I’m starting to make Red State care packages for

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I’m starting to make Red State care packages for friends. I was talking today with a very close friend in Ohio, who works in construction and so is constantly surrounded by pro-Trump bullshit. He’d written some letters, made some angry calls, but he was pretty down and exhausted and it just didn’t seem to matter, and he was just so disgusted. 

I sent him a couple of funny memes, and then said, “You know, I’ve been writing postcards like crazy, and I’ve mostly been making my own. Do you want me to print you up some, send you a bunch so you can send them to your shithead lawmakers?”

“Yes!” he said. “That would be great!” 

So I’m coming up with a good set for him, and I figure I’ll enclose a book of stamps too, just to make it that much easier. 

I’ve written to my reps. I’ve written to my state Senators, my Congressman, the neighboring Congressman who is Republican, my state Senator, my state Assemblyman (there are no pressing state issues I’m concerned about but I figured I’d get in the habit), my local school board, the State Board of Education, several other Senators and Representatives whose actions have merited either exceptional censure or exceptional praise– I’ve gone through two 20-count sheets of postcard stamps so far, anyway.  A handful were for friends, so it’s not all political.

I’ll keep writing to my reps. But. I mean. They know. It’s Schumer and Gillibrand, they know, ok. I do plan on keeping gentle sweet pressure on them to remind them that the things I am asking them to do are in the sake of human decency not the sake of the Democratic Party. But that’s sort of… I mean, they know. For the most part. (I might write some more pointed stuff to my Congressman. Might send him a proper letter with a return address, and request a response. Postcards don’t get a response; I don’t give them my address, for lack of room, but I do know the postmark will tell them I’m a constituent for real.) 

But I’ve done a mix of positive and negative cards, and I figure I’d send him some along those lines. Mostly negative. I might also enclose one of those “how to write to your reps” guidelines things, if I can find a good succinct one, just to be helpful. (I know he knows what he’s about, but having a guideline helps me sometimes so I can stay on target and not just scream.)

Red state friends: do you want one too? Send me an ask with your address! They’re sort of flimsy laser-printer perforated-edge postcards but they do hold up to mailing. I’m trying to innovate and be double-sided. 

I figure nothing screams “not a paid protestor” quite so much as slightly-shitty home printing and handwritten notes, you know?

Can you tell us about the Empires propaganda machine?

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Later, after, in all the holonews segments and all the long ‘net articles furnishing further analysis, they—and here ‘they’ is vaguely defined, reporting is is too scattershot in a galaxy marked by lightyears and hyperlanes—will not be able to pinpoint the place where they went wrong. Where it was all tipped from earnest republican v. separatist reporting to laying the groundwork for imperial v. everyone else. When they stopped, or when their blades met with armor they couldn’t pierce, or—

But by then it’s too late. It’s too late, the Empire is already wound itself through every word spoken and every reference made; it’s in everything, a dark undercurrent of emotion and justification—don’t you love the Republic? don’t you care about other galactic citizens? don’t you want to follow the laws and reward those who have justified their existence as you have justified yours? you have worked so hard, the day is long and the rewards few, why would you give those to others? why would you share?

(’Sharing’ is a dirty word, under the Empire. To each according to his strength, that is the Imperial motto. But ‘strength’ is a narrow gate, and it cuts many off at the knees, the ankles, those unguarded places—)

There is no question that human beings are afraid of difference they have been afraid of that since whatever primordial swamp they crawled out of but—they have always put it aside, they have always at least pretended to the idea of recognizing other species, the claim of xenos to homeworlds. the equal right of existence. Et cetera. Never mistake how hard human beings will try, when confronted with tentacles, if there is profit or benefit in ignoring any difference.

But humans also reproduce like orburs in spring, and they colonize, multiply out into the galaxy like a plague. Like a—spore. Like something biological and not, because nothing in nature moves without regard to the animus they generate. And they are a tetchy species, measuring everything in relative value. It doesn’t matter if—

Luke does not stop to question the holoradio adverts he hears, the faded propos papering the Toshe public hall, saying ‘JOIN THE EMPIRE TODAY! FLY FOR THE EMPIRE! BE BRAVE BE TRUE BE STALWART!’ Anywhere is better than here, right? Get closer to that bright center and anything is better—

(It is still hard to find that bright line between the Republic under the tyranny of the Clone Wars and the perpetual state the Empire embodies. That is just how these things go.)

Leia is on the first line of defense for the Rebellion, she watches propos and listens to senators argue, quoting lines from holodramas—ironically, but also as illustrations. (She learns very young that a well-told story, even fictional, has quicker legs than one badly told and true. She disapproves, but that is the way of things.) It is amazing how many late Republicans would have supported he Empire despite explicitly stating they did not support the Empire, its agents, or any move toward a less democratic structure of government. It is amazing how weak it makes them seem, given what she knows about the inner workings of the capitol. It is—

Han is good at finding cantinas where, if the Imperial propos cut into he grav-ball match, everyone groans aloud. He smiles a little against the curve of the mug as everyone curses out the poor bastard who has to—

(Han always feels a little bad for him. Her. Whoever—he knows what it’s like to have your neck under someone’s boot, to know you don’t really have choice in this. At least he’s busy smuggling, can’t be much a spokesperson that way.)

The Resistance does not have the access the Empire does, but the Rebellion has feed hackers, holonet ‘ware corrupters. The Alliance blasts every inbox with public reveals of complaints, salaries, donations. Saw Guerra’s people de-encrypt transmissions, and release them to the ‘net in vicious anarchic fashion. (Make of it what you will, that Tarkin sent a transmission to Krennic saying ‘stop being so gentle on your workforce,’ after Krennic’s 12-hour days resulted in its first overworked, dehydrated, malnourished death.)

Regional reporters dump their findings onto the holonet, saying, look at what the governor is doing, we buried the jedi but we found, we—

look, they say in unison. look at this. you are not alone. you are not crazy. something has shifted, something significant has changed and you are not alone in thinking this. We are here, together, and this is dangerous, this is—

you are not alone. you are right, your perception of the world is—there is an objective reality, and they depart from it. you are right. you are sane. it is the galaxy that has gone insane in the interim.

“Senator?” the holonet reporter asks, when Mon Mothma falls silent, and she is smiling down at the podium. “Senator, if you could—”

“According to the study conducted by the Galactic Agency for—” she begins, and the briefing room falls so quiet she is afraid she has lost them. But there is a holonet reporter in the first row who has pressed her hand to her mouth, even as her eyes are wide, fixed on Mon’s face; and out of the corner of her eye, Mon can see Leia Organa (so much Bail and Breha’s daughter, even now) pressing her lips together, her eyes shut. And this is good. They are good, they are better. Here is the study. Here is the definition. Here is the closest she knows how to get to objective reality.

She justifies. From the root word, meaning justice. Meaning to make right. Meaning, more than what is what is available on the surface, more than what is unquestioned. More. 

So much more.

my favorite part of all this though is that as this shit is...

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my favorite part of all this though is that as this shit is going down, the market is voting with its feet, and—
—
it turns out those separations are not just protections FROM your kids, they’re protections FOR your kids. Melania thought this was going to be “an unprecedented money-making opportunity” but if it turns out it’s not the EASY D she’s fixing to wind up like Marie Antoinette.
TURNS OUT THERE ARE REASONS FOR LAWS AND IT’S NOT JUST THAT EVERYONE ELSE IS A SUCKER.

voidarcade: baze stop scaring the child

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voidarcade:

baze stop scaring the child

littleredhatter:Something I’ve realised working

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littleredhatter:

Something I’ve realised working in retail is that………..ppl just don’t fucking read……

I sell things on Etsy, vintage stuff, so like, I take photos and describe the condition and that’s about all the listing is, right, and about 50% of my job is copy-pasting the part of the listing where I describe the condition into the convo box and sending it to ppl who send me convos like “whats the condition”.

Sometimes it’s up to 90% of what I do. If you count the part where we sell film photo processing and I wrote a really careful how-to in the listing description (like, you have to package your film up and send it to us!), and most of the rest of what I do is copy-paste that into “how does this photo processing thing work” convos, then it’s about my whole job.

Like, clearly they can read or they wouldn’t have been able to type into the convo box? but they won’t scroll down and read, I have to present it just to them. 

Every so often I go back and add another layer of asterisks around the SEND TO THIS ADDRESS that I put in all caps, but it doesn’t seem to cut down on the number of convos I get that ask “where do I send the film???”

As a severely attention-deficit-impaired-type person, I do feel this, sometimes you get a block of text and your eyes just cross, but like– that’s– how online shopping works– you have to read the directions. It’s hard. It’s really hard.

I take a lot of deep breaths before replying to these things. 

wait, what's the difference between Cassian's real age and the age they say he is?

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I’m assuming this is in response to my tags about the amazing @notbecauseofvictories thing I reblogged about Cassian and Mon Mothma, because I vaguely remember typing something like that, but it might not have been; regardless, if anyone reading this diatribe hasn’t read it, they should go do that. 

Diego Luna is 36. 37 now. Born in 1979, just like me. Look at him, look at his face as he plays Cassian; he has creases around his eyes and the bones of his face are sharp in a way they weren’t when Diego Luna was in his mid-20s. He’s beautiful, he’s not young, he’s weathered and sharp and his life is engraved on his face. He’s not old, but he’s not young. I can’t find the still I want: it’s when Jyn has the blaster and he tells her to give it to him, and she slyly says “Trust goes both ways” and he stares at her for a moment. Every minute he has lived shows in his face in that shot, every moment of pure agonizing bullshit he has ever weathered is just right there to see, and it’s fucking amazing. It’s like a half-second acting clinic in Having A Face While Being In Your Late Thirties And Having Seen Some Shit. It’s absolutely what I wish I could do with my face. (I can’t. I have zits and wrinkles at the same time. No one takes me seriously, I get carded for booze, and I’m also old enough to be invisible. it’s amazing.) I can’t find it, so have this still instead. 

According to Wookieepedia and various promotional materials, Cassian Andor is 26.

It’s not… impossible… for a man of 26 to look like that but… why… 

I’ve just done the Extra™ thing and looked up what Diego looked like when he was 26.

As someone of Diego’s actual age, I feel like that matters. I understand, Cassian would lead a more weathering life than Diego presumably has (I actually don’t really know his RL business but I’m assuming it involved a lot less murder and espionage, and I’m super sorry if that’s an incorrect assumption, but come on Diego is a human sunshine muffin I’m not drawing this out of thin air here).

He’s still not a baby in this photo, of course. He has lines around his eyes, a little bit. Probably if he were frowning his forehead would have some of that crease in it that Cassian has in every frame (because he is frowning in every frame, but, you know). But his cheekbones are still smoothly hidden under softness, there are no hollows above his jaw, he’s soft and smooth and pretty and it doesn’t take anything away, he just doesn’t have as many lived moments in his face to turn wearily on Jyn and visibly decide that he just has no fucks left to give over whether she shoots him or not.

Anyway! A bunch of us writer types were sort of just assuming that Cassian was played by an actor about his age, and have constructed headcanons accordingly, and they are way more interesting headcanons I think than him being a murder baby! It’s the sort of thing, I admit, that at 26 I would have been like “what does it matter” but now that I am 37 I am like “no it matters a bunch, honey”. 

ALSO FELICITY JONES is 33 and I was SO EXCITED that they had a heroine over 30 but NO, Jyn is supposed to be like 20 or whatever, WTF. WTF! WTF! Ugh. COME ON, LET WOMEN AGE. It’s bad enough the only women in star wars have to be under five-three and brunette with large eyes and wide mouths but now they also have to be under 30 whether or not their actress is. (CARRIE FISHER WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME.)

Obviously the casting people weren’t really thinking “not every adventure has to happen to Very Young Adults” which is what I was so excited about, they were thinking “These Hot Young People Should Be Played By Hot Slightly-Older People Because Adventure Makes You Look Slightly Older Than You Are”, which is bullshit. 

popelizbet-blog: menderash: i saw a really cool butterfly expert man on PBS and was so in awe of...

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popelizbet-blog:

menderash:

i saw a really cool butterfly expert man on PBS and was so in awe of him and his butterfly knowledge i tracked down the episode online to see how to spell his name and found his twitter and followed him, only for the next day to awaken to him having read not only my webcomic, but also my livetweets saying how i wanted to marry the butterfly man. he said he was flattered. anyway the moral of the story is please don’t underestimate how far down your twitter a bored entomologist will scroll, and also the internet was a mistake.