Under Freedom I Flourish

Honestly I don’t know what my blog is; I don’t necessarily agree with everything I post or reblog, but I feel some thoughts are worth sharing regardless; I’ve been here for a while — some of my takes and thoughts have shifted, if you scroll for long enough you will find stuff I have posted that I don’t agree with anymore, stuff that was argued badly, and stuff that lacks perspective.

[tossawary]

The funniest "early family reunion" on the Death Star / crack canon divergence AU that I can think of right now is Darth Vader and C-3PO. Threepio gets separated from the others somehow and ends up running into Darth Vader in some random hallway, and it's just a real "What." moment for Darth Vader. (Threepio is screaming in terror and begging for his life, of course.)

Because, like, that's the droid that HE built for his mom. That's the droid that followed his wife around during the Clone Wars. What the fuck is Threepio doing HERE??? NOW??? Did Obi-Wan (Vader has still caught the Kenobi vibes on the station here, obviously) have Threepio for the past NINETEEN years? That asshole. That sounds SO annoying, too. Good. Obi-Wan deserves that.

Thankfully, this is not as catastrophic as Vader getting R2-D2, because Threepio has had a memory wipe and no one ever tells Threepio much of anything (he's got some information on the Rebellion but most of it is outdated, especially after the destruction of Alderaan). But Threepio has spent the past two days or so hanging out with Luke Skywalker, and also witnessed the destruction of the Lars farm, both of which as revelations may cause Vader to flip out in weird ways. (Artoo is STILL around too??? That traitor.) Possibly, this may be enough of a distraction to allow Obi-Wan to actually slip away and live, but maybe not.

The important thing is that Threepio is taken off the Death Star somehow, so he can become "Death Vader's gaudy gold-plated protocol droid who has anxiety and is annoying as hell but Vader takes him EVERYWHERE". Imperial soldiers from random troopers up to genuinely important Admirals occasionally have to deal with "droid-sitting" duty while Vader is out doing scary, evil Force of Nature stuff and they all hate it, because Threepio never shuts up, has a knack for wandering off (he's trying to pull a daring escape) and nearly getting himself torn to pieces (people have actually gotten hurt trying to follow him), and most people don't have the guts to just turn Darth fucking Vader's pet droid off for a little while. Vader COULD just reprogram him or put in a restraining bolt or take Threepio's legs off, but he can just pick Threepio up with the Force, so it's whatever to him. (There IS a tracker installed, but Threepio doesn't actually know where to run anyway.)

Threepio's official role is "translator" for Darth Vader, which Threepio has somehow taken to also mean "mediator". So, whenever an Imperial officer is getting threatened by Vader, there's a stuffy protocol droid behind him saying things like, "Oh my! I'd listen to him if I were you! What happened to the last fellow was rather unpleasant," and, "It's impossible to get good help these days, isn't it, Master Vader?" and it sucks. The only one who could really do anything to stop this is the Emperor and Darth Sidious couldn't care less about his apprentice's latest purse dog droid.

Unclear whether or not Vader at this point actually has any real fondness for this piece of his past / reminder or his lost loved ones, is just super lonely, secretly thinks Threepio's surprisingly deadly antics are funny, or is using Threepio as bait for R2-D2 (come get him, you little fucker) and the others. Might be a combination of all these things.

[catsplay500k]

[iamthecutestofborg]

AUDIO ON IM NOT KIDDING

[voidartisan]

we talk a lot about the Jedi being the only group of people in the galaxy who consistently see the clones as people. but what if it goes both ways. if clones are little more than droids, then Jedi are the knights out of fairy tales and romance novels. the galaxy's perceptions and preconceptions are much like anakin's in tpm. the jedi are immortable infallible unkillable. they are paragons of virtue and light and intelligence. they are not people so much as concepts. legends. superheroes.

these people are as removed from the Jedi as they are from the clones. maybe even more so. the clones work with the Jedi every day. the clones see them make mistakes. simple human* errors. they see them mourn and rage and laugh. they see them try. so hard. they see them fail. they see them fall.

their Jedi are people. and the clones love them all the more for it.

subhuman clones and superhuman jedi

[other-peoples-coats]

hello yes I am thinking about how presumably during the war there was some level of media coverage of Jedi Deaths, just bc, y'know, obviously.

and how under the empire there is media coverage of Jedi Deaths bc dead traitor terrorists empire rah rah rah!

and how the major difference is under the empire people care. under the empire people notice.

under the empire, a dead Jedi is a front page article, not a one line mention.

[prokopetz]

Concept: a mermaid who collects human artifacts, but, like, exclusively objects that humans have dramatically cast into the sea in moments of high emotion, catharsis, or personal revelation. Each item is carefully mounted above a little index card that outlines the circumstances of its hurling in terse, clinical prose.

[burnt-kloverfield]

How many outdated cellphones does she have from businessmen who realize that Family is more important?

[prokopetz]

Fewer than you’d think. For a variety of fascinating demographic and cultural reasons, importance-of-family cell phones are considerably more likely to be hurled into lakes than oceans. She’s co-authored a paper on the subject that’s due to be published next month.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

I hope it’s been pier reviewed

[remanence-of-love]

[penrosesun]

In light of the Panera lemonade thing, I feel like now is a good time to remind people that caffeine has an effective dose that is much closer to overdose amounts than most other drugs (including illegal and heavily stigmatized drugs), that caffeine overdoses are both common and under-reported, that not being able to get through a single day without a drug that was not prescribed to treat a medical condition is not normal, and that the sort of capitalist grind culture that normalizes all of this is bad, actually.

Caffeine headaches are a withdrawal symptom. If you get caffeine headaches when you don't get your coffee fix, you are addicted to caffeine.

Heart palpitations and feelings of impending doom are overdose symptoms, and tolerance can vary enough due to external factors that a high level of caffeine that's fine for you one day could be dangerous for you on another. If you get "panic attacks" and if you regularly drink more than one cup of coffee per day, tell your doctor about your caffeine habits, because those panic attacks may be misdiagnosed caffeine overdoses.

I'm not anti-caffeine – in fact, I'm not anti- any drug. I think adults can make informed choices about their own health, and I think that they should be allowed to do so. But the key to that is the informed part, and an awful lot of people consume genuinely risky amounts of caffeine without knowing any of the risks. In law school, I polled my friends, and discovered that a shockingly high percentage of them had had what were likely caffeine overdoses without realizing that that was what they were, or that they were dangerous. Having a little bit too much coffee and then spending all afternoon feeling like you're close to having a heart attack isn't an everyday occurrence, and it shouldn't be treated like one! Some of these same friends had abused stimulant medications like adderall and ritalin as productivity aids, and I absolutely guarantee that if they'd had the same level of symptoms from an accidental extra dosing of those drugs, rather than of caffeine, they'd have gone to the hospital. But Starbucks and Panera don't hand out adderall and ritalin, and people don't think that merch about adderall and ritalin dependency is cute or quirky, or that an adderall or ritalin habit is indicative of being a hard worker.

I love a cup o' joe in the morning too, but caffeine is a drug, y'all. Stop treating it like it's not.

[gay-jesus-probably]

For the sake of clarity, the maximum dose of caffeine in an adult is about 400 mg a day, though that will vary by individual depending on how sensitive you are to caffeine, and how fast your body metabolizes it; if you're sensitive to caffeine, you need to aim lower, but it's a bad idea to consume more than 400 mg of caffeine in a day. Also, if you're a teenager/kid, it's recommended you don't consume caffeine at all, but come on, no teenager's gonna listen to that. But I'd recommend hanging around a 200 mg per day dose limit if you're a teen; puberty's takes a lot of energy, your body's under plenty of daily stress, the last thing you need is to flirt with a caffeine overdose.

In mild caffeine overdoses, symptoms include anxiety, fast heart rate, nausea, headaches, and dysphoria. ...Not the gender kind, I mean like just generally feeling Bad. So if you've had a lot of caffeine that day, and these issues happen, it's time to stop now.

And if you really fuck up and take a massive overdose, then you're at risk of seizures and death; that's a concern at around 1000+ mg. You don't need to take it all at once, just over the course of a single day; let's say you start the morning with four cups of coffee, then drink a few cans of pop during the day, and go to Panera in the afternoon and have two cups of that charged lemonade... and now you've got a lethal amount of caffeine in your system.

I mean sure, the charged lemonade is safe to drink if you're an adult with a solid caffeine tolerance, but only if you have one, and only if that's the only caffeinated beverage you consume that day.

Honestly, I don't know what the fuck Panera is thinking, what's the point of selling such an overly caffeinated lemonade while not advertising the high caffeine content? Makes no goddamn sense.

That being said, plenty of energy drink brands these days are pushing high caffeine content as a selling point, so watch out for those. In general, read the labels before drinking, and mind your daily caffeine intake. Seriously, people can die from this even if they're perfectly healthy. Don't fuck around.

Finally, if this has you worried and you're thinking "Oh fuck, i should stop drinking caffeine", that's fine too; a fair amount of the reason why we're so chill about caffeine is because the withdrawal is a cakewalk compared to other drugs. There's no health risks to a caffeine withdrawal, it just feels shitty. Caffeine withdrawal gives headaches, anxiety, difficulty focusing, fatigue, and depression. It'll kick in between 12-24 hours after you stopped taking caffeine, and will last 2-9 days, though the worst of it will be in those first two days. Just stay hydrated, take ibuprofen for the headaches, and try to get more sleep, and you'll be able to get through your shitty withdrawal week without too much trouble.

But if you don't quit, you're probably still fine. Just... yknow, actually check the caffeine contents of the stuff you're consuming, and make sure you stop for the day the second you go over 400 mg.

[thepersonalquotes]

crazy how cheating is so normalized that loyalty is something to praise when it should be a damn standard

[redstonedust]

love when you stop a cat from doing something and instead of understanding that they shouldnt be doing that theyre just like. ah sorry my good sir you seem to have interrupted me. no worries let me just shimmy past you and get a taste of that pan of hot oil. please.

[mocksyoucondescendingly]

[lordnot]

As someone who owns cats that will run away if you get up while they are eating from another cat's bowl, but not while they are eating from their own bowl: I am more inclined to agree with the posts that say "cats understand the concept of sin".

[pancakeke]

sometimes when they see you coming they do the naughty thing faster (eg: when trying to steal an object they cant quite reach, or trying to eat all of something). they realize you're going to stop them, but their thought process doesn't reach the conclusion of "I shouldn't be doing this".

instead they're like "I guess there's a time limit to my task now. but god as my witness I'm gonna complete it."

[hedgehog-moss]

I stopped at some point during my walk to look at the sky then heard a soft pensive sound and looked down and realised a small friend was contemplating along with me

I said hello and she trotted over to greet me with her cheerful little bell and she was simply the most affable creature I've ever met.

I hope her supportive smile brightens your day as well !

[minnesotacore]

Is this meme on tumblr yet?

[max1461]

Nobody falls in love anymore. It's all red flags and do you go to therapy. How about do you have a burning passion in your soul and a little bit of madness.

[aokozaki]

God, what a cool fucking pair of cards. Especially these versions, with Kev Walker's art. Black and White getting the exact same effect, because the death of all fits both divine grace and unknowable horror.

And then Mr. Walker nails the fact that they're the same but different, with not just the inverted colors, but the way that Wrath of God explodes outwards, while Damnation draws all in.

[yms1]

Cold nights, full moon, is a soul therapy

[1anonyymous1]

Getting older is crazy cause you just start thinking differently out of nowhere

[antianakin]

The best part about the Obi-Wan Kenobi show as opposed to certain other Star Wars shows is that it actively and continuously recognizes the truth that the Original Trilogy set up from day one and that is that Obi-Wan Kenobi is just better than Anakin Skywalker in every way.

[merrysithmas]

when ppl see this & this, directed by the same person, and think the narrative is "anakin is evil" not "anakin is a steward of the balance, a force demi god, as was foretold on Mortis" 😂