#nor reads the eu

[iberiancadre]

Blaming job precarity on labour protections, thay is some real neoliberal shit for a post tagged "real marxist hours". Are you sure there aren't any other causes? Like, I don't know, the recessions and crashes of 2008/2012/2014/2020, tolerance of employers who hire and pay under the table, insufficient protections for people affected by the practice (especially non-EU workers), relative disregard for unions in labour law negotiations, inequalities in infrastructure distribution and so on? None of those things are essential parts of social democracy, they're the consequences of right-wing attacks on it, and Spain's specific failures at social democracy are not universal nor a reflection of the system in general.

And the issue of colonial and post-colonial exploitation wasn't addressed sufficiently in marx's very works either, or under any application of socialism in a country already high-up in the hierarchy of imperialism (remember when a certain socialist country became one of the largest fossil fuel producers by drilling oil on indigenous land, effectively turning most of "its" territory into a settler colonial regime servicing the state oil industry? Talk about funding public expenses through imperialism!)

All of what you're saying sounds great and would be valid if they weren't objectively false. I don't think you're usamerican (the target audience of the post you're replying to) but you sure sound like one. If you aren't, we'll I'm sorry but you're just ignorant:

btw this is in relation to this post in case anyone wants to read it

"Blaming job precarity on labor protections sounds like neoliberalism" If by protecting labor you mean legalizing and protecting a type of work that allows workers to spend most of the year effectively unemployed, unable to claim unemployment because they're technically employed, and also prevents them from getting a second job because they are at the mercy of their first employer's needs? Then yeah, I am blaming labor protections for job precarity. This is one especially egregious example of what the socdems in this country have done, and it's funny you mention neolibs because this new law allowing "fixed discontinuous" work is a direct continuation of the 2012 labor reform done by neoliberals. I am blaming a precarious form of work which already has millions of contracts under it for precarious work.

I'll remind you also that marxists/communists are not just the people to the left of socdems or progressives or how you may call it. We reject the very system all those other ideologies operate within, therefore any criticism aimed towards social-democracy isn't comparable to neoliberalism because it's levied from a completely different framework.

"The recessions of 2008/2012/2014/2020 are a cause of precarious work and a consequences of right-wing attacks" it's funny you mention 4 crisis because it leads very well into the point about recessions. Capitalism, because of the anarchic nature of its production and focus on maximizing profit, has cyclical recessions regardless of who is managing capitalism at the moment. Recessions in capitalism have occurred since capitalism first took form, because of mechanisms like overproduction (capital tends to produce too much, inflating stockpiles and eventually necessitating a sudden drop in prices) and the falling rate of profit:

The rate of profit is the total portion of value that capitalists as a class are able to extract from the working class after paying off their costs. Because of reasons too complex to explain here (but you can look at graphs and verify that it always tends to fall), the rate of profit tends to fall and diminish. The only times it ever increases is because of destruction of capital and/or productive forces, such as during a war, or because of superprofits enabled by imperialism. This rate of profit has been getting smaller and smaller, it temporarily rises after recessions and it also means capitalism will either destroy itself or destroy the human race in an effort to raise it. The rate of profit is not applicable to individual companies or even sectors, it is a capitalist class wide trend.

Going back to the point of recessions, they aren't the sole reason for precarious work. they certainly worsen it, but the point of the post is that social-democracy not only does not alleviate this particular problem, but they are also fully capable of worsening it. They are doing this in Spain and in other countries too.

"Tolerance of employers who pay under the table is a cause of precarious work and a consequence of right-wing attacks" First of all, this wasn't the kind of precarious work I was talking about in the post innit?. Apart from that, who do you think is tolerating extralegal work. Is the right-wing forcing social-democrat governments across the world to tolerate this? Of course not. Work that isn't regulated by a contract is useful to the bourgeoisie because it keeps a portion of the working class in a limbo between unemployment and employment, allowing the reserve army of labor to not shrink while also exploiting a part of this reserve army and generally lowering costs. Social-democracy tolerates this because it is just one manager of capitalism, and they fundamentally serve the class interests of the infrastructure because they are part of the superstructure. This is true regardless of how much they like to talk like pro-worker communists and how much welfare they instate.

"Insufficient protection for people under irregular work contracts or no contracts, especially inmigrants, is a cause of precarious work and a consequence of right-wing attacks" This is also not the kind of precarious work I was talking about in the post. Regardless, the reason for this is similar to the one I explained above, it is convenient of capitalism to have workers halfway between employment and unemployment, and social-democracy protects capitalism. It's really insidious of you to bring up non-european workers and their exploitation while defending social-democracy, since the various European progressive and left-of-center governments have all contributed one way or another to NATO's interventions in SWANA and West Africa, the very places these inmigrant workers come from, escaping the violence these governments have caused, sponsored and benefitted from. I've already addressed who benefits from the cheap labor these inmigrants and refugees produce.

"Disregard of unions in labor law negotiations is a cause of precarious work and a consequence of right-wing attacks" Oh boy have I talked about unions on this blog. In short, unions are not the magic wand which makes exploitation disappear that so many people on this website and app seem to think they are. Their only function is to achieve temporary better working conditions while staying within the bounds of capitalism and salary work. This is also a point that's really funny to make while talking about the social-democrat precarious labor reforms because they signed it with the full approval of every big labor union in Spain. Another aspect of unions that I addressed in the linked post is that they also serve as the lapdogs of social-democracy. Something that happens in every single country where social-democrats are in power including the usamerican leftist's crush, the nordic countries.

Socialism-communism isn't when UBI, good wages and beating the capitalists at their own game. It's the complete overthrow of a bourgeois system to replace it with a proletariat system, it is rejecting the workings of the game at which social-democrats and labor unions pretend to try to win.

"Inequalities in infrastructure distribution is a cause of precarious work and a consequence of right-wing attacks" I'm not exactly sure if by infrastructure you're referring to like, roads and railways, or infrastructure in the sense of the avenues through which the state provides welfare, subsidies, etc. Either way, the inequality in the distribution of things like communication networks, utilities and state programs is one of the many contradictions inseparable from capitalism. I thought the point of "inequality is inherent to capitalism" was like, leftism 101. Is anon aware that social-democracy is still capitalism? Universal healthcare and government programs are not going to solve the unavoidable effects of the capitalist mode of production. That's what revolutionary marxism is for.

"So many more things are a cause for precarious work and a consequence of right-wing attacks" I can't answer if you don't give me more concrete examples, sadly. But I hope it's become clear to the reader why social-democracy is not the way to solve all of this issues, and why it is actually interested in keeping it around.

"None of those things are essential to social-democracy, and Spain's particular case isn't reflective of social-democracy in general" If I were a lesser man I'd say you sound like what "tankies" sound like to anti-communists when we address the mistakes and failings of proletariat states. But I don't think this would be a good answer to you, and I get the point you're making. Social-democracy is one variant of government in bourgeois democracies.

For this point to make sense to you, anon, (im really trying to be patient here, if I come across as condescending it's not intentional) you have to first understand that marxists believe, noht without reason, that the primary character of any state is the economic system that it protects. In our case, this system, the infrastructure, is capitalism, so the state and any party that governs it (part of the superstructure) will keep protecting capitalism because that is what's in its class interests. Individual people are able to go against class interests, but individual actions are close to irrelevant when we talk about the infrastructure.

It's not that every aspect discussed is essential to social-democracy, it's that social-democracy is essential to capitalism, which in turn ensures the existence of these problems. You're putting the cart before the horse.

With that denser part out of the way, regarding Spain's case. The post you're replying to wasn't meant to be an exhaustive treaty on the class character of social-democracy. It's a rant complaining about seeing usamericans championing the very fucking same talking points and policies that I see every single day fail. I know that social-democracy across various countries is different when it comes to these particular cases. But their class character is the same and their function within imperialist capitalism is the same.

To the second part of the ask now.

"The issue of colonialism wasn't very discussed in Marx's works" Yeah I know. Maybe you're under the impression that marxists are blind followers of Marx, I understand. But if you ask any actual marxist or communist, they'll acknowledge that Marx and Engels lacked in a lot of places (especially Engels in anthropology, he was very racist and uninformed in that regard). Which is why we also recommend people read other works such as Lenin's, which as far as I'm aware popularized the term of imperialism as a descriptor for capitalism, and the concept of dividing capitalism into stages, so many pseudo-communists like to say. There is also a myriad of work about imperialist capitalism written by colonialized people, such as Frantz Fanon or Eduardo Galeano. These are the places where marxist theory is most developed regarding colonialism, and it's where the idea of social-democracies in imperial core countries benefitting from imperialism in every instance comes from.

As a side note on marxism, the reason it's called that is not because we treat every work of Marx like holy texts, but because the analytical framework that his works establish and develop is the basis for any analysis and criticism of class conflict and revolutionary communism. We do not blindly follow what he says, we take his works (or any marxist work for that matter), instead, we analyze, critique and explore the ideas presented.

"The USSR was imperialist" (this is basically what anon is saying in the last portion of the ask) Imperialism is a specific stage in the development of capitalism, characterized by the export and tendency to monopoly of capital. It is a concrete economic descriptor that is useful to a specific timeframe in history. It is not, however, when a big country does something in a small country and expands. This definition, while simpler and more useful to the liberal status-quo, is functionally useless to define a state when it can be applied to the Greek colonization of the Mediterranean in the 6th century BC, the trading kingdoms of South East Asia, the Roman state before Caesar and the prinicipate, the germanic tribes that moved into souther Europe, the mongol state (and later states) that stretched from the sea of Japan to Hungary and from the arctic circle to Persia, the Incas and Aztecs, the HRE, the Iriquois confederacy (I'm not that sure on this one, but I'm including it because they were quite big and that's what qualifies as an empire to some people), the various rich kingdoms of west Africa, the modern USA and a long etcetera.

The more popular definition of imperialism, the one that somehow tries to coherently categorize all of the examples above and more under the same word, essentially boils down to territorial expansion. It should be called expanisonism, not imperialism. So if you're using that definition, and it looks like it, then yeah, the USSR was expanisonist. Extending the proletariat state against bourgeois states is good, actually.

I don't know what you think settler-colonialism is, but extracting fossil fuels definitely isn't it. Also, the oil and gas was extracted by the corresponding republics within the USSR. Many smaller republics, such as Turkmenistan, could specialize in fossil fuel extraction because the USSR guaranteed that the goods they didn't produce would reach them regardless. This is one of the reason the capitalist shock therapy posg-1991 forced onto the ex-soviet republics was so catastrophic, their production was organized under the assumption that they wouldn't need to sell off half their country to access basic consumer goods from a capitalist market.

Goddamn was that a long post to type on a phone. If anyone, including anon, replies to this with a low effort insult or to what they think I said instead of what was written on the post, I'm going to block you without exception. you've all been warned

[stirringwinds]

While I feel that hws France is hard to portray I do wonder what headcanons you have for him. Care to tell a few that come to mind?

a lot of my headcanons of francis/françois are from the british imperial + sea/east asian perspective, so with that in mind, these are some thoughts i've had:

a. françois' strengths are that he can be very charming and good at putting people at ease. he is somebody, if you ran into him somewhere, just comes off as a really interesting person. he can talk for ages about his passion for philosophy, art, literature, science and cooking without it getting boring to the listener.

b. he can be a really good lover too and is that sort of person who considers it a point of pride to make his partners enjoy his company. the sort of person who will make dinner and probably also a good breakfast for you. but one of his flaws is that he can also be pretty self-centred at times, and sometimes he uses his charisma to get out of things or simply dodge issues in his personal relationships.

c. françois, much like arthur, is in the Bad Parent club vis a vis matthew in the 17—18th centuries. where they differ however, is i feel that arthur was controlling but more...present, whereas françois was more...dismissive. matthew would get letters from arthur instructing him to do this and that, which for matthew at least acknowledged him, whereas françois might just not even write to him much at all, especially after matthew came under arthur's control.

d. françois really clicked with alfred during the revolutionary war. it helped that alfred was punching arthur in the dick, but i think that françois for all his flaws, genuinely possesses a somewhat more idealistic streak (than say, arthur imo) so that gelled well with alfred spouting all kinds of enlightenment thoughts (especially since he was also reading french writers like Montesquieu).

e. françois and lien (vietnam) have a complicated (to say the least) relationship due to the history of french imperialism over vietnam; i see francis being much younger than her (she and yao are peers in age!), so lien fitted him very much into her prior experience as an older female nation being forced to deal with 'boys playing at being empires'. lien probably shot him in the face at least once during the first indochina war, that tried to re-establish colonial rule over vietnam in the 1950s. however, i do think they can talk more cordially in more recent decades, with normalisation of ties. cooking is perhaps one topic that is a common interest—vietnamese banh mi is a kind of sandwich originating from french baguettes that incorporates local ingredients, and it's a really tasty and popular streetfood. there's also a big french-vietnamese population in paris today.

f. kiku was absolutely not impressed by monet's la japonaise, nor 'madame chrysanthème', the wildly racist and orientalist mess that Madame Butterfly was based on. it was exoticising, not flattering to him—he was however, more amenable to those of françois' artists that incorporated japanese artistic techniques in more genuine ways, or with françois' own view of aesthetics and his knowledge and interest in engineering.

g. yao, much like kiku later, was someone françois was very interested in culturally—as seen from the boom in chinoiserie when trade with china began back in the 17th century. i think french is probably one of the first european languages yao learns (besides portuguese). it's a fairly functional trading relationship—until of course, french imperialist interests began expanding in yao's sphere of influence and the opium wars.

h. i'm a fruk fan so naturally i think his love-hate relationship with arthur is one of his most significant r/ships—arthur has been a neighbour, friend, enemy, lover and everything in between. but! scotfra is another very, very long-term relationship important to him (auld alliance!). also on an EU level well, there's him and ludwig too.

i. naturally, he's also fairly fashionable, and i feel like he'll always eye himself critically even if he's going out casually, compared to way i can see arthur being fairly chill about strolling out in that questionable, ill-fitting acid green christmas sweater alfred sent him as a joke once. i also think françois probably smokes a fair bit, compared to how arthur's gotten a kick in the arse to cut back after WWII. and nowadays, he'll often just be relaxing with a cigarette on the balcony of his apartment with a book, or enjoying a day out in one of his museums.

[gatheredfates]

Hi! My name is Sea, and I have an unhealthy obsession with taking on large community projects! This is my Final Fantasy XIV Community Compendium, focusing on linking as many XIV writing/roleplaying discords, forums, events, free companies and resources as I can get my hands on. While the inspired by and predominately tailored for roleplayers, it should have something for anyone looking to engage creatively with the game in some capacity. ⭐

If you'd like to simply check out what the Compendium is all about and miss my waffling below, any of the links on this post will take you there — but this is a handy one! A reblog also goes a huge way to increase my reach and find communities/resources; you're also welcome to share this post with people not on Tumblr who might be looking for communities/resources or have something to add.

Why a compendium, Sea?

In my opinion, the way people engage with fandom and communities has changed. It was once extremely common for people to hop onto the XIV Roleplaying Forum or find people looking for contact on Tumblr, but most of these resources have shifted to Discord. While Discord is great for keeping a community when you have it, the isolation of these communities into hidden, secular spaces doesn’t do a lot to help people find them in the first place and creates an air of loneliness/disconnect for new players or people looking to find specific communities. I don’t believe that a person should necessarily be a part of x amount of servers to find the one that suits them, nor that all communities should necessarily be on Discord — or just plain hard to find. However, while this is currently the standard, I’d like to try and help these communities be fostered and seen in a place accessible to basically anyone with an internet connection. If one community has benefited from this document, then I have done my part.

This is my monthly drive to showcase the Compendium but find new things to add! A lot of the below is already on the document, but I split communities/resources into four distinct spaces:

Large-scale community discords such as the XIV Reddit Discord, Hunts, GPOSE promotions and broad-space roleplay servers that harbour a large number of people and are publicly available to all. These may not have an RP focus but will assist in other aspects of the game.

Free Company & community-focused servers. E.G. an Ishgardian Roleplay server whose mission is to foster a community for Ishgardian characters; an EU server created to help players struggling with timezones. This also includes event discords such as fight clubs, markets, cafes, etc.

Friend/casual servers that have a roleplay element but may be just a group of people looking to find others to hang out and do content with.

Miscellaneous. Likely to be less community servers and more resources such as lore compilations, how-to guides, gposing techniques, boosting blogs, etc. These may get their own dedicated section later.

Want to submit? You can either fill out the google form here, send me an ask with the relevant information contained on the Compendium, or join my Discord at SEAFLOOR (21+ only)!

Is my space suitable for the Compendium? Most of the time, yes! Below the read more is some more information/stipulations. Again, all accessible on the document! 🪸

Below are the following things I do not accept on the Compendium:

Personal/Single-Character LFC ads.

Content intended for or can be used for bullying, harassment and OOC gossip. E.g. ‘Secrets’ blogs, receipts, callout posts, etc. This does not include IC tabloid blogs used to generate RP.

Communities that do not have an RP/writing element (large-scale exempt).

Anything I find personally distasteful or goes against the spirit of this project.

Common-sense rule applies.

FAQ.

I want to put my community on the compendium but we have an application process. Is this okay?

Yes! Just note somewhere in your application that's a requirement. The only thing that is mandatory for the Compendium is that you must be open to new members or have a public-facing/accessible facet. There's no point advertising a community if no one can join it in some way!

I want to put my community on the compendium but I only have x number of members —

Also totally okay! People don't start with large communities. Activity is a must but, whether your server has two or two thousand members, if you're looking for new people to join, I'd love to help you find people.

I want to put my community on the compendium but I worry its too niche?

Okay, and? If your Eorzean Fishing Alliance has four members but you roleplay every second weekend, I still want to know about it.

What resources/communities can I add if I'm not the owner of them?

Mutual consent is extremely important to me, so anything that isn't a large-scale community OR a publicly accessible resource must be endorsed by the owner/admin/moderators in order to be added to the compendium. I operate under the assumption that a resource posted to a public space (tumblr, googledocs, youtube, etc) is open to all. A large-scale community is one with a significant member count or openly advertises itself as being accessible to everyone for whatever purpose it serves. If in doubt, please get in touch with me. I'm happy to contact your community owners for you!

How active does a community need to be?

If you find a community has not been active in about two/three months, send me a message and I'll take a look at it. Communities have ebbs and flows, especially event spaces that may take hiatuses depending on member interest/life events. I'm not strict in my implementation provided a space isn't dead. If a link or anything is broken, absolutely contact me about that.

I have [insert a question not stated here]?

No drama! Send me an ask or use the #Compendium channel in my Discord!

[skyepixels]

The Welcome Home Website!!!!! She is Beautiful~! And She Leaves Us With So Many Questions!

First off, I am absolutely astonished at how beautiful she is!!! Clown, Puzz, and everyone else has worked so hard and they've exceeded everyone's expectations with the site!!! What a wonderful little Home they've made, and I'm excited to experience it as a fan!!!

I know that everyone's combing through the new website update with a fine toothed comb so I won't be sharing anything we've already found. I don't think I've found anything new in the site that others haven't already found, but oh boy!!!! Does everything there only raise more questions!

What I do love is how all the audio files we've been given through the "bugs" has really shown what everyone's personality is like! I love every one of them, and the voice actors captured them perfectly! Oh and the little tidbits of history with the merchandise, the telephone calls, the little skits! Be still my beating heart~!!!

AND THE WALLY LIVE INTERVIEW. I CANT! It's sooo darn cute!! And Nick Nocturne (I know it's him, that interdimentional cat demon) as the interviewer was such a lovely touch! I cannot wait to hear about that from his YT channel!!! And Wally was so coy with the romance question~ and I think that's the perfect way to answer it for everyone who loves him! Keep it vague, let everyone make their own conclusions and be happy! (I know I certainly will for the time being, and will love him no matter what!) I am so curious about the underlying story here: there's so much to think about it's driving me crazy! They gave so much and answered so little! We can only theorize from here! So here's my little thoughts! None of it's cohesive in any way, nor does it really have all the details or tell full story yet, so just take it in sections if you decide to read it! ______

!~OBSERVATION TIME~!

I think that Wally, Home (And maybe everyone else, not sure) are trapped somewhere. Where exactly isn't certain, but very trapped indeed. My first indication of this from this response in the guestbook for Tayla (Page 8):

"eu não sei onde estamos" - I don't know where we are (A bonus for the multi-lingual side of things there, it makes me really happy to see it!)

I have no concept of what happened to everyone else, but from the little drawings he's made on the guestbook, he's constantly telling people things like "Oh, I'll tell Eddie." or "I'll tell Frank." these messages, but we never get a direct response from any other neighbor! It's always him talking! Just him. He tells people their responses, but we never hear anything direct from the other neighbors! The quick reference I can bring up is the hearts PNG in the guestbook for Kazoo:

itoldhim_hesaidhesflattered_idontknowwhatanyoneistalkingabout_.png I feel like those collections of audio clips with all the neighbors (1-14 to 14-14) are a recount of events throughout an entire day that previously happened that may give insight into what happened to Wally. I think this is the case based on the last audio in the list, 14-14 bh audio, when Barnaby notices Wally acting strange:

BARNABY: Yeah, yeah, real funny! A poor little guy like me deserves some sympathy! A clown without a kazoo is like… Like an artist without his paintbrush! Go on kid, tell ‘em! …Hello? Buddy? Pal? …Hey, you stopped paintin’. Everything alright, Wally?

Well, something happened there. Maybe a change in his psyche, how he perceives things - some strange realization that terrified him. Maybe he got angry at something. What it was? I have no clue.

Another addition that I think is interesting! Frank wrote to Wally describing the unusual bug he found. In the beginning of that letter, Frank says this:

"I know you would ask if you are here." Where is he?

The nature of how Wally and everyone communicates is so vague and weird! I think the telephones, the mail, the TVs - all these things are means of communicating, but there's no direct connection to us! Any time a phone call is made, they can't hear us. This I have inferred from the "It's for you!" Talking telephone toy! They can talk to us and we can hear them, but they can't hear us! What's causing this disturbance? That's the real bug here, and I'm clueless on what that means or how to break through the surface!

Most importantly! I think that Wally specifically trying to communicate with that one person on the WHRP team. That person... is experiencing a lot of heavy sh*t, because I think they remember Wally and the show. They're the closest person right now that's able to help him (either willingly or not!)

I also believe he's specifically working with that WHRP member because in the phone audio (the one you click on when interacting with the toy telephone on the merchandise page), he says:

"You have to go too. You have work to do."

From what I can interpret from the live interview, I think that it implies some semblance of back story! Wally did interact with people and the outside world during his prime in the 70s, when the show was really starting to pick up speed. He was calmer, more in tune with his character and fame. He was in character most of all, and I think being in character was a sense of identity for him that he could rely on!

But those secret audio files we hear from him now? He sounds desperate, like he can't breathe. He's practically breaking from his usual character. What did he realize? What does he know? All of those things boil down to this sentence:

"I will help you understand. I will find a way soon, Neighbor."

Wally (and Home?) are working away at a solution wherever they can I think that WHRP member is the key to that! (Although the methods of how they're doing it, i.e the black paint that apparently you shouldn't touch with bare hands, the mind-boggling phone ringing in that person's ears, the complete distortion of reality - definetely implies a few things.)

I also think that the highlighted in invisible ink is Wally's words throughout the email compilations and other documents! The one where he says "Im so sorry." - I feel like that's him showing some remorse for his actions there, but it's like a sorry that says "I'm sorry, I have to do this." kind of deal (which is... oof)

Also - quick note! Wally keep insisting on being let in, rather than being let out. "Let me in." - Let you in to where? Our world? Reality? Oh so many questions!!!

I also am curious about the WHRP staff too, and their interactions with the Question-Answerer, the Marlo company, the Playfellow Workshop! There's two sides to this story; the human side and the puppet one, and it's so multilayered here that at this point, I'm inclined to distrust what anyone on that website says until we know what's going on!

Lastly, I'm not certain how much we as viewers of this story are involved. While I believe that he's working to get that WHRP member to let him in, he does acknowledge us through the guestbook. Although, I don't think truly aware of how much we see him. i.e "idontknowwhatanyoneistalkingabout" line from the heart PNG.

While I want to believe that Wally can see us through our art, specifically when we draw or recreate his eyes, for engagement's sake (audio from this link), I also am inclined to believe he's refering to the eyes that the WHRP team member keeps drawing on those sticky notes and other places throughout the restoration site:

And and and!!! I think that there's got to be something upcoming with this link: https://www.clownillustration.com/error404

You find this link on the staff-only page at the bottom with the text "It's in here." And I think that with any future updates, the next section of the story will be coming from here.

AHH~! I rambled on too long! Hope you enjoyed it!

[juana-the-iguana]

Navigating media during war

Here are some tips to navigate the conflict without a paid subscription. Disclaimer, I am based in the United States and this advice is for people in the US. These tips may apply for all wars, but I wrote this with the Israel-Hamas conflict in mind.

My qualifications: I am a reporter who has worked on both local, state, national and international stories. I have covered breaking news, and have done enterprising news and investigative journalism. I will graduate with a MA in Journalism in a month. 

Reasons to question my authority: I have less than five year of professional experience. I have never reported on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or anywhere else in the Middle East. I speak neither modern Hebrew nor Arabic. 

Moving on:

The best tip I can give you is pick a few good news sources and wait two days after any given event or incident before claiming to understand what happened.

In the United States, our news industry is incentivized toward breaking news, which means that organizations sometimes air information without having time to thoroughly fact check it. This becomes especially evident in times of war, when it is hard to obtain information and even on-the-ground reporters don't have the full picture of what's happening.

You are not going to find a perfect news organization. They're all going to fuck up in some capacity. If you have a strong stance on this issue, you're going to be more sensitive to those mistakes and real or perceived biases. (And, for the record, it is possible for one organization to hold multiple biases depending on the time of day, presenter and facet of the war being discussed.) That's why it is genuinely important to consume multiple news sources.

So if you're wondering why I chose these sources it's because a) they're free, b) they issue corrections when they're wrong and c) they do not engage in disinformation.

In no particular order: BBC, Reuters, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, AP. You should not rely on only one of these. You should fact-check these against bias sources that don't outright lie. 

Now onto the sources you should avoid. Let's get into disinformation: What is it? 

Disinformation is the intentional spreading of false information. It's lying. Misinformation is inaccurate information that is spread around, but not done with malice.

All news organizations have misinformation at some point. You should NEVER trust a news organization that engages in disinformation, about anything, unless several years have passed, the people responsible for the disinformation have been thoroughly purged from the group and they cite every goddamn thing they said.

The two big organizations I recommend avoiding because they engage in disinformation are Fox News and Al Jazeera.

Fox News lied about the 2020 election in the United States and actively contributed to an attempted insurrection. Al Jazeera is an arm of the Qatari state and has lied repeatedly about, well, just about everything of interest to the Qatari government, but especially Israel. They have made several highly consequential lies in this ongoing conflict that have had tangible, catastrophic consequences on the entire globe. 

Advocacy groups are not news outlets.

Also, don't trust terrorist organizations. Yes, the UN, WHO, Amnesty International and pretty much every NGO under the sun and the vast majority of news organizations cite them, but that's not because they're reliable, it's because they're the only group releasing information from Gaza.

You shouldn't take the IDF at face value either, but if what the IDF is saying is verified by the US, EU and/or other reliable, third parties, then that information is probably true. 

No news source is perfect. That's just a fact. I cannot stress the importance of looking at multiple sources.

Here are some things to look out for when watching/reading the news.

- If a news source is attributing facts to two different sources, ask yourself, "why?" Information is hard to come by. Sometimes one source doesn't report everything you want to know. But sometimes you know your source is unreliable, you don't have any alternatives, so you want to distance yourself from that. What does this look like? 

You might see people cite two sources to report death counts in Gaza: the Palestinian Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas, and Save the Children which analyzes information about the number of children killed. Save the Children gets the estimated number of deaths from Hamas. 

- Does it make sense to have this information at this time? If there was an explosion and a government states that 500 people died in it, well, how much time did it take them to count those bodies? Does that sound feasible?

- When you're listening to eye-witness interviews, do their perspectives or narratives match up with the physical scenes you are seeing? They might not be lying, it could be a miscommunication, but for the context it is presented in, it might not be accurate.

Language to look out for:

Occupation, blockade, siege, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, ethnic cleansing, legitimate military targets and apartheid are all distinct things. All of them, with the exception of apartheid, have specific legal definitions. If people are using these things interchangeably, maybe they're sharing opinions. That doesn't mean that what they're saying isn't valuable, but it does mean that you probably shouldn't cite them when debating international law.

Now let's elaborate on "occupation" for a second. Egypt occupied Gaza from 1949 to 1967. Then Israel occupied Gaza until 2005. In 2007 Israel started the blockade on Gaza and last month, after the 10/7 massacre, they started a siege. As noted above, these are distinct things.

If people are talking about occupation or settlements in the context of this conflict it means either one of four things:

- They are talking about the West Bank, which is under occupation and where settlements do exist

- They are talking about the history of Gaza pre 2005

- They do not know that Gaza isn't under occupation and that there are no longer settlements there (which means that they are not an informed source)

- Or they assume the entire Israeli state is occupying Palestine which, whether you like it or not, is not factually or correct

Just because something feels wrong doesn't mean it is illegal. Occupations, blockades, sieges, the use of white phosphorous and bombing areas where you know there are civilians are all legal in certain contexts. 

Legality might not matter to you personally, but when you're watching the news and trying to assess who is sharing facts and who is sharing opinions, you should keep this in mind.

Other notes:

- Rockets need fuel. Ventilation systems in tunnels need fuel. 

- Movies and tv shows are filmed in Gaza and the West Bank. If you see a photo of someone in a body bag texting or women laughing while painting a baby doll red, it might be a behind-the-scenes video from one of those things.

- There are a lot of AI generated pictures being used, especially in propaganda. Count fingers, arms, legs and look at backgrounds to see if what you are seeing makes sense. But for the love of god, if you don't like something, that doesn't mean it's AI.

- There are a lot of photos circulating from past wars. Be careful before you reblog. Reverse Google image search is your friend. 

- If you are not sure if something is real or not, wait a week. If the US, EU and dozens of journalists say it is true, believe it.

Finally, social media. When is it appropriate to use social media for news?

News aggregates are usually okay. I'm talking places like r/worldnews. They are pulling from other news organizations, so they can repeat those flaws, but they give you a mix of headlines from multiple sources. And they'll very often post large parts, if not the entirety, of articles from sources from the New York Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal that have paywalls in the comments. But also beware the comments because they can be disgusting.

Social media is also very good for sharing the individual human experience. The issue with that is that you can't always vet the person on camera or being spoken about, so they could be lying, spreading misinformation and it isn't the whole picture. 

This needs to be said again and again: social media dehumanizes people. You know this, but you will fall victim to it anyway. Your algorithm will do its best to show you the best versions of the people and groups you like, and the worst versions of the people and groups you don't like to make you feel justified in adopting dehumanizing beliefs. 

For anyone interested, I'm going to update the list of news sources I think are trustworthy in the next few days. I've found a few small, independent and/or foreign outlets that use open source intelligence (OSINT) in their reporting and they seem pretty reliable to me, but I want to vet them a bit further.

EDITED: Removed the name of a news organization that I previously said I thought was reliable. They did not issue a correction after uncritically repeating Hamas's lie that the al-Ahli hospital parking lot bombing was an Israeli airstrike that killed 500 people, and spent days repeating these false claims as if they were fact.

[sgiandubh]

Lendo sua resposta ao Anon anterior, em que você menciona uma rede de tv gananciosa disposta a explorar tudo que uma franquia oferece lembrei-me da série Blood And Sand. O protagonista era Andy Whitfield, e causou ondas de calor enormes - meu deus, aquele era realmente um homem lindo!

Não sei se havia fóruns na internet (!!!) dedicados a ele, mas eu o acompanhava na mídia oficial, e não havia notícias sobre uma esposa.

Ao iniciarem os preparativos para gravar a segunda temporada Andy foi diagnosticado com um linfoma não-Hodgkin e a gananciosa rede de tv lançou uma prequela com quase todos os membros do elenco original que nos manteve a todos interessados. Alguns novos personagens cheios de testosterona mantiveram os Não tinhamos notícias sobre o tratamento do protagonista, claro.

Ao final da prequela, veio a notícia da morte de Andy, o anúncio de um documentário sobre seu tratamento e últimos dias, acompanhado pela já viúva e a notícia de que a segunda temporada estrearia em breve, com um recasting.

Houve uma segunda e terceira temporadas claro, mas o novo protagonista não tinha nem a beleza nem o magnetismo de Andy. Assisti a segunda temporada e ao especial, mas não me preocupei em voltar para a temporada final. Tudo isso aconteceu em um intervalo de apenas dois anos... Lembro-me de ficar horrorizada com a ganância daquela emissora, mas espero que tenha trazido algum consolo ou suporte para a viúva de Andy.

Enfim, apenas um pensamento sobre até onde **** é capaz de ir.

Dear Blood and Sand Anon,

Este deve ser um dos Anons mais interessantes, razoáveis e bem escritos com quem já tive o prazer de compartilhar este espaço. Seja você quem for, será sempre bem vinda aqui. Muito, muito obrigada! Mas primeiro, a tradução. Não tenho quase nada a acrescentar ao que você escreveu de forma tão eloquente:

'Reading the answer you wrote to your previous Anon, in which you talk about a greedy TV network able to exploit everything a franchise could offer, I remembered the Blood and Sand series. The male lead role went to Andy Whitfield, which caused an enormous heatwave - my God, that man was really beautiful!

I don't know if there were any dedicated Internet forums (!!!), but I followed the official media and nothing transpired about him being married.

By Season Two's pre-production phase, Andy was diagnosed with a non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and the greedy TV network launched a prequel that included almost all the original cast members, in order to keep us hooked. Some new characters pumped up on testosterone kept [edit: suponho que você queria dizer algo como 'manteve os fãs interessados'/ I suppose you wanted to say something along the lines of 'kept the fans interested']. Of course, we had no news about the male lead's treatment.

Around the time the end of the prequel was broadcast, I found out Andy had died, along with news about a documentary being produced about his treatment and last days, in which he was appearing together with his widow. Season Two was announced to be broadcast soon and Andy's part was recast.

Eventually, the series went on for about three seasons, but the new male lead didn't have either Andy's beauty, nor his charisma. I watched Season Two and the documentary, but did not follow for the last season. All of this happened in the space of less than two years....I remembered being absolutely horrified by the greed of that TV network, but I hope it brought at least some solace or support to Andy's widow.

Oh, well... just a thought about just how far *** is able to go.'

Of course, it helps a lot to put things in their right context and add just one, tiny detail: the greedy TV network was, in both cases, ***.

[david-talks-sw]

any new Star Wars essays in the making, or are you moving on?

I don't know, honestly.

Part of it is "life gets in the way," I'm working a lot and so whatever time I have left is spent just messing around or meeting with my loved ones.

I've got a bunch of stuff in my drafts. I don't mind sharing it here, most recent to oldest:

Sort of a joke post of me pointing out how stressful being George Lucas' producer must've been, like this guy really DIDN'T WANT to write his fucking scripts, did he? Poor Rick McCallum. Abandoned because who gives a crap.

'Ask' reply on how EU-fueled fandom perception of the Jedi was flipped by the prequels.

'Ask' reply about the themes in Ahsoka and why the show doesn't know what it's about. Problem is, I go about it starting from the basics, so nobody's gonna sit through reading a tematic breakdown of the first Pirates of the Carribean movie, The Batman and the original six Star Wars films before I even get to the show at hand.

"Part II" post about what Ahsoka, Rebels and TCW get right about lightsaber duels, which the Prequels never did.

Quote collection & analysis on just how complex the Prequels were meant to be (in the late 80s, Lucas intimated that the Sequels were the story that was supposed to have gray morality, not the Prequels)

Quote collection on how the themes and principles of Star Wars align with Lucas' own opinions and philosophies.

Quote collection on Lucas defining Anakin's flaws.

Quote collection on Lucas talking about the fact that we need to be more proactive, which aligns with what Lumi points out sometimes about the Jedi: they should've been more politically engaged because we all should be.

Why I approach Lucas as "word of god".

Personal life/joke-y post dating from the time of the WGA strike about how Jack Black's School of Rock lyrics "In his heart he knew, the artist must be true, but the legend of the rent was way past due!" applied to me. Abandoned because I didn't wanna bum everyone out.

Correcting the notion that Dark Times-era Jedi such as Kanan or Ezra or Ahsoka represent what Jedi were supposed to be.

A comprehensive end-all outlook on how Anakin's flaws all tie together. I've written this one twice and I don't know how to differentiate it from my other posts.

A secret "Part 3" to my TLJ Luke post, in which I point out that RJ's being too "indie", while being a strong point for a big chunk of the film, hampers the film's ability to make Luke feel as badass as he does on paper. I want to illustrate a storyboard for this one, but that takes time.

The evolution of Star Wars' approach to transmedia.

Debunking Star Wars myths: a (very) comprehensive outlook on children in the Jedi Order.

Problem is that only like 2/3rds of these are fully-written... and I still need to find the relevant clips, turn them into GIFs, etc etc.

There's many other interesting Asks in my inbox btw. But I'm already behind on all these, so I haven't begun to touch them.

Then there's the drawings.

I wanna draw a comic of the meeting between Yoda and Dooku in Dark Rendezvous. I wanna finish the comic fight between Maul and Ben. I wanna draw Mace, Shaak Ti, I've got a Luminara fan-art that was supposed to be ready for Jedi June 2022 and an Anakin drawing that looks weird. No time, nor am I skilled enough. (Like, I trace, that's what I do, it's not a secret I've said so before... but it takes me a long while to do so. I'm not fast at drawing, let alone coloring.) I could commission some of these, but there are obvious obstacles there.

There's fun tidbits I've discovered here and there but nobody will care about them and I usually try to not drown my blog with bs posts.

Then there's the bigger problem.

All the things I've listed above? I'm not 100% motivated to finish. But a lot of the new stuff I wanna write about is hella negative.

I had a lot of stuff I wanted to say about Ahsoka. But it wasn't all good. It was mostly me bitching, be it about the show or the fandom's reactions to it.

I've also got more stuff to say about Filoni's take on Star Wars, but I've talked about why it's inaccurate like 8 times already, and I don't actually dislike the guy, like there's plenty of things he knows and does that I think are awesome but also people won't stop putting him and his takes on a pedestal and--

oh shit, there's Acolyte too, I forgot about that, gray morality galore, here we come. But here too, like... I've talked a couple of times about why this entire gray morality thing is actually just the gen X-ers trying to make the prequels "cool" and "complex". but I've never explored properly, with quotes and research and shit. but i've talked about it so many times that at this point it'd end up like the Filoni rants, redundant. "we get it already." as if this show didn't have haters lined round the block for absolutely sexist reasons.

Don't get me started on the mountain of lies and/or idiocy that is the YouTuber Star Wars Theory.

And yet he said one thing a few months ago which struck a chord within me and it's the fact that Andor is awesome, excels on all levels because it's treated seriously, like a proper show, not a Disney Plus one... why wasn't Obi-Wan Kenobi? Why wasn't Book of Boba Fett? And I've already established multiple times that I enjoyed Kenobi (yes, including the Reva parts) and I've established that I know what they were going for in Fett and I've established that this is mainly a "Disney Plus didn't know how to structure a fucking show pre-WGA strike" issue more than anything else... but when I think about how these could've been treated instead? When I look at the characterizations and emotional stakes of like Fargo Season 5? It's infuriating. Because it's not bad (talking about Kenobi, BOBF is awful)... but it could've been EXCELLENT and instead it was just "okay" to "good".

I just miss live action lightsaber duels, man. Like, good ones.

and i dunno. maybe I should just let it rip on all this. "go off, king!"

but I think there's so much negativity re: Star Wars that adding my thoughts on these subjects, no matter how structured and reason, will just blend into a wave of needless, un-constructive hate.

maybe I should finish the writings in the drafts and just post them with no gifs, maybe just still images?

but doing any of that feels like a step back.

So that's where I'm at right now.

[mariacallous]

Greece’s Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has backed law changes allowing same-sex civil marriage, while leaving it unclear when exactly the new bill will be submitted. Same-sex couples will also have the right to adopt but not to have children through surrogacy.

“The first thing we will legislate is equality in marriage, that is, the elimination of any discrimination based on sexual orientation in the issue of entering into a marriage relationship, which is essentially the culmination of love, but at the same time a legal contract with rights and obligations … We are talking about a civil wedding,” Mitsotakis told ERT, the Greek public broadcaster.

The centre-right leader stated that the new bill is no different from what is already in force in many European countries. Same-sex marriage is recognised in about 15 EU Member States.

Asked when the new bill will be tabled, and if it will be tabled before the European Parliament elections, the Prime Minister replied: “I do not set an electoral milestone, nor do I weigh the political costs or benefit … [but] from the moment I open the debate, I don’t open it and put it off but open it … to convince our parliamentarians.”

Many MPs from his New Democracy party have expressed opposition to the new bill, including the Minister of State Makis Voridis and the former minister and New Democracy MP Thanos Plevris. Mitsotakis also made it clear that he is not going to force his MPs to vote for the bill, respects all opinions and does not want this issue to divide society.

“Not all New Democracy MPs will vote for it; it is important to be able to convince MPs from other parties to vote for it as well,” noted Mitsotakis.

According to a poll by Greek private TV channel SKAI and Pulse, a research and opinion polling company, Greece remains almost evenly divided on the issue. The poll showed 46 per cent of respondents stating that they view civil marriage negatively, and 45 per cent positively.

Regarding having children, the PM said same-sex couples would be able to legally adopt children but not have them through a surrogate mother. In Greece, having a child through a surrogate mother is only allowed to heterosexual couples and single women. Adoption is currently allowed for heterosexual couples, single women, and single men.

Regarding the critical reaction of the socially conservative Greek Orthodox Church, the PM noted: “We will listen to the views of the Church, I don’t know if we will be able to agree, we will respect their different point of view, but the State legislates, it does not co-legislate with the Church.”

Several Orthodox clerics have voiced opposition to legal same-sex marriage. According to the media, an internal official note sent by the Church’s governing Holy Synod to all bishops says the Church of Greece is not against the civil marriage of same-sex couples but against civil marriage in general, adding that children need to grow up with a mother and a father.

“Children are neither companion pets for anyone who wants to feel like guardians, nor accessories to formalize or make acceptable a same-sex cohabitation,” read the note.

The opposition left-wing SYRIZA party, on the initiative of its leader, Stefanos Kasselakis, who is gay, on January 8 submitted its own proposal for a law on the removal of gender discrimination in the Family Law, securing the right to marriage for all persons. SYRIZA would also give same-sex couples equal rights to participate in medically-assisted reproduction.

Kasselakis a few months ago told a television interview that he and his partner want to have two children with a surrogate mother.

In 2015, the then SYRIZA-ANEL government brought in civil partnership for same-sex couples. In that vote in parliament, 29 New Democracy MPs voted against it, 19 voted for and 27 abstained. The bill extended civil partnership rights to same-sex couples, expanding their range of rights concerning the family, inheritance and insurance. The earlier lack of legal provision for same-sex couples resulted in Greece being condemned in 2013 by the European Court of Human Rights.

[maccreadysbaby]

A Hundred Ways to Become a Wayne

batfamily + oc insert

tw: none

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

want to read the first fic in the hundred days series so you understand what’s going on here? here it is!

*deep inhale* ah, yes, the smell of approaching chaos

part thirteen

❝ AQUAINTANCES ❞

SATURDAY — AUGUST 8 — 4:30AM

ASTEN SLEPT ON THE LEFT SIDE OF BENTLEY’S KING BED THAT NIGHT.

He envied the way Asten could fall right back asleep after everything he’d been through. He was all curled up under Bentley’s gray comforter, his black and blue hair sticking out like a sore thumb in the midst of all the dark sheets. 

Asten had been eerily quiet since the car ride. Bentley didn’t blame him, not at all. Bruce didn’t try to make him talk: he only asked him a few things, like if he needed anything to eat, or his preferred sleeping arrangement. Everything offered was quickly declined and he made it clear he just wanted to go to bed.

Neither he nor Bentley changed their clothes, they just crawled up into his bed and laid there, with one lamp on, in silence.

And that’s exactly what Bentley was still doing. Asten had fallen asleep long ago — the sun was probably going to come up in an hour or two. Maybe Bentley would’ve been able to rest if his sleep schedule wasn’t so screwed up.

He’d been sitting up against the headboard, mindlessly playing games on his phone, listening to Asten’s even breathing. There wasn’t much left for him to do but sit there and swim in his own thoughts, which had been a strange mix of what would happen if the Secret Keeper found them, wondering if he upset Dick by leaving the hospital bed, what would’ve happened if Tim hadn’t been able to get to Asten fast enough, and a slew of other mildly unpleasant things regarding their current situation.

His first ever sleepover had been brought about by a horror-movie-level supervillain chasing a kid he’d known for five days around downtown Gotham. Given what his life had held so far, he should’ve expected something like that.

Bruce had poked his head in once, and Bentley just sort of waved at him. They exchanged a few texts afterwards, but it had been a while since then, and Bentley hoped he went back down with Dick. Dick deserved having his dad down there with him.

When the clock struck 4:33am, and the after-patrol bedroom doors had been closed for a while, Asten stirred, humming incoherently.

Bentley glanced over at him, watching him shift around until he pulled the comforter up and over his head.

He mumbled almost incoherently in Portuguese, running all his words together. “Não… não. Por favor, não leve minha mãe embora. Por favor, não a leve embora.”

“Asten?” Bentley questioned, shifting slightly to face him.

“Não. Por favor. Não a tire de mim. Eu não quero ficar sozinho…”

Bentley reached over and tapped at the wiggling blankets. “Asten.”

A few seconds later, Asten’s head popped out, hair a mess, and he blinked. “Huh?”

“You were talking,” Bentley replied quietly. Asten cringed, so Bentley added: “Not in English.”

“What time is it?”

He glanced over at his glowing clock. “Four-thirty-four.”

“Ugh,” Asten grumbled, tugging the comforter back over his head. “You haven’t been able to sleep?”

“No,” Bentley replied. “I slept for a while after school.”

Asten’s voice was muffled under the blanket. “Guess I was really lucky your sleep schedules botched, huh?”

Bentley glanced over at the Asten-shaped lump in the blankets.

“You would’ve been okay,” He tried.

“You and I both know I would’ve been dead,” Asten replied, pulling the blankets off of his head. (Which made his hair even messier.) “It might be scary to think about, Whittaker, but you answering that phone probably saved my life. For real.”

Bentley said nothing. Most of him wanted to disregard that, to say that surely Asten would’ve been fine, but there was a small part of him that knew he was probably right.

“And I realize I’m staying at your house within like, a week of meeting you, and that’s kinda weird.” He continued, bringing the blanket back over his head. “So, sorry.”

“It’s not that weird,” He stated simply, fiddling with the edge of the blanket. “I mean, you’re my friend, aren’t you?”

Asten let out a huff of a laugh. “I’d like to think so. I knocked out a bully for you and you kept me from getting murdered, I’d say that surpasses the acquaintance category.”

Bentley shrugged. “I guess I’m just not the best at telling who likes me and who doesn’t.”

A moment of silence passed, and Bentley’s mind lingered on Damian.

“I guess you never really know. People can be fake right up until they’re not,”

Considering that Damian could’ve been fake-liking him the whole time didn’t make Bentley feel any better.

“So, ginger, I’m sleeping next to you and hardly know anything about you,” Asten stated, sitting up slightly against the headboard and pulling the blanket off his head again. “You’re not from Crime Alley or Bristol, you don’t sound like either of those. Where are you from?”

Bentley took in a breath, and let it out. “Drew.”

“That’s the city next to Bludhaven, isn’t it?” He questioned.

“I think so,” Bentley stated, trying to remember all the aerial maps he’d seen on the Batcomputer.

“I’m from São Paulo, a city in Brazil,” Asten explained, pulling his knees up sort of like Bentley usually did.

Bentley shifted against the headboard. “Why did you move here?”

Asten quieted.

“My, uh… parents died a couple years ago. In a car crash,” He said, speaking softer than he had been. “I don’t have any family in Brazil, grandparents or anything. My only relative was my dad’s brother, who lives here. So that’s who I went to.”

Bentley cringed, watching the way Asten’s eyes lingered on his own hands. He really did suck at talking to people, didn’t he?

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you sad,” He muttered, bringing his knees up, too.

“Hey, no sweat, kid.” Asten reached over and bumped him on the shoulder, quickly ridding his face of any undue emotion. “I’m fine. How’d you end up in Bruce Wayne’s house, anyway?”

Bentley quickly weeded through all the things he couldn’t tell Asten, which was basically everything. What was he supposed to say?

“My dad… got arrested… last December,” Is what he settled on. “And my mom died when I was a baby. My dad knew Bruce.”

“Oh,” Was what Asten replied. And then he snorted. “We are some little pity-fest, aren’t we?”

The word pity didn’t make Bentley feel any better, either. But he forced a little smile on nonetheless.

“Why are you in my classes when you’re older than me?” Bentley questioned, desperately trying to change the subject.

“I was homeschooled in Brazil, so credits and stuff were different when I moved here,” Asten explained, shifting so his position was mirroring Bentley’s. “You were homeschooled, weren’t you?”

Did anything his father did count as homeschooling? Bentley wasn’t dumb by any means, and he knew the basics of math and stuff. 

“Uh, yeah,” He replied. Technically he was, right?

Had he been lying to Asten this whole time? He couldn’t exactly tell him his dad was using him to destroy Batman, and he didn’t really think it was a societal norm to tell the first person you meet that you were abused and neglected for your whole life.

This whole double-life thing was hard. Of course, this wasn’t as hard as when he was trying to do his father’s work, but it was still hard.

“You seem like a homeschool kid,” Asten said with a smirk.

Bentley quirked his brow. “How?”

“Y’know, you just… have that way about you that lets me know you haven’t interacted with many people. It’s not a bad thing,” He insisted. “You’re similar to Nico, and he was homeschooled for a while, too.”

Bentley nodded slightly. (At least Asten thought he was homeschooled and not purposefully kept from outside contact by his abuser.)

“We can’t tell him about any of this Secret Keeper stuff, by the way. Nico. He’ll die on the spot,” Asten said, running a hand through his messy hair. 

“Okay,” Is all Bentley replied. With the reactions he’d seen from Nico so far (nearly crying over riding the bus, having an asthma attack over riding the bus, crying in the janitors closet when he wasn’t even the one afraid…) he really wouldn’t doubt it.

A few moments of silence passed. “Hey, Bentley?”

He looked up at Asten, brown eyes meeting green. “Yeah?”

“Have you really not seen her since your dream?” 

Bentley shook his head, pulling the blanket further onto his lap. “No, I haven’t. Not even when we went to pick you up.”

“I don’t think she’s alone,”

Bentley pinched his brows together, glancing over at Asten, who was staring off, deep in thought.

“What do you mean?”

Asten looked up at him, then down. “She was branded. Behind her left ear. I saw it in my dream — A symbol that looked like a weird A.”

Bentley sat up straighter. “Whats branded?”

“It’s, like… where you form metal in a certain symbol, then heat it up and burn the symbol onto someone’s skin. Like a mark that they belong to someone else,” He explained. “Luckily it’s not a common thing.”

Bentley squirmed a little in his spot, thinking about being branded by red-hot metal. “You… think she has a boss?”

Asten shrugged. “It’s just a thought. People don’t usually just brand themselves. Unless they’re trying to trick you and she knows I saw it, in that case, I don’t know.”

Another tense silence passed, but the way the gears were turning in each of their heads was nearly audible.

“You said in the car, you wanted your face to be the last thing she ever saw,” Bentley started, glancing up at him. “Would you actually go after her?”

Asten’s eyes lingered on his for a few moments, and something like a storm glimmered in the back of his green eyes. Similar to at school, but not so prominent. “If she’s going to make our lives miserable, then the least I can do is make her’s a hellscape in return. Why?”

Bentley glanced at his bedroom door, thinking of the family beyond.

“Because I…” Want to be good enough for them.

“… Want to help you.”

Asten searched his face for a moment, raising an eyebrow.

“We’ll have to beat the police,” He suggested.

Bentley shrugged. “And Batman.”

Asten smirked lightly. “You think we can do it?”

I’ve been trained into a deceptive weapon and living with the greatest detectives in the world, he wanted to reply.

“I think we need a plan,” Was what he said instead.

—

dedicated to @sassenashsworld 💚

—

tag list! (If you want me to remove or add you, ask in comments!)

@fleur-alise @sarcopterygiian @cademygod

[jyndor]

just read an article from euronews of a holocaust survivor hoping for a united middle east, like the eu, while also denying the accusation of genocide against israel and demanding a two-state solution. it's so fucking sad that a genocide survivor is weaponizing the crimes that were perpetrated against her in order to excuse and deny crimes against palestinians.

like I'm sorry you believe that the un "gave" land away that wasn't its land to give, and I do think everyone who wants to live in a secular, pluralistic democracy should be able to live there - but ma'am. you literally said you are not going to let genocide happen again and then denied a genocide that is happening right now. and in fact you justify genocide.

here's the thing - this is the wishful thinking of someone who does not want to acknowledge the reality of occupation and displacement. it is historical revisionism.

let's not forget for a second that this land was not "given" to israel by the un but rather that it was stolen from the indigenous population of palestine/falasteen by yishuv/israeli soldiers after the uk terminated the mandate in 1948.

basically, the uk wanted to terminate the mandate of palestine* (issued by the league of nations in 1922 after WWI when britain occupied palestine) because dealing with the growing tensions between jews and arabs living there (due to the growing zionist movement to establish a jewish state in palestine, which the british commission aided and abetted ofc) was becoming a bit of a headache. so they took it to the un general assembly for the un to deal with.

and that these soldiers carried out the nakba after the un general assembly made a partition plan in a resolution that the palestinians were under no obligation to accept because unga resolutions are NON-BINDING, and when the security council tried to come to a consensus it could not.

from the actual general assembly resolution, in which you can see that these are recommendations to the uk and to the mandate of palestine and makes REQUESTS to the security council. none of this is an order, which if course is not something that the general assembly has the power to do.

you can even see that on this first page, the general assembly points out that this plan will likely "impair the general welfare and friendly relations among nations."

frankly the resolution was extremely unfair to the palestinians, as the partition would have given them about 44-45% of the land and the jewish population about 55-56%. and bear in mind that not only was there a much larger arab population, but that due to the 4th and 5th aliyah (jewish immigration to palestine) most of the jewish population had not been there for more than 20 years.

now I'm not bothered about people making aliyah, I believe in freedom of movement. what I am bothered about is the settler colonial project that used the expulsion of jews in europe to promote the expulsion of palestinians in palestine.

but the thing is, the israelis didn't even follow the un plan - nor was the un ready for such a plan to be implemented. and funny enough the us** delegate warren austin said at the time that the uk planned to terminate the mandate (may 15th) that "the Security Council is not prepared to go ahead with efforts to implement this plan in the existing situation."

instead what happened was this. the yishuv***, lead by ben gurion, rejected us requests to postpone the declaration of statehood and to cease military operations, which had already resulted in the expulsion of 300,000 palestinians even before the war. this is because ben gurion and many others wanted the entirety of palestine (as well as parts of syria and lebanon) to be a jewish state and did not want the partition - you can see this today in "greater israel" which would be a state of israel from the river to the sea, so would require the annexation of palestine as well as some parts of syria, lebanon and sometimes jordan. it would require mass displacement of non-jewish palestinians and possibly genocide. this is largely a belief of far right people like smotrich and netanyahu, but my concern is that the further right israeli society goes, the more people will become either indifferent to people around them believing in a greater israel or will actually believe in it themselves for the sake of their safety.

I've seen israelis say things like "no one wants gaza, leave us alone" and I have to laugh because that's just not true at all, there are frankly far too many people who are fine with the occupation as long as they don't have to see the harm their state is doing. I understand this because I see it in every settler colony. it's not unique to israel.

you cannot demand to live alone in peace when your country is built on ethnic cleansing, occupation, apartheid and yes, even though im sure it hurts to acknowledge, genocide. and you cannot expect to be allowed to peacefully occupy millions of people.

because what - is an independent palestine allowed to have a military? is it allowed to be fully autonomous? no of course not to zionists because that would threaten their security I guess. and I mean it probably would to some extent since there is no justice in partition.

would there be reparations? no because israelis generally do not know the history of how israel was founded, and if they do they largely don't care. or at the very least don't want it to be relevant to what we're seeing now. I mean the us still hadn't made reparations to descendants of slaves and frankly if we've done a little bit of reparations to native americans it isn't near enough.

would there be right to return for those in the diaspora? of course not, because israel would never allow palestinians the right to return to land in israel.

and those israelis who understand the situation are calling for a single secular state of palestine, or acknowledging that this is a genocide, or reckoning with the nakba. they are not demanding palestinians tolerate oppression. they do not value their lives above palestinian lives.

the colonizers do not get to make demands of the colonized. I feel great sorrow for what the woman in the article has gone through - I cannot fathom what she experienced in the holocaust and I totally agree with her that it is so important for future generations to hear testimonies from survivors of genocide. this is why I find it appalling that she denies the genocide of the palestinians.

*this essay goes into much more of the minutia surrounding resolution 181 and the myth of israel's founding.

**and this was a country that WANTED to establish a jewish state in palestine (he even wanted to have the us take on a trusteeship until the jews and arabs could come to an agreement lmao).

***yishuv refers to the jewish community in palestine prior to 1948. there is a further distinction between old yishuv - those who lived in palestine before the first zionist immigration wave in 1882 and their descendants until 1948. they tended to be more religiously observant, while new yishuv were those who emigrated to palestine in the zionist immigration waves until 1948 and tended to be more nationalist, secular and socialist. old yishuv had been there for centuries and has a fascinating history of how their communities developed btw.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Det sted man er fra er alltid pent, det er fedrelandsfølelsen i det små, hjemmefølelsen.*

- Knut Hamsun

*The place you're from is always beautiful, it's the sense of country in a small way, the feeling of home.

Most of us have heard of Lapland, but we’re not supposed to call it that anymore. The correct term these days is Sápmi - i.e. the land inhabited by the Lapps (or, rather, the Sami - as they very much prefer to be known). And, fair enough: they’ve got every right to assert their own identity, especially after centuries of domination by their southern neighbours.

Some of those neighbours are now keen to make amends for past injustices. For instance, the Swedish government made a point of using its presidency of the EU Council of Ministers to celebrate Sami National Day.

I can only imagine that it was worded with the best intentions, but if you read any of the Scandinavian press and media, it’s clear that it hasn’t gone down well with everyone. The problematic claim is that the Sami are “the EU’s only indigenous people” (my italics).

For a start, what is meant here by ‘indigenous’? According to most dictionaries, it’s the property of being original to, or characteristic of, a particular part of the world. In which case, there are all sorts of European peoples who could claim to be indigenous to Europe. For instance, the geneticist Razib Khan points out that the ancestors of today’s majority-Swedish population have been in Scandinavia for at least as long as the ancestors of today’s Sami.

The Norwegians and Swedes originated from the Norse people. The Norse people in turn originated from the Proto-Germanic peoples who migrated to the area of northern Germany, Denmark, southern Scandinavia. The Proto-Germanic peoples in turn originated from the Proto-Indo-European people whose homeland lies in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, the area around Ukraine and southern Russia.

Likewise, the Sami are not quite indigenous to the area either. The Sami originated from the Proto-Uralic people, whose homeland was around the Ural mountains (and was therefore close to the Proto-Indo-Europeans and resulted in interactions between their protolanguages, resulting in lexical borrowings). The Proto-Uralic peoples, just like the Proto-Indo-Europeans, slowly expanded and migrated, but in their case they expanded to the northwest and the northeast (with the notable exception of the Hungarians who ended up in Hungary). The Proto-Samic people, a subgroup of the Proto-Uralic peoples that gave rise to the modern Sami, were said to have displaced or merged with a much earlier indigenous Paleo-European group that was already in northern Scandinavia. This is evidenced by substrate words present in the Sami languages that derive neither from Proto-Uralic nor from Proto-Indo-European.

In any case, if Europeans are going to have a competition as to who was in Europe first, then it might be won by those with the most Neanderthal ancestry - because, as genomic testing has revealed, millions of us carry Neanderthal genes.

But perhaps the Swedish government is using indigenous to mean something more specific. According to Merriam-Webster the word relates to “the earliest known inhabitants of a place and especially of a place that was colonised by a now-dominant group”. This extra element of oppression by outsiders sharpens up the definition. However, while it applies to the Sami people and their history, it doesn’t do so uniquely. There are many ethnic groups in Europe that have been around for ages and which have been maltreated by foreign overlords. Just ask the Welsh, for instance, or the Basques.

It could be argued that the Sami are in a special category because of where they live (i.e. the most northerly reaches of Europe) and how they lived there (e.g. by reindeer herding). To have maintained a traditional culture for so long into the modern era surely sets them apart. But, again, this is debatable. While there’s no doubting the distinctiveness of the Sami, other Europeans can also lay claim to ancient traditions that have survived against the odds. To take a topical example, the Ukrainians are literally sacrificing their lives for a distinctive culture, language and history that Putin wants to erase.

Progressives ought to think twice before making an issue about who is and isn’t indigenous in Europe. While the label might play into the victim/oppressor narratives of the woke Left, it can also be exploited by the far-Right.

At a time when populism is a constant threat, telling people that they’re not indigenous to a place where they and their ancestors have lived for “time immemorial” is less than helpful. I’m sure that the Swedish government meant well, but it’s pulling on a dangerous thread.  

When language is allowed to become dissociated from meaning or the map from the territory, then fractional strife and chaos awaits. Orwell understood it perfectly from his observations of Stalinists: control language and you control expression; control expression, you control dialogue, and eventually the political narrative.

[thoughtlessarse]

Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that the Israeli military’s killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza on Monday night was “a tragic incident” did precious little to allay the fears of Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez. Nor did his assertion that “this happens in wartime”. Sánchez, who has been one of the most outspoken and persistent European critics of the way in which Israel has prosecuted its war in Gaza after the terrorist atrocities of 7 October, described the Israeli prime minister’s “supposed explanations” as “totally unacceptable and insufficient”. He added that Spain was waiting for a full and detailed account of the killings before deciding “what action we’ll take with regard to the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu”. Sánchez’s latest remarks – along with his announcement on Monday that Spain intends to recognise a Palestinian state by July – are a further example of how some of the more habitually taciturn members of the EU have found themselves compelled to speak up amid concerns that the bloc is failing to live up to its moral, political and humanitarian duties. […] The language from Ireland, which is widely perceived as the most pro-Palestinian voice in the EU, has been similarly unvarnished. The outgoing taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has described the assault as “approaching revenge”, while the foreign minister, Micheál Martin, has said it was “disproportionate”. Some European diplomats feel history will not look kindly on the EU’s inclination to look the other way on Israel and Gaza when the bloc was all too prepared to call out Russia’s actions in Ukraine. One senior diplomatic source told the Guardian that Spain and Ireland’s strong positions on Palestine were beginning to pay off, adding that each time Madrid and Dublin spoke out, the loneliness of their stance faded and others were emboldened to join them. […] Dublin has been seeking to make common cause with like-minded members and has calibrated its statements to nudge, but not subvert, the EU foreign policy mainstream. As well as teaming up with Spain, Slovenia and Malta last month to express a readiness to recognise Palestinian statehood, it has partnered with Spain to prod the EU into reviewing an Israel trade deal over human rights obligations. Last week Ireland announced it would intervene in South Africa’s landmark international court of justice case against Israel by attempting to widen the definition of genocide to include blocking aid.

read complete article

[bluespring864]

I just read this insane thing and thought the folks of tumblr might appreciate it

The European Parliament is a peculiarly Byzantine place, which is all the more baffling for an assembly that only sprung into life in 1979.

It’s replete with obscure working groups hived off from real committees, opaque voting procedures, feeble attempts to keep tabs on the Commission, and dull, empty plenary sessions taking place weeks after the news trigger has passed. And don’t forget the gift vault on floor 5 ½. 

And the article in full because it is insane:

Inside the European Parliament’s gift vault

APRIL 17, 2023 4:00 AM CET

BY EDDY WAX

BRUSSELS — Down a curving corridor on floor five and a half, there’s a dark alcove hiding an unmarked door. 

This is the final resting place for the European Parliament’s would-be bribes. 

The secret chamber is piled high with diplomatic gifts, all carefully labeled and left to languish in bureaucratic limbo under lock and key — neither accepted nor rejected. 

There’s the opulent; there’s the bizarre. One cupboard contains a Taiwanese wristwatch given to a Polish EU lawmaker. Another holds a pot of French mustard, a miniature Saudi Arabian door and a commemorative plaque from the Indonesian parliament.

Expensive bottles of wine, children’s toys, wireless headphones, books, stationery, figurines — five dusty containers are brimming with the forsworn freebies that governments and parliaments from all over the globe have showered on EU lawmakers. 

The crypt — essentially a glorified janitor’s closet — has sat largely unperturbed since the collection began almost 15 years ago. But in recent months, it has taken on a new significance due to revelations over alleged bribes that countries like Qatar, Morocco and Mauritania were funneling to EU lawmakers. 

The scandal, dubbed Qatargate, has prompted soul-searching within Parliament, which is now squabbling over how to revise the code of conduct that governs lawmakers’ behavior — including what they should do when offered a gift.

But here, in room 55A031 of the labyrinthine Paul-Henri Spaak building, remain the gifts given but not received.

Too small a room

Outside, there is no indication about what the room contains. It is permanently locked.

Besides the renounced gratuities, the room stores old MEP files.

POLITICO’s access to the vault was facilitated by the office of German Green MEP Daniel Freund — a vocal proponent of tougher transparency rules in the institution — plus three European Parliament officials, including a spokesperson.

“It’s a bit anticlimactic if you expected some kind of treasure trove,” Nurminen said, standing on the squeaky linoleum floor of the vault as the air conditioning thrummed in the background.

With MEPs rushing to declare many more gifts than before in light of the Qatargate scandal, this storage room could soon become too small. Between 2009 and 2014, EU lawmakers declared just 15 gifts — but in this parliamentary term, which began in 2019, they’ve already registered 266.

The higher numbers are largely due to a massive dump of gifts by Parliament President Roberta Metsola, who declared 170 gifts since the start of the year — most recently a traditional shirt from the chairman of the Ukrainian parliament and a decorative box from Harvard University.

The president’s gifts are either displayed in her office, stored in this gift vault — or already long gone. When it comes to gifts of chocolates, wine or crunchy snacks, some have been “served in the course of Parliament’s functions,” i.e. consumed during official work meetings.

Even though she missed the internal deadline to declare many of the gifts, Metsola — who has been Parliament president since January 2022 — argued she was being radically transparent by declaring the gifts and turning them over. This broke with years of the institution exempting the president from declaring gifts on the public register.

Because of this change, many gifts given to previous presidents and kept in boxes by a set of civil servants called the “protocol service” are now being transferred to this room from undisclosed locations. The Parliament spokesperson described this gift vault as the only dedicated room where such gifts to former presidents are kept.

Just 17 gifts to presidents past and present are on display in glass cabinets at the Parliament’s seat in Strasbourg, next to a tiny kiosk selling Roberta Metsola-themed stamps. They include a statuette of a horse from the United Arab Emirates’ National Council; handmade artwork from the president of Nigeria; a silver bowl from top U.S. politician Nancy Pelosi; a peace-themed mosaic from Pope Francis; and a vide-poches or decorative tray from French President Emmanuel Macron.

Manfred’s mobile

For now, the gifts in the chamber in Brussels are essentially in limbo — neither displayed nor used — a fate that might perhaps make lobbyists or foreign dignitaries think twice about going to the trouble of making any such gesture in the first place.

A case in point is a Huawei smartphone that was worth more than €150 when given to European People’s Party chief Manfred Weber by the Chinese tech company — in 2013. It’s been gathering dust here ever since.

The “end of life” rules, as Parliament speak would have it, means dead but not buried.

According to the current rules, EU lawmakers can keep these gifts permanently if it can be proved they have no “obvious” value to the Parliament. Or they may be temporarily displayed in their offices if the president gives her blessing.

In theory, parliamentarians can also bid to buy back their gifts in a public tender — but such an auction has never happened.

At a later stage of the ethics reform plan initiated by Metsola, senior parliamentarians could at some point tweak the code of conduct to allow the gifts to be given to charities — as happens with used furniture and food waste from the canteens. But such a tweak is currently not under consideration.

“If you have more presents handed into the institution, there needs to be a way to process them. So the existing 2013 rules might be revised,” the spokesperson said as the door quietly closed.

 source: politico.eu

[thelostdreamsthings]

Understanding the NATO summit:

The steam for the US proxy war in Ukraine is running out. No commitment is given to Ukraine to obtain NATO membership because the West has come to realize that they can’t win a war against Russia and that peace will only be possible with a neutral Ukraine.

Ukraine will never be a member of NATO. Zelenskyy has realized this and is fuming in Vilnius, attacking NATO as disrespectful and calling the conditions absurd. In a moment of clarity he acknowledged what’s really going on:

"It seems there is no readiness neither to invite Ukraine to NATO nor to make it a member of the Alliance. This means a window of opportunity is being left to bargain Ukraine’s membership in NATO in negotiations with Russia."

That’s exactly right. NATO has lost this war. Biden has lost this war. The lunatic Democrats have lost this war. The uni-party warmongers have lost this war. The EU has lost this war. Ukraine and Zelensky have lost this war.

Russia wins and rightfully so because everything that happened in Ukraine was a fraud against the Ukrainian people perpetrated by a failing US empire in its final stand against a rising multipolar world.

Zelenskyy was never a leader who did what’s best for his people. He will be remembered as a US puppet and actor for foreign interests. 350,000 Ukrainians dead because of him and his puppet masters in the US. He lost $12.7 trillion worth of land and resources to Russia because he did not sign the reasonable peace agreement that Russia had proposed to him. Instead he fell for empty promises from Biden that the US will support Ukraine until victory. What a fool.

The good news is this war may be over soon. The West has lost its appetite to throw more money into the Ukrainian black hole. With the US and EU entering recession they have enough problems at home. Protests and riots will become regular news. Biden wouldn’t stand a chance in the next election. His brain is Swiss cheese and the only alternative for the Democrats is Kennedy.

Trump will use the fatal mistake in Ukraine and the dire economic outlook of the US to run a successful campaign. Kennedy, who says all the right things, would be his only real obstacle but the Democrats have messed their country up so royally that Trump seems like the only choice.

The reality is that it doesn’t matter who the next US president is. The insurmountable debt burden combined with de-dollarization in global trade and the rise of BRICS+ are going to send the US into a decade long depression with unseen levels of poverty and violence.

Hopefully humanity dodged a bullet and nuclear war is no longer imminent. At least that is my read of the situation right now. But things could flare up again if peace negotiations fail. Russia may be tempted to take Odessa and turn Ukraine into rump state without access to the sea. Russia is holding all the cards. Let’s see how Putin plays them.

Putin’s ONLY mistake is not starting the Ukraine special military operation sooner than he did.

Zelensky is not just angry because he's short, has no friends and was rejected by NATO..

He's also angry because Putin currently controls 100,000 sq km of Ukrainian territory.

[eaglesnick]

Food For Thought

Only a few weeks ago we were reading headlines like these:

“Why are UK supermarkets facing fresh food shortages?”  (Guardian: 22/02/23)

“Tesco has followed Aldi, Asda and Morrisons in introducing customer limits on certain fresh fruit and vegetables as shelves are stripped bare at supermarkets across the UK.”  (Mirror: 22/02/23)

And more recently we have this

”Supermarket shelves face more fruit and veg shortages"  (Retail Gazette: 02/05/23)

What is our government doing to help alleviate this problem? Absolutely nothing!  Rishi Sunak is always telling us that our priorities are his priorities but his government has ABANDONED the horticultural sector of our economy, and with it the guaranteed supply of fruit, vegetables and salad.

Last June the government promised to come up with a strategy to help British fruit and vegetable growers with "sky-high" input costs and labour shortages, which were pricing home growers out of the market. This week, the government went back on its word leading to the “Farmers Weekly" leading with this headline:

“Ditching of English horticulture strategy ‘beggars belief’ (Farmers Weekly: 03/05/23)

What this means for the hard-pressed British consumer, as home grown fruit and vegetable production falls, is higher prices and the increased likelihood of fruit and vegetable shortages as we become more reliant upon overseas suppliers.

Common sense tells us that food security should be one of the top priorities of any government, yet Sunak’s government is so intent on controlling migrants that they wont allow enough seasonal workers into Britain to harvest our fruit and vegetable crops. Nor will they adequately compensate for the additional costs in energy, preferring instead to give tax breaks to their wealthy friends. Consequently, many growers are simply giving up their businesses, thereby making the UK more reliant upon foreign imports.

We saw what happened when rising energy costs and bad weather affected the production of European fruit, vegetables and salad products during the winter months. Unlike Sunak’s government, European governments put their citizens first, so when there were shortages over the winter, supplies stayed in the EU prompting headlines like this:

“Europeans mock UK shoppers with photos of supermarket shelves full of fresh fruit and veg." (Mirror: 22/02/23)

Not only can we expect more headlines like that if we don’t secure our own home-grown food supplies but we can can also expect the food-price inflation to continue to rise.

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

I’ve changed my views about the jedi after reading analyses like yours, but now i’m stuck with cognitive dissonance because i love luke and mara’s relationship ans that he allowed marriage, but if the jedi’s reasons for banning marriage were correct, doesn’t that make eu luke wrong?

I've got to admit I haven't read anything with Mara, just skimmed some wiki pages. My area is the PT. That said, that just makes EU Luke a character written with different rules in mind, so to speak. Mara dates from before TPM, before it was properly established that Jedi don’t marry, even if that’s what Lucas always intended, and so their being together was not breaking any rules in the books themselves.

It's perfectly fine to enjoy the EU! It's got great stories! And if that helps, it can easily be viewed as a kind of alternate reality to what we ended getting onscreen.

The reasons the Jedi had for 'banning' marriage - and I'm not even sure it can quite be called that - were largely dependent on context: they didn't forbid romantic feelings, and from what we see they were even pretty lenient towards actual relationships. I kinda went over it here with Kanan and Hera's couple, but imo the question of marriage is first and foremost a question of commitment. Jedi are essentially already married to the Order, and it's not fair on a spouse nor is it fair to the other Jedi to divide one's duties and heart like that. But the issue wouldn't exist if there is no Order to speak of to be married to, and commitment would also be less of a problem if the two spouses both are Jedi dedicating their lives to a common goal - so in that sense, I don't think Luke and Mara's relationship is unthinkable even if the Prequels-era Jedi had very good reasons not to marry. Different situations means different ways of dealing with things. Of course, that wouldn't make Luke's new Order 'better' - just different.

There's still the issue of attachment, of course, and the EU is not always the greatest at knowing what that means. From what I know of Luke's EU family, they had their fair share of problems with that, but of course attachment is not about whether or not a relationship is committed and/or romantic, it's much deeper. Avoiding attachment is not about avoiding love, it's about learning to let go, out of love.

Now, it might very well be that Luke was written as acting out of fear of loss, possessiveness, or any of the other pitfalls of attachment in the books featuring Mara (as I said, haven't read them) and in that case, yeah, he might have been wrong. But I don't think the books meant for him to be wrong to marry, and so in those books he wasn't.

The cognitive dissonance comes from trying to reconcile stories with different authors who had different visions as one unified coherent narrative, and that's a headache waiting to happen. Just pick and choose what you're happy with. Lucas' Jedi had very good reasons for not marrying, and the EU writers' Luke just wasn't in the same context, or indeed in quite the same universe. Nbd!

I still have beef with the EU writers and I much, much, much prefer for the Jedi to be celibates when exploring their characters (so they can stand on their own and we can know their hearts, so we get some good romance-free storytelling for once, because I have views on relationships very much influenced by my own faith and the Jedi's take on those really resonate with me, etc) but there's no reason you can't enjoy both!

(Unless it's Karen Traviss' EU books lmao. She just hates the Jedi's guts.)