Most Likely A Refuge

[whatamithinking]

It was probably safe.

The bar was...unusually reticent, in the lower layers of her mind (and she hadn't pried further; she wasn't sure if she'd be noticed; she wasn't sure if offending would get her kicked out, and regardless of whether it was actually safe it was safer than anywhere else she'd been for the past...three years?) so she couldn't be sure this place wasn't really a trap of some kind, but the higher layers gave a plausible explanation that didn't involve being a trap, and whatever else it was warm and dry and had food. Her guard was probably a full 25% down. Positively trusting, these days.

Comments

[onceandforall]

"What've you been up to?"

[whatamithinking]

"Schoolwork. Magical Girling, both of the rescuing-people-thwarting-villains variety and the networking-for-future-plans variety."

[onceandforall]

"Any progress on the future plans you want to brag about?"

[whatamithinking]

"In the wake of one of the rescues, I actually ended up talking to Prismatic Waterfall Legend about my ideas, and she's a Middle Eastern immigrant to the US, so she's been dealing with that level of social bull, and she said she could probably get me in touch with Mystical Mirror Madchen, who's from a family a lot like mine in the sense of 'recent ancestors came over because German Jewish and Holocaust,' although I think hers got out beforehand whereas apparently Grandpa Jake had a number tattooed on his arm. Anyway. It was suggested that I'd have more effect if I started out working on one issue and made some significant ground on it before trying to organize a major intersectional group rather than just running around talking to people with nothing to back it up. So with any luck I'm going to talk to her soon and we can discuss strategy for dealing with anti-semitic problems--you probably haven't had this happen yet, but there's some really scary shit going down in France-for-example--and I haven't actually met her yet so I can't plan out for sure where exactly it goes from there."

[onceandforall]

"My attention has not been drawn to France, but I haven't actually been there, my last fuck-it-I'm-vacationing-in-Europe loop was Italy and then after that it was Scandinavia. What's wrong with France?"

[whatamithinking]

"There's been rioting and attacks on Jewish businesses and synagogues."

[onceandforall]

"That sucks."

[whatamithinking]

"So incredibly. You'd think the Holocaust would have finally put an end to this bullshit, at least, but nope."

[onceandforall]

"I wonder what the motive feels like from the inside."

[whatamithinking]

"Like not wanting to deal with shit so obviously it must be someone else's fault? I mean, that's my best guess from my observation of that kind of thing."

[onceandforall]

"But they pick the targets somehow, they decide to go from assigning fault to violence somehow..."

[whatamithinking]

"We're kinda traditional."

[onceandforall]

"Which suggests that if anything the Holocaust would have made it worse."

[whatamithinking]

"I mean, kinda, except it got a whole lot more backlash than the historical cases. 'Nazi' is pretty much synonymous with evil, now."

[onceandforall]

"But in a way mostly divorced from the details."

[whatamithinking]

"It sure didn't put a dent in homophobia, but out of all the different groups the Nazis decided to throw in death camps, Jewish people are the most iconic ones."

[onceandforall]

"Yes, and it made anti-Semitism... impolite, but it didn't scratch much deeper, I think? And you can talk around an impolite thing. Talk about Israel instead, or whatever."

[whatamithinking]

"Yyyyeah apparently the people doing the rioting were calling themselves pro-Palestine or something, you're not wrong."

[onceandforall]

"It hasn't been my focus but I listen around."

[whatamithinking]

"It's just...kind of discouraging."

[onceandforall]

"Yeah." Handsqueeze.

[whatamithinking]

Handsqueeze. "Sometimes I just want to take over the world because I could run it better, but then I remember that that's the best way to get branded a villain, thwarted by my peers and with a severely damaged ability to persuade other people to stop being terrible."

[onceandforall]

"Well, that's a reason not to violently take over the world."

[whatamithinking]

"Any other method would be enough more work--in terms of developing a viable plan as well as executing it--that I have yet to determine that would be more efficient than just keeping on as I currently plan to, in terms of fixing things."

[onceandforall]

"Yeah, fair enough. What I'd do if I were you about the anti-Semitism thing is find former anti-Semites. People who know the mindset and how to get from there to here."