Luke Skywalker in the context of Andor is sooooo. Smiley, insane, overpowered teenager from the middle of fucking nowhere shows up at the eleventh hour. No credentials, no connections, no resumé. Just happened to somehow rescue Alderaanian Senator Leia Organa from the Death Star with an absolutely braindead gambit in which he just… pretended to be a stormtrooper, with a Wookiee in tow.
Then he gets in an X-wing for the first time ever, turns off the targeting computer, and blows up the greatest weapon the Empire has ever created with one fuckoff impossible shot.
Meanwhile, all these rebels who have spent years, their entire lives, existing in fear and deprivation and exile, painstakingly building this movement with their bare hands, paying in blood and sweat and tears, so far removed from the world of the Jedi that the knights and the Force are just stories now, to most of them – these brave, exhausted souls who know that no one person can stand against the Empire, that it takes community, it takes trust, it takes you and the guy standing next to you – find themselves watching essentially the rebirth of a mythological protector, in the form of a guy who’s probably not legally old enough to drink, who sulks like a teenager whenever notorious smuggler Han Solo doesn’t pay attention to him, who follows Biggs around like a puppy, who falls for literally every prank anyone ever plays on him.
And this idiot kid is the first person in a generation who can stand up to the Empire, all alone, and make a difference. How much must they hate him, and how much must they love him, and how much must they fear losing him.
geekandmisandry: “I was thinking about how I have grown to value mandatory voting over a system that allows allegedly more freedom. Because in country, mandatory voting means I just have to send in a ballot. It can be empty or filled with the write in ballot “pickle farts” if I want.
“If I go to the voting station all I have to do is get my name checked off. I don’t have to vote if I don’t want to.
“But it means it is much more difficult for the government to try and suppress voters. Because voters have a legal obligation to go to the polls, so you can’t restrict them or try tactics to dissuade them.
“Voting polls are open long hours with access to food and water being a fairly standard staple. You don’t need any form of ID, you have to be given time to go vote in work hours without penalty if you cannot do it after work hours.
“Every now and then a politician tries some small way of voter suppression but it isn’t as easy. And so I have learned to appreciate it.
“But when I googled, out of curiosity, if the USA had ever had anything like that I was met with a barrage of websites talking about freedom and justice and the absolute liberty of Americans. I thought an eagle was going to bust out of the screen.
“Going through some of these I noticed they were think tanks connected to billionaires, one of them was funded and created by the Koch brothers.
“Gotta love how often the American ‘freedom’ is actually used as a way to further deny actual freedoms, both linguistically and politically.”
“Some of these sex changers can flip with astonishing frequency. The chalk bass (Serranus torugarum), a neon-blue Caribbean fish that’s about the size of your thumb, has been known to switch sex up to twenty times a day. Chalk bass don’t do this in order to play the field; quite the opposite - switching sex is their recipe for relationship success. Chalk bass are known to display unusual levels of sexual fidelity and are considered more or less monogamous. Their sex change habits are a coordinated response with their long-term partner. Researchers believe that taking turns laying eggs, which are bigger and more energy-consuming to produce than sperm, keeps the reproductive investment fair. Each fish fertilizes as many eggs as it produces. Proving that even with fish you get what you give in a relationship.”
The Irony is Astounding: Thomas Horman, the acting ICE director, told Tucker Carlson that he objects to being compared to Nazis because ICE is ‘simply following orders.’
Jessa Crispin: “America doesn’t really make things. Even in its financial system, the highest rewards go to those who speculate, making bets on things that other people have created but creating nothing real or tangible in itself. Jessa and Nico discuss the difficulty in reversing the trend toward service and virtual production as well as the effects that working in the spectral rather than material realms has on a human.”
“Boss, it’s the fascism. You’re completely gunked up with cortisol due to the fact that your entire daily life is now underscored with a haunting awareness of the rapid erosion of your rights, dignity, and any and all social safety nets, and you’re also bearing witness to the most vulnerable people immediately being persecuted. This creates a natural stress response that basically means you’re going to continue having memory and organizational problems, as well as emotional imbalances.”
“Anybody can change from being fit and healthy to sick and bedbound. Anybody can develop chronic health conditions or become disabled or terminally ill. Anybody can change from being employed to unemployed and unable to work. These things can happen to anybody. Anybody.”
“Hope is a risk; especially when you’ve known what it is to dream for better and only be met with the tyranny of degradation, greed, and violent appetites. But despair is a concession. Be careful of who you let regulate your dreaming. Always remember who benefits from our hopelessness.”
