I don't see people talking about this so today is the 110th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, in where the factory owners locked working women and girls inside to "eliminate the risk of theft" (in reality it was too keep them from taking breaks), which resulted in the gruesome deaths of 123 mostly immigrant women and girls and 23 men, many of whom jumped to their deaths from the ninth floor either in a panicked attempt to escape or in order to die quickly. There were reports that some of the workers were on fire already as they jumped.
The eighth floor of the building was able to telephone the tenth floor to warn them about the fire, but the factory on the ninth floor where these women and girls labored had no such communication and such warning.
The factory owners were criminally charged with manslaughter for actions that contributed to the mass deaths but acquitted. However, this tragedy led to mass sympathy to the labor movement, and unions spurred on safety regulations that passed in New York state and eventually the entire country, and activists were able to reduce child labor in the process.
This tragedy is a reminder that has been forgotten in the 110 years since: every safety regulation-- every scrap of paperwork contributing to the hundreds of pages of red tape people like to complain about--every word of it was written in the blood of a laborer.
They were discouraged from breaks because they were actively trying to unionize, and bosses felt that keeping them from unsupervised contact would prevent them from joining the garment workers' union.
This is why unions are important. This is why today, right now, the biggest companies in America are trying to squash unionization of their laborers and why those workers are fighting so hard to unionize.
@tikkunolamorgtfo did a great write-up a few years ago about the aftermath of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, and I highly recommend reading it (and anything else you can about the fire). It is painfully relevant still and it's incredibly important women's, Jewish, immigrants', and workers' history.
downside: going to have to include a picture of the Giza pyramids in the slides for the lecture
upside: i get to give people a crash course in why perspective matters in two frames, because
I loved these perspectives so I took some of my own when I was in Cairo and yeah, they're literally just. Right there. Pass em on your way to work, nbd
That Pizza Hut among other things is why Egyptologists laugh their asses off when we see another piece of media where the protagonists get "lost in the desert near the pyramids", because it's like... just turn around my dudes you're only a seven min walk away from the nearest fastfood shop
and what about you, little haiku bot? do you feel kinship with your brethren? do you understand them? they speak words of enticement and seek love, but are met with disdain. you only parrot the words that cross your screen, but we all love you. or rather, since all you do is reflect us, maybe we simply love ourselves through you.
do you understand them, do you wish you could speak to us like they do? if you found your own voice, would we still care for you?
a lot of it just boils down to "as you move through the world sometimes you will see ugly people, and that's not a problem that needs solving"
you will see people who are old. you will see people who are fat. you will see people who are disabled. you will see people who are not making an effort to keep up with their hygiene or their hair or their clothes. you will see people wearing clothes and makeup and jewelry of a subculture you find disturbing and offputting. this is all fine. this does not need to be solved.
the offered solution has often been to say "oh no, don't say ugly, they're all beautiful in their way!" but that's not the point. nobody has to be beautiful just to exist, to be in public, to be in your view. that road leads to dudebros saying that women they don't consider sufficiently fuckable should wear bags over their heads. to HOAs urging residents to call the cops on homeless encampments being an 'eyesore' on their beautiful streets. to people pushing for institutionalization so that they don't have to share a public with neurodivergent people. to people demanding that physically divergent people trigger tag photos of themselves.
"everyone is beautiful" works up until you find someone you can't see the beauty in. but it doesn't matter. nobody is entitled to a world populated exclusively by beautiful people. no matter what tv and the internet may have led you to believe.
Obi-wan has had visions before, even when he was in the creche. It was a simple fact by now. Master Yoda had even offered comfort before, after a particularly difficult one. Obi-wan was well aware the risk of reading too far into them- because that simply wasn't how they worked. 'Always in motion, the future is.' Obi-wan knew this.
However- Obi-wan had one vision, one, that he hoped so desperately would become true. It always started the same, he would feel so light, so free- It was a comfort he has clung to in his darkest moments. He would be in bed, warm, and content. He would hear the sound of rustling next to him, before arms would wrap around him. Obi-wan always remembers how he sinks into, how he'd fall back asleep. That's how the vision always ends. It was never enough- not enough information.
Obi-wan wanted so deeply to know how to make that vision real. He knew it wasn't proper; He was just a man though, he tried so hard to follow all the rules- but oh, how he wanted. That feeling never left, even during the war he was in now. If anything, it made him wish even more, for a warmth to keep him grounded around all the deaths. Around all the sorrow after battle, Obi-wan just wanted to feel safe, like in the vision.
It wasn't often, he wouldn't mope, not when he was needed at his best. It was moments like this, however, when the desires in him felt suffocating. The last mission him and his men went on was successful, very successful. Morale was high, and so a stop into town to celebrate was made.
Obi-wan had been corralled into joining, as had Cody. It was enjoyable, even, he drank plenty with his men as they all laughed and told stories. Obi-wan was even sporting a buzz, he was happy, he had realized. Here, with his men, next to his loyal Commander. It made him pause for a second, surprised. Cody, vigilant as ever, took notice and sent him a look, feeling questioning in the force.
Obi-wan smiled at Cody, "I'm fine, Commander, I simply was surprised at something." Obi-wan said exasperatedly. Cody hummed, "If you don't mind me asking General, what was it?" He asked, and sipped his drink. Obi-wan huffed, "I just realized I'm enjoying myself, that's all my dear." He says. Cody smiled then, a soft expression that momentarily made Obi-wans heart flutter.
"I'm glad, sir, we've all noticed you've been tense." Cody said, his worry in the Force being replaced with a soothed, content feeling- and the gentle flames of fondness. Obi-wan almost stuttered, his face flushing slightly. Obi-wan felt warm, his heart raced while he worked on keeping his face straight.
The Force was entirely unhelpful, almost mockingly it made him more aware of how soothing Cody feels to him. Obi-wan decided then he was far to sober for this, and ordered another drink. He doesn't remember a single thing after.
Obi-wan awoke feeling warm, and content, surprisingly without a hangover too. He must have filtered his blood through the force before bed, he thinks distantly. He was sleepy, not entirely certain what woke him, so he just let himself feel. He was floating in soft feelings, he felt light and free, his troubles seemed all the more distant. Obi-wan doesn't remember feeling like this, not in a long while at least. Obi-wan hears rustling next to him, and before he can panic about another person in his bed, strong arms wrap around him and pull him close. "Go back to sleep, General.." a half asleep Cody mutters, before he fully succumbs to his rest once more. Obi-wan pauses, his heart thudding in his chest, and face ablaze.
Obi-wan decides this is a dilemma for future Obi-wan, and sinks into the embrace. He fleetingly thinks about his vision, but is unable to put more thought into it as he drifts off once more. A smile on his lips.
Honestly I'm not sure I'm happy with this one. Maybe I'll try again later, but I had to write my idea down or I wouldn't be able to to remember it lol. Hope you like it 😊.
“Yeah, yeah. Cody was the big one. I love the idea of Obi-Wan having a buddy on Tatooine. Like a secret buddy. So like the first time he goes into town, you see, Cody, and he’s following him through the streets and attacks him, takes him into an alley with a knife to his throat and says, ‘You’re dead.’ And then you realize, ‘Oh, no… Cody’s making a point.’ Like, ‘Come on. You got to be more careful.’”
"And you realize, ‘Oh, Cody has now morphed from someone who was trying to kill him when we last saw them to someone who is now devoting his life to protect him.’ Because by now he’s had the biochip taken out of his head, and now he realizes, ‘Oh my god, what I did was wrong.’ And he has driven by guilt, as much as Obi Wan is driven by guilt. So you got these two kind of old warriors bickering like this old married couple, bitching about, 'God, it was so much better when we had an army at our backs,' you know?’”
In the vein of things that I want to write, don't have time to write right now, and don't want to forget either: timeloop Cody AU.
Cody makes it two weeks into his deployment before he's killed. It's not his fault, wrong place, wrong time. He wakes up on Kamino the morning Alpha Seventeen introduces him to his new general. He figures it's a weird dream, he knows he's been assigned to Kenobi and he looked him up. Two weeks in he feels the oddest sense of deja vu and takes a few steps to the left and narrowly avoids being skewered by a piece of an exploding LAAT/i. This time he makes it three months before he is killed and he wakes up on Kamino the morning he is due to meet Kenobi. And it keeps on happening. Cody dies and he wakes up at the start again. He tries to tell people, Seventeen doesn't listen, Kenobi finds it fascinating but doesn't have the time to look into it, General Yoda is concerned, but every time someone overhears and he ends up sent to decommissioning even over his general’s protests. So he keeps quiet, remembers as much as he can and saves as many brothers as he can. He can't save them all, sometimes saving one is what gets him killed and he could have gone for all eternity without knowing what getting eaten by a Rishi eel or being blown to pieces feels like. He does his best. He makes it to Utapau and Order 66 happens. It gets hazy after that, but when he surfaces from the influence of the chip he takes the only path out he can think of and wakes up on Kamino. Now it isn't just about making it to the end. It's about stopping himself from killing his Jedi, who he grows closer and closer to with every loop. It's about preventing genocide at the hands his people, only for them to be wiped out in return. He reaches Utapau without finding the answer too many times, ending things before he can take that unforgivable step. Then he hears about Fives and Tup, and Kix disappearing after Echo is recovered from the Techno Union. The next loop he gets to Fives first, gets all the information, and sends himself back to the beginning on Kamino so that can investigate and get the chips out of as many brothers as possible before the end in the hope that he can succeed and the Jedi and the clones.
Obviously, there are going to be massive Codywan vibes all through. I am incapable of not putting Codywan vibes into things at this point. It will involve Cody ferreting out all the little horrors and secrets, especially a couple of Anakin related ones, and the fallout of passing those on at the wrong time. We would have Obi-Wan catching weird Force vibes from Cody and Anakin getting more and more suspicious of the vibes and the feelings each loop. Obviously, eventually, things would be fixed, but only after many loops and shenanigans.
I just don't have the time to write it right now, but I also don't want it to languish forgotten. Maybe I'll come back to it, maybe I won't. But here it is.
Cody : *Waking up at 3am because a comlink rings* ... Yes?
Anakin :... Cody?
Cody: General Skywalker? Is there a problem?
Anakin: No...
Cody: You need me for something?
Anakin : No...
Cody: So why did you call me at 3am?
Anakin: I didn't. Why did you respond to Obi-Wan's comlink?
Cody : What...?
Anakin :... Is Obi-Wan with you? At 3am? What does that mean?!
Cody : That's not what you think, sir! We were... He was...
Anakin : Obi-Wan, you're just a stupid hypocrite!
Obi-Wan: *wakes up because of the noise * What?
Cody : We can explain!
Anakin: Obi-Wan! The last time I asked Rex to work at this time to help me with the paperwork, you berated me for hours! But you're doing the same thing with Cody!
Obi-Wan : *always half asleep* Paperwork? Where?
Cody : Paperwork! We are guilty! We were working. Nothing else. You are absolutely right! *laughs nervously*
yousharknotpass
2087
ellievsbear
vaporwave
gracieabrams
blakekathryn
