new gender just dropped: toy. not even a person, just a thing to be used. thrown around, passed from one needy set of hands to the next. no regard for your pleasure, only your function. bent over a table, a boot shoved between your legs to keep them spread. you can't help but grind against it.. maybe a hand wrapped loosely around your throat, a leash, a reminder of who's in charge. your body is just a convenience for them, a warm, wet place to sink into. you can't help but be excited at faceless bodies take turns with you, praising just how good it feels, how pretty it is. how much it can take. and the best part?
CW: Minor whump, institutional abuse/child abuse, religious setting, beating, dehumanizing language, carewhumper
── ⟡ ˙
The candle on Alastair’s rickety desk in the corner of his room has melted all the way down, the wax drying in a cluster of tear drops hanging off the side of the tarnished wood. Alastair himself is curled up in his bed, pressed against the wall at an awkward angle that will surely make his neck sore later. His blanket is thin and scratchy, hanging loosely off his shoulders.
A knock against the warped door, sharp and loud, wakes him.
Alastair jolts up at the harsh pounding and his eyes are immediately wide with panic. The candle’s melted down. What time is it? He scrambles out of bed, his nightgown wrinkled. He smashes his ankle against the bed post and lets out a squawks in surprise, grimacing at the pain. In one frantic movement, Alastair tugs on his robe and simultaneously flings the door open, panic climbing up his throat.
The Archangel stands, still and terrifying, his dark eyes cutting through Alastair’s skin.
“Father Julius! I didn’t intend to sleep in. Oh my goodness, it’s so late. I’m sorry, you see I-”
Father Julius holds up a hand to silence Alastair.
He immediately goes quiet.
Julius stares him down, eyes flicking over his disoriented figure. “Come,” he orders, his voice cool and emotionless. He then turns sharply, not waiting for Alastair as he makes his way back towards the archives.
Alastair’s spine straightens and his mouth pulls into a thin line. He already feels that sick churning in his gut and the back of his neck is hot. He wonders if he should ask to change first but asking for anything at the moment seems entitled. Alastair wraps his robe around himself tighter and follows Julius, hands trembling.
Julius pauses at the end of the small hallway that connects Alastair’s room to the Archives, his eyes drilling into Alastair’s taller figure as he follows. He waits with a calm stillness, hands folded behind his back, for Alastair to go inside.
The Archives’ Master hesitates and tucks his head down. The shame has already settled in him, pressing heavy on his shoulders and making his head spin. Keeping his eyes pointed towards the floor, he steps out of the hallway and into the wide cavern. He feels immediately even smaller than before in the vast space. His fists clench around the fabric of his robe and he inhales deeply. His head aches, ringing with the familiar lectures he knows he will receive.
Julius slowly steps inside behind him. The click of the hall door shutting feels louder than it is and Alastair flinches at it. Julius’s gaze never leaves Alastair. He stalks, slowly, circling him, sizing him up like a predator watching its prey.
Alastair knows the drill with these lectures. They’re almost routine. He moves to stand in the middle of the room, feeling infinitesimal, placed in the center of these towering shelves that seem to bend in towards him, looming over him, leering at him. Julius lingers behind him. His presence feels heavy like a foot on Alastair’s throat, stopping his air. “Father Julius,” he starts, his voice catching on the title. “I’m sorry.”
There’s no response. No, Julius always did like to let Alastair sit with the uncomfortable silence, the anticipation, for longer than needed. He likes to drag it out. Alastair doesn’t dare speak again. He waits it out like always, feeling like he’s suffocating. His eyes burn and he thinks he might cry when he’s finally relieved of the torture.
“Alastair,” Julius starts, his voice low and even. “You’re aware of the importance of your job, correct?”
Alastair grimaces and his hair falls over his eyes without his glasses shielding them. “Yes Father Julius,” he says, blinking harshly.
“Do you really?” Father Julius asks, his tone almost mocking. “Can you comprehend how vital these archives are to the church? Do you even care to?”
“Father Julius,” Alastair starts, voice strained and quiet. “I know how sacred this job, these files are. I care deeply about the- about the records we keep here.”
Father Julius finally stops, his eyes glaring into Alastair’s very being. “Enough.” He hisses. “Your lies mean nothing. Do you take me for a fool, boy? Do you think I believe that for a second?”
Alastair flinches at the snap. He wrings his hands together, squeezing his eyes shut. “Father, I am honored to be graced with such a position.”
Julius scoffs. “After all I’ve done to hide you away from the rest of the church, to protect you, you don’t fail to disappoint me.” He draws back his shoulders, eyes burning Alastair. “Tell me why that is. Why, even the simplest of orders, you fail to complete? Are you truly so incompetent? Or are you purposely defiant?”
Alastair slowly tips his head up just slightly so that his hair no longer falls over his eyes. He can only meet Julius’s molten gaze for a second. “I’m sorry, Father Julius. I don’t mean to disappoint you.” For a moment Alastair thinks it might be worth it to tell Father Julius why he wasn’t present for his duties this morning. He can tell him about the newcomers that trespassed. Though he can already hear Julius’s scolding bite at such excuses.
“You disgust me, boy.” Father Julius spits. “Everything we have done for you, and yet, you’re still a scar on our community’s spirituality, a curse upon our kind. You are undeserving of our generosity.” His lip curls and he pauses, eyes flicking over Alastair.
Alastair fights back a sound in the back of his throat that fights to get out as his lower lip trembles. “I know. You’re right. I’m sorry, Father.”
Julius grabs Alastair’s face between his thick, meaty fingers, pressing hard on his cheekbones, harshly yanking him upright. Alastair yelps, the sound coming out muffled through squished cheeks. “Look at me when you apologize.” He hisses.
Eyes wide and fearful, brimming with unshed tears, Alastair pants, his chest tight. He cannot even manage to nod with Julius’s bruising grip on the sides of his face.
“You’re a failure, do you hear me?” Julius speaks low and rough. “Filth. A demon of the devil’s own making. The archives, this dungeon — it’s more than you deserve.”
“I understand,” Alastair rasps out and his words are mushed pathetically with the way his mouth is squished hard enough to make his cheeks sting. “A demon.”
Julius flings Alastair to the floor and he hits the ground with a thud, grunting. “You’re an abomination.” It’s like silver wisps of shining smoke curl around every word Father Julius utters, penetrating Alastair’s mind, luring him deeper into the dread that pulls at him, clogging up his nose and clouding over his eyes.
“Why—” he chokes, voice shaking. “Why keep me here then.” Alastair’s voice is pleading, desperate for an answer. And yet he regrets the words as soon as he speaks them. The cold rage in Julius’s expression making the knot in his throat swell. “I-I’m sorry…” Panic is rising higher in his chest and he instinctively tries to move away, weak hands grasping at the stone beneath him as he crawls backwards.
“Enough!” The sound after it is a resounding crack.
Pain erupts in Alastair’s jaw, his vision going white and his head whipping to the side. It takes a few dizzy moments for him to realize what had struck him was Julius’s knee. Tears pour down his cheeks instantly as blood floods his mouth and his expression crumples. “F-Father Julius,” he whimpers, blood coating his lips, the taste metallic.
“Shut up.” Father Julius snarls. He glares down at Alastair, abruptly grabbing him by his collar and yanking him upright, Alastair’s body jerking forward weakly. “On your knees. Now.”
Alastair whimpers and sways out of Julius’s. His limbs shake as he pushes himself onto his knees slowly, his head bowing.
Julius sneers and Alastair can’t stand to meet his eyes any longer. “You’re a disgrace.”
Alastair clutches the fabric of his robe in his lap. He doesn’t look up, doesn’t speak as Julius’s harsh words sting in his chest. What can he say that will resolve this? The obvious answer is nothing. He knows better than to think interruption will spare him any cruelty. Yet he still itches to speak up in his defense.
Julius’s hand is on his head in an instant, taking a fistful of his hair, dragging his face closer to his harshly. “Repeat it.” He hisses.
Alastair whines long and slow, pathetically. His face screws up in pain as Julius’s fingers tighten around his hair. He takes in a shaky breath and then whispers, “I’m a disgrace.”
“Speak up.” Julius mocks.
Alastair flinches. “I’m- I’m a disgrace.”
“Louder.” Julius snaps. He’s becoming less put together the longer he drags it out. Punishments are always the worse when Julius’s composure slips.
“I’m a disgrace,” Alastair says louder, clearer, his eyes stinging.
“You’re a monster.” Julius spits.
A shaky inhale. “I’m a monster.” Alastair’s throat begins to burn and close up.
“You’re weak.” Julius continues, voice loud and harsh. “Useless.”
“I am weak… I am useless,” Alastair croaks, his voice trembling.
“You’re worthless.” Julius’ says, voice raising.
“I am worthless.”
Julius suddenly lashes out, slapping Alastair straight across the face.
The sting is hot against Alastair’s cheeks, burns deep into his skin. His face throbs. He brings a shaking hand to his skin and sniffs. It’s already bruising, he can feel. And the skin is raised like a burn or a scratch.
Julius stares down at Alastair for a long time, watches as his eyes go glassy and wet, revels in the pain Alastair feels for a moment. Then, with an unnerving quickness, the deranged light in his eyes fades a little, returning to the usual cold, more put-together yet still scrutinizing look that Alastair is used to. He sighs.
“Forgive me,” Alastair whispers, a sob barely held back.
Julius drops to his knees. He stares at Alastair, face-level, expression neutral. “I hate that you make me do this.” He cups Alastair’s cheek where it throbs, skin angry, though the initial burn of it has dulled.
Alastair’s shoulders shudder as he peaks at Julius through his unruly fringe. “I’m-I’m sorry, Father,” he sniffles, voice cracking.
“It doesn’t have to be this way.” Father Julius murmurs, his voice taking on a quieter edge. His fingers stroke the raised skin, calloused fingertips against tender, flesh. “If only you tried harder.”
Alastair lets slip a weak, pained sound he’d been trying to hold back. Blood drips down his chin and splatters onto the cold stone. “I’ll try harder. I promise. I’ll do better Father, I’m sorry.”
Father Julius takes Alastair into his arms, hugging him tightly. The embrace is nauseating, makes Alastair go rigid. He feels like he can’t breathe. “Good. Clean up your mess when I’m gone.”
Alastair squeezes his eyes shut, tears slipping down his cheeks as he tries to pretend the man is not there at all.
I've been seeing some peculiar beliefs in leftist spaces recently.
• Nazis are literally subhuman and deserve to die.
• Zionism is a Nazi movement
• All Jews are secretly zionists
To an outside observer, these beliefs can look innocent (I am far too guilty of number 1, honestly) but the problem is a lot of people believe all three. By the transitive property, they believe that all Jews are subhuman and deserve to die. That is a very familiar and terrifying sentiment to us Jews.
Be careful dehumanizing literally anyone. Once you accept that Nazis, or pedophiles, or other evil people are subhuman, your definition of "Nazi" can be expanded. It can even be expanded to include groups that were originally targeted in the Holocaust. Do better.
Have you ever pondered what it really means to be a hypnosis subject? Obviously sub is in the word so you will submit. But in what other contexts is subject used?
Yes you can be subjected to something, but that’s not exactly what I was thinking. The hottest context I can think of is when you are participating in an experiment and are called a subject. And when I hypnotize you, you are a part of my experiment to see how much control I can take from you. When you’re my hypnotic subject, you are practically a lab rat. Lab rats have their mind and body changed by beings who are bigger, stronger, and smarter than them, and that’s exactly what will happen to you as a hypnotic subject. As my subject, you will receive every test and treatment that I want to do I can brainwash you and make you the perfect plaything
Trump’s Dangerous Game: Protection, Provocation, and the Politics of Manufactured Crisis
How Trump’s withdrawal of Harris’s Secret Service protection reveals a broader authoritarian playbook of intimidation, manufactured crises, and selective citizenship.
James B. Greenberg
Sep 01, 2025
The headlines made it sound like another act of petty cruelty. Trump canceled Kamala Harris’s Secret Service protection. Reporters called it vindictive, small-minded, a personal slight. It was all of that — and it was also something much more serious: a calculated gesture in the repertoire of authoritarian power.
To strip someone of protection is not just a bureaucratic decision. It is a symbolic act, a way of withdrawing legitimacy. It signals that a person is no longer inside the circle of civic belonging. In mafia terms, it is the Don leaning back in his chair and saying, “May my friend enjoy good health all his life.” Everyone knows what that means.
What makes this more than personal spite is that Secret Service protection is not a gift, but a statutory safeguard established because threats against national leaders are matters of national security. Biden extended it because of the threat environment. By canceling it, Trump is not just acting out of vindictiveness; he is politicizing a protection designed to be neutral: the kind of institutional capture we see when authoritarians convert state agencies into partisan weapons.
Trump has long painted rhetorical targets on his opponents. With Harris, it’s the deliberate mispronunciation of her name, the constant insinuations of her being foreign, the deployment of racist and sexist tropes. His language doesn’t just demean; it marks her.
He has done the same with migrants: “murderers,” “rapists,” “animals.” With Black communities: “crime-infested.” With opponents: “traitors,” “enemies,” “vermin.” Whole categories of people are cast outside the boundaries of the civic body. Once people are cast out symbolically, physical violence becomes easier to justify.
History shows us where this leads. Dehumanizing language primes action — Hutu leaders calling Tutsis “cockroaches” in Rwanda, Nazi propaganda painting Jews as “rats,” American settlers labeling Indigenous peoples as “savages.” Words redraw the map of who is safe, who can be harmed, who may be eliminated.
Political ecology reminds us that resources are never neutral. Protection, like food or water, is a resource the state allocates. To grant or withdraw it is to determine who matters. Harris’s loss of Secret Service coverage is not just symbolic; it is material. It reshapes her vulnerability, alters the flows of safety and danger, and signals to others what the state values.
The same logic operates in Trump’s approach to cities. When he sent the National Guard into Washington, D.C., he claimed it was to address crime. He later suggested doing the same in 19 other cities with large Black populations, regardless of actual statistics. This was not about crime rates. It was about redrawing urban space as hostile territory.
Fear itself becomes a resource here, rationed and redistributed through uncertainty. When people don’t know whether they will be protected or targeted, they self-police, withdraw, and silence themselves. This is how authoritarian power takes hold not only through force, but through the everyday management of insecurity.
It’s tempting to see all this as personal animus — Trump’s prejudices, his pettiness, his pandering to a base that thrives on resentment. But authoritarian leaders do not just express personal rage. They cultivate atmospheres.
Withdrawing protection is part of a larger project: to normalize the idea that opponents can be left exposed. Sending troops into cities increases the chance of an incident — another George Floyd, another public execution. Such an event could trigger mass protest. And protest is exactly what Trump hopes for.
This is the Charles Manson “Helter Skelter” playbook: provoke violence, then use the chaos as pretext for more repression. A riot is not a failure of policy — it is the desired outcome, the excuse for declaring martial law.
History offers chilling parallels. Hitler seized on the Reichstag fire to suspend rights and consolidate power. Pinochet stoked economic chaos before the coup in Chile. Modi has used communal riots in India to entrench “law and order” politics. Manufactured crises are not accidents of governance; they are a core authoritarian method. Trump is working from the same script.
When that moment comes, we already know the script. Protesters will be labeled “Antifa.” Critics will be branded “domestic enemies.” The stage has already been set.
Authoritarian takeovers rarely come in a single stroke. They advance step by step, through incremental shifts: delegitimizing opponents, stigmatizing groups, manufacturing crises, and then seizing more power to address the very unrest they created.
Power works by controlling the flow of resources, by deciding who is protected and who is exposed, and by saturating the atmosphere with words that mark people as expendable. Trump is doing all three.
Canceling Harris’s protection was a symbolic act aimed at one person, but it resonates far beyond her. It tells every opponent — elected or not — that safety is conditional, that belonging is fragile, that the state will decide who is worth defending.
That message reverberates through communities already marked as outsiders: migrants, Black neighborhoods, dissenters. It reminds them that the state may not protect them, or may actively target them. It rearranges the ecology of citizenship itself.
Anthropologists describe this as differentiated citizenship: when protection, rights, and dignity are selectively granted to some and withheld from others. Once citizenship becomes stratified in this way, democracy erodes, because the very premise of equal belonging has been hollowed out.
We should not mistake this for bluster. Authoritarian leaders always test boundaries: strip protection here, send troops there, see how much outrage follows. Each test normalizes the next.
The danger is not just that Harris is more vulnerable. The danger is that the country is being prepared for a manufactured crisis — one that will be used to justify emergency powers and suppress opposition. We know this playbook. We’ve seen it in other places. And we are now watching it unfold at home.
The press was right to call Trump’s move vindictive. But stopping there misses the deeper truth. This was not just spite. It was a signal. It was preparation. It was a page torn from the authoritarian manual: create fear, withdraw protection, provoke unrest, seize power.
We ignore the meaning of these gestures at great risk. Crises are not just accidents waiting to happen. In the hands of leaders like Trump, they are weapons waiting to be manufactured.
Suggested Readings
Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo.London: Routledge, 1966.
Foucault, Michel. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–1976.New York: Picador, 2003.
Heyman, Josiah McC. “State Escalation of Border Enforcement and Migrant Responses: The Political Economy of Fear.” In Engaging the State: Anthropological Approaches to Security, Surveillance, and Control, edited by Brian Campbell and Kevin Lewis O’Neill, 49–72. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2019.
Levitsky, Steven, and Daniel Ziblatt. How Democracies Die. New York: Crown, 2018.
Mbembe, Achille. Necropolitics. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019.
Stanley, Jason. How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. New York: Random House, 2018.
Vélez-Ibáñez, Carlos G. The Rise of Necro/Narco-Citizenship: Belonging and Dying in the National Borderlands. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2025.
Wolf, Eric R. Envisioning Power: Ideologies of Dominance and Crisis. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has grown more resolute regarding the *Pokemon* themed deportation arrest video it recently posted online after the Pokemon Co. said it has not given permission to use its upbeat theme music and imagery in the video, along with the catchphrase *“Gotta Catch ‘Em All”* in the caption.
The department, in an email response to questions from The Japan Times Friday, did not address using Pokemon in its video, instead giving a one-line comment:
“To arrest them is our real test. To deport them is our cause. To catch them is my real test, to train them is my cause” a line from the original Pokemon theme song, which references protagonist Ash Ketchum’s mission to catch and train mythical monsters.
On Tuesday, the official DHS account posted a video on X and on the White House’s TikTok account using a Pokemon-esque font, interspersed with clips of arrests and mocked-up images made to look like Pokemon trading cards featuring people arrested on alleged crimes, all accompanied by the phrase, “Gotta Catch ‘Em All.”
Pokemon said in an email response that the company was aware of the video.
“Our company, the original copyright holder, our subsidiaries, and other related companies were not involved in the creation or posting of the video. We have not granted permission for the use of any intellectual property managed by our company,” it said.
Sakon Kuramoto, managing attorney at Kuramoto International Law Office in Tokyo, said the video may constitute an infringement under U.S. copyright law, which could lay the groundwork for legal action, including seeking an injunction and implementing a takedown notice in order to remove the spread of the images across social media.
But Pokemon’s former legal chief, Don McGowan, said a legal challenge by the company is highly unlikely to avoid antagonizing the U.S. government.
