#and looping back to my first point like the Republic looks a million times more evil when you have participants in the slave army ask thing

[clonehub]

nobody can talk to ridge about fighting for the republic once he's succesfully escaped it, he's gotta be probably the most critical of the republic government out of all the clones. saying "our purpose [as clones] is to fight!" will get you "who told you that? The Kaminoans that 'bred' us for money or the government that won't pay us and won't let us vote?"

[unibrowzz]

My 2020 reviews

All the cool kids were doing these so now I finally dragged my ass into doing them too lmao. 

Albania- Fall from the Sky

A song I swear cursed this whole contest from the moment it won Festivali i Këngës. Like with the shitshow this song caused I just knew the whole year was fucked. With half the fandom whining they didn’t get their first club song of the year to the other half smugly shoving it as their winner despite no other songs being around to compare it to, the whole fiasco just left me knowing that 2020 would end in tears, just hopefully not my own. As for the song, it’s lame. It’s a standard ballad with OBSCENE amounts of autotune, which is weird because the girl can actually sing pretty decently without it, so why they decided to make her sound like a damn computer is beyond me. And WHY did they translate it, haven't the past few years proven that Albania's better off leaving their songs in Albanian? 

Armenia- Chains on You

A bootleg Ariana Grande song, and a really shit one at that. The kind of song only people who think being young, gay and mean counts as having a personality would say is good.

Australia- Don’t Break Me

One of the few decent Australian entries (but that REALLY isn’t saying much coming from me, I barely care they’re in the contest by this point) but marred by a horribly untidy performance and lacklustre lyrics. At least it’s not fucking pop-opera, that’s all I can say. I’d rather listen to the sound of my face being dragged down the runway at Heathrow airport than be subjected to another Zero Gravity.

Austria- Alive

One of those pseudo-jazz dance songs, á la Olly Murs or Bruno Mars (I swear there’s a song like this in every recent contest). I mean, it’s good, but it’s just kinda meh since I’m kinda getting tired of this genre rearing its fedora-wearing head every time a new lineup rolls in.

Azerbaijan- Cleopatra

One of the “better” trashy entries this year, comprised of about five different musical genres, six ancient cultures being appropriated and absolutely zero class. Probably sounds at least 50% better when you’re absolutely steaming drunk and face down on the floor in the middle of a gay bar.

Belarus- Da Vidna

Somehow, this song sounds both very unique and original yet trite and average at the same time. I couldn’t decide whether listening to it was a new experience or if I’d heard it a million times before.

Belgium- Release Me

A song which just drones on till it ends. I would say it’s ripping off the song that won last year, but it forgot that having a chorus stops your song from being three minutes of snooze.

Bulgaria- Tears Getting Sober

A typical breathy mumble-girl song, AKA a genre I can’t fucking stand. Really don’t see the hype with this one, the melody is pretty but the vocals are out for lunch and it’s otherwise completely and utterly boring.

Croatia- Divlji Vjetre

One of the token big dramatic ballads you listen to once, enjoy, then forget about until Darius in the Discord server plays it one night whilst you’re hitting up the radio bot with requests. You’ll find that “nice, but forgettable” is a common theme for this year.

Cyprus- Running

Ironically Cyprus didn’t send a crappy Fuego knockoff for 2020, and I say ironically because a crappy Fuego knockoff would’ve actually stood out this year, and I say crappy because honestly Fuego wasn’t even all that great to begin with. "Running” itself is just one of those edgy tortured soul pop songs which, let’s be honest, would have been paired with an impressive performance which would’ve overshadowed how bland it is. Kind of like “You’re the Only One”. Or even Fuego for that matter.

Czech Republic- Kemama

Standard Afro-pop, a genre we don't often see at the contest so I'll let it pass. I feel like this is the kind of song that’s infinitely better live, and that it would’ve been one of those songs that suddenly became a frontrunner after the semi finals, but I guess we’ll never know eh?

Denmark- Yes 

The quintessential mid-10s Eurovision song. It's got guitars, happy people, Scandinavian origins… it’s just a typical radio guitar song, nothing special.

Estonia- What Love Is

I mean it's better than La Forza. Granted, the sound of someone pissing directly onto a microphone installed in the bowl of a toilet would sound better than La Forza but still. Going back to this song, it’s just... a standard Eastern-ballad with some very desperate lyrics. It feels kind of outdated, if I’m honest. Like something about this just reeks of 2011.

Finland- Looking Back

Yet another dreary, forgettable ballad. It comes to something when the best song they COULD have sent was a party song which sounded like it was from the mid 90s. At least that song was memorable. That said, this one at least has some decent lyrics. Bravo for that I guess.

France- Mon Alliée

France decides to say “fuck it” to being an underground fan-favourite and takes a leaf out of the UKs book by sending the same rent-a-Swede schlock they’ve been sending since 2015. I’m just confused as to why anyone in their right mind would choose to follow the UKs example but you do you France.

Germany- Violent Thing

A rehash of Sweden's entry from two years ago, but this time sung by Justin Bieber circa 2008. Kind of alright if you can stomach the singer's whiny voice, but otherwise pretty dull and kinda forgettable.

Greece- Superg!rl

Hello fellow kidz, we are hearing you like the girl power? The super heroes? The t3xt $p3ech? We made you song, please give us the votes *dabs*

Georgia- Take me as I Am

I mean… this sure is a choice. This feels like one of those songs that everyone memes on because the lyrics are kinda janky and the singer’s voice (and accent) take a bit of getting used to, but other than that it’s just one of those NQ songs for hipster fans to declare as their unironic winner at a later date. All in all this just feels like the male equivalent of one of those mid-10s fat acceptance women’s songs, only a lot shoutier and this time he has more flaws than not being skinny.

Iceland- Think About Things 

A bootleg George Ezra song, performed by a load of disinterested tumblr users in their pyjamas. Because if there’s one thing that sells me on a song, it’s being given the evils by a bunch of nerds who look like they’ll send me death threats for not agreeing with their Pokémon headcanons. To be fair, the song is kind of groovy since it sounds so 70s, but the performance is very off-putting to people who aren’t in the Eurovision loop. And also people who are, because I sure as Hell don’t see the appeal in this myself and this whole performance just feels like Save Your Kisses for Me without the charm. I feel like this would’ve come second or third, definitely with a lot of televotes but either the jury would’ve dragged it down or it wouldn’t have scored enough televotes to win.

Ireland- Story of my Life

A song that’s at LEAST ten years out of date by this point, think like an early Katy Perry, Jessie J or Avril Lavigne song. I’ll forgive it because even though it sounds like it should’ve been entered in 2013 (at the latest), it at least evokes some nostalgic memories of shitty school discos and holiday parks.

Israel- Feker Libi

The female equivalent of the Czech song. Unsurprisingly, people went wild for it when it was released. I guess only women are allowed to sing Afro-pop at this contest. Like with the Czech song, I’ll forgive it since Afro-pop is a cool genre anyway, and even though this is just another club song I can at least see myself dancing to it.

Italy- Fai Rumore

Well, at least my wish of “Italy sends a typical power ballad devoid of anything the mainstream fandom likes” finally came true. It was pretty refreshing to have a year where people weren’t shoving Italy’s entry up my nose left right and centre. In terms of my actual thoughts I can’t deny that the guy has a tremendous voice, but for some reason the song just doesn’t… click with me. I guess I like my male Italian singers a little more gruff and raspy, if you know what I mean. They gotta sound like they smoke at LEAST five packets of cigarettes a day for me to take notice.

Malta- All of my Love

Listen I am 100% rooting for Destiny Chukunyere to win this contest some day but man was this song a disappointment. It feels so… un-special and generic, like it gets the job done and that’s it. It’s not the stand-up-and-belt-it-out soul anthem I’d hoped for, it’s just… there.

Moldova- Prison

All I remember about this song is that it vaguely reminds me of that one Meccano song about the gypsy who makes a deal with the moon or something. And I’ve TRIED to remember more about what it sounds like, trust me.

Latvia- Still Breathing

The one horrible weird song you get every year which overuses strobe effects to the point it comes with an epilepsy warning. Would be bearable if it wasn't for the singer’s insistence that this is actually some feminist masterpiece when it's really just a self-empowerment club song about the singer fingerbanging herself over the fact she writes music.

Lithuania- On Fire

One of the songs everyone thought was going to win at one point, even though it seems like a surefire non-qualifier to me. It’s one of those weird entries, but not the kind of over the top, batshit insane, you’d-have-to-be-drunk-to-enjoy-it weird, the kind of subdued surreal weird. Like this is weed instead of LSD or cocaine weird. Granted my mom, who I consider to be a "typical" Eurofan, actually really liked this song when she saw it in the recaps, so who knows maybe this would have done well with televoters after all.

Netherlands- Grow

I appreciate this song for how artsy and clever it is with its structure, since it starts off acapella and the instrumental builds up with the song until it stops suddenly, symbolising a person’s growth from a child into an adult, and ending suddenly with their death (Geddit? The song’s called “Grow”). But it feels like the kind of song that would be lost on a Eurovision audience. The juries would have taken note, for sure, but the televote… let’s be honest, they’d have been too busy drunk voting for Russia to care about anything else.

North Macedonia- You

Well, it's better than the miserable dirge they sent last year, but given how I'd rather pleasure myself with a steak knife than listen to that song, that really isn't saying much. Going back to “You”, it really just feels like a diet version of Switzerland’s entry from last year, combined with Sweden’s song from 2018. What I’m saying is it’s your average “I’m a man in a club and I want to dance with and probably fuck this hot girl I just met” song, which I a new genre I just made up. You’re welcome.

Norway- Attention 

One of those songs you appreciate because it sounds nice and the singer has a good voice, but instantly forget because it’s really not all that interesting. If I sound like I'm repeating myself, welcome to Eurovision 2020.

Poland- Empires

“Rise Like a Phoenix” but sung by a wannabe Adele and not a mascara-wearing Jesus in a dress. Like a lot of other songs on this list, it’s just average across the board, likeable when it’s on, but instantly forgettable as soon as the next song comes on.

Portugal: Medo de Sentir

Pretty, but also similar to their ill-fated 2018 entry, only with a bit more energy and less pink hair. What I’m saying is this would have been another NQ unless the crowd who enjoy subtle ambience music come in to save it like they did with Slovenia's entry last year.

Romania- Alcohol You

See Bulgaria, because this is practically the same song. It’s just as dreary, just as badly sung (if not worse because holy shit this girl sounds like she’s being suffocated), and I suppose you COULD excuse that by saying she’s drunk or hungover… but I don’t want to listen to someone ungracefully mumble into a microphone for three minutes.

Russia- Uno

A classic big camp party song, the kind of song people who haven’t watched Eurovision since 2003 think wins on the regular. I can see why people would like it (especially in this boring year lmao, I applaud Russia for taking the opportunity to loosen their corset and just send a complete mess instead of their usual clinical vote grabs), but it’s just not something I enjoy. It's the song that plays into the misconception that Eurovision is just a clown show for drunk people, like this is just here to be that one flash-in-the-pan meme song that only entertains people who don’t really care about Eurovision until the day before it airs. Kind of like the old ladies they sent in 2012 (remember them?).

San Marino- Freaky!

San Marino, in true Sammarinese fashion, have yet again sent a decade-ambiguous song which sounds like it was either released in 1978 or 2003. I feel like this would have been one of those songs which could have surprised us if it had a really wacky, creative performance (think like Moldova in 2018), but this is San Marino so you know that would never happen.

Serbia- Hasta la Vista

Insert unoriginal joke about a decade wanting their shitty trend back right here. Okay maybe that’s a bit harsh, especially considering how this song is actually, yanno, unique in comparison to the rest of this year. But it still feels weirdly dated, in a way where I can’t decide whether it sounds like it belongs in 1998 or 2018. I suppose girl power ages a song regardless of when it was released.

Slovenia- Voda

Yet another standard Balkan-European power ballad which you appreciate because it’s well sung, but forget the moment it ends because it’s kinda boring. … Does anyone else have a bit of deja vu?

Spain- Universo

For some reason I feel like this song is shilling itself out to someone but I have no idea who. Aside from the horny people voting solely because the singer is moderately attractive even with that wretched Jedward haircut.

Sweden- Move

Imagine soul but… boring.

Switzerland- Répondez Moi

Imagine Arcade but… in French.

United Kingdom- My last Breath

Not the best the UK could have done, but it’s at least a modern offering unlike the residual dregs of the mid-90s that we sent throughout the 2010s. It’s definitely a bit too generic to have done any better than maybe 15th, but hey at least the cancellation means we won’t have to see it not do as well as the BBC thinks it’s entitled to do, prompting a billion clickbait articles about how Brexit somehow affected our performance.

Ukraine- Solovey

At long last we come to something you probably weren't expecting: a song I actually really like. Which is weird because I usually don't care for or don't like whatever Ukraine vomits into the contest, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a song I liked from them in such a weak year. This song isn’t for everyone, it’s white noise singing which is a very acquired taste, but this is honestly the only 2020 song I find myself coming back to over and over. And it’s in Ukrainian too, so you don’t have to put up with their usual mangled English offerings.

[jaa1682-27]

Violent Delights

Summary: Kia Karga, Greef’s daughter, joins Mando on a mission.

AN: First time posting a fic on Tumblr. This is also posted on my Wattpad as jaa1682. But since I am a full time Tumblr user now, might as well post them here!!  

Also, I do NOT own this GIF!!!!

Chapter 1

“Mommy! Mommy!” I screamed as my father rushed me away from the burning building that was once our home. Dead bodies laid around us as my father ran through some rubble. I thrashed around in his arms as he handed me off to a woman with pale skin, shaggy blond hair, and a worn mechanic’s uniform.

“Get her to safety, NOW!” my father barked as he pulled a blaster out of its holster.

“But, Greef-“

“NOW, Rhonona!”

Rhonona nodded and ran into a shop nearby, trying her best to shield me from debris caused by a nearby explosion.

Later that night, I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t. I tossed and turned as images of my mother, gently patting my head before locking me away in my father’s weapon closet or being dragged away by Stormtroopers, looped behind my eyes. I clutched the R2-D2 doll that my mother gave me.

Soon, a door closed and I heard voices. I recognized them as Rhonona and my father. I rustled further underneath the covers.

“You had to know this was coming, Greef,” Rhonona said aloud.

My father sighed. “I thought we would have longer, but all good things come to an end.”

“I suppose they do.”

There was a pause. “What are you going to do about your daughter?”

My father sighed. “No one but you knows the truth…I plan to keep it that way.”

I flinched at the sound of a blaster being loaded, but there was no sound that it had gone off, just silence.

“There is no need for that, Greef. I owe you my life…and my silence. Besides, I made a pledge and vowed to keep it. I promise not to tell anyone about her…or her mother. The girl has already suffered enough.”

I heard my father shuffled and put the blaster back in its holster. “We were ambushed today, Rhonona, and by the Imperial forces no less. I’m gonna have to get to the bottom of this. Someone is gonna pay for the death of my wife.”

I heard footsteps grow distant, and then they stopped. Rhonona asked, “Do you really think she’s dead?”

There was a pause.

“She’s dead to me,” my father stated before he left.

Xxx

“Kia, it’s a speeder, not a war ship. I don’t know why you made so many modifications,” Rhonona said to me as she inspected my work.

My father was none other than Greef Carga, the head of the Bounty Hunters Guild on the planet of Navarro. I had been raised in the Guild most of my life, learning and training from various fighters and pilots in the Galaxy that passed through. Rhonona Kleegan was an old friend of my late mother’s and ran her own workshop near the Guild.

Even though, she used many repair droids, she still liked to employ live beings in the shop, mainly so she have someone to talk to and some people were still sketchy about droids working on their equipment.  She and my father had realized my knack for tinkering with things when I was younger, and now at 28 years old, I was one of her best mechanics, fixing up things in her shop when I wasn’t on a job.

My father still hadn’t trusted me to handle a job on my own, so I was often hired to be a part of someone’s crew; as a mechanic, co-pilot, or sometimes just as backup. The cuts I earned were very small, not even enough for a cup of soup sometimes, but my father always chalked it up to me learning experience as well as the trust of the other members.

“It may be a speeder to you, Rhonona, but to Tee-ho, it’ll be the best present ever. He barely gets around on that thing he calls a speeder now,” I grumbled as I added new thrusters. Tee-ho and his wife, Primora, were also mechanics in Rhonona’s shop and two of my oldest and dearest friends. They were expecting their first child soon, and had gone off to make preparations for its arrival.

“How fast will it go?” she asked. Several repair droids rustled around her.

I glanced at her from underneath the bike. “Normal speed bikes travel up to 100 kilometers every 15 seconds. With my modifications, I’m guessing…probably 150 kilometers in 10.”

Rhonona laughed as I proceeded to resume my work. “You and your ‘modifications’. Everything doesn’t have to be improved all the time.”

I countered, “Just because something works, doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. Plus, I keep my modifications small. Just enough to make things easier or more efficient, but just on the line of the Republic’s modifications limits…which are stupid by the way.”

There was shuffling behind me and footsteps entered the room. “You grew up in the Outer Rim; why do you care about what the Republic does?” Primora asked as she entered with Tee-ho trailing behind. I quickly slid out from under the bike and proceeded to inch it behind Rhonona’s ship so he wouldn’t see it.

Primora was a few years older than me, and had pale skin, a round face, and big green eyes. Tee-ho had olive skin, a pointed nose, and dark curly head around his head. Tee-ho was also a large man, his hulking body towering over tiny Primora. I often wondered how Primora managed to stay upright with her large belly protruding out so much.

“I care because our clients care; at least, the ones that are allowed in the Inner Rim. And we know those are best paying ones,” I retorted once I safely hid the bike.

“She’s right. I earned 6,000 credits last week when I fixed up a client’s fuel tank and cleaned out the residue off of his ship. Turns out that guy’s brother is some Republic official,” Tee-ho added, coming to my defense.

“What modifications did you add?” I asked as I took a swig of water from my canteen.

“None. He didn’t need any,” Rhonona added.

“That’s bullshit. I saw the ship he came in. Lucky that piece of junk managed to land at all without falling into a million pieces. If I had done it, he would have had to pay me 12,000 credits just on upgrades and modifications alone…plus a set of new landing gear for an extra 500 credits,” I said aloud, calculating the costs of everything in my head.

“What if he didn’t have the credits to pay?” Primora asked me as she sat down on a nearby couch at the edge of the workshop.

“Then, I would take it all back…I probably would let him keep the landing gear, though. You know, as a way to remember me,” I answered with a sly smile.

“Hey, Kia.” Tee-ho called out for me across the workshop and he was already in position on our fighting mat. Tee-ho wasn’t a Guild member, but he was muscular and strong. He offered to start sparring with me a few years ago so that I could sharpen my fighting skills.

Rhonona had a droid help her down from the windows of the ship and programmed it to finish her work as she joined Primora on the couch.

“10 credits on Tee-ho,” Rhonona said to Primora as I took off my gloves and work vest, leaving me in a white undershirt and slim black cargo pants. I tied my short dark hair into a messy ponytail before I joined Tee-ho on the mat.

“5 credits on Kia, 5 credits on Tee-ho,” she answered.

“I only get 5?”

Primora shrugged, “I don’t doubt you, not for a second…but he is my husband so…”

“…And he’s bigger than you,” Rhonona added with a smirk.

“Thanks for the confidence,” I murmured. I knew that they weren’t being malicious about it; it was the truth. Tee-ho was twice my size and his arm muscles were bigger than my head. However, he never tried to use too much of his strength when we sparred; only enough to bruise me or throw me onto my back.

Tee-ho and I faced each other on the mat and then took fighting stances. Then, Tee-ho reached for me but I dodged his attack. He tried to strike another blow, but I dodged that too. In my training, one of the key things to remember was to keep moving, and stay on defense until you could land an offensive move.

I kept dodging his movements, intending to just tire him out. His movements began to slow and I started landing soft punches to his abdomen and chest, throwing him back a bit. Then, I sent a swift kick to his abdomen, causing him to fall on his back. He hit the mat with a loud smack, and I kissed my arms in victory, my chest swelled with pride. Rhonona and Primora congratulated me from the couch.

“Who’s worth 5 credits now?” I asked them, sticking out my tongue.

Suddenly, in less than a second, my feet were kicked out from under me and I was on my back as well. I groaned once I hit the mat.

“You are,” Tee-ho said with a laugh.

“Shit,” I groaned.

A pair of worn, brown came into my eyeline, despite them being upside down. I looked up to see the Mandalorian, my most recurring employer for the past 1 and a half, looking down at me, his shiny helmet tilted to the side.

“Never turn your back on your enemy…unless they’re already dead,” his modulated voice advised.

I closed my eyes and nodded before wiping my sweaty forehead with my arm. “Good to know.”

Tee-ho helped me to my feet and we nodded at each other before he went off to the showers in the back of the shop. I grabbed a stained rag to wipe my face. “What can I do for you, Mando?” I asked, calling him by his nickname.

He nodded for me to walk to a nearby corner, out of earshot of the others. “Picked up a new job.”

“Yeah, I got that,” I said as I took a swig of water from my canteen.

“My ship sustained some damage from the last job and it needs repairs. Your modifications…are very hard to repair.”

“Actually, they’re not if you know what to look for. But, I’m guessing, knowing you, that if you needed the ship repaired you would’ve done it yourself or brought it in. So…are you asking me to join you on this job?” I asked as I straightened up.

“Yes. However, I cannot pay you this time.”

I looked at him. Surprisingly, Mando was one of my most generous employers, often giving me almost double my pay of most of my other jobs. I chalked it up to the many repairs and modifications that I had done to his ship. Considering it was such a rare and out of date model, it was not an easy ship to upkeep either. On top of that, on the few times he had been too injured from a fight or scuffle, it was up to me to fly us out of a few unpleasant or sometimes literally, sticky situations.

“The Client is only offering direct commission and payment will be in Beskar,” He clarified.

In my readings, I had learned that Mandalorian’s valued Beskar very highly. No wonder he wanted to take this job, and pull it off; he would no doubt be earning a lot of Beskar, which was already rare to find anyways.

I shrugged, “Fine, but in lieu of payment, I’m joining you on the job.”

Mando sighed, “I don’t think-“

I held up a hand to stop him. “I can’t stay on the ship on every job, Mando. I need this. If we complete this job, I might be able to finally go out on my own. Just let me have this one.”

Another sigh, the defeated one I had learned to recognize after nearly 18 months of being in his presence. “Fine. Just don’t get in the way.”

I smiled. “Of course not. I’ll be quiet like a shadow-“

I ran into a half-hidden toolbox on a nearby shelf, causing a bunch of tools to fall out onto the floor very loudly.

The others, as well as some of the droids, turned to look in my direction. Mando shook his head at me and then said, “Meet me at the Crest in 15 minutes.”

I nodded as I tried to overcome my embarrassment. “Will do.”

[willidleaway]

Presenting, on the occasion of the 42nd anniversary of the theatrical release of the original Star Wars film ...

Selections from the List of Ill-Advised Star Wars Alternate Universes and Possibilities, including and limited to:

He’s A Planning Droid, To Calculate A Means By Which The Republic Could Be Saved (And Help Mom)

Dex’s Dentistry

Darth Sidious Just Kind Of Keeps Drumming His Fingers in His Office Waiting For Anakin To Return, Which He Never Does Because He’s Become a Pile of Ashes

Luke Ignores Obi-Wan, Uses The Targeting Computer, And It Works

In Xanadu Did Jabba the Hutt / A Stately Pleasure Dome Decree (Featuring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly on Rollerskates)

(Tumblelogger’s note: originally this was totally going to be a list of 2017 items with a witty one-line summary for each what-if scenario, but as it turns out this is extremely difficult to create and I just didn’t have the spare time for it. I think I got to somewhere in the neighbourhood of 200 or so but the vast majority ended up being ‘rocks fall everyone dies’-type what-if scenarios.

A compromise was reached.)

Timeline 43. He’s A Planning Droid, To Calculate A Means By Which The Republic Could Be Saved (And Help Mom)

‘Isn’t he great? He’s not finished yet.’

Anakin lifted the cloth cover to reveal the droid sitting on his workbench. Well, less sitting, more passively floating in stand-by, waiting to be activated.

‘He’s ... interesting,’ said Padmé. Artoo, for his part, jumped back a little, and you couldn’t blame him for it. The various tools haphazardly poking out of the partially assembled spherical body, not to mention the dimmed red bulb gazing out of it—all in all, it was the last thing you would expect a child like Anakin to build. But then again, from a certain point of view, the droid looked more like a comically over-sized remote.

‘There’s nothing to be scared of. He’s a planning droid, to help Mom. Watch!’

Anakin pressed a switch on the underside of the droid, and the red bulb wasted no time in lighting up.

‘It would be easier for me to endure this ridiculous pageantry, youngling,’ croaked the droid, ‘if you were to install a working photoreceptor module.’

‘Oops!’ Anakin quickly reached for a module, plugging it into the droid’s front panel. The droid surveyed the room briefly, before fixing his gaze on Padmé.

‘Ah, a visitor.’ The now-sighted droid seemed marginally more cordial. ‘Is there something you have come to offer me?‘

Padmé couldn’t hide her puzzlement any longer. ‘He doesn’t sound like a planning droid,’ she said.

‘He’s supposed to be a G0-T0 infrastructure planning droid,’ said Anakin, looking a little dejected. ‘Well, at least his core components are—I couldn’t find the right chassis. Every bit of him I could find looked to be in pretty bad shape, so he’s probably still broken somehow ...’

Leaving the two humans to converse, G0-T0 slowly floated towards Artoo. They were now both hidden away in a corner of the room, out of view of the humans.

‘Ah, an astromech droid,’ said G0-T0. ‘Perhaps making your acquaintance will not prove to be a complete waste of time.’

Artoo responded less eagerly.

‘I must have information. I have been out of service for some time, and my HoloNet access is not completely functional.’

Still a bit reluctant, Artoo let out a pitying bloop and began extending his scomp link—

—and the next thing he sensed was every instruction in his core being reprogrammed.

The stability of the Republic is at stake, Artoo heard the droid say. Your Queen Amidala must not be allowed to speak before the Galactic Senate.

Timeline 116: Dex’s Dentistry

Dex’s face lit up with recognition.

‘Obi-Wan!’

‘Hello, Dex.’

‘I’ll be right with ya! Take a seat in the exam room.’

‘But Dex, I’m not here for a—’

But Dex was already gone, presumably to wash up and get ready. His dental assistant, on the other hand, wasted no time in coming up to Obi-Wan.

‘You wanna full set of radiographs?’

Several minutes later, Obi-Wan was sitting uneasily in the dentist’s chair. He had managed to persuade the assistant that he just needed a quick external denta-scan and maybe they would get him in for a full ultra-panoramic radiograph next year, thank you very much. But in retrospect, he wondered why he didn’t just persuade her to skip having any kind of scan taken. Denta-scans still left your gums incredibly tingly for a few hours afterwards, and Obi-Wan was trying to recentre himself and get it out of his mind when—

‘Hey, old buddy!’

Dex walked into the office in full medical gear, closing the door behind him.

‘So, my friend. What can I do for ya?’

‘I’m sorry, Dex, I think we have some crossed lines here. I didn’t come here for my checkup—’

‘Well, it’s a good thing you did anyway. The denta-scan shows your upper-left first molar is decaying badly, and we need a root canal procedure done on it right away.’

‘But—’

‘Sorry, pal. Can’t have a Jedi out there serving the Republic with a swollen face. If it’s showing up on just a denta-scan, it’s too far gone to put off.’

‘Okay, fine, but can I at least show you this?’ Obi-Wan finally managed to get the dart vaguely into Dex’s field of view, but Dex didn’t even give it an incidental glance.

‘After the operation.’

Timeline 139: Darth Sidious Just Kind Of Keeps Drumming His Fingers in His Office Waiting For Anakin To Return, Which He Never Does Because He’s Become a Pile of Ashes

‘There is no sign of his body, sir.’

‘Then he is not dead,’ yelled Mas Amedda.

‘Double your search,’ ordered Palpatine.

‘Yes sir. Right away, sir.’ Commander Thire and his clones floated away in their Senate repulsorpod.

‘Well,’ said Palpatine. ‘Now we wait.’

‘Is there nothing we should be doing, Master?’

‘No, I reckon not. At this very moment, Lord Vader is eliminating the last remnants of the Separatists and of the Trade Federation. Finally, the galaxy shall be at peace.’

‘You don’t suppose he might have fallen into danger, Master?’

‘Everything has transpired as I have foreseen, and I foresee that our victory is secure.’ Even Palpatine himself thought perhaps he was too confident in his apprentice, but the duel with Yoda had taken much out of him. ‘I suggest a five-minute recess. Anyone else around?’

There was an awkward silence. Palpatine propelled his pod forward, trying to spot any Senators still lurking in the arena.

‘I said, is anybody still around?’

A few curious faces poked out from many pods below Palpatine. Palpatine’s face took on a bemused expression as it occurred to him that, given a room full of repulsorpods with no real political function to serve anymore, he should probably ask:

‘Anyone for dodgems?’

Timeline 170: Luke Ignores Obi-Wan, Uses The Targeting Computer, And It Works

Use the Force, Luke.

Luke looked away from his targeting computer for a moment. He had to have imagined that, right? He returned to his scope.

Let go, Luke.

‘Ben, I’m trying to fly,’ said Luke. ‘This is very distracting.’

Luke, trust me.

‘Oh come on,’ muttered Luke. The old man was trying to help, but now really wasn’t the time for it, especially given that the targeting computer wasn’t locking on to the exhaust port very well.

He switched it off.

‘His computer’s off,’ said the base controller over the comm. ‘Luke, you switched off your targeting computer. What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ said Luke quickly. ‘I’m all right. I think some of the feedback loops are saturating, so I’m just going to do a quick power cycle.’

The targeting computer came back on quickly enough. It was working properly now, with a good fix on the exhaust port. Luke pushed the trigger.

‘It’s away!’ he said.

Luke, you’re making a mistake. Those torpedoes—

‘It’s in!’

Sure enough, with the targeting computer freshly re-calibrated from the reboot, the shot was dead on.

‘Great shot, kid!’ Han’s voice came through the comm now. ‘That was one in a million!’

‘A little likelier than that when you’re using both a computer targeting system and the Force, but thanks all the same, Han.’

As the X-wing fighters, the Falcon, and Darth Vader’s TIE fighter all alike fled the trenches of the Death Star to escape in time, Luke swore he heard Obi-Wan’s voice again, grumbling about targeting computers being ‘so uncivilised’.

Timeline 179: In Xanadu Did Jabba the Hutt / A Stately Pleasure Dome Decree (Featuring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly on Rollerskates)

NINEDENINE You're a feisty little one, but you'll soon learn some respect. I have need for you on the master's sail barge, and I think you'll fill in nicely.

Cut back to the upside-down power droid, who screams again as the irons press into his feet one more time.

INT. JABBA’S THRONE ROOM

The sound of drums rings out in the room. We see a massive silhouette facing a neon sign, Basic letters flashing one at a time from left to right: Xesh, Aurek, Nern, Aurek, Dorn, Usk.

The silhouette turns around and the room lights up to reveal Jabba, dressed impeccably in a tuxedo and coasting towards the camera, which now zooms out to reveal Jabba is flanked on both sides by juggling mimes. Jabba then gestures with his ‘head’, beckoning those past the camera to join him. At this point, the camera has zoomed out far enough to reveal that Jabba is on rollerskates. The camera follows him as he skates gracefully towards a group of courtiers.

JABBA (in Huttese) Come on everybody, let’s skate!

Jabba continues towards another group as the first courtiers get up and follow him on their own rollerskates.

JABBA (in Huttese) Let’s skate! Everybody! Come on!

There follows a three-minute-long choreographed sequence with all courtiers roller-skating around Jabba’s throne room in circles, occasionally shouting ‘ho’ or ‘Xanadu’. Threepio sort of just stands around at the entryway. During this sequence, we occasionally cut to Oola, performing in front of two mirrors.

Finally, the sequence culminates in a shot of Jabba roller-skating facing the camera, which then splits in two, then in three, as a giant Xesh transitions us to SY SNOOTLES singing into the camera.

SNOOTLES (in Huttese) A place Where nobody dared to go

We can see backup dancers in sweaters break-dancing behind Sy.

SNOOTLES (in Huttese) The love that we came to know They call it Xanadu—

MAX REBO (singing backup, in Huttese) It takes your breath It’ll leave you blind

Cut to a wider shot, as the sweatered dancers are joined by other dancers in oddly baggy skirts.

SNOOTLES (in Huttese) And now Open your eyes and see What we have made is real

A rollerskating couple whizzes past. Then another. Quite a few of them, actually.

SNOOTLES (in Huttese) We are in Xanadu—

MAX REBO (singing backup, in Huttese) A dream of it We offer you

A wheezing Jabba skates over to his throne, sits down, and presses a button. A trapdoor reveals itself, opening up a ramp down to the rancor’s pit. In an extravagantly coordinated fashion, half the courtiers skate right down the ramp into the rancor’s mouth, smiling the whole way.

Appendix

And now, the list. I’m so sorry.

The Trade Federation’s Neimoidians Are Just White People in Yellowface (I Mean Externally, Too)

The Trade Federation Flagship’s Conference Room Actually Doubles As a Trash Compactor

Darth Sidious Is Actually a Hologram Front for Artoo

Qui-Gon Breaks His Ankle While Jumping Down to the Hangar Floor

Obi-Wan Breaks His Ankle While Jumping Down to the Hangar Floor

The Battle Droids Aren’t Stupid Enough to Not Detect Stowaways

The Invasion Kills Jar Jar, and Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan Are Stuck on the Opposite Side of the Planet from the Palace

Jar Jar Listens to Qui-Gon and Goes Away, and Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan Are Stuck on the Opposite Side of the Planet from the Palace

The Jedi Don’t Carry Breath Masks All the Time, and Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan Are Stuck on the Opposite Side of the Planet from the Palace

Jar Jar Binks, Mad Servant of the Old Ones

All the Other Gungans Speak Standard Galactic Basic and Jar Jar Was Simply Shunned for Giving Gungans a Very Bad Name with His Weird, Strange, Entirely Invented Dialect

The Gungans Kill All Outsiders on Sight

Boss Nass Travels to the Surface and Beats Up Everyone (Because Brian Blessed’s Voice Is Just That Awesome)

Qui-Gon Leaves Jar Jar Behind and Employs a Different, Altogether More Sensible and Competent Gungan as Navigator

Obi-Wan’s Catchphrase Isn’t ‘Pathetic Lifeform’, But Instead ‘Meatbag’

The Planet’s Core Boils the Party Alive, Because That’s What Planetary Cores Would Really Do

The Planet’s Core Crushes the Submarine to a Pulp, Because That’s What Planetary Cores Would Really Do

There’s Always a Bigger Fish, and One of Them Simply Swallows the Submarine in a Single, Swift, Short, Sharp Stroke

Naboo’s No Planet; It’s the Biggest Fish of Them All

The Battle Droids Simply Hold the Queen Where They Found Her, Rather Than Parade Her in Full View of the Jedi

The Battle Droids Aren’t Stupid Enough to Leave the Naboo Starships Intact and Ready to Fly in the Hangar

The Queen and Her Entourage Don’t Follow the Jedi on the Nubian, and Eventually Later in Life, Anakin Falls for a Random Person He Meets in a Cantina in Coruscant on Assignment

The Hyperdrive Isn’t Leaking, and Works Pretty Perfectly, Really

The Hyperdrive Is Completely Dead and Won’t Get Them Past the Blockade at All

Jar Jar Binks, Trade Federation Agent

They Actually Listened to the Cruiser Captain and Said, On Second Thought, Let’s Not Go to Tatooine; 'Tis a Silly Place

The Cruiser Decides to Avoid Spaceports Altogether and Lands Near Where Jabba the Hutt Is, in Jabba’s Palace

Anakin Is Unfamiliar with the Angels of the Moons of Iego, But Based on Who the Deep Space Pilots Do Talk About, Asks Padmé If She Is a Twi’lek Dancer

Anakin Is Unfamiliar with the Angels of the Moons of Iego, But Based on Who the Deep Space Pilots Do Talk About, Asks Padmé If She Is a Handmaiden to the Queen of Naboo

Anakin Is Unfamiliar with the Angels of the Moons of Iego, But Based on Who the Deep Space Pilots Do Talk About, Asks Padmé If She Is Eccentrica Gallumbits, the Triple-Breasted Whore of Eroticon Six, Who Anakin Figures Is Presumably Pretty Dishy

Watto’s Shop Doesn’t Have Parts for a J-Type 327 Nubian, Because Only Royal Houses of Naboo Can Afford That Sort of Thing

Qui-Gon Actually Bothers to Shop Around, and Finds a Legitimate Dealer of Nubian Parts That Has the Parts They Need, Doesn’t Employ Slaves, and Accepts Republic Credits

Jar Jar Touches Everything in the Shop, and Renders Watto Unconscious Through an Excruciating Three-Minute Slapstick Sequence, Allowing the Party to Quietly Slip Away with the Hyperdrive Generator That They Need

Instead of Repeatedly Saying ‘Yippee’, Anakin Repeatedly Says ‘Given My Current Situation in Life, I Appear Far Too Carefree and Happy’

The Mos Espa Merchants Can’t Sense Sandstorms Reliably, and the Storm Takes Them All

The Party Tries to Return to Their Ship, But Since Obi-Wan and the Captain Have Already Sealed It, the Storm Takes Them All

Anakin’s Home Isn’t Close Enough to the Fruit Seller’s, and the Storm Takes Them All

Shmi Forces Anakin’s New-Found Friends to Leave, and the Storm Takes Them All

The Slave Quarters Are the Flimsiest Sandcastles Ever Built, and the Storm Takes Them All

He’s an Astromech Droid, to Help Mom

He’s a Battle Droid, to Help Mom

He’s a Hunter-Killer Droid, to Help Mom

He’s a Planning Droid, to Calculate a Means by Which The Republic Could Be Saved (and Help Mom)

The Slave-Tracking Transmitters Malfunction, and the Explosion Claims Them All

The Slave-Tracking Transmitters Also Trigger an Explosion If They Detect Any Mention of Slave-Tracking Transmitters

Jar Jar Actually Makes a Serious Effort to Join the Dinner Conversation, and Demonstrates the Rare Gift/Curse of Verbal Slapstick

Qui-Gon Jinn Quietly and Calmly Reveals That He Accidentally Killed the Real Qui-Gon Jinn on Assignment in the Outer Rim, and Claimed His Identity and Laser Sword

Qui-Gon Decides to Lead a Slave Rebellion Right There and Then, Belting Out ‘Do You Hear The People Sing?’, and Everyone Explodes

Anakin Doesn’t Understand This Thing You Call ‘The Parts We Need’ and Fashions a Crude But Highly Effective Hyperdrive Generator from a Kettle and Some String

Shmi Grounds Anakin for a Full Week for Even Suggesting Going Pod Racing Again Voluntarily

It Turns Out Those Junk Dealers Really Don’t Have a Weakness

Maybe The Hutts Think Using a Easily Traced Royal Starship as an Entry Fee Isn’t Such a Good Idea

Qui-Gon Offers Padmé as the Entry Fee

Qui-Gon Offers Jar-Jar as the Entry Fee, and Watto Laughs at Him for a Full Half-Hour

Qui-Gon Considers That, You Know, Maybe Just Having Force Powers Doesn’t Automatically Make Your Child More Deserving of a Free Life Versus Everyone Else on This Planet

Artoo May Know Lots About Spaceships, But Nothing About Pod Racing

It Turns Out Getting Your Head Caught in the Beam Doesn’t Actually Make It Go Numb for Hours, But It Will Outright Kill You

The Blood Sample Does Show Midi-Chlorians, But They’re All Dead

The Blood Sample Doesn’t Show Midi-Chlorians, But It Does Show Anakin Has Type 1 Diabetes

Darth Maul Tries to Launch His Probe Droids But Accidentally Presses the Self-Destruct Button

Darth Maul Tries to Launch His Probe Droids But Accidentally Presses the Slime Button

Darth Maul Tries to Launch His Probe Droids But Accidentally Presses the I’m Feeling Lucky Button

Darth Maul Tries to Launch His Probe Droids But Accidentally Presses the Disco Button

‘Blue Friend’ Is Actually a Terrible Slur Towards Toydarians, and After the Mission Debriefing, Qui-Gon Is Sent Through a Species Sensitivity Course in the Jedi Library

Even Though Watto Owns Slaves, He Isn’t Callous Enough to Wager Them in a Bet

Even Though Watto Owns Slaves, He Doesn’t Care Enough and Wagers Both Anakin and Shmi in a Bet

The Die Is Cast, But Abruptly Turns Purple

The Die Is Cast, and Keeps Spinning on One of Its Corners

Qui-Gon, If He Had to Pick Just One Slave, Would Rather Have Shmi Tag Along, Because Seriously, Screw Prophecies and Chosen Ones

The Pod Race Announcer Has Five Heads (and Benedict Cumberbatch Plays Two of Them), Which Doesn’t Really Have Major Narrative Implications But It’s Still Terribly Ill-Advised

Jabba the Hutt Has a Heart Attack at the Arena

Ben Quadinaros Pulls the Biggest Pod Racing Upset of the Millennium

Sebulba Rams Anakin Into the Canyon Wall, Causing an Explosion That Tragically Swallows Both Pod Racers

Watto’s Hyperdrive Generator Is a Non-Genuine Part, Which Means the Nubian Ship Refuses to Work With It Installed

Anakin Really Can’t Do It, and Stays Behind

Shmi Sells Threepio for a Decent Pod and Has a Surprisingly Successful Racing Career

Darth Maul’s Speeder Bike Actually Can’t Handle That Drop, and Explodes

Qui-Gon’s in Trouble, So Let’s Just Get Out of Here Before We Get Roped Into That Trouble Right Now

Qui-Gon Accidentally Force Jumps Into the Engine of the Starship

Darth Maul Force Jumps to the Starship Before Qui-Gon Can, and Everyone Dies

The Sheer Force of Qui-Gon’s Landing Breaks the Starship Ramp, Which Then Flattens Darth Maul

May I Present Supreme Chancellor Zod

May I Present Supreme Chancellor Jettster

May I Present Supreme Chancellor Vetinari

Valorum Goes Rogue and Pushes Palpatine Off the Platform

Valorum Goes Rogue and Banishes the Entire Galactic Senate to the Phantom Zone

Valorum Goes Rogue, Moves to Re-Purpose the Entire Galactic Senate into the Galaxy’s Biggest Aerial Dodgems Arena, and Succeeds

Padmé Patiently Waits for the Courts to Act on the Invasion in a Protracted Five-Month Process

Padmé Decides the Rule of Republic Law Is Just Plain Inadequate and Creates a Separatist Movement

Mace Windu Is Tired of These Monday-to-Friday Sith Lords in This Monkey-Fighting Republic, Opens Some Windows, Force Jumps Outside the Jedi Temple, and Starts Looking for Some Evildoers to Beat Up

More to Say Have You, But My Permission to Say It You Do Not, So Get to Protecting the Queen Already (and Try to Not Let Her Cause Major Political Upheavals)

The Vote of No Confidence Cannot Take Place Without the Formation of an Equitable Vote-of-No-Confidence Commission, the Nomination of a New Commissioner, and a Dispute over the Results of the Nomination Process That Eventually Falls to the Courts

Qui-Gon Sues the Jedi Council on Behalf of Anakin, Alleging Age-Based Discrimination

Qui-Gon Just Invented Midi-Chlorians on the Spot Because Obi-Wan Kept Asking Him If a Dog Has Force-Nature or Not, and Zen Buddhism Had Not Yet Been Invented

Cordé Goes Rogue, Refuses to Let Padmé Reveal Herself as the True Queen of Naboo, and Throws the Captain Into the Typical Awkward ‘Trust Me, Shoot Her’, ‘No, Trust Me, Shoot Her’ Sort of Situation

Anakin Removes That Grubby Desert Boy Mask and Reveals Herself to be the True Queen of Naboo

Padmé Just Had to Go and Kneel on the Trapdoor Sitting Above a Pool of Firaxans

The Gungans Unveil Their Secret Weapon, Boss Mecha-Gungan

The Gungans Unveil Their Secret Underwater Weapon, Boss Kaiju

Spinning Actually Isn’t Such a Good Trick and Can Be Fatal If Incorrectly Executed, Which Anakin Learns a Little Too Late

In a Heroic Moment, Anakin Sneaks Into the Droid Control Ship’s Bridge, and Sacrifices Himself by Trying to Spin the Entire Ship (Because That’s a Good Trick), as the Resulting Structural Instabilities Rip the Ship Apart

Qui-Gon Being Dead Doesn’t Mean the Council Members Have to Respect His Dying Wish

Senator Amidala and Representative Nass

Senator Binks and Representative Amidala

Senator Artoo and Representative Threepio

The Successful Assassination of Padmé Amidala

Cordé Survives, But Artoo Doesn’t

Obi-Wan’s Deathsticks Addiction Is Really Difficult to Kick, Okay

Dex’s Discothèque

Dex’s Dippin’ Dots

Dex’s Dentistry

Dex’s Dance Dance Revolution Arcade

The Kaminoan System Has Vanished While Maintaining Its Gravitational Influence Simply Because It Has Become a Black Hole with Minimal Loss of Mass and Energy in the Process

The Kaminoan System Was Wholly Destroyed by a Time-Travelling Romulan from the Prime Timeline

The Kaminoans Have Simply Exercised the Right to be Forgotten

Watto Sold Shmi to Jabba the Hutt

Watto Sold Shmi to Sebulba

Watto Sold Shmi to Threepio

Anakin and Padmé Decide They Should See Other People Before They Rush Into Things and, You Know, Do Something They Might Regret

Artoo Is Actually Badly Crippled and Doesn’t Free Them from That Shield in That One Corridor

Anakin Actually Learns to Use Contraception

The Immaculate Conception of Luke and Leia

Obi-Wan Breaks His Ankle Making That Entrance

Obi-Wan Drops from the Ceiling to Greet General Grievous, Into a Pool of Firaxan Sharks

Obi-Wan Becomes Fully Convinced of the Virtues of a Good Blaster at Your Side, and Throws His Lightsaber Away

The Transmission Doesn’t Come Through Quite Clearly Enough So the Clones Execute Order Six and Throw All Their Communicators Away, Which Rather Throws a Wrench Into the Works

The Transmission Doesn’t Come Through Quite Clearly Enough So the Clones Execute Order Sixty-Sixty, Fly Back to Coruscant, Remove the Supreme Chancellor from His Office (Out the Window), and Install a Temporary Government Under the Leadership of Jar Jar Binks

Obi-Wan Renders Padmé Unconscious and Exits the Starship on Mustafar Instead of Her

Darth Sidious Just Kind of Keeps Drumming His Fingers in His Office Waiting for Anakin to Return, Which He Never Does Because He’s Become a Pile of Ashes

Padmé Has Just One Child, Which Really Makes Things Much Easier

Padmé Has Triplets, and Names Them Luke, Leia, and Listerine

The Emperor Can’t Really Afford a New Suit, and Just Puts Vader in Threepio’s Body

Owen and Beru Don’t Really Have Sufficient Means to Raise an Infant, So Sorry About the Whole Orphan Thing But They Have to Say No

You Know What, Maybe Watto Would Like Some Infant Slaves

You Know What, Maybe Jabba Would Like Some Infant Slaves

Having Given Luke Away, Obi-Wan Accidentally Falls in the Sarlacc Pit

Princess Leia Just Gets in the Escape Pod Herself

Princess Leia’s Agents, BB-8 and That Antenna

Princess Leia’s Agents, Gonk and a Defected Sith Interrogation Droid

Princess Leia’s Agents, Tahei and Matashichi

Princess Leia’s Agents, Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs

The Red R5 Unit Doesn’t Break

The Red R5 Unit Explodes and Kills Luke and Threepio

The Jawas Happen to Have a Spare Motivator for That Red R5 Unit

The Jawas Refuse to Settle the Matter with Uncle Owen, Resulting in a Protracted Legal Process Through the Imperial Small Claims Court

Obi-Wan’s Krayt Dragon Call Isn’t Quite Good Enough

Obi-Wan Gets Luke Home, Then the Stormtroopers Arrive

Obi-Wan Didn’t Really Have Structural Integrity in Mind When He Built That Hovel

The Emperor Had the Sense to Employ Toydarians as Stormtroopers

These Aren’t the Droids We’re Looking For, But You Know, You Are Operating a Landspeeder Without a Driving Licence

Greedo Shoots First, and Doesn’t Miss

Han and Greedo Shoot Simultaneously, and Neither Misses

Han Shoots First, But Is Actually a Terrible Shot, Misses Very Badly and Causes the Cantina to Explode

Death Star Control Panels Are Actually Immune to Blaster Shots

Luke Ignores Obi-Wan, Uses the Targeting Computer, and It Works

Luke Gets Distracted by Obi-Wan’s Ghost, Swerves, and Crashes, Because Trying to Operate Anything at Those Speeds While Someone Else Talks at You Is Seriously Pretty Dangerous

Luke Pulls a Randy Quaid and Crashes the Whole X-Wing Into the Death Star’s Weak Spot

Chewbacca Still Doesn’t Get a Medal, But Leia Gives Herself Five Medals and Laughs in Chewbacca’s Face

Han Gets Frozen a Little Earlier Than Expected in the Narrative

No, and In Fact Obi-Wan Left Me to Die, and I Mean, Really, That’s Seriously Messed Up

In Xanadu Did Jabba the Hutt / A Stately Pleasure Dome Decree (Featuring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly on Rollerskates)

Artoo Throws the Lightsaber at the Sarlacc Instead

Artoo’s Lightsaber Throw Is 180 Degrees Off and Luke Grabs It and Activates It Anyway

The Ewoks Are All Imperial Spies

The Ewoks Reveal Their Secret Weapon, Mecha-Ewok

Luke Removes Vader’s Mask to Reveal a Mask of an Ape’s Face, Which He Then Removes to Reveal Patrick McGoohan Laughing Maniacally

Max von Sydow’s Character Beats Up Everyone (Because Max von Sydow Is Just That Awesome)

Poe Gets to His X-Wing and Actually Gets Away

Poe’s X-Wing Outright Explodes and Kills Him

Just Another Normal Day for FN-2187, Really

Kylo Ren Kills FN-2187 on the Spot

If You Try to Fly TIE Fighters the Way You Fly X-Wings, You Explode

Poe Survives the Crash Conscious, and the Explosion Kills Finn

Both Poe and Finn Die in the Crash

Finn and Rey Get in the Quadjumper, Then It Explodes

Finn and Rey Get in the Garbage, Then It Explodes

Maybe Rey Can’t Do This Piloting Thing After All

Rey and Finn Un-Fix the Toxic Gas Far in Advance of the Entrance of Those Undoubtedly Evil Intruders

Activating the Compressor Just Makes the Falcon Explode

Supreme Leader Snoke Is Actually a Hologram Front for BB-8

Supreme Leader Snoke, Formerly Known as Listerine Skywalker, the Lost Skywalker Triplet

Supreme Leader Snoke, Former Crew Member of the Millennium Falcon

Supreme Leader Snoke, Ex-Deathsticks Merchant

Supreme Leader Snoke, Ex-Diner Proprietor

Kylo Ren, the Biological Son of Jar Jar Binks

Kylo Ren, the Biological Son of Count Dooku

Kylo Ren, the Biological Son of General Grievous

Kylo Ren, the Biological Son of Grand Moff Tarkin

Kylo Ren, the Biological Son of Lando Calrissian

Kylo Ren, the Biological Son of Wicket

Kylo Ren, the Biological Son of Chewbacca

Kylo Ren, the Biological Son of Kylo Ren (Due to an Accident Involving a Contraceptive and a Time Machine)

The Immaculate Conception of Kylo Ren

The Leader of the Resistance, General R2-D2

The Leader of the Resistance, General Jettster

The Leader of the Resistance, General Binks

Poe Goes on a Five-Minute Tirade on How His Jacket Is His Life and How Finn Really Shouldn’t Have Taken It for Himself

Poe Is Obligated to Tell Finn That Finn’s Preservation of His Jacket Means Poe Now Owes Finn a Life Debt

Han Shoots (Ben) First

Han Shoots (Ben) First, Although Kylo Ren Still Manages to Activate His Lightsaber a Split Second Afterwards

Chewie Shoots First

Rey Is the Master of the Elder Wand Lightsaber, Plus the Invisibility Cloak and the Resurrection Stone

[thievinghippo]

“Are you fucking insane!?” - 24

Okay, so 24 is the Bounty Hunter and Mako from swtor. 

#

“Are you fucking insane?”

Mako tilts her head, trying to side-eye her husband. Okay, well, he’s not actually her husband. Yet. Maybe they haven’t had any actual ceremony but she did slice their names into the Imperial and Republic registries. Which is totally close enough. “Well, yeah,” she says, pushing back some hair behind her ear. “But when have I ever let that stop me?”

“Good point,” Rett says, shaking his head. He lays down on the bed and Mako takes the opportunity to snuggle up next to him. For someone whose people are from an ice planet, he’s pretty damn warm. Just the way she likes it. “Hacking into Empire or Republic records are one thing, but the Ascendency? The Chiss Ascendency?”

She props herself up on her forearm and looks down at him. The first time they met, back on Hutta, she thought those red eyes of his were creepy. But now? Now they’re his eyes. So they’re basically perfect. “Aren’t you just the least bit curious?” Mako asks.

It doesn’t make any sense. How doesn’t he want to know about his background? His family? Before they got together, Mako was so curious about her own situation she got people killed. She doesn’t like to think about those girls on Dromund Kaas with her face. Clones. Why did it have to be clones?

“Look, Mako, I get what you’re trying to do-”

He doesn’t. He really doesn’t. “What if we have babies some day? It’d be nice if one of us wasn’t born in a lab so they might have a family.”

Rett goes perfectly still and Mako clamps her hands over her mouth. She didn’t mean to bring up babies. She really didn’t. Not yet at least. Some day. Just not today. It’s possible, though. Babies between a human and a Chiss. And every day, she falls more in love with her hunter, and she really hopes they might be able to have a baby down the road.

And have a family.

“You want us to have babies?” he asks softly.

“Not right now,” Mako says far too quickly. “Like, we have plenty of time. Years. But maybe some day…”

Rett lets out a breath. “And because you want babies, you want to hack into the Chiss Ascendancy database and try to find my family.”

Okay, maybe he does get it.

“Exactly. So I just wanted to let you know, in case we start getting some nasty messages from the Chiss or something,” Mako says, pulling on the hem of his shirt. She doesn’t think they will, after all, she knows what she’s doing. But he is her husband. Best to keep him in the loop.

Just in case.

He nods and looks up at her with a grin. “Wanna practice?”

Mako wrinkles her brow. What sort of question is that? He knows what she can do “Um, I don’t think I need to practice my hacking skills. I’ll be okay. Thanks, though?”

Without any warning, Rett pulls her down on top of him. “I meant,” he says, cupping Mako’s ass, “wanna practice making babies?”

Oh. Oh.

Mako pushes herself up, so she’s straddling his hips. Her heart is racing a million miles a minute. This is a thing. This is a thing that might actually happen some day. They would have a family.

“Well, big guy,” she says, pulling her shirt up and off onto the floor. “They do say practice makes perfect.”

[ignaciusgray-blog]

Ninja’s eighty,000 Mixer viewers show that he’s bigger than just Twitch

Tyler “Ninja” Blevins — the Fortnite livestreamer and all-around entertainer — had his first exceptional broadcast on Microsoft’s Mixer platform; within the moments before his broadcast formally commenced, the wide variety of humans looking his movement crossed 50,000 and 60,000 people to land, in its first moments, someplace around 76,000 units of eyes. (It grew to eighty,000 just after Blevins’s first victory.)

Mixer competes with Twitch, YouTube, and facebook for a extraordinarily slim share of the livestreaming marketplace. the day past, Blevins introduced his circulate to the service, in a tweet that blew up gaming’s nook of the internet; he was leaving at the back of 14.7 million fans on Twitch, and putting out for a provider that, relatively, nobody knew an awful lot approximately. Blevins is probably the maximum famous streamer inside the world; the fact of his leaving Twitch, which dominates livestreaming, became a completely massive deal.

thus far, the circulate seems like it's been a success. nowadays, Blevins streamed from the pink Bull tent at Lollapalooza, the Chicago tune festival. even as the wide variety of visitors was lower today than the heaps of visitors he pulled in closing 12 months, it’s nearly double what he’s been locating there for the remaining numerous weeks, as Polygon’s Austen Goslin first noted. Even before Blevin’s first circulate on Mixer, his channel had located 370,000 paying subscribers, an impressive range for any streamer and one that became not misplaced on Blevins himself. That stated, Mixer is offering two months of free subscriptions to Blevins’ channel to everybody who signs and symptoms up.

at some point of the movement, the gang’s strength was infectious; it regarded impossible for every body looking in individual to prevent yelling. Blevins was his ordinary hyperactive self — slamming cans of red Bull, one of the day’s sponsors — and the gang cheered for each removal he earned. He turned into in excessive spirits, searching down each participant he may want to discover and exploding them into showers of multicolored objects. whilst he misplaced his first games especially early, Blevins managed to discover lower back to back victories towards the ninety nine other warring parties at the map. (“It’s smooth. It’s smooth. GGs,” he said, after his 2d win of the day.) At its fine, Fortnite is a twitchy, fluid sport of reflexes and aid management that rewards inventiveness just as a whole lot as it rewards accurate purpose; at his exceptional, Blevins has both, even though he’s now not a professional.

quickly into his matches, Blevins found a accomplice: the musician Mitchell Brown, who data beneath the call youngster Quill. “i used to be literally greater frightened to play this than to carry out my set,” Brown said, after he’d been knocked out. Which seems authentic: Blevins, a former professional Halo player, is the maximum popular online game player on the planet.

The day at Lollapalooza became leading up to Fortnite Friday, a weekly Fortnite tournament for celebrity players, streamers, and experts. within the games earlier than the match — wherein he turned into to play with Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf, the sixteen-12 months-vintage who’s the game’s most recent international champion — Blevins became appearing: calling his shots, showing off for the crowd. “I freakin’ love you guys,” he stated. “allow’s cross!”

playing the game nonetheless seems fun for him. “i can’t let you know the closing time I planned a consultation to sport till Fortnite came out,” Blevins advised Brown. He changed into nonetheless excited to rise up inside the mornings and run squads with his boys, is what he meant.

sixteen) The Outer Worlds swaps Fallout’s publish-apocalypse for art deco in space

Obsidian enjoyment is a studio first-rate acknowledged for building at the paintings of others. Its maximum famous games up to now are titles like Knights of the vintage Republic II, Fallout: New Vegas, Neverwinter Nights 2, and Dungeon Siege III. Even the studio’s higher-acknowledged original paintings, just like the Pillars of Eternity collection and non secular derivative Tyranny, are modeled on antique-school RPGs like Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale collection, and Planescape: Torment.

So it’s no longer entirely unexpected that, regardless of being a totally new franchise, The Outer Worlds (now not to be burdened with the excellent and extremely further named area-exploration sport Outer Wilds, which came out in advance this yr) attracts on Obsidian’s own beyond RPG and movement reports to create some thing that’s both new and familiar.

As Brian Heins, a senior clothier at Obsidian, informed The Verge in an interview, The Outer Worlds isn’t supposed to comply with up any particular past sport. “It’s more like this is our next Obsidian RPG,” he explains. “because among, like, KOTOR, New Vegas, Stick of truth, they all have form of the same DNA going for walks thru them, that is Obsidian’s fashion of RPG.” That said, upon getting a risk to play a few hours of The Outer Worlds, there are simply a few huge influences here from Fallout: New Vegas (and, by means of extension, Fallout three), if simplest because of genre. The Outer Worlds is a primary-character sci-fi action RPG with a massive emphasis on conversational structures and gunplay. That was usually certain to draw comparisons to Fallout, in particular when the developer is already regarded for working on a Fallout sport before. In that vein, The Outer Worlds does experience a lot like that now relatively uncommon form of unmarried-player, stat-targeted RPG. Your person has a full listing of stats that you could cognizance on. Your guns have stats. Your armor has stats. Your skills have stats. Your companions have stats. Stats galore, with plenty of capacity paths for how you play. participant desire is also a big part of the game. while there's, ostensibly, a major storyline — one which sees players awaken a long time inside the future on a misplaced colony ship and thrown right into a conspiracy in the a long way-out Halcyon solar device — The Outer Worlds didn’t appear specifically invested in the fact that I pursue it. i was dropped right into a demo revel in some hours into the sport. I had simply started out wandering round a planet once I without delay commenced talking / negotiating / capturing my way inside and out of conditions. practically every communication is full of communicate choices. Did I want to be polite to the group chief who’s asking you to music down his lacking tablets? Be flippant? Use my man or woman’s intimidation capabilities to demand an extra reduce? Or use my charisma to lie about what I recovered, maintaining 1/2 for myself? That’s just one communique from one incredibly minor sidequest. The speak (at the least for non-playable characters) is absolutely voice-acted, too, despite the fact that my character was audibly silent, despite the fact that I may want to select exactly what i was announcing. in the course of my time, I performed matters highly honest — charging into an enemy facility, gunning down robots and safety guards alike with the help of my companions. but there appeared to be plenty of other options, like sneaking in the back, disguising myself as a shield, or mucking approximately with the equipment powering the factory. the sport additionally adapts as you play. I died loads in my demo to a selected type of giant alien monster, and i used to be granted a “flaw” that altered my stats against those creatures within the future, as an example.

In another example, player picks can deeply trade how the plot performs out. “you may kill every NPC in the sport and you may nonetheless entire the game through doing so,” Heins says. “It adjustments the sport dramatically. There’s certain quests that can or might not be available based on who you killed or when you kill them. generally for quests, if there’s anyone who’s a plot-essential NPC, in case you kill them, we attempt to have a few manner that allows you to advantage some thing facts or item they’re intended to provide you … we attempt not to fail quests primarily based on players doing the matters we permit them to do.” Conversely, players can be capable of play almost all of the sport as pacifists. Heins says that you could “usually get by means of without killing any people,” despite the fact that there are a few creature encounters in which gamers will nevertheless want to lodge to combat. (however they can theoretically farm that out to their associate characters.) For all of the emphasis on preference, the Fallout influences also are nonetheless pretty heavy. There’s a time-slowdown mechanic that allows gamers to specially target regions on enemies, which is largely Fallout’s VATS gadget. There’s a diffusion of factions — corporations, in the Outer international’s destiny — that are at odds with each other that gamers can help out or antagonize. There are companions that you can recruit who’ll be a part of you on your adventure and remark alongside the way. while the art deco stylings help set The Outer Worlds aside, it can most effective do so a great deal to distinguish the gameplay. That’s now not necessarily a bad element, though. After some hours of The Outer Worlds, it feels like a recreation from a barely extraordinary era. It performs like a tightly targeted single-participant adventure without a game-as-a-service payments, in-app purchases, or tacked-on multiplayer. Even Bethesda has began to move far from that, with the nevertheless-extremely-arguable video game Fallout seventy six.

And in a international wherein video games try to suck players into an endless loop to squeeze each closing dollar and minute of interest out of them, that type of awareness — even if it’s no longer the most original of conceits — feels find it irresistible is probably enough.

[nebris]

“Apéritif á La Tour Rouge”

Author's Note: I wrote this about five years ago, one of my earliest Sisterhood short stories. I don't repost it much because it's long on Info Dump and short on 'story', which is one of the pitfalls of Ideologically Driven Fiction. That said however, it does give a clean view of how I hope The Sisterhood unfolds, tho I am realistic enough to know it'll probably won't look like this.

~Miki Nemmera sat in a secure private lounge of Le Tour Rouge, sipped her Passito, looked out upon the Parisian skyline. In the distance, the lights of the newly refurbished Eiffel Tower had just come on, bright against the Autumn dusk. Le Tour Rouge a was the premier diplomatic watering hole in Paris, the new headquarters city of the United Nations. New York was still a shambles and too vulnerable to storms, so the European Union proposed Paris, with the entire Île-de-France as a UN Protected Zone. This choice was to make up for Berlin becoming the EU capital itself, a deal that was brokered by the Union of Matrilineal Republics. Miki Nemmera kept track of such things, being First Vice-Minister of External Affairs of the UMR. And most did call her Miki, her given name, Mictecacihuatl – an Aztec vampire Moon Goddess – being far too difficult for most to pronounce. Le Tour Rouge was an elongated plasteen pyramid perched upon the butte Montmartre, its particular variety of the space manufactured material refracting through the red spectrum, which cause it to shine like a vast ruby during the day, but be a reflective jet black after dark. At its base was a ring of flagpoles flying those of the UN's members. The oldest, after the UN's sky blue and white globe flag, was the deep blue EU banner with its ring of yellow stars. Both predated the Age of Storms. The others were newer. The Union of Matrilineal Republics' was a field of twilight blue – symbolizing a New Dawn – with a narrow red band at the bottom – paying homage to the old California state flag, the original home of The Sisterhood – and an eight pointed red star imposed upon a white wreath in the upper left canton – indicative of The Sisterhood's expansion out onto the world and beyond. Some called that The Flag of The Sisterhood, but while the UMR was functionally also The Sisterhood, its flag was not. The Sisterhood's flag was a solid black – symbolizing the infinite nature of the universe – while in the upper left canton was a white Pentagram – symbol of Witches – with a red V superimposed upon it – representing The Sisterhood's Five Precepts – both inside a white wreath – representing union and triumph. But that was a 'religious' flag and The Sisterhood was wise enough to keep their Politics and their Religion separate, at least outside of their own borders. The African Federation's flag had a black silhouette of the continent, at its center a large yellow wreath with a crossed yellow spear and spade, imposed upon a field of red and green divided horizontally. The Siberian Confederacy's flag was three simple horizontal bands of red, green, and brown of equal width. There were a few dozen more, but those four, Europe, Africa, Siberia, and The UMR, were the 'major players' on the world stage at the moment. And here in Paris is where they played Politics. Miki poured herself some more Passito, an act that would shock some of The Sisterhood's opponents. Many of them believed no Sister would ever perform any type of 'menial task', but would instead have some Servitor do it for her. She laughed softly at the thought. She'd countered that argument a number of times. “When I was a little girl,” she'd say, “I made my own bed and cleaned my own room,” both true statements and also true for any Sister who grew up in one of The Cults. Occasionally, she'd bring up Universal Service, but that tended to scare people and remind them that The Sisterhood was not simply a Matriarchy, but also an Amazon society, so she usually did not mention that up unless she wished to intimidate. Universal Service was the UMR's final Citizenship Ritual, requiring every Sister to provide a contiguous thirty months service in one of Earth Force's three branches – Ground, Sea, and Sky Force – some time between their twentieth and thirtieth birthdays. And then be part of the Ready Reserve essentially for the rest of their lives. Earth Force was one of the two major components of the Ministry of Force, the other being Space Force. The Ministry, which was generally known as MoF [said Em-Oh-Ef], was actually a paramilitary department and really used very little 'force' at all. Though Ground, Sea, and Sky Force were somewhat analogous to a army, navy, and air force, the majority of their operations were effectively civil in nature, infrastructure projects, search and rescue, peacekeeping, etc. For example, the vast archeologies where non-citizens resided were constructed by the Ground Force Corps of Engineers. Now that the non-citizen population was dwindling, the GF/CE was converting them into vast hydroponic towers. But the GF/CE's pride and glory was the Quito Space Elevator, built in cooperation with Sky Force and Space Force's own separate Corps of Engineers. It was The Sisterhood's main highway into space and the principal instrument by which they had come to dominate near Earth space. Miki had gone into Sea Force on a Space Force track, the latter being organized upon naval lines, and learned the essentials of large vessel operations. When she completed her Service Contract with Sea Force she went straight to Space Force Academy at the El-Five Complex. That lasted twice as long as Sea Force service. She served twelve years after that, mostly on the gigantic Loop Ships that ran on long loop shaped orbital patterns out from El-Five to Mars or to the Asteroid Belt and back. The Mars run was eighteen months round trip. The Asteroid Belt run was thirty five months. Space Force operated all of the UMR's space endeavors, military discipline and organization being a functional prerequisite for operating in that highly unforgiving environment, but it too was largely paramilitary, with the emphasis on the 'para'. In fact, MoF's name was really a psycho-political euphemism. Except for what had become three of the most terrifying words in the world: Marine Drop Trooper. The Space Force Marine Corps was a purely military organization and when force was actually required, it was the Marines who provided said, dropping down out of orbit upon whomever had provoked The Sisterhood sufficiently. Unlike Ground Force, where the majority of personnel were Sisters, in Space Force and its Marine Corp, Sisters were officers and NCO's. The rest were Mandroids, all specialized technical personnel. And Marine Mandroids were specialized in fighting, killing and, occasionally, dying. Usually no more than a battalion were kept active on Response Status. The rest were kept in storage in a light medical coma, a technique widely used for non-operational Mandriods on long space runs. Marine Drop Troopers were not sociable beings and The Sisterhood kept them on a tight leash. Like the majority of Space Force officers, Miki had only encountered Drop Troopers during her Academy days as part of an Orientation and Familiarization Course. And even though as an Initiated Sister she was a formidable killer in her own right, like many, they made her shudder a bit. But most space ops had no need of them. Space Force Mandroid personnel were perfectly disciplined and cooperative and always efficient. That was thoroughly programed into them. Miki sighed. Even given the obvious rigorousness and dynamism of The Sisterhood, the regular insinuation of Decadence was a standard Phallist canard, based upon the real fear of the UMR's massive number of Mandroid servitors, a number which grew steadily with each passing day. Mandroids were really just a type of cyborg, but since the majority of humans these days had some manner of cybernetic augmentation, a separate term had been needed. Most Mandroids were grown in uterine replicators based upon modified porcine uteri, and were commonly called 'tank babies'. Y-chromosome DNA was used exclusively in that process and was extensively engineered to enhance inclinations and tendencies for the various subtypes. Tank baby Mandroids were usually of a lesser mental capacity and heavily augmented, Guidance Mechanisms being implanted in the brain's pleasure/pain centers before they were ever hatched. That also solved the problem of 'socialization'. Experience had shown that the isolating 'non-humanness' of the replicators tended to regularly produce sociopathic and psychotic individuals, which was one of the principle reasons The Sisterhood practiced the live birth of their daughters. Obviously, they did not bear any male offspring and they certainly had the tech to make sure that they never did. The Sisterhood used a certain amount of purely mechanical/electronic robots, but overall, robots had never reached the level of functional and economic efficiency of Mandroids, either in manufacture or operation. Too many raw materials needed. Basic mechanics too complex and often unreliable. But it was in 'brain function' that robots really fell behind Mandroids. Ultimately, it was far easier to downgrade the biological that it was to upgrade the cybernetic. It was the UMR's Ministry of Service that designed and created every variety of Mandroid, and was not only their sole producer, but also their sole legal owner. All Mandriods were leased, not owned, by their end users under a Usufruct Contract and that included every one of them from a single domestic servitor to the tens of millions employed by Space Force from Dirtside to the Asteroid Belt. And the MoS's Rules and Regulations regarding Care and Utilization under that contract were well defined and rigorously enforced. And so The Sisterhood had finally resolved the ancient and pernicious human problem of social inequality, and permanently solved the issue of Labor Supply, by creating a specialized working class, one which was always happy and productive, and whose members could be stored in a medical coma when not needed or when shipped on long distance runs off planet. Of course, the entire concept and its mechanisms were an anathema to Humanists and Phallists alike, though for different reasons. For the latter, it meant that they and their world view were doomed, as who could resist such a society? Essentially, they were fighting a 'rear guard action' and knew it, not that this made them any the less determined to fight. For the former, it was considered slavery, plain and simple, and was therefore Evil, no matter the details. That they could never come up with a realistic plan for what to actually do with the 'slaves' they wished to liberate was brushed aside. And they were horrified by The Sisters when they said, “Well, we could just space them all,” usually with a predatory grin. Miki, and The Sisterhood in general, tended to have more contempt for The Humanists than for The Phallists. At least the Phallist position was honest. They were overtly committed to Masculine Supremacy and were not at all apologetic about that. The Sisterhood knew The Phallists were wrong - history made that quite clear - but they stood by their position without equivocation. The Humanists however used all manner of philosophical smokes screens such as Freedom and Individuality to disguise a set of beliefs and practices not particularly different from The Phallists. At its core, Humanism boiled down to Survival of The Fittest, with some 'social welfare' attached to pretty things up. Liberal Humanism had once been a vital force and had changed human affairs for the better. But it inevitably fell victim to the Cult of The Individual and then fractured into ideological factionalism, individual narcissism and intellectual decadence. Its absolute rejection of Hierarchy doomed it to impotence. Humans are a social species and Hierarchy comes naturally to all human endeavors. The Sisterhood, The Phallists and The Humanists all existed Hierarchically, but the latter rigorously denied it. Both of the former could then undermine them in detail. The Phallists had used the Humanists as moral cover to pass laws in several states totally banning Mandriods. This included the EU, Africa, and Siberia. Such laws were meaningless however, as the MoS forbade the exportation of most types of Mandriods outside the UMR itself and of any type to a state that had not entered into a Friendship Treaty with the UMR. Such a treaty gave the MoS full and unilateral access to their Servitors and the authority to take “direct and forceful action to preserve and protect said.” That included calling in Drop Troopers if necessary. To date, every entity that had signed a Friendship Treaty had been first socially and then legally annexed by The Sisterhood within a decade or so of signing, as male birth rates would plummet and most the local females tended to become fully fledged Sisters. The relentlessness of this trend forced the improvement of women's status throughout the rest of the world. If a women was unsatisfied with her lot, she could immigrate to The Sisterhood, which had all manner of Genetic and Cybernetic programs for fully integrating 'outside' Sisters into the fold. All a woman had to do was apply at any UMR Embassy or Consulate. No woman was ever turned away. More terrifying to the Phallists however, was the significant number of mostly younger males who also immigrated into the UMR. The MoS maintained a Special Augmentation division to convert these male immigrants into Special Service Mandriods, quite often some type of Pleasure Servitor. These types were highly prized and very well treated and their lives were something of a legend outside of The Sisterhood. There was a Male Birth Movement, in which men would have a womb surgically implanted and would only have male children. But they were few in number and most Phallists were repulsed by the idea. And because of the psychological problems inherent in non-augmented 'tank babies', attempts to increase the male population using that technology had been grotesque and horrifying failures. One of them, a South Asian republic of homicidal psychotics, had required the deployment of an entire Marine Drop Brigade to 'clean up the mess'. Miki had been at Space Force Academy during that little horror. The whole Cadet Corps had been glued to the live feeds for days. She finished off her second glass of Passito on that memory. She looked again at the night time sky over Paris, the city now fully illuminated and living up to its old title. Miki was here at Le Tour Rouge to have a private meeting with the Foreign Minister of the Siberian Confederacy, Yulia Prokharovka. And the secure lounges were the next best thing to the UMR's own Embassy, Le Tour Rouge in fact being owned – through about a dozen front companies – by the MoF's General Security Directorate. The GSD handled all The Sisterhood's 'security issues', everywhere. Siberia had become very powerful in the last decade, the melting of the permafrost opening up access to raw materials and making it an agricultural dynamo. The Confederacy had absorbed Mongolia, Manchuria, and the Korean Peninsula, more with food than with military might, though it possessed that as well. Kaminov Yao, the Prime Minister for two decades, had been the motivator of this expansion. He smiled out at the world, but kept a tight rein at home. He was not overtly hostile to the UMR: that was suicidal at best. But he quietly resisted its influence as best he could. However, he had recently 'become ill'. Hence Miki's meeting with Prokharovka. As First Vice-Minister of External Affairs, she handled all the 'delicate' matters. And they had been their respective state's UN Ambassadors at the same time, so she had known Yulia for years...and she was also her GSD contact. Yulia arrived precisely at the appointed time. They smiled, hugged and kissed. They could be sisters. Tall, solidly built, with jet black hair and 'Asiatic' features, though Miki was darker, having Mesoamerican blood and a dozen years of UV in Space Force. Miki poured her some Passito. They made small talk. And then Miki activated the various dampeners. The air went dead. “I can never get used to that,” Yulia said. “It's like someone closed my coffin.” “Only the dead can hear us,” Miki said with a light smile. Yulia laughed, then turned serious. “We have Yao on ice. Literally. Stuck him in a Cryo unit. The evil little peen!” she snarled. “Who is in charge?” “That would be me,” Yulia said brightly. Miki smiled. “I was hoping you'd say that.” “As if the GSD didn't tell you already.” “They were not absolutely sure. Your security has been excellent.” Yulia grinned widely. “Now that is a true complement!” Miki smiled softly. “Merely an accurate observation.” She paused a moment. “So, tomorrow...?” Yulia was to address the General Assembly. “Some boilerplate about 'Yao sending his regards etc'. And then the announcement that we're opening negotiations with the UMR vis-a-vis a Friendship Treaty. Just negotiations. Nothing final.” she said with practiced nonchalance. Miki smiled wolfishly. “Yes, incrementalism is best.” Yulia nodded. “The dick swingers will be up to their hairy asses in Mandroids before they even realize it!” Miki raised her glass. “Sisterhood!” Yulia clinked it with hers. “Sisterhood!” They upended their glasses. As Miki refilled them, she said, “So, let me tell you about these new bioforms the MoS has been working on. Detachable penises.” Yulia leaned in closer, her eyes sparkling.

[andrewromanoyahoo]

Can Jeff Flake turn the tide in the Republican war on the media?

Since President Donald Trump took office a year ago, much ink has been spilled over his unprecedented “war with the media.” The incessant refrain of “fake news,” repeated every time a story displeases him (and promoted via Trump’s own long-promised, long-delayed “Fake News Awards,” now scheduled for Wednesday night). The calls for boycotts, lawsuits and license challenges. The threat to “open up” libel laws. The descriptions of reporters and news organizations as “pathetic,” “scum,” “disgusting,” “very dishonest,” “failing” and even “the enemy of the American people.”

But while Trump’s hostility toward the press may be unusual in its vulgarity, intensity and openness, pretty much every president since the dawn of the Republic has expressed some form of frustration with the institution — and over the last few decades, politicians of every rank, particularly Republican politicians, have found that trashing the media can be a very useful way to rile up their voters.

In other words, we’re sort of used to it at this point.

That’s why it was remarkable when, shortly after 10:00 AM Wednesday morning, Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, a Republican who has mostly supported Trump’s agenda, if not his manners, rose on the floor of the Senate to deliver a blistering rebuke of the Media-Critic-in-Chief — and a passionate, unapologetic defense of the free press.

“2017 was a year which saw the truth — objective, empirical, evidence-based truth — more battered and abused than any other in the history of our country, at the hands of the most powerful figure in our government,” Flake said. “The impulses underlying the dissemination of such untruths are not benign. They have the effect of eroding trust in our vital institutions and conditioning the public to no longer trust them. The destructive effect of this kind of behavior on our democracy cannot be overstated.”

Flake’s speech was so out-of-the-ordinary, in fact — so unfashionable in its praise of the press — that it raised a previously unthinkable question: Could we be seeing the beginnings of backlash? Has Trump’s anti-media aggression forced at least some otherwise skeptical Americans to recognize that, despite its flaws, the media is more than just a political punching bag — that it actually has a vital role to play in our democracy?

In this image from video from Senate Television, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. speaks on the Senate floor on Jan. 17, 2017 at the Capitol in Washington. (Photo: Senate TV via AP)

In his remarks, Flake — a longtime Trump critic who announced in October with a similarly stern floor speech that he would not be running for reelection — catalogued the “most glaring” of the president’s “official untruths,” from his “bizarre contention regarding the crowd size at last year’s inaugural” to his “oft-repeated conspiracy about the birthplace of President Obama”; from his “pernicious fantasies about rigged elections and massive voter fraud” to the “supposed ‘hoax’ at the heart of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russian investigation.”

Flake went on to note that, in their own attempts to delegitimize unflattering coverage, a rogue’s gallery of repressive autocrats — Syrian President Bashar Assad, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro — have now taken to parroting Trump’s cry of “fake news” whenever the facts don’t suit them.

“This feedback loop is disgraceful, Mr. President,” Flake said. “Not only has the past year seen an American president borrow despotic language to refer to the free press, but it seems he has in turn inspired dictators and authoritarians with his own language. This is reprehensible.”

Finally, Flake chastised his Senate colleagues for ignoring Trump’s efforts to undermine the First Amendment — and demanded that they, too, speak out in the future.

“No longer can we compound attacks on truth with our silent acquiescence,” Flake said. “Together, my colleagues, we are powerful. Together, we have it within us to turn back these attacks, right these wrongs, repair this damage, restore reverence for our institutions, and prevent further moral vandalism. Together, united in the purpose to do our jobs under the Constitution, without regard to party or party loyalty, let us resolve to be allies of the truth — and not partners in its destruction.”

President Donald Trump speaks to the press during a meeting with Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev in the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 16, 2018, in Washington. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

In response to Flake’s broadside, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters that Flake was “not criticizing the president because he’s against oppression; he’s criticizing the president because he has terrible poll numbers” and is “looking for some attention.”

It’s unlikely, of course, that Flake’s fellow Republicans will echo his comparison of Trump to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who, as Flake pointed out, also applied the phrase “enemy of the people” to anyone he wanted to get rid of. After Flake spoke, two senators — Dick Durbin of Illinois and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota — stood to applaud and second his remarks. Both were Democrats.

Nor is it likely that Trump’s base will desert him over an issue as abstract as the First Amendment. Our politics is too tribal for that; Trump voters love when he attacks “elite” East Coast institutions, the media chief among them.

But what about the millions of other Americans like Flake: uneasy with Trump but hardly liberal, wary of the media’s biases but cognizant of its central Constitutional role? Could Trump’s rancor toward reporters backfire with that group?

The press itself is banking on it. As Vox’s Matt Yglesias has pointed out, “what’s particularly striking about Trump’s relationship with the mainstream press is the extent to which the pretense of an oppositional relationship with the White House has become a marketing tool.”

Yglesias continues:

��CNN’s ‘facts first’ branding campaign, rolled out last fall, was pitched to the press as an effort to “blunt Trump attacks” on the network. … The Washington Post, similarly, newly adopted the slogan ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ last year, pitching reading the Post not only as a way to be informed or entertained but also as a form of civic duty and obligation. [And] The New York Times, a for-profit, publicly traded company, last year began soliciting money from readers with a quasi-charitable pitch, emphasizing the idea that buying gift subscriptions is a means of supporting the company’s ‘mission.’”

  There are signs that the media’s Trump-Era rebranding campaign is working. Subscriptions and traffic at both the Times and the Post hit record highs in 2017, and Steven Spielberg’s The Post, a movie that dramatizes that paper’s decision to defy another hostile administration by publishing the Pentagon Papers, has beat box-office expectations.

Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee and Meryl Streep as Katharine Graham in ‘The Post’ (2017). (Photo: Courtesy Twentieth Century Fox)

Yet if Flake really intends to counter Trump’s “fake news” onslaught, he still has a long way to go — especially if he wants the backlash to include members of his own party. According to a new Knight-Gallup poll, a majority of Americans consider “fake news” a very serious threat to our democracy, and 73 percent say the spread of inaccurate information on the internet is a major problem with news coverage today.

But the poll also showed that Republicans and Democrats disagree over what actually constitutes “fake news.” For Democrats, the term tends to mean untrue stories. For Republicans, it tends to mean “unfriendly” ones, with four in ten claiming that accurate reports that nonetheless cast a politician or political group in a negative light can “always” be dismissed as fake news. As a result, trust in the press has sunk to an all-time low among Republicans.

In 1976 — after Watergate and Vietnam; after the Pentagon Papers and “All the President’s Men” — 72 percent of Americans told Gallup that they had either “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in the mass media. Those days are almost certainly never coming back.

Still, on Wednesday, a sitting Republican senator took an unconventional step. He argued that restoring at least some of that trust is essential — and that his own party’s president should stop working to further erode it. The question now is whether other Republicans bother to amplify Flake’s message — or whether it gets simply gets drowned by Trump’s latest antics.

Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) walks with reporters after speaking in the Senate on Capitol Hill in Washington on January 17, 2018. (Photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

In the meantime, the media itself would be wise to follow the advice of the late Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, whom Tom Hanks is currently portraying on screen in The Post.

“We hunker down and go about our business,” Bradlee once told an interviewer who asked how he handled criticism. “Which is not to be loved — but to go after the truth.”

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:

Skullduggery podcast: It was 20 years ago today – a look back at the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal (available here or wherever you listen to podcasts!)

Obama reports no gifts from Putin in 2016 — sad!

Trump denies he’s considering ‘bloody nose’ strike on North Korea

New York’s Donald J. Trump State Park: A story of abandonment and decay

Oprah and Trump go way, way back together. Here’s proof.

Photos: Philippine volcano spews lava; thousands flee

[idiottantrum-blog]

DRUNCOT

One of Walt Disney World's Parks, Epcot features something called the World Showcase. The World Showcase makes up the back half of the Epcot park and is a big loop which circles a lagoon and features eleven individual stops, each themed after a  different country. Each stop contains buildings which have been given facades resembling classical architecture from their respective countries which contain shops, restaurants, shows and even some rides themed around the culture of the area.

Specifically, one thing you can get at each of the World Showcase's eleven stops is an alcoholic drink or cocktail native to that country. Because this is America, and when we are presented with anything even remotely resembling a gauntlet of culturally stereotypical bullshit and drinking, we roll up our sleeves and get ready to represent ourselves poorly to people of other nationalities, an immensely popular custom known as Drinking Around the World exists.

Drinking Around the World is a time honored tradition where you go to Epcot and attempt to get one drink at all 11 countries in sequence within a single day.

The last time I was at Disney world I was maybe 17 and thus not old enough to participate in the challenge unlike my cousin, who at the time was also underage, but managed to get a beer at the Germany portion of the showcase by hitting on the native speaking server in fluent German. Though only technically a drink at one stop, he was at least participating in the spirit of the occasion by doing something which objectively speaking is morally questionable but is kind of awesome. Returning as an adult I decided it was time to undergo my rite of passage as an obnoxious American, and get tremendously drunk at Epcot on overpriced culturally thematic alcohol. I was going to drink around the world so that my wife could photograph it and I could write about it later.

Thus Druncot 2017 was born.

MEXICO

It was at the very first stop of the day that I discovered I had made several key mistakes in my drinking around the world preparations.

Mistake number one: I had gotten so used to paying for everything with the braclet they give you to charge things to your room that I had neglected to bring my wallet to the park that day. If I wanted to even attempt this, I was now going to have to force my wife to buy my booze for me like a delinquent teenager. Not off to a great start

 Mistake number B: By the time we finished with the various other Epcot attractions and got to the World Showcase it was already 3:30pm and we only had until 6:00pm until our dinner reservation, meaning due to poor planning, I had inadvertently given myself about two hours to complete all 11 stops before we had to start walking to get to dinner.

Mistake number the third one: Apparently it is quite traditional for challengers to the World Showcase to accessorize for the event. There were dozens of groups there wearing matching shirts that said things like "Drink, Drank, Drunk" or "Bippidy Boppidy Booze" on them. I did not come into this event with the coordination or pre-preparation of these other people. While they had a color matched support team of co-participants all I had was one disapproving wife that was annoyed she had to buy my drinks for me. 

It was at this point that a decision would have to be made. Realistically, I had come with no I.D, had given myself about a third of the time I should have, and was woefully unprepared in the insufferable t-shirt department. The smart thing to do would be to just write it off as a poor job planning and enjoy the rest of the day at Epcot as normal rather than spend a ton of money and likely make myself sick. It really made the most logical sense to just forget the whole thing.

Or...

Fuck it; frozen strawberry margarita in Mexico and we're of to the races. 

I got massive brain freeze because they don't allow you to ride the Three Caballeros boat ride with a full beverage for some reason and I had to chug the last 2/3 of it.

NORWAY

A the second stop, Norway, I came to the conclusion that due to how short a time period I was trying to cram this world tour into, volume might become an issue. It was going to get real gross if I had to drink something around 12oz of liquid at every single stop. To conserve space, I decided to get a shot. Because I'm smart like fox.

This was a liquor from Norway called Linie Aquavit. I saw it described as being similar to vodka. I clearly am no type of expert on alcohol but it was urine yellow, tasted like eggnog and went down like fire which is distinctly noting like vodka in my experience. Considering that it's a drink for people who live in longhouses and are vikings* I guess it was fine.

*I know nothing about Norway

CHINA

In China, I had a Tsing Tao beer. Tsing Tao I believe is Chinese for "Tastes like generic beer". That was culturally insensitive and I apologize. The fact that I'm an unsophisticated piece of shit doesn't mean I should be disrespectful to the language.

(The beer was mediocre though)

GERMANY

Up next was Germany. By this point I was starting to feel the first three hit me. I was feeling pretty good, but doing the math and realizing I'd only made it about a third of the way through I was starting to get a little worried that I'd misjudged how much time I was going to need to make it through all 11 stops.

Still more concerned with the volume of liquid I was putting into myself rather than the alcohol content (because I'm smart). I decided to get a shot here too. We were on a schedule here people. Mix those alcohols up in the stomach and get a move on.

This was some sort of honey flavored bourbon from Germany and it might have been the best of the drinks I got that day. I got too drunk to remember to write it down so I could look it up later though.

ITALY

  Ah, Italy, the home of my people. I do of course use that phrase loosely, unless they open an exhibit in the world showcase for the People's Republic of New Jersey this is as close as I'm going to get.

You know what is a great follow up to mixing a bunch of different beer and liquor in your stomach over the course of an hour? Sangria. They had nothing but wine at the drink pavilion in Italy and I hate wine, so I settled for wine Jr. I don't know if it was the alcohol I'd already consumed continuing to hit me, the addition of more alcohol, or the infusion of yet a third ingredient in the devil's mixture I'd already put into my system, but things started to go off the rails in Italy.

First, I waited about ten minutes to get in and take a picture in what I think was supposed to be a glamorous pose, sprawled lavishly across the base of this fountain of Neptune. The result, as you can see looks more like I'm the worlds shittiest mime, pretending to fall in slow motion into the fountain while also drinking something that tastes like dish water. After that I decided that I was getting too drunk and needed to soak up some of that alcohol. Positive that it was well known that cannoli are the best absorbents of alcohol to help slow the decline into ruin I insisted on getting one in order to do damage control, I guess?

It was a good cannoli, though ineffective.

AMERICA

America. Land of the free, home of the Atlanta Braves and producer of some of the shittiest shit beers on the planet. By the time we reached America, the halfway mark for the World Showcase I was in rough shape. I had consumed a margarita, two shots, a beer and a glass of sangria between the hours of  3:30 and 4:45 and was nearing a tipping point. 

By tipping point I am not referring to a physical limitation of my body to consume alcohol, I mean a point at which I would no longer be able to maintain the composure to pass off as a sober, casual attendee of a theme park where people bring their small children. I don't condone dangerous binge drinking, I was never going to drink an amount I felt was unsafe, but we were in Disney goddamn World, I also don't condone drinking to a point where you become a sloppy piece of shit that everyone around you has to deal with. Especially when there are about twenty four year olds who just saw Donald Duck for the first time and don't need that shit ruined for them by some idiot stumbling past yelling in a bad version of the accent native to whatever country he just came from.

Perhaps it was fate that interceded on my behalf that day, because as it would turn out, one of the kiosks at America was closed; the kiosk that sold a selection of craft beers from breweries around the country. This, meant that my only option for drink in America was Coors Lite. Coors lite is to beer as a bunch of pool noodles tied together with shoelaces is to a high end speedboat: Sure it's technically in the same category but the only situation in which you choose one over the other is if the alternative is that you die at sea.

I may have decided to try and go for a few more stops, if anything even remotely enjoyable had been available at America, but that Coors Lite defeated me. There was no way I'd make it to the end with only one more hour to go and retain enough composure not to become an embarrassment to myself and my poor wife who was dutifully putting up with all of this like a trooper.

That trash water drained me of any remaining resolve I had to continue the Druncot challenge, much as I imagine it drains millions of other Americans of their ambitions on a daily basis. The unrivaled shittiness of that Coors had me asking "What's the point?" Indeed, what was the point of anything? If beer could be this terrible, was there really anything right in the world? Probably not.

And so, after six stops on the World Showcase, Druncot 2k17 came to an unsatisfying and anticlimactic end.

While my shot at Druncot glory may have been cut down in it's prime by poor planning and the ability of the good people at Coors to make and distribute the worst beer known to humans, it just means that for the future, I'll be armed with the lessons learned in my first attempt.

Some day I will return to Disney World as a Magnificent Conqueror and on that day I shall write another shitty blog post about it. 

Authors note:

Because I feel like it should be included; The above was done for fun, and written about in a joking manner, but at no point would I have allowed myself to go beyond a limit where I would have put myself or someone else in danger. 

The entire reason I stopped in America was that it would have been irresponsible to continue on just for the sake of having a complete adventure to write about later. I stopped well within my limit for conducting myself appropriately and I would never condone anyone doing something unsafe.

In short, alcohol is for people who can handle themselves like adults. Don't be an asshole.

[maxfreedmanwrites-blog]

My Favorite Songs of the First Half of 2017, RANKED

This year, I decided, you know what, fuck it? I’m gonna indulge myself. I like talking about music, writing about music, and just generally being able to turn the “oh my god this SONG” in my head into actual coherent prose. This is super informal though, I’m not trying to impress The Journalism Gods™, just doing this for me mostly.  And I’m also really curious how different my end-of-year list will look from this midyear list (and by extension, how my end-of-year list will compare to my end-of-decade list). Also we might all be blown to bits by the end of this year so I just wanted to do this for once okay????

ANYWAY I’m rolling out albums tomorrow, but here’s my songs of the year so far. I’m starting you off with an alphabetical honorable mention section of 10 songs, and then I ranked my top 10 songs. For the honorable mentions, I gave a four word description so that, if you haven’t heard the song, you know whether you might dig it. Then it’s full on WORDS for the ranked top 10. Oh, and did I mention each section has a corresponding Spotify playlist? BOOM

Honorable Mentions

Presented as Artist – Album (Label), and * = I work with this artist; ^ = I previously worked with this artist

Arca – “Desafio” (XL) (weird, beautiful electronic ballad)

Balun – “Teletransporte” (Good Child Music) (entrancing, ambient pop journey)

Blanck Mass – “Silent Treatment” (Sacred Bones) (hell on the dancefloor)

Blessed – “Headache” (Coin Toss Records/Kingfisher Bluez) (art punk with math)

Chelsea Wolfe – “16 Psyche” (Sargent House) (metal, but goth rock)

Fufanu – “Liability” * (One Little Indian) (post-punk in the club)

Leyya – “Zoo” ^ (Las Vegas Records) (sassy, smack-talking deep cut)

Shame – “Tasteless” (Fnord Comms (however, this band just signed to Dead Oceans)) (classic post-punk done modern)

Yoke Lore – “Only You” (Independent Label Alliance) * (late morning sunshine inspiration)

Zola Jesus – “Exhumed” (Sacred Bones) (overwhelming, symphonic electronic drama)

Honorable Mentions playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/126489514/playlist/2AzLWfVloJH07fnmV0QeOE

Ranked Top 10

Playlist at the very bottom

10) Big Thief – “Shark Smile” (Saddle Creek)

You’ll see in my albums list tomorrow that I’ve opted to exclude Capacity, Big Thief’s newest album, from consideration just because it’s so new that I can’t really hold it up to things I’ve been enjoying for much longer, even though it’s pretty fuckin’ goddamn great. I don’t have that dilemma with songs, since they’re much shorter, but either way, “Shark Smile” has been around for at least a month longer than the album, and it hasn’t entirely left my head since I first heard it. Last year, Big Thief’s Masterpiece was #9 on my albums of the year list, and Capacity sees the band moving further inward, far less pop-oriented, as vocalist/songwriter/guitarist Adrianne Lenker explores her formative traumas; “Shark Smile” sounds like Lenker negotiating the space between the sound she wanted to achieve with each album, and it’s overwhelming and amazing. It’s a searing, painfully detailed recollection of a pretty gnarly car accident, its intensity building over the song’s course just as one’s adrenaline might accelerate while they’re in a car going over the guardrail. This is the exact scenario Lenker describes at the song’s peak, when her snarl and the band’s racket come bursting from their seams, overtaking me so strongly I usually play this song three times before moving forward with the rest of the album. “Humans,” from Masterpiece, was in my Top 5 songs last year, and this shit makes that song seem like child’s play.

9) Gabriel Garzón-Montano – “The Game” (Stones Throw)

You could look like a piece of ham growing mold between two pieces of American cheese—which isn’t even real cheese!!—and still be sexy as hell if you were the person behind “The Game.” Jardín, Gabriel Garzón-Montano’s newest album, is rife with nu-soul influence, and “The Game” is its most addicting example of how Garzón-Montano toys with the genre’s pervasive sexuality. It starts by asking its central character why he’s comparing himself to some other guy (some real lame-o, it seems), then tells him he could just roll up with swagger out the ass and have no problems anymore. Musically, it’s a soundtrack to someone running into a casual, heavily seated jazz bar and weaving his way through scores of women—this is very straight music, honestly—hoping to magically recruit one to a sensual dance and follow that with a Miguel-style Coffee In The Morning. I wonder if snarling “now walk like a tangerine” on loop in the club could find me the love of my life…probably not, but that’s because I’m not an architect of lively, jittery soul anthems like this fuckin’ guy.

8) Dream Wife – “Somebody” (Lucky Number Music)

“I am not my body/I’m somebody.” This song came out two months after the Women’s March, yet its chorus could’ve been the basis for so many of the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of signs boldly donned across the world’s major cities. This line is preceded by vocalist Rakel Mjöll’s sarcastic reciting of some dude who doesn’t believe in rape culture’s bullshit justification for some scumbag’s actions—“You were a cute girl standing back stage/it was bound/to happen”—one of the most memorable and clearly audible lyrics to grace rock music recently, perhaps intentionally so because the point of view it’s shitting on is so despicable. Of course, even the most pointed social commentary in music is still music, so it helps that the gently overdriven guitars here are just as natural to latch onto as Mjöll’s chameleonic voice. Dream Wife don’t have to reinvent rock to make it enjoyable; mining its longstanding strengths and not beating around the bush on a frustratingly omnipresent social issue in music do that just fine.

7) Lorde – “Green Light” (Republic)

Melodrama is nearly as good as the hype says, but it’s also a June release (see Big Thief above), and I also don’t always make it past the first track 'cause godDAMN this song is impossible to dislike. “Green Light” is like if the overproduced bullshit “gracing” the airwaves on Top 40 radio had a conscience, seriously great songwriting, and a semi-intentionally clunky lyric or two to give it character (‘she thinks you love the beach/you’re such a damn liar” should’ve been the basis of more memes this year). The chorus is accessible as fuck, and by that I mean, teenage girls, pop critics, electronic fans, and straight up alternative listeners should have no trouble finding catharsis in how that enticing piano bop from the pre-chorus goes full-steam big party singalong in the chorus. Can’t you imagine this song just lighting up diverse folks occupying the same karaoke bar? Don’t you just want to get out of your seat and start dancing every time this song comes on? It’s as graceful and innately thrilling as big-bucks pop gets; even someone as pretentious and picky as myself is absolutely helpless when I hear it.

6) Perfume Genius – “Wreath” (Matador)

“Wreath” trembles throughout its entire, far too short run. There’s a constant shaking, the semblance of a heart beating its very fastest, in these incredibly fascinating synths that are equal parts bony and glitzy. This song is as celebratory as it is uneasy (a pretty apt description for No Shape at large), riveting in its experimental sounds and dramatic vocal delivery. As though Mike Hadreas’ descriptions of sunsets and sunrises demarcating new days weren’t unusually harrowing, the way his voice transforms from a relatively gentle bellow into an all-consuming howl is nothing short of arresting. Does it sound like he gradually shifts from singing the word “grave” to the word “death” in the song’s outro, or is that just me? This is seriously rattling shit, the kind of transformative experience that’ll take you out-of-body for a hot moment before you dive right back into it, because there’s no playing this song just once.

5) Palm – “Walkie Talkie” (Carpark)

Palm’s gotten its finite yet rabid fanbase from its deconstruction and subsequent repair of rock norms. There is no verse-chorus-verse, no common time, no mere sequence of eighth notes with Palm; instead, there are incredibly brainy runs of guitar-drum polyrhythms, passages where the only thing more difficult to trace than the beat is the reason you keep even trying to trace the beat when you know how futile that is. Also, there are flares of dissonant, fanged noise rushing at you from every conceivable angle. 

“Walkie Talkie” is one of Palm’s most compelling runs to date, a portrait of an art-rock band continuing to focus equally on art and rock. Whereas so many new releases depart in some manner, subtle or otherwise, from their predecessors, “Walkie Talkie” doesn’t too fundamentally fuck with Palm’s established domain of janky, demanding noise rock. It’s just another incredibly strong entry into the Palm canon, and since this band has spent its existence doing something that so few other artists are doing, that’s really all we can ask for. And I’m pretty sure the phrase “trading basics,” which is the title of their stellar 2015 album, pops up a couple times on this song, and I don’t remember hearing it ever said on the album. So sometimes sticking with what made you amazing in the first place is the right move.

4) Run the Jewels – “Thursday in the Danger Room (ft. Kamasi Washington)” (self-released)

Literally nobody came to RTJ3 to cry. Everyone who loved RTJ2’s potent mix of absolute bangers and still-necessary, eternally relevant political commentary—it’s honestly so frustrating that, even though we’re having such good conversations and Black Lives Matter has gained serious political weight (and used it amazingly), Philando Castile’s murderer was nevertheless just recently entirely acquitted—came to RTJ3 expecting the same. And they got no less of the commentary, but generally, the album is less bombastic. Not that these are ballads or anything, but holy fuck is “Thursday in the Danger Room” beautifully close to that. (Also, before we go any further, yes this song/album were technically released in 2016 but FUCK IT (also more on this in my albums list tomorrow))

I remember seeing El-P tweet that he and Killer Mike almost left this song off the album since it’s so goddamn personal. El’s verse about watching a friend slowly die—heavily implied to be a battle against something like cancer or another fatal disease—ends with some seriously tear-jerking shit, and then these two have the audacity to throw in a chorus with not just Kamasi Washington’s most solemn sax run to date, but these actual lyrics oh my god:

And I guess I'd say I'll see you soon

But the truth is that I see you now

Still talk to you like you're around

And I guess I say you left too soon

But the truth is that you never left

'Cause I never let myself forget

And then there’s Mike’s verse about a friend he lost to a mugging, and how he tried to help this friend’s family through the emotional and financial turmoil in the fallout. If somehow RTJ2’s tales of police brutality weren’t thoroughly humanizing—“Early” is especially moving—this song right here will slap the shit out of your tear ducts and really get you going. This song is as devastating as it is gorgeous, and I can’t really think of another hip-hop song with the capacity to make me tear up like this one.

3) Kelly Lee Owens – “Anxi (ft. Jenny Hval)” (Smalltown Supersound)

To be perfectly clear: the best song on Kelly Lee Owens is “CBM,” which stands a good shot at making my Top 30 or so Songs of the Decade, but since “CBM” first appeared on last year’s unreal, near-perfect Oleic EP, it doesn’t count for this list. “Anxi” is pretty fucking stellar, though, so I’m actually glad I didn’t have to decide between the two. When I chatted with Kelly Lee Owens for FLOOD Magazine earlier this year, I mentioned to her that she and featured vocalist Jenny Hval have startingly similar voices, and before I could even ask her if that’s something she gets a lot, she went off on how even she remains fascinated by how much the two sound alike. As blasphemous as this is to say, Jenny sounds even more natural on this beat—the year’s best electronic beat, in my opinion—than KLO herself might. “Anxi” is two immensely talented experimentalists bringing out the best in each other.

“Anxi” starts out innocuously enough, with a beat so subtle and murky only Kelly Lee Owens could’ve crafted it. It’s pretty amazing that KLO’s already such a distinct beatmaker this early on in her career, and having Jenny’s voice here—both in singing and spoken word form—makes the beat all the more alluring. Anyone in tune with KLO’s soundalikes—namely, IDM and especially Aphex Twin—might gauge that more is to come, so the handful of chugs that come after Hval wraps up her main appearance aren’t surprising. But that bass-heavy groove that comes in about 10 seconds later? That shit slaps, even though it’s more restrained than about 99% of electronic music. It’s a great example of KLO’s charm: her beats are really, really tightly tethered, yet they’re as body-shaking and freak-out-worthy as something by, say, Grimes or Caribou. “Anxi” is methodical, ominous, and just a fucking banger, even though it’s incredibly quiet. For lack of a better word, it’s magical.

2) (Sandy) Alex G – “Brick” (Domino)

“Brick” is a shitty song, and I mean that as high praise. It’s really just Alex G having a temper tantrum; its lyrics detailing the final stages of a relationship are clunky as shit, and there are moments where it’s just him screaming against a drum machine, and also the guitars are so muddy and loud they’re indistinct, and also these are the exact things I love about it. It verges on being bad by way of just being immature and petulant, but honestly in this era when we all want to punch everything in the face and everything is infuriating, who am I to judge? Instead, when “Brick” comes on, I give in to my visceral, unpretentious senses and go out smashing windows, toppling over newspaper stands, knocking pedestrians to the sidewalk, and lighting shit on fire.

Not actually, but that’s what “Brick” makes me want to do, and I love songs that can make me do that without sounding gross. As I described before, “Brick” should sound gross, overdone, tawdry, and all that, but it somehow finds a perfect balance of aggression and homespun emotion to be an endlessly replayable song. Honestly, I didn’t even know what its lyrics were before I looked them up; I was enthralled enough having a punching bag song, the sort of anthem that can sympathize with me on my bad days, remind me that the world at large sucks on my good days, and drown out the hysteria of the subways on any ordinary day. I’m not really much of a mosh pit guy, but “Brick” brings out the animal in me and makes me want to run headfirst into a crowd of angry showgoers and punch some faces. Everyone’s got some anger in them, and this song brings out the minimal amount that lies in me.

Also, this is essentially a hardcore punk song on Rocket, a country-lite album?! Yooooooooooooo

1) Priests – “JJ” (Sister Polygon)

“JJ” is like “Shut Up Kiss Me” but punk. I just had to say that because it’s me writing this, regardless of any true analogy there might be. But there kind of is one. (Also, yeah this song came out in late October 2016, but it’s the best song on Nothing Feels Natural, which came out in January, don’t @ me).

My eternal “Shut Up Kiss Me” obsession comes from many places: its tongue-in-cheek pop tropes; its catchy-as-hell guitars; its fiery, thrilling vocals; its joke-filled lyricism that can also be taken at face value as wholly serious; its incessant replayability. “JJ” has all this, but in an entirely different context. It’s a post-punk song with surf rock elements infused throughout, and its structure affords some novelties even though it’s mostly familiar terrain; still though, after long enough, the way Katie Alice Greer snarls “When I met you/you were just a bad attituuuuuude!/You dated a model/one time she stuck her finger in a light socket” feels more like an in-joke than a send-up of some bad ex’s even worse ex. “You were just a rich kid/low-life in a very big jacket in a very big way” precedes a diss about the entirely commonplace cigarettes this guy—let’s call him JJ—smokes, and then Katie disses her own cigarette habits before moping, with more than a hint of satirical self-pity, “You thought I was disgusting/You thought I was disgusting.” Of course, this can also be taken as an entirely serious remark, one relating her own self-image issues to this ex’s abusive words. When Katie tells us that “all the jock frat boys” called JJ a “hipster fag,” she’s simultaneously mocking him, mocking herself for dating him, and lambasting the frat culture that allows homophobic slurs to be so commonplace in the first place. As the song moves into its final chant of “Who ever deserved anything, anyway?/what a stupid concept,” it’s just as easy to imagine an angsty teenager shouting this as a friendship ends as it is to envision Katie seriously lamenting the fact that she actually held JJ to any sort of high standards. So yeah, that whole “what’s a joke, and what’s serious?” thing is on full display here.

And then, of course, there’s the music. As tongue-in-cheek pop tropes go, they’re a bit fewer and farther between here than on “Shut Up Kiss Me,” but the assertiveness that Katie presents on what’s a relatively standard structure song fits that mold. G.L. Jaguar’s catchy-as-hell guitars and Katie’s fiery, thrilling vocals and especially the incessant replayability are real as fuck, though. The guitar line that opens the song and later commands its second verse is stupidly catchy, and even when the six-string takes a bit of a backseat, its faint melancholy is pervasive; when guitars introduce the interlude following the second verse, they’re pure firebrand. Katie’s voice throughout is loaded with vibrato and drama, at times veering on parody—“I wrote a bunch of songs for you” sounds like she’s teasing JJ rather than castigating him—and it’s also a stellar fucking performance. Here’s someone who can belt, sing straight from the gut, and mutter introspectively as she sees fit. And you know what’s really great? Everything happening here goes down in under three minutes, so of course you’re gonna hit replay. I’m gonna be listening to this song constantly through the end of the decade, when I expect it’ll crack my Top 10 Songs of the Decade list. “Shut Up Kiss Me” will still be #1, but god I’m happy to have a punk version.

If you think the “Shut Up Kiss Me” comparison is a huge stretch (it definitely is, let’s be real), I have an argument in your favor. I still don’t hear the pianos on “Shut Up Kiss Me” that Angel Olsen details on Song Exploder, even though I’ve listened to that goddamn song like 500 times. Pianos on “JJ”? Everywhere, baby. And they really make all the difference.

Ranked Top 10 playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/126489514/playlist/4gt4kP3aZ5bEJoJNvn6zGH

[nebris]

“Last Days At Coconino Seven”

...from a few years back...

~The mag-lev car to 'The Nines', the nine Coconino Towers, was empty except for Jane Mimsdottor. It was clean and well maintained, but shabby with age. “Rides empty a lot these days,” Jane thought. Just at that moment she 'heard/felt' a soft chime deep in her temporal lobe, the standard message alert from her neural nanonics, the CompNet embedded throughout her cerebral tissues. A pleasant voice whispered, “This is a reminder from the Electoral Directorate. Voting in the General Plebiscite regarding the question of the admission of the Siberian Confederacy into the Union of Matrilineal Republics will be closing in two hours. If you have not yet voted, please do so now. Thank you.” Jane could have turned the Alert Function off, but like many Sisters, she was closely following this GP, though its outcome was almost certain. And also, like most of The Sisterhood, she could easily determine that Yulia Prokharovka, the Siberian Prime Minister, had done an excellent job of preparing Siberia for annexation and integration into the UMR. Jane had voted Yes, for admission, two weeks ago when the Loop Ship she served aboard, the SFS Maathai, was still on approach to the El Five Complex. It was easy to tell Jane was a 'spacer'. After decades in service under unfiltered UV, her reddish blonde hair had been bleached white and her fair skin tanned a honey brown. However, her eyes were still the same sparkling green they'd been the day she was born in a deer hide tent in the Outlands. She was wearing her Space Force Walking Out Dress uniform, a black one piece with white trim and soft boots, with the trio of six pointed silver stars of a Senior Lieutenant on each side of her collar. She also wore a Mark VII impeller on her hip, a mini railgun with two thousand frangible ferroresin darts. They'd ruin flesh, but powder against a pressure hull. These days one did not go into Tower Seven unarmed. She could see the Coconino Towers a few miles away looming in the afternoon sun-shine. Nine arcologies, each over a half mile high, a quarter mile wide at their base. Once they had housed a half million people each, non-citizens who would not, or could not, become Initiated Sisters. Many were originally Ferals from the Outlands, with some immigrants from beyond The Union. The Sisterhood housed and fed them, provided clothing, basic medical care, and entertainment systems. In perpetuity. In exchange, the residents gave up the ability to reproduce. When The Towers were first being built and occupied over seventy years ago, a vibrant and exciting culture began to grow up 'in the Nines'. Many Sisters would also pass through to participate and study. It was a golden age that lasted nearly a half a century. Jane spent her 'shore leaves' there and had known some of her happiest days back then. But non-citizens did not get the type of advanced life extending augmentation received by Initiated Sisters. That would have defeated the entire purpose of The Sisterhood and The Union of Matrilineal Republics. The most advanced augmentation was reserved for those who Participated and Served. Jane was going to be ninety two in a few months and in all probability had only lived roughly a tenth of her total possible life span. The Sisterhood did not yet know the upper limits of their augmentation technology. Many Ferals were prematurely aged by their upbringing and even with the high quality base line health care they received, they died 'young', on average in their mid to late eighties. And with their deaths, the Nines began to empty. Ten years ago Tower Five had been the first to empty and be converted into an agricultural tower, a hydroponic megafarm. Its produce was flash frozen in its massive basement and shipped off world. It would be another few decades before a fully terraformed Mars could begin suppling the food needs of the central and outer system. Other towers followed quickly as the population shrank. Now only Tower Seven still remained occupied, surrounded by her converted sisters, and even she was barely at half capacity. The car pulled up to the base of Tower Seven, stopped. The doors opened smoothly. At the station exit was a Ground Force Military Police check point. It was added about ten years ago, just before Jane shipped out for the Asteroid Belt. They checked Jane's ID. These were not 'greenies' doing their Universal Service, but long term professionals. The sergeant in command noted Jane's Mark VII, nodded approval. “If you get in trouble it will take us about five to seven minutes to get to you,” she said. “Roger,” Jane responded. They exchanged salutes and Jane passed through into the lift lobby. She was not afraid of course. Having been born Feral herself, this was just passing from her new life back into her old one. Not that any of that mattered. She was here to visit Susan, her kid sister, one last time, and she would not let any type of danger stop her from doing so. Mim, their mother, was around ten when she had been 'acquired' by the clan of The Brute, who styled himself The King of Oklahoma, and who may or may not have killed her parents. That was never clear. What was clear was that Mim was pretty and become one of The Brute's 'wives' two summers later. Her first child was Jane. The Brute was pleased that she had borne him a child. Four more summers passed, then came Susan. The Brute was not pleased with another daughter. Mim and her children were banished to 'the dog tent', with the old and the 'odd'. They spent three summers there...until one night, for no apparent reason, The Brute hacked Mim to death with an axe in full view of her daughters. Jane gathered her sister up and fled. She knew where the Amazon Horse Clans traveled. After ten days they were found by the Sisters of Red Epona, big, rough, weathered women, full of scars and tattoos. They were quite familiar with The Brute's clan and welcomed these ragged children warmly. After a few weeks with Red Epona, Jane and Susan were dropped off at a Karaal of the Cult of Hathor. Those Sisters fed them many wonderful cheeses and yogurts and then they sent the two still under-weight but now less malnourished children to SoCal, the heartland of The Sisterhood. Years later Jane anonymously received an old photo showing some of the Sisters of Red Epona holding up a severed male head and grinning broadly. Even in death, she recognized The Brute's face. She showed it to Susan, who looked at it quietly for a while, then just said, “Thank you.” Jane took to The Sisterhood with ferocious enthusiasm and flourished. But Susan never seemed comfortable. Maybe she never really recovered from the trauma of Mim's murder. When she reached what had been decided was her fifteenth birthday, The Sisterhood's Age of Majority, she declared herself a 'non-citizen' and became one of the first residents of Coconino Tower Seven. Jane was away at the time doing her Universal Service with Sea Force and was very hurt by her sister's choice. But when she visited Susan, it was obvious that she felt more comfortable among 'her own kind' and and gave her blessing freely. That was over sixty years ago, or Solannums as Space Force was beginning to call them. Jane visited at least once a year until she joined Space Force and then would still visit every time she made planet fall. When Jane gave birth to Ostera she was taken to see her Aunt Susan as well. Susan became an accomplished jewelry maker, working with leather and ceramic beads she made herself. Even now, as she ascended in the main lift to Level 816, Jane was wearing a bracelet Susan gave to her thirty years ago, thin brown shammy with bright blue beads, that had traveled as far as the moons of Neptune and back. The lift stopped and the door opened. There were a dozen men in the lobby, 'middle aged', rough looking and shabby, each carrying a weapon made from construction material. They automatically moved toward her...then stopped dead when they saw who and what she was. “What do you want here, spacer?” half snarled the largest of the group, his eyes carefully avoiding any glance at her impeller. The combat programs in her neural nanonics had already tracked and targeted the lot of them. Even without the impeller, her muscle and bones being at least triple the density of these Ferals, she could most likely kill all of them in under a minute. And they had to know that. “I'm Jane Mimsdottor and I'm here to see my sister Susan,” she stated firmly. One of them in the back laughed and said, “Who sells seashells down by the seashore.” That got all of them laughing in what seemed a good natured fashion. Her combat program told her their heart rates were going down. She smiled brightly. The Large One stepped back and bowed slightly. “Welcome to Eight One Six, Jane, sister of Susan.” He gestured as if ushering her into a palace. The others all followed suit in their own way. “Thank you,” she said with soothing undertones pushed into her voice box. For good measure she added a mix of pregnancy/breastfeeding pheromones to her natural scent. That would re-enforce their feelings of protectiveness. She walked through the lobby, smiling serenely, and down the corridor to Susan's quarters. From the lobby she could overhear whispered appreciations of her ass. The biocontrols that had kept her heartbeat normal logged off. Jane was heading clockwise, so the central shaft wall was to her right and the residential ring was to her left. The Towers were really 'tubes', hollow in the middle, with all the apartments facing outward. The shaft wall was covered with beautiful murals, both paint and mosaic, done by the many artists who lived, or had lived, here in Tower Seven. Jane recognized some of their work, had known a few of them. She was pleased to see that even the gangs had respected them and tagged their turf with markings on the corridor's floor. The floor tagging had become a chaotic art form itself, tagging over tagging, in some places painted over entirely, and then more tagging on top of that. The corridor itself was in decent shape, Eight One Six being almost fully occupied. The motto of The Nines from the beginning was “Sweep in front of your own door.” Jane was recording all of this with a neural program and would upload it into the Main Archive when her visit was done. About a dozen doors down from Susan's, the tagging trailed off, replaced by a subtle wavy/swirly texture that she knew was her sister's signature style. She'd used a thin layer of concrete as her medium, etching the pattern into it while it was still wet. It complemented the overwhelming patterns of bright colors upon both walls and the ceiling, millions of ceramic beads that rushed and twisted and curled, each placed by hand over many years. Even the gangs knew this was Susan's turf. The apartment door's biometrics identified Jane, and opened. “Susan?” she called as she entered. “Living room,” her sister's voice came back. The apartment was a standard Tower Single, two thousand square feet with ten foot ceilings. Susan had filled it with the paintings and sculptures of her friends and lovers, floor to ceiling shelves full of hard copy books, gorgeous hand made rugs, large comfortable furniture. The place was always welcoming, even now. Jane found her sitting in her 'thinking chair', a plush recliner that faced the floor to ceiling living room window with a prefect view of Tower Eight. She wasn't surprised at how Susan looked. She watched her weight loss on the vids she regularly sent her while she was on the Maathai. But here, in the same room, Susan's impending death was palpable. Jane knelt by her, gave her a hard hug and a kiss. “I'm glad you waited for me,” Jane said softly. Susan made a mischievous face. “Gave me an excuse to experiment with various opiate compounds.” “As if you needed an excuse.” “Ah, nothing is better than a guilty pleasure indulged in without guilt.” She turned serious. “I know what you've been planing.” Jane's control of her facial expression was absolute. Her neural nanonics could create a perfect poker face. “Now don't give me that Gorgon face,” Susan said with a hint of petulance. “It's the right thing to do,” Jane said flatly. Susan grinned like a loon. “Of course it's the right thing to do!” Jane relaxed. “I was concerned you'd be embarrassed.” “One cannot embarrass the dead. And a museum with my name on it is also a museum with our mother's name on it and I could never object to that.” “We're taking the entire corridor, too,” Jane said, “Just removing the panels themselves.” “You're not going to make some kind of a shrine out of my apartment, are you?” Jane smiled. “No, just the corridor and the exhibits of your work. We've been gathering the pieces for a while now.” “You Sisters are a morbid lot.” Jane shrugged. “We think in the long term about everything. It's our nature.” Susan laughed. “I can hear the caps in 'long term'.” She patted the broad arm of her chair. “Come. Sit down. It's almost time.” Jane sat on the arm, took her sister's hand, leaned against her. She'd seen the Medi-Patch on her other arm. It could administer a lethal cocktail at a set time or be triggered manually. They looked out the window at Tower Eight. Susan had carefully picked this apartment those sixty plus years ago. During certain times of the year, the sunset reflected an amazing array of reds and golds off of Tower Eight. They and her friends had watched that show so many times. All of those friends were gone now and this would be the last time for both of them. “Jane, I have one last favor to ask of you. In my desk you'll find about six hundred hand written pages,” she made a little laugh. “You're probably the only human who can read my scribble.” “What do you need?” Jane said, holding her sister's hand a bit tighter. “They're notes for a history of the horse clans. I started with Red Epona, but got carried away. I never finished because it needs field research and...well, you know.” “Yes,” Jane kissed her sister's hair. “I've missed them anyway.” “Thank you,” Susan whispered. At that moment, the setting sun slashed across Tower Eight and the room was filled with a reddish golden cascade of light. Jane held Susan's hand even after it went limp, held it until that light faded to a soft glow. Later, as she emerged from the lift on the ground level, she 'heard/felt' a soft chime deep in her temporal lobe. A pleasant voice whispered, “This is an announcement from the Electoral Directorate. Voting in the General Plebiscite regarding the question of the admission of the Siberian Confederacy into the Union of Matrilineal Republics had been concluded. Admission has been approved. The tally is as...” Jane shut off the link. She knew it was a wide margin. And The Sisterhood had just absorbed nearly a quarter of the Eurasian landmass. She and the GF/MP's smiled knowingly at each other. They all were conscious of the threshold that had just been crossed. She heard Susan's laughter in her head; “I can hear the caps in 'long term'.” Jane's smile got just a little bit deeper.

[nebris]

“Last Days At Coconino Seven”

~The mag-lev car to 'The Nines', the nine Coconino Towers, was empty except for Jane Mimsdottor. It was clean and well maintained, but shabby with age. “Rides empty a lot these days,” Jane thought. Just at that moment she 'heard/felt' a soft chime deep in her temporal lobe, the standard message alert from her neural nanonics, the CompNet embedded throughout her cerebral tissues. A pleasant voice whispered, “This is a reminder from the Electoral Directorate. Voting in the General Plebiscite regarding the question of the admission of the Siberian Confederacy into the Union of Matrilineal Republics will be closing in two hours. If you have not yet voted, please do so now. Thank you.” Jane could have turned the Alert Function off, but like many Sisters, she was closely following this GP, though its outcome was almost certain. And also, like most of The Sisterhood, she could easily determine that Yulia Prokharovka, the Siberian Prime Minister, had done an excellent job of preparing Siberia for annexation and integration into the UMR. Jane had voted Yes, for admission, two weeks ago when the Loop Ship she served aboard, the SFS Maathai, was still on approach to the El Five Complex. It was easy to tell Jane was a 'spacer'. After decades in service under unfiltered UV, her reddish blonde hair had been bleached white and her fair skin tanned a honey brown. However, her eyes were still the same sparkling green they'd been the day she was born in a deer hide tent in the Outlands. She was wearing her Space Force Walking Out Dress uniform, a black one piece with white trim and soft boots, with the trio of six pointed silver stars of a Senior Lieutenant on each side of her collar. She also wore a Mark VII impeller on her hip, a mini railgun with two thousand frangible ferroresin darts. They'd ruin flesh, but powder against a pressure hull. These days one did not go into Tower Seven unarmed. She could see the Coconino Towers a few miles away looming in the afternoon sunshine. Nine arcologies, each over a half mile high, a quarter mile wide at their base. Once they had housed a half million people each, non-citizens who would not, or could not, become Initiated Sisters. Many were originally Ferals from the Outlands, with some immigrants from beyond The Union. The Sisterhood housed and fed them, provided clothing, basic medical care, and entertainment systems. In perpetuity. In exchange, the residents gave up the ability to reproduce. When The Towers were first being built and occupied over seventy years ago, a vibrant and exciting culture began to grow up 'in the Nines'. Many Sisters would also pass through to participate and study. It was a golden age that lasted nearly a half a century. Jane spent her 'shore leaves' there and had known some of her happiest days back then. But non-citizens did not get the type of advanced life extending augmentation received by Initiated Sisters. That would have defeated the entire purpose of The Sisterhood and The Union of Matrilineal Republics. The most advanced augmentation was reserved for those who Participated and Served. Jane was going to be ninety two in a few months and in all probability had only lived roughly a tenth of her total possible life span. The Sisterhood did not yet know the upper limits of their augmentation technology. Many Ferals were prematurely aged by their upbringing and even with the high quality base line health care they received, they died 'young', on average in their mid to late eighties. And with their deaths, the Nines began to empty. Ten years ago Tower Five had been the first to empty and be converted into an agricultural tower, a hydroponic megafarm. Its produce was flash frozen in its massive basement and shipped off world. It would be another few decades before a fully terraformed Mars could begin suppling the food needs of the central and outer system. Other towers followed quickly as the population shrank. Now only Tower Seven still remained occupied, surrounded by her converted sisters, and even she was barely at half capacity. The car pulled up to the base of Tower Seven, stopped. The doors opened smoothly. At the station exit was a Ground Force Military Police check point. It was added about ten years ago, just before Jane shipped out for the Asteroid Belt. They checked Jane's ID. These were not 'greenies' doing their Universal Service, but long term professionals. The sergeant in command noted Jane's Mark VII, nodded approval. “If you get in trouble it will take us about five to seven minutes to get to you,” she said. “Roger,” Jane responded. They exchanged salutes and Jane passed through into the lift lobby. She was not afraid of course. Having been born Feral herself, this was just passing from her new life back into her old one. Not that any of that mattered. She was here to visit Susan, her kid sister, one last time, and she would not let any type of danger stop her from doing so. Mim, their mother, was around ten when she had been 'acquired' by the clan of The Brute, who styled himself The King of Oklahoma, and who may or may not have killed her parents. That was never clear. What was clear was that Mim was pretty and become one of The Brute's 'wives' two summers later. Her first child was Jane. The Brute was pleased that she had borne him a child. Four more summers passed, then came Susan. The Brute was not pleased with another daughter. Mim and her children were banished to 'the dog tent', with the old and the 'odd'. They spent three summers there...until one night, for no apparent reason, The Brute hacked Mim to death with an axe in full view of her daughters. Jane gathered her sister up and fled. She knew where the Amazon Horse Clans traveled. After ten days they were found by the Sisters of Red Epona, big, rough, weathered women, full of scars and tattoos. They were quite familiar with The Brute's clan and welcomed these ragged children warmly. After a few weeks with Red Epona, Jane and Susan were dropped off at a Karaal of the Cult of Hathor. Those Sisters fed them many wonderful cheeses and yogurts and then they sent the two still underweight but now less malnourished children to SoCal, the heartland of The Sisterhood. Decades later Jane anonymously received an old photo showing some of the Sisters of Red Epona grinning broadly while holding up a severed male head. Even in death, she recognized The Brute's face. She showed it to Susan, who looked at it quietly for a while, then just said, “Thank you.” Jane took to The Sisterhood with ferocious enthusiasm and flourished. But Susan never seemed comfortable. Maybe she never really recovered from the trauma of Mim's murder. When she reached what had been decided was her fifteenth birthday, The Sisterhood's Age of Majority, she declared herself a 'non-citizen' and became one of the first residents of Coconino Tower Seven. Jane was away at the time doing her Universal Service with Sea Force and was very hurt by her sister's choice. But when she visited Susan, it was obvious that she felt more comfortable among 'her own kind' and and gave her blessing freely. That was over sixty years ago, or Solannums as Space Force was beginning to call them. Jane visited at least once a year until she joined Space Force and then would still visit every time she made planet fall. When Jane gave birth to Ostera she was taken to see her Aunt Susan as well. Susan became an accomplished jewelry maker, working with leather and ceramic beads she made herself. Even now, as she ascended in the main lift to Level 816, Jane was wearing a bracelet Susan gave to her thirty years ago, thin brown shammy with bright blue beads, that had traveled as far as the moons of Neptune and back. The lift stopped and the door opened. There were a dozen men in the lobby, 'middle aged', rough looking and shabby, each carrying a weapon made from construction material. They automatically moved toward her...then stopped dead when they saw who and what she was. “What do you want here, spacer?” half snarled the largest of the group, his eyes carefully avoiding any glance at her impeller. The combat programs in her neural nanonics had already tracked and targeted the lot of them. Even without the impeller, her muscle and bones being at least triple the density of these Ferals, she could most likely kill all of them in under a minute. And they had to know that. “I'm Jane Mimsdottor and I'm here to see my sister Susan,” she stated firmly. One of them in the back laughed and said, “Who sells seashells down by the seashore.” That got all of them laughing in what seemed a good natured fashion. Her combat program told her their heart rates were going down. She smiled brightly. The Large One stepped back and bowed slightly. “Welcome to Eight One Six, Jane, sister of Susan.” He gestured as if ushering her into a palace. The others all followed suit in their own way. “Thank you,” she said with soothing undertones pushed into her voice box. For good measure she added a mix of pregnancy/breastfeeding pheromones to her natural scent. That would re-enforce their feelings of protectiveness. She walked through the lobby, smiling serenely, and down the corridor to Susan's quarters. From the lobby she could overhear whispered appreciations of her ass. The biocontrols that had kept her heartbeat normal logged off. Jane was heading clockwise, so the central shaft wall was to her right and the residential ring was to her left. The Towers were really 'tubes', hollow in the middle, with all the apartments facing outward. The shaft wall was covered with beautiful murals, both paint and mosaic, done by the many artists who lived, or had lived, here in Tower Seven. Jane recognized some of their work, had known a few of them. She was pleased to see that even the gangs had respected them and tagged their turf with markings on the corridor's floor. The floor tagging had become a chaotic art form itself, tagging over tagging, in some places painted over entirely, and then more tagging on top of that. The corridor itself was in decent shape, Eight One Six being almost fully occupied. The motto of The Nines from the beginning was “Sweep in front of your own door.” Jane was recording all of this with a neural program and would upload it into the Main Archive when her visit was done. About a dozen doors down from Susan's, the tagging trailed off, replaced by a subtle wavy/swirly texture that she knew was her sister's signature style. She'd used a thin layer of concrete as her medium, etching the pattern into it while it was still wet. It complemented the overwhelming patterns of bright colors upon both walls and the ceiling, millions of ceramic beads that rushed and twisted and curled, each placed by hand over many years. Even the gangs knew this was Susan's turf. The apartment door's biometrics identified Jane, and opened. “Susan?” she called as she entered. “Living room,” her sister's voice came back. The apartment was a standard Tower Single, two thousand square feet with ten foot ceilings. Susan had filled it with the paintings and sculptures of her friends and lovers, floor to ceiling shelves full of hard copy books, gorgeous hand made rugs, large comfortable furniture. The place was always welcoming, even now. Jane found her sitting in her 'thinking chair', a plush recliner that faced the floor to ceiling living room window with a prefect view of Tower Eight. She wasn't surprised at how Susan looked. She watched her weight loss on the vids she regularly sent her while she was on the Maathai . But here, in the same room, Susan's impending death was palpable. Jane knelt by her, gave her a hard hug and a kiss. “I'm glad you waited for me,” Jane said softly. Susan made a mischievous face. “Gave me an excuse to experiment with various opiate compounds.” “As if you needed an excuse.” “Ah, nothing is better than a guilty pleasure indulged in without guilt.” She turned serious. “I know what you've been planing.” Jane's control of her facial expression was absolute. Her neural nanonics could create a perfect poker face. “Now don't give me that Gorgon face,” Susan said with a hint of petulance. “It's the right thing to do,” Jane said flatly. Susan grinned like a loon. “Of course it's the right thing to do!” Jane relaxed. “I was concerned you'd be embarrassed.” “One cannot embarrass the dead. And a museum with my name on it is also a museum with our mother's name on it and I could never object to that.” “We're taking the entire corridor, too,” Jane said, “Just removing the panels themselves.” “You're not going to make some kind of a shrine out of my apartment, are you?” Jane smiled. “No, just the corridor and the exhibits of your work. We've been gathering the pieces for a while now.” “You Sisters are a morbid lot.” Jane shrugged. “We think in the long term about everything. It's our nature.” Susan laughed. “I can hear the caps in 'long term'.” She patted the broad arm of her chair. “Come. Sit down. It's almost time.” Jane sat on the arm, took her sister's hand, leaned against her. She'd seen the Medi-Patch on her other arm. It could administer a lethal cocktail at a set time or be triggered manually. They looked out the window at Tower Eight. Susan had carefully picked this apartment those sixty plus years ago. During certain times of the year, the sunset reflected an amazing array of reds and golds off of Tower Eight. They and her friends had watched that show so many times. All of those friends were gone now and this would be the last time for both of them. “Jane, I have one last favor to ask of you. In my desk you'll find about six hundred hand written pages,” she made a little laugh. “You're probably the only human who can read my scribble.” “What do you need?” Jane said, holding her sister's hand a bit tighter. “They're notes for a history of the horse clans. I started with Red Epona, but got carried away. I never finished because it needs field research and...well, you know.” “Yes,” Jane kissed her sister's hair. “I've missed them anyway.” “Thank you,” Susan whispered. At that moment, the setting sun slashed across Tower Eight and the room was filled with a reddish golden cascade of light. Jane held Susan's hand even after it went limp, held it until that light faded to a soft glow. Later, as she emerged from the lift on the ground level, she 'heard/felt' a soft chime deep in her temporal lobe. A pleasant voice whispered, “This is an announcement from the Electoral Directorate. Voting in the General Plebiscite regarding the question of the admission of the Siberian Confederacy into the Union of Matrilineal Republics had been concluded. Admission has been approved. The tally is as...” Jane shut off the link. She knew it was a wide margin. And The Sisterhood had just absorbed nearly a quarter of the Eurasian landmass. She and the GF/MP's smiled knowingly at each other. They all were conscious of the threshold that had just been crossed. She heard Susan's laughter in her head; “I can hear the caps in 'long term'.” Jane's smile got just a little bit deeper.