Brandon O'Brien @therisingtithes@wandering.shop

Capricon 41 starts on February 4th! I'm a Guest of Honor, and I'll be doing *a whole heck of a lot* at this year's virtual con!

https://www.brandonobrien.space/capricon41schedule/

Capricon 41 is just around the corner!

I’ll be there as a Guest of Honor, and we have a lot of fun stuff planned, including an open mic night (so get those space shanties ready?!), as well as the virtual return of That Was Unexpected!

Register here: http://capricon.org/registration/

Anything less is not actually unity. It's just not wanting to be left out. And trying to replace the former with the latter will not make you or your communities whole. It will just make it more bitter and secretive until violence fractures it again.

Sometimes you will disagree on what you think is a mere matter of debate but for your neighbour is a bitterly dire issue. Valuing unity means striving to know why it is so important to them, and seeking to assuage their fears with grace and honesty.

Sometimes there will be things you probably truly do not know, the ignorance of which threatens the safety or dignity of others. Valuing unity means seeking to learn for their sake, not asking them to embrace your ignorance for your own sake.

Hell, unity is too hard in its true form to ever insist upon trying to gain it freely. Sometimes that means people will prioritise their safety in ways that will judge you harshly by your association to things that truly hurt them. Valuing unity means respecting that judgment.

There comes a point in the progress of any community where what is needed for its unity is not forced absolution of the suffering others have caused, but the insistence that any action that is counter to true, dignified unity can no longer stand within that community’s walls.

When the reason people are angry AT YOU is because they are suffering violence & dehumanization that you are either encouraging, ignoring, or PARTAKING IN, you cannot frame their anger as fracturing your communities. It cannot be more fracturing than the aforementioned violence.

Perhaps a community is only unified when it draws the line between those who are willing to build for all their neighbours & those whose ideologies are destructive and rooted in hatred, corruption, & cruelty. Perhaps there is no unity to be had with one who wishes to kill you.

The greatest political trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing people that community healing was the work of the hurt to do—that ‘unity’ can only be achieved when marginalised communities accept those who have confessed to wanting to hurt them as they are.

One cannot buy propellant, wrap torches, set them ablaze, and beat their neighbours with them until they are ablaze, and then dare wait until setting people on fire suddenly look bad in public to ask the people who are on fire to “cool down”.

ICYMI:
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RT @firesidefiction
I'm happy to announce we will be accepting poetry in addition to short stories during our Jan. 25-Feb. 5 reading period with guest editor @therisingtithes. Poems can be any length, payment is a flat $100. Details:
https://firesidefiction.com/submissions
-Interim Editorial Director Brian White
https://twitter.com/FiresideFiction/status/1351904606910107650

Grand news! I look forward to reading your fiction--and your POETRY--very soon!
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RT @firesidefiction
I'm happy to announce we will be accepting poetry in addition to short stories during our Jan. 25-Feb. 5 reading period with guest editor @therisingtithes. Poems can be any length, payment is a flat $100. Details:
https://firesidefiction.com/submissions
-Interim Editorial Director Brian White
https://twitter.com/FiresideFiction/status/1351904606910107650

"We will step out of the shade aflame and unafraid... If only we are brave enough to see it, if only we are brave enough to be it."

Amanda Gorman said that for y'all. And I am as glad as you are that she did.

Allyuh. Amanda Gorman's poem was glorious. Absolutely glorious. Just saying.

Is it weird or bad when you feel really suspicious of the intentions of breakup songs, especially the wildly popular ones?

Like... how 'political' can TV be if there will never be a ten-episode series about all the police superiors, DA Office employees, law firm partners, & local legislators it takes to shrug at a video of three dozen cops in uniform kettling & assaulting citizens on a bridge, hmm?

I don't say that to be cruel! We need those conflicts, too, even the poorly observed ones. But... you'd think they didn't come in the space that still routinely recuperates the mere cultural observation of a cop's duty, in a year when rows of cops still beat people in the street.

Because on the one hand, it's unique to have them even be present, even have an opinion on the badge from behind one. But on the other hand, it's still the badge's opinion. It's an internal conflict, but it doesn't offer anything but the blue much, to be honest.

that the profiling incident that took place in a recent episode of The Rookie (which I am only barely now getting into and mostly caught with my own eyes on accident) focuses dramatically on the Black patrol officer present, being judged by his Black neighbours.