers are locked into it. That's why Amazon felt they could get away with stealing $100 million from indie audiobook creators (and yup, they got away with it):

https://www.audiblegate.com/about

Which is why none of my books can be sold with DRM. And that means that Audible won't carry any of them.

For more than a decade, I've been making my own audiobooks, in partnership with the wonderful studio Skyboat Media and their brilliant director, Gabrielle de Cuir:

https://skyboatmedia.com/

I pay fantastic narrators a fair wage for their work, then I pay John Taylor Williams, the engineer who masters my podcasts, to edit the books and compose bed music for the intro and outro. Then I sell the books at every store in the world – except Audible and Apple, who both have mandatory DRM. Because fuck DRM.

Paying everyone a fair wage is expensive. It's worth it: the books are great. But even though my books are sold at many stores online, being frozen out of Audible means that the sales barely register.

That's why I do these Kickstarter campaigns, to pre-sell thousands of audiobooks in advance of the release. I've done six of these now, and each one was a huge success, inspiring others to strike out on their own, sometimes with spectacular results:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2022/04/01/brandon-sanderson-kickstarter-41-million-new-books/7243531001/

Today, I've launched the Kickstarter for Picks and Shovels. I'm selling the audiobook and ebook in DRM-form, without any "terms of service" or "license agreement." That means they're just like a print book: you buy them, you own them. You can read them on any equipment you choose to. You can sell them, give them away, or lend them to friends. Rather than making you submit to 20,000 words of insulting legalese, all I ask of you is that you don't violate copyright law. I trust you!

Speaking of print books: I'm also pre-selling the hardcover of Picks and Shovels and the paperbacks of The Bezzle and Red Team Blues, the other two Marty Hench books. I'll even sign and personalize them for you!

http://martinhench.com

I'm also offering five chances to commission your own Marty Hench story – pick your favorite high-tech finance scam from the past 40 years of tech history, and I'll have Marty bust it in a custom short story. Once the story is published, I'll make sure you get credit. Check out these two cool Little Brother stories my previous Kickstarter backers commissioned:

Spill

https://reactormag.com/spill-cory-doctorow/

Vigilant

https://reactormag.com/vigilant-cory-doctorow/

I'm heading out on tour this winter and spring with the book. I'll be in LA, San Francisco, San Diego, Burbank, Bloomington, Chicago, Richmond VA, Toronto, NYC, Boston, Austin, DC, Baltimore, Seattle, and other dates still added. I've got an incredible roster of conversation partners lined up, too: John Hodgman, Charlie Jane Anders, Dan Savage, Ken Liu, Peter Sagal, Wil Wheaton, and others.

I hope you'll check out this book, and come out to see me on tour and say hi. Before I go, I want to leave you with some words of advance praise for Picks and Shovels:

I hugely enjoyed Picks and Shovels. Cory Doctorow’s reconstruction of the age is note perfect: the detail, the atmosphere, ethos, flavour and smell of the age is perfectly conveyed. I love Marty and Art and all the main characters. The hope and the thrill that marks the opening section. The superb way he tells the story of the rise of Silicon Valley (to use the lazy metonym), inserting the stories of Shockley, IBM vs US Government, the rise of MS – all without turning journalistic or preachy.

The seeds of enshittification are all there… even in the sunlight of that time the shadows are lengthening. AIDS of course, and the coming scum tide of VCs. In Orwellian terms, the pigs are already rising up on two feet and starting to wear trousers. All that hope, all those ideals…

I love too the thesis that San Francisco always has failed and always will fail her suitors.

Despite cultural entropy, enshittification, corruption, greed and all the betrayals there’s a core of hope and honour in the story too.

-Stephen Fry

Cory Doctorow writes as few authors do, with tech world savvy and real world moral clarity. A true storyteller for our times.

-John Scalzi

A crackling, page-turning tumble into an unexpected underworld of queer coders, Mission burritos, and hacker nuns. You will fall in love with the righteous underdogs of Computing Freedom—and feel right at home in the holy place Doctorow has built for them far from Silicon Valley’s grabby, greedy hands."

-Claire Evans, editor of Motherboard Future, author of Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet.

"Wonderful…evokes the hacker spirit of the early personal computer era—and shows how the battle for software freedom is eternal."

-Steven Levy, author of Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution and Facebook: The Inside Story.

What could be better than a Martin Hench thriller set in 1980s San Francisco that mixes punk rock romance with Lotus spreadsheets, dot matrix printers and religious orders? You'll eat this up – I sure did.

-Tim Wu, Special Assistant to the President for Technology and Competition Policy, author of The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires

Captures the look and feel of the PC era. Cory Doctorow draws a portrait of a Silicon Valley and San Francisco before the tech bros showed up — a startup world driven as much by open source ideals as venture capital gold.

-John Markoff, Pulitzer-winning tech columnist for the New York Times and author of What the Doormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry

You won't put this book down – it's too much fun. I was there when it all began. Doctorow's characters and their story are real.

-Dan'l Lewin, CEO and President of the Computer History Museum

[roses-red-and-pink]

Lolol sometimes it’s so funny reading peoples posts about “Mormon” theology that is based on Exmo stories, tradition/culture but not doctrine, and like random statements by some church leader 200 years ago that was not put into doctrine/canonized, or that he was corrected/reprimanded on, and all of us look back on like “well that guy was racist/sexist. Anyways moving on…” like tbh it just makes me laugh. Like I know our theology is a bit different than mainstream Christianity but y’all don’t need to make it sound like we are out here truly believing half the stuff you say about us.

[citronavalkiro]

Not a Mormon but I found this tag since one of my autistic interests is Mormon church history and I must say you guys are awesome! I really don’t like how the church tends to hide all of their doctrine on space like how there is gods of different planets and Kolob and you could be one too. Like who wouldn’t want the chance to become a god? That sounds like it would appeal to a lot of people! I asked a missionary in high school about that because I really liked that part and he laughed at me saying that it is anti Mormon propaganda which lost me for a while. I also like how you guys are trying to change the church for the better and make it more accepting of people who don’t quite fit the mold. Keep it up!

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Magic Man

Kiersten White: Submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of the creepy kids show Stephen King: oh excellent! a creepy pasta! King: my boy joe told me all about those King: like that scary cartoon sponge man! Joe Hill: it was squidward, dad King: right right of course joe

White: this isn't a creepypasta White: it's about a weird show that everyone vaguely remember watching but can't remember any details of White: and also the time slot and channel mysteriously seem to shift Kris Straub: ah! candle cove! White: no White: no this is different

King: haha remember in candle cove when the boat is all King: "you have to go inside" Straub: yeah i remember Poe: spooky stuff! Koontz: ha ha! "you have to go inside" White: White: it's not candle cove

Barker: you're all saying it wrong Barker: it's all like Barker: "you have to go.... INSIDE" Barker: see, you gotta get the inflection right King: you said it exactly the same Barker: no it was way scarier when i said it King: "you have to go... inside" Barker: hmm no not quite right King: i don't see the difference Barker: kris who said it right Kris Straub: clive Barker: see??? King: i really don't think i said it any different White: ANYWAY

White: this is about a creepy kids show called Mister Magic White: these kids are forced to live on a set away from their parents White: until one kids dad tries to take her away White: but try to understand dad White: try to understand White: try try try to understand White: he's a magic man

White: now it's 30 years later and she's going to a show reunion White: and she's all "hey what happened 30 years ago? i forgot" White: and everyone's all "lol not telling!" White: gotta preserve the mystery White: at least til the final reel

White: see, these Mormons found an eldritch god in the desert White: and they thought White: you know what would be good to do with this? White: make a kids show about how you should always be polite King: uhhh Poe: no actually that kinda scans

White: the now grown up kids from the show have to reunite White: and defeat mister magic through the power of um... King: understanding? White: Yeah! it can totally be like understanding or forgiveness or something White: they overcome all their fears White: and they turn out totally fine

King: i didn't know candle cove was really just lessons about being polite! White: IT'S NOT CANDLE COVE King: "you have to go... INSIDE!!" Straub: there Straub: there it is Straub: you got it that time

King: creepypastas are so much fun, why don't we have more of them around here? Mr Creepypasta: now I've heard a guy tell a story hundreds of times. saying perfectly ordinary words. just mouth sounds. perfectly ordinary. nothing weird about them. very normal. nothing to worry about Chillz: here's the TOP tennnn VIDEooooos PROvinGGGG THAT the dracullllaaaa is real King: oh yeah now i remember

Eric Knudsen: i have a story about the terrible secret of space HP Lovecraft: what Lovecraft: what is the terrible secret of space? Lovecraft: is it a color? Lovecraft: cuz i already know that one

[phantomrose96]

Welcome to Renting in a Big City!!! Come with me! Let me walk you through your options!

First I cannot recommend enough one of these new-construction luxury apartment complexes! The amenities are killer and the maintenance is lightning-fast. Your apartment? This rectangular box with three interior walls. We don't like the term "studio" as much as "open concept." It's 400 sqft and the rent will increase 12% year over year (or maybe 30% 😉) once we start attracting all the rich people we want, and also if you attempt to move out at any moment that's not the exact end of your lease (with 60 days notice to not renew) then we'll charge you a 2-months-rent lease breaking fee.

Okay not your style? Don't worry we've got plenty of options in cozy residential areas within the city! Like this apartment! The building was built 150 years ago and the landlord is an 80 year old man who lives 7 states away and insists you mail him your rent every month since technology scares him. Need something fixed? No worries your landlord has great connections to a guy who knows a guy who has a son who's held a hammer once. He's very busy though so please give him 2 or 3 months to respond to anything. The ants were here first and they have squatters rights now so no you can't call maintenance about that.

Oh sorry I wasn't listening--both of those options are 2.5x your budget? No worries no worries I've got plenty of stuff in your price range. THIS beautiful place is only 40 minutes outside the city (2.5 hours in traffic, which is always). It's a modern-concept renovated shed and your neighborhood is the sad industrial remains of concrete and shattered dreams. The broker's fee for this is 5x rent. The construction outside your bedroom window has been going for 5 years, but it MIGHT be finished tomorrow? That's what we told the guy 5 years ago. (We do already have 7 applications for this place, so please decide quickly.)

Okay okay okay, I see the look on your face, not your style. You're a roommate kinda guy, yeah? Of course you are. Everyone is! (Not by choice.) Plenty of opportunities on Facebook and Craigslist to fill in a roommate slot! Just keep clear of rookie mistakes and you'll be golden. Rookie mistake #1: falling for a malicious scam which will take first last and security from you before vanishing into the night. Easy mistake. The best way to avoid it is to don't do it. Stay suspicious of any place pressuring you to make a decision quickly, which is all of them, including the legit places! Rookie mistake #2: signing in to the most batshit abusive and unstable roommate situation you've seen in your life, which the guy you're taking the lease over from was selling his soul to escape. You'll be WISHING you had the ant roommates then haha. We have fun here.

Man you're not looking excited :( that's bumming me out. Okay okay, something a little outside the box? You can get a room for SUPER cheap in this mansion right at the heart of the city, you just kinda need to join the cult that's living there. You can--oh wait what? Oh man, turns out the cult is selling the building :( yeah sounds like they're on hard financial times because they're the cult Shinzo Abe was assassinated over :( real sad. We DO still have a cool Mormon co-op if you--

[boofindoopin]

My very best friend Christian, I am very obviously NOT. So, that’s results in both of us not understanding the other We both respect and each others faiths. Even though we love and respect each others religions, of course we make fun of each others faith. Here’s some examples of being confused and being little assholes:

Friend: You know your religion- *pauses, clearly deep in thought* never mind, that’s rude.

Me: What? Say it. Know I wanna know. Say it.

Friend: You’re religion is very, uh, culty at times…

Me: Mormons.

Friend: Good point, I can’t fight you in that actually.

_____________________________________

Me: Tell me about the big fantasy book you’re always talking ‘bout :3

Friend: THE BIBLE? You’re a dick sometimes, I swear to god

Me: *gasp* don’t use the lords name in vain!

_____________________________________

Friend telling me about the angels: So, there’s these guys called the arch angels. Their names are Michael-

Me,raising hand: …

Friend: yeah?

Me: aren’t angels in charge of stuff?

Friend: they’re messengers. Do you mean the saints? The saints have things they reside over.

Me: yeah yeah! Who’s in charge of travel?

Friend: Saint Christopher.

Me: who’s in charge of war?

Friend: Michael I think…?

Me: … um what about love?

Friend: Valentine.

Me: um, hey, these just sound like gods. I think those are gods.

Friend: no! They’re way different!

Me: are they not immortal?

Friend: no, they are immortal?

Me: and they have domains…

Friend: yeah, sure

Me: but, they aren’t gods…?

Friend: no.

Me: I DON’T GET IT! 😭

Friend: … i do…

_____________________________________

Me: Man, I love Lord Thanatos so much. He’s so sweet-

Friend: why do you call him Lord…?

Me: idk. Just feels a bit more respectful. Lots of people refer to the gods as lord or lady.

Friend: why…

Me:… don’t you call Jesus your lord and savior…?

Friend: I mean, yeah, but I think that’s different-

Me: I REALLY DON’T 😭

[now-im-picturing-you]

i need to fuck sister barnes so bad likeeeee. and she’s so sensitive too i mean cmon

Oh babe... that whole movie was spent imagining kissing her neck.

You know her experiences are sooo limited, with being Mormon and all. She hasn't done much with guys, let alone girls.

Being the one to fuck her for the first time... sitting on the couch, watching a movie when you start kissing. Innocently at first, and then it gets more heated. Pulling away to kiss her neck, and her hands are in your hair, grounding her.

Looking up at her through your lashes and asking if this is okay, if she wants to stop, if you can keep going. She's hesitant, but says yes.

You're so incredibly gentle with her, soft touches and little kisses. You don't want to overwhelm her, not her first time. So you go slowly, almost excruciatingly slowly. But she seems to like it, sighing softly as you kiss down your body.

Biting back her moans when you start teasing her clit, but you tell her you want to hear her. It takes a bit of coaxing, but when she finally moans it's the most beautiful sound. She's bright red, but you think it's the hottest thing you've ever heard.

Gently holding her thighs apart as you eat her out, and they clench around your head as she can barely comprehend the feeling. Her hands are in your hair, trying to bring your head closer to her cunt.

Only making her cum once, not wanting to overwhelm her still. But you do make sure to kiss her so that she can taste herself on your lips. She's so embarrassed, but you thought the whole thing was incredibly sexy.

I need to corrupt her so bad actually...

[theangrypomeranian]

SO! for the hell of it, I decided to pick 5 of my favorite musicals for each Belcher and explain why I think they would love it. let's get started~

(long post warning lol)

Louise:

for starters, this musical is HILARIOUS. many songs and different parts make me laugh out loud and I think would make Louise laugh too. not to mention it is gory and bloody, which of course would please our lil maniac. I also think she would love Cheyl and Ash's relationship and maybe even relate to it with her siblings.

(this is also me begging people to watch/listen to this musical because imo it should be way more popular)

Gene:

Book of Mormon is iconic in every way and I think Gene would love it from the opening number. I also think he would relate to Arnold Cunningham and the journey his character goes on in the musical. some of the lines in the music numbers also remind me of the out-of-pocket things Gene tends to say in the show lol. fun fact, the guys that write South Park wrote and produced this musical.

Tina:

everything about this musical SCREAMS Tina Belcher. she would relate to Veronica Sawyer so hard and see all of her bullies in the Heathers. not to mention the toxic love story between Veronica and JD is totally something that 13 year old Tina would have written in one of her EFFs. all in all, this is the choice I feel the most confident about.

Linda:

if you think Linda Belcher wouldn't love this musical, you are lying to yourself. the music! the romance! the drama! Linda would ADORE this one and definitely belt out the songs while working in the restaurant or cleaning the apartment. you can’t go wrong with Phantom of the Opera.

Bob:

listen idgaf if Hamilton is considered "cringe" or "problematic" by today's standards, I love this musical. and I think Bob would have a secret obsession with it. he already loves CAKE and some parts of Hamilton sound like it. plus we all know Bob is a big ol' softie and would be in tears through all of the last number. though he would definitely be FURIOUS with Hamilton for cheating on Eliza.

this was fun, maybe I'll do this again for other characters in the show. for now, these are my picks. *bows*

[laniusbignaturals]

Please more modern Edward!

I’ll assume this is the same person who asked for titplay headcanons, so this will be NSFT. There’s also violence and grotesque toxicity. Be wary of that.

Absolutely disgusting first one but whatever - his nose is huge, and he likes to bare knucklebox, so naturally it’s been dislocated several times. Often he will just snap the bone back into place with his knuckles. This sounds cool on paper, but it doesn’t do anything to alter the ridiculous, nasally, congested tone that develops in his voice every time he sustains this injury, so. Cringe!

Edward doesn’t have as many tattoos in this universe, but he does have a branding on his arm from his time spent in a fraternity in college. He used a frozen brand, because he’s scared of fire. (I know.)

Joshua would love to strangle him but his neck is really thick and Joshua’s hands aren’t that big, so he can never do it as effectively as he would like to. This frustration increases the thrill for both of them, tbh.

Edward likes short bitches because he is a short bitch because he looks bigger standing next to them and they’re often just as pissy, spiteful and tense as he is.

As I’ve referenced in the past, Edward has done coke, but he’s not as big of a speedfreak/accelerant lover as you might assume of a man like him. Edward, constitutionally, is hardly ever calm, content or relaxed. Alcohol might soothe that need for others, but Edward severely dislikes the way heavy drinking debilitates his control over himself, so he doesn’t do it unless he’s desperate. Other depressants, like Xanax, Oxy and Neuroleptics have been known to work well on him. But these trips bring him dangerously close to like, meaningfully doubting himself. So he doesn’t do them often, and always acts like he’s forgotten their contents completely once they’re over.

On that note: Edward forgets a lot of stuff. It’s his superpower. It’s cus he’s a gaslighter, it’s cus he grew up without a sense of objective truth, it’s cus he saw a lot of things that small children can’t comprehend and learned how to stop accepting reality on command to stave off an immediate breakdown. It just sort of comes naturally to him, so much so that he’s confident this is human nature. And he’s sure as shit not gonna let objective fact get in the way of that judgement anytime soon.

Edward worked enough Real Jobs that he could always live comfortably before solidifying a corrupt position of power. By the time he’s in his late 50s/early 60s, they’ve really stacked up. He’s been an editor, a foreman, a bail bondsmen, a landlord, a professor (for court mandated community service hours,) a chef, and pretty much every other profession that’s easier if you’re a complete jackass. The long term affect of this Jack-Of-All-Trades lifestyle is that he doesn’t have shared life experience with most other people. This helps him isolate himself more comfortably.

Joshua once watched Edward slice up someone’s throat with a pair of garden shears. Afterwards, they went out to eat and Edward got him to break some Mormon food rules. It was a cute date.

Joshua’s got a big family, and he was fond of most of them. Edward might have an extended family, but if he does, he is rejecting them like a bad limb transplant. He actively does not want to know if he’s got any living half siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, or cousins. He doesn’t even talk to his old high school friends. He will be an only child till the grave.

This is not an original thought, but he’s a beer guy. He’s that beer guy. The one who uses it as a part of his personality the way toxic white girls do iced coffee. Not only that it’s a weird sadomasochistic performance of gender, but also that he uses its purveyance and consumption as an expression of intimacy and camaraderie. Asking if you want a beer is Edward’s idea of affection.

Another thing Edward does for people he thinks he cares about is protect their ego. He will take your side when you’re obviously wrong and buy you a new blouse when you ruin yours and roll up all the windows in the car when you’re having a meltdown in the passenger seat. This behavior exists alongside intense possessiveness and sporadic cruelty because of course it does. Edward is sweet as antifreeze. The state of possession and the loss of autonomy is the only dynamic he believes to be worth maintaining, and even then, it’s more about the attempt than ever being fully successful. To receive his love is sickening.

Joshua has torn the buttons on Edward’s shirt to lick rivulets of wine off his breasts and pistol whipped him before jerking off on his bloody face and ashed cigarettes on him mid-fuck and called him every filthy degrading name in the book and Edward still identifies as the dominant between them. He is clinging to that pitcher’s mound like a ship in a storm.

He doesn’t believe in god, but there is room in his mind for hell. Deep down, he craves it. The grandiosity, the submission, the finality. Joshua likes this about him.

Have you ever broken into a house or apartment while the owner was at home? Edward has. It used to be for the purpose of stealing, but he didn’t give up the practice when he became economically stable. The truth is that he enjoys it. He enjoys busting in doors and breaking windows and hearing wives and daughters scream and making people feel scared & helpless in a place they thought was safe. This is such a brazen maladaptive recreation of his own trauma that he’ll sometimes find himself having uncomfortable emotions while doing it, so it’s an occasional occurrence. But still.

He had the most control over his body in his early and mid twenties, so during that era he had a quiet exhibition fetish. He’d get into bars, gyms, classrooms, bathhouses and libraries after hours with whoever he was fucking that month & get totally naked, savoring the fantasy of being seen and admired by dozens of eyes. His idea of beauty is an empty room. (No this doesn’t indicate anything about him what are you talking about.)

[brothermouse]

Sunday doodle 8/11/24

Pitched this idea last week and got some positive responses so here’s one part of my new project. You know where it’s a collection of sketches and letters set in a steampunk alternate history world where some guy is traveling through Deseret, drawing cool stuff he sees and trying to convince his friend back home that he’s not going to get murdered by the Mormons.

Letter transcript:

My Dear Friend Victor,

As my previous letter was sent from a rather dubious, yet reliable location, I anticipate that this letter shall outpace it and reach you first. As such, I shall briefly recount its contents.

First you must know that I am well and relatively unscathed. When I arrived in St George I believed all my rough traveling behind me and it would be airships all the way to Salt Lake. Hardly thirty minutes in the sky a band of Confederate Holdouts revealed themselves and took control of the ship, intending to sail it back to one of their secret enclaves in the South to aid in their misguided “war effort”. Fortunately they were foiled by a Deseret Federal Marshal (Lt. Whitterby of the Danite division) who subdued the rebels and orchestrated an emergency landing in the town of Kanab, a good distance east of St George. As I said, the exact details are in my other letter which I sent from the Kenab post office. The postmaster there seemed old as Methusala, leading to my doubt on the speediness of that letter’s delivery. This letter I shall send from the St George post office which is of a more modern fashion.

But I must tell you of the mechanical wonder I encountered in Kanab! After the ordeal the band of Johnny Rebs were locked securely in the Kanab town hall (the town is too small for a proper jailhouse). The other passengers and I were given a little rest and refreshment in the same building (the town is also too small for a hotel). I took this time to write my previous (or possibly forthcoming) letter and send it off. After a while we heard the sound of twin airships approaching. These were the Thunderbird and the Tiancum, which Lt. Whitterby called for. One to return us to St George and the other to take away the villains. He asked us to remain where we were, that we might witness the official arrest and then sign documents witnessing that the correct persons were taken into custody (I swear these Mormons are obsessed with everything being witnessed!)

When the Deseret Marshals marched in they were accompanied by the most peculiar automatons. I was able to make sketches, which I have included. There were four of these contraptions, one for each of the Confederates. They each bore the stern face sculpted from copper or brass, I could not tell. I was told that they bore the face of that wiley old General O.P. Rockwell, who gave our General Sherman and all those Union boys such a rough time in the siege of Echo Canyon.

Each Rockwell was directed by its operator to stand directly behind the hijackers and hold the criminals' hands behind their backs, like a pair of handcuffs. Just as I was wondering why entire automatons were called for what a mere pair of handcuffs could do, one of the scoundrels broke free and made a break for it, rushing as though he would leap out of the window to freedom! But then the Rockwell machine did a strange thing. One of its hands dropped, as if it was on a hinge and a small device extended from the open wrist. With a pop, it shot a tiny harpoon attached with a thin wire at the man. I wondered at this, as the harpoon and wire were both far too small to catch a fish, let alone a desperate criminal. But when the harpoon struck him there came a sound like a deep angry buzzing and the man became stiff as a board and toppled over as if dead!

The foiled escapee was looked over and determined to still be alive, (though with quite a lot less fight in him) and was bound in the same manner as the rest. In asking Lt Whitterby what had just transpired, he told me that the machines “Rockwell Automatons” where based on a design currently being used in both London and Chicago ment to assist local law enforcement in apprehending and holding dangerous criminals. When I brought up how easily the man had been felled, the Lieutenant told me that that particular innovation was of pure Deseret origin. In the Chicago models a simple gun is concealed in the wrist, and the London model is given a club. Both were determined to be far too brutal for the liking of the Deseret Marshals, so an alternative device was created. This deceive, I was told, delivers a small electrical charge to the target, not powerful enough to kill, but just enough to temporarily confuse the nervous system and render the target harmless.

But look! I have been writing and sketching aboard the Thunderbird so long that we have been returned to St George so that I might continue my journey to Salt Lake! I must finish this letter and mail it while I can. As always I shall write to you whenever I am able.

Your friend,

Jacob K. Steinsworth

P.S. Please thank your wife, Isabel for her insistence that I carry a pocket Bible on this trip. It proved quite useful during the ordeal with those Confederate hijackers. Again, the full details are in the other letter.

[azure-clockwork]

How Does it Feel to Read Classic Sci-Fi?

Orson Scott Card: Two of the most interesting books you’ll ever read if you’re willing to look past a handful of things. And then you find the planet of Chinese people who worship having debilitating OCD. And the Mormonism. And the fact that the author is wildly homophobic and ought to read his own books.

Robert Heinlein (or at least the Wikipedia Summaries): I guess that’s a neat concept—oh, it’s a sex thing. Um. Gotcha.

Ray Bradbury: Man, I gotta read this thing for class huh. Well here’s hoping it’s good! *three hours later* oh. that’s why he’s famous. this will stick with me forever and I will never look at the phrase ‘soft rain’ the same again. christ. And then repeat 3x.

Isaac Asimov: Wow, this is such an interesting concept! I wonder how the exploration of it will influence the plot! Wait, hey, are you going to add any characters? Any of em? No like, with character traits other than ‘robot psychologist’ and ‘autistic’ and ‘woman’? None of em? No, ‘detective’ isn’t a character trait. Those are all just facts. Aaaand now I’m bored.

Ursula K. Le Guin: Hah, get a load of this guy! He’s never heard of nonbinary people before. Lol, what a riot; how dumb do you have to be to comprehend that these people aren’t men *or* women actually? Oh, wait, what’s happening. Oh shit, it was about society and love and learning to understand each other? And now I’m crying? And perhaps a better human being for it??

Andy Weir: Alright, this guy’s a really good writer. Funny, creative, knows so much engineering stuff…ooh, a new book! …I guess he can’t write women. Well, he wouldn’t be the first sci-fi writer…ooh another new book! And it’s more engineering problem solving and—wow. It’s not just women he can’t write. Please stop letting your characters talk to each other.

Lois Lowry: Oh, I remember this being fun when I was a kid! Wouldn’t it be fucked up to not see color? …upon reread, it would be fucked up to have your humanity stripped away, replaced with a tepid, beige ‘happiness’ for all time. Yeah.

Tamsyn Muir (let me have this ok): Haha, “lesbian necromancers in space” sounds fun. Lemme read this. Oh wow, yeah, this is right up my alley. OH GOD WHAT. NO. FUCK. OH SHIT WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING AND WHY IS IT REFERENCING THE BOOK OF RUTH AND HOMESTUCK BACK TO BACK!!! AHHHHHHHHH!! Now give me more please.

[mightyflamethrower]

HOLLYWOOD, CA — Hollywood critics, actors, and producers are reportedly confused by Sound of Freedom, an action thriller produced by Angel Studios and starring Jim Caviezel, because it depicts child sex trafficking as a bad thing.

According to sources among the nation's entertainment elite, Hollywood insiders had been excited to learn there was a film coming out about sex trafficking but were then disappointed when they found out it's depicted as a negative thing in the film. Critics have been giving the film poor reviews, citing the filmmakers' "baffling" decision to take a stance against the practice, with The New York Times slamming the movie for "not having enough kink."

"It's just confusing," said one director. "You go through all this trouble to make a film about child sex trafficking, and then you end up making the traffickers out to be the bad guys?"

"Such a missed opportunity."

"Yeah, I guess I just don't get it either," said Ezra Miller (they/them). "You're not supposed to kidnap people? Or it's like, frowned upon? Was that wrong? Should I not have done that?"

At publishing time, President Joe Biden had slammed the movie as "a far-right extremist domestic terrorist act" and called upon Congress to pass "common-sense Mormon film control."

(Babylon Bee)

[drdemonprince]

Hey Dr Price, I'm having some issues coming to terms with my identity. I'm a cis gay guy but recently I've been feeling less attached to "guy" I think I'm leaning into it/it's because I think I feel more like an object (and honestly that is 100% in line with my kinks too)

I'm just kind of struggling to know how I'm supposed to feel? I get that probably sounds kinda dumb. Maybe it comes down to never really being able to express myself when growing up having to just ignore all my feelings and be the perfect youngest son and the only one still going to church at the time (mormon so that probably reinforced alot of the negative feelings)

Do you have any recommendations on how to really figure out what I am and if I do fit it/it's?

Or how I can express myself?

It sounds like you believe you must somehow be nonbinary 'enough' or not-cis-man 'enough' to be allowed to use those pronouns. But you can just use them, dog. You also do not need to be certain. Ask friends to use it/its for you, have partners use it during sex or play, list it on your kinky profiles, roleplay an it/its using character in a game. If it already aligns with your kinks it should be pretty easy to work in to negotiations.

It sounds also as though your resonance with it/its has to do with your being objectified and infantilized in a non-sexy way, and not permitted genuine emotionality or flaws. This is a very common gay male trauma, often borne out of repression of one's sexuality and effeminacy, and a desire to compensate for one's queerness by pleasing other people. I recommend reading the book The Best Little Boy in the World by Andrew Tobias to see if you recognize any of yourself in it. I know that I do!!

But remember the most important rule of using it/its is to have fun! You don't need a big justification for it. I use it/its simply because it makes me hard.

[coopcoops]

trey pitching the role of dave the lighting guy to his boy best friend: so you have a mullet and an enthusiasm for life and you don't wanna sound like a queer or nothin' but you totally want to fuck my silly little self insert mormon oc who i just so happen to be playing :)

matt: bet

[uboat53]

In the last few weeks I've gotten some interesting questions and read some interesting things about the atheist perspective and, being the kind of person I am, I thought other people might find some of my thoughts and answers interesting. This is kind of a LONG RANT (TM), but it's a bit more scattershot than usual.

Fair warning, though, this is written entirely from the perspective of an atheist and I haven't softened anything to make it sound better to religious people, read at your own risk. In no particular order, here goes.

FAITH VS RELIGION

First off, I want to make a distinction between faith and religion because it's important to understanding the rest of this. There's some overlap, but for the most part, religion is an organized system of belief while faith is a belief internal to a single person.

The most important thing I want you to recognize from this is that an atheist may not have religion (after all, what's there to organize around?), but I have as much faith in what I believe as any religious person. An agnostic, someone who says "I do believe in God" is a person without faith, but an atheist, a person who says "I believe there is no God" is a person of faith, though not a person of religion.

Keep all of that in mind when reading the rest of this.

WHAT DOES RELIGION LOOK LIKE FROM OUTSIDE?

The specific question I got, from someone who's on their own journey of faith and was curious, was "does any religion look more or less ridiculous to an atheist?" and the short answer is "no". To be perfectly honest, all metaphysical beliefs and all religious rituals and chants look fairly ridiculous from my point of view, but none of them are particularly more ridiculous than any others.

To me, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Paganism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Mormonism, and all of the other thousands or even millions of different religious systems out there are almost indistinguishable to me. Once you take away the specific symbols and trappings, they all come down to the same basic thing. And, sure, they believe different metaphysical things, but I assure you that your familiar metaphysical belief is no less impossible, insane, or ridiculous from the outside than those other people's strange and unfamiliar metaphysical belief.

The slightly longer answer, however, is that there is one form of religion that does look more ridiculous to me as an atheist. It's the religion that demands things of people that don't follow it. Look, you can believe whatever you want and practice whatever you want in your own mind, we all have a right to our own thoughts and beliefs, but it takes a special kind of crazy to think, despite the fact that you can't prove any of these things, that your personal beliefs are so important that they should be forced upon other people.

So, yeah, don't worry about whether this belief or that belief is too crazy, they're all crazy to me, but no more than any other. The only time you've crossed the line is when you become so crazy that you decide you're the universe's main character and everyone else has to do what you say.

THE ANGRY ATHEIST

We've all met that guy, heck, I've been that guy, the angry atheist who loves getting in "debates" and discussions about religion, the guy who sounds like Richard Dawkins or Bill Maher.

I'll level with you, there is pretty much no atheist who hasn't, at some point, been the angry atheist. You probably would be the angry "insert-religion-here" too if you lived in a society where your system of belief wasn't just a minority or disrespected, but actively despised by most of the people around you.

If you're not atheist, I don't expect you to understand the depth of it because they don't do it to you, but lots of religious people are absolutely awful to atheists, and I have a particular point of comparison because I'm also Jewish (not religiously, but that rarely matters). People, Christians mostly where I live and where I grew up, are so much more accepting of a Jew or any other religious minority than an atheist, and I think it's because a Jew doesn't threaten the very idea of religion. Ultimately, a Jew believes in something metaphysical, and that's enough; an atheist rejects the very concept. You have no idea the number of times I've heard religious people tell me that other religions are wrong, but an atheist is worse because no one can be moral without religion (more on that later). No one cared that I was a Jew growing up, at least, not that much, but multiple times in grade school I would have my entire class spend upwards of a half hour trying to convert me, the atheist; all of them against me. You either get good at arguing and debating or you crumble.

Almost every atheist, really as a matter of survival, will become the angry atheist for at least some period as a way to survive this. Going on the offense is a really good way to throw the hate off balance and it can feel good to push hate right back. It took me a while to get past the angry atheist phase and part of it, at least for me, was finding Christopher Hitchens who, while also an obnoxious atheist like Dawkins and Maher, rooted his critique in a powerful morality. These days I'm probably a good deal less obnoxious than Hitchens was, but that's where it started, with an example that wasn't just about "beating" the religious.

So, while I disagree with the angry atheist and the way they approach society, and, if I'm in a position to do so, I'll try to guide them out of it if only because anger is even more toxic for the person experiencing it than it is for the target, I understand it and I certainly don't blame them. If you're a religious person and you encounter this angry atheist, I'd only ask that you treat them with a bit of sympathy; society is regularly far worse to them than they are to you even if you never get to see it.

SOCIAL NORMS

In a bit of a line with the previous topic, you should also realize how heavily societal norms and standards of politeness are slanted toward religious people. To give you an example of this, take the following:

I've been in situations where I've had some kind of personal loss and someone will say "I'm praying for you", "they're in heaven now", or something to that effect. And, look, it's not the kind of social faux pas that's bad enough for me to call out and make a scene about, but why would someone say that to someone who they know is non-religious? I know the intent behind it, but prayers literally do not mean anything to me, heaven doesn't exist to me, and people know that.

Ultimately, it may not be meant that way, but it really comes across as a power move. The atheist may be the one who's suffered a loss and is grieving, but the religious person still has the societal power to force the situation to conform to their beliefs. If an atheist calls them out on it and/or rejects their prayers or well-wishes, then they become the bad guy for not respecting the other person's beliefs because society values religious beliefs over those of an atheist.

And, look, I'm not saying that religious people are evil for doing this; clearly I'm friends with a good many of them and, most of the time, I can take "I'm praying for you" in exactly the way that it's meant, because it's almost always meant well. But, just as racism tends to express itself not through single, overt acts, but through hundreds of individually small actions (normally called "microaggressions"), the prejudice against atheism is similar and, just as most people committing racial microaggressions are unaware they are doing so because they live in a society where white supremacy is normalized, religious people are also mostly unaware of how what they're doing comes across because religious supremacy is so ingrained in our society.

If you've done this, I'm not saying this to make you feel guilty about it or even to make you stop. Like I said, I know it's meant well and, ultimately, it's not your fault; we live in a society where the atheist perspective is hidden from you so there's really been no way for you to even know how what you're saying comes across. The only thing I would ask is, in the future, if you have an atheist or atheists in your life that you consider to be friends or loved ones, they'll appreciate it if, especially in a vulnerable situation, you think just a bit more about what how what you're saying sounds to them and say something that is comforting to them and not just to you.

FINDING FAITH

Most people don't have faith. Let's start there. I've had religious and theological discussions with all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons, as much for understanding as debate or conversion, and what I can tell you is that most people never think deeply enough about what they truly believe to have actual faith. They have religion.

You see, most people are born into some kind of religious framework. Their parents start taking them to church or some kind of religious observance at an early age and the path of least resistance is to just keep doing whatever that is. Questioning religion or rocking the boat can lead to social stigma, damaged relationships, and sometimes even financial destitution, so for most people it's simply not worth doing to the point where they don't even consider it. They just go through the motions and don't worry too much about it because there's simply no good reason to.

There are some people who will still go through the difficult process of finding faith in that situation, but I've found that most people who truly have faith are the ones who have questioned and often even broken away from what they were brought up with. Specific to atheists, almost none of us were raised atheist. It wasn't a particularly difficult rejection for me because my family wasn't particularly dogmatic about it, but I wasn't raised atheist either; I figured out what I believed, I found my faith, when I started questioning all of the things that I was brought up with and all of the things that others around me believed. Ultimately, I accepted a lot of it in terms of the moral system I follow, but I rejected all of the metaphysical.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people who turn to atheism for reasons like rebellion or to fit in with a (usually small) group, but most adult atheists you see out there are people who have gone through a journey and found faith; it's not a default option for the vast majority of us.

I also don't want you to think I'm saying that only atheists have faith, I've met plenty of religious people who have faith as well and it's something brilliant when you do find it (meeting such a person was also a big part me no longer being an angry atheist). The point is more that, as a percentage, far more atheists than religious people have true faith; it's easy to be religious, but why would one put up with all the problems that being atheist brings if you didn't truly believe it?

ATHEIST MORALITY

So this is the last one and it's a bit of an important one. You see, as I mentioned in the section about angry atheists, much of the prejudice against atheists I've experienced has been justified by the idea that atheists, because we reject the idea of God and the metaphysical, cannot be moral. Specifically, there is an idea in religion that morality can only come from a metaphysical source.

Now, I can't speak for all atheists here. As I mentioned before, there's nothing about atheism that lends itself to organization, so this is just me speaking. That said, I can tell you that those people are 100% wrong here, not least because many of them were genuinely awful people who used their own religion and its metaphysically justified rules as an excuse to be immoral themselves.

Personally, I consider myself to be generally Utilitarian in my moral beliefs. It's much more complicated than this, but in simple terms Utilitarianism is a belief that what maximizes the well-being, happiness, and pleasure of all people and what minimizes harm, pain, and unhappiness, is moral. One could summarize it as "the greatest good for the greatest number" if one were being particularly simplistic about it.

Why do I believe that? Simple, I live in a society and that society benefits me, I'd even say it benefits me greatly. Having studied some political theory, it's clear that societies where everyone is better off make do a better job of actually making people, even those at the top, better off and are more stable and consistent in the long run, so it makes sense that I should want to live in such a society. Ultimately, though, societies are made up of people, they're not things of their own, so a society is a reflection of the actions of the people who live in it.

In other words, if I want to live in a society that makes people (like me!) better off, I need to act in a way that makes that society more likely. Now, I obviously don't control anyone other than myself, but if I do what's right, then I can find other people who also do what's right and we can become a community. It's not guaranteed, but that's how anything worth having starts and, if we all continue this long enough, we build what we want to live in. I live my life morally because it's the only way that what I want can come about and, if I cheat, I'll know that I'm damaging the future I hope to build.

After doing this for a long time, though, one of the biggest benefits I've found, though, is that I like myself when I'm moral. That's important because I have to live with me!

No metaphysics required, my morality not only provides me with a rational (to me at least) reason to act morally, it ultimately subjects me to a judge that will see everything I do and never lapses: me. Those who are religious will say that an all-knowing God being their ultimate judge is a stronger motivation to be moral but, to quote Thomas Huxley from Evolution and Ethics, "Every day, we see firm believers in the hell of the theologians commit acts by which, as they believe when cool, they risk eternal punishment; while they hold back from those which are opposed to the sympathies of their associates."

Ultimately, I think that every system of morality is either personal or social (usually some combination of both). Even if you believe in God, gods, or other forms spirituality, none of us understand perfectly their nature or the nature of the universe, so we're all just doing what feels right to us or our community. Atheism doesn't preclude morality any more than religion guarantees it and I've found/developed a moral system that works for me without any need for the metaphysical.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

One of the things I've come to realize over the years is that the concept of atheist is truly alien to people of religion. Yes, they find other religions strange and unfamiliar, but the basic shape of the worldview makes sense to them. Atheism is alien and frightening to many.

Hopefully this gave you a bit of insight into what's going on there. If you have any other questions about atheism or the atheist experience, feel free to ask, I'm more than happy to share.