star wars yeeteth, and star wars yoinketh away

are you defending (in this instance) Irish Catholics as a proxy to give yourself grace, to lump yourself in with "the good ones?"

what you're actually doing is absolving yourself of action and self-reflection. that discomfort you feel about white people perpetrating racism is asking you to do something to bring your actions into alignment with your values. instead, you're discarding this feeling by doing some feel-good mental gymnastics to ensure that there is a narrative that gives you an escape hatch, an assurance that there are good white people in the world (ones with whom you identify).

instead, let your discomfort guide you to do something real because if you're not actively standing up against fascism and its children, you're laying down to get stepped on. here are some real things to do:

donate to support the people who have been attacked, displaced and traumatized in racist attacks in Belfast:

don't have money to spare? find local organizers, join them, triage immediate needs in your community, then play the long game to move the Overton Window towards inclusive values. i do not want to hear any wailing about how nothing you do matters, no one will do anything, etcetera, etcetera; these are more mental gymnastics that allow you to give yourself permission to to do nothing

don't have time, money, or energy to spare? go to your local library and pick up a book to educate yourself and build empathy:

no access to a library? do the internal work and pick apart your own internal biases about race (i'll give a starter question for reflection: why did you feel compelled to respond to a post about violence against Black people and immigrant communities by centering white people?)

MACE WINDU (large text, all caps) If the Jedi had a public face in the waning years of the Republic, it was the tall, striking Mace Windu. Mace often acted as the Council's spokesman and was the Jedi Order's official liaison to the office of the Supreme Chancellor. At Chancellor Finis Valorum's request, Mace dispatched Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan on a secret mission to broker a peace treaty with Trade Federation forces blockading Naboo. Little did Mace know that a seemingly obscure trade dispute would lead to the fall of the Republic.

Many knew of Mace Windu's talent for leadership and diplo-macy, but few had seen him in combat. Here too he was impressive, fighting with his unique violet-bladed lightsaber. Shortly before the Battle of Naboo, Mace ed a team of Jedi that defeated the aggressive Yinchorri; later, he fought off Lannik terrorists on Malastare and traveled to Nar Shaddaa, where he shut down a smuggling ring exporting deadly akk dogs. At the Battle of Geonosis, he led the Jedi who rushed to rescue Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padmé. There, he dispatched the bounty hunter Jango Fett in single combat. ]

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Ok so everyone remember when I said this about people describing Mace?

Source:

"Although Yoda clearly identifies fear, anger, and aggression as the dark side of the Force, and warns Luke not to use the strength that flows from them, as they will rule him and he will forever have to bear the consequences of what he has done under their sway, many fans and critics have distorted these teachings. The dark side is often asserted to be a malevolent metaphysical force or principle of wickedness that operates through fear, anger, and aggression. In the Expanded Universe novel Heir to the Empire, Timothy Zahn even altered Yoda’s teachings, writing, “Fear and anger, Yoda had often warned [Luke], were the slaves of the dark side.” In the 2000s, Matthew Stover spoke out against what he identified as the “dark-side-is-the-devil” perspective in the Expanded Universe, attempting to steer the narrative back toward Lucas’ canon. However, a few years later, in James Luceno’s The Unifying Force, Luke declared, “Anger by itself is not of the dark side,” and nevertheless insisted on fighting to “eradicate” the dark side, calling it “Evil” itself. Moreover, video games such as Knights of the Old Republic II portrayed drawing strength from the dark side as calling upon a mystical entity for magical powers through anger and aggression.

What Yoda teaches in the original trilogy is that evil behavior is the result of falling under the sway of, and being carried by one's own dark side - fear, anger, aggression, hate. In the prequel trilogy, he explains, all is rooted in fear. "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering" means, there's always fear behind anger, there's always anger behind hate, and these are adding up to suffering.

The arising of these negative states starts with the profound fear that you’ll be harmed in some way, that you won’t get what you want or that you’ll lose what you want to hold on to, and that you’ll be in pain as a result. Fear is closely related to attachment: the more attached we are to someone or something, the more we fear not having it or being separated from it. Fear is a predecessor to anger and hate – fear of loss, of not getting what you want, of pain etc. When fear arises, anger and hatred quick to follow. Anger acts as a strategy to protect ourselves and what we consider ours. This is the egoistic perspective that sees the “I” as the center of everything and “others” as sources of pleasure or pain that either keeps the “I” happy, thus must be attained by possession, or makes the “I” miserable, and thus must be pushed away and destroyed. This attitude eventually hardens into hostility and hatred.

In the original trilogy, Yoda tells Luke that the Jedi Knight feels the Force – the energy that flows through one and make one a living being with mental and emotional processes, rather than inert matter - running through him, and his strength flows from it. However, there is a dark side to this energy: fear, anger and aggression. They arise very quickly during a fight and they offer an easy, quick access to strength, but if you give in to them and let them carry you, there is no turning back, they consume you. This is what happened with Darth Vader - this is what makes him "twisted and evil." To discern these sources of strength from safe ones, "to know the good side from the bad," as Luke put it, one must enter into a peaceful, calm, passive state of mind.

The lesson is not that anger is "wrong" and "evil" and "bad" so it must never arise. The lesson is that whenever anger arises, a Jedi Knight should do as Yoda did in Clone Wars, when he tells the projections of his dark side: "Part of me you are, yes. But power over me you have not. Through patience and training, it is I who control you. Control over me you have not. My dark side you are. Reject you I do."

Shira is in the emergency room with a very bad infection after being forced to live on the street after surgery.

We are approaching the beginning of the month, and she urgently needs the €600 for the house rent before the 1st. Please, we kindly ask for your help and support. We are truly in desperate need of assistance at this difficult time.

We have raised €234 out of the €600 needed for the house rent. Please, please share this with others. We only have a small amount left to reach our goal.

Come on folks, every little bit helps. Lets not put her back out on the streets!

A Choice Not Taken

"You. Save the mercenary. The killer. Why?"

"Master, I had a vision as we fought. His future was… clouded."

"Clouded?"

"He doesn't want to be a killer, and if given a second chance, may not."

"Won't seek revenge?"

"Not from what I saw, he has no real connection to the others. He will change."

"Then. Trust your vision. Good."

« … you got this person and they’ve been through trauma, horrors, the end of their world, even. Maybe they break, maybe they don’t. But for years, it’s bleak. And one day, they wake up and they know: peace is possible again. Joy, even. That’s resilience. »

@adragonsfriend this is your fault.

Also, don't underestimate the damage and trauma that 'clean' tortures can cause. If your story takes place in a modern setting, 'clean' tortures are much more common. You can still die from them. You will still likely have life-long complications, physical or mental, from them. This is also true for non-contact torture. People who have experienced torture are significantly more likely to go on to develop chronic illnesses and mental health conditions. Survivors do not all react the same way. Some become fearful and withdrawn; others become emotionally numb, angry, hypervigilant, dissociative, or outwardly functional.

Also, torture harms both the torturer and the person being tortured. Organizations that utilize torture are usually very dysfunctional within the unit(s) that it is being performed in. PTSD, moral injury, emotional dysregulation and damaged self-control, interpersonal violence, and mood disorders are common in torturers and the larger group they are typically operating in, whether that is as sanctioned and organized as the police or military or on a much smaller and less organized scale. Organizations using torture often become less trustworthy internally. Fear, secrecy, corruption, scapegoating, dehumanization, and normalization of abuse tend to spread beyond the interrogation room. Dominance, power, revenge, ideology, and poor emotional regulation are often the core drivers behind torture.

If you are writing a character and want an alternative to them using torture that actually is shown to work, rapport-building, patience, consistency, and offering safety or dignity are historically far more effective interrogation methods than coercion.

If torture works instantly and cleanly in a story, it can unintentionally reinforce myths that real governments and abusive groups have historically used to justify torture.

What's your blog title from?

What movie have you watched most recently? What did you think of it?

what are you looking forward to right now?

if you could do anything at all today, what would it be?

What's your drink of choice? (Coffee/tea order, alcohol of choice, pop, etc)

What's your hair routine like? Anything special?

what's your favorite way to travel? Is there a mode of travel you haven't done that you want to experience?

favorite month of the year and why?

favorite time of day and why?

do you play or follow any sports? & elaborate on that?

what kind of music is stuck in your head a lot lately?

dishes or laundry?

what's something you learned recently?

if you could give a TED talk on anything, what would you talk about?

What's a piece of advice you find yourself giving a lot?

what's a piece of advice you would give to yourself five years ago?

do you believe in luck and superstition? Do you carry any lucky items or follow any lucky rules?

Are you musical? Play any instruments or sing? Would you ever perform for an audience?

Write, type, or speak?

It translates literally as I crashed into Obi-wan Kenobi, and it only makes sense in Spanish bc Kenobi it's pronounced the same way as "Que No Vi", which would make the joke "I crashed into an Obi-wan I didn't see"

linked tree (includes options to donate to Ghanaian projects)

GHANA 29 MAY 2026 Ghana is legalising the wiping of its LGBT+ population. The world is silent.

On 29 May 2026, Ghana's Parliament passed a law criminalising LGBT+ people, their allies, their advocates, and anyone who refuses to look away. It has been two days. Not one major government has issued a statement. Not one international institution has picked up the phone loud enough for anyone to hear. This is what abandonment looks like. It does not always come with a announcement. Sometimes it just looks like silence on a weekend while people's lives get dismantled. The UK is about to host Ghana's President at an investment summit in London. The EU has active partnerships with Accra. The IMF has an ongoing programme with Ghana. The African Union exists. The UN exists. And yet the loudest sound coming from any of them right now is nothing. LGBT+ Ghanaians are not a talking point. They are people who woke up on Friday to a parliament that voted to make them criminals. They are people who are right now calculating whether they are safe, whether their landlord will use this law, whether their employer will, whether their family will. That calculation is happening in real time while the world decides whether this is worth a statement. The world is silent. That silence is a choice. And history will record who made it. Hashtag JustRightGhana Hashtag Ghana Hashtag WhoseAfrica

7.) Which character confessed their feelings first? And how was it? What did they do? How were they feeling?

16.) What would they do to surprise one another?

(re: "I need help with writing romance." — if it refers to the genre, I'm not competent at that, but writing connection/intimacy/bonds/commitment/ship/whatever term becomes more accessible by approaching it as "write making kin.")

thank you for the questions and for the advice! I get in my head about romance even though I know a lot of it is the same as any relationship. I found a book the quote seems to be attributed to and it looks really cool im seeing if its in the library

7. Rabee unequivocally confessed first! I was thinking about it the past two days and it's the obvious answer, but it's also true. Rabee is a poet and a performer and while it was nervous about confessing in particular, that's a feelings it's used to working with rather than against. In a shockingly smooth confession it spent a while composing a poem for Safi,,, and then read it to him. The hardest thing for Rabee was probably getting to a point where the poem felt finished enough to actually read. I am debating and I think (in a move that could have gone quite badly but didn't) Rabee confessed while they were on the road together after both separately running away from home, so they had a lot of time alone. Safi got very tongue tied and essentially had to show his positive reaction by just hugging Rabee. Without other people around they kind of just,,, slowly started moving their sleeping bags (*suspenceful voice* do sw ocs get sleeping bags or will i come up with a sw-ified word) closer together and closer until they were basically snuggling every night. Once they met up with the larger group they're traveling with they gradually started doing more things to like,,, perform a romantic relationship I guess, like kissing and obvious flirting.

[plain text: aspec character/WIP ask game! /end PT]

How does your character relate to romance?

How does your character relate to sex?

How does your character relate to friendship?

How does your character relate to family?

How does your character relate to touch, sensuality, etc?

Is your character partnering, nonpartnering, something in between?

Is your character polyamorous, monoamorous, nonamorous, something else?

How does your character identify? Do they know they’re aspec?

What is your character’s aspec orientation, whether they know it or not?

How long has your character known they’re aspec, if they know? How did they figure it out?

How does your character feel about being aspec? Have they always felt this way or has it changed?

Does your character know other aspecs?

What kinds of relationships does your character have? What are their most important relationships?

What are the most important things to your character?

How does your character relate to the concept of love?

How much does being aspec affect your character’s life?

Are aspec themes explored in your WIP, or do any themes connect to aspec-ness even if they’re not really *about* aspec-ness? Talk about them!

How many aspec characters do you have? Do you have a favourite?

What type of aspec character do you write most often? Why?