#Race is a political debate. Gender is. Sexuality is.

[rottenfyre]

Let me make something very clear.

I am not white, I am not straight. And I'm clearly not a man. I’m Middle Eastern. I’m saying this upfront so no one gets confused or assumes anything about me.

I created this blog for one purpose: to have a safe space for myself and for anyone else who wants to escape reality for a while. That’s it. This is my corner of the internet, and it’s built for fanfiction—nothing else. I love writing and sharing stories, I love connecting with people who also enjoy fandoms, and I love creating a space where everyone can just exist without having to carry the weight of the world all the time. If you’re here for that? You’re welcome. Stay as long as you want.

But lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of people saying, “You should speak up about this issue,” “You need to support this cause,” or “Why aren’t you posting about that?”

Let me stop you right there.

You don’t get to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do. You don’t get to dictate what I share, write, or care about. My blog is my space. If you want to yell about something, advocate for something, or spread awareness, do it on your own platform. But you will not come here and try to force me into your expectations.

For anyone who thinks they have the right to demand I use my blog for their causes, here’s what you need to understand: I am not obligated to center politics here—or anywhere else. My political views and this blog are two entirely separate things, and they will stay separate. I know what I believe, I know where I stand, and I will not explain or defend that to anyone because, frankly, it’s none of your business. If I don’t bring politics into my blog, it’s not because I don’t care—it’s because I refuse to turn this space into a battleground. This is my peaceful escape, and it’s going to stay peaceful.

And for those ready to twist my words: no, that doesn’t mean I’m ignorant or apathetic. I see the world. I live in it too. But not everything I do has to carry the weight of someone else’s expectations. If I want to write fanfiction about fictional characters in fictional settings and not bring up real-world issues, that’s my choice. If I want my blog to focus on escapism and community rather than division, that’s my right.

Let me put it like this: If you think the earth is flat? Cool. If you think it’s round? Cool. If you have opinions about race, sexuality, gender, politics, religion, or whatever else? Cool. Guess what? I don’t care. That doesn’t mean I don’t value you as a person—it means I don’t need or want your opinions taking over my space. This blog is not the place for debates, arguments, or finger-pointing.

I don’t run this space to host debates, arguments about who’s “right” or “wrong.” If you came here looking for a fight or an agenda to push, you’re in the wrong place.

I don’t care what race you are. I don’t care what gender you are. I don’t care about your sexuality, your opinions, or your political views. If you’re here to enjoy stories and fandom and a little slice of peace in an otherwise chaotic world, then you are welcome. If you’re here to demand, accuse, argue, or dictate what I should be doing, then you can leave. My blog is not a democracy—it’s my space, and my rules apply.

I’m not here to change anyone’s mind, and I’m certainly not here to have mine changed. I am here to write, to create, and to connect with people over the one thing that brings us all here: fanfiction.

To sum this up: I am not responsible for your expectations. I will not allow anyone to make me feel guilty for how I choose to exist online. This blog is about fanfiction, escapism, and community, and that’s how it’s going to stay. If you don’t like it, the unfollow button is right there.

We all need a little peace somewhere. This is mine.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lois Beckett at The Guardian:

Attacks targeting American public schools over LGBTQ+ rights and education about race and racism cost those schools an estimated $3.2bn in the 2023-24 school year, according to a new report by education professors from four major American universities. The study is believed to be the first attempt to quantify the financial impact of rightwing political campaigns targeting school districts and school boards across the US. In the wake of the pandemic, these campaigns first attempted to restrict how American schools educate students about racism, and then increasingly shifted to spreading fear among parents about schools’ policies about transgender students and LGBTQ+ rights.

Researchers from UCLA, UT Austin, UC Riverside and American University surveyed 467 public school superintendents across 46 US states, asking them about the direct and indirect costs of dealing with these volatile campaigns. Those costs included everything from out-of-pocket payments to hire to lawyers or additional security, to the staff member hours devoted to responding to disinformation on social media, addressing parent concerns and replying to voluminous public records requests focused on the district’s teachings on racism, gender and sexuality. The campaigns that focused on public schools’ policies about transgender students often included lurid false claims about schools trying to change students’ gender or “indoctrinating” them into becoming gay. This disinformation sparked harassment and threats against individual teachers, school board members and administrators, with some of the fury coming from within local communities, and even more angry calls, emails and social media posts flooding in from conservative media viewers across the country.

In addition to the financial costs of responding to these targeted campaigns, the study revealed other dynamics, the researchers said. “The attack on public officials as pedophiles was one I heard again and again, from people across extremely different parts of the country: rural, urban, suburban. It speaks to the way that this really is a nationalized conflict campaign,” said John Rogers, an education professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the lead author of the study. The frequency with which both school board members and school superintendents were “being called out as sexual predators – it was really frightening”, Rogers said. Superintendents from across the country told the researchers how these culture battles had affected their schools, and cut into resources they would have preferred to spend on education.

[...] While disagreement, debate and dealing with angry parents are a normal part of local public school administration, the researchers noted, the political campaigns that schools have faced in recent years have been anything but normal. Many of them have been driven by “a small number of active individuals on social media or at school board meetings”, and fueled by misinformation. The school-focused campaigns, which started with claims that elementary and middle schools were harming white students by teaching critical race theory and later shifted to attacks on schools’ policies for transgender students, were nationally organized, with “common talking points” that could be traced back to conservative foundations and rightwing legal organizations, and were intensely amplified by rightwing media coverage, Rogers said.

Public schools across the US burned up nearly $3.2BN worth of money fending off right-wing culture war items such as book bans, anti-LGBTQ+ extremism, anti-student inclusion, and anti-racial equity policies.

See Also:

The Advocate: U.S. public schools lost $3.2 billion fighting conservative culture wars: report

[pvssychicken]

POLITICAL POST INCOMNG

If you disagree with my opinion and wish to be vocal about that, please reach out to me via DM, please do not cause a scene in my comments.

Dividers made by @bernardsbendystraws

I have always been raised to never judge somebody based off of their political views, and normally, Im fine with that, i like to debate with people, but it doesnt change how i feel about them.

This election is different, its Trump vs. Harris, Felon vs. Prosecutor.

I genuinly do not understand how people can vote for Donald Trump, they say that their life was better under him than under biden, but biden didnt cause inflation, that was a global thing, actually, Kamala harris influenced the inflation reduction act which helped us lower inflation. Not to mention that the only reason the economy was great under trump was because OBAMA set it up that way, not trump.

You may be wondering, "how many issues do you have with donald trump?" and my answer is, alot.

Hes a 34 count felon and has been found civily liable for grape. He wants to impose tarrifs, that will make costs of goods worse. He wants to ban abortion, and impose a "normal family" law, basically demonizing gay marriage.

Thats just things that ive heard though, let me tell you some things that ive gotten from his website directly.

CUT FEDERAL FUNDING FOR ANY SCHOOL PUSHING CRITICAL RACE THEORY, RADICAL GENDER IDEOLOGY, AND OTHER INAPPROPRIATE RACIAL, SEXUAL, OR POLITICAL CONTENT ON OUR CHILDRENCUT FEDERAL FUNDING FOR ANY SCHOOL PUSHING CRITICAL RACE THEORY, RADICAL GENDER IDEOLOGY, AND OTHER INAPPROPRIATE RACIAL, SEXUAL, OR POLITICAL CONTENT ON OUR CHILDREN- BAsically no more sex ed, or talking about the LGBTQ+ community in schools,

KEEP MEN OUT OF WOMEN'S SPORTS- Speaks for itself, he wants trans women, to stay competeing in mens sports, even though after theyve been on hormones for a few years, they have more of a females agility and stuff (idk how to word this lol)

DEPORT PRO-HAMAS RADICALS AND MAKE OUR COLLEGE CAMPUSES SAFE AND PATRIOTIC AGAIN- Basically if youre pro-pallestine, then youre pro HAMAS. ANd youll be deported

I will admit, Kamala isnt perfect, but she is by far better than trump. At least she has more than a concept of a plan for our country. And at least shes focusuing more on important things other than aliens eating pets and doing trans surgeries on criminals

I know, i cant vote yet, but i still like to try to influence those who can to do the right thing.

HARRIS/WALZ 2024!!!!!

(feel fre to favt check me on any of this info, i am not an expert and i make mistakes!)

PLEASE LIKE/COMMENT/REBLOG SO IT CAN REACH MORE PEOPLE

Taglist: @flouvela @immattsslut @jamiesturniolo @baileysturns @asherrisrandom @chrislilcumslvt @whos-madi

[use-yr-voice]

In a couple of months, I hope to take this blog down or at least change its tone.

I’m angry about the state of US politics and I’m here to vent. But I’m gonna channel my frustration into something positive- I’m gonna speak up, lend support, and vote blue.

The discourse is over. Either you support democracy or you support tyranny. I am not going to debate the cult of the orange felon, I am only going to block them. Their minds are already made up. So is mine.

Democrats, liberals, and progressives are welcome here. Any race, nationality, religion, gender, or sexual orientation is welcome here. We’re all in this together.

The United States might have a checkered past, but its future can be one where it lives up to its ideals and fulfills its promises. Its redemption arc begins this November.

[gatheringbones]

[“Libbon (2007: 86–87) highlights that the verve of patriarchal science to prove sex role differentiation throughout the nineteenth century correlates with the increasing dissatisfaction and protest by women against such gender demarcations. As the century progresses, the “woman question” becomes a popular topic of debate across Europe and America, and the developing profession of psychiatry comes to play a more prominent role in reinforcing the morality of “appropriate” gender roles. For example, Darwinian psychiatry of the 1870s proclaimed women as less evolved than men due to their physiology; the dominance of the reproductive system meant that the female brain was largely incapacitated, thus women were theorised as “naturally” reliant and submissive to the superior male race (Showalter 1985: 121–125). Psychiatric scholars argued that there was a danger of insanity if women sought to exert additional pressure on the brain through seeking an education or considering political matters. Even the simple activities of writing or reading could be potentially disastrous to a woman’s health, as can be seen from the following advice given to prominent feminist writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman (cited in Ehrenreich and English 2005: 112) by her doctor in the latter part of the nineteenth century:

Live as domestic a life as possible. Have your child with you all the time … Lie down an hour after each meal. Have but two hours intellectual life a day. And never touch pen, brush or pencil as long as you live.

Feminists became a prime target for the psychological sciences; such women were theorised as degenerative, sexually deviant and a threat to the “natural order” of the species (Libbon 2007: 86–87). According to the famous sexologist Krafft-Ebing, the dangers for women of abandoning their prescribed sex role were becoming “too masculine” as well as sexually permissive, both of which could be considered as regressive and pathological—symptoms of underlying organic damage to the female body (Libbon 2007: 87). Under the patriarchal ideology of the experts of the mind, mental disorders such as nymphomania, hyperesthesia (a mental illness caused by “oversensitivity”), and hysteria became commonly associated with those women who dared to deviate from the strict confines of Victorian femininity and their ascribed domestic chores. Thus, the dominant discourse on the division of labour and gender roles in industrial society was legitimated and reinforced by the burgeoning psy-professions as normal, common sense, and healthy for society. “Mental breakdown,” remarks Showalter (1985: 123), “would come when the women defied their ‘nature,’ attempted to compete with men instead of serving them, or sought alternatives or even additions to their maternal functions.”

The increased labelling and confinement of women as “mad” by psychiatry served to legitimate the needs of capital and patriarchy for subservient and conforming women under the discourse of medical science.

Here, we see the development of what would become the hegemonic domination of female populations by psychiatry and its allies—professional groups that have sought to depoliticise the struggle against patriarchal power through medicalising women’s bodies and experiences as pathological. As Libbon (2007: 89) summates of psychiatry’s success in the nineteenth century,

Having labelled woman as intrinsically diseased and debauched, experts and laymen alike now took institutional measures to impede any further social or political disruption on her part. Under the guise of “curing” her of her ailments and moreover protecting society in the process, the unruly woman was now forced either into compulsory hospitalization, often with accompanying surgical mutilation, or incarceration. In both instances it was the woman who protested and rallied against male control and regulation of herself and her body who was locked away, sequestered from society, in an effort to compel her to return to … the silent, submissive role man had eked out for her.”]

bruce m.z. cohen, from psychiatric hegemony: a marxist theory of mental illness, 2016

[floyd-leech-thing]

”C’mere. I’ll give you a nice, tight squeeze”

Oi, I’m the real person behind this blog. We’re going to get a few things straight here:

no incest. Ex: Idia and ortho, or Jade and Floyd (not that I think y’all need the examples but just in case

I would prefer beings over the age of 10

nothing overly sexual (because sometimes it just gets weird)

don’t get political. This is for fun, not debates

Any one starting a ship rp can not interact with another ship rp. Friend ships and such can interact obvi but any ships can’t and won��t interact I don’t need a mess for myself

Do not but in to someone else’s RP unless you have permission. And if you do, tell me so i don’t DM you with a warning

those are the current rules, I might add some later

Things that could get your blocked are: racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia

Other info: don’t be a dickhead. You can start full on Rps if you want but fair warning I get to it when I get to it if that’s what you’re doing, if you want a faster reply just do it in the tumbler DMs. This ask/chat blog supports all people of any race, gender, sexuality, religion and will remain that way

I am a multi-shipper so I’m not picky with that but I’ll probably respond more to the more popular ones so we don’t get any rude comments about that

I will get better at this whole thing over time just give me a inch to work with here

now with that out of the way, this blog is officially open to people to talk to

-Yours truly, Kris

Other blogs include: @rollo-flamme-nbc and @lilithin-the-rewriter (That’s a Heartslabyul oc) @war-of-alayda @savanaclaw-jack-howl @apple-boy-epel @rook-the-hunter @heartslabyul-ace-trappola @mozus-and-lucius @the-honest-fellow-fellow-honest (can’t @ it) @maria-hearts-jester @mama-cordelia-leech @sir-baul-zigvolt

Blogs interact with the most are:

@tea-cup-tyrant @jadeleech-official @seven-seas-octavinelle @nashi-brie @nrc-ramshackle-prefect @purplehairnpronouns

My mod blog is @krisling-crossroads-mod

[they-are-a-prolife-autist]

Hey, genuine question for you and other people reading:

Are you against abortion in animals? Animals have abortions- it's especially common among race horses, and often for reasons you've argued against abortion- animals are aborted because they're disabled, not the gender the owner wants, etc. Is that not just as bad as abortion in humans? If so, why does nobody say anything about it? If not, what is the difference? I just feel like nobody talks about this, but I think about it a lot as a vegan.

Hi! Thank you for the question!

I am not a vegan so I am sorry we aren’t going to have the same worldview going into this. In my opinion animals and humans are very different in a lot of different ways. Things that may be acceptable in nature and for wild animals are generally universally unacceptable for us. For instance, in a lot of species, mothers eat their young and we cant really hold that up to human standards of morality because… well. They’re animals. It’s in their nature. I don’t like the idea of us taking ANY life without good reason. I find the way we tend to deal with mass production of a lot of animal products barbaric and inhumane, but I don’t think it’s wrong to eat animal products in a way that is respectful and not wasteful. I also don’t believe it is wrong to euthanize animals (pets included) if their quality of life is poor, or their behavior is dangerous to others. Nor can I say I fault people who may abort pregnancies in their animals. Whether because it may be dangerous for the animal, or because there is simply no good way to ensure it would be taken care of. These things make sense to me for animals specifically. The way I see it, there are many things that may be normal for animals to do to each other, or for their caretakers to do for them… but are unacceptable for members of the human race. We don’t eat each other. We don’t euthanize humans because they’re disabled or hurting or impoverished, and I believe it is incredibly wrong to kill the unborn in the womb before they’ve had a chance at a good life.

For instance: I’ll be transparent. I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I have 18 months of sobriety and I have an incredible community around me. A major majority of my friends come from incredibly difficult backgrounds. We have experienced sexual assault, horrific abuse, the nightmare that is the foster care system, crippling disabilities, and the disease of addiction that has brought our lives crumbling to the ground. I see these factors often in the abortion debate. And yet… we have had the opportunity to create a life for ourselves that is beautiful and full of kindness and love. I think this speaks to the fact that one’s circumstances cannot define the worth or potential of their life. It isn’t up to any other person weigh the measure of our existence and decide our value. I look around at the people I love and who love me, and it breaks my heart to know the experiences we share… but on the whole I’m grateful what whatever we had to go through to be brought together into this life we now love. (Note: I am NOT claiming to speak for the AA community or make a statement about the values of the program as a whole. AA does not ally with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or religion. I am speaking ONLY from MY experience and MY observations.)

These things aren’t universal for all species, so the same laws, societal standards, and consequences cannot and should not apply.

[thestupidhelmet]

In what ways would you say the T90S gang don't feel like 90s teenagers at all? The scene where Gwen is like: "let's just say it: masturbation" out loud in the Hub comes to mind, but I am sure there's more. I am curious what your take is.

"Speaking as a child of the nineties ... " -- Eddie Vedder, "Habit"

Kurt Cobain's suicide was a traumatic and divisive tragedy that impacted '90s teens significantly and in a variety of ways. That '90s Show begins a little over a year after his death, yet no one mentions him or Nirvana. Watching Courtney Love read portions of Kurt's suicide letter, hearing her voice, was a collective experience. Many teens grieved deeply. Some contemplated suicide, some attempted it, and some sadly succeeded.

Insensitive teens reacted with ridicule, contempt, and glee to those who grieved his passing.

The Pacific Northwest rock scene (dubbed grunge as a joke, but the name stuck), its meaningful lyrics and '70s-classic-rock- and punk- influenced music, and the social activism of bands like Pearl Jam had a profound impact on teens in the '90s. That influence is wholly missing in That '90s Show.

East Coast and West Coast gangsta rap was also a big part of teen culture in the '90s, including the deadly feud between the two groups (granted, Tupac's murder occurred in September 1996, and T9S season 2 ended in August 1996).

At the most positive end of the 1990s social spectrum, kids grew up with a diverse group of friends and peers -- not only in terms of race, ethnicity, religion (or the lack thereof), sexuality, and gender, but also personalities, life backgrounds, music preferences, and all levels of academic and emotional intelligence (from Kelso to the direct opposite of Kelso 😂).

Multicultural clubs were a thing, where people shared their cultures (e.g., food, family history, religious rituals, etc.) and empathized with one another as humans first.

Differences of all kinds were points of connection, not division. This inclusive, accepting majority of students across grades 9-12 stood in sharp contrast to the small group of exclusionary, (hard) drug-addicted white kids who believed in a Jackie-esque social hierarchy / popularity. They'd ruled in middle school, but the majority of high school students didn't fit their ideal.

Gay-straight alliances were also a thing, with openly gay teachers running them. Teen drag queens performed at school talent shows. Gay teens brought their same-sex romantic partners to Prom.

But, as I said, this was the positive end of the spectrum. At the most negative, '90s kids grew up with other kids who had neo-nazi leanings and felt pressured to join for fear of becoming isolated and/or a target. X-ethnicity or X-race kids vs. Y-ethnicity or Y-race kids was a thing, with both being victim and perpetrator depending on the school. Homophobia was normal, as was ableism.

The '90s teen experience was not homogeneous.

Many teens had troubled family lives with some level of instability. At the worst, teens became emancipated from their parents before the age of eighteen and financially supported themselves. Some teens lived in trailer parks with Edna-esque mothers and absent fathers. Others lived with their adult boyfriends by choice. Still others were kicked from their mom's house because Mom was bipolar and unmedicated or teen was addicted to speed; these teens found shelter at their best friends' more stable homes.

Teens could be politically active or ignorant, but they weren't necessarily dogmatic in their political leanings. They debated each other respectfully.

Shows like Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, Beavis and Butthead, Ren and Stimpy, the WWF/WWE, Seinfeld, and My So-Called Life were consistently referenced and discussed.

People living with AIDS visited schools and spoke about their experiences, as did Holocaust survivors.

School sports teams, whether small scale or large, were very much a part of '90s teen life. Either one was in a team, a cheerleader or step dancer, or had friends on the teams.

But teens' sense of safety and place in the U.S. was different than today. Again, it wasn't homogeneous, but it did have an essence specific-to-the-decade -- and this essence is not portrayed in That '90s Show. The '90s for teens was a combination of urgency, seriousness, self-importance, self-sacrifice, narcissism, empathy, kids having life experiences (due to parental neglect or willful ignorance) that were far too dangerous for them to have.

The Internet was only starting to be used by teens, and it consisted of message boards and twenty-five cent emails. Then chat rooms.

Playing video and computer games together, in the same room, was a common pastime.

Sexual activity was discussed among the closest of friends, as was masturbation, but in private and generally one-on-one. But teens made out in school stairwells. Couples had arguments in school stairwells. They broke up in school stairwells. 😂

Parties at teens' houses included everyone from freshmen to seniors. Freshmen binged forties, bottles of malt liquor. Lots of kids smoked pot on the balcony. Sex happened in bedrooms. Teens danced drunkenly.

Some girls went to age-appropriate clubs, and others used fake IDs to get into twenty-one-and-over clubs ... got into vans with men twice their age and survived the experience. Sexual consent was dubious at best but, in reality, non-existent. Lots of statutory rape of drunken teens who didn't view or understand what happened as rape.

Schools were filled with a measure of high functioning alcoholics and stoners (both academically-minded and not), kids who did hard drugs like speed and heroin -- and sadly didn't survive the experience.

They were also filled with academically-focused students who were relatively straight-edge. They were friends with the stoners and high-functioning alcoholics -- and were never pressured to join in on their drug and alcohol use (yet again, not a homogeneous experience).

Some students (of all races and ethnicities) were drug dealers.

That '70s Show, while the era is part and parcel of the characters and stories, captures the essence of what '90s teens experienced to a good degree. It successfully explores the seriousness of teenage struggles while also being funny.

The superficiality of That '90s Show and its characters is why I didn't connect with it deeply. For example, Leia's '90s Lisa Loeb fantasy is funny but fluff. I didn't want or need her to be a high-functioning alcoholic who's also class president with a GPA of 3.7. 😅 She also didn't have to be bisexual or gay.

But the reasons given for her struggles as a teen in Chicago are flimsy. She comes across as somewhat depressed in T9S's first episode. She's portrayed as having two loving and emotionally stable parents, as well as an equally loving and stable extended family. Being an outcast at her Chicago school because she's on the debate team and in band -- it's possible but unlikely.

Higher emotional stakes were necessary, and they would've made the humor more impactful. Perhaps Leia actually suffered from depression, likely reactive as it's portrayed on the show. It clears up once her friendship with Gwen (and Gwen's friends) begins. Why? What about her life in Chicago is so painful? Not fitting in with her peers, sure, but give a deeper and more realistic/tied-to-the-'90s reason.

As I've discussed previously, I would've written her as bisexual or gay. But she could also have a learning disability -- and frustrated, emotionally disregulated reactions to it that established a reputation among her school peers from first grade, a rep she couldn't shake even as she learned tools to work with her learning disability.

Or maybe her group of best friends excluded her once they reached middle school because their interests no longer aligned. They moved fast toward older activities (e.g., sex, drinking, drugs) while she remained focused on academics and being twelve and thirteen. And/or became invested in what was going on in the country and the world.

Or she was bullied at school from day one with a headmaster who didn't care.

Or Eric and Donna's parenting style put too many limits on her.

Or anything that carries some weight.

Gwen's character in season 1, by comparison, is more connected to the '90s era. Not by much, but her home life is a strange mix of stable and messy. She has riot grrrl vibes, but the show doesn't dive deeper into this aspect of her. Instead, they make her rebelliousness generic and not specific to the feminist movement of the time. The show should've embraced the specificity of the '90s instead of sprinkling it on like glitter.

Jay is a modified Kelso clone who says bro with Nate to the point of torture. He and Nate resemble Joey Lawrence's character on Blossom to a degree, a '90s sitcom produced in the '90s (and used the Pinciotti kitchen set before T7S did). But Jay and Nate are both cartoonish, Nate less so in season 2, and they could be plucked out of the 1990s era and placed into today's without any consequences for their characters.

The above is true for all the T9S kids. Nothing about the '90s era is fundamental to who they are.

[mariacallous]

I first heard about Rocklin, California, back in 2019, when a bitter fight there over gender and sexuality in the schools made national headlines. In this small city outside of Sacramento, hundreds of parents were holding their kids out of school to protest a new social studies curriculum that, among other things, highlighted contributions of major LGBTQ+ figures in history. Some parents argued that the curriculum introduced the topic of sexuality before kids were ready for it; others said the curriculum sent a message of LGBTQ+ approval that was at odds with their religious beliefs.

The debate felt very novel at the time and slightly weird, given that it was in a state known for its progressive bent. That may be why it made an impression – and why the story was still rattling around in my head two years later when similar fights started popping up in other communities around the country. Some of those debates took place in Michigan, where I live and was covering the governor’s race. Eventually I got the idea of going back to Rocklin to see how the debate had turned out there, thinking it might be a case study.

I hadn’t planned to spend a lot of time on the article because I figured the controversy had died down and most of the residents had moved on. I couldn’t have been more wrong. That 2019 fight over the social studies curriculum turned out to be the opening salvo in an ongoing, escalating war that has engulfed Rocklin and its neighbors -- most recently in a fight over the future of an LGBTQ+ youth support group and a debate over “parental notification” rules that would require teachers to let parents know if their child asks to be identified with a name or pronoun different from the one on school records.

My HuffPost article tells the stories of these fights. It’s based on dozens of interviews, spanning the better part of a year, and features an array of characters, including a progressive gay pastor and the leader of a right-wing megachurch, along with cameos by the conservative organizations Moms for Liberty and Project Veritas. It also includes some scared, struggling LGBTQ+ kids who say, quite reasonably, that they are the ones with the most at stake. 

[little-elf-wanders]

Veilguard Vault: Character Planning

~ Warrior Role ~

Basics

Name: Marsh (Aka Rook)

Age: 29

Gender: Male/Nonbinary 

Height: Average (Note: Short for a Qunari)

Race: Qunari // Tal-Vashoth

Faction: Lords Of Fortune

Class: Warrior // Two-handed

Subclass: Reaper 

Sexuality: Closet Bisexual (He gay panics)

Possible Romance: Lucanis (He makes him feel tall)

Possible Friends: Taash, Harding, Assan, Davrin?, Emmerich, Varric, 

Possible Yikes: Solas, Neve, Davrin?

Possibly Unsure: Davrin, Bellara

Personality

Likes: Money, Loot, Breaking things, Stealing things, Shady business schemes, The ocean, Biting, Changing his hair an ungodly amount of times, Sharp teeth, Coffee, His rings, Bright colours, Adventuring, Flirting his way into and outta situations, Singing (though he won’t like comments about it).

Dislikes: Orlais, Politics, Solas, The law (sorry Neve), Slavers, Being stared at, Big statues, Long debates (he has no attention span), The Qun, Being told what to do. 

Quirks: He picks his teeth when he’s bored, He sharpens his teeth because sometimes he likes to bite people in the middle of battle, Very self conscious that he’s not as big as most Qunari so out of sheer spite he’s learned to use a battle axe, He has a big mouth that often gets him in trouble but he’s also very good at getting out of it, Really wanted to explore under the ocean but it was impossible. (He tried and nearly drowned. Twice.)

Backstory: Marsh was always a scrawnier Qunari than the other boys, which you’d think would mean he’d have more incentive to behave, obey and fit in. It had the opposite effect, as instead it spurred him to rebel and prove himself even harder – growing to quickly learn he hated being told who he was and what he should do, tension built between him and… everyone around him. Somewhere along the way, he developed behavioural issues. He was cocky, had a smart mouth, a shit eating grin and talked too much smack for the kid who got his ass handed to him by the bigger peers. Marsh wasn’t a happy kid, he was an angry kid, leading to multiple incidents in his youth that didn’t earn him any favours. “Marsh” - not his Qun name -wasn’t fit for the Qun. After one incident once he was fed up with his assigned job as a blacksmith, he got into it with his teacher when he kept pocketing materials meant for weaponry, he was caught red handed. A bad fight broke out, which cost him half his horn and earned him half an ear from his assaulter, and although deep down he knew stealing wasn't a smart move, he was too angry at everything to admit it when he had the chance. He was promptly sent to re-education which broke the final straw for him. Unable to accept the Qun or his role, or how everything he did was always wrong, bad or against the Qun, he snapped and snuck away from his home in Kont-aar, moving further into Rivain where he disappeared into trading markets. It was a long journey just to get there and it really let him experience more than he ever would with his teacher. He escaped young at the age of 15 and became a dreaded Tal-Vashoth, where he’d scrap and scavenge anything and everything he could to survive. As it turned out, he was exceptionally good at it. His life in the Qun and his breeding as a Qunari gave him more of an edge than he realised. Inside the Qun, he was weak, yet out here? He had options. So many options. Which he took full advantage of; he watched merchants, watched pirates, watched the people of Rivain and grew incredibly fascinated by their customs, their blatant acceptance and reverence of magic, and just everything he came across felt like seeing colour for the first time – it felt like life, life perfectly wrapped in sea salt air. Marsh swiftly discovered he wasn’t as bad socially as he initially thought – where he’d get pushback, chiding, scolding or flat out strict snaps with the Qun, here he was more… accepted. Some younger kids even began to look up to him when he stuck up for them, and they helped him get better accustomed to life in Dairsmuid. They welcomed his conversation, taught him their language and from there he began to network.

At 17, he established many groups or... gangs, might be the better word, networking with his own little group of troublemakers. Finding information, items, lost things... it all became his talent, of course backed up by his teeth and battle axe. He especially learned of his love of trade through those years. Money, shiny things, bright fabrics, unique items, you name it he got it. He got a hunger for it and a passion for finding things people wanted, things he was never allowed to touch before. 

This led him right into the arms of the Lords Of Fortune, whom he worked with for a good sum of years, and eventually that brought Varric. 

[Image was made on picrew]

[savanaclaw-jack-howl]

”If you're scared, tuck your tail and get outta here. I'm more than enough for them on my own.”

Oi, I’m the real person behind this blog. We’re going to get a few things straight here:

no incest. Ex: Idia and ortho, or Jade and Floyd (not that I think y’all need the examples but just in case

I would prefer beings over the age of 10

nothing overly sexual (because sometimes it just gets weird)

don’t get political. This is for fun, not debates

Any one starting a ship rp can not interact with another ship rp. Friend ships and such can interact obvi but any ships can’t and won’t interact I don’t need a mess for myself

those are the current rules, I might add some later

Things that could get your blocked are: racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia

Other info: don’t be a dickhead. You can start full on Rps if you want but fair warning I get to it when I get to it if that’s what you’re doing, if you want a faster reply just do it in the tumbler DMs. This ask/chat blog supports all people of any race, gender, sexuality, religion and will remain that way

I am a multi-shipper so I’m not picky with that but I’ll probably respond more to the more popular ones so we don’t get any rude comments about that

I will get better at this whole thing over time just give me a inch to work with here

now with that out of the way, this blog is officially open to people to talk to

-Yours truly, Kris

Other blogs include: @rollo-flamme-nbc and @lilithin-the-rewriter (That’s an oc) and @floyd-leech-thing

[schraubd]

Saturation Ad Air War

One aspect of political culture I very strongly believe in is that most voters' knowledge of political affairs is primarily one of ambiance. They don't know much in the way of facts (what is the inflation rate, has crime gone up or down). They know a "mood". They feel that things are getting better, or worse. They hear a lot that America basically has open borders, or they hear a lot that abortion rights are going away. The connection to reality is pretty well unimportant (we definitely don't have open borders; abortion rights really are under threat). It's the sensation, the steady drumbeat of narrative, that moves them. To that end, I've long thought that a good progressive billionaire project would be to continually air issue ads that are not tied to a given political race or even an election, but are just part of the backdrop every time one turns on the news or watches Monday Night Football. The goal of these ads should be to make certain hopes, fears, and moods simply part of our backdrop -- something "we heard somewhere." It should not cast itself as expressly political -- an effort to elect this or that politician. In fact, "issue ads" is probably the wrong moniker. It shouldn't present itself as political at all. It should be simply a story, told over and over again, until it seeps into the national subconscious. What sorts of ads do I have in mind? I pitched one about abortion a few years ago. I had another idea for one about trans and gender non-binary issues: A family is at home in classic suburbia: mom, dad, and a gender non-conforming adolescent kid. The scene is utterly mundane and ordinary, but with a touch of danger lurking in the background. Mom is cooking, but beside her one can see a newspaper headline announcing the latest right-wing attack on trans kids. Dad is telling a dad joke to the kid (who rolls their eyes), the TV news on mute in the background but the subtitles have a talking head calling families who provided gender-affirming care to their children sexual predators who should be thrown in jail. Interspersed with each shot, we have a quick cut of heavily armed police massing outside the house. Right as everyone is getting ready for dinner, the door is battered open and the scene goes black. All we hear is the police demanding everyone on the ground, then demanding the child come with them as the family screams frantically. The last we hear is the kid pleading to their parents "don't let them take me!"  What's the point of the ad? To put people (and particularly suburban parents -- political hell hath no fury like a suburban schoolparent scorned) in a mindset where families are in danger. Maybe their family. Maybe their neighbor's family. There's no lie here -- these are the stakes, and families are in danger. But the point is to prime them with that sensation in advance, so that it's what they immediately think of whenever the Trump administration announces policies that will be all about threatening families. The ad is just an idea (and nobody wants my advertising ideas). And not all the ads need to be negative, necessarily (though as the opposition party, that's probably going to be the bulk of it). But the broader point is that liberals need to do everything they can to just saturate their narratives into the American bloodstream, not as part of a discrete political campaign, but simply as a background feature of what the world is right now. We can't wait for election season, and we certainly can't wait for an increasingly infirm legacy media to the job for us. These stories should be mainlined into every American home, by any and every medium available, and should start right now. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/K2Fsdqn

[rollo-flamme-nbc]

‘Rollo Flamme’

Oi, I’m the real person behind this blog. We’re going to get a few things straight here:

no incest. Ex: Idia and ortho, or Jade and Floyd (not that I think y’all need the examples but just in case

I would prefer beings over the age of 10

nothing overly sexual (because sometimes it just gets weird)

don’t get political. This is for fun, not debates

those are the current rules, I might add some later

Things that could get your blocked are: racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia

Other info: don’t be a dickhead. You can start full on Rps if you want but fair warning I get to it when I get to it if that’s what you’re doing, if you want a faster reply just do it in the tumbler DMs. This ask/chat blog supports all people of any race, gender, sexuality, religion and will remain that way

I am a multi-shipper so I’m not picky with that but I’ll probably respond more to the more popular ones so we don’t get any rude comments about that

I will get better at this whole thing over time just give me a inch to work with here

My other Blogs: @floyd-leech-thing and @nrc-plus-misfits

and now without further ado, it’s open to talk too

-Kris, The one and only creator of this blog

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Andrew Doyle

Published: Jun 4, 2024

Here we go again. The culture war is apparently nothing more than a myth, a fabrication intended to distract the lower orders. It’s like the “bread and circuses” of Ancient Rome, or the Easter Bunny, or Milli Vanilli.

On this week’s episode of Newsnight, the former Tory MP Dehenna Davison was asked whether she welcomed Kemi Badenoch’s recent attempts to clarify the Equality Act in order to ensure that women’s rights to single-sex spaces are protected. “I don’t at all,” she said. “I think regrettably the debate around trans issues right now seems to be used as some kind of political football for this mythical culture war that the Conservative party seems to be fighting.”

That’s a relief. So the disabled women who are smeared as bigots for requesting female carers are simply fantasists? And the female prisoners who are terrified of being accommodated with convicted rapists are just worrying over nothing? And victims of sexual assault being turned away from rape crisis centres because they don’t want to speak to a male counsellor have just imagined the whole thing?

Apparently, yes. Here’s what the Tory Reform Group had to say in a post on X:

“The Conservative Party has to think very carefully about the type of campaign it wants to run, and the longer term impact of stoking culture wars. It is clear that voters are rejecting the politics of division. We must not run on ‘wedge issues’ for a narrow core voter base alone.”

I remain unconvinced that the rights of 51% of the population qualifies as a “wedge issue”.

Of course the culture war doesn’t end with the ongoing erosion of women’s rights. Gay people are being shamed for being attracted to their own sex by the very organisations who were set up to protect their interests. We have men demanding access to lesbian dating apps and speed-dating events. We’ve had gay youth medicalised on the NHS for being same-sex attracted. We have the bullying and harassment of gay men and lesbians in the name of “progress”. And yet in her Newsnight interview, Davison claims that same-sex marriage is one of the Conservative government’s “proudest achievements” while in the same breath dismissing these attacks on gay rights as trivial.  

And what about the ongoing assault on free speech? What of those activists who demand that we should be prosecuted if we do not adopt their language (something that is actually happening in Canada and is likely to come to Ireland with the proposed new “hate speech” laws)? And what about campaigners who now leverage huge influence in all our major institutions attempting to rewrite our history, remove statues and monuments that they find “problematic”, censor books, and criminalise dissent? What about the ideologues in schools who are teaching highly contested theories as fact, from Critical Race Theory via Brighton School Council’s “anti-racist schools strategy” to this week’s revelation that 95% of Scottish schools are allowing pupils to self-identify their gender?

At this point, it’s difficult to believe that anyone genuinely believes that the culture war is “mythical”. There is an abundance of evidence of the antics of culture warriors who seek to reconstruct all the fundamental aspects of our society in order to better align with their ideology. I do make a point of assuming that people are telling the truth, and so the charitable explanation is that Davison and her ilk are simply ignorant of some of the most significant cultural developments over the past decade, from the fallout of the Black Lives Matter protests to the Scottish hate crime bill to the campaigns of harassment against gender-critical feminists. Perhaps she doesn’t read the newspapers. If only someone had written a book that provides a wide-ranging overview of the countless examples of how culture warriors have sought to reshape the world. Oh well…

Of course Davison is not the only political commentator to imply that the rights of women and gay people simply don’t matter. Former Labour strategist Alastair Campbell was quick to jump on to X to offer his contribution:

“I’m sure the world of trade and business will take note that the actual Secretary of State for trade and business has decided that the biggest issue on her agenda on her first big election outing is the weaponisation of trans rights. Anyone might be tempted to think Kemi Badenoch has less interest in the general election than the internal ideological shitshow likely to follow.”

As J. K. Rowling pointed out, Campbell seems to be unaware that Badenoch is also the minister for women and equalities, and so it’s hardly a stretch to suppose that women’s rights and the Equality Act fall within her remit. As Rowling put it: “Thanks once again for highlighting Labour’s complacency and indifference towards the rights of half the electorate.”

The culture war is often misunderstood as a matter of Right vs Left, but the ill-informed comments of Davison and Campbell show that it’s nothing of the kind. As I have pointed out many times, the Conservatives have presided over the worst excesses of the culture war during their time in office. We shouldn’t give them a free pass simply because matters are likely to get a whole lot worse under Labour.

Far from being trivial, these issues could not be more important. If we can’t preserve the rights of women and gay people, how can we claim to be living in a civilised society? And when activists are successfully pressurising governments to force citizens to declare falsehoods, how can we in good conscience remain silent?

The claim that the culture was is a “distraction” is, in itself, a distraction. Yes, other issues are crucial and require our attention. But resisting the creeping authoritarianism of our times should also be a priority. When those in power are not only insisting that 2+2=5, but demanding that we all repeat the lie, we cannot afford to be complacent.

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

maybe not a trope strictly speaking but college au? who would be who? what would they study/teach/be like?

OOH tyy! so fun to think about...

I'm thinking of all of them as non-students, partly bc Elena, Cecio and Dina have all been to uni. under the read more bc i went for everyone

Muro would be an engineering technician. I love him but hes not getting anywhere near a degree let alone a phd even if we make it modern day. Cherry would teach engineering [more the maths and physics area but also more general] and they would have a legendary rivalry. Muro has been widely accepted into the group of professors/lecturers and is 'totally just friends' with Elena 😉

Elena would teach art history :) specifically with a focus on non european & modern american art history. Everyone jokes that she should also be a fashion professor given the clothes she designs and makes to wear but she teaches art history not art itself for the same reason of not turning her creative passion so directly into her work.

Tesoro... he either teaches english literature or psychology. or sports if he wants to keep up the jock mask. Media analysis [& wider literature and language classes] he lovess breaking down what pieces of media say and imply and how effectively they do so. his students joke that his lessons double as english 101 because of his love of english language media, but he makes sure to look at Italian classics & contemporary media as well. Him & Elena have a friendly rivalry where they debate the boundaries of their two subjects.

Conficcare teaches nursing/caring and i pity the poor people who end up in his classes and as trainees in the hypothetical university hospital nearby. Hes a decent teacher, just also a fucking nightmare of one. Contrary to expectations, if you want to calm him down just drag Muro over, not Tesoro his boyfriend.

Dina teaches... data analysis and security! also ethics. some of her students may complain how much she stresses ethics but the world is better when those students give up on the degree. She crosses over to teach the programming side of engineering as she has to deal with her wife Cherry enough she understands engineers

Cecio teaches law! He avoids the rest of them [Bar Rametta] like the plague bc being co-workers with basically your family is awkwardd but hes a decent professor and also goes heavy on how the law should protect and not be abused

Rametta teaches gender studies, though shes much more focused on research than the rest, because growing up around Muro, her brother, Tesoro, Elena ect, as well as being trans herself, made her think about the complexities of gender and their intersection with race and class and sexuality a whole fucking lot. Everyone is banned from her lectures bc it would get obvious how a lot of what she learned started from observing them.

Mura would be a politics professor and be a walking mystery who sometimes has a little to much insight into politics and is a legendarily brutal professor to have

Georgie would teach agriculture! he would be a sweetheart of a lecturer<3 doing plenty of research into conservation and how to update farming methods to be ore long term sustainable

[starblightbindery]

Editor's Note from my bind, Designs of Fate, an anthology of Star Wars stories by Patricia A. Jackson.

Patricia A. Jackson is a criminally underrated Star Wars author.

I’ll explain.

Growing up in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was challenging to be an adolescent Star Wars fangirl, particularly an Asian American one. Back then, fandom meant negotiating male-dominated online message boards where identifying as a teenage girl meant inviting a ‘fake geek girl’ grilling at best and sexual harassment at worst. Most of the published Star Wars books were about Han, Leia, and Luke. Han and Leia were in their thirties and the parents of three children...not super relatable for preteen me. As far as character development was concerned, our “Big Three” had established characterizations coalesced firmly on the side of good. For our heroes, there was no moral ambiguity as, novel by novel, they tackled the galactic Threat of the Week.

Bildungsromans, those books were not. When Jackson started writing Star Wars in the 1990s, there were no women Jedi or protagonists of color. If you wanted stories with original characters coming of age, your primary recourse was the West End Games’ Star Wars Adventure Journals and their published anthologies, Tales from the Empire (1997) and Tales from the New Republic (1999). I remember avidly poring over my dogeared paperback copies and stalking the internet for scans or transcriptions. Although I never played the D6 role-playing game, the short stories from the Star Wars Adventure Journals helped me envision that a character like me—a young Asian girl coming into her own—did have a place in Star Wars after all.

As evinced by the vitriolic reactions towards John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran during the production of the sequel trilogy, Star Wars fandom can be a hateful environment for proponents of diversity and inclusion. A small but irritatingly loud faction of fascist-leaning, cishet, white male fans are actively hostile towards fans who advocate for change; they are more troubled by the presence of queers, women and BIPOC than our absence. Because of the ubiquity and popularity of Star Wars in America’s cultural milieu, the sentiments from these self-appointed gatekeepers have been—and continue to be—amplified by right wing extremists, and, to some extent, even by the Internet Research Agency as tools of Russia’s psychological and cyber warfare against the United States. During his Ph.D. candidacy with the Department of Information Studies at UCLA, Morten Bay, PhD., studied negative tweets about The Last Jedi and found that 50.9% of negative tweets were “bots, trolls/sock puppets or political activists using the debate to propagate political messages supporting extreme right-wing causes and the discrimination of gender, race or sexuality.”

“Russian trolls weaponize Star Wars criticism as an instrument of information warfare with the purpose of pushing for political change,” he wrote, “while it is weaponized by right-wing fans to forward a conservative agenda and for some it is a pushback against what they perceive as a feminist/social justice onslaught.”

The creation and inclusion of characters with minoritized identities in Star Wars is, therefore, an act of resistance. As far as I’m aware, Patricia A. Jackson was the first woman of color and Black author to write for the Star Wars expanded universe. Jackson has described the fan environment in the 1990s thusly; like many minoritized fans of color, she would be given pithy justifications such as "Well, there’s no Africa in Star Wars, so there are no Black people." Jackson noted, aptly, "That was just translation for “’You don’t matter. You don’t need to be here.’” Jackson's work for West End Games, particularly her sourcebook The Black Sands of Socorro, is a subversion of those expectations.

Before anyone else did, Jackson showed fandom that dominant mayo masculinity did not have to be the only way to tell Star Wars stories. Her stories existed before the prequel trilogy and three decades of Star Wars publishing, before FanFiction.net, Archive of Our Own, or Wattpad. She is the forerunner for BIPOC writers in Star Wars, followed by other luminaries like Steven Barnes, Daniel José Older, Nnedi Okorafor, Rebecca Roanhorse, Ken Liu, Greg Pak, Alyssa Wong, Sarah Kuhn, Saladin Ahmed, C.B. Lee, Justina Ireland, Alex Segura, Zoraida Cordova, Greg VanEekhout, Mike Chen, Charles Yu, R.F. Kuang, Sarwat Chadda, Sabaa Tahir, and Renée Ahdieh.

Jackson had and continues to have an incredibly prescient understanding of what makes a good Star Wars story. Any of the stories in this anthology could find a home as an anime short from Star Wars: Visions (2021). Ideas from Jackson’s Star Wars short stories have appeared in later media, sometimes decades later. Whether convergently evolved or directly influenced, the parallels are astonishing: Kierra, the snarky feminine droid consciousness who inhabits Thaddeus Ross’s ship, is a spiritual predecessor to L3-37, Lando Calrissian’s snarky feminine droid companion from Solo (2018) who ends the film uploaded to the Millennium Falcon. Jackson addressed concepts like slavery and Force healing predating the prequel and sequel trilogies. In “Idol Intentions,” she created an adventuring academic on the hunt for artifacts long before Kieron Gillen brought Doctor Aphra to life. Squint and the upturned red salt on the planet Crait in The Last Jedi becomes flying red soil on the planet Redcap. Dark haired, dark side tragic emo boy starcrossed with a fiery girl Jedi?—I think Jackson understood intuitively the appeal of this trope to a woman-dominated contingent of fandom well before “Reylo” topped Tumblr’s fan favorite relationship charts in 2020.

Jackson’s work is also significant for deepening world building. Much like how Timothy Zahn introduced analysis of fine art to Star Wars with his villainous art connoisseur Grand Admiral Thrawn, Jackson’s stories introduced concepts such as the evolution of Old Corellian, the acting profession, and Legitimate Theatre. These elements added verisimilitude to the expanded universe; it makes sense that different cultures in Star Wars would have archaic languages, folk songs, and old stories of their own from even longer ago in galaxies far, far, away. More recently, the franchise has started to flesh out in-universe lore in Star Wars: Myths and Fables (2019) by George Mann. Still, Uhl Eharl Khoehng in “Uhl Eharl Khoehng” (1995) remains the finest example of mise en abyme in any Star Wars related work.

Themes from Jackson’s Star Wars works, particularly around Drake Paulsen and Socorro, also connect contemporaneously with our real world. When the Seldom Different is essentially ‘pulled over’ by Imperial authorities in “Out of the Cradle” (1994), stormtroopers lie about Drake Paulsen having a weapon as a pretense to terrorize the teenager. It’s a collision of space opera with Black youths’ past and current experiences of police brutality and state-sanctioned violence. Accordingly, this capricious encounter is the rite of passage that jars Drake out of his childhood. I cheered when I read The Black Sands of Socorro (1997) and saw that the Black Bha'lir smuggler’s guild is named for a bha'lir, depicted in the book as a large...panther. Few Star Wars expanded universe authors—particularly in the 1990s—leveraged their influence to center characters of color or to allude to racial justice movements. Jackson did both.

For this anthology, I have copy edited and also taken the liberty of, when applicable, substituting some gendered or sanist language with more contemporaneous wording.17 The stories are otherwise intact. It would be remiss of me if I did not note; however, that one of the stories, “Bitter Winter” (1995), has sanist and ableist tropes that could not be contemporized without making dramatic changes to the story. In this story, the fictional disease brekken vinthern drives those impacted to violence; while it’s real world correlate of major neurocognitive disorder can include symptoms of aggression and agitation, extreme violence is rare and people with this condition are also at great risk of being harmed by violence. The tropes “Mercy Kill” and “Shoot the Dog” are depictions of non-voluntary active euthanasia, typically from the perspective of the horrified “killer” placed in an impossible situation. These tropes frame murder and death as “putting someone out of their misery” while downplaying any alternatives (ie: sedation to alleviate suffering, medical attention, or, say, ion cannons to render a ship inoperable without killing.)

Like in our society, the societies in Star Wars have consistently framed mental illness pejoratively. There are certainly valid critiques of the utter inadequacy of health care in Star Wars. Ableism is ubiquitous in entertainment media, and even with it’s problematic tropes, “Bitter Winter” remains one of the more humanizing depictions of a mental health condition in Star Wars fiction. I have included it in this anthology as a rare example of moral ambiguity in the franchise.

With the exception of “Fragile Threads” and “Emanations of Darkness,” the stories here are presented not in published order, but in chronological order as they would have occurred in the Star Wars universe. Ordering the stories chronologically helped clarify timelines; it also allows the anthology to begin with “The Final Exit,” which was a fan favorite back when it was first published. I’ve interwoven the Brandl family stories with Drake Paulsen’s coming of age adventures, as the Paulsens are such a strong foil to the Brandl family.

Since “I am your father” dropped in 1980, Star Wars has been big on Daddy Issues—intergenerational trauma, parental relationships, broken attachments, identity development, and initiation into adulthood (or, as Obi-Wan Kenobi would put it, “taking your first steps into a larger world.”) With Drake, we see that Kaine Paulsen is a father who is gone but ever-present. With Jaalib, we see that Adalric Brandl is a father who is ever-present but clearly far gone. Drake knows his Socorran roots; he has community and found family. Fable’s identity is adrift; she was torn from her roots after her fugitive Jedi mother’s death. Jaalib’s roots are scaffolded by disingenuous artifice. There is a diametric interplay of identity formation and parental legacy in these short stories that captures classic themes from Star Wars. And, the stories challenge readers to consider how we interact with shame, guilt, and obligation. Through the morally ambiguous dilemmas that are her oeuvre, Jackson’s characters discover who they are and where they stand.

While the thrill of having an Imperial Star Destroyer drop out of hyperspace is pure Star Wars energy, Jackson’s stories also disrupted what fans had come to expect. Published online as fan fiction, “Emanations of Darkness” (2001) polarized fans of the previous Brandl stories, particularly with Fable’s decision to throw her lot in with Jaalib and his father. At the time, Star Wars fan commentator Charles Phipps noted how the story dealt with the insidiousness of the dark side by taking potential heroes and crushing them. “Star Wars, I've never known to leave a bitter taste in my mouth,” he wrote, stunned. “I don't like what it's brought out in my feelings or myself...Bravo Brandl, you have your applause.” Although the Brandl stories were written and published before Revenge of the Sith (2005), Fable and Jaalib’s relationship mirrors the relationship between Padmé Amidala and Anakin Skywalker, down to both Jaalib and Anakin selling their souls to the same Emperor in hopes that will spare the women they love.

The prequel trilogy introduces the Jedi Council’s detached approach to attachments—don’t feel it, emotions like fear or anger are to be shunned, else suffering will follow. Anakin Skywalker’s broken attachments to his mother and Padmé lead him to turn against his values; his inability to integrate or tolerate his attachments is his downfall. It’s the same in the Brandl stories where, trauma bonded, Fable and Jaalib cannot let each other go. While Jaalib credits this as how he was able to preserve a bit of himself while under the Emperor’s thrall, his inability to extricate himself from his father’s influence or to let go of Fable ends up dooming her.

This is why I was thrilled to discover “Fragile Threads” (2021) on Wattpad twenty years later. In this story, Drake Paulsen helps his lover Tiaja Moorn save her sister, at the cost of losing their relationship when she decides to remain on her homeworld. Drake doesn’t fight her decision, he accepts it. He can hold onto that connection to Tiaja, just as he knows he will always be connected to Socorro, his father, and the Black Bha'lir. Drake can love freely because he knows what Luke Skywalker told Leia in The Last Jedi: “No one is ever truly gone.” He is able to straddle the fulcrum of attachment and love without letting it consume him, and that is balancing the Force.

Contemporary fandom discourse is also a struggle with attachment; the parasocial relationships we form with characters and stories are similar in process to how we attach to the important people in our lives. We imbue with meaning and carry these stories with us. As Star Wars storytelling enters its fifth decade, the divide between affirmational fandom (allegiance to manufactured nostalgia) and transformational fandom (allegiance to iterative and transgressive fan engagement) has factionized fandom. When Star Wars is seen as a totemic object, right wing fans have agitated for a return to a mythic past where white men were centered and morality was Manichean. From where I stand, at the heart of this debate is whether or not the reader or Star Wars is permitted to “grow up”—to leave the cradle, to evolve new identities and explore shades of grey.

To me, Jackson’s stories are a reminder that characters of color and complex moral dilemmas have always been a part of Star Wars. We have always been here. No other Star Wars author has been as exquisitely aware of the significance of storytelling; how it can help people challenge existing beliefs and discover themselves. Since the beginnings of the expanded universe, Patricia A. Jackson has spun yarn, and those fragile threads have tethered readers like myself to a galaxy far, far away.

Ol'val, min dul'skal, ahn guld domina, mahn uhl Fharth bey ihn valle. (Until we next meet, may the Force be with you.)