#which is so rare for rishi!

[miissmm]

I don't speak English, it's bad. This is machine translation.

Summary: The story is about Kibutsuji Muzan's younger sister. About how she became a demon with him, he has no power over her.

tw: Yandere behavior,blood,mentions of murder,mention of mental disorders

platonic yandere muzan x reader

The only lady of the Kibutsuji house is truly elegant. She must be elegant, like any other decent lady in society.

Always dressed to the nines, even if the decorations weren’t the latest in fashion, as they used to be. She is intelligent, never speaks without a man's permission, and respects those of lower status.

Her smile always complements the atmosphere of meetings and not a single extra word is said.

People would be sad to know that she just doesn’t want to communicate with them.

To the lady of the house, Kibutsuji, everything seemed gray. Existence for the sake of marriage, lessons for the sake of marriage, all for the sake of being sold to a man. It was so familiar, like the flow of water or a beating heart in the chest. Rishi was disgusted by this. She didn’t want to live for something like that, but the lack of choice only forced her to accept everything, and then a thought arose in her head. Everything that happens in any case had to happen. Is there any point in doing, thinking and reacting?

There is not a drop of emotion in her eyes, even when she smiles. There is no love or joy in her eyes. Rishi, at 10, believes that she has lived too little for such a deep concept as feelings. I sincerely believe that this will definitely come with age.

She well remembered the expressions of pain, sadness and despair on the faces of her parents when both died from illness. She felt nothing, but perfectly imitated new emotions at the funeral.

Soon her older brother also fell ill. This was something new, his steadfastly calm and loving expression suddenly changed to pain and rare rage. Her interest didn't last long.

When she turned 15, her brother could no longer get out of bed and a new doctor arrived at the house. The doctor discovered the first symptoms of the disease in the young rishi, forcing her to drink the same medicine that he gave to her older brother.

Rishi believed that this was not at all necessary.

An unknown mixture could had a bad influence on one’s appearance, which, while still alive at that time, my mother diligently took care of for her daughter’s future husband.

Rishi believes that if she dies, only one thing will happen, their family will cease to exist, but the dead no longer care. Skipping medication as naturally as meals, she continued to live as before. Until the moment when her brother, suddenly, was able to get out of bed.

This was the first time Rishi experienced fear. She couldn’t lie, this situation launched the processes of inevitable learning about emotions and new sensations.

He appeared loudly, moving his legs heavily. Suddenly and covered in blood.

- I just killed the doctor.

drop by drop of blood flowed onto the floor of her room, wiped to a shine, drop by drop her poise flowed away and a long-forgotten horror awoke in her eyes.

- Brother?

She tried to breathe, intermittently, gasping for breath. I heard how her heart was beating and how the picture was smeared with tears.

- He was an ordinary charlatan, like thousands of others before him. What happened to you? You feel bad?

He began to approach, step by step, drop by drop.

- You killed a man.

She moved back, right up to the wall, ready to open the window in an attempt to escape somehow.

- I said a regular charlatan.

- This is not a reason to kill a person!

The voice breaks, the scream becomes more like a squeak.

He stops.

She grabs the window sill and stares at the floor. She breathes, thinking frantically.

- They don’t deserve to live, – the voice that sounds after a minute of silence, – are you afraid that I will kill you too? Honey, don't panic.

Deceptively sweet voice. He smiles.

He smiles, covered in someone else's blood, and she already turns to the window, immediately jumping back, as soon as she leans out, the sun burns terribly.

- Honey?

She bumps into his back, immediately falling into a trap of his hands.

Her clothes immediately become dirty, her expensive silks become heavier than ever, and she is unable to even whisper.

Losing consciousness from shock, little fifteen-year-old Rishi really did not realize how much her life would change after she opened her eyes again.

[srbachchan]

DAY 5837

Jalsa, Mumbai Feb 10/11, 2024 Sat/Sun 2:23 am

Birthday - EF - Gaurav Kumar Kulshreshtha , Mario Andrew Rodrigues/Rishi Vij Sunday, 11 February

🪔 ,

February 11 .. birthday greetings to Ef Gaurav Kumar Kulshreshta .. Ef Rishi Vij from Nagpur .. and Ef Mario Andrew Rodrigues from UAE 🇦🇪 ..

Wedding anniversary greetings to Ef Debasis Chakrabarti .. completing their silver jubilee .. on February 11 .. love and more .. 🙏🏼💐❤️

and may the special days be of immense welcome and joy .. ❤️

And the wise .. and the wisdom of the pundits of learning and litteratti ..

यह श्लोक बहुत सुंदर है ..

अमंत्रं अक्षरं नास्तिनास्ति मूलम् अनौषधम्।अयोग्य: पुरुषो नास्तियोजकः तत्र दुर्लभ :।।

amantram aksharam naasti

naasti moolam anaushadham ..

ayogyaha purusho naasti

yojakaha tatr dulabha

अर्थात्- ऐसा कोई अक्षर नहीं जिससे कोई मन्त्र का प्रारम्भ न होता हो,ऎसी कोई जड़ नहीं जिससे औषधि का निर्माण न होता हो और ऐसा कोई मनुष्य नहीं जो योग्य न हो, बस ! उससे काम लेने वाले लोग ही तो दुर्लभ हैं।

there is no such alphabet, which is not used for the beginning of a divinity chant ; there is no such root which does not grow the making of a medicinal herb ; and there is no such human that is incompetent or incapable .. it's just that, those people are rare to find, that can extract some work from them ..

and so I work in anticipation of the thought, that can deluge my personna with incompetence ..

.. the absence of such work or any work, is a breathless asthmatic, desperate in the finding of that saviour 'pump' who's vaporous pushes inside the lungs, give collective freedom to soften the passages of air and allow the source of life to exist ..

they say .. wait .. the time will come .. as is the oft repeated whisper of limited confidence, given in the earnest need for the wanting of the 'other' within the parameters of our nature hearing aids ..

and we wait ..

my care and love .. 🌹

Amitabh Bachchan

[tempestswing]

Ranking the Dark Council:

hi! I was writing some notes for a piece of SWTOR fiction I am working on, and decided to create this list as a fun way to share that information.

Dark Council Pre-Shadow of Revan:

12. Darth Aruk - we know nothing about this character, other than that they were head of the Sphere of Sith Philosophy. According to the Wiki, rooting out Revanites was supposed to be their job. What a failure, hopefully they still have a job after Shadow of Revan?

11. Darth Rictus - Also kind of a mystery, which is ironic since he was head of the Sphere of Mysteries. Rictus does appear in a novel called 'Annihilation', but that book is mostly about Theron Shan. All we really know about Rictus is that he's (A) old, (B) dislikes aliens, unless they're murderous enough, and (C) founded the Dread Executioners to take down the Dread Masters. Not enough information to rank any higher.

10. Darth Acharon - at least this guy appears in the game. He's kind of a nothing character though. He defended the imperial occupation of Corellia unsuccessfully. He was head of the Sphere of Biotics. Since he died on Corellia, he would presumably have been replaced by Shadow of Revan, but we don't know who by.

9. Darth Arkous - hate this guy, but he's still technically head of the Sphere of Military Offense after the Hutt Cartel plotline. God, what a bag of dicks he is though. The one good thing about this character is that he's technically Lana Beniko's master? Although she's an advisor rather than an apprentice, so he gets no credit for the existence of awesome Sith wife.

8. Darth Decimus - Also found in game on Corellia! Decimus is actually present in the imperial quests, so you get a lot more interaction with him than Acharon. Canonically, he also trained Krovos! Krovos is really cool, so decimus should get a few points by association. Not enough to bump him up the list though. For the head of Military Strategy, he's not a very good commander.

7. Darth Ravage - You can meet Ravage at the end of the Inquisitor and Warrior storylines, and for all imperials he is present during the cutscenes preceding the Emperor Malgus flashpoints (although does nothing to help?). The main reason I'm putting Ravage so low is that he's a little bit inconsistently written. He'll gladly say "good riddance" to Darth Thanaton's death in the inquisitor plotline, but if you kill Baras in the Warrior plotline, he'll show up at Nathema and be all offended that you claimed power by murdering your master... does he know what a Sith is?

6. Darth Mortis - I have a bit of a soft spot for Mortis. He's got a no-nonsense demeanour which is rare amongst Sith, and he's clearly serious enough about their philosophy to join a secret conspiracy against the alliance if you "squander" the power of the Eternal Throne - a petty move, this man is a bitch after my own heart. He also is the one who snaps Darth Thanaton's silly little neck, which definitely earns him a few points in my eyes. As a point, he's involved in the Macrobinocular missions, which I did not enjoy, but he was a highlight of the questline.

5. Darth Acina - WOMEN IN POWER!!! Empress Acina is better than Emperor Vitiate. Unfortunately Acina is kind of bland, I really don't feel strongly about her either way. I've killed her on Iokath in most of my playthroughs, even if I don't intend to defect to the republic later. I might be lesbian but I just don't like her that much. Her reforms to the Empire are interesting though, I do have to give her credit for making the Empire slightly less racist and Sith dominated.

4. Darth Vowrawn - Silly guy!! This man is genuinely quite funny. He's a blast to spend time with at the end of the Warrior story, after dealing with Baras' grumpy ass for close to fifty levels. His choice to help the Wrath with the Hand on Rishi says... something. He's genuinely an interesting character to me, especially since he maintains that joviality when he becomes Emperor. It's tempered, to be sure, but I think it does show it wasn't entirely an act. Vowrawn could be a genuine friend to the Wrath.

3. Darth Jadus - Sue me, I like unapologetically evil characters. Jadus is not just an evil clown, he's an evil circus. Schemer to the core and melodramatic as fuck. I chose to serve him without a second thought in my agent playthrough. I appreciated the name drop on Iokath and I have 1% chance 99% cope that he will return at some point in the story.

2. Darth Occlus/Nox/Imperius - OCs are fun. No further notes. I should probably drop the lore for my verison of this character, huh... maybe in another post.

Darth Marr - Everyone's favourite tired Dad just trying to keep his society from collapsing as his colleagues bicker about inane bullshit. I reckon he drinks coffee straight outta the pot in the Dark Council's break room. I really wish he hadn't died, but his force ghost shenanigans were neat and I liked seeing him find a measure of redemption. Again, I am on a high dose of copium but if Malgus can return after being killed and abandonded on an exploding space station why can't someone scrape Marr off the floor of Zakuul and rebuild him. I do also low-key ship Marr with Satele Shan?

anyway, that's my totally subjective ranking of Dark Council members.

[runekirikjartan]

​🇫​​🇮​​🇨​ ​🇸​​🇪​​🇱​​🇫​-​🇷​​🇪​​🇨​​🇸​

Fic authors self-rec! List your favourite five fics that you've written, then tag at least five other writers! Spread the self-love. 💙

I was tagged by @marloviandevil and have spent the last like 45 minutes agonizing over which fics I feel are worth posting, thank you though bc now I've evaluated and have found some gems I forgot about writing

--

talking to the moon Ship: CT-782 - Hevy/Reader Rating: M Summary: Finding the frequency was an accident. Falling in love with Hevy, that, that was just fate. Why this one: This was the fic I wrote in 24 hours after rewatching the Rishi episode and it was honestly self-indulgent, but it's got both a bittersweet ending and an alternate ending so it's the best of both worlds Status: Finished

--

Signs of the Skrill Ship: Dagur the Deranged/Bragi the Berserk (Original Character), Viggo Grimborn/Original Character(s) Rating: M Summary: As the youngest chief in the Barbaric Archipelago, Dagur the Deranged quickly learned three things; first, you can always forgive but never forget. second, your family is your life, and third, you can't rule alone. Bragi the Berserk has known three things to be true: first, family was what you made it, second, it was entirely possible to be lonely in a room full of people, third, if you give someone your heart, you better hope they would keep it. Two young men attempt to navigate duty, grudges, honour and glory, while trying to keep each other afloat. Why this one: I always wondered what would happen if the How To Train Your Dragon franchise (specifically Race To The Edge) would fare if it met more Game of Thrones style writing. Now I'm definitely not the next GRRM but It has been an interesting explanation into the side characters who had plenty of potential. Currently being re-written from its original finished state. My pride and joy fanfic, have been working on this since 2014 when I first started watching HTTYD and the fic has quite literally grown with me. Status: Unfinished.

--

when the rain comes down Ship: Halfdan the Black/Original Male Character(s) Rating: M Summary: King Harald arrives in Kattegat, Bragi moves to follow his fate, as it comes in the form of brown, wild eyes and blond hair. Why this one: What's a bit of fruitiness within a period-piece drama about vikings? Very dramatic, many liberties taken with plot, a fix-it in the works. Currently being re-written from its original finished state. Status: Unfinished.

--

4. don't wanna cry but i break that way

Ship: Nil Gen Relationship: Hound & Original Clone Trooper(s) Rating: M Summary: Chasers died, either by falling off the multi-levels of Coruscant, or by getting shot, or they went missing in the middle of the night on patrol, or Hound lost them during chases on Coruscant's duracrete sidewalks.

He couldn't get attached. Why this one: Admittedly this is probably one of the best Coruscant Guard centric fics I've written (and there's a lot of them). Hound is a character we see very little of (about 1 minute of screentime) but a man and his dog always make me happy... so I may have given him a little bit of sadness too. Part of the Fox & His Shinies series which is my current pride and joy of Clone Wars fics. Status: Finished.

--

5. the poor run with smoke lungs

Ship: Nil Gen Relationship: CC-1010 | Fox & CT-7567 | Rex, CC-1010 | Fox & Original Clone Troopers (s), Dogma & CC-1010 | Fox Rating: M Summary: A vignette style fic about how the 501st and Coruscant Guard coped with being forced to share a space at General Skywalker's command while the Jedi General tracked down Rako Hardeen for the killing of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Why this one: A part of the Clone Wars that is rarely delved into because it's immediately preceded by Umbara, Kadavo and followed by the Wrong Jedi Arc and the Chip Arc. I didn't think many people realized that the 501st were essentially employed to the senate the whole time that Anakin was hunting down Rako Hardeen. Part of the Fox & His Shinies series which is my current pride and joy of Clone Wars fics. Status: Unfinished.

---

I have honorary mention for: two worlds - COD x Avatar Crossover gen fic. Summary: When Phillip Graves gets the opportunity to venture out onto the remote moon, Pandora, a million miles away, at his little brother's recommendation, he takes it with open arms.

--- Tagging - only if you want to! @mamuzzy-creates-stuff/@mamuzzy, @whiskygoldwings, @ithillia, @blackat-t7t, @kworking

[houseofbrat]

A carefully constructed plan inspired by Operation Bubble which protected the late Queen from Covid-19 was thrown into action.

He would have weekly treatment in London and factor in vital periods of rest time at Sandringham, Highgrove and Windsor.

But his health plan was thrown into turmoil when Prince Harry announced he would jet from Los Angeles to see his father.

While the King delayed his helicopter flight from Buckingham Palace to Sandringham, his wayward son was given just 30 minutes of his company at Clarence House.

Plans were in place to avoid the King contacting a secondary infection and Harry flying 5,000 miles on a jet was not ideal.

Aides prevented Harry, 39, joining his father at Sandringham fearing “we’d never get rid of him” and he needed to reduce his social contact while undergoing cancer treatment.

[...]

But the King was withdrawn from all public duty for 103 days although he continued reading government red boxes.

It can now be revealed the decision to postpone his public facing role was made as a “precautionary measure” because of the King’s diminished immune response to other diseases.

The Royal Household copied Covid-style protocols — or tiers imposed by the Government during the pandemic — to minimise secondary infection such as seasonal cold or flu.

A source said: “We had to minimise potential risk from other people, not because he couldn’t do the job.”

But as winter turned into spring and weather became warmer it meant they could relax the Covid-style tiers.

This was demonstrated when the King emerged from the Easter Sunday service and was greeted by 60 well-wishers at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.

Just days earlier, the monarch and his team had received news that the treatment had gone better than anyone could have expected.

One insider said: “He was raring to go after the positive results and didn’t want to hang around any longer”.

It meant the King told aides that a trip to Australia, seen as the most important tour a monarch will ever take, must go ahead in the autumn, as first revealed by The Sun.

In May, his public comeback began at London's University College Hospital MacMillan Cancer Centre where he told patients he was having treatment later that day and confessed in an off-script moment he had lost his sense of taste.

[...]

Around 27,000 messages and get well soon cards had been sent to the King and Princess of Wales, and he told then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak some of the “wonderful messages and cards” have “reduced me to tears”.

Despite the King’s positivity and drive to return to work and tour Australia, his aides and doctors remain “protective” about how many hours a day he can carry out public-facing duties.

While famous for being a “workaholic” with Harry and William once saying they would find him in his office working during the night, the King has been made to restrict public face-to-face interaction to only five hours a day.

This is expected to be the same when he goes to Australia with Camilla in October where the tour is expected to have engagements on around seven days.

Sources explain rest and recuperation are built into the King's usually hectic schedule so he is not exhausted.

[...]

In truth, if it was not the cancer then the prostate procedure would have stopped him riding at Trooping, it is said.

Amid the recovery his personal doctor Michael Dixon, previously slated and accused of backing controversial homeopathy, has been credited with aiding his recovery with a programme of complementary treatment.

The King will now spend summer months at Birkhall on the Balmoral estate and be surrounded by family, including the Princess of Wales who is continuing her own cancer journey.

He will keep a positive frame of mind tending his garden, taking long walks, painting and fishing.

And he will be ready and raring to go for Australia in October where his recovery could be even further down the line.

The trip Down Under which includes speaking at Common wealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa is expected to last less than two weeks including travel and take in Sydney and Canberra.

[...]

The King has been open about his prostate problem and cancer but it is unlikely he will now specifically name which cancer he has, so that to “reach out and embrace as many people as he can impacted by cancer. The more specific you are the fewer people you are able to engage and support.”

Of making the news public, an insider said: “I can’t tell you what a difference that has made for him, it came with his support.

“When presented with facts of how many suffered enlarged prostate, and that there was a public health campaign and therefore some good can come of his personal setback, he totally got that and has been genuinely bowled over by the scale of response to that and cancer itself.”

On social channels, Buckingham Palace has collaborated with charities MacMillan, Maggie’s and Cancer Research UK.

And when the King chose his comeback event, he attended University Hospitals cancer ward where he bonded with patients revealing he had lost his sense of taste and had treatment later that day.

But a source added: “Never say never. There are no current plans to reveal the cancer.

“But if he felt that the time was right . . . ”

[archive link]

[justforbooks]

Inevitably, they are rich. Extremely rich. Very, very rich. There are the things you can see: the castles, the country estates and the top-of-the-range cars with which to drive between them. There are enough horses to stable an entire stud. There are the exquisite jewels and enormous gems glittering at state banquets.

There are the things you can’t see, too: the sprawling tax-free hereditary property firms and the share portfolio acquired with their annual dividends. There are the works of art in the family’s private collections, rarely, if ever, publicly exhibited. So if we already know all this, why, on the eve of the coronation of King Charles III, investigate the wealth of the British royal family?

The first and simplest answer is that we simply ought to know. From 10 Downing Street to your local district council, the private finances of public servants are fair game for scrutiny where they are derived from public funds. If anything, the need for clarity here is greater: Rishi Sunak and the mayor take money from the public purse only temporarily. The life of the king is funded at taxpayer expense from birth to death.

The second answer is that, to be blunt, the Windsors act as if they have something to hide. The finances are murky as hell, and structured according to a formula that means their annual handouts can only go up, never down. For several decades their shareholdings were owned through a secret shell company at the Bank of England that was immune from national transparency law. The judiciary has sealed their wills from public scrutiny in secret hearings for the past century. This is not the behaviour of a family relaxed about the prospect of an informed citizenry.

The question is not merely how wealthy he is, the question is: how much of the king’s private wealth is derived from his public role? Only once Britain has an answer to that can it discuss the most important question of all: is this really a good way to spend public money?

Just how rich is he? The first problem with valuing King Charles III’s private wealth is that nobody knows precisely how rich he is, probably including him. Centuries of dynastic marriages with the British aristocracy and the royal houses of Europe have produced a family whose personal history is intertwined with Britain’s national story, and whose personal wealth is inextricable from their public position.

Take the Cullinan III and IV diamonds: two gems cleaved from the largest diamond ever discovered and presented as a gift from the South African government to the king’s great-grandmother Queen Mary in 1910. She wore them in her coronation crown and later as a pair in a brooch, which was left to the queen and then, presumably, the king (the family pays no inheritance tax as long as assets are bequeathed monarch-to-monarch). Elizabeth inherited the brooch in 1953 when Mary died, rather than in 1952 when she became queen. That indicates that the jewels are private. But by modern standards, they were clearly official gifts, so shouldn’t they be national heritage?

The second problem is the culture of extreme deference and secrecy that surrounds the royal family. This is partly a result of a media environment that covers the Windsors as dysfunctional celebrity aristocrats, rather than figures of serious political or constitutional significance. It has created a culture in which the royal institution itself is above normal standards of scrutiny, and where any remotely uncomfortable or probing question, no matter how valid, is ignored or dismissed by default.

Palace responses to questions about the king’s wealth ranged from “we’re too busy, perhaps we’ll respond next week” to “that’s really none of your business”. Questions about which jewels were owned by the state went unanswered. At one point the press office announced it was too busy to respond to further questions until after the coronation. Issued the same day as a palace statement about a celebratory quiche, this did not feel especially convincing. When pushed, the king’s spokesperson said: “Your figures are a highly creative mix of speculation, assumption and inaccuracy.”

The short answer is that, all told, we think Charles is worth at least £1.8bn. But it’s the longer answer, about how the king came to be worth so much, that is more interesting. Excursions to the parliamentary archives to dig out accounts for their hereditary estates unearthed cash payments to the king and his late mother dating back to 1952. That the king and his mother together pocketed more than £1.2bn in annual dividends from the estates (adjusted for inflation) was just as breathtaking as the discovery that they were paying themselves about 10 times more by the end of her reign than they were at the start.

Then you find the gifts. There are the mint-condition stamps from the governments of Cambodia and Laos that have, it appears, been subsumed into the family’s private stamp collection (estimated value: £100m). There are the works of art: an illustrated Bible from the modernist master Marc Chagall, or an etching from Salvador Dalí, both presented to Prince Philip during official visits overseas and both subsequently exhibited as being part of his “personal collection”. The monarchy’s own policy says that gifts from other monarchs “as a general rule” enter the national collection of state heritage, but two diamond necklaces given to the late queen by Saudi kings are mysteriously absent.

You also find lingering traces of the dark moments in Britain’s history. A 100-year-old memo in the British Library records the looting of the city of Lahore in 1849 and the theatrical presentation of plundered diamonds, rubies, pearls and emeralds to an ecstatic Queen Victoria. Once the pride of the British empire, the Koh-i-noor diamond now sits in a vault in some strange, disgraced hinterland: to wear it would be too offensive, to return it to its rightful owners too humiliating.

The historian Brooke Newman discovered a page in a 17th-century share register documenting the transfer of £1,000 of shares in the Royal African Company from the slaver Edward Colston to William III, the first of 14 monarchs to either cultivate the slave trade or harvest its profits. Perhaps revealingly, this was the one dimension of our inquiries to startle the palace into issuing an extended public statement describing how “profoundly seriously” Charles considered the matter.

Does the king need a state grant? The immediate political question flowing from the king’s wealth is obvious. If the family is this rich, why does it need an annual sovereign grant (currently £86m a year) from parliament? Why are the multimillion-pound payments from the hereditary estates not paid to the Treasury, or at least taken into consideration when setting their annual stipend? Alternatively, if the estates are genuinely private assets, why don’t they pay corporation tax?

After that come much more difficult questions about how a constitutional monarchy behaves in a modern society. Behind the pomp, the wealth and the opulence is a lurking sense of a monarchy designed for the more deferential age of the 19th century, when its purpose was fuzzy but simple: unite and represent the nation.

This, however, is a 21st-century coronation. Whether multimillion-pound salaries and disdain for difficult questions can really unite and represent the values of a modern democracy remains to be seen.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[mariacallous]

During recent riots in the United Kingdom, it was not lost on on the British public—or on the new Starmer government—that when riots last occurred in Britain in 2011, then-Mayor of London Boris Johnson didn’t come back from his vacation. True, Johnson wasn’t in charge of the country, only a city—albeit a capital of 8 million people at the time—but the man nonetheless seemingly had other things on his mind.

The Johnson era, during which Johnson clowned his way from mayor to foreign secretary to prime minister via the disaster that was Brexit, is one the new Labour government is working at hyper-speed to leave behind.

It is less than two months after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer won his decisive election victory on July 4, but the subsequent manner and style of governance in the United Kingdom could not be more different from previous administrations.

Starmer has demonstrated a professionalism that was absent during the years of mayhem that followed the 2016 Brexit referendum, as Britain lurched from the floundering Theresa May, via the buffoonery of Johnson, to the brief calamity that was Liz Truss, to the fin de siècle Rishi Sunak.

Starmer has been resolute on Ukraine (allowing most but not all U.K.-made heavy weaponry to be deployed for Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region of Russia). He has instructed his ministers to develop ambitious policy on priority areas (such as loosening planning restrictions and boosting renewable energy). He has taken on his own party’s left wing (banishing a group of Labour ministers of parliament for trying to increase child welfare payments). And he has been tough on the Tory legacy (attacking the former administration at every turn).

Most of all, he has wielded an iron grip on the machinery of government.

All that was before the copycat unrest in at least a dozen cities that followed the murder of three schoolgirls, an attack falsely attributed by far-right bloggers to a Muslim immigrant.

Starmer responded to the riots, which early on threatened to overwhelm the police, in Robocop fashion. Reinforcements were sent from one region to another to stave off repeats and to arrest perpetrators at the time of the riots and afterward.

Each day has seen tough law and order meted out. Although Starmer did not instruct judges to take a hard line—the executive and judicial branches of power fiercely guard their independence in the U.K.—judges handed down unprecedented jail sentences, in some cases up to six years, for disorder.

Several people have been jailed for posting inflammatory anti-immigrant comments online, a clampdown that has irked free speech absolutists (including, noisily, X owner Elon Musk), but has so far largely drawn support.

The right-wing newspapers, which still dominate the British media landscape, felt they had no choice but to support the government in its zero-tolerance approach. But their hearts weren’t really in it; after all, they had been goading citizens to rise up against the liberal elite for years, decrying those very same judges as “enemies of the people” when they objected to May’s attempts to push Brexit through without a parliamentary vote.

Just over a week after the unrest broke out, order was restored. The prime minister had passed his first test—a test that was tailor-made for a former director of public prosecutions. Starmer is a rare example of a leading British politician who ran a major civil service before moving into politics. And driving home his serious juxtaposition with his predecessors, Starmer decided to cancel his family holiday after the riots broke out.

Conservative media outlets were left chomping at the bit for an opening to criticize the new government. As soon as they sniffed an opportunity, they took it. The object of their fire was Starmer’s right-hand woman, Downing Street Chief of Staff Sue Gray. Once the Mail on Sunday broke the story of a feud between Gray and the prime minister’s other chief consigliere, Morgan McSweeney, the man charged with political strategy, the other newspapers piled on.

Gray has long enjoyed (or suffered from) a legendary status in the British government; for six years she oversaw propriety across the civil service. It was said, somewhat dramatically, that she instilled fear along every corridor of power.

Her moment in the international limelight came when she was appointed during her time as Second Permanent Secretary in the Cabinet Office to investigate the “partygate” affair, in which Johnson and his bibulous friends were accused of frolicking inside 10 Downing Street during the COVID-19 pandemic, not only failing in their duties to try to manage the pandemic but also breaking the social distancing rules they had set for the public. “Wait for Sue Gray” became the mantra of ministers when asked to predict the result of the long-delayed enquiry. When her report eventually came, it was sharply critical but stopped short of ending ministerial (or prime ministerial) careers.

Shortly after, when Starmer poached Gray from supposed civil service neutrality to head his office in opposition and then in government, many Conservatives were furious. They have been gunning for Gray ever since.

The Mail’s most serious allegation was that the prime minister was being denied important security briefings because Gray was blocking access to him, a charge that was angrily denied. More plausibly, her detractors say she has been creating bottlenecks as she hoards power. The story was a mix of “silly season” mid-summer journalism, possibly fueled with an extra dose of misogyny. It was certainly exaggerated, but not necessarily without foundation: one of those cases of not quite right, but not quite wrong either.

Starmer has been annoyed by the stories, but also perhaps a part of him accepts that they are unavoidable collateral damage from having an uber-enforcer by your side. All prime ministers assume that they are never more powerful than at the start of their tenure, and they must move quickly. Then-Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke of the “scars on his back” as he struggled to reform public services in the face of an obdurate bureaucracy.

Armed with a huge parliamentary majority, Starmer is determined to steamroll all opposition to his plans to drag the U.K. out of its economic and civic mire. The more his ministers dig, the more they claim to be shocked by the state of the inheritance from the Tories. The public mood is sour, and they know they have limited time to demonstrate real-life improvements before the blame shifts to them and votes perhaps start to shift back to the right-wing populists, toward Nigel Farage and his recently hatched Reform party.

While the Conservatives have settled comfortably into opposition (some former ministers are earning serious sums of money on the right-wing U.S. and international speaker circuit), Starmer has been a non-stop frenzy of activity since July 4.

He took on a series of international summits and made sure in the remaining three weeks of parliament that several legislative announcements were made. Then, just as he was preparing to catch his breath for a week off in the sun, the riots took place.

Starmer’s biggest challenges have yet to come. He may have headed off the unrest, but he has not eliminated the causes of it—discontent over the state of the British economy and public services, from its health service to housing to the state of the streets. These issues have entrenched a deep-seated loss of trust in politicians and their ability to bring about change.

Across Europe and beyond, it has become axiomatic to compare populists, who throw caution to the wind, with mainstream leaders who are wary of taking risks and of being bold. Starmer has already shown determination and ruthlessness. His first weeks in office suggest he might buck the trend.

And a postscript: Earlier this month, Johnson’s sister tried to solve the mystery of the mayor’s disappearing act a decade ago. Rachel Johnson said on her radio show that her brother had been with his family driving around Canada and didn’t have phone signal for much of the trip. When he did learn of the emergency, he couldn’t leave his then-wife and their four children, as her feet couldn’t reach the pedals of their large trailer. “That is why—I kid you not—he didn’t come back immediately,” she insisted. “He had to drive the RV to an international airport and then fly back.” Not all listeners were convinced.

[ronanceautistic]

US voting is a little dumb… so since there are two main parties everyone votes for (either the democrat candidate or republican candidate), each individual state will have more people who voted for one candidate or the other. there’s the electoral college (which is BS), where each state gets a number of electors (the number depends on how many senators + representatives they have in congress. bigger state = bigger number). the electors vote based on what the majority party the state ends up being. so for example: if a state has more people voting democrat then republican, then their electors will have to all vote democrat. there are 538 electors total, so either candidate needs to get at least 270 electoral votes to win. it is possible (though rare) for the popular vote to be for a different candidate than who the electoral college chooses, which is what happened in 2016. 

in the UK (over-simplifying but) it's split into like 300 and something regions I think, whichever party wins in that region gets a seat in the government. whichever party gets the majority of seats gets the prime minister.

Prime Minister basically every time is Conservative or Labour. Most decent people vote for Labour even though Green Party is better because Green will never win lol. There are also independent parties. This year in I think Islington Jeremy Corbin won a seat as an independent in a landslide. Pretty rare for independents to get any significant votes, but it's Jeremy Corbin so it makes sense.

A lot of the Torys very much lost faith in their own government and voted for someone else(Reform prob) or just didn't vote at all, which meant Labour won in a landslide this time. Tory's are awful but a lot less culty the MAGA fans, so as soon as they started feeling the (economic) effects of their own shitty government they turned on them. I remember a while back Rishi started spouting some transphobic BS in an effort to try and get them rallying around him again but instead a lot of the Torys were kinda just like "well, I agree, but literally who cares right now?" and saw through it.

Anyways ramble over.

[coochiequeens]

Sounds like TRAs are pissed that by supporting the LGBTQ but still recognizing that biology is real she’s not being obedient enough.

Tory MP Penny Mordaunt has said she sees “no incompatibility” with protecting both trans rights and women’s rights – appearing to U-turn on comments she made when she ran for Conservative Party leader.

In a new interview, the leader of the House of Commons claimed she is “here for all of my constituents” and said her job as a politician is to “bring people together”. 

“I see no incompatibility with being kind and understanding, and protecting the ability for trans people to go around and live their lives, with protecting my rights as a woman to privacy and dignity,” she told Nick Robinson on BBC podcast Political Thinking.

Her comments come after both prime minister Rishi Sunak and home secretary Suella Braverman have used attacks on the trans community and banal rhetoric about penises for political leverage, with deputy chairman Lee Anderson evening claiming that the Tories would fight the next election on “a mix of culture wars and trans debate”.

“The world is a dangerous and an uncertain place, and we’ve got enough things to worry about than starting spats on Twitter … and culture wars,” Mordaunt added. 

When Robinson claimed her position that “trans women are women, and trans men are men” had previously caused Mordaunt political problems, she explained that “people’s rights in law” was a separate issue to biology. 

“We’re talking about people’s rights in law, not biology. That’s the difference, and I’ve been very clear on that.”

Mordaunt added that her views on the trans community “have always been very clear” and “were very clear throughout the whole leadership contest”. 

Despite her claim that her support for the trans community was “clear”, the MP has previously flip-flopped on the issue of LGBTQ+ rights. 

During her time as equalities minister, Mordaunt was seen as a rare ally to the LGBTQ+ community among the Conservatives, marching in Pride parades and vowing to end conversion therapy.

In 2020, she explained that seeing the prejudice her gay twin brother James faced when he came out in the 1980s inspired her to become an ally.

“I see a direct parallel between what he went through and what the trans community are going through today, which is why I think it is really important that we show our support at every opportunity,” she said at the time.

Her support for LGBTQ+ rights came into question during the 2022 Conservative leadership race, however, facing criticism due to a Twitter thread in which she said biology was “overwhelmingly important”.

“I am biologically a woman. If I have a hysterectomy or mastectomy, I am still a woman. And I am legally a woman,” she wrote.

“Some people born male and who have been through the gender recognition process are also legally female. That DOES NOT mean they are biological women, like me.”

In the lengthy Twitter thread, she spoke about her opposition to so-called “trans orthodoxy”, claiming she supports a “science-based” approach to the question of trans women’s inclusion in sports and would not “undermine” women’s rights.

She added in a later interview that she had “never supported self-ID” for trans people. 

Due to the Twitter thread, Mordaunt was accused of ‘throwing trans people under the bus’in order to go further during the leadership race, before pulling out in October 2022, leaving Rishi Sunak to take the job of unelected prime minister.

Penny Mordaunt added during the Political Thinking show that she and her twin brother James had previously had “different views” when it came to politics, but insisted things were “not awkward” between them. 

James has previously criticised members of the Conservative Party for being “complicit” in anti-LGBTQ+ hatred, adding that the party was “pushing LGBTQ+ rights backwards at an alarming rate”. 

“If you are a member of the Conservative Party, a Conservative MP, part of this homophobic, transphobic government, you are complicit,” he said on Twitter. 

Mordaunt explained on the show that “people have different views. members of my family have different views. And that’s democracy”.

Penny and her twin brother have different political views yet things aren’t awkward? And no one has cut each other off? That alone is completely counter to what TRA personalities like Jeffery Marsh spew.

Any ladies in the UK please comment

[magnus-sm-writes]

10k Update

I’ve decided I’m going to do a revamp of my writing updates for every 10,000 words I write. It’s a pretty good way to keep up with everything I write that doesn’t make it in the monthly update by virtue of it just being too damn long ago.

It’s pretty early in the month for me to have already reached 10,000 words, but I’ll admit I’ve been a bit of a powerhouse lately with my writing. Maybe it’s because I haven’t slept much? I always seem to be more creative when I’m a little loopy. My brand of creativity seems to thrive when I’m just slightly off-balance.

Regardless, I’m thrilled to say that I’ve written some pretty decent work so far. 

The first thing I wrote for was for Silver Storm, a novel that features Hiprax, the son of a silver dragon. It takes place in my Dragonworld, a world that is literally made of a sleeping dragon. Undoubtedly my coolest worldbuilding ever, and perhaps even my magnum opus when it comes to worldbuilding.

(I hope not, but as of now, it is.)

My husband adores this most of anything I’ve ever written for Silver Storm. This was wonderful for my ego; he’s pretty tough on books. Especially my fantasy books, because that is the main genre he reads. For him to shower this snippet with compliments… it does things to a man’s confidence.

I did work on part of this last month. Obviously inspired by Baldur’s Gate 3, I went a little further into Hiprax’s experience adapting to dracon culture after he loses his mother, Vrynnd. Having been raised as a sitaav elve (this world’s equivalent of a frost elf), he’s disconnected from the draconic origin of his life. So much so that he doesn’t know his father is a dragon at all and just believes him to be a dracon, the offspring of dragons.

That’s a lot of worldbuilding to contextualize an excerpt, but again, I’m nothing if not wordy.

Hiprax does not believe himself to show many draconic traits. There are, of course, the obvious: he loves shiny things, he loves great heights, he loves the wind against his scales. He wouldn’t count himself as having the same type of pride that other dracons do. 

Then, I decided I would fully commit to editing my Q1 Short Stories™ and began my edit of “The Boy & The Hag Stone”. Since I’ve already edited “Plastic Fangs”, and because I spoke about “Hag Stone” more recently, I chose it to edit instead of my beloved vampires. 

Banshee is a very special character to me. In the words of Laszlo Cravensworth:

“He’s my best friend, he’s my pal, he’s my homeboy, my rotten soldier, my sweet cheese, my good time boy.”

Which is, of course, how I feel about all of my Weirdo Characters™, but especially Banshee. I gave Banshee some parts of myself: his wild, dark hair, his uncanny stare, his hatred of shoes. (I really fucking hate shoes.) To Rishi, I gave my love of run-on sentences and cup noodles. 

Here’s my favorite tiny excerpt from his edit!

Banshee was a ghost, a lost soul, a feral child all grown up. He never left footprints; instead, asphodels grew wherever he walked. Every time he predicted rain, there was, and every time he predicted clear skies, there were.

I got very obsessed with Brutus (of Julius Caesar fame) for a brief period of time. So obsessed I wrote a poem and half of a short story about him. My Brutus obsession has resulted in poem before, but very rarely do I allow a poem to germinate into a short story.

This short story was pretty unique. I did it in the style of “The Cannon” by Kelly Link: a Q&A. My husband liked it only because of the “interesting form” and not so much for the content, because he is “not interested in that sort of thing” (i.e., writing about Roman politicians doing an interview in maybe-Purgatory.) I’ll give him points, though; the style is pretty unconventional.

Q: Did it hurt?

A: Does pulling a tooth hurt? Does drinking poison hurt? Of course it did. It hurt as though I was stabbing myself. His blood looked exactly like mine. 

It’s not finished yet, but I think it’s more of a way to adventure into different forms than a way to tell an actual story. There’s some slappage there, though.

Then I worked on some blog posts, including a WIP intro and some character intros for Double-Trickery! This is one of my favorite books to write for. Penny and Mavuto’s dynamic is something pretty unique in my work. Every couple I write is some level of codependent, but learning necromancy just because you think your best friend (or the “love of your life”) is dead? Damn, that’s conviction.

That’s the wrap-up for now! In all, I’m quite pleased with all I’ve done as of late. It’s only been six days, and I’m already in the double digits when it comes to word count. Hell yeah!

Tag list: @jacqueswriteblrlibrary

[bala5]

The artist formerly known as Prince

Inevitably, they are rich. Extremely rich. Very, very rich. There are the things you can see: the castles, the country estates and the top-of-the-range cars with which to drive between them. There are enough horses to stable an entire stud. There are the exquisite jewels and enormous gems glittering at state banquets.

There are the things you can’t see, too: the sprawling tax-free hereditary property firms and the share portfolio acquired with their annual dividends. There are the works of art in the family’s private collections, rarely, if ever, publicly exhibited. So if we already know all this, why, on the eve of the coronation of King Charles III, investigate the wealth of the British royal family?

The first and simplest answer is that we simply ought to know. From 10 Downing Street to your local district council, the private finances of public servants are fair game for scrutiny where they are derived from public funds. If anything, the need for clarity here is greater: Rishi Sunak and the mayor take money from the public purse only temporarily. The life of the king is funded at taxpayer expense from birth to death.

The second answer is that, to be blunt, the Windsors act as if they have something to hide. The finances are murky as hell, and structured according to a formula that means their annual handouts can only go up, never down. For several decades their shareholdings were owned through a secret shell company at the Bank of England that was immune from national transparency law. The judiciary has sealed their wills from public scrutiny in secret hearings for the past century. This is not the behaviour of a family relaxed about the prospect of an informed citizenry.

The question is not merely how wealthy he is, the question is: how much of the king’s private wealth is derived from his public role? Only once Britain has an answer to that can it discuss the most important question of all: is this really a good way to spend public money?

Just how rich is he?

The first problem with valuing King Charles III’s private wealth is that nobody knows precisely how rich he is, probably including him. Centuries of dynastic marriages with the British aristocracy and the royal houses of Europe have produced a family whose personal history is intertwined with Britain’s national story, and whose personal wealth is inextricable from their public position.

Take the Cullinan III and IV diamonds: two gems cleaved from the largest diamond ever discovered and presented as a gift from the South African government to the king’s great-grandmother Queen Mary in 1910. She wore them in her coronation crown and later as a pair in a brooch, which was left to the queen and then, presumably, the king (the family pays no inheritance tax as long as assets are bequeathed monarch-to-monarch). Elizabeth inherited the brooch in 1953 when Mary died, rather than in 1952 when she became queen. That indicates that the jewels are private. But by modern standards, they were clearly official gifts, so shouldn’t they be national heritage?

The second problem is the culture of extreme deference and secrecy that surrounds the royal family. This is partly a result of a media environment that covers the Windsors as dysfunctional celebrity aristocrats, rather than figures of serious political or constitutional significance. It has created a culture in which the royal institution itself is above normal standards of scrutiny, and where any remotely uncomfortable or probing question, no matter how valid, is ignored or dismissed by default.

Palace responses to questions about the king’s wealth ranged from “we’re too busy, perhaps we’ll respond next week” to “that’s really none of your business”. Questions about which jewels were owned by the state went unanswered. At one point the press office announced it was too busy to respond to further questions until after the coronation. Issued the same day as a palace statement about a celebratory quiche, this did not feel especially convincing. When pushed, the king’s spokesperson said: “Your figures are a highly creative mix of speculation, assumption and inaccuracy.”

The short answer is that, all told, we think Charles is worth at least £1.8bn. But it’s the longer answer, about how the king came to be worth so much, that is more interesting. Excursions to the parliamentary archives to dig out accounts for their hereditary estates unearthed cash payments to the king and his late mother dating back to 1952. That the king and his mother together pocketed more than £1.2bn in annual dividends from the estates (adjusted for inflation) was just as breathtaking as the discovery that they were paying themselves about 10 times more by the end of her reign than they were at the start.

Then you find the gifts. There are the mint-condition stamps from the governments of Cambodia and Laos that have, it appears, been subsumed into the family’s private stamp collection (estimated value: £100m). There are the works of art: an illustrated Bible from the modernist master Marc Chagall, or an etching from Salvador Dalí, both presented to Prince Philip during official visits overseas and both subsequently exhibited as being part of his “personal collection”. The monarchy’s own policy says that gifts from other monarchs “as a general rule” enter the national collection of state heritage, but two diamond necklaces given to the late queen by Saudi kings are mysteriously absent.

You also find lingering traces of the dark moments in Britain’s history. A 100-year-old memo in the British Library records the looting of the city of Lahore in 1849 and the theatrical presentation of plundered diamonds, rubies, pearls and emeralds to an ecstatic Queen Victoria. Once the pride of the British empire, the Koh-i-noor diamond now sits in a vault in some strange, disgraced hinterland: to wear it would be too offensive, to return it to its rightful owners too humiliating.

The historian Brooke Newman discovered a page in a 17th-century share register documenting the transfer of £1,000 of shares in the Royal African Company from the slaver Edward Colston to William III, the first of 14 monarchs to either cultivate the slave trade or harvest its profits. Perhaps revealingly, this was the one dimension of our inquiries to startle the palace into issuing an extended public statement describing how “profoundly seriously” Charles considered the matter.

Does the king need a state grant?

The immediate political question flowing from the king’s wealth is obvious. If the family is this rich, why does it need an annual sovereign grant (currently £86m a year) from parliament? Why are the multimillion-pound payments from the hereditary estates not paid to the Treasury, or at least taken into consideration when setting their annual stipend? Alternatively, if the estates are genuinely private assets, why don’t they pay corporation tax?

After that come much more difficult questions about how a constitutional monarchy behaves in a modern society. Behind the pomp, the wealth and the opulence is a lurking sense of a monarchy designed for the more deferential age of the 19th century, when its purpose was fuzzy but simple: unite and represent the nation.

This, however, is a 21st-century coronation. Whether multimillion-pound salaries and disdain for difficult questions can really unite and represent the values of a modern democracy remains to be seen.

[tiredassmage]

800 years later, finally settling in for @kemendin mentioned me for an AO3 by stats thing, SO! Here goes <3

Most Hits: before the new dawn, one of two fics I wrote for Far Cry 5 back in uhhhh 2019? I'm actually still immensely proud of both of these. BTND in particular is a rewrite of the end of the game to give my poor Deputy and the companions a bit of a softer end, and was ultimately a part of a larger hc string of events that was meant to set up Alastar & Joey for an appearance in the ~sequel, Far Cry: New Dawn which, perhaps a bit to my shame, lmao, is still a game I need to finish uhhh.. 4 years later. oops?

the second fic for FC5 is, fun fact, my second highest in hits.

for exclusively SWTOR however, that honor goes to answer together, not to my surprise, lol. a short spin around the quinncident with one of my f!warriors and, of course, our beloved quinn.

Most Kudos: another close race between before the new dawn (27) and answer together (26).

Most Comments: sksk gently pushes answer together under the rug because it'd take this one, too, but uhhh second place goes to take me, which is. special in my heart and probably one I'd like to hold up like simba for more attention, if I could chose one, hehe! it sees tyr try to grapple with some of the implications of having survived the destruction of marr's fleet and now being saddle with the alliance, all with theron at his side, of course.

Most Bookmarks: I'll give you one guess. so this list is not literally several entries of the same, the second place of this one is overcoming us, an entry of rhystyl and savosta's unexpected alliance turned friendship, circa the coalition of yavin iv. it's one of the earliest moments savosta seeks advice from rhyst after they grew unexpectedly close battling the revanites and the implications of the emperor's plans together on rishi.

Most Words: wweeee! variety! i'm still going to give the top two though skfnslfd. technical top spot goes to when the sirens call our names (3,178), a brief exploration of iokath because my one pain in life of tyr siding with the republic on iokath and being sent back to spy on the empire later is where the fuck do they put quinn after this, give him back. this needs a bit of a rework in my head though, so for now, i've kind of cut it out of canon.

second place then is sacrifice (3,165), another entry for savosta and rhyst focused around the events of asylum in kotfe: taking flight.

also the technical champion is a fic i wrote eons ago for a pixel horse game which is still probably my favorite work i did for that fandom but do not perceive me lmaooo

Fewest Words: lovedrunk and other ramblings; a single prompt fill for uhh kinktober one year. this was the only one i finished and it will probably remain that way, lmao. i very rarely write bedroom material (awkward aces club), but! this one i loved enough. it's for astor & eden (@fatewalker-phoenix), who ofc deserve all nice things. so of course the prompt was body worship.

i have... no idea which friends have and haven't been tagged/done this at this point so!!! ao3 writer friends i am perceiving you. if you want. eyes emoji and heart emojis and etc etc etc

[sankirtan]

This song, "Yadi Prabhupada Na Hoito," beautifully composed by Jayapataka Swami Maharaj, pays heartfelt tribute to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the beloved founder of ISKCON. Srila Prabhupada brought Lord Caitanya’s teachings to the West, sharing the grace of Lord Nityananda and spreading Lord Gauranga’s love across the world. Through his profound compassion, he taught the bliss of Harinaam, the joy of service, and guided millions on a spiritual path with his timeless wisdom. The video includes footage from Hare Krishna! The Mantra, the Movement, and the Swami Who Started It All (2017) by director John Griesser. For a deeper insight into Srila Prabhupada’s life and mission, watch this inspiring documentary. Credits Singer: Srijan Rishi Insta handle - srijan5228 English Lyrics: [Verse 1] If Srila Prabhupad had not come our way, What would have happened, how could we stay? Who else would share Lord Nityananda’s grace, And spread Gauranga’s love in every place? [Verse 2] Which compassionate soul would strive, To save the sinful, to help them thrive? Miscreants lost in void and mist, Who would reach out and help them exist? [chorus] If Srila Prabhupada had not been here,- What would have happened, tell me, my dear? Without his guidance, how would we find life, In a world so lost, full of struggle and fear? [Verse 3] Who else would come to share Harinaam’s bliss, Transforming our lives, we can’t miss this? Coming forward with love so grand, To guide them gently with a loving hand. [Verse 4] Who would teach to worship our lordships, Conducting Ratha-yatra and grand feast Who would have taught scriptures so clear Guiding on right path, with wisdom sincere [chorus] If Srila Prabhupada had not been here, What would have happened, tell me, my dear? Without his guidance, how would we find life, In a world so lost, filled with struggle and fear? [Verse 5] Who would endure the trials and strife, Distributing Harinama, giving us life? Granting us dhamas, Mayapur’s grace, Vrindavan, Jagannatha Puri’s embrace. [Verse 6] The teachings of Caitanya, a treasure so rare, Who else would engage us to practice and share? Engaging our hearts in the mission so true, Preaching the love that’s forever new. [Verse 7] Sri Nitai Gaura, desire trees of love, Jayapataka’s heart seeks mercy from above. Desiring a drop of mercy so sweet, In Your divine grace, our hearts feel complete. [chorus] If Srila Prabhupada had not been here, What would have happened, tell me, my dear? Without his guidance, how would we find life, In a world so lost, filled with struggle and fear? Thank you for joining us in honouring Srila Prabhupada's incredible legacy.

(via "What If Srila Prabhupada Had Not Come | Yadi Prabhupada Na Hoito English Version" - YouTube)

[sa7abnews]

Keir Starmer’s war on populism is just beginning

New Post has been published on https://sa7ab.info/2024/08/06/keir-starmers-war-on-populism-is-just-beginning/

Keir Starmer’s war on populism is just beginning

The nature and significance of Labour’s general election victory on 4 July is already being contested. There is one view, popular across the Atlantic and in the seats of besieged liberal democracies, that Keir Starmer’s victory represents a chink in the populist armour. After fourteen years of turmoil, the UK elected a shrewd centrist, defying the dual tides of populism and polarisation by granting Labour a commanding majority.  It is a story so compelling, reassuring even, because it diverges drastically from the realities unfolding in other democracies. The Labour leader, Saint Keir, has slayed the populist leviathan at the apparent peak of its powers globally. Starmer’s is a story replete, this telling runs, with lessons for like-minded small “l” liberals the Western world over. A version of this tale is popular in Labour circles too: that Starmer’s path to power can be plotted through the defeat of at least two populists, namely Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson. But this “How Labour Defeated Populism” narrative, seductive as it seems, misunderstands both the nature of Starmer’s victory and the enduring threat posed by his political foes. Before one accounts for the election’s low voter turnout or Labour’s 33.4 per cent share of it, the slightest squint at Britain’s reforged political landscape reveals a novel force: Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, winner of five seats on 14 per cent of the vote. The threat posed by Britain’s ascendant Faragists in Reform will be both familiar and not to this new, politically ascendant Keir Starmer.  During his time in No 10, Rishi Sunak often indulged in the policies, rhetoric and tropes of those to his populist right in a failed process of accommodation. Viewed in full, the ex-PM’s administration was less scandalous than some of its precursors — but Starmer deftly dismissed it as of the same “performative” strain.  The inexorable demise of Sunak’s government coincided with its embrace of “wedge” issues, such as the symbolic upending of the net zero consensus and its brave intervention in Labour’s “war on the motorist”. On the axis of the Conservative Party’s Uxbridge by-election — won by stressing Starmer’s ULEZ complicity — the focus, if not the fate, of Sunak’s government swung.  Suddenly, Sunak abandoned simple governing for governing’s sake and prioritised a more pressing objective: ensuring Keir Starmer feels as uncomfortable as politically possible. Throughout the summer of 2023 and beyond, Sunak undertook to provoke Labour weekly on some new divisive, salient issue; (unfortunately for the PM, they were often the former, but rarely the latter).  Sunak’s post-Uxbridge tilt enabled Starmer to stress the continuity of recent Conservative administrations and their alleged obsession with “exhausting”, “fatiguing” politics. On these terms, Starmer began to mould his own election “dividing line”, as he highlighted the potent contrast between “performative” and “effective” government.  This rhetorical dichotomy featured front and centre of Labour’s election pitch. Starmer stressed, endlessly but effectively, that a political divide and rule strategy erodes a nation’s political culture, fuels public cynicism and drives disaffection. In sum, Starmer’s promise to pursue “a politics which treads a little lighter on all our lives” successfully capitalised on the public’s collective fatigue of Johnsonian scandal, Trussite chaos and Sunakian performance. That, in essence, is what Starmer defeated this election — and it is in conscious renouncement of these old Tory modes that Labour governs today.  The rise of Reform UK, Starmer’s argument develops, is an indirect consequence of Britain’s recent governing malaise. But still, Labour’s campaign rhetoric failed to stem the Faragist insurgency, archetypal though it was of the “anti-politics” Starmer so spurns.  During the election, Reform blasted both the Conservatives and Labour as the “different sides of the same socialist coin” — a more sibilant, but likely less effective, way of decrying all politicians as alike. Nor did Reform pen an election “manifesto” — a word tainted, they say, by broken promises. Farage signed a “contract” with voters instead. ***Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for all the latest election news and analysis.*** Keir Starmer’s populism strategy: the message Starmer views Reform as a symptom of Britain’s stagnant governance, delivered he contends by consecutive Conservative administrations. It follows then, that the way to diminish Farage’s appeal is to make the state function on behalf of those disaffected with it.  This was a calculation that formed the political centre of the King’s Speech — the first delivered under a Labour government in fifteen years — last week. Speaking in the commons after Charles III’s Lords address, Starmer argued that, “The fight for trust is the battle that defines our political era”. The prime minister went on: “The era of politics as performance and self-interest above service is over.… The challenges we face require determined, patient work and serious solutions, rather than the temptation of the easy answer. The snake oil charm of populism may sound seductive, but it drives us into the dead end of further division and greater disappointment.” It’s the sort of deliberate, politically charged passage that directs one to reevaluate Starmer’s full speech and the surrounding legislative raft. Of course, that the prime minister felt compelled to address “snake oil” populism directly, is indicative of one thing at least: Starmer’s battle with Faragism has just begun.  The King’s Speech contained the most clearly deliverable and least noisy aspects of the Labour manifesto (no votes at 16, for instance), which Starmer will seek to implement over the course of the next year. Consciously imbuing his government with a purposefulness that its predecessors sorely lacked, Starmer plans to utterly undermine the populist refrain that promises no longer matter.  Part of the answer to the Reform question, Starmer supposes, is to style his government as insurgent and ensure relentless policy delivery. Speeches from the Throne, since 2010, have on average contained 20 bills. Starmer’s had 40. (No 10, in its King’s Speech trail, had set expectations at “over 35” pieces of proposed legislation).  This approach, it should be said, is not wholly the reserve of Starmer’s new administration. Upon first entering No 10 as PM, after months of malaise, Rishi Sunak also styled his government as insurgent, seeking to curate a record of delivery so undeniable, so straightforward that the public would feel compelled to reward his party with an unprecedented fifth term. That was the essence of Sunak’s politics by pledge. What resulted however — for manifold reasons — was this strategy’s logical antithesis: Sunak’s “zombie government”, in the end, careered aimlessly from one uncomfortable news day to another, with the PM, Britain’s nominal lead, appearing every so often to trot out some banal, overly-rehearsed line for the media.  The sight of Sunak’s self-conscious busyness — with little recompense — undoubtedly contributed to the Conservatives’ electoral demolition. And it is a manner of governance Starmer’s “mission-driven” administration is designed to entirely eschew.  ***Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for all the latest election news and analysis.*** Keir Starmer’s populism strategy: the frontline In his battle with populism, unlike recent skirmishes between Reform and the Conservatives, Starmer’s primary battlefield will be in Westminster. Having established a commons bridgehead, Faragism is finally a parliamentary force — represented today by the man himself (Clacton), deputy leader Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness), chief whip Lee Anderson (Ashfield), Rupert Lowe (Greater Yarmouth) and James McMurdock (South Basildon and East Thurrock).  For years, Britain’s populist right benefited from its aloof relationship with power, making advances in “mid-term” polls (EU parliament, by-elections), but otherwise sniping as an outsider force from the sidelines and media studios. Today, 5 MPs will not afford Farage and co much influence in Westminster, but representation comes with responsibility beyond mere provocation. There remain questions over how effectively Reform’s messaging can adapt to the forum of the commons, especially considering Farage and co — a pretty puny parliamentary force — will be granted limited time to contribute. In this regard, an exchange during the commons statement on Labour’s “Clean Energy Superpower Mission” last week provides some instructive lessons as to possible paths forward. Rising as the first ever Reform representative to question a Labour minister, Lee Anderson addressed supposed problems with Ed Miliband’s GB Energy plan.  From the fourth row back on the commons benches, Anderson argued that the scheme would “rob from the poor and gave to the rich”. Likening Labour’s plan to a Nottingham city council initiative called Robin Hood Energy, he asked: “How much GB Energy will cost the taxpayer?”.  There followed, according to standard commons procedure, the secretary of state for energy security and net zero’s response: “First of all”, Miliband began, “let me explain to the hon. Gentleman that Robin Hood Energy was a supply company; this is a generation company.” He went on: “Robin Hood was a retailer, so it is different, but I have to say that I am surprised at the position that he takes. I thought his party was in favour of publicly owned energy. I think it produced lots of videos on social media to that effect.”  Or to put it another way: is that the best you’ve got? Miliband’s exchange with Reform’s most senior parliamentarian in Anderson reflects the straightforward, detail-oriented tone Labour will take with Westminster’s populist battalion over the course of this parliament.   And a further example from Monday, during the new home secretary’s statement on immigration. The speaker again called Lee Anderson, Reform’s most experienced parliamentarian, to probe the new home secretary on Reform’s favourite subject, illegal migration.  “We saw the Border Force agency take a boatload [of asylum seekers] back just last week”, Anderson charged. “Will [Yvette Cooper] now, with that advice, grow a political backbone and order the Border Force to send the boats back the same day?”  Cooper responded: “That operational co-operation is important, but I would just say to him that ‘co-operation’ is the really important word. … It is that co-operation that he and some others in his party have quite often refused, but it will be important and is our best way to stop the criminal gangs.” Then it was the turn of Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader. In his debut commons question, he asked of Cooper: “How long will you give your policy … before realising that the only policy that will work is the policy you actually started last week which is to pick up and take [small boats] back to France?”. Tice’s ability to answer his own queries should save ample parliamentary time in the long run. ***Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for all the latest election news and analysis.*** Keir Starmer’s populism strategy: the public mood Reform, Keir Starmer has suggested, thrives off public cynicism and disaffection with politics. As such, the polling news of recent weeks that suggests optimism is slowly returning to our politics will be greatly welcomed.  One such poll, conducted by Thinks Insight and Strategy, found that net optimism has grown from -23 in March to -7 in July. The most optimistic are those, expectedly, who voted for Labour at the election. The least optimistic, equally unsurprisingly, were those who voted for Nigel Farage‘s Reform UK, whose net optimism was -44. The results also reveal that voters, on the whole, are willing to be patient with the government as it tries to deal with its dire inheritance, with nearly two-thirds of people (62 per cent) saying that even if the Starmer administration is effective “it will take a year or two before we start seeing improvement”. Meanwhile, around a third (29 per cent) said they would expect to see “real improvement within the next year” if the government is effective. The data suggests Starmer’s insurgent incrementalism, as practised over the course of this parliament, could exact a significant electoral windfall in time. In fulfilling his pledges and capitalising on voter good will, Starmer could place a low ceiling on Reform’s support of 14 per cent of the vote — its election total when, in theory, the public mood was at its lowest ebb. Of course, Starmer’s emphasis that Britain needs a “decade of national renewal”, inherited into government from the campaign trail, amounts to a plea for patience. The last place Labour wants to be in 2029 is hailing progress that voters either cannot feel or won’t give the party credit for. As Sunak’s messaging underscored, such a chasm between rhetoric and experienced reality — implicitly urging voters to suspend their political disbelief — creates fertile ground for a Faragist insurgency. This points to the most pertinent dynamic of this parliament: if Starmer succeeds, his political supremacy will strengthen. If he fails, the PM will empower those who thrive on disillusion.  So what will this parliament make of Keir Starmer: a progressive paragon or populist handmaiden? The dichotomy of outcomes underlines what’s at stake over the coming five years. Reform, forebodingly, finished second in 98 seats last election — of which 89 were won by Labour. ***Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for all the latest election news and analysis.*** Keir Starmer’s populism strategy: what he does not control Several factors, of course, operate outside of Starmer’s control: the state of the Conservative Party being one.  As stated, disillusion with the Starmer project isn’t inevitable — but nor is its prime beneficiary preordained as Reform and Nigel Farage. The Conservative Party, if in a stronger position by the end of this parliament, could re-emerge as the natural receptacle for those disillusioned with Labour governance. It’s a reminder that despite Reform’s recent rhetoric, Farage’s primary battle this parliament will be with the Conservative Party. Ultimately, confusion over what slice of electorate Reform should prioritise — wavering Labour or Conservative voter — could hurt the coherence of the party’s messaging.  And what if the Reform insurgency begins to stall? Farage has committed to leading Reform for five years (culminating in the 2029 election), but if he fails to note any progress over the coming period — and green shoots of a Tory recovery sprout — who would count on him renewing his tenancy as party chief? The former UKIP leader, as his recent foray at the Republican National Convention reflects, is always allured by the relative wilderness.  There is, of course, the equal and opposite eventuality: that Reform professionalises all of its political, policy and campaign operations — just as its parliamentary “bridgehead” bolsters the party’s legitimacy in by-elections and council contests. Meanwhile, Tory defections — with Suella Braverman in particular shunned by her party — could see Reform’s caucus grow beyond 5.  As such, uncertainty is the foremost feature of Starmer’s battle with populism, both in terms of the PM’s strategy, Farage’s response and — naturally — its outcome. But this lack of precious detail only makes Starmer’s challenge, with its capacity to define his premiership, all the more pressing.   Starmer, after all, has stated plainly his intention to cure Reform’s “snake oil” populism. Success or failure in these terms, set by Starmer himself, could well be his government’s legacy.  Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on X/Twitter here. Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for all the latest election news and analysis. The post Keir Starmer’s war on populism is just beginning .

[mariacallous]

Keir Starmer has hailed a “new age of hope and opportunity” as millions of people prepare to vote in a general election that could deliver the biggest shake-up of British politics in a generation.

The Labour leader said he was “ready for government” and that his intended cabinet would “hit the ground running” if it wins Thursday’s election.

With Rishi Sunak’s closest allies appearing to concede defeat for the Conservatives, and the final opinion polls predicting an unprecedented Labour victory, Starmer said he hoped Britain was about to enter a new chapter.

On the last day of a fractious six-week campaign, the Guardian was told Sunak had confided to members of his inner circle that he was fearful of losing his own seat, and a new YouGov poll predicted 16 cabinet ministers would lose their seats – potentially handing Starmer the biggest majority for any single party since 1832.

Speaking at a campaign stop in Scotland, which will be one of the key battlegrounds on Thursday, Starmer told his activists they were “on the final few yards towards the start of a historic day”.

“This is a great nation, with boundless potential. The British people deserve a government that matches their ambition. Today is the chance to begin the work of rebuilding Britain with Labour.”

He promised a flurry of activity should he enter No 10, saying he would push back the parliamentary recess to get his legislative programme under way.

Starmer said he had told his shadow cabinet they will not be forgiven if did not show results immediately. He said he had told them: “I don’t want you having a phone call or a meeting the day after the election that you could have had six months before the election.”

In a rare sign that he was mentally preparing for victory at the end of a deeply cautious campaign, Starmer said: “I’m really pleased that four and a half years of work is being vindicated because this has not been an easy gig.”

Sunak spent the day campaigning in safe Conservative seats in the south of England. Sources told the Guardian he had privately confided his own vote in Richmond and Northallerton was too close to call.

In 2019, he won the seat with a majority of more than 27,000 and 63% of the vote. One source said “he is genuinely fearful of a defeat in Richmond: the risk that it could be tight has hit him hard. He’s rattled – he can’t quite believe it’s coming so close.”

Leading Tories, including the sacked former home secretary Suella Braverman and the work and pensions secretary, Mel Stride, also made clear that election defeat appeared inevitable.

However, Sunak brushed aside the idea that the Conservatives had already accepted defeat, as he campaigned in ultra-safe Tory seats such as Hamble Valley on the final day before polls opened.

He claimed that “millions and millions” of voters had still not made up their minds, saying people should “separate the frustrations which they understandably have about me, the party and the past” from their ultimate decision.

Quizzed at a school about his highlight as prime minister, Sunak dodged the question, while arguing that much of his time in office had been spent struggling with outside events.

“There are lots of things that you’d like to do but the reality is that you’re dealing with the situation in front of you. That’s very much been the story of my political career in the last few years. That’s just reality. You’ve got to play the cards that you’ve been dealt,” he said.

Asked if he would take full responsibility for whatever the election result was, he replied: “Yes.”

The Tories experienced yet another blow on Wednesday night as the Sun newspaper made an abrupt volte-face, putting its support behind the Labour party for the first time since 2005.

After years of fiercely critical coverage of Labour and personal attacks on the leader it called “Sir Softie”, the Sun endorsed Starmer on Wednesday, saying: “It is time for a change … Which means that it is time for Labour.”

In Essex, where Reform UK’s leader, Nigel Farage, is making an eighth attempt to enter parliament, the Tory candidate standing in his way made a last-ditch appeal to stop what he described as “the populist juggernaut”.

Farage led a rally in the centre of Clacton in chants of “we want our country back”, as he once again sought to make immigration the centrepiece of his campaign.

“How are you getting on for dentists in Clacton? Well then you should have come by dinghy,” he said, after arriving on a military-style vehicle to the sound of Without Me by Eminem.

Giles Watling, who is defending his Clacton seat, said the atmosphere in the constituency had changed since the arrival en masse of Farage supporters. He described the Reform leader’s rallies as “chilling” and alleged that people had been intimidated by canvassers for the populist party, including a shop owner who, he said, had been told “it wouldn’t be a good idea” if she put up a Tory placard in her window.

Farage was in a bullish mood as he appeared alongside the former boxer Derek Chisora, predicting that Labour would win as much as 37% of the vote and that his party would be “challenging for government” at the next election.

Labour strategists are tense about the prospect for shocks in some unpredictable constituencies, including those where the Reform vote is surging and where Labour is facing a challenge from the Greens or independent candidates campaigning on Gaza.

The party is braced for a number of upsets that go against the grain, including in the shadow culture secretary Thangam Debbonaire’s Bristol Central seat to the Greens and in seats with large Muslim populations, including Birmingham Ladywood, Bethnal Green and Bow, and Dewsbury and Batley. Islington North, where the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is running as an independent, is said by party insiders to be too close to call.

On his final day of a gruelling campaign, Starmer spent time in Wales, Scotland and England, culminating in a rally in the Midlands – another area of the UK where Labour is hoping to take multiple seats from the Conservatives.

In Glasgow, he mocked the Scottish National party for urging voters to vote for them to “send a message” to Westminster. “I don’t want Scotland to send a message, I want Scotland to send a government,” he said. Labour is on course to regain dozens of seats in Scotland from the SNP.

On Wednesday night, the first minister, John Swinney, said it was a foregone conclusion Labour would win. “The only story left in this election is in Scotland, where seats across the country are on a knife-edge,” he said.

But Starmer also warned during the course of the day against paying too much attention to Tories downplaying their own prospects. “You can see what the Tories are up to – they are trying to invite people not to exercise their democratic right to go out and vote, trying to dissuade people from voting,” he said.

“A once-respected party is now saying with 24 hours to go nothing that is positive, everything is negative, effectively, to run a campaign to suppress the vote.”

Writing in the Guardian, Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, promised “change will begin immediately” if Starmer enters No 10 and called on voters to help deliver a significant majority. “We will need a clear mandate for change – don’t doubt that.”

The Liberal Democrats also look as if they will regain the party’s strength of the coalition years, capitalising on Tory decline and tactical voting.

The party’s leader, Ed Davey, whose campaign has been dominated by outlandish stunts, wrote in the Guardian on Wednesday that his mission was “beating as many Conservative MPs as possible … More and more people are focusing on how best to use their vote to bring an end to Conservative rule and start a more progressive, more positive era.”

[aurora-light-blog]

Unexpected Treasures Part 1 of 3

                Luthen Rael scoured the galaxy for rare items and artifacts for his planned antiquities shop on Coruscant. Both searching and the shop were covers for his Rebel activities. Regardless, the items in his shop had to be genuine. The hardest items to procure were force artifacts. He was lucky to purchase a Jedi holocron from the Jedi Temple ruins on Coruscant in a silent auction.

                Having one lone holocron wasn’t enough. His shop needed a Sith holocron. The problem was finding one. He tried three times already with supposed Dark art sellers, which all turned out to be fakes. Luthen had almost given up on it until Rishi. He wasn’t even looking for it at the time.

                Rishi had been off and on a pirate outlaw haven for thousands of years. The place was an ideal location for smuggling. The Rebellion could use more and better arms, so he drank with an arm dealer slash spice dealer at a local cantina. Again, he used a cover story to protect his secret agenda. The Empire punished spice dealers, but they executed Rebel weapons deals.

                The guy seemed to be on the level, though too relaxed. He constantly got distracted and flirted with the waitress. There was a lot to be distracted by in the cantina with the loud music, revelry, and advertisements. One small dull poster caught Luthen’s attention.

“’Smuggling and tracking,’” he read off and pointed. “They’re not even trying to get customers.”

The arms dealer stopped his flirting and shooed the waitress away. His voice became low and grim. “That’s because they work on referrals only. They don’t give out their name.”

Secretive groups tended to be deadly and occasionally very skilled at their trade. Luthen sipped his ale. ��Are they any good at tracking?”

“According to the rumors, they can find anything or anyone. However, they’re very picky about their clients. Don’t get on their bad side.”

“How long have they been in business for?”

The dealer leaned back in his chair. “Hundreds of years or longer if you believe the rumors.”

“Do you believe the rumors?”

“They’ve worked with Mandalorians and scared the Hutts, so yeah, I believe them.”

It was still a long-shot. “Could they procure rare Dark Side artifacts?”

“Don’t know, but probably.”

“Where are they located?”

“Not far, on Trader’s Causeway building 505.”

“You piqued my interest. I might give them a look.” Luthen figured it was nearby and on his way back.

“Just remember to be polite. These guys aren’t afraid to mess with Hutts.”

Luthen chugged the last of his drink and left. He went to pop his head into the shop for a quick glimpse.

Building 505 was a clothing shop with high quality silks and polished leathers for surprisingly low prices. As he purchased six garments, he smiled at the cashier. “I heard that a person could hire tracker here to locate certain items.”

“Depends on what you want found.” He accepted the credits.

“A holocron.”

“Oh.” The cashier signaled to the owner. “He wants a holocron.”

“We have those downstairs as long as he has the credits.” The Mirialan owner called out.

Luthen stepped forward. “I can pay.”

“Good. Follow me.” The owner escorted him downstairs.

This could be a ploy to kill him and steal all his credits, so Luthen kept a grip his blaster. Once they made it downstairs, a large bookcase with four holocrons floored him. Luthen couldn’t believe it. “What kind of holocrons do you have there?”

“These three are datacrons.” The male Mirialan passed Luthen’s test by knowing this. “This is a holocron made by former Jedi Knight Allya, and it isn’t for sell. What kind of holocron are looking to buy?”

“A Sith one?”

“We have those too, but you must speak with Lady Rubina. She’s in charge of Force artifacts. If you don’t mind waiting for her, she’ll be here in about ten to fifteen minutes.” He gestured to the wooden chairs.

“Of course not.” Luthen sat down.

The owner joined him. “May I ask if this holocron is for your personal collection or not?”

“It’s for my future antique shop on Coruscant. Now, may I inquire about this former Jedi Knight? I haven’t heard of her.” Luthen didn’t recall her name among the Lost Twenty.

“Would you like to hear the tale of Alllya?”

“Sure.” It should pass the time for Luthen.

*** Story will be posted on Archive of Our Own on March 1 under Darthchocolate entitled Allya

“You expect me to believe that Allya who the Nightsisters were founded by existed four thousands year ago instead of six hundred years ago.” Luthen rose from his seat. “I’m not some ignorant mark.”

The stairs creaked. A gray skinned woman appeared in front of them. “No one accused you of this.” She removed her hood and revealed her long black hair. “The misunderstanding derived from a miscommunication. Nightsister Allya who was named after our founder had revised the Book of Laws six hundred years ago.”

“You’re a …” Luthen knew them to be all extinct, yet here she stood. “A Nightsister?”

“No, I’m from Ashen Travelers Clan of Dathomir. I am Rubina.” She rubbed the Mirialan man’s shoulder. He bowed to her and left.

“My apologies.” Luthen didn’t want to risk irking her.

“There is no need to apology. The Nightsisters have left the shadows, while we still maintain our presence as a secret. This is something that you understand, Luthen Rael. What are you searching for?”

“A Sith holocron. Credits aren’t issue if you have one.”

“We have one, but credits are an issue for us. We only trade items such as those. Bring five Varpeline crystals for the holocron. You might wish to bring some Thontiin crystals or Dantari crystals as well when you come to Dathomir. We have other things that might interest you.”

“But Dathomir was devastated during the war.”

“The Nightsisters were. They aren’t the only Dathomiran clan nor are they the oldest.” She handed him a datapad. “Go to this precise coordinate. Dathomir is deadly place for visitors.”