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agoodflyting · 3 months

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Why Aziraphale is completely ridiculous in the Bastille scene (and I love him so much for it)

A while ago I posted a comparison of Aziraphale and Crowley's costumes in the 1793 flashback in Good Omens and I wanted to add these little tidbits. (Because they haunt me.)

I feel like most people know this but IF YOU DON'T, Paris in 1793 is right in the middle of something called La Terreur.

HISTORY LESSON If you didn't learn this in school the French Revolution was when, after years of escalating social tension, a coalition representing the working classes of France revolted against the monarchy, violently overthrew King Louis XVI, and declared France to be a republic.

The new National Convention governing France ruled that King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette were traitors to the people of France because of how they had spent ridiculous amounts of money on luxuries for themselves while vast numbers of the lower classes were literally starving to death. (keep the bold in mind - wealth and class disparities were one of the key causes of the whole-ass revolution)

In 1793 (year of the flashback) both the King and Queen were executed by guillotine for their crimes.

This kicks of something called The Reign of Terror (La Terreur if you want to be French about it). A multi-year-long period in which the National Convention goes on a bloody witch hunt for any and every member of the middle or upper classes who could even possibly be considered a traitor by those same standards.

If you A) had money or privilege, and B) had ever used your money or privilege to treat yourself, you were getting executed. Over 25,000 people died during the Reign of Terror, half of them by guillotine. In fact, the iconic guillotine was used because it was physically impossible to keep up with the sheer number of people they were executing in Paris every single day.

Some things that could get you killed (actually and completely seriously) during the Reign of Terror:

Implying in any way you were sympathetic to the monarchy

Having a noble title

Having expensive things

Wearing expensive, luxurious clothes (*cough* AZIRAPHALE)

helping or sympathizing with anyone who did any of the above

a working-class person saying you were mean to them once

And then there's this bitch...

I AM NOBILITY PLEASE KILL ME So we have established that Paris in 1793 is in the middle of a frenzied, state-sanctioned bloodbath in which the working classes are massacring everyone even remotely nobility-adjacent. And in the middle of this frenzy, Aziraphale proceeds to roll up in Paris in this outfit:

How will this outfit get him killed? Let me count the ways...

First off- at this point everyone with even the tiniest shred of self- preservation is hiding the fact that they are in any way associated with the monarchy. The wealthy are straight-up abandoning mansions. The middle-class are plastering over decorations to make their house look 'poor'. The only people dressed remotely decent are the guys leading the National Convention and that's just because nobody can stop them. Everyone else is in 24/7 peasant cosplay or else they are covering themselves in cockades and sashes on to show they're pro-Republic.

Aziraphale is basically a giant shiny white sign saying I AM NOBILITY PLEASE KILL ME.

First off the lace jabot and lace cuffs are both associated with the old-school wealthy in the 1790's.

His coat is also decorated in gold braid and silver buttons, which are both marks of wealth and luxury.

He basically looks like he works for Louis XIV - not just rich, but old school rich.

We know it's his natural hair color, but hair powdering (with clay and starch) had been a big trend with the rich all throughout the 18th century to get that clean white venerable look . To someone who doesn't know it's natural, it would very much look like he's wearing hair powder.

He's wearing shades of cream and white, which are very hard to keep clean and clearly states that the wearer is rich and can afford the upkeep necessary to keep an outfit like that stain-free.

He's wearing white knee-breeches and stockings, also called culottes. See above about laundry and how rich you had to be to wear white, but also working-class men wore long pants like this:

A large faction involved in the Revolution were the Sans-Culottes (no-culottes aka we wear long pants LIKE GOOD OLD WORKING MEN). Culottes are specifically associated with everything the revolution hated. That's right - Aziraphale is literally wearing The Fanciest of Fancy Pants in a city where a group called The Men Against Fancy Pants are running around murdering people.

And then there are his shoes.

Oh god his shoes

I could do a whole post about Aziraphale's blessed little white satin pumps and how ridiculous they are.

Actually I might just do that because this is getting so long and I still have to talk about the brioche.

So I can't remember if it's in the script book or if it's from Neil Gaiman's tumblr, but it's apparently canon (?) that Aziraphale was going around in that outfit asking people where he could get crepes and brioche when he was arrested.

The Affair of the Brioches

So... uh... we've all heard the line attributed to Marie Antoinette- how when she was told that her people were starving because there was no bread left in Paris, she famously said...

It's morphed into 'let them eat cake', but the line is first recorded as, "Then let them eat brioches."

While it's unlikely she ever actually said it, the important thing is that... people in 1793 would have thought she said it. It was used as political smear to show how arrogant and out of touch the monarchy was. Marie Antoinette in particular was reviled by the people of France, who thought she was the main cause of their economic problems. That's why she was executed too.

Bread and brioche and the lines between poverty and privilege were a big thing in Revolutionary France. There was a lot of political connotation to what you ate. The French Revolution came about because of decades of suffering among the lower classes of France. It wasn't something that some dudes just decided to do. The people of Paris have been through years of the absolute worst, most oppressive poverty and starvation you can imagine, all while watching the rich throw money around crazy.

So let us recap.

Aziraphale is dressed so ridiculously posh that he looks like a joke parody of a nobleman... and he is bumbling around Paris during the Reign of Terror. Asking people. For brioche. How I imagine everyone looked at him:

It is so astoundingly tone deaf and tactless. He is basically cosplaying as Marie Antoinette and then going around asking the poor for cake.

I just.... Aziraphale. babygirl. no. oh no. You're lucky they even bothered to take you to prison. I am amazed Crowley ever let him live that down.

I have no conclusion other than this. Aziraphale is ridiculous and I love him so much.

YES YOU REALLY SHOULD SIR.

#good omens #aziraphale #good omens meta #good omens costumes #aziraphale's white satin pumps #ineffable husbands

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months

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The true, tactical significance of Project 2025

TODAY (July 14), I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! NEXT SATURDAY (July 20), I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

Like you, I have heard a lot about Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's roadmap for the actions that Trump should take if he wins the presidency. Given the Heritage Foundation's centrality to the American authoritarian project, it's about as awful and frightening as you might expect:

https://www.project2025.org/

But (nearly) all the reporting and commentary on Project 2025 badly misses the point. I've only read a single writer who immediately grasped the true significance of Project 2025: The American Prospect's Rick Perlstein, which is unsurprising, given Perlstein's stature as one of the left's most important historians of right wing movements:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-07-10-project-2025-republican-presidencies-tradition/

As Perlstein points out, Project 2025 isn't new. The Heritage Foundation and its allies have prepared documents like this, with many identical policy prescriptions, in the run-up to many presidential elections. Perlstein argues that Warren G Harding's 1921 inaugural address captures much of its spirit, as did the Nixon campaign's 1973 vow to "move the country so far to the right 'you won’t even recognize it.'"

The threats to democracy and its institutions aren't new. The right has been bent on their destruction for more than a century. As Perlstein says, the point of taking note of this isn't to minimize the danger, rather, it's to contextualize it. The American right has, since the founding of the Republic, been bent on creating a system of hereditary aristocrats, who govern without "interference" from democratic institutions, so that their power to extract wealth from First Nations, working people, and the land itself is checked only by rivalries with other aristocrats. The project of the right is grounded in a belief in Providence: that God's favor shines on His best creations and elevates them to wealth and power. Elite status is proof of merit, and merit is "that which leads to elite status."

When a wealthy person founds an intergenerational dynasty of wealth and power, this is merely a hereditary meritocracy: a bloodline infused with God's favor. Sometimes, this belief is dressed up in caliper-wielding pseudoscience, with the "good bloodline" reflecting superior genetics and not the favor of the Almighty. Of course, a true American aristocrat gussies up his "race realism" with mystical nonsense: "God favored me with superior genes." The corollary, of course, is that you are poor because God doesn't favor you, or because your genes are bad, or because God punished you with bad genes.

So we should be alarmed by the right's agenda. We should be alarmed at how much ground it has gained, and how the right has stolen elections and Supreme Court seats to enshrine antimajoritarianism as a seemingly permanent fact of life, giving extremist minorities the power to impose their will on the rest of us, dooming us to a roasting planet, forced births, racist immiseration, and most expensive, worst-performing health industry in the world.

But for all that the right has bombed so many of the roads to a prosperous, humane future, it's a huge mistake to think of the right as a stable, unified force, marching to victory after inevitable victory. The American right is a brittle coalition led by a handful of plutocrats who have convinced a large number of turkeys to vote for Christmas.

The right wing coalition needs to pander to forced-birth extremists, racist extremist, Christian Dominionist extremists (of several types), frothing anti-Communist cranks, vicious homophobes and transphobes, etc, etc. Pandering to all these groups isn't easy: for one thing, they often want opposite things – the post-Roe forced birth policies that followed the Dobbs decision are wildly unpopular among conservatives, with the exception of a clutch of totally unhinged maniacs that the party relies on as part of a much larger coalition. Even more unpopular are policies banning birth control, like the ones laid out in Project 2025. Less popular still: the proposed ban on no-fault divorce. Each of these policies have different constituencies to whom they are very popular, but when you put them together, you get Dan Savage's "Husbands you can't leave, pregnancies you can't prevent or terminate, politicians you can't vote out of office":

https://twitter.com/fakedansavage/status/1805680183065854083

The constituency for "husbands you can't leave, pregnancies you can't prevent or terminate, politicians you can't vote out of office" is very small. Almost no one in the GOP coalition is voting for all of this, they're voting for one or two of these things and holding their noses when it comes to the rest.

Take the "libertarian" wing of the GOP: its members do favor personal liberty…it's just that they favor low taxes for them more than personal liberty for you. The kind of lunatic who'd vote for a dead gopher if it would knock a quarter off his tax bill will happily allow his coalition partners to rape pregnant women with unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds and force them to carry unwanted fetuses to term if that's the price he has to pay to save a nickel in taxes:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/29/jubilance/#tolerable-racism

And, of course, the religious maniacs who profess a total commitment to Biblical virtue but worship Trump, Gaetz, Limbaugh, Gingrich, Reagan, and the whole panoply of cheating, lying, kid-fiddling, dope-addled refugees from a Jack Chick tract know that these men never gave a shit about Jesus, the Apostles or the Ten Commandments – but they'll vote for 'em because it will get them school prayer, total abortion bans, and unregulated "home schooling" so they can brainwash a generation of Biblical literalists who think the Earth is 5,000 years old and that Jesus was white and super into rich people.

Time and again, the leaders of the conservative movement prove themselves capable of acts of breathtaking cruelty, and undoubtedly many of them are depraved sadists who genuinely enjoy the suffering of their enemies (think of Trump lickspittle Steven Miller's undisguised glee at the thought of parents who would never be reunited with children after being separated at the border). But it's a mistake to think that "the cruelty is the point." The point of the cruelty is to assemble and maintain the coalition. Cruelty is the tactic. Power is the point:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/09/turkeys-voting-for-christmas/#culture-wars

The right has assembled a lot of power. They did so by maintaining unity among people who have irreconcilable ethics and goals. Think of the pro-genocide coalition that includes far-right Jewish ethno-nationalists, antisemitic apocalyptic Christians who believe they are hastening the end-times, and Islamophobes of every description, from War On Terror relics to Hindu nationalists.

This is quite an improbable coalition, and while I deplore its goals, I can't help but be impressed by its cohesion. Can you imagine the kind of behind-the-scenes work it takes to get antisemites who think Jews secretly control the world to lobby with Zionists? Or to get Zionists to work alongside of Holocaust-denying pencilneck Hitler wannabes whose biggest regret is not bringing their armbands to Charlottesville?

Which brings me back to Project 2025 and its true significance. As Perlstein writes, Project 2025 is a mess. Clocking in an 900 pages, large sections of Project 2025 flatly contradict each other, while other sections contain subtle contradictions that you wouldn't notice unless you were schooled in the specialized argot of the far right's jargon and history.

For example, Project 2025 calls for defunding government agencies and repurposing the same agencies to carry out various spectacular atrocities. Both actions are deplorable, but they're also mutually exclusive. Project 2025 demands four different, completely irreconcilable versions of US trade policy. But at least that's better than Project 2025's chapter on monetary policy, which simply lays out every right wing theory of money and then throws up its hands and recommends none of them.

Perlstein says that these conflicts, blank spots and contradictions are the most important parts of Project 2025. They are the fracture lines in the coalition: the conflicting ideas that have enough support that neither side can triumph over the other. These are the conflicts that are so central to the priorities of blocs that are so important to the coalition that they must be included, even though that inclusion constitutes a blinking "LOOK AT ME" sign telling us where the right is ready to split apart.

The right is really good at this. Perlstein points to Nixon's expansion of affirmative action, undertaken to sow division between Black and white workers. We need to get better at it.

So far, we've lavished attention on the clearest and most emphatic proposals in Project 2025 – for understandable reasons. These are the things they say they want to do. It would be reckless to ignore them. But they've been saying things like this for a century. These demands constitute a compelling argument for fighting them as a matter of urgency, with the intention of winning. And to win, we need to split apart their coalition.

Perlstein calls on us to dissect Project 2025, to cleave it at its joints. To do so, he says we need to understand its antecedents, like Nixon's "Malek Manual," a roadmap for destroying the lives of civil servants who failed to show sufficient loyalty to Nixon. For example, the Malek Manual lays out a "Traveling Salesman Technique" whereby a government employee would be given duties "criss-crossing him across the country to towns (hopefully with the worst accommodations possible) of a population of 20,000 or under. Until his wife threatens him with divorce unless he quits, you have him out of town and out of the way":

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Final_Report_on_Violations_and_Abuses_of/0dRLO9vzQF0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22organization+of+a+political+personnel+office+and+program%22&pg=PA161&printsec=frontcover

It's no coincidence that leftist historians of the right are getting a lot of attention. Trumpism didn't come out of nowhere – Trump is way too stupid and undisciplined to be a cause – he's an effect. In his excellent, bestselling new history of the right in the early 1990s, When the Clock Broke, Josh Ganz shows us the swamp that bred Trump, with such main characters as the fascist eugenicist Sam Francis:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374605445/whentheclockbroke

Ganz joins the likes of the Know Your Enemy podcast, an indispensable history of reactionary movements that does excellent work in tracing the fracture lines in the right coalition:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/when-clock-broke-106803105

Progressives are also an uneasy coalition that is easily splintered. As Naomi Klein argues in her essential Doppelganger, the liberal-left coalition is inherently unstable and contains the seeds of its own destruction:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

Liberals have been the senior partner in that coalition, and their commitment to preserving institutions for their own sake (rather than because of what they can do to advance human thriving) has produced generations of weak and ineffectual responses to the crises of terminal-stage capitalism, like the idea that student-debt cancellation should be means-tested:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/03/utopia-of-rules/#in-triplicate

The last bid for an American aristocracy was repelled by rejecting institutions, not preserving them. When the Supreme Court thwarted the New Deal, FDR announced his intention to pack the court, and then began the process of doing so (which included no-holds-barred attacks on foot-draggers in his own party). Not for nothing, this is more-or-less what Lincoln did when SCOTUS blocked Reconstruction:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/20/judicial-equilibria/#pack-the-court

But the liberals who lead the progressive movement dismiss packing the court as unserious and impractical – notwithstanding the fact that they have no plan for rescuing America from the bribe-taking extremists, the credibly accused rapist, and the three who stole their robes. Ultimately, liberals defend SCOTUS because it is the Supreme Court. I defended SCOTUS, too – while it was still a vestigial organ of the rights revolution, which improved the lives of millions of Americans. Human rights are worth defending, SCOTUS isn't. If SCOTUS gets in the way of human rights, then screw SCOTUS. Sideline it. Pack it. Make it a joke.

Fuck it.

This isn't to argue for left seccession from the progressive coalition. As we just saw in France, splitting at this moment is an invitation to literal fascist takeover:

https://jacobin.com/2024/07/melenchon-macron-france-left-winner

But if there's one thing that the rise of Trumpism has proven, it's that parties are not immune to being wrestled away from their establishment leaderships by radical groups:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

What's more, there's a much stronger natural coalition that the left can mobilize: workers. Being a worker – that is, paying your bills from wages, instead of profits – isn't an ideology you can change, it's a fact. A Christian nationalist can change their beliefs and then they will no longer be a Christian nationalist. But no matter what a worker believes, they are still a worker – they still have a irreconcilable conflict with people whose money comes from profits, speculation, or rents. There is no objectively fair way to divide the profits a worker's labor generates – your boss will always pay you as little of that surplus as he can. The more wages you take home, the less profit there is for your boss, the fewer dividends there are for his shareholders, and the less there is to pay to rentiers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/19/make-them-afraid/#fear-is-their-mind-killer

Reviving the role of workers in their unions, and of unions in the Democratic party, is the key to building the in-party power we need to drag the party to real solutions – strong antimonopoly action, urgent climate action, protections for gender, racial and sexual minorities, and decent housing, education and health care.

The alternative to a worker-led Democratic Party is a Democratic Party run by its elites, whose dictates and policies are inescapably illegitimate. As Hamilton Nolan writes, the completely reasonable (and extremely urgent) discussion about Biden's capacity to defeat Trump has been derailed by the Democrats' undemocratic structure. Ultimately, the decision to have an open convention or to double down on a candidate whose campaign has been marred by significant deficits is down to a clutch of party officials who operate without any formal limits or authority:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-hole-at-the-heart-of-the-democratic

Jettisoning Biden because George Clooney (or Nancy Pelosi) told us to is never going to feel legitimate to his supporters in the party. But if the movement for an open convention came from grassroots-dominated unions who themselves dominated the party – as was the case, until the Reagan revolution – then there'd be a sense that the party had constituents, and it was acting on its behalf.

Reviving the labor movement after 40 years of Reaganomic war on workers may sound like a tall order, but we are living through a labor renaissance, and the long-banked embers of labor radicalism are reigniting. What's more, repelling fascism is what workers' movements do. The business community will always sell you out to the Nazis in exchange for low taxes, cheap labor and loose regulation.

But workers, organized around their class interests, stand strong. Last week, we lost one of labor's brightest flames. Jane McAlevey, a virtuoso labor organizer and trainer of labor organizers, died of cancer at 57:

https://jacobin.com/2024/07/jane-mcalevey-strategy-organizing-obituary

McAlevey fought to win. She was skeptical of platitudes like "speaking truth to power," always demanding an explanation for how the speech would become action. In her classic book A Collective Bargain, she describes how she built worker power:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

McAlevey helped organize a string of successful strikes, including the 2019 LA teachers' strike. Her method was straightforward: all you have to do to win a strike or a union drive is figure out how to convince every single worker in the shop to back the union. That's all.

Of course, it's harder than it sounds. All the problems that plague every coalition – especially the progressive liberal/left coalition – are present on the shop floor. Some workers don't like each other. Some don't see their interests aligned with others. Some are ornery. Some are convinced that victory is impossible.

McAlevey laid out a program for organizing that involved figuring out how to reach every single worker, to converse with them, listen to them, understand them, and win them over. I've never read or heard anyone speak more clearly, practically and inspirationally about coalition building.

Biden was never my candidate. I supported three other candidates ahead of him in 2020. When he got into office and started doing a small number of things I really liked, it didn't make me like him. I knew who he was: the Senator from MBNA, whose long political career was full of bills, votes and speeches that proved that while we might have some common goals, we didn't want the same America or the same world.

My interest in Biden over the past four years has had two areas of focus: how can I get him to do more of the things that will make us all better off, and do less of the things that make the world worse. When I think about the next four years, I'm thinking about the same things. A Trump presidency will contain far more bad things and far fewer good ones.

Many people I like and trust have pointed out that they don't like Biden and think he will be a bad president, but they think Trump will be much worse. To limit Biden's harms, leftists have to take over the Democratic Party and the progressive movement, so that he's hemmed in by his power base. To limit Trump's harms, leftists have to identify the fracture lines in the right coalition and drive deep wedges into them, shattering his power base.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/14/fracture-lines/#disassembly-manual

#pluralistic #politics #project 2025 #heritage foundation #history #jane macalevey #rip #tactics #republicans in disarray #turkeys voting for christmas #rick perlstein #know your enemy #fracture lines #when the clock broke #john ganz #hamilton nolan

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listen-to-the-inner-walrus · 1 year

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hey so remember those new protest laws that make peaceful protest illegal? yeah? wanna see them in action?

[alt text:]

Head of UK’s leading anti-monarchy group arrested at coronation protest

Republic’s Graham Smith held at protest on King Charles III’s procession route in central London

Daniel Boffey Chief reporter, Sat 6 May 2023 08.31 BST

The head of the UK’s leading republican movement has been arrested at an anti-monarchist protest on King Charles III’s procession route.

Graham Smith had been collecting drinks and placards for demonstrators at Trafalgar Square when he was detained by police on the Strand in central London.

It is understood Smith was detained after bringing a megaphone to the demonstration. The Met police had tweeted earlier this week that they would have a “low tolerance” of those seeking to “undermine” the day.

Harry Stratton, a director at Republic, who arrived as Smith and the others were detained, said: “They were collecting the placards and bringing them over when the police stopped them.

“The guys asked why and they were told: we will tell you that once we have searched the vehicle. That’s when they arrested the six organisers. We asked on what grounds they had been arrested but they wouldn’t say. It is a surprise as we had had a number of meetings with the police. They had been making all the right noises”.

full article

dont you love it when your government decides to not even bother hiding the fact the fascist tendencies theyre leaning more and more into?

#uk police #uk politics #britpol #british politics #british police #monarchy #anti monarchy #the guardian #harry stratton #graham smith #daniel boffey #charles #charles iii #coronation #hell country #police misconduct

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gffa · 6 months

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Jedi culture & community fics, my beloved! They're a bit of a rare breed for what you're specifically looking for, specifically focusing on positive Jedi worldbuilding, so if anyone has genfic recs outside of the ones I know, please feel free to add them! But these should help scratch that itch for you, each of them has at least some focus on Jedi philosophy or how Jedi interact with each other or the lessons they teach! It's been awhile since I've read some of them, so there might be some that aren't quite as in-line with how I see the Jedi these days, but they're all ones I felt portrayed them pretty positively and they're all genfic (except one that I made an exception for) and all really lovely fics I remember enjoying for the Jedi worldbuilding aspects! And there are some that will make you absolutely melt with how much you love these characters and their beautiful culture, because by god if canon's not going to give us as much detail as we want, fandom will step up. And fandom made sure to not just focus on the disaster lineage--we love Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Ahsoka, we always want more of them, please don't stop writing Jedi worldbuilding with them!--but also Mace and Yoda and Quinlan and Qui-Gon and even some Jedi OCs get some love in these fics, which makes me want to explode with joy to see! So, come cry about how much we love the Jedi with me, I WILL GIVE YOU A CRAPLOAD OF FIC TO READ. STAR WARS & JEDI CULTURE & WORLDBULDING RECS YOU'LL FIND HERE:

NOVEL AND NOVELLA LENGTH

MID-LENGTH

SHORT AND YET SO GOOD-LENGTH

NOVEL AND NOVELLA LENGTH: ✦ Remedial Jedi Theology by MarbleGlove, obi-wan & anakin & jedi & cast, 51.3k Let us consider the fact that the Jedi Order is a monastic religious organization based out of a temple, with five basic tenets of faith. ✦ Festival of Light by dendral, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka, 8.7k During his first year at the Jedi Temple, Anakin learns that even the Jedi celebrate holidays. ✦ Out with Lanterns by SkyeBean, ahsoka & mace & jedi & clones & cast, 312.5k In another universe, Jedi Masters Plo Koon and Depa Billaba decide a Padawan could do Mace some good. It takes a while, but he eventually agrees. When he takes Ahsoka Tano as his Padawan, Mace knows that he's broken through a Shatterpoint and changed the course of a life. How, he doesn't know. ✦ eat well; be well by gingerbeer, rainsoaked_benevolence (oceans_bluem), obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & yoda & depa & shaak & quinlan & aayla & cast, 18.6k Or, (almost) all of the Jedi High Councilors (plus Ahsoka) gather to eat dinner together. ✦ Supreme Chancellor Obi-Wan Kenobi by stonefreak, obi-wan & anakin & padme & ahsoka & palpatine & yoda & quinlan & cody & cast, 126.3k wip By an old Republic law, all members of the Jedi High Council are senators in the Galactic Senate, and can thus be voted in as chancellor. A Senator from a less prominent planet has had enough of Chancellor Palpatine's incompetence and calls for a Vote of No-Confidence and the installation of Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi as Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic. This one action becomes the catalyst that changes the direction of the galaxy. ✦ Pragmatics of the Jedi by aroacejoot, ghostwriterofthemachine, loosingletters, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & jedi, 31.3k A series of fanfiction exploring the consequences and results of the Jedi having their own language, and speaking it still. ✦ light by loosingletters, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & mace & jedi, 56.1k Anakin Skywalker is a Jedi and being a part of their Order means that he is protected and accepted. The war is over and the Republic has to recover from the crimes of the Sith Lord, the Jedi have to figure out what it means to be peacekeepers again and the Clones have to learn how to be more than expendable soldiers. ✦ When Darkness Seems to Hide This Place by IllyanaA, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & kanan & ocs & cast, 94.9k wip After killing three of the Jedi Order's best and brightest, Palpatine's fight with Jedi Master Mace Windu goes shorter than expected. Afraid he's lost his chance at recruiting a new apprentice, Sidious unleashes Order 66 across the galaxy, but, per their programming, the Clone Army is not to harm Anakin Skywalker. After witnessing the most painful loss he's ever experienced and injured at the hands of his captors, Anakin is ready to die like the rest of the Jedi, though not before getting his vengeance.

✦ Knightrise by Deviant_Accumulation, obi-wan & yoda & satine & ahsoka & asajj & cast, 89.4k wip "Strong enough to fight the Sith Lord, you are not.“ And just like that the fight drained out of Obi-Wan, the barely scraped together agitation running out of him like water from a broken glass. He looked at Yoda, the other Master already hobbling towards one of the back exits, his presence burning with focus, obviously expecting Obi-Wan to follow. ✦ Make a Brand New End by Batsutousai, obi-wan & anakin & feemor & qui-gon & yoda & mace & dooku & jedi, 118.6k Feemor, Qui-Gon Jinn's first padawan, did not survive Order 66, but the Force granted him a boon: A chance to go back to days before Qui-Gon's death. He doesn't know why the Force picked him to remember that terrible future, but he's going to do what he can to change it. And if he can heal the rift fallen between himself and Qui-Gon, and finally get the chance to know Obi-Wan, well, he's not about to turn that down. ✦ Unexpected Awakening (The Rewrite) by Rhiw, obi-wan & qui-gon & bruck & feemor & cast, time travel, 135.1k wip The life of General Kenobi is cut short at the hands of his Padawan, but the sight that greets his eyes upon awakening is not that of blinding light of the Force, but the Jedi Temple he knew when he was still a youth. As he struggles to understand the path laid out before him, Obi-Wan unwittingly captures the attention of a singularly unusual Temple Guard, and that of a reluctant Qui-Gon Jinn. ✦ No Rest for the Weary by orphan_account, obi-wan & anakin & jedi, 61k Needing a break from life at the Jedi Temple, Obi-Wan Kenobi and his apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, visit a Jedi AgriCorps settlement on the Midrim planet of Helia. There they encounter new friends, new enemies and have new adventures, all while attempting to navigate their sometimes turbulent relationship as Master and Padawan. ✦ The Moments That Time Remembered by CallToMuster, obi-wan & mace & vokara & bant & quinlan & garen & depa & jedi, 82.4k Obi-Wan’s first memory was not his own. Rather, it was a vision steeped in darkness and flashes of red and choking heat and you were my brother and the harsh crash of lightsabers striking one another. He woke up sobbing in the arms of the crèchemaster, Master Kitaddik, who was hushing him and gently stroking the top of his head with her furry hands. Obi-Wan hid his face in the soft folds of her tunic and, still crying, fell back asleep. The first time Obi-Wan collapsed due to a vision was not long after that. [Or: in all the various iterations of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s life, the Force spoke to him. But in this one, it never stopped.] ✦ Starrunner by orpheus_under_starlight, obi-wan & jedi & oc, 80.2k wip In what would have been the year 17 BBY, Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine is found slumped over his desk, dead to rights and emitting a foul odor. The coroners declare the body victim to a heart attack and the smell a result of a lack of a timely embalming—a bit of bowels humor, the head coroner says with a nervous laugh when interviewed by the Galactic Enquirer.

MID-LENGTH: ✦ 飽了嗎? | Have you eaten your fill? by virdant, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & qui-gon & quinlan & yoda & dooku & mace & bant & jedi, 13k The Force is the first language that Obi-Wan learned to speak, the brush of one mind against another. But food is the second language that Obi-Wan learned to speak with, and he talks, he talks, he talks. A collection of fics about food and how food is an articulation of love. ✦ We Will Abide by naberiie, plo & shaak, 10.3k Light. Dark. Balance. Beneath the Jedi Temple, far below the chaos of Coruscant's Galactic City, ancient halls and corridors sleep in silent darkness. Padawans Shaak Ti and Plo Koon are determined to explore them. ✦ What Is My Heritage? by Marnie, qui-gon & yoda, 7.7k Qui-Gon, age 13, tries to find a place to belong. ✦ Coming Home by Marnie, qui-gon & yoda & dooku, 18.1k A story telling how Qui-Gon comes to be Dooku's apprentice. ✦ Master by CJinn, obi-wan & anakin, 27.5k Obi-Wan Kenobi had always wanted to become a Jedi Knight. What he didn't expect was to become a Master merely days after his own Master died. Adapting to his new role as the mentor and Master of the quite unusual Padawan Anakin Skywalker became a bumpy road.

✦ into the statue that breathes by spoonks, obi-wan & feemor & cin & cast, 8.5k The night watch in the garden was supposed to be the calmest of them all. No mischievous Padawans “sneaking” in or out, or ne’er-do-well civilians conducting “business” around the lower-level entrances that they didn’t know existed. No the gardens was still, and it was like time was frozen in ice that slowly melted away with the rising of the sun. A slow drip, drip— Drip. Immediately Feemor turned towards the central waterfall. Someone was standing there. Whoever they were, they were small and moved through katas with their hands open like a greeting. ✦ The Cave by Ria Talla (ronia), anakin & ahsoka & cast, time travel, 10k Ahsoka Tano, post-Star Wars Rebels/? And there was something else, more important, though Ahsoka found herself loath to do it. Her lightsabers drawn, deep in the labyrinth formed by the stone warriors and the crumbled temple. Yet the words broke certain into her mind. Your eyes can deceive you. Her heart pounded, as though warning her otherwise. But Ahsoka withdrew her sabers, and closed her eyes. Rather than her weapons, she let the Force be her light. ✦ A Candle in the Night by phoenixyfriend, anakin/luminara & obi-wan, time travel, 12k In which Luminara finds a heavily injured Jedi, nurses him back to health, and falls in love. Then they get back to the real world, and she just can't figure him out... ✦ Found Clan by silvergryphon, boba & ocs & obi-wan & anakin & cast, 25.3k wip After the Battle of Geonosis, a Jedi Healer discovers young Boba Fett mourning the loss of his father. Not about to leave a ten-year-old boy on his own, she promptly adopts him with the full collusion of her Padawan. ✦ the heart of kyber by outpastthemoat, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & depa & kanan & jedi, 32.7k Tales of the Jedi: Stories about lightsabers, masters, and apprentices. ✦ Stars of Tatooine by Be_Right_Back, ahsoka & mace & kanan & obi-wan & rex & cast, 10.5k After the end of the world, Ahsoka more or less kidnaps a child, has to air some old grievances, and tries to find whatever peace the universe can still offer. All paths in the Force lead home, eventually. ✦ The Uses of a Sandwich by Laura Kaye (laurakaye), obi-wan & qui-gon & yoda & cast, 17.6k A few months after being taken as a Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi faces a challenge: meeting his Master's first apprentice. ✦ Familes Found by fyrefly, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & padme & mace & plo, 8.2k In a universe where "The Wrong Jedi" never happened, the war ends under different circumstances and perhaps everyone will get a chance at a happy ending after all.

SHORT AND YET SO GOOD-LENGTH: ✦ The Mathematics of Repair by panharmonium, obi-wan & anakin & cast, 4.6k For raw teachers and rough-edged students building in the rubble: tiny steps are enough, provided they carry you in the right direction. Immediately post TPM, in short snippets. ✦ The Living Force; Parables for Padawans by glorious_clio, obi-wan & cast, 6.1k Since infancy, younglings are taught the Jedi Code, “Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force.” Obi-Wan Kenobi learns these tenets backwards and forwards again. But even as a child, he is interested in nuance. And so his teachers tell him parables. ✦ A Jedi's Cloak ImperialKatwala, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & cody & rex, 6.4k Jedi cloaks are made for children. Obi-Wan Kenobi is a year and a half old when he first sees this principle in action. He is fourteen, twenty-five, twenty-nine, and thirty-six when he gets a reminder. Or: Jedi cloaks are weird. Here's a series of events showing why they're made that way. ✦ the master, the padawan, the Force by skatzaa, kanan & depa. 1.4k Caleb expects things to be different after Master Depa takes him as her padawan, but really, it feels like nothing really changes. ✦ For the Future of the Order by thetorontokid, obi-wan & qui-gon & cast, 3.9k There are important lessons to be found in the Jedi Temple creche.

✦ Memories of Peace by Margan, obi-wan & clones, 2k It's not quite flash training, but the Clones are used to learning fast. It helps that this is something that they actually look forward to learning, to putting into practice. Obi-Wan teaches the Clones how to make dumplings in the middle of war. ✦ Liberosis by Be_Right_Back, anakin & mace & yoda & jedi, 2.2k The war is over, the Sith are gone, and there is now Anakin Skywalker's secret marriage to deal with. While love is a wonderful thing, some truths are hard to face, and letting go is the destiny of all Jedi. Or: the Council and Anakin clash. It doesn't go as terribly as it could have. ✦ Accepting Emotion by LazarusII, obi-wan & ahsoka, 1.1k Dealing with the stress and anxiety of being a prospective Padawan, Ahsoka Tano struggles to manage her emotions. Obi-Wan Kenobi finds her practicing in the dojo, confidence in tatters. His words make all the difference. ✦ A Long, Long Time Ago by ruth baulding, dooku & qui-gon + qui-gon & obi-wan + obi-wan & anakin + anakin & ahsoka, 5.8k A wisdom tale handed passed down through the generations poses troublesome questions for a line of masters and Padawans, from Dooku to Ahsoka Tano.

✦ Duet by Silver Sky 1138, oc & cin, 2.3k Asha Scarsi, the Jedi Padawan who feels the Force through music, isn't half as good at lightsaber combat as she is at singing and mindtricks. So she's a little nervous when Battlemaster Cin Drallig calls her to the training room after class. ✦ The One Where Anakin Tries to Be Serious by GirlwithCurls98, anakin & ahsoka, 1k Even though they're fighting a war, Anakin finds the time to lead his apprentice through one of the Jedi's sacred ceremonies. ✦ Obi-Wan and the Force by AwayOHumanChild, obi-wan & cast, ~1k One of the first things Jedi Initiates learn is that everyone experiences the Force differently.

✦ Night Shift at the Temple by ReneeoftheStars, oc jedi & cast, 1.8k A Jedi Temple Guard sees all, speaks to few, and has attachments to no one. One must be prepared for any threats that may arise, especially at night, while most of the Temple sleeps. ✦ The Orchards by Raven_Knight, obi-wan & qui-gon & cast, 3.6k When young Obi-Wan Kenobi is injured on a previous mission, Qui-Gon Jinn refuses to accept further off-planet missions until his Padawan's recovery. Yoda assigns the pair an in-Temple mission of utmost importance while Obi-Wan heals. Master and Padawan welcome the change of pace. ✦ Tipping Point by Ria Talla (ronia), adi gallia & finis valorum & eeth koth, 3.3k "I believe that if what's happening on Naboo is allowed to continue, the other member systems will wonder what they owe to a Republic that can no longer protect them." ✦ A Personal Touch by DragonHoardsBooks, obi-wan & anakin, 6.2k New jedi padawan Anakin Skywalker realizes that there is more to being a jedi then he tought. Discovering a completely new culture will take time and effort, but maybe he'll make some friends along the way.

✦ Jedi Parables by Peppermint_Shamrock, jedi, 5.8k Values are often passed down generation to generation through stories, parables, and fables. What stories might the Jedi teach their children? ✦ Songs for Little Jedi by soft_but_gremlin, mace & jedi, ~1k The initiates are having nightmares, so Mace sings a lullaby to comfort them. ✦ a thin thread of hope by wrennette, shaak & clones, ~1k Shaak Ti introduces some cadets to one of her favourite crafts, under the guise of training. ✦ rah kat by js71, obi-wan & anakin & aayla, 1.6k "Aay’shee," Obi-Wan murmurs into her ear, rocking her gently, like when jaieh was off on a mission she couldn’t go on, so her jaieh-raheniel would take turns having her over at their apartments. ✦ Lessons on Attachment by Siri_Kenobi12, obi-wan & anakin/padme & cast, 2.7k "Anakin once told me that a Jedi is actually encouraged to love." She said after Obi-Wan had settled. ✦ Straw Dogs by Cymbidia, obi-wan & jedi & cast, 2.9k An old Jedi Master imparts some wisdom concerning Mercy, Balance, and the Will of the Force to young Padawan Obi-wan Kenobi and a gaggle of other younglings. It is a lesson that haunts Obi-wan for the rest of his life. ✦ Refractions of Light by Independence1776, ezra & kanan, 1.3k Kanan celebrates a Jedi holiday with Ezra.

✦ The grand outing by Ingata, dooku & sifo-dyas & obi-wan & bant & garen & reeft & yoda & cast, 4.5k Eight younglings and two Jedi masters on a field trip. What could possibly go wrong? ✦ A Short Break by Peppermint_Shamrock, luke & yoda, ~1k Luke complains about his training, and asks about Jedi training of old. ✦ we are made of our longest days by bereft_of_frogs, obi-wan & anakin & cast, 4.4k Two years after the events of The Phantom Menace, Obi-Wan and his new apprentice are called to a remote moon to fetch a baby who’s showing signs of a rare, unique power. On their journey home, Obi-Wan reflects on the last child he brought to the Temple and catches a faint glimpse of three possibly entwining futures. ✦ yellow, you're a dreamer by nightdotlight, jocasta & anakin (& obi-wan), 2.6k Normally, it wouldn’t be unusual, but— Jocasta did not earn her post without listening, and from where she stands in the aisle, gaze fixed upon the back of the young child’s shaking shoulders, she can hear a sniffle reverberate around the space. There’s a child curled up in the corner of the Archives— and they’re crying. ✦ once upon a time (a long, long time ago) by thebitterbeast, barriss & mace & shaak & ki-adi & bacara & trilla & cere, 2.3k The Jedi love children. Children love stories. This changes some things. ✦ not the place that I was born in (doesn't mean it's not the place where I belong) by ghostwriterofthemachine, obi-wan & anakin, 5k “What were you consulting Master Obi-Wan about?” “Tea!” says the other Padawan brightly. “I’m performing a tea ceremony for my Master, one that originates from her home world. It’ll be the first time I sit foveo with her!” She says that word— foveo— as if it should mean something to Anakin. It does not. ✦ A Friend Indeed by ExtraPenguin, plo & ahsoka, 3.3k After their rescue of the colonists of Kiros, Ahsoka Tano's Master asks for her to be sent on a mission away from the front. She ends up being sent to the Deep Core with Master Plo Koon to investigate one of the first known locations of the Jedi Order, since abandoned. ✦ In which we burn bodies as bridges by GraceEliz, obi-wan & ahsoka & depa & kanan & ezra, 1.4k Lineage mantras, and the processing of grief. ✦ Five Times Mace was There for Obi-Wan, and One Time Obi-Wan Returned the Favour by wrennette, obi-wan & mace, 4k five of the many times Mace Windu offered Obi-Wan comfort over the years, and one of the many times Obi-Wan returned the favour

✦ as the dust settled around us by thebitterbeast, finn & jedi, 5.2k Bravery has never been the absence of fear. Prompt: There is no emotion, there is peace. ✦ Adi Gallia, Master of the Order by Perspicacia, adi & jedi, 7.2k wip Palpatine didn't expect it. It was too soon for that in his plans: which Jedi would have left the Temple under assault? But Adi had. Ashes in her heart, she had left the younglings and the elders and the wounded for her duty to the galaxy, choosing to stop the Sith instead of protecting her people. ✦ “The Padawan Chooses The Master” by lurkingcrow, obi-wan & anakin & cast, 3.6k prompt: AU - The Jedi say “The Padawan Chooses The Master” Qui Gon lives, Obi Wan is very preoccupied, and Anakin is put into the creche as an Initiate to learn what he can until Qui Gon wakes up from his coma and gets yelled at by the Council. In the meantime, Anakin meets other Jedi Masters and when the Council asks him who he wants to be his teacher, his answer isn’t Qui Gon. Instead it’s *insert your fav Jedi here* ✦ The Only Home We Know by ReneeoftheStars, katooni & petro & ganodi & byph & gungi & zaft & cast, character death, child death, 2.4k The Jedi Temple is under attack. Determined to fight for their home, younglings Katooni, Petro, Zatt, Ganodi, Byph, and Gungi make their way to aid the Jedi Masters in defense of the Temple. But the situation is far graver than they expected. ✦ Obi-Wan and the Force by AwayOHumanChild, obi-wan & cast, ~1k One of the first things Jedi Initiates learn is that everyone experiences the Force differently. ✦ The One Where Anakin Tries to Be Serious by Mini_and_Might, anakin & ahsoka, 1k Even though they're fighting a war, Anakin finds the time to lead his apprentice through one of the Jedi's sacred ceremonies. Might become part of a series of missing scenes from the Clone Wars. ✦ Markings by wabbajack, ahsoka & plo, 1.6k In which it is revealed that Master Plo Koon has always had a difficult time putting his foot down when faced with his Little 'Soka. ✦ The First Trial by Raven_Knigh, obi-wan & qui-gon, 2k Accompanied by his Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, young Obi-Wan Kenobi undergoes his first trial and rite as a Padawan Learner on the frozen planet of Ilum.

✦ Arrival by CJinn, obi-wan & yoda & jedi, 2.6k Little Obi-Wan was only a few days old when he was brought to the Jedi Temple. His arrival caused some confusion among the Jedi. ✦ The Spire by skatzaa, obi-wan & jedi, 2.4k The galaxy was on the brink of war, and Obi-Wan Kenobi had been assigned a new room. ✦ Room Arrangements by skatzaa, obi-wan & anakin, 2.2k Anakin has some concerns about room arrangements at the Temple. Obi-Wan does his best to reassure him. ✦ Lineage by virdant, obi-wan & anakin & yoda & jedi, 1.5k Anakin is new to the temple, and he does not yet understand that these are his brothers and sisters, his cousins, his uncles and aunts. He does not know yet, but he will learn, Obi-Wan thinks. ✦ A Discussion of Choices by Peppermint_Shamrock, luke & mace, 2k Mace Windu has traveled the galaxy since the fall of the Republic, keeping out of the Empire's sight and teaching where he can. Upon the request of a ghost of an old friend, Mace finds himself instructing Luke Skywalker, who is still reeling from the truth of Vader's identity. ✦ Emotion is our Shared Tongue by virdant, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & quinlan & jedi, 2.1k There are thousands of different species, with different languages and voices and hands, but what all Jedi have in common is the Force, and with the Force, they have language. ✦ To Know by Armin_05, obi-wan & anakin & shmi & kitster & fives & cast, 4.8k Nearly all Jedi love learning. Anakin Skywalker is no different. Or, how Anakin found a love of learning and shared it with others. ✦ Shatterpoints and Students by soft_but_gremlin, mace & depa, ~1k Depa always has shatterpoints hovering around her.

✦ Home-onym by virdant, jedi, 1.1k Jedi younglings, like any other children, enjoy playing. Playing with lightsabers and playing with words. ✦ Threaded Lineage by Pandora151, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & kanan & ezra & luke & rey, 2.9k The journey of a single river stone through many generations of Jedi, allowing the Jedi of the old and the Jedi of the future to be threaded together. ✦ the river and the rock by nightdotlight, anakin & luminara, 1.8k Lightsabers clash, and Luminara Unduli holds her ground. She doesn’t move, doesn’t lock her muscles, just makes herself an immovable object and lets her opponent strain against the lock. ✦ Five Meditations of Jedi Depa Billaba by skatzaa, depa & mace & yoda & kanan & kit, 5.3k What is says on the tin. (Plus one more, for good measure.)

#lumi.txt #star wars #obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #ahsoka tano #mace windu #depa billaba #count dooku #luke skywalker #kanan jarrus #qui gon jinn #luminara unduli #jedi order #fic recs #star wars fic recs #long post

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error404vnotfound · 2 years

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I think you’re a Nerd who has really cool ideas and facts about Catalonia. Also your world building is 🥺

aHHHHHHHHH thanks <3

#i AM a nerd #lluis companys ghost possessed me these past few days normally im not so loud about my country #<- he was a catalan president that proclamed the republic #he died by firing squad #free fun fact for you

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heritageposts · 8 months

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By Haidar Eid, associate Professor at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza.

Now that we have heard the interim judgement the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, we can confidently say a new world order is in the making. The World Court confirmed today that South Africa’s charge under the Genocide Convention that “Israel has engaged in, is engaging in and risks further engaging in genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza” is “plausible”. It has further ruled that Israel must “take all measures” to avoid acts of genocide in Gaza. The court has stopped short of calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, which has already been demanded by an absolute majority of world nations. Still, most of the “provisional measures” called for by the Republic of South Africa have been endorsed by the court. It is difficult to see how Israel can implement these measures and fulfil its obligations under the Genocide Convention, without agreeing to a ceasefire. There is no indication, of course, that Israel has any intention of heeding the Court’s provisions. In fact, since the ICJ heard South Africa’s case two weeks ago, Israel has doubled down on its genocidal acts in Gaza. In the past 24 hours alone, it carried out 21 mass killings, murdering 200 and injuring 370 civilians. So Israel’s message to the Court, and the world at large, is clear: It does not care for the opinion, demands or “measures” of any international institution – legal or political. It will do as it pleases. [...] Israel may not heed the court’s rulings and provisions, but South Africa’s historic stance will still have consequences. As stated by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation of South Africa after the ICJ’s interim decision: “Third States are now on notice of the existence of a serious risk of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. They must, therefore, also act independently and immediately to prevent genocide by Israel and to ensure that they are not themselves in violation of the Genocide Convention, including by aiding or assisting in the commission of genocide. This necessarily imposes an obligation on all States to cease funding and facilitating Israel’s military actions, which are plausibly genocidal.” With this case, South Africa has put not only Israel, but the entirety of the global justice system on trial. This case is a major turning point for humanity, because it marks the first time in history when a Global South country bravely crossed a red line drawn by the colonial West and demanded its favourite settler colony, Israel, be held to account for the crimes it has long been committing against an Indigenous people. Today, thanks to South Africa, the entire colonial West, and its centuries-long history of theft, dispossession, and injustice is on trial at the World Court. Future generations will remember January 26, 2024, as the day on which the world has finally decided to hold a genocide state, and its powerful backers, accountable for repeated, longstanding violations of international law. Yes, a new world order is in the making.

. . . full article on al jazeera (26 Jan 2024)

#palestine #israel #gaza #icj trial #south africa

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saphronethaleph · 3 months

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Longform Statistical Analysis

“Master Nu,” Windu said, with a smile. “It’s nice to see you in the Council Chambers once more.”

“Thank you,” the librarian replied, inclining her head. “Unfortunately, I bring dire news.”

“...you do?” Windu asked, worried now. “What kind of dire news?”

“Dire news coming out of the library is usually either trivial or an absolute disaster,” Ki-Adi-Mundi contributed. “Which is it, so we can decide how worried to be?”

“Quite possibly, both,” Nu told him. “To summarize… Masters, two years ago we discovered that the Sith were not extinct. With this in mind, I have been engaged on a long-term project – I evaluated data about the discovery, admittance, tenure and ultimate loss of every single Jedi for which we have data. Every one in our archives.”

“Now I understand why it took so long,” Even Piell said. “In fact, I credit your skills for taking so little time. That must have been… what, a thousand years… there are ten thousand knights now… hundreds of thousands of Jedi total?”

“Around that,” Nu confirmed. “But the problem is… this. This is the number of active Jedi at any one time, during the first hundred years after Ruusan.”

Her holoprojector activated, showing a kind of flow diagram made out of strands of light. Light yellow marked those newly discovered and accepted as initiates, green padawans, blue for knights and purple marked those who were masters. The tiny Order, wounded but triumphant in the years immediately after Ruusan, was reborn and swelled as it gained more members and those members it had reached greater degrees of Mastery.

“Two hundred years,” Nu went on, as the diagram swelled and zoomed out. The growth was slower now, harder to see on the same scale, but the Order pulsed in colours of green and blue and purple as the Golden Age of the Republic continued.

“...you said this was dire?” Adi Gallia asked.

“We’ll get there,” Nu said, accelerating the projection a little.

As it ran forwards, decade after decade passing by until it approached the present, Master Yaddle leaned forwards in her seat.

She wasn’t the only one. It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but the Jedi Order – which had swelled to enormous, triumphant scale during the Golden Age – had begun to contract again.

By the time it reached the present day, it still possessed deep reserves of strength, but the colouring was… just a little different. The purple of Mastery was less common, though the blues and greens of Knighthood and Padawan were still fully present, and Nu manipulated her controls a bit more.

A second strand appeared, this one much thinner and more intermittent. And, as time tracked towards the present, it went from a shading of mostly blue hundreds of years ago to shades that were a little more green.

“This is the members of our Order who left our ranks due to their death,” Nu explained. “While the differences year-to-year are so minor that I would hesitate to describe them as meaningful, when given the long view and looked at in aggregate the effect is clear.”

She folded her arms. “The Sith faced by Knight Kenobi is the anomaly – an open Sith attack which makes no pretensions as to what they are. This is what I would call a true threat, Councillors. Not a single Sith who seeks to kill individual Jedi in a duel, but a centuries-long program of gradual, subtle, pervasive damage to the Jedi Order, chiefly through the loss of Padawans before they become Knights.”

“You think the Sith are behind this?” Ki-Adi-Mundi asked.

“Behind any given casualty?” Nu asked. “...no. I have no proof I could offer, though a detailed examination of the loss of any given Padawan may conclude that there was some other factor behind their death. Behind the whole pattern? I think it’s quite possible, Master Mundi. We know the Sith can plot and plan for something for a thousand years, and there are only two targets for such a plot that make any sense – ourselves, and the Republic.”

She met the gaze of each councillor in turn. “If this is not due to the Sith, my friends, then we must ask ourselves – what is? They have been doing something for ten centuries and we know nothing about it.”

After a slightly dismayed silence, Yoda tapped his gimmer stick on the floor.

“Much to think about, we have,” he said. “Master Nu – more to say, have you?”

“Yes,” Nu replied. “My presentation, I hope, serves as a reminder that the Sith did not appear out of nowhere two years ago. They have been doing things over the last thousand years, and it is quite possible that we have run into their machinations without identifying them as such… it would be a great mistake to generalize from the Sith defeated by Knight Kenobi.”

“...hmm,” Windu said, frowning. “During the interrogations of Nute Gunray. He said that his actions were based on a shadowy figure pressing him to get a treaty signed by Queen Amidala of the Naboo. That treaty would have benefitted the Trade Federation, but nobody else.”

“The wording of the treaty, benefit the Trade Federation, it would,” Yaddle said. “The existence of the treaty – benefit someone else, perhaps?”

In his office, Sheev Palpatine paused halfway through reading a law.

He had the strange feeling that he’d just been betrayed by his greatest ally. But that was nonsense, since the closet thing he had left to a true ally was paperwork…

#star wars #mace windu #ki adi mundi #jocasta nu #yoda #another bad day for palps #palpatine

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