#but the fact of the matter is that the policy exists and its up to modders to safely navigate the space

[catboynutsack]

apparently three groups have been caught cheating in the new ultimate via mods and I can't say I'm sympathetic. Like when you first get into modding it's plastered EVERYWHERE to be careful and to take precautions and not post shit online with your FFXIV name attached let alone SUBMIT YOURSELF AS THE FIRST GROUP TO FINISH A RAID. WITH ACTIVE CHEAT MODS. cmon now. use ur critical thinking skills.

[wild-at-mind]

Sometimes just from someone's username you know they would reblog a post that's like omg Trump will do genocide and Harris will do genocide but with emojis and memes!!

And then you see that they did in fact reblog the post and you're like ohhh can we stop pretending this is any kind of leftism.

[reasonsforhope]

Federal regulators on Tuesday [April 23, 2024] enacted a nationwide ban on new noncompete agreements, which keep millions of Americans — from minimum-wage earners to CEOs — from switching jobs within their industries.

The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday afternoon voted 3-to-2 to approve the new rule, which will ban noncompetes for all workers when the regulations take effect in 120 days [So, the ban starts in early September, 2024!]. For senior executives, existing noncompetes can remain in force. For all other employees, existing noncompetes are not enforceable.

[That's right: if you're currently under a noncompete agreement, it's completely invalid as of September 2024! You're free!!]

The antitrust and consumer protection agency heard from thousands of people who said they had been harmed by noncompetes, illustrating how the agreements are "robbing people of their economic liberty," FTC Chair Lina Khan said. 

The FTC commissioners voted along party lines, with its two Republicans arguing the agency lacked the jurisdiction to enact the rule and that such moves should be made in Congress...

Why it matters

The new rule could impact tens of millions of workers, said Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist and president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. 

"For nonunion workers, the only leverage they have is their ability to quit their job," Shierholz told CBS MoneyWatch. "Noncompetes don't just stop you from taking a job — they stop you from starting your own business."

Since proposing the new rule, the FTC has received more than 26,000 public comments on the regulations. The final rule adopted "would generally prevent most employers from using noncompete clauses," the FTC said in a statement.

The agency's action comes more than two years after President Biden directed the agency to "curtail the unfair use" of noncompetes, under which employees effectively sign away future work opportunities in their industry as a condition of keeping their current job. The president's executive order urged the FTC to target such labor restrictions and others that improperly constrain employees from seeking work.

"The freedom to change jobs is core to economic liberty and to a competitive, thriving economy," Khan said in a statement making the case for axing noncompetes. "Noncompetes block workers from freely switching jobs, depriving them of higher wages and better working conditions, and depriving businesses of a talent pool that they need to build and expand."

Real-life consequences

In laying out its rationale for banishing noncompetes from the labor landscape, the FTC offered real-life examples of how the agreements can hurt workers.

In one case, a single father earned about $11 an hour as a security guard for a Florida firm, but resigned a few weeks after taking the job when his child care fell through. Months later, he took a job as a security guard at a bank, making nearly $15 an hour. But the bank terminated his employment after receiving a letter from the man's prior employer stating he had signed a two-year noncompete.

In another example, a factory manager at a textile company saw his paycheck dry up after the 2008 financial crisis. A rival textile company offered him a better job and a big raise, but his noncompete blocked him from taking it, according to the FTC. A subsequent legal battle took three years, wiping out his savings. 

-via CBS Moneywatch, April 24, 2024

--

Note:

A lot of people think that noncompete agreements are only a white-collar issue, but they absolutely affect blue-collar workers too, as you can see from the security guard anecdote.

In fact, one in six food and service workers are bound by noncompete agreements. That's right - one in six food workers can't leave Burger King to work for Wendy's [hypothetical example], in the name of "trade secrets." (x, x, x)

Noncompete agreements also restrict workers in industries from tech and video games to neighborhood yoga studios. "The White House estimates that tens of millions of workers are subject to noncompete agreements, even in states like California where they're banned." (x, x, x)

The FTC estimates that the ban will lead to "the creation of 8,500 new businesses annually, an average annual pay increase of $524 for workers, lower health care costs, and as many as 29,000 more patents each year for the next decade." (x)

Clearer explanation of noncompete agreements below the cut.

Noncompete agreements can restrict workers from leaving for a better job or starting their own business.

Noncompetes often effectively coerce workers into staying in jobs they want to leave, and even force them to leave a profession or relocate.

Noncompetes can prevent workers from accepting higher-paying jobs, and even curtail the pay of workers not subject to them directly.

Of the more than 26,000 comments received by the FTC, more than 25,000 supported banning noncompetes. 

[writingwithcolor]

A Careful Balance: Portraying a Black Character's Relationship with their Hair

@writingraccoon said:

My character is black in a dungeons and dragons-like fantasy world. His name is Kazuki Haile (pronounced hay-lee), and his mother is this world's equivalent of Japanese, which is where his first name is from, while his father is this world's equivalent of Ethiopian, which is where his last name is from. He looks much more like his father, and has hair type 4a. I plan to make his character very finnicky about his hair, both enjoying styling it, but also often being unsure how to style it (not in that he doesn't know how to, but has so many options for how to style it, he has trouble choosing). However, I know that there are some very harmful ways to write black hair, especially in regards to how the black character themselves feels about it. Kazuki does not hate his hair, in fact he takes joy in it, and I'm researching black hair and hair styles to be as accurate as possible. But I'm unsure if portraying a black character as occasionally overwhelmed by or vain about his hair is negative. How would you suggest either changing this or making it work? Does it need to be changed in the first place?

Black Character Overwhelmed by Curly Afro Hair

Your Black character wanting his hair to look its best and at times feeling overwhelmed seems reasonable and natural to me. It appears their challenge comes with how to style it. Not so much with struggling how it looks or how hard it is to manage. That is good, as this further helps avoid placing a strong negative focus on Black hair. 

Him caring a lot about how it is style should not be deemed vain or frivolous, either. In any case, hair care is self care. There’s nothing wrong with having pride with your hair, especially hair that mainstream society, historically and present, might say is not beautiful. This still matters, even in a fantasy world, since your readers still exist in this reality. It’s empowering and a welcome change to see someone who loves their afro hair, actually.

There are unique factors someone with coily afro hair would experience vs. straight, wavy, or looser curls, but people struggling with their hair (too frizzy, too flat, too limp, too thin, too thick!) is universal. 

There is a delicate balance to achieve.

Avoid Writing a Black Hair Journey Experience 

An overall negative Afro hair journey might be the reality for many, especially when society deems Afro hair as unacceptable and slaps so many uninvited opinions, laws and policies over its existence and on certain styles (again, historically and very much at present), but that’s the kind of story that is best handled by someone with the background. Someone willing to commit to the research might also be able to pull it off, although it’s truly not the kind of thing an escapism novel needs in my opinion. If the story is not meant to delve into “A Black /Black Hair Experience” then I'd avoid going that route. That is moving a bit towards a struggle narrative, depending on how much it defines your character’s story.

Add positive and neutral hair language and interactions

For your writing, I’d avoid using unchallenged negative language about his hair. Being overwhelmed at times and frustrated is one thing and expected. If his hair is constantly brought up, and is associated with uncontrollable, ugly, or too [insert struggle here], then rethink the direction you’re going. 

Add some positive or neutral terms, reactions, and interactions in the narrative towards afro hair, such as describing color and texture.

“His fine coils bounced in the wind.” 

“Hair black and shiny” 

“She wore her hair in two large, fluffy buns.”

“He admired his fresh, neat braids in the mirror, smiling at his reflection, before turning to leave.”

Another tip: It may have been for research purposes, but leave out any hair number categorizing in the story and rely on description. I’d say this goes for any story, as reading the number would feel off. 

“He had coily 4a hair.” Nahh! :P 

Also, I would suggest sending all passages that focus on his hair to a Black sensitivity reader for review.

More reading:

~Mod Colette

[tamamita]

Excuse me, sorry to bother you about this. I have a few people in my daily life who are severely misinformed about the Gaza genocide, how should I go about informing them of the facts before pulling a Frieren? They keep saying it's Hamas' fault if that puts anything into perspective. I feel there's no helping them and it's like talking to a wall but I'm kind of stuck dealing day to day with them.

Hamas was founded in the 80s as a resistance movement against Israel's oppressive rule and illegal occupation, even the Zionists claim that it was propped up by Israel as a response to the PLO, even if that wasnt true. If it was truly Hamas's fault, how do they account for every crime the settlers have committed before that. Do the Palestinians have no right to respond to the Nakba, which saw the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Are they just gonna sit back and see their native lands be stolen inch by inch? Furthermore, the founder of Israel, David Ben Gurion, specifically sought to expel the native Arabs from Palestine. (See: Plan Dalet), the Balfour declaration and the UN resolution did not even satisfy Ben Gurion's colonial ambitions because he wanted all of Palestine. All of this was premeditated and part of the current regime's policy. The Israelis are simply weaponizing antisemitism to perpetuate and justify its colonialism.

Why are the settlers occupying the West Bank, which is illegal under international law, ever since 1967? Hamas did not come into existence 20 years later. Why do you think Palestinians will grow frustrated and fight back when their lands are being stolen?

The matter of fact is that the founders of Political Zionism and Religious Zionism, Theodore Herlz and Je'ev Jabotinsky respectively, clearly desired to expel the Arabs, even admitting that they would put up a resistance in their attempt to colonize Palestine (read: Iron Wall and Herlz's letter to Cecil Rhodes). Their dehumanisation of Arabs and Arab Jews is a testament to European colonization under the pretence of religion and ethnicity, and this legacy prevails in the Israelis, all of whom are colonisers.

The Palestinians will forever have the right to defend themselves. I hope we all get to witness the fall of Tel Aviv in our lifetime, inshallah.

[batboyblog]

I fundamentally disagree with your take that any future/ongoing users of TikTok are supporting or enabling trump.

We don’t use TikTok or any other social platform because of the CEO. We use social media because of the communities we form and love.

Obviously trump wants it back because it helped his election campaign, but that doesn’t negate every positive collective action or community that formed on the app. Everything good also has bad, because as the saying goes, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. We can try to be good, but we can’t only support ethical companies.

Also, what about international users? I’m Australian, and trump impacts Australian politics directly and indirectly, but does me using TikTok support him? It’s still an independent company.

Given the ban was done by congress, not the executive, I have every reason to believe that a Harris/democrat office would also make efforts to stop the ban. It’s easy political points.

I'm gonna try to be nice, which given my mood today, the impending Trumpalypse and the hostage release today have me in a bad mood.

Sooooo I have to reject the idea that helping re-elect Trump could ever be balanced out by any other "good", if such good even exists, that any app, person, or organization does.

before anyone jumps in to smugly tell me they're not an American so Trump being the American President doesn't matter, I'll remind you, we all live on the same planet. One thats getting warmer? in case you hadn't noticed. 2024 was the first year on record to breach the 1.5 degree warming mark that is very bad news. President Biden passed the biggest climate action bill that any government anywhere on earth ever ever has passed. Trump has pledged to repeal that law, and also hold back all the money in it not already spent.

as you can see under Biden we're on goal through 2030, and then more and different policies would be needed to get us where we need to go, which Biden team in the dying days of his administration has set not that Trump will follow through.

so point being helping re-elect Trump might have doomed the planet so idk about anything "good" TikTok could possibly do to make up for being Responsible or the single biggest climate disaster in human history.

any ways, as a Jew when I think of TikTok I think antisemitism

"Jewish teens say life on TikTok comes with anti-Semitism" 2020

"Sliding Through: Spreading Antisemitism on TikTok by Exploiting Moderation Gaps" 2023

"How fast does TikTok send users down the antisemitic rabbit hole?" 2024

being on the internet right now as a Jewish person is fucking wild, buck wild, seeing people in their teens and 20s say NAZI, old school, 1940s Nazi shit on-line, in videos with their faces, it is everywhere and TikTok is some of the worst of it.

on top of which TikTok is spoon feeding massive amount of disinformation to users all the time, from mental health, to Covid Vaccines, to conspiracy theories that are effecting the real world. And studies show its actively hurting teens, pushing them toward self harm

speaking of Australia, its very clear that China is REALLY interested in influencing your country seeking to shift Australian public opinion against Taiwan and in favor of China, as well as push the country toward a more isolationist view. Also they're using data from not just TikTok but other apps to track people, and actively kidnap Chinese nationals in Australia who offend Xi's government. That's a wider problem than just TikTok of course, but it's super fucking scary.

So sorry the app you like is getting the axe in the US? I guess? but short form video in and of itself might be bad for your health. Apps like TikTok don't allow you to do what I've done here, offer links and data to back up what I'm saying so fact checking and accountability is basically 0. Finally there's a lot of evidence that TikTok has put its finger on the scale to push propaganda for Trump, for Xi and generally destabilize the world.

finally, what community? watching videos fed to you by a computer isn't a connection, its certainly not a conversation.

oh also "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" is not some magical spell, it doesn't do away with the need to do good in the world, its meant to say don't let perfect be the enemy of good, whats the least bad option, nothing is flawless, but that doesn't mean going on to the app who's parting message to America was "big good daddy Trump gonna come save us" like fuck man thats bad

[weirdmageddon]

i posted this on twitter also but it’s still eating at me. i’m so fucking embarrassed to be jewish rn. i dont want to be associated with this ongoing bullshit from israel. why do we need our own state. theyre just making every jew across the globe look bad in general even though many of us are conflicted about zionism and the legitimacy of israel as a state

people have hated jews throughout history for no fuckin reason but now israel exists but now its like. GIVING people reasons to hate us as a group. note that i DON’T conflate zionism with jewishness, but a lot of people in the world don’t know the difference because theyre uninformed and been dripfed cultural antisemitic tropes their whole life and that’s the scary part is them falsely putting two and two together. like what the fuck israel stop youre just putting fuel on the fire for people around the world to hate an entire group of historically persecuted people if youre being this shitty with your insane colonialism and apartheid like……I Want No Fuckin Part Of This. you’re spelling our own doom. you cant just swoop in and go “mine now” and then oppress the people you took land from under a regime without my blood boiling at the injustice no matter WHO you are. even if my lineage is tied to you. so when news outlets support israel it doesn’t feel like they have the best interest of jews as a people in mind. it’s in the interest of a zionist ethnostate and whatever that christian zionism belief is about the jewish people returning to the holy land as prerequisite for the second coming of jesus. its not like they care about us as a dispersed ethnocultural group, it’s all for that religious narrative that a bunch of people in the US are backing.

saying you want all jews to die is antisemitic. beating someone up because they’re jewish and no other reason without knowing their views is antisemitic. criticizing human rights violations perpetrated by israel and the belief that one group deserves more rights another is not antisemitic. and the fact that israel has the ability to pull that antisemitism card in response to criticisms of the violations they commit because their state is the “jewish homeland” drives me fucking insane. take fucking accountability for your actions. and yes, there do exist full-on anti-jewish groups in the middle east that go beyond hatred of israel’s policies and existence as a state and i’m tired of people pretending there aren’t in fear of appearing to seem like they support the state of israel. on the other side of things many people overestimate this by fearmongering and saying EVERY arab is out to get jews worldwide, telling people like me “they want YOU dead”. this is not the belief every person in the middle east and it really rubs me the wrong way that people group millions of individuals into all-encompassing lumps like this. many people there do understand nuance of this political situation.

even if i have that “right of return” by israeli law or whatever, i don’t feel obliged to it; it does not register as fair. why do i have a “right of return” when i’ve never even been there in the first place while palestinians who have homes there can’t return to them? what’s the basis for that? substituting objective reality with an imaginary reality? i don’t think like that. i can hypothetically come and go whenever i please but palestinians are severely limited in mobility? what makes me more entitled to that land than the people who lived there for centuries? nothing that comes from natural law thats for sure. it’s all artificial and inflated.

but at the same time i also dont want to be the target of antisemitism and caught in the fray just for being ethnically jewish. once people start calling for the genocide of entire groups we’ve got issues (and you better believe this absolutely applies to the palestinian victims in gaza too), because people who dissent to the violence perpetrated by the loudest are caught in there with the people who are perpetrating the violence. lack of nuance. people conflating israel and its zionist apartheid policies with jewish ethnicity and culture worldwide. other people conflating being terrorist anti-jew with muslims worldwide (like that 6-year old palestinian-american boy that was just stabbed to death in chicago). scary times man. but as a jew i can’t just opt out of this if it’s how i was born as. i don’t have control over that. but i can control what i think and what my beliefs are

[inmyheaddd]

you and me, always, forever - averyjameson

a/n: my girl avery deserves a break 💔 wc: 1k warnings: mentions of knives, vague mentions of blood, averyjameson being too cute masterlist

avery was no stranger to attacks. drake, skye, the black wood, the plane, sheffield grayson — and the fact that the ‘List’ even existed. 

she didn’t ever think a knife attack would be added to that.

—

jameson had been off in some tropical island with his brothers, while avery and libby had their much needed sister time. 

there were one or two pictures taken as avery arrived at the clothing store. she didn’t expect there to be hundreds of paparazzi to pile up in the span of 30 minutes.

“excuse me, miss grambs?” the saleswoman approached her cautiously. avery turned to face her with a small smile, “yes?”

“i’m so sorry to disturb, but, there seems to be a hoard of paparazzi outside the store right now. it would be best not to leave at the moment, for your safety.” 

avery’s eyes widened, and she felt her stomach drop. “oh my god, i am so sorry, i had no idea this would happen.” 

the woman smiled sweetly at her, “oh honey, don’t worry, it’s not your fault. don’t apologize for anything.” she said as she rubbed avery’s upper arm gently, and then walked away. 

if avery was being honest, she bought much more than she needed to simply because she felt like such an inconvenience in that moment. oren, who was standing on alert nearby, quirked an eyebrow up as avery picked up a neon green jacket that had a price tag with a far too large number on it.

when she met his gaze, she simply shrugged and pressed her lips into a line. “guilt buying,” libby whispered beside her with a giggle.

—

3 hours later, when oren and his team had cleared the area, avery walked out of the store, oren in front of her, and libby beside her. 

she couldn’t recall the exact moment when it happened, only small fractured fragments. a flash of silver in the corner of her eye, the sudden pressure on both her shoulders as oren shoved her away, her hand traveling to her side where she felt the pain seeping out of her, and seeing red. 

she staggered into libby’s arms — who wasn’t screaming in terror anymore. she was sobbing. avery couldn’t decide which one was worse.

after oren finished barking orders into his comms, she vaguely heard him calling for an ambulance and for backup. 

—

sitting idly in the hospital bed, stitches on all 4 stab wounds, avery’s mind replayed every attack she’d been through on repeat. she was drifting in and out of sleep, and the dreams were even worse. 

she heard muffled voices behind the door, but couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes. 

“listen, my whole life is in that room. i’m afraid your policies are the least of my concerns.” the voice was suddenly a lot more clear and she recognized it instantly —jameson, even when she was half asleep. he pushed passed the doctors and shut the door behind him. 

his eyes immediately found avery’s drowsy figure, hooked to ivs.

“heiress,” he breathed out, like he’d been punched in the stomach. 

he was running to the hospital, and he sprinted to her room, but now he walked tentatively to her, like he didn’t believe what he was seeing was real. 

her face lay on its side, her hazel eyes he adored so much no longer on view, as her steady breaths reminded him to calm his own. 

her eyes fluttered open, “jameson.” her voice came out weak, almost drowned out in the beeping of the machines as she propped herself up on her elbows. 

“it’s me,” he replied, his hand finding hers. it was cold, and he tightened his grip. “avery, i– are you okay?”

avery managed a small, pained smile as she leaned against the headboard. “you got here fast,” she deflected his question.

jameson’s jaw tightened. “i’m so sorry I wasn’t here. this–this shouldn’t have happened. and i should’ve been there with you.”

she shook her head slowly, wincing from the pain. “you don’t have to be sorry, it’s not your fault. i didn’t expect—”

“it doesn’t matter what you expected,” jameson interrupted her softly. “you should expect me to be right next to you 24/7, now.”

avery chuckled despite her pain, “you kind of already are.” 

she expected him to joke back, but he didn’t. “yeah, well, i wasn’t this time, and that’ll haunt me forever.” his voice was quieter, more strained.

“jameson, it’s fine. i’m fine.” jameson gave her an incredulous look.

“heiress, i can barely hear you over these machines, you have god knows how many stitches in you, and you’re hooked up to random liquids, and you’re trying to make me feel better? trying to tell me that you’re fine?” 

he shook his head with a hollow laugh, “let yourself be, let me care about you, i’m begging you.” 

avery’s lips tightened into a small smile, knowing he was right, “you’re right, i’m sorry.” 

“don’t apologize, either.”

“okay, i’m—“ she cut herself off, it was auto response for her to apologize, no matter what. 

“what was that?” jameson held a hand up to his ear, “it almost sounded like you were about to apologize again.” he was trying to lighten the mood, and avery knew it. 

she let him though, because instead of feeling the pain, she could just feel how much she loved him instead. 

“actually, i wasn’t going to, thankyou very much.” avery jokingly stuck her chin up high. 

“see, that’s my girl.” jameson said through a breathy laugh, and he brought their interlinked hands up to kiss the back of hers. 

his touch lingered a little longer than usual, as if he was trying to convince himself that she was really there, alive and breathing.

she laughed, “you’re getting soft, hawthorne.” 

“only for you, heiress.” he winked at her, “besides, i’m the most dangerous person you know.”

“hmm, dangerously annoying, that is.” avery was fighting the smile pulling on her lips.

“you fell in love with it, though.” he shrugged, the corners of his lips turning up.

avery faked a grimace, “yeah, i did, didn’t i?”

jameson laughed at her expression, and her smile was instantly back on her face.

“i’m afraid you’re stuck with me now, heiress. whether you like it or not.” he circled his thumb on the back of her hand.

avery hummed again, her smile growing a little wider. “i think i might just like it.”

“yeah?” jameson chuckled breathily, kissing her hand once again. “i thought so.”

taglist: @x-liv25-jamieswife @wish-i-were-heather @thecircularlibrary @emelia07

@anintellectualintellectual @tornqdowarnings @maybxlle @sheisntyou

@whatsamongus @sweetlikeanangel @littlemissmentallyunstable

[psychotrenny]

There's a lot to be said about Zambia's relationship with South Africa, especially during the Apartheid era. A nation with legal political independence, like much of "post-colonial" Sub-Saharan Africa the deep rooted structures of Colonialism and ongoing pressure of Imperialism have kept it economically dependent on the Imperial Core. Like much of Southern Africa, South Africa specifically is a major locus of that dependence. Indeed, the primary focus of South Africa's foreign policy towards its immediate neighbours, the "Frontline States" in the struggle against Apartheid, was to keep things that way using the most suitable combination of soft and hard power that South Africa had at its disposal.

Now Zambia got off lightly in terms of the military threat it faced, suffering no major South-African proxy wars and relatively few commando raids against the personnel and offices of anti-apartheid resistance that had set up on Zambian soil. The Apartheid regime saw Kenneth Kaunda, the Zambian head of state from 1964 (the year of Zambian political independence) to 1991 (by which time Apartheid was beginning to be dismantled), as a relative moderate due his anti-communist sentiments. Despite Kaunda's outspoken opposition to the Apartheid system, he maintained strong economic ties with South Africa. Zambia's copper mines had their ownership nationalised but were still managed and operated by the same companies, to the point that the pre-independence culture of racism remained alive and well decades later and many Zambian engineers left the mining industry for the private sector as soon as they could due to the discrimination they faced from their mostly white (often South African) managers. A similar arrangement existed for Emerald mines, an industry that only began development in the 1970s and remained in its infancy until the 1990s, remained largely in private hands.

Yet at the same time Zambia was still an independent African nation. On top of verbally denouncing Apartheid to the international community, Kaunda's regime offered material assistance and free access to the anti-colonial resistance movements that toppled the Portuguese Empire and Rhodesia while destabilising South African apartheid to the point of dissolution. Despite the burden of exploitation the masses faced from both foreign imperialists and their local collaborators, conditions for the black majority of Zambia were significantly less vicious than for those living under Apartheid in South Africa and Namibia. Relations between Zambia and South Africa were messy, complex and often contradictory but they were like this because Zambia was very much its own nation. While the shadow of Apartheid is something that must always be taken into account while discussing Zambia in this period, especially in the context of South African investment, this country was much more than an extension of South Africa. You can't talk about it like it's some glorified Bantustan

And yet for most people none of that matters. All Southern Africa is the same to them; who gives a shit about the actual history of struggle? The whole "Elon Musk's dad own a South African emerald mine" is incredibly stupid because it's a severely misleading distortion of the facts that only gets passed around due to widespread attitudes of chauvinistic ignorance towards Africa. Now Errol Musk's statements about his involvement in the Southern African emerald trade are inconsistent; at times he claims to have owned a stake in an emerald mine while at others he claims to have merely traded in the gems. But either way, the gems in question are Zambian and not South African and that's a distinction that matters.

Additionally, the spread of this rumour comes from a grossly oversimplified view of Imperialist exploitation in Africa. While the mining industry is an important vector by which wealth is extracted from the continent, it is far from the only one. Errol Musk did not make his fortune from emeralds; he was an electrical engineer who went own to invest in a wide assortment of businesses from auto parts stores to tourist lodges. A beneficiary of Apartheid for sure, operating in an economic system made possible only through the brutal exploitation of millions of Africans, but in a much more sophisticated way than the cartoonish caricature of a mine overseer a lot of people seem to have in mind.

The point must also be made that most mining in Africa takes the form of modern industrial enterprises operated by voluntary workers who, while still incredibly exploited in terms of the value they produce compared to what they receive, tend to be relatively well paid by local standards. Even in apartheid South Africa and Namibia itself, mining jobs were considered among the most desirable work an African could get. The image of slaves held at gunpoint to dig with shovels, distorted half memories of Sierra Leonean diamonds and Congolese Coltan, do not represent the reality of Imperialism in most of the continent.

The whole "Musk Emerald Mine" discourse is an all around outstanding example of ignorance, made even more egregious by the ostensible "progressive" beliefs of those who engage in it. "Leftists" who care little for what's actually happening to the people of the Imperial Periphery, who see the suffering of Africans as little more than a cheap way to mock an individual they don't like. Maybe it would pay to open a book or two before you open your mouth. Or at least look at a world map and see the funny solid line that exists between "South Africa" and "Zambia"

[eternal-echoes]

The poll

I don't think it's just that; I think more and more people are realizing that every child deserves a mother and a father and legalizing gay marriage deliberately deprives a kid of one of them. Orphans and children of single parents always long for their missing parents.

While there are unfortunate circumstances like death of a parent or divorcing an abusive spouse that makes it inevitable, ultimately since children are made through the biological union of a man and woman, their spiritual relationship with them should be preserved.

Since we're not just a material being, we're also of both body and soul. Not Cartesian dualism but Hylomorphism where the union of body and soul makes one nature.

The only two ways a gay couple can have a baby is either through surrogacy and/or adoption. Along with its ethical concerns with buying a baby, a gay couple taking a newly born baby from his/her mother is depriving that child with the much needed bonding time with the mother (i.e. breastfeeding, cuddling, etc). It's illegal to sell a puppy within 8 weeks of birth because it would be too cruel to separate it from its mother,* then how much more devastating would it be when it comes to a human child? And a child's need for a mother doesn't stop when he/she no longer needs to be breastfed, the mother is essential for the child's emotional maturity as well.

Here is a video of Ryan T. Anderson back in 2014. I'll highlight some important points but the whole video is really good.

Marriage exists to unite a man and a woman as husband and wife to then be equipped to be mother and father to any children that that union produces. It's based on the biological fact that men and women are distinct and complementary, it's based on the anthropological truth that reproduction requires a man and a woman, it's based on the social reality that children deserve a mother and a father. ... Marriage is the institution that different cultures and societies, across time and place, developed to maximize the likelihood that that man commits to that woman, and then the two of them take responsibility to raise that child. Part of this is based on the reality: there's no such thing as parenting in the abstract; there's mothering and there's fathering. Men and women bring different gifts to the parenting enterprise. Rutgers sociologist professor David Popenoe writes, "The burden of social science evidence supports the idea that gender differentiating parenting is important for human development and the contribution of fathers to childrearing is unique and irreplaceable." He then concludes, "we should disavow the notion that mommies can make good daddies, just as we should disavow the popular notion that daddies can make good mommies. The two sexes are different to the core and each is necessary, culturally and biologically for the optimal development of a human being." ... The impact of marriage. So why does marriage matter for public policy? Perhaps there's no better way to analyze this than looking to our own president, President Barrack Obama: "We know the statistics that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of schools, and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They're more likely to have behavioral problems or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundation of our community are weaker because of it." ... President Obama sums it up very well: what we've seen in the past 50 years since the War on Poverty began, is that the family has collapsed. At one point in America virtually every child was given the gift of a married mother and father, those numbers right now: it's more than 50% of Hispanics children are born outside of wedlock, more than 70% of African Americans are born outside of wedlock. And the consequences for those children are really serious. The State's interest in marriage is not that it cares about my love life, or your love life, or anyone's love life just for the sake of romance. The State's interest in marriage is ensuring that those kids have fathers who are involved in their lives. ... If the biggest social problem we face right now in the United States is absentee dads, how will we insist that fathers are essential when the law redefines marriage to make fathers optional? ... Think about the social consequences if that's the direction the slippery slope in which marriage redefinition would go. For every additional sexual partner I have, and for the shorter lived those relationships are, the greater the chances that I create children with multiple women, without commitment with either to those mothers or to those kids. It increases the likelihood of creating fragmented families and then big government will step in to pick up the pieces with a host of welfare programs that truly drain the economic prospects of all of our states. ... So for all those reasons this is why the State and all states have an interest in preserving the definition of marriage as a union, permanent and exclusive of a man and a woman.

Also an article supporting some of Ryan T. Anderson's points:

It’s worse to be raised by a single mother, even if you’re not poor.

The reason for this is that fathers tend to be the disciplinarian in the family. They provide the moral framework in his children's lives.

Reminder that even though the Catholic Church does not support gay marriage, it doesn't mean that she hates gay people. There is a ministry called Courage International where people with same-sex attractions are encourage to live chaste and holy lives.

*Original wording taken from here.

[decadentpostnacho]

Germany has voted.

It’s the year 2025, just a few months before the next scheduled election, but here we are—voting early. Why? Because the three-party coalition in the German parliament, fragile from the outset, finally collapsed at the end of last year, leaving the government in a state of political paralysis.

A Brief Digression on the Previous Legislative Period (Feel Free to Skip)

After more than a decade of CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union) dominance, the 2021 federal election saw the SPD (Social Democrats) emerge as the strongest party, largely due to pandemic-induced dissatisfaction. Since continuing the GroKo (the grand coalition of CDU + SPD) was no longer palatable to the electorate, the SPD—by the way, a party that already existed as a workers' movement during the Nazi era before it was swiftly banned by the Enabling Act—teamed up with two other parties:

The Greens (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen): Ostensibly dedicated to climate and environmental protection, yet somehow always finding ways to funnel billions into lobbying for Rheinmetall (the arms industry) while simultaneously approving a reception station for American fracking gas off the picturesque coast of Rügen. Fracking gas ≠ environmental protection, in case anyone missed that. Also, fun fact: since its completion, the terminal has been running at single-digit capacity (oops). Did the Greens push this policy alone? No. Were they enthusiastic supporters? Absolutely. Did the people of Rügen like it? Not so much. But despite protests and petitions, a gas terminal now looms off the shores of Sassnitz.

The FDP (Free Democrats): A party that once thrived in West Germany under the motto "the market will regulate itself", effectively acting as a centrist force when there were only three major parties (ah, the simplicity). However, in reality, they mainly represent the top ten percent—those who believe in capitalism the way medieval peasants believed in divine right. Their voter base? The wealthy and those who think they’re wealthy but mostly just fear losing what little they have.

Despite their historic (for them) results in 2021, resentment soon grew due to prolonged coalition negotiations and a legislative period that, let’s be honest, wasn't exactly a triumph. (Side note: much like in the U.S., few people seem to grasp that not every government decision has immediate consequences. Many of the failures attributed to this coalition were actually set in motion by the CDU before they left office—but nobody wants to hear that.)

And So, the 2025 Election Happened

With rising discontent and a steady stream of one-sided media coverage, it was easy for right-wing populists to capitalize on public frustration. And capitalize they did: the far-right AfD (great experiences with them in Germany before—sarcasm!) achieved record-breaking results. In Eastern Germany, nearly one in two voters backed them (which, before anyone says anything, has nothing to do with former GDR citizens being stupid). In the West, support ranged from one in three to one in five.

And the winner? Drum roll.

The CDU/CSU. Because after all, when in doubt, just go back to what you know.

The CDU has recently distinguished itself with its own brand of fear-mongering and racism—because, surprise, that rhetoric appeals not just to Eastern voters but also to the aging conservative base in the West, who, despite their Christian values, seem to have very little interest in charity. Shocking.

Meanwhile, the SPD hit a record low, the Greens lost a few percentage points, and the AfD secured the second-highest vote count.

Any Good News?

Actually, yes.

The formerly struggling Left Party (Die Linke) managed to recover, despite losing a quarter of its members when a very charismatic ex-member decided to start what is essentially a cult masquerading as a political party (her motto: it doesn’t matter what it is, as long as we’re against it). The Left Party reached nearly 9% nationwide—not exactly a revolution, but enough to ensure a strong leftist opposition.

Said cult? Didn’t make it into the Bundestag. They are now planning legal action to challenge the election results, which is very on-brand.

The FDP failed to pass the 5% threshold, meaning no more capitalist fat cats representing the top ten percent in major political positions. Oh no.

A single representative from a Silesian-Danish minority party secured a seat in parliament—one less seat for the AfD. No complaints there.

What Now?

The CDU leads as the strongest party, followed by the AfD, SPD, Greens, and the Left.

Who will govern?

Since even the right-wing CDU still draws the line at openly neo-Nazi affiliations, the AfD will not be part of the government (though they will be the largest opposition party, which… isn’t great). Meanwhile, the CDU refuses to govern with the Greens or the Left, so—guess what—it looks like we’re getting another GroKo (CDU + SPD).

Remind me—wasn’t this exactly what the voters wanted to avoid?

Who will be chancellor?

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce…

Oh. Wait.

Yes, that's the one.

Friedrich Merz (CDU). A man who once voted against criminalizing marital rape, who doesn’t get along too well with non-Germans, and who, despite being in a Christian party, seems to lack the whole compassion aspect of Christianity.

What was his first move after winning the election? Ignoring a ruling by the International Court of Justice and personally assuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that, despite the arrest warrant against him for war crimes, Germany would find a way to let him visit and leave without consequence. A lovely little reminder of how much Merz cares about the Palestinian people, who have been suffering for decades under Israel’s regime.

Final Thoughts

If any Americans, or anyone at all, were considering fleeing to Germany—don’t. It’s no better here. The political spectrum continues shifting further to the right, and somehow, advocating for basic human rights is now considered radical.

We are tired.

[never-was-has-been]

READ WEEP PRINT & KEEP

READ, WEEP, PRINT AND KEEP!

This should be on the front page of every newspaper.

Charley Reese's Final column!

A very interesting column. COMPLETELY NEUTRAL.

Be sure to Read the Poem at the end..

Charley Reese's final column for the Orlando Sentinel... He has been a journalist for 49 years. He is retiring and this is HIS LAST COLUMN.

Be sure to read the Tax List at the end.

This is about as clear and easy to understand as it can be. The article below is completely neutral, neither anti-republican or democrat. Charlie Reese, a retired reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, has hit the nail directly on the head, defining clearly who it is that in the final analysis must assume responsibility for the judgments made that impact each one of us every day. It's a short but good read. Worth the time. Worth remembering!

545 vs. 300,000,000 People

-By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.. ( The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.)

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red. If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's because they want them in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Israel, Ukraine, Yemen, Lebanon, etc. etc.

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, must be held accountable by the people who are their bosses. Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees... We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

What you do with this article now that you have read it... is up to you.

This might be funny if it weren't so true.

Be sure to read all the way to the end:

Tax his land, Tax his bed, Tax the table, At which he's fed. Tax his tractor, Tax his mule,Teach him taxes Are the rule. Tax his work, Tax his pay, He works for peanuts anyway! Tax his cow, Tax his goat, Tax his pants, Tax his coat. Tax his ties, Tax his shirt, Tax his work,Tax his dirt. Tax his tobacco,Tax his drink, Tax him if he Tries to think. Tax his cigars, Tax his beers, If he cries Tax his tears. Tax his pot or call it Weed, and then tell him it's not what he needs. Tax his car, Tax his gas, Find other ways To tax his ass. Tax all he has Then let him know That you won't be done Till he has no dough. When he screams and hollers; Then tax him some more, Tax him till He's good and sore. Then tax his coffin, Tax his grave, Tax the sod in Which he's laid... Put these words Upon his tomb, "Taxes drove me to my doom..." When he's gone, Do not relax, Its time to apply The inheritance tax. Accounts Receivable Tax Building Permit Tax CDL license Tax Cigarette Tax Dog License Tax Excise Taxes Federal Income Tax Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA) Fishing License Tax Food License Tax Fuel Permit Tax Gasoline Tax Gross Receipts Tax Hunting License Tax Inheritance Tax Inventory Tax IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax) Liquor Tax Luxury Taxes Marriage License Tax Medicare Tax Personal Property Tax Property Tax Real Estate Tax Service Charge Tax Social Security Tax Road Usage Tax Recreational Vehicle Tax Sales Tax School Tax State Income Tax State Unemployment Tax (SUTA) Telephone Federal Excise Tax Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax Telephone State and Local Tax Telephone Usage Charge Tax Utility Taxes Vehicle License Registration Tax Vehicle Sales Tax Watercraft Registration Tax Well Permit Tax Workers Compensation Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, & our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What in the heck happened? Can you spell 'politicians?'

I hope this goes around THE USA at least 545 times!!! YOU can help it get there!!!

GO AHEAD. . . BE A US AMERICAN!!!

REBLOG THIS ALL DAY

[david-talks-sw]

An allergy to the Prequels

While I'm putting together a post about the evolution Lucasfilm's transmedia strategies, this part kinda turned into its own thing!

So I'm not sure if anyone else noticed, but, uh... there hasn't been that much Prequel content since the Disney sale, right?

'Couple novels and comics, some episodes... but nothing meaningful.

The more I look into it, the more it feels like a deliberate avoidance to touch on anything Prequel-related - beyond the required quota, that is - to a point where they'd rather tell stories set during periods that are Prequel-adjacent (Dark Times, High Republic) than something set around Episodes I, II and III.

On-screen policy: "pretend they never happened"

I mean, this one's no secret. When The Force Awakens had been announced, with J.J. Abrams at the helm, everyone sighed in relief. "Finally, George Lucas won't keep ruining the franchise."

When Abrams had been announced as the director of Episode VII, I remember this cringey animated video started circulating online, titled "4 Rules To Make Star Wars Great Again" or "Dear JJ Abrams":

“Star Wars isn’t shiny and clean... Star Wars is a western.”

If you ask me, those two things are not mutually exclusive.

'Cause Star Wars has always been both, for many Prequel kids. Both clean and dusty, Coruscant and Tatooine. There was never a disconnect between the Original Trilogy (OT) and the Prequel Trilogy.

Even the documentary The People vs George Lucas shows Prequel-hating fans begrudgingly admit their kids felt all six episodes tied seamlessly.

Abrams, on the other hand, said: "I think [the "Dear JJ" video] was right on." Later on, he also said:

he considered "putting Jar Jar Binks's bones in the desert" on Jakku, somewhere, and

he intentionally made the lightsaber fights "rougher", "primitive" and "more powerful" unlike the fast-paced ones in the Prequels.

Later, we found out he wanted to blow up Coruscant.

It's clear he wasn't a big fan of the Prequels.

But y'know what? Not many fans over 20 were, at the time. And when The Force Awakens came out, most them celebrated it as a wonderful love letter to the OT.

Star Wars is cool again. Mission accomplished 🙌 !

However movies keep coming out, and references to the Prequels - if there are any - are literally just that... references.

Sometimes in the shape of a cameo ("hey look, Genevieve O'Reilly from the Ep. III deleted scenes is playing Mon Mothma again!")

Sometimes in a name (Luke name-dropped "Darth Sidious"!)

But nothing set during the Prequel era, and nothing treating the events that happened in that period as relevant or impactful, beyond subtextual nods.

In fact, the trend of avoiding anything Prequel-related continues as the final film in the Skywalker Saga comes out:

The Rise of Skywalker has a secret Sith society that chants the name "Palpatine" instead of his Sith name "Darth Sidious",

the film pretends the Kaminoans never existed,

and neither TROS nor Trevorrow's Duel of the Fates script even try to bring Hayden Christensen's Anakin Skywalker back on screen. Let that sink in, we're talking about the Chosen One, Skywalker Senior, whose sins caused this whole mess... and his name isn't even uttered once in the final chapter of what Disney dubbed the *Skywalker* Saga (or the entire Sequel trilogy, for that matter).

But hey, The Clone Wars got renewed for one last Season! That's cool right? So many stories had gone unfinished and somehow the animation looks even better than befo--

-- oh. It's not 22 episodes? Only 12?

Four of which had already been shown to us, but hey! We need to set-up the Bad Batch series, so let's shoehorn those episodes in there, and forget Son of Dathomir, Dark Disciple or Crystal Crisis.

*sigh* Better than nothing, I guess.

In other mediums: "just not a priority"

Now this is something that I'll explore more in the transmedia post (and purely my interpretation), but the noticeable change between Lucasfilm's transmedia strategy *post-ROTS* and the one post-Disney sale is that:

Before, the games, comics and novels were the main content. After all, Revenge of the Sith had been released, so that was it, for the movies. Thus, a variety of other content was being cranked out to keep the Star Wars franchise relevant. There were comics set 100 years after Episode 6, comics set 25,000 years prior, games set in the Old Republic era, other stories in the New Republic era, novels galore, a couple of parody films and an animated show, The Clone Wars, which sometimes received its own tie-in comics, novels and games.

After the sale and ever since, most of the transmedia products have had only one goal: promoting the films & streaming shows.

So while in 2015 you won't see an abundance of Prequel content... you'll see an avalanche of OT books and comics come out.

Why? Because the heroes of that era will be in the Sequel Trilogy movies. It provided context to the kids who hadn't seen the OT yet, and reintroduced those films to a new generation of fans, while priming them for the Sequels.

A multimedia marketing strategy that ultimately proved successful.

However, it continued even after The Force Awakens came out.

Don't believe me? Compare how many comics there have been set during the Prequel era vs the OT era.

If they make comics about the Prequels, they're limited runs.

Case in point: before the current Yoda series, the best any Disney Prequel-set comic series ever got was 6 issues.

Note: it's worth pointing out that the frequency of mini-series aren't just a Star Wars-specific thing, it's a comic book industry thing. The readership for comics is dwindling, many people are reading scans online, and so no publisher wants to commit to a story that lasts more than 4-6 issues. My problem is: there absolutely would be readership for a Prequel comic series to warrant an extended run instead of a mini-series.

Let's talk books. There have been give or 64 canon novels published since the Disney sale.

Only 11 of them are set during the Prequel era. And even those stories only came out when the planets were aligned.

Almost half of them were released while being a part of some bigger multimedia push.

Example:

Before the Obi-Wan Kenobi series was being released on Disney Plus, we'd had one novel and like two comic stories about him during the Prequels... released between 2012 and end 2021. That's about three pieces of content in almost ten years.

Clearly a low frequency.

Then, when the series is around the corner, two books and a comic story comes out in the space of months, plus an anthology book with an alt cover with his face on it and a comic with a story of him and Anakin in the first issue, all in 2022.

My takeaway: short of there being a film or series that needs to be promoted, you'll rarely get any Prequel comics or books.

And this is OBI-WAN we're talking about. The character who even the Prequel haters love. Imagine how little attention the other ones get.

Gaming-wise, Battlefront had no Prequel content at all (again, 2015 was the year where OT content was shoved down the consumer's throats to prep them for Episode VII), and Battlefront 2 only released Prequel content a full year later.

All that being said, we did seen some Prequel elements here and there. After all, some actors got to reprise their roles, books and comics came out featuring Prequel characters... but there's a catch.

The stories they appear in are set in-between Episodes III and IV, a time-period known as "the Dark Times" or the "Imperial era".

"Dark Times" being used instead of the Prequel era

It's easy to see the appeal of this era. You keep the same threat from the Original Trilogy - the Empire - but redress it with Prequel elements... while also cherry-picking the best characters of both the OT and the Prequels and giving them a chance to shine again.

The situation is more clear cut, as opposed to the complex one in the Prequels. Bad guys are stormtroopers, good guys are anyone else. And the stories no longer take place in the shiny capital, you're back on the frontier.

But at this point... it feels like a cop-out.

When you consider how much content has been set during the Dark Times, it's nothing to sneeze at. Since the sale, we've had:

2 movies (Solo, Rogue One)

4 series set in that time-period (namely The Bad Batch, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor, and Star Wars: Rebels).

2 video-games (Jedi: Fallen Order and Jedi: Survivor).

17 novels (such as Ahsoka, Lords of the Sith, the new Thrawn books, etc)

And just a whole bunch of comic book series & mini-series (like Kanan, Princess Leia, various Vader-centric comics including Darth Vader: Lord of the Sith, many tie-in mini-series promoting Rogue One, Jedi: Fallen Order, Obi-Wan Kenobi, etc).

There's been so much content made for this time-period that it feels like an unwillingness to do the work and create something set something during the Prequel era, let alone something that follows its Jedi.

After all, why make a story set in the Prequels (disliked by vocal fans) when you can just take the characters in that story and put them in an OT setting (which will appease the Prequel-haters)?

Maybe these stories get relegated to the Dark Times because:

there seems to be a perception that anything set in the Prequel era won't sell?

or maybe the current SW writers weren't fond of Episodes I, II and III, and don't find those Jedi characters likable, thinking they're too righteous and dogmatic which makes it hard to craft a story around them.

Or maybe it's because they're under the impression that the Prequel Jedi are bad. Like, canonically, in the narrative. Not just in a "I don't like them" sense, but also in a "the story is all about them becoming corrupted" sense.

Let's expand on that last point.

Retconning the Prequels as the "Fall of the Jedi" era

Somehow the rare stories set during the Prequels that we do get seem to automatically be about how "the Jedi lost their way/failed".

The series Tales of the Jedi is explicit about it...

... and I already explained why it contradicts what George Lucas established here and here.

You also see it in Rebels and the new season of The Clone Wars...

... in comics...

... in games...

It gets to a point where the Prequels era has now been redubbed the "Fall of the Jedi" era by Lucasfilm.

You wanna know what that period was referred to before the Disney sale? The "Rise of the Empire" Era.

Because - and I'll never get tired of saying this cuz it's factual - the Prequels aren't about the fall of the Jedi, they're about the fall of the Republic and Anakin, and rise of the Empire and Vader.

So in addition to being overdone, the "Jedi lost their way" is not even the intended narrative of the Prequels (if one puts any stock in Lucas' words). It's a minor subplot at best, hardly the focus of the films, let alone a whole time period.

But dubbing it "Fall of the Jedi" implies that there's another era in which the Jedi were in their heyday.

Because Star Wars authors are in luck! Yet another alternative has presented itself in the shape of a new transmedia initiative, and it's even better than the "let's set it during the Dark Times" solution:

A new transmedia initiative: The High Republic

You wanna deal with the Jedi before the Empire, but for some reason you wanna avoid dealing with the ones seen in the Prequels?

Look no further. Meet the Jedi of the High Republic.

Noble, adventurous, inspired by the Knights of the Round Table, they're everything the OT kids dreamed about when they heard ol' Ben Kenobi talk about the Knights of the Old Republic.

That's more like it!

Note: the High Republic was created for other reasons and has many more upsides than the ones mentioned above. Namely, a fresh new spot in the timeline that allows for creative freedom and a beautifully-coordinated transmedia storytelling effort where retcons are non-existent. However it does seem evident that not having to deal with the 'unlikable' Prequel Jedi and their "fall" is one of those upsides.

Another perk that the High Republic era offers is more freedom in terms of storytelling compared to the Prequels.

In 2016, Pablo Hidalgo tweeted he still quotes to authors the following excerpt of West End Games' guide for aspiring Star Wars writers, from 1994.

You can't write "this was the best day in Luke Skywalker's life", for example, because another author may want to write a better day than the one you just wrote.

My guess is that a similar approach applies to how all characters from the movies are treated. They're massively iconic. So you can't write a book that drastically changes how Mace or Yoda or Obi-Wan are perceived overall.

The stories need to be self-contained, disregardable if necessary, because you'll have dozens of writers coming up with new stories for those same characters, and you need to leave them some room.

Examples:

Notice how in the book Dooku: Jedi Lost we never see how Dooku turns to the Dark Side and joins the Sith.

Same goes for crossover comic book arcs of the Star Wars issues, like Vader Down or Crimson Reign... the characters don't really change by much in those comics. You could stick to just watching the movies and you wouldn't really miss anything.

But with The High Republic, you indeed can develop these characters as much as you want.

All stories featuring Avar Kriss leave an impact on her, you can nail down who she is perfectly in one book or one comic arc, both being just as meaningful to her character.

The fact that she's not as iconic/famous a character as Mace Windu means that authors can go to town on crafting an interesting and nuanced character arc for her that'll have a beginning, middle and end... something Mace will never really get.

CONCLUSION:

Back in 2015... let's not kid ourselves. The Prequels were unpopular and Disney is a multi-billion dollar corporation. Opting to make as much money as possible is what they do.

It's the same reason they decided not to go with George Lucas' original plans for the Sequels, in 2012.

I mean, imagine you're Disney. You just dropped 4 billion dollars, with a B, on this franchise. Your next Star Wars movie needs to be worth the price tag. Now, you can pick between two options:

Option #1 is uncharted territory and it explores the midi-chlorians (the cursed word…!) and the guy who presented you with this option also openly admits that a big chunk of customers won’t like it, but he wants this to be done because it’s his vision.

Option #2 is very simple: a soft reboot, that plays on nostalgia that the same chunk of customers (aka the 'boomer and Gen-X fans who grew up with the Original Trilogy and now have kids, grandkids and MONEY) will like.

It's a no-brainer. They gave the customers what they wanted.

But time has passed, the fans who were children when the Prequels first came out have grown up, and grew up with characters like Yoda, Mace, Plo Koon, Kit Fisto and other Jedi as their heroes, aside from main characters like Anakin and Obi-Wan and Ahsoka.

Can we maybe expand on them, flesh them out more?

No, let's either ignoring the storytelling potential of these characters or reducing it to them being "righteous, arrogant and dogmatic".

God forbid we get a story showing the Prequel Jedi in a *gasp* more positive light? One where their POV is more understandable, instead of the same old "we brought this on ourselves" storyline.

There's a whole decade between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones... you're telling me there's no space to show us Anakin's training and how he formed bonds with the Jedi we later see in The Clone Wars? I tried my hand at it here:

Interesting or fun Prequel-set ideas from other pro-Jedi fans on Tumblr can be found here, here and here.

And y'know, part of the Star Wars intent is for fans to take the ideas in the movies and come up with their own stories. You're supposed to create headcanons.

What I'm saying is fans of the Prequels are being given less "imagination food" than the rest, and many of us who like the Jedi in particular are forced to rely on headcanons only. "Better than nothing" is no longer an acceptable standard.

There's a range of recognizable Jedi characters that have already been established in films and TCW, can we maybe expand on them, flesh them out more, instead of whole new ones?

[unsuitablepet]

This is a bit of a rant but something that really breaks my heart is the fact that Trump has ALREADY greatly influenced Canadian politics.

Just look at Mark Carney's rising popularity. He does seem genuinely qualified, however, most of the polling being done suggests that the reason he's gaining so much traction is because he's the only one of our leaders people trust to both stand up to and be able to negotiate with Trump (as if that buffoon negotiates at all). No one really seems to be paying attention to the actual policies he's putting forward, which admittedly are not the worse things I've heard from the Liberal Party, but are definitely worth poking some holes into (like, excuse me Mr. Carney, we understand that at this time the Canadian economy would greatly benefit from ramping up our mineral extraction, but how do you intend to address the damage that this could/would cause to our indigenous communities?)

And the thing is, anyone who is ignoring these things or defaulting to voting for Carney/the Liberals no matter what can't necessarily be blamed for doing so... and I'm saying that as someone who is an NDP voter at heart and gets genuinely disgusted with myself at the idea of casting a vote for someone like Mark Carney, as plain toast as he might be. Poilievre would hand our country to Trump on a silver platter, Trump has already said some atrocious things about Chrystia Freeland (which seem to have been born entirely out of misogyny - no surprise there) so we know she wouldn't get anywhere in terms of negotiating or maintaining any semblance of peace - if anything it might just make him perceive us to be an easier target because that's how little respect he clearly has for women - and don't get me started on the kind of horrifying and dehumanizing treatment that animated turd of an excuse for a President would unleash on someone who looks like Jasmeet Singh, purely for being who he is, which would also prevent him from getting anywhere and I genuinely fear it might actually spur Trump on to justify attacking us faster.

And look, of course there are many other reasons why Freeland or Singh might lose their respective races against a Mark Carney type (including the racism and misogyny that can be found in our own populace which obviously still exists in large numbers), but the identity politics being as heavily at play as it is right now - in a way it hasn't been for years - is a direct impact of the Trump presidency and that is a heartbreaking back peddle on whatever meagre progress towards inclusionary politics we've made in the last 20 years. We're back to a place where we can't deny that the only realistic choice that stands a chance in responding to the most pressing and threatening issue facing the nation is a white man, not because of his qualifications (of which I do know he legitimately has many, but so do others), but because he is a white man. Whether we like it or not, Trump has succeeded in setting us back. And we didn't have anything to do with voting the asshole in.

I don't have a good resolution for this rant. Its not even really about Carney - he's just generic centrist politician to me. I'm just upset and tired and hoping to God that this doesn't end in war the way it's looking like it will, and that we use this as a wake up call and cut ties with America in a big big way. Which also hurts to say because let's face it, most if not all Canadians have family and friendships that reach across the border and the last thing we want on personal levels is to create more divide between us.

Anyway, vote Liberal/Carney, I guess. Now's apparently no time to have a genuine political opinion about our own country - we just have to focus on remaining a country at all. 🙄

[galacticlamps]

Three: The Themes & 6b

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[[Here I'm just gonna copy that final paragraph from the last part bc like I said, the thought process wasn't really intended to be broken up like this but I don't wanna make it longer writing a better transition]]

For all the more superficial similarities, for all the analysis on how the narrative structures of each serve to bolster the most interesting aspects of these characters where another might have compressed them or just neglected to turn them into something so striking and developed - actually, at the end of the day, the real reason Two & Jamie and Edwin & Charles resonate so strongly is because they are, ultimately, alone together (and always both at once) in a way that sets them apart from other characters in the same or even more visibly-similar fictional scenarios.

And of course that's so deeply related to the rules of their universes, and the very particular niche they each inhabit there, even though it seemed like none of that mattered too much at the start. Why should it have? They aren't royalty in some high-fantasy epic or major players in a hard-science fictional satire - for all the ways that they're ultimately revealed to be Different, unique, changed by their experiences or else just misfits and outsiders of a kind to begin with (and sometimes all of the above) - they are also very crucially just normal guys, who want most of all to be left alone to get on with their (after)lives - together. It's right that we meet them & grow accustomed to them first on their own terms - traveling randomly through time and space, or taking cases in London's supernatural community - before we learn about the Time Lords or the Afterlife's Lost & Found Department, and the degree to which their way of existing is so deeply condemned in-universe.

For Two & Jamie, the fullness of this realization comes rather late in the day, but - again, connected to the way television was made in their era - the reveal of the Time Lords & their strict non-interference policy was a direct by-product of and natural next-step for the Doctor's story as it had been taking shape throughout the 60s already, so I have no issues with retroactively taking it into consideration when viewing the Second Doctor's entire tenure. (For what it's worth, I think it's also significant that most people viewing 60s Who these days aren't picking it up at random either - it's safe to assume some familiarity with the modern show's premise, which includes a general sense of taboo surrounding the Time Lords & altering history to begin with - but I digress).

By the time Two shows up on the scene, we already know life on the Tardis is inherently transitory - it's a travel story, first and foremost, but it's also significant for having no set or even proposed end destination. Companions have been coming & going for years, and we've just learned that even the Doctor can fully reinvent himself, even if he won't literally disappear (looking at you, Celestial Toymaker). We know it's itinerant, and not meant to last. Still, in the form of Jamie joining in his second-ever story and remaining longer than any other companion ever had or will more than 50 years (& counting) later, we begin to see a really clear stability emerge from that setup - a change so constant, it becomes its own kind of permanence. Tardis life already has a certain liminal, not-quite-normal - even allowing for the scifi of it it all - quality to it, which these characters seem to be wrangling into the shape of a home against all odds, well before we meet the Time Lords.

Once we do, the rest slides into place straightforwardly enough: the image of the Doctor as a fugitive of this all-powerful but distant, cold, unfeeling culture. The fact that no one great event (a war had often been speculated, before) led to his flight, since all he cites to his companions & while on trial are disagreements over their fundamental philosophy of Not Getting Involved. And what could make more sense? If there's one thing we know about the Doctor - any Doctor, but certainly this Doctor - it's that he meddles. He gets involved, he gets attached to people, he brings them out of their assigned place in space and time, often willingly now, and has come to care about them and feel at home among them in a way that we're not surprised to hear is definitely not sanctioned by the world he comes from.

The change we've watched the character undergo since 1963 is much larger than the change between William Hartnell & Patrick Troughton. Instead, it's an arc both of them have been playing all along - the only sensible conclusion to reach, really, considering the shape of a show that opened with Ian & Barbara joining him: companions make us better people, change the way we look at the world, turn us into fuller versions of ourselves. Getting involved is messy - comes with all kinds of complications, ranging from keeping history on-track to watching out for all the tricky human emotions that come into play once people begin becoming important to one another - but at the end of the day, is also worth all the bother in the world.

Doctor Who the show has been so pro-getting-involved since the instant it started with two concerned but nosy schoolteachers poking around a junkyard - and the Second Doctor exemplifies this so well in his character, more madcap and undignified than his predecessor, flying by the seat of his pants a bit more, it's true, but also freer and happier with himself and his companions - of course the greatest threat to him, and the thing that both created him and sent him running, is a society where meddling is anathema, and permanently cut-off erasure (of the War Lord, of your own memories, of the person you are right now, even) is at once the most serious punishment they have, and the preferred method by which they set things "right."

It's large part of why The War Games feels like a deeply queer story, casting a queer light both backwards & forwards over the rest of the series, before we even go anywhere near considering if the two guys at its center, fighting to remain part of each other's lives in a world insistent there is no room for something as simple and harmless as that, would ever do anything we'd categorize as "actually" gay.

It's also why I think 6b is as attractive a concept as it has proven to be in the years since, as a subject for fanwork & official spinoff material alike. We've gotten more 'canon' stories detailing it in some pretty recent years, but even before that, the bones of the idea were clear enough, and it never just existed as a theory because anybody was really desperate to have more gaps in which to set potential Two & Jamie stories - including the one the show itself had given us in 1985 (Simon Guerrier took a shot at making that actually work within the confines of Season 5 in an audio drama in 2015; it did nothing to detract from the appeal of 6b, which is currently the setting of Big Finish's ongoing Second Doctor range). It's because putting a figure like Two - the misfit, outsider, sympathetic meddling 'cosmic hobo' - into conjunction with the Time Lords at their most all-powerful and controlling, is a recipe for a very particular kind of drama. Positioning him there with Jamie only adds to the layers in which they're both bound.

It's a way for this Doctor to be more in control of his travels than he ever was (we can't forget that the tv Tardis of the 60s was 100% unpredictable), but also to give him Serious Boundaries in a way he never had to deal with before, either. The two of them are freer, in some ways, and absolutely trapped in others. They're 'doing good' in the sense that, by definition, we know missions the Time Lords send them on would be carried out with or without their (ironically now state-approved) involvement, but with them & their hard-won more human approach, we can hope they'll be handled with a compassion and care that would otherwise be absent. It lends totally new aspects to their characters, simply having that kind of responsibility, that stamp officialness but lack of authority, new situations they can be forced to deal with - and yet it does so while just reiterating and reinforcing that central premise we loved about them before - two constants in a world of danger and adversity, making an impact and caring (about the worlds they visit, and about each other) under conditions they're really not supposed to be okay with. They are always generally presumed to be happy that they're together in this situation, because that must be one of the few bright sides to being stuck under the thumb of the people most dangerous to them, and likely why they submit to it in the first place.

Do I even need to type out the words "they should want to move on but don't, because they have each other" for it to become clear why this setup was what came to mind while watching the ghost boys struggle to carry out their business?

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[cum-villain]

Ron Desantis is a name many of us are familiar with, sadly. This beta male is known for his hateful policies, and generally disgraceful demeanor. However, I will prove the following fact to you all: He is not, in fact, a beta.

He is an omega taking heat suppressants.

1. Why He Hides It

Before we begin, let us ask ourselves the following: if my hypothesis is correct, why would he hide his dynamic? There are multiple reasons. The first of which: The inconvenience of heats.

Ron Desantis hopes to be a successful politician. As such, going into states of lust and slicking every month would interfere with the amount of time he can spend on his career. Additionally, it may very well open himself up for scandals. Taking heat suppressants thus frees up his schedule, and helps him keep his reputation, though I must emphasize to the omegas reading this that I do not hold any anti-omega beliefs. However, the political world today is not kind to omegas, which brings me to the second reason.

Politicians, as with many authority figures, are expected to be strong, sturdy, guarding alphas, not caring, nurturing omegas. Of course, not every alpha or omega fits the stereotype, but the stereotypes are pervasive. There's a reason that Donald Trump, an alpha, is more popular among conservatives then Ron Desantis, a ''beta''. It already is a slight blow to be seen as a beta, being known as an omega would be even more harmful to him. However I don't care about his career and in fact want him gone so I'm making this post.

2. His Omega Traits

My first proof is his personality. While it is not true that every person of a certain dynamic will have the same personality, certain traits are scientifically proven to correlate with one's dynamic. For example, not every alpha is quick to punch, or willing to fight to the death for a mate's honor, alphas in general to tend to be more possessive, more stubborn. These are not bad traits, but can be used to pinpoint a person's true dynamic.

For example: Omegas tend to be more passive. This article by the New York Times described Ron Desantis's political strategy as such:

One route for a candidate like DeSantis... is to win the nomination without crossing Trump... However, that strategy is passive.

3. Symptoms of Heat Suppressants

Heat suppressants have recognizable symptoms, if one knows where to look. Here's the ones he shows

First off, heat suppressants rarely remove all traces of being in heat. They often dont mask the scent on their own, for example, requiring scent suppressants and/or false scents. Scent suppressants are easily noticeable, as they are a lack of a scent. While betas do not have the strong scents of alphas or omegas, they do have some scent, which scent suppressants remove. Ron Desantis likely uses them as well as false scents, but the false scents must also be there.

I'm sure we all remember when Trump was on one of his usual bullying tirades, the last one directed at Desantis, where he mentioned his secnts being strange. False scents are in fact noticeable by those with a keen nose, and Trump's businessman background leads me to believe he would have that experience.

Secondly, while emotional states are not nearly as wild when off of heat suppressants, ones emotions instead are mildly high-strung for the entirety of ones cycle to offset the hormonal buildup. Look at that man and tell me hes experiencing a beta male's calm.

4. Final Proof

(This helpful chart was provided by @curioscurio)

5. Why Does It Matter?

Ron Desantis's extremely bigoted platform is based on a lie he tells his supporters. While in most cases I would not nearly be this aggrieved by an omega pretending to be a beta (as anti-omega sentiments do exist), Desantis doesn't lie simply to balance the scales, but to inflict harm upon others. If we get the word out to his supports, then its extremely likely they won't like the truth, and Desantis will fall from the tower of hatred he built when it's torn to shreds by his wicked flock. So please, reblog this, and one day we may be free of Desantis.

(ty for reading this satire lol)