Twilek headtails are basically fat storage, right? Orn Free Taa’s are engorged and he seems to have grown another two. They’re on a planet with regular food scarcity, so it would make sense too. Imagine how much they could do with that.
Twi’leks who can tell when others are regularly hungry based on the size and consistency of their lekku. Slaves and other vulnerable Twi’leks being easily identifiable, by the way they move. Their lekku movements grow sluggish, the tone changes.
For people with the observational skills and knowledge it’s easy, but Padme and Orn Free Taa once had to collaborate on a space Power Point on a famine that involved carefully pointing out every lekku marker of malnourishment in holos of settler children so the Senate would understand it.
Extra lekku being a status symbol because it means that you have literally so much wealth your body has to stretch to hold it all. Cham Syndulla brings back the lean and mean look with his nationalist fervour, and then it’s a bit stylish to have solid well built up lekku, all healthy fat, regularly fed but not overdone.
Slim lekku coming into ‘fashion’ on other worlds, even though it’s not always as healthy, and everything that would bring.
Babies with their tiny lekku being fed extra well to make sure they’ll grow up with nice long ones. Grandmothers swear they can tell who grew up in a rich family and who didn’t even when they’re adults, just based off their lekku.
Young Hera who only eats every few days and then in binges, because even if it isn’t entirely healthy for her it works a lot better for her than for a human. Then Kanan comes on board and he has to eat every single day, basically. (he protests, but she knows how humans work) and she finds it’s better for her as well, that her lekku fill in and grow stronger.
Aayla Secura giving up rations in a siege situation, because she can handle it a lot better than her men, and her lekku get limp and droopy. All the clones fuss once they’re in safety to make sure she eats enough to get her health back.
Well, lekku have muscles, too. Not just fat storage appendages.
Fair enough! I did factor in movement a little bit up there, but I wasn’t sure how flexible they were. I still hold that you can see clear dimpling on Oola and Orn Free Taa’s clearly grew to match him, so I’d still say there’s a solid chance they fill in canon as well as legends, something of the same function as (prehensile) camel’s humps, storage for lean times on a less than welcoming planet.
On that note I’d also love to see a diagram of how they work anatomically, because unless there’s some major bone structure in there they look like they’re likely to work more as muscular hydrostats than tails, which is fascinating, and would account for some major muscle mass inside the average set of lekku. (Not much of a chance of getting brain matter in there though, at least in female twileks. The skull is not designed to work like that.)
In short, I’d like to see some Twi’lek skulls and also it’s more accurate to call them head trunks or head tongues, as opposed to head tails.
Julia: I don’t think that you have ownership of horror of this crime.
Owen: Can I just say, I find this, I find this astonishing.
Julia: I’m not Jewish and I’m not gay, I’m not French, but I still am equally horrified by these crimes.
Owen: This was a – I’m being yelled at, which is incredible.
Julia: Stop talking so [we hadn’t do].
Mark: That’s the headline: ‘Isil wages war on gays in west’. Now you share that view, that basically this was deliberately targeted on one part of the community rather than the freedom to enjoy yourself no matter what your sexual orientation is.
Owen: What are you talking about?!?
Mark: I’m talking about the coverage in the newspapers.
Owen: It’s not some abstract, kind of, he just picked a random club out of nowhere. He picked a club because it was full of people he regarded as deviants. That’s why he attacked the club.
Julia: It’s a hate crime, this is an act of terrorism, it was an attack on gay people, absolutely, it was horrific. However, my mind guesses this man probably would be as horrified by me as a gobby woman as he would – genuinely, genuinely – this is the thing. We don’t know right now. We can speculate, but we don’t know how much of this is motivated by just his homophobia.
Owen: We heard from his own father about his revulsion – why are we trying to deflect? Why are you both pick-
Mark: We are not trying to deflect. We are trying to reflect what is being said by the authorities here and –
Owen: Can I ask, what argument are you trying to pick here?
Mark: I’m now going to quote from what The Telegraph is saying…’his father said…[he] may have targeted the gay community after becoming angry when he saw two men–’
Owen: ‘May have’? He did! Why are you saying this?
Julia: ‘After seeing two men kissing in Miami some months ago’ – he may have been angered by many other things since then!
Owen: I’m sorry. I just find this the most astonishing thing I’ve ever been involved with on television. If he’d walked into a synagogue, and massacred dozens of Jewish people, you wouldn’t be saying what you’re saying now.
Owen: This bizarre attempt to deflect from this –
Mark: We are trying to draw parallels in terrorist attacks on people who are being attacked whether they are enjoying rock music in Paris, whether they are gay people in Florida enjoying a night out.
Julia: I completely accept it, as [Mark] does, that it was a homophobic attack, but for me the issue is there are going to be homophobic people, there’ll be people who hate black people, or who hate gay people, or hate Jewish people. There are going to be people, who are lunatics, who are fanatics –
Owen: Who are “lunatics”! Stop using these words, Julia!
Julia: Is it possible for me to finish one sentence?
Owen: If you stop using words like “lunatic” to talk about homophobic terrorist attacks!
Julia: Well thank you. Whoever these people are, and whatever their motivations are, the key thing is we’re always going to have mad and bad people in the world.
Owen: Mad and bad people. Okay.
Julia: And the key issue is, that they can’t do too much or any harm. When you have free access to assault weapons in a country like America, then they’re able to put their hatred of other people –
Owen: Yes! Obviously!
Julia: – into effect, and do damage. That’s the issue for me.
(discussion between Mark and Julia on gun control and the U.S. …Julia: It is absolutely absurd, if America were not going to do something about gun control after Sandy Hook in 2012, if you’re going to watch six- and seven-year-olds being massacred and you don’t think you need to act, they are never going to act.)
Mark: There’s something else here in The Telegraph coverage, which I think we need to bring up, Owen, in relation to your point. And that is, I think that we’ve got at least a call from a spokesman for Stonewall saying that people would be feeling vulnerable, and basically indicating –
Owen: Oh, you’re going to have an LGBT voice talking about it. Interesting.
Mark: Sorry?
Owen: Nothing, carry on. Go on.
Julia: Owen, seriously.
Owen: I’ve had enough of this. I’m going home. Sorry. No way.
Julia: Owen, genuinely, we’re trying to have a civilized conversation.
Owen: I know you’re having it, I don’t want it!
Julia: I know you’re upset, you’re very upset –
Owen: Yeah, I am, I’m very upset. I’m very upset.
Julia: Everyone’s upset and angry about this, but storming off a TV set –
Owen Jones, Mark Longhurst, and Julia Hartley-Brewer discuss the Pulse nightclub shootings, 12 June 2016
REST IN PEACE 💔 Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34 years old Stanley Almodovar III, 23 years old Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20 years old Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22 years old Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36 years old Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22 years old Luis S. Vielma, 22 years old Kimberly Morris, 37 years old Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30 years old Darryl Roman Burt II, 29 years old Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32 years old Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21 years old Anthony Luis Laureanodisla, 25 years old Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35 years old Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, 50 years old Amanda Alvear, 25 years old Martin Benitez Torres, 33 years old Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37 years old Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26 years old Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35 years old Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25 years old
Renee Elise Goldsberry speaks onstage to accept the award for Best Performance By An Actress In a Featured Role In a Musical for her work in Hamilton during the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre on June 12, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)
This is my friend Drew, on the right in the top pic and in the yellow pants in the bottom (back in my ~days as a twink~ 7 years ago). His boyfriend Juan is the other guy in the top pic, I’m just hearing that Juan died in surgery.
Drew’s still missing. I hope he’s okay but it’s hard to be optimistic now. I can’t lie and say we were close, we just hung out a couple times in our group of friends and have been Facebook friends since. I’ve lost touch with most Orlando friends from college. if he’s indeed gone I wish I had gotten to know him more than I did – he was super smart and kind and so comfortable in his own skin. He had so many friends. There’s probably a thousand people thinking of him now.
Most people probably won’t remember him. I don’t really remember the names and faces of other shooting victims, but the names and faces of the shooters are seared into my memory. It’ll probably be the same thing here for most people.
But I’ll always remember Drew. I hope he’s okay. Keep him in your thoughts please.
Rest in peace Drew Leinonen (1984-2016). I wish I’d known you better, friend. Kind of bummed that I posted about Donald Trump and it’s getting hundreds of notes compared to this – I dunno how tacky it is to ask for reblogs, but if you could pass this post around, I’d really like people to see it so they can put faces to this nightmare.
A Middleground 