#i mean this in both a ''a disproportionate amount of systems i have seen in the fandom have benrey fictives'' way

[can-i-see-your-passport-please]

The side effects on being a HLVRAI enjoyer are getting occasionally possessed by the spirit of Benny

[blockgamepirate]

When we talk about "innocent until proven guilty" I think there are levels of how much proof is needed depending on the context:

In a legal context the standard must be the highest possible and I would rather let a guilty defendant go than have even the smallest chance of convicting an innocent person (I mean I also have my opinions on judicial systems in general but I won't get into that here)

The next level would be a case where there's no court case but the accused party would be in a significant risk of disproportionate consequences due to the accusations, such as if they are an already marginalised person in a precarious position

I'm not gonna make a whole tier list here, you get the point

But on the other end of the spectrum, if it's just a case of deciding to stop supporting someone who is already in a position of significant influence and wealth, then I think it's fine to act on a level of evidence that's convincing, even if it's not absolute proof

Obviously you still want to have a reasonable amount of information to make that call, and you wanna be conscious of possible factors that might mislead you, and I still like to have a healthy level of skepticism in general, because we know that sometimes online mobs blow things out of proportion, dig up old offences that are no longer relevant, or are in reality just a part of a hate campaign, but it's not like you need to have a full trial before dropping your support for a public figure, it's fine

In fact it would be fine even if you did it only based on a suspicion or even for no reason in particular, because they're not entitled to your support

(Although to be clear, I don't believe in retributive justice and I don't think the crowdsourced version of that is any better. Harassment is a form of violence and I don't think violence should ever be used for punishment. This is not a pacifist statement: violence can be necessary, but punitive violence is by definition not necessary. Which is a very long way to say: don't harass people, it doesn't help the victims)

And yeah this post was inspired by a specific case, but this is my take in general, it's not just about this specific guy. I've been thinking about these things a lot recently, even before this, because it's been pretty topical again, both within the MCYT community and outside of it. Obviously we've seen a lot of malicious campaigns to cancel people and it's sensible to be careful, but there's being careful and then there's being in denial

So yeah, "innocent until proven guilty" is a good rule and yes I default to it too because the alternative could be horrifying, but not every situation requires the same levels of proof, and I definitely get the sense that some people like to use it as an excuse to keep stanning their favourite celebrity

[rayssyscourse]

I actually can also explain how endogenic systems can exist scientifically.

The theory that systems form initially because of splitting is obsolete in favor of the Theory of Structural Dissociation, which is where the brain exists as multiple parts before integrating in later childhood. Trauma then is supposed to keep these parts from integrating. Full respect though if you don't like this theory, but as the current running theory for how DID develops, it actually perfectly explains why neurological endogenic systems might happen.

There isn't really any reason why something other than trauma might disrupt personality integration. There isn't enough research about what that "something" might be and it could be multiple things, but given how endogenic systems are disproportionately autistic or have other childhood disorders, that could potentially do it. That also would explain why many endogenic systems say they feel as if they cannot integrate, because their brain just was never wired for it.

Even then it makes sense that if endogenic splitting does happen, it wouldn't be as mentally taxing. Endogenic systems rarely experience amnesia unless they have later in life trauma and not every system experiences the brain trying to keep it hidden. Hell, I've seen OSDD systems handle splitting like it's a typical thing. Even if it did happen for endogenic systems, it wouldn't be "for no reason", there is a reason, that reason is just something other than trauma.

I don't know if a brain scan would really prove anything. There just aren't enough samples or data, and while there was an MRI study I see cited about MRI scans with DID, those scans were different because of trauma and dissociation's general impact on your brain. What a system looks like under a brain scan is very under-researched. There was talk of an MRI scan of tulpamancers a few years back? But I don't know if anything came of it.

(Also of course endogenic is too big of an umbrella term and this is just neurological origins. There have been several studies on created systems and "talk to an entity in your brain until it talks back" isn't really anything groundbreaking - you can pop "tulpamancy" into Google scholar to see these. Same with people communicating with spirits and what not, the difference between a spiritual-based system and a spirit host is usually just degree of self-autonomy and even then it's a grey line. "System" just means more than one entity in one physical body and by god is there a lot that falls under it.)

Ooh this is quite interesting. Tbh I don't have any groundbreaking opinions or arguments here since you're basically just telling me some information, but I really appreciate the education!

I am not super familiar with the theory of structural dissociation--I'll do some of my own research on that to hopefully understand better, but if you or anyone else has any resources on it, please do let me know! I keep a lot of ongoing system related studies and stuff bookmarked because there's a lot of active research and things changing since we still don't know much about systemhood/plurality, so I'm always happy to have more stuff to check out or keep tabs on, lol.

Assuming the structural dissociation thing is correct--and take this with the understanding that I still have yet to do a lot of research on it--I'd be interested to see more info on what things besides trauma could disrupt integration, and how that might look similar or different neurologically from traumagenic splitting. I think what you said about disproportionate levels of certain illnesses in endogenic systems is really interesting and could definitely be a potential cause.

That also makes me wonder, if the personality is unintegrated from birth, I wonder how the formation of new alters later in life (in both endo and traumagenic systems) looks, and if the amount of integration/disruption could influence things like frequent splitting or polyfragmentation, etc.

I'd be interested to see, like, widespread surveys done on endo and traumagenic systems alike, just to see the statistics of comorbidity, possible causes of splitting, frequency of splitting, etc. In fact, sometimes I think about putting out a poll or something online just for my own amateur-psychologist brain to have something to go off of, lmao. Obviously sampling bias would make it super unofficial, but it would be interesting nonetheless.

Anyways, sorry I kinda just started rambling there lol. None of that was meant as a challenge or attack to you, I'm just posing questions I think would be interesting to see answered. I appreciate the information, and thank you for giving me some new topics to research!!

Have a lovely evening <3

[tortured-artist-tourney]

propaganda check in poll

Hi again! Since i started back up with making polls, I wanted to get people's opinion. I tried using this format as a way to balance how polls with submitted propaganda can sometimes have disproportionate amounts of propaganda. I've seen people say that was unfair, and I wanted to avoid that with this system.

The main downside of this format I'm aware of is that just naming "tropes" might not give enough depth or are confusing on what they mean (honestly, after getting back to this after a month, im confused by my own thinking on some things lol). I want to check in on if it's actually working. if anyone has any in-depth thoughts on this, please feel free to add on

any changes to the propaganda system that are needed will be done between round one and two.

thank you all for your patience on these polls!

[luciacuervo]

did some thinking about my homeworld. the city I grew up was called Kel’radova, though I'm not sure we wanna stick with that cuz we didn't come up with it and I don't know what if anything it's supposed to mean. most people just call it The City.

it's a huge city state bounded by the sea on one side and desert on the other, with a river running through it, inhabited by many different people, but the native population mostly draws from arabian cultures, while the ruling class is disproportionately white people drawing more inspiration from italy, france and especially spain, and their influence means even a lot of the nonwhite and lower-class people have latinate-sounding names. it used to be an imperial subject of a now-dying empire at one point in the past but has been independent for centuries and while it hasn't officially claimed any greater territory has a lot of power in the region and the world at large.

it's pretty much the most advanced place in the entire world, especially in the realm of magic. a lot of the technology uses magic in some regard, and there are magical protection measures all around it that make any attempt to attack the city futile. most of the ruling class are powerful magic users of some sort, usually either hailing from bloodlines with powerful innate magic or family cults that serve a deity who has bestowed them with magic. my adoptive father belonged to one of the latter, while one of my mentors was one of the former.

the non-magical part of the tech is all mechanical, a lot of intricate clockwork and systems drawing power from the water or the sun. electricity is known about somewhat but mostly seen as a curiosity that only lightning mages dabble in to show off. there's no real combustion motors either, land vehicles are usually animal-drawn, but there's fairly advanced ships and even some airships. if you want to travel long distances quickly you use teleportation magic. lighting is mostly fire-based, but refined to be very efficient, or achieved by redirecting sunlight.

the city is built more or less circular, with a very dense center, levels upon levels and towers reaching into the sky, and several layers of defensive walls. sometimes waterways flow underneath buildings. towards the sea things stay pretty dense, with a lot of ships coming in and out, but towards the other directions things slowly get less dense and you see fields out in the fertile areas.

the architectural style is mainly a mix of different mediterranean civilisations during the renaissance, combining ancient, medieval and early modern aspects. but there's also an area of the city with more eastern asian influences from more recent immigrants from farther away.

different cultural and religious groups being forced to coexist have made the city fairly socially liberal, most people are tolerant of others and things like homosexuality and gender-non-conformity are generally allowed to exist, even if they definitely aren't treated equal.

slavery is officially abolished but while it isn't recognised or enforced by the government, the amount done to stop it from happening regardless varies. what slavery does still exist mostly affects immigrants - humans and non-humans, both those who came willingly and people brought there against their will - rather than the native population. what native or white slaves do exist are usually women enslaved by their own families.

the government is made up of the city's most powerful families. amongst themselves they are organised more or less democratically but towards the common people they have basically absolute power, only held in check by each other and the desire to keep the city prosperous. the most powerful archmages serve as heads of state, with each of their families usually having close ties to a couple of the slightly less powerful families below them, from which they select their most trusted subordinates. servants are usually marked by their employer, and if caught out tend to be held for ransom rather than killed.

despite being very powerful mages, even the rulers of the city are decidedly not immortal and the balance of power is prone to shift any time one of them dies, and political assassinations are not unheard of.

[hadesoftheladies]

it’s not that I think women are better than men innately because of some weird gender stereotype, i don’t think there’s anything in a vagina or penis that makes someone moral or not

BUT i do not believe that women are equal to men in guilt for the patriarchy and it’s systems of violence. and it rubs me the wrong way when people throw mud in the water with “women can be just as immoral as men” that’s not the point, the point is that women are NOT responsible for the misogynistic, sadistic regime that is patriarchy, even while some may be complicit in the system

women do not hold equal guilt or equal responsibility for the crimes committed against men and women in the name of patriarchy. just because there are female pedophiles (and they should be killed like all pedos imo) doesn’t mean that women have expressed the same enthusiasm for it as males have, much like other violent crimes, and i believe in that difference. many victimized and brutalized women do not go on to offend and brutalize others the same way that many non-victimized or victimized men do. women who have reason and opportunity to be violent do not do violence as frequently or to the same degree that men do.

I think both the nature vs nurture arguments have their own set of important questions to ask, and it’d be helpful if we asked them without trying to slap tape on each other’s mouths. men being “naturally” sadistic doesn’t account for their moral compasses and humanity, even while it may explain their predatory nature, since we’ve seen it in other animal species where males are concerned. the patriarchy and misogyny rising out of certain historical developments and men being sadistic because of culture, also doesn’t fully explain why women in the same culture and in worse circumstances do not commit the same amounts of violence. if power corrupts, women would have abused their power over other women and children more frequently and to the same extent. the men do it because they have the “ability” to do it (hence access and additional temptation to do it) may account for structural inequalities, but still begs the question why so many men choose to do it.

these are all worthwhile perspectives, and they should be scrutinized and thought-through, rather than radfems calling each other names for not ascribing to any one theory. and again, it’s okay to not be sure and to not know. AND TO DISAGREE. just be respectful about it. @unabombastic made a great point that it isn’t a priority that we find out WHY men do it, but that we create a society in which they can no longer get away with doing it. some may argue that we need to know so we can prevent it from happening again, but I do think liberation is more important than spending all our time diagnosing the condition of man.

regardless, men engage with violence in a disproportionate manner, and evil women do not level the playing field, and radfems that point this out aren’t “forgiving female abusers”, it’s just a fact, and THAT IS A DIFFERENCE WORTH TALKING ABOUT

[analyzen]

Italian Fandom Meta | Most Popular Types of Pairings on EFP vs. AO3

EFP (2001–, Fanlore) is the most popular writing archive in Italy, and it hosts both fanfic and original fiction. Under the cut you’ll find a breakdown of the most popular types of pairings on EFP in comparison to the most popular types of pairings in the Italian section of AO3.

The Italian version of this analysis can be found here.

TL;DR:

53% of all the chapters ever posted on EFP have been deleted

49% of the registered users on EFP have deleted their accounts

M/F works amount to 60% of the whole website

EFP’s three most popular fandoms (Harry Potter, One Direction, Original Fiction – Romantic) all have a majority of M/F works

On AO3, most Italian works are M/M (56%)

F/F doesn’t have much content on either site (4-5%)

Methodology

I’ve followed @olderthannetfic’s methodology from this earlier Fanfiction.net analysis. Basically, I picked a sample size of 666 chapters and organized them in four categories (M/M, M/F, F/F, Not tagged; more on this later).

Why I chose chapters instead of stories

On EFP you don’t have specific links for every single story. Instead, every chapter you post gets a unique id, which can be seen in the link itself. For example, at the time of writing this the last updated chapter on EFP was this one:

viewstory.php?sid=3974099

Which means that this was the 3'974'009th chapter ever posted on EFP.

Ids follow the usual numerical order, so if a link reads id=3, then there have to be id=1 and id=2, and the next link will have id=4.

So I’ve used a randomizer to select ~1200 unique ids to analyse.

Weren’t 666 chapters enough?

I started out with 700 chapters, but half of them weren’t working. That’s because 53% of all the chapters ever posted on EFP have been deleted from the website.

Thanks to the link of the last updated chapter, we know that almost 4 millions chapters have been posted on the EFP. But EFP's homepage shows different stats:

Registered users: 602395, 205974 of which are authors Last registered user: [blacked out] Total of stories: 517083 Total of chapters: 1869573 chapters Total of reviews: 6222695 Online users: 17 logged in and 53 visitors

While we should have almost 4 million chapters, the stats show ~2 million chapters. Why? Because the stats only show the stories, chapters and users that are still on the website, and they don’t show the stories, chapters and users that have been deleted.

(Sorry, I forgot to translate this one. It reads: Total of chapters posted on EFP between 2001 and today. Orange: deleted chapters. Blue: chapters that are still online.)

Thanks to the stats on the homepage we also have a link to the last registered user. User ids follow the same numerical order as chapter ids, so once again we know that 49% of the users ever registered on EFP have deleted their accounts. That's a lot of deleted accounts.

Categorization

After selecting 666 (accessible) chapters, I organized them into 4 categories:

M/M: contains all stories tagged as “yaoi”, shounen ai” and “slash”

M/F: contains all stories tagged as “het”

F/F: contains all stories tagged as “yuri”, “shoujo ai” and “femslash”

Not tagged: which contains a) poetry, b) stories tagged as “no pairing”, and c) untagged het stories.

As for the untagged het stories, there are two issues:

Many M/F fics simply aren’t tagged

Many gen fics include untagged M/F ships

If the description made it clear that the story included a heterosexual relationship, I added the story under the M/F tag. Otherwise I left it under not tagged.

Also, on EFP “yaoi”, “shounen ai” and “slash”, and “yuri”, “shoujo ai” and “femslash” actually mean different things.

This screenshot here is from the posting page on EFP. It reads:

Pairings * You must select at least one tag from the list, and you can choose up to three tags. Het: for heterosexual relationships Shonen-ai: for male/male relationships with anime/game characters; stories with no sex scenes Shojo-ai: for female/female relationships with anime/game characters; stories with no sex scenes Yaoi: for male/male relationships with anime/game characters; stories containing sex scenes Yuri: for female/female relationships with anime/game characters; stories containing sex scenes Slash: for male/male relationships from TV shows/movies/books FemSlash: for female/female relationships from TV shows/movies/books

The thing is. People either respect the rules and use different tags for different kinds of stories, or they use these tags interchangeably to maximise the chance to appear in other users' searches. Which means that you’ll find RPF tagged with “shoujo ai”, and Attack on Titan fics tagged as “slash”. (More info on this later.)

Findings

On EFP, the majority of the stories are M/F.

To confirm this, I checked some specific fandoms:

Some notes:

Because EFP doesn't have metatags like AO3, what I did was: 1) go to a specific fandom, 2) filter through every single tag, and 3) jot down the number of pages per search. Every page contains up to 15 stories, so for example searching for het in Original Fiction – Romantic gives you 846 pages, which amounts to around ~12690 stories.

The tag in red, “Nessuna”, means “no pairing”. It is used for gen fics but also for untagged M/F fics. This is especially true in some fandoms, ie. Original Fiction – Romantic, and Harry Potter.

EFP’s filtering system sucks. You can only filter through stories with specific relationship tags, but you can’t filter out relationships tag. So what you see in the graph is how often a tag is used... which brings us to some issues. For example, Harry Potter is the biggest fandom on EFP, so much that Harry Potter stories amount to 11% (!) of the whole website. But in the graph it looks like the One Direction fandom has more stories—wrong. Actually, One Direction has many stories tagged as both slash and het, while Harry Potter stories tend to be either one or the other.

EFP’s filtering system sucks, part 2. Because “shounen ai”, “yaoi” and “slash” are often used at the same time, you can't really smash together all three of the tags to get a total amount of stories. I'd say that around 50% of the stories tagged as shounen ai and yaoi probably overlap, but there is no easy way to find out because, again, EFP’s filtering system sucks. The same goes for “shoujo ai”, “yuri” and “femslash”.

Fandoms with a majority of M/M stories

While there are some fandoms with more M/M stories (ie. Death Note, Hetalia, Glee, Sherlock, Supernatural, Teen Wolf), these fandoms are simply extremely small in comparison to other bigger fandoms full of M/F fics. Which obviously skews the numbers in favor of M/F fics.

What about femslash?

EFP suffers from the same lack of femslash as AO3 as a whole. In the fandoms I've analysed, only two have a big enough number of F/F. The fandoms are Glee (which has more F/F stories than M/F stories) and Grey's Anatomy (which has as much F/F as M/F stories, with little M/M).

Original Fiction

I thought it might be interesting to explore the original sections too, especially because Original Fiction – Romantic is the third biggest fandom on EFP after Harry Potter and One Direction. These Big 3 all have a disproportionate amount of M/F stories.

By logic, this would mean the the majority of the userbase on EFP prefers M/F stories. But then, aren't fans always complaining about “too much slash”? If “Any Two Guys” were enough to find slash appealing, wouldn't it be easier to simply write original M/M?

I think that looking at original stories might help us understand why people might prefer slash over het in some fandoms. For example, the amount of M/F stories in Original Fiction – Romantic implies that, when authors have to chance to choose what types of stories to create from scratch, they might prefer M/F stories.

This would support the theory that many people might prefer slash because of the lack of (well written/primary) canonical female characters + how well M/M relationships, both platonic and romantic, are written in canon texts in comparison to M/F or F/F relationships.

Obviously, we have to keep in mind that not all fanfic writers write original fiction and viceversa, so I'm not trying to find a universal explanation here. Also because not every website has a majority of M/F stories.

Which brings us to...

AO3 vs. EFP

As per today 20/04/21, the Italian section of AO3 contains “only” 24777 stories, divided between many different fandoms. To make a comparison, the Italian stories on AO3 amount to 5% of all the stories available on EFP. To make another comparison, the whole Naruto fandom on EFP has 20129 stories in total.

EFP has also been active for 20 years, while the boom of Italian fics on AO3 only started around 2018. We can't really make a 1:1 comparison between the two archives, but we can still try to understand the preferences of their users.

M/M and M/F stories on EFP vs. AO3

EFP: 60% M/F, 25% M/M

AO3: 56% M/M, 23% M/F

The percentages are almost swapped.

This might be because of the archives themselves. EFP has always been the general website for any Italian fandom (and actually at first it mostly hosted M/F content), while AO3 has always had a big M/M userbase. I'm basing this statement on this AO3 analysis from 2013, in comparison to this FFN analysis from 2018 which showed a majority of M/F fanworks, and finally this AO3 vs. FFN vs. Wattpad analysis from 2019, which showed that AO3 has always been the outlier for its majority of M/M content.

Then again, M/M stories on EFP have always been subject to the “usual” type of borderline-to-direct harassment that M/M fans are used to, which is something that still happens to this day especially in certain writing groups on Facebook, where the Italian writing community is pretty active. It wouldn't be weird for slashers to move to AO3, where they know they'll find more like-minded people and less headaches. (Also, the Italian section of AO3 has a lot of M/M RPF that's banned on EFP.)

The “Multi” tag on EFP

The only thing that barely resembles a multi tag on EFP is threesome, which for some reason is often used as a synonym for love triangle. So from the tags it isn't easy to understand if a fic includes an actual threesome (as in, a sex scene), a polyamorous relationship, or a simple love triangle.

This doesn't mean that there aren't poly stories on EFP—it simply means that they're impossible to find using the search system.

And that's all, I think!

[horseflavor]

Headcanon: Scootaloo

Alrighty, since I've seen some debate on whether or not Scootaloo is disabled and more so, whether or not she can just get over it, I decided she'll be the first character I address. As far as I care, she is permanently physically disabled, and I will have such representation in my art. About Scootaloo: Scootaloo already was canonically very close to having the lesbian pride colors, so I just went in and did it fully. Yes, that lesbian flag there is also her color palette. Scootaloo is a nonbinary lesbian that uses she/they pronouns. They're more in line with the butch type. Scootaloo was one of the very lucky ones who just knew she was gay ever since they were little. They never really had to deal with compulsory heterosexuality, but they did have to learn to help other mares who did struggle cope with their reality. Scootaloo advocates for both the unseen lesbians and the physically disabled. Since there are no cutie marks in my universe, the CMC will have a completely different purpose, which I will get into later on. Scootaloo was born with Pennon Unvaned Disorder (PUD) and struggled with the fact that she will never fly like her idol, Rainbow Dash. This struggle was their primary conflict in youth (besides POS parents), but they have come to accept it in adulthood. Scootaloo, understanding that children not only have to cope with their physical disabilities but also a world that does not welcome them, specializes in pediatric physical therapy. The PT is her main career, but she still openly advocates in her free time in the public eye. Scootaloo still has to deal with some internal grief with the PUD- she's not completely over that loss- but on the outside, they do a very good job of demonstrating normalcy with disability. About Pennon Unvaned Disorder PUD: PUD is a genetic default that pegasi are born with. It is a chromosome skip, where the genotype to activate primary and secondary feather growth never gets activated. This means it can happen to any pegasus foal, pure or mixed. It affects about 0.5% (1 in 200) of the avian pegasus population. This means it is actually not that uncommon, but the pegasi who have this affliction normally go unseen. We have two canon characters with this disorder in the show, Scootaloo and Bulk Biceps. So what happens here? Well, with PUD, it affects both the feathering and skeletal systems. On the skeletal level, the humerus (upper arm bone) and radius/unla bones (forearm bones) are almost always typical in size and shape. The carpometacarpals, or what would be our hand bones, have a 50/50 chance of being typical in size, or showing signs of under-development. On the feathering system, the primary and secondary feathers are always absent. The coverts are almost always present, but some pegasi have those missing too, resulting in naked "chicken" wings. Yes, that terminology is considered ableist, as is that joke, in modern day society. PUD individuals who have their coverts present, such as Scootaloo, often get misled by ignorant ponies that one day those feathers will come in and one day they will fly! Aunt Lofty was the one who had to have the talk with Scootaloo that no, she'll never be able to fly without accommodation. Like in our world, accommodations are made for the wealthy and the privileged. PUD prosthetics are fairly simple. Since PUD pegasi have functioning wing bones, muscles, and nerves, these prosthetics are just carefully crafted gliders that compensate the absent feathering. Their are different versions, some for every day flying, some for stunts and sports, even some for swimming. Drawn above is the standard model. Apteral avian prosthetics are for those who are absent of a wing through birth defect or injury. I will explore those another time. Either way, PUD prosthetics are still very expensive and hard to access. Most PUD individuals, Scootaloo included, don't bother getting a pair until adulthood. It takes a long time of physical therapy to build up with wing muscles and to get prosthetics crafted to what your wing shape would be, if they were typical. This is usually a several year process, but many able-bodied individuals assume that it's very easy to just get a pair of wings and start flying within the next week. (CW: Mentions ableism, child neglect) There is no cure for PUD, just accommodations for it. There is no way to 'catch' PUD early on since pegasi are born with featherless wings, unless your family is rich and privileged enough to get a chromosome scan done beforehand. In olden society, parents of PUD foals would quietly abandon or 'dispose' the unfortunately afflicted. In modern society, pegasi parents most definitely keep their children and most are lovingly willing to accommodate for their children. Poor Scootaloo was not so lucky, with her PUD being one of the reasons her parents abandoned her. As long as the child is not left to die, many pegasi still quietly sympathize with this cruel and unusual decision. It is still somewhat normalized in society. There is a disproportionate amount of pegasi orphans who are afflicted with PUDs in the modern foster care system. --- I lived about a third of my childhood physically disabled by a horrendous neck injury. I am lucky that it was a temporary disability. My physical disability was an injury with a very long healing time. When most children are exploring age-appropriate topics, I was in and out of dozens of hospitals and doctors from ages 6 to 12-ish. I had no idea- and neither did doctors- if I was ever going to get better. Lucky me, I did. But I could only imagine how kids in that same situation feel when they have something that won't get better. Not every disability has an easy cure, and not every disability can go away with enough determination. And that is okay. There is nothing wrong with disabled individuals, but there is something deeply wrong with how society treats us. My page is a safe space for the marginalized and undesirable. This means I won't be standing for any bigotry such as ableism in my space. Also, I am permanently mentally disabled, but that's a story for another day. TL;DR - Any ableist, ignorant takes will be hidden and you'll be blocked. Support me and see more exclusive art: www.patreon.com/horsecrimes Character © @hasbro Art © HorseCrimes

[the-green-maiden]

Supernatural Fair Fight Livestream Recap with timestamps

(based off of the notes I took while watching live. any errors are mine and not the fault of the cast or abrams)

21:01 Panel Starts. Misha introduces panel- Stacey Abrams, Jensen Ackles, Jared Padelecki, Erik Kripke, Berto the ASL interpreter.

21:02 Stacey Abrams talks about how she got into SPN. Talks about running for governor(?) in California(?), having trouble gathering support/campaign funds. On a particularly bad day, ends up watching SPN in her hotel room. Loves it, ends up watching the whole show after this. Quotes “Even if it’s hard we can’t stop” and “who else is going to do this” and talks about keeping going.

21:05 Kripke: “Wow”

Ackles: “That’s one of the most beautiful interpretations of what we do, how we tell the story.”

21:06 Kripke: “Grateful we could provide inspiration” 

21:07 JarPad: *reiterates above* joke about how “Kripke’s writing is questionable at best.”

21:08 Misha: “The reason we tell stories is to inspire people” creates an allegory about the ‘invisible enemy’ of voter suppression with the invisible enemy trope common in storytelling. “As we made the show, we were taking inspiration from [Abrams]”

21:09 Kripke asks Abrams to tell more about Fair Fight

21:09 Abrams talks about a secretary of state(?) [whose name I didn’t catch but who JPad refers to as ‘Lucifer”] who was in charge of voter registries in Georgia who wrongfully removed thousands of voters from lists, closed essential polling locations, and prevented people from voting, which disproportionately impacted POC and youth voters, and led to 8+ hour wait times in remaining locations. Abrams tells of how her and FF acted to fix this and change the whole system for the better. “If this becomes about politicians, no one is going to care, but when it becomes about people’s [list of basic rights and essential services]...” “...Patriotic belief that democracy means that if you’re eligible to vote, you get to be heard. Fair Fight is committed to ensuring that every voter in the US has the right to vote, and we are pretty good at it.”

21:16 Misha voices concerns about Trump’s attempts to make the 2020 vote counts seem unreliable.

21:17 Abrams gives an in-depth history of voter suppression in the US, committed by both parties at various times, including restrictions on mail-in votes, ID laws, and something about the voting rights act.

21:18 A bunch more panelists join in, including Jake Abel, Felicia Day, and a number of other SPN cast members.

21:19 Abrams says that in Texas a gun license is a valid id to vote, but a college id is not. “Everyone should get to participate, not just the chosen.” Mentions that she has not seen the final 3 episodes yet, request no spoilers until she logs out.

21:22 Kripke thanks Abrams for her political work.

21:22 Felicia Day says she was very excited to meet Abrams at Dragon Con.

21:33 Misha and Kripke try to move panel along to comply with Abrams limited time availability.

21:24 Rachel Miner “We all admire you [Abrams], you’re our hero.”

21:25 JPad gives a long speech thanking Abrams that was too fast to write down verbatim. “It’s important that everyone have their own voice” says it’s an honor to meet Abrams.

21:26 Bob Singer asks a question about Purdue(?) not showing up to a debate.

21:27 Abrams gives a detailed answer about swing states, swing voters, the lack of swing voters in Georgia, and the relatively small impact that Purdue(?) missing a debate would have on his numbers. Long speech about mail-in voting.

21:29 Sebastian Roche asks a question about run-off votes. Abrams answers.

21:30 Rachel Miner asks a question about voter registration descrimination against people w foreign names.

21:31 Abrams talks about how this has happened and what Fair Fight is doing to combat it, and how Fair Fight’s legal actions have managed to significantly reduce the amount of mail-in ballots thrown out for having difficult to understand names on them.

21:33 Shoshanna Stern thanks Abrams for her efforts in making voting more disability accessible.

21:34 Abrams answers, gives more info on the subject and the importance of having accessible voting locations.

21:36 Jim Beaver says it’s wonderful to be able to talk to Abrams, etc.

21:37 Abrams realizes her time has just about run out, and says thank yous and good byes. Mentions that tomorrow is her birthday. Multiple members of the cast wish her a happy birthday. More goodbyes from everyone, and thank yous to and from Abrams. Abrams exits call.

21:39 Kripke and Misha encourage people to donate to FF

21:41 Misha and Jensen rib each other, joke about an open bar.

21:41 Misha “Now we’re just going to waste your time for half an hour now that she’s gone”

21:42 Curtis Armstrong tells a short story about his mother, who was a voter activist in Detroit and Switzerland, and how nice it was to see Abrams talk.

21:43 Trivia intro. Multiple jokes made at the same time about state capitals.

21:44 Jim Beaver “When my kid was 7, I asked her the capital of Vermont and she said V”

21:44 Kripke asks semi-serious question about what JPad wore as protection in the ball-crusher Japanese game show scene in Changing Channels.

21:45 JPad “A thimble. A mini-thimble. No, a cup.” says something else about the cup.

21:46 Ackles “Our special effects team likes to go above and beyond”

21:46 JPad comments about real fear in that scene

21:46 Misha tries to get trivia back on track. “Without powers, what does Dean say Cas is?”

------[Baby in a trenchcoat]

“Other name of the Impala?”

Julie McNiven guesses “A special place”. Someone calls out “baby”

-----[Metallicar]

“Name of Sam and Jess’s friend who goes with them to the bar in the pilot?”

Even JPad, who was in the scene, does not know. Kripke comments that it was named after an irl friend of his from Tiuanna, named LUIS.

“5 works Kripke ripped off for SPN?”

Everyone guessing at once, including: Animal House, On The Road, Good Omens, Constantine, Star Wars, and several others.

“What herpes medication does Sam have to do a commercial for?”

[Herpexia]

21:52 JPad and Julie rib each other about herpes meds, and argue whether the term is prescription or subscription for medication. One of them brings up the example of having a subscription to dog food.

21:52 Jake Abel “What if your dog has herpes?”

Misha “I only hope that Stacey Abrams has tuned in”

Seb makes another joke about state capitals, then asks JPad the capital of Albania.

Jared has no idea, guesses ‘new albania’

Seb “Tirana” talks about having lived on a boat, presumably near Albania.

Rob Benedict: “Thanks for tuning in”

Bob Singer asks who knows the story of Seb getting a massage at VAncouver airport.

Jared (paraphrased) “We all fly through Vancouver airport a lot. Just past security there’s a massage place [with the chairs where you face the floor].” One day JPad and Ackles went through security and saw Seb getting a massage. They go over, convince the masseuse [who knows them all at this point] to let JPad take over. Seb does not notice, despite the fact that the masseuse is a small woman and JPad is holding his hands weird to try to make them smaller. JPad says he put his hands down Seb’s back and up his shirt, and Seb still did not notice, just making a noise and saying ‘very nice’. JPad gets as far as groping Seb’s ass before Seb notices anything is up. This is still the middle of a busy airport.

21:58 Seb “It was strangely sensual. Thank you, Robert, for bringing that up.” “I was perturbed for the whole flight back.”

Ackles “Another highbrow story”

Seb “It’s really fun being on that set. It really is” Claims they are also serious sometimes, to which there is laughter in response.

Ackles “It going to be like that on The Boys, Krip?”

Kripke “No massages to completion”

Seb “Wait there was no completion”

Krip “Saw photos of [Ackles’s] supersuit today”

Multiple jokes from several people about Ackle costume for The Boys being assless, crotchless, entirely made of paint, and cowboy-themed.

22:01 Misha “time for about 5 minutes of outtakes”

Someone jokes about adding ‘give Seb a massage’ as a donation tier.

Misha thanks the fans, says he loves and misses all the cast. Asks Rob B to sing.

22:02 Rob B “tune into my radio show” [for singing]

22:03 Misha announced that $225,000 has been raised for charity so far in the stream.

More thank yous from everyone to everyone, including the zoom team.

22:04 Seb “Vote out Mitch McConnel:

Jensen “Such as British accent to tell us who to vote for”

Seb “I’m half French half Scottish”

Jensen and Seb joke about scottish and french alcohols, and how they can’t be mixed.

22:05 Kripke thanks the fans for 15 years. Everyone else joins in on thanking fans for 15 years.

Jake Abel “There was a big gap in there for me somewhere”

Seb asks if Jake was in the first season.

22:06 Jake “3rd, 5, and 15”

Seb gives long thank you speech.

Jensen talks about how the cast is sticking together “This group is not being dispersed”...”I take comfort in knowing this” jokes that they’re stuck together whether they like it or not.

Misha “Like herpes”

Felicia “Genital or otherwise”

22:07 gag reel begins, including Misha’s ‘on-camera finger, Jensen falling off a chair “furniture could use some work”, Jensen failing to pick a lock for a very long time and Jared asking ‘Cas” to open it, Jensen saying ‘hail misha’ instead of ‘hail mary’, Misha failing to keep a straight face while looking at Alex Calvert, Jensen eating something too hot(?), and more that someone has probably already uploaded in full anyway.

21:13 stream ends.

[djchika]

Alex Appreciation Week Day 5: wanna go for a ride (smut/fluff) | music

(aka a snipper from what appears to be a Pretty Woman AU)

-

When Alex left Roswell for the last time, he’d prepared for a life destitute. Possibly a hand to mouth existence, but one that wasn’t bound by his dad’s rules. Surrounded by found family and good friends. 

What happened was the opposite. Bank was all Alex had. No one he called family, barely any friends. Just a shit load of money from a dead father who forgot to remove his estranged son from his will. 

Funny how life worked out. 

- 

Manes security was the crown of the Manes empire. It had been built on his father’s unwavering, paranoid insistence that the human race needed to defend themselves. Against what exactly? Alex was never sure. No one else knew either, but they still bought into the belief. 

The company started with simple security solutions that branched out to tech which led to multibillion-dollar government contracts. His brothers were all happily ensconced in the family business while Alex had jumped ship the moment he could. 

Or so he thought. 

- 

“What the fuck do you mean he left it to me?” 

“Technically he left it to his sons, but Flint signed away everything to do with the company when he started his own business, Gregory insists he’s retired, and after his breakdown Clay gave Gregory special power attorney and Gregory’s saying Clay doesn’t want it either.” 

“Well, I don’t want it! Jim, are you hearing yourself? I can’t take over my father’s company.” 

“Your father had the entire board of trustees under his thumb and he kept a lot of secrets. Without one of you to figure things out they’re going to strip it for parts and sell to the highest bidder. You might not care for your father’s legacy, but the Manes Group cuts a hundred thousand paychecks across several businesses. That’s a lot of jobs on the line.” 

Fuck. 

- 

That had been five years ago. Five long fucking years of going from a quiet life running a small music shop near the home town to living full time in New York city. 

Nothing about his new life vaguely resembled his life in Roswell.  

Well, except for Kyle Valenti. 

“It’s two in the fucking morning. Go home,” Kyle ordered from where he was leaning against Alex’s office door. 

“Should I even point out how hypocritical that is considering you’re here too?” 

“That’s because you’re a slave driver.”

Kyle was lying through his stupid perfect teeth. Alex worked hard to make sure they were one of the best employers in the country thankyouverymuch.

Besides, Kyle wasn’t even technically his employee. Their firm, Valenti, Valenti and Son had been the company’s firm even before Alex took over. 

“I’m going home after this. Leave me alone.” 

“As your legal counsel I highly recommend sleep before signing any of those.” Kyle said, nodding at the stack of papers on Alex’s desk. “I’ll be back Wednesday. I already had Jill pencil me in to your afternoon so we can start discussion on the Long deal.” 

Alex clicked opened his calendar. “My Monday’s surprisingly free we can do it then.” 

Kyle walked over to Alex’s desk, leaning down just so he could point at Alex’s laptop monitor obnoxiously. “That’s because Monday is the day before Christmas Eve and you declared it a company holiday.” 

“Right,” Alex said, pushing Kyle away. “See you Wednesday, then.” 

“Are you sure—” 

“Yes, I’m sure I don’t want to go home with you for Christmas. Yes, I will be fine spending Christmas by myself. Asking me a dozen times isn’t going to change my answer.” 

Alex appreciated Kyle’s concern, but going back home provided complications he didn’t want to deal with at the moment. 

With a sigh, Kyle straightened and started towards the door. “Fine. I’ll see you in four days. You also have four days to get me the present you forgot to buy me so you won’t feel bad that I already left your present at your place.” 

Presents. Shit. He remembered signing off a list from Jill, but Kyle always insisted that didn’t count. Maybe he could get him something online. 

Seeming to read his mind, Kyle turned and pointed a finger at him. “You better make an effort of going to a store for me, jerk.” 

That was how Alex ended up asking the driver to see if there was a shop anywhere that was still open. 

That was also how Alex literally fell into Michael Guerin. 

- 

“You looking for something? Wanna go for a ride?” 

The familiar low drawl had Alex’s heart beating wildly in his chest. He turned quickly, misjudged his center of gravity and only avoided a complete pratfall because Michael’s arms were suddenly around him keeping him steady. 

The shock he was feeling was clearly mirrored in Michael’s face. 

“Alex?” 

- 

The last time he’d seen Guerin was the last of summer after high school. He was being shipped off to West Point, while Michael was supposed to be on going to UNM on a scholarship. 

They’d been friends in the way that two queer kids in a small dessert town naturally gravitated towards each other. Something had bubbled beneath the surface but they’d left it to simmer. Neither wanting to risk the tentative solace they found in each other.  

A long series of almosts that never culminated to anything. 

Alex had graduated, gone on a couple of tours, got blown up and opted for an honorable discharge. 

Michael had apparently graduated, found out working with any sort of system didn’t fit him, and chose to travel the country in his truck, picking up odd jobs where he could. 

When he meant pick up. He meant pick up. 

- 

Michael gave a low whistle when they entered Alex’s apartment. It was disproportionally huge for someone living alone, but it had come with the inheritance and he’d never gotten around to looking for a new place. 

"Always knew you were loaded. I didn’t think you were ‘bring out the guillotines’ rich.” 

“I’m not. Or I wasn’t. This was all my dad’s. I’m always afraid I’m going to find a room I didn’t know existed and find out someone’s been living there the whole time,” Alex admitted. 

Michael smirked as he made himself comfortable on the leather couch. “Still not a fan of horror movies?” 

“I learn from them. There’s a difference,” Alex corrected as he slipped off his tie, coat and shoes already discarded. “Drink?” 

“Yeah, why not.” 

Alex poured them each a glass, watching as Michael surreptitiously took in the rest of the room. He wondered what Michael assumed of him based on it. He’d never gotten around to looking for a new place and he’d definitely never gotten around to redecorating. Nothing outside of the bedroom was his aside from the baby grand he’d gotten himself as a gift a couple of years ago. 

“I see your horror movie education never taught you not to let strangers into your home,” Michael said when Alex handed him a glass of whisky, neat. 

“You’ve always been strange. Hardly a stranger.” 

He sat down next to Michael, taking a long drink from his glass as Michael did the same. The liquid flowed smoothly down his throat, warming his body quickly. It also served to quiet the butterflies that were fluttering oddly in his chest. 

“You never know what’s going on in people’s heads.” Michael smirked, eyes roving over Alex’s body. 

Back in high school, with his bad boy reputation, the almost trademark smirk had been charming and innocently dangerous. Now, the slow smirk was backed with a confidence in his sexuality that was outright devastating.

Or it would have been if Alex didn’t see right through him.

“Are the lines part of the package?” 

“Depends, is it working for you? 

Alex raised an eyebrow before downing the rest of his drink. Michael seemed to take that as an invitation, moving both their glasses to the coffee table before straddling Alex smoothly. 

It was his teenage fantasy come true. Michael was different, the cut of his jaw sharper, a dark beard where there used to be smooth skin, but the warmth of his eyes was still the same. The pull that tugged at Alex’s chest just as strong. 

“Do you have rules against kissing?” 

Michael shook his head with a laugh. “That’s not a thing.” 

The kiss Michael gave Alex was surprisingly soft. A tentative press of lips on lips that belied Michael’s previous confidence. Alex tongue darted out, licking against the seam of Michael’s lips until they opened up for him. He tasted like whisky, like the first burst of summer rain. 

It barely lasted a minute before Michael pulled back a little, eyes searching Alex’s as if to make sure he was okay. 

Unwilling to examine the sudden knot behind his ribcage at that look, Alex surged against him kissing Michael slow and deep until they were both gasping for air. 

“Sure this is a good idea?” Michael asked breathily even as his hands roamed, touching Alex’s chest, his neck, his hair.  

“Nothing but a business deal, right?” 

“Hmmm,” Michael’s hands moved to the buttons of Alex’s shirt, undoing them one by one. “Preferences? Hard nos?” He leaned in, sucking kisses into Alex’s jaw and down his neck.  

Alex groaned when Michael’s mouth latched on to his pulse point, sucking gently. He could feel himself getting harder, Michael’s own erection pressed up again him. The sweet friction was making it hard to concentrate on what Michael was saying. 

“You’re not going to make me sign a release are you?” he managed to ask finally. For all he knew there might be paperwork involved. He’d never actually slept with a hooker before. 

The laugh that rumbled out of Michael’s chest, drew a smile on Alex’s face. “No, but it’s gonna cost depending on what you want.”’ 

“Consider me your booking for the night then double it.”

He didn’t even care what that amount was. Michael was worth it. Using his father’s money to pay for him was just a fuck you cherry on top. 

Michael smiled, slow and filthy. “Works for me.” 

(to be continued....)

[felicityzoid]

Technology- A Friend or a Foe?

Dependence on technology has made us forget about some of the traditional skills. Technology is wonderful but the increasing rate of dependency on technology is alarming. For example, the skills of reading maps have been forgotten as now people are using GPS for directions. Nowadays driving is also automatic, the car basically drives itself and after using automatic cars people have forgotten how to operate manual cars. Calculators have also become so popular in school that people can’t operate simple calculations without using a calculator. The dependence on the technology is too much that people are losing their ability to think and even read as people have all the information they need on the internet. Our grammar and spelling mistakes can also be corrected by the computer. We have also stopped producing our own food as production of packaged foods have been mechanized.

For a long time, computers have been all over the place and most households have them. Internet is the common activity on the computers and the internet is used to expand our knowledge, listen to music, play games, chat and watch videos. Most of the population is addicted to internet and spend much of their time on the internet other than spending their time on productive activities.

Technology makes our life simpler and easier but people's dependence on the technology is too much in that they are making people damn lazy as we have become sluggish, obese since our transportation has been mechanized.  The technology has made so lethargic in that we cannot even go to the shops to buy fast foods and all we need is just a phone call and the foods are delivered to us. So, in my opinion too much dependence and addiction to the technology is not good for humans.

There are many advantages that technological advances have brought. Technological dependence is clearly seen when we look around and realize that we are surrounded by technological advances ranging from mobile phones, computers, iPod, and television; that have become part of our common lives causing in us a certain dependence. Technological development has grown at considerable speed and the consequences on society, countries and individuals are enormous. Technological development has a unique course we cannot alter, nor stop; It defines our lives. In the present, technological change is determined by a few large multinational corporations that in turn influence the behaviour of consumers by advertising, so the consumer is directed to where they want. For example, for the people that must be continuously checking their e-mail; cell phones were invented, which already have mobile internet so that they can connect at anytime and anywhere. Another example of how consumerism is relating to new technologies is the company Apple who release every year a new iPhone. It is important to emphasize that the same consumerism perceived by the people today in everyday life; it is the same that induces to the purchase of new and improved artifacts focused more than anything else as a whim and not as a necessity. The gap between consumption and need becomes increasingly close and more difficult to discern.

“At first glance, one might have the tendency to dismiss such aberrant cell phone use as merely youthful nonsense a passing fad. But an emerging body of literature has given increasing credence to cell phone addiction and similar behavioural addictions.” Technology is a means that on one hand brings us many advantages, but in the other hand, we have to establish that the use of artifacts such as the Internet and mobile phones are becoming of excessive use in young people, for Roberts and Pirog it is definite that all these artifacts are becoming a way of life for each one of them, and they say that the same young people are at a stage where they will become addicts to this devices if they do not know how to control themselves. They argue further that technology isolates people because it is now very common to see how many hours devoted young are to be on the network, because humanity is involved in a technological world, that’s where people are starting to talk about the term “technophile” which is becoming more common every day. In addition, several people are starting to consider technology dependency as any unhealthy dependency such as alcoholism or drug addiction. Jane Demerica thinks the opposite to what is set out in the article of Roberts and Pirog she says that these new technologies are extremely beneficial for all and that it is difficult to speak of dependence in these technologies. New technologies in communication are optimal for better knowing people and expand the social circle. “Meeting new friends- Shy kids can make new friends on the internet.” She also claims to have solved the problems of introversion and even ensures that parents feel reassured that their children are talking to friends who already know and are under supervision to help lower the risk. Another point where she is in favour is the mobile phones because she mentions, “Cell phones make it easier for parents to keep track of their children.”

The technologies have a great potential to enhance and change the education system, which can break the prevailing cultural patterns so that technology does not bring so many prejudices and steers away from becoming a dependency. “When schools in different parts of the state, country or world connect, students can “meet” their counterparts through video conferencing without leaving the classroom.” According to him, there is no abuse of technology rather this is the current key of teaching so children and youth should be therefore more exposed to the media. As a source of information, the Internet provides immediate access to almost all knowledge collected by mankind in the history of civilization. In times where knowledge is power, access to the Internet puts a person in complete advantage over those who do not. With the internet a person can read the latest news on different topics, obtain information on employment opportunities, find out the latest fashion trends, and learn from the written responses of millions of people in specialized forums and blogs. The downside is that many people infringe copyright because they are tempted by so much information and end up copying and pasting text and then present them as their own. This promotes laziness and dishonesty. Also, many people take advantage of the vast amount of personal information available on the Internet to blackmail or steal identities. Psychologist Patricia Greenfield indicates that technology is causing the loss of critical thinking in students. She states that because of the incredible boom that technologies have on societies can begin to talk about the concept of dependence on technology, estimates that there are already hundreds of incidents of Internet dependency. Although she is not totally disagreeing with the new technologies, she indicates to use both “As students spend more time with visual media and less time with print, evaluation methods that include visual media will give a better picture of what they actually know.” Addiction is increasing, it is giving following alteration in social and physical habits of young people and identifies these as other addictions, producing anxiety about being in touch with a computer and the need to be using it every minute, so that has made huge gap between use and abuse. Another person who is in favour with the views of Roberts and Pirog about the mobile phones is Josip Ivanovic who says, “Teens’ natural tendency to follow trends may result in an emotional attachment to a cell phone that is out of scale with its actual value.” It can be said that many people, especially young people tend to use this device in a manner disproportionate, making it an addiction. Most people overuse the cell, nowadays users cannot leave it off for minutes, and if so, they tend to turn it on after a short time to check for text messages or voice mails. People who are dependent of cell phones need to feel their devices in their hands, otherwise they will not feel good, and this will generate anxiety, stress or despair. This new addiction attack to hundreds of people, and the worst thing of all is that they do not realize that they are addicted because they see it as something normal. “The overuse of cell phones has become a social problem for tens of thousands of Americans not much different than other harmful addictions.” In addition, cell phone addiction can cause serious damage to the home environment; because it causes alienation when a member moves away to make a call or send a text message this generates a detachment of the family environment.

We live in times where the use of technology is applied in every aspect of the society, which explains the technological dependence in which we live. Nowadays society applies new technology almost anywhere such as scientifically, socially and financially, “But as a foundation for an important economic pillar in our country, I suspect we’re pushing the envelope of sane thinking. There is no such thing as an unhackable computer system. There is no such thing as a 24/7/365 computer system.” For example, if we go to the bank and the system goes down, we cannot do anything because all the information about the clients is stored online; If a person wants to be served in any unit of government health, he has to make an appointment, but if it is rush hour in which all users want to make an appointment, the system will flood, and they won’t be able to handle the appointment. Other problem could be if a system fails “Because hospital systems are so complex, and require the careful integration of disparate, specialized software and hardware systems, single component downtime can greatly interrupt workflow.” New technologies have entirely changed the way of life of young people. In some respects, very much improved. For example, in order to perform the schoolwork children have to use a computer to do some research. In the last few years there has been a considerable advance in the technology, each time improving more what we already have, which is beneficial to our quality of life. The problem is that goes awry and creates addiction among children and adolescents, and presently technology can be considered as a drug.

At first, results from the ease of communications appear valuable because it helps people to communicate with others who are far away, but if this trend persists, people who use this technology often will isolate. “Young adults who use Facebook more frequently show more signs of psychological disorders, including antisocial behaviour, mania and aggressiveness.” An example of this is Facebook where more and more people spend hours attached to this virtual community, and thus ignore their interpersonal relationships in the real world. For young people, I believe that new technologies have become a property of first need that gives them independence with respect to the outside world. Some of the things that stand out are the media such as television, social networks, the consoles such as the video games, mobile phones, the Internet, and photos and videos from digital cameras. This has caused a radical change in the socialization and how they relate. The presence and contact now have become a thing of the past. Friendships are now not visible using technologies. For example, with the use of Facebook many people can meet new friends. The advantages that young people see in the new technologies are many and varied. For example, in social networks allows them to have a continuous communication. They can choose a person to talk or keep hidden until they feel confident most of the time, they use it at home where they feel safe and uninhibited, which causes parents to lose and control of their children. These technologies also have an impact on family relations, creating privacy for the children, which is hardly controllable by the parents, because most of the population now has a computer at home with internet access. The computer is a useful tool in everyday life as it helps us to make academic work and non-academic work. Although it is a very important tool in our daily lives today we have also become very dependent on it because we cannot do anything if we do not have a computer, this mainly happens because our environment demands the use of this tool each day at work or school, and nobody denies that it is a very useful tool for everyday tasks, but when a person rely on something that is what we dread to think what will happen when this technology is not around us. From a computer with internet connection a person can buy anything, from books to a house. There is no need that could not be met with the Internet and a credit card with funds. Someone with Internet connection could live his entire live without having to leave his home. This also means that the Internet offers an endless variety of business opportunities, from basic Web page creation, sales of traditional products, to even sales of stranger things. The negative side of these are of course spam, phishing, and other forms of fraud; through which unscrupulous people look for to get rich quick. Fraud can also come from the buyer’s side, because many thieves of credit cards use the Internet to make purchases under the name of their victims, emptying their bank accounts and ruining their reputation.

In conclusion, technology is a phenomenon that surrounds us all with artifacts and technical devices daily, is an element that is maintained for the length of time, and we remain equally or more wrapped up in a technological world that teaches us a new way of learning, and adaptation. Technological dependence is part of our lives because nowadays no one is free of this phenomenon on the global level. An example of this are the universities which indirectly involve students in this system, the same applies to jobs or simply with the Chat, which is limiting personal relations, replacing them with virtual communication. All this becomes dependence when individuals cannot perform their daily activities without the use of some device, or better said function in society without occupying any technological tool. Historically, technology has been used to meet basic needs such as food, clothing, and housing. But also, for other negative purposes such as, create weapons to persuade and dominate people. Technological activity affects the social and economic progress, but also produced the deterioration of our environment. Technologies can be used to protect the environment and prevent the growing needs cause depletion or degradation of material and energy resources of our planet. Avoiding these negative aspects is the task not only of governments, but of all the people living on the planet. Although technology has several disadvantages, I think the advantages of these are more favourable to mankind. In fact, one could say that without sustainable development of the technology, the humans would not be more than an ordinary living being on this planet. The inventions of man are indicators of the cognitive evolution of the same, and in their eagerness to learn, can overcome evolutionary barriers such as adaptability to certain climates, and defence against diseases. Unfortunately, it is man who decides how to use it. Certain types of men see technology as weapons for war, others as tools that help us improve the quality of life of the species.

[swordoforion]

Orion Digest №26 - Hybrid Planned Economy: Macroeconomics

At length we have talked about the government structure of eco-socialist federation, and if further elaboration is required, I will discuss such in the coming issues of the Digest, but after contemplation, I desire to discuss in greater and refined detail how economy will be managed within our hypothetical federation. Economy tends to lie on a spectrum between a command economy (one entirely owned and operated by the government, where the numbers and means of production are handled by direct oversight) and a free market economy (wherein the government takes a very limited role in the affairs of economy, and citizens privately own the means of production, and can alter the numbers and details of production to best fit profit). The debate upon the ethics and effectiveness of either end of this spectrum have composed much of economic politics for the last few centuries.

The inherent problem is that there is difficulty in finding which of these two systems, or some balance between them, is universally best for managing production. While a planned economy can do better to ensure equality of job opportunity and prevent massive wealth gaps that result in the creation of an upper class, it relies on government and the bureaucracy to account for changing tastes and demand in a market - and due to the enormity of government responsibility, changes to account for consumer demand are much slower and clunkier than free market counterparts. Due to the profit-focus of a free market economy, this issue is eliminated, as only the goods and services that people choose to buy will make a sizable profit, and through survival of the fittest, only items in demand will continue being made, preventing a waste of production and resources. However, the issue of the free market is the very thing that command economy solves - there is little to no protection against the rise of a wealthy upper class, and the subsequent levels of poverty created as wealth becomes more and more disproportionately distributed.

Many socialist nations throughout the last century have leaned more on the command economy side of the spectrum, having the government determine what will be produced and managing directly the means of production, which resulted in a more equal but less effective system of economy. The goal in creating societies of the future is to examine what has been done and to learn from the inherent flaws in order to find a way to improve upon them. It has become obvious that capitalist economy, while effective at growing, is unsustainable and will collapse given enough time in a laissez faire, democratic society. I believe that out of the elements capable of being salvaged from both these attempts, government oversight of production and a citizen-led market prove essential aspects to prevent waste of resources and unbalanced wealth distribution.

What follows is a hybridized version of a command, or planned economy - one that is ultimately regulated and maintained by the government and has just enough interference to prevent monopolization and ensure every citizen is either supported or employed, but that has a market run by citizens to create enough competition to allow for popular choice of production, rather than relying strictly on government prediction. As the ultimate goal is to provide for every citizen and ensure equality of opportunity, a system that leaves less up to chance is closer to our ideal, but to transition into a new model of economy would require the integration of billions of citizens and thousands of pre-existing businesses, a Herculean task for our new world federation.

Every nation would establish their own Market Bureau - a national administration that would establish regulations for the workplace and would make widescale planning decisions for the direction of production. The nation would be divided into select regions by the Market Bureau (only applicable economically, not politically), which would then be assigned their own Regional Market Bureaus. Within a region to which an RMB is assigned, a business could form and sell goods and services upon registration with their RMB - if you want to start a business, you must first make an application, and if it is approved, you will be granted starting capital (or if in the case of an older business being integrated into a hybrid planned economy, they would be restructured and assigned a certain amount of their pre-existing capital, plus state issued capital to enable them to run their business).

I will discuss the microeconomic scale of HPE businesses next issue and what regulations are required for a business to operate, but for now, we will focus on the macroeconomics, and how the state interacts with the economy. State-registered businesses would compete in a market, with their RMB tracking profits and trends in the economy, and reporting this data back to the National Market Bureau. The task of data analysis would belong to the NMB solely, as RMB's would be occupied with business registration and management. Conversely, businesses would never register and would only be managed by the NMB in cases where the task is too much for an RMB to handle, and requires further assistance. The main function of the NMB would then be to oversee and regulate the actions of RMB's when necessary, and to compile annual results and trends in regional markets to prepare for investment and production strategies in the coming year.

Every year, at a set time, the Market Bureau would draft its plan for changes in policy, RMB investment, and overall production goals for the next year, based on how consumers reacted in the previous year based on market numbers. This plan would be reviewed and, if necessary, revised by the national government, and then put into action by the RMB's as dictated by the NMB. The capital provided to businesses would be increased, decreased, or kept the same based on what the people demanded, and actions would be taken if a business started to unbalance the market or if it hit bankruptcy. These changes would be put into effect over the course of the year until the next meeting, and simultaneously, information would be collected about that year's changes and the trends in the market to draft the plan for the next year.

While citizens would manage their own businesses in a democratic structure, the business itself would be effectively owned by the RMB, and to an extent, the government, with a laissez faire structure only until a business would violate the regulations and guidelines of their application, at which point their RMB would step in and take the reins until things were fixed. Essentially, every business would function in a similar way to franchises now - a business owned by a higher authority that runs with set standards but has enough autonomy to operate on its own, independent and even in competition with other government owned businesses.

In the case that a business, during regular market competition, is not selling and goes bankrupt (they would technically be provided capital under the provision of that year's funding, but if intervention is needed before the next meeting, the RMB could move to act prematurely), it would be dissolved by the RMB, and the workers and resources would be assigned to work in other businesses (or, if work is not available, they would be provided with welfare until a suitable position opened up). As the government would be managing the creation of businesses, they would also have a registration process for work outside of private applications - normally, one would have to apply traditionally to work, finding the business and asking the democratic structure for consideration, but businesses could also choose to report open spots to the RMB, where unemployed workers could be assigned if in need of work.

On the other hand, if we run into the typical problem seen in market capitalism where the success of one business allows it to gain a monopoly on the market, an RMB, pending review, would partition the business into smaller companies, splitting funding, resources, and staff, and allowing the portioned business to compete amongst itself in the open market. If the problem could be remedied by simply decreasing access to funding and capital, this step could be avoided, but the decision would depend on observed market practices and would require NMB jurisdiction, with action being undertaken at the RMB level.

On the international level, a World Market Bureau would not deal with the affairs of individual nations unless there arose a situation that called for it (international crisis, de-escalation of industry for environmental recovery), and instead would regulate international trade and commerce (over time, a world federation would transition to a universal currency, but there would be a necessary transition period to move pre-existing currencies out of use), and would establish general standards for workplace regulation that would be modified as needed by NMB's. The NMB's would answer and report to the WMB, which would be accountable to the world federal government, and would take action outside of trade and currency management on the orders of the world parliament.

In summary, a hybrid planned economy (HPE) system would allow for consumer behavior to dictate production and prevent resource wastage, but would remain accountable to direct government regulation, to the level of being planned out annually by a National Market Bureau. This would allow the creation of private businesses through registration, but would keep workplaces within set guidelines, and would prevent uneven distribution of resource ownership; the government would own the resources necessary for production, and would distribute them to citizens upon application. This system can function at a national level, but would be employed in every member nation throughout a eco-socialist federation, and would be headed by a World Market Bureau for standardization.

Modern economies have tried to strike a balance between government intervention and a free market, but generally, they trend towards the free market side, and bring about the dangers associated with it. With an HPE system, we can have a planned economy and all of its benefits, while using the modified market to avoid its downfalls.

- DKTC FL

[dibleopard-writes]

Training Montage

Ao3 (recommended)

Description: Anakin was the Chosen One and therefore the best padawan anyone could ask for, especially Master Obi-Wan. He was so good, in fact, that he had plenty of time for shenanigans or, as he privately referred to them, Shenanakins. Force, he was clever. Several snippets from the training of Anakin Skywalker. Author’s Note: Fanfiction, in 2020? It's more likely than you think. I'm working on several Star Wars projects right now, and here's one that is far less structured with far less need for in depth planning. Original Upload Date: 2020-08-27 Fandom: Star Wars Prequels (post TPM, pre AotC) Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, various side characters Rating: Gen (or T for language) Warnings: Swearing, Canon-typical Violence Word Count: 6490

Chapter 1 of ??

Chapter 1: Moles? In My Mine? It's More Likely Than You Think.

At the age of five, Anakin resolved to never be the kind of moody teenager spacers complained about. At the age of twelve, he decided that not only was that naive of him, but that he would get a head start and be moody right that second.

This change of heart was mostly due to Obi-Wan, who was refusing to take any missions offworld with him even though Anakin got his own lightsaber a whole three weeks ago and was therefore completely qualified.

“Having a lightsaber doesn’t help diplomacy, Padawan,” said Obi-Wan, completely missing the point.

“So don’t choose diplomatic missions! I bet there are hundreds of pirates hanging around… I don’t know, Batuu.”

“Batuu has smugglers, not pirates, Anakin–”

“– And?! We can arrest smugglers–”

“– And anyway, it would be irresponsible of me to take a padawan as young as yourself into a confrontation like that.”

“I’m not nine anymore! I’m not some dumb initiate, I can handle pirates.” If he was the first in his classes to fight pirates, he’d be able to hold it over them for ages. Even Iepa would have to respect him, smug son of a–

“I was still an initiate when I was your age.”

“Well I’m sorry you sucked, but that doesn’t mean I can’t go on missions.”

By this point, Master Obi-Wan had his head in his hands, almost hiding the beard he was trying to grow in order to look more authoritative. Anakin didn’t think he’d respect him any more with a beard than without, but it did make him look less like a clueless teenager so maybe he could fool the senior padawans.

“Look, if I took you offworld, not only could you get hurt or cause a diplomatic incident, but Master Windu would be on my back about it.”

Anakin muttered, “I could take him.”

“What was that?”

“I said you wouldn’t be able to shake him.” Anakin believed both statements emphatically. Sure, Mace Windu was the Master of the Order and invented an entire lightsaber form, but Anakin was the Chosen One, which basically made him the best. That being said, if Master Windu put his mind to it, he could be annoyingly stubborn in his pursuit of wrong-doers.

“My point exactly, and if he decided I was irresponsible – which I would be – we’d both be Temple-bound for months.”

“Oh, so you get to leave and I don’t?”

“Yes, but I’m sure you noticed I haven’t left because I’ve been too busy looking after you.”

“And what an amazing job you’ve been doing.”

“Watch your tone, young one.”

“Tell me, Master, do you remember any of my allergies?”

“Allergies?” Obi-Wan stopped for a second, with a look of genuine concern and guilt working its way over his face as he failed to recall information that Anakin had never given him.

“Yeah, I’m allergic to you and your banthashit!”

“Language, Padawan!” There was something resembling anger in Obi-Wan’s glare, but to acknowledge that would be sacrilege and also a suggestion that Anakin cared, which he didn’t. To prove this, he stormed into his room and used the Force to slam the pneumatic door as pneumatic doors rarely do.

Force, Obi-Wan could be insufferable sometimes.

...

After an hour of staring at the ceiling, Anakin came to the decision that the only real resolution to this conflict was running away and being a Jedi without Obi-Wan to bring him down. 

Fortunately, he had spent the last two years building his very own ship and had already put it through an entire test run without anything breaking. Between his technical expertise and thorough testing, the ship was probably the best in the entire Temple hangar.

First though, putting his stealth skills through their paces in order to get there. One doesn’t survive nine years of slavery without knowing how to move silently. The swoosh of the door may have been a bad start, but his slow navigation of the common room more than made up for it. Sure, Obi-Wan was in his own room, probably, like, crying over getting owned so hard, but if Anakin had made even the slightest mistake, he would have come running and demanded a ridiculous amount of meditation on respecting others. The stakes could not have been higher.

He crept out of their rooms and into the corridor, shushing the mouse droid that seemed to regard him judgmentally despite its lack of eyes. From there, it was a simple matter of carrying himself with unquestionable confidence along a convoluted path to the hangar. He passed a few senior padawans with dead eyes and piles of holopads in their arms without raising suspicion. Man, was he good at this.

The hangar was probably the best place in the Temple. Warm Temple stone met flame retarding durasteel in a way that shouldn’t have worked as well as it did. Several decade-old speeders lined up against one wall next to a small fleet of cargo ships and fighters. All of them were horrendously out of date and well worn in the way that a lot of the Temple’s technology was. When Anakin asked why the Jedi insisted on having such terrible tech, Obi-Wan had said something vague about budget and not being materialistic. It was unconvincing at best and Anakin had really shown the whole Order up with his latest project.

After his no-doubt legendary podracer was left on Tatooine, Anakin had taken all of six months to set his sights on building a starfighter that could take him to every system in the galaxy. Obi-Wan, relieved to find a hobby that would promote focus, had pulled some strings and Anakin had aimed akk-dog eyes at the Temple mechanics that he had been tailing for months until they let him at the skeleton of an old Delta-7. Aethersprites never came with their own hyperspace engines, but he could work with that. Annoyingly, the sublight engines in the hangar were nothing like the ones on a podracer so he had to spend a humiliating few weeks with an old mechanic to get them installed and working. On the positive side, there was an astromech droid fitted directly into the ship that could give him diagnostics and occasionally a mechanically-themed joke. The jokes were hit-or-miss but the droid was good.

Two years of sterling work had made the Delta the best ship in the Temple, and it could far outpace any of the speeders in Coruscant’s skylanes. Now, as he made his way ever-so-innocently towards it, he couldn’t help but admire the way the smooth paint looked among the chipped facades of the rest.

R4-P3 chirped a greeting as he hopped in and prepped the starter engines.

“Hi, P3, fancy going on a trip?”

“THERE WERE TWENTY-SEVEN TRAFFIC CODE VIOLATIONS DURING THE PREVIOUS FLIGHT.”

“Me too, buddy. See if you can find one of those hyperspace rings lying around here.” Ignition was smooth. Vertical repulsors engaged. Landing gear retracted. So far, his plan was flawless. A blip appeared on his screen, indicating the nearest hyperspace ring. Latching onto the ring was not something he had ever practiced before, so he assumed the strange rattling noise was normal.

As he ascended, chatter buzzed into the comm system.

“What’s that P3?”

The chatter cleared into actual sentences as P3 adjusted the frequency.

“-ing is not fitted properly. Repeat, Aethersprite Delta-7 please identify yourself-” Anakin flicked it off. Trust traffic control to kill his flow.

“PLEASE KEEP TO DESIGNATED SKYLANES,” bleated P3, taking up the burden instead. Anakin dodged a passing CorSec speeder.

“Will do,” he lied, “While I find one, you wanna do the hyperspace calculations?”

“DESTINATION?”

“Uh…” He hadn’t thought that far. Tatooine was probably weeks away, Naboo had way too much water just lying about– Where else had he been? Oh, that’s right: nowhere, because Obi-Wan didn’t care about him. “Batuu?” He could probably beat up a few smugglers in the name of justice before the Jedi caught wind of it. Talk about selfless heroism.

He hit the upper flight levels and powered through into the mesosphere. Considering the thin air at this altitude, there was a lot of turbulence. The shaking was beginning to make his arm buzz and it became a disproportionate effort to keep the control-stick level.

“LIGHTSPEED CALCULATIONS COMPLETE,” announced P3.

“Great, just in time,” replied Anakin, flicking some switches, at least three of which were relevant, “I’ll just make the jump now.”

As he pulled the jump ignition, P3 began screaming and the rattling grew louder. The pinprick stars became needle-thin lines became the whirl of blue and white he hadn’t seen since the last journey from Naboo. On that trip, the pilots hadn’t let him in the cockpit during the initial jump, so this would probably have been way better if not for the awful clatter of the hyperdrive and the eventual tear of engines sputtering out of commission. Maybe that was why he had never seen anyone make jumps in-atmosphere. Or perhaps the issue was related to the ring’s latching mechanism. Really, it was anyone’s guess.

P3’s wails had become spluttering, staticky sobs, which was honestly a poor display in a droid with no fear subprogram. The ring flew off the Aethersprite, plunging it back into normal space with a roar.

“Well that sucked,” Anakin said indignantly. His flying had been flawless, too!

P3, between choked bleeps, lit up the speedometer – the hyperspace ring was no longer pushing them beyond the light limit but neither had any reverse-thrusters been engaged, leaving them at a healthy constant speed of only-just-slower-than-light, which was probably fine – and the scanner – there was a planet about thirty light-seconds in front of them, which was probably less fine at their current speed.

“Okay, so it still sucks,” Anakin amended.

He slammed on the brakes and almost blacked out as G-force slammed on him in return. Rude. His old pod-racer never had this issue. He tried easing their deceleration more slowly, which involved less blacking out but also made slowing to pedestrian speeds before hitting the planet somewhat less feasible.

No matter; Anakin was an expert pilot and even more skilled at having incredible luck. This would be easy.

Within twenty seconds, they hit nature’s drag chute: the atmosphere. P3 tried to draw Anakin’s attention to their steep angle and high speed as if these weren’t things that Anakin already knew. They did seem more relevant when the entire ship’s hull flew alight, however, so he attempted to shallow out their descent. 

The control-stick was uncooperative and everything began to shake as he tugged it as far back as he could. How was he supposed to pilot if the ship refused to do what he wanted it to do? 

After five long seconds, the heat died and they plunged into a cloud bank. Everything past the tips of the Aethersprite’s wings was obscured by a white thicker than Obi-Wan’s skull, which was impressive if disorienting. He felt the control-stick hit full lock and a few of the many warning indicators seemed appeased.

Another five seconds, and P3 stopped screaming about their speed and started screaming about their altitude. The clouds remained steadfast.

“I’ve made an executive decision,” declared Anakin, “As captain of this ship, I say we attempt what we in the industry call a ‘terrain-assisted braking maneuver’.”

P3 did not respond particularly coherently, which Anakin chose to interpret as a vote of confidence. It did wonders for his self-esteem.

In a blink, the clouds vanished and a deep green forest appeared. P3 squeaked. Anakin grimaced. His hand was losing all sensation from gripping the control-stick so tightly, still in full lock, but their downwards momentum still overpowered the thrusters even as the Delta’s nose finally rose above the horizon. He gunned the accelerator away from the surface and his body felt heavier than the ship itself.

The ship jolted as it made contact with the treetops. Anakin switched to reverse-thrusters as the nose once again pitched downwards. Slugshot snaps crackled around them as trees snapped against the ship. He scrunched his eyes closed and braced.

Soil and splinters erupted as they collided with the ground. Anakin lurched painfully into his safety straps. P3’s voice cut off. The grinding of earth against hull slowed them to a stop and Anakin fell back against his seat.

Smoldering wiring filled the cockpit with an awful acidic smell so he tugged his straps off and pushed his way out after only a second of shaky breathing. Anakin was nothing if not practical.

“Do you think it’s gonna blow up?” he asked P3 from a safe distance. P3 seemed not to appreciate the thought but ran cursory diagnostics anyway.

As he waited, Anakin looked behind the ship and saw the gaping furrow they had left in the ground. Further away, a clumsy cut ran through the trees and a couple of wisps of smoke trailed lazily into the milk-blue sky.

All in all, an impeccable landing. The forest had looked well dull before anyway, and now it had a sick scar. You’re welcome, forest.

P3 decided that nothing was about to explode, but that the ship was fully inoperational, even if Anakin just wanted to take it on a spin to the nearest mountain range. He acquiesced that the assessment seemed about right, but also loudly proclaimed that P3 was a killjoy and a coward. P3 didn’t seem to care. Anakin kicked a clod of earth in defiance.

The ground was covered in small, stiff leaves from the pointy-looking trees around them. They were waxy little spits that more resembled star stripes than anything useful for photosynthesis.  As he knelt to pick some up, he realised that the entire forest smelt like them – a fresh, emerald sort of smell. They were pretty incredible, for leaves; Anakin had certainly never seen anything like them. He shoved some in a belt pouch.

Now that he was looking at the ground, he noticed wooden, grenade-like things peppered amongst the leaf litter. This forest kept on getting more and more curious. Unfortunately, none of them would fit in his pouches. Jedi really needed some good pockets that could fit any important scientific discoveries in them. It was a severe oversight, in Anakin’s humble opinion.

Something rustled abruptly, snapping Anakin out of his Jedi-like contemplations, seed-pod still in hand. He scanned the surrounding thickets. Plants, plants, leaves, plants, thorny plants…

Claws!

A blur of red flew at his face and he stumbled backwards, tripping over a bush. Batting the wild beast away from his face, he felt himself fall further than anticipated through the undergrowth into empty air. For a suspended moment, all he could see was blue sky and grey rockface. Then his back collided with something that promptly gave way and let him fall onto solid stone.

Perfect.

...

Obi-Wan Kenobi was walking at an unpanicked pace through the halls of the Jedi Temple and casually inspecting child-sized nooks and crannies in a manner completely befitting of a master who knew exactly where his padawan was. He had been doing this for half an hour and wasn’t shaking in the slightest.

He was just doing a routine inspection of the gap between a bronzium statue and a wall when Master Windu walked past, stopped, watched Obi-Wan innocently test the screws on a ventilation covering, and said, “Knight Kenobi.”

Obi-Wan sprang upright. “Master Windu.”

“Have you lost your padawan?” Was he really that obvious? No, that couldn’t be it; Master Windu was just unusually perceptive. Perhaps shatter-points were giving him away – nowhere was it written that they didn’t highlight underperforming masters. Even so, it was probably wise not to confirm anything. The last thing Obi-Wan needed was a council member judging his guardianship skills.

“Oh no, not at all. I know exactly where he is.”

Master Windu’s expression was as flat as Anakin’s heart rate would be once this was over. Shatter-points were dirty snitches.

“Thank you for your concern, Master,” added Obi-Wan, respectfully.

Master Windu looked at him dead in the eye for a solid five seconds. Obi-Wan had seen him level a similar look at Qui-Gon several times in the past, and found it unnerving to now be the target. However, Qui-Gon’s experiences taught him that it was best to ride these looks out like a bad spice trip, i.e. with as little motion as possible. How either of them knew what a bad spice trip felt like was irrelevant.

The five seconds were up, only having been slightly uncomfortably stretched, and Master Windu blinked.

“Well,” he said, dryly, “Good luck with your endeavours, Knight Kenobi, whatever they may be.” With one spare glance to the ventilation covering, he continued down the corridor.

Obi-Wan was not naive enough to think himself completely free of suspicion but he was hopeful that nothing would come of it until he could thrust Anakin by the shoulders into Master Windu’s personal space and say ‘See? I have him right here!’ in a serene and Jedi-like manner as if he had nothing to prove. Of course, he would like to prove his capabilities anyway. Just as soon as Anakin was present…

He closed his eyes and fumbled for the Master-Padawan bond that connected him to Anakin. It wasn’t usually strong enough to get much other than vague impressions from, but now it seemed to be stretched thinner than usual, only telling him that Anakin was alive. That was a relief to know, to an extent, but also concerning since there was so little to point him in the right direction. He poked the bond and felt nothing.

Why had he taken on a padawan? Padawans get into fights and then run off and make you worry and then the Council finds out and then you have to try and justify it all and – 

Obi-Wan sighed. Running a hand over his beard, he peered down the hallway that Master Windu had taken. Empty. He could probably make it to the comms centre without any more councilmembers calling him out.

Probably. He was hopeful.

...

“Hilari? Is that you?” 

Anakin looked up from what appeared to be a now-dismantled porch tarp and saw an old man opening the door to its attached house, carved into rock. A tooka was watching him from behind the man’s legs. It meowed indignantly.

“I’ve told you, the awning isn’t designed for tookas.”

“Myaeeh,” complained Hilari.

Anakin, frazzled from both of his unplanned descents and shocked out of his irritation, opened his mouth to apologise because yes, Obi-Wan he is capable of apologising when a middle-aged twi’lek woman materialised.

“Wohrin, what– Oh! Who’s your young friend?”

“You’ve met Hilari before, Mahj–”

“No, the young man covered in your porch. Blond?” 

The man, Wohrin, gave Mahj’s left lek an exasperated look. His eyes were pale the same way Blind Man Mikah’s had been in the bookmaker’s in Mos Espa.

“Mahj,” he said slowly, “I don’t know what colour your hair is, let alone that of whoever it is you’re referring to.”

Mahj shook her head. “I don’t have hair, Wohrin.”

“What?!”

Another twi’lek, who could have been anywhere between fifteen and thirty years old by Anakin’s poor judgement, appeared in order to chip in:

“Yeah, she lost all of her hair when the sky turned red!”

Anakin squinted at the sky… no, it was definitely still blue. Wohrin looked equally confused, which was somewhat reassuring. Somewhat.

“Keht!” snapped Mahj, “Stop lying to people! And no, Wohrin, you know I’m twi’lek; of course I don’t have hair.”

“Twi’leks don’t… Why am I only just learning this? Was no one going to tell me–”

“I’m sorry, sir.” Anakin effectively drew the growing crowd’s attention back to himself. That felt better. Wohrin blinked, only now registering that the crash hadn’t been his tooka after all. “I was in the woods and something jumped out at me and I fell through your… thing.”

“Oh, well,” huffed Wohrin, “Easily done I suppose.”

Anakin clambered to his feet and hopped away from the mess, feeling only slightly guilty.

“Hey what’s with the weird rat-tail, kid?” came a voice from the crowd.

Anakin fixed the human who had asked with a patronising look. He found such looks were incredibly effective when used by children – especially those younglings he was stuck in aurebesh lessons with three years ago. Kriffing infuriating.

“It’s not a rat-tail, it’s a braid. And it shows that I’m a padawan.”

“A what-a-wan?”

“Oh, I know what they are,” chimed another bystander, “One of them beat up my cousin on Alsakan. They’re like really small Jedi.”

“You mean an apprentice?”

“Yeah, only I don’t think they do carving work.”

“Not all apprentices learn stonemasonry, genius.”

Another crowd member interrupted: “Hey, cadaban, have you come to help with the beast?”

That triggered a fervour in the onlookers, all snapping their attention back to him with loud expectation.

“... The what?” Anakin wasn’t sure he liked the way this conversation was going.

“The beast!” exclaimed the crowd.

“It’s massive–”

“–Taller than me–”

“–Big claws–”

“–In the quarry–”

“–The mine–”

“–Tentacles–”

“–Blue–”

“–Hang on, I thought it was red–”

“–It’s invisible–!”

“–No, it’s not, it’s–”

“–Firebreathing!”

“Hey, hey, hey,” shouted Anakin over the clamour, “Has anyone here actually seen it?” Everyone turned to a tall ovissian, who flinched. “What does it look like?”

“Uh, I didn’t see much of it, just– um, mostly heard crashes and saw– saw rocks falling from the ceiling in the mines. But when I caught a glimpse, it sort of looked all–” He made a vague and thoroughly unhelpful gesture which may have indicated size. Or maybe temperament. “–Y’know?”

Anakin definitely did not know, but he wasn’t about to admit that to the congregation. “Yeah, yeah, of course,” he said instead. The ovissian sighed with relief. “And what exactly do you need me to do about it?”

One exasperated person shouted from the back. “Kill it of course!” 

“Or at least move it out of the mines,” offered Mahj.

“Yeah, we need the mines or our economy will go to chisk!”

“The entire economy?” Anakin couldn’t imagine mines being quite that important when there was a massive forest right… Huh, it was higher up than he remembered. Right up a stone cliff, the one Wohrin’s home was carved out of.

“The entire economy! We’re a mining town, stone-masons and blacksmiths. Why else would build our houses in a quarry?”

This was the first Anakin had heard of ‘quarries’. Really, the whole trip so far had been quite the broadening of his horizons. He didn’t know why Obi-Wan didn’t take him off-world sooner, he was always promoting this kind of thing. Peculiar. 

That being said, this whole beast business was not what he had been anticipating and the idea of facing an invisible, firebreathing, tentacled monster on his own was suddenly way more terrifying than the plan of facing a horde of smugglers had been. What if it was like the krayt dragons of Tatooine, wild with impersonal ferocity and an appetite for small humans? That would be an incredibly anticlimactic end for the Chosen One; he was fully anticipating his death to be in a great ball of flame, Obi-Wan watching heartbroken as his awesome and flawless apprentice fulfils his destiny. That would be cool. Dying alone in a mine in the middle of nowhere would not be.

“Um… You know, beasts aren’t really my department. And… I don’t have my beast-removal equipment with me right now.” Airtight excuse. Foolproof.

“You’re just scared!” exclaimed someone who nobody asked.

“He’s not even a proper Jedi yet,” added someone else, “There’s no way he could take that thing on by himself, I bet he doesn’t even have a laser-sword!”

“Now, hold on–” All thoughts of avoiding the beast flew out of the metaphorical window. “I never said I wouldn’t do it! I have my lightsaber right here:”

The crowd stepped back as it ignited in his hand. Yeah, that’s right, he wasn’t some dumb initiate and this was his chance to prove it.

...

The comms centre had several private rooms for important calls and conferences. It also had better hardware than the commlinks Jedi took into the field.

Obi-Wan had plugged his own commlink into a rarely-used port in the console and tried to call Anakin. As he had expected, there was no answer. With the right tinkering of the console’s receiver, however, the target signal had been traced to a sparsely populated planet barely a minute up the Corellian Run. Kaidestal.

He fought the urge to slam his head against the console. If there was a licence for padawan ownership, his would be revoked any time now. Truly, he was having a fantastic day.

He wondered how Anakin had even got offplanet and then wondered why he was wondering. At this point, it was suffice to say, ‘Shit’s fucked’ and move on.

After a few moments of meditative breathing, he straightened up, unplugged his commlink, and whisked out of the comms centre. Knowing Anakin, there was little time before something disproportionately drastic happened. Force, what did he do to end up in this position?

Master Plo Koon was easy enough to locate, happening to be beside the bronzium statue Obi-Wan had been inspecting earlier. He watched as Obi-Wan covered the awkwardly long stretch of corridor in order to get within civil conversation range.

“Master Koon, I am taking a short trip to Kaidestal. I shall be back by nightfall.” He gave no reasons, the man of mystery that he was, and Plo didn’t seem to mind. Plo was one of the gentlest councilmembers and therefore the best one to inform of unannounced, unauthorised trips to obscure planets. Perhaps that was exploitative of him. Perhaps his padawan shouldn’t run away.

(Plo was one of the first to hear Mace’s gossip regarding Skywalker’s potential disappearance and therefore knew damn well what Obi-Wan was doing. Plo was not, however, a snitch. Besides, he liked Kenobi – the man had an excellent taste in drinks.)

Master Koon nodded slowly, “That seems reasonable. I’ve heard they do good stone carvings there.”

“Quite,” said Obi-Wan, impatiently – no, Jedi weren’t impatient. He was merely preoccupied.

“There’s a G8 light freighter in the hangar that you can use.” Plo shifted as if to move, but it was really more of an invitation to leave.

“Thank you, Master Koon.” Not at all in the headspace to overstay his welcome, Obi-Wan began to head towards the hangar.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for, young one!” Plo called after him.

“Me too,” muttered Obi-Wan under his breath. He wasn’t that young; he was twenty-eight. He was, however, too young to be dealing with feral padawans that made him feel twice his age. Why did he ever pick up Anakin, anyway?

...

The mouth of the mine was carved into the wall at the bottom of the quarry. It was darker than a Tatooinian night and he was being pushed into it by a gaggle of villagers who didn’t seem to notice his apprehension. While this was ideal for the maintenance of his reputation, it also made things move far more quickly than he had wanted.

No matter. He was a Jedi and Jedi faced terrifying monsters head on.

“This beast is gonna wish he never saw me,” he said, bravely, “Coward. Absolute… kriffin’…  clown.”

“What are you doing?”

“Old Jedi trick, it’s called psychological warfare. That beast is no match for Anakin kriffing Skywalker.”

“Is the swearing necessary for psychological warfare?” asked one of the group. “It’s just I brought my daughter along…”

A roar emanated from the mine ahead, echoing terribly. The tall ovissian, now wearing his head miner’s helmet, was shaking more than the nine-year-old behind him. She was delighted by the mine monster and had spent much of the walk loudly exclaiming that she wanted it to eat the entire goddamn quarry. No one else appeared to share her enthusiasm.

“Well,” said the head miner, sounding awfully authoritative, “I think you’ll be able to find your way from here. We need to go. For… health and safety reasons. Yeah, this crowd, in this passageway? Major fire hazard. Need to clear it. I’ll take care of that, you take care of–” Another roar erupted, punctuated by a thud and the sound of rocks falling. “– That.”

Anakin was unimpressed. “Ugh, do you have to have such an aversion to being cool?” He turned to see the group’s response but found the passageway empty. He rolled his eyes. Teenagehood would suit him well, he decided.

Slowly, he took his new lightsaber off his belt. It kind of sucked that his excellent craftsmanship was impossible to see in the gloom. Alone, in the dark, with no eyes on him, he could admit that quite a few things were looking decidedly uncool right now, but Force if he didn’t want to prove Obi-Wan wrong.

He tracked the sporadic tremors to their source, which was conveniently down the single, unbranching passageway in this section of mine. Still, it required a great amount of skill and a lesser man would have walked into five support beams, which was way more than Anakin’s three. He was a credit to the Jedi Order, really, even if they couldn’t see it.

Speaking of, the mine had grown far darker the further he walked until he couldn’t see his own hand in front of his face. The Force was being unhelpful, merely suggesting ‘forward’, which was a no-brainer. His issue was all of the obstacles involved with ‘forwards’. If only he had packed a light.

Hang on.

Oh, Anakin Skywalker was a genius. Lateral thinking and creative problem-solving had always been his strong point, as currently being demonstrated.

His lightsaber ignited with a kzhhh. Its electric-blue glow lit his maniacal grin in harsh clarity. It also revealed the glinting eyes of something big. The grin dropped from his face as he took five steps backwards.

The passageway had opened into a small cavern without him noticing and the beast barely fit into it. Colours were difficult to make out in eerie saber-light, but its fur appeared as black as the mines, matte with dust. Large tentacles stretched out from its nose, blindly groping the walls and ceiling of the cavern as if trying to judge the environment. Massive, shovelling paws held claws almost as long as Anakin was tall. In short, it resembled a mole.

This meant that, theoretically, Anakin was at an advantage since he was decidedly not blind and had only been known to resemble a mole some of the time.

The beast was also more clumsy than Anakin, knocking support beams left and right. Luckily, none had completely shattered but, judging by their splintering fractures, it was only a matter of time. Time limits were very dramatic; this would be a worthy first mission.

Anakin waved his lightsaber in the vague direction of the mole. It was unbothered. He frowned, put out, and then poked one of its claws. Suddenly, the beast was very bothered. Its nose went from snuffling around to being thrust in Anakin’s face. Apparently it had his scent. Obi-Wan would have blamed it on Anakin’s infrequent use of the shower. Anakin would have responded that he grew up in the desert and then accused him of not caring about wasting water on trivial matters. This would put a glint of annoyance in Obi-Wan’s eyes and Anakin would count it as a victory.

The mole exploited his distraction, dishonourable as it was, yanking him off the ground with a thick face-tentacle and shaking him irritably. He tried hitting the disgustingly writhing mass with the hilt of his lightsaber – ineffective. Then he slashed it with the blade and got catapulted into a wall. His vision failed and the back of his head killed, but he was quickly grabbed by the ankle and dragged across the floor. Massive, sharp claws came swinging at him. This was not good.

Quick, what would Obi-Wan do?

“Hey, you suck!” he shouted, voice wobbling as he dove out of the way of another slash, “No one likes you! You should just stop and go away!”

The mole monster may also have been deaf since it only continued its previous level of violence despite the scathing insults. He dodged a claw, jumping into a swinging tentacle which smashed him into a support beam. Splinters pierced his robes, digging into his right arm as it collided with the beam. His lightsaber flew from his hand and he fell to the ground, spinning to narrowly avoid landing on the hurt arm. All light in the cavern vanished as his saber-blade extinguished.

All of a sudden, the lightsaber argument from that morning felt like a moot point. A lot of things were looking very moot now, in the dark. 

He could hear the shuffle of tentacles searching the floor and the scratching of claws against stone. The mole was snuffling loudly around for him. His arm hurt.

Fighting the urge to curl up by the wall, he slowly climbed to his feet and looked the monster dead where he thought its eye could be. Warm air huffed in his face, blowing his braid back. Everything was still for a moment and then a tentacle whipped around his knees and flipped him upside down into the air. He definitely did not yelp.

The sound of a lightsaber igniting came from the tunnel, then pounding footsteps and then Obi-Wan ran in, illuminating the cavern walls around him. Something intangible yanked Anakin out of the mole’s grasp and into Obi-Wan’s arms. 

Anakin struggled to escape the strong left arm that wrapped across his torso, efficiently immobilising him. “Hey, I had it under control, you know.” He gave up, reaching his good hand out and calling his lightsaber back to it. “Still do, actually.”

“Sure,” replied Obi-Wan, not letting go even as a tentacle lunged at him. He jumped backwards, slashing the support beam that Anakin had dented. They dove into the tunnel as the cavern rumbled. The mole roared back. There was a terrible creaking of splintering wood and then the cavern ceiling fell in. Dust and rock made the air thick.

Quiet.

Anakin looked up at Obi-Wan from where he was pressed against his chest and saw a strangled sort of sorrow.

“Poor thing,” croaked Obi-Wan. Then he looked at Anakin with a clenched jaw. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of those. I could have studied it.”

It was almost enough to make Anakin apologise.

...

Obi-Wan dragged his padawan by his collar until they reached the mine’s entrance. The villagers who had pointed him inside were crowded around and erupted into cheers as soon as they stepped into the light.

One elbowed the head miner playfully. “Told you he was the madawan’s Jedi.”

“Shut up,” said the ovissian, who then raised his voice above the chattering. “Thank you, Master Jedi, for your assistance. Uh, what exactly is the status of the, uh…”

“It’s dead,” Obi-Wan replied, bluntly, “And I’m afraid you may also need to reinforce the tunnel’s structural integrity. I apologise on behalf of my padawan –”

“Hey!”

“Of course, he will also apologise himself.”

Their eyes met in a match of wills. Anakin sighed, just loud enough for Obi-Wan to hear, and acquiesced.

“My sincere apologies,” he muttered, bowing shallowly. Obi-Wan had definitely taught him better manners than this; the child was just showing him up. Ungrateful womp-rat.

Fortunately, the villagers weren’t versed in bows and didn’t seem invested in apologies. Most were preoccupied by the mine and the new lack of angry mole. Small blessings, perhaps.

...

After manhandling the still-hot wreck of Anakin’s Aethersprite into the freighter Obi-Wan had brought and flying the brief trip back to the Temple, Obi-Wan was reaching the end of his patience. He left the ships with the hangar’s mechanics and dragged Anakin away from any chance of helping them. Their trip to the Halls of Healing were brief – the healers were efficient in removing the splinters and wrapping Anakin’s arm in bacta-soaked bandages. He only complained about half as much as he usually did.

They marched double-time to their rooms and Obi-Wan locked the door behind him; he could not cope with Anakin sneaking out at night.

“Master?” The voice was small. Obi-Wan tried not to let his ire show in his look. Perhaps if Anakin was squinting it would work. He was not. Instead he was holding out a hand full of pine needles and another with several small pinecones. “While I was on that planet, I found these for you to study. I’ve never seen them before; they could be revolutionary.”

Obi-Wan sighed, not having the heart to tell him that pine trees were fairly common throughout the galaxy. Anakin dropped his revolutionary finds into his hands, having to scrape off some of the pine needles that stuck.

“Thank you, Padawan. That was very thoughtful of you.”

“There were some bigger ones of these,” he added, pointing to the pinecones, “but I couldn’t fit them in my belt and some of the wildlife tried to fight me for them.”

“A squirrel?”

“I dunno, I didn’t see it very well. It was kinda fast. Reminded me of you, a bit.”

“How so?”

“Red,” said Anakin, nodding to Obi-Wan’s head, “And it didn’t like me picking up things off the floor.”

Obi-Wan huffed. “As long as you weren’t trying to eat pinecones.”

“Is that what they’re called?”

“Yes. Although I suppose I’d have to… study them. To make sure.”

Anakin’s face lit up. “Wizard.”

Obi-Wan’s annoyance was almost forgotten. Not quite. He was still a responsible Jedi master, no matter what the Council speculated.

There was a knock on the door. Obi-Wan looked at Anakin, who grimaced back. He opened it with very little hesitation.

“Knight Kenobi.” Speak of a Sith…

“Master Windu,” said Obi-Wan, far more brightly than he was feeling.

“Have you located your padawan?”

“Of course; he’s right here, Master.” He pulled Anakin out from behind his legs. Anakin attempted a winning smile, but nerves appeared to crumple it slightly. He had always been intimidated by Master Windu – first impressions were a force to be reckoned with. “I knew exactly where he was.” It was technically true, if you were selective about your timeframe.

Master Windu gave Anakin one of his signature piercing gazes, the kind that seems to expose one’s every weakness and warn against them. Anakin seemed to get the message. Hopefully he would keep it for at least a week before he inevitably threw it out.

“If that’s the case, I won’t need to launch a search party. Good night, Kenobi.”

“May the Force be with you, Master Windu.”

After Master Windu had left and Anakin had gone to bed still shaken from the encounter, Obi-Wan contemplated ditching the Temple and his wayward padawan for Bail Organa’s whiskey collection. Alderaan always made the best whiskey…

...

Art by me, @dib-leo-pard​

[bclarkson21ahsgov]

Political Party Action

Republican:

The Republican party is the party of the constitution, and the constitution along with the Declaration of independence insure that all American citizens are equal under the law. Some people may not agree with this statement even though it is fact. The Republican party has stated that, “We[the Republican Party] denounce bigotry, racism, anti- Semitism, ethnics prejudice...”(9). The republican party does not support racism in any way and for people to be so close minded and say things like, “All Republicans are racist, and all Trump supporters are racist”. I agree with the party's view because it is logical and based on evidence and facts. The document in which all citizens have to follow states clearly that under the law all are created equal. Now that has been left up to interpretation over the years, but I see it as a very literal statement and I do not see any other meaning that could be seen. As the party of Abraham Lincoln, the Republican party, “Continues to encourage equality for all citizens.”

Democrat:

The Democratic party believes that because of America’s long history of systemic racism, has created, “Lasting inequities in income, wealth, education, employment, housing, environmental quality, and health care for communities of color.” They also stated that they are, “ Democrats are committed to standing up to racism and bigotry in our laws, in our culture, in our politics, and in our society”. Although I agree with the overarching idea of their position I believe that they are more closed minded than some may see. First, I agree that long systemic racism has filled America for a long time, and there still is racism today. I am not trying to knit pick, but people of color are not the only people who have been put down in America’s history. The Japanese were put into internment camps, the Asian forced to work on the railroads, and many nationalities who are Caucasian have been oppressed as well. Also, when they state that the laws have racism and bigotry I would like to disagree with that statement. I will agree that our culture, politics, and overall society are filled with racism, but the law which includes the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights included say that under the law all men - does not say women but also women - are created equal. 

Libertarian:

Libertarians agree that bigotry is, “Irrational and repugnant”. They believe that, “Government should neither deny nor abridge any individual’s human right based upon sex, wealth, ethnicity, creed, age, national origin, personal habits, political preference, or sexual orientation.” I agree with this statement 100%, but believe that this should be something that everyone should just know. To label someone as a decent human being I think that this should be the bare minimum. I feel as though it is obvious that everyone should be treated the same under the law. The party also stated that because private corporations retain their rights to set all standards and associations they deem appropriate, if the individuals who work at the company can, “Respond with ostracism, boycotts, and other free market solutions”, which is also their right. Their section for this topic was small and condensed, but it seemed as though all the topics were structured like that. Though it was short I believe that they conveyed everything they wanted to, and in all honesty I think that it was perfect. It was straight to the point, and made me think they also believed that this should not even be a discussion if all people should have the same rights because one they do, and two if they did not then the problems in the country as of now would be 100 times worse. 

Green:

The green party seems to have the most extensive section of rights of all kinds. They believe that racism of not only the black community, but that also recognize the other people of color along with a section on native Hawaiians, and Native Americans. They believe in compensation for those with ancestors who were slaves. I do not agree with this because one, the true amount of slaves is unknown, and there is little info on a large majority of the slaves. This would make it almost impossible to truly give fair compensation to everyone who deserved it. They also, “Strongly support the vigorous enforcement of civil-rights laws, the aggressive prosecution of hate crimes, and the strengthening of legal services for the poor.” Although I agree with this, to have this in the section of Rights for African and black Americans, and then saying they will help the poor is insulting. Saying that to help the poor as a whole would help the black community is insulting, and though the black community around the country is poorer as a whole it is just an insult to say something like that whether it was intended or not. Overall i would say that I agree with the overarching idea that racism is bad, has been for years, and can still be seen and needs to be stopped, but I do not agree with their moves to help.

Peace and Freedom:

This party seems to be more against capitalism than the actual problem, but they stated that, “They demand equal treatment of all people by employers, businesses and government. We stand for a world free from all forms of oppression.” I agree with this because to me it seems like a very obvious thing. I do not believe that there should even be a discussion about whether people should be treated equal under the law. This party claimed that, “ Minority families are disproportionately victimized by cutbacks in health care, education, child care, welfare, food stamps and jobs”, and demanded that America has to, “End all forms of racial discrimination. Enforce non-discrimination in hiring and promotion with affirmative action where necessary. Prosecute and punish police and prison officials who brutalize and murder.” I agree with most of what they are saying here. I agree that it is outrageous that the police officers who are killing innocent civilians should be put in court and sent to jail for their crime because just how the president is not above any laws, the police still have to be held accountable for the crimes. I have to say though that after doing some research and watching the news, I came to find that some of the recent civilian murders by the police were not on so-called “innocent” civilians, and I think that is what most people do not see or understand. One part that I do not agree with is to install affirmative action in companies and corporations because I believe in equality not equity. 

Reflect:

I would say I agree with the Republican and Libertarian views the most. Both say that under the law all are created equal, but understand that there is racism in the nation. I also got from both of the parties a sense that they both knew that racism is a problem, but it is obvious that people should be treated equally and did not need to prove that they are not racist parties. I would not vote for Trump because I believe him to be a sexist and racist human. 

Presidential Debates:

My topic did come up in the debate. The most notable time was when Trump was asked about Anti - Semitism in America, and he seemed to sort of dodge the question. He did not give a clear answer on such a softball type of question. Do you think racism is bad and will you stop it? Trump’s answer should have been yes and then had a set plan because how did he not see a question like that coming. I believe that he should have been better prepared for such an easy question that really could have solidified a non racist tag for Trump. His answer contradicted his party's stance that they, ”Denounce bigotry, racism, anti- Semitism, ethnics prejudice...”(9). 

[storyinmypocket]

It’s not that i’m sexist, I just remember a time, when I held the door open for a girl, and she began to scream and cry. “You oppressive piece of shit,” she began to say, and when I tried to calm her, she kicked my way. I used self defense, and moments later she was on the ground. The cops were called, and I’m writing this from prison now. It’s not that I hate women, just a selective few, the ones who abuse the system, and many of them do.

Wow. Wooooow. I don’t know what I did to merit this charming attempt at trolling, but okay. Okay. Let’s do this, because picking apart something this goddamn ridiculous is a nice easy exercise in critical thinking skills for when someone hits us with an actually plausible story. And maybe while I’m at it, address the fears of some cis guys who legitimately worry that something like this could possibly happen to them.

Today on Things That Definitely Never Happened, Ever:

1) If the truly implausible occurs and someone starts screaming and crying about you being oppressive for you opening a door, they’re probably dealing with PTSD or some other really unfun mental illness. Unless, of course, you were one of those assholes that sees a woman, sees a door, and immediately tries to race her to said door so you can be all gentlemanly when the woman in question is clearly able to open it for herself. At that point, a woman is justified in telling you to fuck off. If you reach the door first, you can hold the door for the person after you, but “I see you appear to be a woman and I must run past you to be a gentleman!” is a dick move. But even then, screaming and crying is a disproportionate response and generally a sign that the person is Not Okay and you need to proceed accordingly.

2) If someone is that severely unwell, do not try to calm them. You are a stranger who just triggered the fuck out of them, and any further interference will not go well for either of you. This is when you say, “Okay, sorry, whatever,” and you back away. You do not attempt to further interfere with the person. Let me provide some advice that gets drilled into the head of pretty much every woman I’ve ever met for when something sketchy happens: immediately go to a well-lit place with people. If she follows you, you have witnesses. If she doesn’t, at least you can find an uninvolved person (ideally another woman, but sometimes you have to take what you can get) to go check on this woman and her meltdown. Do not call the cops for mental health issues if you can help it -- that’s how people die. On the other hand, if it’s a white woman, her odds are better than most, so... There’s that?

3) Let me get this straight. Let’s be absolutely clear, Nonny. You say, in this little fairy tale, that she kicked your way. While screaming and crying. Not that she made contact, she just... kicked your way. Mid-meltdown. So, um. I’m not getting a real sense of threat here. I’m not getting that she roundhouse kicked you in the face, or even that she went for your balls with clear intent to harm. Which was it, Nonny? Which made-up thing was it? Was she attacking you with clear intent, or was she having a meltdown and lashing out because you wouldn’t back the fuck off while you “tried to calm her”? And then you “used self defense” (what does that even MEAN? did you strike her? grapple her? fucking trip her?) and she was on the ground moments later. Why was that an appropriate use of force? If she’s crying and screaming and melting down, what was PHYSICALLY PREVENTING YOU from getting the fuck away from her? Why did she need to be on the ground? Why were you even still in her space when she was flipping out? So many questions. If this bullshit happens to you? Throw your manly pride out the nearest window and get the fuck away.

4) More questions. The cops were called. Who called them? Were there other witnesses? Did she call them, after you put her on the fucking ground? Did you call them because this lady just attacked you? The passive voice there is really interesting to me, because I’ve generally seen it as a sign of one of two things: either there’s so much trauma involved in this that you’re dissociating hard, or you’re making shit up as you go along and you have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m leaning towards the second one, because...

5) You can’t use Tumblr from prison, dipshit. And I mean, I wouldn’t use a contraband cell phone for the purpose of going to some random person’s Tumblr and telling them my “victimized by teh wimminz” story, but maybe that’s just me.

6) It’s not that I hate men. Just a select few. Because the really neat thing about human nature is that women and men both make up stories to make themselves appear unjustly wronged, in more or less equal amounts. False reports of rape, that terror of cishet men everywhere, happen in the same ratio as false reports of literally any other crime. And society is in many cases still skewed in favor of believing men. So if this feels mean, and harsh, and like I’m putting someone who theoretically could be an innocent victim in all this through the third degree, questioning every detail, picking apart the specific wording they used: welcome to the experience of many, many rape victims. Welcome to my experience, and why I don’t tell random men about the times I was raped.

So, gentlefolk, if you’re concerned about any of this implausible nonsense happening to you, let me tell you, as a mentally ill person: if a woman who is a stranger to you is melting down, do not attempt to calm the woman, because my experience has been that men try to do that by moving closer, and that is the opposite of helpful. Put some distance between the two of you. Don’t go all fucking Ender Wiggin on her if she does attack you. Remember that the purpose of self-defense is to get you away from the threat, not to prove your dominance over it. These are lessons that women are taught over and over, for how to deal with a Random Scary Guy. Apply them to Random Scary Women, as well.

I don’t particularly want men to live in fear. I don’t want anyone to live in fear. I want to live in a world where this shit doesn’t happen and where victims, both men and women, are given the benefit of the fucking doubt and we don’t re-traumatize them when they talk about what happened to them. But that’s not the world I’m living in right now, I’m not Nonny’s friend or loved one, and I didn’t fucking ask, so... Here we are. Just you, me, and this here steaming pile of horseshit.

[hiriajuu-suffering]

Gender Policing

Online, everyone is prone to have less of a filter than they would have in real life because physically being in front of a person presents a different level of respect than being online, even in the most blatantly individualistic societies like predominantly English-speaking ones. You can really get an indication of a person’s best and most genuine self by how they choose to date. Meaning, an online dating profile should, in theory, present someone’s best and most genuine self with the least amount of social normativity values being imparted onto the dynamic of the interaction. If you’re female participating in the online dating scene, you have a far higher frequency of suitors, all other things equal, than your male counterpart will because of patriarchal norms. Due to this fact, you see a staunch difference in how men and women portray themselves through these mediums.

Men are brutally honest online because they fear reprise or offense less than they normally would. Either they make blatantly clear the nature of the relationship they are pursuing or leave their profile relatively blank for you to judge on their appearance alone so the woman can make whatever assumptions they choose to make. A majority of men, especially minority or short men, couldn’t get a date on these forums if their life depended on it with no presentation of potential danger other than the fear instilled in them by the worst of us. Yet, men are asked by feminism to police said behaviors to improve the lives of women with no expectation or entitlement of anything in this regard in any way. By no means am I saying that’s necessarily wrong, I just find the argument becomes extremely slanted when women don’t police away from bad behavior on themselves like feminism asks of men.

The behaviors in women I’m talking about do more to encourage incel-style behavior than seek to remedy it, further perpetuating the problem feminism tries to solve in equalizing the gender roles. High demand for women and low demand for men on these platforms indicate men must take initiative, intuitively patriarchal. Online dating is a chance to remedy said ailment, but women actively choose not to. Not only does online dating become overly reflexive of patriarchal norms, they enforce them by what women are encouraged to present themselves as by other women. The use of frequency in filters alone is enough to prove vanity comes over substance in the realm, but you start to see some disturbing prejudicial patterns outside of that: blatant height discrimination, overt & covert racism, not disclosing clear “looking-fors” because there’s a distinction between the type of guy to hook up with and the type of guy to date, messages of body positivity in women while only selecting men of a certain body type, and worst of all using one’s presence for validation with no genuine intention.

I’m not necessarily claiming females seem, from the male perspective, to be horribly flaky and fickle daters which they have every right to be anyways. My premise is women expect this gallant behavior among masculine relationships towards women but don’t impart the same standard of courtesy in feminine relationships towards men. Women are encouraged to actively treat men like disposable and as a value of their production, just as society sees them. Women then demand to be treated as individuals warranting a level of veneration of respect that sees past their ability to contribute within the shifting norms of female expectation. I don’t think gender equity is achievable if half of women seek to reap the benefits of patriarchy to them and the other half think actively dissolving the patriarchy is better when yes, all women abuse a benefit the patriarchy affords them in the digital age. I can actively say in the same vain, half of men feel entitled to women and the other half seek real equity while yes, all men benefit from the system of inequity existing with entrenched patriarchy.

Morally abhorrent behavior should be discouraged to all genders, not just men. Female predators are seen as less of an issue than male predators. Just because it often manifests itself in a different way, doesn’t mean it’s any less predatory. Are men guilty of more sexual harassment and assault than women? Most likely. Are women more guilty of subverting the male expectation to get a return on time invested rather than pursuing a genuine connection? Absolutely, this is a textbook interpretation of simping at its finest. Playing the oppression olympics by saying physical/sexual transgressions are worse than mental/financial ones isn’t helpful, even if women would often win every time. Policing disproportionately has been on the forefront of the societal welfare debate when it comes to race, but not when it comes to gender. The social politics existing for a man to be righteous he has to be chivalrous to be good while a woman can be anarchistly free and be equally as good is problematic if men are trying to be convinced women crave real equality.

The lack of feminism’s ability to know how it wants to move forward in a post-patriarchal world is disturbing because it doesn’t require both cisgenders shoulder an equitable burden. The biggest obstacle to feminism is women’s behavior towards one another, not men. Men’s insecurities cause them to cling onto societal power and dominance if women can’t relinquish some of their social power in courtship. The power in a relationship lies with who cares the least, and women seem to only care about men who don’t genuinely care about them. There some tendencies that have to broken for progress to be made, and women policing one another the way they ask men to is a step in the direction gender equalization needs to take. What happens if we’re not comfortable with policing one another? Well then, laziness is what will entrench the patriarchy, generation after generation. When we treat an other gender better, humanity as a whole improves.