Cancer 1 - Two of Cups - This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

  

What is the shape of true love? And how does that shape fit, or not fit, within the institutions in which you are a participant?

When is your love defined by your holding another person, and when does your love need for you to be held?

How does the way love moves change in the face of oppressive power, and how does this change change us?

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On June 21st, 2024, the Sun moved into the first decan of Cancer, that ruled by Venus, planet of love, art, relationship, and beauty. Beauty can be found in both the most easeful as well as broken parts of the world, and the Moon–ruler of Cancer–facilitates both constant transitions between light/darkness and the realm of writing. Therefore, one of the touchpoints I associate with a Venus/Moon decan is that of love letters, and for Venus in the deeply personal, responsive sign of Cancer, I am specifically thinking about what types of stories about power are generated when love is written into the systemic absence of care.

For all these reasons and more, during this decan, it felt very right to read This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone.

Before posting the book cover, I’d like to fulfill my civic duty as a Time War fan and honor the historic post that propelled TTiYLtTW to international bestseller status years after the book was first released:

…Okay, so in reposting the OG viral tweet by bigolas dickolas, I inadvertently posted the book cover, anyway. As things should be! Anyhow! If I write nothing else here: listen to bigolas dickolas. You can pretty much, in the spirit of not looking up anything about it, quit reading this post right now and just go read the book. It’s so beautiful, so much, so fierce and romantic and wrenching and so fucking good. I love what Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone created (and the friendship which made this creation possible is very Two of Cups--you can read/listen to more on this aspect through the interview linked at the end of this post.)

Here is the marketing copy for This is How You Lose the Time War:

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. 

Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, becomes something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean the death of each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win. That’s how war works, right?

This sapphic love story is heartbreaking, future-making, law-defying. It’s a novella that feels like a love letter to its readers. I’m one of many thousands of people who love this book, so I don’t wish to say much about it, but rather to share the messages and questions it gifted my life.

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True love can rewrite the story of what we thought was necessary procedure before we move to take action on another’s behalf. True love doesn’t require approval from a higher authority, confirmation from majority stakeholders, or even rational thought. True love can render complicated situations down to their base matter, to the most simple of equations: What is needed of me–right now, right here–to protect you, to provide the care you need, to respond to you with real love in your immediate hour of need?

Love is the beginning of everything. The start of emotion, feeling that wells up and moves us to action.

In the absence of feeling, love is action. Love is to give of oneself to another. To give of ourselves to another is to give love to ourselves, too. This can be frightening, as is the darkness of the moon’s turning, because giving of our cup can mean giving of our body, our strength, our liveliness.

What does it feel like to be changed by another person, one whose interests obviously conflict with your own?

It is not difficult to find messaging that declares the virtues of tolerating and welcoming some general form of “difference.” What would it mean to not just tolerate but center divergence? This is to say, a difference that directly compromises our expectations and ability to uphold the status quo of power and hierarchy. What would it look like to shape the (hopefully not-short) arc of my life around the passionate desire to compromise the status quo of power, that I might better (and deeper and truer) love the ones whose courage to exist outside the expectations of power has rendered them vulnerable and marginalized?

What would it look like for me to give of my cup to the people my institutions insist I deny love and care? What would it mean? What would happen to my heart–would it break, break all the way, for all time, and in breaking, allow me to–at last–live as a free woman?

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Links and other readings:

1. Writing Excuses interview with Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

2. Donate to Life for Gaza (The Gaza Municipality Project):

“The Gaza Municipality is tasked with providing vital services such as water supply, waste management and sewage treatment. However, the widespread destruction in Gaza City has severely hampered the Municipality's ability to deliver even the most basic necessities to its residents. With limited access to water, the population faces a dire health and environmental crisis, especially affecting children.

By joining forces in this initiative, we cultivate hope and solidarity, fostering empathy and collaboration across communities while easing the hardships endured by those in Gaza. This collective effort reassures them that they are not alone in their struggle. The Gaza Municipality earnestly appeals for your support to help reinstate essential services, currently the foremost priority. In the northern regions of the Gaza Strip alone, over 500,000 individuals urgently require these services.”