By: Daiyu Tang
Photo: Fire Department of Hathian (‘FDH’)
The Fire Department of Hathian has asked the Observer to publish its Pride 2026 photograph, and this year the image carries more than rainbow colour and the usual FDH talent for making public service look like a calendar shoot that you might open up in the hope it became entirely nude.
(Sadly, I can confirm that even visiting the XXX store did not unearth an entirely nude version of the calender.)
Chief Dale Warrhol in his e-mail to the Observer suggested that the department would usually take a new Pride photograph each year. This year, however, they collectively decided to use a photograph originally shot for the FDH calendar because the late Firefighter Silvano Marcel was in it. Pride according to the Chief meant a great deal to him, and the department felt it was right that he remain part of this year’s celebration.
Pride
Pride is often loud because sometimes it has to be. In Hathian we are blessed that while we often don’t tolerate each other, we do mostly tolerate each other’s differences in sexuality or identity and therefore have to shout a little less loud than some places in the world.
We still however ensure that Pride in Hathian is colour, music, bodies, chosen pronouns, difficult conversations, loud joy and the refusal (rightly) to shrink into something more convenient for others.
Pride is also memory. It is the people who made us braver. The people who stood beside us. The people who taught us that being seen was not the same as being unsafe, even when the world had often tried very hard to make both things feel connected and when in Hathian, on most other days being seen can be a problem for some. We live in challenging times. We live in political times. We live in times where we can’t always trust those with power to represent us, despite us not being a threat to them.
The FDH has marked Pride before in the Observer, with former Chief Trevor Pentewyn writing about inclusivity, LGBTQ+ support, and the importance of chosen family within the firehouse. That message still matters in Louisiana, where plenty of people are happy to tell others who they should be, who they should love, what they should hide, and how quietly they should exist. They may not explicitly say ‘we don’t like gays or lesbians’, but it never hurts to reinforce equality and inclusivity.
As your editor, and as a woman who believes very strongly that people have the right to be exactly who they are, I am more than happy to help carry that message.
I have written hard things about FDH, HPD, HGH, CU and nearly every other acronym in this town these days. But there are times when the story is simple enough and doesn’t need my attempt to find more than the simple meaning. This is a department standing together, proud of its people, remembering its own, and sending a public message to all of Hathian that love, identity and belonging are not things to be apologised for.
Pictured from left to right are: Paramedic Jack Delaney, Lt. Quinn Caruso, Firefighter Jari Seo-jun, Chief Dale Warrhol, Paramedic Ransom Pruitt-Marcel, Firefighter Silvano Marcel, and Lt. Spurs Seattle.
This year, FDH Pride is not only a celebration. It is a promise that Vano is still part of the firehouse family, still part of the photograph, and still part of the pride he helped represent.
From the Observer to the FDH, and from this small goth editor to every reader still figuring out who they are, who they love, or how loudly they are allowed to exist:
Happy Pride, Hathian.
Be safe. Be kind. Be difficult to erase.
